Development Info Dragon Age 2 103 Min. Cutscene Endurance Test

[turn_based_fanboy]

It was mediocre

Anyway let's not exagerate the cutscene length after all we all know it will be 10 minut intro 10 minut outro 3 minutes of chapter endings and 80 minutes of cutscenes showing your character having sex with other team members in every possible configuration

 

[FatCat]

I wonder can you masturbate in dragon age II instead of having to trough those annoying romances just to have sex.

 

[Coyote]

You bastard. I thought It would have 103 minutes long sequence preferably as intro. Now you are saying all custcenes would have only 103 minutes.

Xenosaga has 8 hours of cutscenes.

I once read an LP of Xenosaga where each update covered an hour in-game. There was at least one update where the LPer commented that she hadn't picked up the controller through the entire previous update and the majority of the update before that except when prompted to save. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this set of cutscenes was over 103 minutes on its own.

It's focused on a god-awful story that could've made better by a simple character reversal.

I'm curious now. What specifically did you have in mind here?

 

[Angthoron]

It's focused on a god-awful story that could've made better by a simple character reversal.

I'm curious now. What specifically did you have in mind here?

Well, basically, to make DA work better from the perspective of a story, all that you have to do is switch the bodies of the Stupid King and Evil General - well, that, and their personality traits. I'm working on a broader writing on this right now, but here's how it is in a nutshell:

The king is suffering from a mild Darth Syndrome, and is making bad decisions and deals with corrupt Dwarf families. The young, brash idealist general that's proven himself a badass on the field of battle decides that he would definitely do better than that, kills the king, either personally or through assassins (Note: Not through a betrayal that costs the nation half its military!), nobles go "Yay, whatever", and a new king or regent or whatnot gets to rule.

Now, the new king is a naive (as naive as a battlefield general would go anyway, let's say politically unaware) idealist, right? Well, let's see what all he could do here now:

a) Declare that the elves have been mistreated for generations and that their plight is about to end: this can very easily lead to people being pissed off and killing said elves, and elves getting too excited and starting a city riot because they want their rights NOW.

b) The idealist king then declares that religion is bullshit, anyone can practice whatever they want, Chantry and Apostate mages are equals, Templars can go to hell because they're just a relic of the ancient times - I guess you can probably figure out what will happen through that;

c) or b 2.5) through this, the king then says that the Wardens and the religion have long held a veil before the people's eyes and that you know what? We can defeat the Blight without some stupid millenia-old edicts. Screw you, Wardens, get out of here. Perfect reasons for Wardens to be butthurt, even if they wouldn't be framed for something heinous.

d) Breaking off deals with corrupt dwarven families causes strife in the dwarven nation of Menzoberrazzan of whatever it was.

Bottomline: You can easily end up in the same "political strife/brother kill brother" situation through those simple moves, except what you have now is actually a tight plot where everything is centered, structured and logical and with openings for political intreague and faction play. Plus you have a likeable antagonist that many people would actually sympathize with for the values he is trying to push through; and you have factions that could be a genuine threat when composed, but in the state of total chaos, none of the groups is particularly impressive.

 

[Xor]

You bastard. I thought It would have 103 minutes long sequence preferably as intro. Now you are saying all custcenes would have only 103 minutes.

Xenosaga has 8 hours of cutscenes.

I once read an LP of Xenosaga where each update covered an hour in-game. There was at least one update where the LPer commented that she hadn't picked up the controller through the entire previous update and the majority of the update before that except when prompted to save. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this set of cutscenes was over 103 minutes on its own.

Back when I actually played console games and owned a PS2, I played through most of Xenogears. It was a confusing mess, with cutscenes everywhere. A 15 minute cutscene would end, the game would give you an opportunity to save, and then another fucking cutscene would start.

*snip*.

That sounds much, much better than what Bioware did. I could even see you being given a choice to eventually either kill the king to stop his bullshit and lose a bunch of potential allies against the blight, or make an alliance with him despite his douchebaggery and gain Ferelden's military support. Much better than the actual choice you're given in the 3rd act.

Edit: Additional thoughts, what if the people didn't know the old king was corrupt and the player spent most of the game in the dark about it? Make the new king seem like a bad guy until a reveal late in the game where you find out all the terrible things the old king did and that the new king is just naive and not evil.

 

[Angthoron]

*snip*.

That sounds much, much better than what Bioware did. I could even see you being given a choice to eventually either kill the king to stop his bullshit and lose a bunch of potential allies against the blight, or make an alliance with him despite his douchebaggery and gain Ferelden's military support. Much better than the actual choice you're given in the 3rd act.

Yes, that's what I was thinking as well - it makes the choice all the more interesting that way. Also omitted here was the second option where the good guy slowly degenerates into a bad guy as his naivete and idealism slowly wane, resulting in him becoming further ruthless and disillusioned - you know, the "road to hell is made of good intentions" theme. Both are, in my opinion, quite interesting - and actually could be combined, possibly triggering his swing to the "dark side" through player actions.

It could start with a small thing - like trying to avoid bloodshed by ordering an assassination, but then, practical aspects of being a king would take him over more and more, and being unprepared for it, he would create an enormous mess and a hell of a bloodshed and chaos.

Through that sort of a thing you get another thing that's missing from Dragon Age - character development. The character becomes dynamic, and if the character is dynamic (partly) through the player's actions, that makes it all the better.