Dragon Age: Inquisition Pre-Release Thread

[Coyote]

Tsk tsk, Roguey, don't you know that you're supposed to avoid tone arguments?

 

[Aeschylus]

[In gameplay. However, according to you, "dialogue is not gameplay", so that rule doesn't apply. Dialogue can therefore behave according to the rules of real life social interaction, where ambiguity is common.

I shouldn't have to guess what tone my character is going to use when speaking a line.

Right. Thanks to the brilliant invention of the dialogue wheel, you just have to guess what the hell they're going to say period.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Fully Voiced herp derp is responsible for this shit.
If a sufficiently literate player can read the full text dialouge, he will usually skip the shitty fully voiced dialogue. Solution? Prevent them from fully reading thier own responses.

 

[kris]

I shouldn't have to guess what tone my character is going to use when speaking a line.

I would blame that on poor writing. Icons as a solution for poor writing is like the quest compass as a solution for poor map design.

[In gameplay. However, according to you, "dialogue is not gameplay", so that rule doesn't apply. Dialogue can therefore behave according to the rules of real life social interaction, where ambiguity is common.

I shouldn't have to guess what tone my character is going to use when speaking a line.

Right. Thanks to the brilliant invention of the dialogue wheel, you just have to guess what the hell they're going to say period.

Yeah. I would say the problem with writing is bigger when it comes to the lines connected to icons. The times I played those game it often felt like I picked the wrong alternative and that is due to shitty writing. If people can't connect icons with the dialogue that comes out, then there is a problem. IMO a common problem. Otherwise I wouldn't mind having choices like that, where the player can choose between "Lie, persuade of your side, intimidate, sarcastic, whatever" choices. In theory it sounds great and can be connected with fleshing out your character and using social skills. In reality it often turns out that the writer thought about something different entirerly or possibly had no grasp for what a "witty reply" is.

So I would disagree with the inifinitron on this one. Icons is not a solution for poor writing, they are a substitute that will highlight bad writing. Because when you can choose from the whole text of what you will say, then you will often ignore what you think is stupid. With icons you will be more baffled when encountering them. "Hey I wanted a witty reply, I didn't want to be a dick so he attacks me!"

 

[Roguey]

but I played in a Human language (polish),

Whatever you say, buttinski.

 

[Lhynn]

AP did it better. Go fuck yourself if you think it was done better anywhere (whomever you might be, i dont care) else, cos it wasnt.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

I hated having Darth Old Lady explain moral ambiguity to me, when I knew that she was evil the whole time, and she and I lived in a world where evil spellcasters got ugly crap on their faces to make it pretty damn clear that no, giving the guy some money was not actually a morally twisty act with consequences that I couldn't possibly understand, Darth Old Lady was just being a dink and needed to stay on the ship.)

That part with giving the beggar money felt a little binary. You give him some credits, he gets mugged. You threaten him to get lost, he goes apeshit on someone else. 'Good intentions gone awry' ambiguity could've been used in a better scenario. (Which it was in the main plot, with Malachor V's atom bomb mass shadow generator.)

 

[Roguey]

AP did it better. Go fuck yourself if you think it was done better anywhere (whomever you might be, i dont care) else, cos it wasnt.

AP didn't need tone icons because it firmly established in the beginning that all left options were aggressive, all top options were smug douchebag, all right options were professional, and bottom was "special action."

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

but I played in a Human language (polish),

Whatever you say, buttinski.

Tolerant as always, Roguey.

 

[Lhynn]

AP didn't need tone icons because it firmly established in the beginning that all left options were aggressive, all top options were smug douchebag, all right options were professional, and bottom was "special action."

Ah but you fail to see the subtleties, sometimes an aggressive stance on a particular subject, could result in negative reactions when all the ones before resulted in positive ones, even special action was not always the best way to go depending on your goals in said interaction. It was very good writing coherent with the setting and really brought those characters to life.
This game is the trainwreck that made me love obsidian, it had everything i valued on a RPG and lacked everything i didnt give a shit about.

 

[Tytus]

but I played in a Human language (polish),

Whatever you say, buttinski.

I'm sorry you didn't learn to speak human yet. But don't cry there is always time.

 

[Absinthe]

Never had this problem while playing Twitcher 2, but I played in a Human language (polish), not this animal speak (english), maybe the localization guys fucked it all up.

The localization guys fucked it up. Polish version is much better about it.

 

[DraQ]

I shouldn't have to guess what tone my character is going to use when speaking a line.

Neither should you have to guess what your character is actually going to say, and having to shoehorn every line of dialogue into one of three tones is crippling to writing.

Having actual lines spelled out (with the only possible deviation being if the other character or event interrupts your planned line) with *text* tags to clarify the tone if necessary is the only way to make a proper dialogue tree.

Text, because it can convey any possible tone and clarify every possible ambiguity, unlike inherently limited AND possibly ambiguous set of icons.

Removing ambiguity is a good thing.

In that case you have just removed "ambiguously" from "Roguey is ambiguously retarded" - congratulations!

 

[Roguey]

I'm sorry you didn't learn to speak human yet. But don't cry there is always time.

Anne Danielewski's performing name is Poe for very good reason: no one but Poles can naturally pronounce that gobbledygook.

 

[eremita]

That post from Weekes actually has some good points. I agree that Obsidian's writing would be much better in setting\universe without strict rules in case of morals. Force, DnD alignments etc. are like religious dogmas of Middle Ages. They're undeniable truths. They are part of that particular cosmos, not just myths and beliefs of its people. There is no ambivalence in regards to how these principals are\work... So in one hand, I completely agree that it is rather unfair and arbitrary to introduce some 'out of place' element, which relativizes everything that has been established as facts... And Kreia is that element in many ways. So, this point made bz mr. Weekes is actually pretty valid: 'I hated having Darth Old Lady explain moral ambiguity to me, when I knew that she was evil the whole time, and she and I lived in a world where evil spellcasters got ugly crap on their faces to make it pretty damn clear that no, giving the guy some money was not actually a morally twisty act with consequences that I couldn't possibly understand, Darth Old Lady was just being a dink and needed to stay on the ship.' She is actually evil by the rules of SW universe. She just doesn't fit.

 

[DraQ]

That post from Weekes actually has some good points. I agree that Obsidian's writing would be much better in setting\universe without strict rules in case of morals. Force, DnD alignments etc. are like religious dogmas of Middle Ages. They're undeniable truths. They are part of that particular cosmos, not just myths and beliefs of its people. There is no ambivalence in regards to how these principals are\work... So in one hand, I completely agree that it is rather unfair and arbitrary to introduce some 'out of place' element, which relativizes everything that has been established as facts... And Kreia is that element in many ways. So, this point made bz mr. Weekes is actually pretty valid: 'I hated having Darth Old Lady explain moral ambiguity to me, when I knew that she was evil the whole time, and she and I lived in a world where evil spellcasters got ugly crap on their faces to make it pretty damn clear that no, giving the guy some money was not actually a morally twisty act with consequences that I couldn't possibly understand, Darth Old Lady was just being a dink and needed to stay on the ship.' She is actually evil by the rules of SW universe. She just doesn't fit.

I haven't actually played any KOTOR, but wasn't Obsidian's intention to basically shit on that and deconstruct absolutes?

Hmmm.... Now I actually think Obsidian's Middle Earth RPG would be a pretty spiffy idea.

 

[Lhynn]

I haven't actually played any KOTOR.

 

[Rake]

I haven't actually played any KOTOR.

He only misses for KotOR2. The first one was meh

 

[Stompa]

That post from Weekes actually has some good points. I agree that Obsidian's writing would be much better in setting\universe without strict rules in case of morals. Force, DnD alignments etc. are like religious dogmas of Middle Ages. They're undeniable truths. They are part of that particular cosmos, not just myths and beliefs of its people. There is no ambivalence in regards to how these principals are\work... So in one hand, I completely agree that it is rather unfair and arbitrary to introduce some 'out of place' element, which relativizes everything that has been established as facts... And Kreia is that element in many ways. So, this point made bz mr. Weekes is actually pretty valid: 'I hated having Darth Old Lady explain moral ambiguity to me, when I knew that she was evil the whole time, and she and I lived in a world where evil spellcasters got ugly crap on their faces to make it pretty damn clear that no, giving the guy some money was not actually a morally twisty act with consequences that I couldn't possibly understand, Darth Old Lady was just being a dink and needed to stay on the ship.' She is actually evil by the rules of SW universe. She just doesn't fit.

Except SW stopped being "dark - bad, light - good" a long time ago. There were Dark Forces games where protagonist can sling Force Lighting like the best siths in the galaxy while being a good guy (mostly), there were KoTOR comics where antagonists were Jedi, there was Legacy which had a Skywalker hunt Jedi for profit while staying on the Light Side of Force. It goes even further, remember the famous "Han shot first"? That shit was about having moral ambiguity in the universe, that even good guys can fight dirty and shit like that. Hell, even in Bioware's game there's that little part with Sith motto and guess what, it doesn't say Sith must be an evil motherfucker who plans to kill Supe... Jedi every saturday morning. That dumb karma system with changing face is a leftover from Bioware and it's funny that a Bioware employee is bitching about it.

 

[Kanedias]

when I knew that she was evil the whole time

This gross oversimplification of Kreia is plain insulting. We have a brilliant character, brimming with humanity and moral ambiguity in a way that Bioware simply cannot grasp (and Dragon Age as a whole is a testament to this) and Weekes comes and calls her "evil the whole time". Such ignorance is an unforgivable crime.


I guess Bioware is just bitter that the sequel Obsidian made is on such a different level than the first game. An underrated gem. A brilliant and refreshing take on the Star Wars universe. I wish its superiority compared to the first game was more widely known...many people believe it is worse simply because of the bad press it got due to its unfinished state.

"It's such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it" - Kreia, talking about Bioware.

 

[eremita]

That post from Weekes actually has some good points. I agree that Obsidian's writing would be much better in setting\universe without strict rules in case of morals. Force, DnD alignments etc. are like religious dogmas of Middle Ages. They're undeniable truths. They are part of that particular cosmos, not just myths and beliefs of its people. There is no ambivalence in regards to how these principals are\work... So in one hand, I completely agree that it is rather unfair and arbitrary to introduce some 'out of place' element, which relativizes everything that has been established as facts... And Kreia is that element in many ways. So, this point made bz mr. Weekes is actually pretty valid: 'I hated having Darth Old Lady explain moral ambiguity to me, when I knew that she was evil the whole time, and she and I lived in a world where evil spellcasters got ugly crap on their faces to make it pretty damn clear that no, giving the guy some money was not actually a morally twisty act with consequences that I couldn't possibly understand, Darth Old Lady was just being a dink and needed to stay on the ship.' She is actually evil by the rules of SW universe. She just doesn't fit.

Except SW stopped being "dark - bad, light - good" a long time ago. There were Dark Forces games where protagonist can sling Force Lighting like the best siths in the galaxy while being a good guy (mostly), there were KoTOR comics where antagonists were Jedi, there was Legacy which had a Skywalker hunt Jedi for profit while staying on the Light Side of Force. It goes even further, remember the famous "Han shot first"? That shit was about having moral ambiguity in the universe, that even good guys can fight dirty and shit like that. Hell, even in Bioware's game there's that little part with Sith motto and guess what, it doesn't say Sith must be an evil motherfucker who plans to kill Supe... Jedi every saturday morning. That dumb karma system with changing face is a leftover from Bioware and it's funny that a Bioware employee is bitching about it.

Frankly, I'm not a huge fan of SW universe. I saw movies, play some games (Dark Forces excluded unfortunetly) but that's about it. The thing is, if you wanna play your Luke Skywalker jedi, with all those stuff about honor, duty, selflessness and mercy, you get some trashing about not being wise and even being absolutely mislead (also, fuck Avellone for not giving me dialogue options to defend my position. Where are Nameless One's witty answers and counterarguments? You feel like being schooled little boy majority of the game altough being a former Jedi Master). She talks about some secret ethernal truths, about the ways of the universe and consequences that were never established. Don't get me wrong, it's not about what she's saying, but HOW she's saying that... Han Solo might be a good guy in the end (lots of his acts are questionable though), but I was talking about 'the ways of the force'. Bitching about good deeds from some assumed higher ground is whole another level. And I think that's what Weekes is talking about.

when I knew that she was evil the whole time

This gross oversimplification of Kreia is plain insulting. We have a brilliant character, brimming with humanity and moral ambiguity in a way that Bioware simply cannot grasp (and Dragon Age as a whole is a testament to this) and Weekes comes and calls her "evil the whole time". Such ignorance is an unforgivable crime.


I guess Bioware is just bitter that the sequel Obsidian made is on such a different level than the first game. An underrated gem. A brilliant and refreshing take on the Star Wars universe. I wish its superiority compared to the first game was more widely known...many people believe it is worse simply because of the bad press it got due to its unfinished state.

"It's such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it" - Kreia, talking about Bioware.

KOTORs are shitty games. Let's not get much excited here, fellas. Kreia migh be interesting character with lot of smart lines but that game is broken, unfinnished and unbalanced shit with plot stop making sense in third part of the game. Also, Kreia is good, but other characters are not that great. First KOTOR, being also pretty bad, is much more polished and thoroughly thought.

 

[Lhynn]

yo eremita, kotor 2 is a better than kotor 1, in every way that matters. Everything else is just you growing an asshole in the middle of your face.

 

[eremita]

yo eremita, kotor 2 is a better than kotor 1, in every way that matters. Everything else is just you growing an asshole in the middle of your face.

You silly man, that might be the case if you're just a storyfag (and even that is questionable).

 

[racofer]

 

[Rake]

The thing is, if you wanna play your Luke Skywalker jedi, with all those stuff about honor, duty, selflessness and mercy, you get some trashing about not being wise and even being absolutely mislead (also, fuck Avellone for not giving me dialogue options to defend my position. Where are Nameless One's witty answers and counterarguments?

So the thing is that if you want to play an idiot, the game calls you out on it? Terrible thing i'm sure.
I give you the point of the game not giving you the option to defent your position, good or bad, though. That was a flaw compaired to Torment.
Also, for the half finished part, play with the restored content dumbass. Unless you are a filthy console peasant...