Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard - coming October 31st

[Zeriel]

Both could be of interest if they were made realistically

How would you do both realistically? Genuinely curious.

Writing believable characters/romances is at the same time very easy and very hard.

On the easy end, take a few basic fiction writing classes and drop all your personal beliefs and biases at the door. Writing is an act of creation, and the writer must create something different from themselves.

This same principle is why writing characters can be very hard, because a lot of writers are opposed to creating characters not only very different in personality, but also diametrically opposed to their beliefs.

Romance is just an extension of your characters. But I think this is a hard one because I don't think most modern writers have any conception of what a normal relationship is outside of movies.


TL;DR: Take some writing classes taught by people who know what they're talking about. Read lots of books. Get more life experience. Have more sex, it's good for you.

This is true, but also... it kind of ignores the fact that the point of fiction is often not to replicate reality. It's to entertain. You may personally disagree, but most people are actually not looking for maximally realistic events in fiction. The way people speak in a book or even a movie is totally different from how they speak in real life, etc. It's an influence, not the gestalt.

 

[Tyranicon]

This is true, but also... it kind of ignores the fact that the point of fiction is often not to replicate reality. It's to entertain. You may personally disagree, but most people are actually not looking for maximally realistic events in fiction. The way people speak in a book or even a movie is totally different from how they speak in real life, etc. It's an influence, not the gestalt.

I don't disagree at all, fiction is fiction. By "realistic" I mean writing in a way that sustains suspension of disbelief.

When all your characters are zany tropes flavored only by their sexuality and modern political statements, then I roll my eyes and move onto something else.

Every Dragon Age game besides possibly Origins has had a Critical Role-esque cast of "memorable" characters. But these characters are forgetable, 2d papermen, compared to, say, the much more memorable and diverse cast of PS:T.

Even the Mass Effect roster was leagues better than DA.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

What's the exact release date, I want to plan a bioware is kill party.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

What's the exact release date, I want to plan a bioware is kill party.

Bioware have survived to everything post DA2 and if anything DAI was a big success. It's going to do fine.

 

[Tyranicon]

What's the exact release date, I want to plan a bioware is kill party.

Bioware have survived to everything post DA2 and if anything DAI was a big success. It's going to do fine.

I dunno, BioWare barely survived Anthem. If DA4 gets Andromeda'ed, BioWare is ded.

A reminder that DA:I was released in 2014, nearly a decade ago.

 

[Child of Malkav]

How would a romance done well serve the gameplay in any way? Temporary buffs, pack mule, free food, extra arm in combat, unique, powerful items etc.? Wouldn't that be the same as just hiring a mercenary or getting a companion?
The more I think about it the more I realize they're such a waste of...everything.

 

[mediocrepoet]

How would a romance done well serve the gameplay in any way? Temporary buffs, pack mule, free food, extra arm in combat, unique, powerful items etc.? Wouldn't that be the same as just hiring a mercenary or getting a companion?
The more I think about it the more I realize they're such a waste of...everything.

It depends on how much you're invested in the narrative/storyfag side of gaming. From a purely gameplay perspective, it's a waste of resources.

 

[Tyranicon]

How would a romance done well serve the gameplay in any way? Temporary buffs, pack mule, free food, extra arm in combat, unique, powerful items etc.? Wouldn't that be the same as just hiring a mercenary or getting a companion?
The more I think about it the more I realize they're such a waste of...everything.

A well done romance is gratification in of itself, like a good piece of animation, gore gib, line of dialogue, etc. It is not part of mechanics, and imo, shouldn't be gamified because that would only serve to make it more artificial.

Now to undercut everything I've said so far, a reminder that I make porn.

 

[santino27]

In theory, I don't mind romances because they could add another layer to the game and companion interaction. Bioware just does a terrible job of them. Part of the issue I think is that people approach romance development in a checklist format these days... every demographic has to have their waifu, which informs how and why those companions are created. Instead, they should just create interesting, well-rounded characters with reasons to be there and their own goals/drives, and then let them bounce off each other (metaphorically, gdi) and the main character. Deeper relationships should happen more organically... but it is admittedly far more difficult to do so in a game, where players have agency, than in a book.

 

[Rhobar121]

Romances in games are almost always bad, but they don't have much impact on the quality of the game itself.
No game will automatically get better just because an element has been cut and vice versa.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the skill (more often lack) of the writers.
It's also not a significant resource cost, cutting out dozens of lines of dialogue won't suddenly make writing better.
Similarly, additional recordings and animations is also a minimal cost compared to the entire project.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Romances should lead to a hot coffee mini game at least.

 

[NecroLord]

Romances should lead to a hot coffee mini game at least.

Just put a brothel in your game and be done with it.
No pretentious, silly american Disney fantasy romance.
Hit that ass.
After all, isn't that what nerds want?

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Dragon Age Inquisition is by far the best game in the series. People unfairly shit on it as action just because you had to press a button for each attack, but its mechanics were very similar to DA:O and there were a great deal of options for strategy--more than there were in DA:O.

It had shit controls.

I had to turn off friendly fire, because it was impossible for mages to use spells and not damage allies in the process. Team control was impossible, because instead of the somewhat sensible Origins UI we got some kind of shitty console one. Good luck doing any kind of strategy with that. As a result it was only playable as a shitty third-person action game. Barely.

Beat the whole game on Nightmare and don't remember having an issue. I didn't love the whole "you have to press a button and issue commands to attack with your player character" thing, but you very quickly realize it's not terribly different than DA:O in terms of how it plays. AoE spells do hurt companions, but it's fucking Nightmare. That makes it more fun and adds an element of strategy. I hate it in games when you can toss a fireball and your party is unharmed while all enemies are burned.

Plus, the companions were (largely) interesting, it had a great crafting system that could actually change gameplay significantly, and it had the single most interesting villain in any Bioware game ever (after doing the fakeout with the lame generic villain you are trying to kill for the first portion of the game). Also, tons of C&C. That level where you go to that country and get to influence who becomes queen is exactly the sort of quest design that Codex always says it wants, and it had a million outcomes that influenced the game.

Codex has ignored that Dragon Age: Inquisition is a great game for far too long, but that ends now. Please continue to cope, seethe, and negative rate the pure truth I'm bringing to light in this thread.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Romances should lead to a hot coffee mini game at least.

Just put a brothel in your game and be done with it.
No pretentious, silly american Disney fantasy romance.
Hit that ass.
After all, isn't that what nerds want?

Arcanum had a sheep in a brothel, and it's overwhelmingly well received here at codex, so you're onto something.

 

[Modron]

I assure you good sir I have no idea what you're talking about.
http://www.modestymods.com/?game=arcanum

 

[Rhobar121]

I remember that friendly fire in DA2 was a real nightmare.
2H warrior from what I remember with a single charge could kill a mage.
It was extremely annoying because for some reason companions had to deal so much damage compared to their health.
I think most of the damage in the game was friendly fire.

 

[cigaretteEnjoyer_despirit]

Both could be of interest if they were made realistically

How would you do both realistically? Genuinely curious.

This is true, but also... it kind of ignores the fact that the point of fiction is often not to replicate reality. It's to entertain. You may personally disagree, but most people are actually not looking for maximally realistic events in fiction. The way people speak in a book or even a movie is totally different from how they speak in real life, etc. It's an influence, not the gestalt.

I don't disagree at all, fiction is fiction. By "realistic" I mean writing in a way that sustains suspension of disbelief.

"Realistic" always has a hidden meaning when applied to writing characters, including romances. Can you imagine the amount of sappy and cringy stuff that happens when people irl are romancing? Real life has everything, and it is likely that no matter how you'll write your lines, whether they'll be innocent or super horny or whatever else, someone has probably uttered them in a real situation. I knew a person who actually experienced things that, when put in a visual novel, would likely be criticized as 'fanservice' or 'unattainable fantasy'.

Whenever I encounter calls for more 'realistic' character writing, I interpret them as demands for characters that are more average. Quite often I am correct in this. "These things happened" - "Oh, but they dont sound real!" - "Well, they are not average". In a field of made-up stories such calls are illegitimate. Sometimes these are poorly expressed demands of greater character depth. That is okay, but that's also something different. Life is full of extraordinary people and turns of events that come out of nowhere, enough to make an endless amount of novels. I'll only stick to average if a genre or a project demands it, and then it is simply in order to do something interesting with a trope, rather than because there is some inherent value in such "realism".

To sustain suspension of disbelief - is coherence rather than realism. Romances need a lot of this, they need to make sense on the terms which the author introduces, and somehow fit the general tone of the game.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Romances should lead to a hot coffee mini game at least.

Just put a brothel in your game and be done with it.
No pretentious, silly american Disney fantasy romance.
Hit that ass.
After all, isn't that what nerds want?

Arcanum had a sheep in a brothel, and it's overwhelmingly well received here at codex, so you're onto something.

TIL the Codex is full of Welsh people.

 

[Mauman]

I assure you good sir I have no idea what you're talking about.
http://www.modestymods.com/?game=arcanum

The fact this exists makes me wonder if the Earth is worth saving.

 

[Modron]

Next you're going to tell me you played The Witcher without LundB's mod.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

https://leonardo.osnova.io/8d2432f6-457c-52b9-8993-7a3650ef99a1/-/format/mp4/

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

it looks exactly like DAI.

 

[Tyranicon]

More like Assassin's Creed: Deep Roads, amirite?

Spoiler

Also...

• Combat is completely in real-time and similar to a hack and slash. I'm told the guiding reference point was the God of War (2018), and that shows.

So we have action games trying to be RPGs, and RPGs trying to be like action games. Sounds like they're going more Mass Effect, especially with a 3-person party?

 

[Rhobar121]

it looks exactly like DAI.

Graphics is one of the aspects that were good in DA:I (maybe apart from the plastic faces).
By the way, why does Bioware have such problems with faces? The problem existed before EA.