I would at least ask that you play it first, before making such judgments.
There is no good/bad, black/white, etc. in Dragon Age: Origins. You will not know the consequences of most of your decisions until much later on.
Knit picking without even knowing the context 20 points. This is the dragon ages thread though so i suppose is required that everything be knit picked and assumed so i’ll follow the rules…
The female love interest is unacceptable. I would not give her the time of days since her knees are way too sharp.
At the end of the day when there is some big evil on the horizon, you as the main character can either join it in some way (and i include killing it and taking over here), stop/destroy it or do nothing about it. Since this is a game and it would be boring to do nothing, that option is out.
It is the same deal with most situations. You have to support or oppose someone(s) as doing nothing is no fun.
Sarkus
1663
I’m not sure what your point is. You don’t have to side with either of those in most cases. You can do whatever the hell you want, they are just awarding points here.
Besides, all games eventually force you to make some decisions about who to side with. Otherwise the narrative can’t really go forward, can it? Even The Witcher forced you to ultimately take sides. How many options should the game allow? Would 3 be enough? Four? Sixteen?
We aren’t at the point where a CRPG can dynamically react in such a way that a player can do whatever the hell they want and still get a good story out of it. Stop demanding something that is not technically possible at this time.
Kalle
1664
I think the point that Bioware constantly makes their branching stories about either/or decisions between two mutually exclusive factions is valid. Bioware has a formula and they’re sticking to it.
Also, Murbella, the female love interest is typically a guy. :) To be more precise, the love interest of the female PC. Who in Biowareland always has a dead woman somewhere in his tragic background story and only YOUR LOVE can ease his suffering.
What would you do instead though? add a third faction but then it is still the same thing just with 3 choices instead of 2? Remove a choice so you have no choice? Pick nothing which means nothing happens and the plot stands still? What is a game that escapes this and yet still gives the user influence over the direction of the plot and its ending?
I still don’t believe the point is valid precisely because it is a criticism of a game having multiple choices instead of well… not having choices. The most hilarious part was when it was done purely by looking at achievements and not knowing anything about the story.
To me at least, when i say female love interest i mean female npc whom is a love interest, but YMMV.
I never played through bg2 as a female main character with him, but Keldorn Firecam was a pretty cool party member whom i liked bringing if i was going good for some paladin holy avenger goodness.
It’s actually exactly like D&D 1st edition, which I think I mentioned earlier.
Focus, people. Like I said a while back, let them move away from crates first and then we can work on romances and binary choices. One step at a time.
Tyrion
1668
I don’t think binary choices are a problem; the problem is really the pure good/absolute evil paradigm that lots of developers have been stuck to in the last few years. As long as Dragon Age’s choices involve lots of grey-area morality and interesting consequences, I don’t have any issue with the number of choices.
Miramon
1669
I’m not sure what the problem is here. Most such decisions are binary, especially in games where you have to “finish” an area or a sequence that involves a conflict between two sides. There is no implied morality choice here – which I agree with you has been very poorly implemented in most recent Bioware games. The amazing Fallout 2 epilogue was constructed from a series of binary choices.
It’s when you have a morality meter or worse, when the morality choices are imbecilic (as in KotOR) that there is likely to be a problem. I admit, given Bioware’s recent history, it’s a bit of a stretch to believe they have done a great job with the choices in Dragon Age, but this simple list of choices doesn’t mean a thing as regards the actual game, except perhaps that they encourage replay with the opposite choice having some kind of game effects.
Hey, as I mentioned in my review, BioWare games usually have 3 choices - good/bad/petulant teenager-nobody-ever-chooses-option.
While I definitely think that’s a legitimate criticism (which I share) of past games, it’s not true of Dragon Age generally, which does a better job of providing choices that seem varied and reasonably viable than almost any RPG. Dragon Age is a significant improvement in that respect. To be honest, it’s the first BioWare game that (at least) matched the style of Troika/Obsidian, old Black Isle games in that respect - BioWare games have always had good stories and generally solid dialogue, but their method of storytelling has been simpler. There’s an amazing amount of choice in Dragon Age.
Sure there are some quest instances where you have to elect to help, or not, but even when there’s only two end results in those circumstances, there’s different ways to arrive at those endings - the bottom line is, the choices just feel more “natural”, less like you’re gaming, and are more ambiguous and intriguing, so you’re more likely to choose a personalized path based upon the character you’re roleplaying instead of just “gaming” the result you think you want to have.
Good/evil is almost always the most interesting in a story though.
Would you want to play as a master swordsman tasked with hunting down an evil sorceress intent on summoning an undead army to destroy all other living beings within her sight…
Or would you want to play as a master swordsman hunting down a thief who stole from the king’s caravans in order to feed his sick mother?
Now there are middle grounds and sometimes you can have both like in baldur’s gate 2 with Irenicus, but generally not as it is harder to do something like that. Look at movies over the years too, lord of the rings was a great example of good/evil in extremes with nothing in between (there is nothing wrong with this).
The real problem beyond the knit picking is the notion that evil = being an asshole. Good side also could be a touch less “i’m a monk so i don’t need any money at all, ever” too though but generally it is fine. the latter part of kotor is good evil stuff consisting of betraying and conquering. the earlier part is the example of the bad stuff where you randomly insult people and get them to hate you for no profitable reason. I suppose you could say chaotic evil would do that stuff, but every other type of evil would work solely for their own benefit/desire, probably being “nice” to fool others until the time was… ripe.
“I’m not sure what the problem is here. Most such decisions are binary, especially in games where you have to “finish” an area or a sequence that involves a conflict between two sides.”
The solution is to NOT MAKE A GAME “where you have to finish an area or a sequence that involves a conflict between two sides”. I would even say: don’t make quest where there is a conflict between two sides! It’s like the typical quest done by a first time GM in a D&D session.
Usually the structure of those games are something like
*gameplay part without any kind of eventful decision making"
*big event: decision time! should you help side A, or will you joing side B? *
*gameplay part without any kind of eventful decision making"
ad naseum
My ideal is Fallout 1/2/PST. Most of the quests have at least 3 solutions/variations, some of them 4, 5 or even 6. And the possibility of choosing how to act is not limited to limited and specific events. Moral decisions are also usually more interesting in these games, offering a varied array without having to fall back to “i will help you, i am a good guy”/ “i won’t help you/i will help your enemies/i am a jerk”.
In the end these games felt much more organic, and less artificial, and limited than the typical Bioware games.
You mean the less interesting thing in a story.
I hope.
You really don’t think fallout 1/2 are included in games “where you have to finish an area or a sequence that involves a conflict between two sides,” do you? I loved them to death, but they are and you can easily see they are by looking at the quests.
Oh the city wants me to “Turn this nuclear power plant off” so i can either help out the people living there by making it cleaner or blow it up… oh or i could do nothing i suppose… pst didn’t really have factions in the same sense you talk about, but the fallout games without a doubt did. Remember how you get to the final area in fallout 2…
edit: no, i meant what i said. In fantasy people generally want interesting and engaging stories of epic proportions that have them struggling with a threat. An indecisive story against bland characters is not the recipe for a great rpg.
[Bolded the good parts]… and thanks for the answer. That’s what i like. And you expressed better the idea than me. Issues with my english skill :P. I always felt more “gaming” in Bioware games, than the “simulation* of roleplaying games” from Troika/Obsidian/Old BI.
*:in comparison with a real roleplaying p&p, with limitless choice and consequences.
I would find the latter scenario a whole lot more interesting, actually.
Killzig
1677
Me too. I’m actually enjoying that Risen’s factions seem to be Lawful Evil versus Chaotic Evil rather than just vanilla good and evil.
This disccusion is almost over (see above post from Desslock and my answer). But still i will say i prefer the latter.
I also would prefer a scenario where the evil sorcerer have a realistic motivation for destroying all life in her sight… and for being evil in general. Perhaps a trauma in her youth? And the option of talking to her and psycho analyze her would rock. And what are the geopolitical implications of the undead army in the international balance of power? And how she summoned the undead army, is that easy in that world? I hope for a plausible world and magic system. Nothing of that D&D crap.
I think you’ll also like the way magic is handled in Dragon Age, then. Mages are fucking dangerous and treated as such. They’re lobotomized, hunted down, forced into training, or executed.
People aren’t using light spells to walk their dogs - the clergy have no magic (and are opposed to it, for possibly legitimate reasons) it’s a relatively low magic setting. It’s a testament to the quality of the writing that reactions seem alternately sensible and atrocious, but always plausible.
It’s the way stuff like that is handled that makes Dragon Age the “mature” RPG that I really enjoy - not the animated puppet sex.
That sounds like a wonderful setting.
