More random DAI writing thoughts
Sunday, 27 March 2016 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarasa_catThis second (actually, second and a half) PT of DAI has been telling regarding where the writing works and where it fails.
I am at that point in the game where the whole thing just bogs down. Much like the first time through (a non-completionist, no DLCs, shoulder-shrugging "meh, let's just get to the end credits"), everything up until the destruction of Haven felt tight and motivated, and everything after settling into Skyhold feels like trudging through a disorganized mess of hip-deep sludge. Still playing the game as a text adventure + as a simulated hike in the woods/desert, and it is still sort of working as that. Currently avoiding the environments that are dark and rainy. ;)
Pretty environments with a high end graphics card are really pretty.
Trying to play the war table text adventure such that I don't start anything that I need to remember when I know that I won't be able to play again for a week or longer. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. I wish the war table text was stored in some sort of journal. One of the quests required me to remember and reason about Very Specific Information from a war table card that I had read the night before without realizing that I would need it again (thus need a screencap or handwritten notes). It would be much easier to keep all of the war table story lines straight if they were reviewable. :/
That said, I still think the best writing in the game is on the war table and among various NPC quests that fill in information/perspectives about the world from individual POVs.
The strength in the writing comes from all of these short interactive stories that make the world feel lived in rather than the overblown troperific epic of the main quest. Still having hit and miss feelings about the writing/stories for the 12 main characters. More hit than miss, but overall there is no sense of cohesiveness beyond the cohesion shown between Cassandra, Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana. Except for Solas, the other eight characters feel tacked on. And, speaking of Solas, the second PT leaves me in an even great state of headscratching WTF regarding how Cassandra and the Advisors just accept Solas without suspicion because WTF?! I mean, in my first UNSPOILED PT I guessed correctly the very first time I saw Solas' partly completed mural -- right after my first discussion with him when arriving in Skyhold -- that he was either the dead wolf or an agent of him BECAUSE OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING WAS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS. Plus, it was pretty clear to me in Haven that he was the suspicious one who would out do Anders as The Betrayer. So, idk. In DA2, the party was far better at being cohesive *and* at saying things about each other that foreshadowed what the others would do. DAI's party members just feel so distant from each other. It feels ... cold.
Finally occurred to me last night why the Cullenmance is so ... idk ... meh. It isn't just the bad writing or the cringeworthy overacting that makes me shrink from the screen. The romance tries to be a slow burn -- which, in theory, makes a fuckton of sense for a character like Cullen -- except it fails at being a slow burn because the "start romance" scene is so easy to trigger almost immediately after reaching Skyhold (note: you only need to flirt twice with cullen to trigger the kiss scene, and you have at least five flirts to choose from, in which two feel downright horrid, one is very awkward, one amusing, and one direct) ... so none of it is really a slow burn because it all happens rather quickly without much context, tbh. One can play the game by holding off on the flirts until Cullen and the Inquisitor have spent more time doing things together (e.g., dealing with the lyrium issue, doing some of the main story quests that Cullen plays a roll in, starting the hunt for samson if that path is available, etc.), although delaying any romance for too long means missing an early romance scene in the winter palace...
This time around, the problem occurred to me: the Cullen romance is written for the player, rather than for the Inquisitor. The writing assumes that the player already knows Cullen, always has a "relationship" with Cullen via the last two games, and already wants to romance the character. Unless I metagame the dialogue choices, headcanon believable off screen scenes, and delay the "start romance" kiss scene for as long as possible, I just cannot figure out why the Quiz is into This Specific Romance. To be honest, the Cullenmance, as written, makes far more sense for a Player Character he already knows. If the Quiz was, instead, a person from Cullen's past in Kirkwall or Ferelden, the dialogue and timing would make so much more sense. On the other hand, I can see how the Jomance, the Cassandramance, the Dorianmance, and the Bullmance make sense from the Quizzie's POV, and how those relationships develop without resorting to metagaming the flirts and metagaming the timing+order of two of the main quests.
Yet another example of market-driven genre-writing gone wrong.
I am at that point in the game where the whole thing just bogs down. Much like the first time through (a non-completionist, no DLCs, shoulder-shrugging "meh, let's just get to the end credits"), everything up until the destruction of Haven felt tight and motivated, and everything after settling into Skyhold feels like trudging through a disorganized mess of hip-deep sludge. Still playing the game as a text adventure + as a simulated hike in the woods/desert, and it is still sort of working as that. Currently avoiding the environments that are dark and rainy. ;)
Pretty environments with a high end graphics card are really pretty.
Trying to play the war table text adventure such that I don't start anything that I need to remember when I know that I won't be able to play again for a week or longer. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. I wish the war table text was stored in some sort of journal. One of the quests required me to remember and reason about Very Specific Information from a war table card that I had read the night before without realizing that I would need it again (thus need a screencap or handwritten notes). It would be much easier to keep all of the war table story lines straight if they were reviewable. :/
That said, I still think the best writing in the game is on the war table and among various NPC quests that fill in information/perspectives about the world from individual POVs.
The strength in the writing comes from all of these short interactive stories that make the world feel lived in rather than the overblown troperific epic of the main quest. Still having hit and miss feelings about the writing/stories for the 12 main characters. More hit than miss, but overall there is no sense of cohesiveness beyond the cohesion shown between Cassandra, Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana. Except for Solas, the other eight characters feel tacked on. And, speaking of Solas, the second PT leaves me in an even great state of headscratching WTF regarding how Cassandra and the Advisors just accept Solas without suspicion because WTF?! I mean, in my first UNSPOILED PT I guessed correctly the very first time I saw Solas' partly completed mural -- right after my first discussion with him when arriving in Skyhold -- that he was either the dead wolf or an agent of him BECAUSE OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING WAS SO FUCKING OBVIOUS. Plus, it was pretty clear to me in Haven that he was the suspicious one who would out do Anders as The Betrayer. So, idk. In DA2, the party was far better at being cohesive *and* at saying things about each other that foreshadowed what the others would do. DAI's party members just feel so distant from each other. It feels ... cold.
Finally occurred to me last night why the Cullenmance is so ... idk ... meh. It isn't just the bad writing or the cringeworthy overacting that makes me shrink from the screen. The romance tries to be a slow burn -- which, in theory, makes a fuckton of sense for a character like Cullen -- except it fails at being a slow burn because the "start romance" scene is so easy to trigger almost immediately after reaching Skyhold (note: you only need to flirt twice with cullen to trigger the kiss scene, and you have at least five flirts to choose from, in which two feel downright horrid, one is very awkward, one amusing, and one direct) ... so none of it is really a slow burn because it all happens rather quickly without much context, tbh. One can play the game by holding off on the flirts until Cullen and the Inquisitor have spent more time doing things together (e.g., dealing with the lyrium issue, doing some of the main story quests that Cullen plays a roll in, starting the hunt for samson if that path is available, etc.), although delaying any romance for too long means missing an early romance scene in the winter palace...
This time around, the problem occurred to me: the Cullen romance is written for the player, rather than for the Inquisitor. The writing assumes that the player already knows Cullen, always has a "relationship" with Cullen via the last two games, and already wants to romance the character. Unless I metagame the dialogue choices, headcanon believable off screen scenes, and delay the "start romance" kiss scene for as long as possible, I just cannot figure out why the Quiz is into This Specific Romance. To be honest, the Cullenmance, as written, makes far more sense for a Player Character he already knows. If the Quiz was, instead, a person from Cullen's past in Kirkwall or Ferelden, the dialogue and timing would make so much more sense. On the other hand, I can see how the Jomance, the Cassandramance, the Dorianmance, and the Bullmance make sense from the Quizzie's POV, and how those relationships develop without resorting to metagaming the flirts and metagaming the timing+order of two of the main quests.
Yet another example of market-driven genre-writing gone wrong.
