Dragon Age 2 - Building a better RPG @ Destructoid

Alrik Fassbauer said:

There are several types of (mostly pen & paper) role-playing games players … This just as a side-note …

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I am such a Planner/Hoarder, it's ridiculous...

NN, it's not that I want to deny the merit of a good beginning to "sell" your game to potential customers, reviewers etc. But I was specifically talking about sequels. I just think that it was good pratice to make tutorials separate, optional affairs, especially in a sequel. Of course, if you change core rules or mechanics as severely as it may have been done in DA:O, then maybe that argument is moot. I just wonder if it is really necessary to make every entry into a series completely "open" to newcomers.
This also goes for exposition. The typical trilogies of Films and movies expect you to go through them in series too, don't they? Sure, by all means throw in a tutorial and an (maybe optional) "what happened so far" ("cue star wars music and text scrolling into the infinity of space"), but spare me introducing every old friend as if I have a sever case of Alzheimers. I spent 80 f*ing hours with these guys already! Ease the player into whats new with the plot and mechanics of this installment - that should be the focus. If you have so many "old" players, you may do yourself a disservice tailoring the game mostly with "new" players in mind.

GhanBuriGhan said:

NN, it's not that I want to deny the merit of a good beginning to "sell" your game to potential customers, reviewers etc. But I was specifically talking about sequels. I just think that it was good pratice to make tutorials separate, optional affairs, especially in a sequel. Of course, if you change core rules or mechanics as severely as it may have been done in AoD, then maybe that argument is moot. I just wonder if it is really necessary to make every entry into a series completely "open" to newcomers.
This also goes for exposition. The typical trilogies of Films and movies expect you to go through them in series too, don't they? Sure, by all means throw in a tutorial and an (maybe optional) "what happened so far" ("cue star wars music and text scrolling into the infinity of space"), but spare me introducing every old friend as if I have a sever case of Alzheimers. I spent 80 f*ing hours with these guys already! Ease the player into whats new with the plot and mechanics of this installment - that should be the focus. If you have so many "old" players, you may do yourself a disservice tailoring the game mostly with "new" players in mind.

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An interesting point, GhanBuriGhan. To add another point to the subject of "designing sequels for those that are new to a series," I have also noticed that there are very few "true" sequels. What I mean is the lack of carryover between stories/characters in sequels, with the return of the same party members/characters from the first game. If returning characters/party members are in place in a sequel, their roles are often mitigated to minor parts of the new story. This has always been slightly annoying to me; I can completely understand adding new characters and (obviously) a new story, but why take away all of the previous games' characters? I think it is because of the reason you have stated, that a sequel's story (and ultimately the game itself) is an attempt at drawing in players who are new to a series so that they won't be "lost" in the story. But to go along with your film example, I would ask this: Why would someone play a game series out of order? I suppose with a lot of sequels, it is entirely plausible to do so; As far as I know, DA2 has a completely new cast of party members (with the exception of Anders), a new storyline that is almost unrelated to DA:O, and only a few subtle nods to the previous game (the cameo appearance by Flemeth, for example.) If someone is new to the DA universe, they really have no need to play DA:O to follow and understand the story of DA2.