9727 réponses à ce sujet

[adneate]

nerdage wrote...

Futile service? By the end of the game you've basically saved the world from monsters, something only the wardens can do, by the way. They don't just take in scum, they recruit the best fighters they can find, scum or not. Pretty sure the Warden's Keep story was a special case.

They've never won the conflict have they? For all we known the Old Gods could be a total lie and Archdemons are just regular old dragons which would make the war unwinnable. What are the "best fighters" but highly trained murderers capable of expertly killing their victims. What's the difference between a knight and a mercenary? Nothing. Thousands of Warden's die facing darkspawn only when the order demands their death, no honor, no glory and no thanks from anyone. People can convince themselves of anything if they say "It's necessary". That special case in Warden's Keep was simply because he would not surrender to the indoctrination they give new recruits like Alistair, they kill those who will not voluntarily submit to the order's will and belief structure.

[Collider]

Leliana or Liara

[Lara Denton]

Collider wrote...

Leliana or Liara

Hey, Collider! *waves* I didn't expect to see you on the DA:O forums.

What happened? You couldn't decide which one you like better? I guess people on the ME forums will vote for Liara, while people here will vote for Leliana. 

[Collider]

hello
I was curious to see the results. I haven't really thought about which one I like better.

Modifié par Collider, 03 juillet 2010 - 11:39 .

[Nerdage]

adneate wrote...
They've never won the conflict have they? For all we known the Old Gods could be a total lie and Archdemons are just regular old dragons which would make the war unwinnable. What are the "best fighters" but highly trained murderers capable of expertly killing their victims. What's the difference between a knight and a mercenary? Nothing. Thousands of Warden's die facing darkspawn only when the order demands their death, no honor, no glory and no thanks from anyone. People can convince themselves of anything if they say "It's necessary". That special case in Warden's Keep was simply because he would not surrender to the indoctrination they give new recruits like Alistair, they kill those who will not voluntarily submit to the order's will and belief structure.

The fact that someone dies killing the Archdemon suggests it isn't just a dragon, you killed a high-dragon before with no problem so it isn't a dragon thing, and Riordan's soul explanation makes sense (in context), so even if they aren't old gods you need wardens to stop them. The probability that another Archdemon will rise hardly means they aren't worth fighting, it's no more futile than anything else in life since you'll inevitably die eventually. So, with that in mind, isn't it necessary?
As for knights and mercenaries, are you saying all fighters are scum? My point was they don't just go around picking up bad people as a rule, as you were implying, they only look for fighting ability.

Modifié par nerdage, 03 juillet 2010 - 11:43 .

[adneate]

In general I think DA characters will beat out ME characters all the time since they have like 8 times more dialogue and better writers. But Liara might prove a worthy opponent since she's by far the best written and most "Human" character the ME series has going for it.

[KnightofPhoenix]

adneate wrote...

In general I think DA characters will beat out ME characters all the time since they have like 8 times more dialogue and better writers. But Liara might prove a worthy opponent since she's by far the best written and most "Human" character the ME series has going for it.

...Did I miss something?

[adneate]

nerdage wrote...

The fact that someone dies killing the Archdemon suggests it isn't just a dragon, you killed a high-dragon before with no problem so it isn't a dragon thing, and Riordan's soul explanation makes sense (in context), so even if they aren't old gods you need wardens to stop them. The probability that another Archdemon will rise hardly means they aren't worth fighting, it's more futile than anything else in life since you'll inevitably die eventually. So, with that in mind, isn't it necessary?
As for knights and mercenaries, are you saying all fighters are scum? My point was they don't just go around picking up bad people as a rule, as you were implying, they only look for fighting ability.

The difference between a soldier and a murderer is persepective the end result is still the taking of human lives. Are the people in Dragon Age really worth saving, they still commit murder, they still lie and cheat and steal. Have they ever asked themselve why do they deserve to exist? The darkspawn have taught them nothing, they aren't much better themselves with the exception that they all claim they are.

What if an archdemon is just High Dragon plus the taint? There could be no souls or anything it could be the biology of the taint. A tainted dragon can reform itself through the taint since the taint has power, the darkspawn being creatures completely consumed by the taint can be twisted into shape. But a man only partly infected with the taint cannot be transformed similarily and thus they both die.

You need only men and women infected with the taint and capable of taking the final blow to defeat the archdemon, you don't need an independent military order with a messiah complex.

[tmp7704]

adneate wrote...

Are the people in Dragon Age really worth saving, they still commit murder, they still lie and cheat and steal. Have they ever asked themselve why do they deserve to exist? The darkspawn have taught them nothing, they aren't much better themselves with the exception that they all claim they are.

The difference between darkspawn and people of Thedas is, the latter have free will while the former are bound to follow the "song" of the archdemons, even while these are in their slumber. Whether that makes people better or worse is debatable, but they're definitely not the same and can't be really compared.

[adneate]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

adneate wrote...

In general I think DA characters will beat out ME characters all the time since they have like 8 times more dialogue and better writers. But Liara might prove a worthy opponent since she's by far the best written and most "Human" character the ME series has going for it.

...Did I miss something?

Maybe, I think her conversations in ME1 where she talks about her hopes, dreams and fears are quite well done. In the sequel her confession that she was the one who handed Shepard over to Cerberus because she was too weak to let go was very heartfelt. I still think the DA characters were better but Liara is one of the stronger characters the ME franchise has.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Strangely I don't remember any of that. Granted, back when I played ME1, I was still in the "lol I like badasses only" phase. 3 years already.

She is better than Jacob though, I'll give you that.

[epoch_]

Collider wrote...

Leliana or Liara

Why are we comparing them?

[adneate]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Strangely I don't remember any of that. Granted, back when I played ME1, I was still in the "lol I like badasses only" phase. 3 years already.
She is better than Jacob though, I'll give you that.

I just replayed both of them recently. But I agree 100% with you on the last statement though, anyone is better than him. You know that guy you push out the window in Thane's recruitment mission? Yeah he's better written than Jacob.

[Nerdage]

adneate wrote...
The difference between a soldier and a murderer is persepective the end result is still the taking of human lives. Are the people in Dragon Age really worth saving, they still commit murder, they still lie and cheat and steal. Have they ever asked themselve why do they deserve to exist? The darkspawn have taught them nothing, they aren't much better themselves with the exception that they all claim they are.

What if an archdemon is just High Dragon plus the taint? There could be no souls or anything it could be the biology of the taint. A tainted dragon can reform itself through the taint since the taint has power, the darkspawn being creatures completely consumed by the taint can be twisted into shape. But a man only partly infected with the taint cannot be transformed similarily and thus they both die.

You need only men and women infected with the taint and capable of taking the final blow to defeat the archdemon, you don't need an independent military order with a messiah complex.

You really didn't think any of the characters deserved to live? Not really sure what to say to that...
The nature of the archdemon is pretty much irrelevant to the wardens, if you ask Alistair about the origins of the darkspawn at Ostagar he'll tell you that the wardens don't even claim to know what the darkspawn are, all that matters to them is that you need a warden to kill the dragon. You also need the wardens to tell you when a blight is forming, so it wouldn't work to just have some people to take the joining as needed. And if you need to ensure a warden gets to the archdemon and kills it in the middle of an army of darkspawn you probably need to train them harder than the average soldier, and you'd probably want alot of them, so why no have them form their own order?

[tmp7704]

adneate wrote...

I just replayed both of them recently. But I agree 100% with you on the last statement though, anyone is better than him. You know that guy you push out the window in Thane's recruitment mission? Yeah he's better written than Jacob.

Jacob is pretty much Shepard turned into NPC. Which is largely the reason seeing him so universally despised and branded utterly boring makes me giggle each time i hear it.

[KnightofPhoenix]

tmp7704 wrote...

adneate wrote...

I just replayed both of them recently. But I agree 100% with you on the last statement though, anyone is better than him. You know that guy you push out the window in Thane's recruitment mission? Yeah he's better written than Jacob.

Jacob is pretty much Shepard turned into NPC. Which is largely the reason seeing him so universally despised and branded utterly boring makes me giggle each time i hear it.

Jacob is Paragon Shepard, yes. Both are boring.
Renegade Shepard is less boring with his badass a-hole attitude.

[tmp7704]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Jacob is Paragon Shepard, yes. Both are boring.
Renegade Shepard is less boring with his badass a-hole attitude.

Nah, the "i'm so bamf" act of the renegade Shepard wears out thin equally fast... though it does result in some funny lines so i guess there's that.

(to clarify, the glee i get out of Jacob's misery isn't because i think people are wrong, but rather out of how most of them appear unable to apply the same measuring stick to the character they play themselves. Which isn't strange of course but hey, i'm easily amused)

Modifié par tmp7704, 04 juillet 2010 - 12:26 .

[adneate]

nerdage wrote...


You really didn't think any of the characters deserved to live? Not really sure what to say to that...
The nature of the archdemon is pretty much irrelevant to the wardens, if you ask Alistair about the origins of the darkspawn at Ostagar he'll tell you that the wardens don't even claim to know what the darkspawn are, all that matters to them is that you need a warden to kill the dragon. You also need the wardens to tell you when a blight is forming, so it wouldn't work to just have some people to take the joining as needed. And if you need to ensure a warden gets to the archdemon and kills it in the middle of an army of darkspawn you probably need to train them harder than the average soldier, and you'd probably want alot of them, so why no have them form their own order?

Individuals of merit do not define a people, as much as we want them to, a people are defined by their lowest individuals for that is always a larger number than those set above the norm. Who says you need Warden's to tell if a blight is coming? The Wardens? Well of course they'll say that it ensures a constant flow of manpower for them to squander away. The Dwarves have no such order but they can tell when a blight is nearing, closer cooperation between the Human kingdoms and the Dwarven kingdom would ensure more advanced warning than hundreds of legions of Warden's ever could. The Dwarves knew a blight was soon to arrive years before the senior Warden-Commanders on the surface did.

As for not allowing them to be a seperate autonomous force, Sophia Dryden's rebellion and the Wardens assuming political control in the Anderfells is reason enough for the order to be disbanded and intergrated into the standing armies of the various kingdoms. They can do their job more effectively as a specialized shock force in a formalized army unit, a unit raised only when intel from the deep roads states a blight is beginning.

[KnightofPhoenix]

tmp7704 wrote...

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Jacob is Paragon Shepard, yes. Both are boring.
Renegade Shepard is less boring with his badass a-hole attitude.

Nah, the "i'm so bamf" act of the renegade Shepard wears out thin equally fast... though it does result in some funny lines so i guess there's that.

(to clarify, the glee i get out of Jacob's misery isn't because i think people are wrong, but rather out of how most of them appear unable to apply the same measuring stick to the character they play themselves. Which isn't strange of course but hey, i'm easily amused)

Precisely, you get a few giggles out of it. It's funny when one overreacts to trivial things.

And I was under the impression most do find Shepard boring. Granted, perhaps they blame it too much on the VA, at least the male one.

I personally am too busy liking the political background of the ME universe to care about Shep.

[tmp7704]

adneate wrote...

Individuals of merit do not define a people, as much as we want them to, a people are defined by their lowest individuals for that is always a larger number than those set above the norm.

Actually there's probably comparable numbers of people above and below the "norm", otherwise you run into intricaties of having to assign less weight to behaviour below the norm than above it... as weighting them equally while having more people below the norm would shift the norm itself downwards. And of course there's the whole issue of what actually is the norm to begin with.

[adneate]

tmp7704 wrote...

adneate wrote...

Individuals of merit do not define a people, as much as we want them to, a people are defined by their lowest individuals for that is always a larger number than those set above the norm.

Actually there's probably comparable numbers of people above and below the "norm", otherwise you run into intricaties of having to assign less weight to behaviour below the norm than above it... as weighting them equally while having more people below the norm would shift the norm itself downwards. And of course there's the whole issue of what actually is the norm to begin with.

I think we should step back before this conversation gets all Socratic. <_<

Modifié par adneate, 04 juillet 2010 - 12:38 .

[Nerdage]

adneate wrote...
Individuals of merit do not define a people, as much as we want them to, a people are defined by their lowest individuals for that is always a larger number than those set above the norm. Who says you need Warden's to tell if a blight is coming? The Wardens? Well of course they'll say that it ensures a constant flow of manpower for them to squander away. The Dwarves have no such order but they can tell when a blight is nearing, closer cooperation between the Human kingdoms and the Dwarven kingdom would ensure more advanced warning than hundreds of legions of Warden's ever could. The Dwarves knew a blight was soon to arrive years before the senior Warden-Commanders on the surface did.

As for not allowing them to be a seperate autonomous force, Sophia Dryden's rebellion and the Wardens assuming political control in the Anderfells is reason enough for the order to be disbanded and intergrated into the standing armies of the various kingdoms. They can do their job more effectively as a specialized shock force in a formalized army unit, a unit raised only when intel from the deep roads states a blight is beginning.

That dream you have at camp, after Lothering, that's the archdemon... And it only happens to a warden when there's an archdemon awake somewhere, which would happen before the dwarfs notice a change in numbers. They can also sense where the horde is massing on the surface, which the dwarfs couldn't. And the wardens are supposed to be officially neutral, if they were integereted into the nations armies then they could end up fighting eachother, I guess with such a powerful order they should be monitored in some way by the ruler but most of the nations see the need to have them around so there isn't much they could do.

I was also going to suggest that this is the wrong thread of this discussion, but since every other post is about ME it hardly seems worth it.

[adneate]

nerdage wrote...

]That dream you have at camp, after Lothering, that's the archdemon... And it only happens to a warden when there's an archdemon awake somewhere, which would happen before the dwarfs notice a change in numbers. They can also sense where the horde is massing on the surface, which the dwarfs couldn't. And the wardens are supposed to be officially neutral, if they were integereted into the nations armies then they could end up fighting eachother, I guess with such a powerful order they should be monitored in some way by the ruler but most of the nations see the need to have them around so there isn't much they could do.

I was also going to suggest that this is the wrong thread of this discussion, but since every other post is about ME it hardly seems worth it.

What tactical information is descerned from that dream that command and control could use to direct an army to engage the darkspawn? It provides no locational information and is useless for formulating any kind of counter-strike against the enemy. The change in numbers however is much more practical information since it suggests that there is going to be a transition from the deep roads to the surface. Then a select team is put through the joining and they are used as a special recon/assault team with all the same abilities of the Wardens but feeding information up the chain of command to direct the interception of the main line of the darkspawn advance. With the blight defeated there is no longer a need for tainted recon team since they have no special abilities against regular forces and in fact represent a waste of military potential. I believe this effectively elimates the need for the order and solves the problem of the Grey Warden's potential meddeling in political affairs.

Also: I APPRECIATE LELIANA<3

Now we can continue these discussions.

[Nerdage]

That's for covering, hope it worked.



The 'sensing' is separate from the dreams, sensing is how Riordan knew there were two generals in Denerim, but the dreams indicate when a blight is beginning. Knowing their numbers is important, but knowing about the archdemon is as important, since it makes a battle all but unwinnable without wardens on hand to kill it for good. Not everyone survives the joining, and learning to 'use' the taint takes time, so by the time the blight has been confirmed without wardens (so there's already a horde and it's probably aready started taking territory) these new wardens wouldn't be much use until even more land is lost.

[adneate]

9:13 Dragon--The Blight is building, though it is years from being
named by the surface. But the Memories know the signs. The Legion has
lost Bownammar, though in truth, it was lost to the living long ago.
The spawn are moving freely and have numbers even the Memories haven't
seen. They will surge, release. We will fortify and follow. That is the
way, and will always be so. Until we fall, and the surface wonders what
has changed.


The game takes place in 9:30 Dragon Age so that's 17 years advanced warning should be more than enough time to build a dedicated recon team and prepare, no?