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[iTomes]

"So for me, there should have been an ending in DA:O where the hero kills the Archdemon and still lives without performing the dark ritual... But I guess the plot and the overall purpose of the Game went against it..."



i would've liked the possibility for riordan to do it^^

[Sable Rhapsody]

No one said you can't have a relatively happy ending in DA:O. But you have to be willing to work for it--and most importantly, sacrifice a lot for it. Morrigan's ritual, independent of good or evil, is a highly selfish act in most cases. To me, "dark" or "grey" morality in RPGs doesn't mean bleak or depressing. It means you have to work for the few sparks of happiness you get, and they're not just handed to you wholesale.

Unless you're a City Elf. In which case, your life generally just sucks. You has a sad.

Modifié par Sable Rhapsody, 20 juillet 2010 - 08:55 .

[bjdbwea]

I disagree that "dark" or "grey" equals complexity. ME 2, the supposed "dark" second part of the trilogy, proves that point. On the other hand, you can tell perfectly complex stories within the classic "hero saves world" theme. Of course there needs to be conflicts and hardships for any hero, but "punishing" the player for good deeds - or not even providing the possibility to perform them - is bad game design.

[Saibh]

soteria wrote...

Saibh wrote..
1. The player doesn't take that route again, since you can only be surprised once--going for the neutral route is probably the best option. Especially since there's no morality meter (which I think is great for this game), you can even take evil options that you know result in good things and often you end up getting the best possible result through metagaming.

Sure, but that's how metagaming works. If a player is willing to make OOC choices because they like the results, they'll do that regardless of what the choice entails.

Of course, of course. I'm not saying that metagaming is how you should play an RPG, I'm just saying that a lot of people sort of have gamer "end justifies the means", different from a character "end justifies the means". Since I have the knowledge, it's hard for me to seperate that a character doesn't. I feel like I'm just carrying the Idiot Ball if I do something I know will have a bad consequence and that's not where I want the character's ending to go, even if it conflicts with the personality I've set up.

I know that the devs have already said they're making efforts to reduce approval metagaming--where a person would simply pick whatever option they had to get that character to sleep with them, for instance. That's what  I mean by gamer "end justifies the means" (as opposed to a character type, like how Loghain is). It's hard to not metagame for me--for instance, isn't Genre Savvy a type of metagame? Your character shouldn't be as well-versed in archetypes, tropes, and cliches as you are, but you still use them to your advantage.

I think the Bhelen/Harrowmont thing is an excellent you can handle getting a good deed punished, if perhaps a little bit out-of-the-way of the actual plot.

[soteria]

The selfish part does not bode well to my lawful Good character alignment.... So I decided to do the Ultimate sacrifice... Plus my character thought that DR= One more Blight = lot more people dead.

Fridge Logic says it's actually not that selfish. If you perform the Dark Ritual, *anyone* can kill the Archdemon, as long as Morrigan is near enough. That means the fate of the world no longer hinges on your survival and ability to land the killing blow, which is a huge plus.

[Haexpane]

I hate it when people bring up ME2, I can't stop thinking about that X-Files rip off "smoking man" character and those annoying "RANK UP" mechanics

[Sable Rhapsody]

SirShreK wrote...

soteria wrote...

The selfish part does not bode well to my lawful Good character alignment.... So I decided to do the Ultimate sacrifice... Plus my character thought that DR= One more Blight = lot more people dead.

Fridge Logic says it's actually not that selfish. If you perform the Dark Ritual, *anyone* can kill the Archdemon, as long as Morrigan is near enough. That means the fate of the world no longer hinges on your survival and ability to land the killing blow, which is a huge plus.

But what of:  DR= One more Blight = lot more people dead.

Not necessarily.  My reasoning for the Dark Ritual being selfish is that you don't know what will happen, but you know it'll be important. The child produced could be saint or devil or anything in between.  You don't know what will happen, but you DO know that you're taking the soul of an Old God, hoping to high hell you can get it untainted, sticking it in a baby, then handing the baby to the party member for whom power and ambition is more important than anything...even love.  Something big is going to come of that, and you've got no one but Morrigan to trust on whether the consequences will be good or bad.

[soteria]

My reasoning for the Dark Ritual being selfish is that you don't know what will happen, but you know it'll be important. The child produced could be saint or devil or anything in between. You don't know what will happen, but you DO know that you're taking the soul of an Old God, hoping to high hell you can get it untainted, sticking it in a baby, then handing the baby to the party member for whom power and ambition is more important than anything...even love. Something big is going to come of that, and you've got no one but Morrigan to trust on whether the consequences will be good or bad.

That's true, but I don't think that makes it a selfish decision--unless you only did it for your own survival. It *could* be a selfish decision, based on your motives, but it could also be a calculated risk: increase the odds of quickly finishing the Blight now with some unspecified degree of *possible* danger at a later time.

A lawful good character wouldn't do this, but an additional argument in favor of the DR is the possibility of hunting Morrigan down and dealing with her and the child later. I'm just saying it's not a selfish choice unless your character does it for selfish reasons.

[tybbiesniffer]

Addai67 wrote...

Personally, I hope the DR aftermath proves to be a different sort of gotcha- something many assume is evil but turns out to save the world, or close to it.

Ohhh.  That really would be one hell of a gotcha.  I like it.

highcastle wrote...

I understand the need to spare the
player from those "gotcha" moments, as Mr. Gaider called them. However,
I do think there should be consequences for your actions in a game
advertised as a dark fantasy. Let's take the Redcliffe situation, for
instance. At first it seems like you can either kill Connor or kill
Isolde. My first play of the game, that's indeed what I thought. I got
as far as Alistair suggesting we go to the mages, but then Teagan
cautioned against it for the time it might cost. What might the
abomination do while we were gone? I thought the whole village might be
slaughtered, or at least Eamon and his family. It was only on a second
playthrough when I tested this option I learned it resulted in an
unambiguously happy outcome. It almost felt like a letdown. Allowing
Isolde to sacrifice herself because I didn't think there was another
way and because my character felt killing a child was abhorrent, that
was powerful stuff. Learning of the third option almost cheapened that
sacrifice.

This exactly.  The threat posed by the demon if left unchecked is foreshadowed but never carried through.  I only tried the mage circle on the second playthrough and it seemed like a cheap loophole.  A little death or mayhem in the interim would have made the choice more of a choice and not simply a formula for success.  I can understand why they chose this course though.  I imagine the slaughtering of a child or loving, albeit annoying, mother is abhorrent to most.  I would have just liked some sort of repercussion even if it's just more dancing Teagan.

[Saibh]

soteria wrote...

My reasoning for the Dark Ritual being selfish is that you don't know what will happen, but you know it'll be important. The child produced could be saint or devil or anything in between. You don't know what will happen, but you DO know that you're taking the soul of an Old God, hoping to high hell you can get it untainted, sticking it in a baby, then handing the baby to the party member for whom power and ambition is more important than anything...even love. Something big is going to come of that, and you've got no one but Morrigan to trust on whether the consequences will be good or bad.

That's true, but I don't think that makes it a selfish decision--unless you only did it for your own survival. It *could* be a selfish decision, based on your motives, but it could also be a calculated risk: increase the odds of quickly finishing the Blight now with some unspecified degree of *possible* danger at a later time.
A lawful good character wouldn't do this, but an additional argument in favor of the DR is the possibility of hunting Morrigan down and dealing with her and the child later. I'm just saying it's not a selfish choice unless your character does it for selfish reasons.

Agreed--that's why I liked the choice. Too often are good characters presented with martyrdom (please oh please oh please BioWare gods don't make this so in ME3...) as their final option. In this scenario, it's really a grey decision.

And I think it's conceivable for a lawful good character to do this: if you accept Morrigan's ritual, then it makes it possible for anyone to kill the Archdemon, not just the Grey Warden. If all of the Wardens die in battle, the Blight continues on, and Ferelden isn't saved--unless it doesn't matter who kills it. Especially if you love Morrigan and trust and believe in her, than doing this might seem exactly the right thing to do.

Then you can take it to mean that you don't know what the god baby will do, you can deal with Morrigan after the fact, and you might believe the country would need strong rulers (including Alistair and yourself) more than the potential threat of Morrigan's child.

You can do it because you love Alistair, and are afraid of him dying. Or because you love Morrigan, and you're doing as she asks.

Or you can do it because you plain want to live. It's not evil--you may not have chosen to become a Grey Warden; all of your actions could have been mostly to ensure self-preservation, to some degree: like the Crows say, it's not the best idea to let the archdemon win. You didn't agree to suicide, however. Wanting to save people for entirely altruistic reasons doesn't mean you're prepared to die for it all.

Or you can do it because you want your child to be a demon god (which is Stupid Evil).

Modifié par Saibh, 20 juillet 2010 - 09:28 .

[Sable Rhapsody]

soteria wrote...

My reasoning for the Dark Ritual being selfish is that you don't know what will happen, but you know it'll be important. The child produced could be saint or devil or anything in between. You don't know what will happen, but you DO know that you're taking the soul of an Old God, hoping to high hell you can get it untainted, sticking it in a baby, then handing the baby to the party member for whom power and ambition is more important than anything...even love. Something big is going to come of that, and you've got no one but Morrigan to trust on whether the consequences will be good or bad.

That's true, but I don't think that makes it a selfish decision--unless you only did it for your own survival. It *could* be a selfish decision, based on your motives, but it could also be a calculated risk: increase the odds of quickly finishing the Blight now with some unspecified degree of *possible* danger at a later time.
A lawful good character wouldn't do this, but an additional argument in favor of the DR is the possibility of hunting Morrigan down and dealing with her and the child later. I'm just saying it's not a selfish choice unless your character does it for selfish reasons.

Hmm...I guess you're right.  Though in-game, Morrigan's ritual is pitched to the Warden in terms of his/her own survival.  Morrigan herself doesn't present it as a calculated risk, and neither Alistair nor Loghain seem to think of it that way either if you ask them to do it.  As far as all of the NPCs are concerned, going through with the ritual is about ensuring the survival of the Warden.  Of course, your character can have his/her own reasons which changes the picture, but what's in-game seems to present the ritual as a risky, selfish decision.

As a tangential aside, I would like to see more Lawful Good characters in video games who don't wear the Idiot Hat of Lawful Stupid.  ME2's Samara did a decent job of that; she had her exceptionally rigid code, but she usually found compromises that worked for everyone else while satisfying the Code.  And I suppose Bryce Cousland counts for all of five minutes that he was alive 

[R.U.N]

It doesn't matter wether he's ''good'' or ''bad''.

Should Morrigan slip only ONCE then chances are the child's going to start another blight regardless of his personality.

The chances of her slipping are quite big imho.



Possibly having to defend herself and the child against, Flemeth, Darkspawn, maybe even the Chantry and that all by herself.

She might be able to do this when she's alone, but at the same time protecting and raising the child?



1-2 years ''on her own'' and she on the edge of ruining her own/her mother's plans if she falls in love with The Warden.

She cannot even handle ''feelings'' properly, but a child with the soul of an old god?

Well, Flemeth probably could do it, she lacks what Morrigan still has to a degree:

A heart, it's well protected, but it's still there in that crazy witch.

[In Exile]

SirShreK wrote...

But what of:  DR= One more Blight = lot more people dead.

We can't be really aware of what kind of arcane horror you are creating. According to Morrigan the ritual is supposed to preserve the old god, so what you would have is an old god that isn't blighted. Which could potentially do more good than not.

At that point in the game you have 3 Grey Wardens. The 3 die, and the Blight will ranged unchecked until the Grey Wardens in other lands can organize. Stopping the present apocalyse is more pressing than a future one, no?

[iTomes]

i think the whole dark ritual thing is mainly a matter of trust towards morrigan... if she thinks the ritual is the right thing to do and you trust her, you do the ritual, if not, not.

[In Exile]

SirShreK wrote...
Pardon me for my ignorance, but there is something I have been meaning to ask for a long time but keep forgetting: Why does everybody think that ANYONE (besides GWs) can kill Archdemon after the DR?

Is there something that proves this statement? Or it is hope ( = foolish optimist)?

The idea goes like this: darkspawn are an empty container. Physically kill the archdemon, tough **** - it just jumps to another darkspawn. Blight rages on. The taint attracts the soul of the archdemon; that's how it finds a new body. If a Grey Warden kills the archdemon, then the fact the container isn't empty kills them both.

Once you perform the dark ritual, you don't have the taint anymore. Doing the ritual is basically the anti-Joining; you're no longer a Grey Warden. This is why it's a happy ending for you - no dying in 30 years. So when you kill the archdemon you technically aren't a Grey Warden.

[In Exile]

SirShreK wrote...
As far as I am aware the Old Gods are UNTAINTED before darkspwan find them... Smell like OGB to me...

Right, but we they are also allegedly trapped and sleeping, and we don't know what it is that taints them. If it's just darkspawn within 10 feet or whatever, then the DR is retarded, because you'd think the child would become tainted immediately on the darkspawn infested battlefield.

[Saibh]

SirShreK wrote...

Pardon me for my ignorance, but there is something I have been meaning to ask for a long time but keep forgetting: Why does everybody think that ANYONE (besides GWs) can kill Archdemon after the DR?

Is there something that proves this statement? Or it is hope ( = foolish optimist)?

Because the reason you need a Grey Warden--the only reason, outside of experience with darkspawn--is because they can act as a vessel for the Archdemon that won't turn into a new one. Obviously the vesselitude doesn't work out so well for both parties, but that's the reason.

Morrigan says the reason the ritual works is because the soul is immediately attracted the the baby for some reason, and because the baby is in a...proto-soul form, it doesn't destroy either, but rather allows a merge or somesuch.

Therefore it doesn't matter who strikes the killing blow, since the soul will always go to Morrigan's child.

Modifié par Saibh, 20 juillet 2010 - 09:40 .