402 réponses à ce sujet

[maxernst]

Wereparrot wrote...

maxernst wrote...


 People are genuninely good in LOTR, unless corrupted by a powerful malignant outside agency like the ring or Sauron.

Yes, but Sauron was good in the beginning, being a Maiar; he was corrupted by Morgoth. That, I think, is dark. 

That's not in LOTR.  And anyway, I don't think a good person turning bad under the influence of an overwhelmingly powerful being is particularly dark.

[Wereparrot]

maxernst wrote...

Wereparrot wrote...

maxernst wrote...


 People are genuninely good in LOTR, unless corrupted by a powerful malignant outside agency like the ring or Sauron.

Yes, but Sauron was good in the beginning, being a Maiar; he was corrupted by Morgoth. That, I think, is dark. 

That's not in LOTR.  And anyway, I don't think a good person turning bad under the influence of an overwhelmingly powerful being is particularly dark.

A lot of things arn't in LOTR, yet bear relevance to the story. And how don't you think succumbing to a dark power is itself dark? What also of the treachery of Saruman and the Nazgul?

Modifié par Wereparrot, 15 octobre 2010 - 04:09 .

[maxernst]

Wereparrot wrote...

maxernst wrote...

Wereparrot wrote...

maxernst wrote...


 People are genuninely good in LOTR, unless corrupted by a powerful malignant outside agency like the ring or Sauron.

Yes, but Sauron was good in the beginning, being a Maiar; he was corrupted by Morgoth. That, I think, is dark. 

That's not in LOTR.  And anyway, I don't think a good person turning bad under the influence of an overwhelmingly powerful being is particularly dark.

A lot of things arn't in LOTR, yet bear relevance to the story. And how don't you think succumbing to a dark power is itself dark? What also of the treachery of Saruman and the Nazgul?

No, I don't, because the implication is still that the world have been a total paradise if it weren't for one bad apple (Morgoth).  A world in which everybody has the potential to do evil because of their own imperfection is darker than one in which some weak people can be mind-controlled into doing evil.  And to go back to Boromir--seriously, he threatens to kill one person and regrets it almost immediately--I'd say even with his corruption by the ring he's more moral than practically anyone in the DA:O universe.

[Wereparrot]

maxernst wrote...

Wereparrot wrote...

maxernst wrote...

Wereparrot wrote...

maxernst wrote...


 People are genuninely good in LOTR, unless corrupted by a powerful malignant outside agency like the ring or Sauron.

Yes, but Sauron was good in the beginning, being a Maiar; he was corrupted by Morgoth. That, I think, is dark. 

That's not in LOTR.  And anyway, I don't think a good person turning bad under the influence of an overwhelmingly powerful being is particularly dark.

A lot of things arn't in LOTR, yet bear relevance to the story. And how don't you think succumbing to a dark power is itself dark? What also of the treachery of Saruman and the Nazgul?

No, I don't, because the implication is still that the world have been a total paradise if it weren't for one bad apple (Morgoth).  A world in which everybody has the potential to do evil because of their own imperfection is darker than one in which some weak people can be mind-controlled into doing evil.  And to go back to Boromir--seriously, he threatens to kill one person and regrets it almost immediately--I'd say even with his corruption by the ring he's more moral than practically anyone in the DA:O universe.

Agreed on Boromir (one of my favourite characters from any book). Yet the ring's corruption was gradual, and one could regain their right mind at times though it as evidenced by Bilbo and Frodo. The oly significant corruption was seen on Denethor, and that was wrought by Sauron himself through the palantir.

[Addai]

maxernst wrote...

No, I don't, because the implication is still that the world have been a total paradise if it weren't for one bad apple (Morgoth).  A world in which everybody has the potential to do evil because of their own imperfection is darker than one in which some weak people can be mind-controlled into doing evil.  And to go back to Boromir--seriously, he threatens to kill one person and regrets it almost immediately--I'd say even with his corruption by the ring he's more moral than practically anyone in the DA:O universe.

It is not a case of "the devil made me do it," rather that there is inherent weakness in all free beings, especially those that are outwardly the most beautiful and powerful.  That is quite a dark message.  I read somewhere that Bioware considers its games to be about human weakness.  Not so different, really.

Modifié par Addai67, 15 octobre 2010 - 04:24 .

[DarthCaine]

leonia42 wrote...

bzombo wrote...

then maybe dark is a relative thing, just like rpg is. not everyone agrees because the definition is so vague and changes from person to person.

Bingo. We came to that conclusion a few pages back but Mr. DarthCaine here thinks his definition of dark is the only appropriate definition and won't let go of the debate until we all convert to his vision. And quite honestly, I am getting sick of his arrogant tactics.

No, that's not the point of my posts. My point is DAO is no darker than Fable, NwN2, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls or Jade Empire none of which lablel themself as "dark", while people only say DAO is dark because it marketted itself as such.

If Toy Story started marketing itself as dark fantasy I'm pretty sure you and bzombo would be first in line arguing how it IS dark fantasy.

EDIT: And like I said before, I never said a dark fantasy game needed to contain every single one of the things I said in my post, but should contain most of them. The Witcher doesn't contain all of those things and I consider it dark fantasy.

Modifié par DarthCaine, 15 octobre 2010 - 05:08 .

[Soul Killer]

I consider The Witcher dark high juvenile fantasy, seeing as how you can bang a lot of chicks and get a card of that chick in near nude pose, don't get me wrong it's a great game.

[upsettingshorts]

I once got a full house in The Witcher.  Three blondes and two redheads.

[nightcobra]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I once got a full house in The Witcher.  Three blondes and two redheads.

what would you call a royal flush then?

[upsettingshorts]

nightcobra8928 wrote...
what would you call a royal flush then?

I don't know, but I imagine it'd be fun to think about.

By the way, I'm waiting for someone to make a "best hand" joke.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 15 octobre 2010 - 06:01 .

[Addai]

nightcobra8928 wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I once got a full house in The Witcher.  Three blondes and two redheads.

what would you call a royal flush then?

Well, there was Adda...

Good point, I am glad to hear that CD Projekt intends to make that aspect of the game a bit more mature in TW2.  And it illustrates what I was trying to get at somewhere upthread, that "mature" and "dark" is more about character drama than shock value or dreariness for its own sake.  And DAO had lots of realistic character drama and conflict.

Modifié par Addai67, 15 octobre 2010 - 06:03 .

[HoonDing]

Dark fantasy is literary naturalism applied to epic fantasy.



I.e., very bad things happen to good people, and the good people never get a break from it; not to mention characters all have their flaws and weaknesses, which cause their downfall if they're not strong enough to cope with them.

[DMC12]

Addai67 wrote...

nightcobra8928 wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

I once got a full house in The Witcher.  Three blondes and two redheads.

what would you call a royal flush then?

Well, there was Adda...

Good point, I am glad to hear that CD Projekt intends to make that aspect of the game a bit more mature in TW2.  And it illustrates what I was trying to get at somewhere upthread, that "mature" and "dark" is more about character drama than shock value or dreariness for its own sake.  And DAO had lots of realistic character drama and conflict.

You mean "dark" isn't about getting my required intake of torture porn? How absurd!

All kidding aside, I agree with you. Although I would like to add that the setting and environment adds to the dark feeling as well. It can be achieved through something as simple as lighting effects too (although not just that).

[HoonDing]

I don't understand why people call the Witcher immature because of one feature that can be ignored. It's the same as calling out Dragon Age for the dalliances in the Pearl and the shenanigans with Cammen/Zhayna & Isabela.

[Wereparrot]

But they arn't as explicit.

[Utoryo]

Just my opinion, but I think a huge part of why people don't think DA is very dark is the casulaty numbers are always incredibly ambiguous. How many villagers from Redcliffe died before the Warden arrived? I'd bet if you count those who tried to flee and failed, a huge part of the population. How many mages survived the events at the Circle? Given the horror in there, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10% or less even if you sided with the mages. How many civilians didn't manage to flee Denerim in time (or had nowhere to go) and were massacred by the Darkspawn? It's not as if the Alienage elves were trapped by the guards... others, probably at least hundreds, must have remained and died. And how many were enslaved and already sent to Tevinter in the Alienage? It seems to have lasted for some time, so it must be several dozens if not more than a hundred. And how many survived the attack on Amaranthine in Awakenings? This is actually the clearest of all the examples, as given the claimed size of the city in the lore (not the game) and the fact darkspawn came from within, we're probably taking many hundreds dead.



These events are actually very dark no matter what you do - if you play the good guy, you can prevent things from becoming even worse but you cannot change the past. The problem is that the game does not make you feel that at all. The only time when you really 'get' the magnitude of the loss and suffering is after Ostagar. I think if there had been cutscenes narrated by one of the characters present in each of these storylines (e.g. Bann Teagan when you first meet him in Redcliffe, Shianni at the end of the Alienage, etc.) the whole thing could have taken a much grander scale, both making the past darker and the consequences of your actions seem more important.



This is not to say I'm a fan of the 'third option' for example - my position is that in the case of Redcliffe, if you go to the tower you should ideally have to leave a companion behind and there would be a battle sequence where several guards would likely (but not necessarily) die and you'd see there was some actual risk in your decision even if it's still probably the best overall. So in DAO it could easily be argued that some key choices can be resolved in a way that is not dark at all - but my opinion (and that's all it is once again) is that the events themselves are plenty dark if you actually bother to look at what happened. It's simply unfortunate that the game does such a weak job (compared to all the things Bioware did splendidly) of conveying that.

[bzombo]

DarthCaine wrote...

bzombo wrote...

then maybe dark is a relative thing, just like rpg is. not everyone agrees because the definition is so vague and changes from person to person.

If BioWare didn't market DAO as dark fantasy I'm pretty sure none of you would have said it is, just like nobody will say Fable is dark fantasy even though it has the same ammount of "dark" as DAO.

If dark is relative, then according your opinion of dark fantasy, every single fantasy piece that has ever existed is dark fantasy which means the high fantasy genre no longer exists.

You keep avoiding my question about how DAO is more "dark" than any other high fantasy game because you just can't seem to find any difference.

i've told you why i think it is dark. i have no obligation to answer your questions. you are simply looking for more reasons to take one point anyone makes and use it as the almighty truth for everything. you're done it several times in this thread. i'm not going to feed you so you can continue.

[TheMadCat]

Face of Evil wrote...


Then what we have is a case of Your Mileage May Vary, as I despaired over Duncan and Cailan's death. I also felt bad that I could not do something more for the people of Lothering, instead abandoning most of them to a horrid fate.

There are things the game did well and there are things DA did badly. Establishing an emotional connection to the events of the game was not one of the latter.

No, unfortunatly I don't think this is a case of "Your mileage May Vary". What did the game really do to build an emotional connection with these places other then sucker punching the gamers and telling them this was bad and tragic so you need to care about it? In Ostagar Duncan was the only character that fell in battle that the player had any real time to grow attached to, Cailan got a whole 10 lines or so and came off as an incompentent, pompous fool which actually makes it more difficult to feel bad for, especially since he's one of only two characters you really got a chance to talk to a understand. The army itself was nonexsistent to you until the battle actually occoured and actual contact with them was put at the bare minimum. The few quests and chats you had with the more generic NPC's was straight business, again really making it difficult to grow attached to this place.

Lothering was even worse, I mean seriously what connection was there to build? There was zero urgency actually felt in the town, everyone seemingly more concrened with petty squabbles and tasks rather then the hoard of refugees and the incoming tsuami of evil. And what's even worse is the game doesn't seem to care a whole lot about what happened with Lothering, one or two conversations about it that seemed more focused in guilting the player rather then developing the characters discussing about it. Similar logic could be applied to Denerim as well, pretty much zero character development almost everywhere and those that you did did more to turn you off from them or died before Denerim fell (Alistair's "sister", the folks in the Pearl, the Elven alieanage or the Templar in the Orphanage).

In a game that lasts around 60 hours it's almost impossible to really grow a connection to any place or the character there when they keep you there for only a few hours and constantly having you shipping around to all these places. Origins suffered from putting in too much stuff, really detracting from the emotional growth outside of your own party that you get with a good story and ultimately really numbing the whole dark side of the game. There were a few genuiene moments I'm not going to take that away from them, but on a whole I felt it tried way to hard way to often and ultimately fell flat on it's face in this regard. I don't know, maybe I'm just old fashioned and like it when writers actually build their characters up for the audience so we do feel sorry for them when they get torn down rather then simply slapping the audience across the face and screaming in their ear "Hey, this was tragic so make sure you care." 

Modifié par TheMadCat, 15 octobre 2010 - 11:21 .

[maxernst]

Utoryo wrote...

Just my opinion, but I think a huge part of why people don't think DA is very dark is the casulaty numbers are always incredibly ambiguous. How many villagers from Redcliffe died before the Warden arrived? I'd bet if you count those who tried to flee and failed, a huge part of the population. How many mages survived the events at the Circle? Given the horror in there, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 10% or less even if you sided with the mages. How many civilians didn't manage to flee Denerim in time (or had nowhere to go) and were massacred by the Darkspawn? It's not as if the Alienage elves were trapped by the guards... others, probably at least hundreds, must have remained and died. And how many were enslaved and already sent to Tevinter in the Alienage? It seems to have lasted for some time, so it must be several dozens if not more than a hundred. And how many survived the attack on Amaranthine in Awakenings? This is actually the clearest of all the examples, as given the claimed size of the city in the lore (not the game) and the fact darkspawn came from within, we're probably taking many hundreds dead.

.

Something else that would have made the game darker is that you tend to go through areas, complete the quests, and never return. You're not allowed to go back to Lothering and see what happened.  You don't go back to Haven and see that you've left a village full of orphans.  And even when you do, it isn't milked as much as it could have been.  If you're a mage returning to the circle, there could have been a lot of abominations that you're forced to kill wearing clothing that belonged to people you knew.

But I still think that at it's core, the fact that there are very few genuine good guys in the game, makes it darker than any D&D-based RPG's. 

[SafetyShattered]

Spartansfan8888 wrote...

It's going to be so dark it's pitch black. That's why the protagonist is voiced; it's too dark to see the texts.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.....you're funny. Your a funny person.

[SafetyShattered]

DarthCaine wrote...

bzombo wrote...

you have this very extreme black and white view of dark fantasy. i don't get it. is da as dark as the witcher? no. is dao like lotr? i don't think so. there's a lot of personal redemption and feel good stuff in lotr that does not exist in dao. the hero in dao can be a murderous scumbag who cares nothing for anyone around him. none of the heroes in lotr are like that. there is personal sacrifice and a lot of positive vibes. dao is not like that. i think dark fantasy has a lot to do with the atmosphere. dao takes place in a run down nation with a lot of crime and many situations where there is no happy outcome. it's a bit dreary of a place. lotr is a bit more positive and happy.

By your definition every fantasy RPG that has ever existed in which you can be a douchebag is dark fantasy. Fable, NWN, Baldur's Gate, The Elder Scrolls, Jade Empire are all dark (these games are all no less "dark" than DAO).

If DAO is "dark fantasy", all of those previosly mentioned games are also dark fantasy since I see nothing more "dark" in DAO than in those games (if there is, please explain to me how DAO is more dark than ANY of those games).

So I suppose this also includes Harry Potter and Twilight, then like I said DAO is dark fantasy.

EDIT: And btw, every single one of my choices was a happy outcomes with sunshines and rainbows. There were only 2 rare choices which didn't turn out so happy. And like I said one act of "dark fantasy" doesn't make it a dark fantasy setting.

DAO is high fantasy, plain and simple. The "dark mature" part is just marketing BS.

dnd? meh. that's a pnp game that one could turn into high or dark fantasy based on the dm's own world design.

Baldur's Gate, NWN, Icewind Dale are all part of DnD

OK man are you just posting this crap because you want to argue about something?

If you don't want to call DA dark despite the fact that it has very mature content such as murder, rape to name a couple....fine I don't really care. If you want to call DA a happy game where everyone gets along and manages to save the world because they believe they can and afterwords they go home riding a unicorn across a rainbow fine. OK believe whatever you want. I DON"T CARE AT ALL!!!!!! UGH do you know what the definition of a dark rpg is? Do you honestly think that DA is full of sunshine and flower? REALLY? OK......yeah....have fun with that.

[Dhiro]

I'm sorry, but why the story need to be dark? Mature, of course. But why, let's say, Berserk-dark?

[DarthCaine]

Dark fantasy (also called horror fantasy or Gothic fantasy) is a fantasy subgenre that combines elements of fantasy with those of horror.

________________________________________________________________

Tending towards horror
---------------------------------------
"Dark fantasy" is sometimes regarded as a sub-variant of the horror genre.
...
Recently, some critics and booksellers have begun categorising books such as Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books as "dark fantasy"

________________________________________________________________

Tending towards fantasy
---------------------------------------
Dark fantasy in this context refers to stories that focus on darker themes, sometimes akin to those of horror, but which take place in a setting more like sword and sorcery or high fantasy.

There is a strong overlap between this style of fantasy and sword and sorcery, due to the often bleak, pessimistic tones, and moral ambiguity (especially when compared to the more dualistic themes of high fantasy).

Dark fantasy is also used to refer to "grittier" fantasy, conducted in settings which represent the brutality of the medieval period of most fantasy, generally with a dash of supernatural horror such as in Charles R. Saunders' early Imaro trilogy which was heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. The Harry Potter books by J.K Rowling have elements of dark fantasy in them.

the highlighted words are what DAO lacked

Modifié par DarthCaine, 16 octobre 2010 - 12:58 .

[TheMadCat]

Dhiro wrote...

I'm sorry, but why the story need to be dark? Mature, of course. But why, let's say, Berserk-dark?

Why not, and honestly what's the difference really between dark and mature? A dark story is something that contains elements such a tragedy, shock and horror, blurred lines between good and evil, real moral ambiguity and not that crap in Origins (Being able to kill someone isn't morally ambigious when you also have the option to help and save them, that's called murder. Morally ambigious is when you have no actual option to save them, just varying reasons as to why). Dark fantasy as it's called can be great for pulling the deeper, more potent emotions in the human psyche and ultimately can lead to a more intricate and much better, though a times much worse, story.

[Dave of Canada]

Beserk-dark is just too brutal for a large portion of gamers. Origins already has some of the Beserk-dark elements (Broodmothers and such) and that's already left some female gamers I know freaking out because they didn't know they would likely turn into that if they were captured ingame.