57020 réponses à ce sujet

[beckaliz]

@DreamerM:

High five on gore guts and glory!

[ipgd]

They show you the people in the chantry getting knocked back by the blast. Not sure what more you could want.

It's a technical restriction, as well. Actually showing people being *blown up* requires a special model and rigs and animations, etc. You can look to the Mass Effect sex scenes to see how sloppy the matter is; Jacob actually takes his entire body off when he model swaps from his standard model to his shirtless model. They can't actually show Miranda unzipping her suit, it's suggested barely off screen and then she swaps models entirely before the camera cuts back. At best, you could have gotten a few awkward blood splatter effects.

Modifié par ipgd, 04 juillet 2011 - 01:52 .

[ademska]

ipgd wrote...
He certainly manages to feed himself in his short story just fine, all right.

[DreamerM]

ademska wrote...
that's not true, though. gameplay and story segregation aside, he only jumps into glowdom during moments of extreme emotional distress about templar stuff.

It seems to me like the Mage Underground would be the go-to-place for Templar stuff that can cause extreme emotional distress. They are supposedly the ones who smuggle out the tortured/raped mages, and the ones hung if they are caught doing it.

..That was another thing we Should Have Seen. Anders tells you that the Knight Commander has made "aiding apostates a Hanging offense," but we never even hear about anyone actually hanging for it.

ademska wrote...
gameplay and story segregation aside, as you can lead him through templar hotbeds without incident, he's perfectly capable of being in the gallows and talking to cullen without getting all literally blue in the face. there are several cutscene instances involving templars where anders holds it together just fine.

The only time Anders interacts with Templars in the game (before the end) is when he's accompanying Hawke on some mission or other. Heck you can walk him right up to Knight Commander Meredith and he'll just stand there politely while you discuss tracking down Apostates.

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...
It seems to me like the Mage Underground would be the go-to-place for Templar stuff that can cause extreme emotional distress. They are supposedly the ones who smuggle out the tortured/raped mages, and the ones hung if they are caught doing it.

right, and as i just said, he's got no issue keeping it together most of the time. iirc, the only time he glows with anger in standard conversation rivalry path notwithstanding is right after karl, his former lover and friend who he just mercy-murdered. some bad **** goes down with him in the party, interacting, and he's fine.

The only time Anders interacts with Templars in the game (before the end) is when he's accompanying Hawke on some mission or other. Heck you can walk him right up to Knight Commander Meredith and he'll just stand there politely while you discuss tracking down Apostates.

that... is my point? and if you're saying that from the perspective of active party =\\= character development, remember his non-glowing remarks as a party member to cullen, thrask, etc. those can't be explained away so easily.

hell, he gets super heated to meredith's face during that one quest in act 3 and doesn't go at all glowy.

[DreamerM]

ipgd wrote...

They show you the people in the chantry getting knocked back by the blast. Not sure what more you could want.

Splendor. That is all.

ipgd wrote...
It's a technical restriction, as well.

It's completely possible with the technology available. I think it was more of a time restriction....and maybe an imagination failure. Bioware's strength is not it's cinematics.

ipgd wrote...
Jacob actually takes his entire body off when he model swaps from his standard model to his shirtless model.

LOLOLOLOL! Oh man, someone forgot to make the old model INVISIBILE when it reached the path of the next one! I'm amazed that made it into the final game. Heck I suck at Maya and even I could fix that.

Modifié par DreamerM, 04 juillet 2011 - 02:09 .

[ademska]

lol that's... not how it was presented in the game, you can't see the body model.

in the game proper, you just get a creepy shot of his pecs to match the creepy timbre of the rest of it

Modifié par ademska, 04 juillet 2011 - 02:12 .

[ipgd]

The point got itself across just fine. The cutscene indicated to us that at least seven people were killed in the explosion. I really don't see how dedicating resources to graphically depicting each of them being blown apart would be wise or even particularly contribute anything other than making the scene unnecessarily gratuitous. It's possible, but accomplishes nothing that standard animation and cinematic staging doesn't far more efficiently.

And, yeah, that's with flycam. The camera is carefully staged so it doesn't actually look like that is happening.

Modifié par ipgd, 04 juillet 2011 - 02:15 .

[DreamerM]

ademska wrote...
hell, he gets super heated to meredith's face during that one quest in act 3 and doesn't go at all glowy.

Which is presicely why I never take him with me to see Meredith. THAT makes no sense to me. He thinks she is evil and crazy and if anyone could (should!) bring Vengence roaring in to smite some fools, it's her. I couldn't justify that not happening to myself, so I just ignored it. Because ignoring things makes them not exist.

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...
Which is presicely why I never take him with me to see Meredith. THAT makes no sense to me. He thinks she is evil and crazy and if anyone could (should!) bring Vengence roaring in to smite some fools, it's her. I couldn't justify that not happening to myself, so I just ignored it. Because ignoring things makes them not exist.

ha

or, and i am struggling to phrase this not condescendingly because i like you, you could reevaluate your position on anders to include him not flying off the handle all the time, because he doesn't.  he's crazy, but he's not completely insane and unstable. the karl thing is a BIG BIG thing, when he gets all glowy the one time, it's following a special circumstance, he's clearly still emotionally distressed about it, janders-ness aside.

[DreamerM]

ipgd wrote...
 dedicating resources to graphically depicting each of them being blown apart would be wise or even particularly contribute anything other than making the scene unnecessarily gratuitous. It's possible, but accomplishes nothing that standard animation and cinematic staging doesn't far more efficiently.

I will say this for the scene, it's problem definitely wasn't it's "efficiency." It got the point accross. What was missing was the pathos and the heart. This should have been heartwrenching, horrifying, will-breakingly awful to see. And the best way to accomplish this is definitely not to have "people yelling, one guy raises stick, church blows up, people yell some more" be the centerpeice of the most important scene in the entire game. There had to be a more dynamic way for this to happen. Or at least, a less-soulless and "efficent" way.

Modifié par DreamerM, 04 juillet 2011 - 02:54 .

[DreamerM]

ademska wrote...
or, and i am struggling to phrase this not condescendingly because i like you, you could reevaluate your position on anders to include him not flying off the handle all the time, because he doesn't.  he's crazy, but he's not completely insane and unstable.

I don't think he's insane and unstable...well he is, but not so much as to be completely barking crazy-go-nuts. But he does talk about times when he "looses control" and I think we should have seen them. Worked out some of the rules of exactly when he'll freak out and why. And what happens when he does. None of those were answered clearly.

ademska wrote...
the karl thing is a BIG BIG thing, when he gets all glowy the one time, it's following a special circumstance, he's clearly still emotionally distressed about it, janders-ness aside.

How do you put Janders asside? Oh Right. Because "Janders" doesn't really matter in the grand sceme of things.

I would have really liked Anders's possession to matter. As an actual plot point, not a source of angst or a reason why a guy would become a politically driven suicidal murdering terrorist (humans do that enough without the help). They made their own story cheaper by taking that route.

So says me. And yes, I'm sure I'll max Rivalry any minute now, so I should probably stop.

[ipgd]

Graphic gore really wouldn't have helped with that.

I really don't see what's wrong with the scene. The grandeur of it all isn't the point.

[DreamerM]

ipgd wrote...

Graphic gore really wouldn't have helped with that.

Gore isn't the only way to make a scene spectacular.

ipgd wrote...
I really don't see what's wrong with the scene.

Then, and I don't want this to come out as condescending because I like you, but you are not using your imagination.

ipgd wrote...
The grandeur of it all isn't the point.

It should have been. It really, really should have been. This is the moment when it all falls appart. This is the moment when it all comes together. This is where every single choice you've made in this game comes into play. This changes the Dragon Age forever.

And it's people yelling at each-other in a courtyard.

In real-life the important stuff happens in ways this underwhelming. In my dark fantasy I hope for something more .... more.

[ipgd]

I have plenty of imagination. I could imagine any scene in anything much more flashy and extravagant than it already is. What I can't imagine is a necessity to overdramatize everything.

It works perfectly for what it is. It is people yelling at each other in a courtyard. It's about the acts of a few individuals leading to massive consequences; there are no giant armies or supernatural forces clashing in a magnificent final confrontation. It's a single man cutting the Gordian knot. It's not supposed to be more than that -- in fact, that's part of the point.

But, again, I think the Michael Bay approach to everything is just a little bit silly.

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...
I don't think he's insane and unstable...well he is, but not so much as to be completely barking crazy-go-nuts. But he does talk about times when he "looses control" and I think we should have seen them. Worked out some of the rules of exactly when he'll freak out and why. And what happens when he does. None of those were answered clearly.

they did.

actively threatened by crazy templars or templars intent on turning him or other mages tranquil = good likelihood of going glowing.
getting bent because he just murdered his ex = good likelihood of going glowing
his friend/lover campaigning him to resist assimilation and not accomplish goals = good likelihood of glowing
general discourse = not so much with the glowing and the raging

seriously, anders is a character with gray areas, yes, but he is still defined to a point. willing away a whole scene with meredith that carves out part of his characterization is not the solution; adapting that knowledge into your interpretation of him is.

How do you put Janders asside? Oh Right. Because "Janders" doesn't really matter in the grand sceme of things.

I would have really liked Anders's possession to matter. As an actual plot point, not a source of angst or a reason why a guy would become a politically driven suicidal murdering terrorist (humans do that enough without the help). They made their own story cheaper by taking that route.

So says me. And yes, I'm sure I'll max Rivalry any minute now, so I should probably stop.

janders matters as a catalyst to changing anders into the man he becomes. when i said "putting his janders-ness aside", i meant comparing his acute distress about karl's fate to his general distress that comes from having a spirit who doesn't let him turn a blind eye to anything.

we've been down this path before, and i think the reason a lot of people (including yourself) have difficulty reconciling justice as a character in the story is in part because of the time skips and in part because people tend to view anders in da2 as a static character. anders in da2 has a rather obvious descent into tragedy that people tend to forget when they're not immediately playing the game, and his relationship with justice is the reason for that decline. to say he was only a plot point is incorrect.

i know you've reached that interpretation because you feel there wasn't enough of justice, either as a character or as a force, but the entire point is that we see justice through anders. we know what anders was, and we see what anders is now. i have friends around me talking, so this is probably less salient and coherent than it could be, but daa anders and justice are frames of reference with which to view janders and interpret his actions and motivations as a character.

and don't worry about rivalry with me, bb, arguing on the internet is like my lifeblood, it sustains me.

[beckaliz]

It's not just yelling and stuff. We all call it Chantry Jenga for a reason. The Chantry bursts apart from the inside in huge chunks, which then go swirling hiiiigh up into the sky in a giant fiery pillar of RED DOOM, crunching into smaller and smaller pieces and then bursting outward in an expulsion of smoke, debris, and fires all over Hightown. It's a large-scale event, and showing it at the scale that they did is a better representation of this than the minutiae of the Chantry's occupants disintegrating in the blast. Plus, I mean. Firey red doom. D: You can't help but gape at it, if you didn't know it was coming. My first PT was completely virginal and I was quite shocked and appalled.

It also helps, though, playing it on an xbox, with the controller's rumble pack going BRRMRBRMMRBRMRMM in your hands.

[DreamerM]

ipgd wrote...

I have plenty of imagination. I could imagine any scene in anything much more flashy and extravagant than it already is. What I can't imagine is a necessity to overdramatize everything.

Lets examine the words "overdramatize" and "everything." These words imply that there have been "things" already "dramatized" and that there is no need to overdo it. These I would agree with.

But if you can name me one really "dramatized" moment that took place on camera and was, in the long run, important to the grandness and high stakes of the final confrontation at the very end of the story....

ipgd wrote...
But, again, I think the Michael Bay approach to everything is just a little bit silly.

Again, more then one thing needs to get the "micheal bay approach" for "everything" to get the Micheal Bay Approach. And the Micheal Bay Approach can work sometimes, like when things are blowing up and the world is plunging into war.

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...
Again, more then one thing needs to get the "micheal bay approach" for "everything" to get the Micheal Bay Approach. And the Micheal Bay Approach can work sometimes, like when things are blowing up and the world is plunging into war.

THIS IS PRETTY MICHAEL BAY, JS JS

you see the look of horror on elthina's face, you see solid stone torn asunder, you see a giant dust cloud envelop hightown, you see flaming debris crashing around the party. what you're asking for isn't michael bay, it's rotten.com

i mean, you say use our imaginations... isn't that what you're doing right  now? isn't it what's required of us to understand the emotional impact of the jenga? why do need it spelled out in excessive detail when it's already very well done?

[Arquen]

My literal mind wants to say that elthina and everyone else is completely blown to dust. So you do see their bodies.. its the little gray debris everywhere. That's what bone fragments from an aftermath of an explosion of that magnitude looks like. So, yeah I have to throw my lot in with the "it is dramatic and epic enough" without change.

2 cents

[DreamerM]

ademska wrote...
what you're asking for isn't michael bay, it's rotten.com

You're the one who's caught up with the gore. If they can find a way to get the COST of what's about to happen without the gore, then more more power to them, but the approach they took didn't work. The pathos wasn't there. The heartbreak wasn't there.

It wasn't there.

ademska wrote...
why do you need things spelled out in detail when it's already very well done?

Amoung the details missing was the emotional cost of the action. And the subsequent
humanity Anders sacrificed (literally) to be able to commit it. If they were going to play the "POSSESSED terrorist" card, then they should have, at the very least, made his sacrifice meaningful.

That is completely a manner of your own opinion. I respectfully withdraw from this fight, as I will never agree. I think this should have been grand. Instead it was people yelling. I will continue to not consider that "well done" and we will agree to disagree.

Modifié par DreamerM, 04 juillet 2011 - 07:14 .

[Arquen]

Wait.. sebastian's "elthina, noooooooo" dropping to his knees and sobbing out a prayer wasn't enough? I thought that was pretty good to show emotional consequence. His rage afterwards as well. I saw it as pretty impactful.. was thinking "well, that's pretty much how the whole world is going to react. Maker noo! Then get pissed and revolt or choose a side. Crap."

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...
You're the one who's caught up with the gore. If they can find a way to get the COST of what's about to happen without the gore, then more more power to them, but the approach they took didn't work. The pathos wasn't there. The heartbreak wasn't there.

It wasn't there.

lmao no i'm just remembering from a while ago the picture you had in your head that involved liquefaction, that's why i'm stuck on the gore.

but really all of this goes back to the heart of the matter, which is that you think the loss of life should have been more touched-upon, but really that wasn't the point of the scene. it was the destruction of the building from a symbolic standpoint, and elthina's death.

to be honest, it's my opinion that the death toll isn't particularly high. the chantry is closed at night to the public, and it was night when the explosion happened. we see like three people in the main hall, and given that within the chantry itself we see four walls of windows, there probably aren't a lot of areas that are inaccessible to the player and thus full of people. now this is most certainly up for debate, but the point is that anders killing people isn't the most important aspect of that scene at all.

aw, i like these discussions! i find myself very amenable to incorporating good points people from other perspectives make into my own interpretation of the game, so only bow out if you feel tired or too frustrated to go on - because i'm deffo not getting mad at you or anything!

Modifié par ademska, 04 juillet 2011 - 07:25 .

[DreamerM]

Arquen wrote...

Wait.. sebastian's "elthina, noooooooo" dropping to his knees and sobbing out a prayer wasn't enough? I thought that was pretty good to show emotional consequence. His rage afterwards as well. I saw it as pretty impactful.. was thinking "well, that's pretty much how the whole world is going to react. Maker noo! Then get pissed and revolt or choose a side. Crap."

I am never planning to pay the seven dollars to recruit Sabastian. If Bioware was really relying in HIS reaction to sell the tragedy of what has really happened, then they errored in judgement.

[ademska]

DreamerM wrote...
I am never planning to pay the seven dollars to recruit Sabastian. If Bioware was really relying in HIS reaction to sell the tragedy of what has really happened, then they errored in judgement.

can't blame you there. i like him as a piece of writing, but he's a little **** and not exactly worth the dollars they're asking, but that's a whole grinds-my-gears argument. the only reason i bought him for my second playthrough is because i just really love da2 and wanted more content.