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[Josef bugman3]

It seems like we are all doing very long essays of what we liked and disliked.

I think what I disliked can be summed up in one sentence: "I had an infinite amount of choices, and all of them end in death".

Not a single time when you tried to do something good or kind did it work out, I can understand that YES on occasion that is a damn good way to make a story have weight, take for instance the death of leandra, THAT was a good quest because it grabbed at the heartstrings and made you feel really invested in the character. The problem is that when
seemingly every choice you make ends in bloodshed and death no matter what you choose? It kind of looses any form of shock or gravity, it simply becomes a feeling of "the game is screwing me over".

Let me be blunt, I like playing as a hero, I like being an occasional knight in sour armour, I like helping people and trying to ensure the good of all. But here? Nothing you do works, I didn't feel like a champion, I felt like an idiot.

Anyway I know this isn't too long, but I just wanted to ask if there will be more third options in the upcoming games? I mean I really LIKE taking a third option that helps everyone, its hard work and heck I wouldn't mind even changing my hawke to being half as powerful and taking on Meredith with a rusty spoony if it meant I could stop Anders from his little stint in the IRA.

I just felt pathetic doing this, and will be a bit more careful with this franchise in the future, I'll wait to see if there is any good ending possible for Thedas. If not, then I still have Old Republic and Mass Effect, but I just find this turn of events a bit saddening.

Modifié par Josef bugman3, 12 mars 2011 - 10:06 .

[Vukodlak]

Really I was faced with a lot of choices where I manged to end things peacefully, so your statement and thesis appear to be based on your bad choices. There are certainly a few points where your powerless to do anything but that helps drive the story through tragedy.

[staindgrey]

But there are many things that are out of your control, apparently, such as Anders blowing up the Chantry. I thought that was all my fault for trusting him, but apparently, if I refuse to help, he just goes and does it anyway. That kind of ruins my sense of choice. As does the ending with my choice of mages or templars. Either way, Meredith's gotta die, and to my knowledge, so does Orsino. I can't calm down the Qunari, I can't calm down the mages, I can't calm down the templars... I can't do much of anything.

Why am I the Champion again? I suck at this lol.

[Josef bugman3]

If its a tragedy then at least give me some lines decrying that fact. (also edited first post to ensure that it makes a bit more sense and scans better)

I just felt so impotent in this game. I know that may well have been the point but... I just wanted to help people and do right by kirkwall. Instead... instead all I get is desolation and there is nothing I can do about it. It's the fact that whatever choice you make it is wrong that gets to me.

[RosaAquafire]

Josef bugman3 wrote...
It's the fact that whatever choice you make it is wrong that gets to me.

And that's why this is the best written game I've ever seen, in my opinion. It's real, it's brutal, and it makes you think really hard. I'd rather be enriched than entertained.

Different strokes.

[staindgrey]

I like the idea of not everything playing out the way you pick. I really do. But the inevitable nature of some of these changes that.

For instance, Hawke's mom. Had I been told about the white lilies before and had to piece that together, but failed to do so, I'd feel so much more guilty for her death. Instead, she was already doomed by the time I got that quest. Same goes for Anders blowing up the Chantry, and the qunari's fate, and the entire mage rebellion starting no matter which side I support.

I understand that there needs to be a main narrative. But despite my role as Champion, I really, truly felt powerless for most of the game. That powerlessness is effective in spurts, but it occurred so damn much that by the end I was wondering if there was even a right choice to make. After seeing that everyone else reached the same things I did, I found out, not really.

Like every other minor complaint I have, I blame EA's deadline.

[Josef bugman3]

Sorry but... sometimes in the real world things dp work out, to say that people aren't being real if everything doesn't screw up fantastically is just as bad as "every decision you make comes up roses". It was more the feeling that EVERYTHING was so bad that nothing you did mattered, and its why I am probably going to wait a couple of months before I finish DA2, and even then possibly wait a while longer to see if the expansion helps.

I know that in the real world and in Theadas things don't work out for the best, that I can deal with, its just that everything in this game seems to be actively conspiring to make your every action either meaningless or horribly misinterpreted.

And I too would rather be enriched, but for the most part? This isn't enriching, if nothing works out, then why bother? Being a hero at personal cost I can understand, even get behind. But here? You are being a hero to everyone elses cost, and to no-ones benefit.

I mean did Kreia right the plotline? It is just so, not unfair thats the wrong term, Over the top in its darkness. I want to work towards making the world better, in real life and in my games, and here? Here you don't get to do that in any way.

[Eumerin]

I don't have a problem with that element of the story, per se, although I think that it could have been handled a bit better.  IMO, the player focus should be on trying to make the best of an all around bad situation and being true to yourself.  It's pretty clear that everything's going to collapse no matter what you do.  So the focus is instead forced to shift to what you can change - i.e. the actions and outlook of the protagonist and your companions.

I think that the writers could have done a better job emphasizing that, however.

[Josef bugman3]

I just want to try and be a good person. Its hard to do when there is no choice but the vengence possessed terrorist or the armour clad Knight Templar.

[Josef bugman3]

No, but it would be nice if an option existed to try. To make Kirkwall a little better. Instead, nothing you do helps, and everything you do hurts people.

*shrug* I guess I like third options. And, in this case, the dearth of them and the fact that doing nothing probably helps just as much has stopped me from finishing, and will stop me from playing any future installments until I know I can make things slightly better.

Its like if in ME2 your shepard would ALWAYS lost a good third of their crew, even if you upgraded. Or if the nutrient tanks killed anyone anyway, no matter how soon you headed through the relay. It just felt so stifling to know that I would never be able to do any good without it collapsing in and killing people.

[MrStorm2K]

Josef bugman3 wrote...
I just felt so impotent in this game. I know that may well have been the point but... I just wanted to help people and do right by kirkwall. Instead... instead all I get is desolation and there is nothing I can do about it. It's the fact that whatever choice you make it is wrong that gets to me.

And that, my friend, is the beauty of Dragon Age 2. It hammers home the idea that no matter what you did, no matter what lesser evil you sided with, Kirkwall was destined to burn and you were powerless to stop it. Even in victory, when both Orsino and Meridith are dead, countless mages and/or templars are dead. The world is descending into chaos, and you became the figurehead of this. The "Champion."

This is an exceedingly dark game. And that's why it's so powerful, in my opinion.

[Eumerin]

You (may have) had the opportunity to rescue Nathanial Howe.  You had the opportunity to keep the old, corrupt leader of the guard from causing trouble in the city.

While the main quest line confronts you with numerous choices in which you're frequently forced to choose the lesser of two evils, you still have many opportunities to make life a little better for other people through the other types of quests.

[Josef bugman3]

To me it is powerless. There is no choice that means anything, so why bother making any choice at all? Both are equally bad, so I have chosen to simply say "enough" and leave. When the choices are equally bad the only other option is to find a new one, and since one is not allowed that it makes the choices pointless.

If Kirkwall is destined to burn and hundreds to die, why not simply not play the game at all? Unless expansions allow for something better, or at least something that will help all, then why bother playing?

And yet you don't. Trying to help almost as regularly as clockwork results in some manner of failure. I don't mind having things turn out badly in little things, or even on occasion in big things (as I keep saying) what I have a problem with is the fact that for all the talk of choice and consequences, there is no choice that can actually help anyone.

Modifié par Josef bugman3, 12 mars 2011 - 11:18 .

[LittleDoggie]

Josef bugman3 wrote...

It seems like we are all doing very long essays of what we liked and disliked.

I think what I disliked can be summed up in one sentence: "I had an infinite amount of choices, and all of them end in death".

Not a single time when you tried to do something good or kind did it work out, I can understand that YES on occasion that is a damn good way to make a story have weight, take for instance the death of leandra, THAT was a good quest because it grabbed at the heartstrings and made you feel really invested in the character. The problem is that when
seemingly every choice you make ends in bloodshed and death no matter what you choose? It kind of looses any form of shock or gravity, it simply becomes a feeling of "the game is screwing me over".

Let me be blunt, I like playing as a hero, I like being an occasional knight in sour armour, I like helping people and trying to ensure the good of all. But here? Nothing you do works, I didn't feel like a champion, I felt like an idiot.

Anyway I know this isn't too long, but I just wanted to ask if there will be more third options in the upcoming games? I mean I really LIKE taking a third option that helps everyone, its hard work and heck I wouldn't mind even changing my hawke to being half as powerful and taking on Meredith with a rusty spoony if it meant I could stop Anders from his little stint in the IRA.

I just felt pathetic doing this, and will be a bit more careful with this franchise in the future, I'll wait to see if there is any good ending possible for Thedas. If not, then I still have Old Republic and Mass Effect, but I just find this turn of events a bit saddening.

/Signed

I was really looking fwd to this game and a second play through as a rogue. But alas ... I made it to the third act and after what happend with the keeper and the dailish it was just too depressing to continue.

[RosaAquafire]

Josef bugman3 wrote...
Its like if in ME2 your shepard would ALWAYS lost a good third of their crew, even if you upgraded. Or if the nutrient tanks killed anyone anyway, no matter how soon you headed through the relay. It just felt so stifling to know that I would never be able to do any good without it collapsing in and killing people.

I would have liked ME better if it did this sort of thing. Making your crew die if you don't play it in just such a way means that it's a win/lose scenario, and who is going to pick the lose scenario?

Like in DA:O, Redcliffe. You can choose between sacrificing a mother to save her son -- who might be possessed and twisted for good. Or you can kill the son and let the mother live. ... or you can save everybody and live happily ever after.

That's REALLY not a choice. There's no teeth to that. Do you have to sit there and really debate what the right thing to do is? No, it's obvious! The right thing to do is save everyone with zero negative repurcussions. That's not a choice at all. That's just as meaningless. Either you save everyone and you're a hero, or you save nobody and you're a douche. It's a binary choice, hero or douche.

In DA2, you don't choose between hero and douche. You choose between two different flavours of well intentioned person who got caught in a bad situation with no right answer. That makes the choice mean more. If the choice was "kill all mages," "kill all templars," or "save everybody," what choice do you think people are going to make? For those of us who want to really have to sit down and think, really, really not know what the right thing is, it sucks all the enrichment out of the experience knowing that we're douchily not saving everyone.

Adding a third choice makes it the only choice. It reduces things to binary good and evil, or at least good and unpleasant. I like the choice being about how your character tries to make the best of a ****ty situation and finds herself trapped in an impossible question that she can't find her way out of.

It's one of the first games that's ever really let me do this, and I'm glad they didn't take that away from me. Giving you the third choice you want removes all the gravity from the choice I'm still processing having to make.

[MrStorm2K]

Josef bugman3 wrote...

To me it is powerless. There is no choice that means anything, so why bother making any choice at all? Both are equally bad, so I have chosen to simply say "enough" and leave. When the choices are equally bad the only other option is to find a new one, and since one is not allowed that it makes the choices pointless.

If Kirkwall is destined to burn and hundreds to die, why not simply not play the game at all? Unless expansions allow for something better, or at least something that will help all, then why bother playing?

Just because your choices don't dramatically impact the events of Kirkwall's collapse doesn't mean they're pointless. They do have smaller effects, mainly concerning your companions. They also define Hawke's journey (not the destination) and character through this collapse of a city-state. Every choice I made in DA: O led to the Archdemon being killed and the Blight ending. Does that mean the choices you gave up to that point were meaningless? No.

Sometimes, all a person can do is stand for or against something even if they get steamrolled by it. That is far more emotionally impacting (for me) than something brighter and cheerier. And arguably far more true to life. 

...what I have a problem with is the fact that for all the talk of choice and consequences, there is no choice that can actually help anyone.

That's not true. You can help all your companions, Feynriel, and a bunch of other people whose names I have forgotten since I'm horrible with names. No, you can't help people by preserving the festering husk that was Kirkwall. But that's not the only way you can "help."

[Shadowrun1177]

I agree with you Josef, I personally felt like nothing I did mattered on either of my play through's starting at the end of Act 1 where you lose what may a be key party member to death or being sent away. The rest of the game just feels like it's all about dragging Hawke down and breaking him/her cause almost everything goes wrong. The death of Hawke's mother toward the end of Act 2, the kidnapping of your sibling or someone else important too you in Act 3 by someone who you might of showed mercy too. In the end when the Last Straw quest came up, on my mage play through I felt like who cares let carver and the templars kill them I'll wait at home if they try to come for me later then I'll deal with it. On my rogue I cared even less cause Bethany was a Warden and I only would of sided with the mages if she had been taken by the Circle to protect her. If I had let both die in the deep roads I wouldn't of care at all at that point in the game cause I felt nothing mattered I would of just picked up and left Kirkwall if I had the choice.

[Josef bugman3]

All this game has is two different definitons of failure. You say that adding a third would make it an arbitrary "good or bad", I would disagree because all we have now are "bad and bad", and if the two choices are effectivly the same, why are you choosing?

I think that adding in options that could have turned out well, or at least options that could turn out better, would add something to the game. I want to play the game of thrones, and to try my best to be reasonably good. As I keep saying I don't mind if some things turn out crappy, but when everything is crap? I have no choice to make, merely a game to switch off.

That is what gets me down, that this becomes a game so quickly. I like to feel immersed in worlds, and to get to know a bit about what I am doing before being a good guy. But here? Here I feel like I am simply playing a computer game which is telling a story about one person in particular, and no matter how much you try and be a better version of that person, the game will not let that stand.

Editing: Adding responses to above posts

I wouldn't mind then if you simply stayed as a mercenary commander, or as a minor nobleman, or anything in Kirkwall and the only real objectives are to aid your companions and stand as best they can. But its not, you are the champion and you are told that you should be there to see things change and happen. And you do precisly NOTHING that has any meaning, people die and fail no matter what you do to help.

Do you actually want something true to life? Because for the most part I am getting really goddamn sick or "realism" and "grit" in my games. I like being someone who genuinely wants to do good and (although things go wrong) you can still try and make things a little better.

Here although you have stated people I have helped I did not feel that. I didn't feel like I had helped anyone, I didn't feel like I had an impact on Kirkwall, or on anyone. I felt like a flippin' ghost at my own funeral.

Modifié par Josef bugman3, 12 mars 2011 - 11:39 .

[M8DMAN]

The choices in ME and DA:O actually had impact to them. Here it just feels like you're on a pre destined path.

Anyway you cut it the world still turns out to be screwed.

Modifié par M8DMAN, 12 mars 2011 - 11:38 .

[MrStorm2K]

M8DMAN wrote...

The choices in ME and DA:O actually had impact to them. Here it just feels like you're on a pre destined path.

Anyway you cut it the world still turns out to be screwed.

In Mass Effect, you beat Sovereign/The Collectors no matter what your choices are.

In Dragon Age, you beat the Archdemon no matter the choices.

The only difference is DA2's ending is dark, while the aforementioned games are not.

[Eumerin]

M8DMAN wrote...
Anyway you cut it the world still turns out to be screwed.

Hardly.  The Circle is effectively destroyed, but the rest of the city will survive.

Ask yourself this - what would have happened if you hadn't killed Meredith?  What struck me during her ranting right before the final fight with her was that she was so paranoid that if she weren't put down then every last person living in the city would be declared a "mage supporter" in a very short period of time.  She made a comment about doing what was necessary to protect the city, and it came to me that what she'd eventually end up doing would be "protecting" a city filled nothing but the ghosts of her victims.

It may not feel like it given the way that the ending plays out, and Kirkwall no doubt still has a hard time ahead of it given that the most important authority figures are all dead at the end of the game.  But you saved the lives of the citizens of Kirkwall by dealing with Meredith.

[lostspline]

LittleDoggie wrote...
I was really looking fwd to this game and a second play through as a rogue. But alas ... I made it to the third act and after what happend with the keeper and the dailish it was just too depressing to continue.

Nothing bad happened to the Dalish in my game.  I'm guessing it's because I turned Merrill down repeatedly (and so in perfect rivalry with her).

[Josef bugman3]

That is partially the point. Whilst I like darkness in the middle part of the stories, and in the way that I can be occasionally powerless, having no power over the outcome? No, in fact Hell No.

And even in those games there are degrees of success, as we see in their follow ups. I might not want an unambigiously "happy ending" (with Hawke res'ing his mother and turning the entirety of the Free Marches into the worlds first democratic system of city states), I would prefer to end up with something that shows us looking forward to somewhere brighter. Not this.

In Mass Effect you have helped or renegaded your way through the universe and have made it slightly better, or slightly worse, and with the defeat of a great evil you can look forward to trying to make it better still.

In DA:O you can have murdered your way across Fereldan, stabbing unarmed monks with the murder knife, but you can also have tried to make the final boss pay, and done so.

I do not mind if I am a plaything of fate for the most part, but I want (at the end of the day) to look back and go "I did the best I could". Here... I didn't get that at all.

[MrStorm2K]

Josef bugman3 wrote...

I wouldn't mind then if you simply stayed as a mercenary commander, or as a minor nobleman, or anything in Kirkwall and the only real objectives are to aid your companions and stand as best they can. But its not, you are the champion and you are told that you should be there to see things change and happen.

That's the point though! Hawke is just a regular person in ridiculous circumstances. Think about hi's life throughout the game. He shows up as a refugee. Then he manages to scrounge up some money. Then, by sheer happenstance and by having the right friends, he gets involved with the Qunari and ends up saving the city from them, then being dubbed "Champion." Then, because he has this silly title, he gets dragged in to a war with no correct side.

Hawke's story is about a guy (or gal) who starts off as nothing and really does nothing extraordinary besides being a good warrior/rogue/mage. Then, through a variety of ridiculous circumstances, becomes a historic and important figure in the fall of Kirkwall. It's a remarkable tale because of that.

Do you actually want something true to life? Because for the most part I am getting really goddamn sick or "realism" and "grit" in my games. I like being someone who genuinely wants to do good and (although things go wrong) you can still try and make things a little better.

And here's your main problem I think. Realism and grit are preferences. Dark stories are not for everyone. A story not about a knight in shining armor saving the world can be interesting, I think. But if you hate those types of things, yeah, DA2 is not for you.