23 réponses à ce sujet

[elikal71]

NOTE FOR THE MODERATOR: I try to repost this now, since I can't see my post. I tried to post this 3 times now, but it NEVER appeared.

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Oh my, I don't even know where to begin. Having playing DA2 thought moments ago - and having made notes about thoughts in the last days - I still have this feeling like "this is the last DA game I have bought." It's just designed in ways, I feel not like I made a good choice.

Overall, I never ever saw a single game in 25 years which was SO gloomy, dark and depressive, and that includes even stuff like Fallout, which after all is around World War III. The only thing that dampens my sadness over the course and ending of the game is the fact I never really identified with Hawke over the course of the game. Partially because I always kept thinking of myself as The Grey Warden still, and partially because of the odd storytelling. Let me make some examples:


1) My Family

When I was Grey Warden, I essentially started from scratch. So everyone I knew I knew from the game. Here, I had a mother, sister, brother and god knows who Hawke knew, but I did NOT. So when Carver died at the start, it was more like "meh, there goes my tank".  After a while my sister was brought to the mage circle, and until the end I never ever saw her again. Then mother. Good riddance, while I did not feel much for her, this way of killing her off was really tasteless. I felt was WAY too dark and bizarre, and it was one of those moments I thought "is THIS the sort of story I want to play as my spare-time fun? That my virtual mother is used as spare part of some zombie?" And my answer was: rather not. Over time, as the game got darker and darker, I started to EXPECT that all of my family would die horribly, so I stopped caring and it made me distance myself from Hawk, because essentially, I did not WANT to identify with a character with such a fate.



2) Time Jumps

The Time Jumps didn't help either. All the time I seemed to know people, which Hawk knew and with whom Hawk had experiences, but I the played did not.



3) The psycho companions

Good grief what an assortment of psychos. Outside of Varric and The Guard Captain (I didnt even memorize her name...) ALL of the companions seemed in various degrees of madness and severe mental illness. In reality, they all would be the LEAST people I would surround myself. A traitorous and lying Pirate, a mental and hate driven half-mad ex-Slave, that creepy she-elf-wizard, that self-absorbed Prince and of course Anders, prolly the most psycho of all the crew. What a farce. I don't even know where to begin!

Every time I met my old companions from DA:0, I felt like I wanted to wave and jump and yell "hey it's me, your old friend, get me outta here!" And compared to the DA:0 companions, the new companions clearly were B-List. NONE of them had the class, depth or closeness to me that any of my DA1 companions had. And their psychopathy... it was really driving me off. The only reason I treated them well and agreed with their sayings was, that I knew I needed them in my group. Anders was, after Bethany went to the Circle, my only mage able to heal. So I was essentially stuck with him. If I had had my say as I felt about them, almost ALL of them would be either dead or gone FAR before the end. They were a bunch of psychos and outside the Dwarf and the Guard Captain I disliked them all.


4) Anders

Anders is really worth his own topic. Loving to play a gay romance, I had him and that hate driven Elf. The Elf creeped me out with his Anakain way. I did not want someone whose entire heart is absorbed with hate, and while I did not really like Anders much, I sympathized with his pain and played along the romance. And BOY, was that bad. You know the end. My lover, my HUSBAND is a terrorist who blow up the Church just to give a sign! I mean, wow, after the death of my brother and mother and after all the bad that happened, it was really it! The point where I decided, NO way in hell am I going to EVER EVER play romances in Bioware games again. NOT EVER. THIS is certainly NOT what I want to experience in my spare time fun, storytelling or not. It WAAAY overstepped limits of good taste, and I am sure it can seriously unsettle some people. Anders was such a fun char in the DA1 expansion, and I felt that was sort of ruined. Developing him into a terrorist, after he lived with me for 3+ years was just so.... unbelievable. Especially that Hawk would note nothing about it.


5) Every side is evil

In the end, or rather way ahead of it, I often felt like: If I really were Hawk, I'd just sell my stuff and go back to Ferelden. What is keeping him? It all went from bad to worse all the time. I tried to play as good and rational as I could. I did not blame all mages even to the very end, no matter how my rationality was tested. I still think, confining mages is wrong, even if some do bad things. But I felt that all my good doings led to nothing. I can accept that not all good plans work out in a game. But I felt like cheated, since essentially ALL things were for naught. All went downhill and into flames. Besides my two trusted Companions, by and large everyone was evil in various degrees. In such a situation, why stay? Why not leave with King Alistair and go back to Ferelden? I would have done so, in the time Alistair came, and just leave a no-win situation behind. Because at that point it was quite clear this was a no-win situation for Hawk. And did that Chief Mage REALLY had to use Bloodmagic in the end, when I decided to side with the Mages? Did you REALLY even have to destroy THAT small moral victory from the player? It was just mean and sad.


There would be many things to add, how the RPG element was severly cut and the game was way too much a railroaded action game with cutscenes and dialogues, but that has been said enough by others. It was, I really have to emphasize that, rarely had a more unpleasant and depressing game experience in all my life and I seriously do not want to experience such a story ever again.

Modifié par elikal71, 13 mars 2011 - 06:17 .

[MortalEngines]

All I'll say is this, everyone claimed that DAO didn't live up the 'dark fantasy' title it was given and said it was too black and white, and should be high fantasy.

Now people complain DA2 is too dark...

*sigh*

Life isn't always black and white, sometimes choices have no easy way out and you have to pick the lesser of two evils and what that lesser is, is your judgement. I would rather spend ages trying to decided on a choice, then picking the easy, "Everyone wins" way out.

Modifié par MortalEngines, 13 mars 2011 - 06:21 .

[LobselVith8]

Technically, Anders emancipated the enslaved Circle mages with his actions, who have been under the control of the Chantry for almost a millennia. I think the duality of his actions shows that DA2 is as morally grey as its predecessor. It's no different than the complexity of Loghain, who also freed Ferelden from the Orlesian occupation.

[Doc Faust]

The game is exceptionally dark and depressing. The characters are flaw-driven and filled with neurosis. There are few easy decisions. Horrible things happen often.

As a tragic story, its incredible. As a traditional heroic story, its... well, not one. If you don't like tragedy, you don't like the story. That's just fine.

I loved it, even if it did make me cry. Especially the credits song.

[The Baconer]

LobselVith8 wrote...

Technically, Anders emancipated the enslaved Circle mages with his actions, who have been under the control of the Chantry for almost a millennia. I think the duality of his actions shows that DA2 is as morally grey as its predecessor. It's no different than the complexity of Loghain, who also freed Ferelden from the Orlesian occupation.

Anders only succeeded in demonizing the mages further and killed the one level-headed person in the entire game. It's explicitly stated that the Templars in Kirkwall have become a rogue organization, and the Chantry has little to do with it. There's nothing morally grey about, and thanks to him your choices are pretty much black or black. Slaughtering all the mages for a crime they didn't commit isn't logical, but even siding with the mages isn't necessarily good either. After all, they seem quite capable of incriminating themselves with all the blood magic and demon summoning going on, and this is coming from a long-time mage supporter.

[Doc Faust]

The Baconer wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

Technically, Anders emancipated the enslaved Circle mages with his actions, who have been under the control of the Chantry for almost a millennia. I think the duality of his actions shows that DA2 is as morally grey as its predecessor. It's no different than the complexity of Loghain, who also freed Ferelden from the Orlesian occupation.

Anders only succeeded in demonizing the mages further and killed the one level-headed person in the entire game. It's explicitly stated that the Templars in Kirkwall have become a rogue organization, and the Chantry has little to do with it. There's nothing morally grey about, and thanks to him your choices are pretty much black or black. Slaughtering all the mages for a crime they didn't commit isn't logical, but even siding with the mages isn't necessarily good either. After all, they seem quite capable of incriminating themselves with all the blood magic and demon summoning going on, and this is coming from a long-time mage supporter.

Further demonizing mages was sort of the point of what he did. He wasn't striking a blow against the chantry-- he didn't really care about the chantry-- he was doing something the he knew would FORCE a war between mages and mundanes. He needed a target that he knew, if attacked by magic, would cause almost every person who wasn't a mage to react with agression and hostility towards mages. He essentially wanted to encourage the invocation of the Rite of Annulment on every Circle in Thedas, because he knew that if EVERY mage in the world were threatened with extinction, they would not accept it and there would be war.

This does not make him right, but it does inform his motivations for doing what he did, and helps dispell the idea that he was simply stupid. He'd thought about what he was doing, and knew what was going to happen because of it.

So yes, all he accomplished was to further demonize mages and spark world war-- and as such, he accomplished exactally what he set out to.

[elikal71]

You know, in hindsight, the culprit is Isabela.

Think about it. If she had not kept the Relic, the Arishok would not have killed the Viscomte. And then the situation with Templars and Mages wouldn't have gotten out of hand. So in a way, it was Isabelas egoism that starter a World War in Thedas. I hope it gives her some sleepless nights.

[Doc Faust]

elikal71 wrote...

You know, in hindsight, the culprit is Isabela.

Think about it. If she had not kept the Relic, the Arishok would not have killed the Viscomte. And then the situation with Templars and Mages wouldn't have gotten out of hand. So in a way, it was Isabelas egoism that starter a World War in Thedas. I hope it gives her some sleepless nights.

The blame for the war can be laid at a number of people's feet, as Varic indicates in the closing cutscene. Maybe its Anders fault, maybe its the Qunari's, maybe its Isabella's, Maybe its Meredith's, maybe it's Orsino's, maybe its whoever made the Lyrium Idol's. The fact that there's no one "ur-villain" and just a bunch of actors tipping things one way or another is a part of the point: no one was in control, what happened just happened.

Of course, I suspect Flemeth had more than a little to do with it. Because she's Flemeth, and any major event that isn't directly tied to her plotting clearly just didn't actually happen.

[The Baconer]

Doc Faust wrote...

Further demonizing mages was sort of the point of what he did. He wasn't striking a blow against the chantry-- he didn't really care about the chantry-- he was doing something the he knew would FORCE a war between mages and mundanes. He needed a target that he knew, if attacked by magic, would cause almost every person who wasn't a mage to react with agression and hostility towards mages. He essentially wanted to encourage the invocation of the Rite of Annulment on every Circle in Thedas, because he knew that if EVERY mage in the world were threatened with extinction, they would not accept it and there would be war.

This does not make him right, but it does inform his motivations for doing what he did, and helps dispell the idea that he was simply stupid. He'd thought about what he was doing, and knew what was going to happen because of it.

So yes, all he accomplished was to further demonize mages and spark world war-- and as such, he accomplished exactally what he set out to.

I know that, I'm just saying he didn't emancipate them as much as he forced their hand. For all the time he spends talking about saving the mages his selfishness is guaranteed to get even more mages killed, and it's hilariously ironic that he might have more mage blood on his hands now than Meredith could ever hope to achieve.

[LobselVith8]

They're enslaved, and he wanted to free them. How does that make him selfish? If not for Anders, mages wouldn't have broken free from the Chantry. He was willing to die to see his people free from slavery.

[The Baconer]

LobselVith8 wrote...

They're enslaved, and he wanted to free them. How does that make him selfish? If not for Anders, mages wouldn't have broken free from the Chantry. He was willing to die to see his people free from slavery.

He's forced them all into a fight many of them never asked for, and even those that wanted to achieve freedom in a logical and ethical way (my hawke and warden among them) are forced to go all out. Adding to this is the fact that he fully expected to be martyred for what he did, effectively getting the easy way out and leaving the struggle to all the other mages.

[Doc Faust]

The Baconer wrote...

Doc Faust wrote...

Further demonizing mages was sort of the point of what he did. He wasn't striking a blow against the chantry-- he didn't really care about the chantry-- he was doing something the he knew would FORCE a war between mages and mundanes. He needed a target that he knew, if attacked by magic, would cause almost every person who wasn't a mage to react with agression and hostility towards mages. He essentially wanted to encourage the invocation of the Rite of Annulment on every Circle in Thedas, because he knew that if EVERY mage in the world were threatened with extinction, they would not accept it and there would be war.

This does not make him right, but it does inform his motivations for doing what he did, and helps dispell the idea that he was simply stupid. He'd thought about what he was doing, and knew what was going to happen because of it.

So yes, all he accomplished was to further demonize mages and spark world war-- and as such, he accomplished exactally what he set out to.

I know that, I'm just saying he didn't emancipate them as much as he forced their hand. For all the time he spends talking about saving the mages his selfishness is guaranteed to get even more mages killed, and it's hilariously ironic that he might have more mage blood on his hands now than Meredith could ever hope to achieve.

I don't think you can call him selfish, exactally. He knew that what he did was going to result in his death. He was not thinking of himself. Not at all.

[The Baconer]

Doc Faust wrote...

I don't think you can call him selfish, exactally. He knew that what he did was going to result in his death. He was not thinking of himself. Not at all.

Adding to this is the fact that he fully expected to be martyred for
what he did, effectively getting the easy way out and leaving the
struggle to all the other mages.

[Doc Faust]

The Baconer wrote...

Doc Faust wrote...

I don't think you can call him selfish, exactally. He knew that what he did was going to result in his death. He was not thinking of himself. Not at all.

Adding to this is the fact that he fully expected to be martyred for
what he did, effectively getting the easy way out and leaving the
struggle to all the other mages.

Hm. I don't know if martyrdom can be called selfish, but I see your thinking, at least.

[terjesolgard]

The decisions you made felt pointless. Every time you tried to fix something, you ended up making it worse. At the end of the game I really didnt know who to side with. Going with the templars ment killing all the innocent mages that had done nothing wrong. And siding with the mages would meen anarchy with crazy blood mages summoning demons all over the god damn place every time someone made them mad. The extreme was Inevitable no matter what I did.

But maybe bioware has something up their sleeve that will be an epic conclusion to the mess. But I hope this will be a expansion pack like Awakening, and not a 1 hour DLC. That would seriously be a damn shame...

[elikal71]

terjesolgard wrote...

The decisions you made felt pointless. Every time you tried to fix something, you ended up making it worse. At the end of the game I really didnt know who to side with. Going with the templars ment killing all the innocent mages that had done nothing wrong. And siding with the mages would meen anarchy with crazy blood mages summoning demons all over the god damn place every time someone made them mad. The extreme was Inevitable no matter what I did.

But maybe bioware has something up their sleeve that will be an epic conclusion to the mess. But I hope this will be a expansion pack like Awakening, and not a 1 hour DLC. That would seriously be a damn shame...

Yep, what I thought at the end. I could in good conscience support no side, and actually would have gone away long ago. Maybe try to find help somewhere else.

[Arppis]

I like how dark the story was. It kept me on the edge of the seat all the time. I also liked the fact that I wouldn't be sure that how many companions I would have in the end when everything was over...

I hope there will be a bigger expansion to tie the story up nicely. The ending was pretty strange and I just couldn't find much closure from it. I did like the Hawke's character, and the dark story just added more to it.

[Shadowrun1177]

@ OP I agree with you, for me it was between the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 3 both times I've played so far. On my mage Carver had joined the Templars and I felt, meh let Carver and templars kill all the mages, if they decide to come after me later then I'll deal with. On my rogue I cared less cause Bethany was a Warden, I probably would of gotten involved if she had been taken to the Circle, but it would just been to protect her I really didn't care what happened to Orsino or the other mages. I was like why is Hawke staying in this cursed town if I was him/her I would of left after the death of his/her mother there's nothing really left for Hawke.

Then I started thinking about what if I had taken Bethany/Carver into the deep roads and they died at the end of Act 1, then with Hawke's mother's death toward the end of Act 2. I know no one in their right mind would want to stay in place where so much tragedy had befallen them. I really felt disconnected from Hawke and was like "Some hero I sure as hell don't feel like the Champion of Kirkwall even though everyone wants to call me that."

Modifié par Shadowrun1177, 13 mars 2011 - 08:24 .

[BiowarEA]

Precisely. The game seems to try hard to face the player with C&C and emotional content and dramatic outcomes, but fails at making the player grow attached to people, because of a number of factors rather than because of a single massive flaw.

Even the death of mother later in the game is catered in such a forced (and again kinda gratuitous) way that at the time I just shrugged. That miniquest would have actually been a good subject for a longer quest chain and good emotional engagement but alas, is instead wasted: mother is missing>follow trail of blood>find zombie mother>put mother out of her misery. So many C&C!

Also, FFS, why does everyone have to die in this game? Is this how Bio conceives grimdark? Just kill everyone around the PC and for some reason have the game world blame him/her. Roger!

[Talon_Wu]

I enjoyed the game tremendously through the 2nd act. Then Leandra happened, and it got progressively grimmer. Note to BioWare writers: dark does not have to equal morbid.
When Isabela asked me to join her on her ship, my Hawke said yes. I almost wish "F it all, fix it yourselves, I'm leaving" had been a choice at the end.

[Arppis]

Shadowrun1177 wrote...

@ OP I agree with you, for me it was between the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 3 both times I've played so far. On my mage Carver had joined the Templars and I felt, meh let Carver and templars kill all the mages, if they decide to come after me later then I'll deal with. On my rogue I cared less cause Bethany was a Warden, I probably would of gotten involved if she had been taken to the Circle, but it would just been to protect her I really didn't care what happened to Orsino or the other mages. I was like why is Hawke staying in this cursed town if I was him/her I would of left after the death of his/her mother there's nothing really left for Hawke.

Then I started thinking about what if I had taken Bethany/Carver into the deep roads and they died at the end of Act 1, then with Hawke's mother's death toward the end of Act 2. I know no one in their right mind would want to stay in place where so much tragedy had befallen them. I really felt disconnected from Hawke and was like "Some hero I sure as hell don't feel like the Champion of Kirkwall even though everyone wants to call me that."

The story is indeed sad for Hawke. But he stays in the city because he has no other place to go. Lothering is long gone and poluted by darkspawn. In my playtrough all his family died, I actualy thought it was cool because it adds to the drama of the story. Funny part was, that I was playing the joker Hawke, who would joke all the time: He lost many friends and his whole family. He was even turned down by Aveline.

And still he went on with his stupid jokes. Guess it was somekind of a "protective wall" around him.
Life's a joke, laugh while you still can.

EDIT: And what was all this rise to power crap? He ran away from the city! I guess that comes with the templar ending. Gotta play that. (plx don't spoilz)

Modifié par Arppis, 13 mars 2011 - 08:46 .

[Shadowrun1177]

Arppis wrote...

Shadowrun1177 wrote...

@ OP I agree with you, for me it was between the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 3 both times I've played so far. On my mage Carver had joined the Templars and I felt, meh let Carver and templars kill all the mages, if they decide to come after me later then I'll deal with. On my rogue I cared less cause Bethany was a Warden, I probably would of gotten involved if she had been taken to the Circle, but it would just been to protect her I really didn't care what happened to Orsino or the other mages. I was like why is Hawke staying in this cursed town if I was him/her I would of left after the death of his/her mother there's nothing really left for Hawke.

Then I started thinking about what if I had taken Bethany/Carver into the deep roads and they died at the end of Act 1, then with Hawke's mother's death toward the end of Act 2. I know no one in their right mind would want to stay in place where so much tragedy had befallen them. I really felt disconnected from Hawke and was like "Some hero I sure as hell don't feel like the Champion of Kirkwall even though everyone wants to call me that."

The story is indeed sad for Hawke. But he stays in the city because he has no other place to go. Lothering is long gone and poluted by darkspawn. In my playtrough all his family died, I actualy thought it was cool because it adds to the drama of the story. Funny part was, that I was playing the joker Hawke, who would joke all the time: He lost many friends and his whole family. He was even turned down by Aveline.

And still he went on with his stupid jokes. Guess it was somekind of a "protective wall" around him.
Life's a joke, laugh while you still can.

EDIT: And what was all this rise to power crap? He ran away from the city! I guess that comes with the templar ending. Gotta play that. (plx don't spoilz)

Your wrong Hawke doesn't have to stay, cause Hawke doesn't stay after the Orsino/Meredith bs he disappears with his companion's Varric say's all this. All his companion's eventually go different ways execpt the love intrest which there rumor's and stories of them still being seen together. So like I said after all the tragedy why not just leave the cursed city sooner. I felt disconnected from the game Hawke didn't feel like a hero or champion to me just a guy/girl who's life was mostly horrible.

[ExiledMimic]

elikal71 wrote...

You know, in hindsight, the culprit is Isabela.

Think about it. If she had not kept the Relic, the Arishok would not have killed the Viscomte. And then the situation with Templars and Mages wouldn't have gotten out of hand. So in a way, it was Isabelas egoism that starter a World War in Thedas. I hope it gives her some sleepless nights.

The only thing that gives Isabella sleepless nights are sailors in the Hanged Man.  And we all know why.  Helloooooo wind tunnel.