309 réponses à ce sujet

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HallowedWarden wrote...

It all leads to the same thing anyway, so why even try to play differently?

I believe the answer is "roleplaying."

[RosaAquafire]

For this particular game, for this particular story, Hawke shouldn't have had the sort of freedom people are asking for. The whole story is about the tiny actions that shape the future, and how one simple person can become the most important moment of history because of forces beyond their control. Hawke is supposed to feel like a leaf on the wind, caught between forces she can't do anything about and standing in front of a speeding train that can't be stopped.

That doesn't mean that Dragon Age isn't about choices, and there are indeed major choices in DA2. What do you do with Anders? Which faction do you side with? Do you take Bethany/Carver to the Deep Roads, defying your mother? Who do you be friends with? Who stays with you in the end?

It just means that, IMO, the THEME of DA2 is that of destiny. Unchangeable, horrible fate. The game has thousands of choices, it is NOT a JRPG. But this is a Bioware game -- choices, consequences, that's a huge part of it, but the MOST important part is narrative. I'd rather a story that stays true to its thematic complexities than deviates to offer "choice," at the expense of that depth.

Interesting, RE: choices. When I played Origins, everyone I know all got the same ending. But for DA2, no person I know got exactly the same one. That says, to me, that DA2's choices are at least less OBVIOUS than DA:O's. Good enough for me.

[Cajeb]

Also, Orsino being secretly evil doesn't help more people choose templar. He reveals his evilness after we choose so it just slaps the mage side in the face and validates the templar side

[Punahedan]

I thought Leandra's death was pretty appropriate. I wish DA2 had a few more positive notes than it does, but I don't deny that all the sad things felt appropriate, more or less. It's a bad situation getting worse. That said, BW shouldn't abuse their ability to do this... it would eventually lose the awe factor. I still prefer to be a hero in as many ways as possible, though obviously not all ways.

Leandra had nothing more to contribute. Ben Kenobi had to die, too. Hawke's story goes over 10 years. Things are bound to happen.

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Cajeb wrote...

Also, Orsino being secretly evil doesn't help more people choose templar. He reveals his evilness after we choose so it just slaps the mage side in the face and validates the templar side

Just as Meredith deciding you ought to die next validates the mage side.

There is no "right" choice.  Which is good.  Those are way too easy.

[RosaAquafire]

HallowedWarden wrote...
It all leads to the same thing anyway, so why even try to play differently?

People keep saying this like they didn't all end up at the siege of Denerim, killing an Archdemon, just like the rest of us.

All roads always lead to the same place in these games. There are always deviations, and never as many as people want.

Anyway, in the end, I was obscenely happy with DA2 not giving any wimp-out "everybody lives" choices. The Lily Killer storyline was, imo, the absolute best done thing in the entire game. I WOULD have supported an option to preserve Leandra's life as the frankenmonster or something, living in pain, but god knows that still wouldn't have been enough for some people. Nobody will be satisfied until there's a happy ending option, and then everybody will choose the happy ending option, because what happened was horrific and heart-breaking. Nobody likes to have their hearts broken.

But all the best art comes from it.

[WhiteKnyght]

Orsino's actions can also be interpreted as an example of just how far the Templars have pushed the mages.

If its either blood magic or death, who would choose death? Orsino gave Meredith a chance to cancel the Rite of Annulment and she refused and backed him into a corner.

Modifié par The Grey Nayr, 15 mars 2011 - 09:47 .

[RosaAquafire]

Cajeb wrote...

Also, Orsino being secretly evil doesn't help more people choose templar. He reveals his evilness after we choose so it just slaps the mage side in the face and validates the templar side

And if you stand for the templars, like I did, Meredith thinks you were working for Orsino all along and tries to have you killed.

You're not supposed to come out of the ending feeling like you picked the "right side." There wasn't a right side. The Kirkwall Circle was crap, inside and out. The closest thing to a right side was siding with Grand Cleric Elthina, and Anders fixed that.

That's what the story was all about.

[Cajeb]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Cajeb wrote...

Also, Orsino being secretly evil doesn't help more people choose templar. He reveals his evilness after we choose so it just slaps the mage side in the face and validates the templar side

Just as Meredith deciding you ought to die next validates the mage side.

There is no "right" choice.  Which is good.  Those are way too easy.

Those two aren't on the same level at all. You know Meredith is unstable already.
Orsino seems level headed. But he totally jumps the shark. After playing the ending I can't see a single reason to choose Mage except that Bethany was a mage. It makes things very black and white. Meredith was right, completely right. Just the idol pushed her over the edge. If she didn't have the mental breakdown thanks to dues ex machina she would have been 100% in the right. The mages are wrong because they are all sick and corrupt. The templars are wrong because their leader got mind ****ed at the end.

[winmaceofwar]

Dragon Age II made me feel very emotional throughout the whole story, Leandra's death was quite the low point, but, being a mage, supporting mage freedoms and romancing Anders, nothing kicked me in the teeth more than for him to take that trust and twist it into a weapon. (Although I couldn't bring myself to kill him, Ser Pounce-a-lot would never forgive me. )

I'm looking very forward to the continuation of this story,

Bravo Bioware, bravo.

...A wizard did it...

[RosaAquafire]

Cajeb wrote...
Those two aren't on the same level at all. You know Meredith is unstable already.
Orsino seems level headed. But he totally jumps the shark. After playing the ending I can't see a single reason to choose Mage except that Bethany was a mage. It makes things very black and white. Meredith was right, completely right. Just the idol pushed her over the edge. If she didn't have the mental breakdown thanks to dues ex machina she would have been 100% in the right. The mages are wrong because they are all sick and corrupt. The templars are wrong because their leader got mind ****ed at the end.

Not true. Meredith was established to be a hardass before the game started. More reasonable, yes, but a hardass. The Templars were largely corrupt. The guy in Anders's personal question, Tranquilizing female mages so he could rape them? That had nothing to do with Meredith's possession by the idol and her lyrium poisoning, that's just Chantry corruption and innocent victims. How do you excuse that?

And its not entirely the mages' fault that they were 75% corrupt. The Veil is thin in Kirkwall. There should NEVER have been a Circle, there. Look at Ferelden's Circle. The mages there were treated well, until Uldred pulled his stunt, and they were much better behaved.

It IS very grey.

Modifié par RosaAquafire, 15 mars 2011 - 09:55 .

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Cajeb wrote...

Those two aren't on the same level at all. You know Meredith is unstable already
Orsino seems level headed. But he totally jumps the shark.

That's not what jumping the shark means.  Also "seems" level headed does not mean "is" level headed.  I knew not to trust that guy after reading the letter signed "O" from the Circle of Magi.

Cajeb wrote...

The mages are wrong because they are all sick and corrupt. The templars are wrong because their leader got mind ****ed at the end.

That's one interpretation.

[Sanguinerin]

RosaAquafire wrote...

People keep saying this like they didn't all end up at the siege of Denerim, killing an Archdemon, just like the rest of us.

All roads always lead to the same place in these games. There are always deviations, and never as many as people want.

Anyway, in the end, I was obscenely happy with DA2 not giving any wimp-out "everybody lives" choices. The Lily Killer storyline was, imo, the absolute best done thing in the entire game. I WOULD have supported an option to preserve Leandra's life as the frankenmonster or something, living in pain, but god knows that still wouldn't have been enough for some people. Nobody will be satisfied until there's a happy ending option, and then everybody will choose the happy ending option, because what happened was horrific and heart-breaking. Nobody likes to have their hearts broken.

But all the best art comes from it.

Rosa, I don't have to have a middle ground. Let's use Connor and Isolde as an example. I liked the option of bringing in the mages to save both of them. However, I would have been fine with a choice between child OR mother.

You can't bring yourself to agree with blood magic, even if Isolde is willing, and put down Connor OR you can forgive this instance of blood magic and let the mother die, to save her innocent and untrained mage child? The choice is hardly ideal on either side. It's a tough choice. I like tough choices with consequences. As Brockolly (I believe) said, being able to save your mother at the cost of the murderer escaping and causing more havoc in some capacity would have been a wonderful test. What's more important to your Hawke, your mother or perhaps Aveline, or Donnic, or some other somewhat close persona to you or a companion getting killed in pursuit of this murderer?

There are so many directions that giving us a choice could take us, where we really have to sit with consequences because of what we perceived to be the moral, right, or personal choice.

I know we have to have fixed points for the story to be told, recruiting allies, slaying the Archdemon, etc. However, the path and state of the world could have so many more opportunities to be changed if we weren't so forced into this chain of death after death that you can't do anything about.

[RosaAquafire]

HallowedWarden wrote...
Rosa, I don't have to have a middle ground. Let's use Connor and Isolde as an example. I liked the option of bringing in the mages to save both of them. However, I would have been fine with a choice between child OR mother.

You can't bring yourself to agree with blood magic, even if Isolde is willing, and put down Connor OR you can forgive this instance of blood magic and let the mother die, to save her innocent and untrained mage child? The choice is hardly ideal on either side. It's a tough choice. I like tough choices with consequences. As Brockolly (I believe) said, being able to save your mother at the cost of the murderer escaping and causing more havoc in some capacity would have been a wonderful test. What's more important to your Hawke, your mother or perhaps Aveline, or Donnic, or some other somewhat close persona to you or a companion getting killed in pursuit of this murderer?

There are so many directions that giving us a choice could take us, where we really have to sit with consequences because of what we perceived to be the moral, right, or personal choice.

I know we have to have fixed points for the story to be told, recruiting allies, slaying the Archdemon, etc. However, the path and state of the world could have so many more opportunities to be changed if we weren't so forced into this chain of death after death that you can't do anything about.

And to be fair to what you're saying, I would have been okay with being able to save Leandra at the expense of someone equally/more important dying. Your love interest, maybe. That sounds like a fair trade. So long as we were warned before we made the choice "if he gets away, he'll kill again and be angrier than ever," so it wasn't a GOTCHA!

I just don't think people would have been satisfied with that. I really don't. Then we'd be getting "why do I have to choose between my mother and my LI???" posts, and people wouldn't be happy enough about that. And I woudln't have preferred it. I preferred it the way it is in game, no choice at all.

Personally, I think that the strength people respond to the Lily Killer plotline with shows that BW did their job. If people want that badly to be able to change it, hurray, you were emotionally invested. The feeling of helplessness was something that made it MORE effective, in my opinion. It underscored the whole point of the story. "Sometimes, you just can't change destiny." That's what DA2 is about. I don't want that undermined for a gameplay reason.

I'll get if Bioware doesn't do this again. Hell, it might not fit the theme of their next story, in which case I definitely wouldn't want to see it again! But for DA2, it was perfect, and I stand by Mister Gaider's side -- and the rest of his team -- for choosing this direction.

[Vilegrim]

The fact that both 'big bads' where evil because of magic was a bit jarring, seriously, couldn't Meredith just have been nuts? Why have it that magic made her that way?

Likewise Orisini, why did he tolerate Blood Magic Seriel killer man? He's first Enchanter, hire some mercenaries to off the guy, kill him via ritual, he doesn't have to just have the choice 'ignore or templar'

Guess it felt weird that the big bad was magic. Not pride, not hubris but magic itself, everyone with it we encounter? Evil (except Merrill [maybe] Bethany, and Hawke if you play that way).

[Sanguinerin]

RosaAquafire wrote...

The Templars were largely corrupt. The guy in Anders's personal question, Tranquilizing female mages so he could rape them? That had nothing to do with Meredith's possession by the idol and her lyrium poisoning, that's just Chantry corruption and innocent victims. How do you excuse that?

That's just that man's corruption, not Chantry corruption. The Chantry isn't at fault for one templar raping tranquil mages. The whole Circle isn't at fault almost all of the mages and the First Enchanter resort to blood magic. All of the templars aren't at fault for following the orders of a madwoman. Cullen was actually quite reasonable and I liked him more.

I did feel like there was more choice involved and weighing consequences at the endgame. I found there to be a lack of non-blood mages when siding with the mages, as opposed to the three who surrender when siding with the templars. However, I think we're all drifting from Leandra, for which this thread is about. (I'm so totally far from being innocent at drifting, but it just occurred to me.)

[Piecake]

Brockololly wrote...

And I think those sorts of quests would work well in a framed narrative or at least in giving you some delayed consequences. DA2 had some of that, but just as an example, take the one quest with the Magister and his son in Act 1 I think. You're given the choice to kill the nutty son who is being sheltered by the Magister father. So I struggled with that choice but eventually had Fenris kill him, thinking though that the Magister father was going to come back and screw over Hawke down the road. But (maybe I'm wrong?) thats the last you hear of the Magister. Just thought that could have been a nice chance for another sort of delayed consequence with your actions logically coming back to bite you in the ass.

Totally agree.  If you spare him, he could have gone on a killing spree again and if you killed him, the magister would have tried to get his revenge.  I think that would have been a very interesting quest to have in act 2.  Personally, I saved him since it just felt wrong to be the judge, jury, and executioner of a man, no matter how demented he was.  I did try to convince the magister that his son was a sicko and needed serious help though. 

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scyphozoa wrote...

It is not an subjective opinion, its an objective fact.

Short response:  You're wrong. 

Slightly longer response:  Both sides in this game are wrong.  That's kinda why a war starts.

scyphozoa wrote...

Justice would probably be the best person to explain this.

This might make sense if he was inhabited by a spirit of Honesty or Judgment or Reason or Mercy or Temperance.  But he wasn't.  

There are people in the real world who consider themselves as being the only virtuous (even just) people on the planet, and they blow things up too.  They consider their position to reflect and absolute truth as well.  It's part of why they're so dangerous.  Just like Anders... and Meredith really.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 15 mars 2011 - 10:10 .

[WhiteKnyght]

scyphozoa wrote...

Odd, I don't think the mage vs templar debate is grey at all. Freeing the mages is right, no matter how much the game tries to show you how evil the mages are. All people have the capacity to do evil, there is nothing right about oppressing others, even in the name of protecting people. It is not an subjective opinion, its an objective fact. Justice would probably be the best person to explain this.

Thats a very good point and an opinion I share. Having a Circle and people who are equipped to handle mages is good. But the restrictions should be loosened and the mages should be allowed a choice after their Harrowing. Stay and teach the next generation or research, or go out and actually live their lives.

Mages who commit crimes can be apprehended by Templars and sent to prison like any other criminal. Tranquility can be used on convicted criminals who have actually committed crimes that call for it, not any mage they think "might" be dangerous.

Also there are more creative and humane ways to handle magic than imprisonment and tranquility. The Magi Origin showed us that there are wards/gylphs that can be drawn on things to negate magic. So why not put the wards on clothing/jewelry, or if the mage is permitting, a tattoo. That way their magical abilities are sealed and they have their freedom and emotions intact.

Modifié par The Grey Nayr, 15 mars 2011 - 10:10 .

[rcollins1701]

David Gaider wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...
Yes if I understood it right they had a version of the quest where Leandra could be saved, but everyone picked to save her in the tests. So actually they should have the material somewhere which should make it even easier to implement it again.

The problem wasn't that "everyone picked to save her". It was that everyone thought they had to save her, and would reload/re-do the quest until the got the outcome that was perceived as the most optimum-- even if the result when Leandra dies is more dramatic and has more of an impact on the larger story.

The quest isn't about saving her, after all, it's about putting a more personal face on the darker side of magic and the repercussions it can have on innocents.

If someone doesn't like it, that's fine. Up to you. But DLC is created to add content, not to skip it-- and, no, there is no material anywhere to make this easy to implement. Dialogue after Act 2 assumes that your mother is dead. Period. Sorry, but that's simply the way it is.

It makes me so happy to read this. I'm honestly a little dismayed by fan reaction to not only this quest but also others (i.e., Bethany and the Deep Roads). The story is dark and sometimes hard to swallow, but it never feels cheap. I hated seeing what happened to Leandra, but it never felt like a cheat. I was mad at the blood mage not the game, which makes the choice about which side to choose so much more challenging. Likewise, I literally lost sleep upon coming back from the Deep Roads to see Bethany in Circle Robes. In both cases, I felt like my Hawke had failed at protecting his family because of my actions, which made me all the more motivated to make a difference.

I like it when a story unsettles and challenges me. The alternative is an overly simplistic black/white dichotomy that is flat, boring and uninspiring. I certainly hope that's not what the dissenters are vying for! Heroes are measured by the obstacles in their way and their ability to overcome despite hardship and adversity, no?

[RosaAquafire]

HallowedWarden wrote...
That's just that man's corruption, not Chantry corruption. The Chantry isn't at fault for one templar raping tranquil mages. The whole Circle isn't at fault almost all of the mages and the First Enchanter resort to blood magic. All of the templars aren't at fault for following the orders of a madwoman. Cullen was actually quite reasonable and I liked him more.

They absolutely weren't! I completely agree with everything you just said! I picked Templars, in the end, but it wasn't an easy choice and I don't agree, morally, with either outcome (and don't think we're supposed to.)

But I think the other main point of the storyline is that power corrupts, whether it's the arcane power that mages hold, which makes them crave more, and, in conjunction with the demons, open themselves to becoming abominations and blood mages; or whether it's the more social power the templars hold, the power of life and death over the mages.  So the Circle isn't responsible for the blood mages, and the Chantry isn't responsible for the corrupt Templars, but there's a serious flaw in the system that there was such a high occurance of both.

We are, indeed, drifting from Leandra, here, of course, so I'll leave it at that. I don't actually think we disagree so much on this point.

[upsettingshorts]

The Grey Nayr wrote...

Thats a very good point and an opinion I share. Having a Circle and people who are equipped to handle mages is good. But the restrictions should be loosened and the mages should be allowed a choice after their Harrowing. Stay and teach the next generation or research, or go out and actually live their lives.

You're arguing for reform, which is totally reasonable.  A few people in DA2 might support this, given what they say - perhaps Cullen, maybe the Grand Cleric, certainly Bethany, a few others.

But definitely not Meredith and Anders.  Or many others.  They view the situation as beyond saving and force the issue.  That is what makes their position less sympathetic, their methods and propensity to escalate the situation as opposed to negotiate and reform is a huge problem, and it leads to war.

[Sanguinerin]

RosaAquafire wrote...

Personally, I think that the strength people respond to the Lily Killer plotline with shows that BW did their job. If people want that badly to be able to change it, hurray, you were emotionally invested. The feeling of helplessness was something that made it MORE effective, in my opinion.

About her murder specifically and my reaction....

I think the lack of effect for me personally was finding the whole stitched-together monster plot distasteful. I don't want Leandra to die. I want an option to save her. I was on the edge of my seat following the trail... and afterward, I can see that using her death as a plot to incite anger against dark magic could be useful.

But in the actual event, after finding her...
I saw her stand up, all zombie-like, for the duration of my battle just standing there and wobbling. Then came the farewell speech, which would have been more compelling to me if she weren't a creepy zombie. If she was wounded, bleeding out, too far gone, all perhaps due to some blood magic ritual or sacrfice, and had more strain or struggle in her voice, that particular part might have had more effective.

I had a hard time getting around the creepy stitched neck and how despite that, she could still speak so perfectly clear. Unless I don't remember the scene as well as I think I do. I was more so disturbed by their choice of her death, rather than her death and the implications of it in the game.

That, of course... could just be me. I will at least admit that.

[RosaAquafire]

HallowedWarden wrote..

I had a hard time getting around the creepy stitched neck and how despite that, she could still speak so perfectly clear. Unless I don't remember the scene as well as I think I do. I was more so disturbed by their choice of her death, rather than her death and the implications of it in the game.

That, of course... could just be me. I will at least admit that.

I think we were supposed to be horrified, myself. I think if Leandra had died in a more "conventional" way, the whole point of the plot -- some mages really are bad enough to deserve Tranquilization or death -- wouldn't have hit home as hard. Her death being horrific and supernatural drove him the magical aspect of it. For me, at least.