238 réponses à ce sujet

[Foolsfolly]

**** the Circle!

**** them hard!

I defended these walking breathing WMDs and all they do is blow up buildings, kill my mom, and lie to me.

Tranquil the whole lot.

....just get rid of the Idol too.

[Inujade]

Don't get me started on that stupid mirror. It was just sitting there being a tease the whole game. The only reason I did Merrill's quest was because I hoped it would lead to some Morrigan goodness (I loves me some Morrigan). Nope.

But choosing to fight alongside the Harvester...now THERE'S a good idea. My Hawke would have done so, had she the option.

[elijah_kaine]

I agree with the OP's gripes.

The Second Act was really well thought out, the connections between all the stories and quests really came together and honestly the end of the game should have been in Act 2.

I'm not sure that the 3rd act really should have been a part of this game at all, or where it would fit. The 3rd Act is a really clumsy attempt to bring the Mage v. Templars tension to a close. If the same time and effort was put into The 3rd act as was into the first and second acts it would have been an amazing game. Unfourtunetly it's left as a good game.

Mereidith and Orisino and the whole Templars V. Mages story arc is one big missed oppritunity. I agree with the Op that if we have these leaders fleshed out more as human characters it would have been more meaningful to fight them.

Orisino
I don't feel like we know who he is. It seems strange that he becomes a harvester near the end and he was associated with your mother's killer. When that happened I was just stunned that there wasn't more foreshadowing and more information leading up to this discovery.

If you're going to make Orisino an evil mage you really need to get that going right away we need to meet him, have a cup of tea with him and have interactions with him from the start of the game. We have to get to know him as a character, either trust him or suspect him right away before we get to the moment where we find out what Orisino will resort too. Anders was done a little better in this respect, we get to know him, and understand his stance, and start to worry about how far he will go and then he goes really far, and it's a much easier reveal to deal with then Orisino. [Not that I don't have gripes with Anders storyline, but that's not my point here.]

I really don't think we should have had Orisino go to the measures that Anders did anyway, he shouldn't have turned out to be someone who was okay with exploring blood magic and necromancy, it makes Merideith seem justifed which is something we really don't want. Orisino could have been our example of the one mage who is steadfast in his ability to resist blood magic [Maybe in addition to Bethany]. We needed more examples of that especially after Anders. [This may have caused more problems however, because if we see that Orisino is good and we know that Merideith is bad aren't we compelled to side with Orisino from a moral standpoint?]

Merideith
Why didn't we get to know this character? Like Orisino, who turns out to have a big role in the story, we aren't really introduced to them until late in the Second Act. We don't talk with her, we don't get to know her, we don't argue with her or get into conflicts with this character. She's mentioned as this bad and scary person but we are never given the oppritunity to get to know her as a character until we have to pick sides. This almost forces us to want to side against her because everyone says she's crazy. We know from little one-liners here and there that she's scary and that she's ruthless and so we automatically see her as a villian.

It really wasn't neccasary to have her attached to the lyrium artifact. She would have made a compelling villian if we had more interactions with her and if she wasn't possessed, influenced or whatever that relic does. She could have just been a high ranking Templar who has the power of influence over a faction of people and been a more meaningful character for it. Her stance in the Mage v. Templars issue seems irrelevant and less meaningful because it was the influence of the relic and not her really just her.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

KOP, excellent post, and I think you hit the nail on the head, as they say. I've been trying to sum up my opinions of the game's story and you've compared the maturity between Acts 2 and 3 beautifully. Pretty much agree with everything you said.

Meredith going insane and Orsino finally cracks right at the end, somehow using Hawke's mother's murderer's research to turn himself into Yet Another Boss. I guess Bioware was trying to drive the point home that no matter who you side with it's the wrong one, and you've joined forces with a monster, but come on. Orsino at least appeared sane, and we get no character development warning that he might be otherwise, so his transformation if you side with the mages seems to come right out of the blue. *sigh* Likewise Meredith, she seems reasonable despite rumours, and then bam...evil lyrium sword. Instead of a struggle between to human foes with fears both valid and paranoid, we get two rabid animals that have to be put down and a nuked Chantry.

I agree about the Arishok too. You get enough interaction with him that you get a feel for his character, you can respect him, he can respect you, and the duel feels *human*. You're not fighting a monster, but a creature with ideals that you might actually regret killing afterwards. But I suppose the Big Boss has to be something 100% Irredeemable Evil and requires a light show to boot.

But Meredith and Orsino...you do what, break up a spat, then do a quest for each of them, and that combined with a lot of rumour is supposed to give us a clear idea of Who They Are. Then we are supposed to FORGET who they are, because they both turn into frothing maniacs.

Next time, Anders, blow up the leaders of the opposing factions and not the one woman who was trying to keep them both in balance.

Edit: Cullen was the ONLY good thing in that whole bloody mess, and I was rather impressed considering what he'd gone through in DA:O. He was an awesome character.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 15 mars 2011 - 08:01 .

[Dave of Canada]

Orsino's sudden fall to insanity and attacking you with the Harvester felt way too... pushed, it's almost like they forgot they had to add something with the Harvester because they advertised it in a trailer. It made sense in context of siding with the Templar (where you can actually have a discussion with him before transforming) but in the mage ending, I sat there trying to think why he even did it.

Hell, the templar ending was almost perfect until the Meredith-suddenly-wants-to-kill-you-because-of-the-idol bit. You could challenge her command and stuff, which was quite interesting because it felt like you were trying to undermine her efforts. I still love the stare she gives you when you spare the surrendering mages and Cullen stands up to her. The idol was... confusing, I'm sure it'll be explored later but it really wasn't necessary.

Though the final battle I'm going to assume didn't happen as it did and Varric was just exaggerating, I was surprised when random NPCs like Zevran and stuff showed up out of nowhere to assist in killing Meredith.

[Azjurai]

Surely I can't be the only person who got the back story from Meredith about her sister and why she became a templar (certainly made her more 'real' to me)? I don't recall getting any similar things from Orsino however. Would've certainly loved to get more back story of course, fleshing out character better is always something we should want as RPG gamers.

With that said, i got the feeling that in act 3 things were moving very quickly and to a head, no real time for sitting down and 'chewing the fat' as it were. Sitting down for leisurely chats about family histories, love lives etc doesn't really seem to fit the urgency of the act.

Still very much prefer act 2 however. The ending was excellent, made me really want to learn more about the Qun :3

[Inujade]

@Azjural Er, I didn't get anything like that. Colour me intrigued however!

So why DID she become a Templar?

[Foolsfolly]

@ elijah_kaine.

Oh that was a huge problem! We didn't know the First Enchanter or the Knight-Commander at all! We had next to no interaction with them leading up to the third act and the third act is so painfully short that we still didn't know them when we had to pick sides!

Not that it really matters. I think most people assumed the Knight-Commander was crazy/power hungry. But who really saw the First Enchanter as an evil Blood Mage? That came out of no where. As did the fact that he could turn into a Harvester (which I'd thought I missed since it's in all the commercials and Golems ended with a horde of them escaping).

I agree with OP in the fact that there was enough bad blood between Mages and Templar without involving outside influences. Even Anders had the outside influence of Justice that caused him to destroy the Chantry. Had it simply been more human and more intriguing it would have worked better.

Demons and crazy plot-powered idols are poor motivations considering the Mage/Templar argument's been around since DA:O came out.

[Naitaka]

DA2 Act 3 summerized in one sentence...

A wiza...err I mean a Demo..err I mean an Lyrium idol did it! 

Act 3 felt like it was rushed just to get the game out, instead of real human motivation, they subsitiute it with gimick and random boss battles dripping with "awesomeness" so players might forget why they are fighting said bosses in the first place. The game really had alot of potential to be good, but all that potential was never realized. My biggest gripe is with the family, especially since it was advertized so much, yet recieved so little attention in the game.

[Foolsfolly]

Edit: Cullen was the ONLY good thing in that whole bloody mess, and I was rather impressed considering what he'd gone through in DA:O. He was an awesome character.

I have to give credit to Cullen in this game. When I first saw him I thought, "Oh, crap. He's going to go nuts...and it'll be funny if Anders is the one to kill him." And early on, he does kinda look like a zealot. But during that finale, he held on to his sanity really well. He tried to stop the Knight-Commander's rampage.

I actually liked Cullen for once.

[Statulos]

I stated this issue about the idol (and the thaig where it was) before, but it should be interesting to revisit: we have no idea of what the hell the place is or the object is.

Do we need a full explanation? Not really, as we didn´t with the sacred ashes but we should get something. Dwarven legends? Some short of obscure warden knowledge and that combined with Varric giving us a down to earth explanation that lyrium actually "sings" for real, since it´s by sound the way dwarven miners locate it.

What we get is a crazed templar who turns Goku and you still don´t know why.

[orgeus]

Hi,
I just wanted to thank you for this article. You are right about act 3. It is not clear weather Meredith was drove insane by the idol or the idol just supported something what was there for a long time (sleeping maybe?). Also there is no clue why Orsino used blood magic in the end (and why did he became Harvester?!). Was he blood mage? Was Meredith right? We are dealing with characters we dont know and that is not good. You have to choose one side but you dont know them. I sided with mages just becouse my Hawke was mage too not because I had sympathy for Orsino.

I am afraid that you are also right if you say that the game was rushed. It was. And it is such a shame!!

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Foolsfolly wrote...
But who really saw the First Enchanter as an evil Blood Mage? That came out of no where. As did the fact that he could turn into a Harvester (which I'd thought I missed since it's in all the commercials and Golems ended with a horde of them escaping).

He wasn't actually a blood mage. We're supposed to go along with the idea that he, like many other mages, felt pushed so far by the templars that he finally resorted to it himself--even if you side with the mages. He just cracks and loses it. The thing is we didn't get enough of an impression that cracks were even appearing! He embraces the Dark Side of the Force just like that.

If you side with the Templars you get more info about the Harvester thing. Apparently he had the notes of the mage who killed your mother (he even knew about the guy but didn't tell the templars for fear the existence of another blood mage would reflect badly on the other mages), and had studied them to the extent he could pull that mojo even though he had never, by his own admission, even CAST blood magic before in his life.

To top THAT off, if you sided with the templars you get the impression that Orsino killed his fellow mages and students in advance to use the corpses for his ritual!

Blargh. It felt forced and STUPID, a convenient way to get rid of the leaders of the opposing sides in a blaze of idiocy glory.

[Maria Caliban]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Meredith was obviously being controlled by the idol, thus rendering character development moot.

I agree with this. The idol itself is not the problem. It's a means to give us a boss battle with a non-mage and possibly a hint at the larger story of Theda. The problem is that the idol has been shown to be able to utterly warp a person into a monster.

If the effects of the idol were more subtle - if it made an already greedy Bartrand greedier instead of turning him into a butcher - then we'd still be dealing with Meridith.

For the idol to work thematically, a good and strong willed person should be able to resist its influence. It should function as a devil on the shoulder; pushing at existing weaknesses and offering power for giving into your obsessions, not hijacking your mind.

Act 2 asks: "Why must there be conflict between the Qunari and the Chantry?"
BioWare answers: "Because of religious intolerance, fear, and people having strong but conflicting principles."

Act 3 asks: "Why must there be conflict between Mages and Templars/the world?"
BioWare answers: "A idol did it! :wizard:"

You know what works in Act 3? Merrill's side quest. No one is insane. No one is forced to act by idols or demons. The nature of the problem is simply one that cannot end happily.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 15 mars 2011 - 09:18 .

[Fennel]

I was patient with the mages.

I put it to "they get pushed too far and push back." I was merciful. I only killed blood mages, and let those who didn't use it go.

But guess what? The mages I let go betray me, and turn into blood mages. There are GANGS of blood mages with blood thralls running RAMPANT in High town, while a demon is happily controlling ANOTHER gang in low town. Every mage I fight is either a slaver, or summons six gazillion shades. And most mages I encounter? I end up fighting them.
The ONE group with templers and mages working together is staffed by idiots who not only ****** off the ONE person who would have helped them (me) by capturing my sister (a MAGE), they also refuse any peaceful talk and attack me outright. And contain bloodmages.

But I can deal. I still side with the mages. Even after anders killed the ONE person who could have done something, the one good person in this mess.

And as we fight, I fight MORE BLOOD MAGES THAN TEMPLARS. The overwhelming majority of mages I saw at that point were blood mages. I can name about six exceptions, including the Big O.

But I'm fine, I'm fighting for you guys.

And then Big O turns into a monster. After I just won the battle against the templers. And then he attacks ME. Hello, I'm the girl who HELPED you idiots! I'm the one who trusted you again and again, even when you jerks KEPT BETRAYING ME. Worse: He supported the one who killed my mother! He should be begging on his knees for me to side with him!

Meredith isn't paranoid. She's RIGHT. Even her crazy templer antics can't prevent blood mages rampaging through high town at night, controlling literally dozens of minions. Half her circle is filled with blood mages, the very leader used to be chums with a necromancer, Anders is pretty much insane, and the game railroads me to avoid peaceful solutions whenever possible.

See "best served cold". So I am supposed to check the meeting. I want to sneak, but no: Cutscene of me walking right up to them. So I have to kill em. Second meeting? Again no option to talk, killing immediately.

This makes the third act really annoying. It was too short, and felt far too forced. The characters lack development, the Big O turns into a bubbling idiot at short notice for no reason whatsoever, and my decisions mean nothing. I am disappointed.

Act 2 was brilliant. Act 3 was not.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Azjurai wrote...
With that said, i got the feeling that in act 3 things were moving very quickly and to a head, no real time for sitting down and 'chewing the fat' as it were. Sitting down for leisurely chats about family histories, love lives etc doesn't really seem to fit the urgency of the act.

Sitting down and talking wouldn't have been required IMO. A few more quests from either side, some of which might be questionable or revealing? For people who did want to side with one or the other and not play peace keepers, what about digging up some dirt? It turned out Orsino WAS sheltering blood mages, or at least hiding their presences from the Templars. It turned out Meredith WAS the person who got her hands on the idol. Surely someone knew she'd bought it? Surely someone knew it had been forged into a big-ass sword?

Learning about the characters can be done in far more ways than talking, and by learning what they were doing behind the scenes we could have had a better understanding of them. Instead we get important details we should have been investigating as part of the plot and of personal concern (Varric+brother+idol+Meredith, dead mother+blood mage harvester+Orsino) thrown at us out of the blue--and not very well at that. Surprise! :/

[Maria Caliban]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

As far as the animated statues go, Caridin created golems, and I don't see why it isn't possible for there to be some sort of ancient magic predating "modern" (if you will) golems that could possibly create automata of some sort. I get that you don't approve of the approach, but I think this idol's presence was not just an easy out. Even the disappearance of the Warden and the Champion might be related to the artifact or similar items, but who knows - pure speculation on my part.

You are not understanding me. It's not how it happened that I am taking issues with. With magic, I can make pigs fly. That's not the point. The point is, I thought it looked ridiculous, and inhuman, as if it was ripped from a bad cartoon show.

With Caridin and the golems, it's explained and it's not some nefarious artifact we know nothing about. It's technology, created and used by sentient beings.

This I disagree with.

In both cases, the leaders of the Templars and Mages, call upon power they can't ultimately control because they feel they need to. What matters is showing us why they feel that they need to do this and giving them both real reason to hit the big, red button.

The big, red button itself is ultimately meaningless.

Sure, I wouldn't mind a codex entry. I wouldn't mind a side quest where we learn more about the idol or the harvester experiment, but it's not important. It's not what Act 3 lacks. What Act 3 lacks is a better developed Meredith and Orsino.

[Foolsfolly]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

Foolsfolly wrote...
But who really saw the First Enchanter as an evil Blood Mage? That came out of no where. As did the fact that he could turn into a Harvester (which I'd thought I missed since it's in all the commercials and Golems ended with a horde of them escaping).

He wasn't actually a blood mage. We're supposed to go along with the idea that he, like many other mages, felt pushed so far by the templars that he finally resorted to it himself--even if you side with the mages. He just cracks and loses it. The thing is we didn't get enough of an impression that cracks were even appearing! He embraces the Dark Side of the Force just like that.

If you side with the Templars you get more info about the Harvester thing. Apparently he had the notes of the mage who killed your mother (he even knew about the guy but didn't tell the templars for fear the existence of another blood mage would reflect badly on the other mages), and had studied them to the extent he could pull that mojo even though he had never, by his own admission, even CAST blood magic before in his life.

To top THAT off, if you sided with the templars you get the impression that Orsino killed his fellow mages and students in advance to use the corpses for his ritual!

Blargh. It felt forced and STUPID, a convenient way to get rid of the leaders of the opposing sides in a blaze of idiocy glory.

Haven't sided with the Templars yet.....I gotta talk to this guy. Because, as it was siding with the mages, his turn into the Harvester made no sense and made a meh ending that much worse for me. It felt just...bad.

This is a classic example on why the last act didn't work. I sided with the Mages and missed all the reasoning behind WHY the First Enchanter goes nutso and attacks me. And we were winning the fight too! I had Hail of Arrows, Temptest, Fire Storm, and that Gravity AoE spell constantly flying! The Templar had no chance in hell! I don't think a single NPC mage died.

[Utoryo]

The idol twist would have been MUCH better if Meredith knew it was risky and said so, if she truly understood she might become completely insane because of it. What if she justified it as needing every advantage she could have to fight the threat of Magic?

What if she said something along the lines of "I'm willing to pay with my own life, my mind and my soul, to save this city from apostates and blood magic. You've seen what happened to the Chantry and the Grand Cleric. There is nothing I wouldn't do, Maker have mercy." - yes, she'd still lose control, but it would have a very human element to it and would have more real-world parallels.

And then instead of Orsino becoming a Harvester too early to make any difference, this is the breaking point that would make him decide to do the transformation. And the final fight would begin with Meredith sending her statues against Orsino, and only when he is defeated would she enter the battlefield herself. It would certainly be a lot more epic and morally interesting than what actually happened...

Modifié par Utoryo, 15 mars 2011 - 10:12 .

[payroo]

Fennel wrote...


See "best served cold". So I am supposed to check the meeting. I want to sneak, but no: Cutscene of me walking right up to them. So I have to kill em. Second meeting? Again no option to talk, killing immediately.

This makes the third act really annoying. It was too short, and felt far too forced. The characters lack development, the Big O turns into a bubbling idiot at short notice for no reason whatsoever, and my decisions mean nothing. I am disappointed.

Act 2 was brilliant. Act 3 was not.

This so hard. I wanted to scream at the characters to stop attacking me on sight because my Hawke was bloody on their side!
I feel like a staple of RPGs is the ability to talk your way out of some combats (ala the old Fallouts). This is why we have to have a persuasion skill!
There were so many bodies being thrown at Hawke from Templar and mage sides that it was a wonder anyone was left alive to fight you at the end. It was also really annoying how people ask you to join their side after you go around butchering so many of their allies.
As for O, I named my save after killing him something along the lines of "this was utterly pointless." Pretty much sums up my feelings on his transformation.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

payroo wrote...

Fennel wrote...

See "best served cold". So I am supposed to check the meeting. I want to sneak, but no: Cutscene of me walking right up to them. So I have to kill em. Second meeting? Again no option to talk, killing immediately.

This so hard. I wanted to scream at the characters to stop attacking me on sight because my Hawke was bloody on their side!

Thirded. Bah. :/

Foolsfolly wrote...

Haven't sided with the Templars yet.....I gotta talk to this guy. Because, as it was siding with the mages, his turn into the Harvester made no sense and made a meh ending that much worse for me. It felt just...bad.

You don't get a whole LOT more information, and IIRC Orsino *mentions* the name of the guy he got the research off before casting the ritual if you side with the mages. However, it's so brief and quick that unless you recognise the name you won't understand. *I* didn't get the reference until I replayed the ending siding with the Templars, where Orsino provides a bit more of an explanation and you (plus Bethany) can actually yell at him for hiding the guy that murdered your mother.

If you side with the Templars, Orsino's desperate grasping for power to fight the Templars and Meredith is a bit more understandable, since he's against impossible odds by this stage. But if you're on his side it feels way too contrived.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 15 mars 2011 - 11:02 .

[crimsontotem]

I completely agree. Companions' last good bye in DA:O stills touches me emotionally... and with the Soundtrack! I daresay DA:O was one of the best games I ever played in my life...

DA 2 is still a great game but it lacks something that touches you emotionally and kinda misses the point where you can become one with Hawke...

[azarhal]

I don't think we were supposed to get to know Meredith or Orsino, beside their respective point-of-view. They aren't friends of Hawke, they are political figures who want to use Hawke's Champion status to their advantage. In the end, it proved to be useless, because both side don't want to compromise. The result would have been the same without Hawke, with probably a lot more dead citizens...

Personally, I like the "over the top ending". I also feel like Varric might have twisted it a bit and that Casandra just forgot to call him on his bs.

[Fennel]

This so hard. I wanted to scream at the characters to stop attacking me on sight because my Hawke was bloody on their side!

Yes! My Hawke is missing after the end probably because she got pissed with the idiots who kept trying to kill her while she tried to JOIN THEM.

"Okay, you know what? Kill each other, I couldn't care less. I'm done. Have fun. Whatever. Bye."

And then she stole Isabella's pirate ship and sailed the ocean in search for people who weren't bloody fools.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

azarhal wrote...

I don't think we were supposed to get to know Meredith or Orsino, beside their respective point-of-view. They aren't friends of Hawke, they are political figures who want to use Hawke's Champion status to their advantage. In the end, it proved to be useless, because both side don't want to compromise. The result would have been the same without Hawke, with probably a lot more dead citizens...

Personally, I like the "over the top ending". I also feel like Varric might have twisted it a bit and that Casandra just forgot to call him on his bs.

It's probably a little hard to lie about a Chantry that was blown to kingdom come. Why would Orsino/Meredith being gung ho maniacs be hard to believe in comparison to an entire building being nuked?

You're right, in the end it didn't matter that we didn't know O/M. Because they both went off the deep end, so in the grand scheme they didn't have to be human. Or elven. Anders lit the fire and they both went up in flames.

The objection is that we ended up fighting monsters, when we didn't *need* to have a fight with monsters. The struggle was between two 'human' groups with differing ideas of how things should be done, and instead it came down to two non-human boss fights. And why? Because you can't have a endgame boss fight without special effects and explosions going off everywhere?

If *Anders/Justice/Vengeance* had been the endgame boss, *that* would have been interesting.