57 réponses à ce sujet

[Pandaman102]

Clearly to give you a hot sister to lust over.

[Zan Mura]

Elthraim wrote...

    If BioWare can't portray family relationships with any dramatic weight I wish they would simply take a cue from the Elder Scrolls and make your character a prisoner with no past.  After all, why do we play RPGs?  We don't want to wade through hours of dialog about a family and past to which we as players have no personal connection.  We want to build significant bonds with the other characters in the story as we move through the world.  I feel that DA2 succeeds at the latter, so I wish they would stop trying to force the former into a story where it doesn't fit.

Disagreed on almost all accounts. For one TES series sucks buttocks big time, given that they have zero character depth of any kind. Personally, I don't even bother comparing Bethesda products to BioWare anymore for that precise reason.

Still, I agree that they didn't exactly deliver with the promise of family ties in DA2. But I definitely do appreciate the effort. My greatest fear though is that BW will use this experience of a lazily or hastily developed bonding mechanic for drawing the wrong conclusion: that it doesn't work. It would have, had they given it the proper effort. I hate to bring up a game this old, but it worked marvels in BG2, while even there you had more room for improvement.

For DA2 on the other hand, your siblings were too much in the background. Carver was whiny, Bethany was too submissive in a way, and they both just got ripped out from you way too early in the game. Following that you could have practically zero communication with them for the rest of the game, for no apparent reason. The extreme anti-climactic moment of meeting your sibling in the deep roads after years of not having even seen them, only to basically say "hi, cya later dude" did not help. Same with your mother, she's practically useless beyond the introduction to ACT 1.

I realise the risks involved, I know BW can't make their presence too strong either for fear of making the players feel restricted. I be there are a lot of gamers out there who have zero desire to feel tied to some family matters in a game they want to be all about their personal glory and adventure. But speaking for myself here, I would definitely welcome far stronger and longer lasting family ties myself.

[mopotter]

Quill74Pen wrote...

It's interesting that, later in the game, you do find out your uncle had a daughter, and you actually get to meet her in one of the side missions. She's your cousin, and she's pretty kick butt. Sadly, she's not a playable character, though.

Quill74Pen

when and how?  please  

[Lithuasil]

AlexXIV wrote...

Lithuasil wrote...

Why does Bioware bother giving you enemies, you end up killing them anyway.

Oh.
Wait.

Because that's the purpose of an enemy. Unless you think the purpose of a family is to die your argument is rather stupid. What will you tell us next, that our enemies also have families?

Saying an emotional motivator, triggered by the death or misfortune of a loved one renders said character useless, is like saying enemies are useless because they die. Yes, it's their purpose. Just like the narrative purpose of Leandras death was to suckerpunch you in the gut. That it did, it did it well, so it was that characters purpose.

[Jiggasaurus]

Wait a minute, not only are you slightly spoiling the ‘Ice & Fire’ books for those who have not read them but you’re expecting the depth of a fully voiced game developed inside 2 years to outweigh that of a Fantasy epic novel series?

There is no set in stone formula for how a family must operate in a fictional environment (thank God because that would be tedious as sin)

[Dene1963]

I didn't care much for the Human Noble DA:O family much, although I liked that your mother kicked butt early on. Her death seemed a bit pointless and I cared nothing for Fergus and found that part superfluous.

Now regarding Hawke's family. The death early on of one sibling, I agree, leaves little mark although you do feel for your mother's grieving.

My biggest complaint with your mother and your surviving sibling is that there's little you can do to interact with them outside of quests and a few cut scenes. I was happy the mother wasn't killed straight away but even with no spoilers I knew she was doomed from the start (call it a hunch on how Bioware does these things.) That said, I think her death was powerful enough.

Now as a big Carver fan, I developed a strong feeling for him simply because he's a best companion by far - family or no. However, there should have been more interaction between yourself and your sibling.

[AlexXIV]

Lithuasil wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Lithuasil wrote...

Why does Bioware bother giving you enemies, you end up killing them anyway.

Oh.
Wait.

Because that's the purpose of an enemy. Unless you think the purpose of a family is to die your argument is rather stupid. What will you tell us next, that our enemies also have families?

Saying an emotional motivator, triggered by the death or misfortune of a loved one renders said character useless, is like saying enemies are useless because they die. Yes, it's their purpose. Just like the narrative purpose of Leandras death was to suckerpunch you in the gut. That it did, it did it well, so it was that characters purpose.

Well in that case they shouldn't have advertised it the way they did. They said 'our hero does have a family' in opposite to other games where your pcs family gets killed off before the game starts. Now they kill off the family right after the game starts or in the middle. It's the same what happened to the Couslands in DA:O so where was that a surprise. The only thing surprising was the appaling way it happens, which was probably intended because they knew how lame this 'story twist' was.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 23 mars 2011 - 03:38 .

[MKDAWUSS]

I think having a family survive might be an interesting aspect to explore. A family can be something to build and develop upon.

[Darth Obvious]

Elthraim wrote...

    One thing that Origins tried to do (with varying degrees of success from one origin story to the next) and that DA2 has also tried to do is make your family and/or upbringing factor into the story.  

    BioWare has stated that George R.R. Martin's the Song of Ice and Fire novels have influenced the world of Dragon Age, and it shows in what happens to your characters' family members in both Origins and DA2.  In myths and fiction, a hero often needs to lose people close to him/her in order to move on and fulfill his/her own destiny, but Martin's slow, unflinching, sadistic decimation of the Stark family seems more like what Dragon Age is going for.  Martin, however, was wise enough to give us a good amount of time to meet and begin to like the family members he will later tear away from us, which is where BioWare has failed with both Origins and DA2.

      1) We as players have no prior emotional ties to our characters' family, so killing one of them very early (i.e. Origins' Human Noble story or the early Carver/Bethany death based on your class choice) has no emotional impact on the player.  The opposite side of this spectrum is Fergus in Origins: your family is murdered and you think he may be alive, but he only reappears in the celebration sequence at the end of the game in a moment of 'Hey! Guess what?  I'm not dead!  What?  You stopped caring 30 hours ago?'
      2) A completely random, horrific death in the family (i.e. Leandra in Act 2) is jarring and scatalogical unless the loss leads to an important turn in the story (which it did not in that case), and again the player is unlikely to have developed an emotional connection to that character.  Given that you have no power to stop Leandra from dying, I felt that her death was a cheap shock tactic with little emotional or dramatic impact.
      3) Perhaps the root of the issue is that the voice acting and animations for these death scenes are so ham-fisted or melodramatic that the plot event is more likely to evoke laughter than sadness or pathos.

     So why even bother?  Just like in Neverwinter Nights 2 (which was Obsidian's work, not BioWare's) the family element to the plot of DA2 is more of a hinderance to the player's enjoyment of the game, a nagging pause in the story to play out a pre-determined drama for which you feel no emotional interest. 

    If BioWare can't portray family relationships with any dramatic weight I wish they would simply take a cue from the Elder Scrolls and make your character a prisoner with no past.  After all, why do we play RPGs?  We don't want to wade through hours of dialog about a family and past to which we as players have no personal connection.  We want to build significant bonds with the other characters in the story as we move through the world.  I feel that DA2 succeeds at the latter, so I wish they would stop trying to force the former into a story where it doesn't fit.

Good post. I agree on all counts. There was so little actual interaction with family members that it rendered the whole idea completely pointless. I guess we should expect this kind of amateurish writing from Bioware. They have completely lost it.

[Estelindis]

I cried when I saw Leandra's fate. And my Hawke would have sided with the Templars at the end if Bethany hadn't been a Circle Mage; nothing could make her kill her sister, and that forced her to face the fact that all mages shouldn't suffer for an atrocity committed by one mage. So I think Bioware did a pretty good job of connecting us to Hawke's family.

Modifié par Estelindis, 23 mars 2011 - 03:45 .

[Alexein]

Hawke's reason to be in kirkwall was because Leandra said they had family and estate there...

Estate was "lost" by some family member.... and that same family member is a Douch****.

Okay anyway... so they already get there and need to stay because going back to a blight infested country is out of the question.

Sibling might die in the deeproads, and then Leandra, who is really the only person that wants to be there, gets murdered. So hawke is left alone in kirkwall. (even if sibling lives hawke is still essentially alone)

So what's hawke's reason for staying? It's implied that alistair or whatever new ferelden king will welcome back fereldens (and even apostates) with open arms.

Hawke should have just liquidated their assets and moved away from that Templar/Apostitute hole

Without the family Hawke has almost no reason to stay in kirkwall. So killing them, while might score points in drama, loses many points in Hawke's motivations.

The "family" concept just seemed to be a way to connect DA:O with DA2 by saying hawke is from DA;O world (lothering) and then gets moved to DA2 because of family. After that was accomplished they were just used as fridge stuffing.

Not saying its a terrible story... but all that work mashing together the family story could have been spent making a much more thorough champion hawke story.

So we get two stories, The Hawke family tragedy, and the Hawke Rise of The Champion. Neither of which was done as well as they could have been due to the compressed development cycle.

The family story should have been done great, or not done at all.

Modifié par Alexein, 23 mars 2011 - 03:47 .

[MKDAWUSS]

Alexein wrote...

Hawke's reason to be in kirkwall was because Leandra said they had family and estate there...

Estate was "lost" by some family member.... and that same family member is a Douch****.

Okay anyway... so they already get there and need to stay because going back to a blight infested country is out of the question.

Sibling might die in the deeproads, and then Leandra, who is really the only person that wants to be there, gets murdered. So hawke is left alone in kirkwall. (even if sibling lives hawke is still essentially alone)

So what's hawke's reason for staying? It's implied that alistair or whatever new ferelden king will welcome back fereldens (and even apostates) with open arms.

Hawke should have just liquidated their assets and moved away from that Templar/Apostitute hole

Without the family Hawke has almost no reason to stay in kirkwall. So killing them, while might score points in drama, loses many points in Hawke's motivations.

The "family" concept just seemed to be a way to connect DA:O with DA2 by saying hawke is from DA;O world (lothering) and then gets moved to DA2 because of family. After that was accomplished they were just used as fridge stuffing.

Not saying its a terrible story... but all that work mashing together the family story could have been spent making a much more thorough blank hawke story where they become champion.

So we get two stories, The Hawke family tragedy, and the Hawke Rise of The Champion. Neither of which was done as well as they could have been due to the compressed development cycle.

The family story should have been done great, or not done at all.

ITA.

The family relation just felt like a side story that was occasionally thrown in just to make it seem like it was important to the overall storyline, which, while it was, at the same time, it was not. The two stories could have meshed well together, but the way how it was done left much to be desired.

[yangthecat]

For me the emotional impact of Leandra's death was that I couldn't save her. It's true I didn't feel any deep connection to her as a character, save that she was Hawke's mother. It wasn't so much the loss as the feeling of impotence, of not being the great hero who can rescue anyone from any situation that really worked for me. I thought Bioware handled that really well. I also liked that my LI later tried to console Hawke, and he got into an argument over it with Gamlen. That was something I felt was lacking in DA:O, the Warden was never able to have conversations about things that had emotional impact (like the CE returning to Denerim to discover the Alienage was locked down and being purged. You had to spend the rest of the game pretending you weren't concerned that you father, cousins and friends weren't being slaughtered in there, unable to voice any worry or fear to your companions.)
It's true that we weren't given much to feel a developed relationship with the family, but I much prefer the little background we get to the no background Elder Scrolls deal. I find it impossible to care about anything happening in those games, whereas with the DA:O and DA2, I have at least some connection to the world through my family and origin, even If I hsave to flesh it out a bit in my imagination.

[Guitar-Hero]

I agree with your points, and i think they are valid, i do not however think that they should do away with family or family type characters, they just need to do it better, create an emotional connection with the PC's family and then take them away, so that the player feels a sensation of loss. Also what i have been missing is a mentor type character who stays with you right up till the end, i really enjoyed Duncan, but the decision to kill him off so early was a mistake in my opinion, he could have offered sage advice in trying times, and building an emotional connection takes time, you can't expect the player to care if a family member is killed during the first 10 min.

Modifié par Steffen, 23 mars 2011 - 04:04 .

[ZombiePowered]

Alexein wrote...

Hawke's reason to be in kirkwall was because Leandra said they had family and estate there...

Estate was "lost" by some family member.... and that same family member is a Douch****.

Okay anyway... so they already get there and need to stay because going back to a blight infested country is out of the question.

Sibling might die in the deeproads, and then Leandra, who is really the only person that wants to be there, gets murdered. So hawke is left alone in kirkwall. (even if sibling lives hawke is still essentially alone)

So what's hawke's reason for staying? It's implied that alistair or whatever new ferelden king will welcome back fereldens (and even apostates) with open arms.

Hawke should have just liquidated their assets and moved away from that Templar/Apostitute hole

Without the family Hawke has almost no reason to stay in kirkwall. So killing them, while might score points in drama, loses many points in Hawke's motivations.

People keep bringing up the question of why would Hawke stay in Kirkwall, but why on earth would he go back to Ferelden? His family is all dead/out of reach except for Gamlen (who is in Kirkwall), i.e. there isn't any family in Ferelden for him to go back to, plus Lothering is destroyed, so he has no home to go back to. The people who he knew in Lothering are either dead or scattered all over the country in the wake of the blight. He has absolutely no reason to go back to Ferelden. As for staying in Kirkwall, he has ample reason. First, the last of his family still lives there. Second, all of his friends live there (you know, those people you travel with and form emotional connections with?). As Isabela clearly stated, people care about him. People like... Aveline. Third, his family all either died or left him as a result of the struggle to reclaim their lost glory in Kirkwall. There is no way Hawke would spend so many years and expend so much effort to reclaim the family estate and build up a fortune and then just leave, making all the sacrifices he and his family made pointless. Of course he'd stay in Kirkwall. He'd just forged a path to Hightown with blood and sweat and maybe even tears. The idea of leaving after all that is something only the weak of will would have, and Hawke is the Champion. There isn't an ounce of weak will in him.

[Shadowrun1177]

I agree with a several other people in this thread that Bioware really messed up on the family thing. I can see and agree with losing one sibling at the beginning during the prologue. It's the death of or removal for most of game of the second sibling and the avoidable death of Hawke's mother that seems pointless as I felt it removed Hawke's motivation for being in Kirkwall. On my first game I played a mage and Carver joined the templars, and I really felt no motivation to get involved with Meredith, Carver and the rest of the templars killing them mages of the circle. I felt let them if they turn around and come after me then I'll worry about it. On my second game I played rogue and Bethany became a Grey Warden, again I felt no reason to get involved and wondered why Hawke was still in Kirkwall after Leandra's death. The only reason I felt the need to stick around on my third game was to protect Bethany who had been taken to the circle. The stripping away of Hawke's family felt like it too Hawke's motivation away, cause Hawke's main goal felt like it was to protect his/her family with them gone why stick around or get involved.

[TheBlackBaron]

Pandaman102 wrote...

Clearly to give you a hot sister to lust over.

Seems logical, Captain. 

[Tamahome560]

ZombiePowered wrote...

People keep bringing up the question of why would Hawke stay in Kirkwall, but why on earth would he go back to Ferelden? His family is all dead/out of reach except for Gamlen (who is in Kirkwall), i.e. there isn't any family in Ferelden for him to go back to, plus Lothering is destroyed, so he has no home to go back to. The people who he knew in Lothering are either dead or scattered all over the country in the wake of the blight. He has absolutely no reason to go back to Ferelden. As for staying in Kirkwall, he has ample reason. First, the last of his family still lives there. Second, all of his friends live there (you know, those people you travel with and form emotional connections with?). As Isabela clearly stated, people care about him. People like... Aveline. Third, his family all either died or left him as a result of the struggle to reclaim their lost glory in Kirkwall. There is no way Hawke would spend so many years and expend so much effort to reclaim the family estate and build up a fortune and then just leave, making all the sacrifices he and his family made pointless. Of course he'd stay in Kirkwall. He'd just forged a path to Hightown with blood and sweat and maybe even tears. The idea of leaving after all that is something only the weak of will would have, and Hawke is the Champion. There isn't an ounce of weak will in him.

This. What does Hawke accomplish by going back to Ferelden? He has nothing there. He started building a life in Kirkwall so why abandon it. Only living family is in Kirkwall also friends and possibly a lover, estate, fortune and respect.

About the family: It was well executed. The first sibling death was only there for plot reasons. But it was sad seeing Leandra's reaction. Hawke/Carver relationship was great as well. Leandra's death was heart wrenching.

Modifié par Tamahome560, 23 mars 2011 - 04:21 .

[TobiTobsen]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

Pandaman102 wrote...

Clearly to give you a hot sister to lust over.

Seems logical, Captain. 

I support a Dragon Age 3 Warden&Bethany Romance!

[Shadowrun1177]

ZombiePowered wrote...

People keep bringing up the question of why would Hawke stay in Kirkwall, but why on earth would he go back to Ferelden? His family is all dead/out of reach except for Gamlen (who is in Kirkwall), i.e. there isn't any family in Ferelden for him to go back to, plus Lothering is destroyed, so he has no home to go back to. The people who he knew in Lothering are either dead or scattered all over the country in the wake of the blight. He has absolutely no reason to go back to Ferelden. As for staying in Kirkwall, he has ample reason. First, the last of his family still lives there. Second, all of his friends live there (you know, those people you travel with and form emotional connections with?). As Isabela clearly stated, people care about him. People like... Aveline. Third, his family all either died or left him as a result of the struggle to reclaim their lost glory in Kirkwall. There is no way Hawke would spend so many years and expend so much effort to reclaim the family estate and build up a fortune and then just leave, making all the sacrifices he and his family made pointless. Of course he'd stay in Kirkwall. He'd just forged a path to Hightown with blood and sweat and maybe even tears. The idea of leaving after all that is something only the weak of will would have, and Hawke is the Champion. There isn't an ounce of weak will in him.

You say it's only something someone weak of will would have done, but I disagree. Why would someone want to stay in a city that brought so much tragedy to them, there's are places Hawke could of gone he/she doesn't have to return to Ferelden Thedas is a big place. As for the Hawke is the Champion to me it felt like a hollow title with no meaning cause I didn't feel like a hero or champion.

[Alexein]

He doesn't have to go anywhere, but the game was built up and sold to us on its family aspect. Its heavily implied that family is what motivates hawke. At the very beginning Hawke is actually reluctant to go to kirkwall, bethany even complains about too many templars. In the back story the reason why Leandra LEFT is because of templars and the need to protect bethany.


Anyway, i'm going to leave this thread because i find highly offensive someone would call someone "weak" for choosing to leave. My own family had to leave a country in war and it was a pretty tough decision. Call them what you will but i'm not going to bother arguing that, i'm alive thanks to that decision, thats all that matters to me.

[CRISIS1717]

What I think Bioware were aiming for was a personal involvement. Hawke's family is the the primary motivation for Hawke to build a life in Kirkwall. If Hawkes family were out of the picture what would be the drive behind Hawke to do all these sidequests and to gain an important role? ambition? greed? just because? none of these are acceptable reasons to base a heroic story on unless a character is specifically characterised to be motivated like that which rules out choice of personality.

I certainly agree with you though OP about the family storyline part being weak, it's not much of a heroic adventure in my opinion to rebuild a family fortune. A storyline is certainly much stronger if there is a clear purpose or goal like in DAO when the blight was a threat.

In a heroic adventure I'd rather have the family aspect of the character take a backseat by either killing them off or having them somewhere else and out of the picture, which is why I prefferred it when Bethany was in the Circle.

The whole story is awful though not just this one part.

[mopotter]

Zan Mura wrote...

Elthraim wrote...

    If BioWare can't portray family relationships with any dramatic weight I wish they would simply take a cue from the Elder Scrolls and make your character a prisoner with no past.  After all, why do we play RPGs?  We don't want to wade through hours of dialog about a family and past to which we as players have no personal connection.  We want to build significant bonds with the other characters in the story as we move through the world.  I feel that DA2 succeeds at the latter, so I wish they would stop trying to force the former into a story where it doesn't fit.

Disagreed on almost all accounts. For one TES series sucks buttocks big time, given that they have zero character depth of any kind. Personally, I don't even bother comparing Bethesda products to BioWare anymore for that precise reason.

Still, I agree that they didn't exactly deliver with the promise of family ties in DA2. But I definitely do appreciate the effort. My greatest fear though is that BW will use this experience of a lazily or hastily developed bonding mechanic for drawing the wrong conclusion: that it doesn't work. It would have, had they given it the proper effort. I hate to bring up a game this old, but it worked marvels in BG2, while even there you had more room for improvement.

For DA2 on the other hand, your siblings were too much in the background. Carver was whiny, Bethany was too submissive in a way, and they both just got ripped out from you way too early in the game. Following that you could have practically zero communication with them for the rest of the game, for no apparent reason. The extreme anti-climactic moment of meeting your sibling in the deep roads after years of not having even seen them, only to basically say "hi, cya later dude" did not help. Same with your mother, she's practically useless beyond the introduction to ACT 1.

I realise the risks involved, I know BW can't make their presence too strong either for fear of making the players feel restricted. I be there are a lot of gamers out there who have zero desire to feel tied to some family matters in a game they want to be all about their personal glory and adventure. But speaking for myself here, I would definitely welcome far stronger and longer lasting family ties myself.

I enjoy the TES/FO games, for totally different reasons so I wouldn't want BW to switch formats.  

I liked Carver, I could call him out on things, like - you want me taken to the circle?  Carver - No, but i understand why they are afraid now.  - Stuff like that.  I did not find him whiny.  Whiny is way overused by everyone.  He complained, I'll agree with that but he didn't whine, i've heard whine from my kid when she was 7  totally different.  

If anything, I wish we could have picked the sib to save. I found Bethany a bit boring.  Some of the lines she gave, I enjoyed a lot more when Carver said them.  I didn't hate either of them, but I do like Carver and since I have no brothers or sisters, I have no idea if they are even remotely realistic.  

I think the idea was good.  But I would  have liked them to have made it more interesting to have a sibling. Give them a side story like they did with Aveline.   Of course that would have been more work since they would need two story lines, but who knows what future games will hold.  

[Arppis]

Lone Wolf is the best way to go anyhow. No one to slow you down.

[baddogkelevra]

I agree that a lot of times this felt like the killing of the Stark family, right up to the mother becoming some sort of undead thing. There's a reason I named my Hawke Jon.