42 réponses à ce sujet

[3SG Sage]

I've read many posts by players that liked the story's parallels to the real world issues we have, that the character is faced with decisions pitting family/friends against expediency/peronal beliefs, and so forth. While I can see their points, I still say Bah Humbug.

If I want a depressing glimpse of senseless slaughter, intractable "moral" stances, terrorist bombings, and civil wars I can watch the news. I don't need a parallel to the real world, I live in the real world.

I enjoy heroic fantasy fiction (games, books, movies, etc.) because I like to think that sometimes the good guy wins and all is basically well with the world. My hawke had jut about everything he touched destroyed. Couldn't keep the vicount's son alive, or the vicount, or even my mom. And these seemed to be hard coded events, not things I could change with in game decisions. I talked a bunch of fellow refugees to work in a mine they get slaughtered within, wiped out my girl friend merril's entire tribe without being given an option to talk, sneak past, or run away from them, and failed to top the Qunari from attacking and trashing the city. (Again with no apparent ability to stop it. As it is the end of act 2 I doubt it i possible. Heck, even though I assumed Isobel would grab the book and run I don't get a chance to stop her. A fight starts and she runs away in a pre-fight vid clip).

And it's not enough that there is no way to top the Mage/Templar war (why even give option to stay nuetral and mediate when they have no ultimate payoff option) - I get to be part of a terrorist bombing. Yeah, I know it's just a story. But the destruction of buildings full of innocent people for politcal purposes is something of a touchy subject for me. Maybe not helping Anders stops this - but I kinda doubt it. That the mages and templars duke it out for the end of the story seems to be set i stone.

I escaped a war, lost most of my family, killed a lot of innocent people, and then left my adopted home a wrecked ruin and helped spark a world wide civil war of mage against templars and allies. Rather than the heroic champion of my peronal storyline, I ended the game feeling like a major villian. And that was while making generally "good aligned" decisions when given the choice.

While I complement the writers on evoking an emotional responce from me, if I want to feel like a powerless rube with no ability to bring good to a world lacking a clear moral compass then I can go run for political office. I will definately wait to read the main storyline after the game comes out before investing several days in another bioware product.

Yeah, it's just my personal reaction. Those that like the real world feel of a no win situation are free to love this game. Me, I guess I side with the fictional Captain Kirk who prefers to cheat the Kobiashi Maru scenario for a positive ending then play out a bummer ending. 

[nijnij]

I may have just what you're looking for ...

[Camenae]

I agree with you 3SG Sage. Don't get me wrong, I still loved the game, but I would have loved it just as much if not more if it did give me a happy, heroic ending. I think Bioware writers are good enough to make even a cloyingly perfect and sappy ending convincing.

I refuse to watch any movies getting above a 8.0/10.0 rating on IMDB, and the more "critically acclaimed" a movie is, the more I want to stay away from it. I don't get why something has to be sad and depressing for it to have "meaning." Oh well I still wouldn't trade playing this game for anything.

[Sidney]

I don't always need the happy ending but the "savior of the world" bit gets old too. It was always the strength of the old, and to some extent new, Fallout series that you couldn't "fix" the world that was so fundamentally broken. Hawke is in the same spot.

[nijnij]

Camenae wrote...
I don't get why something has to be sad and depressing for it to have "meaning."

I agree with that, I always say that, to me, a work of art fails when you leave it feeling older than when you came in ! Comedy is actually the genre I respect the most, the constant fight between intelligence (or stupidity ) and sad realities. I don't dislike sad stories though as long as they're cathartic in their execution, which I felt was the case in DA2 so I'm fine with the game in that regard ^^.

[3SG Sage]

I don't feel that a super shiney, designed for tottlers ending is a neccessity for a good game or good story. Heck, I was okay with sacrificing myself to stop the demon in DA:O. At least I was able to live up to a personal philosophy of striving to do no harm.

But why couldn't I have the option of telling both sides of the Templar - Mage issue to go to hades and then have a set of missions fighting through their batttle to pull my sister out of the tower. Same final events (fight the two leaders, etc.) but now I can leave town with a personal victory of saving my sister (and maybe some mage children and or defecting templars) rather than being an instigator of the whole thing. Why can't I stop Isobel and return the book but have the Qunari leader get orders to attack the city that he is too prideful to ignore. Again, at least I did something positive. And why not give an option to take a dangerous path around the dalish camp rather than force me through them.

[3SG Sage]

Oh yeah, I don't have a game boy color anymore. My kids lost their last one years ago. Did playmobil ever port that title to PC ?

[LadyJaneGrey]

I don't blame you.  I agree that if you don't know what you're in for, DAII's focus on ultimate helplessness in the face of greater ideologies and forces over "save the world" could be off-putting.  My husband enjoys the same kind of fantasy as you do (good guy wins, gets the LI, world stays saved).  Yet since I told him what to expect beforehand, he ended up liking it more than I.

At this point, I think it's mostly the marketing's fault for this "where's my classic fantasy game?" feeling a lot of people have.  The only time I ever received a vibe that the story would not be about a triumphant rise of Hawke before the game's release was an Inon Zur interview.  Zur mentions that it's a more personal, "tragic" story than Origins.  Other than that, the marketing gave no indication that it wasn't the standard fantasy game you wanted.

TL;DR: Fair point; blame the marketing.

[Zing Freelancer]

Was super excited about Dragon Age 2, pre-ordered and everything.

Had a grand plan of playing first as female mage, since she's a girl, she'll be super nice to everyone.
Afterwards play as male warrior dick.

I threw my plan out of the window by the time Hawke's mother died.

Modifié par Zing Freelancer, 25 mars 2011 - 11:09 .

[RevanchistStenn]

Hawke is just a man (or woman). What do you expect? You can't forge the world back together. Crises happen and just because you're the protagonist of the story doesn't mean you should necessarily be granted the ability to prevent all tragedies. I'm sorry that the material was provoking, but likening the Anders killing act to an actual act of terrorism is tenuous at best. The point of fiction is to challenge the person exposed to it. The scenario presented is "what if your good friend did something horrible?" We shouldn't avoid asking that question just because the answer might be ****ty. If it's not your cup of tea that's fine, but don't pretend like there's an inherent flaw in tragic storytelling. It's you. You personally don't want to be boxed into a scenario that may not have a positive outcome. The alternative is we save the world again and no one is challenged. Tragedy is a legitimate form of artistic expression. It lacks the benefit of making you feel good, but that doesn't mean it's worth less.

[Lord Gremlin]

I actually played as viciously as possible, but I agree that amount of times when something is forced upon you in a video etc. is just silly.

[RevanchistStenn]

The only thing I didn't like is that when we all agreed to kill each other at the end, I couldn't just run Meredith through right there. Or later, when before she lays siege to the mages.

[Wrathra]

As much as I applaud Bioware's ability to make me think and invoke an emotional response with their writing, I do agree with you. I won't deny feeling very unsatisfied when I finished playing.

[Emperor Iaius I]

As if Origins wasn't filled with misery and suffering from the very beginning? It might just be rose colored glasses, but you're probably expecting the wrong thing from Dragon Age games. They were dark from the start. ASOIAF was stated to be an inspiration, iirc.

[3SG Sage]

Like I said, when I'm paying for the drink then I want my cup of tea. I will wait to read about the basic premiss and storyline in the future.

[nijnij]

3SG Sage wrote...

Oh yeah, I don't have a game boy color anymore. My kids lost their last one years ago. Did playmobil ever port that title to PC ?

In fact, I'm pretty sure it's originally a PC-game ; I had read about it years and years ago when there still were PC gaming magazines in France.  That game just somehow popped in my mind when searching my memories for a heroic not-dark game ! If I remember the review correctly, it said it was good but for children, but then again, it's a 90s game so it could be somewhat dated. I feel oooold and I couldn't care less  !

Modifié par nijnij, 25 mars 2011 - 11:40 .

[TeamRyan]

3SG sage,

I respect and appreciate your opinion, I do not agree with it. Thanks for sharing!

[Nerevar-as]

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

As if Origins wasn't filled with misery and suffering from the very beginning? It might just be rose colored glasses, but you're probably expecting the wrong thing from Dragon Age games. They were dark from the start. ASOIAF was stated to be an inspiration, iirc.

I like dark stories, however DA2 goes this route by making the main character hopeless to the story. Hawke is kind of pointless in the game. If you remove him/her most significant things would still happen the same way.

Act 1? Varrick will likely die in DR, affects nothing (well, besides framed narrative, which is also far less important than it seemed).

Act 2? Qunari kill the hostages before Meredith kills them. Nobles who do nothing in Act 3. Hawke in charge was also quite forced. Let the stranger who almost died of cutscene incompetence take the lead because we don´t stand each other. That´s the best they could come up with?

Act 3 ...nothing you do changes anything. I also fail to see how Hawke could put an end to the Templar-Mage war. For being the most important character of the age Hawke is little more than a witness to the events.

[Emperor Iaius I]

It tells you something about the Great Man theory of history, doesn't it? Historians question what role, if any, Napoleon truly had in shaping the 19th century or whether events were driven by circumstances--and HE has an entire page of history named after him!

[WJC3688]

Rather than the heroic champion of my peronal storyline, I ended the
game feeling like a major villian. And that was while making generally
"good aligned" decisions when given the choice.

A major villain?  That seems like an odd feeling to exit the game with as it seemed to me like the story made it very clear that Hawke was not responsible for any of its major events.

Anyways, if you want the typical "happily-ever-after" scenario, there are many other games (and works of fiction in general) out there which will deliver.  I appreciate DA2's attempt to bring some variety to the table; even if it's not your personal cup of tea, it's still good to have that kind of story out there for people who want something different, and IMO DA2's less idealistic storyline is pretty badly underrepresented compared to the usual "good guys save the world from bad guys."

That said, I do think Bioware dropped the ball when managing people's expectations of this game's story.  First of all, as someone else noted there was no real indication in the marketing or previews that the story would take this direction, so naturally people were going to have their expectations undermined by that.

But as if that weren't enough, they also decided to do this kind of story in a sequel to a game which established a very different precedent.  In Origins, you saved the world and everything was hunky dory afterwards (or at least closer to it than in DA2, there was still ambiguity in some situations like the Bhelen vs Harrowmont thing), and in addition to that the main character's choices really mattered.  You controlled the fate of entire nations and races in choosing who would rule Ferelden, who would rule Orzammar, etc.  DA2 took both of those things and tossed them out the window, which isn't bad on its own, but obviously is going to upset people after Origins has established a precedent which they expected future installments to follow.

If you ask me Bioware should have saved this kind of story for a series with no established precedent, or at the very least, marketed DA2 in such a way as to make it clear that they were going to be mixing things up.  Attaching another subtitle to it instead of a number (i.e. naming it Dragon Age: Kirkwall or summat instead of Dragon Age 2) also would've helped to distinguish it from Origins and avert expectations that it was going to be the same experience as the first game, only "streamlined."  As is, they completely mismanaged expectations, fans were blindsided by the sharp turn in direction and it's no surprise that some of them didn't appreciate it.

Also, am I the only one who finds it ironic that this game was supposed to appeal to a wider audience, but chose a more complicated story with strong political undertones over Origins's typical "defeat invading army of doom?"  You'd think they would've kept the kind of story that people are more familiar with for a game designed to have mass appeal.

[Sidney]

WJC3688 wrote...

Also, am I the only one who finds it ironic that this game was supposed to appeal to a wider audience, but chose a more complicated story with strong political undertones over Origins's typical "defeat invading army of doom?"  You'd think they would've kept the kind of story that people are more familiar with for a game designed to have mass appeal.

That's very true. DAO is the baby food of fantasy storylines in terms of being easy to digest.

I think where they'll lose folks is in Act I where there's not enough momentum pushing the story forwards. Yes I need money to go to the Deep Roads but why exactly is it I need to go to the Deep Roads? I felt like that connection wasn't as clear. BG2 had the same basic premise - gather money - but the motivation of freeing Imoen was a lot more prominent feeling.

[TeamRyan]

Nerevar-as wrote...

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

As if Origins wasn't filled with misery and suffering from the very beginning? It might just be rose colored glasses, but you're probably expecting the wrong thing from Dragon Age games. They were dark from the start. ASOIAF was stated to be an inspiration, iirc.

I like dark stories, however DA2 goes this route by making the main character hopeless to the story. Hawke is kind of pointless in the game. If you remove him/her most significant things would still happen the same way.

Act 1? Varrick will likely die in DR, affects nothing (well, besides framed narrative, which is also far less important than it seemed).

Act 2? Qunari kill the hostages before Meredith kills them. Nobles who do nothing in Act 3. Hawke in charge was also quite forced. Let the stranger who almost died of cutscene incompetence take the lead because we don´t stand each other. That´s the best they could come up with?

Act 3 ...nothing you do changes anything. I also fail to see how Hawke could put an end to the Templar-Mage war. For being the most important character of the age Hawke is little more than a witness to the events.

Actually in act 1 you make the entire trip to the deep roads possible and while there you find the lyrium idol that definately puts Meredith over the edge.

In act 2 you are choosen because of your relationship with the Qunari to lead them. The Viscount trusted you enough to be his go between the Qunari and see's you have some insight or sway with them, I don't see why other officials wouldn't notice it either.

In act 3 you really do take a back seat to what happens, but the world see's it as the champion of kirkwall either purposefully crushing the the circle of magi or freeing them from the chains of the templars. In all likelyhood it's probably Varric's doing that your role is seen for being bigger than it actually was and that's probably why cassandra seeks him out specifically.

[OrlesianWardenCommander]

It's called a Greek tragedy and it's not really up too hawke too fix everything the warden couldn't stop the blight till it destroyed half of ferelden so it wasn't a very happy ending either. Besides I'm so sick of every game every movie have the common theme of "no matter how bad it gets it all works out in the end." thing would of been a whole lot worse if it wasn't for hawke.

[Medhia Nox]

@TeamRyan - actually, no you don't. The bartender tells you: "Everyone and their mother is trying to get on that deep roads expedition." As for Varric surviving the Deep Roads - he wouldn't have gone off alone with Hawke, if Hawke wasn't there. He would be standing right next to his brother Bartrand the whole time... and would have put a crossbow bolt between the eyes before Bartrand could betray him.

Act 2: You can do nothing to alter the outcome in any fashion, it's just "Go through the motions until Arishok is pissed."... your mabari could have just run up to the Arishok and pissed on his leg for the same result Hawke can achieve (and much faster too).

Act 3: Well... at least we both agree Hawke is useless in this act.

------

Please, please never insult Greek tragedies by comparing them to Dragon Age 2 ever again. Please, I'm begging you.

Modifié par Medhia Nox, 26 mars 2011 - 03:38 .

[Sharn01]

Emperor Iaius I wrote...

As if Origins wasn't filled with misery and suffering from the very beginning? It might just be rose colored glasses, but you're probably expecting the wrong thing from Dragon Age games. They were dark from the start. ASOIAF was stated to be an inspiration, iirc.

I may be wrong but I think he is complaining about being pigeon holed into being the instigator of all the misery and suffering.  Thats what I got from his example of fighting to the circle to try and save as many innocents as possible as a nuetrel ending with the same battles and end result.