102 réponses à ce sujet

[namelessfear1]

My complaint with act 3 was where in the hell did all the wuss mages come from in the cut scenes. I mean spirit bolt? Burning hands? Where is the hell is walking bomb, firestorm, tempest, HEAL would have been handy. But NO they chose the lowest ranked spells they could. And the big cutscene when the Templars break down the door after Meredith tells them to prepare themselves and they are freakin shocked that the templars just kicked in the door? CMON punks all of them. Thats why they go to blood magic and aboms out of the gate cause noone taught them ****.

Modifié par namelessfear1, 29 mars 2011 - 04:28 .

[joriandrake]

PsychoWARD23 wrote...

TeenZombie wrote...

I agree; other than Bethany and possibly Hawke, there was not a single uncorrupted mage in Kirkwall, while on the templars side, a few seemed reasonable and sane. It was awfully heavy handed and crude, how mages were portrayed, especially Orsino's Stupid Evil twist.

I don't know, Orsino is talking about how mages aren't all bad, then BAM! However, it does make sense since he saw tons of innocent mages lying dead on the floor.

that doesn't excuse funding and supporting "Frankenstein"

[namelessfear1]

kea_spicy wrote...

http://dragonage.wik...gma_of_Kirkwall

Apparently Kirkwall's circle mages have a higher percentage of dying during their Harrowing an/or turn to blood magic. As axl99 mentioned, this is partially due to those damned Tevinter magisters thinning the veil on purpose by going even more slave-sacrifice-crazy than normal. This might help explain how the Templar recruits were being posessed/ turned into abominations?

Truth.  If you take Fenris with you on Merrill's last quest to the demon shrine he makes a good comment.  Clost to the top of Sundermount.  "You can feel how thin the Veil is up here and still the Elves of Arlathan still buried there dead up here?"  Or something like that.  So the Veil could just be always thin there from the war with the Imperium and the Elves.

[darkrose]

namelessfear1 wrote...

kea_spicy wrote...

http://dragonage.wik...gma_of_Kirkwall

Apparently Kirkwall's circle mages have a higher percentage of dying during their Harrowing an/or turn to blood magic. As axl99 mentioned, this is partially due to those damned Tevinter magisters thinning the veil on purpose by going even more slave-sacrifice-crazy than normal. This might help explain how the Templar recruits were being posessed/ turned into abominations?

Truth.  If you take Fenris with you on Merrill's last quest to the demon shrine he makes a good comment.  Clost to the top of Sundermount.  "You can feel how thin the Veil is up here and still the Elves of Arlathan still buried there dead up here?"  Or something like that.  So the Veil could just be always thin there from the war with the Imperium and the Elves.

You mean, Merrill's last quest that is completely and thoroughly borked? That one?

Never mind that by that I was ready to poke my eyes out with a fork if I had to listen to her and Fenris bickering. (Granted, by that point in the game my Hawke was ready to run off to Antiva with Varric, the only non-bat**** member of the party.)

I  hate the fact that the piece of information that would make DA2, and Act 3 in particular, have some kind of motivation other than "Everyone in Kirkwall is nuts", is only revelaed in hard-to-find codex entries. 

[LobselVith8]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

That's a pretty awful bastardization of statistics and facts right there, even by Lob's standards..

Dean, do you need to take my disagreements on the views of mages and templars so personally? There's no reason we can't disagree and be civil about it.

If you have any information contradicting that there is a much larger percentage of mages living in the Gallows than we have personally met as Hawke, please feel free to provide it. I see nothing to contradict that there are mages and apprentices of all ages in the Gallows, or that are there likely hundreds or thousands of mages in the Gallows Prison (which means that it's a larger estimate of mages than we personally encounter as the protagonist Hawke).

Modifié par LobselVith8, 29 mars 2011 - 01:56 .

[sylvanaerie]

namelessfear1 wrote...

My complaint with act 3 was where in the hell did all the wuss mages come from in the cut scenes. I mean spirit bolt? Burning hands? Where is the hell is walking bomb, firestorm, tempest, HEAL would have been handy. But NO they chose the lowest ranked spells they could. And the big cutscene when the Templars break down the door after Meredith tells them to prepare themselves and they are freakin shocked that the templars just kicked in the door? CMON punks all of them. Thats why they go to blood magic and aboms out of the gate cause noone taught them ****.

Yea that whole sequence was just beyond stupid.  What did Orsino do, put all the 'canon fodder' not so accomplished apprentices in the front hall and then not tell them Meredith and her goon squad were coming?  The mages had this WTF look on their faces when it happened.
Hell, hobbled and muted the saarebas were tearin' up the joint with their magics. These guys looked like they could barely light a candle let alone a fireball.  However it was a lot more effective a defense if you templar run the hall.  That whole part of the game makes more sense from a Templar playthrough point of view, including the Orsino fiasco.  Dude actually GLOATS that he knew about Quentin to Hawke's face.

[Waltzingbear]

They pretty much changed all the rules. The main dilemma in Origins was whether you’d take more power at the expense of other people (somewhat to help the greater good later) or reject it to save them (as the Warden says: Grey Wardens take help whatever form it comes).

DA2 basically made both sides to be corrupted and then forced you to stay in the same city and choose between two sides. If it seems at the beginning of the game that you can actually make a difference to turn things for the best it dissolves when reaching act three where logic and credibility of the world just go 'poof'.

This is not the same as choosing a lesser evil. The defining thing about a Lesser Evil dilemma is that both possible choices are corrupted to some extent but one of them while doing a certain amount of harm will result in an eventual better outcome than the other.
I cannot see this in the last chapter of DA2. Both sides are wrong and siding with one of them will not improve the situation in any visible way, but will only support their evil-doing. Either way Hawke must be just as ignorant as the one he's siding with.

Apparently the way to pose a difficult ethical question is to force one to choose between two sides rotten at the same degree and blinded with the same ignorance, and making both of them "right" by saying that the other is evil.
A solution is of course unobtainable; that is, the question is unsolvable from an ethical point of view, meaning that the decision is based on an outside factor such as not killing Bethany or a fondness of Orsino's sexy nose bridge, or maybe you just don't care anymore.

[Mad-Max90]

Not only was Orsino, a last minute blood Mage, he also spoiler alert

Was the guy who aided the Mage who kills your mom.

End spoiler

So I always sided with the Templars after that

[namelessfear1]

You mean, Merrill's last quest that is completely and thoroughly borked? That one?

Never mind that by that I was ready to poke my eyes out with a fork if I had to listen to her and Fenris bickering. (Granted, by that point in the game my Hawke was ready to run off to Antiva with Varric, the only non-bat**** member of the party.)

I  hate the fact that the piece of information that would make DA2, and Act 3 in particular, have some kind of motivation other than "Everyone in Kirkwall is nuts", is only revelaed in hard-to-find codex entries. 

[/quote]

I never had any problems whith Merrill's last quest PS3.  Just Bella's last quest where she is standing infront of my message desk with the quest icon above her head.  If you dont have a save at the beginning of act 3 you are screwed. lol   good times

[Arijharn]

I dunno, I'd rather of sided with the Arishok then siding with the Templar's or mages. Having said that, I refuse to believe that the only option for the mages was to evoke the Right of Annulment, because you could just execute the culprit right then and there.

All Blood Mages are Mages, but not all mages are Blood Mages.

[Babi]

Well, the "good" mages are probably doing their best to stay in the circle. It makes sense that you'd mostly encounter naughty ones outside. XD

[Curlain]

Sadly true OP, it just felt that the significantly larger range of mages from a number of different viewpoints and perspectives in Origins just didn't seem present here. It's sad as I wanted this game to go into the different array of views between different mages and between mages and templars then we actually go to see. The Circle situation was portrayed in a more complex manner in Origins then in much of DA2 sadly.

[Spartansfan8888]

Waltzingbear wrote...

They pretty much changed all the rules. The main dilemma in Origins was whether you’d take more power at the expense of other people (somewhat to help the greater good later) or reject it to save them (as the Warden says: Grey Wardens take help whatever form it comes).

DA2 basically made both sides to be corrupted and then forced you to stay in the same city and choose between two sides. If it seems at the beginning of the game that you can actually make a difference to turn things for the best it dissolves when reaching act three where logic and credibility of the world just go 'poof'.

This is not the same as choosing a lesser evil. The defining thing about a Lesser Evil dilemma is that both possible choices are corrupted to some extent but one of them while doing a certain amount of harm will result in an eventual better outcome than the other.
I cannot see this in the last chapter of DA2. Both sides are wrong and siding with one of them will not improve the situation in any visible way, but will only support their evil-doing. Either way Hawke must be just as ignorant as the one he's siding with.

Apparently the way to pose a difficult ethical question is to force one to choose between two sides rotten at the same degree and blinded with the same ignorance, and making both of them "right" by saying that the other is evil.
A solution is of course unobtainable; that is, the question is unsolvable from an ethical point of view, meaning that the decision is based on an outside factor such as not killing Bethany or a fondness of Orsino's sexy nose bridge, or maybe you just don't care anymore.

I think they intended both the circle and templars to be hard to side with. If I had the choice as Hawke I would walk away and protect the people of Kirkwall from their insaneness but I guess someone had to kill Harvester Orsino and Lyrium insane Meredith.

[The Baconer]

LobselVith8 wrote...

137 out of how many hundreds or thousands of mages who never became abominations or sought to use their magic to harm others, TJPags? And considering virtually all of the templars have no issue committing genocide against all the mages of every age in Kirkwall, should we condemn them for "following orders" when it comes to the slaughter of innocents-

Nope, stop right there. The ratio of good-to-bad templars we meet in this game is more good leaning than that of all the mages we meet.

[Lord Gremlin]

sylvanaerie wrote...

namelessfear1 wrote...

My complaint with act 3 was where in the hell did all the wuss mages come from in the cut scenes. I mean spirit bolt? Burning hands? Where is the hell is walking bomb, firestorm, tempest, HEAL would have been handy. But NO they chose the lowest ranked spells they could. And the big cutscene when the Templars break down the door after Meredith tells them to prepare themselves and they are freakin shocked that the templars just kicked in the door? CMON punks all of them. Thats why they go to blood magic and aboms out of the gate cause noone taught them ****.

Yea that whole sequence was just beyond stupid.  What did Orsino do, put all the 'canon fodder' not so accomplished apprentices in the front hall and then not tell them Meredith and her goon squad were coming?  The mages had this WTF look on their faces when it happened.
Hell, hobbled and muted the saarebas were tearin' up the joint with their magics. These guys looked like they could barely light a candle let alone a fireball.  However it was a lot more effective a defense if you templar run the hall.  That whole part of the game makes more sense from a Templar playthrough point of view, including the Orsino fiasco.  Dude actually GLOATS that he knew about Quentin to Hawke's face.

I see... My mage supported mages and bastard never said anything about Quentin. All this just portraying Kirkwall mages are stupidly evil... Not Palpatin-style evil... Such a shame.
From mage point of view Orsino's actions were beyoned retarded: I was all like "WTF you're doing dude, we're winning! You stupid ass moron turned into harvester and ruined glorious mage victory that awaited us!"

[Rifneno]

As soon as I saw Orsino the first time, I realized it wasn't
"if" he'd be a boss fight, but "when."  That is the
only really evil looking staff in the entire game.  Anyway, I recall some
line of his saying he didn't know the extent of Quentin's crimes.  Like
that he knew he was researching necromancy, but he didn't know he was
butchering women when he was writing him.  When he found out, he didn't
report it because Meredith would've used that as an excuse to come down even
harder on the Circle.  Not exactly a heroic deed but not as bad as if he
was there chopping people up with him.  Then again perhaps I'm just naive
and he was full of it about that.  I didn't give it much thought, I was
more interested in whether Bioware really intended him to be a Harvester, or if
it was just a model recycle.



But I digress.  The thing people need to realize about the amount of
abominations and blood mages we see is that we're playing a combat-based game.
 They have to present us with challenges like that.  How much of a challenge
would it be if we had 40 mages beside us spamming AOE's on the templars?
 Not much.  What we encounter as a player character isn't an accurate
representation of anything.  Everyone thought dragons were extinct, and
how many have we encountered?  Counting DAO, I've seen more dragons than
farmers.


 
Another factor is, as someone pointed out earlier, Bioware pretty much hid a
vital part of the story in the codex.  Tevinter Magisters were doing some
horrific things that left the veil paper-thin in Kirkwall.  Remember that
scene in Ghostbusters, with the twinkie?  "Egon: Well, let's say this
Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York
area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet
long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds."  Yeah, Kirkwall is
the 600 pound Twinkie.  And the Gallows is the epicenter of it.
 Housing the Circle of Magi in the Kirkwall Gallows ranks right up there
with using the Parthenon as a gunpowder warehouse on the "What were they
thinking?!" scale.  Kirkwall mages do turn to evil far more often
than other mages; they're locked in demon central all day with ageless horrors
whispering sweet nothings in their ears.

[Curlain]

I never brought Orisino's justification that 'I didn't know the extent of Quentin's crimes' line, to me that was just a case of wilful ignorance. Given the extent of the knowledge Orsinio gained from Quentin's research (being able to turn himself into a Harvester) I have a hard time believing that someone as intelligent as Orsinio with his knowledge of magic didn't realise that something particularly nasty was going on to get this information, and didn't as some level in his mind put the two and two together about the disappearing women, particularly after that Templar kept making waves about it for years.

To me, Orisino just shut his eyes to his crimes to protect mage reputations and to make use of the research (similar to a surgeon know what Burke and Hare did to get their bodies in the 19th century, but choosing to ignore it to use the bodies)

[LobselVith8]

The Baconer wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

137 out of how many hundreds or thousands of mages who never became abominations or sought to use their magic to harm others, TJPags? And considering virtually all of the templars have no issue committing genocide against all the mages of every age in Kirkwall, should we condemn them for "following orders" when it comes to the slaughter of innocents-

Nope, stop right there. The ratio of good-to-bad templars we meet in this game is more good leaning than that of all the mages we meet.

"Stop right there"? All of the templars accept Meredith's decree of genocide against men, women, and children. I would consider that pretty horriific. As for your claim that there's a higher ratio of "bad mages" to "good mages" in Kirkwall, I ask this: Out of how many mages we meet as Hawke, in comparison to how many actual mages there are in the Gallows and Kirkwall? Hundreds? Thousands? We only encounter a small fraction.

[Lithuasil]

More interestingly - from what I gathered in the game, I'm assuming a garrison of several thousand templars. How many of those are actually sensible? Thrask, Keran, Emeric, Cullen (arguably) and Carver if he survives. That's 3-5 people in an entire army.

[Camenae]

I'll just say that the "Don't paint us all with the same brush" argument works both ways...

[Miashi]

Next thing you know, they'll blame all this blood mage crazeness on the idol for thinning the veil in Kirkwall. Who knows!

[Lithuasil]

@Camenae

I'm not saying that, but from what we can gather, the general modus operandi for offscreen mages in the circle is "keep your head down", where for templars it's "must crush mages, roar". We see templars in different situations, but we largely only encounter mages, once **** has hit the fan (that's the reason we're called in the first place). With the exception of Feynriel and that orlesian, and neither of those go bloodmage.

[Merchant2006]

Am I the only one who thought that after "I'm really happy for you and all" in the title of OP would continue with "but X is the best X of all time, OF ALL TIME!"... eh? This thread seriously needs more Kanye.

[Lithuasil]

I'm really happy for you Orsino, and I'm forced to let you finish, but turning into a harvester in the middle of your allies is the stupidest decison of all time, OF ALL TIME?

:|

[Aelia]

LobselVith8 wrote...

The Baconer wrote...

LobselVith8 wrote...

137 out of how many hundreds or thousands of mages who never became abominations or sought to use their magic to harm others, TJPags? And considering virtually all of the templars have no issue committing genocide against all the mages of every age in Kirkwall, should we condemn them for "following orders" when it comes to the slaughter of innocents-

Nope, stop right there. The ratio of good-to-bad templars we meet in this game is more good leaning than that of all the mages we meet.

"Stop right there"? All of the templars accept Meredith's decree of genocide against men, women, and children. I would consider that pretty horriific. As for your claim that there's a higher ratio of "bad mages" to "good mages" in Kirkwall, I ask this: Out of how many mages we meet as Hawke, in comparison to how many actual mages there are in the Gallows and Kirkwall? Hundreds? Thousands? We only encounter a small fraction.

Right.... we meet the free ones

Meanwhile, I met a number of templars actively working against Meredith and putting themselves on the line to help the plight of the mages.  Seems to me that some templars actually fought along side me against Meredith in the final battle. <shrug>

Like I said yesterday, Lobs... I actually agree with the statement you make that we shouldn't judge a group by the actions of specific individuals, the problem is that BW didn't do enough to make the group worth saving.  Can I have just ONE mage, who is not myself, in the vein of a Cullen or a Trask... please, BW, pretty please.

-A