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[Oneiropolos]

 I'm posting this here because people's responses may delve into story and spoilers. We have a thread for good quests... and even favorite lines... but what about overall arching characters and their developments? There's plenty of threads saying "The writers shouldn't have done this _____" but let's make one for the positive. 
Things in characters that I thought were done exceptionally well:
1. ANDERS
I'll be the first to say that I did NOT like the change between Awakening!Anders and DAII!Anders. I much preferred our mage in Awakening. But that does not at all lessen how his descent into what I would honestly call insanity was written throughout Dragon Age II. His zealotry from the beginning had other characters harping on him, and he gets progressively 'worse'. By the end, we have a tormented man who is barely a shell of his former self, to the point where some even feel it is showing him mercy to knife him. This took consistently skilled writing that could not afford to waver from who Anders is NOW. So even if it pained those of us who wanted Awakening!Anders back, his current pathos could be counted on. We can moan who he became, but not that HE swerved from who he became in the game. Bravo.

2. FENRIS
I love Fenris. I don't care who wants to call him a broody mage hater. The man...er.. elf.. is hilarious. My boyfriend was consistently making fun of me because I enlisted Fenris earlier on this playthrough (my fourth) and brought Fenris along on quests I hadn't before. So I got to hear Fenris's delightfully snarky comments that I hadn't previously heard and fell in love with him all over again. The fact is, Fenris is scathing and snarky but also incredibly insightful and witty. I don't know whether this was WRITTEN for his character or how the voice actor just chose to portray it or what... but early in the game when Fenris laughs, it's this sort of almost surprised, startled short laugh that he clears his throat after or coughs or something because it clearly flusters him that he let down his guard enough to laugh.  As he gets to know Hawke, he seems to laugh much more freely, and even your companions begin to hear his more wry wit. I LOVED this progression. It showed a brilliant shift from a backed into a corner, hunted person to someone who is finally getting comfortable in his own skin again (er... no pun intended with the tattoos).  I SO wanted to get to have more conversations with Fenris, talk to him more about what memories he could slowly remember, especially after he saw his sister again. When Fenris spoke up when we visited the Arishok for the first time, I completely had a shocked expression on my face about him knowing the Qun. I already knew I'd love Fenris, but damn, intelligence is sexy.  


3. VARRIC
Okay, so, when all of the rest of you posted before the game released that Varric was attractive and he should be an LI and all that... I wondered if you were drunk. Now? I'd TOTALLY go for Varric as an LI. Varric seems like he'd be a character that would be  hard to get RIGHT in writing. He's got this tough guy persona... I mean, his first shot is pinning someone to a wall because they stole your coin pouch... but he's paying off people to keep them away from Anders' clinic and to keep Merill safe. He even shows that gentle older brother image briefly to Fenris if he's there when Fenris decides not to kill his own sister. It showed a perfect vulnerability to Varric, that he understood that everyone else going "Hey, it's your sibling!!!" doesn't count for anything when you feel that betrayed.  Varric would know, after all, he went through it. He's tough, but gentle, he's scathing but kind, he's hard to read and yet sometimes wears his heart on his sleeve. Varric is a huge bunch of contradictions that shouldn't be believeable but he IS and he's so loveable. I want to take Varric out drinking with me and I don't even drink! 


Those are my top three, though they're by no means the ONLY three that come to mind. What about the rest of you? Which characters, even if they were just NPCs for one quest, did you feel the writers deserve applause for? It's probably the literature minor in me, analyzing all the writing like that, but I can't help it.  Quests are pretty in your face about whether they're good or bad.. actual characterizations themselves can be more subtle. I'd love to hear everyone's opinions so I know what to keep an ear out for on this playthrough in terms of characters I might not have looked at so closely before. 

[David Gaider]

From my perspective, I think there's a lot to work on and improve, and certainly we've gotten a lot of criticism from some corners-- much of it deserved, some of it not. We're perfectly capable of criticizing our own work as well (there's not a game I've put out that I'm not painfully aware of the flaws in prior to it shipping), but it's nice to also see that there were parts that some people really enjoyed as well. That is also good to learn from.

So thank you. Interesting read.

[David Gaider]

LyletheBloody wrote...
Out of curiosity, what criticism has struck you as fair and what has struck you as unfair?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that's a conversation I'm willing to have just yet. We're still in the process of our own post-mortem examinations of what went right and what went wrong, but there are some people that simply wouldn't want to hear that we think anything went right and would interpret even the suggestion of such as us completely ignoring what went wrong.

Which is fair enough. If I were to point at any of the "unfair" criticism it would probably that which paints DA2 only in terms of what someone wanted it to be rather than what we intended to be, which is also fair-- but there's also a lot of emotion involved, and thus insofar as criticism goes I'll simply say that we're reading it and aware of it but it might be a while before we start discussing it.

It's not my intention to draw this thread into a focus for negative comments, however. Just to thank the posters for offering constructive positive feedback as well.

Modifié par David Gaider, 02 avril 2011 - 06:21 .