128 réponses à ce sujet

[TobiTobsen]

Maria Caliban wrote...

I originally read the thread title as, "Why are the statues shooting fire and wanking?"

Even the statues have needs.

[Heehaw]

The obvious answer is metal can bend.  Whatever magic is used to animate them allows them the abilty to bend.  Or perhaps the magic itself is bending the metal.  Whichever.  

[Heimdall]

I never really thought the idol, or the sword by extension, had its own sentience. It's just pure lyrium, highly concentrated to the point of being solid. Remember that dwarf merchant in Orzammar? The one with lyrium exposure? He was a bit off too, and that was nothing compared to the amout in the idol. The idol's presence seems to aggravate the most hostile or paranoid aspects of a person. I attribute this to a quality the idol gained from its first owners, its makers. Being linked to the fade, realm of such things, they may have left an imprint on it. Lyrium is highly damaging in its pure form, which is why Bartrand was still crazy months after he sold it and Meredith's overdrawing on its power caused her to be petrified. As for the statues, they were automatons manipulated into movement by the idol's power, as it was drawn on by Meredith, nothing more.

[Blacklash93]

It's magic.

Seriously, does there have to be anything else to it?

Modifié par Blacklash93, 16 avril 2011 - 09:39 .

[chelseaisthepan]

....

*handwave*

[jds1bio]

There is a scene in Act 1 in the gallows where Knight-Captain Cullen is talking to Hawke. He (and the camera) looks over at the statues in the gallows, while he says (paraphrasing) "...the mages would just as soon use these symbols for their own desires (or purposes, or ends, something like this)..." and yet it is KCM who ends up actually using them.

[corebit]

That fight just reeked of lameness.

It's like the developers could not think of anything to make the fight more challenging. So they went: "Hey! Let's just use those statues over there and animate them!"

[Cutlass Jack]

jds1bio wrote...

There is a scene in Act 1 in the gallows where Knight-Captain Cullen is talking to Hawke. He (and the camera) looks over at the statues in the gallows, while he says (paraphrasing) "...the mages would just as soon use these symbols for their own desires (or purposes, or ends, something like this)..." and yet it is KCM who ends up actually using them.

Yup that was one of the bits I was referring to when I said they were setting it up from the beginning.

Just like in Mass Effect when you realize the conduit you spent all game looking for was the statue in the Presidium. And lots of other early game comments like Ashley talking about how the stairset in the council chamber were designed for defensive positions in a firefight etc. 

[DanteCousland]

corebit wrote...

That fight just reeked of lameness.

It's like the developers could not think of anything to make the fight more challenging. So they went: "Hey! Let's just use those statues over there and animate them!"

This we couldv'e fought her and some of the more insanely loyal templars. There was no need for the magic jumping and what not. and the whole idol turning her mad was pretty lame in itself, I mean I woudlv'e much preferred to see her on her own driven to madness rather than someone going "Yep its lyrium L0Lz".

[dreadpiratesnugglecakes]

hoorayforicecream wrote...

You're ok with golems becoming animated, but not with statues becoming animated?

The golems were animated through a process of science and technology that was lost centuries ago; so complicated it couldn't be reproduced by generations of master smiths.

The statues were animated by a magic idol that drove people nuts through a process known as 'nonsensical stuff happening to make a battle more challenging'. 

The Golems were crafted to move and infused with a spirit to bring them to life.

The Giant Super Kirkwall Transformers were built centuries ago out of the cheapest c*ap that could be sculpted and should have fallen apart when forced to tap dance around the commons. 

It was a frantically lame attempt to make a battle more challenging.  It made me laugh from the sheer audacious stupidity of it.  Epic fail.  One of the reasons I haven't replayed  the game. 

[aaniadyen]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

Because Bioware fails at boss fights.

We have a winner. I feel if Bioware really did mean for it to have as neat an explination as the statues being deactivated Tevinter security measures they'd have refferenced it somewhere. It's hard to believe they wouldn't seeing as they do it with everything else. Personally, I'd say the real answer is "Probably the same reason why Meridith anime jump/flips 50 feet into the air to a perfect landing while wearing full platemail armor, and wielding a two-handed sword made of red glowing ore." Because it looks cooler.

Modifié par aaniadyen, 16 avril 2011 - 04:55 .

[Cutlass Jack]

dreadpiratesnugglecakes wrote...

The golems were animated through a process of science and technology that was lost centuries ago; so complicated it couldn't be reproduced by generations of master smiths.

The statues were animated by a magic idol that drove people nuts through a process known as 'nonsensical stuff happening to make a battle more challenging'. 

The Golems were crafted to move and infused with a spirit to bring them to life.

The Giant Super Kirkwall Transformers were built centuries ago out of the cheapest c*ap that could be sculpted and should have fallen apart when forced to tap dance around the commons.  

The golems we saw looked like hell and had no moving parts. Yet moved. The Kirkwall statues look brand new and shiny after centuries. I wish I could have a home made out of that 'cheapest excrament that could be sculpted.'

[aaniadyen]

dreadpiratesnugglecakes wrote...

The golems were animated through a process of science and technology that was lost centuries ago; so complicated it couldn't be reproduced by generations of master smiths.

The statues were animated by a magic idol that drove people nuts through a process known as 'nonsensical stuff happening to make a battle more challenging'. 

The Golems were crafted to move and infused with a spirit to bring them to life.

The Giant Super Kirkwall Transformers were built centuries ago out of the cheapest c*ap that could be sculpted and should have fallen apart when forced to tap dance around the commons.  

Ok, following this train of thought, assuming I submit to it...who's to say you can't bind souls into inanimate objects using blood magic? Considering enchantment is really just giving spells pernanancy in an object, I could definately see a paralel between a blood magic spell and what the dwarves were doing. Especially seeing as this is an ancient tevinter center of slave trade, who would probably be able to do just about anything they wanted with blood magic were they to put their minds to it.

[ejoslin]

I thought it was funny. It certainly didn't feel epic. Even my 9 year old daughter laughed at it. If they were trying for extremely silly, they nailed it.

Modifié par ejoslin, 16 avril 2011 - 05:17 .

[aaniadyen]

ejoslin wrote...

I thought it was funny. It certainly didn't feel epic. Even my 9 year old daughter laughed at it. If they were trying for extremely silly, they nailed it.

This is what I thought when I first started playing the game and saw the combat animations...then again when I saw a new enemy type, or a new ability. It really killed the game for me.

Modifié par aaniadyen, 16 avril 2011 - 05:37 .

[jds1bio]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

jds1bio wrote...

There is a scene in Act 1 in the gallows where Knight-Captain Cullen is talking to Hawke. He (and the camera) looks over at the statues in the gallows, while he says (paraphrasing) "...the mages would just as soon use these symbols for their own desires (or purposes, or ends, something like this)..." and yet it is KCM who ends up actually using them.

Yup that was one of the bits I was referring to when I said they were setting it up from the beginning.

Just like in Mass Effect when you realize the conduit you spent all game looking for was the statue in the Presidium. And lots of other early game comments like Ashley talking about how the stairset in the council chamber were designed for defensive positions in a firefight etc. 

I do remember that about ME.  As cool as ME2 was, I would have liked ME2 to have a moment like that.

[jds1bio]

I thought the statues and the skeleton corpses were reminiscent of Harryhausen's work.

[DanteCousland]

The designers at bioware seem to me like the nerdy kid who wants to be cool so turns up to school with the latest sneakers on or whatever and proceedingly get laughed at for trying too hard. I can just imangine the meeting now.

"So guys, what sells?"
"Star wars and uh superman and stuff"
"Hell yeah that's what we're gonna do for the boss fight"
"Yeah we need to make this gritty and dark"
"Yeah it's gonna be epic, the player will see what their up against and be like wow that is so awesome, this is gunna be tough"
"Yeh Dark and gritty"
"Morally ambiguous and epic I mean bow there suddenly faced with hard grey decisions cos were just so innovative and contempoary yo"
 "Hurrrr hurr hurr"
"Give her awesome powers, having her as a normal person wouldnt give the epic anime feel that we are going for. Lets give her super powers and a lightsaber"

[Loki330]

I sort of saw it coming actually. If you bother to dig around and find all those notes (the 'Group of Three ones?) they mention the streets of the city are in the layout of a glyph, and thousands of slaves were vanishing in shipments according to the records. Hence the Veil is so thin in Kirckwall for an 'unknown' reason (since lots of death apparently thins it).

I imagine those missing slaves were sacrificed for the statues, and Merideth with the idol became sensitive to the magic/souls in the statues and could manipulate them.
--------
Alternatively, the lyrium idol seems to be a form of lyrium so potent that it made even Varric's brother (who according to lore, being a dwarf should be able to handle it with few, if any, harmful side effects) go off his rocker. Since lyrium is used to bolster magical abilities (Merrill mentions in a dialogue that she wouldn't have resorted to blood magic if she'd just had a big pile of lyrium to work with instead) it might be simply a case of Meredith having so much raw lyrium in that idol that she can 'bluff' being a mage and magically animate stuff.

[Darkhour]

DanteCousland wrote...

That seemed to be yet another moment in DA2 where flashy games mechanics over take commonsense. Okay granted it wasn't entirely stupid given one could say that the statues were for some retarded reason given joints when they were made (even though you can't see them as the statue is made of metal, not skin and generally if metal had joints built into it, they would overlap noticeably). Additionally why is it shooting fire?. I mean why. is there an actual explanation for this, I mean it doesn't strike me as amgic given you know it's not living. I'm guessing this is something else Merediths lightsaber *cough* I mean lyrium sword produced. When I saw this fight along with the force jumping I was just cringing so much. I mean I liked the end decisions, they were quite cool but the actual end battle was just silly. It was like something out of Masters of the Universe.

The really big statues with the multiple faces are actually tevinter golems. I forget what they are called... "Sentinels" I think. Didn;t Cullen mention that they were originally part of the Gallows defense when the Tevinters ruled? The rest of the statues makes no sense other than "a wizard did it".  Luckily, sense DA takes place in a world that has wizards it's a pretty good explaination.

[TJPags]

ejoslin wrote...

I thought it was funny. It certainly didn't feel epic. Even my 9 year old daughter laughed at it. If they were trying for extremely silly, they nailed it.

This.

I think they tried for "awesome" but got "absurd" instead.

[DanteCousland]

alas that seems to be where they are heading with Dragon Age. I mean one of the complaintsa about the first game was how they put blood not just in combat but on the loading screens and maps etc so in this game they decided to make it even gorier in combat having enemies explode like a ripe peach.

[_Aine_]

Varric is prone to exaggeration and Cassandra is gullible?
That's my best-case scenario, anyway.  

Worst case scenario is that Act 2 should have been the real end of the game, and the proper team didn't get the memo.  

Modifié par shantisands, 16 avril 2011 - 04:51 .

[theauthority]

shantisands wrote...

Varric is prone to exaggeration and Cassandra is gullible?
That's my best-case scenario, anyway.  

That's actually worst case scenario, in my book.
I'd hate to see an upcoming DLC or expansion which goes on to screw everything up just because Varric or Cassandra didn't get things right.
I can't tolerate this pathetic device in every other media, videogames included. Like, at the end of a story, you're told it was a delirious illusion cast by a psycho or terminally-ill patient (your usual "model" of this awful twist). That'd be like spitting on the time I've invested in a novel/game/TV series/comic.
I hope DA2 doesn't turns out like "The Usual Suspects"...

Modifié par theauthority, 16 avril 2011 - 05:02 .

[aaniadyen]

theauthority wrote...

shantisands wrote...

Varric is prone to exaggeration and Cassandra is gullible?
That's my best-case scenario, anyway.  

That's actually worst case scenario, in my book.
I'd hate to see an upcoming DLC or expansion which goes on to screw everything up just because Varric or Cassandra didn't get things right.
I can't tolerate this pathetic device in every other media, videogames included. Like, at the end of a story, you're told it was a delirious illusion cast by a psycho or terminally-ill patient (your usual "model" of this awful twist). That'd be like spitting on the time I've invested in a novel/game/TV series/comic.
I hope DA2 doesn't turns out like "The Usual Suspects"...

The usual Suspects was toted by Mike Laidlaw as being one of the inspirations for DA 2, I think. I imagine it makes it much easier to retcon details when they create plot holes and decide things just aren't cool enough anymore.