6 réponses à ce sujet

[Deified Data]

The Cardinal Rules of Magic, first put into word by the First Enchanter Wenselus, read as follows:

You must not be under the misimpression that magic is all-powerful. There are limits, and not even the greatest mages may overcome them.
No one, for instance, has found any means of traveling-either over great distances or small ones-beyond putting one foot in front of the other. The immutable nature of the physical world prevents this. So no, you may not simply pop over to Minrathous to borrow a cup of sugar, nor may you magic the essay you "forgot" in the apprentice dormitory to your desk. You will simply have to be prepared.
Similarly, even when you send your mind into the Fade, your body remains behind. Only once has this barrier been overcome, and reputedly the spell required two-thirds of the lyrium in the Tevinter Imperium as well as the lifeblood of several hundred slaves. The results were utterly disastrous.
Finally, life is finite. A truly great healer may bring someone back from the very precipice of death, when breath and heartbeat have ceased but the spirit still clings to life. But once the spirit has fled the body, it cannot be recalled. That is no failing of your skills or power, it is simple reality.

Note the bolded passage, specifically the underlined section.

Recall that most enemy mages in DAII (though not the player character) are capable of casting a spell that does, indeed, enable them to travel great distances, often from one end of the battlefield to the other. This appears to be dissimilar from a Rogue's stealthing (as AoE spells have no effect on the stealthed mage, as they would a rogue), or a Keeper's ability to travel through the earth via underground roots, in that the mage simply casts a spell, and disappears, only to reappear elsewhere.

This doesn't appear to be a retocon, as the Cardinal Rules are still a discoverable codex entry in-game. Is there something going on here that the player doesn't know about? Is the mage perhaps entering the Fade, then exiting, appearing in a different physical location in the "real world"? If so, does it not take incredible amounts of blood/lyrium for this to be possible?

Just curious. Color me guilty of reading a bit too deep into the lore.

[David Gaider]

The main purpose behind the ban on teleportation with regards to magic is actually to prevent two things: distance as being irrelevant and obstacles being easily surmountable. Gameplay often dictates that, in order to employ any kind of obstacle in a setting where teleportation exists, you need to create some kind of hand-wave in order to make it happen ("tachyon interference in the atmosphere has rendered the transporters inoperable!").

Technically speaking, what the mages in DA2 are doing breaks neither of these rules-- the mages are jumping between two spots but are neither traveling nor passing through obstacles. It's not supposed to be literal teleportation, either. The idea was to have a visual effect that travels between the spot where they disappear and the spot where they reappear... they're moving very quickly.

But that effect never got implemented, and thus the result really looks like literal teleportation. Which makes me unhappy. With any luck I'll have this fixed in the future as, no, mages are not actually breaking the cardinal rule.

[David Gaider]

Boiny Bunny wrote...
I wouldn't mind knowing, out of curiousity, is there a lore reason that Hawke and his/her companions cannot do this as well?

Not at all. Not every talent or spell that's possible in the world is represented in DA2, just as not every specialization is.

[David Gaider]

Deified Data wrote...
Thank you. Is it fair to say they're using magic to propel themselves at high speeds from one area to another, like a Force Mage using force magic on his/her self?

I think it's either that (moving very quickly) or they're transforming themselves into energy for a brief period and moving to the new spot (not unlike how the shapeshifter transformed into a swarm of bugs and did the same thing). I don't know, to be honest. I didn't make the spell list.

andraip wrote...
I'm just curios, if Bioware would make a list
of things that got implemented in DA2 and things that never got
implemented due to the fact that March 2011 was coming to soon, which
one of them would be bigger...[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/unsure.png[/smilie]

The list for DAO would be larger-- by far. There are hundreds of things that never got implemented like we wanted (or at all) in DAO, despite (or perhaps because of) the longer period of development. DA2's scope was smaller, and most things that got cut were cut fairly early in the process-- which is still heartbreaking, but hardly as bad as some of the cuts for DAO were.

But that happens with every game. I know you guys don't like to hear about things like deadlines or cuts-- and why would you? All you care about are results, which is as it should be. So having a discussion over things like resources and limitations isn't likely to be helpful to anyone involved.

Modifié par David Gaider, 19 avril 2011 - 11:20 .

[David Gaider]

Fruit of the Doom wrote...
I want to know why it seems to start raining bellicose bandits every now and then.

Is it a common occurrence in the Free Marches?

Yes. The "It's Raining Men" effect was part of our Gay Agenda. Didn't you know?

[David Gaider]

nightscrawl wrote...
I just assumed he used the blood magic to see the location of Alessa and then we walked/ran there. The next thing we see is us entering the foundry, skipping the usually boring travel time. Similar devices are used in movies all the time.

That is the case, as far as I know (it's been a while, though, and I barely remember what I did last week). As I recall, he tracks the victim with her blood. It's a narrative jump... not a magical teleportation jump.

Modifié par David Gaider, 21 avril 2011 - 04:33 .

[David Gaider]

The Grey Nayr wrote...
A little surprising nobody in Hawke's party makes the comparison between Gascard's blood tracking and the Phylacteries the Templars use.

Because hunting for your friends missing and possibly endangered mother is a good time for trivia?