181 réponses à ce sujet

[Zjarcal]

My imagination is pretty good to work around those "plot holes". Considering I also had to do that in Origins a few times, I'm okay with it.

Foolsfolly wrote...

Oh how a mage wearing basic clothes can have an arrow to the head, get set on fire, and have multiple swords cleave their flesh without dying.

Gameplay has to be somewhat separated from the story. Should it have been with the mages? I think it would have boosted replay value if playing as a mage had a big difference but since it didn't...

Agreed.

While I would've liked to see a bigger difference in a mage playthrough, I won't consider all that stuff about flinging your spells in public to be a plot hole.

And if that was a plot hole then the entire series is a plot hole due to what you said about surviving arrows to the head for instance.

Modifié par Zjarcal, 04 mai 2011 - 07:55 .

[AngryFrozenWater]

The fact that nearly no one recognizes Hawke being a mage is awful story telling. And why that needs defense by the fans here is beyond me. The whole story is set around finding mages, locking them up and killing them for what they are. In one of my playthroughs I was a blood mage (although I couldn't resurrect a dead rabbit if my life depended on it) and sided with the templars. I used blood magic anywhere through out the game. You can imagine how silly the end of the game was, because even as a blood mage you are promoted.

And everyone kept babbling that blood magic was horrible, dangerous and evil. Even Anders kept nagging about it to Merrill. And I kept thinking... And what about me? Why don't get I the same treatment from you, Anders? And how about yourself? Aren't you possessed by a demon? He sure wasn't nice to that mage who was just saved. And even after that accident, he kept on nagging and whining about blood magic.

It's not about plot holes, it is about inconsistencies and about bad continuity.

Why wasn't all that stuff fixed? I refuse to believe that BW are bad storytellers. So what is left? Money? Was it too expensive to create a consistent game world? If so then BW should have considered another story. But they didn't do that and refused to face the consequences. To me that goes too far. And really... The budget of this game shouldn't be my problem. I am a gamer. Not a stockholder.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 04 mai 2011 - 09:15 .

[AllThatJazz]

One of the things that annoys me is how the whole 'Enigma of Kirkwall' thing was downplayed and relegated to a few easily-missed codex entries. And yet the explanation it provides, of how Kirkwall was built etc, makes the entire plot make much more sense to me. Why is everyone (not just mages) much more likely to go batsh!t crazy and do deals with demons? Enigma of Kirkwall. Why are mages more likely to become blood mages here than in the whole of Ferelden? Enigma of Kirkwall. Why are blood mages more likely to turn into full abominations really quickly? Why does Orsino turn so rapidly? Enigma of Kirkwall.

In my view, the Enigma is actually an important plot point; without it, it feels like there's even more of a hole in the story than there actually is.  I don't understand why it wasn't given a bit more emphasis. Wait ... what's that? Is - is that 'Enigma of Kirkwall' dlc I can see on the horizon? 

[Uzzy]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Sabriana wrote...

If I, a laywoman in story-telling, can make the mageHawke story at least a little palpable in my game, then there is no reason to suspect that the DA dev team (professionals in that field) cannot do the same.

Except for financial and gameplay reasons.

Financial reasons? Bioware aren't some struggling indie developer with six people tops. They are a massive company themselves, owned by one of the biggest companies on earth.

Gameplay reasons are just an excuse, really. Infact, the story would have been a lot better if gameplay reflected the story.

[jesuno]

Maria Caliban wrote...

TheBlackBaron wrote...

Foolsfolly wrote...
The magic one is a gameplay overriding story thing. Not a plot hole.

That's how I've always viewed it. Much like the mechs in Jacob's loyalty mission dropping thermal clips despite their weapons being from ten years ago, it's in place to allow people to play the game without imposing limitations to the point it becomes unenjoyable or outright unplayable.

I disagree with this.

Mass Effect 2 isn't a story about how people have updated their weaponry in the last 2 years. Dragon Age II does have the persecution of mages as a prominent plotline. The ME inconsistency happens once in a single mission that you can skip. The DA inconsistency happens over and over again.

While I'm at it, if you're going to create a setting where mages are hated, feared, and imprisioned, and you're going to let people play mages, then you should be willing to commit the zots to have that reflected in the way NPCs treat the PC.

If you're going to create a story about mages being horribly persecuted, then you ought to spend time making sure that's reflected in the mage experience.

If NPCs treating the PC like you say they ought to makes the player's experience miserable, then why include that in the setting and story in the first place? There are tons of fantasy setting where being a mage does not automatically mean being locked up.

Yeah, pretty much this.

[Avissel]

Maria Caliban wrote...
If NPCs treating the PC like you say they ought to makes the player's experience miserable, then why include that in the setting and story in the first place? There are tons of fantasy setting where being a mage does not automatically mean being locked up.

Because they were trying to make a setting that was unique?

Honestly the playing as a mage thing could have been handled better but I can understand why they largely ignored it. Nobody would want to play as a mage if it meant you spent every few minutes running from the Templar or not using magic so you could stay hidden.

[nos_astra]

I thought Anders invisibility was bad, too. By the end he's a known apostate and yet no one ever bothered to catch him? No one who's in on this super-secret secret ever slipped up?

Darktown, a place full of thugs, refugees and people scraping by, is obviously the best place in the world.

Bethany is caught after less than two years, despite being way more careful than Anders.

Modifié par klarabella, 04 mai 2011 - 02:27 .

[Plaintiff]

klarabella wrote...

I thought Anders invisibility was bad, too. By the end he's a known apostate and yet no one ever bothered to catch him? No one who's in on this super-secret secret ever slipped up?
Darktown, a place full of thugs, refugees and people scraping by, is obviously the best place in the world.

There is dialogue to suggest that Varric is investing a great deal of gold in Ander's safety, in much the same way he does for Merrill.

[nos_astra]

Plaintiff wrote...
There is dialogue to suggest that Varric is investing a great deal of gold in Ander's safety, in much the same way he does for Merrill.

I can see that working for Merrill or Bethany, but not for Anders.

Well, at least they make a feeble effort to explain it. So maybe not exactly a plot hole.

Modifié par klarabella, 04 mai 2011 - 02:30 .

[Avissel]

Anders provides medical care to the least fortunate people in the city.

I'm sure they had a vested interest in NOT ratting him out.

Modifié par Avissel, 04 mai 2011 - 02:38 .

[88mphSlayer]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

Foolsfolly wrote...
The magic one is a gameplay overriding story thing. Not a plot hole.

That's how I've always viewed it. Much like the mechs in Jacob's loyalty mission dropping thermal clips despite their weapons being from ten years ago, it's in place to allow people to play the game without imposing limitations to the point it becomes unenjoyable or outright unplayable. 

to be honest if they had scaled down the enemies and not given us more ammo clips it might've been an even better mission... would've been exciting to play through knowing you only carried in what you'll need for the entire mission

this is where still having guns fire but overheat when you run out of thermal clips makes a lot of sense

as for Dragon Age 2 and the mages, they missed out on some good storytelling opportunities at the very beginning to simply meet that head-on but i guess they didn't want to build that first year

[Wulfram]

The fight in the Gallows and in front of Cullen were bad. Otherwise, I'm prepared to handwave the mage thing.

With Anders, I tend to assume that he in fact moves his clinic a few times, and occasionally has to lay low to keep away from the Templars. But the Fereldan refugees are shown to be very loyal to him, and would give him the warning necessary to escape when the Templars get too close.

[jonesd]

There seems to be some confusion about the time you talk with Cullen.  You do NOT say you are a mage.  When you pick the option "Hey, I'm a Mage," you say something along the lines of "Mages are Elves and Humans like us."  No where do you say that you are a mage. 

Sabriana wrote...

To me, it is a plot-hole. The central issue of the whole story is templar/chantry/mages. To allow the player to chose the mage built should have consequences. The story doesn't even try to explain why Hawke gets away with being a mage, while other mages are in danger of being slaughtered on sight when they are simply trying to leave the gallows.

If you chose a central theme in which the persecution of one group is shown over and over again, yet, the PC can be a member of the persecuted group without having to face any consequences at all, then something is wrong.

A young mage is threatened by a sadistic templar for simply trying to reach her family. The mages of Starkhaven are threatened with anihilation by a zealot templar *after* they surrender. The mages are treated to a lock-down after the templar boss gets more and more paranoid, yet, mageHawke, an unharrowed apostate, is not even recognized not matter what she does.

The most glaring is a conversation with a high ranking templar (and one who should really, really know better). After mageHawke specifically states "I'm a mage", he answers with "mages are not like you and I". That is sloppy story telling, sorry. I like bioware, and I like them a lot, but this is not a good story.

NPCs don't react to a mage throwing spells with reckless abandon, neither do guards. Yes, guards do lend a helping hand to aid the templars, Aveline mentions it at one point (Fenris recruiting?).

Personally, I fully expected that there would be repercussions when I picked the mage build. I expected that there would be consequences if mageHawke used magic/wore robes/staff within the perception of templars and guards. I thought that perhaps the magePC would be able to conceal her true nature somehow. The battles within Kirkwall are not that many where templars and/or guards are present. It could have been done. She already can melee with her staff, so let her use a dagger when inside a city and templars/guards are in perception range.

I had to get a mod that made it possible for mageHawke to wear the light leather armor. I got a mode that made the staff invisible. I took great pains to have her only use the staff at melee inside Kirwall during times when guards/templars were around. It was a pain in the neck, but the whole story made no sense to me otherwise. NPCs still didn't react with any consequences when she outed herself, unfortunately.

As far as I'm concerned, status and riches should not be enough to keep the templars away from Hawke. It didn't work for Isolde, and she had both. Not to mention that Connor was a blood relation to the royal line, nephew to Queen Rowan. That didn't help him much, and Isolde tried to circumvent the law on her own. That didn't work out so well, didn't it?

Thats fine if you feel like going to such great lengths for it to make sense, but that sounds incredibly boring to me.  I think it would be annoying to have to run away from Templars all the time or not be able to cast spells if you are around them while in battle. 

It wouldn't make sense as well if you kill Templars to silence them.  You can't expect the other Templars to ignore that.  They would eventually find out and send more and more at you.  

I think it seems a bit unrealistic that they would make a mage play through so much different then the other classes.  Why go through the trouble when you can just have players accept that either:
A.  They some how don't notice you cast magic.
B.  Accept game play segragation
C.   They don't turn you in since you help them.

[GenericPlayer2]

Not sure if this counts as a plot hole, but in several fights and cutscenes you see abominations being raised from the ground. If it were undead like skeletons, revs or arcane horrors I wouldnt have a problem with that. But Abominations happen when demons possess the living - so why do they rise from the ground? All in all it just feels like the opponents are sprinkled randomly across the game instead of the more content driven distribution like in Origins.

The other thing is that specializations are readily available without the need to unlock them by say, drinking dragon blood or talking to a spirit in an ancient phylactery.

With regards to gameplay as a mage, I find it ironic that the one specialization that would have concealed MageHawke's true nature, arcane warrior, is missing from the game!.

Modifié par GenericPlayer2, 04 mai 2011 - 05:18 .

[cdtrk65]

klarabella wrote...

I thought Anders invisibility was bad, too. By the end he's a known apostate and yet no one ever bothered to catch him? No one who's in on this super-secret secret ever slipped up?

Darktown, a place full of thugs, refugees and people scraping by, is obviously the best place in the world.

Bethany is caught after less than two years, despite being way more careful than Anders.

I pretty sure that I heard in game that Varric was paying to keep Anders hidden.

[IanPolaris]

cdtrk65 wrote...

I pretty sure that I heard in game that Varric was paying to keep Anders hidden.

He was.  You hear it indirectly via a cut-scene and also Anders strongly implies it when he comments that no gang members come to his clinic anymore.  I strongly suspect that Varric cut a deal with the Coterie and they are keeping the Templars away from Anders AND we learn in Act 3 that Meredith has told her templars to "go easy" on Anders because of his political connections with the Champion.

Also the residents of Darktown are fiercely loyal and protective of Anders and Darktown is not a place a Templar patrol treads lightly if at all (at least not without overwhelming strength).

-Polaris

[Ulicus]

IanPolaris wrote...

The other really obvious and glaring plot-hole can be summed up on one word: Time-Line.

When you meet Anders, we already know he is a warden hard at work defending Amaranthine. The Timeline just doesn't work.

-Polaris

Eh? All we know -- assuming Varric told the truth -- is that Hawke and his family took two weeks to cross the Waking Sea. We have absolutely no idea how long they were forced to wait for a ship in Gwaren -- which was probably swamped with Fereldens trying to flee -- nor how long it took them to get to the Waking Sea from there.

Even if the two weeks is supposed to represent their entire voyage at sea, Hawke and Co. could have quite realistically been stuck in Gwaren for months waiting for room on a ship. I see no reason to assume the timeline has fallen to pieces.

Modifié par Ulicus, 04 mai 2011 - 08:07 .

[IanPolaris]

Ulicus,

The Hero of Fereldan defeated the blight AFTER Hawke arrives in Kirkwall and very close to the time that Hawke gets free of his one year indenture. We know that the events in DAA took place a few months after the end of DAO...which means Anders can't have been in Kirkwall.

The Timeline is completely fubared. This is well known.

-Polaris

[Shadowbanner]

thesilverlinedviking wrote...

I've read a lot of people complain about plot holes. Which ones? Because somehow I failed to see any.

Well to start with you have all the DAO and Awakening cameos:

1. Zevran
2. Leliana
3. Anders
4. Nathaniel Howe

You could dismiss or kill the 4 or of them.

You import your DAO or Awakening save and voila, regardless of your choices, they are alive and kicking in DA2.

That is a plot hole, as in you decided to kill Leliana in the Urn of Ashes quest and she reappears as part of Sebastian's quest as an agent of the Divine.

[Ulicus]

IanPolaris wrote...

Ulicus,

The Hero of Fereldan defeated the blight AFTER Hawke arrives in Kirkwall and very close to the time that Hawke gets free of his one year indenture.

No, all we're told is that Hawke found out the Blight had been defeated at some point during his year of servitude. We don't know when it happened during that year. In fact, Varric explicitly states that after Hawke hears word of the Blight's defeat he "Stayed in Kirkwall, paying off his debt". That, if anything, would imply that he still had a fair while to go on his debt.

So... yeah. Where is the indication or statement that this was "very close to the time that Hawke gets free"?

EDIT: I mean, maybe there is one, but it'll be the first I've heard of it. Perhaps you can correct me. My assumption has always been that the HoF defeated the Blight at roughly the half way point of Hawke's first year in Kirkwall.

Modifié par Ulicus, 04 mai 2011 - 08:58 .

[NanoKitty]

Sabriana wrote...

If I, a laywoman in story-telling, can make the mageHawke story at least a little palpable in my game, then there is no reason to suspect that the DA dev team (professionals in that field) cannot do the same. After all, it is *their* story, *their* lore, *their* background. They had total control over the story from beginning to end.

I can play races other than human in other games (werewolves for example) and I can play as a vampire, but I am warned that it will have consequences that come with the additional power. I fully expected this to happen in DA 2. As in:

"Certainly, you can be a mage. But be aware that there is a different take on the build, and with the additional mage power there will be consequences if it is used without thinking. Such as using it in broad daylight within the city of Kirkwall."
.

The bolded quote above.... now THAT would have been fun.  I was looking forward to playing a mage (a blood-mage too, even though I always chose the "good" options) and seeing how people reacted to me.  Such lazy storywriting in DA2 completely misses what could have been great fun .... and added replay value as well.   I was expecting to have a quest where most or all of the mages in my party (myself included) were arrested, and having to escape before being made tranquil/executed/tortured.....  
And what is up with Anders tearing into Merrill every opportunity about her blood magic, and not a peep about it to me, even though I'm romancing him as a malifecar?!

Modifié par NanoKitty, 04 mai 2011 - 09:11 .

[Sabariel]

Whenever you notice a plothole, that was just Varric lying

[Maverick827]

IanPolaris wrote...

in fact entire satirical comic strips have been written on this point.

That's how you know it's serious business.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Shadowbanner wrote...

thesilverlinedviking wrote...

I've read a lot of people complain about plot holes. Which ones? Because somehow I failed to see any.

Well to start with you have all the DAO and Awakening cameos:

1. Zevran
2. Leliana
3. Anders
4. Nathaniel Howe

You could dismiss or kill the 4 or of them.

You import your DAO or Awakening save and voila, regardless of your choices, they are alive and kicking in DA2.

That is a plot hole, as in you decided to kill Leliana in the Urn of Ashes quest and she reappears as part of Sebastian's quest as an agent of the Divine.

Zevran either stays dead or is supposed to stay dead if you kill him and so is Nathaniel (but he gltiches to death anyone even if you don't oftentimes).

The other two were retconed to being alive if killed, they weren't just appaering again with no explanation.

[SirDoctorofTARDIS]

IanPolaris wrote...

The other really obvious and glaring plot-hole can be summed up on one word: Time-Line.

When you meet Anders, we already know he is a warden hard at work defending Amaranthine. The Timeline just doesn't work.

-Polaris

By the time Lothering was destoyed one area was beaten so some  time is taken from that. Also you just can't get from Lothering to Gwaren in a day so there is some more time there. And after that you actually have to get to Kirkwall in the boat.And Then there is the year long time skip. So that's around 1 3/4 or 2 years during which time Anders could be in Kirkwall.