109 réponses à ce sujet

[Count Viceroy]

Anora - She's a **** alright. I love talking to her before you make the decision on who will rule. And you tell her so. She asks if there was any point to your insult and you reply, no, just wanted to tell you.

Modifié par Count Viceroy, 19 novembre 2009 - 06:07 .

[MFCell]

I always saw her as a tool, and an effective one at that ! In much the same way Morrigan saw me, in the end.

Fun-times, every body using every body. Except Alistair. He ...uh... left....

Loghain makes a better ally in Wartimes, anyways.  He's got armies and stuff.

Modifié par MFCell, 19 novembre 2009 - 06:16 .

[Nosuchluck]

The problem with being evil is it's indeed often connected with stupidity. You say you want to kill off Arl Howe and somehow magically take over his position? Arl Howe isn't in power because he has troops, he's in power because he has connections and respect. I know this is a common belief in games but killing someone doesn't mean you take all his power or suddenly everyone who followed him previously decide they want to follow you.

[Orogun01]

Seems we forgo the fact that you can't side with Uldred on the Tower and add abominations for your army. Every other place you can get a freakish ally, golems, werewolves, but on the circle you are stuck with either mages or Templars. How is my evil char supposed to take over the world without a completely evil army?

[KalosCast]

Orogun01 wrote...

Seems we forgo the fact that you can't side with Uldred on the Tower and add abominations for your army. Every other place you can get a freakish ally, golems, werewolves, but on the circle you are stuck with either mages or Templars. How is my evil char supposed to take over the world without a completely evil army?

1) Uldred's only goal is to make YOU into an abomination, whether you want to or not
2) Demons have been shown time and time again to only care about their own goals, and the darkspawn aren't really a threat to them in the slightest
3) You also don't get an evil army from Redcliffe, they're implied to be the bulk of your army, and regardless probably wouldnt' help you conquer yourself.
4) Your allies send their troops to help you stop the blight, you don't rule any of these peoples (excluding certain ending choices, of course.)
5) As a blood mage, you can elect to just kill all the templars and mages.

Modifié par KalosCast, 19 novembre 2009 - 06:28 .

[Orogun01]

Nosuchluck wrote...

The problem with being evil is it's indeed often connected with stupidity. You say you want to kill off Arl Howe and somehow magically take over his position? Arl Howe isn't in power because he has troops, he's in power because he has connections and respect. I know this is a common belief in games but killing someone doesn't mean you take all his power or suddenly everyone who followed him previously decide they want to follow you.

And that's one of the problems, you can roleplay your conversations like a self serving bastard but when it comes to actions some fall short. The arl being necessary to advance the story makes any options you may have limited to aiding him to aid your cause. Plus the consequences are weak, it is supposed that you will have to deal with the consequences of your evil actions on the future, but after my second playthrough I have yet to see one of those choices haunting me.
What's more the whole nemesis concept that is defined by your origin falls really short; this which was an excellent opportunity to make some questionable choices since is part of the definition of your character. When I first heard of it I was hoping that as the word implies I would have an enemy based on my origin; while this is true  I find that the options and consequences surrounding it are not all that I wanted. On some instances you can destroy the lives of some people and they react to you as if it was not such a big deal; that bugs me.

[Nosuchluck]

Nobles get their power because they are born in to it. Most of them probably have never had to use a sword in anger in their entire lives. "taking power" isn't about killing people, it's about years of political manuevering and making contacts. If you killed Arl Howe it would effectively gain you nothing, no one would follow you, no one would listen to you and at the end of the day you might as well just have never bothered with going in to the castle.



It be nice if some actions had further consequences I do agree

[Orogun01]

KalosCast wrote...

Orogun01 wrote...

Seems we forgo the fact that you can't side with Uldred on the Tower and add abominations for your army. Every other place you can get a freakish ally, golems, werewolves, but on the circle you are stuck with either mages or Templars. How is my evil char supposed to take over the world without a completely evil army?

1) Uldred's only goal is to make YOU into an abomination, whether you want to or not
2) Demons have been shown time and time again to only care about their own goals, and the darkspawn aren't really a threat to them in the slightest
3) You also don't get an evil army from Redcliffe, they're implied to be the bulk of your army, and regardless probably wouldnt' help you conquer yourself.
4) Your allies send their troops to help you stop the blight, you don't rule any of these peoples (excluding certain ending choices, of course.)
5) As a blood mage, you can elect to just kill all the templars and mages.

1) Easily could had been made into a power up, and the fact is that if you want to you can't
2) Demons are woven into the plot of the story and form some of the events of the game, and Uldred was shown to have some degree of control over his demon, at least for the duration of the first part the game. But if you are roleplaying a mage the threat of demon possession should be more than a bluff, even if it ends with a game over screen.
3) True, it really diminishes all other options of having a freakish army, again this is only because of the Arl relevance to the plot.
4) But the choices regarding which allies you get have a certain "evil" taste to it, considering the consequences. Yet despite this it could all have been excused as means to an end, the end being to stop the Blight. Instead the evil intentions and self serving choices are left for the future when the imminent threat is resolved and all your evil options are just preparing the field for your PC to gain more power on the future. This is all of course from an in game perspective
5) Strange, I was a Blood mage and that option never appeared, despite of numerous talks of I want to see the circle burn and I hate templars. It seems that no decision that may affect your char getting an army is possible, I mean is impossible to fail at your goal with the given choices.

[Count Viceroy]

I generally enjoy playing the evil bastard and often go out of my way to do so, but for once I don't do it. I don't think it fits very well. And regardless the story doesn't care much for it. It's not written that way. You can be selfish, yes but in the end you're either the hero or the anti hero. With the emphasis on the hero bit.

[KalosCast]

Alistair has only been a warden for 6 months, he's a junior warden and the last one to join before you do. Morrigan knows about the ability of grey wardens and I doubt she's the only one. Arl Howe is not respected at all, if you check the codex you see that he's being despised by his peers. Either way how do you think nobles got their power in the first place. At some point in history they decided to take it. No reason why you can't. Not sure how you played but my char did 50% of my parties damage throughout the game by herself, she killed over a 1000 darkspawn, human nobles want to stop her from taking power, hah try it.

She killed thousands of darkspawn because she was prepared, fought them only in a series of small skirmishes, and in the lategame had every standing army left in Ferelden ready to back her push.

And for the record, the noble families aren't noble because they declared themselves to be, but because they either did something that made the king happy (Loghain, optionally the PC at the end of the game) or are directly related to the king.

You're right about the Arl Howe not being respected thing, my bad on that one. But he certainly knew how to suck up to the right people (Loghain).

You can set up to make a power grab at the end of the game, however, since things after the game aren't in the game, and you couldn't realisitcally make a power grab until after the Blight was over anyway. Actually arguing wheither or not it's realistic is rather a moot point. I can definitely see the virtue in your argument, I just still think that, especially when coupled with your shortened lifespan, it would be horrendously unrealstic for anything except the Human Noble.

And actually, as a Dwarven Noble, you get made into a paragon at the end so yeah... plenty of room to abuse the system in cutthroat dwarven politics.

[Orogun01]

Nosuchluck wrote...

Nobles get their power because they are born in to it. Most of them probably have never had to use a sword in anger in their entire lives. "taking power" isn't about killing people, it's about years of political manuevering and making contacts. If you killed Arl Howe it would effectively gain you nothing, no one would follow you, no one would listen to you and at the end of the day you might as well just have never bothered with going in to the castle.

It be nice if some actions had further consequences I do agree

Yet Loghain seems to be able to to do just that with all of Ferelden; stating his antagonism at that point. The game gives you persuade skill, it gives you cunnning, your char could come up with a good excuse as to why it happened.
E.G: You killed the arl and his court,  called the Landsmeet yourself at the counsel of someone else and you can still save face by blaming the demon.

[Orogun01]

Count Viceroy wrote...

I generally enjoy playing the evil bastard and often go out of my way to do so, but for once I don't do it. I don't think it fits very well. And regardless the story doesn't care much for it. It's not written that way. You can be selfish, yes but in the end you're either the hero or the anti hero. With the emphasis on the hero bit.

This is true and as much as I hate to admit it a poor writing choice, IMO. The story is built like Mass Effect in that all your actions have only consequences on a micro scale, while all the macro choices lead to the same ending saving the consequences for further games.

[KalosCast]

Orogun01 wrote...
1) Easily could had been made into a power up, and the fact is that if you want to you can't
2) Demons are woven into the plot of the story and form some of the events of the game, and Uldred was shown to have some degree of control over his demon, at least for the duration of the first part the game. But if you are roleplaying a mage the threat of demon possession should be more than a bluff, even if it ends with a game over screen.
3) True, it really diminishes all other options of having a freakish army, again this is only because of the Arl relevance to the plot.
4) But the choices regarding which allies you get have a certain "evil" taste to it, considering the consequences. Yet despite this it could all have been excused as means to an end, the end being to stop the Blight. Instead the evil intentions and self serving choices are left for the future when the imminent threat is resolved and all your evil options are just preparing the field for your PC to gain more power on the future. This is all of course from an in game perspective
5) Strange, I was a Blood mage and that option never appeared, despite of numerous talks of I want to see the circle burn and I hate templars. It seems that no decision that may affect your char getting an army is possible, I mean is impossible to fail at your goal with the given choices.

1) No, abominations don't have control over their actions, they go mad or are at the whim of the demon inside them. That's why they're called abominations (comes up in a conversation with Wynne).
2) Depends on how you see it, really. Uldred claims that he's not Uldred anymore, but something more, and one witness says that the demons fell upon him and that the "real" Uldred isn't in there anymore. Connor's possession was straight willing and even he only got brief moments of confused holding of his body back, which I'm just assuming has to do with his weak link to the fade since he's barely a mage.
3) I won't argue that, the cut-scenes and general plot of the game imply that your other allies don't have very many people to commit due to circumstances (being killed a lot (Dalish), being cursed monsters (Werewolves), golem manufacturing only just starting (Golems), politics (Dwarves)).
4) Since nothing that happens after the Blight is really explored in-depth, it's entirely possible that you're still working on solidifying your power base as a newly-appointed noble. There's nothing to say that they don't attempt this eventually. (there's nothing to say they do, either)
5) You have to publicly admit to Graegor that you're a blood mage, the Templars will attempt to kill you, requiring you to slaughter them all, and the mages will refuse to side with you, requiring you to slaughter them all.

[Nosuchluck]

Orogun01 wrote...

Nosuchluck wrote...

Nobles get their power because they are born in to it. Most of them probably have never had to use a sword in anger in their entire lives. "taking power" isn't about killing people, it's about years of political manuevering and making contacts. If you killed Arl Howe it would effectively gain you nothing, no one would follow you, no one would listen to you and at the end of the day you might as well just have never bothered with going in to the castle.

It be nice if some actions had further consequences I do agree

Yet Loghain seems to be able to to do just that with all of Ferelden; stating his antagonism at that point. The game gives you persuade skill, it gives you cunnning, your char could come up with a good excuse as to why it happened.
E.G: You killed the arl and his court,  called the Landsmeet yourself at the counsel of someone else and you can still save face by blaming the demon.

Loghan is already in a massive position of power. He's a well known hero and had a large force under his command.  No one is going to come to a Landsmeet because some guy who probably murdered an Arl called a Landsmeet, there's too many guards/servants around for you to get away with it without rumours spreading. Even if no one knew you'd killed him they still wouldn't acknowledge your orders because nobles don't give a flying crap about people who aren't nobles or don't have any power themselves. It might make sense for the human noble origin but for dalish, mage and dwarfen one?

[Orogun01]

Nosuchluck wrote...

Loghan is already in a massive position of power. He's a well known hero and had a large force under his command.  No one is going to come to a Landsmeet because some guy who probably murdered an Arl called a Landsmeet, there's too many guards/servants around for you to get away with it without rumours spreading. Even if no one knew you'd killed him they still wouldn't acknowledge your orders because nobles don't give a flying crap about people who aren't nobles or don't have any power themselves. It might make sense for the human noble origin but for dalish, mage and dwarfen one?

And you are a famed and legendary Grey Warden and just like people doubt Loghain's actions they may doubt yours. That's the beauty of it, that your choices will actually affect how later events will play out (as it was promised) and that they are not just restricted to some NPC that know what you did. You know those reactions you get from your companions when the disprove and mutiny against you, well that's the kind of consequence I want, If you do things that will make you enemies you shall get enemies.

[Orogun01]

KalosCast wrote...

1) No, abominations don't have control over their actions, they go mad or are at the whim of the demon inside them. That's why they're called abominations (comes up in a conversation with Wynne).
2) Depends on how you see it, really. Uldred claims that he's not Uldred anymore, but something more, and one witness says that the demons fell upon him and that the "real" Uldred isn't in there anymore. Connor's possession was straight willing and even he only got brief moments of confused holding of his body back, which I'm just assuming has to do with his weak link to the fade since he's barely a mage.
3) I won't argue that, the cut-scenes and general plot of the game imply that your other allies don't have very many people to commit due to circumstances (being killed a lot (Dalish), being cursed monsters (Werewolves), golem manufacturing only just starting (Golems), politics (Dwarves)).
4) Since nothing that happens after the Blight is really explored in-depth, it's entirely possible that you're still working on solidifying your power base as a newly-appointed noble. There's nothing to say that they don't attempt this eventually. (there's nothing to say they do, either)
5) You have to publicly admit to Graegor that you're a blood mage, the Templars will attempt to kill you, requiring you to slaughter them all, and the mages will refuse to side with you, requiring you to slaughter them all.

1) I remember that conversation ( I was hoping I could turn her to the dark side:devil:) but like I said before, even if it ends on a game over I would like the threat of possession to be more than a bluff. Just to see how it plays out.
2) What I said on the previous post. That goes double for mages PCs, demons are supposed to be their greatest threat yet they are treated the same as other classes.
3) No argument here 
4) This is something that should have some in game relevance and not just a meta perspective. Your actions could be interpreted on a myriads of ways and through it all it could end up pretty broken up, just by a whim of your char. You could have a dwarves, mages , armies and because you are an elven hater throw some werewolves where they don't fit.
5) Really, I gotta try that,

[Count Viceroy]

Orogun01 wrote...

This is true and as much as I hate to admit it a poor writing choice, IMO. The story is built like Mass Effect in that all your actions have only consequences on a micro scale, while all the macro choices lead to the same ending saving the consequences for further games.

Which is good if they are planning to continue the story further on. Bittersweet for us at the moment. On the other hand, I guarantee you that we'll be able to do something evil in the last game, both here and in Mass effect. There's no telling what we can do. Avernus could manipulate the taint in order to stay alive for centuries. There's nothing that say we have to die at the age of 60 ala grey warden standard.

[Orogun01]

Count Viceroy wrote...

Orogun01 wrote...

This is true and as much as I hate to admit it a poor writing choice, IMO. The story is built like Mass Effect in that all your actions have only consequences on a micro scale, while all the macro choices lead to the same ending saving the consequences for further games.

Which is good if they are planning to continue the story further on. Bittersweet for us at the moment. On the other hand, I guarantee you that we'll be able to do something evil in the last game, both here and in Mass effect. There's no telling what we can do. Avernus could manipulate the taint in order to stay alive for centuries. There's nothing that say we have to die at the age of 60 ala grey warden standard.

Seems like a long time to wait to be evil.  I want to be evil now 
But I'm hoping that like it is supposed to be in Mass Effect 2 the choices on future games will become more clear cut. At least some of them.

[KalosCast]

Orogun01 wrote...
1) I remember that conversation ( I was hoping I could turn her to the dark side:devil:) but like I said before, even if it ends on a game over I would like the threat of possession to be more than a bluff. Just to see how it plays out.
2) What I said on the previous post. That goes double for mages PCs, demons are supposed to be their greatest threat yet they are treated the same as other classes.
3) No argument here 
4) This is something that should have some in game relevance and not just a meta perspective. Your actions could be interpreted on a myriads of ways and through it all it could end up pretty broken up, just by a whim of your char. You could have a dwarves, mages , armies and because you are an elven hater throw some werewolves where they don't fit.
5) Really, I gotta try that,

Alright, I get what you're saying now for 1 and 2. I feel like the game had wasted potential in a number of similar ways, warning you to hell and back against a threat that doesn't effect the game.

[SDNcN]

Evainelithe wrote...

One thing that really bothers me when you choose to be evil, is how the PC just meekly accepts being conscripted into the grey wardens. Why put up with that once you've survived Ostagar. Shouldn't there be something compelling to keep you persuing the end of the blight? What's in it for you? If you're a human noble you may want Howe dead, but that's about it.

So you want a path where you abandon everyone (they want to fight the blight) to go after a man with an entire army behind him with only your dog (and possibly Shale or Zevran) and then end in a game over when the Blight destroys Ferelden?

If the fact that the Blight will destroy the entire country by the time any of the other Wardens even notice what is going on doesn't motivate your character to do something, maybe you should just make another character for the game.

Modifié par SDNcN, 19 novembre 2009 - 08:41 .

[VSanders]

Yeah, the evil side is a little underdeveloped. Especially in regards to why you keep going after the blight when Ostagar essentially frees you of the responsibility. On my evil playthrough, I told myself that my character saw an opportunity in chaos that led him to be in line for the throne if he can stop the blight. I just wish that kind of basic thing were reflected in the dialogue choices instead of in my head. If i wanted to just imagine a story, I wouldn't spend the money on a game would I?

That being said, I bought this game to play the good guy, and in that respect it was amazing.

[Pr1smat1c]

The evil side is underdeveloped. As said before there are choices missing. For me in general good means caring for others more than yourself, while beeing evil is just caring about yourself / getting the most out of it / getting power and money or use people to your advantage. Just killing someone or everyone isn't (quite logical right?) very beneficial for you or your gain at all.

That
beeing said i miss choices where i can blackmail, harass, bribe or
force somebody (to my advantage ofc). Something like that meeting with
a certain slavetrader, killing the innocent elves to get more power.
Delicious.

For example: why not selling some ash for good cash
and switching it with more poison or hiring the crows to kill Logain
and see how it plays out.

Modifié par Pr1smat1c, 19 novembre 2009 - 10:30 .