adlocutio wrote...
InExile,
I didn't see you address the self-interest motivation of fighting the blight (may have missed it.) It's explained somewhere (can't remember) that the nature of the joining bonds you to the Darkspawn in such a way that they will seek you out, or you them, without exception. That such an eventuality is inevitable, and that your only real choices are to find allies to help you fight them or fight them alone. And it's my understanding that the joining is what makes you a warden, not a duty or a uniform or a belief.
That doesn't make sense.
Let's suppose that darkspawn hunt Grey Wardens first and foremost, and that any living Grey Warden is hunted by darkspawn without exception. More importantly, let's suppose this is actually conveyed to you as a player and not being used as a meta-game reason for an external argument.
Even if this
were true, it still doesn't change the strategic value of the kinds of allies you should seek you.
Your argument is essentially this: darkspawn seek you out, you must fight them. Therefore, save Ferelden by seeking allies alone with Alistair.
In response, my argument is this: darkspawn seek you out, you must fight them. Flee the shattered land in the midst of a civil war, and find
senior Grey Wardens to ally with and organize against the blight.
You are framing this as a 'running away' issue, but it is not. It is rather about pragmatism: what do you believe is the best way to combat the Blight?
DA:O has a terrible design because it excepts you to only do
one kind of thing to fight the Blight, and that's strike it out on your own to save Ferelden. But there's reason you should do this unless you are a certain kind of character, e.g. DA:O predefined in similar ways to DA2.
Now, I suppose it can be argued you might prefer to fight alone, but that wouldn't be a compelling argument for someone who actually wants to survive. There is plenty of reason to think the Darkspawn would intercept and kill you if you tried to make it to Orlais. Morrigan tells you at Flemeth's hut that it's only Flemeth's magic keeping them from you at that very moment.
Why would you except not to be hunted and killed in any other part of Ferelden? Why is travelling to Lothering,
with the horde at your feet, safer than fleeing Ferelden entirely?
Simply put: if the darkspawn can track you everywhere, and you are never safe, why are you safer in Ferelden undertaking the risker plan?
You are one of two Wardens in Ferelden, a target of the Darkspawn, and you are also a target of Loghain.
That is a plot-hole of such
epic failure it's almost comical. Loghain has no reason to believe you are alive. He has no reason to know what you look like.
More importantly, it the fact you
areone of only two Wardens is the ideal reason to seek out more.
Remember, he tried to assassinate you in Lothering, so if you didn't have motivation to oppose him as a Warden or Ferelden loyalist, there it is.
No, it isn't. It's excellent motivation to get the hell out of dodge and find more Grey Wardens, instead of getting involed in a Civil War where the other side is
already making plans to kill you.
And we know that the Orlesians were aware of the blight, but that they had probably written off Ferelden. So you're stuck in a country being overrun by enemies with nobody but yourself and no help coming and everyone is out to get you. If running away isn't feasible, then you have to fight, right? And wouldn't allies make the fight more winnable?
You're wrong about running away not being feasible. The insane plant save Ferelden isn't feasible. Just because as players we know it works doesn't make it less crazy. You've yet to show how any of the concerns you've raised aren't symmetric.
More importantly,
what if you''ve written off Ferelden too?
Not saying it isn't weak, but it's a motivation - if you accept that you'll be fighting the blight no matter what you do or where you go, and immediately.
But I never said there was no motivation. I said repeatedly that you were railroaded into a motivation. Hawke has a motivation : family (and if you make the once choice that removes that) the friends that stay in Kirkwall, & then being Champion. The issue is how you're railroaded into it.
I disagree that 1 and 3 are necessary to support a personality, and you can pick your tone if it isn't contradicted by the game. E.G.:I can roleplay a sarcastic tone even if someone doesn't react to it that way. I can't control what others think. In straight dialogue, without narration or description to qualify it, any tone not directly contradicted by the game is valid.
No. You can't roleplay a sarcastic tone, because your sarcasm is never acknowledged. If I play a character who YELLS EVERYTHING AND POUNDS HIS CHEST (especially during the romances!) every time she speaks. Or a character who spits on everyone's face and then attempts to lick their fingers.
You have one tone: the tone the game designers have used to write the dialogue option int he first place.
But your particular personality does not necessarily determine how people react to you to any degree above and beyond those 3 basic fully supported personalities.
Yes, they are. Because they exhaust the responses. If you and I both said the same line to the same person in the same context (but with a different interplay of statements because we are different personalities), the mere fact it was the two of us saying it would produce non-identical responses.
Number 3 is a bit different, because surely if we choose "yes" the game should acknowledge that by accepting. But in more complex sentences the game should leave as much ambiguity as possible, or support as wide range of conceivable intentions as possible. But as I alluded above, a "visible acknowledgement" does not necessitate 300 different responses.
It is impossible for the game to accomodate more than 1 (or at best
2) tones for any dialogue option, irespective of how vague you try to make the response.
Retour en haut
likes Ferelden, but, that is just one thing I have accept. I just don't like the "here is your character, this is the basic premise for him, GO!" Thing of DA2, I would not have liked origins as much as if it had started the same way, "you are a Gray Warden, defeat the blight, GO!" the brief prologue into your character was the thing that for me gave me so very much in a way of allowing me to RP the character.
