539 réponses à ce sujet

[Auroras]

Also, Devsim, I clearly stated in my post that I enjoyed playing as Hawke. Why do you think I suddenly don't like him/her? O.o

[csfteeeer]

For Many Reasons.

Number 1 being, and this is the big one, yes, He/She is Basically Useless.
"Overrated" in the DA world let's say.

Why?
He(i will keep saying "He" for simplicity sake) is basically there throughout the entire game while most people have a bigger relevance than him(Anders Probably has more importance in the.... "Plot" than Hawke).
he doesn't take as many choices, which i'm fine with, but these choices are just so small and most of the time they just in the same place no matter what you do, which makes the choices an Outright illusion, which i'm not Origins wasn't that, it was just handled Better (like EWR mentioned above).

and at the end of the game, he gets blamed for the spoiler that i won't post here, even though he had NO connection, and to ones who know what i'm talking about, don't you DARE Mention Anders, because if you don't help him, the thing that happens at the end, still happens, No change.

and Number 2, he is just uninteresting and unengaging.
The Hole Personality thing didn't do it for me, the so-called "Witty" dialogue was, and this is from a very sarchastic person, not enough to save him for me, some of the Dialogue was pretty good, it made me lol, but others were F****ng PAINFUL.

the "Diplomatic" thing also didn't cut, because he is just a boring "Goody" figure, nothing more, basically a MUCH more boring version of Paragon Shepard.
and i couldn't take him seriously because his default model Reminds to the Sheriff of Rotthingham from Men In Tights.

and the "Agressive" thing also didn't work for me, every single thing he said, i was only able to listen to:
"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
every single time He Talked.

and the hole thing with the mother doesn't engage me, i just don't know her enough, when.... the thing with her happened, i just didn't care.
i didn't outright made fun of that, as some people apperantly did, which is Pretty F***ed up, but i didn't cry, didn't feel sadness, i wasn't even considering trying to tear up a bit.
i was just sitting there thinking to myself "When is this gonna end?".

So yeah, that's (i think) the reason a lot of people don't like Hawke.
HOWEVER, i do know that there are a lot of people who simply hate because he is DA2, and nothing more, which is unfair, although i can't say i blame them, hell, i would probably do the damn thing.

Modifié par csfteeeer, 20 juillet 2011 - 05:25 .

[xkg]

addiction21 wrote...

xkg wrote...
snip

Hawk does nothing but stand around and do nothing. Yes or no?

Yes. phoenixgoddess27 used metaphore there.
Should I explain it to you ?

He is just standing there doing nothing means :

Hawke's choices doesn't matter (not that there are many).
He is hopeless, can do nothing about his mother, about Anders. 
He is just a complete tool used by everyone.
He is Reactive, not proactive.

Is it clear for you now ?

[devSin]

Auroras wrote...

Also, Devsim, I clearly stated in my post that I enjoyed playing as Hawke. Why do you think I suddenly don't like him/her? O.o

Writing style:

devSin wrote...

Does it matter? If you're a person who doesn't like Hawke... [then] I don't particularly care that you don't like him (or her), and I'm not especially interested in why you feel that way.

You, in this case, is the hypothetical person who doesn't like Hawke. Not you. And then I wrote:

devSin wrote...

So you should feel free to like Hawke and just let others feel the way they do.

That was to you.


Interestingly enough, I knew it was going to be misinterpreted when I wrote it, but I left it in anyway.

Modifié par devSin, 20 juillet 2011 - 05:48 .

[addiction21]

xkg wrote...

addiction21 wrote...

xkg wrote...
snip

Hawk does nothing but stand around and do nothing. Yes or no?

Hawke's choices doesn't matter (not that there are many).
Is it clear for you now ?

They matter it is just that you dont think they matter. There is a difference. Or is it that there is not enough reactivity to them in game for you to think they matter but then thats also a huge failing of DAO and every other BioWare game ever made. Since no matter what choice you make it does not matte you will still reach the end game.

xkg wrote...

He is hopeless, can do nothing about his mother, about Anders. 

Is it clear for you now ?

HOw many of the orgins from DAO does that apply to? Everyone since no matter what your going to lose something/someone and you will always BE FORCED into that role as a warden.
Dont get pissy now you wanted to talk about YOUR choices not doing anything.

xkg wrote...

He is just a complete tool used by everyone.
Is it clear for you now ?

Well you just described almost every single video game RPG ever made. I do not see why DA2 should lose points for this.

xkg wrote...

He is Reactive, not proactive.

See the last point.

Modifié par addiction21, 20 juillet 2011 - 05:51 .

[xkg]

^
Hey, I just translated that metaphore for you - because you clearly needed that.
But this isn't the right thread to talk about choices.

If you really want you can visit this choices list here :
http://social.biowar...4809/17#7908226
And counter it with your choices from Da2.

Why wont you ?

Modifié par xkg, 20 juillet 2011 - 05:55 .

[nightscrawl]

phoenixgoddess27 wrote...

Pretty much this. It's simply a difference in opinion.

And if you don't want non-flamey responses, you probably shouldn't have made this thread. It's bound to happen.
The people who despise Hawke will answer, which you obviously want. However, some person who loves Hawke will come in and say something(probably along the lines of "We have no reason to dislike Hawke" or some flamebait.) and then people will clash.

That's why threads like this are usually closed.

While this is probably accurate to some degree, it's certainly very cynical. It's unfortunate that people can not look outside of themselves, or within themselves (depending on your perspective) to analyze the reason they do or do not like someone/thing in a mature way, especially when making blanket statements that ignore the possibility of others having a differing opinion for reasons of their own.

For my part, I like Hawke, and the reason I do is because I play her as myself, or rather my ideal self. So I have very little reason to dislike her. My only complaint might be with the mechanics of the game itself in relation to developing Hawke as a character, but that does not reflect on the character herself, in my eyes.

I will add though that the single time I played as a male Hawke was rather odd. I played him in basically the same way, but because of the gender difference I couldn't really identify with him on a personal level. This is probably the result of playing a female in most RPGs over the past several years and having played femHawke several times before trying the male.

However, I believe I can answer the OP's question based on many forum posts I've read.

The personality and dialogue wheel system has a lot to do with how people feel about Hawke. Many people (and I felt this way in certain circumstances), disliked that they could not control exactly what their character was going to say. For many people, this has come to be a major component in RPGs, and many people found the difference striking and difficult to adjust to. While this did have the potential of being dynamic with the 3 basic personalities Bioware chose to go with, it turned into a frustrating exercise for some. That frustration was then turned back on the character because the words were coming out of his/her mouth.

Other people eventually came to feel that Hawke was a weak character. Always reacting to circumstances, never initiating them. While I tend to think that this is the whole point of DA2, I find it interesting that so many people reacted adversely to this aspect of the game. I think it ultimately boils down to each player's innate personality.

And still other people could not form any sort of attachment to the character whatsoever. Whether this has to do with the previous two points, with the overall writing of the game, with not finding any connection with the other NPCs in the game (LI or family), with the player's conscious or unconscious comparison to playing as the Warden from DAO, or something else entirely is of course very individual.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Instead, he is a reactive protagonist with the occasional instance of being proactive. Which is largely the same as the Warden. That's his greatest fault. With the Warden, the illusion of choice was done well enough to make him likable. Then there's also the fact that the Warden is supposed to react to the Darkspawn. Sometimes the Warden would make proactive decisions, but not many to actually call him a proactive person.

DA2's story (which is Hawke's story in regards to the Mage-Templar conflict) was meant to be one of being proactive. But due to Hawke's character and the very loosely tied together Acts, people don't like Hawke as much as they could've.

I think this is probably the most perceptive post I've ever read about this game. You just said that DAO had the "illusion of choice" for the Warden. That is nothing more than creative writing to trick the player into thinking that they are more in control than they really are.

So, do many people just not realize this? Or is it that they do, but other aspects of DA2 taint the rest of the game so much as to even bleed into one's opinion of the main character as well?

Modifié par nightscrawl, 20 juillet 2011 - 06:09 .

[FieryDove]

xkg wrote...

And for your info - opinions can't be wrong.

I like you.

As for the OP:

I don't hate Hawke. He/she was a fine mercenary and remained that way the entire game even when saddled with Noble/Champion on the titles list. imho

[Drasanil]

Auroras wrote...

And I realize that people have opinions that differ from mine... that's why I made this thread in the first place. So that I could better understand why many people dislike Hawke.

There was a rather interesting and in depth discussion about it on the DAWiki. The OP was on the trollish side, but the rest so far as I read was pretty good.

Personally, I didn't and still very much don't like Hawke largely for the following reasons.

1) He was hyped up as the most important person in the history of ever, yet did not even come across as relevant to the story itself.

2) He's iconic of the ME-fication of Dragon Age. If the dev team really wanted to make something like ME they should have been given the real deal and transfered to the ME team, while bioware found devs that actually wanted to continue the DAO legacy.

3) The lack of ability to actually choose what my character said, as opposed to picking a tone and getting to find out afterwards what you ostensibly 'chose', made playing Hawke dull in the extreme at certain points I just resorted to randomly hitting 1, 2 or 3 on the keyboard because I couldn't be arsed to care.

4) Hawke, and his largely unimporant family, cost me my origins and the ability to tailor a character more to my liking. This combined with above [3] basically ensured I had no connection with Hawke, which only served to compound my initial misgivings about points 1 and 2. So much so that by the time a certain person got 'disappeared' and Hawke showed up a little too late my reaction was a mix of: figures you're useless and spiteful glee.

Modifié par Drasanil, 20 juillet 2011 - 06:54 .

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Auroras wrote...

 Hey guys, I'm not trying to troll, I honestly would like to know: why do people hate Hawke so much? S/he's not that bad of a character. I actually enjoyed playing as her. 

Could I get some non-flamey, non-troll-y opinions, please?

You are asking for opinion, so I'm giving mine.

1. Hawke doesn't exist. There is Varric. There is Cassandra. There is Leliana and the guards or troops or whoever they are. But there is no Hawke. Only a memory of a missing or probably already dead person. I don't called this a character. A memory is intanglable. It's not a real thing. Everything you do ingame is pointless because there is no sense of accomplishment. You already did all those things 10 years ago or probably 7 years ago according to some. There's no reason whatsoever for you to replay them back. To me this is an insult as I viewed Hawke as an attempt to fool me that I, the player who spend my hard earned money on my character and story,  am not important to the game. I do not condone any act to toss me out of the game I paid for. The first 2 minutes of BioWare's Hawke and the third person unreliable story-within-story frame narrative only add salt to injury. 

2. The persona. To be fair, I like male Hawke subtle voice. He has the voice tone which match 90% of the character I envisioned. I also like  female Hawke sarcastic voice. She sounded as cute as my ex-girlfirend. But the biggest problem with both male and female Hawke is if they are not blue Hawke, then they cannot talk properly. Why? Because the only voice tone they have when investigating other option is subtle which works only for Blue Hawke. Imagine they talk like this. Sarcastic ( normal conversion ) switch to subtle ( investigating ) then back sarcastic ( normal conversation ) just in 3 lines of dialogues. And it happen all the time! What kind of stupid sarcastic persona is this?   Now, that's not just it. They can open their own mouth. So what am I? An audience? I can tolerate them giving motivational speech which I'm very impressed with but I do not like this cyborgs to take control over my character. It's either I play this character or not at all.

Oh! the 3 dialogues option based on blue, purple and red Hawke. It's sucked. No one has only 3 option to play with when dialling the dialogue wheel in real life. Wait, there is no dialogue wheel in real life conversation. ( sarcasm ) 


3. The story. It's about finding what happen to Hawke for the course of 10 years. The content: Varric version + exaggeration. And my role? Nothing. Just imagine what Hawke did 10 years ago based on Varric's fairy tale.
Pretty neat huh? ( Sarcasm ). One thing I learn from old classic WRPG is, my role-play is a story of my journey throughout my fantasy experience with the character I get to live.

I have none of this excitement with DA 2. It's all about David Gaider's vision of limiting player ability to enjoy their own story and character because he doesn't like the player like me to have fun and happy with my own choices and decisions. He doesn't like the player like me to journey my own story. To him, the only best story in the world is where every single Hawkes on this planet should play only one story. His story of meaningless Rise to Power where family matter isn't important issue to flesh out properly and conflicts that have no choices and reason.

The end.

[Morroian]

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Oh! the 3 dialogues option based on blue, purple and red Hawke. It's sucked. No one has only 3 option to play with when dialling the dialogue wheel in real life. Wait, there is no dialogue wheel in real life conversation. ( sarcasm ) 

There's no list in real life either.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Morroian wrote...

Sacred_Fantasy wrote...

Oh! the 3 dialogues option based on blue, purple and red Hawke. It's sucked. No one has only 3 option to play with when dialling the dialogue wheel in real life. Wait, there is no dialogue wheel in real life conversation. ( sarcasm ) 

There's no list in real life either.

I don't recall Hawke having dialogue list. We are talking about Hawke aren't we? Or is this your attempt to bait me into comparing with The Warden DAO and every non voiced protagonist RPG? 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 20 juillet 2011 - 07:17 .

[rabbitor]

Or just an attempt to remind you that a game isn't real life and your comparison just fails?

[Rauhallinen]

1. The story is driven in a such way that Hawke feels more like a movie character in a film that I'm watching, rather than a character that I'm identifying with while playing.

2. The sound and tone of voice actor/actress for Hawkes stopped me from being immersed in the dialogue. I actually didn't make it to end of Act 1 with male Hawke because of this. Fem Hawke's voice was tolerable.

[alex90c]

I hate Hawke because I find him an obnoxious ******.

"oh look Kirkwall's falling apart herpderp"

I hate both of the voices (the Legacy demo made me want to punch the screen when they clicked the "funny" option), and Hawke spends his years in Kirkwall doing jack sh*t besides killing faceless mooks and can't do any damn thing on his own without someone telling him to do it. Doesn't help that he can't influence the story in any way, the biggest facepalm moments for me being reporting Anders to Cullen and the Shepherding Wolves quest.

[Mikester99]

 I would´nt say I hate Hawk or like Hawk, just indifferent The Character as a whole, was unfortunatly in most cases one dimsional, and the choices given did'nt make much differents.( I tried most) I sure hope Bioware up there game  as we all know they can next time

[Xalen]

Morroian wrote...

IMHO it was never meant to be pro-active but it was marketed incorrectly that way.

I like this human, he understands!


As to the OP, there are several reasons, all of them were already stated.
I tend to think, though, that little of those have actually anything to do with Hawke as a character. It's mostly the result of how he was implemented, but not Hawke himself.

1. Many disliked Hawke because of change in the presentation: voice, dialogue wheel, all that stuff. Not Hawke's fault.

2. Somewhat related - "protagonist as an avatar" construct that we see in DAO allows for easy self-insert. So removal of this construct and substituting it with "protagonist as a character" (no matter how well or poorly the latter was implemented) would undoubtedly ****** of people who prefer to play self-insert.

3. Reactiveness and Hawke's inability to change anything

The latter is not much of the Hawke's fault either. The story is written this way, and it's actually explained why he's unable to change anything on most accounts. Though the explanation maybe not be always satisfactory, but it's still there. So take your issue with the story and it's structure, I again fail to see why people blame Hawke for that.

The former I agree to an extent. It could be nice if the game showed us Hawke trying to do anything, even is he ultimately fails.
My issue with this is much less then for the majority of community because 1) that's what headcanon and time skips are for, if I really want Hawke to do things, 2) I have a half-assed explanation why it was presented this way. But I've already done my share with essays on DA2 for this week, so I'll leave it at that.

4. And of course plain nostalgia: "I miss my Warden, therefore Warden is better then Hawke, therefore Hawke sucks".

Hawke is less of a plot device then Warden, but that doesn't make him less of a person. If anything, the attempt was made to make him more of a person. Whether this attempt failed is up to player to decide, of course.

I'm in "Your Hawke is as interesting as you make him to be" camp, but I kinda see where people are coming from

Modifié par Xalen, 20 juillet 2011 - 10:18 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Auroras wrote...

 Hey guys, I'm not trying to troll, I honestly would like to know: why do people hate Hawke so much? S/he's not that bad of a character. I actually enjoyed playing as her. 

Could I get some non-flamey, non-troll-y opinions, please?

I don't hate Hawke, I just don't feel as much connection to the character as the Warden, or some other RP characters I've had. I suspect the forced VOs and paraphrase system contributed to my feelings there...I don't much like having words put into my characters' mouths (as opposed to picking those words myself), so when a game does this I no longer feel it's my character.

That's all, really.

Oh, and I still don't like 'Hawke' as a name. Found it a bit unimaginative and deliberately trying to pick something butch and heroic-sounding instead of creating something that could be. Not very iconic, just attempting to sell a cool animal. Much like car manufacturers sometimes do.

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 20 juillet 2011 - 11:33 .

[Auroras]

Thank you very much, everyone, for your opinions! You had some very good points.

And devSin, sorry for the misunderstanding. And that I misspelled your username. =/

[TheAwesomologist]

I don't "hate" Hawke. In general I like him/her (though I mostly play as him). For the most part the concept of a voiced protagonist who's tone can change is a good one. It needs to be worked on, but it is a step in the right direction.

The problem comes down to Hawke's Story, and really that's just the story of DA2 in general. Fact is that Hawke is not the most important character in the game, Anders and Meredith are. Hawke is the main character up until the end of Act 2 and arguably all that happens in Act 2 is Isabella's fault...

The main quests in the game railroad Hawke into decision points that really have little to no impact since it all ends the same way. All this makes Hawke seem like an ineffective errand boy/girl, hell even Isabella calls him/her out on it. So if anyone says they "hate Hawke" it's mostly that they hate the story of DA2 or how the story is presented to the player. This story may have worked in a book or a tv show, but not for a video game.

[Annarl]

TheAwesomologist wrote...

I don't "hate" Hawke. In general I like him/her (though I mostly play as him). For the most part the concept of a voiced protagonist who's tone can change is a good one. It needs to be worked on, but it is a step in the right direction.

The problem comes down to Hawke's Story, and really that's just the story of DA2 in general. Fact is that Hawke is not the most important character in the game, Anders and Meredith are. Hawke is the main character up until the end of Act 2 and arguably all that happens in Act 2 is Isabella's fault...

The main quests in the game railroad Hawke into decision points that really have little to no impact since it all ends the same way. All this makes Hawke seem like an ineffective errand boy/girl, hell even Isabella calls him/her out on it. So if anyone says they "hate Hawke" it's mostly that they hate the story of DA2 or how the story is presented to the player. This story may have worked in a book or a tv show, but not for a video game.

I too fall in the camp of liking Hawke but not the story.  I see most of the problems with Hawke as a result of less than stellar story and a feeling helplessness of the part of the player.  It feels like Hawke can't do anything right if he/she does anything at all.  It gets wearing, by the end you wonder why you should bother playing at all. 

[Frybread76]

Rauhallinen wrote...

1. The story is driven in a such way that Hawke feels more like a movie character in a film that I'm watching, rather than a character that I'm identifying with while playing.

2. The sound and tone of voice actor/actress for Hawkes stopped me from being immersed in the dialogue. I actually didn't make it to end of Act 1 with male Hawke because of this. Fem Hawke's voice was tolerable.

Your first point is what I've been saying for a while, that Bioware now makes interactive movies with limited RPG elements rather than true RPG's.

[ItsTheTruth]

Hawke sucks for sure, because DA2 sucks (or the other way around).

But what is really annoying about Hawke is that Bioware has somehow convinced themselves that they created the coolest character ever (putting his picture everywhere including in this website) and seem hellbent on shoving down more Hawke down the throat of anybody still vaguely interested in Dragon Age. Just look at the first DLC it could be some new storyline but no, again it is all about Hawke as if most players cared.

[happy_daiz]

I care, I like Hawke.

[The dead fish]

Hawke was projected in a world that many found dull, in a story that was worse, with a role totally useless and would not make much sense.

The end how it is conducted leads to a situation where Hawke again is unable to properly handle a situation. This failure condemns him as a heroes. Not because he has failed from this moment, but for everything that led to this failure that he could have resolved since a long time, as the champion of Kirkwall.

The limitation of all that, detaches Hawk itself from the player. the few options and choice, that we have, deseperate, lead to love less, and less, and less and less Hawke. " It's not me , it's a fool " becoming stronger in our mind as we move forward.

To sum um, The lack of choice, the railroad in a way that we dislike, the no win situation at the end, the incomprehensible years where Hawk does nothing, all make we want , we do not want to compromise anymore with him and his failure. Why, his failure, because, no choice for us, passivity for him and helplessness for both.

A new hero, clean, would be nice.