443 réponses à ce sujet

[GavrielKay]

Dave of Canada wrote...

GavrielKay wrote...

Thugs and rioters deserve what they get.

You're right.

That's why the mages deserve to die.

And which mages exactlly were rioting?

There were apostates and gangs of blood mages, but they weren't in the circle.  The hundreds of mages in the circle were fighting for their lives, not rioting.  They weren't attacking anyone until they were put under a death sentence.

[Dave of Canada]

GavrielKay wrote...

Well, Hawke isn't inside the circle of Magi until the very end.  So, all the blood mages roaming the streets and throwing themselves on Hawke's sword are not circle mages.

They didn't come out of nowhere.

Grace and the gang were part of the Circle and they've shown blood magic.
Blood Mage gangs are roaming the streets.
You're attacked by "Circle Mages" who are teamed up with "Blood Mages".
You're attacked by mages when working with either Orsino or Meredith.
Ect.

[Rifneno]

GavrielKay wrote...

One, Hawke was Champion in name only for just about the entire game as s/he has precious little actual influence.

Two, I consider the caged mages of the circle to require more protection than the random citizens of Kirkwall who can leave if they wish. Thugs and rioters deserve what they get. Circle mages kept prisoner for life by the Chantry deserve to be protected when their Chantry overlords turn insane and come to wipe them out.

The position that innocent mages are less innocent than anyone else baffles me.

Don't you know? Innocence isn't about whether one committed a crime or not anymore, it's about how dangerous a person is. Glad to see I'm not the only one who missed the memo though.

But yeah, I'll never begin to understand this "protect the lynch mob" mentality some people have. "Oh my God, the darkspawn horde is marching on Denerim! ... We have to blow up Denerim first so the darkspawn don't get hurt!"

IanPolaris wrote...

Please....don't. I saw in another thread enough Meredith-Orsino "interaction pictures" (esp post transformation Meredith/Orsino "interaction pictures") to last an eternity. My brain will never be clean again.....

-Polaris

What he said. That thread was... unholy.

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

The way meredith was so lovingly caressing that damned thing, during her lol rants in the final battle, I was half expecting her to start pole dancing on her sword.

Thanks, now I have something to replace "Betty White in Playboy" for those particularly nightmare-chilling analogies.

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Hawke has some influence, though it's very poorly done because his rise to Champion was pathetic. He's able to form an alliance with Ser Marlein Selbrech and the nobility follow Hawke like lemmings if he speaks out against Orsino/Meredith.

The best I got was being able to switch the Viscount's Keep to decaff. ... Come to think of it, maybe that's why I lost my influence. They weren't happy about that.

[GavrielKay]

Dave of Canada wrote...

They didn't come out of nowhere.

Grace and the gang were part of the Circle and they've shown blood magic.
Blood Mage gangs are roaming the streets.
You're attacked by "Circle Mages" who are teamed up with "Blood Mages".
You're attacked by mages when working with either Orsino or Meredith.
Ect.

Grace and her gang came from Starkhaven and were trying to avoid being sent to the hellhole that is the Kirkwall circle.  I think Grace being generally insane is just that, one mage being insane and vengeful.  The gangs roaming the streets are as representative of circle mages as Carta dwarves are of all other dwarves.  If you want to declare an RoA on Orzammar then you'd be making a proper analogy.

As to your other points, once the RoA has begun, you are encountering mages who have been tried and convicted of being mages by Meredith and sentenced to death.  I'd expect them to be a bit indisciminate about who they attack and with what varieties of magic.  As it happens after Hawke chooses sides, it can't figure into the decision.

In any case, no number of guilty mages can possibly make the rest guilty by association.  A person is guilty or innocent based on their own actions alone, not those of any number of people in their vicinity or who happen to share an ability.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Rifneno wrote...


The best I got was being able to switch the Viscount's Keep to decaff. ... Come to think of it, maybe that's why I lost my influence. They weren't happy about that.

Pheh. Couldn't pay me to become Viscount of Kirkwall. Even if you removed meredith and the gallows from the picture, the city is a giant weeping boil on the rectum of Thedas. The nobility are a bunch of lazy lsheep, the city is overrun with slavers and assorted criminal and mercenary scum, and everyone else is either crazy, stupid, or both. About the only future interest I have in the city is stealing Ander's awesome bombs and spreading the love to the rest of the city. And then finding some place less crappy to take over.

[IanPolaris]

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

Rifneno wrote...


The best I got was being able to switch the Viscount's Keep to decaff. ... Come to think of it, maybe that's why I lost my influence. They weren't happy about that.

Pheh. Couldn't pay me to become Viscount of Kirkwall. Even if you removed meredith and the gallows from the picture, the city is a giant weeping boil on the rectum of Thedas. The nobility are a bunch of lazy lsheep, the city is overrun with slavers and assorted criminal and mercenary scum, and everyone else is either crazy, stupid, or both. About the only future interest I have in the city is stealing Ander's awesome bombs and spreading the love to the rest of the city. And then finding some place less crappy to take over.

Tell me about it.  Makes you wish there was a neutral option at the very end saying, "Hell with this.  Solve your own problems.  Peace, I'm out.  Who's with me?"

-Polaris

[TEWR]

Dave of Canada wrote...


They didn't come out of nowhere.

Grace and the gang were part of the Circle and they've shown blood magic.
Blood Mage gangs are roaming the streets.
You're attacked by "Circle Mages" who are teamed up with "Blood Mages".
You're attacked by mages when working with either Orsino or Meredith.
Ect.

• I hate how the game handled Grace....
• To be fair, those are apostates who have formed a gang. They're not actually Circle Mages.
• If that's about the mages in Best Served Cold, that's another thing I absolutely hated. "We know you're spying for Orsino!"
• To be fair on the last one, if you're annulling the Circle, mages will attack you. If you're not annulling the Circle, then the only mage you have to kill because she attacked you of her own volition is the one on the docks. The rest were under the control of a demon.

And more Templars tried to kill me than mages in my playthroughs.

[GavrielKay]

IanPolaris wrote...

Tell me about it.  Makes you wish there was a neutral option at the very end saying, "Hell with this.  Solve your own problems.  Peace, I'm out.  Who's with me?"

-Polaris

I wanted the option to stab Meredith in the back as she tried to leave to organize the RoA and then grab the remaining Templars and mages and start a march on the Divine to take her to task for letting Kirkwall become such a wreck.

[TEWR]

IanPolaris wrote...

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

Rifneno wrote...


The best I got was being able to switch the Viscount's Keep to decaff. ... Come to think of it, maybe that's why I lost my influence. They weren't happy about that.

Pheh. Couldn't pay me to become Viscount of Kirkwall. Even if you removed meredith and the gallows from the picture, the city is a giant weeping boil on the rectum of Thedas. The nobility are a bunch of lazy lsheep, the city is overrun with slavers and assorted criminal and mercenary scum, and everyone else is either crazy, stupid, or both. About the only future interest I have in the city is stealing Ander's awesome bombs and spreading the love to the rest of the city. And then finding some place less crappy to take over.

Tell me about it.  Makes you wish there was a neutral option at the very end saying, "Hell with this.  Solve your own problems.  Peace, I'm out.  Who's with me?"

-Polaris

If Hawke said "peace, I'm out" I'd want to kill him. I don't know why but I hate it when "peace" is used to say goodbye.

Probably not due to the word itself but more due to how I've heard it said, which when it's played in my mind is really annoying.

Oh and.... um.... mages. They're so magelike.

[Morroian]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Hawke has some influence, though it's very poorly done because his rise to Champion was pathetic. He's able to form an alliance with Ser Marlein Selbrech and the nobility follow Hawke like lemmings if he speaks out against Orsino/Meredith.

But that influence amounted to nothing in game, as it wasn't shown anywhere else. He never called upon them or anything.

Its not poorly done, Hawke's powerlessness is a specific theme of the game. Of course whether its a suitable theme for a game is another question.

Modifié par Morroian, 15 août 2011 - 11:39 .

[Rifneno]

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

Pheh. Couldn't pay me to become Viscount of Kirkwall. Even if you removed meredith and the gallows from the picture, the city is a giant weeping boil on the rectum of Thedas. The nobility are a bunch of lazy lsheep, the city is overrun with slavers and assorted criminal and mercenary scum, and everyone else is either crazy, stupid, or both. About the only future interest I have in the city is stealing Ander's awesome bombs and spreading the love to the rest of the city. And then finding some place less crappy to take over.

Ack.  I didn't mean my Hawke became Viscount.  I just went there to troll Seneschal Bran and Aveline.  She really had it coming after the shield gift.  I still don't think she's forgiven me for sticking a bunch of pages from Varric's... "romance" novels in the rest of her paperwork.

[TEWR]

Morroian wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Hawke has some influence, though it's very poorly done because his rise to Champion was pathetic. He's able to form an alliance with Ser Marlein Selbrech and the nobility follow Hawke like lemmings if he speaks out against Orsino/Meredith.

But that influence amounted to nothing in game, as it wasn't shown anywhere else. He never called upon them or anything.

Its not poorly done, Hawke's powerlessness is a specific theme of the game. Of course whether its a suitable theme for a game is another question.

I'm sorry but I just can't buy into the idea that Hawke was meant by the devs to be a powerless loser. No one wants to play a person who's powerless, especially in a Rise to Power type game. I don't mind things spiraling out of control and Hawke being unable to keep it from happening, but it's his powerlessness that makes it even worse for me.

There's a difference between being caught up in events because they spiraled out of control, and being a powerless loser who lets things spiral out of control.
Had Hawke had influence, power, money (something Legacy gave me a lot of ), and connections both political and personal then I would've liked the game more.

But all Hawke has are friends and a meaningless title.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

IanPolaris wrote...


Tell me about it.  Makes you wish there was a neutral option at the very end saying, "Hell with this.  Solve your own problems.  Peace, I'm out.  Who's with me?"

-Polaris

I wanted that option back in Act 1. Because i still couldn't find any acceptable motive for a Hawke, mage or not, to stay in Kirkwall. I'd have rather caught a ship back to denerim and taken my chances with the freakin Blight.

@Gavriel: I wanted to shank Meredith when she called me in and blackmailed me into doing the work her incompetant, braindead templars were already failing msierably at. Extra aggro points due to the fact she's telling an apostate to hunt down apostates. An apostate that not too long ago, publically told her to go f*ck herself.  It was times like that that I really longed for a good old fashioned ME2 style renegade interrupt, hopefully one that involved fire, daggers, and meredith's face. <_<

[GavrielKay]

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...


Tell me about it.  Makes you wish there was a neutral option at the very end saying, "Hell with this.  Solve your own problems.  Peace, I'm out.  Who's with me?"

-Polaris

I wanted that option back in Act 1. Because i still couldn't find any acceptable motive for a Hawke, mage or not, to stay in Kirkwall. I'd have rather caught a ship back to denerim and taken my chances with the freakin Blight.

@Gavriel: I wanted to shank Meredith when she called me in and blackmailed me into doing the work her incompetant, braindead templars were already failing msierably at. Extra aggro points due to the fact she's telling an apostate to hunt down apostates. An apostate that not too long ago, publically told her to go f*ck herself.  It was times like that that I really longed for a good old fashioned ME2 style renegade interrupt, hopefully one that involved fire, daggers, and meredith's face. <_<

Yeah, the badlly justified forced quests were another problem for me with DA2.  Wasn't Shepherding Wolves forced as well?  And why would my apostate Hawke want to help Petrice?  Or a Qunari...  It was just impossible to really role play Hawke.  Not enough choices and too mnay missed opportunities (or forced acceptance) to actually have any immersion.

[Morroian]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

I'm sorry but I just can't buy into the idea that Hawke was meant by the devs to be a powerless loser. No one wants to play a person who's powerless, especially in a Rise to Power type game. I don't mind things spiraling out of control and Hawke being unable to keep it from happening, but it's his powerlessness that makes it even worse for me.

Being powerless does not equal being a loser. One of the points of the game is that power resides in institutions, and Hawke is non-aligned, he can try to get influence and become Viscount but its not enough until the very end after everything has blown up. 

[phaonica]

GavrielKay wrote...

As to your other points, once the RoA has begun, you are encountering mages who have been tried and convicted of being mages by Meredith and sentenced to death.  I'd expect them to be a bit indisciminate about who they attack and with what varieties of magic.  As it happens after Hawke chooses sides, it can't figure into the decision.

I was kind of hoping that at least one mage would take a sincere and vocal stance against becoming exactly what Meredith accuses them of becoming. I'm not talking about the mages that just wanted to go about their lives and not get invovled with the conflict, but someone who actively wanted freedom for mages who purposely made of themselves an example that mages do have the potential to not resort to forbidden magic, even when in dire straits. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember any, and if they did, they didn't make a very significant impact on me.

In any case, no number of guilty mages can possibly make the rest guilty by association.  A person is guilty or innocent based on their own actions alone, not those of any number of people in their vicinity or who happen to share an ability.

I don't think of the non-bloodmage, non-apostate, non-abomination mages caught up in the RoA as being guilty by association, but as casualties of war.

This isn't to say that I agree with the RoA being declared. I guess I'm just disappointed because, for me, the final choice wasn't as gray as I would have liked. That, of course, is only my perception.

Modifié par phaonica, 16 août 2011 - 12:08 .

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

It isn't that Hawke is powerless, nor did I really expect Hawke to be an uber hero or change the world. It's that hawke is lazy, and for 7 years does nothing about anything, even though he/she is well connected and in a position to do something. It doesn't even have to be a cause. Hawke could very well not give a flying monkey's ass about the mages and templars, the poor and suffering, and be completely out for their own interests. Yet regardless of what motives or type of person one wanted to play Hawke as, it doesn't matter. Hawke is lazy, and never gives me the impression of giving a sh*t about anything except chillin in their pimp pad and running fetch quests for the lulz.

Like I said, I wouldn't expect hawke to truly be able to stop key events such as the Qunari attacks, the bigot plots by Petrice, or the mage conflict. But I did expect some semblance of purpose to Hawke, of which i found none. Hawke is good at killing sh*t, and that's about all. I would have prefered to be able to play a character that could work on hatching plots and schemes of their own, whatever they are.

[GavrielKay]

phaonica wrote...

This isn't to say that I agree with the RoA being declared. I guess I'm just disappointed because, for me, the final choice wasn't as gray as I would have liked. That, of course, is only my perception.

I think they were going for a gray choice, but ended up making it black vs. black.  They put so much effort into demonizing both sides, that for me it cancelled out and I went with my gut feeling of Meredith being a psycho and completely unjustified in calling for the death of every circle mage.  I mean really, she says the crowd will demand blood and the player is supposed to feel this is a gray area?  Meredith is practically giddy at being able to massacre the mages.

Then they throw in Orsino being a lunatic as well, so both sides are practially tarred and feathered by the time you're done.

When I was faced with so much writing attmpting to make it a "difficult" choice, it just made it easier.  When in doubt, protect the ones who have been held captive under Meredith.  They've suffered enough.

[phaonica]

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

It isn't that Hawke is powerless, nor did I really expect Hawke to be an uber hero or change the world. It's that hawke is lazy, and for 7 years does nothing about anything, even though he/she is well connected and in a position to do something. It doesn't even have to be a cause.

You can *try* to play a proactive Hawke, just one who is stymied at every turn for stupid reasons. Hawke can attempt to turn Anders into the templars, and will be told "we'll look into that." and then they drop it. You can tell Elthina well in advance of Seamus' death that Petrice is working against the Qunari using Elthina's name, and Elthina says "the Maker will handle it".

I think what's frustrating is the game acknowledging ways that Hawke could be more proactive in the conflict and then slapping Hawke on the hand and telling him/her "no, that's not how this story plays out."

[Morroian]

phaonica wrote...

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

It isn't that Hawke is powerless, nor did I really expect Hawke to be an uber hero or change the world. It's that hawke is lazy, and for 7 years does nothing about anything, even though he/she is well connected and in a position to do something. It doesn't even have to be a cause.

You can *try* to play a proactive Hawke, just one who is stymied at every turn for stupid reasons. Hawke can attempt to turn Anders into the templars, and will be told "we'll look into that." and then they drop it. You can tell Elthina well in advance of Seamus' death that Petrice is working against the Qunari using Elthina's name, and Elthina says "the Maker will handle it".

Plus he can explore ways of becoming Viscount in Act 3. My Hawkes are not lazy.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

phaonica wrote...



You can *try* to play a proactive Hawke, just one who is stymied at every turn for stupid reasons. Hawke can attempt to turn Anders into the templars, and will be told "we'll look into that." and then they drop it. You can tell Elthina well in advance of Seamus' death that Petrice is working against the Qunari using Elthina's name, and Elthina says "the Maker will handle it".

I think what's frustrating is the game acknowledging ways that Hawke could be more proactive in the conflict and then slapping Hawke on the hand and telling him/her "no, that's not how this story plays out."

yes, very true. In fact, if Hawke tries to shop Anders out, it's a prime example of the game saying lol, nope, try again.

I mean, I warn Elthina and get a "duh, its in the makers hands, duh". I tell Cullen, who for some inexplicable reason, can't find Anders, despite the fact he's been openly shacked up with Hawke in hightown for the past 3 years. Cullen replies with the similar "duh" phase that Elthina did.

not that I was really trying to shop Anders, I just decided to play around with the dialogue and see what happens. And now I know what happens. jack sh*t. Really, I think what would have been a better way to handle it is, if Hawke goes and rats Anders out, tells the templars where to find him and everything, Anders gets a tip off and bails before the templars show up to arrest him, and as a result, is unavailable until the final confrintation, since he's hiding.

That way, at least hawke attempted to do something, the templars attempted to do something, but for good reasons, failed. It would have been alot better than the "duh, lol, ok" you get.

[phaonica]

GavrielKay wrote...

I think they were going for a gray choice, but ended up making it black vs. black.  They put so much effort into demonizing both sides, that for me it cancelled out and I went with my gut feeling ...

I'm sure they were going for a grey choice, and I'm sure that it isn't an easy task to slide player sympathies away from mages in order to make the story more grey. I get that, and I can appreciate that. The writers aren't necessarily trying to convince us that sometimes slavery is okay. It's just a story.

[phaonica]

Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...

Really, I think what would have been a better way to handle it is, if Hawke goes and rats Anders out, tells the templars where to find him and everything, Anders gets a tip off and bails before the templars show up to arrest him, and as a result, is unavailable until the final confrintation, since he's hiding.

I would have been happy with that outcome (only in hindsight, though, because at the time I'd still have been pissed that the Templars suck so bad). Anders should have disappeared, especially when he knows very well that Hawke was the one who tipped off the templars because he was in my party when I did it.

Anyways, I wasn't arguing that Hawke was useless, I was just arguing that not all Hawkes are completely lazy... just still useless.

Modifié par phaonica, 16 août 2011 - 12:47 .

[GavrielKay]

phaonica wrote...

GavrielKay wrote...

I think they were going for a gray choice, but ended up making it black vs. black.  They put so much effort into demonizing both sides, that for me it cancelled out and I went with my gut feeling ...

I'm sure they were going for a grey choice, and I'm sure that it isn't an easy task to slide player sympathies away from mages in order to make the story more grey. I get that, and I can appreciate that. The writers aren't necessarily trying to convince us that sometimes slavery is okay. It's just a story.

But the mages were comic strip bad guys, if they even had that much personality.  And the Templars were just as bad...  so they didn't slide much.  Honestly, I felt more sympathy for the goals of the Templars during the whole Connor incident in DAO.  There we had a situation that was believable in context...  a Mother doesn't want to send her son away for good, a son doesn't want to lose his father...  and mayhem ensues.

DA2 had random gangs of blood mages, a few truly psycho mages (Tarohne, Grace, Quentin) and Orsino going wacky for no good reason.  There was nothing about random bad guys or specific bad guys that made it more believable to me that all mages have to be locked up for everyone else's good.  Not in the way Connor showed that a mage doesn't have to be ill intentioned to cause damage. 

DA2 just showed that the Templars were doing a crap job of keeping apostates/maleficars under control.  Perhaps had Meredith be less focused on voices in her head and more on news on the street she could have accomplished something.  Well, accomplished something other than driving Kirkwall into the ground anyway.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

phaonica wrote...


I would have been happy with that outcome (only in hindsight, though, because at the time I'd still have been pissed that the Templars suck so bad). Anders should have disappeared, especially when he knows very well that Hawke was the one who tipped off the templars because he was in my party when I did it.

Anyways, I wasn't arguing that Hawke was useless, I was just arguing that not all Hawkes are completely lazy... just still useless.

Exactly. i would have been happy with such an outcome, because it would at least give the impression of choices made, and that actions were taken as a result, even if you can't stop the inevitable. And perhaps, as a result of at least attempting to stop it, scored some cool points with someone important who could later be called upon as an ally or something. Anything.