214 réponses à ce sujet

[EmperorSahlertz]

Oh no, they certainly weren't immune. Zeus feared Athena would replace him, which lead him to consume her as an infant. They just weren't controlled by it to the degree that GoW depicts.

[EmperorSahlertz]

dragonflight288 wrote...

Pandora was made to be the perfect wife to one of the Titans in honor of his service to Zeus. Hera was jealous of her beauty and so when Pandora was gifted with many things, Hera gifted her with curiosity. Hera's son Hephastus made for Pandora a box of the greatest beauty and rich jewels of the earth. Hephastus, under orders from Hera, filled it with all the evils of the world and told her she could do whatever she liked with the box, but under no circumstances open it.

However, the curiosity gifted to Pandora would not let her leave the box be, and so eventually she did open it, and only managed to close it in time to keep the last evil from getting out. Because of this, mankind may still feel hope in a bleak and troubled world.

....what? I like mythology of any kind.

Well, that is one of the tales

In another it is Zeus himself, who was displeased by Prometheus giving humans fire, who had the box crafted for Pandora, and told her never to open it. He knew she was going to, and it was his way of punishing humans, yet gifting them, with hope.

In yet another variation, all the evil are released, yet hope remains trapped, and it has to convince Pandora, that without it, the world would be lost, when Pandora finally opens the box, Hope flies out in the shape of a butterfly (the evils had left in the shape of "evil spirits").

I love greek mythology

[Ryzaki]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Oh no, they certainly weren't immune. Zeus feared Athena would replace him, which lead him to consume her as an infant. They just weren't controlled by it to the degree that GoW depicts.

Isn't she the one who bust out of his skull? 

I'm not overly fresh with my greek mythology though. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 12 août 2011 - 11:37 .

[TEWR]

Well, that's a minor discrepancy and not too bad.

I actually enjoyed the story they told. I thought they told it really well, ignoring the differences between the actual mythos and the mythos they told.

[TEWR]

Ryzaki wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Oh no, they certainly weren't immune. Zeus feared Athena would replace him, which lead him to consume her as an infant. They just weren't controlled by it to the degree that GoW depicts.

Isn't she the one who bust out of his skull? 

I'm not overly fresh with my greek mythology though. 

yup. IIRC, Athena ended up giving Zeus a painful headache, and Zeus put his head down on Hephaestus' forge and asked that a hammer be taken to his skull to stop the pain. Then she came out of his skull.

Aphrodite has a better birth though

[EmperorSahlertz]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Well, that's a minor discrepancy and not too bad.

I actually enjoyed the story they told. I thought they told it really well, ignoring the differences between the actual mythos and the mythos they told.

Exactly. There is no denying that GoW is a good game. I was however, as a Greek mythology buff, severely disappointed that it wasn't true to the mythos, but merely inspired by it.

[TEWR]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

dragonflight288 wrote...

Pandora was made to be the perfect wife to one of the Titans in honor of his service to Zeus. Hera was jealous of her beauty and so when Pandora was gifted with many things, Hera gifted her with curiosity. Hera's son Hephastus made for Pandora a box of the greatest beauty and rich jewels of the earth. Hephastus, under orders from Hera, filled it with all the evils of the world and told her she could do whatever she liked with the box, but under no circumstances open it.

However, the curiosity gifted to Pandora would not let her leave the box be, and so eventually she did open it, and only managed to close it in time to keep the last evil from getting out. Because of this, mankind may still feel hope in a bleak and troubled world.

....what? I like mythology of any kind.

Well, that is one of the tales

In another it is Zeus himself, who was displeased by Prometheus giving humans fire, who had the box crafted for Pandora, and told her never to open it. He knew she was going to, and it was his way of punishing humans, yet gifting them, with hope.

In yet another variation, all the evil are released, yet hope remains trapped, and it has to convince Pandora, that without it, the world would be lost, when Pandora finally opens the box, Hope flies out in the shape of a butterfly (the evils had left in the shape of "evil spirits").

I love greek mythology

Same here. Greek , Gaelic, and Norse mythology are my favorites.

To get us back on topic, I felt that God of War pulled off the tragedy aspect really well, since the series doesn't shove it all down your throat in one sitting.

[TEWR]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Well, that's a minor discrepancy and not too bad.

I actually enjoyed the story they told. I thought they told it really well, ignoring the differences between the actual mythos and the mythos they told.

Exactly. There is no denying that GoW is a good game. I was however, as a Greek mythology buff, severely disappointed that it wasn't true to the mythos, but merely inspired by it.

I can understand that, but it's generally a good idea to not expect games and movies to stay true entirely to whatever they're inspired from.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Yeah well, sometimes you just have a hope for something more...

[lobi]

Should Game developers bend to the pastel coloured whim of a population ensconced in generica and further retard any development of mature Art within a Game?
Should they perpetuate the sanitised myth of a kind heroic Humanity?
Many actual hero's were callous, they could not have accomplished what they did otherwise.
The crucifiction of a person is bloody and violent, a film director shows this and people get upset.
Nations and Ideologys are built upon the bloody entrails and excretions of people with familys slaughtered wholesale.
Being forced to interact with some of the slain personalise's it, and sheds a little light on the truth of such things.
Why did Marie Antionette have to die?
Minus the magic, how many Liandra's have there been?
Learn to History actual, then you may realise the story and characters are not nearly dark enough.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Huh? Did you just call Greek mythology light and happy?

[Ryzaki]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

yup. IIRC, Athena ended up giving Zeus a painful headache, and Zeus put his head down on Hephaestus' forge and asked that a hammer be taken to his skull to stop the pain. Then she came out of his skull.

Aphrodite has a better birth though

Ouch. 

What was hers? 

[lobi]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Huh? Did you just call Greek mythology light and happy?

Huh? did you read the actual thread or simply respond to the last three posts?

[Xilizhra]

Cronus chops off Oranos' genitalia, which fall into the ocean, and the seafoam from the splash metamorphoses into Aphrodite.

[EmperorSahlertz]

lobi wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Huh? Did you just call Greek mythology light and happy?

Huh? did you read the actual thread or simply respond to the last three posts?

Last three posts.

[TEWR]

Xilizhra wrote...

Cronus chops off Oranos' genitalia, which fall into the ocean, and the seafoam from the splash metamorphoses into Aphrodite.

Bingo.

[lobi]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Cronus chops off Oranos' genitalia, which fall into the ocean, and the seafoam from the splash metamorphoses into Aphrodite.

Bingo.

All because Uranus pranked Gaia. The spillage also hit the earth and so was born Erinyes, and Meliae.
(Also the monster Campe has been reincarnated and snipes the spawn in COD multiplayer, Briares get the nades)

Modifié par lobi, 13 août 2011 - 01:19 .

[Ryzaki]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Cronus chops off Oranos' genitalia, which fall into the ocean, and the seafoam from the splash metamorphoses into Aphrodite.

Bingo.

...Oh that's just gross. 

[miraclemight]

Still more poetic than how humans become developed. XD

[lobi]

miraclemight wrote...

Still more poetic than how humans become developed. XD

Sez you.

[Redcoat]

My impression of DA2 is that it did not contain tragedy or drama, but melodrama. The game is filled with moments that struck me as being blatant attempts to wrench an emotional reaction from me. For example, when your sibling is killed by an ogre, or when Wesley dies, it's shown as this great tragic event, but because neither Wesley nor your sibling has received any development up to that point, the impact of it was approximately nil.

Tragedy works when it flows from the inevitable (a Grey Warden must sacrifice himself to slay the archdemon) or arises from a character flaw (Loghain's zeal to protect Ferelden from Orlais). DA2's tragedy flavour of "tragedy" is just "bad things suddenly happening that you can do nothing about."

- Hawke's sibling is mashed into a fine paste by an ogre. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke goes to the Deep Roads, and no matter what he choses to do, he ends up losing a sibling, who either dies outright or joins the Grey Wardens, Templars, or the Circle. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke is asked to deal with the qunari, who end up going on a rampage, killing the viscount and who knows how many others. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke learns of a serial killer that has an established MO, and this serial killer ends up murdering Hawke's mother. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke takes ownership of a mine, only to have giant spiders kill the workers. He solves that problem, only to have a High Dragon swoop in and destroy it and kill everyone there. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Anders plans to committ a terrorist act against the chantry, igniting an all-out war between the mages and templars. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!

Are you sensing a pattern here? This sort of plot, about a character who is a cosmic plaything, he ends up suffering through disaster after disaster, might make for a good movie or novel, but it's a wretched basis for a game, which needs to involve the player, and not only that, is produced by a company that trumpets "Choice & Consequences" as a feature of their titles. I imagine this is where the complaints about DA2 feeling like an "interactive movie" come from. I get the feeling the writers really, really wanted to tell this particular story, player agency be damned. Now, I understand that they wanted to break away from the typical "heroic fantasy" protagonist who saves the day and give us someone less typical of the genre, but the "failure narrative" is delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

As for being grim or dark, DA2 is neither. It's grimdark, which is darkness turned up to such an absurd degree that you cannot take things seriously. This might work in Warhammer 40K, but in DA2...not so much. Both sides of the central conflict are either insane, incompetent, or ineffectual (or some combination of the three), so that choosing a side is less an agonising decision and more one of complete apathy. And the outcome is the same either way.

Modifié par Redcoat, 13 août 2011 - 08:31 .

[Xilizhra]

Hmmm... for some reason, a lot of that "powerless to prevent it" stuff didn't bother me. I think it might have been because it's, well, bad, but not crippling. The only thing that really bugs me is Bethany's death as a mage, because I don't think Hawke can mourn properly (Carver's death is more forgivable, as he and Hawke and trained together as soldiers and I think she'd be more psychologically prepared for him dying).
The second sibling loss was irritating, I admit.
The thing with the qunari isn't a problem at all. I was able to save most of the nobility and stop a qunari invasion that could have gotten really bad later on. It's not perfect, but is a clear victory.
All that Remains... all right, that sent me into a frothing stupidity-induced rage, and now I try to ignore it.
The mine is such a minor plot point that it didn't annoy me that much.
And Anders I at least halfway support, and am fully prepared to to everything I can in his new world.

[Eudaemonium]

I personally enjoyed the tragedy. But then one of my favourite RPGs is NIER, so I obviously gravitate towards tragedy and downer endings (I mean, my canon Warden gets driven insane by Alistair sacrificing himself for her and ultimately tries to murder Morrigan who she mistakedly blames for letting it happen, and DAO was a game that could have a happy (ish) ending).

A lot of my problem with DA2 is how goddamn awful I think Act 3 was handled. Maybe they ran out of development time, but Act 3 should have been just as long and well-constructed as Act 2, which was carefully paced and built towards an epic (and inevitable, and in a lot of ways tragic) conclusion. I replayed Act 3 recently (only completed DA2 twice) and I was struck with just how bad the entire ending was. It was poorly-paced and a lot of things made very little sense.

All in all, though, I really enjoyed the experience of playing as a character who couldn't save the day, other than in small ways - helping people out in Kirkwall, like Lia the abducted elven girl in Act 1, or Gamlen and Charade in Act 3. Hawke was able to help these people fix parts of their lives and (hopefully) give them something to work towards in the future, but in the huge things Hawke was pretty powerless. She tried to fix the Qunari issue in Act 2, but a lot of people and a lot of nationalistic, cultural and religious tensions were working against her, and in the end they won out, and there was blood. Act 3 tried to do the same thing but handled it very sloppily. Meredith also got too little screentime and exposition. Though she had a lot of build up and foreshadowing in the first two Acts she got too little screentime before her nosedive into insanity. There was too little of Meredith as the woman who rejected the Tranquil Solution and while draconian was ultimately reasonable, and too much of Meredith the woman who declares the rite of annulment against utterly innocent mages because of teh actons of a renegade apostate. That made her personal tragedy rather underwhelming.

Ultimately, I applaud BIoware for trying to do something that wasn't "Hero Defeats BIg bad and Saves the Day (or Conquers the World)" like... pretty much every game they've ever done, and doing something more low-key and human, where your character has the power to change peoples lives but not in the grand-systemic-change way so popular in these sorts of game. However, it is obviously an angle they're going to have to work on.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Redcoat wrote...

My impression of DA2 is that it did not contain tragedy or drama, but melodrama. The game is filled with moments that struck me as being blatant attempts to wrench an emotional reaction from me. For example, when your sibling is killed by an ogre, or when Wesley dies, it's shown as this great tragic event, but because neither Wesley nor your sibling has received any development up to that point, the impact of it was approximately nil.

Tragedy works when it flows from the inevitable (a Grey Warden must sacrifice himself to slay the archdemon) or arises from a character flaw (Loghain's zeal to protect Ferelden from Orlais). DA2's tragedy flavour of "tragedy" is just "bad things suddenly happening that you can do nothing about."

- Hawke's sibling is mashed into a fine paste by an ogre. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke goes to the Deep Roads, and no matter what he choses to do, he ends up losing a sibling, who either dies outright or joins the Grey Wardens, Templars, or the Circle. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke is asked to deal with the qunari, who end up going on a rampage, killing the viscount and who knows how many others. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke learns of a serial killer that has an established MO, and this serial killer ends up murdering Hawke's mother. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Hawke takes ownership of a mine, only to have giant spiders kill the workers. He solves that problem, only to have a High Dragon swoop in and destroy it and kill everyone there. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!
- Anders plans to committ a terrorist act against the chantry, igniting an all-out war between the mages and templars. Hawke is powerless to prevent it. TRAGEDY!

Are you sensing a pattern here? This sort of plot, about a character who is a cosmic plaything, he ends up suffering through disaster after disaster, might make for a good movie or novel, but it's a wretched basis for a game, which needs to involve the player, and not only that, is produced by a company that trumpets "Choice & Consequences" as a feature of their titles. I imagine this is where the complaints about DA2 feeling like an "interactive movie" come from. I get the feeling the writers really, really wanted to tell this particular story, player agency be damned. Now, I understand that they wanted to break away from the typical "heroic fantasy" protagonist who saves the day and give us someone less typical of the genre, but the "failure narrative" is delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

As for being grim or dark, DA2 is neither. It's grimdark, which is darkness turned up to such an absurd degree that you cannot take things seriously. This might work in Warhammer 40K, but in DA2...not so much. Both sides of the central conflict are either insane, incompetent, or ineffectual (or some combination of the three), so that choosing a side is less an agonising decision and more one of complete apathy. And the outcome is the same either way.

Odd how you start out saying that the ebst tragedies stem from the inevitable, then goes on to claim that all the inevitable tragedies of DA2 are bad.

[Morroian]

Redcoat wrote...

My impression of DA2 is that it did not contain tragedy or drama, but melodrama. The game is filled with moments that struck me as being blatant attempts to wrench an emotional reaction from me. For example, when your sibling is killed by an ogre, or when Wesley dies, it's shown as this great tragic event, but because neither Wesley nor your sibling has received any development up to that point, the impact of it was approximately nil.

Of course it was nil we'd only just met him/her, you're meant to role play how your Hawke would feel.