212 réponses à ce sujet

[Eudaemonium]

Excellent OP, it's nice to actually have some kind of discussion like this on these boards. I do have to agree partially with KoP re: the Mage/Templar conflict though - it was handled pretty poorly. I have little doubt they were attempting to do a political story, but for whatever reason screwed up in the final execution - whether that be due to time, or concern that it would do badly in sales if they didn't have some big bad at the end or whatever. I feel that the inclusion of the Idol tended to undermine the main thrust of the story, to say nothing of the whole 'mentallly ill people are violent and dangerous' message that saturates a lot of the story.

That aside, I feel they tried, and they get points for doing that when a lot of game companies do. Its rare that a game get's made that's basically *about* social justice, after all, no matter how hamfisted the execution might have been.

[jlb524]

filetemo wrote...

If I was a whealty Kirkwall noble or a lowly peasant, I may have sided with templars. What do I know about their motives? all I know is my neighbors son burned my crops when she was 3 with a fireball. Let all those monsters rot in a prison.I prefer to be opressed by templars than eaten by a demon.At least I am alive.

There were nobles that wanted to overthrow Meredith.

filetemo wrote...
this I do not agree. The whole point of the game for me was to see if my actions could influence the outcome or at least stop the war.I strongly believe that without the idol they could have reached an agreement, at least with my help, that shows they are reasonable and that I can be useful and influent.

It seems they wanted to show that sometimes conflict cannot be stopped by some 'great hero'.

I like that, personally.

I also don't a woman that seeks out a magical hunk of lyrium in order to gain more power is reasonable in the first place...there was no agreement that could have been reached, idol or no.  Meredith started to clamp down on the mages in Act 1 and that's when some mages started rebelling before any idol was ever discovered.

Modifié par jlb524, 29 août 2011 - 09:03 .

[filetemo]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

And the fact that writers have to use nonhuman elements to move what is supposedely a political plot, shows inability to make an actual real political plot.

this

KnightofPhoenix wrote...
Both sides turned out to be lunatic idiots, and I was left completely indifferent to both.

and this

Modifié par filetemo, 29 août 2011 - 08:59 .

[Follow Me on Twitter]

Did i play the wrong game?

When did a demon or the idol cause what happend at the end?

[filetemo]

jlb524 wrote...
There were nobles that wanted to overthrow Meredith.

A fair point, but only when Meredith had already gone bonkers
because they either a) had mages in the family or meredith's actions threatened the financial and commercial stability of kirkwall.

The rich and whealthy join the revolutions only when the current government threatens their economy. In times of peace, they'll side with the conservative side.

Also let' me take into account that nobles wanting to overthrow meredith doesn't mean they were going to fight for the mages rights.

[filetemo]

Follow Me on Twitter wrote...

Did i play the wrong game?

When did a demon or the idol cause what happend at the end?

meredith had the idol of the deep roads melted into a sword, and the sword made her insane.

[Eudaemonium]

jlb524 wrote...

There were nobles that wanted to overthrow Meredith.

It's likely that the nobles onyl wanted to oste Meredith because she was a threat to their own power, rather than out of any sympathy with the mages. Groups or individuals with privilege will often act to maintain that privelege. Maintaining it at this point had to do with overthrowing Meredith.

[kingjezza]

I know mentioning anything Witchery on here can cause problems but The Witcher (only just started the second) dealt with race issues and politics way better than Dragon Age 2, Origins did it better as well.

In DA2 everybody just comes across as some over the top caricature of themselves, oh great another insane blood mage or psycho templar, the whole game stunk of Bioware trying way too hard trying to incorporate race and political issues into the game, in the end it just comes across as one huge heavy handed mess, never once did I feel there was any depth to any of it or feel like I had a tough choice to make. If only there was a nuke city option in Chapter 1.

Most of the other stuff I guess comes down to personal choice, personally I thought the every character being Bi thingy was rubbish, I'm all for Gay characters in games, when it feels natural for a gay person to be there, not just for the sake of it and pandering reasons. I think Origins did a fairly decent job of it, at least it felt natural that Zevran and Leliana batted for both teams, just like it made sense that the rest of them didn't, the majority of people aren't gay/bi, who would of thought.

As for some of the other stuff, I don't think having a darker skinned girl as a love interest was all that ground breaking personally, she's not even that dark. As for Aveline, pathetic character, yeah great she can use a sword, she can't even ask somebody out on a simple date, when she started sending me on love errands I would have had her head on a stick if I had that option, it wasn't cute, she is a grown woman for christ sake, having the guard captain running around acting like a 14 year old is beyond idiotic.

I hated her, but each to their own.

[Atakuma]

ninja'd

Modifié par Atakuma, 29 août 2011 - 09:06 .

[Shepard Lives]

Atakuma wrote...

I did and all I got from was that she is afraid of commitment because she doesn't want to get hurt, which is a cliche right out of a bad romance novel.

Actually, what I gathered from her convos is that she doesn't want commitment because she's afraid of hurting her partner, not of being hurt herself. This of course ties in with the whole "shirking responsibilities" thing she has going on which is a big part of her character, and arguably goes to show that even with all her issues she's not a particularly despicable individual after all.

But let's talk about the OP: I agree on all the points you made. You pretty much summed up what I truly loved about DAII: it was a modern game.
DAO was amazing, but still very much restricted by the trappings of the fantasy RPG genre. It had truly complex characters and a couple of delightfully grey decisions, but in the end it all boiled down to saving the world from a giant-ass dragon.
If DA3 manages to fuse DAII's tackling of complex social and psychological issues with DAO's superior content quality and quantity (and all it would take is more dev time, IMO), I'm pretty certain it'll be Bioware's best game to date.

Modifié par Shepard Lives, 29 août 2011 - 09:07 .

[krinst]

Very well thought-out!

I especially agree with you regarding the male characters. Not everyone must be built like they walked out of Gears of War.

Isabela really bothered me at first, but the more I've tried to see her the way I see/saw Zevran, the more I like her. It can be really tough to get past one's own biases, even when aware of them.

Edit: Speaking only for myself, of course.

Modifié par elebamf, 29 août 2011 - 09:08 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

jlb524 wrote...

It seems they wanted to show that sometimes conflict cannot be stopped by some 'great hero'.

Good concept. ****** poor execution.

I also don't a woman that seeks out a magical hunk of lyrium in order to gain more power is reasonable in the first place...there was no agreement that could have been reached, idol or no.  Meredith started to clamp down on the mages in Act 1 and that's when some mages started rebelling before any idol was ever discovered.

With clamp downs and a mage resistance we never saw.
The conflict could have errupted without any use of desperate plot devices. They don't even have to be intelligent to write something better than this.

I don't know what they were aiming for, but if they were aiming to portray the building up of a conflict, they failed utterly from a political perspective. Unless they were aiming to make a political satire. 

[KnightofPhoenix]

kingjezza wrote...

I know mentioning anything Witchery on here can cause problems but The Witcher (only just started the second) dealt with race issues and politics way better than Dragon Age 2, Origins did it better as well.

Yes, The Witcher 1 portrayed the building up of a conflict between an oppressed minority and a religious order much much much much much better than this farce (no I am not being harsh).

The Witcher 2 goes on a whole other level and is better than all Bioware games I've played combined in that regard.

Modifié par KnightofPhoenix, 29 août 2011 - 09:12 .

[Eudaemonium]

jlb524 wrote...

It seems they wanted to show that sometimes conflict cannot be stopped by some 'great hero'.

I like that, personally.

I also don't a woman that seeks out a magical hunk of lyrium in order to gain more power is reasonable in the first place...there was no agreement that could have been reached, idol or no.  Meredith started to clamp down on the mages in Act 1 and that's when some mages started rebelling before any idol was ever discovered.

I liked that too. I really applaud Bioware for writing a game where the hero doesn't ride off into teh sunset having solved eveyone's problems. I loved the feeling I ended DA2 with that the world was irreparably broken and that the actions of one person, no matter how important, couldn't put it back together.

I just think they could have written it better. You said it yourself, Meredith couldn't have been reasoned with - idol or no. The inclusion of the Idol makes her appear as if she was driven insane by magical macguffin X - it cheapens her as a character who was driven to extremism by the events of her life. Learning about her background and motives would have made her a more understandable and relatable character, even if you believed she was ultimately wrong and had to be stopped.

[Follow Me on Twitter]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

It seems they wanted to show that sometimes conflict cannot be stopped by some 'great hero'.

Good concept. ****** poor execution.

I also don't a woman that seeks out a magical hunk of lyrium in order to gain more power is reasonable in the first place...there was no agreement that could have been reached, idol or no.  Meredith started to clamp down on the mages in Act 1 and that's when some mages started rebelling before any idol was ever discovered.

With clamp downs and a mage resistance we never saw.
The conflict could have errupted without any use of desperate plot devices. They don't even have to be intelligent to write something better than this.

I don't know what they were aiming for, but if they were aiming to portray the building up of a conflict, they failed utterly from a political perspective. Unless they were aiming to make a political satire. 

Again because the idol was the key factor in how the end turns out right?

[Sepewrath]

I can dig it, interestingly enough, I remember when Aveline was first shown, over on Gamefaqs, there was a huge topic about how ridiculous it was a for a woman to be the tank, so there is definitely some credence to what the TC is saying.

Though I will say a female antagonist isn't so rare, that it needs to be brought up in this conversation. Yeah its far from common, but when it does happen, they generally aren't just a pair of big bouncing boobs. Look at that old lady in Uncharted 3 or Mother Brain, the ugliest female antagonist ever lol.

I would agree with the rest of what you said, its a reason I find DA2 to be such a refreshing change of pace from the status quo.

[Gnaeus Trebonius]

Masako52 wrote...


[*]The -isms exploration - We certainly saw a lot of in-game racism in DAO, but it came back in DA2 with vigor in the case of the qunari. Racism, of course, is in reference to "fantasy races" and not skin color. It's interesting how the DA world has a whole established system of humans subjugating elves, complete with offensive slang ("knife-ears") and prejudice. In DA2, though, it takes an interesting approach in the landing of the qunari/kossith in Kirkwall. It's easy to compare Kirkwall to the West, and the qunari to unwanted immigrants who are seen as dangerous and unrelatable to the Kirkwall lifestyle. Additionally, we get to see the frustrations of the "immigrants" and how they in turn view Kirkwall as morally corrupt. On the note of immigration, it's interesting how when Hawke and the Fereldans try to come to Kirkwall, there's literally a wall stopping them, saying Kirkwall is "full"... immigrant paranoia? Hm, that sounds familiar!

I usually don't have much good to say about DA2, but the portrayal of racial and political conflict in Thedas (and the ME-universe too for that matter) is really quite good and, I have to say, a pretty ballsy move on BioWare's part. What I would like to see in future installments is the ability to choose sides and then actually having to face the consequences, and not just being forced to passively observe while all of your political decisions and statements are litterally blown to bits and cooked down to the same "everybody loses"-ending, and I certainly hope that said ending was not motivated by political correctness, i.e. you shouldn't be rewarded for siding neither with a totalitarian regime promoting eugenics nor terrorist harbouring homocidal maniacs. But seeing as you pretty much could go Mengele on the je.. eh.. I mean elves, in the "Trouble in the Alienage"-quest in DA:O I don't think BioWare is afraid to go all the way in portraying such conflicts.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Follow Me on Twitter wrote...

Again because the idol was the key factor in how the end turns out right?

Not only the idol. Thin veil idiocy. Overblowing of demons that they didn't bother to give motivations unlike in Origins, where they actually negotiate. Most of the important story bits left in the bg completely unexplored. Meredith being underdevelopped, and Orsino not being developped at all. Caricature of characters, like Grace or Alrik, that show no depth at all and are there to act like lunatics to be slaughtered. No exploration of the rise of extremism at all...etc etc.

I can write blogs on how DA2's political plot was bad.

[filetemo]

Follow Me on Twitter wrote...

Again because the idol was the key factor in how the end turns out right?

we'll never know if the war could be stopped without the idol messing things, but this is a game, and war had to happen.
I understand bioware didn't want a DA3 where you can have alive/dead warden alive/dead morrigan old god baby/nothing, three diferent kings in ferelden and a war/not war between templars and mages.

DA2 is like ME2 in this aspect.The reapers were coming since ME1. ME2 just told you what happened in between times, not that you could stop the reaper invasion anyways.

But it could have been done better instead of killing meredith and orsino let one of them alive and see what happens with them in DA3

[devSin]

Ah, yes. The no spoilers forum, where all your games are spoiled.

Anyway, fair observations, OP.

Modifié par devSin, 29 août 2011 - 09:21 .

[happy_daiz]

devSin wrote...

Ah, yes. The no spoilers forum, where all your games are spoiled.

Anyway, fair observations, OP.

Just another day on BSN. 

[Range Rover]

Sepewrath wrote...

I can dig it, interestingly enough, I remember when Aveline was first shown, over on Gamefaqs, there was a huge topic about how ridiculous it was a for a woman to be the tank, so there is definitely some credence to what the TC is saying.

Though I will say a female antagonist isn't so rare, that it needs to be brought up in this conversation. Yeah its far from common, but when it does happen, they generally aren't just a pair of big bouncing boobs. Look at that old lady in Uncharted 3 or Mother Brain, the ugliest female antagonist ever lol.

I would agree with the rest of what you said, its a reason I find DA2 to be such a refreshing change of pace from the status quo.

 Well considering about 80% of males that plays/played A bioware game always chooses the "fem"(I don't, can't understand why most do)route. Bioware had no other choice but to follow suit.

Modifié par Range Rover, 29 août 2011 - 09:23 .

[Eudaemonium]

Range Rover wrote...

Sepewrath wrote...

I can dig it, interestingly enough, I remember when Aveline was first shown, over on Gamefaqs, there was a huge topic about how ridiculous it was a for a woman to be the tank, so there is definitely some credence to what the TC is saying.

Though I will say a female antagonist isn't so rare, that it needs to be brought up in this conversation. Yeah its far from common, but when it does happen, they generally aren't just a pair of big bouncing boobs. Look at that old lady in Uncharted 3 or Mother Brain, the ugliest female antagonist ever lol.

I would agree with the rest of what you said, its a reason I find DA2 to be such a refreshing change of pace from the status quo.

 Well considering about 80% of males that plays/played A bioware game always chooses the "fem"(I don't, can't understand why most do)route. Bioware had no other choice but to follow suit.

No offence, but I actually have no idea what you mean. Can you clarify? Please.

Modifié par Eudaemonium, 29 août 2011 - 09:24 .

[jlb524]

kingjezza wrote...
Most of the other stuff I guess comes down to personal choice, personally I thought the every character being Bi thingy was rubbish, I'm all for Gay characters in games, when it feels natural for a gay person to be there, not just for the sake of it and pandering reasons. I think Origins did a fairly decent job of it, at least it felt natural that Zevran and Leliana batted for both teams, just like it made sense that the rest of them didn't, the majority of people aren't gay/bi, who would of thought.

You don't understand why they did it, then.

Also, you should realize all romantic content can be considered 'pandering' as a minority of players are interested in that content.

Also, I still want someone to explain to me why Zevran and Leliana are 'natural' bisexuals...

[happy_daiz]

Eudaemonium wrote...

Well considering about 80% of males that plays/played A bioware game always chooses the "fem"(I don't, can't understand why most do)route. Bioware had no other choice but to follow suit.

No offence, but I actually have no idea what you mean. Can you clarify? Please. 

I must have missed that as well. What did you mean by that, RR? 

Modifié par happy_daiz, 29 août 2011 - 09:35 .