125 réponses à ce sujet

[CrookedAsylum]

Zanallen wrote...


No. The Warden attacked her and presumed that he killed her*. There is no guarantee that the Warden finished her off. The choice made was to "defile ashes", not "kill Leliana". You were not given a direct choice to kill her. Fighting her was a consequence of a choice. The consequences are fully the prerogative of the writer. The choice options are a marriage of the writer's intent and the player's will. Fighting Leliana is a consequence and not a choice and, as such, what the player chooses has no bearing on it.**

*My warden cut off her head. I don't think there's any presuming in that.

**And what you're saying is that the consequences of actions don't matter if the devs say they don't, which is essentially saying the choices themselves don't matter.

Which is utter sh-t. I'm backing out of this before I turn into a volatile harpy.

[Zanallen]

LobselVith8 wrote...



Am I supposed to take that argument seriously? Under that line of reasoning, no one is dead because there's never a guarantee that The Warden ever finished them off. Loghain, the Archdemon, Arl Howe, pretty much everyone could be brought back to life because there's no guarantee that they are really dead.

Yeah, no. Not the same. With Loghain, you have a choice to kill him or not. It is an explicit choice. Kill him or allow him to take the Joining Ritual. Just like killing Jowan is an explicit choice. Just like with Zevran. Same with Connor and Isolde and numerous other characters. Killing Leliana is not a choice. Fighting her is a consequence of defiling the ashes. There is a difference.

The Archdemon is the major plot point in the game. You have to kill it to win. Of course, there is a possibility that Morrigan was wrong or lying and that the Archdemon lives on in the OGB. If so, I wouldn't have a problem with that turn of events.

I'll give you Arl Howe. He very well could have survived to sneak away or be treated by some of his servants. I wouldn't have a problem with that. It completely fits his smarmy personality. Hell, I would have liked a choice to not kill Howe in Origins. Only the Cousland Warden and maybe the city elf Warden have any real reason to want him dead. He's a bastard and Loghain's lackey, but there is no real reason that all Wardens are forced to kill him.

[Zanallen]

CrookedAsylum wrote...

*My warden cut off her head. I don't think there's any presuming in that.

**And what you're saying is that the consequences of actions don't matter if the devs say they don't, which is essentially saying the choices themselves don't matter.

Which is utter sh-t. I'm backing out of this before I turn into a volatile harpy.

Deathblow animations are not canon.

You never made the decision to kill Leliana. You fought her. That doesn't mean she died.

[Addai]

Zanallen wrote...
Deathblow animations are not canon.

You never made the decision to kill Leliana. You fought her. That doesn't mean she died.

No one's disputing that "a wizard did it" is not a possible way to present a story.  It's possible that everything we saw in Origins was a bad dream Oghren had on a particularly nasty bender.  Who shot JR?  No one!

The question is whether it's a good way to treat your audience.

[Zanallen]

Addai67 wrote...

No one's disputing that "a wizard did it" is not a possible way to present a story.  It's possible that everything we saw in Origins was a bad dream Oghren had on a particularly nasty bender.  Who shot JR?  No one!

The question is whether it's a good way to treat your audience.

That's not my point. The point I am making is that the writers are not retconing a decision you made because you never made that decision. At no point in the game were you given a choice on killing Leliana.

[Addai]

Zanallen wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

No one's disputing that "a wizard did it" is not a possible way to present a story.  It's possible that everything we saw in Origins was a bad dream Oghren had on a particularly nasty bender.  Who shot JR?  No one!

The question is whether it's a good way to treat your audience.

That's not my point. The point I am making is that the writers are not retconing a decision you made because you never made that decision. At no point in the game were you given a choice on killing Leliana.

And my point is that that is a lawyer's argument and no one cares about it.  When the game turns a person into a pile of char, they should be dead.  If an audience feels cheated, it feels cheated- and a writer can only do that so much before people don't take anything in the story seriously anymore.

The good news being, we all have our expectations set suitably low from now on.

[Zanallen]

Addai67 wrote...

And my point is that that is a lawyer's argument and no one cares about it.  When the game turns a person into a pile of char, they should be dead.  If an audience feels cheated, it feels cheated- and a writer can only do that so much before people don't take anything in the story seriously anymore.

The good news being, we all have our expectations set suitably low from now on.

Ah, so its bad because you say its bad. Gotcha.

[Blacklash93]

Leliana is very cool and interesting character. If Bioware left her fate up to the player's choice, they wouldn't be able to use her much in the story moving forward because some amount of people would not even see her.

In the end it's about the devs utilizing characters they want to continue. Leliana is going to be a major part of the story because she definitively survived DA:O. That's why Bioware "saved" her - to play a large role in the future.

What she will inevitably add to Dragon Age in the future will make the little immersion break her survival causes pale in comparison.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 30 septembre 2011 - 11:40 .

[DPSSOC]

Zanallen wrote...

CrookedAsylum wrote...
*My warden cut off her head. I don't think there's any presuming in that.

**And what you're saying is that the consequences of actions don't matter if the devs say they don't, which is essentially saying the choices themselves don't matter.

Which is utter sh-t. I'm backing out of this before I turn into a volatile harpy.

Deathblow animations are not canon.

You never made the decision to kill Leliana. You fought her. That doesn't mean she died.

Not entirely true.  You are given the option to intimidate Leliana into backing off (think it's intimidate anyway).  Now whether your pass or fail doesn't really matter but neglecting that option could be seen as making the decision to kill Leliana.  You  know she's going to fight you, you know she won't stop until one of you is dead, and you choose not to try and talk her out of it.

Blacklash93 wrote...
What she will inevitably add to Dragon Age in the future will make the little immersion break her survival causes pale in comparison.

Your optimism is...I don't even have a word for it.  However that's really all a matter of opinion.  You can't say definitively that whatever she brings to the table will whitewash the immersion break for everyone because you don't know how much that break bothers everyone.  Heck you can't even definitively say she'll bring anything to the table, Anders certainly didn't (hasn't yet if you prefer).

Modifié par DPSSOC, 01 octobre 2011 - 12:36 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Zanallen wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

No one's disputing that "a wizard did it" is not a possible way to present a story.  It's possible that everything we saw in Origins was a bad dream Oghren had on a particularly nasty bender.  Who shot JR?  No one!

The question is whether it's a good way to treat your audience.

That's not my point. The point I am making is that the writers are not retconing a decision you made because you never made that decision. At no point in the game were you given a choice on killing Leliana.

Wow, really? It comes down to actually having a choice now? People can't die through simple consequences from their decisions?

Do the games have to introduce a "NPC is still alive. Do you want to kill them or...?" option, similar to what we got when first meeting Zevran in DA:O? Because frankly I'd agree with that if it meant we'd get past all these stupid arguments about whether or not NPC X was really dead after we saw our PC cut their head off in a fight.

[TJPags]

Blacklash93 wrote...

Leliana is very cool and interesting character. If Bioware left her fate up to the player's choice, they wouldn't be able to use her much in the story moving forward because some amount of people would not even see her.

In the end it's about the devs utilizing characters they want to continue. Leliana is going to be a major part of the story because she definitively survived DA:O. That's why Bioware "saved" her - to play a large role in the future.

What she will inevitably add to Dragon Age in the future will make the little immersion break her survival causes pale in comparison.

Well, obviously you're a Leli fan.

Me, I can take her or leave her.  I like the character.

But you know what?  My Warden wiped hundreds of people off the map.  Never once did any of them get back up and fight again.  I'm sure that's the same with the rest of you.  There are plenty of characters I killed without getting a specific "do you want to kill this persoon" option.  I killed Bhelen after handing the crown to Harrowmount without a specific option to do so.  Should he come back to life?  Was my Warden wrong there, too?

I don't care if Bioware loves the Leliana character and wants her to continue along in the story.  I care that Bioware, with no apparent explanation - and there has not been one at all - chose to put her in DA2 even though there is a scenario in which she is killed.

I've said in the past - and will repeat - that I'm willing to wait for the explanation.  But really, "mountain of Lyrium", "defiled ashes not really defiled", "feigned death"  and the like are, IMO, cop-outs, and are not going to cut it for me.

[TEWR]

TJPags wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

Leliana is very cool and interesting character. If Bioware left her fate up to the player's choice, they wouldn't be able to use her much in the story moving forward because some amount of people would not even see her.

In the end it's about the devs utilizing characters they want to continue. Leliana is going to be a major part of the story because she definitively survived DA:O. That's why Bioware "saved" her - to play a large role in the future.

What she will inevitably add to Dragon Age in the future will make the little immersion break her survival causes pale in comparison.

Well, obviously you're a Leli fan.

Me, I can take her or leave her.  I like the character.

But you know what?  My Warden wiped hundreds of people off the map.  Never once did any of them get back up and fight again.  I'm sure that's the same with the rest of you.  There are plenty of characters I killed without getting a specific "do you want to kill this persoon" option.  I killed Bhelen after handing the crown to Harrowmount without a specific option to do so.  Should he come back to life?  Was my Warden wrong there, too?

I don't care if Bioware loves the Leliana character and wants her to continue along in the story.  I care that Bioware, with no apparent explanation - and there has not been one at all - chose to put her in DA2 even though there is a scenario in which she is killed.

I've said in the past - and will repeat - that I'm willing to wait for the explanation.  But really, "mountain of Lyrium", "defiled ashes not really defiled", "feigned death"  and the like are, IMO, cop-outs, and are not going to cut it for me.

I don't think the mountain of lyrium is really a cop-out. Perhaps the Maker does indeed exist, and he worked the mountain's temple and the lyrium to only allow the devout to live in a life beyond death.

Think about it: The Guardian has long since been dead but his body can indeed be attacked and Oghren remarks that the lyrium may be keeping him alive. However, he says he's tied to the ashes of Andraste. So, the Ashes and the lyrium may be intertwined into having magical abilities.

Basic gist: the nature of the lyrium in the mountain seems to keep people alive after they've long since died (even the souls of people important in the life of Andraste are around long after their death).

[Dave of Canada]

*wrong thread*

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 01 octobre 2011 - 01:21 .

[TJPags]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

Leliana is very cool and interesting character. If Bioware left her fate up to the player's choice, they wouldn't be able to use her much in the story moving forward because some amount of people would not even see her.

In the end it's about the devs utilizing characters they want to continue. Leliana is going to be a major part of the story because she definitively survived DA:O. That's why Bioware "saved" her - to play a large role in the future.

What she will inevitably add to Dragon Age in the future will make the little immersion break her survival causes pale in comparison.

Well, obviously you're a Leli fan.

Me, I can take her or leave her.  I like the character.

But you know what?  My Warden wiped hundreds of people off the map.  Never once did any of them get back up and fight again.  I'm sure that's the same with the rest of you.  There are plenty of characters I killed without getting a specific "do you want to kill this persoon" option.  I killed Bhelen after handing the crown to Harrowmount without a specific option to do so.  Should he come back to life?  Was my Warden wrong there, too?

I don't care if Bioware loves the Leliana character and wants her to continue along in the story.  I care that Bioware, with no apparent explanation - and there has not been one at all - chose to put her in DA2 even though there is a scenario in which she is killed.

I've said in the past - and will repeat - that I'm willing to wait for the explanation.  But really, "mountain of Lyrium", "defiled ashes not really defiled", "feigned death"  and the like are, IMO, cop-outs, and are not going to cut it for me.

I don't think the mountain of lyrium is really a cop-out. Perhaps the Maker does indeed exist, and he worked the mountain's temple and the lyrium to only allow the devout to live in a life beyond death.

Think about it: The Guardian has long since been dead but his body can indeed be attacked and Oghren remarks that the lyrium may be keeping him alive. However, he says he's tied to the ashes of Andraste. So, the Ashes and the lyrium may be intertwined into having magical abilities.

Basic gist: the nature of the lyrium in the mountain seems to keep people alive after they've long since died (even the souls of people important in the life of Andraste are around long after their death).

Well, here's a question - is the Guardian actually alive?  I kind of got the impression he was more of an apparition, a ghost with some substance, not really a person.  Say, like a Fade Spirit (or Demon, regardless of semantics here) which was able to manifest physically.  But - I really don't know the answer, so if someone can answer this, it might help.

Going on the assumption that the Guardian is more like a Fade Spirit, then he's not really "alive" anymore.  Yet he's clearly devout, so I think you're argument fails.  Plus, there were others who came . . . were none of the other people who went there devout enough?  Why Lelianna, and not Wynne, or any of those who were there before?

No, I find the Mountain of Lyrium to be a cop-out.  They better have something more, for me, or I'm going to lose even more respect for this franchise.

[TEWR]

Well, here's a question - is the Guardian actually alive?  I kind of got the impression he was more of an apparition, a ghost with some substance, not really a person.  Say, like a Fade Spirit (or Demon, regardless of semantics here) which was able to manifest physically.  But - I really don't know the answer, so if someone can answer this, it might help.

Going on the assumption that the Guardian is more like a Fade Spirit, then he's not really "alive" anymore.  Yet he's clearly devout, so I think you're argument fails.  Plus, there were others who came . . . were none of the other people who went there devout enough?  Why Lelianna, and not Wynne, or any of those who were there before?

No, I find the Mountain of Lyrium to be a cop-out.  They better have something more, for me, or I'm going to lose even more respect for this franchise.

I believe he says something that implies (or even outright states) that he's been alive for centuries. Many months ago I posted on the wiki that he was like the knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and that the temple bore some similarities to the movie's temple. And that knight was kept alive for centuries too.

And who's to say that Wynne isn't alive but she's somewhere else? Just because she doesn't show up in Awakening if you killed her doesn't mean she's still dead. Think about it: why would anyone in their right mind go to the arling that's being run by the person who killed you? If anything, she either avoided that area completely or went looking for Ines on her own and found her.

We actually only see one corpse in the Gauntlet that's clearly an adventurer. However, we don't know the circumstances of his death. Maybe he wasn't devout. Maybe he was just a bandit adventurer and he didn't remove his items before going through the fire.

In fact, I believe he was a Magister of the Imperium. He carries the Belt of the Magister Lords as well as a Golden Demon Pendant. And as devout as he may have been if he was an Andrastian, he was still a Tevinter Magister and the area was built to guard the Ashes from the Imperium.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 01 octobre 2011 - 02:49 .

[IanPolaris]

Actually if you have enough Cunning, you find out that the guardian was once one of Andraste's disciples, but it's very much unclear if anything human remains or if his persona was completely taken over by a spirit (like the Pride demon completely took over the Baroness' persona).

-Polaris

[Addai]

Yes, I'm sure Wynne is still alive somewhere. The really annoying ones never die. They must spread over all the earth and then the Maker shall return to us.

Modifié par Addai67, 01 octobre 2011 - 05:49 .

[TJPags]

Wait - please tell me people are not seriously advocating that Wynne is alive, too????

[TEWR]

TJPags wrote...

Wait - please tell me people are not seriously advocating that Wynne is alive, too????

she died once already and was brought back to life by the spirit of faith. There's no reason why it couldn't happen again.

Besides, I abhor being able to kill companions. I want Bioware to do away with that method of removing companions from the party entirely because the companions are obviously going to affect the world after the game is over.

• Zevran is taking on the Crows and some are even beginning to think a change is indeed necessary.
• Nathaniel Howe leads an important expedition for the Wardens.
• King Alistair is looking to strengthen Ferelden for the upcoming war with Orlais
• Leliana is a Seeker for the Chantry and the Divine's Left Hand
• Anders and Justice were in DAII

I'd rather they focus more on other methods: companions leave of their own volition, leave due to anger, you can betray them, etc. and that those methods affect their personality and how they act in the future games.

[IanPolaris]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Wait - please tell me people are not seriously advocating that Wynne is alive, too????

she died once already and was brought back to life by the spirit of faith. There's no reason why it couldn't happen again.

Besides, I abhor being able to kill companions. I want Bioware to do away with that method of removing companions from the party entirely because the companions are obviously going to affect the world after the game is over.

• Zevran is taking on the Crows and some are even beginning to think a change is indeed necessary.
  
• Nathaniel Howe leads an important expedition for the Wardens.
  
• King Alistair is looking to strengthen Ferelden for the upcoming war with Orlais
  
• Leliana is a Seeker for the Chantry and the Divine's Left Hand
  
• Anders and Justice were in DAII

I'd rather they focus more on other methods: companions leave of their own volition, leave due to anger, you can betray them, etc. and that those methods affect their personality and how they act in the future games.

I actually agree with this.  If Bioware is going to use companions in future episodes then don't let us kill them.  At worst they should walk away in a huff.

-Polaris

[TJPags]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

TJPags wrote...

Wait - please tell me people are not seriously advocating that Wynne is alive, too????

she died once already and was brought back to life by the spirit of faith. There's no reason why it couldn't happen again.

Besides, I abhor being able to kill companions. I want Bioware to do away with that method of removing companions from the party entirely because the companions are obviously going to affect the world after the game is over.

• Zevran is taking on the Crows and some are even beginning to think a change is indeed necessary.
  
• Nathaniel Howe leads an important expedition for the Wardens.
  
• King Alistair is looking to strengthen Ferelden for the upcoming war with Orlais
  
• Leliana is a Seeker for the Chantry and the Divine's Left Hand
  
• Anders and Justice were in DAII

I'd rather they focus more on other methods: companions leave of their own volition, leave due to anger, you can betray them, etc. and that those methods affect their personality and how they act in the future games.

Well, obviously those things only happen in certain circumstances.  Alistair, for instance, need not be King, even if you don't spare Loghain.  Zaevran can be freed and not recruited, I believe.  And Nathaniel doesn't have to be recruited, neither does Leli, etc.


However, I agree with your concept, and it's the main reason why this issue bothers me.  Don't provide the option to kill a character if you (meaning BW) want them to play a larger part later on.  Don't make their status dependant on choices if you want to map out their future status.

In other words, honor the choices you give, even if one option screws your plan, or simply don't give that choice.

Pretty simple, really.

[IanPolaris]

Wait a minute. Am I agreeing with T-Pags? I need to mark this on my calender.

-Polaris

[TEWR]

Well, obviously those things only happen in certain circumstances. Alistair, for instance, need not be King, even if you don't spare Loghain. Zaevran can be freed and not recruited, I believe. And Nathaniel doesn't have to be recruited, neither does Leli, etc.


However, I agree with your concept, and it's the main reason why this issue bothers me. Don't provide the option to kill a character if you (meaning BW) want them to play a larger part later on. Don't make their status dependant on choices if you want to map out their future status.

In other words, honor the choices you give, even if one option screws your plan, or simply don't give that choice.

Pretty simple, really.

Yea it's just something that bugs me. Hell if Bioware is intent on still allowing the player to fight companions, there should be at least a codex (but I'd prefer a cutscene if they did something like that) that shows them still alive.

...and if they'll persist in killing companions (which I hope they don't do), they should do it on very, very, very rare occasions and only in places that have a very magical aura that could help explain them coming back. But give us a codex blurb so we know what to expect. And their "deaths" should change their persona.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 01 octobre 2011 - 04:22 .

[TJPags]

IanPolaris wrote...

Wait a minute. Am I agreeing with T-Pags? I need to mark this on my calender.

-Polaris

No.

We're both just agreeing with EWR. 

[mousestalker]

It is impossible to kill Leliana