103 réponses à ce sujet

[Brockololly]

* I haven't played Mark of the Assassin, so maybe there is more info in a codex I haven't seen*


But, in watching the DLC on youtube, you have the new creatures known as the "Ghast." Which sound like some mix up of Salacious Crumb and the Grunts from Halo. But more to the point they seem to act like any number of High Fantasy primitive humanoid monster creatures which exist only to be slaughtered.

I bring this up cause I recall after DAO came out Gaider posted this thread on possible new creatures for DA. And within, he brought up a couple design points on existing creatures:

For those of you that know something about the lore, we tend to have three types of enemy creatures:

* Creatures resulting from spirit possession.
* Darkspawn (creatures affected by the darkspawn corruption).
* Beasts (natural creatures, such as dragons).

And a couple points on where they stood in creating new creatures for DA. One being  that they wanted to avoid talking creatures:

There were two design fundamentals in place regarding these creatures:  one, that beasts cannot talk. Talking animals is a bit too "high  fantasy" for our tastes... though that does not exclude talking  creatures as a result of possession. Just none that talk naturally.

But to the point of the Ghasts in MotA, they had #2:

Two, sentient humanoid "monsters" were to be avoided... meaning we  didn't want to rely on tribes of orcs, goblins and bugbears populating  every remote area that were okay to kill because they're hostile.  Darkspawn are humanoid, yes, but they have a specific purpose and the  design goal is to avoid a reliance on sentient cultures that are okay to kill.

So my question would be, don't the Ghast kind of fit the mold of your typical primitive fantasy tribes of orcs, goblins, bugbears, kobolds, Hobbes from Fable or Murlocs from WoW? Is their inclusion (which would seem to go against point #2 in Gaider's old post) just a function of all the other changes in DA2? Are the Ghasts sentient? They seemed to have some rudimentary clothing/armor and had their gibberish speak  going on. Does the codex entry shed any more light on them?


They just seemed kind of out of place compared to all the other more grounded creatures in DA. 


The Wyvern is cool though:wizard:

Modifié par Brockololly, 12 octobre 2011 - 12:59 .

[K_Tabris]

They are a very fun tribute to the cannibals from Jade Empire.


Too bad the b button wouldn't let me do a back flip. Time to replay the Spirit Monk!

[thats1evildude]

Ghasts exist in Dungeons and Dragons. They're a type of undead, a more powerful form of ghouls.

Honestly, this game was in desperate need of new monsters. I'm glad to see they expanded the bestiary a little.

Modifié par thats1evildude, 12 octobre 2011 - 01:06 .

[Brockololly]

thats1evildude wrote...
Honestly, this game was in desperate need of new monsters. I'm glad to see they expanded the bestiary a little.

Sure, more monsters is great. I'm just curious about the Ghast seeing as I thought they wanted to avoid that type of humanoid , typical fantasy monster.  I thought they wanted to go for more wild animal type monsters  and not sentient humanoid types.

[Mr.House]

I really don't see what's wrong with Ghast. it was a nice breath of fresh air and just makes DA more interesting for me.

Modifié par Mr.House, 12 octobre 2011 - 01:16 .

[whykikyouwhy]

Mr.House wrote...

I really don't see what's wrong with Ghast. it was an ice breath of fresh air and just makes DA more interesting for me.

And they gave us a new curse word.

[naledgeborn]

I'm with Brock on this. Not saying Ghasts were bad. But I was expecting wolves/bears from DAO. Something we haven't seen yet in DA2.

[whykikyouwhy]

With wyverns roaming the area though, any thriving creature would have to be incredibly cunning and/or live underground.

[Mr.House]

*snickers* Ghast hole.

[Alanosborn1991]

I think they look like Murlocks


But hey thats just me, they were very out of place to me and had no right being in Dragon Age, I was like WTF IS THAT! When I first saw em lol

[syllogi]

Alanosborn1991 wrote...

I think they look like Murlocks


But hey thats just me, they were very out of place to me and had no right being in Dragon Age, I was like WTF IS THAT! When I first saw em lol

It's not just you.

[Kwanzaabot]

I'm confused by them, too. Are they some kind of Darkspawn? Demon-possessed frogs?

But, yeah. Goblin-type monsters does sort of go against established lore.

[BigBad]

IIRC, the codex entry for them stated that they were non-sentient and about as intelligent as your average natural carnivorous beast. They're no more 'humanoid' than monkeys.

[Andraste_Reborn]

They're no more 'humanoid' than monkeys.

What's weird, though, is that despite the codex saying they're not truly intelligent they wear clothes and use weapons and some of them even cast spells. Despite lacking language, they seem to have greater intellectual capacity than a monkey. I'm also curious to see how they fit into the lore, given the developers' previous statement about avoiding sentient monster races.

Modifié par Andrastee, 12 octobre 2011 - 10:38 .

[TobiTobsen]

Andrastee wrote...

They're no more 'humanoid' than monkeys.

What's weird, though, is that despite the codex saying they're not truly intelligent they wear clothes and use weapons and some of them even cast spells. Despite lacking language, they seem to have greater intellectual capacity than a monkey. I'm also curious to see how they fit into the lore, given the developers' previous statement about avoiding sentient monster races.

The codex entry on their mages suggests that they could just be mimicking stuff they saw.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Pfft. If ghasts are murlocs, then murlocs are D&D's kuatoa (which are also aquatic monsters).



Can we move on now?

Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 12 octobre 2011 - 11:15 .

[soignee]

Ghasts? I find a couple of arrows get rid of them, especially the new bow power Notch and Jeb put in Minecraft now.


Their tears are also delicious.

*trololols off*

Modifié par soignee, 12 octobre 2011 - 06:17 .

[Quinnzel]

I had a more DnD Gibberling vibe off of them, though I can definitely see the comparisons to a murlock and even Fable's Hobbes.

I would love to see what a Darkspawn/Tainted Ghast looks like (Ghast broodmother FTW!)

[KJandrew]

I thought they were monster -demon-frogs mixed with the minions from Overlord

[TeamLexana]

I didn't think they were bad. That pile up thing they do left me going wtf are they doing though, lol. I didn't even notice it on my first playthrough because I had Bethany and I think she slammed a Grav Ring on them when they tried that crap so with the pretty bright lights and them being hella slowed down, I didn't take the time to look at what they were doing, lol.

I liked them overall. Much better then more giant spiders akwardly falling out of the sky. Cuz when giant spiders fall out of the sky on regular basis... it's time to pack your stuff and gtfo of town, lol.

[Nerdage]

Since it's not up on the wiki yet and I feel like making myself useful (but can't be bothered to actually transcribe it myself) here's the codex:

http://desmond.image....png&res=medium

Modifié par nerdage, 12 octobre 2011 - 05:40 .

[TEWR]

Brockololly wrote...

thats1evildude wrote...
Honestly, this game was in desperate need of new monsters. I'm glad to see they expanded the bestiary a little.

Sure, more monsters is great. I'm just curious about the Ghast seeing as I thought they wanted to avoid that type of humanoid , typical fantasy monster.  I thought they wanted to go for more wild animal type monsters  and not sentient humanoid types.

They're not so primitive really. They can't speak normally sure, but they can make grunts and some can even use magic, though people are unsure of whether this is due to them watching people and imitating them or if it's due to them being able to be mages in their own rights.

People are also unsure of whether they are subject to possession.

and by people, I mean the Thedosians.

[thats1evildude]

Chimpanzees can be trained to wear clothes and star in low-budget Hollywood films. Doesn't make them sentient.

[TEWR]

thats1evildude wrote...

Chimpanzees can be trained to wear clothes and star in low-budget Hollywood films. Doesn't make them sentient.

Yes but those chimps were trained to do those things. The Ghasts are doing these things with no aid from society at all. That points to a primitive level of sentience I would think.

[Addai]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

thats1evildude wrote...

Chimpanzees can be trained to wear clothes and star in low-budget Hollywood films. Doesn't make them sentient.

Yes but those chimps were trained to do those things. The Ghasts are doing these things with no aid from society at all. That points to a primitive level of sentience I would think.

I think the point is rather that they said the devs previously said they didn't want to do goblins, that they were sticking to a more natural vs. spiritual bestiary.  But, it is obviously their prerogative to change their minds, so I imagine the wtf'ery will continue.