286 réponses à ce sujet

[BubbleDncr]

I'm happy I'm not alone in disliking the Tallis situation. I hope the devs take note.

Dragon Age 2 is Hawke's story. Thus, Hawke, should be the hero. Yet, at least twice in MoTA, Tallis gets an awesome cutscene where she drops in to save Hawke. This bothered me to no end, because HAWKE DOESN'T NEED RESCUING. My feelings towards Tallis would be much better from the beginning if Hawke had been strolling along, seen Tallis getting attacked, and jumped to her rescue.

And your reasoning for helping her? Either a) you just want to help some random stranger steal something you know nothing about, or you feel like you owe her for saving you, which none of my Hawkes would ever fall into either of those categories. They could have just had her HIRE YOU, and it would have made all the difference.

So this stranger who's stepping on your toes, you eventually find out lied to you, and works for the Qunari, who all my Hawkes either 1) hate, 2) are indifferent to, or 3) are devouted to the chantry but tends to not like war. So...none of them have reason to help her after she explains how thousands will die if you don't. It almost convinced me, until I heard, "thousands of qunari." Well, back to my Hawkes' motivations: a) hooray! death to qunari! I don't care? c) well.....I'd prefer not to have a war, but the less qunari the better, so.....let me think about this.

So I decide I'm through with her, and I'm leaving. Yet all roads lead to that conflict, so I end up helping her no matter what. My Hawke who hates qunari? She'd have wanted to side with the duke against Tallis. My Hawke who doesn't care? Sigh...looks like I have to fight. Whatever. Tho I'm still pissed at this chick for getting me involved. And Templar Hawke? She'd probably also want to side with the Duke.

I know game developers hate making content that players won't see. But honestly, I would have preferred that when I chose to leave Tallis, that I just left. DLC over, I never see Tallis again. But since they'll never actually do that, they should have let us side with the Duke if we wanted. But they won't do that, because this is the Tallis show, and Tallis has to get her list and live at the end.

[Lisa_H]

I would have liked an option to be able to take the scrolls, or at least try. My Hawkes are mostly diplomatic and do not hate the qunari. But they are a foreign power that may try to invade the rest of Thedas and force everyone to convert to their qun. So letting Tallis keep those scrolls is just stupid.

[Vlad_Dracul]

Sunnie22 wrote...

Vlad_Dracul wrote...

To everyone: Stop talking about Corypheus! That was only example. I HOPED there was an option, Janeka or Larius, with some different consequences in DA3. But I dont know that, of course

Difference in MotA is, that I hadnt any choice. Yes, I could leave her, but with same ending with jewel and scroll in her hands.

IF Bioware just let me tried take the scroll (attack/fight with Tallis dissapeared in shadows), I havent any dislike about this DLC. Anything. But they gave me nothing to decide, and THIS IS PROBLEM, and obviously problem not only for me, but for 2/3 players there.

Ultimately, all of DA2 and its DLC are the same. None of your choices really matter in the over arching story, the events happen as they do, always, there's no choice, at all, ever. Chosing between Larius or Janika, no matter, you still fight and kill Corypheus. Choosing Templars or Mages, does't matter, the Chantry still goes boom, you always kill Orsino, and you always kill Meredith. You can not influence the plot at all.

And this is PROBLEM too. Bioware told to us, that they care what we thinking about their games. So they actually  solved some biggest problems in DA2, disliked by players, in Legacy and MotA: recycled areas, waves of enemies from nowhere, outside areas etc. But MOST IMPORTANT thing, STORY, they still ruining by missing decisions. In Legacy, I said, there was a chance to decision. Kill Janeka and other Grey Wardens or old commander Larius in Calling. End IS different.

In MotA, you hadnt ANY chance to change something. And as i said before, at least Hawke could try attempt to take the scroll with failure. Its better than look at her like halla after lobotomia.

Modifié par Vlad_Dracul, 13 octobre 2011 - 06:56 .

[Alikain]

I can see where choices were taking out of the PC hands. but like most of you have said it far batter then other DLCs. I for one don't want to kill every npc i see in game but like you all said having the right to make that choice for your PCs is very important. I feel the game have change big time since DAO and DA2 take out all our choices out of the window.

[ThePasserby]

Alikain wrote...

I can see where choices were taking out of the PC hands. but like most of you have said it far batter then other DLCs. I for one don't want to kill every npc i see in game but like you all said having the right to make that choice for your PCs is very important. I feel the game have change big time since DAO and DA2 take out all our choices out of the window.

I get the feeling that the writers are too in love with their vision of where to take the story of Thedas. Unfortunately for us, they evidently find giving the players meaningful choices too disruptive to that vision. They might even find it a bother that players want choices that have consequences. They seem to have forgotten that they are writing for a game, and not a book.

[Killjoy Cutter]

jlb524 wrote...

Mr.House wrote...*goes to make Merrill and Tallis kiss.*

You mean, you haven't yet?

Um... huh?

[Killjoy Cutter]

ThePasserby wrote...

Alikain wrote...

I can see where choices were taking out of the PC hands. but like most of you have said it far batter then other DLCs. I for one don't want to kill every npc i see in game but like you all said having the right to make that choice for your PCs is very important. I feel the game have change big time since DAO and DA2 take out all our choices out of the window.

I get the feeling that the writers are too in love with their vision of where to take the story of Thedas. Unfortunately for us, they evidently find giving the players meaningful choices too disruptive to that vision. They might even find it a bother that players want choices that have consequences. They seem to have forgotten that they are writing for a game, and not a book.

Or a movie.  As I've said before, DA2 comes dangerously close to be an "interactive cinematic experience", and not a game. 

"Experience the AWESOME of Hawke's Framed Narrative as you help Bioware direct this AWESOME cinematic experience!  It's AWESOME!" 

Modifié par Killjoy Cutter, 13 octobre 2011 - 07:24 .

[ThePasserby]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Or a movie.  As I've said before, DA2 comes dangerously close to be an "interactive cinematic experience", and not a game. 

"Experience the AWESOME of Hawke's Framed Narrative as you help Bioware direct this AWESOME cinematic experience!  It's AWESOME!" 

Yup. The framed narrative in a game, while somewhat innovative, might not be the best device for story telling in games. Too much player agency is sacrificed to dress up the narrative.

[Wulfram]

Dave of Canada wrote...

That Empress Celene would consort with the Tal'vasoth.

What's scandalous about that?

[Kaiser Shepard]

ThePasserby wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Or a movie.  As I've said before, DA2 comes dangerously close to be an "interactive cinematic experience", and not a game. 

"Experience the AWESOME of Hawke's Framed Narrative as you help Bioware direct this AWESOME cinematic experience!  It's AWESOME!" 

Yup. The framed narrative in a game, while somewhat innovative, might not be the best device for story telling in games. Too much player agency is sacrificed to dress up the narrative.

Au contraire, there is nothing wrong with a framed narrative on itself, just look at Alpha Protocol: there, it was integrated in the story in such a way that it pretty much became the story. It wasn't a linear interrogation of a secondary character by another character that has nothing to do with the game itself, it was an interrogation by the magnificent bastard that was the main antagonist of the player character himself (also a possible magnificent bastard if you wish to play him as such).

The thing is, those interrogation sequences could change in significant ways depending on your decisions, and after that you were also able to set the tone of the interrogations through dialogue options. You could hide the fact that you've become an ally to faction X, which later on comes to release you from your prison. You could over the course of these scenes impress the villain into allowing you to become his right hand, and at the end of the game even outplay and dispose of him.

In the end, the main difference lies in how the developer/writers decide how to use the plot device itself: in Dragon Age II, the framed narrative is just there for the transitions between the timeskips, whereas Alpha Protocol uses it to provide extra perspective and exposure on characters, events and decisions.

[BubbleDncr]

I think what's happened is just that since they plan on potentially never ending the Dragon Age games (I believe in an interview the doctors said they could do 16 DA games if they wanted to), they realized they had to stop giving you too many actual decisions.

Each game will probably have a few decisions that actually impact things. In DAO, this was who ends up ruling, and if there's an old god baby. In Awakening, whether or not you killed the Architect. In DA2, if the Arishok lived or died, if you let Anders live or killed him, and who you sided with - tho it kind of seems like even that last one won't really end up mattering, since the world's going crazy no matter what.

So little dlc's like MoTA? Not important enough to give you a big decision, because the more big decisions they give us, the less manageable future games are. Especially since they've apparently decided they want to use Tallis again in the future. And they can't keep letting us stab a character who then falls backwards into an eluvian where she could easily then heal herself and potentially show up in future games.

[naledgeborn]

Kaiser Shepard wrote...

Au contraire, there is nothing wrong with a framed narrative on itself, just look at Alpha Protocol: there, it was integrated in the story in such a way that it pretty much became the story. It wasn't a linear interrogation of a secondary character by another character that has nothing to do with the game itself, it was an interrogation by the magnificent bastard that was the main antagonist of the player character himself (also a possible magnificent bastard if you wish to play him as such).

The thing is, those interrogation sequences could change in significant ways depending on your decisions, and after that you were also able to set the tone of the interrogations through dialogue options. You could hide the fact that you've become an ally to faction X, which later on comes to release you from your prison. You could over the course of these scenes impress the villain into allowing you to become his right hand, and at the end of the game even outplay and dispose of him.

In the end, the main difference lies in how the developer/writers decide how to use the plot device itself: in Dragon Age II, the framed narrative is just there for the transitions between the timeskips, whereas Alpha Protocol uses it to provide extra perspective and exposure on characters, events and decisions.

Sounds like I really need to cop this game. I heard bad things about the gameplay though. Anybody know how it handles on the 360?

Modifié par naledgeborn, 13 octobre 2011 - 08:53 .

[BubbleDncr]

naledgeborn wrote...

Kaiser Shepard wrote...

Au contraire, there is nothing wrong with a framed narrative on itself, just look at Alpha Protocol: there, it was integrated in the story in such a way that it pretty much became the story. It wasn't a linear interrogation of a secondary character by another character that has nothing to do with the game itself, it was an interrogation by the magnificent bastard that was the main antagonist of the player character himself (also a possible magnificent bastard if you wish to play him as such).

The thing is, those interrogation sequences could change in significant ways depending on your decisions, and after that you were also able to set the tone of the interrogations through dialogue options. You could hide the fact that you've become an ally to faction X, which later on comes to release you from your prison. You could over the course of these scenes impress the villain into allowing you to become his right hand, and at the end of the game even outplay and dispose of him.

In the end, the main difference lies in how the developer/writers decide how to use the plot device itself: in Dragon Age II, the framed narrative is just there for the transitions between the timeskips, whereas Alpha Protocol uses it to provide extra perspective and exposure on characters, events and decisions.

Sounds like I really need to cop this game. I heard bad things about the gameplay though. Anybody know how it handles on the 360?

From a gameplay standpoint, I enjoyed it. The stealth section is a little slow in pacing, but it handles fine on the 360.

Some of the puzzles weren't very clear on what you were supposed to do, but it probably wasn't any different with the PC. The only annoying thing I'd say that's 360 related is the puzzles that rquire you to flip tiles - its a bit annoying to select the proper tile on the 360, I imagine that's much better on the PC.

[Browneye_Vamp84]

I'm playing it on the ps3 and flipping the tiles is annoying. i got one of the picture puzzles on problem but the others were a bit troubling.

I have gotten to the final boss fight but the game froze and things went down the crapper, but trying it again. but i have seen the ending on youtube.

[Auridesion]

Vlad_Dracul wrote...

- i cant kill Tallis
- i cant punch Tallis
- i cant save Duke
- i cant take the scroll

It stands to reason that you can't kill Tallis considering she's the main character of Felicia Day's web-series, Dragon Age: Redemption. But having the option to kill her would essentially break canon in the lore.

I can maybe see why you'd want to punch Tallis, but I think it ultimately belittles her character to allow such a thing to happen.  She's supposed to be a baddass. 

I'm not entirely sure of why you would want to save the Duke, but I'll assume that he needed to die for the same reason that both Orsino and Meredith had to die.  Hawke's story is less about making the big choices as it is DEFINING the big choices. 

Taking the scroll would be meaningless.  What would you have done with it? 

[CrimsonZephyr]

Taking the scroll would be meaningless.  What would you have done with it? 

Sell it to Orlais and watch Qunari turn into corpses.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Auridesion wrote...

I can maybe see why you'd want to punch Tallis, but I think it ultimately belittles her character to allow such a thing to happen.  She's supposed to be a baddass. 

So is Hawke...

[Killjoy Cutter]

What would Hawke do with the scroll? Engage in a little hunting in Kirkwall and elsewhere, with more mercy and discretion than the Orlesians or Chantry are capable of mustering on their best day.

[Shanook]

BubbleDncr wrote...

I think what's happened is just that since they plan on potentially never ending the Dragon Age games (I believe in an interview the doctors said they could do 16 DA games if they wanted to), they realized they had to stop giving you too many actual decisions.

Each game will probably have a few decisions that actually impact things. In DAO, this was who ends up ruling, and if there's an old god baby. In Awakening, whether or not you killed the Architect. In DA2, if the Arishok lived or died, if you let Anders live or killed him, and who you sided with - tho it kind of seems like even that last one won't really end up mattering, since the world's going crazy no matter what.

So little dlc's like MoTA? Not important enough to give you a big decision, because the more big decisions they give us, the less manageable future games are. Especially since they've apparently decided they want to use Tallis again in the future. And they can't keep letting us stab a character who then falls backwards into an eluvian where she could easily then heal herself and potentially show up in future games.

This.


It's the same reason why ME2 had so fewer choices than ME1, and why a lot of the consequences of your choices in the first game were simply an e-mail saying, "O HAI" in the second game. If you're going to make a sequel to a game, you need to make sure you can manage the storyline between them. The more variables you put into a plot, the harder the story is to juggle. It gets a lot easier for bugs and plot holes to start popping up. And the variables grow exponentially the more titles you have in a series.

I honestly don't understand why people are complaining so much. Everyone is acting like the norm for video games is enormous player decisions that greatly affect the outcome of the plot, when the truth is the exact opposite. Most games don't let you make any choices, and the ones that do generally contain choices that are small or only affect the plot of one game. The fact that BioWare lets you make choices that span across multiple titles at all is in and of itself incredible.

[Quething]

BubbleDncr wrote...

Dragon Age 2 is Hawke's story. Thus, Hawke, should be the hero. Yet, at least twice in MoTA, Tallis gets an awesome cutscene where she drops in to save Hawke. This bothered me to no end, because HAWKE DOESN'T NEED RESCUING. My feelings towards Tallis would be much better from the beginning if Hawke had been strolling along, seen Tallis getting attacked, and jumped to her rescue.

I wasn't under the impression that she "saved" Hawke. Neither my troll!Hawke nor my diplomatic!Hawke seemed particularly perturbed by the ambush they found themselves in, and neither did any of their companions. Their weapons are ready, they're prepared to fight back, and then Tallis sticks her nose in before they can start.

My eyes did just about roll out of my head by the time the intro cutscene was over, though. For one, it shouldn't have been more than five seconds before Hawke &Co jumped in; it's bizarre and inane to have her show off for roughly twenty times that while the party stands around watching. For two... look, I hate the term Mary Sue. I loathe it. It's sexist crap that basically means "female character I don't like," on the rare occasion that it still means anything. I never use it. But you know what?

Aveline: Protects her husband by beating a single darkspawn with her bare hands, then beheading him.
Varric: Pins a running thief to the wall through his shoulder and recovers the purse he stole.
Anders: Heals an injured child, then threatens a group of well-armed strangers.
Fenris: Guts a single Tevinter commander after presumably dispatching several of his allies off-screen.
Isabela: Beats down three low-rent thugs, one of whom briefly gets the upper hand on her.
Sebastian: Makes a clean arrow shot to a stationary six-inch target from about forty feet away.

Oh, and Meredith, grand high badass of the entire game: Neuters and decapitates a single Sarebaas.

Compare that to Tallis' entrance and "Mary Sue" is just about the only phrase that fits. Given how far out of their way they went to show her effortlessly slaughtering several dozen trained Antivan Crows without so much as mussing her hair, I'm at a loss to explain how she would even notice the contributions of any of those people to her fights, much less actually require their help.

The writing redeemed her fairly quickly, IMO, but I will agree that intro left a very bad "trying WAY TOO HARD" first impression.

As for the end choice? Yeah. I deliberated over that for a long, long time; how much did that Hawke trust Tallis, and the clear shakiness she had in her faith? How great a danger did those Qunari agents pose? Enough that it was worth killing an ally and friend to stop it? Would she truly draw her blade and demand that scroll, or was it more in-character to let Tallis leave in peace?

Wish I'd have known I could have saved myself the trouble and just pretend the "hand it over" option didn't even exist. Since it fundamentally didn't. <_<

[Northern Sun]

I too, found letting her walk away with the scroll to be unacceptable. How many innocent lives are going to be lost when the Qunari use the intel gathered from those spies to launch a more successful invasion of Thedas?

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Quething wrote...

BubbleDncr wrote...

Dragon Age 2 is Hawke's story. Thus, Hawke, should be the hero. Yet, at least twice in MoTA, Tallis gets an awesome cutscene where she drops in to save Hawke. This bothered me to no end, because HAWKE DOESN'T NEED RESCUING. My feelings towards Tallis would be much better from the beginning if Hawke had been strolling along, seen Tallis getting attacked, and jumped to her rescue.

I wasn't under the impression that she "saved" Hawke. Neither my troll!Hawke nor my diplomatic!Hawke seemed particularly perturbed by the ambush they found themselves in, and neither did any of their companions. Their weapons are ready, they're prepared to fight back, and then Tallis sticks her nose in before they can start.

^^ This. Remember that Varric's contact, Edge, was referring the party to meet with Tallis. If Hawke is attacked by assassins at the rendez-vous point, it's in Tallis's best interests to assist Hawke both to make sure you don't get killed but also to get into your good graces.

My eyes did just about roll out of my head by the time the intro cutscene was over, though.[...]
Given how far out of their way they went to show her effortlessly slaughtering several dozen trained Antivan Crows without so much as mussing her hair, I'm at a loss to explain how she would even notice the contributions of any of those people to her fights, much less actually require their help.

You know what? I'm glad I wasn't the only person who noticed this. I could not help comparing Tallis' intro to that of the core companions, and with the possible exception of Isabela it felt by far the longest in terms of showcasing her l33t skillz and character design while the party just stands there and the ten or so Crows in the area don't take the opportunity to shoot *Hawke* while she's distracted.

I like Tallis and the DLc overall, but the intro had no need to make such a big deal over its focus NPC when she's with you for practically all of it. Whether intentional or not, it did have a distinct air of trying too hard.

[Vlad_Dracul]

1. Completely sufficient would be, if Bioware send us some "patch" for MotA, with scene, where, if I left her in caves and didnt fight with Tal Vashots - Try to take the scroll for himself, but Tallis will be faster and dissapeared in forest. Nothing really changed, of course, but players like me will be glad for, at least, some decision.

2. Minimally see some name, one name from scroll (if i left her before final battle), is good idea too.

Modifié par Vlad_Dracul, 14 octobre 2011 - 06:59 .

[Uccio]

I said this in the feedback thread:
"One more thing: as Hawke is from a city which has suffered from Qunari attack and since we know the Qunari wars history is very bloody, it is a bit strange that Hawke has no option do take the scroll by force from Tallis in the end. So we have a Qunari spy who has a list of spies all around, and we know Qunari are going to invade again in near future. What we do? We let the spy to walk away with that list. Now where is the sanity in that? "

I also want to add that my mage Hawke is very aware of how Qunari treat their mages so Tallis explanation how humans are bad too is hallow. Therefore even just for the sake of mages in all of Thedas I would not have let her leave with the scroll or atleast I would have tried to stop her.

Modifié par Ukki, 14 octobre 2011 - 09:09 .