79 réponses à ce sujet

[Plaintiff]

HiroVoid wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...
Haha, can you imagine?

"Hello, mage-supporting Hawke, who I despise for challenging my authority. I have decided, for no particular reason, that now is the perfect time to tell you all about my dead sister. If this blatant and uninvited over-share doesn't guilt you into siding with me, then nothing will!"

Meredith's story is extremely personal. Were she of sounder mind in general, I doubt she'd just spill her guts to Hawke, even if he specifically asked.

And, just personally, it doesn't change my opinion even slightly. What happened to her a bajillion years ago, while sad, has no bearing on the situation Hawke is dealing with in the present. At best, it just cements my opinion that Meredith is too emotionally involved to be objective about mages and magic, and should never have been recruited into the Templar Order. If they had psych evaluations, she wouldn't have been.

But it should be the devs job to make sure the player at least somehow gets a hold of that type of information on such an important character in the story.  The same problem happened with Loghain.  You really don't get his take on everything he's done and what's happened unless you spare him.  It almost feels like the devs want to make sure you can just view them as evilly as possible without remorse(and hearing the story doesn't have to make you feel remorse or anything.) if you don't take certain paths.

Why do we need that information at all? I just don't see how it's even relevant to the stiuation at hand, I'm surprised that people do. I don't really care why her character is the way she is or why Loghain is the way he is. Learning their histories doesn't change that, because past trauma isn't an excuse for their present actions.

It just barely makes sense for Meredith to spill her guts to a pro-templar Hawke, and only then because she's round the twist and obviously has no concept of over-share. It's like a stranger in a bar telling you all about his marital woes.

Ditto for Loghain, really. His paranoid delusions of Orlesian invasion shouldn't be made common knowledge if you're not going to buddy up with him. Why would he reveal this deeply personal information to a political opponent he barely knows? A man he framed for the murder of a king? A man he has spent a year trying to kill?

I don't think the player needs to know it. As a player, personally, I don't want it. And as far as the story making sense goes, I think it would actually be detrimental.

Dave of Canada wrote...

Orsino: It's a shame I see where she's coming from.
Hawke: What do you mean?
Orsino: [explains about Meredith's sister]

This scenario is particularly silly. It's not realistic that Meredith would go blabbing about her sister to anyone at all, but to Orsino of all people? I don't know what game you were playing, but in my version of DA2, they weren't exactly BFF.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 11 décembre 2011 - 03:15 .

[TEWR]

Plaintiff wrote...

Why do we need that information at all? I just don't see how it's even relevant to the stiuation at hand, I'm surprised that people do. I don't really care why her character is the way she is or why Loghain is the way he is. Learning their histories doesn't change that, because past trauma isn't an excuse for their present actions.

It just barely makes sense for Meredith to spill her guts to a pro-templar Hawke, and only then because she's round the twist and obviously has no concept of over-share. It's like a stranger in a bar telling you all about his marital woes.

Ditto for Loghain, really. His paranoid delusions of Orlesian invasion shouldn't be made common knowledge if you're not going to buddy up with him. Why would he reveal this deeply personal information to a political opponent he barely knows? A man he framed for the murder of a king? A man he has spent a year trying to kill?

I don't think the player needs to know it. As a player, personally, I don't want it. And as far as the story making sense goes, I think it would actually be detrimental.

The player does need to know it. Not for the sole purpose of siding with Meredith -- though it might help a person agree -- but for understanding her motives, however misguided they may be. It helps to flesh them out as a person and not have them be some bit of data.

This is essential to characterization.

Dave of Canada wrote...

Orsino: It's a shame I see where she's coming from.
Hawke: What do you mean?
Orsino: [explains about Meredith's sister]

This scenario is particularly silly. It's not realistic that Meredith would go blabbing about her sister to anyone at all, but to Orsino of all people? I don't know what game you were playing, but in my version of DA2, they weren't exactly BFF.

I imagine the Circle keeps files on its residents, both Templars and Mages alike. As such, the First Enchanter would theoretically be allowed to examine these files to understand if the Knight-Commander is suitable for the job or not.

I'm pretty sure Bethany even says at one point that Hawke would just be a name in a file to her had she been in the Circle.

[HiroVoid]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

Why do we need that information at all? I just don't see how it's even relevant to the stiuation at hand, I'm surprised that people do. I don't really care why her character is the way she is or why Loghain is the way he is. Learning their histories doesn't change that, because past trauma isn't an excuse for their present actions.

It just barely makes sense for Meredith to spill her guts to a pro-templar Hawke, and only then because she's round the twist and obviously has no concept of over-share. It's like a stranger in a bar telling you all about his marital woes.

Ditto for Loghain, really. His paranoid delusions of Orlesian invasion shouldn't be made common knowledge if you're not going to buddy up with him. Why would he reveal this deeply personal information to a political opponent he barely knows? A man he framed for the murder of a king? A man he has spent a year trying to kill?

I don't think the player needs to know it. As a player, personally, I don't want it. And as far as the story making sense goes, I think it would actually be detrimental.

The player does need to know it. Not for the sole purpose of siding with Meredith -- though it might help a person agree -- but for understanding her motives, however misguided they may be. It helps to flesh them out as a person and not have them be some bit of data.

This is essential to characterization.
 

Bingo.

[brightblueink]

I think you can have a magical item that influences characters, like the idol, without sacrificing the humanity of a character. Take, for example, The One Ring in The Lord of the Rings. It has a HUGE influence on the characters--its power tempts Boromir into attacking Frodo and almost betraying the Fellowship (and eventually leads to the breaking of the Fellowship), it leads to Smeagol killing his friend and turning into the twisted Gollum, it wears down on Frodo until he finally loses it near the end, etc. It tugs on pretty much any character in the area and warps them if they're near it long enough.

The thing is, instead of just being told "Oh, Frodo's had this evil ring for a while, so that's why he's crazy and paranoid now" we see it happen. We watch him go from a sort of shy and odd but generally nice guy to someone who's depressed, barely moving on and completely broken. We see Boromir slowly be tempted because of his pride and his desire to help his people until he finally snaps and attacks Frodo. We DON'T see Smegol's transformation, but we DO see Gollum slowly start to recover now that he doesn't have the ring, until Sam's cruelty towards him causes him to snap back.

The problem with Meredith and Orsino isn't that they're being influenced by magic, it's that they're not developed well, as others have already pointed out. If we had seen them slowly become more and more corrupted, I think they would've had much more of an impact as characters than they ended up being. (For example, notice that nobody's complaining about Anders all that much in this thread, even though HE'S being influenced by a magic beyond his control, too. But we see him around a lot in all three acts, and we see him get worse and worse as the story goes on. Although I think it would've been even better if he'd started out being closer to how he was in Awakenings, since the transition would be smoother...but overall, he's still a far more developed character than Meredith and Orsino are.) If we had a better idea about who they were before they hit that moment of desperation, the final act would've had more of an impact IMO.

That being said, I strongly believe that this happened because of the game being rushed. I don't see this as a sign of how things are going to be for the rest of the Dragon Age series--for one thing, while Act 3 was rushed and lacked development most of the rest of the game still had plenty of human moments even with all of the crazy magic stuff happening. As long as the development team is given more time for the next DA game, I really doubt that we'll have a similar problem.

[philippe willaume]

Hello brightblueink
I have been complaining about that side of anders story from that very aspect in the improved romance thread (http://social.biowar...15300/1#8821447) and like you I think it is the same problem. i.e. not enough production time.

I could understand an ending where both O and M are losing it, lets say if you did not side with anyone.
If story wise, you have to kill Orsino and Meredith and you sided with one of them.
They could at least get killed by the side you fight against or we might have some indication that something is not quite right.

But straight of the bat, Orsino’s–“thanks for siding with us, we are all doomed, so instead of trying to get at the templar, I am going to turn into a monster and try to kill you and my allies. You see that is the only way I can make Meredith pay.” is a little bit contrived to say the least.

phil