328 réponses à ce sujet

[Roxlimn]

I didn't say it wasn't fantastic. I happen to love it. I think it's the great game of the year. That said, I also think that the marketing hype went totally overboard on this one, and banked on the "dark" thing to carry sales to young impressionable tweeners.



The politics in this game with all the backstabbing is no more involved than with any other politically-themed game. Sometimes you have to kill your brother - them's the breaks. It's not particularly horrific nor is it much of a moral quandary.



My ultimate goal is to see what, particularly, in this game constitutes a "dark" fantasy setting, considering that the main villain is a characterless beast and the morals in the story are relatively mainstream and clear cut. Certainly, we see no positive portrayal of slavery in this game, whereas we do in Dark Sun.

[RunCDFirst]

I thought Dark Fantasy just meant it happened before candles really took off.
The game could have been darker without being hopeless. Castle Redcliffe is an example of getting really close to a game with tough decisions in it. Do you kill the child or do you sacrifice the mother? No, you want to go to the Circle Mages so that both can be saved and the real dilemma is easily dismissed so everyone lives happily ever after? ok
It would have been nice if the option to save both Isolde and Conner involved some sacrifice elsewhere. Say, have to sacrifice the mages at the Circle for some reason instead of having to save them. As it stands, you can just take all the happy routes right through to the end of the game.
And then Morrigan screws everything up, but she's kinda like that.

Modifié par RunCDFirst, 01 décembre 2009 - 03:39 .

[EmperorSahlertz]

Yes you can CHOOSE to make the happy choices... but guess what you can also CHOOSE all the dark choices.. funny that eh? Again, don't blame the game for yourself not playing it the dark way...

[Bibdy]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

So what I can gather from your different posts Roxlimn, is that: You would have like Dragon Age to have been darker.
Your version of dark is having to loose party members. Making tough choices (but not choices you could happen to make in real life, judging by your comment on your real life job), being backstabbed more. Apparently not ever being able to save both the child and the mother, otherwise it wouldn't be dark.
That is not darkness, that is hopelessness, if the Grey Warden was in such a situation he might as well just end himself, because it wouldn't end well anyway.

Horror is not just: "Booh!" "AAARGH!", its also about the tragedy and, i give you, hopelessness, but never just one of those themes. Going to Redcliffe castle after having destroyed the circle, and not be willing to give Jowan (a blood mage) the power of an entire life, you realize the tragedy you were the casue of, by destroying the circle, you see the hopeless situation in the castle and must kill the child.
You can make Dragon Age plenty dark by playing it that way. You can't blame the game for your own choices trying to make every part happy...

If that were the case, it would be a terrible RPG in today's market. Gear and level up a party member and some point in the story you can't avoid: poof, dead. There's trying to make a game edgy and dark, and then there's going too far and releasing a game that will suffer horribly in sales because the game elements just ****** people off.

I definitely agree with people's sentiments on the Redcliffe fiasco. There should have been no happy ending there. Going to the Mage Tower and coming back should have resulted in the kid having free reign over the area for several days and killing fricking everybody in a blood bath of death.

Modifié par Bibdy, 01 décembre 2009 - 03:45 .

[RunCDFirst]

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Yes you can CHOOSE to make the happy choices... but guess what you can also CHOOSE all the dark choices.. funny that eh? Again, don't blame the game for yourself not playing it the dark way...

Then the choices aren't hard at all. There's no moral dilemna. Sure, you can impose it by ignoring the 'good' choices, but to what end? The game cuts itself off at the knees. If you want to be dark, commit to being dark. Give players the difficult choices but don't give them an easy way out.

[Roxlimn]

 EmperorSahlertz:

I don't actually want Dragon Age to be "darker" or anything like that.  I'm actually rather glad that it's a romp against an Evil Dragon with a mostly happy ending.  It's not "dark," though.

That is not darkness, that is hopelessness, if the Grey Warden was in such a situation he might as well just end himself, because it wouldn't end well anyway.

Hope in the face of hopelessness, moral bankruptcy, and utter despair is one of the themes of tales that dramatically call themselves "dark fantasy."

Horror is not just: "Booh!" "AAARGH!", its also about the tragedy and, i give you, hopelessness, but never just one of those themes. Going to Redcliffe castle after having destroyed the circle, and not be willing to give Jowan (a blood mage) the power of an entire life, you realize the tragedy you were the casue of, by destroying the circle, you see the hopeless situation in the castle and must kill the child.

It's a false quandary.  You cannot hold yourself responsible for a situation you could not foresee.  You might as well hold yourself responsible for NOT killing yourself because you will inadvertently kill a hundred kids in a school bus in a nebulous future.  The situation in the Castle is not hopeless.  It's tragic, but even if the whole family died, Bann Teagan will carry on, and it's just one family, after all, among the dead counted.

It's not all that hopeless or forbidding or despair-inducing.  What's one kid when hundreds are dead?  It's a life to mourn, to be sure, but since you can't do anything about it, it's pointless to worry or despair over it.  You must simply do what needs to be done.

It'd be darker if, after sacrificing the mother, it turns out that you can't kill the demon in the Fade after all and have to kill the child, too, in which case it's revealed that the demon has taken over Eamon and escaped.  Even after everything you did, and the life you sacrificed to attempt a rescue of the child, everything turns out all wrong - THAT would be darker.

[Bibdy]

Roxlimn wrote...

 EmperorSahlertz:

I don't actually want Dragon Age to be "darker" or anything like that.  I'm actually rather glad that it's a romp against an Evil Dragon with a mostly happy ending.  It's not "dark," though.

That is not darkness, that is hopelessness, if the Grey Warden was in such a situation he might as well just end himself, because it wouldn't end well anyway.

Hope in the face of hopelessness, moral bankruptcy, and utter despair is one of the themes of tales that dramatically call themselves "dark fantasy."

Horror is not just: "Booh!" "AAARGH!", its also about the tragedy and, i give you, hopelessness, but never just one of those themes. Going to Redcliffe castle after having destroyed the circle, and not be willing to give Jowan (a blood mage) the power of an entire life, you realize the tragedy you were the casue of, by destroying the circle, you see the hopeless situation in the castle and must kill the child.

It's a false quandary.  You cannot hold yourself responsible for a situation you could not foresee.  You might as well hold yourself responsible for NOT killing yourself because you will inadvertently kill a hundred kids in a school bus in a nebulous future.  The situation in the Castle is not hopeless.  It's tragic, but even if the whole family died, Bann Teagan will carry on, and it's just one family, after all, among the dead counted.

It's not all that hopeless or forbidding or despair-inducing.  What's one kid when hundreds are dead?  It's a life to mourn, to be sure, but since you can't do anything about it, it's pointless to worry or despair over it.  You must simply do what needs to be done.

It'd be darker if, after sacrificing the mother, it turns out that you can't kill the demon in the Fade after all and have to kill the child, too, in which case it's revealed that the demon has taken over Eamon and escaped.  Even after everything you did, and the life you sacrificed to attempt a rescue of the child, everything turns out all wrong - THAT would be darker.

And would involve a lot of pissed off players and reloading of save-games...people won't commit to the consequences of decisions they aren't allowed to control. If choosing to kill the mother resulted in absolutely zero gain whatsoever, other than killing her, well then I would be loading up a previous save lickety damn split. If the result is 'mother dead or not', then I'm just going to go with 'not' instead and see if the situation improves, since I obviously can't control what happens to the kid or Eamon.

Yes, it would be darker, but it would be well...****.

They nailed the 'gritty decision making' thing perfectly with Redcliffe...up until the Mage option comes in. I THOUGHT my choices were

A) Kill mom and enter fade
 Kill kid
C) Get help from Circle, but risk kid killing everybody in the meantime.

When I found out C was the super-happy ending I was pretty disappointed, truthfully. I want to have to choose to lesser of 2 evils, or 'any means necessary vs conscience', much like the Brecilian Forest situation, or the Landsmeet. Those were interesting decisions.

Modifié par Bibdy, 01 décembre 2009 - 03:57 .

[demonitechef]

Very interesting thread, but it could be more interesting. I don't have time to finish all 6 pages, but Roxlimn, seriously, if DA isn't delivering enough dark to get you off, try something that does. Maybe you were just trying to make the point, or perhaps you were just having a friendly discussion thread.



From what I'm seeing, it looks like whenever somebody points to a part of DA which is considerably dark, you whip out some source of darkness from something else to bludgeon them down. Surely you have better ways to spend your time.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Describing how best to cope with it, does not make a series of choices any less tragic and dark.

Take this example: I bet you can't really blame yourself for driving your car to work that day, but I'll be damned if you aren't very sorry you did, as it resulted in a mom, a dad and a newborn died, and the eldest child is now restricted to wheelchair for the rest of his life. Sure you aren't to blame, but if you don't feel just a tiny bit of remorse for taking the car that particular day.......



Shrugging off a dead child and saying "Oh well plenty more children died elsewhere, not a big deal". does not make the situation any less tragic. Good god does only "And suddenly all children everywhere died a gruesome and bloody death" translate as dark to you? Dark does not have to be on the big scale you know? It can be as subtle as the choice of transportation..

[Roxlimn]

demonritechef:



I have enough crap in my life, thanks. I don't need to vicariously experience hopelessness and fraked up situations in a game. That's just the thing - this game is positively cheery, even following the "darkest" decisions, you're always something of a hero to someone. You can be a total antihero.



Bibdy:



Well, how about this: if you choose to kill the mother, they both die and the demon escapes in the Arl's body. If you choose to kill the "demon" direct, you find that it has already escaped to the Arl, and proceeds to trick you into thinking all is well, after which it reinstates conditions as before and you end up actually having to kill Bann Teagan, too. In the end Isolde is left holding the Estate and you're not too sure she isn't possessed - you have the option to kill her just to be sure.



If you choose to go for the Mages, everyone dies without recourse, but you're absolutely certain that the demon is dead. Redcliffe is noticeably depopulated and everyone curses your name for abandoning the Estate when it needed you most.



How's that? Your choices do affect the outcome, but they're all crap.

[Vinditater]

1.) Lord of the Rings was so god damn happy go lucky, there never was a sense of true hopelessness, except maybe for Faramir's Charge. Other than that it was a bunch of walking and hobbit fondling. Comparing LOTR as a dark fantasy is your first mistake, because it nulls your further arguments, showing yourself to be incapable of cognitive thought.

2.) Grimm Fairy Tales? Really? Who gives a rat's ass, I've read them all, seen the movie (bleck), and can understand that some perverted dullard who felt the need to work in ridiculous tales about nonsensical imaginings would be risque....in 1762. Grimm's Fairy Tales is tame, and I bet the game would suck.

3.) People haven't been bringing up the right material to be honest. Rape is in alot of RPGs, especially ones set in a Medieval time period. Get over it, it's not a shocker really in terms of Dark Fantasy. Now what is a shocker, is the fact I can murder a child in front of his mother for the "greater good". Never happened in LOTR. Depending on how you're feeling, you can be a downright mass murderer, with little to no appreciation for any life, let alone your so called friends. Needless to say, you brought up some awful examples to compare Dragon Age to in terms of Dark Fantasy. Also, not so easy to go bat**** crazy concerning shocking displays of brutality and gore when theres a little known organization called the ESRB. If they really wanted to make it as mind numbingly violent as your weird brain wants it to be, they could only sell the game to convicted felons and child molesters. This is a Dark Fantasy.

Modifié par Vinditater, 01 décembre 2009 - 04:08 .

[Riot Inducer]

Bibdy wrote...
They nailed the 'gritty decision making' thing perfectly with Redcliffe...up until the Mage option comes in. I THOUGHT my choices were

A) Kill mom and enter fade
 Kill kid
C) Get help from Circle, but risk kid killing everybody in the meantime.

When I found out C was the super-happy ending I was pretty disappointed, truthfully. I want to have to choose to lesser of 2 evils, or 'any means necessary vs conscience', much like the Brecilian Forest situation, or the Landsmeet. Those were interesting decisions.

While I don't necessarily agree with the OP on DA not being "dark enough" I do have to agree with the Redcliffe decisions simply for the fact that it doesn't make sense. Why would the demon just sit around for two days waiting for the mages to come and exorcise it? Especially given that the one group of people who proved they could stand against the demon's minions had left the scene to get said mages. I think that route would have been better if you return to find the village overrun with the undead, they having fallen with no grey warden heroes to protect them. Either that or address the fact that you're leaving the demon to its own devices for a few days, maybe if the conversation for that choice meant convincing Isolde and Teagan to let Jowan subdue Connor until you could return with the mages it would have been believable. 

[Bibdy]

Roxlimn wrote...

Bibdy:

Well, how about this: if you choose to kill the mother, they both die and the demon escapes in the Arl's body. If you choose to kill the "demon" direct, you find that it has already escaped to the Arl, and proceeds to trick you into thinking all is well, after which it reinstates conditions as before and you end up actually having to kill Bann Teagan, too. In the end Isolde is left holding the Estate and you're not too sure she isn't possessed - you have the option to kill her just to be sure.

If you choose to go for the Mages, everyone dies without recourse, but you're absolutely certain that the demon is dead. Redcliffe is noticeably depopulated and everyone curses your name for abandoning the Estate when it needed you most.

How's that? Your choices do affect the outcome, but they're all crap.

I think that's a little extreme and not enjoyable. To be honest, I agree with your sentiment, that they should have committed a bit more and given us more bad choices of 'A is bad, B is also bad, C is worse and D is pretty crazy bad, but kinda hilarious', but the argument you're using that Dragon Age isn't dark enough, here's some reference to other bad stuff, just doesn't jive well with me.

The game is dark. You're not going to convince me otherwise. Its COMPLETELY different to games of the past. Citing situations from Baldur's Gate as equally compelling just erodes your argument.

Stick to the point: They should have committed more and not copped out with 'A is bad, B is also bad, but here's C, the easy, happy way out'.

If that isn't your argument, and all you want is hardcore 'dead babies and everybody ****ing hates you, not matter how hard to try' situations, then I don't agree with that at all. Its still a game at the end of the day. Its meant to be enjoyable and at least allowing the main character to do some good in the world would be nice, rather than trying to do good things, but it keeps backfiring on him because the developers want to make the thing dark...I would honestly stop playing a game like that pretty quickly. It would feel like no matter how hard I try, the developers just keep throwing me the middle finger.

Me: "But I want to save the puppy!" 

Bioware: "No! You try to save the puppy from the tree, but the tree explodes and you all ****ing die, ****!"

Me: "Okay amazon.com, what other games do you have for me today?"


If the response from Bioware is instead "Okay, you can save the puppy, but his owner suffers a chronic heart attack and dies from the stress", that's cool with me.

Modifié par Bibdy, 01 décembre 2009 - 04:18 .

[TastyLaksa]

Noble_House wrote...

Compared to, say, Neverwinter Nights, yeah.

But I agree with you completely. Characters spouting comic relief?! Not a single party member who will actually die an unavoidable death in the entire game? No treachery?

Mind you, it's still the best RPG in this aspect that I've played, but yes - it could be much better.

Don't know about you but i supported Anora as queen cause Alistair was like all oh me no wants to be kings boo hoo hoo. Ended the cut scene less one alistair and juggenaut armor.

[Erik Mcvay]

Vinditater wrote...

1.) Lord of the Rings was so god damn happy go lucky, there never was a sense of true hopelessness, except maybe for Faramir's Charge. Other than that it was a bunch of walking and hobbit fondling. Comparing LOTR as a dark fantasy is your first mistake, because it nulls your further arguments, showing yourself to be incapable of cognitive thought.

2.) Grimm Fairy Tales? Really? Who gives a rat's ass, I've read them all, seen the movie (bleck), and can understand that some perverted dullard who felt the need to work in ridiculous tales about nonsensical imaginings would be risque....in 1762. Grimm's Fairy Tales is tame, and I bet the game would suck.

3.) People haven't been bringing up the right material to be honest. Rape is in alot of RPGs, especially ones set in a Medieval time period. Get over it, it's not a shocker really in terms of Dark Fantasy. Now what is a shocker, is the fact I can murder a child in front of his mother for the "greater good". Never happened in LOTR. Depending on how you're feeling, you can be a downright mass murderer, with little to no appreciation for any life, let alone your so called friends. Needless to say, you brought up some awful examples to compare Dragon Age to in terms of Dark Fantasy. Also, not so easy to go bat**** crazy concerning shocking displays of brutality and gore when theres a little known organization called the ESRB. If they really wanted to make it as mind numbingly violent as your weird brain wants it to be, they could only sell the game to convicted felons and child molesters. This is a Dark Fantasy.

Well said, I actually made a playthrough where I kill everyone i can...and in the end i had almost no one and i was quite infamous

[Vinditater]

It was too much typing to prove a point. Someone plays the game through one and a half times, and theyre an expert all of a sudden. Whatever.

[Roxlimn]

 EmperorSahlertz:

The emotion you're looking for is regret, not remorse, since it would be utterly stupid and arrogant to think that you can be responsible for things beyond your control.  You might as well blame yourself for world hunger.

Shrugging off a dead child and saying "Oh well plenty more children died elsewhere, not a big deal". does not make the situation any less tragic. Good god does only "And suddenly all children everywhere died a gruesome and bloody death" translate as dark to you? Dark does not have to be on the big scale you know? It can be as subtle as the choice of transportation..

It's not the scale - it's the act itself.  I'm sure white collar workers living in sterile industrialized nations beat themselves up over children dying in accidents they can't control.  It's idiotic.  People die by the thousands everyday.  Just because you happened to be there in one instance of it doesn't make it your fault, even if the experience of seeing just one or two people die was absolutely traumatic to your young mind.

It's darker than Rainbow Brite, though.

Vinditater:

So Gandalf being dead, Boromir being dead, and Merry and Pippin possibly being dead, that doesn't instill a sense of everything going to the pooper?  Okay.

rimm Fairy Tales? Really? Who gives a rat's ass, I've read them all, seen the movie (bleck), and can understand that some perverted dullard who felt the need to work in ridiculous tales about nonsensical imaginings would be risque....in 1762. Grimm's Fairy Tales is tame, and I bet the game would suck.

Wrong reference.  I'm talking about the ACTUAL collection of Grimm Brother's Fairy Tales, not the silly movie with the same title.

 People haven't been bringing up the right material to be honest. Rape is in alot of RPGs, especially ones set in a Medieval time period. Get over it, it's not a shocker really in terms of Dark Fantasy. Now what is a shocker, is the fact I can murder a child in front of his mother for the "greater good". Never happened in LOTR. Depending on how you're feeling, you can be a downright mass murderer, with little to no appreciation for any life, let alone your so called friends. Needless to say, you brought up some awful examples to compare Dragon Age to in terms of Dark Fantasy. Also, not so easy to go bat**** crazy concerning shocking displays of brutality and gore when theres a little known organization called the ESRB. If they really wanted to make it as mind numbingly violent as your weird brain wants it to be, they could only sell the game to convicted felons and child molesters. This is a Dark Fantasy.

I'm pretty sure you kill Darkspawn in front of the Broodmother and not be all that morose about it.  Yes, I know you're talking about Redcliffe.  It's not that big a deal.  It's not really much of a shocker - it was going there.  Moreover, you're not killing a child - you're killing an abomination that is in the shape of a child.  Just because it doesn't look grotesque doesn't mean it's any less of a threat.

In Lord of the Rings, Aragorn imposes a fate worse than death on Arwen as far as Elrond is concerned.  Isolde can console herself that she may see her child with the Maker someday.  Elrond is absolutely certain that even death will not restore Arwen to him.  And it's not even all that necessary - Aragorn did not have to do it for any reason whatsoever.  It's not like Arwen was going to turn into some demon unless he wed her or something.

I'm not talking about brutality or gore here.  In none of my alternatives were anything directly caused by the hand of the PC - everything just happens to go to the pooper everywhere he goes and whatever he does.  It's not his fault.  It needn't be all that brutal, no gore is necessary.

What I'm looking for (figuratively speaking - I don't actually want this) is a sense of consistent and sickening horror, hopelessness or despair.  Tentacle rape is disgusting, but it's primarily disgusting and twisted and only secondarily horrible.  Leliana turning into the Broodmother (after you've gotten to know her REALLY well) because you chose to abandon her to the darkspawn in order to save a life - that's horror.

And what's to change?  No more blood or brutality or whatever - the horror strikes close to home because you feel close to the character it's happened to.

[Vinditater]

First off, Gandalf comes back, Jesus Aslan Christ style. Doesn't count. Boromir had a heroic, albeit very glossy pretty death. Merry and Pippin didn't die. And I know you didn't mean the movie, I understand you meant the published collection of short stories and poems. It's still lame. Still think you can't conceivably compare LOTR to Dragon Age as which is the darker. LOTR is a Bob Ross painting special compared to Dragon Age.

Oh, and Connor definitely was still a little boy.  So you definitely DO kill a small child.

Modifié par Vinditater, 01 décembre 2009 - 04:32 .

[Roxlimn]

Bibdy:



Well, to be fair, neither option A nor option B in Redcliffe were all that bad. In one case, another mother dies to save her kid. Happens all the time, probably happened several times in Redcliffe over the days it was attacked by undead. Noble and tragic, but hardly all that bad.



In the case, a child has to die because of unfortunate unforeseeable circumstances that are beyond your control. That's like blaming yourself for every kid that comes down with leukemia. You couldn't stop it, it has to be done, best be done with it quickly. Just because some woman waxes hysterical doesn't make it all that bad in the context of the absolute massacre the village has already been through. Tragic, but again, not all that bad. Could have been worse.



Seriously, why are THESE two lives super-important and tragic, but losing Kaitlyn's little kid brother is a little sidequest you can totally ignore?



After all is said and done, people are dead, but you saved the town from complete destruction. I call that a happy ending - and yes, that is why people buy into games like this. A really dark game would only primarily appeal to goths.

[Roxlimn]

Vinditater:



1. 20/20 hindsight. Likewise, if you choose all the happy in Dragon Age, it's freaking rainbow painting.

2. Pretty sure everyone in the game who knows what's what calls him an abomination.

[ReubenLiew]

I think you'd like Inquisitor, yesss.

Murdering entire sectors just to make sure no one is alive to know about the existence of an obscure and well hidden cult? Bring on the flamethrowers!

[Erik Mcvay]

Roxlimn wrote...

Vinditater:

1. 20/20 hindsight. Likewise, if you choose all the happy in Dragon Age, it's freaking rainbow painting.
2. Pretty sure everyone in the game who knows what's what calls him an abomination.

abominations that i have kill'd were about 6ft 2in looked like a giant pus-sack in robes, and could'nt retain any of their human minds, i do recall connor calling for his mommy hav yet to see a demon do that, and connor did not blow up, as Jowan says the spirit has yet to take him physically and only spiritually possesed him, i never considered connor an abomination, just a possesed or mind controlled kid

[Vicious]

Female City Elf is pretty dark.

[Roxlimn]

That would be a morally questionable and somewhat repugnant game, but I don't know whether it'd classify as "dark" in the sense of being horrible, "gritty," or despair-ridden.



By and large, people don't want to be genuinely horrified, deal with annoying little details, or wallow in hopelessness, and DAO is not a game that contains these themes, for which I'm quite glad, actually.



A Far Realms themed Bioware game focusing on madness and horror would be "dark," but it wouldn't be a very saleable game, I'm thinking.



Dragon Age gives you, by and large, a larger than life hero and pits you against demons, dragons, and orcs only to prevail at the end of the day. It's all very stirring and upbeat - which is actually just how I like my fantasy.



If I'd had to deal with endless expanses of dead villages brought on by my character's complete impotence ranged against a powerful Old God, I would probably quit halfway through.

[Elanareon]

Sten backstabs you if you have low influence.