36 réponses à ce sujet

[throttlesays]

I'm disappointed in the lack of incentive to roleplay an evil person in Dragon Age. Most games incorporate a way to be evil, and to reward evil to some extent so that it isn't a complete disadvantage. Not in this game.

I can live with the fact that there isn't an entirely evil way to play through the game - it would take quite a bit more time and effort to design a secondary game within DA:O where you could, say, join the Archdemon or leave the Grey Wardens. There are some minor choices you can make, such as siding with the werewolves or templars, but they are ultimately inconsequential to the game as a whole.

What irritates me is that all the little things are blatantly in favor of making the good choices. One of countless examples is the Arcane Warrior's phylactery; if you choose not to destroy it, you get nothing whereas if you choose to place it on the altar and grant the spirit's final wish, you inexplicably get XP. This is a common trend throughout the game: do the right thing and get rewarded, or do the selfish thing and get nothing. I would venture to claim that going through the game the evil way will make you finish several levels lower and with less money/items in your pocket. There's no evil alternative to compensate for the things you miss out on by not being good.

In future DLC or expansions, I hope there will be more incentive to play through the game in more than one way. The huge disadvantages of being evil make it hard to enjoy, especially because the evil choices rarely amount to more than just being an **** to the people you talk to at the expense of losing quest opportunities and rewards, so this hurts the replay value.

[Foofad]

Counter argument: If you don't side with Kolgrim and instead opt to kill him or otherwise not taint Andraste's Ashes with blood (aka, the "good choice,") you miss out on Reaver specialization.



Further, the only way to get Blood Mage is to side with the demon inside of Connor instead of killing her. Evil exclusive.



You need better examples if you want your point to hold water.

[Suron]

actually just about every game that has both "good" and "evil" paths penalize you in one way or another for being "evil."

The story is about a character (yours) that becomes a grey warden and ends the blight by killing the arch-demon..and you are given quite a bit of freedom within those confines...not all hero's are good..as the slogan says. To give the option to join the archdemon? how stupid is that....you'd get NOTHING out of it short of turned into an almost mindless darkspawn minion under the archdemons thrall....or do you not pay attention to the game you're playing?

Like I said..the story is about a guy that joins the wardens...and eventually ends the blight by killing the archdemon...of course you're confined to that role..to allow you to join the archdemon makes no sense (like I said...even the evilist of evil wouldn't want to be a darkspawn thrall/ghoul..and no the archdemon wouldn't make you a special case.)

Wrong..again..about the Phylactery..you can IN FACT learn Arcane Warrior..then throw the phylactery to the side NOT destroying it and betraying the "spirit/soul/whatever" inside it...

Blood Magic..evil only choice.

Reaver...evil only choice.

like I said..you must not pay attention to the game you're playing...

but nice try...next

Modifié par Suron, 03 décembre 2009 - 04:41 .

[Johnny Jaded]

Foofad wrote...

Counter argument: If you don't side with Kolgrim and instead opt to kill him or otherwise not taint Andraste's Ashes with blood (aka, the "good choice,") you miss out on Reaver specialization.

Further, the only way to get Blood Mage is to side with the demon inside of Connor instead of killing her. Evil exclusive.

You need better examples if you want your point to hold water.

the problem with your counter-argument is that they're only specialisations and once unlocked are unlocked for good across all playthroughs, so you can choose the option needed to unlock them and then just reload and choose the alternative and still have them unlocked
You also "need better examples if you want your point to hold water"

[brelrande]

Suron wrote...

actually just about every game that has both "good" and "evil" paths penalize you in one way or another for being "evil."

The story is about a character (yours) that becomes a grey warden and ends the blight by killing the arch-demon..and you are given quite a bit of freedom within those confines...not all hero's are good..as the slogan says. To give the option to join the archdemon? how stupid is that....you'd get NOTHING out of it short of turned into an almost mindless darkspawn minion under the archdemons thrall....or do you not pay attention to the game you're playing?

Like I said..the story is about a guy that joins the wardens...and eventually ends the blight by killing the archdemon...of course you're confined to that role..to allow you to join the archdemon makes no sense (like I said...even the evilist of evil wouldn't want to be a darkspawn thrall/ghoul..and no the archdemon wouldn't make you a special case.)

Wrong..again..about the Phylactery..you can IN FACT learn Arcane Warrior..then throw the phylactery to the side NOT destroying it and betraying the "spirit/soul/whatever" inside it...

Blood Magic..evil only choice.

Reaver...evil only choice.

like I said..you must not pay attention to the game you're playing...

but nice try...next

Yup what he said , well done

[brelrande]

if your looking for a game with obvious and mindless good and evil choices try playing fable
go bad and you get the devil horns and all

Modifié par brelrande, 03 décembre 2009 - 04:44 .

[Suron]

brelrande wrote...

if your looking for a game with obvious and mindless good and evil choices try playing fable
go bad and you get the devil horns and all

and/or there's always GTA series..you can do WHATEVER you want..except...it doesn't allow for "good" choices does it..so I guess that'd be your gripe about it

[Foofad]

Johnny Jaded wrote...

the problem with your counter-argument is that they're only specialisations and once unlocked are unlocked for good across all playthroughs, so you can choose the option needed to unlock them and then just reload and choose the alternative and still have them unlocked
You also "need better examples if you want your point to hold water"

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were including cheating. Let's just completely circumvent the gameplay mechanics then.
My argument addresses his one for one, presuming fair play. If you want to bring exploitation into it all bets are off. Try again, this time actually playing the game.

[brelrande]

Suron wrote...

brelrande wrote...

if your looking for a game with obvious and mindless good and evil choices try playing fable
go bad and you get the devil horns and all

and/or there's always GTA series..you can do WHATEVER you want..except...it doesn't allow for "good" choices does it..so I guess that'd be your gripe about it

haha ya...

[Chozos]

I somewhat agree with the OP on this. However well into the announcing of the game and developing of the game Bioware did state that there was never going to be an "evil" path but there would be some 'bad' descisions to be made. Disappointing that I cant turn evil but still there are enough dark choices to give you a moral posturing anti hero.



As for the mentioning of not all heroes are good, true look at Loghain. Lets look at it from the other side though. Join the Archdemon? No. Have Avernus from the Keep finish his work using victims to speed it along and to empower the taint within you, kill the Archdemon and take his essence (hey it works for morrigans kid) or just kill him, and then control an army of darkspawn for your own nefarious means? Why not?



Or the option to take the crown and throne for your own to hell with Allistair (dodges the legion of Allistair lovers) and with Anora and become king after ending the blight would be an interesting ending. After all the landsmeet folks do say they stand with the grey warden not allistair.

[LynxAQ]

You can be evil in this game but doing so will show you how BAD the writers are, so I don't recommend it. Examples I can think of from the top of my head - Redcliffe Village, if you don't help them and then go back later and find the guy still alive, he then takes you to the windmill and starts prattling on about how you have proven yourself capable and all that... I was like lol? I just left your village to burn and now you commending me on being a great person... that was idiotic.



And then with Alistair, towards the end of the game my character and Alistair where at -100 rep, and we have a full argument in camp, he was like I wanna talk to you (In an angry tone), I was like get out of my way, and amazingly he suddenly grows a pair and says "No, I wont get out of your way until you listened to what I have to say!". I seriously thought my character and Alistair where about to come to blows! I was tremendously disappointed... anyhow, 10 seconds later in Alistairs final charge speech, he starts saying what a great person I am etc and how he respects me... and this after I told him in the argument that being a Grey Wardon means nothing to me...



There are dozens of other cases as well, that blatantly show up how crap the writers are. Either that or the "evil" parts where attached late in the game and rushed at that. So yeah playing evil in this game is possible it just makes the game look very unprofessional and crappy, so I dont recommend it.



I was still so disappointed that my character and Alistair never had a brawl in the camp. Would of liked to slap that sissy boy around the camp a bit.



BTW those werewolfs are well overpowered. Who needs me and my party when the werewolves where owning the arch demon on their own. I was like dam, they should of just released the werewolves on the blight and we could of just all gone home.

[smeden76]

the archdeamon.. pfffft i let the elves solo him yesterday, arch-crap.

[Suron]

Chozos wrote...

As for the mentioning of not all heroes are good, true look at Loghain. Lets look at it from the other side though. Join the Archdemon? No. Have Avernus from the Keep finish his work using victims to speed it along and to empower the taint within you, kill the Archdemon and take his essence (hey it works for morrigans kid) or just kill him, and then control an army of darkspawn for your own nefarious means? Why not?

Or the option to take the crown and throne for your own to hell with Allistair (dodges the legion of Allistair lovers) and with Anora and become king after ending the blight would be an interesting ending. After all the landsmeet folks do say they stand with the grey warden not allistair.

um..take the archdemon taint and control darkspawn?  What a stupid notion...the taint entering your body is exactly what kills you...the child can only survive because of (imo flawed logic) that it's because it's so young....No where would this option make any sense..

forcefully become king?  another stupid notion.  The ONLY origin this option MAY make sense for is human noble....Anora will not marry you if your male, nor alistair if you're female if you are not of noble blood (and remember the dwarf noble was stripped of all titles and heredity so no he/she wouldn't count either.)  It's made perfectly clear that no one of non-noble blood can be king.  They say "we're with the grey warden" becuase the two sides in the landsmeet become you against loghain...you're trying to get the people behind you and plant Anora or Alistair on the throne.

more "evil" choices may have been nice but let's let them make sense within the context of the game

[Suron]

LynxAQ wrote...

And then with Alistair, towards the end of the game my character and Alistair where at -100 rep, and we have a full argument in camp, he was like I wanna talk to you (In an angry tone), I was like get out of my way, and amazingly he suddenly grows a pair and says "No, I wont get out of your way until you listened to what I have to say!". I seriously thought my character and Alistair where about to come to blows! I was tremendously disappointed... anyhow, 10 seconds later in Alistairs final charge speech, he starts saying what a great person I am etc and how he respects me... and this after I told him in the argument that being a Grey Wardon means nothing to me...

bad example.  Remember in the beginning both Duncan and Wynne mention that a King MUST ALWAYS SEEM POSITIVE....it would have been worse writing if Alistair had berated you during his speach...cause fact of the matter is...even if you hate the grey wardens and it means nothing to you....you are, in fact, at that point BECAUSE of you..and Alistair points it out...Sure perhaps shoulda changed some if Alistair really didn't like you per his rating...but meh..this is more then passable if you keep in mind that Alistair is leading them and moral must be boosted....criticizing you during a "morale speach" woulda been worse

[LynxAQ]

I didnt expect him to berate and insult me. I would of had no problem if he said we are here because of this man etc, but he continues to call me friend and how much he respects me when 10 seconds ago in camp we where about to throw down.

[pmpage]

If you want a game that fully includes consequences for all your actions, play the Pen and Paper version when it's released, otherwise just realise that it's impossible to model all the different paths in the game (1 choice, 2 decisions gives 2 paths, which then can become 4 paths, which can become 8 and so on.)

[menasure]

Suron wrote...

LynxAQ wrote...

And then with Alistair, towards the end of the game my character and Alistair where at -100 rep, and we have a full argument in camp, he was like I wanna talk to you (In an angry tone), I was like get out of my way, and amazingly he suddenly grows a pair and says "No, I wont get out of your way until you listened to what I have to say!". I seriously thought my character and Alistair where about to come to blows! I was tremendously disappointed... anyhow, 10 seconds later in Alistairs final charge speech, he starts saying what a great person I am etc and how he respects me... and this after I told him in the argument that being a Grey Wardon means nothing to me...

bad example.  Remember in the beginning both Duncan and Wynne mention that a King MUST ALWAYS SEEM POSITIVE....it would have been worse writing if Alistair had berated you during his speach...cause fact of the matter is...even if you hate the grey wardens and it means nothing to you....you are, in fact, at that point BECAUSE of you..and Alistair points it out...Sure perhaps shoulda changed some if Alistair really didn't like you per his rating...but meh..this is more then passable if you keep in mind that Alistair is leading them and moral must be boosted....criticizing you during a "morale speach" woulda been worse

err are you not simply ignoring the fact that there are exactly 2 grey wardens in ferelden left after the batle? there is little moral to speak about when you have that kind of numbers in an outlawed gang.

then there is also the background: when you are playing a character who had no choice but to join the wardens (or face some horribly other short term consequences instead of the horrible but possibly relatively long term consequence of becoming a warden) i can not really imagine a compelling reason to see Alistair as your personal leader just because he happens to have his personal agenda regarding the fight against the blight.

ok you might follow him untill you reach redcliffe but ... when you look at the sorry state the village is in when you arrive there ... sure let"s just conquer a whole castle with the 2 of us, some followers and a bunch of untrained militia because we are only up against undeads. ok so you defeat them and whatever is left standing in the region will be the base to defeat Loghain, a public hero who has the power to declare himself regent and who controls the capital...somehow i have my doubts that you are making the smart moves.

the immersive problem which presents itself for anything else but naive do gooders is that it is really more rational to dump Alistair all together in some scenarios which could be translated in game as: let him go straighten things out for  his own agenda or something like that because he keeps whining about his own personal pursuits which do not really have to be quite the same as your own. he represents just one party in the story but the trouble is that you are supposed to support this party and on top of that like the guy or you feel like you are simply stuck with him.

[LynxAQ]

pmpage wrote...

If you want a game that fully includes consequences for all your actions, play the Pen and Paper version when it's released, otherwise just realise that it's impossible to model all the different paths in the game (1 choice, 2 decisions gives 2 paths, which then can become 4 paths, which can become 8 and so on.)

Then why give the option? Why give us the option to be mean etc, leave Redcliffe village to die, tell Alistair being a Grey Warden means nothing, neutralising the mage tower etc, if they not going to support it properly.

That reminds m another of the dozens of bad writing example if you play evil. I agreed to wipe out the tower (cleanse it) yet I couldnt kill the children with Wynne (They just vanish magically lol?? why didnt they just do that from the get go before I even walked into the tower?), you hae no option to kill te mage in the closet (Why??? I suppose to be clearing out the tower of EVERYTHING, yet I cant kill him), I cant kill the tranquil, and then to top it all off, my evil warrior has no choice to slit Irvings throat at the end. No my COLD HEARTED WARRIOR WHOS AGREED TO CLEANSE THE TOWER HELPS THE OLD MAN DOWN THE STAIRS...

Why give us these options if you not gonna support them with the appropriate writing. It completely killed the immersion for me. Like I already said, either bad writers or the evil options where tacced on at the end in a rush.

[Saurel]

This is why it is good to meta game in a Bioware rpg.

[HHHLie]

I would say it's exactly the opposite: Bioware made it so it's easier to get XP, gold and rewards by being evil than being good.



You're evil ? Just laugh at that dwarf in Redcliffe or insult that Templar in Delerim and shrug him off, bam, new fights, lots of XP. But if you're playing good, you'll just calm them and make friends with them for no XP.



You're evil ? Ask for a reward everytime and you'll get tons of gold, whereas being good and selfless won't give you anything good.



You're evil ? Throttle that Innkeeper in Redcliffe and get his inn. You're good ? Give 5 gold to Bella and get no reward at all.



You're evil ? Make a deal with the slaver in Denerim and you'll get nice powers. You're good ? Free the slaves for little reward.



You're evil ? Slaughter all the elves for great loot. You're good ? Free the werewolves from the curse and get a lousy shield.



You're evil ? Kill the tree in the woods for nice XP. You're good ? No XP for you.



You're evil ? Kill the wounded soldier in Ostagar and get his boots. You're good ? Bandage his wounds for no reward.



You want more ? Evil is a much more rewarding path than good. Such is life.

[galahad1313]

wtf? i've no idea what some of you are even whining about. there is no true evil in this game, just some rude and ruthless choices. being a ****** or being ruthless is NOT evil. it's simply a different end to a means. i'm the biggest grump on the planet and some of those choices appealed to me and i got burned on some of them with lost quests, loss of pts on the friendship meter etc. i'm fine with that. i made less grumpy decisions the 2nd playthrough while still being somewhat snide. but that does not make me evil lol and the game is about choices not good/evil. letting the mages die is a choice, doesn't make you evil. doing the deed makes you ruthless since you may be killing many innocents along the way(collateral damage)but not evil for as cullen says, who knows how many may have demons already inside them, yet act normal for a time. i can't speak to the actual plot point of escorting irving if you follow the purge path since i haven't done that.the werewolves , if you played the scenario, you learn that they are NOT inherently evil either with the lady's presence, they are victims so choosing them over the elves is another choice. i'll give those "evil" people the name of a good shrink or as others have stated, point them towards fable or other games of that ilk or go play an mmo and go evil commando in pvp. grump out.

[CID-78]

you should note that evil paths cut down on some plot lines length and in that way you lose XP. ie don't be to quick with the killing there might be more to kill around the corner first.

[galahad1313]

i was posting at the same time as HHH and he does bring a few good points on "evil" choices(still doesn't make the player totally evil but i admit to having a difficult time NOT killing that leacherous, cheap arsed innkeeper in redcliffe. i've not followed this path of nasty choices but it seems the loot/monetary rewards for following a darker path are better. i may try it to get more cash since i'm tired of staring at all those nice store items and never being able to afford them hehe. as far as loghain, he isn't evil. he's paranoid and misguided true enough and his actions are ruthless which is what led to his decision to leave the king and wardens to their fate. arl howe on the other hand is an evil barstard. he kills innocent people and enjoys it and feels no remorse. having played the human noble on my 1st run, killing him was extremely satisfying. i may have missed some things on both posts since it's hard to condense the 2 full pages i wrote into a few paragraphs.

[Varenus Luckmann]

What you want to play as is a retard, not "evil".

[Jassper]

I wouldn't call these things "evil" but rather just "bad" or in most cases morally or socially wrong.



You might get some good loot/xp, but as CID-78 pointed out in most cases you loose xp in other options, so it is probably a wash.



I think being "evil" would entail trying to lead the darkspawn instead of stopping it - but then again that depends on your motives/objectives. Like Flemoth - lets assumes she is "Evil" - it is in her best interest to help the wardens succeed as she can't further her plans with a blight going on.



"Good" and "Evil" is nothing more than ones perception of any given situation.