8 réponses à ce sujet

[LobselVith8]

The Warden has dialogue options that allow him (or her) to state that he doesn't believe in the Maker, while the dialogue options for Hawke seem to be written for an Andrastian protagonist, particularly in his dialogues with Merrill and Sebastian, including a line where he says something is "with the Maker." With the discussions about how certain elements from Dragon Age II are making it into Dragon Age III, I wonder if this issue would be addressed as well. I don't think the choice should be made for our protagonist.

From a RP perspective, I would prefer to have the same degree of choice that my Warden had in Origins, rather than having the choice made for me like I experienced with Hawke in Dragon Age II. Considering that we have atheist characters like Morrigan and Aveline, I think it might be a good option to allow the next protagonist to have the option to be an atheist, in the same way that The Warden had the option.

[David Gaider]

There is no such thing as atheism in Thedas. Not sure why someone thinks it was an option in DAO-- possibly it's the same kind of interpretation as them thinking Hawke was "forced" into being a devout believer. Either way, it's not really an option we intend to include.

[David Gaider]

harkness72 wrote...
I find this an absured response. Are you seriously suggesting that nobody in Thedas has ever questioned the existence of the Maker?

Among humanity, outside of the individual that would be correct. It's not a common thing. And, regardless, it's not an option we provided in DAO or will provide in the future.

[David Gaider]

Wulfram wrote...
Probably because they could say things like "I've told you before I don't believe in the Maker" in the HN origin

If that was in there, then so be it. There wasn't intended to be an option to express atheism. And there certainly won't be again.

[David Gaider]

withneelandi wrote...
Surely if you put what is essentially a question of rejecting or not rejecting in-game theology at the heart of a games narrative it is almost impossible to entirely side-step the issue of belief or lack of it.

It is not a question of rejecting or not rejecting the in-game theology. There are many issues the player needs to wrestle with-- and this is not one of them. While I get that some people believe they should get to decide every single thing about their character, the simple truth is we do not and can not offer every option. If this comes as such a shock that it leaves one "aghast", then I don't know what to say other than that our approach has not altered in any way.

[David Gaider]

berelinde wrote...
After Legacy, it's pretty clear that religion is going to play a major part in upcoming games. It's also pretty clear that unless a charcter is Chasind, Avvar, or has lived all his life in a cave, he'll have heard of the Maker. But... wow. I really hope this doesn't mean that we'll have to play a zealot.

Of course not. Just because we say "we're not going to provide you options to express atheism" doesn't mean we'll suddenly force you to express devout belief. In other words, just because it's not one thing doesn't mean it has to be the complete and extreme opposite.

I get why some people might automatically go to "well why shouldn't it be possible?", except that we have other hills to die on. This question has come up before, and the answer is the same. And I think this is about as much as I want to discuss the topic.

[David Gaider]

Ellestor wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

There is no such thing as atheism in Thedas.

I seem to recall you stating more than once on the old pre-BSN Dragon Age fora that gods are not explicitly extant or absent (thus maintaining the notion of having faith in a god, which you considered absent from settings like the Forgotten Realms), thereby allowing beliefs to vary as they do on Earth, but here you seem to be saying that non-faith just doesn't happen for some reason. What sorcery is this?

David Gaider wrote...

It's not a common thing.

But that's quite another statement...

I wouldn't expect it to be a common thing in an effectively medieval society, but it's at least common enough to show us a bunch of it. Morrigan had a positive belief in neither the Maker nor apparently any other deific figure, the qunari apparently have no deity, and a good handful of scattered NPCs are openly skeptical of the Maker (even aside from the Dalish and qunari).

You say nothing's changed, so I wonder then what you actually mean by there being ‘no such thing as atheism in Thedas’. I can only assume, given all the examples of atheistic characters, that you are for some reason thinking of it as something more than not having a belief in a deity.

This is the point where I rub my temples and wonder why I even bothered at all.

There was no "proof" of God, and yet in medieval Europe the fact that He existed was beyond question. A given person might hate Him or reject Him, but that does not mean He didn't exist. Sure, there might be exceptional individuals, but it was not a thing.

This is also the case in Thedas. And the idea of getting into a discussion of what Morrigan or the Qunari is irrelevant in the context of how it should impact the player-- which, from the perspective of the writing team, is not at all. It's not one of the possible viewpoints that we offer, though we also don't go out of our way to do the opposite either, and we've no intention of changing that.

And that's where I'm going to leave it. If someone wants to take this as "but this was clearly a theme of the entire story whether you meant it or not and if you are changing that approach even though you just said you weren't then CLEARLY ALL IS LOST"... well, knock yourselves out. 

[David Gaider]

MerinTB wrote...
Chalk it up to my imperfect interpretation of the game, but when I played it I thought the game was making it vague and unclear as to whether Andraste was merely a person or really a supernatural figure, on whether the maker was real at all, really a god if he ever existed, etc.  Every point of disbelieve about whether elves ever had more magic or longer lives, about what "really" created the darkspawn...

a large portion of my love of DA:O was the ambiguity of the world.  I thought it was, at worst, being left unanswered but to be revealed in later games, OR, at best, that these would remain questions of faith and not truth.

So it's at least, at the very least, partially my fault for becoming enamored with the game for something you still seem to be saying it was never meant to be.

Doesn't make the realization any less devastating, personally... on an "attachement to a piece of entertainment" level, at least.

So... you're interpreting what I'm saying is that that the Maker is real? That not allowing the player to express atheistic belief is the same as the setting having no ambiguity regarding the truth of divinity?

I really don't know what to say about that.

[David Gaider]

Zanallen wrote...
Mr. Gaider, your signature should really be: "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."

I know, right? WTH.

jillabender wrote...
@David Gaider: I might be off-base, but
it sounds to me as though you didn't mean to exclude the possibility
that the PC or other characters might not believe in a deity that's
exactly like the Chantry's version of the Maker. If I'm understanding
you correctly, what you meant to suggest was that it would be very
unlikely for a character in the Dragon Age setting to believe that there
is no higher power at all – and if that's indeed what you meant, it makes complete sense to me.

That's indeed the case. Not believing in the Chantry or the Maker is not atheism-- though I suppose some folks might have different definitions. As I recall, DAO had options for dwarven and Dalish elf characters to openly scoff at the Maker-- but that's because they had beliefs of their own. Morrigan's a special case, sure, but I wouldn't call her an atheist. Even if someone else does, she's certainly not the norm.

And, yes, the player character could be a special case, too. Like I said, we don't go out of our way to say the player must endorse a religious view, we just don't offer options for the player to openly express atheism. If someone says we did this on occasion (for human characters?) in DAO, I'll take their word for it. They probably remember better than I do, at this point.

If it would really make fans happy, I'll modify my statement to say we'll consider offering the option to express doubt-- when it's appropriate. Meaning, if the issue of faith is directly in question. Otherwise, like I said, it's not really one of the viewpoints we allow for (among the many that we do). And that's as far as I'll give on that point.

Fair enough?

Modifié par David Gaider, 10 juillet 2012 - 02:04 .