274 réponses à ce sujet

[Vandicus]

syllogi wrote...

Vandicus wrote...

labargegrrrl wrote...


i'd love to see a protagonist who's parent's didn't die, but DISOWNED her/him.

So Leandra as the protagonist?

Even if it's not the typical Hero's Journey you'd expect from a video game protagonist, Leandra's story was pretty interesting.  She was a pampered noble daughter who met a Circle mage and helped him escape in order to elope.  Then she got kidnapped by Grey Wardens and rescued by her apostate husband, all before they managed to move to Ferelden.

They may have eventually settled down and raised their kids peacefully, but I bet the story of Malcolm and Leandra's early adventures would be a good read.

I'm actually a pretty big fan of Leandra. Agreed that her story is probably pretty interesting. On that note, I hope they do more "campaign" style dlcs so that we can get a closer look at all the side characters.

[CELL55]

 I think it must be very difficult to portray likable family members, and I think a part of that is how much depth they have. I used to think that I didn't much care for Hawke's family because I thought they existed only to be killed off, and thus elicit some fleeting reaction of sorrow from me, the player. But then I remembered the family from the Human Noble origin, and how much I loved them, and I realized that it must be something else. So what was it? Observe.

I knew that the Human Noble family was doomed to die from the minute I heard Tim Curry's voice as the advisor/underling to my character's dad. There was just no way Tim Curry as Howe was not going to kill them all, and giant warning lights went off in my head right away. Yet I still managed to reeally like my doomed family. They felt like they had a lot of depth, because I got to talk to them all about such mundane things. I talked to the nephew about sword fighting, to the mom about her not interfering in my command when the brother and dad left for war, and other things. They really felt like relatable people who lived in the Dragon Age world, and had concerns apart from the Blight.

Compare this to DA2: One of your siblings dies even faster than your family in the Human Noble origin, preventing me from forming any kind of emotional connection to them. The extent of our conversations was 'let's get the hell out of here'. When they died? Yawn. That's a bummer, now I have one less person pulling their weight in my party. Your sibling that survived, I felt, got enough screen time to develop a distinct, interesting character, which made it a shame when they too, were ripped out of the narrative either permanently or temporarily. It's been a very long time since I played DA2, but I vaguely recall the extent of my conversations with Leandra being all about establishing ourselves in Kirkwall and how I should still very sad for the death of my dear sibling that I knew for a grand total of one minute. At least until near the end of her life when she started actually feeling like my character's mother, and was given some depth to her character. And then she was quickly swept under the metaphorical rug, so now my character could feel some more grief while I'm busy looking through a strategy guide for a way to keep her from being Frankensteined. Oh well.

I think that overall, my problem with the DA2 family was that some of them weren't given as much depth as some of the Human Noble's family, and that unlike the Human Noble's family that got wiped out in one fell swoop for maximum emotional impact, Hawke's family got taken out piecemeal, reducing the impact and making it boringly predictable, IMO.

I hope that I've managed to adequately convey what it is that I want to see in a family, should one be written in the future. Forgive me if I didn't, for it is late, and I tend to ramble on when I am tired.

[Adanu]

David Gaider wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
If you're required to do any gut-punching, make it actually intelligent. Leandra's death was not intelligent. Bodahn's suggestion to wait around so that the killer can have his way with her was extraordinarily stupid. Going to Gascard DuPuis is far smarter... yet somehow, despite being able to get to him much more quickly than you would have been able to do anything by waiting until after dark, you still arrive at the exact same, wrong, time. This is not intelligent, clever, or good writing. This is clumsily applied, pointless brutality that instilled no sadness in me whatsoever, only rage at Bioware personally.

Thanks for the feedback. Next time we'll try not to write something so blatantly stupid. I'll mark it on my "things to do" list.

Frankly, I can agree with him on this one.

There are a few head scratchers in the game, but this one was pretty 'what the hell?' inspiring with me when I did it. with one you're searching blindly. The other you know exactly where to go within a few minutes. If you were just going to make both have the same damn timing, why put them in?

[CitizenThom]

I think if any kittens get killed, you should ask for Terry Pratchett to write you a few lines of Death speaking in capital letters to the said kitten killer... or at least the Death of Mice speaking the ominous words 'Squeeeek' to them.

p.s. If the main story is going to have a similar three acts format as DA2 did... I would ask that DLC has instances in at least two of the acts, preferably all three. (The pre-order DLC did a pretty good job of this.)

Modifié par CitizenThom, 26 septembre 2012 - 07:05 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Also, I read The Silmarilion, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and sometimes Unfinished Tales, about once every year.

Isengard is washed clean of "industry" and put in the care of the king.

Mordor is essentially obliterated with the destruction of the ring. Literally.

The Shire is ravaged but put quite to rights in the decades that follow immediately after.

The exodus of the elves is almost utterly unrelated to Souron and actually the eventual product of the actions of Morgoth in the Second Age.

The decline of the dwarves was likewise of their own making. They were more interested in crafting than procreation throughout their existence.

You're making the same mistake you do when describing game worrlds.  You're assuming that there is exactly one version of Middle Earth, that it is immutable, and that version is unmistakably described in every related work.

With games, your mistake is in the first step.  Here your mistake is in the third.  While I would agree that there is but one immutable version of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings does not describe it fully.  Taken entirely on its own, LotR is depressing.  Once you read everything else, well, I think it's still depressing, but for different reasons - with the whole picture revealed, the true villain (and victor, in many respects) is Morgoth, not Sauron.

But that's not in the Lord of the Rings.

[Xewaka]

strive wrote...
I don't exactly know why, but Mhairi dying in DA:A was more upsetting and impactful to me than Leandra dying. I went through the rest of the game on edge, wondering who else am I going to conscript to their death. With Leandra's death I was just like oh, 'more angst, your life sucks Hawke what's new'. Maybe I was just angst out by then.

Mhairi was a party member, however briefly. That's probably why.

Modifié par Xewaka, 26 septembre 2012 - 08:36 .

[KiwiQuiche]

I disliked Leandra the instant she blamed my Hawke for Carver's death. What a horrible parent.

So yeah, either give me no family or at least one that doesn't die all over the place.

[Augustei]

Don't even give what these people say a second thought Mr Gaider, George R. R. Martin kills his character's off all the time and his stories are awesome

[upsettingshorts]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

I disliked Leandra the instant she blamed my Hawke for Carver's death. What a horrible parent.

People say things when they're upset.

When I called my grandmother to tell her that her son had died, she blamed the doctors and said they killed him.

After composing herself, she no longer held that belief.

As such, Leandra's outburst felt very real in my opinion. 

[Xewaka]

XxDeonxX wrote...
Don't even give what these people say a second thought Mr Gaider, George R. R. Martin kills his character's off all the time and his stories are awesome

You don't control a character in a book. That's the difference.
It is one thing to read about the misfortune of others, and enjoy it if it makes for a better narrative. It is a very different thing to be asked to lose in a game.
To use a rather powerful example: Shadow of The Colossus (Spoilers for the game following)

Shadow of the Colossus ends, essentially, with the player losing. It is a very striking narrative moment, it makes sense in the context of the whole game, and it gives a rather satisfying (from a narrative perspective) conclusion, leaving just the right amount of open questions to possibly explain ICO and give space to coming back to explore that world.
Still, since the game ends with the player losing, most players inmediately tried to discover a non-existant secret ending that happens if the player wins (which is not possible given the mechanics of the last encounter).

That is the difference: We can enjoy a downer narrative, where the protagonists are powerless, from a spectator perspective. When we're in the driving wheel, however, this does not apply, because it is not the characters we read of failing, but the character we control. And thus, in a sense, the failure is ours, and makes it less engaging than it would be in a regular narrative. This hits self-inserting players the hardest, while people who play a character (rather than themselves) can still derive enjoyment for the way the narrative is presented in the game (as Upsettingshorts below points out).

Modifié par Xewaka, 26 septembre 2012 - 10:38 .

[upsettingshorts]

On a similar note, I enjoyed my Hawke failing in DA2. But that was, I'll admit, a bit of luck due to my playing a character who would have viewed both options in the endgame as failures. He lost the second the Chantry blew up, the finale was more... playing out his epilogue card in real time. I liked it, it was different.  

In the sense that "the game wouldn't let me prevent the war" is a different experience than "my character failed to prevent the war."

I think generally the lesson here is if you don't either seriously roleplay, or seriously buy-in to the narrative the game presents, you're probably going to have a bad time with anything in the game that resembles an obstacle... especially if it talks.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 26 septembre 2012 - 11:13 .

[berelinde]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

KiwiQuiche wrote...

I disliked Leandra the instant she blamed my Hawke for Carver's death. What a horrible parent.

People say things when they're upset.

When I called my grandmother to tell her that her son had died, she blamed the doctors and said they killed him.

After composing herself, she no longer held that belief.

As such, Leandra's outburst felt very real in my opinion. 

With all due respect, there is a *huge* difference between blaming doctors, who might be expected to have some influence over a person's health, and blaming a son or daughter who may very well have been just as astonished at the sibling's idiocy as the mother. Had the player been given the opportunity to say something like "You're the mom. If s/he didn't listen to you, s/he wouldn't have listened to me," it would have helped. Instead, Hawke just stands there, taking the blame each of the five times it's offered (immediately, in the Gallows dock area, in the Gallows Courtyard upon meeting Gamlen, in Gamlen's house in Act 1, and again upon purchasing the estate in Act 2 three years later). It's perfectly natural for such persistence to cause resentment.

Another difference is that while you were grieving for your father as much as she was grieving for her son, she was not actually blaming you, nor would you be as likely to feel guilt yourself over the event. You were not responsible for your father's care. When my dad died, my mother pulled the Faramir card ("Would you rather I had died instead of him?"). My distress at that question was not lessened buy the guilt I felt over the real answer, which differed considerably from the one I gave at the time. Guilt and resentment are closely intertwined, possibly because there's a thread of truth in there somewhere, as well as the knowledge that the emotion isn't even remotely helpful.

Guilt and resentment linger for years, often far longer than the grief that provoked them. Your grandmother composed herself (and the doctors never knew of it anyway), but you still remember what she said. My mother stopped with the uncomfortable questions, but I can't forget the effects. Leandra eventually stopped blaming Hawke (three years later and mere weeks before her death). It wouldn't be unreasonable if Hawke's resentment or otherwise conflicted emotions were still present at the time of her death.

As others have said, personal experiences *do* shape the perception of our games. Even yours.

[MACSALOMON]

In other hand... we have Morrigan and her wonderful mother Flemeth... both alive.... both full of love

[upsettingshorts]

berelinde wrote...

With all due respect, there is a *huge* difference between blaming doctors, who might be expected to have some influence over a person's health, and blaming a son or daughter who may very well have been just as astonished at the sibling's idiocy as the mother.

Why are you arguing about which constitutes rational behavior when I'm saying the act is not rational?  Meh, let's just move on.

berelinde wrote... 

Had the player been given the opportunity to say something like "You're the mom. If s/he didn't listen to you, s/he wouldn't have listened to me," it would have helped. Instead, Hawke just stands there, taking the blame each of the five times it's offered (immediately, in the Gallows dock area, in the Gallows Courtyard upon meeting Gamlen, in Gamlen's house in Act 1, and again upon purchasing the estate in Act 2 three years later). It's perfectly natural for such persistence to cause resentment.

Bolded complaint I can understand.  I don't recall the five-times-blame, and seem to recall Leandra apologizing to my Hawke for it in Gamlen's house.  But it's been a while.

berelinde wrote...  

Leandra eventually stopped blaming Hawke (three years later and mere weeks before her death). It wouldn't be unreasonable if Hawke's resentment or otherwise conflicted emotions were still present at the time of her death.

Is it bad writing though?

I think it's easy to forget the context of the situation at the beginning of DA2 since we're thrust into it, but Leandra's life and choices have completely come undone in pretty much the worst possible way.  

I don't want to get into a huge discussion over either Leandra or any related real-life circumstances in this thread, only raise a point that blanket statements against including things like irrational behavior or unfortunate circumstances befalling characters are kind of, well... let's just say I don't agree at all.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 26 septembre 2012 - 11:53 .

[berelinde]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

berelinde wrote...  

Leandra eventually stopped blaming Hawke (three years later and mere weeks before her death). It wouldn't be unreasonable if Hawke's resentment or otherwise conflicted emotions were still present at the time of her death.

Is it bad writing though?

The definition of "bad writing" varies from reader to reader. Ultimately, what many people mean when they say that is "It isn't the way I would have written it." Others will say "It didn't kick me in the feels." I didn't say that it was bad writing and I won't (even if the "feels" it kicked me in were very different from the ones intended), but I will say that it contains a glaring omission. There are limitations to how much player agency a game can contain. Dialogue options *must* be limited or it becomes impossible to write the game at all. I understand this. But the failure to provide any choice of response beyond abject grief is a noticable lack. I'm not suggesting that an "I'm glad you're dying" option should have been there. But it would have helped if the player had a less emotional response to choose. Something along the lines of "This isn't how I wanted to say goodbye." Later, during the Captain's Condolences, I'd have liked to have been able to say "Our relationship was complicated." 

Everybody is going to have their points where they feel dialogue options were too limited, and few will have played the game without ever stumbling across a paraphrase that left them baffled at the words their character was saying. There isn't any way to fix this. What would have helped? Had the camera not been focused on Hawke's face at that moment, the player would have had more wiggle room. 

[Fredward]

David Gaider wrote...

Lithuasil wrote...
Just as long as you leave the kittens alone! 

I might kill off one kitten... so long as you get to raise his traumatized sibling, until he grows up and becomes Batman. FOR VENGEANCE.

A cat becomes a bat? Batcat? Catbat? CATBATMAN! I'd play it.

And I like being punched, stomach or otherwise. So if yuz guys aren't killing our parents this time totally kill our mentor. And/or friends. Or LOVE INTEREST! Man. Imagine the wail of lost souls.

[Chaoswind]

Don't know they did play the dead family card well in DA:O

but I agree is overused

Why not make our characters feel regret by causing another persons dead? we would have to spend at least 1 hour at the start getting to know all the possible sacrifices and all of them would have very likeable personalities... after that we are forced only save 1 of them and tada instant relativity to the PC (i think)

[QueenPurpleScrap]

There is a difference between parents dying in front of us and one or both dead as part of the back story. Did we need Bethany/Carver to die? Wasn't home being destroyed and running from the Blight to poverty in Kirkwall with seedy uncle enough? {P.S. I liked the Couslands, didn't care for Leandra}

Would have been nice if there were some way to save Leandra, though. The fact she was kidnapped by mad mage on the rampage is enough. Leandra isn't likely to have remained unchanged by the ordeal. Maybe she just refuses to come out of her room. But 'nuff said.

How about you are separated from your family by some awful event: 1) you're away from home and your home village is taken over. You can't return or you will die. 2) you witness something awful and have to leave in order to protect your family and find a way to get justice for whatever. 3) you are forced to leave because you're accused of a crime you didn't commit. . . . .
Then part of your story is finding a way back to your old life, or at least reconnecting with your parents at some point. You build a new life, never forgetting the old one. You make choices along the way. At the end, as a result of those choices:
A - happy reunion
B - parents want nothing to do with you
C - family is dead
D - family is exiled
E - family is reunited but on the run together

[Palipride47]

I think my problem with dead "people you love" tropes is when it is poorly executed, not when it happens at all.

DAO Human Noble death was heart wrenching and made killing Howe very emotional personally (for me and I assume a lot of other people).

City Elf, having my fiance killed and my cousin brutalized punched me in the gut as well. Especially since that was going to be me until I slaughtered everyone. Howe was personal-ish too, after he basically massacred my people and allowed them (with Loghain) to be sold them into slavery

DA2:

First sibling, never felt a connection, it was more, "well there goes my two hander" (played a rogue first time). Was way more gutted when Bethany was ripped from me, mostly because my idiot self brought her w/o Anders, and I liked her.

Mother - eh. I didn't choose any conversation options that got me blamed every single time to hate her, but the whole bit with "Qunari don't think like us" "Your elf friends are weird" or acknowledging your romance while simultaneously saying she needs to get you a husband didn't make me like her. I know "apostate living in sewers" (or worse, any elf) marriage might ****** off your noble friends, but I'm hovering around 30 at this point....

The thing that messed me up the most was the Chantry being destroyed, because I felt complicit (I helped with both parts, and figured something sketchy was going down, but still helped, because I'm too trustworthy). "Best Served Cold" could've been emotionally horrifying if your sibling was killed then. But it seemed unrealistic that they would be able to fin and kidnap my Grey Warden brother as opposed to the apostate living in my house, in Kirkwall.

Modifié par Palipride47, 26 septembre 2012 - 03:24 .

[brushyourteeth]

MACSALOMON wrote...

In other hand... we have Morrigan and her wonderful mother Flemeth... both alive.... both full of love

This made me seriously LOL! 


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here are some other shoulder-punching options I think would be more interesting for the parent/child relationship than death:

- Betrayal
- Absence
- Mental illness
- Finding out that your parent was never who you thought they were (blood mage or Templar, for example)
- Unexpected reunions
- Rescue
- Being unable to please your parents or live up to the family legacy
- Creepy Fade sequences (are you mom and you died when I wasn't looking, or are you a demon pretending to be mom to trip me up?)
- Having to make uncomfortable decisions or moral compromises to keep your family safe

All with the potential to hurt, all mature themes, most not yet canvassed in the DA games. 

[Palipride47]

brushyourteeth wrote...

Here are some other shoulder-punching options I think would be more interesting for the parent/child relationship than death:

- Betrayal
- Absence
- Mental illness
- Finding out that your parent was never who you thought they were (blood mage or Templar, for example)
- Unexpected reunions
- Rescue
- Being unable to please your parents or live up to the family legacy
- Creepy Fade sequences (are you mom and you died when I wasn't looking, or are you a demon pretending to be mom to trip me up?)
- Having to make uncomfortable decisions or moral compromises to keep your family safe

All with the potential to hurt, all mature themes, most not yet canvassed in the DA games. 

Like all of them, but I think Hawke gets the "parent isn't who you thought they were" bit in Legacy (nevermind you never met your dad, but still well done). But it should go to everyone else without the need for DLC. 

The mental illness one is a really good idea. Surely not everyone is insane because of demons (like the magistrate's kid, Kelder? And Bartrand) and the Chantry does run "sanitariums."

Never pleasing the family is a fun one! "Ohhh....end the Blight, but don't seize the throne? I mean, you basically chose who became king, why didn't you seize the throne or marry him? He seemed hansome enough...and now you are going to run off again with Leliana, you hang around women too much, you need to find a husband."

Warden : 

And regarding the Fade, they probably couldn't do it, but it woul have been so much better if they did Fade scences from your Origin story (i.e. Human Noble parents still alive, City Elf reliving horror of wedding day, etc...)

KiwiQuiche wrote...

I disliked Leandra the instant she blamed my Hawke for Carver's death. What a horrible parent.

So yeah, either give me no family or at least one that doesn't die all over the place.

I didn't get mad over that one (since it only happened to me once, not the multiple times over years that other people seem to have experienced). I got mad when she acknowleged my relationship with an LI and in the same breath said "I better start picking you a suitable husband"

Wha?  I'm hovering around 30yrs old, and pretty sure you insulted my LI with the term "suitable husband" or even just "suitable" (if you went for the male options). I know she means "suitable for appearances" but you got to run off with some apostate, why can't I? 

And she kinda messed up Bethany unintentionally. 

Modifié par Palipride47, 26 septembre 2012 - 03:55 .

[Palipride47]

*condensed two posts*

Modifié par Palipride47, 26 septembre 2012 - 03:55 .

[Doveberry]

Was I the only one who thought that the parent deaths were very well written?

[Little Princess Peach]

David Gaider wrote...

Ah, okay. Got it.

Written in notebook: "Next time kill two mothers instead of one. No point getting stale."

SO when we want an npc killed it's not alright but when we want one to live two die in it's place o.O

[Melca36]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

I disliked Leandra the instant she blamed my Hawke for Carver's death. What a horrible parent.

So yeah, either give me no family or at least one that doesn't die all over the place.

I didn't hate Leandra but I always found her useless.   It made me wonder how she learned to go from being a wealthy noble to commoner.

Did Malcolm teach her to cook and sew?  

I also always thought she favored the twin siblings more than Hawke.


And she got so snobby when Hawke regained the estate.


I did not feel ripped apart when she died.  The sibling's death in the Deeproads was far more emotional for me while Leandra's death felt...comical.

When she mentions finding a suitable wife/husband for Hawke, I wanted to YELL AT HER!    What if your Hawke was a mage?  


Leandra just seemed so weak.