444 réponses à ce sujet

[Auzner]

knownastherat you quoted my favorite part.



RageGT you fulfill what I said about “what is so should remain so simply because it is so already.”



Fluffykeith: last sentence of paragraph 6, and then all of paragraph 4. 3 to 4 hits from my character would be nearly 400 damage. And that will still not kill them. Had it been Morrigan no more than 2 hits and she'd be down. I'll reiterate and say they've really made no true roleplay stat system if they're just going to arbitrarily assign hit points and dps outside of any character creation restrictions for the sake of presenting a challenge.



Darpaek: That's exactly my point about level scaling breaking roleplaying. A very good example. If you have to save half of the world to get certain skills, how come they get it for sitting around in an alley? If they're a random encounter why should they get the same high power abilities as the protagonist? They haven't established themselves in the story as being someone of a worthy opponent and thus should easily be pushed over. And that reminds me to question why aren't there anymore items that offset exploration with just pure experience? Special items like wands or ring of the ram type. Unusual items that grant unique bonuses.



I feel like I have some right to question all these things about any game that labels itself RPG. Character creation is a serious part of establishing the game rules and should be scrutinized. The rules should relate to ways a real character could be to feel more like it's a role you're playing.

[DragonRageGT]

The fact a few people claims scaling makes a ridiculous game world does not make it any more true than lots more people saying it doesn't. It is your opinion, cool! I feel sorry for you because you can't get past it and dig deep into the story and cry at the end!

But if it is such a ridiculous gameworld, there are lots of games which haven't scaling. Tried any lately?


And Auzner, contraire to what Op said, I did read all the posts in this 19 pages thread. Did you? Do you really expect us to follow that linear order Darpaek suggested? do you want a world map like BG's? Where you could only go 1 area to the North or East or West or South of the area you were in and then claim BG had more freedom?

And does the label over the head of a computer game enemy matters so much? Because BG had it too, only that instead of Trolls for all... there were also Trolls elite and Trolls Chieftain... kinda like in these forum!

I'll start walking the streets with a plaque over my head! "I may look a 6'3" human but in fact I am a 5'6" level 40 Arcane Archer from Mirkwood!"

Pitty I can't use my real picture in this forum or you'd see I'm really an Angry Elf!

Modifié par RageGT, 01 janvier 2010 - 12:12 .

[DJ0000]

I personally do feel as though the game gives you a sense of progression. At first my mage died in pretty much every single battle but now at level 18 my mana never runs out and I rarely die.



I found that it took me 2 playthroughs on normal to get used to tactical battle and after that moving up to hard hasn't been much of a step up.



I do hate those Tevinter General Revenants though, I swear they must be gods because I can't kill them no matter what I try.



If you dislike scaling try Demon's Souls and that will convince you scaling is a good idea as at the start it is so ridiculously hard you can't play more than about 5 hours without giving up. That's five hours of my life and £38 I wish I could get back.

[Dragon Age1103]

I think the scaling is flawed b/c once you hit a high enough level like say 20 all the enemies you face are lv16 b/c there are 10 or more but why not a real challenge!!!!! I had to DL a mod just to up the difficulty b/c nightmare was too easy now it's fun again. I love the challenge & having to plan strategies & not just pull 1 guy at a time I mean real strategies. It doesn't ruin the game though since you can easily counter it by only using 2 people in your party, ditching your mage, or just wearing gear without enchantments on it....oh or drop a few rings.

[Darpaek]

There aren't any RPGs without scaling that I can recall in the last 5 years...



I'd prefer a realistic gameworld where NPCs are able to live, trade, grow food, etc with a linear FF-style story taking you to places with progresively more difficult badguys along the way than the leel-scaled faux sandbox that DA:O utilizes.



As it is - no spoilers - but the game pretty much all but suggests that you should go to Redcliffe first. And then events in Redcliffe make it evident that you should immediately head to the Mage Tower (however, there's no consequences if you don't - which is absolutely ridiculous from a story perspective!) Right there, that's half your allies. And the story makes it pretty evident that you should go to Orzammar last because that's where hardcore Wardens who ACTUALLY MADE IT TO OLD AGE go to DIE!



So, yeah - five playthrus I've done that order 4 times because the story makes it pretty clear that you should do it that way. But if someone wants to go to Orzammar first to grab their favorite companion - more power to them, I guess. It just sucks that we all get shafted with level scaling for faux sandbox play.



And I don't get why you're knocking BG. You could go anywhere from Candlekeep. You just had to walk there manually first. Yeah, it's pretty unrealistic that I can click on a worldmap and go anywhere when there are bandit blockades and ogres in the hills blocking the path from Candlekeep to Nashkel. But you walk there once, you can go there whenever you want from the Worldmap without manually walking thru the area twice...



One of the best features of the BGs were a realistic gameworld. The player could believe that 0th-level people actually lived in that world. And there were story reasons why the roads were particularly dangerous at that point in time - and once your PC dealt with the bandits plaguing the roads, travel from BG to Nashkel was pretty safe.



Compare that to the alley fights! I understand the suspension of disbelief - but how can we believe that 20 16-level dudes are sitting in an alley shaking down random passer-by's for copper bits?



Seriously - the forest is plagued by a problem that's affected it for 500 years and no one else has been able to solve that problem for 500 years. How is a player supposed to believe THAT when 4 of those alleyfights dudes could team up, walk down to the forest, and slaughter everything in sight? Especially when there's prolly 60-70 gold pieces worth of loot just randomly laying around in the forest!

[DragonRageGT]

Darpaek,
have you tried Risen? as new as DA and no scaling. True PBytes game.. ppl call it Gothic 2.5! Awesome game.

Now, you don't seem to have explored much of the dialogue Alistair forces upon you as you enter Lothering. No PC has absolutely no reason whatsoever to start anywhere other than where he wants. They are as lost as a blind man in a gun fire shooting, as we say here.

Aw well, new year is here in abt 60 min and I gotta go party!

Happy 2010, Dragonslayers!

Modifié par RageGT, 01 janvier 2010 - 12:57 .

[Fluffykeith]

As regards the actions of the bandits and this idea that they're hanging around shaking people down for coppers - a few pages back a posited the suggestion that they're more like mafia than basic street thugs. They're very organised, they're tough, and the city gaurds are having such a hard time dealing with them that they risk asking a.Grey Warden, who is NOT popular with the Regent, for help. Does that sound like a bunch of low rent muggers and cutpurses to you?



As for the forest, without spoilers it's hard to respond, but the way I played through it suggests that it can only be fully solved certain individuals (who aren't always in the forest) admit and face up to certain things, which requires someone getting past certain magical barriers and delving further than anyone else has... Remember the fact that the players party can't get the curse does tilt things in your favour somewhat...if anything that's a larger problem on that area than level scaling

[Darpaek]

Risen doesn't work on my laptop =( I love PB, too. Gothic 3 had level scaling - I was under the impression that Risen used the same engine ---



Man - I f-ing hate when people make assumptions about me and my playing style on message boards that suggest I'm somehow ignorant. Guess what? That's called an ad hom, and it's a fallacy.



I have explored the dialogue with Alistair. Several times. His clueless, "I dunno, I'm stupid, I follow" routine is a bone thrown at the faux sandbox crowd. Everything else in that dialogue suggests that you should head to Redcliffe first. But - whatever. Forsake the dialogue. You've just escaped the swamps. The horde is at your heels, and Lothering is being evacuated. You have two nearby destinations that give you a choice - go wander around a forest, or go to a town and set up a base of operations. I guess it's the old DnDer in me, but we always adventured out of a single location. If we moved around, it was Diablo 2-style where'd we'd find another town, set up a base, and go adventuring around THAT town instead. There was very little pointless wandering to our DnD adventures unless a campaign demanded it (Dragonlance, etc.)



Not to mention that if you leave Redcliffe to last - or worse, you visit it and abandon it to explore elsewhere and come back later on in the game (like I did with my evil mage playthru) - the story in Redcliffe doesn't make any sense. Where precisely are your other allies rallying to when you meet them on the road if you don't settle Redcliffe first?

[Darpaek]

The mob?!



Okay, I buy why they're tough (somewhat) with that explanation. But why are they sitting in an alley waiting for me to kill them?



Back in the day, we used to describe badguys and their settings in terms of "ecology". If these are the illusive enforcers of the local organized crime syndicate - why are they hanging out in an alley waiting for me to kill them? Why are they attracting the attention of local law enforcement? Why aren't they in a warehouse like the Denerim blood mages?

[Fluffykeith]

I'd suggest that they aren't waiting for you to kill them, I'd suggest it's the other way round. Since each encounter I'd set up like an ambush, apart from the one with the conversation first, it seems lke they've heard you're nosing around and have decided to try to take you out before you try to take them out.



Sure, it's somewhat conjecture, I admit, but I look at the setup of these encounters and I just have a hard time seeing small time thugs

[Darpaek]

Nah dude, I'm totally cool with that. The mob finds out you're on the prowl for their dudes and they send out the brute squad to enforce. That's awesome.



Unfortunately, the quest giver tells you exactly where these "ambushes" are - which suggests to me that they would be chillin' in that alley shaking down the plebes for their copper regardless of whether my character was out to kick their butts or not.



But - hey, I'm an old skool gamer. I still have an imagination. Unfortunately, the 3D world doesn't lend itself to creative interpretation as much as the old games used to.



It sure would have been neat if the quest-giver had given you three locations of checkpoints with 2-3 lowbie dudes, you take out the first and, on your way to the second, you get ambushed by what is actually the first alley fight. The second is the same fight with 2-3 lowbies, but you're ambushed on your way to third with the second actual fight. And then the third fight could play out as is, where the mob is ready and waiting for you.



It really seems like Bio phoned it on a lot of the sidequests in DA:O. Something like this - with two extra small encounters and a couple dialogues would have taken one dude and a VA a couple hours to design in the toolset.

[Sidney]

Fluffykeith wrote...

As regards the actions of the bandits and this idea that they're hanging around shaking people down for coppers - a few pages back a posited the suggestion that they're more like mafia than basic street thugs. They're very organised, they're tough, and the city gaurds are having such a hard time dealing with them that they risk asking a.Grey Warden, who is NOT popular with the Regent, for help. Does that sound like a bunch of low rent muggers and cutpurses to you? 

Yeah, that doesn't wash. I'm not sure "the mafia" really rates as the Mafia isn't going to stand up in a fight to basic army recruits let alone elite formations.  As someone said, look at what you had to do to get Scattershot, or any other power, did these bozos really, seriously, do all that? Put another way when the Rangers or Delta Forces fight bad guys those bad guys aren't always other special forces types - often they're something as mundane as normal soliders or militias.

You are trying to rationalize what is basically a game mechanism to try and keep balance in the world for no other reason than to worship at the altar of non-linearity. If you are old enough to recall the old Fallout games were "non-linear" but you could non-linearly go to a lot of places early on and get facestomped. That's another option and there are pros and cons to both approaches.

Again, everyone who is talking about the bad feeling you get with level scaling knows why it is done and most us of have beaten the game (I'm on my 4th now) but it just feels wrong and it slaps you in your face with that same wrongness over and over again because it doesn't feel real evenb within the boundaries of the rules of the world we are inhabiting in the game.

[DragonRageGT]

Darpaek wrote...

Risen doesn't work on my laptop =( I love PB, too. Gothic 3 had level scaling - I was under the impression that Risen used the same engine ---

Man - I f-ing hate when people make assumptions about me and my playing style on message boards that suggest I'm somehow ignorant. Guess what? That's called an ad hom, and it's a fallacy.

I have explored the dialogue with Alistair. Several times. His clueless, "I dunno, I'm stupid, I follow" routine is a bone thrown at the faux sandbox crowd. Everything else in that dialogue suggests that you should head to Redcliffe first. But - whatever. Forsake the dialogue. You've just escaped the swamps. The horde is at your heels, and Lothering is being evacuated. You have two nearby destinations that give you a choice - go wander around a forest, or go to a town and set up a base of operations. I guess it's the old DnDer in me, but we always adventured out of a single location. If we moved around, it was Diablo 2-style where'd we'd find another town, set up a base, and go adventuring around THAT town instead. There was very little pointless wandering to our DnD adventures unless a campaign demanded it (Dragonlance, etc.)

Not to mention that if you leave Redcliffe to last - or worse, you visit it and abandon it to explore elsewhere and come back later on in the game (like I did with my evil mage playthru) - the story in Redcliffe doesn't make any sense. Where precisely are your other allies rallying to when you meet them on the road if you don't settle Redcliffe first?

1) Gothic doesn't have scaling. All enemies have fixed level. They have ranks though. Grunts, Warriors, Elite Warrior and Captain for the orcs, e.g.! Risen is the same. If you face a wild boar at level 2 in Hard (top diff), you can still kill it if you're lucky but one hit from it and you're dead! Same in G3. A wolf is a killer at low levels and they usually hang in packs but after you can wield a nice two hander, a swap move will take care of them easily.

2) Sorry but I didn't "attack you" for it to be an ad-hominem. Neither I said your claim is false and much less my point is based is something not true. I am not talking about dialogues you initiate with Alistair but the one he initiates espontaneously. And Morrigan takes part too if you ask her opinion. For her the right action is to go straight to Denerim and try to confront Loghain. You can ask Alistair "why are you leaving this to me"? But I usually don't. I lead the conversation to a point where he will give full directions to all possible allies locations and it is up to me to chose where to go first.

Redcliff may seem the natural path for a Human, but for a Dwarf Noble, it is definitely Orzammar and for a Dalish elf, it is definitely the Brecilian elvish camp. A City elf might want to go first to Denerim and check on his/her origins relations.

Now, acording to the post I quote bellow, the only true-grey-warden-wise route is Mage Tower! And the guy is so sure of it he will prove it to you in pvt msg, if you ask him to. C'mon! Once Alistair tells all the location for all the possible allies, there is no RP reason to tunnel vision Redcliff as the obligatory path, much less the mage Tower. You RP as you see fit. If for YOU Redcliff or Mage Tower is the only natural path, it's fine by me, but don't do like the guy who posted this nonsense bellow and tell me I know nothing about RP because I disagree and my path may vary everytime according to what char, class and race I am playing.

Your premisse is flawed, for me, in a couple of points. Darkspawn are not at my heels. We've been rescued and we have no idea of what are their next move and they have no idea of where we are or what we're doing. It is not until much later in game that our camp is exposed and raided and they set traps in around the nation against our allies and ourselves.

And Lothering is not being evacuated, on the contraire. It is hosting new coming refugees. It's been abandoned by its Lord whom has taken his army to help Loghain but other than that, tehre is no movement, in that town, to evacuate it and of course, they are all obliterated by the Darkspawn because they indeed should be evacuating. I didn't meet a sole survivor of Lothering post massacre in whole Ferelden. Have you? Anyone who might have evacuated?

We have to raise an army and that's it. Using the old treaties as convincing argument if necessary. Where and how we chose to start the task is totally free for personal interpretation and nothing anyone can say will make me see otherwise because, although English is not my language, I can read it and I'm pretty good in text comprehension and there are not many false cognates in the story to trick me into a wrong understanding  of what's being thrown at me!

I said you seemd to have not explored that particular dialogue fully because you stated something that does not correspont to the freedom that such dialogue give us. If you do agree blindly with Alistair, then of course you should go to Redcliff first. He's all about Arl Eamon but don't forget that the guy is under emotional distress and his judgment is not made under the best cirscunstances for some types of personalities you may want your character to have! He's a bastard, mage hunter, very sensitive to the point of paralyzation of rational thinking and, as you may find out later... a virgin... never trust a virgin to give you sex lessons! Or a follower to lead you!

Now please read carefully what I've highlighted in the following post and see how obtuse a "There is only ONE way to go" statement sounds to me.

sp0lh4us wrote...

RageGT wrote...

Stop metagaming, be your character and Overcome! (that was said long ago by Morpheus, great and wise guy, owner of NWN server War of The Ring in a post where he teached us, powergamers like me, what is Role Play! Funny that Torias said about the same thing in a post here)

I'm quite sure you have little to none idea what 'role play' in RPGs generaly means.
If you indeed role play in DA:O then there's NO freedom. Oh, well, there is, but as soon as you go to the Brecillian Forest instead of the Mages Tower after Lothering, stop calling yourself a Grey Warden and also stop calling yourself a roleplayer. (Hope it doesn't count as a spoiler here...)

We are standing on different sides and it's clear we will stay at it. For me DA:O has many flaws - flaws that were implemented in the game by reason - thanks to the changing gaming community. For me, these are bad. I'm happy to see that you and others loves the game as is, that means Bioware will be happy with their money and they can release similar games in the future. Games that I might not buy.

Modifié par RageGT, 01 janvier 2010 - 04:15 .

[DragonRageGT]

Maviarab wrote...

Brilliant post Rage

Thanks, mate! That, coming from a Brit with proficiency in story telling as I believe you have, means a lot to a foreigner who loves the language of Shakespear and Tolkien. (But we love even more to beat England in a Soccer match! See ya in S.A. 2010! Woot... it is near now!)

[whtnyte-raernst]

RageGT wrote...

Maviarab wrote...

Brilliant post Rage

Thanks, mate! That, coming from a Brit with proficiency in story telling as I believe you have, means a lot to a foreigner who loves the language of Shakespear and Tolkien. (But we love even more to beat England in a Soccer match! See ya in S.A. 2010! Woot... it is near now!)

Mothing I've seen on here was more annoying than the people calling Tolkien a plagarist.

[Darpaek]

HA! So much for that New Years party, eh? Guess you're stuck ringin' it in on the Bio boards with us! Personally, I got ditched for girls' night out... LOL



Look, let's set aside the convo with Alistair and Morrigan as your enter Lothering. We can insult eachothers RP ability or reading comprehension all day long. Let's look at the game as a whole:



SPOILERS

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If you chose to go after another ally instead of Redcliffe first and complete that quest, you will meet random encounters on the road of your recruited ally being attacked by darkspawn while they're on the way to rally at Redcliffe.



If you do Redcliffe last, your previously recruited allies will miraculously appear in the castle courtyard training after the situation at Redcliffe is resolved.



If you go to Redcliffe first, but side with Sten and Morrigan and abandon it and leave and recruit your other three allies - when you return to Redcliffe months later, Bann Teagan is still lying unconscious on the ground waiting for you.



Other elements of the story beyond the Lothering convo with Alistair and Morrigan are CLEARLY written from the perspective that you completed Redcliffe first.



As per order - sure roleplay a moron or a maniac. It's your game, that's cool. I guess I could see a Dalish Elf going to the forest first - but that's about it. Your dwarf has to go to Redcliffe and the Mage Tower eventually - seriously, he's just going to walk right past them? The little dwarf mage girls tells you the Mage Tower is weeks away from Orzammar. I guess your dwarven noble is just skilled in foraging for food in the mountains on the surface, right? The city elf to Denerim - where you're a wanted criminal and probably a murderer? Even the most unselfish would be a fool to return - as if those bums that stand outside your house wouldn't cause more trouble for your family or turn you in for the bounty? A mage going to the Tower first - where the Templars want you dead and Duncan isn't there to protect you anymore?



And after Redcliffe is initially visited, the story lays itself out as you having little choice but to head ASAP to the Mage's Tower - even going so far as allowing you to justify killing someone to their family because the journey might take too long.



Right there - that's half your allies. You don't have to go after the Urn right away, but - again - the story does make the Urn seem imminently necessary. Luckily, the Arl's strong enough to struggle on in a coma for months as you dally around Orzammar and the forest. LOL



At this point, half the game is over before the player is presented with a legitimate choice: the forest or Orzammar. Even then - you'd be a fool to go Orzammar because it's so far away from everything else. It is much more convenient for you to stop in the forest on the way to Denerim for the Urn, etc.



As per your statements concerning the Blight and Lothering, I don't feel like arguing or spoiling any more than I already have. Regardless to say, you are factually incorrect. The local high priestess and her Templars are very clearly organizing an evacuation. Both she and the lead templar tell you such. Arguing the point further is moot because it has no bearing on the overall discussion other than to lend a sense of urgency to get the heck outta Lothering.

[knownastherat]

as for being factual: it is not an angry elf but Rasputin and it is not soccer but football!



happy new year

[KCat]

RageGT wrote...
Redcliff may seem the natural path for a Human, but for a Dwarf Noble, it is definitely Orzammar and for a Dalish elf, it is definitely the Brecilian elvish camp. A City elf might want to go first to Denerim and check on his/her origins relations.

Not really. The game is quite clear that after leaving the hut with Morrigan, that going to Redcliffe is your best bet for the very-much-needed reinforcements and allies. Obviously you don't have to go that way, but story-wise, Eamon's forces are the best thing you can hope for at that time, because you don't know if anyone else is going to be willing to help you. Even later on when you find out what's going on with the Arl, Alistair still says its your best bet.

I said you seemd to have not explored that particular dialogue fully because you stated something that does not correspont to the freedom that such dialogue give us. If you do agree blindly with Alistair, then of course you should go to Redcliff first. He's all about Arl Eamon but don't forget that the guy is under emotional distress and his judgment is not made under the best cirscunstances for some types of personalities you may want your character to have!

True, but you're never given an in-game reason to believe otherwise. You're told that getting Eamon's help will give you almost-guaranteed forces of considerable size, as well as political support against Loghain's claims that the Grey Wardens are traitors. What reason are you given to get help from the dwarves first, or the dalish or mages, other than the fact that you may be one? In fact, how can you be so sure that the mages or dwarves are even going to help you given Loghain's claims, without someone of political stature backing you?

Now, yes, there's no reason you can't go elsewhere first if you role-play a character that believes going back to your origin will be the best option.. but obviously the Human Noble origin doesn't really have that, the Dalish are a different clan, and you may not be on the Circle's best side given some of the available choices (I'm not familiar with the dwarf origins, but I doubt the commoner one gives you the best of options either).. all pointing to Eamon being the intended first target.

[DragonRageGT]

knownastherat wrote...

as for being factual: it is not an angry elf but Rasputin and it is not soccer but football!

happy new year

You're sure or Rasputin just was used as base for that? He seems a lot different everywhere I look for him!
You're right but if I say football which it is called down here as well, majority of the board might think I'm talking about the Broncos or stuff like that! Anyway, it is football indeed what I meant and what I call it! =)

Now to the big issue here. My lovely companion blew it for me. I had to take her old lady (and she's really old) and her maid with us so we could not go where we planned. Her other sons were not available to take care of her. So we ended up in a sort of a club with a huge party... where the youngest guy was "yours truly" and I'm 45! So you can figure how thrilled I was and when the old lady wanted to come back home... I was already opening the car's door for her!

And Darpaek, I agree with lots of what you said and I must have rushed some dialogues inside Lothering too, but for one thing. The attacks you mentioned when recruited allies are coming to rally at some place.

This whole thread is a big spoiler but SPOILER ALERT... may contain some bellow!





















It does not happen until late in the game for me. Usually only after 3 or all of them have been recruited. I'm usually around lvl 18-20 when that happens! It has a Major Cutscene and Camp is busted. Not safe anymore! This without doing Redcliffe first. And after doing Redcliffe, even their soldiers are ambushed on the road!

Now, if one sets feet in Redcliffe, there is no logical explanation to leave the place before it's been saved! But there is nothing to force us go there in the first place. And for my dwarf...his blood issues are a lot more important to settle than helping an old human against another human traitor which is the whole point of going to Redcliff! Help the humans to stop the civil war!

Another thing, I keep Lothering as a travel option for a looooong time into the game. Somehow it only gets raided if we trigger it so I just don't and solve lots of problems before that happens. And although it's not a game feature, I don't expect us to travel by foot so travel time is not an issue. I mean, even going to Orzammar first the chick already had a soon? I've been out that long? REALLY? But I won't go discussing obvious continuity flaws on the story. They are there but they're not a big issue to me.

But I also rarely replay the game with the same path and I have done it in my first run, Redcliffe right after Lothering and yes, it does throw the Tower at us next! It would be a hell of a boring replay if I had to do the same thing in the same order all the time and I have many replayes already.

I am sure that if the game was intended to have a strict path it would have been done so. I don't see BW having any problem with that since they done it in all their games I played. Perhaps it is different for those who read the book first or finished the Journeys. I'm still early in the Journeys!

[Darpaek]

SPOILERS

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Yeah, but your dwarf is walking past Redcliffe on his way to Orzammar. It doesn't make any sense NOT to stop in on the way - especially when you're looking at a couple months walk to Orzammar. I know the game doesn't model this mechanic - but your dudes need food. Even if you're travelling by imaginary horse - it's not THAT much faster. And the little dwarf mage girl has the travel time down to the day, IIRC.



IIRC, the Redcliffe soldiers attacked on the road say they're patrolling for Darkspawn. Specifically, both the mages and the elves will tell you that they're on the way to Redcliffe even if you haven't saved yet. Even if they didn't distinguish where they were going - where would this "somewhere" be? Why would they be rallying at all when you haven't set up a rally point yet?



Lothering is overrun after two allies are recruited. If it's still available for you that late in the game, it's a glitch.