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[Lotion Soronarr]

Early on, way back in ye days of Dragon Age: Origins,  Gaider said that he wanted to circel/Mage/Templar/Chantry dillema to be grey. And the team did a pretty good job at it.

But with each new sequel/book/comic, the balance is getting more an more out of whack.
It is getting harder and harder to defend the Templar/Chantry side.
The templar abuse is getting ramped up the whazoo.
Meanwhile, the mages acting up is always handwaved as circumstantial (the veil was thin, they were pushed by circumstances...basicly it always boils down to "the Chantry/templars are to blame")

Now ever since ME2 I feared this is where it might end up...the Cerberus treatment, where Templars/Chantry will suddenly become incompetent, stupid and pure evil.
As it is I've seen no indication this won't be the case.

The question to you devs, is how do you  feel on this issue? Do you think the blance is great as is or that it need fixing?

And for everyone else - how would you deal with this if you were the writer?
What would you do to mantain the greyness?

[Xilizhra]

The Chantry is utterly defanged. I doubt they can be a threat at all.

As for the alleged grayness... I would handle it by contesting mage rebellion with Chantry control as the positions taken by the player, but both sides would oppose the templar "every mage must die" policy, and probably contest them as an enemy army. Like Cerberus, the templars have never really been anything other than what they are now.

[The Elder King]

The Chantry is shifted towards a grey area in Asunder. And to be fair, in DA2 the thin veil made the mages easily possessed by demons, but that doesn't mean that the veil forced the mages to turn on blood magic or conjure demons. Both sides didn't stand in the grey area in DA2.
I'm not a fan of neither groups, but if the Templars are going to get the Cerberus treatment, I'll not going to buy the game.
If I were a writer, I'd put all the three groups in a grey area, showing both the good side and the bad side of the groups in an equal way, and that the group's goal doesnt' fall in the extremist area. Though on that, the templar side are more problem than the other two, since as far as I know they now want to exterminate the mages, not simply putting them back in the Circle.

[Darth Death]

Mage/Templar/Chantry are all crazy. "Greyness" doesn't exist after DA2.

[vortex216]

i am all mages all the way. but, lately the templars are starting to look like complete antoganist

[SgtElias]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

And for everyone else - how would you deal with this if you were the writer?
What would you do to mantain the greyness?

To be entirely honest, I have no idea whatsoever. I'm pretty adamantly pro-mage, and always have been, so saying it'd be easy for me to be impartial between the factions is a blatant lie. That's something I'm working toward in my own writing; I'm always impressed when others can write points of view with which they completely disagree without completely skewering the other side.

The mage-templar conflict is my very favorite. I'm really excited to see how it's addressed in Dragon Age 3.

[Xilizhra]

The Chantry is shifted towards a grey area in Asunder. And to be fair, in DA2 the thin veil made the mages easily possessed by demons, but that doesn't mean that the veil forced the mages to turn on blood magic or conjure demons. Both sides didn't stand in the grey area in DA2.
I'm not a fan of neither groups, but if the Templars are going to get the Cerberus treatment, I'll not going to buy the game.
If I were a writer, I'd put all the three groups in a grey area, showing both the good side and the bad side of the groups in an equal way, and that the group's goal doesnt' fall in the extremist area. Though on that, the templar side are more problem than the other two, since as far as I know they now want to exterminate the mages, not simply putting them back in the Circle.

Why wouldn't you buy the game? It makes perfect sense. Not only are the templars enemies of both the mages and Chantry, they literally can't win for narrative reasons. Neither killing all of the mages nor forcing them all back into the Circle will happen; the former is obvious and the latter would make both DA3 and 2 completely meaningless. Not only that, I recall a dev comment that the purpose of the mage rebellion was to allow for mages to appear outside the Circle. So the templars are going to lose this war; the only question is how, exactly.

[GodWood]

Xilizhra wrote...
Why wouldn't you buy the game?

Not everyone loves bad writing like you.

[Wulfram]

Cassandra, Leliana and the Divine are all "good guys", basically. So's Sebastian. Elthina is depicted as having her heart in the right place. So I don't think the Chantry as a whole is at risk of going Cerberus on us.

The newly independent Templar order probably won't be presented as good guys, though there will presumably be some fairly decent types among it. As well as more moderate Templars who remained loyal to the Divine.

More mages who aren't crazy or possessed would be nice, including some who are still radical, violent or antagonists. I think the crazyness of mages was actually intended to help give justification to the Templars, but it ends up feeling tired and silly.

[Xilizhra]

More mages who aren't crazy or possessed would be nice, including some who are still radical, violent or antagonists. I think the crazyness of mages was actually intended to help give justification to the Templars, but it ends up feeling tired and silly.

And David Gaider admitted that they overexposed the nutty mages without giving sufficient time to the decent ones. The fact that he didn't say the same about the templars leads me to suspect that they, on the other hand, had a fair proportional view given in DA2. For whatever that means.

[GodWood]

Wulfram wrote...
I think the crazyness of mages was actually intended to help give justification to the Templars, but it ends up feeling tired and silly.

And pointless. There's already enough justification for the templars without making all the mages butt**** insane and there's an argument to be made for the mages without turning templars into sadistic rapists.

[The Elder King]

Xilizhra wrote...

Why wouldn't you buy the game? It makes perfect sense. Not only are the templars enemies of both the mages and Chantry, they literally can't win for narrative reasons. Neither killing all of the mages nor forcing them all back into the Circle will happen; the former is obvious and the latter would make both DA3 and 2 completely meaningless. Not only that, I recall a dev comment that the purpose of the mage rebellion was to allow for mages to appear outside the Circle. So the templars are going to lose this war; the only question is how, exactly.

I don't like to be forced to side with a faction. I think that Bioware can create a good story in which you can side with either templars, mages and the Chantry and have different outcomes. They could change the templars's objective in returning the mages in the Circle in the same position as they were in before, if they win the war since the Chantry seems to have the intention of changing the way mages are treated). And I don't think having the mages back in the Circle would be meaningless. Not every rebellion ended up with freedom. As an Italian, I knew that well.
That doesn't mean I'll join the templars. I probably wouldn't in my main playthrough, and in most of my playthrough, since even having the mages back in the Circle in the same condition of B.V. (before Vengeance) is not what I want. What I want is the freedom for the PC of choosing the side. It's the same as of ME3, in which I wanted the choice of choosing between the Alliance and Cerberus, despite not being a fan of Cerberus.
Plus, in DA they already made us choose between templars and mages twice, with a more important role in the second game. The choice should be present in the third too.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Xilizhra wrote...

The Chantry is utterly defanged. I doubt they can be a threat at all.

As for the alleged grayness... I would handle it by contesting mage rebellion with Chantry control as the positions taken by the player, but both sides would oppose the templar "every mage must die" policy, and probably contest them as an enemy army. Like Cerberus, the templars have never really been anything other than what they are now.

Interesting..except it does nothing to adress the greyness issue when you immediately discount there was any greyness in the first place (contrary to DG's claims).

You do not want to see it a grey issue in the first place, you just want to further justify your templar hate.

So please, either stick to the topic and contribute a usefull idea, or don't bother posting at all.
The last thing anyone needs is for this thread to turn into another templar/mage debate.

[The Hierophant]

GodWood wrote...

Wulfram wrote...
I think the crazyness of mages was actually intended to help give justification to the Templars, but it ends up feeling tired and silly.

And pointless. There's already enough justification for the templars without making all the mages butt**** insane and there's an argument to be made for the mages without turning templars into sadistic rapists.

True, and Orsino's tranformation even when siding with the mages was facepalm worthy.

[The Elder King]

GodWood wrote...

Wulfram wrote...
I think the crazyness of mages was actually intended to help give justification to the Templars, but it ends up feeling tired and silly.

And pointless. There's already enough justification for the templars without making all the mages butt**** insane and there's an argument to be made for the mages without turning templars into sadistic rapists.

I agree. I should thank Anders for being the one who blew up the Chantry, otherwise I would've been really hard to choose a side in The Last Straw, given how bad both groups were presented at the point (and how bad the groups were presented after the choice).

[Lotion Soronarr]

SgtElias wrote...

To be entirely honest, I have no idea whatsoever. I'm pretty adamantly pro-mage, and always have been, so saying it'd be easy for me to be impartial between the factions is a blatant lie. That's something I'm working toward in my own writing; I'm always impressed when others can write points of view with which they completely disagree without completely skewering the other side.

A good way to train that skill is to walk into a debate, flip a coin to pick a side and try to argue for them...or better yet, against the other side.

I do that occasionally.

[SgtElias]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

A good way to train that skill is to walk into a debate, flip a coin to pick a side and try to argue for them...or better yet, against the other side.

I do that occasionally.

I really only do that to my mother. Mostly because the reaction is always worth it.

Still, it's something I need to work on.

[nightscrawl]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

And for everyone else - how would you deal with this if you were the writer?
What would you do to mantain the greyness?

Interesting post OP.

I think that one thing (which they apparently want to do**) that would help keep the gray factor would be an increased use of blood magic to manipulate people, rather than the whole demon thing. Honestly, I got so sick of all the demons in DA2. All the damn demons are partly why this whole mage/templar thing is getting a bit old for me (and my canon play is a mage!)

We've seen bits here and there of the blood magic manipulation, but we have yet to use it ourselves, and certainly not in any meaningful (read: affects the plot) way. To me, this is the most dangerous factor, not the stupid demons.




** relevant quotes posted...

David: You're right. One of the plans, when Mike's talking about "having more consequences for your choices," one of those consequences will be for the class you play, in particular the specialization you play. A lot of it came down to was how much we could do for each specialization. And the hard part for something like Blood Mage specifically was that it has such a large presence in the world that belies the fact that it's just one of a number of specializations, right? So, it was hard to do it properly. But what we would LIKE to do is have each of the specializations be more "special," in terms not only of how you get it, but what happens once you've gotten it. So yes, I would say, definitely we're looking at having more recognition by the world of things like "I am a Blood Mage." Yeah.

David: It's not corruption in the way that the Blight is a corruption... A lot of it is opinion and fear, [of] the things that a Blood Mage is capable of. Which, as we're moving forward, we'd like to show that a little bit more, especially the mind control. And it is based on people who have that kind of power, the ability to influence other people's minds, the temptation to misuse it is a corruption. That kind of power is corrupting, right? That's the danger, not a physical "I suddenly turn to the dark side and my eyes have gone black" kind of corruption.

[Nightdragon8]

Darth Death wrote...

Mage/Templar/Chantry are all crazy. "Greyness" doesn't exist after DA2.

its just Red/Blue/Green choices is all


It only got out of wack in Kirikwall. yea the atrocittes that the templars did there where barbaric to say the least.

It
seems at the moment that at least the Chantry is trying to put things
back together, and considering they where trying to find out WTF
happened.

So at the moment, the Chantry are the "good guys"
trying to get both sides to stop. They really dont lose there greyness
as it where. Because really the whole mess of locking up mages was the
Chantry's doing. The Templar are set up as the police to guard the
mages. While the mages are locked up like deased people.

But with mages as a group can be teh biggest threat considering what happened in Treventor considering tehy rule the place like a bunch of thugs, that would make Dark Eldar proud from Warhammer 40K.

Modifié par Nightdragon8, 22 octobre 2012 - 01:27 .

[Xilizhra]

I don't like to be forced to side with a faction. I think that Bioware can create a good story in which you can side with either templars, mages and the Chantry and have different outcomes. They could change the templars's objective in returning the mages in the Circle in the same position as they were in before, if they win the war since the Chantry seems to have the intention of changing the way mages are treated). And I don't think having the mages back in the Circle would be meaningless. Not every rebellion ended up with freedom. As an Italian, I knew that well.

Meaningless in a narrative sense. There's no point in making a game with a doomed rebellion in this sense.

Interesting..except it does nothing to adress the greyness issue when you immediately discount there was any greyness in the first place (contrary to DG's claims).

You do not want to see it a grey issue in the first place, you just want to further justify your templar hate.

So please, either stick to the topic and contribute a usefull idea, or don't bother posting at all.
The last thing anyone needs is for this thread to turn into another templar/mage debate.

Every single conflict between humans is gray. I won't discount that.

David: It's not corruption in the way that the Blight is a corruption... A lot of it is opinion and fear, [of] the things that a Blood Mage is capable of. Which, as we're moving forward, we'd like to show that a little bit more, especially the mind control. And it is based on people who have that kind of power, the ability to influence other people's minds, the temptation to misuse it is a corruption. That kind of power is corrupting, right? That's the danger, not a physical "I suddenly turn to the dark side and my eyes have gone black" kind of corruption.

Interesting, but I will not succumb to any corruption.

[The Elder King]

Xilizhra wrote...

I don't like to be forced to side with a faction. I think that Bioware can create a good story in which you can side with either templars, mages and the Chantry and have different outcomes. They could change the templars's objective in returning the mages in the Circle in the same position as they were in before, if they win the war since the Chantry seems to have the intention of changing the way mages are treated). And I don't think having the mages back in the Circle would be meaningless. Not every rebellion ended up with freedom. As an Italian, I knew that well.

Meaningless in a narrative sense. There's no point in making a game with a doomed rebellion in this sense.

The rebellion shouldn't be necessary doomed. One of the option will doom the rebellion. One surely not, and the other (if present) will be different from the previous options.
I don't want to have the conflict be resolved in one way. I want more different outcomes.

[Xilizhra]

hhh89 wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

I don't like to be forced to side with a faction. I think that Bioware can create a good story in which you can side with either templars, mages and the Chantry and have different outcomes. They could change the templars's objective in returning the mages in the Circle in the same position as they were in before, if they win the war since the Chantry seems to have the intention of changing the way mages are treated). And I don't think having the mages back in the Circle would be meaningless. Not every rebellion ended up with freedom. As an Italian, I knew that well.

Meaningless in a narrative sense. There's no point in making a game with a doomed rebellion in this sense.

The rebellion shouldn't be necessary doomed. One of the option will doom the rebellion. One surely not, and the other (if present) will be different from the previous options.
I don't want to have the conflict be resolved in one way. I want more different outcomes.

It can only be resolved in one way, otherwise the world will diverge too far to follow it in the next game. And as dedicated templar fans are quite rare (the majority seems to be split between mage fans and "everyone is dumb"), it's far safer and more narratively interesting for the mage-leaning side to be the one that wins.

[nightscrawl]

Xilizhra wrote...

Interesting, but I will not succumb to any corruption.

Heh you say that, but even in DA2 you can use the excuse of Hawke trying to find her mother when Gascard uses the blood to find the Quentin. None of her friends say anything against it and there aren't even any rivalry points from people like Anders or Fenris who would normally be against the use of blood magic.

It can be a slippery slope: "I'll just nudge this person on one small issue, it's going to help people in the end," "Oh I'll make so-and-so forget that he saw me, what he doesn't know can't hurt him... or me," and so on and so forth.

Sure, YOU might be "strong enough to resist temptation," and it might even be reasonable to assume that our PC, being the exceptional person they usually are, will be able to resist, but that doesn't apply to ALL mages.

[Xilizhra]

Heh you say that, but even in DA2 you can use the excuse of Hawke trying to find her mother when Gascard uses the blood to find the Quentin. None of her friends say anything against it and there aren't even any rivalry points from people like Anders or Fenris who would normally be against the use of blood magic.

Obviously. That isn't corruption. I fully intend to be a blood mage, but I won't become corrupt.

It can be a slippery slope: "I'll just nudge this person on one small issue, it's going to help people in the end," "Oh I'll make so-and-so forget that he saw me, what he doesn't know can't hurt him... or me," and so on and so forth.

Keep one's purpose in mind. I won't hesitate to use mind control in any situation, if it'll serve the greatest possible good. As DA has no issue with supposedly immoral actions preventing you from making the full range of choices in the future, I don't believe this will amount to any moral corruption in-game either.

Sure, YOU might be "strong enough to resist temptation," and it might even be reasonable to assume that our PC, being the exceptional person they usually are, will be able to resist, but that doesn't apply to ALL mages.

How is that relevant to what I said?