155 réponses à ce sujet

[smallwhippet]

Salaya wrote...

Well, I must say that all the trouble with the mage-templar thig in DA2 bored me to tears. I think it was one of the laziest plot directions the writers could take. This, and a qunari war, are the worst developments DA universe could get.

Instead of trying to do something original in a given context (the context presented in DA:O) they take one of the definitory lore elements and simply destroy it. As many other things, it shows the little respect the new direction of DA has for what Origins had accomplished. It is something like "Hey, Origins had such a boring context, so much equilibrium and political issues... let's add more explosions, yay!". Sigh.

Clearly, the opinion you express in your first paragraph is something to which you are entitled, and with which others may disagree. 

I assume that your second paragraph is an attempt to define what you mean by 'lazy'. However, I am struggling to make sense of what you have written. 
Do you perceive the events of DA2 as not occurring within the context (ie. the physical, societal and political universe) set up by DA:O?
What, exactly, do you mean by 'original'? 
How is one of the elements of lore destroyed?
Did you really feel that equilibrium was a defining feature of DA:O?

These are just a few of the questions which raise themselves.

This is not intended to sound hostile: I would simply like to know what you mean.

[Plaintiff]

BoBear wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

GodWood wrote...

It's quite an interesting dilemma (Freedom Vs. Security and all that). The problem is Bioware is likely to explore it with the subtley of a mammoth to the face.

Plaintiff wrote...
Everyone has the right to defend their lives and their freedom with all the tools at their disposal. If the mages have the best tools, then that's just tough luck for everyone else.

Remember that crypto-social Darwinist mage supremacism you said you didn't advocate.

You're advocating it.

I very clearly used the word defend.

Please actually read the words I am typing, or refrain from responding.

It was the "If the mages have the best tools, then that's just tough luck for everyone else" that advocates it. Nothing to do with the word defend.

It advocates nothing of the kind. You don't get to just divorce random sentences from their context. I clearly only advocate the use of those tools in self defense.

[fchopin]

Herr Uhl wrote...

fchopin wrote...

Yep, found them boring in DA2 so i hope they show more depth in DA3 or we will die from boredom, or even better create a new enemy that has more life.

Do you want aliens? I think Qunari, civil wars, other nations warring, demons, darkspawn and the mage templar thing should suffice at providing antagonists.

The Qunari was good in DA2 but found nothing interesting in the mage templar dispute, it was more like kids arguing with each other and no one taking any responsibility for their actions while Hawke just looked on.
 
Not what i call exciting.

[cowoline]

I really enjoyed the political dilemma of it all. There are so many games where it's just "here is a big guy; at him boys!" I rather like these nuances and I am really looking forward to help liberating the mages and hopefully elves too.

[fchopin]

cowoline wrote...

I really enjoyed the political dilemma of it all. There are so many games where it's just "here is a big guy; at him boys!" I rather like these nuances and I am really looking forward to help liberating the mages and hopefully elves too.

I don’t see any political drama, i only saw a magical stone which makes people crazy so we can kill everyone in the game.
 
Where is the political drama in that?
 
If they showed political drama with real people who you could discuss and come to some sort of agreement it would have been different, instead we get magical stones to produce the killing fields.

[Warden661]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Drasanil wrote...

On the whole I find the mage 'dilemma' to be rather tedious, in part because circles are actually a rather sensible solution to the problem. It's not their existence or purpose that is actually harmful to mages, rather the contrary they're their to keep both mages and civilians safe. The real heart of the issue is that the circle system is one that lacks proper oversight and therefor lends itself to easy abuse by those that administer it.

The real issue is that the perfect oversight many want is unnatanable.

The oversight we have today - it cannot be recreated in Thedas. The mechanism and the requirements aren't in place.

The oversight the Circles have is actually quite good for the time period. It's not very good by our standards, but our standards aren't directly applicable to TheDas.

Any improvement to the Circle oversight will be minor.

I agree that the issue is "tedious" because it's one that doesn't have a 'right' or 'wrong' answer (so to speak). What is right and wrong on this subject is completly someones opinion. I'm really interested in seeing how Bioware will end a conflict like this, if it can be ended at all, which I don't think it can. Anything they come up with will probably be a compromise type deal.

In regards to the "time period" thing. I would say that just because Thedas is reminiscent of our medieval times doesn't mean the time lines are the same. What I mean is that Thedas doesn't have to progress at the same pace as our world. Just because Thedas looks sort of like our medieval times doesn't mean it has to have the same "oversight" as our medieval times.

[Warden661]

Plaintiff wrote...

BoBear wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

GodWood wrote...

It's quite an interesting dilemma (Freedom Vs. Security and all that). The problem is Bioware is likely to explore it with the subtley of a mammoth to the face.

Plaintiff wrote...
Everyone has the right to defend their lives and their freedom with all the tools at their disposal. If the mages have the best tools, then that's just tough luck for everyone else.

Remember that crypto-social Darwinist mage supremacism you said you didn't advocate.

You're advocating it.

I very clearly used the word defend.

Please actually read the words I am typing, or refrain from responding.

It was the "If the mages have the best tools, then that's just tough luck for everyone else" that advocates it. Nothing to do with the word defend.

It advocates nothing of the kind. You don't get to just divorce random sentences from their context. I clearly only advocate the use of those tools in self defense.

Well ok. You advocate self-defense, but you also advocate that mages have the best tools for self-defense. And doesn't survival of the fittest have everything to do with self-defense? That's what survival of the fittest is, those with the best tools live on. You think mages have the best tools to live on. That's what I got out of those two sentences.

Modifié par BoBear, 22 novembre 2012 - 01:10 .

[Salaya]

smallwhippet wrote...

Salaya wrote...

Lots of idiotic things

Clearly, the opinion you express in your first paragraph is something to which you are entitled, and with which others may disagree. 

Yes, of course. Never tried to do something different than express my own perspective 

smallwhippet wrote...
I assume that your second paragraph is an attempt to define what you mean by 'lazy'. However, I am struggling to make sense of what you have written. 
Do you perceive the events of DA2 as not occurring within the context (ie. the physical, societal and political universe) set up by DA:O? 

English is not my first language, so, probably, thats the reason anyone has problems with my posts. Anyway, I'll try to explain myself: I perceive DA2 ocurring in DA context, but in a significantly different one, in a radical sense. The abrupt change that DA2 brings is extremely artifficial; I sense that because I perceived the equilibrium with Mages-Templars something inherent to DA universe in Origins. It was something in the game context that could bring many kinds of plots or stories, but always assuming the equilibrium was present. Of course, you can bring a new plot-story by simply destroying its existence, but I find this a lazy path to take -but just because I think it's extremely easy and predictable-.

smallwhippet wrote...
What, exactly, do you mean by 'original'?

Something that was not as easy to do as Templar-Mage war. Or a qunari conflict. Or any other radical plot device that simply puts out  of the way a context support in a radical way. I find that breaking the context in such a way is way too easy. Hence, I find it lazy. 

smallwhippet wrote...
How is one of the elements of lore destroyed?

The Templar reason of existence; the towers, the circles, the mages and its routine... al the rich context that this equilibrium in the lore provided, simply vanishes with a plot event as radical as this.

smallwhippet wrote...
Did you really feel that equilibrium was a defining feature of DA:O?

Not a defining feature of DA:O, but a defining feature of many elements in DA lore as presented in Origins. The tension with the qunari, the chantry, the templars-mages, the eternal war for the dwarves, the tension with dalish elves... I feel that there are lots of equilibrium relations in the lore. I think playing with this equilibriums it is something very interesting. Breaking one to pieces? Not so much.

smallwhippet wrote...
This is not intended to sound hostile: I would simply like to know what you mean.

Hope I was able to explain myself better. DA2 was a big disappointment for me and sometimes I write inflammatory opinions without realizing myself.

Modifié par Salaya, 22 novembre 2012 - 01:17 .

[PinkysPain]

Herr Uhl wrote...
Do you want aliens? I think Qunari, civil wars, other nations warring, demons, darkspawn and the mage templar thing should suffice at providing antagonists.

I want to go to the Black City discover the source of the Blights and end them once and for all ... this was clearly the original plan in DA:O in my opinion, but somewhere along the line Bioware gave up on Epic and embraced Grim Dark status quo preserving story telling.

PS. or maybe DA2 was just the status quo preserving middle child ...

Modifié par PinkysPain, 22 novembre 2012 - 01:27 .

[Mistress9Nine]

PinkysPain wrote...
I want to go to the Black City discover the source of the Blights and end them once and for all ... this was clearly the original plan in DA:O in my opinion, but somewhere along the line Bioware gave up on Epic and embraced Grim Dark status quo preserving story telling.

How was that ever "the original plan"? Dragon Age is a really interesting multi-faceted world. Just because you choose to only focus on the darkspawn doesn't mean the writers wanted that too. I could argue that all games should focus on the warden because clrearly they planned a trilogy around him/her, or that all DA games should be set in Ferelden because that was clearly what BioWare intended until EA made them expand the world, because they are an evil greedy corporation. I could go on...

Modifié par Mistress9Nine, 22 novembre 2012 - 01:32 .

[redneck nosferatu]

PinkysPain wrote...

I want to go to the Black City discover the source of the Blights and end them once and for all ... this was clearly the original plan in DA:O in my opinion, but somewhere along the line Bioware gave up on Epic and embraced Grim Dark status quo preserving story telling.

PS. or maybe DA2 was just the status quo preserving middle child ...

I dunno. Any and all criticism of DA2 and the Dragon Age IP aside, preserving the status quo is hardly something the setting seems guilty of. DA2 rather explosively shattered that with its endgame.

Modifié par redneck nosferatu, 22 novembre 2012 - 01:33 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

BoBear wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

The real issue is that the perfect oversight many want is unnatanable.

The oversight we have today - it cannot be recreated in Thedas. The mechanism and the requirements aren't in place.

The oversight the Circles have is actually quite good for the time period. It's not very good by our standards, but our standards aren't directly applicable to TheDas.

Any improvement to the Circle oversight will be minor.

I agree that the issue is "tedious" because it's one that doesn't have a 'right' or 'wrong' answer (so to speak). What is right and wrong on this subject is completly someones opinion. I'm really interested in seeing how Bioware will end a conflict like this, if it can be ended at all, which I don't think it can. Anything they come up with will probably be a compromise type deal.

In regards to the "time period" thing. I would say that just because Thedas is reminiscent of our medieval times doesn't mean the time lines are the same. What I mean is that Thedas doesn't have to progress at the same pace as our world. Just because Thedas looks sort of like our medieval times doesn't mean it has to have the same "oversight" as our medieval times.

Actually, it kinda does.

The methods are a product of technological, social and cultural development.
Ease of communication, transportation, logistics, as well as detective methods - all of those things matter.

Without CSI, how easy it is to determine guilt?
Without fast travel and instant communication, how easy is to organize and keep an eye on a large force?

If templars had acess to waht we have, tehy would keep in constant radio contact with the Knight-Commander while out on patrols. The KC would have oversight. Heck, they might even have helmet-cams.
Without all of that, the highest ranking templar in the field has direct command. It has to work that way - not only for tempalrs, but for any organization in Thedas.

[SpEcIaLRyAn]

Right now the situation is not that interesting to me. Once I play the game I'll probably be more invested.

[Plaintiff]

BoBear wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

BoBear wrote...

Plaintiff wrote...

GodWood wrote...

It's quite an interesting dilemma (Freedom Vs. Security and all that). The problem is Bioware is likely to explore it with the subtley of a mammoth to the face.

Plaintiff wrote...
Everyone has the right to defend their lives and their freedom with all the tools at their disposal. If the mages have the best tools, then that's just tough luck for everyone else.

Remember that crypto-social Darwinist mage supremacism you said you didn't advocate.

You're advocating it.

I very clearly used the word defend.

Please actually read the words I am typing, or refrain from responding.

It was the "If the mages have the best tools, then that's just tough luck for everyone else" that advocates it. Nothing to do with the word defend.

It advocates nothing of the kind. You don't get to just divorce random sentences from their context. I clearly only advocate the use of those tools in self defense.

Well ok. You advocate self-defense, but you also advocate that mages have the best tools for self-defense. And doesn't survival of the fittest have everything to do with self-defense? That's what survival of the fittest is, those with the best tools live on. You think mages have the best tools to live on. That's what I got out of those two sentences.

I said "if", because it's not certain. I think in combat generally, a mage will overcome a non-mage, sure. But magic comes with its own drawbacks and inherent risks.

There's no reason to suppose that one group will live on while another dies. Mages are not a separate species, at least not yet. They're more like a common genetic mutation. A mage can be produced from non-mages and vice versa.

It's been implied that mages are steadily increasing in numbers, and we may well reach a point where everybody is a mage, but barring any radical plot developments, I dare say that won't happen for several hundred years at least.

But the question of who is the 'fittest for survival' need never come up. There is no reason to assume that mages and non-mages could not eventually co-exist peacefully. Further study into the nature of magic and the Fade might well provide a solution that satisfies all. It also may not, but as long as religious bias and superstition are allowed to run the show, we'll never find out.

[Darth Death]

I want there to be a victor based on players' decision. This childish battle has gone on long enough.

[smallwhippet]

Salaya wrote...

smallwhippet wrote...

Salaya wrote...

Lots of idiotic things

Clearly, the opinion you express in your first paragraph is something to which you are entitled, and with which others may disagree. 

Yes, of course. Never tried to do something different than express my own perspective 

smallwhippet wrote...
I assume that your second paragraph is an attempt to define what you mean by 'lazy'. However, I am struggling to make sense of what you have written. 
Do you perceive the events of DA2 as not occurring within the context (ie. the physical, societal and political universe) set up by DA:O? 

English is not my first language, so, probably, thats the reason anyone has problems with my posts. Anyway, I'll try to explain myself: I perceive DA2 ocurring in DA context, but in a significantly different one, in a radical sense. The abrupt change that DA2 brings is extremely artifficial; I sense that because I perceived the equilibrium with Mages-Templars something inherent to DA universe in Origins. It was something in the game context that could bring many kinds of plots or stories, but always assuming the equilibrium was present. Of course, you can bring a new plot-story by simply destroying its existence, but I find this a lazy path to take -but just because I think it's extremely easy and predictable-.

smallwhippet wrote...
What, exactly, do you mean by 'original'?

Something that was not as easy to do as Templar-Mage war. Or a qunari conflict. Or any other radical plot device that simply puts out  of the way a context support in a radical way. I find that breaking the context in such a way is way too easy. Hence, I find it lazy. 

smallwhippet wrote...
How is one of the elements of lore destroyed?

The Templar reason of existence; the towers, the circles, the mages and its routine... al the rich context that this equilibrium in the lore provided, simply vanishes with a plot event as radical as this.

smallwhippet wrote...
Did you really feel that equilibrium was a defining feature of DA:O?

Not a defining feature of DA:O, but a defining feature of many elements in DA lore as presented in Origins. The tension with the qunari, the chantry, the templars-mages, the eternal war for the dwarves, the tension with dalish elves... I feel that there are lots of equilibrium relations in the lore. I think playing with this equilibriums it is something very interesting. Breaking one to pieces? Not so much.

smallwhippet wrote...
This is not intended to sound hostile: I would simply like to know what you mean.

Hope I was able to explain myself better. DA2 was a big disappointment for me and sometimes I write inflammatory opinions without realizing myself.

Thanks. PM incoming...

[Sejborg]

At this point I am kind of bored with the whole templar vs. mages conflict.

Templar suppressing mages?
Blurrrhhh, blood magic as self defense!
More suppressing needed then!!!
Blurrhhh even more blood magic is needed!!!
Blurrrrhhh all mages must die because of plot device!!!!
Blurrrhhh I suck your blood - I mean blood magic and abomination because of stupid!!!!!

[AstraDrakkar]

I pretty much got my fill of the Mage/Templar conflict from DA2. I hated both of them by the end of the game and wanted to just nuke Thedas. If DA3 resolves this issue, I'm all for it. I hope there is more to DA3 than just the Mage/Templar issue, however. Otherwise I will probably become bored with the game quickly.

[Harle Cerulean]

Eh. I wouldn't say I'm tired of it as much as I'm not that thrilled about it because I honestly can't see a resolution occurring that I would find satisfactory or that I would feel covers the consequences properly. Returning to the status quo but harsher would be pretty poor storytelling, to spread it out over two games just for the sake of "And now things are WORSE!" And going to the the other extreme and abolishing the Circles entirely would have so many terrible effects, I wouldn't be able to believe it if they didn't come up. (And no, I'm not solely talking about mages going abomination and killing people, I'm talking about things like 'Farmer John can't afford a mage tutor for his mage kid and there isn't a school anymore, so the kid never learns and one day he gets angry at Farmer John for telling him to do his chores and accidentally kills Farmer John with magic that responded to his emotions.')

And compromise, at this point, seems to be pretty far out of reach. The mages don't want to compromise because they don't give a **** about anything besides "I DO WHAT I WANT." The templars don't want to compromise because they see mages as having already gone beyond hope.

Whee. Just what I want to play with.

(Sarcasm.)

[TCBC_Freak]

To me (I am still entertained by the issue by the way) the Mage vs Templar issue is the same as the Qun vs Everyone else issue we just haven't been exposed as much to that problem. There can't be real peace between the Qun and any other ideas. Its sort of the same here, there can't really be a lasting peace between mages and non-mages. An peace will be temporary and a just a band-aid over a broken festering wound. There isn't a solution because it is an insolvable problem. Just my two cents.

[Foreste]

cowoline wrote...

I really enjoyed the political dilemma of it all. There are so many games where it's just "here is a big guy; at him boys!" I rather like these nuances and I am really looking forward to help liberating the mages and hopefully elves too.

Yes this

[lunamoondragon]

As someone who tends to play a mage character it's been a forefront of my character's identity that I've enjoyed exploring.
But I hope DA3 handles it similarly to Dragon Age: Origins; you can see it clearly but it's not shoved in your face. You don't constantly hear about why mages are bad or the Circle is unfair, but occasionally you would run into the abomination or the bigot that would draw your attention to the issue on one side or the other. 
It was very much about showing, not telling. That's what I liked, it was natural and not always shoved into your attention. The issue itself was not the annoyance, it was the execution.

[Nefla]

Sejborg wrote...

At this point I am kind of bored with the whole templar vs. mages conflict.

Templar suppressing mages?
Blurrrhhh, blood magic as self defense!
More suppressing needed then!!!
Blurrhhh even more blood magic is needed!!!
Blurrrrhhh all mages must die because of plot device!!!!
Blurrrhhh I suck your blood - I mean blood magic and abomination because of stupid!!!!!

DA2 in a nutshell, I also found it very shallow, illogical, and boring.

[Statulos]

I think a massive peasant uprising would be far more fun to play.

[Kajagoogoo3]

 Yes, I am interested to see what happens to either side. Will the mages make another Tevinter Imperium? Will the Templars limit the use of magic even more?