38 réponses à ce sujet

[Celene II]

DAO (SPOILS FOR A 3 year old game)



Oh I have a choice between 2 dwarfs and who rules the City of Orzammar?

Interesting. I pick A.

Ending shows up, oh hey your pick stank, only bad things happened, and things are worse then ever for this portion of the game.

Please dont do this, dont decide that oh you get some choices here, but one of them is going to be awful so pick the other one.

I can just imagine how hard i would throw the disk out of my computer if at the end of DA:I and i was able to end the game pro mage, and  the writers decided that oh you picked mages, well they all fell to the influence of blood magic and became a 2nd tevinter imperium

People want to be proud and happy of their decisions. I didnt decide something to see my path go down in flames.

[karushna5]

I heartily disagree, not all choices can be good or it wouldnt be a game with choices because none of them mattered. I think you want the choices you pick to be good, and the choices you don't pick will be bad but some of the game gives you that surprise, I would much rather pick a bad choice and bad things to happen and thus a consequence came out of it, then no matter what I do the same thing happens

That said I am sure that it won't be that cut and dry with the Devs. They will probably make being pro mage a difficult road where you have to give up something to get it to work. I think people think the Devs are anti mage, but they also made mages so empathetic as well. I think they show them as morally grey, which I think almost all causes that includes a war ends up being.

[NoForgiveness]

uhhh.... could u be more specific about this dwarf choice?

[Neoleviathan]

Don't think I would have so much a problem with that. Its good to see the consequences of your actions, & sure having them result way too negatively or even too positively too often would be a bit frustrating. But I'd be happy if a pick suprised me, maybe someone I liked does a terrible job & maybe the guy I hated or the option I chose as a joke turn around & do something majorly awesome. What would bother me is seeing more results like with Anderson/Udina to counciler, outcomes where your story choice just gets ignored & replaced.
I couldn't get past that boss in the deap roads though during I think act one of the second game so I don't have to worry about the file transfer issue so much this time around, but I understand your conserns.

[MaggieSh]

I think the dwarf choice was handeled really well.
A) Your brother's murderer, who blamed it on you and had you exiled, and potentially also killed your father. However, he's also a great leader, and will bring a thousand wonderful things to the kingdom.
Knew you were innocent, stuck up for you, made sure your dying dad knew you were innocent. However, he sucks as a king, isolates the kingdom, is generally terrible at ruling.

I think it's very nice. Your choices can't always be black and white, and they can't always be good. Bioware is trying to build a 'slightly' realistic story here, not one where you can do no wrong.

[Iakus]

 If we are to be given choices.  And these chocies have consequences, then it only makes sense that some of the consequences be "good" or "bad"

With this particular choice, there are clues how it will turn out if you investigate teh candidates enough.

Modifié par iakus, 08 janvier 2013 - 06:26 .

[XX-Pyro]

"I want every ending to be a happy one regardless of my choices." No. I heartily disagree.

[Twisted Path]

Choices that seem right at the time but have unintended consequences are great. Alpha Protocol did that sort of thing really well a couple of times, though they were a little more subtle than the "Woops, you doomed Orzamar," instance the OP is talking about.

I don't mind reading in an ending slide that I accidentally got some group of people killed later on by solving a quest a certain way that seemed like a good idea but maybe wasn't. It's much better than DA2's theme of failure being the only option no matter what you do.

[Direwolf0294]

MR_PN wrote...

uhhh.... could u be more specific about this dwarf choice?

If you pick Harrowmount to rule (I think that's his name), the kind, conservative dwarf, Orzammar becomes withdrawn from the world and the dwarven people suffer (I think that's what happens, I've never chosen him to rule). If you choose the a-hole dwarf to rule he opens up Orzammar to the rest of the world and the dwarves prosper.

[Sacred_Fantasy]

Celene II wrote...

DAO (SPOILS FOR A 3 year old game)



Oh I have a choice between 2 dwarfs and who rules the City of Orzammar?

Interesting. I pick A.

Ending shows up, oh hey your pick stank, only bad things happened, and things are worse then ever for this portion of the game.

Please dont do this, dont decide that oh you get some choices here, but one of them is going to be awful so pick the other one.

If you can't deal with your own consequences then how are you suppose to make a choice? or would you rather have complete meaningless consequences irrelevant to all choices as shown by DA 2's and ME 3's? I can assure you, it's not going to be received well.
 

Celene II wrote...

I can just imagine how hard i would throw the disk out of my computer if at the end of DA:I and i was able to end the game pro mage, and  the writers decided that oh you picked mages, well they all fell to the influence of blood magic and became a 2nd tevinter imperium
 
People want to be proud and happy of their decisions. I didnt decide something to see my path go down in flames.

The game already inform you the consequences of blood magic but you continue  to choose to be stubborn to use it. So deal with the consequences. It's you who make the call. If you don't like the consequences of your choices then don't use blood magic. It's simple. 

Modifié par Sacred_Fantasy, 08 janvier 2013 - 08:23 .

[PsychoBlonde]

 I think they presented the epilogue for the Bhelen/Harrowmont choice the way they did because Bhelen was presented as being shifty but progressive and Harrowmont as being more or less honorable but also tradition-bound, and this was the only way they could come up with to make this a "grey" choice.  Not saying it was a good method, mind you.

The thing is--even the epilogue is very short-term.  Are you sure you believe that Bhelen's tyranny was good for the dwarves in the long run, or that Harrowmont's traditionalism was bad?  Bhelen's attitude may result in a huge backlash against progressivism once he gets kicked off the throne.  Harrowmont's narrow-mindedness may so expose the faults in dwarven traditionalism that the Assembly becomes considerably more open-minded after he passes.  Oh, and Harrowmont is OLD and doesn't have any heirs.  Bhelen's young.  It may take 50 years or more for him to kick off, and that's 50 years of a vicious power-mad paranoid tyrant on the throne.  Harrowmont will probably last through the current crisis and that's it.

Personally, I prefer if they don't do epilogues at all, but I'm not sure the purpose of the epilogues ought to be to pat you on the back.  I'd almost prefer that, should they return to a similar style of epilogue in the future, all the epilogues seem a bit ominous in a "hmm, I didn't think of that" sense.  They could point out minor(ish) details that you may not have noticed but turned out to be significant and might (or might not) cause you to evaluate your choice in a different light.  I'd enjoy this in the long run a lot more than just a bunch of repetitions of OMG YOU'RE SO OSSUM YOU SAVED PEOPLE YAY!!!

[Liamv2]

I want lot's of you screwed up choices it means i won't just choose the good options each time

[Huge_Beaver]

Ignore me if i'm completely missunderstanding what you're trying to say, but i agree if you're meaning if you do everything perfectly the ending is still ****ty, regardless of you're choices.

Like in DA2 when you're defending the mages and the templars doesn't get more than one feet inside the hall and you murder all of them before they even get close to the apprentices and still Orsino becomes bat**** insane. That is worse than the everythings happy no matter what you do ending.

[thebigbad1013]

I'll have to disagree with this as well. There should be consequences for our choices, both good and bad, and I don't particularly like the idea that no matter what we choose everything turns out sunshine and roses every single time. Sometimes things just go wrong even if you think you have done everything right and even though you had the best of intentions. In fact, I think the choice the OP mentioned about who rules Orzammar is actually a pretty awesome one because it seems by all accounts (to me anyway) that Harrowmont would be the better choice for ruler...but is he really?

If anything I would want more of these types of choices where it isn't always obvious what the "best" choice would be.

[upsettingshorts]

Yet the outcome of the Bhelan/Harrowmont choice was foreshadowed within the game itself, especially to thorough Wardens. Neither result would, given all the information available, be completely unexpected.

[New Display Name]

I agree with the OP. It's not much of a choice if one is bad, the other is good.
The dwarf portion of the game also did not do nearly a good enough job at outlining the differences between Bhelen and Harrowmont. You get bits and pieces from the npcs, but there really should have been greater focus on the political differences, especially as you're PICKING the king.

In addition, Bhelen had the distinct advantage of wanting to do away with the caste system. Most players aren't going to agree with the caste system.

Harrowmont's one advantage was his supposed honor - yet it resulted in nothing positive in the epilogues.

[Celene II]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

MR_PN wrote...

uhhh.... could u be more specific about this dwarf choice?

If you pick Harrowmount to rule (I think that's his name), the kind, conservative dwarf, Orzammar becomes withdrawn from the world and the dwarven people suffer (I think that's what happens, I've never chosen him to rule). If you choose the a-hole dwarf to rule he opens up Orzammar to the rest of the world and the dwarves prosper.

And he suffers through multiple assassination attempts and finally is killed by poison or he becomes a tyrannical ruler who wars with the surface.


So people love unintended consquences where you decide one of 2 ways and 1 of those two ways is awful and thats just fine. Well im glad people love lousy endings.  I for one dont like lousy ending without some foreshadowing so that i can see they are going to stick me with a horrible ending.

[Fast Jimmy]

Something tells me the OP hasn't beaten Origins too many times, since the variances between the Dwarven king range really widely.

If you support Harrowmont, you could have him being deposed after a few months by Bhelen supporters (which means a new king is selected, with unknown consequences). He could be totally ineffectual at getting anything done, where the Dwarven Houses rule Orammar. He could be isolationist to the point where Orzammar's economy suffered. If you saved the Anvil, Harrowmont uses it wisely and infrequently, meaning it was in wise, good hands.

If you supported Bhelen, he could be assassinated not long after the end of DA:O. He could war with the council and eventually have it completely dissolved, being a tyrannical ruler. He opens up trade with the surface and gives more rights to the casteless... but if you save the Anvil, you find out be uses it exactly how Caridin warned the Warden it was abused in his time, where all enemies of Bhelen are sent to permanent and unending slavery. And even if Bhelen opens up trade with the surface, he also starts a war with it to feed his insatiable desire for more golems.

So, to break it down:

Choose Bhelen, destroy the Anvil - Orzammar becomes more progressive, but begins losing ground to the Darkspawn without the golems.
Choose Bhelen, preserve the Anvil - Orzammar becomes more progressive, but Bhelen uses the Anvil to not just defend Orzammar, but to fuel a destructive and tyrannical reign.
Choose Harrowmont, destroy the Anvil - Orzammar becomes stagnant and the Darkspawn begin to overrun the little territory the Dwarves have left.
Choose Harrowmonst, preserve the Anvil - Orzammar becomes stagnant, but brought the wise use of the Anvil, the Dwarves regain some of their empire without becoming a mad man's crazy rule.

None of those outcomes are "good." I'd say picking Bhelen and keeping the Anvil is the worst, with picking Harrowmont and destroying the Anvil being second worst. The other two are a mixed bag, with neither being "great." One is a better Dwarven society at the expense of the. Facing near extinction, the other is a further entrenching of the old ways, but a return to the glory of the past as well.

All of these are grey, middle of the road outcomes. As it should be. The fact that you focus on one part of the ending, the social progression of the Dwarves, is fine for your cup of tea, but it is not taking into account all the ramifications the ending gave us.

[Wulfram]

The dwarf endings unfortunately rely on the same assumption that messes with the Alistair/Anora choice - that treacherous backstabbers are inherently more competent, and thus there's no need to actually establish this.

So experienced general and politician Harrowmont turns out to be utterly useless at everything, while Bhelen, who exhibits the skill and political judgement of a radish during the game, is written as some sort of genius in the epilogue

[nightscrawl]

Celene II wrote...

DAO (SPOILS FOR A 3 year old game)



Oh I have a choice between 2 dwarfs and who rules the City of Orzammar?

Interesting. I pick A.

Ending shows up, oh hey your pick stank, only bad things happened, and things are worse then ever for this portion of the game.

...

People want to be proud and happy of their decisions. I didnt decide something to see my path go down in flames.

Not only do I disagree, as karushna5 says not all choices can be good, I think this specific choice is a bad example.

While doing these quests you are shown very clearly what type of man you will be putting on the throne. You have a relatively decent man, who is also a hardline traditionalist on the one hand, and on the other you have a progressive who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his power, even if that includes shattering old barriers. Do you pick who you think is the better person, or who you think will have a lasting legacy of good changes, even if his own rule is tyrannical? THAT is your choice to make, and it IS a hard one. You (the player) have the additional benefit of seeing the result of your choice in the epilog of the game as it includes future information, whereas making a real choice of this type would require years to see a result.

You're right, people DO want to be proud and happy with the decisions if they made them in good faith that it was a good decision (as opposed to a player who is trying to destroy everything for kicks). Unfortunately, sometimes people make bad decisions. Whether that is because they didn't have all the information, they chose with their emotions rather than their brain, they let others influence them, any number of things.

The "I Win" choice, as in the case of Connor, is BAD. And you know what? I choose it every time because I want a happy ending. That's mostly on me of course, but Bioware put that choice in there, so I take it. I would prefer that most of their choices be gut-wrenchingly difficult, forcing players to reason things out in their own heads as to why they pick a certain choice.

Wulfram wrote...

So experienced general and politician Harrowmont turns out to be utterly useless at everything, while Bhelen, who exhibits the skill and political judgement of a radish during the game, is written as some sort of genius in the epilogue

I look at it totally differently than you. With metagame knowledge, the one and ONLY reason I would pick Behlen would be because I agree with his progressive views about opening up Orzammar and loosening caste restrictions. Unfortunately, the whole process of interacting with him during the quests is so repulsive that I can't bring myself to make the choice again. My first non-metagame choice doesn't count in this case because my first DAO play was as a dwarf noble, and I certainly wasn't siding with Behlen in that scenario.

It all depends on your views and priorities, and what you consider as a valuable tradeoff for Orzammar in the future.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 08 janvier 2013 - 02:42 .

[Fast Jimmy]

To bring in the Connor choice, I seem to remember Gaider expressing regret at making the choice have a happy ending with the choice of going to the Circle. It makes the choice inherently a no-brainer, once you know how it will work out.

Not everything should work out perfectly. Even the Dalish decision of freeing the Wolves results in Zathrien to sacrifice his life and the Lady of the Woods destroyed as well. Not exactly a "rough" set of choices, but it still adds at least a little darkness into the equation.

If one choice results in a good ending, but the other results in a GREAT ending, people will always choose the rosier outcome. If all choices end up being some good, some bad, it is much harder to choose a "right" choice. I think the Orzammar choices and how they affected the endings were fantastically done, as almost everything you do has some negative aspect to it.

[deatharmonic]

No, I disagree. I think there should be some negative consequences that play out as long as the consequence doesn't come completely out of left field, it would need to make sense.

Although I would like to also say that I wouldn't want every choice to come with 1 good and 1 bad consequence. I'd like to see a variety.

[Chashan]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

To bring in the Connor choice, I seem to remember Gaider expressing regret at making the choice have a happy ending with the choice of going to the Circle. It makes the choice inherently a no-brainer, once you know how it will work out.

Not everything should work out perfectly. Even the Dalish decision of freeing the Wolves results in Zathrien to sacrifice his life and the Lady of the Woods destroyed as well. Not exactly a "rough" set of choices, but it still adds at least a little darkness into the equation.

If one choice results in a good ending, but the other results in a GREAT ending, people will always choose the rosier outcome. If all choices end up being some good, some bad, it is much harder to choose a "right" choice. I think the Orzammar choices and how they affected the endings were fantastically done, as almost everything you do has some negative aspect to it.

I do not see a particular problem there, to be had; getting the business over with and either purging the brat or let Jowan do his thing right then and there appears very practical to me, if players decide they do not want to spend extra time on the affair. Of course, that does not mean I would have terribly minded if a delay in action would have resulted in, say, Arl Eamon's demise (come to think of it, that would have been quite good, actually).

I overall like how BW elected to handle things in DA:O overall, and hope they do similar in DA:I. Even though I was just a bit chagrined about the epilogue-slide for the golem-decision on my first and so-far only playthrough...

Speaking of which:

Choose Harrowmonst, preserve the Anvil - Orzammar becomes stagnant, but
brought the wise use of the Anvil, the Dwarves regain some of their
empire without becoming a mad man's crazy rule.

While this is my preferred outcome for the Orzammar-situation, I did not quite take that away from its slide. It has been awhile, but did that not mainly mention how Branka started raiding the surface or some-such? The wiki is not much help either in that regard.

[nightscrawl]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

... Bhelen's attitude may result in a huge backlash against progressivism once he gets kicked off the throne.

The thing is, once changes are set in place, and if people like them or (more likely) they profit by them, then it will be more difficult for the traditionalists to put the old ways back in.

To use a real life example, let's say that in four years the US gets a republican house, senate, and president. Something that was touted this past election was the reinstatement of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Four years from now, gays will have been serving in the military (and able to be out as gay) for four whole years without the world crashing down. I'm sure there will still be some people who don't want them to serve. Do you really think that most anyone is going to really care, now that the new policy has been in place? I really doubt it. People will have moved on.

Fast Jimmy wrote...

To bring in the Connor choice, I seem to remember Gaider expressing regret at making the choice have a happy ending with the choice of going to the Circle. It makes the choice inherently a no-brainer, once you know how it will work out.

Not everything should work out perfectly. Even the Dalish decision of freeing the Wolves results in Zathrien to sacrifice his life and the Lady of the Woods destroyed as well. Not exactly a "rough" set of choices, but it still adds at least a little darkness into the equation.

Oh I know DG has mentioned that, so I don't like to harp on it, but it is a good example for many topics regarding choices. Also, I felt that Dalish ending seemed the most appropriate. The two beings involved with the whole mess from the start are now at peace and both of the groups can move on.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 08 janvier 2013 - 03:06 .

[deatharmonic]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

To bring in the Connor choice, I seem to remember Gaider expressing regret at making the choice have a happy ending with the choice of going to the Circle. It makes the choice inherently a no-brainer, once you know how it will work out.

Not everything should work out perfectly. Even the Dalish decision of freeing the Wolves results in Zathrien to sacrifice his life and the Lady of the Woods destroyed as well. Not exactly a "rough" set of choices, but it still adds at least a little darkness into the equation.

If one choice results in a good ending, but the other results in a GREAT ending, people will always choose the rosier outcome. If all choices end up being some good, some bad, it is much harder to choose a "right" choice. I think the Orzammar choices and how they affected the endings were fantastically done, as almost everything you do has some negative aspect to it.

I don't agree with Gaider's view there, I also don't agree with thte assumption that gamers will always pick the 'better' outcome. For me, when I've played Connors choice my hard-arse wardens will always kill him, or perform the blood magic ritual whilst my goodie goodie wardens will head to the circle. I don't play for the outcome of the choice, I play the choice itself dependant on what my characters moral compass is like. Having said that, I'm not opposed to negative consequences as long as I don't sit there and think 'where did that come from?'