216 réponses à ce sujet

[KiwiQuiche]

Every Templar is a drug addict, so the Dragon age team have already touched that. And considering how they throw a wobbly in DAI I don't doubt we'll have quests involving them and lyrium.

[TheBlackBaron]

Two things come to mind:

1) On the subject of stealing, I've always thought it would be interesting if an RPG - or any game with looting, really- dealt with the "Kleptomaniac Hero" in a realistic manner. ME2 vaguely touched on this, when Conrad mentions that sometimes he pokes through crates for extra credits, but all too often it's simply treated as something that you do and is never acknowledged. TES, particularly Oblivion, probably had the best implementation when combining items being owned by NPCs with stolen items only being sellable to special "fence" vendors. I'd like to see more of that.

2) Similarly on the subject of drugs, the Templar's lyrium addictions is something that should be explored more fully. It doesn't even necessarily need a "human" face for storylines about addiction or dealing, either, I'd just like to see the ramifications of an entire organization being reliant on a mostly-banned substance that comes from one source be explored. Surely, lyrium supplies will play a significant role in the strategic thinking of both sides in the Mage-Templar war.

[Nightdragon8]

DatOneFanboy wrote...

garrusfan1 wrote...

DatOneFanboy wrote...

Qistina wrote...

It is always down to drug, sex, alcohol and violence.

There should be

i. bribery and corrupt government
ii. violence police, bad cop/authorities
iii. environmental issue such as releasing industrial waste, destroying forests
iv. animal abuse such as abusing animal in scientific study or making mass production of fast food
v. racist mob like KKK, skin head and such, racial hatred to the extreme

lol but we did,.

i.the Female priest. i forgot her name she wanted to fight the qunari. 
ii.bad authorities. templars were the 'cops' or the order and in anders quest there was a corrupt templar who made Mages tranquils for no reason. 
iii. well that Qunari poison was something.
iv. Dont u think animal abuse goes over the line?
v. There were racist mobs in Act 1 Where the gang in lowtown was hunting fereldans claiming they are taking over kirkwall.

well in the city elf origin in DAO you see a government (the son of the arl and the guard) basically go and pick out women to rape and they get away with it.

yea but he was just a spoiled ******.  nothing 2 important 

considering he is the son of an Arl... it would have mattered when was an Arl because what would end up happening is he would continue to do that, until someone got that peice of info and use it to blackmail him into doing what they want.

[ArcaneJTM]

You forgot lollygagging. 

[KiwiQuiche]

ArcaneJTM wrote...

You forgot lollygagging. 

Keep the ugly Skyrim from DAI

[ArcaneJTM]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

ArcaneJTM wrote...

You forgot lollygagging. 

Keep the ugly Skyrim from DAI

So what you're saying is "No lollygagging." 

[Boycott Bioware]

In DA:o we being hinted that Chevaliers are bad, they love to rape women and can get away with it because of they are Chevaliers...i want to see that in DA:I

[Sir JK]

It is not an easy subject to broach, and even more difficult to do justice. Especially when there's interactivity (and power fantasies) involved. Mostly, because they deal with human weakness. These subjects require the story to have a specific framing or they tend to miss the mark rather heavily.

Drug abuse and the black market behind it, for instance. It needs to put into a frame exactly the nature of the abuse itself. We need to be shown the high, the low and the cost or otherwise the entire experience tend to be rather hollow. Consider how in stories, people abusing alcohol tend to be miserable and rather passive when they do? That's part of the portrayal.
While it's not neccessary for the player to experience the addictive behaviour itself, it certainly helps. But if one does not, then one needs to compensate with showing the other two all the more strongly.
It would be interesting to make that into a subplot, the possibly taking up drugs and then dealing with it's repercussions. Or maybe helping a companion through theirs.
Lyrium comes up as a prime example. It's already been established as an addictive substance and it's well ingrained into the setting. Both templars and mages have also been shown/mentioned to be avid consumers. The aqua vitae is another possibility. As is alcohol.
I do think that the most efficient means of using it ingame would be to make it an extremely powerful consumable. As in: borderline broken good. That maybe heals you fully, makes you immune to spells for a few seconds or somesuch. And when you're not using it? A crippling debuff that can only be removed by the potion (and a quest later down the line). Then making it extremely expensive. A trap, really.

As for stealing. I think it's easier to pull off to show the effects on npcs of stealing. But then they must start to react when we take things. Maybe not stop us, but we must be shown how this affected them negatively down the line.
Like the two of us have talked about before Jimmy, I do think that in order to make this seem reasonable you have to make money worth something. Money can't just be something you find lying about about something that is either earned or taken. Your suggestions are good, but to truly deal with this issue one must approach the whole idea of traditional looting a different way. In the sense that: unless you're buying it or is rewarded by it, you're stealing it. And then have the repercussion of that shown ingame. Families driven out on the street because you snatched stuff from their home, shops closing because you looted a wagon nearby. You could even have fetch quests consisting of turning over equipment looted from enemies to their families, and selling it leading to them losing everything.
That'd go a long way to discuss stealing, methinks. But it might fit poorly with the power fantasy commonly associated with fantasy rpgs.

Slavery is by far the trickiest issue to deal with in a grey manner. It's an abominable practise, and for as long as slavery is the worst life you can have... then slavers are always going to be the worst of the worst.
No manner of desperation, poverty or poetic justice could ever take slavery from anything that true evil as long as it's the worst kind of life imaginable. It simply cannot be cleaned up with that consequence added to it.

So to make that work, one pretty much have to show us responsible slave owners that take care of their property. If not out of a sense of humanity then at the very least to protect an extremely expensive investment. We also have to be shown that slavery is bad, but the street is worse. That at the very least a slave will be fed, sheltered and protected. Even by laws. But beggars and the poor will not. We will have to be shown day-labourers that are discarded as soon as they're spent because "they're free men and thus take care of themselves". Basically... make slavery regrettable, but preferable.
I don't think anything short of that could ever make slavery something other than "the worst kind of evil".

[Boycott Bioware]

Rape issue can be grey

Like those Chevaliers, i think they are the elite army of Orlais, defending Orlais from all enemies, meaning the country need them, but they are also rapists. There will be war and gathering allies in the next game as rumors said, so maybe the player have to choose good moral weaker unreliable militia troop or excellent heavily armored seasoned elite troop but a group of rapists...choose...

[ElitePinecone]

Qistina wrote...

Rape issue can be grey

oh ffs.

Why is the BSN obsessed with rape?

[bEVEsthda]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I asked a similar question about slavery during DAO's development. Since we're seem perfectly able to accept a world with physical rules (magic) different from ours, why can't we accept a world with moral rules different from ours?

It might be better to stay somewhat close to home. I don't think our very jewish/christian/muslim moral culture is quite ready for the morals of some ancient Babylonian, Greek, Scandinavian or Rus societies, for instance. Would probably be a big scandal. Fox News would have a field day. It's funny how cultural details like absolute possession, ownership and control of women and children, by 'important' men, is more acceptable in our fiction, than recreational sex having a high profile. Must be a mindshare heritage from the history of that mideastern culture we've got our religions from.

In terms of slavery, it's possible, because it's not too removed from our own history. In terms of the actual role of slaves though, we probably have to stay close to our own ethics.

[Boycott Bioware]

In the place where i came from, everyone are slaves in our ancient time, it is because the land is own by the King, so everybody are slaves to the King.

But we have hierarchy, slave who is free (citizen of the land), slave who become a slave to pay debt until they pay them, slave who born slave, slave forever, and slave being made slave, That is why at the place where i came from, everybody call everybody as "My Master", example, when i talk to you, i refer you as "My Master", when you reply, you refer me as "My Master" too...funny isn't it?

Only the King is the true Master, because we live in his land, in his kingdom, so we are the slave to the King as citizen. We cannot defy the King.

[bEVEsthda]

Sir JK wrote...
I don't think anything short of that could ever make slavery something other than "the worst kind of evil".

Different societies and times have seen widely varying flavors of slavery. From something, that is hard to discern from just taking an additional family member, from groups of people the society didn't know what else to do with, to what was truly in all ways "the worst kind of evil".

I assume you already know this though. But what is then an acceptable portrayal of slavery to us? We live in a time that has resources and economics that make different demands on us than were facts of life then. To us, to preserve the ethics which are rightly precious to us, we probably have to portray slavery as a clear evil, and not be ambiguos about it.

[KiwiQuiche]

Qistina wrote...

Rape issue can be grey

...that has to be one of the most disturbing things I've read all day, and I've dealt with David. Just no.

And I don't want Bioware cramming in more 'rape and drugs' just to seem mature. It's like all the people barking for Witcher sex in DAI. Just stop it.

[bEVEsthda]

Qistina wrote...

In the place where i came from, everyone are slaves in our ancient time, it is because the land is own by the King, so everybody are slaves to the King.

But we have hierarchy, slave who is free (citizen of the land), slave who become a slave to pay debt until they pay them, slave who born slave, slave forever, and slave being made slave, That is why at the place where i came from, everybody call everybody as "My Master", example, when i talk to you, i refer you as "My Master", when you reply, you refer me as "My Master" too...funny isn't it?

Only the King is the true Master, because we live in his land, in his kingdom, so we are the slave to the King as citizen. We cannot defy the King.

That's quite interesting.
And a stark contrast to the idealized, on/off, European concept of the King/Emperor as "the first servant" (of the nation and the people) (first formalized by Frederick the Great, but an on/off concept since the Greek city states. Interesting is that "Tyrant" originally was the title of such an elected servant. The later meaning coming from abuse of such position).

Not that the idea of the citizen being a sort of slave to the King, hasn't been a preeminent notion in European history as well. It definitely has. And in a bad way, as inferring that the King has the right to do whatever, rather than inferring that the subject has a duty to serve. Power corrupts.

[Tinxa]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

1) On the subject of stealing, I've always thought it would be interesting if an RPG - or any game with looting, really- dealt with the "Kleptomaniac Hero" in a realistic manner. ME2 vaguely touched on this, when Conrad mentions that sometimes he pokes through crates for extra credits, but all too often it's simply treated as something that you do and is never acknowledged. TES, particularly Oblivion, probably had the best implementation when combining items being owned by NPCs with stolen items only being sellable to special "fence" vendors. I'd like to see more of that. 

Ugh please no. This is one of those things that sounds better in theory. Well, only fences should buy stolen items, only herbalists should buy potion ingredients, armorers weapons and the tranquil magical items. Makes sense doesn't it.

But in practice when you have to visit 5 different traders just to sell all of your junk, it's REALLY annoying.

[bEVEsthda]

Tinxa wrote...

TheBlackBaron wrote...

1) On the subject of stealing, I've always thought it would be interesting if an RPG - or any game with looting, really- dealt with the "Kleptomaniac Hero" in a realistic manner. ME2 vaguely touched on this, when Conrad mentions that sometimes he pokes through crates for extra credits, but all too often it's simply treated as something that you do and is never acknowledged. TES, particularly Oblivion, probably had the best implementation when combining items being owned by NPCs with stolen items only being sellable to special "fence" vendors. I'd like to see more of that. 

Ugh please no. This is one of those things that sounds better in theory. Well, only fences should buy stolen items, only herbalists should buy potion ingredients, armorers weapons and the tranquil magical items. Makes sense doesn't it.

But in practice when you have to visit 5 different traders just to sell all of your junk, it's REALLY annoying.

It might be. And would be, if loot has a traditional role in the game. However, I think you miss the point that we would want it to be. The effect that is asked for here, is that thievery is penalized in some way. It's the intention to make thievery less convenient. Quite that thievery is so way unrealistically convenient in most rpgs, is definitely something that often bug me.

[Boycott Bioware]

That's quite interesting.
And a stark contrast to the idealized, on/off, European concept of the King/Emperor as "the first servant" (of the nation and the people) (first formalized by Frederick the Great, but an on/off concept since the Greek city states. Interesting is that "Tyrant" originally was the title of such an elected servant. The later meaning coming from abuse of such position).

Not that the idea of the citizen being a sort of slave to the King, hasn't been a preeminent notion in European history as well. It definitely has. And in a bad way, as inferring that the King has the right to do whatever, rather than inferring that the subject has a duty to serve. Power corrupts.

In ancient time, at my place, slavery is actually nothing, it is normal, because those who own slaves are slaves too, if you get what i mean. That is why everybody calling everybody as "My Master". If i have a debt and cannot pay it, I'll be willingly being made slave temporary toward the the one i own money with. So i must work without pay in the field, feeding the babies, carry the water from well or river and everything without pay, just eat, drink and place to stay. But there are slaves who being made slave, such as war prisoners, they will be enslaved.

The "free slaves" who have titles but being sacked or stripped from titles because of something (treason for example) also being made slaves to someone, but they usually dead anyway, the whole family, ruthless isn't it? But we are talking about ancient time here, my place and your place have no different.

Actually, medieval Europe is similar, but they don't call the citizen as "slaves", but technically the "serf" are "slaves" to the landlord isn't it? Correct me if i wrong. You have a landlord who live in the castle who own the land, everybody who live in that land are the servant/serf. Knights are actually "personal bodyguard' to the landlord.

Modifié par Qistina, 31 mai 2013 - 12:50 .

[nightscrawl]

Naitaka wrote...

Heck, weren't Bioware just talking about how horrible it would have been if they included something that might have been interpreted as rape in the script a few month back?

The issue there was not the inclusion of rape. There have been several instances of rape mentioned in both DA games as well as the novels. Using it as a plot device is not something the devs have shied away from.

The problem in this particular case was that the writer, who was male, unintentionally wrote it in such a way as to make the female writers there say, "You know, that seems a bit rapey," which the writer had not realized, who then saw it after it was pointed out to him.

The reason DG shared that anecdote was not to talk about the inclusion or exclusion of elements, but rather how a person's background, including gender, can cause them to look at things in a different way, and perhaps not perceive how something may look bad, or be offensive to another group.

There is a difference between intentional and UNintentional depiction of rape.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 31 mai 2013 - 01:17 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Tinxa wrote...

TheBlackBaron wrote...

1) On the subject of stealing, I've always thought it would be interesting if an RPG - or any game with looting, really- dealt with the "Kleptomaniac Hero" in a realistic manner. ME2 vaguely touched on this, when Conrad mentions that sometimes he pokes through crates for extra credits, but all too often it's simply treated as something that you do and is never acknowledged. TES, particularly Oblivion, probably had the best implementation when combining items being owned by NPCs with stolen items only being sellable to special "fence" vendors. I'd like to see more of that. 

Ugh please no. This is one of those things that sounds better in theory. Well, only fences should buy stolen items, only herbalists should buy potion ingredients, armorers weapons and the tranquil magical items. Makes sense doesn't it.

But in practice when you have to visit 5 different traders just to sell all of your junk, it's REALLY annoying.

The fact that it is seen as junk and having no practical purpose in game, but people still pay money for it as if it was valuable is partially to blame here. 

[nightscrawl]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

What if they had three or four surrender and were still alive. You are out in the middle of nowhere, so small town justice is the only law around - meaning these bandits will die, either at your hand or someone else's. But what if you could sell them to passerby slaver? Sparing their lives, even if it means that life is indentured servitude (and a little pocket change for the player)? Would that be a call that would be easy for everyone to make? Would it be a different type of choice if one of the surrenddering bandits was a woman and it may be implied that her slavery would not be for... mining, shall we say?

I think I would probably kill them anyway. The idea of selling someone into slavery is just icky.

You make some implications in your post by using a phrase like "indentured servitude," making it seem like it wouldn't be all that bad. However if this is just a "passerby" who happens to be a slaver, how do you know how the slaves will be treated, or who they might be sold to later on? You don't. Even if you had the option of asking the slavers about these things, he/she would likely lie because it would be profitable to do so.


RE stealing: One of the problems with this is the use of loot in these games, in fact, most games. You are encouraged to search corpses, and open every crate and closet in every building you go into. How can there be any sweeping repercussions for this, or how can the local thieves guilds be presented in any other light, when the player herself engages in such activity regularly and no NPC ever bats an eye?

I'm not talking about being the rogue class here, I'm talking about the normal looting we do over the course of the game to make money so we can buy potions, or weapon/armor upgrades to pwn face.

[bEVEsthda]

Qistina wrote...

That's quite interesting.
And a stark contrast to the idealized, on/off, European concept of the King/Emperor as "the first servant" (of the nation and the people) (first formalized by Frederick the Great, but an on/off concept since the Greek city states. Interesting is that "Tyrant" originally was the title of such an elected servant. The later meaning coming from abuse of such position).

Not that the idea of the citizen being a sort of slave to the King, hasn't been a preeminent notion in European history as well. It definitely has. And in a bad way, as inferring that the King has the right to do whatever, rather than inferring that the subject has a duty to serve. Power corrupts.

In ancient time, at my place, slavery is actually nothing, it is normal, because those who own slaves are slaves too, if you get what i mean. That is why everybody calling everybody as "My Master". If i have a debt and cannot pay it, I'll be willingly being made slave temporary toward the the one i own money with. So i must work without pay in the field, feeding the babies, carry the water from well or river and everything without pay, just eat, drink and place to stay. But there are slaves who being made slave, such as war prisoners, they will be enslaved.

The "free slaves" who have titles but being sacked or stripped from titles because of something (treason for example) also being made slaves to someone, but they usually dead anyway, the whole family, ruthless isn't it? But we are talking about ancient time here, my place and your place have no different.

Actually, medieval Europe is similar, but they don't call the citizen as "slaves", but technically the "serf" are "slaves" to the landlord isn't it? Correct me if i wrong. You have a landlord who live in the castle who own the land, everybody who live in that land are is the servant/serf. Knights are actually "personal bodyguard' to the landlord.

Power corrupts, and privileges infer that you are more important than other humans. There is also a natural tendency to defend a privileged position. With any means. With time, different classes of people come into existence. There exists all kinds of ideas and concepts to preserve, explain or advocate the status of society. Europe is a tangled mess of wandering peoples, cultures and customs. In the West there is an old cohesivness from the Roman empire's influence and their Greek inheritence. The other adhesive, and the first to include eastern parts, is christianity.

But I beleve there is in most cases an idea that the 'nobles' originally were warriors, tasked with the duty of keeping a force, and fight in defense of the people. And that the privileges were originally awarded as a means to make it economically feasible. Eventually, they became a class of "masters". And in some places, it was also felt needed to formalize the workers duties to said masters. Thus people became 'serfs', in places. At that point the situation was mostly similar to what you describe. And the religion, the christian church, mainly upheld this status que, even if they struggled with nobility for power and richness.
 
But that eventually changed during the times of the black death plague. This mass death meant that social positions became vacant, that workers became a limited and thus priced commodity. It also meant that the church and nobility lost colossal amounts of face and authority. Religion remained the same, but people became more aware of that the church and the priests mainly put themselves in the place of God. That they were just men, and quite possibly corrupt men, who didn't speak the truth, nor had any special channel to God. Thus it became a question of power struggle rather than obediance. New ideas emerged, as well as old returning, from Roman and Greek times. This is the Renaissance. After that things progress rapidly with religious wars, Isacc Newton, the british parliment, french revolution, US constitution etc.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 31 mai 2013 - 03:29 .

[Fast Jimmy]

I think I would probably kill them anyway. The idea of selling someone into slavery is just icky.

You make some implications in your post by using a phrase like "indentured servitude," making it seem like it wouldn't be all that bad. However if this is just a "passerby" who happens to be a slaver, how do you know how the slaves will be treated, or who they might be sold to later on? You don't. Even if you had the option of asking the slavers about these things, he/she would likely lie because it would be profitable to do so.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was making the case for the values of human trafficking. But I do feel that situation would at least give you pause, instead of just saying "death to slavery" without a second thought.

RE stealing: One of the problems with this is the use of loot in these games, in fact, most games. You are encouraged to search corpses, and open every crate and closet in every building you go into. How can there be any sweeping repercussions for this, or how can the local thieves guilds be presented in any other light, when the player herself engages in such activity regularly and no NPC ever bats an eye?

I'm not talking about being the rogue class here, I'm talking about the normal looting we do over the course of the game to make money so we can buy potions, or weapon/armor upgrades to pwn face.

I agree. Sorry if that didnt come across in the original OP, but I was trying to address the entire loot concept holistically, regardless of class. Killing hordes of humans and then picking heir corpses clean is a standard practice in many games... but is that not inherently a sick and deplorable thing? That the vast majority of gamers have been partaking in corpse robbing and mass murder.

Instead of just sweeping this under the rug as an instance of rampant gameplay/story segregation, could not the act of stealing and pillaging not be dealt with in a "higher" manner,'more in harmony with the story of the game?

[bucketOFme]

I was just thinking of all the implied rape that's happend in DA and there was quite a bit.
The first thing to come to mind was the quest in DA2 where the um...um kinda imporant guy's son, is crazy and kidnaps elven children. Then in the books, Chevalliar rape is implied in The Stolen Throne, and slave rape is heavily implied in The Calling when they are in the Fade. Then the Female City Elf Origin. Don't the darkspawn rape the girls to turn them into broodmothers? and I think Gaider said something about Fenris being sexually abused??? I have not seen the OP but there was a buzz on tumblr about it at one point I do believe.
You can accidently sleep with Zevern 
...but I don't count that to offical rape list.

But I kinda enjoy the darker themes 
I think DA:O had the perfect amount of dark, but if it had a bit more then it wouldn't have hurt.
I think DA2 had some dark...but it was a bit muddled by all the brown.
I would enjoy DA:I being a bit darker than both of them...just not...pitch black.

Cullen is suppose to be a companion for DA:I right? Or at least rumored. We could get a deeper insight of lyrium addiction through him.

Modifié par bucketOFme, 31 mai 2013 - 02:25 .

[KiwiQuiche]

bucketOFme wrote...
You can accidently sleep with Zevern 

I never understood how people can do that.

And yes, finding out the origins of the Darkspawn was...disturbing to say the least.

Modifié par KiwiQuiche, 31 mai 2013 - 02:18 .