16 réponses à ce sujet

[Bhryaen]

Just wondering if this is a game snafu or I'm just not conceiving it properly...

Every time I get to the fight with Uldred and he starts his abomination spirals on the mages, I go ahead and run over and manage to disrupt the spirals with the Litany of Adralla... So I rescue them, no? Yet at the end of the fight as Uldred frumps to the floor, when my character turns to the rescued mages beamingly (and just about orders Zevran to go pickpocket them), this happens:



They just... die... in morbid death cries... except for Irving fortunately... This can't be intended, can it? Am I interpreting this wrong that the mages should instead all be alive like the various other NPCs we rescue through the game? Is there some reason I should be smiling in triumph when seeing them dead despite all my efforts?

[Ridirkulous]

I think this is supposed to happen. If you don't use the litany the magi will just turn into abominations for you to fight. They all still die afterwards no matter what you do.

[Jedimaster88]

As far as I can remember from my playthroughs, they always just die after Uldred is defeated.

[Ferretinabun]

Die? Or pass out?

In any case, I'm sure Wynne has some spiffy magic to help them out.

But yes, they do just hit the deck.

[Klidi]

I roleplay it that they just pass out - after all, a blood mage had just tried to force demons into them. That has to be big strain for both mind and body. I would be more annoyed if they remained standing and walked out on from there on their own. Irving was tortured, but the process of turning him into abomination had not started yet when the Warden came. That's my headcanon for it.

[Bhryaen]

Oh, they pass out... But when Eamon is passed out at least he's togglable. It's just that they're sitting up, managing OK from the strain of it all, and whoosh! Uldred and his minions are dead! Oh, what a relief it is! So you'd think they'd be at least a bit more chipper, no? Instead they do in fact stand up in order to immediately collapse to sprawl on the ground lifeless. Why not just stay sitting, make a muted cheer or a weary "Is he really gone?" or something?

But OK, I'll try to go with "they all simultaneously collapse into unconsciousness after the ordeal and get some well-deserved rest on the cold, stone Harrowing Chamber floor" instead... ;-)

[Fuggyt]

Being in the presence of the Warden's awesomeness often causes the unprepared to swoon.

[Face of Evil]

Well, they were under the control of Uldred's blood magic. That they passed out or simply died is not surprising, though it is sad.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

I suppose they could have passed out, but IMO the game codes them to 'die' so it doesn't have to worry about which of them was or wasn't turned into an abomination.

[Bhryaen]

Yes, SoLD, it seems like they just chose a convenient shortcut to ending the encounter, though I don't see what would've been wrong with just leaving them all alive with the same comment. I mean, they do it with people you save in numerous road encounters or side quests, all of them having the same voiced response. Like they should be untogglable prior to Uldred's death, then Uldred's death sets a variable that makes the mages togglable for a single comment- "*out of breath* Thank you so much. We owe you our lives." Something. That can't be too hard to script, or even if they all had different remarks, it'd be the same variable set for all of them. I suspect they're all the same model anyway- i.e., clones.

I mean, just prior to going up there you get Cullen screaming at you to kill everyone up there. Well, he needn't worry- other than Irving, they die regardless.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Yeah, I agree with you, they could have handled it differently. Deliberate choice or lazy programming? No idea.

Not as bad as what happens in DA2, I suppose.

[Corker]

Seems like they could have reused the code from the first floor though, right? There's that... rage demon? in the library that turns some Tranquil into... abominations or shades? I forget. If you kill things fast enough, some of the Tranquil survive. I believe you can even talk to them; if I'm remembering right, one's female-voiced and says something like, "Thank you. That was an... unsettling experience." It's the same sort of scenario, with neutrals becoming hostiles if you don't take appropriate action.

Although... I guess the differences is that the library demon is on a strict clock, whereas with Uldred, the PC has to take an in-game action (besides 'end the fight'). Seems odd that bookkeeping the successful/unsuccessful uses of the Litany would be such a burden, but maybe there's PITAy interactions with the other variables...?

[JWvonGoethe]

The game answers this question:

You can either side with the Templars or the mages during the Broken Circle quest. If you side with the mages then you get a mage representative at the party camp. However, if you side with the Templars then something interesting happens which appears to answer your question, OP.

If you side with the Templars and perform the Right of Annulment on the Circle, then one of two things can happen:

1. If you did not use the Litany of Adralla during the fight with Uldred, then all the mages will die and you will get a Templar at the party camp.

2. If you did use the Litany of Adralla then the mages in the Harrowing Chamber (where you fought Uldred) will survive and you will get a mage representative from the Templars at the party camp. This only happens if you used the Litany of Adralla, but the codex will still state that the Templars are fighting with you.

The only mages who survived in the second scenario were those in the Harrowing Chamber during Uldred's fight, so logic dictates that when the mage representative states 'not all [the mages] died in the tower', he must be referring to those present at the final fight. This pretty much proves that the mages in the Harrowing Chamber do indeed survive, and also goes to show that the devs thought of everything when making DA:O.

Modifié par JWvonGoethe, 29 juin 2013 - 11:25 .

[Bhryaen]

Thought of everything, right... except for keeping the rescued mages alive in-game after that final battle. It's no major issue throwing open interpretations of core game concepts, but it does remain irresolvable.

It may have been a technical issue like Corker was referring to- i.e., it was just too cumbersome or problematic to write in the Litany script without it getting botched by trying to also include a "switch to togglable for comments after battle over" script, so they just opted out of the latter. Lorewise that throng of mages in the end sequence marching up from the Calenhad docks had to come from somewhere, but we don't see them anywhere in the game. There are only three mages up with Irving in the end battle (IIRC), and they don't resemble any of the two mages (IIRC) we see later laying on the floor recovering back at ground level. And those two have appeared to have been maybe out cold and left for dead during the ordeal- never having been up in the Harrowing Chamber- but now recuperating due to the rescue of the Tower. The mages at the top might be intended as representative of more, but... I doubt that large marching throng was supposed to be all up there with Irving while the final battle was taking place. That many would have massacred Uldred in a giant Fireball blast. I've always presumed that the bulk of the mages who survived somehow escaped out the door with the Templars during the initial retreat down the Tower from the demons. Then they were being housed elsewhere by the Templars while the Tower was being secured. There's no mention of this, but, well, there's no mention of anything specific.

Proof requires a little more than remote plausibility... particularly when what we witness are mages making death cries and collapsing lifeless onto the Harrowing Chamber floor. But regardless there are survivors somewhere. They just don't have to have come from the final battle folks. And my only query was regarding those final battle folks. If they did die, that doesn't have to be a contradiction of the game canon saying mages survived the demons. It just means their sloppiness in scripting that final battle's conclusion was a bit anti-climactic.

[JWvonGoethe]

Yeah OK, maybe I overstated the argument a little. What convinced me was that the only variable that determines whether you get a mage or a Templar at the camp was whether the Warden used the Litany or not (assuming you perform the Right of Annulment.)

If the same number of Circle mages die in either scenario, then why can the Templars only afford to send a mage in the scenario where the Litany was used? Surely they are only able to send a mage because they have a few extra, ie the three who collapse at the Harrowing Chamber. It's not hard proof, but that's my interpretation. I think there is more evidence pointing to the mages having survived when using the Litany.

There is still no absolute way of knowing whether or not the mages in the Harrowing Chamber are alive or dead, but I don't see any reason for assuming they are dead. Their bodies do not decay into piles of bones like some dead people do in the game, their bodies are not lootable and there is no way to distinguish a 'death cry' from a cry of exhaustion or pain. However, I do agree that more effort should have been made to communicate to the player that the mages were still alive (or dead if they are supposed to be dead), since keeping them alive was the entire point of using the Litany.

Modifié par JWvonGoethe, 30 juin 2013 - 02:46 .

[Bhryaen]

Well, howdy do. I never actually let the three mages and Irving get Abominized before. You can get the Achievement by just telling Greagoir to go ahead with the Annulment, so I thought that was the only way it happens. Well, I just tried (the tediously long method of) letting them all get Abominized, and, yes, afterward everyone starts talking like all the mages in the Tower were killed. *sigh* So if you save Irving and those few mages in the Harrowing Chamber (and don't ask Greagoir to do the Annulment), then that full crowd of mages (far more than four) is there at the end. Don't save that less-than-a-handful of mages and all those mages we would otherwise see at the end are "dead or otherwise incapacitated," as Wynne puts it. So you're certainly bringing up a good point: those mages can be pivotal.

So they really do seem to be using those four mages in the Harrowing Chamber as representative of much more. Even more ridiculous might be letting the three mages be Abominized but sparing Irving, so that only one single mage remains alive at the end to assist in fighting the darkspawn horde. Mission complete! hehe Likely it still entails the same large march of mages available. hehe But if that's true (don't make me test again), then those three mages can still drop dead after being saved by the Litany: it only requires Irving alive to produce a spontaneous mage army. ;-) Still, it does seem they're supposed to be alive in that case. I agree entirely that it'd be better with something more obvious to show they'd survived. For sure Petra, et al, survived. They're still there even after letting the Harrowing Chamber mages die and getting told all the mages are dead. lol

Ah, well. The disbelief we're required to suspend to keep the story going... And here I really liked the idea I've been harboring of several mages escaping the Tower with the Templars and some just needing to recuperate after being unconscious on the floor the whole time. Instead it seems that the Templars blocked the doors to force any fleeing mages to stay in with the demons and be slaughtered. If the Templars got out and not the mages, they'd have had to do so- that or killed them themselves. Mages were on all levels of the Tower and would've been retreating simultaneously. At least one should've made it, no? Sheesh. More reason to bristle at the Templars.

[Corker]

Ines Arancia and Finn Aldebrant seem to survive no matter what (as they appear in the expansion and DLC). My theory is that they were out of the Tower looking for southern prickleweed or something. Possibly some other mages were out on research junkets and they can return in time to march to Denerim?

And if the Harrowing Chamber Four all die, well... Greagoir doesn't *know* the mages out in the field will return in time for the Warden's battle, so he can't commit them. Ergo, you get templars. If they *do* survive, you get them - and then hey, eight more come in from the cold and you get your 12 for Denerim.

(idek I'm making it up as I go along)