10 réponses à ce sujet

[Faust1979]

I've honestly never did anything to make her turn on her in any of my games but there is a presedence for dead people coming back to life. Like Wynn who was dying or dead and now living on borrowed time. So there is no reason that Leliana couldn't have done the same thing

[David Gaider]

Since this is another topic that has come up yet again, I shall point to my blog post which addresses it.

Not that it will make much difference to those who just don't like it no matter the reasoning or explanation (or lack thereof), I'm sure-- but there you go.

[David Gaider]

EJ107 wrote...
People don't look at it and go "Leliana's alive- therefore she must not have died" they look at it and go "Leliana's alive- therefore Bioware must have ignored the possibility of her death".

That does indeed seem to be what some people do, yes.

While I don't agree with scapegoating or jumping to conclusions I do have to be incredibly honest and say that I too just went with the latter explanation at the time, because there was no evidence otherwise and it seemed like the most likely explanation.

I don't think it was necessary to go into any great detail in-game, but if it was decided that if Leliana fought the warden the ashes kept her alive then just adding a piece of gossip between two NPC's about the ashes being able to revive people from near death or talk of a woman who claims to have been "saved by the Maker" or something similar would have sufficed to show that it was thought out rather than ignored for inconvinience. Leliana could even have been given an throwaway line of dialogue along the lines of "I've been too close to death myself" or something like that.

Leliana does have an alternate line or two that depends on her having died in DAO, though I forget what they are. She did not launch into an explanation of how she survived, of course, as that would not have made sense in context-- and I doubt any such explanation would have made (or will in the future make) many of the complainers happy.

Ultimately, I guess one can call it a retcon. Normally when that word's used, it means that a previously established event never happened. We're not saying that Leliana was never killed, just that she survived. One could still say it's a retcon of something they expected was established, however, I suppose. If someone doesn't like that development, or wants to cling to the deathblow animation (which never had any effect elsewhere in DAO) as a reason why it's impossible ... well, I guess that's up to them. They'll have to wait and see what we do with it in DAI, though I imagine some will find a reason to be displeased about it no matter what we do with it. Which is fine by me.

Modifié par David Gaider, 05 juillet 2013 - 04:58 .

[David Gaider]

Filament wrote...
Well... if she survived being killed, that's not a retcon at all, just a twist.

If she was originally intended as killed and you changed it so now she's alive, that's kind of an 'under the hood' retcon, because it's never explicit that she died, per se. I don't think that really would count as a retcon either because authorial intent isn't part of the universe itself, only what results from it. And what results here isn't in conflict except when people take the deathblow animations as inviolable.

You're correct, of course. People like to use many terms around these parts incorrectly-- cliche and cliffhanger, to name a couple of common ones. I don't know if they are simply ignorant of the actual usage of the terms or just like to invoke them because it makes their opinion feel objectively stronger than "I don't like it". Either way, I suspect the working definition some people have of "retcon" is "what I understood to have happened previously didn't actually happen that way... and I don't like it."

Personally I do think there is a meaningful caution to take out of it, when throwing in the sort of violence porn with brutal dismemberments and deathblows and such, to make sure not to allow that on important characters you might want to bring back later... gameplay mechanics may be an abstraction but the visuals should still reflect what's actually happening, not be so abstracted that cutting someone's head off just didn't happen, if need be.

Sure. I'll point out that we've never said her head wasn't cut off, either. Some people just really seem to obsess over that as if the mere possibility that Leliana could have been decapitated makes any potential explanations invalid. Resurrection is not something that happens in the DA universe, not real resurrection, so whatever happened was clearly something extraordinary... yet I doubt what most complainers are grousing about is the lack of an explanation (which they wouldn't accept anyhow) but rather that one of their precious choices has been invalidated (or "retconned", if that even makes sense).

So they'll continue to complain and imply that the invalidation of that choice unravels the very fabric of the universe and renders all their choices invalidated through the establishment of a canon which overrides everything they've ever done ever. Which wouldn't bother me either, even though that's not what we're doing.

So... meh.

[David Gaider]

crimzontearz wrote...
So....why would I give you the choice anyway?

Clearly the purpose of a choice in a game is so that it will carry forward into a future sequel? There is no other reason for such a choice to exist in that game? An odd hill to die on, sir, but good luck.

[David Gaider]

Senior Cinco wrote...
I think it's a little more than that. You can try to spin it all you want and throw around phrases like "I don't like it". Of course we don't like it. That's the point of being disgruntled to start with. But there's no reason to get defensive and start insulting people's intelligence.

Someone can be disgruntled without resorting to using terms incorrectly. One can, for instance, simply say "I don't like that twist." Unless one is very insecure in one's own opinions, there's no need to use literary terms incorrectly. If, however, one is going to defend the incorrect use of such terms based on the fact that their unhappiness justifies it... then there's not much to say, is there?

Could you be any more arrogant? Good job, boss man. Of course all the player's choices are, and should be, considered precious.

Sorry, but not all your choices are precious. Some will carry through and have big effects. Some will have small effects. Some will have no effects, or at least not the ones you think they should have. Hate to break it to you, but that's definitely going to happen... and, yes, I am one of the people whose job it is to determine which is which. *shrug*

[David Gaider]

kazuya246 wrote...
Are you implying that the choice is only there to serve the current game itself rather than the series and universe as a whole. Why should anyone expect it to work that way or be welcoming to it being like that?

Of course the choice is there for the game in which it occurs. We could establish a canon between games if we wished (as most games do, if they don't simply switch the setting/time so completely that the choices are irrelevant) and that would not affect the universe as a whole. We don't, but neither do we promise more than those choices being recognized-- the level of reactivity will vary.

Is that ideal? Probably not, but whether it's a worthwhile endeavour really depends on your point of view. I think there are many people who like having their own version of the world even if every choice doesn't spawn a completely divergent storyline. Beyond that, it seems like it's just fodder for regular forum arguments.

[David Gaider]

Senior Cinco wrote...

David Gaider wrote...and, yes, I am one of the people whose job it is to determine which is which. *shrug*

That's too bad.

And we're onto the insults.

Always a great place for discussions. Ah, well.

[David Gaider]

iakus wrote...
Personally, I'd remind them that the choice they were presented with was not to kill Leliana, but whether or not to defile the Ashes.  The fight with Leliana was a consequence of that.  So her survival isn't an invalidation of a choice, it's altering its repercussions.  As the Ashes (so far as I know) remain defiled by the dragon blood 

Oh, that's true! I will have to remember that.

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

I see no reason to exalt cinematics over the rest - Leliana is depicted as clearly as dead as Loghain, Howe, the Warden and the Archdemon, and unlike the archdemon she's not known for body switching. Dev comments are irrelevant to the reality established in the game, aside from as interesting trivia that you might incorporate into head canon.

Outside of the deathblow (if people can't recognize this as an oversight/mistake, then that's their prerogative), is Leliana depicted as clearly as dead as... the PC (or any companions) that are knocked down in combat?

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 05 juillet 2013 - 10:21 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Wulfram wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Outside of the deathblow (if people can't recognize this as an oversight/mistake, then that's their prerogative), is Leliana depicted as clearly as dead as... the PC (or any companions) that are knocked down in combat?

A)  You can't loot the PC/Companions
  They get up again after combat
C)  They don't get a codex entry saying they died.

These arguments are not very strong, in my opinion.

You're taking game mechanics and going "because I can loot this person, they must be dead" or "because my characters gets back up again after combat, it's obviously not the same."

Point A is easy, because I can simply state "there's no need to create a gameplay mechanic for looting PC/Companions."  In fact, I'll state that there's straight up smoke and mirrors for the entire system that for a gameplayer are mostly irrelevant.  If you want to get technical, most characters you fight in game don't actually use the items that you find in their loot.  The loot is often a part of a script that fires OnPlayerDeath and until that event fires, never actually exists in the game world, even though a game player will make the connection "I fought a player with a cool looking sword, and that sword was in the bodybag afterward... therefore the game engine had this player using this sword" when often that just isn't the case.  Framed differently, what should we have cut from DAO to support the looting of allies, to ensure that you won't be misled by this game mechanic?


Point B: Your characters only get back up again after combat, iff (note iff vs if) a party member survives.  Clearly people can get knocked down and NOT be dead, however, as this can happen to people all the time - the players .  If you'd prefer, your counter argument should have been "Leliana had no supporting members to ensure she'd come back up" if you wanted to be scrutinizing towards the application of game mechanics and the reality depicted within an RPG.  Although I'd still feel you're being unreasonable.


Point C is at least something to go on.  Imagine if the Codex entry had simply said "And Leliana was left, presumed dead!"  How much metaknowledge do you really want in your Codex entries though.  Next thing you know we have people going "Wait... the Codex hints that she might not be dead!  I want to go back and kill her!"


As for cinematics:  It's another gameplay abstraction.  People get full on cleaved with full twohanded sword swings and get right back up into the fight, but in a cutscene a target creature can be killed with a stab of good old murder knife.  Your criticism here is a general criticism towards RPGs in general, however, as the entire genre is rife with situations where this happens.  Alternatives would be excessive realism in normal combat (often not so fun), or having the player start chopping through someone for a few minutes in a cutscene (something that looks absurd, IMO).

You're right, we could still go "just kidding" with something in a cutscene, but there are differences with cutscenes and gameplay combat.  One of which is more ostensibly an abstraction, which often has a very limited relationship with real life, because concessions get made to attempt to ensure something is frankly, somewhat more entertaining and fun.  Some games work well enough with ultra-realistic combat, but I don't think that the Dragon Age games (or most RPGs) fit this bill at all.  So if you're holding up the narrative to be precisely consistent with what you're seeing in gameplay, all Dragon Ages (and most RPGs in general) are not going to jive very well with this perspective.


My point being that gameplay is an abstraction of a lot of things.  Effectively saying "Everyone else we attack is definitively dead" is an assumption on your part.  It's an understandable assumption, but given that the only other instance we have of people getting knocked down is the player character and his/her companions (and they get up, but with injuries), relying specifically on game mechanics that are fundamentally already abstractions of reality with a lot of smoke and mirrors isn't a very strong argument.


If it makes you feel better to feel it's just a retcon, then fine, it's a retcon.  Put yourself in a place where you can either go "I'm okay with this" or stay at "I'm not okay with this."  If it's at a point where you say "I'm not okay with this" then put it as another weighted mark as to whether or not you're still up for buying and playing the game, since my expectation would be for you to eventually have a breaking point of having too many things that are not acceptable, and weighing them against the things that you want/like about the game come release.  It's your duty as a responsible consumer to do so.

At this point, continuing on with whether or not Leliana's situation is a retcon, realistic, appropriate, or any of those things is mostly beside the point at this stage.  Leliana is still alive in DA2.  If this creates a dissonance with the setting for you, you can choose to rationalize it or hold it against us.  But Leliana will still be alive in the game setting.  Sorry.

My rationalization?  Whatever presence that imbues the ashes with their power had an unexpected event on Leliana.  So she was effectively killed, but for reasons unknown, she didn't remain that way.  The alternative is playing through future games with cognitive dissonance and letting this continue to aggravate me. 

The codex entry is updated to say she's dead for one

If your preference is to suggest that the Codex say something else to make it clear she might still be alive, then I disagree.

and I find it odd that the Warden wouldn't make sure she's dead esp
since so many darkspawn (esp Ogres) can get up again after only seeming
to have taken fatal wounds (see Ogre entry).  I would expect "making
sure" of death would be Grey Warden SOP.

So it's an example that perhaps the Warden isn't as much your character as you've historically convinced yourself to believe?

You're allowed to have this perspective, which is fine, but it's hardly compelling evidence that Leliana must be definitively dead.

The *only* one that really exists, as far as I'm concerned, is the deathblows.  But given that it's excruciatingly easy for me to realize "Hah! I can totally see how that was overlooked during development."  In other words, it's a bug/mistake.

If you'd like, we could have put something in to ensure that Deathblows simply could not happen against her.  I don't actually know if any of that infrastructure exists or not, so I don't know the full scale of work that would need to be done to ensure this.  My question, however, would still be "What would you be comfortable cutting out of Dragon Age: Origins to ensure that this deathblow can never happen to Leliana?"


EDIT: Just as a note:

(or more accurately Lelianna chooses to commit suicide)

This statement is fundamentally and unequivocally inaccurate.  FWIW.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 05 juillet 2013 - 11:12 .