1238 réponses à ce sujet

[EmperorSahlertz]

TheKomandorShepard wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

@Xilizhra: I don't think the players will be forced to make an alliance with the mages and help them. This regardless of the templars' role in DAI.

Maybe, maybe not. But I continue to hope.

Wait wait you hope that we will be forced into supporting mages or i just wrong readed that because if first just...

Nope... You read that right. She actually has to arrogance to hope that her way of liking the game, will be the only way. The "correct" way. Joys of joys.

[The Elder King]

Xilizhra wrote...

hhh89 wrote...


I understand why you'd want that, but I'm against it. People should be free to choose which side support.
Would you still want that the game forces the players to support mages if there isn't a resolution to the mage-templar war?

Yes, because it still makes for a much easier-to-make coherent storyline.

It depends on how Bioware decides to conclude the conflict and the after-war though (there's the chance that their desired outcome, if there'll be only one, will disappoint you).
Anyway, we have to agree to disagree (though I recall it's not the first time we discussed this topic).
Still, regardless of my personal opinion of what Bioware should do, I don't think they'll force the players to side with the mages. I guess we'll have to wait and see which one of us is right.

Modifié par hhh89, 13 novembre 2013 - 04:44 .

[TheKomandorShepard]

Br3ad wrote...


I've never read anything more disturbing then this. 

Well thats all truth if you want argue i will be forced send you read some history.:innocent:

Nope...
You read that right. She actually has to arrogance to hope that her way
of liking the game, will be the only way. The "correct" way. Joys of
joys.

Wow just wow... i don't get it sure i support her if she want to have option support mages but i don't understand what she have against other players who don't want take her route nobody forces her to go their route.

Modifié par TheKomandorShepard, 13 novembre 2013 - 04:50 .

[Br3admax]

People killing people has almost nothing to do with them being mages. People will always harm one another and trying to exterminate an entire group because they may hurt others is idiotic. Killing off large numbers of mages will not calm them down, it will only make everything worse.

[EmperorSahlertz]

dragonflight288 wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

eluvianix wrote...

So what is the point of even having the Harrowing then, if it does not guarantee that you can always fight off possession? Just because you can do it once does not mean you will always be so lucky.

What is the point of having a final test for a driver's license? It is not the test that teaches you, it is the whole process up to the test that is important.

What do you think the mages learn during all those years they are in the Circle prior to their Harrowing? They of course learn to handle their magic. The Harrowing is simply a final test, used to prove that they have actually learned something. It is in itself not supposed to teach anyhting, or make the mage immune. It is supposed to be proof to the world, that the amge can handle himself, and that he has learned during his stay in the Circle.

So is the initiation ritual. In Kingdoms of Amalur, initiates have to train for years before they are even considered ready for the initiation test, but they go in there fully prepared and trained, but since it makes you face an aspect of your own potential, the circumstances and exact nature of the test are fluid and change from person to person, so in order to survive that test, you have to prove adaptable, skilled, show they can think on the fly, all the while facing some aspect of themselves.

I know such a test or a variant thereof does not exist in the DA universe, but it's an idea on what could be done if such a test could be devised. If you master those skills, you are just as, probably even more prepared as a mage than what the Harrowing does.

I recognize that the rules and risks of magic are very different compared to the two franchises, but I feel that the Harrowing, a test meant to put you face to face with a demon, is inherently flawed as a test for a few reasons.

One, they keep it secret from all apprentices up until they are dragged out of bed and taken to the Harrowing chamber, where they'll either die, be made tranquil or advance past apprenticeship.

Two, if mages were truly in as much danger of being possessed as the chantry and the templar claim, why haven't we seen all the apprentices become abominations in their sleep? They aren't fully trained, they haven't faced demons before, and yet they go to the Fade every single night when they dream. A somniari is different, but the average mage hasn't been shown to be at any more risk than non-mages until the Harrowing itself.

Three, all the Harrowing truly does is show that a mage has the capacity to resist a demon. It does nothing to guarantee the character, integrity or emotional health of the mages in question. The mage is told right from the beginning that if they fail, they'll die. They may already be planning on becoming maleficar or communing with demons like Tahrone, nor does it do anything to show mages aren't training to become blood mages like DuPuis, Quentin or debatedly Orsino, and I say debated because it isn't confirmed if he was an academic blood mage who never practiced or a practicing blood mage before the Annulment in Kirkwall. And since they're told from the beginning, all they have to do is resist once, as they know there's a sword poised to strike the moment they fail. Once the Harrowing is done, the sword is removed, or at least given greater distance between you and the templar wielding it, and the motivation to succeed no longer feels like a life-or-death struggle.

In the end, we have seen just as many, if not more abominations in two games from Harrowed mages than unharrowed ones, so the Harrowing is inefficient as a measure of ability for mages. Which is why I suggested another system that is also potentially lethal, as a possible alternative should such a means be developed. It doesn't exist now, but if it can be developed, then I think it would be better than the Harrowing.

Again the Harrowing is not supposed to be guarentee that mages will never become possessed. It is a TEST. The actual safety measures are the trainning they recieve throughout their life. But agian, there are no guarentees. Whenever we hae witnessed a harrowed mage fail and become an Abomination, they have been victims of extreme circumstances.
The Harrowing is done the way it is, to better emulate an actual encounter with a demon. It will come when you are the least prepared and it you will (maybe) not know what it is, or want. Some apprentices also have to struggle with demons their entire lives, well before their Harrowing. If the apprentices are not driven insane, or udnertake the Rite of Tranquility, then I have no doubt the Harrowing will be a breeze for them. It is the apprentices who are not yet powerful enough to attract demons that really has to be tested, since all they will know of demons, would be what they have read about them. They will lack any experience going into the rest of their life, and the Harrowing gives them this kind of experience in a controlled environment.

And if it is not the lethality of the Harrowing you have something against, then I honestly cannot understand your protests. What exactly would your test prove, that the Harrowing doesn't, and if it also endangers the apprentices life, then what would be the purpose?

[Xilizhra]

hhh89 wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

hhh89 wrote...


I understand why you'd want that, but I'm against it. People should be free to choose which side support.
Would you still want that the game forces the players to support mages if there isn't a resolution to the mage-templar war?

Yes, because it still makes for a much easier-to-make coherent storyline.

It depends on how Bioware decides to conclude the conflict and the after-war though (there's the chance that their desired outcome, if there'll be only one, will disappoint you).
Anyway, we have to agree to disagree (though I recall it's not the first time we discussed this topic).
Still, regardless of my personal opinion of what Bioware should do, I don't think they'll force the players to side with the mages. I guess we'll have to wait and see which one of us is right.

The tone of Asunder is that the mages have members who are willing to make morally questionable decisions for their cause, but the cause itself is just and every single sympathetic character in the book gets behind it in the end; the templars, meanwhile, raise good points but have a cause doing much more harm than help. One way or another, I believe this tone will continue.

[MisterJB]

Xilizhra wrote...
The tone of Asunder is that the mages have members who are willing to make morally questionable decisions for their cause, but the cause itself is just and every single sympathetic character in the book gets behind it in the end; the templars, meanwhile, raise good points but have a cause doing much more harm than help. One way or another, I believe this tone will continue.

There is no tone. You see a tone because you want to see it. David Gaider himself has flat out stated that he has never presented a mage rebellion as a good thing; that he is neutral and that if a player believes he leans towards one side, that player is being colored by their own preferences.
I'm sure you remember this because there was a 100 pages long thread on it not that long ago. So, guess what, the main writer himself disagrees with you.
By all means, continuing imagining a "tone" all you want. But don't try to pass it off as fact.

[TheKomandorShepard]

Br3ad wrote...

People killing people has almost nothing to do with them being mages. People will always harm one another and trying to exterminate an entire group because they may hurt others is idiotic. Killing off large numbers of mages will not calm them down, it will only make everything worse.

But killing all of them what is possible well almost all of them because some of them may hide don't make everything worse because simple mages don't have chance to win against non-mages and after extermination they will few in number (perhaps not counting tevinter) now add law that every mage will be killed outside tevinter what don't care about circle mages anyway.So turning them into empty shells with fate worse and death isn't idiotic and cruel? So nope and i want note that normal peoples can't turn into abomnation what makes mage ticking bomb and add that mage is human what mean very flawed thing.   

Humans are monster killing other group because they are dangerous isn't problem for us and we will find many other reasons to kill others.

Modifié par TheKomandorShepard, 13 novembre 2013 - 05:17 .

[Xilizhra]

MisterJB wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
The tone of Asunder is that the mages have members who are willing to make morally questionable decisions for their cause, but the cause itself is just and every single sympathetic character in the book gets behind it in the end; the templars, meanwhile, raise good points but have a cause doing much more harm than help. One way or another, I believe this tone will continue.

There is no tone. You see a tone because you want to see it. David Gaider himself has flat out stated that he has never presented a mage rebellion as a good thing; that he is neutral and that if a player believes he leans towards one side, that player is being colored by their own preferences.
I'm sure you remember this because there was a 100 pages long thread on it not that long ago. So, guess what, the main writer himself disagrees with you.
By all means, continuing imagining a "tone" all you want. But don't try to pass it off as fact.

I read it. I remember, too, what he said, which was that a mage rebellion was not a good thing; he did not say that it was not a better state than what had come before, nor did he ever say that the prior status quo had a chance of being a better thing.

[HiroVoid]

MisterJB wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
The tone of Asunder is that the mages have members who are willing to make morally questionable decisions for their cause, but the cause itself is just and every single sympathetic character in the book gets behind it in the end; the templars, meanwhile, raise good points but have a cause doing much more harm than help. One way or another, I believe this tone will continue.

There is no tone. You see a tone because you want to see it. David Gaider himself has flat out stated that he has never presented a mage rebellion as a good thing; that he is neutral and that if a player believes he leans towards one side, that player is being colored by their own preferences.
I'm sure you remember this because there was a 100 pages long thread on it not that long ago. So, guess what, the main writer himself disagrees with you.
By all means, continuing imagining a "tone" all you want. But don't try to pass it off as fact.

I'd actually agree with Gaider probably siding with the mages more myself to be honest, but I also think he genuniely wants to try and make a grey and neutral conflict even if there is one side he would go with.

[MisterJB]

What part of "not taking sides" do you not understand? No, David Gaider never said that the rebellion is not better than the status quo. Nor has he said that it is.
That is the very definition of not taking sides which, by Mr.Gaider's own admission, is what he is doing.

So, keep on claiming there is a "pro-mage tone" all you want. The person who actually wrote the book says there isn't and i'm taking his word over yours.

[Xilizhra]

MisterJB wrote...

What part of "not taking sides" do you not understand? No, David Gaider never said that the rebellion is not better than the status quo. Nor has he said that it is.
That is the very definition of not taking sides which, by Mr.Gaider's own admission, is what he is doing.

So, keep on claiming there is a "pro-mage tone" all you want. The person who actually wrote the book says there isn't and i'm taking his word over yours.

You're taking your interpretation of his (heavily dominated by PR) word over mine. We shall see where it all leads.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 13 novembre 2013 - 05:23 .

[MisterJB]

First of all, there is no room for interpretation. Mr.Gaider flat out states he supports both sides:

"I find it a bit strange that one of the most frequent questions I’m PM’d with is which side of the mage-templar issue I personally support. The answer, of course, is that I support neither… or, rather, I support both. I have to wrap my head around both sides, because if I can’t construct an argument to support a side that a rational person could make, then it’s not a very good argument. Thankfully I can, so there I stand.

I imagine many won’t believe that, preferring to believe I lean towards one side or the other— colored by their own preferences, just as those preferences color how they look on the arguments of others. And that’s fine."

Second, I'm certain that you would tell me how DA2 had such a pro-mage tone whereas I would tell you that it had a Pro-Templar tone.
So, regardless of "where it all leads", we will never agree. Which, personally, I find it a sign of my mental stability.

[Xilizhra]

First of all, there is no room for interpretation. Mr.Gaider flat out states he supports both sides:

"I find it a bit strange that one of the most frequent questions I’m PM’d with is which side of the mage-templar issue I personally support. The answer, of course, is that I support neither… or, rather, I support both. I have to wrap my head around both sides, because if I can’t construct an argument to support a side that a rational person could make, then it’s not a very good argument. Thankfully I can, so there I stand.

This does not contradict anything that I said. "Support both" has a wide range of possible permutations. It's quite possible for the well-intentioned goals of both sides to be met, or at least he may well think that it is, which would be one way of saying "support both."

Modifié par Xilizhra, 13 novembre 2013 - 05:34 .

[Estelindis]

HiroVoid wrote...

I'd actually agree with Gaider probably siding with the mages more myself to be honest, but I also think he genuniely wants to try and make a grey and neutral conflict even if there is one side he would go with.

Perhaps you are correct. However, I would argue that no human being is free of bias. The best that we can do is try to see as many sides as possible, as fairly as possible. To my mind, the effort to do this is exactly what Mr. Gaider described and, thus, I think he's really as close to sincerely neutral as he, or anyone, can be.

[HiroVoid]

Estelindis wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

I'd actually agree with Gaider probably siding with the mages more myself to be honest, but I also think he genuniely wants to try and make a grey and neutral conflict even if there is one side he would go with.

Perhaps you are correct. However, I would argue that no human being is free of bias. The best that we can do is try to see as many sides as possible, as fairly as possible. To my mind, the effort to do this is exactly what Mr. Gaider described and, thus, I think he's really as close to sincerely neutral as he, or anyone, can be.

That'ts what I meant.  He has a bias he obviously won't mention, but I believe he still wants to get by that bias to do his best to try and make a conflict with compelling arguments on both sides.  How well that's done is another question.

[The Elder King]

@Xilizhra: I can't say which is the tone of Asunder, since I haven't read.
About Gaider's tumblr post (if this is what you and MisterJB are talking about), I recall that the main focus was about the difference in the mages' portrayal in the book and the games (he was responding to a person that believed that the book described well the danger of mages, while the games didn't), but he stated that he didn't favour one side.. His post, as well as Laidlaw/Darrah's words during various interviews and even the demos, lead me to think that they're not favouring either side.
Of course, considering that we know nothing about the story, it could be that all of this is just PR speak, and the game will favour the mages: the opposite is possible as well. I'd say that it'd be a mistake in marketing the conflict as neutral and with the fredom for the player to pick a side, and then force the players to side with one faction.

Modifié par hhh89, 13 novembre 2013 - 05:42 .

[Xilizhra]

hhh89 wrote...

@Xilizhra: I can't say which is the tone of Asunder, since I haven't read.
About Gaider's tumblr post (if this is what you and MisterJB are talking about), I recall that the main focus was about the difference in the mages' portrayal in the book and the games (he was responding to a person that believed that the book described well the danger of mages, while the games didn't). His post, as well as Laidlaw/Darrah's words during various interviews and even the demos, lead me to think that they're not favouring either side.
Of course, considering that we know nothing about the story, it could be that all of this is just PR speak, and the game will favour the mages: the opposite is possible as well. I'd say that it'd be a mistake in marketing the conflict as neutral and with the fredom for the player to pick a side, and then force the players to side with one faction.

It is indeed a mistake to market the conflict as neutral, if that's what they're doing, although I don't think it'll be "pick mage vs. templar" so much as "do what's most efficacious for closing the Veil tears," which will evidently include wasting the Red Templars, if nothing else. It's also completely possible that the debate is between mages and the Chantry, with the renegade templars, possibly all-Red, wholly out of the picture.

[TheKomandorShepard]

HiroVoid wrote...

Estelindis wrote...

HiroVoid wrote...

I'd actually agree with Gaider probably siding with the mages more myself to be honest, but I also think he genuniely wants to try and make a grey and neutral conflict even if there is one side he would go with.

Perhaps you are correct. However, I would argue that no human being is free of bias. The best that we can do is try to see as many sides as possible, as fairly as possible. To my mind, the effort to do this is exactly what Mr. Gaider described and, thus, I think he's really as close to sincerely neutral as he, or anyone, can be.

That'ts what I meant.  He has a bias he obviously won't mention, but I believe he still wants to get by that bias to do his best to try and make a conflict with compelling arguments on both sides.  How well that's done is another question.

As far i didn't see any argument why i shouldn't kill mages and half thousand why i should so  i would argue

[HiroVoid]

Eh. I'm sure we'll get plenty of blood mages to waste as well. Have to fit in the enemy mages somehow.

[Xilizhra]

HiroVoid wrote...

Eh. I'm sure we'll get plenty of blood mages to waste as well. Have to fit in the enemy mages somehow.

Tevinter, as before, I suspect.

[The Elder King]

@Xilzhra: I'm not saying that they're marketing the game as picking a side. They can't do that because the game is (as you said) not about the mage-templar war. I'm saying that they're marketing the conflict between mages and templars (which we'll have a role in the game) as neutral.
And while it's possible that the debate is about the mages and the Chantry, it'd still mean that they've been misleading during marketing, since they explicitely stated that the conflict is about mages and templars, while still mentioning the different role of the Chantry.
About the RT, we already discussed about them.

[Xilizhra]

hhh89 wrote...

@Xilzhra: I'm not saying that they're marketing the game as picking a side. They can't do that because the game is (as you said) not about the mage-templar war. I'm saying that they're marketing the conflict between mages and templars (which we'll have a role in the game) as neutral.
And while it's possible that the debate is about the mages and the Chantry, it'd still mean that they've been misleading during marketing, since they explicitely stated that the conflict is about mages and templars, while still mentioning the different role of the Chantry.
About the RT, we already discussed about them.

Misleading has happened before, and frankly, I'll take that over the alternative.

[MisterJB]

Xilizhra wrote...
Tevinter, as before, I suspect.

And this despite one of the concept arts already depicting some mage unnafilliated with Tevinter resorting to blood magic.
Oh, and it has been far more common to kill blood mages who used to belong to a Circle than kill Tevinters in the DA series.