153429 réponses à ce sujet

[Illyria]

Have to say Andromeda looks great, and I got really excited when I saw the female protagonist. I may have to overcome my horror of guns to try this next year.

 

Go Adept.

 

Three games and I've barely used any weapons.

[roselavellan]

Go Adept.

 

Three games and I've barely used any weapons.

 

Thanks, that sounds promising

[Illyria]

Thanks, that sounds promising

 

It can take a while in ME1 to level your abilities up to the point where you can do that, but once you have it's amazing.  You'll be tearing through enemies without ever lifting a gun.

[Ellawynn]

Have to say Andromeda looks great, and I got really excited when I saw the female protagonist. I may have to overcome my horror of guns to try this next year.

 

But... you could always play as a girl in Mass Effect?

[Illyria]

But... you could always play as a girl in Mass Effect?

 

Yes, but it's always been dudeShep on the trailers, and the one time Shepard was used (in the N7 Day video last year) whiny fanbrats got upset about BW ruining their immershun.

[roselavellan]

It can take a while in ME1 to level your abilities up to the point where you can do that, but once you have it's amazing.  You'll be tearing through enemies without ever lifting a gun.

 

Thanks, I will try it before Andromeda comes out.

 

But... you could always play as a girl in Mass Effect?

 

Yeah, I avoided ME mainly because of the guns (hours of trying to play Quake and Halo have scarred me!), and also I think I don't usually find the science fiction genre as appealing as fantasy. But the environment in Andromeda looks so much more varied than those I saw in ME, so it looks like it would be worth the effort to try and play it.

 

And it may be a matter of personal taste, but the person they featured in the trailer looks far more relatable (hmm, spell check tells me this is not a word) for me than female Shepard did (I tried to play ME3 for about 15 minutes; granted, not long enough to make a proper judgment).

[Ellawynn]

 

And it may be a matter of personal taste, but the person they featured in the trailer looks far more relatable (hmm, spell check tells me this is not a word) for me than female Shepard did (I tried to play ME3 for about 15 minutes; granted, not long enough to make a proper judgment).

 

Maybe. I always found Shepard to be a total bad ass - I prefer Dragon Age in general, but she's my favorite BioWare protagonist, so getting into that character was never an issue for me.

[Illyria]

Thanks, I will try it before Andromeda comes out.

 

ME2 is very satisfying to play as an Adept in.  I've challanged myself to never use a gun in some mission, and once you've unlocked Miranda's loyality power you can use Slam which is just so much (I love the slam/warp combo)

[roselavellan]

Maybe. I always found Shepard to be a total bad ass - I prefer Dragon Age in general, but she's my favorite BioWare protagonist, so getting into that character was never an issue for me.

 

I'll need to give the ME series a proper trial, I think

[Illyria]

I'll need to give the ME series a proper trial, I think

 

You can play as a psychic lesbian space marine who will occasionally solve problems by headbutting them and frankly there's not a lot of games that let me do that.

[TheyCallMeBunny]

I liked the teaser very much (especially the expressive faces and amazing landscapes), I'm just a bit sad that I fell for the hype and expected more when I guess I really shouldn't have... I just want to know the name and genre of the Secret IP damn it!

[roselavellan]

You can play as a psychic lesbian space marine who will occasionally solve problems by headbutting them and frankly there's not a lot of games that let me do that.

 

Lol! Not quite our diplomatic Inquisitor, then...

[Elessara]

Lol! Not quite our diplomatic Inquisitor, then...

 

You can play diplomatic if you'd like.  I usually did although I do enjoy the occasional headbutting when it's appropriate.

[dawnstone]

The guy who runs project elvhen has a... bad rep in certain places.

 

And you're right.  A lot of the language doesn't fit the feel of DA.

Project Elven guy is creepy and I agree, the language doesn't fit. I have used it a few times for names, but like @brass_buckles says, I generally avoid using anything but what's in the wiki for long sentences. Beyond that, I tell the reader that the characters switched to Elven. A much smoother read that way.

 

As far as having a hard "k" sound in certain names, maybe the elves picked the names up from humans or dwarves they befriended. I named my canon Inquisitor Luca, though I knew it didn't sound elven, and then I found out there was a lady dwarf named Luka in multiplayer. So it all works out for me.

[Brass_Buckles]

Project Elven guy is creepy and I agree, the language doesn't fit. I have used it a few times for names, but like @brass_buckles says, I generally avoid using anything but what's in the wiki for long sentences. Beyond that, I tell the reader that the characters switched to Elven. A much smoother read that way.

 

As far as having a hard "k" sound in certain names, maybe the elves picked the names up from humans or dwarves they befriended. I named my canon Inquisitor Luca, though I knew it didn't sound elven, and then I found out there was a lady dwarf named Luka in multiplayer. So it all works out for me.

 

So that's two people who have issues with this person... I take it there's something I haven't heard.  Anyone care to private message me and fill me in?

[dawnstone]

So that's two people who have issues with this person... I take it there's something I haven't heard.  Anyone care to private message me and fill me in?

This person put together a pretty good post on it a while ago:

 

http://swevani.tumbl...-project-elvhen

 

So, basically, he wrote his version of Elvhen to be very unfriendly to QUILTBAG people, asexuals and aromantics in particular, (possibly) creeps on teenagers, and to put it more bluntly now that I'm thinking about it more, is also a sanctimonious prick regardless of anything else. 

 

ETA: It looks like a lot of the linked posts have been deleted, jsyk.

[Brass_Buckles]

This person put together a pretty good post on it a while ago:

 

http://swevani.tumbl...-project-elvhen

 

So, basically, he wrote his version of Elvhen to be very unfriendly to QUILTBAG people, asexuals and aromantics in particular, (possibly) creeps on teenagers, and to put it more bluntly now that I'm thinking about it more, is also a sanctimonious prick regardless of anything else. 

 

ETA: It looks like a lot of the linked posts have been deleted, jsyk.

 

Weird.  Especially when the developers themselves have indicated that the elves didn't even have a word for "gay" or "lesbian" because... those preferences were just normal to them.

[dawnstone]

Weird.  Especially when the developers themselves have indicated that the elves didn't even have a word for "gay" or "lesbian" because... those preferences were just normal to them.

It seems he missed the memo then.

 

Although, just because there isn't a word for something, it doesn't mean there aren't words in an particular language that can be used to construct the concept. It would have been more fan-friendly, maybe, for the devs to add a simple, but more useful dictionary of "known elven words" to one of the WoT books like say the limited one Finn referenced in Witch Hunt, so fans could put together that sort of thing for themselves. I'd hate to think that even the devs refer to the wiki to remember what terms they made up.

[Ellawynn]

I'd hate to think that even the devs refer to the wiki to remember what terms they made up.

 

I seem to recall reading somewhere (Which is code for "I might've imagined this because I am a massive ditz.") that the DA team had a poet/songwriter writer the Elven language, not a linguist or someone who specializes in conlangs, because having a musicality to the language was more important to them than having something that actually functions.

 

So frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the devs make it up as they go and refer to fan-made codices. That whole "Intent of the writer is as important as the writing itself" codex was basically the devs way of saying "It means what we say it means" because realistically, a written language that required you to know what the writer meant to understand it is an awful idea, and kinda defeats the purpose of writing in the first place.

 

Now, I can understand if the ancient elves had two languages, a 'trade" language which was straightforward and easy to understand, and a "book" language that reveled in being as obtuse and impenetrable as possible, because the ancient elves seem like massive trolls that liked having to break three different textbooks on cryptography just to decipher a cookie recipe. But a civilization of their level had to have some way of clearly communicating information beyond verbally relaying it. Magic, maybe? I guess the flashes we see unlocking Solas' sanctuary are something like a language...

 

Adds an interesting edge to all the times Solas or someone translates Elven.

 

Quizzie: Solas! What's this inscription say?

 

Solas: It appears to be instructions to opening the way to Ghilan'Nain's Grove.

 

Quizzie: Oh cool, so we just -

 

Solas: it might also be an insult of your mother.

 

Solas: Or a cordon bleu recipe.

 

Quizzie:...

 

Solas: Ghilan'Nain loved cordon bleu.

[AlleluiaElizabeth]

The graphics were indeed gorgeous, but yeah, the premise of expanding our species beyond our native planet is problematic, to say the least... I mean, we can't even look after the planet we have so it doesn't seem right to go mess up other planets.

 

Well, Mass Effect went past that premise even before ME1's timeframe. Your first mission is on one of humanity's oldest colonies (roughly 30 years old, I think?).

 

Andromeda's premise seems to be that humanity, along with at least some of the other 10 races, are indeed colonizing outside the Milky Way. (I assume they say "new home for humanity" b/c the youtube video is targeted at humans, not as an in-universe thing.) But I don't see any reason this has to be a bad thing. Nothing says you have to be jerks to the races you encounter. Of course, its a story, so there's gonna be first contact drama. I do hope they don't shoehorn us into the "you think you own whatever land you land on", "evil" colonizer role. I mean, for one thing, I'm 99% certain that we're gonna be more refugees who plan on settling where we end up, anyway, than straight up colonizers. There's no mal intent. We're just running from something. And maybe some of the guys we meet are warring, aggressive jerks who conquer their neighbors and we have to defend ourselves, rather than be able to make a peaceful first contact. That happened in real life fairly often, too, after all.

[Brass_Buckles]

Well, Mass Effect went past that premise even before ME1's timeframe. Your first mission is on one of humanity's oldest colonies (roughly 30 years old, I think?).

 

Andromeda's premise seems to be that humanity, along with at least some of the other 10 races, are indeed colonizing outside the Milky Way. (I assume they say "new home for humanity" b/c the youtube video is targeted at humans, not as an in-universe thing.) But I don't see any reason this has to be a bad thing. Nothing says you have to be jerks to the races you encounter. Of course, its a story, so there's gonna be first contact drama. I do hope they don't shoehorn us into the "you think you own whatever land you land on", "evil" colonizer role. I mean, for one thing, I'm 99% certain that we're gonna be more refugees who plan on settling where we end up, anyway, than straight up colonizers. There's no mal intent. We're just running from something. And maybe some of the guys we meet are warring, aggressive jerks who conquer their neighbors and we have to defend ourselves, rather than be able to make a peaceful first contact. That happened in real life fairly often, too, after all.

 

On the upside, even in the previous games, sapient life was far more rare than plain old life.  So there are likely plenty of worlds that are inhabited by less intelligent species.  You could argue that it's still not right to disrupt these ecosystems.  The alternative is terraforming, but we don't know what kind of resources we'd have available to do so, without first colonizing worlds that are already suitable for habitation.

 

Conflict, however, might arise if humanity went to a world that someone else had already staked out for colonization.  Someone native to the Andromeda galaxy, specifically...

 

Hm.  I wonder if we'll encounter similar situations in the Dragon Age franchise in the future, if we ever cross the sea?  It appears that Thedas is located in the southern hemisphere, since the further south you go, the colder it gets--assuming, of course, that it's at least roughly spherical and a planet.  It might be neither.  There's a good chance there are continents both in the northern hemisphere and on the opposite side of the globe from Thedas, since the east and west ends of the map don't wrap around to meet one another.  As such, there's a chance for meeting new races overseas, as well as the same races living in entirely different cultures.  We might go overseas to colonize or explore only to find that the land is filled with tribal Avvar-like elves in a region with no Veil separating the Fade and the waking world...

 

... Now I really want to know what else exists in the Dragon Age universe.

[Ghost Gal]

As far as having a hard "k" sound in certain names, maybe the elves picked the names up from humans or dwarves they befriended. I named my canon Inquisitor Luca, though I knew it didn't sound elven, and then I found out there was a lady dwarf named Luka in multiplayer. So it all works out for me.

 

I thought that Gaider said that elven names tended to avoid hard consonants, not that it was a hard rule that they always stuck to.

 

As in, most elven words and names generally tend to avoid hard consonants, but there's always the occasional exception. Every now and again, you'll come across an elven name or word that includes a hard consonant or two, just like occasionally you'll come across a soft or feminine-sounding Old Germanic name. (They're not all "Brunhildes" or "Hildgards")

 

This person put together a pretty good post on it a while ago:

 

http://swevani.tumbl...-project-elvhen

 

So, basically, he wrote his version of Elvhen to be very unfriendly to QUILTBAG people, asexuals and aromantics in particular, (possibly) creeps on teenagers, and to put it more bluntly now that I'm thinking about it more, is also a sanctimonious prick regardless of anything else. 

 

ETA: It looks like a lot of the linked posts have been deleted, jsyk.

 

Okay, not canon and having a problematic enterpretation of the lore. Quietly swipe left.

 

It seems he missed the memo then.

 

Although, just because there isn't a word for something, it doesn't mean there aren't words in an particular language that can be used to construct the concept. It would have been more fan-friendly, maybe, for the devs to add a simple, but more useful dictionary of "known elven words" to one of the WoT books like say the limited one Finn referenced in Witch Hunt, so fans could put together that sort of thing for themselves. I'd hate to think that even the devs refer to the wiki to remember what terms they made up.

 

Well, Morrigan did say that the ancient elven language is "insufferably vague."  

 

If she gets to drink from the Well, she'll later say that she was mistaken and that it's much more intricate than that. I forget the exact wording she uses, but I think she said something like how, in the elven language, one word can have twelve meanings depending on how you use it in a sentence; that context and sentence structure and word combination can change the meaning of the word several times over depending on what you're talking about.

 

It's also possible that ancient elves didn't use labels for everything, but used whole sentences to describe things. Like they wouldn't say, "I'm homosexual," they'd say, "I only enjoy the company of other men/women." Which I think makes sense. Since they were immortal and "lived at a pace that sustained us for ages," it's possible that they were very slow and ponderous in nature, and thus spoke slowly and ponderously. They didn't come up with quick labels to slap on a concept, they just spelled it out with long sentences since their lives seemed eternal and they were never in a hurry for anything. If they preferred only the same gender or both genders, they'd just say so, not create a word for it.

 

Also, since they had mild telepathic and empathic abilities (like Cole), the other person could just sense their preference, or they'd visualize their preference, and the other person could get it. They wouldn't need to invent a term for something that was already common and accepted, especially when minor empathic abilities would allow them to convey the information visually/emotionally rather than verbally.

 

That's my personal interpretation.

[Elessara]

It's entirely possible that the elven language is rather vague - at least in writing - because they used memories or images rather than words.  Like what we see in the Vir Dirthara and other places in Trespasser.  You get images/memories and feelings as opposed to actual writing which would kind of make sense if elves did in fact come from spirits who took on physical bodies.

[Brass_Buckles]

It's also possible that ancient elves didn't use labels for everything, but used whole sentences to describe things. Like they wouldn't say, "I'm homosexual," they'd say, "I only enjoy the company of other men/women." Which I think makes sense. Since they were immortal and "lived at a pace that sustained us for ages," it's possible that they were very slow and ponderous in nature, and thus spoke slowly and ponderously. They didn't come up with quick labels to slap on a concept, they just spelled it out with long sentences since their lives seemed eternal and they were never in a hurry for anything. If they preferred only the same gender or both genders, they'd just say so, not create a word for it.

 

Also, since they had mild telepathic and empathic abilities (like Cole), the other person could just sense their preference, or they'd visualize their preference, and the other person could get it. They wouldn't need to invent a term for something that was already common and accepted, especially when minor empathic abilities would allow them to convey the information visually/emotionally rather than verbally.

 

That's my personal interpretation.

 

 

I don't think the elves were ever telepathic/empathic.  That's reading something into lore that hasn't been declared.  They were more spirit-like, but if Cole becomes human, he eventually stops hearing people's thoughts, from what I understand.  The only way they shared their thoughts/emotions directly was via magical means.  Now could they have used such means to inform people about their preferences etc?  Sure.   But I don't think mind-reading happened.  That is something only possible with blood magic.  Or if you're a spirit, apparently.

[Brass_Buckles]

It's entirely possible that the elven language is rather vague - at least in writing - because they used memories or images rather than words.  Like what we see in the Vir Dirthara and other places in Trespasser.  You get images/memories and feelings as opposed to actual writing which would kind of make sense if elves did in fact come from spirits who took on physical bodies.

 

The problem with that theory is that they did in fact develop a written language that coincided with their spoken one.

 

I think you're partly right, though.  They did imbue thoughts/emotions/images into their writing and books.  But they still had a written language, even though there may not have been much need for it.  They had a spoken language for obvious reasons:  they weren't spirits anymore and had to communicate in some way.

 

As for why have a written language... maybe they needed a way of communicating without emotion attached.  Or maybe they wanted their writing to be vague and meandering.  Or maybe everyone just knew what the words meant in a certain order/context/etc. and, being immortal, they thought that everyone always would know and nothing would change.

 

Point being if they primarily communicated via stored memories/thoughts/feelings/sensory input, then the written word would hardly be necessary at all.  When we see the stored memories/sensations, they usually don't include written words at all.  You'd think that they'd use the two in conjunction, but that doesn't seem to have happened often if at all.  Maybe the further from being spirits they were, the more they had to rely on written words?  But that doesn't make sense either since even the Inquisitor, regardless of race, can "read" the books in the Fade even though they lack any words.

 

Maybe when we next encounter Solas, we need to demand an elven history lesson and an explanation of why elves used written language when they could just store entire experiences and thoughts directly to be shared via magic. Or maybe that was difficult to do, and writing was therefore a necessity...

 

I have no idea.