182 réponses à ce sujet

[Lady Luminous]

Now you see, I completely disagree with this. I'm not saying the player should never have to chose or such, indeed the choice on Virmire was a great scene, but giving the player the power to chose at all times trivialises it. It puts you into a position a god, not a character. In reality, people just die most of the time. You don't get to chose, it just happens. To always give choice is simply unbelievable. And to be honest, Virmire wasn't about the character dying, it was about the choice. It was about having to make a painful decision, not about having to face up to death.

 

Same with romances. People have their own tastes and preferences. Not everyone in the world is bisexual, not everyone automatically finds everyone else attractive. A world where everyone will sleep with the lead character regardless is laughably unrealistic. Frankly, I feel that DA:I is too "free love". Most people I know have sexual tastes far more restrictive than any of the characters, even down to things like not wanting to date people with certain hair colours.

 

But then, maybe I'm in a minority. I want a deep, immersive, believable world, not a power fantasy where everything I want to happen does. I want to roleplay a character not a god. I want the game to kick me in the balls. I want it to make me upset because a character I like died without me being able to influence it. Because that is realistic. It's immersive. And it's moments like that that stay with you. Take, for example, FFVII. Yes, the game is pretty crap (6 and 9 are vastly superior), but that one scene - and if you've played it you'll know exactly what one I mean - is still  one of the greatest in gaming. Why? Because there's nothing you can do about it. It displays the helplessness of your character. And in doing so it immerses you in the world. It makes you feel.

 

To a point I agree, but if they give me a choice I want that choice to matter. I want its affects noticeable in a tangible way. 

 

I can understand why I had to fight Orsino/Harvester, but that doesn't mean I agreed with it. I want who your character supports to mean something. 

[Dabrikishaw]

 

I'm glad we could work out where the disconnect in this conversation is.

 

Thanks to save editing, a large number of things that bothered me about Dragon Age II are now gone. So certainly if I don't like how a mechanic works I can deal with it but it's going to stick with me.

[Ibn_Shisha]

Now you see, I completely disagree with this. I'm not saying the player should never have to chose or such, indeed the choice on Virmire was a great scene, but giving the player the power to chose at all times trivialises it. It puts you into a position a god, not a character. In reality, people just die most of the time. You don't get to chose, it just happens. To always give choice is simply unbelievable. And to be honest, Virmire wasn't about the character dying, it was about the choice. It was about having to make a painful decision, not about having to face up to death.

 

Same with romances. People have their own tastes and preferences. Not everyone in the world is bisexual, not everyone automatically finds everyone else attractive. A world where everyone will sleep with the lead character regardless is laughably unrealistic. Frankly, I feel that DA:I is too "free love". Most people I know have sexual tastes far more restrictive than any of the characters, even down to things like not wanting to date people with certain hair colours.

 

But then, maybe I'm in a minority. I want a deep, immersive, believable world, not a power fantasy where everything I want to happen does. I want to roleplay a character not a god. I want the game to kick me in the balls. I want it to make me upset because a character I like died without me being able to influence it. Because that is realistic. It's immersive. And it's moments like that that stay with you. Take, for example, FFVII. Yes, the game is pretty crap (6 and 9 are vastly superior), but that one scene - and if you've played it you'll know exactly what one I mean - is still  one of the greatest in gaming. Why? Because there's nothing you can do about it. It displays the helplessness of your character. And in doing so it immerses you in the world. It makes you feel.

You had me right up until the whole '9 is vastly superior to 7' thing...

[Jedi Master of Orion]

That's my point. The supposedly story-related reasons for the loss of a specific sibling just don't exist, especially for a mage Hawke.

 

I mean for the complete story that they did have in the end, Bethany and Carver's part of it still need non-mage and mage Hawke respectively. Bethany's feeling is guilt that other people had to take risks to keep her safe and Carver's jealousy.

In which case, either Bethany or Carver being dead right after the fake-prologue, killed off-screen during the desertion/the escape would have made more narrative sense to me, and set a mood more befitting that tone besides. As is, the entire thing is decided via cutscene-logic based on hardly sound reasoning, neither in meta nor in-game terms.

 

Why? Hawke was still there when they died. The player should still get to see it.

[Chashan]

I mean for the complete story that they did have in the end, Bethany and Carver's part of it still need non-mage and mage Hawke respectively. Bethany's feeling is guilt that other people had to take risks to keep her safe and Carver's jealousy.

 

Hawke being a mage or not isn't all that important there, as it were, if it's a dynamic internal family-relationship you are looking for, which would have been more desirable anyway as I see it. Ultimately, neither have too much to contribute to the "complete story" of issues with mages, as was already brought forward by others.

 

 

 

Why? Hawke was still there when they died. The player should still get to see it.

 

 

You could make the same argument for the exact way the rout at Ostagar happened, of which Warrior- and Rogue-PC as well as Carver were a part, or the eve of Lothering's destruction. Amells were there and seen it all, and if you wish to show how dreadful the loss is, why pass on that opportunity (pointing out the game's short development-cycle aside, of course)?

 

Sticking with just one of either siblings dying, and that off-screen, one would avoid the awkwardness that is the wonky cutscene we got and further set a more ambiguous topic to be explored by the surviving three Amells right at the start. As is, that does not really happen in any meaningful way.

[Mirrman70]

Hawke being a mage or not isn't all that important there, as it were, if it's a dynamic internal family-relationship you are looking for, which would have been more desirable anyway as I see it. Ultimately, neither have too much to contribute to the "complete story" of issues with mages, as was already brought forward by others.

 

Hawke being a mage was central to his relationship with Carver. Carver always felt like the lesser sibling because he was the only one without powers. If both Bethany and Mage-Hawke were with each other it doesn't make sense for both of them to stay in Kirkwall with it being so difficult to hide one mage in the family. Bethany was guilt-ridden because everyone was protecting her, she wouldn't have needed to feel so much guilt if Hawke was a mage too.

[Lieutenant Kurin]

Hawke being a mage was central to his relationship with Carver. Carver always felt like the lesser sibling because he was the only one without powers. If both Bethany and Mage-Hawke were with each other it doesn't make sense for both of them to stay in Kirkwall with it being so difficult to hide one mage in the family. Bethany was guilt-ridden because everyone was protecting her, she wouldn't have needed to feel so much guilt if Hawke was a mage too.

Yeah, both those characters were too defined by their relationship with Hawke. Bethany felt guilt for Hawke (she mentions Carver like.. twice) hiding her all the time, and Carver was jealous of Hawke's abilities AND believed Hawke was too much a risk taker and a risk in general (which you get to see A LOT OF if he becomes a templar). It's why those characters always ring a little hollow to me, because if Hawke didn't exist, it's almost like their entire personalities wouldn't either.

 

That being said, choosing a class shouldn't have been choosing who dies. We didn't get enough time with either character for it to even be meaningful. As for Orsino/Meredith... I liked it. I liked the fact that after being the big saviour in Act 2, choosing how to kill the Arishok (or even not to), it turns out Hawke isn't omnipowerful. But, I was always of the opinion that whomever you decided to back shouldn't have had that ending difference. I believe that if you spared Anders (the criminal) OR were a mage, you should've been forced to leave, and if not, you became viscount. If a choice means nothing, let it ACTUALLY mean nothing. (Hell, even Cullen saw the mistake of backing Meredith).

[Hiemoth]

To a point I agree, but if they give me a choice I want that choice to matter. I want its affects noticeable in a tangible way. 

 

I can understand why I had to fight Orsino/Harvester, but that doesn't mean I agreed with it. I want who your character supports to mean something. 

 

I both agree and disagree with you on this matter. The Orsino fight was unfortunate and, as has been pointed out so many times, added so that choosing the mage side doesn't leave you with less boss fights than choosing the Templars. Still, I did not feel it served the story well and the way it was executed was not really engaging to me. It was another example of the third Act being rushed and juryrigged.

 

Having written that, your choice did mean something leading to it. If you chose to side the mages, that was the side your Hawke stood with, it was that courtyard where Hawke gave his/her farewells. When the chaos came, that was where Hawke's principles put them. Thus it did mean something.

 

The thing I've realized, at least I have thought I have realized, when reading on a lot of discussions on choices and their impact is that while everyone keeps mentioning how important they are, I don't think there's a general consensus what is a meaningful consequence. To give an example, a minor scene in DAO was that when the player arrived to Lothering and there was a traumatized survivor blaming them of being tainted. The player could kill the survivor, calm and comfort them or disgrace them in front of everyone. That choice was not reflected or referred to at any further point of the game, so was it a meaningless choice? Was it a wasted choice?

 

The second problem with the argument is that Dragon Age 2 was never a game about what happened, but rather why something happened. It required an end point, the Qunari invasion and the Mage-Templar outburst to lead to the future games, so it instead told what was Hawke's role in the conflict. Was s/he a bloodthirsty tyrant who stoked the flames of war or was s/he someone who fought to the last to hold the chaos together. Is such a choice of role meaningless, even though it changes who they were in the story completely?

[AbsolutGrndZer0]

I agree with the OP. It's not "cheap", and there has been precedent before with the Virmire situation. I would have greatly enjoyed rp'ing two mages hiding in Kirkwall or two warriors greatful not to be hiding any longer, irregardless of the personalities involved.

 

I'm all for the most freedom possible when it comes to an RPG.

 

I hated that Orsino lost it regardless of the player's stance on the situation. It made no sense that he would go all harvester if the PC was on his side, desperation aside, especially if the PC was a mage. That said, it also made no sense if the PC was a warrior and stood with Meridith that the PC was going to be "arrested" as Cullen suggested. Arrested for what? Though all of that may have just been the result of rushed, rough-shod writing. The first example is more appropos in my opinion.

 

For me an RPG needs to focus on the "role" aspect, not the customization of weapons, armor, class etc. akin to how I change after I sit down with my family to D&D. My son is no longer my son, Shane, he's Ryl, a holy cleric and we're no longer in our home, we're in Phandelan, yes we're still on the starter set of 5th. Oh well, my point remains.

 

As for the Virmire situation, at least you got to pick between saving Kaiden or saving Ashley... it's only one a fresh ME2 or 3 playthrough without the Genesis DLC that the choice is then based on your gender.  So it's not quite the same as the Bethany/Carver situation where you can't run it as the two Hawke Mage sisters tearin' up the town without a 3rd party hack/mod.  I would have loved that.  Hell, that's something I'd love to see in the Keep as an option.  Screw the "must have a mage and non-mage" thing and let my mage Hawke have her sister by her side.

 

As for Orsino, yes I agree it's completely stupid that no matter what you do, he turns out going all Harvester on you and you have to kill him.

 

As for Meredith arresting you, she's completely bat**** crazy.   Cullen knows it, that's why he says pretty much "Meredith is totally going to arrest you." cause she is.  Cause she's... bat**** crazy.

[Momowo]

I'm not sure if it has already been said but I heard Orsino was originally not going to be a battle if you sided with the mages.
Apparently it was felt there needed to be another fight so he was added regardless... which I never really liked as I felt it was a bit out of character for him to loose it when you were on his side considering how well composed he usually was. Oh well.

(Before anyone asks I can't remember where I read this)

[schall_und_rauch]

That's the story of DA II: You may try, but kn the end, bad things just happen and you can't do much about it. It's just a different story than "you are the hero and the world bends to your will".

I think DAI will be more classical, even if you can't control everything.

[veeia]

Re: Bethany/Carver...I understand people's frustrations about not being able to choose, because it wasn't as meaningful to the story as it should have been. I disagree that the options should have been random/player choice though. I think they should have just been better integrated into the plot. The choice to make either sibling a Grey Warden has always baffled me. If your sibling lives (and just find some other mechanism for losing them if you bring in the deep roads that doesn't involve that), it makes more sense for them to go to the Templars/Circle for the rest of the story. Then in Act 2&3, they could have been valuable sources of information and emotional connection on that conflict, as well as providing an opportunity for Carver to have more importance to the Mage Hawke. Just a lot of dropped opportunities there, IMO. (And I do attribute it to the dev time...but that GW choice is still strange to me)

[Aaleel]

I really didn't like the whole Carver/Bethany thing because:

 

1) It wasn't anything story related, or PC decision/action related that influenced the death, but what vocation you chose to pursue.  I just thought that was stupid, I think I'm a savvy enough player to make the party work with what I'm left with.

 

2) I hadn't known my siblings long enough to really care at that point, and since I only played the game once I still don't know anything about Carver.

 

The Orsino/Meredith, Mage/Templar choice was just horrible IMHO.  To force your ally to turn on you just for the sake of having a boss fight even though it made no sense to me whatsoever.

 

The Kaiden/Ashley wasn't really taken out of your hands, you were just forced to make a choice and military leader.  So I had no issue with that one, thought it was one of the best moments in the series.  But Virmire is still my favorite mission in the trilogy so I may be biased

[Jedi Master of Orion]

Hawke being a mage or not isn't all that important there, as it were, if it's a dynamic internal family-relationship you are looking for, which would have been more desirable anyway as I see it. Ultimately, neither have too much to contribute to the "complete story" of issues with mages, as was already brought forward by others.

 

Yes it is. Carver is jealous specifically of the attention that his siblings got for being mages and Bethany feels guilty specifically for that fact that her non mages siblings had to take risks for her magic.

 

You could make the same argument for the exact way the rout at Ostagar happened, of which Warrior- and Rogue-PC as well as Carver were a part, or the eve of Lothering's destruction. Amells were there and seen it all, and if you wish to show how dreadful the loss is, why pass on that opportunity (pointing out the game's short development-cycle aside, of course)?

 

Sticking with just one of either siblings dying, and that off-screen, one would avoid the awkwardness that is the wonky cutscene we got and further set a more ambiguous topic to be explored by the surviving three Amells right at the start. As is, that does not really happen in any meaningful way.

 

Except we as players have already seen Ostagar (also the Hawke family wasn't there for the destruction of Lothering, they left just before it happened) and the sibling's death was narrative important for us to see happen because it leads directly into much of the Hawke family subplot for Act 1. The Battle of Ostagar by contrast almost never comes up again because it wasn't as important to the Hawkes. The death of the sibling we didn't really get to know wasn't all that emotionally effective but it would have been dramatically even less so if it had happened off screen. I honestly find it baffling to argue that it would be improved in any way by it being offscreen.

[Reaverwind]

Yes it is. Carver is jealous specifically of the attention that his siblings got for being mages and Bethany feels guilty specifically for that fact that her non mages siblings had to take risks for her magic.

 

 

 

Irrelevant. Their emotions had no impact on the story.

[dekarserverbot]

Dragon age 2 had the policy of NOT letting the players have ANYTHING in their hands, except who they must romance and who must be USELESS supported. DA2 is not an RPG is a crappy pinata party game with some date sim elements and the worst cast of subjects ever.

[pallascedar]

Yeah, both those characters were too defined by their relationship with Hawke. Bethany felt guilt for Hawke (she mentions Carver like.. twice) hiding her all the time, and Carver was jealous of Hawke's abilities AND believed Hawke was too much a risk taker and a risk in general (which you get to see A LOT OF if he becomes a templar). It's why those characters always ring a little hollow to me, because if Hawke didn't exist, it's almost like their entire personalities wouldn't either.

 

To be fair, a lot of real people are really defined by their relationships with other people.

[Chibi Elemental]

I read one of the dragon age 2 articles back after it had come out, I also believe it was mentioned in one of the early Dragon age inquisition articles also but I don't remember though they are main articles that are part of the DA2 site or game informer, anyway the article said the way they had set it up with bethany carver and hawk was basicaly because they wanted to tell the story of the Veterain and the Mage regardless of your class choice and the easiest way to pull that off was to have one of the two siblings die and move forward with that storyline with the sibling. Its a silly way of doing it but that was one of the reasons they did it.

[PhroXenGold]

The second problem with the argument is that Dragon Age 2 was never a game about what happened, but rather why something happened. It required an end point, the Qunari invasion and the Mage-Templar outburst to lead to the future games, so it instead told what was Hawke's role in the conflict. Was s/he a bloodthirsty tyrant who stoked the flames of war or was s/he someone who fought to the last to hold the chaos together. Is such a choice of role meaningless, even though it changes who they were in the story completely?

 

In many ways, that part of was why I liked DA2's story so much (barring parts of the obviously rushed last act). In the end, all you could really do was to shape your character. Which, to me, just seems far more realistic and believable than being able to shape the world in the way many games let you.

[Chashan]

To be fair, a lot of real people are really defined by their relationships with other people.

 

And could have been worked with even had both PC and respective sibling been mages/non-mages. Be it inferiority-complex of Carver toward his elder - not hard to picture - or them coming to appreciate being "free" of covering up either their da' or sis, Beth' severely disagreeing with her mage-sibling throwing discretion to the wind throughout the game or being on the same page as far as responsible use of magic goes, etc.

 

 

 

[...]

 

Except we as players have already seen Ostagar (also the Hawke family wasn't there for the destruction of Lothering, they left just before it happened) and the sibling's death was narrative important for us to see happen because it leads directly into much of the Hawke family subplot for Act 1. The Battle of Ostagar by contrast almost never comes up again because it wasn't as important to the Hawkes. The death of the sibling we didn't really get to know wasn't all that emotionally effective but it would have been dramatically even less so if it had happened off screen. I honestly find it baffling to argue that it would be improved in any way by it being offscreen.

 

There are those who hadn't played DA:O before DA2, to whom DA2 was marketed as an entry to the series if I recall correctly. I may not be one of those, but still.

 

My point merely was that, as is, the cutscene is hardly any more meaningful, largely due to being set so early on, as you point out. With one of the siblings dead at the outset it would drive home right away that yes, the Blight is indeed quite serious business indeed and the Hawke-crew suffered a casualty already. Which would drive the point home that "the world does not turn around the PC" just as well if not better, as was suggested, wouldn't it.

 

I'll just leave off saying this: I am not a fan of the shoddy grounds upon which locking which sibling dies to class is based, and maintain that leaving an actual choice in the matter to the player would have been worthwhile.
 

[Revan Reborn]

I wouldn't want to have complete control over the story. That would take the fun out of the experience. Some things need to happen regardless of whether I want them to or not. The Bethany/Carver situation was minor for me as it happened so early in the game. My only criticism in regards to BioWare is since I didn't know the character, I wasn't really sympathetic when he died. As far as Bethany, she was taken by the Templars for 2/3s of the game so I didn't see much of her either.

 

The issue for me isn't necessarily choices being made for me, but rather how BioWare executes the story. If they do it in a way where they throw me a curve ball and it doesn't feel like I'm being forced into a situation I didn't agree to, I'm fine with it. BioWare just needs to be aware of how to properly make situations where some things are out of your hands, but not in a way that's punishing. They need to test and surprise us. They do not need to penalize us. That's a fine line to walk sometimes.

[Rawgrim]

In an rpg, the game should never take control over the player's character. However, events could\should be able to happen which the player has no control over. Simple rule.

 

The Bethany\Carver bit wasn't a biggie at all. One of them dies. It might have been more interesting if the player gets to pick one of them to save, though. Hard choice.

[pallascedar]

Here's my view on the whole Bethany/Carver thing. First off, lots of things in DA2 happened that were beyond Hawke's control: it's kinda the point of the story. It does stink that sometimes I, the player, want to do something, but Hawke can't do it, but I value a strong narrative over lots of choices. It's hard to implement both, especially given the timeline of the game.

 

But even if DA2 had been full of more choice, I would have hated having to choose between Bethany/Carver. Virimire and Ogre are apples and oranges, and it's weird that so many people bring it up. Shepard is a commander, Ashley and Kaidan are his/her soldiers. Shepard is making what very may well be a tactical decision (that's how I based it for my first Shep at least. Hawke is not a commander; Hawke is an older sibling and giving Hawke the ability to choose between his two siblings is all sorts of screwed up.

 

The biggest Carver/Bethany issue for me is that the whole death scene lacked real emotional punches. It's so early in the game, and I barely know the characters. And then there's a scene and I just watch while my sibling dies. I'm not sure how it could have done better: perhaps a longer prologue or a more interactive death scene (make the player THINK they can save Carver/Bethany).

 

There's also the entirely separate issue that Carver and Bethany stop adding anything to the game in Act II and III. It sucks that you can't talk to a Templar/Circle Mage sibling after All That Remains. Legacy and MotA made Carver from somebody I mostly forgot about into one of my favorite DA characters ever, so clearly the potential was there, it's just sad that it couldn't be fully explored in vanilla.

[zqrahll]

It is really bad role playing design to take choice & agency away from the player.    This is one of the main complaints I have with Bioware, at times they force you to play their version of the hero even if that conflicts with how you've been playing the game.

[PhroXenGold]

It is really bad role playing design to take choice & agency away from the player.    This is one of the main complaints I have with Bioware, at times they force you to play their version of the hero even if that conflicts with how you've been playing the game.

 

I would say it depends. Should you be able to control how your character reacts to events? Yes, certainly. Should you be able to control the events themselves? Not neccesarily. That's really what I've been pushing in this thread. There's no player choice as to which sibling dies because Hawke is not in a position to chose. To give the player a chance to chose here would be the complete opposite of role-playing. If you're playing the role of Hawke, you're limited by what Hawke can do. To do otherwise is to move beyond role-playing that character. If Hawke is not in a position to chose, the player shouldn't be able to chose.

 

Role-playing is about shaping your character, not shaping the world.