228 réponses à ce sujet

[Rawgrim]

Here is a thought. We know 1 of the companions in the game can't leave you during the game. I bet that one dies at the end.

[Bfler]

More like Game of Thrones, I think. The Wall\Ostagar is being attacked by a suernatural force that hasn't been seen in ages. King dies early, and there is a dispute over the throne. The wardens vs The Night's Watch (even their oaths are almost the same). Blood magic. The Therin family has "dragon blood" Same as the Targaryans claim to have. Dragons starts to show up again. Game of Thrones with a LOTR quest, really.

 

I disagree, because the similarity with e.g. the darkspawn and orcs and the LoTR setting is too obvious. They anounced Origins a short time after the third movie, when the LotR-hype had reached the climax. At that time almost nobody knew anything about Game of Thrones and it was still the time, when movies, games portrayed (a group of) heroes, who have to save the world (like in Origins and also ME1). The LoTR setting and back story with a bit additional stuff, like e.g. an old mystical order, which has to protect the world (the Wardens) and dragons, because dragons are cool, and we have our DA:O

[Heresie Irisee]

Yeah, no. First of, the amazing condescension towards people who don't want the game to be one long unavoidable tragedy full of everyone you love dying is making me raise my eyebrows so hard. The idea that fiction needs to be tragic to have value, meaning, or emotional impact is something I'll argue against to my very last breath, tbh.

 

More to the point, this is Dragon Age we're talking about. As I see it, this isn't a game about the inevitability of death in times of war or bloody conflict. It's a game about the sometimes tough, sometimes inexcusable choices war forces you to make.

 

Take the ending to DA:O. You can sacrifice yourself, sacrifice your friend, sacrifice your morally grey antagonist (at the cost of personal relationships), or make a potentially world-threatening deal so that everyone survives. Execution issues (in the sacrificing Alistair route especially) aside, that's a meaningfully tragic choice. Which outcome is best (or the lesser evil) also depends on the player and their worldview.

 

The ending to DA2 fits this too. In the face of an act of terrorism, you have the choice to defend potential innocents (that you know from experience might not be so innocent) from execution for a crime they didn't commit, and lose everything you spent the last ten years building. Or you can side with the executors, impart justice -- for a given definition of justice -- and attain glory. You've just got to punish the circle for Anders' actions to do it. Depending on your choices (I consider maxing out friendship meters a choice), you may have to run through some of your comrades either way. The better option is very subjective to the player; both options have weight, and they don't need unavoidable death to have it.

 

Or in DA2, bringing your sibling to the deep roads. Their death is avoidable, if you brought Anders along, and if you make the choice to doom them to a life fighting darkspawn and eventually being overcome by the taint, and potentially never seeing them again. Et cetera et cetera.

 

The running thread in a lot of DA's choices is that life, and victory, have a cost. It would be jarring in the extreme for me if a significant number of companions died and the PC could do nothing about it.

 

I'd be perfectly fine with some, or all, companions potentially dying, or potentially being scarred for life (seems we're getting this one ) which I would argue is not any less tragic that straight up dying, or potentially surviving safe and sound at a cost I might not be willing to pay. Virmire situations would also be perfectly in keeping with that idea.

 

 

Sure, in real life death is unavoidable. Real life doesn't have an overarching narrative either, last I checked. If every single work of fiction had to tackle the same elements of the human experience, we might as well just make one book, one movie, and one video game, and call it a day.

[rowrow]

I loved the movie Fury. I love moments in shows/movies that almost make you bitter with emotion at events that take place. I like feeling like I'm not in complete control and nothing is sacred. That feeling of dread and adrenalin going through your veins not knowing who is next is an amazing thing for me. That said, my girlfriend absolutely hates the feeling, so I get people dont like it. I however do.

 

I like it as well, but I think there's a balance to be struck for an audience to remain engaged. There is a sweet spot. There comes a point where repeated unavoidable losses and lack of agency causes people to detach from what's going on. I've certainly noticed that in movies as well as games. That there is still the possibility of either good or bad outcomes, is what keeps you on edge and engaged - it's what keeps me interested and feeling like I still have a true stake in what's happening. If everybody is always safe and everything is too easy, there's no need to try. But when you start to feel as if very little you do makes a difference, when forced helplessness feels like the rule rather than a genuine shock, that's hugely un-motivating to the player, just as it is in real life. Note here: I'm not talking about tragic occurances themselves, but rather the inability to respond meaningfully - that's what causes people to disengage. In DA2, at the end of Act 2, I was feeling extremely angry and upset - that's great. By the very end of the game, I felt more disgust than anything, and like there was very little left that I cared for in Kirkwall. Which may very well be what was intended. But I'm glad that DAI seems to not be focussing so heavily on the worst aspects of faith and zealotry anymore. I'd like to be reminded why *anything* in Thedas is worth saving now.

[StillBornVillain]

I ask this question for a very simple reason. When dealing with a large ensemble of cast and characters, it generally adds to the emotion and the heart of the story if everybody does not make it through the end. Let me put things into perspective:

 

The Inquisition was formed out of desperation. After the massacre that took place at the Mage-Templar peace talks and the arrival of the Breach, the world was on the verge of collapse. Never in the history of Thedas has the world been so divided, and never has a more polarizing organization taken the field to resolve it.

 

How did the Inquisitor survive the Breach? Was he responsible? Where does his power come from? Is he truly the Herald of Andraste? Such questions will lead to honor and praise, while others will condemn and vilify.

 

What we do know is that the world has never faced a threat quite like this, and that casualties are likely to be high as a consequence. What sacrifices will the Inquisition have to make to complete its purpose? Is there a price that is too high?

 

How much are you willing to sacrifice to save Thedas? Would you sacrifice your army? Your advisors? Your companions? Or even your loved one? If these kinds of questions were to be posed in DAI, I believe it would make for an incredibly engaging and impactful story, albeit tragic.

 

 

Well Considering the "Threat" was basically the same in Mass Effect 2, and there was an ending where every companion lived so I'm sure that same ending exists in DA:I.

 

I like happy endings and I will fight tooth and nail to achieve that level of Victory.

[Shahadem]

Forced tragedy is comical. If it's upsetting, it's upsetting only because it's always done in a way that is both unbelievable and unacceptable because it is done during the periods of the game when the devs have robbed the player of his/her agency.

 

"Now I have to die for no reason!"

 

"But I killed all the bad guys!"

 

The other problem is that we've been exposed to so much fiction that is all so similar we know who is going to be killed and can almost usually guess when. That once again makes the death more comical and meaningless than meaningful and poignant.

 

I feel that too often authors simply kill off characters because they lack the ability, time or  to instill a certain emotion in their audience any other way.

[Heimdall]

I disagree, because the similarity with e.g. the darkspawn and orcs and the LoTR setting is too obvious. They anounced Origins a short time after the third movie, when the LotR-hype had reached the climax. At that time almost nobody knew anything about Game of Thrones and it was still the time, when movies, games portrayed (a group of) heroes, who have to save the world (like in Origins and also ME1). The LoTR setting and back story with a bit additional stuff, like e.g. an old mystical order, which has to protect the world (the Wardens) and dragons, because dragons are cool, and we have our DA:O

Actually I seem to recall Gaider mentioning A Song of Ice and Fire books as an influence for Dragon Age, particularly in its world development. I think the example they gave was Martin's approach to religion. As opposed to D&D settings or Middle Earth, GoT leaves religion as something closer to our reality, a matter of faith and mystery. Bioware shot for the same thing in Thedas. I think the Wardens clearly owe some inspiration from the Night's Watch (An ancient monster fighting order who's purpose has been neglected by the powers the be...) and the political side of the plot has more in common with GoT than LotR. I will give it to you that the Darkspawn are little more than Orc clones for the most part and they adopted the traditional adventurer party you'd see in the Lord of the Rings.

It's a marriage of the two

[Revelat0]

I use to be in the Inquistion like you, but then I took an arrow to the chest.

 

[Amaror]

It depends really.

There are two kinds of character death i imagine may play out in the game.

1. The consequence-death, which means a character dies because you screwed up. These can be very well done and were i feel in Mass Effect 2, but can make the player want to reload the game. A great way to counter that is to make the consequence rather long term like in the Witcher games. For example Leliana gets captures and tortured because made a decision. Now she survives this but with severe physical damage. This leads to her death in the final battle since she's no longer healthy enough to survive the fight.

2. The Story-death, which means character die regardless of your choice. This is a tricky death in a video game, because it's easy to have the player feel cheated. DA 2 was an absolutly horrible implementation of this. Your mother dies regardless of what you do, but the game makes you feel, with a special questline, like you should have been able to prevent her death and the game cheated you out of that possibility. Same goes for your siblings death, they die during combat in an environment were the player should have control but the game artificially takes the control away from you in order to let your brother or sister die. Mordin and Thane on the other hand were very well done. There deaths were natural progressions of their character stories and made sense in the context.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

Forced tragedy is comical. If it's upsetting, it's upsetting only because it's always done in a way that is both unbelievable and unacceptable because it is done during the periods of the game when the devs have robbed the player of his/her agency.

 

"Now I have to die for no reason!"

 

"But I killed all the bad guys!"

I love how the "Forced tragedy" word is being thrown around here.

How is "Forced safety" not a tragedy in itself? How is you and your companions completing the whole Inquisition unharmed any less comical in its implausible stupidity?

 

[NukeZen]

Probably we will be able to choose who to save and who to sacrifice, bearing in mind that however you will still be able also to save all. Is also true that games like DA:I require a story with epic events and a lot of pathos and tragedy, so probably we still have to expect someone to die and/or sacrifice

 for the good of the cause.

[Shahadem]

I love how the "Forced tragedy" word is being thrown around here.

How is "Forced safety" not a tragedy in itself? How is you and your companions completing the whole Inquisition unharmed any less comical in its implausible stupidity?

 

 

You can't both give player an agency over the action and then rob the player of that agency during a cutscene simply to kill off a character that wouldn't have died if the player had been allowed to keep their agency. That removes any sense of immersion for the player. The entire point is that you are supposed to be playing through a story, but if the story only happens during cutscenes, then you aren't playing through a story, you are watching a story and everything you did, are doing and will do becomes entirely pointless.

 

That's the forced tragedy.

 

Natural tragedy would be like a death in a Fire Emblem game, where the character dies during a battle because you done screwed up when you ordered that archer to run into the middle of 20 Sword Knights thinking he'd be able to dodge every single one of them.
 

Deaths that result from false dichotomies might be a worse form of forced tragedy. The nuke scenario in Superman might be a great example. Superman can either save Lewis or a town full of people. So he saves the town but Lewis dies. However that's ridiculous since Superman is capable of flying so fast he can fly backwards through time, so there's no way he wouldn't have been able to save both Lewis and the town. I think addressing this was How It Should Have Ended's first video.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

You can't both give player an agency over the action and then rob the player of that agency during a cutscene simply to kill off a character that wouldn't have died if the player had been allowed to keep their agency. That removes any sense of immersion for the player. The entire point is that you are supposed to be playing through a story, but if the story only happens during cutscenes, then you aren't playing through a story, you are watching a story and everything you did, are doing and will do becomes entirely pointless.

 

That's the forced tragedy.

 

Natural tragedy would be like a death in a Fire Emblem game, where the character dies during a battle because you done screwed up when you ordered that archer to run into the middle of 20 Sword Knights thinking he'd be able to dodge every single one of them.
 

Deaths that result from false dichotomies might be a worse form of forced tragedy. The nuke scenario in Superman might be a great example. Superman can either save Lewis or a town full of people. So he saves the town but Lewis dies. However that's ridiculous since Superman is capable of flying so fast he can fly backwards through time, so there's no way he wouldn't have been able to save both Lewis and the town. I think addressing this was How It Should Have Ended's first video.

Maybe I misunderstood you maybe not. But my stance is:

No companions should be safe from death - but them dying should be a direct consequence of your actions or inaction when it comes to choices and orders during the game. Like in the Mass effect 2 suicide mission. Can we agree on this or?

[Shahadem]

I use to be in the Inquistion like you, but then I took an arrow to the chest.

 

 

I'm pretty sure that an arrow wouldn't be able to penetrate through the heavy metal plate in the front, never mind through the front and back plates. But looking at the size, that isn't really an arrow, it's a projectile from a ballista.

[Flog the Undying]

Since we can continue playing after the ending, it's a fair assumption that our advisors, at least, won't be able to die.

[Shahadem]

Maybe I misunderstood you maybe not. But my stance is:

No companions should be safe from death - but them dying should be a direct consequence of your actions or inaction when it comes to choices and orders during the game. Like in the Mass effect 2 suicide mission. Can we agree on this or?

 

 No because "No companions should be safe from death" is being used very ambiguously. 

[Flog the Undying]

Forced tragedy is comical. If it's upsetting, it's upsetting only because it's always done in a way that is both unbelievable and unacceptable because it is done during the periods of the game when the devs have robbed the player of his/her agency.

 

"Now I have to die for no reason!"

 

"But I killed all the bad guys!"

 

The other problem is that we've been exposed to so much fiction that is all so similar we know who is going to be killed and can almost usually guess when. That once again makes the death more comical and meaningless than meaningful and poignant.

 

I feel that too often authors simply kill off characters because they lack the ability, time or  to instill a certain emotion in their audience any other way.

 

What if, in the final battle or section of the game, you have to choose between two companions to save, with both in high danger situations, a bit like in the Walking Dead? That certainly preserves agency.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

 No because "No companions should be safe from death" is being used very ambiguously. 

To clarify.

If a companion is unable to die regardless of player choices and actions, then this is bad. Because if a companion cant die nomatter what - the sense of fear over a companion's life is taken away from the player. Plot armor comes to mind but I wouldnt really call it that. This doesent need to relate to plots as an exclusive "immortality ticket".  

[sylvanaerie]

To clarify.

If a companion is unable to die regardless of player choices and actions, then this is bad. Because if a companion cant die nomatter what - the sense of fear over a companion's life is taken away from the player. Plot armor comes to mind but I wouldnt really call it that. This doesent need to relate to plots as an exclusive "immortality ticket".  

By the same token, if I know a companion must die every single time that's played out, I'll avoid that quest like the plague.  There is no fear of loss if the player knows ahead of time it will always end with someone dying.  It's a certainty.  If it's a 'main story quest' that has to be done in order to complete the game, I'll just stop playing the game.  To remove agency in the opposite direction is just as silly as 'plot armor'. 

 

*Edit* One of the most difficult choices in DA2 was 'what class to play' because it determined which of the two siblings--one of whom will always die--you lose.  This wasn't fear over a companion's life, it was just a BS decision forced on me for no other reason than 'it's in the script'.

 

When a video game is one long, plodding, angst ridden fest of overblown tragedy where no matter what I do, companions die left and right and each death is treated as if the character was a candle snuffed out and not a 'life ended', I'd not only get frustrated as hell but bored out of my gourd.  Regardless of the 'reasons' for their death, each death removes that much more content from the game.  I always felt cheated because Hawke loses one sibling at the beginning.  Just because.  While that death is treated with more dignity than the WC/Redeemer ending, it still evokes less in me than that of Wesley, who's demise is purposeful and a choice rather than some random happenstance over which the player has no agency at all.  There are examples of right ways and wrong ways to handle it in (sometimes) the same game.

 

Death, if meaningful and treated with the proper dignity and gravity would be fine, I suppose.  I certainly killed Loghain many a run--though he wasn't a companion at that point.  I also killed Anders every game.  But those were player choices, not something forced onto me in the game.  

 

If you screw up a mission and a character dies, in all likelihood I'd reload, try to redo it.  If knowing no matter what I do someone will die, that's a deal breaker for me.

 

This is a video game.  I want to have fun, not be 'treated' to an E ticket roller coaster ride of angst upon more angst upon more angst.  That's not good writing, that's just Twilight.

[NukeZen]

To clarify.

*Sdeng*

 

 

*Sbang*

 

Scripted deaths are no "cheating" and/or "bad writhing". Are events, like every other scripted event in the game. Sometimes "****" happens. And that's it. Is not bad if someone has to die. Maybe it make you feel sad, angry, disappointed but is not bad at all.

[kipac]

Who needs more human sacrifice when the inquisitor party will probably take well more than hundreds of bandit heads and anyone who gets in the way?

Anyway, it's annoying when games, novels, and movies don't know what else to do other than killing off some characters for tragic moments. Death isn't the only mean that leads to tragedy, and it's way overused.

[Wiggs Magee]

Would be happy if there was a high chance of party members dieing.... really adds to the weight or the situation and tugs at the heart strings etc etc

 

However... having certain companions always having to die for me isn't a good idea

Not only does it just feel forced, as it sort of takes choice away from a series of games that have frequently promoted the idea of choice importance, and why punish some people where say for example the character they like the most has to die? while others they dislike stay alive

 

Plus... it also enflames people to see certain characters as 'dev favourites' e.g. Liara from Mass effect... since some characters may be unable to die (Please note.. i don't really think the whole liara thing is the case, but its certainly brought up alot in BSN topics'

[NukeZen]

Who needs more human sacrifice when the inquisitor party will probably take well more than hundreds of bandit heads and anyone who gets in the way?

Anyway, it's annoying when games, novels, and movies don't know what else to do other than killing off some characters for tragic moments. Death isn't the only mean that leads to tragedy, and it's way overused.

 

Maybe this is the point i don't get it, maybe because is too generic.

[Milan92]

Here is a thought. We know 1 of the companions in the game can't leave you during the game. I bet that one dies at the end.

 

Cassandra is most likely the companion who won't leave no matter what. 

 

But she is also a LI, so I doubt her death would be canon.

[Kirikou]

Almost rage quit the first ME when I had to choose between Kaidan and Ashley. I DO NOT my party members dying. Well other than Anders. Seriously screw that guy.