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[In Exile]

Where did I mention The Witcher exactly?

 

Nowhere? I did this bizarre thing that apparently only happens in the part of the world where I'm from where one introduces new topics in a conversation. 

 

My point, which in hindsight I didn't articulate well, was that there is a tendency for people to confuse the cultural background that a work is designed with a conscious intention on the part of the author to create a certain kind of work. 

 

The Witcher, either as the series of books or the games proper, is praised for a "gritty" portrayal of fantasy. But a great deal of its perception as "gritty" comes from Western conventions of fantasy and generally Western cultural tropes, which aren't quite the same in Eastern Europe. Particularly views on political corruption, violence, and the value of human life. This is especially true when you consider that the Witcher was conceived very close to the fall of Communism, at a point in time where life was really rough in the East. 

 

The Witcher is, obviously, gritty by our standards. But it's not intentionally gritty. DA:O was never intended to be gritty, though the aim was to make it darker than D&D. This is why it was marketed (at times) as "dark heroic fantasy". 

 

But I suppose my error in all this was in thinking we were having a genuine conversation on this forum instead of just trading barbs with one another. 

 

Don't worry about it, people kinda jump the gun and make passive aggressive remarks about The Witcher games on these boards. It's because people always expect it to come up when discussing these kinds of topics because in truth, it's the game series that has the most in common with DA. Add in this being the Bioware forums, people don't like posters talking about things that TW does "better" than DA.

 

Speaking of unbidden rants, this is a good example. There's no attempt to undercut anything. 

[Reymoose]

Nowhere? I did this bizarre thing that apparently only happens in the part of the world where I'm from where one introduces new topics in a conversation. 

 

The Witcher, either as the series of books or the games proper, is praised for a "gritty" portrayal of fantasy. But a great deal of its perception as "gritty" comes from Western conventions of fantasy and generally Western cultural tropes, which aren't quite the same in Eastern Europe. Particularly views on political corruption, violence, and the value of human life. This is especially true when you consider that the Witcher was conceived very close to the fall of Communism, at a point in time where life was really rough in the East. 

 

The Witcher is, obviously, gritty by our standards. But it's not intentionally gritty. DA:O was never intended to be gritty, though the aim was to make it darker than D&D. This is why it was marketed (at times) as "dark heroic fantasy". 

 

There's a difference between introducing new topics in a conversation and making it your job to derail the conversation and arguing for the sake of arguing, trolling, and generally being holier-than-thou with a Napoleon complex.

 

The Witcher is mainly drawn from *Polish* history, not just 'Eastern Europe', and specifically Polish mid to late medieval history. With most of it looking at the politics of Western/Eastern Europe from a Polish viewpoint. 

 

I'm not sure what the point of pooh-poohing on DA:O so much serves, as it *was* a dark game, or are women being force fed people/men to become broodmothers not dark enough?

 

The OP is discussing the horror element, which I don't personally agree with, but I would say DA:O has more 'unsettling' or things to recall than DA:I does. Broodmothers, again, are one. Zathrian's family/motivations are another (for myself). The only point I recall that I got that sense was the mage flashback but then it's nullified by the 'tortured' Leliana getting off the rack (fully armored) and fighting with you.

 

Even the aesthetic in DA:O is intentionally darker because in DA:I you have templars/mages/venatori with some clean combat while DA:O has nearly rotting darkspawn most of the time covered in grime/blood that you then proceed to dismember (executions). Not to mention the Denerim battle, which is aesthetically more darker than the Corypheus battle.

[In Exile]

There's a difference between introducing new topics in a conversation and making it your job to derail the conversation and arguing for the sake of arguing, trolling, and generally being holier-than-thou with a Napoleon complex.

The Witcher is mainly drawn from *Polish* history, not just 'Eastern Europe', and specifically Polish mid to late medieval history. With most of it looking at the politics of Western/Eastern Europe from a Polish viewpoint.

I'm not sure what the point of pooh-poohing on DA:O so much serves, as it *was* a dark game, or are women being force fed people/men to become broodmothers not dark enough?

The OP is discussing the horror element, which I don't personally agree with, but I would say DA:O has more 'unsettling' or things to recall than DA:I does. Broodmothers, again, are one. Zathrian's family/motivations are another (for myself). The only point I recall that I got that sense was the mage flashback but then it's nullified by the 'tortured' Leliana getting off the rack (fully armored) and fighting with you.

Even the aesthetic in DA:O is intentionally darker because in DA:I you have templars/mages/venatori with some clean combat while DA:O has nearly rotting darkspawn most of the time covered in grime/blood that you then proceed to dismember (executions). Not to mention the Denerim battle, which is aesthetically more darker than the Corypheus battle.

I'm going to ignore your deluge of insults, though I will say it's very much a case of "pot, meet kettle".

As for the qualification of Polish vs. Eastern European, it's a distinction without a difference in the context of a Western fantasy audience. It's *especially* irrelevant when talking not about the subject matter of the work but it's tone, which are two quite different things. It's important to appreciate the context things are designed in.

As to DAO, there's a substantial difference between saying that it's no more dark than recent games and saying that it is not dark. Of course if you start from the premise that it is more dark then I am somehow disparaging it, but that's just tautological gibberish.

DAO has one brilliantly unsettling scene: the revelation of the brood mother and the poem. There is nothing like that in the sequels, and I have repeatedly said it's well done.

That one scene does not make the whole of DAO. If we talk about the actual content - and not the manner portrayed - there is no possible argument that DAO has darker material.

If we talk about the aesthetic, then DAI has far more horrific darkspawn (the DAI ghouls trump the well armoured hurlocks, who are by no means rotting) and the Red Templars certainly continue the theme of body horror.

The only thing one can say about the Denerim battle is that it is literally darker because of the lighning, but otherwise it portrays war exactly in the same way that DAI portrays it.

[Uccio]

I'm not sure what the point of pooh-poohing on DA:O so much serves, as it *was* a dark game, or are women being force fed people/men to become broodmothers not dark enough?

 

 

I got the impression that women in the hands of darkspawn are not only fed with flesh and bile but also raped to advance the ghouling effect. The words "they violated us" seem to appear separately from the force feeding part. The broodmother part was particularly dark and creepy.

[HuldraDancer]

Well I feel like a bad person for not being creeped out by a lot of the things other posters have mentioned, I recall being really freaked out by the children in DAA (creepy crawly horrifying ugly f**kers) but thats about it. I really enjoyed Hespiths poem but I can say I was creeped out of it course what she was saying didn't really sink in till the third run I suppose that might have something to do with it. Envy could have been creepy if I wasn't gushing about the level in general. Though the thing with the Oculara I did get a pang of emotion from when I brought Vivienne with me. DA series doesn't really scare me aside from the children in DAA (seriously f**k those things kill them with f**king fire) I can't say I've ever been too afraid of anything in the games though the poem may have gotten to me if the area was more poorly lit where you can only see just barely in front of you and no other sounds aside from your own foot steps and that poem as you stumble your way through the deep roads. Course I tend to get more afraid with things like that if I think something is gonna get me or something horrible is going to happen but I can't tell when or from which direction its coming.

[Tex]

Hm how is that twisted I thought that it was quite a nice thing that she did I mean if it was me I would have killed him and helped her hang his intestins around the room And gone with her which is also why I let the other one keep the stupid kid at red cliff oh and who can forget Kitty poor it was a pity about the little girl but it was necessary "sigh" oh well.

[Ieldra]

This is my take on the topic:

 

Some of the dark/horror stuff is still there, but it's very much in the background. The origin of the oculara, the story of Chateau d'Onterre, how red lyrium grows in people, the transformation of Red Templars. It's all less "in your face" than, say, the Reapers' horror in ME, or the brood mother-related stuff in DAO. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I always found the way both ME and DAO - in Hespith's chant - invoked disgust to heighten the horror groan-worthy and horribly clichéd. as if the very real horror behind it wasn't enough to stand on its own.

 

What I'm missing is the "everyday human" dark stuff, which makes the world itself darker rather than just plot-related elements we'll eventually excise from the world by defeating the Big Bad. For instance, everything that even remotely hints at sexual abuse has been carefully avoided. That's what, in my view, makes the world feel tame, sometimes to the point of artificiality. IMO you can't make an even somewhat "dark" world populated by believable humans and avoid this theme.

 

It was sometimes said some of the "everyday dark" elements were removed because they made people uncomfortable. Well, if I may be so bold, THAT IS THE POINT! if it doesn't make you uncomfortable - at the very least - it has no business being called "dark".

 

Whatever really happened and whatever was really intended, and regardless of the dark stuff that still exists, I experienced the world of DAI as significantly tamed compared to the earlier games, and I recall that a review by a gaming mag I respect said the same thing. It may just be that we experience so many side quests only at second hand, it may be more, I'm not really sure of the reason even while I can speculate like I did above. I'm sure only that the lack of in-your-face horror was not a factor.

[SnakeCode]

Unbidden rants? In Exile, is there a reason to be so rude and condescending, or are you just having a particularly bad day?

[Octarin]

You're missing the point guys. It's not WHAT it is, it's HOW IT'S PRESENTED.

 

The devs we got working on DA:I aren't the artful people we had making DAO or even DA2 to an extent. These guys seems like they're fresh out of script-writing school, they follow the rules of "how to make a great story" but they don't have heart to put in it. The Brood Mother was scary because there was a tiny buildup to it by the song. Just one song. Made your hair stand on end, let your imagination run wild, and then you hit upon the poor female dwarf... that was artfully executed. Nothing about DA:I is artfully executed, story-wise. The story is good but clumsily presented, the romances are clumsy to say the least, everything is drowned into an artificial doom and gloom that is supposed to give you the feeling of seriousness but it's effing oppressive without reason, it's like getting teenage students to write a bunch of emo plot beats and then have someone stictch those up into 200 gameplay with some grudgingly discernible beginning and end.

 

These people aren't Drew. Simple as that. They don't know how to be good storytellers. 

[Terodil]

Leaving aside the issue of how dark DA:I is compared to other games for a moment... I appreciate dark, but it needs to be tempered with humour and/or heartwarming moments, otherwise it's going to get tired very fast and generally depressing. Sadly, DA:I is neither particularly dark, nor particularly humorous or heartwarming. (I agree with what you said, Octarin.)

 

I definitely don't want DAn to turn into another "Dishonored". That game itself was very well crafted, IMO, but it left me utterly depressed (not just speaking of the two endings (one bad, one very bad), but also about the atmosphere in general and that god-damn heart... oh god). I don't play games to be depressed. I play games to feel emotionally engaged, which is a very different thing.

[hellbiter88]

Yeah origins had the most F'd up story and it was great. It just got tamer from there.

[Rawgrim]

DA:O did a tremendous job of telling us just how big a threat the Blight was. What was at risk, and what the effects of it were. The broodmothers in particular, really added to the whole danger aspect of it. Darkness is needed to be shown, in order for such things to work.

[atlantico]

Again, it's graphically the same it was in DAO. But in DAI this portrayal is supposedly "PG-13" while in DAO it's at the same time "hilariously over the top" and apparently not PG-13.

Managing to hold two opposite views about two games with the same kind of graphical content isn't nuance. It's the cognitive dissonance I've mentioned. It may make sense in your head but outside of it... I'm sorry, it just doesn't. No matter how facetious you get about it.

See, you're describing two different things. And well done on learning a new phrase, but using "cognitive dissonance" repeatedly doesn't make it so.

 

It is not the same, one is brutal the other is not. Let's set aside the blood thing, you can't see it, I don't care. The beheadings, tearing off limbs, execution moves - all gone. 

 

PG-13.

[Octarin]

Leaving aside the issue of how dark DA:I is compared to other games for a moment... I appreciate dark, but it needs to be tempered with humour and/or heartwarming moments, otherwise it's going to get tired very fast and generally depressing. Sadly, DA:I is neither particularly dark, nor particularly humorous or heartwarming. (I agree with what you said, Octarin.)

 

I definitely don't want DAn to turn into another "Dishonored". That game itself was very well crafted, IMO, but it left me utterly depressed (not just speaking of the two endings (one bad, one very bad), but also about the atmosphere in general and that god-damn heart... oh god). I don't play games to be depressed. I play games to feel emotionally engaged, which is a very different thing.

 

Oh man, do you remember the absolute exhilaration at the end of ME1 when you just rise from the crumbles of the reaper and stand on the heap, gun in hand, victorious pose, shite man, the numerous times I've screamed EFF YEAH and punched air on that moment...! Is that so hard to get ffs, we're not overly picky lol it's been achieved before. 

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Oh man, do you remember the absolute exhilaration at the end of ME1 when you just rise from the crumbles of the reaper and stand on the heap, gun in hand, victorious pose, shite man, the numerous times I've screamed EFF YEAH and punched air on that moment...! Is that so hard to get ffs, we're not overly picky lol it's been achieved before. 

 

Do you remember that, too? Spectre Induction.

 

It's just a soundrack and a few lines of talented voicing. It's isn't a high-end graphics Mantle API scene, but it gives me chills since 2007.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Or this...

[zeypher]

Anyways game is still decent. I look to see what they do in ME4

[tmp7704]

See, you're describing two different things.

No, I don't see how pointing out there's identical graphics in both games --in the context you were complaining about *lack* of blood-splattering violence-- is describing two different things. Elaborate.
 

The beheadings, tearing off limbs, execution moves - all gone.

I take it you have somehow managed to miss people exploding into bloody chunks when killed with certain abilities, or put it in a place where it doesn't clash with your black and white view of both games.

[In Exile]

Unbidden rants? In Exile, is there a reason to be so rude and condescending, or are you just having a particularly bad day?

Was there a reason to launch an opening salvo at me about the Witcher?

[In Exile]

You're missing the point guys. It's not WHAT it is, it's HOW IT'S PRESENTED.

The devs we got working on DA:I aren't the artful people we had making DAO or even DA2 to an extent. These guys seems like they're fresh out of script-writing school, they follow the rules of "how to make a great story" but they don't have heart to put in it. The Brood Mother was scary because there was a tiny buildup to it by the song. Just one song. Made your hair stand on end, let your imagination run wild, and then you hit upon the poor female dwarf... that was artfully executed. Nothing about DA:I is artfully executed, story-wise. The story is good but clumsily presented, the romances are clumsy to say the least, everything is drowned into an artificial doom and gloom that is supposed to give you the feeling of seriousness but it's effing oppressive without reason, it's like getting teenage students to write a bunch of emo plot beats and then have someone stictch those up into 200 gameplay with some grudgingly discernible beginning and end.

These people aren't Drew. Simple as that. They don't know how to be good storytellers.

Who is Drew? The DAI designers are almost the same as the DAO ones. Compare credits.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Who is Drew? The DAI designers are almost the same as the DAO ones. Compare credits.

Drew is a reference to Drew Karpyshyn, ME1-2 lead writer. In fact, he's the one who created the universe.

Here it's a reference to the people of his scale.

Simply put, 'These people aren't Drew' = 'These people aren't as genius as Drew Karpyshyn'

[tmp7704]

Simply put, 'These people aren't Drew' = 'These people aren't as genius as Drew Karpyshyn'

Given how dry and boring his ME books were (and how his SWTOR books were met with similar reception) I can be only happy we're spared of more of that genius.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Given how dry and boring his ME books were (and how his SWTOR books were met with similar reception) I can be only happy we're spared of more of that genius.

Oh man ... you have no soul.

[Octarin]

Oh man ... you have no soul.

 

No accounting for taste my dear. 

[SnakeCode]

[quote name="In Exile" post="18387983" timestamp="1421429645"]Was there a reason to launch an opening salvo at me about the Witcher?[/quote,]

You will notice I wasn't actually addressing you. I was speaking from experience about how people generally post about TW series on these boards. I apologise if you took offense.