98 réponses à ce sujet

[SwobyJ]

What? I don't see it getting softer or anything really. It's meant to have good parts and bad parts. I think they've done a pretty consistent job of showing that.

 

I didn't see the tone of it as 'good parts and bad parts' before more recently.

 

DAO - Oh. Its a thing. Pretty weird and alien and destroys the individual.

DA2 - Wow, its scary and imposing and extra violent.

DA2:MOTA - Hmm, okay, there might be reason for some of it.

DAI - Some good parts, bad parts, people trying to just live their lives, others tormented by it, most (born into it) regarding it as the only way to live.

[In Exile]

The Iron Bull ordering his company to hold isn't really monstrous though. All military leaders in war have to put their men in peril. It's part of the awesome responsibility of being in command. While the well being of the people under your command is important, it is always a secondary to accomplishing the mission. If Leonidas had been more like The Iron Bull when you go the Tal Vashoth/Save the Chargers route, the Persians would have overrun Greece.

I don't care for the Qun and my canon Inquisitor was a human noble and a devout Andrastian, so not too pro-Qun either. But I had the Inquisitor convince the Iron Bull to have the Chargers hold their ground, because I didn't think there was any sound military reasoning for pulling the Chargers back. Saving the Chargers boils down to choosing friends over the mission.

I'm not talking about the actual choice. I'm talking about what the qunari really did: they set up an operation in such a way that the IB had to choose between saving his company or saving a qunari military asset. The whole plan revolved around a loyal group of people dying to test the reliability of an asset. That's cold calculus at best, monstrous at worst (in that the point of the plan was for a lot of people to die regardless of the plan).

As to the actual situation, in my view any alliance predicated on sacrificing your own asset for the sake of a purported ally in a situation where that sacrifice is necessary only because of your ally's apparent incompetencr is not a worthwhile one.

[SwobyJ]

I suppose they could be setting it up a Tevinter's magisterium fueled by blood sacrifices from slaves vs Qunari where everyone's brain-washed and all the mages are bound and have their mouths sewn shut...

But, as others have said, that's going to be a really hard sell.

 

Bioware has that problem of doing the 'chaos vs order' thing while players can still generally assume that picking 'chaos' can still result in a mostly-okay result.

 

So people can still always pick Tevinter in this case and know that things will mostly still stand, even compared to picking order.

 

Yeah, it'd be a tough sell.

[In Exile]

Some of seems to be to make it more palatable to players.
Like...
I remember in DA:O it was. "Women do not fight." Now it's...well women fight but they are considered men.

They aren't women. The Qun doesn't have an idea of biological gender like we do. Provided the aptitude is there, and you have the right identity.

The Qun is ALL about your true character. Frankly it would be strange if they weren't so open to the idea. Where they're restrictive is in WHAT a person can do once their character is identified.

[SwobyJ]

At a certain point, I stop caring about all of it. That's why I'm a little undecided on playing any more DA games. This could be the last for me. It still sort of plays around with fun traditional fantasy elements. From this point though, it's just going to get weirder.

 

On one hand, there's the Qun. On the other, we have Solas wanting to enact the DA version of ME3 Synthesis. They're creeping in a lot of messages about demon/spirit coexistence in this game. Probably more than creeping any messages about the Qun being benign. I don't like any of it. It dehumanizes and denormalizes the setting (what little of it is normal, that is).

 

We've been over it in PMs, but I personally love some of this sort of thing, because I don't see it as only dehumanizing, but prohumanize. While the concept of external forces eroding our humanity is frightening, I also like how a story about this can (though writers rarely successfully capitalize on this) tell of how those external forces existing could mean that we may be able to prohumanize our way into those forces.

 

This is a universe of billions of stars. At some point, some day, we'll have to do something and become something more (not less) that can deal with greater realities that no one, including those at Bioware, has ever imagined to date. That's my position at least.

[SwobyJ]

I know a lot of people like this stuff. I hate it. I can't express how much. Fantasy is fun, but I like reality. All the beauty and ugliness alike. I don't like listening to too much stuff like this.. Usually it's in sci-fi/cyberpunk type of circles though (where people are so lost they refer to their lives as "meatspace").

 

But idealists in general think this way. If they weren't such sweet, well meaning people, I'd punch them.

 

You know I also find an agreement with your position

 

Yes, imaginationland can be contemptible to many. Mostly because it'll never be the exact reality that you will ever experience. But I think it still grasps (either explicitly or implicitly) the reality that everything you regard as reality currently, personally, in your life, will very very very likely not be considered reality 100, 1000, 10000 years from now. That the human of 2000BC would probably be utterly lost in the reality of humans in 2015AD, even if there's similarities.

 

Theory and imagination may run ahead of us, but I tend to think that they still help in forming new realities. Ones that future generations will just take as 'givens' just as much as you and I do.

 

I just don't want the new reality of Thedosians to be the bloody Qun.

 

 

Yes, optimists can be annoying. Yes, idealists can suck. But not all of them, and not in every way. The dreamers and thinkers of the past have achieved things (or at least led the way to the achievement of things) that past generations of realists just couldn't deal with, and would wave off because too many dreamers and thinkers bothered them.

 

I'm not trying to convince you though, because I still agree. Thinkers can be lost in their escapism and dreamers can be utterly insane. At least a strong dose of reality and tradition and conservatism (not just talking political here... at all even..) can be outright necessary to get anything done well.

[LadyJaneGrey]

At a certain point, I stop caring about all of it. Let the gates of hell swallow it all. That's why I'm a little undecided on playing any more DA games. This could be the last for me. It still sort of plays around with fun traditional fantasy elements. From this point though, it's just going to get weirder.
 
On one hand, there's the Qun. On the other, we have Solas wanting to enact the DA version of ME3 Synthesis. They're creeping in a lot of messages about demon/spirit coexistence in this game. Probably more than creeping any messages about the Qun being benign. I don't like any of it. It dehumanizes and denormalizes the setting (what little of it is normal, that is).

About Solas...I really don't get the synthesis vibe from him. He argues AGAINST making Cole more human. Are you talking about his wanting peaceful coexistence between spirits/demons and mortals? Because that's a heck of a lot different to me than changing everyone's genetic makeup without their consent. o_O

[SwobyJ]

Well, I only mentioned this stuff because you said the Qunari could be useful guarding the gates, so to speak. And in that case, the most obvious culprit for breaking down the gates right now is Solas (or ideas like that). A culture like Qunari, very tight on control of all kinds, would fight it tooth and nail. 

 

Thing is, I don't want to choose between the two. They can both kiss my ass.

 

That's one reason I'm gonna miss this whole Ferelden/Orlais/Southern Chantry area. It's the one place trying to fight for some balance.

 

In the world stage I have to agree that it seems that there's no big faction/character that will fight for 'balance' (still more 'traditional Thedas' but a balance of it, sure), but I still think we'll be given something for it. Bioware has to, really.

 

It may not be as much of a thing as in Inquisition, but I think it'll be there.

[SwobyJ]

About Solas...I really don't get the synthesis vibe from him. He argues AGAINST making Cole more human. Are you talking about his wanting peaceful coexistence between spirits/demons and mortals? Because that's a heck of a lot different to me than changing everyone's genetic makeup without their consent. o_O

 

Synthesis is actually making everyone and everything to a new state of existence. It isn't ACTUALLY making organics into synthetics, or synthetics into organics, but somehow hitting that 'perfect' recipe for making everything its own new 'lifeform', 'DNA'.

 

That's why it is called synthesis*, after all. Instead of what was in the older script, 'merge'.

 

So hypothetically, Solas could in fact have a plan to make a whole new form of Thedas+Fade+Whatever. An utterly New World, in every way. One that may in fact end up being the ultimate solution to the problems he's been trying to address, but also may put the world down a road that the player may find disagreeable (and maybe the plot, other characters, etc). Thus, 'ME3 Synthesis'.

 

*"the production of a substance by combining simpler substances through a chemical process"

[Ryriena]

I doubt they would go that far Street Magic, since demons and humans are two diffrent things. It's also makes little sense for the storyline.

I actually think he is trying to open the black city to release the gods not the merge the demons and humans together. I don't want this Thedas to turn to the bloody Qun because as a mage player I rather not have my mouth having sown shut.

[SwobyJ]

I doubt they would go that far Street Magic, since demons and humans are two diffrent things. It's also makes little sense for the storyline.

 

Ha.

 

Play more DAI. They may be 'different', but that's not what Bioware is getting at...

 

It may still be an optional layer of the storyline in DAI, but the line between spirit and human is on the road to being removed..

[LadyJaneGrey]

Yeah, it's not literally synthesis. It's just shorthand (and kind of a joke). Just the themes and symbols being touched on are similar. The combining of human and alien properties, for the sake of peace/coexistence.

Hm. Assuming that was his end goal at the beginning of the game, he seems to be rethinking it in his conversations with Sera and Varric.

[Ryriena]

Ha.
 
Play more DAI. They may be 'different', but that's not what Bioware is getting at...
 
It may still be an optional layer of the storyline in DAI, but the line between spirit and human is on the road to being removed..

Oh I get the views of DA:I verily well, since I am on my third play though.

[SgtSteel91]

There's also the implication that the Qunari are Dragon Hybrids and have an inherent chaotic nature (similar to the Krogan of Mass Effect) that the Qun keeps in check. Like, without the strict, sometimes oppressive order of the Qun the Qunari would eventually turn into bloodthirsty savages. At least, that's what Iron Bull believes and fears if he's kicked out.

[SwobyJ]

I could play a game, like that.. mind you. Plenty of games have it where everyone is potentially a mage, for example. But I'm at the point of no return with DA specifically. It didn't start off with this premise, so I won't appreciate it if it turns out like that. It's fantasy that teeters on a historical fiction feel at times.. I'm here as much for all the interesting politics and cultural interplay and down to earth companion discussions... and not for some overly mystical sh*t.

 

I'm 100% sure that Bioware will never make a DA game that is majority 'overly mystical ****'. The politics and wars and more traditional fantasy concepts will, really, always be there.

 

Though I wouldn't say that DA didn't start off with this premise. I found that Flemeth was there almost specifically to confuse the player about WTF is really going on. That she could be speaking utter nonsense, or the deepest truths, or both. That she could be acting as an old crazy woman, or actually be one, or both. And the remarks she says from near the very beginning don't sound like just basic matters, but instead get pretty damn large in implications, even if we don't understand at the time what they mean.

 

In any case, I don't think DA will EVER just leave the 'fantasy that feels like historical fiction at times' deal. Ever. I think we're safe on that.

 

I just don't think that Bioware will always stick to that in all ways within the games. There will be boundaries broken, even as we may choose to spend most of the time well within those boundaries. And DA will accommodate that.

[NoForgiveness]

I didn't see the tone of it as 'good parts and bad parts' before more recently.

DAO - Oh. Its a thing. Pretty weird and alien and destroys the individual.
DA2 - Wow, its scary and imposing and extra violent.
DA2:MOTA - Hmm, okay, there might be reason for some of it.
DAI - Some good parts, bad parts, people trying to just live their lives, others tormented by it, most (born into it) regarding it as the only way to live.

See all that depends how you look at it. Here's what I saw:

Dao: basically nonexistent
Da2: they helped elves when others wouldn't. They were peaceful for years even when being murdered just for being there. They're brutal to mages, but ketogen still believed in the qun. Indoctrinators, bad. Saw respect for an enemy. Also saw honor.
Da2mota: an idealist who wasn't born in the Qun. A traitor who was.
Dai: bull's view is pretty down to earth. There's friendship in the Qun. They would do terrible things to alot of people in thedas, but they're still willing to aid the inquisition. The way bull explains growing up, it sounds exactly like it is everywhere else and not like brainwashing at all. Re-education didn't even sound so bad.

End of day I've only ever seen different people. Not something better or worse than society in thedas.

[Nefla]

I'd prefer to think that Iron Bull is just lying through his teeth (or in denial?) about how laid back, awesome, and accepting the Qun is.

[SwobyJ]

See all that depends how you look at it. Here's what I saw:

Dao: basically nonexistent
Da2: they helped elves when others wouldn't. They were peaceful for years even when being murdered just for being there. They're brutal to mages, but ketogen still believed in the qun. Indoctrinators, bad. Saw respect for an enemy. Also saw honor.
Da2mota: an idealist who wasn't born in the Qun. A traitor who was.
Dai: bull's view is pretty down to earth. There's friendship in the Qun. They would do terrible things to alot of people in thedas, but they're still willing to aid the inquisition. The way bull explains growing up, it sounds exactly like it is everywhere else and not like brainwashing at all. Re-education didn't even sound so bad.

End of day I've only ever seen different people. Not something better or worse than society in thedas.

 

 

Detainee has already confessed to resisting arrest when Ben-Hassrath came for his coworker; circumstantial evidence suggests he was part of group planning to become Tal-Vashoth. Coworker died attempting to escape. Detainee requires evaluation for possible reintroduction into society instead of Qamek treatment. He is being denied sleep and given restricted portions of food and water, as noted below.

Day 1: Detainee restrained, given water but no food. Detainee requested to use latrine. Was told cleanliness part of The Qun, and he had decided to attack the Qun. Detainee asked why he murdered Ben-Hassrath, responded that he had only defended himself. Detainee eventually urinated on floor.

Day 2: Detainee given light food and water, told he could use the latrine if he could demonstrate ability to follow the Qun. Detainee asked why he murdered Ben-Hassrath, answered that he fought them to protect coworker, did not murder them. Detainee told that lying is unacceptable under the Qun. Detainee observed reeducators eating and drinking and engaging in conversation about daily activities while detainee stood.

Day 3: Detainee refused food and water. Was taken outside and shown qalaba rooting through garbage for food. Detainee told he is similar to qalaba, as neither he nor it follows the Qun. Also told qalaba is better than detainee, as qalaba is too stupid to follow the Qun, while detainee could follow it, but made conscious choice to refuse. Detainee asked why he murdered Ben-Hassrath. Detainee answered that he was angry and trying to protect his friend.

Day 4: Detainee shown drawings of dead Tamassrans and children, told these were drawings of people in Seheron killed by Tal-Vashoth. Detainee told all Tal-Vashoth do this, and if detainee wishes to be Tal-Vashoth, he must go to education center and kill tamassrans now. Detainee became visibly upset. Detainee asked why he murdered Ben-Hassrath, answered that he was wrong and lied to by his coworker.

Day 5: Detainee continues to show remorse. Is visibly happy when reminded that Qun offers place for all people. Detainee washed, given new clothes and food, allowed to sleep. Upon waking, detainee asked whther he would prefer to be Tal-Vashoth or Qunari. Detainee answered that he will remain Qunari. Detainee released to road crew for simple labor and will be watched by observers on team.

-Excerpt from a Ben-Hassrath reeducation report smuggled out of Par Vollen

 

Torture as a welcome part of their society.

 

"No."

 

 

(EDIT: I say this about any society. Once it welcomes torture as an institution for any reason, I condemn it. And some Western nations are right on the edge of doing so, but won't.)