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[ThreeF]

It would be nice if fantasy genre in general would branch more into other things than greater evil and saving the world, that said....

 

But for all of DA2's faults, it has one thing that is vastly superior to Inquisition..and that is the protagonist. Hawke made me laugh, through the entire game, and then Inquisitor comes along: and never have I actually thought, that  a game would be better without the protagonist; until Inquisition.

So...you are saying that if you had the similar random jokes in DAI it would be a superior story? That all that it would take? Not sure if I agree. Maybe would make it more of a Spanish Inquisition, but Hawke was pretty much flat the way the character was sliced up into three personalities, there was nothing intricate in that aside from a good laugh with the sarcastic one and sometimes with the aggressive one. I rather for the PC to have more depth than that.

[AWTEW]

What's your thoughts on how Hawke was handled in Inquisition? Some say he/she was badly handled and never turned out right in terms of customization.

 

The customisation thing was to be expected; especially in an entire new engine. What irked me, was the disappearance of default Fhawke's haircut. What were they thinking? You don't mess with, an iconic characters haircut!

 

Now storywise, thats a bit difficult. I think that it could have been handled better, and they were obviously trying to keep it so, that hawks situation could apply to all Hawkes. But, I got the impression some of the Dialouge might have been copy-pasted from the cancelled-expansion, in the fade sequence.  I think they should have had dialogue that gave a brief mention of why Hawke was so angry about blood-magic.

 

 I  wouldn't say Hawke was handled badly, I think they didn't handle Hawke with enough 'care'. They seem to have catered to the 'hawke must die because da2 sucked' fans.

[Linkenski]

The 10 year scope failed because every single time skip was artificially done. What did the characters do in between? It ended up being a cop out for change.

[Dieb]

It would be nice if fantasy genre in general would branch more into other things than greater evil and saving the world, that said....

 

So...you are saying that if you had the similar random jokes in DAI it would be a superior story? That all that it would take? Not sure if I agree. Maybe would make it more of a Spanish Inquisition, but Hawke was pretty much flat the way the character was sliced up into three personalities, there was nothing intricate in that aside from a good laugh with the sarcastic one and sometimes with the aggressive one. I rather for the PC to have more depth than that.

 

Seeing how my Sarcastic Hawke suddenly had no joke left when his mother died or his sister getting eaten alive by the taint, was a lot more moving than if he had been serious all the game. I think there is still room for RP and interpretation, even with a fixed background, you know.

 

I'm not saying you do in this case, but often people mistake the fact that they can do a personality 180° with a blank slate char in every dialogue, with fixed characters being flat for sticking to a theme.

 

 

P.S.: That's just another personal spin, but yes, the protagonist being the funny one istead of the obligatory comic relief companion for a change -in a serious game at that- is something I value greatly.

[AWTEW]

It would be nice if fantasy genre in general would branch more into other things than greater evil and saving the world, that said....

 

So...you are saying that if you had the similar random jokes in DAI it would be a superior story? That all that it would take? Not sure if I agree. Maybe would make it more of a Spanish Inquisition, but Hawke was pretty much flat the way the character was sliced up into three personalities, there was nothing intricate in that aside from a good laugh with the sarcastic one and sometimes with the aggressive one. I rather for the PC to have more depth than that.

 

I was just using  that as an example of my experience. I don't think Hawke was flat at all, because the world reacted to those personalities. As for depth, the Inquisitor has none, he/she is completely boring and sterile.  I know telephone companies 'please hold' messages that express more personality, than the Inquisitor.

[ThreeF]

 

I'm not saying you do in this case, but often people mistake the fact that they can do a personality 180° with a blank slate char in every dialogue, with fixed characters being flat for sticking to a theme.

I don't  mean it in that way. So far none of the games really allowed good PC fleshing out, they generally never overcome the NPC in this regard and they suppose to be the main characters. Sarcastic Hawke makes it less obvious, because the sarcasm creates distraction (the lines are well written).

 

And I don't mean that Hawke should be serious all the game, the diplomatic Hawke was just as flat. All three play a (different) single note, though.

 

 

P.S.: That's just another personal spin, but yes, the protagonist being the funny one istead of the obligatory comic relief companion for a change -in a serious game at that- is something I value greatly.

Yeah, it basically comes to this, having your own personal "joke" button is fun.

[AWTEW]

Pretty much seeing that you were given a choice to kill off Hawke or Stroud/Alistair/Loghan in the fade. I heard very little of this cancelled-expansion though i don't know what Bioware had plans for it seeing that they got rid of it in favor of DAI. 

 

It was called the Exalted march, and it was supposed to cover what happened after the end of DA2. Then,well, at the time it was nearing completion, the ME3 fans were throwing a hissy-fit about the ending. Then they announced  extended cut dlc, and shortly after 'rather suspiciously' they announced the cancelation of DA2 expansion pack....

[SofaJockey]

Expect this thread about DAI when DA4 launches 

[Dieb]

And I don't mean that Hawke should be serious all the game, the diplomatic Hawke was just as flat. All three play a (different) single note, though.

 

Hm.

 

I am of course 100% biased, because I couldn't ever stand doing a full playthrough with the other personalities. As far as I'm concerned, Hawke is Chuckles. But  from personal experience, I can say that always making a silly joke at any given moment is very much a legitimate personality, rather than only playing a single note. I say gravely serious things about as often as SH does in his 10 years. That's who clowns like myself are - humor is always applicable, because it enables you to not directly adress the subject matter.

 

On the other hand, with the other personalities, this would be problematic. Even a "diplomatic" person makes jokes sometimes - being diplomatic is (I boldly declare) less of a personality-defining trait.

[Sifr]

I loved DA2 immensely, but it definitely needed more time to be polished into a better game, so that we could have had a tighter plot, more player agency, more unique environments and really make Kirkwall feel like the living and breathing city it's supposed to be?

 

Hawke's story is more personal and less epic, but it's got a lot more depth than the Warden and the Inquisitor's epic and somewhat generic save the world plot from the Ancient Big Bad? The Warden and Inquisitor are larger than life and in that way, it kinda divorces you from relating to them?

 

In contrast, Hawke is the only one of our protagonists thus far who really felt like an actual person and less than a cardboard cut-out we can live vicariously through? Hawke's got three distinct personalities, they've got virtues and they've got a ton of flaws that we can all readily see, regardless of playstyle, throughout the game?

 

And while it's true they don't always save the day, as Varric himself lampshades, that's far more real than a hero who always gets it right? Hawke is at least trying to make a difference, even if things don't always end the way they want, which is a lot more than most people in Thedas can say they are doing?

 

In DA2, the Viscount and Aveline even say that Hawke's efforts are making the city a better place (although it's still a wretched hive) and that it's been a long time since anyone actually bothered to try to make things better there?

[ThreeF]

I was just using  that as an example of my experience. I don't think Hawke was flat at all, because the world reacted to those personalities. As for depth, the Inquisitor has none, he/she is completely boring and sterile.  I know telephone companies 'please hold' messages that express more personality, than the Inquisitor.

I was not comparing Hawke to Inquisitor, though. World reaction just acknowledge the character, it doesn't necessary creates depth.

 

 

Hm.

 

I am of course 100% biased, because I couldn't ever stand doing a full playthrough with the other personalities. As far as I'm concerned, Hawke is Chuckles. But  from personal experience, I can say that always making a silly joke at any given moment is very much a legitimate personality, rather than only playing a single note. I say gravely serious things about as often as SH does in his 10 years. That's who clowns like myself are - humor is always applicable, because it enables you to not directly adress the subject matter.

 

On the other hand, with the other personalities, this would be problematic. Even a "diplomatic" person makes jokes sometimes - being diplomatic is (I boldly declare) less of a personality-defining trait.

I guess what I'm trying to say.... pick up one of the NPC characters you find to be the most well-rounded, how does this character compares to Hawke? When I do such comparison, I see that Hawke is lacking, mainly because of two things: a)His personality development begins with the game, there is no Hawke before the game, b ) he has one very prominent personality trait that overshadows others. You also don't discover much about Hawke, that point about Hawke's mother is one of the best moments in this regard, but how many such instances are there? You can sit and run your own armchair  psychology over Hawkes reactions and rationalize about them, but very little in the game prompts you to do this.

 

(I see the diplomatic one as a "polite", "considering" personality)

[DWareFan]

You are railroaded into a certain way of playing by most games, but in most you don't feel like you are.  I was very disappointed in DA2's writing.  They should have made two ways to approach a problem instead of you getting locked into only one way, their way.  So no, though I love Hawk, I did not like all the mistakes they made. 

 

Ex:  I should have been able to kill Sister Petrice myself and then found a note about the Qunari and made the choice about what I should do, instead of being roped into BW's tunnel vision.

[Aaleel]

There was no problem with Dragon Age II considering the time frame it was given to develop and release.  (emphasis mine)
 
Dragon Age Origins was announced at E3 in 2004 and was released in late 2009. Dragon Age II was announced in July 2010 and the game was released in March of 2011. So while Origins had almost 5 years of development time, DAII only had a little over a year (if work began right immediately after Origins' release but remember that work was being done on Dragon Age Awakening as well).
 
I could understand all the negativity thrown at Dragon Age 2 if it had the same development time as DA:O and still ended up what the game is in its present form. But DA2 only had about 20% of the development time that Origins had. It's like your boss telling you that a report that usually takes 5 hours to prepare has to be on his desk in an hour.
 
Yeah, not a pretty picture. 

Are we grading games on curves now. It was a AAA game from a AAA studio that they had no issue charging full price for. Either what they did worked or it didn't. "It was good for the amount of time they put into it" is not something I will never say if the end product was bad or half assed. I would just be excusing the rush job, the standards should be equal.

As for what would happen at work. If my boss gave me a short deadline and I turned in the financials half assed and incorrectly done I guarantee the CFO would not say these spreadsheets are sloppy and incorrect but for the amount of time You had for this its fine. I would get taken to task by the people who use the numbers and rightfully so. If the job was bad it's bad and the criticism by the people who use it would be more than warranted.

[Dieb]

I was not comparing Hawke to Inquisitor, though. World reaction just acknowledge the character, it doesn't necessary creates depth.

 

 

I guess what I'm trying to say.... pick up one of the NPC characters you find the most well-rounded, how how does this character compares to Hawke? When I do such comparison, I see that Hawke is lacking, mainly because of two things: a)His personality development begins with the game, there is no Hawke before the game, b ) he has one very prominent personality trait that overshadows others. You also don't discover much about Hawke, that point about Hawke's mother is one of the best moments in this regard, but how many such instances are there? You can sit and run your own armchair  psychology over Hawkes reactions and rationalize about them, but very little in the game prompts you to do this.

 

(I see the diplomatic one as a "polite", "considering" personality)

 

I gotcha now.

 

Well, I suppose my own personality and the fact that I am very family-orientated myself, made for me filling out a lot of the "blanks" unknowingly. As a result, the commonly known most predefined character was the one I could identify the most of all the three - however, it would be selfish to attest that solely to the quality of the character, rather than the circumstances corresponding with my own personality by pure chance.

 

P.S.: There are bitemarks in my TV from when the Templars took Bethany away to the circle.

[Sifr]

I was just using  that as an example of my experience. I don't think Hawke was flat at all, because the world reacted to those personalities. As for depth, the Inquisitor has none, he/she is completely boring and sterile.  I know telephone companies 'please hold' messages that express more personality, than the Inquisitor.

 

I think the few times we got a sense of personality from the Inquisitor it was mostly because of the VA's projecting their own into the role, rather than whatever was written on the page?

 

I think that's part of the reason I play the each Inquisitor differently depending on the voice? With HHP, the character feels like he should be more reserved and dramatic, AWR can make the character anything from funny to deadly serious, JC feels more snarky and boisterous, while SM's is more regal, but with a dash of irreverence?

 

I have to give credit to the VA's for making each take seem interesting and unique, because it does help to shake off the relative blandness that the Inquisitor tends to suffer from when it comes to their actual character, motivations and personality?

[Iakus]

The 10 year scope failed because every single time skip was artificially done. What did the characters do in between? It ended up being a cop out for change.

 

I'd say the time skips were artificial specifically because nothing really changed.  Kirkwall never changed.  We rarely, if ever, saw long-term consequences for Hawke's choices (not that all of them should have, but a few, at least did) save, as I said before, the fate of the sibling.

 

If people talked bout the more high profile missions, If Kirkwall vivibly changed mroe as the years went by, if the hawke Estate would be decorated with trophies.  Or Hawke's missions became more high-profile and, well, important rather than crawling around in the same dungeon and warehouse over and over.  Heck even Hawke's companions didn't wear the same clothes for the better part of a decade!

 

That's the problem with DA2:  the illusion of choice was paper-thin.  If things were more reactive, even in small ways, it would have gone from an "okay" game to "incredible"  Which is why I hope they try something like it again, but with lessons learned from before.  And some of the lessons they applied to DAI.  Constrained space isn't a problem, it's how you make use of it.

[Sifr]

The illusion of choice was also a big problem in Act 3, such as the issue of the empty Viscount seat and Meredith becoming a tin-pot dictator?

 

You can hear rumours that the nobles want to otherthrow Meredith or force her to allow an election to take place and that some even want you to take the empty Viscount seat, while Thrask and his fellows also stage an attempted coup to try and ensure that Meredith is removed from office? And yet you are not allowed to partake in any of those things, even if you think Hawke should or would have probably wanted to try to oust Meredith and win the throne, simply because the plot won't allow you to do so?

 

Likewise, the Thrask rebellion doesn't hold much water if you are pro-Mage, as Thrask and his cohorts kidnap either your LI or sibling to force you to side with them, which you can point out that you might have done anyway, if he had just stopped to ask first?!

 

As for the Anders plot, how much better would it have been if we'd actually have seen him discover the bodies of the entire Mage Underground, that had been wiped out by Meredith's brutal crackdowns at the beginning of Act 3? We'd have far more understood his anger at the loss of his friends and allies, as well as why he chose to go off the deep-end like he did? Instead, the death of the entire Underground is told to us in a throwaway line that most people tend to miss?

[Hazegurl]

I was not comparing Hawke to Inquisitor, though. World reaction just acknowledge the character, it doesn't necessary creates depth.

 

 

I guess what I'm trying to say.... pick up one of the NPC characters you find to be the most well-rounded, how does this character compares to Hawke? When I do such comparison, I see that Hawke is lacking, mainly because of two things: a)His personality development begins with the game, there is no Hawke before the game, b ) he has one very prominent personality trait that overshadows others. You also don't discover much about Hawke, that point about Hawke's mother is one of the best moments in this regard, but how many such instances are there? You can sit and run your own armchair  psychology over Hawkes reactions and rationalize about them, but very little in the game prompts you to do this.

 

(I see the diplomatic one as a "polite", "considering" personality)

Being acknowledged by the world around you certainly helps in creating depth for the character. What's the point if it's all in your head? It's the case of the tree falling in the forest and no one being around to hear the sound.

 

As for comparing Hawke to NPCs. I actually believe Hawke would have fit in much much better at the Wicked Grace scene than the IQ. Heck I would have loved a Wicked Grace mini game in DA2 with Hawke hanging out with his companions because they were so freaking good together, disagreements and all.  Hawke fit in and felt like one of the many people in Thedas, just another story, albeit a special story.  And Hawke has enough of a background to tell just what his life was like in Lothering.  Hiding his Mage abilities, going off to learn from his father while his resentful brother keeps watch at home, some random girl had a crush on him (that his brother liked).  We can see piece by piece why Carver resented him.  We see the type of man his father was in Legacy, how Hawke is just like him in many ways.  We know that Hawke's parents loved each other, we know that they did everything they could to keep Hawke safe when he was a baby. How his father hoped he wouldn't become a Mage. If Hawke is sarcastic, we know he's been like this for a long time as his mother mentions this. Even his brother comments on it. "Oh yeah tell your jokes." or something like that.

 

None of this is headcanon. To say Hawke had no story before DA2 is just wrong.  The only headcanon is coming up with the whys about Hawke's personality, but I'm not understanding how that makes Hawke lacking when the IQ's entire freaking background, personality, and motivation is all pure headcanon. How does Hawke stack up to someone like Morrigan, darn fine IMO. As we know both Hawke and Morrigan's background, their relationship with their parent, how they were each raised, how that impacted their behavior, and so on. People can complain about their blood mage Hawke all they like, but Malcolm didn't teach Hawke to embrace blood magic so choosing it as a game play mechanic doesn't mean Hawke will start loving it. Although I did enjoy having specializations commented on in DAI. It would have been nice to be an acknowledged Blood mage or Spirit Healer in DA2. Although Merrill begging my Spirit healer Hawke to heal her friend was good enough for me. 

[Catche Jagger]

Yeah, sure, as long as they don't throw it out after just a year again and they ensure that the narrative is well-structured.

DA2 was a good idea, but was flawed when it came to executing those ideas. If they take the time to do it right on a second attempt, then I'd be all for it.

[KaiserShep]

I'm pretty sure that if you toss Anders out of your inner circle in Act 2, which I always do, you miss any dialogue about the underground being destroyed.

[Qun00]

The problem was that it was a step back from the freedom of Origins and people got legitimately annoyed because not everyone is interested in playing the human noble storyline. It can kill some of the replay value.

But then they get that again in DA:I and complain that the Inquisitor isn't appealing enough on his/her own.

That's the whole point of freedom. The character is like a blank canvas where you shape his personality and beliefs.

Sadly, the fandom seems to want all that handed to them without needing to roleplay.

[Vanth]

In my opinion the only major problem with DA2 was the reused environments. Despite the story being less 'epic', it worked a hell of a lot better than DA:I's story. A secondary problem for me was dumbing down on the tactical system.