That's a bit of an exaggeration. You can express a great deal of distaste for the Chantry, and you don't have to like Orlais.
....... What game was you playing?
Expressing your distaste and it having an actual impact on the story and gameplay are two different things. If anything such option only makes me have a Life of Brian kind of effect. Frustrating.
First, role-playing has never meant that you're free to choose whatever you want. Since the early days of tabletop gaming, it's been important that the player vision of the game is compatible with the GM vision. If they're not, then it's in the best interests of everyone to not play at all. In computer RPGs, accepting the basic premises of the game is even more important, because the computer can't improvise in the way a human GM can.
Second, there has been a long-term trend in computer RPGs to separate the game into three subgames (combat, exploration, and story) that have very little to do with each other. In DA:O and DA2, the player character could be a blood mage in the combat subgame but not in the story subgame. Because I consider the story the primary subgame, I don't feel that you could really choose to be a blood mage in either game.
A blood mage Inquisitor would require major changes to the game. Here is one set of minimal changes I would be happy with:
<snip>
Sounds about right really. But I think what people are getting at is they want the freedom of choice to screw themselves over if they want to. I think it is simply the principle of the matter.
First, role-playing has never meant that you're free to choose whatever you want. Since the early days of tabletop gaming, it's been important that the player vision of the game is compatible with the GM vision. If they're not, then it's in the best interests of everyone to not play at all. In computer RPGs, accepting the basic premises of the game is even more important, because the computer can't improvise in the way a human GM can.
Second, there has been a long-term trend in computer RPGs to separate the game into three subgames (combat, exploration, and story) that have very little to do with each other. In DA:O and DA2, the player character could be a blood mage in the combat subgame but not in the story subgame. Because I consider the story the primary subgame, I don't feel that you could really choose to be a blood mage in either game.
A blood mage Inquisitor would require major changes to the game. Here is one set of minimal changes I would be happy with:
- On the surface, most companions see the blood mage as a necessary evil to fight Corypheus. Their approval will be consistently negative, but they work to suppress any rumors that the Inquisitor is a blood mage. Apart from a lot of extra dialogue throughout the game, this doesn't require that much new content.
- If you pay attention, you'll eventually realize that some companions may consider a blood mage as the head of a victorious Inquisition as serious threat to Thedas as Corypheus is.
- There is actually a conspiracy that aims to deal with the Inquisitor as soon as they're no longer needed. When you've defeated Corypheus, you'll have to face Cassandra, Vivienne, Cullen, and Dorian in combat. Other companions will choose their sides, depending on their approval.
- If you lose the battle, the game ends. The official story is that the Inquisitor died heroically defeating Corypheus.
- If you win, the conspirators have made sure that the truth of the Inquisitor's blood magic gets out. The power of the Inquisition collapses, and the Inquisitor has to flee.
Ever played TW2?
If you are trying to defend the goody two shoe holy jebus 2.0 with this then you are doing a bad job. Giving the player options to roleplay along the path s/he wants is a core function of any game claiming to be a rpg. Deviation, being it a small or large should be a option. Even if in the end the result the almost the same. It gives the player a feeling of control over the pc, even if it is just a feeling. DAI does not offer the slightest deviation from the core story, nor the pc characterization. Choosing between mages or templars is a cosmetic decision at best. It boils down to same level as choosing which companion you take with you in those long silent whack fest tours in the gigantic empty maps.
Having a blood magic spec in DA does not mean "doing everything you want", where did you get that from anyway? Having a blood magic simply increases the games rp options. Be the result either good or bad, but it still would be the players choice. Being forced to be devoted adrastian in a supposedly rpg game is a bad design choice (and no, getting to say "I am not herald" is not ropleplaying, it is just a lip service to quell such complaints). You are being deprived the magic school which is THE one shaping the whole history of Thedas and has been present in two previous games.
Guest_Imanol de Tafalla_*
If anything, it's good we're steering away from the whole gameplay/story segregation in DA2 where you could openly be a mage with nobody noticing.
Don't forget about how you can make Wynne into a Blood Mage in DA:O. 
Guest_Imanol de Tafalla_*
Let's all be honest with ourselves.
If Bioware wanted to implement a Blood Magic specialization in a realistic manner, the game would be cut short since most of the members of the Inquisition would either shun us (at best) or kill us right on the spot.
Let's all be honest with ourselves.
If Bioware wanted to implement a Blood Magic specialization in a realistic manner, the game would be cut short since most of the members of the Inquisition would either shun us (at best) or kill us right on the spot.
It tells you more about the settings of the game doesn´t it?
A blood mage Inquisitor would require major changes to the game.
It's sad for me, that the game in the first place was made with a plot that doesn't allow the player to be a blood mage to begin with.
But there are more sad things - working with the chantry, closing the breach.
Ever played TW2?
If you are trying to defend the goody two shoe holy jebus 2.0 with this then you are doing a bad job. Giving the player options to roleplay along the path s/he wants is a core function of any game claiming to be a rpg.
You are being deprived the magic school which is THE one shaping the whole history of Thedas and has been present in two previous games.
Guest_Imanol de Tafalla_*
It tells you more about the settings of the game doesn´t it?
What did you expect from a game set in a region of Thedas where it is (rightfully) seen as a potentially destructive (and deteriorative) tool associated with the legacy of an Imperium built by slaves and mass sacrifices using that very form of magic?
The Warden was a Warden, and we all know forbidden magic is acceptable when ending a Blight, and Hawke started out as a nobody in a city full of blood mages. I'm all for Blood Magic returning for the next game, but it's obvious why it wasn't implemented in Inquisition.
I assume that you mean The Witcher 2, because acronym TW2 is used for many different games.
I've completed it 5-6 times. It maintains the illusion of choice quite well, while actually being more restrictive than any Dragon Age game. This is primarily accomplished by two tricks:
1) Geralt is just a little guy caught up in events much bigger than himself. Sometimes his choices have significant consequences, but Geralt doesn't really have any control over them. As a result, the game can railroad the player through a sparse web of scripted events, while the player feels that they're in control. Bioware tried something similar in DA2, but TW2 did it better.
2) A single choice always cuts you out of a significant fraction of the main storyline. As a result, the player feels that there's more content remaining to be discovered, while you actually see less content in each playthrough.
Have to disagree on that. TW2 holds much more choice and consequence than any DA game. If you have played then you know the chapter two is completely different depending of your choice, reflecting to the ending quite heavily. Which of the DA games accomplishes that? In my opinion, only DAO can raise to the level, not because of the size of story deviation but the number of smaller options you can have.
Inq is just as much about the little guy as Geralt in the start, both have a unique form of talent which gives them an edge over the others. Inq has dat hand, Geralt his whicher abilities. As for the choice itself, that is exactly the point. Making that choice, be it then diminishing or expanding gameplay. You play, you choose. It is called roleplaying.
That's obviously false. If the GM tries to run a horror game, while the players are expecting a combat-heavy game, the experience will be bad for everyone. If the game tells the story of Geralt of Rivia, you can't play it as Revan. If the game tells the story of a relative nobody, who grows up to become a leader devout Andrastians choose to follow, you can't play it as Hawke, the Warden, or a blood mage.
Accepting the basic premises of the game and role-playing within the boundaries imposed by them has always been an major part of any RPG. This is especially important in modern games, where most players expect spoken dialogue, which makes variable content much more expensive than in old text-based games like BG2.
No. Geralt of Rivia is Geralt for that specific reason. If you play the Inquisitor as James the Inquisitor, a preset character then yes, you can expect the player to know what he is getting into. More or less. But if you are playing Inq with the premise of four different races, four different religious backgrounds and a atheist option it is safe to assume each character option brings (or it should) its own unique experience. Choice options that reflect both in the characters personal story and the overall story. An dalish elf, Tal-vashoth, carta dwarf and human cannot all be so identical that their stories do not affect the story differently. If they are then something is seriously wrong with the writing. Even DAO could give you at least that difference. To a degree.
Boundaries are obvious but they are not, nor should they be, such that will force you play a character which can only express rp through discussion lines which lead to absolutely nowhere. It has nothing to do with being modern but all to do with story writing.
The previous games only had cheap plastic imitation of blood magic. Hawke and the Warden didn't use real blood magic, because it didn't have any significant story consequences. If DA4 takes place in Tevinter, we'll probably see blood magic as a real option.
On that we can mostly agree, DAO though had its possibilities. Some was cut out unfortunately. That right there just brings out again the need for actual writing. DAI could have skipped several gigantic empty fetch guest maps and focused more on the characters story/overall story. Then maybe we would have received a actual rpg with blood magic spec.
If you play the Inquisitor as James the Inquisitor, a preset character then yes, you can expect the player to know what he is getting into. More or less. But if you are playing Inq with the premise of four different races, four different religious backgrounds and a atheist option it is safe to assume each character option brings (or it should) its own unique experience. Choice options that reflect both in the characters personal story and the overall story. An dalish elf, Tal-vashoth, carta dwarf and human cannot all be so identical that their stories do not affect the story differently. If they are then something is seriously wrong with the writing. Even DAO could give you at least that difference. To a degree.
DAI could have skipped several gigantic empty fetch guest maps and focused more on the characters story/overall story. Then maybe we would have received a actual rpg with blood magic spec.
Spoken dialogue is the main limiting factor in RPGs these days, as it's expensive and slow to create. With it, you have to seriously consider the trade-offs between having more story-based quests and more variation in the existing quests. Remove it, and you can easily afford creating a much bigger game for the same budget.
I for one wouldn't want to go back to the old style dialogue box with mute main character and luckily - at least it seems so - BW doesn't want to do that either. At least I seriously hope and pray so. I probably wouldn't even buy a game like that anymore. It was all nice and good back then but now it would be just boring. I checked a few PoE vids from youtube out of pure curiosity and seeing that box was one the first things that made me groan out loud. So yeah, personally I don't ever want to see it brought back in future BW games. I know many disagrees but that's how I feel about it.
DA:I in short: First there was the Mage-Templar War. Then a villain arises, kills the Divine, and starts an even bigger war. The Inquisition grows strong, wins the war, defeats the villain, and becomes a major power in the South. The Inquisitor remains alive, and another one from the Inquisition's ranks becomes the new Divine. There are no more major wars in the South at the moment.
A blood mage doesn't really fit in the picture. While a mage can become a Divine, nobody wants to see the Ultimate Evil as a major power. Either the Inquisitor would be dead or have disappeared, the Inquisition would be in ruins, or there would be a war between the Inquisition and the rest of the South. All of these would mean a major change to the core world state after DA:I, spelling trouble for DA4.
That is just matter of interpretation. A blood mage will fit in anywhere. You just need people with writing skill to do it. This current story line is just too rigid for it. Holy person whom has to feel holy. Where is the rp there? Had the DA team had some balls they would have made a game with parallel story lines, including the one with blood magic. Even you should be able to see how many possibilities there are for story variations.
None of the issues you presented were actually tackled in the game in a matter which would prevent blood magic being part of it. Only superficial notes and war table missions gave us any indication of nothing happening. The game as it is hardly presents storytelling in so credible form that blood magic somehow would completely destroy its credibility. Far from it. Does the name Iron Bull mean anything to you? Qunari spy in the upper echelon of the Inquisition, really?
Fetch quests and large maps are cheap content. There was never a real option to have more story instead of them. Spoken dialogue is the main limiting factor in RPGs these days, as it's expensive and slow to create. With it, you have to seriously consider the trade-offs between having more story-based quests and more variation in the existing quests. Remove it, and you can easily afford creating a much bigger game for the same budget.
So you think. Unless you are part of the DA group that is just your opinion. Spoken dialogue limits only as much as the skill of of the writers. The cost of it is hardly a issue if you use voice actors who are willing to take less than known names. Doesn´t mean they have no talent for it. And frankly I will take more richer story with rp option over those empty grinding maps of DAI any day. Even it would cost more in the price of the game. This is the first DA game I had problems finishing in my first playthrough.
That is just matter of interpretation. A blood mage will fit in anywhere. You just need people with writing skill to do it. This current story line is just too rigid for it. Holy person whom has to feel holy. Where is the rp there? Had the DA team had some balls they would have made a game with parallel story lines, including the one with blood magic. Even you should be able to see how many possibilities there are for story variations.
So you think. Unless you are part of the DA group that is just your opinion. Spoken dialogue limits only as much as the skill of of the writers. The cost of it is hardly a issue if you use voice actors who are willing to take less than known names. Doesn´t mean they have no talent for it. And frankly I will take more richer story with rp option over those empty grinding maps of DAI any day. Even it would cost more in the price of the game. This is the first DA game I had problems finishing in my first playthrough.
Parallel story lines and story variations are precisely the things game developers want to avoid. Creating them takes a lot of effort, while the impact on sales and developer reputation is much smaller. The ideal game gives the player an illusion that their choices matter, while having a minimal amount of alternate content.
The biggest issue with having blood magic in DA:I is continuity. In order to maintain continuity between DA:I and the hypothetical DA4, DA:I must always end in the same way, regardless of player choices. There can be trivial variation, such as what happens to the Grey Wardens, Templars, and Mages, or who rules Orlais and the Chantry, but the core world state must always be the same. Corypheus must be defeated, the South must be more or less in peace, the Inquisition must become a major power, and the Inquisitor must survive and continue to lead the Inquisition.
Because blood magic has been established as the ultimate evil in Thedas, this rules out the Inquisitor as a blood mage. If we have a powerful Inquisition, its leader cannot be a hero in some world states and a villain in others. A DA:O-style ending, where the main character's story is essentially over, would have allowed more freedom.
You are just going circles around the issue. You really think Bio lacks the creativity to pull off such a story which allows the pc to be a blood magic and achieving the wanted ending? That is one hell of a assumption.
And you didn´t answer to the question about this pink elephant in the living room. Qun is as dreaded enemy of the Thedasian nations and the Chantry as is blood magic. Yet you see no problem with Iron Bull feeding the qunari information about Fereldan, Orlais, Chantry and the Inquisition? How would any of these players feel when they hear that a qun spy sits right there in the eye of the power?
The issue isn't with writer skills or actor salaries, but with the sheer amount of work. According to the published figures, DA:I has about 82000 lines of dialogue. That's 20% more than DA:O, 30% less than BG2, or the equivalent of 10 seasons of Game of Thrones. Recording it in just one language might take around 8000 hours of studio time and a similar amount of postprocessing. If you want to change the details of a scene, you'll have to get the actors back to the studio to record the new lines.
Ultimately the problem is that we're far less forgiving with speech than with other assets. If we have a piece of text, a 3D model, a map, or a sound effect, we can easily generate minor variants of the asset. With speech, every variant becomes a new line that must be recorded separately. Eventually speech synthesis will replace most voice actors and solve the problem, but we're not there yet.
Debatable. You need to have then the numbers to compare text/voice issue to the graphical map creation, along with tons of fetch quest. However, your solution seem to be simply to cut down the rpg experience in a supposed rpg game and go for the fetch quest? What ever rocks your boat. I myself am not interested in the trade off.
You are just going circles around the issue. You really think Bio lacks the creativity to pull off such a story which allows the pc to be a blood magic and achieving the wanted ending? That is one hell of a assumption.
And you didn´t answer to the question about this pink elephant in the living room. Qun is as dreaded enemy of the Thedasian nations and the Chantry as is blood magic. Yet you see no problem with Iron Bull feeding the qunari information about Fereldan, Orlais, Chantry and the Inquisition? How would any of these players feel when they hear that a qun spy sits right there in the eye of the power?
Debatable. You need to have then the numbers to compare text/voice issue to the graphical map creation, along with tons of fetch quest.
However, your solution seem to be simply to cut down the rpg experience in a supposed rpg game and go for the fetch quest? What ever rocks your boat. I myself am not interested in the trade off.
Writing isn't black magic. If people in this thread haven't been able to come up with a plausible scenario, where a powerful blood mage Inquisitor can be tolerated, but blood magic in general is still the ultimate taboo, then BioWare writers can't do it either.
I've done so many times in this thread. Basically, it's "we'll keep it a secret from the rest of the world because we don't want to lose the Inquisitor."
I've done so many times in this thread. Basically, it's "we'll keep it a secret from the rest of the world because we don't want to lose the Inquisitor."
Jouni did say a plausible scenario, Xil. 
(just yanking your chain)
I do have an issue with an overt blood mage as the Inquisitor. It does not seem to easily mesh with the narrative framework we are given. For an overt blood mage to actually work, there should be major pushback from the Chantry, your companions/advisers, and most leaders of southern Thedas. The whole "keep it a secret" doesn't work too well with an overt blood mage, unless the blood mage was able to team up with several other blood mages or demons and either brainwash the Inquisition members that come in to contact with the Inquisitor (kinda like the Obliviators from Harry Potter) or become the South-Side Venatori and muscle their way from rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters to the Ultimate Power in the UniverseTM.
A pragmatic blood mage, on the other hand, could work much more easily into the narrative framework. This would be a mage that has no problem using blood magic when pressed (think of the Warden dealing with Connor) but won't by default use blood magic. I could see blood magic available as a specialization, but would result in a loss of approval from companions/advisers. I could even see it being a sticking point when discussing how to take down Corypheus: the Inquisitor says there is some blood magic that would help them out; Cullen loses it and vows to take action against the Inquisitior should blood magic be used; the Inquisitor resorts to blood magic which then prompts Cullen and a small batch of soldiers to turn against the Inquisitor, initiating a mini-boss fight before getting to Corypheus.
Jouni did say a plausible scenario, Xil.
I do have an issue with an overt blood mage as the Inquisitor. It does not seem to easily mesh with the narrative framework we are given. For an overt blood mage to actually work, there should be major pushback from the Chantry, your companions/advisers, and most leaders of southern Thedas. The whole "keep it a secret" doesn't work too well with an overt blood mage, unless the blood mage was able to team up with several other blood mages or demons and either brainwash the Inquisition members that come in to contact with the Inquisitor (kinda like the Obliviators from Harry Potter) or become the South-Side Venatori and muscle their way from rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters to the Ultimate Power in the UniverseTM.
A pragmatic blood mage, on the other hand, could work much more easily into the narrative framework. This would be a mage that has no problem using blood magic when pressed (think of the Warden dealing with Connor) but won't by default use blood magic. I could see blood magic available as a specialization, but would result in a loss of approval from companions/advisers. I could even see it being a sticking point when discussing how to take down Corypheus: the Inquisitor says there is some blood magic that would help them out; Cullen loses it and vows to take action against the Inquisitior should blood magic be used; the Inquisitor resorts to blood magic which then prompts Cullen and a small batch of soldiers to turn against the Inquisitor, initiating a mini-boss fight before getting to Corypheus.
That's why it's covert. You don't use it in front of anyone except the inner circle (and Hawke, at one or two possible points in Here Lies the Abyss to break Corypheus' mind control).
In any case, if blood magic was that poorly looked upon, there should have been mutinies upon allying with the Grey Wardens.
I've done so many times in this thread. Basically, it's "we'll keep it a secret from the rest of the world because we don't want to lose the Inquisitor."
Two problems with this scenario: 1) The Inquisitor can never use blood magic openly, because their enemies could see it and live to tell the tale. This makes blood magic useless in combat. 2) Once Corypheus is dead, does everyone still want to keep the blood magic secret, even if their approval is extremely negative? Or is possible that somebody could reveal the secret in order to get rid of their enemies?
1 never really happens in this game. 2... there are still Fade rifts around, and it's easy enough to see that no one really wants to destroy the entire Inquisition out of spite.
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