61 réponses à ce sujet

[diaspora2k5]

I don't think there's any value in a game being grimdark for the sake of being grimdark, but it almost seems as though the Inquisition and the Inquisitor's experiences in DAI seem a lot "cleaner" than what the Warden and even Hawke d experienced in DAO and DA2. I mean the red lyrium templars were grotesque, but the horrifying nature of melted Abomination faces, golems made from living tissue, broodmothers, frankenstein Leandra almost makes DAI seem mild comparatively. Which is odd since you'd think with the breach you'd be facing far more abominations like in DA2/Broken Circle. Anyone else feel this way?

[Just My Moniker]

I'd have to agree there. Alot less horror/dark elements in DAI, hell, even the option to be a more ruthless or evil person was abandoned pretty much entirely.

One of DAI's few glaring faults imo.

Hopefully they fix this going into DA4

[dreamgazer]

hell, even the option to be a more ruthless or evil person was abandoned pretty much entirely.

Tell that to my Quizzy who enjoyed tranquil-ing idiots as punishment.

[diaspora2k5]

The entire Dead Trenches part of "A Paragon of Her Kind" was a far more harrowing experience than I think most if not all of DAI. It's not like the potential wasn't there either- the Fade part of Here Lies the Abyss could have carried over the Lovecraftian elements of DAO's Fade (unless it's different if you're there physically?) but it didn't.

 

Tell that to my Quizzy who enjoyed tranquil-ing idiots as punishment.

This is true; the Inquisitor can easily be a tyrant.

 

edit: Fewer desire demons I can understand, but the lack of abominations was mighty puzzling.

[Just My Moniker]

Tell that to my Quizzy who enjoyed tranquil-ing idiots as punishment.

Yes, but that is seen (at least in my opinion) as being just a severe punishment for some pretty evil dudes.

Wheres the option to murder knife Brother Genitivi cuz you don't want to give the Chantry more propaganda?

Wheres the option to murder an entire clan of Dalish and turn the wounded into werewolves?

Wheres the option to sacrifice an entire room of innocent people to make yourself stronger?

 

You get where I'm going? 

[diaspora2k5]

Yes, but that is seen (at least in my opinion) as being just a severe punishment for some pretty evil dudes.

Wheres the option to murder knife Brother Genitivi cuz you don't want to give the Chantry more propaganda?

Wheres the option to murder an entire clan of Dalish and turn the wounded into werewolves?

Wheres the option to sacrifice an entire room of innocent people to make yourself stronger?

 

You get where I'm going? 

The Warden allowed you to be a more hands-on monster whereas the Inquisitor being a tyrant was more abstract.

[Incantrix]

Because remember, the nobles and lords gave the inquisition strength. Being an evil sith lord wouldn't win you any favors or a war.

[katerinafm]

Yeah, pretty much agree. Couldn't even play as an evil guy on my 'evil' playthrough.

[MisterJB]

 

It's not that bad things aren't happening, it's that we aren't seeing anything.

 

Imagine, rather than discovering a note, you receive a quest to determine what is happening to the Tranquil. As you gather clues, you begin to get a clear picture of what is happening to them.

Finally, you chance upon a ritual chamber with skulls in the process of having their flesh removed.

[Boomshakalakalakaboom]

edit: Fewer desire demons I can understand, but the lack of abominations was mighty puzzling.

 

Most likely because they were trying to make the game as grey as possible.

 

If you have abominations running amok (which their really should have been considering events) then it wouldn't be so grey. New players that hadn't played DAO or DA2 would be more inclined to acquire help from the templars if you have mages turning into abominations left, right and center and we all know the BSN ****-storm that would occur if templars were actually considered to be the more logical choice.

 

Just my take on it.  

[diaspora2k5]

Most likely because they were trying to make the game as grey as possible.

 

If you have abominations running amok (which their really should have been considering events) then it wouldn't be so grey. New players that hadn't played DAO or DA2 would be more inclined to acquire help from the templars if you have mages turning into abominations left, right and center and we all know the BSN ****-storm that would occur if templars were actually considered to be the more logical choice.

 

Just my take on it.  

Possibly, though it wouldn't have been unreasonable to have both abominations and crack/lyrium addled templars. Just add another layer of brutality to them.

[Boomshakalakalakaboom]

Possibly, though it wouldn't have been unreasonable to have both abominations and crack/lyrium addled templars. Just add another layer of brutality to them.

 

No it wouldn't be unreasonable at all, but the majority of players are sympathetic towards mages. I don't think BioWare wants to ****** off the larger group of their fan base by making it so it is harder to sympathize with them. There has already been a negative response by pro-elf players due to what we found out in DAI. I would imagine the backlash would be even harsher than that if they made mages look worse than they already do with the Redcliffe fiasco at a time when players are finally able to grant them their freedom. 

[diaspora2k5]

No it wouldn't be unreasonable at all, but the majority of players are sympathetic towards mages. I don't think BioWare wants to ****** off the larger group of their fan base by making it so it is harder to sympathize with them. There has already been a negative response by pro-elf players due to what we found out in DAI. I would imagine the backlash would be even harsher than that if they made mages look worse than they already do with the Redcliffe fiasco at a time when players are finally able to grant them their freedom. 

Are you referring to the old empire having slaveowners too?

[Excella Gionne]

The real DA:I are the pre-alpha and alpha builds. I'm so disappointed, but I still love the game.

[thats1evildude]

Regarding abominations, I believe I heard that they felt abominations were being over-used and to make them feel more like a threat when encountered. Abominations are supposed to be rare and dangerous, but aside from a few unique examples, they're little better than mooks in DAO and DA2.

Regarding the horror elements, they may little lighter here but no less present. I found Champions of the Just to be a fun horror story, and there are nice little scary stories throughout like Chateau D'Onterre and the Silent Ruins.

Besides the red templars, the ghouls are horrifying, as are the terror and despair demons when seen up close.

[thats1evildude]

Also, there are nuggalopes, which I find terrifying beyond words.

[andy6915]

I know what you mean. How many actual kills are shown directly on screen? In DAO and DA2, you had on-screen scenes like throat slicing, stabbings with swords going all the way through, kings getting literally crushed in a way that makes blood splatter out of them like a squeezed toothpaste container, impalement like what happens to that templar in the alienage orphanage, guys getting their hearts and brains obliterated inside their bodies, decapitations, arrows (well, crossbow bolts) fired through shoulders and even through throats, ogres torn apart utterly with magical crushing prisons, enemies cut in half, enemies torn in half (what that golem does to an awakened darkspawn in Awakening)... All shown directly, no camera tricks. When someone's throat was cut for example, they showed the actual cut (like when you execute that weird serial killer who targets young elves in DA2).

 

What's the most brutal death scene in DAI? A warden getting their throat cut (with the camera going out of its way to not actually show the throat being cut), which is quite tame compared to the big list above. Or maybe the worst is the warden who gets stabbed... With his back to the camera, while he's stabbed in the front? And note that I mean cutscenes, not gameplay. Every single thing in the above paragraph was in a cutscene, often with the camera zooming in and focusing on the carnage specifically. DAO and DA2 intentionally highlighted the brutality by showing the kill in full detail with the camera showing it all, whereas DAI never ever shows the brutal part and always uses camerawork to go out of its way to avoid showing any killing blows that occur in cutscenes. The series went from going out of its way to show the nasty ways people get killed in cutscenes to going out of its way to avoid showing the nasty ways people get killed in cutscenes, a complete flip.

[Ieldra]

The series went from going out of its way to show the nasty ways people get killed in cutscenes to going out of its way to avoid showing the nasty ways people get killed in cutscenes, a complete flip.

Not only that, but almost all of the every evils of the world we could witness in the earlier games were left off-screen in DAI. This results in a cognitive dissonace between the crapsack world painted by the Codex and the brightly-colored, clean landscapes and cityscapes we actually see.

This is why I call DAI sanitized. It's made so that people feel comfortable, very much in opposition to the earlier games. You could make an argument that things went overboard in DA2, but in typical fashion Bioware overcompensated for that in DAI.

[KCMeredith]

I actually wanted my character to be like in that sequence with the envy demon.

[Nixou]

Fewer desire demons I can understand, but the lack of abominations was mighty puzzling.

 

 

Given that a bunch of holes appeared in the Veil, demons have less of an incentive to possess people, they can just find a rift and pop out in the material plane. Plus, I'd suppose that possessed mages were among the first to be weeded out by the conflict, given that both factions have reason to want abominations killed as quickly as possible.

 

***

 

the majority of players are sympathetic towards mages

 

 

That's because the writers themselves are sympathetic toward mages, and have skewed the story toward their views, often portraying mages in a more sympathetic light (look at DA2 for instance: on one hand you have Meredith and Ser Alrik, a tyrant driven to madness by paranoia and an unrepentant rapist, on the other you have Orsino and Quentin: a moderate driven to despair by the prospect of being on the receiving end of a genocide and a man driven to madness by the loss of his wife: hard to not get more sympathetic toward one group when it has the most sympathetic characters)

 

Anyway, this gives me another opportunity to rant against Bioware clinging to non-linearity and mutually exclusive quest-lines:

As I said elsewhere, I didn't like at all the game allowing players to chose in which order they tackle Wicked Eyes and Here Lies the abyss because it makes no sense narratively

But there's an earlier "pseudo-choice" which irritates me more, and it's the Templar/Mage choice.

To make your inquisition Templar-centric, you have to deliberately ignore Fiona cry for help in Val Royaux and avoid dealing with the crisis already happening within the Inquisition's turf.

Worse, once the Hushed Whispers' quest is done, you're given the choice to either ally with the mages or conscript them, and this has virtually no effect on the rest of the game.

A much more logical, and I daresay elegant way of handling this story-arc would have been to make things more linear: unlock in Hushed Whispers first, and make it mandatory even for Players who want to side with the Templars, then make the quest final choice (ally or conscript) affect Champions of the Just, unlocked upon Whispers' completion and also made mandatory even for Players who want to side with the Mages: If the Inquisitor allied with the Mages, the Templars have become irreparably hostile; if the Inquisitor conscripted the Mages, then the Templars are convinced to join the Inquisition.

 

(Also while we're at it, use the ally/conscript choice as an invisible trigger for the Divine's election: if the Inquisition allies itself with the mages, Vivienne cannot be made Divine, since the alliance will be interpreted by the clerics as a clear sign that the Inquisition doesn't favor Vivienne's conservative worldview. If the mages are conscripted, it's Leliana who loses her chance to become Divine, since it will be seen as the Inquisition not favoring her brand of radical reformism.)

 

***

 

What's the most brutal death scene in DAI?

 

 

I'd say Clarel being chewed by Cory's Dragon.

[YourFunnyUncle]

This is why I call DAI sanitized. It's made so that people feel comfortable, very much in opposition to the earlier games. You could make an argument that things went overboard in DA2, but in typical fashion Bioware overcompensated for that in DAI.

I enjoyed both, but it seems to me that DAI is in almost every way an overreaction to the criticisms levelled at DA2: Too dark, too geographically restricted in scope, too small/recycled areas, whatever you did Hawke couldn't stop Kirkwall from going to hell. Now you have a much less dark world, with many vast areas spread across southern Thedas where you resolve two conflicts, build up a massive new political force and defeat the big bad. I wouldn't be too harsh on BioWare though. It's tough to parse what people really think when the feedback you get is always skewed by those that least liked the last thing you made, and to an extent whatever they change, they please some but annoy whoever liked it the way it was.

 

Personally I hope that the next game lies somewhere in between the two both tonally and in scope.

[andy6915]

I'd say Clarel being chewed by Cory's Dragon.

 
That quick scene where you can't see much? DAO can top that. Even with the most brutal example you thought of, DAO still does better. It's not a quick, nearly-instant bite where you can barely see the victim while it thrashes them around... It's a close up, of the victim clearly gum-deep in its teeth while he visibly screams in agony.
 

[EggplantRed]

Going through this thread reminded me how much I really missed being able to murder knife folks. Could have saved some of my quizzies a lot of the facepalming they endured.

[Yaroub]

DA:I gruesome settings sucked big time, miss tearing ogres apart.

 

[Andromelek]

We'll have the dark touch again, now, can someone tell me who was the sucker who said the DLC would be about a Qunari invasion?