Well, they could always have it so they are in a polyamorous relationship. I remember Bioware saying that the only way they could really have a romance like that work is if the other two are already in a relationship and then the player can be joined in or something.
Yeah, that was Gaider making a remark on the section. To simplify the writing, in both complexity and word count, a pre-existing relationship was the way to go.
I thought Magekiller would benefit from two things:
1. Novel format. It would be easier for me to understand or (tried to) empathize Marius and Tessa and their motives.
2. Remain in Tevinter.
With Rucka not writing the series, does this mean it will be cancelled or continue with another writer?
I guess that not with Rucka, and maybe the comics will focus in other characters.With Rucka not writing the series, does this mean it will be cancelled or continue with another writer?
Funny, when I read that I had a thought about the multiplayer Inquisition agents, who I actually found quite interesting, and thought stories about them would have made a much more interesting comic.
Or when they said you could send Cullen to Redcliffe instead of Leliana, and it would have different consequences? There's marketing, and then there's Bioware marketing
Well as someone else suggested, they could do this crazy thing and not have her be romanceable, but actually have a companion be in a stable relationship with someone other than the PC, who doesn't need your help to sort out their relationship problems and just... is. I'm not even rooting for Tessa to be a companion, but that concept would be refreshing.
Yeah, it could be interesting to have one-off comics about the multiplayer agents. It reminds me of the ME Foundation comic series which focuses on all of the squadmates. It requires knowledge of the game and wouldn't really be self-sufficient without in-game information, but really, who reads comics based off of video games who have not played the games?
And since the multiplayer agents were already present in the game, it wouldn't feel so shoehorned like these completely new characters have been.
I'm not so forgiving of them. This was late in development, near release. And it had nothing to do with badgering them. Why do some people insist on blaming fans for everything? Bioware is not immune to mistakes or doing bad things.
The story would have been finalized, and they had a whole video to go along with it (which even changed some things like zombie Leliana to keep the time-magic a secret). But all the cutscenes and the entire level were done. Furthermore, since they know it's time-travel, they know that they're outright lying since we don't get to send anyone; Leliana sends herself to Refcliffe offscreen, and even further, there are no consequences to either Leliana or a potential Cullen going because it's time travel, and those versions aren't the same ones as we interact with.
It was a marketing lie. It happens.
And I recall Gaider later getting upset with fans who were outraged over the deaths of the two squadmates and Leliana right before Dorian teleports us back in time. Dude, if you don't want fan outrage, then don't advertise a scene that shows companion deaths, even if we learn in hindsight that they're fake-out deaths. You can't be upset that fans don't want characters to die. It's like trolling the fanbase and then being upset when the fanbase doesn't like the trolling.
I thought that demo was almost a full year prior to release.
I don't think so, but I don't remember the exact date. I know it was much, much later than the infamous Crestwood demo, and this one was in the public domain. The story and 95% of the gameplay seemed finalized by that point.
Yeah, it could be interesting to have one-off comics about the multiplayer agents. It reminds me of the ME Foundation comic series which focuses on all of the squadmates. It requires knowledge of the game and wouldn't really be self-sufficient without in-game information, but really, who reads comics based off of video games who have not played the games?
And since the multiplayer agents were already present in the game, it wouldn't feel so shoehorned like these completely new characters have been.
And I recall Gaider later getting upset with fans who were outraged over the deaths of the two squadmates and Leliana right before Dorian teleports us back in time. Dude, if you don't want fan outrage, then don't advertise a scene that shows companion deaths, even if we learn in hindsight that they're fake-out deaths. You can't be upset that fans don't want characters to die. It's like trolling the fanbase and then being upset when the fanbase doesn't like the trolling.
Totally agree about the MP agents. I don't know who would buy game comics with no interest in the games they go with.
Really? Ah, Gaider... That is pretty silly. When I saw it, I was super confused, since I wouldn't think any developer would show 3 main character deaths in a promo video, even if it turned out to be time-travel-erased. Did they really think it wouldn't get the fans angry? So when the time-magic happened ingame, I put the dots together, but they were purposely keeping that secret, so... I don't understand Bioware marketing. At all 
With regard to Tessa and Charter being included as a polyamorous relationship in DA4, it isn't entirely beyond possibility, since WoT2 has already suggested the relationship between Zevran, Rinnala and Taliesen was exactly that, a 3 way romantic relationship but it would be one hell of an achievement to pull that off convincingly, so I can't see it myself. As for Marius and not finding out more about him, well if he is intended to be a companion next game, I would rather that any information is kept for there; I wouldn't want it being assumed that I knew his background beforehand and recounting their previous history is something that is generally part of the relationship building you have with companions.
What strikes me as so odd about this comic series is the amount of rehashed material that doesn't really advance the game world or lore at all. The Tevinter stuff looked really interesting but that was about it. Previous books and comics have dealt with material that was either pre- or post stories that we have been involved in but the majority of this storyline was running parallel with events in Inquisition without introducing anything new. I really think it was a missed opportunity not to have them involved in dealing with areas that we never visited, either connected with war table missions or even entirely unknown to us, since this could be explained as Leliana taking the initiative an authorising something while the Inquisitor was otherwise engaged. There were war table missions that mentioned Venatori activity that needed dealing with in northern Orlais (Nahashin Marshes), Nevarra (Hunter Fell and in the court of the King himself), Freemarches (several locations), Antiva and Denerim. In neutralising the threat,the services of specialist mage killers would have been necessary. Not only that, but Marius/Tessa could quite legitimately have congratulated themselves that they had helped prevent the spread of the Venatori and thus made a vital contribution to the Inquisitor saving the world from Corypheus. I acknowledge that everyone played their part but to suggest in the preview to edition number 5 that without their assistance, the Inquisitor could have perished, is just laughable and as it turned out this was entirely the case; Marius, Tessa and co simply dealt with a few demons. Plus, if they were there, you would think they would have been invited to the celebrations afterwards.
Let's also not forget that Calpernia should have died by their hands, but was spared due to Marius still having feelings for her and vice-versa.
Though it seems like they'll make Calpernia return in DA4
Calpurnia was another of those oddities in the story. If I understand it correctly, the Archon asked them to move against people he couldn't openly oppose because they were powerful individuals in their own right with political allies he didn't want to offend, but Calpurnia wasn't a Magister from an important Altus family but a slave of the Imperium. In her short story, she had openly attacked a Magister on the streets of Minrathous, her master had disappeared and she was allied with an illegal organisation. Why on earth couldn't the Archon deal with her himself? Who would he have been offending if he had done so? In fact how could she still move around Minrathous without being arrested? I thought that at the end of her short story she had left with Corypheus for the south and yet there she was in the baths in Minrathous.
I had half expected Marius and Tessa to have played a part in the events in the Arbor Wilds and that Marius would have been the reason that Calpurnia lived beyond there whether you let her go to confront Corypheus or she simply jumped off the cliff but it would seem that he wasn't and if she does appear again it will have had nothing to do with him. May be if there is another story sequence this will be the direction it will take and may be Leliana saying the Inquisitor needs them at the end of the current storyline is that they want them to find out what happened to Calpurnia.
It was in fact shown off at E3 just a few months before release. Not like Crestwood which was pre-alpha footage (and looked better than the game we got).I don't think so, but I don't remember the exact date. I know it was much, much later than the infamous Crestwood demo, and this one was in the public domain. The story and 95% of the gameplay seemed finalized by that point.
Really? Ah, Gaider... That is pretty silly. When I saw it, I was super confused, since I wouldn't think any developer would show 3 main character deaths in a promo video, even if it turned out to be time-travel-erased. Did they really think it wouldn't get the fans angry? So when the time-magic happened ingame, I put the dots together, but they were purposely keeping that secret, so... I don't understand Bioware marketing. At all
All of that stuff makes me even more happy I stopped following DAI development when I did. Perhaps that is one reason I was satisfied with the game I got. Some of the stuff I saw post-play rankled, sure, but it wasn't enough to override the overall positive feelings.
Doesn't sound like I'm missing anything from not buying this DAI comic series. At the most, I guess a few chars in it will pop up in DA4.
It was in fact shown off at E3 just a few months before release. Not like Crestwood which was pre-alpha footage (and looked better than the game we got).
Honestly issue #5 was a waste of time and money.
Thanks for checking, that's helpful. It's funny you say that Crestwood looked better than one we got, because it did literally - visually - look better in a lot of ways. The lighting seemed better, the armour wasn't as ridiculously shiny as it is in the final build, and you got to wear helmets in cutscenes. I have no idea why they'd scrap that.
All of that stuff makes me even more happy I stopped following DAI development when I did. Perhaps that is one reason I was satisfied with the game I got. Some of the stuff I saw post-play rankled, sure, but it wasn't enough to override the overall positive feelings.
I get what you mean, but I can't go dark with games anymore. For movies I tend to watch a trailer once, get excited, then try not to watch much else until release so I don't remember the trailer and therefore get more surprises while watching. But for games, I'm either not sure about it, or I'm too excited/the wait is too long and I give up.
For instance with ME:A, I will follow it because I don't have high expectations and want to know what I'm getting into. For something solid that I know I'll like (barring something unexpected) like Halo, I could go dark, but the wait is too long and I'll follow it anyway 
/tangent
I get what you mean, but I can't go dark with games anymore. For movies I tend to watch a trailer once, get excited, then try not to watch much else until release so I don't remember the trailer and therefore get more surprises while watching. But for games, I'm either not sure about it, or I'm too excited/the wait is too long and I give up.
For instance with ME:A, I will follow it because I don't have high expectations and want to know what I'm getting into. For something solid that I know I'll like (barring something unexpected) like Halo, I could go dark, but the wait is too long and I'll follow it anyway
/tangent
Yeah I'm going to follow MEA fairly closely, as I'm afraid it's going to have a lot of the elements I didn't like about DAI in it, and I'd rather be spoiled on things than disappointed.
At this point, I really don't know what to think about the possibility of future comics.
@CarmenCarnero @bioware @ruckawriter @atiyehcolors Excellent work everyone! It's been an awesome ride
@CarmenCarnero
Magekiller #5 out today! And that means farewell to this series, thank you all and hope you enjoy this last issue.
@JustJeanine Thank you! I really don't know if they want to do more, but I hope so 
Greg Rucka Retweeted Carmen Carnero
Been a delight working on this and working on @dragonage — hope we get to do it again!
@ruckawriter
@thats1evildude that story is ended. THAT story.... 
These are all the related tweets. I'm honestly not sure. Perhaps these are just in reference to this particular arc, called Magekiller, just as all of the previous comics had their own title, and there will be further arcs under different names? Or maybe the sales were poor and they won't order more? The Polygon interview clearly suggested that there will be post-game stuff that would strike "out into new territory for the franchise."
I'll be disappointed if there isn't more. =/
Maybe the plan is to space out the issues. Wait until closer to DA4 to release another series. Regardless, this entire arc has been wasted potential and ultimately nonsensical and lackluster.
The Alistair comic series had a lot of lore packed into a short amount of issues and helped provide answers for questions which weren't vital to the games. I was hoping for more of the same in this.
Yeah, same here.
Maybe they're hoping they can get away with introducing the next round of companions via the comics, so they don't have to spend as much time on their backstories in the next game. Though that doesn't make much sense, because we still know next to nothing about Marius and Tessa. I mean, if they're going to be companions, I guess they need to have some mystery left to be revealed in the game, but the comics are a bit on the expensive side for such paltry storytelling and did not slake my thirst for additional lore one bit. ![=]](https://lvlt.forum.bioware.com/public/style_emoticons/default/sideways.png)
These are all the related tweets. I'm honestly not sure. Perhaps these are just in reference to this particular arc, called Magekiller, just as all of the previous comics had their own title, and there will be further arcs under different names? Or maybe the sales were poor and they won't order more? The Polygon interview clearly suggested that there will be post-game stuff that would strike "out into new territory for the franchise."
I'll be disappointed if there isn't more. =/
I guess they should have started by "going into new territory for the franchise" then. It's kind of a dumb move and wasted opportunity not to have done that.
Yeah, it's a shame that Rucka didn't have more room to play around with; he's a great writer and it's a shame that his talents are wasted on retreading old ground from Inquisition. I'm actually kinda reminded of how Trevor Morris' talents were misused in the soundtrack: why bring in these awesome creators if you're not gonna let them use their talents to their fullest extent?
Yeah, same here.
Maybe they're hoping they can get away with introducing the next round of companions via the comics, so they don't have to spend as much time on their backstories in the next game. Though that doesn't make much sense, because we still know next to nothing about Marius and Tessa. I mean, if they're going to be companions, I guess they need to have some mystery left to be revealed in the game, but the comics are a bit on the expensive side for such paltry storytelling and did not slake my thirst for additional lore one bit.
I'm starting to think that our problem, and I don't exempt myself from this, is continually expecting that these ancillary materials will be tied to the next game in some way. We've come to expect this, of course, and past releases bear this out, but I think it is damaging expectations for what these materials can be.
Magekiller could very well have been, "here is a thing that happened," and was never intended to be any sort of prelude to the next game in any way.
All in all, I maintain that the whole series would have been better if they had just stayed in Tevinter and surrounding environs and left the Inquisition well alone. I played the damn game, I was there in the form of my Inquisitor; I don't need to read a third party accounting of events.
From what I know of these things, when you are writing about an already established universe you are given a framework that you are meant to keep within. You might also be given an idea of where the current storylines are headed, so any characters you introduced and stories you start will fit with that. Then either you are given a specific storyline they want covered or you do a synopsis of your ideas for a story and run it by the main team to get their approval, after which you can go with it.
So either Rucka had a very tight brief that he had to keep to or Bioware vetoed his preferred storyline in favour of the one given or he simply didn't have much imagination when it came to developing the Magekiller idea. I repeat, there was nothing wrong with keeping to the same timeline as Inquisition and having a story running in parallel to it; the problem would seem to be having the main characters for the most part cover exactly the same areas that we did in game when there was so much scope for introducing new ones and fleshing out plotlines that had only been given a small amount of detail at the war table. I can see why they didn't want to put too much in from Tevinter (just enough to wet our appetites) because it has been heavily implied that is where we are headed next game but fleshing out storylines in the south in areas we have never visited or are likely to visit in the near future would have been ideal, so it seems odd this didn't happen.
Mind you I wonder just how carefully the main team follow these writing projects and check them for accuracy or how invested in the game world these authors are. In the Last Flight the writer had Garahel joke "I did once seduce a Qunari", which would be funny except for the fact that the Qunari didn't arrive in Thedas until 100 years after the 4th Blight. So clearly the author was not sufficiently immersed in the game world to know this comment was entirely out of place and the editor didn't read it carefully enough to spot the anomaly (or didn't know either). This was probably the reason why Last Flight introduced the power of levitation that was previously said not to have been possible by mages in the Circles because if flying aravals had been used to save people from the 4th Blight, I think word might have got round to the mages that this was the case. Mind you, since Corypheus was shown to levitate entire mountains and Dorian says there were flying cows over Minrathous, I think the writers had already decided to contradict that bit of lore, so the writer of Last Flight can be excused.
Point of contention, Gervaise: I've never seen it stated levitation wasn't possible. Arcane Horrors have been levitating since DAO; the Architect also had the same trick. DA2 gave the ability to darkspawn emissaries as well (and Corypheus, obviously).
It's just kind of a showy waste of magic.
From what I know of these things, when you are writing about an already established universe you are given a framework that you are meant to keep within. You might also be given an idea of where the current storylines are headed, so any characters you introduced and stories you start will fit with that. Then either you are given a specific storyline they want covered or you do a synopsis of your ideas for a story and run it by the main team to get their approval, after which you can go with it.
So either Rucka had a very tight brief that he had to keep to or Bioware vetoed his preferred storyline in favour of the one given or he simply didn't have much imagination when it came to developing the Magekiller idea. I repeat, there was nothing wrong with keeping to the same timeline as Inquisition and having a story running in parallel to it; the problem would seem to be having the main characters for the most part cover exactly the same areas that we did in game when there was so much scope for introducing new ones and fleshing out plotlines that had only been given a small amount of detail at the war table. I can see why they didn't want to put too much in from Tevinter (just enough to wet our appetites) because it has been heavily implied that is where we are headed next game but fleshing out storylines in the south in areas we have never visited or are likely to visit in the near future would have been ideal, so it seems odd this didn't happen.
Mind you I wonder just how carefully the main team follow these writing projects and check them for accuracy or how invested in the game world these authors are. In the Last Flight the writer had Garahel joke "I did once seduce a Qunari", which would be funny except for the fact that the Qunari didn't arrive in Thedas until 100 years after the 4th Blight. So clearly the author was not sufficiently immersed in the game world to know this comment was entirely out of place and the editor didn't read it carefully enough to spot the anomaly (or didn't know either).
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