97 réponses à ce sujet

[Cantina]

Do you want it to be less complicated? 

 

I gathered that after reading the original post.

 

Maybe they find even Dr. Seuss stories to be too convoluted too.

[Ieldra]

Convoluted? DA's lore is remarkably plausibly complex. It feels real because the different cultures have different interpretations of the same things while adding their own stuff to the mix, because newer developments add stuff on top of older history without completely invalidating it, because different nations have different interests and that's reflected in how they interpret common lore, and so on.

 

Some areas where the developers changed their opinions and/or priorities over time exist, and that results in some confusion, but the body of DA lore shows mostly competent worldbuilding IMO. Less complexity would start to feel simplistic at some point. 

[AlanC9]

Elder Scrolls lore is easier to learn, even with how much there is because they tell you what happend. You can pick up a book and learn about the First Era.

Isn't this just because TES has been around longer and resolved more stuff? The entire plot of Morrowind is about resolving a crucial historical issue that different cultures remember differently. And honestly, I'm still not sure how Nerevar really died.

[Giantdeathrobot]

Convoluted? DA's lore is remarkably plausibly complex. It feels real because the different cultures have different interpretations of the same things while adding their own stuff to the mix, because newer developments add stuff on top of older history without completely invalidating it, because different nations have different interests and that's reflected in how they interpret common lore, and so on.

 

Some areas where the developers changed their opinions and/or priorities over time exist, and that results in some confusion, but the body of DA lore shows mostly competent worldbuilding IMO. Less complexity would start to feel simplistic at some point. 

 

Yeah, I feel like the writers know where they are headed and care about the setting's integrity. They spend a lot of time polishing Thedas, and while some aspects of the lore don't appeal to me that much (Orlais being a giant French caricature while other nations are more nuanced, for instance), overall it's pretty rock solid. They did a great job with the setting.

 

I'd say that on that front, Dragon Age actually beats out contemporary fantasy like Elder Scrolls and The Witcher. Pillars of Eternity might be a contender in the years to come, but it only had one game so far and dropped its big lore bomb too quickly IMO.

 

Heck I think I even slightly prefer it to the setting of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones for TV folks). Which develops most of Westeros very, very well... then has Essos be a giant patchwork of quasi-orientalist clichés; the fat merchant princes, the evil slavers, the savage not-mongols, the hippie black people, to name the worst instances.

[Addictress]

The foreign accent and History-Channel/school-education-video-type-editing makes this one of a kind.

 

[Steelcan]

Heck I think I even slightly prefer it to the setting of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones for TV folks). Which develops most of Westeros very, very well... then has Essos be a giant patchwork of quasi-orientalist clichés; the fat merchant princes, the evil slavers, the savage not-mongols, the hippie black people, to name the worst instances.

Have you checked out A World of Ice and Fire?  The encyclopedia on the universe?

 

Cause after having read that I'd contest that "orientalist cliche" bit.  The Free Cities are Mediterranean first off, the remains of the Ghiscari get fleshed out a lot, the Rhoynar are in no way an orientalist cliche, and so on.

[Steelcan]

On topic, I think a lot of the lore issues that come up are due to some simple error or oversights, but they are there.  In general though I do like the more patchwork approach to lore in the universe.

 

I wouldn't say it holds a candle to the greats of fantasy of world building, but its a cut above most franchises undoubtedly.

[Ieldra]

Yeah, I feel like the writers know where they are headed and care about the setting's integrity. They spend a lot of time polishing Thedas, and while some aspects of the lore don't appeal to me that much (Orlais being a giant French caricature while other nations are more nuanced, for instance), overall it's pretty rock solid. They did a great job with the setting.

 

I'd say that on that front, Dragon Age actually beats out contemporary fantasy like Elder Scrolls and The Witcher. Pillars of Eternity might be a contender in the years to come, but it only had one game so far and dropped its big lore bomb too quickly IMO.

 

Heck I think I even slightly prefer it to the setting of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones for TV folks). Which develops most of Westeros very, very well... then has Essos be a giant patchwork of quasi-orientalist clichés; the fat merchant princes, the evil slavers, the savage not-mongols, the hippie black people, to name the worst instances.

TES lore is more expansive - which is unsurprising since Tamriel is more than twice as old as Thedas - but less complex because there are fewer ambiguities, varying interpretations and interconnections between lore elements. So I agree with you on that.

 

As for ASoIaF, I like it more because its author avoids taking a stance towards elements of his own setting. He gives us a story and leaves us to do with it what we want. Meanwhile, DA is full of thematic messages, and some of which I don't like. In fact, I knew I would hate the Chantry and most of what it stands for about fifteen seconds into DAO's intro, and that hasn't changed a bit since November 2009. In ASoIaF, humans are bastards, only some aren't, and those I tend to like, and I *can* like them unreservedly because they aren't paired with thematic messages I don't like. Meanwhile, in DA, there are cultures and characters I'm supposed to like but don't because of those messages, while some others appeal to me on a thematic level but they're painted as bad and do much bad stuff in service of something I'd normally approve of. Thus with DA, there are cases of serious value dissonance. Since IMO creators of stories should avoid thematic messages, DA falls behind settings like ASoIaF's in spite of its being very well-made.

[Secret Rare]

 There's no handy guide out there that can honestly, definitively tell you what happened

Don't know what happened is one thing and that's fine but possess outright lies at the core of most belief in Thedas of  what once was is another matter.

Like Tevinter who believe that they defeated the ancient elves,or the Dalish elves that believe that they are not immortal anymore because of humans or that the creators were all benevolent guides,or the chantry that preach that the magisters were cursed by the maker.

[Secret Rare]

Yeah. Awakening takes place at the same time as the first act of DA2.

 

(There's only a year between the destruction of Lothering - which happens right after you finish the first major area in DAO - and when Hawke meets Anders. That's really not enough time for the Warden to defeat the Blight, Felsi to have a baby and Anders to be recruited into the Wardens, merge with Justice, run away and get established in Lowtown.)

Awakening happen 6 months after the death of the archdemon

[vertigomez]

Don't know what happened is one thing and that's fine but possess outright lies at the core of most belief in Thedas of  what once was is another matter.
Like Tevinter who believe that they defeated the ancient elves,or the Dalish elves that believe that they are not immortal anymore because of humans or that the creators were all benevolent guides,or the chantry that preach that the magisters were cursed by the maker.

Which is just like the real world. Accounts of the Trojan War have been shrouded in myth for millenia. There are people who actually believe the earth is 7,000 years old. Look at every conspiracy theory shrouding the execution of the Romanovs, who shot JFK, etc. Couple all that with varying, widespread religious beliefs, racial and cultural tension, and "what really happened" soon falls prey to any given person's agenda.

[Secret Rare]

 "what really happened" soon falls prey to any given person's agenda.

That's true but also sad

[Ieldra]

 

Don't know what happened is one thing and that's fine but possess outright lies at the core of most belief in Thedas of  what once was is another matter.

Like Tevinter who believe that they defeated the ancient elves,or the Dalish elves that believe that they are not immortal anymore because of humans or that the creators were all benevolent guides,or the chantry that preach that the magisters were cursed by the maker.

 

Ignorance can be excuseable if the truth is hard to determine. How can you blame the Dalish for their ignorance if those who know the truth refuse to tell them? As for Tevinter, it *did* defeat the ancient elves. That they had already been severely weakened by their civil war and the Veil doesn't change that, and apart from that, what opportunity did Tevinter have to know the truth? *We* only know it because we were at the Well of Sorrows. As for religions, they lie all the time about real events if they think they can get away with it, but this is actually a matter of belief. Not that I like it, but you can actually claim anything as the result of divine intervention because nobody will be able to prove you wrong. This is intellectually dishonest - again, nothing new at all for most religions - but it's not a lie unless they know it wasn't the Maker.

 

Also, what vertigomez said.

[German Soldier]

 Not that I like it, but you can actually claim anything as the result of divine intervention because nobody will be able to prove you wrong. +

Well Corypheus can since he went there and he said that it was not the maker who cursed him he even said that to the inquisitor face....

[Secret Rare]

Ignorance can be excuseable if the truth is hard to determine. How can you blame the Dalish for their ignorance if those who know the truth refuse to tell them? 

The ancient elves of the temple did not refuse to tell to the inquisitor what happened during the past events,i can blame the Dalish for never having   a contact with ancient elves despite hundred of years of efforts in try to recover their past.

[Heimerdinger]

Dragon Age:

 

3 games, 1 full expansion

5 novels

2 lore books

3 short comic series (the IDW one is not canon anymore, or so I hear)

1 anime movie

 

Not extremely complex and not that difficult to follow. You want to see convoluted, check out Warcraft.

[Ieldra]

Well Corypheus can since he went there and he said that it was not the maker who cursed him he even said that to the inquisitor face....

Ask yourself: what would a believer answer to this? Wouldn't it be something like "The Maker put that X there that turned Corypheus into a darkspawn, so it was the Maker's punishment after all". I don't clam it's plausible. In fact, it's a rather implausible ad-hoc hypothesis and not all that sane in the first place, but it's not a lie if you deceive yourself at the same time.

[Steelcan]

TES lore has fewer ambiguities?

They can't even make up their mind on how Talos came about. Its vastly more complex than Thedas.

[fhs33721]

The ancient elves of the temple did not refuse to tell to the inquisitor what happened during the past events,i can blame the Dalish for never having   a contact with ancient elves despite hundred of years of efforts in try to recover their past.

The ancient elves in that temple kill everyone that get's remotely close to the temple. The Inquisitor had to fight their way into the temple and then complete an ancient ritual while the elves were busy with the Red templars/Venatori in order to even get them to talk to them. How do you expect a Dalish to fight their way in there alone without any notheworthy army and without Corypheus convently wrecking the magical defences for them first.

[sniper_arrow]

The ancient elves of the temple did not refuse to tell to the inquisitor what happened during the past events,i can blame the Dalish for never having   a contact with ancient elves despite hundred of years of efforts in try to recover their past.

 

Aside from killing outsiders, the ancient elves never consider the Dalish as their "People". Abelas says this clearly to Lavellan. 

[Giantdeathrobot]

Have you checked out A World of Ice and Fire?  The encyclopedia on the universe?

 

Cause after having read that I'd contest that "orientalist cliche" bit.  The Free Cities are Mediterranean first off, the remains of the Ghiscari get fleshed out a lot, the Rhoynar are in no way an orientalist cliche, and so on.

 

I pre-ordered it actually.

 

What struck me is that while ancient Essos is very well fleshed out and interesting, present Essos isn't. The Free Cities got some nice background development, but the Dothraki and Ghiscari didn't change much, and the Summer Islanders seem like even more of a boring hippie utopia where war is mostly bloodless and everyone has lots of sex. Martin even included Dothraki 2.0 in the Jhogos Nhai. Ironically, the most interesting places in Essos seem to be Quohor, Yi Ti and Asshai, which we are highly unlikely to visit in either book or show.

 

Another region that doesn't get a very flattering portrayal are the Iron Islands. I expected their background to be fleshed out and their brutal lifestyle justified, but it turns out every single king who tried to reform them was brutally murdered in various creative ways by the conservative elements of their society. Sure, the book is written from an in-universe perspective, but still. I think it was a missed opportunity to make them more than evil vikings.

 

One thing I like is that the more ''patchwork'' nature of Dragon Age means that given time, we might actually see most of the world's cultures, because the writers aren't forced to follow one character around. I really can't wait for a game set in Tevinter, assuming we go there in DA4 which seems highly likely.

[Steelcan]

I pre-ordered it actually.

 

What struck me is that while ancient Essos is very well fleshed out and interesting, present Essos isn't. The Free Cities got some nice background development, but the Dothraki and Ghiscari didn't change much, and the Summer Islanders seem like even more of a boring hippie utopia where war is mostly bloodless and everyone has lots of sex. Martin even included Dothraki 2.0 in the Jhogos Nhai. Ironically, the most interesting places in Essos seem to be Quohor, Yi Ti and Asshai, which we are highly unlikely to visit in either book or show.

 

Another region that doesn't get a very flattering portrayal are the Iron Islands. I expected their background to be fleshed out and their brutal lifestyle justified, but it turns out every single king who tried to reform them was brutally murdered in various creative ways by the conservative elements of their society. Sure, the book is written from an in-universe perspective, but still. I think it was a missed opportunity to make them more than evil vikings.

 

One thing I like is that the more ''patchwork'' nature of Dragon Age means that given time, we might actually see most of the world's cultures, because the writers aren't forced to follow one character around. I really can't wait for a game set in Tevinter, assuming we go there in DA4 which seems highly likely.

I think part of it is because the book is written from an in-universe perspective.

[Giantdeathrobot]

I think part of it is because the book is written from an in-universe perspective.

 

So is nigh on all of Dragon Age's lore. But apart from the misstep of Orlais, it manages to portay most cultures with more depth IMO.

[Steelcan]

So is nigh on all of Dragon Age's lore. But apart from the misstep of Orlais, it manages to portay most cultures with more depth IMO.

for two reasons

 

1. BioWare has no interest in putting forth potentially offensive stereotypes for their cultures, we always get some codex or character that tells us things aren't homogeneous and there's so much variety and whatnot, Martin has no interest in this and is fine portraying other cultures through the in universe offensive views of the people of Westeros.

 

2. The DA team has that luxury, if Martin dithered even more about giving us all the cultural minutiae of the Asshai he'd never get another book out.

[KaiserShep]

The ancient elves of the temple did not refuse to tell to the inquisitor what happened during the past events,i can blame the Dalish for never having   a contact with ancient elves despite hundred of years of efforts in try to recover their past.

 

 

All that really says is that they tried, but never succeeded in finding the ancient elves. There's any number of possible reasons why the Dalish weren't able to make contact, one of which being that the sentinels may have killed any and all outsiders, including other elves.