Yes. Also they made us make our character in green lighting that washes out red and orange tints. Still mad about that one, too. SO MANY CLOWNFACES SO BRUTALLY DELETED.
This probably also contributes to my problem with Cassandra at the beginning since I've heard her do that spiel probably 50 times.
Well, that's where we differ then. For me, the origin part hardly establishes anything of how I play my warden later on.I never could see the Origins as "boring filler" since they basically establish how i'm gonna play the whole game. I just wouldn't have felt as connected to My Wardens if i was just dropped in Ostagar with no backstory and no nothing and i had to read some codex to make sense of things and make the rest up as i went
Erm.. We all say silly stuff when we're upset?Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now.
The conclave was destroyed.
Everyone who attended is dead.
Except for you.
You're lying!
Calm down Cassandra. We need her.
Explain this!
*Derp face* I.. Can't.
Nor does a player need origins to roleplay. A blank slate character allows the player to define the backstory rather than have it handed to the player by the writer.
So what you're saying is that we should do the writers' job for them?
I find coming up with a backstory for my character easy enough, but I also find it ridiculously wasteful. I can create the most intricate background for the Inquisitor that informs his actions throughout, but the result is that 99% of his characterization is in my head and only 1% in the actual game. Maybe that's okay for some people, but for me it is quite pointless. It's never going to have any appreciable impact on the game, and as such that creative potential is better spent on tabletop roleplay or, even better, on writing my own story — where all of that stuff I came up with will actually matter.
Thedas is a pretty interesting setting, you know? But DAI makes a terrible job of showing that. And part of the reason why is that the main character feels completely detached from the world and what's going on. He could as well have fallen out of the sk... Oh, right.
No, for two reasons. If the background plays no vital part in the rest of the game, it just becomes a boring filler (as in DAO). If on the other hand there were lots of parts later on that were character-specific, these would only take focus from of the main story (and probably shorten it as well, due to finite amount of developing resources). And I'd hate to be forced to start over just to experience large parts of the game; TW2 proved that for me.
Dragon Age is not like TES where you're nobody who wake up in prison or about to be executed but suddenly you're the Chosen One or reincarnation of a God or Demon or something...that's boring for me...because you will end up the same thing no matter what you PRETEND what your character background is, like many TES players do...
Role Playing Game is a game where we play a ROLE, not something we create out of our imagination like many claim it to be. Of course a part of role-playing is our own imagination, in sex, yes, but in this case it is not the same...the developer create our roles, we choose and we play the roles they created...that's Role Playing Games...not Role Playing Sex...
I think he's saying that he doesn't think it should necessarily be the writers' job in the first place,So what you're saying is that we should do the writers' job for them?
I'll be honest, I'm on the fence with this. I loved Origins but each game in this series has its pros and cons and I loved them all for different reasons. I enjoyed having origin stories in the first game but I felt that since you were only playing Hawke in DA2 you are literally learning his/her origin from moment one and there is no need for tremendous variations since class type and tone of personality are the only things that can be customized and altered by the players choices. In DAI I do not find it burdensome to imagine my Inquisitors origin story- I suppose it just requires a little imagination which I have in surplus.
I'm running a female Trevelyan mage right now- and I do find it disappointing there aren't more implications in the story regarding that so I head canon that she is caught up in so much travel, decision making, schemes and machinations that she's carrying a heavy burden and her family has distanced itself due to circumstances (such as the raging war all over Fereldan and Orlais where I'm stationed) as well as their own issues back on the homestead in Ostwick (other siblings needing guidance and maneuvering and the family estates needing full time oversight). And finally if you decide to be a mage Trevelyan, mine has a good relationship with her family but they have grown accustomed to her being gone since she had to stay within her Circle for so many years.
The Origins or a ME1 approach are equally valid to me if meant as a form of improvement.
However the first thing with whom the developers should be concerned are the side quests because that were the true problem with DAI
But ideally with multiple different paths so you can RP. Like I'd want the option to make my own sandwichSo the origin stories could be really quite mundane. Just like, 'nothing special happened, you're no-one in particular, here's a tale about how you went to get a sandwich and tripped over a rock that will last an hour and introduce you to the combat.'
Just a thought.
But ideally with multiple different paths so you can RP. Like I'd want the option to make my own sandwich
Oh absolutely. Do you want white bread or wholemeal, a vegan sandwich or a tower of bacon. You could even be daring and have chips with it....the RP potential is endless. 
Oh absolutely. Do you want white bread or wholemeal, a vegan sandwich or a tower of bacon. You could even be daring and have chips with it....the RP potential is endless.
I doubt a killing machine of the caliber any Bioware protagonist has to be is allowed to have such a mundane backstory 
What are you talking about? We never met Justinia, so other characters who did meet her aren't supposed to care about her and mention her? How is other characters caring about someone they knew a problem? The game never acts like you should care about Justinia personally. You didn't take family and friends to the conclave. I think there may have been an oversight for the human who may have had someone there if they were a mage, but the other races don't.(Elf certainly doesn't have anyone there). This isn't supposed to be about the deaths of anyone you know. You aren't supposed to care about those people any more than you do about any other group of random strangers that die offscreen in order to make the plot happen. You have a much more urgent issue to care about with the mark appearing on your hand and trying to kill you, the Chantry denouncing you and probably wanting to kill you, and Cory wanting to kill you.
But the game made it seem like losing Justinia was a great loss, emphasized by the grief Leliana and Cassandra felt. If Justinia had even shown up in previous games it would have been easier for me to sympathize (except for Leliana's song where we barely got to meet her) but as the game stands, it's telling me I should feel bad that she died and forming the Inquisition is following her last wishes. There's no RP option to follow Fiona and say "F the Divine!" and decline to be part of the new Inquisition.
Then when we meet her spirit in the Fade, it's less impactful because it's not reuniting with someone from our past, it's actually meeting an entirely new character. And it muddies the waters when we're trying to figure out if this could in fact be her spirit or just a spirit of the Fade emulating her. Ultimately, it's not important who her identity is, but for me it takes away some of the narrative power when we're supposed to decide who this is based on no prior information.
I thought that each background, except maybe the Dalish, was supposed to have people accompanying us to the Conclave. Even if we went alone, theoretically we should mourn the loss of so many people whom we had met when arriving at the Conclave. Instead, we mourn the large number of nameless people we the player never met, which has less of an emotional impact than something like Ostagar where we at least interacted with some of the people who died. Even if the PC didn't like any of the people they'd met, there's still more of a personal connection than walking past burnt out mummified bodies at the Temple.
I didn't want to save anyone from the Blight, because I played a mage. The Origin featured my friend betraying me and running off, and everyone else was, in the best case, a dick who had imprisoned me my entire life. No-one that would motivate me to fight Darkspawn and risk my life. There was nothing to make the fight against the Darkspawn personal. I don't have any urge to go off and join a war effort just because the war is there. Otherwise every single person in Ferelden has exactly the same amount of motivation to become the hero of Ferelden, and a lot of those people would have a lot more experience in combat then my character.
I thought you were complaining that you didn't like that the origins introduced characters to care about and then are taken away. So which is it, you wanted to protect the people you had cared about in the origins or you had no reason to care about stopping the Blight? And if you didn't care about stopping the Blight, you shouldn't be playing the game, as the entire point of the game is to stop it. DA isn't TES, the main plot is still the most important aspect, not exploring the world and just living in an open environment. Why aren't you complaining that DAI didn't allow us to walk away from Haven and go far away from the Breach?
The game did everything to just make want to bugger off and leave Ferelden to sort itself out. And the game let me play that character until Duncan died, at which point it suddenly decided my character who had been very vocal and not wanting to be a Warden, was completely into the warden thing. Why allow me to play a character with a certain trait, then take that away, so my characterisation is completely inconsistent? It's like if halfway through Inquisition, the game suddenly decided you were pro-Andraste and believed you were a chosen one, even if you picked all the options that said you don't believe in the Maker for the first half of the game.
It's more like DAI allowing us to state we're not Andrastean and don't believe we're the Herald and then still forcing us to become the Inquisitor with no option to decline the title. After all, it's not like Ameridan had the Anchor and that's what made him the Inquisitor, it was his ability and interest to lead. Why wasn't there an option to decline becoming the Inquisitor and nominating someone else, but still being willing to be part of the Inquisition and close rifts?
I did like Origins a lot. It's in my top 10 favourite games (and I have played a lot of games), probably in my top 5. That doesn't mean I think it did everything well and can't criticise the bits it did badly. I'm not sure why you're saying even someone who played Origins lost the personal connection in Inquisition, since I played Origins and had no problem having a connection to anything in Inquisition. It did a much better job of making me care, and also of making me care because of my "origin" - as a Dalish Elf, I had a completely different experience as a character than I would have playing a human. Inquisition did a much better job at getting me involved than Origins ever did.
I'm not saying you shouldn't criticize it, but you seem to be holding it accountable to different criteria than you are DAI. They are very similar in many respects, but you only find that an issue with DAO.
What if it was a steak sandwich?I doubt a killing machine of the caliber any Bioware protagonist has to be is allowed to have such a mundane backstory
I doubt a killing machine of the caliber any Bioware protagonist has to be is allowed to have such a mundane backstory
But the game made it seem like losing Justinia was a great loss, emphasized by the grief Leliana and Cassandra felt. If Justinia had even shown up in previous games it would have been easier for me to sympathize (except for Leliana's song where we barely got to meet her) but as the game stands, it's telling me I should feel bad that she died and forming the Inquisition is following her last wishes. There's no RP option to follow Fiona and say "F the Divine!" and decline to be part of the new Inquisition.
Then when we meet her spirit in the Fade, it's less impactful because it's not reuniting with someone from our past, it's actually meeting an entirely new character. And it muddies the waters when we're trying to figure out if this could in fact be her spirit or just a spirit of the Fade emulating her. Ultimately, it's not important who her identity is, but for me it takes away some of the narrative power when we're supposed to decide who this is based on no prior information.
I thought that each background, except maybe the Dalish, was supposed to have people accompanying us to the Conclave. Even if we went alone, theoretically we should mourn the loss of so many people whom we had met when arriving at the Conclave. Instead, we mourn the large number of nameless people we the player never met, which has less of an emotional impact than something like Ostagar where we at least interacted with some of the people who died. Even if the PC didn't like any of the people they'd met, there's still more of a personal connection than walking past burnt out mummified bodies at the Temple.
I thought you were complaining that you didn't like that the origins introduced characters to care about and then are taken away. So which is it, you wanted to protect the people you had cared about in the origins or you had no reason to care about stopping the Blight? And if you didn't care about stopping the Blight, you shouldn't be playing the game, as the entire point of the game is to stop it. DA isn't TES, the main plot is still the most important aspect, not exploring the world and just living in an open environment. Why aren't you complaining that DAI didn't allow us to walk away from Haven and go far away from the Breach?
It's more like DAI allowing us to state we're not Andrastean and don't believe we're the Herald and then still forcing us to become the Inquisitor with no option to decline the title. After all, it's not like Ameridan had the Anchor and that's what made him the Inquisitor, it was his ability and interest to lead. Why wasn't there an option to decline becoming the Inquisitor and nominating someone else, but still being willing to be part of the Inquisition and close rifts?
I'm not saying you shouldn't criticize it, but you seem to be holding it accountable to different criteria than you are DAI. They are very similar in many respects, but you only find that an issue with DAO.
I think you played a different game to me, because my copy of the game never expected me to care about Justinia or the people in the conclave. 
It never acted like Justinia should have been a great loss for my character, or like I should have taken the deaths at the conclave personally. You didn't start leading the Inquisition because of her (I mean, I guess you could choose to role-play that if you really wanted to), you lead the Inquisition because of numerous factions wanting you dead and you needing their protection. You can add some generic reason about caring for random strangers if you really want to, but the plot never demands it. I spent the entire game saying "F the chantry", but that doesn't mean I'm going to turn down the best chance I have of not being murdered by an ancient god or devoured by my own hand.
You don't need to know who Justinia is, and I don't think it would have worked better in the fade if you did - I actually think it would needlessly complicate what that scene is trying to accomplish. It presents you with both a mundane and divine explanation for your situation, and it says a lot about your character about which explanation they choose to believe. If you know Justinia, than it's no longer about that, because now you want it to really be her for different reasons. The game is about faith, and this scene is vital to that theme. Simply meeting a character you might not want to be dead doesn't further that theme.
Your argument seems to rely on needing the game to start with people you have a personal connection to dying to motivate you. Which is a fine motivation, and can be used well, but it's not the only motivation that must be used to start a game and must be featured in every game ever. There are a billion stories that don't start with that plot, and Inquisition is one of them. It's only an issue when the game expects you to care - which the game never did. It gave you other things you were supposed to care about. I'm not sure why you keep claiming you should care, since that's not supported in the game.
I cared about Jowen and Lily in the Origin. Then they both got taken away and I had nothing else to care about. After the Origin, they were both most likely dead, so how would stopping the Blight help them? Whilst in Inquisition, I did have a personal connection to the plot and a reason to care.
1 - The mark was killing me. Even after this stops, there is no explanation why it stopped or whether it might start again (and it does, as we see in Trespasser) The Inquisition is the best chance of figuring out how to fix this, not just running off into the woods and hoping for the best.
2 - The Chantry has denounced me. I'm already an Elvhen apostate they would love to make Tranquil, now they think I'm impersonating a chosen one of their religion. I step outside the Inquisition, I'm dead.
3 - Cory wants me dead. I'm really going to stand a chance against an ancient undead Tevinter magister and his army by myself am I? I need the Inquisition.
4 - (Elf only) Who knows how my clan will react if I go back, whilst the humans think I'm the Herald of their religion which nearly wiped out their race. There's every chance they'll think I'm a traitor and exile me.
So, Inquisition gave me an entire series of motivations that didn't rely on my caring about of bunch of random strangers. Let's see what Origins gave me to care about -
1 - Characters from my Origin. I liked Jowan and Lily, but Lily is taken off to prison/to be killed or whatever and Jowan is an escaped Blood Mage who is going to be killed. Stopping the Blight isn't going to help either of those people. The only other characters I had significant interaction with endorse me being imprisoned for my entire life. I have no reason to help these people.
2 - Generic "save the Ferelden" motivation. They locked me up, and I've never met any of them. Don't care.
3 - Care about the Gray Wardens? I knew 2 wardens for an hour half of an hour. They were both cool with forcing me to drink undead monster blood that will slowly poisoned me for the rest of my now much shorter life. I have every motivation to get the hell away from these people.
I played the game because I liked some of the characters, and the I thought the lore and world was interesting, and I liked the gameplay. Sorry, I didn't realise I wasn't supposed to play the rest of a great game if I have a few issues about my characters motivations. 
I have no interest in playing the ES or other open world RPGs. If you read my posts, my entire issue is a lack of character motivation, ES is even worse about these things. It also doesn't have tactical gameplay, or interesting characters for me to get to know. Those games have nothing I enjoy in them.
How exactly am I holding Origins and Inquisition to different standards? One gave me personal motivation, one stripped it away and expected me to still care. I am holding them to exactly the same criteria here.
Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now.
The conclave was destroyed.
Everyone who attended is dead.
Except for you.
You're lying!
Calm down Cassandra. We need her.
Explain this!
*Derp face* I.. Can't.
It's obvious!
Our PC has an elfroot problem and lit up next to a stash of green fireworks that were on-hand for the post-Conclave celebration.
I gotta go with Abyss108 here. Why is it a problem that our PCs didn't really meet Justinia, exactly? She wasn't important to any of my Inquisitors so far except for the HN... and even then, she was only important in the abstract.
Because she was important for empathizing with the state of the people in the Inquisition at the beginning of the game. The fact that she was only "important in the abstract" is a major failure of writing, because this also means that later on the decision of who REPLACES her becomes deprecated as well. (And they further deprecated it by having most of the decision-making process happen offscreen.)
But instead they give screen time to utterly irrelevant nonsense like whether or not you move around banners in Therinfall Redoubt--an activity that wasn't even important IN THERINFALL REDOUBT. Acquiring HORSES was better dramatized than THE FRIGGIN DEATH OF THE DIVINE. And they used a ridiculous hackneyed amnesia device to rescue their awful writing structure, too. And random imposters! All they needed was a scene where Cullen had to dress up as a serving girl to woo Gaspard and the whole thing could have been a Greco-Roman farce.
The prioritization was really, really screwy. A LARGE portion of good writing is knowing what to include and what to leave out--and how to dramatize what you decide to include.
Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now.
The conclave was destroyed.
I so want to have a renegade interrupt right here where my character can shout "WTF is a conclave, and why should I care, exactly?! Is it some kind of cake?!"
....
Saying the mark is killing the Inquisitor so s/he must do something about it is pretty similiar, IMHO, to saying that the Blight will probably kill the Warden (and destroy all of Ferelden) if s/he doesn't do something about it. I mean, in the game travels are obviously simplied but Loghain specifically says that all of Ferelden's remaning troops are on the borders and, y'know, since a Warden who would decide stopping the Blight is not worth his/her time would have to travel on their own AND also get out of ferelden alone...... yeah, maybe a mage could do that but i still think not even the most uncaring person would attempt something like that.
Also, no one actually ever worries about the mark in the main game after closing the 2nd rift. I wish they'd put in there more opportunities for the Inquisitor to show the stress of being this Andraste reborn weighting on him/her. If there's one thing that i like ME3 is that the game is filled with such instances and we can actually feel the war weighting down Shepard, something that i never felt in regards of the Inquisitor
Eh, if the Chantry wants you dead then just join the rebel mages. Better yet, go to Tevinter at the 1st chance. Venatori are not really a major group there, they would surely appreciate such a special mage. Why doesn't the game allow us to do that?
We learn about Corypheus waaaaay down the road and, as we know, the guy can't do jack without the wardens. Wht can't we just stop there?
My point is that technically any main character of any game ever could just say "eh, whatever" and leave the mess to work itself out, they can't because, you know, it would be a waste of money (unless you like your RP that much )
About Justinia, as i said, i wish the memory sequences in Here Lies the Abyss could actually be playable and we could get to decide our Inquisitor reacted to Cory (seriously, can you imagine a romanced/high approval Cassandra reaction if the Inquisitor just turned tail and run [after getting the Anchor]? It would have been great), but i do like how the real Justinia is kind of an abstract presence in the game, and if the spirit of hope/goodness/whatever actually had shown itself after the fade sequence and acted as kind of a mentor to the Inquisitor it would have been golden
Because she was important for empathizing with the state of the people in the Inquisition at the beginning of the game. The fact that she was only "important in the abstract" is a major failure of writing, because this also means that later on the decision of who REPLACES her becomes deprecated as well. (And they further deprecated it by having most of the decision-making process happen offscreen.)
But instead they give screen time to utterly irrelevant nonsense like whether or not you move around banners in Therinfall Redoubt--an activity that wasn't even important IN THERINFALL REDOUBT. Acquiring HORSES was better dramatized than THE FRIGGIN DEATH OF THE DIVINE. And they used a ridiculous hackneyed amnesia device to rescue their awful writing structure, too. And random imposters! All they needed was a scene where Cullen had to dress up as a serving girl to woo Gaspard and the whole thing could have been a Greco-Roman farce.
The prioritization was really, really screwy. A LARGE portion of good writing is knowing what to include and what to leave out--and how to dramatize what you decide to include.
No, she wasn't important for any of that at all. I had no problems sympathising with any of the characters in the Inquisition. I don't need to know who a characters old boss is to understand that they may be upset about their death. It wasn't difficult to sympathise with Alistair back in Origins when he talked about his buddies in the Gray Wardens who died. I never met Wynne's child, but I didn't need to to feel bad about her having to give him up.
And how exactly is this supposed to relate to chooses a replacement? What Justinia was like has absolutely nothing to do with who you think would make a the best next divine! 
Bioware was absolutely correct in cutting out the conclave. I can't imagine anything worse for the game than having to play that.
Saying the mark is killing the Inquisitor so s/he must do something about it is pretty similiar, IMHO, to saying that the Blight will probably kill the Warden (and destroy all of Ferelden) if s/he doesn't do something about it. I mean, in the game travels are obviously simplied but Loghain specifically says that all of Ferelden's remaning troops are on the borders and, y'know, since a Warden who would decide stopping the Blight is not worth his/her time would have to travel on their own AND also get out of ferelden alone...... yeah, maybe a mage could do that but i still think not even the most uncaring person would attempt something like that.
Eh, if the Chantry wants you dead then just join the rebel mages. Better yet, go to Tevinter at the 1st chance. Venatori are not really a major group there, they would surely appreciate such a special mage. Why doesn't the game allow us to do that?
We learn about Corypheus waaaaay down the road and, as we know, the guy can't do jack without the wardens. Wht can't we just stop there?
My point is that technically any main character of any game ever could just say "eh, whatever" and let the mess to work itself out, they can't because, you know, it would be a waste of money (unless you like your RP that much
About Justinia, as i said, i wish the memory sequences in Here Lies the Abyss could actually be playable and we could get to decide our Inquisitor reacted to Cory (seriously, can you imagine a romanced/high approval Cassandra reaction if the Inquisitor just turned tail and run [after getting the Anchor]? It would have been great), but i do like how the real Justinia is kind of an abstract presence in the game, and if the spirit of hope/goodness/whatever actually had shown itself after the fade sequence and acted as kind of a mentor to the Inquisitor it would have been golden
Sure, at the end of the day you can always be as awkward as possible trying to get out of the plot. But it's the job of the writing to convince you to not want to do that, to have it make sense that you would care about it. Origins didn't do that for me. Inquisition did. The reasons you suggest for the warden remaining sound very flimsy to me, and do nothing to make the actual main plot line interesting.
Also, even if you couldn't leave (which if it is truly the case, was shown very badly in the game), that didn't make an old witch telling me to go to 4 locations with my MacGuffin papers to build an army to fight a generic demon army, and maybe in 80 hours time after you've done those 4 quests maybe something else will happen an interesting storyline I wanted to hear about. The mystery behind Inquisition was interesting to me, it was interesting immediately, and it was interesting in ways that personally related to my character. Origins had none of that for me.
Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now.
The conclave was destroyed.
Everyone who attended is dead.
Except for you.
You're lying!
Calm down Cassandra. We need her.
Explain this!
*Derp face* I.. Can't.
Watch this:
Start at around 4:00
EDIT: ok I did not know pasting links did this now.
Modifié par Vit246, 10 avril 2016 - 07:20 .
I think that the only inquisitor origin worth bothering to have a playable sequence is the human mage, because it actually gets to see the rebellion break out from inside the Circle. None of the others get anything worth seeing.
No, she wasn't important for any of that at all. I had no problems sympathising with any of the characters in the Inquisition. I don't need to know who a characters old boss is to understand that they may be upset about their death. It wasn't difficult to sympathise with Alistair back in Origins when he talked about his buddies in the Gray Wardens who died.
Alistair was markedly upset about Duncan, and I was as well. Duncan had a momentous on-screen introduction, even narrating the entire intro, saving your PC in an interactive origin quest line. I thought he'd continue as a major character and was surprised at his death. Thereafter, Alistair's mourning - the camera time and dialogue devoted to his mourning - felt right, to me.
Leliana and Cassandra had twice the camera and script resources devoted to their mourning Justina, and we did not have any of the introduction to Justinia that we had with Duncan.
I wasn't talking about Duncan, he also had entire conversations to the rest of the wardens you never met. Plenty of characters from plenty of games/books/movies/novels have characters who talk about people who died who we haven't met. Plenty of characters talk about tragic events we do not get to see. Somehow these are not all terrible stories.
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