322 réponses à ce sujet

[Shechinah]

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?

 

Well, for one,  you'd have to make it to the respective locations and the odds of you doing so are incredibly slim which is what Cassandra and Leliana remind you about when you question whether you have a choice. 

 

Basically, you are under their protection and if you leave, you leave their protection which would mean you'd be snatched or worse the moment you try to do so.

[vbibbi]

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.

Yes, I must have received the non-sociopath Inquisitor version.

And yet you're arguing that it's logical for the Herald to accept being Inquisitor because it's the best chance to not be murdered, but it doesn't make sense for the Warden to try to unite the land so that they don't die in a Blight? At the very least, if the Warden decided to skip town (which is almost impossible since Loghain's soldiers are on the look out for us at every border to Ferelden) we would just be sentencing Ferelden to doom and spending the rest of our life in some other country hoping the Blight is stopped before it reaches us. And we barely have any money when we leave Ostagar, how are we going to realistically leave Ferelden and start a new life somewhere else? We're going to be a refugee in Darktown?
 

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.

Why would having met Justinia mean we want the presence in the Fade to be her? Maybe we liked her a lot and don't want her spirit wandering the Fade but rather be at the Maker's side. Maybe we didn't like her and don't want to have to talk to her again. Maybe we believe it's really her and that upsets our personal faith, whatever that is.
 

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.

Our motivations don't need to rely on having a personal connection, but it would be nice if that were an option. Right now, it's about self preservation or Wanting To Do The Right Thing. And from the player's perspective, the only real reason we're doing anything is because we're confused about what's going on and trying to find out what the PC was doing before the start of the game. We can't realistically RP motivation because we the player don't know what the PC knows about the Conclave. It's a disconnect between the player and the PC.
 

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.

Jowan didn't get taken away, he clearly escaped. He is on the run from templars but there's no reason to assume he's dead. Which turns out to be true, since he's alive and "well" in Redcliffe.

But even if those two were dead by the end of the origin (and only the HN actually has everyone they care about dead, except for Fergus) why would that mean that the PC automatically doesn't want to save the other people in the tower? If my best friend died, I would not want the rest of the world to burn. Maybe in a moment of grief and rage, but not beyond that.
 

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.

After we drink darkspawn blood we start having nightmares and learn that there are side effects to being a Warden. If we abandon Ferelden, no Warden from another country is going to welcome us and give us answers about our condition. They will either execute us for desertion or send us to the front lines or Deep Roads for a quick death. So if we want to learn more about the side effects, even if we don't want to be a Grey Warden, we can't just flee Ferelden.

The Chantry is gone. They make a point that Chancellor Roderick is one of the highest remaining officials alive and he was a paper pusher for Justinia. The Chantry has no ability to do anything to us since all senior leadership is gone and the templars have gone rogue.

We don't know about Cory at the beginning. While it's true that someone was behind the explosion, it's just as likely that they died in the explosion, since we see the shadow of Cory in the Breach flashback right before we close it. Finding out who caused the Breach at the beginning of the game seems to be more a search for why it happened, not assuming that it will happen again.
 

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.

Since we didn't meet the clan, it's up to the player's headcanon how they would react. We could say anything to justify our reasoning. They could assume the shem were being stupid again or lying to make their Chantry look better to elves and hope to convert Dalish. There's no reason to assume the likely reaction of the clan is exile, that is one of many headcanon possibilities.
 

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 -

All of the reasons you have provided are pure self interest. It would be nice if we had some motivations to join the Inquisition which weren't only self interest.
 

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.

So you can headcanon all of the people from DAI's background we've never met and care about them, but you can't headcanon anyone from the origins outside of the few we see? Did your mage Warden not interact with anyone in the Circle but Jowan, Lily, the First Enchanter and the templars?
 

2 - Generic "save the Ferelden" motivation. They locked me up, and I've never met any of them. Don't care.

This is your roleplaying interpretation of one origin. Many of the other origins had families we left behind who would be killed by the Blight. You're using selective examples as justification for the entire origin system. I could also have a mage Warden who was glad to have been in the Circle and learn to control my powers, and was eager to see the world now that I was out.
 

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 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.

As I mention above, the PC doesn't have to care about the GW, but they could RP as curious about what the Joining did to their body and what's going to happen to them down the road. And in most instances, if we just abandon the GW mission and go back home, we will land in a jail cell or be killed. We can't go home at this point.

It seems like you don't think you can create PC motivations in DAO because there is more background material to work with. I don't see why that is the case. Just because we interact with our family or friends doesn't mean that limits the motivations of the character. And it seems like you're holding the games to different standards because a lot of the arguments you make in favor of DAI are the exact same arguments you make against DAO.

[Addictress]

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.

It's a matter of proportion and presentation. Sure, referencing it is one thing. But devoting so much screen time to the matter, and then showing Justinia light up and turn into a fairy, and sacrifice herself, and say "tell Leliana I failed her too." By proportion it felt like we were supposed to care more for this character than I really wanted to.

And yes I know it wasn't a fairy, but visually .....:/

[Fiskrens]

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...

Yes, and that role is as inquisitor. You get plenty of opportunity to define how to act within that role during the game. An introduction that has little to none effect on the rest of the game would be pointless.

[Fiskrens]

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.

True, hadn't actually thought of that. And it would be the only exception to my aversion against playable origin. But imagine the uproar if we once again would be unable to choose race and forced to play as human...

[Reznore57]

I'd like the origins back but not sure it will ever happen.

It's really demanding ressource wise , because origins doesn't mean to play what happens in Haven ...what happens in Haven before the BoOm would be closer to hanging around Ostaggar and talking with people.

It's special content for each races/social status/mage /non mage .

 

Notice how in DA2/ME3/DAI we now start killing stuff almost right from the start with barely any introduction to anything.

I believe Bioware might have a to do list for their introduction and player being thrown into action with much WOW , Dragons, BReach , DEMOnS , REAPERS!!!!! is now de rigueur , probably some marketing people told them that's how you hooked players.

And not starting a pc and talking for twenty minutes perhaps killing a couple of rats and then after some non WOW , DRAGONS , BREAHCh DEMONS REApers!!! thing happens (get tainted by random darkspawn , find you friend is a blood mage , get betrayed by your family etc...) the story gets slowly but surely more epic.

 

Anyway my point is I doubt we'll ever see origins like DAO again , too much ressources for something the marketing team probably wouldn't approve of anyway.

[AlanC9]

@ Fiskrens: And favoring one of the origins over others would be even worse.

[Lezio]

Yes, and that role is as inquisitor. You get plenty of opportunity to define how to act within that role during the game. An introduction that has little to none effect on the rest of the game would be pointless.

 

That's kind of the problem, at least for me. In my playthrough my Inquisitor never felt like a character or a person, he was just the Inquisitor. Much like my 1st character in Skyrim was just this guy who did things because why not.

The problem is that in games like Skyrim you can decide who or what the main char is, in games like Dragon Age the main character should be, at the very least, someone i care about. I cared about my Warden, i care about my Hawke, but i really find it hard to care about someone who dropped from the sky and, seemingly, know no one and nothing prior to joining the Inquisition.

 

I will say this, the Arcane and historian perks kinda helped to make me think my Inquisitor had grown during the game but...... eh

 

True, hadn't actually thought of that. And it would be the only exception to my aversion against playable origin. But imagine the uproar if we once again would be unable to choose race and forced to play as human...

 

My Inquisitor is a Qunari and, well, at least one of dialogue about Cory killing some of his friends at the Conclave would have been nice

Again, i can headcanon that his real reason to stop him is revenge for killing some of the people he knew but..... (again) eh

[vbibbi]

@ Fiskrens: And favoring one of the origins over others would be even worse.

Yet many people see Lavellan as the "best" background due to the most involved war table missions, extra elven dialogue options, and Solas romance being most closely tied to the plot.

[Lezio]

I'd like the origins back but not sure it will ever happen.

It's really demanding ressource wise , because origins doesn't mean to play what happens in Haven ...what happens in Haven before the BoOm would be closer to hanging around Ostaggar and talking with people.

It's special content for each races/social status/mage /non mage .

 

Notice how in DA2/ME3/DAI we now start killing stuff almost right from the start with barely any introduction to anything.

I believe Bioware might have a to do list for their introduction and player being thrown into action with much WOW , Dragons, BReach , DEMOnS , REAPERS!!!!! is now de rigueur , probably some marketing people told them that's how you hooked players.

And not starting a pc and talking for twenty minutes perhaps killing a couple of rats and then after some non WOW , DRAGONS , BREAHCh DEMONS REApers!!! thing happens (get tainted by random darkspawn , find you friend is a blood mage , get betrayed by your family etc...) the story gets slowly but surely more epic.

 

Anyway my point is I doubt we'll ever see origins like DAO again , too much ressources for something the marketing team probably wouldn't approve of anyway.

 

Not to be a shi*, but most of Inquisition's areas are mostly useless to the plot or to anything, just mindless grind/filler that i really don't look forward to if not for the fact that every 15 minutes i'll hear my companions say something worthwhile, i think that by cutting those down they would have had enough "resources", and more, to actually make the whole story less clunky/some Origins/the other areas less of a bore

[Abyss108]

Yes, I must have received the non-sociopath Inquisitor version.

And yet you're arguing that it's logical for the Herald to accept being Inquisitor because it's the best chance to not be murdered, but it doesn't make sense for the Warden to try to unite the land so that they don't die in a Blight? At the very least, if the Warden decided to skip town (which is almost impossible since Loghain's soldiers are on the look out for us at every border to Ferelden) we would just be sentencing Ferelden to doom and spending the rest of our life in some other country hoping the Blight is stopped before it reaches us. And we barely have any money when we leave Ostagar, how are we going to realistically leave Ferelden and start a new life somewhere else? We're going to be a refugee in Darktown?
 

Why would having met Justinia mean we want the presence in the Fade to be her? Maybe we liked her a lot and don't want her spirit wandering the Fade but rather be at the Maker's side. Maybe we didn't like her and don't want to have to talk to her again. Maybe we believe it's really her and that upsets our personal faith, whatever that is.
 

Our motivations don't need to rely on having a personal connection, but it would be nice if that were an option. Right now, it's about self preservation or Wanting To Do The Right Thing. And from the player's perspective, the only real reason we're doing anything is because we're confused about what's going on and trying to find out what the PC was doing before the start of the game. We can't realistically RP motivation because we the player don't know what the PC knows about the Conclave. It's a disconnect between the player and the PC.
 

Jowan didn't get taken away, he clearly escaped. He is on the run from templars but there's no reason to assume he's dead. Which turns out to be true, since he's alive and "well" in Redcliffe.

But even if those two were dead by the end of the origin (and only the HN actually has everyone they care about dead, except for Fergus) why would that mean that the PC automatically doesn't want to save the other people in the tower? If my best friend died, I would not want the rest of the world to burn. Maybe in a moment of grief and rage, but not beyond that.
 

After we drink darkspawn blood we start having nightmares and learn that there are side effects to being a Warden. If we abandon Ferelden, no Warden from another country is going to welcome us and give us answers about our condition. They will either execute us for desertion or send us to the front lines or Deep Roads for a quick death. So if we want to learn more about the side effects, even if we don't want to be a Grey Warden, we can't just flee Ferelden.

The Chantry is gone. They make a point that Chancellor Roderick is one of the highest remaining officials alive and he was a paper pusher for Justinia. The Chantry has no ability to do anything to us since all senior leadership is gone and the templars have gone rogue.

We don't know about Cory at the beginning. While it's true that someone was behind the explosion, it's just as likely that they died in the explosion, since we see the shadow of Cory in the Breach flashback right before we close it. Finding out who caused the Breach at the beginning of the game seems to be more a search for why it happened, not assuming that it will happen again.
 

Since we didn't meet the clan, it's up to the player's headcanon how they would react. We could say anything to justify our reasoning. They could assume the shem were being stupid again or lying to make their Chantry look better to elves and hope to convert Dalish. There's no reason to assume the likely reaction of the clan is exile, that is one of many headcanon possibilities.
 

All of the reasons you have provided are pure self interest. It would be nice if we had some motivations to join the Inquisition which weren't only self interest.
 

So you can headcanon all of the people from DAI's background we've never met and care about them, but you can't headcanon anyone from the origins outside of the few we see? Did your mage Warden not interact with anyone in the Circle but Jowan, Lily, the First Enchanter and the templars?
 

This is your roleplaying interpretation of one origin. Many of the other origins had families we left behind who would be killed by the Blight. You're using selective examples as justification for the entire origin system. I could also have a mage Warden who was glad to have been in the Circle and learn to control my powers, and was eager to see the world now that I was out.
 

As I mention above, the PC doesn't have to care about the GW, but they could RP as curious about what the Joining did to their body and what's going to happen to them down the road. And in most instances, if we just abandon the GW mission and go back home, we will land in a jail cell or be killed. We can't go home at this point.

It seems like you don't think you can create PC motivations in DAO because there is more background material to work with. I don't see why that is the case. Just because we interact with our family or friends doesn't mean that limits the motivations of the character. And it seems like you're holding the games to different standards because a lot of the arguments you make in favor of DAI are the exact same arguments you make against DAO.

 

By your logic that the Warden should care because otherwise everyone in Ferelden would die, every single person in Ferelden should be the hero. They all have that motivation too. And yet that doesn't seem to have worked for them. There is absolutely nothing about your character that is more special than them (since nobody knows about the whole killing the archdemon thing). So is every single person in Fereldan now a sociopath because they didn't all jump up to become the HoF?

 

The things you post about Justinia in the fade is exactly my point. The scene is now about whether you like her. It's not supposed to be about being buddies with her. It's about your Inquisitor's faith, and that message only gets diluted if you mix it in with other things. 

 

I had no disconnect with my character, it was perfectly clear what my character was doing at the conclave. It was right there in clear text when I created my character. I had no trouble RPing as my Inquisitor, unlike my Warden. 

 

When I said Jowan/Lily got taken away, I meant taken out of the story. Fighting the Blight does nothing to help either of them, my character is expected to forget about them and never mentions them again until Jowan shows up. And if they are supposed to be motivation, as I said earlier, this motivation works for literally every single person in Fereldan unless they are all hermits who have no family and friends. And yet, they do not all take it upon themselves to become the hero.

 

There is a very big difference between wanting to watch the world burn, and simply not jumping up to be the hero without some sort of investment that isn't shared with literally every other person.

 

Your points about the chantry go against what the game directly tells us. You do need the Inquisition for protection, the characters tell us this.

 

Yes, there are numerous possibilities for how your clan will react. You do not know how they will read, that's why this was a massive worry for me. 

 

Who have I head cannoned caring about? I have said I do not care about them and I do not need to. I care about my character, and I care about the characters I meet in the game. None the ones that exist offscreen.

 

I am not using "selective" examples, I am using the examples that existed in my game. It's possible other origins were better - doesn't matter to me because I don't experience that. When I google what the content of the other Origins are after finishing my game, that does not magically fix the experience I had whilst playing the game.

 

What exactly do you think I would gain by holding the games to different standards? I enjoyed this part of one game. I did not enjoy this part of the other game. I have posted why. 

 

It's a matter of proportion and presentation. Sure, referencing it is one thing. But devoting so much screen time to the matter, and then showing Justinia light up and turn into a fairy, and sacrifice herself, and say "tell Leliana I failed her too." By proportion it felt like we were supposed to care more for this character than I really wanted to.

And yes I know it wasn't a fairy, but visually .....:/

 

I never ever got the sense we were supposed to care about her. I got the sense other characters cared about her. She was on the screen for 2 cutscenes (and thats being generous). Other characters talk about her yes, but most characters in RPGs have conversations devoted to people in their past that we are not supposed to care about.

[Shechinah]

I should note that roleplaying a more established character and roleplaying a less established character can be both considered equally valid roleplaying: people just tend to differ on which they prefer and like the most.

 

Some prefer and like roleplaying a more established character like Hawke, Shepard or the Warden while others prefer to roleplay a less established character like the Inquisitor or Revan.

[Reznore57]

Not to be a shi*, but most of Inquisition's areas are mostly useless to the plot or to anything, just mindless grind/filler that i really don't look forward to if not for the fact that every 15 minutes i'll hear my companions say something worthwhile, i think that by cutting those down they would have had enough "resources", and more, to actually make the whole story less clunky/some Origins/the other areas less of a bore

 

Yeah but my point was if whatever data Bioware have says players tends to keep on playing , or have a more positive experience (they will share with their friends online or not) with a Much EPic Action packed Intro , and demand for refunds are also low with that kind of things....

Much Epic Action Packed Intro instead of Origins we will keep on getting.

 

Most players never finish their long RPG games , (well I've read that somewhere) for example you'd want a zone like the Hinterland filled with stuff because that's what most players will see and reviewers will review , the Hissing Wastes can be almost empty because the number of player who will get there and play that zone will be fairly low.

[KaiserShep]

True, hadn't actually thought of that. And it would be the only exception to my aversion against playable origin. But imagine the uproar if we once again would be unable to choose race and forced to play as human...

 

 

Not only that, but that the mage character must oppose the rebellion in order to continue the story. 

[Shechinah]

It's a matter of proportion and presentation. Sure, referencing it is one thing. But devoting so much screen time to the matter, and then showing Justinia light up and turn into a fairy, and sacrifice herself, and say "tell Leliana I failed her too." By proportion it felt like we were supposed to care more for this character than I really wanted to.

And yes I know it wasn't a fairy, but visually .....:/

 

I likewise never got the impression that we were suppose to or expected to care about the Divine Justinia especially not on a personal level. It was something you could if you felt it fitted your Inquisitor's character as it was something you could if it fitted your Warden's character in regards to Duncan.

 

The ambigous entity that may be Justinia or may be a spirit sacifices itself because it befits it's character whether it is Justinia or something else. It's sacrifice is not necessarily done to make the Inquisitor care about it by the writers, in my opinion. Likewise, the message intended for Leliana is an example of showing more of her relationship to the Divine Justinia posthumosly, somewhat like the stories Alistair tells of him and Duncan.

 

The Divine Justinia were important to the plot because of who she was and what happened to her but I've never gotten the impression that the Inquisitor were supposed to or expected to care about her on the same personal levels as Leliana or Cassandra. To the Inquisitor, the Divine Justinia may be nothing more than some figure connected to the Chantry that they've heard of and her death a part of why they are in the situation they are in.

 

Basically, caring is optional, in my opinion.

[Addictress]

I think the warden could literally tell Alistair to shut up about it.

Anyways, the same things could be said of Wisdom in Solas's personal quest. But personally I was more jealous like


"So........how well did you know wisdom?"

[BansheeOwnage]

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.

This was basically what I was trying to say about headcanon. Some like it and don't mind doing it. Some mind, or are not good at it, or at least don't think they should have to do it. I'm the latter.

 

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.

Well, the banners were important. Or... had the potential to be. The execution left something to be desired, unfortunately. For instance, I couldn't explain why I chose the banners to Barris at all! What's the point?

 

I mean, choosing between "My reasons are my own" and "I picked at random" (and another?) is hardly satisfying in any way. So the first time through I chose "My reasons are my own" because I didn't pick at random, but the second time I just didn't bother with it (and so I could have Abernache live).

[AlanC9]

Yet many people see Lavellan as the "best" background due to the most involved war table missions, extra elven dialogue options, and Solas romance being most closely tied to the plot.

Right. But that's not a good thing either.

[AlanC9]

 I never ever got the sense we were supposed to care about her. I got the sense other characters cared about her. She was on the screen for 2 cutscenes (and thats being generous). Other characters talk about her yes, but most characters in RPGs have conversations devoted to people in their past that we are not supposed to care about.

I think these arguments always end up here; we see the same thing in conversations about the Winter Palace. If you think that it was Bio's job to force the PC to care about these people she's never met, you're not going to like Bio's approach.

[Xerrai]

Right. But that's not a good thing either.

I thought Trevelyan was the best background

Story inconsistencies are near nonexistent (i.e being told by Gaspard that "elves have no place in politics" and Morrigan's lecture on Mythal actually making sense given my background), the human dialogue choices that do things like explain and acknowledge my noble background, and in general makes the story of DAI go more seamlessly.

[vbibbi]

By your logic that the Warden should care because otherwise everyone in Ferelden would die, every single person in Ferelden should be the hero. They all have that motivation too. And yet that doesn't seem to have worked for them. There is absolutely nothing about your character that is more special than them (since nobody knows about the whole killing the archdemon thing). So is every single person in Fereldan now a sociopath because they didn't all jump up to become the HoF?

 

The things you post about Justinia in the fade is exactly my point. The scene is now about whether you like her. It's not supposed to be about being buddies with her. It's about your Inquisitor's faith, and that message only gets diluted if you mix it in with other things. 

 

I had no disconnect with my character, it was perfectly clear what my character was doing at the conclave. It was right there in clear text when I created my character. I had no trouble RPing as my Inquisitor, unlike my Warden. 

 

When I said Jowan/Lily got taken away, I meant taken out of the story. Fighting the Blight does nothing to help either of them, my character is expected to forget about them and never mentions them again until Jowan shows up. And if they are supposed to be motivation, as I said earlier, this motivation works for literally every single person in Fereldan unless they are all hermits who have no family and friends. And yet, they do not all take it upon themselves to become the hero.

 

There is a very big difference between wanting to watch the world burn, and simply not jumping up to be the hero without some sort of investment that isn't shared with literally every other person.

 

Your points about the chantry go against what the game directly tells us. You do need the Inquisition for protection, the characters tell us this.

 

Yes, there are numerous possibilities for how your clan will react. You do not know how they will read, that's why this was a massive worry for me. 

 

Who have I head cannoned caring about? I have said I do not care about them and I do not need to. I care about my character, and I care about the characters I meet in the game. None the ones that exist offscreen.

 

I am not using "selective" examples, I am using the examples that existed in my game. It's possible other origins were better - doesn't matter to me because I don't experience that. When I google what the content of the other Origins are after finishing my game, that does not magically fix the experience I had whilst playing the game.

 

What exactly do you think I would gain by holding the games to different standards? I enjoyed this part of one game. I did not enjoy this part of the other game. I have posted why. 

 

 

I never ever got the sense we were supposed to care about her. I got the sense other characters cared about her. She was on the screen for 2 cutscenes (and thats being generous). Other characters talk about her yes, but most characters in RPGs have conversations devoted to people in their past that we are not supposed to care about.

 

"By your logic that the Warden should care because otherwise everyone in Ferelden would die, every single person in Ferelden should be the hero."

 

No, that would be insane troll logic.

 

People who are not purely self interested might choose not to abandon the country of their birth to certain destruction if they have the ability to do something about it. The peasants who work the fields to feed their families? Don't have the ability to do anything against the Blight except for join an army. And we do see many people in the armies at Ostagar and later Redcliffe and Denerim.

 

We as a GW are in a unique position to leverage more help against the Blight than our individual sword arm. Yes, the reason is contrived and could be better, but there is a reason provided why we are better equipped to help than the average Fereldan. Also, the majority of Ferelden is told by Loghain that it's not a real Blight when he takes the regency. Everyone eventually sees that this is wrong, but not until the Landsmeet. How is someone in the far corners of the country going to be as well informed as one of the few survivors of Ostagar?

 

And honestly, why is it so unbelievable that a person would want to save the country they grew up in and everyone they met from death? Just because you RP your mage GW as uncaring to the world that locked them up doesn't mean there aren't other motives provided for the PC, in that and other origins.

 

 

It seems silly to me that we encounter the Justinia figure in the Fade and are expected to decide whether we think it's her or a spirit, when we don't have any memory of the real person. It's like if I were to encounter an image of President Obama and be told I needed to decide if I thought it was really him or an imposter. How would I know? I've never met the dude. We are still asked to decide after she reveals she's a glowy person, as that doesn't preclude her from being Justinia's soul. We don't know what actually happens to people's souls once they die, we just have Chantry doctrine. She wants us to tell Leliana she's sorry...again, the real Justinia or a spirit of faith could both have said that.

 

 

I'm glad that you were able to RP your Inquisitor with no problem but am curious why you had problems RPing the Warden. Is it because you wanted to RP your Warden leaving Ferelden and escaping the Blight? Again, why are you playing a Bioware game where you know we have to follow the story they set out if you're going to want to opt out of the main story? Did you also want to opt out of investigating Saren in ME1 and just cruise around exploring the galaxy?

 

 

Why is your PC expected to forget about Jowan and Lily? Yes, the game doesn't allow us a dialogue option in every conversation to ask if they've seen an escaped blood mage or know where Aeonar is located. And there could have been more origin-specific dialogue options throughout the game. But you're using meta-knowledge to know that the PC never encounters Lily again. There's no reason why the PC couldn't think they could run into Jowan at some point (which they do) or possibly try to find Aeonar after the Blight is over.

 

 

Have you played any origin other than the mage one? You seem to be basing all of your opinions on the origins off this one example. Other origins have opportunities to revisit people from their past and interact with them. Your PC in those cases wouldn't want to stop the Blight to save their families?

 

 

 

So if you feel that the PC has the same reasons and motivations to stop the Blight as anyone else in Ferelden does, your PC feels that they should not take action unless they see the rest of Ferelden also take action? That's a juvenile response "why do I have to do it? Why don't you ask farmer Joe to do it? It affects him too!" Does your PC only do "the right thing" if they see someone else do it first? That's fine as a RP option, but it's an option, not defined by the game. It's your personal spin of your character, and other people can very easily have different RP views of the PC's motivations.

 

 

Yes, we need the Inquisition. Because Cassandra and Leliana, the people telling us this, have no ulterior motives as to why they would want us to stay. Granted, we need it until we close the Breach at least, but after that, we technically don't need it. The Inquisition does nothing to fix our hand, Solas does that in Trespasser. We can't even give our reason of being the Inquisitor as "I want to find out how to get this glowing green thingummy off my hand!" nor can we assign agents to research the Anchor or try to get it off.

 

 

"Yes, there are numerous possibilities for how your clan will react. You do not know how they will read, that's why this was a massive worry for me.

Who have I head cannoned caring about? I have said I do not care about them and I do not need to. I care about my character, and I care about the characters I meet in the game. None the ones that exist offscreen."

 

 

You're contradicting yourself in a few sentences. You say that it's a worry how your clan will react if the PC just returns home. And then you say that your PC doesn't care about anyone in the clan, only characters we meet in the game. So you don't care about anyone in the clan, just how they will react to your PC?

 

 

 

 

Rereading your post, it sounds like you have not played any origin other than the mage origin? In which case, I'm surprised that you didn't bother to have a disclaimer that you only played one DAO origin (and one DAI background?). You are basing your arguments on one of six origins, which is hardly a well informed opinion.

[PsychoBlonde]

Everyone was in awe of Justinia in the fade and repeatedly referred to the encounter after the fade. Close ups and conversations spent time on mourning Justinia. And this felt shallow and cheesy to me because we didn't know much about Justinia.

 

Yep.  Almost everything that happens early on (Chancellor Roderick's ire, Cassandra's rage turning into respect, the Chantry denouncing the Inquisition, the meaning of Lucius and Fiona appearing and later turning out to be fakes) is just . . . eh, because there's no history to it.  It's just a dull train of events that you have to sit through until you can get to the action.   Now, it is true that they could have left out the Conclave just fine, but it should have changed the nature of the story.  They should have sidelined the Chantry, had you spend more time researching what was really behind what happened and figuring out how to cope with it instead of having Solas deliver a pat explanation (which he delivers OFFSCREEN to CASSANDRA, btw).

 

There isn't one good way to tell any story--although the way you tell it has impact on the nature of the story itself.  The beginning of the game was dull because everything that happens is delivered second-hand via an NPC instead of being something that you witness first hand.

 

Now, you CAN tell a good story with everything being second-hand.  It can be EXTREMELY intriguing, but the thing is that they didn't take advantage of this aspect either.  You're never asking "can I trust this person's version of things?" you're supposed to take everything that people tell you at face value.  They don't give you any choice but to do so.  Cassandra delivers a LOT of very pat statements about what happened but you are never allowed to question her on HOW she knows them.  "It's not the only rift, just the largest.  ALL were caused by the explosion at the conclave."  And you say "an explosion can do that?!" or similar.  Not "how the FOOK do you know that?"

 

That would have been effective if they wanted to gradually focus in on Solas as the story-driver.  First you get a bunch of pat info, then you start questioning "how do you know all this?" more and more until at the end he's finally revealed as not-at-all-what-you-thought.

 

But they didn't do ANY of those things.  There was just NO FOCUS and a big blob of incredibly awful infodump exposition dropped in a heap at your feet followed by "and now roleplay!"  I hate to see so much wasted potential.

 

I would have much rather had something like this:

 

You arrive at the Conclave with a colleague who roughly shares your background.  As you approach, they fill you in on what they expect will happen at the meeting.  You pass Cassandra and Leliana standing at the side of the road with a bunch of Templars and Inquisition soldiers (and maybe Varric, as a prisoner) just as a messenger runs up and says "Divine Justinia commands that you withdraw to Haven and stand ready."  Cassandra grumps about this not making any sense--she and Leliana are the Right and Left Hand of the Divine, they should be where the Divine is!  Leliana says something along the lines of "Divine Justinia has plenty of protection, we need to stand ready in case of any . . . other contigencies."  They march off.  You continue up the mountain road, passing overlooks where you can see huge encampments--templars, mages, orlesians, mercenaries--all the interested parties--in the distance.  This gives you an idea of the SCOPE of this meeting.  People are constantly passing you on the road and making comments.  This is a Big Deal.

 

You arrive in the courtyard where the Mage and Templar leaders are gathered, along with a few other miscellaneous people.  The spokespeople for those two groups grumble at each other.  Divine Justinia appears on the wall above and gives a brief speech where she hopes that they can come to terms.  The Templars and Mages adjourn to get ready for the meeting.  Your friend says "well, we might as well go on in and see if we can get seats".  You follow them into the meeting room, which is this big fancy awesome chamber with a few scattered people.  You can talk to some of them to hear some more snippets of background information (or you can skip this part).  Ideally there will be a very brief side mention that a bunch of Grey Wardens showed up out of nowhere and how weird is that, there are no darkspawn here.  There should also be mentions about the Orlesian court being in turmoil and representatives of Celene and Gaspard and Briala that you can talk to.  Not a long discussion, just a few introductory lines, some emoting/growling/whatever to give you the basic outline of who these people are and what is their conflict.

 

Your friend wants to go check out the throne where the Divine will sit.  When you get up that far, you're close to the hall leading to the Divine's chambers.  "Where are all the guards?"  Your friend wants to take a look.  He/she hears something and goes running in.  The elven orb comes bouncing down the hall "Grab it!" you do.  Everything goes white.  Cut to a view of the explosion from the air, fire and death raining down on the camps, people screaming and running.  Demons falling from the sky.  A huge fireball blanks out the camera.

Cut to you waking up in the Fade.  Time for the combat tutorial.  You find Divine Justinia--she's dazed and doesn't understand what happened.  You make your way through the Fade, fighting a couple of spiders and leading the Divine.  (Well, you THINK it's the Divine).  You're about to escape when suddenly you hear the voice of the Nightmare and HOLY CRAP SPIDERS and the Divine goes all glowy and shoves you through the fade rift.  You fall over and are picked up by Inquisition soldiers.

 

Cut to you in the prison at Haven.

 

Elapsed time, maybe 15 minutes.  No amnesia, you get an idea of what was going on before the explosion, you see the vital characters, get a handle on who the factions are and what their take is, but you're still very much in the dark as to what actually happened.

I don't mean you should actually have to listen to the Mages and Templars bickering for an hour and a half.  That would be DREADFUL.  It should all be very flow-oriented, with you moving and largely just hearing people say things as you pass them.  Have some music and intro credits while this is going on, like a movie.  Throw in some scary reports, pathos, good characterization, and you have a very fast intro with a big knowledge landscape.

[BansheeOwnage]

Yes, and that role is as inquisitor. You get plenty of opportunity to define how to act within that role during the game. An introduction that has little to none effect on the rest of the game would be pointless.

Pointless to you, but some of us like to know who our characters are before being tossed into the action. I am not a fan of our character effectively being born when the game starts.

 

I should note that roleplaying a more established character and roleplaying a less established character can be both considered equally valid roleplaying: people just tend to differ on which they prefer and like the most.

 

Some prefer and like roleplaying a more established character like Hawke or Shepard while others prefer to roleplay a less established character like the Inquisitor, the Warden or Revan.

I liked roleplaying Shepard (in ME1/2), Hawke, and the Warden the most. Though I never felt like my Warden wasn't "established". If they can make more characters like the Warden, that would be great.

 

I think the warden could literally tell Alistair to shut up about it.

Not that I would use that line, but wow do I miss the Warden's lines...

[Abyss108]

 

 

OK, I'm repeating some of this here because you seem to have ignored half the points I've said.

 

1 - The Justinia scene isn't about you trying to identify someone based off their personality, and how well you know them. If you could do that it wouldn't be a matter of faith. It would just be a question of whether you can identify someone by knowing their personality. That's not what this scene is about. There's much less of a question of faith if you know her.

 

2 - The reason I played a character who didn't want to be a Warden, is because the game offered me this option for the first several hours. Yes I could have role-played differently - but how was I to know that I wouldn't be allowed to play a Warden with that attitude, when the game gave me that option for the first several hours? Shepard doesn't have the option to not want to stop the Reapers, and that option is never presented. But in Origins, the game kept giving me options to say I didn't want to be a Warden and to be reluctant about it, than suddenly took that option away. If a game gives me the option to present a viewpoint, that suggests that it is a supported roleplaying option. It should not suddenly take that option away with no explanation or reasoning. 

 

3 - I have already admitted this is based off the Origin I played. The other Origins have no effect on whether I enjoyed the game, because they were not part of my game. The fact that I could have gotten lucky and rolled an Origin that maybe/maybe didn't provided better motivation has no effect on what actually happened in the story presented when I played. I can't speak for other people's experience with different Origins, and I can't speak for whether my experience would have been different if I had chosen a different Origin. And if a game where all options were presented as equal, it's not good enough to say "but if you just chose the right origin and picked the right dialogue options your character would make more sense". How was I supposed to know what these "better" options were when all options were presented the same?

 

4 - Caring about how my clan would react is not caring about the clan. That's caring about myself and what will happen to me. There's no contradiction there. I would also say I care About whether Cory is going to kill me for the Anchor - That does not mean I care about Cory personally.

[Shechinah]

I liked roleplaying Shepard (in ME1/2), Hawke, and the Warden the most. Though I never felt like my Warden wasn't "established". If they can make more characters like the Warden, that would be great.

 

Hmm... the Warden might belong in the more established category now that I think about it. I think I'll move them to the other category.

 

While I usually do not mind roleplaying more established characters like Shepard or Hawke, I do tend to prefer to roleplay characters like Revan and the Inquisitor.

 

Like I said, both ways can be considered equally valid ways of roleplaying. I know the one I prefer is not everyone's cup tea. I do not see the Inquisitor as a bland character, mine certainly was not but I understand why others might see theirs as such especially if it is not their way of roleplaying. Some people simply cannot roleplay a character like the Inquisitor to their satisfaction while others can; that does not say less of the person who cannot, merely that, that way of roleplaying is not for them.

 

My issue with such claims tend to be when some people claim the Inquisitor is a bland and boring character as if it was a fact.

 

Speaking of the Inquisitor; I loved the approach they went with in Inquisition where you established your prior life and how you felt about it through dialogue options such as with the Dalish on what kind of life you had and whether you liked though I felt there could have been more. It was a neat way of allowing the player to establish their background while at the same establish their character.

 

I felt like those dialogue options were something more establishe characters like Shepard and Hawke could have benfitted from such as Hawke having options to talk about Lothering including their opinion on it or their father and their opinion on him. I think it could also have helped me feel less like Shepard became more of a figure over the course of the trilogy and remained more of a person. The Warden had some of dialogue options that were like that but they could have used more, in my opinion.