Semi rant post, I think I probably repeated myself three times but here's angry Morri to kick things off:
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
True enough...however, I'm a bit worried about ME3 as well, considering how ME2's plot was a bit of a mess and how its all but certain they're going to have multiplayer injected into it. But I'm mostly just looking at ME as a bit of a curious onlooker- its not the same level of investment as something like DA, as its a more passive experience with Shep. Although, ME at least puts together a polished experience and it seems to know what it wants to do.
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A valid point on ME2's plot pretty much... not existing. I hope they don't shove multiplayer in there but I can't say I'd be surprised. Series have had major shifts like DA2's before, it reminds me of Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter where the battle system shifted from standard jrg turn-based to a more tactical approach. Hell, the whole game was reinvented and moved in a new direction and unsurprisingly it split the fans and was arguably the nail in the coffin of that series (its been a dead IP since the early PS2 era). The difference was though, both the new battle system and the old in the Breath of Fire games were exemplary at what they were trying to acheive. DA2's is not.
In fact I've just realised that DA2 reminds me of Resonance of Fate in that it had an unusual structure and style of presentation, focused on the characters over most everything else and had a showy battle system. It suffers many of the same issues as that game though, it feels disjointed and lacks overall direction and the combat becomes repetitive very quickly (a shame though as tri-Ace was one of my favourite devs before they completely dropped the ball with this console generation.)
As an aside, today's Mass Effect 2 for free scheme was quite transparent. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/whistling.png[/smilie]
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
But I'm mostly just looking at ME as a bit of a curious onlooker- its not the same level of investment as something like DA, as its a more passive experience with Shep. Although, ME at least puts together a polished experience and it seems to know what it wants to do.
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Ah, I think I've downgraded my DA investment in the wake of this sequel, or rather BW has done it for me. When BioWare released DA:O I was hoping that it was the beginning of series that embraced all that was good about the classic CRPGs and brought it in line with modern expectations, sadly DA2 is not the step forward I was hoping for.
One problem I think I found with DA2 upon completion was the revelation that Hawke's tale (as heard by Cassandra and the world at large) was one of some epic champion yet Varric's tale reveals that's not really the case and he just finds himself in these situations by unhappy chance. The issue is, that type of twist doesn't really work in a game and pretty much just underline's Hawke's role as that of a minor sidestory - a supporting actor in someone else's story. The game didn't "thrust" me into the role of Hawke because ultimately he/she is a nobody, they are not the equivalent of Shepard, they have neither the drive nor impetus that was formed during the Warden's Origin prologue and the lack of which culminated in the rather lacklustre Act 3.
Back to Morri though, I'm wondering if they'll use the Morrigan plotline to its maximum effect, it's interesting that Leli's role seems to have been elevated in importance from what it was in Origins too... But on the subject of Morri (we've probably touched on this before), I was thinking of it earlier, in light of Gaider's comments to you a while back where he was saying you were overemphasising the romance aspect and then lining that up with how the Alistair romance plays out in a US end game scenario. Just how effective would that scene have been if Alistair just didn't give a sh*t/wasn't there during the warden's defining moment and just let a female warden kill herself. It's a perfect example in my eyes of why stuff like this should transfer and persist across the titles, if the Warden's defining moment was slaying the archdemon, then we can say Morri's is still to come (based on what we've been told) and having to witness Morrigan's apparently world-changing moment without the warden being present (and that's not even getting into the OGB possibilities and the warden's obvious involvement in that plot), yeah, missed opportunity doesn't even begin to cover it. Anyway, rambling over.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Absolutely- the RPS article is excellent and the point about not giving a crap about the characters is a point which I hope doesn't get lost by BioWare. I won't necessarily totally blame the voiced PC, but its a pretty common complaint regarding the lack of interaction with the companions and the lack of investment. Now, that could likely be chalked up to a lot of things like the framed narrative too, but the overbearing reliance on making every conversation a scripted cutscene killed any player driven conversations, all because BioWare seemed intent on getting rid of the laundry list of questions and their hatred for "talking heads."
It really all cuts to the core of what BioWare wants DA to be- do they want it to play out distinctly different than ME beyond the setting or are they fine with having it be an action hack and slash cinematic game- basically ME with swords? I really think the message with so many of these reviews is that people don't really want ME with swords. Cause I really don't think that if DA2 was just given an extra year of dev time it would have been perfect- its got some fundamental design problems that I doubt would disappear if just given more time.
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It's a combination of the above I think. As we've talked about before, in DA:O it's you, the player building the relationships with the characters. In DA2 you're simply reduced to a passive role and when "every" scene is a cutscene you tune out and stop caring, this happens even faster when the flaws in the wheel/paraphrasing become apparent. It's been years since I felt the same connection that I did in DA:O, a game that just ticked all the right boxes, when I returned to WRPGs after a long period out of the loop, DA:O and Fallout 3's silent protagonist approaches immediately stood out as strengths that had been lacking in many of the games I'd played. I've talked about making everything a cutscene with you before, that issue remains a dismal failure, they should be reserved for hard-hitting parts of the game, or setting the mood of a particular scene - the current implementation just completely detaches the player from the experience and my genuine involvement in most scenes was tenuous at best courtesy of the design decisions made for this iteration.
I think if DA continues on its current course it may find itself in a similar quandary to Square's FF series, albeit it will happen much faster as games are now under much greater scrutiny. It took a good many years for the general masses to realise that the FF titles were getting more and more streamlined year upon year. It was only when Final Corridor XIII hit that this fact become so apparent and they sat up and took notice. Similarly to BW, for several years Square also enjoyed operating under the umbrella of "oh it's a Squaresoft/Final Fantasy game, so it's bound to be great". I think this same mindset pervades in some BioWare fans as well. It is interesting to note such a vocal split so soon after release, though if anything that's a testament to the successes of DA:O in contrast to DA2.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
It really all cuts to the core of what BioWare wants DA to be- do they want it to play out distinctly different than ME beyond the setting or are they fine with having it be an action hack and slash cinematic game- basically ME with swords? I really think the message with so many of these reviews is that people don't really want ME with swords. Cause I really don't think that if DA2 was just given an extra year of dev time it would have been perfect- its got some fundamental design problems that I doubt would disappear if just given more time.
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I totally agree, there are issues with DA2's design philosophy that affect the very core of the game, an extra few months certainly won't fix that. I think it was a poor choice to supplant so much of the ME experience into DA, a sentiment shared by a good number of players it seems.
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
I really, really regret not getting Shogun 2 instead of DA2. Now that my semester is getting really busy, I'll likely just wait until my semester is over before getting Shogun 2.
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It's a definite improvement over recent TW efforts imo, easily up there with Rome. Witcher 2 and Deus Ex are on the horizon now too, hopefully neither will disappoint and will tide me over till Skyrim.
[quote]Glorfindel709 wrote...
I'm really surprised anyone beyond the few people who had to read it to get to the next page noticed it, I kind of expected it to vanish back on Page 40 once it started moving into the 60s, but I've been getting messages from people about it. Hopefully Bioware is paying attention to that thread beyond Elpler saying they are... I want to believe in a future Dragon Age, but the "Change" of DA2 needs to be sincerely reworked.
To indulgently self quote: "I stood upon the precipice of change, and I leaped, hoping that Bioware would be able to deliver a game with an engaging story, characters, and lore like they had always done. Instead, I watched them take my money, turn into a dragon, and fly away as I plummeted into the depths of a truly crappy game. some Change, Flemeth..."
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Oh there's plenty of good stuff in that thread, we'll see if anything good comes of it though. Those praising the player VO and then demanding more companion interactions in the next breath should take a second and think where exactly the budget came from to voice Hawke's three personalities and where it could have been allocated more appropriately were they not having ceiling cat moments over Hawke's voice.[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/pinched.png[/smilie]
I've seen some delightfully contrived and convoluted posts rationalising the apparent merits of the Hawke VO system yet ultimately I view it as needlessly complex, fitting a square peg in a round hole and a enormous waste of resources. For me it formed part of the feeling of "disconnection" that many players have reported and I'd be happy to see the back of it in future titles.
[quote]Esbatty wrote...
To make this Morrigan related I always carried the "Robes of the Witch" in my inventory to dress up Morrigan in, in non-combat areas. So in Awakening I'd quickly chuck that on Velana since Morri wan't around.
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Bah, Velana is a poor man's Morrigan.[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/angry.png[/smilie]
[quote]ToraRyuu wrote...
sorry i know this is old but i read 30 pages of of the 600 pages, and just wanted to know did they ever fix the morrigan awakening ending, or do i still have to NOT talk 2 her during the final battle in origins
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If you're on console, then it sadly remains broken, like so much else unless you use the mirror trick.
[quote]Lord_Anthonior wrote...
I also put on the ring from the moment she gave it to me and never took it off during origins, awakening, golems and WH, fortunally I don't think there was a glitch on the PS3 so I didn't had to worry about losing anything or the silverite mines.
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Absolutely, Morrigan's Ring is a permanent equip for the Warden once received, stat benefits be damned.[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/wink.png[/smilie]
[quote]Tsongo wrote...
I only played this game about a month ago and have no idea about DA2 or half the characters you speak of. But I'd just like to say that having been shocked at the ending with what I can only see as the worst possible romance finish that I've ever come across ( without even a goodbye from the castle and a fingers up at Alistair from Morrigan ) I find this thread highly amusing and hope it'll rattle the right cages. I haven't played any other game in this series and probably wont now until I read the reviews or forums and decide it's worth it and so far it's not looking good for Bioware getting any of my cash.
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Oh I don't know, the Origins ending for Morrigan only really becomes a problem when BioWare pulled the "oh yeah, you're getting a new character for DA2 and we're not commenting on whether you'll see any semblance of a resolution to that plot thread we started, much less the morri romance." In the light of that little revelation, the problems from the Dark Ritual onwards (and particularly the lack of adequate dialogue choices for wardens who romanced her) become quite significant. That said, Witch Hunt did a decent enough job of remedying this but it remains an issue to this day as wrapping up Morrigan's plotline without the warden's involvement renders WH meaningless both in my opinion and many others, both within this thread and outside it. As ever in the Morri thread, we wait patiently for BioWare to impress us once again, as they did with DA:O & Morrigan (for the most part), sadly the most recent offering hasn't hit the mark for all of us.
[quote]Tsongo wrote...
There are some worrying things being done by "the makers" and even when I went into the toolset to change the words at the end and remove the "go to friendly" issue with the final Morrigan conversation found the conversations locked ! These are the people that brought us the NWN toolset where everything/anything can be changed, now they lock conversations, make an invisible console, say what people can wear and look like ( DA2 ) and railroad people into ridiculous endings. It's a slippery slope towards what we want to happen and $'s > customer satisfaction.
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The DA:O conversations aren't locked, you can edit them quite easily. It would be a complete waste of time however since I've already fixed (nearly) all the known issues regarding Morrigan in the Morri Resto Patch. And yeah, there's a lot of stuff about DA2 I don't like but we'll leave it at that lest we risk getting the thread locked.
[quote]Curlain wrote...
On the subject of Witch Hunt I liked it's ending with Morrigan and quite liked the whole Eluvian mirror concept in it. The problem with the DLC is it always felt like playing the beginning concept for an expansion, but I did like the actual Morrigan ending
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I think most of us (Morri fans) did like the ending and how it tied in with the Eluvian from the Dalish Origin story. I think the bone of contention remains that if Morrigan's story continues and the warden is relegated to an offscreen, single line of dialogue reference or something like that, it pretty much undermines said ending along with the player choice that went with it and that's neither a apt way to conclude Morrigan's romance nor her story in the DA franchise... imo.[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/angel.png[/smilie]
[quote]Brockololly wrote...
Its that when you import to DA2, the romance data seems to be messed up or its not exactly reading things correctly. Its not a big deal for Morrigan as there isn't a reference to her romance in DA2, but its affected the other romances.
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You're wrong actually Brock, we got the the line of text in the imported plot summary, for a brief moment you felt your choices actually mattered... Needless to say, that will be the last you hear of it.[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png[/smilie]
[quote]UFOash wrote...
I don't understand. New PC, New Characters, why would it make much difference?
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Because it supports our theory that the Morrigan romance is a calculated and ongoing experiment in the field of trolling on the part of BioWare. (It is part of a large number of long running Morri thread in-jokes - though we're no longer laughing at this point. This one centres on BioWare's inability to include any Morrigan related content that isn't afflicted by an (
allegedly) unintended bug. BioWare shrewdly avoided this pitfall in DA2 by electing not to make reference to it at all.)
[quote]ejoslin wrote...
Ok, enough whining in the morrithread from me about this particular bug!
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You're such a troublemaker [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/devil.png[/smilie]
Modifié par Terra_Ex, 06 avril 2011 - 02:15 .
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The little conversation Ariane has with the Warden about Morrigan's ring in Witch Hunt is probably one of my favorite moments in all of DA. 
