Letting mages run free poses too many societal issues even assuming they somehow manage to consistently avoid abomination issues.
There is no "letting." Humans don't have that much power in the Dragon Age setting. They either make peace with mages, convince the mages to let them oppress them gently or become some mage's manservant.
Mages already run free. The Circle, at the height of its power, is pretty much a joke. At best, it's where all the mages who were already too timid, conformist or faithful to make trouble end up.
In the two games, how many non-circle mages did you fight? Dozens? Hundreds? Lots more than you see form either Circle.
As Hawke and Bettany both note at the game's start, anyone with the protection of a small group of mercenaries and mages can practice magic and avoid the Templars indefinitely. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that there are vastly more apostates than official Circle mages, canonically as well as in-game.
Normal people can't identify mages by sight. Neither can Templars or, apparently, other mages. So, any pogrom is going to be limited by the fact that its targets can throw away their staffs and cloaks and blend in with the population.
Oppression, likewise, is limited by the willingness of mages to be oppressed. The second the Templars decided to enact the sweeping powers they were supposed to have, the mages rebelled and the whole thing fell apart.
Your point is only valid if humans actually have the power to put the boots on the necks of their mages. They don't, never did really and only got away with it as long as enough mages were convinced of the righteousness of their own imprisonment. Kirkwall ended that.
Phillishere on
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
he mentions some old lady laughing at him while he sleeps, i imagined some kind of quest to start but nothing ever came of it, anyone get it?
That's just there to make you go "hmmm..."
There are other quotes from Sandal that pop up in Act 3. Even Bodahn reacts to them with a "wtf?"
I know this is from a few pages ago, but I wanted to chime in...
It seems pretty obvious at this point that Sandal is Flemeth's kid... at the very least they are closely connected, but I'm positive that's the case.
I don't think he's her kid any more than Morrigan is. But she does have some machinations in play regarding him. Similar to how she had a plan for Morrigan. And Merrill, I'd wager.
I'd be down with a Circle wherein there was more self-policing from the mages and each mage had a sort of live-in Templar that accompanied them on any trips out of the tower.
I'd call it
"The buddy system"
Realistically this is a slight modification to what we saw in Fereldan.
Alas, my image manipulation skills are piss poor, and I've decided to give up and see if anyone else here is actually a photoshop wiz kid and can whip it up in 2 minutes.
he mentions some old lady laughing at him while he sleeps, i imagined some kind of quest to start but nothing ever came of it, anyone get it?
That's just there to make you go "hmmm..."
There are other quotes from Sandal that pop up in Act 3. Even Bodahn reacts to them with a "wtf?"
I know this is from a few pages ago, but I wanted to chime in...
It seems pretty obvious at this point that Sandal is Flemeth's kid... at the very least they are closely connected, but I'm positive that's the case.
I don't think he's her kid any more than Morrigan is. But she does have some machinations in play regarding him. Similar to how she had a plan for Morrigan. And Merrill, I'd wager.
Flemeth's moving some chess pieces here.
speaking of which
what the hell happens to her? you bring the pendant and then she's gone for the rest of the game.
Same thing for Varric's half of the statue? They seem to just not talk about it anymore.
he mentions some old lady laughing at him while he sleeps, i imagined some kind of quest to start but nothing ever came of it, anyone get it?
That's just there to make you go "hmmm..."
There are other quotes from Sandal that pop up in Act 3. Even Bodahn reacts to them with a "wtf?"
I know this is from a few pages ago, but I wanted to chime in...
It seems pretty obvious at this point that Sandal is Flemeth's kid... at the very least they are closely connected, but I'm positive that's the case.
I don't think he's her kid any more than Morrigan is. But she does have some machinations in play regarding him. Similar to how she had a plan for Morrigan. And Merrill, I'd wager.
Flemeth's moving some chess pieces here.
speaking of which
what the hell happens to her? you bring the pendant and then she's gone for the rest of the game.
Same thing for Varric's half of the statue? They seem to just not talk about it anymore.
Varric's piece of the statue gets turned into an amazing rune by Sandal.
I think DA2 is really good, but a step back from DA1 in a lot of ways. I find the combat less interesting and less satisfying. So far I don't find the companions as memorable and the plot has yet to pull me in. I miss a lot of the Baldur's Gate-like things, such as the way dialogue was done and the way traveling was handled. Really the only thing I like a lot more about DA2 is the overall presentation. From the graphics to the designs to the animations to the interface, everything is much sleeker and sexier.
Honestly I kind of feel like they tried to do what they did with ME2(take the first game and just polish the hell out of it) and ended up going a bit too far.
I'm still really liking the game, though.
Oh man, I have no idea what you mean when you say you wish the travel was more BG-like as in DA:O (???), but I do miss the little bloody line that was traced on the map as you traveled between areas. That was neat.
I meant that I liked having that world map wih the different places and you could get the random encounters, sometimes important story or companion-based ones, as you moved around. DA2 does away with that in favor of a simple "click on the place and you're instantly there" method. It's a small thing, but I miss it.
I think DA2 is really good, but a step back from DA1 in a lot of ways. I find the combat less interesting and less satisfying. So far I don't find the companions as memorable and the plot has yet to pull me in. I miss a lot of the Baldur's Gate-like things, such as the way dialogue was done and the way traveling was handled. Really the only thing I like a lot more about DA2 is the overall presentation. From the graphics to the designs to the animations to the interface, everything is much sleeker and sexier.
Honestly I kind of feel like they tried to do what they did with ME2(take the first game and just polish the hell out of it) and ended up going a bit too far.
I'm still really liking the game, though.
Oh man, I have no idea what you mean when you say you wish the travel was more BG-like as in DA:O (???), but I do miss the little bloody line that was traced on the map as you traveled between areas. That was neat.
I meant that I liked having that world map wih the different places and you could get the random encounters, sometimes important story or companion-based ones, as you moved around. DA2 does away with that in favor of a simple "click on the place and you're instantly there" method. It's a small thing, but I miss it.
There are a few encounters that occur en route to your destination.
But I usually got pretty annoyed at their frequency in DAO. I just want to be where I'm going. I don't want to have to fight some dumb fight on my way there. It's really terrible when it happens almost every time you travel.
Mages can't be trusted because they don't understand how dangerous they are. That's why we need a strong educational system like the Qun that brings mages to the point that even if they lose their master, they know to kill themselves.
They didn't seem that frequent to me. At most once per travel, but usually for me it was more about 2/3rds of the time. I thought that was a pretty balanced amount.
I find the removal of the tactical mode and the "waves of enemies" thing are both really significant changes to the overall feel of combat, whereas the only major change to combat in ME2 was adding reloading, otherwise keeping the same feel. DA2 comes across as a lot more actiony than the first game, IMO. Not that this is bad or anything, but I did prefer the feel of combat in the first.
So, 35 reviews on MC, 82 average, and a 4.3 user score.
I'm hoping by the end of the review cycle, it dips to 70ies.
Glad I'm not the only one seeing the thing as a big disappointment. For a moment there I thought maybe my standards were too high or something.
Do all of you here still feel the game was good? Like, really good?
I enjoyed it a fair bit. But honestly, if you disliked a game so much you genuinely give a shit about how low its review scores go...
I think it's safe to say you've invested too much of your identity into videogames and need to find something else to do with your life.
I just feel that it was a move in the wrong direction for the entire genre, and had hoped that the reaction within the industry would follow suit when something goes wrong. You know, big picture. Once everyone gets the idea that it's fine to cut corners and simplify gameplay elements in order to increase the reach of the IP, and generally put market share and profit over quality, that curve is hard to right again. There are numerous examples of this going on in other genres.
I was afraid that there would be no one that shared my opinions, though that doesn't seem to be the case now (it did from the onset though). That all of you here disagree is fine, to be sure, in fact I'm glad all of you feel that you got your money's worth from the purchase of the game, though I do wonder why having a different opinion qualifies my life as being wasted. Anyway, that's rhetorical.
I got my question answered, so thank you for doing so. As well as the rest of you who answered.
From a few pages back, but I wonder if games like Dragon Age 2 are pushing the market in a particular direction or if they're merely a reflection of it.
People want to play games with compelling stories and interesting characters and big heroes. Bioware does all of that well. But most people have never wanted games that tossed statistics and fucking exponential mathematical curves at you in order to play the damned thing.
Take BG2. Wonderful characters, epic story. Gameplay that, if you look at it objectively, is beyond complex--it is obfuscating. For me it was easy because I loved the hell out of AD&D when I was in high school, so the transition to the computer was easy. Other people? They don't care about that kind of crap in their games. Last year I had to push and prod a friend of mine to play the game, and he is an engineer. He lives math, and he did not want to touch that shit. But after several hours he finally got into a groove with it and is slowly making his way through and enjoying it.
Most people don't have that kind of patience for games. And rightly so, because it is a game and not work; settling in should feel comfortable and easy. The AAA developers and publishers know this and are going to push for things like that. And yet there are still games out there that require a lot of thought, skill, and time to actually settle into.
I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, just musing. Simple games can be terrible, but so can really complex ones. And I'm not completely convinced games are just getting boiled down into base elements. There's some pretty rad shit you can do in DA2 that requires some planning and investment. But I think the market is looking for accessible games, I don't think the games are trying to push the market one way or another.
I'm glad they didn't simplify equipment to the extreme degree of ME2, that's for sure. I don't like not being able to give my allies armor, but at least I can still equip them with other things, and have all the same slots as DA1 on my main.
I'm aware. That doesn't change the fact of the Circles existence in its present form stretching back a long ways.
And...can we please stop putting forth "elven civilization" as though it's some evidence that mageocracies can work? All we know about elven civilization are half remembered myths and legends, the majority of all meaningful data was destroyed A) By the Tevinter Imperium (A mageocracy woohoo!) If anything survived that it was almost certainly destroyed in the First Blight along with countless other records (this is why anything prior to the First Blight is thought of as pre-historical, we know jack about those times).
What does this leave us with? A vague half remembered oral history passed down by a people who were enslaved for a long, long time and had to pass down an oral history subject to romanticization meant to help them feel better about being in dire straits.
We might as well know nothing about elven history prior to their enslavement by the Imperium. Because we don't know anything about their history prior to enslavement by the Imperium.
Right. They made up their entire history from whole cloth just so you wouldn't have a counterpoint to your "mage slavery" argument.
They had a great and powerful civilization by all counts. To this day they do not enslave their mages. The Circle is not the only answer. The game even shows you it isn't even a good answer.
When I think of Arlathan, I think of how the elves claimed they were once quasi-immortal; living for centuries or even a millenium before going into "In Utherna"... but now they, along with everyone else live normal humanish-length lifespans, and claim it is because it was contact with humans which "quickened" them...
Now, in DA:O and it's DLC, we have come in contact with 3 people who have, or at least claim to have, lived centuries:
One is Flemith,
Who supposably does this by possessing the bodies of her daughters
The next is Zathrian,
Thanks to using his blood as part of the ritual to curse a bunch of humans into werewolves, he extended his life for as long as the curse lasted...
...and the third is Avernus,
who used Blood Magic to summon demons, extend his own life and experiment of the blood of Grey Wardens, using fellow Grey Wardens to do so.
I don't know how or why the elves of Arlathan were able to live for so long, but based on the lives of those today who can count thier age in centuries, the method was not pretty...
From a few pages back, but I wonder if games like Dragon Age 2 are pushing the market in a particular direction or if they're merely a reflection of it.
People want to play games with compelling stories and interesting characters and big heroes. Bioware does all of that well. But most people have never wanted games that tossed statistics and fucking exponential mathematical curves at you in order to play the damned thing.
Take BG2. Wonderful characters, epic story. Gameplay that, if you look at it objectively, is beyond complex--it is obfuscating. For me it was easy because I loved the hell out of AD&D when I was in high school, so the transition to the computer was easy. Other people? They don't care about that kind of crap in their games. Last year I had to push and prod a friend of mine to play the game, and he is an engineer. He lives math, and he did not want to touch that shit. But after several hours he finally got into a groove with it and is slowly making his way through and enjoying it.
Most people don't have that kind of patience for games. And rightly so, because it is a game and not work; settling in should feel comfortable and easy. The AAA developers and publishers know this and are going to push for things like that. And yet there are still games out there that require a lot of thought, skill, and time to actually settle into.
I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, just musing. Simple games can be terrible, but so can really complex ones. And I'm not completely convinced games are just getting boiled down into base elements. There's some pretty rad shit you can do in DA2 that requires some planning and investment. But I think the market is looking for accessible games, I don't think the games are trying to push the market one way or another.
I think it's worth making a distinction between complex gameplay, and complex rulesets. DnD RPGs suffered from byzantine rulesets that did not easily lend themselves to intuition - "is a higher armour class good or bad?", "which of these 25 different weapon classes should I put points in?", "is a dispel castable while paralysed something I'll ever need in the course of this game?", etc. Contrast that to ME2, which had a very simple ruleset, but didn't necessarily result in simple gameplay - especially on higher difficulties, and squad auto ability-usage off.
Sometimes I just wish I could just kill Feynriel when you first meet him and he's being held at knife point, just to get a reaction somewhat like this:
Sometimes I just wish I could just kill Feynriel when you first meet him and he's being held at knife point, just to get a reaction somewhat like this:
Sometimes I just wish I could just kill Feynriel when you first meet him and he's being held at knife point, just to get a reaction somewhat like this:
According to the wikia Ketojan was originally intended to be a companion, but the idea was scrapped "for unknown reasons".
God damnit, Bioware.
God damnit.
"We were going to have this companion but felt it would be too popular and too awesome and could potentially detract from our game design which forced the player to put up with Anders and Merrill so we had to pull the plug."
Is that legit? I mean, I can go onto the wiki and be all "Flemeth was going to be a love interest" just because I thought it'd be funny to see the reactions.
Well, Ketojan does speak to you, knowing that the Qunari would kill you for that. So he's kinda a dick too.
Has there ever been an explanation for how mages come to be, other than that they're just "connected" to The Fade? There's some sort of loose inheritance pattern apparently based on comments made about how somebody should have expected somebody else to be a mage based on somebody else's parents also being one, but also lots of spontaneous generation.
Is that legit? I mean, I can go onto the wiki and be all "Flemeth was going to be a love interest" just because I thought it'd be funny to see the reactions.
I don't know, and it is suspiciously trollish. Many people have stated they wished that character had been a companion.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
Well, Ketojan does speak to you, knowing that the Qunari would kill you for that. So he's kinda a dick too.
Has there ever been an explanation for how mages come to be, other than that they're just "connected" to The Fade? There's some sort of loose inheritance pattern apparently based on comments made about how somebody should have expected somebody else to be a mage based on somebody else's parents also being one, but also lots of spontaneous generation.
I'm pretty sure it works just like in Harry Potter.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
2. The conclusion to the quest was perfect as is.
3. I doubt it was ever seriously considered.
Qunari were still seen in public past act 2. Well, at least one that I can think of.
Walking around with apostate mages is already breaking something. Might as well run all the way with it.
From a few pages back, but I wonder if games like Dragon Age 2 are pushing the market in a particular direction or if they're merely a reflection of it.
People want to play games with compelling stories and interesting characters and big heroes. Bioware does all of that well. But most people have never wanted games that tossed statistics and fucking exponential mathematical curves at you in order to play the damned thing.
Take BG2. Wonderful characters, epic story. Gameplay that, if you look at it objectively, is beyond complex--it is obfuscating. For me it was easy because I loved the hell out of AD&D when I was in high school, so the transition to the computer was easy. Other people? They don't care about that kind of crap in their games. Last year I had to push and prod a friend of mine to play the game, and he is an engineer. He lives math, and he did not want to touch that shit. But after several hours he finally got into a groove with it and is slowly making his way through and enjoying it.
Most people don't have that kind of patience for games. And rightly so, because it is a game and not work; settling in should feel comfortable and easy. The AAA developers and publishers know this and are going to push for things like that. And yet there are still games out there that require a lot of thought, skill, and time to actually settle into.
I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, just musing. Simple games can be terrible, but so can really complex ones. And I'm not completely convinced games are just getting boiled down into base elements. There's some pretty rad shit you can do in DA2 that requires some planning and investment. But I think the market is looking for accessible games, I don't think the games are trying to push the market one way or another.
I think it's worth making a distinction between complex gameplay, and complex rulesets. DnD RPGs suffered from byzantine rulesets that did not easily lend themselves to intuition - "is a higher armour class good or bad?", "which of these 25 different weapon classes should I put points in?", "is a dispel castable while paralysed something I'll ever need in the course of this game?", etc. Contrast that to ME2, which had a very simple ruleset, but didn't necessarily result in simple gameplay - especially on higher difficulties, and squad auto ability-usage off.
This can be a weird experience. I more or less picked up RPGs in the past few years starting with the Fallout series, which has a very simple system. Then I went to Dragon Age, which was more complex, but refined enough to make sense of fairly quickly. Then Mass Effect, which was kid's stuff.
Then I got KOTOR on a Steam sale. So far, logged less than an hour. I still have to read up on how the game works, and I don't imagine it's impossible to grasp, but approaching it fresh-faced I found it impenetrable and obtuse. I had a similar experience starting a game of Planescape: Torment, and it's what's kept me from exploring the BG series, or Icewind Dale, or NWN.
Part of me resents the idea that I'm buying a video game only to find out that the game takes for granted a working knowledge of whichever D&D rule set it employs. I realize that it made sense at the time to build a game on a gold standard rule set that is generally well-understood, but it's really no fun being on the outside looking in.
Considering the amount of time I've put into DAO, and plan on putting into DAII, it's hard to convince myself it's worth the investment to get into some of the older American RPGs. Although, before anyone brings it up, I'm aware of Torment's reputation, and I do intend to play at least that before I die.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
2. The conclusion to the quest was perfect as is.
3. I doubt it was ever seriously considered.
Qunari were still seen in public past act 2. Well, at least one that I can think of.
Walking around with apostate mages is already breaking something. Might as well run all the way with it.
Might as well have the quest conclude the way it does and teach the player something about the qunari, especially if you talk with the Arishok afterwards, in a much more elegant way than having a party member act as an encyclopedia.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
2. The conclusion to the quest was perfect as is.
3. I doubt it was ever seriously considered.
Qunari were still seen in public past act 2. Well, at least one that I can think of.
Walking around with apostate mages is already breaking something. Might as well run all the way with it.
Two. One hanging out in Hightown. Another in The Hanged Man.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
2. The conclusion to the quest was perfect as is.
3. I doubt it was ever seriously considered.
Qunari were still seen in public past act 2. Well, at least one that I can think of.
Walking around with apostate mages is already breaking something. Might as well run all the way with it.
I think walking around with Mages could be mistaken for people with really odd fashion sense. Anytime you prove one of your companions is a mage, they have to show the sparklies (like Bethany during the Feynriel quest when talking to the Father). A qunari mage is just too distinctive.
I forgot about the qunari in the Hanged Man though. I think it'd be more the hulking, bound apostate than the qunari thing then.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
2. The conclusion to the quest was perfect as is.
3. I doubt it was ever seriously considered.
Qunari were still seen in public past act 2. Well, at least one that I can think of.
Walking around with apostate mages is already breaking something. Might as well run all the way with it.
Might as well have the quest conclude the way it does and teach the player something about the qunari, especially if you talk with the Arishok afterwards, in a much more elegant way than having a party member act as an encyclopedia.
This is another good point. Ketojan was a cool character and all, but he's cool because of his actions as already presented. Him as a party member isn't nearly as interesting.
My diplomatic/friendly Hawke actually said that line before Anders ever did.. Anders was just standing there smiling after that one.
I guess your diplo Hawke is as dumb as Anders then, to assume that Thrask was ever asking for help killing the mages. :P
Nobody said diplomacy Hawke is a smart Hawke :P I prefer snark Hawke anyway, but for the sake of diversity.... (I miss my snark Hawke/Aveline/Varric/Fenris team, really).
Posts
There is no "letting." Humans don't have that much power in the Dragon Age setting. They either make peace with mages, convince the mages to let them oppress them gently or become some mage's manservant.
Mages already run free. The Circle, at the height of its power, is pretty much a joke. At best, it's where all the mages who were already too timid, conformist or faithful to make trouble end up.
In the two games, how many non-circle mages did you fight? Dozens? Hundreds? Lots more than you see form either Circle.
As Hawke and Bettany both note at the game's start, anyone with the protection of a small group of mercenaries and mages can practice magic and avoid the Templars indefinitely. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that there are vastly more apostates than official Circle mages, canonically as well as in-game.
Normal people can't identify mages by sight. Neither can Templars or, apparently, other mages. So, any pogrom is going to be limited by the fact that its targets can throw away their staffs and cloaks and blend in with the population.
Oppression, likewise, is limited by the willingness of mages to be oppressed. The second the Templars decided to enact the sweeping powers they were supposed to have, the mages rebelled and the whole thing fell apart.
Your point is only valid if humans actually have the power to put the boots on the necks of their mages. They don't, never did really and only got away with it as long as enough mages were convinced of the righteousness of their own imprisonment. Kirkwall ended that.
I don't think he's her kid any more than Morrigan is. But she does have some machinations in play regarding him. Similar to how she had a plan for Morrigan. And Merrill, I'd wager.
Flemeth's moving some chess pieces here.
-Z
After reading this post (so past hour or so) I've been trying to combine the following pictures (using paint and irfanview):
http://dirtygurl.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/chris-tucker-fifth-element.jpg
http://www.foshanit.com/uploadfile/wallpaper/uploadpics/200805/20080519093550879.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/950/950581/dragon-age-origins-20090203000635712.jpg
plus maybe some staff in Chris' hand and templar insignia on Jackie, and movie poster like words that say "Orlais Heat".
Alas, my image manipulation skills are piss poor, and I've decided to give up and see if anyone else here is actually a photoshop wiz kid and can whip it up in 2 minutes.
speaking of which
Same thing for Varric's half of the statue? They seem to just not talk about it anymore.
I meant that I liked having that world map wih the different places and you could get the random encounters, sometimes important story or companion-based ones, as you moved around. DA2 does away with that in favor of a simple "click on the place and you're instantly there" method. It's a small thing, but I miss it.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
There are a few encounters that occur en route to your destination.
But I usually got pretty annoyed at their frequency in DAO. I just want to be where I'm going. I don't want to have to fight some dumb fight on my way there. It's really terrible when it happens almost every time you travel.
I find the removal of the tactical mode and the "waves of enemies" thing are both really significant changes to the overall feel of combat, whereas the only major change to combat in ME2 was adding reloading, otherwise keeping the same feel. DA2 comes across as a lot more actiony than the first game, IMO. Not that this is bad or anything, but I did prefer the feel of combat in the first.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Thrask: Feynriel speaks well of you, blah blah, I was hoping you would be willing to show mages a kindness once again:
Hawke: Snarky response.
Thrask: There's a group of apostates hiding in these caves...
Anders: We're not going to kill apostates for you!!!
...
Anders, do you even fucking listen to people?
Ever?
Jesus what a moron.
I guess your diplo Hawke is as dumb as Anders then, to assume that Thrask was ever asking for help killing the mages. :P
Yeah really. Accusing Thrask of all people of that is just silly.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
From a few pages back, but I wonder if games like Dragon Age 2 are pushing the market in a particular direction or if they're merely a reflection of it.
People want to play games with compelling stories and interesting characters and big heroes. Bioware does all of that well. But most people have never wanted games that tossed statistics and fucking exponential mathematical curves at you in order to play the damned thing.
Take BG2. Wonderful characters, epic story. Gameplay that, if you look at it objectively, is beyond complex--it is obfuscating. For me it was easy because I loved the hell out of AD&D when I was in high school, so the transition to the computer was easy. Other people? They don't care about that kind of crap in their games. Last year I had to push and prod a friend of mine to play the game, and he is an engineer. He lives math, and he did not want to touch that shit. But after several hours he finally got into a groove with it and is slowly making his way through and enjoying it.
Most people don't have that kind of patience for games. And rightly so, because it is a game and not work; settling in should feel comfortable and easy. The AAA developers and publishers know this and are going to push for things like that. And yet there are still games out there that require a lot of thought, skill, and time to actually settle into.
I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, just musing. Simple games can be terrible, but so can really complex ones. And I'm not completely convinced games are just getting boiled down into base elements. There's some pretty rad shit you can do in DA2 that requires some planning and investment. But I think the market is looking for accessible games, I don't think the games are trying to push the market one way or another.
PSN: Threeve703
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
When I think of Arlathan, I think of how the elves claimed they were once quasi-immortal; living for centuries or even a millenium before going into "In Utherna"... but now they, along with everyone else live normal humanish-length lifespans, and claim it is because it was contact with humans which "quickened" them...
Now, in DA:O and it's DLC, we have come in contact with 3 people who have, or at least claim to have, lived centuries:
One is Flemith,
The next is Zathrian,
...and the third is Avernus,
I don't know how or why the elves of Arlathan were able to live for so long, but based on the lives of those today who can count thier age in centuries, the method was not pretty...
My snarky Hawke did blackmail the magistrate, but that was different, the magistrate was a cunt.
To be fair, you can complete Wayword Son without saying a word to him, so you don't know he's a moderate then,
I think it's worth making a distinction between complex gameplay, and complex rulesets. DnD RPGs suffered from byzantine rulesets that did not easily lend themselves to intuition - "is a higher armour class good or bad?", "which of these 25 different weapon classes should I put points in?", "is a dispel castable while paralysed something I'll ever need in the course of this game?", etc. Contrast that to ME2, which had a very simple ruleset, but didn't necessarily result in simple gameplay - especially on higher difficulties, and squad auto ability-usage off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AX6ESxqEy0&feature=related
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Ha, I was just making it a joke, anyway.
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According to the wikia Ketojan was originally intended to be a companion, but the idea was scrapped "for unknown reasons".
God damnit, Bioware.
God damnit.
"We were going to have this companion but felt it would be too popular and too awesome and could potentially detract from our game design which forced the player to put up with Anders and Merrill so we had to pull the plug."
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Has there ever been an explanation for how mages come to be, other than that they're just "connected" to The Fade? There's some sort of loose inheritance pattern apparently based on comments made about how somebody should have expected somebody else to be a mage based on somebody else's parents also being one, but also lots of spontaneous generation.
I don't know, and it is suspiciously trollish. Many people have stated they wished that character had been a companion.
1. Walking around with apostate Mages is one thing. Walking around with a bound Qunari mage, particularly in Act 3 after the Qunari assault would be something else entirely.
2. The conclusion to the quest was perfect as is.
3. I doubt it was ever seriously considered.
I'm pretty sure it works just like in Harry Potter.
Ketojan would have been too much.
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Too much awesome.
Walking around with apostate mages is already breaking something. Might as well run all the way with it.
This can be a weird experience. I more or less picked up RPGs in the past few years starting with the Fallout series, which has a very simple system. Then I went to Dragon Age, which was more complex, but refined enough to make sense of fairly quickly. Then Mass Effect, which was kid's stuff.
Then I got KOTOR on a Steam sale. So far, logged less than an hour. I still have to read up on how the game works, and I don't imagine it's impossible to grasp, but approaching it fresh-faced I found it impenetrable and obtuse. I had a similar experience starting a game of Planescape: Torment, and it's what's kept me from exploring the BG series, or Icewind Dale, or NWN.
Part of me resents the idea that I'm buying a video game only to find out that the game takes for granted a working knowledge of whichever D&D rule set it employs. I realize that it made sense at the time to build a game on a gold standard rule set that is generally well-understood, but it's really no fun being on the outside looking in.
Considering the amount of time I've put into DAO, and plan on putting into DAII, it's hard to convince myself it's worth the investment to get into some of the older American RPGs. Although, before anyone brings it up, I'm aware of Torment's reputation, and I do intend to play at least that before I die.
Might as well have the quest conclude the way it does and teach the player something about the qunari, especially if you talk with the Arishok afterwards, in a much more elegant way than having a party member act as an encyclopedia.
Two. One hanging out in Hightown. Another in The Hanged Man.
I forgot about the qunari in the Hanged Man though. I think it'd be more the hulking, bound apostate than the qunari thing then.
This is another good point. Ketojan was a cool character and all, but he's cool because of his actions as already presented. Him as a party member isn't nearly as interesting.
And it's not like he'd have much to say.
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Nobody said diplomacy Hawke is a smart Hawke :P I prefer snark Hawke anyway, but for the sake of diversity.... (I miss my snark Hawke/Aveline/Varric/Fenris team, really).