peopleofthedas | Random DA things

Random DA things

I love this game like burning. After I'd been playing on the PS3 for several months, I bought a shiny new laptop for the sole purpose of having it for the PC and I'm now playing it on BOTH the PC and PS3, because it's JUST THAT AWESOME. *draws hearts* I have four working laptops now, because of the three I had before, none would run DA.

The following rantishness is from looking at the game from the POV of a character within it, not from the POV of a player who understands why things have to go a certain way in order to position the player character to proceed down a certain path and become the big hero.

There. Now.

Okay, have you noticed that Duncan is a manipulative, evil bastard? I was crushing on him so hard at first, but my human wardens and my newest City Elf warden just want to punch him in the face. Alistair may be all starry-eyed over him, but oh my god.

My human wardens. First, while her father lies dying at their feet, Duncan promises to get her and her mother to safety only if her father agrees that she'll become a Grey Warden. She doesn't get a say in this, and her DYING FATHER is being blackmailed into it on the lives of his wife and child!

That's a pretty big strike against poor old Duncan.

Second, it turns out that this thing that Duncan blackmailed her dying father into agreeing to will get her killed, either immediately upon joining, or within just a few decades -- when she will descend into the deep roads and fight monsters in the dark miles below ground until they kill her. RAWR.

Third, POOR SER JORY. OMFG. He's got a pregnant wife at home! but does Duncan even try to talk sense into him?! No! He's all, "oh, he pulled his sword, I HAD to kill him," but you notice that Jory looks about as threatening as a kitten up a tree until Duncan draws his sword and advances on him? Because I sure noticed that. Doesn't even once try to reason with him, or explain things to him further. No, he just tricks him into leaving his wife and child, then stabs him to death when Jory expresses some dismay at Daveth's gruesome and untimely death!

Also, creepiest group ever, the way Duncan, Alistair, Jory, and your Warden just back slowly away while Daveth chokes to death. Jeez, guys, maybe it wasn't even the blood, maybe he just swallowed wrong! Somebody could at least TRY to help him!

The human origin is definitely the worst (for Duncan's character, I mean) of the ways I've played through so far. But the City Elf is also kind of grim, as I realized when I played through the opening on the "I am a selfish asshole" setting and discovered that if things go a certain way, your pal gets carted off to prison to be executed and Duncan's all, "hey, I only need one warden. Too bad for him."

I feel sort of guilty for still crushing on Duncan, even knowing what a bastard he is.

Are there any "Duncan is a manipulative evil bastard" fics out there for a girl who both crushes on him and wants to punch him in the face?

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One of the things that it is really interesting to me about DA:O is how about 50% of the time, they go "yay, the ends justify the means", then the last 50% of the time, it's "Oh, noes! You're an Machievellian villain!"

Examples of good pragmatism:

1) Duncan = yes, Jory, it sucks, but what must be done must be done! Grey Wardens take all help in defeating the Blight!
2) Bhelyn is a total bastard, but a reformer, keep him on the throne
3) Anora is a self described ruthless bitch, and willing to turn on her own father, but is a great leader, keep her on the throne (or even better, marry her yourself or force Alistair to marry her)
4) Loghain has been working against you this whole time, but still might be useful. Spare him, and make him take the arch demon.

Examples of bad pragmatism:

1) The mages might be infected with demons, kill them!
2) Connor might stay infected with the demon no matter what you do, kill him!
3) Branka wants a golem army so that Orzammar doesn't keep losing people left and right to darkspawn. Save her (and the golems)
4) Loghain is stuck with a really nasty position of needing to deal with a civil war/Blight/possible (in his mind anyway) invasion by Orlais, so does some evil things. But you must remove him from power, even if your character doesn't want to.
5) OMG, the guilt you get if you choose to slaughter the city elves to become more powerful...(even though if that was the deciding bit of power between stopping the Blight and not stopping the Blight, you'd be a fool not to take it)

I really feel that the game is trying to manipulate you into seeing some Machievellian choices as ruthless and evil, and some as pragmatic and good, despite that there are really pros and cons to either if you detach from the point of view the game is trying to sway you towards.

about 50% of the time, they go "yay, the ends justify the means", then the last 50% of the time, it's "Oh, noes! You're an Machievellian villain!"

*snerk* You're right! I hadn't thought about it, but now I'm going to be paying attention.

Yeah, I'm driven crazy by this. Like, when I try to play a lawful good character, I want them to be all "no! Not Jory! I hate you Duncan!" But then, when I want to play a really ruthless sort, I'm all "but...but...why do you keep making me feel guilty about the golems? I *need* the golems!!!"

Yeah I agree. I mean, the game itself is really inconsistent and passes judgment on some of these decisions and tries to paint some of the pragmatic stuff as good and others as evil, instead of letting the players sort of go along and make their own judgments.

I think Mass Effect is far, far better at this (although not nearly flawless) with the Renegade/Paragon system. You get the feeling in that game that most of the time, the writers just set up the choice and let the players interpret it how they want, and there's a lot less of the good vs. evil vibe and more of an idealistic vs.pragmatic vibe, which I think works a lot better and hope to see more of in Dragon Age 2.

Yeah, it really kind of bothered me that some of the "good" choices you make in DA:O seem to involve the game almost screaming "stop it, idiot! You are ruining the world with your idealism!" at you, while certain "bad" choices seem to have the game going "OMG, you mass murderer! How could you?"

Then again, DA:O I think is overly influenced by what I'd call the "Alistair POV". In general, it seems as though, if Alistair approves, it's the "good" choice, and vice-versa. (The main differences being among the elves and magi, both of whom the game guilts you for slaughtering, but neither of whom does Alistair seem to care much about. I still crack up that using blood mage to slaughter the city elves only nets -5 approval from Alistair if you use persuade. It's like, "Hey, Alistair, I just killed a bunch of defenseless people. But I told you that Grey Wardens do all sorts of nasty stuff and gave you a toy, so we're cool, right?")

And, yeah, I totally agree as well that Mass Effect does a better job. Not a perfect one, but I do feel that it's more cynical vs. idealistic than good vs. evil.

What drives me crazy is the whole "Kill Connor, Kill Anora, or get the Circle Mages to help" thing. I tried killing Connor once, just to see what would happen, and OMFG. While we're at the castle, Alistair is all, "we'd better kill the kid, I wouldn't normally but it's clearly our only option," but when you get back to party camp he's all "RAWR, you EVIL PERSON, how could you!!? You should have TRIED HARDER to find some other way!" I just want to shake him 'til his teeth rattle.

I really need to try Mass Effect. I keep hearing how awesome it is.

Yeah, that was my feeling on my first playthrough. It felt like, "OK, well, I won't kill Isolde, as I may do that and find that I still can't kill the demon, I don't want to get the Circle as that may take too long, so I'll kill the kid" and then Alistair went ballistic. I was like, WTF, dude? You were OK with this earlier. You even helped me!

Mass Effect is awesome, although it took me a bit to get into it. But after that, I was all "OMG, this is the bestest game ever!!!!"

So, would you say I should start with the first one, or jump in with the second?

I'd start with the first, as I think that the second makes a lot more sense with the first. (And the second is very "Empire Strikes Back", a great game, but it really is a middle game with plot lines going forward and back).

Mostly it's just a warning to stick it out for the 5-10 hours it takes to get interesting. A walkthrough might not be the worst way to go, either. The main plot of ME 1 takes 10-15 hours to get through, but the side quests can easily add another 50 hours, and while they're of interesting, aren't *that* exciting, I think. To me, it took getting pretty far along in the main plot for me to go "OMG, this is an awesome game!", which you can get to in <10 hours if you don't do side quests, but which can take, say, 60 hours if you do. <10 hours isn't that much of a time investment for a really cool story line (esp. if you buy the game for $20...). But 60 hours is a long time to wait to start getting into the meat of the story.

My interpretation, anyway. ;) You may love the game immediately, or hate it even after playing the whole thing. I just remember being bored for like 25 hours, before suddenly getting to a major plot point and then not being able to stop even for things like food and sleep. ;)

Okay, cool! Thank you! I'll see if I can get a copy for the weekend. Whee!

I wouldn't recommend jumping in with the second either. A lot of the decisions you make and people you see in the first game carry over into the second game if you import the same Shepard, and it makes for a much cooler gaming experience if you play them back to back rather than playing a vanilla game with the default choices starting with the second part of the story.

Because unlike Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1 & 2 are part of a trilogy that revolves around your main character (Shepard) and the story is really just a straight continuation and direct story sequel from the first to second game.

I tried to play ME1 first for story reasons and couldn't wrap my head around the controls, so I abandoned it. ME2 controls are far more intuitive and I had no trouble with them at all.

Yeah, ME2 is easier to play. Then again, the game carries over! And...and...there's not really a plot in ME2, but there is in one!

Exactly. I mean, if you take something like Mordin's loyalty mission in ME2 (which is probably the single best piece of writing I've ever seen in a bioware game), there is no good or evil answer there. And every single time I play that mission, I'm really torn an I end up making a different choice. You get the feeling that the writers really stepped back, presented the scenario and have done their best from letting their judgments leak into the storytelling. There's nothing that's really comparable to that in Dragon Age.

I agree with the Alistair effect too sort of coloring the choices. Then again, unlike the characters in Mass Effect or even in other bioware games, Alistair is sort of unique in that the story of the game is almost as much his as it is the Grey Warden's story. And because unlike all of the other characters, he's such a huge crucial part of the plot (and he has a very good vs. evil mindset), his opinions and the opinions of his writers seem to leach into the writing more.

OMG, Mordin's mission was awesome, and yes, I agree. It was really, really interesting, with no real "right or wrong". Mostly just "well, there wasn't a good choice, and you probably took the best one, despite that it was pretty damned evil". (Then again, I love Mordin, so tend to back him no matter what. I am still somewhat saddened that he rejected my advances.)

But, yeah, there really isn't anything comparable in DA:O. In large part in that you can make up for most of the less pragmatic choices by just gaining a level. I mean, if they made the game virtually impossible to beat without sacrificing the elves/gaining the golems, they'd be far more popular choices, I think...

Alistair really is very central to the game, to the point where I almost wonder whether the game wouldn't have been better off taking the warden from us and just giving us Alistair instead to control. (Although then we would have missed Alistair/Morrigan bickering. Awwww...)

It seems to me that this moral ambiguity is in keeping with the theme that "Wardens do what has to be done. Stop the blight by any means necessary." Allowing the player to make "good" choices and "evil" choices without more repercussions than the gain or loss of approval from one's companions means that the player can play her/his PC in the way that seems best for that particular character. Doing away with an alignment system actually frees up more role-playing options, in my mind. For example, your PC might kill Connor because abominations scare her spitless or because he isn't willing to allow an abominations free reign over the village while he goes to the Tower. Your PC is equally free to avoid killing Connor because he's a child or because you believe there should be another way to deal with abominations in general. Here, you could choose the "good" option and save both Connor and Isolde while later choosing an "evil" option in dealing with the conflict between the werewolves and the Dalish. Perhaps you kill the werewolves because they're too dangerous to keep living and spreading their curse, or perhaps you lead the werewolves in a slaughter of the Dalish because Zathrian, the slimy bastard, tried to manipulate you into doing his dirty work for him.

Of course, some of the decisions you must make are really quite difficult, especially if you're playing through for the first time or deliberately trying not to metagame. I find this difficulty very appealing as it's much like what happens in life in that it isn't always easy to see the "right" course of action.

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Random DA things

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