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I have yet to play DAO on my PS3, as my three original saves (evil mage, puckish rogue dwarven commoner and Alistair's city elf girlfriend) died with my 360. I'm not sure I had it in me to invest another fifty hours into another DAO playthrough to have anything for Inquisition. Still, this thread is giving me the itch, and I never did finish Awakenings... But to have a complete save I'd also have to buy and actually play DA2 again 
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Oct 29, 2013 22:52
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Wolfsheim posted:I have yet to play DAO on my PS3, as my three original saves (evil mage, puckish rogue dwarven commoner and Alistair's city elf girlfriend) died with my 360. I'm not sure I had it in me to invest another fifty hours into another DAO playthrough to have anything for Inquisition. Still, this thread is giving me the itch, and I never did finish Awakenings... Awakening isn't too bad aside from being as buggy as all hell, it's probably best to follow a guide so you don't unintentionally wreck something. You'll especially love certain banters between Justice and Anders as well as certain conversations between the warden-commander and Justice, given the events of DA2. 
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Oct 29, 2013 23:17
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DrakePegasus posted:I hope the Keep can recreate my own min maxed Origin ending, with hardened Alistair shutting up and being a figurehead for Anora as Logain gets shipped to Orlais. I'm not sure what I'll put down for Hawke yet. All I'm sure of is that I'm jumping ship to Playstation forever. It's probably too much to hope for, but I would readily accept an "Uh, he died... yeah" option for everything and anything regarding Hawke. Considering how none of the decisions you made had a real effect on the outcome of DA2's story.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:29
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illrepute posted:It's probably too much to hope for, but I would readily accept an "Uh, he died... yeah" option for everything and anything regarding Hawke. Considering how none of the decisions you made had a real effect on the outcome of DA2's story. Hawke is the protagonist I'd be least annoyed by Bioware skating over. Anders, Isabela, and Varric are the only DAII characters that did anything important that wouldn't have happened the exact same way without them. Everybody else could have been eaten alive by darkspawn and the story would probably have been better for it.
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Oct 30, 2013 02:39
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HenessyHero posted:There are a few questionable decisions that I've made that I want to see played out, like killing the Architect How is that questionable? Fighting to save the horrible plague beasts that kill or mutate every living thing around them just by existing, can only reproduce by kidnapping and gangraping women until they mutate into horrible monsters and literally came into being because God decided "You know what? gently caress all you guys, I'm out" is not the right decision. Hell, the first time you meet him he kidnaps you, strips you naked, steals your blood and then says that he wants to be your friend. This is not the basis of a good relationship.
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Oct 30, 2013 04:04
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Also take into consideration that he had no idea how you would react under any circumstance. Still not the wises idea, but somewhat understandable given the context.
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Oct 30, 2013 04:24
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Doublehex posted:Also take into consideration that he had no idea how you would react under any circumstance. Still not the wises idea, but somewhat understandable given the context. The novels show him to be doing his thing well before Alastair was born. If he hasn't picked up on the fact that people don't like it when you steal their blood in the last thirty years, he's never going to.
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Oct 30, 2013 04:49
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Going by the Architect's words, he was born with a completely free, adult mind but with no pre-existing context for morality. He observed that Wardens harvest darkspawn blood for the joining ritual so he assumed a little fluid swapping between pals was an okay thing to do since he otherwise has very little contact with outsiders. If you call him out on the blood thieving he's like 'okay, I guess I'll know that now.' In the end, his stated ambitions are to free all darkspawn from the group mind/intrinsic impulse that he was born without, since apparently freed darkspawn are just as sapient as the other races, and this will end the cycle of blights. The DA:A epilogue goes on to state he does manage to get the darkspawn to lay off the dwarves/deep roads as a big win and, in general, issues with the darkspawn become a lot less frequent if you side with him. If you kill him, the epilogue all but lambastes you for maintaining the crappy status quo and thus ensuring a future blight. Then again, this is the same epilogue that has Anders happily remaining a grey warden for years afterwards, training new mage recruits, giving lectures on the Architect and eventually finding a lasting home/companionship with the order. For the events of DA:A and DA2 to occur, Anders has to bail out like yesterday, keeping in mind DA:O takes place over a year, DA:A takes place ~3-6 months after, and Anders in DA2 is already established in Kirkwall one year after Lothering.
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Oct 30, 2013 05:11
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HenessyHero posted:his stated ambitions are to free all darkspawn from the group mind/intrinsic impulse that he was born without, since apparently freed darkspawn are just as sapient as the other races, and this will end the cycle of blights. Okay, sure he's got good intentions, I agree. But when you look at his track record you've got, in the wins column, a bunch of people that make Oghren look like an intellectual, are almost as aggressive toward normal people as regular darkspawn are and are still spreading the taint. In the losses column, we have The Mother and the Fifth Blight. And that's just what we know about. So he's got good intentions, but they aren't buying him any sympathy. At best he's child playing with a live nuke that's already gone off twice. He needs to be put down for everyone's safety.
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Oct 30, 2013 05:23
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HenessyHero posted:Then again, this is the same epilogue that has Anders happily remaining a grey warden for years afterwards, training new mage recruits, giving lectures on the Architect and eventually finding a lasting home/companionship with the order. For the events of DA:A and DA2 to occur, Anders has to bail out like yesterday, keeping in mind DA:O takes place over a year, DA:A takes place ~3-6 months after, and Anders in DA2 is already established in Kirkwall one year after Lothering. Maybe Inquisition will reveal to us that the Anders of DA:O and DA2 are not the same person.  In a ploy to further distance themselves from the previous game's writers, BioWare rewrites OFFICIAL CANON yet again and makes the other Anders some identity stealing nutjob Abomination.
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Oct 30, 2013 07:07
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Stroth posted:Okay, sure he's got good intentions, I agree. But when you look at his track record you've got, in the wins column, a bunch of people that make Oghren look like an intellectual, are almost as aggressive toward normal people as regular darkspawn are and are still spreading the taint. In the losses column, we have The Mother and the Fifth Blight. And that's just what we know about. So he's got good intentions, but they aren't buying him any sympathy. At best he's child playing with a live nuke that's already gone off twice. He needs to be put down for everyone's safety. Also according to the wiki when he is first introduced in the novels his original plan for peace is to spread the taint to everyone in Thedas, which would kill lots and lots of people and horribly mutate the rest, though it's not really clear if this is still his plan by the time Awakening happens.
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Oct 30, 2013 09:28
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DotyManX posted:Also according to the wiki when he is first introduced in the novels his original plan for peace is to spread the taint to everyone in Thedas, which would kill lots and lots of people and horribly mutate the rest, though it's not really clear if this is still his plan by the time Awakening happens. He seems to have shifted his plan to severing the darkspawn from the call of the Old Gods. The first time he tried this, he went for broke and tried to give an Old God his reverse Joininging to cut the control off at the source. Unfortunately, any amount of Taint immediately mutates an OG into an Archdemon, so he ended up starting the Fifth Blight by mistake. By Awakening, he's just trying it on a smaller scale by freeing individual darkspawn (and screwing that up, of course). Even the ones that did succeed in creating benevolent darkspawn still resulted in a plague carrying do-gooder. The Architect has good intentions and is a potential resource, but he has a bad habit of ruining everything he touches by his very nature as a darkspawn. Still, the status quo is so bad that I let him live anyway because his knowledge and ability to turn the darkspawn against each other is useful.
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Oct 30, 2013 11:59
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Crabtree posted:Maybe Inquisition will reveal to us that the Anders of DA:O and DA2 are not the same person. I support this idea.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:12
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Leelee posted:If the Dragon Age Keep announced, what story do people plan on importing over to DA:I? You've got it all wrong! You've got to go for the darkest, sexiest, best playthrough. And there's nothing darker, sexier or better than rampant oppression, murder and corruption. Cousland King, Anora Queen. Loghain survives. Alistair exiled. Take Leliana as consort, because why not? Anvil kept, Bhelen King. Mages - annulled. Werewolves slaughter the elves. Ashes defiled. Old God Baby. Shale - dead. Wynne - dead. Zevran - dead. Avernus - sacrificing Wardens. Amaranthine - burnt to the ground. Architect - alive. Then in DA2: Ally with the Templars at every opportunity and kill everyone killable. Simultaneously the most metal and best possible conclusion.
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Oct 30, 2013 19:41
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Geostomp posted:He seems to have shifted his plan to severing the darkspawn from the call of the Old Gods. The first time he tried this, he went for broke and tried to give an Old God his reverse Joininging to cut the control off at the source. Unfortunately, any amount of Taint immediately mutates an OG into an Archdemon, so he ended up starting the Fifth Blight by mistake. I wonder if that ended up working out in the end, an old god being woken up prematurely I mean. Normally blights are continent encompassing events involving hoards and hoards of darkspawn that last at least a decade and usually result in enormous deathtolls and the political redrawing of maps. Sometimes large swaths of land are permanently lost to corruption. The fifth blight lasted like a year and barely seemed to affect Ferelden beyond the hinterlands. Political turmoil seemed to do more harm than the archdemon did.
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Oct 31, 2013 01:48
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Speaking of Blights, if they do another in this series, it needs to be a proper Blight like you just described, one that last for a decade or more. Let the players end the Blight, sure, but only after the damage has been done. Perhaps even have a playable post-game where you travel the lands helping to redraw those political maps. That could actually be a premise for an OG Baby game. You could play the Old God baby or recruit him/her, and then you can "save" the archdemon's from Grey Warden death. Possibly even make them a companion, too, if the time scale is long enough or the plot magic strong enough. Now you've got the Adam and Eve of Old Gods running around! It'll be wonderfully terrible.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:41
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CottonWolf posted:You've got it all wrong! You've got to go for the darkest, sexiest, best playthrough. And there's nothing darker, sexier or better than rampant oppression, murder and corruption. I almost want to buy DA2 to do this. I think you have to harden Leliana if you want to have her not revolt when defiling the Ashes, right?
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Oct 31, 2013 06:37
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monster on a stick posted:I almost want to buy DA2 to do this. I think you have to harden Leliana if you want to have her not revolt when defiling the Ashes, right? She and Wynne defect no matter what, if they're in the party when you do it.
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Oct 31, 2013 07:05
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I always felt that New Vegas and to a lesser extent, Fallout 3, by two companies not known for CHOICE™ to have done far superior versions of what Bioware always sets out to do. The romances are infinitely more interesting in New Vegas what with Cass and Arcade and Veronica. The companions aren't complete turds. Boone was such a bro.
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Oct 31, 2013 07:43
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Penakoto posted:She and Wynne defect no matter what, if they're in the party when you do it. And I think at least Leliana will go bonkers back at camp even if she's not in the party? Actually I think the way to do it is get max approval with Leliana and not have recruited Wynne yet or something. It's doable.
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Oct 31, 2013 07:45
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jerichojx posted:I always felt that New Vegas and to a lesser extent, Fallout 3, by two companies not known for CHOICE™ to have done far superior versions of what Bioware always sets out to do. You have to learn about the person in depth before they get to the point where the idea of emotional/romantic connection is even possible and then its more dialogue exploring the idea. Bioware is 3 cutscenes, chose sex partner, sex scene.
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Oct 31, 2013 07:50
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Oh yeah, even brooding bad boy Boone needed quite a bit of probing and time spent together before he talked about his past. And it was worth it. Arcade did not look like the kind of guy who would turn out to be who he was but it was believable. Veronica was close to giggle-squee AND also voiced by Felicia Day and I thought Veronica was one of the deeper characters in the game. And of course, you can team up with ZOMBIE COWBOY DANNY TREJO  I think I need to go play some New Vegas now. jerichojx fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 07:56
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pentyne posted:You have to learn about the person in depth before they get to the point where the idea of emotional/romantic connection is even possible and then its more dialogue exploring the idea. This is a bit unfair to Bioware. You have a long time to spend with each companion to get to know them before the option of having sex with them comes up. Except for canonically "easy" characters like Zevran or Isabella. You can just leave your party members at the base and only do the required dialogues to get to their sex scene, but that is your choice. You can also take them on every mission and thus establish a fairly robust connection.
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Oct 31, 2013 10:25
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CottonWolf posted:You've got it all wrong! You've got to go for the darkest, sexiest, best playthrough. And there's nothing darker, sexier or better than rampant oppression, murder and corruption. But Ma, I don't *wanna* be darker, edgier and sexier! Wait...you can kill Shale?
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Oct 31, 2013 16:10
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Leelee posted:But Ma, I don't *wanna* be darker, edgier and sexier! If you bring her with you when you side with Branka at the anvil, yeah.
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Oct 31, 2013 16:13
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Torrannor posted:This is a bit unfair to Bioware. You have a long time to spend with each companion to get to know them before the option of having sex with them comes up. Except for canonically "easy" characters like Zevran or Isabella. You can just leave your party members at the base and only do the required dialogues to get to their sex scene, but that is your choice. You can also take them on every mission and thus establish a fairly robust connection. I had sex with Morrigan once before I got to Lothering. Then I dumped her for Leliana. DA:O was really bad in that you could just gift your way into a romance.
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Oct 31, 2013 16:39
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jerichojx posted:I always felt that New Vegas and to a lesser extent, Fallout 3, by two companies not known for CHOICE™ to have done far superior versions of what Bioware always sets out to do. So given that all your examples are from NV, what you mean is "Obsidian rules." Sure, I can go with that. 
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Oct 31, 2013 16:45
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jerichojx posted:I always felt that New Vegas and to a lesser extent, Fallout 3, by two companies not known for CHOICE™ to have done far superior versions of what Bioware always sets out to do. In what way are Obsidian not known for putting choices in things? They're the bleedin' Alpha Protocol guys.
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Oct 31, 2013 16:55
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caleramaen posted:I had sex with Morrigan once before I got to Lothering. Then I dumped her for Leliana. DA:O was really bad in that you could just gift your way into a romance. Having sex with Morrigan is not you actually being in a relationship with her, it's just casual until you convince her to actually start a relationship. 
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Oct 31, 2013 17:48
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epitasis posted:And I think at least Leliana will go bonkers back at camp even if she's not in the party?
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Oct 31, 2013 17:56
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I really didn't like the New Vegas companions, I spent a lot of time lugging around Arcade and Boone, but for most of the game they just have the same conversation tree every time you talk to them, with maybe one change after a certain trigger. They don't react to most events in the world except for a few quest-specific ones, they don't interact with characters that aren't the PC, it just feels very sterile and kind of boring. A good RPG companion system makes you feel rewarded for spending time with the characters you like, and makes bringing them on adventures a way of signposting that you want to see them interact with each other and the world around them. I don't feel like NV really does that, or at least not nearly frequently enough. Most of the time they're just pack mules who snipe molerats for you while you run back to Novac.
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Oct 31, 2013 17:57
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GhostBoy posted:Or lie. Lying to her about what happened to the ashes works too. If you wanna be nice, you can bring her a small sample of the ashes from before you soil them, I think. For all the companions it goes that as long as you don't bring them along to <plot event they care about> they need never be none the wiser. Wynne is in some respects the worst offender, since if you have Morrigan along when you first meet, a seemingly innocent (if a bit rude) comment will make her flip out and try to kill you. Yep, that was Wynne in my first playthrough- I told Morrigan "oh, you could have been one of them", and que Wynne attacking. I saw a playthrough where if you don't get naked for the last trial for the Sacred Urn quest, the Guardian attacks you. So you can kill the Guardian AND defile the ashes. Bioware- punishes you for not getting naked (or in your underwear).
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Oct 31, 2013 17:59
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CottonWolf posted:You've got it all wrong! You've got to go for the darkest, sexiest, best playthrough. And there's nothing darker, sexier or better than rampant oppression, murder and corruption. Except Bhelen as king and Old God baby are the actual best decisions? The first one saves the dwarves from their own terribly oppressive society, the second lets you avoid sacrificing yourself or Alistair for no reason. It makes sense for Logain to do it (I mean, he straight up wants to) but an ending where you've told Alistair to gently caress off is already not ideal. Also, was Avernus the guy from the Warden's Keep DLC who was performing crazy Nazi experiments? If so, it's kinda moot whether you kill him or not. It's not like he's still killing people, the damage is done, and anything to better understand and benefit from the already insane "drink this tainted blood and hope it doesn't kill you, and then you can be a Grey Warden for the thirty years you have left before insanity or death!" Joining process. EDIT: and as long as we're talking about Nazis, isn't siding with the Templars in DA2 proven to retroactively be the best choice? I mean, they may be brutal authoritarians and all, but they're not exactly wrong when they say that every mage in Kirkwall is secretly an insane blood-fueled abomination psychopath. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 18:15
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caleramaen posted:I had sex with Morrigan once before I got to Lothering. Then I dumped her for Leliana. DA:O was really bad in that you could just gift your way into a romance. Morrigan and Zevran are 'easy' and aren't really in a relationship with you until later. The option to express interest in Lelianna or for her to do the same doesn't come up until a few conversations in, needs high approval and won't progress much beyond that until you do her personal quest in Denerim, that'll require a specific conversation and a triggered random event. Pretty much the same goes for Alistair. In the end I think the DA:O team admitted that they shouldn't have let the player have the option to exhaust almost all available conversations in the first night at camp; it was thought that anytime the npc ended the conversation the player would wait until next camp instead of just reinitiating until all options were gone. Isabella is technically no easier than anyone else since you can't initiate romances in DA2 until Act 2, which takes place a year or two after Act 1. IIRC DA2 won't even award you the achievement for the romance until the finale of Act 3, when the NPC gives the romance flavored version of the 'let's go get 'em' conversation you have with all your companions before taking on the last two bosses. The idea being that only if you managed to stay together the whole time and through whatever obstacles there were, were you really in a relationship.
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Oct 31, 2013 18:23
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Wolfsheim posted:Except Bhelen as king and Old God baby are the actual best decisions? The first one saves the dwarves from their own terribly oppressive society, the second lets you avoid sacrificing yourself or Alistair for no reason. It makes sense for Logain to do it (I mean, he straight up wants to) but an ending where you've told Alistair to gently caress off is already not ideal. Those are largely perspective choices. Is a benevolent dictatorship better than a pseudo-democratic oppressive state? And besides, whatever you do, the dwarves get screwed if you saved the anvil. And who the hell knows whether allowing a reincarnated old god to run about the place is a good idea or not? It could go either way.
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Oct 31, 2013 18:34
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HenessyHero posted:The option to express interest in Lelianna or for her to do the same doesn't come up until a few conversations in, needs high approval and won't progress much beyond that until you do her personal quest in Denerim, that'll require a specific conversation and a triggered random event. I remember Lelianna seeming to hit on my warden out of the blue. I hadn't even tried to romance her up until that point. I could have sworn it was fairly early in the game, too.
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Oct 31, 2013 20:08
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Bored posted:I remember Lelianna seeming to hit on my warden out of the blue. I hadn't even tried to romance her up until that point. I could have sworn it was fairly early in the game, too. She'll hit on you first if your warden is a lady, you cleared out the early dialogues and have decent approval. You won't progress, however, beyond flirtation until later. A little flirtation isn't exactly a relationship though.
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Oct 31, 2013 20:27
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Bored posted:I remember Lelianna seeming to hit on my warden out of the blue. I hadn't even tried to romance her up until that point. I could have sworn it was fairly early in the game, too. Leliana would sometimes "stealth" romance the player. If you picked a certain conversation option she would become interested in the Warden without actually saying anything about it. So you''d get the surprise later of Leliana acting like you were in a relationship. While the devs were developing DA2 they said they were trying to avoid this in the future. Given how Merill came to my house saying "there is something between us" when my sarcastic Hawke flirted with her once as a joke, it looks like they failed.
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Oct 31, 2013 20:29
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Well there's only so much they can do, but I suppose logging multiple flirt flags would be an improvement. That way you don't just flirt the one time, you send the signal "Yes this is definitely something I want to do" two, three, four times, so there's no excuse for just a "Relationship? [on/off]" switch. You could also have multiple "broken heart" flags. So the character can have a Relationship Data of "0, 1, 0, 1" in its memory and then you have an LI screaming "I don't understand why you're jerking me around with your mixed signals! What do you want from me!? YOU'RE TEARING ME APART!"
marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 20:34
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I'm Crap posted:In what way are Obsidian not known for putting choices in things? They're the bleedin' Alpha Protocol guys. Except that Obsidian doesn't market their games as YOUR CHOICES MATTER AND YOU SHAPE YOUR DESTINY, the way Bioware does. They have choices sure, and they are downright inspired at times (like AP or New Vegas), but those aren't their big marketing points.
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