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KittyEmpress posted:It feels like half the world was written before they decided that mages should be a risky thing. So it turns out that if you don't lock people in a prison from childhood and teach them every day that they're eventually going to turn into monsters and kill everyone, then they're less likely to turn into monsters and kill everyone. Who knew?
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Apr 21, 2014 21:47
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Stroth posted:So it turns out that if you don't lock people in a prison from childhood and teach them every day that they're eventually going to turn into monsters and kill everyone, then they're less likely to turn into monsters and kill everyone. Who knew? But I mean look at Meredith's sister! Clearly her sister going crazy and killing everyone was justification that every mage in freedom will do so!! i mean, I understand that that's what it seems like (that freedom, hey, is better than sticking people in cages) but I don't think it was intentional. I honestly think Bioware wanted to portray mages as almost always being a ticking time bomb, and then just forgot when writing other nations.
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Apr 21, 2014 21:49
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Stroth posted:Prussia is the usual guess. Also, Nevarra's big thing since the dragons basically went extinct is state sanctioned necromancers. And mummies. Nevarra IIRC is usually described as the largest of the states in the Free Marches so the comparison to Prussia fits.
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Apr 21, 2014 21:50
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KittyEmpress posted:One of the strangest things, in my opinion, about Dragon Age is how all these different magical disciplines exist that never really have actual issues, compared to what we see in game where the Circle of Magi's 'traditions' constantly lead to blood magic and death. Rivainni literally lets people be possessed, Nevarra has court mages, Tevinter openly uses blood magic and are generally not abominations, the Dalish all have their keepers. Barely any of these go badly (Tevinter technically works - it's just an oppressive deadly state, their magic doesn't cause the issue) I guess they want to display that the Circle system really creates most of its own problems, but they sabotage that so we can constantly have blood mages and demons to fight. It worked well enough in the first game since it was that one incident and some random thugs. It wasn't until DAII happened where it seemed like every mage just couldn't get enough of cutting themselves for power. It was just a lazy way to hammer in the "mages actually are dangerous" point without bothering to add any nuance or even remember the other powers mages have (a pre-teen who just randomly learned to throw fire without any control is dangerous enough without any demons). All this so we won't immediately reject the templars (which most players still did anyway). So what I'm saying is, I blame DAII for a narrative problem. Stroth posted:So it turns out that if you don't lock people in a prison from childhood and teach them every day that they're eventually going to turn into monsters and kill everyone, then they're less likely to turn into monsters and kill everyone. Who knew? This too, but, again, DAII failed to show that point by making everyone crazy out of convenience. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 21:52
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KittyEmpress posted:One of the strangest things, in my opinion, about Dragon Age is how all these different magical disciplines exist that never really have actual issues, compared to what we see in game where the Circle of Magi's 'traditions' constantly lead to blood magic and death. Rivainni literally lets people be possessed, Nevarra has court mages, Tevinter openly uses blood magic and are generally not abominations, the Dalish all have their keepers. Barely any of these go badly (Tevinter technically works - it's just an oppressive deadly state, their magic doesn't cause the issue) I don't know about that. Tevinter is a deadly oppressive state because of magic. There wouldn't be such problems if they couldn't mind control huge swathes of the population then sacrifice them en masse for power. When you have that system without everyone being mages you just get Orlais. Every Dalish clan that has been featured in the games and, as far as I can think of, the novels too, has been screwed over by their mages summoning demons. I think they've been relatively consistent in portraying having unmanaged mages as generally ending in tears.
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Apr 21, 2014 21:57
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Geostomp posted:It wasn't until DAII happened where it seemed like every mage just couldn't get enough of cutting themselves for power. It was just a lazy way to hammer in the "mages actually are dangerous" point without bothering to add any nuance or even remember the other powers mages have (a pre-teen who just randomly learned to throw fire without any control is dangerous enough without any demons). All this so we won't immediately reject the templars (which most players still did anyway). Yeah, you'd think they could have thrown in a couple of "Little Timmy gets bullied every day by the boy across the street, and last night he learned he could fart lightning if he concentrated really hard. I wonder if he'll learn to use his powers responsibly!" scenarios.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:00
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KittyEmpress posted:One of the strangest things, in my opinion, about Dragon Age is how all these different magical disciplines exist that never really have actual issues, compared to what we see in game where the Circle of Magi's 'traditions' constantly lead to blood magic and death. Rivainni literally lets people be possessed, Nevarra has court mages, Tevinter openly uses blood magic and are generally not abominations, the Dalish all have their keepers. Barely any of these go badly (Tevinter technically works - it's just an oppressive deadly state, their magic doesn't cause the issue) Well, we've seen that the Dalish are far from safe from corruption with Merrill. Conceivably, the Dalish system of a keeper and their apprentice works because Dalish communities are extremely small and open, mage population is low (perhaps one to three mages in a clan), so there isn't the same potential for crime, exploitation, and mages who slip through the cracks that there is in a larger population or a more urban environment. A good keeper can reasonably keep track of their one or two apprentices, but the same system wouldn't work in a population that had hundreds of mages, and even with the Dalish, keeper or apprentice sometimes go off the rails and get people killed, as with Merrill. e: or the Keeper from the Dalish clan in Origins! Tevinter answers itself; the place is hideously awful for most of the population, and treating with demons isn't nearly as frowned upon, to the point where mass blood sacrifice to appease or gratify demons is common. The word "abomination" probably doesn't equate exactly to what the Tevinters call people possessed by demons, given they consider demons useful tools and allies. The fact that Tevinter is ruled by mages is directly related to how horrible it is to live there: the mass blood sacrifice exists to fuel powerful magic, while the endemic tyranny is a result of a caste of rulers who are consumed with hubris, near-impossible to revolt against, and treat with demons regularly. Slavery is considered acceptable in Tevinter because it's logistically useful to have a chattel class who can be put to the knife for blood magic without the rest of society destabilising. Rivain and Nevarra I don't know about, but Wynne was possessed by a spirit and seemed the better for it, and even Anders was relatively stable for a while. I imagine Wynne shows the possible good outcome of that approach, while Anders indicates the danger of it. Magic is never safe. Android Blues fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 22:03
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The Tevinter Imperium is a horrible place, but at the same time it's super competent, which is what I'm referring to when I mention that it's 'not a big problem' - they sometimes force demons to inhabit people to use as soldiers, but magi are taught how to shield their mind, how to manipulate demons, how to immunize themselves to the proto-mind control that demons possess (and display in the fade dreamer's quest in DA2). They're still horrible people using blood magic on massive scales and treating non-mages like dirt, but they're at the same time more resistant to possession than the 'nice' mages in the Circle. The same with the Dalish - they're not immune to being coerced, and they do summon demons, but I don't recall any that are outright abominations, even the Keeper in DA:O just summoned a demon/spirit into the real world, he wasn't possessed by it. Yet the Chantry and the Circle of Magi and the games themselves really try to hammer home the idea that 'everyone is going to be possessed eventually'. Rivain is neat because they're one of the only nations that understands that good spirits exist - these spirits explicitly have relations with the nation, and their seers will fuse with spirits of Hope, Valor, and yes even Justice. This of course causes the Chantry to consider staging an exalted march, because it doesn't follow what THEY want done to mages. Edit: I mean, it feels like the game was originally written with mages just being a case of 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' and then that was abandoned partway through for explicit "NAH DEMONS CORRUPT THEM ALL" being the narrative. But they didn't update that for any of the nations we don't see.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:11
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Generic American posted:Structurally, the Witcher 2 is a pretty great game, yeah. But by far, it's greatest sin is casting " My problems with it weren't really from a mechanical standpoint so much as I just could not connect with it no matter how many times I tried. I played the first couple hours of it and I can barely even remember any of the characters in spite of multiple attempts to play through it simply because I found the setting so dull, the characters unmemorable and unsympathetic, and the dialogue and soundtrack sound like they were trying so hard to be edgy and dark that it became a parody of itself. Couple that with the fact that the PC version is really badly optimized and I just couldn't do it.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:11
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" Geralt as the lead-character. Christ alive, I found Hawke more sympathetic as a character than him, and when the game constantly orbits such a wooden character, it drags the overall impression down quite a few notches for me on presentation alone.
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KittyEmpress posted:It feels like half the world was written before they decided that mages should be a risky thing. My very vague recollection of the DA worldbuilding the devs were doing way back before ME's release (and when TheDAS was capitalised like that because it was just The Dragon Age Setting) didn't have the mages being any more inherently dangerous than anyone who can throw lightning at will. But that alone was enough for them to be feared and they tended to hole themselves up in towers on their lonesome away from urban areas. People, especially the peasants, didn't have a clue what magic really meant and were poo poo scared of the crazy dude with powers they knew nothing about and couldn't do anything about. Maybe they'd desperately seek them out for healing if they absolutely had to but that was it. The fact that there was one mage in a tower rather than the dozens or hundreds in the eventual DA world showcases how much higher magic the world ended up. Religion is the other big change I remember. It was meant to be much more uncertain, with the vast majority of random people on the fence about whether there was a god or not at all. Instead we ended up with fantasy Catholicism in terms of reach and pervasiveness, except that the French have the 'real' pope and the Roman Empire remnants have the antipope. E: Andrasteism seems like the common thread here, now I think about it. You assume that when it came into the setting, so did the Templars. And they mean more mages, mages grouped together and controlled, demonic possession risk, all that. Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 22:17
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It probably doesn't help that in the places we've seen, everything that isn't locked away in a Circle is immediately labeled as blood magic and destroyed. One of the only good things Morrigan brought to Origins is the idea that there were older or different kinds of magic that have been trampled over the years by the church to the point that most mages don't really have that much creativity or idea how to get power other than to rely on their own blood or consorting with demons. It'd be great if we had more examples in this game at what other ways magic can exist other than BLOOD AND DEMONS.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:20
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Crabtree posted:It probably doesn't help that in the places we've seen, everything that isn't locked away in a Circle is immediately labeled as blood magic and destroyed. One of the only good things Morrigan brought to Origins is the idea that there were older or different kinds of magic that have been trampled over the years by the church to the point that most mages don't really have that much creativity or idea how to get power other than to rely on their own blood or consorting with demons. It'd be great if we had more examples in this game at what other ways magic can exist other than BLOOD AND DEMONS. I felt the same with Wynne - she was one of the most interesting characters to me because despite being the nicest character and teaching you about how to contact good spirits and stuff, she admits that the Chantry and Circle would view it as just another form of blood magic, and would likely kill her if they knew. Arcane Warrior was the same way actually - an ancient elven tradition that the Circle didn't ever know could exist, because they're so forced into learning specific traditions, instead of having a wider variety. You also learn it from an ancient tablet spirit things IIRC?
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Apr 21, 2014 22:24
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Crabtree posted:It probably doesn't help that in the places we've seen, everything that isn't locked away in a Circle is immediately labeled as blood magic and destroyed. One of the only good things Morrigan brought to Origins is the idea that there were older or different kinds of magic that have been trampled over the years by the church to the point that most mages don't really have that much creativity or idea how to get power other than to rely on their own blood or consorting with demons. It'd be great if we had more examples in this game at what other ways magic can exist other than BLOOD AND DEMONS. Arcane Warrior showed that as well, being (arguably) the most broken mage specialization around that was completely unknown, even to the elves, since the fall of Arlathan. It grants the wielder super-strength and even the ability to partially enter the Fade at will. Things that the Chantry thinks are impossible without blood magic. It showed that the world, and magic itself, are far bigger than the Chantry's edited history likes to believe. We don't even need to get into why the Chantry wouldn't like Shapeshifting getting around to make holding and tracking mages impossible. Honestly, that does kind of explain why so many Circle mages turn to blood magic and demons: the Chantry's hand-picked spell schools are so stifled that they look to the easy road of forbidden whispers from beyond for power because they genuinely don't know that better options exist. It also explains why so many look to Tevinter despite it being so ridiculously evil: it's all they understand of mages being free. edit: Beaten. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 22:26
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Fojar38 posted:My problems with it weren't really from a mechanical standpoint so much as I just could not connect with it no matter how many times I tried. I played the first couple hours of it and I can barely even remember any of the characters in spite of multiple attempts to play through it simply because I found the setting so dull, the characters unmemorable and unsympathetic, and the dialogue and soundtrack sound like they were trying so hard to be edgy and dark that it became a parody of itself. I get it, you're thinking of Dragon Age 2. The Witcher 2 is actually super good and fun
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Apr 21, 2014 22:30
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Geostomp posted:Arcane Warrior showed that as well, being (arguably) the most broken mage specialization around that was completely unknown, even to the elves, since the fall of Arlathan. It grants the wielder super-strength and even the ability to partially enter the Fade at will. Things that the Chantry thinks are impossible without blood magic. It showed that the world, and magic itself, are far bigger than the Chantry's edited history likes to believe. We don't even need to get into why the Chantry wouldn't like Shapeshifting getting around to make holding and tracking mages impossible. Yeah, what you and KittyEmpress brought up about Arcane Warrior certainly make a damning argument for at least that specialization come back in some form, especially with the potential cover art we saw looking like the Inquisitor is either siphoning or attacking the Fade with some sort of strange green energy. It'd be sweet if every time you ventured into and interacted with a tear, you absorbed some of the Fade into you and gained access to powers only the Inquisitor could use depending on what choices or actions you made.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:51
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Speaking of Arcane Warriors and information hanging around way before DA's release.quote:There is also a class for mages to move into that allows them to become more of a fighting spellslinger, sort of, but I wouldn't call it a classic fighter/mage as in someone who casts spells AND uses weapons AND wears armor. The "tank mage" scenario is never a good idea.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:57
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Speaking of Arcane Warriors and information hanging around way before DA's release.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:03
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Alouicious posted:I get it, you're thinking of Dragon Age 2. Like I said, I just couldn't connect with The Witcher. I guess it's just not my cup of tea.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:08
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I'd be very okay with it if it was a very kinetic and mobile spell slinger. Like they could still fight with a one handed blade while they're powering up a spell, move up right next to a target and buckshot their face full of lightning at point blank. Then if poo poo gets too real, they can move very fast to get back some healing or mana up before they flip right back into the fray - like a mage thief or assassin.
Crabtree fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 23:10
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Crabtree posted:I'd be very okay with it if it was a very kinetic and mobile spell slinger. Like they could still fight with a one handed blade while they're powering up a spell, move up right next to a target and buckshot their face full of lightning at point blank. Then if poo poo gets too real, they can move very fast to get back some healing or mana up before they flip right back into the fray - like a mage thief or assassin. I could see them depending on protective spells instead of physical armor for a character that's more defensive than a squishy mage, but more agile than a heavy fighter. Though that could make their spellcasting useless if not done properly.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:29
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Cross-Section posted:And here's some boxart: I keep seeing the sword as a guitar. And "Pinball Wizard" and Queen's "Flash Gordon" are alternating through my head. Might be because I just woke up and am not making a lot of sense right now, though.
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Apr 21, 2014 23:37
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Geostomp posted:I could see them depending on protective spells instead of physical armor for a character that's more defensive than a squishy mage, but more agile than a heavy fighter. Though that could make their spellcasting useless if not done properly. That's why you always bring in a good warrior to be your backup aggro buddy, like Iron Bull. And this isn't even considering what other perks can be involved in this class, like every hit generating mana back into your pool or if you can magic up arrows to chain spell shot. Built for quick and satisfying final attacks, but designed for on the fly edits and escapes to rethink your strategy. "You bring the thunder and I bring the lightning!"   
Crabtree fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 23:38
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Cross-Section posted:And here's some boxart: Man I'm incredibly dense. I kept looking at this wondering where the gently caress the dragon is that you all kept mentioning. I kept looking but couldn't see it at all. Then I realized the green crap I thought was the background is actually a dragon shaped hadouken or something.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:10
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Is that reddish stuff by the feet on the ground supposed to be lava?
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Apr 22, 2014 04:13
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Drifter posted:Is that reddish stuff by the feet on the ground supposed to be lava? It's the light from the sword dude.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:14
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Roobanguy posted:It's the light from the sword dude. No it's not.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:17
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Drifter posted:Is that reddish stuff by the feet on the ground supposed to be lava? I think it is since you can see tiny veins of it all through the rock.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:18
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Drifter posted:No it's not. DrManiac posted:I think it is since you can see tiny veins of it all through the rock. I can kind of see it now, but that makes no sense. It looks like he's standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking water. 
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Apr 22, 2014 04:21
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Roobanguy posted:I can kind of see it now, but that makes no sense. It looks like he's standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking water. Blood magic lava.  If it were supposed to be sword light reflecting it would shine on the legs and body and ground differently.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:24
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Drifter posted:Is that reddish stuff by the feet on the ground supposed to be lava? Red lyrium.
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Apr 22, 2014 04:25
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I think it's meant to be like, power lines from the rock. Like 'this dragon fist thing is so strong, it melts the ground beneath her/him' or something??
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Apr 22, 2014 04:26
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Explosive diarrhea.
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Apr 22, 2014 05:50
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pentyne posted:Red lyrium. This seeks most likely. Especially as we know red lyrium will be back in some form.
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Apr 22, 2014 07:34
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CottonWolf posted:This seeks most likely. Especially as we know red lyrium will be back in some form.
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Apr 22, 2014 08:08
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If you wield a flamesword don't they show like little flecks of molten poo poo flying off of it if you're playing on a good PC or a next-gen console?
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Apr 22, 2014 08:11
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Roobanguy posted:It's the light from the sword dude. Haha.
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Apr 22, 2014 10:31
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Drifter posted:Blood magic lava. 
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Apr 22, 2014 12:16
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It's always loving blood magic. A mage farts in a wine cellar and the entire stock has obviously been blood magicked by the darkest sorcery. A holy mother stubs her toe on a rock and clearly blood magic manipulated the fates to put that small pebble in the way of her dumb fat foot. Inbreeding nobility conceive Quasimodo and it must have been both blood magic AND bonded with a demon by the elven maid that gave us lip last night as she served them dinner! Bioware tries to write a game but everyone has become hamfist abominations.
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Apr 22, 2014 12:45
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Internet Kraken posted:Man I'm incredibly dense. I kept looking at this wondering where the gently caress the dragon is that you all kept mentioning. I kept looking but couldn't see it at all. Then I realized the green crap I thought was the background is actually a dragon shaped hadouken or something. Don't feel bad, man; I didn't see it either. It's the FedEx arrow all over again; you overlook it until you don't and then you can't.
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Apr 22, 2014 13:10
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Internet Kraken posted:Man I'm incredibly dense. I kept looking at this wondering where the gently caress the dragon is that you all kept mentioning. I kept looking but couldn't see it at all. Then I realized the green crap I thought was the background is actually a dragon shaped hadouken or something. I didn't see it until I had a zoomed out iPhone photo in front of me. It's pretty subtle, honestly. Also, I think it's not some magic attack from the character. It's just the glow from the demon horde's Fade rip and the red lines on the ground are just a charred battlefield. Though, it is ambiguous enough to say it could be some special Inquisitor magic. Crabtree posted:It's always loving blood magic. A mage farts in a wine cellar and the entire stock has obviously been blood magicked by the darkest sorcery. A holy mother stubs her toe on a rock and clearly blood magic manipulated the fates to put that small pebble in the way of her dumb fat foot. Inbreeding nobility conceive Quasimodo and it must have been both blood magic AND bonded with a demon by the elven maid that gave us lip last night as she served them dinner! Bioware tries to write a game but everyone has become hamfist abominations. If DAII wasn't so lazy, they could have made the false accusations of blood magic a legitimate complaint for the Circle mages. If a templar suspects you of forbidden magic, you're basically dead. S/He doesn't need any proof or bother to run anything resembling due process, they just have to convince their superior officer you cut yourself and they can do whatever they want. It's not like the Chantry bothers with oversight until it's far too late. Unfortunately, they needed some templar sympathy and had a boss quota, so drat near every mage dabbles in blood magic to prove their point. As if the ability to shoot lighting, throw force blasts, or paralyze with a thought isn't enough for us to get the message that mages actually are dangerous (what happened to all that intense mental training and discipline the mages are supposed to have anyway?). Geostomp fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 13:41
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