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ghouldaddy07 posted:Gamers really are the worst. The absolute worst. Anyway, if Dragon Age 4 lets me murder Solas then I will be so happy because, seriously, gently caress Solas.
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Dec 9, 2018 01:56
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Pattonesque posted:he does try to lightly defend slavery at one point. Like Dorian a lot but had to call him out on that. His tacit support for slavery makes a lot of sense considering his upbringing. People raised in that kind of system internalize the rationalizations at a very early age and even if they're uncomfortable or outright opposed to what's happening they tend to fall back on those same rationalizations when pressed. Like, it is capital-B bad, but it's a very believable character flaw and the kind of thing you could see him coming around on once he's spent some time away from that system and gotten a chance to see how messed up it is from the outside.
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Dec 9, 2018 03:08
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eating only apples posted:I always feel uncomfortable posting in this thread bc of my avatar which I bought after i finished inquisition the first time in 2014 DAI is four years old at this point. We're well beyond the statute of limitations on spoilers. If a person cares that much about spoilers for any content that is more than a few months old, then the onus is on them to avoid that stuff.
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Dec 9, 2018 03:11
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Ginette Reno posted:I like baldy. He's a villain, but he's the sympathetic kind at least. I understand Solas' motivations, but I do not sympathize. Nobody should feel sorry for Solas. He is well written, but he is an awful, awful, awful person and the sooner he's dead the better off everyone else in that world will be. He is a patronizing, manipulative, and paternalistic bigot—and worse, self-aware about all of it. He whinges on about how much he regrets all the terrible things he's done and about all the mistakes he laments, but—BUT, he keeps right on doing horrible things with not a whit of introspection. He destroyed the world once, nearly destroyed it a second time, and is currently trying to destroy it again. All the while he is utterly convinced that this time, this time, he'll fix everything, his hubris won't bite him in the rear end, and that it will all be worth it no matter how many people die in the process. And that's without getting into all the bullshit he puts the PC through if they make the mistake of following his romance. gently caress. Solas. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Dec 9, 2018 |
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Dec 9, 2018 03:26
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Zane posted:if you really want to split hairs--i don't necessarily recommend it--medieval household slavery was a lot different from early modern plantation slavery. and being a feudal peasant was itself very close to slavery--somewhere between these two in relative autonomy--in the medieval europe of the vaguely equivalent period. Ferelden also doesn't have serfdom. Their lower class would roughly equate to the medieval freeman. Even for elves, I think, although in practical terms they clearly have zero protections or status.
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Dec 9, 2018 03:32
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Cythereal posted:Then Bioware chickened out and Bull's character collapsed in a puff of bad writing. Are you talking about when he turns on you in Inquisition? Cause that was great. As the player, if you favored forcing him back into the Qun, you can't really be pissed when he chooses his people over you since it's a replay of the exact same choice he made with the Chargers.
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Dec 9, 2018 03:36
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Cythereal posted:I'm talking about the Qunari becoming bad guys again in general, and the whole thing being framed as 'forcing' him back into the Qun. But they were never not framed that way. With how their system is set up there is no cultural bridge that leads to coexistence. Any alliances they make are purely a matter of survival or convenience, so it's weird to act surprised when they inevitably break deals the moment it's advantageous. eating only apples posted:It's very video game writing in general that there's a specific Good Choice between saving the lovable band of misfits or the random crew of a boat that you'll never meet, saving the Dreadnought was never going to be the good choice and I'm glad that a bad choice leads, eventually, to a bad outcome. Sure, it is a moral binary, but it's like binary choice #94034855 in a Bioware game, and I like that supporting the regressive authoritarian regime eventually bites the player in the rear end.
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Dec 9, 2018 03:50
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Cythereal posted:Again: I thought Bioware was going to make the interesting choice of changing what has been the status quo. Dragon Age is essentially Everyone is Awful Forever: A Prisoner's Dilemma Series. If you expect it to be anything else, then I'm afraid you done played yourself.
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Dec 9, 2018 03:59
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Cythereal posted:I don't expect it now. Another reason why I bought no Inquisition DLC and why I'm not optimistic about DA4. My expectation is that the next game will consist mostly of opposing Solas, but near the end A Very Bad Thing will happen. Then Solas will turn to you and say something like, “I know you must hate me for what I’ve done, but we have to work together now or everyone is doomed.” And then I will stab him.
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Dec 9, 2018 04:15
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Cythereal posted:I stab Morrigan every time I play Awakening, it has yet to accomplish anything two games later. Well, David Gaider is gone now, so maybe the next time you kill his waifu it’ll stick. To their credit, Bioware is very good at writing characters I hate. It makes me wish they'd drop the hackneyed Save The World stories, and do a revenge or crime narritive. Something like Dragon Age 2, but good. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Dec 9, 2018 |
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Dec 9, 2018 04:20
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chaosapiant posted:I also want to see a return/explanation of the Architect. They covered that in one of the books, didn't they? Like Corypheus, he's one of the magisters who entered the Golden City.
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Dec 9, 2018 05:30
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Ginette Reno posted:Of course the debate I guess is whether the world he created by doing that is better than the alternative. The point here, though, is whether Solas thinks it's better than the alternative. He clearly doesn't. I'm down with burning the world to end an institution of global slavery, but taking such an action comes with the explicit understanding that a lot of bad poo poo is gonna go down and that whatever emerges from the ashes might not be what you want. We also only have Solas' word that splitting the fade was the only way to stop the Evanuris, but the fact that he's willing to do something equally destructive in the current setting is a cue that maybe the dude doesn't have the best judgment. In any case, faced with the reality that the world-shattering events he set in motion resulted in consequences and outcomes he finds unacceptable, Solas' response to do it again. He hands the Orb over to Corypheus, certain that this lowly human couldn't possibly unlock its secre—oops, he did and then almost blew up the planet. Rather than learn from this idiot blunder, he decides that the only way to help the elves is to end the world, again]. Dude has gotten multiple chances to realize that while he might be powerful enough to reshape the world, maybe he's not quite clever enough to pull it off without horrible poo poo happening to everyone, even those he professes to care most about. He is hubris personified. And that's without getting into all of his bigotry and constant paternalizing.
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Dec 9, 2018 09:29
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On a broader topic, I'll be interested to see how Bioware handles things if they do go with Tavinter as the setting for DA4. Putting the player in a world where slavery a day-to-day reality creates so many narrative pitfalls and I'm not sure Bioware's pulpy writing by way of Joss Whedon is up to tackling something so fraught.
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Dec 9, 2018 09:32
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Yeah, Solas was Weekes. He also did Bull and Crem, and he is the current lead writer for the series which is a generally positive thing. Like, Solas is great, and while Bull and Crem aren't perfect, they at least show an awareness of nuance that is essential to make what's good about Dragon Age work.
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Dec 9, 2018 11:28
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Plucky Brit posted:... I thought he had left. Now I'm more optimistic. His Twitter still lists him as EA Bioware. You might be thinking of Gaider or Laidlaw? They were the former lead writer and creative director, respectively.
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Dec 9, 2018 11:30
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Taear posted:I mean sure, but that still shouldn't make him mad at the Grey Wardens. Solas gets pissed at everyone who takes drastic action with incomplete knowledge. Spoilers: he's projecting.
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Dec 11, 2018 12:38
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AzureSkye posted:Solas' wolf has three eyes though, and the figure in the new art only has two unless one of them just isn't glowing for some reason. It's got three, the image is cropped. 
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Dec 11, 2018 12:54
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I'm okay with the Qunari, but I'd like to see the Qun reformed into something that isn't monstrously authoritarian. Really, I'd just like to see more of the Qun. Presumably, for all its talk of unity and certainty of purpose, there has to be some factionalism and infighting. Because, you know, it's a government made up of people and that's just how people do. But we never get to see anything of that, since all we ever encounter are their handpicked and ideologically-pure expeditionary forces. Hopefully, if the next game is set in Tevinter we'll get a chance to spot some cracks in the foundation that thanks to being nearer than ever to the Qunari homeland. And of course, kill Solas. Kill him dead.
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Dec 19, 2018 05:39
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So long as you kill him afterward I'm willing to accept that as a compromise.
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Dec 19, 2018 05:52
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Flemeth dead, yo. Solas ate her.
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Dec 19, 2018 07:33
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Torrannor posted:She was killed before, and still survived. Fair point. I think this time is different, but she does seem to be the one person in the setting who can break the dead = dead rule.
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Dec 19, 2018 10:07
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Dienes posted:Somebody told IB to save the ships over the Chargers. Sure, but Bull is a party member and everyone in your party is always a super special snowflake exempt from the standard conventions for the setting. That said, he is clear proof that not everyone born under the Qun fits in, and while they might have systems for relieving or minimizing that pressure there is no way that they are as perfect as the Qunari leadership would like everyone to believe.
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Dec 19, 2018 14:34
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Dienes posted:Do you have a list of reasons for why all the other Tal-Vashoth in the games also don't count as examples of how the Qun isn't always perfect/accepted? Mostly because we don't ever get to sit down and talk with them. Part of what makes bull unique is that we hear his story and get a clear sense of why the Qun wasn't working for him. I can't think of a similar encounter anywhere else in the series. Geostomp posted:Bull fit in well at first. It’s just that his duty as a spy gave him a unique perception that lead to him burning out on the whole thing even if he wasn’t willing to straight up leave on his own. I don't think he did. We know from Cole that the Tamassran who raised him thought he was chafing under its strictures from an early age.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:01
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ditty bout my clitty posted:Cole is terrible Cole is terrible. His baseline Pinocchio story is fine and inoffensive, but his shtick of unambiguously vocalizing all the subtext is lazy and dumb. The only entertaining part is watching the other characters react to the 4th Wall breaks.
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Mar 5, 2019 04:36
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Berke Negri posted:let me gently caress the dwarf in DA4, bioware It could happen now that David Gaider is gone. In his defense, his rationale for "no dorf romance" was a good one. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Mar 6, 2019 |
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Mar 6, 2019 02:31
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Lord Cyrahzax posted:and then they make him the viscount at the end of trespasser At least he earned it. Varric was very clearly the only person in Kirkwall who actually gave a gently caress about the people living there.
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Mar 6, 2019 02:53
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ditty bout my clitty posted:Not making leliana the divine is some sort of crime. A crime called common sense? Leliana has the most transformative outlook for the future, but she's also a capricious ideologue who you have to keep from murdering people for the sake of convenience on multiple occasions. But hey, she's perky, and she likes shoes so it's easy to ignore how pernicious can be. It's like with Anders, where people mistook him for a decent person in Awakening because he was quirky and fun even though he repeatedly expressed a world view that was cataclysmically myopic.
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Mar 6, 2019 12:47
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:It’s been a while since I checked but a Divine Victoria as Leliana makes radical changes that cause quite a bit of violent uprising and (at least to my reading) don’t quite stick in the long run, whereas Vivienne deals with the same violent uprising faster and with less bloodshed (aka less mages get dead). It depends on how you tackle some of her dialogues and side content. In addition to her volatile personality, another thing I dislike about Leliana as Divine is the tidiness of her "good guy" epilogue, which includes those all those major reforms but with none of the violent upheaval that would inevitably result. Edit: Also, they put a drat nug in her ending slide, 
Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Mar 6, 2019 |
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Mar 6, 2019 14:32
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If they do make a DA4, I hope they can finally get over their fixation on injecting so much Whedonesque twee.
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Mar 6, 2019 14:38
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precision posted:...poo poo now I think I legit believe that A view of the "moon" in Dragon Age: Origins  In Mass Effect: the surface the moon of Presrop, with Klendagon overhead.  Coincidence?! Yes, I know they're both just pictures of Mars.
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Mar 6, 2019 14:53
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funkymonks posted:DA2 is good with mods that let you skip combat. The combat is bad and the encounter design is loving terrible. Yeah, the party synergistic combo system in DA2 was very cool, but none of it ever matter because all the enemies were dull as dishwater. Good mechanics squandered by terrible encounter design is a long-running theme in Bioware games. I think BG2 (i.e. Mage Duel: the Game) might be the last time they made fights that felt remotely engaging.
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Mar 26, 2019 04:00
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DA2 was a productive, if flawed, step forward in how Bioware presented romances. In the past, they'd taken flak for their non-straight romance options being not just token, but literal tack-ons to the hetero choices. With DA2 they did the cynical game design thing of just making everyone fuckable by everyone. That was... maybe less bad, but still hardly ideal. It wasn't until DA:I and ME3 that they started to flirt with the idea that maybe a character's sexuality and attraction should be defined by their own personal story and background. That sounds like such a minor and obvious thing, but it was also a non-trivial risk because holy poo poo do gamers lose their minds when you tell them they can screw one pile of pretty pixels but not another.
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Mar 27, 2019 05:17
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Maybe my phrasing was inarticulate, but what I'm getting at is that people have sexual orientations and that being gay, straight, bi, or otherwise informs a person's lived experience, including their romantic relationships. There are differences and nuance which exist between them. Going with a one-size-fits-all approach tends to erase those subtleties and can break verisimilitude for people who come to the work hoping for representation. For example, Dorian's story in DA:I does not work if he's bi.
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Mar 27, 2019 10:29
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alex314 posted:I'd love if all romanceable characters had hetero, homo, bi, and asexual (or just uninterested for any reason) dialogue and VA prepared. And then you could either pick playersexual, predefined, or just random presets at start. It would be worth just for the incel comments of "I was nice to (pronoun) and yet got shot down, what a (expletive)". As a bonus some people might end up with ability to deal with rejection like adults.. You don't need to put in nearly that much effort to make bigoted man-children throw a tantrum. Battletech pissed a bunch of them off by simply allowing you to pick your pronouns (He/She/They) during character creation.
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Mar 27, 2019 14:36
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Agreed, even Cassandra’s flustered sputtering when you make a pass as a woman is super endearing. In addition to the representation and erasure point, you also lose those fun character moments if everyone goes the Saint’s Row 4 route and is contantly DTF the PC.
Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Mar 27, 2019 |
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Mar 27, 2019 16:32
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Yeah, NPCs can have static orientations but I doubt any company would risk that of the protagonist in a major AAA RPG. Geralt gets away with it because he's an exemplar of heteronormativity. It's unfortunate, but the only way to get any queer representation at that level is for it to be "optional" content.
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Mar 31, 2019 17:08
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VostokProgram posted:Maybe I should have more faith in them, but as of now I don't Yeah, no, you're right. That's why I said Geralt "gets away with it." If you tried to make a protagonist—especially a male protagonist—of any AAA game canonically gay or even visibly bi it would trigger an avalanche of bile.
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Apr 2, 2019 01:24
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I guess the one major example I can think of is Ellie in the upcoming Last of Us 2. I recall quite the furor when that trailer came out.
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Apr 2, 2019 02:49
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On the one hand, I think it's fair to say that the backlash is often outsized and that it is gradually diminishing over time. But on the other hand, the sentiments that undergird those tantrums remain pervasive and still play a big part in the decision making of fanatically risk-averse entertainment companies. Which is why Ellie is the first (I think?) openly gay woman we've seen headline a major game release, and why despite Captain Marvel success it is the first modern Marvel property staring a woman.
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Apr 2, 2019 03:17
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Oh definitely. The hooting assholes are the most visible manifestation but a general atmosphere of exclusion and prejudice pervades entertainment in general, and video games especially. Only in the last decade has started to erode within the medium in any serious way, and even then most of the progress is in indie spaces.
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Apr 2, 2019 07:42
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