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Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
ThoseDeafMutes said:
Mages are supposed to be relatively uncommon. Like force users in the Star Wars universe, if you will.
Blood Mages are supposed to be rare since you actually have to jump through quite a few hoops to become one.
... Coincidentally, it seems like 99% of the Blood Mage populace resides in Kirkwall. But we're also talking about a city where like 10 criminal gangs rent out the same warehouse in the Kirkwall docks.
HadesGigas
Member
MechaX said:
There is some mention in the game that a far higher percentage of Kirkwall mages fail the harrowing, attempt to flee, or give in to blood magic. Compared to other circles that aren't literal prisons.
Doesn't really explain why there's so many of them though. Especially considering the "a lot of them fail the harrowing" and the "more of them are made tranquil" parts.
You'd have to ask Bioware, though I'd wager that it was to make it more badass. I see no other reason to add a melee implement to the end of your staff and allow you both ranged and close combat sound effects.Deadly said:
Also, I haven't got far into the game (haven't felt an urge), but can you
create a badass neutral mage (or templar) who hunts both evil mages and templars, keeping the peace while not taking political sides and trying to save as many civilians as possible (like in the Witcher)?
lastplayed
Member
Gandalf busted out some melee moves with his staff. Should be like that.
After forcing myself to finish every quest I could and upon finally reaching the end, I've come to the conclusion that I only truly enjoyed DA2 whenever a companion
was involved. Banter, personal quests, whenever party members were interacting with the main story, the progressiveness of everyone's welcome bisexuality--all of this was great. These connections are important.
I'm utterly disappointed at nearly every other aspect of this game, though, and hope it was some horrible fluke that will not happen again. "Underdeveloped" is probably a better word to use than "rushed." There were also quite a few mind-boggling and downright thoughtless design decisions. For example, whose idea was it to put your storage in an area without access to the inventories of your party members? What about the overly long assault of enemy after enemy for nearly every encounter? Or all the meaningless fetch-quest padding that serves little purpose beyond artificially extending the game, no thanks in part to several thousand load screens brought about by such a confined scope? Where is the balance, the pacing, the nuance of good design to make everything enjoyable and not feel tedious? I will leave my ME1>ME2 opinions out of this, but I really hope we aren't witnessing some downward trend here. I thought DA:O was great enough to overlook its flaws. I'm not sure it even needed a sequel. This game, on the other hand, was just a stagnant, aimless, disjointed mess with the occasional triumph peppered throughout and some potentially interesting ideas that never quite reached their full potential.
Endgame spoilers:
I don't think there's a spell like that in the game. Maybe it's some embellished interpretation of the "Fist of the Maker" spell found in the Force skill tree? Someone else may know for sure.
(or totally random cameo appearance that played completely off of my attachment to Origins)
I'm utterly disappointed at nearly every other aspect of this game, though, and hope it was some horrible fluke that will not happen again. "Underdeveloped" is probably a better word to use than "rushed." There were also quite a few mind-boggling and downright thoughtless design decisions. For example, whose idea was it to put your storage in an area without access to the inventories of your party members? What about the overly long assault of enemy after enemy for nearly every encounter? Or all the meaningless fetch-quest padding that serves little purpose beyond artificially extending the game, no thanks in part to several thousand load screens brought about by such a confined scope? Where is the balance, the pacing, the nuance of good design to make everything enjoyable and not feel tedious? I will leave my ME1>ME2 opinions out of this, but I really hope we aren't witnessing some downward trend here. I thought DA:O was great enough to overlook its flaws. I'm not sure it even needed a sequel. This game, on the other hand, was just a stagnant, aimless, disjointed mess with the occasional triumph peppered throughout and some potentially interesting ideas that never quite reached their full potential.
Endgame spoilers:
And I'm so sick of completely ridiculous final boss fights. BioWare, stop it! The Terminator ME2 abomination was silly, but I forgave you. Now you have to pull that crap with Meredith. Embarrassing! You do not need to pump up the "awesomeness" for something that is already pivotal enough to be understood by players as a significant battle. I understand realism is already thrown out the window with DA2, but Varric's recounting of events cannot possibly continue to be a scapegoat for defending all this nonsense! Congratulations, you found the perfect "meta" tool to cover up quite a few disagreeable design decisions, and you're perfectly safe hiding behind it should you choose to do so. I just want you to know that saying "just kidding!" after a particularly wounding insult will not erase it. I have no clue who this game was designed for. Rabid fans of Dragon Age seem to be in denial at best, and I doubt thrill-seeking neanderthals will make it past the first act without getting bored out of their minds.
TheUsual said:
I don't think there's a spell like that in the game. Maybe it's some embellished interpretation of the "Fist of the Maker" spell found in the Force skill tree? Someone else may know for sure.
fizzelopeguss
Banned
that melancholic elf companion with the tats looks like he was designed by a committee for the overweight chick/ twilight fan demographic. Right down to the voice acting.
Rahxephon91
Banned
I'm not even sure how Ferris looks like a Twilight character. His voice sure isn't and he looks like any other elf in fiction. They tend to look pretty or have hair like that.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
MechaX said:
Honestly, up until the very end I was not expecting
Merideth to actually be possessed. Because she wasn't really speaking nonsense, there were blood mages fucking everywhere. She was just implementing an immoral solution to the problem. She was a very believable tyrant, they did not need to explain her motivations further. I felt like it was a cop out when it was the Idol doing it all.
The bisexuality I found a bit implausible, I preferred DA:O where some characters were Bi and others weren't. I wouldn't mind if they put an exclusively gay character or two in the next one, simply to make it more plausible, but it's not a big deal really. Regarding the companions, yeah, that was when I enjoyed the game the most. Every time I saw a companion quest I jumped for it because it was the only stuff I really had much fun with, and some of them were hit and miss anyway.
ThoseDeafMutes said:
While that may be true,
the reason Meredith called for the Right of Annulment in the first place was because Anders, being an abomination/mage, nuked the Chantry. Despite Anders being two feet away from her, Meredith scurries off to kill every single mage in Kirkwall without being bothered to deal with the guy who actually confessed to nuking the Chantry.
fizzelopeguss
Banned
jackdoe said:
You'll see erotic fan comics with him soon. And if they ever release mod tools....nude model with a huuuuuuge tosser. Guarantee it.
ThoseDeafMutes said:
I agree that it's implausible and comes off kind of silly, but I think it's a far better solution to appease people who generally get screwed when it comes to that kind of freedom. I'd imagine it makes more people happy than unhappy, so it's something I'd like to keep seeing for the sake of inclusiveness and role-playing. In the end, it's all ridiculous, but I don't see any reason to restrict that kind of content from certain people for the sake of plausibility.
TheUsual said:
I don't see the problem. At that point
ignoring Anders was supposed to be a blatant sign that she had some greater agenda, possessed or not, using it as impetus for an all-out war. My issue was that it painted her as obviously "evil" when the conflict between Mages and Templars is quite complex and deserves to be handled much better than that.
branny said:
Glad I'm not the only one who took issue with Meredith's evil portrayal at that point. Throughout the game, we see nearly every single mage using blood magic and causing chaos of some kind. Her act of invoking the annulment seemed like a final straw given how potentially dangerous the mages in the game were. The prospect of a sane Meredith ordering the execution of all the mages to prevent future disasters, like the chantry explosion, is probably the closest we come to a morally ambiguous choice situation in the game - sacrificing innocents now in order to potentially protect more innocents in the future. Pity Bioware adds the Lyrium element to it to make it a binary good/evil choice again.
Speaking of Anders, was I the only one who felt the options to deal with him after his bombing were lacking ? Execution was the easy way out for him, and letting him go unscathed seemed madness too. I would have greatly enjoyed a darker choice; one where Anders is allowed to live, but is made Tranquil. Would have been a much more fitting punishment, imo.
Speaking of Anders, was I the only one who felt the options to deal with him after his bombing were lacking ? Execution was the easy way out for him, and letting him go unscathed seemed madness too. I would have greatly enjoyed a darker choice; one where Anders is allowed to live, but is made Tranquil. Would have been a much more fitting punishment, imo.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
jackdoe said:
When my party members fell in battle, 9 times out of 10 it was because enemies had spawned right next to them and they were squishy mages.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
zmoney said:
At least awesome things will keep happening to make up for it.
Van Buren said:
I don't even know how a Tranquil option would work for Anders considering the whole deal with Justice (unless this was addressed in the game?), but I agree and think that'd be an interesting punishment. Your statement leads me to another thing I disliked: I'm upset that we get no epilogue(s) akin to Origins/Awakening, just Varric saying a few words. DA2 simply ends and cuts everything off from the player post-game.
I was foolish to think there'd be more to play after that part of the game. For example, I enjoyed the idea of Flemeth as some sort of proxy for fate's fingertips or grand manipulator considering her involvement in Origins, but that area was left largely unexplored. As far as I know, she doesn't even show up to glimpse her handiwork over the long period of time Hawke was making a name for himself/herself. Many other answers to lingering mysteries were only teased, too, like the whole incident with Merrill's Eluvian ultimately providing little insight to Morrigan's course of action.
I was foolish to think there'd be more to play after that part of the game. For example, I enjoyed the idea of Flemeth as some sort of proxy for fate's fingertips or grand manipulator considering her involvement in Origins, but that area was left largely unexplored. As far as I know, she doesn't even show up to glimpse her handiwork over the long period of time Hawke was making a name for himself/herself. Many other answers to lingering mysteries were only teased, too, like the whole incident with Merrill's Eluvian ultimately providing little insight to Morrigan's course of action.
I've put about 20 hours into the game and I'm about midway through act 2. DA2 being, or at least pretending to be, an RPG has lead me to attempt every single bloody sidequest I see in the hope that it either lets me see interesting content, or makes the overall story more gratifying to complete.
Here, they kinda don't do either of those things. They don't over level my crew, either, as it seems every enemy encounter is completely scaled.
I don't really have the empathy to express myself properly, but I'll say that I really dislike this game, but will play through it because I liked the first Dragon Age. Even if everything is really bad - which it is.
Here, they kinda don't do either of those things. They don't over level my crew, either, as it seems every enemy encounter is completely scaled.
I don't really have the empathy to express myself properly, but I'll say that I really dislike this game, but will play through it because I liked the first Dragon Age. Even if everything is really bad - which it is.
branny said:
Speaking of the epilogue, on the pc I could only find one epilogue ending ( the one with Varric summing up the events to Cassandra ), so it leads me to believe that Bioware is trying to railroad the story into having a specific ending point to help maintain the story continuity for future titles. Kind of explains why everything felt abrupt and claustrophobic with regards to choices. On the other hand, if it helps them avoid glaring continuity errors like the ones in DA2 from DA:O, that's a tiny silver lining, I guess.
Flemeth seemed nothing more than a hook to reel in DAO fans. The game made a few noises about her pulling the strings behind Merrill accompanying Hawke, but that plot-line was left dangling in my playthrough. Wouldn't be surprised if her story was intentionally not followed upon so that it could be sold as future DLC.
Flemeth seemed nothing more than a hook to reel in DAO fans. The game made a few noises about her pulling the strings behind Merrill accompanying Hawke, but that plot-line was left dangling in my playthrough. Wouldn't be surprised if her story was intentionally not followed upon so that it could be sold as future DLC.
Melhisedek
Member
I'm still in Act I I believe (am in the city still) but dear Lord am I tired of reused caves and buildings. Will this continue throughout the game? I mean is this the same in every act?
Xater said:
Yeah, I hate when games do this. It's stupid. Why skip ahead 3 years if NOTHING has changed? Especially things like Fenris living in the same, completely trashed house. Come on after 3 years he can't cleaned it up a little?
I'm really missing the heavy character interaction by now(early into Act 2). I want to have those long conversations with them not just a quick chat and that's it for ages.
Melhisedek
Member
Damn, this is gonna be a chore :/
Is it worth it to continue for the story? Or should I drop sidequests?
Is it worth it to continue for the story? Or should I drop sidequests?
HadesGigas
Member
Darklord said:
He preserved the merc corpses nicely.
autobzooty
Member
This may sound dumb, but what's the difference between a side quest and a secondary quest?
HadesGigas
Member
autobzooty said:
The side quests are mostly the "find an item in a chest, bring it to some person who previously didn't exist in some random location, hear them thank you in a manner that may or may not make any sense" quests. But there are handful that are more involved, so... I don't know.