midnightwolf
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Origin: BlackSassyWolf
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midnightwolf
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Post by midnightwolf on Aug 12, 2019 5:39:27 GMT
Morally grey and dark like DAO and DA2. I personally have always found DAI to be a tad too much like a child fairy tale. We know the darker elements exist, yet we don't actually have an understanding of it beyond a codex or a couple of fireballs thrown our way during our first visit to the Hinterlands. After that, its peace central.....Nothing to see here.
In DAO, the dark and grey was everywhere, right from the beginning, depending which Origin you chose, in some cases. But even beyond ones own Origin, It could get very dark. More of that please!
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Post by xerrai on Aug 12, 2019 17:06:50 GMT
Morally grey and dark like DAO and DA2. I personally have always found DAI to be a tad too much like a child fairy tale. We know the darker elements exist, yet we don't actually have an understanding of it beyond a codex or a couple of fireballs thrown our way during our first visit to the Hinterlands. After that, its peace central.....Nothing to see here.In DAO, the dark and grey was everywhere, right from the beginning, depending which Origin you chose, in some cases. But even beyond ones own Origin, It could get very dark. More of that please! While I still prefer the grittier parts of the franchise, I think DAIs relative sanitation is simply a by-product on the Inquisition's main setup. After haven, the Inquisition isn't part of the low-class anymore. We're high-class. In a sense we are put into the viewpoint of what a socially powerful person would see. A peaceful place. The grittiness and grotesqueness is...apart from us. Unless we approach it ourselves of course in certain areas. This is in no small part due to our own organization's efforts to make us and the Inquisition appear great. Compare that to the "underdog" or "outsider" setup of DAO's and DA2's protagonists and you can see why DAI seems so much lighter thematically. Still though, given that the Inquisitor tends to walk straight into the fray you would think that we would at least see a bit more grit when we walk into these damaged areas.
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Little Bengel
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Post by Little Bengel on Aug 12, 2019 17:32:45 GMT
While I still prefer the grittier parts of the franchise, I think DAIs relative sanitation is simply a by-product on the Inquisition's main setup. After haven, the Inquisition isn't part of the low-class anymore. We're high-class. In a sense we are put into the viewpoint of what a socially powerful person would see. A peaceful place. The grittiness and grotesqueness is...apart from us. Unless we approach it ourselves of course in certain areas. This is in no small part due to our own organization's efforts to make us and the Inquisition appear great. Compare that to the "underdog" or "outsider" setup of DAO's and DA2's protagonists and you can see why DAI seems so much lighter thematically. Still though, given that the Inquisitor tends to walk straight into the fray you would think that we would at least see a bit more grit when we walk into these damaged areas. That's honestly a pretty valid point you're raising there. I didn't consider it. Brings to mind a conversation in ME3 with Garrus on the Citadel, about how life there seemed too peaceful for these times of war.
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revelationeffect
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Post by revelationeffect on Aug 13, 2019 2:08:09 GMT
I think it's all but guaranteed that there'll be a grittier tone in DA4 and less of that high-class perspective since it'll be set in Tevinter and we'll likely be playing as someone on the street level of things.
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midnightwolf
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion
Origin: BlackSassyWolf
XBL Gamertag: BlackSassyWolf
Posts: 947 Likes: 1,231
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Post by midnightwolf on Aug 15, 2019 20:00:17 GMT
I think it's all but guaranteed that there'll be a grittier tone in DA4 and less of that high-class perspective since it'll be set in Tevinter and we'll likely be playing as someone on the street level of things. Dear Andraste I hope so. In previous games Tevinter has been made to seem like the birthing place of all Evil, and with good reason. T'would be a shame if the Dev's decide to not show at least some of the darker elements. IE: Blood magic. Human sacrifice. Slaves and general abuse which regular non mages receive.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Aug 17, 2019 5:26:03 GMT
Morally grey and dark like DAO and DA2. I personally have always found DAI to be a tad too much like a child fairy tale. We know the darker elements exist, yet we don't actually have an understanding of it beyond a codex or a couple of fireballs thrown our way during our first visit to the Hinterlands. After that, its peace central.....Nothing to see here.In DAO, the dark and grey was everywhere, right from the beginning, depending which Origin you chose, in some cases. But even beyond ones own Origin, It could get very dark. More of that please! While I still prefer the grittier parts of the franchise, I think DAIs relative sanitation is simply a by-product on the Inquisition's main setup. After haven, the Inquisition isn't part of the low-class anymore. We're high-class. In a sense we are put into the viewpoint of what a socially powerful person would see. A peaceful place. The grittiness and grotesqueness is...apart from us. Unless we approach it ourselves of course in certain areas. This is in no small part due to our own organization's efforts to make us and the Inquisition appear great. Compare that to the "underdog" or "outsider" setup of DAO's and DA2's protagonists and you can see why DAI seems so much lighter thematically. Still though, given that the Inquisitor tends to walk straight into the fray you would think that we would at least see a bit more grit when we walk into these damaged areas. If this is the definition we're working with, DAO and DA2 still really aren't that 'dark and gritty'. DA2 especially had a great opportunity to engage with the reality of how horrible it is to be a refugee in need of asylum, and chose instead to gloss over it with some 'ONE YEAR LATER...' bullshit.
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Post by SwobyJ on Aug 18, 2019 4:12:11 GMT
DA2 wanted the drama of being a refugee but without a single bit of the pain outside of the (actually very conservative) notion that as long as your time for the next year+ is full of laborious struggle, you don't really deserve a spot in safety. And even then you should have a family connection and heroic deeds.
Maybe its not what they intended, but my point is that its far from a typical refugee story to encourage empathy that way.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Aug 18, 2019 4:20:42 GMT
DA2 wanted the drama of being a refugee but without a single bit of the pain outside of the (actually very conservative) notion that as long as your time for the next year+ is full of laborious struggle, you don't really deserve a spot in safety. And even then you should have a family connection and heroic deeds. Maybe its not what they intended, but my point is that its far from a typical refugee story to encourage empathy that way. For me, it's more like... they don't show what it was like on the ship (probably filthy and cramped), they breeze through the checkpoint and even have a choice of who they'll ask for help with bribing the guards. It's all way too easy.
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Post by Ieldra on Aug 19, 2019 13:41:37 GMT
DA2 wanted the drama of being a refugee but without a single bit of the pain outside of the (actually very conservative) notion that as long as your time for the next year+ is full of laborious struggle, you don't really deserve a spot in safety. And even then you should have a family connection and heroic deeds. Maybe its not what they intended, but my point is that its far from a typical refugee story to encourage empathy that way. For me, it's more like... they don't show what it was like on the ship (probably filthy and cramped), they breeze through the checkpoint and even have a choice of who they'll ask for help with bribing the guards. It's all way too easy. Maybe, but Hawke's first abode is certainly nothing to write home about, even if you don't consider that they expected something *very* different. And while the story didn't make too great a a point of the fact that they were among the lucky ones nonetheless, neither did that go completely unmentioned. I'd say it's ok for a side issue of the story. I have a much bigger problem with the way the actual main issue was dealt with.
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Post by Ieldra on Aug 19, 2019 13:51:19 GMT
I think it's all but guaranteed that there'll be a grittier tone in DA4 and less of that high-class perspective since it'll be set in Tevinter and we'll likely be playing as someone on the street level of things. Dear Andraste I hope so. In previous games Tevinter has been made to seem like the birthing place of all Evil, and with good reason. T'would be a shame if the Dev's decide to not show at least some of the darker elements. IE: Blood magic. Human sacrifice. Slaves and general abuse which regular non mages receive. I wonder if they can pull off a somewhat realistic presentation. the thing is, in a society like Tevinter's the evils come across as unremarkable because to those who live there, they are unremarkable. They are everyday life. At the same time, I would not expect atrocity to be common, but rather a pattern of small but ubiquitous behavioural nuances that reinforce the standing of certain factions. And slavery is not defined by mistreatment either. I'd even say mistreatment, by being an evil of its own, can hide the true evil of slavery, which rests in the assumption that one human can be the property of another, with the right to do to them whatever they desire, which is a monstrous evil even if that "whatever they desire" never amounts to anything cruel.
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Post by Trilobite Derby on Aug 20, 2019 9:38:22 GMT
I've just watched Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle directed by Hayao Miyazaki almost back-to-back. And I dare anyone here to watch any one of them and then say that DAI does a better job at either capturing people's actual natures or managing an uplifting, inspirational, humorous and fantastical story. Can I be that guy like 4 months later? I'm going to be that guy like 4 months later. I REALLY liked Diane Wynne Jones as a high schooler. I read all her books. I read the schlocky griffin books, FFS. Howl's Moving Castle was one of my great learning experiences, because as a sheltered rural teen, I went in expecting it to be like the book. It was not. Sophie was not nearly abrasive enough and I was bloody FURIOUS. I have since re-watched it, and it is not actually a natural-born travesty of all that is decent. But going into that movie, expecting it to be something different, something I loved, I came out hating it with a firey passion. HOW DARE ANYONE INSERT THEIR OWN VIEWS INTO AN INTERPRETATION OF SOMETHING I THOUGHT I HAD SORTED? I would have done a lot better to go in with neutral expectations and enjoyed it as a pretty decent movie. See, I Robot as well (except for the decent movie, dohoho). ….And on topic, that's why I voted for "Whatever" in the poll. Because I do try to approach new things from a fresh perspective without expectation from their baggage and what I want from the IP these days. I don't always succeed, but not throwing the millstone of "What I want and believe would be the best" around the neck of something I'm consuming has mostly made me a happier fan. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.
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Noxluxe
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Post by Noxluxe on Aug 20, 2019 11:04:16 GMT
Can I be that guy like 4 months later? I'm going to be that guy like 4 months later. I REALLY liked Diane Wynne Jones as a high schooler. I read all her books. I read the schlocky griffin books, FFS. Howl's Moving Castle was one of my great learning experiences, because as a sheltered rural teen, I went in expecting it to be like the book. It was not. Sophie was not nearly abrasive enough and I was bloody FURIOUS. I have since re-watched it, and it is not actually a natural-born travesty of all that is decent. But going into that movie, expecting it to be something different, something I loved, I came out hating it with a firey passion. HOW DARE ANYONE INSERT THEIR OWN VIEWS INTO AN INTERPRETATION OF SOMETHING I THOUGHT I HAD SORTED? I would have done a lot better to go in with neutral expectations and enjoyed it as a pretty decent movie. See, I Robot as well (except for the decent movie, dohoho). ….And on topic, that's why I voted for "Whatever" in the poll. Because I do try to approach new things from a fresh perspective without expectation from their baggage and what I want from the IP these days. I don't always succeed, but not throwing the millstone of "What I want and believe would be the best" around the neck of something I'm consuming has mostly made me a happier fan. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough. I don't necessarily disagree with your main point, but I'm a bit confused how you feel it relates to my comment. Rewatching those movies around the same time I played DAI, it struck me that they actually seemed to be going for a very similar tone. Hayao Miyazaki just did it better, more honestly, earnestly and intelligently. Which is what I find most annoying about DAI. The writing is just too lazy to feel meaningful, on every level, and expanding the color palette and the world's size neither hides nor compensates for that. I had a similar experience to the one you had with Howl's Moving Castle when I first played DA2, finding it a major, if not outright insulting, disappointment after DAO. It wasn't until I played it again a few years ago that I was able to appreciate some of the unique things the game tries to do enough for it to make up for a bit of that first impression. Even so, I could spend a hundred more years expanding my values and learning to see past my preconceptions, and I would still never become confused enough to think either sequel deserve to stand next to the first game. How you go into a game or book or movie definitely has an effect on how/if you enjoy them, but the product's actual quality damn well does too. Bioware spent a lot of time in 2011 accusing its fans of simply not being able to handle change. And while in retrospect there was some truth to that, using it as an excuse to pretend that they hadn't rushed something of a half-assed mess out to cash in on a painstakingly built masterpiece was insanely disingenuous and disrespectful to both their customers and their employees, signaling that they were more interested in playing around with their formula and making art projects than in making games that people actually enjoyed, or honoring the true skill and work ethic at their disposal by making products that lived up to them. Being willing to give a merely decent game a chance if it piques your interest and finding ways to enjoy it is fine, but I expect every game to at least feel like its developers tried to make it excellent in significant ways. Anything else is just too depressing, and not a healthy thing to encourage in my mind. And DAI and DAII both inch dangerously close to that territory.
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Post by Trilobite Derby on Aug 20, 2019 20:39:29 GMT
Mostly, I just wanted an example for why I'm fairly philosophical about tone, and bringing Howl's Moving Castle (READ THE BOOK IT'S COOL and so is Castle in the Sky) was a good place to hang that hat.
I'm not saying Dragon Age should be subpar, but I try not to get married to my expectations of what I want. What I would like from Dragon Age, which is basically 2 but polished, especially with that delicious ten year long story, is not critical to my enjoyment. I'll enjoy it if it's a fun game with decent writing that respects the "past" to some extent. All of those are nebulous concepts, but I'll know 'em when I feel 'em. My personal instinct is a bit of absurdity and characters cracking wise at perhaps the wrong time feels more realistic to my experience in high stress situations. I tend to find relentless pathos a bit cloying and self-indulgent. But if it works and DA:Whatever is even more broody that DAO, but keeps it fun, I'll probably be on board.
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