Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

OMG, I thought we were all joking around, but apparently not 

the horror.

Hmmm... so is it an individual clan going batshit or are all Dalish elves are shown in a pretty bad light ? The Dalish get a few slaps, sure, but so does basically every major or well-established group or community present in DAI.

Jon Renish @jonrenish
Is there a common term for the experience when a game provides players with multiple dialog options, but requires all of them to be selected in order to progress?

Does allowing the player to select the order for the majority set of topics provide meaningful agency or am I'm just a grump?


(Jon is the Foundation Programming Area Director at BioWare working on Dragon Age.)

Honestly it is one of the interesting thing BioWare is doing with this franchise in general that I find to be interesting.  Sets up a whole bunch of narrative staples and cliches and then has been slowly teling us...'actually its this instead'.  A lot of people say this is dumb and retconning...and it may even be...but i find the whole notion fascinating.  

Also anyone who says that the Elves are getting singled out in DAI is not really paying attention how the humans, Dwarves, and especially the Qunari also get treated.  Pretty much all races in Thedas are shitholes.

Being someone who is (and used to be a lot more then I am now) into history I really love the 'uncovering the true history of the world thing' bioware's got going on. More so in DA then ME imo and the sequence with Ameridan and Solas are two of my favs.

Admittedly I also really like bios take on this theme in that way in DA as well. The implications I get from Ameridan is that modern Thedas might be shitty now but it wasn't always this way and was only this way because of centuries of abuse and suspicion was built up. In essence the lessons to solve Thedas's problems aren't in the future but in the past.

can't agree with you more.

True, the context of when or where things occur shouldn't be ignored. Though, in case of the Dalish, I actually think that Tamlen in DAO acted more resentfully towards humans he and PC encounter at the start than much of what we see in Inquisition. It could be his youthful bravado that has ultimately cost him his life tho.

And in case of a clan we meet on Exalted Plains, for example, the word that fits their attitude better is 'reasonably suspicious' rather than openly hateful or resentful. Like... it's still an open war there and there are demons or Venatori/deserters attacking everyone almost everywhere - and yet one of the hunters we encounter before reaching the clan openly muses about not being so resentful towards human anymore. Hawen may have his objections at the start, but one can understand his caution - and he still points Inky to runes even if we desecrate the graveyard. Plus, if we investigate Din'an Hanin and bring the documents to the clan the Dalish are way more gracious about it than the Chantry (immediately and blatantly planning to use the accounts against the elves) or villagers from Red Crossing (one has to twist their arm or trick them into accepting a peace offering).

All else aside for now, I really wish we could have learned more about their friendship and how it came about. It seemed like Ameridan genuinely believed he could sway Drakon from his desire to “make things simple”.

That was something I would have liked more insight into as well. He says the Dalish leadership regarded Drakon as "no better than Tevinter" as though they were being unreasonable, when human histories recount what he did to his co-religionists who didn't share his version of the faith and how he united the Ciriane tribes with the sword. Factor in that he actually was the grandson of a Tevinter Altus and you feel they have a point.

I felt where the elves were at fault was in not stepping in and at least objecting when he was engaged in his bloodbath against their former allies. Instead it seems they preferred to turn a "blind eye" until the penny dropped that they might be next. So what did cause Ameridan to hold Drakon in such high regard? After witnessing what he did do to the human tribes "simplifying" their religion and politics, why would he think he would stop there? Did he accept Drakon's "vision" as genuine?

One positive thing that probably did result from their friendship, if it did start that far back, was the original inclusion of the Canticle of Shartan in the Chant. It was obvious it was not something that formed part of the Chant that Justinia I was familiar with and I wonder if it was Ameridan who recounted the elves' oral tradition for her clerics to transcribe.

I think Dalish Inqui's clan and keeper fit the bill, but we only see them (and only via WT) if playing as an elf.

It’s earwigs.