Critical Miss: Dragon Age: Destiny

[Iwana Humpalot]

But... I need a healer!
I guess i'll be off packing up some pots then instead...

Or then you could just do as she wants.. not a big deal.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

(Kotor 1 allows you to be female and go all out evil, but the canon is still you're a goody two shoes male), and it's accepted.

There is one thing here that I need to comment on. This has always been the status quo with Star Wars licensed games. The canon ending for multiple choice games is ALWAYS canon in the Expanded Universe. Bioware has less say in this because the way Star Wars is set up, there needs to be an established timeline.

Lucasarts has been very stingy lately in how much freedom gamers can get. It always needs to be the lightside option that is canon, because the dark side option almost always ends with a major film character being killed, or the whole galaxy being fucked up.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age are independent universes, where the appeal is making that universe built out of the player's decisions. Unlike Star Wars games, they are not constrained by an established canon system. That is why having decisions made for you are always a bit more annoying than if they are made in Star Wars.

Just coming from an EU buff.

 

[beefpelican]

I told people before, recapitation is just one of Leliana's many, many super powers. Like captivation, arrow splitting and seducing elven girls.

It is kind of funny that I've never heard anyone call out dragon age on the arrow splitting. Especially since freakin' everyone can do it by the end. So annoying!

 

[Cenequus]

Nice comic I guess but it seems a little harsh lol, it was only one retcon and this is just more ammuninition for the old school Rpg mega fanboys to use.

Trust me...it wasn't just the one.
The game basically ignores EVERYTHING you did in DA:O, which would be fine by me if they didn't put in a save import feature.
What's the point of doing THAT if you just ignore all the data?

It buggs when it comes to saves that have awakening/witch hunt/golems events. Eventually they'll fix those that are indeed errors. I played with only a save containing the end of origins and never met Zevran(he turned on me eventually in DAO)in DA2.

As for Flemeth I guess people understood the amulet was part of her essence in case you killed her in DAO. While Leliana(only a moster would kill her anyway)and Anders are key elements to DA2 plot so I guess that's what gavin was talking about ignoring some origins posible choice. Beside this 2 NPC everything should follow what happened in Origins and when it's not it's just bugs.

I hope they'll take less time to to fully patch the game and not do as origins where the game was finally working as it should by the time Awakening came out with patch 1.4.

 

[zHellas]

Haha, I didn't kill her in my DA:O game, but I did kill Zevran.... now how the frak did he give my Hawke this shiny awesome weapon as a ghost?

Not sure if you've been told this, and I do apologize if you have been, but the thing with Zevran is that the choice being transferred over is corrupt or something and just says he's alive.

Apparently, he's supposed to be canonically dead if the Dragon Age 2 wikia is correct.

 

[AnonymouZero]

It was the ashes. The magical ashes of Joan of Arc Andraste magically reanimated her corpse. (It can't be sillier then a pinch of the ashes being able to cure a magical disease.)

but sir, they're ANDRASTE's ashes, not just ANY ashes. if they can fix squirrel aids, what in the world CAN'T they fix?

 

[Drakulea]

A wi

It was the ashes. The magical ashes of Joan of Arc Andraste magically reanimated her corpse. (It can't be sillier then a pinch of the ashes being able to cure a magical disease.)

but sir, they're ANDRASTE's ashes, not just ANY ashes. if they can fix squirrel aids, what in the world CAN'T they fix?

Except it gets even more jarring when you actually defile the ashes, since that's the instance where Leliana possibly turns on you, when you attempt to defile the holy ashes.

 

[sephiroth1991]

I think she's a witch.

BURN HER!!!!! BURN THE WITCH!!!!

 

[Ghengis John]

The illustrious Tycho over at Penny Arcade described Gaider as a "King" [http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/4/4/] and honestly, that sounds right. The man is an inspiration. Next time someone posts a not-quite-as-clever little comment about Erin having sideburns I may just abandon my angry stoicism and instead just pick them up and throw them out a window.

I for one applaud dragon age for picking elements that are canon and saying "that's just the way it goes". Then again, they didn't step on my toes so maybe I'm biased. They let Leiliana live and killed Flemeth, like I did so cheers all around I get to feel like I did things the right way. I know a lot of people will hate the dis-connect between games but sometimes a developer has to say "Sorry if you were a homicidal maniac that killed everyone, that didn't leave us a lot to work with". I've seen a lot of sequels with mushy, watery plots simply because they were afraid to commit to one interpretation of events. "And then the hero... he did... something. And woah. The thing he did. I can't tell you about it here. But... WOW. And the way it changed things. Totally. We won't go there, but hey. It's something alright."

I suppose people are expecting the levels of choice they got in Mass Effect. However mass effect one was written pretty smartly in that the variation of plot integral choices was actually pretty restricted. Dragon Age allowed you to piddle away your whole party on various quests, either through murder or abandonment and ultimately the story could vary wildly. They made a lot of mistakes before in regards to sequels. But maybe that game wasn't written with sequels in mind. Deciding the canon for people is the only way to correct those mistakes and still have a cohesive storyline.

 

[Neferius]

Critical Miss: Dragon Age: Destiny

Just a flesh wound.




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Grey's corner.

Have you been to the Bioware forums lately? If not you really should pay them a visit. [http://forums.bioware.com/] They're excellent. The central attraction is a giant pit in which David Gaider has taken it upon himself to fight what seems like the entire universe. Thus far he's winning. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108722-Dragon-Age-2-Lead-Writer-Blasts-Homophobic-Fan]

Forums, particularly sprawling multi-title forums like those belonging to Bioware, are generally not a very forgiving place when it comes to artists interacting with critics. Despite the quite literal power Gaider has on the forums he's still, like any artist dealing with criticism on the internet, at an inherent disadvantage. Answering criticism regardless of its validity is seen as pointless, vain or a sign of insecurity, especially when you're one (admittedly large) cog in a big machine, such as a dev team. "Don't feed the trolls" mantra of the smug is used as a stock criticism for any creator, in almost any digital medium, who tries to defend his or her work. It's used as a blanket statement to either discourage an artist from answering bullshit criticism, or as a last ditch effort to save face if the critic happens to be losing an argument.

This is why when Gaider came out swinging, bellowing defiance with trolls hanging off every limb, the general response was an incredibly positive "Get in there, my son."
It's refreshing, at least for those of us who've had the pleasure of trying to pick out valid criticism from trolling, to see an artist, one with a big publisher on his back, call out nonsense for what it is and be praised for it rather than ridiculed.

The illustrious Tycho over at Penny Arcade described Gaider as a "King" [http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/4/4/] and honestly, that sounds right. The man is an inspiration. Next time someone posts a not-quite-as-clever little comment about Erin having sideburns I may just abandon my angry stoicism and instead just pick them up and throw them out a window.

But I LIKE Erin's side-burns ...her new botox job is also looking pretty good

 

[ultrachicken]

They'll probably introduce a plot twist in DA3 resolving these gaping holes, whether they planned them all along or are just covering their asses.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

You killed Leliana! But . . but . . . she was a hot French bisexual redhead! Why you you kill that? Oh sure, she was a religious nut, that sure did seem to come into play with all of the killing and fraking she did.

She was awesome, you deserve to have your story rewritten if you killed her!

Perhaps I'm a bit too passionate about this . . . oh well.

 

[Wolcik]

There's an option that you'd end the game without companions - how's that for a sequal XD

 

[talker]

It was the ashes. The magical ashes of Joan of Arc Andraste magically reanimated her corpse. (It can't be sillier then a pinch of the ashes being able to cure a magical disease.)

the reason Leliana wouldn't give her the ashes was because Erin Cousland wanted to defile them, so that wouldn't work. although it is a nice idea.

but yeah they should have had a save import option that would still make you play Hawke, but the shit you did in DA:O and DAO:A would MATTER.

EDIT: I hope we get a choice whether we play as Hawke or the Warden in DA 3, and then have whoever you DIDN'T choose as an NPC who went off to do something important and only turned up occasionally to help and/or give quests or something.

also that all surviving companions would come back, and the ability to take four or five companions with you, and all of them during important quests...