David Gaider says Bioware decides what 'dead' means in Dragon Age 2

[secretsantaone]

How on earth can anyone be 'self-entitled' about a game they spent £40 on?

How on earth is the unexplained revival of a major character for no good reason 'petty'?

How on earth could anyone say 'it's their game, they can do what they want with it!' when it's the consumer who actually finances and experiences the game?

 

[DVS Storm]

Sigh. It's just a minor plot hole. I can see why it bothers someone but seriously? I didn't kill Leliana during any of my DA:O playthroughs and I can't see why I should have. She was a cool character. And why on earth would I side with the cultists in that mission(besides to get the achievement)?

OT The writers can't take everything that happened in DA:O into account. I think that there aren't many players that killed Leliana compared to those who didn't. And Zevran is in DA2 too, but if you killed him the first one, he isn't. It is not sloppy writing imo. It may have been a calculated decision or they could have simply forgotten it(though that is higly unlikely). No game is perfect and these things happen.

 

[Burnhardt]

Has anyone thought that they never really planned for the possibility of a Dragon Age sequel? And when they did, they felt compelled to let players import Origin/Awakening choices after the success of ME2's system?

How many of you, in complete honesty, would have been disapointed/angry if this hadn't been included in the game, without knowing the plot holes this could potentially cause?

Dragon Age 2 should have been set in a completly different 'age', in the Sixth Blight, with all the details of the Fifth Blight lost into legends. No more plot holes.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

especially especially in how they didn't pull this in Mass Effect 2. Wrex STAYED dead.

Seems like a big retcon cover to me. Thoughts?

Source: http://social.bioware.com/%20http:/social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/304/index/6589945/2

the biggest difference is that mass effect doesnt take place in an alternate universe with magic...

but i agree its a bit crap, not having killed leliana, i assumed when she turned up in my DA2, that if i HAD killed her, some other character would have filled her role, but apparantly not

 

[EvilPicnic]

Actually DA2 is worse, becuase its not fixed they could have made a different character instead of her coming back, just like Anders, so this is worse than ME and has no excuse,aside from laziness.

I disagree. BioWare wants DA to become a franchise, with more games coming after DA2. Remember this?:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102599-BioWare-Mass-Effect-3-Story-Has-More-Than-a-Thousand-Variables

Mass Effect was always going to be a trilogy, with your actions affecting how the story plays out, and with each game the variables increase exponentially. Three games is a good cut-off point (for the main series at least) because this model simply won't work with a continuing series.

Say we get to a DA7. Imagine the amount of data recorded over the previous 6 games, and then the work to be put in to give everyone all potential in game options, all the multiple characters, new voice acting, even new areas... which many fans won't see because they made a different choice back in DA:O.

If this were true, why would they use the save import feature at all?

Because they can. This is a separate issue to 'every decision you make has been recorded for posterity and will somehow come back in the next game' It makes sense to include as many important events as you can. But that doesn't mean developers have infinite time or infinite money. In an ideal world...

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Pretty huge Mass Effect spoiler in the OP there....

I'm noticing a lot of spoilers around these days.

I remember a time when spoiler tags were used to hide spoilers rather than images or YouTube clips.

That video was a version someone made without my knowledge.

EDIT: In otherwords.... you got a problem with the spoilers, talk to Mandalore.

Go look at my Youtube page, my version's only spoiler is that Shepard punches people.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Well, at least he planned 3 of them in advance. I think.

Nope, Lucas wrote the entirety of Empire/Jedi after the success of Star Wars. Vader, originally, was just one of the Empire's stooges. He added the family bit in later, but retconned himself. That's why Star Wars original crawl was this:

 

[McNinja]

What'chu know 'bout RPGs?

Not much, apparently. I left Leliana alive, so it was interesting to see her cameo in DA2.

This ain't The Witcher, you don't get choices that mean something.

(for the full effect, please watch Epic VFX Time with FreddieW and Epic Meal Time. Read the first line in EMTs voice, then the last in FreddieWs).

well

Spoiler

in my story anders got shot in the head with an arrow at the end of awakening

but there he is in DA2, still alive... i didn't have a problem with it, presumably it was something to do with justice

Justice did bring back his first host to life, although not in the same way.

And once again with the Witcher nonsense.

Whats wrong with the Witcher? I thought it was great how if you happened to allow a certain people to have some goods and weapons, they might use those weapons to kill someone you need to talk to, making you have to gain information some other way. I never had that in Mass Effect 1, 2, or Dragon Age 2. DA: O, sort of, but not like that.

 

[SageRuffin]

Yeah? Check this shit out...

For my warrior Lady Hawke, I used the save from my rogue Warden in Origins, where Leliana was definitely alive, Zevran ended up swimming in a small lake of his own blood (double cross me, will you? *****-ass, punk-ass, ho-ass elf...), Loghain and Alistair are "with the Maker", and Anders went back to the circle without having any idea who or what Justice is. And now Anders in particular is back talking about "trying to help his friend" and without the zippy comments. So, by everyone else's logic, wtf?

And for my rogue Lady Hawke (I like playing female characters, what of it?), I used my warrior Warden's playthrough, where again Leliana is alive and well. Zevran was ran off never to be seen again, Loghain is dead, Alistair gave Morrigan the business, and Justice was sent off to find itself back to the Fade. Again in the case of Anders, he's back talking about "helping his friend and worried how his anger may have twisted Justice". So, by everyone else's logic", wtf?

Someone answer me this question: did anyone on the development team say that the events in Origins would have a direct impact on DA2? If not, then who cares? Sure, it's a little jarring to have someone you supposedly ran through randomly show up again, but BioWare is not the immaculate developer everyone makes them out to be; even the critically acclaimed ME series has a ton of plot holes (sure, the focus was different, but the fact remains). The way I figure, if you find it that disconcerting, play something else - trade it in and grab the new Mortal Kombat or something. Maybe that will be worth your oh-so-precious dollars since this game obviously wasn't.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Still, a few exceptions don't make the rule obsolete. Planning sequels in advance is much better than just thinking it up as you go along, generally.

Lot more exceptions than you'd think. Lost, The X-Files, Dallas, Star Trek, Life On Mars, House, Battlestar Galatica, 24, Twin Peaks...

Without mentioning 99% of Marvel/DC's stuff.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

snip

A number of choices had an impact. Who you put on the throne, whether Alistair stays with the Warden or walks away (if Alistair had the wandering drunk epilogue, he appears in the Hanged Man. I think Zevran's cameo is a bug if you've killed him, and would be easy enough for them to fix. (It's also bugged to most of the romance dialogue, even if you turned him down). What you did to the Circle in Ferelden comes into play. Choices in Awakening come into play.

Besides, they gave something to that game. They inspired an emotional connection to that individual game. It seemed clear to me that BioWare wasn't sure if they were continuing this franchise, so they had decisions they later felt were a bad idea. Hence some differences in DA2 with where key decisions were placed, and the impact they could have on future chapters of the story.

Claiming their could now retcon everything, including Origin, gender, etc. comes off as Chicken Little syndrome.

They had a franchise take off better than they thought, were able to continue it, but had to make some changes to what happened in the first. So far, all of THREE decisions out of the.... how many did we make in Origins?... have been retconned.

snip

Making those three choices fit in the context of the game does cost money. They have to develop content for every possible outcome.

Perhaps not in DA2, but DA3 seems to set it up as a joint effort between the Warden (who in every possible epilogue but 1 gets set up for another story anyways) and Hawke. This makes the story more interesting. After all, what do your choices matter if you never see the long-term consequences of them anyways?

Making a "good" game series is entirely subjective. I know a number of people who liked DA2 as much or more than DA:O, and are looking forward to DA3.

snip

Yes, I am making a lot of assumptions on DA3, but these are drawn directly from the setup for it in DA2. The chantry (at least a faction of it) is looking for both Hawke and the Warden because they command enough respect that they may be able to end the current conflict.

As for the retcon for dead Wardens, that should have been obvious to anyone with a drop of sense. In every scenario where the Warden lives, in both Origins and Awakening, their epilogue says something to the effect of "nobody believed this was the end of the Warden's story". This left it pretty clear to me that they were going to add more games that included the Warden.

I'm sure they also collected data on who brought back dead Warden's for Awakening to see how many people would choose to continue the Warden's story, but that's speculation on my part.


==========================================================================================
Most of your choices have been supported. So far, I have seen 3 decisions get retconned out of the tons that we have made, and one of those already has known bugs associated with it, and it is possible that showing up against player decisions is a bug.

But even if not, they have not invalidated every choice the player has made, and has gone out of their way to support most of them.

Here's the simple solution for you: Don't buy DA3 if you don't think your choices are going to get changed. Or just choose never to import your own saves.

 

[Altorin]

I just hope they don't pull this shit in Mass Effect 2. one of the great things about mass effect is the persistence of it's world. Don't make a game where all of your characters can die but then bring them back in the sequel as pivotal characters.

 

[Internet Kraken]

snip

A number of choices had an impact. Who you put on the throne, whether Alistair stays with the Warden or walks away (if Alistair had the wandering drunk epilogue, he appears in the Hanged Man. I think Zevran's cameo is a bug if you've killed him, and would be easy enough for them to fix. (It's also bugged to most of the romance dialogue, even if you turned him down). What you did to the Circle in Ferelden comes into play. Choices in Awakening come into play.

Besides, they gave something to that game. They inspired an emotional connection to that individual game. It seemed clear to me that BioWare wasn't sure if they were continuing this franchise, so they had decisions they later felt were a bad idea. Hence some differences in DA2 with where key decisions were placed, and the impact they could have on future chapters of the story.

Claiming their could now retcon everything, including Origin, gender, etc. comes off as Chicken Little syndrome.

They had a franchise take off better than they thought, were able to continue it, but had to make some changes to what happened in the first. So far, all of THREE decisions out of the.... how many did we make in Origins?... have been retconned.

How does any of this address my point? Just becuase some choices have impact doesn't excuse the fact that many of the significant ones don't. The fact that Bioware didn't plan for a sequel (which is bullshit. It's pretty obvious they set up the game with a sequel in mind) isn't an excuse either. Now again I haven't played Dragonage 2, but from what I've heard it has these same problems just like Mass Effect 2. Bioware needs to stop giving us so many choices then rendering some of them inconsequential. Making the player think their choice has an impact on the story and then doing the opposite is a pretty cheap trick and is definitely not indicative of the quality writing Bioware wants people to associate with their game.

I could list dozens of choices in Mass Effect that felt like they had no impact on Mass Effect 2. I'm guessing the same can be said of Dragon Age 2.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

snip

A number of choices had an impact. Who you put on the throne, whether Alistair stays with the Warden or walks away (if Alistair had the wandering drunk epilogue, he appears in the Hanged Man. I think Zevran's cameo is a bug if you've killed him, and would be easy enough for them to fix. (It's also bugged to most of the romance dialogue, even if you turned him down). What you did to the Circle in Ferelden comes into play. Choices in Awakening come into play.

Besides, they gave something to that game. They inspired an emotional connection to that individual game. It seemed clear to me that BioWare wasn't sure if they were continuing this franchise, so they had decisions they later felt were a bad idea. Hence some differences in DA2 with where key decisions were placed, and the impact they could have on future chapters of the story.

Claiming their could now retcon everything, including Origin, gender, etc. comes off as Chicken Little syndrome.

They had a franchise take off better than they thought, were able to continue it, but had to make some changes to what happened in the first. So far, all of THREE decisions out of the.... how many did we make in Origins?... have been retconned.

How does any of this address my point? Just becuase some choices have impact doesn't excuse the fact that many of the significant ones don't. The fact that Bioware didn't plan for a sequel (which is bullshit. It's pretty obvious they set up the game with a sequel in mind) isn't an excuse either. Now again I haven't played Dragonage 2, but from what I've heard it has these same problems just like Mass Effect 2. Bioware needs to stop giving us so many choices then rendering some of them inconsequential. Making the player think their choice has an impact on the story and then doing the opposite is a pretty cheap trick and is definitely not indicative of the quality writing Bioware wants people to associate with their game.

I could list dozens of choices in Mass Effect that felt like they had no impact on Mass Effect 2. I'm guessing the same can be said of Dragon Age 2.

You haven't even played it?

then don't you think it's a little unfair to sit their and pass judgment when you haven't played it.

Sometimes the direction of a story changes. I think telling a developer "You're never allowed to retcon anything. You should not give us any choices that could ever be changed as the series evolves." is unreasonable. Things change. While they may have been ready for a sequel, it is HIGHLY unlikely the final draft of DA2 was written before DA:O came out.

All this crying is going to do is discourage developers from ever giving the player choices that could impact a game. A fanbase who is so rigid and can't give an inch is going to encourage more and more linear storylines with no emotional connection to the story.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Wow... that has to have been taken out of context. There is no other way that makes sense :O

Pretty huge Mass Effect spoiler in the OP there....

It came out in 07. There has to be a cutoff point sometime.

I'm playing through it now. There shouldn't be a cutoff point, that's ridiculous. Think of all the old, classic games you haven't played and think what it'd be like to have the WHOLE story ruined for you. Case in point: FF7.

The whole story isn't ruined. And hardly anyone has a dead Wrex on their file. That should tell you something.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Will BioWare commit to that level of depth? If the currently discussed situation is any indicator, prooooobably not. Easy way out that preserves writers' beloved characters for the winnnnn!

Wait how has it been indicator that they are not trying to achieve that? Gaider flat out said that if you made the choice of killing her that it still happened.

Spoiler: Thread has been chalked with spoilers but it doesn't hurt to be safe.

So where is this same outcry for Flemeth? You kill her in Origins and yet she's able to circumvent her death through the Champion.

It's practically a very similar situation, but it seems pretty clear that when presented properly people don't mind have some decisions countered as an fully realized NPC might and should act outside the knowledge of the player, as long as it is not taken to excess and all sense of player agency is eroded.

If I had choosen to kill Leliana, my first thought when seeing her wouldn't have been "omg plot error" *post on the forums, it would have been "crap, how is she still alive?". Or are we all so curmudgeon that we refuse to let a game surprise us?

Spoiler

First off, she appears before you kill her in Origins, and secondly no one actually thought she was really dead. Even Morrigan said that Flemeth was still out there when you completed the quest. That example doesn't fly. I doubt Leliana pulled a Voldemort and split her soul different ways so she could resurrect herself if she died. Why did it work for Flemeth? She is a powerful witch who has been alive for god knows how long. There is no telling how many times she has "died".

 

[Samechiel]

Whats wrong with the Witcher?

What's wrong with the Witcher is that it's a mediocre game -with its own slew of problems, mind you- that nobody seemed to care about or give a second thought to. Yet the very moment Dragon Age 2 came out and everyone started screaming and crapping their pants about how supposedly horrid it was, every single one of those detractors turned the Witcher and its sequel into end-all-be-all buzzwords that somehow simultaneously stand for everything good and proper in RPGs while being proof that DA2 is shit.

Generally speaking, at this point in time whenever anyone brings up the Witcher as an argument against DA2, their thoughts and opinions can be safely discounted.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

snip

A number of choices had an impact. Who you put on the throne, whether Alistair stays with the Warden or walks away (if Alistair had the wandering drunk epilogue, he appears in the Hanged Man. I think Zevran's cameo is a bug if you've killed him, and would be easy enough for them to fix. (It's also bugged to most of the romance dialogue, even if you turned him down). What you did to the Circle in Ferelden comes into play. Choices in Awakening come into play.

Besides, they gave something to that game. They inspired an emotional connection to that individual game. It seemed clear to me that BioWare wasn't sure if they were continuing this franchise, so they had decisions they later felt were a bad idea. Hence some differences in DA2 with where key decisions were placed, and the impact they could have on future chapters of the story.

Claiming their could now retcon everything, including Origin, gender, etc. comes off as Chicken Little syndrome.

They had a franchise take off better than they thought, were able to continue it, but had to make some changes to what happened in the first. So far, all of THREE decisions out of the.... how many did we make in Origins?... have been retconned.

snip

Making those three choices fit in the context of the game does cost money. They have to develop content for every possible outcome.

Perhaps not in DA2, but DA3 seems to set it up as a joint effort between the Warden (who in every possible epilogue but 1 gets set up for another story anyways) and Hawke. This makes the story more interesting. After all, what do your choices matter if you never see the long-term consequences of them anyways?

Making a "good" game series is entirely subjective. I know a number of people who liked DA2 as much or more than DA:O, and are looking forward to DA3.

snip

Yes, I am making a lot of assumptions on DA3, but these are drawn directly from the setup for it in DA2. The chantry (at least a faction of it) is looking for both Hawke and the Warden because they command enough respect that they may be able to end the current conflict.

As for the retcon for dead Wardens, that should have been obvious to anyone with a drop of sense. In every scenario where the Warden lives, in both Origins and Awakening, their epilogue says something to the effect of "nobody believed this was the end of the Warden's story". This left it pretty clear to me that they were going to add more games that included the Warden.

I'm sure they also collected data on who brought back dead Warden's for Awakening to see how many people would choose to continue the Warden's story, but that's speculation on my part.


==========================================================================================
Most of your choices have been supported. So far, I have seen 3 decisions get retconned out of the tons that we have made, and one of those already has known bugs associated with it, and it is possible that showing up against player decisions is a bug.

But even if not, they have not invalidated every choice the player has made, and has gone out of their way to support most of them.

Here's the simple solution for you: Don't buy DA3 if you don't think your choices are going to get changed. Or just choose never to import your own saves.

If they can decide one of your decisions is "inconvenient", then all of them are fair game. Will you still not mind when they take liberties with the decisions you personally care about?

"We need the werewolves for DA3, ooh, but some people might have killed them. Not anymore!"

"Awww we need the the Dragon Cult to fly in with big explosions and fireballs in DA3 but people might have destroyed the cult! Welllll...."

"Dammit, we want the Warden to be a human male, but some people were a bunch of other annoying things! Well who cares what they did."

Once again: If Bioware cant handle doing save transfers then they shouldn't be doing it.

If it gives a good story, then I could go with my changes being retconned. But saying "If they retcon any choice, they should remove all choice and import abilities ever." is unreasonable to me.