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

[Legion]

*sighs* Then don't bother pretending to have choices in your game Mr Laidlaw, if you decide what happens and what doesn't then just don't try deceiving us in the advertising to suggest something different.

The fact is we're just demanding a lot from Bioware. Getting every possibility from DAO to transfer would be crazy amounts of work. Hell, I've killed Zevran and he's in DA2.

Yes, people do demand too much, but they solved this issue in Mass Effect 2 and so they could have easily sorted it out for this.

If Wrex dies in ME1, he doesn't return in ME2, you meet his brother instead.

Leliana dies? Add somebody else to be the Divine's messenger, it's not like she plays an important role.
Zevran dies? Remove the small 10 minute side-quest from the game.

Not exactly difficult.

 

[secretsantaone]

snip

OP lost a discussion on the bioware forums, and now he has to come and cry on the escapists about it.
Troll.

Jokes on you, I was just pretending to be retarded!

 

[nin_ninja]

Apparently Leliana was just pretending when I chopped her head off. Alrighty then.

This seems a bit contradictary, especially considering Bioware had been playing up the 'big choices that matter' in regards to their games and 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

Apparently (I think this is a speculation) Leliana gets brought back because her body healed because she was in the chamber with the Sacred Ashes. Kinda a plot hole, but the she could have been brought back from the Fade by the Ashes power.

 

[nin_ninja]

Late to this thread party, but what the hell.

Dragon Age and ME can't really be compared in this respect. There are only two times in ME where someone can die from what you decide to do.

In DA, I can really only think of one character who can't die from what you decide to do. If they want to bring any of the characters forward at all, for any reason, they have really written themselves into a corner. I don't honestly think that Bioware knew they would make a sequel to Dragon Age. Aside from the Morrigan issue, the game has a real finality to it. Based on their own lore, which of course they conveniently changed to make expansions and the like, another Blight wouldn't happen for hundreds of years, so all the characters in DA:O would presumably be dead by the time the next big threat that required the use of Grey Wardens came to Thedas.

ME had a planned story arc. When ME came out, it was stated that it was the first in a planned trilogy. I never heard that stuff about DA:O, and in fact, didn't know that it was going to be a trilogy until DA2 came out. I think what you are seeing here is an after the fact "Let's make this a trilogy" thing. I just don't know that EA was ready to green light a second game in the DA series because the first one took 5 years to make. It was a gamble that happened to pay off.

It's like when writers think a T.V. series might be cancelled. They try to tie up the storyline as best they can for the fans, but they leave a few new things unresolved, just in case.

Morrigan was Bioware's just in case scenario. Then DA:O became a smash hit. Now you have the writers backtracking trying to please fans and find a way to tie these various stories together. Yes, it makes for problems with continuity, but I cut them some slack here because I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say if they knew they would get sequels greenlit, they would have approached this differently.

Also, as to how Leliana can survive after you cut her head off... hellooo, wizards. Perhaps... a wizard did it.

The Maker did it, or Andraste, or Dog, who knows?

Besides Zevran appearing when he's supposed to be dead I don't have issues with continuity.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Hello. This is Everwarden from the Bioware forums (I have a couple posts in the thread that is linked in the OP). Sorry for jumping in on this thread so belatedly, but I thought I'd offer my own opinion.

My problem wasn't really with Gaider's policy on a character coming back in spite of player actions, honestly. It's a bit annoying, and something I made fun of, but not that big of a deal. The real problem I had was Gaider's blatant "fuck you, valued customer" attitude in reply to a legitimate hole in his writing. The way he addressed the concerns of his customers (and by that I don't mean me, I was snarky as all hell and he had a right to snark back) was completely ridiculous and unprofessional.

Then the man locks the thread down. He obviously can't handle criticism very well and throws a little fit every time anyone has a problem with -anything- in his perfect little narrative.