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

[secretsantaone]

Reasonable explanations:

1) Brother Genitivi (who could well have explored a bit more before leaving for Denerim) finds Leliana and manages to save her with the ashes (we only have the cultist's word that defiling them has any effect. And come on, they aren't exactly reliable sources of info).

2) After hearing rumors etc, a mage with the spirit healer specialization stumbles across her body and revives her.


And if it is a bit of hand-waving/retconning, what of it? It doesn't change DA:O, and if DA3 comes out, and the Warden runs into Leliana again, you just have her set to hate the Warden. Minor plot holes happen. /shrug

1). It only heals, doesn't bring back from the dead.

2.) Your characters get 'knocked out' not killed. Spirit healers aren't necromancers.

Killing Leliana was a huge factor in Origins, choosing to bump off one of YOUR OWN party members felt like a massive decision. This basically says your decision doesn't matter and Bioware reserves the right to do it again in DA3

It feels like a major decision, but think about it... is it really?

Take away the emotional context of killing a comrade. What change did it have to the story? None. Zero. Zilch.

A little hand-waving and retconning is almost required with a game with as many choices as DA. To build scenarios for every single possible choice ever made while maintaining 100% linearity in the story requires a massive amount content to be added, and that's just going to grow exponentially with each new game.

They have to have some wiggle room, or it spirals out of control, or completely precludes characters from ever appearing again.

Why on earth would you give me the option to kill her if you were just going to bring her back? Surely you could just use a Mass Effect style system where if the save has her dead she doesn't turn up. She didn't play THAT bigger part in DA2. If you were defintely sure that you were never going to use the character again, do NOT give the option to kill them unless you have such a system in place, otherwise it's just sloppy writing.

All Bioware has to do is say her death isn't canon. And because they are the writers they are perfectly entitled to do it. And no matter how mad it makes you and how much you complain, it isn't going to change.

If they are going to have an overarching plot over a series of games then not every little choice will be able to applied. It's down to the nature of the intricacy of Dragon Age: Origins. Not every little thing can be easily incorporated and not everything is going to be perfect.

Sorry for expecting quality from the game I spent £40 on.

I guess I'll just shut up and enjoy my plotholes and being treated like a 5 year old by the developers.

It's hardly a lack of quality that there is a plothole in something where due to the amount of choices, it is impossible to cater to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people didn't kill her anyway. If they aren't going to cater to someone because its impossible to cater to everyone due to the intricacy of DA: O, they might as well not cater to the minority rather than the majority.

But then what's the point in having a choice system if you're just going to ignore what the minority went with anyway?

 

[ZiggyE]

Reasonable explanations:

1) Brother Genitivi (who could well have explored a bit more before leaving for Denerim) finds Leliana and manages to save her with the ashes (we only have the cultist's word that defiling them has any effect. And come on, they aren't exactly reliable sources of info).

2) After hearing rumors etc, a mage with the spirit healer specialization stumbles across her body and revives her.


And if it is a bit of hand-waving/retconning, what of it? It doesn't change DA:O, and if DA3 comes out, and the Warden runs into Leliana again, you just have her set to hate the Warden. Minor plot holes happen. /shrug

1). It only heals, doesn't bring back from the dead.

2.) Your characters get 'knocked out' not killed. Spirit healers aren't necromancers.

Killing Leliana was a huge factor in Origins, choosing to bump off one of YOUR OWN party members felt like a massive decision. This basically says your decision doesn't matter and Bioware reserves the right to do it again in DA3

It feels like a major decision, but think about it... is it really?

Take away the emotional context of killing a comrade. What change did it have to the story? None. Zero. Zilch.

A little hand-waving and retconning is almost required with a game with as many choices as DA. To build scenarios for every single possible choice ever made while maintaining 100% linearity in the story requires a massive amount content to be added, and that's just going to grow exponentially with each new game.

They have to have some wiggle room, or it spirals out of control, or completely precludes characters from ever appearing again.

Why on earth would you give me the option to kill her if you were just going to bring her back? Surely you could just use a Mass Effect style system where if the save has her dead she doesn't turn up. She didn't play THAT bigger part in DA2. If you were defintely sure that you were never going to use the character again, do NOT give the option to kill them unless you have such a system in place, otherwise it's just sloppy writing.

All Bioware has to do is say her death isn't canon. And because they are the writers they are perfectly entitled to do it. And no matter how mad it makes you and how much you complain, it isn't going to change.

If they are going to have an overarching plot over a series of games then not every little choice will be able to applied. It's down to the nature of the intricacy of Dragon Age: Origins. Not every little thing can be easily incorporated and not everything is going to be perfect.

Sorry for expecting quality from the game I spent £40 on.

I guess I'll just shut up and enjoy my plotholes and being treated like a 5 year old by the developers.

It's hardly a lack of quality that there is a plothole in something where due to the amount of choices, it is impossible to cater to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people didn't kill her anyway. If they aren't going to cater to someone because its impossible to cater to everyone due to the intricacy of DA: O, they might as well not cater to the minority rather than the majority.

But then what's the point in having a choice system if you're just going to ignore what the minority went with anyway?

Because it is impossible to incorporate everything in the first place.

Reasonable explanations:

1) Brother Genitivi (who could well have explored a bit more before leaving for Denerim) finds Leliana and manages to save her with the ashes (we only have the cultist's word that defiling them has any effect. And come on, they aren't exactly reliable sources of info).

2) After hearing rumors etc, a mage with the spirit healer specialization stumbles across her body and revives her.


And if it is a bit of hand-waving/retconning, what of it? It doesn't change DA:O, and if DA3 comes out, and the Warden runs into Leliana again, you just have her set to hate the Warden. Minor plot holes happen. /shrug

1). It only heals, doesn't bring back from the dead.

2.) Your characters get 'knocked out' not killed. Spirit healers aren't necromancers.

Killing Leliana was a huge factor in Origins, choosing to bump off one of YOUR OWN party members felt like a massive decision. This basically says your decision doesn't matter and Bioware reserves the right to do it again in DA3

It feels like a major decision, but think about it... is it really?

Take away the emotional context of killing a comrade. What change did it have to the story? None. Zero. Zilch.

A little hand-waving and retconning is almost required with a game with as many choices as DA. To build scenarios for every single possible choice ever made while maintaining 100% linearity in the story requires a massive amount content to be added, and that's just going to grow exponentially with each new game.

They have to have some wiggle room, or it spirals out of control, or completely precludes characters from ever appearing again.

Why on earth would you give me the option to kill her if you were just going to bring her back? Surely you could just use a Mass Effect style system where if the save has her dead she doesn't turn up. She didn't play THAT bigger part in DA2. If you were defintely sure that you were never going to use the character again, do NOT give the option to kill them unless you have such a system in place, otherwise it's just sloppy writing.

While she didn't play that major of a role in DA2, it's pretty clear she's going to play a major role in DA3. As for providing the option, they clearly weren't originally planning on having her come back in that capacity.

Again, there was hand-waving involved with Anders/Justice, a little handwaving in Awakening allowing you to import a dead warden.

These things come up. It is incredibly difficult to progress with a series with this many choices if you don't have the entire series planned out up front (which is very rare) without a little hand-waving.

It's very easy to play arm-chair quarterback and say they just used poor writing, etc. But you don't know what was discussed in their meetings, how they decided it would work, etc.

Plus, again, it's possible that one of the other posters is wrong about the beheading part, making it easier to say "you thought she was dead, but she wasn't".

I'm not saying it couldn't be handled better, but of all the things to nerdrage about, you pick this?

Very nicely said.

 

[Shaoken]

Gaider's writing has been getting worse since the Kotor/Jade games, those were the telling points of his decline as a cohesive writer... He's been believing his own publicity too long, just because everyone and his dog has been saying that Bioware have the best writing. It's gotten to the point he thinks that gold flows from his pen, he's no longer objective about his prose and thinks that he can do no wrong.

He's now honestly unable to recognise just plain bad writing. Just because he is able to throw together any old justification for gaping plot holes and shoddy plot planning he thinks that he can excuse himself out of any situation, that's simply not true. What IS true is that his writing now is just plain sloppy and shoddy.

Bioware now are just a shadow of their former selves and becoming less relevant by the minute.

And now we're getting into this whole "it's kewl to bash bioware" bullshit.

Bioware has released exactly one game since Mass Effect 2 last year, which I should point out is a game of the year and has brilliant writing to the point where Yathzee, who makes a point of never being nice to a game, called the writing brilliant and praised Bioware for treating the story as being important. Yet just because some people don't like DA2's writing they're now a shadow of their former selves?

The fact that your opinion is far from universal shows that it is nothing more than a subjective one, which makes the last line more amusing.

 

[oplinger]

What's this? A world of magic has people coming back from the dead? ...Fiction having strange things happen that aren't explained?

No, this is just nonsense, I will not stand for such madness in my reality. Bioware you're fucked up for doing something that's happened in everything from movies to soap operas. I can't believe you'd bring back someone who was -clearly- dead. Especially when it involves a land of rampant magic that goes more or less unexplained.

But hey, technology can bring back a dead Shepard and we don't give a flying explosive fuck about it. And that wasn't even in a world filled with fairies and magic.


....Really.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

My question is, why isn't Leliana still with the Warden? If you romanced her in Origins, she gives a cute little "the warden is very dear to me" line, but that only made me wonder what the hell happened even more. Why is she back with the Chantry? Why is she a damn holy assassin secret agent? Why isn't she travelling with the Hero of Ferelden? Did they break up? What the hell is going on?

With Zevran it's a bit easier to accept. If he ended up alive and on your side, he said he was going to go take care of the Antivan Crows once and for all, and he goes to do that. But Leliana? Unless you kill her, she basically sticks to you like crazy glue.

Oh, well. It was nice to see Alistair again. Just as big a dork as he ever was.

Actually, I think it works out ok with that. If you romanced her, you get this letter at the start of Awakenings:

Dearest,

I hope you are well. Alas, I am unable to come to the keep as I promised. I am so sorry, but the Grand Cleric herself wishes to speak with me. I will tell you all about it once I have had my audience.

Is it true the darkspawn have not retreated? No matter, I'm sure you have it under control. Wish I could be there, killing darkspawn beside you. Perhaps you could save some for me?

(All right, that was a joke. Do not spare them. That would be silly.)

You are always in my thoughts.

Love, Leliana

P.S. Maybe you could consider growing some roses around your keep? That would make it so much prettier, don't you think?

The Warden disappears at the end of Awakening. It seems to me that the Grand Cleric offered her a great opportunity to work with the Seekers, and she took it, then lost touch with her love.

 

[Irridium]

Ooh, how about this. It's all being narrated by Varric, so he's wrong.

There, hand-waved again. There's so many ways to dismiss this it's ridiculous(granted, DA3 will most likely prove this 100% wrong.)

But after Varric was done narrating, Leliana showed up in the ending scene. So that excuse doesn't work here.

And I what people seem to be demanding is story cohesion. Which is something that should be a given. Yes its really hard after multiple games/books/movies. But this is game number 2, all they would have to do is make a new NPC and just copy/paste Leliana's dialog. Hell, they did it in ME2 with Kaiden/Ashley.

 

[ZiggyE]

Dearest,

I hope you are well. Alas, I am unable to come to the keep as I promised. I am so sorry, but the Grand Cleric herself wishes to speak with me. I will tell you all about it once I have had my audience.

Is it true the darkspawn have not retreated? No matter, I'm sure you have it under control. Wish I could be there, killing darkspawn beside you. Perhaps you could save some for me?

(All right, that was a joke. Do not spare them. That would be silly.)

You are always in my thoughts.

Love, Leliana

P.S. Maybe you could consider growing some roses around your keep? That would make it so much prettier, don't you think?

Best Bioware girl, in my opinion.

Oh how I adore her.

 

[gundamrx101]

I figured the minute I caught onto the 'import'. See, when I brought my data from DA:O over to DA2 I realized that it didn't capture everything, all it did transfer was that a) my warden was a badass dual wielding mage and b) him and Lelianna got it on. Other that, apperently my Warden dissapeared and Zevran was still alive as well as someone mentioning Morrigan helping me slay the archdeamn when I refused her offer and she left. That and Allistar mentioning that my character was on some adventure. Cause you know, I totally see my corpse getting up one day, tired of being all corpsey and walks off into the sunset. . . . . missing an arm and a leg and reeking of a Denny's kitchen.

It's like they had some grand scheme for the Dragon Age franchise but don't want it to copy Mass Effect when it comes to certain choices we're allowed to make. To which my response is: Why let us choose in the first place? Just wait, some people who had Hawke help the Templars are in for a sore surprise in DA 3 when it states early on he helped the mages. Be consistant Bioware, don't take a page from Marvel and DC and go overboard with continuity and status quo changes.

 

[Samechiel]

We're supposed to be wondering where Hawke and The Warden buggered off to at the end.

I liked that in the meeting with Alistair and Teegan, the way they talked gave the impression that the Hero was around quite a bit.

Teegan: ...the Hero of Ferelden should be back in Denerim by now.
Alistair: Why are you always so formal? She has a name, you know.


Hey you know, something just occurred to me. How long do you think it could be between Leliana's visit, and Alistair's visit? Weeks? Months? Depending on the time frame, it's entirely possible that the Hero accompanied Leliana on her chantry work and was kickin' around some bar somewhere while she did what she had to do.

Goddammit, my Origins Hero could have been walking around Kirkwall the whole time. She and Hawke totally could have gone bandit-smashing together.

 

[secretsantaone]

Reasonable explanations:

1) Brother Genitivi (who could well have explored a bit more before leaving for Denerim) finds Leliana and manages to save her with the ashes (we only have the cultist's word that defiling them has any effect. And come on, they aren't exactly reliable sources of info).

2) After hearing rumors etc, a mage with the spirit healer specialization stumbles across her body and revives her.


And if it is a bit of hand-waving/retconning, what of it? It doesn't change DA:O, and if DA3 comes out, and the Warden runs into Leliana again, you just have her set to hate the Warden. Minor plot holes happen. /shrug

1). It only heals, doesn't bring back from the dead.

2.) Your characters get 'knocked out' not killed. Spirit healers aren't necromancers.

Killing Leliana was a huge factor in Origins, choosing to bump off one of YOUR OWN party members felt like a massive decision. This basically says your decision doesn't matter and Bioware reserves the right to do it again in DA3

It feels like a major decision, but think about it... is it really?

Take away the emotional context of killing a comrade. What change did it have to the story? None. Zero. Zilch.

A little hand-waving and retconning is almost required with a game with as many choices as DA. To build scenarios for every single possible choice ever made while maintaining 100% linearity in the story requires a massive amount content to be added, and that's just going to grow exponentially with each new game.

They have to have some wiggle room, or it spirals out of control, or completely precludes characters from ever appearing again.

Why on earth would you give me the option to kill her if you were just going to bring her back? Surely you could just use a Mass Effect style system where if the save has her dead she doesn't turn up. She didn't play THAT bigger part in DA2. If you were defintely sure that you were never going to use the character again, do NOT give the option to kill them unless you have such a system in place, otherwise it's just sloppy writing.

While she didn't play that major of a role in DA2, it's pretty clear she's going to play a major role in DA3. As for providing the option, they clearly weren't originally planning on having her come back in that capacity.

Again, there was hand-waving involved with Anders/Justice, a little handwaving in Awakening allowing you to import a dead warden.

These things come up. It is incredibly difficult to progress with a series with this many choices if you don't have the entire series planned out up front (which is very rare) without a little hand-waving.

It's very easy to play arm-chair quarterback and say they just used poor writing, etc. But you don't know what was discussed in their meetings, how they decided it would work, etc.

Plus, again, it's possible that one of the other posters is wrong about the beheading part, making it easier to say "you thought she was dead, but she wasn't".

I'm not saying it couldn't be handled better, but of all the things to nerdrage about, you pick this?

I'm not so much miffed about Leliana being in DA2, when I saw her, I just thought 'Huh, didn't I kill you? Oh well.' it's more about the response from Gaider, that you're an idiot for thinking having your head chopped off means the character's dead and that any choice you think you've made can pretty much be negated by Bioware if they feel like it.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Reasonable explanations:

1) Brother Genitivi (who could well have explored a bit more before leaving for Denerim) finds Leliana and manages to save her with the ashes (we only have the cultist's word that defiling them has any effect. And come on, they aren't exactly reliable sources of info).

2) After hearing rumors etc, a mage with the spirit healer specialization stumbles across her body and revives her.


And if it is a bit of hand-waving/retconning, what of it? It doesn't change DA:O, and if DA3 comes out, and the Warden runs into Leliana again, you just have her set to hate the Warden. Minor plot holes happen. /shrug

this, i mean sure i notice the plothole, but my goodness are you really going to act like a little child about it because a character happens to be there? honestly?

 

[Luke5515]

I think what he's trying to say is that they could have characters brought back by, say, some mystical force, or something to that effect.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Ooh, how about this. It's all being narrated by Varric, so he's wrong.

There, hand-waved again. There's so many ways to dismiss this it's ridiculous(granted, DA3 will most likely prove this 100% wrong.)

But after Varric was done narrating, Leliana showed up in the ending scene. So that excuse doesn't work here.

And I what people seem to be demanding is story cohesion. Which is something that should be a given. Yes its really hard after multiple games/books/movies. But this is game number 2, all they would have to do is make a new NPC and just copy/paste Leliana's dialog. Hell, they did it in ME2 with Kaiden/Ashley.

Then that would be my error from having yet to progress that far into the game(which makes it weird that I'm in such a spoileriffic thread, but alas I never really gave a shit about spoilers anyway.)

So I'll stick with the "KO'd" excuse.

 

[MasterChief892039]

What nitpicky whiners. The characters from Dragon Age I play such a small role in Dragon Age II, I don't see how it matters in the slightest.

Bioware outright saying your choices only matter as long as BW likes them isn't a big deal?

If you used the phrase "big deal" in reference to a plot hole in the sequel to a video game, I'd have to assume you were prone to exaggeration.

So, no.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Honestly, I would rather have an interesting narrative, even if it means fucking over some obscure persons save.
I know I left her to die in Lothering because I never even knew she was there until later. It didn't really bother me when she showed up again stating that she was with my Warden. Can't please everyone with save carry overs.
However, it would probably be better to just write new characters and leave old ones behind.

 

[ZiggyE]

We're supposed to be wondering where Hawke and The Warden buggered off to at the end.

I liked that in the meeting with Alistair and Teegan, the way they talked gave the impression that the Hero was around quite a bit.

Teegan: ...the Hero of Ferelden should be back in Denerim by now.
Alistair: Why are you always so formal? She has a name, you know.

How long is the time gap between that moment in Act III to when Varric is being interrogated.

Enough time for circles all over the world to hear news of it, then get the means and resources to rebel. Enough time for Hawke to become the Viscount then disappear of the face of the planet (if you sided with the templars). Enough time for Hawkes' companions to leave one by one.

Could be any number of months.

 

[Tony2077]

that the main problem with rpgs that have a lot of choices in them the dev have to decide which they are going to keep and which to throw away. trying to please everyone would have made the game come out a lot later then it did which may have be a better idea but it would also take a lot more space then it did.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

What nitpicky whiners. The characters from Dragon Age I play such a small role in Dragon Age II, I don't see how it matters in the slightest.

Bioware outright saying your choices only matter as long as BW likes them isn't a big deal?

If you used the phrase "big deal" in reference to a plot hole in the sequel to a video game, I'd have to assume you were prone to exaggeration.

So, no.

If you are a company that prides itself on allowing players to make choices in their games then it is a big deal.

 

[Galliam]

Maybe it didn't occur to them when they made the game and now they're covering their asses...? Sure they could make up for it with a patch to allow Leliana's death to transfer between games(I assume, it could be way more difficult than I think) but it's sort of human nature to not man up like that.

I think it says a lot about the writing team if they put a character into the game without realising she could actually be dead for some people.

Thank god it's a different writing team working on Mass Effect 3.

What scares me is that in ME3, theres the potential for your entire team to be dead. I liked that no matter what, some characters were NOT going to die in ME1, but in ME2, everyone could be gone. I'm a bit scared about this.