Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[BunBun299]

Fun story about DA2, at least to me. Something else came out shortly after this game was released, and it distracted me from playing it. I stopped a little before the Deep Roads quest. And it was 3 years before I picked it up again and resumed. I think I wanted to get the full experience in before Inquisition. Though I was hesitating on buying that one, having gotten burned on ME3. Anyway, I resume, did the Deep Roads, and the 3 years time skip happened. Seems fitting, almost. Well, as I'm exploring Kirkwall 3 years later, some woman attacks me, saying I'd killed her boyfriend. It had been 3 years, in and put of universe. I had no clue who she was talking about. "Look, lady, I believe you. I kill a lot of people. There's a phenomenal amount of assholes in and around this city who want to kill me for various reasons, and none ever seen to learn from the ever growing mountain of corpses. But I have no clue who in that pile you're talking about. So you need to be more specific." Sadly, for her, she did not learn from the corpse pile either.

[Madner Kami]

Are you implying, that confronting publically known mass-murderers who get away with everything they've done is a pretty darn stupid idea?

[Rodan56]

Not to mention Marethari seemingly spreading rumors about Merrill which resulted in her being viewed as a monster by people who once called her friend. Are there any authority figures in Kirkwall that are at least somewhat competent?

No, there's a reason you can become Viscount. Being the least stupid person instantly nets you the job.

Ehem, being the least stupid person and agreeing to slaughter all mages in the city circle along side knight commander ".... I'm not doing the right thing? What if this is all madness? No! I must remain vigilant!"

Yes, that too.

[GandALF]

Well it is understandable that these Templars would be extra paranoid considering they live in the city with the giant statues of Tevinter slaves looming over them all day.

[Madner Kami]

Everyone who hates the Templars and is attacking them, has good reason to do so. Maybe they'd have a much easier life if they weren't such giant assholes.

[Steve]

This is what they get for living over the site of massive Tevinter blood rituals that made the entire place a big damn demon magnet.

[name_here]

Really, half of the demon problem would go away if they just moved the Circle outside of the city, because Kirkwall is amazingly cursed.

[name_here]

I see Chuck is subscribing to my theory that Hawke is secretly a Disaster Demon who brings woe and ruin by her mere presence.

It explains much.

[Winter]

Everyone who hates the Templars and is attacking them, has good reason to do so. Maybe they'd have a much easier life if they weren't such giant assholes.

Well as Chuck said, the mages aren't any better, and at least on the Templar side of things Cullen can be made to see that he was wrong and is one of the few Templars and despite everything he says I don't think we see him hurt any mage during the game despite his dislike of them. Thrask maybe the one descent Templar in Kirkwall but Cullen does show that he is willing to get better.

In contrast, most of the Mages in DA2 refuse to back down, in fact the only good mages in DA2 I can think of either leave Kirkwall, because they have a bit more common sense and Merrill and Bethany. Sure Merrill's a blood mage but she never hurts anyone and most of the problems in her personal quest is the fault of her keeper making the situation worse.

And then we have Anders, who blows up the Chantry because F peace mages should be free. I'm all for mages not being treated like monsters and locked up just for having powers but at the same time, as Vivienne will say in DAI, don't do it in a way that suggest that mages support whole sail murder. Sure she's more interested in her own power but between her and Anders I'll gladly pick her everytime, at least Vivienne is reasonable.

[Steve]

I played both Mage and Templar endings on one character (Although I consider the Mage ending the "canon" outcome for the character - Sharon Hawke has lost too much already and would be damned if she was going to help kill her sister and is ready to kill every Templar in Kirkwall to protect Bethany), and ironically you can save more mages by siding with the Templars than by siding with the Mages. Although part of that is, I think, the half-assed way the game ending goes (the whole "rushed through production" problem) because siding with the Mages means... you don't do a damn thing to hold back the Templars until they storm the inner room, slaughtering mages in their route, while siding with the Templars means you get to spare some of those mages.

On another matter, one thing DA2 and DAI disappointed me with was taking away dual-wielding from Warriors. Why can't I do the bad-ass thing of running around with an awesome sword in either hand, kicking ass? Sure, Rogues can, but they're an entirely different sort of fighter.