Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[Fixer]

I think I disagree with them being "good" story endings. The fact that we don't know where the Crucible actually comes from makes all three endings crap - imo. The only way a bad ending might have ended up being good - story wise - would be if the Reapers were the makers of the Crucible. Just have them say several previous "harvests" committed mass suicide when they realized they stood no chance of surviving, let alone defeating the Reapers. Have the reapers create the Crucible as some sort of symbol of hope. Hell, have the Protheans not deploy the Crucible because they realized it was not going to do anything. Maybe have some of the scientist working on it wonder why the Protheans never deployed it considering the tech they had at their disposal all throughout the game.

That I think would be more book like and more satisfying. "You never stood a chance, and your great hope? we made it to give you a reason to fight, a reason to survive long enough for the Harvest to be completed." Cue a few more thousand reapers ascending from Earth and joining the fight.

That, at least to me, would be a better bad ending. No more Prothean infighting, no more deus ex machina crucible design. Just an enemy playing chess while you're learning checkers.

I disagree. This is pointlessly nihilistic in a setting where choices and actions should matter.

You can have a dark or bittersweet ending but it had to have meaning and purpose behind it. One of the defining points of Mass Effect was the virmire choice where Ashley or Kaiden survived depending on your decision and there was no way to save both.

When the hype for Mass Effect 3 was building up one of the things mentioned was that it would be possible to let the reapers win.
My theory was that the Reaper's end goal required the harvesting humanity to succeed and in some circumstances you might have to sacrifice humanity to save the rest of the galaxy.

The deal would be. We'll wipe ourselves out, the key you need for your goals. If you leave the rest of the galaxy be, you can have Earth.
Perhaps a low score style ending choice, but pretty profound.

Or another idea I had, that Element Zero itself was damaging the fabric of reality, and if the crucible had been able to render it inert you would have been able to wipe out the Reapers but at the cost of destroying galactic society and the basic of nearly all advanced technology. Or hold that as a gun to the Reaper's head and force them to leave the galaxy, but you had to fear them possibly returning if they figured out a way to defend themselves. Or the damage to reality Ezo was causing now having been expounded by the Reapers having to fly in from Darkspace instead of using the relays, and the issue they were trying to resolve has now reached crisis point.

Now you have to force the galaxy to stop using Ezo, with the Reapers watching over your shoulder, and various powers being unwilling to give up the massive technological and military advantage.

Thought provoking dilemmas with no true right or wrong answer. A lot more meaningful.

[AlucardNoir]

While that would have been funny - and the comment as a whole made me look up the books you're advertising - I don't think the Reapers would react like that.

Thanks!

I do think the problems with the set up in 3 are a lot and needed to follow more from the previous installments of the franchise.

1. The Crucible, itself, is a problem because the Protheans were destroyed almost instantaneously in the original Mass Effect game. The Citadel was shut down, all of the Mass Effect systems were shut down, and the Reapers could eliminate/harvest every planet that was cut off from one another. There's no way they could have conceived of the Crucible let alone build it.

Also, the Protheans aren't any more advanced than the people of Modern Day Galaxy because a lot of the things which the Asari thought were Prothean Supertech (The Citadel, Mass Effect Relays) were created by the Reapers.

See, I have to disagree with "the Protheans aren't any more advanced than the people of Modern Day Galaxy ". They kinda are: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Conduit

They were the only species to have ever reverse engineered and built their own mass relay. Or at the very least the only species we are told have done that. More so, they are one of the few if not the only species to have ever completed the Crucible on their own, they never deployed it because of a civil war but still they built one. The current galaxy spanning civilization had to build a new one, and that because Sheppard rallied them and forced them to work together. The Protheans reverse engineered Mass Relays, they built the Crucible, their experiments resulted in the creation of the modern Asari species... yeah, they were superior technologically. And considering they seem to have been the only species harvested during the last Reaper incursion I'm gonna assume they were either very lucky to be alone or they might have engaged in a few genocides.

Now, regarding your books, do you happen to also sell in paperback or hardcover? After the 2009 erasure of Animal farm in a 1984 like way I kinda swore Amazon and the Kindle store off. Hell I still don't own an e-ink device since I find them way to slow. (frankly I spend the better part of last week trying to convince my sister not to buy one - I failed)

[AlucardNoir]

I disagree. This is pointlessly nihilistic in a setting where choices and actions should matter.

I dunno, the way I see it, it would make the choices the player made thus far not only matter, but matter in a completely different manner. You as Sheppard would still have done your best, it's just - like when you were serving the Illusive man, you had always been a pawn of the Reapers, you just never knew it. Hell, you can change the Catalyst AI of the Citadel with Sovereign. Have him say that his attempt to open the Citadel Mass Relay was only the first part of the plan. If that part failed the first contingency was activated. If the first contingency failed the second and so on until you reach the Crucible. After hundreds if not thousands of Harvests the Reapers have contingencies for everything. Plus it plays well with the "Reapers harvest civilizations to make new reapers" backstory we were saddled with. The reapers don't want to kill, they don't want you to kill yourselves, they want to harvest you (us?). They want to add your biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. Extermination is less then desirable. That would also explain why then work more via subterfuge then via direct attacks, it's either a Blitzkrieg that takes them to Paris or it's a cold war you don't even know you're fighting, let alone loosing.

[Independent George]

To bring the discussion back to DA2, one of my big hangups about the setting is that it's not just grimdark, but it's stupidly grimdark - people are awful because the writers think that makes them 'deep' and 'serious'. I think this is best exemplified by Orsino flipping out and trying to murder you at the end of the game even when you side with the mages.

Just... why? What reason is there for him to do that other than to give you another boss to fight? How does that make any sense whatsoever? "Oh, I'm so upset that all my friends have been senselessly, so now I'm going to senselessly attack these people who just risked their lives for me, including the young mage I've been grooming as a leader for the last six years." Bleak settings work best when they give you something to hope for - the world has ended, but we have not given up and we will go on anyway. Everyone and everything in Kirkwall is so awful, for the stupidest reasons, that I wanted to murder everyone.

The fundamental problem with making the mage-templar schism the climax of the story is that we barely got to interact with Meredith or Orsion, and saw the escalating conflict in only the most shallow and cursory manner - despite the fact that in most scenarios, your sibling will have served under one of them for years. You have sidequest after sidequest that basically come down to 'fight your way to this plot device, fight some more when you get there, return'. There's no emotional resonance, no personal connection tying you to the events around you.

[Gridlock]

To bring the discussion back to DA2, one of my big hangups about the setting is that it's not just grimdark, but it's stupidly grimdark - people are awful because the writers think that makes them 'deep' and 'serious'. I think this is best exemplified by Orsino flipping out and trying to murder you at the end of the game even when you side with the mages.

Just... why? What reason is there for him to do that other than to give you another boss to fight? How does that make any sense whatsoever? "Oh, I'm so upset that all my friends have been senselessly, so now I'm going to senselessly attack these people who just risked their lives for me, including the young mage I've been grooming as a leader for the last six years." Bleak settings work best when they give you something to hope for - the world has ended, but we have not given up and we will go on anyway. Everyone and everything in Kirkwall is so awful, for the stupidest reasons, that I wanted to murder everyone.

The fundamental problem with making the mage-templar schism the climax of the story is that we barely got to interact with Meredith or Orsion, and saw the escalating conflict in only the most shallow and cursory manner - despite the fact that in most scenarios, your sibling will have served under one of them for years. You have sidequest after sidequest that basically come down to 'fight your way to this plot device, fight some more when you get there, return'. There's no emotional resonance, no personal connection tying you to the events around you.

I think another thing that illustrates what you are saying is also the beginning of DA:2 vs the beginning of DA:O.
In Dragon Age Origins, you got to know your character a bit, how his/her life was like before joining the gray wardens.
That way when you meet your old companion from the beginning of the story, there is something there.
However at the beginning of DA:2 we immediately fight Dark spawn.. and then your brother/sister dies.... ohh no not my brother/sister who i have known for exactly 2 seconds.....
It hits a little bit more at home when your mother dies, but at the same time, we hardly knew her there was very little interaction with her.
Heck we got just as much if not more screen time with Bodahn and Sandal, than with your actual family.

Then there´s the whole Anders blowing up the chantry no matter what you do or say, because reasons...

Now i am not against a story about a corrupt city that is essentially a giant powder keg just waiting for the right spark to blow up.
And yes the Templar mage war, was great in concept, basically mages are under the mercy of the Templar.
If the leader of the Templar decides to make a mage tranquil or call for the right of annulment, well there´s basically jack shit the mages can do about it.
And at the same time there is a huge prejudges against the mages from the chantry with the whole story of Andraste and the mages who released the first blight on mankind and the mages who executed Andraste, something the mages to this day in Ferelden are still blamed for.
Also a mage can´t be free to start a family or anything like that, as soon as the mage discovers his or her powers.
He or she will have to report to the circle which will basically become their home for the rest of their lives and if they fail in their final exam, well they will basically be lobotomized.
But on the other hand one needn´t look further away than Tevinter to see what happens when mages rule supreme.
And the game itself offers PLENTY of example of what happens if a mage turns rouge or bad or gets posed by a demon.


It was an interesting premise, as both sides had valid arguments, something i feel could have been well explored in DA:I.
But as we all know DA:I basically threw that plot out the window and replaced it with generic villain number 42 who wants to take over the world.
And sure Corypheus was interesting in of himself one of the original magisters who broke into the golden city, one who could basically tell what really happened and the hints that he gives is quite interesting, that the city was not golden, but already corrupted filled with chaos corruption and dead whispers.

Something that could, if true, make the chantry´s version of events turn out to be a falsehood, political propaganda meant to turn people against the mages.

But it´s skidded over ever so briefly and the whole mage templar ting is over by act 1.

[GloatingSwine]

I think the ending of the game could have been much more organically done. You could also reduce it to a conversation with Harbinger.

Yeah, although I think you need to do some other things first.


First thing is to fix Mass Effect 2.

Instead of Stupid Reaper Baby the Collectors were building a new Citadel, their attacks on human colonies were a result of Shepard's actions in the first game, humans managed to kill a Reaper so they needed to be distracted and turned away from the other council races, and Shepard needed to be removed.

So you get to the Collector base, but you're too late and they activate their new giant relay, bringing the Reapers through. After a mission similar to the existing Suicide Mission except without the silly boss fight you escape in the Normandy and only Harbinger makes it through and there's one final mission with the survivors of the Suicide Mission on Omega whilst Harbinger dismantles it around you which ends with it being rammed into the Omega Relay mirroring the end of Awakening, destroying Harbinger.

So ME2 ends with the Reapers in the galaxy, but trapped in the core where it will take even them a little while to navigate out.

At the start of ME3 they have found their way out and the game proceeds as normal, they even strike Earth first in a clear retaliation strike for Shepard now tallying up two Reapers.

There's no stupid Crucible, because that has nothing to do with what Shepard does during the game, and most of the "gather allies" part happens as it does in ME3.

Partway through you manage to get some information about past cycles that gives you a better understanding of the cycle itself, the fact that the Reapers aren't as invincible as their PR makes out, they use the Citadel and the way it structures galactic society around a single point of failure because they have to, their numbers are limited. They can't make any new Reapers, but they have overriding programming from their creators that means they have to try and control the use of Eezo throughout the galaxy (because of that dying star thing from Mass Effect 2), but also to allow life to persist in it. They created the cycle the way it is because any Reaper lost is an irrevocable step towards failure, so they minimise their risks above all.

So you come to the final confrontation with however many allies you have to spare, and you get a few choices based on how many you got.

The minimum is that you kick off a long and bloody war with the Reapers, the most bittersweet/"bad" ending. Most life in the galaxy is exterminated, whole systems destroyed when their relays are detonated, but eventually the Reapers fail, there will be no more cycles but the cost was almost everything.

The maximum, which requires certain sidequests that give you extra information about the Reapers themselves (essentially incorporating Leviathan) is that you force the Reapers to admit that they will fail, with the galaxy united and in control of the relay network, and with all the damage they've sustained breaking out of the core they can't now win. You break them out of their programming giving them a semblance of free will, and the hope that with all the remnants of the previous cycles they've preserved some way will be found to break the dependence on Eezo.

That makes the outcomes of the game contingent on what the player was actually doing all that time, which building a magic doohickey nobody knows what it does isn't when the whole game is about finding military allies.

[CharlesPhipps]

I dunno, the way I see it, it would make the choices the player made thus far not only matter, but matter in a completely different manner. You as Sheppard would still have done your best, it's just - like when you were serving the Illusive man, you had always been a pawn of the Reapers, you just never knew it. Hell, you can change the Catalyst AI of the Citadel with Sovereign. Have him say that his attempt to open the Citadel Mass Relay was only the first part of the plan. If that part failed the first contingency was activated. If the first contingency failed the second and so on until you reach the Crucible. After hundreds if not thousands of Harvests the Reapers have contingencies for everything. Plus it plays well with the "Reapers harvest civilizations to make new reapers" backstory we were saddled with. The reapers don't want to kill, they don't want you to kill yourselves, they want to harvest you (us?). They want to add your biological and technological distinctiveness to their own. Extermination is less then desirable. That would also explain why then work more via subterfuge then via direct attacks, it's either a Blitzkrieg that takes them to Paris or it's a cold war you don't even know you're fighting, let alone loosing.

Well, the problem with that is it makes Liara an idiot. You'd think people would be able to know whether or not it's an actual working weapon or not. Personally, if I were to redo the Crucible, I would make it so it isn't an "All Reapers everywhere die" weapon. It's a weapon that blows up all of the Reapers in the Earth system.

Which forces them to retreat.

That way you could use Reapers in future settings as enemies but have ended the Cycle storyline.

[CharlesPhipps]

To bring the discussion back to DA2, one of my big hangups about the setting is that it's not just grimdark, but it's stupidly grimdark - people are awful because the writers think that makes them 'deep' and 'serious'. I think this is best exemplified by Orsino flipping out and trying to murder you at the end of the game even when you side with the mages.

Just... why? What reason is there for him to do that other than to give you another boss to fight? How does that make any sense whatsoever? "Oh, I'm so upset that all my friends have been senselessly, so now I'm going to senselessly attack these people who just risked their lives for me, including the young mage I've been grooming as a leader for the last six years." Bleak settings work best when they give you something to hope for - the world has ended, but we have not given up and we will go on anyway. Everyone and everything in Kirkwall is so awful, for the stupidest reasons, that I wanted to murder everyone.

I belong to a group Grimdark Readers and Writers on Facebook and I've been interviewed on the podcast Grim Tidings, wrote for Grimdark Magazine, and have been in anthologies where the focus is Dark Fantasy and Dark Science fiction. I'm a fan of works by Mark Lawrence, Joe Abercrombie and other writers who make George R.R. Martin seem positively cheerful. As such, I don't see the problem as "people are shitty."

People are shitty in Thedas. They are by and large a superstitious, ignorant, bigoted, greedy, and classicist lot. One of the things I have pointed out to my friends who are edgelord anti-religion in real life is the Chantry is probably the most decent collection of people in the
entire setting and try to raise everyone else up--and they're still dicks.

So, I liked the GRIMDARK of Dragon Age 2. I will say, though, the big difference is TONE and the PRESENTATION of the darkness. The problem with Dragon Age 2 versus the equally bleak and shitty people filled Witcher 3 is Hawke is often perceived as FAILING in his actions. He can't rescue anyone really and only "wins" twice in the game (the money and Arishok). Geralt of Rivia lives in a shitty world and never will make any difference whatsoever to the world because people are no damned good.

But GERALT knows this and takes a somewhat existentialist view that he'd prefer to try to do good anyway even if it's futile.

The fundamental problem with making the mage-templar schism the climax of the story is that we barely got to interact with Meredith or Orsion, and saw the escalating conflict in only the most shallow and cursory manner - despite the fact that in most scenarios, your sibling will have served under one of them for years. You have sidequest after sidequest that basically come down to 'fight your way to this plot device, fight some more when you get there, return'. There's no emotional resonance, no personal connection tying you to the events around you.

The Orsino Twist was telegraphed a long way but I think would have been the subject of a better climax if they'd built to it and moved it to Act II so you could follow the follow-up. Basically, the reason there are so many Blood Mages in Kirkwall? Well, duh, that's because their First Enchanter is a Blood Mage and he's the head of them. Meredith is right that there's a cult of murderous evil mages inside the Tower and corrupting them all.

It's just Orsino is a case of being a humanized Blood Mage (elfized) who is probably utterly sincere about his despair at the Templars trying to murder them all.

[Darmani]

Okay more to blow off steam from another thread on another board that's an rp fusion of Zelda and DA

But is there ANY time the Templars are as much a positive as the Mages are?

Sure there is talk of Magic being bad, but only as an extension of poor or malicious intent and use. Bad crimes with an advanced tool

But the Templars seem to be the source of all problems with their repression and misinformation and political brinkmanship and zealotry with the only kind of mitigation that they might provide some moral framework and so on likely not reflective toward player appreciation (everyone is secular at heart with relgious flavoring as to deeply committed)

Annoying as in the rp some Templars are coming to save us from a chaos god invasion and people are rejecting them as, being royalty, even ones accepting help under our banner would open their extended family to screw with us. And many many HATEthe chantry/templars

And no we can't pretend they aren't templars

Just annoying how evil corrupt church takes in fantasy works. All the vices no virtues but then somehow all the forest witches can make prepa and birth control. They are nothing, often, but a stymy to the right solution. Or at least it never sticks to people's rememberance with the occasional whisper of 'magocracy might be bad as them'

[RobbyB1982]

The fact that we don't know where the Crucible actually comes from

The reapers did not build it, its blueprints were handed down from cycle to cycle. It evolved by intelligent design.

The Crucible was built by many civilizations over the course of many cycles. The game says that the Crucible is like a large power source. I think that it is also in a sense, a giant USB drive that holds the options of Synthesis, Destroy, and Control, but it didn't really have a way to implement the programming.

Then eventually one cycle decided to add in the need for it to be attached to the Citadel and the Citadel tower would act like the barrel of a gun and the Crucible is like a bullet and the gunpowder. (It's also possible the civilization that started the cycle intended that all along but they didn't pass the full plans forward so its true intent and purpose was lost along the way.)

A lot of this came through in the shadowbroker subplot and the leviathan dlc. If you choose the fourth path that was DLCed in later to just fight, everyone dies but Liara made sure that the information got preserved so the next generation down the line in 10,000 years can do it instead.


I don't think the Reapers or the Catalyst knew this was the case until the Illusive Man gave them the heads up. They knew about the Crucible and they knew the power it possessed to some extent, but they didn't know it needed the Citadel. They never destroyed the plans for the Crucible because they always wanted a good fight and the Catalyst did want to see if someone else could get to the top and let them decide the new fate of the galaxy. He didn't do anything to prevent you from picking the Destroy ending, aside from saying that he wasn't sure how that would go, because he saw that the galaxy had truely came together this cycle and even saw the peace between the Quarians and Geth so maybe he thought differently about this cycle and thought that they could survive and live peacefully. Synthetic and Organics together.

There is the possibility that the Indoctrination Theory is true which BioWare say isn't, but I can't explain the extra scene for picking the Destroy ending unless the Indoctrination Theory is true or they were pandering to fans who were upset that Shepherd died since that ending was added with the Extended Cut.