Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[Sam]

What happened to the witch hunt video? Chuck mentioned it in part 11 but he never showed us the Witch Hunt DLC during his review of DA Awakening. Is it a video lost to time or is Chuck misremembering?

[Winter]

What happened to the witch hunt video? Chuck mentioned it in part 11 but he never showed us the Witch Hunt DLC during his review of DA Awakening. Is it a video lost to time or is Chuck misremembering?

It's part of DAO Review, Chuck covers it in the last few minutes of the last part of the review as it works as the epilogue of DAO.

[MetalixK]

Solas starts and ends at the same place he is in his story arc. He's a static character. He's also very much "for" elves but considers Daelish and City Elves both pathetic.

It's official. Solas is best elf.

[CharlesPhipps]

Hey, I love the City Elves.

Not interested in the Daelish but being a bloody murderous peasant? I'm in.

[Nevix]

I just... holy shit. Are the Dalish elves near Kirkwall just that stupid? Do they have a death wish? Just how bad is their moral myopia and willingness to jump on a blade?!

I am stunned by how needlessly tragic that ending to that story arc was.

Even putting aside the "Hawke is the documentary writer of the game" issues... too many quests end in this bloody self destructive horror.

At least in Dragon Age Origins you COULD have some endings be happy.

I'm starting to wonder if the Golden Ending of Dragon Age 2 is just gathering the moderately not shit people and burning the city in righteous fire from Andraste for justice for all the horrors the people of the city wreak upon each other.

[CharlesPhipps]

I just... holy shit. Are the Dalish elves near Kirkwall just that stupid? Do they have a death wish? Just how bad is their moral myopia and willingness to jump on a blade?!

I am stunned by how needlessly tragic that ending to that story arc was.

Even putting aside the "Hawke is the documentary writer of the game" issues... too many quests end in this bloody self destructive horror.

At least in Dragon Age Origins you COULD have some endings be happy.

I'm starting to wonder if the Golden Ending of Dragon Age 2 is just gathering the moderately not shit people and burning the city in righteous fire from Andraste for justice for all the horrors the people of the city wreak upon each other.

Honestly, I'm genuinely confused at how many people got that ending. The game did a good job of telegraphing the way to avoid the "bad" ending for things. The game makes it clear the Daelish are scared shitless of Merill, they love their Keeper, and that they kinda trust Hawke. All you need to do is take Merill away and preserve the memory of the Keeper.

[RobbyB1982]

I just... holy shit. Are the Dalish elves near Kirkwall just that stupid? Do they have a death wish? Just how bad is their moral myopia and willingness to jump on a blade?!

I am stunned by how needlessly tragic that ending to that story arc was.

Even putting aside the "Hawke is the documentary writer of the game" issues... too many quests end in this bloody self destructive horror.

At least in Dragon Age Origins you COULD have some endings be happy.

Actually it's entirely possible to not kill the village. I didn't my first time through the game. Mostly you need to pull a hard line with Merril earlier and tell her not to do the mirror thing. I think she ends up disliking you for it, but everyone gets to live.

Chuck's gotten several of the darkest path choices, but not all of them.

[Winter]

I just... holy shit. Are the Dalish elves near Kirkwall just that stupid? Do they have a death wish? Just how bad is their moral myopia and willingness to jump on a blade?!

I am stunned by how needlessly tragic that ending to that story arc was.

Even putting aside the "Hawke is the documentary writer of the game" issues... too many quests end in this bloody self destructive horror.

At least in Dragon Age Origins you COULD have some endings be happy.

I'm starting to wonder if the Golden Ending of Dragon Age 2 is just gathering the moderately not shit people and burning the city in righteous fire from Andraste for justice for all the horrors the people of the city wreak upon each other.

Honestly, I'm genuinely confused at how many people got that ending. The game did a good job of telegraphing the way to avoid the "bad" ending for things. The game makes it clear the Daelish are scared shitless of Merill, they love their Keeper, and that they kinda trust Hawke. All you need to do is take Merill away and preserve the memory of the Keeper.

Yeah but to get that ending you have to kick Merrill while she's down which is no different then what Anders did. Admittedly you can talk to her later and let her know that you didn't mean it but that doesn't make it any less wrong.

One of the reasons I love Dragon Age: Inquisition so much is how well handled the side quests are, you can be a jerk and even get innocent people hurt or killed, you can play the hero and save everyone and kill the bad guys or go the middle ground and play both sides.

And unlike DA2 pretty much all your companions are rather reasonable, sure Sera, Vivienne and Solas can be a bit pig headed but they are at least willing put aside their differences and most of their hostility is rather tamed. As I said before Solas shows how your choices matter, even pointing out that all he really did was save the Inquisitor and told her how to get to Skyhold while Anders hijacks the plot and makes it all about him.

Solas: Everything you did you did on your own and you have shown me how wrong I am in my views of the world and I pray you will find a way to stop me.

Anders: I am right, you are wrong and I don't care what you say or think I will change this story anyway I want and you cannot stop me.

One thing I will give to DA2 is that unlike ME3's ending DA2 told you right from the start what that things are going to end badly and you cannot change it. On the whole I think that DA2 is worse then ME3 thanks to the Rannoch and Tuchanka Companions and the Citadel DLC which gave the series a much better finally. But in terms of endings, as bad as both are I would have to say that DA2's ending is better because, again, it was honest with you about how it would end right from the start while ME3 plays up how much your choices will effect the ending of the game only for none of your choices to matter because Shut Up!

That's another reason why I love DAI is that your choices actually do effect the ending. While the final battle is a bit weak the ending proper shows how much you have changed the world based on your actions throughout the game. Empires, the Wardens, and even the Inquisition itself greatly changes depending on how you play the game.

For me the biggest problem with DAI comes down to two things 1, the areas outside the main story have very little story so it all comes across like pointless padding even though there is a lot of interesting lore and history to these areas and the plot elements that are there show real potential but are sadly never seized upon. The second problem is the final battle which, like I said, is rather weak and doesn't reach the high standards of the rest of the games story. I mean it's pretty much one fun but rather unimpressive boss fight that is over just as soon as it began even on Insanity mood.

Thankfully both issues are sorta addressed in the DLC's Jaws of Hakkon and the Decent which gave us some really fun a well written stories and Trespasser is a really good ending while still being a fun conclusion for DAI's story that had a rather awesome final boss fight with the Saarebas.

[CharlesPhipps]

Seriously, for those who want to see how easy it is to save the tribe, here is how.


youtu.be/ip4IaoOKuaI

[AlucardNoir]

Again, that's not easy as much as it's myopic. Not only is the dialogue wheel vague, I actually used the take responsibility path the first time through and was shocked when in place of us as Hawke taking responsibility for the murder we take responsibility for Merrill's blood magic... wtf Bioware, that's not what the prompt said! But the simple fact that those retards are willing to let us go if we take responsibility for her blood magic but not if we try and explain is beyond stupid. We all but admit to killing the keeper with blood magic and they let us go, but they attack us on sight if we actually try to explain she was a pride abomination and based on Merrill's lack of communication with the demon had probably been one for quite some time?

As for :

Honestly, I'm genuinely confused at how many people got that ending. The game did a good job of telegraphing the way to avoid the "bad" ending for things. The game makes it clear the Daelish are scared shitless of Merill, they love their Keeper, and that they kinda trust Hawke. All you need to do is take Merill away and preserve the memory of the Keeper.

Seriously Charles, you are a much more insightful man then I will ever be. For me all that tells me is that Marethari has been seriously shit talking Merrill behind her back. A hunter died because she lied about how dangerous Merrill was and she continued to give that impression to the other Daelish despite knowing her own actions had already taken a life - for another 3 years! Then, in the cave we're told the Demons plans as if she could actually know them. And before you say she could know them since she was possessed. She would have had no reason to actually let it possess her if she didn't "know" the pride demons plan beforehand.

From the wiki, there are three options:
1. Marethari was possessed - the literal truth
2. Stand down - there is a good chance we killed a Varterral, at least once, and they know we summoned a high dragon on top of the mountain 6 years prior and lived. And of course whatever else they might have heard of our exploits, drakes, dragonlings, dragons, high dragons, dark spawn, giant spiders, templars, blood mages, Pride and Desire demons etc, etc. *
3. I'll take responsibility - that Merrill won't use her blood magic against you or your people mind you, not for your keepers death... sigh.

* - actually, now that I think about it, why did Marethari warn her people of Merrill and not of us - Hawke - and the rest of our party? I mean, Isabella is probably the lowest of the low when it comes to rank in our party and she's a former see captain that is the literal cause of the Qunari invasion. Varric is in bed with the Cotori, Aveline - oh, dreamy Aveline - is the captain of the guard in the nearby shemlen city, Fenrris is a fucking Tavinter magic experiment. Anders... Anders is a Grey warden, a darkspawn taint barer and a literal abomination... a literal abomination, sigh.

And we are Sera Fucking HAWKE. It doesn't matter if we have a vagina and a nice rack or a cock and a nice pair of balls, we are The Sera Hawke, a literal living legend. There are literal ballads written about our exploits - ok, they are written by Varric for the most part, but they exist. We have survived the blight, we have had dealings with Asha'bllanar. We have slain countless bandits, mages, BLOOD MAGES, Qunari, Tal-Vashoth, giant spiders, dragonlings, ABOMINATIONS. Hell, we probably kill more then a mage circles worth of blood mages in every fucking act. If we have Sebastian, the rightfull hair to Starkhaven with us we probably killed a desire demon that caused the fall of his house, a named desire demon. Depending on our playthrough we could have probably killed at least one of the 4 Forbidden Ones. Hell, by the time of this quest how many pride demons have we killed? and at least one of them, Hybris, was named. And don't even get me started on how we killed the Qunari Arishok after he and his men took control of the entire city. The remnants of one single ship's worth of Qunari, after countless numbers of them had already defected and become Tal-Vashoth were more then enough for Kirkwall's entire guard and army and we took care of them. Hell, by act 3 we are probably the 4th most important person in Kirkwall, after Meridith, Elfina and probably Orsino.

And who does Marethari warn her people against? Us, the doom that came to Kirkwall? Or maybe our Guard captain friend? or maybe our literal Abomination friend!? No, she warns then about the one person that technically doesn't do anything wrong. Ironically enough, everything bad that happens around Merrill happens because of the way other people react to her choices and not because of anything she does.