Dragon Age II: EA boogaloo

[CharlesPhipps]

Kirkwall is on a hellmouth, yes.

[Enterprising]

The only part EA had in Andromeda's failing was insisting on the Frostbyte engine (which is suppose to be a nightmare to work on if you're making anything but a FPS), I lay the majority of failings with that game squarely at Bioware's feet.

Using the Frostbite engine for Andromeda was also a Bioware decision, their outgoing general manager confirmed this in an interview a month or two ago.

[name_here]

On the Grand Cleric: my view of her is basically that she's a well-meaning figurehead; she does want to promote peace and improve the situation for mages, but when it comes right down to it Meredith doesn't actually listen to her, and the Templars only listen to Meredith. So for all practical purposes she's actually powerless. She is actually fairly helpful to Hawke, and it says quite a lot that before the Chantry explodes Orsino is heading over to appeal to her to get Meredith to stand down, but without any military power to enforce her will her orders are pretty much as useful as a UN general assembly resolution. Lots of moral authority, no practical impact.

Now, in the first two acts, Meredith has only limited exposure to the sword of crazy, so she's actually relatively reasonable. The fact that she's in charge of a Circle on a hellmouth has made her a hardliner, but she blocks the Tranquil Solution, treats people who return voluntarily with leiniancy, and generally is someone who can be counted on to veto any particularly insane Templar excesses that are brought to her attention. So she'll generally listen to the Grand Cleric. By Act III, though, she's gone firmly off the deep end.

[CharlesPhipps]

On the Grand Cleric: my view of her is basically that she's a well-meaning figurehead; she does want to promote peace and improve the situation for mages, but when it comes right down to it Meredith doesn't actually listen to her, and the Templars only listen to Meredith. So for all practical purposes she's actually powerless. She is actually fairly helpful to Hawke, and it says quite a lot that before the Chantry explodes Orsino is heading over to appeal to her to get Meredith to stand down, but without any military power to enforce her will her orders are pretty much as useful as a UN general assembly resolution. Lots of moral authority, no practical impact.

I'd argue, actually, the Grand Cleric is incredibly powerful but her power is negative power. Meredith is going insane due to the Lyrium blade (which is a cop out in my opinion) but has the willpower and faith to stay sane for years after Bartram went utterly nuts. However, Meredith never orders the Right of Annulment until the Grand Cleric is out of the way. It's like Norman Osbourne during his head of HAMMER--he's doing all manner of horrible things behind the table but when he frames Asgard for attacking an American city--he finds out he CAN'T attack them because the President says no.

The Templars are loyal to Meredith but they're loyal to the Chantry as well. It's only when the Circles revolt that the Templars put the Lord Seeker above them.

Had Meredith exploded before the Grand Cleric was dead, she would have been taken down. Indeed, there was a Templar conspiracy to remove her which would have worked if--ironically--they'd just gone to Elthina with their evidence. Elthina would have probably had to go to the Divine and bring the rest of the Templars in but at any case she probably could have said, "Cullen, you're now in charge."

[Valikdu]

About Mark of the Assassin again.

What irks me the most is that you find out that Felicia Day's character is an actual enemy agent, and you don't have a choice to... you know, do something about it?
A very logical step to take would be to stab the knife-eared Qunari in the face, take the artifact and then deliver it to someone who can make use of it. Like Meredith.

The only reason I can think about for this option not being included is an agreement with Felicia Day. Maybe she wanted her character to be so awesometastic (possibly using this exact word) that you can't even kill her.

[hammerofglass]

About Mark of the Assassin again.

What irks me the most is that you find out that Felicia Day's character is an actual enemy agent, and you don't have a choice to... you know, do something about it?
A very logical step to take would be to stab the knife-eared Qunari in the face, take the artifact and then deliver it to someone who can make use of it. Like Meredith.

The only reason I can think about for this option not being included is an agreement with Felicia Day. Maybe she wanted her character to be so awesometastic (possibly using this exact word) that you can't even kill her.

The "artifact" is a list of current and former Qunari intelligence assets. Delivering it to anyone who can actually do anything about it would trigger a continent-spanning religious war that neither side wants and which would make the actual plot of the game and later mage rebellion into even more of a sideshow than it ended up being anyway. Since Tallis is a rogue agent who the Qunari kicked out, leaving it in her hands effectively takes it out of circulation.

[CharlesPhipps]

The "artifact" is a list of current and former Qunari intelligence assets. Delivering it to anyone who can actually do anything about it would trigger a continent-spanning religious war that neither side wants and which would make the actual plot of the game and later mage rebellion into even more of a sideshow than it ended up being anyway. Since Tallis is a rogue agent who the Qunari kicked out, leaving it in her hands effectively takes it out of circulation.

This logic doesn't really work out because the Qunari aren't going to go to war because of it. The Qunari are ALREADY at war with the rest of Thedas. They've just cleverly gotten to the point of fighting only Tevinter first and then plan to fight the rest inevitably. The Qunari sleeper agents are things which the player should be able to do something about because we saw them at work in Dragon Age: Inqusition's DLC.

Its' annoying the Muslim/Caliphate analog is an untrustworthy agent which peace with is impossible but that's what the Qunari are about.

You should have been able to lift the list (Talis can get away if you want her to) and then have Cassandra go:

"Yes, we remember this. The Templars received the list and launched something just short of an Exalted March. Many hundreds arrested, many thousands more fled back to Qunari territory."

[hammerofglass]

The "artifact" is a list of current and former Qunari intelligence assets. Delivering it to anyone who can actually do anything about it would trigger a continent-spanning religious war that neither side wants and which would make the actual plot of the game and later mage rebellion into even more of a sideshow than it ended up being anyway. Since Tallis is a rogue agent who the Qunari kicked out, leaving it in her hands effectively takes it out of circulation.

This logic doesn't really work out because the Qunari aren't going to go to war because of it. The Qunari are ALREADY at war with the rest of Thedas. They've just cleverly gotten to the point of fighting only Tevinter first and then plan to fight the rest inevitably. The Qunari sleeper agents are things which the player should be able to do something about because we saw them at work in Dragon Age: Inqusition's DLC.

Its' annoying the Muslim/Caliphate analog is an untrustworthy agent which peace with is impossible but that's what the Qunari are about.

You should have been able to lift the list (Talis can get away if you want her to) and then have Cassandra go:

"Yes, we remember this. The Templars received the list and launched something just short of an Exalted March. Many hundreds arrested, many thousands more fled back to Qunari territory."

That kind of competence would be ludicrously out of character for Hawke. Believing the last thing she was told, even from a known liar, is more her speed. Like how that explanation I gave came straight from Tallis because the game won't let you question it.

Literally the only thing in this entire story that effects the wider setting is waking Cory up. Even the Mage Rebellion had it's real start in one of the novels for completely unrelated reasons; the war in Kirkwall never made it past it's own walls. They sure as hell weren't going to let you solve a problem they're saving for the A plot of a later game in a one-off DLC.

[TV-366]

You may have petered out by the end there, SFDebris, but given all the trouble the game gave you (and the real life hassles), I'm impressed that you got through it all and still managed to be informative and entertaining. Hat's off to you.

Also, thank you for introducing me to "Land of Confusion". It's a great song, and you put it together with the footage incredibly well.

Looking forward to Dragon Age; Inquisition next year! Though now I'm curious what choice you'll make when you get to one particular event..

[Winter]

So I was watching the Legacy bit of the review and something Chuck said got me thinking, what if you could have Corypheus fight Meredith. To jump reviewers for a moment in Linkara's review of Rom Space Knight there was him praising Rom for leading Galactus to the Dire Wraith galaxy in the hopes of either them destroying one another, one destroying the other but weakening the other or just weakening Galactus for the time being.

It would be interesting if you could do something similar in the next Dragon Age game. One idea I have for DA is a sea adventure, something like Assassin's Creed Black Flag, where your goal is to secure a huge part of the sea with the main antagonist being the Qunari but you have other threats to deal with like pirates, sea monsters, Dragons and even a few Darkspawn infested islands.

For this it would be interesting if you could get one or all of these factions to fight one another and let them take each other out. For example lets take the sea monster idea. This thing is like serpents from Avatar: The Legend of Aang, they're dangerous enough to take out whole ships and fighting them is something that will take a lot of work on the part of the player.

However, you are able to use your charm and resources to get either the pirates to fight it for you or have it attack the Darkspawn islands. This will weaken the serpent over time thus making it easier to kill when you do finally fight it and also means you can take care of other enemy forces without having to waste precious resources in dealing with either threat.