SimonG: What I meant about Orzammer is that the obvious good choice is actually are pretty bad one (talking about who should be king). And generally at the end of each major quest you can choose the better fighters or the "morally better choice". I agree that the game should have made that a little bit harder, eg. by saying that recruiting the tougher fighters would cause less general casualties.
And the Kingsmeet option you describe is only available if you "harden" the one character. As in "crushing his spirit and making him a ruthless tactician and politician". Something I would generally describe as a bad thing. And you can only do that with a "guide dang it" situation. A player who plays always the nicest option will have to choose A or B (as I did when I first played the game). The "hardening option" isn't really obvious.
I agree on the brat and his mother, Bioware chickened out of there.
And the "text blurb in the end" is all I need in my games. One of the best games I have ever played (A Mind Forever Voyaging) is nothing but text blurbs. Those are for me as important to a game as any full fledged cutscene.
It was somewhat disheartening to see that only a few changes were actually implemented in DA2, but that is understandable considering how you would need to make basically 3 games to incorporate all the changes (as compared to a game without choices).
Orzammer I think it's quite clear that Bhelen's is the 'best' option, he revitalises the city and actually enables social mobility and the like, while Harrowmont continues it's slide to self-destruction.
The Kingsmeet, I never saw any 'crushing of spirit', on the contrary despite their use of the word 'hardening' Alistair is quite clearly still idealistic and never becomes a ruthless tactician, I think you're reading things into it that were not there tbh.
SimonG: I disagree with the characters being twats (well except that Sebastian idiot, I never liked him). Most of the major characters have enough explanation to show why they are acting. Nobody is really acting because they are dicks, each party has their reason which are understandable. The Templars want to "secure" the mage because they know how dangerous they can be (amply shown in the game) and the mages want to live a life without a gulag and the fear of being killed of when they start itching. Also not that unreasonable. The whole game basically features this conflict without showing who is the "better" side.
But I guess that is a case of YMMV.
Well, I suppose it's true that you're entitled to your opinion...for now... *innocent whistling* :P
FlintlockJazz: in dark fantasy people should be people, with both flaws and virtues to make you understand them even as you don't agree with them. In short: no one cares when it's just twats v twats, and unfortunately that's how many of Bioware's characters and settings come off nowadays to me. [...]
Orzammer was not about hard choices, it was about the lack of information to make the choice and the only difference being a text blurb at the end.
Porkdish: While I didn't think all that much of the writing in Dragon Age, I think your criticisms are still a bit harsh. I didn't find
all the characters raging stereotypes or one dimentional. Many of them have understandable motivation, even if they're in opposition to you.
Morrigan was a self interested cow, but she was on the right team and very practical about achieving her own ends. She gets upset when you mess that up by having a relationship with her (friendship or romance), causing her
slight moral conflict.
She's great. I'm sorry, but the highlighted bit is why we can never ever be friends. :P I found Morrigan to be the epitomy of everything that I find wrong with the series and the embodiment of Chaotic Stupid. She whines and justifies her behaviour with "You don't know how bad my upbringing was! You can't imagine!" when there are children in the world with none of her power suffering alot worse than she did and yet still not turning out to be such self-entitled...but I digress, let's just say that I view it quite differently.
I guess, just as I said to SimonG, that you entitled to different opinions...for now... *gets back to building The Device*
