|
Post by Aeryn on Dec 13, 2014 23:50:58 GMT
Let's move out of the speculation thread, shall we? Just to drive the point home, this thread is for SPOILER discussions that could ruin some of the (frankly, awesome) surprises that pop up in game. I highly recommend not spoiling yourself if you haven't played or are still in the middle - it was worth the wait! Now, I could babble on about a million different things, but I want to start at the end. The END end, with Fen'Harel and Mythal. ***SPOILERS INCOMING!!*** The first (and second) time I saw the scene, I assumed what I was seeing was Mythal abandoning Flemeth's body and taking over Solas/Fen'Harel - especially since his eyes glowed the same blue as when Mythal took the old god soul from Kieran (if Morrigan did the dark ritual bit), which also makes it seem like she's trying to gather power into a single form. But, something I read a few days ago described the same scene as Solas TAKING power from Flemeth and, essentially, killing her. That it was his doing, not Flemeth's. And now I'm torn! Because I find it incredibly hard to believe that Flemeth could be so handily defeated/tricked when she's come through so much for vengeance, but at the same time, this is Fen'Harel - the supposed trickster of all tricksters, even though the ancient elves argue somewhat against that. Thoughts? There's so much going on, I can't help but feel like I'm missing some obvious conclusions here.
|
|
|
Post by Shades of Night on Dec 14, 2014 6:43:28 GMT
There is apparently a conversation that the Inquisitor can have with Cole after the end where in a voice mimicing Solas' Cole says: "I'm sorry, Cole, but with your gift, I fear that you might see the path I now have to walk in solitude forever. This fate is mine alone. Indeed, I would not wish it on an enemy, much less someone that I once cared for. Though you reach out in compassion, I must now insist that you forget." And then Cole goes "What??" in his own tone of voice sounding confused. (Ah here we go, link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhTvQjZrvDQ ) To me this is the biggest thing that indicates it was Solas who did the taking since it seems he is still very much around afterwards. However it seems odd for them to suddenly get rid of Flemeth, especially riiight at the end like that. I'm guessing that she'll have another body or something up her sleeve to be back in the next game. From the speech I took it more as some unspoken agreement rather than any actual tricking going on as neither expressed any surprise. And remember that Flemeth says she can't take over someone unwilling (though she could be telling a lie I guess). Also I seem to recall some of the elven lore reveals that Fen'harel was more a god of rebellion rather than trickery as the Dalish think (thus why he's always about freedom and all that), it's supposed to be a mistranslation and distortion of things over time and with all the knowledge that they've lost. I mean I was thinking that perhaps Flemeth survived via the Old God soul that she's just taken herself from Kieran, but of course that doesn't exist in some playthroughs so it seems unlikely that her survival would depend on something that may or may not be there. I did find the number of times justice and vengeance were mentioned (especially by Flemeth herself) curious and began thinking maybe Mythal is a really powerful kind of spirit of justice, but then she was supposedly a goddess of justice so I guess that is why. There are so many unanswered questions left, I really hope they give us a nice chunky expansion with lots of story content to answer a few of these things.
|
|
|
Post by Aeryn on Dec 14, 2014 8:55:14 GMT
I noticed this before, but it only just dawned on me what I was looking at - after all the end bits are over, there's a final sketchy painting added to the rotunda that Solas previously inhabited. It looks to me like a wolf standing over a slain dragon with a knife protruding from its back. That implies betrayal, which having just gone through that final scene with Mythal and Fen'Harel a few minutes ago, this time paying attention to all the details, seems to make a lot of sense. Flemeth gasps (surprised?) when he looks up at her, right before she starts to fall, and his expression goes from extremely remorseful (as he approaches) to cold determination (when he finally meets her eyes) and doesn't change again. Bleh, I don't know.
Seriously, so many questions - and the answers we do get just make more questions! Like, where's Corypheus? He isn't dead. He'd have jumped to another blighted body, right? How dumb is the Inquisitor to assume he's dead after Hawke spells it out AND seeing the "rebirth" happen in person. Also, what is lyrium REALLY? It's alive, mmk. It comes from the fade? Or just happens to exist in both places? But, red lyrium is corrupted. So... what IS corruption? Is it flesh? Blood? Because we know red lyrium can be grown from people, and the blue stuff comes from stone. Or something. But lyrium kind of looks like veins. And the dwarves talk about the stone like it's alive, and Dagna does that weird out-of-body experience thing where she thinks she's a mountain, and... Yeah, either BioWare is a bunch of geniuses, or they've let their writers do whatever they want and none of this will ever make sense, heh.
On a less mind-bending note, Dorian's romance was great all the way through. I can't seem to pick a favorite romance, though. It was easy with the first two games - I loved me some elves. This one, not so simple. I have WAY too many fanfic ideas plaguing me right now, it's not even funny.
|
|
|
Post by deina on Dec 19, 2014 15:18:04 GMT
I am starting over... for the third time:) It's always the same with me and a new shiny game. My first playthrough was rushed - I was so curious to see what's next - and after a while I decided that my Inquisitor was also totally ugly;) So I dropped it. Second time - I picked an elf and played more thoroughly this time, more side quests and so on. But I wasn't entirely satisfied with my Inquisitor, either. Changing her mind all the time, like she had no spine... and her nose was way too long;) Third time's a charm though. Now I have an Inquisitor I really like watching at and I can easily identify with her. I am surprised how big this game is. I honestly wasn't expecting that. It is also totally addicting. I love the "companions and advisors" dynamic, I love the war council idea, I love the exploring and customization options, I love having a stronghold, I love the romances and the tarot cards graphics. I am playing at "casual" difficulty and it works for me - I prefer focusing on the story, not combat. So far it is my favorite part of the Dragon Age series, even if I have my reservations. For example, I would love to have the possibility to check on approval status. The controls are sometimes unnerving and all the climbing tends to be confusing (a distant echo of repetitive locations in DA 2). But these are minor complaints. First and foremost, for the first time I feel this world isn't so black and white. Everything seems more complex - the Chantry issue, the mages, the templars, the conflict of freedom and order, the Wardens, blood magic, spirits and demons (the convesations with Solas and Cole provide an unique perspective for this).
I also have a question: when you are a mage or playing a different race, people constantly point out how is it even possible for a mage, an elf, a dwarf (take your pick) to be Andraste's chosen. So what happens if you play a regular human noble warrior? What they are complaining about in that case?
|
|
|
Post by Shades of Night on Dec 22, 2014 21:52:06 GMT
Huh... looking at it again myself what happens between Flemeth and Solas does seem rather sudden. Hmm... That painting is interesting too (it's so annoying that you can't ask Solas about his paintings at all during the game. I mean he's even done one in the Inquisitor's room and you can ask him all sorts about the fade but nothing about the shonking great paintings he's doing everywhere?), it could just be the style but the wolf doesn't actually seem to be angry. There's an open mouth with teeth but that could just be the way to show it is a wolf.
Either way it probably acts as more proof that Mythal was the one who ended up losing out that time. I'm also curious, since he leaves right after the final fight... Did he start painting that picture before that? (as in before the orb was broken), or did he pop back before the Inqusition and manage to paint a bit after the battle.
You know it would have been interesting if there had been the remnants of one version of the painting underneath and a new one hastily painted on top to reflect what he thought would happen (getting his orb back) and what actually happened.
With Corypheus I got the impression that the dragon was what allowed him to switch between bodies/what magnified his powers, so I took it to mean that by killing the dragon you'd stopped that power (thus why it was so important to kill the dragon). But then (as far as we know) he didn't have the dragon while imprisoned, yet presumably had the same ability for the Wardens to have not killed him (and for the dragon to not come flying in and eat them).
Sooo... Maybe it didn't stop the ability, especially with the way the Inquisitor disposed of him by tossing him into the fade rather than trying to kill him. Which, by the way seemed like a really idiotic thing to do as wasn't that exactly what he was trying to do the whole time? So the Inquisitor just... gave him a free ticket? Granted he doesn't have the orb but he's still a very powerful intelligent darkspawn that got plonked into the fade. Ugh. They really would have been better off imprisoning him. Imprisoning him with non-Warden, non-templar guards. Actually probably non-mage too if he can infect/taint lyrium.
And yep I restarted about three times and am still not happy with how my Inquisitor looks XD But I thought stuff it, I want to hurry up and play the game... Then I got distracted by all the sidequests, because how can I not do all those quest markers everywhere? Shards quickly started becoming annoying, as did how flat all the side quests were 'oh no I have a problem!' then 'okay I'll solve it' or leave. After trawling through the Exalted Plains I started to just get plain bored and so simply rushed through the main plot from there on to get the game finished. I still don't have any great desire to go back and do all those side quests and shards, though I did explore any elven ruin type things I found.
Hmm, haven't tried playing a human yet so I don't know how a normal human plays in comparison to the races/mages.
Oh and I couldn't stand the masquerade ball thing, Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts I think? Would have been fine without the timer and just a flat penalty each time you went into a restricted zone but ugh that timer and the ticking down influence made me feel so rushed that I skipped most conversations.
I liked the game too overall, loooved finding out so much new stuff about the elven lore (probably because I played a Dalish, my characters infect me), and I was especially delighted to find out how twisted and different they actually were compared to what the Dalish thought.
|
|
|
Post by deina on Dec 27, 2014 14:27:10 GMT
Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts would be propably my favorite main quest... if it wasn't for the timer part. I was so nervous all the time that I skipped a LOT of content and totally ruined the outcome (my plan was for the empress and Briala to reconcile and rule together). Maybe in time somebody will develop a mod to turn that bloody timer off. Being geographically impaired, now I'm stuck in Emprise du Lion. I can't find my way through the mountains to advance the Red Dawn quest and keep running in circles;)
|
|
|
Post by Shades of Night on Feb 25, 2015 9:58:08 GMT
You know, I was going to write a huge textwall of all my impressions of this game after I'd finished it... Then I kept delaying and got busy and sidetracked... And now I can't recall half the things I wanted to textwall about So! What little I can recall so far: Hair styles suck. I don't know why Bioware keeps insisting on providing such hideous hair styles. The same goes for their hats, which I'm almost certain they're doing on purpose now. A number of the eyebrows are also terrible in DAI, and I hate that you can't adjust the overbite/underbite on your character. And the lighting is terrible, the same lighting that is used in-game during cutscenes my ass. More variety of scars would have been nice too. The frustrating thing is that the previous DA games and even TOR all show that they can create decent hairstyles. They just decided to give us 50 shades of bald for some reason. I'm guessing that reason was time constraints. Apparently the beards in DAI are pretty awful, too. Then there are the weird expressions your Inquisitor will pull if you select certain mouths. Thus meaning you have to restart. And because there isn't a handy facecode you have to remake the face again. Aside from that... The ping searching is really annoying. Even with the patch that at least shows you lootable items on the radar when you ping (I refuse to call it a minimap, there is nothing map-like about it) it's still just incredibly annoying. And the map. So... There's this game called TOR that has a map that can be a bit annoying at times in how it shows terrain since it doesn't really distinguish between high and low areas. It's especially bad on planets that have huge annoying walls of doom everywhere to block you off. With Inquisition they took a look at that map and said 'Okay, great! Now how can we make it worse?' and they certainly succeeded. Female models in this game have a really bizarre overly exaggerated way of walking. This is painfully obvious when you're in the dreaded Skyhold pajamas. The story and overall plot I think I kinda liked overall. Loved learning more about the ancient elves, especially the darker side to them But the problem with the main game plot is that it just seemed to stop developing. I felt halfway through when things suddenly started careening towards endgame. Feels like this should have been a much bigger game than it was. ... And no, I do not count mindless fetch quests and scraps of paper littered on the ground everywhere and dreaded shard hunting as things that make the game bigger. They make the game more tedious. I love exploring maps in their entirety and doing every quest, but this game just became so mind-numbingly boring with all its non-cutscene quests that I ended up just giving up and just diving straight into the main plot. I haven't felt any desire to go back and do all those little quests and areas either. And then there's also the bad paraphrasing which now thanks to ME3 comes hand in hand with autodialogue! Yaaayyyyy... Two things that I would love to see completely and utterly obliterated from games. A number of missed opportunities for extra depth and dialogue too. Like the temple to the elven god of secrets. None of your companions say anything about that. I feel that they just... Botched a lot of the game up as a whole by cutting back so much on all the quest cinematics and dialogue. You don't see the faces or the quest givers (if there are any) properly and there's just no personal connection there. Egh. Also the Hawke customization is abysmal, who the heck decided that it would be a good idea to create a character in extremely dark lighting?! I bet they're trying to give us all eyestrain issues so we can't see how bad all the hairstyles are. I'm sure there are many, many other things that annoyed or irritated me about the game, but let's see if I can find some good things... Like I mentioned, finding out more about the anicent elves and what they were really like was awesome <3 And characters in general look great too, it's certainly had a step up with graphics going into Frostbite. ... Cullen why do you dye your hair Blonde? Are you trying to impersonate Alistair? Party banter was generally pretty good, especially certain combinations. Music... I can't really remember, but at least I know I didn't hate it That eye colourwheel thing is a nice touch, if only they'd enabled it for every other colour choice, especially hair. I don't think the game was bad, but it could have been better than it was. Oh! And regarding the thing with Mythal, I recently read something about a servant at the keep complaining of having a dream and seeing someone who called themselves Mythal? I think they said this happens after the endgame, so presumably by playing on in a main quest plotless world. If it's true that brings up a new interesting possibility in the whole Fen'Haral and Mythal mix. Aha! Found where I read it, I was starting to wonder if I'd dreamed it up From the DA wiki page, specifically about Mythal: dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Elven_pantheonApparently there's a new patch in the works too that they're actually having people beta test (Gasp! Whaaatt, testing a patch before releasing it?!) and something about a Black Emporium to finally let our Inquisitors change their faces in-game.
|
|
Lingz
Gibberling
Posts: 38
|
Post by Lingz on Feb 25, 2015 14:01:42 GMT
You can fix it. It's in mouth/jaw -> chin shape. The position of the chin is determined by the horizontal axis and the lips are determined by the vertical axis. So chin and lip inside the head is the bottom right corner and all out is top left corner. Glorius overbite awaits Every one bickers about the common Joe being Andrastes chosen. But really they are a bit more cool about it. The loudest objectors still object, but with less racism.
|
|
|
Post by melbella on Feb 26, 2015 1:29:54 GMT
You know, I was going to write a huge textwall of all my impressions of this game after I'd finished it... Then I kept delaying and got busy and sidetracked... And now I can't recall half the things I wanted to textwall about So! What little I can recall so far:::snipped for length::
I pretty much agree with everything you said (especially about the hair and eyebrows) but that hasn't stopped me from playing. Currently on #4, doing nightmare mode. Urgh! Haven't played as a qunari yet but I have the character started.
What did you think of the companions this time around? I love most of them, am learning to like Sera a bit more, and found that Vivienne is only tolerable if you agree with her all the time.
|
|
|
Post by Shades of Night on Feb 27, 2015 6:11:00 GMT
You can fix it. It's in mouth/jaw -> chin shape. The position of the chin is determined by the horizontal axis and the lips are determined by the vertical axis. So chin and lip inside the head is the bottom right corner and all out is top left corner. Glorius overbite awaits Ohhh, I am making a note of this to try out when I next start a new game.
I pretty much agree with everything you said (especially about the hair and eyebrows) but that hasn't stopped me from playing. Currently on #4, doing nightmare mode. Urgh! Haven't played as a qunari yet but I have the character started.
What did you think of the companions this time around? I love most of them, am learning to like Sera a bit more, and found that Vivienne is only tolerable if you agree with her all the time.
Well I did think about playing another game, even got into the character creator... But then I thought about it. And I decided that rather than get frustrated playing it again with bugs, and patches that cause more bugs, and various things that annoy me... I'll just wait. So I'm waiting until the patches have got to a point where they're more stable, mods are out to improve the appearances at least, and there are a few cheats or guides around to get past any really tedious parts. On the bright side, there are already a number of mods out that change the look of the Skyhold pajamas. Some of them are really impressive! Companions... Let's see. Sera: I found very annoying. I can see what they were trying to go for, but it just seems that they were trying too hard to make her funny. As a result she just isn't (to me anyway). It doesn't help that most of the humor is plain juvenile. Vivienne: Was absolutely fine... Until I found that I'd done something that suddenly sent her approval plummeting. Then she was petty and acted with none of the manipulation and people handling skills that she supposedly has. You don't convince someone to do something or get them to side with you through insulting and irritating them. Again things descended to a petty level when they could have been so much more. Blackwall: Has a really strange looking beard. It's either his beard or his face has something strange about it. Personality-wise I found him rather... Bland? Or he just didn't really catch my interest much. Now finding out his history, that was interesting. Especially as something Cole says indicates that Blackwall was right there with his men when they attacked. Iron Bull: Has serious proportion issues, which is frustrating. We know Bioware can create well muscled, proportional Qunari as the ones in DA2 look fine. But Iron Bull just looks... Ugh. His head is tiny. His face is actually fine by itself. Can't say I found anything particularly special about his character, he seemed best for giving more information about the Qunari, and like Blackwall's secret past Iron Bull being a spy added an interesting element to his character. Cassandra: I thought I wouldn't like from how I found her in DA2. Instead she's one of my favourite characters. She seemed really well rounded, human in how she behaved, and could also be adorable at times. I seem to recall her actually asking the Inquisitor things like what they believed in, which is a rare thing. Dorian: Full of so much snark, he's lovely. I often had him around just to see what he had to say about various areas/people. Cole: He's very sweet, though I find his nature in conflict with him being in a combat role... It was great getting further insight into the other characters through what he said, and I also loved the various little things he got up to around Skyhold that you could find explanations for. Solas: I wished my character could grill him more about exactly what he'd seen in the Fade She wanted to know more! Like Cole's insight into other characters, Solas provided insight into the ancient elves, especially at the Temple of Mythal. I really liked the twist of him being Fen'Harel and how things like the village he said was his home were later explained (it had been abandoned for hundreds of years or something). Now as a romance I found the idea of Solas' romance compelling, but content-wise he had so little compared to say, Cullen, that it was extremely disappointing. Especially as most of Solas' content isn't romance specific (I think only one scene is). Some of the banter between the characters was really hilarious too, it's well worth hunting down on youtube so that you can hear the whole lot (especially if you get that banter bug).
|
|
|
Post by Gileadan on Mar 3, 2015 13:29:30 GMT
Agree with most of Shades' textwall. I only recently found that if you keep clicking on Cole in Skyhold, some of his random one-liners are actually references to movies and other games. "There is no other man. He becomes the other man to do the things he can't." - Fight Club "He was dead the whole time. He didn't know." - Sixth Sense "He was their enemy, but she made him forget so he could change." - KotOR
|
|