Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.

[Kish]

I do not see the assumption that my Hawke is not the kind of person to sit idly while everything around him burns as that hard to swallow. I can live with filling some things in myself, and Hawke is still a lot easier to relate to than the mute, creepily-staring Warden. Hawke is just a talented, driven person caught in the middle as various tensions in Kirkwall come to a head and spread across the rest of Thedas. It's a nice change of pace.

As I've said before, I found the plot premise and structure of DA2 quite refreshing. The execution could use work - a lot of work, to be honest - but the concept is sound. I will be very disappointed if BioWare decides to retreat to familiar ground and rehash the 'you're the last remnant of [ancient order], go do four story missions to [gather allies/find MacGuffin] before [endgame]' scheme.

Same here. Of course, as has come up before, some players seem to look at DA2's premises, go, "Mages? Clearly my character's overarching goal is to prevent them from rebelling against their just confinement, and all this stuff about being from an apostate family is just noise!...Ugh, I failed at everything!" and conclude that the game stinks, or at least is all about inevitable failure rather than considering that maybe, just maybe, the problem is that they did the equivalent of starting Dragon Age 1 (and not the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC) with the assumption that their goal was to help the darkspawn conquer Ferelden.

[Avilan the Grey]

I do not see the assumption that my Hawke is not the kind of person to sit idly while everything around him burns as that hard to swallow. I can live with filling some things in myself, and Hawke is still a lot easier to relate to than the mute, creepily-staring Warden. Hawke is just a talented, driven person caught in the middle as various tensions in Kirkwall come to a head and spread across the rest of Thedas. It's a nice change of pace.

As I've said before, I found the plot premise and structure of DA2 quite refreshing. The execution could use work - a lot of work, to be honest - but the concept is sound. I will be very disappointed if BioWare decides to retreat to familiar ground and rehash the 'you're the last remnant of [ancient order], go do four story missions to [gather allies/find MacGuffin] before [endgame]' scheme.

The voice thing... I don't exactly prefer silent protagonists, but I have absolutely NO problem identifying with them. Maybe it's an age thing; I mean I am old enough that I still consider FO3's graphics exceptional. Because I started playing computer games when PacMan was the new thing.

Anyway, I am not FIGHTING the plot in DA2 as much as trying to FIND the plot. And HATING the STORY (Story != Plot).
But then I play to be a hero. Maybe not a Paladin, but at least an anti-hero with a heart of gold. I never play truly evil characters, because I cannot stommach them.

Btw the comparison with the Warden doesn't hold water to me, because the Warden is, at the very least, defending his homeland from utter destruction. Hawke chooses to flee, because of the safety of his mother (no other reason) and instead ends up in a situation that hardly is any better than a war-torn Ferelden. He ends up a refugee because of his mother, who he later fails to save, making his whole decision pointless. It's like Alien 3 starts with Newt being dead. Making the second movie pointless.

If it wasn't for his mother, I would label Hawke a coward. He or she is as powerful as the warden (actually more so, since the new and "improved" combat is more stupidly over the top) and yet chooses to leave. Again, his sole motivation is to save his mother.

As I said the plot disappears somewhere in Act 2 and is replaced by random trolling by the designers to make my character's life as miserable as possible. The story is basically "We failed to make DA:O into TRULY dark fantasy so let's screw everyone over and kick the player in the balls repeatedly. Because Trolling"

One thing is for sure, I will never pre-order a Bioware game again after pre-ordering this and ME3. At least they kind of fixed ME3 after about 6 months.
For DA3 I will definitely wait until it is in the bargain bin, or at least well after a fairly consistent review score has been on the net for several months. The total worship and over-rating game mags gave DA2 is still a joke (seriously; if you look at the critical dissonance between players and professional reviewers... British reviewers still regulary gets the question "is this a real 98% score or a "Dragon Age 2 98% score?" from people after they hype a game.)

Same here. Of course, as has come up before, some players seem to look at DA2's premises, go, "Mages? Clearly my character's overarching goal is to prevent them from rebelling against their just confinement, and all this stuff about being from an apostate family is just noise!...Ugh, I failed at everything!" and conclude that the game stinks, or at least is all about inevitable failure rather than considering that maybe, just maybe, the problem is that they did the equivalent of starting Dragon Age 1 (and not the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC) with the assumption that their goal was to help the darkspawn conquer Ferelden.

Sorry, but no. As a strong pro-mage (after playing DA:O) I soon switched to be pro-chantry (especially after my sister died, I played a rogue) since Every. Single. Mage. you meet is a blood mage or a full blown abomination. Bethany was the only mage I could stand in the whole game (in fact she was my favorite character, period). I went full anti-mage after experiencing my nth cave full of "misunderstood poor mages that just wanted to EAT MY SOUUULLLL"

[Morty]

Same here. Of course, as has come up before, some players seem to look at DA2's premises, go, "Mages? Clearly my character's overarching goal is to prevent them from rebelling against their just confinement, and all this stuff about being from an apostate family is just noise!...Ugh, I failed at everything!" and conclude that the game stinks, or at least is all about inevitable failure rather than considering that maybe, just maybe, the problem is that they did the equivalent of starting Dragon Age 1 (and not the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC) with the assumption that their goal was to help the darkspawn conquer Ferelden.

Here I don't fully agree, because I don't see the Mage/Templar conflict in such terms. I think it's the closest BioWare ever got to moral ambiguity... certainly a step up from their attempt to make Logain ambiguous.

The players who declare Hawke a failure seem to come from the expectation that the protagonist will fix everything apart from one arbitrarily chosen emotionally important character who will die to facilitate tension. Instead we have a character whose success is stopping the city from being completelty torn apart by the two factions and, if one is pro-mage, stopping the massacre of the Circle in Kirkwall. Pro-Templar players have more reasons to complain, I suppose.

The voice thing... I don't exactly prefer silent protagonists, but I have absolutely NO problem identifying with them. Maybe it's an age thing; I mean I am old enough that I still consider FO3's graphics exceptional. Because I started playing computer games when PacMan was the new thing.

As someone who played the hell out of Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, I still find the mute Warden annoying. It's one thing to have a voiceless protagonist when everyone is a miniature and only the more important lines and characters are voiced. It's something else when everyone is fully voiced and animated, and only the protagonist stays silent, with a fixed expression.

Btw the comparison with the Warden doesn't hold water to me, because the Warden is, at the very least, defending his homeland from utter destruction. Hawke chooses to flee, because of the safety of his mother (no other reason) and instead ends up in a situation that hardly is any better than a war-torn Ferelden. He ends up a refugee because of his mother, who he later fails to save, making his whole decision pointless. It's like Alien 3 starts with Newt being dead. Making the second movie pointless.

If it wasn't for his mother, I would label Hawke a coward. He or she is as powerful as the warden (actually more so, since the new and "improved" combat is more stupidly over the top) and yet chooses to leave. Again, his sole motivation is to save his mother.

A coward? What was Hawke supposed to do? Stay and fight? That would have been an elaborate way of commiting suicide. Remember, Hawke is either an under-cover apostate mage or a survivor of a completely routed army, and not a Grey Warden... and like you say, s/he is escorting their elderly, non-combatant mother.

The death of Hawke's mother was a little railroady, I'll admit. I did say that the execution of the plot was flawed.

As for combat, it is over-the-top... but I prefer it to the one in Origins. I'd rather have over-the-top combat than anemic people swinging lead replicas. One thing I do hold against it is the reliance on waves upon waves of mooks and random encounters. Quality over quantity, people. Mind you, random encounters around every corner were present in Origins as well, and I'll be very surprised if they drop that particular sacred cow in Inquisition.

Sorry, but no. As a strong pro-mage (after playing DA:O) I soon switched to be pro-chantry (especially after my sister died, I played a rogue) since Every. Single. Mage. you meet is a blood mage or a full blown abomination. Bethany was the only mage I could stand in the whole game (in fact she was my favorite character, period). I went full anti-mage after experiencing my nth cave full of "misunderstood poor mages that just wanted to EAT MY SOUUULLLL"

Like I said above, the Mage/Templar conflict is better than BioWare's earlier attempts at moral ambiguity, but still suffers from problems. First is that they did end up skewing it in favour of the mages and the second is that they relied on their tried and true method of making everyone a gigantic douchebag.

[Beowulf DW]

Here I don't fully agree, because I don't see the Mage/Templar conflict in such terms. I think it's the closest BioWare ever got to moral ambiguity... certainly a step up from their attempt to make Logain ambiguous.

The players who declare Hawke a failure seem to come from the expectation that the protagonist will fix everything apart from one arbitrarily chosen emotionally important character who will die to facilitate tension. Instead we have a character whose success is stopping the city from being completelty torn apart by the two factions and, if one is pro-mage, stopping the massacre of the Circle in Kirkwall. Pro-Templar players have more reasons to complain, I suppose.



As someone who played the hell out of Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, I still find the mute Warden annoying. It's one thing to have a voiceless protagonist when everyone is a miniature and only the more important lines and characters are voiced. It's something else when everyone is fully voiced and animated, and only the protagonist stays silent, with a fixed expression.



A coward? What was Hawke supposed to do? Stay and fight? That would have been an elaborate way of commiting suicide. Remember, Hawke is either an under-cover apostate mage or a survivor of a completely routed army, and not a Grey Warden... and like you say, s/he is escorting their elderly, non-combatant mother.

The death of Hawke's mother was a little railroady, I'll admit. I did say that the execution of the plot was flawed.

As for combat, it is over-the-top... but I prefer it to the one in Origins. I'd rather have over-the-top combat than anemic people swinging lead replicas. One thing I do hold against it is the reliance on waves upon waves of mooks and random encounters. Quality over quantity, people. Mind you, random encounters around every corner were present in Origins as well, and I'll be very surprised if they drop that particular sacred cow in Inquisition.



Like I said above, the Mage/Templar conflict is better than BioWare's earlier attempts at moral ambiguity, but still suffers from problems. First is that they did end up skewing it in favour of the mages and the second is that they relied on their tried and true method of making everyone a gigantic douchebag.

Everything that Morty has said so far is pretty much my opinion, as well.

Also, Avilan, I'm right there with you on Bethany being a favorite character. She actually reminded me a bit of my own younger sister, with that letter you get about how she loves teaching the younger mages. I also actually listened to her when she said that she didn't want to go into the Deep Roads. What kind of brother would Hawke be if, after all the dangerous stuff they've been through, he didn't listen to the one time his sister wanted out?

[Avilan the Grey]

A coward? What was Hawke supposed to do? Stay and fight? That would have been an elaborate way of commiting suicide. Remember, Hawke is either an under-cover apostate mage or a survivor of a completely routed army, and not a Grey Warden... and like you say, s/he is escorting their elderly, non-combatant mother.

The death of Hawke's mother was a little railroady, I'll admit. I did say that the execution of the plot was flawed.

My point is that if he HADN'T had his mother, I would have labeled him a coward. Now, mind you, I don't mean "stay and fight" in the Doomed Hometown (tm), I mean "Join up with the army the Warden is building".

As for combat, it is over-the-top... but I prefer it to the one in Origins. I'd rather have over-the-top combat than anemic people swinging lead replicas. One thing I do hold against it is the reliance on waves upon waves of mooks and random encounters. Quality over quantity, people. Mind you, random encounters around every corner were present in Origins as well, and I'll be very surprised if they drop that particular sacred cow in Inquisition.

Why don't you like random encounters?

Other than that... No, I truly prefer the DA:O combat. But then I still hold BG2 as the peak of Bioware's production. It's basically the "Thriller" of their career. I am firmly in the camp that got disappointed beyond belief when they left the "spiritual successor of the BG games" style to the "Kids today demand Button Of AWZUM" combat and game mechanics.

[Kish]

Here I don't fully agree, because I don't see the Mage/Templar conflict in such terms. I think it's the closest BioWare ever got to moral ambiguity... certainly a step up from their attempt to make Logain ambiguous.

I actually see it as pretty much exactly as ambiguous as Loghain, though it impacts Hawke less personally than Loghain's evil impacts the Warden. (If Hawke herself/himself was thrown in the Gallows...of course, then there wouldn't really be a plot after that point.)

I might add that, terrible prescriptivist oversimplification that "Hawke's motivation is about protecting 'his' family" is, if one viewed it that way, wasn't a mage, and didn't take Bethany to the Deep Roads, "protecting Hawke's family, subcategory getting Hawke's sister out of Meredith's concentration camp" can be your motivation all the way to the end of the game.

[Morty]

My point is that if he HADN'T had his mother, I would have labeled him a coward. Now, mind you, I don't mean "stay and fight" in the Doomed Hometown (tm), I mean "Join up with the army the Warden is building".

An army they had no idea was being built, because it started gathering when they were already in Kirkwall with no real means of going back to Ferelden.

Why don't you like random encounters?

Because they're pointless in the quantity in which Dragon Age throws them at me. At some point, yet another band of slavers, cultists, darkspawn or what-the-hell-ever simply brings nothing with it that I haven't seen a dozen times over.

Other than that... No, I truly prefer the DA:O combat. But then I still hold BG2 as the peak of Bioware's production. It's basically the "Thriller" of their career. I am firmly in the camp that got disappointed beyond belief when they left the "spiritual successor of the BG games" style to the "Kids today demand Button Of AWZUM" combat and game mechanics.

The way I see it is connected to the issue of voicing - a different medium has different requirements. Baldur's Gate is great. Trying to replicate it in modern 3D graphics leads to rather weird results. When characters in BG swing their weapons every once in a while, it's okay, because they're little figurines anyway. When real-looking people stand around for a few seconds before swinging their weapons slowly and awkwardly... it just looks stupid. I do agree that DA2 combat is over-the-top, but of the two alternatives, that's what I prefer. In DA2, it actually feels as though the hits connect. My main problem with it is the fact that although the animations are fast, the actual combat is drawn out, because it takes a while to put down even a mook - which also applies to Origins.

I actually see it as pretty much exactly as ambiguous as Loghain, though it impacts Hawke less personally than Loghain's evil impacts the Warden. (If Hawke herself/himself was thrown in the Gallows...of course, then there wouldn't really be a plot after that point.)

I might add that, terrible prescriptivist oversimplification that "Hawke's motivation is about protecting 'his' family" is, if one viewed it that way, wasn't a mage, and didn't take Bethany to the Deep Roads, "protecting Hawke's family, subcategory getting Hawke's sister out of Meredith's concentration camp" can be your motivation all the way to the end of the game.

A different perspective, then. I do realize that I have a higher opinon of the Mage/Templar conflict than most. More proof that BioWare has a ways to go before they can make good moral ambiguity.

[Seatbelt]

The Mage/Templay debacle actually reflects some real world political theory. Take the magic out of mages and it's just good old fashioned ethnic violence.

[Longes]

The Mage/Templay debacle actually reflects some real world political theory. Take the magic out of mages and it's just good old fashioned ethnic violence.

Unless black people can explode heads with magic, your argument is invalid.

[Kish]

Sidestepping the real-world politics discussion, I'm just going to comment, totally to the air and unrelated to anything that anyone else has said here, that the "mages needs to be confined because their power level makes them dangerous" line of argument seems to be soundly refuted* at the climax of Dragon Age 2, when a mage blows up the Chantry without using any magic at all, in an act anyone with reason to hate the Chantry and access to a chemical bomb could have committed.

*Or, at best, replaced with "people who the Chantry has been beating down for this long, they'd better keep beating down."

[ZeroNumerous]

What kind of brother would Hawke be if, after all the dangerous stuff they've been through, he didn't listen to the one time his sister wanted out?

To be honest? A dumb one.

She's an apostate mage, in a city famous for how badly it treats its mages. Carter's dead, Mom is in her 50s-60s, and you have an uncle desperate for money. It's plainly obvious that she'll get caught by the Templars if you leave--whether because your "dear" uncle turns her in for money or because she got unlucky.

I took Bethany into the Deep Roads to protect her. The Templars won't arrest Mom, and "dear" uncle is too cowardly to put himself in a bad spot. But if they found Bethany, then she'd be arrested--or worse, resist and get killed. At least in the Deep Roads you have the chance to protect her, even if she doesn't like it. It's just bad luck that she gets infected. And, frankly, it makes no sense that she is infected when she's just as capable as Hawke concerning freezing things solid(don't blow up Darkspawn lest you get infected blood on/in you).

[Giggling Ghast]

You can be corrupted by the darkspawn taint without ingesting their blood. That's the most obvious method of transmission, but any contact with the darkspawn carries the possibility of corruption.

Their very presence withers plants and blackens the sky. The taint is magical, not biological.

[D_Man_7733]

I think the whole "Every mage in the game is a blood mage out to kill you" only applies for two reasons.

1. They wanted to add more gameplay, and making them blood mages means you don't have to worry, if you didn't kill them the templars would eventually.

2. Any mage who wouldn't bring the wrath of the templars almost instantly (ie. not blood mages) is successfully in hiding or running away, they have to make an active effort to make sure nobody know they are a mage, and odds are only Anders has any idea whatsoever who is a mage and who isn't. Odds are a few people that hawke has met are mages, it's also implied that there are other mages in the smuggler/mercenary company you side with at the start of the game.

One is gameplay/story segregation, two is story justification.

[Joran]

Unless black people can explode heads with magic, your argument is invalid.

The Mage/Templar conflict is basically the X-Men mutants/non-mutants conflict with a side of "untrained mages can be taken over by demons."

I'm on Avilan's side for the plot. I liked the combat of DA2 over DA1, I liked the companions a lot, but my Hawke lost whatever motivation she had at the end of Act 2.

Spoiler

Show

Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall, but has no ties to Kirkwall, not after what's happened.

1) My sister died in the Deep Roads.
2) My mother died to a serial murderer, who's dead.
3) I romanced Merril and then slaughtered her entire tribe.

As a rogue, Hawke doesn't have much of a stake in the mage/templar conflict and by this time Kirkwall is nothing but bad memories. Merrill has no ties to Kirkwall either, so I don't think it's unreasonable for Hawke to use the intervening 6 years between Act 2 and Act 3 to GTFO out of Kirkwall and go anywhere but here.

[Giggling Ghast]

Only three years pass between Acts 2 and 3.

Merrill would not leave Kirkwall until the end of Act 3. She needs to stay in close vicinity to Sundermount and her demon so it can advise her on repairing the Eluvian.

If you think otherwise, then you don't truly grasp the depth of her obsession.

[Joran]

Only three years pass between Acts 2 and 3.

Merrill would not leave Kirkwall until the end of Act 3. She needs to stay in close vicinity to Sundermount and her demon so it can advise her on repairing the Eluvian.

If you think otherwise, then you don't truly grasp the depth of her obsession.

Aha, I was under the mistaken impression that the Marethari incident was in Act 2, not Act 3. Still, once that happens, my Hawke lost any and all need to stay in Kirkwall. In fact, seeing how combustible the situation is, a reasonable course of action would be to leave before it explodes.

P.S. If you romanced Isabela, is there any reason to stay in Kirkwall after Act 2?

[Kish]

Your Hawke had no interest in helping mages to atone for getting her sister killed, if not for the sake of justice?

An odd match with Merrill. Say what you like about her--and you can say some quite nasty things about her without being inaccurate--she's very much not the "I'm not interested in causes" type Anders presents himself as in Awakening.

[Joran]

Your Hawke had no interest in helping mages to atone for getting her sister killed, if not for the sake of justice?

An odd match with Merrill. Say what you like about her--and you can say some quite nasty things about her without being inaccurate--she's very much not the "I'm not interested in causes" type Anders presents himself as in Awakening.

It's been a couple years since I've played DA2 (as can be shown by my screw-up before), but I was always under the impression that Merrill was obsessed with the Eluvian but didn't much care about the mage/templar crisis.

"Anders: You don't pay attention to templars, Qunari or politics, but you notice kittens?"

"Anders: You must join us. Do you see that now? You must stand with Kirkwall's mages.
Merrill: It's not my fight.
Anders: You can't hide in Sundermount."

[The Rose Dragon]

I would find Hawke very, very weird if he was willing to drop everything he built in Kirkwall, liquidate his entire fortune, including his ancestral manor, and leave for somewhere else, especially so soon after having lost almost everything he had in Ferelden and having worked so hard to find a place for himself in his new home.

I mean, do people actually do that? Drop everything they have in the face of one crisis and hope they can live somewhere else?

[Joran]

I would find Hawke very, very weird if he was willing to drop everything he built in Kirkwall, liquidate his entire fortune, including his ancestral manor, and leave for somewhere else, especially so soon after having lost almost everything he had in Ferelden and having worked so hard to find a place for himself in his new home.

I mean, do people actually do that? Drop everything they have in the face of one crisis and hope they can live somewhere else?

Home is home. Hawke was raised in Ferelden, not Kirkwall. Some people, when displaced during war, stay wherever they land. Other people can't wait to return back home. Some people (hi Isabela) like to wander. It's very dependent on the person.

In Act 1, Hawke couldn't return because she had no money. In Act 2, Hawke's mother is very happy in Kirkwall, with her station back, so she couldn't leave then. In Act 3, outside of sticking around with her friends, taking an interest in the mage/templar spat or Kirkwall itself, or having a sibling around in the area, there's no reason why Hawke needs to stay in Kirkwall.

Kirkwall isn't so great anyways. Sure, Hawke has a comfy house, but half the city just got burned down because of the Qunari, there's a political crisis that's lasted for three years, there's a ton of tension with the mage and the templars, and it's the place where both Hawke's mother and sister died. For me, the elvish camp was the last straw. F this place.

And in the end, my Hawke had to leave anyway.

[Dienekes]

I'll be honest, when it came to Hawke's motivation I was ok with it. Because I played him as basically the heroic version of Red Forman; a good guy who is driven to help people but hates every second of it.

But even I almost through up my hands in disgust once Thrask was killed. The only agreeable half intelligent guy in the entire city got assassinated by the people he was trying to save. After that point I kind of hoped that both the templars and the mages would completely wipe each other out because it would save the world a lot of trouble.

Hey, actually that could be an interesting thing to try and do in DA3. How to completely screw over both sides completely and irreparably by the end of the game. Bonus points if they can give me a way to kill off the ax crazy hypocrite Morrigan and mom.

I would find Hawke very, very weird if he was willing to drop everything he built in Kirkwall, liquidate his entire fortune, including his ancestral manor, and leave for somewhere else, especially so soon after having lost almost everything he had in Ferelden and having worked so hard to find a place for himself in his new home.

I mean, do people actually do that? Drop everything they have in the face of one crisis and hope they can live somewhere else?

If I was as rich as Hawke was? I would have left as soon as I started noticing everyone other than me, Varric, and Aveline was crazy. Which was pretty quickly.

[The Rose Dragon]

Home is home. Hawke was raised in Ferelden, not Kirkwall.

"Sometimes the best thing about a place is that it's where you're from."

[Seatbelt]

Unless black people can explode heads with magic, your argument is invalid.

I'll try to keep it brief to sidestep the possible mod hammer. Its also been a while since I played the game so I may get some details wrong. But if I remember correctly it goes like this..


Kirkwall is rather oppressive towards mages, and rightly so. I'm actually very fond of the notion that mages are POWERFUL and need to be watched. How many video games have we played where the BBEG could magic? Like... all of them?

So Kirkwall has this rather uneasy truce with the mages. Mages put up with some political repression but it's not the end of the world. They have their gold stars and gated community, but as long as they don't become crazy demons they're largely left to their own devices.

Then the Kunari show up. This disrupts the political stability within the city. But the leadership can't actually DO anything about the Kunari because hey warrior culture. So they take it out on their repressed group - mages. Then something terrible happens, the city loses its leadership, there is mass violence and open fighting in the street.

Once everything calms down the remaining Kirkwall leadership suddenly has this victim complex and they perceive threats everywhere but ESPECIALLY from their repressed minority. Those dirty mages hate us. They're all probably blood mages anyway. I'm bet they were probably even working with the Kunari.


There are some parallells to this in the real world. But I won't bring them up because Real World Stuff and also because while the comparison is interesting it is also insulting to the actual tragedies that have occurred to compare them to video games.

[Giggling Ghast]

I never had an issue with staying in Kirkwall as I was playing a fairly altruistic Hawke trying to keep the city from completely disintegrating. Had he hit the ejector seat, the super weapons that Meredith and Orsino brought to bear in the final conflict would have likely destroyed the entire city and potentially spilled out to the rest of the Free Marches.

Also, perhaps due to my own roleplaying style, I really don't care about escaping a bleak storyline before its end. I knew that Spec Ops: The Line and Bioshock Infinite would end badly, but if I'm fairly invested in the storyline, I'll stick with it to the end.

P.S. If you romanced Isabela, is there any reason to stay in Kirkwall after Act 2?

Well, besides the fact that she basically goes into hiding between Act 2 and 3 and you don't want to leave her behind?

[Joran]

Well, besides the fact that she basically goes into hiding between Act 2 and 3 and you don't want to leave her behind?

Would it have been plausible for her and Hawke to go and "explore the world" together after the events in Act 2, or did she have to hide out in Kirkwall?
(Isabela ditched me, so I never got to see what she did. =P)

[Longes]

If I was as rich as Hawke was? I would have left as soon as I started noticing everyone other than me, Varric, and Aveline was crazy. Which was pretty quickly.

You do remember, that by the Act 3 Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall? He isn't just rich, he also has a lot of responsibilities. Peoples lifes depend on him. He is the only reason Kirkwall doesn't explode right here and now. Saying "Screw you guys I'm going home" would be the equialent of Batman saying "**** this, I'm off to Australia".

[Aux-Ash]

Let's face it... the minute Hawke would have returned to Ferelden would have been the minute the current monarch would have died and the nation would have descended into a brutal succession crisis... and a plague breaks out... and a few hundred rampant Darkspawn happen to show up wherever Hawke tries to settle...

I mean... Hawke can't even attend a attend a hunt and party without it descending into chaos.

Seriously though... I never really had a problem to find motivation for my Hawkes to stay. Between responsibilities, friends, family and a growing sense of belonging I've had Hawkes with many different motivations.
Much like I've had wardens that fought for a myriad of reasons (but it is positively trivial for me to create a character who has none and just wants to leave Ferelden... but that would be fighting the plot).
As always... motivation is always on our end of the bargain.

I do very much hope they did not get burned too much by the reaction towards DA2. I liked the plot. A lot even. I found it more engaging than a lot of other of their games core plots.
There's a lot they need to figure out how to improve. There's a fair few things that did not work so well. And execution is absolutely key (which is what it fell on), but I do hope they bring these experinces forward... not drop them like a rock.

[Zevox]

I do very much hope they did not get burned too much by the reaction towards DA2. I liked the plot. A lot even. I found it more engaging than a lot of other of their games core plots.
There's a lot they need to figure out how to improve. There's a fair few things that did not work so well. And execution is absolutely key (which is what it fell on), but I do hope they bring these experinces forward... not drop them like a rock.

Agreed. Perhaps not with every detail, but with the overall thrust, most definitely.

[Avilan the Grey]

I would find Hawke very, very weird if he was willing to drop everything he built in Kirkwall, liquidate his entire fortune, including his ancestral manor, and leave for somewhere else, especially so soon after having lost almost everything he had in Ferelden and having worked so hard to find a place for himself in his new home.

I mean, do people actually do that? Drop everything they have in the face of one crisis and hope they can live somewhere else?

I think it might be a different mindset for different people. I would use the exact same reasoning for LEAVING. He never grew up in Kirkwall. He grew up in Ferelden. His home was there, his childhood, his memories. If I was a refugee, I would desperately want to return home after the situation had become better.

Your second question is what refugees DOES. That's why they are refugees.

And for leaving Kirkwall to burn... Two things: In this game I never felt like I really helped anyone. I was desperately putting out fires, but only in one or two instances did my hard work actually help peopel in the long run.
Also, my Hawke was feeling less and less helpful as the game progressed because of this. In the beginning he was the usual RPG hero, trying to right wrongs etc... By the time I quit the game (when his mother was about to die), Hawke had started to hate Kirkwall and everyone in it, and started to feel like they actually didn't deserve her help.

Bioware might actually have written TOO MUCH emotional response into the story, because I became increasingly angry and aggrivated and started to feel real contempt against everyone and everything in Kirkwall. I can only imagine what Hawke herself felt...

If I was as rich as Hawke was? I would have left as soon as I started noticing everyone other than me, Varric, and Aveline was crazy. Which was pretty quickly.

Exactly. Reminds me of an old joke about Melroce Place. The creepy landlord guy? if I noticed that every readhead I slept with was trying to kill me (also Heather Locklear, though not a redhead)... I would move.

[Longes]

I think it might be a different mindset for different people. I would use the exact same reasoning for LEAVING. He never grew up in Kirkwall. He grew up in Ferelden. His home was there, his childhood, his memories. If I was a refugee, I would desperately want to return home after the situation had become better.

He grew up in Lothering. As in, the town that was completely destroyed by the Blight. There is nowhere to return. As of Act 3, Hawke has much more connection to Kirkwall and Amel's legacy, than he has to Ferelden.

If it wasn't for his mother, I would label Hawke a coward. He or she is as powerful as the warden (actually more so, since the new and "improved" combat is more stupidly over the top) and yet chooses to leave. Again, his sole motivation is to save his mother.

Non-mage Hawke and Carver actually were in the Kailan's army. Mage Hawke wasn't, for obvious reasons.

Bethany was the only mage I could stand in the whole game (in fact she was my favorite character, period).

Oddly enough, I like Carver more He was annoying to no end at first, but then he grew on me. I could understand his problems, his desire to outshine Hawke at least in something. Bethany just seemed flat all throughout the game.