Nah. Hawke has far too little agency for DA2 to qualify as a tragedy. That is to say, bad things happen to Hawke regardless of what Hawke does.
That doesn't mean it's not a tragedy, just that's it not a specific type of tragedy. 'Classical tragedy' (where the suffering of the protagonist is a result of their action of mistake) does not account all forms of tragedy, which is why there are works that do, in fact, consist of bad things happening to the protagonist in spite of what they do (e.g. Grave of the Fireflies). Trying to argue otherwise is akin to claiming that something can only be a comedy if it follows the conventions of a farce.
That doesn't mean it's not a tragedy, just that's it not a specific type of tragedy. 'Classical tragedy' (where the suffering of the protagonist is a result of their action of mistake) does not account all forms of tragedy, which is why there are works that do, in fact, consist of bad things happening to the protagonist in spite of what they do (e.g. Grave of the Fireflies). Trying to argue otherwise is akin to claiming that something can only be a comedy if it follows the conventions of a farce.
I dunno, I think the medium changes things a little. If the point of a tragedy is to make the audience feel sad or depressed, DA2's "tragedies" fails at doing this precisely because of the player's lack of agency.
They always happen while:
- You're away and you don't learn it even happened until it's far too late to do anything about it. See Mother's kidnapping, the Viscount's death, Shamus's death, Carver/Bethany's death, and the chantry blowing up.
- You're stuck standing around like an idiot because you're in cutscene mode and not allowed to do anything but watch. See the Qunari's initial attack, Bartrand's escape, and the Qunari hostages being executed.
Only very rarely are you allowed to actually try to affect the course of events in some way, but in every single case you either never see the results or the results are overwritten by writer fiat later on, sometimes immediately after. The only people whose lives you're able to actually improve and then see the effects of this improvement are your companions.
I never really felt bad about what happened in DA2 because I was never responsible for what went wrong. The most emotional investment I could possibly have is in emphasizing with the NPCs, and good luck with that. I could sortof get into Merrill and Aveline (at least until Act 2 where her character arc just sputters out and dies) but no one else, really.
I never really felt bad about what happened in DA2 because I was never responsible for what went wrong. The most emotional investment I could possibly have is in emphasizing with the NPCs, and good luck with that. I could sortof get into Merrill and Aveline (at least until Act 2 where her character arc just sputters out and dies) but no one else, really.
I suspect that the real problem is that the Bioware model of RPGs is spectacularly unsuited for making a tragedy. The main characters - even those of the Shepard variety - are essentially personality voids, and the entire supporting cast are almost entirely defined in their relation to those main characters. Sure they all have some mega-cool backstory, but once you show up they do pretty much squat without you telling 'em to. This makes it pretty hard to do anything tragic to the protagonist, who doesn't actually have emotions, and the supporting cast is too agency-deprived to be an interesting tragic focus either. While you don't need a tragic flaw to be a tragic hero, some degree of physical and emotional activity probably is. Neither protagonist or supporting cast manages to combine both.
And it's not like they can let you make a super-tragic choice. On the rare occasions when one of the outcomes isn't a showcase of how totally awesome the protagonist is, they still get out unscathed. They have to, since inflicting a mechanical penalty on the player is bad design, and it's hard to inflict emotional trauma on a character black hole. Actually doing something tragic to the lead as a result of player choice requires both that the lead is enough of a person to do something tragic to, and that the player had a very different understanding of how decision making worked in game.
Right now making choices in a game is about determining how to be badass. In a tragedy it's about choosing how you fail.
Oh, look, it's Spec Ops: The Line again...
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Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ditto
That being said, I'm perfectly okay with WG being the ultimate winner of this thread. He's earned it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rowanomicon
We needed the ultimate funny, and it was delivered.
Sauron vs Voldemort, you say?
Easy: WG wins.
Sure they all have some mega-cool backstory, but once you show up they do pretty much squat without you telling 'em to.
That is not the case in Dragon Age 2. Very much so in fact, given that one of your companions is chiefly responsible for how the game ends, entirely against your own (most likely) wishes.
Spoiler
Anders, a Mage who has merged with a spirit of Justice, spends most of the game attempting to help other Mages and oppose the Chantry's Circle system, which is used to both teach Mages to use their powers and basically completely control their lives once they're finished with that learning phase. The tension between the Templars, who maintain the Circles, and the Mages, is present throughout the game in various side-quests, and the third act focuses on it exclusively. And in the end, Anders decides upon a desperate course of action: blowing up the city's Chantry, with its high Priestess, who has been one of the main forces keeping the Templars and Mages from coming to blows in the third act, inside of it.
Long story short, this ends in a full-blown war between Mages and Templars erupting not only within the city the game takes place in, but throughout the continent. Which is exactly what Anders had hoped it would do, as he saw no other way to free the Mages of the world from the Chantry's oppression.
Many players actually complained about this, since it left the player unable to resolve the dispute peacefully or prevent the war. Myself, I see it as a high point of the game, and a good sign for Bioware, since you're quite right that other characters acting only on the protagonist's whims is a problem they have in other games.
Zevox
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"We each decide our own sense of right and wrong. The rest, I leave to my sword." - Yuri Lowell, Tales of Vesperia
I don't really see why agency is required for a tragedy to occur. I hear what Craft Cheese is saying, but I'm not connecting the dots.
I guess I just take things at face value. Leandra was Hawke's mother, and she died in a horrible way. Besides the fact that she was generally a nice person and didn't deserve to die like that, her death makes Hawke sad, and because I've been playing as Hawke for 40-plus hours now and I generally like the guy, I'm sad too.
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Last edited by Candle Jack : 11-11-2012 at 01:21 AM.
I don't really see why agency is required for a tragedy to occur. Why does an inability to prevent Leandra's death make it any less sad?
It's not really the inability to prevent Leandra's death that bothered me... it's that the player really has no involvement in it at all. You slaughter the monsters in Quentin's lair but other than that the entire sequence is in cutscene mode.
If you want an example of a game I felt did this sort of thing better?
Spoiler
Bastion. At the end of the Tazal Terminals, you can put down your weapon and pick up Zulf's dying body and slowly carry him along to the exit while enemies shoot at you. You can do nothing but try to press on and chug health potions to keep your strength up.
Somehow, this scene was a hundred times more gripping than Leandra's death scene in DA2. I wasn't just watching the Kid struggle, I was feeling his weight on my shoulders as I stumbled along, taking a dozen crossbow bolts to the back, refusing to give up on saving him.
It's not like they even have the decency to let you take it out on Quentin when you're out of the cutscene either, you have to fight like 5 waves of demons and abominations before his Plot Armor of Invulnerability wears off. By then all the tension was just gone.
Ya, Hawkes mother dying in DA2 was honestly my least favorite part because there really wasn't anything you could do to stop it. Almost made me put the game down for a few days out of agitation just on how it was handled. It could have been an awesome moment in the game and a moment to really have Hawke not just have the world work around him.
I haven't played Bastion, so I can't really speak to how that worked.
Quentin might have gotten off a little too easily — it might have helped that scene to see Hawke walk over and stamp on his neck a few times —*but I don't feel removed from the tragedy because I couldn't stop it.
To take an example from Bioshock:
Spoiler
I find the scene where you beat Andrew Ryan to death no less powerful because I'm not swinging the golf club.
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Last edited by Candle Jack : 11-11-2012 at 02:23 AM.
Yeah, I'm with Candle Jack on this one. Though I'm sure most of you have seen me discuss my opinion on things like "player agency" and video game storytelling in general before, so perhaps that goes without saying.
Zevox
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"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
"We each decide our own sense of right and wrong. The rest, I leave to my sword." - Yuri Lowell, Tales of Vesperia
Guys! Guys! Spoilers! This is a recommendation thread! The op, who may or may not be reading still, haven't played it. Hide those things, let's at the very least let him or her experience that for themselves.
As for tragedy:
Spoiler
I do believe it is, but as has been mentioned not the kind based on a mistake. Rather it is, as Flemeth explicitely tells us, about fate. This is a story about a man or a woman who walks from the wrong place at the wrong time to the next wrong place at the wrong time. Ending in the centre of disaster after disaster seemingly at chance.
You have some leeway in how to feel about it and some ability to "move about" in your journey there, but the fickle nature of fate means that ultimately the only viable course is the one that leads to the next fix point. The terrible truth is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot change fate. Like Oedipus, where father and son did their utmost to prevent a fated tragedy... but in the end managed to fulfill it themselves.
So in the end, the game is about either struggling against fate and failing, or accepting it and playing with the hand one is given.
Which, incidentally, is pretty much what the trailer outright told us.
Regardless, there might have been better games to tell this story in. And it might have had a bigger impact had it allowed a greater illusion of player agency. The story did indeed not work as well as it could have. But I personally enjoyed it and quite frankly I am glad they tried this story, even if it didn't turn it as good as it could have. If nothing else, it's a greate opportunity to learn.
I dunno, I think the medium changes things a little. If the point of a tragedy is to make the audience feel sad or depressed, DA2's "tragedies" fails at doing this
Surprisingly enough, given what I said earlier, I didn't find DA2 particularly tragic either. However, this isn't because of 'player agency' and but the result of other elements of the game.
Spoiler
For a start, Hawke's not really much of a character in his/her own right. More importantly though is that when you look at the tragic events of Hawke's life the most obvious thing they all have in common is that Hawke comes out of them sad, but fundamentally ok enough to get on with things. This holds true for most of the NPCs as well, aside from the mages, who by are likely to end the game in a better position than they entered it. Even Betheny/Carver can come out of things reasonably alright
Basically, my point is that if you want to attack DA2's tragic effectiveness it's better to stick to actually valid targets rather than resorting to the 'player agency' card. I mean, yeah that scene in Bastion worked well, but then so did a lot of the tragedy in Shadow Hearts 2 and that game has very little player agency at all. The ending of the first Fallout also derives most of it's effectiveness because it happens regardless of what the player's done in the game.
Last edited by Mr.Silver : 11-11-2012 at 08:06 AM.
The plot in Dragon Age 2 is one of those things that I liked in theory, but the execution suffered. There's no grand, overreaching super-plot with a huge villain at the end, which is good... but sometimes it feels like they wanted to make it look like that anyway and it ended up rather awkward. And of course, your choices don't matter as much as they should. Again, this is good in theory - it's refreshing if the protagonist doesn't change the world with his/her every decision. But those decision should matter nonetheless, especially those connected with Hawke's private life. And now for some more spoiler-y musings.
Spoiler
One thing I particularily didn't like was Meredith's lyrium sword. It effectively replaces her as the villain, because it both makes her crazy and provides her with frankly ridiculous powers. It was a painfully clumsy attempt at shoehorning a "cool" boss fight at the end that was completely unnecessary. Couldn't Hawke just fight Orsino if he sides with templars and Meredith if he sides with mages? The other leader could still die if they really wanted both of them dead at the end. And it would have made our decisions actually matter.
Still, it's progress for a BioWare RPG. The conflict between mages and templars is actually pretty grey - even if skewed in the mages' favor - which is more than I expected. After DA:O and Mass Effect, I was convinced BioWare can't write moral ambiguity to save their lives. And I still enjoyed DA2, even if less so that I could have.
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Still, it's progress for a BioWare RPG. The conflict between mages and templars is actually pretty grey - even if skewed in the mages' favor - which is more than I expected. After DA:O and Mass Effect, I was convinced BioWare can't write moral ambiguity to save their lives. And I still enjoyed DA2, even if less so that I could have.
I agree with most of what you said, but I do think that DA: O did have some moments of ambiguity.
Spoiler
Like choosing the dwarf king. I thought that the options were solid - a power hungry dictator who honestly wants to improve his country, and is dead-set on doing so and a likeable politician who wants his country to remain traditional, even though it makes literally zero sense. Most of the story was pretty black and white, but I thought that this was a good enough moment.
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I agree with most of what you said, but I do think that DA: O did have some moments of ambiguity.
Spoiler
Like choosing the dwarf king. I thought that the options were solid - a power hungry dictator who honestly wants to improve his country, and is dead-set on doing so and a likeable politician who wants his country to remain traditional, even though it makes literally zero sense. Most of the story was pretty black and white, but I thought that this was a good enough moment.
Spoiler
Yes, that's one of the moments where things are ambiguous. Of course, in the epilogue it's rather clear that Bhelen did a lot of good for Orzammar, whereas Harrowmont kept things stable, but nothing more. Which is pretty typical for BioWare - the choice looks even when you make it, but the results are one-sided.
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Ya, Hawkes mother dying in DA2 was honestly my least favorite part because there really wasn't anything you could do to stop it. Almost made me put the game down for a few days out of agitation just on how it was handled. It could have been an awesome moment in the game and a moment to really have Hawke not just have the world work around him.
I stopped playing the game when I found out there is no way to save your mother. The game is just too depressing and too pointless.
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"Sweet Haelga,
Last night was the most wonderful night of my life. The things you showed me... the things we did... I could never have dreamt that it was possible. Who even knew that someone could manipulate their body in that manner while wearing Daedric armor boots? You are a true master of the Dibellan Arts, my love... a credit to your religion. Perhaps we'll meet again soon but next time, allow me to bring the trout.
Your Secret Lover"
I stopped playing the game when I found out there is no way to save your mother. The game is just too depressing and too pointless.
Someone said this already, but since this is a recommendation thread, maybe we should spoil the spoilers?
Spoiler
I disagree with that, though; I would've been more upset if there was a secret way to save her. DA: II is supposed to show how random, cruel, and chaotic life is, and it shows the true downsides to living in a fantasy world. It's not quite a deconstruction of the traditional "heroic fantasy" world, but I do like how they show that, even in a world with supercool magic and other sentient species, life sucks, even when you ignore the stereotypically evil apocalypse people. Even more than in our world, perhaps.
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Unfortunately I can't source this, but I read somewhere that there originally was intended to be a way to save her, but this had to be removed due to the time crunch. Take it for what it's worth.
I disagree with that, though; I would've been more upset if there was a secret way to save her. DA: II is supposed to show how random, cruel, and chaotic life is
To each his or her own. If I want that, there is always IRL. I don't get the need to "experience" things like this, but then I watch the news religiously, so I guess I get my share anyway.
I play games to FORGET about the real world, not experience it all over again. I have a very low threshold for this kind of thing because of that. I don't watch tragedies, I don't play tragedies, I tend to not be part of IRL tragedies.
Also: It would have been nice if they had been up front about this when marketing the game, which would have made me not waste a lot of money on a pre-order expecting a typical Bioware RPG.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luzahn
Wasn't the tagline of the entire game something about going along with fate?
I missed that quote. Anyway, that might explain why all your choices are pointless.
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"Sweet Haelga,
Last night was the most wonderful night of my life. The things you showed me... the things we did... I could never have dreamt that it was possible. Who even knew that someone could manipulate their body in that manner while wearing Daedric armor boots? You are a true master of the Dibellan Arts, my love... a credit to your religion. Perhaps we'll meet again soon but next time, allow me to bring the trout.
Your Secret Lover"
Last edited by Avilan the Grey : 11-12-2012 at 12:03 AM.
Wasn't the tagline of the entire game something about going along with fate?
It actually fits kind of nicely with that.
Isn't the tagline of around half the RPGs ever made something about fate?
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Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ditto
That being said, I'm perfectly okay with WG being the ultimate winner of this thread. He's earned it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rowanomicon
We needed the ultimate funny, and it was delivered.
Sauron vs Voldemort, you say?
Easy: WG wins.
I like things that make me sad. It's cathartic. Sometimes a work can get a little too sad, but I don't think DA2 crossed that line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avilan the Grey
Also: It would have been nice if they had been up front about this when marketing the game, which would have made me not waste a lot of money on a pre-order expecting a typical Bioware RPG.
You have only yourself to blame, Avilan, if you played DAO. Or did you somehow miss the parade of tragedies that occured in that game?
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Also: It would have been nice if they had been up front about this when marketing the game, which would have made me not waste a lot of money on a pre-order expecting a typical Bioware RPG.
They did. Several times over. I mean... go look at the trailer again. Flemeth outright narrates that it's about fate. She even says that if you don't accept fate than you will suffer. The devs mentioned several times that it was about the journey to greatness, that it wasn't about what you did but who you were.
They couldn't have been more overt about it short of spoiling the game or start describing it in absolute negative terms.
I suspect that a lot of people didn't take it as seriously as they should. Rationalising that it was a Bioware game and as such they'd probably like it (I saw this a lot the months before release).
Warty goblin has a point though, most games speak about fate despite not meaning it. Usually you achieve stuff by your own power despite being "fated". So I suppose the term was a bit diluted as well.
Warty goblin has a point though, most games speak about fate despite not meaning it.
Like The Witcher, for instance?
I generally find any rumifications on destiny and fate in Dragon Age tend to be connected with Flemeth, who has a (limited) ability to see the future.
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Last edited by Candle Jack : 11-12-2012 at 02:32 AM.
You have only yourself to blame, Avilan, if you played DAO. Or did you somehow miss the parade of tragedies that occured in that game?
Not more, really, than in most other Bioware games. Besides, there was really just enough tragedy and darkness that if you didn't play like A) a complete fool or B) a complete bastard you did make the world a much better place at the end. I would caracterize DA:O origins as a "realistically dark" fantasy game where not everything ends up with sugar candy and unicorns, but where the good outweights the bad several times over (depending on your actions, of course).
DA2 is the mirror image: No matter how much you struggle, about three quarters of all things that happens to you, to your friends or just the general public are horrible, horrible things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aux-Ash
They did. Several times over. I mean... go look at the trailer again. Flemeth outright narrates that it's about fate. She even says that if you don't accept fate than you will suffer. The devs mentioned several times that it was about the journey to greatness, that it wasn't about what you did but who you were.
They couldn't have been more overt about it short of spoiling the game or start describing it in absolute negative terms.
I suspect that a lot of people didn't take it as seriously as they should. Rationalising that it was a Bioware game and as such they'd probably like it (I saw this a lot the months before release).
Warty goblin has a point though, most games speak about fate despite not meaning it. Usually you achieve stuff by your own power despite being "fated". So I suppose the term was a bit diluted as well.
Funny, the marketing I saw was all "Epic journey", "Most important man in history", "Fulfill your destiny" (which is basically the same line Bioware has used to market games since Baldur's Gate (the first one)), "Epic Button of Awesomeness" and "SEQUEL TO DRAGON AGE ORIGINS!!!!!!1!1"
Seriously, as Mr Goblin points out... the Destiny wording is about as meaningful in RPG marketing as "large world", "choices", "Unique personalities"... Standard phrases.
Edit: Also, I think the whole "Journey" bit was interpeted by a majority (including me) as "You get to shape your future! With choices!", not "you can try to struggle against destiny with your puny choices, but it won't matter because we have it all set in (depressing) stone.
I have said it before: I LOVE the fact that they tried something different. I applaud their attempt. I LOATHE the result and I blame it on two things, the most important and worst being that the Bioware writers just aren't skilled enough to pull this off and second I think they also made some bad design decisions.
It is bad for the company with two disappointments after eachother. Basically DA2 was a failed attempt at something very different. ME3 was just a frackup. But at least they are releasing both a DA3 and ME4. I will never again pre-order a Bioware game though after being burned twice in a row.
__________________
"Sweet Haelga,
Last night was the most wonderful night of my life. The things you showed me... the things we did... I could never have dreamt that it was possible. Who even knew that someone could manipulate their body in that manner while wearing Daedric armor boots? You are a true master of the Dibellan Arts, my love... a credit to your religion. Perhaps we'll meet again soon but next time, allow me to bring the trout.
Your Secret Lover"
Last edited by Avilan the Grey : 11-12-2012 at 03:00 AM.
Warty goblin has a point though, most games speak about fate despite not meaning it. Usually you achieve stuff by your own power despite being "fated". So I suppose the term was a bit diluted as well.
Also setting up a bunch of waffle about 'fate' in a format entirely dictated by the whims of the writers is prone to going all faux-depth right off the bat. About the only thing interesting to do with fate in a story is to make those fates known to the principal characters, and using their processing of that understanding as character development.
Pausing at the end to say 'it's all fate all along dya'see' is fairly meaningless since all it really does is point out to the audience that the schmuck who wrote everything has complete control over what he/she has written. Starting off with a bunch of waffle about fate, ignoring it for the course of the story, then whipping it out at the end basically shows that the author knew the plot before writing it, but not a lot else.
(Naturally having characters 'break' fate is also totally meaningless. All it means is that they obeyed the higher destiny of author chosen Plot, rather than stated, inter-story fate. Doing this also tends to go hand in hand with terminal cases of Special Snowflake Syndrome)
I've got no problems with not being able to change or alter certain outcomes in games in principle*. I don't necessarily even mind if my failure to alter those events comes off as arbitrary. But if the game starts smearing fate all over everything, it doesn't make that failure more poignant unless I knew I was going to fail beforehand. It's just the author pointing out how clever they are in the most unbearable and wanky way possible.
*There are obviously exceptions, such as when all my choices are completely stupid.
__________________ EvilElitest's Blog. His stuff, my stuff as well. Currently a diary of me playing ArmA: Armed Assault. Give it a read whether you know what I'm talking about or not.
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ditto
That being said, I'm perfectly okay with WG being the ultimate winner of this thread. He's earned it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rowanomicon
We needed the ultimate funny, and it was delivered.
Sauron vs Voldemort, you say?
Easy: WG wins.
Avilan: Fair enough, but then the complaint is rather that they failed to communicate that this time they meant it, rather than that they didn't say so. But then, DA's marketing haven't exactly been stellar. Remember Origin's? It wasn't exactly representative of that game either.
I so wish they (rpg makers in general) could actually discuss what they were thinking, what they sought to explore, what you will face (narratively) with their games rather than show off a few flashy bits. I imagine it'd give us customers a fairer idea on what to expect. You know, treat their games seriously rather than flashy. But then again... that's just a layman speaking.
Also, as a side note.
Spoiler
You do realise the game can be a bit brighter than you experienced? Depending on your approach to certain matters the outcomes, short of two (All that Remains and Last Straw), can actually be quite favourable and more on the sweet side in bittersweet (still sligthly bitter though).
I'm not saying this to convince you to like the game. I just wanted to check you actually knew that you probably ended up in the least positive way the plot could turn out.
If that changes nothing then fair does.
Warty Goblin:
Indeed, fatalism is a subject best used with care. Many of the greek plays make excellent use of it to tell the story of people. But using it in a story is fraught with traps. Wether DA2 managed to avoid them? Not all certainly, but it could certainly have done much worse (like your examples. Outright hitting the player over the head with it, would have been terrible. At least it's subtle in the game).
Avilan: Fair enough, but then the complaint is rather that they failed to communicate that this time they meant it, rather than that they didn't say so. But then, DA's marketing haven't exactly been stellar. Remember Origin's? It wasn't exactly representative of that game either.
I so wish they (rpg makers in general) could actually discuss what they were thinking, what they sought to explore, what you will face (narratively) with their games rather than show off a few flashy bits. I imagine it'd give us customers a fairer idea on what to expect. You know, treat their games seriously rather than flashy. But then again... that's just a layman speaking.
Also, as a side note.
Spoiler
You do realise the game can be a bit brighter than you experienced? Depending on your approach to certain matters the outcomes, short of two (All that Remains and Last Straw), can actually be quite favourable and more on the sweet side in bittersweet (still sligthly bitter though).
I'm not saying this to convince you to like the game. I just wanted to check you actually knew that you probably ended up in the least positive way the plot could turn out.
If that changes nothing then fair does.
This is exactly my point above. If you re-use the same buzzwords as you always has, but mean them this time...?
Regarding your spoilery part: I guess a problem is that I, and many that gave a certain someone killed in act II, were just a tad too genre savvy.
Spoiler
basically, if an RPG INSISTS that a person will get into trouble if they follow you, my instinct is to bring them with me. Because the game is trying too hard to convince me.
__________________
"Sweet Haelga,
Last night was the most wonderful night of my life. The things you showed me... the things we did... I could never have dreamt that it was possible. Who even knew that someone could manipulate their body in that manner while wearing Daedric armor boots? You are a true master of the Dibellan Arts, my love... a credit to your religion. Perhaps we'll meet again soon but next time, allow me to bring the trout.
Your Secret Lover"
Let's just agree that both games marketing was pretty atrocious (marilyn manson and fountains of blood , anyone)?
In fairness, the fountains of blood turned out to be pretty accurate. The song choice was particularly baffling though, given that the song in question is largely an attack on the sort of mindlessly consumerist marketing exemplified by Origins' trailers.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but a console RPG is basically someone else (e.g. Bioware) giving you a story to play through. It's like taking Lord of the Rings, removing Aragorn, and letting you fill in the blank.
With a game like DAO or DA2, what with memory and time limits, there isn't much they can do to give you the kind of game you seem to want. If you want umpteen million options, and the ability to affect the game world the way you want to, and not the way that Bioware has set up for you, than you need to stick to pen and paper.
Dragon Age is a time sink, nothing more. Quit whining.
Nothing is easier than denouncing the evildoer. Nothing more difficult than understanding him. - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. - H. L. Mencken
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Re: Dragon Age
Dr, Bath's Dolly!
