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poptart_fairy posted:Coming off as a complete lunatic was rather the point of swinging to extremes and got you called out by a number of NPCs, as well as enabling interactions that wouldn't have been accessible otherwise. In DA...not so much, as your personality is considered detached from each individual conversation. After playing through once, I learned that if you were a smarmy prick you could piss that one arsehole in Rome off enough that he'd slip up and you could kill him, that was cool. Then when I reached him and tried to wind him up he was all "You think you can get a rise out of me, Mike?" and bounced because he knew and kind of respected me as a very professional agent, not a smarmy prick he's been aching to kill for weeks, and that was even cooler.
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Jun 22, 2014 16:35
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Yeah, that was one of the situations I was thinking of. If you're not consistent in your interactions with people then Marburg will know you're just trying to get a rise out of him, and won't bite when you switch to smug dickhead mode. If you're frequently 'suave' and act like a jerk before meeting him, he'll believe that's who you genuinely are and will get enraged at being shown up.
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Jun 22, 2014 16:50
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I think he even has unique dialogue for if you're a smug, condescending dick, then do the practical thing in response to his little rig up.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:12
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This Qunari love is weirding me out. Kill all horn-heads
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Jun 22, 2014 17:28
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I like the Qunari because they advance technology. They have cannons. They have guns. They explicitly have, as part of their caste of women, an entire job based around advancing poo poo so that life is better. And the males have an entire job based around weapon research. And when asked how they work with lovely medieval tech levels, the devs joked that they probably invented type writers to help deal with that. Meanwhile, everywhere else in Thedas just let's the hated mages act as artillery, or set up lamps for the streets, or whatever. They never try to advance, and those that do (the dwarves) are just trying to reclaim old advancements they lost. Also, yeah, they aren't huge shitheels who will betray each other constantly, like every single nation in Thedas seems to be full of.
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Jun 22, 2014 17:54
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KittyEmpress posted:I like the Qunari because they advance technology. They have cannons. They have guns. They explicitly have, as part of their caste of women, an entire job based around advancing poo poo so that life is better. And the males have an entire job based around weapon research. And when asked how they work with lovely medieval tech levels, the devs joked that they probably invented type writers to help deal with that. Well the Chinese had printing presses at a roughly analagous time period so I could see the Qunari having something similar. The main thing that limited applications for the Chinese was that it didn't really gel well with their language. Also to be fair to the dwarves, you say that like it's a small feat 
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Jun 22, 2014 18:01
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I like the Qunari. Sten is a bro with whom you can watch the game and drink some beer. Just don't discuss politics and religion with him, but that goes true for everybody. On the other hand, non-Kossith Qunari look to me like weeaboos. See Felicia Day's character in MotA.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:08
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Also, if you have mages you don't really need technology. Why invent crazy cures for things or discover the lightbulb when you can just magic it away or create eternally burning fire? And besides, it's not like the mages don't research new spells.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:09
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CottonWolf posted:Also, if you have mages you don't really need technology. Why invent crazy cures for things or discover the lightbulb when you can just magic it away or create eternally burning fire? And besides, it's not like the mages don't research new spells. Probably because the Mages are actively a danger to everyone around them, so it's best not to rely on them. Or give them too much power, because their power actively provides incentives for using other human beings as duracell batteries.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:12
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Also, everyone can use guns, lightbulbs, printing presses, etc. Not everyone can use magic.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:14
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Cythereal posted:Also, everyone can use guns, lightbulbs, printing presses, etc. Not everyone can use magic. Not everyone can be a doctor. I don't see that it makes much difference. You just have a class stratification where the artisans are mages, because only they can produce the goods. Division of labour and all that. I'm not saying that technology is wholly unnecessary, just that it's hugely less so than in the real world.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:21
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CottonWolf posted:Not everyone can be a doctor. I don't see that it makes much difference. You just have a class stratification where the artisans are mages, because only they can produce the goods. Division of labour and all that. I'm not saying that technology is wholly unnecessary, just that it's hugely less so than in the real world. Except that it's completely canon that even Tevinter is getting overwhelmed by the ability for the Qunari to have anyone use cannons, while their mages are still hugely limited in numbers. The Qunari are pushing back the one nation with similar fighting power, by virtue of having technology that the other ones think is pointless to research due to having mages.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:26
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CottonWolf posted:Not everyone can be a doctor. I don't see that it makes much difference. You just have a class stratification where the artisans are mages, because only they can produce the goods. Division of labour and all that. I'm not saying that technology is wholly unnecessary, just that it's hugely less so than in the real world. You're missing the point: once made, a piece of technology can be used by anyone with the right training. Which is far, far less than the training it takes to make a capable mage. It only takes one person to run a printing press that benefits hundreds. And I can guarantee you that grabbing a peasant and teaching him how to use a musket effectively takes much less time and much less effort than training a mage to cast a lightning bolt. And you can teach anyone to use a musket, but mages are very emphatically born rather than made. The Qunari are winning, most likely, because they can teach anyone how to use their technology. The Tevinter can't teach anyone how to use magic.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:31
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Well the Qunari never had to deal with decades to centuries long Blights that have destroyed huge parts of Thedas and take an equally long time to rebuild everything back to what you had before (just in time for the next Blight). If there were no Blights people might have had time to research other avenues.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:32
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SgtSteel91 posted:Well the Qunari never had to deal with decades to centuries long Blights that have destroyed huge parts of Thedas and equally long time to rebuild everything back to what you had before. If there were no Blights people might have had time to research other avenues. But, as it is, the Qunari are overwhelming the Tevinter just like the Ottomans overwhelmed the Byzantines. The Qunari have adopted technology as the cornerstone of their war effort, and the Tevinter adopted magic. The Qunari are winning.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:34
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Yeah, you can mass produce cannons and penicillin and electric light. You can't mass produce mages, and by all accounts, most countries have extremely small mage populations. The Ferelden Circle Tower contains almost all of the country's living mages, and it can't be populated by more than a few hundred people. You can't afford to throw that kind of resource away, and if all your mages do die in battle, it takes a generation before you have a new contingent of adult wizards to take up the slack. If you can manufacture muskets, on the other hand, you just need a willing soldier to hold them, which is a far more ready resource.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:34
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Isn't one of the main themes in Inquisition is saving Thedas from itself? I get the feeling that as the Inquisition you have the chance the fix the problems and get rid of the corruption plaguing Thedas.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:37
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Well to be fair, Qunari are shooting themselves in the foot with a musket here, because they have a quasi-caste system.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:38
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SgtSteel91 posted:Isn't one of the main themes in Inquisition is saving Thedas from itself? I get the feeling that as the Inquisition you have the chance the fix the problems and get rid of the corruption plaguing Thedas. Maybe. Or maybe it will be the usual Dragon Age thing where, at best, things are slightly less hosed-up than how you found them, only in different ways than they were at first.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:39
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Android Blues posted:Yeah, you can mass produce cannons and penicillin and electric light. You can't mass produce mages, and by all accounts, most countries have extremely small mage populations. The Ferelden Circle Tower contains almost all of the country's living mages, and it can't be populated by more than a few hundred people. The Fereldan Circle sent what, a dozen mages to support the Blight? I forget how much it was, but it was something even Duncan went 'well yeah we would like WAY MORE thanks'. And Gregoir and the First Enchanter both were like 'wellll that's like all of our combat ready mages, sorry mate.'
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Jun 22, 2014 18:39
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KittyEmpress posted:The Fereldan Circle sent what, a dozen mages to support the Blight? I forget how much it was, but it was something even Duncan went 'well yeah we would like WAY MORE thanks'. And Gregoir and the First Enchanter both were like 'wellll that's like all of our combat ready mages, sorry mate.' Yeah, I remember that too. It's somewhere between like...seven and twenty-five? It really isn't many.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:43
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It's also meant to highlight a running theme: Fereldan, more than anyone, is extremely poorly equipped to deal with a Blight.
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Jun 22, 2014 18:43
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Captain Oblivious posted:because their power actively provides incentives for using other human beings as duracell batteries. On that note, I'm hoping for more than one Mage Specilization that isn't "Use Health to Cast spells", or "Heal real good". I went with Force in DA2 just because it was neither of those. The passive +50 Fortitude was nice for my bathrobe mans, but I was disappointed with the actual abilities. It also took me a bit to realize my hopeful "125% Physical and Elemental? SWEET!" reaction actually meant the Force modifier, not damage modifier. Oh well, at least Fist of the Maker was one more (comparatively) fast cooldown spell to bust out. So at least it helped make dealing with all the trash mob respawns more bearable. Even if the drat thing cost twice as much as a fireball. I was hoping for something more along the lines of SUPER FIREBALL, or closer to it's description of "Bending the laws of nature to crush their foes". Not just tacking on knockback force, which doesn't work on important things.
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Jun 22, 2014 19:53
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Vitamin P posted:After playing through once, I learned that if you were a smarmy prick you could piss that one arsehole in Rome off enough that he'd slip up and you could kill him, that was cool. I think you need a specific part of his dossier in addition to him hating your guts to be able to kill him. Might be confusing that with something else though.
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Jun 22, 2014 20:09
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Disco Infiva posted:Well to be fair, Qunari are shooting themselves in the foot with a musket here, because they have a quasi-caste system. From what we've been told though the caste system is at the very least no less flexible than the feudal system at work everywhere else so while they're overall shooting themselves in the foot it's not too much of a disadvantage since everywhere else is at least as hosed by something else.
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Jun 22, 2014 20:21
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RentACop posted:This Qunari love is weirding me out. Kill all horn-heads 
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Jun 22, 2014 20:57
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Sylphosaurus posted:Yeah, I never understood why pretty much every goon in the DA threads wanted to slurp on the Arishok's shaft. I just saw him as a passive aggresive rear end in a top hat who was to dumb to find his first edition not-Quran. Yeah, Kirkwall is a shithole and pretty much everyone in power turns out to be a raving lunatic but the Arishok is just as bad. Fucker never left Kirkwall alive on my watch Personally, it's because the Qunari appear to have a system of governemnt that's closest to the modern day styles we'd recognize. Basically, take one of these 4 choices. A: Live in a society where you are illiterate, there is almost no medical care beyond "suck it up", and your entire lot in life is up to random chance of "is my boss a dick or not" (Ferelden) B: Same as above, except it's almost guaranteed that your boss is a dick, and he/she is going to view you as little more then an animal (Orlais) C: Same as the the last two, except now your boss is an utter lunatic who is also most likely your master instead of 'boss' and he/she is very likely to kill you for shits and giggles and power. (Tevinter) D: Live in a society where you are evaluated for your maximum potential, and placed somewhere where you can do the most good. You are expected to stay in that role for the rest of your life, but if you're good enough (and since you're placed there because it's what you're best at, you may actaully be good enough) you can rise up the ranks. (Qunari) The Qun is not without flaws, by Thedas standards OR modern sensibilities, but I'd posit that "They supress free will" is not one of them. When you're not actively on the job, I'd wager you're welcome to goof around and be a normal person. It's just when you're on the job the Qunari expect 120%. This is all just my own opinion on why I like the Qunari though. HapiMerchant fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 21:31
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That's super true, Hapi - it's not a borg like society despite what Gaider wants to claim. When you're not working, you're just as free to do whatever the hell you want as anywhere else. And there's certain holidays where all but certain people are told 'Hey, go party, do no work' where it literally gets so rowdy that the military tends to have to go 'uhhh guys maybe calm down' at the end of the day. The biggest issue is the choice of what job you want to do. Because you don't get to choose - if you're born into the Qun, you're judged by what your family has excelled at over the generations. If you're a convert, you go up and show your skills, and get told what you'd be best at based on that. You can work your way into a different job if you prove you'd be an asset to said job. Actually, the biggest issue is Tallis who made me want to purge every follower of the Qun when she made her 'got your nose' joke when I was like 'why the gently caress would I want to help you, a stupid thief, gently caress over a nobleman'
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Jun 22, 2014 21:38
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KittyEmpress posted:That's super true, Hapi - it's not a borg like society despite what Gaider wants to claim. When you're not working, you're just as free to do whatever the hell you want as anywhere else. And there's certain holidays where all but certain people are told 'Hey, go party, do no work' where it literally gets so rowdy that the military tends to have to go 'uhhh guys maybe calm down' at the end of the day. MotA makes no sense at all. Think about it. Act 1: Hawke is a literal nobody, why is an orlesian duke inviting him/her? Also, why would hawke, who is trying to earn money, help a thief steal from a powerful nobleman who could help him/her much more then whatever goods the thief might deign to give hawke? Act 2: Hawke at least has a potential reason for being invited now, but the point still stands of "Why would Hawke help Tallis instead of turning her in to Prosper." Act 3: The Qunari have almost razed Kirkwall, unless you are playing a full on Qunari sympathizer hawke (which, admittedly, would make sense given how poo poo Kirkwall is), why would Hawke help Tallis upon learning who and what she is? Plus the whole thing above, about helping some random nobody over a powerful nobleman.
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Jun 22, 2014 21:44
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Sylphosaurus posted:Yeah, I never understood why pretty much every goon in the DA threads wanted to slurp on the Arishok's shaft. I just saw him as a passive aggresive rear end in a top hat who was to dumb to find his first edition not-Quran. Yeah, Kirkwall is a shithole and pretty much everyone in power turns out to be a raving lunatic but the Arishok is just as bad. Fucker never left Kirkwall alive on my watch 
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Jun 22, 2014 21:49
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KittyEmpress posted:That's super true, Hapi - it's not a borg like society despite what Gaider wants to claim. When you're not working, you're just as free to do whatever the hell you want as anywhere else. And there's certain holidays where all but certain people are told 'Hey, go party, do no work' where it literally gets so rowdy that the military tends to have to go 'uhhh guys maybe calm down' at the end of the day. I think you're putting a little more sunshine and roses into the Qunari lifestyle than the games actually support. Part of the reason they party so hard when they're allowed is because the Qun dictates a life of strict discipline and virtue at all other times. You're only free to do what you please in that you're free to do what the Qun says should please you, which I'm pretty sure mostly involves meditating on the Qun. I mean the overall point to take away here is that life as a peasant (you know, basically everybody) in medieval society is absolutely awful no matter what country you're living in, but then that's why fantasy games always have you playing as the mystical hyper-competent ~adventurer~ who can go anywhere and do anything because they're just that good. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 21:55
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KittyEmpress posted:I like the Qunari because they advance technology. They have cannons. They have guns. They explicitly have, as part of their caste of women, an entire job based around advancing poo poo so that life is better. And the males have an entire job based around weapon research. And when asked how they work with lovely medieval tech levels, the devs joked that they probably invented type writers to help deal with that. I always was under the impression that this advancement and organization comes at the loss of one's own identity as a person. Qunari have little choice or say-so in their lives; the Qun decides what they will do, who they'll be, and assigns a specific calling to them that they must keep for the rest of their existence. All of the Qunari characters we've met seem utterly baffled whenever any of the other characters express even the slightest hint of emotion since it has been exterminated from their society. It struck me as a very Darwinist "survival of the fittest" type of thing. How do you think a disabled Qunari or one who was wounded in battle might be treated once they are no longer of use? They're basically a harshly communistic society. I mean sure maybe some of them are perfectly content to live like that but what of the ones who aren't? I just don't really see them as anything other than oppressive. Oh and then there's the fact that it is a major tenant of their religion to spread the Qun by force. I'd rather take dysfunctional Thedas. Captain Mog fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 21:56
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Captain Mog posted:I always was under the impression that this advancement and organization comes at the loss of one's own identity as a person. Qunari have little choice or say-so in their lives; the Qun decides what they will do, who they'll be, and assigns a specific calling to them that they must keep for the rest of their existence. All of the Qunari characters we've met seem utterly baffled whenever any of the other characters express even the slightest hint of emotion since it has been exterminated from their society. It struck me as a very Darwinist "survival of the fittest" type of thing. How do you think a disabled Qunari or one who was wounded in battle might be treated once they are no longer of use? Yeah, between that, the brainwashing camps and the highly rigid society, they don't appear to be a particularly flexible society. When even those in power can't exercise any kind of necessary political latitude or compromise, the Qunari run into problems -- their system is imperfect. By Act 2, the Arishock doesn't come across as a frustrated leader so much as a malfunctioning AI.
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Jun 22, 2014 22:06
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Captain Mog posted:I always was under the impression that this advancement and organization comes at the loss of one's own identity as a person. Qunari have little choice or say-so in their lives; the Qun decides what they will do, who they'll be, and assigns a specific calling to them that they must keep for the rest of their existence. All of the Qunari characters we've met seem utterly baffled whenever any of the other characters express even the slightest hint of emotion since it has been exterminated from their society. It struck me as a very Darwinist "survival of the fittest" type of thing. How do you think a disabled Qunari or one who was wounded in battle might be treated once they are no longer of use? No different than a child is given no choice but to be educated, so too is Thedas enlightened whether it likes it or not
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Jun 22, 2014 22:11
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Captain Oblivious posted:No different than a child is given no choice but to be educated, so too is Thedas enlightened whether it likes it or not My inquisitor will bone Thedas to enlightenment without the need of a Qun, thank you very much.
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Jun 22, 2014 22:35
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Deltasquid posted:My inquisitor will bone Thedas to enlightenment without the need of a Qun, thank you very much. You there, elf girl. You're hot. Come, it's time to learn.
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Jun 22, 2014 22:40
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HapiMerchant posted:Personally, it's because the Qunari appear to have a system of governemnt that's closest to the modern day styles we'd recognize. That's what I took away too. Life in the qunari lands probably sucks to anyone not properly indoctrinated, but life everywhere in Thedas sucks. There is not one country that any sane person would really want to live. So far it seems to boil down to what place is least dysfunctional, which boils down to the backwater Fereldan and the qunari lands. They'd be horrifically oppressive by any normal standard, but Thedas is such a bad place that they actually look better by comparison. Why else would so many downtrodden people gravitate to them if it weren't at least a little bit of an improvement? That's what Gaider doesn't seem to understand: we aren't comparing the qunari to modern ideals, we're comparing them to Thedas. I think the qunari are creepy obsessive zealots incapable of functioning outside their carefully controlled society, but that's not too much worse than the crappy lives everyone else has to deal with in the medieval mud holes barely two steps away from complete anarchy we've seen so far. If they'd bother to develop Thedas into a more upstanding place instead of more "Dark Fantazy", we'd have a much grimmer opinion of them. It seems that Bioware has just some kind of disconnect between their intentions and what their works actually depict to any outside observer. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 23:06
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Yeah your encounters with the establishment in Fereldan is basically a slideshow of corrupt assholes with the occasional decent person thrown in there to act as a good guy. When most of the establishment has had the explicit purpose of being an antagonist it's hard to imagine the place being very good, y'know?
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Jun 22, 2014 23:12
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Shugojin posted:Yeah your encounters with the establishment in Fereldan is basically a slideshow of corrupt assholes with the occasional decent person thrown in there to act as a good guy. Basically this. By our standards? The Qunari are a militant totalitarian nightmare. By Thedas standards? they're the best thing that can happen to you, if you're an elf, poor, or basically anything that isn't a mage or a noble. Also, the mage situation for the Qunari basically boils down to: Do you want to be viewed as a dangerous monster, and locked up and abused? Or do you want to be viewed as a dangerous but useful tool and...well, we never see how Saarebas are treated when in the actual care of the Qunari. It may be that as long as they're with their arvaraad and in qunari hands, they're treated fairly. In any event I'm willing to bet even the Qunari treatment of mages isn't as bad as the Chantry/Circle treatment is.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:31
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HapiMerchant posted:Basically this. By our standards? The Qunari are a militant totalitarian nightmare. Well, given that the qunari mages are taught from birth that they're dangerous monsters who must be destroyed for the good of all unless properly controlled, I'd say they're much worse. Let's not even get into the mutilation like sewed lips or the collars. As bad as the Chantry is, they can't compare to the Qunari's magic phobia. Even the Templars aren't instructed to slaughter a mage for daring to talk. Not even the worst Chantry zealot would deny that mages are actually people instead of tools. Aside from that, I mostly agree. Unless we got to see more of their brainwashing camps, they still end up looking almost better than Thedas' endless dysfunction.
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Jun 22, 2014 23:41
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