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Anthony Davis leaving Obsidian

Anthony Davis

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the above said:
We've discussed this before on this site. What is your opinion? Should cRPGs still try to emulate PnP? I mean... I guess at this point they don't even try to. Do you think it's even possible to completely "convert" so to speak a PnP game to a cRPG?

Yes, I do think it is possible. Do I think there are a lot of publishers out there lining up to pour money into it? No.

Do I think an Indy or Niche game development studio could make one and be very successful? Yes. I think Jeff Vogel is doing it right now.

I think the DnD tabletop software gives me hope too.

I think mobile platforms, like Android and iOS, lower the barrier to entry for a lot of Indy Game Developers and I think we will continue to see PnP type games on those platforms as well.
 

TheWesDude

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core requirements to be a RPG:

1) character skill must trump player skill

if the player decides success or failure of something, then the character is irrelevant

2) there must not be any difference in the experience of an 80 year old arthritic woman and a world rated gamer

this ties into #1 but is separate because especially in PnP gaming it was not uncommon for us to stop and talk about options and decide what we want to do next basically "pausing" the game to discuss it and come to an agreement.

3) there must be consequences to your choices. if there is no consequence, then the choice was irrelevant or facetious. not every choice requires a consequence.

4) it must not be on "rails". there must be freedom to travel wherever you want. this does not mean you should be able to go directly from the starting point to the ending point, but doing so would be nice. even if you divide the game world into "chapters" or such, within each "chapter" there must be freedom to travel. usually called sandbox game play.
 

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Anthony Davis said:
The other reason I enjoy RPGs usually more than other genres is because I enjoy a compelling story. These days however, a compelling story is harder and harder to come by. It seems these days many game stories are either trite, or grim dark to the point of nihilism.

I'm pretty much in the same boat, and that's one of the reasons I really like Obsidian. It seems like regardless of other issues, you guys put a lot of work into the dialog and story of your games, and as a consequence they really stand out from other modern RPGs.

I also think it's good to be past labels at this point. 10 to 15 years ago, there were definite boundries between what was an RPG and what wasn't. Nowadays, putting a moral choice at the end of your game and some kind of shallow leveling mechanic is all it really takes. I don't really like first person or cover-based third person shooters, but that seems to be pretty much the only direction the industry is willing to go.
 

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Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?
 

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IronicNeurotic said:
Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?

I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.

As far as carrying over savegames, absolutely we can do that.
 

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villain of the story said:
lolwut. Is this the point where we should start dismissing your opinions based on objective inconsistency?

I agree with your opinion regarding character skill vs. player skill in this exchange. Anthony seems willing to forgive the kind of player<-->char skill leakiness in RPG formula that I can't.

That said, I would like to remind you that you can't change someone's mind if you dissuade them from talking to you.
 

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Anthony Davis said:
IronicNeurotic said:
Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?

I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.

That was Square's decision, wasn't it? I seem to remember Mr. Taylor (Rich) saying that you wanted to initally subtitle it but then talked over with Square.

How was Rich Taylor as a boss, by the way?

And how big was the relationship with GPGs Chris Taylor actually?
 
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shihonage said:
villain of the story said:
lolwut. Is this the point where we should start dismissing your opinions based on objective inconsistency?

I agree with your opinion regarding character skill vs. player skill in this exchange. Anthony seems willing to forgive the kind of player<-->char skill leakiness in RPG formula that I can't.

That said, I would like to remind you that you can't change someone's mind if you dissuade them from talking to you.

Well, he is being objectively inconsistent and I'm calling it out. If he doesn't like that, perhaps nothing of value is lost if he is dissuaded from further discussion. His explanations are well made, though, so I wouldn't like to see that happen.

Anthony Davis said:
As far as Dragon Age 1 goes, if you want to discount everything I say because you consider my subjective opinion an example of objective inconsistency... go crazy man.

Well then perhaps you would like to describe what you mean by "trite" or "grim dark to the point of nihilism" when you refer to game stories and give examples, because if DA:O doesn't fit both to a T, I don't know what else could.

Thanks for clarifying the previous points, by the way. I'm sure the miscommunication was mutual.
 

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Anthony Davis said:
Modern day versions of these games are hard to come by because most publishers have reams and reams of data that show they won't sell well, or well enough anyway.

Indie games and the mobile platforms are the best hope for them.
What is that data exactly?

And why do you think it should be indie or mobile instead of niche PC? Is there something damning about a good RPG that makes it harder to sell than say, "Disciples III" or "King's Bounty"?
 

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Anthony Davis said:
I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.

Whose call was it in the end? I know Nathaniel Chapman or Rich Taylor once mentioned that the team discussed that very point but ultimately decided to go with DS3.
 

Captain Shrek

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Mr. Davis. What about Alpha Protocol? What are your feelings about the game and its reception?
 

Anthony Davis

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IronicNeurotic said:
Anthony Davis said:
IronicNeurotic said:
Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?

I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.

That was Square's decision, wasn't it? I seem to remember Mr. Taylor (Rich) saying that you wanted to initally subtitle it but then talked over with Square.

How was Rich Taylor as a boss, by the way?

And how big was the relationship with GPGs Chris Taylor actually?

It may have been Square's decision - I would certainly trust Rich on this.

Rich is great and I would love to work with him or for him again.
 

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villain of the story said:
shihonage said:
villain of the story said:
lolwut. Is this the point where we should start dismissing your opinions based on objective inconsistency?

I agree with your opinion regarding character skill vs. player skill in this exchange. Anthony seems willing to forgive the kind of player<-->char skill leakiness in RPG formula that I can't.

That said, I would like to remind you that you can't change someone's mind if you dissuade them from talking to you.

Well, he is being objectively inconsistent and I'm calling it out. If he doesn't like that, perhaps nothing of value is lost if he is dissuaded from further discussion. His explanations are well made, though, so I wouldn't like to see that happen.

Anthony Davis said:
As far as Dragon Age 1 goes, if you want to discount everything I say because you consider my subjective opinion an example of objective inconsistency... go crazy man.

Well then perhaps you would like to describe what you mean by "trite" or "grim dark to the point of nihilism" when you refer to game stories and give examples, because if DA:O doesn't fit both to a T, I don't know what else could.

Thanks for clarifying the previous points, by the way. I'm sure the miscommunication was mutual.

If I sit here and and focus, I can remember more of the story and yeah, I guess you are right about it. The characters were better, at least for me though. The one dude... Alistar? was one of the first characters in quite some time that I actually truly liked. I LOATHED Morrigan, I don't care how much her boobies hang out.

Let's be fair though, I would hardly call what I said a ringing endorsement... or a blistering critique for that matter. I had very low expectations for Dragon Age, and when I got it... it was ok. I certainly didn't like it enough to finish it, though I did get far, and I didn't like it enough to buy DA2.

One thing that drove me CRAZY about the Dragon Age world/lore, is there is this whole Templar versus Mage thing going on. The Templar maintain that the mages have to be watched and can't be trusted to police themselves to prevent use of blood magic. Whenever blood magic gets uses, tons of innocent people die. So if the Templar have to err on the side of caution and kill a mage versus risking hundreds of innocents dying, so be it.

The mages rail against the tyranny of the Templar and... TURN TO BLOOD MAGIC time and time again in the story and quests to be free of the Templar and they end up KILLING HUNDREDS of innocent people along the way.

Yet somehow I am supposed to feel conflicted over this? It felt so hamfisted to me.

Yeah, ok, I take it all back. I didn't like DA:O's story. Many of the characters and side stories were pretty good though.
 

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The thing is, it's not like anthony (or is it tony or even better ants?) is the Mr. Mister deciding to make real time RPGs.

Mr Davis, distinguished gentleman and sir...

The one thing I would ask of you... is if you are working a console title, are on ui / control patrol, and there are save games involved, please please please consider some kind of l1/l2 combo quick save and r1/r2 quick load. You can even point to this thread and say "some random human on a random (albiet heavily and unusually transsexual) game site doesn't care what your standards say, the feature is on demand auto save and start buttons are so 1988."

And but one random question if you have the time..

What are your thoughts on virtual / telecommuting? Any issues that might be caused or avoided? Mixed bag I'd guess but curious.
 

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villain of the story said:
Well then perhaps you would like to describe what you mean by "trite" or "grim dark to the point of nihilism" when you refer to game stories and give examples, because if DA:O doesn't fit both to a T, I don't know what else could.

Thanks for clarifying the previous points, by the way. I'm sure the miscommunication was mutual.

Trite I can understand, but grimdark? The Codex (or was that Mass Effect's lore bin?) may have been, but the game itself was an almost lighthearted mix of the middle ages and DnD. You had an old granny fighting at your side and a peeing dog companion which comes with a peeing where's waldo minigame to make it stronger. Not to mention a successful entrepreneur/magical retard dwarf. Which, I can assure you, is a lot less grimdark than anything in reality. On top of that, the most the dark spawn ever do is destroy a village and attack a city: pretty standard fantasy stuff. The worst thing that can happen to most of the secondary characters is for them to leave an opening which allows you to bulldoze them with witty pun dialogue options.

It may have went out of its way to make decisions and people less black and white (whether it succeeded or not is irrelevant), splattered blood everywhere, and taken out a lot of the colour that makes some of the best fanatsy, but I wouldn't call it grimdark. Greybland, standward, or some other cheap pun maybe, but not grimdark.

Forgotten Realms can do dark better. Maybe not grim, because certain writers would rather go so far as to even taking writing lessons before letting characters die, but definitely dark.
 

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the above said:
villain of the story said:
Long established context-dependent genre terminology? Pfff, who gives a fuck! Go back to 90s, old fart, this is 21s century, the next-gen. You just have to learn to move on with times and accept things as they are and not get stuck in obsolete and constrictive words.

Pretty much! All the butthurt over Skyrim (for example) daring to call itself an RPG is ridiculous and a pointless debate that this site nevertheless cannot get over and I simply will never understand how a game we don't like calling itself an RPG somehow detracts from the genre. It's as if we want to kid ourselves into believing that if Bethesda or Bioware or whoever else suddenly admits "Hey guys, we're frauds! These aren't really RPGs..." that we'll suddenly get all kinds of AAA turn based cRPGs again. It ain't gonna happen.
It may be pointless, but it's not a ridiculous debate.
It's a pradigm shift in something we cared about. Of course the RPG-ification of action games and the actionification of RPGs had an influence on what is made. If you liked your GoldBox RPGs the hailing of Oblivion as the be all end all "RPG" destroyed all hope of getting something new an RPG fan from the 90s would call an RPG.
It's like a pacifistic hippie who is told that the US's pre-emptive wars ensure peace and make the world a better place. All the hippie's raging might not change what is, but do you really think it "ridiculous"?
Anthony Davis said:
IronicNeurotic said:
Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?

I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.
:love:

It felt so hamfisted to me.
Hamfisted describes DAO quite well. The problem VotS had was that you described DAO's style of story as something you don't like and then went, but I liked eg DAO...
Aldebaran said:
villain of the story said:
Well then perhaps you would like to describe what you mean by "trite" or "grim dark to the point of nihilism" when you refer to game stories and give examples, because if DA:O doesn't fit both to a T, I don't know what else could.

Thanks for clarifying the previous points, by the way. I'm sure the miscommunication was mutual.

Trite I can understand, but grimdark? The Codex (or was that Mass Effect's lore bin?) may have been, but the game itself was an almost lighthearted mix of the middle ages and DnD. You had an old granny fighting at your side and a peeing dog companion which comes with a peeing where's waldo minigame to make it stronger. Not to mention a successful entrepreneur/magical retard dwarf. Which, I can assure you, is a lot less grimdark than anything in reality. On top of that, the most the dark spawn ever do is destroy a village and attack a city: pretty standard fantasy stuff. The worst thing that can happen to most of the secondary characters is for them to leave an opening which allows you to bulldoze them with witty pun dialogue options.
:what:
And Gaddafi was no brutal tyrant because he dressed funny, spouted nonsense all the time and depended on women as bodyguards. Made him some funny excentric, obviously...
 
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You are looking at the most superficial things. The way game story, side quests, characters' drama are presented, it's trying to be grimdark to the core, which is what matters. Stuff you mention is Bioware being retarded manchilds having a go at comic relief.

I mean, it's DGaider, man...

"Write fanfic, DGaider!"

And write he did.
 

Icewater

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It might have been trying to be grimdark but if it was, it failed hard. DA:O was just generic high fantasy.

Best I can do is say it maybe had a sort of darkish tint, but it was far from "grimdark".
 

Coyote

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Shannow said:
Anthony Davis said:
IronicNeurotic said:
Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?

I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.
:love:

Not having played or followed the news about DS3 (I barely got past the first city in DS1 before I stopped playing watching out of boredom, which I almost never do so early in a game), why would this have been better? If the gameplay is significantly different, as was the case for BG and BGDA, I might have to look into DS3 after all.
 
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the above said:
villain of the story said:
Long established context-dependent genre terminology? Pfff, who gives a fuck! Go back to 90s, old fart, this is 21s century, the next-gen. You just have to learn to move on with times and accept things as they are and not get stuck in obsolete and constrictive words.

Pretty much! All the butthurt over Skyrim (for example) daring to call itself an RPG is ridiculous and a pointless debate that this site nevertheless cannot get over and I simply will never understand how a game we don't like calling itself an RPG somehow detracts from the genre. It's as if we want to kid ourselves into believing that if Bethesda or Bioware or whoever else suddenly admits "Hey guys, we're frauds! These aren't really RPGs..." that we'll suddenly get all kinds of AAA turn based cRPGs again. It ain't gonna happen.

It's about clarity, not fanboy idolatry. It's about communicating ideas effectively using just a few established terms. Genres still has defining core elements that are exactly the same as they were 20 years ago. There is not a single game you can't define to a good extent with clarity, at most saying something like "it's a X-Y-Z crossover" or "X with Y and Z elements". Everyone with some gaming history and intelligence will immediately get what you're saying. The mere fact that people can still describe spill-over features like "RPG elements" to refer to stat/performance altering in-game decisions in otherwise pure action games is living proof of this. So all this talk about genre boundaries blurring is post modernist reductionist illiterate bullshit.

The problem is that when shitstains in the industry start dropping a load on genre definitions and breaking established terminology by going about calling everything anything they fancy, they are effectively reducing our ability to communicate and are altering popular perception and market expectations.

It's like shitstains calling themselves game journalists making moronic statements like "Fallout 3 can be played turn-based" or "Bethesda modernised turn-based with FO3" or "KOTOR is turn-based" or "DA:O is turn-based". I got a warning for "derailing a thread and aggravating people" at ESF because I argued that turn-based and RTWP were very different, separate systems so people should inform themselves about the differences. I can no longer talk about TB games and vent my frustration about the lack thereof anywhere but the niche platforms like Codex without having shitstains go at me with putrid discharge such as "WUT are you talking about, TB is as strong as ever, DA is turn based! Stop trolling!".

It's like being insulted when you say you'd like more RPGs like TOEE and people tell you to fuck off, that the "genre has moved on and so should you".

It's also what I believe to be the partial reason that TB games won't sell because such shitstains have been reshaping popular perception for over a decade now and western mainstream puke at the mere mention of TB like conditioned reaction.
 

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Coyote said:
Shannow said:
Anthony Davis said:
IronicNeurotic said:
Oh, did you already have plans for a possible Dungeon Siege IV? The ending + the choices are set up heavily for future games.

And on that case, does Onyx support a system for carrying over choices to Sequels?

I don't know about DS4. I know we left it open for a sequel. I personally think, and I'm not the only one, the biggest mistake we made with DS3 was calling it DS3. We should have called it something like DS: Legends, or DS: Legion Alliance, or something else that would draw correlations to BG:Dark Alliance, which is similar to what we were trying to do.
:love:

Not having played or followed the news about DS3 (I barely got past the first city in DS1 before I stopped playing watching out of boredom, which I almost never do so early in a game), why would this have been better? If the gameplay is significantly different, as was the case for BG and BGDA, I might have to look into DS3 after all.
"Sequels" suggest continuity. DS3 has less in common with its predecessors than FO3 had with its. DS3 shares the setting with DS1/2. That's it. Completely different gameplay, character system, etc. Considering that story and setting were completely unimportant in those games, DS3 is in no way (that matters) a continuation of DS1/2.
So people like me who half-way liked the originals and saw some good potential for improvements that built upon the old formulae in a new version are fucked, the same way people who hated the old games but might like the new one (like you) are. NV is also far more Capital Wastland 2, than Capital Wasteland is FO3.
Ergo: If you want to make a spin-off, call it a spin-off. If you want to make a sequel, make it a sequel.
But then I've given up hope that devs/publishers will decide anything that rationally makes sense *shrug*

@villain of the story: :salute:
 

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Shannow said:
And Gaddafi was no brutal tyrant because he dressed funny, spouted nonsense all the time and depended on women as bodyguards. Made him some funny excentric, obviously...

I realize it was not very clear (mostly because I deleted large portions of my post), but that ties into one of the main reasons that I don't consider DA:O grimdark: reality is routinely a worse offender, even in the era that DA:O was trying to emulate. You've got the black plague killing half of Europe's population, the Hundred Years' War (a slight misnomer), Timur the Lame executing 100,000 captives after the capture of a city (and repeating such spectacles quite often), and, slightly off date, you've got everyone's favourite crazies in Elizabeth Bathory and Vlad the Impaler. Maybe I am forgetting portions of the game, but what even compared to say, Timur the Lame creating thirty-ish piles of heads, of about two thousand heads each, after he massacred seventy thousand non combatants.

Are my examples cherry picked? Absolutely, but doing the same to DA:O I can't think of anything, and what is the point of the term grimdark if reality is worse?

It is an anecdote, but, while playing Dragon Age, I never thought to myself that this was a very grim game, or that there wasn't a hope for a better tomorrow, because in fact there was. In fact, the purpose of the game, whether you are good, evil, or something in between, is to stop the calamity that could have turned the game grimdark if it had been a permanent fixture. As it is, you stop the darkspawn before they accomplish much of anything. Maybe it is not a fair comparison, but that doesn't sound like the eternal war promised by the franchise which the term grimdark came from.

Between the significant focus on romances, the generally lighthearted and nonchalant companions (outside of Alistair, no one even seemed to really care about the darkspawn), the save the world story, and the general lack of menace provided by the primary antagonists, I just don't consider the game to be grimdark.

The lore may have been, but that is not what I saw represented in the game. You explore most of the world through dialogue with your companions, but you are also supposed to be learning about the characters through these conversations, so you end up with some mix of the world, good memories, sad memories, and Biowarean jokes.
 

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Aldebaran said:
Shannow said:
And Gaddafi was no brutal tyrant because he dressed funny, spouted nonsense all the time and depended on women as bodyguards. Made him some funny excentric, obviously...

I realize it was not very clear (mostly because I deleted large portions of my post), but that ties into one of the main reasons that I don't consider DA:O grimdark: reality is routinely a worse offender, even in the era that DA:O was trying to emulate. You've got the black plague killing half of Europe's population, the Hundred Years' War (a slight misnomer), Timur the Lame executing 100,000 captives after the capture of a city (and repeating such spectacles quite often), and, slightly off date, you've got everyone's favourite crazies in Elizabeth Bathory and Vlad the Impaler. Maybe I am forgetting portions of the game, but what even compared to say, Timur the Lame creating thirty-ish piles of heads, of about two thousand heads each, after he massacred seventy thousand non combatants.

Are my examples cherry picked? Absolutely, but doing the same to DA:O I can't think of anything, and what is the point of the term grimdark if reality is worse?

It is an anecdote, but, while playing Dragon Age, I never thought to myself that this was a very grim game, or that there wasn't a hope for a better tomorrow, because in fact there was. In fact, the purpose of the game, whether you are good, evil, or something in between, is to stop the calamity that could have turned the game grimdark if it had been a permanent fixture. As it is, you stop the darkspawn before they accomplish much of anything. Maybe it is not a fair comparison, but that doesn't sound like the eternal war promised by the franchise which the term grimdark came from.

Between the significant focus on romances, the generally lighthearted and nonchalant companions (outside of Alistair, no one even seemed to really care about the darkspawn), the save the world story, and the general lack of menace provided by the primary antagonists, I just don't consider the game to be grimdark.

The lore may have been, but that is not what I saw represented in the game. You explore most of the world through dialogue with your companions, but you are also supposed to be learning about the characters through these conversations, so you end up with some mix of the world, good memories, sad memories, and Biowarean jokes.

If you're going to compare DA with anything, you should at least compare it with something relevant. Like, other video games, or other fantasy settings in general. Comparing it to real life and then declaring it's atmosphere to be cheerful and easygoing relative to real life is completely arbitrary. By that logic you could say that no fictional setting is grimdark, because worse stuff always happens in real life. WH40K: yeah sure you got nameless space soldiers getting killed by colourful space aliens en masse, but in real life you have people being skinned alive by Mexican gangsters in order to intimidate others to stay out of the way of their cocaine smuggling. Therefore WH40K aint grimdark, even though it is supposedly the father of grimdarkness.
 

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Essence of good grimdark is futility, that the problems have no ultimate solutions; even in the real world most people have optimistic views of the nature of reality so you have theologies like Whig progress and just-world theories where if a couple of nice things are done then nastiness will wane forever. Obviously no fiction can compete with reality for gore but you can't just put a set amount of dismemberment and what have you in something and it becomes grimdark all automatic.
 

Quetzacoatl

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 13, 2011
Messages
1,819
Location
Aztlán
Mr. Davis, what does MCA think of his cult situated in here?
 

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