commie said:
Jaesun said:
commie said:
Am I the only one that is apprehensive knowing that AoD is being made by the same person who thinks DA:O is one of the greatest RPG's of all time?
Where has VD ever stated that?
Well I may have exaggerated a bit, but he certainly finds enough facets of DA:O to have been superior to most other RPG's released since a decade ago to make it more than a little unsettling.
the world within these constraints of generic fantasy is very well designed and polished, and if you let it, will surprise you with its depth and the quality of its "unique takes and variants on some old familiar standards".
Role-playing (i.e. the ability to make decisions that affect both the player and the world around him) is the strongest and most enjoyable aspect of the game. Dragon Age does a better job of providing these options than any previous Bioware game, in fact any RPG since Arcanum, and rarely misses a chance to present you with an interesting choice to consider.
Bioware has managed to improve and evolve that design significantly, keeping the strong story-focus, while loading in a wide range of player choices and paths, which makes it the best Bioware RPG and one of the best role-playing games in years despite the flaws.
Since we're quoting my review:
"When you finally reach the heart of the castle and the root cause of Redcliffe's troubles, you get presented with a problem that does a great job of illustrating one of the core foundations of the setting lore, that magic is a dangerous tool in the hands of the unprepared. The Arl's son was born with magical talents, you see. By law, he should have been sent off to the Circle for training, possibly death if he failed their tests. The Arl would have done his duty but his wife hid her son's abilities from him, secretly hired a tutor to train him in using and concealing them. What she didn't know was that this tutor was a blood mage, and hired by another to poison the Arl. When her husband gets sick she turns to her religious faith to seek a cure, but the boy takes a different path. With a child's naive desperation to save his father, he makes a deal with a powerful Desire Demon to save his life. But, in the process, the demon takes possession of his mind and soul, and leaves the father alive but unconscious. This demon then runs amok, using its power to slay the living and animate them as the undead, holding a mockery of a court in the castle.
This then, is the danger the lore speaks of: How even someone with good intentions can make a mistake when manipulating magic that can have disastrous consequences. That though the laws of the Circle and Chantry may seem harsh, they exist for good reason. The boy's mother may have only wanted to protect her child, but her choices brought doom on her family and people.
So now, depending on our choices up to this point, we're presented with 2 options on how to resolve the situation:
1) The simplest option is just to kill the boy.
2) Go into the Fade and challenge the demon for control of the boy's soul.
However, the second option is itself made up of many options, in fact it is possible to cut it off completely. To access the fade you need powerful magic, beyond a single mage. The imprisoned Blood Mage - if he's still around - can aid you with his blood magic, but only at the cost of someone's life. That someone being the mother, who chooses to sacrifice herself to save her son. Alternatively, you can go to the Circle of Magi for help, they have lyrium they can use to open the path to the Fade. However, depending on how you handle the Circle quests, the Circle may not exist to help you anymore. So it's possible, should you have destroyed the Circle and the blood mage, to have completely cut off that option. So:
1) Use Blood Magic to travel to the Fade, killing the mother in the process.
2) Go to the Circle for help, should they still exist.
Not only do you get to choose how to access the fade, you get to choose which mage goes in. If you're playing a mage, you can go. If you have a mage in the party, say Morrigan, they can go in. And if you got the Circle to help, you can convince the Archmagister to go in, since he owes you a favor. But the options don't stop there! Once in the fade, you face off with the Desire Demon. But, like all good demons of seduction, she attempts to bargain, to seduce. You can fight her for the boy, sure. But you can also convince her to leave him without a fight, if you're good at intimidation. She also attempts to offer you something in exchange for leaving her with control of the boy's soul. She'll make it look like she has left for a few years, long enough for you to resolve whatever you need to resolve. And in exchange, she will give you a... favour. If you're good enough at intimidation, you can convince her to leave the boy AND give you a favour, just for showing mercy in not destroying her. So your options at this point are:
1) Fight and kill the demon.
2) Intimidate her into leaving if you have the skill.
3) Let her keep the boy, but lay low for a few years, in exchange for either the secrets of Blood Magic, a talent point or even sex (she is a desire demon, after all).
4) As 3, but permanently surrendering the boy, if you have a high enough Coercion skill.
So, at every stage of this questline we see opportunity for choices with consequences, choices tied both to character skills and previous choices within the game (interconnected quests are a trademark of design excellence). The evil options are presented well, you aren't simply being evil for the sake of kicking sand in people's faces, you are given choices which appeal to opportunism and self-interest, not simple bullying."
This is the best fucking design I've EVER seen in an RPG. If someone disagrees, I'd like to see an example of a better quest.
- smiley or in some other way implied that this was a totally outrageous thing to say. While in fact - here on the codex - it is not. 
