The Gentleman Loser said:
There seemed to be only one mage that stays sane throughout the whole game.
There was you... if you were a mage, or your sister if you were not one.
Every other mage is crazy in some way. Every single one.
Kind of kills the point of "Oh those poor, poor mages." when even the best of them goes psycho under the slightest of pressure.
I'm glad you asked. Soon you'll be glad too.
http://www.1up.com/features/dragon-age- ... r.offset=0
1UP: So, specifically, was it always intended to have the player fight both Meredith and Orsino? It almost felt like there was a fork in the path, where by supporting the Mages you would fight Meredith and supporting the Templars would get you to fight Orsino. So it actually surprised me to have the player fight both...
ML: It was considered, certainly. Any time you have two opposing villains or forces, that kind of thing gets considered. But to be fair, from the beginning, our goal with Dragon Age 2 was to not have either side be the "good guys." Even up to the player who thought, "I'm choosing the good guys, so I'm going with the mages," the revelation that even at the top level, that mages were still susceptible, was something very important to us. To show that normal people can become villains in the same way that normal people can become heroes.
...
You've gotta admit that Mike is one of a kind. But wait, there is more:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6305575/
GS: In terms of interacting with these companions or other characters in the game, how do you feel about the way the dialogue wheel came together and how it made things a little more clear and direct?
ML: I'm very happy with it. The wheel, as a whole, provides a couple of really cool advantages. It lets us hold more conversation options than we had available in Origins where we had a cap of six. We technically have a cap of 10, so you can get a nice, cleaner interface to ask questions for clarification. I love the investigate system.
It also provides what I see as the prize behind every door insofar as when you read a line of Origins dialogue for comparison, you see everything you could potentially say.
In your brain, you've done the totality of that conversation. Whereas looking and saying, "Oh, I know that's going to be a smart-aleck line, but I don't feel it'd be right to use it," you're left with that temptation or that urge to pick it because you can't tell exactly what you'll say. What I think is the key gain with the icons is that you do know it will be sarcastic, which allows you to make a much clearer choice about how you want to interact with characters. If it was going to be suave or if it was going to be diplomatic, you know at a glance rather than having some confusion around what might happen.
Text is always a pretty horrible medium for conveying sarcasm or sincerity. Being able to put a heart, as much as you could argue that you could tell, lets you say, "OK, I'm certain with this choice. I'm not making it blind." That's very important when you want to associate yourself with a character.
Oh the irony...
