Worst lines in a Bioware game?

[Jive One]

SO I KICKED HIM IN THE HEAD UNTIL HE WAS DEAD

HEYA ITS ME IMOEN

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Mucha shaka paka. KOTOR.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Mucha shaka paka. KOTOR.

Ni ni boboo.

 

[circ]

SO I KICKED HIM IN THE HEAD UNTIL HE WAS DEAD

HEYA ITS ME IMOEN

GET ME OUT OF THIS HELL HOLE

HEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOEN

 

[waywardOne]

bioware writing in a nutshell:

Isabela: No, I'm afraid I'm really this shallow.

 

[Monocause]

Alistair's swooping did fit the character. As someone pointed out, he got all funny and juvenile to hide his insecurity and how he felt that the whole darkspawn thing and responsibility he got was way too much for his stature. It was done elegantly and subtly enough that you guys apparently didn't have a clue about it having skimmed through his dialogue or not using him at all - or not having actually played the game.
You may not like him, but Alistair was actually a good character, one of the better ones in DA:O. It really doesn't make much sense to take some of his lines out of context and go all "LOL bad writing". Actually you never, ever take things out of context when going for any sort of qualitative analysis, unless you're trying to analyse how things work when taken out of context. A lot of sentences you exchange with your friends every day would make you look like a hardcore moron if taken out of context.

Also, DAO wasn't subject to medieval stylisation. The only character who used all these 'tises and whatnot was Morrigan, and it also felt right (could be done better, of course). She lived her whole life in the wilds and most she knew about the world and people was from the books she read: this was reflected in her language and her stunted empathy, inability to cope with emotions.

I think Sten's cookies were resembling an easter egg. There were quite a few tounge-in-cheek moments in DAO, like Sten's "exchange" with the dog ("You are a true warrior, and worthy of respect"). It's obvious that these are comic relief.

A poorly written character in DA:O was, for example, Loghain. It was a neat concept: considers the king a moron who will doom the whole kingdom, picks the renegade option. Trouble is he seems schizophrenic. He never seems to have any doubts. He's generally too unreasonable and muahaha villain-esque for the machiavellic exposition to really work - and being muahaha villain-esque and unreasonable also doesn't fit his personal history as a brilliant tactician. The "Ostagar maneuver" was just plain stupid.
Now, imagine that he arranged regicide instead and took over before Ostagar. The player would have his suspicions and gather evidence to finally expose him as a murderer in the Landsmeet, while Loghain would pretend to be an ally while actively trying to hinder and assassinate the Warden the closer to the truth he got. That would make a much better and believable Loghain.

As to DA2, banter also doesn't really serve as an example of poor writing. It's ALL tongue-in-cheek. The apostitutes joke kinda fit Isabella's character, which I guess was meant to be Jack Sparrow with huge tits. The problem with most of DA2 characters was that they were exceedingly shallow and one-dimensional. They kept the same routines all the time, and even Merrill's blood magic quest didn't help.

Fuck, there simply is NO character development in DA2. In DA:O characters evolved over time as you gained their trust and stuff happened around them - well, most of them did, except for Wynne and Oghren. In DA2 Merrill does all sorts of terrible stuff only to go on an idiotic rant "OH MY WHAT HAVE I DONE THEY ARE ALL DEAD OH MY OH GEE OH MY" and you can't even fucking kill her. God, I really was longing for a [kill her] option, but no, no dice. Not a way to kill an annoying elf which stupidity led to endangering her whole clan, you have no other option than murdering dozens of innocent Dalish. Just so that the annoying elf can weep more and all you can do is imagining raising slowly your hands and slowly strangling her to death. Fuck.

And even when she goes through all this some time passes and - oh, I just murdered my whole extended family but we've business as usual, right? Why would she ever stop being a whiny double-check-where-you-step annoying elf after commiting genocide? No reason at all. It's perfectly fine to keep making sweety-sweet jokes after trauma like that; Bioware fans can convince themselves that it's a coping mechanism.

 

[circ]

Or maybe unlike you, people can tell the difference between an immature dunce and bad writing.

 

[Haba]

* Hawke: "You haven't exactly thought this out, have you?"
* Isabela: "I haven't exactly worked out all of the kinks. Step one, we find Castillon... step two, I don't know. Something exciting happens. Step three, profit. Any questions?"

 

[SCO]

A poorly written character in DA:O was, for example, Loghain. It was a neat concept: considers the king a moron who will doom the whole kingdom, picks the renegade option. Trouble is he seems schizophrenic. He never seems to have any doubts. He's generally too unreasonable and muahaha villain-esque for the machiavellic exposition to really work - and being muahaha villain-esque and unreasonable also doesn't fit his personal history as a brilliant tactician. The "Ostagar maneuver" was just plain stupid.
Now, imagine that he arranged regicide instead and took over before Ostagar. The player would have his suspicions and gather evidence to finally expose him as a murderer in the Landsmeet, while Loghain would pretend to be an ally while actively trying to hinder and assassinate the Warden the closer to the truth he got. That would make a much better and believable Loghain.

Yes, even though i've not played the game (skimmed the LP), i can see a game where one of the villains gets away with his plot because the player doesn't even notice. Make his demeanor almost the complete opposite of a villain, make it a good plan like this, make exposing him hard and limited to certain stages of the story (not the end) - maybe even multipart requirements, make the player himself doubt he is guilty because the proof is flimsy and he denies it to the end - skip the pc assassination cliche - that just removes all doubt, make some minor branching: loghain king, no king, loghain exposed, etc, etc and it could be a damn fine plot.

 

[Monocause]

Thank you for sharing your insights. I'll check the thread sometime later to see if you're past the pictogram stage and have achieved the incredible peak of mental performance that forming coherent sentences apparently is for some Codexians in their worse days.

Not that discussing anything with most of the personas on the board can lead to something constructive but at least it can be entertaining.

 

[Erebus]

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Isabela/Dialogue

Why do the writers believe that banter systematically has to include humor ? Don't they realize how repetitive and superficial it ends up sounding ? Especially when said humor is not exactly of stellar quality. The only exchange that actually made me smile in that list was :

Isabela: The difference between whores and courtesans is...well, they have nicer shoes.
Aveline: I think your shoes are fine.

 

[Phelot]

* Hawke: "You haven't exactly thought this out, have you?"
* Isabela: "I haven't exactly worked out all of the kinks. Step one, we find Castillon... step two, I don't know. Something exciting happens. Step three, profit. Any questions?"

Oh man... is that really in the game? There is not a facepalm large enough to express how lame and embarrassing that is. It'd be like if your grandpa tried to crack an extremely out of date 4chan meme. "Hey grandson, what do you think of those... MUD KIPS!"

 

[Idiott]

There's also ring referencing three wolf moon.

 

[villain of the story]

That line ("their faith would have you swallow a great deal for small comfort") VD quoted wasn't idiotic at all, actually but VD blew its worth out of proportions. It's a decent bit of writing with character but nothing to praise as VD did. Anyone IRL could spontaneously say something similar in the right context.



Anyway, so LS finally admits it in this thread: he's been a sheltered and ignorant small town boy all his life. Not that it's a crime or anything of course but the irony reaches critical mass when one such as him makes as many false assumptions as he does. Especially when the only references he has for what possibly goes on outside his small backyard are the sharp contrasts between his exposure to them old decent folks and the all the filth! and decline! in comparison in mainstream media.

Well, at least he seems to have enjoyed / be enjoying a nice scenery. Everyone should have this thread bookmarked for future reference as part of LS's origin story.

derping is good

Son, I'm disappoint. Even if the rest of the game got everything right, writing of Alistair alone would pull the game down to The Land of The Derp, destroying whatever serious contemplation it might have had. Didn't know you had such low standards. Away with you, pleb!

 

[memebot3.0b]

they are toys for children. wat kind of writing were u expecting?

 

[FatCat]

SO I KICKED HIM IN THE HEAD UNTIL HE WAS DEAD

HEYA ITS ME IMOEN

GET ME OUT OF THIS HELL HOLE

HEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOENHEYA ITS ME IMOEN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImunFOi-Vbw

+

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93XFxKXd ... re=related

=

 

[DragoFireheart]

None of Bioware's writing is bad: you all just have set your expectations too high.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Actually, it's

HEYA IT'S MEA! IMOEN!

 

[felipepepe]

Game "journalists" and gamers keep hyping Bioware's writing, but it's just an "okay" writing, never even close to a real professional writer. Even kids books, like Harry Potter, have better writing than any "mature story-driven AAA-game". Is just that on the gaming scene, Bioware is really one of the best, witch shows how lame game writers are.

And I hate to go back off-topic, but this hurts:

Every single word in the English language has its origins elsewhere, mostly Latin.

Dude, English is a language of Germanic origins, not Latin. That's why most words are similar to German. Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish are Latin languages. To see people discussing medieval languages when not even basic modern language is known is ridiculous.

 

[Erebus]

Dude, English is a language of Germanic origins, not Latin.

About half of english vocabulary comes from french vocabulary.

 

[markec]

Dude, English is a language of Germanic origins, not Latin.

About half of english vocabulary comes from french vocabulary.

And french language is also of Germanic origin.

 

[felipepepe]

Dude, English is a language of Germanic origins, not Latin.

About half of english vocabulary comes from french vocabulary.

And french language is also of Germanic origin.

French has a weird history, but is still Latin, and English may have many French words, but no way close to half of the vocabulary, at most should be around a quarter. It's common knowledge, and quite obvious for anyone that can speaks a latin and a germanic language.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

* Hawke: "You haven't exactly thought this out, have you?"
* Isabela: "I haven't exactly worked out all of the kinks. Step one, we find Castillon... step two, I don't know. Something exciting happens. Step three, profit. Any questions?"

Oh man... is that really in the game? There is not a facepalm large enough to express how lame and embarrassing that is. It'd be like if your grandpa tried to crack an extremely out of date 4chan meme. "Hey grandson, what do you think of those... MUD KIPS!"

tbh the meme is still in usage. Same for DA1's "EPIC FAIL" (shouted by a guy in the background, talking about Howe's plans)

I never got why people get so mad when a joke like that makes it into a game. Is gaming a religious experience that can't be tainted by the stuff you come into contact with every time you use the internet (which is part of real life)? It's not like it's referencing Fox News or anythng that feels out of place in the setting, it's just that old "What now?" "I haven't tought of that part of the plan yet" joke.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

English is a Germanic language, but like all other languages in Europe it draws heavy influence from Latin and Romantic languages like French. But its roots in Germanic cannot be denied. The English people are German people, the Anglo-Saxons being a mix of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons from what is modern day Germany, Denmark and the Low Countries.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Dude, English is a language of Germanic origins, not Latin.

About half of english vocabulary comes from french vocabulary.

And everything has its origins from Africa.