So does anyone here play DA:I on PC and if so, how? My laptop usually handles games fine, not at the highest graphics settings but they usually run well enough. I haven't had any problems with Bioware games running at all, even at higher settings. But DA:I is like playing in molasses on my computer and I can't really afford to get a console for one game.
I have the settings on medium, I think? Still lags, ofc. Try lowest settings? I also have a fan I use to cool the computer somewhat.
I default to lowest settings on things. I am the weird person who is totally fine with poop graphics as long as it runs reasonably well. Apparently, most of the gaming industry disagrees with me on this.
I have to organize my thoughts on it first, but it boils down to the Chantry being a smart slaver. Remind me to type it up when I'm not on mobile anymore. And yeah I agree with most of what you said!! I love that short story I have so many FEELINGS for that whole clusterfuck. @Mentarnes I play on PC, but my computer is sorta dedicated. DAI takes a lot of processing, unfortunately - do you run anything else on the background?
@witchknights I tried, it didn't help much. I'm guessing my laptop's a bit lacking on processing. I'll probably have to start looking into a new one in the next year or so, so I'll keep that in mind
On my current playthrough, it was more character appropriate for me to side with the templars, which was a first - so now I get to see Calpernia's nemesis quest, and so far it blows Samson's out of the water as far as interactivity goes. I'm thinking I'm going to like Calpernia more than Samson, too.
@witchknights Oooh. I can see how that might work. You should def write it up. I really like the Chantry (bc it's interesting, not bc it's good). I think it's fascinating that the most Christian-y, dominant, religion is the only one we haven't seen any evidence of it being true. The pagan beliefs of the elves and old Tevinter were actually about real beings. Whether or not they were actually divine has yet to be revealed, but they existed and were powerful. @Mercury I need to finish my siding with the templars pt. I know Calpurnia is a lot more interesting (at least in game) than Samson. I just don't get why they're not both around? I mean, I guess it's because they wanted big game differences depending on who you went to, Mages or Templars. But it doesn't work from a story perspective. They didn't do enough to earn that major difference. Also, they didn't go into Samson's motivations at all in game, which is a massive waste. He's such a great character because he's ruled by very conflicting feelings. Which is sort of implied in DA2, then dropped. And not brought up at all in DAI. As much as I adore Cullen, I think it would have made a better story for him to be the leader of the Red Templars and Samson to be the general of the Inquisition. Whoops I already said that I think.
I must have managed to breeze right through Samson's storyline in DA2 because I just keep going "ah yes you were relevant somehow except I can't remember???", but he did seem quite underused in DAI. He did have a few super good lines that made me think about how someone might have chosen the absolutely shitty option of eating red lyrium and leading his men to do, but otherwise I didn't feel for him since I didn't really know who he was apart from being clearly unhinged and in "yes my lord will provide for me" mode. Also that sounds like an interesting flip, in a way.
In DA2, you meet him in Act 2 when you're trying to find Feynriel. The backstory you get from him then is that he was a Templar who smuggled letters between on of the Enchanters, Maddox, and his lover. He's then caught, and expelled from The Order on trumped up charges and left on the streets with a crazy bad lyrium addiction. Maddox is soon made Tranquil on equally trumped up charges. When you meet him on the streets, he's sort of part of the mage underground, helping to smuggle people out of the Circle. He's also a bit of a jerk and clearly spends all the coin he earns on Lyrium dust because of his addiction. You can get him reinstated in the game, but he's not overly well used past Act 1. In WoT, there's an entry on him post DA2 but pre DAI where he's taking care of his templar recruits (even if they're turning into the red lyrium monsters) and the reason he joined with Corypheus is to destroy the Chantry so no one else will be turned into slaves as Templars bc of the lyrium addiction. He's attended my Maddox, the Mage/Tranquil mentioned above, who Samson went back and saved from the destruction of The Gallows. Maddox is interesting because he shows a lot more agency than most Tranquil. He is loyal to Samson and spends a lot of time and energy taking care of him as Samson's mind is destroyed by the Red Lyrium. That's all stuff from canon. Some of my headcanons surrounding him are that he was one of the most trusted and liked Templars to the Gallows mages. As a result, he was a growing threat to Meredith, and that's the big reason he was thrown out of the Order. There's a conversation somewhere where Cullen mentions sharing a room with Samson, so Samson was a templar up until very recently in Act 1 (though this is weird because Cullen's timeline is really fucked up, timing wise). He's not a saint: he plays favorite and knows it, he's horribly addicted to lyrium and both hates himself for it but also likes the power rush, and he sorta swings between being cynically friendly and cynically rude. #I really like Samson okay
Apparently if you side with the templars, Samson just... dies or something (there's a codex entry that mentions "without Samson to lead the red templars). Other way around, Calpernia never turns up at all. It's baffling, and kind of sloppy. I disagree that Samson and Cullen's places should be switched, though. Cullen would have been a really interesting and powerful choice for the red templar leader, but Samson's as the Inquisition's general, I can't see it. He's practically a nonentity. He's a side character in DA2 who pops up in two quests; it's just weird for him to be a reoccurring character. There's been some popularity in the thought of having Evangeline (from Asunder) be the former Templar general and Cullen the red templar general, but that'd add in complications considering that Evangeline is in a relationship, and she has a past with Cole they would have had to fit into the arc of the game, which is already suffering of limp plots that go nowhere. I've been chatting about it with a tumblr follower and we've come to the conclusion that it would have made far more sense if Lord Seeker Lucius had headed up the red templars, instead of joining up with a handy Seeker-killing doomsday cult when he found out the terrible secret of the Seekers, conveniently just in time for Corypheus to install a demon in his place. It'd've made the failing of his faith have a lot more impact. It also would have meant Cassandra would have stayed more relevant, which would have made far more thematic sense - both nemesis quests featuring one of the Hands of the Divine.
Cullen's timeline is a mess. I sorta try to fix it in my own headcanon but damn, they sure didnt let any breathing room between dates. Andrastianism as-is is a Orlesian, patchworked imperialistic tactic that is concerned mostly with rivaling Tevinter and keeping political and financial control over the former Tevinter/Orlesian territories; its steadier source of income is the lyrium and enchanting trade, which the chantry is implied to have exclusivity on the surface since the tranquil are the only who can safely handle lyrium. mages also happen to be the chantry's main offensive force, but a very volatile one, so the ones that control them have to be tightly kept. That's why I mentioned them being smart slaveowners - the Templars are even more deeply affected by the chantry than the mages, who remain isolated and neglected and dehumanized and abused, but not under any physical leash that literally dissolves their brains that, as alistair says, perhaps isnt even needed. They offset this huge downside to templarhood by giving them free reign and total power over the mages, as well as a pretty story to keep young recruits coming and the support of the general population; basically, they stroke their egos and let people with power delusions run their way and theyre happy about it. which is why i actually believe grand cleric elthina was 100% ok with Meredith taking over Kirkwall and her neutrality was actually politics-speaking for support; Meredith keeping the nobles under her thumb increased the political power of the Chantry by default, and doing something to protect the mages in the gallows would mean doing something about Meredith, and they'd lose too much political power to let that happen. Something unrelated, but Im surprised there wasn't any Chantry cleric working for Corypheus; given that Justinia was a reformist, I was expecting a more political person that got into religion as a career solely for the power to have seen an opportunity to assassinate the Divine in the conclave and use the mages-blaming-templars-blaming-mages chaos to reach the throne, and someone like that would be a smart choice of ally for Corypheus; putting a decoy Divine there would be a good advantage against the inquisition, sapping their resources and popular support and work well as an antagonistic power? honestly i was sorta thinking they were going this way with chancellor roderick. I like Cullen as the general of the Inquisition, but I'd have liked it if someone else had been the Red Templar leader and Samson had been a recruitable agent gotten during Champions of the Just like Alexius is for In Hushed Whispers because i really want that dude to be all right- maybe the Lord Seeker as @Mercury said. And having the other general around would have been super duper fucking awesome, Calpernia rocks. Oh, and if I had my way, there'd be a way to save Fiona/Ser Barris too. Maybe they show up with Dorian/Cole to warn the Inquisition, whatever - Fiona is too important a character in the overall DA myths to be a fucking random miniboss. I think these changes make a better use of all characters and, idk, if i ever get to do my Full Game Rewrite I was thinking about putting stuff like that.
@Kittenly Thanks for explaining! And @witchknights, your ideas of improving stuff are good too. Though I would prefer a female character as fake!Divine in place of Roderick, I don't like villainising literally the only relevant male cleric we see in Inquisition. *** I actually don't like how the off-game material is being handled. Like, I haven't read the books, which means that everything in the books is a non-entity to me. So I was pretty much through the game when I found out that Fiona is Alistair's mother? Wtf? And is apparently pretty important? And in the game she just hangs in the library...? What? The same probably goes for all the other book characters that were somewhere and I didn't recognise. And the idea that I have to read them to be up on what is happening does not rest very well with me because I signed up for a video game franchise not books.
@hoarmurath So much agreement. And the books aren't even very good. I've only read Asunder so far, but... well, it was fun and fast to read, but as a book it kind of sucked and felt painfully amateur. It really showed that David Gaider had never written a novel before, and it also was clear that he didn't have a real editor.
@hoarmurath yeah, I like how roderick turned out, but it was the impression i got when i was first playing the game. maybe even the cleric that sends that sister to leliana's hardening mission would have worked? Regarding the books, I read The Stolen Throne and Asunder and both are... idk, the literary equivalent of a big mac. I like Asunder best out of them, but that's because Cole is my beautiful baby child, not for any of its merits. I'm trying to start reading TME but I keep remembering I have Terry Pratchets on my Kindle, so....
So essentially someone should make a video/meta summarising the books and save everyone else from reading them? Also ugh unedited novels. Why. Why.
@hoarmurath Well, like I said, they're fun. I have a pretty low tolerance for bad writing but Asunder was just good enough to be, as @witchknights said, the literary equivalent of fast food. There is one truly excellent bit of writing in it, and that's when Pharamond (an elven mage who'd been made Tranquil and cured himself of it, at great collateral damage) describes what it's like to be Tranquil: […] “I find it ironic the Right of Tranquility cuts one off from the land of dreams, because a dream is exactly what it feels like. Everything in a dream is as it should be, nothing is out of place… yet part of you knows something is not right. this isn’t your home, this isn’t your life… it isn’t you. “Yet one cannot act other than the dream allows. It follows its course, and you follow it believing nothing is real. You will turn the corner and awaken, safe and sound. Yet you never do. Instead you are slowly smothered in a crystal-clear silence that has no meaning.” This gave me bone-deep chills because that's what disassociation can feel like to me, and was exactly what it felt like when I was on the wrong psych meds.
Dang, I'm gonna have to keep trucking on with Asunder then! It's a pretty easy read tho, like you say. It is kinda like a big mac too XD I accidentally chose the Templars in my first playthrough because I can't read and I didn't realise that starting one side's quest cut out the other side, and I had the Templar quest sitting up in the corner of my screen after Val Royeaux so I was like, "Ok let's do that," then I was like, "Wait shit why am I siding with the Templars???" but oh well. I got to get Cole early, so that was fun. I actually really liked Calpernia, so it'll be interesting to see what Samson is like (I am so slow at my second playthrough oops). I also had a thought. So my first quizzie was a Vashoth mage (and choosing the Templars made zero sense for her character) and I was just thinking, I wonder what happens to Vashoth or Tal-Vashoth mages who get captured by the Templars? I cannot imagine how absolutely horrible being the only grey person with horns in a Chantry Circle would be, dear god. But but but imagine a Tal-Vashoth mage, who has escaped the Qun, who finally has freedom and can live their life how they want, and then they get captured by the Templars and shoved in a Circle. Just. Guuuuuuuhhhhhh. ...I may want to write this now, goddammit.
That is REALLY UPSETTING to think about. :'( I have The Masked Empire sitting on my tablet unread, so I should probably try getting to it and report back. I hope Patrick Weekes is a better novelist than Gaider... or at least a somewhat more mature writer. I like David Gaider fine most of the time, but some of the stuff he falls back on is really immature. #I was pretty surprised to find out he wrote some of my least favorite stuff in DAO
