Dragon Age 2

[entrerix]

I can generally forgive a lot in fantasy works if the setting is interesting. Case in point, Riftwar & Wheel of time.

 

I'd recommend Guy Gavriel Kay, Stephen Donaldson and Robin Hobb. Among today's best-sellers, Steven Erikson is best.

 

 

if you liked the wheel of time, already your taste and my taste are at odds, so what about these other authors is so much better than the aforementioned? what sets them above the retreads and rehashes and eye-rolling sword opera?

[sorophx]

If we are talking Russian writers, everyone should read Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

 

not you too seriously, this book is notorious for being mentioned as "favorite" by teenage girls and and otherwise mentally impaired. not that it's a bad book, but not even close to his other works (like the play about time travel, or my personal fave of his; Dog's Heart (or w/e it's called in English)).

[entrerix]

just as an aside. what the **** is up with writers planning out TEN volume book series? what ever happened to having a good idea and writing it down. the best books are not, generally, one of a longer series...

 

sometimes an excellent book will warrant a sequel (which is almost always worse than the original work). but if a writer intends to write something and not finish it till later, i will tell that writer to go shove it until he's actually written the whole thing.

 

everyone so busy worrying about being "the next _____" instead of focusing on just telling the story that they need to tell.

[mr insomniac]

just as an aside. what the **** is up with writers planning out TEN volume book series? what ever happened to having a good idea and writing it down. the best books are not, generally, one of a longer series...

 

sometimes an excellent book will warrant a sequel (which is almost always worse than the original work). but if a writer intends to write something and not finish it till later, i will tell that writer to go shove it until he's actually written the whole thing.

 

everyone so busy worrying about being "the next _____" instead of focusing on just telling the story that they need to tell.

Maybe because if an author (or their agent) went to a publisher and showed them an outline for an epic story that would end up about 5000-7000 pages long, the publisher would kick them out on their ass.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, someone above mentioned Guy Gavriel Kay as a suggested read. I thought I'd link his website here. I haven't read his latest book yet, but the others are all entertaining enough. IMHO, Ysabel is the weakest of the lot.

Edited June 1, 2011 by mr insomniac

[Nepenthe]

There's basically two instances where unreliable narrator were envoked and both were backed away from immediately.

There could be more that you just aren't aware of yet.

[Spider]

There is good written fantasy out there, it's just that most of what is heavily featured in bookstores is trash.

 

Michael Moorc*ck (stupid language filter) is aboslutely brilliant for instance. His concepts have been extremely influential, but he is also a very good technical writer.

 

Brandon Sanderson (among the newer bunch, MM did most of his defining stuff in the 70s or so) is also pretty good. He excels in world creating, but his prose is very enjoyable as well. The way he uses color as a narrative focus in Warbreaker is just brilliant. Or how he conveys the broken world in the MIstborn Trilogy 8as well how the characters grow throughout the series).

[Labadal]

David Gemmel was one of my favorite authors.

 

 

Russian writers, eh?

 

Nick Perumov. Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword series.

[Ice9]

I will not let anyone say anything bad about Bulgakov. I will fight you!

 

For Sci-fi, I'm sad that we've neglected to mention Stanislaw Lem.

[sorophx]

Nick Perumov.

ddin't expect that to happen afaik he's pretty crappy, haven't read myself, though, and not sure about the earlier stuff, though.

 

I will not let anyone say anything bad about Bulgakov. I will fight you!

I never said he was a bad writer it's just that MaM is a tad overrated in my opinion

[Orogun01]

Warden gets conscripts, Legion doesn't. Others were a nebulous threat, darkspawn were always a clear and present danger to the dwarves. Warden/Night's watch comparison however, is accurate.

With the legion it's more of a visual aspect, the great structures of Orzammar reminiscing of the wall. Donning the black, armor of the legion being fully black.

Plus the same sense of impending doom in their structure, say their "dead" as members of dwarven society to join the ranks of the Legion.

Kinda forgot the drakes and dragonlings, eh? Over the course of one year the Warden fights 7 drakes, one high dragon, one spirit dragon, one standard dragon, two dragon thralls and numerous (I stopped counting after a while) dragonlings.

Damn fantasy games have to go and have a bunch of dragons to kill

 

It's like the difference between the wars of scottish independence and the three kingdoms. Although I'm not too keen to argue this since it all falls under "monarchy shenanigans" and I could never stand those for long.

 

Don't understand the rose phrase.

A rose is a rose is a rose. Google it.

 

Maybe i'm seeing the close similarity because I read both Martin and Gaider's Stolen Throne.

Ghouls are what happen when you touch darkspawn... fluids. The are humans who basically join the hivemind full of crazy and die months later.

Wights on the other hand are undead. Others are closer to demons in that regard.

The Architect was an aberration, he says so himself. I wouldn't say one of possibly millions is statistically significant.

Andrastian lore believes darkspawn to be corrupted magisters (the Dwarves however, say: "I dunnolol"). However, the spawning of genlocks by dwarven broodmothers, hurlocks by human broodmothers and sharlocks by elven broodmothers points to a relationship between the two.

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Really old joke.

Broodmother spawns more darkspawn like ant queens. That would fall under asexual unless my memory of biology textbooks 5 years ago has died badly. The process of becoming a broodmother on the other hand...

They are call man-eaters.

Hive mind begets intelligence.

So it matters if their subjugated underlings are dead or alive if they both have them?

Broodmothers reproduce through parthenogenesis, like the asari.

 

The Seven? As in the Seven Old Gods? Because I can't find anything else related to seven and religion on the DA wiki.

Faith of the Seven are based off a family and their archetypical roles, the old gods of ASoIaF are nature spirits.

The old gods of DA are based off... I don't know, actually.

The old gods of DA are the elven pantheon and like the old gods are probably based of Celtic deities.

The number 7 held as symbol of perfection and it's featured heavily on fantasy.

 

mercenary companies: the Brave Companions, the Second Sons, the Stormcrows, and the Golden Company.

Yep, now find their equivalents in Dragon Age, like I asked.

no magic in Fire and Ice, probably why Gaider had to go and equate to the middle ages church. Albeit one of the most interesting points in the game, and the most underdeveloped.

There's some magic. More low key, but still there. IIRC Samwell went through a magic ritual and failed horribly and the castellan of Storm's End died to some magic by Stannis's witch on call.

He's a fan, not a plagiarizer. I doubt he'd lift things wholesale from ASoIaF.

I'm arguing the similarities I'm not seeing, I see rather more parallels with human history than anything else.

I don't think he is a plagiarizer, but like fans his prose draws heavily on the subject of his affection. I just think that the sources of inspiration for a work shouldn't be obviously present on it.

 

And on to the subject of this thread.

 

Tolstoi is the best

[Enoch]

I can generally forgive a lot in fantasy works if the setting is interesting. Case in point, Riftwar & Wheel of time.

 

David Eddings novels are the book equivalent of BioWare games. They always feature the same character archetypesa and there's always the same type of epic quest going on. Not to mention the endless banter between either incredibly annoying or incredibly witty characters.

 

I'd recommend Guy Gavriel Kay, Stephen Donaldson and Robin Hobb. Among today's best-sellers, Steven Erikson is best.

 

Have you read the book of the new sun?

I concur that The Book of the New Sun is the most interestingly written fantasy-ish fiction I've read.

[Monte Carlo]

GEEKOUT IN TEN SECONDS...

[Orchomene]

I would just give some names that are among my favorites :

Herbert, Silverberg, D i c k, Zelazny, Barjavel, Van Vogt, Vance.

Some french recent authors are more oriented to the way scifi was considered before (as in, with focus on concept and not really in 'TV serie' form) : Damasio, Bordage, Colin, Day. Some of them got the Hugo price if I remember correctly.

 

For fantasy, this is tougher since it's already itself a trash subgenre of fables, tales, legends, epic poetry. But outside of the author style (I read mostly french translations) there is Moorc o c k, a few of the preceeding cited authors (Zelazny, Vance, Day, Colin, Bordage, Barjavel), Homer, Chretien de Troyes, Lewis Caroll, Rabelais...

The last one being in an enlarge genre which keeps the same idea : comparing a contemporary society with a past one to illustrate some behaviors (or comparing gods and humans...)

I'm not a fan of Tolkien because I think he is indirectly responsible of the evolution of the genre into what it is today : moslty crap.

 

Edit : to pass censorshp.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Orchomene

[Drowsy Emperor]

I can generally forgive a lot in fantasy works if the setting is interesting. Case in point, Riftwar & Wheel of time.

 

David Eddings novels are the book equivalent of BioWare games. They always feature the same character archetypesa and there's always the same type of epic quest going on. Not to mention the endless banter between either incredibly annoying or incredibly witty characters.

 

I'd recommend Guy Gavriel Kay, Stephen Donaldson and Robin Hobb. Among today's best-sellers, Steven Erikson is best.

 

Have you read the book of the new sun?

I concur that The Book of the New Sun is the most interestingly written fantasy-ish fiction I've read.

 

Besides the fact that the more you read of it the less you understand.

[aries101]

I think it is time someone mentioned the Grand Dame of all sci-fi, Ursula K. Le Guin - who in her books explores the relationsships people have in different futuristic setting and also explores some really interesting concepts like what if there were nor wars or what if everyone was poor or rich...

 

Back on topic (a bit)

 

David Gaider has himself said that he got a lot of inspiration for DA: Origins, from A song of Fire and Ice, it also seemed heacily inspired by The Witcher, especially Witcher's tale of suppressed elves and dwarves. The story in DA: Origins do not come even close to the one presented in The Witcher, (1), though.

 

 

As for DA2, of course he would mention the war on the terror as an inspiration for the game. However this just push people more and more into believing that the Qunari are in fact, stand-ins, or symbols, for muslems. And that they are just waiting to invade, the Qunari, I mean, not the muslems.

 

 

As a more general comment, these days, for some reason, fantasy is seen as kid's genre more than books for adults. The same apparently goes for game magazines. My local library have them placed in the children's sections

Edited June 2, 2011 by aries101

[Meshugger]

GEEKOUT IN TEN SECONDS...

 

[Azure79]

I can generally forgive a lot in fantasy works if the setting is interesting. Case in point, Riftwar & Wheel of time.

 

David Eddings novels are the book equivalent of BioWare games. They always feature the same character archetypesa and there's always the same type of epic quest going on. Not to mention the endless banter between either incredibly annoying or incredibly witty characters.

 

I'd recommend Guy Gavriel Kay, Stephen Donaldson and Robin Hobb. Among today's best-sellers, Steven Erikson is best.

 

Have you read the book of the new sun?

I concur that The Book of the New Sun is the most interestingly written fantasy-ish fiction I've read.

 

Besides the fact that the more you read of it the less you understand.

 

Funny, I am currently reading this myself. I didn't have any prior knowledge on the book or the author, but the cover caught my eye. Thought it looked purty, so I began to read it. It was interesting so I purchased a copy. Enjoying it so far.

[Bendu]

Patch is out... A lot of changes.

[Monte Carlo]

Patch is out... A lot of changes.

 

 

What, like making it an RPG?

[mr insomniac]

Enemies are now much less likely to explode into body parts upon death.

Awwww ...I don't care if it was ridiculous and unrealistic, if that term can even be applied to a game like this, it was fun. BOO.

[Nepenthe]

Enemies are now much less likely to explode into body parts upon death.

Awwww ...I don't care if it was ridiculous and unrealistic, if that term can even be applied to a game like this, it was fun. BOO.

Actually, the official line was that it wasn't working as they'd intended, the body explosion threshold was bugging and wasn't getting set at the correct impact level. Which could be either true, or them just backtracking. I believe them, though, they've admitted other ****ups.

[Orogun01]

Actually, the official line was that it wasn't working as they'd intended, the body explosion threshold was bugging and wasn't getting set at the correct impact level. Which could be either true, or them just backtracking. I believe them, though, they've admitted other ****ups.

You believe them?! what kind of lawyer are you? Now get in there and pull the truth out of them

[mr insomniac]

Actually, the official line was that it wasn't working as they'd intended, the body explosion threshold was bugging and wasn't getting set at the correct impact level. Which could be either true, or them just backtracking. I believe them, though, they've admitted other ****ups.

You believe them?! what kind of lawyer are you? Now get in there and pull the truth out of them

Truth bolded.

 

Either way, less exploding into body parts = sadness.

 

EDIT: NM.

Edited June 3, 2011 by mr insomniac

[Nepenthe]

Taking it for another spin. There's a few engine-side fixes that are making the game more enjoyable (item highlighting and fixed gamma adjustment), didn't run into any story fixes just yet. I still like this game, it doesn't really wow me, but it doesn't annoy me - which, unfortunately, a lot of games do these days (LA Noire's interviews... rage).

[Guest Slinky]

Right, been playing this while waiting The Witcher 2 to get the aspect ratio patch. I'm in "chapter 3" currently, here's a quick like/not like:

 

Good:

- I still like the world of DA

- Not clear good/bad, every faction is more or less right depending from the point of view

- A personal story, instead of the usual bioware story number 1 where the hero saves the world

 

Bad:

- Camera

- Wave after wave of enemies, who just materialize from air, sometimes right next to you

- Most quests are just waste of time, go there and kill them crap or find something stupid and return it to someone

- Why do I find myself in the same cave and house again and again?

 

 

All in all, I'd say it's all right no-brainer casual game, but took the game in very wrong direction from DA1 in my opinion. I don't feel my 12