Dorikas

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Rentar-Ihrno (may she rest in peace) is quite a controversial figure on these boards. However, the simple fact that so many of you hated her with all your heart shows what a great character she really was. Let me ask you this: did Dorikas invoke these feelings as well? Did he invoke any feelings at all?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of his ideology. Clearly, Avernum needs to be put in its place, but I don't think this man was the right candidate for the job. There was nothing to him. He had little face time with the PCs and even less backstory to develop him.

 

Rentar was once your ally, you shared her pain when fighting against the Empire with her in Avernum 2 and then despised her for betraying you in Avernum 3. Hatred for her only grew when your nemesis returned in Avernum 4 and I for one was sad when that rivalry had to end.

 

Dorikas was a thorn in your side in Avernum 4 but provided little more than a cliffhanger by the end of that game. All of Avernum 5 seemed to be about him and yet he wasn't in it at all. You ended up fighting an enemy without a face and that weakened the Darkside Loyalists as villains. By the time I was in chapter two, the thrill of the chase had worn off as he was clearly too far ahead of you to make you feel rushed. He seemed more concerned about you in the previous game than in this one, as his traps and assassins have become few and far between. While Rentar was capable of engulfing entire continents in chaos, Dorikas's reach barely extended beyond his little fortress in the middle of nowhere.

 

Dorikas simply didn't have that nemesis trait that Rentar did. She was practically omnipresent in that you felt her blows against you wherever you went. This proved a hard act for Dorikas to follow. You would think that with the backing of the conservatives of the Empire, he would have been able to do a better job, but Lystaak the Beast ended up instilling more fear than he did. Sure he was supposed to be a more secretive person than the mad campaigning Rentar, but everyone knew about him and yet no one was really that concerned. Even General Redmark was so concerned with finding him first that not finding him at all was never considered a possibility. It was like Dorikas was doomed from the start to be cannon fodder. Doomed to be a plot device for advancing the story. Anyone else get these feelings or any feelings at all regarding Dorikas?

[Slawbug]

Rentar hardly seemed like much of an ally in A2. Yes, she did provide critical assistance in a few key moments, but she spent more time talking about how she was devising ways to bring rock down on the heads of Avernite civilians.

 

In A3, she was disliked, but I don't think she was really hated. I for one found her to be a pretty poor follow-up to Garzahd. Rentar did become hated in A4, but that was more due to the repetitiveness of her schemes than anything else.

[Emperor Tullegolar]

She was cold but still your best hope in Avernum 2. I think the mystery plot in Avernum 3 made her a better villain than Garzahd. She tried to frame Erika, which was brilliant. The best part was that she was right under your nose the whole time. Dorikas and even Gharzad were just too distant to be well developed characters. Garzahd's appearance at Ornotha and the fact that his army was a constant threat throughout the game makes him superior to Dorikas, however.

 

And damn it, I didn't ask for opinions on Rentar! We all know full well the popular opinion of her. What of Dorikas? Is he really any better?

[*i]

If you extol the virtues of Rentar to make a comparison to Dorikas, it is unfair to deny people the right to counter those assertions.

 

Again, problem with Rentar is she was too predictable. Her character development proceeded exactly as anyone would've expected after E3/A3. In fact, years before A4 was ever conceived there was a lot of talk about BoE scenarios using Rentar with similar aspects (her becoming a cystal soul, new plagues in Exile, etc.). During beta testing I even guessed the plot before Jeff finished the game. I was not alone.

 

Dorikas was new enough, but I feel his character was a bit of a disappointment. It would have been neat to see him do more of the heavy lifting in the game when it came to interacting with the party. Rather, he is just another mastermind with a large staff of henchmen that do his bidding. In some ways he was like Hawthorne II.

 

I haven't really liked any of the villains Jeff has written in the Avernum series. They have never really grabbed me that much. I guess the issue comes from the fact that the Avernum series have largely featured very static worlds where the party is the primary actor.

[Slawbug]

Garzahd wasn't really that distant, though, because he was written into the backstory of A1. He was directly connected to most of the major characters, the ones who really did have personality, so we heard lots of different, colorful statements about him.

 

There was very little variety in what ANYONE said about Rentar-Ihrno in the games.

 

And I dunno, I was pretty disappointed with Rentar's attempts to frame others. Erika wasn't a convincing villain, for the very reasons she mentions when you confront her with the 'evidence'. Neither were the dragons. It just wasn't in character.

[Kelandon]

It's not that I hated Rentar IC. I disliked Rentar OOC, because I was bored with Rentar IC. (Verdict still out on Dorikas. Give me 'til winter break, when I can actually play A5.)

[Randomizer]

Dorikas pretty much sits in the background and tries to manipulate events with the idiots he has working for him. Most are opportunists like Ruth who are looking to improve their position in the changing world. Dervish Tholmen is an example of why the Empire failed to beat Avernum. He doesn't inspire but tries to win through fear.

 

Dorikas doesn't have the developement to be a frightening villain. Actually if you play the pro-Darkside Loyalist ending, the best dialog is when you tell General Redmark that your after him because you think Dorikas' feeble attempts to eliminate you might finally suceed. There isn't a real attempt that will stop you since Jeff wants a casual player to reach the end. The Howling Depths was the best attempt and that's more of an endurance test to see if you can prepare to go the distance.

 

Maybe with more interaction between the players and the Darkside the could be more with developing Dorikas. Still it's better than A4 and the weak rehash with Rentar.

[VCH]

I was so powerful by end game that Dorikas seemed, . . . well pathetic. I had wands, scrolls and about 30 energy elixirs. I almost felt I should have joined the poor fool as he was so underpowered. As for character development, that was the one area of the game I really didn't like. The main plot line was; "go to the next area. Is Dorikas here? No. Ok, Ill just kill everything then. Each area in the game was awesome. But the overall plot seemed distant. I mean Dorikas should have put assassins out there, maybe turned mayors over to his side. At the least he could have talked to the party a few times. I hardly knew what the darkside loyalist ideology was by the time they where asking me to join them.

[Student of Trinity]

If it's not one thing it's another. Sheesh.

 

I think the way that Dorikas behaves is one of the best things about A5, because it's credible. Why should he risk his butt yacking with the peons in my party? He's hiding out from the Empire while waiting for his partisans above ground to win the succession struggle. Given the Empire's manifest ability to send all-archmage hit teams after anyone they can find, running as far and as fast as he can is the only smart thing to do. Dorikas doesn't behave like a good CRPG NPC. He behaves like a serious candidate to usurp the Empire.

 

I think that works. A plot where you interacted continually with the main adversary as a character would be good, but it's not the only good plot. Avernum 5 is a quest, and Dorikas is the grail. He's believable enough, for what he's supposed to be, that he makes a very good grail.

 

And Dorikas's explicitly avowed other objective, of establishing an Empire base deep in Avernum, is a very nice final twist to A5's long theme of competition for space. The final entrant in the scramble for underground real estate will be the Empire, one way or another.

[Locmaar]

I still think it's quite alright to explore a vast and fun world without having a grand twisted scheme as a plot to make it more entertaining. Also I believe that Avernum 5's plot was more of a device to set the stage for Avernum 6.

 

I felt very early in the game that both options (Manfred or Dorikas) were feeble at best and I would have enjoyed joining with Avernum instead to kick the Empire out. Either way, the Empire has a secret outpost deep in Avernum lands and they're going to use it.

 

My biggest problem was to identify with the Empire and not with Avernum. It's so... different.

 

edit: it seems SoT beat me to it. Damn. Too slow.

[Slawbug]

The real question is if Avernum 6 will do with the Empire-Avernum conflict what Jeff has done with every single one of his games since Blades of Exile.

 

Make you choose sides. Side with the Empire, or side with Avernum!

[Emperor Tullegolar]

I disagree with SoT. I'm not saying that you absolutely must interact with the main villain, but his forces (the ones the game revolves around) should at least be present. He doesn't need to see you himself, but the fact that you don't even see many of his minions makes him seem weak and not so much of a threat. There were so few Darkside Loyalist encounters in the whole game it made the main plot seem so much less urgent. I also think the fact that he supposedly has limited resources and yet you have a short encounter with an infinite Loyalist army sort of spoils the whole secret faction image.

 

I also agree with Locmaar, which is sad because I usually identify with the Empire. Perhaps the power struggle and lack of a definite Emperor had something to do with it. [Huge Incoming Spoiler] The fact that a Redmark ends up Emperor at the end of the game is novel, but also kind of a disappointment. Avernum wins again, eh? That's why Geneforge is better, it's darker, and with better characters and choices.

[Randomizer]

Jeff will make you choose a side, but the real question is how soon in the game will you have to pick a side and stay there. From a writing standpoint, Jeff would delay the final choice to minimize the amount of dialog variations for each area. The sooner the games diverge, the more differences have to be done. Like having different dialogs for joining the Anama halfway through A5.

 

Having to fight on one side or the other makes it more interesting for a player. More like Nethergate where you see the conflict from each viewpoint and get bits of what the other side is doing, but not the total pciture until after you have played each side. I doubt Jeff would make an Avernum size world with a Nethergate style plot. It will probably be more like A5 and A Small Rebellion where there isn't the break until the last part.

[Alorael at Large]

Quote:

Originally written by Elastikon:
The real question is if Avernum 6 will do with the Empire-Avernum conflict what Jeff has done with every single one of his games since Blades of Exile.

Except A4.

—Alorael, who had no problem with Dorikas. After all, for all his minions' bluster he's just a failed assassin on the run from a very angry Empire. And like most Avernum games, it's not the plot that carries things along. It's the world.

[Slawbug]

Tullegolar, your big spoiler is partially inaccurate.

 

Edit: I correct myself, and deliberately:

 

The real question is if Avernum 6 will do with the Empire-Avernum conflict what Jeff has done with every single one of his games' plots since Blades of Exile.

[*i]

The problem I had with Dorikas is that he was so removed from the party, much like Garzahd or Hawthorne. Now his role made sense within the constraints of the plot, but there is no reason the plot had to be structured as it is.

 

I'm not saying Dorikas should be out to kill the party himself; that would not be ideal for the reasons SoT stanted. Instead, if Dorikas had continually been one step ahead of the party trying to reach his hidden outpost, the main mission would have felt more urgent. Climax points would be where the party meets Dorikas, but he is able to escape for some reason and he travels deeper into the underworld.

 

So there are ways without utterly revamping the whole storyline that could have worked here and made Dorikas truly an effective villain versus the static one he is.

[Spidweb]

"there is no reason the plot had to be structured as it is"

 

Sure there is.

 

The game isn't about Dorikas. It's about the journey. Sure, I could have you occasionally meet Dorikas and have a few pages of blah blah blah and he could threaten you and you could threaten him and he could tell you about how he is bad because his mommy was mean to him or whatever.

 

But that doesn't happen, for several reasons.

 

1. Dorikas doesn't think you're important enough. His attention, right or wrong, is focused on the political maneuvering on the surface.

2. I felt Ruth was a more interesting character. So more of her.

3. Oh God, I'm getting bored just thinking about doing it that way. Avernum 5 is about exploring an alien world, full of cool, weird people and situations. The Dorikas storyline has interesting bits and provides a good framework and forward momentum, but it's not the point of the thing.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Student of Trinity]

[For the record, this was written before Jeff's post.]

 

It could have been done, I suppose. But a long series of narrow escapes by Dorikas would just be silly. And it's only the fact that the trail you're following is rather cold that justifies all the exploration and side-questing. It's not that A5's plot is poor but it doesn't matter because it's all about the setting: it's that A5's plot is almost ideal for a setting-based game.

 

In general I think you guys' thinking about Dorikas is too skewed by your last sight of him, as a melee opponent who speaks a few lines. His real role throughout the game is as a puppetmaster, whose agents have infiltrated the Empire forces and manipulated the residents of Avernum. This isn't the in-your-face kind of antagonist that you seem to want, but it's an excellent kind of antagonist: the shadowy enemy whom you are struggling just to see.

 

I bet y'all think Hamlet should really have been a 5-act running swordfight: Indiana Jones in pentameter.

[VCH]

I simply wanted a few more reminders that Dorikas existed. The game was awesome, but the reason I would give it an A over an A+ is Lack of Character development. I think every main section of the map should have some interaction with the darkside loyalists. Not major interaction, just a stray loyalist, a few monsters left at in a room, in an inn, that someone has already paid for you to use I really did like the whole exploration of the frontier. Deeper, deeper, deeper, very cool.

 

Edit: Oh, and the art work was ****ing amazing!!

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
The game isn't about Dorikas. It's about the journey.

This is fair, the journey was indeed the best part of the game. It's just that you set the bar pretty high with Rentar and Garzahd and even Hawthorne. The game itself was great, I'd just grown accustomed to memorable Avernum villains.

[Randomizer]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
I bet y'all think Hamlet should really have been a 5-act running swordfight: Indiana Jones in pentameter.

It beats 5 acts of a college boy on break whining about his mom's remarraige, his lousy stepdad, driving his girlfriend crazy, killing his future father-in-law by mistake, and in general not being able to party.

The ride through new lands was fun, it's the reason for the road trip that was the problem. It's better than A4.

[Slawbug]

What was different about Hawthorne and Garzahd was just that *everybody* talked about them, so they had a lot of character development despite only showing up once or twice in the flesh. But as SoT points out, this wouldn't have made much sense for Dorikas in Avernum.

[*i]

Quote:

Avernum 5 is about exploring an alien world, full of cool, weird people and situations. The Dorikas storyline has interesting bits and provides a good framework and forward momentum, but it's not the point of the thing.

Fair point. The game did a good job in this respect and the game is very rich because of it. Hollistically A5 is a very good game. I think the one area it is weak in is character development. Otherwise, I really enjoyed it.

Quote:

His real role throughout the game is as a puppetmaster...

My problem is not that his role did not make sense, it's just that we've seen this base architype before numerous times in the Avernum series. While the names and situations have been different and made to fit the world around them, they are fundamentally the same.

Hawthorne, Garzahd, and Rentar were in some ways the puppetmaster of their time. While I think Dorikas is the most interesting in this respect, I don't see much a departure here. So I guess my problem is not with Dorikas himself, but with the frequent use of this type of main villain from game to game.

[Spidweb]

In the cold light of day, I do want to add something to this.

 

Of course, I did consider having the Dorikas thing be a chase, where you meet the character from time to time. But I rejected it for this reason. The presence of Dorikas would deform the world around it. Everything would have to be redesigned to fit in the character and have its presence and escape make sense. I didn't like the way the designs looked as much with him there.

 

Dorikas is, however, a very different villain from the previous ones, in key ways:

 

1. He is not a villain. He is the head of a political faction. You might not support him, but you might want to join him. Both are options.

2. His interaction with the party is nearly constant, though it mainly takes place through his underlings. You might not speak with him until late, but he is a constant, palpable presence in the world.

 

And his interaction with the party makes perfect sense. I can't stress this enough: You are not very important. The game repeatedly establishes that the real action is taking place on the surface. That you manage, at the end, to become relevant is a real surprise to all concerned. And, as a designer, I think this is really cool.

 

The more I think about it, the happier I am that I wrote the game the way I did.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Locmaar]

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
And his interaction with the party makes perfect sense. I can't stress this enough: You are not very important. The game repeatedly establishes that the real action is taking place on the surface. That you manage, at the end, to become relevant is a real surprise to all concerned. And, as a designer, I think this is really cool.

This is one of the reasons that I was genuinely annyoed at times - or rather my PCs were. Having to listen to drooling Manfred being just too busy sitting on his throne so he can't really talk to me: I wanted to kill him there and then. When a game achieves that it must be considered masterfully crafted.

And I still feel there should have been an option to give him his shield back.

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
The more I think about it, the happier I am that I wrote the game the way I did.

- Jeff Vogel

And rightly so.

[Spidweb]

"And I still feel there should have been an option to give him his shield back."

 

Just sell it for the petty cash fund. I think that would be suitably insulting. Pity the game doesn't have the option Mass Effect has: rendering unwanted items down to goo.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Synergy]

The fact that you do not cross paths with Dorikas, but keep dealing with loyal, determined underlings, and are given the invitation to join him, creates tension and anticipation in what might actually go down when you finally meet him and see what he is really about. I enjoyed that wondering more, and dealing with people like Ruth, as I was wandering. Exploring strange new places, and dealing with strange new people like Gladwell, (and strange old people like Solberg) is what made this enjoyable for me. Lysstak was the grandest villain, as far as personality and confrontation goes. I loved the Drake Pillars chapter.

 

-S-

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Quote:

Originally written by Synergy:
but keep dealing with loyal, determined underlings

You see, I think that might be an overstatement. I think whole whole faction was underdeveloped. Even when I was talking to Tholmen at the entrance to their fortress, I just wasn't feeling the same moral struggle I feel in Geneforge games. They had done nothing to convince me that theirs was the way to go, and the whole journey thing just brought me closer to the Avernites, not farther.

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
1. He is not a villain.

That's probably why I disagree with this statement. In the Avernum games, there was always a clear protagonist and antagonist. The fact that Dorikas attacked Prazac made him a villain. Even though I personally am I fan of the Empire, Dorikas lacked the style and the development to be convincing.

I apologize for being so critical, it isn't my usual style. Avernum 5 is a fantastic game on its own, it was just different from what I've come to expect.

[Spidweb]

"They had done nothing to convince me that theirs was the way to go, and the whole journey thing just brought me closer to the Avernites, not farther."

 

This is a valid point.

 

I never intended it to be tempting to join the Darkside Loyalists. I knew, writing that path, that the vast majority of players wouldn't do it.

 

I put that path in, however, because I felt that it was important that is be an viable option. Although it was a pretty clear choice, and I meant it to be a clear choice, it is still significant that it was a choice.

 

It is definitely not a Geneforge-type situation, though.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Emperor Tullegolar]

Quote:

Originally written by Spidweb:
I meant it to be a clear choice

Then how is Dorikas not a villain?

Oh, well, the journey was great and I guess that is what Avernum is all about. I just wanted you to know there is a was huge vacuum (figuratively) left where a main villain should be now that Rentar is dead. Dorikas didn't fit the bill, and from what you're saying, it seems he wasn't really meant to. I can only hope that means you have something awesome in store for us later like you always do!