The question Here i suppose is self explanatory.In DA2 what in maker's name happened to the genlocks.What did Dwarven Broodmothers suddenly start having miscarraiges?This is one of my biggest gripes about DA2 as well as the fact that shreiks disappeared.Faboo (talk) 11:41, May 29, 2011 (UTC)Faboo
This annoyed me too. Shrieks seem to have taken on the role of emmisarys, but the genlocks have dissapeared. King Cousland (talk) 12:05, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
For the answear you can choose from "low budget" or from the artists we're simply to lazy and the people would forget about this "minor" thing....like the thing with the dwarf females. --80.98.75.107 (talk) 12:49, May 29, 2011 (UTC) Anatolj
Wow, I just realized there are no female dwarves in the game either thanks to you. I guess Bioware just doesn't care about short people. Lemonaidz (talk) 13:40, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
And while we're at it...I was very disappointed in the prostitute options this time. The females, that one with the Dr. Girlfriend voice we'll leave alone, though I suddenly feel the need for another shower, were all elves weren't they? That's just racist. I missed plowing the dwarven deep roads this time. I guess Bioware really doesn't like short people. The Grey Unknown (talk) 14:41, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
For all his brave talk, Varric is a virgin with no idea on how to describe anything having to do with dwarven women. Genlocks, included. Futonrevoltion (talk) 14:59, May 29, 2011 (UTC)Futonrevoltion
It's a business and/or design decision. A really annoying one, but they traded off Genlocks/shrieks/dwarven women to give us something (who knows what) else, based on staff, schedule and budget. I find the answer "the artists we're simply to lazy" very ironic, because using that answer is very lazy. Rhautanen (talk) 16:03, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
... I am ashamed to say that I didn't notice those little buggers weren't around...--The Grey Hawke (talk) 19:59, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
One thing I found odd was the fact that a good number of creatures weren't heavily redesigned (if at all) for DA2 and yet so many were cut. At least genlocks and shrieks being absent is explained by the decision to redesign the darkspawn (though in my opinion only emissaries benefited from that). Drakes, Sylvans, Werewolves, Zombies (or whatever those undead that weren't labeled skeletons in origins were), bears, wolves, and blighted beasts all could have be utilized to give encounters a bit more variety. Sure maybe some of these things are better off not being reused so as not to diminish their uniqueness, but I really got sick of fighting the same 6 or 7 groups of monsters (thugs, qunari, undead, spiders, demons, dragonlings) over and over again. Especially shades.--174.3.126.170 (talk) 23:08, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
I know BioWare wanted to make a big thing about "ooh look pretty graphics" given that Origins recieved some (undeserved in my opinion) criticism about its graphics, but I really wish they'd stuck with the same engine completely, the same models, etc and maybe just polished up a bit. They'd have had a lot more time then to work on other things, and we wouldn't have the absence of female dwarves (the one franchise that manages to make female dwarves attractive and they vanish!), genlocks and so on. Sadly too many people pay too much attention to the graphics and so story, gameplay and immersion are sacrificed in favour of pretty pictures. Rayvio (talk) 23:49, May 29, 2011 (UTC)
I like most of the new art design (darkspawn excluded) but it does gives an impression of "no more then we had time to do". It’s like they wanted to redesign everything, from an art perspective, but they just didn't have time to do it (or at least put it in the game). Thus, we get stuck with the "sick zombie"-hurlock and bdsm emissary, where we previously had 4 darkspawn races (not counting those in Awakeing) with both the standard, alpha and emissary present for two of them (I think the shriek alpha looks just like any other shriek). Such a massive downsize, of what really is one of the iconic creatures in Dragon Age, gets even worse when the new design isn’t what we’d come to know them as – scary things with a unique weapon and armor style. It almost comparable to doing a redesign of Mario as a blonde, and in orange instead of red. It'd still be Mario, but he'd look wrong (or at least funny). – Kerethos (talk) 01:11, May 30, 2011 (UTC)
Well, you can say to Bioware's defense that the game wasn't focussed on the darkspawn, they were nowhere as important as they were in DAO. It was more about Kirkwall, Qunari and the mages vs templars thing. Kirkwall is boring, the only thing that catches your eyes is the part of the city with the brothel. The new Qunari design is kinda cool, even though they all look alike. The focus on the mage vs templars thing was rushed, but still interesting how it isn't about villains and you are forced to take a stand. Conclusion: They had some good ideas, but didn't have/take/get the time to fully realize them. Lemonaidz (talk) 09:00, May 30, 2011 (UTC)
Behold, in DA2, the dwarves face extinction! All female dwarves mysterously disappeared. Thus, there are no more Genlock broodmothers! There are no more Genlocks...eventually. A horrible, horrible sign indeed!58.100.212.194 (talk) 13:27, June 1, 2011 (UTC)
I noticed the lack of genlocks, shrieks etc. but i assumed it was because, in the intro, hurlocks were there because the "stronger" warriors would be consolidating ground taken by the horde (genlocks etc.). The others, I assumed it was because there is no Blight anymore so the majority were killed and the others were very rare outside of Blights
As for dwarf females, I didn't notice they weren't in the game. I noticed no qunari females or unhorned qunari, but that was because they wouldn't bother to bring women on a battleship. It is a mystery, however, that there are easily over 200 qunari killed by Hawke and co., yet the Arishok had enough troops to take over a city despite probably losing many in the shipwreck as well.
User:Eggy2504 15:20, June 1, 2011
- 200??? Haha. Try like 20,000. And the ships were obviously aircraft carriers, floating ones at that given half the Qunari always parachuted in. The Grey Unknown (talk) 14:30, June 1, 2011 (UTC)
The para-trooping proves that the Mage v. Templar conflict is a proxy war between SHIELD and HYDRA.
Hurlocks got a lot shorter, as well.
It puzzles me that so many seem to like the new Qunari design... when they're simply taller Night Clan from Diablo. Pretty close to the same attack animations, too. Futonrevoltion (talk) 14:25, June 1, 2011 (UTC)
I think the lack of Genlocks can be explained by the fact that in DA:O The deep roads/Fereldan are kind of near a dwarven settlement (orzammar), there is no such settlement in DA:2 King of the Dusters (talk) 17:36, June 1, 2011 (UTC)
At one point there is a wolf howl on one of the coastal adventures :). I think it was a combination of budget, being rushed, and laziness. Where are all the spider webs and knockdown/we gnaw on you attacks. There were too many spiders and demons in the city. There should have been some ghost spirits in the city, secret doors (i didnt find 1), wolves or rats (theres a sewer) I missed the exploding abominations that did damage. It felt like Dragon age lite(great tasting but less filling). Im on my second complete playthrough and the passion i felt for DAO isnt the same and i'm looking forward now to expansions, DAO3 or maybe a better franchise.~~Maxx Cousland
I don't want to go so far as laziness, but definitely rushed. Fact is, they released Awakening with promises of DA2, (for those of you that remember it was the date in red). Bioware had pretty much signed there own sentence right then and there. Pressure from trying to meet the deadline, lack of time...they really should have just extended it. The game is rushed in just about every aspect: Recycled maps, a DISAPPOINTING lack of enemy variety, and as has been mentioned, the lack of variety in our NPC's (female dwarfs and whatnot). Everything feels rushed out the door. Even the story itself. I mean, you only really face the mage vs. templar thing in your last year in Kirkwall. *Sigh*. Hope they bring back Gaider to do most of the writing, and here's hoping that they work on bringing DA3 closer to the original DA. Bring back the (normal?) darkspawn instead of these anemic ones that look like skeletons. Even the ogres looked more badass in the original. And do some ACTUAL work on making every area unique instead of recycling them. Rath101 (talk) 23:18, June 9, 2011 (UTC)
Wow, I noticed the genlock thing but this thread just made me realize that there were no dwarven females in the game. Trippy! Maybe the dwarves in Kirkwall are very misogynistic and don't allow their women out in public? As for the lack of genlocks... maybe the Hurlocks ate them all and that caused the Hurlocks to become super tainted thus giving them a more anemic appearance? --Serrah (talk) 06:06, June 27, 2011 (UTC)
On the bright side of things: The yet to be announced DLC seems to contain Genlocks, based on the leaked achievements that come with it. Mokonanl (talk) 08:22, June 27, 2011 (UTC)
I was pretty disappointed with the artistic direction of DA2, to be honest. It seems like there was an attempt to make everything seem edgier and more aggressive, but they lost the grittiness that made the first game stand out from other fantasy RPGs. In any case, it looked to me the darkspawn we did see in DA2 were stylistically reminiscent of the disciples and childers from Awakening. I'm wondering if this was more than simply an aesthetic choice. This wouldn't be something that Hawke or his companions would pick up on, so it's natural that it wouldn't be mentioned in the context of this game, but perhaps this something that will be revisited in DA3?
Maybe all little genlocks finally grew up and now look like stupid looking ogres with bulldog's face.--PureSlayer (talk) 08:56, July 4, 2011 (UTC)
Considering that recently the Darkspawn would have been taking very heavy casulties, and that the Warden took care of I think 5 dwarven broodmothers (which, considering how little known they are and how few we meet, is probably a lot), and recently the Darkspawn have been fighting mostly humans recently, maybe there just aren't that many Genlocks left - they lost many in the blight and haven't been able to replace them quickly enough. That, or it just so happened that the Darkspawn contingents Hawke came up against just didn't happen to have any Genlocks (which is possible, when we consider that the surface groups wouldn't have many opportunities to take dwarven female prisoners, and the Primeval Thaig contigent are ages away from anywhere - maybe the broodmother supplying them happens to be human). As for the lack of female Dwarves , I guess Bioware just didn't happen to have anywhere where they wanted to put a dwarven woman (and come to think of it, how many dwarven women can you think of above ground in DAO). They probably do have models in the DAII engine for dwarven women. TheTeaMustFlow (talk) 10:14, July 4, 2011 (UTC)