Best mysteries in Dragon Age series which you would like to clear in Dragon Age 4

[Darth Canoli]

18. What was the point of DA2?

Taking money from retards.
Make shit game, milk the dumb masses, banks invented it, making money out of people who don't have enough of it already.

It'd be brilliant if it wasn't so sad ...

 

[SausageInYourFace]

DA2 was pretty alright, DAI was the real atrocity.

 

[Lacrymas]

I find the OP's naivete endlessly curious and amusing. Yes, we are technically on an RPG forum and I imagine s/he thought we are going to discuss a topic related to an RPG, but the franchise is so off the mark, at best evoking a complete, genuine disinterest around here, that I wonder whether the RPGWatch are missing a member and whether they discuss such things. It also shows a bit of innocent ignorance of the Dex' reputation.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

DA2 was pretty alright, DAI was the real atrocity.

I think that both were equally mediocre titles.

DA2 inaugurated the decline with the introduction of the dialogue wheel and a change in art direction with shitty redesigns to armor style, as well as to the looks of the Darkspawn and Elves. Add to that the rushed state of the game (particularly the huge amount of reused location assets) and you get a mediocre product which nonetheless had a somewhat tighter narrative split between the Qunari and the conflict between the Mages and the Templars, plus some great characters such as the Arishok.

DAI instead embraced a shitty offline MMORPG design philosophy with huge maps filled with inane activities such as the shard searching, plus the absolutely retarded war table operations with real time cooldowns. Then you have the schizophrenic plot which tries to play too many angles and fails to adequately flesh 'em out, plus an overall mediocre design of the quests themselves (with the exception of a few decent ones such as that of the Orlesian Court, quest which nonetheless could've been done better).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

 

[Absinthe]

Are the gamers here serious at all? All they write is teenage shit like "Retarded, who cares" bullshit?

The trouble with this thread is that Bioware is pretty much a discredited quantity nowadays. Since EA bought up Bioware they have been on a very rapid downhill slide. DA2 was an abomination. ME2 stopped trying to be an RPG. ME3 was a disaster. DA3 was all about being cinematic and not enough about quality gameplay or quest design. MEA was a severe joke. And the talent that typified Bioware of yore has left. So no one here has any hopes or expectations for new Bioware. To top it off, you're asking about anticipations for DA worldbuilding, but the thing is, Bioware plays very fast and loose with the rules of their own lore, retconning setting details or contradicting previous worldbuilding all the time. So it's hard to take it seriously. Howe family lore was retconned between DAO and DAA. Qunari lore and most characterizations from DAO were completely ignored or retconned in DA2, a game in which the plot was virtually nonexistent and could be best described as "a series of things go to shit and you're there." Then DA3 posited itself as a holy church's inquisition while simultaneously being the most openly heretical organization on the face of the continent, with a protagonist who has the flimsiest excuse to be in charge where just about anyone else would have better qualification to lead using a nonsensical plot of an incredibly idiotic yet superpowered villain who by rights should've just annihilated the inquisition head on instead of letting them keep surviving to snatch more crumbs from him. Folks here have come to expect really bad and inconsistent writing with terrible gameplay, weak quest design, and overwrought theatrics from a company that is a shell of what it used to be, with all the talent having jumped ship long ago, and is only ever on a downhill slide of failure after failure. They even mothballed the original DA4 project because it didn't have enough lootbox integration and redid it to be more Anthem-like (this is when Mike Laidlaw left). And Anthem was a complete disaster too. At this stage, the DA4 project has gotten downsized, the talent is gone, and what remains is the shell of a franchise that aims to be another cheap cashgrab. So it's not surprising that a DA4 anticipation thread gets treated like a joke thread when DA4 cannot be taken seriously anymore.

So when you ask about what DA4 plotline we are looking forward to, the most common answer will be "none of them." I doubt anybody here cares.

If you wanted to start a thread about what kind of game systems, class design, quest design, and level design you were hoping for, the thread would've been a lot more lively and constructive tbh. Not because people here are great fans of speculating how good DA4 will be (reckon just about everyone thinks it will be a dumpsterfire) but because people like talking about good game design. Talking about your favorite DA lore question you were hoping DA4 would resolve on the other hand really doesn't engender a whole lot of constructive discourse and motivates people to come here and have a laugh.

 

[Nano]

DA3 was all about being cinematic and not enough about quality gameplay or quest design.

You have it wrong. Most of what you do in DA3 is walking through the barren open-world areas and doing the quarter-assed fetch quests; it's a game meant to appeal to the Skyrim audience. Mass Effect 3 is the most movie-like Bioware game (and what an awful movie it is).

with all the talent having jumped ship long ago

Not really true: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...discussion-thread.84849/page-287#post-6336903

 

[Absinthe]

Bioware's been overzealous with breaking to cutscenes and trying to make dramatic moments out of things for a long time. Usually the theatrics are the biggest selling point of Bioware games when all else has dropped the ball. On the talent front, you're right that there are still core Bioware members left, but a lot of old programmers, writers, leads, and so forth have left the company nowadays, including a majority of the writers. So I guess I should amend "all the talent having jumped ship long ago" to "the majority of talent having jumped ship long ago."

 

[Lacrymas]

If there's anything that attracts people to Bioware's ...attempts at entertainment, it's the cast of characters and their relationships with each other. It's not drama, it's not cutscenes, it's not even the writing per se, or at least the storylines, it's spending time with your companions. That's why the last ME3 DLC is considered by ...uhm, fans I guess, to be one of the best. This is also why Obsidian's offerings didn't strike the same chord with these people, the companions there are a vehicle for (bad) ideas rather than a person you can imagine having a good time with.

 

[Roguey]

it's a game meant to appeal to the Skyrim audience.

Seems to me more Ubi than Skyrim.

 

[Tytus]

1. Sandal/Bodahn :- Who is this creature, where did this dwarf find him?
2. Avernus :- What does he do with Grey Warden blood? What new secrets did he unearth between Blood magic and Darkspawn?
3. Andraste/Haven/Urn of Sacred Ashes :- How did the ashes cure Eamon? What was their secret? Who was Andraste?
4. Ancient Rock Wraith :- How does this creature form? How did it survive? Is there some older connection to some ancient creature?
5. Red Lyrium/Statue :- What is Red Lyrium if Blue Lyrium is blood? Who created that statue and put it there?
6. Mythal/Flemeth/Solas/Fenharel :- Who are these elven gods? how did they manage to live for centuries? What is their magic?
7. Titans ; Lyrium :- Who were Titans? How can entire cities fit inside Titans? How were they beaten?
8. Lizardmen :- Who created those drawings in the caves? How did these creatures live without water? Are they related to Elves?
9. The 4 Unbound Demons ;- What is so special about these demons? Where did they come from? Are they connected to Black city?
10. Maker/Black City/Fade :- What is Maker? Where is the Black/Golden city? How to reach it?
11. Corypheus/First Magisters :- What was the experience of these mighty magisters inside the Black city?

1. Sandal is the Maker in his earthly guise. He chose a body a mentally retarded dwarf boy because this way nobody suspects him of being anything more and he can watch the world develop undisturbed.

3. Andraste was probably something like Flementh.

5. Red Lyrium seems to be an infected version of Titan Blood.

6. All elves were basically immortal before Solas fucked it all up. But they didn't lost the connection to the Fade like other elves did, so they can live much longer.

 

[raesha]

18. What was the point of DA2?

EA/Bioware decided to test whether they could push out a 3D HD-era rpg with a dev cycle of less than a year, at most.

The result of that is plain for all to see.

 

[razvedchiki]

good gameplay.

 

[Falksi]

They've made such an unholy mess of the franchize fuck knows how anyone can be interested in anything anymore. It's gone from a nice mix of grounded reality & high fantasy in Origins, to some real Dallas style, Bobby Ewing's death was a dream & it was Aliens type shit in latter entries.

Who can follow this shit anymore? Never mind who's following it enough to care about one of numerous bullshit offshoots.

Sandal? He's a fucking mong. A brain-zapped mong who does a job enchanting coz of said mongyism. There's no need for him to be involved with any higher purpose, he just needs to lick windows and enchant like he was meant to.

No wonder Maker/Black city is getting all the votes. It's the only plot thread Origins set up robustly enough to endure all the plethora of bollocks which followed.

We're entering 4th sequel in a horror B-movie franchize realms of wank here.

 

[jackofshadows]

What's the name of the planet the game takes place on. The absence is one of those things that reeks of poor world building.

Why does it matter? Isn't it a simple example of over-exposition?

As for favorite mystery - it's none at this point, unfortunately.

 

[Abhay Saini]

Are the gamers here serious at all? All they write is teenage shit like "Retarded, who cares" bullshit?

Who you calling retarded, boy?

But since I was roused from my slumber, I gotta ask - what the fuck goes through the head of someone like you? You create a fresh account and start spamming threads. Let's skip the part where they're all retarded threads and focus on the bigger picture. Why? What goes through your head when you do this? What are you getting from this? Is your autism so severe you don't realize no one likes thread-spamming newfags? There are plenty of threads already. Go post there. Or better yet don't post at all and just read.

Or is this what trolling in the year of our lord 2020 looks like? If so, this is some real weak shit. Geez, I hope I've not fallen for Saffron Whatever's alt number 7458 here.

None. Unless you are Dyslexic.
Imagination, Mystery and Intelligence, that's what goes through my head.
I have barely 6 posts, and iam the spammer, go get your brain checked.

None of the current threads have such content, that's why i make.
And for your pea sized brain, if the content is too overwhelming, do everyone a favor and fuck off to your little cave.

 

[Yosharian]

DA2 was pretty alright, DAI was the real atrocity.

I mean DA2 was pretty bad, but I agree that DAI was far worse

 

[Yosharian]

None. Unless you are Dyslexic.
Imagination, Mystery and Intelligence, that's what goes through my head.
I have barely 6 posts, and iam the spammer, go get your brain checked.

None of the current threads have such content, that's why i make.
And for your pea sized brain, if the content is too overwhelming, do everyone a favor and fuck off to your little cave.

Try posting less and reading more, at least for a few more months.

 

[Falksi]

Are the gamers here serious at all? All they write is teenage shit like "Retarded, who cares" bullshit?

Tbf, your OP's a decent one IMO, but on the flipside some of the comical replies are bang on too.

My suggestion would be to enjoy the humour, but engage with the more serious replies. There are serious gamers here, but this is also the Codex, a place of piss taking and cuntishness. I started a thread reviewing old games, one of the posters reviewed "Falksi's Mom", who was old & had a hairy pussy. I found it highly amusing.

If you don't like that sort of stuff you're on the wrong forum.

So on a serious note, which mystery would you like to see explored more? And don't you think DA has become way too convoluted to make sense of them anyway.

Also, with the above in mind, how would you feel about mystery number 19. Anhay Saini's Mom?

 

[NJClaw]

Are the gamers here serious at all? All they write is teenage shit like "Retarded, who cares" bullshit?

I care only for one mistery: where did all the cute women from DA:O go? Why all women adventurers in Thedas became ugly all of a sudden?

 

[BarbequeMasta]

The only mystery about the DA franchise worth ansering is: What the fuck happened to it?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

The only mystery about the DA franchise worth ansering is: What the fuck happened to it?

EA and the passing of time (current year™).

 

[Absinthe]

EA/Bioware decided to test whether they could push out a 3D HD-era rpg with a dev cycle of less than a year, at most.

The result of that is plain for all to see.

EA needed every branch to deliver a serious product every year for their annual statement and profit-gauging purposes. This was by all accounts a terrible idea and resulted in the rush-job known as DA2. But a lot of the onus is on Bioware as well for picking a 1 year project to redo graphics and indulge in extreme level reuse instead of either reducing scope, making the level reuse plausible rather than blatant corner-cutting, or developing some kind of random map generator.

 

[normie]

why were deaths during the Grey Warden transformation an acceptable cost of business and it was ok for Duncan to be like "nothing personnel" when a dude pussied out during initiation, but the tried and true method of turning people into golem was likened to another Hall of Cost

 

[AwesomeButton]

The number of dildos that Dorian has been able to fit in his asshole at once.

When is EA going to officially shut down Bioware for good.