The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[dryan]

This time Bioware did a great job

Spoiler

with the DRM

.

 

[Branm]

For whatever it's worth, the patch is up on Origin.

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/

That's actually a pretty decent patch for two weeks in.

No mention at all about the tactical camera??? LOLs....

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/

• [PC] Added an option to enable / disable tactical camera on mouse wheel scroll out.

Yeah but thats meh. Only thing id care about is the ability to zoom out further. i really don't understand Bioware...if I have the option between being able to see crappy ceilings or having a functioning camera id always chose functionality first.

Hmmm maybe by the time this is cracked they will have fixed the friggin camera... Good thing i learned my lesson with these shit heads when DA2 released...If I spent money on this id be raging all over the place.

 

[DalekFlay]

The game's tactical camera is worthless since even on nightmare you barely ever need to control your companions. I don't see much point in using it, hence not much point in improving it.

 

[Infinitron]

Yahtzee: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9940-Dragon-Age-Inquisition-Review

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Fantasy Commander Shepard

 

[crawlkill]

Yahtzee: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9940-Dragon-Age-Inquisition-Review

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Fantasy Commander Shepard

I was hoping he'd taken a couple weeks to review it because he actually was gonna get to the end and rant about how bad it was, but no, he mentions not having finished. this must be the problem with these reviews, that not enough of them had actually finished the game to see how inconsequential and thrown-together all the Assassin's Creed/Far Cry completionist stuff was. generally speaking I don't think it's meaningful to define a product by a single part of it, but when one of those parts is "100 hour investment" and another is "that means nothing," it really does rot the experience backward.

 

[Knut]

Spoiler

Thedas is obsessed with singing. "lyrium" itself, as was pointed out on reddit, is potentially derived from Latin words that we owe things like "lyrical" to as well. this is all very much hooked into the Maker: the Andrasteans do the whole 'Chant of Light' and are specifically obsessed with song as a means of worship, even if they can't write lyrics for shit. SOME DAY SOON THE DAWN WILL COME.

it's implied that this Maker-song force is, if not actually malign, at least not what it appears to be. at one point in Inquisition the Templars--of the non-EBIL variety--are described as being hooked into something old and hungry through their lyrium addiction, which is what gives them their (incredibly shitty) antimage powers.

in Thedas dwarves can't do magic ever because they have no connection to the Fade, but that also makes them, along with Tranquil mages who've been taken out of the Fade's address book, uniquely capable of handling lyrium. lyrium is way poisonous in its unprocessed form, but dwarves and Tranquil are immune to its effect (largely--there's a dwarf in DAO who got lyrium poisoned, survived, but sort of seems senile now, not sure if that's been retconned or what, because in theory it shouldn't be possible). Dagna's a character from DAO who shows up again in Inquisition, a dwarf who loved magic and went off to study it even though she couldn't do it herself. if you quiz her as you hand things off to her throughout the game, she actually has an insight into the nature of lyrium and becomes "bigger than herself" for a second, like she has a momentary connection to the Fade. she speculates that since only dwarves and Tranquil can work with lyrium, they must be connected in some way, and further wonders if lyrium isn't like a river--if it can touch you, it wants to drag you along with it, which in this case means 'kill the shit out of you.'

during Flemeth's cryptic speech toward the end, she says something along the lines of "so long as the song keeps playing we must all dance to the tune." this is shortly before it's revealed that she is what she is because she shares the soul-ish thing of an old elven god and steals the archdemon soul (I hate that word and I hate having to use it repeatedly in a short span even more) from Morrigan's WORST FUCKING VOICE ACTOR AND DIALOGUE IN TIME kid. I imagine this doesn't necessarily happen if the kid doesn't have the soul in your game--haven't tried it that way, never will, fuck Inquisition. relevant in a couple paragraphs will be a line here: Morrigan has been shrieking about how Flemeth wants to steal her body, and just before leaving Flemeth says (good delivery and facial animation, bad dialogue) that "no body can be forced to accept a soul, you were never in any danger from me."

what does definitely happen in every game is the epilogue, where Solas, your "I lub the Fade and spirits" mage, goes to visit Flemeth in some elven temple-looking otherspace. she calls him by the name of the old elven god who is (falsely, according to an immortal elf you run across) thought to have imprisoned all the other elven gods outside the world. given that this is just the trailer for their ongoing blurt of glacial storytelling, we've actually seen this implied before (there was a statue of Solas' godsoul thing in the temple of Flemeth's godsoul-thing; if you find it, educated NPC companions can point out 'hey, wasn't he supposed to be a traitor?' and faithful NPCs go 'ANDRASTEANS PUT ANDRASTE'S BETRAYER IN THEIR TEMPLES' and players are meant to go HMMM I WONDER IF WE'VE BEEN LIED TO.

Solas reveals that he'd given Corypheus "the orb" that Cory used to prolapse the sky--it'd broken after what we might laughably call the climactic encounter and Solas had been suspiciously miserable about it. he tells Flemeth he couldn't unlock its power after "his long slumber." he says he deserves to die for what he did, but that "the People" (capitalized, elves, presumably) need him. he and Flemeth get all close and exchange "I'm sorry"s, and then something ambiguous happens: there's a soul-exchange lookin thing like when Flemeth snatched the OGB's meta-essence (which appeared not to harm OGB's human side at all). the wiki thinks that this is Solas stealing Flemeth's god-nature, but in light of the "only a willing body can accept a soul" line, I think this is actually Flemeth possessing Solas, who is clearly "willing" in that he thinks he deserves to be punished with extermination. Flemeth's original body dies; Solas' body, ambiguous who's running it, lowers it to the ground as it appears to turn to stone, for who knows what reason.

so what the fuck does it all mean? my guess, to take the most wildly speculative approach, is that "the Creator" was actually some possibly-eldritch entity who showed up on the scene late in Thedas' prehistory and didn't like how things were run, or possibly an as-yet unspecified ancient elven deity who got ideas above its station. it kicked the (other) elven gods' asses but couldn't quite kill them, so they ended up semimythical aspects of the world, mostly dormat. when the Tevintir entered the Golden/Black City, the Maker didn't cast them out; it actually fucking exploded, which is when lyrium entered the world (this would be a good place for citation--is there solid evidence lyrium has always existed? not sure there can be, actually, since histories in DA are often deliberately written to be wrong). some semblance of the Maker still exists, or maybe lyrium can just act in concert--but what it really wants is to converge on itself again, which process seems to involve, either deliberately or as a side-effect, killing the shit out of people who work with lyrium. it's also possible that, rather than wanting to be restored, it wants to die and take the world with it, rather than existing in its fractured state. on some level, it's capable of manipulating and orchestrating events at a very large scale. this is "the music."

meanwhile, the gods it betrayed (Flemeth refers to her godsoul-buddy as having been betrayed repeatedly, but not by the Solassoul-buddy legend thinks did it) have started waking up. Flemeth's has been around for a long time; Solas' appears to've come to just recently. realizing the scale of the threat that the shattered Maker poses, Flemeth and her godsoul buddy devise a plan: they need to perform a convergence of their own, collecting up into one body enough of the ancient power of Thedas (another theme of DAI, Morrigan is obsessed with how much more magical the world used to be) to opposed and dissolve the Maker before it can either recompose itself or pull off the end of the world. by the end of DAI, Solas' body contains at least two and possibly three ancient godbuddies--at least the two elven ones and, if you had the OGB, one of the Tevintir old gods.

anyway this has been my attempt to find some kind of meaning in all that time I sank into this mire

very interesting. i like your speculations, i'm just not sure whether bio will be capable of making it that sensible. have a

 

[TheGreatOne]

Yahtzee: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9940-Dragon-Age-Inquisition-Review

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Fantasy Commander Shepard

Save yourself 5 minutes, only quote you need from that video: "Best game in the series so far imo" - Yathzee "Refuses to review Wasteland 2/Divinity: Original Sin, bashes Might&Magic X and dislikes Planescape: Torment" Croshaw
Edit: "There's a lot to like". Also you're boring/some one's dad if you actually want to manage your equipment&party in a RPG.

 

[crawlkill]

Yahtzee: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9940-Dragon-Age-Inquisition-Review

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Fantasy Commander Shepard

Save yourself 5 minutes, only quote you need from that video: "Best game in the series so far imo" - Yathzee "Refuses to review Wasteland 2/Divinity: Original Sin, bashes Might&Magic X and dislikes Planescape: Torment" Croshaw
Edit: "There's a lot to like". Also you're boring/some one's dad if you actually want to manage your equipment&party in a RPG.

anyone who watches Yahtzee because they think he has well-thought out opinions and not because he's possibly the only nerd who can make chaotic free association kinda funny rather'n the usual celebration of the relationship between trochees and Asperger's is doing it wrong. I don't think he even really takes most of his own perspectives very seriously. still, though, it would've been nice for him to get to the heart of the bloat and the letdowns. I mean, that's supposed to be his thing.

 

[Athelas]

Yeah but thats meh. Only thing id care about is the ability to zoom out further. i really don't understand Bioware...if I have the option between being able to see crappy ceilings or having a functioning camera id always chose functionality first.

Hmmm maybe by the time this is cracked they will have fixed the friggin camera... Good thing i learned my lesson with these shit heads when DA2 released...If I spent money on this id be raging all over the place.

I doubt that's going to happen because it looks the environments weren't designed to support an isometric perspective, they were designed solely for a 3rd person view.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I think I know where the DA franchise is going:

The Maker is not in his city, you have three choices:

Destroy the Golden Power plus all dwarves die
Control the Golden Power
Merge with the Golden Power

Also:

The Darkspawn cannot be destroyed, you have three choices:

Destroy the Blight plus all dwarves die
Control the Blight
Merge with the Blight

You forgot control Golden City (but lose your corporal body), merge with the Golden Power and all dwarves and elves merge into one race etc

 

[Frozen]

Yahtzee is a fucking hypocrite.
When ME3 shit was loose he hide beneath a rock for 3 months and when they finally found him he was clueless and scared.
Either he liked it and that makes him a tasteless phony because he didn't give a shit even to bash stupidity which was the ending.
Or he was probably paid by EA for "its all shit lets not get into details, embrace the 3 color and enjoy the waffle".

 

[Turjan]

Dragon fight: Christopher Tin - Baba Yetu

Thanks. It definitely sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember where I heard it, so it kept bothering me.

Yeah you heard it here... [snip]

It's also the Civ IV theme song.

 

[Jick Magger]

So yeah, just started playing again post-patch. Got off lucky with my guy; only changes to his face was the removal of scarring.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty annoyed by this, I don't appreciate the game wiping the character details I spent twenty minutes autistically obsessing over.

 

[eremita]

http://www.pixeldynamo.com/news/gam...ch-bioware-discuss-approach-storytelling-nyu/ Game dev talk

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

The incompetence is staggering, I mean srsly, how does this shit get past QA?

 

[Morality Games]

The game's tactical camera is worthless since even on nightmare you barely ever need to control your companions. I don't see much point in using it, hence not much point in improving it.

Controlling your companions and using the camera does make the fight end quicker though.

Cassandra doesn't use her Smite ability very efficiently when you are fighting demons, for example. Mages don't use Dispel right. Your team won't perform the combos.

 

[crawlkill]

The game's tactical camera is worthless since even on nightmare you barely ever need to control your companions. I don't see much point in using it, hence not much point in improving it.

Controlling your companions and using the camera does make the fight end quicker though.

Cassandra doesn't use her Smite ability very efficiently when you are fighting demons, for example. Mages don't use Dispel right. Your team won't perform the combos.

did you know just meleeing a spawning critter at a rift will pre-kill it? I didn't try with any other spells, but I suspect -any- attack during the right window will prevent them spawning. there's even a satisfying little eruption animation to go with it.

I would never have even known about Dispel if not for a loading screen tooltip. why was that only on a loading screen tooltip? why? was it on the text of the spell itself? I didn't notice.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The incompetence is staggering, I mean srsly, how does this shit get past QA?

Who says Bioware has QA?

 

[eremita]

http://www.pixeldynamo.com/news/gam...ch-bioware-discuss-approach-storytelling-nyu/ Game dev talk

In 1:13:00, Laidlaw starts to talk about the concept. About why the game was made the way it was made and what was the inspiration. At least now I know can see where they were coming from (and failed).

 

[Branm]

Pretty sad days....All Bioware is doing these days is release games to appease the LGBT communities...friggin faggots cant even keep their noses out of gaming meh

 

[AngryEddy]

On the subject of embarrassing "how did this happen" graphical problems, Flemeth appears in exactly one scene (it's a relatively good scene, to be fair, although marred by the presence of the WORST FUCKING VOICE ACTOR AND DIALOGUE IN TIME from Morrigan's godbaby)

When I saw his scene I wanted to vomit: nepotism at its finest.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It's also the Civ IV theme song.

Spoiler

 

[Morality Games]

http://www.pixeldynamo.com/news/gam...ch-bioware-discuss-approach-storytelling-nyu/ Game dev talk

In 1:13:00, Laidlaw starts to talk about the concept. About why the game was made the way it was made and what was the inspiration. At least now I know can see where they were coming from (and failed).

Despite touting their social justice credentials, DA:I is more reserved on the subject than DAII. The glaring misstep is the retcon where apparently Qunari allow individuals to live in their preferred gender regardless of sex.

Overall, it happens less often and you have the opportunity to display scepticism and/or hostility to the notion.

 

[crawlkill]

On the subject of embarrassing "how did this happen" graphical problems, Flemeth appears in exactly one scene (it's a relatively good scene, to be fair, although marred by the presence of the WORST FUCKING VOICE ACTOR AND DIALOGUE IN TIME from Morrigan's godbaby)

When I saw his scene I wanted to vomit: nepotism at its finest.

the "they didn't even try" factor was off the charts, considering the budget of the production. didn't try on the lines, didn't try on the delivery. there are good child actors. ...or, like, I've seen one or two. there are female voiceactors who specifically -cultivate- the skill of portraying young boys. goddd it's not acceptable to do that not in 2014 not in a AAA game

Pretty sad days....All Bioware is doing these days is release games to appease the LGBT communities...friggin faggots cant even keep their noses out of gaming meh

not really? Bioware's portrayal of queers is pretty much always embarrassing to the point of their being hard to look at. Zevran was alright, but Fenris was whiny, Anders was creepy, the guy in ME3 was horrific, Dorian's sexuality is barely relevant to his character unless you can get past his mustache and the Iron Bull, while occasionally hilarious, is a pastiche of niceguy S&M stereotypes. I liked the scene where he tried to guess what everyone in the party would choose as a safeword.

if you really think one gay character, one weird bisexual leather daddy and one transman in a game with 100 hours of (terrible) content constitutes--

why am I even talking to you.

 

[Jick Magger]

If anything I'd say this game really tries to tone down the romances compared to the first and even the second game. Was actually quite surprised by that. Only really :incloosive: elements I've seen thus far is the mixed-gender military and the fact that Fereldon has spontaneously grown a sizable black population in the the years between Origins and Inquisition.

Also find it funny that out of all the companions I've had thus far, Sera seems to be the only one whom you're still able to kick out of the party after you initially accept her. Even they knew how much of an annoying little shit she is.