The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[Morality Games]

and that's from someone who feels they did nearly everything wrong they possibly could have.

No argument about that. Although part of me sees how they could salvage a good expansion or expansion-esque DLC from this mess, I doubt they will.

 

[Necroscope]

Bioware achieved something truly unique - DA:I is the first arpg I don't even feel like downloading. I can now retreat to some remote abbey and live the rest of my life in peace.

 

[crawlkill]

I find it hard to imagine that it's not going to be a huge seller, given that the worst review I've seen of it so far has been, what, a seven out of ten? by a guy saying he liked it, just found it kind of samey. and sales figures really aren't enough to determine the future of the franchise. the question the money asks isn't "did it make its money back;" it's "can we leverage this brand to make more money."

if Inquisition flops commercially, we'll probably just see a move back toward the lower-budget DA2-style game. remember that DA2, even for all its recycling, was still a huge project.

Bioware achieved something truly unique - DA:I is the first arpg I don't even feel like downloading. I can now retreat to some remote abbey and live the rest of my life in peace.

hey there pirate-lah what's it like in new york thiefy you're a thousand miles from pay but feeling righteous with self-pity

oooh, you'll blame the DLC-eee-eee

oh, you'll blame the DLC

 

[Morality Games]

I find it hard to imagine that it's not going to be a huge seller, given that the worst review I've seen of it so far has been, what, a seven out of ten? by a guy saying he liked it, just found it kind of samey. and sales figures really aren't enough to determine the future of the franchise. the question the money asks isn't "did it make its money back;" it's "can we leverage this brand to make more money."

if Inquisition flops commercially, we'll probably just see a move back toward the lower-budget DA2-style game. remember that DA2, even for all its recycling, was still a huge project.

The one thing I'm sure will never happen (not unless Dragon Age starts tanking inconceivably hard for some reason while EA is under serious financial constraints) is that they'll stop making these games. They really don't want to surrender the market share.

 

[vonAchdorf]

DA:O sales would be acceptable - DA:O is still Bioware's second best selling game of all time. And it had a five year development time frame, much more than DA:I's three-and-a-half n

I'm just of a different mindset - the masses seem much more excited and engaged with DA:I than DA2. Heck, if the biggest backlash is against PC UI and bugs, it is honestly the smoothest Bioware game rollout in years. I'm predicting 5.5 million over 10 weeks, before the end of January. Bioware's best selling game to date - and that's from someone who feels they did nearly everything wrong they possibly could have.

I assume that DA:I's production was much more expensive than DA:O's (which started before the acquisition by EA), so the 3 vs 5 years can only give a minor insight. But I still think that you can be right about the sales numbers, people don't despise the game, some are even excited enough to have stopped playing it so it won't end because they enjoy it so much.

 

[crawlkill]

DA:O sales would be acceptable - DA:O is still Bioware's second best selling game of all time. And it had a five year development time frame, much more than DA:I's three-and-a-half n

I'm just of a different mindset - the masses seem much more excited and engaged with DA:I than DA2. Heck, if the biggest backlash is against PC UI and bugs, it is honestly the smoothest Bioware game rollout in years. I'm predicting 5.5 million over 10 weeks, before the end of January. Bioware's best selling game to date - and that's from someone who feels they did nearly everything wrong they possibly could have.

I assume that DA:I's production was much more expensive than DA:O's (which started before the acquisition by EA), so the 3 vs 5 years can only give a minor insight. But I still think that you can be right about the sales numbers, people don't despise the game, some are even excited enough to have stopped playing it so it won't end because they enjoy it so much.

fwiw I think DAO was meant to've been in dev for ssseven years? a long, long time, anyway. they had all sorts of turmoil about the project. but there's a difference between "a product you intend to be big-budget" and "a product that gets stuck in development hell."

 

[Slow James]

A lot of atmospheric/cosmetic stuff through the War Board, brief encounters, and conversation references. Nothing too special, but it does add up to an impression. More than that:

Spoiler

Hawke's personality and more significantly whether Varric was friends with Hawke; if your Influence with Varric was low AND Varric was friends with Hawke, leaving Hawke in the Fade risked Varric leaving the party; if Influence is high, it results in Varric telling a sad story cue Baldur's Gate sad music remix -- squad-focused C&C of that complexity is what makes Planescape: Torment legendary, although I will concede Planescape applied the logic an entire squad and not just one companion -- also sparing Loghain back in DA:O allowed you to spare Alistair and Stroud while also saving Hawke (gained you a spare 'hero' to sacrifice) -- now, I think it would have been better to design the the encounter so that lacking a Warden companion from DA:O resulted in obligatory Hawke sacrifice no DA:I specifc choice allowed, but I'll take what I can get).

The Dark Ritual isn't handled quite as well, but I'm still turning the page to see what difference that soul makes to the one who has it.

Eh. To me, that's garbage. I don't want cameos or Codex entries to do nothing more than say "see? You made this choice! We tracked it! Amazing!"

Some of the choices presented in Origins had the potential to rock the world of Thedas. Giving the dwarves the means to build an unstoppable army capable of fighting the Darkspawn and restoring their kingdom should have more of an impact in future games than a random throwaway conversation when some Dwarves show up in the game.

The Import system essentially kills any story it touches. It is like the plague to narrative possibility. Want to define Ferelden politics for years to come? Or wipe out all of the Mages in one of the thirteen Circles in the world? Or preserve a relic capable of healing anyone and being physical proof of the divinity of one of the world's religions?

Too bad. Any of these plot lines will be completely ignored or referenced indirectly, giving zero sense that the world was even affected, let alone actually changed.


Give me canon any day of the week over that crap. Bioware could try and tell a good story about how the world survives, changes and evolves after the events of the games. Instead, they play narrative hot potato to try and avoid any previous topic as much as possible, killing any sense of continuity bigger than the equivalent of the writers elbowing the player and saying "see? SEE? We noticed that you made a choice in another game! Isn't that the coolest shit you've ever seen?"

 

[RK47]

Wow, combat fucking sucks.

I'm shocked and amazed at this mind-blowing revelation.

 

[Morality Games]

Give me canon any day of the week over that crap. Bioware could try and tell a good story about how the world survives, changes and evolves after the events of the games. Instead, they play narrative hot potato to try and avoid any previous topic as much as possible, killing any sense of continuity bigger than the equivalent of the writers elbowing the player and saying "see? SEE? We noticed that you made a choice in another game! Isn't that the coolest shit you've ever seen?"

Well, I don't disagree with that. My main point was there their inter game C&C decline was slowing down and shows future promise. To begin with, they've gone back to making the most significant C&C intra-game C&C, ala Origins. The intra game C&C in Dragon Age: Inquisition has finally achieved parity with their most C&C rich game.

You may hate the War Board, but it does show they have at least realized that text adventures are the only mechanic ever invented that could possibly communicate the full depth of consequence their world altering choices (ala, King of Dragon Pass world generator).

Even if it was a fun mini game, it would still be insufficient -- but there's faint signs peppered in the composition of DA:I that suggest they've achieved a new level of design self consciousness that may enable them to use the War Board as a supplement to in-game cinematics and set pieces to illustrate the effect of your choices on the evolution of the narrative.

 

[Slow James]

EA rarely says anything about digital sales.

I'm sure they'll be disappointed though, which putting aside my own butthurt they probably should. They utterly failed to translate the appeal of even late period decline Elder Scrolls games.

If anyone at EA was expecting even half of Skyrim's sales, they truly are daft.

Skyrim actually was a well developed open world and sold their souls to make true ARPG combat. Not cinematic, acrobatic ARPG combat like Dragon's Dogma, mind you... but the system wasn't trying to walk some line of being all things to all people and therefore being a mushy hybrid, like DA:I.

And that's the thing - if Bioware wanted to, they COULD make a Skyrim-killer (or, at least, a game in the realm of Skyrim). They need to go the Mass Effect route - set protag, full action combat, control of only one character (no party control) and an open world that was actually more dynamic than non-stop fetch quests. And, most important - MOST IMPORTANT - they need to build a brand for the series. This can't be done in one game (TES has built a core experience that, while changing in some pretty huge ways, but still has a base experience that is undeniably "TES") but it needs to happen, no matter what direction Bioware decides to move to.

This hopping around to chase one feature after the next is poorly advise for any developer to sustain.

 

[dryan]

Wow, combat fucking sucks.

I'm shocked and amazed at this mind-blowing revelation.

It was for me, since only today I had the opportunity to experience it first hand.

 

[Slow James]

Well, I don't disagree with that. My main point was there their inter game C&C decline was slowing down and shows future promise. To begin with, they've gone back to making the most significant C&C intra-game C&C, ala Origins. The intra game C&C in Dragon Age: Inquisition has finally achieved parity with their most C&C rich game.

You may hate the War Board, but it does show they have at least realized that text adventures are the only mechanic ever invented that could possibly communicate the full depth of consequence their world altering choices (ala, King of Dragon Pass world generator).

Even if it was a fun mini game, it would still be insufficient -- but there's faint signs peppered in the composition of DA:I that suggest they've achieved a new level of design self consciousness that may enable them to use the War Board as a supplement to in-game cinematics and set pieces to illustrate the effect of your choices on the evolution of the narrative.

<shrug> We've had seven titles and the better part of a decade for Bioware to figure out how to handle C&C in ME and DA. I'm not waiting around another decade to see if they manage to stumble across the right balance.

 

[Morality Games]

<shrug> We've had seven titles and the better part of a decade for Bioware to figure out how to handle C&C in ME and DA. I'm not waiting around another decade to see if they manage to stumble across the right balance.

The thing is I'm under the impression the wait might be over. In the past its been pretty clear that the designers have never put much thought into the practical elements of how to realize inter-game C&C or even seriously engaged with the difference between inter-game C&C and intra-game C&C and how the two might relate. In DA:I they made a string of decisions, which, if not perfect, at least showed that they had put some thought into the issue for once.

Broaden the scope - the larger the world becomes in a geopolitical context the more manageable world altering choices become in an an encounter/environment supporting context. Exiling Wardens from Orlais could provoke Wardens in Ferelden who would have cooperated with you on a mission to instead ally with your opponent.

Use text adventures - text communicates C&C at a much abbreviated rate of development resources and therefore is perfect for incorporating choices from previous games into the narrative and gameplay -- perhaps setting the stage for more tangible incorporation in future content. In DA:I the execution sucks, but it is still an important realization.

Dragon Age Keep - reduces the threat of bad flags from save imports and more importantly establishes a pattern of organization shared between players and developers over what choices might surface in plots or sub-plots in future content. Note that you can add more choices to the DA:O and DAII tapestries if you decide unacknowledged game states should become relevant in future content (aka, whether Alistair was hardened or not isn't reflected now, but could be if they ever wanted to make a quest about it).

 

[Slow James]

The thing is I'm under the impression the wait might be over. In the past its been pretty clear that the designers have never put much thought into the practical elements of how to realize inter-game C&C or even seriously engaged with the difference between inter-game C&C and intra-game C&C and how the two might relate. In DA:I they made a string of decisions, which, if not perfect, at least showed that they had put some thought into the issue for once.

Broaden the scope - the larger the world becomes in a geopolitical context the more manageable world altering choices become in an an encounter/environment supporting context. Exiling Wardens from Orlais could provoke Wardens in Ferelden who would have cooperated with you on a mission to instead ally with your opponent.

Use text adventures - text communicates C&C at a much abbreviated rate of development resources and therefore is perfect for incorporating choices from previous games into the narrative and gameplay -- perhaps setting the stage for more tangible incorporation in future content. In DA:I the execution sucks, but it is still an important realization.

Dragon Age Keep - reduces the threat of bad flags from save imports and more importantly establishes a pattern of organization shared between players and developers over what choices might surface in plots or sub-plots in future content. Note that you can add more choices to the DA:O and DAII tapestries if you decide unacknowledged game states should become relevant in future content (aka, whether Alistair was hardened or not isn't reflected now, but could be if they ever wanted to make a quest about it).

Scope - I wouldn't say the widened world can be counted as a lesson learned until they make a game that really allows a sense of allowing choices that influence this world.

Text - The use of text adventures is a lesson they should have learned already from DA:O's Epilogue slides - they were able to make in-game choices feel huge and ripping in their effects. And again - show me a recent game where they do it well and I'll be excited for the future.

Keep - Bad flags was only the most minor of reasons for a lack of follow up. Writers didn't know system bugs and limitations when they were working on DA2, they just failed to incorporate these choices in any significant or impactful way. It's a method of tracking everything easier, but it doesn't mean it's going to evolve beyond shallow consequences and references.

 

[crawlkill]

Wow, combat fucking sucks.

I'm shocked and amazed at this mind-blowing revelation.

It was for me, since only today I had the opportunity to experience it first hand.

play melee with a controller and keep the controller in your lap. the genital vibration will be the only thing that makes the combat work.

I wish this were a joke but it really isn't. if your clitordick isn't getting anything out of the vibration, combat serves no purpose at all.

 

[Spectacle]

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/a...duty-decline-nintendo-xbox-one-ps4-gta-v-halo

Hey guise, I think the lack of piracy had an effect on Dragon Age sales alright just... not exactly the way EA expected.

It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly caused this. Inquisition did have some marketing, and was a big topic among gamers during the month. Not charting doesn’t necessarily mean it sold poorly, and I’d guess that it hit somewhere around the 400,000 mark. However, most games earn the bulk of their sales during the first month, and Dragon: Age Inquisition didn’t even come close to the all-important one million milestone.

Inquisition sold around the same amount of units across five platforms as Dragon Age 2 did on three.

One million or bust, r00fles!

 

[Jaesun]

Bioware achieved something truly unique - DA:I is the first arpg I don't even feel like downloading. I can now retreat to some remote abbey and live the rest of my life in peace.

It took you this long?

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Targeting the Skyrim crowd ment they were actually aiming for Skyrims stratospheric sales figures. Which of course they can never achieve. Its all about EAs expected roi just making money isnt enough, as it probably would be for an indie or small studio. But the vibe outside this morose fringe of the net (heh) seems to be ok if your an EA exec with your yearly obscene bonus on the line. Dai just underlines what we already know, "real" rpgs are niche and are going to be made by indies or small dedicated studios. Im ok with that.

 

[Space Satan]

Oh, it seemes I just saved a sixty bucks.

Spoiler

 

[Zeriel]

Not worth pirating bro.

 

[Morality Games]

Targeting the Skyrim crowd ment they were actually aiming for Skyrims stratospheric sales figures. Which of course they can never achieve. Its all about EAs expected roi just making money isnt enough, as it probably would be for an indie or small studio. But the vibe outside this morose fringe of the net (heh) seems to be ok if your an EA exec with your yearly obscene bonus on the line. Dai just underlines what we already know, "real" rpgs are niche and are going to be made by indies or small dedicated studios. Im ok with that.

I'm reasonably confident that even EA knows that squad-based RPGs don't command that kind of respect among casuals.

 

[Infinitron]

This is DEFINITELY worth mentioning. DICE didn't have a conversation editor tool before DA.

An engine being used to create a story RPG. With no conversation editor.

The systems they had already made from games like Battlefield, such as animations, environments and jumping, all came through really well. The things they had to create from scratch are really very surprising they were able to get off the ground at all.

This is silly. Of course BioWare had a conversation editor. For Obsidian, integrating their conversation editing tools into the Unity Engine seems to have taken about five seconds. (hyperbole)

The timer mechanic is to give the player the sense that he is not the one and only person in the entire organization who is actually doing anything. You give orders to a dood, and he says OK and goes to do it, and then later he comes back and says I did it. In the meantime, you are supposed to do other things, not just sit there and stare for 6 hours

Take out the timer and those support characters just become ATMs - push a button to instantly receive cash and influence. That would be much stupider. As to the people who cheat by resetting their clock - you know the dev console is right there, right? Why not just give yourself a billion influence and call it good? Seems weird to me.

This is also silly. HELLO, it's not a choice between real-time timers and instant rewards.

Intervals based on story or quest completion. Ask the character to do a mission, do N quests, he completes the mission. Yes, this does mean that you could theoretically "run out of quests" and become unable to see the end of all your of your missions, but there are ways around this.

Heck, BioWare themselves used this type of system in the Mass Effect series.

 

[Zombra]

The timer mechanic is to give the player the sense that he is not the one and only person in the entire organization who is actually doing anything. You give orders to a dood, and he says OK and goes to do it, and then later he comes back and says I did it. In the meantime, you are supposed to do other things, not just sit there and stare for 6 hours

Intervals based on story or quest completion. Ask the character to do a mission, do N quests, he completes the mission. Yes, this does mean that you could theoretically "run out of quests" and become unable to see the end of all your of your missions, but there are ways around this.

Eh. That would mean that in a very real way, it is still you doing the side content, in that you are still directly controlling when the shit gets done. Issue orders, then go into the next room and stack boxes, and when you have stacked 10 boxes, then and only then does the other guy finish his 'independent' activity. I still see the timer as the better way to create the illusion of independent action. Actually it's not even an illusion at that point ... once you set it in motion, its resolution is independent from you.

 

[Infinitron]

Eh. That would mean that in a very real way, it is still you doing the side content, in that you are still directly controlling when the shit gets done.

First of all, so what? This is first and foremost matter of pacing, not realistic simulation. I thought your problem was that getting "instant rewards" feels weird to you. Ludo-narrative dissonance, etc. Well, having to do some work between ordering the mission and getting the reward improves the sense of pacing and removes that dissonance.

Second of all, I disagree - it doesn't feel like the player is doing the side content. It feels like stuff that is incidentally happening as time passes, with "number of quests completed" as an abstraction for time. I believe that the majority of players can accept that abstraction with no problems.

And third, if you really want a more "simulationist" take on mission allocation, then you should be in favor of a system that only takes into account in-game time, not the player's system clock.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

IT BEGINS

Though I doubt I'll play it much 'cause of Dead State. And every other game in the world, but who knows.