The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[DragoFireheart]

So is that crazy Jenny girl hot at least?

 

[Onholyservicebound]

You mean the dike elf? Not really, she looks like she was raised in a gutter and has OMG SO RANDUM!!!1! humor like DA2's "clever" Hawke.

 

[Athelas]

To be fair, making some of the romances race-restricted is for Bioware fans the C&C equivalent of shutting out half the game.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Actually come to think of it the most c&c is probably at the war table. The quests are branching, you can fail them, the outcome and rewards at the end vary on the path you took.(Agents you assigned.)
Too bad they didn't bother to make any of it playable .

 

[Ninjerk]

Glaurung
Seriously dude, change that fucking avatar.

lol why?

Elhoim

I get you two mixed up, it hurts my weak brian.

'k.

 

[Crevice tab]

You mean the dike elf? Not really, she looks like she was raised in a gutter and has OMG SO RANDUM!!!1! humor like DA2's "clever" Hawke.

Playing "clever" Hawke is a guilty pleasure of mine. DA 2 is the only game in which playing an inane cretinous jackass is fully supported.

 

[Azarkon]

casting Tenser's Transformation Eldar Powah on himself so that he's able to go toe-to-toe with a Balrog as a weakly old man, etc.

With dumb comments like this, you should prob stick to vague and dumbed down Dragon Age and TES lore.

Just because I'm about to go watch The Hobbit...

It's been a while since I read LOTR but I'm pretty sure Gandalf's 'powering up' vs. the Balrog is still as deus-ex-machina as ever. Tolkien wrote himself into a hole, literally, with Gandalf's fall in Moria so as to further the plot along the path of the little men - again, literally - making all the difference. But then he didn't want to just kill off Gandalf, because that'd be too, you know, against the Christian metaphor he was writing. So instead Tolkien has Gandalf defeat the Balrog in a scene that in Jackson's adaptation is the most blatant example of a 'holy fuck how do we portray this utterly illogical fight' seen on film. It's up there with Yoda fighting Count Dooku except that one was funny. In this one, the Balrog basically impales itself on Gandalf's sword after he does the whole 'I AM SHE-RAH' lightning rod trick.

So yea, calling it Eldar Powah is against the lore, but in this case the lore is servant to a plot device. In Tolkien's mind Gandalf was able to beat the Balrog because they were both Maiar. He did beat the Balrog, however, because Toklien needed to show that good is greater than evil in the cosmic sense. How Gandalf accomplished this, Tolkien never gave a damn because he wasn't a fight choreographer. He certainly didn't compose the Peter Jackson scene.

 

[Seaking4]

casting Tenser's Transformation Eldar Powah on himself so that he's able to go toe-to-toe with a Balrog as a weakly old man, etc.

With dumb comments like this, you should prob stick to vague and dumbed down Dragon Age and TES lore.

Just because I'm about to go watch The Hobbit...

It's been a while since I read LOTR but I'm pretty sure Gandalf's 'powering up' vs. the Balrog is still as deus-ex-machina as ever. Tolkien wrote himself into a hole, literally, with Gandalf's fall in Moria so as to further the plot along the path of the little men - again, literally - making all the difference. But then he didn't want to just kill off Gandalf, because that'd be too, you know, against the Christian metaphor he was writing. So instead Tolkien has Gandalf defeat the Balrog in a scene that in Jackson's adaptation is the most blatant example of a 'holy fuck how do we portray this utterly illogical fight' seen on film. It's up there with Yoda fighting Count Dooku except that one was funny. In this one, the Balrog basically impales itself on Gandalf's sword after he does the whole 'I AM SHE-RAH' lightning rod trick.

So yea, calling it Eldar Powah is against the lore, but in this case the lore is servant to a plot device. In Tolkien's mind Gandalf was able to beat the Balrog because they were both Maiar. He did beat the Balrog, however, because Toklien needed to show that good is greater than evil in the cosmic sense. How Gandalf accomplished this, Tolkien never gave a damn because he wasn't a fight choreographer. He certainly didn't compose the Peter Jackson scene.

What...

Gandalf was able to beat the Balrog because Gandalf was more powerful (or just as powerful depending on your perspective). You didn't have to be a Maia to do so. The Silmarillion has at least two Balrogs (maybe 3) Balrogs being killed by Noldor who were most certainly not Maiar.

 

[Glaurung]

t's been a while since I read LOTR but I'm pretty sure Gandalf's 'powering up' vs. the Balrog is still as deus-ex-machina as ever

It's not any kind of deus ex machina. Gandalf is a Maia called Olorin, an immortal spirit whose existence predates the creation of the physical world. Destroying a Maia's body does not kill them, as they can change/replace their physical shape as easily as changing clothes. Sauron had his body destroyed several times, and came back from dematerialization each time, despite the fact that evil spirits have a much harder time dealing with the loss of their physical body than good spirits like Gandalf.

There's nothing physically preventing a Maia from rematerializing again and again, but this is where Tolkien's genius separates him from witless, utilitarian, ape-like manboons who try and fail to understand his intent, giving themselves into arbitrary asspulls and logically backwards comparisons. Basically, spirits are not machines, and while they are in no way restricted in their ability to manipulate matter, they do have spiritual/psychological/internal constraints that are always reflected in the end result. The way the vanquished spirit perceives himself, his position, and his end goals is crucial.

When Sauron caused the destruction of Numenor through lies and trickery, his body went down with the sunken island, but his spirit escaped from the wreckage, trembling in fear of God's might and in shame of his defeat, and because of that Sauron forever lost the ability to take a beautiful appearance. When Sauron had his ring taken from him by Isildur, he suffered another great defeat at the hand of a lowly mortal, and his rematerialized form only had four fingers in reflection what he had lost. His former boss Morgoth went down the same path of degradation and devolution, ending with permanent dematerialization and exile from Arda.

Gandalf, on the other hand, lost his body after having achieved a hard but final victory over the balrog, as well as secured the Fellowship's escape from Moria. His mission was not yet done, so the Valar/Eru sent him back to fulfill it, and there was no shame/dishonor/defeat/fear to prevent him from coming back stronger than ever. Nor did Gandalf "power-up" from fighting the Balrog. He was to replace Saruman as the "white wizard" after his betrayal, and thus the limits set upon his power by the Valar were rolled back closer to his true strength.

So instead Tolkien has Gandalf defeat the Balrog in a scene that in Jackson's adaptation is the most blatant example of a 'holy fuck how do we portray this utterly illogical fight' seen on film. It's up there with Yoda fighting Count Dooku except that one was funny. In this one, the Balrog basically impales itself on Gandalf's sword after he does the whole 'I AM SHE-RAH' lightning rod trick.

What the fuck does Peter Jackson's scene have to do with Tolkien? You're trying to demonstrate something that makes no logical sense.

How Gandalf accomplished this, Tolkien never gave a damn because he wasn't a fight choreographer. He certainly didn't compose the Peter Jackson scene.

You're fucking stupid.

 

[Lilura]

Just because I'm about to go watch The Hobbit...

This is why you know nothing about LotR; your "knowledge" comes from films and quick googles (probably the only reason you "knew" Gandalf was a Maia).

 

[Azeot]

casting Tenser's Transformation Eldar Powah on himself so that he's able to go toe-to-toe with a Balrog as a weakly old man, etc.

With dumb comments like this, you should prob stick to vague and dumbed down Dragon Age and TES lore.

Just because I'm about to go watch The Hobbit...

It's been a while since I read LOTR but I'm pretty sure Gandalf's 'powering up' vs. the Balrog is still as deus-ex-machina as ever. Tolkien wrote himself into a hole, literally, with Gandalf's fall in Moria so as to further the plot along the path of the little men - again, literally - making all the difference. But then he didn't want to just kill off Gandalf, because that'd be too, you know, against the Christian metaphor he was writing. So instead Tolkien has Gandalf defeat the Balrog in a scene that in Jackson's adaptation is the most blatant example of a 'holy fuck how do we portray this utterly illogical fight' seen on film. It's up there with Yoda fighting Count Dooku except that one was funny. In this one, the Balrog basically impales itself on Gandalf's sword after he does the whole 'I AM SHE-RAH' lightning rod trick.

So yea, calling it Eldar Powah is against the lore, but in this case the lore is servant to a plot device. In Tolkien's mind Gandalf was able to beat the Balrog because they were both Maiar. He did beat the Balrog, however, because Toklien needed to show that good is greater than evil in the cosmic sense. How Gandalf accomplished this, Tolkien never gave a damn because he wasn't a fight choreographer. He certainly didn't compose the Peter Jackson scene.

Dude, you're so not right in the head that you could even have a chance working at Bioware

 

[DeepOcean]

casting Tenser's Transformation Eldar Powah on himself so that he's able to go toe-to-toe with a Balrog as a weakly old man, etc.

With dumb comments like this, you should prob stick to vague and dumbed down Dragon Age and TES lore.

Just because I'm about to go watch The Hobbit...

It's been a while since I read LOTR but I'm pretty sure Gandalf's 'powering up' vs. the Balrog is still as deus-ex-machina as ever. Tolkien wrote himself into a hole, literally, with Gandalf's fall in Moria so as to further the plot along the path of the little men - again, literally - making all the difference. But then he didn't want to just kill off Gandalf, because that'd be too, you know, against the Christian metaphor he was writing. So instead Tolkien has Gandalf defeat the Balrog in a scene that in Jackson's adaptation is the most blatant example of a 'holy fuck how do we portray this utterly illogical fight' seen on film. It's up there with Yoda fighting Count Dooku except that one was funny. In this one, the Balrog basically impales itself on Gandalf's sword after he does the whole 'I AM SHE-RAH' lightning rod trick.

So yea, calling it Eldar Powah is against the lore, but in this case the lore is servant to a plot device. In Tolkien's mind Gandalf was able to beat the Balrog because they were both Maiar. He did beat the Balrog, however, because Toklien needed to show that good is greater than evil in the cosmic sense. How Gandalf accomplished this, Tolkien never gave a damn because he wasn't a fight choreographer. He certainly didn't compose the Peter Jackson scene.

Oah... man, google Hero's Journey and you will understand why Gendalf "powered up". It is very common on mythology to heroes changing clothes to reflect their new wisdow after a moment of almost death. On this case, Gendalf had doubts if his power would be enough to do what was expected from him. His "death" with him falling on a dark pit fighting a spirit of pure darkness was his test, he gone to hell and turn back with the wisdom he needed, another common mythological motif.

Tolkien loved myths, culture and lenguage so I don't know what are you talking about Deus Ex machina. And no, the fight didn't make "sense" on the book because the Balrog was a powerful spirit of darkness not just a simple fire demon, Peter Jackson dumb him down into a fire demon for the same reason he dumb down the "Eye of Sauron", to make things acessible for dumb, short attention spam audience. Common, criticizing Tolkien and talking about Peter Jackson, really?

 

[Tom Selleck]

The Autists of the Rings

 

[Commissar Draco]

The Autists of the Rings

Reading the books you yap your sap mouth about is Autism now? Gandalf was Maia aka lesser Angel and he was as powerful as Balrog before and made more powerful after the fight cause Eru leveled up him and tranfered some powers of traitor Saruman onto him. We live in times when people are purposely made into fat ignorant hobbits. :patriot: Morgoth and Sauron have Triumphed at last Only Atomic Fire can cleanse the Arda now.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Only Atomic Fire can cleanse the Arda now.

Fifth Age incoming.

 

[Sykar]

casting Tenser's Transformation Eldar Powah on himself so that he's able to go toe-to-toe with a Balrog as a weakly old man, etc.

With dumb comments like this, you should prob stick to vague and dumbed down Dragon Age and TES lore.

Just because I'm about to go watch The Hobbit...

It's been a while since I read LOTR but I'm pretty sure Gandalf's 'powering up' vs. the Balrog is still as deus-ex-machina as ever. Tolkien wrote himself into a hole, literally, with Gandalf's fall in Moria so as to further the plot along the path of the little men - again, literally - making all the difference. But then he didn't want to just kill off Gandalf, because that'd be too, you know, against the Christian metaphor he was writing. So instead Tolkien has Gandalf defeat the Balrog in a scene that in Jackson's adaptation is the most blatant example of a 'holy fuck how do we portray this utterly illogical fight' seen on film. It's up there with Yoda fighting Count Dooku except that one was funny. In this one, the Balrog basically impales itself on Gandalf's sword after he does the whole 'I AM SHE-RAH' lightning rod trick.

So yea, calling it Eldar Powah is against the lore, but in this case the lore is servant to a plot device. In Tolkien's mind Gandalf was able to beat the Balrog because they were both Maiar. He did beat the Balrog, however, because Toklien needed to show that good is greater than evil in the cosmic sense. How Gandalf accomplished this, Tolkien never gave a damn because he wasn't a fight choreographer. He certainly didn't compose the Peter Jackson scene.

It would have been a Deus Ex Machina if Gandalf rose from the ashes, flew to Mordor and slayed Sauron, or at the very least, Saruman. Nothing of that happened, while Gandalf was more powerful, it still was the many other characters who did most of the great deeds, including all 4 Hobbits.

 

[DemonKing]

And now for something completely different...acclaimed Grimdark Fantasy author Joe Abercrombie reviews Inquisition:

http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2014/12/21/dragon-age-inquisition/

My thoughts - how dare he waster 100 precious hours playing DA:I when he should instead be working on the next book (thank god GRR Martin isn't a Biowhore to my knowledge).

 

[racofer]

And now for something completely different...acclaimed Grimdark Fantasy author Joe Abercrombie reviews Inquisition:

http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2014/12/21/dragon-age-inquisition/

My thoughts - how dare he waster 100 precious hours playing DA:I when he should instead be working on the next book (thank god GRR Martin isn't a Biowhore to my knowledge).

Some men go out in public dressed like a woman, others play DA. That's how life goes.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

And now for something completely different...acclaimed Grimdark Fantasy author Joe Abercrombie reviews Inquisition:

Hey. Niche audience. Yeah, you fat one over there, with a horsetail buttplug and pink hair. I like what you like. Totally.
Buy my books.

 

[Merlkir]

Oh FFS, I never noticed this: :D

"Thedas (TheDragon Age Setting, believe it or not)"

 

[dryan]

A friend of mine played DA:I here at my place and he really enjoyed it. So yesterday I decided to give it another try, but I got bored with the hinterlands quests.

 

[Glaurung]

The multiplayer grindfest was fun for a few days, but man, was it buggy as shit. I think I've seen every possible thing that could go wrong, go wrong.

Once every five playthroughs the level starts with my character being unable to move. Other times, it starts with my ability slots being blank. Every now and then the party can't proceed to the next zone because the door stays closed even after we've fulfilled every objective. Sometimes the game spawns an invisible/intangible monster you can't kill - you just see a red dot moving around the map and hear it making noises. The game crashes pretty often, or hangs up while joining a session. Apparently, the microphone settings are fucked up, because you hear people talking over their mics without being aware of it. Oh, and the level/difficulty constantly reset to something arbitrary, forcing you to manually readjust them every time.

Bioware: who needs bugfixing, optimization and making the game good, when you can pay an army of paid shills to sing praises in every gayming crapmagazine on the etardnet? Critics agree, Dragon Age Inquisition is awesome. Buy it to find out why!

 

[Tytus]

A friend of mine played DA:I here at my place and he really enjoyed it. So yesterday I decided to give it another try, but I got bored with the hinterlands quests.

You should just watch the let's play of the game commented by the internet sensation CartmanBrah.

 

[Renegen]

Not trusting the konsensus, I wanted to see for myself if the game was as bad as it was made out to be and I was really itching for some twitch combat. So far I've played this game for 10 hours and honestly it's not that bad (but I can also understand the hate it gets here on the Codex of RPGs). Compared to say Wasteland 2, which is a pretty traditional RPG where you have a main story, visit locations, solve people's problems, have a believable world and plenty of character choices, DA:I is a totally different type of "RPG", I call it a crack simulator.

Story
DA:I has more in common with Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Far Cry or even Deus Ex then it does with Fallout, Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age: Origins. The whole point of the game is the gameplay, the story is so subservient to the gameplay that even the tutorial/introduction area is cut as short as possible. You're thrust into vast wilderness areas as soon as possible and must solve petty problems and gather up forces for the Inquisition, why is the Inquisition so important? Because Cassandra really likes it for some reason, who knows. I went from being a criminal to the messianic leader of the Inquisition within 1 hour, and then the game spent the next 9 hours apologetically revealing to me through optional lore dialogs why the Inquisiton was the right thing to do. Many games have done the "you are the reluctant leader of a small but ambitious group of misfits" narrative, and DA:I rises up to the mediocrity of its predecessors.

Gameplay
But wait, if the game alienates storyfags that can't possibly be a bad thing! Well it's not, DA:I is actually not a bad game because it adopts so much from previous games. Let's describe the gameplay of DA:I, you are dropped in an open world area like a rat is dropped in a maze, except everywhere you go you are rewarded. Everywhere. You take a step and are given a reward, you take a step and are given a quest or progression bar that tells you where future rewards lie. The game is the crack dealer and you are the crack addict. It works pretty well however because these rewards are distributed to you through different layers.

Your 1st layer might be the crafting ingredients on the ground, go ahead pick them up and feel good about yourself. If you only care about crafting ingredients you might have to get desperate a bit until you get your fix, but there's other stuff to numb the pain. The 2nd layer is chests, most have a small challenge required to get to them. The 3rd layer are fetch quest objectives, someone conveniently lost their wedding ring in that house you haven't gone to yet. The 4th layer are lore dumps and books, they give exp too. The 5th layer are landmark markers, gotta get them all! Every quest, every item, every lore entry is all categorized in your journal, everything is tracked and tells you how much of a failure of a person you are for not having completed the set. Well, it's actually a good thing that everything is tracked, how many of us hate those unmarked quests, rights?

This doesn't mean you're inundated with objective markers, if anything your character doesn't just suffer from amnesia but also from myopia. Every area you're in is bursting with rewards but you have to find them, a press of the V key will highlight things in a 3 meter radius but otherwise you won't even see quest markers pop up. That's the scary part, this game is at times quite well designed. Let's keep talking about the layers, the 8th layer are invisible bottles of wine that do nothing but are very hard to find, the 13th layer are crafting schematics, usually very hard to get (the game has a good fixed and random loot system). The 16th layer is Inquisition exp to upgrade your Jackdaw Inquisition. Yes, that's right, you don't just upgrade your character, you also upgrade the Inquisition itself for some sweet perks, maybe you want more dialog options, a wider search area, more potions, more combat exp. It's a completely different tier of rewards that hits your ass and legs pleasure center in different ways, intersectionality bitches. The 20th layer are combat encounters, yes they are a reward, you get to see more numbers pop up everytime you hit someone!

Combat
Combat is of course a big part of the game and it's primarily where the game takes its "RPG" from, because the layers of crack certainly isn't what I'd consider RPG mechanics. The combat is MMO-like and gives you 3 classes to play and customize, the DPS Rogue, the Tank Warrior and the Support Mage. There's a ton of skills and passives to choose from, there's enough exp to maybe only get 1/3 of everything that you can invest points into and if you're really up for it go ahead and try to turn that Mage into a DPSer. The combat boils down to using your cooldowns in the right sequence and synergizing with your party, standard stuff for anyone who's played an MMO, still it's quite fun if you're into twitch combat and actually the combat is better than most MMOs. This is because in MMOs, your teammates are quite competent, they are humans, the tank will aggro 100% of the time so you're free to DPS. In DA:I playing as my rogue is always tense because the AI sucks and so I have to do 5 things at once every second. If you've seen RK47's video it's nothing like it, his video I believe was heavily manipulated, he's a high lvl character in a low lvl zone, on easy, with no items, not using any skills, no party members and against a highly armored enemy. Typically if that fight was done right it would've resulted in my rogue getting 3-shotted. Playing at least on hard is mandatory, and I didn't really feel the hp bloat, a full combo rotation takes care of most enemies. The combat has depth but it only tests you when you are on the higher difficulties.

There is one surprising thing about the combat, there is no healing. No healing spells, no regenerating health, just a low number of consumable potions. Just like MMOs, the encounter design isn't super tight, most enemies are push overs, but instead it's quite similar to say Doom, killing 2 grunts isn't a challenge but killing 30 while not depleting resources is. The majority of the combat will have you go against easy targets but in a hope of reaching the next "camp" which is a quick travel locations and the only place that restock your potions. And if you fail to reach it, you have to start from scratch because enemies respawn. The combat can be compared to Baldur's Gate, set encounters(which I've seen very few of) will require a full restock while trash mobs bring you close to resting. DA:I adeptly throws different game systems at you and the combat is generally quite entertaining.

Closing Thoughts
Still, there's a weird feeling playing DA:I. As competent as the game is in many areas, there's a few things off about it. The story for one is quite off, it simultaneously introduces things constantly without ever explaining them and bores you to death with lore dumps. I hope Cassandra is some Revan-like character that is manipulating everyone because I still have no freaking clue why I'm the leader of an Inquisition, oh and all these characters I never met just attached themselves to the cause instantly. And each and everyone of them has pages of lore dumps about their excellent motivations for doing something so stupid if you bother asking them, which you do because you want quests/sex. While the gameplay tries to be a crack simulator, the story part tries to be a blowjob simulator I guess. The whole narrative feels like it's presented by some autistic DM that has read every lore book ever on his setting and assumes you give a fuck aswell. The other thing that's off is the sea of content you have to go through, it's optional, to all the OCDs out there you only need to do about 1/3 of the Hinterlands to progress the main story but still, the game likely wears out its welcome because it doesn't know how much to give its player.

All in all, DA:I is good for what it is. An excellently crafted crack/blowjob simulator that doesn't have anything new but does things well enough it's worth playing, and if you're into the combat you'll have plenty of fun. Still, it's very far off from what RPGs should be and I hope AAA developers don't think this is the standard way of building them.

/

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

/

Would rate again.