The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[cvv]

Huh so as it turned out I'm so dumb I've never made the connection that the healing mechanics is actually ripped straight from the DS games.

Of course in DAI it's retarded down by the fact that you can, always, anytime, at any point in the game, fast-jump to a nearby camp and instantly fill the shit up without any repercussions. Plus there are healing spells. And healing crafting options. Lot's of them, actually. But apart from all that you can clearly see Dark Souls is a huge inspiration for DAI, yeah.

 

[vonAchdorf]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/114919-how-dark-souls-influenced-dragon-age-inquisition.html

trolololololo

I think I mentioned that DA:I's healing is pretty much inspired by DS in one of my first posts in this thread - but applying the same concept to different games doesn't really work. In Dark Souls there is "real" risk - in a game with deliberate saves, there isn't. There is always a "way to pull back out" as Laidlaw says, in DS there is too, but at a cost "higher" than reloading or fast traveling.

 

[Glaurung]

Huh so as it turned out I'm so dumb I've never made the connection that the healing mechanics is actually ripped straight from the DS games.

Of course in DAI it's retarded down by the fact that you can, always, anytime, at any point in the game, fast-jump to a nearby camp and instantly fill the shit up without any repercussions. Plus there are healing spells. And healing crafting options. Lot's of them, actually. But apart from all that you can clearly see Dark Souls is a huge inspiration for DAI, yeah.

This is Bioware, a company that has always embraced self-defeating mediocrity and poorly parroting better, more successful companies. Combat has always been a cakewalk in Biowarian games since Neverwinter Nights due to the sheer amount of healing/rest options available at every turn. In NWN you could rest anywhere. In DAO health and mana regenerated after combat. Now, in DAI the map is littered with rest camps, and every storyline mission area is littered with inexplicable potion caches that fully restore your potion supply. Combat on nightmare difficulty is just as easy as on casual difficulty, it just lasts longer due to bloated enemy HP and forces more chores fast traveling to and from rest camps. Enemies don't get smarter, you don't need to use different tactics, managing resources is impossible beyond use/don't use, the game just wastes more of your time with each difficulty increment.

The only reason Balgur's Gate series wasn't a piece of shit like the rest of Biowarian products is Black Isle's creative collaboration with Bioware. After Black Isle collapsed, Bioware flew with whatever was popular at the day, culminating with the epitome of consoletardation we have on our hands today.

 

[Space Satan]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/114919-how-dark-souls-influenced-dragon-age-inquisition.html
trolololololo

 

[hell bovine]

Dragon Age 4 - the first full-blown RPG soap opera. Skills like "shouting", "slamming doors" and "faking pregnancy". First game with sales over 100 million.

Considering the book sales, it wouldn't surprise me if a game that basically let you roleplay 50 shades of creepy porn would be a huge commercial success.

 

[kris]

It's 2015 and only now the guy realize that the Bioware fake choices are fake... we have a Matrix awakening moment here.

The "fake choices" in Bioware games have mostly been about how it doesn't matter what you tell many people. The angry/jolly/sad responses all lead to the same thing.

DA3 is on another level in how it gives the illusion of great choices, but making another decision makes no difference whatsoever. As I have little work this week I hope to finalize my review as I now finished the game. I haven't double tested all decisions, but to my understanding the only choice that gives a consequence is the one at the pool. The Templar/mage choice, like the choice in the opening gives another route, but have no future consequence in the game.

No the biggest consequences to your decisions is all on Bioware. They painted themselves into a corner for this whole part of the world now. They really have to have the next game set in another part of Thedas. (I suspect Andersfelt/Tevinter)

 

[Gay-Lussac]

Dragon Age Origins was a really decent game, specially considering the context in which it was released. Why the fuck they decided to reinvent the wheel (and then do it again after the first attempt - DA 2 - blew up on their faces so badly) is simply beyond me. Though I guess it's just that EA pressure to make the Skyrim big dollars.

 

[Akratus]

Dragon Age Origins was a really decent game,

Yeah I dunno. I had tried the game several times, always bailing a short way into the game. Recently tried it again and got quite far. Skipped most of the dialogue to keep my sanity. But then in orzimmar I just realized,

It's the most servicable game ever made. That's all it is. Not good, or exceptional, or better than average in anything. It's brown. It's dwarves, and elves, and magic, and werewolves, and demons, and an undead army comin' to get you. You put all that in a blender and you get origins. No quality whatsoever. It's an rpg for people who've never heard of DnD or Baldur's Gate or what have you. I am shocked at how well received it was by modern journos and gamers. It's like Bioware's reputation was a cure-all.

 

[Rake]

It's the most servicable game ever made. That's all it is. Not good, or exceptional, or better than average in anything. It's brown. It's dwarves, and elves, and magic, and werewolves, and demons, and an undead army comin' to get you. You put all that in a blender and you get origins. No quality whatsoever. It's an rpg for people who've never heard of DnD or Baldur's Gate or what have you. I am shocked at how well received it was by modern journos and gamers. It's like Bioware's reputation was a cure-all.

In other words, it wasn't bad, something that can't be said for any other Bioware game the last 10 years.
Excpecting something actualy good is unrealistic at this point.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Here's what I wrote about DA:O on 20th March 2011:

DAO - A bad game with very good aspects

Dragon Age Origins is a bad game. No, really, it is. It's terrible on so many levels (excuse the pun). But it's probably the first bad game I've played through where the good points have been enough to keep me happy through the misery.

So, unlike the usual post that runs "the game was good, but this that and the other annoyed me", for the first time ever I am forced to do a post which runs "this game was awful, but this that and the other was great"

Briefly, it's a terrible game because it's thoroughly boring - I honestly didn't care one bit about anyone I was 'saving' from the blight as I seemed to be the only person in the game who gave a rat's exit passage about it.

Doesn't know if it's an open explorer or a linear push - we have a map we can wander around in, but all the fun extra bits are hidden by a condition that you need 14 randomly hidden scrolls to open them.

Has terrible dialogue options - "Get me food and I'll give you a key to great mage treasure", "How do I get you food?", "Get food from prison guard", "ok" *walk two feet to the prison guard* "Hey there guard, can that prisoner have some food?", "No", "Aw, g'won g'won g'won", "No". *Go back to prisoner and kill them to get key*

Totally retarded quests - Find a dead body telling you about some bad guys in a house, go to house, explore more rooms and kill more bad guys than you find at the Lord's estate, quest completed.

Repetative bad guys - Humanoids, more humanoids, even more humanoids, huge great armies of humanoids, and the odd wolf/dog, bear, dragon and revenant.

Irritating cut-off points - Sorry Sten...

Pointless interfaces - Never once made a potion or poison or trap and, as a mage, had no personal use for rune stones.

Unvaried equipment - You can have a ring with +10% fire damage or +10% cold damage or pay 100 gold pieces to have one of only two rings which have anything approaching fun attached to them. Same with all the other pieces of equipment. Swords/axes and shields have the biggest variety with maybe 5 or 6 to choose from.

And a no option stat management requirement - 3 stat points per level up, but you need to put them all in magic in order to get spells and spellpower to make the spellcaster effective. Any spare are just tokens to increase health or mana in willpower and constitution by nominal amounts.


And yet the game remains immesnly playable, in the most part.

This is mainly down to the fact that mages are such fun to do battle with. It really isn't that long at all before you've reached then end of a spell tree and got a few fun spells to play with. Not to mention a staff which actually deals real damage from the get go which can be used both in close or long distance combat with no restriction either way.

Having got used to the fun'ness of the mage, the general dungeon crawl nature of the game becomes much more manageable and enjoyable. No matter where you go and what you do, each road leads to a room maze of tightly cramped bad guys ready to be slaughtered.

To which leads the primary hook of the game - earning enough cash to buy the only decent equipment in the game (though tanks can find decent armour sets free if they look hard enough).

In some RPGs the cash element is really quite pointless, often ending the game with 1,000,000 unused gold pieces to which you stop bothering to loot items and often just leave stuff lying around as it's not even worth the effort to walk it back to the dealer. In this game however, you just never have quite enough money.

To conclude, this is quite a fun little odd jobbing dungeon crawl RPG which shines in this respect between the Lothering and Landsmeet phases, but is otherwise pretty forgettable.

 

[cvv]

It's the most servicable game ever made. That's all it is. Not good, or exceptional, or better than average in anything. It's brown. It's dwarves, and elves, and magic, and werewolves, and demons, and an undead army comin' to get you.

My problem with old Bioware games too. Half of Codex is furiously fapping to Baldur's Gates but far as I'm concerned it's just a pre-decline era Dragon Age. There's nothing remotely interesting or original. Perfectly serviceable - that's the best I can say about BG. I remember I found the story and writing lame as fuck fifteen years ago already, when I was much younger, more impressionable and less jaded. I suspect today I'd just snort and roll my eyes from start to finish.

Nostalgiafaggotry is a terrible disease.

 

[Sykar]

Codex loves to hate.

What else is there to love?

My problem with old Bioware games too. Half of Codex is furiously fapping to Baldur's Gates but far as I'm concerned it's just a pre-decline era Dragon Age. There's nothing remotely interesting or original. Perfectly serviceable - that's the best I can say about BG. I remember I found the story and writing lame as fuck fifteen years ago already, when I was much younger, more impressionable and less jaded. I suspect today I'd just snort and roll my eyes from start to finish.

Nostalgiafaggotry is a terrible disease.

I guess all new cars are "just servicable" as well then since they use basically the same technology they did over 120 years ago. Oh and electro cars are even older. But in reality, it's all faggottry shiat since the only true cars are those made by Otto and Benz themselves.

 

[Delterius]

I think I mentioned that DA:I's healing is pretty much inspired by DS in one of my first posts in this thread - but applying the same concept to different games doesn't really work. In Dark Souls there is "real" risk - in a game with deliberate saves, there isn't. There is always a "way to pull back out" as Laidlaw says, in DS there is too, but at a cost "higher" than reloading or fast traveling.

Oh yeah, no. Nevermind the save system, the 'inspiration' by the Souls series was never sincere. If they wanted a risk simulation then they wouldn't have added fast travel to their world maps and dozens of checkpoints to the main quest.

 

[yes plz]

The "fake choices" in Bioware games have mostly been about how it doesn't matter what you tell many people. The angry/jolly/sad responses all lead to the same thing.

DA3 is on another level in how it gives the illusion of great choices, but making another decision makes no difference whatsoever. As I have little work this week I hope to finalize my review as I now finished the game. I haven't double tested all decisions, but to my understanding the only choice that gives a consequence is the one at the pool. The Templar/mage choice, like the choice in the opening gives another route, but have no future consequence in the game.

No the biggest consequences to your decisions is all on Bioware. They painted themselves into a corner for this whole part of the world now. They really have to have the next game set in another part of Thedas. (I suspect Andersfelt/Tevinter)

The Templar/Mage decision does alter the game somewhat. It changes who your 'nemesis' is (save the mages and it's Samson, a returning character from DA2; save the templars and it's some bald mage chick), both having their own small optional quest chain later on. Only did a mage play through but Samson's quest line also allowed you to get an item that you could then use in your final fight with him, weakening him.

From what I've read, it also changes enemies spawns throughout the game. Side with the mages and Red Templars take over sections of some maps and show up more frequently, whereas if you side with the templars than those Venetaroi (or however you spell their name) instead take over those sections of the map and spawn more frequently.

As for fake choices in general, Origins would at least allow you to interact with some NPCs during quests, giving you the ability to role play your character, thus giving the game at least the illusion of depth. In Inquisition, though, NPC interaction is kept to an absolute minimum, with the game instead doling out information almost entirely through found notes and journals.

 

[kris]

The Templar/Mage decision does alter the game somewhat. It changes who your 'nemesis' is (save the mages and it's Samson, a returning character from DA2; save the templars and it's some bald mage chick), both having their own small optional quest chain later on. Only did a mage play through but Samson's quest line also allowed you to get an item that you could then use in your final fight with him, weakening him.

From what I've read, it also changes enemies spawns throughout the game. Side with the mages and Red Templars take over sections of some maps and show up more frequently, whereas if you side with the templars than those Venetaroi (or however you spell their name) instead take over those sections of the map and spawn more frequently.

As for fake choices in general, Origins would at least allow you to interact with some NPCs during quests, giving you the ability to role play your character, thus giving the game at least the illusion of depth. In Inquisition, though, NPC interaction is kept to an absolute minimum, with the game instead doling out information almost entirely through found notes and journals.

I never noticed these nemesis. Can you elaborate how you meet them again. Possibly they were just so forgettable that I forgot them.

I sided with the templars and I met more templars than mage after that.

Yeah, the notes and journals. Well, this go into the whole area design and the whole thing outside the main quests. There simply isn't that many NPC around and instead of characters they have notes, so many that they even have some in-game jokes about it. When you see one ruin with notes spread out you think it might be some mystery quest, but then when you are at the 5th location with just notes...

 

[yes plz]

I never noticed these nemesis. Can you elaborate how you meet them again. Possibly they were just so forgettable that I forgot them.

I sided with the templars and I met more templars than mage after that.

Yeah, the notes and journals. Well, this go into the whole area design and the whole thing outside the main quests. There simply isn't that many NPC around and instead of characters they have notes, so many that they even have some in-game jokes about it. When you see one ruin with notes spread out you think it might be some mystery quest, but then when you are at the 5th location with just notes...

The only mission I know for sure the nemesis shows up in is the Well of Sorrows one; using an antagonist for more than ten minutes per game seems to be beyond BioWare these days.

This is the nemesis you get if you side with the templars.

This is the one you get if you side with the mages.

Not much but I figured I'd point it out. BioWare's fans and fans of the game/series in general will use any flaw in a review to write it off if it doesn't fellate the game.

 

[1451]

I didn't even fight Calpernia. Told her what Corypheus did to her master and what he'd do to her if she became the vessel which turned her against him and made her go away without a fight.

 

[kris]

The only mission I know for sure the nemesis shows up in is the Well of Sorrows one; using an antagonist for more than ten minutes per game seems to be beyond BioWare these days.

This is the nemesis you get if you side with the templars.

This is the one you get if you side with the mages.

Not much but I figured I'd point it out. BioWare's fans and fans of the game/series in general will use any flaw in a review to write it off if it doesn't fellate the game.

Oh. I remember Calpernia, even if you only saw her there. I had no idea she was connected to that quest.

 

[hell bovine]

My problem with old Bioware games too. Half of Codex is furiously fapping to Baldur's Gates but far as I'm concerned it's just a pre-decline era Dragon Age. There's nothing remotely interesting or original. Perfectly serviceable - that's the best I can say about BG. I remember I found the story and writing lame as fuck fifteen years ago already, when I was much younger, more impressionable and less jaded. I suspect today I'd just snort and roll my eyes from start to finish.

Nostalgiafaggotry is a terrible disease.

I'd disagree it's just nostalgia. I didn't like BG2 at all (played it before BG1) when I first played it. I've only changed my mind after trying TOB with Ascension, and replaying BG2 with Tactics installed. And I think that was the key to its success; while the quality of mods was varied, the sheer amount of them (back then) was surprising. Just like mods are a huge part of Skyrim's success. Ironically, you find the same parts of the game being modded: combat for increased challenge, looks for "the pretty" (although that was limited in BG2) and of course, NPCs (taken to extreme in Skyrim, by which I mean the in-game porn).

I wonder why developers rarely consider making their games easily modded.

 

[pippin]

BG (especially 2) has enough interesting locations and encounters to be understood as a game worthy of being played at least once. I disagree with the pre-Dragon Age comments, in fact, DA is more of a post BG thing (that is, the other way around). IIRC bio people were quoted by saying romances were added as an answer to fanmade mods, because biodrones, biodrones never change.

 

[Glaurung]

Is there any evidence to support the theory that Dragon Age Inquisition was, in fact, supposed to be an MMO or at least have an extensive multiplayer component (not the limited co-op regime that has nothing to do with the single-player game), but got axed by EA and converted into a single-player Action/Adventure RPG due to the failure of Old Republic MMO, basically following the route of Kingdoms of Amalur?

I just can't imagine why Bioware would choose to invest so much effort into creating these gigantic locations filled with a multitude of boring copy-pasted quests and collections, unless they were supposed to be done by parties of different people playing on EA servers. Bioware has always sucked at writing/designing their game world/story/characters, not technical aspects. Just what did Bioware hope to achieve by copy-pasting every single encounter/quest a dozen times and sprinkling it all over a huge, boring, non-memorable location, then do it again for each of the six other locations, when they could have simply gone the traditional DAO route.

Training for a future MMO is not a viable hypothesis, IMO, at least, I can't imagine EA planning DAI to be an experimental project from the get-go.

 

[Infinitron]

Is there any evidence to support the theory that Dragon Age Inquisition was, in fact, supposed to be an MMO or at least have an extensive multiplayer component (not the limited co-op regime that has nothing to do with the single-player game), but got axed by EA and converted into a single-player Action/Adventure RPG due to the failure of Old Republic MMO, basically following the route of Kingdoms of Amalur?

That's not true for DA:I nor for Kingdoms of Amalur (a persistent misunderstanding that won't go away, based on the fact that the publisher of Amalur was also working on a separate MMO at their main studio).

Somebody at Bioware revealed that the DA:I's tech was based on some kind of "multiplayer game prototype" that never went anywhere, but that doesn't mean anything. They made the game this way because this is what AAA game designers think RPG players want.

 

[Athelas]

Just what did Bioware hope to achieve by copy-pasting every single encounter/quest a dozen times and sprinkling it all over a huge, boring, non-memorable location, then do it again for each of the six other locations

Presumably the same thing every AAA open-world game hopes to achieve. Repetitive fetch quests/collectibles are par for the course for the genre.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Is there any evidence to support the theory that Dragon Age Inquisition was, in fact, supposed to be an MMO or at least have an extensive multiplayer component (not the limited co-op regime that has nothing to do with the single-player game), but got axed by EA and converted into a single-player Action/Adventure RPG due to the failure of Old Republic MMO, basically following the route of Kingdoms of Amalur?

I just can't imagine why Bioware would choose to invest so much effort into creating these gigantic locations filled with a multitude of boring copy-pasted quests and collections, unless they were supposed to be done by parties of different people playing on EA servers. Bioware has always sucked at writing/designing their game world/story/characters, not technical aspects. Just what did Bioware hope to achieve by copy-pasting every single encounter/quest a dozen times and sprinkling it all over a huge, boring, non-memorable location, then do it again for each of the six other locations, when they could have simply gone the traditional DAO route.

Training for a future MMO is not a viable hypothesis, IMO, at least, I can't imagine EA planning DAI to be an experimental project from the get-go.

I think the big areas were put in as a response to criticism of Dragon Age II's areas which were seen to be copy-pasted tunnels.

I think the shitty MMO sidequests were probably a requirement by EA. Remember BioWare saying they were checking out Skyrim 'aggressively'? I think EA saw the sales figures for Skyrim and thought they could make Dragon Age 3 similarly successful by taking out the bigger, more reactive and choice driven sidequests that came before and replace them with "Go here and collect X" sidequests that Skyrim had (although Skyrim had these in a far lower number, you could get them after completing each town and the main sidequests were a lot better - DA3 should have taken note).

They may have also been thinking of World of Warcraft, although the funny thing is that since Cataclysm WoW has been moving away from "Kill X" sidequests into more "EPIC!" zone storylines.

 

[Sykar]

Presumably the same thing every AAA open-world game hopes to achieve. Repetitive fetch quests/collectibles are par for the course for the genre.

Which is why I gave up on MMORPGs. They are the epitome of too repetitive and too unimaginative popamole gameplay.