The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[Akratus]

Wrong. They shouldn't remove the choices - they should remove the imports. Choices are a huge driver of replayability and enjoyment. Without them, a game becomes insanely linear. Keep the choices, just get rid of the mechanic of carrying those choices over into future games. If you are going to ignore or handwave them in future games, just make each game start with a canon.

That's how Ultima did it, that's how Fallout does it... and it's worked out pretty well so far.

SO MUCH THIS.

Not having to worry about carrying shit over also lets them have crazier choices and outcomes in the games. As it is one reason choice is so limited and superficial in Bioware games is because the next one has to incorporate all of it, so no one important can die, no faction can be destroyed, etc. Under the guise of "your choices matter more" they actually take away all choice.

There´s a third choice. Warp in the west anyone?

 

[Slow James]

There´s a third choice. Warp in the west anyone?

Blech. TES committed a crime against humanity with that nonsense. You'll notice that since then, any and all plot choice has been removed from TES games.

 

[Ulrox]

I hope it's a smashing success, so that Bioware will get the message that people want more of this kind of stuff. So in Mass Effect 4 there will be a romance-able transsexual Krogan who sings inspirational songs while he fucks the protagonist.

Some Codexers just want to watch the world bone...

I agree wholeheartedly. I wanna see more bioware lets plays with random singing. The absurdity of the whole messiah thing is fucking hilarious!

I DEMAND MOAR CHEESE!!!

 

[Zeriel]

There´s a third choice. Warp in the west anyone?

Blech. TES committed a crime against humanity with that nonsense. You'll notice that since then, any and all plot choice has been removed from TES games.

Warp in the West was dumb, but Daggerfall didn't invent that, that was their (bad) solution in Morrowind. Daggerfall itself was fantastic, I can only imagine the singularity of awesome that would occur if any modern TES game allowed that level of influencing the plot.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

The cutscenes in my opinion are very well directed.

And if they fucked off and started making movies I probably wouldn't have anything to say, I still wouldn't touch their stuff with a barge pole but I'm not as invested in movies as I am with rpg's.

OK, if they made a game that looked like that I'd play simply for the graphics, I still wouldn't expect much from the mechanics and story though.

But that trailer.. straight out of the BIG BOOK OF CLICHÉS. Did look nice though.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

Some Codexers just want to watch the world bone...

You just.. win. Choose your prize.

 

[Slow James]

You just.. win. Choose your prize.

Thank ya, sir. I live to serve.

 

[DalekFlay]

Best part is that people discussing the game have already bought it, since it hasn't been cracked yet.

Some of us got a 24 hour free trial, bro.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

(Considering there is no OOO for Skyrim, and it's quite strange nothing like that appeared, it can't be even the original excuse "modders would fix it".)

Dunno if anyone already mentioned this since I'm some pages back, but even though there's no OOO for Skyrim there are still 2 or 3 big combat/gameplay overhauls. There's Skyre, SPERG, uh... One that I actually played with a while and I can't remember the name of it now.

 

[DalekFlay]

(Considering there is no OOO for Skyrim, and it's quite strange nothing like that appeared, it can't be even the original excuse "modders would fix it".)

Dunno if anyone already mentioned this since I'm some pages back, but even though there's no OOO for Skyrim there are still 2 or 3 big combat/gameplay overhauls. There's Skyre, SPERG, uh... One that I actually played with a while and I can't remember the name of it now.

Also level-scaling isn't nearly as bad in Skyrim as it was in Oblivion, so these overhaul mods aren't going to get advertised and well-known as much for being a scaling replacement.

 

[Branm]

we are well and truly fucked.

We are well and truly fucked because, despite shitting all over the Bioware for the last 5 or so years (or, better phrased - for as long as I can remember here), half of the codex still buys this shit, thus supporting the Bioware financially. I mean, I'm sure at least a hundred people here bought this. And yeah, you can argue that bioware will still grab millions so they don't give a fuck if they lose here, but it's not about them loosing - it's about you not supporting the indies with the very those money.
.

Best post in the thread you should of all known this will turn out to be crap...I mean Bioware simply isnt to be trusted yet everyone keeps on buying their Sub-par products....sigh.

PS....Please for the love of god....do buy Underrail right now!!!

 

[Infinitron]

TB dislikes the grind too:

 

[Infinitron]

we are well and truly fucked.

We are well and truly fucked because, despite shitting all over the Bioware for the last 5 or so years (or, better phrased - for as long as I can remember here), half of the codex still buys this shit, thus supporting the Bioware financially. I mean, I'm sure at least a hundred people here bought this. And yeah, you can argue that bioware will still grab millions so they don't give a fuck if they lose here, but it's not about them loosing - it's about you not supporting the indies with the very those money.

Let's find out how fucked we are: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...his-did-you-buy-dragon-age-inquisition.95525/

 

[Slow James]

Let's find out how fucked we are: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...his-did-you-buy-dragon-age-inquisition.95525/

What you mean... proper fucked?

 

[AwesomeButton]

If you want them to die then let them fucking die, but every word you give them, be it good, bad or indifferent is in their favour.

No, the Codex lacks the power you assign it... Hell, it would actually be more logical to concede that Bioware is willfully trolling the Codex with their game design - all the while being heralded as a shining beacon of RPG goodness. Mainstream gaming loves this game -> bugs, shitty design, shitty implementation and all. There is no killing it, fire or otherwise.

-addendum-

I know it is probably asking too much, but a VD review of DAI would be great. For continuity sake and to juxtapose against his DAO review, IE the evolution of Bioware™.

I'd love a Codex review of DAI, I am certainly gearing up for my own review. I've just been past the templar choice at the first fork, where RK47 picked the mages. Let me tell you what the templars' quest revolves around. I haven't spoiled much, but I'm using a spoiler tag anyway. To save time, I remind you in the beginning that all battles are fought with the shitty PC controls.

Spoiler

You go to the fortress where the templars have gathered and you have to fight off a demon boss in the following celebration-of-dumbfuckery way: You start in a Main Hall from which you have two doors - one on the left, one on the right side of the hall. You take one of the doors and you have a dungeon-like area that you have to make your way through via killing all "red templars" in your way, which is how you save three templar officers standing (at pre-determined spots of course) in the dungeon area (it's really a part of the fortress under open sky, but who gives a shit). I should tell you that the last officer's dialogue didn't start the first time I saved him, so I had to reload a savegame to re-save him, and fortunately it worked that time.

Once you're done with that task, you need to take the other door from the main hall, ending up in a courtyard where you have to click on more red templars until they drop, then enter a room, where some spooky signs have been drawn on a wall, serial murderer hideout style (oh my, so spooky), then take a key from that room, use the key to enter a room that's right next to the first one, dear, dear, that was tough, click on some red lyrim inside second room to get a codex entry and party comments of it. Then take your ass back to the Main Hall.

Now the topping of this shit-cake is that every time you exit the Main Hall, you are on a timer. Half the Main Hall is green-fade-magic-blocked by the demon, who keeps spawning red templar baddies inside your part of the Main Hall to pester you. So, as I said, you're on a timer once you leave the main hall, and you have to finish the tasks I described before the timer runs out, or the templars inside the main hall will be killed, in which case I suppose you get a big yellow "Mission failed" sign like in GTA, but that would probably be too fun for DAI.

Two caveats that make this even dumber than it sounds - first, the templars you are supposed to protect are indestructible ingame (same as those you are setting out to "save"), so all this errand made up by an unknown shitbrain and its failure are completely scripted, and second - the timer only serves to make you return back in the Main Hall while you're halfway to completing the officer-saving or lyrium clicking errands, it does not determine when enemies will show up in the main hall! So it doesn't matter if you exit and immediately enter back into the main hall, the red templar enemies will spawn every time, regardless of the timer! It's like they're waiting for you to leave the room to sneak back in.

Once you're done with the mini-fetch-quests, what follows is a grand battle within the Main Hall against... more waves of red templars! Wow! Kill the red templars, and you get a cue from the Chief Good Templar present in the Main Hall that "it's time to end the demon". His, and the other templars' role in the "ending" though amount to zero. It's just your party that has to go out from the Main Hall to some terrace and fight a very dumb 30 000 HP boss who spawns two waves of red templars when he's at half and 1/4 health.

Another brilliant achievement in BioWare quest-writing retardedness is that you have to go through all that I described without ever renewing your healing potions, which in my case meant that when I finally reached the final battle I was down to 2 health (for all the party) and a couple of regen potions (per character), which made it unthinkable to kill the demon on Hard difficulty, as I had been trying to play so far. So, the moral of the whole story is that what you should be saving is not templars but your own health potions. Great job, dumbasses!

After getting my ass kicked, I rolled the difficulty back to Retard and beat the boss. It would have ended here if this was simply a shitty game, but let's not forget that we are dealing with more than that - this is a BioWare game, which means you have "meaningful choices"...

As soon as I'd killed the demon the doors to the terrace busted open and a group composed of Chief Good Tepmlar and some mute and unnamed colleagues of his came out and pledged their support for the Inquisition's efforts to close the Breach. Gee, thanks, asswipes. I had a choice between accepting them to work alongside the Inquisition or incorporate them into the inquisition. I don't need to tell you I chose the latter, which strangely pissed off a few of my companions and advisors somewhat. When I got back to the base, Cullen whined that this should have been the Inquisition's decision, not my personal one. I ignored him, changing the subject of the conversation to how we'll need more lyrium at the base to accommodate the templars who were on their way. Then out of nowhere, in a puff of incloosive smoke, the emo with the hat popped up right upon the table and it took us a whole two lines of "witty dialogue™" to have him get off the table and disappear again.

I think I understand the grand message that Gaider carries throughout all of DAI, and it's fit for the target demographic better than a pink dildo with a bull-shaped head -- "The whole world, chantry, templars, mages, the State, everybody sucks, nobody can get any job done, from keeping peace to finding their own goats, and it's only you who are actually good for making the world work". Basically, a deliberate destruction of all credibility in any institution or authority in the whole setting for the sake of stroking the ego of, nine out of ten times, a troubled teen who've just discovered they have so many holes in their body and can't wait to find uses for them.

I feel much more reluctant to approach any further pieces of this "epic, character-driven story" after being through this clusterfuck of a quest than I was before it.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

That demographic being, dribbling morons who'll 'ship anything organic?

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Umm, I have a weird quest marker on my map in the middle of a tower, but there's nothing there.
Anybody knows what I should to here?

Spoiler

 

[DalekFlay]

Umm, I have a weird quest marker on my map in the middle of a tower, but there's nothing there.
Anybody knows what I should to here?

Looks like where the throne is, which has "judgment" quests.

 

[nikolokolus]

Uninstall

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I'm about 60 hours in. The first 10 hours were incredibly tedious, mainly because I spent the bulk of them exploring the Hinterlands and BioWare cannot into open worlds. The regions in this game are Assassin's Creed-ified in collectibles, and MMO-ified in terms of side quests.

But the main story is excellent, as are the companion missions. Dorian's is an early highlight, but they are all very good and surprisingly well written.

There's a lot of fan service here and decisions I made in the prior games seem to have had an effect, which is very nice to see. So far, several very big characters from prior games have shown up and seem true to how I left them, I was expecting BioWare to go the cookie cutter route but they didn't.

So, the main quest and the major side quests are all really good and rank among BioWare's best, it is nice to see how all the companions come together - I just did a sidequest for Cole, and a bunch of the others decided to tag along and try and affect the outcome, I can't remember any previous BioWare game doing this.

I'm not sure how much I have left to play but I think Inquisition is a mixed bag. Great story, great characters, good companion quests but the open world/side quests seem to be a bit shitty.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm not sure how much I have left to play but I think Inquisition is a mixed bag. Great story, great characters, good companion quests but the open world/side quests seem to be a bit shitty.

I hope you turn out right, although I find it to be the other way around - the open world is bearable and I like collecting stuff, makes me explore. Battles are horrible so far, as for the characters, story, and quests, they are full of shit imo.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

The dude didn't even mention combat...

 

[Deleted member 7219]

The combat is fucking shit. Irredeemable.

 

[RK47]

I'm not sure how much I have left to play but I think Inquisition is a mixed bag. Great story, great characters, good companion quests but the open world/side quests seem to be a bit shitty.

I hope you turn out right, although I find it to be the other way around - the open world is bearable and I like collecting stuff, makes me explore. Battles are horrible so far, as for the characters, story, and quests, they are full of shit imo.

I don't find the open world engaging at all.
The reasons they gave you to head out there is pretty weak overall in the opening.
Collect 10 herbs? 10 ram meat?
These are shit of course and deserve to be ignored.
Hence I try to be selective when it comes to questing - but to my disappointment, there is barely anything resembling a good 'sidequest' out there.
A lot of them are very trimmed down quests, even lower production values than SWTOR - which is amazing since the latter is a MMORPG.
There was a lot of effort to tie everything together in SWTOR, even quests like finding medicines stolen by refugees in SWTOR made you choose whether to give the refugees the medicine or return it to the army. You could argue, that's just 'dark/light side' but the resolution isn't a 'binary done/not done'.

In DAI, I recovered a medicine for a worried husband and there was very little, if any choice to make. Either you do it, or don't do it. There was no time limit either. People just wait to be saved or be ignored or be postponed till a later date.

A few quest like finding a healer for the refugees do involve convincing her to come along by using your companions to back up your argument, that is good - but I find it too few and far in between. I think the Companions quest will be more engaging like that, so I'm just going to stick to those instead.

I think the crowning moment of un-awesome came up when I had a storyteller whispering about a spirit in a lake, where I could make a tribute of Blood Lotus on the altar by the lake.
I was somewhat interested and stumbled upon it while recruiting a Grey Warden. Upon clicking the altar, a 2-handed sword materializes, allowing me to loot it. And... that's that.

What do you want me to say about this? Is this all there is?
Don't talk to me about how easy it is to 'stumble upon quest herbs and pick on them while going on some quests' because what I'm about to say is my major pet peeve that makes the thing you said 'effortless' turn into tiny, but incremental amount of annoyance that slowly fills the beaker of patience, till it overflows and annoyance turns into rage and the beaker explodes in a shower of 'FUCK THIS SHIT I'M NOT DOING THIS'

Why?

This is 2014. You see a herb at a distance. Being on keyboard and mouse, naturally you point cursor at it and click.
Nothing happens.

Why?
You are out of range.



This is 2014, and you think it's ok to force players to walk up to it - and fucking click on it?
Or press F, watch the slow looting animation play and see what you picked
THEN press SPACE BAR to confirm that 'YES, I CONFIRM THAT I REALLY WANTED TO BEND OVER TO PICK UP THIS FUCKING ELFROOT'

Fuck's sake. Let me tell you about a game that was made way before this, it has a hand icon and it lets me just fucking walk up and pick up what I want.

Story wise it's shit. Nothing will convince me otherwise. You have to be crazy to think this whole plot conveniences make any fucking sense.
Cause so far what I've seen here is thus:
1. The mark was given to you.
2. The Skyhold was given to you.
3. Everyone is counting on you because of No.1

As for the character writing - it's ok. Not stellar, but it's OK. They're like walking tropes.
There's Dandy Mage, Mysterious Hatman, Angry Woman, Sexually Active Giant Goat, I mean they have issues, but you can tell them to fuck off. I'm not too crazy on the Anti-SJW stance.

But overall, I can tolerate, it does show restraint at some point, the character clashes work to a point, but I can't help but feel their roles in combat is pretty much similar and you only pick them cause you want to rotate and keep things fresh.

It's the only saving grace anyway. Cause the combat, writing and exploration is shit.

 

[Ninjerk]

shut up its fun