The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[RK47]

 

[RK47]

 

[Tehdagah]

(...) Enemy design was mostly pedestrian, with the exception of the Harbinger's ability to "promote" a collector. More troubling than the blandness was the enemies tendency to break the fundamental law of popamole; that any foe should be as dependent on cover as the player is when facing them. (...)

This is untrue. Enemies don't need to be dependent on cover. The player is the one who needs to rely on cover, but only when enemies are using guns (due to the nature of bullets, you need to stand behind something to protect yourself). This rule applies to every kind of game, not just "popamole shooters".

A plenty of Gears of War enemies rush to the player or stay in the middle of the battlefield throwing projectiles.

And then you have things like this:

 

[RK47]

 

[Ninjerk]

Who knew daggers were so effective

 

[evdk]

GOTY

The Pope has decreed so.

EX CATHEDRA, BITCHES.

 

[Viata]

So, this game is now GOTY. I guess it is now a good game.

 

[Ninjerk]

As if awards have meant anything for 15 years

 

[RK47]

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

I don't follow. We deride bad RPGs for going the way of WoW. We don't accept them because we know we can do better. What lets us give ME2 and ME3 free passes for gun mechanics? We have seen better gun mechanics in games of old.

One little word.. Bioware.

I honestly despair of humanity sometimes.

 

[Nikaido]

Insight into the design process of characters, their interactions and dialogue within bioware :

The Idea
A couple years ago, BioWare did a BioWare Base panel on LGBTQ representation in our games at PAX. We heard concerns, praise, and a lot of heartfelt discussion about how we present characters from the LGBTQ community. One of the most repeated requests was for representation of transgender and/or genderqueer characters in a way that did not make them either a monster or a joke. When the panel was over, some of us kicked around ideas about what we could do.

Talking over drinks at the bar later, we hit two major challenges. First, any conversation about the subject had to come up naturally in-game. A minor character like a shopkeeper would have no reason to explain that she is trans, so either the conversation would never come up or it would come up because her voice was clearly masculine, at which point it would look like a joke to most players, no matter how we tried to write it. Second, the character had to serve a purpose beyond “being there to be a genderqueer person.” Every character in our game serves a purpose—reinforcing the theme of a plot, character, or area—and we do not have the budget for someone who is just there to tick off a box.

As we discussed ideas, the possibility came up of Iron Bull’s lieutenant being such a character. Bull needed a lieutenant. He’s a mercenary commander, and even if we didn’t have the memory budget to have his entire company around all the time, I needed to be able to remind players that Bull has a history of command. In addition, Bull’s loyalty is pulled between life under the Qun and a life of freedom, and I needed a character on each side who could represent that pull.

Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi met both challenges. His conversation could come up naturally, along with discussions of life as a mercenary, and he could serve a vital role in the story as a grounding force who would remind the player that Bull is more than just hired muscle. Krem’s status as a trans man, rather than being just tacked on, could emphasize Bull’s character by opening up discussions of Qunari gender roles.

The Execution
Once we had decided what we wanted to do, we tackled the concept of Krem with other departments to figure out how to do it correctly. In doing so, we saw how much of our game’s engine was based on set gender assignments, from voice to face to animation set to localization plan for foreign languages. Every single department stepped up enthusiastically to make sure that Krem was created with respect. Colleen Perman gave Krem his fantastic face using the character art team’s head-morph system, John Epler nailed his animation and body language, Caroline Livingstone and Jennifer Hale found a great voice for a trans man in a world without access to transitional procedures, and Melanie Fleming made absolutely certain that Krem was gendered appropriately in all languages.

On the writing side, I wrote Krem as best I could, and the editing team looked at every line and cleaned up dialogue and paraphrases that could give the wrong impression. I then passed him to two friends in the GQ community… at which point they showed me where I was absolutely messing things up and gave me constructive feedback on how to improve. In the first draft, Bull was the one who brought up Krem’s binding as a friendly joke. My friends pointed out how incredibly hurtful such a callout was for many trans people in real life (“Hey, by the way, you’re actually a woman, just wanted to remind you!”) and that it made Bull into an incredibly offensive jerk. This was not at all what I wanted—people playing now will note that Bull and Krem give each other grief about little things all the time, but never attack truly sore spots—and I rewrote the scene so that Krem is the one who brings it up first. This makes it clear that Krem is comfortable discussing being trans, and the player will not be offending Krem by asking questions about it.

In the investigate hub where you can ask Krem about his past in Tevinter, the first draft had him deserting after fighting off someone who discovered his secret and tried to assault him. My friends noted that this played directly into the sad “attacked trans person” cliché, and while it was plausible, it was an ugly event that could well trigger trans people who have experienced harassment in real life. The goal was for Krem to be a positive character who was living his life happily now, and I revised his departure from Tevinter accordingly.

(Very few writers enjoy talking about things they messed up in their first drafts, and I am no exception. That said, I am hugely grateful to my friends for helping me avoid some obvious-in-retrospect mistakes. Their help was amazing, and any stuff that still bothers people is on me and me alone.)

The Reception
We are all proud to have brought Krem to life in the game, and seeing people in the genderqueer community respond positively to him has been wonderful. We are also listening to feedback on how we can improve with characters in the future. (For example, some trans folks feel I wrote the player choices to be too clueless or uninformed, and wished for options to speak from more personal experience. I’ve heard the feedback, and I intend to do better next time.) It would be a lie to say that this was as easy as creating any other human character—it was uncharted territory for all of us on both the technical and the artistic side—but it was worth the extra effort. The world of Dragon Age has room for people of all backgrounds and identities, and it was a pleasure to show that in one more way.

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/04/building-a-character-cremisius-krem-aclassi/

Yeah, this character probably received a lot more effort than the main villain for sure.

 

[RK47]

 

[hell bovine]

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/04/building-a-character-cremisius-krem-aclassi/

Yeah, this character probably received a lot more effort than the main villain for sure.

Considering their Edwin/Edwina story from BG2, that's not very convincing. But while I agree with him about trying to avoid potential "triggers", an assault can lead to PTSD in everyone, regardless of their gender, so all story lines depicting sexual violence should be handled very carefully. But considering the overabundance of "maiden in distress" trope in games, I don't think women get the same level of attention, so again, not very convincing.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Actually Edwina thing is a big homage/reference to Elminister.

 

[Franny Frogpill]

So, this game is now GOTY. I guess it is now a good game.

Best Role-Playing Game:

• Bravely Default
• Dark Souls II
• Divinity
• Dragon Age: Inquisition (Winner)
• South Park: The Stick of Truth

What an ugly world. How I hate the shallow masses. ~grieves
Don't mind me. I just stand over here and cry into my cauldron quietly.

 

[Zewp]

So, this game is now GOTY. I guess it is now a good game.

It even beat Divinity OS, so it must be amazing because Divinity was one of the best RPGs released in the last decade.

Fuck this industry.

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

So, this game is now GOTY. I guess it is now a good game.

It even beat Divinity OS, so it must be amazing because Divinity was one of the best RPGs combat systems released in the last decade.

Fuck this industry.

Fixed.

The actual story and characters were all kinda 'meh'

 

[SarcasticUndertones]

So, this game is now GOTY. I guess it is now a good game.

Best Role-Playing Game:

• Bravely Default
• Dark Souls II
• Divinity
• Dragon Age: Inquisition (Winner)
• South Park: The Stick of Truth

What an ugly world. How I hate the shallow masses. ~grieves
Don't mind me. I just stand over here and cry into my cauldron quietly.

It's a fucking travesty that South Park made that list and Dragonfall: DC didn't.

 

[eremita]

So I checked Gaider's twitter and he's obviously proud of this game. He actually thinks this is a fucking masterpiece. So that coming from a guy who's behind BG2 and who listed games like Darklands as his favourite. WTF? Is he oblivious, or am I missing something? I would like to see some analysis of DAI, or better, some explanation from devs as what the fuck they were trying to achieve with this. How can you jump from complex mechanics and quests to a fucking MMO filler and awessome button shit? WHY?

 

[Athelas]

So that coming from a guy who's behind BG2

He was one if its many designers, not its sole architect. And I believe his role since then has shifted from general design (including combat encounters and area design) to only writing (which he was always bad at).

 

[Turjan]

So I checked Gaider's twitter and he's obviously proud of this game. He actually thinks this is a fucking masterpiece.

I would assume that any twitter messages of official staff are at least in general guided by PR strategies. If the game sold well, he's probably happy to keep his line of work. Not sure if he designed anything of the combat system.

 

[purpleblob]

I didn't even know Gaider was involved in BG2 until recently, and I doubt he played a big role in developing BG2. I wonder how much Bioware/EA paid to get GOTY crap.

 

[Nikaido]

So that coming from a guy who's behind BG2

He was one if its many designers, not its sole architect. And I believe his role since then has shifted from general design (including combat encounters and area design) to only writing (which he was always bad at).

Of course all games have a whole team of developers, it's never just one man anyway but you shouldn't diminish Gaider's contribution to BG2. The man also used to be passionate enough about his job, and games, that he made various mods, like Ascension for throne of bhaal, and mods for Paradox games like Victoria 2. Unlike the man who is the most put on a pedestal on the codex (Avellone), Gaider actually likes gaming and can play, mod etc games. I doubt he'd get stuck at the wolves in Arcanum, although I don't think he'd like that game much either, the base gameplay is too meh/broken.

 

[RK47]

This game must end.
It must.
It must end.

 

[Franny Frogpill]

I would like to see some analysis of DAI, or better, some explanation from devs as what the fuck they were trying to achieve with this. How can you jump from complex mechanics and quests to a fucking MMO filler and awessome button shit? WHY?

You can't make sense of this fucked up mess aka gaming industry without having brain surgery.