Dragon Age III: Inquisition

civvver said:

Awakening is $8 on amazon. It's always on sale.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I was just thinking I should check Amazon. Buying through the Bioware site isn't a good deal. I did end up paying for some of the overpriced dlc. It's fun, but not much story (the Lelianna one being the best), and not enough gameplay to justify the price.

Awakening is definitely not worth 8$.
Even free I'm not sure it's worth it in fact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f8xJMWRI-cA

Not an officially released video so it might get pulled but this is a gameplay video.

Haven't watched it personally yet so can't comment yet.

I just learned that DA:I will have either no or very little level scaling, and characters won't magically regenerate all their health after a fight.

Suddendly, I went from "don't care" to "quite curious, actually". I'm wary that they say that more for the shock effect and manage to void these affirmation of their meaning and apply them only technically in a way or another, but still it feels there is some good vibes.

Really? Curious. I hadn't heard that. Source?

Quite a lot of references on the Web, just make a "inquisition level scaling" search and see, there is articles, BSN links, demo reviews and interviews with the lead designers.

So yeah, these two points were the ones I hated the most in DA:O, and at the time the designers gave lots of (IMO, bad) justifications for it, and then now they say the opposite, so well...
But I wonder if with all the backlash they got with their recent releases compared to the praise they got when they tried the old-school way, they aren't actually link two neurons together and honestly try for more real old-school design.

Anyway, that makes a second RPG to look for next year, if only just to check it up and see if it's actually worth it. Better than expected.

I did end up getting the expansion to Dragon Age: Origins off of Amazon, finally. I heard it was so short, but I still haven't come close to finishing it. But I like to do everything and explore everything. It's okay, just not as good as the main game. I am happy it doesn't suffer from the problems DA2 has.

I was looking at the Inquisition page on the dragon age wiki, I like most of what I see, except they are keeping the damn dialogue wheels. Why are they so obsessed with Dialogue wheels? I know, because of consoles. Possibly also because the main characters are fully voice acted now, so there's considerably much less dialogue in the game. I'm not a fan of reducing dialogue and increasing pointless battles that DA2 did. But we'll see what happens. I feel rpg's should have plenty of dialogues. It helps with exposition. On table tops, the DM would give exposition, but with crpg's, the characters do, and I feel it's important aspect of true rpg's. But I also like lots of dialogue choices, it gives the impression that the game has many choices, and you can role play your character in more ways. Having only 3 ways to role play a character is limiting and lame. Good, bad, or sarcastic. Really Bioware? Are you saying there are only 3 types of people in this world?

They lost me at human-only. They further lost me at only one character background.

One of the things that made me instantly and completely fall in love with DAO was the separate origin stories; especially how it made different aspects of the plot resonate.

Bandobras Took said:

They lost me at human-only. They further lost me at only one character background.

One of the things that made me instantly and completely fall in love with DAO was the separate origin stories; especially how it made different aspects of the plot resonate.

Click to expand...

Really? I thought the origins were pretty pointless really. I mean, they were a nice idea, but they were little more than a glorified stand alone tutorial and had no impact on the rest of the game barring a couple of slightly different dialogues. The dwarf noble in particular was awful - you're central to the backstory of the events in Orz..however you spell the dwarf city's name...and yet when you get back there it plays out exactly the same as with any other character.

Speaking from an RP perspective, being a Dwarven Noble or Commoner makes a huge difference in who you decide to support. That's what I'm talking about, and that's what I enjoyed. Killing Howe in Denerim is just another job . . . unless you're a Human Noble. The backgrounds allowed me to invest myself in the story in a way that very few games have, and was the main appeal.

Bandobras Took said:

Speaking from an RP perspective, being a Dwarven Noble or Commoner makes a huge difference in who you decide to support. That's what I'm talking about, and that's what I enjoyed. Killing Howe in Denerim is just another job . . . unless you're a Human Noble. The backgrounds allowed me to invest myself in the story in a way that very few games have, and was the main appeal.

Click to expand...

Exactly, they may not have had the biggest impact but they were very fun tutorial levels that gave your character some backstory and motivation (if you wanted it) for a little bit more depth and RP. There was a lot more room to make RP dialogue choices and decisions in DA:O than in most RPGs from the last decade.

Bandobras Took said:

Killing Howe in Denerim is just another job . . . unless you're a Human Noble.

Click to expand...

I had a warrior, and I kept the Family Sword and Shield for that exact reason.

I suppose my real problem is that the origins could've been so much more - I'm not saying they were bad or anything, just disappointing. Before the game was released, I remember Bioware hyping them up a lot as a key element to the game. Yet other than a bit of roleplaying and a couple of dialogues, once you leave the origin story - which lasts, what, half an hour? -the rest of the game is the same. Now, of course, they couldn't have made 6 separate games or anything, but I'd've liked to see some real differentiation between them once the game proper started. Maybe I can roleplay my dwarf in a particular way based on their origin, but the rest of Orz... doesn't seem to care one way or another barring some cosmetic dialogue.

I think there was enough difference between them to be like oh this is cool, these people remember me from before, but not enough to make you want to roll another origin and play through the entire game to see differences. So I half agree, once I beat the game I played through all the origins but only up to common part where you're in the warden camp and going to start the joining.

Unfortunately going dwarf noble ends up being far and away the best choice of character cus you can sell items to that dwarf merchant for tons of gold and it makes the game much easier.

Although I did think this was cool in dragon age 2:

I was looking at Dragon Age 2 again just now (because I'm bored, and trying to find a game to play). The game just gets worse each time I look at it. You can't even unequip all items and fight unarmed. It automatically equips you with a basic greatsword if you remove all weapons. I like (as in hate) how they are kind enough to dictate to you what kind of weapon you should be using. This game is horrible in so many ways. It's so frustrating. No way could I play through this game again.

Awakening is definitely not worth 8$.
Even free I'm not sure it's worth it in fact.

Click to expand...

I enjoyed Awakening quite a bit. Took me about 25 hours to beat it, (I was thinking it was 10 hours). Only dislike is the annoying rune crafting system.


edit: I forgot to mention they never released a tool set for DA2, so the mods I got for the game are lacking. I thought some nude mods would be enough incentive for me to play the game. But alas, even nudity cannot save this game. I couldn't even get far enough into it too see Merill with big boobs. Oh well.

I find DA2 to a bit more tolerable if you put some time between acts. While it still has big problems, it at least keeps the repeated areas from becoming too repetitive.

Inquisition was one of the few games I was looking forward for this year until a couple of weeks ago. The devs were talking a lot about how they have learned from the mistakes in DA 2 and Inquisition was going to bea mix between Origins and 2. I was getting sceptical again aftr the character creation stream which didn't show any customization between race, class and looks.
l
Well, just read the first review and it got 85/100, whatever that means. their verdict is that it's definitely better than DA 2, and definitely not as good as Origins. One Reviewer compared it to the pirates of the carriban movies: great entertainment without much depth.
I'll probably buy it when it gets cheaper.

Oh, and the review also made a point to mention a crappy UI, designed for consoles.

Do recent games without crappy console UI exist ?

GoodSarmatian said:

Inquisition was one of the few games I was looking forward for this year until a couple of weeks ago. The devs were talking a lot about how they have learned from the mistakes in DA 2 and Inquisition was going to bea mix between Origins and 2. I was getting sceptical again aftr the character creation stream which didn't show any customization between race, class and looks.
l
Well, just read the first review and it got 85/100, whatever that means. their verdict is that it's definitely better than DA 2, and definitely not as good as Origins. One Reviewer compared it to the pirates of the carriban movies: great entertainment without much depth.
I'll probably buy it when it gets cheaper.

Oh, and the review also made a point to mention a crappy UI, designed for consoles.

Click to expand...

Yeah this is the gist I am getting. The combat isn't as deep as it was in DA:O and there isn't much tactical positioning or stuff really required. I haven't gotten any word on what the characters are like yet though.

I still hate Fenris and I'm still pissed at how they ruined Isabella by beating you over the head incessantly with how much of a slut she is.

I think it will be a decent enough game, but I'm waiting until the complete edition comes out and damn well hoping there are mods. Still pissed off about how big of a rip off the garbage DLC for DA:O was and pre-ordering DA2. Too bad it sounds like Bioware still can't write moral choices very well besides black and white.

EDIT: This review... doesn't raise my hopes much.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-11-dragon-age-inquisition-review

Sounds they ing ruined Leliana, god ing damn it Bioware. Stop ing giving characters massive mood swing personality changes between games.

Maniacal said:

Yeah this is the gist I am getting. The combat isn't as deep as it was in DA:O and there isn't much tactical positioning or stuff really required. I haven't gotten any word on what the characters are like yet though.

Click to expand...

One of the reviewers (I'll just link the review here, but it's in German) said that a couple of times he asked himself how he would feel if one of the followers died for plot reasons, and he found the answer devestating as a roleplayer. Not in the sense that he would be devestated by their death, but that he wouldn't really care. So, no emotional conections here. The game doesn't seem to have a Imoen or Alastair or Garrus.

I think it will be a decent enough game, but I'm waiting until the complete edition comes out and damn well hoping there are mods. Still pissed off about how big of a rip off the garbage DLC for DA:O was and pre-ordering DA2.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's probably a very good game if you don't expect what people expected from a Bioware RPG up until four or five years ago. The world is apparently huge, there are tons of side quests and the graphics and music are top notch. But it is lacking in some departments that used to be Bioware's strength.

Too bad it sounds like Bioware still can't write moral choices very well besides black and white.

Click to expand...

I think that's a bit unfair.
The Mass Effect series and Dragon Age Origins had a couple of good ones, as did Kotor and Jade Empire. Good moral choices are very rare in games and I actually think that Bioware is (or was) one of the better developers here.