I'm pretty sure Ferelden was meant to have horses. They're mentioned a few times in conversation, in fact. Which made their absence even stranger.
Part of their absence was the idea of "If we have them in the game in any capacity, people will see the lack of ability to acquire one as a bigger issue."
EDIT: Even paintings of them made people think this! 
So were companion mounts ever considered as a possibility? I'm assuming you guys didn't do it because of AI and pathfinding issues.
They were considered, yes.
I didn't work on the team specifically so I don't know all the reasons why they weren't included. I do know that mounts pretty much get explored in every one of our games (I know they were explored for the first concepts of Inquisition before DA2/Exodus first hand) and it's because of a variety of challenges that they tend to be a big rabbit hole. I believe the party IS one aspect.
No horses for companions. No party banter (if PC on horseback) Why BioWare created Horse? (The horse is unnecessary).
Bigger worlds need faster methods of moving around them. Did anyone bring up how horses act in combat? No banter will mean a lot of traveling in silence.
Can they be ridden in combat areas ?
Do they just vanish when you get attacked, or do you have to get off while taking damage?
How long till the rest of the party shows up? That kind of thing.
Guest_Terrian_*
Yes, he is credited in the "special thanks" section as Fluffy the Dancing Ogre.
As for the mounts, like others said, I won't use mounts on my first playthrough (unless they are required to go to specific locations). I would use them should run a solo playthrough, or after I know what/which spots trigger party banter, or when revisiting certain areas.
Or maybe party banter generally doesn't occur in the open countryside and is limited to settlements and areas you can't enter while mounted. You know, sort of like how it worked in DAO?
In the Digiexpo/PAX 2013 demo, they said companions will point out locations of interest. For example, Varric and Vivienne talked a bit when they spotted that valley in the Western Approach which was filled with poisonous gas. So I guess it does occur while you're exploring the countryside.
Huh. I hadn't considered that.Part of their absence was the idea of "If we have them in the game in any capacity, people will see the lack of ability to acquire one as a bigger issue."
EDIT: Even paintings of them made people think this!
Huh. I hadn't considered that.
Personally, if there had been horses in the game, I wouldn't have minded the inability to acquire them, but fair enough.
Really, I would have just settled for there being a couple in the party camp, to show that you weren't just traveling an entire country on foot.
I'm sure someone would of made a mod for it either way but there where not needed because we had very little exploreing oportunities in Origins
Well at least we finally got an answer about horses and the party....
For me the party disappearing is way too immersion breaking , so no horses .
Besides I think there's fast travel available from different point in an area , at least that's what I saw in the demo...so yeah.
I play swtor a lot and the companions disappear when you hop on your speeder or such....I just headcanon them hopping on too....might not be able to manage that headcanon with 3 comps hopping on the back of my horse though lol. Especially since I intend using Iron Bull a lot....no more room!
Well looks like I'll be walking throughout the whole game. I did it in Skyrim, so I'll manage in DA:I.
Yeah, me too.
And even less sense that people talked about horses and had paintings of horses and characters in the books rode around on horses (and fell off them constantly, in one case) and yet we had never seen one in game. Maybe the Warden had a horse allergy? Or a phobia?
(It's actually less inexplicable in DA2 since you don't travel as far except at the very beginning when you go by sea.)
I always headcanoned that horses are extremely fearful of darkspawn and could maybe sense their presence (like how some animals start going bananas before an earthquake or other natural disaster hits), so when the Blight started descending on Ferelden, the horses fled like hot potatoes over the Frostbacks and into Orlais.
It provided a way for horses to have existed in Ferelden, been used during the Rebellion, etc., but then explained why they suddenly disappeared for the Warden's story. *shrugs*
I play swtor a lot and the companions disappear when you hop on your speeder or such....I just headcanon them hopping on too....might not be able to manage that headcanon with 3 comps hopping on the back of my horse though lol. Especially since I intend using Iron Bull a lot....no more room!
I always headcanoned that horses are extremely fearful of darkspawn and could maybe sense their presence (like how some animals start going bananas before an earthquake or other natural disaster hits), so when the Blight started descending on Ferelden, the horses fled like hot potatoes over the Frostbacks and into Orlais.
It provided a way for horses to have existed in Ferelden, been used during the Rebellion, etc., but then explained why they suddenly disappeared for the Warden's story. *shrugs*
More likely they got eaten.
Not everyone uses fast travel
I thought I was the only one left that didn't! Yay!
Getting sassed by Alan Schumacher, of course.What is "sassmachered"? lol
Well looks like I'll be walking throughout the whole game. I did it in Skyrim, so I'll manage in DA:I.
Same here. I really don't see the point in having a mount if my party is just going to disappear. The party banter is, in my opinion, what makes Bioware RPGs different from most other RPGs out there and I believe them disappearing when the PC is mounted goes against the spirit of Bioware RPGs. If it wasn't for the strength in companion stories I probably wouldn't even be interested in Bioware games because I do feel they seem to struggle with so much more than other developers, hair, animations, etc.
I thought I was the only one left that didn't! Yay!
I usually don't, except when there's a lot of backtracking involved, them I just get frustrated.
Not to argue, but party banter is a really small thing. It's definitely something you dont find in other RPGs, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's what sets Bioware games apart as in defines them. I like it and plan on not using mounts, too (at least while exploring new areas), but it's simply not that important.The party banter is, in my opinion, what makes Bioware RPGs different from most other RPGs
Not to argue, but party banter is a really small thing. It's definitely something you dont find in other RPGs, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's what sets Bioware games apart as in defines them. I like it and plan on not using mounts, too (at least while exploring new areas), but it's simply not that important.
But it's fun! 
If it somehow gets cut off, I reload the last save so I can hear it again hahaha
Same here. I really don't see the point in having a mount if my party is just going to disappear. The party banter is, in my opinion, what makes Bioware RPGs different from most other RPGs out there and I believe them disappearing when the PC is mounted goes against the spirit of Bioware RPGs. If it wasn't for the strength in companion stories I probably wouldn't even be interested in Bioware games because I do feel they seem to struggle with so much more than other developers, hair, animations, etc.
There is a finite number of banter exchanges, at some point, when you are going through an area for the 10 times with the same party nobody is going to say anything and then you will want a mount to go through the area faster because you have seen it 10 times already.
Saying that, the only place where I use a mount is in MMOs where stuff are so far away from each others and there is nothing in between.
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