Commander Kurt wrote...
You're right though, keep the expectations low. This is something very novel and it's not going to work flawlessly from the get go (no matter what marketing tries to tell you!).
Its not entirely novel, to be fair. Games have offered ways to carry forward your progress/character that referenced your past actions. Granted, the amount of choice coupled with the carry over is probably never been met to this scale.
But there isn't really a way to improve the concept without creating custom content. Even if they fix the import files, or make it so we can "set up" the world at the beginning of DA:I with what we want, it still comes down to how much they are willing to create that will only be seen by the players who made a certain choice.
For LIs and romances, that is pretty small. If they don't bring back any former characters (including the PCs), they just don't have to talk about it. For bigger things, like who the king is or if the lost secret of creating golem armies is back in the hands of the dwarves (if you saved the Anvil) or how many Mage's Tower there are in Thedas (depending on if you performed the Right of Annulment in Ferelden and Kirkwall or not) could be pretty far reaching in their impacts.
A story where the Dwarves now have one of the most powerful armies in Thedas, versus one where they are barely hanging on against encroaching darkspawn, is pretty significant. A story where the Chantry has an artifact that can give weight to their beliefs and doctrine (the Urn of Sacred Ashes) when a war is about to break out about that very religion's theology in regards to mages is pretty significant. Having a king of Ferelden like Allistair who would support Mage Freedom or a Queen like Anora who would be prejudiced like her father against anything involved with Orlais (and, hence, the Chantry) is pretty significant. If the Arishok, leader of all the Qunari armies, was killed violently by humans or was able to leave in peace is pretty significant. Having a sominari, the most powerful type of mage that we know of in all of the Thedas right on the eve of a huge war between Mages and Templars, being either dead, alive, possessed or Trainquilled is pretty significant.
But they WON'T be significant. This is worse than not offering player choice - it negates it. It acts like it acknowledges it, but in reality is making it null and void. By giving us choices in previous games that touch on huge institutions like the Mages, the Dwarves, the monarchy of Ferelden, the Chantry (again, Urn of Sacred Ashes), the Qunari... and then saying that custom content is not viable, it basically forces a static outcome in future games, regardless of choice, or it causes the writers to just ignore those topics altogether.
That includes ignoring your Warden and Hawke. It includes ignoring the king of Orzammar. And returning fan favorites, like Shale.
Its not a matter of "budding technology" or a new feature being tested out... its a strict impossibility. You can't offer choices that affect the world, and then expect to only create one world the next game. The only options are to not offer any real choices at all, or offering choices during one game and then setting a canon when the next game comes out. Maybe have a small handful of choices that you can color up the next game with, at best. But dispell the notion entirely that this was "your character's" world that you are continuing in. Its not. It CAN'T be. Maybe if this was an old IE type of game, where extra levels could be whipped up and entire dialogues and character appearances could be changed on the fly... AND if that game had as huge of a budget as the DA games had... but with the current resource-intensive development style the DA games have? Its not possible.
DA could be a series that respects and creates tons of different worlds based on your choices. Or it can be a cinematic, visually engaging story-telling medium. It can't be both. Not in a world of limited resources and time.
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