76 réponses à ce sujet

[mikeymoonshine]

The 0:52 snippet of the E3 trailer people are referring to is, I suspect, simply the courtyard of Halamshiral palace. It might be a rather small and formal looking town square, but given the 'formal' look of the surrounding architecture it's probably the palace.

 

Nice palace, by the way. One of the few examples I've seen from DA:I that looks somewhat non-standard fantasy and is pretty too.

 

 

This is probably just a passage leading to the courtyard at 0:52 in the E3 trailer. A formal entrance, so to speak. 

 

 

I do think that both pics are of Halamshiral but I think it could be the city and not just the palace. in the video there seem to be other buildings behind the square we are seeing and there seem to be various different entrances to (shops?) different buildings in the square. They could all just be components of the palace I guess but it would have to be a very large palace. 

[Das Tentakel]

I do think that both pics are of Halamshiral but I think it could be the city and not just the palace. in the video there seem to be other buildings behind the square we are seeing and there seem to be various different entrances to (shops?) different buildings in the square. They could all just be components of the palace I guess but it would have to be a very large palace.

 
Those 'buildings' you see appear to be the uppermost parts of a single building facade surrounding the courtyard. There are probably going to be some traders and artisans in the palace, assuming it's going to be a quest hub. 
 
As for the palace being very large, well, palaces can be pretty big places... Within the game, however, it's quite possible that the 'interior' will not entirely match the 'exterior', meaning it's going to be smaller and maybe not even be a good match for its layout. That's actually quite common for videogames, alas, particularly 3D games. Either the exterior is too small, or the interior is too small, or the layout doesn't match etc.
 
Anyway, that row of statues is also pretty much a giveaway. You see those in the facade of Renaissance palaces and large 'palatial' public buildings like townhalls.
 

 

Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark (Dutch renaissance style, 17th century)

 

It's not impossible it's a city after all, but I'm willing to bet good money this IS just Halamshiral Palace. There might be a city in the game, maybe even more than one, but if so, I don't think we've seen it so far.

[JeffZero]

I agree with you, Das. I suppose that isn't surprising given my lengthy history of suspecting zilch in the way of traditional city exploration in this game.

Honestly, my number one source right now is the silence. It's deafening. Not a single answer has ever been received on the matter from any developers and this does not strike me as a remotely top-secret feature. We've gotten heaps of info on so much else by now, after all.

[DavoRaydn]

I'm not expecting to find a major bustling city in the game unfortunately. Maybe we will visit a part of a city, but i doubt Val Royeaux will be a fully exlorable huge city, but I hope I am wrong.

 

I would love to see npc's moving around going about their business, but reading the comment in that witcher preview, it seems that is not the case, at least not in every location

[AkiKishi]

When you think about it, we have not really seen much of anything. A trailer is just that, the only gameplay has been from the same place with different characters. The games not even running on final hardware, which I never though much of until watching some catch up E3 this afternoon where everything with a similiar release date is and also seems to be far more complete.

[mikeymoonshine]

 
Those 'buildings' you see appear to be the uppermost parts of a single building facade surrounding the courtyard. There are probably going to be some traders and artisans in the palace, assuming it's going to be a quest hub. 
 
As for the palace being very large, well, palaces can be pretty big places... Within the game, however, it's quite possible that the 'interior' will not entirely match the 'exterior', meaning it's going to be smaller and maybe not even be a good match for its layout. That's actually quite common for videogames, alas, particularly 3D games. Either the exterior is too small, or the interior is too small, or the layout doesn't match etc.
 
Anyway, that row of statues is also pretty much a giveaway. You see those in the facade of Renaissance palaces and large 'palatial' public buildings like townhalls.
 

 

Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark (Dutch renaissance style, 17th century)

 

It's not impossible it's a city after all, but I'm willing to bet good money this IS just Halamshiral Palace. There might be a city in the game, maybe even more than one, but if so, I don't think we've seen it so far.

 

Idk though, maybe those gates in the pic are the entrance to the palace?

 

I know palaces can be large and that they could just be components of the palace. Oh and yes I know the interior may not match the exterior. 

 

Those buildings could just be a backdrop that you can't even explore. I just don't think it's impossible that this is part of a city. 

[Das Tentakel]

I'm not expecting to find a major bustling city in the game unfortunately. Maybe we will visit a part of a city, but i doubt Val Royeaux will be a fully exlorable huge city, but I hope I am wrong.

 

I would love to see npc's moving around going about their business, but reading the comment in that witcher preview, it seems that is not the case, at least not in every location

 

I assume you're referring to the RPS article, which commented on the static 'look' of Redcliffe? I thought it looked rather busy, in the sense that a lot of people were (standing) around for a modest village (don't they have work to do?), but maybe it was filled with refugees or something?

[TCBC_Freak]

I agree with you, Das. I suppose that isn't surprising given my lengthy history of suspecting zilch in the way of traditional city exploration in this game.

Honestly, my number one source right now is the silence. It's deafening. Not a single answer has ever been received on the matter from any developers and this does not strike me as a remotely top-secret feature. We've gotten heaps of info on so much else by now, after all.

 

I assume you mean in the previous games? Because we have no idea what is in this game.

 

And remember as Donald Rumsfeld said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," from what they have said, and shown, you could fit a city the size of Kirkwall (that means almost the whole land area in DA2 without load screens), and still have room for more. All Kirkwall was was one large city, made of four areas with load screens each the size of Lotharing from DA:O, so yeah they could have a massive city because they've already shown that each map is larger than the whole land mass of DA:O.

 

I assume you're referring to the RPS article, which commented on the static 'look' of Redcliffe? I thought it looked rather busy, in the sense that a lot of people were (standing) around for a modest village (don't they have work to do?), but maybe it was filled with refugees or something?

 

The problem I have with people saying that that one village in the Red Cliff area being, "static," is just that all we see is about one second of the village while the Inquisitor is running trough it. He/she doesn't stop, just bee lines right out of there, we spend a whole of a few seconds and people are crying, "They never moved!!" I mean honestly how much do you, a real person move around in the span of a few seconds. It actually kind of freaks me out in a game if the villager NPC's never stop moving, maybe there is dynamic NPC behavior and the Inquisitor is passing trough the village at lunch so everyone is just hanging out? Maybe they stopped what they were doing because the Inquisitor was passing trough and that is a big deal, wouldn't you take a break from work if the presendent was coming to your town and was going to be walking down the main street?

[Lord_Darkmoon]

I'd love to be able to enter every single building like in the Gothic/Risen series or like in the old Ultimas.

[Das Tentakel]

I assume you mean in the previous games? Because we have no idea what is in this game.
 
And remember as Donald Rumsfeld said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,"

Wise words, and...WAIT! Donald Rumsfeld?

Okaaaaaaaay...

 

Seriously, matters of faith aside, this is a thread based on what we have seen or haven't seen. I agree that as long as the game isn't out, there is plenty of room for 'surprises', both pleasant and unpleasant ones. But that is pure speculation without a shred of evidence so far.

 

What we have seen so far is NO solid evidence for cities, and the settlement(s) we have seen look pretty static. Just for the sake of PR, BioWare can easily correct this if they have cities or if they have lively settlements. Keeping silent on the matter is no biggie and not necessarily evidence of their absence in itself, but if they exist, showing some footage might be considered good PR. Particularly since a lot of people (outside the mainstream press) are having trust issues.
 

[Gnoster]

Totally unrelated to the thread I know, but didn't Rumsfeld use that quote as an argument that Iraq could have WMDs even though months search had shown no result? I would probably choose to use another argument ;-)

[Maclimes]

A city seems unlikely.

 

My prime reasoning: They've released dozens of different named locations on Facebook, with a wide variety of terrains and stories. I expect that if a city was in the game, we would have seen it during the Great Location Drop of May 2014.

[dutch_gamer]

The problem I have with people saying that that one village in the Red Cliff area being, "static," is just that all we see is about one second of the village while the Inquisitor is running trough it. He/she doesn't stop, just bee lines right out of there, we spend a whole of a few seconds and people are crying, "They never moved!!" I mean honestly how much do you, a real person move around in the span of a few seconds. It actually kind of freaks me out in a game if the villager NPC's never stop moving, maybe there is dynamic NPC behavior and the Inquisitor is passing trough the village at lunch so everyone is just hanging out? Maybe they stopped what they were doing because the Inquisitor was passing trough and that is a big deal, wouldn't you take a break from work if the presendent was coming to your town and was going to be walking down the main street?

They do have a point though and it is not just the footage of Redcliff Village but also a comment on this forum before E3 from Bioware on how they don't do cities like Ubisoft does with the AC series. It is a choice between fleshed out companions and making NPCs seem more alive. Also the Redcliff Village footage showed the same static NPC behavior as previous DA games or Bioware games in general. If the NPCs were there to greet the Inquisitor I don't see why they would all be in their little group of 2 or 3, just as in previous games. It is just is what it is. I find it somewhat unfortunate Bioware doesn't have the resources to go the extra mile but I can live with it. Heck, I prefer what Bioware does over the story cop-out in the Batman game series, where they simply remove all civilians because of a snow storm and with the latest game the city has evacuated millions so once again your playground is only filled with criminals and cops.

[AkiKishi]

You can't have Batman mowing down people in the Batmobile ,it's just not Batman.

[zestalyn]

I'll be bummed if there isn't an explorable major city. The cities are my favorite parts of these kind of  games, next to the wilderness. You've got to have both extremes, the civilized and uncivilized. 

Esp since part of the plot is centered on Orlais. I want to see all of that Orlesian wealth and luxury. 

[Das Tentakel]

I'll be bummed if there isn't an explorable major city. The cities are my favorite parts of these kind of  games, next to the wilderness. You've got to have both extremes, the civilized and uncivilized. 

Esp since part of the plot is centered on Orlais. I want to see all of that Orlesian wealth and luxury. 

 

If you want to see Orlesian wealth and luxury, go play AC Unity. Virtually visit the original so to speak  .

From what I've seen in the trailer, AC's palace interiors look marginally ( ) more opulent than what we've seen in the DA:I screenshots and vids. It will even release in the same month as DA:I.

 

Having said that, Halamshiral looks to be fairly opulent by Thedosian standards.

[ShawDawg94]

You can't have Batman mowing down people in the Batmobile ,it's just not Batman.

 

Where the hell did that come from?

[Nonoru]

i can't imagine RPG or JRPG or MMORPG without cities

 

FFXIII? Granted, this game was a joke. 

[TCBC_Freak]

Totally unrelated to the thread I know, but didn't Rumsfeld use that quote as an argument that Iraq could have WMDs even though months search had shown no result? I would probably choose to use another argument ;-)

 

Carl Sagan said it before him, and even he wasn't the first person to use that type of premise.

 

Wise words, and...WAIT! Donald Rumsfeld?

Okaaaaaaaay...
 

 

It was partially a joke, Carl Sagan said it first in those words about something to do with astrophysics, I was just trying to be funny while still proving my point.

[polemists02]

Baldurs gate and Amn in many ways defined early bioware and Black Isle. I know those days are gone and those cities weren't perfect but it proved a city can be just as massive and exploratory as a forest.

[myahele]

The only major city I can think about will be Val Royauex . We certainly won't be going to Denerim and Halamshiral seems to be about the size of Redclife

[KC_Prototype]

Well until Bioware says other wise, Val Royeaux is a yes in my mind! Remember, Sera's interview said we find her in the streets of Orlais. Where else could that be if not a city?

[efrgfhnm_]

Considering we are definitely meeting figures like Anora and Alistair, and almost certainly Celene considering Masked Empire, it would seem like something of a cop-out if we didn't get to meet them in the cities they rule. I don't think there's ever been a BioWare game without at least one city area, it would seem odd to start now...

[twincast]

A.) Remember, they still have to accommodate last gen consoles, and tuning down the graphics can only do so much.

B.) Didn't they actually rule out open cities the size of Denerim and above ages ago?

C.) The story structure's supposed to be "explore the world until you've accumulated enough power, then you can start the next main story sequence any time you wish, rinse, repeat" this time, right?

 

I've been thinking for some months now that we'll get glimpses of big cities (which can't be freely (re)visited) in main story events with little to no exploration. I'd be really surprised if we were able to freely run around the streets of Halamshiral, let alone Val Royeaux.

[Nyeredzi]

A.) Remember, they still have to accommodate last gen consoles, and tuning down the graphics can only do so much.

B.) Didn't they actually rule out open cities the size of Denerim and above ages ago?

C.) The story structure's supposed to be "explore the world until you've accumulated enough power, then you can start the next main story sequence any time you wish, rinse, repeat" this time, right?

 

I've been thinking for some months now that we'll get glimpses of big cities (which can't be freely (re)visited) in main story events with little to no exploration. I'd be really surprised if we were able to freely run around the streets of Halamshiral, let alone Val Royeaux.