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[javeart]

I think you'll rather like TW2 in this respect .

I agree that a depiction of a 'wider' struggle for power would be interesting, and that's certainly absent from GoT (TW1 and 2 have it, though). Unlike in medieval Europe, Westeros' bourgeoisie and peasantry, for instance, are remarkably, erm, quiet.
Slavery in Essos, on the other hand, is a big issue. But to be honest I think Martin sort of stumbles when describing Essos, which is way too much the ‘exotic and bad, bad, bad non-quasi-Anglo-French abroad’ compared to Westeros. Not that Westeros lacks brutality and cruelty, but that’s in the context of a major crisis. On Essos, things are already pretty abysmal when things are normal.

Not sure I would describe the wider ‘struggle for power’ you mentioned as 'political' at the really small-scale end though, as this does not involve power in or over the 'polis', the polity. It can be epic in its own way, though, not in terms of scale but certainly when it comes to the intensity of the struggle or the emotions involved. European movies like Jean de Florette, Gosford Park or Karakter can be quite epic and dramatic in this sense.

Personally, I prefer a focused experience that is done well – even if it’s ‘just’ dynastic politics – than a lot of issues that are done badly.
 

 
There’s a serious risk of breadth, rather than depth. DA:O, in this respect, is a good example of that. There are a bunch of issues, but they are all treated fairly superficially, and when examined a little more closely, they can seriously break immersion because they just don’t add up. Or at least, not really well.
It wasn’t a big issue for me – heck, it was the first game in a new franchise, I felt that I could cut Bio some slack here, it's a broad introduction to a new setting – but things then got worse, not better in DA2.

Will DA:I improve on DA:O in this regard? I’ll have to wait and see.

 

Well, one could say that there's nothing more political than the definition of what can be rightfully considered political and a matter of public concern, though   But yes, I understand that it's not a political story in the same way other kind of stories are.

[Xandurpein]

I also would love, love love, far more introspection. I think it would provide much more opportunity for role-playing. Though it's probably a dicey area because they'd have to give a LOT more conversation options when you're discussing ideals, rather than action (which is what most of the choose-able dialog seems to be).

I think that trying to let the protagonist express introspectiveness is incredibly difficult to pull off, because it goes right to the core of the players own emotions. It's near impossible to account for how all players interpret a situation and there's nothing worse for the role-playing experience, than when you feel that the game railroads you into expressing things you don't feel. It's enough to look at the stupid little kid in Mass Effect 3, to see what I mean.

I prefer to think of a role-playing game as an incomplete product, that needs me to add my own thoughts to make it complete, than to see the game try to voice my emotions and fail.

[Das Tentakel]

Yes, Hawke's rise to power is disappointing, and I would hardly call it one. As Aveline states herself, he / she stumbled upon the title "Champion". Had it focused on gaining alliances, connections, economical gains, finances in general, and more. Quest that surrounded on mercenaries, smugglers, owning a mine, city guard had potential to give a very coherent structure both as a rise to power and political story, but never utilized it.

In this regard, I'd like to make the observation that Kirkwall was the background, but not in any real sense meaningful as the location of the events that transpired in DA2 and led to the Mage-Templar war. None of the conflicts - Templars versus Mages, Andrastianism versus Qun, Slaves versus Slavers / Slavemasters, Elves versus Humans - was unique or deeply bound to Kirkwall itself. All of the factions (Templars, Chantry, Mages, Qunari) were 'international' in nature or foreign in origin. The Viscount was a rather faceless, harassed bureaucrat. Meredith was a native, I think, but she might as well have come from Nevarra or Ferelden - she was a Templar first and foremost. The Qunari wouldn't have been there if not for the pursuit of a certain book; beyond that, they had no specific reason to be there, nor any intentions regarding the city.
 
Trust me that in a city-state, there would have been plenty of native factions and interests and traditions and sensibilities that a Hawke, certainly a Hawke who is the son of a member of one of Kirkwall's noble families, should have run into. Nothing of that really happened. There was no intricate local web of friendships, alliances, family relationships, social tensions, and political and economical rivalries. Just a couple of 'big established factions' that were basically 'passing through' and growling at each other.
 
To get an idea of what I mean, here is a model of the relationships between prominent families in a commercial city-state in Renaissance Italy, Florence in this case.
 

 
Add to this alliances, territorial disputes and economical relations with other city-states, relationships with the Emperor (fill in 'Orlais') and the Pope (fill in 'the White Divine'), sociopolitical tensions between the popolo grasso (read: nobles and very rich merchants and bankers) and the popolo minuto (read: commoners, including prosperous middling merchants and master artisans), financial ties with, say, the Crown of Aragon (fill in 'Nevarra') or the French Crown (again, 'Orlais'), and you get an idea of the kind of 'local' mess Hawke should have run into, beyond and above the 'big' factions and their conflicts and the Ferelden refugee problem.

 

In DA2, all of this - basically the entire 'local social and political context' - was cut out. Hawke's Kirkwall family consisted of a single drunk, bankrupt uncle, who was basically outside the social hierarchy and its networks. The Viscount was almost completely powerless, the nobility consisted of a few fops who apparently excelled at doing nothing, the common native population barely figured at all, and the few refugees complained a bit. So much for the 'purely' local social and political struggles. As for other states that should have taken an interest in Kirkwall - Orlais, Nevarra, the main Marcher city-states - they barely figured at all as well. They were referenced a couple of times, but it was almost as if they did not exist. Sebastian Vael was paid-for DLC, but for the rest Starkhaven was narratively basically 'isolated'.

 

I don't know about DA:I's prospects in this regard. The Big Bad sounds pretty bad, given all those rifts. Several of the opponents (Red Templars and Venatori) appear to be of the 'freakin' insane' red lyrium-slurping type. The Orlesian civil war may have potential, but I would not be surprised if it turns out to be just one of several conditions (with some fairly superficial politics) you have to fulfill in order to get to the final boss encounter. Other conflicts...hard to tell. Could be the same 'big conflicts' and associated 'big factions' we saw in the previous games or it could be mainly big bad demons, dragons and Flemeth.

 

Not that this would be bad per se, but from the perspective of fleshing out 'the political side' that would be somewhat disappointing.

[CronoDragoon]

To get an idea of what I mean, here is a model of the relationships between prominent families in a commercial city-state in Renaissance Italy, Florence in this case.

 

There's always the question of how enjoyable a game based on such a chart would actually be.

[Das Tentakel]

There's always the question of how enjoyable a game based on such a chart would actually be.

The point is not a game based on such a chart, the point is the setting and the story (KIrkwall in DA2) NOT having some of the elements that, socially and politically, you would expect from the location and the character's background. This chart was meant as an illustration of the kind of social / political network you should expect in such a place, not a design guide for a videogame.

Of course you would have to simplify, and pick, choose and if necessary embellish things. There has to be drama.
Nobody's asking to have all the families in the Kirkwall equivalent of the Venetian Libro d'Oro plotted into the game, including the senile, insane or horribly inbred, disfigured cousins hidden away in the cellar, chained to the wall.

 

Basically, think of a handful of linked families (the rest a background murmur), a background of occasional social unrest (commoners rioting and demanding 'debt relief now' or, alternatively, 'Qunari Go Home'), the presence and (nefarious?) influence of Nevarran, Tevinter and Orlesian ambassadors etc. mixed up and connected with some of the 'big issues' of the DA universe.

We got some big issues, but no real sense of place, because the place -as a social, political and cultural community unique to itself - did not exist. Unless one counts Kirkwall's depressing Stalinist Gothic architecture as giving it enough identity.

 

Anyway, this was specific to Kirkwall (or any other city-state or smaller-scale locality that gets lots of 'screentime' in a game).

DA:I has us area-hopping again, and that means there's a high likelihood that any 'political' issues are going to be 'grand' in nature, with local affairs remaining fairly superficial. Not necessarily worse - quantity and diversity of locations and situations can very well replace deep or intricate ones -  but not what some people might prefer.

[Chewin]

In this regard, I'd like to make the observation that Kirkwall was the background, but not in any real sense meaningful as the location of the events that transpired in DA2 and led to the Mage-Templar war.
*snip*

Accurately put, and I agree wholeheartedly. DA2 wa very simplified on that point and even then it wasn't coherent.

DAI has the potential to make something out of the build up it has had, but even then I'm being very optimistic. I'm not expecting much since I have little faith BW can deliver since they have been rather lacking on that regard from the beginning.

[javeart]

 

 

Well, I never actually thought about it, but it's true that the local side of Kirkwall politics is severely downplayed, almost reduced to a specific combination of supra-local political institutions and actors, and it would have been nice if it would have get some more presence. It could have been intentional, though, it's not like it's impossible to imagine a small state that's basically controlled by outside forces and where truly local politics are mostly irrelevant. But still, it would have been nice in my opinion too (even if I'm still very understanding about how resources and a fluid narrative could have been a limit in this kind of development too  )

[Das Tentakel]

Well, I never actually thought about it, but it's true that the local side of Kirkwall politics is severely downplayed, almost reduced to a specific combination of supra-local political institutions and actors, and it would have been nice if it would have get some more presence. It could have been intentional, though, it's not like it's impossible to imagine a small state that's basically controlled by outside forces and where truly local politics are mostly irrelevant. But still, it would have been nice in my opinion too (even if I'm still very understanding about how resources and a fluid narrative could have been a limit in this kind of development too  )

 

Heh, well, there's an old dictum: 'All politics is local' (also from my own background: 'All history is local').

Of course, these things become more important, or at least potentially more important, the longer the story takes and the more 'confined' the location.

Odyssey-like 'location hopping' doesn't need it as much and might not be very well suited for it, and it looks like that is what we're getting in DA:I.

Not that 'the local' should be absent - I think it's better if there is at least some distinctively local element to help 'anchor' the area in the larger narrative - but it doesn't have to be very wide or deep.

 

'Hi, I'm Lord X, your mother's cousin twice removed. Our families have been allies since Andraste liberated our fair city. Oh, by the way, meet my lovely daughter, the apple of my eye. Just flowering into womanhood and recently turned 16, which, I might add, is marriageable age in Kirkwall. Oh, she is bound to make somebody really happy, and not just with her looks...'

 

'Count Zoudenbalch? Bad news. Hangs around with the Nevarran ambassador way too much. Also sees too much of the Tevinter envoy's wife, and there are rumours about, erm, forbidden practices.  They - I wouldn't know who 'they' are of course - also say he had his elder brother declared insane, barred from inheriting their father's titles and estates and chained to the wall in the dungeons beneath the family mansion. It seems the brother was a bit of a screamer too, until he 'accidentally' bit off his own tongue. Does have a pair pretty daughters but watch out for those 'belle dames sans merci', as the late former Orlesian ambassador used to say. Not that I can personally confirm the stories about the latter gentleman's unfortunate demise during the prostitution tax riot of two years ago, of course...'

 

versus

 

'Hi, I'm Lord X. Sure you can dig in those old ruins for relics. But first, I have a problem with a neighbour you can solve...'

 

Both would work, in their fashion

[CronoDragoon]

The point is not a game based on such a chart, the point is the setting and the story (KIrkwall in DA2) NOT having some of the elements that, socially and politically, you would expect from the location and the character's background. This chart was meant as an illustration of the kind of social / political network you should expect in such a place, not a design guide for a videogame.

 

DA2 does a better job outlining the criminal network than the nobility in Kirkwall, which makes sense given Act 1. But by the time Hawke has coined her way back into nobility, the game has shifted to the two issues which, as you said, aren't really about Kirkwall at all: The Qunari and the Circle. When the Arishok damns Kirkwall's vices, you know he's really talking about "not-Qun people" and not just "Kirkwall." Likewise, the Kirkwall circle is a stand-in for the Circle at large. I think you're right that Kirkwall is merely a setting, and not an integral part of understanding the events that transpire. But that doesn't mean that the Qunari presence in Kirkwall isn't a part of local politics, and indeed it's possible that the Qunari served as a means of uniting otherwise disparate power players in Kirkwall. Meeting them may have amounted to a bunch of people unanimously agreeing that the Qunari are the big issue at the moment.

 

Could DA2 have more meaningfully integrated local politics into two stories about the larger factions of the world? I don't know. Maybe if given more time to bake Act 3 could have been an opportunity to focus on the local power players, since an important undercurrent of the Act is Hawke's newfound political power in Kirkwall, and how it compares with Meredith and her Templars. I think Act 2 functions well as-is; it has a laser focus on exploring the Qunari from multiple angles, from Saarebas to the Viscount's son and how Chantry attitudes can differ regarding the Qunari. Perhaps some sidequests could have been utilized to introduce you to one or two power players that would take on a more important role in Act 3, in particular as regards their worries about the Qunari presence serving as a reason to introduce the player to them.

 

I would also say that DA2 does a very good job at establishing one faction in Kirkwall that ends up playing an important role: the City Guard. Through Aveline we are privy to both internal politics within the guard itself to examining its role in Kirkwall. How does it function? What roles are assigned to it within Kirkwall? To what degree does it function independently and how is it restricted? And then of course there's the question of whether Aveline decides to join you at the end of Act 3 based on your actions.

[Das Tentakel]

I think Act 2 functions well as-is; it has a laser focus on exploring the Qunari from multiple angles, from Saarebas to the Viscount's son and how Chantry attitudes can differ regarding the Qunari. Perhaps some sidequests could have been utilized to introduce you to one or two power players that would take on a more important role in Act 3, in particular as regards their worries about the Qunari presence serving as a reason to introduce the player to them.
 
I would also say that DA2 does a very good job at establishing one faction in Kirkwall that ends up playing an important role: the City Guard. Through Aveline we are privy to both internal politics within the guard itself to examining its role in Kirkwall. How does it function? What roles are assigned to it within Kirkwall? To what degree does it function independently and how is it restricted? And then of course there's the question of whether Aveline decides to join you at the end of Act 3 based on your actions.

Act II is widely considered the 'best' part of DA2, and to some extent I can agree with that. However, the whole Qunari plot - which basically mainly served as a form of exposition, although it did lead to Hawke's promotion of Champion and formalised - by eliminating the rather ineffectual Viscount -  a power vacuum that effectively already existed - was in a sense 'superfluous'. Its relationship to 'the big issue' at the end of the game, the Templar-Mage war, is actually fairly tenuous, and in regards to Kirkwall 'they came, moped in their walled-off neighbourhood, then went berserk and then they buggered off'.
Not that it wasn't enjoyable, but it just wasn't necessary to have 'good times in Kirkwall'. They were there because Bio wanted to show some bare-chested dudes with tribal tattoos and honkin' big horns and enigmatic customs. To be specific, they wanted them there rather than in a place where it would have made more sense, as in a military expedition or major diplomatic mission in, say, Rivain. 
 
It's like a DM running a 'historical' pen & paper campaign in Calais under Henry VIII, and suddenly this Ottoman invasion force pops up looking for a valuable Quran. 'Because, hey, technically it's feasible, right? 'What do you mean, the Venetian, Spanish and French navies? Supplies? They don't need no additional stinkin' supplies on their journey!'
 

 
But they did make for some quasi-spectacular scenes in the early DA2 trailers in 2010, I have to admit   .
 
Mind you, I rather liked Act II, but like I said, it was somehow 'out of place', and did not go anywhere meaningful. 

 

The City Guard and Aveline...well, I rather liked Aveline, but the whole Guard setup felt sort of amateurish. And by that I mean the presentation, not the force itself; they felt like a police unit from a modern North American police series, rather than a standing quasi-medieval military force.

But Kirkwall was 'off' in this respect anyway, lacking a military system along the line of ancient and medieval city-states and just having a detachment of Templars (Fantasy Gestapo Paladins) and a smallish quasi-modern police force. Not what you would expect from a city-state in a politically fragmented and turbulent region and with ample experience of foreign conquest, but there you go   .
 

I'll disappointed if local politics are downplayed in DA:I. Orlais is supposed to be the heart of Thedosian intrigue. I want nobles clawing for power, secret alliances formed and broken, conniving diplomats and ambassadors, the remnants of the Chantry vying for influence, Qunari agents spreading dissent, and the elven proletariat organizing and rebelling.

I do think we'll get 'politics', both 'global' and 'local' in DA:I, and I consider it highly likely the Inquisitor will be able to 'act politically' within the game. The question is more: Will it be sufficiently 'deep' and 'believable'? The answer to that question will, I suspect, differ depending on the person.

[CronoDragoon]

To be specific, they wanted them there rather than in a place where it would have made more sense, as in a military expedition or major diplomatic mission in, say, Rivain.  

 

It's certainly a coincidence that where Isabela fled happens to be the same city where the mage rebellion begins, but that is the sort of coincidence I'm more than happy to accept in the flow of a story. The Arishok didn't just happen to stumble upon Kirkwall; they at least provided sufficient reason for him to be there.