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[QueenofFereldan]

Meredith simply would not have allowed it. She is paranoid at this point.

And DAI will expand on what happened to Meredith with the Red Templars.

The problem with Orsino is that he was not a fleshed out character, which made fighting him on the mage side problematic. Have they fleshed out his character more, it would matter much less.

Well, we were killing her anyway, so did it matter? But I see your point. And I am glad we are getting an expansion in the Red Lyrium in the next game.

True...that is because we never heard about him much until the end of the second act. We heard about Meredith in the other acts.

[Hydwn]

Never said DAI would be awful, but I do think Bioware is being formulaic (of their own formula) and lazy. And there has been a history of it too. During the run up to DAO's release, it too looked formulaic. And when it was released, boy was it ever. They even manage to do a Dragn Age version of Kasumi's Stolen Memory. It was highly obvious they recycle their plots.

 

Will there be some deviations in the formula? Maybe, but from what was shown, and the plot premise, it looks to be formulaic.

 

Oh well, there is the exploration based next Mass Effect game and the new IP. Maybe Dragon Age plays it safe but the new IP will give them the freedom to get creative.

 

I was actually trying to figure out which mission you meant as Kasumi's Stolen Memory in DAO...?  The closest I can think is the vault mission in Crime Wave, which was very different in tone and structure.  

 

Vault missions are at least as old as the story of Ali Baba.  In western RPGs, Crime Wave feels like an hommage to the old Quest for Glory thief missions that only unlocked if you had thief skills.  Stolen Memory is more of an hommage to William Gibson cyberpunk, which is awesome.  So definitely formula, and BioWare went to that well twice.  Here's hoping they go back to it many, many times because those missions are fun.

 

As for formula and originality, I think it's a bit of a false dichotomy.  

 

The thinking of many linguists is that grammar is inborn, that the most basic structures of language are hardwired in the brain.  But within that structure, you can express any idea.  And many psychologists think that the archetypal plots are inborn, but you can express an infinite number ideas within that grammar of stories.

 

You can abandon linguistic grammar.  Some experimental writers do.  All it does, really, is muddle communication of ideas.

 

Similarly with story plots.  Forget archetypal plots, you can abandon plot altogether.  There are writers and readers out there that consider a lack of plot or form or structure of any kind truly original.  Such works are unreadable, but they do get written and read.  Sometimes even published.  

 

For the rest of us, though, originality is more about what you do within that grammar, not abandoning the grammar.  

 

Take the story-plot of the martyr-hero, who suffers and dies and for the good of the world.  It's one of the oldest plots.  In its oldest form, it was about the harvest-god dying the fertilize the fields, or the sun dying in winter to be reborn in spring.  It's been used for religious redemption of the soul, or knights dying to serve the idea of chivalry, or to support this or that political system.  It's one of the tropes most open to abuse - to terrible propaganda, or the Mary Sue-ism.  And it's also one of the tropes that best supports the sublime and the beautiful if done well.

 

All depending on the idea expressed, and the execution.

 

It can even be used to illustrate the complicated relationship between human beings and technology (must it be destroyed, can it be controlled, should we integrate with it?).  Or it can be used to shape a story in which the enemy is a quasi-ecological horror that lays waste to the lands around and leaves nothing (although in BioWare's version of that one, the price of death can be deferred, made a problem for a future generation).  New ideas draped on the skeleton of an old plot.

 

One neat thing is that BioWare knows this story intimately - knows its roots.  After all, those old harvest gods were supposed to be reborn from a goddess, and many people read echoes of that myth in the story of the bastard king Arthur lying with Morgan (Morrigan) LeFey.  And of course, Commander Shepard dies to end a harvest, not continue one - a reference to the original by negation.

 

I think Dragon Age Inquisition is in good hands.  They know their stuff

[txgoldrush]

I was actually trying to figure out which mission you meant as Kasumi's Stolen Memory in DAO...?  The closest I can think is the vault mission in Crime Wave, which was very different in tone and structure.  

 

Vault missions are at least as old as the story of Ali Baba.  In western RPGs, Crime Wave feels like an hommage to the old Quest for Glory thief missions that only unlocked if you had thief skills.  Stolen Memory is more of an hommage to William Gibson cyberpunk, which is awesome.  So definitely formula, and BioWare went to that well twice.  Here's hoping they go back to it many, many times because those missions are fun.

 

As for formula and originality, I think it's a bit of a false dichotomy.  

 

The thinking of many linguists is that grammar is inborn, that the most basic structures of language are hardwired in the brain.  But within that structure, you can express any idea.  And many psychologists think that the archetypal plots are inborn, but you can express an infinite number ideas within that grammar of stories.

 

You can abandon linguistic grammar.  Some experimental writers do.  All it does, really, is muddle communication of ideas.

 

Similarly with story plots.  Forget archetypal plots, you can abandon plot altogether.  There are writers and readers out there that consider a lack of plot or form or structure of any kind truly original.  Such works are unreadable, but they do get written and read.  Sometimes even published.  

 

For the rest of us, though, originality is more about what you do within that grammar, not abandoning the grammar.  

 

Take the story-plot of the martyr-hero, who suffers and dies and for the good of the world.  It's one of the oldest plots.  In its oldest form, it was about the harvest-god dying the fertilize the fields, or the sun dying in winter to be reborn in spring.  It's been used for religious redemption of the soul, or knights dying to serve the idea of chivalry, or to support this or that political system.  It's one of the tropes most open to abuse - to terrible propaganda, or the Mary Sue-ism.  And it's also one of the tropes that best supports the sublime and the beautiful if done well.

 

All depending on the idea expressed, and the execution.

 

It can even be used to illustrate the complicated relationship between human beings and technology (must it be destroyed, can it be controlled, should we integrate with it?).  Or it can be used to shape a story in which the enemy is a quasi-ecological horror that lays waste to the lands around and leaves nothing (although in BioWare's version of that one, the price of death can be deferred, made a problem for a future generation).  New ideas draped on the skeleton of an old plot.

 

One neat thing is that BioWare knows this story intimately - knows its roots.  After all, those old harvest gods were supposed to be reborn from a goddess, and many people read echoes of that myth in the story of the bastard king Arthur lying with Morgan (Morrigan) LeFey.  And of course, Commander Shepard dies to end a harvest, not continue one - a reference to the original by negation.

 

I think Dragon Age Inquisition is in good hands.  They know their stuff

"I was actually trying to figure out which mission you meant as Kasumi's Stolen Memory in DAO...?  The closest I can think is the vault mission in Crime Wave, which was very different in tone and structure.  "

 

I am thinking of DA2's DLC, Mark of the Assassin.

[Hydwn]

"I was actually trying to figure out which mission you meant as Kasumi's Stolen Memory in DAO...?  The closest I can think is the vault mission in Crime Wave, which was very different in tone and structure.  "

 

I am thinking of DA2's DLC, Mark of the Assassin.

 

Ah okay.  I thought you were still talking about Origins there.

 

So they went to that well three times, and it was awesome.  But again, a very different beast.  Like most of DA2, it's a deconstruction.  Tallis is fighting for ideals and ideas, but invites the player on the false pretenses of a power-gaming fantasy.  She deals in metaphors.  The jewel is information, the heart is a concept.  By the time the player gets to the actual vault, the puzzle games and treasure seem very much beside the point.  The real action is mostly in the talking (and the occasional wyvern-killing).  

 

In a way, it almost seems like a comment on what players were expecting with DA2, and what they got.  It could be a comment on BioWare games in general - including ME3, whose ending was all talk and no monsters except the metaphoric ones.

 

I don't quite think of Kasumi's quest in the same fashion.  It's the party I remember in Mark of the Assassin, and the estate which is almost a character in itself, and the duke and the tal-vashoth betrayer.  I remember Orlais, also a character in itself, finally moving from the wings onto the centre stage.  With Stolen Memory, I couldn't tell you a single thing said at the party Shepard's infiltrating, or remember much about building itself.  I remember the battle in the vault, and the stolen artworks, and Kasumi's memories of her lost partner.  So, same trope but a very different style and themes.