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[TevinterSupremacist]

Tevinter is always awake

[nightscrawl]

Wake up, Tevinter.

 

I just finished another playthrough of Trespasser. Now I'm hyped all over again.

 

I've been hyped about Tevinter for a couple of years now... I really want to see it in the game. I'm just concerned that it will be another Val Royeaux.

[Lady Artifice]

I've been hyped about Tevinter for a couple of years now... I really want to see it in the game. I'm just concerned that it will be another Val Royeaux.

 

That's my concern as well. 

 

I want to say that after the way they built up Tevinter's aesthetic with Dorian's dialogue, "You can walk down a street and see nothing built in the modern age," that they wouldn't neglect it's design.

 

But the problem is, they built up Val Royeaux in DAO as well with Leliana's description, and then when they do have the means to show it to us, it's completely lackluster.

 

I very much want Minrathous, when we see it, to be magnificent. I want elegant decay, something both mystical and austere. 

 

I hope. I hope. I hope. 

[nightscrawl]

^ We saw hints of greatness with the ruins in Western Approach and later on in Frostback Basin. The artbook, The Art of Dragon Age: Inquisition, has some great phrases like "dire opulence" that show they have a really specific aesthetic in mind for Tevinter. They do for all of the various areas. It only remains to be seen whether they will be able to execute it in the game world.

[Qun00]

We shouldn't feel concerned because of Val Royeaux. Inquisition's setting isn't centered around Orlais, and therefore portraying it accurately wasn't a priority.

That isn't the case with Tevinter, so we can expect more effort to be put into it.

[nightscrawl]

^ Not necessarily. We are just assuming that the game will be centered in Tevinter because of the final scene in Trespasser, but that might not be the case. OR even if it is, it doesn't mean we will be in Minrathous or some other significant city. For all we know, the game might start in Nevarra and have us work our way into Tevinter as the game progresses.

[Heimdall]

Minrathous turning out like Val Royaeux is a concern, but DAI being far too much wilderness was a common enough complaint that I'm confident the devs are aware that it isn't a minor complaint.

[SwobyJ]

DAI carried a big sense of wilderness that seemed very intentional. Also enough importance and hints about Val Royeaux that its the most likely of the 3 'capital' cities visited (Denerim, Kirkwall, VR) to visit again at some point. DAI was a shared Ferelden and Orlais experience, and it was more western Ferelden and southern Orlais, with VR more middle or northern Orlais.

 

While I'm not sure about Minrathous, I can see a DA4 being relatively friendly about stuff like: towns, cities, underground, (more than DAI, less than DAO/DA2) closed locations. Looking at the DLC even for after JoH, makes me wonder if they were already testing a bit of that shift of direction (I'd say both DLCs for DA2 had relatively open locations for DA2 normally, btw).

[raging_monkey]

I agree

[Sifr]

That's my concern as well. 

 

I want to say that after the way they built up Tevinter's aesthetic with Dorian's dialogue, "You can walk down a street and see nothing built in the modern age," that they wouldn't neglect it's design.

 

But the problem is, they built up Val Royeaux in DAO as well with Leliana's description, and then when they do have the means to show it to us, it's completely lackluster.

 

I very much want Minrathous, when we see it, to be magnificent. I want elegant decay, something both mystical and austere. 

 

I hope. I hope. I hope. 

 

Our exploration of Val Royeaux being so limited was a shame, especially how much it'd been talked up in previous games.

 

Not visiting the White Spire made sense since it'd been abandoned since the Mage Rebellion began, nor do we need to see the Royal Palace because Celene's been forced to re-establish herself from the Winter Palace due to the Civil War. But considering a large part of the game deals with Chantry politics and who will become the new Divine (something we can pick), it would have been nice to see the Grand Cathedral at the very least.

 

The bazaar not only felt smaller at times than the Denerim market and Kirkwall's Hightown and Lowtown areas, but it also lacked the same sort of "character" that those places had to them. Denerim looked and felt like it was a major city and trading hub, Kirkwall's Hightown wore a veneer of nobility to hide the vice and corruption, while Lowtown was rife with crime and poverty. The Val Royeaux bazaar has no real such character save for being filled with elitism and opulence, but that exact same thing can be said of pretty much all Orlais.

 

I think that to do Minrathous (or any Tevinter city) justice, it needs to come across as a sort of exaggerated fantasy Rome meets London, somewhere that looks like it has been lived in and built upon for millennia.

 

Dorian tells us that there are entire streets with a plethora of buildings and structures from various eras, so why not make it even more impressive by showing us buildings in different "styles", to show us how much (or littled) Tevinter architecture has evolved over the past thousand years?

[Mistic]

As most here, I'm also afraid about what a future game might show about Minrathous. Let's be honest, it wouldn't be the first time the hype about a location has led to a disappointment:

 

-DA:O: Everything was new for us players, so no complaints. Heck, even Awakening showed at least a fortress and a complete city... which is more than DA:I has done.

-DA2: Before this game, all we knew about the Free Marches was that it was composed by radically different city-states which banded together only for two things: to fight against a common enemy and to take part in the Grand Tourney. So, of course, in DA2... we are limited to just one city and we never see the tournament. Yay.

-DA:I: Val Royeaux, capital of the mightiest empire in Thedas, wich in codex entries, dialogue and books was said to have locations such as the Imperial Palace, the White Spire, the Grand Cathedral, the University, the Grande Royeaux Theater, the Chevalier Academy... and we only see the bazaar. Yay again.

[Sifr]

-DA:I: Val Royeaux, capital of the mightiest empire in Thedas, wich in codex entries, dialogue and books was said to have locations such as the Imperial Palace, the White Spire, the Grand Cathedral, the University, the Grande Royeaux Theater, the Chevalier Academy... and we only see the bazaar. Yay again.

 

The Exalted Council in Trespasser being held in the Grand Cathedral or Imperial Palace probably would have made more sense than the Winter Palace, especially since it's both the capital of Orlais and home of the Divine who organised it.

 

But I guess it did save the dev team having to come up with a completely new environment from scratch for the DLC that we'd not spend that much time in anyway and they had already established from Masked Empire that there was an Eluvian located there. And I suppose since it's between Val Royeaux and Skyhold, it's considered relatively "neutral" ground?

[Mistic]

But I guess it did save the dev team having to come up with a completely new environment from scratch for the DLC that we'd not spend that much time in anyway and they had already established from Masked Empire that there was an Eluvian located there. And I suppose since it's between Val Royeaux and Skyhold, it's considered relatively "neutral" ground?

 

Reusing the Winter Palace in the DLC made sense from a developing perspective; what doesn't make so much sense is not using the Imperial Palace in the first place in the main game. Of course, there's some kind of justification in The Masked Empire for that, but since that book ended and according to the known course of the war Celene could have gone back to Val Royeaux and take the Eluvian with her.

[Sifr]

So, is anyone hoping that we might end up seeing House Amladaris in DA4, since they're supposed to be one of the oldest and most powerful families in Tevinter? Was thinking it'd be a neat twist for the origin for the human protagonist to make them a member of the family, so we'd be playing a hero who is one of the descendants of Corypheus himself.

 

Would it be a nice little connection back to Inquisition or a bit too gimmicky? I mean, according to Dorian a lot of the old Tevinter families are probably related to the Seven Magisters, they just don't choose to advertise it anymore since the Imperium became Andrastian.

[nightscrawl]

So, is anyone hoping that we might end up seeing House Amladaris in DA4, since they're supposed to be one of the oldest and most powerful families in Tevinter? Was thinking it'd be a neat twist for the origin for the human protagonist to make them a member of the family, so we'd be playing a hero who is one of the descendants of Corypheus himself.

 

Would it be a nice little connection back to Inquisition or a bit too gimmicky? I mean, according to Dorian a lot of the old Tevinter families are probably related to the Seven Magisters, they just don't choose to advertise it anymore since the Imperium became Andrastian,

 

All right... I don't care how gimmicky this is, I LOVE IT!

 

[Mistic]

So, is anyone hoping that we might end up seeing House Amladaris in DA4, since they're supposed to be one of the oldest and most powerful families in Tevinter? Was thinking it'd be a neat twist for the origin for the human protagonist to make them a member of the family, so we'd be playing a hero who is one of the descendants of Corypheus himself.

 

Oh, my, that has lots of potential! The irony would be too great.

 

Also, it would fit a certain trend in Dragon Age. Remember Hawke being related to a Human Mage Warden or the Cadash family of the Dwarf Inquisitor.

[Gervaise]

Except that it would make a change for the human PC not to be a member of nobility.  Even Hawke turned out to be from a noble family and was accepted as an equal even by the snooty Orlesians, to the extent that they get invited to Duke Prosper's hunting party.  Back in DAO you were either a Cousland or an Amell, so again noble connections and then in DAI the Trevelyans are a noble family of good standing.

 

At the very least a non-mage human should be a true Soporati rather than a member of an Altus family, although I suppose it would make for interesting role playing to be a member of the elite who couldn't do magic.      If we are allowed to play different races again, then the simplest thing would be to have every race start as a slave, or possibly a Liberati, so everyone gets the same experience no matter what race they play.     Even mages can be slaves; look at Calpurnia.

[Heimdall]

Except that it would make a change for the human PC not to be a member of nobility. Even Hawke turned out to be from a noble family and was accepted as an equal even by the snooty Orlesians, to the extent that they get invited to Duke Prosper's hunting party. Back in DAO you were either a Cousland or an Amell, so again noble connections and then in DAI the Trevelyans are a noble family of good standing.

At the very least a non-mage human should be a true Soporati rather than a member of an Altus family, although I suppose it would make for interesting role playing to be a member of the elite who couldn't do magic. If we are allowed to play different races again, then the simplest thing would be to have every race start as a slave, or possibly a Liberati, so everyone gets the same experience no matter what race they play. Even mages can be slaves; look at Calpurnia.

Granted, we didn't know the Amells were nobles when we played DAO.

Having everyone start as a slave or Liberati would be the simplest, but it's far from my preference. I like variety. My hope is that we'll have multiple races with different origins. What I'm really hoping is to play a qunari slave Mage (Because realistically being an actual Qunari would be too radically different from other characters starting points to really work) but the reasons humans have been nobility so far is because they're the only ones who can be.

Having Mage humans and non-Mage humans have different origins could be a good compromise though.

[nightscrawl]

^ Honestly, the problem that I see with the Qunari origin is that it really requires the player to have more background on the belief system, unless that person is a Viddathari (a convert), and that is not likely for the qunari race (that is, the gray, horned types). You could certainly have a Viddathari human, elf, or dwarf who is struggling with the Qun and also learning about it, but that wouldn't be the case for the qunari race since they would have been bred and born into it.

 

I do not see this kind of background knowledge as analogous to a Dalish player having knowledge of the elven pantheon or the like. The Qun is an entire way of life and way of thinking, of being, and all that that entails. It's not the same as a standard belief system. I think this is the main obstacle that the writers will have to overcome if they are ever to allow the player to play as a true Qunari.

 

As I mentioned earlier, it's not guaranteed that we will start out in Tevinter itself, even if most of the game takes place in and around that country. So the races and origins could vary wildly based on this.

[Sifr]

Except that it would make a change for the human PC not to be a member of nobility.  Even Hawke turned out to be from a noble family and was accepted as an equal even by the snooty Orlesians, to the extent that they get invited to Duke Prosper's hunting party.  Back in DAO you were either a Cousland or an Amell, so again noble connections and then in DAI the Trevelyans are a noble family of good standing.

 

I think the implication with Hawke being invited to Chateau-Haine, despite being a penniless refugee in Act 1 is that that Prosper hadn't realised the Amell family had fallen on hard times and so sent the invitation assuming they were still among the elite. Even Leandra didn't know that they'd lost their fortune until she went back to Kirkwall and Gamlen seems the sort to have ignored any previous invitations if they were sent to him, so Prosper being unaware of them being poor might make sense.

 

Or it was just part of an extremely petty tactic of inviting noble families that have fallen hard times, so everyone can point and laugh at their misfortunes behind their back. We are talking about Orlesian nobles after all, it's not out of character for them.

[Mistic]

 If we are allowed to play different races again, then the simplest thing would be to have every race start as a slave, or possibly a Liberati, so everyone gets the same experience no matter what race they play.     Even mages can be slaves; look at Calpurnia.

 

As Heimdall, I admit I prefer more variety than another version of the Prisoner from The Elder Scrolls (looking at you, Inquisitor), but I realize such an origin would make things much easier for the developers, since Tevinter slavery knows practically no limits. Still, I'm a firm supporter of origins. I find hilarious and sad at the same time that Bioware is struggling to present a proper start to any given DA games (A proper origin story, but only humans in DA2? Races for everyone, but no origin story in DA:I?), when the best at it is still DA:O.

 

Of course, you are right that origins can be repetitive. Another human noble? Right, sure. What about other, crazier possibilities? People have already brought up the idea of the human warrior/rogue being the non-mage child of an Altus family (enjoy being the black sheep!), but there's a case to be made about elven mage Laetans (a slim chance, but elves can be nobility in Tevinter) or a Qunari Dwarf.

[nightscrawl]

Of course, you are right that origins can be repetitive. Another human noble? Right, sure. What about other, crazier possibilities? People have already brought up the idea of the human warrior/rogue being the non-mage child of an Altus family (enjoy being the black sheep!), but there's a case to be made about elven mage Laetans (a slim chance, but elves can be nobility in Tevinter) or a Qunari Dwarf.

I would like a non-exceptional origin, regardless of class or race, and in the case of Tevinter this would likely mean a slave or commoner for most of them. Elven mage laetan, or warrior/rogue (black sheep) altus? Bleh... I want a normal schmuck who stumbles onto something, perhaps a conversation between conspirators, and gets sucked into the story from there. No unique ability, no special status, just a person. From there, the player can choose to play the reluctant hero, or the enthusiastic one.

 

Continuing with slave angle, perhaps the PC is in a particular position in an altus house, and conspirators (either Solas's folks or the Inquisitor's folks) want to use them for something, knowingly or unknowingly. Then the PC finds out in some manner and is pulled into the story. I can see that working for almost everyone.

[The Baconer]

An Elven Laetan wouldn't be that special. It's not even nobility in the Tevinter sense. 

[raging_monkey]

I understood the laetans were nobles but like the "new money" elite relatively poor but nobles

[Mistic]

I would like a non-exceptional origin, regardless of class or race, and in the case of Tevinter this would likely mean a slave or commoner for most of them. Elven mage laetan, or warrior/rogue (black sheep) altus? Bleh... I want a normal schmuck who stumbles onto something, perhaps a conversation between conspirators, and gets sucked into the story from there. No unique ability, no special status, just a person. From there, the player can choose to play the reluctant hero, or the enthusiastic one.

 

Continuing with slave angle, perhaps the PC is in a particular position in an altus house, and conspirators (either Solas's folks or the Inquisitor's folks) want to use them for something, knowingly or unknowingly. Then the PC finds out in some manner and is pulled into the story. I can see that working for almost everyone.

 

So, basically, an Inquisitor 2.0 minus the glowing hand of doom. I can't say I'm very enthusiastic about that idea, since my main issue with them is not the Messiah archetype, but the fact that they are merely one step above blank-slates

 

But if we work with the slavery angle, slavery itself could be the Ostagar of DA4. You have several origins for the characters, but for some reason or another all of them end up in slavery. Cue a certain event (Solas? Qunari War? Slave rebellion?) and everything is the same from that moment onwards.

 

An Elven Laetan wouldn't be that special. It's not even nobility in the Tevinter sense. 

 

Not at all. Laetans enjoy the privileges of the free mage classes, which in effect gives them access to the Circles, the upper levels of the Chantry, the Magisterium and they can even become Archons, although the Altus are still above them.