1627 réponses à ce sujet

[Blue_Shayde]

Or they are planning a tonne of DLC to fill the voids...at $9.99 a pop.

 

I sometimes wonder if I have got a different copy of the game when I see all the glowing reviews- it isn't crap but it isn't outstanding by a long shot. GOTY is more a reflection on the quality of the other games released in 2014 than this game I think. As has been said before, the delay of The Witcher 3 probably worked in its favour.

 

Certainly no reviewers bothered to play as a male elf past the prologue!

I'm pretty sure all reviewers got a review copy, which is not the actual game but a slice of the game made and fine-tuned for reviewers to play as a demo, and I doubt any of them played a race other then human. The review copy itself probably didn't go past the Hinterlands either. I would be very interested to see their version, in fact.

 

*sigh* Honestly, I'm tired of griping. BW did what is has done...the DA team seems a shadow of what it once was and so does the DA series...and I never believed critics to begin with and will continue not to. Should have known with the direction they took DA in DA2, that we'd never get a proper sequel to the game.Time to turn my attention to games that deserve it...like Story of Seasons and Persona 5. I'll just beat DAI and then uninstall it and that will be that.

 

 

 

Edit: NEWS!!

 

Guys...though my faith in BW is all but gone, my faith in the modding community grows! Check this news out from Ehamloptiran and his plans for the modding tool!

 

Comes later, I am merging my code from the DAI Modding Tool into DAI Tools, and then I will add texture importing for all types. Here is what I plan to do this weekend, time permitting, to give you an idea of the current state of development from my perspective:

- Move import code over to DAI Tools
- Move patch creation code over to DAI Tools
- Move EBX import/export code over to DAI Tools
- Support all types of textures for import
- Preliminary support for mesh import (With major limitations)
- Be able to package patches with textures, EBX, Script, Mesh changes
- Resolve outstanding patch creation errors

Limited and, if it succeeds, will need plenty of testing with the modders at first, but it could very soon be possible. *continues to throw her silent support at them*

 

Really, these ladies and gents are the true heroes.

[tmp7704]

I disagree. Well, people like to write books.

That's unfortunately the same attitude you see from many project managers who'd rather ignore logic and past results in favour of belief they just know better and surely they're such unique snow flakes, for them it'll go different. And can't figure out why repeating these mistakes over and over keeps the games industry the same clownshoes business it's always been.

[Lord Surinen]

What I meant was, at least his body animations work (not to mention his proportions are very nice).  His gorgeous ancient armor is beside the point.

 

But as Cillian the (multiplayer) Arcane Warrior is an agent of the Inquisition, our inquisitor should be able to obtain the same armor as Cillian, though personally I would want it to be restricted to Arcane Warrior only.  It fits with the lore, as Cillian has spent many long years studying the ancient lore of the mage-warrior elves and has somehow pieced together his own set of ancient sentinel armor.  (And I'm sure there will be plenty of people up in arms about this opinion.)

 

Now, if Abelas comes back and joins the Inquistion in some DLC or something, well, I would fully support that he gives a set to the inquisitor.  (Though I'd rather my inquisitor take his off him.  *ahem*)

Isn't Abelas body looking good only because of his armour? Cillian somehow got ot a pretty similar set to Abelas's one. Arcane Warrior or not, it is a fabulous armour. They should have kept a spare set in the temple of Mythal.

 

That's unfortunately the same attitude you see from many project managers who'd rather ignore logic and past results in favour of belief they just know better and surely they're such unique snow flakes, for them it'll go different. And can't figure out why repeating these mistakes over and over keeps the games industry the same clownshoes business it's always been.

I agree that books such as this, really, really look fancy on the paper. I find it to be rather problematic in realisation, overintelectualism is a sickness rotting modern world. Logic and logical culture as much as it is beautiful, is very much difficult to translate in human relations, not to mention some impossibilities. Well, maybe in 100 years with drones it will be possible.

[Xhaiden]

I'm pretty sure all reviewers got a review copy, which is not the actual game but a slice of the game made and fine-tuned for reviewers to play as a demo, and I doubt any of them played a race other then human. The review copy itself probably didn't go past the Hinterlands either. I would be very interested to see their version, in fact.

 

Really, these ladies and gents are the true heroes.

 

Thats a demo, not a press copy. Press copies tend to be earlier builds and thus have a few more problems then the release candidate. Plus, god help the game if it was judged solely on the Hinterlands. Reputable gaming sites have been quite honest about the game's faults. I'd be a lot more wary of sites that had a review up on release day though. But I mean there's a difference between malfeance and incompetence in regards to game reviews.

 

I have a few press copies around honestly. Use to be kind of a fun perk of the industry getting them as complimentary gifts so to speak. But this was way back when in early 2000 when the industry was smaller and you could just chat up the president of a major studio via email.

 

That said, good news on the mesh import. If nothing else maybe we can get the default hair styles overwritten. I've seen some characters with custom complexition / eyebrows / tattoos so far to great effect.

 

 

 

I've got to agree with LunaFancy on this one. Xhaiden is a continued chronic downer and for the last 2 pages, he's continued to snipe and shoot down anything Lord Surinen says, seemingly just to get a rise out of him .  Maybe cut it back a little and try a bit of constructive brain storming or opinions, rather than repeated rebuttals of every tiny little thing each person says?

 

I have done nothing here except plead for reason and perspective on the reality of the situation, the industry and the process of game development. I am not the one that is quite literally rejecting reality in favour of their opinion while using exaggerated terms like "vile" or accusations of being an EA employee just because I am not as angry as he is. I suggest you actually read this entire thread if that is really the impression you hold of my place in it.

[Xhaiden]

Actually you do, pretty much most of the time. My knowledge is quite real, even though it is not based on practise.

 

Yes, there are many not working abilities and some of the specs are ridiculously unbalanced. Winter tree is useless past its initial talents. There is nothing that it offers that is worth and cannot be outshined by other trees.

 

Have I? I thought these were speculations. Every time you speak about understanding someone, you mean acceptance of your opinions as dogma. I understand enough to see this company for what it is; new MP armours during holiday season. 'Tantrum', 'anger', I'm sorry to tell you but I'm almost never angry so please, stop bringing it in so very much often because I start to feel like I'm a star in some girl's tumblr post.

 

Ah, but you are right, sales and reviews mean the world for the shareholders, guys who get bonuses and even company workers - overwhelming success. It does not speak about game itself and its content; it is subjective, every single person is a measure for game's success. Simcity was not such a modern, progressive creation of such a large magnitude. DA:I was 'destined' to be a winner, if you know what I mean.

 

 

This person is on his 'pilgrimage' to 'rationalism', that means 95% of BioWare/EA apologism and 5% of little, warm pointing mistakes, naturally sprinkled with 'it will take time, but they will fix it'. Xhaiden once upon a time found a thread where someone mentioned desire demons. Known for his 'rationalism', Xhaiden found an explanation why there are no female desire demons in the DA:I. It was not political correctness and wealthy tribute to modern and progressive people of modern and progressive media, it was actually lore based! So as you see, Ill will of some people knows no bounds. About rise out of me, t won't happen. I find it quite amusing though, such 'solidarity' with gaming industry is truly unique and special.

 

 

This armour is very much similar to the MP one Arcane Warrior uses. Unfortunately, it is obviously not available in SP. All that is fabulous is on the other side of 'fence'.

 

The winter tree is fine. Its a defensive / support tree and functions as such ( and it works quite nicely on Nightmare. ). You should actually try playing the game and using it instead of taking as gospel the opinions of your "colleagues". All I have done is explained the reaity of the situation and how development works. You have insisted, against all reason, that development should work the way you think it should. Instead of the way it actually works. You have directly stated you do not care about the reality of software development ( In the patch thread ), where you were catching flak for your behaviour there. If you are going to reject reality, don't be surprised when your opinion of reality gets challenged.

 

You continue to use loaded terms like "vile", "dogma", "pilgramige", etc over what is, again, a video game and on what is a forum for a video game. While accusing Bioware and EA of all manner of nefarious deeds. If that is not anger, then what is it? Fanaticism? Obession? Whatever it was, you turned the patch thread against you with it. Which doesn't help the cause here. It is not the behaviour of a reasonable customer. Let alone one who has a concern he wants a company to address.

 

That does not answer the question of what metric we should use to measure how good a game is if we cannot use sales or feedback. Word of mouth can kill a poor product faster than anything else. That hasn't happened here. Otherwise there would have been a decline in sales after the first week. Reputation can only carry a title so far and indeed is a double edged sword as reputation becomes an inbuilt barometer a company has to live up too. Dragon Age 2 for example did not live up to that reputation and the sales reflected that. DA:I blew DA2's sales figures out of the water after the first week or so.

 

As for Desire Demons, again, no. What I did there, like what I did here, was explained what happened. What I did was point out that Desire Demons were originally designed as beautiful but androgynous. But someone higher up ( likely an EA exec looking for sales ) nixed it in favour of the succubus ****** design just to get some ****** into the game. If you were truly opposed to EA's manipulative pandering for sales, you would agree. If you're just missing ******, well, sorry. 

 

I have also never disagreed with the lack of armour variety. Only that the mp development wasn't the cause of it. The major cause of it seems to simply be a lack of time. Something Bioware coped too. I also don't disagree that anything available to multiplayer should be available to single player in regards to armour. Currently, most of it actually is. As for Cillian's armour, yes, it should be available for elves in SP. Especially given there's in game lore regarding the Arcane Warrior as a lost art of the Dalish ( Which Cillian revived ). So finding the armour would fit in nicely with a side quest in the Exalted Plains. There's already a quest there that leads to the Keeper's multiplayer armour.

 

But the lack of armour variety is an issue originating from a different problem. Its not multiplayer, its Bioware's odd design direction of creating unique NPC armour/clothes appearence that only they an wear. Which began in Dragon Age 2 and is further complicated by the fact they seem to create companions as whole meshes making it difficult to reappropriate the armour for the PC. In DA2 this meant you had to use mods to outright swap the PC body with an NPC body in order to wear their unique armour. There's undoubtably a similar problem going on in DA:I.

 

Which, yes, sucks and which yes, I wish they would stop doing. In DA:I especially companion characters have their own unique appearences for every basic type of armour. Its cool in theory but in practice it means everyone only has 3 basic appearences when not wearing a faction/racial armour. It would have been much better for everyone to have 30 different armour appearences overall instead of 3 individual ones each. They really only should have had unique casual clothes when out of their armour ( Which they also do ).

 

I also agree the elf models have a variety of issues as evidenced by my posts in this thread. But after looking deeper into the issue and testing different races, it seems like everyone has at least some problems with the cinematic models. Probably because they all use one skeleton rigging and animation set across all races and genders. Which reveals that they just did not have enough time before EA's release date to finish things. The game was already delayed twice so they could work on the game more. But ultimately I'm guessing EA was not going to miss the Christmas season. So out the door it went for the Holidays regardless.

 

Which sucks, but welcome to the current state of the mainstream game industry. A state we reached largely due to major publishers like EA and Ubisoft making the decisions for the benefit of the company rather than the game. While gamers keep buying into it anyway.

 

So no, I do not disagree with you on any of this. What I disagreed with you on was:

 

A ) Your approach to getting the issue noticed as it soured community members against our problem

B ) Shooting the messenger ( Bioware ) when they're owned by EA; one of the more historically notorious publishing companies in the industry. 

 

To be bluntly honest if it was not for the total clusterfuck that was Simcity, DA:I might not have even gotten the delays to have more time to work on the game. Simcity actually made EA retract and be more careful with their usual....EAness.

 

I'm a long time fan of Bioware, but definately not of EA. I actually live near them and have heard little good about them around town over the years and I live near one of their better development centres. I also haven't heard much good about them from within the industry either over the years.

 

Heck, I outright loath Origin and the only reason I use it is because EA forces me too once every couple years if I want to play the newest Bioware game. -.-

[Lord Surinen]

The winter tree is fine. Its a defensive / support tree and functions as such ( and it works quite nicely on Nightmare. ). You should actually try playing the game and using it instead of taking as gospel the opinions of your "colleagues". All I have done is explained the reaity of the situation and how development works. You have insisted, against all reason, that development should work the way you think it should. Instead of the way it actually works. You have directly stated you do not care about the reality of software development ( In the patch thread ), where you were catching flak for your behaviour there. If you are going to reject reality, don't be surprised when your opinion of reality gets challenged.

 

You continue to use loaded terms like "vile", "dogma", "pilgramige", etc over what is, again, a video game and on what is a forum for a video game. While accusing Bioware and EA of all manner of nefarious deeds. If that is not anger, then what is it? Fanaticism? Obession? Whatever it was, you turned the patch thread against you with it. Which doesn't help the cause here. It is not the behaviour of a reasonable customer. Let alone one who has a concern he wants a company to address.

 

That does not answer the question of what metric we should use to measure how good a game is if we cannot use sales or feedback. Word of mouth can kill a poor product faster than anything else. That hasn't happened here. Otherwise there would have been a decline in sales after the first week. Reputation can only carry a title so far and indeed is a double edged sword as reputation becomes an inbuilt barometer a company has to live up too. Dragon Age 2 for example did not live up to that reputation and the sales reflected that. DA:I blew DA2's sales figures out of the water after the first week or so.

 

As for Desire Demons, again, no. What I did there, like what I did here, was explained what happened. What I did was point out that Desire Demons were originally designed as beautiful but androgynous. But someone higher up ( likely an EA exec looking for sales ) nixed it in favour of the succubus ****** design just to get some ****** into the game. If you were truly opposed to EA's manipulative pandering for sales, you would agree. If you're just missing ******, well, sorry. 

 

I have also never disagreed with the lack of armour variety. Only that the mp development wasn't the cause of it. The major cause of it seems to simply be a lack of time. Something Bioware coped too. I also don't disagree that anything available to multiplayer should be available to single player in regards to armour. Currently, most of it actually is. As for Cillian's armour, yes, it should be available for elves in SP. Especially given there's in game lore regarding the Arcane Warrior as a lost art of the Dalish ( Which Cillian revived ). So finding the armour would fit in nicely with a side quest in the Exalted Plains. There's already a quest there that leads to the Keeper's multiplayer armour.

 

But the lack of armour variety is an issue originating from a different problem. Its not multiplayer, its Bioware's odd design direction of creating unique NPC armour/clothes appearence that only they an wear. Which began in Dragon Age 2 and is further complicated by the fact they seem to create companions as whole meshes making it difficult to reappropriate the armour for the PC. In DA2 this meant you had to use mods to outright swap the PC body with an NPC body in order to wear their unique armour. There's undoubtably a similar problem going on in DA:I.

 

Which, yes, sucks and which yes, I wish they would stop doing. In DA:I especially companion characters have their own unique appearences for every basic type of armour. Its cool in theory but in practice it means everyone only has 3 basic appearences when not wearing a faction/racial armour. It would have been much better for everyone to have 30 different armour appearences overall instead of 3 individual ones each. They really only should have had unique casual clothes when out of their armour ( Which they also do ).

 

I also agree the elf models have a variety of issues as evidenced by my posts in this thread. But after looking deeper into the issue and testing different races, it seems like everyone has at least some problems with the cinematic models. Probably because they all use one skeleton rigging and animation set across all races and genders. Which reveals that they just did not have enough time before EA's release date to finish things. The game was already delayed twice so they could work on the game more. But ultimately I'm guessing EA was not going to miss the Christmas season. So out the door it went for the Holidays regardless.

 

Which sucks, but welcome to the current state of the mainstream game industry. A state we reached largely due to major publishers like EA and Ubisoft making the decisions for the benefit of the company rather than the game. While gamers keep buying into it anyway.

 

So no, I do not disagree with you on any of this. What I disagreed with you on was:

 

A) Your approach to getting the issue noticed as it soured community members against our problem

Shooting the messenger ( Bioware ) when they're owned by EA; one of the more historically notorious publishing companies in the industry. 

 

To be bluntly honest if it was not for the total clusterfuck that was Simcity, DA:I might not have even gotten the delays to have more time to work on the game. Simcity actually made EA retract and be more careful with their usual....EAness.

 

I'm a long time fan of Bioware, but definately not of EA. I actually live near them and have heard little good about them around town over the years and I live near one of their better development centres. I also haven't heard much good about them from within the industry either over the years.

 

Heck, I outright loath Origin and the only reason I use it is because EA forces me too once every couple years if I want to play the newest Bioware game. -.-

To make it short: people in the patch thread were not against me because of my past linking-this-thread history but because of my other comments on completely different topics. I have a different image of a reasonable customer, reality and rationality. This is true to a certain degree, as customer I should not even be interested how they develop it or who is behind what, I simply should receive 100% working product.

 

Winter tree is outshined by other options, you simply don't go deep into it, because there is no reason at all.

 

I'm not opposed to a healthy marketing for straight males who make up majority of monetary contributors, of course they could make incubi for females but it would most definately end with progressive, open minded and modern people screaming about social issues: women getting male seducers? It is so XVIIth century. They didn't really look much different on concept art, they were succubi from the beginning.

 

Well, DAII got a demo plus it was a game on a completely different level of cheap rehash. It is much easier to push 'Skyrim' like adverts with DA:I.

[LunaFancy]

I think we need to remember that the game had a 30% price drop three or four weeks after release, that's pretty indicative of needing to sell more copies I think.

[Lord Surinen]

I think we need to remember that the game had a 30% price drop three or four weeks after release, that's pretty indicative of needing to sell more copies I think.

DA:I? Really? Well, I have paid a full rip off price on Origin only to put it in the corner. If what you have said is about DA:I thenwell, it will be quite a reminder for me.

[LunaFancy]

Yeah the price dropped before Xmas, I think nit was only 3 weeks after launch. There were discussions on the pc thread.  I was gobsmacked sine games are usually full price for the better part of a year. It went back up after christmas though, since the sales figures no longer count I guess.

 

I felt twice shafted after that.

 

Links for proofies... The first $15 drop- TWO weeks after release

 

And a 30% drop.

 

I saw it on  Origin at the time and my head about exploded.

[Lord Surinen]

Yeah the price dropped before Xmas, I think nit was only 3 weeks after launch. There were discussions on the pc thread.  I was gobsmacked sine games are usually full price for the better part of a year. It went back up after christmas though, since the sales figures no longer count I guess.

 

I felt twice shafted after that.

 

Links for proofies... The first $15 drop- TWO weeks after release

 

And a 30% drop.

 

I saw it on  Origin at the time and my head about exploded.

Ow my! Now this is quite funny I must say. Maybe I should be angry in the end, but it made me laugh and it is not a stress reaction either. Splendid, really. I told myself "I will buy this amazing game before premiere, its worth its price". Looks as if its price is not worth its own price. Now it looks rather clear, Patch before Christmas, new MP armours, constant celebration of GOTY and prices drop. No wonder they don't provide us with new informations and updates. Most of the people who were to buy it, bought it already so now they can take their sweet time.They should have added a device that supports you while you bend over in front of the monitor, I would buy it most definately! After 2 months I won't get a refund most probably, even though I have not played it past initial few moments. Well, let the full price be a reminder for the future purchases. I will wear it like a badge.

 

Update.

 

It looks as if the price in Poland has remained the same. Wow, now I feel like power potentate. Deluxe edition of this game still costs 219zł(60.41USD) on Origin. Niceee, grooovyyyy.

[Xhaiden]

I think we need to remember that the game had a 30% price drop three or four weeks after release, that's pretty indicative of needing to sell more copies I think.

 

Its not terribly surprising to see a minor price cut for the holidays, especially given that holiday sales seem to have been EA's focus all along with the release timing.

 

That 30% cut though? That's digital only. So I'd say thats more indicative of the unrelenting power of Steam ( and the inherent assness of Origin ). Steam's major seasonal sales force all other digital storefronts to match them or lose sales. Origin already has issues competing with Steam and bad blood from EA being dickish pulling titles from Steam to put on Origin only.

 

Still, 30% for the Holiday rush is kind of a slap to the face to us preorders. ( Thanks EA. -.- )
 

[Xhaiden]

Winter tree is outshined by other options, you simply don't go deep into it, because there is no reason at all.

 

Blizzard is the reason ( especially with ice armour and mana regen passives ). You can certainly skip on Wall of Ice though. If I had to rank the schools of magic I wouldn't put frost at the bottom. Spirit perhaps. Honestly every magic tree has one spell that is underwhelming or too situational to different degrees. Its just a matter of where its positioned on the tree and if you can skip it. Spirit is the only one where I feel like I'm stuck taking certain things just to get to the good passives at the bottom. It also feels kinda mandatory to put at least a couple points in it for Guardian Spirit and the threat reduction. On Nightmare anyhow.

[Xhaiden]

On a side note, for whomever was looking for the Elite Mercenary Armour for their elf rogue. I just picked it up again on a different character. So it might actually be a guranteed loot in the Western Approach. Check in the Oasis Cave in the Western Approach. ( Location 08 on the map ). I've found it there in a chest twice now on two different characters.

[LunaFancy]

On a side note, for whomever was looking for the Elite Mercenary Armour for their elf rogue. I just picked it up again on a different character. So it might actually be a guranteed loot in the Western Approach. Check in the Oasis Cave in the Western Approach. ( Location 08 on the map ). I've found it there in a chest twice now on two different characters.

 

That was me! THANK YOU! I've been too disillusioned by how much better the Dalish looked in his armour at the Exalted Plains to play again, so YAY! I'll jet off and get that.

[Xhaiden]

Yep, just loaded an earlier save and went to check it. Got it again, so it must be placed loot not random.

[LunaFancy]

Well, I got it! But since it is ar 97 and my Dalish suit is ar 234...might not be wearing it after all! Feel a bit godlike roaming round killing crap as lvl 12 with 234 armour, not sure I care enough about the aesthetics to lose the feeling.

[Xhaiden]

Hah, well, can always poke around till you find the warrior armour I guess and use silverite to remove the class restriction. There are actually 6 Dalish armours or so in the game as Dalish armour, unlike Human armour, has unique male and female designs. So that's actually one point for Team Elf there over humans. The human designs are one design for both genders. Maybe thats why there's less variety on the surface.

 

 

Dalish Female Armours:

 

 

 

 

 

Dalish Keeper Male:

 

 

 

Dalish Scout Male:

 

 

 

Dalish Warrior Male:

 

 

 

Edit: What the heck, here are all the male ones too.

[Xhaiden]

More info digging:

 

Dalish Keeper Schematic drops from the high dragon in Emprise Du Lion.

Dalish Scout Schematc, as I mentioned before, is inexplicably sold by a dog in the Hissing Wastes.

Dalish Warrior Schematic seems to just be a random drop or possibly a merchant item if you have the Short List perk.

[LunaFancy]

Damn, that male warrior set is sweet. Definitely hunting that one out asap!

 

Just so happens the game solved the dilemma for me- CTD lol! Couldn't be arsed sitting through the ridiculous load time again this evening so I started up my new DAO game for a pleasant hour and a bit - still like it better I'm afraid, dodgy graphics and all.

 

 

ETA found info for the warrior armour in the weapons and armour thread Still Ruins Unadin Grotto. Sounds like a right ****** to get though...guess I'll be doing that next time.

[tmp7704]

I agree that books such as this, really, really look fancy on the paper. I find it to be rather problematic in realisation, overintelectualism is a sickness rotting modern world.

Except this is not "fancy on-paper over intellectualism". The irony here is the book was written by actual software engineer, based on his own experiences and observations what actually did and didn't work... while the "just throw more people at it" is that "intellectual" stance you see from people either with no experience or those who'd rather just ignore that their previous such attempts did not work, than change their views in face of the facts.

[Xhaiden]

ETA found info for the warrior armour in the weapons and armour thread Still Ruins Unadin Grotto. Sounds like a right ****** to get though...guess I'll be doing that next time.

 

Thats just a place to farm for it. You can actually farm schematics just by noting which chests drop them. The loot is only set when you get near the chest. So if you save a little ways away you can just save scrum till you get what you're looking for. Normally, I would say such a method is cheesy, but given how RNG based trying to get the schematics you actually want is I say go for it  There's too little armour variation in the game to begin with to be sitting in armour you don't like for 10 hours hoping the schematic for the one you do like drops.

[BaroqueOut]

Skimmed the thread and I'm late to the discussion about Cillian and Abelas' armor, so this may have already been said, but.

 

For what it's worth, you can't even hack their armor onto a male elf PC using CheatEngine or similar mods. I attempted to model-swap their armor for use on my male elf Inquisitor, and no dice, it just won't display on a player character at all.

 

It's odd that you can select Abelas' odd greenish skintone on a player character, but for whatever reason, his armor doesn't work on the PC's model. Ah well.

 

As for them selling cosmetic DLC, I should probably go ahead and warn you guys that there are definitely DLC files already present in the game files that have been there since launch. For example, there's items for armor tints you can use during crafting, basically dyes that will color your whole set of armor to a color scheme. They ALSO don't work if you hack them into your inventory at the moment, but I suspect they'll be unlocked with a DLC soon enough. Figured I'd let you know so you can get righteously mad about it now, haha, although they WERE preemptively planned fwiw.

[Xhaiden]

For what it's worth, you can't even hack their armor onto a male elf PC using CheatEngine or similar mods. I attempted to model-swap their armor for use on my male elf Inquisitor, and no dice, it just won't display on a player character at all.

 

It's odd that you can select Abelas' odd greenish skintone on a player character, but for whatever reason, his armor doesn't work on the PC's model. Ah well.

 

I imagine its because they're made as unique NPC meshes/textures like all the other companions and NPCs of note. Just like DA2 was. In which case you would have to swap the entire model with the PC body and hope you get the skin tone match right. But that could lead to also putting Abelas or Cillian's body on every other character in the game that uses the default PC body as well. >.>

[Blue_Shayde]

Man...the female dalish keeper set looks better then the male one. The male one dalish mage armor looks like something out of the 60s.

[Lord Surinen]

Blizzard is the reason ( especially with ice armour and mana regen passives ). You can certainly skip on Wall of Ice though. If I had to rank the schools of magic I wouldn't put frost at the bottom. Spirit perhaps. Honestly every magic tree has one spell that is underwhelming or too situational to different degrees. Its just a matter of where its positioned on the tree and if you can skip it. Spirit is the only one where I feel like I'm stuck taking certain things just to get to the good passives at the bottom. It also feels kinda mandatory to put at least a couple points in it for Guardian Spirit and the threat reduction. On Nightmare anyhow.

I will play with winter tree but it is because I adore frost effects. I don't get design choices very often. Why is fire considered more damaging than ice. i would rather get burnt than frostbitten, I would prefer a fire blast in my face than ice spike. Walking through fire wall would be much more pleasant than ramming ice wall. I guess I miss frost spells in form of damage.