203 réponses à ce sujet

[txgoldrush]

Seriously. If it wasn't for the good character writing and the excellent treatment of religion and religious characters, this easily would be the worst Bioware narrative. And here I thought DAO was boring and clichéd.

 

This game might as well be Mass Effect 3 in Thedas, but without the curveballs and risks that ME3 took. So much Bioware formula, so much recycling of plotlines and ideas. Oh no, more hijinks and sneaking at a party, for the FOURTH TIME. We are gonna gather allies to meet the threat, we must stand united. Wow, so original. Oh, my character is special because of fate, and lets use a lazy amnesia device to make it happen. Its like every plot moment, I feel like I have done this before in another Bioware game. Truthfully, the ONLY time when the main plot is even interesting is two exclusive choose one or the other missions. Hell, the ending is easily one of the laziest I have ever seen. Say what you want about ME3's ending (and if you thought about it, ME3's ending does indeed fit the series and the universe), but DAI's is uninspired and weak, and copy paste of DAO.

 

And then there is Corypheus, a badly underwritten, boring and clichéd villain who wants to destroy and remake the world and become a god because of "reasons". Nevermind failing to really utilize this backstory. Say what you will, I found Extended Cut Catalyst to be a much more fleshed out villain in 3 minutes of screen time than Corphyeus in all of DAI. What happened to a villain like Jon Irenicus? And really, DAI didn't need a villain or threat like him because the land at war is a big threat enough. Why not have a political story?

 

It seems to me that have DA2's reception, Bioware became a bunch of cowards, and instead of trying to write and create risky and more original stories, instead base their stories off of fan surveys and forum posts, scared of the fan backlash if they don't produce story content that the fans want or the choices and outcomes that the fans want. Bioware basically became a company all about fan service instead of pushing their stories as far as they can and trust that the fanbase will go along with it, however, having a fan base smart enough, which Bioware doesn't have, to go along with it is also a problem. And really, pains me to say this, Bioware has run out of ideas when it comes to plot and story elements, because why do they recycle these elements over and over, every story?

 

Hopefully ME4 proves me wrong, and hopefully the DA team has a expansion like a Mask Of the Betrayer on their hands. If not, moving on out, its been fun Bioware.

[txgoldrush]

Game doesn't explain this clearly enough or emphasize enough for me to care. He is just another Big Bad who will do Bad things for typical RPG fare reasons.

[Sifr]

Corypheus wanted to become a God, something he'd already tried once before and failed to do so. An ego that'd seek to sunder reality to break into the Golden City isn't likely someone who's going to give up easily, even if the first time apparently left him as a malformed, blighted creature?

 

Not to mention that the guy's clearly suffering from a crisis of faith of his own, since he firmly believed in the Old Gods and believed them when they promised him that he'd be elevated to their rank by taking the throne in the Golden City. Yet not only did he fail and become a monster, he was then imprisoned and awoke a thousand years later to learn that all but two of those Old Gods have since been twisted into Archdemons and slain, making their "godhood" seem questionable?

 

Coupled with the Tevinter Imperium that spanned Thedas of his own time, having been taken down by a bunch of rebellious barbarian and elven slaves, to the point where it's now a shell of what it once was and can barely hold back the horde of Qunari to the north, it's not unreasonable to imagine that the elitist in him has had it's ego severely bruised?

 

So to sum all of the above up, is it any wonder that such a megalomanic with such a colossal ego is currently raging against the heavens and has nothing to lose by trying his insane plan again?

[Uhh.. Jonah]

I agree... although not so harshly.

I mean, it's the same trope Bioware usually uses, but it's not turned into something interesting. At first, I thought the plot started off superbly- there was the mystery, the intrigue, the "black city"... but then it just kind of falls flat. After the Warden mission the plot is minimalized to complete blandness.

Cory was such a wasted opportunity. A magister of old who had actually ENTERED the black city. One of the FIRST darkspawn like... wow. And yet we don't learn much about him. He's just blanketed under this whole "I'm big and bad and powerful and you will lose." Yeah, obviously we know we are going to win, you're really giving us nothing here.

And yeah, he was laughably weak. I expected a grand epic story, not some babysitter cleaning up after some child's mess.

[Mushashi7]

Every story has already been told.

There's noting new under the sun. Live with it.

I think the story is good. And there is a lot of posibilities in it for expansions and new games to follow.

[KaanGuner1]

The thing about Corypheus was... He was such an information bank. OK, we had Flemeth and we now have Fen'harel. Flemeth is probably gone, too, since she was our only hope of having a conversation. And let's be realistic, we are not going to have a chit-chat about old gods with Fen'Harel in DA:4. 

 

We could have learned his story, how they went in to Fade, looked for Golden City, how it turned to Black, what does he remember?

[TheJediSaint]

Originality is overrated, it's execution that matters, and Bioware has done pretty well with DAI in that regard.

[N7recruit]

Making Boring, formulaic & generic Hero fantasies that pander to the player's ego is what Bioware does best!

 

I agree though that the majority of DA:I's plot is boring, predictable chicle filled Trash. The only two exceptions IMO were "Here in lies the abyss" & "What pride has Wrought" Notice how both of these quests heavenly feature characters from the previous games & have disastrous implications for said characters 

 

The companion character writing is good as expected, but there isn't a compelling villain to be found in this game. Bioware played it WAY too safe with DA:I plot wise. "No interesting twists because that could ruin some special snowflakes hero fantasy, can't have that!" 

 

I'm being an ass but come on, they can do MILES BETTER than DA:I storytelling wise (I hope  ).  There are some interesting lore implications that came about but you need alot more than that for a compelling plot. 

 

You would have to wonder though do they get sick of essentially making the same game over & over & over again? Hero gathers team of misfits & saves the world? As a foundation this is fine but you would think they would play around with it a bit more than they do. Mix it up a bit. 

 

I honestly think that the reason they played it so safe was because they didn't want to ****** anyone off like DA2 (Game play & agency) or ME3 (Narrative & Player Choice). They want to gain their good rep back & to prevent potential **** storms like DA2 & ME3 from ever happening again. 

 

BTW txgoldruch, I wouldn't hold my breath for ME4. Expecting anything that isn't "Hero's fantasy 101", ESPECIALLY after ME3 is foolish. 

[Dune01]

[Nyctyris]

It's pretty clear what Corypheus wanted to do. People talk about it over and over and over again, I'm really not sure how you could have missed it. 

 

I enjoy the stories for how they are told, not for the plotlines themselves. Mass Effect was nothing new, it was still enjoyable. 

 

Generally speaking fantasy is our world with complexity removed; scifi is our world with complexity added. Scifi stories tend to have an easier time having depth, as a result. It's always going to be more difficult to write a fantasy story that compares favourably against the scifi alternatives. IMO this is why the best fantasy fiction focuses on the individual and not the epic. 

[pablosplinter]

Originality is overrated, it's execution that matters,

 

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more

 

 

and Bioware has done pretty well with DAI in that regard.

 

Pretty well would be pushing it. Ok for me.

[Kroitz]

Every story has already been told.

There's noting new under the sun. Live with it.

 

Next time on AMCs "the caged imagination".

[Dune01]

It's pretty clear what Corypheus wanted to do. People talk about it over and over and over again, I'm really not sure how you could have missed it. 

 

I enjoy the stories for how they are told, not for the plotlines themselves. Mass Effect was nothing new, it was still enjoyable. 

 

Generally speaking fantasy is our world with complexity removed; scifi is our world with complexity added. Scifi stories tend to have an easier time having depth, as a result. It's always going to be more difficult to write a fantasy story that compares favourably against the scifi alternatives. IMO this is why the best fantasy fiction focuses on the individual and not the epic. 

I absolutely agree with your constatation about fantasy v sci-fi. That's the reason why I prefer DA2 storyline far more than that of Origins. Mass Effect, while complex, doesn't explore enough. It gives us the general conflict, but doesn't fill in the gaps. A certain feeling of wanting more always haunts me after playing ME games.

However, I think that Inquisition has the most depth of the three DA games. It actually explored some higher concepts, like of religion, and social differences/classes. That's why I adore the game. And the ridiculously well written companions are always a plus.

[SpiritMuse]

lol, Mass Effect 3 was basically DAO in space - barely escape devastating invasion, go around gathering allies, then return for final push, profit.

I love this type of story. I have no complaints.

[Nyctyris]

Oddly, I probably prefered Dage2 storyline too for the same reason. 

 

All the things that pissed me off about Dage2 were mechanical (controls, reduced functionality, reused maps, the usual run of complaints) but the story worked a lot better. 

 

DAO was technically more epic but didn't have "more" impact because all the impact was on a personal level anyway. 

 

Saving the, erm, country of Fereldan, is just never going to compare to saving the galaxy (and then some!). 

[monicasubzero]

I finished the game few days ago after 140 hours and repeating the ending, because I wanted to understand it better. I would say that the second time the ending had more meaning. I would also say that I run during the game because I felt that I had to finish it. 

In my opinion, the game is good, but I was expecting something better. This is due to the fact that, according to me, the main plot is not very developed, and it disappears in the big open world idea. I liked the exploration, the fights (especially against the dragons), but there is no connection between the main plot and the areas around Thedas. I think that it would have been better if there were some missions that could affect the outcome of the main game, maybe helping a companion to get his/her loyalty in order to increase the chances for his/her survival (like for ME2 loyalty missions). In this way we could have had a real impact on who survives or not, or if we want to save the whole team. It looks that the regions are just a way to get more experience in order to prepare for the next main mission.

Moreover, there's no urge to face Corypheus. In ME2 there was the countdown after the Collectors kidnapped the crew (even if this meant that Legion didn't have a lot of time in my team). Ok, maybe if Bioware reused these ideas, somebody would have told them that they are not original. I'm not saying that they should have repeated the same ideas, but used them to make something new.

 

It's also true that Mass Effect is different and the story is more personal, because you're Commander Shepard for three games and you also die (that scene, my gosh, I still shiver), while Dragon Age is the story of Thedas, therefore the way of telling the story is just different, but I still don't feel very satisfied with DA:I.

[Lukas Trevelyan]

While you have a point... Your tone is horrendous and your attitude is disgusting. You blame them when you clearly know the kind of backlash that happened because of DA2, without any kind of respect or sensibility you continue to trash them and the story which you clearly didn't bother figuring out more about before making a thread attacking it. Then you attack them and call them cowards because they want to please the fans... What the freaking hell?Oh I'm sorry when you're an AAA title developer there's a lot of pressure to deliver a game that pleases, especially after receiving massive backlash. Then you go on and about how Bioware's fanbase isn't 'smart', I cannot even comment on how you thought it was okay to say that. 

TL;DR humble yourself. Learn some basic manners and respect, then learn about what you want to argue about, THEN post about it on the forums.

[AlexMBrennan]

Sorry no quote because ipad only pastes into the address bar, not the text field. Seriously, is being a braindead monkey a requirement for working for Apple?

lazy amnesia

Well, it would have been kinda hard to pull of that Herald of Andraste stuff if everyone had always known that

Spoiler

the inquisitor simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time

[Mims]

While I agree some parts of the main story is weak, you are forgetting that bioware's main stories have always been weak. With the exception of perhaps Jade Empire, all of them have been fairly standard. Look at Mass Effect 2. One of my favorite games of all time. There's barely any story going on there.

 

'Get the things, stop the guy'=90% of bioware games. And most video games in general. 

[Todrazok]

The thing about Corypheus was... He was such an information bank. OK, we had Flemeth and we now have Fen'harel. Flemeth is probably gone, too, since she was our only hope of having a conversation. And let's be realistic, we are not going to have a chit-chat about old gods with Fen'Harel in DA:4. 

 

We could have learned his story, how they went in to Fade, looked for Golden City, how it turned to Black, what does he remember?

Yeah this is really the only thing that bummed me out abit, the few tidbits we learn about him are from codex entries or war table missions. I understand that they need to keep information about the black city itself under wraps for later, but surely they could've told us more about his background. One of the codex entries in the fade tell us the magister taking on the title "Corypheus" seems to be the turning point for the character, and that previously he wasn't a cruel man.

 

I would've loved to see a cutscene of Corypheus' memories in the fade. It wouldn't need to give us any loreheavy information at all, but to simply give us a picture of what the twisted bastard looked like before he went to the black city.

[Kinsz]

OP you know what i find even more boring than DA I's story? your thread  considering there have been so many of them since the game was released.

[Fishy]

Flemeth was my chocie for the big villain.

[Esteed789]

So you don't like the DA games, think Bioware has become a bunch of cowards in regards to the series, and think the fans are dumb?  Honest question then, dude:  Why are you even here, then?