Funny how Bethesda would just release their games with tons of bugs and other things missing or broken and leave it to the fan community to fix the rest through mods(especially with Morrowind and Oblivion). And here, BioWare who's delayed the game for a year+ and considered as much input as possible is getting torn apart like an antelope tossed into the lions den.
Couldn't disagree more. I'm having TONS of fun with the game especially because of the open areas and side missions that let me take a break from the main story. I explore, find loots and strenghten the Inquisition hiring more agents and raising the power of the organization. To be honest I was pretty much disappointed with ME3 style of game, all focused on the main story with ZERO side quest and exploration.
Really enjoying my experience.
This is a common problem with open world games, it's hard to balance the open world with engaging and gripping story line. If you let players to "forget" about the game main objective too often, you essentially create a MMORPG not RPG.
I agree that if you deviate from solely pursuing the main quest line, you get lost on the story / immersion element.
Corypheus & his actions feel as a threat only if you do the main quest missions, otherwise there are just mentions of him / his actions, but nothing that forces you to take action. More so, he and his allies do nothing reacting to what you are doing and where Inquisition is headed. You can simply ignore him (the main point of the game) like he doesn't exist, and nothing will happen in the world to reflect your actions.
I feel like the game is split into two parts, a campaign mode that is only tied to main quest chain, and an open-world sandbox with rest of content that is completely severed from the campaign. Despite Corypheus efforts to find and eliminate the PC at haven, he completely ignores you after that and the Inquisition as well. No matter what you do to disrupt his plan, there are no reactions no responses, nothing, he just continues to pull back getting beat up one chapter after another, everything is safe in the world and you delaying the main quest for as long as you want leads to same point as if you would pursue the main quest primarily.
Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun to do stuff in the sand-box, but the whole point of story is sort of lost after Haven. You aren't pressured into getting rid of the big evil menacing the world as we know it, we have time to save a ram, find a ring for a random woman, you can spend weeks exploring places that have no tie to the story or events (like forbidden oasis or hissing wastes), no matter what you do at winter palace, nothing will change in the world etc.
I like it for what it is, but it could have been much better IMHO.
Solnebula... "You like the sidequests because they help you take a break from the main story?"
Are we playing the same game? After Haven you can go forever without seeing the main storyline again. Please tell me you were joking and if you weren't that you are 12 years old or under the influence.
Solnebula... "You like the sidequests because they help you take a break from the main story?"
Are we playing the same game? After Haven you can go forever without seeing the main storyline again. Please tell me you were joking and if you weren't that you are 12 years old or under the influence.
Nope 27 years old. Not joking at all. I had enough of ME3 for a lifetime. That game was simply boring, dragging me from one main mission to the other without even letting me explore the damn galaxy. Thanks for the compliment though.
On the other hands...let me tell you a secret....you don't have to do the sidequests! Hope this helps 
Sol, I guess some are just wired differently. Not even the biggest fanboy on this site has accused the game of needing all these side quests as a break from the story. Just a guess, but English is not your first language? Where are you from?
Sol, I guess some are just wired differently. Not even the biggest fanboy on this site has accused the game of needing all these side quests as a break from the story. Just a guess, but English is not your first language? Where are you from?
Yep i'm not british nor american...your point?. I like MMORPG so that's why I'm perfectly fine with how the game is. I like to wander and explore the game. The main story while important is hardly the main issue for me.
Therein lies the problem. The game was marketed as an RPG and a continuance of the Dragon Age franchise but is more of a single player MMORPG.
The point was grammar and punctuation, just curious as to where you were from.
I hardly pay attention to my grammar and punctuation when I write in a gaming forum. It was good enough for you to understand my point.
The concept of RPG is quite nebulous, what makes an RPG? Choice? DAI has a lot of choices. Charcter customization? DAI has that too. Loot and Inventory? DAI covers that too.
I would go as far as saying that in my opinion DAI is a better RPG than DA:2, ME2, ME3 because it covers all the previous points in an excellent fashion.
I agree that if you deviate from solely pursuing the main quest line, you get lost on the story / immersion element.
Corypheus & his actions feel as a threat only if you do the main quest missions, otherwise there are just mentions of him / his actions, but nothing that forces you to take action. More so, he and his allies do nothing reacting to what you are doing and where Inquisition is headed. You can simply ignore him (the main point of the game) like he doesn't exist, and nothing will happen in the world to reflect your actions.
I feel like the game is split into two parts, a campaign mode that is only tied to main quest chain, and an open-world sandbox with rest of content that is completely severed from the campaign. Despite Corypheus efforts to find and eliminate the PC at haven, he completely ignores you after that and the Inquisition as well. No matter what you do to disrupt his plan, there are no reactions no responses, nothing, he just continues to pull back getting beat up one chapter after another, everything is safe in the world and you delaying the main quest for as long as you want leads to same point as if you would pursue the main quest primarily.
Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of fun to do stuff in the sand-box, but the whole point of story is sort of lost after Haven. You aren't pressured into getting rid of the big evil menacing the world as we know it, we have time to save a ram, find a ring for a random woman, you can spend weeks exploring places that have no tie to the story or events (like forbidden oasis or hissing wastes), no matter what you do at winter palace, nothing will change in the world etc.
I like it for what it is, but it could have been much better IMHO.
Guest_starlitegirl_*
Funny how Bethesda would just release their games with tons of bugs and other things missing or broken and leave it to the fan community to fix the rest through mods(especially with Morrowind and Oblivion). And here, BioWare who's delayed the game for a year+ and considered as much input as possible is getting torn apart like an antelope tossed into the lions den.
Apparently you aren't aware that Bethesda makes their games easy to mod. It took me all of an hour to make two awesome mods that are pretty well favored on steam because their tools are that accessible. The whole system makes it pretty easy to fix bugs so really, they can do whatever they want if you ask me because they didn't go out of their way saying 'it can't be modded' then release a crappy game. In my book, you are fine to release a buggy game if you have it set up so it's easy to access and fix by people who love doing that because simple fact is that modders love to do that stuff. It's like their own game. Also, most of the codes are out there to code your way through it. I know. I did it because it's fun. I could code past any crappy aspect I didn't like. Here? It was designed so you can't do that. So if you hit a bug, you are screwed until someone finds all the info that has not been made available.
Frankly, this game would be improved immensely if I could play it on my rig and code past the parts I hate. I could then just play the parts I like but of course it would be a shorter game which is part of the point isn't it? The 'content' is less content and more fetch quest. Put a shard on an impossible to reach rock and call it content. Do it 100 times and make it a whole quest. So. Much. Content. And they couldn't even manage to get it right because there are threads where people are missing some shards.
Here, there is no recourse. No way to fix the bugs in the game. Modders took practically a whole day or more to unpack the files because of how the system is. The not moddable part was BS. It's just a PITA to mod. More lies by BW. Ahhh. Never again.
Guest_starlitegirl_*
Speaking of resources... Isn't it hilarious, that the Herald of Andraste...the figurehead of the Inquisition, has to spend his time pulling weeds and gathering rocks? Don't we have a keep full of people looking for a way to earn their room and board? How much sense does it make that the person that is trying to save the world, who is sprinting over hill and dale, screeches to a halt to grab some elfroot or scoop up some iron?
Not saying I don't like crafting, but by the time the Inquisitor reaches Skyholde, he should be able to delegate some of that grunt work to someone doing less important things.
Well, you can send those people out and you know what? If you do that as a mission on the war table they come back with a total of 6 items. I found six of whatever just trotting about in the right area. Sometimes it's 2 and 3 of two different items but 6 is the cap. I tested it several times. Then I used to dupe trick so I never had to waste another minute picking things I might need. Elfroot, spindleweed and blood lotus can be bought but they are the only herbs that can be bought. However, they are the core base for main potions so I applaud BW in at least doing that much for us. (that was a mix of sarcasm and true appreciation that I didn't have to find elfroot for every damn regen potion I had).
However Bethesda has allowed its players to mod Skyrim, so the community actively participated in patching it. Bioware has blocked the community from modding DLI. So, they are stuck trying to patch it alone. Another point of contention, with many people.
EDIT: Got ninja'd on that reply. And for some reason, I cannot get the "Quote" function to work on my end.
In regards sending out people from the war table to pick up supplies...I did that, when every other mission from the table was completed. It did not seem right, sending out the ambassadors, spies and troops to such menial tasks, the same as it seemed trivial for the Head of the Inquisition to do. Besides, the amount of resources that the war table provided seemed amazingly small, compared to what my Inquisitor could harvest himself. Just saying, that type of stuff would be a good thing for all the refugees to help with. Not everyone can be a soldier, but anyone can pick weeds and pick up rocks, especially if they have an overseer pointing out the goodies.
Everyone has different play styles, if you like to do the main quest and not bother yourself with other quests, you can do that. However, the means in which to progress through the story requires you to go out and close fade rifts, set camps, fill requisitions to get power to do the storyline missions. Which can be at times be some annoying grinding, especially when you have to go to different areas that have Fade rifts because you have closed them all in the Hinterlands, so you have to sit through a load screen to get to the Emerald graves etc.
If you get distracted along the way and find yourself saving Crestwood or exploring an Ancient Elven Ruin(which is what I love doing), it's an enjoyable side benefit. 
If you like to do everything, maker help you, there is tons of things to do.
Although I do want to add that the story in Inquisition felt very fast, it was like this with DA2 where it was done in Acts. Some of the missions were long (Looking at you you Winter Palace) and some of them not very long at all. I guess it was a a bit inconsistent at times, I liked the characters. The Party Bug Banter bug really affected the game for me, I felt like I didn't know the characters as much as I should have in my first playthrough. I never got Iron Bulls "Personal" quest.
I was really into the Hype, I watched the trailers countless times. I don't feel disappointed with what I got in the the end at all. I know there is still value in the game, playing different races, different romances, different choices etc.
Ending felt a little rushed too, but I didn't mind because of the ending credits scene
Guest_starlitegirl_*
In regards sending out people from the war table to pick up supplies...I did that, when every other mission from the table was completed. It did not seem right, sending out the ambassadors, spies and troops to such menial tasks, the same as it seemed trivial for the Head of the Inquisition to do. Besides, the amount of resources that the war table provided seemed amazingly small, compared to what my Inquisitor could harvest himself. Just saying, that type of stuff would be a good thing for all the refugees to help with. Not everyone can be a soldier, but anyone can pick weeds and pick up rocks, especially if they have an overseer pointing out the goodies.
Dakota - that was sarcasm in my last post. Sending them out is a freaking joke. I was being totally sarcastic.
Guest_starlitegirl_*
Everyone has different play styles, if you like to do the main quest and not bother yourself with other quests, you can do that. However, the means in which to progress through the story requires you to go out and close fade rifts, set camps, fill requisitions to get power to do the storyline missions. Which can be at times be some annoying grinding, especially when you have to go to different areas that have Fade rifts because you have closed them all in the Hinterlands, so you have to sit through a load screen to get to the Emerald graves etc.
If you get distracted along the way and find yourself saving Crestwood or exploring an Ancient Elven Ruin(which is what I love doing), it's an enjoyable side benefit.
If you like to do everything, maker help you, there is tons of things to do.
Although I do want to add that the story in Inquisition felt very fast, it was like this with DA2 where it was done in Acts. Some of the missions were long (Looking at you you Winter Palace) and some of them not very long at all. I guess it was a a bit inconsistent at times, I liked the characters. The Party Bug Banter bug really affected the game for me, I felt like I didn't know the characters as much as I should have in my first playthrough. I never got Iron Bulls "Personal" quest.
I was really into the Hype, I watched the trailers countless times. I don't feel disappointed with what I got in the the end at all. I know there is still value in the game, playing different races, different romances, different choices etc.
Ending felt a little rushed too, but I didn't mind because of the ending credits scene
Iron bull's is triggered by you killing a dragon. Once you kill one and go talk to him he shares some god awful drink with you and then you get another scene were you have to beat him with a stick. Not long after that you get his quest.
Iron bull's is triggered by you killing a dragon. Once you kill one and go talk to him he shares some god awful drink with you and then you get another scene were you have to beat him with a stick. Not long after that you get his quest.
Yeah, I didn't kill my first dragon till after I beat my game I hit him with the stick, but that was pretty much it.
If you think re-play value was considered in this, why didn't they add anything else for like mage class. I mean the story is 99% the same no matter what class you play, that takes off lot of this "re-play value". I wanted to try mage after rogue just to find out what more there is in story for mage class and all I got was like few options in dialogue to say "hey I am a mage" and everyone replies like "what ever" and thats it, other than that it was just the same as playing any other class. Would been nice to have least something different in fade for playing mage.
I had a great laugh over this mage thing actually. Bio stated that they can´t implement blood magic because it would require so much story content. Now looking at the mage content compared to other classes all I can do is laugh.
I have to take a severely compartmentalist view on this game, and that in itself is disappointing. I love certain aspects of it, I think the main story and characters are very good, not great, lacking origins or something like it, with the very cut and dried finale. But the meat of the story and the romance are very engaging. I like having crafting and visualized companion gear, though I very much wish the crafting menus had ready comparisons with current gear. I like the codex a lot. It's mostly all very pretty.
Then there's the endless slog of shallow sidequests and their reliance on what boils down to an aRPG hack-n-slashy combat system. The combat itself I think was actually improved from DA2, but it was hamstrung by their removal of tactics, the aRPG animation/combat turn system, and the endless, relentless repetition. It's also got so much mindless physical repetition, just having to constantly hold a trigger. It all comes out rather forgettable, still. But make that the focus of so much daunting drudgery, and it almost killed the game for me.
I'm fairly completionist too, at least for a run through. I mean, I found all but 2 landmarks, killed six dragons, etc, but I never could find all the tiles to unlock any of their stories despite my best efforts. But sometime early in the Hinterlands, I started to realize there was very little of the zone content I was enjoying, aside from just the occasional break to enjoy the view. But it's DA and I enjoyed the main bits, and it seems like I always get level 25 or close to complete the game. So that's what I did, and I completed everything I could find to comeplete, and I put playing off mostly for a couple days to get my letter from the HoF, and it never got any better. So in the end I feel like I played two games, the main story and the quiet, rushed tour that took me over 200 hours. And I feel I enjoyed the first more than I expected to, and got very little from the second. So I'll replay, but skip as much of the sidequests as I can. I feel they detract significantly from my enjoyment of the parts of the game I really do want to play out. I feel it's a good game, but also a wealth of missed oppurtunity and too much bland stuffing.
Apparently you aren't aware that Bethesda makes their games easy to mod. It took me all of an hour to make two awesome mods that are pretty well favored on steam because their tools are that accessible. The whole system makes it pretty easy to fix bugs so really, they can do whatever they want if you ask me because they didn't go out of their way saying 'it can't be modded' then release a crappy game. In my book, you are fine to release a buggy game if you have it set up so it's easy to access and fix by people who love doing that because simple fact is that modders love to do that stuff. It's like their own game. Also, most of the codes are out there to code your way through it. I know. I did it because it's fun. I could code past any crappy aspect I didn't like. Here? It was designed so you can't do that. So if you hit a bug, you are screwed until someone finds all the info that has not been made available.
Frankly, this game would be improved immensely if I could play it on my rig and code past the parts I hate. I could then just play the parts I like but of course it would be a shorter game which is part of the point isn't it? The 'content' is less content and more fetch quest. Put a shard on an impossible to reach rock and call it content. Do it 100 times and make it a whole quest. So. Much. Content. And they couldn't even manage to get it right because there are threads where people are missing some shards.
Here, there is no recourse. No way to fix the bugs in the game. Modders took practically a whole day or more to unpack the files because of how the system is. The not moddable part was BS. It's just a PITA to mod. More lies by BW. Ahhh. Never again.
Believe I shall pass on that book; do not care for Revisionist History.
The Toolset for Skyrim was not released until later, so while Bethesda does support the modded game, it took a while to get there. Before the Toolset, modders worked with the engine that was available; same kind of thing that DAI presents now, as I understand. And as it was so eloquently mentioned, it may not be as difficult as some thought, so that is a good thing in my book, at least.
And as mentioned earlier, some modders consider themselves so much better than the companies that provide the actual games that complaint threads are commonly available at both venues. Such trivial posting does little to persuade me to empathize with the issues resulting from a tougher game to mod.
Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011 and at the time of release, Bethesda had already announced that while the Creation Kit was not yet available, it would be available early the following year. They did make good on that and the full CK, with every dirty little secret of the game's inner working available to modders as of Feb 7th, 2012. From the get go Bethesda was explicitly pro-modder. The command prompt within the game offered much in the way of being able to simply tweak the game on the fly. And while DAI does have some capacity to use a command prompt, it is unclear (and at this point seems unlikely) whether that can be used to alter anything other an certain visual effects.
And while Bioware has said several time they are not anti-modding, they have also said they are not going to expend any effort to cater to it, promote it, or make it easier. Bioware has taken the Switzerland approach to the modding community. So yes, there will probably be a few mods for DAI, but several modders have said that without something like a CK, the Frostbite engine is not particularly mod friendly.
Skyrim was released on November 11, 2011 and at the time of release, Bethesda had already announced that while the Creation Kit was not yet available, it would be available early the following year. They did make good on that and the full CK, with every dirty little secret of the game's inner working available to modders as of Feb 7th, 2012. From the get go Bethesda was explicitly pro-modder. The command prompt within the game offered much in the way of being able to simply tweak the game on the fly. And while DAI does have some capacity to use a command prompt, it is unclear (and at this point seems unlikely) whether that can be used to alter anything other an certain visual effects.
And while Bioware has said several time they are not anti-modding, they have also said they are not going to expend any effort to cater to it, promote it, or make it easier. Bioware has taken the Switzerland approach to the modding community. So yes, there will probably be a few mods for DAI, but several modders have said that without something like a CK, the Frostbite engine is not particularly mod friendly.
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