535 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Okay so Skyrim is messed up. I assume by this you are trying to defend DAI where all the npcs are braindead. The point is that Skyrim has more of a "living world" than DAI. If you commit crimes in towns, you actually get a bounty, and can spend prison time if caught. I am not trying to defend Skyrim because I don't like it to begin with but if I wanted to play an open world game, Skyrim gets that better done than DAI.

You seem to be conflating an "open world" with a "living world". Are the two necessarily linked?

[SomeUsername]

You seem to be conflating an "open world" with a "living world". Are the two necessarily linked?

No that was a wording mistake because I had the two in mind.

[AlanC9]

Gotcha. I guess the question is whether one thinks a living world is worth doing. Skyrim tries and DAI doesn't, so of course Skyrim does better at it than DAI does.

[Kurt M.]

The only thing that disappointed me (other than the primitive and clunky PC controls) was the length of the story. As I was playing I always had a thought in the back of my head telling me that the story will be over soon and to go and waste time at the Storm Coast or Emprise Du Lion doing pointless side quests.

 

Pointless sidequests for you. I'm enjoying doing them, and feeling I'm getting stronger and with more influence and resources.

 

If you cannot have a bit of suspension of disbelief for at least your first playthoughts....well, then I'm sorry for you.

[DragonAgeLegend]

Pointless sidequests for you. I'm enjoying doing them, and feeling I'm getting stronger and with more influence and resources.
 
If you cannot have a bit of suspension of disbelief for at least your first playthoughts....well, then I'm sorry for you.

I never mentioned they were pointless to anyone else. If you take a look through the forums, an immense number of people agree with me however.

[Andrew Lucas]

I don't get this. I mean - people were asking for a world to explore for years now. And when they do, people suddenly "Nah, it's not needed.". I wonder how the next ME will be treated, after all Bioware is expanding the world, aren't they? Thing don't changes around here, lovely.

[dsl08002]

I think that bioware could have a semi open world but it needs to be better executed. The problem right now in DAI with its open world that it is to much like a MMO, there are many similairities between this game and SWTOR.

They have to find a middle ground with the linear story of DAO and maybe just make it bigger.

Like the deep roads in DAO when you search for the anvil.

[schall_und_rauch]

BioWare's strength is immersive story and character design. Open world means that the story has to be weakened, because any area can be visited at any time, allowing only very little variation in reagard to the story progress.
Best example is the civil war. Aside from one or two lines from the generals in the Exalted Plains, it didn't have any impact on the open world areas.
Your experience of Orlais is largely the same, regardless wether it is in a state of civil war, or if any of the 5 ruling constellations are in power. Imagine there's a civil war going on in your country, and nobody cares.
That's just one of the results of open world design.

There are many open world games out there. I would prefer if Bioware focused once more on their story and designed the gameplay in that fashion. Especially since they are not good at open world design, considering the problem of overlevelong and lack of scaling.

[LordSeeker]

I agree..Don't copy Skyrim...Stick your old Origins/ME formula...lol

 

 

 

It's definitely a tricky compromise.  This is the first story-centric open world game I can think of.  Open worlds mess up pacing completely, so they definitely have a negative effect on the story.

Bro do you even Red Dead Redemption ? It's not an RPG game but still a fantastic open world game with amazing Story....

 

And Wait till W3 is out..They will school Bioware on how to create a seamless open world with great story and content....

 

 

Also, Divinity Original Sin is  quite open world...It's a hardcore RPG with great story and more choices and option than DAI...

[Darkly Tranquil]

I agree..Don't copy Skyrim...Stick your old Origins/ME formula...lol

 

 

Bro do you even Red Dead Redemption ? It's not an RPG game but still a fantastic open world game with amazing Story....

 

And Wait till W3 is out..They will school Bioware on how to create a seamless open world with great story and content....

 

Also, Divinity Original Sin is  quite open world...It's a hardcore RPG with great story and more choices and option than DAI...

 

Red Dead (and, I would argue, Fallout 3) is pretty much the only open world game that has been made that has really managed to seamlessly weave a strong narrative with an open world. Maybe TW3 will manage it, maybe they won't, we'll find out in May, but either way, the point remains that combining open world gameplay and a good story is incredibly difficult to do; far more games have tried and failed than those that have succeeded. With DAI, Bioware has compromised their great strength (story and character) in order to follow the popular trend (open worlds) and their story, and consequently their game, is poorer for it.

 

If the devs had not had to spend so much time building huge zones and filling them with meaningless side quests, perhaps they could have found the time to develop Corypheus are a more impressive and compelling villain, and build up the second half of the story to a final confrontation between the demonic forces and the Inquisition (not just the Inquisitor and his little band against Cory).  They could have had an ending with as much punch as the final assault on Denerim in Origins, but instead the story runs out of puff (or, more likely, development time) and ends with a completely underwhelming showdown in which all the work the Inquisitor had done in building up their power had no impact on the final battle and leaves people going, "What? That's it?" at the end of it. Its the after-credits encounter between

Spoiler

Solas and Flemeth

that gives people the big ending punch, not the battle with Corypheus.

 

At the heart of the matter is the fact that the open world and story elements of the game are so tenuously connected (by the power mechanic), that you could be forgiven for thinking that they might have been two separate projects merged late in development. One one side, you have the open world filled with fetch quests, rift closing, gathering, collecting, and dragon hunting, and on the other you have the story driven elements, the cutscenes, interactions with your companions in Haven and Skyhold, and on key story missions, and the two rarely cross over. You are either out in the world tooling around and not talking to your companions or doing anything meaningfully connected to the plot, or you are standing around in one of a few key locations talking to people and pushing the plot along; most of the story exists independently of the open world and you could have easily told the story without even having the open world at all.

[Dreamer]

I played a little Skyrim this morning and once I got over the intense feelings of nostalgia, I came to realize that Skyrim really did influence BioWare; so many things in Inquisition seem like they were taken from a "what was popular in Skyrim" checklist.

[Nefla]

I played a little Skyrim this morning and once I got over the intense feelings of nostalgia, I came to realize that Skyrim really did influence BioWare; so many things in Inquisition seem like they were taken from a "what was popular in Skyrim" checklist.

They even made the bears OP like Skyrim

[RedIntifada]

I think a lot of this discussion is abstracted from the game making process. I preferred DA:O to DA:I because I thought it had a much better story and better decisions. Clearly one of the reasons why DA:I isn't AS good (although it is still good), is because the teams time and effort went on creating an open world, building a bunch of new game mechanics etc. now that they have those things, they don't need to remakes them in the development process.

The fact that they are likely to use the frostbite 3 engine again means they can recycle/modify a lot of the character rigs etc. and focus on story. New Vegas is a much more interesting game the FO3 (and credit to Obsidian for making it) however the main reasons they could make NV so good is Bethesda had already developed the engine, vats combat system etc. although let's not forget that NV was one of the buggiest games out there and that is because it came out too quickly and with the borrowed engine, character models etc they just focused on plot.

Now that Bioware has had the steep learning curve of creating this semi-open world game and has learned how to do the mechanics stuff, I hope they see this game as a bit of a watershed, not screw around with changing mechanics too much and re-focus more of their energy on story and decisions.

[presidentroh]

I do agree with what the author said, the main story line and the side quests were not actually relevant to each others, so the side quests were not actually motivating, also I don't know why I can't do the inner circle quests after the ending, that's also one of the things that were deteriorating immersion into the plot. I was like "Okay, I gotta save the world ASAP, other things or my friends here can wait until everything is settled" but after the world is saved, they simply don't need my favor? WTF?

 

But, that doesn't mean that this game should have been linear or something; That would make this game far worse. It would be like stupid japanese RPG games.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

I might enjoy it more if I didn't have to pretend my toon was a mountain goat and, die ten times trying to get to some marker at the top of some cliff. As it is, the mostly shoved me in a maze of cliffs and then wonder why I skip things that are off the trail in a few area. Hills, even winding paths up mountains, fine but not the jumping and cliff climbing BS.

 

Doesn't feel open world since I can't get to at least 1/3 of each map anyway and must fast travel if I hope to get anywhere at all.

[Skeevley]

I played a little Skyrim this morning and once I got over the intense feelings of nostalgia, I came to realize that Skyrim really did influence BioWare; so many things in Inquisition seem like they were taken from a "what was popular in Skyrim" checklist.

 

Yep, which is a BIG problem for all of us who traditionally liked Bioware games but didn't like Skyrim. (Don't get me wrong, Skyrim with mods is absolutely fantastic. My modded Skyrim blows DAI out of the water in every conceivable way - great characters, living world, absolutely stunning visuals, etc. But Skyrim out of the box was one of the most boring and disappointing games I've ever played. "Go get this, go find that, blah blah blah, talk to boring characters, recruit boring characters with no personality whatsoever, repeat...)

 

Again, Bioware simply should have simply played to their strengths, not tried to emulate something that a lot of people didn't even want. OR, if they are going to emulate Skyrim, that's fine too AS LONG AS it doesn't get in the way of a great Bioware RPG experience. But they failed at that and mostly gave us a Skyrim clone with a somewhat better story. It's got great visuals, but I don't even care. I would never, ever, have expected Bioware to sacrifice their RPG elements for open-worldness, nor wanted them to...

 

(I also HATE that parts of the game almost play like a failed platformer. Who the heck thought that was a good idea? Argh!)

[Aren]

The main story is important yes, but a semi-open world like this make me feel that the story of the Inquisition and Corypheus is not everything , i believe that they try to build a living world who does not always revolve around you and your story.There are Area disconnected with the main plot so what? To me is a good thing, why everything must have to do with the main plot and the inquisitor?This is a good step in the right direction, if we really want to complain we can about the fact that the world is not living enough

[Esperard]

Totally agree with you. but I would add that one HUGE difference between Dragon Age : Origins and Inquisition is this

 

In Origins, you get to go into a Dalish Camp, a Dwarf City, Fererlden's Capital with the Alienage, The Circle of Tower, in short, every place you explore is part of Dragon Age's Culture and that's what made the game so great.

 

Now, back in Inquisition. What do you have ? Generic Places, there is no culture in those places, no history, nothing. It's just a bland place and that's what make them so boring. If Bioware gave us places that reflect the world of Dragon Age, then, maybe it wouldn't be so boring

[In Exile]

Okay so Skyrim is messed up. I assume by this you are trying to defend DAI where all the npcs are braindead. The point is that Skyrim has more of a "living world" than DAI. If you commit crimes in towns, you actually get a bounty, and can spend prison time if caught. I am not trying to defend Skyrim because I don't like it to begin with but if I wanted to play an open world game, Skyrim gets that better done than DAI.

I just disagree. I'm not trying to defend DAI. I just actively loathe the idea that the worker ant behaviour that Bestheda has slapped the label "living" on is actually considered passable by anyone.

The way the bounty works is so incredibly unrealistic - it's just like night day cycles when you're on a very fast clock but the rest of the world and characters move in real time or where a whole country is set in a space that's 2/3rds the size of Manhattan. I don't get how anyone thinks this is immersive.

[Obsidian Gryphon]

Oblivion turned me off to Bethesda. I hate that game. I'm just glad I got it at a discounted price.

 

Same here. I thought ESIV Oblivion would be similar to Bioware's rpg games but found it wasn't After hearing Patrick Steward's voice in the opening (I thought "wow' good stuff), it was all down hill after that because there is little impact to be felt in the game. Even when your toon achieved Archmage, leader of the mage guild, the script from NPCs did not reflect this. Your toon is still just a pleb to them. Burning houses remain burning throughout the game. The flames of a burning house in DAI will at least die down and you'll see charred timbers and smoke. After finishing Oblivion, the damn portals are still there. In DAI, a closed rift vanishes completely and this create a nice significant effect in  one map; Crestwood, where you really see the change.

 

I was disenchanted with Oblivion and decided I wouldn't want to buy another title from the same company.

 

I like the OW concept Bioware used with DAI. It's excellently done and I enjoyed going through each map. As mentioned by many posters, they could have tightened the sub quests, make it more significant to the main quest line.

[Phoe77]

I won't pretend to have read the whole topic, but I just wanted to say that I like where Inquisition is as a starting point, so to speak.  I thought the environments were very well done and interesting.  As a matter of fact, it was sometimes challenging to keep myself from trying to roam through an entire zone on my first visit.  A day/night cycle and weather might be neat little additions, but I didn't miss them in this game.  

Side quests, however, definitely need improvement.  Most of the zones seemed to have one or two big side events going on that were interesting to pursue, but  a majority of them weren't particularly inspired.  The environments made it so that finishing them wasn't much of a chore for me, but  they lack something that was present in the previous games.  If they could make these sidequests more engaging and grant more opportunities for players to choose how to approach or resolve them, I'd be thrilled.  

[Breakdown Boy]

I honestly do not believe the story suffered from the change to open world. How can you tell a story that affects the whole of Thedas and try and minimilise the inpact or exploration to the extent of DAO or DA2. The biggest issue I had with DAO was the limited interation with this huge map of Ferelden.

 

IMO the story in DAI is awesome so far, I have about three characters which I have played the game with (haven't finished the game yet LOL), I am just having so much fun. Some of the areas need work, like the Exalted Plaines which felt out of place and required qay too much platforming (which I feel they should've made easier). However all the other levels are amazing I do feel that they should've have labeled the areas with on the War Table with the levels it is appropriate for. On my first playthrough I left the Exalted Plaines for last and now it's a bit of a let down.

 

On another note, Dragon slaying in DAI is one of the best fun I have had in an RPG.

 

Also Cassandra rocks!!!

[Breakdown Boy]

Totally agree with you. but I would add that one HUGE difference between Dragon Age : Origins and Inquisition is this

 

In Origins, you get to go into a Dalish Camp, a Dwarf City, Fererlden's Capital with the Alienage, The Circle of Tower, in short, every place you explore is part of Dragon Age's Culture and that's what made the game so great.

 

Now, back in Inquisition. What do you have ? Generic Places, there is no culture in those places, no history, nothing. It's just a bland place and that's what make them so boring. If Bioware gave us places that reflect the world of Dragon Age, then, maybe it wouldn't be so boring

Really? So the Hinterlands (Fereldan) had the same culture as the Emerald Graves (Orlesian)? Origins was bound by the lack of technology at the time. 

 

Don't be blinded by nostalgia, DAI is the best game of the three. Not the best story, not the best combat but the best game all round. I feeld the characters are more rounded, the world more complete and the feeling the game priovides is also top notch.

 

If they ad an appreance change DLC like in DA2 then this game will be perfect.

[Nefla]

Really? So the Hinterlands (Fereldan) had the same culture as the Emerald Graves (Orlesian)? Origins was bound by the lack of technology at the time. 

 

Don't be blinded by nostalgia, DAI is the best game of the three. Not the best story, not the best combat but the best game all round. I feeld the characters are more rounded, the world more complete and the feeling the game priovides is also top notch.

 

If they ad an appreance change DLC like in DA2 then this game will be perfect.

Nostalgia has nothing to do with it (especially since many of us still play DA:O or have played it recently). DA:I has pretty graphics a much better CC than any past BW game (aside from the hair/eyebrows) and I'm happy that race choices are back, but I feel that the world at large is empty and dead and the non-companion related side quests aren't fun at all. I also feel that outside your inner circle, NPCs are lacking and unmemorable as well as the main questline being too short, there being only one ending, your personality options are limited (you can't even attempt to be ruthless or evil).

 

As for the Hinterlands having the same culture as the Emerald Graves...what culture? Random meaningless tasks don't build a world or enhance lore, short notes on the ground don't enthrall you or make you identify with the cardboard cutout people standing around everywhere. Finding 3 bear claws in the Hinterlands was the same culturally as finding 3 bear pelts for the Dalish in the Exalted Plains which is the same as finding a ring in Emprise do Leon or research supplies in the Western Approach, etc...