...the Exalted Plains?
Darling, you could almost be Orlesian.
I think part of the issue is that while all three of the Dale zones have elements that tie into the main plot and especially into the Civil War plot, there isn't anything plot-centric to any of them. You never have a real reason to go there like you do to go to Crestwood and the Western Approach. They're the levelling zones with some story worked in.
Fact that that story is told primarily through notes and codex entries and not through real dialogue with actual characters instead of just might as well be nameless NPC's that we don't care about, through boring, non-cutscene conversations... it's hard to get engaged in it.
I think part of the issue is that while all three of the Dale zones have elements that tie into the main plot and especially into the Civil War plot, there isn't anything plot-centric to any of them. You never have a real reason to go there like you do to go to Crestwood and the Western Approach. They're the levelling zones with some story worked in.
Fact that that story is told primarily through notes and codex entries and not through real dialogue with actual characters instead of just might as well be nameless NPC's that we don't care about, through boring, non-cutscene conversations... it's hard to get engaged in it.
If you watch the cutscene, the inquisitor hides the Anchor from her. Of course she had heard the stories but, I think she thought them just that, stories. She didn't beleive that Quizzy could actually seal rifts and, she expected the demons to kill him/her and, all companions.
Yeah, I did notice the Inquisitor hid the Anchor. Kind of off-topic, but I wish we had more class-specific things happen in the story. In this case, rogues and two-handers should combat roll like they already do, but shield warriors should block the arrows and mages should use barrier like Clarel did. That would be awesome.
Dorian, Cassandra and especially Solas have companion quests there. The former two are kind of skippable, but Solas is a major character moment, I'd say. plus Emprise Du Lion plays a major part in the Mage Nemesis quest, so there's are major plot points that go on there.
And not just through notes and such, it's all around in Emprise Du Lion ad the Plains (Emerald Graves not so much visually, but that ties more into the Dalish history). Mistress Polin's actions for example, which of course leads to bunch of stuff. Imshael and then the dying Templar you find afterward. I still want to know what Imshael wanted in exchange. Then there's the ramparts quests, and getting a view from all three sides. Not saying there are't notes and such, but it is there visually as well, and there are conversations about it.
I don't consider one of Vivienne's books, one group of Dorian's Venatori, or one of Cass' targets counts as plot relevant. There is no dialogue after each stage nor at the end. I consider them the DAI equivalent of gifts; we can perform the quests and get approval with companions regardless of our plot choices or decisions in their actual companion quests. Yes, Solas' companion quest is there, and technically the snowy wyvern, although that could have been in any zone and not made a difference.
I am not saying that I think the three zones shouldn't be relevant to the main plot or see how they can relate. Many people here have made good explanations and arguments showing how they are connected to the story. But the connection needed to be stronger.
Really, though, from all of the zones, the only characters who were in any way memorable or stood out for me were the agents we can acquire and the people we judge. Everyone else was forgettable and bland.
Really, though, from all of the zones, the only characters who were in any way memorable or stood out for me were the agents we can acquire and the people we judge. Everyone else was forgettable and bland.
Yeah, it makes me sad. Nothing like the Poet-tree or crazy hermit. In Inquisition, nothing really jumps out at me, and I've played it the most.
I just think that the simple fact that none of it is told through more cinematic, cutscene conversations hurts it. It's just the Inquisitor standing there, staring at the person they're talking to, who's just staring back. It's not engaging.
Hell, I completely missed Michel on my first playthrough because I thought he was just a patrolling guard or something.
I don't consider one of Vivienne's books, one group of Dorian's Venatori, or one of Cass' targets counts as plot relevant. There is no dialogue after each stage nor at the end. I consider them the DAI equivalent of gifts; we can perform the quests and get approval with companions regardless of our plot choices or decisions in their actual companion quests. Yes, Solas' companion quest is there, and technically the snowy wyvern, although that could have been in any zone and not made a difference.
I am not saying that I think the three zones shouldn't be relevant to the main plot or see how they can relate. Many people here have made good explanations and arguments showing how they are connected to the story. But the connection needed to be stronger.
Really, though, from all of the zones, the only characters who were in any way memorable or stood out for me were the agents we can acquire and the people we judge. Everyone else was forgettable and bland.
I just think that the simple fact that none of it is told through more cinematic, cutscene conversations hurts it. It's just the Inquisitor standing there, staring at the person they're talking to, who's just staring back. It's not engaging.
Hell, I completely missed Michel on my first playthrough because I thought he was just a patrolling guard or something.
That hurts, but even if the current conversations were cinematic, they would be one track conversations about a side quest, with no branching conversations or response options. We have three "personality" responses or up to six "flavor" responses, which are good, I am a fan of having those options. But it boils down to ALL of those responses still coming to the same conclusion. Whether we are sad or stoic, diplomatic or witty, the PC isn't choosing anything. Compare that to the other games where we agree or disagree, choosing from two or three quest options and with different outcomes. These sidequests are just "do this objective or don't."
For all of the complaints of DA2's railroading, there were still options of how to complete a quest, and two separate factions to side with at the end, even if the culmination of the fight is the same.
I did say some were skippable, and Snowy Wyvern works because of when it can come in the game. The only other place in the base game where we find a number of gurgats/wyverns is Hissing Waste. There is a small brood in Crestwood, but that's already quest connected. So if they were to put it in the Hissing Waste, we'd have to wait til level 19. Exalted Plains makes it available earlier, and as I understand it, these personal quests somehow tie into the whole election headache, so it needs to be accessible at least in the mid teens.
I thought Poulin was interesting, and the Dalish clan did work, imo.
If I had done the quest line, I would have made the rampart quests and Take Back the Lion required, and had the invitation to the Winter Palace be contingent on that success thus more exposure. Then Wicked Eyes would open up.
I'm not saying it was perfect by a long shot, but at the same time, I do stand by my assertion we see more about the Civil War and the dangers of red lyrium in those areas than we see about the Fifth Blight in DAO. IIRC the only area on the surface that shows any Taint is Ostagar, and that's in RtO. The rest of the Taint is Deep Roads. We only see the "spread" because of the stain on the map.
Agreed, I like the idea of the mandatory quests in the Plains prior to Winter Palace. And I agree, the view we had of the Orlesian civil war was more extensive than the Fereldan one. DAI needed to have a larger scope of politics since we're leading an emerging organization and influencing how southern Thedas operates. Realistic, reactive politics are hard to depict in a video game, and I don't think it's one of Bioware's strengths.
Agreed, I like the idea of the mandatory quests in the Plains prior to Winter Palace. And I agree, the view we had of the Orlesian civil war was more extensive than the Fereldan one. DAI needed to have a larger scope of politics since we're leading an emerging organization and influencing how southern Thedas operates. Realistic, reactive politics are hard to depict in a video game, and I don't think it's one of Bioware's strengths.
Your last remark reminds me of the political sci simulation I ended up a part of in high school, was computer generated, and kinda sucked.
I think court approval kind of went in the right direction, though I hate it. Things like that make me crazy. The loss bit, not the gain. The gain is pretty much politics, be polite most of the time, but get a zinger in every so often. And always agree with people.
And I did like the scandalous rumors. I kind of wish that they could have held the combat off til Florientte's trap. It would have been more interesting to have active blackmail from searching out stuff rather than ratcheting up yet another body count. Then, I'll accept that combat is part of the genre but I'll ever love it. Having alternate ways to deal with the situation without a sword or a spell would have been cool.
I do think a large part of the problem is that they folded Exalted Marches into DAI. At the same time, I'm unsure if they'd have been able to do the Templar Mage war justice by itself without bringing back Hawke, since the impetus for the Herald is the explosion, which wouldn't happen at the Conclave if you're not telling that storyline. I have loved to have Hawke back. By far my favorite PC, but at the time DA2 was so tainted that the mention of Hawke as the PC would have set things off.
The Orlesian civil war got a lot more play than the Fereldan civil war, which you largely just heard about. There was all of one sidequest where you saw Loghain's men trying to take over a neighbouring bann's property.
The difference is that the Fereldan civil war was never the central focus of the story, nor was it ever meant to be. It was a device that kept the Warden from going to Queen Anora and getting Fereldan's army lined up to fight the blight. Honestly if you listen to the gossip, in DAO you learn that for the most part the Fereldan Civil War has all the power of a wet firecracker (with the exception of a battle and incident or two). The reason is clear. After Ostagar, there aren't that many soldiers and the nobility is holding back for fear of the Darkspawn....so it's hard to fight a civil war without soldiers (which explains why Loghain resorted to slave trading in the end).
By contrast, the Orlesion Civil War was supposed to be one of the central themes of the game (along with the Mage-Templar war)...but we don't see it or really hear any rumor about it except perhaps on two maps that are optional anyways.
Your last remark reminds me of the political sci simulation I ended up a part of in high school, was computer generated, and kinda sucked.
I think court approval kind of went in the right direction, though I hate it. Things like that make me crazy. The loss bit, not the gain. The gain is pretty much politics, be polite most of the time, but get a zinger in every so often. And always agree with people.
And I did like the scandalous rumors. I kind of wish that they could have held the combat off til Florientte's trap. It would have been more interesting to have active blackmail from searching out stuff rather than ratcheting up yet another body count. Then, I'll accept that combat is part of the genre but I'll ever love it. Having alternate ways to deal with the situation without a sword or a spell would have been cool.
I do think a large part of the problem is that they folded Exalted Marches into DAI. At the same time, I'm unsure if they'd have been able to do the Templar Mage war justice by itself without bringing back Hawke, since the impetus for the Herald is the explosion, which wouldn't happen at the Conclave if you're not telling that storyline. I have loved to have Hawke back. By far my favorite PC, but at the time DA2 was so tainted that the mention of Hawke as the PC would have set things off.
Yes, agree wholeheartedly with the bolded. I really enjoy when we don't have to rely on combat for every situation in RPGs. For depicting politics, I thought it could be interesting to have a reactive system, maybe more similar to friendship/rivalry rather than approve/disapprove, or maybe a blending of the two for a more complex axis.
Say, recruiting Vivienne provides positive approval from templars and the chantry but severe disapproval from the mages. That doesn't mean we can't recruit or conscript the mages, we just have to gain additional approval from them. Or we can recruit them at lower approval, but then there are additional war table missions where discontented mages destroy some of our assets, decreasing our influence or power. And then Vivienne gets disapproval from saying "I told you so" and you have to soothe her feelings.
Basically, not to have a static measurement of "how much does X approve?" but have a dynamic system with different criteria for how others see the Inquisition and PC. It would be a lot more difficult to implement, and could end up being a chore if the player is just meta gaming to get "best" results from as many people as possible, but it would be different than most games.
The difference is that the Fereldan civil war was never the central focus of the story, nor was it ever meant to be. It was a device that kept the Warden from going to Queen Anora and getting Fereldan's army lined up to fight the blight. Honestly if you listen to the gossip, in DAO you learn that for the most part the Fereldan Civil War has all the power of a wet firecracker (with the exception of a battle and incident or two). The reason is clear. After Ostagar, there aren't that many soldiers and the nobility is holding back for fear of the Darkspawn....so it's hard to fight a civil war without soldiers (which explains why Loghain resorted to slave trading in the end).
By contrast, the Orlesion Civil War was supposed to be one of the central themes of the game (along with the Mage-Templar war)...but we don't see it or really hear any rumor about it except perhaps on two maps that are optional anyways.
And I did like the scandalous rumors. I kind of wish that they could have held the combat off til Florientte's trap. It would have been more interesting to have active blackmail from searching out stuff rather than ratcheting up yet another body count. Then, I'll accept that combat is part of the genre but I'll ever love it. Having alternate ways to deal with the situation without a sword or a spell would have been cool.
I agree completely about the bolded. It's a breath of fresh air when you can do that, and it is something the other 2 games did better. It was also part of the reason I was looking forward to the Exalted Council in Trespasser. Alas... 
It was such a non issue that it got it's own cutscene, with Teagan fronting out Loghain, and putting Anora on the spot. The Civil War was tied directly into securing Ferelden's troops, and the support of the Monarchy, because w/out resolving it, which Monarch are you trying to gain support from? Loghain? However, for all of that, all we got was one side quest where Loghain's men were trying to take over, unless we count most of Denerim just prior to the Landsmeet.
I agree completely about the bolded. It's a breath of fresh air when you can do that, and it is something the other 2 games did better. It was also part of the reason I was looking forward to the Exalted Council in Trespasser. Alas...
The difference is that the Fereldan civil war was never the central focus of the story, nor was it ever meant to be. It was a device that kept the Warden from going to Queen Anora and getting Fereldan's army lined up to fight the blight. Honestly if you listen to the gossip, in DAO you learn that for the most part the Fereldan Civil War has all the power of a wet firecracker (with the exception of a battle and incident or two). The reason is clear. After Ostagar, there aren't that many soldiers and the nobility is holding back for fear of the Darkspawn....so it's hard to fight a civil war without soldiers (which explains why Loghain resorted to slave trading in the end).
By contrast, the Orlesion Civil War was supposed to be one of the central themes of the game (along with the Mage-Templar war)...but we don't see it or really hear any rumor about it except perhaps on two maps that are optional anyways.
First, the Orlesian civil war is not a "theme." DAI's "themes" are an exploration of faith and the corruption of institutions meant to protect us.
Second, the Fereldan civil war is almost entirely irrelevant to the plot. It does create the odd side quest, but mostly it just ties Loghain up so that he can't make an earnest effort to hunt down the Wardens. The slavery subplot could still have occured as Loghain struggled to restore what was lost at Ostagar.
Most of what occurs in three of the five optional maps in Orlais (not counting the Forbidden Oasis or the Hissing Wastes) occurs as a result of Corypheus' men taking advantage of chaos caused by the civil war.
1) The Exalted Plains, obviously, are a grisly battlefield, filled with burned-out shells of buildings and corpse-strewn trenches. But the war has allowed the Venatori to create a small army of the undead, and deserters from both armies have banded together to form the Freemen of the Dales.
2) The Emerald Graves sees refugees from the war band together under leadership of Fairbanks to fight the Freemen, who are trying to claim the area to declare their own sovereign nation. The Red Templars are using the Freemen in turn to move red lyrium through the Dales.
3) Sahrnia in Emprise Du Lion was facing economic ruin as a result of the war when the Red Templars took advantage of their desperation to purchase the local quarry, which they used to grow red lyrium.
In all these areas, you hear from NPCs or find notes of people who have lost loved ones to the war. Finally, it all comes to a head in Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts, where the Venatori try to use the event to eliminate all of Orlais' leaders.
No, you don't actually see any fighting between Gaspard and Celene's armies, and that's because a ceasefire has been called so that peace talks can go ahead. But you never saw any actual fighting between Loghain and his opponents in DAO, aside from ONE side quest.
I do wish they could have done more, but considering everything that they rolled into this game. I'm actually surprised it came out at all some days. I'm kind of hoping that they'll scale back down to a more personal story in the next game. I'd like them to keep Solas lurking in the background for a bit longer. Have the threat there but it's taking him time to get things together as well. In fact if they were to do a smaller story in DA4 then bring the IQ back for 5, I'd be happy. In fact if they're set on doing multiple pcs, I'd go with a smaller DA4 and then bring both characters into DA5 for the throw down.
I could live with either of those scenarios, but since Weekes said Solas' story will get closure in the next game (paraphrase), I don't think it will happen.
I could live with either of those scenarios, but since Weekes said Solas' story will get closure in the next game (paraphrase), I don't think it will happen.
Pity, but well, I'll deal. Despite the flaws I loved DA2. I loved the unreliable narrator concept, I liked the more character driven story. I'd love to see it again, but we have to hit Solas over the head first.
Dragon Age 4: the Search for Spo..er Solas.
Considering the Thedas shaping possibilities, I really hope that the next game is laying out the foundation, and then we get to the next game, where we actually complete the arc. All things considered, I really hope that it turns out that there's nothing we can really do to stop him. If the Enuvaris couldn't stop him from creating the Veil, and they were powerful enough to be considered Gods, what hope do we really have? If it does turn out that we do have one, I hope it's not through a Mary Sue protagonist, but that you really have to lay a solid foundation for it.
The Enavuris didn't try to stop him, they were tricked and didn't know he even planned to create the veil. And if we can't stop him, I would not be impressed. What would be the point of an entire game getting to know him, a DLC revealing him as an antagonist, and most likely another entire game fighting him, only to lose no matter what because they want to severely alter the foundation of the world-as-you-know-it? Sounds too familiar for Bioware, and I hope they don't go that route again.
It's a Mortal Kombat story. Seriously, if you stop thinking of Bioware as great writers (they are not, they are mediocre on a good day), you'll be less disappointed in their products.
They haven't always been - but maybe they are kind of burned out (or maybe they have used up their great ideas?)...who knows?
Or, they have actually forced the great ones to leave (wouldn't surprise me...remember the dark-energie-subplot in Mass Effect? - The guys who thought that up will have probably felt like idiots when they simplified the story like that and completely dropped that!) or maybe they actively fired them (or forced them to write less greatly) in order to please the COD-Crowd more (action-mode...come on it's an RPG, auto-dialogue should not happen and action-mode shouldn't even exist -.- if you want that: play a game with loads of cutscenes, like COD)
greetings LAX
ps: I agree that the story has several points like that (Corypheus alone...come on a more believable, less cliche villain (who has a motivation we could - under different circumstances even support - understand) would have been great, then there's that quest about the mages (come on, they dumb down Fiona considerably and we are talking about a shrewd leader who once was a Grey Warden, not some dumb school-kid -.-)), but that's one of the worst...she should have at least attempted to kill you or something
I also agree that recent Bioware games weren't as good as what we expect from them (DA:2, ME3 and DA:I were quite bad in fact...at least for Bioware games!)
It was such a non issue that it got it's own cutscene, with Teagan fronting out Loghain, and putting Anora on the spot. The Civil War was tied directly into securing Ferelden's troops, and the support of the Monarchy, because w/out resolving it, which Monarch are you trying to gain support from? Loghain? However, for all of that, all we got was one side quest where Loghain's men were trying to take over, unless we count most of Denerim just prior to the Landsmeet.
It got ONE cut-scene and even that didn't show you a real civil war. All it really showed is that Loghain wasn't having it all his way and that there was political strife in Denerim. That's it. It's something you as the player needed to appreciate but otherwise it just wasn't that important until after you filled all the treaties you could.
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