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[Kallipolis]

I don't usually feel like it's productive to go around posting on forums, but Dragon Age: Inquisition has elicited a lot of moods from me lately that I never expected to feel.  I'm a PC gamer -- not as an identity, and not because I hate console games, but simply because I've always prefered the slower, more pensive games that seem to be tied to the PC as an artistic medium.  I grew up playing games like Planescape, Deus Ex, and Fallout 2, and if anyone ever dared to say that video games can't be art, I like to think that I'd be the first person to step forward to argue against that belief.

My first BioWare game was Knights of the Old Republic.  I wasn't much of a Star Wars devotee, but I got it on a whim.  Honestly, after I saw the cover, I thought Bastila was the main character (My disappointment when I learned that wasn't the case quickly disappeared when I heard Jennifer Hale's voice acting, for the record).  I was so enthralled by KoTOR that when Mass Effect came out (and I finally got to play as a character voiced by the queen of the voice actors), I saved up to buy it as soon as possible.

Dragon Age Origins was something different, though.  It's one thing to play as a super-soldier warrior-monk for the Republic, or a war hero-and-secret agent.  But my first playthrough of DAO -- the playthrough that's colored my perspective on the whole series -- was as an elf mage.  I got to play as a minority.  I got to play as someone hated, feared, and denigrated for nothing more than the circumstances of her birth.  My elf mage Warden was stubborn, snide, and frequently took "morally grey" options.  But at the end of the day, she was a hero who sacrificed and fought for justice, even for the people who had wronged her.  That blew my mind as a teenager.  It meant a lot to play a game where, for all her power, my Warden was a put-upon everyperson who had to try and do the right thing for stupid and ungrateful people.  Having played KoTOR, ME, and above all, DAO, I wanted to own every single game that BioWare put out after that.

We can skip over DAII.  The less invitation for a flame war, the better.  Suffice to say, I enjoyed DAII's story and characters immensely, and was vaguely troubled by the shoddy, pared-down gameplay.  When BioWare promised that they were going to take their time with Inquisition, that they were going to make it expansive and intricate in a way that dwarfed Origins, I believed them.  I believed them because I always kept in mind that this was the group of luminary writers who let me play as my elf mage Warden.

Dragon Age: Inquisition was the first video game I ever returned.

I started DAI and was genuinely thrilled when I got to make a Qunari mage.  It was a chance to play as a fresh, outside perspective that DAO and DAII lacked.  But when the game started, I raised an eyebrow at the "here is your background; you are now playing the game" intertitle that replaced the prologue chapters of the first two games.  It felt odd, as if I was playing DAO and had simply been dropped into Ostagar with a pamphlet telling me about my drafting into the Grey Wardens.  Still, I shrugged and kept playing, figuring that BioWare had earned enough of my trust to make a misstep or two.  When I actually got to fight, I was shocked to discover that I had to manually attack enemies until my wrists began to hurt.  But I didn't get the chance to meditate on that for any length of time before my game crashed with some inscrutable error message that told me that the game was incompatable with my top-of-the-line Nvidia card.  In some ways, I was grateful for the game crashing every twenty minutes -- it gave me the chance to get some coffee and decompress before I went back to slogging through dull, grind-heavy wastelands looking for disconnected, Ubisoft-style "goodies" that seemed to have no rhyme or reason behind their placement or existence.

I didn't understand why my character, a Qunari mage (the equivalent to a Muslim imam in Medieval Europe) would be promoted to the head of a quasi-Catholic paramilitary when four human adherents of the religion with better credentials were passed up.  I didn't understand why healing was removed, when the previous games suggested that healing was one of the only reasons why mages were tolerated in Andrastean Thedas.  I didn't understand why companions just seemed to come out of the woodwork to join my group without any more complex a motivation than authorial fiat.  I didn't understand why side-quests in this game seemed to come from nothing, mean nothing, and then change nothing once I had collected the pre-requisite number of tinfoil wrappers from the beach to satisfy the quest.

But I played the game for seventeen hours, thinking, "This is a BioWare game.  It'll get better.  I owe them the benefit of the doubt."  I made it all the way to Redcliffe, and you can't imagine how eager I was to talk to the storyteller and hear how my Warden had affected the world that I was now playing in.  She told me that my Warden was actually a Dalish archer who had given up her life to kill the Archdemon.  Seventeen hours into the game, I found out that the baked-in world state from the Keep had glitched somehow, and my mage Warden had never existed.

I shut the game off.  I shut off my computer, actually, and I stepped outside to get the mail.  I asked myself, in all honesty, "[Kallipolis], are you having fun playing this game?  Was it worth sixty dollars?"  The answer was, "No."  I returned the game within an hour.  Now, I'm not going to tell you that I'm outraged, or that DAI has "ruined my life" or anything -- it's just a game.  But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe I'd have any fun playing BioWare's games ever again, and I'm not going to waste my money on them. I'm sure the company won't shed many tears over losing my vast oil millions.  But is this what BioWare's company philosophy is now?  "Try and mitigate losses through first-day sales" rather than "give people a reason to come back to a game year after year"?  I know that this post likely won't change anything, but BioWare's games meant so much to me as a young person that I felt like I owed it to them to add my two cents to the pile and tell them straight up that they've lost another loyal customer because their products have been an absolutely abysmal experience lately.

[Benman1964]

Agree! i feel the same with a few adjustments.

I paid € 70,- that's like $ 85,-. and i played like 160 hours before i gave up. So i am literally stuck with the game in my Origin library forever. To be honest, i still play MP but that's reaching an end also.

I am thinking about installing DA:O again and replay it again.

[DaemionMoadrin]

I wish I could like your post more than once. Your experience closely mirrors mine only I didn't manage to return the game in time. And I needed almost 2 months to complete my first playthrough because I could only play it for a bit before I needed a break. It wasn't worth it but at least now I can say I gave it a honest try.

[Vader20]

I didn't understand why my character, a Qunari mage (the equivalent to a Muslim imam in Medieval Europe) would be promoted to the head of a quasi-Catholic paramilitary when four human adherents of the religion with better credentials were passed up.  I didn't understand why healing was removed, when the previous games suggested that healing was one of the only reasons why mages were tolerated in Andrastean Thedas.  I didn't understand why companions just seemed to come out of the woodwork to join my group without any more complex a motivation than authorial fiat.  I didn't understand why side-quests in this game seemed to come from nothing, mean nothing, and then change nothing once I had collected the pre-requisite number of tinfoil wrappers from the beach to satisfy the quest.

 

 

I want to consider myself a player with realistic expectations from a game I'm going to buy. I was eagerly waiting for DAI to launch and to get my hands on it. I don't know about other players here, but I knew that It's going to be bad news the moment I saw the first gameplay video on youtube. The game mechanics were too much like DA2 and I absolutely hated the combat in that game..  I said ok... I can live with that if the story is good and captivating.

 

I was bugged by the same things as you, but I understood why the healing was removed, why mages got dumbed down... why this, why that. The answer is simple:Streamlining and consolization. Consoles are the larger portion of the market and I knew that it's going to be a dumbed down game even if they swore it's a game made for Pc gamers. I learned my lesson well with Skyrim. Marketing is marketing... lies to make more $$$$$.

 

I honeslty feel very sorry for this game and for what It could have been. The ideas behind it are good, but the execution of most of them is shallow.

 

So you become the Inquistior  ? Really ? Just like that ? The leader of a political organization and no one questions you ? No one wants your head... no rivalries among party members ? I expected to actually do something to earn their trust and to prove myself worthy. I was a scum, a suspect but as soon as a I got to Heaven everyone was kissing my *ss all the time and all the way throughout the game. It was so annoying. Your worship this, your worship that.

 

I expected rivalries between party members, I expected them to openly flirt with me, I expected to them to QUESTION my actions, I expected them to be have personal motivations like they had in DA2. Yes, DA2 was a lot better in terms of companions and writing. Where are those writers now ? I assume they lacked in inspiration for this game. I also expected tragedy and loss and heavy decision making. I never felt that decisions were all that important. I made them quite easily because I knew that they don't matter anyway and you don't quite see any consequences for your actions. The games tries to give you the feeling that you're about to make a big decision but NO.. I was just deluding myself.

 

 The game is enjoyable but It could have been SO MUCH BETTER

 

I wasn't a big fan of DAO either but it had that great atmosphere and that's what made it great and of course those origin stories. Origin stories is exactly one of the things this game lacks. I'm not a programmer, I'm sure that it takes a lot of work and effort to make a game like this, but I think that the origins were doable even with multiple races.

 

Don't know if wel'll have a story driven expansion but I certainly hope so. It might be the chance to correct some ot the things that went wrong in this game.

[Octarin]

I feel you. In all seriousness the main reason I am let down is because of those experiences you talked about as well. DAO and ME came to me during a time of my life that was the most horrible, the most difficult and the loneliest of all, and, being the exquisite games they were, managed to make me preserve whatever bit of positive thinking I had left, take a deep breath and plunge into the hell that was awaiting me. No I'm not emo, and yes the only thing that kept me sane was a game, and whether some people like it or believe it, it still remains true. Game immersion really played a huge part for my mental state. And ever since then, I simply adore ME and DA (especially ME) and it hurts me to see they've gone the way of the dodo. It actually hurts me emotionally.

 

DA:I is clickbait.

 

It's as simple as that. To get fast money and then discard. There are no devs that care anymore, no storytellers that can put their foot down, noone who cares more about the game and world than their salary. And it's alright. I understand. It's a different business now, and there's no integrity. It's not a gaming business anymore, it's a money-making business. it happens to everything that starts small cause of its worth and talent and gets big, when it gets big, it's no longer the same beast. 

 

I won't be surprised if the next game they release in the DA universe is a Shoot-em-up tactical co-op style with slight empire building. 

 

In the meantime, why don't you try Larian Studios Divinity series? I can vouch for all of them, except Dragon Commander, which is tactical combat only.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

I feel you. In all seriousness the main reason I am let down is because of those experiences you talked about as well. DAO and ME came to me during a time of my life that was the most horrible, the most difficult and the loneliest of all, and, being the exquisite games they were, managed to make me preserve whatever bit of positive thinking I had left, take a deep breath and plunge into the hell that was awaiting me. No I'm not emo, and yes the only thing that kept me sane was a game, and whether some people like it or believe it, it still remains true. Game immersion really played a huge part for my mental state. And ever since then, I simply adore ME and DA (especially ME) and it hurts me to see they've gone the way of the dodo. It actually hurts me emotionally.

 

DA:I is clickbait.

 

It's as simple as that. To get fast money and then discard. There are no devs that care anymore, no storytellers that can put their foot down, noone who cares more about the game and world than their salary. And it's alright. I understand. It's a different business now, and there's no integrity. It's not a gaming business anymore, it's a money-making business. it happens to everything that starts small cause of its worth and talent and gets big, when it gets big, it's no longer the same beast. 

 

I won't be surprised if the next game they release in the DA universe is a Shoot-em-up tactical co-op style with slight empire building. 

 

In the meantime, why don't you try Larian Studios Divinity series? I can vouch for all of them, except Dragon Commander, which is tactical combat only.

Hm. There was a fresh release, Divinity: Original Sin. Can I start the franchise from it or i need other games to play first?

[JCFR]

Hm. There was a fresh release, Divinity: Original Sin. Can I start the franchise from it or i need other games to play first?

I can absolutly recommend Divinity OS. It's a great oldschool-Rpg with good round-based-tactical-combat, nice story, funny quests and lot's of content.

And no, you don't need to know anything about the other games - neither from the aspect of story, nor from the game-mechanics. 

 

Maybe you should watch a few let's plays to make sure, but to me it was worth every cent.

[Vader20]

Hm. There was a fresh release, Divinity: Original Sin. Can I start the franchise from it or i need other games to play first?

 

You should try divinity 2 the dragon knight saga first in case you haven't played it.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

You should try divinity 2 the dragon knight saga first in case you haven't played it.

I know nothing of the series at all. In fact, I've heard of it a month or so before this, with the Original Sin release.

Anyway, thanks.

[Vader20]

I know nothing of the series at all. In fact, I've heard of it a month or so before this, with the Original Sin release.

Anyway, thanks.

 

In case the divinity 2 the dragon knight saga doesn't make a good first impression on you, give it a chance. I tried the beta original sin, but it was very very tedious for me.. I never understood what the hell am I supposed to do. I'll give it another chance in the future.

[TheOgre]

Unfortunately, someone here touched on a really good point about consolization and streamlining games toward console oriented markets. While it was my experience that I played DA:O on the console, I have infinitely more fun with that game than most others.

 

most of your experiences OP. I sympathize, as do quite a few others.

[Poison_Berrie]

I was bugged by the same things as you, but I understood why the healing was removed, why mages got dumbed down... why this, why that. The answer is simple:Streamlining and consolization. Consoles are the larger portion of the market and I knew that it's going to be a dumbed down game even if they swore it's a game made for Pc gamers. I learned my lesson well with Skyrim. Marketing is marketing... lies to make more $$$$$.

Not that I don't think there's wasted potential in the game and the expectations the gameplay videos set was seriously lacking from the game itself, but...

is using fixed health with limited potions and no combat healing actually being equated with dumbing down/stream lining.

Some of the gameplay decision are decidedly not streamlining nor dumbing down. It seems like you can't chance anything without it being considered streamlining or dumbing down.

 

The problem is, I think, the wish to be open world and what that entails for the gameplay. Creating huge maps were you can go any direction, often goes hand in hand with the desire to fill these map with things to do and as such you use a lot of time creating these maps, making all of it work and putting filler content in those maps.

 

Also @OP why you are put at the head of the Inquisition:

People see you as the "Herald of Andraste", with "her mark" on your hand. That's what gives you authority to the regular/Andrastian people. And I think you are supposed to be seen as someone decisive, who forces the other heads of the inquisition to a decision, where otherwise they would keep in their disagreements.

Having a rival for the position would have been very interesting, though. And there's certainly not enough opposition to your inquisitor's authority especially outside of the organization.

[Wolven_Soul]

I want to consider myself a player with realistic expectations from a game I'm going to buy. I was eagerly waiting for DAI to launch and to get my hands on it. I don't know about other players here, but I knew that It's going to be bad news the moment I saw the first gameplay video on youtube. The game mechanics were too much like DA2 and I absolutely hated the combat in that game..  I said ok... I can live with that if the story is good and captivating.

 

I was bugged by the same things as you, but I understood why the healing was removed, why mages got dumbed down... why this, why that. The answer is simple:Streamlining and consolization. Consoles are the larger portion of the market and I knew that it's going to be a dumbed down game even if they swore it's a game made for Pc gamers. I learned my lesson well with Skyrim. Marketing is marketing... lies to make more $$$$$.

 

I honeslty feel very sorry for this game and for what It could have been. The ideas behind it are good, but the execution of most of them is shallow.

 

So you become the Inquistior  ? Really ? Just like that ? The leader of a political organization and no one questions you ? No one wants your head... no rivalries among party members ? I expected to actually do something to earn their trust and to prove myself worthy. I was a scum, a suspect but as soon as a I got to Heaven everyone was kissing my *ss all the time and all the way throughout the game. It was so annoying. Your worship this, your worship that.

 

I expected rivalries between party members, I expected them to openly flirt with me, I expected to them to QUESTION my actions, I expected them to be have personal motivations like they had in DA2. Yes, DA2 was a lot better in terms of companions and writing. Where are those writers now ? I assume they lacked in inspiration for this game. I also expected tragedy and loss and heavy decision making. I never felt that decisions were all that important. I made them quite easily because I knew that they don't matter anyway and you don't quite see any consequences for your actions. The games tries to give you the feeling that you're about to make a big decision but NO.. I was just deluding myself.

 

 The game is enjoyable but It could have been SO MUCH BETTER

 

I wasn't a big fan of DAO either but it had that great atmosphere and that's what made it great and of course those origin stories. Origin stories is exactly one of the things this game lacks. I'm not a programmer, I'm sure that it takes a lot of work and effort to make a game like this, but I think that the origins were doable even with multiple races.

 

Don't know if wel'll have a story driven expansion but I certainly hope so. It might be the chance to correct some ot the things that went wrong in this game.

You know, DA:O was a great game on consoles as well, and there are probably just as many upset console gamers over this game as PC gamers.  Stop blaming the existence of consoles for this.  

[otis0310]

You know, DA:O was a great game on consoles as well, and there are probably just as many upset console gamers over this game as PC gamers.  Stop blaming the existence of consoles for this.  

 

I am a PC exclusive gamer, mainly because I like games like Civilization, Tropico, Spellforce and other non action oriented games.  These games are not available on consoles so I see no reason to buy a console, that simple.

 

However by reading the majority of the threads here I have to agree with this.  Basically EA was going for the casual gamer who never played Dragon Age before.  Because if you liked Dragon Age: Origins, either on console or on the PC, you wouldn't like this game.  This is the mistake they made with Ultima 8 which ended up killing that franchise 20 years ago, now they are doing it again.

 

If a game is as highly regarded as Ultima or Dragon Age you do  not change it or you will lose your core audience, but EA wanted to make it appeal to a larger audience and will probably end up killing both franshises in the process.

 

Genres exist for a reason, which is that not everyone likes the same thing.  Some like FPS games, some like Racing games, some like RPGs and almost everyone likes several different genres, I know I do.  But EA tried to make a game that will make everyone happy, and you know the old saying "When you try to make everyone happy, you end up making nobody happy."

[Benman1964]

In case the divinity 2 the dragon knight saga doesn't make a good first impression on you, give it a chance. I tried the beta original sin, but it was very very tedious for me.. I never understood what the hell am I supposed to do. I'll give it another chance in the future.

Looking at it now. I might try it.

[TheOgre]

You know, DA:O was a great game on consoles as well, and there are probably just as many upset console gamers over this game as PC gamers.  Stop blaming the existence of consoles for this.  

 

Don't you think it is at all strange that the game crashes and has far more problems on the PC than on the console? Or how the combat scheme in general flows a lot better on a game pad for the more recent dragon age games? I think it does have something to do with consoles. It's just more apparent in the past couple of years. DA:O was great for all platforms, its just the companies pandering more to consoles than PCs.. I feel the PC controls are horrendous without a gamepad.

[otis0310]

Don't you think it is at all strange that the game crashes and has far more problems on the PC than on the console? Or how the combat scheme in general flows a lot better on a game pad for the more recent dragon age games? I think it does have something to do with consoles. It's just more apparent in the past couple of years. DA:O was great for all platforms, its just the companies pandering more to consoles than PCs.. I feel the PC controls are horrendous without a gamepad.

 

 

While this unquestionably true, I own a gamepad and I have tried it with and without a gamepad.  The game is only marginally better with a gamepad, the controls are still very clunky and feel forced either way.

[Dominic_910]

Don't you think it is at all strange that the game crashes and has far more problems on the PC than on the console? Or how the combat scheme in general flows a lot better on a game pad for the more recent dragon age games? I think it does have something to do with consoles. It's just more apparent in the past couple of years. DA:O was great for all platforms, its just the companies pandering more to consoles than PCs.. I feel the PC controls are horrendous without a gamepad.

I'm pretty sure they weren't only talking about the controls, that isn't the only problem people have with inquisiton.

[TheOgre]

I'm pretty sure they weren't refering to the controls, that isn't the only problem people have with inquisiton.

 

No, that's just the point I would make. There weren't as many Origins crashes or problems with cutscenes on PC. My friends that got this game for the XBOX One are baffled by the problems we are experiencing on the PC. It's as if this were on the level of Dark Souls 1 port to pc... My point is that people do not really care about the PC when they make these ports, and now its more apparent in the past couple of years. It's like one big beta test.

 

 

 

While this unvertainly true, I own a gamepad and I have tried it with and without a gamepad.  The game is only marginally better with a gamepad, the controls are still very clunky and feel forced either way.

 

The controls are indeed very, well, not good, in general. Tactical zoom, hah.. :/

[Vader20]

You know, DA:O was a great game on consoles as well, and there are probably just as many upset console gamers over this game as PC gamers.  Stop blaming the existence of consoles for this.  

I don't have anything against consoles.. I'm fine with them and I know that console players want the same thing from a game : Immersion

 

I don't blame consoles. Ok, DAI is consolized but some people here said that DAO was great on consoles too. So why can't they make the same quality game again ?

My point was that I'm surprised that people complain about streamlining when they were well aware that their target is the console market first because it's the biggest.

 

 

Not that I don't think there's wasted potential in the game and the expectations the gameplay videos set was seriously lacking from the game itself, but...

is using fixed health with limited potions and no combat healing actually being equated with dumbing down/stream lining.

Some of the gameplay decision are decidedly not streamlining nor dumbing down. It seems like you can't chance anything without it being considered streamlining or dumbing down.

cially outside of the organization.

You're right.. The removal of healing is not streamlining but it's a very annoying aspect of the game. It gives me a sense of limitation and I waste time by traveling back to camp to replenish my supplies and than travel all the way back again. This should not be the case... Ok, I'm fine with limited potions, but at least allow me to regen health while not in combat to avoid the pain of travelling back and forth to camp.

[papercut_ninja]

Should be noted that games such as Civilization, that were developed exclusively for PC, came with a lot of bugs, errors and problems for PC-users anyway. So there is not necessarily any correlation between the focus on consoles and problems relating to PC...

[Dominic_910]

No, that's just the point I would make. There weren't as many Origins crashes or problems with cutscenes on PC. My friends that got this game for the XBOX One are baffled by the problems we are experiencing on the PC. It's as if this were on the level of Dark Souls 1 port to pc... My point is that people do not really care about the PC when they make these ports, and now its more apparent in the past couple of years. It's like one big beta test.

PC obviously has it worst but this isn't a competition, there's console players with problems too and they aren't any less important. Too many people are making this a PC vs Consoles thing.

[katokires]

I don't usually feel like it's productive to go around posting on forums, but Dragon Age: Inquisition has elicited a lot of moods from me lately that I never expected to feel.  I'm a PC gamer -- not as an identity, and not because I hate console games, but simply because I've always prefered the slower, more pensive games that seem to be tied to the PC as an artistic medium.  I grew up playing games like Planescape, Deus Ex, and Fallout 2, and if anyone ever dared to say that video games can't be art, I like to think that I'd be the first person to step forward to argue against that belief.

My first BioWare game was Knights of the Old Republic.  I wasn't much of a Star Wars devotee, but I got it on a whim.  Honestly, after I saw the cover, I thought Bastila was the main character (My disappointment when I learned that wasn't the case quickly disappeared when I heard Jennifer Hale's voice acting, for the record).  I was so enthralled by KoTOR that when Mass Effect came out (and I finally got to play as a character voiced by the queen of the voice actors), I saved up to buy it as soon as possible.

Dragon Age Origins was something different, though.  It's one thing to play as a super-soldier warrior-monk for the Republic, or a war hero-and-secret agent.  But my first playthrough of DAO -- the playthrough that's colored my perspective on the whole series -- was as an elf mage.  I got to play as a minority.  I got to play as someone hated, feared, and denigrated for nothing more than the circumstances of her birth.  My elf mage Warden was stubborn, snide, and frequently took "morally grey" options.  But at the end of the day, she was a hero who sacrificed and fought for justice, even for the people who had wronged her.  That blew my mind as a teenager.  It meant a lot to play a game where, for all her power, my Warden was a put-upon everyperson who had to try and do the right thing for stupid and ungrateful people.  Having played KoTOR, ME, and above all, DAO, I wanted to own every single game that BioWare put out after that.

We can skip over DAII.  The less invitation for a flame war, the better.  Suffice to say, I enjoyed DAII's story and characters immensely, and was vaguely troubled by the shoddy, pared-down gameplay.  When BioWare promised that they were going to take their time with Inquisition, that they were going to make it expansive and intricate in a way that dwarfed Origins, I believed them.  I believed them because I always kept in mind that this was the group of luminary writers who let me play as my elf mage Warden.

Dragon Age: Inquisition was the first video game I ever returned.

I started DAI and was genuinely thrilled when I got to make a Qunari mage.  It was a chance to play as a fresh, outside perspective that DAO and DAII lacked.  But when the game started, I raised an eyebrow at the "here is your background; you are now playing the game" intertitle that replaced the prologue chapters of the first two games.  It felt odd, as if I was playing DAO and had simply been dropped into Ostagar with a pamphlet telling me about my drafting into the Grey Wardens.  Still, I shrugged and kept playing, figuring that BioWare had earned enough of my trust to make a misstep or two.  When I actually got to fight, I was shocked to discover that I had to manually attack enemies until my wrists began to hurt.  But I didn't get the chance to meditate on that for any length of time before my game crashed with some inscrutable error message that told me that the game was incompatable with my top-of-the-line Nvidia card.  In some ways, I was grateful for the game crashing every twenty minutes -- it gave me the chance to get some coffee and decompress before I went back to slogging through dull, grind-heavy wastelands looking for disconnected, Ubisoft-style "goodies" that seemed to have no rhyme or reason behind their placement or existence.

I didn't understand why my character, a Qunari mage (the equivalent to a Muslim imam in Medieval Europe) would be promoted to the head of a quasi-Catholic paramilitary when four human adherents of the religion with better credentials were passed up.  I didn't understand why healing was removed, when the previous games suggested that healing was one of the only reasons why mages were tolerated in Andrastean Thedas.  I didn't understand why companions just seemed to come out of the woodwork to join my group without any more complex a motivation than authorial fiat.  I didn't understand why side-quests in this game seemed to come from nothing, mean nothing, and then change nothing once I had collected the pre-requisite number of tinfoil wrappers from the beach to satisfy the quest.

But I played the game for seventeen hours, thinking, "This is a BioWare game.  It'll get better.  I owe them the benefit of the doubt."  I made it all the way to Redcliffe, and you can't imagine how eager I was to talk to the storyteller and hear how my Warden had affected the world that I was now playing in.  She told me that my Warden was actually a Dalish archer who had given up her life to kill the Archdemon.  Seventeen hours into the game, I found out that the baked-in world state from the Keep had glitched somehow, and my mage Warden had never existed.

I shut the game off.  I shut off my computer, actually, and I stepped outside to get the mail.  I asked myself, in all honesty, "[Kallipolis], are you having fun playing this game?  Was it worth sixty dollars?"  The answer was, "No."  I returned the game within an hour.  Now, I'm not going to tell you that I'm outraged, or that DAI has "ruined my life" or anything -- it's just a game.  But the point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe I'd have any fun playing BioWare's games ever again, and I'm not going to waste my money on them. I'm sure the company won't shed many tears over losing my vast oil millions.  But is this what BioWare's company philosophy is now?  "Try and mitigate losses through first-day sales" rather than "give people a reason to come back to a game year after year"?  I know that this post likely won't change anything, but BioWare's games meant so much to me as a young person that I felt like I owed it to them to add my two cents to the pile and tell them straight up that they've lost another loyal customer because their products have been an absolutely abysmal experience lately.

I absolutely love you, thank for posting it.
I'm insane and sick, so don't bother retuning my affection, here it would mean you agree with someone insane and sick. And I agree with people who think that of me.
But I got very emotional while reading about your experience, it was beautiful, felt alive and honest. If Bioware call these forums toxic, and I agree because there is people like me, they should at least read what people like you write.

[Octarin]

Hm. There was a fresh release, Divinity: Original Sin. Can I start the franchise from it or i need other games to play first?

 

I started long long time ago with Divine Divinity and then Beyond Divinity. Loved both to bits, in fact these, and some Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale/NWN were the only RPGs I managed to play from beginning to end. They would look rather outdated today however, rather almost as outdated as Fallout and Fallout II would seem.

 

Now, there was 2009 release, Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga, which as a matter of fact I got and I am playing for a couple of days now and it's fantastic. It's single player, classical RPG, you have your hero and you go do things along the main questline, which, so far seems quite promising. Larian Studios is German, and they have a really good sense of humour as well, you'll see minor gags and things that compare to the Fable type of gags, chuckles all around. The game resembles Kingdom of Amalur in its gamestyle and handling. 

 

And there's Divinity: Original Sin which is the last installment, better graphics, but they have returned to the good old Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity style, with the exception that now you start with two main characters, with the potential of a 4-char full party, if you wish to. The storyline is beyond belief. Highly recommended. You can't go wrong with the Divinities, hands down. I vouch for that in court. 

 

The latter two games are independent, however all games happen in the same world. It would be nice to know what has happened in the past, but not at all necessary. I don't even remember half the things that happened in DD and BD tbh and it hasn't phased me yet lol.