I really don't care...and that's the problem for me, most of the side quests are "meh, I need more elfroot anyway so I might as well go. Oh, I wonder if I get any banter while doing it?"
Most of the side quests in DA:O and DAII at least were a bit interesting.
I hope they add more interesting side quests in the future, either in the DLC's or the next Dragon Age game.
Side quests didn't bother me personally, as I like to help where I can especially if it's from somebody and not just a note telling me to do something. But I can understand those might be unsettled at the lack of depth they provided.
I enjoyed my second play through a lot more compared to my first, I found and noticed a lot more things that I did in my first and I still believe there is still something I am yet to find. Will be going on my third pretty soon, so saying the game has 'zero replayability' is wrong.
Its more annoying when you send your soldiers out to gather supplies, and after an hour they come back with 5 elfroot.
The army is filled with lazy malingerers.
Those bums were playing dice or having a nap while they were supposed to be gathering herbs. 
The army is filled with lazy malingerers.
Those bums were playing dice or having a nap while they were supposed to be gathering herbs.
Pretty sure somewhere you can pick a lock and walk in on them playing a goddamn card game, then choose to either let them carry on or tell them to get off their asses.
Seriously.
I hope they add more interesting side quests in the future, either in the DLC's or the next Dragon Age game.
Have to disagree there.
I haven't done a tally, but though it seems there were more interesting side quests in the previous DA games, there was plenty of simple filler there as well.
DA2 for example was stuffed with items you instantly knew the recipient for.
IMO some people here make mountains out of molehills.
I see it this way:
Coming to Redcliffe the first time, I notice by the "!" over their heads who has something to say, among others the old elf. I listen to his story and agree, like any politician / diplomat would with "I will look into this asap".
In that moment I don't have the intention to complete the quest. I just didn't want to frustrate an old man.
Later, when I open up my camp down south-west, I see the grave a few steps away. The way to my next goal leads virtually over it.
Now, why shouldn't I put the flower down? Do I run back to Redcliffe immediately "to turn the quest in"? Nope. Some day in a near future
I will be there anyway and can tell the guy, what I did.
This way I did a favour to a man who was hit by severe strokes of fate and it cost me... nothing at all, whereas he will spread the word in my favour.
Of course I must admit that there are too many silly quests and wished for some special answers.
One example:
Also in Redcliffe, someone asks me to find his "special" ram, Lord Woolesley, simply because it's too dangerous for him.
Now I'd like to have a reply like
"If you have the guts to ask me to hunt down your ram, then you're either totally crazy or a talented salesman of the sort who is kicked out by the front door and returns through the back-door. We might have a use for you..."
Pretty sure somewhere you can pick a lock and walk in on them playing a goddamn card game, then choose to either let them carry on or tell them to get off their asses.
Seriously.
Well, if you want to be truthful... You weren't the inquisitor yet when that man asked you to take flowers either. You were little more than an 'agent' of the Inquisition. Also, he didn't ask you to do it.... You offered. So, you could have easily NOT offered if such a chore was 'beneath' you.
And to complete the quest, you do have to return to him. So there is basically next to nothing about the OT that is factually correct, which would make it an unpromising start for a polemic against design choices in most places that are not an online game discussion forum.
It was very different when the errand you were sent on involved someone named Branka, right? Or something labeled "the Sacred Ashes"?
This line was ironically joking DAO itself and other RPGs in general.
Yes it was different.
Those quests gave us ROLE playing options which could play out several different ways. They weren't static, go here get this or plant a flag nonsense that Inquistion gives us.
In your find Branka example, we could CHOOSE to Side with Branka or Caradin.
If we side with Branka we can, also with the right character build convince her to destroy the anvil, alternatively she can continue to go ahead and make more golems.
So yes, quite different to Inquisition.
Also take the Missing Child sidequest in Origins, once again we have choices.
After we find Bevin, we can get optionally get him to tell us about the sword where we can either just take the sword, buy the sword, or use the sword in the coming battle then return it.
In future games Bioware needs to bring back the role playing options. Give us a fetch quest where the item we're fetching is actually usefull, and we don't wish to return it.
An easy example in inquisition is with the flowers on the grave quest, what if the inquisitor could dig the grave up, hoping for valuables were buried there?
Yes it was different.
...An easy example in inquisition is with the flowers on the grave quest, what if the inquisitor could dig the grave up, hoping for valuables were buried there?
In this case I'd look forward to posts like
"BW thinks, we are all stupid! I am the INQUISITOR! The most powerful person on the continent! I am here to save the world!
And then they think, I'd dig up a grave for some sh*** trinkets???"
Believe me, there is always something to be insulted, annoyed, troubled or whatever
Yes it was different.
Those quests gave us ROLE playing options which could play out several different ways. They weren't static, go here get this or plant a flag nonsense that Inquistion gives us.
In your find Branka example, we could CHOOSE to Side with Branka or Caradin.
If we side with Branka we can, also with the right character build convince her to destroy the anvil, alternatively she can continue to go ahead and make more golems.
So yes, quite different to Inquisition.
Also take the Missing Child sidequest in Origins, once again we have choices.
After we find Bevin, we can get optionally get him to tell us about the sword where we can either just take the sword, buy the sword, or use the sword in the coming battle then return it.
In future games Bioware needs to bring back the role playing options. Give us a fetch quest where the item we're fetching is actually usefull, and we don't wish to return it.
An easy example in inquisition is with the flowers on the grave quest, what if the inquisitor could dig the grave up, hoping for valuables were buried there?
In this case I'd look forward to posts like
"BW thinks, we are all stupid! I am the INQUISITOR! The most powerful person on the continent! I am here to save the world!
And then they think, I'd dig up a grave for some sh*** trinkets???"
Believe me, there is always something to be insulted, annoyed, troubled or whatever
Oh god, you just reminded me of a character from a web comic with those lines.
My complaint with the side quests isn't that they exist, but for the more part they're pretty much irrelevant to the group we're trying to help. Like, Redcliffe is overrun with mages, but do we ever like...do anything for the mages that would convince them to help us other than defeat Alexius (which isn't even a convincing argument, considering, since their contracts should've still held their weight regardless. So the only thing we really accomplished was hitting Alexius with a newspaper and saying "You stop that time travel!")
I don't particularly mind the sidequests. I tried doing them all and had fun with that. I just wish they mattered more.
Oh...
.... I just wish they mattered more.
Now, that's something else. I agree.
Except you need power/influence to unlock those main quests.
Though, granted, doing everything gets you like 400+ power by the time you get to the last last mission.
Not making excuses for the boring side quests but you can just buy power and influence from a merchant at Skyhold, once you get there of course. Still, being a completionist does give you more power than needed. I found that out on my second playthrough 
guess I'll have enough power to do anything I need to in future DLC.
Not making excuses for the boring side quests but you can just buy power and influence from a merchant at Skyhold, once you get there of course. Still, being a completionist does give you more power than needed. I found that out on my second playthrough
You can also buy these things from a merchant at Val Royeux before you get to Skyhold. Seriously, y so much powa?
The words of the blacksmith in dragon age origins, poking fun at fetch quests. The warden wasn't even a warden then.
Now I am the inquisitor, leader of armies, last great hope for a world with the sky torn asunder... And some guy is asking me to take flowers to his wife's grave on the other side of the hinterlands. And I did it. And I never even had to go back and tell him it was done, so I guess he'll never know.
I guess times have changed and stupid fetch quests are now what we're supposed to be doing.
You have to suspend some realism to enjoy most roleplaying games. The game would be kinda boring if you sat on the throne and just told people to go do something. Don't get me wrong, they could make a game dedicated to me judging people and I'd log 100 hours into that.
For DA:I though - the way I look at it (especially at first) is you are some unknown and the inquisition being new, you need to build the reputation and this is shown by the influence bar. I think after sky hold though you should be pretty well established.
At the beginning it kinda makes sense that you do all the menial tasks, but after you're named Inquisitor and have an army at your disposal? Nope.
But we don't have roleplay options getting Branka. There are literally 0 options until you get to her and then you have a pick a side option (and then the clever reversal).
Again I get that the lack of dialogue and choices sucks. But the ass quest design is always the same.
To try to put it in more mathematical terms (as half-assed as it's likely to be), I feel like it's more a question of how much time we spend and how much effort we have to put out to get that "story content".
This is why I applauded Bioware's side quest design far more with Jade Empire and KotOR. There were quite a few side quests which could be completed along side the main quest and a good number of "world-building" npcs that sometimes just existed to add atmosphere to the world that you would meet en route to your goal.
I think that's where DA:I's design seems a bit strange. Since the story content occurs in isolated pockets (kinda like most ME2 missions), it tends to make how much the player spends traveling stick out more.
To try to put it in more mathematical terms (as half-assed as it's likely to be), I feel like it's more a question of how much time we spend and how much effort we have to put out to get that "story content".
This is why I applauded Bioware's side quest design far more with Jade Empire and KotOR. There were quite a few side quests which could be completed along side the main quest and a good number of "world-building" npcs that sometimes just existed to add atmosphere to the world.
I think that's where DA:I's design seems a bit strange. Since the story content occurs in isolated pockets (kinda like most ME2 missions), it tends to make how much the player spends traveling stick out more.
But we don't have roleplay options getting Branka. There are literally 0 options until you get to her and then you have a pick a side option (and then the clever reversal).
Again I get that the lack of dialogue and choices sucks. But the ass quest design is always the same.
So the whole Orzammar plotline was exactly the same as finding the widows ring, or collecting 3 bear claws? You can boil anything down to a simplistic label if you cut off enough details but that doesn't make the two things equivalent. Your definition of a "fetch quest" seems to be a "quest where there is a thing or person to get, reach, or kill". Most quests in most games can be boiled down to that on their most basic level. Call the quests whatever you want. Call Orzammar a "fetch quest" and Mama's ring a "bold, epic questline for the ages, wrought with danger, passion, and intrigue" and it doesn't change the fact that one is long, engaging, multi part, woven tightly into its' surroundings, lore enhancing, and gives you some choice where the other is literally finding a thing on the ground and giving it to someone.
I actually got to redcliff late, I was indeed the leader.
Never the less, even as the agent of the inquisiton, the hero who seals the rifts, why would I travel across the hinterlands to lay flowers on a grave, and never tell the dude?
That dude gives you something in return for doing this little errand. So it's not completely pointless.. right? 
Basher of Glory - Some people makee mountains out of molehills because they have a mountain of problems and you see a molehill.
This game is disappointing to many. We were sold a bill of goods that wasn't what was promised. You may be happy with whatever you get, but PC gamers are not happy.
A walk toggle is not enough. MAKE THIS GAME PLAYABLE. With a mouse and keyboard. I'll haunt these boards until eternity until someone makes this game playable. I haunt slowly......
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