132 réponses à ce sujet

[ThreeF]

I think the most drastic change was Haven. Creepy as heck in DAO but your home and "haven" in DAI. 

They did a lot of scrubbing!

[Wulfram]

I think it's mostly the end where the game really feels quite a bit lighter.

I mean, the opening certainly isn't light, and neither are either of the mage/templar quests. The Warden questline is really pretty dark and the Orlesian ball is basically a much more cynical version of the Landsmeet.

But the ending doesn't have the equivalent of Denerim burning to offset the PC's triumph. And the whole Mythal mind control thing feels oddly unthreatening, though Bioware could still surprise us with it.

[In Exile]

I think it's mostly the end where the game really feels quite a bit lighter.

I mean, the opening certainly isn't light, and neither are either of the mage/templar quests. The Warden questline is really pretty dark and the Orlesian ball is basically a much more cynical version of the Landsmeet.

But the ending doesn't have the equivalent of Denerim burning to offset the PC's triumph. And the whole Mythal mind control thing feels oddly unthreatening, though Bioware could still surprise us with it.

 

I guess that's a big difference for me - I never cared for Denerim. Even as a City Elf, the Alienage seemed to be safe, and you have a triumphant memory in saving it and Shianni. 

[Archerwarden]

 
This video sums up pretty much everything I find wrong with the tone and 'colour' of inquisition, he's right, it is fantasy fluff, the grit, darkness and urgency have gone, the companions are 2 dimensional and flat, without the ambiguity of the DA:O companions, the choices don't seem to actually matter, their is no feeling of threat, even at what should be the darkest moments, the music takes on a epic rather than tragic tone, changing how I viewed them, from real danger to yet another little road bump.

Interesting...

I think it maybe because in DAI the quests can be so spread out that you can take a break for hours and just explore and take in the beautiful environments (I know because I found myself sightseeing quite a bit!) and just forget about the quest just done so the immediacy and emotional impact is lost?

So for example, as In Exile's post the horror and emotional impact of the what is happening to the Templars can be lessened. In DAO the story is compressed and the sense of immediacy, danger, horror is always there. But DAO also had a wonderful balance of dark, lightness and humor and a great feel of hero epicness.

In DAI the theme of loss, betrayal, deceit, sadness woven through the companion quests and the main quests were very well done and imo dark but also different kind of dark. Oh and somber too- Maybe too much somber.

[SofaJockey]

DAO was not free of lightness...

 

[Archerwarden]

@SofaJockey
Sten and Ogren so funny.

[MrMrPendragon]

It's all about the supporting characters.

 

They carry the game. Sad to say that this time around, I found myself not caring about my companions at all, making me unmotivated to start another playthrough.

 

I think the massive scale of the maps kinda took away some sense of urgency. It made the game a lot less linear as it focused on open-world and getting the longest play time (in hours), instead of telling this wonderful story. The story kinda got sidetracked and the supporting character content got overwhlemed.

[Orian Tabris]

This video sums up pretty much everything I find wrong with the tone and 'colour' of inquisition, he's right, it is fantasy fluff, the grit, darkness and urgency have gone, the companions are 2 dimensional and flat, without the ambiguity of the DA:O companions, the choices don't seem to actually matter, their is no feeling of threat, even at what should be the darkest moments, the music takes on a epic rather than tragic tone, changing how I viewed them, from real danger to yet another little road bump.

 

I don't believe you can tell the difference between 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional characters, OP. I mean, if you can't even use the right 'there.'

[Ashagar]

It's all about the supporting characters.

 

They carry the game. Sad to say that this time around, I found myself not caring about my companions at all, making me unmotivated to start another playthrough.

 

For me it was vastly superior to DA2 where the only companions I cared about was Sebastian, Varric and Aviline while in this game the only companion and adviser for that matter myself not caring about was Sara.

[Hazegurl]

Nice vid and I agree with him. DAI lacked the tension and good pacing of DAO. Cory wasn't much of a threat except for his attack on Haven and afterwards he's reduced to a comedic villain. I think the companions were okay, but the lack of interaction with them hurt and the Wicked Grace scene was painful.

 

I do consider DAI more fluff than dark, of course I've read fantasy novels that were much much darker than Origins but the little Origins did bring to the table in showing the type of world Thedas is was sort of glossed over. Adding different races and a religious focus could have been a good opportunity for it but *shrug*

[Joseph Warrick]

I disagree that Cassandra or Solas are flat characters. There is more than 1 layer to their personality.

[Vilegrim]

I don't believe you can tell the difference between 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional characters, OP. I mean, if you can't even use the right 'there.'

Mild learning difficulties I can't see the difference between words that sound the same, it took me years to stop getting lower case b and d confused as well, there their is a battle I lost. Now if the ad hominem is done?

[Luqer]

Really though, the way they hyped up the Mage vs Templar war as a very bloody conflict I was expecting something like this

 

 

Yes, I know this is from the Witcher 3 but the way this screenshot is able to have a bunch of dead bodies from the aftermath of a recent conflict while still having a bright and vibrant setting is a fantastic way to set up a dark and gritty tone without causing players to become averse to the visuals.

 

The Mage vs Templar conflict in the Hinterlands was a joke. You do see a bunch of corpses but said corpses could easily be ignored as it was very near the battle area where the Inquisitor and party are required to defeat all enemies and once that's done, the refugee area is now suddenly all clean and peaceful as if people forgot that a bloody conflict just happened. It washed away the conflict as if it were a bad dream. If the devs wanted to convince us that this is a truly horrifying war, then said corpses should've stayed around in their undignified and gruesome position.

[Cantina]

I agree both DA:O and even DA2 were darker than DA:I

 

now its just a generic high fantasy it doesn't feel like DA anymore

And the biggest joke is that Mark Darrah (Executive producer) said that DA would be HBO material and compared it to

GoT lol

 No way. He said that?

 

OMG....LMFAO!

[Suhiira]

This video sums up pretty much everything I find wrong with the tone and 'colour' of inquisition ...

 

His comment about the card game struck me.

If there had been a sense of urgency and foreboding in the game the card game would have made more sense.  If you listen to Verric he's suggesting they all need to relax and unwind a bit.  And being a RL combat vet I fully understand where he's coming from ... you NEED to on occasion.

That said, the game as a whole fails utterly to deliver any real sense of urgency or foreboding, so the card game fails to give the player a little break in the tension ... there's none to break.

[Darkly Tranquil]

I've always felt that DA should strive to straddle fantasy and horror, which seemed to be an idea that DAO and DA2 toyed with, and while DAI had the potential to be plenty horrific, it baulked at nearly every opportunity to actually embrace the horrific concepts it hinted at and instead shifted to the safer territory of generic high fantasy. The problem is that high fantasy CRPGs are a dime a dozen, but real dark fantasy/horror games are few and far between (the Diablo series and Darkest Dungeon being the only ones that immediately spring to my mind), and moving to occupy that sort of niche would give DA a much stronger market identity, which it seems to lack in the general gaming community (who view it as "just another fantasy setting"). So yea, I'm all for taking DA to the dark side, but I ain't holding my breath. If anything I expect it to get lighter and fluffier.

[Gervaise]

The dark isn't so in your face as DA2, which everyone seemed to agree at the time was overdone; there were just too many sadistic Templars, too many blood mages and for the last two boss fights you had to suspend disbelief.     

 

In DAI you are also perhaps expected to use your imagination a bit more.    You see the red lyrium growing out of Fiona if you do Hushed Whispers but perhaps she should have looked and sounded a lot worse as a result; may be we should have been given a least one close up cut scene of a Templar transforming as the red stuff bursts out of them.   We are told about the affects on people rather more than actually seeing it happen.     Likewise, the Warden blood ritual.   It looks pretty tame and we only see a couple of Warden's actually sacrificed but it is pretty evident from what people say that dozens, possibly even more have been used; elsewise how could they summon a sufficiently large number of powerful demons?   I was happy enough with this; I don't have to be shown lots of gore to know what is going on.

 

As for the impact of war, well may be it was more muted in the Hinterlands but around the Exalted Plains it was very evident they had been in the midst of it.     Florianne was a bit of a cardboard cut out villain but the fact that you could have all the pieces in place to save Celene and yet just stand there and let her get the knife was pretty dark to me.    Then there are the judgements.    Do you really need to see someone's severed head?   

 

As for the companions, they seem to have a fair bit of depth to me, some more than others.   Dorian's personal quest had a big emotional punch to it to me whether you are planning or romancing him or not.   You get to drink with Bull's Chargers and get to know Krem quite well, so making the decision over them isn't about some faceless mercenary band.     Getting to see the softer side of Cassandra is rather fun, particularly if you do involve Varric in the joke.   That's not dark, I agree, but you only appreciate the dark if you get some lighter moments along the way to counter balance them and vice versa.

 

The only thing I would agree with is that the size of the game means that the stronger parts are wider spaced so could be said to dilute the overall impression of darkness which is why people seem to think it isn't there.

[Archerwarden]

Nice vid and I agree with him. DAI lacked the tension and good pacing of DAO. Cory wasn't much of a threat except for his attack on Haven and afterwards he's reduced to a comedic villain. I think the companions were okay, but the lack of interaction with them hurt and the Wicked Grace scene was painful.
 
I do consider DAI more fluff than dark, of course I've read fantasy novels that were much much darker than Origins but the little Origins did bring to the table in showing the type of world Thedas is was sort of glossed over. Adding different races and a religious focus could have been a good opportunity for it but *shrug*

Hazegurl and Sexyboy,
Pacing and massive scale of the maps. That's a much better way of describing it.

Yeah, thought the main quests and the main villain were underwhelming and distant. Had much hope after Legacy that Cory would be a more realistic villain. In the fade quest when Cory kept talking I could only think of Harbinger " I am assuming control". ah well.

In DAI I did like the most of the companions and wished for more dialog with them and more companion quests.

[Archerwarden]

The dark isn't so in your face as DA2, which everyone seemed to agree at the time was overdone; there were just too many sadistic Templars, too many blood mages and for the last two boss fights you had to suspend disbelief.     
 
In DAI you are also perhaps expected to use your imagination a bit more.    You see the red lyrium growing out of Fiona if you do Hushed Whispers but perhaps she should have looked and sounded a lot worse as a result; may be we should have been given a least one close up cut scene of a Templar transforming as the red stuff bursts out of them.   We are told about the affects on people rather more than actually seeing it happen.     Likewise, the Warden blood ritual.   It looks pretty tame and we only see a couple of Warden's actually sacrificed but it is pretty evident from what people say that dozens, possibly even more have been used; elsewise how could they summon a sufficiently large number of powerful demons?   I was happy enough with this; I don't have to be shown lots of gore to know what is going on.
 
As for the impact of war, well may be it was more muted in the Hinterlands but around the Exalted Plains it was very evident they had been in the midst of it.     Florianne was a bit of a cardboard cut out villain but the fact that you could have all the pieces in place to save Celene and yet just stand there and let her get the knife was pretty dark to me.    Then there are the judgements.    Do you really need to see someone's severed head?   
 
As for the companions, they seem to have a fair bit of depth to me, some more than others.   Dorian's personal quest had a big emotional punch to it to me whether you are planning or romancing him or not.   You get to drink with Bull's Chargers and get to know Krem quite well, so making the decision over them isn't about some faceless mercenary band.     Getting to see the softer side of Cassandra is rather fun, particularly if you do involve Varric in the joke.   That's not dark, I agree, but you only appreciate the dark if you get some lighter moments along the way to counter balance them and vice versa.
 
The only thing I would agree with is that the size of the game means that the stronger parts are wider spaced so could be said to dilute the overall impression of darkness which is why people seem to think it isn't there.

It seems they chose to shy away from the visuals in DAI for some reason - maybe people objected? Though in  DAO we never saw Hespeth actually eating her companions but the dialog  from Hespeth was enough to feel the horror. DAI could have done better I think then reading a codex. I don't know.

 

Adored Dorian.  But wished for a more dialog, quest and interactions - glimpses  were not enough.

Varric's was so bittersweet and Cassandra' softer side was nice to see. Iron Bull and Krem glitzed on me and the same dialog options appeared each time -so I couldn't complete his quests- maybe next time.
 

[SofaJockey]

(sigh)

 

Probably no huge deal but I wish thread titles wouldn't so often be a negative opinion stated as fact.

 

What would have been wrong with a neutral one for discussion, 'The tone of Inquisition' ?

and then by all means explain concerns with it.

 

If you look down the forums you'd think most people didn't like the game...

[Jones7602]

The main problem with tone from my point of view is, that there is no urgency behind the Inquisition. When you start the game you will close the big rift within hours, which is dark, gloomy, dramatic... name it. After that the plot is missing urgency to go on. Yes, there are smaller rifts, but they only get active and spit out demons, if you get to close.

 

Basically you could solve Thedas problems by putting "don't get to close" signs near all rifts. The game would change dramatically if the land would get slowly overrun by demons if we don't persue the main story and if we don't close rifts. You could build upons, place small villages in the game calling out for help. Each village would have a timer when it is to late to come to the rescue. You could either go yourself or send your troops or use your troops scouting the area to find the rift.

 

That would change the game dramatically and would motivate you as much as the blight did. Another thing is actually an enemy you can hate. Due to the setup of the story, Cory is underused in the first half and misused in the second. How many of us were motivated for just another hour to deliver some payback on Loghain?

[turuzzusapatuttu]

Did someone say dark?