328 réponses à ce sujet

[Epzaos]

Definitelly NO.

 

 

I was hoping Carver and Fenris would appear in Inquisition so that I would kill both of them.

[Dieb]

I think a lot of people are getting that topic wrong.

 

The OP - Do you read it?

[hoechlbear]

Yes, they should. And actually, I'm betting on it! After the over the top, cliche and super "epic" story (although it wasn't epic at all) we got in DAI, I don't see how they could top that in the next game, unless we play as Andraste. So my guess is that they will indeed go for a more personal story. Maybe not like Hawke, but at least like the warden, but definitely not like the Inquisitor again. I'm pretty much done if they make another story like Inquisition.

[Laurelinde]

I'm in the 'good idea, poor execution' camp, too. I've got no issue with a smaller-scale story, but I I found DA2 somewhat frustrating to play thanks to things like feeling railroaded on the story options, plotlines not being all that fleshed out in some cases, bugs, reused environments and so on. It was also a bit on the 'grimdark for the sake of grimdark' side for me - Leandra's death didn't 'work' for me at all and felt like pointless emotional manipulation for its own sake. I don't expect everything to be hearts and flowers, but after a certain point Hawke started to feel like Job.

 

I really need to have another go at it sometime, with the benefit of hindsight experience and expectations.

[hoechlbear]

I think a lot of people are getting that topic wrong.

 

The OP - Do you read it?

 

I know, right? They are completely missing the point and are focusing on all the negatives from DA2 instead of focusing on what the OP is talking about, which is basically: do you want a more personal and smaller-scale story or not? Obviously no one wants reused environments again, or a rushed game in general, but I doubt EA will make the same mistake of rushing Bioware.

[Gileadan]

I would really, REALLY like a personal story that doesn't have the fate of the world riding on the protagonist's shoulders again.

 

However, I found that while the idea was good in theory, DA2 failed to deliver any feelings of "personal" for me.

 

Examples:

- When you first meet Varric, he says that Hawke has made a name for himself. Just what kind of name? You can't decide, you can't find out. That's the opposite of personal.

 

- Atrocious paraphrasing. How can you RP your character's personality if your dialogue options are a frigging box of chocolate? Make a guess and hope for the best? That totally didn't work for me.

 

- But thou must. Quests you have to complete because the plot sayeth so, player and character motivations be damned. Shepherding Wolves and such. Never again, please.

 

In my opinion, a personal story should focus on your character more than on whatever big picture, and that requires for the game to give you options to shape your character's personality, both in dialogue and decisions, and it needs to respect those decisions, not bend whatever path you took back to the main route as soon as possible. A well crafted personal story may end up being more resource intensive than a huge sweeping epic that barely lets you deviate from its path. Unless we're talking ten hours worth of storyline here.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

It depends on your definition of what being "like" DA 2 is.

 

I think the lesson I would most like BioWare to learn from their Dragon Age experiences is to stop removing features of the game that people liked and praised in its sequels. Any time they find themselves taking something out of the game, they should immediately stop and seriously consider the impact on the quality of the gaming experience.

 

DA 2 had features like "sarcastic dialogue options" and the ability to change your character's appearance after initial creation, which were removed for its sequel. I don't know whether including those elements in the next game makes it "like" DA 2, but I would be happier if they came back.

[MaxQuartiroli]

Woh.. so much love for DA2 story here, more than I could ever think.

Hey Bioware, can you give us back Exalted March DLC now? I suppose you can't... well.. *SHRUGS*

[pinkjellybeans]

I certainly hope so. They will have more time to develop the next game, so I doubt they would make the same mistakes they did with DA2. Even so, I still replay DA2 to this day despite its flaws, while with DAI I only finished the game once and have no interest in replaying it.

 

In DAI there's no real struggle/conflicts/drama and you don't get to earn your title, everything is handed down to you the moment you touch that orb because you're such a special little snowflake. You're the Herald the moment the game starts, people already worship you, and then once you are the Inquisitor it's all sunshine and butterflies. You only have to do fetch quests in order to gain power and influence (which is basically just a number that lets you unlock main missions, because people still love you and respect you even if you ignore the hungry and cold refugees). And since the Inquisitor is a leader of a big organization, you have a default diplomatic (and dull) personality no matter what dialogue you choose and your relationship with NPCs and companions feel very professional. Unlike DA2, where Hawke and the companions are a really close group of friends and they have amazing chemistry together. So yes, I'm all about more personal, smaller scale stories and I have all my fingers crossed in the hopes that DA4 will have that.

[Epzaos]

The only "Good" thing about DAII was Varric and Sarcastic Hawke.

[littlebrightpanda]

I am dreaming of a DA2-style game in Antiva City, you playing as a member of the Crows. Just, more fleshed out and maybe with a visit to Cumberland and Starkhaven. The Crows operate there, right?

 

Just make the environments more varied, no wave combat, show more than tell, and properly start, continue and end your storylines. Because the personal aspect was awesome. 

 

If I remember right, DA2 was also the first BioWare game where the companions were shown to actually hang out with each other, without your input. Something I dearly missed from Inquisition. Why can't I see Blackwall teaching Solas Wicked Grace?

[Hiemoth]

If DA:O would have been a game telling the story of a Cousland and his/her time in Highever I would have had the same complaint but it wasn't.  Dragon Age 2 was about you and your times in Kirkwall.  

 

The game made an excuse of why you couldn't see your sister/brother.  Just like they they decided for you that you weren't ready to look in your mother's room.

 

Like I said earlier, the didn't even establish your family before they killed one off, which could have easily been done in an Origin.  Furthermore, you're in the city of your birth, but I can only think on quest that pertained to your family.  

 

The mage/templar thing made no sense because you needed a Grey Warden and a map to find your way around the deep roads but some random mages and templars can navigate it, find and kidnap your sibling, and escape.

 

I'm just not a person who is going to say well it was fine considering the lack of resources and time, either it was done well or it wasn't.  Either it was a good idea or not.  A personal story will probably lead to other things on my list.  Stuck in one place, human only, fixed story.  So no I don't think it would be an idea I would want to see again.  All I was doing was responding to someone who picked out one specific point, so I responded about that one specific point and why I didn't think it was done well.

 

First to nitpick, as has already been pointed out, Kirkwall isn't Hawke's city of birth. Besides there are several points in the story about him/her reclaiming the Amell house. And I don't recall them saying they kidnapped Bethany/Carver in the Deep Roads, but from the Grey Wardens, and if it was, couldn't it just be that it was when they were entering or leaving the Deep Roads. I am just confused as it this is a very small, minor point which you seem to be really fixating on.

 

Then to the broader response. As I was starting to write this response, I looked over the discussion before it and found myself really struggling what to say. Not because you somehow managed to convince me, but rather because I felt like the goal posts were constantly moving, making it really difficult to for me to graps what is argued as acceptable and what is not. The Cousland origin is a perfect example of this for me, as at first they are the perfect example of a family that is established as opposed to DA2 where the family is just there to die, and then suddenly they are just there to die. Or the number of arguments that are simply dropped.

 

Now, this isn't a criticism of the argument, rather that it shows that I feel we are really talking past each other, and even more importantly, how much these discussion rely on subjective experiences. I couldn't give a damn about the Cousland's as they were just a perfect, caring family to stand there for that one discussion... And they die brutally. However, even in that brief interaction at the beginning of DA2, before the sibling dies, I got a good grasp of the dynamics of the family and with their bickering and discussions felt much more real for me than that family that felt for me to be only there to make me feel bad. Thus for me, just making a blanket statement that Hawke's were not relatable while those cute Cousland's are just heartwarming has no meaning as it is not an universal truth or a valid counter-argument. It doesn't make it untrue for you, as that is obvioulsy how you experienced the game, but as such it needs to be argued as a preference, not as a truth everyone must see. Which was your initial argument I responded to.

 

And I agree with you that we must say that either something worked or it didn't, that is not what I was arguing. My argument was that expanding on that by saying this is all they could have done is inherently meaningless as there is always more that could have been done.

[Iakus]

The failure of DA2 wasn't that it was a smaller, more personal story.  It's that it didn't feel very...personal. 

 

Forget saving the world, toppling or saving ancient institutions, slaying dragons and demons and such.   Hawke's "rise to power" simply didn't feel genuine.  Nothing Hawke did seemed to impact his/her personal life., aside, perhaps from the fate of the sibling.    By the final act, Hawke was supposedly the most important person in Kirkwall, but was still doing the same stuff as penniless refugee Hawke.  There was little feeling of progression or change.   

 

So yeah, I think telling that kind of story is worth another shot.  Just let us feel like Hawke is more than a spectator in his/her own adventures.

[Joseph Warrick]

They have their own ideas. Unite the land and defend it from an invasion led by an ancient evil is a plot concept they've used several times. I'll be happy if they try a new plot next, not necessarily at a smaller scale, just a plot that's different. If it happens to be smaller scale then cool.

 

Another thing about Bioware's last games is that a middle-game plot is introduced but it ends up being an anecdote in the context of the main story. The Landsmeet, the Qunari assault, chasing Kai Leng, civil war in Orlais. To me these are often more fun than the main story (except Kai Leng), and yet at the end of the day they don't matter much because the main story goes on as if nothing had happened. I would like these stories to be more closely connected to the main one.

[thruaglassdarkly]

First, to answer to the OPs question, yes.  I may be in the minority, but I prefer a universe where games that are kind of like DAII and games that are kind of like Inquisition can both exist.  One of the biggest problems with DAII is that they named it DAII.  It set the wrong precedent.  Yes, there are things to be improved on the core concept; for me most of these revolve around the reused environments and some story imbalance, but I really like the core concept. Making a character-centric story in a fantasy setting is a refreshing idea.  Frankly I don't think it was poorly executed. Few games cannot be improved, and DAII for all its flaws was still more fun than most of the games I have played in my life.  There are times when I wish there was more middle ground between "best ten games I've ever played" and "complete and utter trash."

 

The failure of DA2 wasn't that it was a smaller, more personal story.  It's that it didn't feel very...personal. 

 

Forget saving the world, toppling or saving ancient institutions, slaying dragons and demons and such.   Hawke's "rise to power" simply didn't feel genuine.  Nothing Hawke did seemed to impact his/her personal life., aside, perhaps from the fate of the sibling.    By the final act, Hawke was supposedly the most important person in Kirkwall, but was still doing the same stuff as penniless refugee Hawke.  There was little feeling of progression or change.   

 

So yeah, I think telling that kind of story is worth another shot.  Just let us feel like Hawke is more than a spectator in his/her own adventures.

 

I think the story felt more personal to me than it did to you, but I agree with you that things became a little deluded in the final act.  It does not make a lot of sense that the Champion of Kirkwal would be allowed, certainly not encouraged, to risk his/her neck in a street fight with random thugs.  It did not help that the nature of these quests was essentially the same in the final act.  It was a strange way to come down from the Qunari invasion.

 

Reading this discussion board, I realized this is something I've noticed in most of the video games I've played; the last act tends to be underwhelming in comparison to other moments in the game.  Its really noticeable in sandbox games (ala Bethesda) where the shear amount of quests and lack of narrative focus makes important decisions feel less significant, but I've noticed it in general.  The best part of Bioshock was the end of Act II.  DA:O crests at the Landsmeet.  If I were to go back to the distant past of my gaming history, I'd say games like Final Fantasy 7 suffered from peaking in the middle as well. Mass Effect (game 1) was one of the few times I felt the final zone was also the best.  I'm not sure I have a solution, but it does make me wonder if something inherent in the media either promotes narratives that peak too soon or side-stories that tend to overwhelm the principal focus.  

[Vicious]

Why not? They got it right the first time when it was called Baldur's Gate II. They could have a return to glory.

 

Except a common complaint about Baldur's Gate 2 was it was less about the main character's exploration of his mysterious background and more about Irenicus and how far he went to get his revenge. 

 

Yes, people even complained about Baldur's Gate 2's story. Makes you think.

 

 

 

Anyway I loved DA2's first and second act. Great stuff. The final duel with the Arishok was well executed and memorable. "Your death, Your rules." - AngryHawke.The Third Act derailed it, had good sidequest but nobody liked Meredith doing wacky super jumps like She Hulk or something. And it's ending was, of course, atrocious.

[MrMrPendragon]

I like DA2's linearity. DAI got too big that the only way to use that area is fill it in with filler, either with having the player to what seem like minor disputes, or just collect about 5 tons of elfroot

[ESTAQ99]

Do I want a more personal and smaller-scale story for the next DA instalment?

 

Yes.

 

I really enjoyed playing DAO but for various reasons, my favorite will always be DA2. Beside its obvious signs of lacking in budget and enough time to develop it, DA2 is the game that I've replayed most and I will remember most. If I had the chance to choose between a game with breathtaking environments but one that it feels like an empty ,boring, lifeless, disconnected large world with a sub par main plot and then, a game with more intimate world, with characters and story that drags me in, I won't think twice choosing the second.

 

I don't think intimate necessarily means smaller. It can have large areas and beautiful environments (hopefully built with an engine that don't plague the game with bugs, crushes and glitches).

 

At the end of the day, it didn't make a lot of difference for BW having tons of time and money to develop a better game for the franchise. They ended up with a game so obviously built for console and badly ported to pc (annoying so many fans in the way). A game that has a lackluster main plot, a reused main enemy that was less scary than its DA2's version, a game plagued with an endless number of the most boring fetch quests and an ending that felt even more rushed and less epic than the one in DA2. 

 

If we had to go with the world savior type of protagonist, I can only imagine how much funnier would had been having, at least, the option to play DAI as a Viscount Hawke or as a fugitive/renegade Hawke as the inquisitor, instead of the current rainbow of tranquil protagonist's options.

[NaclynE]

Pfffft....NO.

 

I hated playing as Tony Hawke. It just seemed one sided and frankly the romances were uninteresting. I rather be Warden or Inquisitor because a warden and Inquisitor can be any type of race or gender and not be a human male. Frankly the whole Tony Hakwe thing should be left to the MASS EFFECT universe because the whole shemlen thing was far more understandable in the MASS EFFECT universe than in DA because the first DA game you can play any race and not be just a human being.

[KaiserShep]

Heh, now I'm imagining Hawke grinding through Hightown on a skateboard.

[Panda]

Yes cause DA2 is best Dragon Age game.

[RawToast]

Yes. I love more personal, home-y stories. The idea behind da2 was great but just poorly made thanks to the short development style. So yes i would love to see bioware try again. Just without the 7 year time span, reused areas, no race options, and wave combat. 

[AWTEW]

Yes. I love more personal, home-y stories. The idea behind da2 was great but just poorly made thanks to the short development style. So yes i would love to see bioware try again. Just without the 7 year time span, reused areas, no race options, and wave combat.

i agree, but I dont see haveing four race options as nesscary tbh. I mean if its going to make the story better mYbe three, or two.

[Aren]

Garret Hawke>>>>>>> Blank Inquisitor

Marian Hawke>>>>>>>>>>>>>Blank Inquisitor

 

Corypheus is clearly Hawke's job and i do not understand why we have this unknowing and faceless blank state with multi race pack instead of the Super champion of Kirkwall.

[DarkAmaranth1966]

Yes and no. As a full game again no, DA2 was a great idea and a decent game but it really felt more like a large expansion that we never saw the base game for. Now the personal story, limited locations idea yes, with more companion interactions in it, would make a wonderful DAI expansion/Story DLC.

 

So many possibilities, post game socializing and cleaning up loose ends, pre game story for each class and race of Inquisitor, side stories expanding on some of the Inner Circle quests. Playing out some of the war table missions, especially the race specific ones.... We'll see what happens.