9 réponses à ce sujet

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Hello there again! I was out for quite a while but this one is worthy of sharing IMAO. So - a friend of mine got this DLC and I was the one to watch her playing it. 

 

I've told her not to buy it. If a game is a bunch of barely tied together alogical fetch quests, DLC - and that stands for DownLoadable Content - is just more alogical fetching. 

 

I've told her that Dragon Age: Inquisition is secondary on every turn. If ingame writing was just a lazy copy-paste from other Bioware titles with no creativity whatsoever DLC can't change that. 

 

I've told her that DA:I is buggy and will be goddamn buggy (just as Gothic III was at launch... for years until community patch). If the product is THIS bad at programming part you won't get better results without firing all the programmers. Just because these people are simply not suitted to the task. 

 

But, well, she got it. Here goes the quotes (with generic references of mine, so you don't get much spoiled):

Spoiler

1. Oh, new area. Great. Let's see what is it about.

2. Wait. Now requisitions officer is some of an exchange student? And a student lectures me, the Great and Powerful Trixie Inquisitor? (Arrival cutscene)

3. Resting place of the last Inquisitiors? What the ****, I thought that is already covered by Cassandra personal quest? (same cutscene, explaining the reason we are here)

4. So we're after 'the last dragonhunter gear'? Guess it would be better if we get it in a storage chest saving the trouble.

5. Hold on a second. Silverite dagger and an ancient brooch were resting in the open @ the site of long gone battle for hundreds of years? Do these writer folks even know the value of the things in the world they're, well, writing? Do these folks even know about the landscape shifts on the river banks?
6. Oh! I can talk to Harding about something!

7. I better didn't. More generic rubbish.

8. So... she is afraid of taking parents to Skyhold because of Cory issue and the destruction of Haven. Funny enough, because Cory is already dead so the reason (which is acepted by Inky) is invalid.

9. Banter is totally broken. Random parts of it pop up from the earlier parts of the game, like after the Adamant siege.

10. Fade-touched animals that are tougher than the Cory's dragon. Perfect Bioware balance sense. As usual.

11. "Mountain Dew handing" again.

12. Okay, i get it. It's Emerald Graves with the colour scheme from Hinterlands. And I had my part of both.

13. More running around spamming the search button. Couldn't you go on with it for me? I'm getting some tea.

14. More shards? Oh thank you, I certainly wasn't missing those.

15. Gentle self-outcast augur apprentices. Wearing warmy puffy and clearly winter clothes. Good Lord, she has to be sweating a lot need to quit these thoughts.

16. Where is my something awesome, mr. Laidlaw? I've pressed these buttons more than enough times already.

17. Tree houses from Star Wars. Cool. I mean - not really. 

18. More opponents to kill, bigger enemies to kill, glowing blue weapons... Never thought assaulting Jedi keeps was this little fun.

19. 'Tevinter reached even here'? Dear Cass, it's called production costs. Tevinter DLC is definitely easier to build than something new. 

20. Sooo an inquisition scout Grandin, possessed by a demon. Signing treaties with demons doesn't usually go well. K let's kill it.

21. Let's talk back about it to Harding.

22. Sooo the options in telling the fate of the scout are "yes, he is dead" and "good bye"? Sweet ****** of Andraste, I would never say I miss Ruck.

23. We're saving elven student. We're attending some bachelor party or did I miss anything? Students everywhere.

24. Sooo we save her skinny ass. And she's talking about the problems back @University in the middle of a monster-infested forest. No kidding.

25. Hm. She's telling us about the ruins she DIDN'T reach. It's like CNN talking about Ukraine crisis - they weren't there but they surely have an opinion on who's guilty.

26. Haha! Leaving this poor sod to be eaten. Inky has bigger things to do.

27. Btw, this part of the forest is exactly the same as the rest. Well, with the light went off.

28. Climbing contest for the rams. Well. Very barbaric view on barbaric cultures. 

29. Female thane of a barbaric tribe with warrior agenda. Well. Them Bioware guys certainly need a history consultant. 

30. 'Our warriors are strong as the singers are pretty. Go look yourself if you will'. Haha, I wondered when that 'we will bang, okay' part is going to show up.

31. This Thane is a feminist, too? You know, she counts everyone as a fool around her.

32. Archer lit her hair on fire. Curious arrowhit, must've messed with her mind. Not figuratively.

33. I can't get these barbarians to war because they signed a peace treaty. However if I get their totem back it's fine. White House diplomacy at it's best

 

I finish quoting my friend here, but the list of comments I've taken goes for 80 more positions. After that she gave up on this.

 

My notes:

3*. What the hell is that stud is talking about? I know Nevarran Accord. By this the Inquisition united with the Chantry forming three organisations: Circle of Magi, Templars and the Seekers of Truth. And that guy states that the Last Inquisitor stepped down not long before the Seekers of Truth joined the Chantry? Lazy writing, Gaider level.

17*. I've had a weird feeling it's secondary, too. And I've found where the level design idea was stolen - it's the ME3 Leviatan DLC part, at the, sigh, ancient temple for worshipping Reapers.

19*. One word about lazy Gaider writing: previously the southernmost part of Tevinter reach was Ostagar. Look at the map, find Ostagar. Now look where you are. Yes, **** the lore.

22*. That's a guy back in DA:O, Orzammar side quest.

26*. Really weird game design decision. I'd say an escort quest should've been better here.

 

Summing everything I've come to these points:

1. Bioware doesn't have even a little hint on what history research is. Which is sad when they are making a HR-like DLC.

2. Bioware has amazing landscape designers and artists, which are limited to the writers requests. I'd say those designers better look for a better place to work for, since their talent for now is wasted. 

3. Writing and level design are lazy to the point of not forgiveness.
4. Quest mechanics is the same players voiced against in the core game.
5. Bugs with banter are immersion-breaking. 

6. Very concept of the area is lore-breaking.

 

Sadly, I've been looking forward to get it when it is on a discount. I won't now. 

Rest in Pieces, Dragon Age.

[Kulyok]

Thank you for an enjoyable read! (Your friend isn't from Russia, by chance? She sounds like my long-lost twin sister!) My reaction was about the same, only less funny.

 

I *hope* that the developers will - maybe? - see this is not the way to make DLCs. I mean, we could get an ancient elven temple, maybe discover the place Abelas and his ancient elves went to. Find out more about elven gods without disclosing Someone's Identity. Or more Orlesian court intrigue. Some Tevinter agenda, maybe working undercover, maybe going to Nevarra and learning more about those fascinating Mortalitasi guys and THEIR intrigue. There's Arlathan not so far away from Nevarra, by the way. And Antiva! The Crows!

 

... No, we got barbarians with very interesting dialogue. Oh, wait, we didn't.

[Dubya75]

Well I've not played the DLC, but my girlfriend is enjoying it. I may even enjoy it for cheap thrills.

 

But it's becoming quite clear to me that any creative talent Bioware had when they wrote Origins and dare I say, even DA2, is long gone!

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Thank you for an enjoyable read! (Your friend isn't from Russia, by chance? She sounds like my long-lost twin sister!) My reaction was about the same, only less funny.

 

I *hope* that the developers will - maybe? - see this is not the way to make DLCs. I mean, we could get an ancient elven temple, maybe discover the place Abelas and his ancient elves went to. Find out more about elven gods without disclosing Someone's Identity. Or more Orlesian court intrigue. Some Tevinter agenda, maybe working undercover, maybe going to Nevarra and learning more about those fascinating Mortalitasi guys and THEIR intrigue. There's Arlathan not so far away from Nevarra, by the way. And Antiva! The Crows!

 

... No, we got barbarians with very interesting dialogue. Oh, wait, we didn't.

She's ukranian refuge that fled the civil war. Just went to stay at my place for a while until things are fixed there. So, basically she's almost russian

It's kinda sad that things turn out this way. I was suspicious about the DLC quality because of the one for original game. Exactly the case when certainty is painful. 

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Well I've not played the DLC, but my girlfriend is enjoying it. I may even enjoy it for cheap thrills.

 

But it's becoming quite clear to me that any creative talent Bioware had when they wrote Origins and dare I say, even DA2, is long gone!

Well you may still get it for easier top-tier materials farming and new schematics. If you see dat price fitting. 

[Dubya75]

Well you may still get it for easier top-tier materials farming and new schematics. If you see dat price fitting. 

 

I don't.

[b10d1v]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.  Maybe if the "friend" knew about your steadfast policy on quality control, well maybe.

 

I also delayed waiting on that potential QA move? Nonetheless, reinstalled DAI and evaluated the platform functionality - seems to be better, more stable for 15 minutes or so and the character creator didn't crash; although the mail on bugs keep coming like nothing has changed.

 

However, the DLC sequence of events is "funny" and seems to be parallel or closely following to the wardens quest, so it would seem that you must start a new game or back up to a save before the wardens for the DLC dialogs to play correctly, assuming that a saved game is possible and stable.  Bioware needs to get the "big picture" of the planning together and plug some plot holes.

 

Remember no DLC until the platform issues were resolved?  I guess they count on political short memory.  I guess the other side of the coin is padding the politic to ease the time its taking to fix the game.

[b10d1v]

Trev I just went back over the emails and nearly all of the foundation issues remain.  Of course some are "get the drivers updated", "fix your sequence of events conflicts" and the like, but getting back to the point on research and quality control the product should be released with proper drivers and work "out of the box" to the specification they publish.  Take Crysis for instance -its always been a leading edge monster on graphics and hardware and w/o proper specifications it simply would not work.  So EA knows how to push the envelope inside a specification -evidently Bioware lost something in translation.

[C0uncil0rTev0s]

Trev I just went back over the emails and nearly all of the foundation issues remain.  Of course some are "get the drivers updated", "fix your sequence of events conflicts" and the like, but getting back to the point on research and quality control the product should be released with proper drivers and work "out of the box" to the specification they publish.  Take Crysis for instance -its always been a leading edge monster on graphics and hardware and w/o proper specifications it simply would not work.  So EA knows how to push the envelope inside a specification -evidently Bioware lost something in translation.

Bioware division that makes Dragon Age games lost a lot of people. Now DA devs just hide behind the big popular "Bioware" banner selling out... Well, let's be politically correct - they're selling out Inquisitions. They really need to cry loud for a Community support or hire new talented people (which are extremely difficult to find).  

But for some reason ... devs don't even read this. It's just us, heartbroken and disappointed fans talking to each other. Plus fangirls.

[b10d1v]

I thought you had learned that lesson "somebody is always listening"     And not all are friendly    

 

I get the point and agree, however would argue that there is a considerable infrastructure needed along with the creativity side and certainly enough creative people to fill the void.  I would agree that lacking programmatic checks and balances as we have discussed to maintain historically correct worlds is part of the problem, not people for the most part.  For instance, healing magic maybe lost over generations, not overnight.  A pet peeve diluted among so many.

 

It was interesting to note the other discussions centered on voice acting irregularities in the DLC and the discussion on how "special" the actors need to be and how much scope tieing the DLC to the game was missing.  Skyrim mods nor Masseffect mods needed famous actors for voice acting, yet still outstanding work. Someone will offer a virtual intelligence to solve this issue and that marriage of realistic world space and characters will be a "game changer".  Someday we will argue about the AI qualities the way we fret over actors.

 

The seemingly rare people are the ones that can pull a big project together and incentivize others to greatness.  You certainly have many of these skills.  Your creativity waxes and wanes, but thats normal, incentivization possibly a work in progress, but on how to tell a story effectively and understanding the programmatic skills you're solid and that's why you ruffle some feathers, so to speak.  Both EA and Bioware have had their share of uniquely skilled people and seem to be at a crossroads.  If I were head hunting for them, here is a good place to start -if you pay attention there are highly skilled sleepers here!  Most seem content to tutor, but that can change and when people have known buyin it's a win-win. 

 

Take care