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[AWTEW]

I suppose. But Hawke and his family could almost have easily been city elves and it would have worked with little alteration. And does the Inquisitor not also have neutral, humorous, and aggressive dialog choices for the most part?

 

Nope its pretty much all the same,

 

good

'good with a minor dose of humour'

or good with a minor dose of agression

 

Bassicly no matter what you pick, the inquisitor is still 'good neutral personified'.

 

I think the fan reception of DA: 2 is evidence enough that the majority of players disagree with you.

 

Sigh, as someone was around during DA2 launch the bad reception to DA2 was mostly because of the fact, that  it was rushed. When mentioned elsewhere it's mostly always the quality problem,related to recycled maps ect. The majority of players play human, and then after that elf.  If Hawke had been playable as elf as well, the vast majority of players would have been satisfied.

I prefer custom shaped characters (phisically, mentally and by background) than a pre-made one like Hawke or as Shepard partly is.

 And I hate characters like that, I liked Hawke because they were in the middle. There are other fans who play DAI primarily for the story/world/gameplay who don't like playing mostly custom characters. Hawke was a much better middle balance, than inquisitor.

 

Thank goodness this is only your opinion. And thank goodness Bioware listened to their fans and gave us multi-race in Inquisition. I personally do not see Bioware going down the pre defined protagonist again looking at this game's success.

 

They are not the only person with that opinion. I'd even bet, that the commercial majority, would agree with them( and not give a frig for multiple race election).

[Mr. Homebody]

I hope that some day we will have charismatic and interesting protagonists in Bioware games at the same level as companions. Of course it is easier with NPCs because they are already defined while protagonist is and still should be player's own creation (to some degree). 

 

However there need to be good balance between quantity and quality of possible customisation options. Too less and it's no longer RPG, too many and we have shallow protagonist like Inquisitor.

 

DA2 approach turned out to be quite good idea after all. To be honest couple of years ago I wasn't big fan of Hawke's predefined personalities. But now after playing DA:I I realized how much I miss more interesting and iconic representation of protagonist. Customization is important but it should be limited to couple meaningful options rather than dozens shallow illusory "choices".

 

I understand why choices like gender, archetypes of personality, unique relationships and romance paths are important for players. We all can identify with these aspects of roleplaying. But not wanting to play as human? It is hard to understand for me.

[blahblahblah]

As I read your posts, OP. You want Bioware to make a Witcher clone. A protagonist that has a predefined personality, race and gender. No thanks.

[Xetykins]

But not wanting to play as human? It is hard to understand for me.

It's not the refusal to play as human though, it's the role play that comes with playing an elf for example. Admittedly, I did not feel the distinction so much in Inquisition, but they're still there to a degree. Specially when it comes to Solas and Sera. But I sure felt it like a mutha in Origins.

[Mr. Homebody]

It's not the refusal to play as human though, it's the role play that comes with playing an elf for example. Admittedly, I did not feel the distinction so much in Inquisition, but they're still there to a degree. Specially when it comes to Solas and Sera. But I sure felt it like a mutha in Origins.

 

It reminds me pen & paper rpg sessions with friends years ago. One of them loved to play as elf thief in Forgotten Realms. Unfortunately rather not because of storyline reasons, but probably because of gameplay mechanics (famous +2 to dexterity). He had couple of these characters (they had tendency to dying) created in very similar way. There was nothing "elfy" about them. However he had "good" explanation for this.

 

He was always saying "My elf was raised by humans". 

 

It is one of the reasons why I don't choose other races than humans in Bioware games (with rare exceptions). You can choose for your protagonist to be elf or dwarf but it doesn't' feel "elfy" or "dwarfy". Your protagonist "was raised by humans" anyway so to speak. And it is perfectly understandable because game development has its limits.

 

I wouldn't mind play as an elf or even dwarf if that means being truly representative of these races and not some imposter without any real cultural connection to his race. But that would require to make separate game.

[magicalpoop]

I hope you know DA:I is Bioware's biggest success to date.

[Revan Reborn]

As I read your posts, OP. You want Bioware to make a Witcher clone. A protagonist that has a predefined personality, race and gender. No thanks.

Your reading comprehension is terrible then. You are aware that Shepard and Hawke can be either male or female and you can customize their respective appearances? I'm not sure I have mentioned Geralt of Rivia in any of my posts. Nice try though.

 

I hope you know DA:I is Bioware's biggest success to date.

I hope you know that ME3 has sold almost double the amount of copies that DAI has, and ME3 was available on only three platforms whereas DAI is available on five. No, DAI is not "BioWare's biggest success to date." It merely had the fastest selling launch of a BioWare title. That's hardly anything to rave about as SWTOR was the fastest selling MMO at launch and it went F2P in less than a year.

[Dr. Rush]

To be fair, I doubt any Bioware game has made the kind of money that SWTOR has. SWTOR has been raking in hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few years. I doubt even ME3 box sales and MP microtransactions combined even come close to SWTOR revenue. With that said, I doubt any other Bioware game has ever cost as much to develop as SWTOR either.

[Revan Reborn]

To be fair, I doubt any Bioware game has made the kind of money that SWTOR has. SWTOR has been raking in hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few years. I doubt even ME3 box sales and MP microtransactions combined even come close to SWTOR revenue. With that said, I doubt any other Bioware game has ever cost as much to develop as SWTOR either.

I think it's important to make a distinction between "successful" and "profitable."

 

SWTOR easily returned the initial investment after the first month. It was the most expensive MMO to date costing around $150 million to develop. It's certainly still profitable due to the game shop BioWare added and constantly updates in SWTOR. However, I'm not sure how it compares to when it had a monthly fee with well over a million players. MMOs are a different kind of beast entirely and are meant to have longevity and generate revenue over a long period of time. ME3 is just a single player game that had MP with microtransactions included. To compare the two isn't really practical.

 

Either way, in terms of traditional BioWare games, as SWTOR was BioWare trying something vastly different, ME3 is by far their most successful game. It's hard to make the same case for SWTOR as it went F2P in less than a year and lost two thirds of its population within only three months of release.

[blahblahblah]

Your reading comprehension is terrible then. You are aware that Shepard and Hawke can be either male or female and you can customize their respective appearances? I'm not sure I have mentioned Geralt of Rivia in any of my posts. Nice try though.
 

I hope you know that ME3 has sold almost double the amount of copies that DAI has, and ME3 was available on only three platforms whereas DAI is available on five. No, DAI is not "BioWare's biggest success to date." It merely had the fastest selling launch of a BioWare title. That's hardly anything to rave about as SWTOR was the fastest selling MMO at launch and it went F2P in less than a year.

Keep believing to the idea that multi-race options hinders the game. DA2 has been proven that human only protagonist wouldn't work especially the protagonist is predefined like Hawke. Like SWTOR to go free-to-play because of low number of subscribers, Bioware turn back to multi-racial option after DAII's lower sales compare to DAO.

[Revan Reborn]

Keep believing to the idea that multi-race options hinders the game. DA2 has been proven that human only protagonist wouldn't work especially the protagonist is predefined like Hawke. Like SWTOR to go free-to-play because of low number of subscribers, Bioware turn back to multi-racial option after DAII's lower sales compare to DAO.

There is nothing to "believe." It does. It leads to an empty protagonist in which generally doesn't fit with the story and as a result breaks the immersion as well as lessening the experience. DA2's issues had nothing to do with Hawke or being human only. On the contrary, BioWare has proven with Mass Effect that a human-only protagonist works exceptionally well. It also worked well with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.

 

I'm not sure comparing multi-race to F2P with microtransactions is really a positive thing given the latter's negative connotation... DAI wasn't even going to have multi-race, so that's a fallacious argument. The only reason it did occur is because BioWare was granted more time and they decided to go through with it. In other words, multi-race was not high on BioWare's list of priorities. Given the criticism that the Inquisitor has largely received, I would not be surprised if multi-race was not available in DA4.

[blahblahblah]

There is nothing to "believe." It does. It leads to an empty protagonist in which generally doesn't fit with the story and as a result breaks the immersion as well as lessening the experience. DA2's issues had nothing to do with Hawke or being human only. On the contrary, BioWare has proven with Mass Effect that a human-only protagonist works exceptionally well. It also worked well with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.

 

I'm not sure comparing multi-race to F2P with microtransactions is really a positive thing given the latter's negative connotation... DAI wasn't even going to have multi-race, so that's a fallacious argument. The only reason it did occur is because BioWare was granted more time and they decided to go through with it. In other words, multi-race was not high on BioWare's list of priorities. Given the criticism that the Inquisitor has largely received, I would not be surprised if multi-race was not available in DA4.

With that logic, the Warden is an empty protagonist and DAO is a bad game. Given by the success of the game with awards in its name, multi-race will not disappear on the next game despite the short comings of the Inquisitor and Mass Effect was also criticize with it's auto-dialogue that hampers the role-playing particularly in the 3rd game.

[Dunmer of Redoran]

There is no "One player racial model to rule them all."

 

Fallout uses Human-Only Protagonists as its model. The Elder Scrolls uses a setup of Humans, Elves, and two-legged cat and lizard people as its model. The Elder Scrolls is a bigger franchise than Fallout. Protagonists in these do not say much.

 

+1 point for diversity; +1 point for silent protagonists

 

DA:O and DA:I use many races and backgrounds as their model. DA2 and Mass Effect use Human-Only Protagonists as their models. Mass Effect is a bigger franchise than Dragon Age. Shepard speaks.

 

+1 point for humans-only, +1 point for vocal protagonists

 

 

There's merits in each. It just depends on how the game works.

[blahblahblah]

Since DAI multiplayer is terrible in the first place than suggesting to remove multi-race options. There are more problems that they need to fix like fetch quest, empty open world, etc.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

There is nothing to "believe." It does. It leads to an empty protagonist in which generally doesn't fit with the story and as a result breaks the immersion as well as lessening the experience. DA2's issues had nothing to do with Hawke or being human only. On the contrary, BioWare has proven with Mass Effect that a human-only protagonist works exceptionally well. It also worked well with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire.

 

I'm not sure comparing multi-race to F2P with microtransactions is really a positive thing given the latter's negative connotation... DAI wasn't even going to have multi-race, so that's a fallacious argument. The only reason it did occur is because BioWare was granted more time and they decided to go through with it. In other words, multi-race was not high on BioWare's list of priorities. Given the criticism that the Inquisitor has largely received, I would not be surprised if multi-race was not available in DA4.

Then provide evidence. You keep saying it is a fact that race options hinders rather than enhances a game, yet you never provide anything but opinions to back it up. You also shrug off any evidence against your position as irrelevant. 

 

Criticism? Overall the reception of DAI has been largely positive, in part due to race selection. 

[Revan Reborn]

With that logic, the Warden is an empty protagonist and DAO is a bad game. Given by the success of the game with awards in its name, multi-race will not disappear on the next game despite the short comings of the Inquisitor and Mass Effect was also criticize with it's auto-dialogue that hampers the role-playing particularly in the 3rd game.

You are conflating two very different things. While story is arguably the most important part of a BioWare game, it is not the entire game. DAO suffered by having a blank slate instead of an actual protagonist, but the game was largely carried due to well-executed events and great characters. A bad protagonist will not destroy a game, but it will certainly harm it.

 

I have never heard "auto-dialogue" being an issue for anyone outside of BSN. On the contrary, I know many folks who never previously played a BioWare game that love Mass Effect because it feels like a movie. Its success and numbers certainly prove that "auto-dialogue" definitely did not detract from the experience as many claim.

 

There is no "One player racial model to rule them all."

 

Fallout uses Human-Only Protagonists as its model. The Elder Scrolls uses a setup of Humans, Elves, and two-legged cat and lizard people as its model. The Elder Scrolls is a bigger franchise than Fallout. Protagonists in these do not say much.

 

+1 point for diversity; +1 point for silent protagonists

 

DA:O and DA:I use many races and backgrounds as their model. DA2 and Mass Effect use Human-Only Protagonists as their models. Mass Effect is a bigger franchise than Dragon Age. Shepard speaks.

 

+1 point for humans-only, +1 point for vocal protagonists

 

 

There's merits in each. It just depends on how the game works.

There's a major distinction you are omitting. BGS games (TES and Fallout) aren't about strong story. They are about creating a rich, living world in which the player can get lost in. BioWare games are about strong story. This means having great characters, great obstacles, and a relatable protagonist to lead the experience. It's fine for your character to lack an identity in TES because the games are intentionally built that way. A story-driven experience doesn't work nearly as well when you try to make a character a blank slate. Just consider trying to take away Harry Potter's personality or Katniss Everdeen. You lose much of what made the story matter to start.

 

Since DAI multiplayer is terrible in the first place than suggesting to remove multi-race options. There are more problems that they need to fix like fetch quest, empty open world, etc.

MP is a higher priority than multi-race so that's unlikely to happen. I guarantee you MP was in the game before EA delayed DAI a year. Multi-race obviously was not.

 

Then provide evidence. You keep saying it is a fact that race options hinders rather than enhances a game, yet you never provide anything but opinions to back it up. You also shrug off any evidence against your position as irrelevant. 

 

Criticism? Overall the reception of DAI has been largely positive, in part due to race selection. 

What evidence have you provided? DAI has been received well, but it has nothing to do with multi-race. On the contrary, many were actually more upset with multi-race because of a lack of hairstyles and other options. Some were suggesting BioWare not even waste their time on multi-race at all if they won't even give each race adequate options.

 

The main boosts to DAI was going open world and giving the player control over an organization, not to mention their own castle. Those were the major pulls for DAI as well as Dragon Age Keep. Outside of BSN, I've never even heard people mention multi-race or its supposed importance to Dragon Age. I think its "value" is largely overrated by the few who actually want it.

[phaonica]

It's worth pointing out that much of your "evidence" has less to do with "roleplay" and more to do with "romance options," which have been a heated area of discussion in BioWare games since the beginning really. Especially since the beginning of fully-rendered romance scenes starting in ME1, it has become a hot button issue and BioWare tries their best to be open-minded and politically correct for all sexual orientations. That's a bit different from our discussion about headcanon and people having flexibility with their protagonist. Romances are much more of a social concern and it's one BioWare takes very seriously.

 

Obviously there is more to BioWare games than just stories. If it was just a story, it would be a book. That being said, BioWare built their entire reputation off of story-driven games with choices that matter (whether the latter part is actually true or not is irrelevant). What has to be considered is what will BioWare incorporate into the experience along with the story. Of course compromises to the story have to be made with gameplay and a large slew of other things. The point of this thread is that multi-race further compromises the story and the strength of the main protagonist.

 

It's a discussion of whether that's really a good thing overall or actually a detriment to BioWare games. There is no "right" or "wrong" answer. Everybody has their preferences and I see that having a stronger protagonist has largely benefited the storytelling overall. When the character is just a blank slate or doesn't have much of a personality, the game is affected by that ambiguity and it's up to the player to just headcanon what actually happened. I don't buy BioWare games to headcanon. I buy BioWare games to play a story-driven RPG with choices that matter. If I wanted my own story, I wouldn't look towards a BioWare game for that experience. That's my position.

 

So what if it's in the context of the romances? Any quote any of us could provide as to whether or not Bioware considers DA to be "story first" is going to be in the context of something. The point is that, unlike you, I have shown sources of Bioware emphasizing that roleplaying is of strong importance to them for the specific purpose of experiencing a story from different perspectives. Bioware games being story-driven doesn't mean that the story is the number one priority, at the expense of everything else. I agree that some stories are probably better when experienced from a single perspective, but I also believe that some stories are better when you get the chance to experience more than one side of the story.

[phaonica]

What evidence have you provided? DAI has been received well, but it has nothing to do with multi-race. On the contrary, many were actually more upset with multi-race because of a lack of hairstyles and other options. Some were suggesting BioWare not even waste their time on multi-race at all if they won't even give each race adequate options.
 
The main boosts to DAI was going open world and giving the player control over an organization, not to mention their own castle. Those were the major pulls for DAI as well as Dragon Age Keep. Outside of BSN, I've never even heard people mention multi-race or its supposed importance to Dragon Age. I think its "value" is largely overrated by the few who actually want it.

So now you're saying that they didn't bother to add any hairstyles and other options to support multirace, even though you earlier said that they may have made significant changes to the narrative (ie did something or other to make the narrative worse) to support multirace? What do you think they did? Re-record dialog to make sure it was more bland and less race-specific?

[Felya87]

You are conflating two very different things. While story is arguably the most important part of a BioWare game, it is not the entire game. DAO suffered by 

What evidence have you provided? DAI has been received well, but it has nothing to do with multi-race. On the contrary, many were actually more upset with multi-race because of a lack of hairstyles and other options. Some were suggesting BioWare not even waste their time on multi-race at all if they won't even give each race adequate options.

 

The main boosts to DAI was going open world and giving the player control over an organization, not to mention their own castle. Those were the major pulls for DAI as well as Dragon Age Keep. Outside of BSN, I've never even heard people mention multi-race or its supposed importance to Dragon Age. I think its "value" is largely overrated by the few who actually want it.

 

You wheren't on the forum when the playable races where announced, right? because you would have seen many treads "bring back playable races", almost as many as the "take away the PJs" now. And the races where acclamed with a lot of joy on the forum, and many players (like me) came back to DA for it.

And is quite dumb that you are giving to the playable races the fault for the bad hairstyles, since those are in common to all races and NPCs. Hair and body models would have been made for others characters beside the protagonist. You are just clutching at straws, now.

 

Races aren't all about DAI, but a lot of emphasis was made about choosing a race for the Inquistor. Just look at the main site, or the advertsemant about the CC.

 

People love to play races. BioWare should expand a feature they had in all their fantasy games beside DA2.

People like to create their character in a fantasy setting, deciding race and gender. Is a very important feature present in the mayority of fantasy RPGs.

 

DAI have made a good job. Cpuld be improved. But not abandoned just to make a ME/witcher clone. (and let's not talk about how much Shepard, even if is only human, have less dialogue options than the inquisitor. Less roplayability. Can't even be not friend with characters. It have less choices than the Inquisitor. Deal. With. It.)

 

Playable races are great, and a feature BioWare should make even better, never leave out again from his DA games.

[Mr. Homebody]

I hope you know DA:I is Bioware's biggest success to date.

 

Criticism? Overall the reception of DAI has been largely positive, in part due to race selection. 

 

My first impressions on DA:I were very positive and I gave my own vote on this game supporting Bioware to win GotY award. However long term perspective changed it dramatically. After finishing main campaign I would gladly give DA:I "Disappointment of the year award". Overall structure of this game is so badly designed with large amount of flaws and shallow boring protagonist is definitely one of them.

 

Keep believing to the idea that multi-race options hinders the game. DA2 has been proven that human only protagonist wouldn't work especially the protagonist is predefined like Hawke. Like SWTOR to go free-to-play because of low number of subscribers, Bioware turn back to multi-racial option after DAII's lower sales compare to DAO.

 

Actually DA2 has proven that human only protagonist works very well. Hawke isn't perfect but remains memorable and problems with DA2 are elsewhere. Inquisitor however is formless and forgettable. But of course it is subjective. Two persons can play the same game and draw very different conclusions.

[Revan Reborn]

So what if it's in the context of the romances? Any quote any of us could provide as to whether or not Bioware considers DA to be "story first" is going to be in the context of something. The point is that, unlike you, I have shown sources of Bioware emphasizing that roleplaying is of strong importance to them for the specific purpose of experiencing a story from different perspectives. Bioware games being story-driven doesn't mean that the story is the number one priority, at the expense of everything else. I agree that some stories are probably better when experienced from a single perspective, but I also believe that some stories are better when you get the chance to experience more than one side of the story.

I don't disagree with your sentiment. On the contrary, I agree that having multiple perspectives, in theory, would be better. It would add much greater variety and replay value to BioWare games. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Just look at any modern BioWare game. Whether you are "paragon" or "renegade," "diplomatic," "aggressive," or "sarcastic," the story always ends the same way.

 

The last BioWare game that truly had a strikingly different ending based on your choices was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It was the difference between saving the Republic and bringing a close to the Jedi Civil War, or reclaiming your position as Dark Lord of the Sith and perpetuating the Sith Empire. The closest game ending to that today would be ME3, which was really more of various shades of grey rather than a clearly "good" or "evil" ending.

 

In Dragon Age, it doesn't really matter what you do as the Warden, or Hawke, or as the Inquisitor. Eventually, the Warden will end the blight. Eventually, Hawke will become the Champion of Kirkwall and indirectly start the Mage Rebellion. Eventually, the Inquisitor will use the Mark to close the Breach and stop Corypheus once and for all.

 

My point is, choice, and by extension "roleplay," are an illusion in modern BioWare games and have been for some time. You really don't control anything. You are bound by the story that BioWare delivers. In order to truly achieve what you want, it would require way more time and resources than BioWare would likely ever commit to a single game.

 

So now you're saying that they didn't bother to add any hairstyles and other options to support multirace, even though you earlier said that they may have made significant changes to the narrative (ie did something or other to make the narrative worse) to support multirace? What do you think they did? Re-record dialog to make sure it was more bland and less race-specific?

Not at all. I'm saying by offering multi-race that BioWare had to cut and reduce how much variety they could have for each race. Resources and funding are finite. The more of something you have, the less you can dedicate to each particular one. This is what happened to races, especially the qunari. Multi-race, as an identity and concept strongly affected the relevance of the protagonist due to not having a defined background and personality. These are two ways in which multi-race negatively impacted the game.

 

You wheren't on the forum when the playable races where announced, right? because you would have seen many treads "bring back playable races", almost as many as the "take away the PJs" now. And the races where acclamed with a lot of joy on the forum, and many players (like me) came back to DA for it.

And is quite dumb that you are giving to the playable races the fault for the bad hairstyles, since those are in common to all races and NPCs. Hair and body models would have been made for others characters beside the protagonist. You are just clutching at straws, now.

 

Races aren't all about DAI, but a lot of emphasis was made about choosing a race for the Inquistor. Just look at the main site, or the advertsemant about the CC.

 

People love to play races. BioWare should expand a feature they had in all their fantasy games beside DA2.

People like to create their character in a fantasy setting, deciding race and gender. Is a very important feature present in the mayority of fantasy RPGs.

 

DAI have made a good job. Cpuld be improved. But not abandoned just to make a ME/witcher clone. (and let's not talk about how much Shepard, even if is only human, have less dialogue options than the inquisitor. Less roplayability. Can't even be not friend with characters. It have less choices than the Inquisitor. Deal. With. It.)

 

Playable races are great, and a feature BioWare should make even better, never leave out again from his DA games.

Have you ever heard the phrases "vocal minority" and "silent majority"? You of all people should know, being on BSN, that those who generally talk the most also tend to be in the minority. BSN is a fringe of the general BioWare fan base as it is. Those who make threads generally have complaints and thus want something to change. Presumably, this is likely something the silent majority does not care for about nor believes attention should be brought to it. A handful of posters making "bring back multi-race" threads is hardly evidence that many BioWare fans wanted the feature back.

 

What do you mean by "mayority [sic] of fantasy RPGs"? Many RPGs won't even give you as much control and customization as BioWare does. We can look at a long-established RPG, such as Final Fantasy, and when was the last time a main title allowed you to choose the race, gender, etc.? Outside of an MMO, which is a very specific kind of game experience, you can't name one. On the contrary, BioWare gives more control than many RPGs would provide. What I see happening here more than anything else is people wanting even more control, as if this were Skyrim.

 

You are entitled to your opinion. The "idea" of multi-race is fine. It's the execution that is the problem and how it impacts the story and overall experience. I don't believe sacrificing the protagonist and the story for headcanon is a strong enough argument to cripple a game.

[Felya87]

 

 

Have you ever heard the phrases "vocal minority" and "silent majority"? You of all people should know, being on BSN, that those who generally talk the most also tend to be in the minority. BSN is a fringe of the general BioWare fan base as it is. Those who make threads generally have complaints and thus want something to change. Presumably, this is likely something the silent majority does not care for about nor believes attention should be brought to it. A handful of posters making "bring back multi-race" threads is hardly evidence that many BioWare fans wanted the feature back.

 

What do you mean by "mayority [sic] of fantasy RPGs"? Many RPGs won't even give you as much control and customization as BioWare does. We can look at a long-established RPG, such as Final Fantasy, and when was the last time a main title allowed you to choose the race, gender, etc.? Outside of an MMO, which is a very specific kind of game experience, you can't name one. On the contrary, BioWare gives more control than many RPGs would provide. What I see happening here more than anything else is people wanting even more control, as if this were Skyrim.

 

You are entitled to your opinion. The "idea" of multi-race is fine. It's the execution that is the problem and how it impacts the story and overall experience. I don't believe sacrificing the protagonist and the story for headcanon is a strong enough argument to cripple a game.

 

To me, you seem the "vocal minority" here. Since very few elses seem to not want playable races. (and I have seen so many discussion on the internet and with friends about how DA2 was lacking of the playable races that you have no idea, without even entering the BSN.)

 

I can give you a lot of games that give chance to play fantasy races.

 

Drakensang (1 and 2)

Never Winter Nights (1 and 2)

Baldur's gate (1 and 2)

The elder scroll serie

Kingdom of Amalur: reckoning

Shadowrun: returns

Destiny (if I remember corrctly, since I didn't played it)

 

Tell me these are few. And are just those I played recently. (or, as for Destiny, I have talked about recently with a friend)  And some are quite recent too. Give me just a little time to think, and I will remember more.

Final Fantasy is a JRPG. JRPG never give ANY control on characters. I was quite shocked some consider those RPGs. they are just adventure games with level up for the characters. I can't call those RPGs.

[Patient.Zero]

I find it kind of funny that  this discussion is still going, as this thread is just as liner as some of you are claiming the inquisitor to be. 

 

Revan Reborn will continue to preach that fixed protagonists are foundation of BioWare and that any deviation form that kind of character formant is an arrow in the side of the company because ya know story. They will tell those who disagree that "roleplay" in a BioWare game is an illusion save maybe Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and that even thought it would be fun to have the option to experience the game differently in another play through with a different race  there is not point in advocating for that kind of experience because BioWare does not have the time, money, or resources. 

 

Those who agree with the OP will agree, those who disagree with the OP will disagree, and at the end of it all BioWare will chose to make the next Dragon Age instalment however they please. 

[phaonica]

I don't disagree with your sentiment. On the contrary, I agree that having multiple perspectives, in theory, would be better. It would add much greater variety and replay value to BioWare games. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Just look at any modern BioWare game. Whether you are "paragon" or "renegade," "diplomatic," "aggressive," or "sarcastic," the story always ends the same way.
 
The last BioWare game that truly had a strikingly different ending based on your choices was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It was the difference between saving the Republic and bringing a close to the Jedi Civil War, or reclaiming your position as Dark Lord of the Sith and perpetuating the Sith Empire. The closest game ending to that today would be ME3, which was really more of various shades of grey rather than a clearly "good" or "evil" ending.
 
In Dragon Age, it doesn't really matter what you do as the Warden, or Hawke, or as the Inquisitor. Eventually, the Warden will end the blight. Eventually, Hawke will become the Champion of Kirkwall and indirectly start the Mage Rebellion. Eventually, the Inquisitor will use the Mark to close the Breach and stop Corypheus once and for all.
 
My point is, choice, and by extension "roleplay," are an illusion in modern BioWare games and have been for some time. You really don't control anything. You are bound by the story that BioWare delivers. In order to truly achieve what you want, it would require way more time and resources than BioWare would likely ever commit to a single game.

Choice and roleplay are an illusion, I agree. The trick is whether or not they are a good illusion. Are you suggesting that the choice mechanic also compromises the story, too, since having "choices that matter" are still not working very well, or at best are just an illusion?

Not at all. I'm saying by offering multi-race that BioWare had to cut and reduce how much variety they could have for each race. Resources and funding are finite. The more of something you have, the less you can dedicate to each particular one. This is what happened to races, especially the qunari. Multi-race, as an identity and concept strongly affected the relevance of the protagonist due to not having a defined background and personality. These are two ways in which multi-race negatively impacted the game.

You don't have any proof that anything from the original human narrative was cut to make room for supporting multiple races. We know that adding multiple races was something they decided to add after having an extension/delay approved. Adding non-human content doesn't automatically remove human content (human content that was, for all we know, all but complete before adding multirace was approved). Are you saying they may have removed background-specific human content to make the game generic enough to support the other races?

[phaonica]

Have you ever heard the phrases "vocal minority" and "silent majority"? You of all people should know, being on BSN, that those who generally talk the most also tend to be in the minority. BSN is a fringe of the general BioWare fan base as it is. Those who make threads generally have complaints and thus want something to change. Presumably, this is likely something the silent majority does not care for about nor believes attention should be brought to it. A handful of posters making "bring back multi-race" threads is hardly evidence that many BioWare fans wanted the feature back.
 
What do you mean by "mayority [sic] of fantasy RPGs"? Many RPGs won't even give you as much control and customization as BioWare does. We can look at a long-established RPG, such as Final Fantasy, and when was the last time a main title allowed you to choose the race, gender, etc.? Outside of an MMO, which is a very specific kind of game experience, you can't name one. On the contrary, BioWare gives more control than many RPGs would provide. What I see happening here more than anything else is people wanting even more control, as if this were Skyrim.
 
You are entitled to your opinion. The "idea" of multi-race is fine. It's the execution that is the problem and how it impacts the story and overall experience. I don't believe sacrificing the protagonist and the story for headcanon is a strong enough argument to cripple a game.

Except that Laidlaw said "Races are awesome. I think they're fantastic, so bringing it back was 100% based on fan feedback--some internal desire as well." So whether multirace was a majority or minority is irrelevant. Bioware thought there were enough of them to bring the feature back.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=ykw4f12Hgj4

 

And "those who talk the most also tend to be in the minority"? Except, of course, the "most people" who complain about DA2's protagonist without a good reason. Those are actually the majority. Convenient.