Sounds to me that Gaider is pulling that number out of his ass.
The game does not feel even close to three years. If that is indeed the time length Gaider was shooting for then the game should have been more "meaty" and not so dissected.
I can see the the time frame of the Inquisition over a year and maybe a few months.
Trying to say it went longer is just plain silly and simply ludicrous.
Begs me to wonder if the Bioware team is taking a bit too much from The Elder of the Scrolls franchise. 
Then how come the lore states a new Divine is picked a year from conclave explosion?
This in edition to the fact that the apocalyptic future we visit occurs within a year. That is, a demon army conquering all of southern Thedas in a year. We avert that future by intervening at Adament but then the next THREE years are filled by, the major events and the small ones between, going to a ball and invading an Elvhen forest? I could envision these events taking place within a year or even two but three is a little bit of a stretch. In terms of major, canon, must do events, Origins had more and they were completed within a year and the Hero and companions traveled on foot while being hounded and being branded criminals. Three years in Inquisition just seems too much in comparison.
I would LOVE to see a snow-covered Skyhold. Complete with snowball fight with the companions.
+1 for snowball fights but I'm pretty sure Skyhold is enchanted to have a constant temperate climate. Otherwise, I have no idea why it always has grass, you can grow any plant there and the Inquisitor never wears a jacket.
So, something that always bugged me a little was Morrigan's comment about the Breach at the end of the game. She says it's "finally" closed. Finally? I mean, it was just opened! Sure, it takes a minimum of 2 days just to get to the Temple of Sacred Ashes from Skyhold, but that's still not long. (Not to mention taking 2 days to get to Corypheus just makes that whole endgame that much more disconnected.)
Anyway, my main point is that if the first breach had been closed for 2.5 years (assuming 3 year game), it's even more weird to say that this new one is "finally" closed. In that amount of time, the world has moved on from the first Breach and the second one lasted a couple of days. Which also made me wonder why everyone was acting like it was so urgent. "If we don't act now, it will swallow the world!" Okay, but the last one was there for months and didn't come close, so I think we'll be okay if I eat breakfast before heading out.
I think the urgency for the second breach opening is simply Cory is actually there speeding the process up, right below the new breach. He kind of got exploded the first time he opened it thanks to the player-character barging in on him. Also by "finally sealed/closed" I think it means simply that the sky is actually properly healed this time. The first breach being closed could still be seen akin to a wound in the sky afterwards, it wasn't properly sealed and healed just seemed snapped shut and deemed as closed.
On how long the game actually is meant to take place for (be it 1 year or 3 years or anywhere in between) we have no official answer. It could be a year like I feel it is in-game, or 2-3 years like I feel it should be based on traveling Thedas back and forth (companion quests, zones visited once, main quest etc). I agree with everyone stating, as I just said, that the game feels and plays like it took under a year to complete in-lore.
Here are links to two Twitter conversations where he mentions the time (I was able to find the second one because I had recalled that he made a joke regarding the Hinterlands). Part 1 & Part 2.
I honestly wish he hadn't said anything because then you get threads like this speculating on whether he "pulled the number out of his ass," people trying to refute it with various in-game examples, or others just stating how long it felt to them (I'll be guilty of these latter two).
Like others, I feel that the time scope is not represented well in the game at all. The area DAI takes place in is very large. As far as I can recall, we've only gotten two distance measurements throughout the entire DA series, and both are in DAO. When you ask Alistair about the other Wardens at Weisshaupt he says "that's a thousand miles from here," but I don't know whether that is 'as the crow flies' or the standard travel over land and roads. Also, if you speak to Dagna again without having been to the Circle, she says that it takes nine days to get from Orzammar to the Circle (my memory is foggy here, it's been quite a while since I played DAO).
It takes significant time (up to a month!) to travel to and from (up to two moths both ways!) each of the locations we visit, in addition to the actual time spent in the area killing things, camping out, and so forth. So I can readily believe the game takes place over a year, but three years seems a bit of a stretch since there is no corroborating dialog to help us along.
This time period certainly has some interesting ramifications for the romance as well. Even if you finally get together after a year, two years is a long time to be with someone. I'd say that is a firmly established couple, rather than the "let's seek comfort together during a crisis" kinda vibe I typically got from the DAO romances (this is not a bad thing).
Although I shouldn't be complaining as this actually helps me with some fanfic stuff...
At any rate... I had seen this elsewhere in a thread but the person didn't have a source or anything. So, thanks OP for posting that.
I would LOVE to see a snow-covered Skyhold. Complete with snowball fight with the companions.
Can I give Iron Bull a Christmas sweater and dress scout Harding as a Santa's helper? :3
How do you manage to have all of your comments just ooze out a dislike or hatred for DA:I? lol
Same way his earlier comments was nothing but praise for the game xD
I would LOVE to see a snow-covered Skyhold. Complete with snowball fight with the companions.
And I would LOVE for the Bioware team to pull their heads out of their asses.
Here are links to two Twitter conversations where he mentions the time (I was able to find the second one because I had recalled that he made a joke regarding the Hinterlands). Part 1 & Part 2.
I honestly wish he hadn't said anything because then you get threads like this speculating on whether he "pulled the number out of his ass," people trying to refute it with various in-game examples, or others just stating how long it felt to them (I'll be guilty of these latter two).
Like others, I feel that the time scope is not represented well in the game at all. The area DAI takes place in is very large. As far as I can recall, we've only gotten two distance measurements throughout the entire DA series, and both are in DAO. When you ask Alistair about the other Wardens at Weisshaupt he says "that's a thousand miles from here," but I don't know whether that is 'as the crow flies' or the standard travel over land and roads. Also, if you speak to Dagna again without having been to the Circle, she says that it takes nine days to get from Orzammar to the Circle (my memory is foggy here, it's been quite a while since I played DAO).
It takes significant time (up to a month!) to travel to and from (up to two moths both ways!) each of the locations we visit, in addition to the actual time spent in the area killing things, camping out, and so forth. So I can readily believe the game takes place over a year, but three years seems a bit of a stretch since there is no corroborating dialog to help us along.
This time period certainly has some interesting ramifications for the romance as well. Even if you finally get together after a year, two years is a long time to be with someone. I'd say that is a firmly established couple, rather than the "let's seek comfort together during a crisis" kinda vibe I typically got from the DAO romances (this is not a bad thing).
Although I shouldn't be complaining as this actually helps me with some fanfic stuff...
At any rate... I had seen this elsewhere in a thread but the person didn't have a source or anything. So, thanks OP for posting that.
Yeah honestly none of this really bothers me lol, I just thought it was an interesting comment and makes me wish there was more passage of time in the zones like there is at Haven & Skyhold.
The only time I've ever felt that the whole thing took 3 years was when I had to grind for crafting materials and good loot.
Other than that, I thought it happened all in one year, even though it only really felt like months. The story barely had anything in it. You meaning to tell me it took them 3 years to beat a villain like Corypheus?
Guest_Mlady_*
Lol time flies, and that image showing the estimated days of travel makes me laugh. My Inquisitor spent almost 14 days travelling to VR just to treat Cole to dinner? 
She says it'll be fun and 14 days later Cole is ready to hit her (lol just kidding, Varric was helping him with that).
I think the urgency for the second breach opening is simply Cory is actually there speeding the process up, right below the new breach. He kind of got exploded the first time he opened it thanks to the player-character barging in on him. Also by "finally sealed/closed" I think it means simply that the sky is actually properly healed this time. The first breach being closed could still be seen akin to a wound in the sky afterwards, it wasn't properly sealed and healed just seemed snapped shut and deemed as closed.
On how long the game actually is meant to take place for (be it 1 year or 3 years or anywhere in between) we have no official answer. It could be a year like I feel it is in-game, or 2-3 years like I feel it should be based on traveling Thedas back and forth (companion quests, zones visited once, main quest etc). I agree with everyone stating, as I just said, that the game feels and plays like it took under a year to complete in-lore.
It's true that Corypheus is speeding up the process, yeah. Though if I'm remembering right, Morrigan says the sky is forever scarred in the epilogue, so I thought the sky would continue to look like it did after In Your Heart Shall burn.
In the bad future there was zero opposition to Cory so of course it was a lot faster for him to take over.
It doesn't feel like even a year passes in-game to me, however when calculating how long it takes to get from point A to B for only the main storyline it starts to make a lot more sense. There was a thread about the time Inquisition takes that was helpful on these forums but I can't find it. Found this saved picture/graph on my hard-drive made by someone who had calculated approximates for all the travelling in Thedas but I can't find her original posting of it anymore, if anyone knows it I'd love to know where I got it again.Spoiler
That said, Thedas isn't as bug as I thought. In DAO, Dagna says that a trip from Orzammar to the Circle Tower and back takes a minimum if 2 weeks and 4 days.
Orzammar is also underground, and the last tiege took a week to get to. I'm guessing the much more secure tiege would take a little longer to reach.
While this IS super interesting and I thank you for sharing it, I'm skeptical of the number of miles listed between destinations. As far as I know none of the official map graphics have ever been released with a distance ratio that we can use to determine the distance between two points.
I believe there is one in the DA tabletop game handbook. Someone linked a copy of it here: http://daydreamsonac...ap-scale-1-inch
That's where that chart of travel times upthread comes from: http://daydreamsonac...-i-travel-times
Here's another time/distance map someone did with the RPG info: http://dragonagenews...ravel-time-maps(warning music autoplay)
It doesn't feel like 3 years.
Yeah, my impression was it lasted about as long as Origins--a few months, AT MOST.
If they meant it to feel like years they either needed some BIG time jumps or the FRIGGIN SEASONS NEEDED TO CHANGE.
But assigning numerical values to anything has always been a major downfall of this series. It's kind of sad, because the accurate handling of time, money, and distance adds a lot of verisimilitude to efforts at world-building.
I had a feeling the lore would contradict Gaider's guess. Can we get some hard data?
So, the general consensus seems to be that it's possible given the extraordinary amount of traveling we do, but the passage of time was not shown in a convincing way.
http://dragonage.wik...m/wiki/Victoria
Divine Victoria is the Divine of the Andrastian Chantry who succeeded Justinia V after the War against the Elder One in 9:41 Dragon. Her identity is revealed in the Dragon Age: Inquisition epilogue.
http://dragonage.wik...m/wiki/Victoria
Divine Victoria is the Divine of the Andrastian Chantry who succeeded Justinia V after the War against the Elder One in 9:41 Dragon. Her identity is revealed in the Dragon Age: Inquisition epilogue.
Sadly the wiki offers no official reference for the year stated on that page, or anywhere else they've got it posted, which makes me wonder whether it was simply a community guess. Since the wiki's information is community established I'd personally prefer a more official statement for the info. I want to believe it is correct but can't find any other non-wiki reference to this.
I find it amusing how Corypheus attacked only once, then spent three years licking his wounds and failing at everything.
interesting. it only felt like a few months to me. nowhere near a year, much less three. i mean, intellectually i can see that with the traveling. but i never got a sense of it. it never felt like any significant time was passing.
i think that's because the world--as big and gorgeous as it is--is still fairly static. no change of seasons. no day/night cycle. no dynamic weather system--it's always raining on the storm coast. most of the npc's don't really have any kind of schedule--that we see.
Well, he did lose a substantial portion of his army essentially beating up on a bunch of nobodies. He went with his Plan A - crush Orlais with a demon army and a political assassination. And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that pesky Inquisitor.
I understand that there are reasons. It's just that his string of failures is made funnier when you know that it lasted three years. Corypheus is not a very imposing villain.
I'd love to see more of Haven-style attacks. Skyhold burning! Dragons attacking! Instead Inquisition pretty much has no losses and is always victorious. Even when our main char does stuff all over the world there are no assassins and Corypheus doesn't harass Inquisition in any way, as if scared.
Cory could show up to defend his demon army seriously, eyes ablaze, magic everywhere, minions with power! Instead our party fell into the Fade and we didn't even get to engage in an epic fight with the dragon. 
I just think it'd be more exciting if Cory was more active and less behind the scenes.
I understand that there are reasons. It's just that his string of failures is made funnier when you know that it lasted three years. Corypheus is not a very imposing villain.
I'd love to see more of Haven-style attacks. Skyhold burning! Dragons attacking! Instead Inquisition pretty much has no losses and is always victorious. Even when our main char does stuff all over the world there are no assassins and Corypheus doesn't harass Inquisition in any way, as if scared.
Cory could show up to defend his demon army seriously, eyes ablaze, magic everywhere, minions with power! Instead our party fell into the Fade and we didn't even get to engage in an epic fight with the dragon.
I just think it'd be more exciting if Cory was more active and less behind the scenes.
The thing is, Bioware did a lot of good with Corypheus. He was a constant - albeit in the background. Unlike DA:O, we had an actual antagonist we took steps to thwart. He was - via In Your Heart Shall Burn (and IMO potentially In Hushed Whispers) - introduced in an absolutely phenomenal fashion.
We just needed more confrontation. I thought Virmire did a lot wrong in ME1, but one thing it did right was (1) feature a Saren/Shepard showdown where (2) both Shepard and Saren came off bloodied.
We need more confrontations with the Big Bad ™ throughout the game, where we trade blows.
We need more confrontations with the Big Bad ™ throughout the game, where we trade blows.
I guess the trick with trading blows with Corypheus multiple times is that the first actual battle we'd have with him would just serve as the reveal as to exactly how he cheats death, which an elven booby trap illustrated for us. But we do get to fight his lieutenant (maybe). Samson isn't the most compelling character in the world to me, but I rather enjoyed his boss battle.
Retour en haut
