64 réponses à ce sujet

[rpgalltheway]

Hi all,

 

Just to let you know where I stand with the game before I make my point, I am 132 hours in the game and am currently in the Western Approach and am  ABSOLUTELY loving it. There are some issues with the side quests and respawn mechanics but overall I think its a very good game so far.

 

My biggest concern with the game is its visual style. I am some one who is heavy into lore and have read all the books in the series and codex entries( that I have found so far). To be frank, the world of Dragon age is very very dark. And the visual style in the game does not do it justice. I am not sure if its the visual style or attention to detail graphically.

 

Dragon age origins did a fairly decent job of portraying this even with low graphical quality. The darkspawn in the game really had that ominous feeling to them as opposed to Inquisition where fighting a darkspawn doesn't feel any different from killing a hyena or a bear.

The same is the problem with all the skeletons and bodies lying around in Inquisition. They don't feel  like they are part of the world

 

(Spoilers ahead)

 

Even some of the quests and areas in origins (which had inferior graphics compared to Inquisition) were very spooky. Like in the quest 'A Paragon of Her kind' where Hespith explains how broodmothers are made. That entire area just freaked me out. And there were many more areas in DAO like that. Even in DA2 the quest with Hawke's mother was that kind. The only thing in Inquisition I have found so far that portrays how dark the world is in Cassandra's companion quest where there is a cutscene with Daniel. Lelians's torture scene could have been made a bit darker as well. Instead they just retouched some textures on the face. Later I found the codex entry explaining what happened to her face, then I felt the impact of the scene. 

 

So if they want to convey how dark the world is why not do it visually as well. The game as it is has a mature rating so that shouldn't be a problem. I am not saying it brings down the quality of the game but it will just make it more immersive in my opinion.

 

What do you guys think? Is it a problem with the visual art style? Or it is more of a resource problem? Or are you completely fine with it?

[Toasted Llama]

I think Origins had an "unfair advantage" when it comes to displaying the grittiness of the world, because the story was centered around darkspawn who are in and off itself pretty dark and disgusting.


Though I agree that the darkspawn design has gotten pretty "meh" lately. Too exaggerated, almost comical. I really liked Awakening's design of the intelligent darkspawn. Serious and human enough to really sent a shiver down your spine.

 

Still, I think with demons pouring into the world it was indeed somewhat too bright and colourful. At least during the pre-closed-breach period.

[vertigomez]

I think Origins had an "unfair advantage" when it comes to displaying the grittiness of the world, because the story was centered around darkspawn who are in and off itself pretty dark and disgusting.

This. I don't think you can have a story about the Blight, or a wretched hive like Kirkwall, without the visuals being very dark.

But in DAI, we're seeing a world suffused with spirits, the Fade's leaking all over the place, and we're visiting colorful places like Val Royeaux. I'd be surprised if it was heavy on the grimdark.

[DanAxe]

I think you just hit the point of the only thing i dont like about Inquisition.... The dark and gritty stuff has been tuned down so much... Probably because of all the SJW's waiting to crucify the devs for doing something other than rainbows and unicorns....

 

The story of Thedas is quite dark. Origins tone is perfect i think. DA2 not so much, but still darker than DAI.

 

But considering all the dark and tragic stuff that happened in the past of Thedas, Inquisition feels like a world that has not suffered as much as is stated in its own lore.

 

Also the whole Orlais stuff... I know where they come from and its still true to the lore, but in Inquisition the orlesians feel like caricatures of the true orlesians. They hide behind ridiculous comical masks, because behind it they are nothing but. They are ruthless, ambitious, cunning and many of them have very very dark hearts. At least thats what i get from the lore and the books. But then in Inquisition they all look like peacocks with no brains, too much money and downright ridicularized. It is so trivial to make fun of them and disgrace them, that the whole - Orlais the most powerful thedosian nation - falls completely flat...

 

A shame really. I wish Bioware would just do their thing without concern for social opinion, as they did on the first Dragon Age game and stop listening to sjw who dont even finish the game, and just play it to make sure there's nothing there they can use to throw at Bioware.

 

Go back to your Dragon Age roots please Bioware I loved Inquisition, but it feels it could have been so much more, if Bioware didnt use so many resources trying to be politically correct, and socially acceptive... This is fiction, its a video game, what does it matter that some people will shout to the skies that it violates social rules... Take a look at the witcher series.... going that route does not affect their sales, in fact, it seems to inflate them.... So its time to stop being correct, and time to tell your story the way you planned it since you started working on the Dragon Age saga. For the good of the series and your fans.

 

 

PS: I dont mean to say the whole of Inquisition should be darker. I mean the storyline, some characters, some consequences, should be much darker for a much stronger impact, than they actually are.

[Toasted Llama]

This. I don't think you can have a story about the Blight, or a wretched hive like Kirkwall, without the visuals being very dark.

But in DAI, we're seeing a world suffused with spirits, the Fade's leaking all over the place, and we're visiting colorful places like Val Royeaux. I'd be surprised if it was heavy on the grimdark.

Yeah I agree with Val Royeaux, that one just doesn't fit with the whole dark and grim theme, especially because Orleisians are so big on keeping up appearances. Though I think Orlais and Orlesians, like DanAxe said, could use more subtle dark tints or that the colour and brightness was hiding agendas, schemes, plans and other politically sinister stuff. Not really in your face type of grittiness, but still gritty if you take the time to dig.

 

Also agree with the fade and the spirits, now that I think about it. It's a really different type of threat from darkspawn. Darkspawn's just DEATH, BLEEEGGH whereas the Fade (I'm going to sound like Solas now...) has peaceful inhabitants, minding their own business and having no interest of killing or possessing people on the other side of the Veil, it's something that can be shaped into something beautiful if desired.

But I have to say that places like the Western Approach, with the Grey Warden fortress and the lore suggesting Darkspawn had run rampant there, it could've been grittier/darker. Not like "oh there barely lives anything here" because duhr hur it's a desert, of course barely anything lives there, but maybe some lingering hints of the taint?

I'm really torn on this. Ferelden and the Blight should be dark and gritty, Kirkwall too, especially because of it's history, so I think it really depends where in Thedas you are and what events are unfolding around you that decides whether or not your surroundings should be gritty and dark  or bright and colourful.

Perhaps Thedas is not as gritty as people expected it to be. And perhaps Thedas should've been more gritty than it currently is. I personally can't decide, both sides have decent arguments.

[herkles]

Of all the things dragon age really needs, none are more important then making sure the color scheme is... brown, brown, grey, black, brown, brown, brown and brown. after all real is brown.

 

The main problem is not the color scheme, the problem is that they told us not showed us. We should see the elven alianage of Orlais that is the largest yet worse off. We should see the reality of what the mage-templar war is doing and what the orlaisian civil war. and so on. The other problem is a lack of people, as we bearly see that many people out in the areas exploring, and civilization, even val royeaux feels like a village. 

 

Having a dark and gritty tone does not mean that you have a brown, brown brown color scheme. You can have lots of color and still be rather dark; which I strongly prefer over the brown. 

[Toasted Llama]

Of all the things dragon age really needs, none are more important then making sure the color scheme is... brown, brown, grey, black, brown, brown, brown and brown. after all real is brown.

 

The main problem is not the color scheme, the problem is that they told us not showed us. We should see the elven alianage of Orlais that is the largest yet worse off. We should see the reality of what the mage-templar war is doing and what the orlaisian civil war. and so on. The other problem is a lack of people, as we bearly see that many people out in the areas exploring, and civilization, even val royeaux feels like a village. 

 

Having a dark and gritty tone does not mean that you have a brown, brown brown color scheme. You can have lots of color and still be rather dark; which I strongly prefer over the brown. 

But you can have brown... beige brown... mahagony brown... auburn brown... adobe brown... coffee brown... walnut brown... caramel brown... cinnamon brown... mocha brown... chocolate brown...

[Wyvernet]

I did feel sometimes DAI was a bit too shiny. Like my Inquisitor had so much lip gloss on that I thought his mouth was permanently hanging open in a Bella Swan way. Some areas, like the Emerald Graves, did very much benefit from all the colour and I wouldn't want it any other way. Others, like the Exalted Plains, could maybe be toned down a bit to befit the generally somber and eerie tone of the place.

[Captain Wiseass]

Your thesis mistakes motif for theme, and erroneously assumes that grotesquerie is the dominant motif in the series.

[In Exile]

DAO wasn't very dark. It had more body horror. It was more brown. That was about it. DAI touches on similarly dark material but adopts a tell and not show approach (or glosses over it).

More to the point using contrast - beautiful bright vistas as against visceral horror - is a legitimate visual approach.

I will say that you DO see lingering signs of the taint in the Western Approach: the fact it is a desert. That's what the Blight does: eradicate life.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

Agreed. There are a lot of dark stories in the codex but there's hardly anything in DAI that makes you feel vulnerable and cautious. The closest I felt the game being scary was the Templar mission where you could just feel something was off and Fallow Mire. Just reading about scary stuff doesn't effect me one bit.

[rpgalltheway]

This. I don't think you can have a story about the Blight, or a wretched hive like Kirkwall, without the visuals being very dark.

But in DAI, we're seeing a world suffused with spirits, the Fade's leaking all over the place, and we're visiting colorful places like Val Royeaux. I'd be surprised if it was heavy on the grimdark.

Sure, I am not saying that the game should be heavy on grimdark, but it should be dark in the areas that need it. For example the area in crestwood that got flooded, just a bunch of skeletons in the house did not convey the whole sad affair that went down there.

[rpgalltheway]

Of all the things dragon age really needs, none are more important then making sure the color scheme is... brown, brown, grey, black, brown, brown, brown and brown. after all real is brown.

 

The main problem is not the color scheme, the problem is that they told us not showed us. We should see the elven alianage of Orlais that is the largest yet worse off. We should see the reality of what the mage-templar war is doing and what the orlaisian civil war. and so on. The other problem is a lack of people, as we bearly see that many people out in the areas exploring, and civilization, even val royeaux feels like a village. 

 

Having a dark and gritty tone does not mean that you have a brown, brown brown color scheme. You can have lots of color and still be rather dark; which I strongly prefer over the brown. 

I agree the color scheme is not the problem.

And yeah they did a bad job with Val Royeaux. Especially after describing it the way it is in books and codex.

[TonyB]

Sorry, but any reference to 'SJWs' automatically tunes me out... brands poster with references such as immature, uneducated and dumb...

[DanAxe]

Sorry, but any reference to 'SJWs' automatically tunes me out... brands poster with references such as immature, uneducated and dumb...

 

Are you refering to me post? If so, i dont see how any of what I said has anything to do with immature, uneducated and dumb...

 

Dragon Age saga has been attacked hardly by SJWs, more so than any other saga i played, and its taking its toll on the series as a whole. I dont think there's a doubt in that, you just need to research a little bit to see what i mean...

 

 

DAO wasn't very dark. It had more body horror. It was more brown. That was about it. DAI touches on similarly dark material but adopts a tell and not show approach (or glosses over it).

More to the point using contrast - beautiful bright vistas as against visceral horror - is a legitimate visual approach.

I will say that you DO see lingering signs of the taint in the Western Approach: the fact it is a desert. That's what the Blight does: eradicate life.

 

Thats what i mean. I do like the atmosfere and looks of DAI, they are stunning. But because they adopted the tell and not show approach it made for a lighter game than previous ones, and I'd like to see and experience the dark stuff instead of knowing about it. I get that might not be a shared desire, but id rather DA4 to be a "darker" game. Not a dark game as a whole, but with a little bit more dark as seen in DAO and a bit in DA2. Fighting a demon in DAO (except maybe the desire demons) had a much darker look and impact than the demons in DAI, even tho DAI is much heavier in the demon count...

 

PS: There was this one quest in a mansion in Emerald Graves that started really well (taking Sera along helps to giggle at the scary noises and lighting ) looking dark and with a nasty mistery to uncover, but instead of having the tension rise as you explore the mansion, it would actually lose tension as you find out more to fight a single non scary demon at the end. Felt like a waste of a very good dark quest right there, especially since the map itself was so well done, and the environment so perfect for such a quest.

[Koneko Koji]

I thought Val Royeaux was a massive let down - I was expecting it to be at least the size of Denerim, if not Kirkwall. And the colour scheme just made me think it looked like a cartoon - it threw me off quite a bit.

 

I feel like the atmosphere of the game is lacking, with all the tell not show codex and war table entries, unless you're committed to sitting and reading through it all, you don't really get a sense of events and environment. My 13 year old nephew commented that it was odd having no day or night cycle, and that he'd liked to have seen the Plains at night with the described 'blue lights' glowing - I agree here too, the Plains felt empty, the plain weather eroded any sense of menace that the corpses could have exuded and there was no sense of real danger.

 

I too thought the Darkspawn were awful, their design was so pared down that to start with, I didn't even realise I was fighting a Darkspawn and not a walking corpse or other 'normal' archer. (also the hats, those terrible tin hats >_<)

 

Unfortunately I've gotten to the point where I can't be bothered to play anymore, which is sad because it's not (IMO) a bad game - it's just not a great one, and it certainly doesn't stack up to Origins for atmosphere, story and consequence.

[Lethaya]

Only have one real issue with Val Royeaux and thats that the rest of the city isn't even visible - I mean, I get that its at a high point, but at least the Cathedral towers, I mean a whole age was named for those things, right? Visible for miles? Other than that, limited size since we're in a limited part of the city, I get that I suppose. You're not really visiting Val Royeaux so much as you're passing time in the Summer Bazaar.

 

Darkspawn in DA:I were more like ghouls. What I thought they were at first. XD I miss those sunny smiles! If they still have them, I certinaly couldn't tell.

[herkles]

Thats what i mean. I do like the atmosfere and looks of DAI, they are stunning. But because they adopted the tell and not show approach it made for a lighter game than previous ones, and I'd like to see and experience the dark stuff instead of knowing about it. I get that might not be a shared desire, but id rather DA4 to be a "darker" game. Not a dark game as a whole, but with a little bit more dark as seen in DAO and a bit in DA2. Fighting a demon in DAO (except maybe the desire demons) had a much darker look and impact than the demons in DAI, even tho DAI is much heavier in the demon count...

 

PS: There was this one quest in a mansion in Emerald Graves that started really well (taking Sera along helps to giggle at the scary noises and lighting ) looking dark and with a nasty mistery to uncover, but instead of having the tension rise as you explore the mansion, it would actually lose tension as you find out more to fight a single non scary demon at the end. Felt like a waste of a very good dark quest right there, especially since the map itself was so well done, and the environment so perfect for such a quest.

Yea, the style of Inqistion is actually rather good IMO. The big problem is the telling not showing nature of their storytelling. You can easily have dark stories without the visuals being shades of brown. TBH I prefer a world that is both dark in tone but colorful to see, as that is more realistic and immersive then shades of brown.

[Torgette]

I honesty never found anything menacing in DAO - but playing demon's souls at the same time probably didn't help.

[rpgalltheway]

I honesty never found anything menacing in DAO - but playing demon's souls at the same time probably didn't help.

lol that is asking for too much I guess. The souls series and Bloodborne is one of the best examples of how to suck players in the game just by environment. IMO those games have good combat but the real reason they are so awesome are because of their ability to immerse players in the world. 

Now imagine the lore and story of a Dragon age Game with that level of immersion in the environment.

[rpgalltheway]

Yea, the style of Inqistion is actually rather good IMO. The big problem is the telling not showing nature of their storytelling. You can easily have dark stories without the visuals being shades of brown. TBH I prefer a world that is both dark in tone but colorful to see, as that is more realistic and immersive then shades of brown.

This Exactly.

I think the fade in Dragon age Inquisition is a perfect example of this. It has just the perfect amount of eeriness and the perfect amount of color as well. IMO its one of the best levels in Inquisition.

[Rawgrim]

This Exactly.

I think the fade in Dragon age Inquisition is a perfect example of this. It has just the perfect amount of eeriness and the perfect amount of color as well. IMO its one of the best levels in Inquisition.

 

Where exactly did you find any eeriness in DA:I?

[herkles]

Where exactly did you find any eeriness in DA:I?

The haunted estate in the emerald graves and the templar mission being two examples off the top of my head. 

[Rawgrim]

The haunted estate in the emerald graves and the templar mission being two examples off the top of my head. 

 

Ahh. I found those cartoony.

[Lethaya]

The haunted estate in the emerald graves and the templar mission being two examples off the top of my head. 

 

This, agreed. Dirthamen's temple wasn't too bad in that regard, either.