429 réponses à ce sujet

[Kabraxal]

What were these methods of discovery? In the vast majority of these quests, the quest giver is either a note left behind or just a quick "I need something" from an NPC. There's little personal appeal to be found. Ambient encounters like the dragons offer even less to work with.

 

I'd be more inclined to believe that you're managing a missive organization if, like you said, the War Table missions had more connections to events you physically participate in. I'd actually be happier with it if the War Table missions connected with each other more. Precious few of them had overarching narratives to latch onto. Most were small, isolated incursions that amounted to little more than flavor text and a slightly amusing anecdote. Pillars, again, managed to create a more palpable sense of ruling by actively engaging the player in the politics of their lordship.

 

I might agree with you about the Astrariums if the quest wasn't repeated 12 or 13 (maybe even more) times. It's a nice gimmick that oustays its welcome, and honestly seems more "gamey" than other gameplay. More importantly though, what are the context of these puzzles? Why are we connecting lines together to solve them? The connection to Tevinter is intriguing, but I would have liked to participated in a more complex arc that was more than puzzle (3x) -> reward.

 

The judgements were one of the few things that DA:I did quite well, but they were in the tiny minority of DA:I's quests, and mostly acted as epilogues to other (usually quite straightforward) quests. What I would want is the essence of these judgement quests to be diffused through every mission, no just added on top of a few. I really enjoyed the personal narratives presented to us as well choices we were given at the end. Ideally, this kind of design could be stretched over a more complex plot that unfolds over the course of a quest rather than be sequestered to a single conversation.

 

We're not reviewing these games here. I don't care how much roleplaying freedom you have in DA:I, that's not what we're talking about. We are talking about quest design, and unless you think that DA:I's extra roleplaying freedom precludes more complex side narratives. Of course, that's demonstrably false given Pillars of Eternity.
 

No, you can take the situation of "a woman lost her ring to some ruffians" and place it in nearly any world without any extra justification. Hell, DA:I had the quest twice. The situations in Pillars, however, (I'll refrain from talking about the Witcher because there's apparently no way to have a level-headed discussion about only a few of its mechanics) not only involve characters with deep histories and unique problems, they also just have interesting narrative arcs. For example: a woman in a village asks you to get her a potion to save her child from a soulless birth (a problem the whole region seems to be facing). A plain and simple fetch quest, but from the outset we're dealing with a problem that is unique to the world of Pillars, and one that is fairly unique by itself (you don't often deal with issues of miscarriages). What does a woman losing her ring or a man needing some meat say about the world of Dragon Age? It says the Templars are jerks and war sucks, but those, like I said, are just base archetypal traits. They have nothing specific to say, nor anything particularly interesting about any party involved.

But Pillars' quest doesn't stop there. Once you get to the herbalist and do a favor for her to get the potion for free (the favor itself is related to the politics of native tribes), she tells you that the potion isn't magic and may not actually save the quest-giver's child. The plot thickens. Indeed, the plot actually gets more more complex as the quest progresses; it doesn't just end after the item in question has been found. This is what DA:I or any other game with poor questing is missing: an intriguing narrative. It doesn't need to be big, but there should hopefully be some sort of evolving story arc to keep the task at hand from seeming like just a task. If I'm told to find a ring, but discover some deeper relationship between the quest-giver and the Templars (or whatever else), I'm not going to think much about how boring it is to ferry around this macguffin.

To top this tiny quest off, we're given a choice: tell the quest-giver the truth about the potion or lie. If you want to talk about roleplaying freedom, this is roleplaying freedom. I can't think of more than a few of DA:I's quests that actually give you choices at the end. The extra roleplaying freedom starts and stops at: "I want to help/I don't want to help," and that's just kind of boring. Those choices aren't even that nuanced. What fun is it roleplaying a character when I'm rarely given choices that I need to chew over?
 

No, you're ignoring the substance of my argument. You seem incapable of engaging with only an isolated aspect of Witcher's design. This isn't an opinion thing. This is a "most of the quests in Pillars (and yes, The Witcher) have things that most of DA:I's quests don't " thing. You can like or not like a game in spite of this, but I don't see how the addition of unique premises, deeper characters, evolving narratives, and extra choices could be a bad thing.

 

And yet I listed several different types of side quests (unique premises), let alone the other types of sidequests that have a unique story to them within those types... and the evolving narrative in DA:I is there in the side quests AND the environmental storytelling it uses to deliver some of the revelations and quests.  As for choices... considering the list of quests that involved a multitude of choices, your argument is ringing extremely hollow still since you haven't proven jack.  You are simply saying "Inquisition was just lesser because". 

 

You keep acting like your subjective judgment on TW3 and PoE is some grand declaration of fact that cannot possibly be questioned... but it isn't.  PoE was fun and I'd argue closer to matching Bioware than The Witcher has ever gotten, but even then you had to sacrifice the entirety of romance to get much of what they did in side quests . Did they have good quests? Yes.  Did they match Bioware?  No, because they took out a significant portion of the optional content that has given Bioware an edge over every developer out there.  PoE was a great throwback and I'll give them points for a fun game, but it wasn't even close to Inquisition for me.  Though it trounced The Witcher.

 

And for your "intriguing narrative"... I got that in many of the side quests for Inquisition, especially when you realise much of that narrative is told in various pieces that come together through completion of a variety of quests (later further expanded on by the DLC).  The purpose of the quests such as the ring, the Templar encampments, the notes you find amidst destruction, and the bodies strewn over various maps is to create the atmosphere, the reality of the conflicts that are affecting the world.  It is a mix of cinematic and environmental storytelling.  Unlike The Witcher, the Thedas reflected the myriad of stories that were occurring and that had occurred thousands of years prior.  Almost all quests at least partially fed right back into the world and the overarching story it was telling through every facet possible.    Show me how you transplant Crestwood's spiderwebbing story spun from multiple quests can be transplanted wholesale into another game.  Show me how you can just pick up and drop the questlines that intersect dealing with the Red Templars and suddenly discovering not just the letters regarding Samson and the red lyrium, but the one that will lead to a confrontation then a judgement based on its revelation.  Show me how the quests for the Suledin blade or the Dirthamenn temple can just be moved over to another game. 

 

I can go on.  There are plenty of quests that rely on the setting of Inquisition and its specific lore to even begin to make sense.  Are there are a few like the ring that could be transplanted to any game?  Yes, every single game in existence has that.  Even PoE and TW3.  But even then, that small quest is meant to feedback into the overarching narrative that the Templar/Mage conflict is tearing innocent people apart and that neither side is clean or innocent.  It is meant to be incentive to end these conflicts.   What is the purpose of most of TW3's hunts?  "O he's a Witcher!"... so?  He's supposed to be focused on finding his daughter and stopping the Hunt... something that gets very little atmospheric bolstering from sidequests in any way.  You can argue that the Herald/Inquisitor (Depending on timing) is doing "mundane" or "trite" quests to try and help people and stabalise the land, which benefits the main thrust of the narrative of creating and building an organization to stop a threat.  Why the hell is Geralt doing his witcher duty instead of actually focusing on what is supposed to be an urgent and significant matter?   Why is he gallivanting around hunting for a pan... why is he sleeping with some prostitute?  Why is he hunting yet another monster instead of trying to actually find Ciri? The quests rarely made sense in terms of the overall narrative thrust of the game.   

 

 

Where you found "unique premises, deeper characters, evolving narratives, and extra choices" I found repetitive and generic quests that rarely made sense in regards to the main story, , tired clichés of characters that never become anything more than the one dimensional clichés they start out as, a narrative that echoes the tropes of dark fantasy to the point of nausea, and choices that were no more extensive than most of those in Inquisition.  You found what it offered to be exceptional.  I found what it offered to be substandard, nonsensical, and boring. 

[Elhanan]

As I recall the last time we had that debate it was the majority of your argument.
 
The funny thing is that I wasn't even trying to claim Inquisition was a bad game. I straight up said I didn't think it was a bad game. I was just pointing out some areas I thought it could do better, primarily in side content in zones. The only other thing you really mentioned was the idea of "They're there if people want to do them", but I also wasn't advocating that the stuff I found boring be removed either but rather supplemented with quests that had more meat to them.
 
All that those awards you keep touting say is that people thought "This was the overall best game in 2014". It doesn't mean they agree with your opinion on specific parts of the game that get criticized.

Thing is, what you and I find dull may be quite different from each other. I am willing to get all the Shards; some hate them. But I have yet to complete a Mosaic, as I do not care, but others like such collections. Options are good for everyone.

[Elhanan]

The problem with "game awards" is that, as far as i've noticed, a majority of them aren't awarded by industry peers but by media sites, which falls under hype not performance. Of the awards i'm aware of i think the GDC is the closest peer award having high demands for games to succeed before they get the honor of being rewarded.

While this may be true or not, such Awards do matter to the Devs, especially the peer awards like DICE.

[Cyonan]

Thing is, what you and I find dull may be quite different from each other. I am willing to get all the Shards; some hate them. But I have yet to complete a Mosaic, as I do not care, but others like such collections. Options are good for everyone.

 

Which I have also noted that I don't actually want to get rid of the stuff that you like. I want more side quests that have some actual meat to them, which is the stuff that I like.

 

I'm asking for more options here, but you keep trying to argue against that.

[TheRatPack55]

Thing is, what you and I find dull may be quite different from each other. I am willing to get all the Shards; some hate them. But I have yet to complete a Mosaic, as I do not care, but others like such collections. Options are good for everyone.

 

Please don't take this as an attack of any kind, I'm genuinely curious - what makes the shards quests appealing to you that simultaneously makes the mosaic quest something you don't feel like you want to complete?

[Elhanan]

Please don't take this as an attack of any kind, I'm genuinely curious - what makes the shards quests appealing to you that simultaneously makes the mosaic quest something you don't feel like you want to complete?

The Shards rewards are wonderful for my characters, based on the way I approach gameplay. So I am willing to do some Jump mini-games to get the desired Immunities.

But collections of Mosaics, Bottles, etc are simply uninteresting to me, though I can get a bit O-C over collections I actually like (eg; Astrariums).

[TheRatPack55]

The Shards rewards are wonderful for my characters, based on the way I approach gameplay. So I am willing to do some Jump mini-games to get the desired Immunities.

But collections of Mosaics, Bottles, etc are simply uninteresting to me, though I can get a bit O-C over collections I actually like (eg; Astrariums).

 

The shards rewards were obsolete for me, so I'd file that particular issue under "bad game design". If you have a lengthy collection quest, make sure that the rewards are meaningful for any approach you allow a player to take. Same for the mosaics and bottles. I did find the astrariums somewhat engaging at least, in their own right, but the "rewards" were still junk most of the time.

[Elhanan]

The shards rewards were obsolete for me, so I'd file that particular issue under "bad game design". If you have a lengthy collection quest, make sure that the rewards are meaningful for any approach you allow a player to take. Same for the mosaics and bottles. I did find the astrariums somewhat engaging at least, in their own right, but the "rewards" were still junk most of the time.

And I do not describe perm Immunity and items as obsolete. That said, one can easily skip the entire thing for RP or other reasons, as I did in my first campaign when I discovered the lore behind the Ocular devices. Options are a good design for any approach.

[vnth]

And yet I listed several different types of side quests (unique premises), let alone the other types of sidequests that have a unique story to them within those types... and the evolving narrative in DA:I is there in the side quests AND the environmental storytelling it uses to deliver some of the revelations and quests.  As for choices... considering the list of quests that involved a multitude of choices, your argument is ringing extremely hollow still since you haven't proven jack.  You are simply saying "Inquisition was just lesser because". 

 

You keep acting like your subjective judgment on TW3 and PoE is some grand declaration of fact that cannot possibly be questioned... but it isn't.  PoE was fun and I'd argue closer to matching Bioware than The Witcher has ever gotten, but even then you had to sacrifice the entirety of romance to get much of what they did in side quests . Did they have good quests? Yes.  Did they match Bioware?  No, because they took out a significant portion of the optional content that has given Bioware an edge over every developer out there.  PoE was a great throwback and I'll give them points for a fun game, but it wasn't even close to Inquisition for me.  Though it trounced The Witcher.

 

And for your "intriguing narrative"... I got that in many of the side quests for Inquisition, especially when you realise much of that narrative is told in various pieces that come together through completion of a variety of quests (later further expanded on by the DLC).  The purpose of the quests such as the ring, the Templar encampments, the notes you find amidst destruction, and the bodies strewn over various maps is to create the atmosphere, the reality of the conflicts that are affecting the world.  It is a mix of cinematic and environmental storytelling.  Unlike The Witcher, the Thedas reflected the myriad of stories that were occurring and that had occurred thousands of years prior.  Almost all quests at least partially fed right back into the world and the overarching story it was telling through every facet possible.    Show me how you transplant Crestwood's spiderwebbing story spun from multiple quests can be transplanted wholesale into another game.  Show me how you can just pick up and drop the questlines that intersect dealing with the Red Templars and suddenly discovering not just the letters regarding Samson and the red lyrium, but the one that will lead to a confrontation then a judgement based on its revelation.  Show me how the quests for the Suledin blade or the Dirthamenn temple can just be moved over to another game. 

 

I can go on.  There are plenty of quests that rely on the setting of Inquisition and its specific lore to even begin to make sense.  Are there are a few like the ring that could be transplanted to any game?  Yes, every single game in existence has that.  Even PoE and TW3.  But even then, that small quest is meant to feedback into the overarching narrative that the Templar/Mage conflict is tearing innocent people apart and that neither side is clean or innocent.  It is meant to be incentive to end these conflicts.   What is the purpose of most of TW3's hunts?  "O he's a Witcher!"... so?  He's supposed to be focused on finding his daughter and stopping the Hunt... something that gets very little atmospheric bolstering from sidequests in any way.  You can argue that the Herald/Inquisitor (Depending on timing) is doing "mundane" or "trite" quests to try and help people and stabalise the land, which benefits the main thrust of the narrative of creating and building an organization to stop a threat.  Why the hell is Geralt doing his witcher duty instead of actually focusing on what is supposed to be an urgent and significant matter?   Why is he gallivanting around hunting for a pan... why is he sleeping with some prostitute?  Why is he hunting yet another monster instead of trying to actually find Ciri? The quests rarely made sense in terms of the overall narrative thrust of the game.   

 

 

Where you found "unique premises, deeper characters, evolving narratives, and extra choices" I found repetitive and generic quests that rarely made sense in regards to the main story, , tired clichés of characters that never become anything more than the one dimensional clichés they start out as, a narrative that echoes the tropes of dark fantasy to the point of nausea, and choices that were no more extensive than most of those in Inquisition.  You found what it offered to be exceptional.  I found what it offered to be substandard, nonsensical, and boring. 

the entire side quest system in dai is terrible and misguided in every way imaginable. the area quests were completely detached from the main storyline. you do them because of the flimsy excuse that it helps the inquisition (this is sometime implied and not even articulated by any npc), but that was never shown to you. there were no cutscene and very little dialogue. all you get was some "power" point which you use to repeat the process. within these areas, the side quests (most of them werent even that, just blatant fetch quests, and those that were lacked the regenade-paragon of other bw games) were even more boring and forgettable. to say that they were "partially" related to the lore is the same as to say that the writers had achieved the bare minimum. if anything, being related part lore doesnt make any of them more exciting, it actually makes the lore more boring. in comparison, in dao, you get a simple fetch quest of finding a child, which ties into the main quest of saving the village, which ties into the ending, with cutscenes, multiple dialogues, and everything. it's simple, elegant, and effective.

 

unlike dai, wherein open world was simply a big map, witcher 3 had an open world in the true sense of the word. the npcs live and function independently from geralt. just because geralt was looking for his daughter doesnt mean people simply stop losing their pans or having horse races. geralt himself still needed money to live from day to day. you can choose how much you want to get involve in other people's lives, as you do in real life. some events are time sensitive because they ties in directly to the main quest. seriously, i have great appreciation for bw, but lets be fair here, dai isnt even close to witcher 3.

[TheRatPack55]

And I do not describe perm Immunity and items as obsolete. That said, one can easily skip the entire thing for RP or other reasons, as I did in my first campaign when I discovered the lore behind the Ocular devices. Options are a good design for any approach.

 

And in my opinion, options are only good when they offer meaningful results. If completing the shards quest gave me some tangible advantage I might have enjoyed it, but I was able to breeze through the game just fine without it, and never even felt the effect of the "rewards" in the playthrough in which I completed it. That's why I'm saying it's bad game design. The way it was implemented was no different form dialog choices that result in the same line being spoken, in the end I gained nothing of import, despite the considerable time and effort I put into completing the quest.

 

And the design issue I keep bringing up - why not just let the shards be there to be found as you're exploring the world? Why not make the oculara a way to find them more easily? Or to read them, or whatever. What's the fun in having to go back to a spot I've ran across a number of times already, just to pick up a thing that's suddenly there because I've clicked on a quest marker?

[Kabraxal]

the entire side quest system in dai is terrible and misguided in every way imaginable. the area quests were completely detached from the main storyline. you do them because of the flimsy excuse that it helps the inquisition (this is sometime implied and not even articulated by any npc), but that was never shown to you. there were no cutscene and very little dialogue. all you get was some "power" point which you use to repeat the process. within these areas, the side quests (most of them werent even that, just blatant fetch quests, and those that were lacked the regenade-paragon of other bw games) were even more boring and forgettable. to say that they were "partially" related to the lore is the same as to say that the writers had achieved the bare minimum. if anything, being related part lore doesnt make any of them more exciting, it actually makes the lore more boring. in comparison, in dao, you get a simple fetch quest of finding a child, which ties into the main quest of saving the village, which ties into the ending, with cutscenes, multiple dialogues, and everything. it's simple, elegant, and effective.

 

unlike dai, wherein open world was simply a big map, witcher 3 had an open world in the true sense of the word. the npcs live and function independently from geralt. just because geralt was looking for his daughter doesnt mean people simply stop losing their pans or having horse races. geralt himself still needed money to live from day to day. you can choose how much you want to get involve in other people's lives, as you do in real life. some events are time sensitive because they ties in directly to the main quest. seriously, i have great appreciation for bw, but lets be fair here, dai isnt even close to witcher 3.

 

Flimsy?  You can role play an Inquisitor that ignores because that RP dictates that it is insignificant to the main cause.  Another character RP will complete them because they view the Inquisition a different way.  And some will ignore those quests, beat Corypheus then go shard, mural, and astrarium hunting to see if there is anything that would now benefit the Inquistion/the Inquisitor/Thedas.  Just because you arbitrarily chose that they do not matter does not mean it is fact. 

 

As for the second paragraph... you just proved my point.  People still have horse races and lose their pans and need hunts done, but the game is pushing The Wild Hunt and Ciri of extreme importance.  So completing dozens of hunts, playing gwent for days, searching for a damn pan, and racing horses is absolutely stupid to do within the confines of the main narrative.  At least Inquisition actually allowed for spending hours on the side quests to make any kind of sense in terms of the narrative. TW3 does nothing other than throwing out an open world, filling it with cut and paste towns, npcs, and quests and then fails to actually tie it together to the main story in any meaningful way.  They should have stuck with the much more linear styling of TW1 and 2, because they failed in TW3 to create an integrated open world with a main story.   

 

But you are right, Inquisition isn't close to the Witcher 3.  It blows The Witcher 3 out of the discussion entirely and sits comfortably as one of the best games I've ever played (see how opinions work?).   

 

 

[TheRatPack55]

 

As for the second paragraph... you just proved my point.  People still have horse races and lose their pans and need hunts done, but the game is pushing The Wild Hunt and Ciri of extreme importance.  So completing dozens of hunts, playing gwent for days, searching for a damn pan, and racing horses is absolutely stupid to do within the confines of the main narrative.  At least Inquisition actually allowed for spending hours on the side quests to make any kind of sense in terms of the narrative. TW3 does nothing other than throwing out an open world, filling it with cut and paste towns, npcs, and quests and then fails to actually tie it together to the main story in any meaningful way.  They should have stuck with the much more linear styling of TW1 and 2, because they failed in TW3 to create an integrated open world with a main story.   

 

I have not actually played TW3, or any of the Witcher games, but from what you're describing that game is doing is exactly what DAI is doing. I don't know where you get the sense that DAI's side quests make any sense in terms of the narrative, cause they don't. It's an "open" world filled to the brim with cut and paste towns, npcs and quests without any meaningful ties to the main story.

[CronoDragoon]

I have not actually played TW3, or any of the Witcher games, but from what you're describing that game is doing is exactly what DAI is doing. I don't know where you get the sense that DAI's side quests make any sense in terms of the narrative, cause they don't. It's an "open" world filled to the brim with cut and paste towns, npcs and quests without any meaningful ties to the main story.

 

It makes sense because part of the narrative is the Inquisition gaining influence and notoriety in Thedas, which they do by restoring order to these zones, which simultaneously has the benefit of directly fighting your enemy since most of these zones are locations for attempted operations by Cory forces. This is a stark contrast to something like The Witcher 3, where the vast majority of quests have zero, nada, zip, to do with assisting Geralt locate Ciri.

 

I'm not particularly a gamer who has ever cared about alleged ticking bomb plots within a game that doesn't enforce them, though. In JRPGs I'll typically grind as much as I can and do all the endgame side quests before beating the boss, who conveniently waits for me at the final dungeon.

[Kabraxal]

I have not actually played TW3, or any of the Witcher games, but from what you're describing that game is doing is exactly what DAI is doing. I don't know where you get the sense that DAI's side quests make any sense in terms of the narrative, cause they don't. It's an "open" world filled to the brim with cut and paste towns, npcs and quests without any meaningful ties to the main story.

 

Each area has ties to the Venatori, Red Templars, or some event that might tie into the Inquisition (DLC mostly)... and seeing as the Inquisition is being built from the ground up, creating stability, claiming keeps, and taking out the Venatori and Red Templars can be viewed as building up and also as doing what you are supposed to thwart your enemy. 

 

Some, like the shards, murals, and astariums, while unknown to a character their benefits, are generally best left for the post game and pre-Trespasser, as they are less tied to the narrative.  But that post game period perfectly allows for that. 

 

Seriously, have some of you even played Inquisition?  Or at least pay attention?  The Hissing Wastes and the Western Approach are regions the Venatori are scouring for something.  Easy to see how the Inquisition would seek to interfere.  Red Templars are all over several regions, so why wouldn't the Inquisition enter those regions and seek to stop them?  We have no in universe data saying we won't run into major elements of the opposition that could cripple them.  So attempting to stop these efforts makes perfect sense in regards to the main thrust of the Inquisition's purpose. 

 

And if you are also roleplaying the Inquisition as the arm of stability and bringing peace to the land, then easing the tensions of the various conflicts, helping to rebuild, and seeking the various diplomatic and merchant relations via the war table are perfectly reasonable quests to undertake.  Not to mention some of these net agents to bolster the Inquisition. It is becoming more and more clear that I was right in my estimation that people really weren't paying attention or they simply do not like the role playing focus that Inquisition takes.  It is so easy to see how a majority of the quests can tie into the main narrative.  And with the post game grace period, even the lesser quests are given a reason to exist.  The fact so many keep repeating the same tired lines that are so easily disproven is really disheartening for role players... Bioware might just cater to that market instead of us since so many don't seem to get that style at all.   

[Elhanan]

And in my opinion, options are only good when they offer meaningful results. If completing the shards quest gave me some tangible advantage I might have enjoyed it, but I was able to breeze through the game just fine without it, and never even felt the effect of the "rewards" in the playthrough in which I completed it. That's why I'm saying it's bad game design. The way it was implemented was no different form dialog choices that result in the same line being spoken, in the end I gained nothing of import, despite the considerable time and effort I put into completing the quest.
 
And the design issue I keep bringing up - why not just let the shards be there to be found as you're exploring the world? Why not make the oculara a way to find them more easily? Or to read them, or whatever. What's the fun in having to go back to a spot I've ran across a number of times already, just to pick up a thing that's suddenly there because I've clicked on a quest marker?

Because they are not there until an Ocular item is used to pull them from the Fade, I believe. And what one Player finds as meaningful apparently is quite useful for another. If one does not care for it; skip them, but they still are a huge boon for my Inq's.

[Vilegrim]

 

EDIT: or simple question... how many here know about The Ballad of Lord Woolsey?  Just another throw away quest right?  (yes, this is a loaded question).
 

 

 

I did it, and found it to be..uninteresting, in concept fine interesting, in execution, no, not fun, no shock to it, just..meh. Because it felt pointless and empty, either do it or don't, wont get acknowledged by more than a throw away line, no come back either way, no feeling that it actually mattered, hell no feeling that half of the main story actually mattered. 

[Kabraxal]

I did it, and found it to be..uninteresting, in concept fine interesting, in execution, no, not fun, no shock to it, just..meh. Because it felt pointless and empty, either do it or don't, wont get acknowledged by more than a throw away line, no come back either way, no feeling that it actually mattered, hell no feeling that half of the main story actually mattered. 

 

Do you know what Lord Woolsey actually is?

[vnth]

Flimsy?  You can role play an Inquisitor that ignores because that RP dictates that it is insignificant to the main cause.  Another character RP will complete them because they view the Inquisition a different way.  And some will ignore those quests, beat Corypheus then go shard, mural, and astrarium hunting to see if there is anything that would now benefit the Inquistion/the Inquisitor/Thedas.  Just because you arbitrarily chose that they do not matter does not mean it is fact. 

 

As for the second paragraph... you just proved my point.  People still have horse races and lose their pans and need hunts done, but the game is pushing The Wild Hunt and Ciri of extreme importance.  So completing dozens of hunts, playing gwent for days, searching for a damn pan, and racing horses is absolutely stupid to do within the confines of the main narrative.  At least Inquisition actually allowed for spending hours on the side quests to make any kind of sense in terms of the narrative. TW3 does nothing other than throwing out an open world, filling it with cut and paste towns, npcs, and quests and then fails to actually tie it together to the main story in any meaningful way.  They should have stuck with the much more linear styling of TW1 and 2, because they failed in TW3 to create an integrated open world with a main story.   

 

But you are right, Inquisition isn't close to the Witcher 3.  It blows The Witcher 3 out of the discussion entirely and sits comfortably as one of the best games I've ever played (see how opinions work?).   

lol actually you are the one who have proven my point. in this day and age, there is nothing more condemning to a rpg game's quality than to have to roleplay yourself. the only reason you have to tell yourself your actions mattered is because the game didnt.

 

again, it's called realism. just because your daughter is missing doesnt mean the world will cater to you. balancing your livelihood and your mission is all a part of it. whether you let yourself enjoying games and races is completely up to you. if you dont want to do all of the stuffs during the main quest then dont. do them after. and also, you dont know it was an apocalypse until the very end. the rest of the time it was simply alluded to. it's called foreshadowing. what important is that, unlike dai, there are no fluff. the quality and consistency of the quests are completely unparalleled, greater than even the classics like of old baldur's gate.

 

just because taste exists doesnt mean there is no such thing as accuracy. effectiveness and quality of a game's writing can all be judged and debated, which you dont do by simply saying "it is better because i like it more." so far you have essentially say nothing more than admitting that sidequests in dai are so poorly written and implemented that the only way you could have enjoy them is through make-believe (see how arguments work?).

[Statichands]

I don't remember doing any fetch quests in original trilogy games

[Kabraxal]

lol actually you are the one who have proven my point. in this day and age, there is nothing more condemning to a rpg game's quality than to have to roleplay yourself. the only reason you have to tell yourself your actions mattered is because the game didnt.

 

again, it's called realism. just because your daughter is missing doesnt mean the world will cater to you. balancing your livelihood and your mission is all a part of it. whether you let yourself enjoying games and races is completely up to you. if you dont want to do all of the stuffs during the main quest then dont. do them after. all also, you dont know it was an apocalypse until the very end. the rest of the time it was simply alluded to. it's called foreshadowing. what important is that, unlike dai, there are no fluff. the quality and consistency of the quests are completely unparalleled, greater than even classics like baldur's gate of old.

 

just because taste exist doesnt mean there is no such thing as accuracy. effectiveness and quality of a game's writing can all be judge and debate, which you dont do by simply saying "it is better because i like it more." so far you have essentially say nothing more than admitting that sidequests in dai are so poorly written and implemented that the only way you could have enjoy them is through make-believe (see how arguments work?).

 

Um... hate to break this to you, but role playing exists today because of a little pen and paper game (still played by the way) where characters are generally created by the players, given a personality by the players, and their actions dictated by the players.  Baldur's Gate is a franchise that spun off of that original pen and paper game and then later was used by Bioware as the basis for absolute classics in the video game industry.  Dragon Age was a spiritual successor to that style.  If you don't understand that, then it is clear you don't know much about the origins of role playing games or why Dragon Age even exists.  Dragon Age: Origins was clearly targeted towards a specific crowd within the role playing world of this era, one in which The Witcher is not.   

 

And you actually didn't prove why any of those sidequests would make sense for Geralt to do. Not a character defined by the player, but Geralt, a set personality who would react in an extremely specific matter.  He wouldn't play gwent endlessly.  He wouldn't race horses.  He wouldn't even engage in too many hunts.  He would track down his daughter without pause.  There is no reason why you would waste all that time on pointless side quests that never feed back into the main story in any way if you are playing Geralt.  That is why the sidequests in TW3 fail and why the open world was actually a bust.  It fails to take into account Geralt and his personality.  It is only there be open world with stuff to do, to hell with it making sense for the character to engage in most of it.   

[Dutchess]

And for your "intriguing narrative"... I got that in many of the side quests for Inquisition, especially when you realise much of that narrative is told in various pieces that come together through completion of a variety of quests (later further expanded on by the DLC).  The purpose of the quests such as the ring, the Templar encampments, the notes you find amidst destruction, and the bodies strewn over various maps is to create the atmosphere, the reality of the conflicts that are affecting the world.  It is a mix of cinematic and environmental storytelling.  Unlike The Witcher, the Thedas reflected the myriad of stories that were occurring and that had occurred thousands of years prior.  Almost all quests at least partially fed right back into the world and the overarching story it was telling through every facet possible.

 

So you've rode through war-ravaged Velen in the Witcher, encountered instances of looters scouring the battlefields, the hanged bodies of deserters and criminals with accompanying notes of what they've been convicted of, peasants turning to banditry and attempting to rob people on the road, or set the house of a nonhuman on fire because she refused to hand over her gold, the orphans hiding together in a hut struggling against the threat of starvation, or the orphans who resorted to stealing chickens from nearby farms to survive, and yet you insist that DA:I surpasses it in showing the "reality of conflicts that are affecting the world"? The only effects of the Mage-Templar War I've seen were a handful of burning huts in the starting area of the Hinterlands. Although I guess that was the one of the very few villages in the entire Hinterlands, aside from Redcliffe, so maybe their destruction did reduce the number of inhabited villages with 60%. The stablemaster's farms looked fine though. No trouble there.

 

I'm not against the usage of letters, notes and journals you can find on a corpse or in an abandoned hut to shed some light on what has taken place there. But Bioware relied on it way too much, to the exclusion of more interactive ways of showing the effects of conflict. I just mentioned peasants attempting to burn down a nonhuman's house in The Witcher because she refused to pay them. You approach, you are shown that's what's happening, and you can interfere if you want. You can free the elf, talk to her and actually see her reaction because it's in a cut scene, and then the mini side quest which interactively portrayed both the negative attitude towards nonhumans as well as the prominence of banditry in an area which was hit heavily by the ongoing war. In DA:I you can find one isolated burnt down hut, but conveniently a scrap of paper describing how a group of apostates hiding there had been barred inside and then Templars set fire to the place. And that's it. That's DA:I's way of telling you "bad stuff happened here because war" but it doesn't get more visual or interactive than that. It doesn't give anything for your Inquisitor to actually react to, get involved in or stay out of, make a choice between two sides. 

 

Again, sometimes just a letter on a corpse can be fine to tell a tiny story in a world with much larger stories going on. Witcher uses that tactic too, mainly for the treasure hunts. For that it works. But by nearly solely relying on that method you lose out on other means the gaming medium has at its disposal to tell a story. Most importantly it loses out on events, just small moments of interrupting roaming the landscape and poking at interactive items to get loot or a codex, which truly engage the player. Events that pull you out of just exploring and fully demand your attention. The apostates' burnt hideout doesn't take you out of exploring and doesn't demand action from you. You walk inside, check for loot and get the codex from the journal and continue on your way. That's not superior or more intelligent or even more subtle than the various approaches The Witcher takes to involves you in the world.

[Kabraxal]

So you've rode through war-ravaged Velen in the Witcher, encountered instances of looters scouring the battlefields, the hanged bodies of deserters and criminals with accompanying notes of what they've been convicted of, peasants turning to banditry and attempting to rob people on the road, or set the house of a nonhuman on fire because she refused to hand over her gold, the orphans hiding together in a hut struggling against the threat of starvation, or the orphans who resorted to stealing chickens from nearby farms to survive, and yet you insist that DA:I surpasses it in showing the "reality of conflicts that are affecting the world"? The only effects of the Mage-Templar War I've seen were a handful of burning huts in the starting area of the Hinterlands. Although I guess that was the one of the very few villages in the entire Hinterlands, aside from Redcliffe, so maybe their destruction did reduce the number of inhabited villages with 60%. The stablemaster's farms looked fine though. No trouble there.

 

I'm not against the usage of letters, notes and journals you can find on a corpse or in an abandoned hut to shed some light on what has taken place there. But Bioware relied on it way too much, to the exclusion of more interactive ways of showing the effects of conflict. I just mentioned peasants attempting to burn down a nonhuman's house in The Witcher because she refused to pay them. You approach, you are shown that's what's happening, and you can interfere if you want. You can free the elf, talk to her and actually see her reaction because it's in a cut scene, and then the mini side quest which interactively portrayed both the negative attitude towards nonhumans as well as the prominence of banditry in an area which was hit heavily by the ongoing war. In DA:I you can find one isolated burnt down hut, but conveniently a scrap of paper describing how a group of apostates hiding there had been barred inside and then Templars set fire to the place. And that's it. That's DA:I's way of telling you "bad stuff happened here because war" but it doesn't get more visual or interactive than that. It doesn't give anything for your Inquisitor to actually react to, get involved in or stay out of, make a choice between two sides. 

 

Again, sometimes just a letter on a corpse can be fine to tell a tiny story in a world with much larger stories going on. Witcher uses that tactic too, mainly for the treasure hunts. For that it works. But by nearly solely relying on that method you lose out on other means the gaming medium has at its disposal to tell a story. Most importantly it loses out on events, just small moments of interrupting roaming the landscape and poking at interactive items to get loot or a codex, which truly engage the player. Events that pull you out of just exploring and fully demand your attention. The apostates' burnt hideout doesn't take you out of exploring and doesn't demand action from you. You walk inside, check for loot and get the codex from the journal and continue on your way. That's not superior or more intelligent or even more subtle than the various approaches The Witcher takes to involves you in the world.

 

We have vastly different perspectives... that hut, the bodies you can find scattered around, the signs of conflict and camps created during these upheavals, and the slow progression of finding travelers return to the roads as the region becomes safer is far more subtle to me than a cutscene jumping up and down to get my attention and go "here here!  This is super important!".  And these kind of environmental cues and changes happen in almost all regions. 

 

WHere you feel "engaged" by a cutscene... I feel lectured.  I don't want a cutscene for everything.  Sometimes the best way to tell part of a story is to let the environment and atmosphere tell the story for you. Sometimes, you aren't going to be the one making choices... just seeing how someone else's choices, history, and conflicts affected the area and people around them.  What you want is a game world that actively courts you as a player.  What I want is a game world that seeks to exist as a world and I can wander within it in a far more realistic relationship.  You get what you want  in TW3.  I do not.  I get what I want in Inquisition (along with quite a lot of optional quests with those choices and cutscenes on top of it) and you seemingly don't. 

 

The Witcher 3's quests are not objectively better or deeper than Inquisition.  I know it's the popular refrain, but continuously beating that drum does not make your mere opinion fact. Because clearly not everyone is agreeing with you.

[vnth]

Um... hate to break this to you, but role playing exists today because of a little pen and paper game (still played by the way) where characters are generally created by the players, given a personality by the players, and their actions dictated by the players.  Baldur's Gate is a franchise that spun off of that original pen and paper game and then later was used by Bioware as the basis for absolute classics in the video game industry.  Dragon Age was a spiritual successor to that style.  If you don't understand that, then it is clear you don't know much about the origins of role playing games or why Dragon Age even exists.  Dragon Age: Origins was clearly targeted towards a specific crowd within the role playing world of this era, one in which The Witcher is not.   

 

And you actually didn't prove why any of those sidequests would make sense for Geralt to do. Not a character defined by the player, but Geralt, a set personality who would react in an extremely specific matter.  He wouldn't play gwent endlessly.  He wouldn't race horses.  He wouldn't even engage in too many hunts.  He would track down his daughter without pause.  There is no reason why you would waste all that time on pointless side quests that never feed back into the main story in any way if you are playing Geralt.  That is why the sidequests in TW3 fail and why the open world was actually a bust.  It fails to take into account Geralt and his personality.  It is only there be open world with stuff to do, to hell with it making sense for the character to engage in most of it.   

thats why i said in this day and age. if i want to use my imagination, why on earth would i play modern rpg and not pen and paper. your argument is a nonargument. we're discussing dai's ability to create visually a dynamic and believable world through side quests. so far you still havent address how scraps of note were able to do that, instead keep on insisting that if one use their imagination it will all make sense.

 

lol youre using your imagination wrong, which i didnt know was even possible. youre the one who control geralt's personality, he can do whatever you want. therere plenty of reasons why geralt would race or gamble during the main game. one would be that, as i have already said, it's a source of income, which helps him afford better equipment, which fits into the main game both within the narrative and as a player. really i dont even know why would anyone even argue this point. i dont know if there is a person other than you who doesnt want to do the sidequests in w3 to experience the story, which is, as you probably have already noticed, is the complete opposite with dai, where people have to be persuaded and cajoled and bargained into doing them.

[Elhanan]

thats why i said in this day and age. if i want to use my imagination, why on earth would i play modern rpg and not pen and paper. your argument is a nonargument. we're discussing dai's ability to create visually a dynamic and believable world through side quests. so far you still havent address how scraps of note were able to do that, instead keep on insisting that if one use their imagination it will all make sense.
 
lol youre using your imagination wrong, which i didnt know was even possible. youre the one who control geralt's personality, he can do whatever you want. therere plenty of reasons why geralt would race or gamble during the main game. one would be that, as i have already said, it's a source of income, which helps him afford better equipment, which fits into the main game both within the narrative and as a player. really i dont even know why would anyone even argue this point. i dont know if there is a person other than you who doesnt want to do the sidequests in w3 to experience the story, which is, as you probably have already noticed, is the complete opposite with dai, where people have to be persuaded and cajoled and bargained into doing them.

Do not play TW games, but one is given the set character, and apparently has to watch scene after scene for most major and minor occuurences. I prefer to play a RPG; not watch an interactive film.

[Cyonan]

Um... hate to break this to you, but role playing exists today because of a little pen and paper game (still played by the way) where characters are generally created by the players, given a personality by the players, and their actions dictated by the players.  Baldur's Gate is a franchise that spun off of that original pen and paper game and then later was used by Bioware as the basis for absolute classics in the video game industry.  Dragon Age was a spiritual successor to that style.  If you don't understand that, then it is clear you don't know much about the origins of role playing games or why Dragon Age even exists.  Dragon Age: Origins was clearly targeted towards a specific crowd within the role playing world of this era, one in which The Witcher is not.   

 

And you actually didn't prove why any of those sidequests would make sense for Geralt to do. Not a character defined by the player, but Geralt, a set personality who would react in an extremely specific matter.  He wouldn't play gwent endlessly.  He wouldn't race horses.  He wouldn't even engage in too many hunts.  He would track down his daughter without pause.  There is no reason why you would waste all that time on pointless side quests that never feed back into the main story in any way if you are playing Geralt.  That is why the sidequests in TW3 fail and why the open world was actually a bust.  It fails to take into account Geralt and his personality.  It is only there be open world with stuff to do, to hell with it making sense for the character to engage in most of it.   

 

Geralt may be very loyal to those he cares about, but he doesn't necessarily track them down without pause.

 

Being a Witcher, Geralt's main source of income is doing all of those odd jobs around towns that nobody else wants to which can include the hunts, playing gwent, or racing horses. All of those things bring money, which Geralt needs to keep his equipment maintained as well as buy any supplies he might need. Unlike the Inquisitor, Geralt doesn't have an entire organization worth of resources as his disposal.

 

How much funding you need is up to you as a player, as the game does allow minor control over Geralt's character.

 

Not to mention if we're to be roleplaying a full proper day and night cycle like the game has, Geralt wont always be able to do anything at night and may need to wait for the next day in order for shops to open. In this case the game lets you fast forward with meditation simply so that the player doesn't have to wait it out, but it's not against Geralt's character to partake in some gwent during this time either.