58 réponses à ce sujet

[Realmzmaster]

Can you elaborate linear story driven? I thought you could do any of the major quest arcs in any order, explore or leave a quest arc even and travel to the next area on the map at will? I.e., halfway through Orzimmar, you are able to leave and go to the Mage tower?

There lies the point there is no where else to go but the major areas in DAO or DA2 (for that matter). In DAI I can go to the Hissing Wastes, Forbidden Oasis, Exalted Plains or the Emerald Graves and explore to my hearts content without it having a total bearing on the main story.

 

For me everything does not have to be tied completely into the main story. For me exploration in and of itself (finding what is or not out there) can be the story. I want the ability to go to places not because I have to but because I want to go there.

 

DAO requires that the warden get all the armies. The gamer does not have a choice not to get an army. So yes you can skip to another arc but eventually you must finish getting all the armies otherwise you cannot proceed.

 

I admit that the main story in DAI is linear in aspects certain arcs must be done, but DAI allows me to go exploring in places that are not completely related to the story. I like the ability to do that. Where in DAO or DA2 is that possible?

 

But YMMV.

[Erstus]

Keep in mind that TW3 was CD Projekt RED's first attempt at an open world and that they also had to build their own engine and did it on a comparatively small budget and relatively small work force inless time it took Bioware to come up with DAI.
 
Bioware's failure is not due to having to use an established engine with the direct support of DICE and other companion companies, backed by EA's massive budget. It is because they simply don't have the passion that the guys at Cd Projekt RED has.
 
Those humble Polish guys somehow managed to create what is arguably the new standard in RPG open world games. Something Bioware, calling themselves veterans in the gaming industry, can't even dream of rivalling.
 
Let's also not forget that TW3 was cheaper than DAI and we are getting 16 free DLCs, some of which are actual quality quests. 
Bioware charges a fifth of the base game price for absolutely worthless game assets and call it DLC.
 
So the sooner we can all stop making excuses for Bioware, the sooner they can do us all a massive favour and just quit.

WOW! I could not agree more. I also could not have said it better myself

10/10 - Nail on head

[TheOgre]

There lies the point there is no where else to go but the major areas in DAO or DA2 (for that matter). In DAI I can go to the Hissing Wastes, Forbidden Oasis, Exalted Plains or the Emerald Graves and explore to my hearts content without it having a total bearing on the main story.

 

For me everything does not have to be tied completely into the main story. For me exploration in and of itself (finding what is or not out there) can be the story. I want the ability to go to places not because I have to but because I want to go there.

 

DAO requires that the warden get all the armies. The gamer does not have a choice not to get an army. So yes you can skip to another arc but eventually you must finish getting all the armies otherwise you cannot proceed.

 

I admit that the main story in DAI is linear in aspects certain arcs must be done, but DAI allows me to go exploring in places that are not completely related to the story. I like the ability to do that. Where in DAO or DA2 is that possible?

 

But YMMV.

 

So you like to explore the beautiful world of DAI? I agree with that honestly, but I'd like there to be interesting quest arcs in major areas like Crestwood for myself. It would be a big step up over the DAO major areas but to be honest, it just didn't feel like those areas really mattered outside of Crestwood. They were just placed to gather shards and what have you.

 

You are railroaded to go to stabilize Orlais and I reaaaaally dislike Orlais or the Game too so yeah you are railroaded into getting the armies in DAO but bleh, every game has its bottlenecks.

 

Again YMMV.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Can you elaborate linear story driven? I thought you could do any of the major quest arcs in any order, explore or leave a quest arc even and travel to the next area on the map at will? I.e., halfway through Orzimmar, you are able to leave and go to the Mage tower?

But all of those stops are in the linear path. There's a route you must follow, you can't follow it until you're told to do so, and there's no other option available.

Honestly, the lack of other places to go bothers me less than the restrictions on travel to plot locations.

[TheOgre]

I posted about that and agrees about the design level and freedom to go to places but it felt half hearted at best. Great design but no real desire to be there. No motivation other than points. I want more emphasis on side quests or areas. Crestwood being my example.

[DreamSever]

I don't mind open world if it had life to it, i always felt that ferelden and orlais had 4 citizens (my party), most characters you couldn't interact with and that broke the immersion somewhat for me, not hating, just expressing my feeling

[Eelectrica]

If they get the side quests right, I feel the rest will fall into place. Open world can be great, it seems it's harder than it looks to pull off.

 

A bit of dialogue, multiple solutions every now and then, a few twist endings. The quality of side quest content in Witcher 3 is off the chain for the most part. Many of the sidequests are better than most games main quests. Even the more dull quest content quite often has a twist ending and doesn't take too long to do anyway. It's own self contained story.

Even BG had some cool twists in some of its little sidequest content as well. Like when we have to search for the dogs and we find out it's a huge demon. Yes I know DAI tried something similar, So more like that I suppose.

 

I don't mind the open world thing, it just seems BW spent their resources on the optional extras like more horse mounts and pointless skyhold upgrades. Those things are nice, sure, but only if there's enough left in the kitty after getting the quests done which doesn't seem to have been the case.

[Murdan]

This is exactly what I was thinking after finishing DA II. That Inquisition "open worlds" looks exactly the same as the smaller ones they did before, only they are much more empty and instead of quests there are with a lot of "searching for something". 

 

Don't get me wrong I actually love all those empty but atmoshperic countrysides, but 6 is the maximum I'm willing to visit in one game ;-). 

 

so I was asking also - where are those story based quests which was DA franchise known for? 

 

And it doesn't have to be linear dungeon - I would be happy even for a few of them outside of the main quest... Even companion quests are about searching/killing...

If they would make atleast companion quests more complicated it would be better...

[Kage]

This is exactly what I was thinking after finishing DA II. That Inquisition "open worlds" looks exactly the same as the smaller ones they did before, only they are much more empty and instead of quests there are with a lot of "searching for something". 

 

Don't get me wrong I actually love all those empty but atmoshperic countrysides, but 6 is the maximum I'm willing to visit in one game ;-). 

 

so I was asking also - where are those story based quests which was DA franchise known for? 

 

 

I completely agree with you. Areas are nice and I enjoy them, but I would rather have something interesting to do in them. Fetch questing was not interesting for me, and exploring was not interesting once I understood there was nothing to explore really, except for the beautiful world.

 

I would have loved to see many sidequests in an area like the Storm Coast, which was pretty amazing, and be able to enjoy it more. Or have the main story do something in that area.

 

I feel there were more areas than main quests, and that is just terrible. I would expect to have the main story use several times each area, at least!

[Koneko Koji]

My main problem at the moment is that the 'side' areas are dull and practically empty - and the main storyline is telling me I need to go to the ball in Orlais, which I HATE with a holy firey passion - so my enthusiasm for DA:I has dwindled to the point where I may play it for an hour or so once or twice a month; and I feel no desire what so ever to have the DLC.

 

I miss being able to interact with or at least SEE the events that are shaping the world - if I wanted to read a book, I'd have bought one. I didn't expect almost all of the main plot and world building action to be in codexs and reports without even a video clip to show the action.

 

I wish they'd go back to their roots, have the side areas by all means - but USE them, no more silly piece of paper quests - let me interact with the world and care about it!

 

Also.... I wanted to let Orlais burn and step into the Fade myself ... it could have been an amazing ending to end up either massive power (not likely) or torn to shreds by magical forces / my betrayed companions.

[Saphiron123]

There lies the point there is no where else to go but the major areas in DAO or DA2 (for that matter). In DAI I can go to the Hissing Wastes, Forbidden Oasis, Exalted Plains or the Emerald Graves and explore to my hearts content without it having a total bearing on the main story.

 

For me everything does not have to be tied completely into the main story. For me exploration in and of itself (finding what is or not out there) can be the story. I want the ability to go to places not because I have to but because I want to go there.

 

DAO requires that the warden get all the armies. The gamer does not have a choice not to get an army. So yes you can skip to another arc but eventually you must finish getting all the armies otherwise you cannot proceed.

 

I admit that the main story in DAI is linear in aspects certain arcs must be done, but DAI allows me to go exploring in places that are not completely related to the story. I like the ability to do that. Where in DAO or DA2 is that possible?

 

But YMMV.

Exploration requires something to see other then landscapes. The hissing wastes didn't have a single npc in it. It was pretty, but like most aspects of DAI, empty.

[Elhanan]

Exploration requires something to see other then landscapes. The hissing wastes didn't have a single npc in it. It was pretty, but like most aspects of DAI, empty.

HW had at least two NPC's (Hunter and Wandering NPC); more if one included the merchant and named Dragon. But I do not go exploring to only find more folks, but treasure, ruins, tombs, and other various locations which are found scattered in the sands.

[Elhanan]

My main problem at the moment is that the 'side' areas are dull and practically empty - and the main storyline is telling me I need to go to the ball in Orlais, which I HATE with a holy firey passion - so my enthusiasm for DA:I has dwindled to the point where I may play it for an hour or so once or twice a month; and I feel no desire what so ever to have the DLC.
 
I miss being able to interact with or at least SEE the events that are shaping the world - if I wanted to read a book, I'd have bought one. I didn't expect almost all of the main plot and world building action to be in codexs and reports without even a video clip to show the action.
 
I wish they'd go back to their roots, have the side areas by all means - but USE them, no more silly piece of paper quests - let me interact with the world and care about it!
 
Also.... I wanted to let Orlais burn and step into the Fade myself ... it could have been an amazing ending to end up either massive power (not likely) or torn to shreds by magical forces / my betrayed companions.

As is common, prefer the book to the movie. The book utilizes the Player's imagination; cut-scenes display the games version of events.

[MaxQuartiroli]

As much as I'm loving TW3 I'd like to have both kind of games, but nowadays it seems like all major RPG must be open world.

[McVexy]

I favor this idea; partially.

 

I truly don't mind open world - if done correctly. I've yet to play The Witcher 3, so I can't compare, but something about Inquisition just wasn't right. I picked up on this feeling just after Val Royeaux.

 

I also feel I should note that I'm a trophy hunter - as such, I gained the platinum on my first (and only) play through of the game, completing ALL areas and every quest I could. I won't be playing through it again.

 

---

 

I don't feel Inquisition was open world. Yes, you had these vast areas where you could quest in whatever order you wanted, or go hunting, or harvesting - but that was it. You still had to "map" yourself to these areas - they weren't connected by anything bar your War Table. You couldn't run to the edge of a map and travel into another area. All the areas in Inquisition were instances, not a singular living, breathing world. You couldn't run around in a circle looking for Silverite - you had to map out and map back to have it respawn in the exact same locations. It's a very poor, half-hearted attempt at anything even remotely open world.

 

It felt to me like they took the bad parts of MMOs (fetch quests with no real meat to them) and previous DA games (instanced locations with no fluidity), made the map for each instanced area 10-20x bigger and mashed it all together and thought they'd created something wonderful. Inquisition is a poorly made MMO that you can't play online (bar multiplayer, of course). They even used the dreaded "Holy Trinity" combat system from MMOs (that many MMO developers realise is dated beyond belief now and are trying to phase out) - tank and spank!

 

---

 

Back to what I said at the opening of the post, I favor the idea partially. I would much rather they create a vibrant, living, breathing, can-travel-to-all-locations-by-foot-if-I-wanted-to-even-if-it-took-6-real-world-hours, day and night cycles, weather changing open world, but I honestly don't think it's something BioWare are capable of doing with their current team.

 

If they can't, they need to go back to the old tried and tested method of the earlier games.

[Torgette]

Eh, there's meat in the side areas of DAI, it's just that they aren't presented with the same quality as the main quest or companion quests (even if they're more interesting conceptually). On the surface that's the biggest difference between DAI and TW3 is that in TW3 even pointless quests are made with the same attention to detail as a main story mission (they feel like they belong). Presentation aside the other problem is that these side stories are presented in fetch-quest fashion, ie: Emprise Du Lion has a really interesting setup with villagers being sold off for Red Templar experimentation and mining so the rest of the villagers are left alone. Rather than being told via cutscenes with storytelling, we're given completely optional conversations we can easily skip that reveal villagers lying to others to hide this fact, and then when we get to rescuing the villagers it's simply a "free all 7 camps" or whatever. When we return to confront the mayor nothing happens, they just stand there and accept getting arrested or you can brush it all off. It feels cheapened.

 

The other problem with how stuff is presented is when it's presented, ie: Storm Coast is completely pointless if not for companion quests being shoehorned in, which means if you don't talk to everybody there's even less stuff to do in the area, including some areas being inaccessible.

 

Then you have the companion quests that explore each area, ie: Varric and the Red Lyrium or Blackwall and the Warden evidence, both could've had very dynamic stories to tell (especially considering Blackwall's revelation later on), but instead it's just "oh good, thanks for picking that up" and then you move on.

 

Finally you have criminally underserved areas like Val Royeaux where so many stories could've been told but instead was left largely empty and claustrophobic, even when you visited other nearby areas you had to go back to Skyhold and warp there via the war table, everything felt disjointed and not "grand" at all.

 

It's like the game had all the right elements on paper, but never quite got there during development.

[Cobra's_back]

Technically this game is not open world.

 

"Open world is a term for video games where a player can move freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives, as opposed to other computer games that have a more linear structure.Open world and free-roaming suggest the absence of artificial barriers, in contrast to the invisible walls and loading screens that are common in linear level designs."

 

You still have barriers and you can't enter all areas without first opening them up through the war table. Skyrim and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning were both open world because the player could just travel to a new area. 

 

DAI looks like an RPG that offers more locations and options, but is still somewhat linear. 

[Saphiron123]

HW had at least two NPC's (Hunter and Wandering NPC); more if one included the merchant and named Dragon. But I do not go exploring to only find more folks, but treasure, ruins, tombs, and other various locations which are found scattered in the sands.

If you're including the named dragon as an npc, you've made my point for me.

Most of the maps are empty and devoid of any real story or consequences. You could remove them from the game and it wouldn't affect the core story at all.

It's become a collection game, like assassins creed, with stuff to pick up everywhere for no real rhyme or reason.

I love dragon age, but inquisition is simply empty. They went big, and they didn't fill any of it.

[Realmzmaster]

Exploration requires something to see other then landscapes. The hissing wastes didn't have a single npc in it. It was pretty, but like most aspects of DAI, empty.

 

The Hissing wastes did not need NPCs in my opinion. Exploring and learning about the dwarven settlement that was on the surface was interesting to me. I like exploration archaeology. Also discovering why the Venatori  were interested in the Hissing Wastes. but YMMV.

[Elhanan]

If you're including the named dragon as an npc, you've made my point for me.

Most of the maps are empty and devoid of any real story or consequences. You could remove them from the game and it wouldn't affect the core story at all.

It's become a collection game, like assassins creed, with stuff to pick up everywhere for no real rhyme or reason.

I love dragon age, but inquisition is simply empty. They went big, and they didn't fill any of it.

Why not? In DAI, the Dragons are worthy of names. But the fact that there are NPC's in the area seemed to have escaped the brief glance it was given; can happen when one speeds through the gameplay.

As for empty, the Hissing Wastes had ancient tombs, buried treasures, amassed numbers of Venatori, and a rather out of the way merchant that many seem to like alongside the aggressive denizens of the region.

[GGGenesis]

If this is what you call open world then you haven't played a Bethesda game. They do true open world and open world isn't for everyone. You always loose that sense of personal-ness and feel more like an existential drifter in this big land. Which is why most open world games have you play as a nobody so you can pick your own relationships. With DA:I you're the leader of a world changing movement. You're going to be limited. It's going to be linear and if you expect Bethesda level open world you will be underwhelmed. It is going to feel much more empty. Now I hope we never go back to the DA2 formula but the Origins formula was perfect. I think what would help Bioware open world would be concentrating efforts into exploration style quests like exploring old ruins and such with some mega boss inside and fancy loot. Or faction style quests that weren't on the war table. I'd love to fight with some usurping elves or rampaging qunari. A lot of the war table quests would have made fantastic real quests.

[Murdan]

I'm trying to play DAI again without doing any quest/task or entering any zone that isn't interesting for me. Because I still like the idea of wandering around, just discovering things, enjoying atmosphere, so I'm trying to find reasons why it doesn't work for me as it could. 

 

 

For now it is almost completed Main quest, 2/3 of Hinterlands, no Fallow Mire, only zone quest and main quest for Crestwood, Only finding Iron Bull for Storm Coast. And no searching for shards or anything else. 

Surprisingly it left in me more of desire/strength to explore and finish all the other zones - Western Approach, Exalted Plains, Emprise Du Lion and Emerald Graves. 

 

So they are 3 similar zones that are not interesting for me to explore because there is nothing new really or they are too big - Hinterlands, Crestwood and Fallow Mire. 

 

But Fallow Mire had still good atmosphere, so I was thinking - if Fallow Mire would be combined with Crestwood, only those empty pointless areas wouldn't be there - it would be more interesting (for me atleast). 

Imagine it would start with those spirits/totems, but you would come to Crestwood village instead where you would save villages (as it was originally), then you would deal with the problem of Crestwood and behind that you would meet a stronghold of Avvars. And the story behind would be combined too - or left entirely. 

 

I know the original idea behind Fallow Mire was to meet Avvars - but if the only thing about them was reading some notes and fighting with them - I wanted to experience more of it or nothing at all. 

 

Edit: 

 

just for devs to see - this is my map of Crestwood with uncovered area which I was enjoying. I felt that if I would try to do all the tasks there it would ruin the good impression. I think that size would be just right for getting the most of desired effect - of atmosphere and an interesting theme of a zone. 

 

http://i.imgur.com/npKuTfe.jpg

 

I think anything larger would require quest arcs and it seems to me it wasn't intended by devs. 

[Elhanan]

Some Inq soldiers have been captured by the Avvar in the Fallow Mire; a decent reason to brave the swamp. Believe this is mentioned at the War Table. The area also contains some resources that may be of use if one does their own collecting for crafts or specializations.

Crestwood will be tied to the MQ, so one will visit there eventually. And the Hinterlands can be re-visited to take a listen and look at the progress one may have made there earlier.

[Sylvius the Mad]

My least favourite zone is probably the Fallow Mire, but that's because of the corridor-like design.

[correctamundo]

It definitely is more corridorlike but I still like the eeriness, wading through zombies, the paranoid mage etc.