I know and have heard very little about the Witcher 3, other than a hunt is involved, there is a female witcher, and it is available to purchase. I hear a lot about Inquisition.
It's about where you go and what circles you hang around in. If one cares about and is interested in the Witcher, I'm sure that one will hear a lot about it. If one is not interested (like me), I don't bother looking and don't run across much information, other than some reviews on gamer sites and ads on the internet. Now with the GotY edition coming out, I'm seeing way more Inquisition ads than Witcher ads.
I think the fact that W3 dropped seven months or so after DAI might have something to do with that. The gaming press tends to move on.
I think that's true to a certain extent, but let's be honest. The OP's points should be well taken. DAI has several fairly serious flaws, and (again let's be honest), Witcher 3 is a very similiar game with similiar goals and handles the same problems much better. For DAI I think the timing of Witcher 3 was unfortunate since the shine on DAI was just starting to rub off enough for people to really notice some of the serious flaws when Witcher 3 (a very similiar game) hit the shelves. The rest is history.
If Inquisition's goal was to be a better game than the Witcher, I'll take people's word that it was a failure.
However, I don't think that is the goal of Inquisition, so it is not a failure in that case.
If we are just comparing stuff, I'm sure threads can be made as to why Witcher 3 is a failure because it didn't do X as well as Y did.
Edit: Besides, looking at all of BioWare's previous games, if one is to just compare those games with games that came out later, then they are all failures because better games have come out.
Really why should devs show up on the forums. See crap like this and they may say screw it and get out of the gaming business
Um, because they should. Being apart of the gaming industry, movie industry is about taking the good with the crap. If they cannot handle it then that type of business is not for them.
This is Bioware's main forum. This should be a place for them to conjugate and interact with the fans, but they don't. Why? Because they cannot handle criticism and they cannot seem to pick and choose their battles. Gaider has a brilliant mind but is the worst at this. I've seen many times to where he is constantly defending something about Dragon Age instead of just taking a breath. Thus Gaider gets defensive and sometimes too much. So what did he do instead? Run off to Twitter or somewhere else.
I recall a few years back I made a post about how poor the romances were in DA 2. Gaider of course took offensive and jumped in the thread. Started spouting off how the romances were fine and what do you expect a couple of random elves talk about their sexual preferences? Hence when I see Sexuaility in Thedas Codex, I have to roll my eyes as if it’s sarcasm in relation to that very long long discussion.
Gaider simply is not good with fans or I should say on how to speak to them. I also recall my husband telling me a while back how two people named their daughters after two characters in the DA series and met Gaider at an event. Gaider of course thought it was ridiculous fans would go that far and name kids after Dragon Age characters.
If you head over to the Bethesda forums for Elder of the Scrolls, the developers are constantly in and out communicating with fans. Sure, fans do get a bit worked up. But the developers just simply grunt and bare it.
I do believe developers should come on these forums and interact with those who help make their paychecks possible. But alas they do not.
Personally Bioware should be proud of their fans and want to interact with them. Instead they come off as being completely ashamed and silence us with free fluff content.
LOL, if SWTOR is better then why does it turn to F2P game while WoW doesn't and Bioware Austin suffers layoff during early days. Seriously, everything is a rip-off.
Beause a f2p, cash shop model is much more profitable than a regular subscription model. As far as better or worse, it all depends on what you like. WoW had absolutely nothing to offer me and so I played it for one day years ago and never touched it since. Nothing I've seen from it has tempted me to change my mind. SWtOR on the other hand has 8 different stories, each with their own unique set of companions, tons of choices, role playing ability, interesting side quests, top notch voice acted characters, etc...What I saw of WoW was no story, no companions, no interesting NPCs, just combat, grinding, and collecting better and better gear. None of those things are fun for me. I play SWtOR every day and have done so nearly every day since it came out, you couldn't pay me to slog through WoW.
Daerog, slab1028, 9TailsFox et 1 autre aiment ceci
**Disclaimer: These are all my personal opinions based on my own priorities, likes and dislikes in a game**
I believe DA:I sold very well so I assume it was a financial success and it clearly has a lot of fans as well. Personally I think it was much weaker than what I would have expected from BioWare and that has nothing to do with the elven storyline. With a few exceptions (hair, beards, most eyebrows, elf bodies) I thought the game was visually stunning. The level design was gorgeous and I loved the amount of care and detail put into everything. Even the fabric textures were spot-on realistic. The voice acting was also superb as usual and I really enjoyed getting to play a non-human again. That being said, in my book the game was weak in many ways:
Spoiler
-The intro: players are not introduced to the world and the story in a way that makes them care or attaches them to what's happening around them. They are simply thrust into action and explosions after two minutes of people simply telling you what happened. Who was Divine Justinia and why should I care? What is the temple of sacred ashes and what were people doing there? What was *I* doing there? Do I know anyone that was killed? To go along with that, too many characters are introduced to quickly and the game relies on the player having experience with the first two games so they already know Cassandra, Leliana, Cullen, and Varric. Add Solas and that's 5 major characters introduced within 20 minutes with hardly any screen time or interaction. Which brings me to:
-The game relies on the player's experience with past games and EU (books, comics, etc...) rather than doing much in the way of character development. Varric especially seemed so pointless in this game, I definitely felt like the writer's went "hey, Varric is popular, let's shoehorn him in!" Celine/Briala/Gaspard/Fiona weren't developed at all and I never read the books they were in so I had nothing to fill in the blanks with.
-The villain was painfully generic and boring. It takes a skilled storyteller to take the old and tired "ancient evil wizard threatens to destroy the world with his monster army" and make it interesting, DA:I wasn't one of these cases. It was as boring and cliche as you'd expect. The only thing that set it apart was that Corypheus was completely incompetent and your character just steamrolled over him and his plans at every turn. (The one exception being the battle for Haven which imo was the best sequence in the entire game).
-Outside of Skyhold there is almost nobody to talk to. The only NPCs you can interact with are shopkeepers and quest givers. No random NPCs you can simply have a conversation with to make the world feel more alive and get a handle on what's going on in the area. The quest givers themselves were also extremely lackluster to me. A lot of it is probably the zoomed out camera during conversations which doesn't let me see their face or connect with them emotionally but the dialogue with them is also quite short, usually only a few lines. BioWare didn't even bother to name most of them and instead they're "elven widow" or "herbalist" and so on.
-The companions: heresy, I know! While I didn't think the companions were horrible, imo they were weaker than any other BioWare game I've played (KotOR-present). This comes from the lack of character development for returning characters, the lack of connection between any of the companions and the plot, the lack of reaction or interaction during most quests (aside from maybe a short comment) and the fact that they never argue with or oppose you. In DA:O for example there were several times when characters would argue with you, question your decisions, suggest (or demand) you do something else, etc...In DA:I it just felt like they took a bunch of wacky personalities and put them all in a castle with no real reason to be there.
-The combat: DA combat isn't my thing in general (I like the kind of combat you find in ME2 and 3, Skyrim, and so on) but in the other two games it let me automate the tedium by setting detailed companion tactics and didn't arbitrarily restrict me to 8 abilities (and no, consoles can't be blamed for this sudden limit since all abilities were available at any time through the radial menu before). The removal of healing and the fact that enemies are damage sponges even on casual made me bring companions that were resilient rather than ones I wanted to bring because I liked them. Don't even get me started on the pants-on-head retarded Ai...
-The exploration and side quests: The vast majority of (non-companion) sidequests were completely boring and unsatisfying to me. Each one was either: talk to nameless NPC who gives you one or two lines of dialogue about some trinket they lost or need then go get the thing and return, OR read a note talking about a lost trinket, get the thing and bring it to where the note says. They were all so generic and gave me zero reason to care. The best one by far was the Crestwood undead one but even that one is something I'd consider weak to mediocre in a better game. There's no human element. I cleared out some undead and sealed a rift but who did I save? A bunch of non-reactive, non-interactive cardboard cutouts in the village? I don't care about them. The game gives me no reason to. There's not a single (non-companion)sidequest in the entire game that I think "I can't wait to do that one again!" No choices, no interesting characters, very rarely any dialogue options, just trudging around looking for lost rings and goats. I might feel differently if I loved the combat and doing these tasks gave me an excuse to fight more enemies or something but that wasn't the case. To me the exploration was pointless as well since no matter where I went there was nothing of value to find. Not even any interesting looking armor or a special companion gift that would spark a conversation like in previous games.
-The limited armor options. I was very disappointed with how little variety there was in the armor you can craft, especially for the Qunari.
-Technical issues that were never fixed (for me at least) such as the male elf arms being broken and sucked into his torso, water effects covering everything both inside and out in Therinfall Redoubt and Crestwood, party banter only triggering once every 3-6 hours of wandering (and one of the recent patches made it so party banter is completely gone from my game. Companions don't even use battle shouts anymore).
-The plot: weak and disjointed with screwed up pacing and no sense of urgency that for the most part gave me little reason to care about what was happening. The whole "chosen one who is the only person that can save the world" was not compelling here either. I give them props for attempting to break from the trope by making the chosen status an accident but it ended up exactly the same. The exceptions were the Haven battle and the Temple of Mythal. The fact that the heroes just trample Corypheus with almost no setback, no tragedy, etc...Not fun.
-The inquisitor's limited choices and limited personality. I feel like this was another case of BioWare's notorious overreaction to criticism: DA2's tones were too comical and over the top so DA:I made it so you could only be very mild and never passionate. You can be polite, neutral, or slightly cranky or joking but never boisterous, evil, ruthless, no passion. There are no good or evil choices, only A or B and since the sidequests don't have roleplaying/flavor choices, you're left with a very bland character that you have to supplement with headcanon.
-Things that make no sense: The inquisitor is accepted as the leader immediately, even while still a prisoner. The reason they give for following her orders "you're the one with the mark and the one we have to keep alive" that's unreasonable and illogical. At the end Corypheus raises up a bunch of ruins high into the sky with magic but we are never shown how or why. If he could do that, why not just let the inquisitor fall to her death? Also how did the party get down safely after Corypheus dies? In Haven after the inquisitor starts the avalanche, Corypheus has time to fry her with magic but he just stands there staring at her running away and does nothing. A lot of random details in the game felt like they had hardly any thought or effort put into them.
-The mage/templar "war:" This was built up for the whole of DA2, it should have been the main plot of DA:I but was pushed aside and resolved in a side quest where you kill a few roving bands of mages/templars. You never see a war, at most you get a small cluster of mages or templars on whichever side you choose to recruit but this was supposed to be an uprising that rocked Thedas, not the equivalent of a bandit group. This could have been a great game with an interesting plot based on the mage/templar conflict rather than "defeat ancient evil guy."
I find it disconcerting that, having finished the game in entirety- even with an elf which gets a lot of specialized dialog- I agree with much of this- both the summary of DAI's strengths and the specifics of the failings. DAI isn't a failure, but it's unclear now to me what the devs themselves were considering a success. With a new multiplayer element, the preparation of DA players for MMO-style quests, an open world setting with respawning hostiles to grind on for XP, item and crafting material to farm, and a deemphasis on character development, it makes me wonder if the devs' plans for the future of the franchise is DA4:MMO. I'm consoling myself with the thought that those MMO-like DAI elements were just an experiment with game elements that they, the devs, personally liked in other games and thought they could integrate well into a DA game- not that they wish DA was one of those games to develop. "Get to Skyhold by 5th level" (i.e., ignore the story and metagame to the max), as challenging as it may be, is not the most promising direction for game achievements in this regard either. Not sure if some of the devs conceive of DA as an rpg or a basic fps-in-waiting.
I've been resisting making the comparison of DAI to, say, the recent "Mad Max" film which, compared with Mad Max 2 & 3 became hollow in story content but had excellent direction, effects, and action scenes. It's a trend away from creative thinking as the basis for a movie and toward the sensationalism of visual eye-poppers. It's not accurate to make that comparison with DAI because, IMO, there is a lot of great storytelling that pervades the game and a lot of top-notch lore development- and a lot of the graphics in DAI lend themselves to the storytelling. But, as I mentioned, I'm a bit concerned. The graphics in DAI really are awesome- many of the areas just a treasure to explore- but the gameplay and storytelling in DAI took more shortcuts than makes me entirely comfortable.
This is why Nefla's post is worth all the requotes it's gotten, and why it's resonating with me enough to quote and respond to as well, albit not in total agreement. When I first started playing DAI I considered it better than DAO overall, but now I have to resort to "it has elements that are better than DAO." (Must remember to play through the entire game before making such assessments...) I feel compelled to tweak Nefla's critique a bit because I'm always tipped off to exaggeration in a presentation when blanket phraseology is used in the guise of being comprehensive. There are notable exceptions to the "alwayses" and "nevers" that get ignored in such cases.
The intro:
Agree wholeheartedly- got no tweaking with that one. I'm a big fan of how, if not these same devs, then a group which included plenty of these same devs, added origins to DAO that immerse you in the lore and in a variety of pre-story possibilities for your character, then in a very compelling build-up into the main plot of the game that you experience first-hand. I went into detail on this in another thread. There was absolutely no disorientation regarding what kind of world we were facing, what we were doing there, or what options were reasonable in the world- just the fact that we were a small part of a larger picture- and that was in the first game of the nascent and otherwise-unknown series, not relying on past game experience or player familiarity at all and not leaving the player hanging as they enter a new narrative situation. DAI gives you a pre-story through a too-brief paragraph before the CC and then presents origin-specific information only after getting further into the game to play relevant War Room missions. So much for head-canon compensating for the lack of a pre-story in DAI: it gets contradicted later. (Thus you have to just play an origin first, devoid of much sense of your character, then on a replay apply a head-canon that will fit.)
Reliance on player familiarity with past franchise developments and extra game-related source material:
Not really. I only recently got the WoT books, never read anything else, and was able to get all I needed to understand the lore and characters of DAI through interactions and codex entries. That codex entries do not substitute for in-game experiences is a given: or they should just release DA4 as a novel rather than a game. But they did- after the hasty intro- setup the characters fairly well with interactions that let us scope their role in things. Varric was the least developed though for some reason, so on that- agreed. And, again, DAO's pre-story immersion in lore was far superior to DAI. It's just that this particular point doesn't hold its own.
Villain was boring/generic:
That he wasn't as layered as a villain type to hate as a Loghain or as uncertain to hate as a Meredith (until DA2's end anyway) doesn't make Cory boring or generic in itself. "Ancient evildoer wizard" may be cliche-able, but so is any potential villain, no matter how seemingly complex. There's not a trope unexplored, not a character innocent enough to not be able to imagine a cliche scenario of them becoming a villain character. They even had a pretty excellent voice actor for Cory, and with the fantastic lore associated with Mr. Soiled the Golden Throne, they definitely could've made him a gripping character to contend with. They just didn't find the right sort of portrayal. The quality of the villain's role is strongly in the story delivery. This is where I think they dropped the ball. The breaking point for me was seeing him arrive just in time to miss the party at the Temple of Mythal and then float over in his dress ineffectually at the fleeing protagonist only to smash his head into the eluvian. It was pure gold for a comedy sketch. But the reason that scene was made worse was that his "death" scene prior to that was so off-putting. I didn't even recognize until he was resurrecting himself- and my protagonist figured out what was going on before I did- that he'd even died... in which case I had to reconcile that the ancient elves were able to one-shot Cory... and that when Cory "died," no one reacted. Why wasn't everyone suddenly celebrating? "He's dead! The elves obliterated him! Hurrah! Screw Samson! Ding, dong, the Wicked Witch is dead!" And the end battle was so full of arse-pulls as to be immersion-obliterating with all the elements you mention later: the sudden power to lift mountains, the not using said power to kill the protagonist, the lack of said mountains making everyone fall to their deaths after Cory bites it, the protagonist walking up to him and using a new power to throw people into the Fade, the orb falling unbroken at the protagonist's feet but then being broken in Solas' hands later... So much over-the-top in that sequence as to make it seem like the devs were compensating for a weak ending with extra effects. And it didn't have to be that way.
That Cory was a lunatic mage that might destroy the world- not my big issue. In fact, it wound up with Dorian's story of Tevinter in a relatively endearing way. Story delivery was the issue for me.
Few NPCs outside of Skyhold to talk with:
You said "almost nobody" rather than "few," but that's what I'm referring to when I say exaggerated phraseology. I agree that the sheer size of the open areas- and the amount of time I spent delving through them as simple landscapes to traverse- made the NPC interactions few and far between proportionally. And I certainly was disappointed in the side stories having so little interactivity beyond puzzles (which were pretty good) and fights. My favorite side area experience was the Chateau d'Onterre in Emerald Graves- even with the storytelling being done mostly through codexes and puzzles- but like "almost all" the side area narratives, after an intense lead-up through ghost-tampered halls that had all sorts of struggle to get through and potential drama and striking revelations, it ended with yet another bunch o' demons to fight. Leaves the matter anti-climactically finished and devoid of character- and that formula gets repeated over and over in the side areas. The only side quest that had a meaningful moment at its end was with Scout Harding's buddy Grandin in JoH where you interact with an NPC at the end and even have a decisive choice to make. That was a memorable quest from start to finish. And in that case, one single NPC-interactive side quest NPC does indeed = "almost none." Constrast this with the numerous side villains you fight in DAO who nearly all got a talking scene even when there was no way out of combat (though there was that too).
But talking NPCs themselves pervade most of the side areas of DAI- soldiers and elves you meet in the Exalted Plains, residents of Redcliffe with different opinions on events, the residents in Emerald Graves resisting the Freemen of the Dales, the dragon specialist in the Western Approach, etc. There were plenty of such NPCs to set the scene for the narrative being told in most of the side areas. The criticism of DAI's NPCs I'd offer instead is that few of those interactions were particularly momentous or memorable to experience or rose beyond the sense of being incidental. They were presented almost like filler. But I wouldn't say there were next to none of them.
Companions:
I mostly liked them, liked the creative and different ways you got to know each one, the variety of companion stories you got to experience and work through. Overall they were fairly enjoyable, some more than others. As you said about Varric, he got the weakest development with an incomprehensible mission of breaking a few choice segments of the huge amount of red lyrium in southern Thedas, and then an all-to-brief venture back into Valammar. Vivienne had another couple weak companion missions. Still, I found them... mostly passable. The point at which I agree, however, is that I'd rather not have companions I find merely mostly passable and fairly enjoyable- with conditions. I'm tempted here to say that DAO's companions weren't all that deep either, but the truth is I had genuinely moving moments with all of them at some point or another during the course of DAO. I don't think I had any such moments with any of DAI's companions. Trying to find an exception, I come up with: I liked Solas' monologues about the Fade a lot, Cole's general storyline, the moment of giving Varric's latest chapter to Cassandra, to some degree the strained romance I played out with Blackwall/Rainier, and some of the more amiably raucous interactions between The Iron Bull and Krem that revealed how strong a bond they had. But none of those were presented in-game in a way that I felt were personally meaningful, touching to see my character be a part of and grow from. She was just sort of there for the moments. And it was disappointing to see Bull and Krem reduced to mostly comic relief in Trespasser.
Combat limitations:
I agree entirely- no need to restate what you did. I'll just add that if they're going to bring in sooo much more "filler" combat through respawns, they'll need to do more to make it interesting than give us only the 8 slots to work from and a gutted Tactics system. It's like tying one arm behind one's back in order to make boxing more interesting. Also the combat in DAO I did find very fun, wanted it jacked up to Nightmare because it added a lot to the experience, and I've come to recognize that with very specific, non-respawning hostiles in DAO they did a lot more in area design and encounter arrangements to make every fight a new tactical challenge. Even if approached relatively the same way, each battle had a unique signature on it. In DAI you really do just rinse-repeat most of the time, particularly with fewer in-combat options to work with, just with new fantastic scenery every time. So I'm completely comfortable just leaving combat at Casual and enjoying the scenery as I go.
Exploration/ side quests:
I suppose I already addressed this in "NPCs outside Skyhold" above. After all, what potentially gives more character and richness to exploration and side quests than NPC interactivity? In this case I'd have to say I prefer "almost none" to "vast majority" none when referring to how much memorable content was added to the side areas, but I have to add the exception that there were a few otherwise "filler" encounters that were, in fact, memorable. There's a scene in the Hissing Wastes where you come across a small group of demons not near any rift, and when you slay them you find they'd been milling about over a corpse holding a journal. The journal tells the story of a young Venatori who gradually built up the confidence to summon demons to control. Kinda cool. Or the burning house in the Hinterlands where there's a note that mentions a homesteader's last words of saying he was going to board himself up in his house because bandits couldn't get him that way. If those codex-based narratives were the exception rather than the rule of side encounters in DAI, they'd be a lot more moving.
Limited armor options:
Possibly, particularly for the qunari which I haven't played yet to know the limitations. But what they designed was generally quite good, and, really, if you're going to say that story and content are your focus, armor options shouldn't be in your top ten gripes. Story and content are my main interests, and the armor wasn't atrocious (except the low-level warrior armor which, yeah, was), so I have no beef with DAI there. Now poor CC options- a purely cosmetic concern- nevertheless do disappoint me- at least when taken in proper perspective- but I wasn't disappointed in DAI's CC any more than with the other DA's: none have black hair or black eyes; and I didn't even need mods to be satisfied with my DAI CC creations.
Unaddressed/ poorly-addressed technical issues:
Yeah- to the degree they exist. I've had so many CTD's by now that I can't accurately estimate the number. I'm surprised that their fix for Trespasser's speed-reading epilogue was simply to add more to the timer. What about DAO's "hit any key to continue" that allowed you to go take a bathroom break or mull over each slide as long as you like? Did they not notice a lot of the technical issues during playtesting? How did those pass inspection or not go on the high priority list? Most glaring to me is the awful state of the Tactical Cam and the unreliable Hold Position. It's just that most games have some glitchiness to them. I had a female elf that had the same arm-cave-in issue (plus the female awkward walk thingy), but the water effects didn't bother me so much, being cool to see in themselves. These issues weren't game-failing for me, but they are worth a mention given how serious they are. DAO and DA2 never gave me a single CTD.
Disjointed plot:
Disagree- with provisions. That is, I don't disagree that the plot is delivered in a fairly disjointed way much (if not most) of the time. I disagree that it was a failure as such. Archy never pressed the DAO protagonist either, time seemingly endlessly waiting for the player to do the next story mission, and it would've made perfect sense to have to resolve matters within limited time, but DAO still "worked." I never felt like Archy or Cory had gone away simply because I hadn't dealt with them in a long while. After all, you're not ready to face them in the beginning, and they're both apparently building their own armies and such. Plus, even if you're not in direct confrontations, you're dealing with their machinations in the world here and there. The main plot of DAI also has some amazingly innovative ideas built into them- namely everything associated with the Fade and the creation of the Veil, the prehistory of the earth prior to the Veil, the difference between reckless tampering humans and elven mastery of magic and spirits, the distinct character of various Thedosian nationalities, etc.... All so excellent as a background that the many large plot holes don't affect me so much.
Like why... was there a hole in the Veil in the back of Adamant Fortress through which drop not just the Anchor-equipped protagonist but the companions and two NPCs physically into the Fade? And why didn't the Archdemon-wannabe fall into it with us? And why are we in separate gravities at first, but then it's normal again? But the Fade sequence itself was so cool, I didn't really mind the inexplicable segue. And Morrigan just shows up at the Mythal statue... from where? Was she following undetected, even by Solas? But the encounter goes so interestingly that again I didn't care. And, OK, Alexius sends Dorian and the protagonist into the future. Why couldn't the rest of my companions take him out? Leliana had iced all his guards. And the Ferelden Army shows up moments later. Sure, that wouldn't stop the Veil from opening, so the world would still end, but how would Alexius be alive in that future, having trapped my other companions in red lyrium prison cells? But the future sequence was fantastic to play out, meeting the still-badass Leliana, finding red-lyrium-addled companions- worth playing. A lot of that wtf type of thing went on in DAI in most of the main plot developments- if not all- but the creative breadth and delivery of the plot was often superb, loved it. So clearly I'm actually agreeing with you here- that the plot was delivered disjointedly- but just not feeling it to be a failure of the game.
Your other concern regarded a similar argument made above in "Intro-" not providing a particularly compelling story arc to work with at game start- which I agree with entirely and would add more. They do seem to be making the protagonist the Chosen One at earlier points in each game- this time right away. I can conceive a game plot that is every bit as compelling as it ought to be without ever making the protagonist a celebrated hero, yet leaving the player with the rewarding sense of having made a profound difference in the world despite the lack of thanks. Like what happens in BG1 when you clear out the Nashkell Mines and now Nashkell and Bereghost like you, but no one else does.
Bland protagonist personality/dialog options:
Also disagree, this one moreso. There were a lot of ways to respond to events throughout the game, and I saw my Inqui run the gamut of emotions and reactions from infuriated to sad to amused to confused... all of which were accentuated by how I selected on the dialog wheel. I never found the option to do idiotic things like go kill the Dalish clan and trap werewolves in werewolf form forever as a rewarding game experience in DAO, much less the result of "passion." If anything the lack of a sense of "passionate" decisions was more a product of a less decisive role in plot development choices, but then that would be a plot criticism, not a protagonist personality issue. The dialog options in DAI weren't nearly as fun as those in DA2- at least the snarky choice- but they still got to let me select something I thought my Inqui would say. I just don't like the disparity between the short-hand verison and the actual statement the protagonist makes, but that's another issue.
Things that make no sense:
This is pretty much just like the "Plot" section (as well as references in the "Cory's boring" section) above, so no need to rehash everything. I agree that it happens, but, unless it's an arse-pull that I have to actually play through as if I'm believing it, I'm content to ride through it and just enjoy the episode that follows. What about the reading materials laying out in the perpetually-rainy bog of the Fallow Mire? A lot to nitpick on. Is it great storytelling? Nope. Is it realistic? Nope. Is it something they can only really get away with because it's a video game rather than a novel or movie? Probably. But can it be passable- i.e., not a failure- if they get the delivery and player experience right? Yes.
Mage/Templar war poorly developed:
This could've also gone under "Plot," but I agree entirely. The lore development in DAI- as with every DA to some far degree- was excellent, but this was one aspect of the background story that wasn't well-conceived of, delivery-wise. It was the same sort of meh resolution to a major DA storyline as was the development of Bianca in Varric's story. It wasn't unenjoyable to play through, but they did make it seem a lot more involved than it ultimately was.
In short, DAI's winning attributes were the top-notch graphic designs for DA environments and critters, the music and most of the graphic and audio effects, new gameplay elements like jumping (albeit more of a necessity at this point), overall DA lore exploration, and the generally very creative approach of the dev team. Everything else could use a hard rethinking. And, yeah, opinion went into my opinions as well...
slab1028, DeLaatsteGeitenneuker et Mr_Q aiment ceci
While I think the main PC in Inquisition is better than the previous two PCs, I agree that DA should take a step back from the "MMO-style" open world and side quests and have a more focused story/world. The open world was nice and fun, a good experiment, but I'm skeptical over whether they should continue it. I mostly say this because if I wish to play an open world with side quests everywhere, I would probably go for a Fallout or ES game (or maybe a free MMO, like TOR or GW2). I liked the "BioWare formula" of their older games.
I think it is nice that each DA game has been its own kind of experiment so far, and would like to see DA4 try something different as well, but still keeping some of the well received features.
Inquisition opening up the world more was what I liked most about it as well, but I would like to see a more personal villain again, not just a boogey-man in the background for most of the game.
LOL, if SWTOR is better then why does it turn to F2P game while WoW doesn't and Bioware Austin suffers layoff during early days. Seriously, everything is a rip-off.
If there is one thing where SWTOR is a rip-off of wow is its combat system. But then again any mmorpg is a rip off of the very first mmorpg with the same combat system(and if you ask me, swtor combat is miles ahead of wow, proof of that is that wow copied a lot of movement/placement abilities from swtor with their latest expansions). But thats where the similarities end. Sure, both have PvE, both have PvP. But what mmo worth its salt doesnt?
I'm not saying which is better, just saying that you dont know what you are talking about. I've played wow for over 3years, every day. And I loved it. And I've played Swtor for over 3 years, every day and I loved it. But they couldnt be more different (inside the scope of mmorpgs ofc). Swtor has a LOT of shortcomings and a lot of very bad decisions along the way. But its got strenghts that WoW cant even touch no matter how hard they try, unless they do a WoW2 and redo their game from scratch. On the same note, WoW has a lot of strengths that Swtor cant even come close to.
So my point is, they are very different mmo's that rely on very different strengths. WoW came first, and hit all the right notes, gathering a mass of followers that Swtor didnt. The market was oversaturated when swtor came out, and they didnt have what it took to grab people's attention for more than a couple months. Which meant a lot of subscriptions going away. Their only option, cutting on the losses, putting a crash grab f2p system and try to survive.
That f2p system, no matter how hated, it kept the game going. One year after its implementation SWTOR was the 4th most profitable mmo out there, even with less than 10% of WoWs subscriptions. And it seems Bioware is betting on the game again and working on the strengths of the game - story! The biggest expansion to date is going to hit this month, we will see how it goes. But if there is one thing this new expansion will prove, its that swtor is NOTHING like a WoW-clone and its playing on its own strengths instead of trying to copy someone else's.
This is Bioware's main forum. This should be a place for them to conjugate and interact with the fans, but they don't. Why? Because they cannot handle criticism and they cannot seem to pick and choose their battles.
When the devs do come here, it's during their free time. If they'd rather drink a beer or take up knitting or bee-keeping or poking themselves in the eye with sharpened sticks, I can't exactly blame them. While most fans are polite and reasonable about their criticisms, there's a minority that definitely aren't.
But then, I don't think creators of anything are ever obligated to interact with fans.
While I think the main PC in Inquisition is better than the previous two PCs, I agree that DA should take a step back from the "MMO-style" open world and side quests and have a more focused story/world. The open world was nice and fun, a good experiment, but I'm skeptical over whether they should continue it. I mostly say this because if I wish to play an open world with side quests everywhere, I would probably go for a Fallout or ES game (or maybe a free MMO, like TOR or GW2). I liked the "BioWare formula" of their older games.
I think it is nice that each DA game has been its own kind of experiment so far, and would like to see DA4 try something different as well, but still keeping some of the well received features.
Inquisition opening up the world more was what I liked most about it as well, but I would like to see a more personal villain again, not just a boogey-man in the background for most of the game.
Yes,the old Bioware formula gave locations real story purpose,key companions were there to explain/expand upon the location,together they did a great job of driving the story,a much more focused experience.The open world in DAI (although fun) diluted the story,to the point where I didn't know why I was in the zone in the first place,I was to focused on collecting iron or was it bear skins or herbs,I forget.
Yes,the old Bioware formula gave locations real story purpose,key companions were there to explain/expand upon the location,together they did a great job of driving the story,a much more focused experience.The open world in DAI (although fun) diluted the story,to the point where I didn't know why I was in the zone in the first place,I was to focused on collecting iron or was it bear skins or herbs,I forget.
Shouldn't it fall on us players to be attentive though? I mean the game tells us the "why" all the time. If we then choose to ignore that and instead, as you say, focus on collecting iron, skins and herbs. Whose fault is that? I say it is the players fault. Unless it is a game full of handholding and NO STRAYING OFF THE PATH we are after.
No, don't pull out the unethical practices of other companies. I'm talking about exact proof that proves that most game awards that Inquisition earned was due to EA bribery.
Yes, I have read all how the industry courts journalists/reporters.
However, I can just as easily generalize that companies like Valve and CDPR do the same based on those reports.
Second, he obviously is talking about the game winning multiple GOTY year awards from numerous publications.
Do we really have to explain the latter one?
I love the irony when someone mentions all the GOTY awards that DA:I won some clown always says that EA bought off the sites and groups that awarded them, and yet a lot of these same people are the ones always bragging about how many GOTY awards that The Witcher 3 won most, if not all are and were from the VERY SAME sites and groups! If we apply that same logic then I guess they're saying CDPR is just as guilty (maybe more so as they always brag that TW3 won more awards than DA:I did) as EA is in bribery for GOTY awards.
Was DAI a failure? I think by most objective measures it wasn't. However, I think it's safe to say now (at least IMHO) that DAI is a mile wide and an inch deep. That is to say that it's first impression was really, really good (less so for me than others but I digress), but as one played more and more of it, it's shortcomings became more and more noticable. I still think that DAI as 2014 GOTY was a complete joke but that's not the same as calling it a failure.
So what happened since last year? Frankly (and I know this will anger some here), Witcher 3 came along, beat DAI up and stole it's lunch money. For a lot of CRPG enthusiasts (esp old school ones), Witcher 3 was everything that DAI promised to be only better.
Just my take.
DA I to me was the better game though.
But regardless more to your specific point is the more I played it the more I enjoyed it. Literally. It got a higher and higher rating the more I played it because of DLCs. I adored my second playthrough of the game more then my first and my third was going pretty well up until the time I stopped to beat the Witcher. Ahem. The more I read the actual codex entries and the little diary entries the more flavor it gave the game and the more the game makes sense in a wider context. The same with the war table missions. The more I appreciate just how interconnected the game actually is. The more I stopped to pay attention to the scenary instead of bull rushing the more fine little, and nasty details, I noticed that made this game feel and seem far more alive.
A compaison I liked to use for DA I...and gaming in general...one of the many comparisons is DA I is like an onion. You get out of it exactly what you put into it. If you just bull rush the game and only do the questing (for instance) you probably won't appreciate the game. "IT HAS NOTHING BUT FETCH QUESTS" Etc etc. But if you spend time to actually look at the game, I think its muc more enjoyable, at least it is for me.
If Inquisition's goal was to be a better game than the Witcher, I'll take people's word that it was a failure.
However, I don't think that is the goal of Inquisition, so it is not a failure in that case.
If we are just comparing stuff, I'm sure threads can be made as to why Witcher 3 is a failure because it didn't do X as well as Y did.
Edit: Besides, looking at all of BioWare's previous games, if one is to just compare those games with games that came out later, then they are all failures because better games have come out.
I never said DAI was a failure. In fact I said by most reasonable objective measures, it wasn't. However, I do think it's fair a year in to call DAI a bit of a dissapointment. As I said earlier, the game is a mile wide and an inch deep. It gives a stellar first impression, but (IMHO) it lacks the staying power of a true classic.
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I never said DAI was a failure. In fact I said by most reasonable objective measures, it wasn't. However, I do think it's fair a year in to call DAI a bit of a dissapointment. As I said earlier, the game is a mile wide and an inch deep. It gives a stellar first impression, but (IMHO) it lacks the staying power of a true classic.
You said "almost nobody" rather than "few," but that's what I'm referring to when I say exaggerated phraseology. I agree that the sheer size of the open areas- and the amount of time I spent delving through them as simple landscapes to traverse- made the NPC interactions few and far between proportionally. And I certainly was disappointed in the side stories having so little interactivity beyond puzzles (which were pretty good) and fights. My favorite side area experience was the Chateau d'Onterre in Emerald Graves- even with the storytelling being done mostly through codexes and puzzles- but like "almost all" the side area narratives, after an intense lead-up through ghost-tampered halls that had all sorts of struggle to get through and potential drama and striking revelations, it ended with yet another bunch o' demons to fight. Leaves the matter anti-climactically finished and devoid of character- and that formula gets repeated over and over in the side areas. The only side quest that had a meaningful moment at its end was with Scout Harding's buddy Grandin in JoH where you interact with an NPC at the end and even have a decisive choice to make. That was a memorable quest from start to finish. And in that case, one single NPC-interactive side quest NPC does indeed = "almost none." Constrast this with the numerous side villains you fight in DAO who nearly all got a talking scene even when there was no way out of combat (though there was that too).
But talking NPCs themselves pervade most of the side areas of DAI- soldiers and elves you meet in the Exalted Plains, residents of Redcliffe with different opinions on events, the residents in Emerald Graves resisting the Freemen of the Dales, the dragon specialist in the Western Approach, etc. There were plenty of such NPCs to set the scene for the narrative being told in most of the side areas. The criticism of DAI's NPCs I'd offer instead is that few of those interactions were particularly momentous or memorable to experience or rose beyond the sense of being incidental. They were presented almost like filler. But I wouldn't say there were next to none of them.
Exploration/ side quests:
I suppose I already addressed this in "NPCs outside Skyhold" above. After all, what potentially gives more character and richness to exploration and side quests than NPC interactivity? In this case I'd have to say I prefer "almost none" to "vast majority" none when referring to how much memorable content was added to the side areas, but I have to add the exception that there were a few otherwise "filler" encounters that were, in fact, memorable. There's a scene in the Hissing Wastes where you come across a small group of demons not near any rift, and when you slay them you find they'd been milling about over a corpse holding a journal. The journal tells the story of a young Venatori who gradually built up the confidence to summon demons to control. Kinda cool. Or the burning house in the Hinterlands where there's a note that mentions a homesteader's last words of saying he was going to board himself up in his house because bandits couldn't get him that way. If those codex-based narratives were the exception rather than the rule of side encounters in DAI, they'd be a lot more moving.
The difficulty in having an open world but still keeping the story and character focus Bioware is great at, is that the larger the world, the more diluted it's going to feel if the amount of plot content and characters have not increased at a similar rate. That's why the DAI world feels so empty to me, even though stepping back I can see that there is probably the same amount of "content" in it as the previous games, if not more. It doesn't help that so much of the content is now reduced to reading journals and not actually interacting with living people. It made the world feel to me like we were happening upon it after everyone had died, and we were just sifting through their lives in written form. This doesn't have as much of an impact to me than if we went to an area, met people and talked to them, and then based on our choices the next time we come back we could see that they had died, fled, been captured, whatever. Having everything happen after the fact makes it impersonal.
Also, the majority of existing NPCs don't really have anything to say. You can talk to the Dalish in the EP, sure, but what do they say that makes them stand out as characters? To me, none of them are memorable, whereas most of the interactive Dalish NPCs in DAO were distinct characters.
Similarly, you can talk to the soldiers in the EP, but none of them have any personality. They are just there to advance you from one rampart to the next, and finally to the forts. I don't remember any of their names or if they had any distinguishing personalities to them.
When the devs do come here, it's during their free time. If they'd rather drink a beer or take up knitting or bee-keeping or poking themselves in the eye with sharpened sticks, I can't exactly blame them. While most fans are polite and reasonable about their criticisms, there's a minority that definitely aren't.
But then, I don't think creators of anything are ever obligated to interact with fans.
(Also, you probably meant 'congregate'.)
The devs are not required to come here, true. I think it's good business practice for them to do so. And it's good business practice to have a community manager active here so that they can relay feedback to the devs if the devs don't want to come online. What is frustrating is when the devs come online leading up to the game's release and shortly thereafter, but then fall silent when people start giving feedback. Yes, a lot of it was negative and unhelpful, but if the devs are going to be spending almost a year implementing patches that are supposed to fix issues and respond to player feedback, it would be better if they interact with the fans to understand the complaints, rather than silently peruse the boards and then make patches which don't address the issues, or do so in a way that inaccurately address what players have complained about. Why are they rebalancing the single player game by removing amulets of power etc when people are not complaining about that but complain about combat freezing bugs which are much more game breaking?
Shouldn't it fall on us players to be attentive though? I mean the game tells us the "why" all the time. If we then choose to ignore that and instead, as you say, focus on collecting iron, skins and herbs. Whose fault is that? I say it is the players fault. Unless it is a game full of handholding and NO STRAYING OFF THE PATH we are after.
It is the responsibility of the player to pay attention to the game and the plot, yes. But it's the responsibility of the game to make this intuitive and flow well. I don't consider it good game design that to understand a quest, I have to ping the radar everywhere to make sure I've picked up all of the journal entries, and then have to flip through my codex to try and find all associated writing for that quest. If they are going to keep the tell rather than show model, can't they at least update the quest log to include all associated journal entries? Keep all related information together for ease of the player? I find it very difficult in Chateau D'Onterre, for example, to piece together the story as I play it, since it relies on scattered journal entries to explain the plot. The codex lists items alphabetically rather than by quest, and if one codex is under Letters and Notes and one is under History, there is no easy way to collate everything and make sense of the quest. And once the arcane horror is killed and the quest ends, the completed quests entry still doesn't provide much detail.
I haven't played Pillars of Eternity but have watched several Let's Play videos, and the journal system there looks much more comprehensive. It updates every time new information is learned, and changes based on actions taken. Previous actions aren't erased but remain so we can see the steps we took in performing the quest. I would prefer this level of detail for DA4.
A compaison I liked to use for DA I...and gaming in general...one of the many comparisons is DA I is like an onion. You get out of it exactly what you put into it. If you just bull rush the game and only do the questing (for instance) you probably won't appreciate the game. "IT HAS NOTHING BUT FETCH QUESTS" Etc etc. But if you spend time to actually look at the game, I think its muc more enjoyable, at least it is for me.
I'm not sure I understand this point. Are you saying that if all you do in the game is complete the quests, you won't enjoy the game? What else is there to do in an RPG but the quests? Do you mean exploration of the maps and interact with characters? To me, interacting with characters falls under the quests, as characters are either NPC quest givers or companions with companion quests in this game. And exploration occurs as a result of the quests...you have to get to Point B to reach the quest goal.
Maybe our play styles are just different. I normally completed maps by going from quest to quest and by the time I had finished, the map had been fully explored. I have not explored a map first and then gone back and performed the quests. Some maps discourage this (hinterlands, EG, EdL) as there are varying levels of difficulty in different regions, so it's not plausible to explore everywhere at the same level as when you enter the zone.
I'm not sure I understand this point. Are you saying that if all you do in the game is complete the quests, you won't enjoy the game? What else is there to do in an RPG but the quests? Do you mean exploration of the maps and interact with characters? To me, interacting with characters falls under the quests, as characters are either NPC quest givers or companions with companion quests in this game. And exploration occurs as a result of the quests...you have to get to Point B to reach the quest goal.
Maybe our play styles are just different. I normally completed maps by going from quest to quest and by the time I had finished, the map had been fully explored. I have not explored a map first and then gone back and performed the quests. Some maps discourage this (hinterlands, EG, EdL) as there are varying levels of difficulty in different regions, so it's not plausible to explore everywhere at the same level as when you enter the zone.
It is more than possible to explore w/o using quest markers; tis how I started my first campaign in the Hinterlands. Or more accurately, a little of both methods actually; much like I used to do on SWTOR.
Yep; the maps on both games are massive, but by simply utilizing a simple search pattern to methodically sweep the area to uncover points of interest, I was able to uncover most of the map bordered by encounters too difficult to proceed. This is when I noticed my journal entry to suggest returning to Haven. Now I play less detailed, but still can recall locations fairly well due to that kind of initial exploration technique.
And I readily admit that I do not get the most out of the game as I generally do not read Codex entries of size. But that is on me; certainly cannot complain about not getting a full experience when not willing to use it.
Do you really expect anymore DA games will follow? Inquisition was a finale. The entire game lore for Thedas magic begins and ends with the elvhen. The Bioware story doesn't provide much hope for a sequel and although Inqusition had excellent aspects it also had terrible ones as well. The War Counsel where you assign missions was boring and near the end of the game tedious. Eventually I found myself in a position where I spent less then 5 minutes playing and then had to wait 18 to 20 hours because I ran out of missions. It is probably the greatest flaw in the game. I was forced to either abandon the missions or wait because the only choice left was the ending. Not a very brilliant design.
Late reply:
Whilst I agree about the war table missions (that's' why I have the mod that stops the waiting), I still disagree vehemently with the rest of your opinion. It's not all about the elvhen, even though to me it's clear that's all you want DA to be about. Unless Trespasser adds something that I have yet to see. And even if elves are the beginning and end of all magic in Thedas, it doesn't mean that's all there is to it.
What I'm reading from your posts is that the game is a failure because it doesn't focus enough on elves. And as much as I love Zevran and Fenris ( I adore them), there's more to the game than just elves, elves, elves.
I'm a novice in this Dragon Age world. So far, I've only played Inquisition and, well... I only bought an PS4 to play it. Really blew my mind.
I wonder if I'd be this addicted to Inquisition if I've had played 1 and 2. And there's a book series, right? Does anyone read any of the books? If so, is it good?
Sorry for my bad, bad english... I'm a stupid goo when it comes to writing on forums (as I said... novice)!
I'm a novice in this Dragon Age world. So far, I've only played Inquisition and, well... I only bought an PS4 to play it. Really blew my mind.
I wonder if I'd be this addicted to Inquisition if I've had played 1 and 2. And there's a book series, right? Does anyone read any of the books? If so, is it good?
Sorry for my bad, bad english... I'm a stupid goo when it comes to writing on forums (as I said... novice)!
Hard question considering I only liked DA before Inquisition came out. Granted maybe really like but Inquisition makes me love the series to a whole nother level. And yes there is a book series. And they are quite good. At least the two I have read, Asunder written by the old Head Writer David Gaider and Masked Empire written by the current head writer Patrick Weekes. Both of them scratch different itches and hard for me to tell which one is the better one...buuuuuutttt, yeah, they are quite good. Not the best. But quite good.
I'm a novice in this Dragon Age world. So far, I've only played Inquisition and, well... I only bought an PS4 to play it. Really blew my mind.
I wonder if I'd be this addicted to Inquisition if I've had played 1 and 2. And there's a book series, right? Does anyone read any of the books? If so, is it good?
Sorry for my bad, bad english... I'm a stupid goo when it comes to writing on forums (as I said... novice)!
If you plan on replaying Origins id advise reading both Stolen Throne and The Calling before you start the playthrough. They are a great insight into Ferelden, Loghain and Alistair's father and mother.
Asunder is great to read just after DA2 to learn about some companions you had in Origins, to learn about Cole and to see the consequences of what Anders did in DA2.
The Masked Empire is a awesome to read before DA:I because it gives you insight into Orlais, city / dalish elves, the Game, the rulers and players of Orlais court and its good to learn more about the Eluvians.
The last flight is the only one not directly connected to any of the games in terms of characters and plot. But its a nice read to learn more about Weisshaupt and the Grey Wardens, the 4th (or is it 3rd?) Blight, Blood magic and GRIPHONS!! Freaking griphons!!
Not any of them are mandatory to understand the games, but they are well written and will keep you interested and hooked into Dragon Age lore.
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