74 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

They tried the "no end of the world" thing in DA2.  From the time it dropped until shortly before DAI was released, I was one of the few people defending it on these boards.  Most seemed to consider a failure because it was insufficiently epic.

 

  

It wasn't that it was insufficiently epic, it was that it was insufficiently reactive.  You couldn't do anything with the Bone Pit.  No one blinks at the apostate blood mage battling assassins on the docks.  There was never a sense of upward mobility as Hawke becomes more "famous"  You couldn't even decorate Hawke's estate! Kirkwall was rarely impacted by Hawke's decisions despite the game being about a "rise to power" from penniless refugee to Champion of the city. THis may have been due to a rushed schedule and/or lack of zots.  But it was a problem.

 

If anything a smaller, more personal story needs to be more reactive than a "save the world" story since personal stories are more detailed and effects more noticeable.  SO yeah I'd be all for such a story.  But it would have to be told better than DA2

[AFA]

I don't think most people's problem with DA2 is that it wasn't "epic," that certainly wasn't my problem with it and I was disappointed that BioWare made that assumption and gave us another generic ancient evil guy to defeat in DA:I. My problem with DA2 was that the story was disjointed and didn't flow as a story. The three arcs didn't connect to each other and the events within the arcs just played out like random, unrelated events. I felt like an errand girl the whole game and then you had the ending with both Meredith and Orsino who before that were decently reasonable people just go crazy and turn into magical monsters. A small scale story can be done to great effect, but it still has to be an engaging story that the player/reader/viewer cares about. You have to be rooting for the protagonist to achieve their goal. It could be a small, Robin Hood-esque group trying to take down one corrupt arl of a small area, it could be people just trying to survive (TWD), it could even be about someone wanting to start their own bakery and make it successful and if the story is well written and the events connect and flow from one to the next then people will like it.

 

DAI in general is one giant overreaction to DA2

 

Overly Epic story (Baldur's Gate 2 suffered from that too, at the back half of Shadows of Amn)

Giant but mostly pointless open world

Sanitized tone

Black-and-White morality, a cliched end the world Big Bad

Invincible protagonist that suffered one setback the entire game (Haven)

Ending the Mage-Templar War in essentially the first act, 

 

I kind of also saw the lack of a rebel mage companion as an effort to avert making a character close to Anders.

[ottffsse]

Well in da2 if you side with templars at least you sort of "win" at the end. Of course that is not to say the whole situation is an ugly mess in Kirkwall all the time.
And at end of trespasser you suffer several major defeats and setbacks no matter because it is written that way for dai. Technically neither Hawks nor Quizzy really won at the end. But so far with certain choices you can have hawke ATM alive and probably doing relatively well.

[Dabrikishaw]

I certainly don't have an issue with playing a Dragon Age game focused on a smaller scaled conflict, but I prefer saving the world plots in general because I like the feeling of helping tons of people all at once.

[ModernAcademic]

There are many threats real enough that can serve as a fine replacement for the save-the-world plot. Some of them are:

 

- Barbaric invasions.

- Rape gangs and pedophile rings.

- Growing poverty, drug dealers and escalating violence.

- Deep-seated corruption in politics.

- Pollution and threats to the environment.

- Racism and extremist groups.

- The other side of technology (magic, in DA's case): magical research gone wrong or being used as a tool in war.

 

All these could spawn many quests that DO affect the world and the society (or societies) our PC has to live in. He gains some kind of power or weapon and has to combat - or strenghten - several threats such as these. If he doesn't bolst the defense forces in the capital of Orlais, for instance, we see Halamshiral being overrun by the Antaam and the PC has to deal with the occupation. How he deals with it may be by many ways: by starting diplomatic relations with the Qunari, by forcing them out with his personal army or by convincing other nations to join forces to push them away.

 

The main problem for the OP's suggestion to work is this: whether those quests will be convincing enough to make the player feel the weight of their consequences to the point where his choices actually matter.

The world can't remain neat and tidy after you perform each quest. You need to walk on the streets of Minrathous, for example, and see how your actions - or inaction - affected that city, its people and environment.

 

If quests feel only like a means to an end, such as it was with War Table missions and Hawke's mini quests, then the game will have to follow the traditional "main plot based on preventing something apocalyptic from happening". Otherwise, what will be the point? 

[Ariella]

Modern,

While that's an interesting list, with the exception of the invasion, which is happening with the Qunari, what that has to do with Solas, since as I understand it,.DA 4 will tie up his story. That being said, we're already in the world ending business.

And the only time we spent large amounts of time in a city, was DA 2. We actually didn't spend all that much in Denerim, and since we are going to be dealing with Solas, I have a feeling while he may have agents in the Capital it's not going to be the centerpiece many of your suggestions require.

It'd be interesting, and honestly since they've mentioned something along the lines of having dlc that doesn't directly focus on the main pc, I could see them doing a companion piece with one or more of these. Or maybe a dlc for the protag. But with the story bits they've laid out, I'm leaning more toward being out in the areas near Arlathan. Plus the war itself, which unless they set up a seige of Minrathous or possibly have it fall to the Qun, I don't the city will play a large role in that plot either. At least as a locale.

In the end, the point is the Dragon Age was given the name by Divine Beatrix and omened as a time of great upheavel. That's what we're supposed to be dealing with.

[Savber100]

 

Solas isn't a villain,he is a good guy who isn't understood.

(ehm i'm an altmer elf so i maybe biased)

 

The best kind of villains are the ones that aren't. 

[PsychoBlonde]

A cackling, evil, world ending demon that cackles and then you stab it and it dies and everyone's happy.

 

Why would they do this when they went to all that effort to set up for Solas to be a sympathetic and merely misguided world-ending demon?

 

I'm kind of hoping that he does a heel/face turn (of sorts) halfway through the game and you wind up in a completely unheralded position where you have the opportunity to work WITH him to try to deal with the real cackling bad guys that he (and possibly you) unleashed on Thedas because of all of this "I must destroy the world to save it" stupidity.

 

But, seriously, it's a story-based game.  There's going to be antagonist(s) of some kind, and there's a good chance that they'll be pretty dopey (otherwise they really ought to have beaten YOU handily).

 

Although they could just open the game with:

 

*knock knock*

Inquisitor:  *answers door* "Yessss . . . wait, SOLAS?!?!"

Solas:  "Er, I need your help."

Inquisitor: "What?!  Why?!"

Solas:  "I may have accidentally . . . summoned Cthulhu."

Inquisitor:  "Well, what do you expect ME to do about it?!"

Solas:  "Oh, come on, world saving is your big thing!"

Inquisitor:  "Did you notice that you CUT OFF MY HAND?!  I'm retired now."

Solas: "But I need help!"

Inquisitor: "Fine, here, take my protege.  I trained them well.  Don't get them killed."

Solas: "Right."

Inquisitor:  "I told you not to do it, you know."

Solas: "Yes, yes, you were right, I was wrong."

Inquisitor: "Just so we're clear on that."

Solas: "Right."

Inquisitor:  "Meaning you won't try to do it again, correct?"

Solas: "I will not try to do it again."

Inquisitor: "Right."

Solas: "Much."

Inquisitor:  "Don't make me come out of retirement."

Solas: "I cut off your hand."

Inquisitor: "I don't need two hands to shove my foot up your ass."

Solas: "Touche."

Title splash screen: Dragon Age: Now You're Just ****** With Us

[PsychoBlonde]

Actually, now I really want to play a game where you're the hero going around fixing things with Solas and the Quizzy in the background constantly bickering at each other like John Cleese and Michael Palin in a Monty Python sketch.

[Ariella]

Why would they do this when they went to all that effort to set up for Solas to be a sympathetic and merely misguided world-ending demon?
 
I'm kind of hoping that he does a heel/face turn (of sorts) halfway through the game and you wind up in a completely unheralded position where you have the opportunity to work WITH him to try to deal with the real cackling bad guys that he (and possibly you) unleashed on Thedas because of all of this "I must destroy the world to save it" stupidity.

Please get out of my head. Either that or we're both seeing the same gun on the wall.

[sonoko]

Why would they do this when they went to all that effort to set up for Solas to be a sympathetic and merely misguided world-ending demon?

 

I'm kind of hoping that he does a heel/face turn (of sorts) halfway through the game and you wind up in a completely unheralded position where you have the opportunity to work WITH him to try to deal with the real cackling bad guys that he (and possibly you) unleashed on Thedas because of all of this "I must destroy the world to save it" stupidity.

Well, according to Sandals prophecy Solas will succeed in removing the Veil. But removing the Veil means freedom for the very angry Evanuris. And I can totally see the Inquisitor (at least if he chose to redeem Solas in Trespasser) or the new protagonist joining forces with Solas in order to destroy or imprison them.

[Ariella]

Well, according to Sandals prophecy Solas will succeed in removing the Veil. But removing the Veil means freedom for the very angry Evanuris. And I can totally see the Inquisitor (at least if he chose to redeem Solas in Trespasser) or the new protagonist joining forces with Solas in order to destroy or imprison them.

To quote from Babylon 5 "prophecy is a poor guide to the future. And as I understand it removing the veil will petty much kill everyone. So if he's going to have a Road to Damascus moment it's probably going to be before.

[kimgoold]

I don't think the veil coming down will kill everyone, in the main game IHW you see the breach has spread to cover the sky in all of Thedas and people are alive, they are being slaughtered by demons not the veil/fade. And I think the people being killed by Solas removing the veil  would actually be killed by him and his followers in rites to remove the veil. I say this because Solas raised the veil, a cataclysmic event that people lived thru.

[earthboyjak]

I dont think I'd describe every major villain in DA so far the "cackling" type, but all of the most threatening villains, and this includes Solas, do follow a pattern of behavior even if they are superficially different personalities. They all think like this:

"I'm so cool and powerful I can and should remake the world in my image."
*Does the thing. It goes super bad.*
"Oh, that didn't work out so well. Apparently I wasn't able to predict all of the consequences of my world changing actions. But that's okay, I'll just put things back the way they were and try again, because I've learned nothing."
*All the people are like, no, we just got used to things being this way and we live here like this now, you're a big old jerk.*
"I don't care. You don't know what you're talking about. I'm cooler than you. It'll all work out this time."

In this way Solas and Corypheus are very much the same. Pride is the primary trait of the most influential entities in the history of Thedas. Whether that makes them heroic creator gods or evil destructive monsters is a matter of perspective. But none of them succeed in the way they intend, eventually the dust settles and life goes on, and nothing is made better or worse, just changed. Even Loghain and Meredith fall into this pattern. The difference between them and Solas and Corypheus is the nature of their power and innate abilities. They weren't born capable of world changing magic, but they have their own strengths, and their pride is the same. They think they know what's best for everyone, and they give changing the world their best shots. But I see this as a strong and interesting theme rather than a weakness of imagination. If small scale is what you want,I wouldn't look to Bioware for your games.

[TevinterSupremacist]

I know, I agree, I agree.

 

How about this instead  : "DA4 with a cackling, evil, world ending PC"?

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

I don't think the veil coming down will kill everyone, in the main game IHW you see the breach has spread to cover the sky in all of Thedas and people are alive, they are being slaughtered by demons not the veil/fade. And I think the people being killed by Solas removing the veil  would actually be killed by him and his followers in rites to remove the veil. I say this because Solas raised the veil, a cataclysmic event that people lived thru.

I don't think Solas needs to sacrifice anyone to do what he does. I'm not sure we even know if he knows how to use Blood Magic, much less uses it. I think the massive deaths when the Veil completely vanishes (assuming we don't stop him) will be for the same reason there were a whole lot of deaths in the Bad Future: there's just way too many spirits around, and they're appearing everywhere in the very literal sense that a demon could pop up next to you while you're trying to sleep and simply kill you before you and your friends know what happened.

[straykat]

DAI in general is one giant overreaction to DA2

 

Overly Epic story (Baldur's Gate 2 suffered from that too, at the back half of Shadows of Amn)

Giant but mostly pointless open world

Sanitized tone

Black-and-White morality, a cliched end the world Big Bad

Invincible protagonist that suffered one setback the entire game (Haven)

Ending the Mage-Templar War in essentially the first act, 

 

I kind of also saw the lack of a rebel mage companion as an effort to avert making a character close to Anders.

 

Yup. And ultimately I'm gonna say that's on other players..not just Bioware. They asked for it, and hated DA2 almost thoroughly.

 

But then, I'm kind of where they were at now. I don't like a lot of DAI. I just don't know if people like me have a loud enough voice to change things as they did. Probably not. Some of them seemed to want to kill Jennifer Hepler and her family. I don't think I could top that.

[PsychoBlonde]

Yup. And ultimately I'm gonna say that's on other players..not just Bioware. They asked for it, and hated DA2 almost thoroughly.

 

But then, I'm kind of where they were at now. I don't like a lot of DAI. I just don't know if people like me have a loud enough voice to change things as they did. Probably not. Some of them seemed to want to kill Jennifer Hepler and her family. I don't think I could top that.

 

Hey, I liked DA2 and I'm the #1 fan.  What I asks for, I gets.  Just not always quite as I envisioned it.

 

In this case, I said that it'd be "really cool" that instead of joining an existing organization you got to build your own from the ground up.  Lo, that is what I got.

 

I said it'd be "really cool" if some of your companions were the leaders of their own group.  Lo, that is what I got.  (Iron Bull, Sera, and Vivienne all have organizations under them.)

 

I said it'd be "really cool" if the areas in the game were more open like the wilderness explorer areas in DDO, filled with landmarks you could find and other reasons to look around.  Lo, that is what I got.

 

I said I'd rather have more content than have EVERYTHING be cinematic.  So we got war table missions (text only) and non-cinematic chatting with people.

 

I said that it was kind of boring to hit a button and highlight absolutely everything in the universe that you could interact with.  Lo, the searching mechanic.

 

I'm not sure exactly how my amazing mind control powers work, but they do seem to work.  I promise to use them for good and not to amuse myself at everyone else's expense.  Much.

 

I have it in mind to request that the Quizzy show up and flip the war table in the next game, tho.  It'd be so hilariously meta if they then showed all the fast-travel markers scattered randomly all over the place the next time you bring up the map.  Just the one time, but cmon, it'd be GREAT.

[AresKeith]

Yup. And ultimately I'm gonna say that's on other players..not just Bioware. They asked for it, and hated DA2 almost thoroughly.

 

But then, I'm kind of where they were at now. I don't like a lot of DAI. I just don't know if people like me have a loud enough voice to change things as they did. Probably not. Some of them seemed to want to kill Jennifer Hepler and her family. I don't think I could top that.

 

I think you give the other players a lot more power than they really have

[Lavellan-San]

A cackling, evil, world ending demon that cackles and then you stab it and it dies and everyone's happy.

1. Much more was going on, such as the Mage/Templar war 

2. I'm pretty sure there's strong tension between every group of people, so everybody isn't happy, just happy about Corypheus being dead

3. Last time I checked, Solas isn't a Demon. (Assuming Solas will be the antagonist in DA4)

[TheBlackAdder13]

Ideally I'd like to see them try a smaller, more personal plot a la DA2 but with meaningful outcomes and reactivity. If I were planning the game, I'd have DA4 set exclusively in Seheron and center around the Qunari-Tevinter-Fog Warrior war with elements of the Inquistior-Solas shadow war threaded throughout to lead into a larger, more epic stop Solas plot in DA5. Getting more specific, I'd even like to see a dual-protagonist approach so you can explore both the Vint and Qunari side of the conflict and fully understand the nuances without painting the other side as the one-dimensional bady. To provide for full race selection but detailed racial reactivity that would make sense within the context of the story, you could force the player to choose human or dwarf for the Tevinter side and Oxman or elf for the Qunari side. DA5 can focus on Tevinter and northern Thedas as a whole like Inquistion does for southern Thedas (maybe Tevinter proper+Anderfels+Rivain and/or Antiva).

[Ariella]

Ideally I'd like to see them try a smaller, more personal plot a la DA2 but with meaningful outcomes and reactivity. If I were planning the game, I'd have DA4 set exclusively in Seheron and center around the Qunari-Tevinter-Fog Warrior war with elements of the Inquistior-Solas shadow war threaded throughout to lead into a larger, more epic stop Solas plot in DA5. Getting more specific, I'd even like to see a dual-protagonist approach so you can explore both the Vint and Qunari side of the conflict and fully understand the nuances without painting the other side as the one-dimensional bady. To provide for full race selection but detailed racial reactivity that would make sense within the context of the story, you could force the player to choose human or dwarf for the Tevinter side and Oxman or elf for the Qunari side. DA5 can focus on Tevinter and northern Thedas as a whole like Inquistion does for southern Thedas (maybe Tevinter proper+Anderfels+Rivain and/or Antiva).

I mentioned something like this in another thread and later ended up finding out that Solas' plot will end up either being resolved or being front and center in DA4.

[Aulis Vaara]

I do want cackling evil world ending demons. That's what fantasy is all about.

If you want realism and greyness, might I suggest reading a "literature" book?

[Majestic Jazz]

Bioware's best villian

[AresKeith]

Bioware's best villian

 

Nope