430 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Not together, but there could have been regions and areas where with missions where we meet and talk with Gaspard for example, they could have done something like this on the Exalted Plains. Generally they could have given more buildup to WEWH to flesh out the Civil War and the players behind it.

By the time we work Celene and Briala in, this is pretty close to the wholesale restructuring I mentioned, isn't it?

I'm still not seeing how there's an actual problem here. I'm not particularly invested in Celene et al., but none of my Inquisitors are either. Their interest in Orlais is purely instrumental.

Edit: I mean a problem with WEWH in particular. If someone wants to use this as an example of DA:I in general not having very much interaction with non-Inquisition NPCs, I can certainly see that.

[Heimdall]

By the time we work Celene and Briala in, this is pretty close to the wholesale restructuring I mentioned, isn't it?

I'm still not seeing how there's an actual problem here. I'm not particularly invested in Celene et al., but none of my Inquisitors are either. Their interest in Orlais is purely instrumental.

Edit: I mean a problem with WEWH in particular. If someone wants to use this as an example of DA:I in general not having very much interaction with non-Inquisition NPCs, I can certainly see that.

I don't really think a wholesale restructuring would be necessary, but imagine if instead of having several areas with no main plot missions those regions had been host some sort of lead up quest chain, just a bit more than the Hawke-Stroud/Alistair/Loghain-Erimond chain before the attack on Adamant.

Even that much would have been an improvement.

[nightscrawl]

I don't really think a wholesale restructuring would be necessary, but imagine if instead of having several areas with no main plot missions those regions had been host some sort of lead up quest chain, just a bit more than the Hawke-Stroud/Alistair/Loghain-Erimond chain before the attack on Adamant.

Even that much would have been an improvement.

 

I do agree that each map should have had more of a connection to the main plot. I'm not one to say there is NO connection whatsoever, most of them do have something, whether it's to do with Venatori or red templars, but of course having a more involvement with those groups does not a connection make. Fallow Mire is one of the worst offenders, I think, whereas Emprise du Lion is the best example of a plot connection done right.

 

Speaking of that... is there some difference between the Samson and Calpernia story lines vis-a-vis the templars in the Emprise? Is there a counter one somewhere else with the Venatori? I was thinking that the Hissing Wastes would have more Venatori activity if you went with Champions of the Just, but I have never finished it, so I really have no idea.

[BansheeOwnage]

Unless the stuff in the books is common knowledge, why should my Inquisitor know it? If anything, this sounds like an argument for not reading the books until you're done with the game.

Well, the Inquisitor gets to learn a lot of things throughout the course of the game that aren't common knowledge. And there are some things that are common knowledge that they don't know, like the whole burning the alienage thing. But mostly, it's the below:

 

I think this more an annoyance that the characters involved with the Orlesian Civil War weren't fleshed out within the game itself.

Which I feel they should have had regardless of the book

Exactly.

 

Nah. Inquisitor was too shallow of a character, id rather have smb like Hawke or Shepard again.

A lot of people think the Inquisitor was boring or bland, but we don't want them back because of how interesting they are. We want them back because we feel like their story isn't over, and replacing them in the next game would take away a lot of emotional impact.

 

I think someone else has already mentioned it, but like the Inquisitor's bond with Solas is about the only thing that makes them stand out.

Besides that when the plot isn't directly focusing on Solas we'll be stuck with the Inquisitor's boring personality, unless your imagination is so good that you can headcanon through those bits without it being a problem. Which granted not everyone can do.

A lot of people have pointed out that they will have a lot more opportunities for the Inquisitor to show more personality in Tevinter, since they aren't nearly as shackled as they were in DA:I. And a lot of people, myself included, thought the Inquisitor finally felt like a character after Trespasser. So it's entirely possible they'll get an interesting-ness upgrade in the next game, if they keep up the personal style of writing Trespasser had. And it's entirely possible they'll remain boring-ish. Bioware is inconsistent.

[BansheeOwnage]

I do agree that each map should have had more of a connection to the main plot. I'm not one to say there is NO connection whatsoever, most of them do have something, whether it's to do with Venatori or red templars, but of course having a more involvement with those groups does not a connection make. Fallow Mire is one of the worst offenders, I think, whereas Emprise du Lion is the best example of a plot connection done right.

 

Speaking of that... is there some difference between the Samson and Calpernia story lines vis-a-vis the templars in the Emprise? Is there a counter one somewhere else with the Venatori? I was thinking that the Hissing Wastes would have more Venatori activity if you went with Champions of the Just, but I have never finished it, so I really have no idea.

From memory, the only difference was the lack of Cullen/Samson quest, which was pretty disappointing. One thing that really annoyed me about Emprise was that it was supposedly important to the main plot in that you could significantly weaken the Red Templars, but the game plays out exactly the same whether you do everything in the area or nothing

[Gambit458]

I think someone else has already mentioned it, but like the Inquisitor's bond with Solas is about the only thing that makes them stand out.

But thing is, the Inquisitor and Solas aren't always going to be sharing screen time. Hell if Solas is half the chessmaster he's been shown to be, we might hear from him on and off but rarely actually interact with him. It might be a more dramatic climax for some to see the Inquisitor deal with Solas but how much of the game will actually focus on that aspect? Will it overplay the situation? Possibly underplay? Baggage isn't exactly easy to deal with when writing such stories. Especially when there might be other subplots at play (possibly the Qunari-Tevinter situation)

Besides that when the plot isn't directly focusing on Solas we'll be stuck with the Inquisitor's boring personality, unless your imagination is so good that you can headcanon through those bits without it being a problem. Which granted not everyone can do.

And that's what I meant. Aside from Solas, there's not going to be much connection our Inquisitor will have with the rest of the game. Most likely we'll be one of the Magisters or some other resident of Tevinter

[BansheeOwnage]

And that's what I meant. Aside from Solas, there's not going to be much connection our Inquisitor will have with the rest of the game. Most likely we'll be one of the Magisters or some other resident of Tevinter

Sorry, but I don't think I understand what you mean by "having a connection to the game". Can you elaborate?

[Nefla]

Doing nothing? Celene's completely beaten Gaspard before WEWH even starts. She hasn't picked up on Florianne being the real threat, of course. If she had, there wouldn't be much for the PC to do.

I'm a little confused by something. Have you actually read the books, or not?

Also, what sort of "impact" should there be? None of my Inquisitors have been Orlesian; they don't have a personal stake in the outcome.

Huh? Varric gets as much screen time as any other character. Except for the LIs, who should get more.

No, I have not read the books.

 

Yeah, Celine did nothing. Anything she did offscreen before the game starts is of no interest to me. That's more telling rather than showing. What I saw was a queen who just stood around and was utterly helpless and achieved exactly nothing. We're told that she knew Gaspard had moved troops into the palace and that she let him do it to what? Catch him publicly? That's not impressive in the slightest. Also Florianne was obvious and incompetent. To be fooled by her is an embarrassment, especially for someone who is supposedly a manipulator and strategist. Character development doesn't need to take a lot of time but it needs to be done otherwise people wont care about that character and if their role is extreme, lack of development makes them unbelievable in that role. What I see of Celine in the game isn't a strategist or manipulator or chessmaster or what have you, what I see is another generic airheaded no-personality noble. Compare Celine/Briala/Gaspard to Eamon, Teagan, and Isolde. The latter 3 were given development, with the former 3 the player was straight out told "this guy is an agressive general who had his throne stolen" "this woman is a master manipulator that weaseled her way to the top with those skills" "this other woman is the leader of an elf coalition(?) and had an affair with the queen" we don't see any of those aspects of any of the characters in the actual game. The ONLY one of them we see is a bit about the romance between Celine and Briala if you get them back together.

 

If the character doesn't need to be developed, if you don't need to feel any connection to any of them or care about their fate, (and as you said the Inquisitor has no personal stake in their business) then why are they in the game? They're cardboard cutouts wasting a significant portion of my time. It's made even worse by the fact that we supposedly go there to stop Celine from being assassinated because it will destabilize Orlais and that somehow leads to the red lyrium death future from the time traveling quest (another WTF). However Orlais is already in the midst of a civil war, and you can let Celine be assassinated with no consequences. Nothing you do in this quest matters and yet it doesn't make you care either. It has to have at least one or the other (preferably both). Hell, it's not even suspenseful or interesting. The basic concept had so much potential but it fell so flat in the execution.

 

How would this have been done? I suppose the entire game could have been restructured to be more about Orlesian politics, of course. (I can see a case for that being a better game.) But short of that, I don't see how it works. A bunch of cutscenes that my PC wouldn't have seen? If my PC doesn't see stuff, I don't like seeing it either.

And yes, I know that Bio's done that plenty in other games.

The whole game doesn't need to be about Orlesian politics to develop the characters involved in WEWH. Compare Celine to Bhelen in the Dwarf Noble origin. They had around the same amount of time spent on them but Bhelen definitely had care put into our time with him and you come out of that origin feeling just how much of a snake he is. WEWH goes "people already know who Celine/Gaspard/Briala are from the books, just give Leliana one line about each of them and then have the player kill a bunch of mimes." Honestly I think the writing for most of the game was quite poor and didn't make me care. The story events felt like random unconnected tasks, the non-inquisition NPCs were undeveloped, indistinct, and lacked personality and those were the NPCs involved with the main story. The sidequest NPCs most often didn't even have a name let alone a personality or something interesting to say.

[AresKeith]

Not together, but there could have been regions and areas where with missions where we meet and talk with Gaspard for example, they could have done something like this on the Exalted Plains. Generally they could have given more buildup to WEWH to flesh out the Civil War and the players behind it.

Yeah that entire plot arc should've been stretched out with more than one mission

[Fiskrens]

[...]
However Orlais is already in the midst of a civil war, and you can let Celine be assassinated with no consequences. Nothing you do in this quest matters and yet it doesn't make you care either.

The difference being that you get to control who will be the successor - and that's quite huge.
 

Compare Celine to Bhelen in the Dwarf Noble origin. They had around the same amount of time spent on them but Bhelen definitely had care put into our time with him and you come out of that origin feeling just how much of a snake he is. WEWH goes "people already know who Celine/Gaspard/Briala are from the books, just give Leliana one line about each of them and then have the player kill a bunch of mimes."

We apparently have totally different views here; I found Bhelen shallow and a "upcomer" stereotype, and found enough dialogue in WEWH to flesh out the characters and make the quest one of the better. (I read the book afterwards.)

[Nefla]

The difference being that you get to control who will be the successor - and that's quite huge.
 We apparently have totally different views here; I found Bhelen shallow and a "upcomer" stereotype, and found enough dialogue in WEWH to flesh out the characters and make the quest one of the better. (I read the book afterwards.)

Why in the world would the inquisitor even care about who is the successor to Orlais? (the game sure didn't make ME care about it, the only difference was in some epilogue slides that will be seen as rumors in future games)The inquisition's job is to save the world from Corypheus and picking the ruler of Orlais is irrelevant to that. Each one still sent a handful of guards to fight a handful of red templars in the Arbor wilds and the choice had no impact in-game. But clearly we see things differently. I saw WEWH as one of the worst quests in the game. It's a toss up between that and In Hushed Whispers with its' ridiculous time travel plotline but at least that one had Felix and Alexius who had more effort put into their development. Then again it also had Fiona who is another character that relies on the player having read the EU rather than developing her in the game.

[In Exile]

Why in the world would the inquisitor even care about who is the successor to Orlais? (the game sure didn't make ME care about it, the only difference was in some epilogue slides that will be seen as rumors in future games)The inquisition's job is to save the world from Corypheus and picking the ruler of Orlais is irrelevant to that. Each one still sent a handful of guards to fight a handful of red templars in the Arbor wilds and the choice had no impact in-game. But clearly we see things differently. I saw WEWH as one of the worst quests in the game. It's a toss up between that and In Hushed Whispers with its' ridiculous time travel plotline but at least that one had Felix and Alexius who had more effort put into their development. Then again it also had Fiona who is another character that relies on the player having read the EU rather than developing her in the game.

 

The game tells you pretty clearly that you don't actually care who rules, apart from the coincidental fact that Orlais has a civil war and you need to get it sorted out to achieve your instrumental goal. You hear several of your advisors and companions express their view that your sole calculus should be who is best suited to help you in the immediate term to fight Corypheus (e.g. Cassandra and Cullen in favour of Gaspard and Leliana in favour of Briala). 

 

That's the same as DA:O with.... just about every single choice in the game vis-a-vis the main plot. There's no real reason to care on way or another. 

Edit:

And you miss the point about Celene's assasination. It doesn't matter that she dies - it matters that Gaspard isn't blamed. Corypheus's plan isn't just to kill her - it's to kill her and discredit Gaspard, fracturing Orlais long enough to overrun it with a demon army while Briala is still alive and around. 

 

If you let Celene die so that Gaspard rules, you also exonorate Gaspard and remove Briala. Power consolidates behind him. 

[ArcaneEsper]

A lot of people have pointed out that they will have a lot more opportunities for the Inquisitor to show more personality in Tevinter, since they aren't nearly as shackled as they were in DA:I. And a lot of people, myself included, thought the Inquisitor finally felt like a character after Trespasser. So it's entirely possible they'll get an interesting-ness upgrade in the next game, if they keep up the personal style of writing Trespasser had. And it's entirely possible they'll remain boring-ish. Bioware is inconsistent.

No, you see my point wasn't necessarily about how boring the Inquisitor is. To paraphrase, I meant that every single moment in DA4 will not center around the Solas-Quizzie relationship if they return as PC, and thing is the Inquisitor doesn't have enough substance backing them to carry a whole other base game where they'll only be interesting for certain portions of it. (Sure it's an improvement from DAI but Bioware should aim higher)

I see what you mean about Trespasser's writing but since it was an epilogue DLC and it was a whole lot smaller in scope, the writers would have had less of a need to add loads of filler stuff. DA4 will be a whole separate game, it won't be as well wrapped as Trespasser because in the case of the latter the story set the stage for the environments but in the former, odds are the story will have to adapt to the settings (this seemed to be the case with DAI) I mean sure Bioware could end up really stepping up their game, but personally I'd like to let go of the baggage and go with a new PC.

[BansheeOwnage]

No, you see my point wasn't necessarily about how boring the Inquisitor is. To paraphrase, I meant that every single moment in DA4 will not center around the Solas-Quizzie relationship if they return as PC, and thing is the Inquisitor doesn't have enough substance backing them to carry a whole other base game where they'll only be interesting for certain portions of it. (Sure it's an improvement from DAI but Bioware should aim higher)

I see what you mean about Trespasser's writing but since it was an epilogue DLC and it was a whole lot smaller in scope, the writers would have had less of a need to add loads of filler stuff. DA4 will be a whole separate game, it won't be as well wrapped as Trespasser because in the case of the latter the story set the stage for the environments but in the former, odds are the story will have to adapt to the settings (this seemed to be the case with DAI) I mean sure Bioware could end up really stepping up their game, but personally I'd like to let go of the baggage and go with a new PC.

I'm... not really sure how to respond to this except with what I already said. Which is never a good sign. I'll try to add to it though. As an example, DA2 was a more personal game. Trespasser was personal. DA:O had more personal moments than DA:I. There is no reason they can't make DA4 personal, which would most likely make the Inquisitor more interesting than they could ever be in a DA:I style game.

 

Again, I'm not saying they will succeed or even try that, but they could also just as easily write a new protagonist who is just as boring, and I'd rather play a boring protagonist I already know than one I don't.

[In Exile]

I'm... not really sure how to respond to this except with what I already said. Which is never a good sign. I'll try to add to it though. As an example, DA2 was a more personal game. Trespasser was personal. DA:O had more personal moments than DA:I. There is no reason they can't make DA4 personal, which would most likely make the Inquisitor more interesting than they could ever be in a DA:I style game.

 

Again, I'm not saying they will succeed or even try that, but they could also just as easily write a new protagonist who is just as boring, and I'd rather play a boring protagonist I already know than one I don't.

 

Apart form the Origins - which were designed to be personal and small scale - what moments did DA:O have that were personal?

[Nefla]

The game tells you pretty clearly that you don't actually care who rules, apart from the coincidental fact that Orlais has a civil war and you need to get it sorted out to achieve your instrumental goal. You hear several of your advisors and companions express their view that your sole calculus should be who is best suited to help you in the immediate term to fight Corypheus (e.g. Cassandra and Cullen in favour of Gaspard and Leliana in favour of Briala). 

 

That's the same as DA:O with.... just about every single choice in the game vis-a-vis the main plot. There's no real reason to care on way or another. 

Edit:

And you miss the point about Celene's assasination. It doesn't matter that she dies - it matters that Gaspard isn't blamed. Corypheus's plan isn't just to kill her - it's to kill her and discredit Gaspard, fracturing Orlais long enough to overrun it with a demon army while Briala is still alive and around. 

 

If you let Celene die so that Gaspard rules, you also exonorate Gaspard and remove Briala. Power consolidates behind him. 

All three choices are exactly the same, we get a few extra (unnecessary) soldiers no matter who rules. I realize the excuse used for allowing us to fail our goal of stopping the assassination is that Gaspard will be blamed and that somehow that will make a huge difference. I just think it's a very weak excuse. They're already at war, we're told there is already assassination and such happening behind the scenes in "the game" so why would it matter if Gaspard was falsely accused rather than him winning the war and having her executed or him having her assassinated for real as part of the game? Why would any of it matter to the inquisition? The whole reason that bad future happened in the time traveling quest was because the inquisitor "died" so there was no one to seal the breach or kill Corypheus(because reasons?). The not-dead inquisitor curb-stomps Corypheus and seals the breach for good before anything major in Orlais would have happened and it wouldn't hinder the inquisition's goals. So we're not given a strong story related reason to be doing this quest, we're not given a strong personal interest or connection to this quest, so IMO this quest is useless. The plot of DA:I for the most part felt like a mishmash of random unconnected events with only a half-hearted excuse to do any of them and no personal stakes.

 

Apart form the Origins - which were designed to be personal and small scale - what moments did DA:O have that were personal?

(sorry, I know I'm not the one you were addressing) I don't know if "personal" is the right word, but there were many times in DA:O that I felt...emotionally invested? In the NPCs and situations where in DA:I I usually didn't feel anything or care about what was happening. I'm sure others will disagree or not see the difference but here are some examples:

 

-The death of King Cailan vs the death of the Divine: We barely knew king Cailan but the game made sure to give us some interactions with him and to show some cutscenes with him that let us get to know him a bit and make him a person in my eyes. He was even nice and friendly to you no matter your race he treated you like an equal. I thought that was especially cool as a city elf: you live in squalor, are oppressed by humans, and generally lead a horrible life and then the king who could easily have you killed for looking at him wrong not only treats you like an equal but he's shocked to hear about what went on in the alienage and promises that after the battle he'll help you. That made his death sting even more. The Divine was there and gone before we knew what happened and I felt nothing for her.

 

-The hard life of the lower class and the effects of war on the people: In DA:I we were told that the people of the crossroads were hungry, cold, etc...but what I saw was a sunny meadow with an overabundance of wild animals to eat and even the demons were polite enough to keep to themselves in the small area around their rift and not bother anyone. I was not given a chance to know any of the people or to experience their struggle, I was told and not shown. In DA:O you have the city Elves and the casteless Dwarves and you get to see and experience how horrible life is for them not just through the origins (which I LOVED) but through interactions with different NPCs. When going through dust town I didn't have Bodahn back at camp tell me beforehand "the people there are poor and in dire straits" and then never get to talk to anyone or see any of them doing anything. You had a woman who had to give up her caste and starve in the slum because her son's father was casteless and her father told her the only way she could come home was to abandon her baby in the deep roads to die. You had desperate thugs attack you in the street, a woman prostituting herself because what other choice is there for her? And so on. DA:O convinced me, DA:I just told me "it's like this" and expected me to just say "oh ok."

 

I don't remember why we're arguing about this in this particular thread though so I'm going to drop it.

[In Exile]

All three choices are exactly the same, we get a few extra (unnecessary) soldiers no matter who rules. I realize the excuse used for allowing us to fail our goal of stopping the assassination is that Gaspard will be blamed and that somehow that will make a huge difference. I just think it's a very weak excuse. They're already at war, we're told there is already assassination and such happening behind the scenes in "the game" so why would it matter if Gaspard was falsely accused rather than him winning the war and having her executed or him having her assassinated for real as part of the game? Why would any of it matter to the inquisition? The whole reason that bad future happened in the time traveling quest was because the inquisitor "died" so there was no one to seal the breach or kill Corypheus(because reasons?). The not-dead inquisitor curb-stomps Corypheus and seals the breach for good before anything major in Orlais would have happened and it wouldn't hinder the inquisition's goals. So we're not given a strong story related reason to be doing this quest, we're not given a strong personal interest or connection to this quest, so IMO this quest is useless. The plot of DA:I for the most part felt like a mishmash of random unconnected events with only a half-hearted excuse to do any of them and no personal stakes.

 

It's not a weak excuse. It doesn't even require a lot of explanation. It's political legitimacy. This is the single most important currency in politics, and we see it play out every day in the media, whatever country you're in. 

It matters a great deal if people think Gaspard did it, versus if they believe he did not. It's the difference between him continuing to have an open rebellion on his hands - making his assistance totally useless - and just having bitter malcontents who fought on the losing side of a war to deal with on his return. Even without the demon army, the balance of power in Orlais shifts a great deal depending on how legitimate his reign is as a ruler.

And remember, the original plot is for his sister to sell him up a river. 

 

And you forget what happens without the Inquisitor:

 

1. The breach is never temporarily sealed. That makes things worse all on its own.

2. Corypheus gets a demon army. 

3. Orlais is in chaos.

 

The reason Corypheus can't be killed is super obvious - it's quite literally part of the main plot: you don't know how to do it until the Well of Mythal. 

 

And we're given an explicit reason to do this: the Inquisition does not have the forces to actually fight Corypheus, notwithstanding the fight at Haven. With Orlais in chaos, you don't have the support, ultimately, to match up with Corypheus. Plot-wise, you can't win at the Arbor Wilds, and so Corypheus gets to the Well first.

 

This is as good an explanation for why you don't need Orlais in DA:O, or why you do need the elves and dwarves and why a second round of purely human Fereldan levies isn't enough: total plot contrivance because this is the story the writers want to tell. You either buy in at the start or you don't.

 

 

(sorry, I know I'm not the one you were addressing) I don't know if "personal" is the right word, but there were many times in DA:O that I felt...emotionally invested? In the NPCs and situations where in DA:I I usually didn't feel anything or care about what was happening. I'm sure others will disagree or not see the difference but here are some examples:

 

I'm just going to say that I disagree entirely. I didn't give a fig about Cailan. He was obviously an unqualified moron, and it's not entirely clear why I should feel bad that he died specifically because of the moronic decisions we saw him make. Depending on your race/origin, his complete incompetence and inability to govern was the entire reason your beloved cousin was raped as a CE. His inability to keep his vassals in line - and Arl Howe basically says this outright - is the reason your family is dead as an HN. Not exactly much to mourn there. 

 

Gaspard is plenty pleasant to you when you meet him too, but that doesn't make it some personal moment. 

 

And let's just say I completely and totally disagree on DA:O doing anything in showing a gritty or dark alive. Remove the brown, and people in Ferelden live incredibly clean, healthy and surprisingly educated lives (seriously, everyone can read?). The only people we see not doing great are the CEs - and they live in the same looking house as everyone else! DA:O totally fails at showing poverty, with the exception of the Casteless. 

[Nefla]

K. It's pretty clear we see things completely the opposite. My instinct is to argue and debate endlessly because I disagree with everything you've written but we should probably stop derailing the thread.

[nightscrawl]

All three choices are exactly the same, we get a few extra (unnecessary) soldiers no matter who rules.

This is meta information, though. Even if this is your first play and you, as an experienced gamer, think, "OK, well I know that Bioware isn't likely to give me some vastly superior advantage for some particular choice, so it doesn't really matter who I pick," that is still going beyond the bounds of the role-play.

I do agree that Celene could have been better developed. She is presented as this lofty figure that we can't have much interaction with before the final WEWH cinematics. However, I think that there is a pretty decent amount of interaction with both Gaspard and Briala if you choose to question them, enough that my Inquisitor can make a choices based around it. You can learn that Briala's focus is primarily on elves, and Gaspard plans to return to expansionism, and those two things are enough for me to discard either one.

[Iakus]

How would this have been done? I suppose the entire game could have been restructured to be more about Orlesian politics, of course. (I can see a case for that being a better game.) But short of that, I don't see how it works. A bunch of cutscenes that my PC wouldn't have seen? If my PC doesn't see stuff, I don't like seeing it either.

And yes, I know that Bio's done that plenty in other games.

In a way, it goes towards t\he weakness of the side stories in the zones.  in particular places like the Exalted Plains.

 

Such would have been a great opportunity to delve deeper into the civil war, to find out why people were fighting it, what Celene and Gaspard (and Briala) stood for.  The causes they promoted.  It would have fleshed out the characters without even requiring them to be there, by observing how they conducted the war:  how their allies and enemies saw them.

 

As it is, it's never even made clear why Briala was at Halamshiral aside from "jilted lover".  And a single conversation each with Celene and Gaspard hardly seems sufficient to decide the fate of an empire on.

[nightscrawl]

And a single conversation each with Celene and Gaspard hardly seems sufficient to decide the fate of an empire on.

I dunno... I think Gaspard wanting to return to expansionism is a really HUGE deal, and he is completely honest about that in the conversation. It could throw the entire south into chaos after Corypheus is defeated**. I actually rather like Gaspard, his disdain for the game, his forthrightness, and so on, and that is pretty much the only reason I don't go with him.


** Some Inquisitors might not care about this, and that is fine for them, but that is my role-play.

[AlanC9]

Such would have been a great opportunity to delve deeper into the civil war, to find out why people were fighting it, what Celene and Gaspard (and Briala) stood for.  The causes they promoted.  It would have fleshed out the characters without even requiring them to be there, by observing how they conducted the war:  how their allies and enemies saw them.

Is the war actually about their causes, though? Gaspard and Celene have different visions for the Empire, but that's not why they're fighting.
 

As it is, it's never even made clear why Briala was at Halamshiral aside from "jilted lover".  And a single conversation each with Celene and Gaspard hardly seems sufficient to decide the fate of an empire on.

True, but this is traditional for DA. And being accidentally put in a position to make decisions you don't know enough to make and don't have any real right to make strikes me as being what DAI is about.

[JD Buzz]

I doubt it. The Inquisitor may either make a cameo appearance, or be mentioned in letters and codexes in a future DA game.

[Iakus]

Is the war actually about their causes, though? Gaspard and Celene have different visions for the Empire, but that's not why they're fighting.
 

Given Celene had ruled Orlais for a good twenty years before Gaspard started his revolution, I'm inclined to think so.  He had a different vision of Orlais's future, and was seeing that future being frittered away on what he saw as trivialities

 

 

True, but this is traditional for DA. And being accidentally put in a position to make decisions you don't know enough to make and don't have any real right to make strikes me as being what DAI is about.

Yeah, but in this case, the information was there in The Masked Empire.  And three of the zones we get to visit are in the Dales, where the fighting was hardest.  the pieces were there, they just needed assembling.

[BansheeOwnage]

Apart form the Origins - which were designed to be personal and small scale - what moments did DA:O have that were personal?

I was mainly thinking of the origin-related content, yes. But my point was that that's still more than DA:I has (discounting Trespasser), and a lot less than DA2.