144 réponses à ce sujet

[Abyss108]

I see 4 pretty screenshots of pretty looking places.

[CronoDragoon]

I'm confused by the examples as well. Are they all 4 supposed to be examples of art design that don't convey history?

In any case, taking screenshots of the general wildlands is not the best way to analyze the historical content of the game's art design. One should instead look to the structures made by sentient beings. And in that area, Inquisition absolutely succeeds. I actually went around taking screenshots of the Temple of Mythal because there were beautiful sculptures and paintings littering it.

[Guitar-Hero]

Nah, i think they should keep adding to what they have built. I may not particularly like DAI but i think its good that they are able to move their franchise in new directions with each installmen, a lot of AAA games are stuck in the freaking mud.  

[Riven326]

I'm confused by the examples as well. Are they all 4 supposed to be examples of art design that don't convey history?

In any case, taking screenshots of the general wildlands is not the best way to analyze the historical content of the game's art design. One should instead look to the structures made by sentient beings. And in that area, Inquisition absolutely succeeds. I actually went around taking screenshots of the Temple of Mythal because there were beautiful sculptures and paintings littering it.

Windhelm looks like a place that has existed and has been lived in for a very long time. There's no need for paintings or sculptures; the structures themselves and the architecture in particular tell the story of that place. That area in Witcher 3 shows a very natural looking forest clearing, a river, and a structure built into the side of a mountain. Pay attention to the terrain in particular, it's very well designed and looks natural.

[Abyss108]

Windhelm looks like a place that has existed and has been lived in for a very long time. There's no need for paintings or sculptures; the structures themselves and the architecture in particular tell the story of that place. That area in Witcher 3 shows a very natural looking forest clearing, a river, and a structure built into the side of a mountain. Pay attention to the terrain in particular, it's very well designed and looks natural.

 

Yes they are very pretty screenshots. The Inquisition ones are too. Neither tells me any more than the other, but you imagine what you want there.

[thats1evildude]

 

Yes, I see what you mean. The first screenshot obviously demonstrates that this is some kind of hastily-abandoned Santa's Village theme park, while the second screenshot shows that Geralt is trespassing in some kind of wildlife preserve. Well, I guess they don't call it "The Wild Hunt" for nothing.

[PapaCharlie9]

I'm going to go against the flow here and say yes, a reboot focused on getting the story line out of the hole that it has fallen into would be welcome. Game mechanics and other problems mentioned are solvable in DA4, but the story isn't without a reboot.

Since this is the NO DAI SPOILERS forum, I can't go into too much detail about DAI, but I think the story was in good shape and poised for greatness at the end of the DAO main game. The story started to go off the rails with The Calling novel, then DA2, then DAI.

DAO established the Blight as the epic threat to world peace and happiness. Okay, the honored opposition defined. Wardens established as the above-the-law group to deal with the Blight, and all the problems that situation involves.

So what does DA2 do with that great set up? Absolutely nothing. Instead, DA2 blows up two of the foundational institutions of the world: the Templars and the Circles. Okay, fine, the Grey Wardens still stand as the last line of defense against Blights.

Except that in The Calling, that gets kind of messed up. Maybe not in a big way, but the Wardens are shown to be susceptible to manipulation by way of The Calling.

Which sets up the final blow in DAI. And to add insult to injury ... now we have time travel to deal with. Nuff said.

It's like the writers get bored with both their protagonists and antagonists with each game/DLC/novel--so bored they blow them up and/or discredit them--and go and find new ones, upping the ante and the stakes with each change, as if the world destroying threat of the Blight wasn't enough.

This does not make for good narrative. And after such a promising start!

A reboot would roll back everything to the original DAO ending and start over from there. No Awakenings. No The Calling. No DA2 schism. Certainly no DAI/Trespasser! There's plenty of material with the above-the-law Wardens and the diverse political situations (Fereldan/Orlais, Tevinter/Parvollen, City/Dalish, etc., etc.) to make several games.

Once an epic background is established, you don't need to top it with twice as much epicness! There are plenty of smaller stories to move things along. The Walking Dead doesn't flog a new season by introducing an alien invasion on top of zombies, it just goes deeper into what zombies do to people.

[Abyss108]

I'm going to go against the flow here and say yes, a reboot focused on getting the story line out of the hole that it has fallen into would be welcome. Game mechanics and other problems mentioned are solvable in DA4, but the story isn't without a reboot.

Since this is the NO DAI SPOILERS forum, I can't go into too much detail about DAI, but I think the story was in good shape and poised for greatness at the end of the DAO main game. The story started to go off the rails with The Calling novel, then DA2, then DAI.

DAO established the Blight as the epic threat to world peace and happiness. Okay, the honored opposition defined. Wardens established as the above-the-law group to deal with the Blight, and all the problems that situation involves.

So what does DA2 do with that great set up? Absolutely nothing. Instead, DA2 blows up two of the foundational institutions of the world: the Templars and the Circles. Okay, fine, the Grey Wardens still stand as the last line of defense against Blights.

Except that in The Calling, that gets kind of messed up. Maybe not in a big way, but the Wardens are shown to be susceptible to manipulation by way of The Calling.

Which sets up the final blow in DAI. And to add insult to injury ... now we have time travel to deal with. Nuff said.

It's like the writers get bored with both their protagonists and antagonists with each game/DLC/novel--so bored they blow them up and/or discredit them--and go and find new ones, upping the ante and the stakes with each change, as if the world destroying threat of the Blight wasn't enough.

This does not make for good narrative. And after such a promising start!

A reboot would roll back everything to the original DAO ending and start over from there. No Awakenings. No The Calling. No DA2 schism. Certainly no DAI/Trespasser! There's plenty of material with the above-the-law Wardens and the diverse political situations (Fereldan/Orlais, Tevinter/Parvollen, City/Dalish, etc., etc.) to make several games.

Once an epic background is established, you don't need to top it with twice as much epicness! There are plenty of smaller stories to move things along. The Walking Dead doesn't flog a new season by introducing an alien invasion on top of zombies, it just goes deeper into what zombies do to people.

 

Dragon Age is not about the Wardens, it's about Thedas and the various different factions within it. And thank goodness for that, the Wardens are one of the most clichéd boring aspect of the entire series, second only to the utterly generic evil army of monsters they fight.

[The Baconer]

A reboot would roll back everything to the original DAO ending and start over from there. 

 

That's not a reboot. 

 

What is it with f***ing BSN and reboots. 

[PapaCharlie9]

That's not a reboot. 

 

What makes that not a reboot? Is it only a reboot if we go back to the HoF's childhood? Back to when the Black City was the Golden City? What?

[The Baconer]

What makes that not a reboot? Is it only a reboot if we go back to the HoF's childhood? Back to when the Black City was the Golden City? What?

 

You want them to split into an alternate timeline post DA:O. A reboot starts from square one; it's a reimagination of the entire franchise. And since the franchise is and always has been Dragon Age, not Grey Warden Adventures, it's not even a given that a (hypothetical) reboot would start with the Fifth Blight and the hero of Ferelden. 

[almasy87]

Are you crazy?  

Just now that the story has gotten important and touching more juicy subjects..

And they did plan the story from the beginning, see how long it took to get to this point.. WHY on earth would they scrap it now????

[CronoDragoon]

Windhelm looks like a place that has existed and has been lived in for a very long time. There's no need for paintings or sculptures; the structures themselves and the architecture in particular tell the story of that place. That area in Witcher 3 shows a very natural looking forest clearing, a river, and a structure built into the side of a mountain. Pay attention to the terrain in particular, it's very well designed and looks natural.

 
I don't see anything that the last Inquisition screenshot doesn't also demonstrate. Weathered statues with moss growing on them, interesting terrain in the background, etc. And so long as I'm trying to compare apples to apples?
 


 
That isn't a place that radiates history, a sense of a how and why it was built? Plus, I can't accept a handwave of how much the art of Thedas helps to establish a sense of culture and history. I'm going to spoiler this because I think I took several screens (and there are many I didn't take) which both illustrate the richness of Thedas' culture as having historical value that makes places feel real, and also structures that give the world a sense of age.
 
 
 

Spoiler

[Dabrikishaw]

I'm going to go against the flow here and say yes, a reboot focused on getting the story line out of the hole that it has fallen into would be welcome. Game mechanics and other problems mentioned are solvable in DA4, but the story isn't without a reboot.

Since this is the NO DAI SPOILERS forum, I can't go into too much detail about DAI, but I think the story was in good shape and poised for greatness at the end of the DAO main game. The story started to go off the rails with The Calling novel, then DA2, then DAI.

DAO established the Blight as the epic threat to world peace and happiness. Okay, the honored opposition defined. Wardens established as the above-the-law group to deal with the Blight, and all the problems that situation involves.

So what does DA2 do with that great set up? Absolutely nothing. Instead, DA2 blows up two of the foundational institutions of the world: the Templars and the Circles. Okay, fine, the Grey Wardens still stand as the last line of defense against Blights.

Except that in The Calling, that gets kind of messed up. Maybe not in a big way, but the Wardens are shown to be susceptible to manipulation by way of The Calling.

Which sets up the final blow in DAI. And to add insult to injury ... now we have time travel to deal with. Nuff said.

It's like the writers get bored with both their protagonists and antagonists with each game/DLC/novel--so bored they blow them up and/or discredit them--and go and find new ones, upping the ante and the stakes with each change, as if the world destroying threat of the Blight wasn't enough.

This does not make for good narrative. And after such a promising start!

A reboot would roll back everything to the original DAO ending and start over from there. No Awakenings. No The Calling. No DA2 schism. Certainly no DAI/Trespasser! There's plenty of material with the above-the-law Wardens and the diverse political situations (Fereldan/Orlais, Tevinter/Parvollen, City/Dalish, etc., etc.) to make several games.

Once an epic background is established, you don't need to top it with twice as much epicness! There are plenty of smaller stories to move things along. The Walking Dead doesn't flog a new season by introducing an alien invasion on top of zombies, it just goes deeper into what zombies do to people.

As much as I liked the Grey Wardens in Origins, I can't agree with them being the center of the franchise like the Jedi Order was in the Old Republic. There's only so many ways to invent stories needing a Grey Warden protagonist to be told that could warrant building an entire game around.

[Marshal Moriarty]

Andraste Reborn

Like I said, I'll believe it when I see it. Many companies go long periods producing nothing because they can't make anything new that works. Then it comes times for the next iteration of the usual games, and they get rotated back onto those.

 

Maybe they will make a new IP. But I doubt it.

[AlanC9]

Am I? How would you feel if they decided to drastically change the look of the krogan or some other established race in Mass Effect?

In the context of a general artistic redesign? I'd be fine with it; at least, I'd be fine to the extent I agreed that the game needed a redesign.

Outside of that context? Only if the krogan design was actually bad. "Bad" meaning that it didn't capture the original vision for the species.

As I'm sure you can tell, these don't apply to Mass Effect, but do apply to Dragon Age.

It means that DA2 looked different (bad, IMO) but was obviously still not something they were happy with. It's clear that the artists at Bioware are having trouble deciding among themselves what Dragon Age should look like.

Nobody's disputing that. It'd be hard to since the devs have explicitly talked about redesigning the game. All I've ever been saying is that it's better to redesign than to stick with the failed DA:O look or the failed DA2 look.

Wheter the team can settle on a look is the wrong question. The right question is whether the current look ought to be improved upon.

I'll give you some visual examples.

I have no idea what I was supposed to take away from those pictures. They looked good yeah. So does DA:I.

[midnight tea]

Dragon Age is not about the Wardens, it's about Thedas and the various different factions within it. And thank goodness for that, the Wardens are one of the most clichéd boring aspect of the entire series, second only to the utterly generic evil army of monsters they fight.

 

... Or so it seemed at first. I'm actually pretty pleased with the fact that they're breaking the mold with them, in a sense that a lot of the series doesn't really portray them as cliched heroes. It doesn't even go in other relatively cliched direction to portray them as an organization of heroes going straightforwardly corrupt or incompetent. The Wardens were always something of a force created out of desperation - a band aid on a festering wound in light of no other remedy.

 

They're the only solution Thedas has so far for the Archdemon-led outpourings of darkspawn (and the Blights appear to be only the symptom of much bigger and complex problems, and not the cause of all Thedas' suffering), but both the mystery and viciousness of each Blight, the secret of Joining and whatever other secrets they've gathered as well as relatively large gaps between each outpourings has shaped them into a force that is both needed as well as dangerous, both to others and themselves.

 

That sentiment existed in the game since DAO, where we have quite a few subtle red flags flapping on the horizon - like the readiness of Wardens to use even most questionable means to win the fight, or outright toying with unknown forces (they're so used to such way of fighting, that they even tried to overthrow tyrannic kings with the use of blood magic and demon summoning). And when we talk to Riordan we hear that he doesn't have a good opinion about Wardens from Anderfels and leaders in Weisshaupt.

 

All of this means that they may not really be fit for a faction of DA protagonists anymore. In fact... it was hardly ever a faction we really belonged to, ever.

 

HoF and Alistair were Wardens, true, but they were merely initiated prior to Battle of Ostagar and hardly knew anything about organization, save the basics. We don't really see other Grey Warden save Duncan up until we meet Riordan and we only find out about how Wardens are able to kill the Archdemon - the major, if not only reason why they exist - almost at the very end of the game.

 

It can be pretty reliably said that HoF's accomplishments can be credited to an individual, rather than an organization they worked for - and with the biggest help coming not from the Wardens themselves, but a mysterious apostate hobo who saved both young Wardens and ancient treaties that allowed them to build a non-Warden army in Ferelden... Heck, as a bonus she even throws in a mean to save their life from inevitable death-by-Archdemon-slaying, questionable and beneficial to her as it is.

 

So... DA was never really about Wardens or Blights. They served as a good introduction to the complicated world of Thedas, but now it's time to go and focus on a larger story that was always looming on the horizon... which is exactly where we're going with current games.

 

Rebooting the series is not only entirely pointless, it would pretty much go against what they're trying to do. If people don't like it where the series is going - fine, but I have a feeling that some might have missed that BW was on that path ever since the first game.

[VelvetStraitjacket]

No.

[Riven326]

In the context of a general artistic redesign? I'd be fine with it; at least, I'd be fine to the extent I agreed that the game needed a redesign.

Outside of that context? Only if the krogan design was actually bad. "Bad" meaning that it didn't capture the original vision for the species.

As I'm sure you can tell, these don't apply to Mass Effect, but do apply to Dragon Age.

Nobody's disputing that. It'd be hard to since the devs have explicitly talked about redesigning the game. All I've ever been saying is that it's better to redesign than to stick with the failed DA:O look or the failed DA2 look.

Wheter the team can settle on a look is the wrong question. The right question is whether the current look ought to be improved upon.

I have no idea what I was supposed to take away from those pictures. They looked good yeah. So does DA:I.

No, I wasn't trying to compare graphics with those pics. Maybe it's because I play a lot of TES, but I think Bethesda are masters at conveying the history of their worlds through their art direction. I believe CDPR is also very good at this. It is something I feel DA lacks, and while Inquisition certainly looks nice, I find it hard to take the world of Thedas seriously because to me at least, it looks artificially constructed.

[midnight tea]

Am I? How would you feel if they decided to drastically change the look of the krogan or some other established race in Mass Effect?

 

What if some design choices in DAO were not a result of indecision, but technical and graphic limitations? From what I know the qunari in Origins didn't have horns mainly due to lack of resources. 

 

 

It means that DA2 looked different (bad, IMO) but was obviously still not something they were happy with. It's clear that the artists at Bioware are having trouble deciding among themselves what Dragon Age should look like. With Inquisition I get the feeling that they told the art team to just make it look pretty and lush and I think they achieved that. But the game doesn't have a style, it's just pretty to look at. The new Mass Effect looks like Mass Effect even though it's running on a new graphics engine; it's still distinctive and easily recognizable and it runs on the same engine as Inquisition.

 

 

You're saying is as if DAO has any sort of distinctive style... which it most definitely doesn't. Whatever experiments with visual side they've made throughout games and no matter the number of iterations, it was all for the better - and Inquisition is certainly far more "matured" in terms of distinct visuals (be it landscapes or architecture or racial divisions) than either DAO or DAII.

 

I mean, to be perfectly honest, DAO had almost no visual identity at all. As someone who's an artist and a graphic designer I was actually pretty flabbergasted with the difference between DAO and DAI (which was my first game of the series) and the fact that the games are only 6 years apart. Despite me starting with modded improvements, the generic, drab and lifeless visuals of DAO almost made me switch off the game the first time I played it and I weep every time I see the overabundance of brown filter, relative emptiness and stiffness no matter how much I enjoy the story.

 

... Therefore I don't see how the fact that Inquisition looks different - and three tons better - being something bad. The fact that you think it's just "pretty", but with "no style" means little considering that there was very little style to begin with. Inquisition was a major improvement in every regard when it comes to complexity of design and visual language of the game on every level I could think of.

 

Also - in what way new MEA looks "distinctive" and DAI does not? ...Because DAI doesn't have landscapes with blue lava?

 

 

 

I would say that great art in a game should tell the history of a place without the player having to read a codex entry or a book in order to gain a sense of the history of the location that the player is in. The locations in Inquisition were only made to look pretty and I think they did that rather well. But there is no sense of history in the art, it looks and feels uninspired compared to other works.

 

The only thing I can say about it is that you really must have not looked well enough - basically every zone has a tale to tell; multiple even. Some better than others, but definitely being there. Each place is distinct - each ruin and landmark tells some sort of story, there's an entire plethora of details to be found and admired, or clues to be discovered. The fact that a lot of this storytelling is subtler than "Hey! Look here, at this thing! Loooooooooooooooook!!" only serves to the game's credit, IMO.

[Illegitimus]

I'm going to go against the flow here and say yes, a reboot focused on getting the story line out of the hole that it has fallen into would be welcome. Game mechanics and other problems mentioned are solvable in DA4, but the story isn't without a reboot.

Since this is the NO DAI SPOILERS forum, I can't go into too much detail about DAI, but I think the story was in good shape and poised for greatness at the end of the DAO main game. The story started to go off the rails with The Calling novel, then DA2, then DAI.

DAO established the Blight as the epic threat to world peace and happiness. 

 

You mean the one they beat, for what should be the next 400 years or so?  

[KaiserShep]

I'm going to go against the flow here and say yes, a reboot focused on getting the story line out of the hole that it has fallen into would be welcome. Game mechanics and other problems mentioned are solvable in DA4, but the story isn't without a reboot.

Since this is the NO DAI SPOILERS forum, I can't go into too much detail about DAI, but I think the story was in good shape and poised for greatness at the end of the DAO main game. The story started to go off the rails with The Calling novel, then DA2, then DAI.

DAO established the Blight as the epic threat to world peace and happiness. Okay, the honored opposition defined. Wardens established as the above-the-law group to deal with the Blight, and all the problems that situation involves.

So what does DA2 do with that great set up? Absolutely nothing. Instead, DA2 blows up two of the foundational institutions of the world: the Templars and the Circles. Okay, fine, the Grey Wardens still stand as the last line of defense against Blights.

Except that in The Calling, that gets kind of messed up. Maybe not in a big way, but the Wardens are shown to be susceptible to manipulation by way of The Calling.

Which sets up the final blow in DAI. And to add insult to injury ... now we have time travel to deal with. Nuff said.

It's like the writers get bored with both their protagonists and antagonists with each game/DLC/novel--so bored they blow them up and/or discredit them--and go and find new ones, upping the ante and the stakes with each change, as if the world destroying threat of the Blight wasn't enough.

This does not make for good narrative. And after such a promising start!

A reboot would roll back everything to the original DAO ending and start over from there. No Awakenings. No The Calling. No DA2 schism. Certainly no DAI/Trespasser! There's plenty of material with the above-the-law Wardens and the diverse political situations (Fereldan/Orlais, Tevinter/Parvollen, City/Dalish, etc., etc.) to make several games.

Once an epic background is established, you don't need to top it with twice as much epicness! There are plenty of smaller stories to move things along. The Walking Dead doesn't flog a new season by introducing an alien invasion on top of zombies, it just goes deeper into what zombies do to people.

 

Several games about the Wardens? I don't think the Wardens are worth enough material to make several games, neither is the darkspawn horde itself. Outside of a Blight or focusing on one of the ancient magisters responsible for the Blights themselves, there really shouldn't even be much to do with darkspawn, unless you set the entire game in the Deep Roads, which I find as appealing as nug porn. 

[CronoDragoon]

The Blight is just a symptom, and the DA world is slowly creeping towards answering the big Thedas questions that the Blight implies: what created it? What are the Archdemons, really? Why did the Blight come from the Black City? Why did Corypheus say the Blight was already in the Golden City before it became the Black City? Dragon Age: Inquisition is keenly aware of these questions, and its story has begun leading us to answers. Dragon Age: Origins showed the mode of the Blight. Subsequent Dragon Ages (albeit more Legacy than vanilla DA2) are more concerned with the why.

 

This is the point that the DA writers keep hammering home: the series isn't about any one thing. It's about a world, and how so many parts of the world cross paths and become interconnected. Does anyone seriously think at this point that the Old Gods and the Elven Gods aren't both connected with the origin of the Blight somehow? Throw in Dwarves and Lyrium, as well. The Blight is going to return as a central plot point, but that will happen when they are ready for all the curtains to be drawn aside and all lore questions answered.

[Cribbian]

Jut give the setting a boot in a northly direction and I'm happy.

[Bob Walker]

The Blight is just a symptom, and the DA world is slowly creeping towards answering the big Thedas questions that the Blight implies: what created it? What are the Archdemons, really? Why did the Blight come from the Black City? Why did Corypheus say the Blight was already in the Golden City before it became the Black City? Dragon Age: Inquisition is keenly aware of these questions, and its story has begun leading us to answers. Dragon Age: Origins showed the mode of the Blight. Subsequent Dragon Ages (albeit more Legacy than vanilla DA2) are more concerned with the why.

 

This is the point that the DA writers keep hammering home: the series isn't about any one thing. It's about a world, and how so many parts of the world cross paths and become interconnected. Does anyone seriously think at this point that the Old Gods and the Elven Gods aren't both connected with the origin of the Blight somehow? Throw in Dwarves and Lyrium, as well. The Blight is going to return as a central plot point, but that will happen when they are ready for all the curtains to be drawn aside and all lore questions answered.

 

All those exciting questions yet to be clarified are reasons (among many others) that explain why the franchise must not be rebooted.