I think the take-away message from this is that you should not show pre-alpha demos to the interturds ever again, because they just can't handle it.
Because it was a side quest that was interesting, had a storyline, conversation/dialogue had companion involvement, a choice/multiple way to resolve and it hinted at a mechanic that sounded interesting (capturing and holding keeps). I would definitely rather have played sidequests like this than follow a bunch of notes in the desert or find people's lost goats. I mean it's not like we expected EVERY sidequest to be like this, but none of them were. 
I don't know why people feel the need to keep bringing this up and rubbing salt in the wounds though 
Looks like Bio's learned the lesson. They're not showing us any ME:A yet.
Speaking of ME, everyone remember the Distress Call trailer?
I do.
A lot of people are just mad because they have no idea how game development works, and think that if something is demo-able then its already been fully developed and programed and works perfectly and how dare Bioware take that content away from them.
I don't think you should shift the fault like that, the Bioware team was the one that decided to show off what they eventually couldn't pull off. Getting lash back from that is not negative, we are supposed to critique hype culture and false advertising as consumers.
Being realistic about game development is irrelevant when Bioware can't be realistic about what they promise and market.
I don't think you should shift the fault like that, the Bioware team was the one that decided to show off what they eventually couldn't pull off. Getting lash back from that is not negative, we are supposed to critique hype culture and false advertising as consumers.
Being realistic about game development is irrelevant when Bioware can't be realistic about what they promise and market.
I find it perfectly realistic for there to be changes to the final game from a very early alpha demo. Bioware clearly said it was an alpha, so I'm not seeing what was "false" about that.
I find it perfectly realistic for there to be changes to the final game from a very early alpha demo. Bioware clearly said it was an alpha, so I'm not seeing what was "false" about that.
I didn't say it was not perfectly realistic, I said the opposite, we agree. But I find this a flounder on Bioware's part. For most consumers something being an "alpha" version doesn't mean anything. Bioware is a professional games development company, they should be aware of that. Showing off alpha footage and ideas is something Indie games do. I cannot fault those that are disappointed they didn't get what Bioware bragged about.
I feel a bit cheated here because in your original post you seemed to indicate you were talking about any player choice or any consequences for your choices. Now you are saying Inquisition has them but not enough and the wrong type of them? As for immediete gameplay... I guess at the end of the day I really do not care. Though Inquisition's choices did effect gameplay, but offering you different quests and missions and even closing off whole main content and adding significantly to certain character arcs within the game. How does soldiers telling you you are returning to deal with a counter attack make it a main quest?
I watched them. Several times.
I was always saying that there weren't enough and that they were not as impactful as what was in the demo.
Because it was content directly related to the war effort against Corypheus. Choosing how to customize the keeps and what projects took priority in those areas was side quest content, and even that did not make the cut.
Then you should be able to see that quite a few things touted in the demo were not in the final release. A couple things were, such as knocking down the bridge holding up the archers in Griffon Wing Keep, or the underground path into Caer Bronarch, but the main content was not there. You never used the underground path to gain any sort of battle advantage. Or capping the sulfur pits, while it could be done, was not tied to what kind of keep you made for yourself. It was always available through the chore table. Dragons never attacked your forces out in the field, only once in Haven when Corypheus struck, and that was part of a main quest.
The problem with the war against Cory and all that is: Open World. The storyline of DAI - with the world threatened by a Dark Lord commanding armies of demons and mutated templars - called for a way more linear game. Instead of huge areas with rather bland and lazy "side-quests" (if you can even call 'em that) the areas for the main-quests should have been more of the scale of DAO, and the war-table would have forced us to choose between side-quests inbetween the main-quest (instead of the rather pointless war-table we have now)
I don't think open world was the problem. They could have created certain points of the map that had conflict that you could approach from any direction, like the Mage/Templar confrontation in the Hinterlands, but you are right that this called for a linier style of gameplay. They could have laid out a linier story in an open world setting.
I see your point, but TBH I think you're extrapolating and even in the unlikely scenario where some of those promises were to be fulfilled I wouldn't imagine a big difference. It seems to me like people got angry over how the demo had this nice storyline where you were involved in this epic battle, and how this kind of action was "missing" at release (probably not even fully coded in the first place)...
edit: what Vox Draco said..
I do. The demo made me feel like this was going to be a long and drawn out epic where you would be able to command entire armies to march to different regions where choice was reflected visually, not just through some lines of text at a table.
A lot of people are just mad because they have no idea how game development works, and think that if something is demo-able then its already been fully developed and programed and works perfectly and how dare Bioware take that content away from them.
No it's called "bait & switch". We aren't talking about some minor graphical changes in the tac cam, or alterations in the storyline. BioWare displayed a series of gameplay choices that they claimed would change how the game went for each player. And I contend that content was never in the pre-alpha build to begin with. What we saw was not a programed game, it was an interactive movie following a script.
The other problem is people seem to have very different opinions on what is in said game based on...IDK lack of memory. And even I have some trouble with this too because I just remembered, going back to Grepher's earlier point, that there was a choice you could make in DAI which led to an almost instanteous consequence. If you kill the Wardens instead of letting them flee Adamant it makes it that much harder to actually save the Wardens, and justify saving them. It takes away an option for talking them down.
[Disgusted noise]
Yes. it takes away an option for talking them down, not all options.
Such a miniscule choice/result. The option to fight against Wardens was not significant. First, even if you killed the small group of Wardens you met before confronting Clarel, you could still convince her to think twice if you picked up Historical Knowledge or had Blackwall with you. And then even if you did fight those Wardens, after returning from the Fade the result is the same. You can either exile or ally with them and the game proceeds as it would have had you not killed them.
Exactly, but that really doesn't change the FACT that a) there are NO choices in DAI and b) choices that are there anyway has NO consequences at all.
I didn't write that there were no choices. I wrote that there were few compared to what the demo claimed, and they were not as impactful.
[Disgusted noise]
Yes. it takes away an option for talking them down, not all options.
Such a miniscule choice/result. The option to fight against Wardens was not significant. First, even if you killed the small group of Wardens you met before confronting Clarel, you could still convince her to think twice if you picked up Historical Knowledge or had Blackwall with you. And then even if you did fight those Wardens, after returning from the Fade the result is the same. You can either exile or ally with them and the game proceeds as it would have had you not killed them.
I see the different branches to achieve the same end as a benefit, not a negative.
So do I. My point is that choosing the "kill 'em all" option has no consequences, as the demo presentations implied there would be.
I think it is fair enough that people are disappointed when the Developer is saying they are going to put all these things into the game and then at the end of the day they don't. There aren't really any consequences to not doing certain things in terms of your effectiveness in the battle against Corypheus. Even upgrading Skyhold was simply a cosmetic exercise with no impact whatsoever. I kept thinking it was going to be like in ME2 and the final battle would be at Skyhold, so whether you upgraded or not might make a difference at least to whether everyone survives.
The decision over the Wardens was odd, because they implied it could have an impact if you kept them with you, owing to the fact they might still be susceptible to his influence, but that came to nothing. At the end of the game it was apparent that the only negative consequence was associated with banishing them; if you didn't they were never a danger, you got extra war table missions and they ended the game being more open and working with the people of Thedas. What also annoyed me was that I never intended it to be a permanent banishment or that it was to turn people against them across Thedas. It was a banishment from Orlais while we dealt with Corypheus or at least that is what I thought it was meant to be.
It was a similar thing with the decision over whether to take the mage or Templar path. True taking one prevented you from taking the other but ultimately it made absolutely no difference to the battle with Corypheus and the only real difference in the world was that if you went with the Templars there was a lot less red lyrium around the place, particularly in Crestwood area.
However, I would also suggest that the end result didn't just turn out different from what was promised at the alpha demo but also from what seemed to be shown in the original trailer, with Morrigan's voice over. In that we had the veil/sky tearing open (not just a hole in it) and what appeared to be fire raining from the sky onto a fortress. It looked much darker and grimmer, there was the Inquisitor shown struggling through a dust storm, plus Morrigan talked of standing against the dark or leading the world to its bitter end. Still I live in hope that we may still get this at some point because that great tear in the Veil looked very much what Solas says he is planning, whilst the large threatening dragon at the end makes me think of a dragon god, possibly a released Evanuris. What makes me doubt is that rather peculiar decision we were asked to make in respect of Solas; when someone is threatening to destroy the world surely the only thing you are going to be worried about is stopping him?
I didn't say it was not perfectly realistic, I said the opposite, we agree. But I find this a flounder on Bioware's part. For most consumers something being an "alpha" version doesn't mean anything. Bioware is a professional games development company, they should be aware of that. Showing off alpha footage and ideas is something Indie games do. I cannot fault those that are disappointed they didn't get what Bioware bragged about.
Oh, I'll blame the consumer. I like getting an early look at Bioware might be working on, and hate to see it ruined by the fanbase. If someone doesn't know what an Alpha is, they are quite capable of googling it.
No it's called "bait & switch". We aren't talking about some minor graphical changes in the tac cam, or alterations in the storyline. BioWare displayed a series of gameplay choices that they claimed would change how the game went for each player. And I contend that content was never in the pre-alpha build to begin with. What we saw was not a programed game, it was an interactive movie following a script.
Yes, it was an Alpha. Meaning its not fully programmed yet. If it was fully programmed in a state that was playable, it would probable be a Beta.
Yeah, BioWare didn't ruin anything with their false advertising. It was the fanbase complaining about the false advertising that ruined it.
Well thanks to the QQ about this, Bioware learn to dont show per-aplha stuff.
Fans need to realize when they read "alpha" on a demo, it mean that 90% of what they see will not make it on the final game, and worst, if is a alpha for a show, then 99% will not make it, bc normal is a montage to hook ppl, is the most common Marketing strategy ever.
lol i work making 3D models for games, and when the games are first show i do ALOT of work that is only show on that demo and never again or change for the final game.
I don't get it, yet I see this type of comment everywhere below those videos. The pre-alpha demos shown at Digiexpo/E3 2014 were somehow "better" for some people...
Can someone explain what the game did better in those demos than at release?
The reason you don't get it is because there's nothing to get. With the exception of the Crestwood story being different, that demo was very close to the game we ended up getting. People here just love to be melodramatic.
We couldn't burn boats in the final release. The boats appear on the Storm Coast. We can't light them on fire, not even by pressing a button. Laidlaw promised burning boats by using a fire spell or fire grenade, not just by tapping a button. Yet in the Exalted Plains we burned corpse pits by pressing a button, even though the same map had hay stacks that could be set ablaze with fire spells.
Oh yes, the final game is nearly identical to the demo, but everything is totally different because there's no situation in which we can burn boats.
I don't think you understand what a "promise" is.
Yeah, BioWare didn't ruin anything with their false advertising. It was the fanbase complaining about the false advertising that ruined it.
This wasn't false advertising. This wasn't marketing. This was a *non-public* demo, and besides, they disclaimered it to hell and back in the video. People who know better saw the demo and appreciated the insight. People who feel mislead are idiots, and I suspect are part of the reason ME:A's development has been as hushed up as it has.
The reason you don't get it is because there's nothing to get. With the exception of the Crestwood story being different, that demo was very close to the game we ended up getting. People here just love to be melodramatic.
So me wishing there had been side quests that were story heavy, had cutscenes, choices, various ways to resolve, companion involvement, interaction and use of Inquisition forces, etc...is just me being melodramatic for the sake of it? What should I change my opinion to so that it will be a legitimate opinion or criticism rather than simply being melodramatic?
So me wishing there had been side quests that were story heavy, had cutscenes, choices, various ways to resolve, companion involvement, interaction and use of Inquisition forces, etc...is just me being melodramatic for the sake of it? What should I change my opinion to so that it will be a legitimate opinion or criticism rather than simply being melodramatic?
If you think those things were present in significantly greater portions based solely on the snippet of the pre-alpha we were shown, you are mistaken.
If you are taking the above mistake and then using it to say you were mislead into buying the game, you're being melodramatic.
If neither of the above are true and you just wish there had been more of those things in the game, you're fine. (Also, in that case, the comments I made were clearly not directed at you, so I'm not sure why we're even having this conversation.)
Looks like Bio's learned the lesson. They're not showing us any ME:A yet.
Speaking of ME, everyone remember the Distress Call trailer?
ME already did this one. X06 - you could control the party, you had dialogue interrupts, the whole Therum level (it was Caleston then) was different:
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