Choice and illusion of choice can be kept just fine. Have a blonde leliana with different voice actor who will do all the same things, except slightly different dialogue or story. I honestly wouldn't have problem with that, as long as the story continues on.
I'm not saying its a problem. It just seems unfair to keep the same characters like Morrigan and Flemeth and Lelianna and tease us with our protagonist all the time.
I'm not saying its a problem. It just seems unfair to keep the same characters like Morrigan and Flemeth and Lelianna and tease us with our protagonist all the time.
I feel like they lost direction. The 2nd Bioware game seems to have talent for that. Origins. Now that was a game, that would have formed a huge baseline for a permanent character. Plenty of background, plenty of connections, friends etc..
Then they got a lot of money, said screw it, gave us Hawke and we've been cursed ever since.
I plaid Origins a year or two ago. I didn't dare play DA2 for all that time. I played DA2 and DAI a few weeks back and have to say, DA2 feels like a chore with Final fantasy characters (Fenris I am looking at you in particular)
I am a 23 yearold guy, and I let a few tears go when the music kicked in as I went for destroy.
I never had that moment of connection to the story, to characters and to world with Dragon age. I had plenty of laughs, and pleasant surprises in Origins. The other games are just too emo for me
I feel like they lost direction. The 2nd Bioware game seems to have talent for that. Origins. Now that was a game, that would have formed a huge baseline for a permanent character. Plenty of background, plenty of connections, friends etc..
Then they got a lot of money, said screw it, gave us Hawke and we've been cursed ever since.
I plaid Origins a year or two ago. I didn't dare play DA2 for all that time. I played DA2 and DAI a few weeks back and have to say, DA2 feels like a chore with Final fantasy characters (Fenris I am looking at you in particular)
I am a 23 yearold guy, and I let a few tears go when the music kicked in as I went for destroy.
I never had that moment of connection to the story, to characters and to world with Dragon age. I had plenty of laughs, and pleasant surprises in Origins. The other games are just too emo for me
For me, Lelianna, Morgan, Flemmeth, etc.
Have not shaped the world in the same way the main protag in each sequence of the story has, so why does their story continue when it's awfully dreadful and borrowing and they are constantly always secondaries to the main "chosen" hero
For me, Lelianna, Morgan, Flemmeth, etc.
Have not shaped the world in the same way the main protag in each sequence of the story has, so why does their story continue when it's awfully dreadful and borrowing and they are constantly always secondaries to the main "chosen" hero
Because they are the connection to the original character? It is they that give me hope that Bioware will one day return to Warden. It seems like Leliana and Morrigan are paving the way
Warden was the only DA protagonist I cared about and he/she's not coming back. I couldn't care less of hawke or quizzy. And in general I prefer a new character each game with lots of freedom and different paths to take as opposed to a solid person with an overarching story. So no, no returning protagonists for me, thank you.
Warden was the only DA protagonist I cared about and he/she's not coming back. I couldn't care less of hawke or quizzy. And in general I prefer a new character each game with lots of freedom and different paths to take as opposed to a solid person with an overarching story. So no, no returning protagonists for me, thank you.
How do previous events deduct from your ability to chose a different path in the next?
You are the player. Most players who played the 3 game imported world states from previous games. So world is already shaped by previous events. Having a continuous character wouldn't take away from that. And it would make more impact on me if in DA2 it was Leliana whom the Ogre grabbed and smashed face first into the dirt several times at the start, than some girl I just met, and should care about I guess?
Because they are the connection to the original character? It is they that give me hope that Bioware will one day return to Warden. It seems like Leliana and Morrigan are paving the way
I mean I see what you're saying, but then there's the potential for those annoying DnD player moments. Ever sat a table with someone playing DnD and before the GM says something the player goes
"Oh I know what this is"
It causes potential of Metagaming which then makes the New Protagonist questions like, "Tell me about Yourself Lelianna" and I am like I seen this lady in the bajillion other games I know who she is.
But wait my character doesn't.
I am not saying that's Biowares fault, by the way. I'm just saying sometimes I'm that annoying guy at the DnD table
I mean I see what you're saying, but then there's the potential for those annoying DnD player moments. Ever sat a table with someone playing DnD and before the GM says something the player goes
"Oh I know what this is"
It causes potential of Metagaming which then makes the New Protagonist questions like, "Tell me about Yourself Lelianna" and I am like I seen this lady in the bajillion other games I know who she is.
But wait my character doesn't.
I am not saying that's Biowares fault, by the way. I'm just saying sometimes I'm that annoying guy at the DnD table
No, I am not blaming Bioware completely either. They do bear responsibility for the complete change in the nature of the game from DAO to DA2. They simply dont feel like the same series. I guess they were taken by surprise by the success of the respective title, and decided to go for bigger audience, and scrap the old design. Yes, it is silly to me to ask Morrigan who she is when I know who she is.
I, as said before am simply hoping for a remake of origins and reboot of DA2 and 3 into a game that follows the same protagonist. Or hell, maybe just make DA4 somewhat like Origins and continue from there.
EA has 4 515 000 000$ in revenue, and they act like they cant spend a milion more on several voice acting lines. Greed is hell
No, I am not blaming Bioware completely either. They do bear responsibility for the complete change in the nature of the game from DAO to DA2. They simply dont feel like the same series. I guess they were taken by surprise by the success of the respective title, and decided to go for bigger audience, and scrap the old design. Yes, it is silly to me to ask Morrigan who she is when I know who she is.
I, as said before am simply hoping for a remake of origins and reboot of DA2 and 3 into a game that follows the same protagonist. Or hell, maybe just make DA4 somewhat like Origins and continue from there.
EA has 4 515 000 000$ in revenue, and they act like they cant spend a milion more on several voice acting lines. Greed is hell
You mean EA is like selling your soul to the devil. Or something in comparison. lol
You mean EA is like selling your soul to the devil. Or something in comparison. lol
Yes. While Bioware is to blaim for bending the knee to them, it is the EA that dictates what gets done and how it gets done. If they decide that DA4 will be a mobile app game, then so it shall be, and Bioware will be able to do nothing but nod happily.
Yes. While Bioware is to blaim for bending the knee to them, it is the EA that dictates what gets done and how it gets done. If they decide that DA4 will be a mobile app game, then so it shall be, and Bioware will be able to do nothing but nod happily.
I think Bioware should slip off into the night and silently elope with another published, probably slip something in EA's drink or you know give EA a lot of the good wine to do so. lol...I'm only joking I hope you know that
I think Bioware should slip off into the night and silently elope with another published, probably slip something in EA's drink or you know give EA a lot of the good wine to do so. lol...I'm only joking I hope you know that
What? JOKING?! But our plot to murder EA and help Bioware elope? You monster. You treacherous snake 
What? JOKING?! But our plot to murder EA and help Bioware elope? You monster. You treacherous snake
My name should have given it away that I am a filthy filthy filthy EA/Bioware heathen.
Yup, we're 100% agreed on the subject of the Inquisitor.
I don't like Hawke either. I prefer her to Shepard, simply because she did have a personality. Just not one I felt I had any control over, which is terrible for an RPG. "Better than Shepard" is the lowest possible bar to cross for me.
I can't agree on that.
Shepard is far superior to the Inquisitor rpg-wise, as Shep can be cruel or just plain evil. Hawke is basically like Shep, but again renegade Shep can do things Hawke can't even imagine.
The Inquisitor is the worse of the lot as s/he is basically a paragon Shepard.
I can't agree on that.
Shepard is far superior to the Inquisitor rpg-wise, as Shep can be cruel or just plain evil. Hawke is basically like Shep, but again renegade Shep can do things Hawke can't even imagine.
The Inquisitor is the worse of the lot as s/he is basically a paragon Shepard.
Not a fan of any of the options in either game as they just seem dumb and pointless. They don't gain you anything so there's never any reason to take them. There's no reason a person would act that way in most of the "evil" cases so I don't really class it as "role playing", which to me means playing the role of a person rather than a caricature. I actually had an Inquisitor who took more actions you could class as immoral, because those actions had motivations behind them rather than just being a dick for the sake of being a dick.
Bioware games generally don't have decent options for letting you act like a possible "villain". Most games don't.
Not a fan of any of the options in either game as they just seem dumb and pointless. They don't gain you anything so there's never any reason to take them. There's no reason a person would act that way in most of the "evil" cases so I don't really class it as "role playing", which to me means playing the role of a person rather than a caricature. I actually had an Inquisitor who took more actions you could class as immoral, because those actions had motivations behind them rather than just being a dick for the sake of being a dick.
Bioware games generally don't have decent options for letting you act like a possible "villain". Most games don't.
Again, I don't agree: Bioware games had good options for evil main characters (KotR and Origins are there to prove it. Or The Old Republic as an Imperial Secret Agent).
The Warden is superior to all: you can develop him/her as a mad serial killer and it can be good and fun role playing (becuase killers and madmen are still persons, you know). But you can simply do very bad things for solid reasons (role-playing wise of course!): you can let newborn children die in the deep roads because your tradition dictates so; you can sell elfs to slavery 'cause they're an inferior species or you can leave Redcliffe to its fate 'cause it isn't a Warden job to save the villagers, and so on.
Also, note that Shepard can commit genocide or trick an entire species.
The Inquisitor sometimes can't even kill people during judgments for very good reasons.
Also sometimes you're forced to metagaming, as you need agents for perks and you're forced to play the good guy.
Again, I don't agree: Bioware games had good options for evil main characters (KotR and Origins are there to prove it. Or The Old Republic as an Imperial Secret Agent).
The Warden is superior to all: you can develop him/her as a mad serial killer and it can be good and fun role playing (becuase killers and madmen are still persons, you know). But you can simply do very bad things for solid reasons (role-playing wise of course!): you can let newborn children die in the deep roads because your tradition dictates so; you can sell elfs to slavery 'cause they're an inferior species or you can leave Redcliffe to its fate 'cause it isn't a Warden job to save the villagers, and so on.
Also, note that Shepard can commit genocide or trick an entire species.
The Inquisitor sometimes can't even kill people during judgments for very good reasons.
Also sometimes you're forced to metagaming, as you need agents for perks and you're forced to play the good guy.
Disagree. The options presented are not good options for evil main characters (except Imperial Agent as you mentioned - she's actually my main Old Republic character and is one of 2 examples I can think of where it was well done - the other being New Vegas).
The Warden was terrible. You might be able to choose to randomly be a psychopath whenever you feel like it, but the game doesn't react to you as one. Completely breaks any suspension of disbelief as all your "good" companions just shake their head a bit whilst you slaughter children for no good reason.
I don't want a game that gives me "evil" options - because nobody thinks that what they do is "evil". Anybody who chooses an option, chooses it because they think it is the right option. I think an RPG should give me options that are considered right by people of different backgrounds, not just try to randomly fit in the option to play a person who is literally insane and suicidal and have the plot and companions somehow work around it - work around it incredibly badly. In order for something to be good roleplaying, the game has to react back to how you act.
The Warden was terrible. You might be able to choose to randomly be a psychopath whenever you feel like it, but the game doesn't react to you as one. Completely breaks any suspension of disbelief as all your "good" companions just shake their head a bit whilst you slaughter children for no good reason.
I don't want a game that gives me "evil" options - because nobody thinks that what they do is "evil". Anybody who chooses an option, chooses it because they think it is the right option. I think an RPG should give me options that are considered right by people of different backgrounds, not just try to randomly fit in the option to play a person who is literally insane and suicidal and have the plot and companions somehow work around it - work around it incredibly badly. In order for something to be good roleplaying, the game has to react back to how you act.
Origins reacts to your evil deeds: if you let Redcliffe to rot, the city isn't there anymore; if you poison the Ashes, Leliana and Wynn will fight you to the death (Wynn can die during the tower quest if you choose to kill the mages, and she can attack Morrigan on sight if she learn she's an apostate). The quests I used as an example (castless dwarf lady in Orzammar) is just a dialogue. You can tell her to abandon the baby in the deep roads, but you're not forcing her - your good companions can disagree and, if they hate you a lot, they can even leave you.
Also, if you're roleplaying an evil character, it has no sense to stick around with a good party (rpg-wise this is nonsense, as the first Baldur's Gate harshly teach to rpg newcomers). If you consider this metagaming, think that all the agent related quests in DAI are metagaming.
My law background makes me cringe at "nobody thinks that what they do is evil", but I don't think this is really relevant here. I use "evil" from our point of view of "normal" people, just to understand each other.
Origins reacts to your evil deeds: if you let Redcliffe to rot, the city isn't there anymore; if you poison the Ashes, Leliana and Wynn will fight you to the death (Wynn can die during the tower quest if you choose to kill the mages, and she can attack Morrigan on sight if she learn she's an apostate). The quests I used as an example (castless dwarf lady in Orzammar) is just a dialogue. You can tell her to abandon the baby in the deep roads, but you're not forcing her - your good companions can disagree and, if they hate you a lot, they can even leave you.
Also, if you're roleplaying an evil character, it has no sense to stick around with a good party (rpg-wise this is nonsense, as the first Baldur's Gate harshly teach to rpg newcomers). If you consider this metagaming, think that all the agent related quests in DAI are metagaming.
My law background makes me cringe at "nobody thinks that what they do is evil", but I don't think this is really relevant here. I use "evil" from our point of view of "normal" people, just to understand each other.
And Alistair will never do a single thing against you no matter how many people you murder throughout the game. At Ostagar, you can just randomly kill an injured soldier for literally no reason and make a joke about it. Every NPC with you goes "oh your so terrible" and ignores it. The entire game can play out like that, apart from 1 or 2 prescipted events for certain companions who will turn against you for one specific thing but ignore anything else you do.
I'm not sure what evil quests you are referring to with the agents. All the ones I remember made sense as options that would be taken by the characters, and I don't recall anyone else really being around to react to what you did. It's possible there were some pointless stuff in there (lot of quests), but I never said Inquisition handled everything perfectly, just that I don't agree that pointlessly "evil" actions are good roleplaying.
But what are you classing as "normal" here? I'd say most people posting on the forum are relatively normal people, but we all disagree on things such as whether Loghain is evil (yes), or whether the Templar order is evil (yes), or whether Solas is evil (no). There are certain things most people will agree is evil - murdering a random soldier for no gain as mentioned above - but there are also many things people will disagree with.
I'm not sure what evil quests you are referring to with the agents. All the ones I remember made sense as options that would be taken by the characters, and I don't recall anyone else really being around to react to what you did. It's possible there were some pointless stuff in there (lot of quests), but I never said Inquisition handled everything perfectly, just that I don't agree that pointlessly "evil" actions are good roleplaying.
But what are you classing as "normal" here? I'd say most people posting on the forum are relatively normal people, but we all disagree on things such as whether Loghain is evil (yes), or whether the Templar order is evil (yes), or whether Solas is evil (no). There are certain things most people will agree is evil - murdering a random soldier for no gain as mentioned above - but there are also many things people will disagree with.
As we need agents we never turned them back. My aggressive inquisitor could not tell the one in the cultist castle that he was a loser cause he let his girlfriend die, nor my self righteous IQ could bust the chantry sister smuggler. This is metagaming sadly. If we accept it, we can accept to play through Origins solo or with an evil group so there's internal coherence with our evil choices.
With "normal" I mean we are not bloodthirsty criminals: we would never leave a child in the sewers cause our traditions say so, right?! 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this wouldn't be a problem if BioWare stopped carrying over plotlines, villains, and supporting characters. DA:O was a self contained story and the end was full of closure. I felt satisfied with the warden's story being done. DA2 then brings in a parade of cameos just for fanservice and spends most of the game setting up a mage templar war that they abandoned in DA:I in favor of a generic "ancient evil wizard tries to destroy world." DA:I as a base game wrapped up the story completely and I had no desire to continue. I thought the inquisitor was a boring character that was too restricted in personality (probably overcorrected because of Hawke's extreme mood swings and often cartoonish behavior). Before Trespasser I was ready to be done with DA as a series but then Trespasser came out and tore up that conclusive ending by making your former companion betray you and become the next big bad, your character loses an arm because of him (which made me excited at the possibilities of playing a less than perfect hero who isn't a god and has some real physical and emotional trauma to work through), vows to stop him, and plots secretly in the basement to that end. All of that points to a new game with the inquisitor as the protagonist but oh no. By BioWare's logic, all that setup for a continued story was supposed to be a conclusion and was meant to shelve the inquisitor...what?
I still believe that they maimed the inquisitor as an excuse to cut them off as the protagonist while still making Trespasser good. It was apparently meant to be obvious that the inquisitor wouldn't be the hero anymore (because a crippled hero? Who'd want to play that amirite gaiz?). Setting up a story, giving the protagonist a strong motivation only to randomly replace them with some nobody (but keep the same plot and villain and several companions and NPCs) is just bad storytelling. It would be like having Luke get his hand cut off in ESB, learning Vader is his father, Han needs to be rescued, and in RotJ Luke is gone and there's some random new protagonist in his place confronting Vader, Saving Han, etc...If Trespasser had been the story of anything other than a BioWare game (a book, a movie, a different studio's game) then nobody would expect a new protagonist. Everyone would expect the inquisitor to continue. We only accept this because of BioWare's golden rule of "new protagonist each game."
If each games was separated by time like TES or was set in a different country with a smaller and more localized conflict than "save the world" then it wouldn't be a problem. If this was the case we could actually learn new lore about the world which I don't feel we've done much of since Origins. They claim Thedas is the protagonist but they haven't been doing much to flesh it out and have been focused on companions and generic plots that could be done in any country.
I was let down at the end of trespasser to the point I was sorry I bought a Xbox1 and the GOTY..The ending seem confused on which direction to take and when and if there is another DA game in the series who knows what direction it may take..The next game may even feature Grey Wardens flying through the sky on Griffons. 
Even though the Inquisitor knows there's a coming storm of which the likes has never been seen in the history of Thedas yet you're given a option to foolishly end the Inquisition or become the Divines honor guard awaiting the coming storm.
First I been playing RPGs since FF1 and never seen games that flip flop so much or the unnecessary choices and along with many needless side quests that adds nothing to the game other then leveling up if one is lucky.
I said it before and I'll say again B-Ws biggest problem is lack of skilled writers and BW seems more concern about being political correct then writing a solid story line. A game should be straight forward with a strong story line with few side quest for leveling up.
Maybe EA/BW should sell their Dragon Age franchise to another company that will carry the DA series forward.
I said it before and I'll say again B-Ws biggest problem is lack of skilled writers and BW seems more concern about being political correct then writing a solid story line. A game should be straight forward with a strong story line with few side quest for leveling up.
I disagree because that sounds boring. That's what we got with Mass Effect and tbh I am not a fan of Mass Effect. I like games like Kingdoms of Amular or Two Worlds 2 or The Elder Scrolls. It's okay to have a lot of side quest, and some of those quest don't tie into the story at all i.e. like many of the other RPGs I have played. But those side quest are used to flesh out the world not the story.
If each games was separated by time like TES or was set in a different country with a smaller and more localized conflict than "save the world" then it wouldn't be a problem. If this was the case we could actually learn new lore about the world which I don't feel we've done much of since Origins. They claim Thedas is the protagonist but they haven't been doing much to flesh it out and have been focused on companions and generic plots that could be done in any country.
They claim that. But the history keeps changing each game. They keep changing their lore. And I am not necessarily happy about the Red Lyrium stuff because it works exactly the way Dragon Age Origins worked with the blight.
I miss the brood mother and not the "hot one", but the ugly gross, blob one.
Survivor ,I prefer a RPG that has a strong story line with few side quest or hunts like FF12. DA:2 was IMHO ruin with side quest in the first part and that's why I can't stay interested beyond the Deep Road expedition.. What was all of that shite anyway? If DA2 had a strong story line without all those side quest then I could and would stay interested.
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