Dragon Age: Inquisition

[luc0s]

Are you an artist by chance? The people who made the art are professionals, who no doubt know a lot more about scale and real architecture than you and I do, which means that everything they do is deliberate. Unless you are an artist yourself maybe you should apply for a job at their company to teach them a lesson or two? Do you really think BioWare would hire amateurs from deviant art who know nothing about art? You are at least very naive if you think so.

The scale and proportions are due to the fact that it is a high fantasy game with touches of dark fantasy here and there. High Fantasy is known to be exagerrated. If YOU don't like it, fine but don't shove your opinion down our throat and expect us to believe that your opinion is objective. Not every game needs to be realistic like the Witcher, otherwise people would get bored of the design and start to despise it like they despise the fact that every modern FPS is a copy of COD. Variety is a good thing for the industry.

EDIT: Here is a new screenshot http://assets.vg247.com/current//2014/02/dragon_age_inquisition_2.jpg

I'm actually a professional artist with experience in the industry and I agree with Johncage.

Though I'm not in the position to teach BioWare a thing or two about medieval architecture, because quite frankly, I don't know a whole lot about medieval architecture myself. And that's the entire point that I'm trying to make. Being a professional artist doesn't mean you're also a professional archaeologist or a professional architect. If I want to make realistic medieval buildings, I'd have to research medieval buildings and learn how they are made first.

How much I actually care about realism will determine how much time I would spend on research. Apparently the artists at BioWare don't care a lot about realism cause they clearly didn't really do much research on what real medieval architecture really looks like...

 

[octavian123]

So what? The series was never as realistic as The Witcher in the first place, it's not meant to be.

 

[EliHarel]

I don't get this trend of bashing many fantasy RPGs that don't take after the Witcher's style. Different games, different playerbases, different developers, different styles. It's all legitimate, and one's love for The Witcher and CDPR isn't enhanced by trashing other popular games. I'll even go further and say that it's a bit ironic that fans of CDPR can be so vitriol about other companies, when CDPR seems to be a humble bunch with humble origins who aren't ashamed to say that they learn from others, not to mention a particular game that's rather despised in these boards.

Personally, I have no clue what so ever if their design is realistic or not. And honestly, I don't care, either. Dragon Age shouldn't be judged by Witcher's standards about design, nor vice versa. Also, this "realism" aspect is a very tricky thing, because we can attribute it to the Witcher when we feel like it, and ignore the demand when things are sometimes a bit over-the-top and almost comical at times - and not because they're intended to be.

On a final note, I'm excited about DA:I. And I'm happy that it's turning out to be different than The Witcher 3 - in art design, in combat, in story, in atmosphere, in everything. The more varied the games in the industry are, the better off we all are, as long as they're still made with care in the context of their own aesthetics and ambition. And after BioWare's recent-years misaps, I really hope that they'll offer a masterpiece with DA:I, because they did create many games over their lifetime that brought a lot of fun and evoked strong emotions in many players. So far I'm liking this semi-strategic facet they're adding, where the Inquisitor can choose how to develop his outposts and how to use his agents. I think it's safe to say that RPG players, by their nature, like it when their games are multi-layered. So starting to dip in strategy elements is a brave and interesting choice.

 

[CostinRaz]

I don't get this trend of bashing many fantasy RPGs that don't take after the Witcher's style

Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the fact it's not the witcher style but rather it's a complete shithole of a series?

As for Dragon Age: Bioware bumped it up as this medieval tale of intrigue and politics, of hard moral choices ever since DA:O. In DA2 they talked about you being a general while fighting as a Spartan while also being on a rise to power.

Now in DAI they talk AGAIN about politics.

So yes, when a series claims to be something, claims to be able to deliver on something and then fails utterly then it deserves it's scorn. Skyrim, as an example, never tried to sell itself on the quality of it's main story, it sold itself as this lighthearted dungeon crawler/exploration game and despite my loathing for it I can't deny that it's marketing was at least fucking honest.

EDIT: With regards to art style. Well a cartoonish game with ridiculous looks can work, but not for a game trying to sell itself as this grim dark fantasy.

 

[FoggyFishburne]

Holy shit, this thread has 95 pages! Incredible. BioWare is a hot topic around these parts huh.

 

[octavian123]

It's the biggest contender to the Witcher 3 so of course it is.

 

[Fandango9641]

It's a polarising IP, that's for sure.

 

[FoggyFishburne]

Yeah I guess but fuck. Is there a Dark Souls 2 thread on this forum? Because that's a game that deserves more than a hundred damn pages! Exquisite and elegant game design, unique presentation, fascinating lore, minimalistic yet satisfying storytelling, haunting and thick atmosphere. I mean it's just not fair...

Oh well. Hopefully Inquisition ends up being good but it does sadden me that a superior game from an incredibly competent studio doesn't attract the same amount of attention. I hope you peeps will give it an honest chance. The Souls series are breath of fresh air in the industry. Innovation and strong focus around a theme should be appreciated a bit more than BioWare's copy paste story telling and shallow game design. But like I said, oh well...

 

[ReptilePZ]

I think it's fair to say that the focus of The Witcher franchise is the story, similar to BioWare games, while Dark Souls is all about the combat. This is exactly why a game that has similar aims attracts more attention than one that is only loosely related to TW2's combat and has absolutely nothing to do with TW1. Logic.

Is there a Dark Souls 2 thread on this forum?

Funny that you should ask, since it's the thread that convinced you to actually buy Dark Souls:
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/16942-Dark-Souls-II

 

[Veleda.980]

Neither DAI or Dark Souls is a game I can get excited about, for different reasons, both boiling down to- the devs aren't making a game I want to play. Dragon Age is more accessible however and for good or ill, some of us still discuss the IP.

 

[EliHarel]

In preparation for DA:I, I began a playthrough some months ago to take with me to the third installment (Origins, Awakening, DLCs). I completed it today and went on to DA2. Been years since I played it, and I now I just finished its prologue. I got to say, it had a lot of potential. Varrick is a cool character - he has a bit of Tyrion going on there - and the storytelling is pretty cool, with the Seeker trying to understand what the hell happened, and Varrick decorating the events as he tells them.

It's a mediocre game, but I liked that BioWare went towards a more political and local story. The idea of a world war erupting by the end, because Anders goes all Al-Qaeda on the Chantry, could've made for an awesome game (which makes the poor execution even more painful). This makes me wonder - isn't the whole "Tear in the Fade" in DA:I completely taking the focus away from the climax of DA2? How are they combining the two, if at all?

If BioWare still somehow manages to intertwine the two plots, one thing they should do is make the Chantry less loathsome than they were in DA:O and DA2. They had very little redeeming qualities, if at all, and the narrative funnels support towards the mages quite clearly. To make for a more engaging plot, they should emphasize more of the mages' problematic traits, and more of the Chantry's good ones. Sort of like the Scoia'tael and the Flaming Rose in W1, though even there, the more comfortable choice was Neutraly/Scoia'tael, while the Flaming Rose seemed to be more fanatic than the non-humans and much less agreeable.

 

[FoggyFishburne]

Wait, I just noticed something.

The thread title is "Drage Age". Leet spelling right there.

 

[ReptilePZ]

That actually blew my mind.

 

[Luxorek]

Buahahaha. Never noticed this ! How old is this thread ? Almost half a year. Hahahahaha. Ah... I would have sworn that it was Dragon until you pointed it out.

It actually reminded me of an old National Geographic commercial that said that our brains are coditioned to recogize words evn when spellig is incmpete.

 

[Gr3aves]

In preparation for DA:I, I began a playthrough some months ago to take with me to the third installment (Origins, Awakening, DLCs). I completed it today and went on to DA2. Been years since I played it, and I now I just finished its prologue. I got to say, it had a lot of potential. Varrick is a cool character - he has a bit of Tyrion going on there - and the storytelling is pretty cool, with the Seeker trying to understand what the hell happened, and Varrick decorating the events as he tells them.

It's a mediocre game, but I liked that BioWare went towards a more political and local story. The idea of a world war erupting by the end, because Anders goes all Al-Qaeda on the Chantry, could've made for an awesome game (which makes the poor execution even more painful). This makes me wonder - isn't the whole "Tear in the Fade" in DA:I completely taking the focus away from the climax of DA2? How are they combining the two, if at all?

If BioWare still somehow manages to intertwine the two plots, one thing they should do is make the Chantry less loathsome than they were in DA:O and DA2. They had very little redeeming qualities, if at all, and the narrative funnels support towards the mages quite clearly. To make for a more engaging plot, they should emphasize more of the mages' problematic traits, and more of the Chantry's good ones. Sort of like the Scoia'tael and the Flaming Rose in W1, though even there, the more comfortable choice was Neutraly/Scoia'tael, while the Flaming Rose seemed to be more fanatic than the non-humans and much less agreeable.

Dragon Age: Origins is my favourite game of all time. I've played trough it and all it's extra DLC and expansion for 800 hours. Yet i'm still to finish DA 2.

I tried. 4 times, i tried. But compared to one, it's so bad. Way too much focus on the Chantry (looks like DA:I will not change in that respect) story wise, and the world i love so much in DA:O was gone. Butchered. And why the Qunari looked like goats on steroids instead of the big black man Stan was in DA:O, i'll never know.

I really hope they don't fuck up DA:I. But i'm afraid it'll never be as good as Origins.

 

[Luxorek]

Bioware has released some character kits on their blog. In-game character models basically. Some examples.

Morrigan

Varric

Cassandra

I have to say that Cass looks kinda strange. I remember people on BSN complaining that she was too pretty back when first trailer was released, well... I guess they won't be doing that now.

 

[octavian123]

They look awesome!

 

[Chewin3]

Glad to see that Morrigan looks more like Morrigan from DAO. Still skeptical about how Inquisition will turn out, but I'm hoping that it turns out great. Will keep an eye on it from now on.

 

[Nexus-77]

I played the ME3 multiplayer for a long time, and it really is fun and well done.

As far as I remember there is only a co-op horde mode with random mission goals in phases.
So basically you and your team have to work together to survive and that is tons of fun.
By completing missions you level up, unlock new classes, races and equipment.

Every player gets rewarded according to their own performance during the mission,
but even if you suck at these kind of games you can be a meaningful addition to the team,
by reviving people or hacking while the others cover you.

I highly recommend it, it's tons of fun.
And it's not as competitive and frustrating as other games, because you have to work together.

Never touched a multiplayer until the ME3's, because of the Galactic Readiness. First I just felt forced (and angry) to play it. Until I got that krogan...
I named him "Judge Wrex", yeah...
Anyway: a simple but very fun multiplayer, for some weeks I was addicted like it was heroin in form of a game.

I wonder what CDPR will do in terms of Multiplayer for Cyberpunk 2077 - people at the forum was asking for a four people Co-op.
I really hope it will be there, would be a good plus.

 

[EliHarel]

dat morrigan