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OXM New Dragon Age Inquisition preview [No DLC character, 40 different endings]

Ridesh

Banned
Update:
Bioware clarifies about the endings:

NpNNyYF.png


Seems fair, and what I expected.


From the BioWare Forums:

Below are points that I hope you will find noteworthy and enjoy reading:

1. There will be 5 regions in Dragon Age: Inquisition: Fereldan, The Free Marches, Orlais, Nevarra and the Dales:

-2 of the areas you can expect to visit are; a war-torn region in Orlais and an elven burial ground, known as the Emerald Graves.
-The Emerald Graves, according to executive producer Mark Darrah, is where the Dalish Elves planted one tree for every soldier killed in the Exalted Marches.
-According to the magazine, while enemy levels don't scale to your characters, you can affect environmental changes to drastically influence local settlements, establish trade routes, capture territory and disrupt the local ecosystem.
-Wild flora and fauna, useful for crafting can be hunted to scarcity, allowing other species to proliferate.
-Defeating intelligent enemies like bandits or dragons will have a significant effect on a given region.

2. Dragon Age Inquisition Companions:

-There will be no DLC Companions: According to Creative Director Mike Laidlaw: "Because of how deeply enmeshed in the system companion characters are, we can't just add them on the fly; part of them has to be shipped on the disc...which was led to criticism that we're forcing people to pay for content they already own. It's not the case, but we've decided this time to not go that route. There will be no DLC party members."
-Solas is an apostate and an expert on the Fade.
The Iron Bull is confirmed as a companion, who is described as "a one-eyed mercenary and outcast from the Qunari faith"
-Sera is confirmed as a companion, and is described as "an elven archer. Little is known about them [referring to both Sera and the Iron Bull] at this point, particularly Sera, who turned up seemingly on accident during one of several combat demonstrations..."

3. The Dialogue Wheel:

-"We have three wheels that we use in response to any given piece of dialogue" says Gaider. "One of those is what we call the 'tone wheel', which is mostly for role-playing choices. The other two are the 'choice wheel'- for taking an action or stating an opinion-and the 'reaction wheel,' for emotional moments"

4. The Inquisitor:

-There will be 4 voices for the Inquisitor 2 for each gender, for all races
-To address why the same voices apply to all races, Mike Laidlaw made the following statement: "It's a matter of file size...if we were to have eight voices, two for each race, we would be shipping on 14 discs or something. We figured that with four voices, that would give players enough options while staying within our size limitations"
-Bioware is currently exploring options to differentiate the voices, like changing the pitch of the audio.
-The Prologue Section (or the "Origin" section" will be the same for all players. The player's appearance, class and dialogue responses during the prologue section will fill in the details, presumably of the Inquisitor's background, and in particular inform how other characters respond to you throughout the story.
-The Inquisitor is the sole survivor of a reality-shattering event which results in the Fade tearing opening throughout Thedas.
-"Presumbly as a result [of the Fade tearing open throughout Thedas], you're also endowed with a singular ability: you can close these rifts wherever they appear throughout the continent."

5. Endings:

-"Bioware is promising a staggering 40 possible endings for the game, dependent not only on choices made in character generation but by actions taken throughout the storyline. [Mark] Darrah stresses, however, that the endings will all be meaningfully different from one another. You won't find 40 endings with only slight degrees of variation between them."

6. Customization:

-Armour weights are no longer class specific. Meaning a rogue can wear a mage's robes, and a mage can wear a warrior's armour. The magazine speculates the penalties will be similar to the fatigue penalties used in DA: Origins

7. Other information:

-There will be a jar of bees, which can be used as a combat item which according to Bioware: "You throw it, the jar breaks open, and little bees fly around stinging your opponents."
 

Flopfan

Member
sounds really interesting. DA Origins was one of my favorite RPGs last gen and I hope this one will be as good.
 

Kurtofan

Member
I think it's not unreasonable to believe they learned from ME3's ending fiasco, so I'm inclined to trust them on the endings.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
40 endings? sssssuuuure....

Jon-Hamm-Sure-Thing.gif

I'm guessing it's not 40 different endings but 40 different pieces of which you get 5-or-so for a playthrough. So, kind of like my game resulteted in pieces: 3, 4, 8, 16, 25 and 38. Seems more reasonable.
 
DLC characters was a load of bullshit in the first dragon age and in the mass effect games. Nothing is less inviting to a game's lore than knowing that you have to pay your way into unlocking it. I never bought the dlc character for mass effect 3 and by all accounts the character had a vital role to play in the game's world. I wasn't going to be part of the problem, though, so I'll never know what I missed.
 
after da2 and me3, bioware has alot to prove to get me back. this hinges on how much ea made decisions on this game. if ea focus-tested and told bioware to not do that and do this instead, then i won't be buying the game.
 

Arelaz

Member
I enjoyed DA:O way more than 2..I just couldn't get into 2.
I'm really hype for this one, though! I hope it's good!
 
No DLC companions. Well, that's good. I'm guessing the whole Inquisition structure with upgrading your Keep and the "Agent" thing they mentioned previously will allow for plenty of DLC that way.

Kind of disappointing, albeit not unexpected that the story sounds like a carbon copy of every other BioWare game. "You are the chosen one, the sole survivor, who must know save the world!" Hell, closing down Oblivion Gates... er, I mean Fade tears sounds like the sort of activity that could get old.

And the 40 endings thing sounds like typical RPG BS. I don't know why developers even try to enumerate endings that way, since 9 times out 10 its bullshit. It'll be probably a handful of genuinely different endings maybe that have some extra powerpoint slides tacked on.

What I'd rather see than 40 different endings would be a BioWare game that offers up a ton of divergence within the game itself like The Witcher 2 or Alpha Protocol. That's more impressive to me than slight variations on an ending.
 
Loved DA:O but couldn't get through the first couple of hours of the second game. I wonder if I will need to have played the second game to enjoy this.
 

Renekton

Member
Definitely getting it.

I'm a sucker for party-based systems, and there hasn't been many AAA titles for that. Geralt, Cursed and Dovahkiins all work solo.
 
Loved DA:O but couldn't get through the first couple of hours of the second game. I wonder if I will need to have played the second game to enjoy this.

I doubt you have to play the game. But it would be a good idea to read a plot summary, and some character bios. Should be fine

Also, if you haven't, read Dragon Age: Asunder. It leads directly into DAI's Mage Conflict and may have one of the companions included
 

Brew124

Member
I'm hopeful that this game turns out to be good since The Witcher is now next year. I did not enjoy DA2 at all.
 

Patryn

Member
Bioware needs to stop talking about the number of endings they have. Just say something like "Each person's ending will reflect their choices" and be done with it.

Interesting that they're finally feeling the heat of the DLC character thing. Did the Javik backlash actually penetrate EA's ears?

Is this current gen / PC only or is it also being made for last gen systems as well?

It's cross-gen.
 
7. Other information:

-There will be a jar of bees, which can be used as a combat item which according to Bioware: "You throw it, the jar breaks open, and little bees fly around stinging your opponents."
ibpK6sGpOdVhQh.gif
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
40 different endings AKA 40 different power point slides just like in the first game.

Pretty much, I expect the same 3 or so major ending variations with then a lot of medium to small variations depending on different factions you backed and didn't back, people you saved and other quests you completed. Which is totally fine and what you would hope and expect from a game like this, but the marketing of it is kind of stupid, but saying 40 endings it easier to relay and quicker than saying everything I just did.

Everything else sounds great though. It's really great that they aren't going with a DLC character again. It was cool the first time with Shale because that was a situation where we wouldn't have gotten her otherwise and the way they handled her dristribution was done well. But then Sebastian in DA2 and even worse Javik in ME3 was terrible and a practice that should die and stay dead.

I also hope they can get some kind of speech modification software in there that will work well, but I have my doubts it can be done effectively without having the odd hiccup every so often without manually making the alterations to each line of dialog, which is no small task. But 4 voices is still pretty good.
 
To be fair even CD Projekt has claimed there will be 50 ending or something within Witcher 3 then again those guys are crazy enough to pull it off. Wouldn't mind Fallout style slides as long as they are significant and varied AND we get a playable epilogue. I want to explore the aftermath! Why do we never get to do that?

No problem with the voices since people here whine anyway that all RPG's should be silent films

Finally,

Front_Jar_Bees.jpg


Has Bioware finally gone insane? Is this Saints Row now? Although I would love a humorous RPG for once since everything else is so goddamn serious like everyone has stick up their ass
 
Finally,

Front_Jar_Bees.jpg


Has Bioware finally gone insane? Is this Saints Row now? Although I would love a humorous RPG for once since everything else is so goddamn serious like everyone has stick up their ass

I think it will be a ranged sleep-like spell for the Rogue class. I believe Dragon Age 2 had some sort of jar-slinging ability for Rogues.
 

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
I really don't understand why anyone could be hyped for this after DA2 and the whole ME3 mess, I'll wait a few weeks after release and see how people feel.
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
I think it will be a ranged sleep-like spell for the Rogue class. I believe Dragon Age 2 had some sort of jar-slinging ability for Rogues.

Actually everyone had access to grenades and poisons. And they appear to be back in DAI, they show the Inquisitor using Combustion Grenades to set fire to the Red Templar boats in that one gameplay presentation.
 

RE_Player

Member
I have a feeling this game will be great. Bioware has something to prove and EA wants some of that Skyrim fantasy money. They were brutally rebuffed with Dragon Age 2, rightfully so, and they need this to be good to gain confidence for future projects like the next Mass Effect and new IP.
 
"Because of how deeply enmeshed in the system companion characters are, we can't just add them on the fly; part of them has to be shipped on the disc...which was led to criticism that we're forcing people to pay for content they already own. It's not the case, but we've decided this time to not go that route. There will be no DLC party members."

Good, finally. Late as hell to learn this but better then never. Although now I have to just speculate on what the inevitable day 1 dlc will be in its place. Watch it be even worse somehow.

The Inquisitor is the sole survivor of a reality-shattering event which results in the Fade tearing opening throughout Thedas.

I have the feeling thats whats happening in the trailer now. The assault on the gray warden fortress is probably that event. Or maybe not, but they do tend to excessively spoil the opening of their games.

Bioware is promising a staggering 40 possible endings for the game

They said ME3 would have 16. Just saying. Fool me, idk, three times? Noooo. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm keeping my expectations low. Variants in world state outside of the ending or just a cutscene chosen at the last second don't count as different endings. The differences have to be experienced and felt, not just implied or picked all willy nilly. As far as I'm concerned, ME3 has exactly 1 ending. I would love nothing more then a return to form, but I think it would be foolish to be anything but skeptical at this point. Prove me wrong please.


If you think I'm being too negative, I think I'm being too forgiving. Two years ago I thought I would never even consider playing a Bioware game ever again. I may have cooled off, but lava turns to obsidian.
 
I really don't understand why anyone could be hyped for this after DA2 and the whole ME3 mess, I'll wait a few weeks after release and see how people feel.
Because we kinda expect them to have learned from those 2 mistakes?

But I get the skepticism. They earned that one.
 

pottuvoi

Banned
40 endings? sssssuuuure....
Well, if they make the game properly there could be instant game ending choices, which could add endings quite fast.

IE.
Select option 'Step inside portal and have sex with a huge tentacle demon.'
Tell story how world becomes paradise without interactions of our hero and how he has fallen to deepest abyss to be rapturously ravaged by millions of tentacles.

Would fit usual Bioware mythos and would make certain group of players happy.
 

Patryn

Member
I really don't understand why anyone could be hyped for this after DA2 and the whole ME3 mess, I'll wait a few weeks after release and see how people feel.

Because they've actually had a reasonable amount of time to develop this game unlike those two, we can hope that they've learned from their mistakes and we like what they've shown thus far?
 
There will be no DLC Companions: According to Creative Director Mike Laidlaw: "Because of how deeply enmeshed in the system companion characters are, we can't just add them on the fly; part of them has to be shipped on the disc...which was led to criticism that we're forcing people to pay for content they already own. It's not the case, but we've decided this time to not go that route. There will be no DLC party members."

I don't think this is the right way to go. I thought all three DLC companions from DA/DA2 and ME3 were excellent, ME3 in particular. I hope this isn't a case of a small vocal minority who don't understand SDLC ruining everything because of paranoia, and EA just wants to avoid bad press.

Calling bullshit on this one.
Hope I'm wrong though

There were like 40 endings in DA1. Pretty much all slides with text on them. If people just absolutely hate the dialog wheel, they should love these endings, because you're essentially getting more written content for less expense.
 
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