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Dragon Age announcement teased for December
- Thread starter Fbh
- Start date
KyanMehwulfe
Member
I loved the maps in a sort of static sense... The lack of change hurt the replay value... but the very specific time of day and weather also made a lot of them highly thematic...
Sort of like how in Duskwood in WoW, it's always dark. Same thing how it was always rainy and dark at Crestwood or the Fallow Mire in DAI.
Going back in free roam, sure, I prefer dynamic time of day and weather, but I gotta admit for the first time there doing the story, there is something positive about the dev locking an area to its one perfect time of day and weather to amplify its mood.
The other thing that was often a flaw but had some benefit to it was that though the maps were often kinda linear with too many 'corridors,' the way it guided you through the map sometimes made for some pretty perfect vistas. Especially those desert areas or the dragon areas... you'd come through some winding corridors that would normally feel linear and artificial, but it would perfect set up a view that felt straight out of a Larry Elmore painting.
Sort of like how in Duskwood in WoW, it's always dark. Same thing how it was always rainy and dark at Crestwood or the Fallow Mire in DAI.
Going back in free roam, sure, I prefer dynamic time of day and weather, but I gotta admit for the first time there doing the story, there is something positive about the dev locking an area to its one perfect time of day and weather to amplify its mood.
The other thing that was often a flaw but had some benefit to it was that though the maps were often kinda linear with too many 'corridors,' the way it guided you through the map sometimes made for some pretty perfect vistas. Especially those desert areas or the dragon areas... you'd come through some winding corridors that would normally feel linear and artificial, but it would perfect set up a view that felt straight out of a Larry Elmore painting.
nowhat
Member
Count me in "I didn't hate DA:I, as a matter of fact I quite liked it"-camp as well.
I think calling it a single-player MMO is a valid criticism though, up to a point at least, but here's the thing - you are not forced to do all of the content. If you're very OCD and feel compelled to clear every map marker and do every task you're given, you will have a dull experience. Instead, just gather enough power to be able to progress the story/unlock a new area and onward you go.
Another major design flaw was Hinterlands. Yes, technically Haven is the tutorial area, but so are parts of Hinterlands. But it's also a huge map that contains places you shouldn't visit until much later in the game. Many players just stuck in Hinterlands for way too long, and sure, trying to grind it out and level up enough to fight the dragon/clear that one goddamned rift is a chore. It's no surprise that the highest-voted post ever in /r/dragonage is (or was, up until 5 months ago) "PSA - Leave the fucking Hinterlands".
But still, I'm looking forward to a sequel (although I'm skeptical one will be announced next month). Trespasser ended in a very interesting way, potential for a decent sequel (plot-wise at least) is certainly there.
ChuckeRearmed
Member
Haven't completed anything aside DA:O. Tried 2 and never touched Inquisition.
DA: O was just too great and left only warm feelings.
DA: O was just too great and left only warm feelings.
kraspkibble
Permabanned.
can't be any worse than inquisition surely. i might give the series another shot.
Ozymandias013
Banned
Lost my interest in this series after 2 bad games
General Lee
Member
Not expecting anything interesting tbh, no remasters, no DA4 announcement, and no tactics game (I think this was already answered by Bioware previously, they had no plans). Considering stuff like Xbox backwards compatibility and enhancements count as announcement worthy stuff I'm not a believer in anything noteworthy being announced before Anthem launch.
Shai-Tan
Banned
yes, seems like they were too ambitious with the number of zones not populated with content. Hopefully that's why they embraced boring MMO quest design, as well as the collecting every ten feet. Some of the shard collecting was good because it made you traverse into hard to get to places but some of the shards and other objects were strewn about like your second job is garbage collector. The other strange aspect of their design is how almost all dialogue and interaction is concentrated into your base like one team made the nice looking world, one team populated it with mmo crap then one team made the base, its dialogue and branching quests with only a little work connecting disparate parts of the game.
I would have liked the zones more if the combat was compelling. It was dumbed down even compared to Dragon Age 2. It's like they decided it's an action game some time in development but still design the button pressing like it's a pause based strategy game. One of those two directions needed to be more developed for it to be fun for me. I played Dragon Age 2 (as an archer class) immediately before Inquisition and to me DA2 was better developed as an action game even if it was mediocre compared to other action games, whereas DAI they split the difference towards a hybrid combat that would satisfy few people who like strategy or action, stripping away what is good about both types of gameplay, in my opinion
Fbh
Member
I didn't mind the cast. Both elven characters were pretty bad but the rest was fine IMO. There was some fun party banter while exploring. My biggest disappointment with the support character was that some of their personal missions were pretty underwhelming.
Yeah, I think having lots of MMO style quests is definitely a valid criticism but some people like to act as if they were forced to do all of them. I managed to get through the game perfectly fine just doing the fun side content and ignoring 90% of the fetch quest.
But for a sequel I think the team should definitely focus on having less stuff but having it be better. Instead of 200 sidequests out of which 180 or MMO style stuff why not "just" have 30 or 40 but have them be well done?.
Or they could at least put them in different categories. Use "sidequest" for the more complex and well designed stuff and call all the MMO stuff "tasks" or something like that so it's easier to know what to ignore
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Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Agreed. Not being open world was not the problem at all. The loot is awful, the story, characters and dialogue are bad, and worst of all, the combat is boring.
anthraticus
Banned
Even the first Dragon Age was supposed to be some kind of spirutal successor to Baldurs Gate or something, but is was too dumbed down with too many mmo influences shoved in there, mechanics wise. And they world they created was pretty shitty compared to actual D&D, fighting those boring darkspawn over & over & over.
It's just there were no classic/traditional RPGs really being made at the time, so cRPG fans would take anything they could get at that point.
It's just there were no classic/traditional RPGs really being made at the time, so cRPG fans would take anything they could get at that point.
Helios
Member
It'll be a sequel to the flash game, Dragon Age: Legends. I'm sure it will sell like hot cakes.Hey I actually liked all three of the DA games but please, no mobile. You guys already have a mobile game anyways in Heroes of Dragon Age
Kadayi
Banned
My concern is that Bioware much like Bethesda have a tendency to play to formula without much regard to what's going on around them in terms of responsiveness. Not only are we now in a post-Witcher 3 RPG period, but we are also in an age where Game of Thrones with its shades of grey characterisation has become part and parcel of the mainstream cultural fabric and makes the Lord of the Rings Good Vs Evil nature of the previous Dragon Age titles seems rather quaint if not outright antiquated, with its Dudley DoRights and Dick Dasterly level characterisatiosn. If anything I'd welcome them perhaps reimagining their world-building from the ground up on a deep level and coming up with something a bit more gritty with characters who are less well rounded and prone to wearing their hearts on their sleeves. The worst kind of fantasy environments are those that feel like D&D dress up and DA definitely suffered from a lot of that. Far too much pandering to modern mores, versus grounding the characters in the nature of their reality in terms of their understanding and comprehension of what is going on, and their relationship to it. I think Kingdomcome deliverance is a great example of a game that tries to do that and for the most part, succeeds and is all the better for it as experiences go.
They also need to get a handle the scope and scale of what to deliver and when. The fundamental problem with DA:O was that is in many ways a main course instead of a starter. You go from Zero to the Hero of Fereleden. With DA2 they tried to tell a less grandiose story, and it kind of blew up on them as a result. It would have been far better to have told a smaller more modest but deep story early on and then built upon it with the sequels.
For my sins, I quite enjoyed the flash games they did. Good times.
They also need to get a handle the scope and scale of what to deliver and when. The fundamental problem with DA:O was that is in many ways a main course instead of a starter. You go from Zero to the Hero of Fereleden. With DA2 they tried to tell a less grandiose story, and it kind of blew up on them as a result. It would have been far better to have told a smaller more modest but deep story early on and then built upon it with the sequels.
For my sins, I quite enjoyed the flash games they did. Good times.
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Pallas
Gold Member
They kind of did that with DA:I though and I believe it truly was a good game but catches too much flak for its pseudo-open world with those fetch quests.
TeamGhobad
Banned
Did Inquisition do well?
Cyber Caesar
Member
Bioware is still in the running for world's best RPG developer. Legacy might be all that's left, but if they close the studio we will only get one decent WRPG every six or seven years. So I'm looking forward to Bioware returning to form for the overall health of the genre.
TheShadowLord
Member
i would accept a new dragon age if it was the turn-based strategy at the very least. It might not be big a budget game, but it still has the chance of being good.
Kadayi
Banned
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. However in fairness to DA:I, I never finished it. I definitely was in the final act when I left, but TW3 came along and ate its lunch and albeit I have tried to revisit it since ultimately the enthusiasm isn't there. I wouldn't put that solely down to TW3 though (its good, but not great IMHO), more a result of a certain ennui with the storyline and the systems and a desire for something meatier.
Black_Wolf
Neo Member
I hope they steer away from the Inquisition and Andromeda route and return to their roots with something like Origins. While it wasn’t an “open world” game, it wasn’t so geographically small that the whole game felt like a conglomerate of corridors (like Dragon Age 2).
My main issue with Inquisition and Andromeda aligns with the consensus here - it was the bloat. The games had the typical 30-hours worth of BioWare story but diluted the product by stretching it out over miles of empty terrain and a plethora of not-so-interesting tasks/side quests. While it still had a wonky story and a forgettable cast, I think Andromeda would’ve been much better received if it were structured more concisely, like Mass Effect 2.
My main issue with Inquisition and Andromeda aligns with the consensus here - it was the bloat. The games had the typical 30-hours worth of BioWare story but diluted the product by stretching it out over miles of empty terrain and a plethora of not-so-interesting tasks/side quests. While it still had a wonky story and a forgettable cast, I think Andromeda would’ve been much better received if it were structured more concisely, like Mass Effect 2.
Inspector Q
Member
What was up with the enemy designs in DA2 and DAI? I remember in DAO you would have enemy mages that had different spells at their disposal that could possibly wipe your party if you left them alone. Then you have DA2 and DAI where every mage in the game is a carbon copy of each other. No variation from enemy to enemy. They all act exactly the same from the beginning of the game to the end. Terrible design.
Then somehow they have gone backwards since DAO on animations. In DAO, you would have these cool little animations that the enemies could do where for example a spider will pounce on one of your party members and you would have to attack/cc it to get it off of them. Or even for the player, in DAO you would occasionally get these nicely animated kill moves that you would do to an enemy, like a swift decapitation or you would smash them in the face with your shield, etc. Then you get to DA2 and they replace all unique finishing moves with random body explosions. Like...what?
But the worst thing for me when it comes to DAI specifically, is the lack of character interaction in the large zones they created. Take one of the smaller zones, The Fallow Mire, for example. Why can't we interact with The Hand of Korth at the end? He ends up being just another random big dude who swings his weapon around like an idiot. No interesting dialogue or different ways to resolve the conflict with him, you know, things that you would expect in a Bioware game. And that is just one example, but it is pretty much par for the course for every open world zone in the game. Great looking environments, but very little in the way of character interaction/dialogue.
The only thing that I would say definitely improved from DAO in the two sequels are the armor designs. If you weren't a fan of full plate mail then DAO's armor designs left a lot to be desired. The sequels at least offered some nicer looking light/medium armor designs.
Anyway, as much as I dislike DAI, that still doesn't mean I want the series to die or anything. I just want to see them improve on several of these key aspects that have been lacking in the last few games. Here's hoping they do.
Then somehow they have gone backwards since DAO on animations. In DAO, you would have these cool little animations that the enemies could do where for example a spider will pounce on one of your party members and you would have to attack/cc it to get it off of them. Or even for the player, in DAO you would occasionally get these nicely animated kill moves that you would do to an enemy, like a swift decapitation or you would smash them in the face with your shield, etc. Then you get to DA2 and they replace all unique finishing moves with random body explosions. Like...what?
But the worst thing for me when it comes to DAI specifically, is the lack of character interaction in the large zones they created. Take one of the smaller zones, The Fallow Mire, for example. Why can't we interact with The Hand of Korth at the end? He ends up being just another random big dude who swings his weapon around like an idiot. No interesting dialogue or different ways to resolve the conflict with him, you know, things that you would expect in a Bioware game. And that is just one example, but it is pretty much par for the course for every open world zone in the game. Great looking environments, but very little in the way of character interaction/dialogue.
The only thing that I would say definitely improved from DAO in the two sequels are the armor designs. If you weren't a fan of full plate mail then DAO's armor designs left a lot to be desired. The sequels at least offered some nicer looking light/medium armor designs.
Anyway, as much as I dislike DAI, that still doesn't mean I want the series to die or anything. I just want to see them improve on several of these key aspects that have been lacking in the last few games. Here's hoping they do.
levyjl1988
Banned
If it's not a Dragon Age: Origins remaster, then forget it. Dragon Age has gotten progressively worse after Dragon Age Origins. It seems like game designers don't know how to game design. There are always unappealing, non-thought out fillers. No one likes radiant quests. It's pretty much a damn fetch quest to artificially inflate the game. As a person who works full time, I would rather get quality masterpieces than pieces of shit.