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Dragon Age: Inquisition | E3 2014 Coverage

Really love the sound of full weapon building and customization. The armor combinations make me giddy too. The magic and other effects make combat look amazing, so I can't wait for that (magic needs dem particle effects)

Mark Darrah also responded to me on twitter and said a completionist playthrough would probably take longer than Origins. Origins was almost 60 hours for me with no DLC so buckle the fuck in.

No question I'm running the Iron Bull as my tank and Sera as ranged support. I need to know more about the other mage before I know if Vivienne will be my mage choice.
I'm speccing the Iron Bull for tanking too if they can do it better like in Origins as using a shield/1h actually raised your DPS and gave you less stun/knockdown resistance. Making Fenris the tank over Aveline only worked on easier settings because she actually got good damage negation abilities from using a sheild.

Everyone else though I'm reserving judgement until I see what buffs they'll give the rest of the group and how their friendliness can be changed.
 
For me lore, characters and story are more important in that type of RPGs than combat system. So my biggest gripe with DA2 is not in combat being hack&slashy or copy-pasted environments, but rather its failure to build upon awesome DA lore and its incomplete story (with some of the fragments seemingly missing).

We'll see how DA3 fairs in that regard, for now I remain cautiously optimistic.
 
Still easily the game I'm most looking forward to.

I am troubled by how little Bioware seems to be wanting to show off the tactical camera. It appears clear to me that they view this now first and foremost as an action game, which makes me wonder how useful the tactical view and pause and play will end up being.

However, it still totally has me pumped to play it.
 
Still easily the game I'm most looking forward to.

I am troubled by how little Bioware seems to be wanting to show off the tactical camera. It appears clear to me that they view this now first and foremost as an action game, which makes me wonder how useful the tactical view and pause and play will end up being.

However, it still totally has me pumped to play it.

I still need to see a real combat demo. Even what they showed on Twitch was less than half of the full demo reel, full thing is a 40 minutes long, and the E3 audience is mostly your console/not tactical audience so they're highlighting the more action style approach.

Otherwise the game looks really damn good.
 
I remember when I desperately tried to like DA2 because it was the only party-based RPG out there. Bad times, those.

Yes, god bless Obsidian for allowing me to shower them with money for Pillars of Eternity since that's basically what I wanted Dragon Age to become.


Everything I've seen of Inquisition looks better than DA2 and I'm still interested in the story as the lore of Dragon Age is somewhat interesting. But I'm just so skeptical about all of their other claims about the game in the wake of DA2.

Like, they're fine with saying over and over again how you can play it how you want but then they only show off the action game looking tight over the shoulder view. I just don't buy it that they'll be able to make the game have compelling and enjoyable combat that plays well on the more twitch based, action game side of things AND as a more traditional party based tactical RPG.
 
after the absolutely shameful release of DA2, i'm fine with waiting for maybe a GOTY edition for this before i buy it.

keep in mind there was no GOTY edition for DA2, or for Mass Effect 3 for that matter.... EA likes selling DLC (which doesnt go on sale very often)
 
So I'll be traveling during the IGN segment, which is in 45 minutes, here. Hopefully they have something good, but I expect it to just be more or less the same stuff as the Twitch stream.
 
It was the same Twitch demo but yeah, game's looking fantastic... but they need to make a better looking UI.

Yah some of it I like other parts not much. Something about the health and portrait icons bothers me a lot. Also the tactical camera stuff is pretty shoddy looking.
 
Just watched the live demo on IGN. I swear to fucking god if they kill off Leiliana.......

Well, you could kill her off in Origins and they brought her back so its not like death really means much in Dragon Age.

Yah some of it I like other parts not much. Something about the health and portrait icons bothers me a lot. Also the radical camera stiff is pretty shoddy looking.

How stiff the tactical camera looks bothers me. I don't care what they call it but just give me a camera that has some flexibility in being able to zoom back and rotate around smoothly. Basically, just use the camera you had in Origins on the PC.

How close the camera is to the player is what's driving me crazy in these videos. Even when they zoom out to the tactical view its like its only at a fixed angle that still doesn't let you really see everything that's going on around you since they have so many spell effects and ability effects cluttering up the screen.
 
Well, you could kill her off in Origins and they brought her back so its not like death really means much in Dragon Age.



How stiff the tactical camera looks bothers me. I don't care what they call it but just give me a camera that has some flexibility in being able to zoom back and rotate around smoothly. Basically, just use the camera you had in Origins on the PC.

How close the camera is to the player is what's driving me crazy in these videos. Even when they zoom out to the tactical view its like its only at a fixed angle that still doesn't let you really see everything that's going on around you since they have so many spell effects and ability effects cluttering up the screen.

Eh it's console play focused. I don't think it will control like that on PC, it needs to be alter due to console controls. Probably similar for why the camera defaults so close. The Pax demo showed the camera could go out really far and almost completely top down.
 
Game looks so fucking good. Goodbye social life. Going to officially become a hermit from September onwards (Destiny/Dragon Age/Battlefield).
 
Game looks so fucking good. Goodbye social life. Going to officially become a hermit from September onwards (Destiny/Dragon Age/Battlefield).

If everything stays on schedule, we'll get Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age, Witcher 3 and Bloodborne all within a 6 month period. HowDoIHoldAllTheseRPGs.jpeg
 
OK, back on board the hype train, that vid was pretty rad.

There were some interesting tidbits in there as well. Mike confirmed Dorian's name as Dorian, he's a Tevinter Magister and was actually the apprentice of that guy who they killed towards the end of the demo, Alexius, and Dorian wants to rid Tevinter of the corruption and abuse of power by mages that plagues it.

As well there is some shared ability pool in the game called Focus which can be used to cast some spells or abilities it seems. In the Dragon fight the Inquisitor used Haste which speeds up the party and slows everyone else down effectively. Thing is though Focus is built up by team cooperation, I'm assuming by doing stuff like freezing an enemy and then shattering them, stuff like that builds up that meter, but it's not something you can spam you use it and then it takes a while to fill back up so you have to be strategic to get it and strategic as when to use it.

As well Mike touches on tactical combat and how you can pause time, issue commands and go back to realtime combat on the fly, but then he mentions Engage Mode which he likens to X-Com or a board game where it's much more stop and go, so I guess it mimics pseudo rounds to combat so once your commands are issued and then carried out the game pauses again to let you issue more commands?
 
There were some interesting tidbits in there as well. Mike confirmed Dorian's name as Dorian, he's a Tevinter Magister and was actually the apprentice of that guy who they killed towards the end of the demo, Alexius, and Dorian wants to rid Tevinter of the corruption and abuse of power by mages that plagues it.

As well there is some shared ability pool in the game called Focus which can be used to cast some spells or abilities it seems. In the Dragon fight the Inquisitor used Haste which speeds up the party and slows everyone else down effectively. Thing is though Focus is built up by team cooperation, I'm assuming by doing stuff like freezing an enemy and then shattering them, stuff like that builds up that meter, but it's not something you can spam you use it and then it takes a while to fill back up so you have to be strategic to get it and strategic as when to use it.

As well Mike touches on tactical combat and how you can pause time, issue commands and go back to realtime combat on the fly, but then he mentions Engage Mode which he likens to X-Com or a board game where it's much more stop and go, so I guess it mimics pseudo rounds to combat so once your commands are issued and then carried out the game pauses again to let you issue more commands?

Wait, what? I have to watch this video, that sounds awesome!!!
 
Yea I am curious about the focus abilities as well. Is it simply another resource that regenerates over time or are there certain requirements to fill it up?

First I've heard about it.
 
Wait, what? I have to watch this video, that sounds awesome!!!

He only briefly mentions the last bit about Engage Mode, but that's what I gathered from it, he likened it to a board game or "classic X-Com" so I don't know how else to take that. It would be very much like BG2 and a lot of the Infinity Engine games which had the autopause feature for when combat turns ended since the underlying engine still followed D&D rules which used combat turns, but DA series doesn't do that, so I'm not so sure how it would work besides pausing after every command you issued was executed, effectively being combat turns.

Yea I am curious about the focus abilities as well. Is it simply another resource that regenerates over time or are there certain requirements to fill it up?

First I've heard about it.

Laidlaw said it was built up through group cooperation. So like I said it's probably things like using your mage to Freeze an enemy and then using a warrior to Shatter them with a shield bash or comparable attack, basically doing combos with various abilities. I'm sure there's other things too, but it seems to be focused...around group actions.
 
Character Profile: The Iron Bull

theironbull-newsbanner.jpg

wait a second: Weekes is working on this?! If so my faith is absolutely restored. If it wasn't for Hudson's shenanigans the entire ME3 game would have been Citadel DLC level of epic!
 
Lol. "Hey guys we have this action combat!" Shows clusterfuck of chaotic hack and slash footage. "Or you can use the totally revamped combat tactical camera!" Shows 2 seconds of a PowerPoint slide screenshot.


We need another developer to make the turn-based western fantasy game we all wanted the Dragon Age series to be. There is a real market there.
 
Read page 1 - people are underwhelmed. Read page 5 - people are hyped.

Wouldn't be a BioWare thread without wild fluctuations in attitudes. Expect it go south again when BioWare says or shows something people don't care for. Then it will be the worst game ever again.
 
Been considering pulling the trigger on the first game for a while now. Is this franchise worth getting into?
Depends if you like action with RPG elements (Witcher, Dark Souls, Batman) or party RPGs (BG, NWN).

If the former, then it's not really your bag.
 
Excited for what I have seen so far. Big fan of DAO, and while I was not impressed with DA2 I did enjoy my time with it.

Have they said anything about a co-op/multiplayer? I remember the whole "every EA game will have this", but I have yet to see them mention it yet... Was at least looking forward to a co-op mode similar to what Mass Effect 3 had...
 
Excited for what I have seen so far. Big fan of DAO, and it while I was not impressed with DA2 I did enjoy my time with it.

Have they said anything about a co-op/multiplayer? I remember the whole "every EA game will have this", but I have yet to see them mention it yet... Was at least looking forward to a co-op mode similar to what Mass Effect 3 had...

Co-op I think is definitely not going to happen, but I would almost be surprised to not see an ME3 style multiplayer mode. But there hasn't been any word yet on anything like that yet.

Also the EA thing was about micro-transactions, but they back tracked on that, so who knows.
 
Excited for what I have seen so far. Big fan of DAO, and while I was not impressed with DA2 I did enjoy my time with it.

Have they said anything about a co-op/multiplayer? I remember the whole "every EA game will have this", but I have yet to see them mention it yet... Was at least looking forward to a co-op mode similar to what Mass Effect 3 had...

Well Microsoft just said this: http://news.xbox.com/2014/06/events-e3-2014-recap

Microsoft said:
Electronic Arts and the renowned developer BioWare unveiled a new trailer for “Dragon Age: Inquisition” and announced that the first single-player add-on content will arrive first, exclusively on Xbox.
It's a bit odd to specify first single-player add-on content if all content is single-player.
 
On the E3 videos I watched, DA:I looked overly blotchy and oversaturated, like if they had the wrong color space or grading.
But then the gamersyde videos looked great to me, so I'm torn when it comes to DA:I graphics.
 
Someone recorded a longer cut of the DAI demo, this time with a Male Dwarf Warrior.

18 Minute long Offscreen Redcliffe Demo w/ Male Dwarf Warrior

Things in the demo include:
  • A Bear fight
  • Jumping
  • Persistent blood(which actually looks good)
  • Companions follow you they don't just disappear
  • New convo
  • Several combat encounters w/ mages, including pause and play and tactical camera
  • FF is off in this demo at least
  • Loot window and item stats
  • Menu wheel and horse whistle
  • Party Banter and ambient dialog
  • Inventory and Ability screens
  • Out of combat abilities, Vivienne uses Energize to rebuild a fallen bridge.
 
On the E3 videos I watched, DA:I looked overly blotchy and oversaturated, like if they had the wrong color space or grading.
But then the gamersyde videos looked great to me, so I'm torn when it comes to DA:I graphics.
It is a refreshing change, the previous two DAs were pretty brown and grime.
 
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