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New Dragon Age Inquisition progress update and screenshots [Up: Additional Screens]

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WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Sure signs that I am clinically insane: I liked both the Orzammar tunnels and the Fade. The Fade in particular felt like a fun area with some interesting

I did too. I mean, the Fade was annoying on second playthrough, but the Deep Roads? Well, it's freaking called the Deep Roads and the lore is that it's an underground network of highways that cross basically the entire world. It would have been much worse if it was short and generic. Instead we got to go find hidden, undiscovered Thaigs, find treasures lost for centuries, encounter crazy hermits, fight the creepy ass Broodmother, resurrect golems, make a tough moral choice at the end of it all and expand upon the story of one your companions. It was a good old fashioned dungeon crawl, that oh, by the way, you could do in chunks.
 

hemtae

Member
I liked the deep roads but my favorite mod for Origins is called "Skip the Fade".

Kinda sad we're unlikely to see mod support again.
 

Staf

Member
I like the Fade and the Deep roads. Sure, i can agree that the Fade is not as much fun to play after the first time but i would not consider it a shore. The Deep roads i never get tired of - i just wish it was darker, would make the experience even greater.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Co-signed. Create-a-character just ends up as some nameless cipher who everyone has to refer to as a title. "Grey Warden", etc. No thanks.

Except you always have a name. You're never nameless.

You're not supposed to be playing the character they made for you in those games. You're playing a role with a character you create. Whereas a game like The Witcher or every JRPG ever made, ever puts you into a defined character, the classic role playing fun of making your own character, making choices and decisions that define that character is an absolute necessity to have in the RPG landscape.

And if the issue is that they sometimes have to refer to you by a titles, well, that's an issue with the writing. It was far worse to have everybody mention Hawke every five minutes. However, it worked with Sheppard because she was Commander sometimes and Sheppard other times. Not to mention that Sheppard was in the military, so the consistent use of the last name rang true.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Only if you consider real life awkward, because that's what happens here. Either your last or your first name is used. People don't run around calling me "College Student".

Probably because that's not an honorific. If you were Doctor, they'd be calling you doctor. If you were a colonel, they'd be calling you colonel.
 

Some Nobody

Junior Member
Except you always have a name. You're never nameless.

You're not supposed to be playing the character they made for you in those games. You're playing a role with a character you create. Whereas a game like The Witcher or every JRPG ever made, ever puts you into a defined character, the classic role playing fun of making your own character, making choices and decisions that define that character is an absolute necessity to have in the RPG landscape.

And if the issue is that they sometimes have to refer to you by a titles, well, that's an issue with the writing. It was far worse to have everybody mention Hawke every five minutes. However, it worked with Sheppard because she was Commander sometimes and Sheppard other times. Not to mention that Sheppard was in the military, so the consistent use of the last name rang true.

It's not that I don't understand what you're saying...it's that I grew up on J-RPGs. And I'll never get used to playing a character that's not defined. It always feels false. I said "cipher" in an earlier post and that's exactly how it feels. GAF doesn't seem to care for it, but Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is one of my favorite games of all time...and one of the things I actually hated about it was how they called me "The Fateless One" all the time. It made me feel less like a part of that universe--it was consistently immersion-breaking.
 

hemtae

Member
Only if you consider real life awkward, because that's what happens here. Either your last or your first name is used. People don't run around calling me "College Student".

Everybody I know doesn't refer to me by my last name like Shepard and Hawke. Even worse in the case of Hawke where they referred to his brother/sister by Carver/Bethany.
 
I loved the Fade the first time I played it, but puzzles are a waste of time on a second playthrough. I'm at the Fade now on a second run of Origins. Gotta try to muscle through.
 

milena87

Member
I'm not talking tutorial... I'm talking the opening mining station area, which also seems to be hated.

Ah, I always thought that people meant the tutorial. I liked the first level of KotOR 2 as well, then. It's kinda like the one of KotOR1, but with Kreia. Everything is better with Kreia.
 
I got through the Deep Roads by using Morrigan. She could transform into some flying swarm thing which made her super fast. Take control of her, zip to the next part, wait for party to rubber band.
 
Everybody I know doesn't refer to me by my last name like Shepard and Hawke. Even worse in the case of Hawke where they referred to his brother/sister by Carver/Bethany.

My characters' names were Hawke Hawke and Shepard Shepard, so I have no idea what you're talking about.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
It's not that I don't understand what you're saying...it's that I grew up on J-RPGs. And I'll never get used to playing a character that's not defined. It always feels false. I said "cipher" in an earlier post and that's exactly how it feels. GAF doesn't seem to care for it, but Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is one of my favorite games of all time...and one of the things I actually hated about it was how they called me "The Fateless One" all the time. It made me feel less like a part of that universe--it was consistently immersion-breaking.

Well, that's a common complaint from people who prefer JRPGs. Personally, I like both, but certain games lend themselves to certain approaches better. Games where your choice matters, where you decide the characters attitude, disposition, companions, etc, I think are better served with allowing you full control over the character. That's the very basis of RPGs. Make a character and adventure with it. Personal preferences and all, but I'm glad this style of game exists and I'm glad it's not trying to be a JRPG.

Hook it to my veins pls

How is Dragon Age the one think you don't hate, Silky?
 

Gvaz

Banned
I loved DAO and spent close to 90 hours on it, but lets be real now:

Fade was awful
Orz was cool
Politics in orz was BORING (noble dwarf start or whatever is so BORING AND UNINTERESTING)
and the beginning of the game just really stunk

lets not forget bioware has NO fucking idea what balance means in their harder difficulties. I don't even think they try it themselves. Examples:

In ME3/ME2:
Insanity and hard is literally just damage+ and health+ to the enemies, and you deal less damage. That's not hard, with their designs in place, it ends up being really plodding and tedious and oops you popped your head out for 1.75 seconds too long, time to hug that cover and pop a medpack with veins all over your screen making it hard to see that guy flank you. Oh time to restart. That's just frustrating.
In SWTOR (or as everyone in Starfleet Dental used to say "sweater"):
EVERYTHING. The entire thing was based upon having a companion to the point where if you didn't have your companion out, or someone with you, it was long, slow, and you'll probably die because you don't do enough damage, especially if you're a squishy class. Oh, and your "tank" character dies like a bitch very easily too unless you hold the game's hand. Don't even get me started on the raids. I will rant for fucking pages.
in DA2:
Take ME3 Insanity mode for nightmare, then put in friendly fire. Now those spells you're using to try and plink away at the absurd healthbars of normal and elite enemies, well, they kind of one shot things. Things here being your own squadmates. Your squadmates, who by the way are colossal retards, even when you do custom tactics, they still like using spells they shouldn't be using, or activating sustained abilities they simply shouldn't ever use in 99% of situations. Or they'll be like "i'm attacking that guy there! oh sorry i ran into Temptest and died because you looked away for half a second even though you're pausing every 1-2 seconds in combat, lolz" Couple that with no cancel ability and instant teleported in new waves of enemies, inability to use threat drops/cancels due to animation locks, or any move for that matter, and you're not going to have a fun time. Oh did I mention improper aggro threat usage? There's no table, it's whoever is doing the most damage in a 10m area nearest me, dragging trash mobs near the tank and threat dropping while the tank aoe taunts (no directed non-gc taunt) and it's like im playing goddamn vanilla wow all over again.

/rants
 
Did anyone feel Origins had terrible balance to? Doing Main Quests I was child of Kratos and Dante in terms of combat prowess but travelling from Mages Tower to Denerim I get ambushed by a bunch of bandits who steamroll me. And don't get me started on the Zevran encounter. I finished Redcliffe by sacrificing Connor's mother, begin travelling to Mage Tower and BAM! Zevran shows up and wipes out my entire crew.

Late game travelling around Deverim seemed like a chore too. The quest/mission enemies were nowhere as tough as the random mobs. Why is that?

EDIT:

For voice acting, even if you don't have the protagonist speak (and you only need 2 voice i.e. male & female), you have to record the responses for your much beloved detailed dialogue options.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Everybody I know doesn't refer to me by my last name like Shepard and Hawke. Even worse in the case of Hawke where they referred to his brother/sister by Carver/Bethany.

This is why these kind of characters should have set first names. Let players name the profile or saves so that finding the right one is no problem.
If players complain they can't name the character, let them write the middle name.
 

Gvaz

Banned
This is why these kind of characters should have set first names. Let players name the profile or saves so that finding the right one is no problem.
If players complain they can't name the character, let them write the middle name.

It's still your "name" though, why does it matter?

So everyone calls you steve and your last name is bob. no one's calling you bob or vice versa. Last name makes it more formal, whereas firstname is informal. and they're not going to let you write your own name when it's spoken.
 

Woorloog

Banned
It's still your "name" though, why does it matter?

So everyone calls you steve and your last name is bob. no one's calling you bob or vice versa. Last name makes it more formal, whereas firstname is informal. and they're not going to let you write your own name when it's spoken.

What? I don't get what you mean.

I think characters should have set first and last name because being called by a honorific or last name all the time is really silly.
The only exception are games that don't have any voicing whatsoever (or extremely limited voicing, like merely bosses having voice).
 

milena87

Member
Did anyone feel Origins had terrible balance to? Doing Main Quests I was child of Kratos and Dante in terms of combat prowess but travelling from Mages Tower to Denerim I get ambushed by a bunch of bandits who steamroll me. And don't get me started on the Zevran encounter. I finished Redcliffe by sacrificing Connor's mother, begin travelling to Mage Tower and BAM! Zevran shows up and wipes out my entire crew.

Yes, the game was not greatly balanced and there were some harder encounters by design (like the Cauthrien fight). Difficulty in DAO depended on your party, though. With 2 mages you could easily win everything (even without Arcane Warrior or Blood mage).
I thought the game was harder at first, when I was forced to have Alistair in my party and I didn't have many crowd control spells. Much easier later on.

DA2 tried to balance things and after the last patch I think it's fine. Random enemies are still tedious, but at least they don't have a gazillon HPs anymore. Boos fights are still challenging, of course.

What really tired me however was the sheer quantity of enemies that we had to kill. If they can deliver less, but more meaningful (and varied) encounters in DAI I'd be really happy.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Sure signs that I am clinically insane: I liked both the Orzammar tunnels and the Fade. The Fade in particular felt like a fun area with some interesting puzzle solving.

Final confirmation (unrelated to DA): I also really liked the opening area of KOTOR2.

I didnt care for the tunnels but sign me up for The Fade and Peragus love.

Telos was terrible though.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Some of this was intentional. They wanted to to follow a path but to also keep the illusion of an open world. So they put in overpowered encounters to act as barriers.

Meatgates are the worst type of blockers, for a stubborn player can get through them to an area that is too difficult.
And since retreat is not an option, people rarely realize when enemies are meatgates (showing enemy levels like in MMOs would solve this).
Just bad design.
 

Portugeezer

Member
Meatgates are the worst type of blockers, for a stubborn player can get through them to an area that is too difficult.
And since retreat is not an option, people rarely realize when enemies are meatgates (showing enemy levels like in MMOs would solve this).
Just bad design.

Like the skeletons in Dark Souls. I stubbornly made my way past them but then got my ass kicked when I did. I guess I should have realised, but it's not a given that a player will realise (and Dark Souls being known as a hard game)
 

manfestival

Member
DAO was in fact an ugly game to me. However, I loved the lore, conversation choices, hidden bits(enchantment), characters, and I really enjoyed the grandeur generic plot. Campfires were always a blast. Building character relationships felt more meaningful than mass effect. Also I absolutely loved the unique origin stories to every character, as well as the different reactions from NPCs to your species/gender/morality. I felt like the majority of this was missed out in place for a more streamlined experience in DA2.

I want DA3 to be good. DA2 felt more like 25% the game that DAO.
 
God I love their art. Seeing all the variety in the locations gives me a lot of hope. You can do it Bioware. Just imagine all of these in game on Frostbite 3. Gotdamn

sunbeam.jpg


chains.jpg


greenwater.jpg


mountain.jpg


waterfall.jpg


cemetary.jpg


graytomb.jpg


hiding.jpg


FUyobrs.jpg


t58hCN3.jpg


8SAgb6b.jpg
 

spekkeh

Banned
I can't believe wtf I'm reading. You guys liked the Deep Roads? Holy shit y'all have the patience of enlightened Tibetan monks.
 

Jon Armdog

Member
Except you always have a name. You're never nameless.

You're not supposed to be playing the character they made for you in those games. You're playing a role with a character you create. Whereas a game like The Witcher or every JRPG ever made, ever puts you into a defined character, the classic role playing fun of making your own character, making choices and decisions that define that character is an absolute necessity to have in the RPG landscape.

And if the issue is that they sometimes have to refer to you by a titles, well, that's an issue with the writing. It was far worse to have everybody mention Hawke every five minutes. However, it worked with Sheppard because she was Commander sometimes and Sheppard other times. Not to mention that Sheppard was in the military, so the consistent use of the last name rang true.

I'm with you on this, man.

At this point, I greatly prefer the sort of "Western" style RPG over the JPGs; to me, they fit the name better. Role Playing Game = playing a role, or putting yourself into a role via an avatar. I consider it to be very important in an RPG that I can create the character. Thinking about games I have enjoyed the most over the last five years or so (Dragon's Dogma, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Dark Souls), most of them had a character creator. And it might be one of the reasons why I struggled to get into the Witcher.
 

LuuKyK

Member
This game gets me so hyped. I truly can't wait to finally play it. Please deliver Bioware!

Also, the thought of a next-gen Mass Effect in the same level of this art/graphics seen here. Leaves me thirsty.
 
will i miss out if i've never played the previous games?
like is the story all interconnected?
They're interconnected in that they all take place in the same overarching world and will retain some characters from the previous 2 games. You'll go to places that were pivotal in previous games and come across characters and story elements that you probably won't understand unless you played the first 2 games.

Still, it's not 100% essential. Just read the story synopsis on Wikipedia and you'll be good to go.
 

LastNac

Member
Sure signs that I am clinically insane: I liked both the Orzammar tunnels and the Fade. The Fade in particular felt like a fun area with some interesting puzzle solving.

Final confirmation (unrelated to DA): I also really liked the opening area of KOTOR2.

giphy.gif
 

LastNac

Member
Only if you consider real life awkward, because that's what happens here. Either your last or your first name is used. People don't run around calling me "College Student".

So your love interest in your most personal and intimate moments together calls you by your last name?
 
not sure if this piece was posted yet:

BbtLnTNCQAAX1Uj.jpg:large


can't wait to see this game at E3. It's bound to be there since its supposed to come out this year.
 
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