silvermember
Banned
In your comparison, how much of the 800,000 words were voiced?
Dragon Age: Inquisition Review Thread
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Admiral Woofington
Member
Glad to see you on board what will most likely be GOTY.
There's a recent thread created by Ralemont to help Dragon Age newbies and those that have questions:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931900
There's a basic explanation of the world and a timeline in the OP, and a couple of posts below I posted some youtube links to some really well done Dragon Age lore series videos. You have the community at your disposal for any questions. The more people to enjoy the game with and talk in the OT the better.
CrichtonKicks
Member
The idea is that every time you venture forth from a camp your progress is limited by resources. In previous games your health and mana reset after every single battle. Now you have a limited amount of healing opportunities that are reset if you return to camp of find a new camp. So the system provides a bit of risk/reward for further exploration, especially since there is no level scaling.
Thanks for that, only just seen your link as didnt show up on phone.
Check out this thread - it'll give you some of the lore of the DA world. Also, use the Dragon Age Keep and possibly the wiki
Hah, ninja'd by Barkspawn's owner It should be pretty accessible since this is Bioware.
What does having voice overs have to do with the quality of the writing? Which was the only argument i was making.
Admiral Woofington
Member
The game should have codex entries in-game to give you background info on material not related to the current plot. And usually they're very good on having questions for characters so they can give more background. But if not look at the post of mine right above you and click that link. DA fans, such as myself, are answering questions and posting information about the lore (First page has the OP and some links to youtube video series).
By not having played the previous two games you'll miss references to previous events and won't recognize characters, including returning party members, but it's a self-contained story in a universe full of shit happening. Whenever the OT for Dragon Age Inquisition is posted it will have a summary of the events of the previous two games. Mix that with the thread I linked above and you should be decently ok going into the game.
edit: I see you saw the link haha, good show
shinobi602
Member
Morning.
Another day at work. Another fucking day without Dragon Age.
Another day at work. Another fucking day without Dragon Age.
I don't think Polygon was arguing that all video game writers have always been bad (he may not have played Planescape for all we know), just that it's tough to maintain that level of consistency and believability in a game spanning 80 hours or more - and that Bioware writers have managed it, which I think is fair enough and something deserving of recognition.
I loved the companions and the writing in general in PS:T - but really, that game was an exceptionally rare gem in so many ways.
I'm in the weekend shift so two days sat in the house cursing all my games for not being Inquisition. Damn them!
Eudaemonium
Member
Well, the main difference is that you were comparing 80,000 *spoken lines of dialogue* to 800,000 words total, which isn't remotely comparable.
Admiral Woofington
Member
After today I'll start playing the copy of ACU my gamefly sent me. I'll probably return it this tuesday as I have no desire to play it. Plus it isn't doing spectacularly with critics or fans either.
TheExecutive
Member
EXACT same boat.
I'd like to hear you stabby rogue impressions since that's the class I'll be going with.
Where are you getting 80,000 from? Aaryn Flynn talked about "almost a million"
You are mistaking two very different concepts, voice overs are not indicative of quality of writing.
Tell me, what do you think is harder, maintaining consistency and quality over a 800.000 word script or a 80.000 script?
Anyways, my beef with the article in question has nothing to do with DA:I or its voice overs or its writers. I just pointed out that the reasoning behind some of the opinions the writer made was faulty.
Games like Arcanum, PS:T, Vampire Bloodlines (which had voiced dialogue), amongst others, managed to produce great characters, great stories, and a lot of writing depth, even tho they were made years ago. To simply sweep all these great rpg's under the mat because the writer thinks DA:I is awesome, is disingenuous to say the least.
It's not their fault for not knowing better, it is our job as Qunari to show them right way.
Edit: Just learned that Qunari inquisitor has never followed Qun and this is canon for DAI by BioWare. I'm kinda disappointed in this for some reason.
He never talked about if it is in VO or not. Voice overed dialogue won't magically make game good or deep experience if writing itself isn't working. Besides nothing in modern tech prevents you from putting VO to 800 000 words if you just choose to do it.
But original point he made was that games with deep characters etc. isn't anything new under the sun as games from years ago did it already. VO has nothing to do with it.
Yes, we now have the full Rift mage tree, but scattered in different places (hope Dawg or someone else put them all in a single post). This is the most complete.
IMHO, Rift is the less interesting of most specializations because:
1. With one exception, talents are not related to "rifts" at all. Seem somewhat (but not fully) akin to a "force/gravity" mage.
2. Its Focus talent (Firestorm) should be in the Fire tree. And while quite a destructive AOE, archers and mages now move when attacked. So, will need other Crowd controlling effects -prior and after- to make it effective. But your mage cannot move while casting it, so you will always need assistance.
3. The passives are based on "weakened" effect. Which means no damage to enemies/barriers/guard, nor crowd control. Not even sure if there are other classes that generates that status. So, its "combo-able" effectiveness is unclear.
4. To make it worse -it seems- that only 1 of your actives generates the "weakened" status. So you are forced to use it, to take advantage of said passives.
5. Also, for passives to be more effective, you need to be close to multiple enemies. So you will be in more risk. And can't move. And the gains are quite pitiful.
6. Again, weakened means that enemies hit less hard. But if your mage is constantly being hit, you are doing it wrong.
I'm sure someone will find a good combo for it. But even then, the Elemental talents have better synergy, cost less mana and are more versatile. So, the main reason to pick it up would be for Story reasons (why I was interested) or to have a 2nd Firestorm to rain on bosses.
Read First Paragraph "Great! Maybe I will play a DPS warrior instead of a bow rogue"
Read Second paragraph "Well nevermind, Archer is fun. I'll stick with that, at least that solidifies that I won't play a Tank"
Read Fourth Paragraph "Well S***"
Admiral Woofington
Member
Makes sense the inquisitor never followed the qun. If he did all his decisions would be revolving around the qun and its very strict teachings. Heck the mage qunari would start out as a slave and chained up, not having much free will to do anything.
A lot actually, when you have a text based came its easy to make tweaks to the story and the writing. When most things are Voice Acted every change necessitates an actor and actress going into a recording studio
I still think it has certain plot hole in it.
At the beginning you are fully grown, adult, Qunari who just happened to be in wrong place at wrong time. Being Qunari would mean that at some point of our lives we would have been exposed to the Qun. Why we never followed it then, what made us to not accept it?
Are we some weird Qunari that was raised by wolv... I mean humans/elves/dwarfs?
Just seems weird that being from race whose whole name and identity comes from religion it follows, the Qun, but you are that one Qunari who has never followed it. Not turned away from the Qun, just never even followed it.
darkwing-buck
Member
Is it worth it to finish origins ? I own it for the ps3 and played it quite a bit, however some of the technical problems irked me and I stopped playing since then.
Man, now I'm conflicted if I should make my second playthrough a necromancer or a rift mage? They both sound a bit dull, but I don't want to go through the game twice as knight enchanter. 
Also, I'm sad that Reaver is so offensive. I was hoping I could build my Iron Bull to be a tank, but no matter how I see it, Cassandra is just the best alternative. Too bad she's so terrible, and Iron Bull is so amazing. The downside of character specific specializations.
Also, I'm sad that Reaver is so offensive. I was hoping I could build my Iron Bull to be a tank, but no matter how I see it, Cassandra is just the best alternative. Too bad she's so terrible, and Iron Bull is so amazing. The downside of character specific specializations.
IAmRandom31
Banned
I am having a major mental battle figuring out whether I should pick up Dragons Age or GTAV
I can only get one on the 18th.
Oh man, choosing sucks ass.
Either way I am missing out on great fun ( supposedly )
I have experienced GTAV before, never beat it though. I gave up on it about right when I hit online and saw how bad it was. And the games performance and horrible IQ really killed it for me on the PS3. So yeh, I barely got anything done within the Trevor story or beyond that. So it will be pretty fresh for me by this time, especially with it actually performing well ( god I hope so )
Dragons Age, man ... its a RPG! Can't get enough of those. And it sounds like it is actually massive and is well made and everything. So yeh, that makes the choice even harder.
GTAV or Dragons Age ... OR LBP3 for my daughter to enjoy.
Augh
I can only get one on the 18th.
Oh man, choosing sucks ass.
Either way I am missing out on great fun ( supposedly )
I have experienced GTAV before, never beat it though. I gave up on it about right when I hit online and saw how bad it was. And the games performance and horrible IQ really killed it for me on the PS3. So yeh, I barely got anything done within the Trevor story or beyond that. So it will be pretty fresh for me by this time, especially with it actually performing well ( god I hope so )
Dragons Age, man ... its a RPG! Can't get enough of those. And it sounds like it is actually massive and is well made and everything. So yeh, that makes the choice even harder.
GTAV or Dragons Age ... OR LBP3 for my daughter to enjoy.
Augh
Again though, I don't think the guy was arguing that only DAI (or Bioware) has ever done this, as much as they are saying that they are bringing this type and quality of character writing (and appreciation of it) to the mainstream. That's where the 'shift in design' comment came from, I think. Let's face it, as adored as the three games you mentioned were by critics and a relatively small number of gamers (myself included), they were basically ignored by the gaming masses (at least, I know Torment wasn't exactly a riproaring commercial success and there wasn't a rush out the door to do sequels to the other two either). I remember with horror the comments made about PS:T back then - 'it's like reading a book, far too much dialogue' etc - for an unfortunately large number of players, that wonderful writing and character development was 'suffered through', as the article says.
Things are changing though, and honestly VO, and writing for script is a part of that I think - it makes the writing (such as party banter) a part of the ambient experience, noticeable but more passive - rather than the active reading and clicking through lines of dialogue while everything else in the game stops around the conversation. It makes good/decent writing easier to digest for a lot of players, rather than hour after hour of densely written dialogue, as amazing as it may be. Also, good VO requires a lot of nuance and is pretty hard work, and for major roles involves a significant degree of collaboration between actor and writer, not to mention the vo director. It is very hard to convincingly voice badly written dialogue.
DAI stands a decent chance of doing relatively well in this mainstream, and hopefully (along with other devs such as CDPR) encouraging a higher standard of character writing across the (mainstream) board.
Man, now I'm conflicted if I should make my second playthrough a necromancer or a rift mage? They both sound a bit dull, but I don't want to go through the game twice as knight enchanter.
Also, I'm sad that Reaver is so offensive. I was hoping I could build my Iron Bull to be a tank, but no matter how I see it, Cassandra is just the best alternative. Too bad she's so terrible, and Iron Bull is so amazing. The downside of character specific specializations.
From what I've seen of the Champion spec, Blackwall has the potential to be an amazing tank.
I will pick DAI because I want to start a new game with everyone.
There will be a lot of discussion I can participate about this new fresh game.
(Actually, I will buy both.)
This is fantastic! Nice and simple. Straight forward what each class needs, yet each stat serves purpose to all.
This really is going to be the best RPG in a long time...
The sociopath in me wonders what the attack gain is of Willpower opposed to the class specific stat
Stealthcobra
Member
What kinds of things should i expect while exploring? Great/cool loot? Different missions... I'm just trying to get a feel on what to expect.
Monochromaticx
Member
Yeah seriously why is attack increased by two stats. Maybe he meant "increases attack SPEED"??
This time, we do not directly change the attributes. Instead, weapons/armors increase those stats. You likely also gain some points when leveling. And finally, passive talents give 3 points to a single attribute.
It's a ..peculiar approach. I assume they did it to make item crafting more relevant. It makes even more sense, given that they added Multiplaying this time. Personally, I would have preferred direct input on it. Tests are needed to know what it means -for example- to increase Willpower by 1.
Its main point is that voice/face animations improve the experience. Which we can all somewhat agree. On the other hand, you are comparing this game to the best written RPG in the last years. Finally, is Polygon mate.
I don't replay games, but I would likely chose a warrior and focus on basic skills rather than on a spec. Reaver is awesome, but may (or not) require a bit too much micromanagement on Nightmare.Man, now I'm conflicted if I should make my second playthrough a necromancer or a rift mage? They both sound a bit dull, but I don't want to go through the game twice as knight enchanter.
True. On the other hand, we will likely interact with followers of Qun, so I expect there will be special dialogue for our Qunari (for being a traitor). If that leads to interesting discussion on what that "religion" means, I would be satisfied. It's a big IF, though.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
There's a lot of games coming out and DF-style articles take time to write.
KefkaPalazzo
Member
I would atleast give it a chance. I too got it from GF and started it yesterday...it's beautiful to look at, the presentation and voice acting is done well, and so far the main character is pretty likable.I have already encountered a few severe slowdowns and a couple of glitches after only about an hour and a half though, but ehh even so...it might make the wait for Inquisition a bit more manageable!
I want to play this game but I didn't like the PC version of DA:O or DA2. It's too MMO like with all the hot keys and quick bar. Maybe I would like it better on consoles but I don't have a 360 or PS3 anymore. I won't touch DAI unless I play the first two or that dragon keep website thing fills in the story blanks really well.
I want game to explain to me why my Qunari has never even followed Qun, what happened to him to make it so? Was he raised by some humans or what? All I found was "If you play as Qunari you have never followed Qun in first place" and that to me is mindfuck considering all Qunari lore.
Is there even lore for Qunari that has never even followed Qun?
You know about the Tal-Vashoth, right? You're probably a decedent of those who left the Qun and were raised to reject it.
I'm sure this has been addressed, but how are ability points distributed? If I remember correctly, once we unlocked specializations in DA2 we received points specifically for that.
I interpret "Never exposed to the Qun" as you were born and raised outside of the Qun. In my headcaonon (which will get modified if more comes up in game), my qunari's parents left the Qun and as she reached her late teens she joined up with the Valo-Kas mercenaries.
I interpret "Never exposed to the Qun" as you were born and raised outside of the Qun. In my headcaonon (which will get modified if more comes up in game), my qunari's parents left the Qun and as she reached her late teens she joined up with the Valo-Kas mercenaries.
Thay have not even finished ACU PC :/
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