Maria Caliban

DA:O used the Darkspawn threat to let us meddle in Ferelden and dwarven politics. ME had a looming Reaper threat but that didn't stop Shepard from getting involved with the geth/quarian conflict or the genophage. If anything, BioWare games love to say "Here is a horrible, world-threatening evil... now go solve dozens of unrelated problems."

The Exalted Plains of the Dales are characterized by equal measures of beauty and strife. It was here, centuries ago, that the elven nation met its bitter end. On these fields, the holdouts of the elven army faced the forces of the human Chantry and died, defending their promised land to the last breath. This legacy of conflict has endured, and battle once again rages in the Dales. The Exalted Plains are now a contested battleground in the Orlesian civil war, and soldiers fight and die here in vast numbers. As the boundaries of reality weaken across Thedas, the memory of injustices past and present draws the attention of restless spirits who rise to possess the dead and stalk the living across the blood-steeped earth. What is wrong with the way the trees are standing in the water?

He's probably talking about end game slides like DA:O had. Also, screenshot:

As people are talking about the endings, Mark Darrah, the producer chimed in:

Pay twice as much for a game you know will not be anywhere near polished or even finished, and that the developer admit has large amounts of missing content. In fact, they say that playing it isn't even fun yet. Alternatively, they're going to offer a $49.99 version when it's close to finished that will include early access on Steam. While lurking on forums, I've often seen fans claim they'd pay to be beta testers, but I always assumed that was nonsense. Live and learn. Available on Steam

XBox Magazine preview! A poster at the bioboards got his copy today and was kind enough to write a detailed summary. C+P for her pleasure. Hi fellow Dragon Age: Inquisition fans! I just bought the Official Xbox Magazine featuring their preview for Dragon Age Inquisition. (It came out today in a Singapore bookshop) 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: Origins7. 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." I hope you guys will enjoy the information provided!

But I'll miss you! Just say here and talk about what you don't like. We still want to hear your opinion.

But you'll still post on the thread, right?

You mean the cane? Her mage staff?

And another Viv update. This is apparently her week. To bring a Dragon Age: Inquisition character to life requires hard work and iteration from a team of experts. After several initial stages of visualization, the character is refined through a collaborative process until the details are just right. With our continued spotlight on Vivienne this month, we checked in with the team behind her creation. “Vivienne was a truly great character to build,” says senior artist Rion Swanson. “I was hooked from the very beginning when I saw the first concept.” Swanson credits the work of BioWare’s concept artists as a key component to locking down Vivienne’s final design. In particular, he recalls a lot of back-and-forth to ensure that her character met the high-quality standards of the studio. “In the end, I think we achieved quite a dramatic look for this strong new character,” Swanson says. “The combination of sleek and powerful shapes with the ornate gold and fine fabrics gives Vivienne a pretty unique appearance.” With Vivienne’s work complete, what does Swanson think about setting her loose on the world of Thedas? “Watching her move through the world with flowing fabric and using her awesome mage abilities is a real nice counterbalance to some of the other heavily armored characters in your party. Enjoy!”

Other than the first hour of Origins, the player never experiences this. If players could spend an entire game attempting to scrape by as a casteless dwarf, an Orlesan peasent, or a Tevinter slave, they'd probably think the mages have it good. That wouldn't be a very fun game though, so instead we end up joining a powerful organization (the Grey Wardens, the Inqusition) or being rich and of noble birth (Hawke and some of the origins). She's a court mage in Orlais. Her current life is one of relative power and privilege. If you wanted to draw parallels between the historical treatment of blacks and Vivianne's status as a mage, you might look at Condoleezza Rice, a black politician who worked as part of Bush administration, she was often criticized for enabling a system some believed was hostile to blacks and other racial minorities. Of course, it's questionable whether someone could become the first black female secretary of state and the first female national security adviser if they went against the party line. Not to mention that a lot of the criticism was politically motivated as the progressive, racial tolerant Democrats didn't have high profile black or black female members.

Is it? I have no idea. I think I was half awake when I posted those. Sorry.

More images. Eurogamer has the entire batch, including the ones I posted earlier.

If you're in to common sense. Me, I like the purest form of indignation only available with early adoption. Sweet, sweet complaining is best when fresh and deserved. See my signature. I'm pre-order the CE as soon as it's available.

Varric was Mary Kirby. Gaider wrote Fenris in DA II.

Because you said "in my understanding there was no way to let him down gently without him getting petty/unpleasant/earning a heap of rivalry points." That sounds like you're going on second hand knowledge. Amusingly, I didn't read your post as a criticism of the game, but of gamers.

I would guess because Patrick Weekes is also a novelist. For Dragon Age: Last Flight, they hired a non-BioWare novelist. It would be nice if EA/BioWare hired a decent fantasy artist to do their covers. The Last Flight one looks like they used one of Tor's in-house artist.

The Masked Empire comes out April 4th. In other news... "As the life was torn from his body, Robert knew this was the perfect time to... dance"

He was referring to Anders in DA II. Which I believe he also hasn't played, but likely has heard about. Anders isn't gay, and if you're referring to non-straight characters there isn't just Anders but Zevran, Leliana, Merrill, Isabela, Fenris, Branka, Hespith, Wade, Harren, and now the Orlesan Empress. If you think they're all terrible, and some people do, then it's probably because you dislike most BioWare characters. Fair, but hardly limited to queer characters.

This is still unconfirmed. It appeared in a German magazine, and none of the developers have commented on whether it's accurate or a misunderstanding. Sadly, they have not done so. I wish they would; it's their first game on Frostbite and I'm wondering if I should upgrade or no.

His fashion sense is questionable.

More images. (Giant) (Varric) (Cassandra & Solace)

Images for the new companion, Solas. Solas is an apostate mage and a somniari. Some larger images in the spoiler -

The magistrate's son quest is an excellent example of how many corners were cut in DA II. I can't believe for a moment that they had the magistrate swear vengeance with the expectation that he'd never do anything or even appear again in the game.

I do not typically turn to BioWare RPGs for sophisticated moral philosophies, good or evil or otherwise.