Maria Caliban

I am ambivolent about the death of Leandra. The build up in previous chapters, the chase to find the killer, the moment Hawke holds her mother's dying body, and Aveline + LI comforting Hawke afterwards were all solid. I dislike that it was another example of a blood mage being evil. You could have it be a regular mage, or even a regular human. Regular humans are can be just as evil as blood mages. And please, no zombie!mom. A line or two explaining that Hawke has been looking for the killer but not caught them yet would be appreciated. Of the various family member deaths, I thought that one was handled the best, so I'd keep it and perhaps have the sibling you take to Kirkwall only die/leave if you bring them into the Deep Roads.

If BioWare makes a good faith attempt to create a ‘sexually liberated’ woman who is more than a woman with big breasts, and the player simply goes ‘lol ****,’ the fault is with the player, not the developer. There are still players who dislike Aveline because she’s ‘masculine’ and ‘ugly.’ This doesn’t mean BioWare should only include conventionally attractive and feminine women in their games. It means that there will always be players who have shallow reactions. I'd argue that one of the problems with DA 2 is that Hawke can seem to do almost nothing but screw up. Who brought an ancient evil artifact out of the depths of the Deep Road? Hawke. Why wasn't Anders caught while he was in Kirkwall? Hawke. Who failed to protect family member after family member? Hawke. There's literally an interaction with a character where you can promise to protect them from their blood mage lover. Hawke then wanders off and the next thing you get is a cutscene of the blood mage killing the person you just promised to protect.

I enjoy playing heroes; people who set out to make the world a better place. The few times I've played evil characters or committed evil acts in a game, it was because such acts had a practical benefit to the world. I find that sort of evil to be far more compelling than random child killing and slavery. One of the best games for this is Dishonored. You're given a number of assassination contracts but instead of killing the target, you can choose non-lethal options. These options can hardly be considered 'good' but they keep the level of chaos in the city down. --SPOILERS-- In one example, you can have the High Overseer of the city branded a heretic. He's disgraced, cast out of the order, and becomes anathema to everyone who follows that religion. You later find him alone on the streets, starving and dying of the plague. Instead of a quick, clean death, you've given him a horrible, slow one after everything he loves has been taken from him and his own people have cast him out. Personally, I see that as the evil option, but it's also the option that keeps the city calm (orderly transition of power vs the head of the church being assassinated in the temple) and given what he's done, my PC can call this 'justice,' even if it's cruel. --END SPOILERS-- I think the best evil is the kind where you can reasonably argue the action was good… for some values of good. I also would add that I think the ‘Renegade’ options in ME were trying to do this but failed. Not only did they stuff ‘pragmatic’ with ‘racist,’ ‘douchebag,’ and ‘randomly violent,’ we know from a paragon playthrough that renegade actions rarely provide extra utility or benefit. You can’t even call them necessary evil, because they’re totally unnecessary. I need a baby armor and baby headgear to go with this.

I love you too, Monte.

Telemetry/data mining/analytics informed both ME 2 and DA II. For example, Christina Norman noted that about 80% of ME 1 players picked a soldier, so when they went to design combat for ME 2, they spent a lot of time making sure that class played well. David Gaider has noted several times that only 5% of players picked a dwarf (3% dwarf noble, 2% dwarf commoner) and… 10% (?) picked elf. For all playthroughs, completed or not. In the next game, Hawke was only human. I don’t think they went ‘People don’t play non-humans so we’re going to cut it.’ I do suspect they went ‘We have X amount of time and making Hawke a non-human would mean more work for the animators and artist. And look, hardly anyone played a non-human. Let’s cut it.’ Likewise, David has noted that when the metrics came in, they were surprised by the large percentage of people who opted for a same-sex romance. I don’t think they made all the LIs bi because of that, but it probably informed their decision to do so. But that’s a handful of things. There’s lots of changes in DA II that have nothing to do with datamining (as far as I know ): The change in how darkspawn, Qunari, and elves looked. Removing the ability to change your companion’s armor. Not having the PC be a Warden. Templars dropping from the sky. The limited map selection.

Oh boy. I liked the voice protagonist. I liked majority of the companions, and even those I didn’t like were interesting. I liked that the majority of the story wasn’t about an ancient evil or a joining a powerful group. I liked that Hawke wasn’t widely respected until she became the Champion – meaning the PC had to work for it, even if there was no way to avoid it. I liked that they trimmed the mage spell list. I liked that they added class combos. I like that they reduced the need for alpha strike. I like that they had spell/power webs instead of spell/power trees. Effort was put into removing ‘speed bump’ spell/powers and they gave you the option to pick a new power or to upgrade an existing one. I thought it was much easier to manage aggression for a fighter. I liked that each companion got their own, unique specialization. I liked that when I changed armor, the majority of time it wasn’t the same model with a different color. I liked they changed the color scheme from Origins. I liked that the Deep Roads was not an endless, brown colored tunnel. I liked that they decided to focus on one city and its people. I liked the Qunari arc. I liked that the Qunari and elves were more visually distinct than ‘big humans’ and ‘slender humans.’ I liked that the companions had iconic looks. I liked that they each had their own sidequest. I thought the friendship/rivalry system was better overall than the friendship system. I could go on and double the size of this list, but that’s probably enough for now.

I prefered DA II to DA O. Then again, I found KotOR and Jade Empire far more interesting than either of the BG games.

My biggest issue with DA:O is they released it too late. My biggest issue with DA II is that they released it too soon. My hope is that DA I, like that third bowl of porridge, is just right.

I don’t think DA:I will be open world like Skyrim was, but instead be open world like BG 1 where there were a few maps you could just wander around. Or the game might tell you to go south but you could instead go north and maybe find a belt of gender changing on a random ogre and *then* you go south. Concept art time - Caption: It wasn’t hidden, it was uncontrolled. Like the power you now command. Caption: The Old Gods will call to you, from their ancient prisons will they sing. Caption: The graves of our ancestors are littered with the bones of long-forgotten betrayals.

I have no idea who these people are and I'm a gamer.

I have to agree that the game is obliged to give you some reason to care about events. Dragon Age II was good at that in the beginning, and then it went around killing or kicking out your family members while making Kirkwall itself a place that was hard to give a fig about.

For a number of multiplayer games, you can only access the MP content through an account. For example, if you cheat in Mass Effect 3 MP, they can ban that account, but that doesn't impact your ability to play the SP game or post on the forums or play other EA MP games. XBox One is *supposedly* going to be more aggressive in handing out Xbox Live bans to players who are frequently abusive or insulting to other players.

Gamers that issue death threats should have their forum account permanently suspended and should have their game account banned for about a month. Gamers that personally insult developers (suggesting you should have been aborted) should get a month long ban from the forums. As this happened on twitter, I would suggest they pass it onto twitter and hope they do something about it.

You would want to date the porn star because this is a BioWare game so your other options will probably an ansty blood mage, an self-loathing abomination, or an emo templar who's taken a vow of chastity.

What specific elements are you asking about when you say 'RPG conventions?' According to the 'leaked survey' there might be a male qunari companion named Iron Bull. If that's not a fantasy porn name, I don't know what is.

This World's Bitter End - Possible music from the game. I am still trying to confirm that this is part of the official soundtrack. What role does he have in this game? Lead writer. Same as in DA:O.

New concept art: Epicpinecone was at the PAX aus Dragon Age panel and took notes. Here's their post:

I like concept art for its own sake but I don't get hyped about it. However, I do like the continuing suggestions that the PC will get their own castle or base.

You care about something in a story because you've come to identify with or like the main character and it's meaningful to them. WALL-E made me care for a ****roach, creatures that illicit disgust from me in the real world. If game writers and cinematic types can’t get me to buy into a romantic relationship, that’s just lack of skill on their part.

I would buy it.

Very likely.

Thank you Lady Crimson. And, I'll be sure to do that as more information becomes available, Gorth. As for the three quotes: I've enjoyed all games from all three of those gentlemen. I don't see one approach as being better than the other. In fact, I think a diversity of approaches when it comes to RPGs is a good thing. I don't want DA to play like the Witcher, the Witcher to play like BioShock, or BioShock to play like Alpha Protocol. That they give me different experiences is a good thing.

I'd bet money she is.

Thank you for the catch. I also forgot that there's only a 30 minute timer for editing on this forum so I won't be able to update the OP soon. Oh well. vOv