Dragon Age: Inquisition

[Azure79]

I wholeheartedly support women dressing up in costumes. 

 

Men who do it seem strange to me, but what do I know? I think lifting heavy things and putting them back down is enjoyable. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I wholeheartedly support women dressing up in costumes.

Who doesn't?

 

 

 

 

If Monte manages to look at a chainmail bikini and not feel that cosplay is a good thing, then I don't know what to say.

Edited February 16, 2014 by KaineParker

[AGX-17]

BUTTERFACES EVERYWHERE*

*My summary of the post.

 

That female Hawke is actually quite remarkably close to the in-game default.

 

Aside from that, butterfaces.

 

 

I wholeheartedly support women dressing up in costumes.

Who doesn't?

 

If Monte manages to look at a chainmail bikini and not feel that cosplay is a good thing, then I don't know what to say.

 

Dressing down, more like. Well, thank you Japan, for your insidious love of portmanteaus.

 

 

Who else could come up with something as cheesy as "costume + play = cosplay"?

Their comedy is almost entirely rooted in surreal absurdity and puns.

Edited February 16, 2014 by AGX-17

[BruceVC]

We need more sexy cosplay.

 

I support this point

[tajerio]

 

Are you going to play Dragon Age: Inquisition?

 

I don't know is the honest answer. I'll see if there's a demo. If it veers back to DA:O territory enough then perhaps.

 

 

Manage thy expectations!  That's how I enjoyed DA2 for multiple playthroughs--I knew it was never going to be an old-school RPG and thus it was quite fun.  Demand that things be that which they are not, and you'll always be disappointed.

[Monte Carlo]

Point-slightly-not-found I'm won't cut my nose off to spite my face - if it's a good CRPG I'll pick it up. Probably on my PS4, in fact.

 

But if there's too much fan-service and core 'Biowarianism' on display, it's not as if there's a shortage of decent games to play is there? I'm a strategy and RTS gamer too, plus I'm pretty excited about new genres (for me) like The Division and Titanfall. I'm also an ARPG player -the new Diablo XP looks good, as does Grim Dawn etc.

 

So my expectations are high, and if not met, won't overly concern me. OTOH if DA3 gets good reviews from gamers I trust I'll be all over it. But I don't trust a single word Bioware says about their games. They are epic mongers of hyperbole about their titles and, indeed, their content. They will paint game 'A' as game 'B' and I've been burnt before. So we'll see.

 

And of course there's PoE.

[Humanoid]

Normally I'd settle for good feedback from non-journalistic sources such as here too, but in the case of DA3 I think the ground is shaky enough that I'll likely require the sacrifice of spoilers and watch a video playthrough of at least a quarter of the game before considering a purchase.

[Bryy]

Normally I'd settle for good feedback from non-journalistic sources such as here too, but in the case of DA3 I think the ground is shaky enough that I'll likely require the sacrifice of spoilers and watch a video playthrough of at least a quarter of the game before considering a purchase.

That's like saying you'll give a show an entire season before you consider keeping it on your Hulu.

 

If you spoil that much, of course you won't enjoy playing it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

And of course there's PoE.

I thought Sawyer ruined that by allowing Priests to use swords?

[Humanoid]

 

Normally I'd settle for good feedback from non-journalistic sources such as here too, but in the case of DA3 I think the ground is shaky enough that I'll likely require the sacrifice of spoilers and watch a video playthrough of at least a quarter of the game before considering a purchase.

That's like saying you'll give a show an entire season before you consider keeping it on your Hulu.

 

If you spoil that much, of course you won't enjoy playing it.

 

 

Nah, I'm generally pretty spoiler-tolerant (heck, I played ME2 before ME1 and still enjoyed the latter more), and not just for games. But at least I have that option for games, no Hulu or anything that comes close in terms of content down here. Not saying it's not better to go with it unspoiled, but that requires a certain degree of trust in the developer that is sadly absent here. I can also put up with a bad movie more than a bad game, it's shorter, cheaper and generally easier to sit through - and even then I tend to go for proven classics anyway.

 

Anyway, I'm not saying it's a foolproof method - previewing that much of DA:O and I probably would still have bought it, though in the end it was a sub-par game for me. But it would have instantly turned me off ME3, unlike the incomplete feedback in text about it (the whole "only the ending is bad" debacle) which proved misleading.

[tajerio]

Point-slightly-not-found I'm won't cut my nose off to spite my face - if it's a good CRPG I'll pick it up. Probably on my PS4, in fact.

 

But if there's too much fan-service and core 'Biowarianism' on display, it's not as if there's a shortage of decent games to play is there? I'm a strategy and RTS gamer too, plus I'm pretty excited about new genres (for me) like The Division and Titanfall. I'm also an ARPG player -the new Diablo XP looks good, as does Grim Dawn etc.

 

So my expectations are high, and if not met, won't overly concern me. OTOH if DA3 gets good reviews from gamers I trust I'll be all over it. But I don't trust a single word Bioware says about their games. They are epic mongers of hyperbole about their titles and, indeed, their content. They will paint game 'A' as game 'B' and I've been burnt before. So we'll see.

 

And of course there's PoE.

 

Makes perfect sense.  My perspective's different because I basically don't play anything but CRPGS, grand strategy, and the unique genre of BioWare RPGs, so I'm constantly tempering my expectations.

 

Also I have found the silly things BioWare do in their games, which I think come under your 'fan-service and core BioWarianism" label, to be amusing in their shortcomings rather than offputting.

Edited February 17, 2014 by tajerio

[Monte Carlo]

 

And of course there's PoE.

I thought Sawyer ruined that by allowing Priests to use swords?

 

 

Wow. D minus. Write a hundred times 'KP MUST TRY HARDER.'

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

100 * 'KP must try harder'.

Edited February 17, 2014 by KaineParker

[Maria Caliban]

David Gaider talked about the structure of dialogue in DA:I.

 

 

David Gaider wrote...

Just to be clear as to what Mike was and was not referring to:


What is the same about Inquisition's writing style, compared to DA2:

• Dialogue options are picked from paraphrases, off a wheel interface.

• The player character is voiced, and dialogue is written with that in mind.

What is new:

• No dominant tone. Meaning your most-selected tone does not carry through to influence other lines outside of the conversation in which you selected it. In DA2, dominant tone changed the actual line the PC spoke when action choices were made as well as those spoken inside of cutscenes ("auto-dialogue", as people like to refer to it here). In Inquisition, those are all relayed in neutral tone.

• A question is often asked of how much "auto-dialogue" will exist in comparison to, say, Mass Effect 3. The answer is that the amount will be less than DA2 (and it is always neutral-toned, as mentioned above). This is generally just used in situations where the PC is saying something innocuous ("Go on" or "What is that?" ...things that don't really call for a wheel).

• Addition of a "reaction wheel" (on top of the "tone wheel", which is for flavor responses, and the "action wheel", which is for places where the player is decided to do something), which allows for emotional responses to important events. The player always has the Stoic option (essentially the neutral response), or will have options such as Sad, Confused, Enraged, Surprised, etc.

• Dialogue options on an action wheel now sometimes display a pop-up if the option is hovered over long enough, elaborating on what that action is intended to do. This only applies to actions where elaboration is felt necessary. It does not display the actual line which will be spoken by the PC.

• The three major tones are now Noble/Clever/Direct (as opposed to Diplomatic/Humorous/Aggressive). These are primarily internal designations which affect how we write those tones, the idea being to reign in the difference a bit between the three. There are no longer alternate tone variants (which in DA2 were Helpful/Charming/Direct), as I don't think we communicated very well what those meant anyhow.

• Similar to how the Investigate option off any wheel "breaks out" into a sub-wheel for questions (if there is more than one question), there can be a Special option off any wheel which breaks out in the same manner. This is where we put conditional things, such as dialogue options that depend on having a particular party member, being a particular race/class, romance options, having made certain choices previously, etc...and thus allows us to add as many of these to a wheel as we like without breaking the interface structure. Some of these now "grey out" if you don't have the requirement, meaning you can see an option you might have had, but currently cannot take.

Some people will find these things very different. Some will hardly notice, as these are largely structural and procedural differences for writing. Ultimately, as Mike says, the writing style is the same--but your mileage may vary. Nothing else is really referred to by "writing style" than how the dialogue itself is functionally written.

 

 

 

[Guest Slinky]

• Dialogue options on an action wheel now sometimes display a pop-up if the option is hovered over long enough, elaborating on what that action is intended to do. This only applies to actions where elaboration is felt necessary. It does not display the actual line which will be spoken by the PC.

A good thing I guess, but the very need for that should tell something about the nature of dialogue wheel.

[Keyrock]

 

 

Some of these now "grey out" if you don't have the requirement, meaning you can see an option you might have had, but currently cannot take

I am very much against this sort of thing.  DA:I is certainly not the first game to implement such a thing, and sadly won't be the last.  

Edited February 20, 2014 by Keyrock

[alanschu]

I can see both sides. I think there's pros and cons.

 

You'll lose the sense of discovery on a replay, but it can help cement that alternative playthroughs could exist which may motivate a replay (or simply provide a sense of satisfaction that said choices exist).

 

 

A good thing I guess, but the very need for that should tell something about the nature of dialogue wheel.

It says that the dialogue wheel in its prior form doesn't work for some people (which I don't think is a huge surprise).

[Maria Caliban]

I liked it in Fallout: New Vegas when a dialogue option would specify [speech 80] because that meant I could quit and come back later if I really wanted it. The conditional was always something my PC could do even if I decided not to.

 

I don't want to see something like [you picked an elf and we're going to show you a human-only dialogue option that you can't have].

Edited February 20, 2014 by Maria Caliban

[alanschu]

That's an interesting point. I don't know if there are any exceptions or clarifications to David's statement.

[Keyrock]

I liked it in Fallout: New Vegas when a dialogue option would specify [speech 80] because that meant I could quit and come back later if I really wanted it. The conditional was always something my PC could do even if I decided not to.

 

I personally like when they don't give you the skill/stat amount needed, or even the skill/stat for that matter, it just looks like any other dialogue option, and if you don't meet the requirements or fail on your roll then you fail the influence attempt and have to deal with the consequences of your failed attempt.  The downsides to this method are:

 

1) It encourages metagaming and save-scumming.

2) It can be difficult to convey how difficult or preposterous an influence attempt might be without clobbering you over the head with a number.

 

My responses to those two valid concerns would be:

 

1) People are going to metagame and save-scum anyway if they're inclined to do so.

2) I enjoy trying to decipher/guess how much something would go against a certain character's wishes and nature and how far I could push them and get away with it from what I've learned about the character, their manner of speech, personality, etc.

[alanschu]

The benefit for me (in trying to see it through the eyes of other people) is more akin to "Oh hey, I didn't even realize the game supported this."

 

It can be discovered upon replay, which can be considered a positive. Though if one doesn't actually replay the game, then the effect is wasted. I'd argue that simply knowing "hey, the game definitely reacts to my choices" can be a positive thing for some gamers, even if they only play once (or don't even finish the game).

[Gfted1]

I have never once replayed any crpg, not even my beloved BG 2 + expansion. I click through every conversation branch, lawnmower every map and scour the strategy guide to ensure I see it all in one play through.

[Nepenthe]

I have never once replayed any crpg, not even my beloved BG 2 + expansion. I click through every conversation branch, lawnmower every map and scour the strategy guide to ensure I see it all in one play through.

Cross post from the rpg blasphemy thread?

[Gfted1]

Yeah.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I click through every conversation branch, lawnmower every map and scour the strategy guide to ensure I see it all in one play through.

 

Now that's just... barbaric.