Dragon Age: Inquisition

[GhostofAnakin]

First time I brought Cole along as a party member when doing the Fade mission.  He had some interesting comments.  Solas always has a decent amount to say, but that's not surprising given he's such a fade expert.

[Darkpriest]

 

I had no idea there was a DAI thread.

 

How did you guys bring yourself to look at Cassandra's man face for more than ten seconds without losing your mind?

 

I was such a huge dragon age fan that I purposely made sure not to watch any trailers or look at any screenshots for inquisition.  I'll never forget that night when I played DAI for the first time.  When I saw Cassandra's face, i was so confused. Her face literally broke immersion and I just sat there looking at her face from all angles trying to make sense of it. Sadly, I could not. 

 

Then I discovered the next romance option, Josephine. Unfortunately she looks ugly as hell. I could not stop looking at her nose when she spoke.

 

So then I thought okay, we'll romance Leliana, turns out you can't.   Morrigan same deal.

 

No worries, let's see how the other companions fair.

 

Sera, can't romance her as straight male, but even if she was romance-able I still wouldn't. Her face looks like Gollum.

 

Okay Vivienne, nice pretty face, get some chocolate action you know?   Then she takes off her helmet.  DUDE. SHE IS BALD MAN, WTF?

 

......

 

Wtf happened? So many of the women have these weird shaved heads.

 

Cassandra loses her appeal for me more so when I see her walk.  She's got a ... stern face, but it's not ugly.  She's kind of on the butch side, but still.  I could get over it.  But then I see her walk like an ape and I'm like, no.

 

Unfortunately, BioWare seems to have made every single female in the game walk like an ape.  I just don't know how animators in the year 2014 (when it was released) can do such a horrible job with how the females in the game move about.

 

 

Did you think that they will walk like on a catwalk?

[GhostofAnakin]

I just thought they'd walk like normal human women do, not female apes from Planet of the Apes.

 

Hell, every other video game got it right, *including* BioWare's own previous titles.  For instance, the female characters in Mass Effect were fine (apart from FemShep's Basic Instinct moment).  So I just don't know how they could end up walking so weird looking in DA:I.

[luzarius]

Metacritic
 

Witcher 3: 94

Dragon Age Origins: 91

Pillars of Eternity: 90

Dragon Age Inquisition: 85

Dragon Age 2: 82
 

Games in green were developed with heart and soul.

Edited June 12, 2015 by luzarius

[Hurlshort]

I figured wearing heavy platemail makes people walk funny.

[GhostofAnakin]

My Blackwall quest doesn't seem to be triggering.  I'm just after Adamant Fortress, at the point where he's supposed to disappear because of you know what if you've played the game.  But while I can't find him anywhere in Skyhold, I can still use him in my party to go on missions (he's blocked out as a party member if it triggers properly).

 

I'm about to go to the Arbor Wilds and can even select him to be part of my party to go there, but he's nowhere to be found in Skyhold and is holding up another quest (Sera's romance quest where I have to speak to all party members about her gift).

[cirdanx]

I thought DX:HR handled it pretty well. For those who haven't played it, it's effectively a dialogue wheel but when you highlight an option, it pops up a full sentence of what you'll actually say, verbatim. Sometimes Jensen says more than that, but the part you're shown is plenty good enough to convey both the intent and tone of what the option actually is, and I don't recall any instances of the game where I didn't get what I expected out of my selection.

 

The other explanation though, is that the Bioware dialogue wheel, as opposed to the Eidos one, was implemented as a cost-cutting development measure, in that the dialogue may not have been written yet at the point they're scripting the game. In that case it's just an issue with BioWare's workflow, having their writers retrofit some dialogue into a predetermined decision tree.

 

 

I agree, Deus Ex did this far better than DA or ME.

 

I think it is the workflow, a lack of organization is likely, thats my impression though.

 

Metacritic

 

Witcher 3: 94

Dragon Age Origins: 91

Pillars of Eternity: 90

Dragon Age Inquisition: 85

Dragon Age 2: 82

 

Games in green were developed with heart and soul.

 

While i agree with you, i think Metacritic is worthless. Raitings can easily brought down by a small hate train. That has happened too often. Not that it matters, in my opinion no player should judge a game by their metacritic raiting or reviews from big sites/magazines. Not when it is so easy to find a bloger/youtuber etc you can "click with" and who represents your taste in gaming and even shows you gameplay.

 

My Blackwall quest doesn't seem to be triggering.  I'm just after Adamant Fortress, at the point where he's supposed to disappear because of you know what if you've played the game.  But while I can't find him anywhere in Skyhold, I can still use him in my party to go on missions (he's blocked out as a party member if it triggers properly).

 

I'm about to go to the Arbor Wilds and can even select him to be part of my party to go there, but he's nowhere to be found in Skyhold and is holding up another quest (Sera's romance quest where I have to speak to all party members about her gift).

 

Are you sure you searched the horse barn? He runs a round a lot, i even found him basicly behind the house once (bad AI). You may also lack approval. Or it could be a possible bug. Sera also only triggered at the end for me because of lack of approval i think. The game aspects you, in my impression, that you do the main quests almost as soon as they come up, and then go out and do side quests, i did the opposite because i like to finish zones if possible. That kinda messed it up

 

Edit: don´t forget to search, there is a letter in the barn that starts blackwalls quests when he is gone^^

Edited June 12, 2015 by cirdanx

[GhostofAnakin]

The Blackwall sidequest finally triggered, but not until after I'd finished the Arbor Wilds.

 

I got the Sera romance scene.  I was expecting more elf on elf action.

[MrBrown]

DA:I on sale on Origin. Not the DLCs though, booo.

[GhostofAnakin]

Finished Jaws of Hakkon.  On its own it's a solid DLC, but it didn't really add anything to the Inquisition story, other than adding lore to the history of the Inquisition.

 

I'd also read before I'd played it about it having a "big reveal".  Maybe I'm just not as into the lore as some folks, but the reveal wasn't anything of the "OMG seriously?!" variety that some folks who played it made it sound.

 

I'll say this though.  If the other "sidequest" maps were as detailed as this one was, the open world would have been much more fun.

[Darkpriest]

DA:I on sale on Origin. Not the DLCs though, booo.

 

I still can't frce myself to finish the game.... there are so many better games out there....

[Qistina]

 

 

Metacritic

 

Witcher 3: 94

Dragon Age Origins: 91

Pillars of Eternity: 90

Dragon Age Inquisition: 85

Dragon Age 2: 82

 

Games in green were developed with heart and soul.

 

While i agree with you, i think Metacritic is worthless. Raitings can easily brought down by a small hate train. That has happened too often. Not that it matters, in my opinion no player should judge a game by their metacritic raiting or reviews from big sites/magazines. Not when it is so easy to find a bloger/youtuber etc you can "click with" and who represents your taste in gaming and even shows you gameplay.

 

 

I disagree, if the game have no isses that make fans hate, then there is no reason to hate the game. People don't hate everything because they hate it. To deny metacritic is to deny the people respons. People who love the game will vote as well people who hate.

 

Why want to deny negative result? Just because it show negatively everybody want to say "oh the haters are trolling"...

[majestic]

That would be true if Metacritic could not and would not be heavily gamed, especially in the all-important initial weeks after release. Unlike some imagined satanist illuminati conspiracy astroturfing is  a real thing done by various companies. Heck, there are companies whose entire business model is giving products good PR.

 

edit:

 

Not to mention that the conslusion that 8 out of 10 possible points constitutes hate and a negative result is utterly inane. That's as bad as the guy over at the PoE general discussion forum that interpreted his 16% of people on the forum thought PoE too buggy for release to mean it should be called early access and everyone agreed with him.

 

Posters started to make fun of him. Rightfully, I might add.

Edited June 14, 2015 by majestic

[NightRevan]

 

You are right and i understand the problem

 

But that is also why i´m against a fully voiced player char. I think it works very well with the old model of saying just some lines, or none at all. It worked well in the old games and DA:O. It would indeed just save money and allow players to imagine the voice in their head. In fact, a voice you don´t like can be total immersion breaker for some people. But EA and others want to be so hollywood like these days with their characters and hero saves the world stories that they rather waste their money on 100+ game of recorded audio with a big name, rather than improving their gameplay.

 

Thats a shame in my eyes.

 

 

I do agree with you regarding the dialogues. Personally I like voice acting if it is good and doesn't interfere too much with the dialogue (or rather the writing thereof), whether it is fully voiced like DA:O or only partially like PoE or Baldur's Gate. On the other hand Bioware's specialty are hero-saves-the-nation/world/planet/galaxy games, they have always been like that, and they moved towards a more cinematic display of these stories even before they were acquired by EA.

 

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Bio has created a bunch of hits and a bunch of misses in terms of plot quality, but they almost always were told really well and set in excellently crafted settings. Sometimes the telling of the barest thread of a storyline is so great that you almost don't notice it. Like Mass Effect 2, which is essentially DA:O in space (just without the gathering the army part, that was rehashed in the third one).

I remember one of the Bio docs (before they left) at the launch of DA:O he constrasted the use of the unvoiced silent protaganist with full dialogue in DA:O with the voiced character and dialogue wheel of the Mass Effect games as facilitating 1st person role-playing and 3rd person role-playing respectively. The system in Mass Effect with voiced character, the wheel etc (or other versions only giving you a sense of what the protagonist would say such as Witcher 2 - haven't played Witcher 3 yet as my current PC can't handle it) works well with a more or less established character created by the game developers such as Shepherd (male or female is largely irrelevant outside some different romance possibilities, it is still the same character) or Geralt which the player then plays and guides as opposed to a role in which the player creates their own character to fill a role and acts the role directly in a 1st person manner, one which a silent protagonist with unvoiced dialogue suits better.

 

It depends on what the game is going for though I usually prefer 1st person role-playing and so the silent PC with full dialogue options.

[cirdanx]

I disagree, if the game have no isses that make fans hate, then there is no reason to hate the game. People don't hate everything because they hate it. To deny metacritic is to deny the people respons. People who love the game will vote as well people who hate.

 

Why want to deny negative result? Just because it show negatively everybody want to say "oh the haters are trolling"...

 

 

Yes that would be reasonable, but the internet and people in general are not very reasonable or are they? :D Metacritic hate is something very real and as Majestic said, it can be heavily gamed. Employees from game studios have been caught pushing their games with 10 raitings and users giving out 0 reviews is nothing new (with their "review" consisting of a few words like "this is crap")

 

From a consumer viewpoint, this is pointless. Even they guys runing metacritic said that it should be not taken so seriously. Sadly some studios/publishers think this is the holy grail, going as far as tying contracts and bonus payouts to metacritic raitings. Thats silly.

 

My point is, that there are better sources for reviews these days. I personally prefer to watch a WTF is from Totalbiscuit on a game i might be interested in. That gives me gameplay, an insight to mechanics and a bit info on the technical side. To me, this is way more informative than a metacritic score, or for that matter any scores, considering a 5 out of 10 might still be enjoyable for me even if it´s not for the critic.

[cirdanx]

I remember one of the Bio docs (before they left) at the launch of DA:O he constrasted the use of the unvoiced silent protaganist with full dialogue in DA:O with the voiced character and dialogue wheel of the Mass Effect games as facilitating 1st person role-playing and 3rd person role-playing respectively. The system in Mass Effect with voiced character, the wheel etc (or other versions only giving you a sense of what the protagonist would say such as Witcher 2 - haven't played Witcher 3 yet as my current PC can't handle it) works well with a more or less established character created by the game developers such as Shepherd (male or female is largely irrelevant outside some different romance possibilities, it is still the same character) or Geralt which the player then plays and guides as opposed to a role in which the player creates their own character to fill a role and acts the role directly in a 1st person manner, one which a silent protagonist with unvoiced dialogue suits better.

It depends on what the game is going for though I usually prefer 1st person role-playing and so the silent PC with full dialogue options.

 

 

Yes and it makes sense. Geralt from the Witcher is a very well established character with a lot of lore and they stayed mostly true to that, naturally that is reflected in his dialogue. Now the Inquisitor is not that heavily restricted and it becomes problematic to me when he/she says something that is inherently different to what the wheel suggests or how i play that character. That however is not only a problem of the wheel, but also a problem of the writing. As someone pointed out, Deus Ex HR did it very very well.

 

While a fixed character can be very interesting to play, i prefer the non-voiced and more open character playstyle to create my own PC. It worked very well for me in DA:O. Anyway the wheel is not the biggest problem DA:I has in my opinion. :D

[GhostofAnakin]

I hate when games that have absolutely horrible platforming mechanics/pathfinding in general, include activities that involve stuff like climbing.  Some of these shards are on high ledges, and you're supposed to get to them with the most awkward jumping/climbing mechanic in gaming.

[Qistina]

 

I disagree, if the game have no isses that make fans hate, then there is no reason to hate the game. People don't hate everything because they hate it. To deny metacritic is to deny the people respons. People who love the game will vote as well people who hate.

 

Why want to deny negative result? Just because it show negatively everybody want to say "oh the haters are trolling"...

 

 

Yes that would be reasonable, but the internet and people in general are not very reasonable or are they? :D Metacritic hate is something very real and as Majestic said, it can be heavily gamed. Employees from game studios have been caught pushing their games with 10 raitings and users giving out 0 reviews is nothing new (with their "review" consisting of a few words like "this is crap")

 

From a consumer viewpoint, this is pointless. Even they guys runing metacritic said that it should be not taken so seriously. Sadly some studios/publishers think this is the holy grail, going as far as tying contracts and bonus payouts to metacritic raitings. Thats silly.

 

My point is, that there are better sources for reviews these days. I personally prefer to watch a WTF is from Totalbiscuit on a game i might be interested in. That gives me gameplay, an insight to mechanics and a bit info on the technical side. To me, this is way more informative than a metacritic score, or for that matter any scores, considering a 5 out of 10 might still be enjoyable for me even if it´s not for the critic.

 

 

They give 0 because they hate the game, and they comment "this is crap" because there is nothing more to say, have no words anymore. How determined are the haters to create accounts to give "0"? The same with the ones who give "10" it is because they love it, or paid to give that, it doesnt matter. How much they can pay anyway?

 

But from the result, if the game have no issue, the result is positive isn't it? There will be "0" ratings, there will always be "0" ratings, but we can see the result on games have less or no issue the result is positive. For the games that have a lot of issues, we can see more negative. By that alone we know the game is good or bad.

 

Some may hate Bioware and give "0" outright, some may love Bioware and give "10" outright, we cannot generalize everyone do that. The real haters are only few, the fanatics are also few. Metacritic is genuine for me. We can see how people react toward the game and the company, not about the game only.

 

Bioware must admit they have bad reputation in the past years, they make fans pissed off, Metacritic is one of the way to show the protest, and we can see the result

[Elerond]

 

 

I disagree, if the game have no isses that make fans hate, then there is no reason to hate the game. People don't hate everything because they hate it. To deny metacritic is to deny the people respons. People who love the game will vote as well people who hate.

 

Why want to deny negative result? Just because it show negatively everybody want to say "oh the haters are trolling"...

 

 

Yes that would be reasonable, but the internet and people in general are not very reasonable or are they? :D Metacritic hate is something very real and as Majestic said, it can be heavily gamed. Employees from game studios have been caught pushing their games with 10 raitings and users giving out 0 reviews is nothing new (with their "review" consisting of a few words like "this is crap")

 

From a consumer viewpoint, this is pointless. Even they guys runing metacritic said that it should be not taken so seriously. Sadly some studios/publishers think this is the holy grail, going as far as tying contracts and bonus payouts to metacritic raitings. Thats silly.

 

My point is, that there are better sources for reviews these days. I personally prefer to watch a WTF is from Totalbiscuit on a game i might be interested in. That gives me gameplay, an insight to mechanics and a bit info on the technical side. To me, this is way more informative than a metacritic score, or for that matter any scores, considering a 5 out of 10 might still be enjoyable for me even if it´s not for the critic.

 

 

They give 0 because they hate the game, and they comment "this is crap" because there is nothing more to say, have no words anymore.

 

 

Which is why they do it sometimes months before release of the game, with out any actual mean to play any version of the game at that point.

 

Games that usually get most user votes get them because of some controversy that don't actually have anything to do with how good or bad game is, but anyway causes uproar within gamers. Like for example PoE got taste of this with their limerick controversy.

 

Because of this those user scores and reviews are mostly useless because one can't know what actually drove people give good or bad scores and one don't even have any knowledge of what kind games those who write reviews generally like, so if one uses them as tool to select games they buy, then one has very high change to buy game that will disappoint them. 

[Oerwinde]

Finally got the game. When does the rest of Val Royeaux unlock? I assume thats the major urban center of the game. Was kinda disappointed I could only check out that one courtyard while I was there first.

[Woldan]

Finally got the game. When does the rest of Val Royeaux unlock? I assume thats the major urban center of the game. Was kinda disappointed I could only check out that one courtyard while I was there first.

 

There is no rest, its just that one map. 

[BruceVC]

Finally got the game. When does the rest of Val Royeaux unlock? I assume thats the major urban center of the game. Was kinda disappointed I could only check out that one courtyard while I was there first.

Dude...you won't believe this but I only bought this game last week as well ..its weird how similar we are? Do you think this is a sign?....maybe we should go for dinner, you never know it could work out 

[Oerwinde]

 

 

Finally got the game. When does the rest of Val Royeaux unlock? I assume thats the major urban center of the game. Was kinda disappointed I could only check out that one courtyard while I was there first.

There is no rest, its just that one map.

Srsly? A game that heavily involves Orlais, the Chantry, and the Divibe, and you don't even get to see Val Royeaux? Whats the major urban center then?

 

I feel like the game easily could have left out jumping, which would have made the controls much better on pc.

Edited July 31, 2015 by Oerwinde

[Hurlshort]

That is pretty much the modus operandi of Bioware. The Ferelden capital was laughable, and even the Citadel in Mass Effect seems pretty dang small.

[Oerwinde]

With how big they were saying the game was, I was figuring it would be about the size of Kirkwall, not Lothering.