Dragon Age 3 Will Blend Best Parts of the Series, Says BioWare

[chinangel]

I enjoyed the combat...usually. My thief actually felt useful in combat rather than a party-burden. However...I wanted Dragon Age 2 to keep the many MANY different kinds of spells and character classes. Unfortunately, I found that most of the character clases were USELESS. Or severely limiting. Also? Mystic Warrior. Bring it back. Srsly, bring. it. back.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!


I enjoyed playing through DA2 enough to actually get through it, but when I was finished, I yelled (I literally called up a buddy of mine who also loves the series and also finished the game the same day) about how bad it was. My friend and I spent an hour just shitting on the game and it was probably the most fun I had with the game.


SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK WAS UP WITH BLATANTLY REUSING THE SAME FUCKING CAVE.


I AM STILL SUPER PISSED ABOUT THAT.


RAAGGGGEEEEE.

 

[00slash00]

the best of the series, eh? so they'll take morrigan and alistair's bickering and um...well the dialog is the only aspect of dragon age i really enjoyed

 

[Sartan0]

Just spend a bit more time on the next one, okay guys?

Yes but I would add: "spend at least twice as much time guys". Three years sounds much better then a year and a half in terms of making a game.

 

[Souplex]

Dragon Age 3 Will Blend Best Parts of the Series

So... The budget of 2, and everything else from Origins?

 

[major28]

I just want a mute character and a normal RPG dialogue system, not a fuckin' wheel. And I want a party camp like in Origins. God I love that game with all my heart.

YES!!!! I hope with all my being that all dialogue wheels burn in the fieriest burningiest digital hell that can be imagined. They only ever lead to one of two things; either people just pick the good/evil/neutral/whatever, or they dont give enough insight into what your going to say so you end up doing something you dont want to do.

Also, I loved the camp site in origins. Everytime I left a town I would talk to everyone in my camp.

 

[squid5580]

Fusing them is easier than fusing peanut butter and jam between 2 slices of bread. Combat and characters from 2 and the story and exploration from Origins and slap a fresh coat of graphic upgrades onto it. Oh and let us equip our companions FFS

 

[ms_sunlight]

-Companions. I don't mean quality of writing here, I mean quantity. There simply wasn't enough dialogue and interplay with the party members in DA2. I love all the companions, but there was a lot of ME2-style "Sorry, I'm calibrating" going on, which speaks of lack of time. Also, let me gear them. Srsly.

This. First thing I always do in DA:O is put some bloody clothes on Morrigan. You should have let me do the same to Isabela. The poor woman will catch her death.

I replayed DA:O after finishing DA2 and I have to say I don't think that there is significantly more companion dialogue in DA:O than DA2 - it doesn't take long in DA:O before you run out of options - but it is really frustrating to not be able to talk to your companions whenever you want.

 

[realslimshadowen]

This could work really, really well. Or not.

I liked certain aspects of combat in both Origins and 2. The full-voiced protagonist in 2 prevented the breaking of immersion like in Origins. Yet the world felt so much more realized in Origins, because it wasn't the exact...same...map...over...and over...and over. Imagine if 2 had had even half the development time of Origins. Hell, imagine if 2 had the full development time of Origins. Imagine if Kirkwall was as realized as the cities in sandbox games. Given that the game didn't quite get two years' development (from what I've deduced), give it five, and at leas you might not be faced with endless copy-paste environments.

What I think they should do, character wise, for 3 is just have the ability to import your Origins character and your Hawke, since I presume they'll be teaming up. Then mix and match NPCs from your characters' playthroughs as potential party members.

Spoiler

So, for example, all games might have access to Alistair, Shale, Isabela, Varric, and the Hawke-sibling. If Alistair was executed or made king, he won't show up, but if he remained with the Wardens, he would. Shale might show up as dwarf or golem, depending on how she ended Origins, or if you had to kill her or kick her out she won't show up at all, etc.

 

[Arisato-kun]

Ok I honestly have to ask you a question about the story in DA2. I only ever got four of five house into the game and I still had no idea at all if there was a main plot. Do you ever get a proper main story line in that game or are you still just some random smuck who does odd jobs throughout the entire game?

Yes, yes there is. Now go and play it for longer than 5 hours. At least get through Act II. if you don't enjoy it then quit and hate it as much as you'd like.

 

[Fursnake]

I'll take the combat from DA2 and everything else from DA:O.

I cried at the end of DA2...because I was so happy that the lackluster, boring and insanely repetitive game was over.


OK I lied...I didn't actually finish it. I just got bored with it and uninstalled it.

 

[Korten12]

Allow me to use my Warden from Origin's as the protagonist and I will be happy.

 

[infohippie]

I can't see anything good coming from including any parts of DA2, except maybe the main character being voiced instead of silent. If the combat is in any way similar to DA2's combat I will definitely not be buying DA3. I hated combat in DA2. I can't stand button-mashing hack'n'slash.

I want proper tactical combat, I want to be able to zoom out further than I could in DA:O, I want to be able to set waypoints for my party members to move to, I want to individually set different characters to hold position, move freely, or move under particular circumstances. I don't want to just rush into combat swinging madly and blowing all my cooldowns, which is exactly what DA2 was all about.

 

[McNinja]

Muzyka said that feedback from fans was very important to BioWare, and that a lot of fans of Origins had been upset by the rather radical changes that Dragon Age 2 had made to the series. He said that there had been a "misalignment" of expectations, which was something that BioWare planned to address. But he said that the studio also had an obligation to the fans that had really enjoyed Dragon Age 2, and that it couldn't ignore one group in favor of the other.

So... all five fans that thoroughly enjoyed DA2? Interesting. Also, there wasn't a misalignment of expectations, there was a freaking valley between what fans expected and what they received. Hows about they spend a little more than 1.5 years on the next one? That would be swell.

DA2 had some good parts, like the new combat (I liked it better than Origins, at least), but pretty much everything else from group customization to the repeated environments were less than thrilling.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Or maybe some people don't agree with you, imagine that.
Dragon age origins was a solid rpg, not great, but it was the foundation for a series, it could've been builded upon and you would've had a fantastic series. With dragon age 2 instead of building on the first, they took a sledgehammer to it.

It's easy to say something is subjective when you agree with the majority. I just would have thought the "don't like it, don't play it" stigma would have kicked in. Sadly that is not the case because it's simply gone back to complaining about dragon age 2.

But I digress. A Role-Playing Game, is just that. A game where you take the role of a character. Dragon age 2, was indeed that. People seem to think that slow "strategic" combat somehow makes it a richer experience (and an RPG by definition), which it doesn't. (unless you're into that sort of thing, of course) I don't see how making the combat more engaging somehow "takes a sledgehammer" to everything and nulls it as an RPG. Was it perfect? Far from it. But was it a move in the right direction. (once again, in my opinion) If it would have had a few more months of polish, I believe a lot more people would be in the same boat. But that isn't the case, sadly.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I want to believe that there were some 'best parts' of DA2... but my memory of that game has soured so much that I honestly can't think of any. The sheer volume of quests, okay. Varric. The...um... er... okay, I've run out.

Initially I thought they'd really improved on the combat in Origins by making it less dependant on kiting, pulling and liberal use of the quickload key, but all they did was decrease the individual power of each enemy while doubling their number. To be honest, I'd much rather return to the hair-pulling controller-throwing frustration of DA:O, because at least I never knew what to expect. In DA2 every single fight was just wave after wave of adds, until you finally got to the one or two WoW raid style bosses with hitherto unseen special attacks, and against whom all those crowd control spells you took to make it through 90% of the game were completely ineffective.

Meanwhile, the story was utterly, utterly retarded and featured one of the most terrible narrative structures I've ever seen in a game. Having a Shepherd-style protagonist didn't endear me because Hawke is a non-entity in the plot unless you choose to be a Mage, otherwise he's just a 'Hey, let's get YOU to do everything because you happen to be around' kind of guy. And the items were all really bland, the interface looked rushed and uninspired, the copy pasted levels - enough said.

Honestly, Bioware should stop trying to pretend that the formula really needs any more shaking up, and just accept that the only way to make another good game is to invest time in developing it. But that won't happen, since EA have basically applied their sports-franchise schedule to all Bioware IPs.

 

[Infernai]

If they mesh the story/environments/characters of origins/awakening with the combat/some characters and graphical style of 2 along with the choices made in both games we could be on to something. Throw in a Dual protagonist mechanic (Choice between playing as the Warden or Hawke, or even switching characters at different parts of the story) in the same vein as Legacy of kain: Defiance and we could have a winner! I realize implementing a dual protagonist mechanic could be a bit...difficult but, if done right, it could be damned awesome. I just want to see an excuse for my warden to battle it out with my Hawke (Dunno why everyone wants them to be friends, they'd honestly make better enemies in my opinion..although if they became allies towards the end of the game i wouldn't mind too much, just as long as i get to see them duke it out in a similiar manner to the Raziel Vs Kain fight from Legacy of Kain: Defiance)

Incidentally, a shout out to all the Legacy of Kain fans on the Escapist...it's nice to see all three of you!