Dragon Age III Details

[DustyDrB]

Courtesy of IGN [http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/22/dragon-age-iii-inquisition-adds-castles-customization-huge-levels], we have our first details of Dragon Age III. There's some encouraging, some not so much.
+ Different possible backgrounds for the player character.
+ "More customization". It's ambiguous as hell, but I'll take it.
+/- David Gaider once again is the lead writer.
+/- Taking control of a castle.
+/- Flemeth at least makes an appearance.
+/- Trying to carry over choices from the first two games without a direct save transfer (makes sense, given a new console cycle begins next month. But it could very well lead to a lot of choices imposed on us that we didn't actually make. No matter what anyone says, to me the Warden is dead, dead, dead).
- The player character is human (because that's definitely the most interesting way to go [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4] in a fantasy universe...*groan*)

Also, there is concept art:

Spoiler

Spoiler

That's Warden armor. So I guess that faction is confirmed to make an appearance too.

Spoiler

I think the concept art looks pretty snazzy. We'll see how it translates into the Frostbite 2 engine, though. Otherwise, I think Dragon Age III is at least a very intriguing game regardless of how high or low quality it ends up being. I'm curious about how BioWare (or what's left of it) responds to Dragon Age 2's rather poor reception. They have to be feeling a ton of pressure for this one.

Anyway, thoughts?

Spoiler: And to keep things in this thread cordial, I brought these

Ten for everyone!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

David Gaider? No thanks, I'll pass. Anders will probably come back from the Dead to continue being Thedas Al Quaeda.

 

[hazabaza1]

inb4 Anthraxus

Anyway... eh. I enjoyed DA2 but I doubt I'll get this until it goes down in price a bit. DA2 wasn't all that great and the ME3 ending kinda... well, it was the ME3 ending. So yeah.

 

[alphamalet]

Ha! Not this time Bioware! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool my twice...

 

[Driekan]

I mostly liked both Dragon Ages so far, and most of the info we've gotten so far seems to be born from good decision making.

The whole "Only human" thing, especially. In general, the tighter the initial constraints on the player character, the more cost-efficient it is to widen the game and add more options afterwards, while retaining relevance for all previous choices.

As an example, take Planescape: Torment. There is only one player character possible, with a single origin story. This enabled the huge degree of perceived player volition, as the player could then decide for himself what it meant to be that guy, and it was feasible to make the world react to that. It would be impossible to accomplish that degree of perceived volition if you had the option to choose race, class, appearance, etc. because that adds a whole lot more player choices to account for - none of whom are as interesting as choices made within the game.

The huge block of character choice at the start was born from tabletop gaming, but I never felt it fit too well with CRPGs.

 

[DustyDrB]

David Gaider? No thanks, I'll pass. Anders will probably come back from the Dead to continue being Thedas Al Quaeda.

Actually, Hepler wrote Anders in Dragon Age 2 (Gaider wrote him in Awakening). I think Gaider can be OK, if a little boring and safe. Hepler varies wildly, though. She wrote most of the Orzammar stuff in Origins (including the Dwarven Commoner story). But then she wrote so much tripe for Dragon Age 2 (Anders, Sebastian, the Hawke siblings and Leandra). It seems like she also did most of Legacy too, though. That was all right.

 

[scnj]

I wasn't big on DA2, but I know I'll end up pre-ordering this, albeit with more trepidation than before. I still like Bioware, but it becomes harder and harder to justify as time goes on.

 

[Jandau]

Dragon Age 3 will be better than Dragon Age 2.

DA2 was a victim of The Old Republic, that much is at least obvious. Before someone pulls the old "But it was different dev teams on both projects!!!", that argument is stupid, because it doesn't mean you can't shift people between teams, reduce funding for one of the projects and such, which results in a rushed product with tons of cut corners. Which is what Dragon Age 2 was - a rush job. Granted, a Bioware rush job is still better than most other games, but it was inferior to Origins and most other Bioware games. I'm not saying you aren't supposed to like it (heck, I like it myself), but its flaws and weaknesses are many and widely recognized. There were great concepts and ideas poking out, but it was obvious that the dev team lacked the resources to fully realize them.

Now, EA aren't complete retards. DA2 got much lower review scores, the public reception was nowhere near DA:O and sales were down. They know what they did and they know what they fucked up. If they don't someone at Bioware likely does (probably everyone). Since TOR is a financial failure, while ME3 did fairly well despite the whole ending fiasco attention is turning back to the "conventional" franchises. We're getting rumors of the next ME game and DA3 is in the pipes. So they'll likely fund DA3 quite well, put a sufficient number of people on it and listen to the most vocal criticisms of the previous game.

As a result, DA3 will not suck. It'll have high production values, at least a solid story and good gameplay. However, it'll likely be at least a little bit soulless - as the likely next big "real" Bioware game (that mangled C&C game isn't really from Bioware), it's expected to perform well and as such they will not be taking any risks with it. It'll be good, but somewhat formulaic.

Personally, I'm looking forward to it, I feel a craving for a fantasy RPG and not much has come out lately to satisfy that...

 

[Vegosiux]

Ha! Not this time Bioware! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool my twice...

At this point, I think many people could be pulling an Amy Wong on this one. "Fool me...seven times, shame on you...fool me eight or more times..."

I am pretty sure that DA3 will not be on my to-buy menu. In the best case, I'll be a sleazy not-pirate and just visit a friend who might buy it and poke it a few times there.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I still wanna know where the heck they're going to go with Flemeth, Morrigan, and

Spoiler

the Old God child

sub plot.

Anyway, I'll need something a bit more substantial for DA3 so hopefully I see more. I get the feeling the Darkspawn are going to take a back seat for awhile as the Mage-Templar War rips the continent to shreds. I wouldn't be surprised if DA4 is going to be the Grey Wardens having to tell everyone to stop killing each other while another Blight is on the horizon.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

David Gaider? No thanks, I'll pass. Anders will probably come back from the Dead to continue being Thedas Al Quaeda.

Actually, Hepler wrote Anders in Dragon Age 2 (Gaider wrote him in Awakening). I think Gaider can be OK, if a little boring and safe. Hepler varies wildly, though. She wrote most of the Orzammar stuff in Origins (including the Dwarven Commoner story). But then she wrote so much tripe for Dragon Age 2 (Anders, Sebastian, the Hawke siblings and Leandra). It seems like she also did most of Legacy too, though. That was all right.

Really? That's just another thing I have to stack against Hepler then. I'm not one of those people who sent her the death threats over her ideal video game, but I still think she is a fucking hack writer who has no business being near a keyboard for anything beyond fanfiction.

Still, Gaider rubs me the wrong way. His attitude online against homophobes was admirable, but then he started insulting fans who disagreed with him overwriting their decisions and then telling them to shut the fuck up about it.

 

[Padwolf]

I want I want I want I want I want I want I want! THe concept art looks great! I want to know what they are going to do with Flemmeth and Morrigan. I think David Gaider isn't a bad writer at all. I'm really looking forward to this, can't wait for it to come out! I loved DA2, even though what Anders did at the end was a bit iffy. I'm so excited for this!

 

[MisterShine]

...DA2 was a victim of The Old Republic, that much is at least obvious....

I heard from a "Little Birdie" that because the TOR team told EA that they'd have to miss another deadline (mid 2k11), that EA forced Bioware to change the second Xpac for Origins and turn it into a full fleshed game, and gave them about 8 months to get it done (I heard many members of the team weren't informed they were making a full game til' about two days before DA2 was properly announced). It was purely about EA's quarterly earnings.

Thankfully they seem to be giving the DA team enough time to fix things for the sequel.

OT: I'm fairly excited about this, but it might actually be the first Bioware game I actually wait a few days on to hear reviews. I liked DA2, but calling it anything but a let down for me would be wrong.

 

[Fappy]

I am still incredibly cautious about this title. Need more information before I can actually get optimistic about anything.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I still wanna know where the heck they're going to go with Flemeth, Morrigan, and

Spoiler

the Old God child

sub plot.

Anyway, I'll need something a bit more substantial for DA3 so hopefully I see more. I get the feeling the Darkspawn are going to take a back seat for awhile as the Mage-Templar War rips the continent to shreds. I wouldn't be surprised if DA4 is going to be the Grey Wardens having to tell everyone to stop killing each other while another Blight is on the horizon.

Didn't Bioware say ages ago that they were like never going to actually do the god child plot?

I swear to god I recall something from a Bioware dev, shortly after DAO came out, or maybe it was when Witch Hunt came out, where they confirmed it was never going to happen.

 

[DustyDrB]

snip

snip

These are some of the reasons that I think Dragon Age III will at least be interesting to follow. That and I believe one more badly received game will hurt the company severely. They need this to succeed. And, on a guilty pleasure note, the fan/hater reactions are entertaining (at least for a little while).

 

[PPB]

I'm disappointed that we only get to play as a human, but at this point it was expected and it's not really a deal-breaker for me. I also don't really mind Gaider being in charge (I forgive him on the basis of his work on HK-47 and Jolee Bindo), though as far as BioWare's own IPs go, I think he did an average job creating Thedas compared to Karpyshyn's ME universe.

Other than that, I can't say I have any particular feelings towards this game. I originally had high hopes for Dragon Age to become the next big thing on the modding scene like NWN was before it, but it's pretty obvious by now that it failed in that regard and I don't expect BioWare to really support modding in DA3 given the engine switch. Wait and see.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well concept art always looks good, translation into a game on the other hand is quite different.
And people might claim the reputation of Dragon Age is in tatters but one must remember that only a small percentage of people are really demanding and the rest subscribe to the age old "meh, I buy it all" train of thought, so the game will be selling just fine as long as it carries the right name.

I had about enough of their games, they are just sailing down a stream that I will not follow.