Dragon Age, looking towards Inquisition

[TT Kairen]

People don't seem to like that numbers are as important as the ability to place a cross-hair.

To go back even further. There is a reason Baldur's Gate is still so well thought of. Bioware need to get back to rolling for initiative.

They shouldn't be. Anything the player has direct input over should be far more vital to the gameplay than anything they don't. A random dice roll deciding whether you win or lose isn't satisfying gameplay, it's asinine RNG. In turn-based games it adds some variation and allows for unexpected situations to be thrown at you. This does not need to happen in real time games. The fact that the enemies can move and react in unexpected ways creates that sense of randomness on its own. Stacking RNG on top of that makes the whole sense of realism and skillful strategy go out the window.

The reason I won't be buying it is simple: they're sticking with the voiced protagonist. Any game from now on that has a voiced protagonist won't get my initial support. I'm very much of the opinion that voiced protagonists are a broken gameplay feature that kill any chance for actual roleplaying. Some day I'm going to write a thesis on why silent protagonists are as close to perfection as we'll ever see when it comes to video game roleplaying. Some day. Bioware could literally strip every other "RPG" aspect of their games away from this point forward and as long as they told me they were bringing silent PCs back I'd be first in line. Hell, I'd buy all my friends a copy.

Silent protagonists aren't mutes. If you claim that your version of the Warden or Revan, or Spirit Monk have no personality that's not a failing of the system itself. It's a failing of your imagination. If you'd rather the game do the work for you, ok. That's up to you.

This actually happens all the time. Initially post about Dragon Age, rant about voiced vs. silent PCs.

I must disagree simply because I feel you are viewing the Dragon Age series incorrectly. This is not your story. Skyrim is your story. An MMO where you get together and RP with buddies is your story. A sweeping narrative such as Dragon Age or The Witcher isn't about you, it's about the world and the established characters. The PC in Origins isn't a character, it's a cipher through which you drive the events of the story, and BioWare has allowed you input in that regard. With Dragon Age 2, they decided to make you control a character within the story, more in line with modern narrative RPG's. The silent protagonist has a place in open world games where the events and questlines exist to facilitate your development of your own personal character. They do not belong in games focused on a narrative. They never have, they just started opting to spring for someone to voice enough dialogue to fill every option.

 

[Terminal Blue]

And i have discussed the game with other hundreds of times now, I. Just. can't. do. it. anymore.
Sorry.

Why did you post about it, then?

I have no problem talking about it, in fact I find it really interesting. Not because it's a particularly good game, I think it's rushed and badly designed and was very disappointed by it when it came out, but because it does some very, very interesting things which are actually quite original in RPGs, and which it would be genuinely sad to see Bioware abandon because some people can't control the emotion of disappointment.

They both continued to stupidly hit on my male pc. (although that may just be biowares retarded decision to make everyone bi)

If this is how you feel, maybe you shouldn't be buying games by Bioware at all, considering they have a particular reputation (generally pretty well-earned) for catering to diversity in terms of sexual orientation. Maybe you should go and play one of the other games where you'll never once have to encounter the fact that bi people exist, or have to deal with them as if their sexual desires were normal like yours.

Maybe one day, that little fantasy world on which most media still operates where you can pretend everyone is straight and that noone male will ever want to fuck you will be impossible to sustain. But for now, you've still got time. Go enjoy it while you can.

Besides, Fenris never hits on male Hawke. In fact, he never hits on female Hawke either. He gives no real indication of caring about sex or romance until pushed.

Zevran hits on the male PC once, in exactly the same way he hits on the female PC, in fact, and if rejected never tries again, so I don't really know what you're talking about.

It sounds like maybe you read about the actual "controversy" involving same-sex flirting in Dragon Age, which actually centres on Anders and one very specific and minute fact about his dialogue (he gives you a tiny amount of rivalry points for rejecting him unless you do so at the very first opportunity) a fact which seems to have sent a lot of the same poisonous minority who were genuinely offended that Mass Effect 3 had a gay male romance option into some kind of twisted persecution complex.

Seriously. Where does this gay panic shit even come from? Where do you get off?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well from everything I've seen on Inquisition I can only summarize it will play exactly as it looks... not in any way related to Dragon Age that is, now that might be a good thing because they might have come up with a cool fresh concept, or they might come up with a shit one.

For me bottom line is being EA property so it will no doubt be chock full or micro-transactions and being Bioware developed who haven't done anything I enjoy in years, so plain and simply not for me.

 

[Amaror]

If this is how you feel, maybe you shouldn't be buying games by Bioware at all, considering they have a particular reputation (generally pretty well-earned) for catering to diversity in terms of sexual orientation. Maybe you should go and play one of the other games where you'll never once have to encounter the fact that bi people exist, or have to deal with them as if their sexual desires were normal like yours.

Maybe one day, that little fantasy world on which most media still operates where you can pretend everyone is straight and that noone male will ever want to fuck you will be impossible to sustain. But for now, you've still got time. Go enjoy it while you can.

Besides, Fenris never hits on male Hawke. In fact, he never hits on female Hawke either. He gives no real indication of caring about sex or romance until pushed.

Zevran hits on the male PC once, in exactly the same way he hits on the female PC, in fact, and if rejected never tries again, so I don't really know what you're talking about.

It sounds like maybe you read about the actual "controversy" involving same-sex flirting in Dragon Age, which actually centres on Anders and one very specific and minute fact about his dialogue (he gives you a tiny amount of rivalry points for rejecting him unless you do so at the very first opportunity) a fact which seems to have sent a lot of the same poisonous minority who were genuinely offended that Mass Effect 3 had a gay male romance option into some kind of twisted persecution complex.

Seriously. Where does this gay panic shit even come from? Where do you get off?

Great. First i am apparently some muslim hating racist and now a homophob. Awesome.
Seriously though you pretend like i just said bisexual characters were the bane of Dragon Age and should be purged from every media ever.
I said nothing of the sort. I don't have a problem with bisexual characters, in fact zevran is one of my favourite characters . He's overall well written and his flirtations were actually rather funny and even if you reject him you can still become his best buddy in the end.

I certainly do remember fenris hitting on me though. Not a "Let's f*** right now" sort of thing, but still a flirt. I don't remember every detail but my character was visiting him in his mansion or something while he was chilling in front of the fire or something like that.

Again i don't have a problem with bisexual characters, but sexuality is an integral part of a character and just slapping in onto everybody is a really stupid decision in my mind. It fits with Anders and maybe Isabelle. The others not so much.
Edit: And no i also didn't have a problem with a gay male romance option in ME 3. As long as it makes for a good believable character, great.

 

[votemarvel]

In Origins you could significantly alter the outcome, by pushing some of the more naive characters, namely alistair and leliana, into accepting the harshness of the reality.

Which results in.. them being willing to have threesomes?

It changes the endings quite significantly. It changes what sort of King Alistair is for example.

The text screens might not have been the most flashy endings ever but it was great how they reflected what you did in the game. From the big things such as who you made kings, to small things such as did you save the landlord of the bar in Redcliffe.

People don't seem to like that numbers are as important as the ability to place a cross-hair.

To go back even further. There is a reason Baldur's Gate is still so well thought of. Bioware need to get back to rolling for initiative.

They shouldn't be. Anything the player has direct input over should be far more vital to the gameplay than anything they don't. A random dice roll deciding whether you win or lose isn't satisfying gameplay, it's asinine RNG. In turn-based games it adds some variation and allows for unexpected situations to be thrown at you. This does not need to happen in real time games. The fact that the enemies can move and react in unexpected ways creates that sense of randomness on its own. Stacking RNG on top of that makes the whole sense of realism and skillful strategy go out the window.

You do have direct input. Sure you may not be hammering a button to get things done but your input comes from the tactics you chose, the weapons and armour you equip for yourself and your team members, etc. Not doing things in real time does not mean you aren't having a direct input.

Remember that it is this type of game that Bioware built such a strong reputation on. Baldur's Gate I and II, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic etc.

I know it might not be your cup of tea but many people do like that stats are important.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

( ^ didn't see that post when I was writing my reply, btw )

From Bioware statements, which I'm sure we can both google, they 'forgot' to add the function in before the game went Gold on consoles.

Well, if that's the case it goes to show if someone's satisfied with a product they forget those kinds of foibles.

My thought is that I liked the ability to more fully role play my character. I could far more project my own intentions onto the dialogue options I was given.

And this is why I really don't envy BioWare's position. As I said, I RP quite heavily in Skyrim, but not in DA. I much preferred a more defined character narrative.

Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale are brilliant as Shepard in the Mass Effect games. Part of my issue is that Shepard is theirs, not mine.

This is veering away from the thread topic, but I don't think Hawke and Shep are all that comparable anyway. Shepard's a fairly dire and vapid avatar - never really a character, and never really a player defined role. Hawke was given more to do, more personality (which, see above, I think is an improvement), more to react to.

Mass Effect fans as a general rule seem to prefer 2 and 3. Good games, please don't get me wrong, but those where player reflexes are considered to be far more important than the stats behind the characters. People don't seem to like that numbers are as important as the ability to place a cross-hair.

And rightly so, I reckon. Whilst ME's combat was never anything special, the whole expanding reticule thing in ME1 (along with the overall design of combat) was risible and faintly ridiculous. That an N7 operator couldn't hold a basic weapon's aim onto a target for more than a couple of shots at close range was immersion breaking, and annoyingly contrived where gameplay mechanics were concerned.

Dragon Age: Origins however seems to appeal, again generally speaking, to those where the dice-roll is of import in pretty much every aspect.

And - generally speaking - I think it's fair to say most gamers prefer videogames to not be about number crunching artifice (I still love Morrowind but its number themed hit'n'miss combat is terrible). This isn't D&D, these are both action RPG's in a very visual medium. If DAII and Mass Effect 2 and 3 represents a growing trend, then I see that as a positive and natural development.

Bioware seem to be giving up on the style of games that made them so popular in the first place, of which even Origins could be considered a 'lite' version.

Why should BioWare pander to ultra niche audiences? I think Origins was a superbly balanced game, accessible to core and casual alike.

To go back even further. There is a reason Baldur's Gate is still so well thought of. Bioware need to get back to rolling for initiative.

KotOR was my first slice of BioWare, and I've played and enjoyed everything they've made since then (barring the new Old Republic, because MMO's can go die in a ditch [as far as I'm concerned]). Last year I was convinced by some people to give Baldur's Gate a try - and it bored me senseless (haven't tried 2 yet). Why should an old, outdated game define a company in the present?

And why on earth should any game concern itself with 'rolling' for anything? The mechanics and quirks of tabletop games suit/can be tolerated with tabletop gaming. This is an AV medium, and needs to be treated differently.

 

[votemarvel]

( ^ didn't see that post when I was writing my reply, btw )

From Bioware statements, which I'm sure we can both google, they 'forgot' to add the function in before the game went Gold on consoles.

Well, if that's the case it goes to show if someone's satisfied with a product they forget those kinds of foibles.

I believe they said they forgot to include the files on the disc when it went Gold?

Possible I suppose but I expect that more likely they didn't think anyone on the consoles would prefer the old style.

And this is why I really don't envy BioWare's position. As I said, I RP quite heavily in Skyrim, but not in DA. I much preferred a more defined character narrative.

I've never been a huge fan of open world RPGS. I'm weird in that I like a story driven game but want the ability to at least partially define my character.

This is veering away from the thread topic, but I don't think Hawke and Shep are all that comparable anyway. Shepard's a fairly dire and vapid avatar - never really a character, and never really a player defined role. Hawke was given more to do, more personality (which, see above, I think is an improvement), more to react to.

I mention them because like them, Hawke is his/her own person. A lot of that for me is the voice work.

I can't imagine anyone other than the voice actor for Hawke speaking for them. I can't imagine Hawke saying those lines in any other way but how the voice actor does it.

Origins gave me the freedom to hear that voice in my head. Even similar Wardens are different people. Hawke is always Hawke.

I don't think I'm describing my thoughts correctly on this. I hope it makes at least some sense.

And rightly so, I reckon. Whilst ME's combat was never anything special, the whole expanding reticule thing in ME1 (along with the overall design of combat) was risible and faintly ridiculous. That an N7 operator couldn't hold a basic weapon's aim onto a target for more than a couple of shots at close range was immersion breaking, and annoyingly contrived where gameplay mechanics were concerned.

The thing is I loved it.

I liked how crouching improved your aim. I liked how better guns and mods improved accuracy. I liked how training improved how you handled weapons.

To me it gives a great sense of progression. Shepard gets better as the game goes on in ME1. Sniper rifles are rubbish at the beginning but about halfway through you're hitting mercs off the map with explosive rounds every time.

Want a brilliant Shepard from the beginning of the game. That's what New Game Plus is for,

There was no sense of progression, in the gunplay, for me with the two sequels. I always felt that this was as good as Shepard was ever going to be.

Why should BioWare pander to ultra niche audiences? I think Origins was a superbly balanced game, accessible to core and casual alike.

Origins is my favourite Bioware game. To me it struck the perfect balance between numbers people and those who just wanted to get into the action.

Is it 'lite' compared to Bioware's older games. Yes I'd say it is. However lite doesn't mean 'dumbed down' for want of a better term.

Should their older games define the company? I'd say to a certain extent, they should. Bioware used to have a reputation as a company who could do no wrong by its fans. Yet I've seen, as they've moved further away from what they were known for, that reputation begin to crumble around them.

Ps. I never got past the first monster in Baldur's Gate II.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I've never been a huge fan of open world RPGS. I'm weird in that I like a story driven game but want the ability to at least partially define my character.

Yet more subjectivity - great for gamers, frustrating for devs and publishers. ;-) For me only TES has ever really given me my RP fix. I rather see both DA and ME as class-player games. All narratives restrict, open-worlders just do it less. In Origins you could pick the order in which you did stuff, sure, and you could influence faction outcomes (something DAII, Skyrim, and pretty much anything else desperately does need more of), but you're still being shepherded along if you wish to level up and improve your PC. In Skyrim you could level indefinitely without touching the MQ or any of the factions, if you really wanted to.

In open-worlders, any single random accidental moment can dramatically and fundamentally alter your RP. You can loosely plan out your arc, and then have it shift as the build you pile hours onto begins to gain an identity you'd not thought about, but which works. There's an organic evolution to how your narrative plays out. There's barely any of that in DA or ME, because you're always locked in to the MQ's timeframe.

Origins gave me the freedom to hear that voice in my head. Even similar Wardens are different people. Hawke is always Hawke.

I don't think I'm describing my thoughts correctly on this. I hope it makes at least some sense.

No, you're explaining yourself just fine, because I'd likely give that reason for why I prefer how II did it. If Dragon Age isn't going to give me complete RP freedom, then I'd much rather get stuck in to its classes and builds, and enjoy a far more outlined-by-the-devs character narrative. DAII arguably just gives you a template of Paragon/Smartass Scoundrel/Renegade, and the incidental dialogue helped craft - for me - wonderfully defined variants on Hawke herself. You're restricted - but the effect was that she felt more cohesively badass/moral/irreverent than Shep could ever be (Shep, lacking those subtle incidental lines, often veered from polite ho-hum dialogue to sudden outbursts of Par or Ren).

I liked how crouching improved your aim. I liked how better guns and mods improved accuracy. I liked how training improved how you handled weapons. To me it gives a great sense of progression. Shepard gets better as the game goes on in ME1.

But it doesn't make any sense whatsoever where the lore or the story is concerned. If Shep got to N7 and then Spectre status with that level of basic technical incompetence, then, well, god help the galaxy... ;-) By ME3 you had a huge selection of weapons to choose from that reflected your preferred playstyle, plus the choices over balancing power drain to weapons carried, and for me there was more satisfying variety and tangible-on-screen 'depth' in that than ME1's terribly contrived incremental improvements.

(don't get me wrong, I think ME's combat was quite poorly designed be it 1 or 3. and I wished they'd kept crouch in, too)

Want a brilliant Shepard from the beginning of the game. That's what New Game Plus is for

Not everyone has time for NG+. And I don't believe a game that essentially requires a full playthrough to play before your character suits the fiction makes a lot of sense. The expanding reticule also felt like it mostly affected/impaired the PC, with the useless allies only good for Powers, and the enemy being little more than poorly coded cannon fodder whose accuracy just felt tied to the diff.

Should their older games define the company? I'd say to a certain extent, they should.

You did say 'to a certain extent', but that's like a fan of a band complaining that they changed at all, and that they wanted to try different sounds/themes/concepts/structures. Ultimately creators aren't beholden to whoever gives them support, and they shouldn't feel restricted in what direction and how they evolve. If BioWare games aren't for you now, fine, then move on and find another dev who's closer to your preferences.

Bioware used to have a reputation as a company who could do no wrong by its fans. Yet I've seen, as they've moved further away from what they were known for, that reputation begin to crumble around them.

I did spent time on the BioWare boards, and yeesh... let's just say I don't think gauging anything by their reactions has much value.

(apologies for derailing this thread, btw. these posts aren't exactly related to Inquisition. for DA:I all I want is decent classes/build potential, and great characters - so however the plot or story turns out, I'll still be able to enjoy it)

 

[TT Kairen]

(apologies for derailing this thread, btw. these posts aren't exactly related to Inquisition. for DA:I all I want is decent classes/build potential, and great characters - so however the plot or story turns out, I'll still be able to enjoy it)

Oh, the derailment doesn't bother me at all, this type of discussion is exactly what I created the topic for.

The thing is I loved it.

I liked how crouching improved your aim. I liked how better guns and mods improved accuracy. I liked how training improved how you handled weapons.

To me it gives a great sense of progression. Shepard gets better as the game goes on in ME1. Sniper rifles are rubbish at the beginning but about halfway through you're hitting mercs off the map with explosive rounds every time.

Want a brilliant Shepard from the beginning of the game. That's what New Game Plus is for,

There was no sense of progression, in the gunplay, for me with the two sequels. I always felt that this was as good as Shepard was ever going to be.

Origins is my favourite Bioware game. To me it struck the perfect balance between numbers people and those who just wanted to get into the action.

Is it 'lite' compared to Bioware's older games. Yes I'd say it is. However lite doesn't mean 'dumbed down' for want of a better term.

Should their older games define the company? I'd say to a certain extent, they should. Bioware used to have a reputation as a company who could do no wrong by its fans. Yet I've seen, as they've moved further away from what they were known for, that reputation begin to crumble around them.

Ps. I never got past the first monster in Baldur's Gate II.

Their reputation was always for their writing, and their ability to tell a compelling narrative. Diceroll gameplay was merely a side effect of those older games taking place in a D&D setting, so that's what those fans expected. If they took up the D&D torch again, they'd probably make another diceroll game.

No, their reputation is crumbling because the writing isn't meeting up to their standards. Sub par endings, poor third acts, etc. The gameplay is only being complained about by a small minority of purists who seem to want to mire gaming in the stone ages.

Crouching improving aim makes sense. It steadies your hands and arms. Better weapon models and modifications improving accuracy makes sense (they had those in 2 and 3 so I fail to see the purpose in this statement). Training improving how you handle weapons makes sense, but not in the manner it was done. The fact that you cannot shoot straight as an N7 special ops soldier is ridiculous. Training is not going to make every stray bullet connection do more damage.

The weapon training should have been given a critical chance or headshot damage increase to represent your improved skill at landing shots at vital or lesser protected areas. Basic marksmanship skills should be innate.

This is when diceroll and overly statistical gameplay gets under my skin. It gets in the way of the narrative and diminishes it, rather than enhancing it. This has the end result of dragging the narrative AND the gameplay down as it's all incoherent and nonsensical.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Seriously though you pretend like i just said bisexual characters were the bane of Dragon Age and should be purged from every media ever.

No. I didn't. But when you say that you don't like with male characters hitting on male characters in games and describe it as "stupid", that kind of suggests that you don't want to encounter any such thing, doesn't it?

I certainly do remember fenris hitting on me though. Not a "Let's f*** right now" sort of thing, but still a flirt. I don't remember every detail but my character was visiting him in his mansion or something while he was chilling in front of the fire or something like that.

I went back and checked this..

Fenris' romance has to be initiated by Hawke at every stage by selecting flirtatious dialogue options (the ones with the heart symbol). In fact, even if you do this, Fenris responds sceptically, leading to what essentially ammounts to a confirmation dialogue.

Now, it's possible that you read some of his dialogue as flirtatious. For example, early on he throws Hawke a compliment by calling him/her capable. However, in context, it's clear that what he means is that Hawke is a skilled fighter and has proven useful.

Again i don't have a problem with bisexual characters, but sexuality is an integral part of a character and just slapping in onto everybody is a really stupid decision in my mind. It fits with Anders and maybe Isabelle. The others not so much.

Why not?

Actually, I have to agree with the critics on this one. Anders was the least appropriate character for a same-sex romance option, because although his sexuality was never outright stated to be exclusive some of his dialogue in Awakening did hint at being primarily romantically interested in women. Even here though, a lot of it can be explained assuming his implied relationship with Karl took place after Awakening.

Isabella is never presented as anything other than radically bisexual. In fact, she was openly bi in her appearance in Origins and would happily sleep with both the female warden and Leliana.

Seriously. I don't want to get the wrong idea about what you're saying, because it would mean getting pissed off for no reason, but it certainly sounds like you're saying that there is some identifiable attribute which bi people possess which makes them immediately identifiable. If that's your opinion, then I'm sorry to tell you it isn't true and you probably need to rethink your shit. "Sexuality is an integral part of the character" is all well and good, but what does that actually mean in practice?

Furthermore, if you want to go through DA2 and pretend that Fenris and Merrill aren't bi, you can. They'll never raise the subject at all unless Hawke flirts with them through dialogue, so for the purposes of that particular playthrough their sexuality can be as hetero as the player imagines it is.

 

[Amaror]

snip

Of course they don't posses some inherent attribute that distinguishes them from other people. Apart from being bisexual obviously.
But i guess i may have gotten the charaters wrong and was thinking more about anders.

 

[TWEWYFan]

Dragon Age: Origins is very much a quintessential fantasy RPG, in many ways its more or less a darker take on Tolkien's Middle Earth. That's not to say its derivative nature was a flaw; their use of a familiar setting allowed for more focus on the characters and individual conflicts which has always been a strength of Bioware's. The origins were probably one of my favorite aspects of the game not just for providing varied protagonists but for giving a solid context for who your protagonist was. I vastly prefer games that firmly establish who your character is and what their goals might be rather than just turning a blank slate loose into the narrative. That being said your character was still largely flat, 90% of the time simply staring blankly as characters talk around him/her, giving one to two sentence answers when prompted. Still, it was very solid game overall with good game-play and an engaging story. Definite thumbs up from me.

Dragon Age 2 was a decidedly more mixed. One the one hand, I liked how the game stepped away from the Grey Wardens and Ferelden which up until that point had been the primary focus of the series and gave us a chance to see more of the setting. I liked how it took conflicts from the subtext such as the looming Qunari and the Mage/Chantry tensions and brought them into the foreground. I vastly preferred Hawke's level of characterization and interactions with other characters. That being said the game was very unpolished, especially at release where it was plagued with numerous bugs. Even with those fixed the criminally repetitive environments arbitrarily getting jumped by waves of mobs really dragged the game down. The lack of resolution for Hawke and his companions also hurt things for me but I suppose they might be able to salvage that in the sequel. This game still gets a thumbs up from me, albeit somewhat shakier one.

Throughout the series as a whole there seems to this ever present sense of a consuming darkness. In Origins it was the very literal world-destroying horde of monsters that in the end could only really be delayed until another Archdemon rose. In 2 it was the cresting wave of conflict, first the Qunari uprising and then the Mage-Templar war, that Hawke was powerless to stop (and in the latter case even got blamed for). To me though it's not what made the stories and their characters engaging. Rather it's the small bits of light you can bring into the game world along the way: rescuing the people of Redcliffe, reuniting Nathaniel with his sister, just about any of the dialogue between Merrill and Varric/Isabela. Here's hoping they don't forget than in the sequel. Either way, I'm still eagerly looking forward to seeing what comes next for Thedas.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Oh, the derailment doesn't bother me at all, this type of discussion is exactly what I created the topic for.

Fair enough!

Their reputation was always for their writing, and their ability to tell a compelling narrative. Diceroll gameplay was merely a side effect of those older games taking place in a D&D setting, so that's what those fans expected. If they took up the D&D torch again, they'd probably make another diceroll game.

No, their reputation is crumbling because the writing isn't meeting up to their standards. Sub par endings, poor third acts, etc. The gameplay is only being complained about by a small minority of purists who seem to want to mire gaming in the stone ages.

Agreed re dicerolls, but I have a bit of a nitpick re the second paragraph. Is BioWare's writing really dropping? You mention endings and poor third acts, but neither of those are really to do with their writing. That's structure and overall execution. I think their dialogue has improved almost with every game. The fluidity of conversations and dramatic scenes in ME3 was incredible, and I'd argue James (or Kaiden!) is a far more believable and relatable character than Carth Onasi. Hell, in just one trilogy they came a long way from the quite lifeless Normandy to the [relative] hive of activity that was the SR2 in ME3, with characters appearing in different parts of the ship to engage in superbly written exchanges (e.g. Garrus and James comparing feats on the crew deck, or Tali's "Emergency induction port" scene and Shep's dry comeback).

For me their games have only improved where quality of writing, presentation, and the overall experience is concerned. That's how I could not be bothered by Kirkwall's awful execution, or the copy/paste dungeons, or the higher percentage of bugs (one which broke my first character, although I still stubbornly 'finished the fight'). My point is that I think they've still got it where it counts.

Then again I was seemingly one of the few people not overly fussed about ME3's original ending. And speaking of endings---

The lack of resolution for Hawke and his companions also hurt things for me but I suppose they might be able to salvage that in the sequel. This game still gets a thumbs up from me, albeit somewhat shakier one.

You might need to reach for the spoiler tags, but what weren't you particularly pleased about with Hawke's resolution in DAII? Did you want a set of epilogues comparable to Origins' post boss-fight scenes? (which I adored, btw)

I rather liked how they left Hawke's narrative, and thought it generally fitted with the whole structure and tone of the game, not quite knowing what had happened to her, and whether or not Varric was at all an unreliable narrator.

To me though it's not what made the stories and their characters engaging. Rather it's the small bits of light you can bring into the game world along the way: rescuing the people of Redcliffe, reuniting Nathaniel with his sister, just about any of the dialogue between Merrill and Varric/Isabela. Here's hoping they don't forget than in the sequel. Either way, I'm still eagerly looking forward to seeing what comes next for Thedas.

Agreed, for me that's always been what's made me a fan of BioWare. I think their games have an insanely high replay value, too, so even if DAII had a glitchy start and a lo-rent execution of the '10 years in Kirkwall' idea, I still replayed it multiple times and think very highly/fondly of it.

If Inquisition has such heart and soul, then I should be able to look past any quirks with the story or gameplay.

 

[TT Kairen]

snip

I actually haven't had many problems with their writing or presentation myself, I just poorly worded my prior response to a crumbling rep. I love every minute of the entire Mass Effect trilogy, despite what complaints I may have about the combat system in the first game.

The only BioWare game I've played that I actively dislike playing is Origins. The story, characters, and presentation are great as always, but the gameplay is just so shoddy, slow, boring, and tedious that I can barely stand it. I'm thanking the Maker that I'm about to complete my Origins playthrough in preparation for Inquisition, so I can move on to 2, which is actually fun. Yes, I am fully aware that the game is of a lower quality of make. But it's more FUN, and is that not what matters?

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Yes, I am fully aware that the game is of a lower quality of make. But it's more FUN, and is that not what matters?

I think it is, but I think the industry is evolving and compartmentalising, just like any other artform, and a lot of core gamers are getting huffy over those changes.

Your experience of DA:O/DAII mirrors my feelings about another recent run I did of ME; I enjoyed most of the plot and character details, but couldn't wait to get stuck in to ME2 so I didn't have to deal with a risible inventory system and bizarrely crappy combat mechanics.

I do think Inquisition may prove to be a significant game for BioWare, in that it may just be a point of no return for people still banging on about Baldur's Gate. Hell, I'm a little concerned how the lack of the founders/Dr's input may affect DA, and BioWare's quintessential BioWare-ness. If it's good/I enjoy it, then I'll pretty much trust BioWare and EA. If not? Then I might start to give their IP's a miss.

I'd still be thankful for the several gens worth of great games I've enjoyed, though.

 

[Ascarus]

The only shame for me with Inquisition is that the returning cast members are some of those I liked the least.

hammer. nail. head. i can only hope that everything else that they screwed up so royally in DA2 is fixed and/or burned. i don't want to remember this series as another "what could have been".