Hopes for Dragon Age III

[BloatedGuppy]

Maahh dammit! So i run around Kirkwall doing everybodys mostly uninteresting and completly unimportant chores for nothing, awesome!

From what I'm reading, your character in the third game will be "The Inquisitor".

And if you don't like doing pointless chores for fussy strangers, then RPGS are not for you, sir! =P


PS - I probably should've added to my concerns that Bioware (along with everyone else) seems WAAAAAY too jealous of Skyrim's success and too eager to name drop/imitate. Open worlds are not something Bioware has ever demonstrated even the slightest understanding of. If they try aping Skyrim it could very easily end badly.

 

[Chris Tian]

From what I'm reading, your character in the third game will be "The Inquisitor".

And if you don't like doing pointless chores for fussy strangers, then RPGS are not for you, sir! =P

Well so much for that.
I am okay with doing pointless sh*t for helpless NPC's for some extra XP and bling, but for like 90% of the game? Come on Bioware, seriously?

PS - I probably should've added to my concerns that Bioware (along with everyone else) seems WAAAAAY too jealous of Skyrim's success and too eager to name drop/imitate. Open worlds are not something Bioware has ever demonstrated even the slightest understanding of. If they try aping Skyrim it could very easily end badly.

I haven't even heard that they want to make it open-world, oh my god that could go sooo wrong.
On a related note that was my first thought when CDProjectRED announced that The Witcher 3 will be open world. The same thing killed the Gothic series.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I haven't even heard that they want to make it open-world, oh my god that could go sooo wrong.

On a related note that was my first thought when CDProjectRED announced that The Witcher 3 will be open world. The same thing killed the Gothic series.

I've got significantly more faith in CD Projekt right now than I do Bioware. I'm not terribly worried about Witcher 3.

 

[Chris Tian]

I've got significantly more faith in CD Projekt right now than I do Bioware. I'm not terribly worried about Witcher 3.

I feel the same way, but still there is this little voice in the back of my head that tells me the tale of the Gothic games.

 

[Saregon]

I really, truly hope they return to the Origins world type. Which is to say, several distinct places (not directly open world, but having a whole game in one city isn't my cup of tea), that you can go through in the order you choose.

Being able to choose your starting race/backstory. I really enjoyed the start for each story in Origins, and were it not for that, I might very well not have played it so much, 4 playthroughs so far, and starting a new one soon. I played through DA2 once. I started a second character, played for an hour and stopped. Haven't picked it up since.

If being able to choose your race means sacrificing the voice acting, that's fine by me. I find it a lot better to have only text for the player character, than to have a few words saying one thing, and click them, only to have my character blurt out something completely unrelated. That just makes me think "That's not what I was trying to say at all, what are you playing at??"

Oh, and PLEASE let me press A once and autoattack, instead of having to spam A for every single strike.

 

[Vern5]

My guess is that Hawke will return to fill the role of Protagonist and follow the footsteps of his alternate-universe co-star, Shepard.

It will be about the aftermath or the continued war between Mages and the Chantry. Both sides will lose power and practically destroy everything around them. In light of this sudden weakness, the Tevinter Empire will see an opportunity to regain its former glory and go on the offensive. Hawke will try to convince the other factions to lay their differences aside to fight this rising threat. They wont listen. SO Hawke will need to put together a stronger team of special individuals (a squad) to combat the Tevinter Empire before it has the chance to put its war effort into action.

Ok wanna bet on it now?

Who thinks that a completely out of place cyberpunk/future tech robot will come out of fuckin nowhere at the end of the game (instead of space magic) and offer you a red/blue/green choice only to have a fuck-you choice added in as DLC?

If it comes to that, i'm choosing the Synthesis ending where the Mages and Templar are fused together. Two-Headed self-hating monster people. That's where it's at.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I feel the same way, but still there is this little voice in the back of my head that tells me the tale of the Gothic games.

Eh. Pirahna Bytes were in over their head. The company had already gone bankrupt once, and was in no situation to be increasing the scope of their ambition for a follow up project.

CD Projekt is a healthy company and has doubled their team size for Witcher 3. There's no guarantee they'll nail the game play style that best suits open worlds, but they won't be flailing around with limited resources and no budget for testers.

 

[Avalanche91]

My one hope for DA3: please, don't suck....

I am activly trying to like Bioware at this point, but all the goodwill they accumulated with me for DAO and ME2 have subsided after DA2 and ME3. They have to prove themselves again and part of me, the part that holds onto DAO and ME2, hopes they succeed.

However, part of me is still pretty bitter about ME3 and I flat out refuse to buy the game during the launch week. If the internet is only moderatly filled with the fires of hate by that point I might check it out.

 

[Chris Tian]

I feel the same way, but still there is this little voice in the back of my head that tells me the tale of the Gothic games.

Eh. Pirahna Bytes were in over their head. The company had already gone bankrupt once, and was in no situation to be increasing the scope of their ambition for a follow up project.

CD Projekt is a healthy company and has doubled their team size for Witcher 3. There's no guarantee they'll nail the game play style that best suits open worlds, but they won't be flailing around with limited resources and no budget for testers.

Well i didn't know these two little facts. That actually silenced the voice, thank you very much for that good sir

 

[conmag9]

My primary hope is that we get to slaughter all the templars, the self righteous slaving assholes. Or at least reform them into a sort of anti magic police force that goes after the mages that actually go about doing the evil stuff while the rest of us them just go about day to day life.

 

[Uhura]

But all the romances in DA2 (except the DLC one) can be followed by a Hawke of either gender.

Oh right. I was talking more specifically about the male romance options. I understand all the possible male LIs are quite broody, and that's a character type that very rarely appeals to me. Not sure what the female LIs are like but I haven't really liked any of Bioware's previous female LIs (although I might be warming up to Tali) so I'm not particularly optimistic on that front.

Oh god, no. Dear mother of god, NO!

If you're going to be programming in specific dialogue anyway, the dumbest idea you can think of is "Hey, let's have everyone be voiced except for this ONE woman! And besides, if Mass Effect and SWTOR are anything to go by, BioWare has no intention of returning to silent protagonists anytime soon.

Silent protagonists are fine if they either don't speak at all (IE Zelda) or if the entire game lacks voiceovers (IE Pokemon). But Silent protagonists make absolutely no sense in a game where everyone else speaks, but the player doesn't. And no, Immersion is far too subjective and dependant on individual players to be a valid design choice.

Plus after Kari Wahlgren and Mark Bazely in SWTOR, Jennifer Hale in Mass Effect, and Jo Wyatt in DA2, please don't drop character voices... please?

I definitely get what you mean. I love Jennifer Hale in ME and when I played DA:O for the first time, I found the mute PC very jarring. DA2 has a voiced protagonist but for some reason I find it even more jarring than the mute protagonist in DA:O. I guess I'm just not a huge fan of Fem Hawke's voice... combine that with poor dialogue mechanic and ughhh...! So yeah, I generally prefer voiced protagonists too but in DA2 I'm really not digging Fem Hawke. I guess I just figured that having a silent protagonist would be less disruptive.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Here's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that all the backstory, all the hidden lore, and the secrets threats, all of that stuff that was hinted at in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II finally comes crashing down in full force in Dragon Age III.

That's one of the things that I really liked about Dragon Age II. Just behind Hawke's story and off to the side, there are some serious mysteries and threats growing. Why was there a dwarven city that doesn't match ANY known records? What was so special about that Lyrium idol, and how did they craft it into that if it was so dangerous? Who was leaving those hidden messages around Kirkwall, and what exactly did they free at the end of the game that is now running loose? What did Gaxking (or whatever his name is) mean when he told The Warden that great eyes are watching her (mine's a girl)? What is Flemeth really up do, and what does Morrigan's child have to do with it? What do the Qunari know that humans don't? There has to be something, otherwise why are they even harsher with their mages than humans are? And then, if you played the Legacy DLC, what happens at the end after you defeat the boss is truly unsettling.

So, here's my theory. The first part is going to be about the Mage Templar war that is now raging. Reading Dragon Age: Asunder proves that peace has gone out the window. Thus, there are going to be some epic battles. All that death, all that Blood Magic--because be honest, the mages are going to be using that now--is going to do something to the Veil. In previous games, it's said that the Veil is thinner where there has been a lot of death. So what happens when a war, with every Mage fighting with magic and every Templar killing every mage they can find, spreads across all of Thedas? I'm thinking the Veil is not only going to tear. I think it's going to break. And suddenly the Mages, Templars, Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and even the Qunari, are going to realize that they have a serious problem on their hands because something unheard of is going to come through the Veil. Some that has been pulling the strings for centuries to cause this to happen.

That's what I'm mainly hopeful for. Yes, fix some of the controls from Dragon Age II, no reusing dungeons, let us meddle around with our companions' armor and all the little technical things, but for the love of Dragon Age, don't turn Dragon Age III into a game about a war that the rest of Thedas could care less about and is based on differing beliefs. All that fantasy, all that lore, and choosing to ignore all of it for a story that X-men has been telling for years is an utter waste of the franchise.

 

[Chris Tian]

Here's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping that all the backstory, all the hidden lore, and the secrets threats, all of that stuff that was hinted at in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II finally comes crashing down in full force in Dragon Age III.

That's one of the things that I really liked about Dragon Age II. Just behind Hawke's story and off to the side, there are some serious mysteries and threats growing. Why was there a dwarven city that doesn't match ANY known records? What was so special about that Lyrium idol, and how did they craft it into that if it was so dangerous? Who was leaving those hidden messages around Kirkwall, and what exactly did they free at the end of the game that is now running loose? What did Gaxking (or whatever his name is) mean when he told The Warden that great eyes are watching her (mine's a girl)? What is Flemeth really up do, and what does Morrigan's child have to do with it? What do the Qunari know that humans don't? There has to be something, otherwise why are they even harsher with their mages than humans are? And then, if you played the Legacy DLC, what happens at the end after you defeat the boss is truly unsettling.

So, here's my theory. The first part is going to be about the Mage Templar war that is now raging. Reading Dragon Age: Asunder proves that peace has gone out the window. Thus, there are going to be some epic battles. All that death, all that Blood Magic--because be honest, the mages are going to be using that now--is going to do something to the Veil. In previous games, it's said that the Veil is thinner where there has been a lot of death. So what happens when a war, with every Mage fighting with magic and every Templar killing every mage they can find, spreads across all of Thedas? I'm thinking the Veil is not only going to tear. I think it's going to break. And suddenly the Mages, Templars, Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and even the Qunari, are going to realize that they have a serious problem on their hands because something unheard of is going to come through the Veil. Some that has been pulling the strings for centuries to cause this to happen.

That's what I'm mainly hopeful for. Yes, fix some of the controls from Dragon Age II, no reusing dungeons, let us meddle around with our companions' armor and all the little technical things, but for the love of Dragon Age, don't turn Dragon Age III into a game about a war that the rest of Thedas could care less about and is based on differing beliefs. All that fantasy, all that lore, and choosing to ignore all of it for a story that X-men has been telling for years is an utter waste of the franchise.

I think there is no way that they can resolve all those big loose ends in DA3, i mean thats just too much. And if ME3 and the Ending-Mess showed one thing than its that tying up loose ends is not Biowares strong suit. I think your fear off the X-Men like story, will most likely come true.

 

[Rack]

A generic and slightly dull beatemup with an awful plot, crippling DRM, no RPG elements and a 95% rating on Metacritic.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

I hope they make a dating sim, there aren't enough western dating sims and Bioware have proved themselves to be very proficient in the genre.

RPGs can be left to devs which have actually released a good one in the last 4 years

PS: Actually DA3 could just be DLC for DA2, I'm fine with that

 

[CloudAtlas]

Well if you didn't care for either previous DA games, its pretty unlikely the third one will appeal to you.

Oh, I did care. Many fundamentals were solid. They're typical BioWare games, and, in principle, I like those types of games. There were just a lot of elements that prevented me from really liking games. But many of these elements could be rectified, and I'm actually confident that this is going to happen. Many of the flaws of Dragon Age 2 were things that were more or less objectively bad, you find them mentioned in most reviews - BioWare knows what they should do here (and if their few announcements are to be believed, they do work on some of them). Dragon Age 2, as well as the sequel's title, "Inquisition", suggests that the story will be going into the direction I would like to see.
Frankly, I am puzzled why we don't see more stories like that; don't plots about freedom, oppression, slavery and so on resonate just as deeply with people?

And, by the way, Game of Thrones should have proven by now that even fantasy fans like stories that are about something else than saving the world from evil.

You are right of course. But like i stated in my post above, if i have to choose, i care more for how a story is told, than what it is about. I mean if Game of Thrones would be badly written, even the rather interessting plot couldn't save it, at least for me.[/quote]

I don't find A Song of Ice and Fire to be particularly well written. In fact, I stopped reading after the third book. It actually is the setup, the plot, that does save it for me, and makes me still care. And watch the series, which I find better than the books.

 

[aivalera]

I'm seeing a lot of hate for DA 2, but it honestly wasn't that bad.

The main problem with the comments I see is that DAO is an RPG and DA2 is more of an action-adventure, so fans are torn and their preferences come into play.

- I, personally, like the streamlined armor system so I'm not spending freaking hours in the inventory saying "inspect, junk, inspect, junk, inspect, junk, inspect, keep, inspect, junk, inspect keep, inspect, equip" every hour, and I get stuck between fasion messes (for a lack of a better term) and practicality. DA 2's characters armor shows their story and past. I have one problem with it in that you get upgrades for the companions armor but it doesn't appear on their armor so it doesn't seem like they are growing.

- No overuse of maps.

- Since we are importing saves from DA and DA2, then have the previous decisions matter.

- A new game plus mode.

- DLC that adds to the story. Bioware seems to have an issue in predictable and bad decisions in DLC; DLC 1 add a new character and will be free if you pre-order the game, DLC 2 will add a few more hours of gameplay and some items in a side plot, DLC 3 will bring in another charcter who might stay with you, DLC 4 will be great.

(Seriously, ME 2: Zaeed, Overlord, Kasumi, Shadow Broker

ME 3: From Ashes, Leviathan, Omega, Citadel

DA: Shale, Warden's Keep, Ostagar (You can get Dog if you missed him so it counts, kinda), Awakening + A bunch of kinda crap smaller bits

DA2: Sebastian, Legacy, Mark of the Assassin, nothing for DLC 4 + A bunch of item packs)

I like the DLC that gives you new characters that stay through the game even if DLC 1 is a bit of a transparent move to get more money in that they are always day one DLC yet they affect the entire plot in something that could take months. But this isn't the place so I'll stop talking about DLC.

- A better structured story. I only fully got some parts on my second playthrough just a few weeks ago, like did you know that the second to last boss (no spoilers) knew the serial murderer and even helped him out? No? Neither did I until I remembered the boss's name and saw his initial on a random note. And this is BEFORE you've met the guy or even hear his name. What's more is that you aren't told the murderers name enough times to remember it so when the boss goes "(name) was right" it's gibberish.

- No multiplayer.

- I like the conversation wheel because there were time in Dragon Age Origins when I didn't know if what I was going to say implied that I didn't care or if I was genuinely curious and I would accidently insult my party members because my character had a bitchy tone in his voice. And the special options were a nice touch. I know the one I thought was cool was when a slaver had a hostage but Hawke could kill him with a throwing knife because he was a rogue. Plus you could get your teammates to act if they were in you're party.

- No random loot based on current level. It annoying as hell when you have the Badass Blade of Awesomeness get beaten by a regular sword and there is no way to tell unless you inspect it in your inventory because it's a generic item.

- Lastly, have the comparison window up when you are picking up equpiment. Bioware, why did you have this in Origins but then took it out for DA2? That makes no logical sense from any perspective!

As long as DA3 has these rules then I would be all over it.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I think they need to spend even more time developing for and talking about making female hawke's butt swing even more perfectly as she walks. That was a good line of development.

 

[TWEWYFan]

If what I've read so far is right, you will not be playing as Hawke or the Warden, although they might make cameos. I'm hopeful that the game will at least have some pretty good writing, since Bioware games usually do, even when the games themselves aren't as well received.

While I wish I could say I had high hopes for the rest of this game, given what EA has done lately I have my doubts. Frankly, I worry that this might be Bioware's last game before EA decides that they've been bled dry and cuts them loose.

 

[Misterian]

Speaking as someone who enjoyed both games, I'm quite looking forward to Dragon Age 3.

Especially since it'll involve the mage-templar conflict, speaking as a pro-mage fan, I'm looking forward to more chances to take the templars down a notch and hopefully make things better for the Mages as well.

Must be ironic that I'm optimistic about a game franchise as cynical as Dragon Age, isn't it?