Hopes for Dragon Age III

[BloatedGuppy]

Is this a fact? Or are you hoping Hawke will not return?

From Mike Laidlaw:

Since I'm in a sharing mood, I will put this out there: our intention is that for each major release of Dragon Age, you will take up the mantle of a new character. This does not mean your old character may never appear in future games, but as far as the core protagonist goes, if there is a DA III, it will very likely be neither Hawke nor The Warden.

We want to keep the series about the time and place, rather than about any singular character. While I know not everyone prefers that approach, I believe it's perfectly valid, especially if certain plans of ours to shore up world consistency (import bugs really bother me!) come to fruition, which I believe they will.

And that's all I can say about that.

So...I guess...95% likely you won't see either Hawke or the Warden return. Given DA2's relatively poor reception I'm not surprised, although I liked Hawke fine and wouldn't have been unhappy with a return. I think they're fishing around for a character that gets a Shepard-level positive reception.

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?

They won't, don't worry. I understand WHY some people like mute protagonists, but I do not share their enthusiasm. In a game full of voiced characters and cut scene conversations having a mute protagonist is jarring.

 

[SecondPrize]

I'm not very optimistic about it. I feel that, with their recent titles, Bioware is telling stories at me instead of telling stories with me.
When I can choose to be a City Elf or Dwarven thief and get a unique backstory out of it, that's something I can work with and everything else that happens builds on it. "Oh, this event happened and Chuck the Elf would react like so, so I'll choose this option."
If all I can do is pick a gender, that's not a firm enough basis for me to start with and I just get turned off. Like, I literally turned off DA2 when I found out I wasn't seeing an option to select my race because there was no option to select my race.

 

[Chris Tian]

Is this a fact? Or are you hoping Hawke will not return?

From Mike Laidlaw:

Since I'm in a sharing mood, I will put this out there: our intention is that for each major release of Dragon Age, you will take up the mantle of a new character. This does not mean your old character may never appear in future games, but as far as the core protagonist goes, if there is a DA III, it will very likely be neither Hawke nor The Warden.

We want to keep the series about the time and place, rather than about any singular character. While I know not everyone prefers that approach, I believe it's perfectly valid, especially if certain plans of ours to shore up world consistency (import bugs really bother me!) come to fruition, which I believe they will.

And that's all I can say about that.

So...I guess...95% likely you won't see either Hawke or the Warden return. Given DA2's relatively poor reception I'm not surprised, although I liked Hawke fine and wouldn't have been unhappy with a return. I think they're fishing around for a character that gets a Shepard-level positive reception.

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

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I have very low expectations from DA3, with all the other good RPGs coming out soon Bioware is going to have to really get their shit together in a hurry if they hope to compete.

What I hope for;

-More customization, it was stupid to remove the ability to play with your party's gear in any significant way.
-Better companions, Verric was the only one I could stand, and on top of that again more customization, I dont want to have to drag that retard anders around because he is the only healer
-Better Combat, having enemies drop, literally, out of the sky and ruin any hope for using tactics is just asinine, and we dont need "AWESHOME BUTTON" combat.
-Environments, for fucks sake dont reuse them for different areas. If I am revisiting a cave undeer the city, by all means re use the same map. But damnit, it shouldn't be the same cave as across the world!
-Story line, dont do the time jumping thing, particularly at interesting parts! IE the first act of DA2 "Oh awesome, I get to play as a merc for a while... Wait...why did they skip that, and damnit they made it sound like Hawke was awesome there too!"
-Protagonist, I would prefer to make my own, it would be nice to make an elf, human or dwarf. A SEQUEL SHOULD NOT GO BACKWARDS ON THESE THINGS!
-Aesthetics, seriously, just throw away anything you made for DA2, and use the stuff from Dragon Age 1. Chances are you have something there that looks better than the shit you had in DA2.
-Setting, I dont want to derp around one city the entire time, I want to explore, travel, and see the world, not just one particularly shitty city.

Dragon Age Origins Darkspawn:

Spoiler

Dragon Age 2 Darkspawn:

Spoiler

Bad Bioware, BAD! Dont do that shit again!

Ladies and Gentlemen we have a winner!

Seriously between what Desert Punk said (baring not including Averline, she seemed the most 'real' of the companions and not a Bioware copy/paste composite character) and the large number of 'old school' RPG's coming out of kickstarter I have no desire to board another Bioware hype-train again.

(also the DA2 darkspawns stupid walk reminded my of my little brother waddling about with a full nappy.)

 

[New Troll]

Dragon Age: Origins was mainly about a story. Dragon Age II was mainly about a person. Would be nice if Dragon Age 3 could pull off both. Let me, the player, truly take the life of the protagonist (like in DA2) along the adventure of the grand story (like DA:O.)

 

[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