Poll: Dragon age 3 do you care about importing your old save?

[verdant monkai]

I don't.

I love Dragon age. I just don't feel Origins and 2 were very connected. And the 3rd game is placing you in the shoes of yet another different character. So its not a continuation of the same story really (it is but loosely) so I just cant be asked to fuck about with it. It wiill probably want some of my time and the life of my first born so it can do some crap with my save on EA origin anyway.

I love Bioware games but I feel they over talk the importance of your choices in their games. It doesn't really matter if you go paragon or renegade, apart from some characters liking or disliking you the next game won't be affected that much.

Mass Effect you need to import saves. Its all on one generation and its commander Shepard's story. The Warden was mute and bland, I liked Hawke, but the third game is about someone else called the inquisitor. So I don't see how the warden being alive or dead will affect my game as he/she wont be in the party, I also don't care if the circle of mages has been abolished or not. Its going to be all about the Darkspawn and demons anyway.

I played the last two games on Xbox I'll go for the PS4 release this time bump my library up to a grand total of 3 games.

 

[votemarvel]

To be honest, no I don't care.

Importing worked well in Mass Effect because, while not huge differences, they shaped Sheaprd's story into a far more person one for the player.

Dragon Age doesn't have a 'Shepard', there is no continuing player avatar. We get a new protagonist in each adventure.

This makes the importing of saves much less important. Something Bioware obviously thought when in some game worlds Leliana was able to regrow a head.

Plus I kind of saw this coming when they switched game engines for the third.

 

[verdant monkai]

To be honest, no I don't care.


Something Bioware obviously thought when in some game worlds Leliana was able to regrow a head.

U WOT M8!!
Oh hang on I do remember something about her saying something about some dumb resurrection in DA2 when she turns up as a seeker. Am I on the right lines?

Yeah I'm glad you agree. Mass Effect has returning characters and it feels like Shepards story. Dragon age's characters change and big characters turn up for very forced cameos.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Yes, I intend to. But I also keep everyone alive and in my party throughout both games save Anders at the end of 2. And while the games may feature different protagonists, even if just fluff sometimes, I like the feeling and acknowledgment now and then that my past actions had some kind of universe changing effect that could have been quite different had I chosen another way in Origins.

But, I do digress to votemarvel that Mass Effect did this mechanic better in terms of narrative construction and consistency.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If it was the same character a la Shepard, but it's not. And even with the recurring characters, Bioware has made it very clear that you're choices won't really matter in the long run anyway.

 

[Chris Tian]

snip

I'm totally with you on this one, your save from DA:O matterd exactly diddly squat so I dont expect that to be much different this time around. Especially since Bioware seems to get worse and worse at making sequels that fell conected to the previous games and series work as a series instead of just games that share a title a setting and a few names.

 

[Padwolf]

Yes I do. Very much so. So much so that I have a set of specific saves just for this reason. I may have too much time on my hands, but I don't care! I love both Origins and DA2 and have played through them both multiple times. I want to see how some of my saves pan out in 3. I want to see how connected they will be. I liked seeing how my past choices had some form of impact in DA2. I can't wait to see what impact the choices in 2 have in 3.

 

[verdant monkai]

I can't wait to see what impact the choices in 2 have in 3.

Merrill will turn up to do a 5 minute PSA on how blood magic is bad for your health, Isabella will turn up and act like a slut for about 5 minutes. And a mage will either say "I enjoy being free" or "I wish I wasn't in the circle".

Then the endings will be based entirely on the events of the third game.

I hope this isn't the case but I can see it happening.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

It depends on how they implement the idea of importing data into Inquisition.

Seeing as I'm buying it for ye olde 360 I obviously will file import, but I'm not that fussed if the game isn't throwing around 'hey, remember THIS guy/gal from the last game? Well here's a pointless cameo!'-type scenes every few hours. Right now I'm fairly content with it doing its own thang.

Of course, after I go through Origins and DA2 again before DA:I launches, I might suddenly decide to be annoyed when FemHawke's favourite colour isn't referenced in DA:I...

 

[Sniper Team 4]

See, the problem with these importing saves functions is that it is impossible to do accurately from a storytelling standpoint. An example:

In Orzammar, who do you put on the throne? The old dwarf, who is honorable and noble but is stuck in the old ways? Or the clear villain who lied and murdered his way to the top, but drags the city into a new golden age? Either one of these candidates will cause the very foundation of dwarven society to shift completely. You can't change an entire culture and expect it not to ripple out and start affecting the rest of the world in completely different ways. Five years down the road and those two cities are going to be vastly different. So what do you do if you're the writer/programmer of a later game and you want those choices to really matter? "Oh, you chose the old dwarf? Okay, you can't play this amazing level in Orzammar because the dwarves have shut themselves away from the world because of who you chose to rule in a previous game." Because that is how it would play out.
It's the same thing as sparing the Council in Mass Effect, and who you put on the Council. Even though in real life those choices should have played out vastly different, doing so would have made it impossible for Mass Effect 3 to work as a game. Anderson is on the Council: the Reapers are taken seriously, fleets are built, defenses prepared, and when the Reapers arrive it's not a one-sided fight. Udina, Reapers are ignored, Shepard is brushed under the rug, humanity though manages to make great strides and ends up truly running the galaxy, but when Reapers show up they stomp everybody. Two very different games. Every choice has world-changing consequences if it happened in real life, but for a programmer or writer, it's impossible to convey those choices and still tell a story without basically making a whole new game for each major choice. Remember that 500+ page Mass Effect fan fiction that was finally finished a while ago, where each choice, all the way back to the first game, mattered? As cool as that was, you can't make a game like that. The resources, time, and money would not be worth it from a business standpoint.

All that being said, I fully intend to transfer my save file from Dragon Age II--which in turn was transferred from Dragon Age--into the final game because I do like the little nods that are put in the games. Varric mentioning who's ruling Orzammar, Merrill asking about the Warden if she was an elf in the first game...I like those little tidbits that they throw in, although I do admit that they did a much better job with the Mass Effect series than Dragon Age so far. Here's hoping Dragon Age III fixes that.

 

[danielcofour]

Well, first off, you're wrong about Inquisition's story. It's not about battling demons and darkspawn(definitely not darkspawn, although you might kill a few). It's about someone, who supposedly was manipulating the events of the first two games, shattering the veil and letting demons in. And then again, the mage-templar war was the thing that started the events of DAI, and it is one key part of the new game. DAO and DA2 were largely unconnected, but supposedly DAI is the one to connect the series, so yeah, importing is definitely important.

Yeah, Dragon Age 2 was a shitty game which had small to no connection to the it's predecessor. But the reason wasn't the new protagonist, the reason was that it the game was rushed, with only 1.5 years in development. It's kind of unfair to expect the same from Inquisition(queue sarcastic remark:"judging a company on past performence... yadi yada) but!.. DAI will have been in development for 4 years, so at the least you can expect more from it.

And also to the Leliana thing.. I don't know why so many people are upset by it. The writers wanted to keep her alive, so they did. It's their story, not yours, and if killing her in Origins was a ruse, then.. shit.. sucks.

But ultimately... why is there a poll on this?.. They already announced that there will be a web-based thingy called the Keep, which will allow you to create save-games for import... so why the poll? It doesn't matter really..

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I do, but seriously why would the series need to have one single, overarching story? This isn't Mass Effect. Origins wasn't conceived as the beginning of a trilogy, it was a largely independent story. Same with DA2, which is a largely independent story with some small threads running between it and Origins. Hell, choice has never really been that big of a thing in Bioware games, with them relying more on the illusion of choice than anything else. I play their games because I see them as fun and well crafted.

 

[nevarran]

Yes, I do. It adds to the immersion, you feel like this is your world. I remember in DA2 reading/hearing (I don't remember exactly) some references about the Hero of Ferelden, and I was like "yep, that was my guy". Small things, but cool.

 

[Chris Tian]

I do, but seriously why would the series need to have one single, overarching story? This isn't Mass Effect. Origins wasn't conceived as the beginning of a trilogy, it was a largely independent story. Same with DA2, which is a largely independent story with some small threads running between it and Origins.

You are right, a sieres can consist of individual games without overarching story, the TES series shows that.

I think Bioware is a little at fault here for waking wrong expectations in their fans. Just with the titles alone, the name "Origins" does very much seem to indicate that it is the beginning of something. And DA2 is called "2" not "Dragon Age: Adventures in and around Kirkwall". Also that they left several storylines hanging and questions unanswered in DA:O.
A little bit of expectation mangment would probably have preventet lots of disappointment for the fans that expectet the games to be more connectet and some of those questions would be answered and some of those storylines resolved.

Hell, choice has never really been that big of a thing in Bioware games, with them relying more on the illusion of choice than anything else. I play their games because I see them as fun and well crafted.

I'm totally with you on this one, and thats why Bioware absoltely has to stop promising and hyping how much there games are about choice.

 

[IceStar100]

Honestly I just don't care anymore. I might check it out in a rent but it feel more like something they writers don't even care about. From the books to this quote unquote connectivity. It just seems like something that more of a cash grab and hope no one pay attention in the release tell after they make a ship full of money.

So no I don't care. Even if you do it won't matter like other said they show up act out there cliche and leave.

 

[Funyahns]

If I could import DA;O I may have an interest. I don't want to finish DA2, I disliked the game enough that I will never play it again. Which means I won't be buying DA3 until its out for a while.

 

[votemarvel]

It depends on how they implement the idea of importing data into Inquisition.

Seeing as I'm buying it for ye olde 360 I obviously will file import,

No you wont.

The problem is that there is no import feature for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Bioware have created "The Keep", which is essentially a save generator where you can set the world state you will get in the third game.

 

[InkySpines]

I really don't think it will matter.

A (non-DLC) questionnaire or tickboxes will be more than sufficient. I've played through DA:O several times with different outcomes, and went out of my way to not kill my party members in all of them. My head canon was fairly close to the human warrior generic import offered by DA2. I don't think there is really much difference between human warrior romancing Morrigan and city elf romancing Alistair then forcing him to do the deed with Morrigan. Bhelen vs. Harrowmont and Tuvok vs. Werewolves wasn't really distinctive enough for me to care about when playing another game, though I am glad the Ferelden Circle wasn't massacred.

As far as DA2, I look forward to not caring about whether Hawke molested Merrill or sport-f***ed Isabella. Were there any other real paths of divergence in DA2? Carver and Bethany I guess.

That said, prove me wrong Bioware. But not with some BS Galactic Readiness 'must play multiplayer' mechanic.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

Actually, I care enough about it that I'm planning on taking myself through DA:O and DAII with a fresh character so I have something to import when DA:I comes out.

EDIT: Unless they don't do the import thing. If they do the Keep thing only, then I'll just go through the Keep and create a bunch of different world states to fiddle with.