Dragon Age: Inquisition Pre-Release Thread

[dryan]

That's because DA's characters are characters from a teenage soap opera caught in a grimdark fantasyland, whereas Mass Effect's characters are over-the-top space opera characters caugt in an over-the-top space opera. Say what you will about the Mass Effect universe: those characters belong in it.

Also, ME2's characters are actually written fairly well.

 

[Morality Games]

Well, I bit the bullet. I was jonesin' pretty hard for this kind of game when Obsidian cockblocked me with a 2015 release.

 

[Mastermind]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

 

[Morality Games]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Butch or not, Cassandra is technically a princess, which is pretty much all I care about in a romance in an RPG (or life). Power and status symbols.

 

[rogozhin]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

 

[GrimoireFTW]

Im downloading the game on xbox one atm. Finaly broke down and payed the 4.99 for EA early access for one month. I figured the 10 percent I get off the game covers the cost of the sub (already went online and turned off the auto renew)

 

[Mastermind]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Aerie will always be my only video game waifu.

 

[Morality Games]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Aerie will always be my only video game waifu.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

That's because DA's characters are characters from a teenage soap opera caught in a grimdark fantasyland, whereas Mass Effect's characters are over-the-top space opera characters caugt in an over-the-top space opera. Say what you will about the Mass Effect universe: those characters belong in it.

Also, ME2's characters are actually written fairly well.

Also these characters arent all hideous. Or "attractive" only for outer fringe sexual deviants and freaks.

Mainstream attractive is pretty well represented in ME. Which is a good idea when you are trying to sell something in volume.

Possibly all character designers on DAI belong to said fringe cult and when ordered to design interesting and attractive NPCs they did just that, but exclusively taking cues from and referencing their own scary little subculture. Add to that the unbelievably large influence of a extremely vocal group of sjws and other assorted weirdos and you have a cast of abominations as companions. I suppose you are not allowed to burn these freaks alive or put them on the rack, as a true inquisitor would? (I would maybe spare Blackwall and Cassandra).

 

[Stainless Veteran]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Aerie will always be my only video game waifu.

 

[Grinolf]

Also, ME2's characters are actually written fairly well.

Only 2 of them: scientist and robot. Other suffer much from quantity over quality approach.

 

[Lhynn]

I really don't see the problem. By the time the patches, DLCs etc. are out, this game will be cracked.
Unless someone is counting the hours until he is able to play this shit, in which case he is a hypocrite and should buy the game instead of pirating it, as it's obvious he wants to play it and likes it.

Its either DA:i or finish wasteland 2... I figure inquisition is time better spent

No excuses, there are tons of games more worthy of your time.

I feel like people saying this have less free time or something. Nigga, I've played Bound in Flame and fucking Risen 3. I ain't exactly culling the cream of the crop in my attempts to past time. Life is shit and then you die. Might as well play some shitty games while waiting for better ones. I always thought "lololol u bought a game that isn't good ur dum" was just people being edgy, but it's good to know some people actually believe it.

At the moment im playing tales of Tales of Maj'Eyal and its pretty fucking good. you can also play shadowrun returns, dragonfall, a few fan made mods for it that are actually awesome, D:OS, MMX, and a huge bunch of etcs.
You cannot possibly tell me youve played every good rpg worth playing released in the past 4 years, let alone those that were released 30 years ago, because if you do you are a big fat liar.
Not even counting the incline in other genres in the past 10 years. Do you honestly believe that the half baked wl2 and the retarded PoE are the only things going in the industry? FFS, stop making lame ass excuses to play the latest bioware shitfest with a clean conscience.

Yes, its going to be shit, no, you dont need to actually see in what way it will be shit.

 

[Zeriel]

I really don't see the problem. By the time the patches, DLCs etc. are out, this game will be cracked.
Unless someone is counting the hours until he is able to play this shit, in which case he is a hypocrite and should buy the game instead of pirating it, as it's obvious he wants to play it and likes it.

Its either DA:i or finish wasteland 2... I figure inquisition is time better spent

No excuses, there are tons of games more worthy of your time.

I feel like people saying this have less free time or something. Nigga, I've played Bound in Flame and fucking Risen 3. I ain't exactly culling the cream of the crop in my attempts to past time. Life is shit and then you die. Might as well play some shitty games while waiting for better ones. I always thought "lololol u bought a game that isn't good ur dum" was just people being edgy, but it's good to know some people actually believe it.

At the moment im playing tales of Tales of Maj'Eyal and its pretty fucking good. you can also play shadowrun returns, dragonfall, a few fan made mods for it that are actually awesome, D:OS, MMX, and a huge bunch of etcs.
You cannot possibly tell me youve played every good rpg worth playing released in the past 4 years, let alone those that were released 30 years ago, because if you do you are a big fat liar.
Not even counting the incline in other genres in the past 10 years. Do you honestly believe that the half baked wl2 and the retarded PoE are the only things going in the industry? FFS, stop making lame ass excuses to play the latest bioware shitfest with a clean conscience.

Yes, its going to be shit, no, you dont need to actually see in what way it will be shit.

I've played literally every RPG you listed, and pretty much every single one on the Codex top 70, not to mention countless european shovelware that'll never make those lists. But I guess that makes me a big fat liar.

(Not sure I understand your logic, though: RPG Codex regulars are grognard enough to argue all day about RPGs, but not grognard enough to actually play all those RPGs? Wat? It is to be expected that we losers have probably played all that stuff. Hence why all these random threads for random games exist on the Codex. The beast must be fed.)

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Whelp, my morbid curiosity gotten better of me and I have sinned. I bought this atrocity, got a deal from our Russian discounter, of course, so EA have gotten richer just for 15$. Still going to torrent it when it gets cracked, of course, and seed full-time. Also going to let's play it, so that good people here won't sin like I did.

 

[Echo Mirage]

my team is ready

I'm a dirty third worldian with questionable english lenguage skills but I don't know... anyone understood what the tranny elf/meth addict is trying to say? It sounds like a hack writer trying to write an autist character and failing at it.

As far as I can understand (Being British myself doesn't help much) it translates to "I left you notes to follow so that you would come here. But this guy was here as well. I didn't know he would be here but I stole the guards trousers because its funny. And I killed the guy I don't know because he is to decedent and bourgeoisie for me and the friends of Red Jenny" And her reasons for wanting to join you are because you stomp on big people who are hurting the gutter dwelling peasants, Or something. It's really hard to tell since her voice lacks flow and any real passion for the delivery. Either way her voice and characterization is that of one of the many trashy and cheap girls that can be found in inner city housing estates that would sleep with you for a cheap can of larger and a packet of Marlboro's. Which they can't buy themselves because they are underage despite having two children by illegal immigrants.

 

[7/10]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Looks like some new trend in politically-correct gaming. They made all their female sexual objects pretty unatrractive, because they wanted to avoid "objectifying" wymynz.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Firstly, BG2 also had next to no C&C

Hmm? C&C in the game was markedly similar to that of DA:O, at least when considering that which was gameplay pertinent.

Both games feature a handful of quests that backload the choice at the end of the content. The player will run through 95% of the area/dungeon before encountering a branch, where the choice results in different boss fights and some minor consequences. In Dragon Age, this describes the Deep Roads, the search for Andraste's Ashes, and the Dalish/Werewolves quest. All of them had the player going through the same zones, the same content before making the choice at the very end. These bear strong resemblance to the Druid Grove, the Sahaugin City, Windspear Hills, and the Copper Coronet. No matter whether you were going to challenge Faldorn or poison the grove (and end in up in multi-stage fight), you're still going through the same map just as whether you side with Branka and keep the Anvil cranking out golem or kill her and shut it down, better be ready for 3+ hours of Deep Roads (which really got a bad rap; the encounter design was actually halfway decent there).

BG2 and DA:O both weave a lot of the C&C into the companions. Both games have mutually exclusive party members (though BG2 has many more conflicts), both have party members that will leave of attack the player based on certain choices they might make, and both feature the ability to shape companion alignment disposition through quest/dialogue interaction.

Both games also feature a time in which the player has to join with one of two competing factions in order to make progress (Shadow Thieves/Vampires in BG2 and the different Dwarven noble in DA:O). In each game, the difference between factions amounts to minor questline differences (though BG2 has a different dungeon crawl for the two faction's last quests) and minor consequences.

The two games both feature an instance in which you can call upon past allies to help the party in a combat scenario. In DA:O, this is the final battle against the Darkspawn, in which you can call upon different allied forces via a special power up. In BG2, the party could enlist up to four factions (Shadow Thieves, Order of the Radiant Heart, Drizzt, one of the Temples) to help them invade Bodhi's lair if the faction was still around and the player had good relations with them.

Bioware also made one highly detailed questline, with a significant amount of ways to play through, in each game; for DA:O it was the town of Redcliffe and for BG2 it was the Underdark. The Codex review did a good (for what it was) job of explicating on Redcliffe, so I'll just hash out the options in the Underdark portion.

Spoiler

1. Obtain the Light Gem to meet with Adalon by solving the Deep Gnome's demon problem, pickpocketing their leader, or simply kill them all.

2.
-Agree to Adalon's terms and accept the illusion

-...Or kill her to unlock the door out of the Underdark and fight your way out.

3.
-Once disguised as Drow, proceed to infiltrate Ust Natha as promised,

-...Or screw Adalon over by using the illusion to bluff/bribe your way past the Drow guarding the gate to the surface and have them unlock it for you.

4. In Ust Natha proceed through the questline that leads up to the Ritual and...

-Fail to keep Soluafein alive or gain his trust, forcing the player to:

*Grab the eggs from the Treasury and fight their way out of the city
*Interrupt the Ritual as Phaere is about to sacrifice the eggs and fight against her and the summoned Demon Lord
*Let the ritual go through, get revealed by the Demon Lord, and then have to not only fight your way out of the city, but deal with a pissed off Silver Dragon.

-Keep Solaufein alive, earn his trust, and obtain a second set of fake dragon eggs allowing the player to either:

*Double cross Phaere and have the Demon Lord kill her and her retainers, then remain silent when the Demon Lord asks for anyone else, allowing for a hasty escape from the city with no combat involved.
*Double cross Phaere, and the sacrifice the dragon eggs yourself for a powerful magical halberd or a teleport out of the Underdark. Truly magnificent bastards will take the item, and then go rub it in Adalon's face and kill her so as to obtain some silver dragon blood.

Finally, both games are filled with plenty of smaller choices, particularly in small sidequests or ways in which to pass through the critical path. Things like the different methods of entering Spellhold, how to find the way to Andraste's ashes, the Fade/Hell trials, and whatnot.

I think DA:O tends to look a lot better than BG2 in the C&C department, even though the aren't that far apart in core design, because every large quest had some sort of choice and there were no straight dungeon crawls (Planar Sphere, Temple Ruins, Unseeing Eye).

 

[hell bovine]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Aerie will always be my only video game waifu.

Yeah, the underaged elf, who you can knock up and then she puts the kid away in a backpack. I'll take any cheesy porn dialog with ADULT characters over it. And the other romances were equally as creepy; you could hit on a recently widowed woman still in mourning, a nutcase with a sister-complex and the S&M drow (who was actuallly the only normal relationship in the game). BG2 had fun quests, fun magic system and (some) fun characters (Xzar&Monty), but the romances were 50 shades of creepiness.

 

[Puke Face]

lol, i checked out the DA wiki to see the characters. Bioware really doesn't have any straight males working for them anymore considering the romance options. It's so awful that I can't help but think that they were intended to be a giant "fuck you" to their old fans. Contrast BG2 to this atrocity where for some reason they think a butch lesbian and Elena Ceausescu are what the average neckbeard craves.

Looks like some new trend in politically-correct gaming. They made all their female sexual objects pretty unatrractive, because they wanted to avoid "objectifying" wymynz.

The men look awful too, not quite as bad I guess since they are supposed to look mannish. There is something very off about them though.

 

[Glaurung]

With Dragon Age Origins, I think most complaints at the time were directed not at the quantity of C&C, but rather at their quality. Yes, there were plenty of choices you could make, but more often than not it was a choice between two equally vapid and unappealing two-dimensional extremes which barely affected anything outside of that situation. There was one pretty big exception to this rule, however - the main plot of the game.

No, not the nonsense about gay wardens and Darkspawn, but the plot that starts at Ostagar and ends with the Landsmeet. This was a pretty LONG sequence of events that involved surviving Ostagar, defending Redcliff from zombies, defeating the demon-child Connor, an optional venture into the Circle Tower, finding the Urn of Sacred Ashes, fucking around in Denerim, and finally culminated in a confrontation with Loghain that decided the fate of the kingdom. There were many branching options in this sequence and if you wanted to achieve the best outcome - you usually had to work for it, instead of pressing A to save and pressing B to kill. If you wanted to save Connor, you had to do the entire Circle Tower side-quest to recruit a few mages for the ritual, if you wanted to get a specific result at the Landsmeet - you had to forge political alliances and make the right choices during the confrontation. At the end you got a pretty diverse set of possible endings - you could keep Anora on the throne, you could replace her with Alistair, you could take the throne yourself (only if Human Noble), you could kill Loghain, make him a gay warden, etc.

However, the mage, dwarven and elven side-quests offered little more than a binary choice between slightly-disguised good and slightly-disguised evil. The only thing that motivated me during the mage quest was getting the mages to help save Connor, the dwarven and elven side-quests weren't even part of the main plot. Think about it - what difference would it make if you resolved the Landsmeet first, and THEN went to recruit dwarves and elves for the army? None whatsoever, because dwarven and elven side-quests aren't integrated into the affairs of the kingdom, and they should be.

The companion side-quests were simply terrible. Every single one of them went like: hey, remember that extremely significant person/item from my past? It has unexpectedly come back to haunt me, and now we must find and kill/save it. +/-10 Approval.

And the terrible endgame involved the boring nonsense of running around the same city we've been running around since forever, killing darkspawn and summoning armies that made little to no difference. Honestly, if the whole game had been about the fate of Ferelden, with the story extended to involve possible schemes in Orlais and dwarves/elves having more to do with the main plot, DAO would have been a solid roleplaying and story-telling experience. As is, it has a lot of good elements that drown in a miasma of stupidity.

 

[Hepler's Vagina]

Not sure what you mean about the elven quest being a binary choice? Who is supposed to be evil? Zathrian for casting the curse? The warewolves for the crimes of their ancestors? The warewolves for trying to get back at Zathrian? The way I resolved it was to unite them both and lift the curse. Not sure how 'binary' that is.

The dwarven choice was OK especially if you played the dwarf noble origin story and know what's what. But there's enough people to talk to in Orzammar to give you a picture of what the difference is between Harrowmont and Bhelen. Not to mention if you metagame and work of the epilogue...

 

[A horse of course]

None of the BG2 romances are particularly objectionable. They're cheesey and rather sad, but so is most fantasy. Last I checked, none of them have STD or cuck scenes, aggressively annoying personalities, or any of the other myraid awfulness of Dragon Age 2/3 party members.

 

[Infinitron]

No, not the nonsense about gay wardens and Darkspawn, but the plot that starts at Ostagar and ends with the Landsmeet. This was a pretty LONG sequence of events that involved surviving Ostagar, defending Redcliff from zombies, defeating the demon-child Connor, an optional venture into the Circle Tower, finding the Urn of Sacred Ashes, fucking around in Denerim, and finally culminated in a confrontation with Loghain that decided the fate of the kingdom. There were many branching options in this sequence and if you wanted to achieve the best outcome - you usually had to work for it, instead of pressing A to save and pressing B to kill. If you wanted to save Connor, you had to do the entire Circle Tower side-quest to recruit a few mages for the ritual, if you wanted to get a specific result at the Landsmeet - you had to forge political alliances and make the right choices during the confrontation. At the end you got a pretty diverse set of possible endings - you could keep Anora on the throne, you could replace her with Alistair, you could take the throne yourself (only if Human Noble), you could kill Loghain, make him a gay warden, etc.

Yep. This is what Edward_R_Murrow glossed over in his comparison with BG2.

 

[Erebus]

At the end you got a pretty diverse set of possible endings - you could keep Anora on the throne, you could replace her with Alistair, you could take the throne yourself (only if Human Noble), you could kill Loghain, make him a gay warden, etc.

It's true that there were a lot of possible options. My problem was that I hated all of them : Anora was a bitch, Loghain was a dumbfuck and I'd been wanting to cut out Alistair's heart with a rusty spoon almost since I'd met him.

 

[Athelas]

So you're saying Bioware's C&C (unlike their depiction of romance) was true to life?