Dragon Age: Inquisition

I would say that a serial killer murdering people isn't art. Because he isn't making it for others to access.

If he is leaving messages with his murders, in whatever gruesome way, yes I think that would count as art. Unwelcome and wholly disturbing though it may be.

 

You said it yourself - for you, it'd then be art.

Why are you being so touchy about this? Why does it mean so much to you that something has to meet certain criteria to be called art? Art is extremely wide in itself and is constantly changing. It will never ever be constrained to a set of rules. In fact, it's art that breaks established conceptions and rules that let's artistry evolve and stay relevant.

This is coming from someone mostly interested in classic painting techniques and sculpturing, by the way.

 

it's not like people don't enjoy the, traditional RPGs you know, the problem is just that Bioware is making action games right now selling them as RPGs.

because the term art becomes completely meaningless if you throw everything under it, I am not touchy, really just very passionate. Sorry if it comes off as agressive.

 

So if you actually define the term art, strictly without opinion or subjectivity thrown in, it becomes meaningless?

 

no, I mean if you always throw everything in to art with the idea "its all art because you believe so" for example. Then the word for it self becomes meaningless, just like how the term "RPG" is a completely meaningless word if you can sell everything as "RPG" for example just because it has leveling or experience bars, while it is pretty obvious that its a bit more then just that. With such classifications even a game like Doom could be seen as RPG or a game like Oblivion (:p), because someone explains you how youre roleplaying a space marine in Doom ...

Allowing everything to be art simply because someone says so without ever actually thinking about it or what it means, makes the term art completely meaningless. At least in my opinion.

 

Re: Preview Video

Why are you even watching the dev comments? These are pure commercial lines, they say absolutely nothing about the game and they have been doing this for a long time already. It's called hyping and prepping.

As for actual gameplay, from what i have seen it's the same old formula. The combat looks the same (though more arcade as in DA2), but that is not a bad thing, since it was pretty good. The dialogue wheel will have, as expected, short lines with being able to choose an asshole,neutral,good type of response. On top of that, they put additional lines above the choice, so to inform you what the choice is going to accomplish. It's all pretty hilarious, since ingame dialogue writing is now somewhat akin to writing instructions on a product. So if you expect some VTMB type of dialogues - forget it. The good thing is that they did not include the terrible recovery system, now you will at least have to plan your journeys and battles in advance, since the only way to heal up is camping and potions. Of course it was the same in the first part, but they are promoting it as an innovation, as they are the part about being able to not go to certain troubled areas, which will probably leave them devastated, or some such shit.

Oh, and the main character is voiced, but they do let you choose your race, as they did in the first part. So now the question is - will your dwarf sound like shepard? That's about as much as i know.

P.S. I just browsed the comment section of some DA videos on youtube... I think i have more sympathy for the devs now .

 

Erm, actually in Origins your health did regenerate by itself, and healing spells were easy to use (unlike the 40 secs CD one in DA2). So it is indeed an innovation of sorts for the series since the last time Bioware used such a system was in KOTOR, unless you count the segmented health in Mass Effect 3. It will be interesting to see how they balance their level design with no health regen in mind, especially if they add in bigger worlds.

 

I am pretty sure it will not have any negative effects if your companions "die" in combat, or well just fall unconscious.

I kinda miss the games where you had many ways to lose and also revive your "heroes". Like in Baldurs Gate when I lost once one of the companions to a trap that turned him in to stone. He was removed from the party, but I was able to walk back to town, get a proper spell, walking back to him and revive him.

 

Ugh, no, that was so fucking annoying, and it also begged the question of why death is a concern at all in-universe when you can pay a pittance to be right back on your feet. And the Stone to Flesh traps were the worst of the lot, they merely increased tedium and were a ''keep your theif in Find Traps mode bitch!'' mechanism and nothing more. Also, it was silly when the Baalspawn was petrified and the game ended. Apparently your party doesn't have the initative to get a scroll or even use the damn counter-spell even if they have it ready.

I'll take Dragon Age's KO and injury system over that any time. Perhaps there will be no injury kits this time around, or they will make them rarer to increase challenge. But I prefer deaths of party member happening at preset points, so that it can be given weight and is permanent.

 

Ah, my bad. My memory of the game is pretty fuzzy, since i last played it 4 years ago? I think.

Well it was also said, that potions are not going to be all over the place, so maybe the harder difficulties will be able to be difficult without the opponents having cheating amounts of hp. Though i would not put much hope in these things, as i already see uprising in the slums of mainstream gamers - pitchforks, torches and all that stuff.

Or when a mage would notice yoshimo trying to set up a trap (for the party which is too weak to deal with that pesky mage) and then make his picture disappear from the party list forever

 

which in turn doesn't help to build up any connection with your party members that Bioware loves so much. How do they want to achieve that I care about any of the party members if they can never die? Except in a well scripted and thought out cutscene.

It just feels completely unreal. I understand it if people don't like the way how it was done in Baldurs Gate, thats of course opinion as it was based on D&D mechanics, but not allowing your people to die at all ... is just extremely bad AND lazy game design in favour of movie-like story telling because the Story HAS simply to happen in a certain and linear way.

Imagine what happens if a party member could die in combat and you don't care enough to resurrect him or reload the game before he died. Suddenly, they would have to actually make a story with the gameplay in mind and think about player interaction and how the game should react to the player and his decisions and not simply creating a digital movie where you run from cutscene to cutscene.

If you want to give the player at least a CHANCE to feel attached to his party members then you HAVE to allow them to die permanently. Nothing is more stupid then to have fight after fight where one of your party members is just falling unconscious all the time ... and then watching at some point a cutscene where some random orc or something or even the boss monsters is wounding that party member mortally so the player hs now to go on this special epic quest to rescue his party member

One important aspect of every story telling, not only games, is to stay true to your setting. Or the world for it self becomes unbelievable. There are exceptions, but you have to know when and how to use them. The Deus Ex Machina ... a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object (...)

The way how game developers/designers deal with party members today, at least in games like Kotor or Dragon Age is simply very lazy. It's the easy way out so it doesn't get in the way of their storytelling, but they completely ignore the fact that they actually make a game and not a movie. Player interaction and choices is one of the strength of this medium. Not to mention it feels as well sometimes strange when you have 10 or 12 people in your camp/ship what ever ... but you can never have more then 2 companions at a time. But suddenly in the end fight ALL of them are there, somewhere ... for epicness because that is suddenly the moment where they are allowed to die (see Mass Effect)! Maybe it would be better to have a smaller crew, make it 6 for example, where they can all come with you which allows for more interaction. But in such a situation they would have to actually think about a real party system but they cant do that because it would not have enough "action".

 

Maybe you don't have any connection, but only a cursory glance at the Bioware forums and the game's following elsewhere proves you wrong. The system does work, better than in any game I've seen that allows follower death at any time. People do forge connections.

The thing is, Origins did this right. You could not recruit most party members; Sten and Leliana could be left in Lothering, Dog could be told to shoo away, Zehvran could be killed instead of recruited, same for Wynne, and Oghren can be booted as soon as he's no longer useful. Morrigan was required... until you got out of Lothering, at which point you can tell her to fuck off. You can also do this to Zehvran and Oghren, albeit they attack you if you boot them. Leliana and Wynne can be killed at the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest.

All in all, the only required party member is Alistair, which is justified since he's a fellow Grey Warden. You can still have him leave after the Landsmeet.

Also, what you're proposing may work in games like Baldur's Gate or Fallout 1 and 2 because they weren't even really party members, they were followers. Most of them did nothing more than tag along and help you kill stuff, and had no other character than a few lines once in a while, while being utterly unimportant to the plot outside maybe of a side-quest, and even that varies greatly. If you allow potentially plot-important party members to just up and die at any moment, well your amount of work suddendly increases exponentially, and for what? To include a gameplay system that many find tedious? Exactly how is your party member being knocked out instead of killed more immersion-breaking than being able to use your lunch money to make them come back from the dead?

Not to mention most people didn't actually use the system; if Minsc died/got gibbed, people reloaded and that was the end of that. Same for your favoured companion in New Vegas; most players don't want a simple mistake to rob them of a character they do like. So they just end up spamming quicksave before every fight in case something happens. I prefer to cut that sillyness and implement a KO system. As I said, I would have no problem with a more punishing injury system to keep the player on their toes (perhaps permanent statistic nerfs at higher difficulties, such as in XCOM?) but permadeath in a Bioware game? Hell no. It's probably the reason I barely replay Baldur's Gate. Well, that, and the overdone magic system. Sure, it causes less options for those who want permadeath, but it adds some for those who want party members to be more than an extra pair of arms.

 

so you don't think thats its unbelievable that party members can never die in combat?

Hair splitting really, followers, party members, call it what ever you want, in Fallout it was always a feature that they slapped in the game pretty much in the last minute anyway. At least it felt like that.

Though, why do you see such a problem in party members that can die in combat? Its about verisimilitude. I just can not take that part of a game really serious where my comrades take arrows after arrows in their butt, swords to their faces ... and all that happens is that they take a nap ...

Not to mention Origin was as far as RPGs goes, not really very interactive in my opinion. I just don't see it as this awesome game like others do. It is mediocre in my eyes. It has its moment for sure, but its trying to much way to hard yet the world feels incredible small. Its almost like some interactive movie ignoring the strength of the medium (games). I liked Kotor for what it was, but I think since then Bioware has really a problem to recreate the same feelings, and even with Kotor, Kotor 2 by Obsidian was the better game. It had simply better characters and writing in general, even if the game was sadly ... rushed.

 

If you want companions to stay dead when they fall in battle, combat mechanics should be altered to balance it out. Knocking an enemy to the ground should allow to deal a killing blow no matter the level of the enemy is (Witcher, did this to some extent). In my opinion, the system in Origins work very well that I did all of my last games without ever falling in battle and not letting my companions fall in battle. That amount micro-management required to keep them alive is totally worth it. I really feel that I've actually achieved something when my companions emerge undefeted. Not even the Tower of Ishal' Circle Mage fell in my watch.. Sometimes, when my tank is hit by Curse of Mortality, I have no option but to reload the game if health is 30% or lower
Origins is a game I go back and play every now and then.

 

Re: Preview Video

Thank you for the summary. Couple of things:

The additional lines above the choice you mentioned, isn't it exactly what Wasteland2 does only limited to three?

Has anything else been released since? Because I agree that combat in DA2 was an improvement(much better then auto attacks) and there was few interesting concepts, but overall to me the game failed to deliver better or even comparable story and characters. I want to know if there is any chance this game will not continue in DA2 footsteps, taking another step into ARPG and mass appeal land and thus make it irrelevant to me?

 

I've downloaded that 500mb + leaked video. Gave it to friends too because they are as excited as me for DA:I
Upon careful inspection, you can see many interesting things in the game. *spoilers*
The dialog wheel is not so white/gray as it was in ME. No black and whites. You save a town under attack or you ignore it. You spare a man or you kill him. You just have to live with what you did and that's pretty good. However, the question of what the devs think as the 'greater good' will always be presented from their point of view. If they believe abandoning wounded soldiers and re-enforcing a base is for the greater good, one could argue that helping the wounded would too serve the greater good in their opinion. This 'greater good' implimentation made by the devs lead it to Fallout 3's choices.. Black or white and that's it..
Fights are more DMCish or something. I believe my two 7950 (custom) won't be able to run this game with max draw distance when considering how crappy CPU/GPU management FB3 has. Breaking my hopes of immersive combat, I saw that you STILL CAN STRIKE AN ENEMY THROUGH YOUR TEAM MATES. If Cassandra (tank) is infront of the PC, the PCs sword attacks would go through Cassandra and land on the enemy. I though the PC would use different attack animations when they are in a tight space with team mates specially weilding a great sword that has a wide arc of swing. Hitting everything it its path. Why can't 4th gen RPGs do this? A true shield bash that stuns the enemy, a kick to the belt to bend an enemy in pain for a huge blow. These things would be in dreams. Taunting an enemy is funny. Origins' taunt was ok, the animation and the sounds were good. Specially threaten in DAO. DAII taunt was a joke. I don't even wanna mention it. Why can't a taunt sound like.. a taunt? A scream, bellow or a %*!# word? Even hitting your shiled with the sword to make a noise and attract noice would do better than that lame taunt in the video.
I really bet on Wither III now. It's going to own DAI and now I'm sure..

 

that sounds pretty black and white to me though ... just saying. But its not like Bioware games are great examples for the "shades of gray". Its not really easy to do that, I give them that. But most games don't even try it anyway.

I would really love to see a game that is trying to be a challenge here, I mean a moral challenge. Its easy to do the good thing if it doesn't mean that you have to suffer from the consequences or if it doesn't hurt the player. Do I spare the enemy? Do I save the town or do I ignore it? Thats where really good writing has to kick in, not just creating this super simple situations, "don't save town, deal with problems latter" or something like that.

It would be much more difficult to do the "right" thing if it actually meant that you had to actually lose something. Save the town for the price of this really great and awesome item. Just as example of course.

 

I know right! Who could be bothered to save before combat!

 

What's this about a leaked video? Where did you see it?