Dragon Age: Inquisition Catch-All

I bet 'hard at work' is just the tile for Varrics next book.

Aye, so, probably 2020 at the earliest. But, it is nice to know it’s being worked on.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

They talked about "character and story driven" game which is odd, isn't that every dragon age game?
I was actually hoping they would make a x-com in DAO universe tactical game,

Since EA is all in on games as service and, won't make anything unless there's an additional revenue source besides the initial sale of the game, they have to specify these things now.

Brownypoints wrote:

They talked about "character and story driven" game which is odd, isn't that every dragon age game?
I was actually hoping they would make a x-com in DAO universe tactical game,

Yeah, stuff like this makes me sigh and roll my eyes. All DA games fall under this category and when they start throwing new words like "live" in the mix it only leads me to believe we could be getting nickel and dimed to death. Games for years have continued to have add-ons and DLC packs from their initial release. So why specify this fact with the word "live"? Weird.

I am looking forward to EA ruining another franchise I love, while I hold out some sliver of hope that they will nail this game.

SPIN CONTROL!

I'm cautiously optimistic, hoping that Bioware learned from Andromeda and that EA doesn't want to wreck the Dragon Age IP. Let's face it, though, that's what EA is best at.

It's almost as if shareholder driven decisions are really damaging...No, no, that's crazy talk, sorry.

I don't understand why they buy these companies for the IP and then proceed to kill that IP. At that point, what exactly are they paying all this money for?

This is year is The Year of the Pile for me. I started this back up over the weekend. I almost started over, but remembered I pretty much finished The Hinterlands, so decided against that.

I downloaded the dlc that let's you change your characters appearance, but it doesn't let you change your body, so that was a disappointment. Bellilah's head is a touch too big for her body.

I just met the big baddy that wanted my green glowy bits. Apparently I ruined it, so he changed his mind and I blew up my house. I wish I remembered the story.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

This is year is The Year of the Pile for me. I started this back up over the weekend. I almost started over, but remembered I pretty much finished The Hinterlands, so decided against that.

I downloaded the dlc that let's you change your characters appearance, but it doesn't let you change your body, so that was a disappointment. Bellilah's head is a touch too big for her body.

I just met the big baddy that wanted my green glowy bits. Apparently I ruined it, so he changed his mind and I blew up my house. I wish I remembered the story.

I'm at the same point and am loving how things are starting to branch out. I spent way too much time not doing story and hanging out in the starting areas despite everyone saying not too, it am now really enjoying the different areas that are opening up. For the plot, I found that after starting over with a mage and taking my time, reading everything, and slowing down, that I tend to not lose the plot as easily. Still there have been plenty of times where I had to stop and think about why I was in a certain zone.

I stopped playing once I got to the new home. So, I am excited to see how things have changed. I did the same thing as you and spent way too much time in the starting areas. That's probably why I stopped playing it two years ago.

billt721 wrote:

I don't understand why they buy these companies for the IP and then proceed to kill that IP. At that point, what exactly are they paying all this money for?

EA didn't buy BioWare for their IP. Prior to their acquisition by EA in 2005, BioWare had developed just two original IP: Shattered Steel, and Jade Empire. All of their other projects (MDK 2, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic) were licensed projects. In terms of being able to create new and original projects, being acquired by EA was likely the best thing that could have happened to them.

EA acquired BioWare for their expertise developing role-playing games, and that's what they've done. EA may have run their own IP into the ground, but it was their IP.

That timeline's off. Bioware joined Pandemic in that whole elevation partnership in 2005. EA aqcuired them in 2007, a month before the release of Mass Effect, and well into the kind of absurdly lengthy development cycle of Dragon Age. EA couldn't have had any impact on the development of the first Mass Effect -- but Mass Effect probably had a something to do with EA wanting to aquire Bioware.

Fair to say EA gave Bioware resources they wouldn't have had otherwise, but they were focusing on their own ip:s well before the acquisition.

That's right. I had mixed up the timeline for Elevation and the EA acquisition. I still think the resources EA was able to bring to the studio allowed it to build better and more vibrant franchises than it would have been able to on its own.

Mike Laidlaw interview.

At some point I really need to get this back on the PS4 and continue my Nightmare difficulty game. I had played up to where you get the main stronghold and just finished a certain formal event. Then I decided to take a break from the main quest and started hunting dragons. A good way through my hunt I bought all the DLC and started doing The Decent. That was at least a couple years ago, haven’t really tried to get back into it as I’ve been playing other stuff. One of these days I’ll get back to it and push on.

Descent is still one of those DLCs that totally confounds me. It's such a huge lore revelation in what is, ultimately, such a boring straightforward corridor dungeon (though Trespasser isn't terribly different in that regard). There's cool moments throughout, but the last 20 minutes is really something crazy and interesting.

I thought the corridors were neat enough it worked for me--there's something about the black underground ocean that filled me with a profound dread...

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I thought the corridors were neat enough it worked for me--there's something about the black underground ocean that filled me with a profound dread...

Oh totally, from a moment to moment experience, there's a lot to be amazed by, curious about, uneasy of, etc... but when you go through it a second time, you realize you're kind of just moving down a straight line... you know, like the first of the Final Fantasy games with Lightning.

The question out of Descent that I was left with was... how much of that massive plot hook leftover at the end is going to come up in whatever the next DA game ends up being called.

You know what confounded me about DLC? When the main villain in DA3 gets revealed and everyone says "Oh S*it it's THAT GUY! YEAH ITS THAT GUY!"

And I'm like who? And I spend some time wondering why this seems to be having a big impact on everyone on screen while I'm scratching my head. Then I read a wiki and discover it's a character from

Spoiler:

some obscure dlc.

Kind of underwhelming to be honest.

strangederby wrote:

You know what confounded me about DLC? When the main villain in DA3 gets revealed and everyone says "Oh S*it it's THAT GUY! YEAH ITS THAT GUY!"

And I'm like who? And I spend some time wondering why this seems to be having a big impact on everyone on screen while I'm scratching my head. Then I read a wiki and discover it's a character from

Spoiler:

some obscure dlc.

Kind of underwhelming to be honest.

I was just confused because I totally missed the "Oh, you didn't really kill him" part of that DLC for DA2.

I kind of wonder if DA4 (whatever it ends up being called) will follow a similar format though. Descent shows us a potentially world ending threat which potentially ties into stuff like the lost country of Farrahlan (I think it was)... a certain person threatening a magical catastrophe would be small potatoes compared to what Descent could bring out (or it could very well be the other way around, who knows).

Is it weird that I find this annoying? There was that one time when I bought Shadow Broker but aside from that I just don't buy dlc. I buy the game. I play the game. I move on. Having continuing story tied to dlc seems like gouging. The Leviathan story for mass effect being locked behind dlc being a case in point.

Yeah it depends on how you feel about DLC in general. With BioWare games, I'm always up for more story, so I have no issue paying for DLC, similar to more traditional expansion packs. But I understand feeling annoyed that "essential" story content like DA2's Legacy and DA:I's Tresspasser requires ponying up extra cash.

beanman101283 wrote:

Yeah it depends on how you feel about DLC in general. With BioWare games, I'm always up for more story, so I have no issue paying for DLC, similar to more traditional expansion packs. But I understand feeling annoyed that "essential" story content like DA2's Legacy and DA:I's Tresspasser requires ponying up extra cash.

My issue is generally more around the DLC coming out almost a year later (August 2015 for Tresspasser with DA:I out in November 2014). By that point I haven't played the game in 9 months. In DA:I's case I even lost my save file so my only option is to play the whole game again, which is not a small time commitment.

It is admittedly only a problem if you play it right at release, if you play it later it works just fine.

I wouldn't call it weird at all. Ending the original game and the post credits scene was suuuuuper intriguing but also kind of infuriating. His card changed to a specific animal?! He knows Flemmeth who we got a pretty huge reveal on. If he who we think he might be now? AHHHHHHH!

Trespasser came out, then it was... ok, nailed it aweso.... wait whaaaaaaaaaaat? WHAAAAAAAAAAT? WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

And that was after Descent where a lot of fandom theorists were going nuts with "Oh my god, is this how the 'lost country' just disappeared?!" and there was a lot of discussion... but then, the conversation level exploded. Vindicated theories were re-posted. More theories on how this would impact the world going forward, etc... etc... Calling out interesting tidbits like Cole's interactions with that character. That character's relationship with Iron Bull. Even Varric's commentary on how he writes his books.

But I do wonder about it, to a degree. Like, the next DA game wasn't even in development at that point. The writing didn't have a head writer for 4 until nearly a year after Trespasser. It's not like they can say we were trying to keep the game in the gaming press's headlines before we announced 4.

At the same time, they seeded a lot of foreshadowing for Inquisition in the DA: O Witch Hunt DLC, so I'm confident they at least initially planned things out pretty early on. Obviously new writers and project leads can take things a different direction.

beanman101283 wrote:

At the same time, they seeded a lot of foreshadowing for Inquisition in the DA: O Witch Hunt DLC, so I'm confident they at least initially planned things out pretty early on. Obviously new writers and project leads can take things a different direction.

See Mass Effect. In 1, Soverign hinted at the Reaper's cycle existing for an important galactic reason. In 2, we start getting hints on how Eezo and Dark Matter may be causing weird sh*t in the galaxy (Tali's recruit storyline). By 3, we were supposed to be going further on that as the reason the Reaper's exist. They're basically a manufactured ELE to prevent sentient species from destroying the galaxy with their unchecked overusage of Eezo and Dark Matter technologies.

Then things took a big swing with a new writer on 3 where it was organics creating synthetic life and destroying all organic sentience... which Reaper's accomplish with a synthetic led purge of organic sentience... wait... (Not to mention the Tali/Legion storyline from 2 and 3 showing hey look, these two different groups CAN live in harmony!).

And there's also the massive plot hole of "The Reapers set up species to find that Eezo technlogy. If they didn't want use to use it... why are there mass relays everywhere, put there by the Reapers?" That original end game wasn't really fleshed out by there was a lot of hints and foreshadowing.