A Little Dragon Age Rant.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Please tell me you're trolling.
DA2 is literally shovelware they pushed out in a year and Inquisition was a shallow offline mmo with a goddamn WoD mission table.
I'm expecting DA4 to be a live service lootershooter at this point.

It really wasn't that bad, long sure but it wasn't a bad game. You guys should stop being so nostalgic over Origins.

[CaptainV]

So i need to add my ten cents to this....

As someone who read both dragon age the stolen throne and the calling before the origins game came out ill tell you right now that the first dragon age game that felt like dragon age was 2.

The game did not feel like an accurate depiction of what the novels portrayed and they were written by the games creators, while origins felt like a low fantasy knock off witcher franchise, DA2 was when the game truly felt like the dark fantasy setting id read about in the books, and I have read -all- of them.

As a die hard DA fan, Inquistiion was a dissapointing letdown, trying to hard to make the origin fanboys happy at the expense of what made the setting dark but vibrant, its meant to be colourful but grim, and that has always been the asthetic of the dragon age world. It is meant to be a place full of beauty, colour and light, all of which is deceptive, and dishonest, Maric is portrayed in the novels as a shining beacon of hope only for you to realize later down the line hes a very flawed and ultimatley very stupid character that tried to fix a mess he made in the most desperate way possible.

The novels also make you empathise leagues with chars like Loghain which many hated but i loved, because frankly after all the shit he did to save Maric again and again? I dont blame him for legit letting Caelian die like a moron.

Origins tried too hard to make people see dragon age as a grimdark world with warhammer/witcher vibes of being low on fantasy and heavy on realism, but DA2's crystal caves and glowy flashy architecture are actually exactly what the books describe the world as, vibrant.

AS for the characters, most of the origins characters can be summed up as one dimensional stereotypes with "some" depth while the ones in 2 actually have flesh to the bones, they have layered levels of character development throughout the story of Kirkhaven, I also wanna point out something in that DA2 had literally 8 months of development to be made after being announced, for a game with bare bones, it was a god damn masterpiece for what they could do in such a short time from awakening's release which many forget, it was developed DURING the development of DA:awakening generally regarded as a title not many remember these days because it was just an expansion, but I mainly remember because the architect was a char I was looking forwards to meeting since reading about him in the calling.

Inquisiton was a missed opportunity, it really shouldnt have been a mix of Ferelden and other regions, it needed to be the Orlais expansion which we had long been teased we'd be going to, and as such the fact we got Val Royeux as a bare bones city was an insult to the masked empire novel that preceeds it.

So many missed oppportunties linger in this series, also dragon age inquisitionw as basically a single player MMO with endless filler quests, it was actually tedious to consider it anything short of boring.

I can but hope this one returns to a substance over size vibe where we have less stupidly vast zones full of nothing but mmo quests and more zones actually full of storylines even if they are small but memorable ones.

Also... if they are gonna do the MMO route, fucking commit, and make, an MMO.

DA has so much potential to be one, infact, theres a whole possiblity of making a DA mmo a prequel to the events of Origins set during the 1st blight which is one of the few events with some insight but very little depth giving it alot of fresh opportunity, to make a story set during that timeline.

[Traveler Voltin]

I love the art style and combat of DA:2.
Inquisition art style push too much into CGI realism. the combat felt too slow and long. the stats were meh. I hate the loss of healing and sustained spells(like elemental weapons). some of the class specializations were meh.(i am looking at you tempest rogue spec). also RIP tactics. the story was fine and i liked the crafting except rune crafting. DA2 was better on that front.

[Saltysquidoon]

It really wasn't that bad, long sure but it wasn't a bad game. You guys should stop being so nostalgic over Origins.

Which one 'wasn't that bad'? DA2's story was fine (Merril is the best companion in the series) but it was shovelware EA made them push out in a year, you know hence all the reused assets and locations.
DA:I did have a mission table and it had hotbar tab based combat and grinding and large open zones and gathering and crafting.

The things I said are objectively true. By contrast, what does 'not that bad' mean? What's your threshold for bad?

[beanman12345]

I don't think that city looked steampunky necessarily but heavily magical, which would make sense if it's in the Tevinter Imperium like others have suggested. Which if it is, awesome, because I want to see northern Thedas.

[inboundpaper]

Unpopular opinion time: I hope the gameplay swings back closer to Origins.

[NoiseTank13]

Unpopular opinion time: I hope the gameplay swings back closer to Origins.

It won't. It's going live services much in the same vein as Anthem.

[BeepBoo]

It won't. It's going live services much in the same vein as Anthem.

What live services did anthem have?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

For all of origins strong point the art/look just isn’t one of them. The games just ugly every where continuing with the updated look inquisition had and getting in some better combat Is really all they need to do.

[Orby]

@Orby if you're interested in what D4 MIGHT look like you can check out some of the art that Matt Rhodes, art director of Dragon Age, has posted on his Artstation page

It's still relatively down to earth I'd say

I'll do that thank you

For all of origins strong point the art/look just isn’t one of them. The games just ugly every where continuing with the updated look inquisition had and getting in some better combat Is really all they need to do.

I will say Origins has aged pretty badly for sure, especially on the now very wooden looking characters but I wouldn't call the game ugly, at least not unintentionally. I do feel there is a ugly feel to the word intentionally to create that gritty traditional fantasy setting, over the bright and shiny neon colours of fantasy games like Final Fantasy and WoW which is fine for those games.

So i need to add my ten cents to this....

As someone who read both dragon age the stolen throne and the calling before the origins game came out ill tell you right now that the first dragon age game that felt like dragon age was 2.

The game did not feel like an accurate depiction of what the novels portrayed and they were written by the games creators, while origins felt like a low fantasy knock off witcher franchise, DA2 was when the game truly felt like the dark fantasy setting id read about in the books, and I have read -all- of them.

As a die hard DA fan, Inquistiion was a dissapointing letdown, trying to hard to make the origin fanboys happy at the expense of what made the setting dark but vibrant, its meant to be colourful but grim, and that has always been the asthetic of the dragon age world. It is meant to be a place full of beauty, colour and light, all of which is deceptive, and dishonest, Maric is portrayed in the novels as a shining beacon of hope only for you to realize later down the line hes a very flawed and ultimatley very stupid character that tried to fix a mess he made in the most desperate way possible.

The novels also make you empathise leagues with chars like Loghain which many hated but i loved, because frankly after all the shit he did to save Maric again and again? I dont blame him for legit letting Caelian die like a moron.

Origins tried too hard to make people see dragon age as a grimdark world with warhammer/witcher vibes of being low on fantasy and heavy on realism, but DA2's crystal caves and glowy flashy architecture are actually exactly what the books describe the world as, vibrant.

AS for the characters, most of the origins characters can be summed up as one dimensional stereotypes with "some" depth while the ones in 2 actually have flesh to the bones, they have layered levels of character development throughout the story of Kirkhaven, I also wanna point out something in that DA2 had literally 8 months of development to be made after being announced, for a game with bare bones, it was a god damn masterpiece for what they could do in such a short time from awakening's release which many forget, it was developed DURING the development of DA:awakening generally regarded as a title not many remember these days because it was just an expansion, but I mainly remember because the architect was a char I was looking forwards to meeting since reading about him in the calling.

Well its fumy seeing how the books are imagined or unless you or I may be misremembering something wrong somewhere but David Gaider has stated that his inspiration for Dragon Age: Origins was A Song of Ice a Fire (Game of Thrones), and this was before the TV show came out (DA:O came out 4 years before the series). And those books were anything but bright and vibrant :P

I'll give Dragon Age 2 a pass because Dragon Age 2 did feel apart of Dragon Age: Origins design, nothing looked super alien, it looked apart of that world. Dragon Age Inquisition I am not sure, Redcliff in Inquisition had been completely redesigned compared to the Origins version of Redcliff. I actually loved the houses on stilts looks over the grassy circular housing they replaced it with.

[Polyxo]

I kind of liked Inquisition, but lately everything Bioware does has Bioware acting/writing, where they have cool concepts for their world, but everything everyone says is just "let me tell you about the cool interesting thing about our culture". They also have the same cultural 'reference points' recited across each entire game which makes the world seem really small.

[Saltysquidoon]

Please tell me you're trolling. Origins is literally the slowest paced, clunkiest game ever created, the story is alright and the companions are fun but I fell asleep at my desk mid combat

See I can do it too

But what I said were things that were true, you posted an opinion.

Besides DA:O is using bioware's homebrew modified DnD-like rules, because the game is just an evolution of Bioware's DnD games (the Neverwinter DNA is everywhere), so what your post says to me is that you don't like cRPGs and prefer action games.

[Nazrark]

So the first picture you showed from the trailer is most likely Tevinter. A place we’ve only been told about but never shown. It’s also the place that Solas is headed to free his people. As Tevinter is home to many powerful magic artifacts and a lot of Knif... I mean elven slaves.

I can only imagine what the Qun looks like. Since they are more technologically advanced than the rest of the human empires. Tevinter is comparable in terms of power because they have unchecked mages running the place.

[Nazrark]

As an update on my post. The Dwarves were once very technologically advanced. But due to the dark spawn. They have lost a lot of that knowledge.

[minteK917]

Dont know anything about the game yet, beside its bioware and i sure as hell wont preorder. That picture tells me nothing, beside its a new game and it might be tervinter. Which im excited to visit, but again if the game is shit it wont matter even if i get to set foot in the black city, i wouldnt.

[Varodoc]

Any idea on what type of main character we can expect? I didn't mind playing as the Holy Messiah Mr. Inquisitor. Everyone always complains about that, but in my opinion it was cool playing as Jesus.

But I also wouldn't mind returning to a more grounded protagonist type like Hawke.

[loras]

If there is a Dragon Age thread around here be free to dump this here, I struggled to find it.

So Bioware released the Dragon Age 4 trailer at the game awards recently and I haven't seen anyone here posting anything about it.



Okay I know what many of the key members behind Dragon Age (and by some key members I mean all of them) have left the company now. And it really shows in the visuals to this game via the trailer. And I want to go through one picture in particular.



I mean what the hell is this?

Okay so mild rant here. Dragon Age is a franchise I love, I play Dragon Age: Origins once a year because its one of my favourite games. I even enjoyed Dragon Age 2 that's not to say it was good, it wasnt, but I still got some enjoyment from the characters and story.

The problem I have with this trailer is the atheistic. Look at that image, when did Dragon Age become DragonPunk Age. Dragon Age has always been a very grounded fantasy which blends Historical Fantasy and Traditional Fantasy (for the most part), Dragon Age: Origins especially was loosely based on A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R.Martin and it clearly shows if you played it. Wardens being the night watch and the Darkspawn being the white walkers, but not only that, like A Song of Ice and Fire it heavily featured a lot of politics in Origins and even Dragon age 2, some of the dialogue was very based in this heavy style where it wasnt just good v evil there were blurred lines and peoples motives made sense. But I digress...

This was a sample of architecture in Origins to compare.




In Dragon Age Inquisition it was clear there was a tonal shift, the move away from the traditional/historical fantasy and into a high fantasy setting that is more super hero-esque super science fantasy akin to, let's say, Final Fantasy and it works for Final Fantasy but not so sure I want it for Dragon Age, especially when that world has already been established only to see them completely change the design.

Even the armor and weapons in the trailer looks very World of Warcraft-ish with the total impractical bow and bright sparkly strings and arrows, which is a stark contrast to the (sometimes) more traditional weapons they had before.



Okay so sure its lovely and flashy and I am sure some people think its way more exciting that traditional armor and weapons and fantasy in general. I mean it looks fancy and cool its colourful and stuff, but where we come to where we got too feels vastly like a different game now.

I know its a lot to rant on by looking at the trailer, and this is maybe overlooking at something before the game comes out. But seeing the slow transformation of the feel of the games seems very prevalent, its a similar thing that's happened to WoW over the years. Where its went to more traditional to more high/science fantasy.

What do you guys think, a lot of Dragon Age fans I kn ow still looking forward to the game and I'd be lying if I said I wasnt too, the tonal shift (if there is one) will might take a while to get used to. But I do kind of prefer my fantasy more traditional/historical...

tldr: Do you think Dragon Age has changed its tonal athletic since Dragon Age: Origins and is it something you have adapted to, do you like it or have you given up on the franchise?

You're certainly not imagining things, the shift is dramatic and has been ongoing since DA2.

Pity is that it has such contrast with the mundane story they seem to want to tell in da4, going by the trailer.
So i wonder if it will be worthwhile.
But frankly it seems to me that bioware is a traditional rpg company that somehow decided to try to make action games with pointless multiplayer bullshit while pulling too many pages from others' books, what with the mission table bullshit they incorporated into da:3.

I did really like da:3's take on crafting though, and all around it was a decent game, if not an overly interesting one.

[Santti]

I've not been interested in Dragon Age games since the bullshit that was Dragon Age 2. It's a game about traversing the same locations over and over again, which just killed it for me. If memory serves, the gameplay was somewhat better than in the Origins, but the shameless re-usage of assets in Dragon Age 2 was too much to bear. It's not long that I replayed Origins and it's expansion, and I still like it.

Don't care how good the following games are going to be, I'm not rewarding shitty behavior.

[Jin]

I find it hard to read when peeps say Dragon Age is about 2 and inquisition and not Origin, yet Origin is the foundation, the base upon what you build on, DA2 with its remake of zones, blend and boring non tactical combat, it was all that Origin wasn't and yes also on higher difficulty. I didnt mind the characters but i found them a lot less interesting then the ones in Origin. Inquisition, lets just say I did it once and never look at it again. Dont even remember much about it yet Origin i can still remember vividly.

I have not got any hopes for this version. For me it started and ended with Origin.

[Jazzhands]

They made Dragon Age games after Origins? And there was a live action Avatar The Last Airbender movie!?

That aside, yeah this looks awful compared to the more realistic approach the series has always taken. Then again I haven't come to expect much from the series after Origins, Inquisition was OK, Dragon Age 2 is up there with Devil May Cry 2 as worst sequel ever to an amazing game.