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01011001 posted:I want Kinect ability for this, except for every character: Haha, this reminds me, I joked with friends about how I wish we had a fourth Hawke alignment, which was "Shut up Anders". Even if he's not there  .
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Oct 4, 2013 20:07
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I really hope they don't half-rear end this game like they did to the last one. I could never take any of the "help, mages are being oppressed!" crowd seriously when every single one, including me, were blood mages. All of them. Hell, by the end you get a feeling that the Qunari have the right idea, especially since even the Saarebas you rescue seems to think "well, I haven't been in touch with my handler for a little while, which means I probably have a demon in me by now" and self-immolates if you refuse to let him join back up with the Qunari. That guy is the most responsible mage in the game!
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Oct 4, 2013 20:31
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Sylphosaurus posted:I was actually thinking of trying to finish Dragon Age 2 with my Mage Hawk one of these days. If I were to play as an offensive focused Mage, which trees should I go for? Most of the trees are pretty viable, just bear in mind that some mage trees like elemental focuses a little more setting up status effect (brittle) for other classes to exploit with a finishing move, while other trees like primal focuses more on exploiting a status effect (disorient, stagger) for a big finishing move. Keep your overall party in mind when figuring out where to assign skill points. Hawke doesn't quite do big damage as well as Blood Mage Merrill or Vengeance Anders though, but if you go Force Mage and Unshakeable, your mage won't get as fazed by attacks as the others so that'll work well for overall combat. At least one time in your playthrough, make sure a crushing prison is the move that kills an ogre.
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Oct 4, 2013 23:25
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01011001 posted:I want Kinect ability for this, except for every character: This just won't do. If I'm a fantasy Frenchman, I want animations to carefully take off one of my metal gauntlets and slap anyone that dares to insult my honor with several lbs of pointy steel!
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Oct 4, 2013 23:52
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Bored posted:Actually. They were talking about how you could use Kinect to voice direct your team in ME3. I have no clue if this was implemented since I suck at shooters, but it sounds freaking awesome to be able to yell at my team during fights (which I do anyway when I play video games) and have them actually do something. That's how it was implemented in ME3. It was just used for voice commands. I think the word sequence was "*party member*, *command from pre-programmed list*".
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Oct 5, 2013 01:52
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Kinect could be neat if it encouraged players to pick other dialogue options since now they'd be required to read outloud the cheesey romance lines themselves and that might lead to second thoughts.
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Oct 5, 2013 02:18
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Pick posted:The only non-keyboard-n-mouse interactivity I want is to be able to should "OBJECTION!" whenever I spot a plot hole. gently caress Yes! Pick posted:Haha, this reminds me, I joked with friends about how I wish we had a fourth Hawke alignment, which was "Shut up Anders". I could have sworn you were also the one who wished there was a to mod slap characters on the back of the head that went with that. Obviously you would want the "shut up, Anders!" with a back of the head slap, but if you don't have Fenris almost maxed out in friendship/rivalry, he tattles on you that you let the idiot apostate go. That would be another place I would love to have the slap-the-back-of-the-head mod. If Meredith had reactions that were in line with her character at that moment, Hawke would be sent to prison because of both/either of their outbursts. Bored fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Oct 5, 2013 |
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Oct 5, 2013 03:16
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There was a mod like that for Origins. It was for Morrigan, and had a 50% chance of her slapping you back. The dialog option is just "Bad Morrigan" instead of "Shut up, Morrigan", though. http://social.bioware.com/project/1281/#details
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Oct 5, 2013 06:38
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Bored posted:I'm pretty sure the big demon you fight after you fight the 3 (or was it 2?) ghost demon things is what is lurking under kirkwall. I think the writers realized it was a weak explanation which is why they brought up the corrupting presence of the not-architect in the DLC. Edit: It wouldn't have been a weak explanation if they had more action in the sewers (possibly not identical to all of the other sewers) regarding that piece of lore. OK sure, but nobody wants to play a game where the greater meaning behind events is kept secret from them, revealed in easily missed walls of text or only revealed in tie in material.
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Oct 5, 2013 17:08
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I think part of the problem--for me at least--is that the player asks "Why is poo poo so crazy in Kirkwall?" and can find the answer in those notes or the bosses, but the characters in game never really ask the question and are unmoved by the answer. They just kind of assume that it is what it is and when you face those bosses and read those revelatory materials the characters don't even offer so much as a snarky "Oh, so that's why." Hawke, you just battled a demon responsible for literally every problem gripping society in your home town and all you care about is the stick it drops?
marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Oct 5, 2013 |
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Oct 5, 2013 17:51
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MoreLikeTen posted:OK sure, but nobody wants to play a game where the greater meaning behind events is kept secret from them, revealed in easily missed walls of text or only revealed in tie in material. Dark Souls pulls this off with aplomb, as virtually all aspects of the story outside of the bare framework of your characters' actions (you and everyone else playing) is hidden within the descriptions of the plot items and gear you pick up, entirely one-sided conversations with NPC's you can stumble into in your home-base equivalent or are hidden behind secret walls and byzantine qualifiers and difficult combat encounters. This odd storytelling choice has gotten nothing but praise from the playerbase, which may or may not be biased due to the sheer fervor Dark Souls fans have towards the series.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:29
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MoreLikeTen posted:OK sure, but nobody wants to play a game where the greater meaning behind events is kept secret from them, revealed in easily missed walls of text or only revealed in tie in material. Oh, it's done very poorly. I'm not saying, "Here's the explanation, now stop whining." I forgot to mention that all of them were hidden, one of them was almost impossible to grab at release due to bugs, and it still didn't seem to bring across exactly what they were trying to do via action. Yeah, it says that kirkwall has an 2 or 3 times the number of mages going abomination than the other circles because of the rift, but I think it still took me a while after playing to figure out that it had anything to do with the current situation. Probably because there were so many other quests relating to other subjects interspersed between each journal entry. That might be stupid of me, but finding random scraps of diary scattered throughout the game, over 9 years, not just one act, kind of lessens the impact that the story is supposed to have. If it was, like, one journal page at the beginning mentioning that they suspect Tevinter blood magic is responsible for the large amount of abominations in the circle, then maybe another in the third act hinting at where to find the remaining demon(s) you need to fight that you haven't yet to find the rift in the sewers (was there a rift? I just remember that fight actually being pretty mean), I think the diary questline would have had much more impact. Uh...so what I'm saying is I agree with you.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:44
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steakmancer posted:Dark Souls pulls this off with aplomb, as virtually all aspects of the story outside of the bare framework of your characters' actions (you and everyone else playing) is hidden within the descriptions of the plot items and gear you pick up, entirely one-sided conversations with NPC's you can stumble into in your home-base equivalent or are hidden behind secret walls and byzantine qualifiers and difficult combat encounters. This odd storytelling choice has gotten nothing but praise from the playerbase, which may or may not be biased due to the sheer fervor Dark Souls fans have towards the series. Conversely, Dark Souls has basically no main plot. It can get away with cryptic storytelling because that's all there is, it's not asking you to make complicated value judgements on whether Havel's attempt to kill Seath are justified, it's just a neat thing you can kinda figure out on your own.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:55
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steakmancer posted:Dark Souls pulls this off with aplomb, as virtually all aspects of the story outside of the bare framework of your characters' actions (you and everyone else playing) is hidden within the descriptions of the plot items and gear you pick up, entirely one-sided conversations with NPC's you can stumble into in your home-base equivalent or are hidden behind secret walls and byzantine qualifiers and difficult combat encounters. This odd storytelling choice has gotten nothing but praise from the playerbase, which may or may not be biased due to the sheer fervor Dark Souls fans have towards the series. Dark Souls is god drat terrible when it comes to story, characters and plot. As far as I am concerned it was enjoyable because it offered a challenge and you got to explore a bunch of creepy locales But the narrative? Nope, awful
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Oct 5, 2013 20:02
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Lotish posted:I think part of the problem--for me at least--is that the player asks "Why is poo poo so crazy in Kirkwall?" and can find the answer in those notes or the bosses, but the characters in game never really ask the question and are unmoved by the answer. They just kind of assume that it is what it is and when you face those bosses and read those revelatory materials the characters don't even offer so much as a snarky "Oh, so that's why." Hawke, you just battled a demon responsible for literally every problem gripping society in your home town and all you care about is the stick it drops? I think generally there's not enough dialogue. For all that people bitched about it being a fantasy tea party, you actually don't have that many substantive conversations and they're pretty short. It is pretty crazy to me, seriously, that you can't even hassle your mom about your stupid love life. Dammit, I really, really wanted to disappoint and horrify that stuck-up jerk Leandra.
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Oct 5, 2013 20:05
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Pick posted:I think generally there's not enough dialogue. For all that people bitched about it being a fantasy tea party, you actually don't have that many substantive conversations and they're pretty short. I was disappointed that you couldn't say, "Oh, hey mom. Those flowers on the table, they're the same ones that that serial killer sends to his victims right before he kills them. What do you know about this guy again? Can I meet him?" But, no, she has to get killed. Don't get me wrong, Leandra sucks and I was happy she wouldn't be loafing around in the background being whiny and/or stupid anymore. But I thought I'd have the option of telling her not to date the guy anymore after the flowers showed up. We'd already been told about the flowers by that point. I don't think you can even trigger that scene without hearing about the flowers.
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Oct 5, 2013 20:17
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You can tell her you disapprove but she's intending to get her horn on anyway.
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Oct 5, 2013 21:05
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Dangit, Leandra. Just go barhop with Isabella or something.
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Oct 5, 2013 21:10
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Schubalts posted:Dangit, Leandra. Just go barhop with Isabella or something. If you got Isabella to full rivalry, she totally should've hosed Leandra and then been all  about it.
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Oct 5, 2013 21:14
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MoreLikeTen posted:OK sure, but nobody wants to play a game where the greater meaning behind events is kept secret from them, revealed in easily missed walls of text or only revealed in tie in material. 
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Oct 5, 2013 21:32
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Zzulu posted:Dark Souls is god drat terrible when it comes to story, characters and plot. As far as I am concerned it was enjoyable because it offered a challenge and you got to explore a bunch of creepy locales I think I would still would argue that the Dark Souls story still manages to outperform a great many other titles in terms of overall quality. It has a tremendously thematically consistent narrative in terms of atmosphere, gameplay and mood. It manages to relay a significant portion of its narrative by showing and not telling, while still remaining intelligible and generally thought provoking. I wouldn't call it necessarily inferior because it doesn't contain as many twists and turns as a mystery or as much character driven tension as drama since it's not meant to be either of those things. It plays out like more of a sinister little fairy tale. I wouldn't judge it based on the metrics of other approaches.
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Oct 5, 2013 21:37
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Mymla posted:If you got Isabella to full rivalry, she totally should've hosed Leandra and then been all It would be more in-character for it to be full Friendship, since that's supporting Isabela's current lifestyle versus urging her to be a better person  .e: However, that would be awesome. You max out friendship with someone and then they go gently caress your mom. Pick fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Oct 6, 2013 |
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Oct 5, 2013 21:53
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Ravenfood posted:Freespace 2. gently caress you, I hadn't thought about that for weeks! 
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Oct 6, 2013 00:40
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Not sure if I saw this posted here yet, contains some info regarding the fortresses I hadn't read before. http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/dragon-age-inquisition-first-look-on-returning-characters-and-open-world-fortresses/
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Oct 6, 2013 04:04
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HenessyHero posted:Not sure if I saw this posted here yet, contains some info regarding the fortresses I hadn't read before. quote:Dragon Age II is, in essence, the story of a revolutionary cell forming in a backwater town. What? How in the hell does someone get that from DA2?
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Oct 6, 2013 07:25
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At least its not the same writer there who gave the vanilla version of Dragon Age II a 94.
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Oct 6, 2013 07:32
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Stroth posted:What? How in the hell does someone get that from DA2? I guess if you ignore everything but the mage/templar bit and are trying as hard as you can to twist it in a way that makes it come off positively then you might get that out of it?
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Oct 6, 2013 07:38
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quote:Dragon Age II is, in essence, the story of a revolutionary cell forming in a backwater town. "A really unlikable cell that cracks really bad jokes and confused everybody"
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Oct 6, 2013 08:13
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01011001 posted:I guess if you ignore everything but the mage/templar bit and are trying as hard as you can to twist it in a way that makes it come off positively then you might get that out of it? No. I'm still not getting the revolutionary cell bit. Hell, I'm not even getting the backwater town bit. Kirkwall is a major city. Are we sure this guy's talking about DA2?
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Oct 6, 2013 09:41
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I think maybe the backwater comment could've come from the feeling that Kirkwall is kind of cut off from the rest of the world and insignificant as far as the greater scope of things? I mean throughout the game we're constantly told how Kirkwall is a major city and the whole world is watching it-- but what's done to show that? If you made Alistair king he pops up to say hello, and if you got the Sebastian DLC Leilana pops up to say hello and also the Divine is gonna march on the city, not that anything ever comes of that! So on the one hand it's probably just a major reading comprehension failure, but on the other hand I can't really blame them for getting that feeling when DA2 feels so small and disconnected as a whole from everything else.
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Oct 6, 2013 10:19
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necessary voodoo posted:I think maybe the backwater comment could've come from the feeling that Kirkwall is kind of cut off from the rest of the world and insignificant as far as the greater scope of things? I mean throughout the game we're constantly told how Kirkwall is a major city and the whole world is watching it-- but what's done to show that? If you made Alistair king he pops up to say hello, and if you got the Sebastian DLC Leilana pops up to say hello and also the Divine is gonna march on the city, not that anything ever comes of that! Wasn't Kirkwall supposed to be some sort of major port? It's was a vital part of the region and when the Tevinter's ran it it was THE major slave trading hub due to its location. Logically it would have major importance for all nearby inland cities if it had much influence in an Empire stretching across all of Thedas. Of course given the writing talent it may have been "Kirkwall was a titan of commerce in the past, is now some rinky dink shithole because it works thematically with what we're making Hawke do"
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Oct 6, 2013 10:37
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pentyne posted:Wasn't Kirkwall supposed to be some sort of major port? It's was a vital part of the region and when the Tevinter's ran it it was THE major slave trading hub due to its location. Logically it would have major importance for all nearby inland cities if it had much influence in an Empire stretching across all of Thedas. Wasn't it mainly a major port because of the slave trade though? Now that that's gone, it would make sense that it's declined. Changing industrial profile and all that.
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Oct 6, 2013 11:11
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CottonWolf posted:Wasn't it mainly a major port because of the slave trade though? Now that that's gone, it would make sense that it's declined. Changing industrial profile and all that. The concept for the vast transport of people from all corners of the world should apply to material goods and resources. Unless the Imperium arbitrarily made Kirwall the Slave Trade Capital for b.s and wasteful reasons it should be a major, essential port for regional trade. After the US Civil War major southern ports for slave ships had equally important purposes for trade in general. Kirkwall was either an essential port or some minor shithole depending on whatever the Bioware staff write, but I doubt they plan for logical consistency.
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Oct 6, 2013 11:37
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pentyne posted:Wasn't Kirkwall supposed to be some sort of major port? The Freemarches produce most of Thedas' food. And Kirkwall is the biggest port in the Freemarches. It's one of the most important cities in Thedas.
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Oct 6, 2013 21:03
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Stroth posted:What? How in the hell does someone get that from DA2? If I understand this thread correctly, DAII is a expertly crafted satire of RPG conventions, where all the bad/confusing/completely bizarre character choices and plot points are the results of Bioware being masterful story tellers. Stranger interpretations have been formed, all in all.
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Oct 6, 2013 21:19
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TheWorldIsSquare posted:"A really unlikable cell that cracks really bad jokes and confused everybody" The lord of the rings is about growing democratic awareness among ents
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Oct 6, 2013 21:41
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Stroth posted:What? How in the hell does someone get that from DA2? Maybe it referred to the brain tumour growing inside Anders' head that made him start the revolution.
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Oct 6, 2013 21:53
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Stroth posted:The Freemarches produce most of Thedas' food. And Kirkwall is the biggest port in the Freemarches. It's one of the most important cities in Thedas. Just comparing it to Denerim, it's clear that Kirkwall is expansive and has a lot of entrenched wealth.
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Oct 7, 2013 01:16
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Zelder posted:If I understand this thread correctly, DAII is a expertly crafted satire of RPG conventions, where all the bad/confusing/completely bizarre character choices and plot points are the results of Bioware being masterful story tellers. Sounds like the same thing people do with the ending of Mass Effect 3. The indoctrination theory, or as I like to call it, an epidemic of denial.
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Oct 7, 2013 02:06
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DA2 is far from perfect, but people hate on it for the wrong reasons. There's so much in the game that represents an intentionally wacky, black-comedy tone. I mean, you make Sandal clean out your poo.
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Oct 7, 2013 03:47
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