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Jeabus Mahogany posted:You're talking to a lord or some sort, and Hawke just walks in, dumps a corpse at their feet, then walks off. Make it Commander Shepard, who then says "I should go."
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Jun 18, 2014 03:01
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Codependent Poster posted:Make it Commander Shepard, who then says "I should go." "I'm Inquisitor Shepard, and this is my favorite Keep in Thedas."
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Jun 18, 2014 05:18
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So, I did a stupid thing and pre-ordered the game for the ps4 on psn. I have most certainly damned myself but at least I get to witness the horrors in the company of this thread and maybe the slim chance of it being good.
Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 05:21
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Codependent Poster posted:Make it Commander Shepard, who then says "I should go." I SHOULD go. I should GO. I should go. Do I really sound like that?
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Jun 18, 2014 05:28
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A bit late, but for those who were wondering about the Keep, it's still being worked on (obviously), but is also under NDA for those who get into the beta. We just put out a fair number of invites during the week of E3, and should have some more sent out soon™. If you've already applied for the beta, there's a decent chance you'll get in one of the next rounds. I'm actually a bit surprised nobody here has already got in, although someone may have done so and may just be quiet about it. Beyond that, most of the exact details I could talk about were already covered in an interview one of the people working on it did a few months ago, and are likely old news to most of you (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CwAKUrhr0c). VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV This is possibly true. I'm the guy who gets to review all of the beta feedback (which has been very. very good), and am also a roadblock in putting out new stuff in the beta, which would let us invite more people, etc. Birudojin fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 05:47
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Birudojin posted:A bit late, but for those who were wondering about the Keep, it's still being worked on (obviously), but is also under NDA for those who get into the beta. I registered the first day you could and still haven't been invited. I am personally blaming you, Birudojin, as it is clearly your fault. Professor Beetus fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 05:52
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I'll take this opportunity to say that as much as I have reveled in hating on DA2 in this thread I have probably beaten DAO and ME1/2 more than any other games I've played and they're all among my favorites. If DAI can strike a balance between the tactical combat of DAO on PC and the tactile feel of DA2 on console I'll enjoy it. Tactical + Tactile there that's a freebie y'all should have that on the walls of your office (There were a couple good ideas in DA2 not that I can remember them all. Gated conversations based on encountering things in the world was good so you couldn't just spam through all the Love Interest++ dialogue as in DAO. Party members having home bases and theoretically changing as time passed through the city, mostly this was Avelline I think.) But yeah in terms of attention to detail and having choices that affected anything and having the way you play synthesized into a "character" resulting in actual differences in how you're perceived (like Alpha Protocol), I hope DAI is more like DAO. If the idea was that each Dragon Age game would have mostly new protagonists and settings it seems like more planning could've solved the canon issues. I've seen it said before that ME3 should have had a comprehensive epilogue ending of DAO and DAO should have had the choice of a few ending paths like ME3 and that makes more sense to me than what happened. Anyway now that we are where we are I guess the Keep is a good compromise for retconning the previous games and I hope I get in the beta as I think the quality of this auxiliary production will give some insight into how good the game will be.
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Jun 18, 2014 06:39
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I'm mostly curious to see what the Keep, like, actually is. I'm assuming it's basically an HTML form where you check off what happened in the previous games, possibly with some kind of fancy presentation and/or a brief summary of the story so far to get new players caught up, but I think on some level the fact that it apparently needs to be beta tested makes me wonder if it isn't somehow a grander production. Maybe that was EA's ingenious marketing plan all along.
Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 06:46
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Opposing Farce posted:I'm mostly curious to see what the Keep, like, actually is. I'm assuming it's basically an HTML form where you check off what happened in the previous games, possibly with some kind of fancy presentation and/or a brief summary of the story so far to get new players caught up, but I think on some level the fact that it apparently needs to be beta tested makes ms wonder if it isn't somehow a grander production. Maybe that was EA's ingenious marketing plan all along. I've been imagining it is like an e-comic with art and sounds and stuff that as you read it you answer questions like an oldschool text-tree conversation in an rpg.
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Jun 18, 2014 06:55
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He says in that interview that it's built in HTML5 and they'll talk about whether it specifically resembles Mass Effect Genesis and that comic book style in the future, perhaps because they hadn't yet designed the presentation. Stands to reason that's at least a model for the user interface though.
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Jun 18, 2014 07:01
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epitasis posted:I'll take this opportunity to say that as much as I have reveled in hating on DA2 in this thread I have probably beaten DAO and ME1/2 more than any other games I've played and they're all among my favorites. If DAI can strike a balance between the tactical combat of DAO on PC and the tactile feel of DA2 on console I'll enjoy it. Tactical + Tactile there that's a freebie y'all should have that on the walls of your office tactictile
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Jun 18, 2014 07:16
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Looks like they're keeping the binary weapon choices for the non-Mage classes again,  Basically the Dragon Age 2 skill system wholesale but with different specialization class trees. steakmancer fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 07:24
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Opposing Farce posted:I'm mostly curious to see what the Keep, like, actually is. I'm assuming it's basically an HTML form where you check off what happened in the previous games, possibly with some kind of fancy presentation and/or a brief summary of the story so far to get new players caught up, but I think on some level the fact that it apparently needs to be beta tested makes me wonder if it isn't somehow a grander production. Maybe that was EA's ingenious marketing plan all along. The Keep is a script that you install on your browser which looks at the most visited categories you've made on various tube sites, and then hooks you up accordingly. It has 100% success rate.
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Jun 18, 2014 07:51
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Jesus reading through that old LP of DA2 and sitting in this thread for a week has made me want to go back and actually play DA:O and DA2 again. God help me.
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Jun 18, 2014 08:18
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HapiMerchant posted:Jesus reading through that old LP of DA2 and sitting in this thread for a week has made me want to go back and actually play DA:O and DA2 again. God help me. Yeah I had that moment once, but trying to actually do it? I would wait until Dragon Age Keep at the very least you won't have to slog through the boring bracillian forest section or through the singular map of Dragon Age II. Speaking of which I'm pretty sure the Brocollii forest (or whatever it's called) is literally my wall because navigating that samey boring map with the tree man and the werewolves and the... ugh killed my interested in the replaying the game. Ironically enough Dragon Age II tends to blend together making it the easier game to playthrough because the sense of progression is hosed and it feels like a shorter game than it actually is.
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Jun 18, 2014 08:59
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paragon1 posted:Why the hell wouldn't you make something you were willing to show journalists publicly available? "Please do not show this thing to the public, people whose job it is to tell the public things!" Maybe I just don't understand marketing. Because it fucks up their marketing plans. For instance, there's always an embargo to publish a review. If you publish the review even one hour before the end of the embargo, you won't get to review future games. Sometimes they also require the websites or magazines to promise a certain rating for the game, otherwise you don't get to review it. Some websites will be upfront about it, and suggest you wait for their review before buying the game (which could be a while since they have to wait for the release and buy the game like anyone), sometimes they won't. We are beyond the old "give good ratings to my games or I'll stop advertising on your website" process of a few years ago. It's all very corrupt.
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Jun 18, 2014 09:00
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Yeah, anyone who takes gaming journalism seriously is an idiot.
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Jun 18, 2014 09:28
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FauxGateau posted:Yeah I had that moment once, but trying to actually do it? I would wait until Dragon Age Keep at the very least you won't have to slog through the boring bracillian forest section or through the singular map of Dragon Age II. Speaking of which I'm pretty sure the Brocollii forest (or whatever it's called) is literally my wall because navigating that samey boring map with the tree man and the werewolves and the... ugh killed my interested in the replaying the game. Ironically enough Dragon Age II tends to blend together making it the easier game to playthrough because the sense of progression is hosed and it feels like a shorter game than it actually is. Brecilian Forest is your wall? That's not the most grindy part of the first game by a long shot. The fade is the bit that makes me loath to ever play DA:O again. It was fine the first time, but on subsequent playthroughs...
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Jun 18, 2014 09:38
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CottonWolf posted:Brecilian Forest is your wall? That's not the most grindy part of the first game by a long shot. The fade is the bit that makes me loath to ever play DA:O again. It was fine the first time, but on subsequent playthroughs... Too true, but I can skip that part with a handy mod. It's really just the boring map and the not very interesting interactions that wear me down.
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Jun 18, 2014 09:40
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the Brazilian Forest also has the Dalish elfs subplot with that rear end in a top hat Tuvok, so gently caress the Brazilian Forest
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Jun 18, 2014 11:25
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Section Z posted:Which leaves me wondering if the whole snarl of console profiles/Origin Profiles/ will kick me and my brother in the teeth for only buying a single copy of the game. But at least it's not yet another game with only a single save slot that works via autosave? If you are still referring to the Keep, another aspect they have mentioned is replayability. They want people to be able to play through the game in a different worldstate, without forcing them to replay the two 25-50 hour games than came before just to get started. The Keep lets you go back an generate f.inst. 5 different worldstates, and play a game based on each of those. Think of it as an interactive generator for the default states you used in DA2, if you didn't import a save.
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Jun 18, 2014 11:36
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Furism posted:Because it fucks up their marketing plans. For instance, there's always an embargo to publish a review. If you publish the review even one hour before the end of the embargo, you won't get to review future games. Sometimes they also require the websites or magazines to promise a certain rating for the game, otherwise you don't get to review it. Some websites will be upfront about it, and suggest you wait for their review before buying the game (which could be a while since they have to wait for the release and buy the game like anyone), sometimes they won't. We are beyond the old "give good ratings to my games or I'll stop advertising on your website" process of a few years ago. http://www.pcgamer.com/review/dragon-age-2-review/ quote:Rub up against one of the game’s Serious Moral Choices™ and your once-neat conversation wheel goes all muddled. In my first year, I rescued a mage from the dictatorial control of the Templars. Three years later, I faced his mother who explained he’d crossed into the Fade – Dragon Age’s strange netherworld – and ran the risk of becoming someone who could melt other peoples’ brains by coughing wrong. Launching into the wibbly half-light of that realm, I had to make a genuine choice: destroy the magicusing faculties of this kid’s mind, or let him become a danger to society. I put my mouse down, stood up, and paced around my room. It’s a rare feat when a game encourages walking, yet Dragon Age 2 does it all the time. The review is so full of b.s I half expect Bioware just sent him an outline of what the game offers and a check for him to write that article.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:05
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PCG's staff get unbelievably lovely if that review gets brought up in response to their articles. 
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Jun 18, 2014 12:12
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To be fair I actually really don't mind the repeated maps in DA2. I like it when an RPG just focuses on one place instead of being a big globe-trotting epic; the execution leaves something to be desired at times, but in terms of story structure I really like that DA2 is about one city and how it changes over time.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:20
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Opposing Farce posted:To be fair I actually really don't mind the repeated maps in DA2. I like it when an RPG just focuses on one city instead of being a big globe-trotting epic; the execution leaves something to be desired at times, but in terms of story structure I really like that DA2 is about one city and how it changes over time. The repeated maps would have been fine, and possibly even good, if they'd differed at all, but as it is, it seems like the locations go through literally no change in the 10 years. A location shouldn't look the same 10 years later, especially given what's happening to the city.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:23
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quote:The best RPG of this decade? Nine more years will tell, but for now, yes. If I didn't know better I'd think this final line is meant to clue you in on the fact that the entire review was satire. But I do know better.  EDIT: That said, I do agree that an RPG focused on a single city can be brilliant if executed well, but the city has to be far more Athkatla and far less Kirkwall.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:24
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The worst thing about the reused maps was that they were reused for what was supposed to be an entirely different location. Every cave was the same, every warehouse was the same, even if they were named different things and their entry points were at completely different areas of the world.
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Jun 18, 2014 12:58
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:If I didn't know better I'd think this final line is meant to clue you in on the fact that the entire review was satire. But I do know better. Athkatla? weak. Sigil, mang, Sigil.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:00
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Speaking of Sigil, reading this page makes me think some of ya'll would sympathize with this article. It's not long, so I might as well quote the whole thing.quote:I have no doubt that the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition will fix many of the problems with Dragon Age 2. But I’m also pretty sure that they will focus on all of the wrong problems.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:23
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I'd be really surprised if the game is quite as open as Bioware wants you to believe. I'm sure it's something more like The Witcher 2 or worse, the Fable games, where you have area maps with specific routes and borders you have to stick to. I would not be surprised if that last sentence ends up being true, regardless of the size of the areas, because that's every Bioware game.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:35
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Lotish posted:Speaking of Sigil, reading this page makes me think some of ya'll would sympathize with this article. It's not long, so I might as well quote the whole thing. I'm not sure if I completely agree with the article, especially since it calls Hawke "grounded", but I do see a lot of his points. It seems like he liked the idea of DAII's premise more than what we actually had, which does have merit. It missed how terribly written most of the characters were and just how Kirkwall's endless extremists (including your own party) combined with hardly anything at all changing over the years would removed any sense of the setting being believable let alone sympathetic enough to warrant being invested in the city's fate. When the writers have to sneak in the idea of the setting itself being an evil machine (which we never actually see or even mention at all in the story) into the codex to begin to explain why everything is so bad, you know you have some deep problems.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:45
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To be fair to the DA2 reviewer, the game is really good at tricking you into thinking your choices matter. I was impressed in my first playthrough, when it seemed like having to fight both Orsino and Meredith was a consequence of me being a mage siding with the templars. Then in my second playthrough, I noticed that all my actions led to the exact same consequences. There's a few things that are superficially different based on dialogue choice (even then I think you can maybe avoid one fight per chapter, and nothing you do will actually change the quests your party members take you on), and I think there's exactly three things that are indirectly caused by your actions: -Your sibling's fate depends on your party selection during the expedition. To be fair, knowing what happens is a pretty tought dilemma. You can piss off and alienate your sibling, let them die, or willingly spend weeks (months?) underground in the company of Anders and have them leave anyway. -You can have some agency during the act II showdown if you've used Isabela regularly and focused on going down one of her relationship paths. Otherwise you fight the Arishok and Isabela leaves your party. Even if you do everything right, Isabela still escapes and the Arishok presumably gets executed immediately after. -In the act III climax, party members might leave or fight you depending on your relationship and which side you pick. I've never had anyone turn on me, though.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:52
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Yeah, I think DA2 is a bit like Heavy Rain for a lot of people; it can create a good illusion and make you think you're having a dynamic adventure. I find that breaks down right quick in Act 3, though, and multiple playthroughs will dissuade you of the notion pretty much immediately.
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Jun 18, 2014 14:03
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I'm not sure that I buy the premise of that article. I think Torment was a better game than the Baldurs Gate games because it was better written and had a better story, not intrinsically because it was based in a single location. There's no reason that a game with the pretensions of Baldurs Gate couldn't be as good as Torment given the right writing staff. I liked Sigil, but Sigil wasn't the main reason I love the game, it was the characters and the way that they reacted to your actions and the way that the game was self-consistent despite its weirdness. That could happen in any game.
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Jun 18, 2014 14:03
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Lotish posted:Speaking of Sigil, reading this page makes me think some of ya'll would sympathize with this article. It's not long, so I might as well quote the whole thing. There were some good points, but I cannot agree with all of them. Saying Planescape: Torment is straight up better than BG is just not true. Torment was a really great game, with unique environments and characters, and I had a blast playing through it the first time. But there is just not too much replay value, I did a second playthrough on the evil side, and I quickly realized that I won't replay it for a long time. Baldur's Gate has much more to offer for repeated playthroughs, from the different classes your PC can have, the party members you can recruit and the genuine different storyline choices you can take in the game. The first playthrough of P:T impressed me more than that of BG, but I had more fun replaying the latter. And while it's quite cool to be able to beat the game with minimal combat, it deprived the game of one engaging gameplay element that BG did have. It's also striking how unimportant Sigil becomes in the latter third of the game. The final confrontation isn't even in the city itself. Before that you are going around the lower planes (like in BG2!) and various other dimensions. And you can arguably change Athkatla more than Sigil, which is especially apparent after you left the Underdark and return to it. To return to the topic of Dragon Age, of course technically there is no need to return to a more open world just because they bungled the one-city approach in DA2. But in reality it would no doubt hurt their sales if they tried it again immediately. How much worse would the cries of "Bioware didn't learn from the mistakes of DA2" be if they reduced the scope of the game to Orlais for example? Bioware had no choice here. At the same time, the stronghold of the Inquisition can serve as a fixed city replacement. You will probably get it relatively soon, and the keep will change depending on the choices you make in the game, mostly in the additional characters I suspect. If Bioware is clever then this has the potential to be really good. And I bet there is at least one attack/siege of your stronghold, to provide something like the Qunari attack in DA2 and the chance to alter it significantly ("rebuilding") after you win the battle.
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Jun 18, 2014 14:28
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CottonWolf posted:I'm not sure that I buy the premise of that article. I think Torment was a better game than the Baldurs Gate games because it was better written and had a better story, not intrinsically because it was based in a single location. There's no reason that a game with the pretensions of Baldurs Gate couldn't be as good as Torment given the right writing staff. I liked Sigil, but Sigil wasn't the main reason I love the game, it was the characters and the way that they reacted to your actions and the way that the game was self-consistent despite its weirdness. That could happen in any game. It's because the whole thing was a giant mystery and intensely personal because it keeps coming back to TNO's previous incarnations, so you're running around solving a mystery and learning just how colossal a dick you were in the past. e: Also you can't really change Sigil much. It wiggles around, it changes a tiny bit, but it stays largely the same because the Lady fucks up anybody who would change it too much. But that's getting into why Planescape was a better setting than Forgotten Realms sooo
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Jun 18, 2014 14:29
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HapiMerchant posted:Athkatla? weak. Sigil, mang, Sigil. I honestly just named Athkatla because it was the first thing that came to mind, but thinking about it I still think it's the most apt comparison of the two, given Athkatla is part of a traditional fantasy setting akin to Thedas. The Cowled Wizards blocking you as you cast spells are also basically a manual from Past BioWare to Future BioWare about how to handle the Templar vs Mage conflict in gameplay, and one that was largely ignored, unfortunately. That said, Athkatla or Sigil, my point is that that you need a far larger, far more developed city that actually changes throughout the year to have a game like Dragon Age 2 work. Hopefully, we'll eventually see that game, because I think it's a pretty loving cool idea.
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Jun 18, 2014 14:32
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Mung Dynasty posted:I'd be really surprised if the game is quite as open as Bioware wants you to believe. I'm sure it's something more like The Witcher 2 or worse, the Fable games, where you have area maps with specific routes and borders you have to stick to. I hope it is because open world RPGs are hecka boring
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Jun 18, 2014 14:36
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Kajeesus posted:To be fair to the DA2 reviewer, the game is really good at tricking you into thinking your choices matter. I was impressed in my first playthrough, when it seemed like having to fight both Orsino and Meredith was a consequence of me being a mage siding with the templars. Then in my second playthrough, I noticed that all my actions led to the exact same consequences. There's a few things that are superficially different based on dialogue choice (even then I think you can maybe avoid one fight per chapter, and nothing you do will actually change the quests your party members take you on), and I think there's exactly three things that are indirectly caused by your actions: And even then, the two first of those suffer from the issue that the player is not told, how they influenced the choice, or given a hint at the time of making the choice, that it is important in some respect. They are similar to the 'choice' about what sibling survives, which is based on the apparently unrelated choice of what character class you'd like to play. 1. The game does make it clear that whether or not you take your sibling is somehow important, through your mother imploring you not to take him/her along. It never mentions that Anders may be significant. 2. The trigger for whether Isabella runs off forever, or returns later, is, IIRC, 50% affection in either direction. For all others, affection is made into a game-spanning development. She has a breakpoint fairly shortly after you meet her, and if you don't know about it, she appears to be simply scripted to leave whatever you do. Some of the others can still gently caress off, but only if you very deliberately tell them to or insult them on the clearly very personal to them task you are on. It is one thing, when apparent choices do not lead to different outcomes. I find it much much worse, when I am not (or only dimly) aware that a consequence was a result of my actions, but given no knowledge of which actions (or utterances) it was. It don't want perfect clarity over every consequence before choosing, and I don't need a popup telling me that calling the king a bastard is pissing him off. But Anders saying before the expedition "Y'know, taking a Grey Warden along to the Deep Roads would probably be a very good idea" is an example of the type of hint I am after. If the game finds something important, the player needs to know that it is, even if the character does not know why. Thankfully, the DA:I devs have adressed exactly that problem of transparency in the presentation of the dialogue system, and that alone is a pretty big part of why, I allow myself to be quietly optimistic about DA:I. GhostBoy fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 14:54
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Heavy Rain actually had multiple outcomes though? DA2 created the illusion of choice about 20% less effectively than The Walking Dead did, and The Walking Dead's reconciliation points are glaring as hell.
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Jun 18, 2014 18:00
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