Solas means "Pride"
December 7, 2018 5:16 AM Subscribe
Thursday night, BioWare's official blog posted a teaser for the next game in the Dragon Age series, possibly subtitled "The Dread Wolf Rises."
This is unfortunate because I have to get to work but I am now screaming.
I've been so afraid for this game because of everything that Bioware has done since Inquisition (and everyone who has left), but I also absolutely loved so much about the dragon age world, characters, lore that I want there to be more to the story.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:22 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
I've been so afraid for this game because of everything that Bioware has done since Inquisition (and everyone who has left), but I also absolutely loved so much about the dragon age world, characters, lore that I want there to be more to the story.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:22 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
That last article made me want to get into gaming so I could punch the fuck out of Solas.
posted by duffell at 5:34 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by duffell at 5:34 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
Solas is a family favorite character here.
posted by doctornemo at 5:48 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 5:48 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
He is a giant dick and you bet that I've been planning my final play through before the next game to be a solasmance for maximum pain.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:51 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by dinty_moore at 5:51 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
I’m going to save my idiot former boyfriend who means well but makes stupid plans to accomplish his goals, just you wait.
posted by rewil at 6:28 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by rewil at 6:28 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
BioWare gets zero trust from me after what they did to Mass Effect.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:42 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:42 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Arg. I finally played DA this past year, and skipped the epilogue DLC because I wanted to pretend that everything didn't immediately turn to shit for the characters/world I'd gotten attached to. (Let me have this, grimdark fantasy! Just once!)
Guess I've gotta face it, or at least do another playthrough so I can pretend that at least one ragtag band of misfits gets out OK.
posted by cage and aquarium at 6:50 AM on December 7, 2018
Guess I've gotta face it, or at least do another playthrough so I can pretend that at least one ragtag band of misfits gets out OK.
posted by cage and aquarium at 6:50 AM on December 7, 2018
Trespasser is probably my favorite part of Dragon Age: Inquisition and one of my top five Dragon Age levels - and things can turn out okay, it's just clear that there's more work to be done.
It felt like trespasser had just the right amount of money and development time for its scope, which is the usual post-EA bioware mismatch for me.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:55 AM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
It felt like trespasser had just the right amount of money and development time for its scope, which is the usual post-EA bioware mismatch for me.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:55 AM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
I think Mass Effect means more to me personally thanks to [Fem]Shep's personal arc, but Dragon Age is the stronger franchise with better characters.
Or maybe it's just that the three games of Mass Effect (there is no fourth game) just told one long-ass story of Shepard and thus she was more relatable, and the three different stories in DA brought in more breadth.
Would you like me to tell you all about my Warden, Hawke, and Inquisitor? No, of course not, but they're incredibly important to /me./ I have a canonical playthrough, and then a bunch of other ones. DA:I is one of the few games I platinumed on the PS4. Beating Trespasser on Nightmare is ... not easy.
I really, desperately hope we'll see Leliana again. She's my favourite character in DA.
They had better not try and wedge multiplayer into the DA world like they're trying to do with Anthem. O mai got that would ruin it completely.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:56 AM on December 7, 2018 [11 favorites]
Or maybe it's just that the three games of Mass Effect (there is no fourth game) just told one long-ass story of Shepard and thus she was more relatable, and the three different stories in DA brought in more breadth.
Would you like me to tell you all about my Warden, Hawke, and Inquisitor? No, of course not, but they're incredibly important to /me./ I have a canonical playthrough, and then a bunch of other ones. DA:I is one of the few games I platinumed on the PS4. Beating Trespasser on Nightmare is ... not easy.
I really, desperately hope we'll see Leliana again. She's my favourite character in DA.
They had better not try and wedge multiplayer into the DA world like they're trying to do with Anthem. O mai got that would ruin it completely.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:56 AM on December 7, 2018 [11 favorites]
They sort of had a multiplayer part of Inquisition but they kept it so far away from the storyline that everyone could rightfully ignore it.
The only way I can imagine a multiplayer version of DA is if it was like And Then There Were N-One, and all these main characters came from all over the multiverse for a convention and had feelings about paths not taken and possibly solve a murder mystery.
The games do feel individualized enough through player choices that it feels like every person's game must be silo'd, otherwise you're taking away from that feeling of player agency. Either we take away the illusion that the player choices matter, take away the player's choices, or shunt the multiplayer over to the section that doesn't matter.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:29 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
The only way I can imagine a multiplayer version of DA is if it was like And Then There Were N-One, and all these main characters came from all over the multiverse for a convention and had feelings about paths not taken and possibly solve a murder mystery.
The games do feel individualized enough through player choices that it feels like every person's game must be silo'd, otherwise you're taking away from that feeling of player agency. Either we take away the illusion that the player choices matter, take away the player's choices, or shunt the multiplayer over to the section that doesn't matter.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:29 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Very excited about this. My only worry is that we don't go to Tevinter. I really want to go there!
Also I think they should have not revealed this yet - the game is still three years away.
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:33 AM on December 7, 2018
Also I think they should have not revealed this yet - the game is still three years away.
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:33 AM on December 7, 2018
Oh, and I love that nearly the entire trailer focuses on the item we found in Dragon Age 2. Was wondering what happened to that thing. Also, please give us some griffons, Bioware.
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:36 AM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by longdaysjourney at 7:36 AM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
Good use of the 'fucksolas' tag, in that you can split the Dragon Age audience into which interpretation of those words they would choose :D
posted by Eleven at 7:37 AM on December 7, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by Eleven at 7:37 AM on December 7, 2018 [12 favorites]
As a Solasmancer, Trespasser was one of the best DLCs I’ve played in my life. I am both incredibly eager to get to see the next game, and also worried there won’t be a big enough payoff/material for the Solasmancers because they’re such a small (albeit vocal) fraction. Like, if they give us only a segment similar to, say, what they gave those who chose to ride the Iron Bull (but sacrificed his people) in Trespasser, I’ll be pretty upset.
posted by corb at 7:44 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by corb at 7:44 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have massive mixed feelings about Bioware since DA2, which wasn't that bad if you could ignore the repeated maps and mobs until the "do you want to kick the red puppy or the blue puppy" moment that made me want to go Sam Vimes and create my own little autonomous zone. Since then, oi, EA forcing Frostbite on developers apparently has made the RPG aspects much more difficult than they should be, Bioware getting brigaded for Andromeda's uncanny valley when all of their games live in the same neighborhood, and maybe I'm getting a bit old and cranky about how peace through mass murder is enough of a dramatic tension without half the companions choosing to lecture me on it when I hit a terrain trigger. And DA has been horrible at giving me toons that don't crank the binary-gender character animation up to 11.
I'll probably pick it up on a bargain bin anyway, because I just bought my third copies of ME and ME2 for a new platform. But still...
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:03 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'll probably pick it up on a bargain bin anyway, because I just bought my third copies of ME and ME2 for a new platform. But still...
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 8:03 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh god the idle stand animation for female characters in DA:I i am shouting at the screen "why are you standing like that, like you have no abdominal strength? Like you're holding a champagne flute and simpering at someone in five inch heels? Cassandra you are a warrior!!!!!" Didn't Varric get his own unique motion capture, but all the women used the same one? OKay I may have feels about this too.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:14 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:14 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
@MikeDrucker: GAME TRAILER: “Enter a world beyond belief...”
ME: “Yes”
GAME TRAILER: “An adventure like never before...”
ME: “YES”
GAME TRAILER: “Join your friends online”
ME: “I’m out”
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2018 [12 favorites]
ME: “Yes”
GAME TRAILER: “An adventure like never before...”
ME: “YES”
GAME TRAILER: “Join your friends online”
ME: “I’m out”
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2018 [12 favorites]
Or maybe it's just that the three games of Mass Effect (there is no fourth game)
I can't believe that I'm picking up the whip and going back to the nearly-skeletonized horse carcass again, but: Andromeda was a good game. Not a great game, and not nearly the game that it should have been after a five-year development cycle, but good enough. Yes, even with the crappy character graphics and numerous pointless fetch quests.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2018 [6 favorites]
I can't believe that I'm picking up the whip and going back to the nearly-skeletonized horse carcass again, but: Andromeda was a good game. Not a great game, and not nearly the game that it should have been after a five-year development cycle, but good enough. Yes, even with the crappy character graphics and numerous pointless fetch quests.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:22 AM on December 7, 2018 [6 favorites]
And once again my prayers for MDK3 go unanswered.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:49 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:49 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
You're not wrong, Solas, you're just an asshole
posted by duffell at 8:56 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by duffell at 8:56 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
That last article made me want to get into gaming so I could punch the fuck out of Solas.
This is, no lie, the reason I started playing. Saw a piece of fanart, read a bit of the backstory, was intrigued by the twists but of course wasn't going to romance him because ugh, elves. Bought the game, created as a human, only to reroll as an elf about 20 minutes later after that speckled egg rolled his eyes because I asked Varric if he was part of the chantry (because I'd never played any DA before and didn't know what it was). Like how dare. how dare
you bet that I've been planning my final play through before the next game to be a solasmance for maximum pain
right? I left Trespasser unplayed in order to save it for an Ultimate Playthrough of the series before the release of DA4. #hurtme
Would you like me to tell you all about my Warden, Hawke, and Inquisitor? No, of course not
wrong
Also, please give us some griffons, Bioware.
if it doesn't have griffons in it, I don't want to hear it
Good use of the 'fucksolas' tag, in that you can split the Dragon Age audience into which interpretation of those words they would choose :D
a venn diagram representation of these two entirely distinct groups: O
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:27 AM on December 7, 2018 [9 favorites]
This is, no lie, the reason I started playing. Saw a piece of fanart, read a bit of the backstory, was intrigued by the twists but of course wasn't going to romance him because ugh, elves. Bought the game, created as a human, only to reroll as an elf about 20 minutes later after that speckled egg rolled his eyes because I asked Varric if he was part of the chantry (because I'd never played any DA before and didn't know what it was). Like how dare. how dare
you bet that I've been planning my final play through before the next game to be a solasmance for maximum pain
right? I left Trespasser unplayed in order to save it for an Ultimate Playthrough of the series before the release of DA4. #hurtme
Would you like me to tell you all about my Warden, Hawke, and Inquisitor? No, of course not
wrong
Also, please give us some griffons, Bioware.
if it doesn't have griffons in it, I don't want to hear it
Good use of the 'fucksolas' tag, in that you can split the Dragon Age audience into which interpretation of those words they would choose :D
a venn diagram representation of these two entirely distinct groups: O
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:27 AM on December 7, 2018 [9 favorites]
I am SO FUCKING EXCITED and maybe cried a little maybe, Trespasser was I think the best DA has ever been and it sounds like a lot of that team is now in leadership roles for DA4.
posted by sonmi at 9:38 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by sonmi at 9:38 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
Okay, you've all convinced me to get Trespasser and play it on my second play-through. Also to feel slightly better about my outsized emotional reaction to this series, because apparently it makes a lot of people have outsized emotional reactions. Sniff.
(I played it so long after everyone else that fan stuff / meta / discussion online had already happened, so I just experienced this all in a vacuum + trawling TVTropes like a fannish time traveler)
posted by cage and aquarium at 9:54 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
(I played it so long after everyone else that fan stuff / meta / discussion online had already happened, so I just experienced this all in a vacuum + trawling TVTropes like a fannish time traveler)
posted by cage and aquarium at 9:54 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
Just leaving this here
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 9:58 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 9:58 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
can't wait to murder the egg
posted by poffin boffin at 10:20 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:20 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
i mean we'll all be dead by 2021 but still
posted by poffin boffin at 10:25 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:25 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
I thought so, too, cage and aquarium, and then I joined tumblr, where it is alive and well just like Loghain, Leliana, Zevran, Nathaniel, Fenris, Merrill, and Anders
posted by notquitemaryann at 10:31 AM on December 7, 2018
posted by notquitemaryann at 10:31 AM on December 7, 2018
@Pancheers: Sooo looking forward to voicing Solas again. This teaser is beautiful @dragonage #TheDreadWolfRises
It's fuckingGARETH DAVID-LLOYD IANTO sweet christmas that explains so much
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:43 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's fucking
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:43 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
needs the #everyonewillsee tag
posted by notquitemaryann at 10:49 AM on December 7, 2018
posted by notquitemaryann at 10:49 AM on December 7, 2018
Please let us find out what Sandal's deal is.
posted by rewil at 10:59 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by rewil at 10:59 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Enchantment.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:01 AM on December 7, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:01 AM on December 7, 2018 [6 favorites]
and occasionally boom
posted by notquitemaryann at 11:05 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by notquitemaryann at 11:05 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
On the one hand, I feel like I should find some of those lore videos that try to untangle the mess of worldbuilding they dumped at the end of DA:I.
On the other hand, the DA series has been a mess in terms of continuous lore/worldbuilding/stuff-you're-supposed-to-give-a-shit-about, so maybe it's better to forget all that and let it happen fresh.
posted by fleacircus at 11:38 AM on December 7, 2018
On the other hand, the DA series has been a mess in terms of continuous lore/worldbuilding/stuff-you're-supposed-to-give-a-shit-about, so maybe it's better to forget all that and let it happen fresh.
posted by fleacircus at 11:38 AM on December 7, 2018
It hasn’t been mentioned, I don’t think, but I’m just going to assume that I’m not about to wait two years for one of my favorite gaming franchises to release a &$*^ing mobile game. That sure won’t ever lead to disappointment.
posted by Revvy at 12:18 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Revvy at 12:18 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
Just leaving this here
Ha ha ha ha ha, "javelins" and "lancers". Bioware code-named Anthem "Dylan", as in Bob, because this game was supposed to be so ground-breaking, and they're naming two key elements after Mass Effect rifles. Maybe they'll have a main character named Cain and another named Black Widow--whoops, wrong franchise. Heh.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:19 PM on December 7, 2018
Ha ha ha ha ha, "javelins" and "lancers". Bioware code-named Anthem "Dylan", as in Bob, because this game was supposed to be so ground-breaking, and they're naming two key elements after Mass Effect rifles. Maybe they'll have a main character named Cain and another named Black Widow--whoops, wrong franchise. Heh.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:19 PM on December 7, 2018
All I want is for my Lavellan to be able to monologue about the evolutions of religious beliefs over time, their anthropological purpose, and the debatable value of *literal correctness* in terms of belief systems that sustain cultures, particularly cultures that are largely oppressed and trying to maintain their identity in a hostile world that ranges from encouraging assimilation to encouraging violence, to Solas. And Cassandra. And the Dragon Age writing team.
This will probably instead be a game about elves. So it goes.
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 3:14 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
This will probably instead be a game about elves. So it goes.
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 3:14 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
On the one hand, I feel like I should find some of those lore videos that try to untangle the mess of worldbuilding they dumped at the end of DA:I.
On the other hand, the DA series has been a mess in terms of continuous lore/worldbuilding/stuff-you're-supposed-to-give-a-shit-about, so maybe it's better to forget all that and let it happen fresh.
Oh man, the continuous lore/worldbuilding being a jumbled convoluted mess is my favorite part of Dragon Age. I mean, there are actual parts that I'm iffy about - mostly involving the Dailsh in Inquisition and Alastair's entire bullshit heritage thing, but it honestly feels like some stuff happened a few thousand years ago, stories were passed down but warped to their own ends by various different groups, and nobody today really knows what's going on but they're all convinced they're 100% correct. Like real history!
But it also does it in a way that the plot is mostly enjoyable if you want to ignore it all. Corypheus is kind of a shitty boss at the end, sure, but it's not like there were a bunch of boring infodumps along the way. And getting that balance right is super difficult.
And it means that we have some pretty big hints as to what is up with Sandal from some of Solas's dialogue and the deep roads Inquisition expansion; plus what the fuck was up with Kirkwall that made it so demon-prone, plus what was up with Skyhold, but there's still a ton of questions that need to be answered, and there's enough hints that truly in-depth crazypants beanplating seems to be rewarded (the Sera-is-Andruil thing, for ex, or what the fuck is up with Leiliana's age).
posted by dinty_moore at 3:24 PM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
On the other hand, the DA series has been a mess in terms of continuous lore/worldbuilding/stuff-you're-supposed-to-give-a-shit-about, so maybe it's better to forget all that and let it happen fresh.
Oh man, the continuous lore/worldbuilding being a jumbled convoluted mess is my favorite part of Dragon Age. I mean, there are actual parts that I'm iffy about - mostly involving the Dailsh in Inquisition and Alastair's entire bullshit heritage thing, but it honestly feels like some stuff happened a few thousand years ago, stories were passed down but warped to their own ends by various different groups, and nobody today really knows what's going on but they're all convinced they're 100% correct. Like real history!
But it also does it in a way that the plot is mostly enjoyable if you want to ignore it all. Corypheus is kind of a shitty boss at the end, sure, but it's not like there were a bunch of boring infodumps along the way. And getting that balance right is super difficult.
And it means that we have some pretty big hints as to what is up with Sandal from some of Solas's dialogue and the deep roads Inquisition expansion; plus what the fuck was up with Kirkwall that made it so demon-prone, plus what was up with Skyhold, but there's still a ton of questions that need to be answered, and there's enough hints that truly in-depth crazypants beanplating seems to be rewarded (the Sera-is-Andruil thing, for ex, or what the fuck is up with Leiliana's age).
posted by dinty_moore at 3:24 PM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]
But yes, I am assuming that in my Lavellan playthrough there is a point where he explains semiotics and the process of reclamation to one (1) idiot egg. They just didn't show it on screen.
posted by dinty_moore at 3:32 PM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by dinty_moore at 3:32 PM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh man, I thought the Sera-as-Andruil was going to be complete crazypants, but it’s weirdly compelling.
posted by corb at 3:38 PM on December 7, 2018
posted by corb at 3:38 PM on December 7, 2018
AAAAAAAaaaaGGHGGAAAAahahhhh!
I uh. Am looking forward to this game a little bit. Trespasser was so good. I just want more of that in Tevinter. I took the very end scene with the map to be a giant hint that it'll be set in Tevinter (maybe with Harding as a companion??).
DA games always have a new main character, but I am hoping there's a little bone for us masochists who can't help romancing the big dumb egg.
I also hope the ending isn't just a big bossfight with a six-eyed giant wolf.
Weekes knows how to bring the heartache, but I am a bit wary that it's the first game without Gaider. And wondering how Anthem will affect EA's input into the game. I just want a big totally single-player RPG.
In other game announcement news, Outer Worlds looks fun!
posted by lovecrafty at 3:40 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
I uh. Am looking forward to this game a little bit. Trespasser was so good. I just want more of that in Tevinter. I took the very end scene with the map to be a giant hint that it'll be set in Tevinter (maybe with Harding as a companion??).
DA games always have a new main character, but I am hoping there's a little bone for us masochists who can't help romancing the big dumb egg.
I also hope the ending isn't just a big bossfight with a six-eyed giant wolf.
Weekes knows how to bring the heartache, but I am a bit wary that it's the first game without Gaider. And wondering how Anthem will affect EA's input into the game. I just want a big totally single-player RPG.
In other game announcement news, Outer Worlds looks fun!
posted by lovecrafty at 3:40 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
andraste was an elven blood mage ok bye
posted by poffin boffin at 4:18 PM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 4:18 PM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
I thought I'd left Dragon Age hell, but apparently it was just dormant.
Is 2021 the rumored release year?
posted by later, paladudes at 4:26 PM on December 7, 2018
Is 2021 the rumored release year?
posted by later, paladudes at 4:26 PM on December 7, 2018
Oh good someone has already done the in-depth read of the mural.
posted by dinty_moore at 6:39 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by dinty_moore at 6:39 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]
I told my girlfriend that people on the internet are worried this will go the way of ME3, but she thinks this will be better. For one thing, this will have the same development team that the other DA games had, and apparently ME3 was pretty doomed from the start as an overly-ambitious but poorly conceived project. If the new DA turns out to churn through developers like ME3, then there might be a problem.
As someone who has watched his girlfriend play all the DA games, I’m excited to watch this one too!
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:56 PM on December 7, 2018
As someone who has watched his girlfriend play all the DA games, I’m excited to watch this one too!
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 6:56 PM on December 7, 2018
I have massive mixed feelings about Bioware since DA2, which wasn't that bad if you could ignore the repeated maps and mobs
For all the flack DA2 got, and a bunch of it was deserved, it was by far the most balanced and well designed of the games from a combat mechanics perspective. DA:0 had a ton of useless skills and some of the classes were boring as hell and pointless. The difficulty level balancing wasn't awful but it could have been better. On the other hand, the combat and balance in DA:I was a giant hot mess. Just terribly done. I have very little good to say about it. That isn't to say that the combat wasn't sometimes fun but it was not in any sense well-designed.
But DA2? Every class was fun and viable. Almost all the skills were interesting or useful. The difficulty was tuned and appropriate all the way to the end even on Nightmare.
If only they had kept the really good parts of DA2 instead of jettisoning it all. Because it's hard to overstate how much of a hot mess the mechanics of DA:I were. It takes some doing to make the mechanics of the third game in a series the worst of the three (given you've had two previous games to work out the kinks) but they managed it somehow.
posted by Justinian at 6:58 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
For all the flack DA2 got, and a bunch of it was deserved, it was by far the most balanced and well designed of the games from a combat mechanics perspective. DA:0 had a ton of useless skills and some of the classes were boring as hell and pointless. The difficulty level balancing wasn't awful but it could have been better. On the other hand, the combat and balance in DA:I was a giant hot mess. Just terribly done. I have very little good to say about it. That isn't to say that the combat wasn't sometimes fun but it was not in any sense well-designed.
But DA2? Every class was fun and viable. Almost all the skills were interesting or useful. The difficulty was tuned and appropriate all the way to the end even on Nightmare.
If only they had kept the really good parts of DA2 instead of jettisoning it all. Because it's hard to overstate how much of a hot mess the mechanics of DA:I were. It takes some doing to make the mechanics of the third game in a series the worst of the three (given you've had two previous games to work out the kinks) but they managed it somehow.
posted by Justinian at 6:58 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Am I the only one that thought ME3 was like... 95% excellent? The last 5% of the game, from when Shepard rode the magic sky beam up to talk to the Deux Ex Machina Kid to the end was a giant clusterfuck of bullshit but the rest of it had a lot of magic to it.
And the Citadel DLC was gold, Jerry, gold!
(perhaps you meant Andromeda, about which the less said the better.)
posted by Justinian at 7:00 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
And the Citadel DLC was gold, Jerry, gold!
(perhaps you meant Andromeda, about which the less said the better.)
posted by Justinian at 7:00 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, ME3 was largely pretty great right up until the mystical space platform of plot resolution came down from the sky. I was still crying about Anderson when that shit happened!
posted by lovecrafty at 7:03 PM on December 7, 2018
posted by lovecrafty at 7:03 PM on December 7, 2018
This is making me try to finish Inquisition. I couldn't justify a PC for gaming anymore (been a Mac-based graphic designer) so I got an Xbox, but I found Dragon age really frustrating trying to play with the dang controller.
posted by Wink Ricketts at 7:11 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Wink Ricketts at 7:11 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
I do have cautious optimism about this game for what its worth. It doesn't seem to have been rushed like DA2. It doesn't seem to have been shuffled off to the inexperienced second studio like ME:A. And Bioware must know that this is basically their last chance with virtually everyone; If they crash and burn the second of their two flagship properties, well, that's probably all she wrote. Surely they recognize that and will do whatever it takes to avoid it.
Surely...
posted by Justinian at 7:16 PM on December 7, 2018
Surely...
posted by Justinian at 7:16 PM on December 7, 2018
There were portions of DA2 that were just plain unplayable on a console and I'm still angry about it - I'm thinking specifically of the Corypheus fight, where you're supposed to move your entire party to avoid spokes of fire, but there was no real pause button or ability to see your entire party from overhead like on the PC, so you end up frantically switching between party members every few seconds to move them one by one and hope that AI takes care of the actual fighting.
The balance between different classes was there, but the actual gameplay mechanics were so obviously designed with a keyboard in mind that playing on a console meant that you really spent most of the time hoping the AI did the work for you, or spending a ton of time in the radial menu.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:18 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
The balance between different classes was there, but the actual gameplay mechanics were so obviously designed with a keyboard in mind that playing on a console meant that you really spent most of the time hoping the AI did the work for you, or spending a ton of time in the radial menu.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:18 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
Huh, I had no idea it was done so poorly on console. You can probably guess I am a PC guy. So my comments should only be taken as to that platform.
Even on PC the "overhead" camera was kinda crappily handled, but the combat mechanics themselves were well done.
posted by Justinian at 7:21 PM on December 7, 2018
Even on PC the "overhead" camera was kinda crappily handled, but the combat mechanics themselves were well done.
posted by Justinian at 7:21 PM on December 7, 2018
re: the analysis twitter thread, I don't think we have enough to positively identify the figure on the left as Falon'Din, especially not on the basis of a staff shaped like Flemythal's horns and pauldrons. I love the ambiguity of the head and the possible helmet.
but mostly I am worried about the fact that our lorge pupper appears to be infected with red lyrium.
posted by notquitemaryann at 7:24 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
but mostly I am worried about the fact that our lorge pupper appears to be infected with red lyrium.
posted by notquitemaryann at 7:24 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, that twitter thread lost me a little at Falon'Din, and also the remark about the Old Gods/archdemons being one and the same with the elven pantheon. There's nothing indicating a direct one to one relationship between the OGs and the Evanuris, although there is definitely some kind of connection. I find it more likely that the OGs are the Forgotten Ones, who (legend--AKA Merrill--says) Fen'Harel locked away in the Void when he tricked both them and the Creators by playing both sides. But who knows man, we know Horcruxes are totally a thing in Thedas, so there could be a whole split souls thing going on.
Of the seven OGs, two remain: Razikale, dragon of Mystery, and Lusacan, dragon of Night. Many players will have world states in which the untainted soul of Urthemiel, dragon of Beauty (the archdemon you slay in DAO) is still floating around out there...
We do know that Solas had a pretty low opinion of Falon'Din, saying he was terribly vain and started bloody wars in his lust for more worshippers and didn't stop until Mythal smacked him down.
posted by lovecrafty at 7:54 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
Of the seven OGs, two remain: Razikale, dragon of Mystery, and Lusacan, dragon of Night. Many players will have world states in which the untainted soul of Urthemiel, dragon of Beauty (the archdemon you slay in DAO) is still floating around out there...
We do know that Solas had a pretty low opinion of Falon'Din, saying he was terribly vain and started bloody wars in his lust for more worshippers and didn't stop until Mythal smacked him down.
posted by lovecrafty at 7:54 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh yeah, the mechanics of DA2 were solid, it's the lazy level design that annoyed the heck out of me. That, and the coerced puppy-kicking at the end. Bioware's problem is that they think they're writing something culturally relevant about The Singularity (ME3, ME:A) or terrorism and safety (DA2). When what they deliver is somewhere between Ed Wood and Michael Bay if you try to think about it too hard.
I disagree that Starchild was a Deus Ex Machina so much as a failure to follow up on the big secret that was central to the first Mass Effect: The Citadel is the most important Reaper structure in the galaxy and they've been ratfucking galactic civilization the whole time. And in that moment of revelation, that little side mission in the beginning with the curiously homicidal scientists who want you to scan the curiously mysterious Keepers who everyone is adamantly incurious about suddenly makes sense.
But ME2 has you chasing degenerate Protheans and ME3 has you chasing Cerberus. Cerberus! We both know Cerberus isn't the real enemy.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:23 PM on December 7, 2018
I disagree that Starchild was a Deus Ex Machina so much as a failure to follow up on the big secret that was central to the first Mass Effect: The Citadel is the most important Reaper structure in the galaxy and they've been ratfucking galactic civilization the whole time. And in that moment of revelation, that little side mission in the beginning with the curiously homicidal scientists who want you to scan the curiously mysterious Keepers who everyone is adamantly incurious about suddenly makes sense.
But ME2 has you chasing degenerate Protheans and ME3 has you chasing Cerberus. Cerberus! We both know Cerberus isn't the real enemy.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 9:23 PM on December 7, 2018
(perhaps you meant Andromeda, about which the less said the better.)
Oh yeah, jeez, I did mean Andromeda. Sorry, that was my confusion. Girlfriend says she liked ME3.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:00 PM on December 7, 2018
Oh yeah, jeez, I did mean Andromeda. Sorry, that was my confusion. Girlfriend says she liked ME3.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:00 PM on December 7, 2018
Am I the only one that thought ME3 was like... 95% excellent? The last 5% of the game, from when Shepard rode the magic sky beam up to talk to the Deux Ex Machina Kid to the end was a giant clusterfuck of bullshit but the rest of it had a lot of magic to it.
ME3 was astonishingly good, well-structured and full of neat references and in-jokes; even Conrad Verner, the biggest fanboy in the galaxy, had a neat bit where a bunch of random missions and fetch quests from the first game finally pay off. Several characters get Dying Moments of Awesome, the genophage and geth/quarian conflicts are resolved, and it's all building toward one big showdown of Shepard vs. The Illusive Man for the fate of the galaxy...
...and then it all goes to shit. I still believe that what happened was that EA told the devs that they had basically no more money to finish the game, and that they had to come up with some sort of ending that would use existing assets, and Mac Walters and Casey Hudson came up with Starchild and the nearly-identical endings, and tried to pass it off as profound cosmic SF. The problem is, you can't really do a cerebral SF ending to a space opera epic. A space opera is about the people, first and foremost, and if you make the mistake of thinking that the best ending is for the people to turn into cosmic glitter and evolve to a higher plane of existence or something, then you end up with something like Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The second Star Trek movie was so much better because Nicholas Meyer got what Gene Roddenberry didn't, and so instead of two new characters who you didn't really care about dissolving in a glowing space fuck, you had Spock's funeral with Scotty playing "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes.
ME3 needed to have Shepard, finally face to face with The Illusive Man, get to punch TIM right in his Evil Jed Bartlett face; it needed to have the player get to play Joker at the controls of the Normandy, blowing up Reapers because Shepard used the Crucible to shut off all the Reapers' mass effect fields and bring their shields down; and it needed one last conversation between Shepard and Admiral Hackett, followed by a big space funeral for Shepard and Anderson. Not the most original ending, but it would have been vastly more satisfying.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:33 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
ME3 was astonishingly good, well-structured and full of neat references and in-jokes; even Conrad Verner, the biggest fanboy in the galaxy, had a neat bit where a bunch of random missions and fetch quests from the first game finally pay off. Several characters get Dying Moments of Awesome, the genophage and geth/quarian conflicts are resolved, and it's all building toward one big showdown of Shepard vs. The Illusive Man for the fate of the galaxy...
...and then it all goes to shit. I still believe that what happened was that EA told the devs that they had basically no more money to finish the game, and that they had to come up with some sort of ending that would use existing assets, and Mac Walters and Casey Hudson came up with Starchild and the nearly-identical endings, and tried to pass it off as profound cosmic SF. The problem is, you can't really do a cerebral SF ending to a space opera epic. A space opera is about the people, first and foremost, and if you make the mistake of thinking that the best ending is for the people to turn into cosmic glitter and evolve to a higher plane of existence or something, then you end up with something like Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The second Star Trek movie was so much better because Nicholas Meyer got what Gene Roddenberry didn't, and so instead of two new characters who you didn't really care about dissolving in a glowing space fuck, you had Spock's funeral with Scotty playing "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes.
ME3 needed to have Shepard, finally face to face with The Illusive Man, get to punch TIM right in his Evil Jed Bartlett face; it needed to have the player get to play Joker at the controls of the Normandy, blowing up Reapers because Shepard used the Crucible to shut off all the Reapers' mass effect fields and bring their shields down; and it needed one last conversation between Shepard and Admiral Hackett, followed by a big space funeral for Shepard and Anderson. Not the most original ending, but it would have been vastly more satisfying.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:33 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]
> There were portions of DA2 that were just plain unplayable on a console and I'm still angry about it - I'm thinking specifically of the Corypheus fight, where you're supposed to move your entire party to avoid spokes of fire, but there was no real pause button or ability to see your entire party from overhead like on the PC, so you end up frantically switching between party members every few seconds to move them one by one and hope that AI takes care of the actual fighting.
The balance between different classes was there, but the actual gameplay mechanics were so obviously designed with a keyboard in mind that playing on a console meant that you really spent most of the time hoping the AI did the work for you, or spending a ton of time in the radial menu.
As a PC KB/M player, I can sympathize because DA:I was the opposite: it was designed to be played with a controller, and the designers did a shit job with the keyboard and mouse controls when they ported it to the PC. Before it was released, Bioware was assuring PC players that the game was "made for PC gamers by PC gamers" and would work fine with keyboard and mouse, but that was nugshit and their efforts on the controls and the UI were half-assed at best. The worst part for me was that they completely dropped the kb/m control scheme from the previous two games which allowed you to click-to-move/interact/loot, auto-attack and select multiple party members with the mouse. Both of the previous games had it and it's been standard in RPGs for years, but they dumped it for DA:I. I know many PC players are fine with the kb/m controls, but there were also a lot of unhappy players who found the keyboard controls incredibly frustrating and were pissed off to discover that they basically needed to buy a controller to enjoy the game.
That all may sound like an inconvenience, but it actually made the game unplayable for a lot of disabled players. My carpal tunnel isn't as bad as many people's, but it was enough to make DA:I completely unenjoyable for me. I can manage with 3rd-person action games like SoM for a time, but on this one the WASD controls are so awkward in the first place that my hands just can't take it. And I couldn't switch to a controller because controllers are much worse for me than kb/m. I can use them for a bit at a time, but not for a prolonged game like DA:I. It was especially disappointing because Bioware had previously taken kb/m accessibility seriously, which is why Dragon Age: Origins won AbleGamers' Acessibility Award in 2009, and DA:O's controls were held up as a model of accessibility. DA:I, OTOH, was on their list of games to avoid. Part of the problem with click-to-move apparently was that the path-finding didn't work with the jump mechanic, but including some basic pathfinding with manual jumping would have been better than throwing a bunch of their players under the mabari chariot.
I hope the negative feedback was enough for Bioware to make the next one playable for both controllers and kb/m (there was a big thread of unhappy would-be players on the Bioware forums, but it's gone now,) but when it comes out I'm not forking over $70.00 until I know if they blew off the kb/m players again. I really hope they don't because I would dearly love to get re-immersed in another Dragon Age game like I did the first two.
posted by homunculus at 11:28 AM on December 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
The balance between different classes was there, but the actual gameplay mechanics were so obviously designed with a keyboard in mind that playing on a console meant that you really spent most of the time hoping the AI did the work for you, or spending a ton of time in the radial menu.
As a PC KB/M player, I can sympathize because DA:I was the opposite: it was designed to be played with a controller, and the designers did a shit job with the keyboard and mouse controls when they ported it to the PC. Before it was released, Bioware was assuring PC players that the game was "made for PC gamers by PC gamers" and would work fine with keyboard and mouse, but that was nugshit and their efforts on the controls and the UI were half-assed at best. The worst part for me was that they completely dropped the kb/m control scheme from the previous two games which allowed you to click-to-move/interact/loot, auto-attack and select multiple party members with the mouse. Both of the previous games had it and it's been standard in RPGs for years, but they dumped it for DA:I. I know many PC players are fine with the kb/m controls, but there were also a lot of unhappy players who found the keyboard controls incredibly frustrating and were pissed off to discover that they basically needed to buy a controller to enjoy the game.
That all may sound like an inconvenience, but it actually made the game unplayable for a lot of disabled players. My carpal tunnel isn't as bad as many people's, but it was enough to make DA:I completely unenjoyable for me. I can manage with 3rd-person action games like SoM for a time, but on this one the WASD controls are so awkward in the first place that my hands just can't take it. And I couldn't switch to a controller because controllers are much worse for me than kb/m. I can use them for a bit at a time, but not for a prolonged game like DA:I. It was especially disappointing because Bioware had previously taken kb/m accessibility seriously, which is why Dragon Age: Origins won AbleGamers' Acessibility Award in 2009, and DA:O's controls were held up as a model of accessibility. DA:I, OTOH, was on their list of games to avoid. Part of the problem with click-to-move apparently was that the path-finding didn't work with the jump mechanic, but including some basic pathfinding with manual jumping would have been better than throwing a bunch of their players under the mabari chariot.
I hope the negative feedback was enough for Bioware to make the next one playable for both controllers and kb/m (there was a big thread of unhappy would-be players on the Bioware forums, but it's gone now,) but when it comes out I'm not forking over $70.00 until I know if they blew off the kb/m players again. I really hope they don't because I would dearly love to get re-immersed in another Dragon Age game like I did the first two.
posted by homunculus at 11:28 AM on December 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
I played Inquisition with a keyboard and mouse and after rebinding some keys I thought it worked really well? I haven't really had any issues playing any of the 3 games on my PC. I am ridiculously excited for more Solas. I think I'd buy a DLC of him doing nothing but talking.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 6:21 PM on December 9, 2018
posted by Hazelsmrf at 6:21 PM on December 9, 2018
I wonder if any of this will make it in for DA4:
Dragon Age: Inquisition Used To Be A Way Different Game
posted by homunculus at 12:43 PM on December 12, 2018
Dragon Age: Inquisition Used To Be A Way Different Game
posted by homunculus at 12:43 PM on December 12, 2018
I played Inquisition with a keyboard and mouse and after rebinding some keys I thought it worked really well?
Sure, many kb/m players were able to adapt. But a bunch of people could never get comfortable with it, and many disabled PC players found it unplayable. The severity of pain in my hands varies, and late last year and early this year I was playing games again. In January I was alternating between Skyrim and Divinity: Original Sin 2 (which has an excellent control scheme and is a wonderful RPG overall,) and I was thinking of giving DA:I another shot, but then the pain came back. I hope I'm able to give it another shot at some point before DA4 comes out.
posted by homunculus at 12:46 PM on December 12, 2018
Sure, many kb/m players were able to adapt. But a bunch of people could never get comfortable with it, and many disabled PC players found it unplayable. The severity of pain in my hands varies, and late last year and early this year I was playing games again. In January I was alternating between Skyrim and Divinity: Original Sin 2 (which has an excellent control scheme and is a wonderful RPG overall,) and I was thinking of giving DA:I another shot, but then the pain came back. I hope I'm able to give it another shot at some point before DA4 comes out.
posted by homunculus at 12:46 PM on December 12, 2018
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posted by seanmpuckett at 5:21 AM on December 7, 2018