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Eimi
Nov 23, 2013

I will never log offshut up.


I always liked how Ryder was characterized. Weird, awkward, dork is a unique take for an rpg protagonist, and a solid one for a new trilogy (that never happened.)

My biggest bugbears will always be how they tried to stick to the ME3 multiplayer only 3 powers limit which is just lame and a big step back, and crafting. But I think I hate crafting in every single game it's a big part of. I will admit it's nice how it gives you freedom to go after whatever weapon you want, but they could just present you a list and give you a little mission for each weapon and let you pick what you want. I hated being basically locked into one armor set and two weapons not even because I want them, but simply because of resource starvation.

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ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist

Simone Magus posted:

Okay, but the funny thing about that specific example is that Genshin Impact is actually a really good game and to just do the story you literally never have to worry about spending money lol

You miss the point.

It's irrelevant whether you actually have to spend money. I use this specific example because unlike most mobile lootbox games devs don't force you to buy lootboxes till you unlock Darth Vader. The point is that the mechanics of the game are all absolutely touched by F2P design. Make all the in-game purchases cost nothing and you're still stuck with extremely obnoxious game that very obviously tries to turn itself into a daily job.

Generic American
Mar 15, 2012

I love my Peng


chaosapiant posted:

1. The female Ryder has fantastic voice acting.

As big of a disappointment as Andromeda was, the one thing that I 100% unironically love is that they actually bothered to differentiate Sara from Scott in a few subtle ways, like how both can ask Jaal the same question of how his electromagnetic physiology works, and when he points out how dumb that question is by asking "how do your eyes work", Scott (who served as a Systems Alliance station security guard) doesn't have an answer.

But if you're playing as Sara (who spent her whole time in the military hanging around Prothean researchers), she geeks the gently caress out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8fDOmXzgeE

It's so drat charming that it makes me wish it wasn't wasted on such a lackluster game.

Simone Magus
Sep 30, 2020

by VideoGames

ilitarist posted:

You miss the point.

It's irrelevant whether you actually have to spend money. I use this specific example because unlike most mobile lootbox games devs don't force you to buy lootboxes till you unlock Darth Vader. The point is that the mechanics of the game are all absolutely touched by F2P design. Make all the in-game purchases cost nothing and you're still stuck with extremely obnoxious game that very obviously tries to turn itself into a daily job.

No, you're missing the point because I don't think you've played the game? Or you quit early? Doing the story it feels completely like a normal single player game. I didn't feel ANY "obligation" to log in, so I legit am not sure what you're even referring to

What specifically in the game felt like it was obligating you to play every day

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
I suppose by "doing the story" you mean playing through tutorial sections with cutscenes attached to them. I'm talking about actual gameplay mechanics, character progression, that kind of thing. The game economy is built on the scarcity of resources - a lot of kinds of those - and you get a daily chance to get a lot of them. Doing any kind of thing beyond tutorial ones requires a lot of work paired with sunken cost fallacies.

When you already have an upgraded item you want to ascend it. To do that you need exactly the same item. Perhaps you want to get lower level items to ascend them so that you get ascended item to ascend your current one. It means you get busywork tasks on your way to get busywork tasks to progress. Clearer example: cooking. You have to cook an item several times to "master" it, and you play minigame to successfully gain progress on mastering path. So when you successfully progress mastering a recipe and see that it takes 20 minutes of cooking you either drop it (and everything in your brain is wired against that wise course of action) or play for hours cooking again and again and grinding in the mean time.

And before you say "you're playing the game wrong" - no, this is exactly the way devs want you to play it. Rushing throw the story is not what developers want you to do. Even if you're right that it's the most enjoyable way to play the game it's sort of just playing the demo and calling it a day.

ilitarist fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Nov 14, 2020

Simone Magus
Sep 30, 2020

by VideoGames
But... you're... okay, the "tutorial" as you're calling it is like 15 hours and is still being added to

To do that you never need to worry about grinding or upgrading or maxing stuff out, just fuckin yolo man

So you need to engage with upgrading and grinding only if you've already enjoyed the game for over 15 hours and want to play it more

At what point does it become "on you" and not the developers? Why would you play it after the 15 hour point if you're not having fun?

It's just such a weird example, Genshin Impact is like the literally least obnoxious GaaS that exists. That may be a low bar but still

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
As I've said I'm talking about it cause it's least obnoxious. You can't say that drop rates or some balancing issue is the problem. You can watch all the cutscenes and see the story by doing some simple tasks. But somehow it became one of the most profitable (or earned first 100m very fast or whatever; the point is it's very profitable) videogames ever so, you know, devs did something so that people pay. If you engage with the mechanics you're doing what devs want you to do. It's not on you if you do dailies in stuff, it's more like if you just do the story without engaging with the mechanics and stopped there then you've found very specific way to enjoy the game.

Also it's not like you play the story and engage with mechanics after that. Again, those mechanics are always there, you get lootbox mechanic introduced before you get full party; then you quickly see all the grinding mechanics. The fact that you personally can ignore them is like saying that crack dealer giving a free dose is a nice guy just because you were able to use that dose, not become addicted and never used crack again.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

I think it's an interesting observation that Gacha and GaaS mechanics are now inhabiting games that don't have monetization. It's like some kind of weird cargo cult game development where mechanics meant to get people to pay money are now being used because ???

Reminds me of the trend a while ago to port MMO mechanics back into single-player games. Sometimes it even worked pretty well.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Generic American posted:

As big of a disappointment as Andromeda was, the one thing that I 100% unironically love is that they actually bothered to differentiate Sara from Scott in a few subtle ways, like how both can ask Jaal the same question of how his electromagnetic physiology works, and when he points out how dumb that question is by asking "how do your eyes work", Scott (who served as a Systems Alliance station security guard) doesn't have an answer.

But if you're playing as Sara (who spent her whole time in the military hanging around Prothean researchers), she geeks the gently caress out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8fDOmXzgeE

It's so drat charming that it makes me wish it wasn't wasted on such a lackluster game.

I also felt like Ryder actually earned the respect she got by the end, after spending the whole game getting "Our fate comes down to you?! We are so loving screwed," unlike Shepard, and I unironically prefer her to Shepard as a character. Much as I like the original trilogy, Shepard is as generic a wish fulfillment character as I've ever seen, buoyed mainly by Jennifer Hale's acting.

Berke Negri
Feb 15, 2012

Les Ricains tuent et moi je mue
Mao Mao
Les fous sont rois et moi je bois
Mao Mao
Les bombes tonnent et moi je sonne
Mao Mao
Les bebes fuient et moi je fuis
Mao Mao


yeah i liked femryder being mostly a huge science dork that knows how to use a gun

it was nice that if you went male ryder he was just more of a jock kind of and femryder was more total nerd, going femryder really lent to the game feeling more like ME1's more star trek vibe than the bleak cynical world of ME2 and 3

Xalidur
Jun 4, 2012

I played as an rear end in a top hat the first time I played Origins, and I killed Wynne without ever realizing she could be a party member until I saw my wife playing with her.

At the end of the game, the only party members left were Sten, Oghren, Loghain, and the dog. I was also a Warrior. On Nightmare mode.

When it was over, my terrible character got to be the king.

It was one of my favorite RPG runs of all time.

Xalidur fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Nov 14, 2020

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Cythereal posted:

I also felt like Ryder actually earned the respect she got by the end, after spending the whole game getting "Our fate comes down to you?! We are so loving screwed," unlike Shepard, and I unironically prefer her to Shepard as a character. Much as I like the original trilogy, Shepard is as generic a wish fulfillment character as I've ever seen, buoyed mainly by Jennifer Hale's acting.

And it doesn't feel like they ever let Hale (or Meer, honestly) stretch her muscles much save in very rare circumstances.* They let Wolf and Taylorson just go HAM sometimes.

*It should be noted that ME had some terrible voice direction but that's pretty common in video games.

Berke Negri posted:

it was nice that if you went male ryder he was just more of a jock kind of and femryder was more total nerd, going femryder really lent to the game feeling more like ME1's more star trek vibe than the bleak cynical world of ME2 and 3

I remember thinking early on that whichever twin you picked you'd get the other as a squaddie and I kind of wish that would happen since they were pretty fun bouncing off each other.

Eimi
Nov 23, 2013

I will never log offshut up.


Dawgstar posted:

And it doesn't feel like they ever let Hale (or Meer, honestly) stretch her muscles much save in very rare circumstances.* They let Wolf and Taylorson just go HAM sometimes.

*It should be noted that ME had some terrible voice direction but that's pretty common in video games.


I remember thinking early on that whichever twin you picked you'd get the other as a squaddie and I kind of wish that would happen since they were pretty fun bouncing off each other.

I always imagined Hale's performance in Bulletstorm as being basically "What if FemShep could swear?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFiSdsW9lfA

Vitamin P
Nov 19, 2013

Truth is game rigging is more difficult than it looks pls stay ded

Rookersh posted:

It's super weird jumping into DA:O in 2020.

Like I remember when this game came out how important it was. Like here was this modernized CRPG, with all the old Bioware charm, great characters and a lot of choice. I genuinely loved it, and went through multiple Origins. It was the swan song of a dying genre.

The thing with DA:O is that it was only important in how interestingly bad it was. It didn't accomplish the Baldur's Gate grand story, it wasn't Arcanum it wasn't even Jade Empire in terms of making an interesting setting, it was just copying various parts of other properties but written worse, but it was also accompanied by far too much money and high production values. Gears of War 3 used high production values really well, DA:O didn't, despite the ridiculous amount of money that went into DA:O it's never a satisfying experience or spectacle. All of the flash can't make fundamentally bad writing good, but the whole project had to push the bad writing as the thing to work around because that was The Concept.

DA:O is relevant just because the industry has worked around never repeating DA:O again. The old-school styled CRPGs that aren't dogshit, your Pillars or your Disco Elysiums, don't even try at the DA:O production values, your modern RPGs followed the ME2 vein and didn't try to copy old CRPGs badly and hey I'm not complaining, I loved New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn too, but those games were great because they rejected so much of DA:O.

DA:O is this really singular failure and is proof that no-one should never ever give talentless nerds that don't have souls money.

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

"Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste."

Vitamin P posted:

The thing with DA:O is that it was only important in how interestingly bad it was. It didn't accomplish the Baldur's Gate grand story, it wasn't Arcanum it wasn't even Jade Empire in terms of making an interesting setting, it was just copying various parts of other properties but written worse, but it was also accompanied by far too much money and high production values. Gears of War 3 used high production values really well, DA:O didn't, despite the ridiculous amount of money that went into DA:O it's never a satisfying experience or spectacle. All of the flash can't make fundamentally bad writing good, but the whole project had to push the bad writing as the thing to work around because that was The Concept.

DA:O is relevant just because the industry has worked around never repeating DA:O again. The old-school styled CRPGs that aren't dogshit, your Pillars or your Disco Elysiums, don't even try at the DA:O production values, your modern RPGs followed the ME2 vein and didn't try to copy old CRPGs badly and hey I'm not complaining, I loved New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn too, but those games were great because they rejected so much of DA:O.

DA:O is this really singular failure and is proof that no-one should never ever give talentless nerds that don't have souls money.

No

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



...DAO sold over 3.2 million units worldwide.

Pretty sure this is more than any other BW game up to that point and it was very close to Morrowind sales figures which were around 4 million.

It was by every metric a smashing success.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



I know I've said it at least once before but I asked many years ago now which I should play, ME or DA. I was overwhelmingly told by the folks I asked to play ME because it's a scifi setting and DA is just generic medieval fantasy.

With the benefit of hindsight and retrospection, Dragon Age holds up so much better. ME is an incoherent , inconsistent mess of a franchise. Sure, it's cool to have a space opera setting but when each game is going to say gently caress you to the last game and try to do its own thing, it ruins everything. No matter how great your premise is, if the execution is flawed, it brings the whole thing down. Gaider was in charge of DA from the start to DAI and so you can see a grand plan for what is happening. ME, and I'm pretty sure this is confirmed, had no such unity. They just made a game and then made another game and then made another game with no real idea where they were going with any of it. I saw this happen with Metal Gear Solid, it's the loving worst.

Dragon Age is far from perfect but I think what it does with its "generic fantasy setting", stuff like the Qunari and the characters, makes it a much better franchise than Mass Effect.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Vitamin P posted:

The thing with DA:O is that it was only important in how interestingly bad it was. It didn't accomplish the Baldur's Gate grand story, it wasn't Arcanum it wasn't even Jade Empire in terms of making an interesting setting, it was just copying various parts of other properties but written worse, but it was also accompanied by far too much money and high production values. Gears of War 3 used high production values really well, DA:O didn't, despite the ridiculous amount of money that went into DA:O it's never a satisfying experience or spectacle. All of the flash can't make fundamentally bad writing good, but the whole project had to push the bad writing as the thing to work around because that was The Concept.

DA:O is relevant just because the industry has worked around never repeating DA:O again. The old-school styled CRPGs that aren't dogshit, your Pillars or your Disco Elysiums, don't even try at the DA:O production values, your modern RPGs followed the ME2 vein and didn't try to copy old CRPGs badly and hey I'm not complaining, I loved New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn too, but those games were great because they rejected so much of DA:O.

DA:O is this really singular failure and is proof that no-one should never ever give talentless nerds that don't have souls money.

lol quoting Arcanum and Jade Empire as some tier 1 god games to aspire to. Jade Empire was borderline racist and the setting was just a standard "what if wuxia, but also magic?" that's been done a million times.

Dragon Age Origins was wildly successful at what it set out to be, a console adaption of classic crpg games. The reason games like Pillars or Disco didn't try at DA:O production values had 0 to do with any other games and more to do with a lack of money. Pillars was crowdfunded, Disco is more clearly a experimental visual novel then a combat rpg.

And New Vegas and HZD have like 0 overlap with the general design behind rtwp/turn based RPG games, not sure what your point is.

chaosapiant
Oct 10, 2012

White Line Fever

Vitamin P posted:

The thing with DA:O is that it was only important in how interestingly bad it was. It didn't accomplish the Baldur's Gate grand story, it wasn't Arcanum it wasn't even Jade Empire in terms of making an interesting setting, it was just copying various parts of other properties but written worse, but it was also accompanied by far too much money and high production values. Gears of War 3 used high production values really well, DA:O didn't, despite the ridiculous amount of money that went into DA:O it's never a satisfying experience or spectacle. All of the flash can't make fundamentally bad writing good, but the whole project had to push the bad writing as the thing to work around because that was The Concept.

DA:O is relevant just because the industry has worked around never repeating DA:O again. The old-school styled CRPGs that aren't dogshit, your Pillars or your Disco Elysiums, don't even try at the DA:O production values, your modern RPGs followed the ME2 vein and didn't try to copy old CRPGs badly and hey I'm not complaining, I loved New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn too, but those games were great because they rejected so much of DA:O.

DA:O is this really singular failure and is proof that no-one should never ever give talentless nerds that don't have souls money.

This is a comically bad take.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

pentyne posted:

lol quoting Arcanum and Jade Empire as some tier 1 god games to aspire to. Jade Empire was borderline racist and the setting was just a standard "what if wuxia, but also magic?" that's been done a million times.

Out of curiosity I went and looked to see how many Asian voice actors were in the game and there's only a couple. They apparently got Bill Murray's brother so that's nice, I guess.

Blockhouse
Sep 7, 2014

You Win!
As someone who recently played DAO in tyol 2020 I will say it's the only real time with pause game that I've ever actually played to completion other than the KOTORs, which I guess is pretty strong praise. I found it very engaging even if I just thought the combat was okay at best and every single dungeon in the game is way too long.

Kinda still like the other two games better, for different reasons.

Nefarious 2.0
Apr 22, 2008

Offense is overrated anyway.

getting pretty sick and tired of people having opinions on games that differ from my, correct, game opinions

WarpDogs
May 1, 2009

I'm just a normal, functioning member of the human race, and there's no way anyone can prove otherwise.

Vitamin P posted:

The thing with DA:O is that it was only important in how interestingly bad it was. It didn't accomplish the Baldur's Gate grand story, it wasn't Arcanum it wasn't even Jade Empire in terms of making an interesting setting, it was just copying various parts of other properties but written worse, but it was also accompanied by far too much money and high production values. Gears of War 3 used high production values really well, DA:O didn't, despite the ridiculous amount of money that went into DA:O it's never a satisfying experience or spectacle. All of the flash can't make fundamentally bad writing good, but the whole project had to push the bad writing as the thing to work around because that was The Concept.

DA:O is relevant just because the industry has worked around never repeating DA:O again. The old-school styled CRPGs that aren't dogshit, your Pillars or your Disco Elysiums, don't even try at the DA:O production values, your modern RPGs followed the ME2 vein and didn't try to copy old CRPGs badly and hey I'm not complaining, I loved New Vegas and Horizon Zero Dawn too, but those games were great because they rejected so much of DA:O.

DA:O is this really singular failure and is proof that no-one should never ever give talentless nerds that don't have souls money.

finally someone brave enough to admit that Horizon Zero Dawn is only good because it rejected so much of Dragon Age: Origins

Dance Officer
May 4, 2017

It would be awesome if we could dance!
Oh look it's another bad take from vitamin p.

In other news, I restarted my playthrough as a sword&shield warrior and it's considerably easier than with the mage. I'm not sure I did something wrong with the mage, but having a character that can actually tank damage is proving to be useful.

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

"Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste."

WarpDogs posted:

finally someone brave enough to admit that Horizon Zero Dawn is only good because it rejected so much of Dragon Age: Origins

It's a weird troll because I think DAO is probably the most critically acclaimed of all three games? And definitely made more money than every isometric CRPG listed?

I mean I have no idea what measure of success we're going by but if Jade Empire is at the top of your list you kind of have to be trolling.

Eimi
Nov 23, 2013

I will never log offshut up.


Dance Officer posted:

Oh look it's another bad take from vitamin p.

In other news, I restarted my playthrough as a sword&shield warrior and it's considerably easier than with the mage. I'm not sure I did something wrong with the mage, but having a character that can actually tank damage is proving to be useful.

DAO sword and board warrior owns if you go for full damage. You can actually do a lot and if you go Templar you get the best mage skill anyway at level 16. (Mana Clash)

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Eimi posted:

DAO sword and board warrior owns if you go for full damage. You can actually do a lot and if you go Templar you get the best mage skill anyway at level 16. (Mana Clash)

Arcane Warrior was amazing too, and full dual wielding rogue taking advantage of flanking could do insane damage.

DA:O was pretty chill on consoles for regular difficulty even without digging too deep into the difficulty and the tactics options were pretty advanced for the time . I know some people went nuts for Nightmare mode but that's kind of the opposite I want from a open world RPG. Going back to play isometric PC rpgs a huge amount of what you end up doing is buffs, positioning, and knowing enemy composition ahead of time and gearing for specific weaknesses.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
I guess I'm just a sucker for the DA franchise but I even like part 2.

Eimi posted:

DAO sword and board warrior owns if you go for full damage. You can actually do a lot and if you go Templar you get the best mage skill anyway at level 16. (Mana Clash)

Yeah sword and board can be surprisingly good.

I actually don't think there's a bad build in DA other than using bows. Even that gets a lot stronger in Awakening if you play that.

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


Whenever I go back to try replaying DAO I get this weird diorama effect, like you’re not actually playing within a game world but are moving miniature pieces around an environment. It’s a strange feeling that I don’t get with any other game.

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010

NikkolasKing posted:

...DAO sold over 3.2 million units worldwide.

Pretty sure this is more than any other BW game up to that point and it was very close to Morrowind sales figures which were around 4 million.

It was by every metric a smashing success.

Yeah, Dragon Age was such a success it outsold ME1 and ME2 combined around the time of ME2s launch.

Like the story I remember from around it's launch was that Dragon Age was wholly a passion project that Bioware kinda had to self make because nobody was taking them up on any pitches. RPGs were a dead genre, nobody cared about RPGs, they needed to get into a new genre type cause literally every publisher would laugh them out of the room. Rather then give up, they put everything they had into this passion project, which was going to be the studios swan song.

And then they got a lucky break with Mass Effect. EA actually loved the pitch, largely because it was a Shooter over it being an RPG. It sold bucketloads, and suddenly Bioware got bought, and EA kinda just shrugged off Dragon Age. They weren't going to really support it, but if Bioware wanted to keep working on it, that was Bioware's choice.

Then Dragon Age outsold both Mass Effects and EA suddenly greenlit anything the Dragon Age team wanted. They took all the concepts that got cut and threw them together for Awakening. Asked them to get a Dragon Age 2 out asap. Etc etc.

I think I need to switch off Human Noble. My og character was Human Noble and I have kinda fond memories of it, but man it's not really doing it for me. I've got no intention of actually surviving the game, so neither of the benefits of being a Human Noble actually play out. Also I always go a certain way with the Landsmeet which also cuts off a lot of the benefits of being a Human Noble. It's just a lot weaker then I remember across zones. Basically only Teagan recognizes you, outside of the benefits you get in the Landsmeet. But the intro is really cliche, leads poorly into Ostagar ( a betrayal into a betrayal! ), and your "connection" to Howe is shared by City Elves and Mages.

Torn between City Elf and Mage. Dwarfs are a little too locked away in their own zones, and it just feels weird being a Dwarf. Dalish is.......why would a Dalish give a single poo poo about any of these humans ( also I think the presentation of the Dalish/Origin is pretty poor ). I also plan to eventually do a Dalish playthrough in Inquisition, and I struggle to imagine the savior of the world twice being a Dalish Elf. So that leaves City Elf or Mage.

Mage would mean I could ignore Morrigan and Wynne if needbe. Or double Mage without as much issue. I'd also be related to Hawke, could finally unlock Blood Mage, and there are probably a good amount of unique lines for Mages. But boy do I loving hate the Origin and think Jowan is a goober. Also I don't really think the Mages Tower needs additional fleshing out, so if the game isn't chock full of unique lines it might be a bit bust.

City Elf would be fun. I imagine the mix of Elf/woman lines would keep me constantly getting shittalked. A strong attachment to wanting to murder Howe. A good connection to the Landsmeet/Alienage stuff. Would likely be good for general Elven sentiment going forward.

Leaning towards City Elf I think.

Dance Officer
May 4, 2017

It would be awesome if we could dance!
Not to get into spoilers, but the reason for the dalish elf to join is a very practical one. The dalish origin is also pretty quick and easy, so maybe give it a go.

Edit: playing as an elf is interesting, you get to deal with a lot of racism, sometimes fairly subtle.

Dance Officer fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Nov 15, 2020

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010

Dance Officer posted:

Not to get into spoilers, but the reason for the dalish elf to join is a very practical one. The dalish origin is also pretty quick and easy, so maybe give it a go.

Edit: playing as an elf is interesting, you get to deal with a lot of racism, sometimes fairly subtle.

The problem I have with Dalish is more post Ostagar.

Your clan in the intro mentions it's leaving Ferelden. Everyone you care about is highly mobile and can easily leave/avoid the Darkspawn as they realize they are close.

The Dalish people are not at threat by the Darkspawn. Even if this is a real Blight that is not your problem! Ferelden can burn, who cares, eventually the other humans will step in to deal with the problem. And if not, better for your clan, the humans will be too beaten down to harass you.

Oh no, the guy who knows I exist is dead. Ok, y'all have fun I'm going to go dick off and re find my clan and help them leave.

Nobody else is so able to separate from the Blight. If the Blight overtakes the surface you will see Orzammar fall, which effects both Dwarfs. Both Nobles are theoretically "noble" and would desire to end this. Human Noble might want to fulfill their revenge. City Elf would want to protect Denerim and their family. Mage would want to protect the Circle, and their friends within the Circle. Also would likely not want to become an apostate.

Dalish though? Have fun Alistair!

Eimi
Nov 23, 2013

I will never log offshut up.


I've played through DAO like 7 times, but when I did my big series replay in spring, I just couldn't do it. I think it's because aesthetics. It just looks like rear end, and this far removed from it's release date, it's really outdated rear end. And I've never found any decent armor mods to alleviate this.

Dance Officer
May 4, 2017

It would be awesome if we could dance!

Rookersh posted:

The Dalish people are not at threat by the Darkspawn.

They are and there's frequent reference to the fact that the first blight nearly annihilated the world.

Fruits of the sea
Dec 1, 2010

That and also the Fereldans don't treat the Dalish well in peacetime, hanging around in the midst of a civil war seems like a p bad idea. A bunch of their forests are overtaken by Blight so they are forced into closer contact with humans which doesn't work out super well. Works out really really badly in fact, if the player helps Merrill in DA2.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Dance Officer posted:

They are and there's frequent reference to the fact that the first blight nearly annihilated the world.

The games do a real poor job of adequately explaining the sheer visceral terror of the blights.

The first one lasted like 200 years, a never ending assault by dark forces from the depths that no one could stop until some insane mages/warriors tried the darkest blood magic they could think of and finally managed to kill the first archdragon. Suddenly these wardens who proved they could take down the dragon God were then promised unlimited support in perpetuity from every nation. The major consequence of the first blight was the unquestionable superpower of Tevinter went from peak Imperial Rome to Byzantine Empire.

It gets talked up and mentioned in minor lore parts but the Blights in general were normally at best decades long wars of attrition.

Who really knows if that's still the Bioware canon story at this point. Everythings shifted to the fade/magic reveal, I don't recall anything about darkspawn in DA:I aside from a few jokes at Blackwell's expense. Very little core plot lore teased in DA:O has gotten satisfactory reveals aside from the fade stuff.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

pentyne posted:

The games do a real poor job of adequately explaining the sheer visceral terror of the blights.

The first one lasted like 200 years, a never ending assault by dark forces from the depths that no one could stop until some insane mages/warriors tried the darkest blood magic they could think of and finally managed to kill the first archdragon. Suddenly these wardens who proved they could take down the dragon God were then promised unlimited support in perpetuity from every nation. The major consequence of the first blight was the unquestionable superpower of Tevinter went from peak Imperial Rome to Byzantine Empire.

It gets talked up and mentioned in minor lore parts but the Blights in general were normally at best decades long wars of attrition.

Who really knows if that's still the Bioware canon story at this point. Everythings shifted to the fade/magic reveal, I don't recall anything about darkspawn in DA:I aside from a few jokes at Blackwell's expense. Very little core plot lore teased in DA:O has gotten satisfactory reveals aside from the fade stuff.

This is... strange, to say the least? The Blight came from the Golden City the moment the magisters breached the Veil. Now we now that the Veil, and with it the Fade as a separate plane of existence, was made by an insanely strong elven mage in the past. To imprison other insanely strong elven mages in there. So is it possible that those mages were responsible for the blight? Or did they influence the magisters, or even Old Gods, to get free of their imprisonment? We also have more blighted/red lyrium plot in DA:I. I'd say Inquisition has expanded on the lore of the darkspawn and the blight in a very satisfying way, at least to me. And you have Solas plus the red lyrium idol as the teaser for DA4, which seems promising for more reveals about that topic.

Also, I don't see why every mystery needs to have an answer so soon, it's good to keep some plots and stories running, unless you decide to solve all of them because you're burning down your franchise. See Mass Effect 3. I hope Bioware learned from their mistakes.

Shugojin
Sep 6, 2007

THE TAIL THAT BURNS TWICE AS BRIGHT...


pentyne posted:

lol quoting Arcanum and Jade Empire as some tier 1 god games to aspire to. Jade Empire was borderline racist and the setting was just a standard "what if wuxia, but also magic?" that's been done a million times.

Dragon Age Origins was wildly successful at what it set out to be, a console adaption of classic crpg games. The reason games like Pillars or Disco didn't try at DA:O production values had 0 to do with any other games and more to do with a lack of money. Pillars was crowdfunded, Disco is more clearly a experimental visual novel then a combat rpg.

And New Vegas and HZD have like 0 overlap with the general design behind rtwp/turn based RPG games, not sure what your point is.

I'm still kinda fond of the exact way Jade Empire did its big twist. Not super original overall but it had a nice flavor. :shrug:

Raygereio
Nov 12, 2012

pentyne posted:

Jade Empire was just a standard "what if wuxia, but also magic?" that's been done a million times.

I honestly can't think many games that have same sort of Wuxia/w. magic type setting. Can you name a few? Back in 2005 Jade Empire's setting did feel like some new and fresh and I've always want to see more in that style (preferable by a less Western/White dev studio and with less over the top orientalism).

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Blockhouse
Sep 7, 2014

You Win!
At this point Steam is chock full of wuxia RPGs coming out of China, though the translations vary wildly in quality.

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