Dragon Age: Inquisition (Plot Details in Spoilers!)
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Ambiturner
Ssraeszha Raider
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Foggy
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A game being very linear like DA2 is fine as long as it gives you the illusion it is not linear, which DA2 failed miserably at. DA1 is a good example, that game was really linear, it just gave you the ability to choose the order of the four "dungeons", which made it feel open. All the MEs did this as well.
Gavinmad
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To be fair to Bioware, it's really fucking hard to keep the illusion of choice shtick going through sequels. The two sequels Bioware didn't do had basically nothing to do with the originals. I only vaguely remember NWN2, but in KOTOR2 they just treat Revan's redemption as the canonical choice (I assume because you pretty much destroy the Republic if you choose dark side).
In DA2, the game is only related to the first in vague, unimportant ways. Cameos from DA1 characters, references or nods to the original, etc.
Mass Effect though, they had to do three games with the same characters, any of whom may or may not survive. The more optional branches you create, the more potentially wasted assets you have to develop for that particular unique segment of story. For example, if you keep Wrex alive in ME1, but sabotage the Genophage cure in ME3, he confronts you on the citadel and you shoot him. I've only seen this scene on youtube, because keeping Wrex alive is generally a Paragon action (although you can intimidate him to fall in line if you do things right) but sabotaging the Genophage cure is Renegade.
The more little story sequences like that you have to create is the more assets you're leeching away from the core of the game.
In DA2, the game is only related to the first in vague, unimportant ways. Cameos from DA1 characters, references or nods to the original, etc.
Mass Effect though, they had to do three games with the same characters, any of whom may or may not survive. The more optional branches you create, the more potentially wasted assets you have to develop for that particular unique segment of story. For example, if you keep Wrex alive in ME1, but sabotage the Genophage cure in ME3, he confronts you on the citadel and you shoot him. I've only seen this scene on youtube, because keeping Wrex alive is generally a Paragon action (although you can intimidate him to fall in line if you do things right) but sabotaging the Genophage cure is Renegade.
The more little story sequences like that you have to create is the more assets you're leeching away from the core of the game.
Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Ambiturner
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Tuco
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this is 100% true, but this choice is also a huge reason why people like the Mass Effect franchise so much, especially leading up to ME3 where they assumed their choices mattered. Those options also increase replay-ability for hardcore fans, but most people don't finish games once much less multiple times, lol.
Knowing that you're missing hours of content on every playthrough shortens each playthrough, but adds an element of depth. The worst thing they can do is what they did with DA2 where you hit pretty much every bit of content no matter what you do. This includes defending the mages through the entire game, pretty much ensuring their safety from the templars at the end, and then still having to fight the boss mage when he demons out for exactly zero reason.
Rombo
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Call me crazy but one aspect i loved, read LUVD, about ME1 was the mako roaming on random planets. I do understand some people hated it but i was sad to see it gone in the sequels. That drop from the Normandy always made the child in me smile, like man, am a space explorer, or something and it made the world feel big.
Vaclav
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The problems I had with the Mako drops were twofold:
1) So much empty space on the planets
2) Shitty controls
The concept of the Mako was great, the execution not so much - one of which needed to be a tripling of content density or something - even if it's just interesting rocks or something, don't make it boring running to far flung edges of the map for 1 interesting thing per planet with a few resources to grab with another boring slog to get to them.
Vaclav
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Depends on the specific missions - the tissue paper armor that it had for the fighting missions was no fun. (Although fortunately it seemed to not get any worse on higher difficulties - insanity it was still wimpy, but not any more wimpy)
The ground stuff in ME1 was simply underdeveloped. They were going for the feel of ground exploration in the gameStarflight(which is where my avatar is from), but the way they implemented mineral deposits and enemies on planets meant that there was a lot of space between points of interest. I mean, you're driving around in a tank, but all the enemies you encounter (except the Geth) were just infantry units; no tanks, even though most enemies were discovered standing next to one. If Bioware had more time the ground stuff probably would have been a lot better, but then they decided to go with less exploration and more linear side missions for the sequels...
I'm cautiously optimistic about DA:I. From the stuff I've seen, it looks like it'll be better than the second one, though I guess that's not saying much.
I'm cautiously optimistic about DA:I. From the stuff I've seen, it looks like it'll be better than the second one, though I guess that's not saying much.
Personally i really dont like the combat AT ALL , looks cheap i guess....just generic as hell. Cant really put my finger on it , but the spells have no real impact i suppose. Meh , but the exploration looks fun though.
Yea, that and the openness of ME1 were why it was my favorite. The Mako handled like a bowling ball on a skateboard but it was just so cool to go to a random planet and then dig shit up.
As far as choice goes re: posts above, there have been few games where choices change things *completely*. NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer was one of the most bar-none well done choice games. Not NWN2, but the follow up. It gave a nod to the base games direction, but shit was it fucking awesome. Are you evil? You eat fucking MYRKUL. YOU JUST EAT HIM. Things change considerably depending on you going evil, or staying good, which companions you pick (which is somewhat based on good vs. evil, ie can't get One of Many unless you are evil and are willing to feed that fucker souls, but that was one of the coolest things.) and whether you choose to fight against the temptation to devour or to give in to the temptation.
Also, the ending had like, a dozen different iterations depending on what your ultimate choice was AND other things you picked during the course of it. Balls good.
I've already said what I wanted earlier, past characters popping in and allowing you to recruit them in a Suikoden way, but I sort of want the choices to dictate the final game. Like, drink the potion that Avernus made for the Warden and now you cured them and omg you can recruit him/her. (Lorewise your Warden is going to be dead soon since they Joined during the Blight.) I'd love it to mean you either have advantages or disadvantages later on. The dragon ages are not directly connected, but they sort of felt like pieces of a puzzle, and DA:I will let you finally take those pieces and build it.
Zevran is whatever; I'm not a big elf fan, though Fenris fucking did it for me. Gideon Emery has the sexiest fucking voice I have ever heard - I bought some Charles Stross audio books because I had all these credits sitting in my audible and the dude writes the coolest Lovecraftian type James Bond books. Almost died when I booted that shit up and it was Fenris talking about aquatic sex.
They did confirm Alistar coming back, or at least some random broad at the booth did. I got a chance to talk to Laidlaw a bit at E3; asked him how the dialogue was (Mix of DA2 + DA:O, no random convos started while walking, but you can talk to them at the base, and certain convos will pop while out and about.) and things like customization. I was curious as to who was coming back, mostly because I want to be able to recruit Starkhaven through Sebastian and Fereldan through Alistar. I asked if they were bringing back old heroes, (there was a small excerpt somewhere talking about how you will never play the same hero again, BUT you might see them creep up again.) but they were obviously mum on the subject.
ANYWAYS...
As for KOTOR2, you tell your companions what happened via a conversation. There is a canon ending, but it isn't really applicable in KOTOR2, as you literally answer like 4 questions which sets the setting for light/dark side, romances, companions etc. (Although some things are assumed; my Revan was light side female, so she was assumed in a relationship with Kaidan...er Carth.)
I don't need a shit ton of choices, but I want them to matter. Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer were two such games that gave me a very D&D feel, where I was essentially given the opportunity to settle things in my own way, or rather, I could choose to pick something that was more specifically aligned, and unlike ME3/DA, the choices I picked could see me undoing all my own good work. In the Morrigan trailer, her final statement is something like, "Will you save the world or leave it to it's bitter end?" I got excited, probably over nothing, thinking maybe I could fuck the world over and become a new god or some shit, whee.
If the choices suck though, there is always Witcher 3 which is going to be amazing. I am very intrigued by them saying that you will never have the same ending twice and in fact, even doing the same things in another playthrough might not yield you the same thing. (Which is somewhat concerning, because I don't want things just randomly picked based on a code that I essentially decided by picking certain things.)
As far as openness, they did a small area at E3 and they said that playable area was bigger than all of the player areas in DA:O combined. I didn't see them "zone" once the entire demo.
I'll just repost the crap I put up on a blog awhile ago after I saw it:
First it seems a lot like skyrim; a lot of open world as far as I can tell, only time it loaded was when bringing up menus or the war map which is essentially like the galaxy map in mass effect.
They said you're a leader of leaders - your companions are big important people and you command them. In the demo they sent in leliana to infiltrate redcliffe castle. So this seems kind of what I wanted. You have spies, scouts, infiltrators etc. People can give you advantages and open up new things to do.
They mentioned that this damaged their relationship with leliana for some reason, so you need to be careful.
Combat is more like da
; still flashy but more tactical, like placing archers on high ground, putting your heavies in choke points etc. It was awesome tactically to be able to put your mage or archer on a hill and then have a heavy like Sten or Alistar block the path up, but that was eliminated in DA2, with waves jumping on your squishies. Glad to see it back.
The coolest thing in combat was you could target body parts - there was a fight with a dragon where you attacked a leg instead, grounding it to kill it.
Dialogue is da2 type so far - we didn't see any real dialogue but the story interactions were the wheel again.
Also, the other awesome thing was how put influence spreads. You close fade rifts and gain allies and as you do so you'll see the world mend, shops open up, your scouts and guards patrolling etc.
You get to command an army, and it's suikoden like in that you command them by type. Ie send in heavies to patrol here, your spies need to gain info from here, infiltrate this stronghold, send a specific party to handle certain quests etc.
Looked amazing so far and in 40 mins I fell in love with the elf archer, the crazy ass qunari and the tevinter Mage.
Gear was a mix of origins and 2. The dropped stuff had stats akin to 2 that was upgradeable, so it wasn't generic dnd type gear. However, every character gets full armor customizations; there are three menus - armor, accessories and enchantments I think, everyone had shit tons of gear. You find recipes to craft gear, upgrades and enchants as well as finding random rare components for ups.
They mentioned being able to craft any stats on gear you like, so if you like a particular set, you can keep it. The gear has a specific look but uniquely molds to each char. So ie, you'll be able to tell it's superior splint mail but will look diff on you than iron bull.
Other crafting is also a mix; I saw a lot of resource nodes to suggest origins types, but you get recipes like in d2.
Loot is mix; big baddies drop coolest gear, sometimes ingredients for things, while normal mobs drop generic stuff; but since you upgrade everyone you can use all of it.
I don't know much about shops yet, but I imagine awakening is probably a good model, where prosperity and security enticed new merchants.
Combat, mix as well, dunno how I feel yet. You have a small hub of abilities and you were able to attack in real time. It's very flashy style fighting; twirls, flips etc. HOWEVER, no one jumps in on you. You encounter creatures like origins and can pause and give commands. It's more like origins than anything else. Also, there were two "hubs" of abilities; they showed the archer specifically. Pick stealth and a new wheel opens up with different abilities, kind of like a stance bar in world of warcraft.
The coolest thing was being able to use glyph spells as a way to cut off enemy paths, because those spells were always useless.
But it needs more tactics in this one, running in and just killing via action is going to be bad on high difficulties. The party onscreen got destroyed without a bit of preparing and you need to target enemies on higher teirs with ranged and key body parts to make things easier.
Much closer to origins, some skyrim etc. You can see the the da2 elements in the dialogue wheel, recipe system and flashy looks, but it holds to the former two very well.
The classes are nifty - trees are familiar like DA2, but are more specialized and there's a shit ton of them. It reminded me a bit of Far Cry in that respect; they said you had something like 200+ things to specialize people in.
They said you're a leader of leaders - your companions are big important people and you command them. In the demo they sent in leliana to infiltrate redcliffe castle. So this seems kind of what I wanted. You have spies, scouts, infiltrators etc. People can give you advantages and open up new things to do.
They mentioned that this damaged their relationship with leliana for some reason, so you need to be careful.
Combat is more like da
The coolest thing in combat was you could target body parts - there was a fight with a dragon where you attacked a leg instead, grounding it to kill it.
Dialogue is da2 type so far - we didn't see any real dialogue but the story interactions were the wheel again.
Also, the other awesome thing was how put influence spreads. You close fade rifts and gain allies and as you do so you'll see the world mend, shops open up, your scouts and guards patrolling etc.
You get to command an army, and it's suikoden like in that you command them by type. Ie send in heavies to patrol here, your spies need to gain info from here, infiltrate this stronghold, send a specific party to handle certain quests etc.
Looked amazing so far and in 40 mins I fell in love with the elf archer, the crazy ass qunari and the tevinter Mage.
Gear was a mix of origins and 2. The dropped stuff had stats akin to 2 that was upgradeable, so it wasn't generic dnd type gear. However, every character gets full armor customizations; there are three menus - armor, accessories and enchantments I think, everyone had shit tons of gear. You find recipes to craft gear, upgrades and enchants as well as finding random rare components for ups.
They mentioned being able to craft any stats on gear you like, so if you like a particular set, you can keep it. The gear has a specific look but uniquely molds to each char. So ie, you'll be able to tell it's superior splint mail but will look diff on you than iron bull.
Other crafting is also a mix; I saw a lot of resource nodes to suggest origins types, but you get recipes like in d2.
Loot is mix; big baddies drop coolest gear, sometimes ingredients for things, while normal mobs drop generic stuff; but since you upgrade everyone you can use all of it.
I don't know much about shops yet, but I imagine awakening is probably a good model, where prosperity and security enticed new merchants.
Combat, mix as well, dunno how I feel yet. You have a small hub of abilities and you were able to attack in real time. It's very flashy style fighting; twirls, flips etc. HOWEVER, no one jumps in on you. You encounter creatures like origins and can pause and give commands. It's more like origins than anything else. Also, there were two "hubs" of abilities; they showed the archer specifically. Pick stealth and a new wheel opens up with different abilities, kind of like a stance bar in world of warcraft.
The coolest thing was being able to use glyph spells as a way to cut off enemy paths, because those spells were always useless.
But it needs more tactics in this one, running in and just killing via action is going to be bad on high difficulties. The party onscreen got destroyed without a bit of preparing and you need to target enemies on higher teirs with ranged and key body parts to make things easier.
Much closer to origins, some skyrim etc. You can see the the da2 elements in the dialogue wheel, recipe system and flashy looks, but it holds to the former two very well.
The classes are nifty - trees are familiar like DA2, but are more specialized and there's a shit ton of them. It reminded me a bit of Far Cry in that respect; they said you had something like 200+ things to specialize people in.