/dag/+/bwg/ - Dragon Age & Bioware General #1024

I mean, Inquisition didn't absolutely assrape the living fuck out of its own lore like ME3 did. It added tons of stuff that seems kind of out of place but they didnt directly undermine what was previously established.

Using bureaucracy as the backbone of your narrative is an interesting concept, but the actual interactions in the game happen face-to-face with other characters and the ethical immorality is severely lacking in that respect. Like you meet a random rebel and kill him because Kyros' law dictates him, and the player doesn't have any agency in it so it just feels like following the game's internal rules. Meanwhile, you could do things like making your skull companion live in eternal suffering just because he lied to you in Planescape, or lure innocent people into cannibals' trap in Mask of the Betrayer. Things like that feel much more visceral.

ok yeah but everything from the ending of the mage templar war onward was so, it was just so bad.

a dlc villain who's not even the real villain, an anticlimactic end to the mage-templar war, pointless area's which have nothing to do with that story, pointless dlc's, horrible Origins tier animations. and bad VA's

i played DAI and completed it 3 times, but there we so many times when i thought to myself "why am i playing this?"

That's somewhat the point though. Kyros' presence places an enormous restraint on how good one can be.
You can relish your role as butcher but there's a hard limit on how good you can be. You can do the best in your role but you're still restricted to carrying out a malicious will.

I suppose I'll say that I felt like the evil done in Tyranny was more impactful because it sneaks up on you, like a fresh eyed German going into the SS to help his own people and ends up ferrying people to the ovens. It's evil that happens less because you're a pure sadist (though you can do that from time to time, like having Sirin kill that child) but even good people end up doing bad things, good intentions are twisted into fairly horrific action. Costs are made for personal greater good.

You're right that other games do this sort of thing more viscerally but I feel like that's to make it stand out more from the 'good' path options, it's a way that you don't have to really think or discern what's the good route and the evil route.

In Tyranny, most routes are evil to a point, there's no absolutely good route.

Jesus, three times? Why would you do that to yourself? Are you one of those youtubers who try to film every cutscene variant?

I was at least able to play through ME1-3 multiple times but I can't imagine going through Inquisition more than once...it was just so weak, all the dosh went towards textures and open map areas.

Like why can't Bioware just hire better animators, is one of the animators the producer's friend or something?

>I can't imagine going through Inquisition more than once
I feel the same way about Mass Effect to be honest.

I haven't played it yet, but isn't going full rebel the "good" route? That way, you only have to oppose Kyros' forces.

>Are you one of those youtubers who try to film every cutscene variant?
im not a youtuber but i do like to see the game from different angles.

>qunari male warrior, viv divine
>female elf rogue, lel divine
>human male mage, cass divine

i saw the game from 3 different pov's and i can safely say it's just not very good.

>I feel the same way about Mass Effect to be honest.
t.bh as much as I like ME and Jack i've only been able to play through the trilogy twice, and i have no intention of playing it again before MEA comes out.

Not really because you're prolonging the conflict against Kyros. One of the things the game hammers is that Kyros him/herself isn't an absolute good or evil either. Overbearing and over-reacting, yes, but his/her rule comes with an enormous amount of social order (generally).
The Tiers have their own issues: they were generally at war with each other prior to Kyros showing up (part of how they were able to start getting beat down was that none helped the others when they were being invaded), they've got more deeply ingrained social stigma compared to Kyros' law (Women = men under Kyros, there are more specific roles in the Tiers). The BB captain unleashes the Bane such that he can be the one to control them and be a hero. The Vendrien guard makes a deal with both factions for its own survival, allowing war to perpetually consume their land. The Regent of the Unbroken has been hoarding the limited resources of his keep to himself.

They're the ones being invaded and so they're not the aggressors, but the Tiers don't have clean hands especially given that the reason they couldn't unite before the invasion was because they had hundreds of years of infighting hatred towards each other. They killed more of their own over history than Kyros ever did.

I see, thanks for the explanation. I guess it's so easy to sympathize with the oppressed that their own shortcomings go unnoticed. In the end, it all boils down to whether you, the player, find divine law or free will to be the foundation of goodness. I honestly don't remember many details about the setting because I only played Tyranny once when it came out. I've been waiting until they release some dlcs or even expansions, but now Obsidian is officially working on PoE2 so it looks like Tyranny is over.

Yeah, which is pretty disappointing since I felt like they were gonna do some cool stuff with the edict system in expansions.

I mean each faction ending has shades of good vs bad in them. My first play through was a Disfavored one with a good-leaning Vigor Brawler. I did good where I could but I wanted Tunon to praise me so I upheld the law where it was required which often led me to hurt people who honestly didn't know better half the time. I crushed the Tiers but with the goal of civilizing them ala Disfavored influence.

Seeing Graven Ashe, with all his prejudice as well as his warmth and love made me really think that he was the best outcome for the Tiers. The ending actually felt really amazingly satisfying though I still wish I could have an expansion where you lead an assault into the North and you're confronted with what uprooting the established, 400 year old order does.

Standard procedure strawpoll.
strawpoll.me/12189059

Wait, there's only 4 of us? Jesus christ.

5

5 now. Good morning!

Thread back from the dead!

>I mean each faction ending has shades of good vs bad in them.
What about Nerat? He only leaves chaos whenever he goes and the only willing members of his legion are crazy nothing personnell edgelords.
>Seeing Graven Ashe, with all his prejudice as well as his warmth and love made me really think that he was the best outcome for the Tiers.
I actually didn't like him because his whole "warmth and love" is only reserved to his special group of pampered soldier-children who fit his very narrow definition of what a respectable human being should be like. Like I get that he's doing a job he actually hates and that he's ultimately serving his own nation in the end the best way he can, but I don't think he's right for the job at all.
>18-20
Ew.

I only see 3 votes.

my ass

Right, he's got his own evil but he's got his own humanity as well. It's not a "Some foreigner killed my son and now I hate all foreigners" but more just "Look at these people sitting in their squalor, let's go 1945 Germany on them." He's got some genuinely reprehensible views that make him more human, in my opinion at least.

Nerat has his own odd vision for the Tiers. If Ashe is the germanic idea of Us vs Them, of a strong but small and separate knit community being the cornerstone of a proper society, then Nerat is the French idea of breaking down barriers between people and finding unity and strength in a Dionysian fever dream.

They actually remind me a lot of Alucard and the Major from Hellsing:
youtube.com/watch?v=4IHrlk-USGY

Nerat is Alucard, absorbing people (into himself and the Chorus) and breaking them down to their most base instincts to achieve unity. Ashe is the Major, fundamentally oriented with the divisions between him and his troops and everyone else: it serves as a strength but it also fetters him (by his Aegis as well as his tactics).

>Nerat is the French idea of breaking down barriers between people and finding unity and strength in a Dionysian fever dream.
That's an interesting idea, I haven't thought about it that way. Yes, I've been bothered by the discrepancy between the ideologies promoted by Nerat (obsessed with self-improvement) and his legion (survival of the fittest), but it actually makes sense when you put it like that.
>Hellsing comparisons
Does Nerat also have a girly trap alternate form?
Tunon is father Anderson on crack cocaine.

>Tunon is father Anderson on crack cocaine.
Meant it the other way around, Tunon is a good boy.

Nerat has god knows how many souls and identities in himself so I wouldn't doubt that he has a girly trap form.
Probably looks like pic related

Also, the Andersen bit is pretty accurate.

Did Obsidian literally just discover Hellsing Ultimate for the first time and was like "Let's make a dating sim, but instead of dating you get praised by the main characters of Hellsing"

>can befriend a young woman with superpowers who had a terrible past but still retains her morals and integrity

Ashe -> Major
Barik -> Lieutenant/Pip
Verse -> Vampire Seras
Sirin -> Human Seras
Eb -> Integra
Lantry-> Walter
KillsIn-> Alucard's Dog
Nerat -> Alucard

Mostly in terms of inspiration, not really their relationship to each other.

...

protect that smile

this used to be a da general

There used to be DA games to play.
I guess things change

>18-20
>3
Explains a lot.

I remember reading some pseudo-psychology article about how the brain isn't capable of considering someone else's feelings until a person is 21-22. The presence of actual children really does explain a lot about the recent state of /dag/.

I am more surprised there are 30-32 yr old people here. Like what the fuck they are doing here?

Wowzers.
I've read something along the same lines. That a particular part of the brain associated with reasoning wasn't fully developed until about 25. I would have to look that shit up again.
I'm pretty sure that everyone here is underdeveloped in the reasoning department or else we wouldn't be here, shitposting existence.

Complaining about young people, as you might expect.

Mommy alone is literally 150% better than all the neo-/meg/ shits combined.

PoE2 being worked on is no indication that they've stopped working on Tyranny, they are separate teams

Tfw 22 and feel old already.

I just use shitposting as a way to cope with the dreadful uncertainty of human existence. Alcoholism is too expensive to sustain.

I'm 22 too.
Know what makes me feel really old though? Seeing old Bioware games. Honestly they made up a big part of my younger gaming experience and now, seeing how long ago they released makes me ask where the time went (though they generally look really good for their age (but the animations have always been garbage)).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageism
*ahem*

Where do you think you will be when you are 30, realistically? When will the day come where you drop Veeky Forums? Tomorrow, in a year? Two?

>ywn go back to to the time when Bioware and Obsidian worked together to make great games

Never

He'll obviously have two wives and earn enough money to sustain a family of ten.

Veeky Forums is for 18-25.

10 posters 10 votes

>30-32
>3
Nothing is explained here yet

Predators preying on innocent young children

>hiro is too old for Veeky Forums
He is seriously 40? He is fucking beautiful.

"These days, a consensus of neuroscientists agree that brain development likely persists until at least the mid-20s – possibly until the 30s."

anyone below 25 is still a child

EA came in and saw that Dating sim bullshit was the way, they push that harder than anything else now.

If only Bioware was ever able to write good romances. Obsidian knows they generally don't write romances well so they keep them as a side issue (Alpha Protocol) or don't touch them at all.

>30-32
>still on Veeky Forums
that's fucking sad

Say hello to your future, boy

anyone below [my age] is a child honestly.

when im 32 i want to be dead for 10 years

Superior Japanese genes.

How the fuck can anyone play video-games at 30? You even start outscaling the characters in the game. HoF was 20 yrs old.

>Thread flooded with /meg/ cucks again
Well we had a good run.

Reminder to do it right
-- = For attention
| = For results

>Baron and Hanna looked at 152 participants and tested to see how the presence of depression affected egocentrism. They also tested adults between the ages of 18 and 25, which found that the participants who suffered from depression showed higher levels of egocentrism than those who did not.
Reminder not to bully the autistic children because they're probably suffering from brain problems.

The same way you play them when you are younger?
Your DA:O waifus and your HoF could almost be your mom/dad now in DA:I btw, doesn't that feel like shit?

I wasn't that old when I started coming here, to be fair.
I can never tell if you're actually just mocking or not.
Okay, so you found something on it.

funny you should say that because it looks to me the only people being egotistical and depressing are the fossils talking shit about people 10 years younger than them

Anora and Solas are literally the only Dragon Age romances I like, and that's mostly because they have so little content that you can fill in the blanks yourself. It's kind of similar to Obsidian's approach, like how you have Visas and Brianna lusting after the Exile's dick but can't reciprocate their feelings, which creates interesting sexual tension without romance shit taking all the spotlight. In contrast, Mass Effect and DA:O with their "cinematic" sex scenes felt voyeuristic and awkward, at least for me.

t.20 yr old /meg/ refugee

>I can never tell if you're actually just mocking or not.
I really do like you, the exaggerated style is to intentionally piss children off by showing I don't like them. It always works.
The vast majority of us aren't whiny children who can't even buy alcohol, get that through your thick skull.

there are better generals and nonporn adult boards on Veeky Forums. and yeah im 20, but i go on /diy/ and Veeky Forums all the time

if some people dont like being around posters who are still mentaly tennagers then maybe they shouldn't be on a board devoted to video games

according to the poll it's 4 under 21 and 7 over.

half the people here cant buy alcohol legally in the U.S.

Reminder that Jackfags are cucks.

Well and the approach to them is always the same with Bioware (at least they usually are I find): Character X is like this , but as you get to know them you find that they're actually the opposite.

Ashley is tough but she also has a sensitive side! Miranda is cold but she's actually just wanting to be loved! Jack is hardcore but she just has issues!
Their entire approach is usurping their initial archetype rather than expanding it like how I found Tyranny did (Ashe is racist but his racism isn't just a coping mechanism for something else. Nerat is okay with rape and pillaging and...he's genuinely okay with it, he thinks it culls the weak from the strong).

ME and DA romance scenes aren't voyeuristic, they're self-inserts more often than not. Adventure Time's Sims episode kinda explored this idea too iirc

>Anora
>romance
what?

>tennagers
>intentionally spacing his lines to make the word vomit more noticeable

what a

cuck

Wrong thread brotha
If you're a noble male in DAO, you can marry her at the big noble's gathering

>If you're a noble male in DAO, you can marry her at the big noble's gathering
i know that, but its not a romance at all.

?

>Wizardchan has a gaming board
Goodbye...

fusion.net/story/333552/wizardchan-home-for-male-virgins/

My mom says I'm mature for my age...

>Most of the members haven’t had much contact with women in their adult lives, yet they resent and fear them. Women are succubi, ancient medieval demonic spirits in the female form who appear in dreams to lure a man into sleeping with them, often at the risk of his health. Their slogan is: “Disregard women. Acquire Magic.”
Reasonable people at last.

seek sunlight

/dag/ is dying...degrading..someone help.

>Dedicated depression board with a suicide method general
This is kinda worrying desu

Since the only decent conversation in this thread is about Tyranny, what do you all think bioware could take from rpgs like that to make DA better?

>Well and the approach to them is always the same with Bioware
That's not really true, the only characters who act differently if you romance them that I can think of in DA are Isabela (suddenly starts questioning her commitment issues), Fenris (tsundere shit), Cass (Ash in Thedas), and Dorian (displays lots of insecurity). I think it's an improvement over mega tsundere Bastila, but they still feel very unnatural because the protagonist has to initiate all of the romances now so they completely lack agency and feel very artificial as a result (as opposed to Morrigan outright telling you she wants to fuck).
I don't even hate all romances. I liked Yen's relationship with Geralt in TW3, how she just spontaneously kisses him at several points even if you romance Triss and mocks him when he's being stupid instead of being a passive waifu who's only there to provide the player avatar with shallow ego-stroking.
>they're self-inserts more often than not
That might actually be the reason I don't like them.

I really liked Isabela's romance. :3

>DA2
I'll follow you everywhere, Hawke ;)
>DA:I
Isabela and I never believed in commitment ;)

Well we talked a bit about it but when you say you're building an Inquisition and leading it, actually fucking do that.
Make more uses for the Influence and Power resources, make it so that there are too many meaningful uses for it an you have to intelligently pick which you obtain and which you forsake.
Bind story mechanics to your abilities. If I'm a Templar, I want to have to remember to take my Lyrium otherwise I go into withdrawal.

DAI should have been High Fantasy MGSV. Andromeda looks like it's going for a similar premise (Leader of a whole lot of people, need to build a settlement for them and explore the new world) but it seems they're going to make the same fucking mistakes.

Another game I think about that did Inquisition's premise better than it was Divinity: Dragon Commander.
>Leader of a force to bring order to a world at war
>Gather multiple allies from multiple races and sects
>Actually decree laws for your land that award you with various resources
>Multiple levels of control (Grand Strategy, RTS, Action combat)
>You actually tell who to go where
>More interesting romances desu

Choices that actually matter and have an effect on the game's world.
Rewarding exploration.
Authority figures who are actually respectable.
Moral relativism.

However, knowing Bioware, the only things they'd borrow from Tyranny are furries and lesbians.

Wasn't Hawke talking about going into hiding when they said that? And they say they'll meet up later at Weisshaupt if Hawke doesn't get bodied in the Fade.

ME:A is going to be an incest/bestiality sim with some nice wallpaperable environments.

Isabela is canonically hanging out in Skyhold because of the MP though. She also flirts with fellow MP characters all the time and suggests she wants to fuck Cullen.

dragonage subreddit is cancerous full of dragonage inquisition fanboys.