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Post by gervaise21 on May 2, 2024 11:08:38 GMT
Alternatively: Solas from the 2022 trailer had a knife: It certainly looks like his knife. We also know from TN that the idol can either convert to a blade or a blade can be drawn from it. After we saw that image of Solas in 2022 I instantly recalled this from TN: " The Tevinter mage raised the idol, so that all at once, it was not merely an idol, but a ritual blade. He slash his own hand, and a wave of power pulsed through the cavern..........All around us was light and colour, a dizzying array of the magic that makes up the world of spirits, and it swirled around the Tevinter mage and his ritual knife as though he were the eye of a hurricane." Then before the ritual was complete the Dread Wolf appeared and bit him in two. Fen'Harel was clearly not happy at their actions, dabbling in magic they did not understand and likely before he had got all his chess pieces in place to deal with his enemies. So that icon would seem to be associated with DA:D. This image was said to be taken from the game wasn't it? Notice Solas' left hand which he is holding out as though he had just slashed it with the blade.
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Post by Solas on May 2, 2024 13:47:15 GMT
the triangle symbol image is probs an error or place-holder type situation, its actually part of the logo for another game called Tales of Kenzera or something like that. as for the knife symbol, I'd guess it's a symbol for the 'click this to load up DA4' button, and tis surely the red lyrium idol in its 'magic ritual blade extended cuz shit is goin down' form from TN
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Post by dadithinkimgay on May 2, 2024 13:47:19 GMT
You know I’m beginning to wonder if that synopsis that we’ve had since 2020 was more on the nose than we originally thought. Beyond “teeters on a knife’s edge”, could the “gathering storm” allude to the purple hazy clouds we’ve recently seen in the Thedas Calls video (not to mention the ominous storm approaching The Anderfels.) That then makes me wonder if “light the beacon of hope” could relate to how we defeat The Dreadwolf 🤔
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Post by Black Magic Ritual on May 2, 2024 16:19:51 GMT
Looking back on it now, I wonder if the original timeline for Dreadwolf was to start in 9:45 as opposed to (it seems) the 9:50s now. Could this have happened during the transition from Joplin to Morrison to the 3rd iteration (Hendrix?) of the game that was revealed in 2021. The Vaea comics, for example happened around that timeframe in the mid 9:40s
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Post by Sandetiger on May 2, 2024 16:40:56 GMT
the triangle symbol image is probs an error or place-holder type situation, its actually part of the logo for another game called Tales of Kenzera or something like that. as for the knife symbol, I'd guess it's a symbol for the 'click this to load up DA4' button, and tis surely the red lyrium idol in its 'magic ritual blade extended cuz shit is goin down' form from TN Yup, that's why I commented earlier that I thought it was likely more an error of upload from the EA team rather than something from BioWare, as I can't imagine why BioWare would have that icon internally in the first place. I've been doing some digging on tumblr threads that have been discussing this lil icon as (potentially) relates to Solas, and one thing that was really interesting that came up was a quoted conversation between Solas and the Inquisitor where they first talk about blood magic that specifically uses a dagger metaphor: What does that mean, Solas?
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Post by Sartoz on May 2, 2024 17:19:32 GMT
You know I’m beginning to wonder if that synopsis that we’ve had since 2020 was more on the nose than we originally thought. Beyond “teeters on a knife’s edge”, could the “gathering storm” allude to the purple hazy clouds we’ve recently seen in the Thedas Calls video (not to mention the ominous storm approaching The Anderfels.) That then makes me wonder if “light the beacon of hope” could relate to how we defeat The Dreadwolf 🤔
Hm... you really believe No-News-Bio is able to plan that far ahead?.... especially with all those senior leaders + writers leaving? I'll put it down to coincidence or the artist was lucky with her concept art. Still, you know, hiding Easter eggs in plain sight is possible.
In the meantime ... back to General Hospital with Geraldine's Mother-in-Law visiting her after her shocking reveal............ and waiting for my lawn mower batter to charge.
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Post by The Loyal Nub on May 2, 2024 17:39:16 GMT
You know I’m beginning to wonder if that synopsis that we’ve had since 2020 was more on the nose than we originally thought. Beyond “teeters on a knife’s edge”, could the “gathering storm” allude to the purple hazy clouds we’ve recently seen in the Thedas Calls video (not to mention the ominous storm approaching The Anderfels.) That then makes me wonder if “light the beacon of hope” could relate to how we defeat The Dreadwolf 🤔
Hm... you really believe No-News-Bio is able to plan that far ahead?.... especially with all those senior leaders + writers leaving? I'll put it down to coincidence or the artist was lucky with her concept art. Still, you know, hiding Easter eggs in plain sight is possible.
In the meantime ... back to General Hospital with Geraldine's Mother-in-Law visiting her after her shocking reveal............ and waiting for my lawn mower batter to charge.
Isn't this what pre-production is for? I would assume they were story-boarding this thing ages ago and despite people coming and going there was a general plot outline available to whoever came aboard.
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Post by TabithaTH on May 2, 2024 19:30:03 GMT
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Post by Sartoz on May 2, 2024 20:32:23 GMT
Hm... you really believe No-News-Bio is able to plan that far ahead?.... especially with all those senior leaders + writers leaving? I'll put it down to coincidence or the artist was lucky with her concept art. Still, you know, hiding Easter eggs in plain sight is possible.
In the meantime ... back to General Hospital with Geraldine's Mother-in-Law visiting her after her shocking reveal............ and waiting for my lawn mower batter to charge.
Isn't this what pre-production is for? I would assume they were story-boarding this thing ages ago and despite people coming and going there was a general plot outline available to whoever came aboard.
True. I believe, however, that a story board is more general concepts than the nitty gritty story arc. Remember, concept art is just that. No-News-Bio reminded us about it when after a hue and cry regarding those 12 blk&white dwarf busts with those beautiful beards and DA:I graphics giving us scraggly 4'oclock dirt faces. What did N-N-B reply?.. The 12 busts were "just concept art".
All this tells me is to expect something else.
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Post by celestielf on May 2, 2024 23:28:10 GMT
You know I’m beginning to wonder if that synopsis that we’ve had since 2020 was more on the nose than we originally thought. Beyond “teeters on a knife’s edge”, could the “gathering storm” allude to the purple hazy clouds we’ve recently seen in the Thedas Calls video (not to mention the ominous storm approaching The Anderfels.) That then makes me wonder if “light the beacon of hope” could relate to how we defeat The Dreadwolf 🤔
Hm... you really believe No-News-Bio is able to plan that far ahead?.... especially with all those senior leaders + writers leaving? I'll put it down to coincidence or the artist was lucky with her concept art. Still, you know, hiding Easter eggs in plain sight is possible.
In the meantime ... back to General Hospital with Geraldine's Mother-in-Law visiting her after her shocking reveal............ and waiting for my lawn mower batter to charge.
While it definitely sucks that they lost Mary Kirby and others, DA4 has still at least had John Epler and Patrick Weekes (and Karin Weekes too I believe, who was an editor as far back as Origins iirc) for the entire duration of development. I think there has definitely been at least a basic plan for the story for quite some time. Merril's story about how the Dread Wolf tricked the two groups of gods could even be relevant: "Fen'Harel was clever. He could walk among both clans of gods without fear, and both believed he was one of them. He went to each side, and told them the other had forged a terrible weapon, a blade that would end the war. He told the Creators it was forged in the heavens, and the Forgotten Ones, that it was hidden in the abyss." Even with high turnover, I expect Bioware keeps a file of plot points and ideas.
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Post by githcheater on May 3, 2024 1:00:37 GMT
You know I’m beginning to wonder if that synopsis that we’ve had since 2020 was more on the nose than we originally thought. Beyond “teeters on a knife’s edge”, could the “gathering storm” allude to the purple hazy clouds we’ve recently seen in the Thedas Calls video (not to mention the ominous storm approaching The Anderfels.) That then makes me wonder if “light the beacon of hope” could relate to how we defeat The Dreadwolf 🤔
Hm... you really believe No-News-Bio is able to plan that far ahead?.... especially with all those senior leaders + writers leaving? Maybe the newish writers are capable? ftw.usatoday.com/2022/09/dragon-age-4-lore
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Post by colfoley on May 3, 2024 1:33:46 GMT
Yeah. I don't exactly have sources in front of me for this handy but some of this has been discussed before as well so its fairly 'common knowledge' but on the subject of how much they might be planning this or not...
I have heard from the devs, believe it might've been Darrah, how they tend to plan out their games two games in advance...at least at one point. This seems to track as the Lyrium Idol, a lot of the issues with the coming Qunari War, and the Dread Wolf were all fairly well established in DA 2. And Inquisition continued on with this by revealing who the Dreadwolf was and continuing to expand on the plot points from two while setting up Dreadwolf.
Also as of late on his YouTube channel, repeatedly, Darrah has mentioned that part of the original plan for Dreadwolf was that it was going to be the first of three games, all of which would've been 'true sequels.' Which just my personal supposition but I suspect they ended up combining all three of these games into Dreadwolf which may be one of the reasons we are ending up with the Anderfels and Rivain as locations we will get to visit.
Plus the chatter as well that Inquisition, in part, they weren't entirely able to tell the story that they wanted to in that game for various reasons, which kind of is the point that plans can fail...
But the point is they should have a lot of story real estate that has been planned out. Yes, as with the above plans change and even with a specific plan you still have to execute said plan but given a lot of the marketing, the iconography, and imagery we have seen from things have stayed fairly consistent. They are sticking to 'the plan' that has been in the work for awhile, in the bold sense of the word, whatever else is going to happen.
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Post by Absafraginlootly on May 3, 2024 3:38:46 GMT
You know I’m beginning to wonder if that synopsis that we’ve had since 2020 was more on the nose than we originally thought. Beyond “teeters on a knife’s edge”, could the “gathering storm” allude to the purple hazy clouds we’ve recently seen in the Thedas Calls video (not to mention the ominous storm approaching The Anderfels.) That then makes me wonder if “light the beacon of hope” could relate to how we defeat The Dreadwolf 🤔 Hope Spirit companion this time?
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Post by Sandetiger on May 3, 2024 3:59:16 GMT
I was going through the SteamDB page for DA:D today, taking a closer look at the data in the updates, and one thing that I noticed with the app being published around Dragon Age Day 2023 is that there was also a list of community tags that definitely originated from the big BioWare update. In particular, the one that caught my attention here was the 7th one down, "OPEN WORLD." I think this might be the first I've seen anywhere about the game being open world, but I could be wrong. I know Joplin, the original version under Laidlaw, was going to have smaller area maps than DAI, and Morrison 1.0 was built on Anthem's code with the intent to be live service/multiplayer -- but idk if they've actually ever said anything about the map style before? Hmmm...
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Post by colfoley on May 3, 2024 4:11:53 GMT
Ugh.
Open world and live service are two things which have very wide and contradictory denotations and connotations on the boards and even for devs itself so that being put in there is something we should take with a grain of salt.
That being said if they do go true open world across 4 countries (unlike DAI which had multiple maps) that's insane. Though occam's razor plus leaks would suggest that we are getting DAI/ Andromeda style maps, why they are calling that open world? I have no idea.
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Post by Sandetiger on May 3, 2024 4:18:00 GMT
Oh, 100% agree, it's a pretty vague and broad term. I figure it'll probably be like DAI/MEA too, but hopefully more mature as a setting than either of these games. But who knows how much of Anthem and the 1.0 Morrison live service/multiplayer design is in the DNA of the maps for 2.0 Morrison. (I have never played Anthem, I know nothing about the map style.)
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Post by Sandetiger on May 3, 2024 6:33:12 GMT
A pal asked me to graph the data in the SteamDB profile for DA:D so I went ahead and collated all of the updates (date and daily frequency of updates. The chart actually goes back to February 26th 2023 because after that point I didn't feel like entering another batch of dates just to have a long segment of 'zero' spaces. As you can see here, there was a big lull between May 2023 and March 2023, where they did a couple of updates in the middle of the month. They wouldn't do another set of updates until January 10th, 6th, and 5th 2023. And then there was a massive period where they didn't work with the steam app until August 2022. It jumps back again several months to May 2022, then to Dec 2021, and then it's the end of the steam change log, tada. Looking at the actual change logs on SteamDB and treating it as a slice of what the dev efforts have been like, it appears that they've been crunching (at least, with this app) since about May 2023. So. a full year. There's also definitely been an uptick in the daily activity. Do y'all reckon these are bug fixes?
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Post by gervaise21 on May 3, 2024 7:01:49 GMT
I have heard from the devs, believe it might've been Darrah, how they tend to plan out their games two games in advance...at least at one point. This seems to track as the Lyrium Idol, a lot of the issues with the coming Qunari War, and the Dread Wolf were all fairly well established in DA 2. And Inquisition continued on with this by revealing who the Dreadwolf was and continuing to expand on the plot points from two while setting up Dreadwolf. This is not just true of the Dragon Age team. I once attended a writing class led by a man who had worked for a fair amount of time on a leading soap here in the U.K. He explained how they know where the overarching narrative is leading some six months in advance, so when writing the individual episodes they always had to bear in mind where they were heading in terms of character development, so they didn't have someone say something or act in a way that would totally contradict how their story would develop down the line. I found that quite an eye opener because I never imagined that much thought and planning went into a half hour episode of the soap. So, in terms of the main characters and where the story is headed, I would hope they are still following the blueprint that was established near the beginning of the process with DAO. The variations would come in how they get there. So the end point in the narrative would be the same but they may have decided to tell it differently along the way. As we frequently point out, there are so many clues about Solas in DAI in hindsight. Of course, it can depend on if you select the right options for conversation and investigating on line made me feel I missed out on a lot by always being his friend. Poke the Wolf sufficiently and he really let his guard down in some conversations. Even in game there were times when I would think, hold on that sounds odd but my Inquisitor was never allowed the same level of insight and enquiry as me. Then again, sometimes the reason I realised something sounded off was that I had played all three games and read the lore, which my PC hadn't, so I can understand why the writers found it expedient not to let our PC be too clever, particularly if something was going to be a big reveal further down the line. I also realise there are some authors who claim they don't know where their story is headed when they start the process and just let the narrative take them where it will. That is all very well in a series of novel but even then it can end up in a very unsatisfying conclusion. However, in a video game it would be a very dangerous path to tread, particularly when early episodes do have constant clues as to where it might lead, as straying too far from the originally imagined narrative is going to lead to immense disappointment in those who have traveled with them. That is not the same as individual sections of game lore where they have already altered and contradicted areas from what was claimed in earlier games. I do find the "unreliable in world narrator" excuse is wearing a bit thin but it is not narrative breaking in the same way as subverting expectations about where the story was originally headed. That is why when I say I will treat DA:D as a new game, that relates to the individual lore aspects but not the story I have been following from DAO.
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Post by colfoley on May 3, 2024 7:59:06 GMT
Oh, 100% agree, it's a pretty vague and broad term. I figure it'll probably be like DAI/MEA too, but hopefully more mature as a setting than either of these games. But who knows how much of Anthem and the 1.0 Morrison live service/multiplayer design is in the DNA of the maps for 2.0 Morrison. (I have never played Anthem, I know nothing about the map style.) I only played Anthem once and it wasn't my favorite BioWare experience so I am a little iffy on things but best way I'd describe it is 'open world with a seperate social hub.' I'm a little iffy on this for sure but I do believe that this does include the story zones too also, by and large, happened in the same world. Though as I am typing I do remember I think some of the big 'raid' type events also happened in their own areas. Which means at least the last mission of the game also happened in one of those. I have heard from the devs, believe it might've been Darrah, how they tend to plan out their games two games in advance...at least at one point. This seems to track as the Lyrium Idol, a lot of the issues with the coming Qunari War, and the Dread Wolf were all fairly well established in DA 2. And Inquisition continued on with this by revealing who the Dreadwolf was and continuing to expand on the plot points from two while setting up Dreadwolf. This is not just true of the Dragon Age team. I once attended a writing class led by a man who had worked for a fair amount of time on a leading soap here in the U.K. He explained how they know where the overarching narrative is leading some six months in advance, so when writing the individual episodes they always had to bear in mind where they were heading in terms of character development, so they didn't have someone say something or act in a way that would totally contradict how their story would develop down the line. I found that quite an eye opener because I never imagined that much thought and planning went into a half hour episode of the soap. So, in terms of the main characters and where the story is headed, I would hope they are still following the blueprint that was established near the beginning of the process with DAO. The variations would come in how they get there. So the end point in the narrative would be the same but they may have decided to tell it differently along the way. As we frequently point out, there are so many clues about Solas in DAI in hindsight. Of course, it can depend on if you select the right options for conversation and investigating on line made me feel I missed out on a lot by always being his friend. Poke the Wolf sufficiently and he really let his guard down in some conversations. Even in game there were times when I would think, hold on that sounds odd but my Inquisitor was never allowed the same level of insight and enquiry as me. Then again, sometimes the reason I realised something sounded off was that I had played all three games and read the lore, which my PC hadn't, so I can understand why the writers found it expedient not to let our PC be too clever, particularly if something was going to be a big reveal further down the line. I also realise there are some authors who claim they don't know where their story is headed when they start the process and just let the narrative take them where it will. That is all very well in a series of novel but even then it can end up in a very unsatisfying conclusion. However, in a video game it would be a very dangerous path to tread, particularly when early episodes do have constant clues as to where it might lead, as straying too far from the originally imagined narrative is going to lead to immense disappointment in those who have traveled with them. That is not the same as individual sections of game lore where they have already altered and contradicted areas from what was claimed in earlier games. I do find the "unreliable in world narrator" excuse is wearing a bit thin but it is not narrative breaking in the same way as subverting expectations about where the story was originally headed. That is why when I say I will treat DA:D as a new game, that relates to the individual lore aspects but not the story I have been following from DAO. Yeah. As someone who writes and wants to do it professionally and thus studies it a bit the best terms I've ever heard for this sort of thing is frontloading a story (planning it out beforehand) and backloading (just winging it) in terms of plot or what have you. And as with most things in fiction it does tend to be a little bit of a scale, no story is ever one hundred percent planned out all the way through and no sotry is ever winged either. Like for me, as far as the planning goes, in each one of the story ideas I've spent serious time working on I know how each one of the books begins and knows where they end and then I tend to fill in the blanks as I go along from A to B in the notes and plan. As far as BioWare is concerned I'd bet they lean more towards backloading instead of frontloading their stories, if only slightly. Yes, DA and ME are both stories that are fairly continious in compared to something like, say, the Elder Scrolls or Fallout...but we also know enough of the behind the scenes stuff to know that both Mass Effect and Dragon Age's story plans really have changed and run into hurdles through development. Like yes they do put some thought into a plan but it does not make it work out and they have to adapt. And on the lore front I have often wished they had given the Inquisitor more options and ways to expose Solas as Fen'Harel other then just a really random tressure hunt. Not sure if I would've entirely left it up to players to RP in the final conversation between the two but maybe something a little bit more based in role play. Like the war table perks you get for dialogue, or certain dialogue choices you picked, or maybe even attribute scores. Always felt cheap how they did it.
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fairdragon
Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate
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Post by fairdragon on May 3, 2024 8:02:53 GMT
Hm... you really believe No-News-Bio is able to plan that far ahead?.... especially with all those senior leaders + writers leaving? Maybe the newish writers are capable? ftw.usatoday.com/2022/09/dragon-age-4-lore The writers leaving at the end of DAD Production. So i think DAD is save. But i am not sure about DA5.
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fairdragon
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Post by fairdragon on May 3, 2024 8:44:05 GMT
I have heard from the devs, believe it might've been Darrah, how they tend to plan out their games two games in advance...at least at one point. This seems to track as the Lyrium Idol, a lot of the issues with the coming Qunari War, and the Dread Wolf were all fairly well established in DA 2. And Inquisition continued on with this by revealing who the Dreadwolf was and continuing to expand on the plot points from two while setting up Dreadwolf. So, in terms of the main characters and where the story is headed, I would hope they are still following the blueprint that was established near the beginning of the process with DAO. The variations would come in how they get there. So the end point in the narrative would be the same but they may have decided to tell it differently along the way. As we frequently point out, there are so many clues about Solas in DAI in hindsight. Of course, it can depend on if you select the right options for conversation and investigating on line made me feel I missed out on a lot by always being his friend. Poke the Wolf sufficiently and he really let his guard down in some conversations. Even in game there were times when I would think, hold on that sounds odd but my Inquisitor was never allowed the same level of insight and enquiry as me. Then again, sometimes the reason I realised something sounded off was that I had played all three games and read the lore, which my PC hadn't, so I can understand why the writers found it expedient not to let our PC be too clever, particularly if something was going to be a big reveal further down the line. I try to get the things i read and watch together. The ground Idea was the 5 Book of mose. That one name choice for DA2 was DA Exodus tells me that they where at least at that point on track. They tell that they plan 2-3 games ahead and that make sense. But you have to take DAO out, because at that time it wasn't clear what the future of this game looks like.
As Darrah tell in his videos a part of DAI should have been a part of DA2. So things are changing, but the ground work will not. I think the End of DAD was long planed since DA2. That is why i doesn't fear for DAD story wise.
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fairdragon
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Games: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate
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Post by fairdragon on May 3, 2024 9:57:40 GMT
With my little knowledge i can say: The books of mose are only small help of direction for the dev. So what can we take from book 4 (Numeri). Its Hebrew title is »Bemidbar« ("In the desert"), the Latin one »Numeri« (»Number«). The hike through the desert, cleaning and rearranging are the key points of the story. With what they say 2020 that no one in Power see the danger, i think we will make the cleaning. And in the video of 2023 we see that we travel far. This makes me happy and i hope i can play it. The story will be amazing as in every DA game.
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g_scoundrel
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Riding the Dreadwolf hype train
Games: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition
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Post by g_scoundrel on May 3, 2024 11:07:12 GMT
In particular, the one that caught my attention here was the 7th one down, "OPEN WORLD." I think this might be the first I've seen anywhere about the game being open world, but I could be wrong. I know Joplin, the original version under Laidlaw, was going to have smaller area maps than DAI, and Morrison 1.0 was built on Anthem's code with the intent to be live service/multiplayer -- but idk if they've actually ever said anything about the map style before? Hmmm... I remember a person on Resetera claimed to have somehow known a bit about DAD and they said the game wasn't open world. Here is it.
But if DAD is suddenly open world, it better not be DAI style, with empty and unnecessary areas.
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The Loyal Nub
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All Wolfed Up With Dread
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Jade Empire
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Post by The Loyal Nub on May 3, 2024 12:13:55 GMT
Ugh. Open world and live service are two things which have very wide and contradictory denotations and connotations on the boards and even for devs itself so that being put in there is something we should take with a grain of salt. That being said if they do go true open world across 4 countries (unlike DAI which had multiple maps) that's insane. Though occam's razor plus leaks would suggest that we are getting DAI/ Andromeda style maps, why they are calling that open world? I have no idea. Open world does not bother me if the content of side quests is spectacular and not just "go fetch this" or "escort a cow to market." But when done right (Witcher 3, Assassin's Creed Odyssey) Open worlds can feel immersive and fun. I suspect though that what they mean by open world here is large hubs like in Inquisition. I can only hope that they handle these large, open, areas as well as Baldurs Gate 3 did.
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https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.hVm-5wNStlyTEXjhwDoa_wHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=8f745a5f30b08f8231ddb64664df7375d23cc10878aa50d66fec54e9d570c7e2&ipo=images
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Sartoz on May 3, 2024 12:19:05 GMT
Snip This makes me happy and i hope i can play it. The story will be amazing as in every DA game.
Yes, No-News-Bio 's DA games have strong stories and deep characters. Though, Varric in DAI is written like a wet sock.
DA4 will contain some deep written characters and some will be so-so. Solas, for example, won't be a "deep char", imo, as I anticipate little interaction with him. Davrin as a companion will be well written. He's a Warden and a mystery. Varric in DA4 is a side show (my prediction) while Bellara as a love interest could be another "deep" char, ( though look at Cassandra in DAI ).
Our Qunari companion ought to be well written, She has a story to tell us. I'm unsure about the rest. Any ideas?
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