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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Apr 25, 2017 23:29:55 GMT
I wouldn't mind DAO-like, Origins is still my favorite DA game. Me too. The game was just well designed, well focused, polished and simple. The story wasn't honestly anything out of this world either but the execution from a design-perspective was excellent and it had good tension and moments of comedic reliefs, good ebbs and flows. Not too bright or dark. DA2 was a tad too cynical for me. Having a family and losing half of it with almost no sense of release or catharsis and everything going to shit was... well, at least something interesting happened and I loved all the character, but overall maybe that game was a tad too dark and humorless. DA:I was too bright though and as someone pointed out earlier, too saccharine in its tone. I don't mind all the diversity pandering (or whatever you wanna call it) because I would say I'm for diversity in many ways, but I think you can have all that whilist still making the story have dark undertones. Considering all the shit that goes down in Inquisition, they really did a poor job of giving all the high stakes their sense of impact. There's chaos in Ferelden and Orlais because of the domino effect of Kirkwall and the Mage rebellion and Corypheus's schemes but you never really see any of those behind-the-scenes dealings that are supposed to inform you of how bad the world is right now, instead people just talk about it and you face some generic enemies in a pretty open world. And then when they try to make it hammy at times like that Grey Warden mind control dude in Western Approach it just becomes lame, same with Corypheus's showdown. It had this sense of "they don't care about their story" to me. It had great themes though and some good characters. It was just way too bright and I always feel like the story starts to fall apart in the second act when you're at Skyhold.
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 1:12:10 GMT
Scale it back. Please. I just want to play a good game Bioware, I'm tired of the fetch quests...
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 10:22:17 GMT
I-- like others here, would like it to be like Origins. It can cover a large area, yet be very concenrated. Don't waste space on sidequests, make the maps large-- but, linear.
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Post by Iddy on May 4, 2017 19:44:51 GMT
Scale it back. Please. I just want to play a good game Bioware, I'm tired of the fetch quests... Because the Chantry board/Mage collective/Blackstone Irregulars fetch quests were so interesting.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 20:26:55 GMT
Scale it back. Please. I just want to play a good game Bioware, I'm tired of the fetch quests... Because the Chantry board/Mage collective/Blackstone Irregulars fetch quests were so interesting.
Well at least they were optional side quests and I wasn't required to do them to finish the game...
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Post by theblackadder13 on May 13, 2017 18:51:03 GMT
Scale it back. Please. I just want to play a good game Bioware, I'm tired of the fetch quests... Because the Chantry board/Mage collective/Blackstone Irregulars fetch quests were so interesting. I actually thought that those were relatively interesting side quests. Could they have been better? Sure, but they were miles ahead of the route DA2 and DA:I side fetch quests.
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Post by Iddy on May 13, 2017 19:00:11 GMT
Because the Chantry board/Mage collective/Blackstone Irregulars fetch quests were so interesting. I actually thought that those were relatively interesting side quests. Could they have been better? Sure, but they were miles ahead of the route DA2 and DA:I side fetch quests. A bit of text telling you to go do something like gathering herbs and return for the reward.That is as simple and straightforward as it could possibly get. And honestly, DAI barely has any fetch quests. It's usually something plot relevant like freeing people from the red templars in Emprise du Leon or quests with actual thought put into it like when you help the Command spirit.
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Post by zanephiri on May 15, 2017 23:30:54 GMT
Scaled back, but just because I hope that means they'll concentrate their resources on more meaningful content. I would love to see a proper city in Tevinter. Inquisition has some beautiful places that I love to walk through, but 90% of the quests they've put in it I've done once and then avoided. Even some of the ones that on the surface seem interesting are then kind of done in the most boring way. So while I love the areas, I would trade them if that meant they'd have more resources to create side quests with more depth.
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Post by formerfiend on May 16, 2017 8:07:17 GMT
I'm generally a gameplay & story over graphics kind of guy - especially when those graphics are pretty skyboxes that we can't really interact with at all and they're just there to look at - but I admit I will be supremely disappointed if they do Minrathous like they did Val Royeaux.
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Post by formerfiend on May 16, 2017 8:14:14 GMT
I actually thought that those were relatively interesting side quests. Could they have been better? Sure, but they were miles ahead of the route DA2 and DA:I side fetch quests. A bit of text telling you to go do something like gathering herbs and return for the reward.That is as simple and straightforward as it could possibly get. And honestly, DAI barely has any fetch quests. It's usually something plot relevant like freeing people from the red templars in Emprise du Leon or quests with actual thought put into it like when you help the Command spirit. You know what I think the problem is? In DAO, when you talked to the Mage Collective guy or the Blackstone guy or the Chanters, or whoever, it brought you into that conversation mode where the camera focuses on their face, where as in DAI, whenever you get a sidequest from someone - and don't just read about it on a note or journal you randomly come across - it's still in the zoomed out gameplay camera. And yeah, the DAO model was perhaps the epitome of the awkward bioware face where people just stare unblinkingly at you but it did literally pull you into the conversation with the camera. I think there's a distance with the way DAI does it that causes a detachment; they got around the lack of real facial animations from DAO that caused the bioware face problem by simply keeping the camera zoomed out to the point that you couldn't really judge the person's face. But still, I think it creates a lack of investment. It feels less like my character is having a conversation with someone and more like I am overhearing a conversation. It feels very MMO to me. Like a cut corner.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 12:31:25 GMT
What formerfiend noted is also true for me. I just don't interpret a quest as worth doing if it is handed to me on a scroll. I want to talk to characters, the characters need to look the part. Even though DA2 was having static heads for most of its cutscenes with simple camera pans between the faces of the speakers it felt more personal. Another trouble with the quests in DAI was that you did not got mini bosses exposes and introductions or battles that looked different from fighting trash mobs. Everything sort of just peppered the map, and there were no stages I am used to in traditional quests. Picking out a boss, seeing and hearing him to taunt ya or whatever, him/her being distinctive and normally harder than nameless toons. Often in the older games the bosses had the dialogue that played during the fight too, with audio cues. Even the major quests were anticlimactic. My favorite example is the storyline quest where you face a corrupt Warden commander, a Dragon and a Nightmare demon, and you don't get to kill neither one of the three! if scaling down is what it takes to make quests distinctive and for the PC to actually "win" over cool overlords, then scale it down. Obviously, new games are more expensive to make, and I will pay for a 20 hour game just as soon as for a 20 hrs game + 80 hrs of stuff I am not gonna do.
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Post by arvaarad on May 16, 2017 13:55:29 GMT
I'm generally a gameplay & story over graphics kind of guy - especially when those graphics are pretty skyboxes that we can't really interact with at all and they're just there to look at - but I admit I will be supremely disappointed if they do Minrathous like they did Val Royeaux. Descent makes me really hopeful about Minrathous, at least when it comes to architecture. I usually hate the Deep Roads, but in Descent they were gorgeous.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 14:16:24 GMT
I'm generally a gameplay & story over graphics kind of guy - especially when those graphics are pretty skyboxes that we can't really interact with at all and they're just there to look at - but I admit I will be supremely disappointed if they do Minrathous like they did Val Royeaux. Descent makes me really hopeful about Minrathous, at least when it comes to architecture. I usually hate the Deep Roads, but in Descent they were gorgeous. If they make it a city adventure game like Kirkwall, only in Minrathos and with better interiors variations, and some wilderness excursions, I'd be so very happy!
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Post by arvaarad on May 16, 2017 14:47:34 GMT
Descent makes me really hopeful about Minrathous, at least when it comes to architecture. I usually hate the Deep Roads, but in Descent they were gorgeous. If they make it a city adventure game like Kirkwall, only in Minrathous and with better interiors variations, and some wilderness excursions, I'd be so very happy! I'd be down for a Jade Empire type thing, where we travel to a linear-ish sequence of cities/villages and each has their own wilderness area. And maybe one of them is in Nevarra, so we get to see a necropolis, kind of like Jade Empire. And maybe we get to deal with more organized spirits, a "celestial bureaucracy" if you will, a bit like in... wait a second. *lights a candle for Jade Empire 2*
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 14:54:55 GMT
If they make it a city adventure game like Kirkwall, only in Minrathous and with better interiors variations, and some wilderness excursions, I'd be so very happy! I'd be down for a Jade Empire type thing, where we travel to a linear-ish sequence of cities/villages and each has their own wilderness area. And maybe one of them is in Nevarra, so we get to see a necropolis, kind of like Jade Empire. And maybe we get to deal with more organized spirits, a "celestial bureaucracy" if you will, a bit like in... wait a second. *lights a candle for Jade Empire 2* I've never really got interested in Nevarra, Tevinter and the dwarves are ultimately my biggest lore attractions in the DA-verse.
I love JE, but parts of its charm is that it does not look like any other game. I even played Blade and Soul for a while to get a fill of Oriental landscapes. Once in a while I dream about a game that has JE's story and characters played in Blade and Soul landscapes with the best of their period outfits rendered in the rich forstbyte textures and a blended ruleset integrating some of the better BnS combat gameplay. And a take on Andromeda avatars with fixed facial animations. Literally nobody else would ever love such a game, but I would be ecstatic.
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Post by Hrungr on May 16, 2017 15:08:44 GMT
Descent makes me really hopeful about Minrathous, at least when it comes to architecture. I usually hate the Deep Roads, but in Descent they were gorgeous. If they make it a city adventure game like Kirkwall, only in Minrathos and with better interiors variations, and some wilderness excursions, I'd be so very happy! While I try not to hold up this game as an example too often, I thought that W3 struck a good balance between urban and wilderness adventures. While I hope we do see at least a couple of good-sized districts in a major city like Minrathous (and ideally a smaller town and a village or two as well to contrast), what I don't want to see another DA2, where we're trapped in a city for most of the game. I like a game where I can stretch my legs...
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 15:14:32 GMT
If they make it a city adventure game like Kirkwall, only in Minrathos and with better interiors variations, and some wilderness excursions, I'd be so very happy! While I try not to hold up this game as an example too often, I thought that W3 struck a good balance between urban and wilderness adventures. While I hope we do see at least a couple of good-sized districts in a major city like Minrathous (and ideally a smaller town and a village or two as well to contrast), what I don't want to see another DA2, where we're trapped in a city for most of the game. I like a game where I can stretch my legs... Whatever W3 did awesome, it's just too gigantic for me as a player.
For me DA2 is a better example, if every time they gave you "out of the city" quest it went to a different, visually appealing, small patch of the coast or woods, rather than it always being the same Sundermount and the same Wound coast. That would have been just right for me. When I see "100+ hours!" on the game title it actually a turn off for me rather than a sales pitch. I prefer games that I can easily replay in under a month for each run to play with different protagonist looks/gender, companions, romances & quest resolutions. So, I am more in favor of a kaleidoscope of smaller locations (island hopper) rather than giant ones with lots and lots and lots... (great plains...) etc. Uber-epic sagas of games are just not for me.
EDIT: I would have also been Okay with Inquisition if each of those many giganto-areas were small, stringed along, not locked out for passage through, and each centered around a quest that was more fleshed out rather than totally lost as it is now.
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Post by arvaarad on May 16, 2017 16:06:30 GMT
I love JE, but parts of its charm is that it does not look like any other game. Agreed. It's not so much that I want DA4 to be JE2... I want JE2 to be JE2. Though I wouldn't say no to seeing more people who look like me. Especially as we get further from Ferelden. As far as I know, there's Dorian and his dad (slightly), Cassandra a little bit, and that one Kirkwall mage in Solas' quest. Let me tell you, when the Kirkwall mage looks somewhat like your dad, it puts an entirely different spin on that quest. People can be so worried about making villains that aren't caucasian, but mostly I was thinking "sweet Maker they finally got the eyes, nose, and eyebrows right!" I love seeing myself in antagonists, just as much as in heroes. Plus it's a stereotype-breaking situation, because he's dumb as a bag of rocks. I also noticed the ME:A presets, and am hoping some of those looks can drift over. I heard they used real people's faces for those, so I'm not sure if they're easily transferable or if they'd have to capture people's faces again. I would guess that captured faces are a bit harder to animate, due to increased complexity and higher risk of hitting the uncanny valley (a more realistic face looks more unsettling if its movements aren't 100% accurate).
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Post by Hrungr on May 16, 2017 16:12:05 GMT
While I try not to hold up this game as an example too often, I thought that W3 struck a good balance between urban and wilderness adventures. While I hope we do see at least a couple of good-sized districts in a major city like Minrathous (and ideally a smaller town and a village or two as well to contrast), what I don't want to see another DA2, where we're trapped in a city for most of the game. I like a game where I can stretch my legs... Whatever W3 did awesome, it's just too gigantic for me as a player.
For me DA2 is a better example, if every time they gave you "out of the city" quest it went to a different, visually appealing, small patch of the coast or woods, rather than it always being the same Sundermount and the same Wound coast. That would have been just right for me. When I see "100+ hours!" on the game title it actually a turn off for me rather than a sales pitch. I prefer games that I can easily replay in under a month for each run to play with different protagonist looks/gender, companions, romances & quest resolutions. So, I am more in favor of a kaleidoscope of smaller locations (island hopper) rather than giant ones with lots and lots and lots... (great plains...) etc. Uber-epic sagas of games are just not for me.
EDIT: I would have also been Okay with Inquisition if each of those many giganto-areas were small, stringed along, not locked out for passage through, and each centered around a quest that was more fleshed out rather than totally lost as it is now.
I can totally understand the reasons for wanting a more scaled down, contained experience. Though I find when I play games like DAO & DA2, then go play a game like Skyrim, the open-world experience just pulls me in, in a way those linear games simply aren't able to. They really highlight how artificial the level design feels in those games. Personally, I thought the size and variety of the regions in DAI were actually... very good. Large enough so that I didn't feel like I'm in an on-rails, obviously enclosed environment, but not so large that I got bored of the environments themselves (although, they could have combined those 3 deserts into 1). I felt that the weakness wasn't in the size, but what you're doing in those regions. There just needed to be more robust, more compelling content in those areas. More ways for your actions to have a visible effect on the region (like Crestwood). I think day-night and seasonal changes as well as being able to really impact a region over the course of the game would help tremendously.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 16:17:47 GMT
Whatever W3 did awesome, it's just too gigantic for me as a player.
For me DA2 is a better example, if every time they gave you "out of the city" quest it went to a different, visually appealing, small patch of the coast or woods, rather than it always being the same Sundermount and the same Wound coast. That would have been just right for me. When I see "100+ hours!" on the game title it actually a turn off for me rather than a sales pitch. I prefer games that I can easily replay in under a month for each run to play with different protagonist looks/gender, companions, romances & quest resolutions. So, I am more in favor of a kaleidoscope of smaller locations (island hopper) rather than giant ones with lots and lots and lots... (great plains...) etc. Uber-epic sagas of games are just not for me.
EDIT: I would have also been Okay with Inquisition if each of those many giganto-areas were small, stringed along, not locked out for passage through, and each centered around a quest that was more fleshed out rather than totally lost as it is now.
I can totally understand the reasons for wanting a more scaled down, contained experience. Though I find when I play games like DAO & DA2, then go play a game like Skyrim, the open-world experience just pulls me in, in a way those linear games simply aren't able to. They really highlight how artificial the level design feels in those games. Personally, I thought the size and variety of the regions in DAI were actually... very good. Large enough so that I didn't feel like I'm in an on-rails, obviously enclosed environment, but not so large that I got bored of the environments themselves (although, they could have combined those 3 deserts into 1). I felt that the weakness wasn't in the size, but what you're doing in those regions. There just needed to be more robust, more compelling content in those areas. More ways for your actions to have a visible effect on the region (like Crestwood). I think day-night and seasonal changes as well as being able to really impact a region over the course of the game would help tremendously. Not for me, no. I have never understood the obsession with day-night stuff. We had it in BG2, and I never noticed it went away tbh until people started bringing it up.... And if all those areas in DAi were choke-full of quests that were actually involved, I'd given up on the game, as impossible t ever finish, because, well it's too large and I want to know what happens next and how it ends. I skipped 6/10 areas, and it still was over 50 hours game. It's far, far too long for any one game. It's imo just impossible to write a story that long to be interesting.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2017 16:25:33 GMT
I love JE, but parts of its charm is that it does not look like any other game. Agreed. It's not so much that I want DA4 to be JE2... I want JE2 to be JE2. Though I wouldn't say no to seeing more people who look like me. Especially as we get further from Ferelden. As far as I know, there's Dorian and his dad (slightly), Cassandra a little bit, and that one Kirkwall mage in Solas' quest. Let me tell you, when the Kirkwall mage looks somewhat like your dad, it puts an entirely different spin on that quest. People can be so worried about making villains that aren't caucasian, but mostly I was thinking "sweet Maker they finally got the eyes, nose, and eyebrows right!" I love seeing myself in antagonists, just as much as in heroes. Plus it's a stereotype-breaking situation, because he's dumb as a bag of rocks. I also noticed the ME:A presets, and am hoping some of those looks can drift over. I heard they used real people's faces for those, so I'm not sure if they're easily transferable or if they'd have to capture people's faces again. I would guess that captured faces are a bit harder to animate, due to increased complexity and higher risk of hitting the uncanny valley (a more realistic face looks more unsettling if its movements aren't 100% accurate). I very much enjoyed the diversity that Andromeda offered. I have three PTs set up with Asian, Caucasian and Black twins, and I absolutely love it how faces are so real and beautiful. That's why in my dream JE game it uses Andromeda method (with improved animations).... But, I don't know if DA world can use it, because of different species. It might always have to be cartoons to start with, otherwise the difference between humans and the others will be too obvious.
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Post by Hrungr on May 16, 2017 16:46:32 GMT
I can totally understand the reasons for wanting a more scaled down, contained experience. Though I find when I play games like DAO & DA2, then go play a game like Skyrim, the open-world experience just pulls me in, in a way those linear games simply aren't able to. They really highlight how artificial the level design feels in those games. Personally, I thought the size and variety of the regions in DAI were actually... very good. Large enough so that I didn't feel like I'm in an on-rails, obviously enclosed environment, but not so large that I got bored of the environments themselves (although, they could have combined those 3 deserts into 1). I felt that the weakness wasn't in the size, but what you're doing in those regions. There just needed to be more robust, more compelling content in those areas. More ways for your actions to have a visible effect on the region (like Crestwood). I think day-night and seasonal changes as well as being able to really impact a region over the course of the game would help tremendously. Not for me, no. I have never understood the obsession with day-night stuff. We had it in BG2, and I never noticed it went away tbh until people started bringing it up.... And if all those areas in DAi were choke-full of quests that were actually involved, I'd given up on the game, as impossible t ever finish, because, well it's too large and I want to know what happens next and how it ends. I skipped 6/10 areas, and it still was over 50 hours game. It's far, far too long for any one game. It's imo just impossible to write a story that long to be interesting. Fair enough. I think it is possible to have a compelling story over a large game, but it is by no means an easy thing to accomplish. But again, I can understand the desire for a more condensed game. On the topic of day-night cycles in games - personally, I love them. I'll take walks along the northern shore in (my admittedly, heavily modded) Skyrim, just to watch the sun go down. The music changes and the stars come out... magical. Walking through the snow in the mountains at night during a blizzard, listening to nothing but my footsteps - just ... wow. The first time I stumbled across Blackreach... I just stood there, gaping. I had no idea where to start... and I loved it.
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Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Jade Empire
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Post by arvaarad on May 16, 2017 21:53:00 GMT
Agreed. It's not so much that I want DA4 to be JE2... I want JE2 to be JE2. Though I wouldn't say no to seeing more people who look like me. Especially as we get further from Ferelden. As far as I know, there's Dorian and his dad (slightly), Cassandra a little bit, and that one Kirkwall mage in Solas' quest. Let me tell you, when the Kirkwall mage looks somewhat like your dad, it puts an entirely different spin on that quest. People can be so worried about making villains that aren't caucasian, but mostly I was thinking "sweet Maker they finally got the eyes, nose, and eyebrows right!" I love seeing myself in antagonists, just as much as in heroes. Plus it's a stereotype-breaking situation, because he's dumb as a bag of rocks. I also noticed the ME:A presets, and am hoping some of those looks can drift over. I heard they used real people's faces for those, so I'm not sure if they're easily transferable or if they'd have to capture people's faces again. I would guess that captured faces are a bit harder to animate, due to increased complexity and higher risk of hitting the uncanny valley (a more realistic face looks more unsettling if its movements aren't 100% accurate). I very much enjoyed the diversity that Andromeda offered. I have three PTs set up with Asian, Caucasian and Black twins, and I absolutely love it how faces are so real and beautiful. That's why in my dream JE game it uses Andromeda method (with improved animations).... But, I don't know if DA world can use it, because of different species. It might always have to be cartoons to start with, otherwise the difference between humans and the others will be too obvious. That's a good point about other species, it could look weird if humans were basically photos while everyone else was made from scratch.
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midnight tea
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Post by midnight tea on May 17, 2017 0:28:31 GMT
A bit of text telling you to go do something like gathering herbs and return for the reward.That is as simple and straightforward as it could possibly get. And honestly, DAI barely has any fetch quests. It's usually something plot relevant like freeing people from the red templars in Emprise du Leon or quests with actual thought put into it like when you help the Command spirit. You know what I think the problem is? In DAO, when you talked to the Mage Collective guy or the Blackstone guy or the Chanters, or whoever, it brought you into that conversation mode where the camera focuses on their face, where as in DAI, whenever you get a sidequest from someone - and don't just read about it on a note or journal you randomly come across - it's still in the zoomed out gameplay camera. And yeah, the DAO model was perhaps the epitome of the awkward bioware face where people just stare unblinkingly at you but it did literally pull you into the conversation with the camera. I think there's a distance with the way DAI does it that causes a detachment; they got around the lack of real facial animations from DAO that caused the bioware face problem by simply keeping the camera zoomed out to the point that you couldn't really judge the person's face. But still, I think it creates a lack of investment. It feels less like my character is having a conversation with someone and more like I am overhearing a conversation. It feels very MMO to me. Like a cut corner. ... Only they've listened to people and moved camera back to people in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and got intense backlash for it. The better the graphics, the more noticeable that conversations like those with minor quest givers is where they don't spend animation budget on.
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formerfiend
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by formerfiend on May 17, 2017 1:18:50 GMT
You know what I think the problem is? In DAO, when you talked to the Mage Collective guy or the Blackstone guy or the Chanters, or whoever, it brought you into that conversation mode where the camera focuses on their face, where as in DAI, whenever you get a sidequest from someone - and don't just read about it on a note or journal you randomly come across - it's still in the zoomed out gameplay camera. And yeah, the DAO model was perhaps the epitome of the awkward bioware face where people just stare unblinkingly at you but it did literally pull you into the conversation with the camera. I think there's a distance with the way DAI does it that causes a detachment; they got around the lack of real facial animations from DAO that caused the bioware face problem by simply keeping the camera zoomed out to the point that you couldn't really judge the person's face. But still, I think it creates a lack of investment. It feels less like my character is having a conversation with someone and more like I am overhearing a conversation. It feels very MMO to me. Like a cut corner. ... Only they've listened to people and moved camera back to people in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and got intense backlash for it. The better the graphics, the more noticeable that conversations like those with minor quest givers is where they don't spend animation budget on. I'm not saying there's a perfect solution either way, but regardless of bad facial animations I tended to feel more invested in conversations that focused on people's faces than I did with ones where the camera stayed at a distances. That's my personal perspective and opinion on the matter; others are entitled to feel differently.
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