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Post by ilsen on Mar 4, 2017 0:05:17 GMT
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Post by ilsen on Mar 3, 2017 23:56:29 GMT
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Post by ilsen on Mar 3, 2017 23:53:01 GMT
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Post by ilsen on Feb 27, 2017 2:45:01 GMT
Fair as in what? Subjectively, having an opinion is fair. Anyone can consider anything a disappointment. But if you mean objectively, and backed up by the data, then no it is not fair whatsoever to call it a failure because it was a resounding success by every objective measure. Anything else is just anecdotal. (Speaking of anecdotal, I'm replaying it right now.) Overall, I hope DA4 doesn't stray too far from the fold, and based on the sales numbers and critical reception of DAI, I doubt that it will. I just hope, will be more story and character focused, not a fucked up MMO simulation. I like exploring and side quests, if these are not meaningless, and only reason for their existence, that they be able to say: this is a stunning great world, with 100000 quests. No. I just want a story, good companions, and good fights with good enemies. No more gathering! No more time robber shits! I like Inquisition's story (not all little piece, but still), I like many things in this, and I want to replay. I have started playthroughs. I want to finish them. But I don't have time and patience. So: I like Inquisition, but I hate Inquisition. But you're right, hard to argue on taste. To me the Inquisition was a disappointment in many aspect. This sort of thing is exactly why I didn't spam out a bunch of reasons that it is good. I liked almost all the quests and felt that overall it actually had very few "gathering" or "time robber" quests. The ones it did have were skippable. But I feel it's pointless to argue subjective merits. All you can look at is sales and critical reception--ie, things that can be reduced to a number. So then what do we have? DAI is Bioware's top selling title to date, it has an aggregate score of 85-89 on Metacritic, and it got tons of award nominations and Game of the Year nods.
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Posts: 44 Likes: 94
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Post by ilsen on Feb 27, 2017 1:17:07 GMT
Fair as in what? Subjectively, having an opinion is fair. Anyone can consider anything a disappointment. But if you mean objectively, and backed up by the data, then no it is not fair whatsoever to call it a failure because it was a resounding success by every objective measure. Anything else is just anecdotal. (Speaking of anecdotal, I'm replaying it right now.) Overall, I hope DA4 doesn't stray too far from the fold, and based on the sales numbers and critical reception of DAI, I doubt that it will.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 27, 2017 1:01:08 GMT
K: Solas, right on his big, bald head. M: Cass, no Divine for you. F: Morrigan, she's sort of an advisor, is that cheating? Leliana otherwise. K: Vivienne, snobby rabble rouser.
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Games: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age Inquistion, Mass Effect Andromeda
Posts: 44 Likes: 94
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Post by ilsen on Feb 27, 2017 0:52:39 GMT
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Post by ilsen on Feb 24, 2017 2:36:00 GMT
Another great thing about DAI
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Post by ilsen on Feb 23, 2017 19:33:15 GMT
I know there is no agenda, and BioWare employed those gates all the time (you wre out of luck as a dwarf, gnome or halfling back in DnD games). Yes, the character may have very valid reasons to prefer the race etc, and be selective, but it's better imo when you can break that gate by really making the character like you, or when the Gate is not excessively narrow. Romancing only one of 4 races, and one of 2 sexes, opens up his romance to only 1 of 8 possible main characters at creation. That's a very tight Gate, which marginalized the romance. Particularly since they finally let you play a Qunari, I bet a lot of players would chose it, and immediately lose 2 romances for a straight female... imo it's a bad design choice. Anyway, male is better which is fairly normal for me, heh. I'd say it's an incentive to replay. Exclusivity goes a long way to making something special--exactly the opposite of "marginalizing" something. They are only offering Ferrari J50s to 10 people on the planet, but that's not marginalizing it. If Solas just gave it up to everyone, for example, not only would it be fairly unreasonable from a lore standpoint, but it would diminish how special it is for someone who makes an Elven female, against their natural inclinations, just to snare that elusive baldy. There are multiple options for every sex-race combination. Your hypothetical Qunari female still has four choices. Don't really see the issue.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 23, 2017 6:56:54 GMT
The Iron Bull romance has some of the funniest lines in the game, but not everyone is equipped to ride the Bull. Do you mean Cullen, Josie & Co walking in on him and the Inquisitor? I find that more embarrassing than funny. Also I don't like how he "knows what I need". Some of the related banter is good. But yes, I thought that scene was hilarious. When the third person walks in and Bull says "Oh, for fuck's sake."
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Post by ilsen on Feb 23, 2017 2:28:14 GMT
The Iron Bull romance has some of the funniest lines in the game, but not everyone is equipped to ride the Bull.
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Posts: 44 Likes: 94
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Post by ilsen on Feb 23, 2017 0:52:22 GMT
One thing you might like is the crafting. You craft weapons and armor with the metals, leather, and cloth you gather while moving through the environments, looting dead enemies, or purchasing from shops. The specific materials you use endow armor and weapons with specific characteristics. Rune crafting is also more logical and straightforward. Anyhow, soon you'll have Andromeda to immerse yourself in, so you may not even thing of DA again until DA4 comes out. Also really liked the various textures and tinting; especially some of the leathers and cloths. Some really make you want to reach out and touch them. Trying to match wyvern skin and plaid weave, etc. Good times. I've spent more time fooling around playing dress up and picking the best material and color combinations for each character then I would like to admit.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 23, 2017 0:07:26 GMT
that female animation's hip-swaying is just completely over the top. I can't even bring myself to play S&S with female Inquisitors (even have to change Cassandra) just because it looks like the character's more likely to accidentally cut off someone's leg just by running around Haven. Mages don't have it much better, waving the crests of their staves around. I really hope DA4, female characters move more like actual combatants, and not supermodels on a runway. At least in DA2, I could mod it out... I like to romance Cass, but I can't play without that hip swaying, so I had to install the bi Cass mod. Watching an elf female sway around Skyhold is a real thing of beauty.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 22, 2017 23:19:24 GMT
Everything I have seen. The characters look very unnatural - obviously people screenshot their characters rather than the scenery. I also am not a big fan of a sudden jump to what to me feels more like 18th- 19th century fashions and aesthetics, plus all those references to the Winter palace and a balls... the game was a historic let's pretend and dress-up modern chars to start with, but the screenshots now show a mish-mash of the styles and no unity of presentation that I saw in the first two games. The characters also look very awkward in the shots, and I have not seen stylistically interesting/artistically rendered landscaping in DA games. DAI seems to be another move towards realistic texturing (save for the characters themselves, that looked placed like 2D cut-outs in the foreground) and I prefer the artistic executions like Gree/Terror from beyond landscaping in SWTOR or landscape art in Blade and Soul. And the elves. Ouch. I've seen concept and fan art with Solas, and he can give Fenris a run for his money, but on the game screenshots he is a creature from a nightmare, rather than a maiden's dream.... And here I am thinking that DAI is one of the most beautiful games ever made. I'm constantly screenshotting my Inquisitor because she's elegant and beautiful, but I thought the environments were great too. There's a zone called Caer Oswin that you go to a companion quest and it's one of the nicest areas I've ever seen in a game, with stunning vistas that make you wish you were actually standing there. I think the only other game to make me feel like that was the Blood and Wine expansion to Witcher 3. I will agree that Elven males are terrible. Elven females, however, are great, and whoever designed their run animation deserves a bonus.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 22, 2017 20:03:43 GMT
I actually do not mind how da and DA2 look, but I do not like the screenshots from dai. Never felt I needed a mod till I started Awakening, and I have not found romance mods for Dao when I looked for Nathaniel's romance. I was surprised, it was such an obvious project, and I would have certainly dl'd it, even text only with music or a repeat soundfile from Nathaniel to initiate the talks. Anyways, never mind. I am just curious which companions folks who like Inquisition romance. I like Inquisition quite a bit and thought the Cassandra romance was good, but not as good as Morr/Lel in DAO. I also liked Merrill in DA2. (Only positive I can say for that game.) For happy endings, F-M romances in DAO were kinda shafted. Alistair being the obvious choice, and a great character all around, but at the end you're going to have to either share him, break up with him, sacrifice him, or let him get with Morrigan. Guess you have Zevran, but he's a player. In Inquisition, it's kind of reversed. M-F romances aren't great for happy endings. You either get Josephine or you get a part-time Cass, and worse if she becomes divine. No satisfying marriages, or whatever. F-Ms on the other hand get pretty good endings with Cullen and Blackwall. And Sera for F-F.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 22, 2017 15:45:56 GMT
I mean, I guess we all have something in common since we are on this forum, but I feel like the people who put DA2 first are a totally different species from me. Like we fundamentally don't even understand existence in the same way. 1: DAO has to be first. It was a genius-inspired game. That and Skyrim set the bar for the 21st century. 2: DAI was a pretty impressive attempt to make a more open-world, epic DAO. Say what you will, it is a truly epic, impressive game world with some of the best voice acting in any game ever. Some of their changes I really liked (war table, JUMPING, Skyhold customization, gear tint, openness). Some I didn't (less meaningful choices, less moral gray area). DAI was a real achievement, and the worst thing you can say about it is that it wasn't a great DA game. (In this way it's very similar to Fallout 4, which is a great game in its own right, but a terrible successor to F3 and New Vegas.) 3: DA2 was a mess in every way imaginable. Without listing all my problems, which have no doubt been beating to death, I'd rather just try to forget it exists. Speak for yourself. "I mean, I guess we all have something in common since we are on this forum, but I feel like the people who put DA2 first are a totally different species from me. Like we fundamentally don't even understand existence in the same way." is insulting, and it implies a highly egocentric, paranoid view about the world. In a sentence: Everything I don`t like or understand is nonsense. The fact that you cannot imagine a viewpoint different from yours does not make any such viewpoints less real. And none such viewpoints will disappear only because you wished so. Incorrect. What I wrote in NO way translates to "everything I don't like is nonsense." I wrote that we are a different species and "fundamentally don't even understand existence in the same way." This is lighthearted hyperbole, but in no way does it offer a value judgment. In other words, writing that someone understands existence differently is NOT the same as saying they understand existence incorrectly. It's saying that maybe we don't even agree about the question (i.e. ,in order to even disagree we must first agree about other fundamental things, such as what is "best," what is a "game," etc. Are you able to argue with a spider about what game is better than another? No, you lack the necessary common understanding to even agree to disagree. And to be clear, in my example it is entirely possible that > I < am the spider.) Hope this helps.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 22, 2017 1:50:38 GMT
I mean, I guess we all have something in common since we are on this forum, but I feel like the people who put DA2 first are a totally different species from me. Like we fundamentally don't even understand existence in the same way.
1: DAO has to be first. It was a genius-inspired game. That and Skyrim set the bar for the 21st century.
2: DAI was a pretty impressive attempt to make a more open-world, epic DAO. Say what you will, it is a truly epic, impressive game world with some of the best voice acting in any game ever. Some of their changes I really liked (war table, JUMPING, Skyhold customization, gear tint, openness). Some I didn't (less meaningful choices, less moral gray area). DAI was a real achievement, and the worst thing you can say about it is that it wasn't a great DA game. (In this way it's very similar to Fallout 4, which is a great game in its own right, but a terrible successor to F3 and New Vegas.)
3: DA2 was a mess in every way imaginable. Without listing all my problems, which have no doubt been beating to death, I'd rather just try to forget it exists.
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Post by ilsen on Feb 22, 2017 1:40:25 GMT
I have scanned the forums and other sites, but have not been able to find the answer to this.
I recently replayed DAI to go for the best epilogue possible. For Orlais, looking at the Wiki, I decided that would be Briala + Celene with:
"The empire's ties to the Inquisition remain strong, both sides benefiting from the ongoing relationship. The alliance meets with the approval of Celene's subjects, who see it as a necessary move within the game. Orlais prospers, and soon forgets that it could very easily have been otherwise."
Now, previously I did the three-way truce and got "clings too tightly." When I did Briala + Celene this time, I also got "clings too tightly." (With 100 court approval and every war table mission.)
So I went back to WEWH and this time I finished it with with Celene + Briala and 75 approval and I did ZERO war table missions... and I STILL got "clings too tightly." I could drop the approval lower, but I'm afraid it'd drop down into one of the "icy reception" options. Maybe 50 or 60 approval? Damn, it's kind of a pain to test.
So I went on youtube and I watched every single epilogue I could find--even the ones that weren't in English. (I'm guessing 20-30 of them.) Not one of them had "gratitude remains strong and the alliance meets with the approval of Celene's subjects" except for one that was just every slide and not actually a completed game ending. So I mean, I guess it's technically there, but I've yet to see anyone actually get it.
I found plenty of "puppets" (usually when you kill Briala and Gaspard) and the vast majority of them are "clings too tightly" when it's either a three way truce or Briala reconciliation.
So I guess what I'm asking is, has anyone ever seen the "unknown condition" outcome I posted above, in relation to any ending, briala + celebs, or otherwise? If so, how?
I just got done confirming, after hours of save file editing, that the "balanced inquisition" text in relation to war table missions is impossible to get. Is this one another of those?
Thanks!
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