Why do people here act like animations....

I think you're doing fine with the language - there are plenty of native English speakers who think of narrative and story in terms of main quests only, and seem to think of games only in terms of developer supplied branching narrative (while ignoring any emergent narrative created by the player).


I'm probably one of the few people on this planet who hasn't played much Mario. I would say that everything a character thinks, feels, does, says along with their reasons and reactions can be part of a narrative. We often don't think about things this way because most of the stories we're told are heavily edited and present only that information the author feels is especially pertinent to the tale.


It isn't necessarily a good versus evil breakdown, though it certainly could be. But there's a reason why I talk about character's motivations, priorities, and even values. It's up to you, the player, to decide what is important to your character and choose whether and when to do side quests accordingly.


It works a lot better for me than something with a narrower, more linear presentation, like ME2. With its focus on followers, ME2 was almost entirely recruitment and loyalty missions. It offers precious little variety in terms of choosing quests that would reflect my character's primary motivations and values.


Yep. That's probably why "fetch" quests are so prevalent in many RPGs. They simply work.


Oh, I used to be a completionist myself. Certain modern games (like DAI and Skyrim) cured me of that.

But to answer your question, a player can set the character's values and priorities however they wish. If you want to play a "good" Inquisitor who cares about serving people, you can avoid the quests that bore you by prioritizing other things. IOW, rationalize. For example, one Inquisitor might view closing the rifts as too urgent to be sidetracked into doing anything else. Another might think that interfering with the red lyrium supply takes precedence over anything else she can do. There are plenty of ways to play a character.


Quality is pretty subjective IME, and it depends a lot on usage.

For example, some people might say that a Mercedes-Maybach being better quality than a Kenworth semi-truck is self-evident. That may be true if your intended usage is fast, comfortable passenger travel, but if your intended usage is to move 40 tons of freight, the Mercedes-Maybach would not even be a contender.


No worries - that's why I supplied a video example as a reminder.


First-person RPGs work very well for me; they give me a camera that puts me directly into that world. I also get along just fine with unvoiced, text-only PCs - they allow me to imagine the exact words my character would say as well as how she would say them. I was not at all happy when DA2 added VO for Hawke - it's been an adjustment for me.

I'm quite okay with the ambient dialogues because they feel reasonably realistic and immersive to me. Real life is not a sequence of cinematic moments, after all. Also, cutscene conversations require a lot more effort and expense, and it only serves to reason that the more expensive each individual conversation is to develop, the fewer of them will be developed.

Newsflash: DAI was very heavily cinematic.

It also included content that was not so cinematic.  Cut out all of that content, and some people would once again perceive DAI to be the heavily cinematic game it is.

Insist that everything be cinematic, you'll just end up with less content.  That might be a big win for you, but a huge loss for a lot of other people who enjoy the other content.

DAI was cinematic for plot missions but for out in the field sidequest (which made up most of the game), they weren't.

As for less content, that is on the effort of Bioware. Witcher 3 was full of content with a more interactive world, day and night cycles, dynamic weather and yet ALL of its dialog was cutscenes.

I didnt know EA was low on cash.

Again, TW3 and Horizon did it and those were quality games which lots of content.

Assassin's Creed Origins looks full of content and one of the biggest AC games and again, all 100% cutscenes.

Well considering the critical and financial success of DAI, I am sure that EA will be willing to dish Bioware more money for DA4.

Besides, us arguing over this doesnt matter. Bioware already said that the lack of cutscenes was because the Xbox 360 and PS3 could not handle them, took too much memory. Therefore they scaled back which affected the PC, XB1, and PS4 versions. It was not about the lack of funds.



Finally, Bioware has heard the complaints against DAI open worlds that are empty and they heard the complaints about cutscenes. I am sure that DA4 will feature more cutscenes and a side quest focus that is more quality > quantity.

It was very well-received, but I don't think any of us know exactly how profitable it was. Their success should help BioWare to get their next DA game well-funded.


I don't suppose you have any links to demonstrate any of this?


Yeah. Quality is subjective.

I'm bummed if what you say about cutscenes is true. It's happened to me far too many times that control of my character was ripped out of my hands by the triggering of some damned cutscene. The ambient conversations feel much more organic to me.

Any reviewer who calls the content in DA I 'MMOish' should be ignored. 

Which is just a bit on the odd side, at least to me, because BioWare clearly listened to the feedback for MEA when designing the open world and the side quest designs over DA I and made a pretty huge across the board improvement.  Sure it may not be as good as Witcher 3 in these regards, but they're close, and since Witcher 3 seems to be the industry standard in such things I'll take close. 

I think people are truly underestimating just how resource intensive it is to have a protagonist character which can be custimizable can have on the number of cutscenes and resource allotments. All of the games mentioned do not have custimizable protags. Witcher, HZD, AC.

And look at other games with cutimizable protags. Skyrim didn't have any cutscenes at all, and FO 4 seemed to have very simplistic ones.

But FO4 is still good enough because while they may be simplistic "cutscenes" it is still better than what DAI did which really disconnected people from their character. At least in FO4 you saw a zoomed in picture of your avatar talking and you see their emotions, reactions, concerns etc as well as those of the person you are talking to. In DAI, I often felt like some bystander sitting back watching 2 people talk.

Again though, I am confident that Bioware has heard the feedback from DAI as well as MEA and adjust accordingly.

I am not worried at all. In fact, I am doing a trilogy run of DA to include all novels and comics to lead up to DA4.

My point is that Bio didn't avoid doing this stuff because they couldn't. They didn't think it was desirable to do it. Similarly, they dropped day/night cycles after NWN, because they didn't think that simulating the world was useful. The argument that they're behind the curve was made over a decade ago. 

Naybe that argument is finally true? Maybe features that were old hat in 2000 are essential today? I don't know. But I do know that the argument was nonsense the first time around.