"No Brothels to be in DA4" as per Mark Darrah Tweet.

While I’m one of the pro-darkness proponents, I absolutely despise The Witcher series, so I’ll have to disagree.

Someone says that the existence of gay and trans people in a game is proof of some "agenda", then claims everyone else is blinded by their agenda.

Expect I never said that. Good luck with that strawman, Donald Trump.

BIOWARE said that they didn't have time to make DAI and round it out as well as they wished it to. I myself am - right now - reading a book with a chapter detailing their woes and it's not pretty, what with them basically having to build all the tools for the engine that nobody's done RPGs yet. It's not news though. It's been known for years that DAI was the very first game of its kind on Frostbite, while at the same time making the game on 5 platforms, and that it came with challenges.

Plus, Mike Laidlaw, in recent interview, compared DAI not to Witcher 3, but Witcher 2. 

Why?

Because Witcher 2 had similar production to DAI, in a sense that it was the very first game on CPDRs new engine, when they were still working out its kinks. I'd like to point out that Witcher 2 got very high praise, but not as much of a praise as TW3, and actually minimally lower scores than DAI.

Mr. Laidlaw pointed out that it was that experience - the production of Witcher 2 and having a tested, robust engine and all the tools and assets (AND not having to produce game on 5 platforms) they didn't have to make from the scratch - that let them create TW3 and make it what it is.

There's no going around it. You can't compare relatively similar time of production and 'tsk' at Bioware for dropping the ball, when one team has all/most tools ready at their disposal, while others have to spend at least half of production time not just building a game, but tools that actually let them create it.

That's literally like saying "oh, you're just trying to excuse the fact that CDPR had a racing car primed and ready, while Bioware had only chassis and steering wheel and had to build the car WHILE they're racing".

That's not a perfect analogy, because this is not really a race between companies - each franchise flows in its own production timeline. The only reason I formulate it that way is because, sadly, some people are too short-sighted and think that it IS a competition and a competition where "minor details" like the one above supposedly don't matter, and anybody who points that out is an 'apologist' instead someone who actually has enough respect for development process to know something about it.

Same here. I'd rather the game tackle some weightier subjects than add in a brothel just to tick off a box to be "edgy". If DA4 takes place in Tevinter that opens up some great story lines.

What you are missing is the horrors of war. DAI was a war game. A war between the mages and templars....the Orlesian Civil War, and the whole demons coming from the veil.

War includes famine, poverty, genocide, displacement, human trafficing and much more.....all of which was not shown in DAI. It may have been mentioned in dialog or in a codex, but not seen by the player. This is what set TW3 apart because it SHOWED all these aspects.

In DAO and DA2 these were all shown. Take the city elves being sold into slavery in DAO or Lowtown in DA2. With DAI all this was referenced but never shown. Why is it that DAO and DA2 went as far to show such horrors and content while DAI didnt?

Redcliffe Village in DAI should have looked more like Velen in TW3....

We've seen the war against the mages and the templars from the beginning of the game in the Hinterlands. You can do quests to help the people there. We've seen the devestation of the demon attacks from Crestwood as you see spirits floating around the ruins. DAI was not a war game, but a game that had war.

1) We only see a few scattered groups of templars and mages fighting but we do not see the collateral damage of war. In WWII you see the Japanese fighting in the Pacific. But the collateral damage was rape, famine, genocide, population displacement, poverty and so on. Again, if you played TW3 then use Velen as a reference. You read about it in notes, journals, and diaries in DAI, but never witnessed it.

2) My mistake, DAI was not a war game but the setting took place in the backdrop of war, like TW3.

3) Lol, seeing spooky ghost floating around ruins does not show the devastation of war. Again, look at point #1 to see the devastation of war.

4) The quest I remember was finding a widow's ring and hunting druffalo. Not the same level of quest that I did in TW3's Velen.

I am just using your own logic. You say that DAI had lousy side quest and open world design due to not being familiar with Frostbite and a large portion of dev time was used for just getting familiar with the system.

Well with DA4 they already worked on it so they should be more familiar than they were back in 2011 when development first started for DAI. That means the open world design and side quest design should be superior than what we got in DAI.

I think seeing famine and genocide as a result of the war of mages and templars is collateral enough. The spirits and demons are often attracted to devastation as Crestwood shows. Also the quests requries you to help provide food and blankets for people affected by the mages and templars again how does that not show collateral damage of the war?