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

I love GoT, and I like the Witcher. That being said, I enjoy it for other reasons than "it's dark."

For all this talk about dark themes, characters, and plot, I don't feel like I'm defending DAI by insistinng that they exist in the game. I wonder why we're not talking about how well the game explores its themes, the quality of the character development, why the narrative is compelling (or not).

And unless the game has something new to say about prostitution that makes the inclusion of a brothel more than an uninspired trope, shoehorned to put a checkmark on what seems to be an oddly specific "darkness" checklist, its inclusion or exclusion has no bearing on the questions above.

Has Origins and DA2 even have that level of depth? It's usually just build up a person's relationship meter. DAI despite being a bit restrictive had a more realistic approach at least to me. You had to earn their romance. They could deepen the relationship themes and I would love to see that, but I haven't really seen where Origins and DA2 did what you're suggesting.

J What people call the Jealousy conversations in DAO are exclusivity discussions.  And after each sexual encounter in DA2, we had a discussion about what that act meant. To Isabella, she called it "fun." Merril professed her love. FEnris called it too intense and left. And Anders wanted to move in.  The problem in DA2 is that, sadly, these discussions only happened AFTER the fade to black. Which caused Merril to run crying from my mansion, leaving me to feel like a monster for the mixed message. What I thought was comfort sex, she thought was LOVE. That's messy timing for a discussion of what the sex act means to them.

I see it as realistic reactions. Isabela likes having sex in contrast to Merrill who wants to seek more than just sex. 

J What people call the Jealousy conversations in DAO are exclusivity discussions.  And after each sexual encounter in DA2, we had a discussion about what that act meant. To Isabella, she called it "fun." Merril professed her love. FEnris called it too intense and left. And Anders wanted to move in.  The problem in DA2 is that, sadly, these discussions only happened AFTER the fade to black. Which caused Merril to run crying from my mansion, leaving me to feel like a monster for the mixed message. What I thought was comfort sex, she thought was LOVE. That's messy timing for a discussion of what the sex act means to them.

Apart from building a living and breathing world? I dealt with this in an above post, if you limit your worldbuilding to only what the game/stories require your world will be a 2 dimensional, sucky, POS.

My point is your statement about Bioware being scared of having sex in their games is objectively false. 

Yes, budget is definitely a factor for sure. Also Mike Laidlaw drastically underestimates the understanding of the community, imo.

The only game that showed sex scenes is Andromeda and Inquisition doesn't really count they're just getting makes and not really showing it like Witcher 3. And BioWare are sugarcoating that kind of thing and not really going for it.

Laidlaw mistakes a "me first consumer attitude" with a lack of understanding of how game development operates, imo. That is people understand that not everything can be fitted into a game, but they'd like their preferences adhered to and not others.

No, the main issue not just Laidlaw has is that people underestimate how simple would something be to implement. From my observation this is a general sentiment expressed by those who understand game development.

Well ... this is exactly what many devs are complaining about. "This could have been easily made!", while the lack of bigger Val Royeaux shows that it wasn't so simple.

Also: what does bringing up the fact that Inquisition was on old consoles is considered a mistake has to do with anything? The milk has been spilled, there's no point bringing it up aside from pointing out that it has effected the game's development.

The fact that narrative is optional doesn't mean that it didn't shape the game. We could complete the game without romances or loyalty quests or even recruiting some companions too. Then, of course, there's a question of what purpose would Val Royeaux have, when the main reason of Inquisitor getting their jobs, outside of dealing with the Breach or tracking Cory, is closing all those rifts nobody else in the world can close.

You can bring up "Bioware wanted emphasize exploration" all you want, but the fact remains that there really wouldn't be much to do in Val Royeaux in the first place, especially in a position Inquisitor had through most of the game.

At a time the Hinterlands opens for us the "vaunted Inquisitor" isn't Inquisitor yet, but a political tool in hands of a budding organization who can't really do much other than closing rifts and making a name for themselves. Let's not forget that to even get access to Val Royeaux we have to gain Power in the first place that would guarantee we would even be listened or not chased from the city (or imprisoned) after being branded as heretics. 

And while I'm not going to argue about Hinterlands being too big for many people and rife with quests, it's an overstatement to say that most what we do there is pointless. The point of many of those small fetch quests is actually establish a proper refugee camp. Then there's dealing with getting rid of mage and Templar presence in the region. Getting horses for Inquisition. Getting cultists on our side. Dealing with a presence of surprisingly well-geared and organized bandits, which lets us unlock Vallamar to later deal with Varric's personal quest. And, of course, having access to Redcliffe and one of our main allies. None of this is stuff that we'd be able to do from Val Royeaux.

And practically none of the stuff we do happens in a vacuum. There are whole narratives woven in those quests or zones and things we can find only in specific places. Still, many people complain not about stories, but about presentation of them, especially in quests located in zones - so even if we assume that they've had time to create more sections of Val Royeaux, why assume that they'd either have time or resources to craft quests for Val Royeaux that would differ in presentation from those in the zones? That wouldn't require cutting from exploration content, but Skyhold/Haven content, including 12 NPCs with their loyalty missions and romances.