Player Choice in Dragon Age Games: Illusion versus Reality

Yup, I'd rather have even subtle and less relevant nods and consequences and ties to other chapters than major consequences that are only real for one, relatively self-contained story. We have simply more linear and shorter/self-contained stories out there than what Bioware does, especially with DA.

I think it's fair to say that there are missions and quests were NPCs are present (somewhere, in the background?) even if they're not in an active party. The limitation to 4 is predominantly a gameplay feature after all.

There are dialogues in Inquisition which indicate that, despite us not seeing companions that we didn't pick, they're still present in some capacity, at least for some events. For example, Here Lies The Abyss is the quest in which - clearly - only 4 companions, Hawke and Warden fall into the Abyss, but post-Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts companions have banters that indicate all were present in the Winter Palace.

Yea, that's basically what I imagine it to be - that even if there are select events during which our PC is accompanied only by a few NPCs (that they specifically select for the task or fell to the Fade with Inky, etc) others are somewhere in the background, fighting, reinforcing or doing other tasks (plus, I use mods which allows me to have all companions in Winter Palace ). There's even precedent to that, given that there are cutscenes in which we see companions not present in our active party (like Cory's attack on Haven when we talk to Cass or Solas finding the broken orb and the final scene after the Cory's defeat).

It's the same with exploring - I imagine that even if we adventure with a small team, the others could either be behind or chilling in the camp, where we rendezvous when I want to switch team members. I mean... I don't think we simply spawn them through a convenient magical summoning board

I think that what ultimately happened was possibly BW had to cut where they could to save memory and performance on weaker systems, like old-gen platforms, hence some of that stuff we hear about rather than actually see... Though word budget concerns could've also factored in - I don't imagine people would react well if we've found still relatively intact bodies of our companions in future Redcliffe if we could hardly comment or have a reaction. And we'd probably expect some comments here and there from companions if they were somewhere in the background, which means somebody would have to write and voice those and program all the alternative configurations dependent on who is in active party.

The strength of the Keep is it allows the devs to take details into account as they come up, but also let's them just build a game for which the vast majority of Keep content simply isn't relevant.

So in some future game we might visit a tavern with Bella behind the bar, but others would see some generic barkeep. There doesn't need to be anything more to it than that.

But as long as the Keep exists and little things like that appear, I suspect we'll see fewer complaints about the lack of major branching options (which obviously can't be accommodated).

So I guess I think the Keep has good PR value.

I’m ok with both player choice and narrative story telling but EAware has to pick a damn lane and stick with it.Origins/Awakening might have been a a cluster**** choice wise but it was still better than both DA2/Inquistion overall.IMO

I think there's ways you can show consequences of choices through short conversations, codex entries, optional quests, etc. You don't need to have whole cutscenes dedicated to how different the worldstate is if you pick one asshole over another for the crown of so-and-so. But, I think, eventually the timelines will have to converge to some extent. Things can't be TOO different if you choose one choice over another. They have to be the right amount of different that it can be flavor text without really shaking up Thedas too much.

The major choices in Origins through Inquisition is, I suspect, the reason the franchise is moving north anyhow. Then, when it's been far enough into the future where everything's kind of the same no matter what happened, we'll move back south. Or maybe move onto beyond Thedas, given that the World of Thedas books were hinting at lands beyond what's been depicted in the franchise thus far.

DAO had little to do with religion vs magic

DA2 did. After the first third of DAI, that was done too, and that was only because they skipped the epilogue DlC to wrap it up where it was supposed to be wrapped up.

I feel you are exaggerating. So also, suck druffalo poo 😁



I do relate to the frustration of no one dying. Hawke choice was a copout and I couldn't even kill that rat bastard, Samson. Like, seriously

In an Origin not everyone played (Human Noble was #1 choice when they tracked) there is the overt control of mages because they are believed to be inherently dangerous. There are further politics, which themselves are tied up in religion, that dictate the terms of their educational prison. But actual Religion front and center for every kind of Warden facing off directly against mages? No. The chantry sister was in love with Jowan to actually attempt to help him escape. The Mother in Lothering has little or nothing to say about mages. The Favor we win from the other Mother for the Landsmeet had nothing to say about mages.