Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

While I haven't finished the game yet (I'm at 79% complete), I can accept that this feels like a long epilogue of a trilogy to answer questions. Despite the fact that apparently a post credit scene teases DA5, somehow. 

quadrologies are also things and it's also funny considering a 'five act story' which tried to get translated by a lot of TV shows in the 90s and 2000s...but they often had trouble making it 'five seasons'. Here think DA could also have qualified here but like many of those shows they've had to adapt to in world or industry circumstances so they had to, effectively it sounds like, condense a lot of story into this installment and doing a masterful job of it.

But then like all good fiction they are leaving a tail to pick up for the future.

Yea, I actually love it that the biggest lore dump in the game and the most complex option is hanging entirely on player doing all the work and discovering this themselves.

I mean, it was pretty much always true that some of the best content/lore/story bits and options require the player do the extra work, but I can't help to think of just HOW MUCH people miss just by ignoring this and rushing to the end of game. And yet, if the lack of content and context that can be found in quests we pursue is what influenced their reception of the game to any extent, they have only themselves to blame for it.

Yeah. If you're spending $70 on a game. Why not try to do everything the game as instead of just rushing to the end? I can understand not liking something, but this goes back to and old argument on how much time to spend on a game conversation that I don't want to get into again. 

That's the thing - and it's basically the same problem as with concept art, sketches or incomplete dialogues/earlier versions people find in artbooks or game files: things always seem more interesting when they're just a short, often kinda vague and leaving space for people to imagine how it could look in the game without thinking of all the work and challenges it would take to actually execute and put all this stuff together. 

And I'm of course not saying that creators themselves wouldn't want see those things realized, or better realized, etc - but at this point in time I am just so frustrated with people not even considering that vaguely and quickly imagining things in their heads is easy. Actually making that idea real (and as good as people imagine it) - that's the key to making art. And everything, really.

Also, I've heard it in relation to War Table as well as many other elements of DA games, or any games really - it's not really a matter of whether things could be done better, but whether they would exist at all, given all the limitations encountered during development. And while we could discuss in depth whether and how the War Table could be better executed, I'm actually quite glad the thing was in the game, as it it makes complete sense in a chapter the aim of which is leading a big, complex organization that has a lot of stuff to do; and while its leader can't be anywhere to solve all crises, it has people they can delegate. It fulfills that purpose and makes the world feel more lived-in. Things are happening with which we aren't directly involved and other people (outside of our PC and their companions) get their time to shine too.

Also I don't know if anyone would notice if one of them did burst out of the Shimmer Stone mine. Sure, I'd have loved a codex entry about it, but it would have been quite the co-incidence if someone who writes to Rook had been hanging around an abandoned mine the Western Approach just when an ancient dragon woke up from their nap.

Yeah, even approved concepts can look different on the final release. While the tech is old, The Star Wars prequels behind the scenes docs were amazing. I think it still gives the basic idea of how a big budget movie, and maybe even game is made. 

I'd bet it's out this week.