Dragon Age The Joyguard (formerly Hype Train) [Spoilers]

My clown nose is inches away from being glued on. About 10 years of development clusterfuck has me hesitant but if it's good, it's good.

TBH yea hI agree bu t par to fm eis jus thapp ytha tew'e rfinall ygetting a nw eDA game given how long it' sbeen. Sure i tcould be bad but evreything I'v eseen is tellin m ethis could be a return to form s ofar .O fcourse it's still earl ys o I'm trying no tt oget carried away yet but I'm happy with wha tI'm seeing thus far. I'll probabl ywai tunti lthe yshow us the CC befoer I go dark. As that's one  thing I do want to see as whilst I have a nidea on how I want my first Rook to look I also want to see the options I have t oplay with in order to get there.

I agree with your summation. Reminds me of some of the trailer music for DAI...

Still somehow think I'm gonna miss Trevor.

So just finished reading the DA comic "The Missing".

If you have not read it, I'd highly recommend it, it is a direct lead into what we saw in the start of the game trailer for DAV.

Image from the comic showing Neve, Varric and Harding less the OTT freckles. Minor SPOILERS.

Well, I “do” comics and I can tell you this: what you heard is correct, it’s very insubstantial. Just read a summary on the Wiki and save yourself $20.

“Don’t believe Necrowaif! I have seen their posts on the Skepticism thread! They are trying to poison us with their lies!”

Ignorant fools! You think I seek to mislead you? You need only look back at this Reddit post to see the reactions of people who bought the comic a year ago!

www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/s/427xNMXl2G

Having just read it I can attest that Harding has less, or no freckles during "The Missing".

All of which I have no problem with but the game graphics are 1,000 percent more saturated and dense.

DAVe

Harding



Comic Harding, the comic where Harding and Varric end up in Minrathous when they are hunting Solas and are in Minrathous.

Example one



Example two



I can dissect the whole comic if you want but throughout the whole comic her freckles look exactly or similar to DAI which I am now playing.

The fact the Dev's decided to completely change her complexion to me is inexplicable but it is what is and if that is what we get in the game so be it. I will be disappointed, but she is one of my favourite characters and will still probably romance her. I just do not understand it.  

Even that shot looks nothing like the DAV shot except for the placement of the freckles. I cannot except the change from what she looked like in the comic to what she looks like in the game. It to me is a huge transformation.  Those freckles are small and light and, in the DAV, shot they have the same scattering but are far denser and the timeframe between the comic and game is not stated.

There is no way that what takes place in the comic and the game has a timeframe long enough for such a significant change.

In the comic Varric changes appearance and ages between issue one and issue two, so it really isn't a model of consistency.  He changed his outfit too.   The person illustrating issue one clearly hadn't got the memo about Varric's altered appearance. Also, Neve's hat just looks like it is stuck on the side of her head. There is no suggestion of a veil there.

I'd like to raise a small issue that had previously bothered me in the comics. Why were the elf slaves shown as half naked? Strangely enough people do clothe their slaves unless it is specific to their job role. Also, I hope they remember that it isn't just elves who are slaves in Tevinter; there are just as many humans as well, even if qunari and dwarves are somewhat rarer.

I have emerged from the woodwork to board this hype train.

While I'm not a fan of the 3-ability limit they seem to have retained from MEA, and it looks like I still can't romance Varric (LET ME HAVE MY HAIRY DWARF BIOWARE, DAMN), pretty much everything else they have shown has me excited. Plus, it kinda sounds like we will have power combos similar to ME3? Bring it on!

In preparation, I am finally doing a Solavellan playthrough of DAI, and I'm reading Tevinter Nights (and enjoying it so far).

I posted this elsewhere but I genuinely think we're underestimating the importance/relevance of non-skill abilities like the light/heavy attack system, parry, dodge, etc.

The way I see it, abilities were split into "generators" and "spenders" for this new resource called momentum. 

For example, I imagine "Mighty Blow" for warriors (an ability that just did massive damage with your weapon on a cooldown) has been repurposed into Heavy Attack for warriors (IE a mighty blow) which generates momentum. I imagine the Heavy Attack will receive upgrades like crit chance, aoe damage, knockback, etc.

Then you use the momentum generated from "Mighty Blow" on some spender. Perhaps warriors will get something like Assault if they use a shield or Whirlwind if they are using a 2 hander.

The article mentions mages using the parry functionality as a barrier. This serves to replace the Barrier which doesn't really apply here anymore since it doesn't seem to use the same attrition-based system as Inquisition (which lacked healing abilities).

So while you technically have "less abilities to press", you don't necessarily have less buttons to press. I feel stuff like Parry/Dodge/Barrier were baked into the class rather than be skilled because it would feel bad to not have them in this kind of game. Also I'd be willing to bet their data collection showed that MOST people skilled into Fade Step for mages for example, so just no need to force them to have to skill into it.

And given the size of the skill tree, all of these buttons will get upgrades, even the non-ability ones.