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

I'm doing the ER until 21.30   (which can be longer depending on how many are sick). So it will be a slightly longer day ahead of TGA. But nowadays I don't do 24-36+ hrs shifts. 

Uhm...waiting up even if I have work in the morning...or looking up stuff already uploaded during breakfast? Choices, choices...

James Bond is so problematic.

are you a fortune teller ?

Really hyped about possible combat in DA4. After MEA and Anthem they have shown significant advances in combat, so I am very hopeful. I also hope with possible realtime advancements the tactical & pause side (which is usually needed for harder difficulty levels for sure) is also taken care of.

Regardless though I maintain that each DAs combat has been better then the last games so hopefully the trend continues.

Another perhaps weird thing I do to show how hyped I am is I will just get excited about whatever game I am playing throughout the day and blurt out 'I can't wait to play game x'. Well even though I am not playing a Dragon Age game at all right now it is still telling how many times and how much hype I have when I blurt out 'I can't wait to play Dragon Age.'...even though the next one is still several years out.

DA is no action combat game and that is the reason why i am hyped. To day the most games are action combat games and the most i can't play because of reaction time, aim and some other things. I need it easy and that is DA.

there is a simple solution. if you don't want to play multiplayer then buy it. bioware should make a shop like the multiplayer in DAI were you can buy everything you would get in life service stuff. So people have a choice. And maybe you get some things for free, if you play all romance or some other things were you have to play the game many times.

Actually the majority don't. Solas won't because he has his own agenda, same for Vivienne; Varric won't because he's star-struck or thinks you make for good copy (one or the other); Iron Bull won't in the main game; Cullen won't; Leliana won't; Josephine won't. You can't tell any of these to leave either.

Blackwall will for his own reasons but you can get him back again. Cole only leaves if you make him unwelcome at the outset, otherwise he stays regardless.

That just leave Sera, who only goes if you tell her to, from what I recall; and Dorian who only leaves before the end if you punch him.

Now I can understand all of them sticking around for a really shitty Inquisitor simply because they are the best hope for saving the world from Corypheus but I have to admit that I would have thought their loyalty would end with his death if their moral outlook is at such variance to their own but it would seem not.

The companion dynamics had far more complexity than their more recent offerings, which I definitely miss. Then there is the really interesting expansion that continues the story for your PC, with a new set of potential companions but still finding out what happened with some of the old ones.

Their older games did set the bar quite high but DAO seemed equal to task of matching it. At least in DAO companions could turn on you if they disagreed with your decisions or if you didn't take the trouble to get to know them. I wonder if the problem subsequently has been the continuing world state that needs to reflect the choices you make and their determination to bring back characters from previous games rather than move on to totally new ones. So they either have to come up with a reason to ignore fatal decisions concerning those characters or ensure that there is less opportunity for such disagreements to occur in the first place.   Then there are the characters who continue to trail around behind the PC even though they clearly can't stand one another.  Honestly, why did Anders and Fenris continue to work together for so long?  If ever there was an occasion when you should have been forced to choose before the final act, it was those two.    Also, I still don't get the rivalry path where Anders is concerned.   If you are that at variance with him, why continue to work with him?   My only rivaled Hawke felt that way and so told him to get lost during Act 2.   If the spirit is controlling him as the rivalry path implies, why doesn't it take over completely and turn on you if you spare him yet make him kill the mages?  
   
They seemed to be hinting that in DA4 there will be occasions when a decision could result in companion death. I hope it is not like the Virmire decision in ME1 or Fade decision in DAI, where they make it an either/or between characters but more like ME2 where a wrong decision can result in a character's death but if you make the correct decision it can avoid this happening.