Environment Ideas for a Future Game

I liked the underwater part of Manaan in KOTOR. That's probably the best Bioware ever did underwater exploration (Leviathan being the prettiest though).

My (admittedly pie-in-the-sky) wish would have been to have an entire underwater region to explore with smaller segments in other regions of the game. Tropical waters, lots of colour, verticality, sea life, sea monsters, some ancient elven site to explore, throw in a couple of small islands, sandy beaches, maybe access to the Deep Roads, etc., etc.

It'd be an interesting change of pace, and as I said, not many RPGs get into extensive underwater exploration.

I have one minor environment pet peeve in AC: Valhalla that I'm hoping DA will avoid.

Outdoors, the ambient lighting rotates between brighter and dimmer as though clouds were constantly passing in front of the sun, regardless of what's actually going on with the weather. I've seen this in other games as well. It makes the world feel that much more artificial, as you can tell the yo-yo-ing ambient lighting is working off a schedule, not "reality".

And while on the topic of boats, maybe a substitute where appropriate? Eg. Something built on the back of a Thedasian hippo to navigate through dense wetlands.

I forgot those were a thing... Yeah, that'd work. 

I like this picture. I just wish the artist had added the adjacent towpath and draft animals needed to get ships that size through a canal.

Much as bogfishers wouldn't look out of place in that picture, I hope there exists a wetland mount which is less stampede prone than bogfishers. Didn't we have art of those dinosaur/tortoise thingies?

I'm also trying to think of interesting things to see in a wetland environment. An animal colony/nest?
I liked that spot in - I think it was - Emprise du Lion where you got to play Arthur to Nimue by finding that sunken statue holding a sword. So I could go for more statues of female heads rising from waters. Something tranquil like the grey female elf head model that ended never used would work well.
I'm also curious to see if the next DA proves to be the game in which we get this Mass Effect aquarium Easter egg: We come across a little pond with a bunch of dead fish in it. When clicked, we get a sign that says "It seems someone forgot to buy an Aquarium VI/feed the fish."

Given the number of temples and chantries we've visited, it started to bug me how little ritual music and musical instruments there have been (compared to religious art). If we can hunt bottles or mosaics, couldn't we also try putting together an ancient instrument as a quest. I did some digging and apparently stone instruments are among oldest in the world (bone flutes seem to be the oldest). I'd heard since Origins that the stone sings to dwarves but I hadn't known that certain stones (e.g. some stalactites, limestone and jade) produce a sound when struck. Instuments made of this kind of stone are called lithophones and include Vietnamese đan đa and Chinese bianqing. Some of the pillars in the Hampi temple, India, are also made of resonant stone. So even if I'm not a particularly musical person, I think it would cool to come across a stone instrument and, instead of the often used Tower of Hanoi minigame, have us put it together in the correct "do-re-mi-fa..." scale.

While not likely to be applicable to DA, at least in the near term, I thought this was an interesting example of a procedurally-generated forest. Largely to see how the tech is coming along these days. Procedurally-generated worlds would be something I'd expect in a future ME game. They experimented with the idea in MEA, so we know it's on their minds.

Hell, we have Nugaloppes, why not a Nug-strider?

Uh... cus they're nightmare fuel? lol

While not an environment per se, something along these lines would make for some interesting decor or a feature wall...

The topic of underwater adventures was brought up recently and it reminded me of the great water quality in this one...




Or just hinting at what's below the water...