Dragon Age News Thread

Hey, nobody said that those aren't reusable nugs

These were my two quibbles as well. I think the rest of their points are extremely valid (BRING BACK DOG!). I'd actually forgotten about how much more involved Origins's tactics system was (clearly I need to replay it soon), but it was fun to play around with and made more sense than Inquisition's vagueness.

One note on the "Companions Who Disagree" request: I love that companions can disagree with the PC. I like that companions can disagree with each other. What I don't want to see happen is a repeat of the Anders-Fenris Hatefest of DA2. In isolation or with Varric, they were decent characters (my Hawke even romanced Fenris), but they were so obnoxious to each other that as a player I ended up hating both of them. 

Note related to above note: A big cast of companions is great for banter, but it's also great for class/skill diversity. I had to put up with Anders because he was the only companion in the game who could heal, but a larger number of companions to choose from makes it less likely the player feels stuck with a character they can't stand. (I almost always play healers myself, but I decided to force myself out of my comfort zone for DA2. Never again. Healer/Barrier Mage for life!)

Sanshee‏ @teamsanshee
Best part of traveling Thedas? The wildlife! The Emerald Graves Nug Plush is now available for pre-order!

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I don't mind them bringing back dog as long as I can ignore it if I wish. This means not having it in my face in my quarters like the stupid pyjak in MEA. If the pyjak had been anywhere else in the ship, I might have bothered to actually acquire it. The only reason I put up with the mabari in the previous games is because they're more intelligent than your average dog (can actually understand most of what you say). Aside from that, I didn't miss it in Inquisition.

However, here are DG's remarks on the subject:

As for banter, I thought that the IDEA was sound. We have this great, big open world to explore, off linear paths, so I thought it made sense to do it that way. It felt more natural and organic -- people trudging along, getting in little spats, seems real. There also ARE location specific banters, such as Dorian remarking about Tevinter baths near a waterfall in the Emerald Graves.

However, the implementation was lacking and I don't think it was really made for how people actually play the game. ~15 minutes between any banter firing is just too great a period of time, especially if a player is only going to be in a given area for a single quest and then leave. 15 minutes is actually quite a lengthy bit of time if you head right to a specific location and start fighting (banter doesn't fire during combat). Let's say you have the Hinterlands objective to clear out that bandit fortress in the southern area. Once you load into the Hinterlands, you may want to fast travel to the nearest camp. Then you run down there relatively quickly and start fighting. You can clear out that place in about 10 minutes or so. Then you leave without having heard any banter.

The timer resets if you leave that particular map. If you've been exploring the Hinterlands for about 12 minutes and a banter is going to fire shortly, but you're done so you leave and head to the Storm Coast, your timer is reset, so it may end up being nearly 30 minutes before you hear banter. The same thing may happen with your time on the Storm Coast, and before you know it, it's been over an hour since you've heard any banter at all just because of the way you've decided to use your time.

In addition, there was the possibility that, instead of a party banter, you would get a random remark about the location, such as Dorian saying, "Finally, some humidity!" on the Storm Coast; that's fun too, but not what most players are hoping to hear. So it seems like that period of waiting was for nothing since you just got a remark.

And of course there were simply bugs that were never worked out (checking off all the codex or quest journal entries??), as some players have always had banter issues.

When I play, I never use fast travel. I also don't use a mount, so my party is always about with me. I actually keep a timer nearby and keep track of the time between banters. If my 15 minute window is coming up, I stop what I'm doing and just wait for the banter or environmental remark. Once it fires, I move on. It works out because of the way I play (I purposely choose to not using fast travel or use mounts {party disappearing} for immersion reasons), but I, nor anyone else, shouldn't have to work out a strategy to hear banter.

The Trespasser method was kind of nice, but also immersion breaking. While having the guaranteed banter was nice, clicking on those orbs didn't feel right and I didn't care for it. I gave it a pass because it was the final DLC and also there was other weird shit going on, so an orb for banter wasn't so bad in comparison.

Mods like More Banter remove the chance yes/no factor and force the banter to fire (unless in a loading screen, after which you will get the banter). I think this is closer to how it should have been to begin with.

What I think would be good is a combination of both methods. Even in open world environments, there are certain locations that are likely to be passed by the player. These can be used to have perhaps one or two banter triggers per map. Then the rest of the time, while the player is roaming about, the DAI method can be used, with perhaps less randomness than originally designed.

Very purdy pictures, a good thing since I saw the algebra and my eyes began to glaze over...



I'm glad they're looking at changing night/day/weather cycle stuff, maybe that's something they can toss into DA4 if it fits the game. 

NG+ in a game like Dragon Age does nothing for me. When I want to replay the game I want the re-roll a whole new race/class/gender anyway.

Yeah, we can start with NG+ then. Especially since it should generate discussion about level caps, gear, trials, transferability across classes/characters, known abilities/usable abilities.

If you'd like to start a thread yourself - please do, or I'll start on after dinner.

Oh, I thought that whole post was just about the pretty dragon picture. I didn't realize there was an article behind it!

And yeah, what a dumb thing to complain about. The Deep Roads? I don't see how that makes the list, but Better Hair doesn't. 

GamesRadar+‏ @gamesradar
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