Dragon Age News Thread

The fact that LoTR was published in chapters doesn't take anything from my point. The story was decided to be split due to sheer volume of content - book and movie alike. It just wouldn't work as either one book and especially not as one movie (and initially it was planned to be filmed as one movie).

Well then, your point then doesn't apply to DA, because we know that they know how they want to continue the story. Only recently Mike Laidlaw said on Twitter that they're planning 2-3 games ahead of any game they make.

They were filmed as a single movie for the sake of saving production costs and keeping with the schedule they've set, not because "it was only one movie". Heck, even you yourself said that they're 'only one movie' from a production standpoint. What we're discussing here however is storytelling standpoint and from that perspective the production argument is moot.

Nevermind that it's comparing apples to oranges. Not only movies have different planned schedules (it took 3 years between each original Star Wars movie, it takes 2 years between new SW chapters), games just aren't produced the way movies are. Witcher 3 is a definite trilogy - it had continuous story from 1 to 3. It took 8 years to complete. Mass Effect is a definite trilogy - it took 5 years to complete. Obviously DA will take a bit longer, given that it is a longer story that is also told a bit differently, consideting that it doesn't follow one fixed protagonist at all times.

What filler are you talking about? It's all connected to the story in one way or another and the devs have already explained that even if they'd cut something from, say, exploration part, it wouldn't influence the length of the crit path.

Besides, did we really have so little story - what with mage-templar conflict, civil war, the Breach, Corypheus, slowly learning about mysteries of the past and so on - that you think cutting some fluff would be enough to squeeze in what they have in mind next, when they're now creating entire new game for it?

In fact... how do you know that the content they're creating could be squeezed into Awakening-sized finale? ...Do you happen to know the rest of the story? Do you know how much content they've prepared not just for Solas, but Tevinter or whole potential Qunari invasion and whatever else they're planning next?

Something tells me that, like the rest of us, you have absolutely no idea. So please stop saying with confidence that it all could've been resolved in Inquisition, because it's sheer conjecture.

Also - I think you have a bit of a skewed idea about how DLC production works and seem to have forgotten that DA devs have already stated that they're never doing Awakening-sized expansion again. Nevermind that Descent was pretty much fully developed by Bioware Austin. Oh, and let's not forget dropping old-gen consoles for both Descent and Trespasser.

... Because they were confident that they'd be able to continue the story in next big chapter? From the looks of it, it seems that the gambit has indeed paid off.

Well, if you're pondering whether some of your statements are a bit melodramatic, I think you may also want to ponder whether what you see as "bugs" in Inquisition are indeed bugs. Of course, unless you mean some story inconsistencies (which will always exist, especially in non-linear game produced across multiple years), I have no idea what you're talking about, given that we haven't yet seen the whole of the story.

Yes, that excerpt comes from another part of the same interview I linked. And actually... Gaider said the opposite. He explained that the reason the epilogues in DAO exist, arrived late in the game development and in fact are going a bit too far was because they didn't know at that time whether they're going to have the chance to get the next game. They were optimistic about it, but veered on the side of caution.

So there's nothing to disagree about in this case - DA being designed as a series is a fact. A fact that is even more apparent when we're playing the game and see how connected it all is.

Except it doesn't. I mean... it ends with Leliana and Cass searching for effing Hawke. DA2 ends on effing cliffhanger. The book Leliana holds in the very last shot of main game is the very same book that Cass uses to announce the rebirth of Inquisiton in Inqusition.

And don't forget that at that time they were planning Exalted March expansion happening after events in Kirkwall, so no - Hawke's story doesn't end in DA2. And as we saw in DAI, it continues beyond it.

It did. A great deal of things have been set up in DAO (which also had a task of introducing us to the world. It's also the reason we don't get extensive origin stories in subsequent games anymore) and DA2 for them to either culminate or continue in DAI. In fact, not only DA2 was initially supposed to be expansion for DAO, it was created as - and I quote directly - "a lead up to the conflicts to come". Gaider talks about it in another part of the interview.

The reason that the games, especially DAI and potentially DA4 will likely feel more connected is because we're uncovering more and more story and realize how much connected all of it is and we're starting to see the outline of overarching story.

TBH, I'm not sure what else you've seen and heard, but if it's like the stuff you mentioned above, it'd seem that you might have either misinterpreted or missed some things.

Me? At the moment I'm not even trying to asses the quality of the future game. Heck, there's even a chance that the story and game will be hailed as masterpiece for years to come, yet somehow it wouldn't resonate with me. So while I hope for the best, I see it as pointless to worry about it or make too many assumptions. At this point I'm just curious about where the story will go.

Whoa... "creating a game with incomplete story story on purpose" is NOT "creating a story for the purpose of creating a cliffhanger". This is a strawman.

I...uh... this is called cliffhanger 

I'll just leave the rest, because it takes way too much of the thread. If you want to continue the discussion, take it somewhere else please.