Dragon Age Inquisition

[SinXAzgard21]

The wedge is awesome.

[LaLu]

So I was taking a short cut and fell behind a house - to find this dirty little secret

The biggest wheel of cheese in all of Thedas.

Also a skeleton and some tarot cards



I thought no more of it. Continued on my questing. Tried to Skyrim my way over a mountain...

only to find someone had been there first.



Lootable cheese.

Maker, yes.



Best. Loot. Ever.



Nothing can stop me now.

omg that's so awesome. What area

[Inkidu]

Unfortunately, you do need one of them.

Both choices are *fantastic* pieces of writing and gameplay by the way. I highly recommend you save and do them both then choose the one you want.
(also empty out your inventory. there is a *lot* of stuff in them)

Is there a storage container I can use. There's some stuff I don't want to sell.  p

I think I'm going to go with templar this run and then go mage next since my plan is a mage for the next game anyway.

When did Bioware start hating the take-the-third-option paths. They were geniuses at it. :(

[consortium11]

When did Bioware start hating the take-the-third-option paths. They were geniuses at it. :(

I can't think of too many examples to be honest.

When there have been quest choices/decisions which change which quests you take they tend to be either-or; Baldur's Gate 2 had thieves guild or vampires, KOTOR had light or dark, Dragon Age 2 had Mage or Templar (not that it made much difference). There was the Arishok stuff in Dragon Age 2 which was interesting (albeit largely inconsequential) and in Mass Effect you could occasionally pass a skill check that meant you got a different cut scene but in terms of having differing quest paths they've nearly always stuck to having one or the other rather than a third way or both.

[Inkidu]

The first Dragon Age and the whole of Mass Effect are full of third options that usually require some work or some skills. I've never played the Baulder games, but Dragon Age 2 is a big old subversion of the hero being able to take the third option, which was fun, but having me basically chose cold which of a major faction I want support from is lame.

I want context, I want positions.

I'm probably going to end up with the temps this time and trying to subvert everything they stand for.

[mia h]

Just out of curiosity, I came across the left hand lovers knot and I remember selling the right hand lovers knot a little while back. Do they do anything if you have the matching pair?

[Inkidu]

Just out of curiosity, I came across the left hand lovers knot and I remember selling the right hand lovers knot a little while back. Do they do anything if you have the matching pair?

I think it's just sell-able loot. :\

On a related note: Anyone else miss the copper and silver pieces too? I mean, I get it. The Inquisition as a whole would deal strictly in gold sovereigns, but I kind of miss the effect of it. Plus it makes it seem like there's a lot of loose gold pieces hanging around the world than there ever were. You know, Hawke had to work balls hard to get 50 gold together.

I got 50 gold off someone's loot pouch. :{

[Nadir]

omg that's so awesome. What area

Crestwood *grin*

[LaLu]

Crestwood *grin*

The smile I'm imagining now is the same as your Avi.

[Nadir]

would be accurate. Is the smile of the undefeatable cheese king atop a mountain of pure dairy justice

[Kiric Rand]

I don't know if anyone has posted this, but it must be done

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZegQYgygdw

[Inkidu]

Fun fact: Bioware was so sick of that joke by so early in the development there was an official (or at least semiofficial) moratorium placed on the gag.

[Kiric Rand]

Somehow, that does not surprise me.

[Hemingway]

Honestly, the whole 'inquisition' thing doesn't really make sense to me. It's not actually an inquisition, in the historical sense of the word. I mean, it's not something that bothers me greatly, but ... why? I actually liked the 'Herald' title better - especially because you can consistently deny actually being what they say you are.

[mia h]

"So what do you expect to find here?"
Varic's first words when you land on Dragon Island

[Hemingway]

Just out of curiosity, anyone know the length of the main story? I've just finished the Grand Masquerade - anyone know roughly how far into the game that is ( counting the main missions only, not 'optional' content )?

[Inkidu]

Honestly, the whole 'inquisition' thing doesn't really make sense to me. It's not actually an inquisition, in the historical sense of the word. I mean, it's not something that bothers me greatly, but ... why? I actually liked the 'Herald' title better - especially because you can consistently deny actually being what they say you are.

Actually it's an inquisition in the denotative sense of the world. An inquisition is just that, an inquiry. This case into the great green demon puking portal in the sky. :)

[Hemingway]

Actually it's an inquisition in the denotative sense of the world. An inquisition is just that, an inquiry. This case into the great green demon puking portal in the sky. :)

Well, if you want to ignore the obvious connotations of the word applied to an organization that is at least affiliated with the majority religion of Thedas. 

Aaaaanyway. I'm getting pretty tired of this 'side-content'. I think the dragon hunt in one of the desert areas was the final straw. I mean, first you collect five items, return to the quest giver. You go back to the area where you found the five items, find four other items. Then you go to another area to interact with three other items. I can't for the life of me remember what the other steps were, as I sort of just accidentally did them. But seriously, who thought this was good quest design? Who thought it was even remotely interesting?

I hate it when games litter items around the world and call walking around collecting them 'side content'. In Inquisition, it's not even that - it's what you'll be doing most of the time while playing. And if it's not going around collecting items ( shards, astrariums, books, bottles ... probably around a dozen other things I've purged from my memory ), you're being sent to a location to hack up named bad guy #345 for a line of dialog. This isn't acceptable. This isn't even bad. This is terrible design. If I wanted to run between locations to do perform meaningless tasks, I'd play WoW. Which I have been doing. And frankly I've been having more fun with it. At least quests in WoW try to be varied.

I don't mind having optional collectibles - why would I? I never bother collecting them myself, even if there's some sort of reward for it ( though my experience tells me that there usually isn't ). But when I'm forced to because there's absolutely no way of actually leveling up in this game, and leveling up is needed to follow the main quest ... Come on.

Bioware managed to fix so many of the flaws from so many of their latest games. They managed to create a huge cast of actually interesting characters. They managed to create a story that despite my initial reservations turned out to be both interesting, and which actually took some time to build up. But having me run around doing completely meaningless quests for several hours between story segments does not help build suspense - it's just artificially drawing out the length of the game! Screw this, so much!

By the time I get around to finishing this game - as I still intend to do because the story is actually interesting ( perhaps the greatest crime of all in here is just how wasted everything else is when you have a good story ) - I'll have collected a fraction of the items you can run around picking up, I'll have explored less than half of the maps available, and it will have taken me somewhere in the order of 50 hours to do so. At least. Maybe even more. WHY!?

[Sasquatch421]

I don't know if anyone has posted this, but it must be done

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZegQYgygdw

Ummm... Yes, I did like a page or two before.

[Inkidu]

You know what I love about the Dragon Age games? The Dragon Age. I want Bioware to have as much fun doing this as possible, because it's not really about the Warden, or Hawke, or the Herald of Andraste/Inquisitor, sure they're part of it, but it's not a character drama. It's about the Dragon Age.

I mean what can you say about an era where a bunch of subterranean Morlock abominations that taint everything they touch and are lead on an omnicidal rampage led by what is basically the corrupted soul of an old dragon god is only the starter course.

I mean: The Chantry is in tatters, mages (people whose very dreams can cause them to become possessed demon abominations) are running around staging a rebellion, the Orlaisian Empire is erupting into a civil war. The Qun is probably one hair's breadth from invading again, and the elves of the alianages are starting to stir the coals of rebellion, among other things, oh and dragons are making a large scale recursion back into civilized lands.

Wonder if going with the original name for the age would have prevented any of it?

[Hemingway]

I got into an area ( Emprise du Lion ) that was actually my level, and had an overarching plot and progression that didn't involve just returning to the same area to pick up new items. It was refreshing. Occasionally challenging, even. Fighting through the keep there with limited potions was actually really refreshing.

EDIT: I get the distinct feeling I'm getting close to the endgame here. I mean, I've still got some actually meaningful side missions left - not just collecting shards - so it's not like I'll be done right away. Still, it's a pacing issue again. If my feeling is correct, that is. It could be the ending isn't as close as I suspect it is.

Which is what I really want, and what I miss in so many games. So many games have this thing where the ending is too abrupt. You win one major victory, and suddenly you're kicking down the Big Bad's door. Why has it got to be like that in so many games? I'll reserve judgment until after I actually finish the main story, as the game has already managed to surprise me once, so it may do so again. I'm just worried it'll have that ... that Stephen King feel that many games have - you'll know what I'm talking about if you've ever read a Stephen King novel; 90% of the novel is pure awesome, then everything explodes in the space of ten pages ( literally, in the case of some of his stories ).

Well, regardless. I know I'll be starting a new character as soon as I finish. I might not play it all the way through, but I feel like there's enough stuff I didn't do the first time around, and enough options for doing it differently, that it should feel satisfying.

[Nadir]

I found a thing

They put the fucking holy grail in the game

[Inkidu]

I got into an area ( Emprise du Lion ) that was actually my level, and had an overarching plot and progression that didn't involve just returning to the same area to pick up new items. It was refreshing. Occasionally challenging, even. Fighting through the keep there with limited potions was actually really refreshing.

EDIT: I get the distinct feeling I'm getting close to the endgame here. I mean, I've still got some actually meaningful side missions left - not just collecting shards - so it's not like I'll be done right away. Still, it's a pacing issue again. If my feeling is correct, that is. It could be the ending isn't as close as I suspect it is.

Which is what I really want, and what I miss in so many games. So many games have this thing where the ending is too abrupt. You win one major victory, and suddenly you're kicking down the Big Bad's door. Why has it got to be like that in so many games? I'll reserve judgment until after I actually finish the main story, as the game has already managed to surprise me once, so it may do so again. I'm just worried it'll have that ... that Stephen King feel that many games have - you'll know what I'm talking about if you've ever read a Stephen King novel; 90% of the novel is pure awesome, then everything explodes in the space of ten pages ( literally, in the case of some of his stories ).

Well, regardless. I know I'll be starting a new character as soon as I finish. I might not play it all the way through, but I feel like there's enough stuff I didn't do the first time around, and enough options for doing it differently, that it should feel satisfying.

Well on the other side of that is ending fatigue. Sure you can have an abrupt ending, but is that better than it dragging on, and on, and on? I don't know myself, but I do have a very distinct feeling that reaching this golden state of post-climax wrap up in video games is distinctly more difficult when they're open world.

[Hemingway]

Well on the other side of that is ending fatigue. Sure you can have an abrupt ending, but is that better than it dragging on, and on, and on? I don't know myself, but I do have a very distinct feeling that reaching this golden state of post-climax wrap up in video games is distinctly more difficult when they're open world.

There exists a middle ground! I get what you're saying - sometimes they just drag on too long, and even I, with my love of long stories, recognize that.

Anyway, like I said, I have to wait and see before I make up my mind about this.

[Inkidu]

Okay, Bioware and a lot of people need to learn. Having bosses that constantly spam summon mooks does not make the fight a challenge, it makes it annoying and is fake difficulty.

I go back to the Hinterlands to fight the dragon, the Fereldan Frostback. Now. I'm not opposed to it summoning its fucking babies when it's hurt (worst parent of the universe award right there though), but it's a predetermined thing at predetermined thresholds. Something that mixes you out of the rut. Having a dragon suddenly gain the ability to summon in mooks at will is lame.

Man it's a fight with Inquisition. It seems like every time I play it's a toss up between, "Bioware might still have it," and "LOLnope."