Soooo…
It looks like they are actually listening to us!!!
Bioware just confirmed:
Multiple player races for your character! Yay! Something that was available in the very first DA is finally back.
Mounts! Hmmm, interesting. I wonder if they are purely for transportation like in Skyrim, or if you can fight from them like in Witcher 3?
New video:
I’m starting to get excited about this.
More info:
Story -
Well that’s good news, at least provisionally. It’s pretty much all rpgs and strategy games for me these past several years, so anything new in the genre is welcome.
The first game was pretty good. The second was…not bad exactly, but more than bit of a let down. Here’s hoping they can recapture their first success.
More stuff:
The game covers areas from Eastern Ferelden to Western Orlais. Each area is a large, open world area with lots of scattered points of interest: dungeons, towns, secrets, random monsters, etc.
Fortresses can be re-purposed to harbor your inquisition forces. Environmental manipualtion is possible - fixing bridges/battlements.
PC version’s controls are entirely separate from consoles, and designed to take advantage of that user interface. This is good, but I hope they leave the option to play with a gamepad on PC in there as well.
More Stuff:
Wants to make the action less frantic and more deliberate, returning to more tactics-oriented approach to encounters. Big return to party-based tactics
Part of that is slowing down speed of attacks, more important is designing enemies that force you to examine the battlefield and choose actions carefully
Battles veer away from button mashing toward a structure where observation and reaction take precedence
Instead of swarming enemies, your foes have specialized roles; work together and force you to size up the battlefield
You won’t regularly see waves of new bad guys appearing out of nowhere to extend encounters
PC gamers getting an optimized version; “PC actually is different, especially from a controls standpoint”, trying to “recapture the very tailored experience of DA:O on PC”
Going from Eastern Ferelden to Western Orlais; repetitive environments are nowhere to be found in DAI like in DA2.
Players aren’t just funneled down narrow corridors, the demo showed a bog, desert, a mountain range, all enormous and freely explored in third person.
Lots of hidden things to find, caves, dungeons, corpses, etc that create other unique sidequests
“Trying to drive exploration- something that frankly, Bioware hasn’t done in a while.” “In a way like Baldur’s Gate, areas that existed in part just to spaces that you went to, but they had a story of their own.”
Want to make sure there a sufficient number of caves in the game that are each unique, and optional. If you have a mage in your group, you can use a spell to reassemble a crumbled bridge to reach a new area.
Can also restore a ruined desert outpost into an Inquisition stronghold
So much ground to cover that mounted creatures are implemented
Monsters, and dragons for example, do not level up with you. Some are vastly more powerful, forcing you to come back later with proper experience
Some environmental destructibility
Warrior class has grappling chain that can pull enemies in close
Enemy scenario: Fighting a massive, armored dragon, you can target a leg, send warrior into melee range to bash off armor, rogue can sneak up and poison the exposed limb, dragon stumbles around allowing others to unleash spells etc
Weather effects can impact exploration, ex. Rainfall, desert sandstorms
Rainy weather can make areas muddy, slowing down your traversal/agility in combat, while sandstorms can inflict damage causing you to seek shelter
A new mage joins your party, Vivienne
Both Varric and Cassandra also join you
Working hard to make large areas interesting; slopes, rocks, elevations and your character has tailored animations for overcoming each. Ease of movement key.
Morrigan is not a party member; not a cameo role though
Collect resources/materials and craft armor for you and all your party members; heavy emphasis on customization
Each armor retains a certain iconic look, but looks different on each character. They want the squadmates to each have an iconic look, but customize armor to tailor to each while retaining elements of that iconic look
3 classes to choose from of course: Warrior, rogue, and mage
At least 3 races to choose from; when asked about Qunari, Mike Laidlaw says “Do we go to four? I don’t know. Definitely these are the safe bet”.
Your racial choice colors your interactions with others; for example elves may be persecuted in some parts, but an enclave of elves is more likely to open up to one of their own.
Chantry/Templars don’t respect your Inquisition, you have “persuade” them through your own means. You can come across a fortress and if refused entry, you can lay siege to it and break down the doors. What you do from there is your choice.
Hinting that you have a base of operations, maybe a castle to call your own
Cool little gif:
http://i.minus.com/i5Hwa4qjkNKdZ.gif
Looks like the areas are indeed quite expansive.
Agh, sorry for the terrible formatting on the above.
Why don’t I remember who Cassandra is?
Because you only see her at the start and at the end, and maybe for a few seconds in the middle.
She is the Chantry seeker who is interrogating Varric through out the game.
In a later patch Skyrim got mounted combat added. Unless you were a mage, in which case you got to eat shit.
Hmmm…sounds interesting. Loved DA:O (my elf mage and Leliana causing havoc, good times), although DA2 was one of the biggest disappointments. Will reserve judgment until more details emerge. Hope the open world thing isn’t the same as the Mako in ME1, just lots of open space. We’ll see.
Kinda sounds like the second half of Fable 3 in a way, ruling rather than fighting. Or maybe it’s more like running the Vigil in Awakening, which I did like.
DA2 had a shitty ending and what I’ve heard ME3’s ending wasn’t exactly popular either - before those two games and them vanishing from Steam I would’ve been incredibly excited, now I’m just going to wait and see. If it gets great reviews once it launches I’m willing to give them one more chance, otherwise I might just forget Bioware exists altogether.
I blame EA more than Bioware, but I understand your feeling. Even at a deep discount, and with the DLC that supposedly improved the ending (I never saw the original) and despite being heavily invested into the trilogy, ME3 left a horrible taste in my mouth and if I had gotten it for free, I might still have felt I overpaid for it. EA takes the fun out of gaming.
You are right that it is most likely more EA’s fault, but the end result for us end consumers is the same either way. 
But who knows, maybe all the flak they took for DA2 and ME3 helps and they will get to make a better game now.
Sounds more promising than I expected but there’s no way in hell I’ll be pre-ordering or buying it until I see a lot of positive player buzz. DA2 was ass and, although I never got into Mass Effect, it’s no secret how well ME3 was received.
I suppose it’s too much to hope for to get actual dialogue options back instead of vague indicators of what you’d say (which only sometimes match up to what you actually say).
For the most part, ME3 was very well received. The game play is fantastic. The hate stems from the last 5 minutes of the story, because if forced an ending that Bioware said wasn’t going to happen.
I was pretty leary of ME3, but I eventually got it when it was about half off. I liked it quite a bit, and found the gameplay, the plotting, and the character touches to be easily of the same caliber (although updated) as the previous two installments. The ending, even the DLC version, was disappointing, but I was well braced for it; the ending did not detract much at all from the experience for me.
I have really enjoyed almost everything of Bioware’s that I have played, and the new Dragon Age sounds pretty good.
However, I am not at all happy with the EA part of the deal, nor am I happy with how EA handles their sales (and this is without getting into the reputation that EA has for terrible customer service, which I have not personally experienced). I want to buy games on Steam, or at least activate them there, or at the very least buy them during a massive sale and play them without needing to install additional layers of DRM. Maybe I’m spoiled, but Bioware’s the only company that makes games that I’m at least remotely interested that doesn’t currently allow me to do any of that.
I was willing to take a chance on getting ME3 through EA, because I was already very invested in the franchise. I was not willing to do that with DA2. DAI will have to be something very special indeed, and/or EA will need to change their policies pretty substantially, before I’m likely to buy the product.
Sounds like this game doesn’t have enough PUSH BUTTON AWESOME HAPPENS. Who can pay attention long enough for all that tactics shit?
It’s really Steam’s policy that stops new EA games from appearing on their store. They changed their rules to insist that anyone selling a game through Steam make all the DLC available through Steam as well. EA/Bioware uses the Bioware point system so their DLC aren’t available to buy through Steam. So Steam won’t allow them to sell the game. Earlier products that are essentially “Collection” type games now (DA: Ultimate) are for sale since it’s one bundle. But EA’s Bioware system predates Steam’s policy changes.
While I’m no fan of the whole Bioware points thing, the core policy that prevents new EA games from from going up on Steam is Valve’s. Valve has their own reasons (I assume they want a one-stop-shop) but there ya go.
As I said, I never got into Mass Effect so the negative impressions I’ve heard from it were all second hand. DA2 was crap enough to warn me off any early purchases of DA:I with or without the ME3 ending petition/boycott fiasco.
Wait, I missed that comment. Witcher 3? Hell, I’m way more excited about that than Dragon Age 3 :D.
For a minute I got all excited thinking it was an already available game.
Thanks for the info! I was not aware of that. I suppose now I can more properly assess blame, but that’s not going to be enough to change my purchase habits.
Bioware points can go f themselves. I, and any sane person prefer the straight forward price for DLC setup on Steam.
EA can easily change their system, they just don’t want Steam getting a cut of the DLC, but sorry, if Steam is hosting the DLC downloads, it deserves a cut.
Heh, sorry 
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. Specially the next gen wolf fur 
