I am sure we all know that DA3 is "in the works" now. It is our duty as DA players to make sure we tell BioWare what we want to see from DA:O and DA2 to be reimplemented or done away with if we want the gaming experience that the real fans of the franchise deserve. Now, criticism is one thing and it has been discussed and rediscussed for DA2 over and over. I don't want to see that...well, only that. I would like to see CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Simply complaining about the issue you believe the game has is not constructive and it only points out flaws (which is fine...at first) which is destructive only. I would like to hear interesting ways in which you, the player, has to fix said "pet peeves" with the DA franchise and build upon this IP's ideals and gaming mechanics.

• EQUIPMENT

This may be personal preference but you gotta bring it back full circle to Origins or even better. I want to be able to suit and customize my entire team down to the letter. I've seen interviews with Mike Laidlaw at Gamespot and other sites saying "he didn't like how he would see end-game screen shots of player's games of DA:O and 90% of them had the same characters wearing the same armor" so he wanted to change it. The logic there just seems empty to me with what DA2 had in its final product. You didn't like the possibility that there COULD be a chance that every single player equips their team the same so you made the companions wear the exact same armor for the entire game? What? DA:O had it right. Mages that can wear plate or wield swords and shields if attributed correctly. Like I said, Origins had it right with many equipment choices and flexibility to customize your team for a malleable personal experience.

• COMBAT

Both games have had room to be improved upon when it comes to combat gameplay. Personally I like many of the changes in DA2. I think the implementation of class effects-- stagger, disorient, and brittle--was a great addition to team tactics and added the sense of importance to your team effort as a group and made skill-tree abilities feel paramount to victory by crossing them with your other teammates. On the other hand, I do not like the ability to "close the gap" with a single press of an auto-attack button. I enjoy the way it looks and whatnot, but I believe that closing the gap should be part of the decision making when fighting. Rogues and Warriors are the melee classes in the game and they both have talent-tree abilities to arrive at their enemy very quickly; if that ability is on cooldown so be it. That is part of being a hand-to-hand class; you have to take travel time to your target into consideration. You should not be able to simply hit auto-attack and go charging forward or flipping twenty feet forward to instantly be at your attacker.

• COMBAT/EQUIPMENT

These aspects go hand-in-hand when it comes to creating the gaming experience that the player manipulates and forges their own unique experience. Origins had huge flexibility when it came to equipping your teammates and the skills they had at hand. Sure, the addition of class and cross-class debuffs was a new level of sophistication to combat but the variety in the different "jobs" the classes could do was made finite. In other words, in DA2 the lack of personalization of companion's equipment and skillsets made it feel as though they only had a single role to play. Aveline felt as though she could only be a "tank", Varric was ranged DPS, Anders was a healing mage, and so on. In Origins people were coming up with all kinds of crazy team mixes. Mages or rogues that could tank, bow warriors, sword and board warrior, duel wielding warriors or rogues, rogues with a shield, a dagger and a sword, two swords or two daggers, mages with swords, rogues in plate armor, and so so much more. This combination of what you could do through the variety of the equipment you could put on your team and the skills they could choose through their trees made for a much higher level of customization, personalization to playstyle, and (a big one) replay value was HIGH.

• ENVIRONMENTS

I know it, you know, and Bioware knows it. Environments look a bit better, at times, but are used and re-used far too often to an almost shameful point. The mini-map doesn't even try to give an illusion that the maps are the exact same over and over. This disillusion makes for the a lack in the feeling of an open world and asks a lot of the player to be okay with saying "go to cave A, come back later to section B of the cave which includes some of A, and yet several more returns will yield parts of B and D sections of the cave, but A is closed off and this whole thing is trying to be passed off as several different places". The environments felt flat; I never really felt like I was scaling a towering construct or descending a treacherous labyrinth. One of the catches of DA2:Legacy is "ALL NEW ENVIRONMENTS" to explore. So, it is at least good to see that BioWare is listening.

• BATTLE SCENARIOS

For me the largest drawback of Dragon Age II was the battle scenarios. Not so much the combat mechanics, but the actual battle situations themselves.The battle situations felt regurgitated. The battles (enemy encounters) seemed unchanging throughout the entire game. I never felt intellectually challenged throughout. The fights seemed to always fit a "formula" and contained many archers and melee pawns. Enemies would "pop-out" of nowhere making fights seem tactically childish and waves and waves of enemies would keep splashing you even after you defeated the first sighted foes. In turn, this made team placement feel like it was meaningless. Between the "formula" and the "pop-outs" battle's situations seemed as though their mechanics were extremely oversimplified from Origins. It felt like no one actually sat down and really thought of unique and interesting combat scenarios.

In combination with the reuseage of maps also made the battle scenarios seem pathetic. This is because you began to know every nook and cranny of each map from going there repeatedly and you began to know exactly where each and every "ambush" will take place. Furthermore, the "ambush" is used so often in DA2 that it is not an ambush...an ambush is only an ambush if you don't know it is coming and it doesn't happen 95% of every enemy encounter.

The reason I like Origins so much was because it felt like a single-player version of a MMO. Traditionally in a MMO you need a variety of several different archtype roles that need to band together to overcome a battle situation (or an instance in MMO speak). These archtype roles are a healer, Damage, and a "tank" (someone to absorb and keep damage on them). Another extremely important role is the ability for your characters to be able to "control" enemies when you're outnumbered. THIS is why Origins was so much better when it came to battle situations and scenarios. Origins felt like it implemented these gameplay qualities with the exception that I would control my "band" by myself. It sort of felt like the workings of a online community-based group effort, only I was controlling the entire team. Or, if you're as old as me, it felt like Baldur's Gate complemented by more modern systems of RPGs with the use of cooldown timers and potion chugs.

Seldom did any extra enemies just show-up to the fight after the initial group in Origins. Maybe a stealther here-or-there or an invisible mage, but never guys just showing up late to the party or falling from the sky. You had to mitigate damage and keep abilities spread out on the enemies to keep enemies in check. When I was outnumbered (often the case) I would stun a guy and shield bash another to knock him down. All the while, trying to damage other targets and keep my foes from overwhelming my group...and that was just for normal groups of enemies. I was in control of this team of people and Healing, Damage, Tanking, and enemy control made the battle mechanics imulate these gameplay mechanics of the traditional community-based game on a single-player setting.

Also, bosses in Origins had a larger variety in their battle mechanics as well. The Queen of the Blackmarsh comes to mind when I am thinking of a good boss fight with smart mechanics to overcome. The Queen of the Blackmarsh was an electric dragon of sorts. Periodically she would disperse into a handful of electrical balls of energy around the room which would form a circle around one large dome of energy in the center of the fighting area. The handful of electrical spheres would slowly make their way to the dome and you had to try and destroy all of them before they reached the dome or it was a huge heal for the dragon form of the Queen. Great mechanics and things like this seemed void in DA2. Simple mechanics like group positioning didn't seem important. For example, everyone knows not to stand behind a dragon because they'll kick you or tailwhip you, same with ogres, but none of this rudimentary aspects seemed to make an appearence in DA2.

DA2 seemed to have basically one single battle mechanic which was throwing additional enemies at you, "adds". More than often adds would be thrown at you which was a sorry excuse for a mechanic in many situations. Really the only boss in the game that had an interesting battle mechanic was the stone giant in the Deep Roads. His mechanic involved two different forms with different fighting styles and his "power blast" required you to position your team behind pillars to protect you from the power blast. Even though this fight ALSO had adds that would come out during certain health percentage intervals, it was by far the most interesting and intellectual fight in DA2. The other bosses of the game were far less interesting and acute in their mechanics with the same old "adds" scenario for nearly every major fight. What was the Arishok surrounded by? What happened when you fought Meredith and the Mature High Dragon? Oh that's right, adds came during health percentage intervals. Where are the fights that take some trial and error...or intellect? I want an actual challenge...intellectually. Not through my stamina in the ability to click the "auto-attack" or smash the "A" button. That is not intelligent; Origins felt much more sophisticated.

• CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM ON BATTLE SCENARIOS

The battle scenarios need to be stimulating even for "non-boss" pulls (trash pulls). When changing the difficulty from one difficulty to the next it doesn't need to be much different than it was for normal (enemy health and damage output-wise), but the other difficulties should have introduced unique battle mechanics. The difference between Normal, Hard, and Nightmare shouldn't just be the weak implementation of...you guessed it, more adds or higher HP. What i am getting at is, even these trash pulls should have intellectual mechanics and thought thrown into their development. The difference between Normal and hard shouldn't be just more guys, it should be a special battle mechanic. Maybe a single new special enemy among the group that wasn't there before on Normal mode. If this new found enemy is not killed first and if you kill the other peons first the special new enemy will actually absorb their souls and enrage itself making it next-to-impossible to kill. Perhaps vice-versa that situation. Wherein, you need to kill the special enemy last or when he dies it will explode and cover the remaining enemies with his blood which enhances their strengths. Maybe tie mechanics into the environments as well. Examples, water in a room with lava enemies and you need to make them path through the water which they are then super-cooled so they can be hit otherwise they burn you if you get too close if not cooled, cover or height advantages/disadvantages, enemies that puke acid making parts of the floor hazardous for a long duration. A real game about tactics and battle situations...not just throwing more adds and trash at the player and slapping a battle mechanics sticker on it.

I qoute an interview with Mike Laidlaw from PCgamer.com where in the interview Laidlaw states “If I’m going to piss you guys off, it’s going to be because I still firmly believe that RPGs do need to be more accessible to new players,” Laidlaw adds. “Not diminished, but made less imposing and less terrifying to new players. In part because I want more people to play Dragon Age, and in part because there have been a lot of improvements in gameplay and UI design in the past 15 years, and we can learn from them.”

Have you not heard of World of Warcraft? Don't worry, us gamers are all grow'd up and we can handle a challenge; in fact we want it. Games like Demon's Souls and World of Warcraft implement some of the most challenging and complex battle mechanics and scenarios on the market. WoW quite frankly revolves around end-game battle mechanics and loot and I am pretty sure you cannot argue that game's success or its variety in bosses and their mechanics.

I am not saying to make a Demon's Souls or WoW; I'm just saying don't cut your audience short because you think you want the game to appeal to a wider audience and you don't want to scare newcomers away with challenge, a jump right in feel, or with complex tactical gameplay. Your audience already exists...and it is huge.

• STORY

The reason I loved DA:O so much was it was a fantastic introduction to this vibrant new lore and fantasy universe. In Origins I was learning about the nuances of the Chantry, the Dwarven Cast system, the struggle and persecution that elves undergo on a daily basis, and the thin ice that templars and mages walk on together. DA2 didn't feel as though it touched base on this nearly as much. In Act 2 you learned quite a bit about the Qunari and that was my favorite chapter. I know that is some lousy constructive criticism, but that is about all I can say on that front. I would like to hear more and see more of the introduction of new races/subcultures of races and or their intricacies through what makes them unique, taboo, or otherwise.

• IP IDENTITY

I understand that BioWare is BioWare and they make more than one franchise, but Origins distinctly felt like Dragon Age and Mass Effect was always Mass Effect. DA2's overall aesthetic of the interfacing, conversation choices, and even down to the way NPCs stood around an environment made DA2 feel as though it had borrowed far too much from its sibling RPG franchise Mass Effect. My constructive criticism here WOULD be that you need to find your own identity, BUT that is not true. DA already had its own identity. It just needs to be re-individualized.

When I play Mass Effect I want an other worldly space opera epic that takes me to strange planets and across the galaxy. When I play DA I want a big fantasy WORLD with medieval dungeon crawling and dark ethics.

• DRAGON AGE 3 IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

1. If you have followed BioWare for as long as I have then you know that they actually used to implement a four class system of Mage, Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric. I believe this is not only the perfect time for the DA game to implement the fourth class of a Cleric as a gameplay addition to mechanics but also a perfect time in the story as well. With the complete separation of the mages and templars it would now be a perfectly conceivable time to implement the new class because basically mages are the only healers in the DA universe and without the aid of the mage's healing abilities on the battle field, with the war between them, the templars are going to get crushed without any form of healing/magic. Sounds like the right time to bring about the caster plate-wearing zealot into the mix.


2. Manipulate the environment with more interactive abilities. I'll elaborate. I see mages that can make rock form over their body or "trap" enemies in an ethereal prison. How come they cannot use these abilities to manipulate the environment to protect themselves? or cast a "Prison of Protection"? If you choose the skill (I am imagining this) "Rock Wall" you could then put your cursor on the ground and then hold a specific button down as you moved it across the ground to highlight where your cursor moved. This would highlight an area on the ground leaving a path in yellow. When you exited your "paused time skill interface...mode" the game would then have rocks jut up from the ground creating a wall across the yellow highlighted path you had just created. Maybe a mage could create a circle around your ranged combat characters to create that "prison of protection" I mention earlier. This mechanic could be used offensively as well. Maybe a "trail blazer spell" would allow for creating a custom designed fire trail on the ground that damages enemies when entering it. Perhaps a frost trail could be etched on the ground that could freeze or slow enemies as they walked over it. The possibilities in mechanics of this implementation are quite high if some good minds were put on it.


3. What happened to those nice little quick-animation finishers from DA:O? You know? One sword in the gut and the other decapitates the enemy's head. I liked those. Enemy's bodies exploding into big polygon fragments of blood and squares is no substitute.


4. Companion gear customization needs to make a return.


5. Let the environment take us places that are amazing and tell a story just from looking at them. With a great variety.


6. Implement more strategic battle situations and a larger range of enemies and their mechanics.


7. Alchemy and trap making need to make a more in-depth return and possibly even add other additonal professions like; black smithing, rune crafting, wood working, enchanting, etc


8. If a more in-depth crafting professions system were introduced the use of the internet should definitely be more thoroughly utilized. Make it so only one crafting profession can be obtained by any one player character, then make a "market place" where players meet together online to trade other crafting profession goods to to get otherwise difficult items for other things and they could discuss strategies for difficult sections of the game or bosses. If you don't have the internet you could make it so each character could could somehow mail items from character to character.


9. I really enjoy when RPGs have sets of gear with different set bonuses where you can wear several parts to one set because you like the bonus and a few from another set to get different enhancements.


10. I would like to see stealth make some changes possibly with adding a stealth one-shot kill. This would not have to pertain to only or necessarily be exclusive to rogues. Mages can cloak, maybe a specific potion can grant a cloak and so on. It should also only be possible if a group of enemies is completely unaware of your presence. After combat is initiated you've either taken one foe out for good or missed your chance.
11. Weapon versatility needs a return. I actually like the idea of one-handed swords being able to hit several targets, but you took swords away from rogues and daggers away from warriors. Why not let swords do what they're doing in DA2 and bring it to DA3 but let any class wield whatever they want if attributed for it? For example, swords obviously do less damage than daggers when it comes to single target. So the player's desire to change weapons up could be a situational one. If I need to do more damage across more enemies because my group is scarcely outnumbered I might want two swords as a rogue or warrior. Whereas, if I am attacking a single target I would want daggers...makes sense to me.

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I would like to see more personalized story/quest chains that pertain to your specific class. Quests that can go above and beyond simple "when I show up somewhere I know enemies are going to jump me and then I fight them". I love in Elder's Scrolls games when they have quest chains for the Thieves Guild and assassins guild like the Dark Brotherhood or the government sanctioned one in Morrowwind. Also, similar things for the Mage's Guild and Fighter's Guild.

That being said, I would like to see quest chains or series of events that are unique for the class you're specifically playing this time through. Personal trials that your protagonist overcomes or struggles with on their day-to-day basis. For example, at certain points in DA:Origins you would wake up from having a "vivid nightmare" about the archdemon and the Blight due to your "Joining". This simple yet effective detail really gave me insight into what it feels like to be a Grey Warden and the different sacrifices and trials they must endure. No matter what path I chose-- of mage, rogue, or warrior-- I was understanding the daily hardships of what it meant to be a Grey Warden and their struggle with becoming tainted.

I would like to see things like this for your chosen class. How come my created mage never deals with the trials of the temptations of the Fade like seemingly every other mage must endure with the seductions of power from the entities within? I would like to see a more intimate and personal struggle with my character and their gradual triumph over or yielding to their offerings of power in the fade first-hand.

If you chose a rogue I would like to see something with maybe an assassin's guild or...anyone remember the Antivian Crows? Once you're in you never get out. Possibly some type of establishment like that.

Possibly for a warrior you could go through the quite literally "mind-numbing" process of becoming an Ash Warrior. Or, some other trial for some sect that is not previously present in the DA universe.

I would like to see these implementations and have them be unique story features to your specific class. This would make replay value much higher with content that was never seen before because on a previous play-through you chose a different class. It would also give those moments that "wow factor". I am always very impressed when games go to the extent of having environments, characters, dialogue, and material that may not even be seen in a game depending on your specific actions or the uniqueness of your style of interaction through character customizations or dialogue choices.

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CONCLUSION

There you have it. I want to see what people have to say that could help Bioware make Dragon Age III a game that the true fans deserve to be delivered. This is not about my specific biases toward DA:Origins or DA2; it is about what great gaming ideas you've came-up with while playing both games that you think could help Dragon Age. Whether it be bringing back features from a past Bioware franchise or a change to the structure of the game with your fresh idea.

Let's hear your great gaming ideas for Dragon Age III.

The catch with Legacy is that their "all new environments" line is bullshit. Almost everything you see in Legacy looks exactly like the stuff in DA2. To further underline how doublefaced they are (refering to dev acknowledgement) you keep going down around the tower the floors are just repeats of the same thing with slighly different layouts. So yes Bioware "knows" but Legacy prooved that they didn't learn anything from that knowledge, or were at least unwiling to improve.

Combat. One thing that I feel the need to add to your comments on combat is that combat works best, is easier to balance, feels fair/challanging when both player and monster mechanics and rules are the same. Example Ininity engine games or DA:O. Combat in DA2 felt cripled for me at the start because neither you nor the monsters were ever at a level playing field. This can also bee seen in the huge disproportion in player dammage and player health. Character health scalse extremely poorly in DA2. Yet abilities are hitting everything for thousands of dammage. Naturaly they had to remove 1/2 AoE dammage on hard. And on Nighmare you were basically your own biggest enemy. Contrast this to Origins where spells and sword dammage scaled relatively well with health, yes you did way more dammage with good gear and level, but it was never astronomical. Balancing in DA2 was completely out of whack making things way too easy in most cases, or frustrating in others. When enemies abide by the same rules as you it forces the devs to try properly balance things at the least.

I liked the combat animations and spell/ability looks in DA2 a lot. It was the games single gratest improvement over Origins. But the actual core combat mechanics: stat scaling, level scaling, weapon/armor limitations and scaling, enemy were terrible. Some extra stuff layered on top of the core mechanics was allright: combos, skills trees

Disagree on the Cleric bit. Healing is magic in DA universe. Templars are not mages, nor healers, their rudimentary skills are focused soley on anti magic trickery via lyrium induced abilities and hence the Fade linkage. Anyone actually casting healing spells is by default a mage. Doesn't matter, plate or zealot, you cast magic; therefore susceptible to demons. I am not disagreeing that such a class could not exist, it could. But the templar order would still treat them as mages.

The catch with Legacy is that their "all new environments" line is bullshit. Almost everything you see in Legacy looks exactly like the stuff in DA2. To further underline how doublefaced they are (refering to dev acknowledgement) you keep going down around the tower the floors are just repeats of the same thing with slighly different layouts. So yes Bioware "knows" but Legacy prooved that they didn't learn anything from that knowledge, or were at least unwiling to improve.

Combat. One thing that I feel the need to add to your comments on combat is that combat works best, is easier to balance, feels fair/challanging when both player and monster mechanics and rules are the same. Example Ininity engine games or DA:O. Combat in DA2 felt cripled for me at the start because neither you nor the monsters were ever at a level playing field. This can also bee seen in the huge disproportion in player dammage and player health. Character health scalse extremely poorly in DA2. Yet abilities are hitting everything for thousands of dammage. Naturaly they had to remove 1/2 AoE dammage on hard. And on Nighmare you were basically your own biggest enemy. Contrast this to Origins where spells and sword dammage scaled relatively well with health, yes you did way more dammage with good gear and level, but it was never astronomical. Balancing in DA2 was completely out of whack making things way too easy in most cases, or frustrating in others. When enemies abide by the same rules as you it forces the devs to try properly balance things at the least.

I liked the combat animations and spell/ability looks in DA2 a lot. It was the games single gratest improvement over Origins. But the actual core combat mechanics: stat scaling, level scaling, weapon/armor limitations and scaling, enemy were terrible. Some extra stuff layered on top of the core mechanics was allright: combos, skills trees

Disagree on the Cleric bit. Healing is magic in DA universe. Templars are not mages, nor healers, their rudimentary skills are focused soley on anti magic trickery via lyrium induced abilities and hence the Fade linkage. Anyone actually casting healing spells is by default a mage. Doesn't matter, plate or zealot, you cast magic; therefore susceptible to demons. I am not disagreeing that such a class could not exist, it could. But the templar order would still treat them as mages.

I shouldn't be winning by mindlessly pressing A. They should fix that

@Tarsier: I really liked Dragon Age: Origins. I have no hopes for Dragon Age 3 nor Mass Effect 3.

Here's my advice:

Stop.

Use DA:O as them template, and improve the engine. Boom. Perfect sequel.

I actually enjoyed DA2 but at this point I would not care at all if they canned the whole series.

Take longer than 9 months to make it. Make DA:O again but shiny.

Take everything you learned from Dragon Age II and throw it out the window; release DA:O again with an updated story. Profit.

@BrockNRolla said:

Use DA:O as them template, and improve the engine. Boom. Perfect sequel.

Not going to happen. The moron Bioware put as lead on the DA franchise already said that DA2 is the template going forward.

EDIT: Ohh...make sure Felicia Day has Nothing to do with the next game. I really can't stand her.

I can't believe I finished DA2, but I loved DA:O. It was almost a perfect update of the older Bioware games. All they had to do in 2 is update some things and throw in more fluff (like more armor, weapons, new classes, etc) and they would have had another critically acclaimed game.

@TerraMantis: I missed this when you wrote it, but I think you summed it up pretty well and I agree with the vast majority of your criticism and suggestions.

Do not make it more like Skyrim. Do make it more like DA:O, that is, hardcore tactical like TOEE

I wish Bioware would make this like KotOR...

Or just make a new KotOR. :)

I lost interest in the dragon age series after DA2. Hopefully some changes to the new one will re-draw my attention

@Jams: Nice icon, if i were to say to you "it smells like 7 layers...that beaver's eating taco bell" would you agree? I feel the same way about DA2, it is sad when i am forcing myself to finish a game just because i started it. Thinking to myself "I'm in this deep, mine as well finish it". All the while holding out hope that it will redeem itself somewhere throughout.

@oasis789: Temple of Elemental Evil...yes, yes yes yes. I agree if you couldn't tell. Regarding the Skyrim comment, don't you love how the development team has said...and i quote

"[The next Dragon Age] is gonna have the best features from the prior Dragon Age games," he told Wired. "But it's also gonna have a lot of things I think players are gonna find compelling from some of the games that are out now that are doing really well with more of an open world feel. We're checking [Skyrim] out aggressively," he added. "We like it. We're big admirers of [Bethesda] and the product. We think we can do some wonderful things."

What was the most profitable RPG during the development of DA2...that's right, Mass Effect 2 and look at how much of DA2 was influenced by that game. Now they're latching onto Skyrim because that is currently the most money grossing RPG on the market. I wish BioWare would just get back to making Dragon Age - the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate.

@TerraMantis said:

@Jams: Nice icon, if i were to say to you "it smells like 7 layers...that beaver's eating taco bell" would you agree? I feel the same way about DA2, it is sad when i am forcing myself to finish a game just because i started it. Thinking to myself "I'm in this deep, mine as well finish it". All the while holding out hope that it will redeem itself somewhere throughout.

Wynona might agree.

The reapeating environments weren't that bad for me, the lazy way they handled them was. They could have at least let you bomb open walls for example but they just put cement in the doors. It didn't even fit the visuals. I don't want to run past a "door" and think: oh, I'll go through there the next time I'm in this area.

@TerraMantis said:

Now they're latching onto Skyrim because that is currently the most money grossing RPG on the market. I wish BioWare would just get back to making Dragon Age - the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate.

Exactly. The ideas you threw in, in the OP, are good ideas, but BioWare needs to take a white board and write down "We are going to improve upon foundation of Dragon Age: Origins."

Taking cues from other games in the genre is great for advancing the genre, but Skyrim and Mass Effect 2 shouldn't just be thrown in a blender with DA:O, they should duplicate what works for your type of game. I don't want an open world hack-n-slash Dragon Age, but Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy could be implemented in a cool way, I think.

Nobody just throws food onto food. I'm certainly not going to eat soy sauce on my sundae, but if they can take the best ingridients, such as tomatoes, cheese, and bread, they can make a grandiose pizza.

I doubt they'll listen to any of us though, It would be great if this was a wonderful successor to the first DA, but I can easily see Bioware making a shinier DA2.

@Arker101 said:

I doubt they'll listen to any of us though, It would be great if this was a wonderful successor to the first DA, but I can easily see Bioware making a shinier DA2.

I don't think Bioware really gives an eff about what DA fans on the internet think either. I think they know that they could make a really awesome tactical, Origins-like sequel that will sell good , OR they could make a mediocre fantasy action game that is DA only in story and sell much more because it will have more mass market appeal.

@Arker101 said:

I doubt they'll listen to any of us though, It would be great if this was a wonderful successor to the first DA, but I can easily see Bioware making a shinier DA2.

I don't think Bioware really gives an eff about what DA fans on the internet think either. I think they know that they could make a really awesome tactical, Origins-like sequel that will sell good , OR they could make a mediocre fantasy action game that is DA only in story and sell much more because it will have more mass market appeal.

@Hailinel said:

@DaemonBlack

@Arker101 said:

I doubt they'll listen to any of us though, It would be great if this was a wonderful successor to the first DA, but I can easily see Bioware making a shinier DA2.

I don't think Bioware really gives an eff about what DA fans on the internet think either. I think they know that they could make a really awesome tactical, Origins-like sequel that will sell good , OR they could make a mediocre fantasy action game that is DA only in story and sell much more because it will have more mass market appeal.

From my understanding, DA2 didn't sell nearly as well as the original.

Really? Interesting. However, I think it is safe to say that the attempt to bring the game to more audiences was still Bioware's intention. And if they really are using DA:2 as a template for the next one it seems they are doubling down on that philosophy.

Origins sold because it was different, DA2 didn't sell because it was far too similar to other, better games. If somebody wants to 'press a button and watch something awesome happen' they'll go buy God of War or something.

EA thinks that forcing Bioware out of their niche and into a broader market will result in more profit, but it hasn't really worked out like that so far. I just think Bioware are great at what they do but only mediocre at what everybody else is already doing.

I honestly don't have much hope for DA3. Origins is one the best RPGs in my opinion, and DA2 threw it all away in favour of boring ass Combat and dumbed down RPG elements. Bioware isn't nearly as good a company as they used to be now that EA took over. Chances are Dragon age will stay the way it is and continue to devolve.

If Dragon Age 3 doesn't wow me and make me take back everything I just said. Mass Effect 3 will be the last game I ever buy from Bioware.

@Arker101: I full-heartedly agree. I really like the food analogy, could be because I'm hungry though. But yes, soy sauce is great with sushi, but hack'n slash combat does not belong on top of my tactical turn-based RPG.

Add a little more depth to the combat, and merge the battle systems and the environment from DA:O and boom.

You call the story and universe of Dragon Age rich and vibrant?? I find it dull, extremely generic, and it's all been done before MANY times. They COULD have built it into something more interesting with Dragon Age 2 but instead they went ass backwards and created plot holes and horrible characters up the ying. 

Pros: Great art style, fast paced combat without losing any of the strategy of Origins, mostly interesting characters, continues the great universe started with Origins, cool and challenging side-bosses, great voice acting (as usual), interesting attempt at a framed narrative

Cons: Recycled assets, enemies that spawn out of nowhere, the inability to equip armour to your companions (I hate this so much), cliff hanger ending, not enough Darkspawn, interesting attempt at a framed narrative

imo

To me, the game did not look finished. It looked like a product that was rushed to market. So i think Bioware are completely aware of what needed to be fixed, and they most likely will if a sequel ever comes out. Making the assumption that DA2 turned out the way it did was because of major oversights or bad decisions in the design process seems unrealistic to me. Bioware don't roll like that, yo. They make great games!

That's what i think

@mazik765 said:

Pros: Great art style, fast paced combat without losing any of the strategy of Origins, mostly interesting characters, continues the great universe started with Origins, cool and challenging side-bosses, great voice acting (as usual), interesting attempt at a framed narrative

Cons: Recycled assets, enemies that spawn out of nowhere, the inability to equip armour to your companions (I hate this so much), cliff hanger ending, not enough Darkspawn, interesting attempt at a framed narrative

imo

Yep all this. I did enjoy they didn't just do the Bioware framework of "Go collect stuff from 3-5 different places then do a final mission, and oh theirs a twist."

How about take your full 24 months to make it? That's a start. And making the combat and skill trees interesting could also be a good idea.

@nobel said:

To me, the game did not look finished. It looked like a product that was rushed to market. So i think Bioware are completely aware of what needed to be fixed, and they most likely will if a sequel ever comes out. Making the assumption that DA2 turned out the way it did was because of major oversights or bad decisions in the design process seems unrealistic to me. Bioware don't roll like that, yo. They make great games!

That's what i think

I agree. The flaws with DA2 are mostly obvious.

My issue with the series that few people mention is that the healers are always annoying. Wynne was the worst character in 1 and Anders was the worst character in 2, and I do not want my main character to be a healer.

@Veektarius: I didn't like Wynne, but I'd argue on Anders. Regardless, the simple solution to that problem would be to give every class a healing tree. Then you wouldn't be forced to use them if you didn't want to. Though, there would be lore based reasons to object to that.

You think Bioware will go to the GB forums to check what people think? That's not how it works. Help Influence is a very misleading title. I thought it would at least be a link to an official Bioware survey or something. Nothing we say here will influence how they make DA3.

@CottonWolf: Even if you don't think Anders was the worst, you have to agree that the 'climactic moment', to speak vaguely of the end of DA2, gave you a lot less choice as to how to deal with Anders than it was meant to because you probably didn't have another healer. I dealt with him by not finishing the game.

@Veektarius said:

@nobel said:

To me, the game did not look finished. It looked like a product that was rushed to market. So i think Bioware are completely aware of what needed to be fixed, and they most likely will if a sequel ever comes out. Making the assumption that DA2 turned out the way it did was because of major oversights or bad decisions in the design process seems unrealistic to me. Bioware don't roll like that, yo. They make great games!

That's what i think

I agree. The flaws with DA2 are mostly obvious.

My issue with the series that few people mention is that the healers are always annoying. Wynne was the worst character in 1 and Anders was the worst character in 2, and I do not want my main character to be a healer.

I killed Wynne and ended up just quaffing health potions for the entire game. As for Dragon Age II, I consider myself victorious for refusing to play it.