Loved the hell out of Origins. But after DA2, I am deeply ambivalent about Inquisition. I don't think there's a single thing anyone could tell me that would restore my faith, but I'll give the game a fair hearing post-release.

man this series really lost its heart after the first one...not only in a gameplay sense but in a writing sense as well. i hope this game returns to that a little bit but it kinda seems like they are doubling down on the DAII style as far as writing goes. might be wrong though.

its strange how one game that wasnt even particularly awful could sour me so much on the idea of further sequels but im still really cautious about this game.

I wish they would give more details on... I think it was called Dragon Age Keep? I'm wanting to know how (or even if) I can transfer my PS3 saves of Origins and II to Inquisition on the PS4. Other than that, I'm optimistic since I replayed the original game and played the second for the first time earlier this year.

dragon age 2 has become an opinion first and a game second. the chaos of the internet in full fury.

game looks solid, and no-one in their right mind is surprised, despite surefire claims that bioware died or some shit three or however many years ago.

@casper_: I feel exactly the same way. I wouldn't even call Dragon Age 2 a bad game, just a deeply disappointing one. As far as this one, i think my trepidation comes more from Bioware themselves being a very different studio now than any hang ups I have about DA2.

Loved the first one, one of the 10 people that actually dug the second one, so I am pretty jazzed for what they have shown so far. Looking forward to this come October.

I just started Dragon Age Origins for the first time on Saturday and am enjoying it immensly. Having a game similar to that and looking better....yes please. Looking forward to playing the second one too despite it being different.

Alright that trailer got me, I'm excited now.

Man this and Witcher 3 and possibly Final Fantasy XV. The next 18 months is going to be an awesome time for RPGs!

@smtdante89 said:

Think of Dragon Age Keep like the Gibbed Save Editor with a fancy interface and much deeper customization. You can't "import" your save, but you can recreate it with the Keep if you wish. Across the two DA games, the expansions, add-ons, and other things. Even if you didn't play DA2, or the add-ons for Origins, or anything, you can still check choices for those things for use in Inquisition.

@slag: No chance that FF XV is coming out in the next 18 months. :P

I'm not convinced that this is going to be great just yet. Also:

I found Varric borderline insufferable in Dragon Age II as the obviously cocky, cheeky dwarf that could be easily tagged a rebel among his people because of his shaved face (which frankly just makes him look smug). I'd love it if they could give him more depth in Inquisition, but his personality just rubbed me the wrong way. (Then again, I thought Dragon Age II was insufferable in general.)

what really?

I thought originally it was supposed to be a q4 2014 release, so I figured it would be out by Q4 2015....

Square Enix hasn't announced any release windows for it yet. My best guess is that it will be out sometime next year, but that's just me throwing darts at a calendar.

Every time someone says Dragon Age Origins didn't look great, I can only question the platform they played it on. Maxed PC settings from the top-down perspective looked fantastic, and it was the way the game was designed to be played.

Anyway, it looks pretty and it's hitting the right character buttons (just need Aveline confirmed as returning, though I don't want the entire roster to be old characters), but there's a whole lot of proving to be done on the quality of content front before I can call myself optimistically excited.

@slag: They have never announced any sort of release window. My guess is Q4 2015 at the earliest. I dunno, we don't really know how far into development the game even is. It doesn't seem like they actually did anything for the first several years after it was announced, and then they decided to switch to PS4, so who knows how much of the original game was salvageable.

I dunno! FF XV is probably one of the most mysterious games out there. I'm super interested in hearing everything that happened during its development, but they will obviously never tell anyone.

I'm definitely hoping they'll have something other than a big battle set piece to show off at E3, because that's almost all we've ever seen of the game in the whole 7-8 years and I'm kinda getting bored of that.

I played it on PC on maxed setting, and if you're calling that pretty... you have a lot lower standards than me.

this is from IGN and it's very vague but for what it's worth...

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/final-fantasy-15-quite-far-into-development

ahhh man. I finished the 360 version of the GoT rpg. You should go into it with maybe lower expectations. I had a good time with it but that's mostly because I'm easily amused. Running around as the dog was relaxing. I also made a game out of gimping the stat & skills progression of the two main chars. still wasnt that hard tho. some of the story and character stuff was interesting.

EDIT: minor gameplay spoiler I guess? not sure

Have they explained how the save imports are supposed to work on next-gen platforms?

Besides that random line that was awkward and bad in the middle of the trailer, this game is looking good. Let's see.

Played the first 3 chapters and I'm loving it. The little things it lifts straight from the HBO show, like the music and voice talent, as well as the likeliness of actors help it a lot.

Also, I think some aspects of their character creation and progression systems are pretty darn nifty - specifically the traits. Like I cut some wildling's throat quickly, rather than torturing him for information, which earned me a the *expedient* trait. I bet if I'd tortured him, I'd have gotten a *cruel*-like trait, which probably wouldn't have been beneficial.

Combat too isn't as bad as I thought at first. Comboing the attacks of two characters is absolutely necessary for success in many situations, which is kinda neat. Feels a little like a throwback to KotOR, which isn't a bad thing.

I kinda feel like its an underrated little RPG gem, that's been overlooked for its many rough edges, but is actually quite precious - especially for fans of the HBO show, and the Song of Ice and Fire in general.

Most of Dragon Age's world is a mix of D&D and A Song of Ice and Fire (The Grey Warden's really just are The Night's Watch with a demon blood ritual thrown in).

Hang on. Their group is called the Inquisition? Really?

This is one of those things I never understood, especially since the modern British accent is a fairly recent occurrence.

Link: Did Shakespeare sound more 'American' than 'British?'

@viking_funeral said:

By 'British' you mean English I assume? It's a common generalisation but I think it's worth pointing out that there is no one modern British accent. Britain consists of England, Wales, and Scotland, so saying someone has a British accent would be sort of the equivalent to scooping up all of the accents from the US, Canada, and South America and summing them all up as 'American'.

It's maybe not the best analogy since the US and South America are technically two different continents but... you get the drift :P

I think there is supposed to be an online "fill in the blanks as to what you did" form tied to your EA/Bioware account, since no one had the forethought to store your choices along the way for the inevitability that the game spanned multiple generations (I suppose the fact that Origins started development back when Baldur's Gate 2 was finished sort of excuses that. There was no Bioware account and Bioware wasn't owned by EA, nor was there an Xbox 360 or PS3).

@white: Bet you didn't expect that? Nudge, nudge.

Yes and no. I find that Americans tend not to care which region of the isles the accent comes from for historical or fantasy films, so long as it doesn't sound American. Which is odd, because the accents in the region of Albion have changed more in the last 300 years than the accents of North America.

I think it's one of those movie things. Kind of like people expect cars to explode when shot or in an accident, despite it being near impossible in reality. Or sound in space.

But, yeah, you're right that I should refer to the Bard's theoretical accent being 'English,' even if I was using more general terms.

@viking_funeral: Well, in Dragon Age at least they've done well in spreading the accents around. Fereldens appear to be exclusively English (even have a good mix of both northern and southern accents), and the Dalish Elves are commonly Welsh (with some occasional Irish maybe...? I can't really recall one way or the other) as of Dragon Age II.

Dwarves are American, as are the Qunari. Least I remember Sten sounding more so American than English; the big Qunari leader from DAII was most definitely American at the very least. Orlasians are French, Antivan are Spanish, though no Scottish as of yet I don't think. But then there's still time!

@dimi3je said:

No. I honestly did not.

What does the Inquisition have to do with a hellspawn invasion? Interrogate them to death? Conduct demonic espionage?

"Inquisition" is not something you wanna call yourself when it has really negative connotations.

Color me impressed. I now have my eye on this too.

Alright, that sounds reasonable. Thanks for the information/update!

I love how a company like Bioware can release a billion great games, but as soon as they release one or two disappointing ones, everyone is ready to shit on everything they do.

@liquidprince:

Yeah. I still have faith in this game.

The trailer was really underwhelming to me

How many disappointing games would BioWare have to release before people are officially allowed to feel wary about any upcoming projects? 3? 4? Do they have to maybe break even by releasing an equal amount of disappointing games as there are revered ones before people can then express their wilted faith in the company?

Plus, you make it sound as if there's a constant stream of everyone shitting on Inquisition, when there's very clearly a mix of both positive and negative sentiments. And I say this all as someone who's actually excited for Inquisition. But comon now, a lot of people (myself included) went through a nasty one-two punch from BioWare with DAII and ME3 one after the other -- then there's also the KOTOR MMO, which people weren't especially favourable of. Though I'm to understand it's gotten itself a niche once it went F2P, but still... it's no KOTOR 3.

Now I'm sure you feel differently and maybe even loved the aforementioned disappointments, but hey opinions ect., and there were a lot of people that don't share your (theoretical) love for those games. It should be more than understandable as to why there'll still be a sect of people that are going to be cautious about anything new BioWare has in store.

Well that's the difference between you and I: I actually really liked ME3, and only found DA2 disappointing, but not horrendously bad. As for KOTOR, it was the first MMO I've ever played in my life, and it was enjoyable enough. In fact, because of DA2, people were already willing to be more aggressive towards other Bioware projects so it wasn't a huge surprise when everyone shat on the ending of ME3. I personally think that a company that has a great track record should be able to get the benefit of the doubt, instead of people just signing their new games off.

You can already see that a lot of people are getting ready to dismiss the new Uncharted game as well. We have heard nothing of the game yet, but people are already like "oh no, some people left the company so Uncharted must be terrible." Back in the day (and I guess even now to some extent when I speak to my friends) people used to be excited about new releases. Now it just seems that the general opinion of the internet is to hate first, and then possibly give it a chance, as opposed to being hopeful and then judging.

As a trailer... yeah it's not great.

@liquidprince: I think this often stated claim of how the internet is largely all about hate to be simply a generalisation, it's just that we always tend to focus on the negatives. All it takes is one asshole in a thread and you're bound to have at least someone jump to the conclusion that the thread is a mess ect. if not the entire site. It's a weird instinct but it's also a very common one -- all it takes is one bad experience to sour the whole. I mean like I said, there's clearly an even divide between people that are excited for Inquisition and those that are still on the fence because of how DAII turned out, yet you jumped to the conclusion that everyone is readying to shit on it.

Besides, with the way the industry and marketing are built around twisting the truth if not outright lying to the consumer, I think it's healthy that people take a more cautious look at games and try not to get sweeped up too much in the hype. Of course, certain developers can gather trust and can thusly inspire more excitement than most, hence why anything CD Project Red are up to always seems to be greeted with universal cheer. However BioWare are now commonly perceived as having stumbled on their track record lately; while yes, they've also of course done some fantastic games in the past, the latest game they've released that has a majority-held opinion of being great is Mass Effect 2... which is from 2010.

Companies are often changing as well, with people leaving ect., so the company that made great game X isn't necessarily the same company that is currently developing unreleased game Y, which is another reason as to why people can lose some faith (or even gain some) in a developer regardless of their track-record. So like I said, I think it's perfectly reasonable as to why you'll have a sect of people who aren't going to be instantly swayed by trailers and such for Inquisition. However there are people who have liked what they've seen/read and are excited, again such as myself. But people are different, and just because I'm able to look past DAII and give BioWare another shot doesn't mean everyone else should.

And I also haven't seen much in the way of people hating on the new Uncharted, either... I've of course been making threads detailing people leaving the company, but I would hardly think I'm fearmongering or anything and am instead showing concern as to how the game's development is shaping up. I don't hold any one particular opinion towards the game.

Now obviously you'll also have people who will just hate on and/or have unrealistic expectations for everything, but that's just one part of the internet... or Hell, life in general. People like that will always exist. Fortunately on places like GB in particular there should be enough reasonable posts to drown out the bullshit, so long as we can stop focussing on all that fluff and instead pay more attention to actual discourse.

I don't disagree with anything you said. I do however try and see the good in most games before outright hating on them, and have noticed that that is not the norm when it comes to the internet. You may call that a generalization, and it is, but it is also an accurate way to describe the internet none the less. Sure you could say that it is a case of "haters are louder" then the people who like the games, but it really gets tiresome seeing so much negativity towards games. I mean they're freaking games, made for entertainment... Granted, the reason I love GiantBomb is because a lot of the negativity you would find on other sites in minimized here, and the ratio between love and hate is a bit more balanced. But the internet is the internet, and as such, it will always skew more towards hate.

On a slightly different topic, I also hate how people instantly dismiss games as soon as they're sequels. Like I remember Jeff saying he was fatigued with the Batman Arkham style while reviewing Arkham City and that blew my mind. The second game in the sequel, and he was already tired of it?! Like how do sequels get so tiresome? Is the TWO YEAR break that you had from the last game not enough? I mean, if its a game formula you like, even a one year break to me seems plenty, as long as the quality of the game is there. I'm not saying that people have no right to get tired of certain franchises, hell I'm super tired of Call of Duty... but the solution is that I haven't played one since Modern Warfare 2, and I don't go around spreading hate and vitriol to people who do still enjoy it.

Anyways, that's the end of that little rant.

It isn't that sequels are bad but it is often "overloaded". For instance if the next-next Batman game is called Batman Arkham Space Invasion that has Batman fighting and winning against The Predator and Aliens on The Watchtower is great and actually sounds like fun....but why bother calling it "Arkham"?

As I wrote before I'm wry of this game because the experience I had with the previous game I felt like I was promised one game by the pre-release media and information but was sold another when I got it. I don't believe that irrational at all to take a skeptical stance. Forgive me if I wait for game play videos instead of relying on these videos.

wait a minute? why is this game titled "inquisition"? Trailer kinda doesn't explain what type of heresy they are fighting, except dragon based economy?

Has everyone seen this? I just happened upon it today and it is the most informative thing I've seen about how the game will play. Incidentally, it's a little spoilery, albeit in an isolated section of the game where the events have no context.

@veektarius: That was pretty cool except man I hate boss fights where the boss summons underlings throughout the fight.

If it plays well it might be good. Artistically it looks like crap.

@humanity: Are there any boss fights in Dragon Age 1 or 2 that aren't like that? (I ask only slightly facetiously)

1) I'm glad they appear to have gone back to a more realistic style of art than the faux-anime garbage they used in DAII.

2) I seriously hope you are not locked into that camera angle while exploring. In the video it's way too close to the ground and the character is taking up too much screen space. I'd like to be able to see more than my character's back and part of the ceiling. I mean, I'm like 99% sure that you'll be able to move the camera in the game, but that 1% also sounds like exactly the kind of thing Bioware would choose to do and then come up with come BS about how "that's what fans wanted."

3) Looks like they went back and slowed down the pace of combat. Strategy might actually matter again as opposed to how fast I can mash the A button.

4) Not thrilled about the return of the conversation wheel.

5) Did you know that victory is impossible and the Elder One will destroy us all?

@veektarius: I've only played DA1 but a large majority of boss battles weren't like that. The bosses had henchmen that you had to dispatch beforehand but for the most part they didn't indefinitely keep summoning more out of thin air.

Weapons still stick to character's backs as if by magic. :/

I'm going to harp on this point every single time for every single game until developers stahp it. You cut it out! It is lazy and shitty. You spend all this time on the visuals and still you half ass it on this point. I won't have it.

Hype Trailer! The game sure looks pretty if the trailer is any real indication.

However, Varric's little comment seemed a outta place to me, and kinda brought back the bite of disappointment that was DA2.