@Hailinel: I didn't say real world events. I said issues--as in, boy, I wish DA2 was a story about a civil rights movement instead of a story about a subterranean magical rock turning people evil, cause, you know, that's totally not a cliche at this point--though "issues" was perhaps a bit of a misnomer.

What I should have said is that many fantasy stories operate on plot mechanisms that are entirely outside the influence of the characters in those stories, and that is what I personally find uninteresting. I can think to three games I played in 2011--DA2, FFXIII and Catherine--which became substantially less interesting to me as they began to lean more heavily on genre tropes, and it's a shame, because they usually supplant things that are much more interesting. Admittedly, its oversimplifying things to blame it all on the genre, but I do feel that very often, the fantastical elements of many video games do a direct disservice to their thematic ambitions.

@Brodehouse said:

@Jimbo Hey, I agree that Meredith being the one who got the corrupted lyrium from Varric's brother was a bit ass pully, but you also have to consider this is a world where plague monsters live below the earth looking to awaken their sleeping gods. And at this point we know very little about the corrupted lyrium, where it came from and why it is the way it is (it seems similar to darkspawn corruption in that it's victims hear a 'song' when in possession of it). As for Anders, he wasn't asking for your help because he couldn't get it done. He was asking for your help to make you complicit in his crime. He's manipulating events for his sake. I understand your desires, man, I understand how you feel railroaded. But sometimes you have to trust your DM. I run tabletop games and I have one player who refuses to put themselves in danger, or allow a dramatic situation to happen, because he doesn't trust me. It makes for a boring game. You set up a budding gang war in Area 1 and political intrigue in Area 2, and they find some way to prevent anything interesting from happening. I understand you want less tracks, but you have to go with the flow at some point and trust the DM. Or just stop playing with them.

Railroading is the last thing any DM should do. I've played with a DM who was utter trash at the job and refused to allow the players any deviation from the events he scripted. (Yes, he wrote out a script.) And my current DM's idea of railroading is to fuck everyone over when it's convenient only to him and then look flabbergasted when people react to his being an asshole with annoyance. That you defend the idea of railroading as you do suggests that you're not a DM I'd l want to play with.

@Brodehouse said:

@Jimbo Hey, I agree that Meredith being the one who got the corrupted lyrium from Varric's brother was a bit ass pully, but you also have to consider this is a world where plague monsters live below the earth looking to awaken their sleeping gods. And at this point we know very little about the corrupted lyrium, where it came from and why it is the way it is (it seems similar to darkspawn corruption in that it's victims hear a 'song' when in possession of it). As for Anders, he wasn't asking for your help because he couldn't get it done. He was asking for your help to make you complicit in his crime. He's manipulating events for his sake. I understand your desires, man, I understand how you feel railroaded. But sometimes you have to trust your DM. I run tabletop games and I have one player who refuses to put themselves in danger, or allow a dramatic situation to happen, because he doesn't trust me. It makes for a boring game. You set up a budding gang war in Area 1 and political intrigue in Area 2, and they find some way to prevent anything interesting from happening. I understand you want less tracks, but you have to go with the flow at some point and trust the DM. Or just stop playing with them.

Railroading is the last thing any DM should do. I've played with a DM who was utter trash at the job and refused to allow the players any deviation from the events he scripted. (Yes, he wrote out a script.) And my current DM's idea of railroading is to fuck everyone over when it's convenient only to him and then look flabbergasted when people react to his being an asshole with annoyance. That you defend the idea of railroading as you do suggests that you're not a DM I'd l want to play with.

If you finished DA2, you know that the last thirty seconds are perhaps the most interesting story facet in the franchise. If what it's hinting at is true, DA3 could be really fucking awesome.

@Brodehouse said:

@Hailinel

@Brodehouse said:

@Jimbo Hey, I agree that Meredith being the one who got the corrupted lyrium from Varric's brother was a bit ass pully, but you also have to consider this is a world where plague monsters live below the earth looking to awaken their sleeping gods. And at this point we know very little about the corrupted lyrium, where it came from and why it is the way it is (it seems similar to darkspawn corruption in that it's victims hear a 'song' when in possession of it). As for Anders, he wasn't asking for your help because he couldn't get it done. He was asking for your help to make you complicit in his crime. He's manipulating events for his sake. I understand your desires, man, I understand how you feel railroaded. But sometimes you have to trust your DM. I run tabletop games and I have one player who refuses to put themselves in danger, or allow a dramatic situation to happen, because he doesn't trust me. It makes for a boring game. You set up a budding gang war in Area 1 and political intrigue in Area 2, and they find some way to prevent anything interesting from happening. I understand you want less tracks, but you have to go with the flow at some point and trust the DM. Or just stop playing with them.

Railroading is the last thing any DM should do. I've played with a DM who was utter trash at the job and refused to allow the players any deviation from the events he scripted. (Yes, he wrote out a script.) And my current DM's idea of railroading is to fuck everyone over when it's convenient only to him and then look flabbergasted when people react to his being an asshole with annoyance. That you defend the idea of railroading as you do suggests that you're not a DM I'd l want to play with.

Roleplaying is supposed to be a co-operative experience between DM and the players. The DM has to come up with interesting situations, different options, triggers that lead into different events, and on top of it all, has to improvise to make sure everyone is seeing all the best stuff and having a good time. Obviously working off a single path script isn't great, but having this attitude that all design is against the player is exactly what creates boring games. The one player who won't go save the world because the four hours of work the DM did was all related to saving the world. So now instead of trusting the DM, they've decided they're going to sit at the secret hideout and count their gear. These are the people who complained that they were railroaded into being Grey Wardens in DA:O. You're intentionally misunderstanding and attributing negative aspects to me just so you can call me a fucker and a shitty storyteller, and I don't really appreciate it. I give plenty of options to my players, but I like to have plans for them ahead of time, I like to inform them of their options, or lean them into the most interesting results. I tried to do complete sandbox with them, and it was boring. They didn't do anything. And keep in mind, when it comes to Dragon Age or any other video game, they're all working off scripts. You can't not be Revan in KOTOR.

I'm sorry, but in a pen and paper RPG, extensive railroading of the sort that Dragon Age II forces upon the player is only fun for the DM. At the end of a pen and paper campaign that's well run, the players are ultimately key to the events that unfold and their actions bear a significant impact on the outcome. In Dragon Age II, you can't stop Anders from engaging in his foolishness, you can't convince Orsino to not go batshit even if you side with the mages and have to fight him no matter what. Yes, video games work off of a script, but the script of Dragon Age II is bad, and it's made worse for ignoring many of the player's accomplishments in the first game. And just to be clear, I was one of those people that complained about being railroaded into Grey Warden-hood. Duncan is a terrible character. I was not sad when he died. Overall, the story is in the first game is fun, but that's largely because the player has more freedom to affect events once the introduction is out of the way. By comparison, Hawke is really only just along for the ride, getting continually fucked over along the way.

I have been in pen and paper campaigns where I have been continually fucked over along the way. In fact, in the current campaign I'm in, the only reason I'm still playing after seven years is because of the other players. Everyone is pretty much in agreement that the DM is a dick.

@Hailinel Already maybe now I'm flabbergasted. The back of the box on Dragon Age might as well say "You're a Grey Warden, go stop the Blight!" and then were mad when you were forced to be a Grey Warden? I just.. I don't even know. Maybe you shouldn't have played.

@Hailinel Kind of, yeah. He's there to stop the Blight, not be your buddy. The second book reinforces that aspect of the Wardens.

Maybe they should have made an option where you refuse him, he says the hell with it and leaves, and then you get ambushed and killed by Howe. Maybe the character creation process should have said "do you wanna be a Grey Warden" and if you say no it kicks you to the title screen.

Best case scenario they will pretend DA2 never existed, or merely hint at it while taking place in a totally different country. Would much rather see Morrigans story playout.

I know quite a few casual gamer friends who 'adored' Dragon Age 2's combat, and had never touched a Bioware game prior. So there's that.

@Brodehouse said:

@Hailinel I understand, but it's also to my point of 'trust the DM'. If you can't trust that the DM is trying to get you into the most fun situation he has, then yeah, it's going to be bad for everyone involved. I set up this situation in my game recently where the group would go to a meeting, find out that the person at the meeting didn't set it up and is confused about the situation, and then get gassed and wake up somewhere else. Somewhere else chained up to the ceiling in the box of an 18 wheeler traveling somewhere. There's a sleeping guard on a chair with a visible gun and the keys in his pocket. However they get themselves free, they open the back door to see they're on the higheay and there's a SUV following them, the SUV starts shooting at them and now they're in a gunfight on the highway, leaning out the back door of an 18 wheeler, flying past other drivers, at some point another SUV would join in and guys would try to jump into the 18 wheeler, or maybe the party jumps to the SUV, or maybe the 18 wheeler flips and all cars involved crash and they pull themselves out ofthe wreckage all fucked up and hurt and settle it with fists. Total action goodness. My one player refused to go to the meeting. Said something bad might happen. Tried to change the location, make sure nothing fun could possibly happen. Eventually I gave up. He was not going to allow himself to lose control for even a second because he obviously didn't trust that I was going to give him something fun.

I took a while to respond to this because I wanted to think back on my own RPG experiences, and frankly, I think that your argument can be easily countered.

Playing a game like D&D or Shadowrun is not entirely about the experiences that the DM creates, and the trust a party has in a DM can be easily broken. I briefly played in a Godlike campaign. If you're not familiar with Godlike, it's an RPG set during World War II where people have superpowers. So that sounds pretty cool, right? A party of superhumans taking the fight to the Third Reich. So the campaign begins, and our characters start off in an American boot camp. No problem, right?

Well, a problem quickly developed. Or should I say, slowly developed over the course of multiple game sessions. When the game started, none of us were aware of our powers yet, and the DM ran the campaign at a snail's pace. We had to complete boot camp. We had to complete everything that he had set up. And it took longer than most of us had patience for. We played the game one night a week for a month, and absolutely nothing of consequence happened because:

A. We still didn't have our powers, and

B. We were in fucking boot camp, despite the fact that the DM had to know how eager we were all to get the fuck out of there and go to Europe.

The game fell apart because the DM was insistent on having things his way. Even if there were important story elements in those boot camp sessions, they were so few, far between, and ultimately inconsequential that I honestly can't remember. Ultimately, no one wanted to continue playing because no one was enjoying it, and the fault lied purely with the DM.

OK, so he was a pretty shitty DM, right? Well, now let me talk about my current DM; the one whose D&D campaign I'm still playing in after seven years. He once pitted us against a high level ranger/rogue and his friends out in the middle of the wilderness. We got our asses handed to us in combat; even our tank surrendered because he didn't see any other option. There was a sniper in the trees, someone had summoned a creature to dash in and out of the forest to knock us around. There was literally nothing that we could do despite the DM's insistance that we had the capability to fight our way out. Then we spent the next two hours of the game as the captives of these complete asshole characters that had come out of nowhere to make our lives miserable. I mean COMPLETE. ASSHOLES. Their arrogance was overwhelming. They had a gnome in their group that is among the most obnoxious NPCs I have ever met in any campaign ever. By the time we got out of that situation, which involved these assholes biting off more than even they could chew in a dungeon that they were forcing us to explore, we still couldn't feel satisfaction because the dungeon monsters had killed that fucking gnome when we all ready to tear him apart ourselves.

And then when I expressed how dismal of an experience that entire adventure was, the DM was indignant in his insistent response that it was our fault we were in that mess in the first place. However, I don't recall ever having a desire to be sniped at by the elven equivalent of Golgo 13.

(On a side note, I should mention that the DM really is a prat; at this point, the group is mostly putting up with him because we like gaming together and are only tolerating him until the end of the campaign, which is in theory soon.)

Long story short, if the players have reason to distrust the DM, the DM shouldn't be surprised if any or all of the players rebel against an action he wants the party to do.

DA2 was okay for the time given, but certainly disappointing. I'd just like for Bioware to have more time really. Give me DA3 in the next generation of consoles or something. It's way too soon to already start talking about another DA game.

most of what happened in DA2 can be ignored in the rest of the dragon age universe. since it pretty much entirely took place in kirkwall. some stuff would extend out, but nothing really significant

I think DA3 will be connected to DA2 in the same way 2 was connected to 3. Some supporting characters will reappear, like maybe Isabela or Fenris, maybe as playables, but the location will be different. I expect they will go with another premade Shepard/Hawke, though they may offer a lightly broader array of options on appearance/race/and such.

I think it should just be called "Dragon Age: somethingsomething" because I don't want this to follow Dragon Age II in anyway.

They will handle it by saying the second game didn't exist, that's how they should handle it.

The save file transfers have yet to work in DA, so I don't think it'll ever matter. Instead, if it truly carries forward, there will be canned results pulled from the previous games, if you import or not.

@Farbelowaverage: They've said that it will import your choices somehow, but seeing as how broken the save file transfer between 1 and 2 was, I'm expecting a catch-up question and answer type thing.

@Beforet said:

I wouldn't be surprised if they quietly ignored DA2's story in favor of a new one. Probably one involving the Grey Wardens in an attempt to appease alienated fans.

I really don't think going back to the Grey Wardens will appease alienated fans. See, I'm one of those alienated fans and they have to do so much more then that.

It's called "Inquisition," so it's clear where the story is headed. It's a direct continuation of the ideas hinted at in the first game and thrown in your face the entire way through the second.

It seems like it will follow the Bioware formula of "gather forces from these locations to converge on the endgame point." It will tie up story threads from the first game regarding the Darkspawn and DLC events that occurred in Awakening and Witch Hunt which were barely addressed in Dragon Age 2.

Believe it or not, despite me being a nay-saying pessimistic and the founders of the company leaving, I have faith that Dragon Age III will be awesome. It just won't be much of a surprise.

It might be me, but when I bought Dragon Age 1 and fell in love with I never expected it all to turn into this mage hunt and inquisition nonsense.
 
Might be cliche, but I would rather be killing Darkspawn for another few games, hunting their corrupted gods and stuff, but I guess they resolved most of it in Awakenings. 
 
Shame.

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

It might be me, but when I bought Dragon Age 1 and fell in love with I never expected it all to turn into this mage hunt and inquisition nonsense. Might be cliche, but I would rather be killing Darkspawn for another few games, hunting their corrupted gods and stuff, but I guess they resolved most of it in Awakenings. Shame.

Why? I don't really get why Darkspawn is any more interesting than the mage-templar war stuff. Is it just because it's more fantastical or what?

The story isn't what I remember disliking about DA2, so if they just have more environments in DA3 I'll probably like it.

@TaliciaDragonsong: I mean just because it's situated humans vs. other humans doesn't mean the other races don't have a lot in the outcome of the war. The elves, being more... spiritual as well as not having reason to support the chantry necessarily would probably back the mages, whilst the dwarves would probably support the templars since they can't do magic anyway. and the Qunari have a good excuse to try invading again.

The grey wardens as an organization never really interested me that much though, probably because they were so like witchers except way worse. Might as well be normal humans that have dreams of ugly ass creatures and dragons.

@CheapPoison said:

if it was up to me.

Start over again with a different name and setting. Cause i am not sure if the dragon age brand name is still such a boon to have.

The Dragon Age

@TaliciaDragonsong: well it's dragon age because that's what the chantry named the age.

as far as what the big bad guy would be, I would assume it's going to be the head Tevinter guy and the empress of Orlais, whatever side you end up on (templars/mages) because there's totally room for a war between the two nations, Tevinter bein all "yo we're invading to free the mages from your sick oppression dudes" and Orlais bein all "nope" but that is just me! and Mages are fantasy stuff, you know... just because they're humans doesn't mean they aren't just as fantastical as the darkspawn are. Returning to Darkspawn would also be kinda silly since DA:O did end the blight.

(honestly the mage-templar stuff is actually rather cathartic after what happened to the lodge of sorceresses from witcher 2)

@TaliciaDragonsong: fair enough! I'm playing through DA:O again right now, and honestly the darkspawn stuff is just so much less interesting than the parts where I'm dealing with the other factions. I understand wanting to go back to it since it was the better game but darkspawn as an entity were only interesting in that they caused disparate people to band together.

I don't see how they can just avoid Hawke altogether. He became the most famous person in Kirkwall for the better part of 10 years, an he was there when the war started. He's a pretty big character when you look at it like that. As for the Grey Warden, what point is there to bring them back when the Darkspawn threat is nothing now? this templar/mage war is a pretty big deal, as it's changing the very culture of Thedas that's been in place for a pretty long time, so yeah, that's a pretty big event to focus on.

I just hope they take a page from the Mass Effect team and do a better transfer of events. A few moments in II did not coincide with my choices in Origins.

@LikeaSsur said:

I don't see how they can just avoid Hawke altogether. He became the most famous person in Kirkwall for the better part of 10 years, an he was there when the war started. He's a pretty big character when you look at it like that. As for the Grey Warden, what point is there to bring them back when the Darkspawn threat is nothing now? this templar/mage war is a pretty big deal, as it's changing the very culture of Thedas that's been in place for a pretty long time, so yeah, that's a pretty big event to focus on.

well the grey warden also stopped the fereldan civil war or w/e. Not saying you should play as them, but they're still an important character

@Animasta: True, but the civil war is done, and the templar/mage war is just beginning. I suppose the Warden would have a lot of say toward one side or the other, but I just don't see them returning to battle. Then again, I never played through Awakening, so maybe something happened in there that would give them a reason to do so.

@LikeaSsur said:

@Animasta: True, but the civil war is done, and the templar/mage war is just beginning. I suppose the Warden would have a lot of say toward one side or the other, but I just don't see them returning to battle. Then again, I never played through Awakening, so maybe something happened in there that would give them a reason to do so.

But it's also been a decade since Dragon Age: Origins in terms of story. The Warden might still be out there doing Warden stuff, but this isn't going to be his/her story.

And I hope to god that if Hawke is involved, it's just a short clip of watching that Shepard wannabe dying in a gutter.

"How will Bioware handle the story after DA2?"

Hmm... my guess would be; poorly.

@Hailinel said:

@LikeaSsur said:

@Animasta: True, but the civil war is done, and the templar/mage war is just beginning. I suppose the Warden would have a lot of say toward one side or the other, but I just don't see them returning to battle. Then again, I never played through Awakening, so maybe something happened in there that would give them a reason to do so.

But it's also been a decade since Dragon Age: Origins in terms of story. The Warden might still be out there doing Warden stuff, but this isn't going to be his/her story.

And I hope to god that if Hawke is involved, it's just a short clip of watching that Shepard wannabe dying in a gutter.

Hawke is fine don't be a baby about it

Hawke was not the problem with DA2

@Animasta said:

@Hailinel said:

@LikeaSsur said:

@Animasta: True, but the civil war is done, and the templar/mage war is just beginning. I suppose the Warden would have a lot of say toward one side or the other, but I just don't see them returning to battle. Then again, I never played through Awakening, so maybe something happened in there that would give them a reason to do so.

But it's also been a decade since Dragon Age: Origins in terms of story. The Warden might still be out there doing Warden stuff, but this isn't going to be his/her story.

And I hope to god that if Hawke is involved, it's just a short clip of watching that Shepard wannabe dying in a gutter.

Hawke is fine don't be a baby about it

Hawke was not the problem with DA2

Hawke was a major problem and one of the primary reasons I never played the game. The character represented everything I didn't want in Dragon Age.

@Hailinel: what, speech? I identified with Hawke just as much as I identified with my grey warden, can't really see a big difference besides the speech thing.

Well the second one way outsold the first one so I don't think they really give a shit.

@Hailinel said:

The character represented everything I didn't want in Dragon Age.

A voiced player character?

@Animasta said:

@Hailinel: what, speech? I identified with Hawke just as much as I identified with my grey warden, can't really see a big difference besides the speech thing.

Voice acting would have been fine if the dialogue options were as robust as in Origins. But the limitations of the dialogue wheel and the lack of a selectable origin and race were complete bollocks.

@MikkaQ said:

Well the second one way outsold the first one so I don't think they really give a shit.

Uh, no it didn't. Not even close. Dragon Age II's sales were a fraction of what Origins sold, to my understanding.

@TheHT said:

@Hailinel said:

The character represented everything I didn't want in Dragon Age.

A voiced player character?

Why do people think think the complaints are that rote?

@Hailinel: dude, do you remember how many options most choices had in origins? if you were responding to someone, it was usually 3 as well, very rarely 4, and I'm replaying the goddamn thing so I should know. The only thing the dialogue wheel did worse was the info gathering part. (Honestly some of the time it's usually only two options) Sure, it may SEEM like a lot of options, but most of them are info gathering and they usually only have 2-3 options for progressing the dialogue.

also lack of origin and race, well, DA:O and DA2 told a different type of story. Do you regret that you couldn't select anything about Yu Narukami? Geralt of Rivia? They only released the one dragon age, them/you deciding selectable races/origins as a Thing that Dragon Age Does is silly.

@Animasta said:

@Hailinel: dude, do you remember how many options most choices had in origins? if you were responding to someone, it was usually 3 as well, occasionally 4, and I'm replaying the goddamn thing so I should know. The only thing the dialogue wheel did worse was the info gathering part. (Honestly most of the time it's usually only two options) Sure, it may SEEM like a lot of options, but most of them are info gathering and they usually only have 2-3 options for progressing the dialogue.

also lack of origin and race, well, DA:O and DA2 told a different type of story. Do you regret that you couldn't select anything about Yu Narukami? Geralt of Rivia? They only released the one dragon age, them/you deciding selectable races/origins as a Thing that Dragon Age Does is silly.

I remember the choices in Origins being full phrases of dialogue and not simplistic summaries that required an icon for context. And while different RPGs have different methods of presenting the protagonist, given that Dragon Age II is a sequel to Dragon Age, I would have expected that the options for the main character would have been at least on par with Origins. Not reduced down to a human with a predetermined name and history.

Well I hope they continue because the whole game was the Seeker trying to find out where Hawke went too. Once you finally see what is going on in present day it sets up for some real shit.

@Animasta said:

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

It might be me, but when I bought Dragon Age 1 and fell in love with I never expected it all to turn into this mage hunt and inquisition nonsense. Might be cliche, but I would rather be killing Darkspawn for another few games, hunting their corrupted gods and stuff, but I guess they resolved most of it in Awakenings. Shame.

Why? I don't really get why Darkspawn is any more interesting than the mage-templar war stuff. Is it just because it's more fantastical or what?

Just gonna add my two cents here: Having an army of evil goblins sweeping across the land is extremely cliche for fantasy stories, but once you actually go into the 'lore' explanations for what the Blight is, it's fucking insane. Like... Broodmothers, man. Shit is fucked. And the conflicting religious/'real' backstories to the whole Darkspawn origin, 'Archdemons are Gods' thing makes it way more interesting than it has any right to be.

But it also means that any anti-mage stuff is, by definition, technically dealing with the same issues as fighting the Darkspawn would be, right? From what I remember, most of the religious canon in DA is pretty tied up with magic and the Fade in one way or another . I don't necessarily have any desire to fight the Darkspawn themselves or go deal with mage hunting, but I am really interested in seeing them do more with the Chantry and Old Gods and shit, because that's usually where DA:O was the craziest. Arch-Demon Babies, The Black City, etc. That's what I want more of.