I don't agree with that. I enjoyed playing almost all of their games at the higher difficulty. DA II is the one I can think of where I didn't and that was because the combat was so not tactical that positioning was gone and it felt shallow.

Origins and Inqusiition are both a lot better on a higher difficulty in my opinion. Not that I agree with the entire defense, but I also think Bioware gets too much hate. DA:I is a good game.

That's just plain false. Or alternative facts or whatever it's called these days.

Somehow for me, the Witcher 3 simply kept my interest for longer. Things were interesting, and the plot, though slowly paced at moments, was incredibly engaging. With DA:I we got a very explosive prologue that ended in the Hinterlands-- a place with one of the slowest plot crawls I have yet experienced. The abrupt change of pace was jarring, and eventually led to the game being uninstalled due to how sluggish it felt.

Witcher 3 by comparison started off slowly. Eased you into each facet of gameplay with no thrumming soundtrack or screaming NPCs to speak of. You were at leisure in the White Orchard, and given a good preparation for the world at large.

Dragon Age Inquisition was by no means a mind blowing game, especially when you compare it to the likes of the Witcher 3-which is probably the best modern open world game we're going to see probably until their next game- but Inquisition was worthy successor to the Franchise. Its characters were as interesting and well written/acted as most of BioWare's previous characters. The ending was a little anticlimactic (Tuned up with the DLC) but like almost all Bioware Games its more about the journey then the destination I feel.

Dragon Age Origins is probably the only game they've made which carried its edge all the way to a satisfying conclusion... but thats not to say their other games are trash.

@rahf: You put it well and I would say the same for me. Like I bring up, for me that's all execution. People can not believe in Bioware if they want but just wait until the game is out.

I found the main plot in DA:I really boring. They introduced a boring villain and you were just fighting him for a while. Personally I was enjoying the combat and characters enough to keep me playing through.

@artisanbreads: "positioning" was just an endless swap between the characters to pull them out of shit they instantly run back into when i let them go and at the end of the day you just realized why am i doing this when i can just oneshot the dragon with an crazy stacking reaver attack instead?

@rethla: I beat it without ever being cheap and it was fun. I think Origins is especially good and is a very tactical game on higher difficulties.

@artisanbreads: @rethla: Origins, despite not being as streamlined as its successors, gave you all the control needed to execute complicated party actions. But I also had to use the tactical view in that game, whether to pull dumb party members out of sticky situations, or make them use killer abilities that weren't queued up for some reason.

*Edit* By the way, comparing Dragon Age: Origins with the Witcher 3 is unfair. There's 6 years of gaming history in that time, and that's just looking at the point of release. 6 years is a very long time for video games. That's enough time to overshoot the entire original Gears of War trilogy by a year. That's also enough time to see us finish the original Halo games.

I'm sorry, but comparing Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Origins as equals is unfair to the latter. Development and design has progressed tremendously between them.

@rahf: Well i was talking about Inqusition but sure the same can be said about origins to some level. In Origins i only played tactical view, didnt even know there was another view.

Edit: Also Witcher 1 is a better game than origins if you want something to compare ;)

So you are saying its going to be a very good game that people will bitch and moan about because it wasn't exactly what they wanted it to be? Sounds about right.

The Inquisition devs said the game was a "framework" for how Bioware games would be going forward. It seems reasonable to think that ME will be similar, but with different planets rather than "countries" to explore, your ship rather than your castle...I mean, that's what these games are.

I think it could be a very good thing, assuming they learned from it...tightened some things up, improved some stuff and cut other stuff out altogether.

@ethanielrain: I have to admit I get nervous when devs starts talking about "frameworks" and "models." I kinda feel like different series need to be their own thing. If they want the DA:I model for Dragon Age, that's fine. Personally not my cup of tea, but fine. But they should take different approaches with different properties. Otherwise BioWare starts turning into UbiSoft - but with "war maps" instead of "climbing towers."

Creatively it just results in the games falling into a rut. And that eventually just turns the games into indistinguishable sludge with a slightly different coat of paint.

Loved Inquisition. Hopefully, this game will be even better. While I did love Inquisition, after The Witcher 3 and the advancements that it had over Inquisition in terms of side content, I'd hope Andromeda does better. Inquisition and The Witcher 3 are about as good as one another minus the activities you can do in the world really. It's arguable as to which combat system is better I'd say. Eh, that doesn't matter. I just hope Andromeda is good, and I'm excited about it. I'm not feeling the skepticism.

DAI was close to being a really good Dragon Age game though. Most of the main quest stuff was interesting, and most of the mechanics were sound. If they can just make the side content feel meaningful and make those big open spaces feel lived in, then that would be great. I know I'm never going to get another Origins, so this would be fine with me.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Andromeda (hopefully) improves on this formula.

Don't bother. Witcher fans are the worst. They presume W3 to be a god among videogames and it must be praised for everything it does and it's deity status makes it better than all other things even if they can't be compared.

You felt "Witcher fans are the worst" was a good thing to quote to 3 witcher fans that are discussing a completly different game just like that out of the blue?

People look really dumb when they claim to know what a game is going to be like before it releases, especially when there has been next to nothing shown. But by all means, be a petulant child and act like you know.

Or you could be an intelligent human being and just wait to see how it turns out before leveraging a judgment.

I liked inquisition so I guess I'll like this game.

Yeah I kinda got the same vibe from what they showed up to now. Looks like you'll get bigger open world zones to mess around in. I'm a bit nervous about how they will fit this in the narrative. It feels kinda weird to me to have this sci-fi story were you go around hunting alien wildlife, gathering ressources and crafting and such. I mean I like the idea of landing on an alien planet and exploring for a bit but I feel the main attraction in mass effect (at least for me) was the interaction with your team and other NPC's.

I'm most likely going to to like this game.

However the trailers and look of it give me the same vibes that oddly Madden did around 2007 or so. Where Bioware once seemed heads and shoulders above others in storytelling, now they don't. Where once their animation and graphics looked very contemporary, now it's beginning to look dated. They just look like they are falling behind their peers a bit in some of the production value polish stuff, especially now that CD Projekt red has set a new benchmark. But we really don't know much about the gameplay, that could completely change my opinion once we see that.

I think it's going most likely be at least "fine" like Inquisition, I'm just used to Bioware games being automatically amazing and I miss that.

I hope not. I hated Inquisition.

You're right. It's uncalled for in this context. But I didn't mean it in this context. It was a general statement, nothing personal towards anyone in this thread including you.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell.... to a certain extent sure. But as someone who hasn't seen any Andromeda footage and will likely end up being the biggest fan of it on this board, I still think you can gather some amount of sense on what a game will be from preview coverage and news. From what I gather from this thread even the people who think it will be a great game agree that it is likely in the same style as Inquisition to some degree. Just a difference of opinion in whether or not that is a good thing.

100% agree with you here. Unless you have unlimited time and unlimited money, at some point you need make a judgment call on how you think a game will be, and whether it looks good enough for you to check out further. Sure, the smartest thing to do is just sit back and wait until the game is released and you can look at un-edited footage and check out reviews, but given that BioWare is putting out marketing material designed to get people interested in Andromeda, it's totally reasonable to look at that promotional footage and share your opinion on how you think it's shaping up based on what's been shown.

I appreciate the the few negative comments. If you could dial it up a notch It might make your views more compelling.

On a more constructive note. I did play Inquisition on a harder difficulty, don't remember which, I think one down form top? I usually up the difficulty in most games. It was still a mindless grind.

The cutscenes and story in that game were absolute cringe, and had no depth. So I don't understand where these "Good Story" comments are coming from.

Also open world is not something I ever felt Mass Effect needed. I liked ME for its hand crafted feel. Which I think is what most people appreciated about Mass Effect. Your Squad interactions against the backdrop of a well crafted scifi stage.

The trend for huge open worlds with a huge amount of time sink quests and plain awful narratives, is on the rise. And people seem to be buying them up in record numbers. Maybe WoW purged that demon out of me, but I don't want to spend 3 hours harvesting minerals for one Biotic upgrade slot. Or kill x number of alien rats for the leader of Outpost Zeta on planet Centory to gain map indicators/clear an area.

I have no comment on Witcher 3, I tried the Witcher 2 before they patched combat. And like Jeff I think those games probably have great stories but play like ass.

Also I never said Inquisition was utter garbage. It's a mediocre game that most people have forgotten even existed. I good way to pass the time, if you don't have anything else to do. Unfortunately I don't usually have that kind of time to waste.

@beaudacious: Like pretty much all Bioware games the stuff I like a lot about Inquisition came from the characters and how they interacted with you and the characters around them. It may just be a tone thing, but I really do feel like no other games, including Witcher 3, really nail interactive character dynamics like Bioware games do.

Seems like Andromeda will probably do all that again but in the Mass Effect universe, which I like a whole lot more. Also Mass Effect 2 and 3 felt handcrafted, sure, but 1 definitely wasn't. Andromeda seems like it is pushing a lot more in the direction of "we wanted to do this with 1 but didn't have the tech/budget."

And yeah like technically it isn't the most advanced or cutting edge looking game but they still have some of the best art direction and environmental design I have seen come out of games. The environments and lighting in Inquisition are still downright stunning, and I would expect without having to worry about PS360 versions of the game Andromeda will look even better.

But but...I liked Inquisition...

I'm afraid you're correct. I'm kinda getting the same vibe. I played Inquisition for a few hours and really disliked it. I hope we're wrong :(

@rahf: If you thought I was directly comparing Origins and Witcher 3, I wasn't. They're inherently different games and I like Bioware style party focused RPGs. Witcher 3 is just open world like these recent games have been so it's a better comparison. I bring up the Witcher 3 because it does an open world RPG with lots of content really well. It doesn't feel phoned in or MMO like. DA:I had phoned in side quests. If Mass Effect just does a better job with a similar formula to DA:I it could be a really great game.

Origins is one of my favorite RPGs for sure.

I'm with you on that. I have been a really big fan of a lot of their games. Starting with Dragon Age II things went off the rails some and I do miss that period when they could do no wrong.

As far as tech, although animations and faces might be a bit questionable (though they always were in Mass Effect I would say) I think this game might be pretty great looking in spots with it being Frostbite.

I like that there is coming to be a lot of competition in the RPG space though.

@artisanbreads: Although Frostbite looks great, I feel as if it's the cause of most of Biowares problems.

They have an engine that can do grand scale, so now they feel like everything needs to be big and open world. Or there's a suit in EA who said, "Here! Open World Engine, now go compete with Ubisoft." In some way the technical limitations they had with implementing UE 3 had them make the best of less. But "Open World" has been taken so literaly, that it trumps everything else in the design process in todays games.

Ideally you want a mix of exploration and direction, and I think that this is what Origins did so fantastically vs the Open World for the sake of Open World Inquisition. It seems the current state is a race to the bottom of the barrel to see who can claim the most km²'s following Ubisofts lead. Even Zelda is now hopping on the bandwagon talking about open world surfacearea.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is what the Minecraft, Day Z, Rust generation now wants in games and EA/Bioware it just trying to play is safe with their huge budget game. Either way this game will sell like hotcakes, and will get the typical "Masterpiece", "Stunning", "Staggeringly Breathtaking", "Intensily Immersive" quote's from the game press. As you watch your minning animation for the 669th time on planet b2431 telling yourself, "This minning is Staggeringly Immersive, I can almost feel the silicate build up on my lungs."

Sounds like you have a narrative built up in your mind about what this game is already. I'm not quite sure what the point of this conversation is, no one here has played the game yet.

@beaudacious: From what they originally said early on going into Inquisition, they were looking at Skyrim most of all, so I think they are going for that. I feel you that it may not always be the best. Sometimes I like smaller scope. I think Witcher 2 is a good example vs Witcher 3. As great as 3 is, the smaller scope of 2 is appealing in its own ways.

Can't we throw shit at this game after it comes out?

Sure we can

@whatshisface: We can pre-order based on pre-release marketing , but we can't judge what the game will be based on pre-release marketing? Pretty sure I said, this might be completely wrong, but these are just the vibes I'm getting.

I was 100% in the pre-order camp just based on ME goodwill, till I watched all the trailers before clicking buy. Thought I'd share my thoughts with others about a game that is probably going to have huge pre-order numbers. Even people who say you shouldn't pre-order games, will probably be pre-ordering the next Mass Effect.

I am fine with this if true, I didn't hate inquisition. I am a little worried that were barely 2 months out and the PC spec's are still not out there.