Dragon Age Inquisition: News Update (July 28th)

 

 

Dragon Age: Inquisition news continues to trickle out post-E3 and here's what I've found.  As always be forewarned of spoilers below for all previous games, books, comics, and DAI itself.  If you spot any errors or omissions, please let me know!

 

The biggest news was the announcement that the release date has changed from October 7th to November 18th.  It's disappointing to wait another six weeks, but I'm not disappointed that the extra time is being spent to make sure the game is as good as it can be (The Know and many others applaud the decision, while you can see elements of paranoia from one of the IGN podcasters).  There were fans who freaked out far more than I did and their reactions elicited some great answers from various BioWare folks (mostly Alan Schumacher, but also John Epler, Bryan Johnson, and Joe Hegarty):

[AS] The year long push [break; the decision to push from 2013 to 2014] was to expand the scope of the game and it added a lot more. This one is just about taking the content that we have and polishing it a lot. It'd [a 2013 release] have been a much smaller game (and in some ways different as a result) for sure, but yes I think the game's quality would have suffered if we had released last year. I was super excited about the extra year. I like this one [delay] too (of course I'll say that though, right?) because an extra month of polish still goes a long ways.

Presumably the 2013 version of the game would have largely skimped (or even skipped) the open-world concept and likely racially locked to human (both surmises on my part, but I think reasonable ones). 

[AS] Unfortunately, I can't confirm that it's the ultra ultimate definite no-take-backsies release date, although I'd be ridiculously surprised if it slipped again. Take that for what it's worth.

[JE] A month of pre-ship bugfixing/polish time is equivalent to a year/year and a half or more after ship.

[BJ] I wouldnt say there is a small subset of bugs that are causing a delay, you would be surprised what can be found and fixed in a short period of time, with some of the talent we have here.

[AS] Before the game goes to Microsoft and Sony, we can basically do whatever we want with it (though we still need to pass their certification process).  Patching involves a much more thorough process including (but not limited to) things like size restrictions, what things are allowed to be changed, as well as a limit on the total number of patches that can actually be deployed (although Sony doesn't do this, they just charge us for the bandwidth). I can't speak for the specifics of the timelines John [Epler] detailed, but pre-release we have more flexibility because there's no such thing as a baseline release that we need to strongly adhere to.  So, for example, if we notice a bug in the save game system and we need to change it which will invalidate all of the older saves, we can do that.  Sony and Microsoft aren't as keen on letting us do that to a shipped game because it'll only (rightly) make people very unhappy.  So now we're engineering creative workarounds and basically trying to find a way to remotely deploy fixes that otherwise would have just been obliterated (though still in source control) in the office. Note that "bug in the save game system" is pretty nebulous, but with as much game data as we have changes that come to it are always a risk for saved games since the data it was saving may no longer be valid in any way.

[BJ] The bandwidth isn't hyper expensive but it can add up. I believe the cost is about 16 cents per gb. Also to speculate potentially more on John's [Epler] comment, after you launch a project a good amount of the team moves off, so whereas you had a few hundred people before ship that number will decrease meaning it is harder to get work done quicker. There is also some things you can do before you ship, if you need to make a change that changes the way the entire game is built then it is easy to do in development, as you just suck it up and do it. But you cant do that when you ship, could you imagine if you had to download a 10gb patch that only changes 1 minor thing? (it has been done before in the industry). This means that you have to try and find some less ideal alternative which may require a lot more testing and have weird effects that you never even thought of. 

[JH] We're still discussing what impact (if any) this will have on plans for the Keep so we don't have anything ready to share on that front right now

There wasn't much news from SDCC over the weekend, but a Game Front recorded demo featuring Jessica Merizan (the same demo from E3) included a pair of interesting comments from her:

Redcliffe castle is a mage stronghold, so these phylacteries [will] allow us to control the mages.

This comes at the end of what would be the first half of the demo and at last explains what that find at the docks means; then before the second part begins:

We promised you we'd bring the mage and templar conflict to an end, so let's jump ahead in the story to when that happens.

So it appears the E3 demo illustrates one ending (the ending?) of that conflict, which is an interesting reveal (I agree with Believe it's theory that the mage/templar war is not the end game of DAI; more about that theory later).

 

The videos from GaymerX are out and in Freaking Out the Neighbours an interesting stat was given: 86% of DA players choose "good" options in the previous installments (they also referenced that rogue's are the least played class by a large margin, which is interesting).

 

Speaking of videos, DA Fan has started posting breakdowns of released material, largely focussing on game mechanics and symbols seen throughout the game--they are well worth watching.

 

A tidbit that I missed from the Q&A is that we'll finally learn who the Friends of Red Jenny are (we already know Sera is one of them).  For those who may have forgotten, both DAO and DA2 referenced the group.

 

 

Quivers have been added to the game.

 

A potential huge spoiler dropped in an as-yet unconfirmed Achievement List from the game that was leaked.  It's potentially too spoilery for me, but I've linked it for those who want to know as much as possible.  There is a reference to Corypheus in it, apparently, so if the list is legitimate it appears he plays some part in the story (perhaps optional, perhaps not).

 

 

CVG emphasized something that's worth remembering when it comes to companion approval and party choices:

Each follower has a set of goals they aim to achieve and consequently it really matters who you take with you on quests--manage your party wrong and they might leave. 

A possible correction to my assumption (based on a comment from IGN) that there were ten regions, as Polygon references eight and that does make sense--being so close to launch (prior to the delay) it would be surprising to have a brand new location reveal.

Speaking of geography, the guys at Joystiq mentioned that The Hinterlands run from Ostagar to Redcliffe, which is an east-west axis, whereas I'd assumed (from the map in the demo) it was north-south, so assuming that's correct it's quite interesting.

 

I don't often peruse the theories on the DA Wiki, but I came across one from Believe it that attempts to explore the plot of DAI.  It's difficult to boil down the nearly 12,000 word piece to its essence, but his theory is anchored into the fates of the Hero of Ferelden and Champion of Kirkwall.  Where are the two previous player characters (excluding, of course, Warden's who choose to die at the end of DAO)?  I agree with:

the Hero's [Warden] disappearance is probably not based on anything that the Hero is doing or wants to do.

It's unlikely a surviving Hero of Ferelden would simply disappear with none of his companions the wiser.  Believe It concludes that both characters have been captured by Razikale, one of the Old Gods; he includes the idea of Flemeth being The Formless One, one of four ancient demons called The Forbidden Ones--the other three have appeared already (Gaxkang in DAO, Xebenkeck in DA2, and Imshael in The Masked Empire), with both Gaxkang and Xebenkeck dead if the optional quests were pursued (or for anyone using the DAI default setting).  Unwrapping his entire theory would be a lengthy process and I won't do that here for now.

 

 

ShoddyCast is aiming to do a series of DA lore videos.  I wasn't familiar with them, but they make similar videos for Skyrim and other games.  The only comparable for DA that I'm aware of are from Lady Insanity.

 

On the more fun side of things, I've seen the BioWare Cliché Chart posted a few places and thought I'd include a good response to what I see as something intended for amusement:

 

People seem to believe that if stories follow a formula or are cliched, that somehow makes them bad or unworthy, but the fact of the matter is these definitions are often so loose every single story under the sun could be applied to them. Being cliched doesn't necessarily make something bad anyway. You can take the same sentence and say it in millions of different unique ways. As long as your cliche is dressed in it's finest, I don't think it's a bad thing

Exactly right.

 

Destuctoid offered five reasons for non-DA fans to be excited about DAI:

1. An open world with multiple environments (he contrasts it with Skyrim)

2. The mounts

3. The combat (emphasizing the variety available)

4. Graphics

5. A good starting off point for newbies

 

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Dragon Age Inquisition News Update (July 15th)

When it rains it pours as yet more information has spilled out about DAI.  For those who missed my look at the recent Q&A, demo release, and advisor reveal you can find it here; as always, be aware of spoilers (there and below).

 

First a bit of bookkeeping: it's easy to lose track of all the video previews and demos for the game, so for convenience I've made a list of them chronologically:

E3 Teaser (June 10, 2013)

A World Unveiled (August 20)

Live Demo Play (aka Crestwood demo) (posted September 1, fan recorded)

Live Demo Play (November 12; fan recorded, as above but includes a few missing minutes)

Discover the Dragon Age (March 6, 2014)

Gameplay Trailer (April 22)

Lead Them or Fall (June 9)

Stand Together (June 12)

E3 Demo (part one) (July 9; originally shown at E3 in June)

E3 Demo (part two) (July 11)

The fan-recorded Crestwood demo was been allowed to stay on Youtube (unlike this year's E3 demo), so presumably has the tacit permission of the devs to be viewed.  Thematically both demos include character choices that damage a relationship with a companion (Varric) or advisor (Leliana) and both include decision points that could change events (very explicitly in Crestwood).

 

 

David Gaider was interviewed at length by Lady Insanity at GaymerX and had a number of things to say (I've listed them in order):

-Iron Bull was originally race-gated as a bi-sexual romance, but due to some technical magic is now available to all races; prior to the fix there were three race-gated romance characters

-He clarified that all human Inquisitors have a noble background from the Free Marches, but the mage origin involves coming from a Circle

-He confirmed that the Inquisitor doesn't begin in a leadership position (something I thought was already heavily implied given that Cassandra starts the Inquisition, but it's now confirmed)

-In terms of the enemies we face, they will be a mix of completely evil and morally grey

-The Red Templars can be interacted with (beyond combat) unless they have had too much exposure to red lyrium--so they aren't just a mindless faction

-The same applies to the Venatori (minus the red lyrium element, of course)

-He implied there will be other factions (as yet unrevealed)

-Discussed the ambiguity of blood magic when it comes to absolute notions of good and evil--posing questions more than providing answers

-Blood magic offers more power than lyrium in terms of cost effectiveness

-The two colours of lyrium (blue and red) aren't different in terms of the amount of power they offer, but rather have different kinds of effects (he compared them to the varying colours of kryptonite)

-Hedge mages: are like a river that gets damned so that the power seeks an alternate way of expression; what you end up with is someone not actually doing spells; their natural magic talent is expressing itself in ways that normal mages consider a waste of your talent, because once it does that you can't turn it back

-For those playing a Qunari mage you are not a Saarebas

 

 

-Saarebas are essentially hedge mages

-Was asked which nation has the most advanced magic and the response was that there's no real leader--each style has its advantages

-Nevarran death practices: spirits are invited into the bodies of the departed (something of a raw deal for the spirit, Gaider notes)

-The Tevinter magocracy believes in breeding practises to create more perfect mages

-Gaider said Tevinter is not a strictly homophobic nation, but believe homosexuality should be kept under wraps--that a citizen's public face should strive for the perfection all mages are supposed to seek

-Dorian rejects the Tevinter façade

-Because Elves with magic can achieve limited status in Tevinter, it has some appeal to them (the answer to this is quite long, but absent nuance this is the gist)

-The Orlesian "great game": doesn't have official rules and isn't even an official thing, but evolved as a way for the nobility establish superiority over one another

-Default DAI game state: any time there was a choice of a character being dead or alive, or a plot being unresolved in the previous games, they always went with whatever closed the option to make the game more newbie friendly

-DLC's occurred whether or not you played them

-In some romances, you can refuse sex and the romance will continue (but it depends on the character)

-He discussed companion sexual orientation at length (nothing new, but for those interested in their approach to the devs choices, particularly in DA2, it's worth listening too)

-There's reactivity to the specialisation that you choose (which is why blood magic was excluded because it demanded too much reactivity, meaning it would swamp out or marginalize other choices)

-Skyhold will be shown soon

-He's not aware of plans for something like the Black Emporium, which doesn't mean it won't happen (or isn't happening), but he was sure if it appears it won't be filled with codex entries ala DA2

-"If you are disappointed you can't [romance a particular companion, that's] totally understandable"

-There isn't a rivalry arc like in DA2; there's negative approval that can lead to hostility and eventually the person will just leave; the approval system works much like DAO

-If a companion leaves they are gone from the game

-Some characters you will meet no matter what, while others are optional

-They are trying to avoid obtuse methods of meeting companions (mentioning the quest to meet Fenris in DA2 as being an example they want to avoid)

 

One thing I failed to mention from the Q&A last week: we may get to meet some Avvar or Chasind characters.  You can read about the Avvar and Chasind via the Wiki--the latter live in the Kocari Wilds (near the Hinterlands), while the former inhabit the Frostback Mountains.  I'm not sure how integral either would be to the plot, but it has the potential to be interesting.

 

Mark Darrah clarified that the extra DLC content for the X-Box One Inquisitor's Edition will be available as a separate DLC purchase for all platforms.

 

A new, odd criticism of DAI has emerged via Metro:

our only real qualms being BioWare’s famously stodgy dialogue and the typically awful attempts at British regional accents (they probably are British actors but they still sound absurd).

It's hard to know what to say about that, as I'm no expert on British regional accents (but stodgy dialogue? It's reminiscent of Jesse Cox complaint that the demos didn't look next gen).  It's followed by this:

The Tolkien-esque setting always seems to bring out the worst in BioWare’s writing

I think the writer is using "Tolkien" to mean a non-urban fantasy setting (I doesn't seem like the Metro's writer is very familiar with fantasy narratives), nor is there an attempt to justify the statement that their fantasy writing is bad.  The two ad hominem attacks are contained in what's generally an optimistic appraisal, but it boggles my mind how lazy that kind of critique is.

 

If I missed anything or you spot any errors please let me know!

 

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

Dragon Age Inquisition News Update (July 11th)

Dragon Age news had been very quiet post-E3 until a giant info dump this week.  A lengthy Q&A, the various advisor reveals (including, at last, the identify of Scribbles), and the official release of the E3 demo has given fans a lot to chew on.  As always, be aware of spoilers below!

 

The officially released E3 demo (featuring the female Qunari mage and split into two parts, the first of which matches the fan-recorded dwarf version), provides a clear video without all the static, noise, and middling camera work of the illicit one (and those streamed during interviews).  I think acrimony within the fanbase (including sonorous finger-wagging from those who attended the event) could have been avoided if the devs had definitively said they were releasing their own version, but that's all water under the bridge at this point.  It's worth noting, btw, that the game-build here is nearly three months old (that via Brian Crecente at Polygon who played through it with Mike Laidlaw; so that's not about content, just the game mechanics--not too much to be concluded from that other than game-elements are still being refined).

 

 

The second part features scenes that were not shown publicly anywhere, including Leliana's rescue (who expresses great bitterness at mages post-torture; something delightfully bemusing when the Inquisitor is a mage), a demon-filled fight, a battle against the Venatori (with the best demonstration of tactical fighting I've seen yet), and the full interaction with Alexius (more below).  We already knew that Dorian had trained under Alexius, who is described as the leader of the mages we're trying to stop...so is he the leader of all the Venatori?  The inference is there (and his speech about what he's done makes me wonder if Alexius is responsible for the tear in the Fade; it's worth noting he refers repeatedly to the "Elder One" who will destroy everyone).  Reporters (Gieson Cacho specifically) mentioned that at their screening they actually saw the war table, so there's an element that has not been released, but in the Q&A this week the devs said we'll see something including it before the game comes out.

 

 

The advisers (the three characters who are a mainstay of the Inquisition, but not companions) are all revealed: Leliana and Cullen's bio's came out last week, while as the QA was happening Josephine was revealed (crushing my theory that she would be a mage):

The Inquisition's power is not absolute: it must earn its place among the forces in conflict. Sister Leliana understands this well, and has called on an old friend, Lady Josephine Montilyet, to be the Inquisition’s ambassador in the halls of the influential. The eldest daughter of a noble Antivan family, Josephine is a rising star among diplomats, skilled at forging alliances with tact, grace, and carefully cultivated favors. She is a consummate planner who understands that resurrecting the Inquisition will require support and goodwill from Thedas's movers and shakers. Fortunately, the ambassador enjoys a challenge, and she sincerely believes that the Inquisition is the best way to halt the chaos sweeping Thedas.

It had been surmised some time ago that Scribbles, er, Josephine would be the diplomatic arm of the Inquisition and I'm interested to see how that plays out.  She also joins Cullen as an advisor who is a romantic option.

 

 

And now for the Q&A (I've linked a number of sources below, although the most comprehensive is from princessstabbity[broken link has been fixed ]; credit to the devs for doing the Q&A as there was a ton of repetition along with troll questions mixed in):

-the Dwarven origin will be a surface Dwarf, while Human's who aren't mages will have a noble background

-there are 8 romances, one of whom is neither a companion nor advisor [correction via the link; 8 within the group plus one you can flirt with outside of it]; Cullen and Cassandra were confirmed to be straight only; two of the romances are race-locked

-mabari won't be appearing to fight with you

-while you can lose all but one of your companions, your advisers will never leave

-On the Twitter machine Patrick Weekes noted that we'll see Iron Bull deal with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)

-any chance of Shale or Zevran would appear in DAI were quashed, but Fenris was hinted at as a possible return (given the Tevinter connection and his hatred of mages it would make sense)

 

 

-Alistair's mother Fiona (The Calling) was confirmed

-We won't visit Kirkwall (no surprise), Orzammar (there goes one of my theories, although I'm not surprised), or Kal-Sharok--so the thaig we've seen in the promos remains unknown (and brings back the possibility of gamermd's theory of it being Kal'Hirol)

 

 

-major themes for the game are faith and leadership; the theme of leadership expected (we lead the Inquisition after all), but I'm interested to see how the element of faith will impact the story

-although it had already been confirmed, Flemeth and Dagna's appearances were re-confirmed

-all the voice talent for the inquisitor has been revealed

-readers of The Masked Empire we'll be able to figure out who killed Felassan

-the devs were asked if the Inquisition shot that looked like the Last Supper had any meaning and they responded with "That's really up to the player's interpretation"; this (I think) eliminates any direct comparisons and seems rather just a link to the "faith" element that the game explores

-there were bits on gameplay that you can read via the link above or more comprehensively here

-one of my favourite quotes: "Iron Bull likes bed time Olympics"

-just a note about Dragon Age Keep: while the team continues to add questions to it, given the content lock when the game hit Alpha (towards the end of May), none of this new material will impact the released game--this also means fans with early Beta access are in a unique position to know which content is most relevant

 

Once again AusGamers has conducted an excellent interview with Cameron Lee, who first talked about what kinds of things we can expect with DAI's style of open world:

You can go anywhere that you can see -- there’s complete freedom there. There’s all kinds of caves that you can explore into straight away; there’s villages, two different villages in that area [the Hinterlands], and there’s multiple other castles and outposts, and bandit camps and stuff like that. They’re all full of side-quests, activities, combat encounters; there’s a whole bunch of different things in there.

And (including thoughts on long-term playability):

the game isn’t structured such that you consume an area, then move onto the next, then move onto the next. It’s structured so that we encourage players to go back and forward between these different regions all of the time. Some of the areas in these regions are say too high level for you to get to go there originally -- there might be a dragon there -- so it’s, like, ‘I could go and fight it; I’m going to get killed, but I’m going’, so maybe you come back to that area later on.  But then, when you finish the game, you’re still in the world, so you’re still going to do all of these different things. There’s parts of the game that we’ve built that are so difficult that we would only really want players to go there after they finish the story, because it’s just that high level. So it all sort of changes as you go through the story, and we want people to, as you said, have a lot of longevity in the game.

Then he talked about ways the world master system impacts what changes through the actions of the Inquisition:

one part in particular that I can recall: when you first go in there, it’s part of Orlais and there’s a lot of rebels, and you can do various side quests -- fight them, and clear them out -- that then brings in another faction that sort of takes their place almost, then you can do the same thing again, and something else occurs.

Which gives us some insight into how the Orlesian civil unrest impacts the game.  And:

There’s another area which is like a complete enemy stronghold -- in terms of the whole region is a stronghold [which may be the Emprise du Lion] -- and you can come in and bring your Inquisition Forces in and almost fight this dynamic battle as you push the enemy back. You can send your soldiers in to defend this tower and stuff like that. So the world is quite dynamic. We don’t want it to be just time-based, we want it to be more based on the player’s actions, so if you as a player decide that you’re going to abandon this crew, then something is going to happen, but not just because you haven’t done anything. Because you don’t know how people will… they might be busy doing other stories and side-quests.

Then he talked about combat design:

We design the fights and the encounters, for the most part, assuming that there’s probably going to be a warrior, a mage and a rogue. So that’s three of the four [party members] that you can have. So the fourth one provides a little bit more flexibility to be whatever you want. So we generally design them like that, but that’s not to say that you can’t go in there with four mages, because you totally can. If you decide to do that, I’m sure you’ll be able to do it, but you’ve got to think about how to do it. The combat systems and the creatures and the enemy abilities, it’s so bloody complex that it’s almost impossible to create fixed encounters, so we just do it with a broad sense of assuming that there’s one of each class, and if they want to do all rogues, or all mages, or all warriors, or whatever combination, then have fun; go mental.

What about the AI?

So what we’ve done is we’ve created almost like a playbook system for the AI, so you can kind of… in the menu you can say, for the attack play, I want my characters to be doing this type of ability, and this type of ability -- not in mega, mega, fine detail, but just generalised. So that way when you say attack, everyone goes into attack mode, and you can do the same for defence and a number of different things. You can set those up really quickly, and really easily. We wanted to make it as impactful and as hardcore as it used to be, but simple enough that newcomers can get in there and get meaning out of it; get value out of the AI system. So that’s how we kind of do it, and you can change those AI settings on the fly. That’s one of the things that we’re going to do with Kinect, is you can actually just call it out and go “Defend” and everyone will go into defence.

The pre-set AI tactics sounds reminiscent of DA2, although I'm sure it's more sophisticated.  Again to variation in the game via your choices:

that whole demo you saw [at E3], in the last half of it, when you’re fighting with Alexius and Felix, not all the players are going to see that, because going into that area is the result of a branching choice in the game. So you may have picked another area and you wouldn’t be going into that castle at all, you’d be going somewhere else entirely. There’s whole sections of the game that are like that, that we branch off entirely. You can go to Redcliffe Village, and see the consequences of you picking the other decision. So we’ve made sure that any exclusive content, you can still see the flip side of the consequences as well.

Which bodes very well for multiple playthroughs.  Finally this:

We’re still working on some kind of companion app -- sort of iPad, iPhone, Android sort of apps -- that start to bring some of that theorycrafting out. I don’t want to go into too much detail about it, because we’re still working on it, but you can do things like create an awesome sword, in crafting, that has these great stats for this particular build, and you can share that sort of recipe almost, with someone else. So there’s all these sorts of different things that we’re doing.

Great stuff from both Lee and AusGamers, whose interviews continue to be among my favourites

 

Touching back on the Brian Crecente article from Polygon (link above), he goes through how gameplay works via an Xbox controller, but adds this little tidbit from Mike Laidlaw:

And as with Game of Thrones, Laidlaw points out, Dragon Age isn't too shy about killing off characters.

 

An interesting note to the world master system via Mike Futter who notes:

The plants will grow back over time, and even if you hunt an animal until its population in the region is low, they’ll come back

Something I find a bit puzzling, depending on how quickly creatures and plants are replenished (isn't the point of exhausting resources is that they are exhausted?), but until we see how it actually works it's just food for thought.  He then adds:

As for the Inquisition, as any leader knows, it’s not all murdering bandits and killing demons. The War Table is where you spend the “power” you’ve earned by accomplishing deeds in the world. Killing a dragon, finishing a quest, liberating a civilian area, and many other things earn you this currency. It’s used to task the Inquisition to patrol areas, deploy agents, raid castles, and establish camps. More importantly, it’s the means by which the story is progressed in the open world.  

I was on the verge of excitement when there appeared to be a clarification on the amount of gameplay coming indirectly from the devs via Ability Drain: she said that in addition to the 50 or so hours of story there was an extra 100 hours of exploration (as opposed to the 100 total hours we've heard before).  When asked about it she seemed a little unsure and then Mike Laidlaw dismissed the entire idea of estimated gameplay:

It will vary by player, so the numbers are a highly inaccurate metric regardless.

Which makes me wonder where AD got the idea in the first place.  The oft quoted number I've seen (for example here, here, here, and here) has apparently been provided by the devs (as Ability Drain suggests) for PR reasons.  In the end it seems we should ignore the number and remain content with the notion of "there's lot's to do outside the main story".

 

Indirect confirmations that the Iron Bull is a potential romance continue, as Robert Purchese (of EuroGamer) re-iterates the Q&A for the character on the site that says:

He overeats, drinks himself sick, and will hop into bed with anyone he's reasonably sure he won't break

It's difficult to imagine this personality not being an romance option for the Inquisitor, but official word still hasn't come out.

 

 

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)