News for DAI has been slow since PAX, but here's the latest update. As always, be aware of spoilers below and if you notice any errors or omissions, please let me know!
Mike Laidlaw finally revealed the last of the romances and Blackwall is the final piece (confirming rumours that have been floating around for awhile; Cullen was confirmed to be the other race-gated character, only available to Humans and Elves). He had some words to say along with the list:
We’ve come to realize, however, that for many players, romances are an incredibly important feature—one in which we’ve invested a great deal of development time—and they prefer a heads-up to having their hearts set on a particular character, only to end up disappointed. To preface this information, a few words on our design goals for romances: First, we want to offer choice to our players. This doesn’t mean that all choices are available to everyone—it means that no matter what type of character you choose to play, more than one possible romance option will be available. This doesn’t guarantee that a player will find a particular character to be personally appealing—which could be the case even if every character in the game could be romanced by anyone—but it ideally lets each player know they’re not an afterthought in our development process. Second, we want our characters to be internally consistent. Every major DA:I character has a story arc, personal goals, and thoughts on how your journey together has evolved; sometimes a romance arc doesn’t make sense for them, sometimes it does. Either way, we aren’t trying to justify why a character can’t be romanced—we’re looking at how a romance with that character would make sense according to the rest of their story, and why that romance will strengthen an interesting story arc. Finally, a character being eligible for a romance doesn’t necessarily guarantee that they will be successfully won over. These characters have their own agendas and opinions, and the choices a player makes during the game have a definite impact on their affections. That’s intentional.
So the breakdown is as follows:
Female-only: Blackwall, Sera, Cullen (Humans/Elves), Solas (Elves only)
Male-only: Dorian, Cassandra
Bi: Iron Bull, Josephine
Interestingly enough, Laidlaw said that the romances with both Solas and Cullen were something added with the extra time the game was given (he's not referring to the extra six weeks from October to November, but the 2014 release date as opposed to 2013). I'm surprised Cullen wasn't part of the original mix given his popularity and his original inclusion as a companion (back in 2012, as can be seen via the survey leak).
The frequently mentioned Joe Juba (at Game Informer) offers us our first full look at Skyhold and his article includes excellent images of our base. It's a long article, but these are the parts that stood out to me:
You don’t start the game with Skyhold as your base of operations. For the early part of the adventure – before the Inquisition is even properly formed – you and your allies gather at the village of Haven. Even once you move the Inquisition to Skyhold, the castle isn’t exactly in prime condition. “When you first reach Skyhold, it’s not in good shape,” Laidlaw says. “There are holes in the roofs, it’s wrecked, you can’t even go to the entire castle because they haven’t cleared out the rubble yet.”
I take this to mean Skyhold is near Haven. The fact that the keep is a fixer-upper is something I'd always assumed and it sounds like we'll have fun making it our own.
In many ways, looking around your castle allows you to gauge your progress. Additionally, because you are able to dictate how certain things are rebuilt and decorated, the team at BioWare wants you to have a sense of ownership over your version of Skyhold. “Over time, as you progress through the story, you get to see it rebuilt and more areas open up,” Laidlaw says. “It goes from ‘kind of wrecked castle’ to ‘your castle.’ The walls are fixed. Your soldiers are patrolling. You see your support staff growing in number. Merchants come to set up station. You get that feeling of it becoming a grand, central hub.”
The layout of Skyhold is generally standard, but the Inquisitor makes decision regarding the décor and other elements of the renovation process. For example, if a tower needs to be rebuilt, you can decide if it is outfitted to accommodate mages or Templars, depending on your allegiance. Or, if your character is a Dalish elf, you can furnish the castle with Dalish woodcarving. “As you explore the world and play different quests and side content, you gain access to, say, different thrones you can put in place. Different decorations, different heraldry and symbology,” Lee says. “So you can customize and make it grow based on your choices and actions.”
I'll be interested to see how much difference it will make if the Inquisitor chooses to side with either the mages or templars.
Feel free to choose whatever appeals to you, because the customization of Skyhold doesn’t carry over into your Inquisitor’s stats. “The problem with going too heavy with game mechanics on that is, suddenly, you’re min-maxing your base,” Laidlaw says. “If we did a system where ‘this outfit does this, and it’s the best outfit,’ well, now I have to wear that outfit or sacrifice my gameplay. So, something like what banner or carpentry I use, to me, doesn’t have to have a gameplay effect. If you’re into it, I don’t want you to feel like you’re being penalized.” In other words, the rewards for your customization are found solely in having a base that reflects your decisions and preferences, but that doesn’t mean that Skyhold is lacking in ways to make you more powerful.
I like this decision.
Skyhold also is the place where you determine where and how your Inquisition expands. Using the war table, you determine where the Inquisitor’s attention is most required, choosing which areas to unlock and where to send your agents.
When it comes to expanding your Inquisition, you need to track three different resources. The first is influence, which is effectively like your Inquisition’s XP, and it grows as you adventure and complete tasks. When the Inquisition reaches a new level, you can spend points on global upgrades like the ability to carry more potions or the chance to harvest extra crafting materials. The second resource is power. While influence constantly grows, power is more of a currency that you earn and spend down. Power is used to advance the main story, but also to unlock optional areas at the war table. The third resource is time. The Inquisitor doesn’t handle every problem personally, so special missions called operations (also unlocked with power) allow you to send agents to finish them in real time. After a set amount of time passes (some operations can take a full day or more), the mission is complete and you get your reward. Some operations are even multi-part affairs that require input from the Inquisitor on how situations should be resolved once the dust settles. ... Earning and expending these three resources forms the core of Inquisition's structure. Whether you're completing sidequests, gathering crafting materials, or exploring different zones, everything you accomplish feeds into your overall progress.
It's incredible that some of the operations could take a full day of real time to be resolved--it's a strong mechanic to make game time seem more realistic.
[Y]ou can wander around the grounds and find all of your allies. They all find their own corners and make themselves at home; Leliana can be found in the rookery, for example, while Sera is more comfortable in the bar. “You get to see their spaces become theirs – they kind of personalize them,” Laidlaw says. “Some degree of their demeanor comes through, like Dorian with a massive leather-backed chair.” Not only are these characters hanging around, but players’ interactions with them in this situation are deeper than they were in Dragon Age II.
“A lot of our fans missed the ability to interact with their party members and close friends, and just say ‘Hi, how are you?’ like in Origins,” Laidlaw says. “Many of them will be delighted to know that that is back, full force, in Skyhold. You walk up, ‘Hey Varric, how’s things? Tell me about Kirkwall.’ Getting a sense of their character, digging in. You can just go, ‘Plant one on me,’ which is pretty satisfying in a weird way.” In some cases, your main avenue to interact with your romantic interest is also at Skyhold. Your advisors Cullen and Josephine don’t travel with you as fighting companions, but they are still potential love interests. How you use your time at Skyhold with them can shape the direction your relationship takes.
I'm curious to find out how many of these interactions are tied to events in the story and how many a simply talking of their past (as in, can players spam click the companion to get their full story?).
“Judgments serve two purposes. One is feeling in command, but they also provide a way for us to wrap up some of the loose ends,” Laidlaw says. “They’re never just arbitrary. Because you did X, or because you dealt with Y, then the characters are brought before you. As a result, you already have the context. You have been dealing with these guys – or opposing them in many cases – and now they are brought before you.”
Each of these scenarios is deliberately crafted, so you won’t get a non-stop stream of them that repeat themselves. Because there aren’t a ton of them in the game, the judgments you see should stick in your memory. “My favorite one is definitely the goat,” Lee says. “The chieftain you kill in the Fallow Mire, his father turns up at your castle and is laying siege with a dead goat. Hitting the walls in a ritualistic insult. And you have a variety of options, but I think you can make him an ambassador.”
“One that I enjoy is a character who, over the course of the game and depending on what you do, it’s possible to almost talk them down rather than going into direct conflict,” Laidlaw says. “Sort of a social victory. I don’t want to into details as to how, but that character is then brought to you for trial. In terms of consequences, that character has a ton of information and could end up working with your spies, making them globally more effective. It is also possible, depending on your mood, to sentence that character to permanently become your court jester.”
As I've said before, I like that there are characters who can be overcome with something other than combat.
Though Lee and Laidlaw enjoy discussing the more lighthearted examples, not all judgments end with a smile. You can exile characters and execute them, and in one case, you can sentence a mage to Tranquility.
That's pretty incredible--a sentence of Tranquility is one of those great moral quandaries.
Cameron Lee lists most of the areas in Skyhold: tavern, dungeon, throne room, library, garden, vault, kitchen, guard tower, rookery, training ground, and war table.
Alessio Palumbo writes about DAI and mentions that it's possible a companion could betray the Inquisitor, which is very interesting and not something I'd heard before.
Ramon Tikaram has been revealed as the voice of Dorian, meaning only Blackwall's remains to be unveiled.
Within her recap of PAX, Ashe had one piece of information I've seen nowhere else: we will be able to swim [this is apparently in error as Mike Laidlaw said there would be no swimming over a month ago].
There have been gradual reveals of various abilities this past week (three per class), with likely more to come.
God is a Geek posted video of his playthrough from GamesCom along with thoughts on the game itself.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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