I must admit, I thought DA:I was a whole lot better than Dragon Age 2, as in it looked like a game I'd enjoy more than DA 2. I quite like the idea of aimless wandering and just doing odd bits and pieces of random quests here and there in a nice environment.
And I almost bit. However, upon watching a Youtube Let's Play, it quickly became evident that the dross outweighed the quality by too great a margin for me to probably ever play this game. The respawning was massive kick in the teeth for me, for one. There really is nothing worse for me when I'm just leisurly taking in an environment, going from A to B and out pops this random fight in an area I've already 'cleared'. That kind of things really grates my rag. I don't even enjoy it in supposedly quality cRPGs where it's called 'random encounters' when you travel from one screen to the next. Absolutely hate that.
Another thing that ruined it for me was the cut-scenes when you harvest items in the wilderness. This is something that is worse for PCs than consoles, but it's so tedious having to walk up to goodies, stop, go through the animation and then resume your path, it really breaks up the joy of going from A to B. Not only that, but these items also respawn, giving no sense of 'clear' and making you unable to guess at what point you're supposed to not bother doing this task at all. And there's this trader that sells them anyway. But it's all there to be picked, so, as a gamer, you click it and pick it, because it's there to be clicked... oh what a mess.
Then there's the animation for jumping over things. Every few paces you have to stop, go through an animation, then resume your journey. And it's not like the paths are that way because you've chosen a rocky path, the walkways are all pretty linear and path-like, they just made them overly rocky ?to be annoying?
And then when you get combat its all kind of wham-bam-boom-hoorah-yippidy-doo-scrappy-dappy-doo but after what feels like an age of doing that the monster has only lost 10% of it's life. You have no real idea of what's hitting you, you just see your health bar take a huge whack every now and then. I can't see much player agency beyond the blind panic of button mashing until it's all over and a sense of relief that it's all over. A bit like Peter Sellers versus Burt Kwouk in the Pink Panter movies.
The main plot is also just not fantasy enough for me, which is also a big reason for my dislike of DA 2. In origins you really explored different areas that felt like different communities, Dwarven underground cities, Elven forests, Yokel towns and busy towns, mage towers and Templar strongholds. But in 2 all I was getting was this big overbearing religious theme, which was itself so closely a mimic of actual reality that it felt more like a medieval costume drama than fantasy. Likewise with DA:I, it's just so obviously all a mimic of something realistically medieval, the costume drama even playing out in an in-game costume drama! It just made me yearn for the Forgotten Realms so much that it put me off.
And the many different environments can be cool, but only in part, not in the whole. There was this one area that was gorgeous. Really gorgeous. It was just some random building you walk in, I think outside of the main plot, where there's all these beasts frozen in time. Conjures thoughts about The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe. But in the main anywhere could have been anywhere. At no time did I get any impression of who the 'normal' inhabitants of an area were, aside from generic humans of no great differential.
The great plot-choice of Mages or Templars is supposedly the big decision you have to make in the game, but we've been there and done that already, both in Origins and DA 2, if that's going to be the thing in every Dragon Age game forever, then I'm at a loss as I loathed it in Origins, and yet that was the bit they stuck with. Out with the Dwarf citadels, out with the Elven woods, we want more Catholic stuff... no. Well, I don't anyway.
But yeah, it has me more interested than DA 2 that's for sure.
Regarding: Couch in these threads. I've read pretty much all the Dragon Age threads since this game was beginning its hype-drive months and months ago, and I've yet to see many actual reasons why you like these games soooo much. I honestly have nothing against anyone who does like these games, different strokes for different folks and all that, but what I notice from Couch is that you state quite clearly that you're a fan and you look forward to people 'bugging you' about that fact.
And here in this thread quite a few people have asked you 'specifically' what it is that you are so addicted to. I don't think these people are asking because they want to argue with you or because they wish to troll you, I know I certainly don't, but your responses often seem like the exact flip-coin to the people who dismiss the games out of hand. They offer nothing in the way of descriptor, but then neither do you. You just repeat "I like what I like, so there, I can like whatever I like, what's it to you", which isn't really very conversational.
You say you've already repeated yourself so many times, but the only things I've seen repeated is you saying things like "this game is great, uh-oh, now I'm going to get the trolls", which is kind of your way of saying "I'm not discussing it"?
The thing is, it's just that people are genuinely curious as to what the amazeballs factors are, for you, just as much as they might be interested in reading all (well, some of) the reasons why, I, probably wont be picking it up.
The mere fact that you expect derision kind of makes me think that you know they're not very good, but the fact that you have nothing really much to say to anyone about the game in all it's positives glory is just really weird.
I mean, I've been there. I was a fan of Icewind Dale while the majority slammed it as a crappy Diablo rip-off and chanted on about Balders Gate all day long, every mention of Icewid Dale being met with the eyes and words of ignorant derision. But, for me, I would always, and will always meet them with the many positive facts about Icewind Dale and I will happily constantly put right someone passing off falsehoods as negatives. I will be impassioned about it.
You seem like you are impassioned about the games, but you never seem able to put it into words beyond "I like wot I like, k, now eff orf and troll someone else". But there's no trolling here, just wanna hear some passion to match the passion, if that makes sense.
