Dragon Age: Inquisition - News Roundup

Couchpotato · September 30, 2014

Another day and we have more news for Dragon Age: Inquisition. To start the news-bit I have a new video from Bioware about the Dragon Age Keep.

Learn how the Dragon Age Keep works and discover some of its key features. In this presentation from PAX Prime 2014, developers Fernando Melo, Leah Shinkewski, and Justin Edmond discuss how the online platform works to get your game ready for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Bioware also did a new one hour Live Twitch Stream about character customization. If you missed it you can watch the recorded version of the stream here.

VGamerz also posted two new articles about the new stream. The first article is about "New Combat Features and Relationship Meters".

BioWare’s creative director Mike Laidlaw and producer Cameron Lee answered a few Dragon Age Inquisition fan questions on twitch today, unveiling a substantial amount of new content. Combat has grew and progressed into something way more engaging and intuitive. It’s already known that taking cover and jumping will be two new movement actions that will aid combat in Inquisition but there’s more. Players will also experience, for the first time in Dragon Age history, how to play with free cast. Casting skills anytime, anywhere will become a possibility

The second article is about "62 Variations and Endless Possibilities."

BioWare presented Dragon Age Inquisition’s customization system today thought a one hour twitch stream. The new system will be much more complex, detailed and complete. Even though, the body cannot be changed, the face can be altered in every imaginable way. The system is so dense that players will be able to, for example, shape and color their Inquisitor’s inner and outer iris. Inquisiton’s customization system in an open door for possibilities.

I also found some new screenshots for those interested on WorldsFactory.

Electronic Arts just released some stunning new Dragon Age Inquisition screenshots, showcasing the unbridled power of Frostbite Engine when coupled with the great artists at Bioware.

More information.

fatknacker50 · September 30, 2014

Show me some bloody PC footage... :-/

Couchpotato · September 30, 2014

fatknacker50 said:
Show me some bloody PC footage…

That was PC footage they just used a controller to play the demo. If you watched the full one hour stream they tell you that in the beginning. The video above is only half of it.

They also answered the UI will change according to what input device you pick to play, and promised more PC footage in following weeks starting in October.

Here is the first half as the original was a Twitch Stream.

fatknacker50 · September 30, 2014

Ah, my bad, still, if I wanted to see it played with a controller I'd watch the console trailers...

Maylander · September 30, 2014

That keep sounds better than I expected. Hopefully, uploading heroes from DA1 and 2 will be smooth, so I don't have to manually adjust 300 variables every time.

Morrandir · September 30, 2014

The reasons they adduce for not being able to import savegames to the keep (@1:54) are nonsense imho. There's no obstacle that couldn't have been broken through by some work, that compared to the whole project's workload is minimal, especially when you keep in mind which great usability improvement this would have been.
I still don't understand their true motivation for this decision.

What's interesting though is that he mentiones that the keep might be used fo future games. Seems like the DA franchise will most likely go on.

joxer · September 30, 2014

fatknacker50 said:
Show me some bloody PC footage…

Couchpotato said:
That was PC footage they just used a controller to play the demo.

Okay, show some keyboard&mouse footage then.

Means, it's time for me to revisit Bioware forums for some… Nice chatty… No, no trolling, no spitting, no spamming, not at all… :evilgrin:

Morrandir said:
The reasons they adduce for not being able to import savegames to the keep (@1:54) are nonsense imho.

ME3 has no "keep" feature.
Your game experience in ME3 depends heavily on saves from previous games, ending included. What's disastrous, it also depends on DLC bought in ME1 and ME2.

Thus I believe they went this route with "the keep" so people who refused to buy DA2 DLC (like me) don't get enraged.

Morrandir · September 30, 2014

I just want an additional savegame import feature.

Of course the current approach is needed as well.

forgottenlor · September 30, 2014

I think Bioware has always done pretty well with mouse and keyboard. Still I will not play a game without decent mouse & keyboard controls. I once bought a bad port, and never will again. I passed on Dark Souls I, and have been hesitant to buy the sequel because many say the mouse and keyboard controls aren't good. I know I could buy a controller, but I can also buy 4 games for that price, and there are enough games I want to play where I don't need a controller, that I'd rather just pass on bad console ports and play something else.

joxer · September 30, 2014

Maybe they've signed a contract with Logitech not to include mouse support because PC gamepads sales went down? :evilgrin:

lostforever · September 30, 2014

joxer said:
Maybe they've signed a contract with Logitech not to include mouse support because PC gamepads sales went down?

That does not make sense since Logitech makes better keyboards then gamepads

booboo · September 30, 2014

joxer said:
Okay, show some keyboard&mouse footage then.

Means, it's time for me to revisit Bioware forums for some… Nice chatty… No, no trolling, no spitting, no spamming, not at all…
.

Go get 'em! I hate poorly designed Mouse/KB interfaces - so I'd also like to see what they have done. Having recently bought a controller and tried to play games, I now hate them with an even deeper passion. My brain is hard-wired for a mouse…

Malkavian · October 1, 2014

I think it's so horrible that one of the reasons for the Keep they give, is that their previous games were too buggy to create proper savegames. Obviously their approach would never be to just patch those games then. My eyes are still rolling...

JDR13 · October 1, 2014

Malkavian said:
I think it's so horrible that one of the reasons for the Keep they give, is that their previous games were too buggy to create proper savegames. Obviously their approach would never be to just patch those games then. My eyes are still rolling…

Is that really one of the reasons? I thought they were claiming it was because of how different the Frostbite engine is from the engine used in the first two games.

Regardless, it's a big downer for me and a major reason why I don't plan on playing DA:I anytime soon.

Morrandir · October 1, 2014

JDR13 said:
Is that really one of the reasons? I thought they were claiming it was because of how different the Frostbite engine is from the engine used in the first two games.

Yeah, just take a look for a few seconds here:

Morrandir said:
The reasons they adduce for not being able to import savegames to the keep (@1:54) are nonsense imho.

But these "reasons" are crap.
And yes, I know I'm reepeating myself.

DArtagnan · October 1, 2014

Well, I struggle to see the big deal here. Sure, they could have made an import option with some hassle - but it's not like your choices are different because you set them up in a separate tool.

In fact, I'm glad - as it means I don't have to play DA2 to get my DA choices integrated, as I understand it.

Even so, I think it's a pretty minor issue overall.

Morrandir · October 1, 2014

Well, perhaps my choices will be different as I won't recall how I decided in a game I played 5 years ago. One could argue though that if I don't remember the choices it doesn't matter if they are wrong. But perhaps I will remember the choices's consequences, so my world state won't be consistent to the one I have in mind.

And I need to make these choices again, which is additional extra "work". And yes, this issue is quite minor - same goes for the cost of implementing a savegame import feature in a big budget project like this. We're not talking about a $100k Kickstarter thing here.

Aubrielle · October 1, 2014

I haven't played DA2, and I don't plan to anytime soon. I'm sorta wondering what only having a DA:O savegame will do to my playthrough of DA:I...

Morrandir · October 1, 2014

Savegames won't do anything.

In the Keep you will just have to make choices for DA:O again and then for DAII.

DArtagnan · October 1, 2014

Morrandir said:
Well, perhaps my choices will be different as I won't recall how I decided in a game I played 5 years ago. One could argue though that if I don't remember the choices it doesn't matter if they are wrong. But perhaps I will remember the choices's consequences, so my world state won't be consistent to the one I have in mind.

And I need to make these choices again, which is additional extra "work". And yes, this issue is quite minor - same goes for the cost of implementing a savegame import feature in a big budget project like this. We're not talking about a $100k Kickstarter thing here.

Haven't we been through this before?

It wouldn't be hard for the PC, but if they don't do it for consoles (ALL of them) - there'd be trouble for them.

Making a unified solution that would work for all platforms and which would be easy for the users (transferring saves from an old system that may or may not be connected, etc.) - is not exactly trivial, even though it may sound like it.

Should they have done it anyway? I don't know.

In fact, I think this "Keep" is exactly their way of coming up with a unified solution, instead of having to develop 3-4 separate pieces of software for something that takes no effort at all from the consumer.

As I said, I think it's absolutely trivial to spend 2 minutes picking a few choices on a webpage or whatever. The choices will likely have some tooltips that explain what they were about.

Maybe I'm too lenient, but I really don't think that's in my nature.

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