Dragon Age

Most of the dialogue in Dragon Age titles are limited to single-use. In most cases, once a line has been delivered, it can't be delivered again. Bioware's struggle has more to do with making the conversations sound organic despite multiple options; it is a rare conversation where you go up and talk to, say, Varric, and he goes, "What do you think about tuna fish?" and then you have an entire conversation about tuna fish, and then the next time you talk to him, he goes, "What do you think about tuna fish?" and you have the same conversation again.

I don't recall that happening in Skyrim. The used convo options didn't disappear but they were greyed out.

edited 28th Jan '15 11:56:57 AM by McSomeguy

DAI doesn't have the same exact guy say the exact same line every single time you walk past him to go sell off 2K iron bars.

"Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying, of course you don't."

Every time I enter the College of Mages, I hear the same lines of dialogue about Tolfdir. If I go to the Companions, I will hear Farkas repeat the same lines of dialogue about him and his brother CONSTANTLY, often repeated less than a few moments after he said it the previous time. Its even more annoying if I'm MARRIED to him and should very well be aware of him having a brother. Or if I'm the Alpha of the Companions.

The Civil War has no agency of its own and there's no real motivation to join either side except for who you want to see win rather than which one you think is right because the game's not going to give you any details on anything and you're not going to pick a side because 'Ulfric's character is so compelling!'. Its cold an emotionless calculus.

Even the player character is rather emotionless. The PC is a lego brick that's put into whatever wall of a 'plot' they run into. Trying to build a player-character relationship is near impossible because there's virtually no significant interaction with anyone. Even if you 'get married' its more or less 'I love you now that we're married' and back to repeating the same dialogue over and over again.

Skyrim has a vast landscape that breathes with creatures to fight and dungeons to crawl through and quests to be completed, but its void of heart. Dragon Age may have less on the dungeon crawler and 'Point in a random direction and find a vaguely defined Adventure' aspect, but at least there's heart and emotion involved.

edited 28th Jan '15 12:22:24 PM by InkDagger

Oh yeah, the passerby lines. I had apparently purged anything related to "Arrow in the knee" from my memory, including those.

And that's different from going to Redcliffe village and having the same voice saying "Hello" every 10 seconds how exactly ...?

(Also there's no such thing as "Alpha of the Companions" in Skyrim)

Heart? At least in Skyrim when I meet a companion in the wild and I get attacked, he comes to my defense. That's heart. When I meet Inquisition soldiers near a camp and I get attacked... they just stare at me like the perfectly immobile props they are. Also, half the zones are just pure filler. DA:I has heart... during the main quest. Rest of it though...

edited 28th Jan '15 2:25:10 PM by CobraPrime

The dialogue and general characterization were definitely a weak point.

Not only was the writing and dialogue poor to me, especially the voice acting, but it also felt rushed, shallow, and often it just seemed to be there to hammer home Bioware's SJW viewpoints.

Jimquisition was right! The obvious SJW agenda was too on-the-nose at times; the game was weaker for Bioware's insistence at advancing the heterosexual agenda! F*cking heteronormatives!

Heteronormativity isn't really Bio Ware's thing. Misandry definitely is, though. I find it bizarre that's the one thing you can't change about the Chantry. You can admit elves, free the mages, completely reform the stated aims of both the Chantry and the Templars, create a new organization led by an elf, a dwarf, or a Vashoth, rather than a human and even make the Divine a mage, but under no circumstances can anyone with a cock attain high rank in the organization. Meanwhile, the blatantly corrupt and sinister Imperial Chantry is all men. Apparently, in Thedas, the penis really is evil.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:08:38 PM by CrimsonZephyr

The Patriarchal Tevinter Imperium made slaves of elves and non-magical folk, while the Matriarchal Chantry made slaves of elves and magical folk.

Seems fair to me. Granted, you can't "fix" Tevinter in Inquisition, but that's because we haven't been to Tevinter. Bet you when we get a Dragon Age game set in Tevinter there will be an option to end slavery and reform the government.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:10:03 PM by TobiasDrake

That's... not misandry. Not anymore than men being priests is misogyny.

But even in Leliana's Chantry, which changes literally everything else, no dudes except in the shitty, bureaucratic jobs. When the only man in the Orlesian Chantry's administration is the obstructive and idiotic Roderick, specifically designed to illustrate the Chantry's worst aspects, there's a good sign they're writing the Chantry from a Straw Feminist angle.

Only men being priests is misgyny; the reasoning behind it in real life is tradition wrapped in sexism.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:13:10 PM by CrimsonZephyr

Yeah, see, I'm having trouble seeing how "The one organization in Thedas ruled entirely by women is corrupt and evil, committing mass persecution of innocent people across the nation" is a Straw Feminist argument. Hell, if we didn't have the Tevinter Chantry to counterpoint it, it'd make a pretty great example of Straw Misogyny instead.

And the reasoning behind the Chantry is also tradition wrapped in sexism. Only women attain important ranks in the Chantry because Andraste was a woman. There is a clear female bias in the Chantry just like there is a clear male bias in the Church, that bias has its roots in the same place as the Church, and no, that bias is not depicted in a positive light.

In a world where Crystal Dragon Jesus is a woman instead of a man, women are empowered and considered holy instead of men, and the church is just as shitty for it.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:18:09 PM by TobiasDrake

I think his point is that in the list of flaws the Chantry has, the gender segregation is never acknowledged as something that deserves fixing. Unlike the racism and the "Fuck mages" aspect or the Chantry caring about its own power. It's not even given lip service "I wish we could change that."

"Oh, a Mage running the Chantry! Progressive!"

"Elves and Dwarves should be able to join The maker loves all his children!"

"Men in the Chantry? Get the fuck out."

That said it's not something that I really ever noticed or cared till it was just pointed out to me.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:21:10 PM by CobraPrime

At the same time, correcting flaws in a system is progression and development over time. It doesn't have to all happen at once. Considering the bloodshed that can be involved if Leliana obliterates the racist and... mag-ist? rules of the Chantry, one can only imagine it could be worse if she had taken it a step even further.

Once again, if there's a DLC that involves the Divine, this could be a good point to bring up with her.

You also don't have the option to reinstate the Dissonant Verses. Shartan helping Andraste and Maferath repenting aren't good enough for Leland's "open to all races" Chantry.

...Leland?

FUCKIN' A

Leliana.

Leland: Cheap knockoff of Lelianna, features in their own series: Wyrm Years.

Well, for all we know, She very well MIGHT have done exactly that to strengthen her argument for bringing other races into the Chantry. We have no details on how she did all of this. She just did... : /

Is she related to Morgan, from Wyvern Epoch?

edited 28th Jan '15 4:02:24 PM by CobraPrime

What about Albert from Lizard Time?

The reason I brought up the oddity of men being the only prejudice you can't change is because the devs apparently referenced that as a reason for the removal of the option of making the Inquisitor the Divine. Why is having a man be Divine somehow testing the limits of the faith more than having a mage assume the post? Why does that, specifically, break lore more? Why aren't there male mages upset at the Chantry rejecting them not just for their powers, but for their gender as well?

edited 28th Jan '15 4:11:30 PM by CrimsonZephyr

My guess is that the real reason the Inquisitor can't be Divine is that their personality, and therefore their hypothetical agenda as Divine, depends too much on player input.