Dragon Age

Pretty strongly implied in their conversations.

I Knew It!! They Never Found the Body, after all. I spent the whole finale waiting for Hawke/Loghain/Alistair/That Guy to burst from the Rift Like A Badass Out Of Hell and when it didn't come, started expecting a DLC.

Bioware's never shied away from character deaths before, but it's the how of it. You don't kill off a character so thoroughly established as an epic badass by going, "Oh, yeah, s/he died offscreen after you left because of a fight that was hard." An inferred Heroic Sacrifice is pure Disney Death fodder.

edited 4th Jun '15 9:02:42 AM by TobiasDrake

I hated how The Architect was just Put on a Bus after implying that he would have a role to play in future events. As for the person you leave in the Fade, I'd always thought it was odd for Bioware to kill off an established character like that off-screen. Of course, the person I left was Stroud, who isn't exactly a major character by any means, but still. Killing Hawke, Loghain or Alistair in such a way would have been a surefire way to piss off fans.

This,and all the weird shit going on at Weishaup,and the fact that the Griffons are back is why I really think we need a game exploring the Warden,staring preferably the Warden from Origins. But Bioware has said the have "no plans for it." So their goes that dream game of mine.

The next game will be set in Northern Thedas, so if we investigate what the Wardens are doing there, we won't need the Hero of Ferelden to do so.

I'd mentioned this a couple dozen pages ago, but I think it's likely that the next game will be about another Blight, especially if it's going to be set in the North (the Anderfels, Tevinter, Seheron, Par Vollen are all in the northern half of the map). Remember, the Fifth Blight was an accident caused by the Architect, and it's possible he might not have learned his lesson should he be alive and end up trying to awaken another Old God. So chances are the actual Blight where the Darkspawn themselves wake up the Old God (Razikale, in this case) are fairly good, since it's been over 4 centuries since the one, not counting the Fifth.

I think with the Grey Warden Civil War and fleshing out the conflict between the Qunari and the Imperium, the plot will have plenty to do without rehashing the central plot hook from the first game.

edited 4th Jun '15 12:13:42 PM by TobiasDrake

It's not just about rehashing, though. The central hook of the first game was that it was two Wardens against an entire horde in order to save Thedas. And the kind of Blight I'm suggesting isn't just the small Blight we experience in the first game. I'm talking about a full-on Blight like the old ones, like the Fourth Blight where the darkspawn managed to overrun Antiva, the Free Marches, Rivain and the Anderfels.

And with all the Foreshadowing we've been getting over a new Blight brewing, I doubt that Bioware's not gonna let that just vanish.

It would still be a waste of several perfectly good plot hooks, not unlike what happened with the Mage/Templar conflict in Inquisition; all that build-up only to come to "HEY GUYS, that's great and all but shut up about that, we're doing THIS story now!"

edited 4th Jun '15 12:35:56 PM by TobiasDrake

The Blight was painted pretty big in Origins, with the whole country and stake and probably the rest of world to follow if left unstopped.

Making it bigger just strikes me of, like, the Doctor Who finales. "What, Earth was in danger that time? Well, now it's the galaxy! The universe! Reality itself!"

It's hard to follow on a big conflict with a "bigger" one. It could work if you really stressed how the whole land was actively dying, if you actually had nations fall and all that, but with Inquisition following a similar kind of plot I don't think it'll happen in the next game if it does happen.

edited 4th Jun '15 12:45:35 PM by Lavaeolus

The first game was a political drama masquerading as a fantasy war. The second was a biography. The third was a holy war.

So far, Bioware's done a good job of changing up the tone and general atmosphere of each game.

Unless Solas is killed off or otherwise neutralized in the DLC I'd probably expect an uprising or attempt to return to the ancient days of magic for DA:IV.

Honestly, I probably won't get DA 4 if it's about another blight. Saving the world again is bad enough. Saving it from the exact same horde of boring monsters we saved it from in the first game is just too much.

edited 4th Jun '15 1:30:33 PM by Millardkillmoore

Entirely possible. Between the Imperium and Arlathan, we're in the right general area for it.

There's that too. The Darkspawn just aren't compelling villains. The mystery of their origins is an interesting question that seems wrapped up in the Myth Arc, but the Darkspawn themselves are just a mindless horde of evil. The first game understood that; that's precisely why 90% of it is spent on the political intrigue.

edited 4th Jun '15 1:32:08 PM by TobiasDrake

I'd get it. I liked the Blight setup. I would like it even more if they went back to the Origins darkspawn design instead of the Power Ranger villain-darkspawn

I agree with Millard. The shittiest parts of DAO had the most to do with the Darkspawn. They're fucking boring, without much character, except as an edgier re-imagining of Tolkienian orcs.

I'd like it if stopping a Blight from starting by killing the next Old God under The Western Approach was a main quest line in the fourth game, but not the main plot. That way people who want to prevent another Blight can have one and people who want another main story don't have to worry about it.

A Blight seems an odd choice for an optional sidequest. Seems like it'd require a lot of work, just finding the Old God and everything, and sort of awkward for future games for the people who ignored it, even if you just Hand Wave it (oh, the Wardens succeeded).

edited 4th Jun '15 1:54:30 PM by Lavaeolus

That's why he said a main quest line, not a side quest.

So, like, maybe the first act involves the Grey Warden Civil War and culminates in the discovery of said Old God, and the mission to slay it is the Disc-One Final Dungeon - but in doing so, you uncover something related to the central plot, kicking off the central conflict.

edited 4th Jun '15 1:57:23 PM by TobiasDrake

They should be used as they were in DA 2: disposable mooks in a few sidequests and during visits to the Deep Roads. Any role larger than that calls attention to how boring a horde monsters that slaughter people for no reason really is.

Ah, right. Apologies, misread.

edited 4th Jun '15 1:57:53 PM by Lavaeolus

What foreshadowing has there been about another Blight? I can't really think of anything in the games that goes "Oh no another Archdemon's waking up!" I thought that maybe that's what the Warden parts in DA 2 were about and that Sundermount was another Old God prison but after everything we learned in Inquisition I suspect that Sundermount is where Solas slept in Uthanera. Maybe I'm wrong and it actually IS an Old God prison but with everyone wanting to see Tevinter and wrap up the Elven Gods plot, I don't think very many want to go back to Kirkwall and fight another Blight.

I dunno the Old Gods will probably show up sooner or later and maybe we'll have to prevent one from being tainted but I don't see another Blight happening.

Really? Because I found the Darkspawn bloody horrifying, especially the main quest in Ostagar. Their design has since declined (I highly prefer their appearances in Origins over II and Inquisition), but I'd always found them an interesting enemy. And with the introduction of the Architect and his Disciples, it's likely that a sentient sort of Blight might be likely, if Bioware decides to mix up the whole Blight thing. Sentient darkspawn were a huge plot point of Awakening; that in itself was interesting, and I'm hoping Bioware does something with that again, instead of just sidelining it.

They're not that interesting from a plot narrative standpoint. They are mindless hordes that appear every 200 something years to Rape Pillage and Burn all they see before their leader is defeated and they retreat. They do not have emotions or inner-rank conflicts of any kind. They are mindless hordes. Awakening gave them personality for a brief time, but those talking Darkspawn are dead.

The Darkspawn were interesting in Origins because the world was new and we had some revelations about how Darkspawn are created. But we know pretty much all there is to know about them until we get to the Old Gods themselves. They have exhausted all of the intrigue a mindless horde can create.

The Darkspawn are good at being creepy, but end of the day, they're just orcs by a different name. They're evil because they are, they kill because they do, and they're only dangerous as a swarm of faceless evil. It is for this reason that they make good mooks but poor antagonists.

My hypothetical main quest could even use the Architect since Bioware had to cut him from the Here Lies the Abyss quest.

edited 4th Jun '15 2:04:46 PM by VeryMelon