Dragon Age

Petrice is thE only super vile and semi important villain I could think of in the series. Not a lot of Jafars wandering around. I guess I forgot Howe, though. HOW could I do that?

....

Anyway, I appreciate a good WIE. I might even side with them if I have the ability to. I certainly don't want DA 4 or whatever to feature a blanketly evil and despicable villain as its main antagonist. But you need a good Howe or Petrice to spice things up a bit, get your hate on.

Oh. I vastly prefer Well-Intentioned Extremeists. But I would say having EVERY antagonist be a well intentioned extermist or even be complicated can muddle things, especially if they're a character we don't get much screen or context time for. Having more entertaining but simple and direct villains like Jafar or something would be nice when that complexity just doesn't have the time to be developed.

It could have been a way to correct Cory if they wanted. They clearly had a lot of complexity, which is great, but no screen time to explore it so making him more entertaingly vile would probably be more effective in the long run. As it is, he's generic and forgetable.

It's a shame too, considering Corypheus is going through the same crisis of faith that so many other characters in Inquisition are facing. His supposedly generic goal of taking over the world and becoming a god is really just an attempt to cope with the reality that the god he worshiped is dead. Compare that with the struggles the other characters deal with: Cassandra's faith in the Maker and the Seekers, Leliana's faith in the Maker and whether her own work with Justinia amounted to anything, Blackwall's faith in the Wardens, Iron Bull's faith in the Qun, Solas' faith in himself and whether everything he had ever done was a mistake...

Oh. I agree. I REALLY like Cory as a concept. I hate him as an execution. But if it came to a late-development of 'Hey, our villain isn't developed enough and its not working', making him entertainingly vile and etc like a Disney Villain might have saved him if just somewhat.

Given that the next game is almost certainly going to be in Tevinter, it'll be interesting to see just how far down the rabbit hole the Imperium has gone as regards the Old Gods. While nominally Andrastian, their version of the Chantry is...different, to say the least.

IIRC, most of the ruling Altus class are descended from the Magisters Sidereal. So conceivably, one of Corypheus's descendants is still around and kicking in present day Tevinter, assuming he lived long enough to sire offspring before the whole Walk-into-the-Fade thing.

I wonder if DA 4 and its Tevinter setting could theoretically salvage Cory's wasted potential? Maybe?

Wasn't there a table top quest line about how there are still magisters around descended from Cory and the others? And how this whole incident is therefore, uh, embarrassing?

I think that probably would have worked out poorly since given the time constraints, if he had any living descendants, the entirety of the upper class would be descended from him now.

Maybe. But there's a weird abundance of noble families with like a single line of descent and one viable heir in this setting. Corypheus's noble house, Amladaris, might be reduced a single nuclear family with all the cadet branches and female lines extinct.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jan 29th 2019 at 1:27:51 PM

I mean, in a society obsessed with blood quantums and family lines, is it totally unreasonable that a family might have accurate record of their lineage?

Also, we don't know their culture in relation to names. Its possible that the 'more ancient and powerful name' takes predence meaning that the family might be larger and easier traced that you'd think.

Mind you, Tolkien himself subverted the "one heir per heroic family" by saying that while Aragorn was Isildur's heir, there were numerous others carrying his blood through not primogeniture, including Denethor and the Stewards.

(Which would have made things very difficult if Faramir hadn't chosen to step aside)

So hopefully Dragon Age is subversive the same way.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 29th 2019 at 3:59:56 AM

Tevinter is exactly the sort of culture that would ignore and/or murder anyone besides the firstborn sons to keep inheritance simple. Or maybe just firstborn children regardless of gender; I can't remember how Tevinter is on gender equality, other than allowing male priests.

Anyway, I suspect we'll meet at least one illegitimate heir to a major Tevinter house in 4. I wouldn't be surprised if they're a party member.

Maeveris probably.

I had a fan pitch of a Templar-Mage married couple to be companions as to better explain gender and marriage relations in Tevinter. Plus they could be a good place for that poly-relationship Bioware has been expressing interest in for awhile.

They could make an optional companion out of Feynriel. Especially since Inquisition revealed that Tranquility is reversible. Make your options in II affect Feynriel as a companion in the next one. He can have really cool Dreamer powers after years of study, or untested, really powerful abilities with large setbacks if you made him Tranquil because he's still learning after having his Tranquility reversed. It'd be a nice concept for a new companion.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Jan 29th 2019 at 11:19:31 AM

“Plus they could be a good place for that poly-relationship Bioware has been expressing interest in for awhile.”

Really? I’d be very interested in this.

Bioware has been interested in trying to write a poly relationship for awhile, or so I think Patrick Weekes said. It seems that their problem is more the logistics nightmare of combining any two love interests and seeing if they can make that work not even counting weather characters would be compatable or not.

My personal solution is to just, instead of co-developing a three person relationship, why not just have the player be invited into a pre-established relationship? It'd save the logistics problem of combining characters together and would make the writing tighter and more expressive.

Well, they may also be overcomplicating it since life as a poly person can lead to any number of relationship configurations. I mean, I would’ve been happy if previous games simply didn’t stop me from maintaining multiple relationships. Not every poly situation requires all three parties to be equally involved with each other or in the same fashion. Just allowing the player the option of being functionally poly would go a long way.

Your idea is a good one—it would definitely reduce the complexities at play, at least in terms of establishing a triad or such. Regardless, I really hope they find a way to do this.

I mean, even if its just letting players go down two romance paths at one, you either need to have scenes making it clear all parties are ok with this and explaining that to an extent (i.e. if we did this in DA 2, why would Anders and Fenris be ok with it when they HATE and are toxic around each other?) which is, again, lot of logistics and other work.

Or, they just don't comment on it at all and do it like Fallout 4 did which... I kind of hated Fallout 4's attempt. It felt like romance pathes just with the exlusivity plot flags turns off. Almost like an accident. It felt more like a glitch. It didn't feel natural since no one acknowledged it in game. It felt like a glitch that led to representation points without really doing anything.

That was always my assumption about Fallout 4. That they realized it was received positively and decided to run with it, rather than acknowledge it wasn't intentional.

I'd be very pleased if Bioware finally follow through with it - I actually thought they were going to with Isabella and someone else in 2.

there are some companions who SORT of acknowledge it - Piper and Cait pass comment - the former with some low level jealousy, the latter with a bit of sarcasm.

As for Magisters - Dorian mentions a few influential female ones he is working with, so they seem egalitarian on that front; we've only encountered male ones - mostly as villains. Or in Dorian's fathers case, a bit of a bigot.

Considering HOW depraved Tevinter are supposed to be, they seem very traditional. I wouldn't be surprised if, when we get there, Tevinter is... basically Orlais but with magic. And it'll be portrayed that way - slaves are essentially like the City elves. And we'll probably get a weird quest line similar to Rome where a slave will talk about how their life is SAFER as a slave - because of legal protections etc.

I'd like to see that because feudalism is essentially slavery but without the chains. You're owned by your lord, can't move farms without permission etc. Tevinter may just be a bit more straightforward with it - contracts etc.

Now, how much the PC interacts with that / changes it? Not so sure. You couldn't do much with the elves / dwarves over the game (bar the Harrowmont / Bhelen thing) and that didn't seem to stick all that much.

@Ink Dagger You’re right, that’s a really good point. Plus, if all they did was switch the exclusivity flags off, it would miss out on an opportunity to explore a different way of relating (one which a lot of folks could really use some education about). I hope whatever approach they take, they’ll do something fantastic.

Venturebeat: Bioware went behind EA's back on making promises on 4, forcing them to scramble to make the VGA announcement trailer.

Whether or not Bioware can turn things around to deliver the next Dragon Age is debatable.

This Kotaku article posted in the Anthem thread paints a grim picture of Bioware. tl:dr; it's in serious trouble.

How BioWare's Anthem Went Wrong

What's interesting is that some developers apparently wish Inquisition had failed since it would have been a wake-up call that they can't keep making games this way.

Edited by M84 on Apr 3rd 2019 at 3:28:58 AM

Seems like a similar story to what happened with Andromeda.

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Apr 2nd 2019 at 2:19:50 PM

It feels to me like Bioware saw their upcoming demise due to Anthem and decided to make damn sure they had the chance to put out one more Dragon Age game before going down.