Dragon Age Inquisition on Frostbite- the trailer

[Seventh Actuality]

Remember, Morrigan's look was very inconsistent between trailers, official art and the actual game to begin with. To me the new look just looks like a combination of improved graphics and the passage of time since the first game. I was really afraid they were going to do something point-missingly shitty with her like they did with Flemeth in DA2, so this (like most stuff to do with DA3 so far) is a pleasant surprise.

 

[Ishal]

However, looking at it from a broader standpoint I'm really concerned that they may not have learnt their lesson from DA:2 either. The two first main characters we see are Varric & The Arishock - both DA:2 characters (albeit probably the 2 best ones) - which sends a message to me that DA:2 will be heavily involved with DA:I. It may not be, but I'd have sooner forgot about it all together rather than be reminded about it by anything.

Well, DAII was a prequel and kickoff point for the next big game with the next big conflict. That being the mage-templar war. I get what you mean though, DAII left a bad taste in my mouth as much as anyone else.

I don't know if this is true, I don't follow Bioware as much as I used to. There was a rumor that the mage vs templar war was originally going to be the conflict in the first game. However it was put on hold til later and the darkspawn plot was added in its place. The darkspawn always had a place in the lore of DA, but the archdemon and the blight wasn't going to happen until later in franchise.

Bioware did something similar with Mass Effect. Drew Karpyshyn designed the trilogy and outlined it beginning to end at the very start. They knew all the plot points and plot twists going in, but later scrapped the original plan in favor of the "technological singularity" concept of organic life vs synthetic life. But there are still parts of the early games that didn't get cut that still allude to the games original plot. The same is true for Dragon Age. Flemeth was supposed to play a different role and offer more insight to mages and demon possession and the mage tower conflict between Irving and Gregor was supposed to be a kickoff to the war. Whether you believe that or not, up to you.

DA:I will most likely draw heavily on DAII and feature characters from it.

The writers at Bioware tend to draw things up very early on. I'm guessing a good chunk of the lore and story in DA:I had been on the drawing board since before origins shipped. Where Bioware seem to trip over themselves is when deciding what to cut and what to add in. I'm guessing EA and their demands mean cutting lots of content. I'll give it a shot, but I'm not expecting miracles.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

DA2 took a lot of inexcusable shortcuts, and I hated the flashy, anime-style shift in combat, so I'll be waiting and seeing on this one.

Also, if people are still wondering whether or not that was CGI, they're in for a treat with PS4/Xbone. Future console games will absolutely look like that. Because the new consoles are basically PCs, and some PC games already look like that.

 

[Ishigami]

BioWare games never were heavy on the visuals. No not even Mass Effect.
Considering this is Frostbite 3 I have no problem believing that it is ingame because lets be honest for Frostbite 3 this is actually not very impressive. Just have a look at BF4 what can be done in terms of e.g. skin shader.

That said I think we will get the technologically most advanced BW game till today. I'm very excited about this. I loved DA:O so much that I played it through 6 times and I also liked DA2. Not as much as DA:O but still good enough to finish it 3 times.
The most prominent feature, even before the return of some known characters, is that it was confirmed that DA:I will be an open world game.
A Elders Scroll like open world with the story telling of BioWare just sounds completely awesome to me.
And not only that it also should fix some issues even I had with previous instalments such as the enemy wave mechanics or the lacklustre exploration elements.

It is a small bumper that the inquisitor will be human. I had a lot of fun playing a radical elf in DA:O but to be fair most of my runs were made with a human and aside from having played the dwarfen prologue I actually never bothered with them. So I'm kinda all right with this choice.
We still get to choose a origin that will impact the story so there is some replay value there not to mention that I'm looking forward to the mage origin. I so freaken loved it in D:O and DA2.

Aside from that seeing Varric or Morrigan returning seems appropriate. Morrigan is the iconic witch ***** of DA:O and Varric is the best buddy of Hawke. Both characters are acclaimed and well liked. I see no problem there. As for Cassandra yea well she did basically nothing in DA2 but she is part of these Chantry knights so in a conflict between mages and templars I kinda expected her to show up. I also expect Leliana to show up at some point.

And I for once endorse the stylized designs of DA2. Finally the Qunari looked different from Humans and so do Elves. The first time I encountered Sten and Morrigan started stuff like ?Now this a proud and powerful creature!? I was like ?WTF? - It is just a big dude!?
And for the dark spawn: I even agree there. The original designs in DA:O were too close to the Orcs from other popular fantasy worlds. Considering the lore I think it fits them better to look more like undead humans etc. than Orcs.
I guess BW too felt that the end result looked too much like the LotR movies. I mean they did not change the design of the Ogre for example and I say this is because it looks nothing like the troll from LotR.
So yea I'm glad to see the Qunari still looking like the Qunari from DA2 implicating that they are going this design route.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

What? I thought it's coming out the end of this year? Oww... Oh well, more time to tweak it I suppose.
No new Bioware game this year then.

Tweak? I'd be willing to bet half the game isn't even close to done. With it being a CG trailer I'd bet they're still working on the characters, levels, and story itself. It'll be done though... in about 15-17 months when it enters gold, (exactly one month before release). Then again Frostbite 3 is a nice-looking engine, so maybe they have some stuff polished.

If they released it this year... as much as I wish they would... well to put it simply Dragon Age II would be a finished, polished and bug-free game compared to it.