Hopes for Dragon Age III

[Chris Tian]

The Qunari don't just look like big humans anymore.

I really liked how they redesigned the Qunari too.

However, the endless recycling is really an issue here that runs through everything. It's hard to like the exact same view you have already seen countless times before, if you have been in the same damn cave/warehouse/etc countless times before.

Yes, the exact copy-pasting of so much content over and over again was almost insulting.

And this elven guy with white hair looks like he came right from Final Fantasy or something.

Fenris is his name and he seems to have had the same accident that catapultet kai leng from some final fantasy clone into biowares character cast.

But yea, overall I liked DA2's style more than its predecessor's. A lot of what I didn't like about DA2 can be attributed to lazy or rushed development, so that makes me mildly hopeful for DA3 in this department. I'm not expecting visual orgasms, but with some reasonable improvements, it would be okay for me.

If i HAD to pick one style i think i would prefer DA2 too, mostly for the weapon and armor designs. They were just more varied than in DA:O where all armos looked the same just with different painting. The unique pieces looked unique and not like what you already wore just in sparkly silver. Also i liked the "magestaffs are weapons too" thing very much. Why not have blade or spike at your staff and hit people with it if they come close enough. My mages felt alot more martial due to being able to enter melee with ther staffs properly.

 

[Chris Tian]

Dragon Age 3 needs to forget about being able to sleep with everyone.

I preferred ME3's approach as well - some straight, some bisexual, some gay/lesbian. To my mind, this gives the characters a better defined personality. Although I understand, and applaud, the reason why BioWare did this in DA2 - only few potential love interest, so at least make them accessible to anyone.

Dragon Age 3 needs no underwear during sex.

I found removing my underwear to be quite helpful for, uhm, performing the act, but perhaps the peoples of Ferelden are built differently down there?

But seriously. They just need better romance scenes in general. However much BioWare will decide to show, what they do show should be, well, at least not creepy. I never understood why they didn't apply more care here, be it in the Dragon Age or the Mass Effect franchise. I mean, getting laid is a goal that probably does not rank much lower than saving the world for a fair share of players.

I rather have them just imply the sex, and cut the actual scenes until they can make them in a way thats not super awkward. I mean the internet consist to what? like 99% of porn? so i dont HAVE to have a sex scene in my games if it doesn't add anything and is not pleasant to look at.
The Witcher 2 did them really well, but then again TW2 is visually so far beyond Dragon Age its not even comparable.

 

[Virgilthepagan]

It's fun to see this debate wander back and forth, props for the thread!

Honestly I'm a huge fan of the original Origins. While the main story was pretty generic, each chapter of the story had plenty to offer, it was a great journey on the way. My problem was that so much of my immersion came from that first hour where I picked my own character's race and origin. Playing through that chapter, and realizing later that all six openings are, well, things that happened in the world made me realize just how big a place this world was.
Hawke just being what he/she is, ruins that for me. Kirkwall didn't help either, the vast reduction of the scale could have worked if it had turned into an intimate story of family drama, but that never really materialized for me. Anders was the lynchpin in the larger mage/templar story, and I could barely stand his revised character.

What really killed it though for me was just one moment during the combat. I counted eight assassins climbing out of a fountain to attack me. A fountain. In the middle of a dark street at night. And there were eight men, plus about thirty others in the area, hanging out in a fountain waiting to ambush me. That's about the point when I just put the game down and walked away. Basically the entire approach in DAII was profoundly disappointing for me, top to bottom. Even Hawke's inability to give more than two flavors of answer, good or sarcastic, wore me down. So...I hope...DAIII isn't that?

 

[TheRookie8]

Almost everything I saw in Dragon Age: Origins, I have seen before, or after, just better, stylistically. And I haven't consumed that much fantasy.

Did you like the DA2 style a lot better? In my opinion both did their job but are nothing to write home about, DA:O is just generic fantasy and in DA2 it seems someone spilled some anime in the generic fantasy mush.

Dragon Age 3 needs more connections to the unanswered questions of the original story.

A big HELL YES! to that.

Dragon Age 3 needs no underwear during sex.

This on the other hand i couldn't care less about, i like to keep my porn seperated from my games anyway.

But most importantly...Dragon Age 3 needs Varric, Oghren & Sigrun.

You seem to have a type there

Ah hah ha, the underwear line was intended to be a bit of humor in between the serious improvements.

As for the dwarves...yes, there must be a dwarf trio...t'will be awesome, indeed...

 

[Chris Tian]

Ah hah ha, the underwear line was intended to be a bit of humor in between the serious improvements.

As for the dwarves...yes, there must be a dwarf trio...t'will be awesome, indeed...

And here i was thinking the underware issue would make or brake your game

While i liked the dwarfs, espacially Varric, i dont really care too much if any of the companions return. We will get to be a new hero so i can deal with a new team, since "I" wouldn't have a relation to the old ones anyway.

On a somewhat related note: Someone mentioned this new hero will be "the Inquisitor", does anyone know if that means the new main character starts off as some sort of chantry attack dog?

 

[Chris Tian]

It's fun to see this debate wander back and forth, props for the thread!

Ha ha, yes this thread turned out exactly like I hoped, and not even a little like I feared(alot of Bioware hate would get thrown around).

Honestly I'm a huge fan of the original Origins. While the main story was pretty generic, each chapter of the story had plenty to offer, it was a great journey on the way. My problem was that so much of my immersion came from that first hour where I picked my own character's race and origin. Playing through that chapter, and realizing later that all six openings are, well, things that happened in the world made me realize just how big a place this world was.
Hawke just being what he/she is, ruins that for me. Kirkwall didn't help either, the vast reduction of the scale could have worked if it had turned into an intimate story of family drama, but that never really materialized for me. Anders was the lynchpin in the larger mage/templar story, and I could barely stand his revised character.

What really killed it though for me was just one moment during the combat. I counted eight assassins climbing out of a fountain to attack me. A fountain. In the middle of a dark street at night. And there were eight men, plus about thirty others in the area, hanging out in a fountain waiting to ambush me. That's about the point when I just put the game down and walked away. Basically the entire approach in DAII was profoundly disappointing for me, top to bottom. Even Hawke's inability to give more than two flavors of answer, good or sarcastic, wore me down. So...I hope...DAIII isn't that?

Alot of what you mention seems to have its roots in the rushed nature of DA2's development.
Multiple origin storys take time you dont HAVE to invest.
I mean even Sheperd, who(whom?) they clearly tried to copy with Hawke, had multiple background storys that had impact on your game. And making the vast reduction of scale up in storytelling and details etc. would again take time they were trying to save.
And the stupid "mobs spawn out of thin air or drop from the sky"-shenanigans are once again a clear sign of lazy/rushed development.
Also the dialog choices are a point on which devs like to shave of time if they have to/can.
So all in all chances are pretty good(ish) most of your points might get fixed, or at least better.


While i am writing this i remembered the statement from EA where they basically said that everything they do from now on will have multiplayer. So that goes for DA3 too, no?
I am not a big fan of MP in games that are more of a SP expirience by their nature, but i could see a coop mode working since you have a party of more or less equal characters working together anyway.
If I remember correctly Baldurs Gate 2 had something like that, didn't it? I think I remember playing BG2 coop with my brother.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Dragon Age 3 needs to not be made by Bioware, and all our concerns MIGHT, keyword here is might, MIGHT be taken in consideration.

If anything BioWare is blamed for listening to fans too much.

 

[Sp3ratus]

The whole nexus golem thing can be cleared in under three minutes, i think the hardest fight is that thing with the evil books in act 2 i don't remember the name. But even that is not so bad.
You can aviod most of the damage in the big boss battles with crowd control and not standing right in front of them. They do alot of these big special moves, and those are mostly easily evaded. CC-abilities can render hybris for example completly incapable of anything for the most part of the 2 1/2 minutes it takes to kill him.
The big Dragon has one very annoying spell that always hits one of your guys if i remember correctly, but doesn't use it too often so you can deal with that with potions and/or Anders one healing spell.
Now i have to admit that i am not sure if i killed ALL of the bosses you mentioned with the glass canon team or swaped some teammates around at some point, but i definitly built all my Hawkes and their companions for maximum damage every time.
I'm not trying to come across as if im super awesome at DA2 or anything, its just what a full damage party setup is capable of. On the Warrior:

with lots of damage coming in from different sources

There is never really such a thing, everything short of bosses or really tough elites explodes into red mist as soon as it drops on the battlefield and even the elites go down fast with the CCC-damage you can pile on them.
And i must say i never noticed that much difference in terms of pure survivability between a Warrior who is speced for tanking and thoughness and a Warrior who is speced for making red mist. Maybe the former can take more, but the later takes less because the mobs don't live long enough do do much damage.

For me the hardest time in the game is the time in act 1 before you are able to deal the kinds of damage you need to obliterate everything that looks at you funny and their immidiate family.

So in conclusion there are two main points that make me think "unbalanced" when i think of DA2's combat:
1. The game is a lot more chalanging in the first few hours than for the complete remaining game.
2. In my experience a full on damage dealer party is fastly superior to everything else i tried.

Well, since that's your experience with the game, there's little point in me arguging against it. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post, it's been quite enlightening. I've had quite a different experience with the game myself with a pure damage party being ripped to shreds fairly quickly, but I can see where you're coming from now. Arguably, having a full damage party setup is still requires some tactical thinking, since I imagine focus firing still being quite important for the more dangerous types of enemies, but not nearly to the same degree I've experienced the game as.

One thing I do want to address though, is that I think it's unfair to chastise DA2 for players being able to do this kind of thing with full damage setup, when it's perfectly possible to do the same in DA:O(as we discussed earlier and you admitted to, with the arcane mages). Not holding the games up the same standards doesn't seem right. I'm not directing this solely at you, I'm just mentioning it, since we talked about it earlier.

 

[Chris Tian]

Well, since that's your experience with the game, there's little point in me arguging against it. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post, it's been quite enlightening. I've had quite a different experience with the game myself with a pure damage party being ripped to shreds fairly quickly, but I can see where you're coming from now. Arguably, having a full damage party setup is still requires some tactical thinking, since I imagine focus firing still being quite important for the more dangerous types of enemies, but not nearly to the same degree I've experienced the game as.

One thing I do want to address though, is that I think it's unfair to chastise DA2 for players being able to do this kind of thing with full damage setup, when it's perfectly possible to do the same in DA:O(as we discussed earlier and you admitted to, with the arcane mages). Not holding the games up the same standards doesn't seem right. I'm not directing this solely at you, I'm just mentioning it, since we talked about it earlier.

While i was thinking about how i fought the small and big battles of DA2 i realized that you are right, even with a full damage setup there is quite some tactic and thinking involved, about wich character does what and how to spec them for that , its just different than in DA:O. And like I already admitted DA:O had a balancing issue (aka Arcane Warrior) too. So i guess my problems with DA2's combat came mostly from my mindset, i expectet DA:O like combat, and at first glance it looked like it, but felt "wrong".
I imagine this realization will make my next playthrough more entertaining.


On a aditional note: It's not that i didn't like the DA2 combat at all, I had lots of fun with it too.
So if you are interestet in the whole damage thing and maybe want to try it, here are the guides i based my favorite Hawkes on, they are both with additonal guides as to how to spec companions and setup tactics.

For the Force Mage/Blood Mage [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/305/index/7126577]
And the Vanguard/Berserker/Reaver [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/305/index/6616406]

Both guides are quite extensive wall of text, but if you just look at the skills of each, and the short description what companion does what, you might allready get the gist.

 

[darlarosa]

Bioware basically said each game will be new individuals significant to the DA universe in that period.

Yeah it seems i am the only one who hadn't heard of this.
My problem with that is not that i liked Hawke so much or anything, its just that DA2 becomes so pointless an futile if Hawke doesn't make a big appearance in DA3. I mean DA2 is all about Hawke derping around Kirkwall doing mostly minor or personal stuff, that has very little influence at anything. The only thing noteworthy happening is the Qunari battle. Everything else just gets hinted at or started, the real story and resolve of those things would have to be in DA3 and thus become the storys of the DA3 protagonist. The only thing tying all the minor quests and plots and whatnot together is Hawke, so DA2 becomes the story of how Hawke became who he/she is, but didnt really do much. And if Hawke doesn't really matter, since he has very little influence at anything, except getting rid of the qunari in Kirkwall, DA2 has zero significance within the trilogy.

DA2 was just executed poorly. I felt like the underlying thing the game tried to get at was that Hawke was at the center of things but wasn't able to necessarily control them in the way the Warden did. It was an exercise in how the personal story can lead into the bigger picture, but the story wasn't developed well. It was kind of political in that Hawke was the face for everything but she/he was rarely the direct cause of events in the game.I kind of appreciate that. Often times the player character in a Bioware game or a western rpg in general is so...influential regardless of how linear the story is. You make choices and decisions that affect the world but despite all of Hawke's power he/she is only reactive. The Warden had more urgency depending on how you played her/him. While the Warden reacted to the blight she/he had a lot of power in Ferelden by the end of the game, and throughout it. Meanwhile Hawke was simply respected, and had a title. Hawke was pretty much the tool of everyone in the game. They kind of took the general "Do this for me quest" and tried to expand it with the question of what if all these people were trying to pull your strings, and you can only react to it not really counter it.

I think that a lot of significance will be placed on things hinted at in DA:Legacy, and whether or not Hawke is viewed as a champion of the mages or Templars. Both the Grey Warden and Hawke vanish for unknown reasons, and most likely the game will deal with tracking them down and figuring out what role they play in the greater context of everything, and possibly working with them.

 

[Chris Tian]

I think that a lot of significance will be placed on things hinted at in DA:Legacy, and whether or not Hawke is viewed as a champion of the mages or Templars. Both the Grey Warden and Hawke vanish for unknown reasons, and most likely the game will deal with tracking them down and figuring out what role they play in the greater context of everything, and possibly working with them.

Well I just got all the DLC for Dragon Age 2 and haven't played them jet, so i have no idea what goes on in Legacy and Mark of the Assassin (no spoilers please ) and thus can't comment on that.
But unless what happens there is a lot more significant than everything else that happend during DA2, tracking down Hawke makes not much sense. I also never really got why Cassandra is searching for him either.
Thats my whole point, Hawke didn't do anything important, or was even caught up in anything major. He helped with the Qunari, thats it. So why would they need him/her for anything?

 

[chuckdm]

No.

No, no, no.

No more mages, no more templars, and NO MORE MAGES VS TEMPLARS!!!

THIS was the grand lesson nobody learned from ME3. The flaw in ME3 was that they wrote themselves into a box - Organics vs. Synthetics - and then had to contrive an ending for the whole damn franchise that would drive home the Organics vs. Synthetics point that should've been somewhere between a "subplot" and a "quasi-important generalized story point" rather than being made, halfway through the third game in the series, into being the overarching primary driving force in the whole thing.

Compared to Mages vs. Templars, I'll take "hero embarks on a quest to kill bad guy A" any day of the week. Mages vs. Templars is NOT good writing, NOT good story, and NOT EVEN good use of moral choice. If a "moral choice" has two answers and NEITHER IS ACTUALLY THE MORALLY CORRECT THING TO DO then it is NOT A MORAL CHOICE, BONEHEAD! Ambiguity and moral choice do not mix. Ever. Never ever. And don't give me that crap about how it's supposed to be some sort of allegory for real life racism or whatever. In real life racism, an entire race gets imprisoned for hundreds of years with prejudices lasting for over 100 more, and the worst the other side can say is they don't like the oppressed people's music. That isn't ambiguous - white people were wrong, and the correct moral choice is to end slavery and racism, period. This isn't a shade of gray, this is a clear and obvious choice. Ten percent of all black people aren't blood mages, or any equivalent thereof, and even the worst of the worst aren't capable of causing blood-mage-like devastation (plus if we're drawing that comparison, the vast majority of both genocides and serial killings in the past 2,000+ years are on the heads of white people anyway.)

So no, there is NOTHING good about the Mages vs. Templars construct, just as Organics vs. Synthetics is what really doomed ME3, because some asshat writer at BioWare decided he wanted to be "artsy" and instead of giving us the "just go to war and beat all the bad guys" ending we all wanted and would've been perfectly fucking happy with, he had to write an ending to fit within this whole totally artificial framework.

And since we have confirmation that Mages vs. Templars is basically the whole damn backstory of ME3, I won't be buying it. Wild horses and a free copy of the collector's edition a year before release couldn't make me play that game.

I just wish I had a memory eraser machine so I could wipe out my DA2 experience and leave DA:O untarnished in my mind.

 

[Chris Tian]

Mages vs. Templars is NOT good writing, NOT good story, and NOT EVEN good use of moral choice.

That statement makes just no sense. "Mages vs. Templars" is just a setup, a story framework, so it has no inherent quality whatsoever, neither good nor bad.
Or did you mean the way that Bioware handled the Mages vs. Templars conflict in Dragon Age 2?

If a "moral choice" has two answers and NEITHER IS ACTUALLY THE MORALLY CORRECT THING TO DO then it is NOT A MORAL CHOICE, BONEHEAD! Ambiguity and moral choice do not mix. Ever. Never ever.

If you think morality is always about one clearly right thing and one clearly wrong thing, and there is no moral ambiguity, then you dont seem to have a firm grasp of what morality means.

And don't give me that crap about how it's supposed to be some sort of allegory for real life racism or whatever. In real life racism, an entire race gets imprisoned for hundreds of years with prejudices lasting for over 100 more, and the worst the other side can say is they don't like the oppressed people's music. That isn't ambiguous - white people were wrong, and the correct moral choice is to end slavery and racism, period. This isn't a shade of gray, this is a clear and obvious choice. Ten percent of all black people aren't blood mages, or any equivalent thereof, and even the worst of the worst aren't capable of causing blood-mage-like devastation (plus if we're drawing that comparison, the vast majority of both genocides and serial killings in the past 2,000+ years are on the heads of white people anyway.)

Acutally the Mages vs. Templar theme has very little to do with racism, but more with safety vs. freedom. Since the Templars are not just prejudiced. Every mage poses a very real threat, because even the nices mage of all times can become an abomination if he lacks the proper training or is not carefull enough.
So the rest of your racism-rant makes also no sense at all.

 

[Smeatza]

They need to stop replacing substance with style.
They replaced a combat system that worked nicely, with a combat system that looked nice.
They replaced character customisation that worked nicely, with character customisation that kept your characters looking "nice."
They replaced a dialogue system that worked nicely, with one that sounded nice.

Basically I want an RPG this time around. Not an adventure game masquerading as an RPG.

 

[CloudAtlas]

No.

No, no, no.

No more mages, no more templars, and NO MORE MAGES VS TEMPLARS!!!

THIS was the grand lesson nobody learned from ME3. The flaw in ME3 was that they wrote themselves into a box - Organics vs. Synthetics - and then had to contrive an ending for the whole damn franchise that would drive home the Organics vs. Synthetics point that should've been somewhere between a "subplot" and a "quasi-important generalized story point" rather than being made, halfway through the third game in the series, into being the overarching primary driving force in the whole thing.

Compared to Mages vs. Templars, I'll take "hero embarks on a quest to kill bad guy A" any day of the week. Mages vs. Templars is NOT good writing, NOT good story, and NOT EVEN good use of moral choice. If a "moral choice" has two answers and NEITHER IS ACTUALLY THE MORALLY CORRECT THING TO DO then it is NOT A MORAL CHOICE, BONEHEAD! Ambiguity and moral choice do not mix. Ever. Never ever. And don't give me that crap about how it's supposed to be some sort of allegory for real life racism or whatever. In real life racism, an entire race gets imprisoned for hundreds of years with prejudices lasting for over 100 more, and the worst the other side can say is they don't like the oppressed people's music. That isn't ambiguous - white people were wrong, and the correct moral choice is to end slavery and racism, period. This isn't a shade of gray, this is a clear and obvious choice. Ten percent of all black people aren't blood mages, or any equivalent thereof, and even the worst of the worst aren't capable of causing blood-mage-like devastation (plus if we're drawing that comparison, the vast majority of both genocides and serial killings in the past 2,000+ years are on the heads of white people anyway.)

So no, there is NOTHING good about the Mages vs. Templars construct, just as Organics vs. Synthetics is what really doomed ME3, because some asshat writer at BioWare decided he wanted to be "artsy" and instead of giving us the "just go to war and beat all the bad guys" ending we all wanted and would've been perfectly fucking happy with, he had to write an ending to fit within this whole totally artificial framework.

And since we have confirmation that Mages vs. Templars is basically the whole damn backstory of ME3, I won't be buying it. Wild horses and a free copy of the collector's edition a year before release couldn't make me play that game.

I just wish I had a memory eraser machine so I could wipe out my DA2 experience and leave DA:O untarnished in my mind.

I have to disagree with you on many points.

1. The narrative of Mass Effect 3 is about many things. It is about literally saving the galaxy from annihilation - that is Shepard's overarching goal. And isn't that exactly what you want?
It is just not only about that. It is also about deeper themes like the value of life, the value of synthetic life, what is life, the value of cooperation, the consequences of ignorance, free will, the meaning of mortality, circles of life, and so on. And in my opinion all of that is combined quite well into the larger narrative. The organics vs. synthetics conflict (of which the reapers are neither!) is very central, yes, and used to illustrate many of these themes, but that is not all there is.

And you know what? I loved all of it. And I'm not the only one. So don't be so arrogant to assume that everyone hated the deeper themes, that everyone would have preferred a simpler, shallower story. None of that is true, and frankly, a bit insulting.


2. I don't think the concept of moral choice, and moral ambiguity, is what you believe it is. It is about making choices between morally distinct alternatives, but nothing says that one of those choices has to be clearly morally superior than the others. That's just like life is - often there is no clearly right or wrong alternative. And what seems right at the time you make a decision could turn out to have horrible, unforeseen consequences. What is the right thing to do anyway, or more abstract, what is the moral value of an action? Philosophers think about that since millenia, and there's more than one "morality system".
And, from a gameplay perspective: aren't difficult, ambiguous choices, choices that make you think about what might be the right thing to do, much more interesting?

3. As Chris Tian already said, the mages vs. templars conflict has nothing to do with racism, it is about freedom vs. security. The reason to control mages is very real - they often are dangerous. And this is a conflict I find interesting precisely because it is morally ambiguous, and precisely because it is connected to our real world experiences. Every society in the world struggles to find a balance between freedom and security.
Racism is a theme in Dragon Age too, yes, but mostly with the treatment of elves, and it doesn't play a large in the overall narrative (unless you play as city elf).

4. With all your ranting against moral ambiguity, you seem to forget that DA:O, the one game which you seemed to like, is full of morally ambiguous choices, you have to make them from the very beginning to the very end. I could name countless examples of that on the top of my head. Pretty much the only thing that is not ambiguous in some way is, well, the darkspawn. They are evil and need to be destroyed.

 

[craftomega]

Basic math.

Me1 9/10
DA:O 9/10
Me2 8/10
DA2 6/10
Me3 7/10
SW:TOR 8/10 (But they lost over 100 million on it so its still a massive flop)

= DA3 = 6-7/10

With EA track record of forcing there producers to release games on stupid schedules or competing in markets saturated with similar games, I have no hope of Bioware ever coming back to greatness.

-They will forever be living in mediocrity as all the most skilled people have left and there management is weak.

-Their forums are unusable as they have become as toxic as LOL.

-Their games have become generic and lack originality or even a sense of ingenuity.

-Please tell me how can they make another good game that even approaches NWN, KOTOR, ME1, DA:O?

 

[Chris Tian]

THIS was the grand lesson nobody learned from ME3. The flaw in ME3 was that they wrote themselves into a box - Organics vs. Synthetics - and then had to contrive an ending for the whole damn franchise that would drive home the Organics vs. Synthetics point that should've been somewhere between a "subplot" and a "quasi-important generalized story point" rather than being made, halfway through the third game in the series, into being the overarching primary driving force in the whole thing.

I have to disagree with you on many points.

1. The narrative of Mass Effect 3 is about many things. It is about literally saving the galaxy from annihilation - that is Shepard's overarching goal. And isn't that exactly what you want?
It is just not only about that. It is also about deeper themes like the value of life, the value of synthetic life, what is life, the value of cooperation, the consequences of ignorance, free will, the meaning of mortality, circles of life, and so on. And in my opinion all of that is combined quite well into the larger narrative. The organics vs. synthetics conflict (of which the reapers are neither!) is very central, yes, and used to illustrate many of these themes, but that is not all there is.

Well i promised myself i wouldn't react to ME3 comments, so the thread wouldn't get derailed by this, but it seems appropriate in this context.

Saying that the Organics vs. Synthetics conflict drove ME3 into a corner is just not true.
I always thought of this as more of a sub-plotpoint that was used to ask questions like:
What is life?
Whats the meaning of life?
What is the value of life?
I was totally surprised, when starchild declared organics vs. synthetics as the central theme.

And, central theme or not, the organics vs. synthetics conflict was never in a "box". That would mean that a narrative has nowhere to go from a certain point. Shepard basically resolves it with the quarian/geth peace, Bioware could easily have left it at that if they had not chosen to bring it up in the ending again.

The only thing here i can think of, where Bioware really wrote themselves into a box like you say, is the "how to defeat the reaper issue". They made them out to be this unstoppable force and then had no idea as to how to resolve that, i think. Hence the plotdevice that is the crucible, wich can solve the reaper thread in two plausible and one magical way.

The Mages vs. Templar conflict is used to explore a inherently different question: "Where is the balance between safety and freedom?" Thats way less metaphysical and a more "present" issue in our everyday lives.

And again they wrote themself nowhere near a "box" with the theme. The Templer/Mage-Conflict can instead basically go anywhere, there are dozens of ways in wich it could unfold.

 

[Chris Tian]

Basic math.

Me1 9/10
DA:O 9/10
Me2 8/10
DA2 6/10
Me3 7/10
SW:TOR 8/10 (But they lost over 100 million on it so its still a massive flop)

= DA3 = 6-7/10

With EA track record of forcing there producers to release games on stupid schedules or competing in markets saturated with similar games, I have no hope of Bioware ever coming back to greatness.

-They will forever be living in mediocrity as all the most skilled people have left and there management is weak.

-Their forums are unusable as they have become as toxic as LOL.

-Their games have become generic and lack originality or even a sense of ingenuity.

-Please tell me how can they make another good game that even approaches NWN, KOTOR, ME1, DA:O?

First off: What numbers are those? Your own, or some critic site? Either way i think some arbitary numbers are not a good way to summarize a game, or anything for that matter. And i dont think you can "calculate" what number DA3 will be.

I don't think Bioware has no talentet people anymore. DA2 had the skeleton of a great game, and ME3 was just short of being great, but they were both good in my opinion.

I dont see how unusable forums equal bad games.

Well you might be right that they are not all that inovative, but they never really were. Bioware always worked along established patterns.

I can tell you that rather easily: While they might have adopted some undesirable buisness practices from EA, I think there is still a lot of talent left at Bioware.
Although ME3 has its flaws and failed even my expectations, it gets way more hate than it deserves. DA2 deserves all the hate, since the rushed release was a lazy cashgrab. But it looks like they didn't do that to DA3.
I really dont get that, after over a decade of great games, two games that just failed expectations, but are by no means bad, can make so many people belive Bioware is burnt out. I mean i won't preorder DA3 or anything, but i definitely belive they are at least still capable of making great games.