Dragon Age 3: Inquisition Announced

[DoctorFinger]

Is there a word for 'something everyone knows is coming, but couldn't officially be revealed yet'? That sounds like something the Germans would have thought of years ago. In any case, that putative word would be how you'd describe Dragon Age 3. Everyone out there knew it was in development, buy EA and Bioware couldn't contractually talk about it. Until now that is. Dragon Age 3: Inquisition is officially official...and that's more or less all we know about it. It's coming in late 2013 for still unspecified platforms. It's being developed by much of the same team which developed the last two Dragon Age titles. Executive Producer Mark Darrah posted a letter to the community expounding on his love for the genre, and noting that the game will use the Frostbyte 2 engine that powers Battlefield 3 and other recent EA releases.

However, from the 'Inquisition' subtitle, we can make some guesses. The Inquisition likely refers to the persecution of magic users by the Mages Guild, a conceit which has been central to the series from the beginning.

This begs the question: which Dragon Age do we get? The combat was generally considered lackluster in the original, especially on consoles, but the story, pacing and progression was pretty popular. The sequel seemed to reverse that; the combat was tightened up, but the whole game was seen as much more linear and lacking in role playing elements fans look for in these sort of games. EA and Bioware know all of this, as evidenced by multiple statements and presentations from the companies. We just don't know how they've addressed these fan concerns.

[Ghostbear]

I disagree with your assessment of the combat. I thought it was tactical and smart in the original. It turned into a stupid monster closet game in the sequel that made tactical thinking a waste of time.

[Ink Asylum]

There's a middle ground between the heavily tactical gameplay of the first title and the simplified and repetitive gameplay of the second. I hope they find the sweet spot, because that's where I'd like to see the series go.

[TheFlyingOrc]

Originally Posted by Ink Asylum

There's a middle ground between the heavily tactical gameplay of the first title and the simplified and repetitive gameplay of the second. I hope they find the sweet spot, because that's where I'd like to see the series go.

I keep hearing about how the first one was tactical but I blitzed through it pretty easily.

Also, the class balance was super bad.

[Gwinny]

I'm mostly worried that it's coming out in 2013. I suppose if it's late 2013, that's two and a half years since DA2 - but since DA2's major issue (from which its others all stemmed) was the rushed corner-cutting, I was hoping for a slightly longer development cycle. Give it more time to mature.

Edit: And if the rumors are true, it's going to have co-op on top of it all? I really hate to be a pessimist when we haven't seen anything more than an announcement but Dragon Age is the one series that brings it out of me.

[Abyssion]

I liked Dragon Age 2 I wish they had made more dlc for it...

My only problem with DA1 was that I couldn't carry over and promotional items or pre-order items to any of the dlc so it broke my character. Never got around to playing Awakening.

[iHap]

I disagree with you Doc Finger as well about the combat.

With DA1, you were allowed to plan out the combat, you had to use tactics to figure out a tough battle. Creating different auto attack stances for your companions was also something that was crucial to any boss fight, sometimes even needing to switch to a different character to use a specific heal or damage skill. Using buildings and objects for LOS was also a useful tactic.

With DA2, you just run in hack'n'slashing. I never had to really worry about dying in boss fights... It was barely a party system at all.

[DoctorFinger]

Originally Posted by Ghostbear

I disagree with your assessment of the combat. I thought it was tactical and smart in the original. It turned into a stupid monster closet game in the sequel that made tactical thinking a waste of time.

Because you played both on the PC. The console combat differed quite a lot, mostly because it was a lot less tactical than the PC version. I agree about the monster closet stuff, but for me the actual combat in 2 was much more pleasant than in 1 on the Xbox.

[RandoM51]

Bioware is dead, long live EA North.

[Ghostbear]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

Because you played both on the PC.

As is only right and proper.

[Blue]

The combat in DA1 bored me to tears, so much so that I didn't bother with 2. I enjoyed the world and was interested in where things were going (so much so that I read up quite a bit on 2 to keep up). It may be due to playing it on consoles but even still, I'm not invested enough to try again.

Played a bit as a Mage and disliked how reliant on the Warrior I was in doing their job to keep alive and even with my management the AI still seemed mediocre at best. Switched over to Warrior to compensate and found I both had trouble keeping aggro well along with remaining upright without drinking a potion every minute (even after adding a healer to the team, they didn't seem interested in doing their job).

I'm sure there's a better game in there but I personally couldn't get over the combat hump to find it.

[Karmakin]

Bioware does one thing and one thing right...that is character design and interactions (talking and stuff). Everything else is meh or worse.

[menage]

Originally Posted by Karmakin

Bioware does one thing and one thing right...that is character design and interactions (talking and stuff). Everything else is meh or worse.

It's what they do best, but Mass Effect had some decent world building and I thought 2 (3) had decent shooty bits.

[Savok]

For a so called dragon age there sure aren't many dragons and a lot of badly written political shit.

[Karmakin]

You're right and I'm being overly critical/douchy about it. I liked the shooty bits too and Mass Effect did have interesting design altogether (shame it was pretty much wasted in the end)

[Ink Asylum]

The name "Dragon Age" comes from the naming convention for time periods in the game's lore. Each century is named after a significant event, and this latest period was named when a high dragon went on a rampage.

There are 3 fights with mature dragons in the first game and 1 in the second, you're just not tripping over them like you are in Skyrim.

[bstiff]

Originally Posted by Ghostbear

I disagree with your assessment of the combat. I thought it was tactical and smart in the original. It turned into a stupid monster closet game in the sequel that made tactical thinking a waste of time.

Never did finsih da2 on pc.. I feld like I was playing an arcady console port in combat and gave up.

[Philonious]

It took me forever to slog through DA1 and I actually found DA2 to be more enjoyable despite some of the corner cutting. DA1 was just too generic/drab. Here's hoping that DA3 builds on the strengths of both.

[ThievesAmongUs]

The problem with DA2 versus the original is they are two completely different games. The first game is akin to Baldur's Gate in its use of tactics and difficulty, while the second is more akin to Mass Effect 2 (or 3). DA:O is far more epic in scope with the storytelling, while DA2 focuses on a more personal level.

[Chris_D]

I liked both games a lot although they do have problems. Regardless, I'll be there for DA3.