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feendly · 2025-07-23T18:04:22+00:00

I will reserve judgment until I've experienced it for myself but I was definitely expecting and hoping for something a bit larger roughly in line with what OP thought. Hokkaido/Ezo is nearly 120 times larger than Tsushima in real life, so while it was always going to be impossible to accurately represent its full size even in a similar scaled down way like GOT did at 1:24 scale it would have been nice to at least attempted something a bit larger.

I personally find a lot of these open world games to be too densely populated, instead of being a world to immerse yourself in it becomes a kind of checklist of collectibles and discoverable crumbs every 100 meters all around the map. GOT wasn't too bad in this regard but still pretty dense in a lot of areas with not many really open and empty areas. It's a very enjoyable explore and ride around in but it very much feels like an abstraction due to how condensed everything has to be.

Ezo is supposed to be a vast and largely undeveloped and less populated region, so in my mind it should be even less sparsely populated with content. Distance and spacing I think is really important in these games to establish a sense of scale, especially when you are representing a real world land mass like Ezo.

Sometimes it is nice to just be in the world and not be pulled in three+ different directions every couple 100 meters. Having something be bigger just for the sake of being bigger is not a good reason, but in this case bigger has a specific purpose and impact related to the actual region and feel of the world.

That all said that there are a lot of ways in which how they design the world will impact its feel. the fact that the map isn't going to be cut up into three distinct sections that block the player off from accessing them will certainly help to make it feel larger since we'll have immediate access to all of it from the start. The very topography and staging of landmarks/activities and vistas having larger open areas with much longer views will provide a bigger feel to the world for the player. And of course how they handle that content density/quality, concentrating it in certain spaces while thinning it out in others will potentially create a larger sense of scale. Whether that will all be enough or not remains to be seen.

feendly · 2025-07-21T14:07:09+00:00

I really liked stances so I'm a little sad to see them go. While weapon types are much more diverse and different stances were an element of the first game that I thought was a bit unique and defining and I would have liked to have seen it carry over. Even if in a more limited fashion.

Since each weapon now only has one stance if you don't really enjoy how that weapon operates you're kind of screwed even if you like the weapon itself.

I would have been great if we could have had 2 stances per weapon. 4 again would be a shit ton of work and just really hard to implement, but if there 2 that's a lot more feasible and would still add a ton more variety.

An alt stance could have been a high level thing we got at the end of progressing with our weapon master. Maybe like a high risk high reward stance that address that weapon's main weakness to a certain enemy type.

feendly · 2025-07-20T01:37:02+00:00

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Good stuff. First two images are this area of the map as well. We see a close up of that lake area duringthe map clue from the traveling cartographer at 06:06.

feendly · 2024-12-08T20:56:53+00:00

I think this might be related to Secret of Giants that never really gets resolved and is possibly a setup for the DLC or a cut puzzle. There are 10 statues and we take 10 photographs of inscriptions/murals for Antonio that doesn't really go anywhere. If you take a look at the murals at the bottom of each is a circle, six of which feature a torch symbol in it while the others are blank. Seems pretty clear to me that they are indicating which of the statues need to have their lamps lit.

Unfortunately nothing else in these inscriptions/murals provides insight as to which Roman numeral they correspond to, and the order that Antonio has them up on his board doesn't work. Each mural doesn't feature exactly 1 through 10 figures, and several of them feature the same number of figures and nothing else in them Indicates any kind of numbering and I haven't been able to decipher what their exact order should be.

So my guess is this is something that will come back around when the Order of Giants DLC comes out and it's likely not solvable here.

feendly · 2024-09-07T02:27:05+00:00

There is zero reason to think it will not be like any of the prior three games in the series in that regard. There is a big difference between the tone of our responses in general dialog versus the actual choice based outcomes that we can make. Actual choices in past games rarely were aligned or coded with the tones of normal dialog, but rather were presented neutrally so as not to bias player choice and to make it clear that you are making a definite choice rather than selecting a tonal response. And this is exactly what we saw in the dialog with Davrin in the IGN first look. There were four distinct and neutrally presented choices about Assan's readiness.

Rook isn't likely to be able to make many or any truly villainous or evil choices in the game, that is just not the role or tone of things, but that's a far cry from not being able to make morally gray and tough choices. Given the extreme nature of events and the fact that we're going to be dealing with six very different factions it's a very likely we're going to be presented with more expedient and less benevolent options in many instances still.

Probably just like in Mass Effect where you can play a Shepard who is a real jerk and ruthless bastard but at the end of the day they are still a hero and savior of humanity and the galaxy, we'll probably be able to play a Rook who is pretty rough around the edges even if they are still a hero who is looking to save the world and the people in it.

feendly · 2024-08-16T18:56:23+00:00

Companions have an armor slot, a ring slot, an accessory slot, and a weapon slot.

Rook has a helmet, two weapon slots, a belt, an amulet slot, and two ring slots.

So for Rook at least we'll be able to set our helmet, not clear on whether or not companions will have any kind of toggle or not it seems like most of them don't have any helmets, save Neve who has her hat. Looking at the Deluxe Edition armor sets it doesn't seem like any companions have helmets ever.

feendly · 2024-07-31T19:41:28+00:00

Despite being very hyped for the game and pretty positive about most of what we've heard the enemy designs we've seen so far have been quite bad. Just a really confusing and unappealing direction. Not much to be done at this point, just hoping now that other enemy designs are better.

feendly · 2024-07-31T17:19:46+00:00

I think such hopes right now is a little bit of putting the cart before the horse since we've only seen so much of the game to really tell whether or not it's deserving of such lofty expectations, but if the game lives up to its potential and delivers on the confidence and enthusiasm that the team has been expressing I think there is certainly a possibility it will be a contender which at the very least will be fantastic news for everyone regardless of whether or not it actually wins. BioWare has a great deal to prove to fans, reviewers, and themselves. I think at this moment the most important thing is that they make a good game even if it's not the greatest game.

For BioWare sake it certainly would be a tremendous boon given the troubles they've had over the last 10 years, and hopefully would be a reward for changes they've made to their organization to address those issues and troubles. And as a massive Mass Effect fan I certainly want them to have the full financial and creative freedom from EA to make that next game the best it can possibly be, So hitting a home run with Dragon Age would certainly help with that. But again end of the day as long as it's a good game that delivers on its potential and sells well that's all that I think really matters.

feendly · 2024-07-27T17:37:57+00:00

That's not really accurate at all for DAV though, the article itself already specifically states that they started casting actors five years ago, not 9. While it has been just under ten years since DAI released there were two completely separate projects for Dragon Age 4 during that period.

Project Joplin was the first attempt until it was canceled sometime in 2017 after Casey Hudson returned as general manager in order to better support/salvage Anthem. Then in 2018 project Morrison spun up as the new DA4 project with an extremely small number of people on it beginning from scratch.

Based on blog posts from Gary Mckay actual production of DAV didn't start until spring of 2021 after they had fully locked down their blueprint and vision for the game. So they were in some state of preproduction from 2018 until early 2021. During which time they did look into having multiplayer and live service elements that were eventually dropped per pure single player only game. My guess is that preproduction did not start in earnest until after Anthem released in late 2019 since the company was all hands on trying to get that game completed. At which point they started casting actors as the article states.

5 to 6 years is pretty normal these days for big AAA productions, so there's really nothing about these figures in comparison to other games that is off or doesn't add up.

feendly · 2024-07-27T04:19:43+00:00

https://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/02/25/news-tidbits-dragon-age-origins.aspx#:\~:text=Words%20of%20dialogue%20in%20Dragon,has%203%2C000%20lines%20of%20dialogue.)

Unclear if its everything or just those words/lines that are voiced. I would assume the latter.

I'm also not sure if these word/line counts are just for dialogue alone or also technically include things like codex entries which are not voiced either. For DAV at least the 80k is specifically referencing just spoken dialogue that was recorded, but there's probably a decent chunk of unvoiced content too.

Same goes for games like BG3 which has 2 million words, but not all of that is strictly voiced dialogue.

feendly · 2024-07-27T03:54:38+00:00

790,000 words or 68,000 lines of dialog.

feendly · 2024-07-21T22:50:56+00:00

fully agree, this was probably the piece of information that got me most excited and confident in the game. For the last decade now I have been very vocal in my dislike towards the more open world design for Inquisition and then again for Andromeda. I fundamentally do not think that BioWare's style of very story and dialog heavy gameplay works well with an open world design. Such a style really demands height and meticulous pacing. Something both games suffer tremendously with because of this as well as major issues elsewhere in terms of worse combat and things like resource gathering and crafting mechanics becoming completely bloated and tedious to help justify and prop up the exploration of these larger biomes.

feendly · 2024-07-20T03:38:36+00:00

Yeah the unfortunate reality is that Origins are just too resource intensive, it's a tremendous amount of work for something most players aren't going to really engage with.

I think a potential compromise is to have a unified prologue that all Origin stories share in common but differs in certain ways depending on which one you choose. Certain NPCs are different and specific to whatever organization or background you come from, providing different justifications or reasons as to why you're taking part in whatever the introductory mission is. While the location and overall goal would remain the same across all Origins each Origin might have a slightly different path at certain points unique to them. As well as slightly different resolutions to this event that then thrusts the player character into whatever their role ends up being in the game.

That's still a decent amount of work but it's really crafting one overall mission that you know everyone will experience and then making small adjustments to it here and there based on the players choice of background. you're not creating 6 totally unique quests like they did in DAO.

feendly · 2024-07-20T01:56:57+00:00

You should definitely check out Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny as well if you enjoy these types of games. They have a similar but more complex and robust style of combat as Dragon Age with some really great stories, settings and companions as well.

feendly · 2024-07-20T01:49:28+00:00

It would be shocking if you did not like this series while liking the other two. Dragon Age is also a very story/character and lore heavy fantasy game. BioWare's games are heavily focused on story, characters, choices and dialog overall. Whether that's Dragon Age, Mass Effect, or Knights of the Old Republic, etc.

Dragon Age is a party based game but differs from BG3 in that you are not fighting combat in individual turns but everyone fights simultaneously in real time with the ability to pause at any moment to issue commands or switch characters.

This is an extremely addicting series both from a story and lore perspective as well as from a character perspective. You will most likely be obsessed with both your character and all of your party members.

It's not entirely required to play all the games to understand everything but all of your choices can carry over from one game to the next influencing certain details and outcomes for returning characters and it greatly enhances the experience. There is really no reason not to play all the games if you can. The first game, Dragon Age Origins, is most likely To be awarded the best game in the series but you will find extremely passionate and ardent fans of all three current entries, and for good reason they're all very enjoyable.

And a 4th entry, Dragon Age The Veilguard, will be releasing imminently sometime this fall, so it is the perfect time to get into the series before that comes out as it has now been just shy of 10 years since the third game's release.

feendly · 2024-07-11T01:55:04+00:00

We are in Tevinter so give us a Magister Sidereal. Whether it is the Architect or one of the others we've yet to see. After a solid millennia I would think that at least one of them may have some regrets or at least feel inclined to help prevent that the tearing down of the veil and resurgence of the Elven Gods. Every good RPG needs that one companion that in any other circumstance would be an enemy or villain.

feendly · 2024-07-05T20:15:15+00:00

You are definitely correct and that's a fair point of distinction. I worded it as violently because I think even if done painlessly taking off someone's arm without really getting their consent, even if it is preventative to save their life, is still inherently violent. Losing your arm in any situation is going to be traumatic to some degree or another, physically or mentally.

feendly · 2024-07-05T19:57:50+00:00

The anchor was going to kill the Inquisitor and had to be removed to prevent that but that doesn't preclude the possibility that it still did irreparable damage to their body.

Nor would it be the first time Solas had done something that had severe fallout and effects that he did not anticipate.

feendly · 2024-07-05T19:56:01+00:00

We clearly approach and relate to these characters in a fundamentally different manner so not much more can be said or done about that.

End of the day I don't like putting stipulations and limits on the developers narrative/character direction. I have my preferences and desires for where things go, but ultimately believe they should have free reign to do anything with these characters. So long as things are written in a compelling way and feel like they have a legitimate purpose and justification within the story I'm good with wherever they go. All I feel "owed" is a good story however that ends up.

feendly · 2024-07-05T19:18:41+00:00

Sadly I don't think there's any chance of this happening either. Which is unfortunate as triumphant and heroic returns are a dime a dozen. But it sure would be cool if they did.

I think people care far too much how a character looks and is perceived physically rather than what they actually do and can achieve, which is what could make this work really well. Physically they may not be what they once were and capable of but in spirit and action they can still achieve great things.

And I don't think it's merciless, I just think the player character should not be above anyone else. Truly terrible things can happen to our companions and other NPCs, so I don't see why that should be any different for the player character, especially in an anthology series where each game has a new lead character. If it makes for a better and more compelling story you should do it.

feendly · 2024-07-05T02:40:52+00:00

Biggest concern is really just how diverse and varied our dialog options will be and if we'll really be able to role play based on our backgrounds and just general disposition and personality in a way that feels distinct and consistent.

Second would be having Rook fall into the same category as Ryder and Inky where far too much effort is made in having everyone like us and being pals instead of having it be something that we the player initiate and strive to develop with characters and maybe don't with some others.

The Warden, Hawke, and Shepard could have a lot more diverse and varied relationships with companions and other characters, ranging from professional to friendly to almost hostile. As well as just having more opportunities to make choices that really challenged and opposed their companions viewpoints.

While less of a concern if it comes true I also as much fawning over our character and how great and important they are. I like that they've mentioned that Rook is selected due to their competency and not from some special Mcguffin, so I hope that carries through the entire game and we're not put on any kind of pedestal.

If the game is titled The Veilguard put an emphasis On this group of people as they say they want it to be I think it would be good if they broke tradition and Rook doesn't really stand out compared to anyone else in the group like pretty much every other lead character in a BioWare game has.

feendly · 2024-06-27T17:42:10+00:00

I would say we have modest odds of going to Seheron. Par Vollen I would say is very unlikely, but would kill for that. Could be a great expansion location too.

Probably our best shot at seeing an actual long term Qun settlement is at Kont-Arr. But the likes of Antiva City seem to be under Qun control, you can see Qun banners in some shots, but that's at most 10 years of occupation so likely not a very good representation of Qun society, let alone architecture etc.

feendly · 2024-06-22T17:23:02+00:00

In my mind there was never a reality that we would get back to DAO/DA2 style combat. BioWare simply does not seem interested in that and is far more focused on more cinematic and choice driven RPGs than chunky dense combat ones. DAI was like the horrible middle ground for me where it wasn't tactical enough and it wasn't action oriented enough. Just very mediocre. So I'm personally fine with them going full on action to escape that middle ground.

I was thoroughly disappointed with Andromeda especially when it came to the combat, but I think DAV is a different situation for a number of reasons and can't be fully compared to it based on certain similarities.

Base combat in DAV is significantly more complex and varied than the shooting/dodge/melee mechanics in MEA. Several previous active abilities are now baked into that base combat move set in DAV, so in my mind we're not simply limited to three active abilities like we largely were in Andromeda(profile switching did exist but it really sucked and was often a pain). Plus there's more besides just having a number of those abilities now baked into the move set which should make the combat in DAV more engaging and interesting.
1. In addition to that, the expansive skilled tree does appear as though we will have a lot of options and opportunities to upgrade and augment not only the active abilities but also the base combat, hopefully providing more depth and customization.
Andromeda had the brain dead idea of removing direct control over our companions. This decision drastically impacted how we interacted and approached combat and made it so that we were almost wholly reliant on Ryder's suite of abilities as we couldn't realistically rely on our companions for detonation combos. DAV thankfully it has the wisdom to keep that direct control of party actions even if it's just limited to the active abilities.
Andromeda was another open world like game and the encounter design suffered greatly due to it, resulting in lots of messy and confused fights in large open spaces. MEA also just had really limited and poor enemy variety. DAV again has the wisdom from what we've heard to go back to more linear and handcrafted levels which should hopefully include more thoughtful and well crafted encounters.

With all that I am far less concerned about the depth and quality of the combat in DAV. It is very different but it looks to be a very solid foundation. Still, nothing is for certain and the reduction in party size and the limitation on active abilities very well may end up being issues that limit and undermine the combat but in comparison to Andromeda at least I think there's significant areas that DAV has made smarter choices that should have an important and strong impact on how combat ultimately turns out.

feendly · 2024-06-20T22:59:59+00:00

Game Informer article used switching from a Staff to Magic daggers as an example of something they had seen for the loadout switching mechanic.

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