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Dragon Age Inquisition

Playing chess with Cullen and Dorian, could life get any better? Watch in 720p for the full Dorian body experience ;) I think I'm going to flirt my way through this entire game..
 
I'm at work but my head wants to be in Dragon Age :) I wish I had a war table missions app on my phone so I could send my advisors out to deal with shit remotely in my absence.. :cool:
 
Spent quite a chilled time in the forests of the Emerald Graves last night, it is so beautiful and peaceful there, also spent a bit of time riding around the Hinterlands on my beautiful horse/stag.
 
I'm going to resurrect Aine, my first character, so I can do all the DLC. It sounds like the final one, Trespasser, is SO GOOD. Apparently it's a lore-gasm. This pleases me more than I can say. I love lore. I come for the lore. I AM the lore. :D
 
Vintage Paw said:
Look at Blackwall, just standing there ignoring you :p
Click to expand...
I was ignoring him! I nearly dumped him last night, he is sooooo boring and I can't stand all his angst etc he reminds me of a member of the SWP..
I am aware that he reveals something and I may be released from him after that.. I just hope I don't have to wait too long..
 
Well, you haven't finished yet have you? So I won't go into too many things. But little bits and pieces from all three games have me very interested in anything to do with Flemeth (and the various other people I think she may be linked with through history), ancient elven history, I'm very interested in avaar history (the lady of the skies in particular) and in dwarven history. I'm looking forward to playing through The Descent. I don't know how much dwarven history we get, but I think we do get a few things answered that I've been very interested in.

What interests me most is unpicking the stories people tell. One of the main themes, if not the main theme, of the franchise as far as I'm concerned is about the transmission of history and the construction of truths. It makes it clear that history very much does belong to the victor, and there are some wonderful moments where that's pointed out in DAI. I'm interested in tracing where the beginnings of current beliefs come from, how different figures and events in history changed and morphed and had their stories integrated into other ones and transformed to fit the current political and social narrative. DAI is rammed full of stuff about this, from the astrariums with their potted histories of different constellations, to Mother Giselle talking about how the Chant is basically just an interpretation of those who won battles in the past, and various things you learn about elves, etc. DAI is a dream for me in this regard because there are just so many things that deal with this, and as far as I know the Trespasser dlc has it in spades.

Of course, the 'big one' in terms of lore is who or what is the Maker, and I believe they've said they'll never reveal whether the Maker exists or not. That said, I'm sure they'll keep giving us plenty that we can use to speculate about in that regard, about what other forces or events might be responsible for the myth of the Maker, and how we might trace the path back to how these stories got twisted into what they are today. It's like Christian religion, in a way it's immaterial whether there is a god or not, but even if there is we can still look at the bible and organised religion and trace how it's changed and been shaped by different forces over history. That's the stuff I'm interested in. Why do we tell the stories we tell, and who controls them and to what ends?
 
I made it to the winter palace last night and couldn't really cope with the Orlesians and their bloody game..
I felt like brandishing my Lifetake staff and shouting 'I kill Dragon(ling)s!!'


 
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I started using a controller today. I don't like it. My game seems weirdly smoother, which is good (and also might just be in my imagination), but pausing is weird. I hit LB to bring up the radial wheel and pause the combat, so I can think about what ability to fire off next, and as soon as I select it it unpauses. It doesn't do that with m&kb. It stays paused, so I can switch to another party member if I want and issue a command to them... I can issue a full squad of commands, and then unpause it myself. Ugh. Do. not. like. I will persevere though. It just feels dreadfully imprecise and just lacking in control all round. It is better for controlling the camera for screenshots though (although I have to still use the kb for some things).
 
I really liked the wicked hearts quest in the end, it had a bit of a James Bond feel to it :)
Am now doing companions quests and visited the Exhalted Plains for the first time, I'm level 15 playing on normal and it all seems a bit too easy, I may up the difficulty.
Here is some combat which shows off some stunning graphics.
Edit: I take it all back, I just met my first Dragon ...
 
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I finished both Jaws of Hakkon and The Descent. Some good lore stuff in both.

Now onto Trespasser. I'm very, very, very much looking forward to this.
 
I'm already planning my next inkies. I had started Samiya, qunari mage, but I'm planning Riley, dorf champion, and an as of yet unnamed human dude who is going to badoink with Dorian :D Oh, and an elven knight enchanter who will romance Solas, and a human templar who will get all srs and dutiful with Cullen.
 
I'm wandering around the Emerald Graves, chasing nugs, picking flowers and listening to the birds.. It's so relaxing there.
 
Poor Iron Bull, I took him out to close a high level rift in the Emerald Graves and forgot to give him some armour, he fell several times and we had to retreat. :(
I rubbed some elf root salve into his wounds and crafted him some shiny new threads with runes, plus made him a masterwork shield..
I hope he will forgive me.. :facepalm:
 
You have him with a shield? Heavens to Betsy! His reaver spec works so much better with 2H, and loading him up with crit. He's a squishy thing either way, for such a massive dude. Never, ever, EVER equip him with berserk items. Or do *evil grin* The Bull is not a tank, he's a damage dealer. Templar can go either way, s&s or 2H; Champion is a natural tank with s&s but you might be able to make 2h work; but gosh, reaver and Bull have to be 2H all the way!!!!!! You have to work hard to get him to work right. He dies a lot. Reaver relies on taking some damage, and if the AI isn't playing nicely that can go pear shaped.
 
That was very good. There's been quite a bit of criticism of the desire demons in the past, but that article handles it well (although I don't think it covers everything as deeply as it could).

The biggest problem by far is the way that it suggests the ultimate object of desire is a naked woman, regardless of who you are and what your predilections might be. It's lazy, frankly. "We need to represent desire." "Hot naked chick." "'Kay." You see this shit everywhere. I'm reminded of the anime, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood -- the enemies are the seven deadly sins and can you guess which of them is the only woman and what she might look and act like? It's just the same old tired idea that appears so "well d'uh" to some people, that 'object of desire = sexy woman' that lies at the heart of so much absolute shit.

The point about removing any overt sexiness altogether, and then insisting on the renaming to 'choice spirit' (which is done in a really odd way in the game - Imshael keeps getting annoyed when you call him a desire demon), compounds the original problem imo. I have sympathy for the argument that removing overt eye-candy altogether is important to achieve a level playing field from which we can start adding it back in on a more equal footing, but tbh it's never going to work that way. And they haven't removed the eye-candy anyway, it's just there in different ways.

It'd be easy to say "just hire some women to do design work" but tbh I think things are so fucked up it's going to be a while before women are able to design 'sexy men' in a way free from lots of baggage. Of course, that's all without the problem of different people finding different things sexy -- tbh that's a big part of the problem because we've been sold the idea of what hetero men find sexy, to the point where they unconsciously agree "this = sexy" whether they personally find it attractive or not. But straight women have never had that same treatment. There's a tentative idea of the typical Calvin Klein model, or a Chippendale, but it's not rooted in the same kind of tradition and with the same weight of practice and saturation as the hot chick. In geekier circles, there's recognition that straight women find different things attractive, with the 'twink' being quite a popular image (something I think they tried to do with Fenris in DA2 and failed miserably with because while his body was lithe and elfy his face was gruff as was his voice). The default knight in shining armour being the idea of 'what women want' is based on the sexist gaming/fantasy trope that women must be saved by men - even if you are a female player character with agency, you're still given the typical knight, and usually they're a bit dorky and not very threatening. DAI subverts this quite a bit, with a good range of different love interests, and ME3 did similar -- I hope it continues in this vein. But I hope it does a bit more sexy on the dude side.

I mean, Dorian is sexy, and he shows a bit of skin, and you could argue he's written for straight women since we know that straight women lap up gay content (he's gay), if we're looking at the type of men available to women in a hetero romance (since we keep talking about 'what women want' from a very heterocentric pov) then there's nothing dripping the same kind of sex appeal in the same way as there have been with women. That said, the women in DAI don't do that either. The article talks about Vivienne's plunging neckline, but she's not a love interest. The other women available to romance are Cass (straight) - who has been criticised for looking 'like a man' (god), Josephine (bi) - who has been criticised as being too ugly and/or too Disney princess (skjdgnbskjgb), and Sera (gay) - who has been criticised as too ugly and/or annoying. None of them are flashing their tits at you (apart from Cass and Sera during sex scenes, when everyone's got a bit of everything on display - except no peen, at all... boo).

I can't really fault BW for the romances in DAI (I can in some of their other games), but certainly, coming back to that article, the desire demon/choice spirit thing pissed me off (as did the cries from some corners saying "omg BioWare, y u so PC, removing the desire demon - don't cater to those evil sjw harpies omg").

The great thing about the DA team is their willingness to try. They are always trying, always engaging. I have faith they'll continue in a positive direction, and I also know they'll fuck up, but doesn't everyone?
 
Vintage Paw said:
we've been sold the idea of what hetero men find sexy, to the point where they unconsciously agree "this = sexy" whether they personally find it attractive or not
Click to expand...
maybe theirs something in that. I like elfin characters with outsized weapons and a bad attitude, thats probably cos of all the fantasy/sf images I grew up with showing women in fantasy & sf just like that- even Tank Girl isn't free from a sort of geek inversion of the what-is-hot (Its still a bad attitude and a big gun, that goes for both genders of comp character for me.)
Vintage Paw said:
There's a tentative idea of the typical Calvin Klein model, or a Chippendale, but it's not rooted in the same kind of tradition and with the same weight of practice and saturation as the hot chick
Click to expand...
Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in his speedos, non threatening band boys for the younger audience, the diet coke advert from the 90s with the topless window cleaner. Yeah there but not rooted. A more modern thing than the long obsession with the male physique in art of the old school, y'know the greek sculptures and so on.


I must get back into DA:O. I got sidetracked by being a lone wolf with many guns and hard decisions in the Bioshock games.
 
DotCommunist said:
maybe theirs something in that. I like elfin characters with outsized weapons and a bad attitude, thats probably cos of all the fantasy/sf images I grew up with showing women in fantasy & sf just like that- even Tank Girl isn't free from a sort of geek inversion of the what-is-hot (Its still a bad attitude and a big gun, that goes for both genders of comp character for me.)
Click to expand...

I think you will very much like Sera in DA:I.

Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in his speedos, non threatening band boys for the younger audience, the diet coke advert from the 90s with the topless window cleaner. Yeah there but not rooted. A more modern thing than the long obsession with the male physique in art of the old school, y'know the greek sculptures and so on.
Click to expand...

Interesting thinking about that. There was a lot of emphasis on the male form through art history, and the female one too of course. But who was it who basically couldn't paint/sculpt women and basically did men and then stuck god awful globes to their chests? I can't remember.

Edit: Michelangelo.
 
Vintage Paw said:
I think you will very much like Sera in DA:I.



Interesting thinking about that. There was a lot of emphasis on the male form through art history, and the female one too of course. But who was it who basically couldn't paint/sculpt women and basically did men and then stuck god awful globes to their chests? I can't remember.
Click to expand...
just googled to check and yeah it's Michalangelo. From the perfection of David:
david.jpg



to:

brown10dawn.jpg
 
I got out of the Fade, it seemed too easy? I do have a superb team with me though (Vivienne, Cassandra, Varric) who seem indestructible, I've been tooling them up with accessories and potions which has helped, plus PULL OF THE ABYSS!! :)
I'll put the difficulty up to 'hard' and see how they fair.
I found that the notes in the Fade were some of the most emotionally engaging so far and gave me a new perspective on the history and politics of the DA world.
I feel as if I'm near the end of the game and there is still so much I want to do, I've cleared Crestwood, most of the Hinterlands and have almost finished the Exhalted Plains.. although I've been trying to find a way through the mountains for ages to get Vivienne what I think may be her face cream ingredients!!
The Western Approach seems to be as huge as a whole other game so I'm looking forward to exploring there.

I think I have a weird bug where I fill my requisitions and am then given the same one over and over again, getting more and more powers as I fill them immediately, but maybe they are all slightly different..

I've only met 1 dragon so far, I prepped the team with belts of electricity resistance, plus I brought along Dorian who has Spirit mage skills useful for the dragon's vulnerabilities. I've heard about dragon hunting so I'm looking forward to this.

Blackwall has finally told me what's been bugging him since he was a boy..was that all? Luckily I dumped him ages ago as I couldn't take it anymore.. However Cullen is more like a puppy than a man.. Hopefully he will improve.. :p
I had drinks with Iron Bull and the Chargers, I do love Iron Bull! I had a chat with Krem who I hope will come on a mission with us at some point, and sweet Dagna who I'm unsure about leaving alone with Harritt in the undercroft :hmm:
 
It's lots of fun if you take Iron Bull along to kill the first dragon in The Hinterlands. You get a cut scene later on. Bull really fucking loves dragons. (AND THERE MAY BE LORE REASONS WHY BUT WE DON'T KNOW YET OMG)

The requisitions thing, it's meant to be an easily repeatable source of power should you spunk it all on something and still need some for a main mission. I just stopped accepting them in the end. By the end of the main game, not counting DLCs, I had over 300 power just sat there. You can spend some of it in The Descent, which is good.

Blackwall's thing is quite interesting. A lot of people are really angry with him, but frankly I like he's got this secret. Obviously, that's the reason why his romance starts so jarringly early -- so you can be locked into a relationship by the time all that stuff happens.
 
I still haven't finished Trespasser. It really is full of lore bombs. I've speculated so much over the years with friends and have decided certain theories were canon as far as I was concerned anyway, seeing some of them come to light as actually correct now is weird because I'm like, "well I knew that already" and I can't keep clear in my head what I'm actually learning for the first time and what I've known from in-game canon previously :D
 
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