Fallen+Keeper on 17/12/2010 at 13:50

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I'll outline the ME3 plot for you guys:

Reapers invade Earth because of Shepard, the only being that actually kicked their asses. So the invasion begins at the start of the game.

The universe is not happy about the human rule (if you eradicated the council in ME1) and is not very supportive, plus there are already political tensions between the factions. So Shepard has to find a solution to those problems in order to rally all allies, likely and unlikely (Geth?). This will include about 4 different planets, aka 4 chapters. And you will have to hurry because "Earth needs your help".

The final showdown is on Earth with every species involved in the final battle. Shepard will have to drink something some of the Reaper blood in order to be able to defeat them.

End of Reapers. End of the trilogy.

That's the epic, original, story they had promised us :p.

faetal on 19/12/2010 at 20:03

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Fuck it, I'm going to buy it and probably love the shit out of it. Original or not.

Wynne on 4/1/2011 at 13:11

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Pants, you say?You should look again, although low expectations are the only kind that can lead to pleasant surprises. More Flemeth, better art, improved gameplay, elven companions that don't look and act like they've just stepped out of California, and the console version will be more tactical this time. What is there to "pants" about here? Bethany's oversized breasts in certain screenshots? Devs have stated that as the story is being told by an unreliable narrator, there will be instances of exaggeration (probably shortly before Cassandra the Inquisitor tells him to stuff his nonsense and her rack pops back to a normal size for her body type.)

What I mean by improved gameplay; this time, companions will respond immediately to your tactical orders instead of spending the moments during transition to combat drawing their weapons and running pell mell around you, and if you run too far away, a blow that seems to miss you will actually miss you this time instead of the P&P/BG-style behind-the-scenes calculations in DAO that would cause you to get away but still get arbitrarily hit.

Granted, you are forced to be human, which sucks, but there are different body types by class this time at least, and the story has actual focus now, allowing them to make your companions interact with your specific background, whereas the vaunted origins in Origins were mentioned once by Wynne and once at the endgame and never seen again after the first two hours of play. And for once, unlike ME3, they didn't go with a save-the-world storyline. And you at last have family member characters who DON'T arbitrarily and expectedly die, but rather, come along and help you achieve your goals.

On that note, I like the proposed characters:
--Bethany, your apostate-mage sister/Carver, your warrior brother. Possibly even your mom, depending on how that goes, whose maiden name is Amell, making you distantly related to the Amell in DAO.
--A red-haired, practical female knight who favors people over honor. Cute, but has some visible muscle.
--A storytelling dwarven merchant; rogue class, uses a crossbow, has grand mannerisms.
--A shipwrecked female pirate captain from Rivain.
--A lyrium-scarred former elven slave to a Tevinter mage.

So, a sibling or two, a female knight, a male dwarven rogue, a female pirate, and a male elven warrior. Got to give them credit for breaking the stereotypes enacted in the first game, where your warriors were a male qunari (essentially a human in DAO), a male human, a male dwarf, and a male dog; your rogues were a human female and a male elf; and your mages were both women. Only unexpected archetype of that group was the female golem, and she was DLC.

More information would be located (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3064634) here. I'm glad they dared not to bind themselves permanently to the same formula as DAO for this series.

But, about Mark Meer being rubbish, agreed. Too bad the movie's sure to feature the closest possible Sheploo clone; casting Jennifer Hale would've been a great way to make up for all the publicity she's never gotten for all her fine work in the ME series so far.

Bethesda, I know they tried with FO3, but their writing just doesn't have the charm of Obsidian's or Bioware's, nowhere near. I'm not expecting much from Skyrim, and I really don't think I'll be surprised.

Well, I'm definitely looking forward to ME3, DA2, and TW2 at any rate.

EvaUnit02 on 5/1/2011 at 02:37

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My concern regarding of DA2 are mostly related to Gameplay - eg streamlining of the skill tree, whether the combat will be dumbed down too much to be more accessible, etc. Note that my OP pre-dates the recent PC combat walkthrough video, which alleviated some concern, but my expectations will still be low.

Everything from a narrative point of view that they've revealed thus far I'm fine with. The concept of a ten year story arc told via a flashback framing device sounds pretty interesting.

TBH though, it'd be naive to believe that Bioware will be breaking from their tried and true character archetypes. DA2 will highly likely have analogues to your Carth's, Bastilla's, Canderous's, Jolee Bindu's, etc.

dvrabel on 5/1/2011 at 11:00

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Yeah, Wynne has been a member of this forum for over 10 years just so she can post the occasional positive Dragon Age post as part of some BioWare marketing scheme.

Can you tone down the rudeness to people making interesting posts even if you don't agree with their opinions? Thanks.