Dragon Age: Inquisition race options offer unique content

Dragon Age: Inquisition creative director Mike Laidlaw says that the race options allow them to tailor experiences for each race, offering unique content.

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Dragon Age: Inquisition is bringing back the racial options for the first time since Origins. While creative director Mike Laidlaw says it's based largely on fan feedback, he also points out it gives them freedom as designers to tailor experiences to each race.

"Race is more than just 'how do I look' in Dragon Age," Laidlaw told Game Informer. "It's really the idea of, as an elf you're an underdog. As a dwarf, if you're on the surface, you are by default outcast from your own society. That's intriguing, that's interesting, and it creates a scenario where we give ourselves so many more opportunities to react to that player's choice."

As an example, the team cites elves as a servant class in the Dragon Age universe, so as an elf you'd be able to talk to servant elves with more comfort and ease than a human player. The idea is to make each race have its own wrinkles, and occasional large impacts, so that you'll see unique content that friends playing another race might not.

"When someone reacts to the fact that you're an elf, in a very specific and poignant way, when you see content you otherwise wouldn't have," Laidlaw said. "And when you can share with your friends and say 'oh yeah, this happened.' And they're mystified by that. It's gratifying as a designer, I think it's gratifying as a player, and I think it lets us color your experience from the word 'go.'"

All in all, it sounds fairly similar to Origins, which is probably the point. BioWare has been frank about taking fan feedback seriously, inviting discussion before the game was even officially announced and promising that your decisions in previous games will have an impact.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 15, 2013 10:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Dragon Age: Inquisition race options offer unique content.

    Dragon Age: Inquisition creative director Mike Laidlaw says that the race options allow them to tailor experiences for each race, offering unique content.

    • reply
      August 15, 2013 10:26 AM

      Please be good please be good, I have big hopes for this game could turn out to be mega awesome seems to have all the ingredients to be very good.

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        August 15, 2013 10:34 AM

        Agreed. They seem to have addressed all the core issues with DA2 (replayability, reusing assets, etc). As long as the game is > 50 hours, it should be well, well worth it.

        DA:O took me on average 60 hours to complete (with DLC, but minus DA:A), as I'm a bit of a completionist. And I beat it at least a dozen times to see all the ways things could play out. DA2 took about 2/3rds that time, being a completionist, and there was absolutely zero replace value in it.

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          August 15, 2013 2:57 PM

          DA:O will always be BOSS I really think they are going back to their roots, we shall see hey, not to mention in SEXY Frost Bite 3 engine, can'tr hurt either I hope they do a good job with the damage effects.

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      August 15, 2013 10:29 AM

      I really, really just want the story to be more in line with DA2 than DAO. The Mage/Templar conflict was more interesting than ZOMG SAVE TEH WORLD.

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        August 15, 2013 11:00 AM

        Nothing about this game should acknowledge the existence of DA2. Nothing.

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          August 15, 2013 11:37 AM

          INF.

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          August 15, 2013 11:45 AM

          if you constantly choose the 'jackass' option, the game will pick up on that trend and if you occasionally say the 'nice' thing he/she will still say it with the 'jackass' tone.

          that was cool!

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          August 15, 2013 2:39 PM

          DA2 at least had fully functional classes. Ever tried playing as an archer in DAO? Good luck.

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            August 16, 2013 3:27 AM

            That's one thing I'd really like to see in DA3, is better class balance, but gameplay more akin to DA1. I love the BG-style long view and party-based combat. DA2 felt more actiony, and while I didn't hate that, I definitely prefer the way DA1 did it. But DA2 had much better class balance.

            DA1's mages were just so much better than everything else, and the weird courses the game could take plot and character-wise meant you could end up with no mages at all by the time the final battle came, which never made sense to me.

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          August 16, 2013 3:50 AM

          DA2's mostly awful, but its party interactions and story scope were headed in the right direction. Origins was flavourless.

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        August 15, 2013 11:29 AM

        It's going to contain story elements of both and some new ones. The Mage-Templar War will play a huge role, Morrigan's Dark Ritual will come to fruition quite possibly, and we get a big fat Tear in the Veil as well! HOORAY! Keeping my fingers crossed for a Qunari Invasion of Tevinter!

        I'm still hoping they add the Kossith as a playable race as well. That would be awesome!

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      August 15, 2013 10:34 AM

      So just like DA:O? Good

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      August 15, 2013 12:41 PM

      Ah, Mike Laidlaw still creative director? Yeah...I'm skipping this game. Guy butchered the previous one...shame...damn shame...

      Dragon Age : Origins could have been the start of something beautiful...

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        August 15, 2013 2:58 PM

        [deleted]

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          August 16, 2013 2:00 AM

          I had to force myself to finish it, I must admit.

          Every other Bioware game (except TOR) I have finished multiple times, soon as I was done that first time with DA2 I shelved it.

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      August 15, 2013 2:59 PM

      def not a day 1 purchase for me.

      After the abortion that was DA:A, there's no way I'm buying a Bioware game sight unseen.

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      August 15, 2013 10:34 PM

      I really like these games, even though the second one was a bit of a poke in the eye, but I wish they had social conflicts that were truly alien.

      "elves are the servant class..." I really yearn for a fantasy or Science fantasy/fiction that had, if they felt the need to accentuate them, genuinely unique politics. At least and attempt at it.

      Is anyone else sick of modern social/political analogies? I remember xenocide being about this. How unintelligible other peoples can be.

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        August 16, 2013 5:22 AM

        Hm! You might be interested in Zeno Clash and its sequel.

        Arcanum also did some interesting stuff in that direction. Really quite a fascinating attempt at exploring the social complexities of a high fantasy world in the midst of an industrial revolution.

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