also since dorian is all but guaranteed to show up in da4... bioware PLEASE do not whitewash him. i know it's basically their MO at this point but still
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
I don't think it should be a problem because it's the same engine so the lighting shouldn't change. Still sad about the Briala concept art , she just looks better in it then she is in game. I hope BioWare take some of them criticisms on board and take how much people liked Viv and Dorian and Sir Baris design to include more PoC. And maybe learn from the new Sims 4 update for skin tones for their character creator, or at least learn from it to collaborate with poc players to help with it.
I mean, Alistair and Merrill weren't lighting changes, they were straight up whitewashed. So was Briala, who is explicitly described as brown-skinned in TME and is lily white in Inquisition :/
I mentioned Briala? Was Merril really darker in DAO? I don't really remember the Dalish origin very well. For Alistair I always thought he looked like a white man with a tan in DAO and that he only got held up as poc representation because DAO was atrocious with poc representation. Not that BioWare should have lightened him cus it still colourism anyway, I just will never give them the rep that they ever intended Alistair to be a poc because I don't think they did and they don't deserve the credit for that.
They were.
Calling white people having less of a tan "whitewashing" seems to undermine the term in relation to the erasion of POC characters.
I just hunted down this pic specifically for this thread lol
Fiona (his mother) in The Calling is a woc with brown eyes. In DAI she has pale skin and green eyes, of course. Alistair goes from brown skin, hair and eyes to pale skin, ginger hair and blue eyes. Merrill used the same skin tint as Alistair in DAO (4 of 7) and come DA2 she's lily white.
DA2 skintone vs DAO skintone
That's not getting into how Isabela, who has the darkest skin tint in DA2, becomes white as fuck in various concept arts, comics, etc.
DA fans of colour have been calling this out for a long time. fandom is rife with racism and whitewashing which doesn't help.
I found Origins so inconsistent with characters that I never read Alistair as anything but white, despite looking like he had a tan, indeed. Even in his concept art he's very white. His parents also lend credence to that.
Merill was rather pale in Origins, though.
Edit: that mod looks rather off
Merill was rather pale in Origins, though.
Edit: that mod looks rather off
He looks white in the game, and I've read the calling , Fiona is not described as woc. And Gaider wrote that book, he described Duncan's skin colour multiple times, he would have been explicit if she was. Duncan and Zevran are defo poc, and the fact Duncan dies at the start of the game and that Zevran has some stereotypes that are iffy af (I love both those characters btw just there are some legitimate criticisms on how they handle them) shows how they actually treated poc in that game but Alistair is still a white person, lots of white people are that colour , everything suggests they intended him to be white and I'm just not going to praise BioWare for something that I'm pretty sure they never intended. I don't think they ever even tried to claim Alistair as a poc over the years either and they generally have so few poc characters which they really need to improve on that they would if they could.I just hunted down this pic specifically for this thread lol
Fiona (his mother) in The Calling is a woc with brown eyes. In DAI she has pale skin and green eyes, of course. Alistair goes from brown skin, hair and eyes to pale skin, ginger hair and blue eyes. Merrill used the same skin tint as Alistair in DAO (4 of 7) and come DA2 she's lily white.
DA2 skintone vs DAO skintone
That's not getting into how Isabela, who has the darkest skin tint in DA2, becomes white as fuck in various concept arts, comics, etc.
DA fans of colour have been calling this out for a long time. fandom is rife with racism and whitewashing which doesn't help.
Edit: Just Googled Alistair DAO to double check and whoa boy does his skin change a lot due to lighting, sometimes it looks a couple shades darker than Morrigan's, sometimes it's a kinda orange? I forgot just how crap the lighting in that game was.
Last edited:
A-fucking-greed.
DAI and MEA both were dramatically harmed in my mind by their quasi-Open World designs which infected so many elements of those games. The crafting systems they both employed felt directly derived from that mess as they both needed activities and content to fill up those big open spaces. And what better thing to sprinkle all over your giant maps but crafting materials to hunt and gather. It just made for really shitty loot and really tedious and unrewarding crafting. Not to mention the aforementioned material gathering. Having to craft something every 2-3 levels is beyond tiresome. And the whole materials aspect made it even worse. We ended up with an extremely limited number of armor and weapon blueprints with really limited visual customization that somehow was still very convoluted.
I pray they look at a game like Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire to see how to create a really rewarding and meaningful loot system with tons of unique weapons and armor that in turn have interesting and rewarding upgrade paths and options. Hell DAO and DA2 were pretty fine for the most part with their unique loot options. If they want to keep the visual customization aspect that would be fine, being able to change colors, materials and patterns as an option thing, but bring back real unique weapons and armor and ditch the player generate stuff.
I also hope they really step back from the open world approach to locations. Having some room to roam is fine, but really all I want are more focused maps that don't go any bigger than places like Fallow Mire. It's still big as fuck, but mostly linear with some minor diversions along the way. Maybe a Forbidden Oasis or two could work as well, not so linear and more open, but pretty small and manageable to cover in a short amount of time. We don't need big fuck all places like Hinterlands, Hissing Wastes, Emprise Du Lion, Emerald Graves and such that take literal hours to fully explore each and have almost zero structure to their layouts. In their place give us more caves, towns, cities, dungeons, castles and houses. Which will be perfect if we're in Tevinter and heavily focused in like Minrathous or other cities and towns.
Party based RPGs like this just don't work well in big wide open spaces. Good RTwP combat requires good encounter design which in turn relies heavily on map and location design. Just fighting random assortments of enemies on open ground and sloping uneven terrain isn't very fun or engaging. The tactical camera was a nightmare to use in the open world as the camera elevation and movement was fixed to the ground's elevation and objects. It would constantly get caught on objects and elevation issues. The best fights outside of Dragons in DAI normally were those in confined areas. Either interiors or narrow places where you could create choke points and actually use the terrain around you to your advantage to funnel and control enemies.
There's a reason the maps in DAO and DAII are the way they are and it's the same reason other recent highly acclaimed party based RPGs like Pillars 1/2, Tyranny, Kingmaker, DOS 1/2 and BG3 all use much more narrow and channeled map designs with very few really wide open spaces. It makes for better encounter designs and combat. Not to mention it's a lot less tedious to explore.
End of rant.
Yep, two best companions in Inquisition, but the level was generally very high in that game. Only Sera and some of Iron Bull's material was genuienly bad.
characters i expect to return and am happy about it: dorian, maevaris
characters i am nervous will return and i don't want them to: iron bull, c*llen
characters who probs aren't gonna return but who i desperately want to 🥺: blackwall, alistair theirin, merrill, cassandra pentaghast, ariane, florian phineas horatio aldebrandt, esq., nathaniel howe, carver fucking hawke
characters i am nervous will return and i don't want them to: iron bull, c*llen
characters who probs aren't gonna return but who i desperately want to 🥺: blackwall, alistair theirin, merrill, cassandra pentaghast, ariane, florian phineas horatio aldebrandt, esq., nathaniel howe, carver fucking hawke
There is nowhere for Cullen's character to go, he is not coming back. Carver is too quantum to return.
About Sera: I tend to share rras1994's analysis about her. She's obviously full of trauma, and I understand where she's coming from, and why she is the way she is. I romanced her on my very first playthrough, while playing an elvhen mage, and oh boy that didn't end well. She tried to make me chose between her and my passion for magic/elvhen history, and I found that to be utterly toxic, so I broke up with her right there and then.
She's a marvelous character, really, and I love her and respect her lots, and I find her endearing on many accounts, as well as very funny during moments when you need some levity, and I'll always be terribly fond of her, she's great. But she needs to grow out of her black & white mindset, even though it might be difficult for her to ever do so.
As for Vivienne, I enjoy that she exists, I respect her as a politician woman, and she has insanely good fashion style, but she can sincerely go rot in hell for all I care. I hope she's not a companion again in DA4. I just kept clashing with her because we disagree on almost everything, and I hate everything she embodies, so no thank you. But yeah, she's a well-written character as well, for sure.
She's a marvelous character, really, and I love her and respect her lots, and I find her endearing on many accounts, as well as very funny during moments when you need some levity, and I'll always be terribly fond of her, she's great. But she needs to grow out of her black & white mindset, even though it might be difficult for her to ever do so.
As for Vivienne, I enjoy that she exists, I respect her as a politician woman, and she has insanely good fashion style, but she can sincerely go rot in hell for all I care. I hope she's not a companion again in DA4. I just kept clashing with her because we disagree on almost everything, and I hate everything she embodies, so no thank you. But yeah, she's a well-written character as well, for sure.
Last edited:
i don't think he'll come back but i'm keeping my expectations at rock bottom so i can only be pleasantly surprised. as for carver... i know. but i can dream. in the meantime i have fanfiction. i just miss my baby bro so much ;=;
Im very interested in seeing the new combat, going through Inquisition atm (also my first DA) and this combat suck lol and ive tried all classes. The writing is amazing and i love/hate all characters, top tier Bioware, but the combat, crafting and fetch quests really bring this game down, im basically playing to have more moments with the characters. Which reminds me: please have all romances be of the same "quality", like i can see some romances have more content than others.
Wow i agree with all of this, im still going through the game but i can definitely say i hate Vivienne, brilliant and beautiful person but horrible ideals. And yeah i can see where Sera is coming from but i hope she suffers some kind of development, would make it for a more interesting relationship.
Sera does mature greatly by the time of Trespasser. I like her a lot but yeah, that ultimatum she gives sucks a lot.
Also, I greatly agree about including Cole in every banters. His dialogues are amazing, and his insights are so great. I always put Solas & Cole together, and oh boy, as a Solasmancer, the stuff that Cole says about Solas, about his relationship to you, about his love to you, is fucking heartbreaking. Cole is extremely precious, my spirit son, I'll love and protecc forever, and I sure hope I'll see him again in DA4!
I think this is makes a lot of sense. My first playthrough I did not spend a lot of time with Sera beyond keeping her friendship throughout even though we clashed at basically every opportunity. The second time around I actively spent more time with her and Blackwall and really came to understand more about why people liked them. I think from a characterization standpoint there's a lot of growing she could do between Inquisition and whatever the next thing is that I wouldn't mind seeing her around again because truly I do agree/understand a lot of her (and the Jennys in general) motivations.
I really like Vivienne as an incredibly powerful party member in combat and her sense of style/presence, but she definitely has some beliefs that range from hard to accept to actively awful, so narratively it's difficult to see what side she would be on in a future installment depending on who the Divine is by the end of your game.
Vivienne gets a LOT of truly disgusting hate that's solely based on misogynoir (people write fics dedicated to her being raped and tortured, usually by Solas, Anders, or Cullen (?????)) and there are parts of her character I enjoy but some of her takes are straight up Bad. Like her saying the Fereldan Circle was too lenient. My Amell is rolling in her grave. As far as self-loathing Circle mage companions go I like her more than Wynne though. I cannot fucking STAND Wynne.
Holy fuck I had no idea about the misogynoir rapey fic parts, that's fucking horrible.
I actually absolutely love her character design, I think she's amazing and beautiful, she has style for days (and when you put her in a party with Dorian & Solas, Vivienne & Dorian spend most of their time dunking on Solas' awful fashion sense and it's truly hilarious), and even if I hate most of her social & political views, I do enjoy the way she roasts my character during my interactions with her. She's an amazing character, I just don't want to deal with her again in DA4, because I know it won't be fruitful at all, and that it'll waste my time. I know what's she's about, I doubt she'll ever change, so I don't think her arc can become interesting again, she's very unidimensional, and I don't see any reason to believe there's more depths to her than what was shown in DA:I.
Carver gets dismissed way too often. I personally really like how out of all the companions in DA2 Carver has the most development across his various story paths. He can succumb to resentment and go down a go down a bad path and distance himself from his family, he can find his own place separate from his sibling. He can be whiny or he can mature in a really believable way. I think too many people dismiss him as the annoying younger brother, which he is at times, but that isn't his entire character. I would love to see him back in the next game.
Also give me Aveline, another great character who has a sweet romance completely independent of the main character. I want her and Cassandra to get a chance to hang out.
Vivienne is pretty much my favorite companion after Dorian. I love her wits, the way she comes for pretty much everybody at least once at some point, acting grand is the most appealing thing about her character even if it's grating, because she just owns it. She's an empowered woman, and as a gay man, I'm drawn to that type of character, so I live.
My Inquisitor would fight with her all the time, but I live.
I love Carver, though. He's also someone I would clash with constantly - and you can tell that that's what BioWare intended -, but he does grow a lot. I eventually started to miss him, and I'm just glad I took Anders with me on the Expedition, otherwise Carver would be dead and I feel like Grey Warden Carver is the best outcome for him.
My Inquisitor would fight with her all the time, but I live.
At least he's not Bethany. I feel people don't even remember Bethany, despite showing up in two of the three possible class choices lol
I love Carver, though. He's also someone I would clash with constantly - and you can tell that that's what BioWare intended -, but he does grow a lot. I eventually started to miss him, and I'm just glad I took Anders with me on the Expedition, otherwise Carver would be dead and I feel like Grey Warden Carver is the best outcome for him.
I'll always stan Sera. I think DAI overall was quite strong with having companions, with Sera as the quintessential example, that are not designed to be your best friend out the gate and are really meant to challenge you at times. There's a lot more work that you have to put in with most of them in order to really get to know them and earn their respect and that was refreshing compared to the usual approach of trying to make everyone your potential best friend or at least having them be outwardly intriguing and cool even if they weren't the most approachable like a Fenris.
Sera was purposefully meant to be abrasive and tough to connect with. Many people just write her off as this out of touch and failed attempted at some irreverent comedic character, but she was clearly has way more than that going on. I loved how much of a minefield her romance was to navigate and how it went well beyond just saying obvious nice things and succeeding. Even if you did really like her and found her personality endearing she was still so extreme in her views and erratic in her behavior there were a few instances where I think everyone's reactions was like "what fuck did you just do Sera?" And that's great.
I love my Varrics and Dorians where it's like from the jump you know they're going to be cool as fuck and someone you know you'll enjoy getting to know and having on the adventure, but its also nice having wildcards, unknowns and hardcases in the mix that take some time to warm up to and unravel and keep you on your toes and can surprise you with their depth, personality and views. Like Solas is probably the prime example of this. He comes off as this super plain and kind of boring mystical nature elf, but dudes deeper than ocean and complex as all hell with the wildest history.
I definitely want to see many characters return in some fashion, but Dorian seems like the only real requirement, and I don't think any of them really need to be companions again either.
Sera was purposefully meant to be abrasive and tough to connect with. Many people just write her off as this out of touch and failed attempted at some irreverent comedic character, but she was clearly has way more than that going on. I loved how much of a minefield her romance was to navigate and how it went well beyond just saying obvious nice things and succeeding. Even if you did really like her and found her personality endearing she was still so extreme in her views and erratic in her behavior there were a few instances where I think everyone's reactions was like "what fuck did you just do Sera?" And that's great.
I love my Varrics and Dorians where it's like from the jump you know they're going to be cool as fuck and someone you know you'll enjoy getting to know and having on the adventure, but its also nice having wildcards, unknowns and hardcases in the mix that take some time to warm up to and unravel and keep you on your toes and can surprise you with their depth, personality and views. Like Solas is probably the prime example of this. He comes off as this super plain and kind of boring mystical nature elf, but dudes deeper than ocean and complex as all hell with the wildest history.
I definitely want to see many characters return in some fashion, but Dorian seems like the only real requirement, and I don't think any of them really need to be companions again either.
Man that fucking swerve when he's giving a speech to you about how cool you are and then just hits you with "Your entire race is chock full of murderous savages, but you? You're one of the good ones, my guy"
A classic gaslighting Solas move, big oof.
But again, when you know his story, where he's coming from, what he has experienced, you can get why he says that. And that's the tragedy of this wholeass elvhen grandpa, to be honest. He's so wrapped up in his own guilt, thinking there's only one way to fix his bigass mistake, that he can't stop for a second and assess the reality of the people around him, and finally see clearly how they are all real and valid. His love with the Inquisitor is real and valid. He almost finally saw it for a few moments, he almost finally gave up on his plans because of that. Until his fucking guilt caught up on him.
He's a fucking Greek Tragedy Main Character, with capital letters.
I cri.
You haven't played Trespasser with the full dialogue options at the end?
Are we still honouring spoilers for that, or are we allowed to openly discuss?
One of the best things about Inquisition is that it's by far the elfiest game in the series, and rewards you a ton for playing a Dalish, and sticks you with the two biggest anti-Dalish elves in the history of the series. It's such an unexpected dynamic.
Bringing them both along for that Well of Sorrows quest is such a highlight. It's like, guys, can we just hang out and do elf shit, why you gotta be so hostile?
Bringing them both along for that Well of Sorrows quest is such a highlight. It's like, guys, can we just hang out and do elf shit, why you gotta be so hostile?
The growing in general for Sera is what makes me like her a lot, and it makes absolute sense that she deflects into that black and white thinking as a repsonse to her trauma, because at 22 she's by far the youngest of all the characters
He says insulting stuff about the Qunari before Trespasser. And about dwarfs. About all races really, but Qunari he's incredibly cruel about. It's how he views the races is why I don't trust his arrogance that he knows what the best choice for the future is, he "dehumanises" (maybe not the best word for lol) other races way too easily.
We can use the spoiler tag in case people are playing the game for the first time (which seems to be the case for some posters here :D)
That, he definitely fucking does. He dehumanizes everyone who isn't... well, like him, so to say without using spoilers.
He dehumanizes the Dalish because he just can't recognize himself in them, and thinks that they pale in comparison to what he knows.
As for the Qunari, it's pretty interesting to put Solas & Iron Bull in the same party. There's some growth and mutual respect to be found there after they talk to each other for a while. He's not someone who can't change, he definitely can. It's just frustrating because his humongous guilt (and pride) is properly and entirely in the way of him growing up and actually changing for the better.
Sera was a lot to take in, and she was a bit overly quirky for my taste, but I truly love the city elf perspective. Even her tavern song expresses the divide in the two group's philosophies, (Why chase the past when you can own this day). I would love to see the city elf perspective get a bit more focus as a counter to Solas' in the next game.
To me a lot of his stuff with the Iron Bull is kinda the same as he is with the Inquisitor, it's the "you're one of the good ones" mentality that they are some how different and apart from the rest of their group. Part of it he does have to dehumanise these people if he is going to do what he does, but it's not just guilt causing it, Solas does have an underlining arrogance to him. He kinda reminds me of Morrigan in that way. He assumes that he knows everything and more than those around him. And like with Morrigan, I think he's going to be wrong. Like Morrigan acts like she is always right and has multiple times been wrong and misunderstood what's going on, and she has somewhat fallen flat on her face due to it but it kinda depends on your choices. I think similar thing will happen to Solas, that's he's going to be wrong, that he doesn't know everything and I actually suspect he's being manipulated or playing in to someone elses plan
I don't think Mythal is as goody two shoes as he says
his name Solas literally means pride. And according to Tevinter Nights it wasn't his first name, but a name he became. But I find it interesting that both the Qun and Spirits name beings after their jobs as it were and could go down a rabbithole with that alone
So happy to see the Sera love here. She was my second fav companion in Inquisition after Dorian (maybe after Solas as well, but I like him for such different reasons and it's more of a 'like-to-hate' him thing where I think as a proto-villain he's masterfully done). She's also one of my favorite Bioware romance because unlike a lot of Bioware romances, hers is complicated and isn't something you navigate by just being 'nice'. She's a very imperfect person with a lot of baggage and it can be difficult to navigate that. Typically, Bioware romances don't involve a ton of drama within the relationship where partners have to work through major problems, but Sera's is fantastically messy and it's just not something you see that often. It also makes her growth by Tresspasser all that more satisfying as she seems much more confident in herself by that point and willing to compromise on the things she often behaved irrationally to.
But, romance aside, I think she has a perspective that's really unique among the cast of the game. She's the youngest person there (by I think a *lot*... most of the cast seems to be in their 30s and older, she's only in her early 20s?). She's the only character that doesn't have a top down view of the politics and events of the world and is more concerned for the servants and laborers as traditionally big moving pieces like generals and royalty. She's an intensely perceptive person who often veils her insight with crude slang and double-talk that I find a lot of people don't quite pick up on but it makes her dialogue more interesting for me. And I honestly find some of her antics pretty fun (her introduction at the ball is so dumb but it genuinely gets a laugh out of me every time I hear it).
But, romance aside, I think she has a perspective that's really unique among the cast of the game. She's the youngest person there (by I think a *lot*... most of the cast seems to be in their 30s and older, she's only in her early 20s?). She's the only character that doesn't have a top down view of the politics and events of the world and is more concerned for the servants and laborers as traditionally big moving pieces like generals and royalty. She's an intensely perceptive person who often veils her insight with crude slang and double-talk that I find a lot of people don't quite pick up on but it makes her dialogue more interesting for me. And I honestly find some of her antics pretty fun (her introduction at the ball is so dumb but it genuinely gets a laugh out of me every time I hear it).
Last edited:
THIS. I love Sera so much. Actually DAI might have my fav companions of any BioWare game. The only thing I would disagree with is the idea tha most BioWare romances don't have drama, all my canon ones has so. much. drama to work through. But then I romance Alistaiir in DAO and I died do he wouldn't, romance Anders in DA2, Solas in DAI and Malavai Quinn in SWTOR, Carth in KOTOR. My least dramatic romance in a BioWare game was Kaidan and we had an entire game where we were broken up on on a break. Basically what I'm saying is whoever I pick to romance in DA4, if you want a nice drama free romance, don't pick that person. I apparently have terrible judgement
Re Solas.
Solas doesn't view the Qunari or anyone else as sub-human because of what they did to him, or anyone else. He views all the current races as effectively the living dead. His actions split mortal races from their connection to the Fade, resulting in (as he sees it) a non-existence. He literally says, from his perspective everyone else in the world is already Tranquil. They aren't really alive to him fully