Taven Moore's Blog, page 13

On My Revision Process

The History of the Project

So Zonduth has gone through some pretty crazy revisions.

First iteration? Over a decade old. Not much written on it, mostly just us starting to develop our own worlds and characters.

Then a couple of years ago, we decided to revisit. Built upon what we already had and realized the importance of having a solid worldbuilding foundation. Everything we built crumbled because we didn’t know how our world worked, its politics and its societies.

Recent Iterations



So we scrapped most of it. Kept the few flickering flames of wonderment that had us loving the continent and started from scratch. Completely gutted a favored character to make her less powerful (all hail the mary sues of our past) and gave her companions.

All went well until we realized the plot we’d chosen had too much travel and the timelines wouldn’t add up to an interesting read — most of our conflict was on the back end of the story. It was unbalanced. Had to be scrapped.

So at the end of last year, we started rebuilding. Got rid of the concept of the “Race” (the key that caused the travel problems) and decided to make it a murder mystery.

… Then recently we discussed whether or not it would be better to slowly introduce the reader to the magic system instead of having characters already at the apex of their education. Nothing had been written on the murder mystery yet, so we allowed ourselves the luxury of just mentally playing with the idea that they’re still students learning how to control their abilities.

And bam! Just like that. The throwaway murder mystery that was mostly set-up for them becoming part of the world’s secret police? Gone. Now, we’ve got a plot that actually incorporates many of the major concepts for our orverarching storyline. Teaches the readers about more than just the characters and the way magic works, but asks questions about the Ash and the prison.

We’re still not done planning yet. I have three prime suspects for the bad guy in this book, and all of them are pretty viable. (Nice thing there? The ones who don’t become the bad guy can become believable red herrings. Muahahaha)



New Planning Methods



Recently, I swapped from my normal Beat Sheet method of plotting and started just making lists. What do I know about the villain? Where did the villain get [redacted] tool? Why is the villain doing this? What do the crime scenes look like? What are the clues left behind at them which might be noticed (either consciously or not) to help lead the characters to both herring and actual murderer?

I even stepped back and started writing lists for each character. Who is Tannaly? Osa? Ralek? What are their inherent personality traits and external motivations for their actions? Who is the leader? The Heart? The Brains?

Problem Solving

There’s a method of problem solving used by some programmers called the Rubber Ducky Method.

Whenever you hit a problem in your code that you can’t solve, go somewhere quiet and explain the issue to a rubber ducky.

Sounds ridiculous, but the programmers in the audience probably know EXACTLY why it works. You don’t necessarily need external input, you just need to simplify and organize the tangled mess of your thoughts. Telling someone else (even if that someone is plastic and squeaks when squeezed) is often all we need to solve our own problem.

The same applies to any problem solving, writing included. My lists are a version of this — trying to focus my maelstrom of questions and unfinished work into concrete and answerable questions.

… One can also use pets for this, by the way. Pets are also known to be a great way to help kids who have trouble reading aloud. The pet is completely unbiased and patient, no matter how long it takes to sound out a word or how many words are mispronounced. Bonus? They’re more fun to pet than a rubby ducky. =]

[Perry] Monster Hunter 4U

Oh, you had SO better believe I’m writing about this.

I’m aware that this crowd isn’t really much for the handhelds, but you know what? Maybe you’ve got kids at the right age (or, ya know…31, like me >.>”) or nephews that could use a little bit of a time-sucking black hole of a hobby in their lives that this would be useful for.

I am, of course, talking about the recently released Monster Hunter 4U and what it’s done to my life.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

General Information

Monster Hunter is a series of games that were very popular in Japan and Korea but had a hard time gaining a solid foothold here in the west.

And honestly? I’m going to say that it took games like Minecraft and Dark Souls coming into prominence and being praised over here that really pulled the trigger for this series in America, and boy howdy, did it ever.

This latest iteration of the game is selling like hotcakes, much to the surprise of many.

So what is it exactly?

Look to the title.

You hunt monsters.

That’s the entire game.

You hunt a small monster and kill it. Then you carve its body for parts. You might take its hide or its talons or its horns, and you use those bits and pieces to make armor and weapons that look like the monster it came from.

Then? Armed with your Silence of the Lambs monster costume? You go out and you hunt a slightly bigger monster. Kill it. Carve it up for parts. Make armor and weapons out of them.

THEN? You go out and you hunt a slightly BIGGER monster.

This process begins with you fighting a beast the size of a small pony and ends up with you fighting a massive elder dragon approximately the size of Godzilla, clambering over its back, breaking off bits and pieces of its body before it finally succumbs.

…Then you decide you’re tired of your current weapon and want to use another one and you do it all over again.

I know that it sounds a bit pithy and simplistic on paper here, but trust me, the feedback loop between FINALLY landing your first kill on the next monster, and then starting to tackle a new monster armed with the body parts of the last one is a VERY engaging one.

Systems In Play

In a word, the game is deep. It’s a black pit of time consumption, really.

There’s a single player campaign, where you (brave and intrepid newbie hunter) hire on with a caravan as he travels the world, trying to figure out what monster dropped this shiny, iridescent shard thingy.

Then there’s the online quests where you do a bunch of quests, rank up. Do a bunch of quests, rank up. Rinse, repeat.

There are fourteen different types of weapons to use, ranging from the traditional sword and shield, or two handed greatsword, to out there random weapons like the hunting horn (bard, anyone?), the gunlance (not to be confused with the ‘gunblade’), or my current favorite, the charge blade (mild-mannered sword and shield by day, ENGINE OF DESTRUCTION 2H AXE BY NIGHT).

Every weapon comes with a HUGE table of possible upgrade paths depending on if you’re looking for good all-around weapons (high base damage), or elemental weapons for specific monsters (water > fire), or in the case of the complicated bowguns? Whether or not your weapon can fire X amount of ammo and how many times before it can load, and what’s the reload speed again? And oh, this one has a mild right deviation to its shot and that one doesn’t, but this one totally has slightly higher damage to make up for that, I can totally work with that, right? I’ll always just aim to the left of the monster and…

Ahem.

Moving on.

Armor also comes with a slew of options, where every piece of armor has points +/- toward a certain skill. Once you hit +10 or -10 to a skill, different things will happen.

So you generally have the choice of wearing a full set of gear from a monster and LOOKING really nice, but saddled with a disadvantageous skill (like…DECREASED fire resistance), or mixing and matching your armor sets so that your skills are min/maxed…but you look like a demented, colorblind clown.

Did I mention you can recruit palicos? Little feline humanoids that help you on your hunt? Or that your first companion palico can ALSO recruit palicos that influence the skills he uses? Or that you can DRESS them up in their own weapons and armors? My palico, Ollie, currently looks like Mario.

No.

Really.

 

 

 

 

 

But How Does It Play?

I could go on about the systems in the game and their interlocking nature all day, but that’s not really useful information for the general gaming populace, is it?

The most important question? Is how does the game play? How does the game feel?

For starters, the game is difficult, but fair. Anytime I’ve died (I’m sorry, fainted), on a quest, I’ve never thought “that was so cheap!”

Every death feels like MY fault. I misjudged the spacing on my attack. Or I thought I’d have time to down a potion. Or I didn’t think the monsters big bad charge attack would hit THAT hard, so I was just whaling away at its face like an idiot >.”

The combat feels very deliberate. Whether you’re using the greatswords and their huge windup attacks or the dual blades and their blender of death spinny move, every movement feels tight and controlled. You go just as far as you push the stick or attack just as long as you’re hitting the buttons and NO longer.

And there’s always something new.

I’ve sunk in close to FORTY hours since the game released on the 13th. This is a completely obscene amount of time, and I honestly feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I mean, I felt like I was getting a handle on the game, you know? I’d seen a bunch of monsters and they were starting to attack in largely the same ways (rushdown, or projectiles from a distance, or swiping its tail at me).

I was getting comfortable, right?

Then I logged on to play with a friend who demanded my help with a mission.

And…we were on a boat. A boat sailing across the desert. And a GIANT, MONSTROUS, freaking Pacific Rim kaiju sized monster breaches the surface next to us…and we gotta kill it.

I mean, this monster was HUGE.

So we loaded the cannons and the ballista on the ship and fired at it. Climbed onto its back when it got to close and hacked at its fins and head.

Then we all got off the boat as it came lumbering toward us in earth shaking steps, desperately trying to kill it before it could crush the boat.

Twenty minutes of ass-cheek clenching awesomeness.

Or how about the Seltas Queen that I fought later that day?

The Seltas is a green, flying, beetle looking creature…you know, if said beetle were the size of a large station wagon.

Turns out? The seltas I fought was a male.

And like many species of the insect world, the female is bigger.

MUCH bigger.

And what’s more? She grabs the male of the species, and jams it onto her head like a fucking hat. 

And obviously, because THAT’S not enough, the queen will rush around and charge at you while the male is shooting projectile poison balls at you from its ASS.

And if you make the queen mad enough? She’ll grab the male off her head using her scorpion-like tail and start trying to SQUISH you with him.

And if THAT wasn’t enough, if you drop her health low enough and leave her alone? She’ll SPIKE THE MALE INTO THE GROUND WITH HER TAIL AND EAT HIM TO REGAIN HEALTH.

I’m totally not kidding.

It’s really quite eye-opening, the sheer variety of monsters involved in this game…and honestly? After all this time? I feel like I’m about a third or MAYBE halfway through the game’s natural progression of quests.

This is a game that will suck up exactly as much time as you let it, or want it to. No more, no less.

It’s The Moments

Any experience…really? Is made up of moments.

And while my overall Monster Hunting experience is pretty positive? It’s the small, individual moments that stand out in my mind.

Moments like when I’m fighting a monster, low on health, and we’ve already carted twice (once more and the hunt fails). And I run off a bit and put away my weapon to drink a potion? But turning my camera as I drink, I see the the monster is looking right at me, about to fire a projectile at me…and my idiot, IDIOT friend, screams “I GOT YOU!!” on the call we have going and SPRINTS to me, ROLL JUMPING off a ledge above me and EATS the hit for me in midair and gets knocked away. He has full health so I manage to finish drinking my potion and we finish the hunt successfully.

Moments like playing online, and seeing the monster charging at a guy who was standing far off, low-healthy, desperately trying to drink a potion…and seeing another player LEAPING off a nearby cliff, swinging a GIANT two handed sword and mounting the monster, saving the player.

Moments like…the Charge Blade? It has a SUPER BURST attack, that drains all your resources AND your self buff to unleash a ridiculous overhead swing that LOOKS incredibly impactful. And it’s one thing to land that huge hit on a mob that’s downed or sleeping…..and it’s something else entirely to time it right and land the hit on the monster’s head AS IT’S CHARGING you…like this:

Or moments of unexpected, synchronized teamwork:

Or moments where your hammer wielding teammate SMACKS you into the air, where you can then proceed to swing away at a flying monster:

It’s a game made up of moments…and the moments, by and large, tend to be brilliant.

Last Words

I’ve been stuck on this game all this past week, and to be honest? I don’t see an end in sight.

Right now, and for the foreseeable future?

Monster hunting is my business.

And business? Is REALLY fucking good!

 

Web Accessiblity

As part of my UI/UX role at my job, I have been asked to assist with the project to make our website accessible to those using a screen reader.

Holy. Buckets.

This is no small task.

I mean, the really simple stuff that can make your site minimally usable? That’s relatively easy as long as you’re writing good code.

Actually trying to USE a website via a screen reader — even with the full use of my non-impaired vision? It’s a nightmare. (A hilarious nightmare if you tell your installed extension ChromeVox to have a female British accent at a slightly sped up speed)

This is kind of a big deal, and it’s really fascinating to read up on it and learn.

You can separate your site into zones (aria-roles) so that those using a screen reader can skip header content and menus and get right to the meat of your website.

You can add better attributes to things like menus and lists and links and buttons to help someone navigate your content.

Alt tags on images are very important — including empty ones when an image is just decoration.

And every form field should have a label with the correct markup so that a screen reader can hit upon a text box and actually tell the user what they’re expected to enter.

Your site should be completely navigable via keyboard.

If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend The Accessibility Project. One of the gentlest and most easily understood introductions to the ways we can make our website usable by more people.

… and yes, this means I’m looking into changing my blog theme again. My site’s not as bad as some, but the default 2014 theme for WordPress is accessible by default.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to ask the lovely British lady voice to read my short stories to me. =]

Pardon The Dust

Swapping blog themes again. I’m going to try out the new 2015 base wordpress theme — it’s responsive, lightweight, accessible (more on this topic in Monday’s post), and fully supported by all the things. (ALL THE THINGS)

It’s also very simplistic and lends itself to customization. A nice feature that I’ll likely be taking advantage of in the near future.

In the meantime, I think I’ll start with the dark theme but if any of you find it too difficult to read, please let me know? Usually I don’t like super dark themes, but this one feels easy on my eyes … doesn’t mean you will all agree and I don’t mind swapping it out.

lovemuffins

On Hobbies and Disciplines

We recently watched American Ham, a stand-up “comedy” routine by Nick Offerman (of Parks & Recreation fame, playing Ron Swanson). Amidst the admittedly well-over-the-top raunchiness there were some truly spectacular pieces of advice.

The most hard-hitting advice he gave was to have a “hobby”. He admits during the show that he hates the word “hobby” — it’s a fun word to say, but it doesn’t suit what he’s talking about. For some reason, the word “hobby” makes it sound like something unimportant. Frivolous.

So he calls them “disciplines” (which I think makes them sound a little TOO intimidating but since I can’t find a better word, I’m throwing no stones here).

Have a discipline.

Don’t just go to work and fall asleep into the tv, rinse and repeat.

DO something. MAKE something. Knit. Play the guitar. Woodwork. (write).

Find your thing, that thing. Be active, if you can but find something that fills you.

I’m deviating from Offerman a bit here, but bear with me.

Myself

I go to work (and I love my work) and when I get home I try and spend some time running on the treadmill because I know my job is a sedentary one. Most of the rest of my time is spent with Steven. This is awesome and fun and rewarding in its own way, but there is a part of me that feels like I am being selfish if I take away from our time together in order to write.

Steven assures me that the opposite is true — he loves my writing and encourages me on a regular basis, but that niggling certainty keeps me from being as active as I could be.

You

You parents, friends, lovers, busy people in the audience — ask yourself how often you deny yourself a hobby so that you can spend more time with your family? This is an admirable and wonderful thing, but should they also see you doing something that you love? Should they learn to respect the time you need in order to do it, and admire your output?

I’m rambling here and I know it, and I know not everyone WANTS a hobby, but I really feel like there may be more of you out there who feel that same guilt about taking time away from family for the selfish pursuit of a “hobby”.

That detestable, insignificant “hobby”.

So I know I need to change this guilty feeling. It’s doing damage, not favors. Every time I schedule writing time, I feel apologetic when I let Steven know it’s on the calendar, and that’s completely absurd.

What Would Future Me Think?

Even worse, how foolish is it to not have books done by now? How will older me feel when she looks back and wonders just what the hell I was thinking. Why I couldn’t even carve out one hour a week to write this year?

I’m tired of regrets based on nonsense.

I suppose, if anything, I want you to make sure you’re not treading water for the same reasons. Not denying your “hobby” when it should be upheld as a “discipline”. I’m not talking about military strictness, I’m talking about giving it any sort of honor and precedence at all.

About living a rounded, fullfilling life.

Related posts:

Do You Have Time to Write?
[Perry] Writing in Short Sessions
[Perry] Juggling to Avoid Guilt

[Perry] John Wick and Assassin’s Guilds

So Tami and I had a virtual arm wrestle to see who got to write about this topic.

I won, she lost flex.

…Or, you know, she had too many posts lined up so I took this one off her hands. Either one, really, you know? Whatever works!

Anyway, over the course of the weekend, I watched a movie called John Wick on Tami’s recommendation.

On John Wick

If you’re into action movies or vengeance type films? Definitely a solid movie to check out.

The story is serviceable, but not really anything to write home about. John Wick is a retired hitman. The son of the mob boss he used to work for invades his home, jacks his ride, and kills his dog without realizing who he is.

John Wick picks up his old lifestyle and goes on a vengeance fuelled rampage.

All of this is information that can apparently be gleaned from the trailer? Except, I never watched the trailer. So when they introduced the dog, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

And when the dog is killed? I had to pause the movie, track down my dog and cuddle her for a while as I watched the rest.

The movie itself is pretty good and moves at a decent clip. A little trope-y in the whole bit where all the people in ‘the know’ whisper this man’s name and equate him to the boogey man (literally), but still, a REALLY solid action movie.

Can’t remember the last time Keanu Reeves looked so badass on screen…maybe the first Matrix movie when it came out? Nothing really since then.

But that’s not the purpose of this post.

The Point

The movie features…like…the assassin’s ‘club’, if that makes sense. There’s a network of hitmen (and hit women!) in the movie that sort of operate under an aegis.

There’s a phone line they can call and ask for a “dinner reservation” which sends body cleanup crews out to a location. There’s a secret hotel that caters specifically to assassin’s, where doing “business” on company grounds is a heavily punished offence.

Ritual four shot executions of people that violate the rules…and best of all?

The coins.

These odd, antique-y looking gold coins that the assassin’s use to pay for these services, and to barter amongst each other.

The whole thing smacks of the secret clubhouse hidden in plain sight sort of vibe and it’s fabulous.

FABULOUS.

The Draw

I don’t know about you? But I LOVE this whole secret society business.

You know what? Scratch that. It’s not just the secret society thing I’m into? It’s the idea of a secret society of assassins that gets me going.

And the more…like, rituals? And conditions, and traditions that they have? The BETTER.

Some other examples?

The movie Wanted, stars James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie (among others). The movie itself, I thought was pretty lackluster, but the whole society thing? The healing tubs, the cryptic decoded target lists, and of course, the whole bullet curving training. Scrumptious!

Has anyone read The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickmann? It’s pretty run of the mill fantasy, obviously similar in vein and style to their other Dragonlance works…

But in that series? There’s an assassin’s guild who call themselves “The Brotherhood of the Hand”.

I love that name. I love that they have ranks and positions, and rules about who they can take jobs for or whatever. I LOVE that they have these secret means of recognizing each other out in the world…that they offer assistance to one another, despite the open animosity between elves and humans.

In the guild, race doesn’t matter. Just that you’re part of the society and therefore, are allies.

The whole secret society of assassins business is just…gold.

And if you’re going to do it? Make it distinctive. Make it unique. Add little touches and flairs. Secret callsigns, a hand signal method of communication. Special currency! Brotherhood among outcasts, family for orphans, killing targets!

Ahhhhh!

…I now feel the need to write a story about assassins…and they’ll have ALL the secret symbols and currencies and top secret weapons and cryptic target selection systems and dead drops where they receive their assignments and just…ALL THE MARMALADE!

pant, pant

But seriously.

If you’re into that type of movie, check out John Wick.

And please, for the love of god, whatever next project you’re working on, include a secret society of assassins.

Pretty please?

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Pacific Rim
[Perry] Too-Similar Sequels
[Perry] How the Ending Can Ruin the Tone of the Story

(Yet Another) Scent Magic

In Which Rose Is Threatened With Bodily Harm Via What Might Be a Toothpick

Read the Seventh Installment here.

See the first six installments here.

Related posts:

New Scent Magic
Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 2
Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 5

On Keeping a Story in Check

Or, more appropriately, how I failed miserably to keep a story in check.

Fantasy is NOTORIOUSLY difficult to shorten unless the differences from real life are relatively small and easy to understand.

Many readers can delve into an Urban Fantasy with werewolf packs and Vampire covens with minimal wordcount spent on explaining. These days, most folks have an idea of what a werewolf looks like, and how a vampire behaves.

However, every NEW thing you expose your readers to needs explanation. And the more of that new stuff happened before your story starts? The more difficult it is to succinctly introduce a character and a problem that should be resolved in a short story. Or heck, for many of us? Even an entire novel.

As an example, if my society is built around horses, that’s pretty much all I have to say. The characters “saddle up” and the horses can stamp and gallop and whinny and even if you’re not terribly equine-educated, you’re good as a reader.

In Zonduth, there are no horses in every day life. There are daks. If I just say “saddle up my dak” you’re going to imagine a horse. Daks are not horses. They’re not even equine.

Riding daks are tall and leggy with long antelope-like horns which can be used by riders when swinging into (or out of) the saddle.

Wooladaks are tiny sheep-like critters. Torodaks are heavy, slow-minded bulls used to pull massive caravans across the plains. Heck, the Herdcats of the northern Plains of Sonu actually have their own specially-bred herds of fat, complacent daks that they protect and hunt from. (See, and now I need to tell you what a herdcat is and how it’s different from a panther).

All of them are essentially daks and could interbreed, but they’ve become so specialized that they seem to be different creatures to our characters.

And NONE of that is abnormal for them. Tannaly hooks a hand around her dak’s horn and scratches him at the base without even thinking about it.

I have to spend time explaining to the reader what a dak looks like, how it behaves, how it is different from and similar to horses.

It was my choice to use daks, and I stand by it. But at the same time it makes discussion of these creatures more cumbersome — especially since I cannot use words like “sheep” and “bull” in the actual novel.

Fantasy eats up the wordcount AND it highlights an author’s ability (or inability) to fold worldbuilding into a story.

I recently attempted to write a sci-fantasy short story. I failed because the amount of HISTORY behind that short story really couldn’t be inserted without getting infodumpy. Sure, the main character is a normal human, but she’s wearing a monitor in a future-ish setting and there are factions of humans and an alien race with symbiotic tendancies towards humans. The history of the aliens landing and the initial wars as humanity attempted to devise ways to tell the difference between a real human and a “slugger” — someone with a “slug” in their brain, changing them into a half-human alien … none of that was part of the story I wanted to tell, but ALL of it mattered for the story I wanted to tell.

It’s a good story, but there’s just no way I can fold that much important backstory into a short. After two solid attempts at it, I had to set it aside. Even being as careful and stingy with worldbuilding snippets as I could be, I was still over 3k into the story and they hadn’t even gotten out of the coffee house yet.

And it wasn’t just a case of authorial worldbuilding blindness — the plot required all of these historical social nuances in order to make sense. (You’ve read those books — the ones with entire unnecessary history lessons embedded in them because the author spent the time making that history and you will by golly READ it.)

Great fantasy CAN be told in short story format (as the Saucy folks have proven!) but it becomes more and more difficult the more unique elements your story relies upon to make sense.

So yes. Sometimes you can rein a story in and shave off unnecessary details and it’s good to know when and how to do this.

But sometimes? A story just refuses to fit in that tiny space. And that’s okay too, though I hope you figure it out before you’re halfway through a second failed draft. =]

Related posts:

In Which Writing Is Not Entirely Unlike Horses
NaNo2010 > Worldbuilding 2
NaNo2010 > The Bad Guys

[Perry] Dragon Age: Inquisition

EDIT: Spoilers Ahead

Inquisition is the third installment in the Dragon Age video game franchise.

The trailer can be found here if you wanted to take a look.

Premise

Like the previous installments in the series, the game starts with a catastrophic event that you (as the bold and dashing main character) is linked to in some form or another.

Beset by questions and suspicions on all sides, you must rally a team, unite the armies of the country under one banner in order to deal with the threat of monsters, gods, demons, what have you and send them packing.

Things Done Well

The sense of scale is something that Dragon Age, and in general, Bioware games have always been good at.

The whole slow building up of your team, to slowly building up your alliances and connections, which then finally culminates in the marching of NUMEROUS armies together to fight the dread evil?

Always gets to me. Always.

And the formula, the successful recipe to that is the slow build up. This isn’t something that happens over 5-10 hours. This is something that happens over (on average) 25-30 hours if you rush, and up to 50-60 if you dawdle and take your time.

As most of us don’t really have the time and impulse to play that sort of length in one sitting, it usually takes place over the span of weeks, or even months.

My final play time clocked in at around 28 hours and some change. But those 28 hours were played across almost two and a half months.

It was easy to hop back onto the game for a session after a week of not playing and feel like that same amount of time had passed in the game.

Allies and armies, gathered over the course of months, marching over the course of days to engage in a final epic showdown with the big bad from beyond the veil?

It FEELS epic as all hell.

Combat

There isn’t really much to say, really. The combat system felt intuitive and fun. A little more action oriented instead of tactical, though if you wanted? There’s a tactical view and a ‘move by move’ option for the time in battle so that you could feel more like a commander of a small squad instead of one character in the thick of things, swinging a sword.

And it’s good that the combat felt so easy to grasp and fun? As there’s a LOT of fighting in the game. There are demons to dispatch, animals to hunt, dragons to slay, the game never runs out of things with claws and swords to throw at you.

The ability to adjust the difficulty on the fly was also a welcome change.

I started the game on Hard (second most difficult setting), but found later on that combat was becoming a little more fiddly and micromanaging than I preferred, so was able to drop it down to Normal for certain annoying sections.

It might be construed as cheating, but let me tell you, NOT having to bash my head against the wall when I just wanted to see what happens next? Was a huge boon.

Things to Do

If you wanted a game to get utterly lost in? I mean…you really could do a lot worse than Dragon Age.

With various zones available to explore and…just…a plethora of quests and tasks and nooks and crannies in each one? You could easily get lost in the game if you’re a completionist type.

I mean, there are some reports of people logging a hundred hours or more into this game and I can believe that. There’s just that much to do.

And this aspect of the game? This dovetails well into the things that the game doesn’t do well….

TOO Many Things to Do

The problem with adding THAT much content to a single game? Is that generally speaking, it’s really difficult to add MEANINGFUL content in that kind of quantity.

Each zone is chock full of quests to finish and tasks to complete and all, but other than a small percentage of them, most of it generally falls into the category of fetch quests and kill X, collect Y sort of things.

The content in the game that’s meaningful?

The main story path and the quests involved there are generally pretty engaging.

The little side quests related to each of your party members when you go on the quests that explore a bit of their past can be pretty enlightening and fun.

Each zone usually has one overarching story chain that feels like it’s had a decent amount of effort put into it.

These? Make up about 20% or less of the total quest content of the game.

The rest of it?

Dross. Flak.

Fetch this. Kill those. My wife’s grave is in a dangerous area, put these flowers on it for me?

No real payoff, in terms of story for completing these types of quests. Just little bumps to your money, stats, power, etc.

I would have preferred they cut down the QUANTITY of the content in order to improve the QUALITY of what’s remaining.

But, alas.

Interpersonal Conversations

Bioware? Well known for developing some REALLY great characters. And not only that? Slotting in some of the best dialogue with NPC party members I’ve ever seen.

To date, my romp through Mass Effect 2, trying to convince people you weren’t the bad guy? Or in Mass Effect 3, when you get to see what happens to Mordin Solus, or when you can CHOOSE to miss the last shot in the competition between you and Garrus?

Some of the highlights of my gaming career.

In Inquisition? Not so much.

I’m sure it’s just a personal judgement, but the batch of characters that I got to know in this game didn’t really grab me. With the exception of Iron Bull (surprisingly voiced REALLY well by Freddy Prinze Jr) and Morrigan, I wasn’t really a fan of any of the side characters.

They all felt a little bland and uninteresting.

That one was probably just on me, though.

The “Twist” Ending

Here was my big problem. Obviously, spoiler alert city, right?

Okay?

Good, here we go.

The issue I had mainly deals with what happens after the ending, in the ‘epilogue’ ending, if you will.

Big bad evil defeated, everybody celebrating…except for one elven party member, Solas, who seems broken up about a broken elven artifact that the big bad was using…then he vanishes.

Literally, just gone. Everyone else, you can still talk to and interact with, Solas is gone.

And then you get some hints or clues that he was some kind of elder, forgotten elven trickster god? Who was trying to use the big bad to reactivate the elven artifact thing?

Oh, and he kills a powerful, god infused woman who helped you in the 11th hour…or ate her power…..or was conveniently there when she randomly turned to stone and died?

I dunno.

Do you see the problem here?

Twists…these types of twists? They can work… and they can work REALLY well.

But for god’s sake, LEAD UP to this shit. Throw in a couple clues.

If you KNOW about this twist and go through the game, apparently, there are some tidbits of conversation that you can tease together and grasp for straws where it MIGHT have been some kind of cryptic hint or something?

But honestly, if you didn’t know about the ‘twist’, there’s NO making sense of this nonsense.

I felt cheated. Authorial promise, broken, cheap way out taken, here’s a ticket to “Never Gonna Play You Again” ville, population, you and some others.

Conclusion

Honestly? If you’re in the mood for an epic swords and sorcery video game epic? You could pick worse games than Dragon Age: Inquisition.

The cheap little stab after the ending, in the epilogue doesn’t really invalidate the hours and hours you can spend immersed in the world.

…It just leaves a bit of a bad aftertaste in your mouth once you’re done is all.

 

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Ego Contest Art 5 – Dragon
Aion Open Beta Thoughts
Bashful Dragon

New Scent Magic

In Which Rose Meets a Busker and Gets Some Advice

Read the Sixth Installment here.

See the first five installments here.

Related posts:

Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 3
Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 2
Scent Magic: Dead Heat, Part 5