[LHN91]

I have just discovered that my 7-year old computer has finally met a game it cannot run  - DA:I.  Quad core required.  Guess this is going to wait until Windows 10 arrives and I buy a new gaming system, since a mobo+proc+memory replacement is likely prohibitively expensive versus a completer system replacement, which is frankly due now anyway.

A bit off-topic, but are you planning on building your own computer?

Because Mobo/Proc/Memory is a subset of a complete replacement. Kinda cheaper than a whole new box by definition. Unless you were planning on keeping the old system whole.

[MP-Ryan]

Yeah, I typically build my own. I was looking last night and debating... I can do a low-end upgrade for about $300 CAD that'll get me able to play DA:I but will require a reinstall of Win7. Or I can save that until Win10 comes out in the summer and consider a game-capable ultrabook or the new gen of Surface Pro.

decisions... I may yet upgrade the desktop if there's a sale on components. The retailers I use here seem to have quit selling Intel proc/mobo bundles so it appears I may have to jump to AMD to do this on a budget.

[NGTM-1R]

Observations from my playing the game so far.

Optimization is somewhat lacking. There are multiple occasions where the graphics noticeably take a moment to render something in the shot; certain walls are often the victim outside of cutscenes, as are character eyelashes (at least it's just eyelashes; hi Assassin's Creed) in cutscenes which suddenly snap into existence partway through a shot rather conspicuously. Similarly, some background items in cutscenes that move are conspicuously low-res compared to everything else. (The unrolling of the Inquisition's banner early in the game is a common one.)

Every time I've played the end of the Mage questline, Alistair and Anora show up and one of his lines of dialogue (his last in the scene after offering alliance to the mages) is complete gibberish that sounds like someone is backwards-masking French. I have no idea what happened there.

Cassandra is remarkably supportive of the Inquisitor even when she doesn't agree with their decisions. She is perhaps one of the only truly complex characters I've encountered in gaming because of it. She has opinions and makes them known to you, but she also sees her role as de facto XO to the Inquisitor and attempts to fill that role by acting as any loyal second-in-command should: she backs you up in disputes, handles the day-to-day as she thinks you'd want it handled, she refuses to argue with you in public and handles her objections in private, and once you have taken action she works to make it happen whole-heartedly even if she doesn't agree with them. (I must also note I'm glad that they were not afraid to give Cassandra prominent facial scars; she looks better, not worse, for them.)

Sera's first conversation with you is completely incomprehensible to a colonial. Possibly in general, since I may be a filthy colonial but I mostly watch UK television these days. All her others make perfect sense to me, which raises the question of why they did that.

Cole's hat makes the Baby Hero of Ferelden cry.

Gaming's first trans character has been mishandled by making them "trans, character" rather than "character, trans" the way Bioware handled Samantha Traynor. That said, I actually like Krem as person (though not as a milestone) and I like that I first assumed they were the sex they identify as.

Further commentary on other characters may follow.

[NGTM-1R]

Cassandra and crappy romance novels is the best thing ever. That is all.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Cassandra and crappy romance novels is the best thing ever. That is all.

I had this scene recently. I think I'll be keeping that save file for a while.

[Fury]

I swear Cassandra and Varric had a thing going after I convinced Varric to write that last book (Varrick is fastest novel author in the west). IIRC even Iron Bull called it in some banter.

[NGTM-1R]

The music in this game is atrociously implemented.

The music itself is actually quite good and we've come a long way from the time where I could only enjoy a couple of tracks from the original Mass Effect as compositions rather than how they interacted with the game. Unfortunately, all that progress has come at the cost of completely ****ing up how it does interact.

In a way, I'm not surprised. We've been on a relative downwards slope there since Mass Effect 2, which had both excellent composition and excellent integration of that composition with the game. I was definitely one of those people out there thinking that the fleet's attack on Earth in ME3 should have been set to the music of ME2.

And yet, I am definitely surprised. It's like how, going into the second modern Transformers movie, I knew it was going to be worse than the first. And yet the sheer horrific improbability of just how bad things actually turned out to be was something I was in no way prepared for.

Dragon Age Inquisition has amazingly evocative music. When I listen to most of the tracks, they are superb compositions, perfectly suited to be setpieces for the right scenes for the emotions they evoke. (Honestly, they're better than all but the signature tracks of ME2, The End Run and Suicide Mission, in this regard. The only piece I've ever heard that comes close to this evocative from any other game is ironically Frank Klepacki's Run from Red Alert.) And yet only once in the entire game do they manage to properly match the music to the scene! A lot of the time the music that starts playing makes absolutely no sense to what's going on in the game, to the point it's literally become a joke between me and my wife that "oh, they're playing the scary music again". Even the track we're making fun of is excellent, perfectly suited to a dark night and the evocation of terror; and yet it will be forever associated in my mind with watching Ferelden Fennecs frolic in the Hinterlands because some asshole completely wasted Bioware's time and money in trying to get the game to interact with its soundtrack.

The only places the soundtrack actually worked for the game the way it should have was during the fall of Haven and some of the more tender romance scenes. The only time it managed an average level of integration was for the vocals of The Dawn Will Come. Literally every other time the music was playing, it was at best pointless and at worst actively silly.

[Mr. Vega]

What about the music that plays when you storm the keeps (Caer Bronach, Griffon Wing Keep, Suledin Keep)?

[NGTM-1R]

I don't even recall there being particular music for that activity, which is probably as damning an indictment of it as I can make. If you just played that track for me without attribution of any sort I'd have guessed it was from the original three Dawn of War games somewhere, probably an Imperial Guard campaign.

[Scotty]

I never got quite as much out of Run as I did out of the incomparable Hell March from Klepacki.

[NGTM-1R]

Hell March is great, but it's not exactly the sound of...well, anything in musical form. Run on the other hand is slightly less just to listen to, but it's in that rare category of song that are basically the sound of something in musical form. (In this case, running for your life.)