OS Neutral Dragon Age III - Inquisition

I thoroughly enjoyed Dragon Age Origins but was very disappointed with the reduced complexity of the gameplay in Dragon Age 2. So much so that I lost interest part way through and didn't complete the game. I won't be buying the next instalment.

I enjoyed DA2 and did not have too much of an issue with the combat. My problem with DA2 was that the world was rather miniscule in comparison to DA1 and the re-use of levels/areas was disappointing too. If DA3 could be a combination of the good of both games, or just an evolution of the first, then I am in.

appleii.c said:

I agree, DA2 was a little bit of a letdown. Although I did enjoy it, Origins was much better in my opinion. Especially where NPC's are concerned, Origin's were far better. The reason I'm anticipating III is because there aren't many games like it coming out in the near future, unless I'm overlooking some. Are there any similar games you are looking forward to this year?

Click to expand...

I'm more looking forward to all my kickstarter RPGs than DA3. Wasteland 2, Banner Saga this year and Shadowrun Returns next month, Project Eternity and Torment next year.

DA2 was terrible, and EA made me extremely angry with SimCity, so 3 is going to have to be a masterpiece for me to care. Origin only doesn't help matters, either.

DA2 felt much more like an action game than a RPG.
I liked DA2 as an action game. The story was ok, the enviroment was subpar, but the game was still enjoyable for me.

Bioware claim they will go more back to the lines of DAO than DA2, so I guess this will be yet another title I'm gonna pick up

I've played pretty much all bioware games, and I guess I will continue to do so, unless they go even more mainstream than DA2 was.

I'm boycotting EA. So if I do play this game, it won't be because I bought it. Probably won't play it though, I expect EA to completely ruin everything I once loved.

appleii.c said:

Also anyone know if DA3 will be available for OSX right off the bat?

Click to expand...

As far as I remember DA2 was a simultaneous release on Mac, and it was just wrapped.
So, it could be available off the bat if EA adopt the same approach.

This is a timely thread. I just put WoW away after two+ years and am back playing DA Origins again. After all this time, I have even discovered some nuggets that I missed years ago.

I agree that DA II was a disappointment, but still playable, but nowhere near the storyline of Origins. I am in the camp of waiting for DA III when it comes out and am hopeful that it is more like Origins.

imacken said:

As far as I remember DA2 was a simultaneous release on Mac, and it was just wrapped.
So, it could be available off the bat if EA adopt the same approach.

Click to expand...

Probably not, as EA is porting Frostbyte 3 to OS X. And I would imagine a wrapped Frostbyte game would be a miserable experience

I emailed Frostbite last week about giving us an update. I also did the same with EA. I am still awaiting a response from the latter.

Frostbite, responded but were unable to make any comment but assured me they would let me know as soon as they are allowed to reveal anything.

BAsed on how lazy DA2 was compared to DAO, I would expect nothing less than a wrapped game in collaboration with Aspyr or another similar company.

deadwulfe said:

BAsed on how lazy DA2 was compared to DAO, I would expect nothing less than a wrapped game in collaboration with Aspyr or another similar company.

Click to expand...

They are porting Frostbite 3 to the Mac. They wouldn't be doing that if they were planning on using cider ports.

deadwulfe said:

BAsed on how lazy DA2 was compared to DAO, I would expect nothing less than a wrapped game in collaboration with Aspyr or another similar company.

Click to expand...

I don't think Aspyr is wrapping games at all. It's been transgaming that have been wrapping games for pc-devs.

I don't mind wrapped games, if:
The support is good, and performance is good, and release is simultaneous with PC.
There are plenty of examples where native (aka non-wrapped) games are performing worse than they would be wrapped.

However, wrapping is a temporary solution imo. The best will always be well written and supported native games. Unfortunately quite a few native porting companies like VirtualProgramming doesn't really give any support at all and produce straight out non working ports, until they fixes it later on.
Games like Kings Bounty, Crusader Kings 2 was not even remotely playable at any of my machines at launch, both are now mostly fixed, but I would rather have those wrapped than half made native ports.

Hopefully we see more from feral and aspyr at it seems they both now have excellent support and have feelers out in the mac community.

I can forgive a game having smaller flaws at release, however I cannot forgive not getting feedback from devs, or just generic feedback that doesn't really say anything at all.

When dragon age 2 came out all i kept hearing about was the reuse of dungeon areas and textures. So I actually never played it. I just cant play a rpg with crappy dungeons. that just sucks.

If there is a third, I will wait for reviews and see if they pull the re-use card over and over again before I buy. I want all original dungeons and original dungeon textures.

cluthz said:

I don't think Aspyr is wrapping games at all. It's been transgaming that have been wrapping games for pc-devs.

I don't mind wrapped games, if:
The support is good, and performance is good, and release is simultaneous with PC.
There are plenty of examples where native (aka non-wrapped) games are performing worse than they would be wrapped.

However, wrapping is a temporary solution imo. The best will always be well written and supported native games. Unfortunately quite a few native porting companies like VirtualProgramming doesn't really give any support at all and produce straight out non working ports, until they fixes it later on.
Games like Kings Bounty, Crusader Kings 2 was not even remotely playable at any of my machines at launch, both are now mostly fixed, but I would rather have those wrapped than half made native ports.

Hopefully we see more from feral and aspyr at it seems they both now have excellent support and have feelers out in the mac community.

I can forgive a game having smaller flaws at release, however I cannot forgive not getting feedback from devs, or just generic feedback that doesn't really say anything at all.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately King's Bounty is not playable for me on 27" iMac's native resolution because of the famous font issue. Still no fix.

antonis said:

Unfortunately King's Bounty is not playable for me on 27" iMac's native resolution because of the famous font issue. Still no fix.

Click to expand...

I only have the missing texture bug. Which is fixed by quitting and reopening until you are lucky and all textures are there. VirtualProgramming is a bad chapter in mac gaming history.

Acorn said:

When dragon age 2 came out all i kept hearing about was the reuse of dungeon areas and textures. So I actually never played it. I just cant play a rpg with crappy dungeons. that just sucks.

If there is a third, I will wait for reviews and see if they pull the re-use card over and over again before I buy. I want all original dungeons and original dungeon textures.

Click to expand...

I got such a good deal on 2 that I'm going to try it anyway now. Dragon Age III might be what it takes to convince me to build that high-end Hackintosh I keep thinking about, particularly since the new Mac Pro is massively overpriced for any such consideration and apparently will have no gaming friendly cards available anyway (unlike the old Mac Pro, which did occasionally have a decent, if not great card at times available for it).

I really don't think I can stomach going back to Windows for anything else other than a boot into games again. Windows7 was better than XP, but I still despise that malware-ridden update-happy (as in like every other day even for my ancient XP STILL all these years later).

Well, hopefully the developers live up to their promises. The first one was great and was reminescent of Baldur's Gate where as the second used rehashed dungeons for quests and had 90% of the action happening in the same city location. I kept waiting for a chance to explore this amazing world and ended up getting stuck in the same old bland city. It was such a terrible let down.

But fans of the Fable series know all too well about grand developer promises...

Its EA. They have no goodwill left with me. The game will have to be really, really good if im going to get it.

Cougarcat said:

Probably not, as EA is porting Frostbyte 3 to OS X.

Click to expand...

Based on the recentness of this news along with the fact that they are just looking for someone to engineer the port, Frostbite for Mac could be a long way off. Makes me wonder if DA: Inquisition will come to OS X at all.

Unless there is news to the contrary, it looks like I'll be installing Windows for this game or playing it on Xbox One.

yadmonkey said:

Based on the recentness of this news along with the fact that they are just looking for someone to engineer the port, Frostbite for Mac could be a long way off. Makes me wonder if DA: Inquisition will come to OS X at all.

Unless there is news to the contrary, it looks like I'll be installing Windows for this game or playing it on Xbox One.

Click to expand...

Windows...because the only advantage of the Xbox is being able to sit infront of your TV...and even then, you can fix that.

Cougarcat said:

They are porting Frostbite 3 to the Mac. They wouldn't be doing that if they were planning on using cider ports.

Click to expand...

It's getting close to release time and I don't see any indications that Frostbite has or will ever be ported to the Mac by EA themselves, at least. Look at Torchlight 2. They promised a Mac release and it's been over two years now and there's no Mac port AT ALL and probably NEVER will be one. They could have easily did a Cider-type port (there are plenty of wrapped examples out there made literally within days of the release) and their response was they didn't want a poor wrapper port. Well, Torchlight 2 didn't need much power to begin with, so a "poor" wrapper port would have been perfectly FINE for most Macs and would at least EXIST. As it is, there is no native Torchlight 2 and I doubt there ever will be. The biggest problems with the wrappers were some effects features not working, which I'm sure they could have fixed in short order if they just did a port.

In short, a cheap port MAY be better than NO port at all. I couldn't handle Dragon Age Origins or Dragon Age II on my 2008 MBP worth a darn in OS X mode, but it runs fine on my 2012 Mac Mini and newer. Really good games are still played years later and I don't have to boot into Windows to play them. But it appears I'll need to buy a PS4 if I want to play Dragon Age III (don't really want another Windows machine unless I can just boot into it since maintaining two desktops is a PITA, especially with Windows that needs constant security updates on an almost daily basis (It's SOOOO much fun to boot up a PC to play a game and find the computer wants to do a 45 minute update before I can even start the game).

tedm said:

i'm boycotting ea. So if i do play this game, it won't be because i bought it. Probably won't play it though, i expect ea to completely ruin everything i once loved.

Click to expand...

^ This