The camp area with the dwarves that I was talking about is in the same area as the Oasis. Many of the journal entries and codex entries you find in the area talk about the dwarves excavating the place early on and some of them slowly going crazy while their company went broke and abandoned the efforts. As for the fantasy areas being just like any other fantasy areas in other games... I'm not sure how to argue against that. What would've been the alternative to the standard fantasy...
RPG Maker Forums
Tai_MT
Tai_MT
locations? I've seen everything fantasy has to offer as well. I'm not sure anyone can do anything much different with it. Unless you've got some ideas nobody has seen before in a fantasy setting?
TheMusicalCrowbar
Hm... LETS HAVE THEM EXPLORE THE DEPTHS OF A MAGICAL PUBLIC BATHROOM! There's only so far you can go with fantasy before it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever
Tai_MT
That's kind of my point... I've seen living forests with sentient trees... crystal forests... petrified forests... forests of flesh... etcetera. It's kind of all been done as far as fantasy locations go.
LordSquirrel
I don't really know if I can explain this in the comment format, but I'll try. I'll just say what i would have done differently with Skyhold as it is the thing that let me down the most in the game. Instead of having this be some abandoned human fortress built over an elven one, I would have just had it be an abandoned elven fortress. This would have given much more freedom with how the place could look, you could have hundred of ancient elven glyphs covering every wall, old ball...
LordSquirrel
old balls of magical energy floating around the fortress as something that maintained the place, you could have large spikes of lyrium dotting the area, ancient statues that are still intact, several levels to the fortress with old elven objects, weapons, and books still kept in place, maybe large spiraling crystal towers and last a more interesting throne room, this place always looks so damn bland, even with the decorations, they could have had statues of the elven gods, walls absolutely co...
LordSquirrel
absolutely covered in glyphs giving off their green light to illuminate the room, a strange tapestry that would hint at what happened to the elves these sort of things would have greatly improved Skyhold from an entirely been there done that mundane fortress to something trully memorable with a distinct feel of mysticism and the sense that whatever this place is, it will be here for ages after you leave. And really. My main problem with the locations in the game is that they just look bland...
TheMusicalCrowbar
Yeah, but you forget how humans work in the game. "Elves? Ew, gross, kill it with fire before it lays eggs!" At least most of the common people anyway
TheMusicalCrowbar
Although that sounds flipping awesome
LordSquirrel
with nothing really special about them they all look the exact same there is no extra umph to make them look distinct. Every cave looks the same, every castle looks the same, most of the towns looks the same, all of the sandy areas look the same for the most part, the emerald forest is just a forest with crystals and even the fade was just a bunch of crap randomly floating in place.
LordSquirrel
My idea is that the humans never even learn about the place until Solas "discovers it" and by then they can't really be picky where they setup.
TheMusicalCrowbar
But then you have to explain what drove them out of the hold.
LordSquirrel
Not necessarily. A tapestry like described could be enough to make people wonder, and with what we learn later in the game about the elves from Solas and other elves, people could easily put enough pieces together to get a picture, but never truly know and the best mysteries are the ones that don't have a definitive answer and always have you looking for more clues.
Tai_MT
But, if your Skyhold existed, it would look like every other Elven ruin in the game with its random runes strewn about and floaty magical crap that does who knows what all... It would've just been "more of the same" in a different style.
That's kind of my point about your complaint. It's all really kind of been done and when you're jaded... there's not really anything that's going to excite you about a fantasy location that's been done before,...
That's kind of my point about your complaint. It's all really kind of been done and when you're jaded... there's not really anything that's going to excite you about a fantasy location that's been done before,...
LordSquirrel
Most of the elven places in DAI just look like human structures but with glyphs everywhere I'm thinking something more like what Solas described about the ancient elves. Maybe I should have worded my previous comments differently. I just want a place that feels really unique, and I very rarely got that with DAI. It's not so much that I'm jaded, it's more that I want to see sopme new ideas. I think that the dragons in DAI look incredibly unique compared to most fantasy. (Even i...
LordSquirrel
...if I wish they were larger)
Tai_MT
If we're being honest, I think Solas exaggerated and made up half of what he says about the elves. Mostly because 1. We never see anything that he's talking about. And 2. He's heavily biased towards Elven superiority and thinks that the old elven empire "could do no wrong". With the Elven Lore being taken as "factual", you could imagine that the Elves spent much more time "sleeping away their innumerable years" or wasting them doing nonsensical stuff i...
Tai_MT
instead of actually building anything that Solas describes. If we're being honest, there's a lot of lore that kind of hints that Elves are probably the ones who started the Darkspawn problem in the first place, likely as a means to get rid of the Tevinter imperium... But Solas doesn't ever say anything bad about the Elven Empire. So... how much of his account could you ever trust?
Tai_MT
Likewise, he's also known as "The Trickster Wolf" Fen Harel in all Elven Lore and every legend about him says he isn't to be trusted because he serves his own means and lies frequently.
LordSquirrel
Bit of a main story spoiler there, but there are very few places where Solas ever straight out lies to you and he never really acts all that selfish in the game, so perhaps the tales aren't true. As far as we can tell he not just interested in himself and clearly cares about other people even if it is all filtered through the Solas persona.
