Dragon Age II


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Anybody

-sama
Sempai
url: http://dragonage.bioware.com/


Story: so apparantly you play as this angry guy named ebonHawke, who is (dunn dunn dunn) A Champiun of Kirkwall and we follow him through the end of the blight (when he escapes with his hot sisterfamily from skeletorsdarkspawn by the help of Flemeth(who is now a hot latex-clad female in her 20s with horn-shaped hairdo and i am not making it up). He is joined by a pirate chick, female goth knight, dwarf assassin(who uses dual crossbows) and some other characters We then follow his journeys through the second half of Dragon Age Origins and forward up to 20 years into future and see how he hooks up with pirate chick, hooks up with knight, hooks up with someone else, kills some evil horned orcsQuanari forces and becomes an overall hero...

Features:
- Play as Hawke, the unfamed Human hero and chose to be either mage or warrior.
- Play through the chapters spanning from the beginning of the blight in DA:O to the 20 years in future.
- Hook up with chicks who wear latex and engage in hollywood sex scenes.
- Import your DA:O savegame to get some mundane mention of the Warden.
- Join up with countless characters who lead their own lives and only appear when they want to.


What is new:
- Alpha Protocol storytelling style.
- Game combat is hacknslash.
- Personal Armor and Companion Armor - you can't ear your companion armor and companions cant wear your personal armors.
- Faster mage combat with more pew pews.
- Mass Effect2 Dialogue Wheel.
- New art style.
- Chapter System.

What is not returning:
- NO ability to choose race or origin. You are limited to voiced human male/female named Hawke who can be swordsman or mage.
- No origins.
- No more world map or free-roaming.
- NO freedom in the sidequests. You start a "chapter" have a mission and side-missions, do that and never return to the place. In a sense similar to how modern hacknslash games like god of war or Lords of shadow work.
- No more Isometric mode.
- Tactics. They are replaced by "Deffend" and "Attack" stances.
- Companion skill trees. Companions are reduced to having 5-6 skills that are auto-upgraded as they auto-levelup.
- Personal skills reduced to you having up to 10 at most.
- Companions have only three equipment slots(including weapon)
- No more RPG Dialogue trees. Replaced by Mass Effect Wheel.
- Game UI redone into "futuristic" black and gold.
- Ridiculously Radical Character Changes (flemeth is now hot latex clad female in her 20's, Isabella the swordsman from the first game is now a spanish tanned pirate chick, Quanari now look like horned ogres and are your typical evil meelee goons, Darkspawn redesigned into skeletor-look-alikes). More on changes in screenshots.



Screenshots:
First of All, our Hawke facing down some darkspawn:



Quanari mook with his henchmen. They are about to try to kill you with stone axes.


A screen of mage gameplay.


Goth Knight Female sidekick you can shag:


Flemeth saving your ass and shaking her hips in latex...


Isabella, the "edgy" pirate you can shag.






Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV8E9hrMaWE - Comparison of Dragon Age:Origins and God of Dragon Age Effect II gameplay and UI



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Opinion: At first, when the game was announced I was somewhat excited, because DA:O was an awesome CRPG game and a step in right direction from the horror of Mass Effect II. Then the designs were previewed and I went "Ffffuuuu". Then the gameplay got shown and the story and the cheesy oneliners.


Sadly with what started off as "pre-ordered the moment its available for that" I am now going to either pirate or rent it if I feel bored. Its sad to see that Bioware continues its decay
 
QUOTE (Anybody @ Jan 12 2011, 06:55 PM)
Opinion: At first, when the game was announced I was somewhat excited, because DA:O was an awesome CRPG game and a step in right direction from the horror of Mass Effect II. Then the designs were previewed and I went "Ffffuuuu". Then the gameplay got shown and the story and the cheesy oneliners.


Sadly with what started off as "pre-ordered the moment its available for that" I am now going to either pirate or rent it if I feel bored. Its sad to see that Bioware continues its decay
My opinion isnt that much different from yours, i mean i played the s**t out of DA:O and its DLC/Expansions, loved the world, the characters and even brought both novels which add to the world as it were, loved creating my own character and feeling total immersed in the game etc. Was hyped when they announced DA II. Then they slowly released stuff for it..............................

Im sorry but i just think they are dertimined to created Mass Effect 2 but in the Dragon Age world, i mean seriously. I DONT WANT TO PLAY as what is pretty much a predefined character. I mean by playing through the origin i got a nice way to quickly connect with the character and now im pretty much just lumped with a random somebody i honestly probably wont care for. Im just hoping the game flops they relaise there mistake and retcone this game out of exsitance, i mean it works for comic books so here to hoping it works for this too.
 
QUOTE (Hiasubi @ Jan 12 2011, 03:08 PM) My opinion isnt that much different from yours, i mean i played the s**t out of DA:O and its DLC/Expansions, loved the world, the characters and even brought both novels which add to the world as it were, loved creating my own character and feeling total immersed in the game etc. Was hyped when they announced DA II. Then they slowly released stuff for it..............................

Im sorry but i just think they are dertimined to created Mass Effect 2 but in the Dragon Age world, i mean seriously. I DONT WANT TO PLAY as what is pretty much a predefined character. I mean by playing through the origin i got a nice way to quickly connect with the character and now im pretty much just lumped with a random somebody i honestly probably wont care for. Im just hoping the game flops they relaise there mistake and retcone this game out of exsitance, i mean it works for comic books so here to hoping it works for this too.
About origins well, I fi wanted to play a human character I would look through the window. One of the strong points of Dragon Age was how the origin stories connected to each other (that is for example if you do NOT play as dwarf, you will find the corpse of your dwarf origin in the dungeon and so on) it also offered A LOT of replayability and made me at least replay the game with each class and origin and gender separately.


And ye sthey are trying to do a mass effect II with this. The sad thing is that I doubt this game would flop. And even if bioware acknowledges the concerns and bad things they wil lignore it in the end (like how they acknowledged the lack of rpg parts in mass effect 2 and promised that me3 will have more rpg parts....except that by the newest me3 info it is turning out to be a halo clone....)

ANd yes I share the same feelings for Mr. EbonHawke Bioware tried similar approach with ME2, by portraying making game tell me on just how awesome and epic and stuff the characters i got into party in me2 were and even going as far as making me1 characters into total assholes. That did not change the fact that I did not care for most of the chracters the way I did, for lets say, Liara, o rAshley or Kaiden or Wrex.


The main problem with "companions will have their own lives" i have is that i twill go in me2 way in that most of companions had no connection to plotline and were there either to be shagged by you or give you upgrades for the ship/weapons. Not to mention that their backstories degraded into "talk to them > talk to them > take a shuttle to some place > go shooting stuff > make a decision on whatever you shoot the guy in front of you or not > NEW UNIFORM UNLOCK).


I am DREADING the possibility that they will do the same with DAII side characters.


Behold the characters:

Aveline: 35 year old muscular soldier woman.
Fenris: A young tanned white haired bishonen who was a subject to experimentation and turned into living weapon who has cancer. His master is hunting him.
Isabela - tanned spunky playful pirate and the embodiment of perfect woman.. Her sister is in trouble.
Varric - Dwarf assassin and merchant. Has a dark evil brother, you will need to choose between them on your mission.
Exiled Prince - a revengeful prince whose oble family has been betrayed by the head of the close noble family to them. The only survivor he escaped his castle and is now looking for revenge against one man.


Seems familiar?

Aveline - Samara stereotype/fetish.
Fenris: Jack/Fishguy stereotype fetish from Mass Effect 2.
Isabela: Miranda.
Varric: Samara's "character mission"
Exiled Prince: Freaking Human Noble Origin copy pasted into this game.

And notice how every side msision of them is not connected to main story?

Who wants to be that it will, yet again be:
"talk to the guy a few times about stuff"
"take a "horse" to the pl,ace where person X is"
"kill stuff"
"make a decision on whether to allow the guy to kill person X or make him go light side"
"get rewards"
"mission Complete"



Edit: btw is it just me or every "heavy" armor in this game looks like its separate plates glued to the character with SuperGlue and every "mage" armor looks like its cut out of paper? :/ I mean I am no fan of the most mage armors in DA:O but at least they looked, you know, like real clothes instead of paper :/
 
DA:O wasn't a fountain of greatness already, but it was bearable. The previews for DAII suggest that they are planning to simplify and streamline everything even more. In short, if you didn't feel enough that you aren't actually playing a game but watching a crappy movie before, now you definitely will. It's sad that this is all that's left of modern-day RPGs (alternative being Bethesda and that's even worse). I don't think I'm planning to even bother downloading this game, let alone buying.

Question though:

QUOTE - Alpha Protocol storytelling style.

Where did you see/hear that? Either I missed it, or they're not planning it. Seems unlikely that Bioware who always concentrate on making their games as linear as possible would suddenly decide to offer such variety in the main storyline.
 
Isn't it a bit spoiled to be complaining about Bioware games?
wink.gif
Compare the games they've made to more or less every RPG since 2000. Really you should be thankful we have something decent to play instead of generic crap like Fable.
 
Not really, since Bioware IS the generic crap these days. They've always been at fault with overly linear story progression, even in BG, but starting KOTOR things have really started getting boring. These days, I wouldn't be surprised if Fable 3 turned out to be more fun than DAII.
 
QUOTE (Ausdoerrt @ Jan 16 2011, 08:26 AM) Not really, since Bioware IS the generic crap these days.

Yeah. Totally unoriginal. Their depiction of elves in DA as oppressed and enslaved by humanity. Totally old. Been done so many times. All of the alien races from the mass effect series. Totally old. Seen those a thousand times. /sarcasm off.

No, really, if you want something generic, look at Dead Space. Don't get me wrong, Dead Space was fun, but not a particularly creative game.


QUOTE They've always been at fault with overly linear story progression, even in BG, but starting KOTOR things have really started getting boring.

There's nothing wrong with linear story progression as long as the story is good. If you want to play something with a nonlinear story that you control, you're best off avoiding console or PC games altogether and playing some D&D or GURPS or something if thats what you're after.

That said, in more or less any of Bioware's games, you can make at least some choices which have an impact on the story line. Heck, you can even get different endings. Compare that to say, the much-lauded Final Fantasy series, where there literally are no choices you can make that affect the outcome of the game. You beat the boss, watch the cutscene and go to the next area. That is a linear game. Did that make all Final Fantasy games terrible? No.

The complaint here, that Bioware's games are completely linear, is flawed on two counts:

1. They are not actually completely linear.
2. Being completely linear is not necessarily a bad thing.


QUOTE . It's sad that this is all that's left of modern-day RPGs (alternative being Bethesda and that's even worse).

I don't know how many older RPGs you've played, but the vast majority are far more linear than anything Bioware has ever made. Seriously, all the classic RPGs, with very few exceptions, are literally straight lines. The plot goes in one direction, and there is one ending. Some of the classics give you multiple endings, but most of those don't depend on choices you make in the middle of the game, just one choice at the end. Heck, a lot of them don't even have sidequests!


QUOTE These days, I wouldn't be surprised if Fable 3 turned out to be more fun than DAII.

But Fable III? Seriously? Have you tried to play that? Saying that a game whose economy revolves around the player tediously and repeatedly crafting hammers will even come close to the quality of more or less any of Bioware's products is pretty absurd. Bioware titles may not be perfect, but let's face it. Very few companies are putting out better RPGs than they are right now.
 
I have to agree with Warsprite. Just because a storyline is fairly linear doesn't mean it's a bad game. Further, it's damn difficult to make a game that ISN'T linear in some sense. Even games like Elder Scrolls, which are supposedly non-linear still have a clear story, you just get to choose in what order to go at it and which side quests to complete.
I'd say that Bioware tends to do a good job in their games. Could they be better? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean they aren't good. Everything could be better than they are. "Hindsight is 20/20".

All that aside, fact is that in the current market, companies have to cater to the 'casual gamer' if they want to be truly successful. Catering to more competent 'hard core' (or at least more serious) gamers doesn't cut it anymore, certainly not in comparison. Companies want money, they'll do what will bring in that money. If it means dumbing down games and simplifying them to nothing then they'll do that. You want something more complex, take Warsprite's advice and go play D&D or something similar.
Even assuming they do cater to more serious gamers, production costs and time lines have to be considered too. There are limitations that prevent perfection.
 
QUOTE Yeah. Totally unoriginal. Their depiction of elves in DA as oppressed and enslaved by humanity. Totally old. Been done so many times.

It has actually. It's a giant rip-off from The Witcher. Just like the idea of Grey Wardens and many other things. Except a lot of those "morally controversial" moments are portrayed in "politically correct" mode in DA:O. Oh, and racism/sexism in a fantasy world has in turn been done even earlier in Arcanum. So your sarcasm is misplaced.


QUOTE All of the alien races from the mass effect series. Totally old. Seen those a thousand times. /sarcasm off.

No, really, if you want something generic, look at Dead Space. Don't get me wrong, Dead Space was fun, but not a particularly creative game.

Have ignored Mass Effect because of the poor things I've heard about it, but I'm tempted to pick up ME2. Or maybe not, don't like RPG/FPS hybrids anyway. Not sure why you mention Dead Space though, it's from a completely different genre (and does a decent job for what it's worth).


QUOTE There's nothing wrong with linear story progression as long as the story is good.

Fair enough. I've been spoiled by the great cRPGs of late 90s and early 00s (Fallout, Planescape, Arcanum, Vampire: Bloodlines etc.) so I prefer a dynamic story. But OK, I agree with your statement. But from where I stand DA:O's story was still a piece of crap that collected as many cliches as it possibly could.

Athough your comparison (with FF) doesn't work because, once again, you're once again comparing games from two completely different genres.


QUOTE But Fable III? Seriously? Have you tried to play that? Saying that a game whose economy revolves around the player tediously and repeatedly crafting hammers will even come close to the quality of more or less any of Bioware's products is pretty absurd.

It's not out for PC yet, so no I haven't tried. A player-run economy was one of the highlights of NWN2, though, and I'm quite intrigued to see how they pulled it off.


QUOTE Bioware titles may not be perfect, but let's face it. Very few companies are putting out better RPGs than they are right now.

Which is in no way an excuse for giving them praise they don't deserve. Best of worst ≠ good.


QUOTE All that aside, fact is that in the current market, companies have to cater to the 'casual gamer' if they want to be truly successful. Catering to more competent 'hard core' (or at least more serious) gamers doesn't cut it anymore, certainly not in comparison. Companies want money, they'll do what will bring in that money. If it means dumbing down games and simplifying them to nothing then they'll do that.

That's BS considering that cRPGs have always been niche games. Now for some reason game devs see it necessary to battle for audiences with FPS and casual-game crowds, virtually abandoning their niches. Simultaneously, they're driving themselves into a corner financially by setting standards like full voice-acting (when in RPG games it's simply not necessary). It's a conscious choice that has little to do with changes in market. Other genres like RTS or TBS have survived just fine without getting hit with the dumb-down hammer.


QUOTE You want something more complex, take Warsprite's advice and go play D&D or something similar.

Hence my original comment: "It's sad that this is all that's left of modern-day RPGs ". It used to be that RPGs were the games you went to when you wanted a game that involved more than twitch reflexes, when I was growing up. Mind you, that wasn't so long ago either.
 
QUOTE (Ausdoerrt @ Jan 15 2011, 08:14 PM) DA:O wasn't a fountain of greatness already, but it was bearable. The previews for DAII suggest that they are planning to simplify and streamline everything even more. In short, if you didn't feel enough that you aren't actually playing a game but watching a crappy movie before, now you definitely will. It's sad that this is all that's left of modern-day RPGs (alternative being Bethesda and that's even worse). I don't think I'm planning to even bother downloading this game, let alone buying.

Question though:



Where did you see/hear that? Either I missed it, or they're not planning it. Seems unlikely that Bioware who always concentrate on making their games as linear as possible would suddenly decide to offer such variety in the main storyline.
NOt the nonlinear stuff. The way its told.


DAII is basically a spunky goth knight interrogating a wealthy assassin beardless dwarf on the Hawke, Hero of Kirkwall


The whole game starts with the goth knight entering the hall clad in latex with occasional steel plates superglued on the latex parts and beardless dwarf says:
"So you want to know about the Champiun"


We then flashback to freemarches where Hawke saving his family is hacknslashing hordes of skeletorsredesigned-darkspawn. Then Flemeth comes as dragon, beats up all the darkspawn and transforms back into her(redesigned) human form as 20 year old leather clad goth female with hair styled as horns(Really??). She then says to Hawke on how she wanted to save him because he will be the symbol for humanity in the coming wars.

cue more darkspawn hacknslashing with a huge(redesigned) ogre and guitar shreding.

Cue the mission complete screen where the game lists the companions you got(none), the sidemissions you completed, the mission objectives you did, the weapons you acquired, money you acquired, relationships that changed(and how they changed), and bonuses you gained. with the "NEXT CHAPTER" button.(after second chapter you get "Mission Camp" button which transfers you to camp and from there all you need to do is push next mission button)

cue goth knight in the present saying some line about "So this how hero of the world started?" and the dawarf continues telling the story.

Cue flashback with CHAPTER II written on big and a cutscene of hawke traveling. After cutscene we get a pop up with a list of side objectives(kill the quanari with ___ skill) (btw quanari are redesigned too and are mostly the "non darkspawn" ogres).. and the main objectives.


repeat for 20 chapters till you get the ending cutscene for either badguy hawke or the good guy hawke..


QUOTE (Warsprite @ Jan 16 2011, 06:13 PM)QUOTE (Ausdoerrt @ Jan 16 2011, 08:26 AM) Not really, since Bioware IS the generic crap these days.

Yeah. Totally unoriginal. Their depiction of elves in DA as oppressed and enslaved by humanity. Totally old. Been done so many times. All of the alien races from the mass effect series. Totally old. Seen those a thousand times. /sarcasm off.

No, really, if you want something generic, look at Dead Space. Don't get me wrong, Dead Space was fun, but not a particularly creative game.

QUOTE They've always been at fault with overly linear story progression, even in BG, but starting KOTOR things have really started getting boring.

There's nothing wrong with linear story progression as long as the story is good. If you want to play something with a nonlinear story that you control, you're best off avoiding console or PC games altogether and playing some D&D or GURPS or something if thats what you're after.

That said, in more or less any of Bioware's games, you can make at least some choices which have an impact on the story line. Heck, you can even get different endings. Compare that to say, the much-lauded Final Fantasy series, where there literally are no choices you can make that affect the outcome of the game. You beat the boss, watch the cutscene and go to the next area. That is a linear game. Did that make all Final Fantasy games terrible? No.

The complaint here, that Bioware's games are completely linear, is flawed on two counts:

1. They are not actually completely linear.
2. Being completely linear is not necessarily a bad thing.

QUOTE . It's sad that this is all that's left of modern-day RPGs (alternative being Bethesda and that's even worse).

I don't know how many older RPGs you've played, but the vast majority are far more linear than anything Bioware has ever made. Seriously, all the classic RPGs, with very few exceptions, are literally straight lines. The plot goes in one direction, and there is one ending. Some of the classics give you multiple endings, but most of those don't depend on choices you make in the middle of the game, just one choice at the end. Heck, a lot of them don't even have sidequests!

QUOTE These days, I wouldn't be surprised if Fable 3 turned out to be more fun than DAII.

But Fable III? Seriously? Have you tried to play that? Saying that a game whose economy revolves around the player tediously and repeatedly crafting hammers will even come close to the quality of more or less any of Bioware's products is pretty absurd. Bioware titles may not be perfect, but let's face it. Very few companies are putting out better RPGs than they are right now.




1. Its just an inversion of "Nazi Elves" trope. Millions of things have used that. But yes, noo ne is questioning DA:O. What they did afterward on other hand...

MAss Effect 2, Dragon Age II, The Old Republic - generic copy pasta.

2. The problem with bioware linearity is the CANON. So what if I can be a female dark side revan if the official one and the one in part II would be male light side revan? So what if I can be a male Exile, if the one in Canon is female?

However that at least gave changes and choices that(like the bastilla cutscene if revan is lightsisde and so on) Dragon Age Origins Also ha d A LOT of nonlinnear replayability thanks to the origins choices and class choices and gender choices actually mattering in the long run.

Now lets look at ME2.

So what if I saved the council or destroyed it in ME1? NOthing changes in the game. I just meet a different npc who says he won't help and I go pew pew more halo/callofduty/halflife bugs.

So what if I did every damn side quest in ME1 and imported the game? OH right I got some useless emails talking and thanking me for things.

So what if I prevented Wrex death? So what if chose one of two characters to die as sacriffice back then? All that changes is that different npc representation of that character appears, acts like a dick and leaves. NO change at all.


Now if for example :

Your decision on whether Anderson or Udina enters council would impact certain plotpoint in ME2, for example the council has to vote for some important issue and anderson votes for and udina would vote against. A completely different plotline follows.


Please try to play Alpha Protocol to know what it means - "The choices that matter". Every little decision you make even in game, outside o cutscenes, affects the gameplay, level design, allies, deaths, enemy layouts, weapons enemy uses, enemy itself, and so on. There are dozens of possible endings, dozens of ways the last scene can play out depending onw hat you did and how you acted. If one thing AP did right, thats non-linearity.


3. Considering Dragon Age II is turning into a shallow hybrid of mass effect 2 and god of war, I frankly would not be surprised at fable III being better.

not in the story branches(which was on eof the most awesome parts of ap), but in storytelling.

The whole DAII is bassically a goth knight questioning a fat dwarf assassin a bout exploits of Hawke, the Hero of Kirkwall...


QUOTE (Warsprite @ Jan 16 2011, 03:28 AM)Isn't it a bit spoiled to be complaining about Bioware games? Compare the games they've made to more or less every RPG since 2000. Really you should be thankful we have something decent to play instead of generic crap like Fable.

last Bioware game i liked was DA:O, because, you know, not only was it actually a game, it was actually a return to form to good storytelling bioware has forgotten with ME2 and TOR.

This year alone we are getting Witcher II, which, sadly, will beat God of War Effect II to a pinch in quality.
 
QUOTE This year alone we are getting Witcher II, which, sadly, will beat God of War Effect II to a pinch in quality.

No question about it. From where I stand Witcher I did that to DA:O already anyway.


QUOTE beardless dwarf

Hmm, I wonder where I've seen that before... (Arcanum).


QUOTE 2. The problem with bioware linearity is the CANON. So what if I can be a female dark side revan if the official one and the one in part II would be male light side revan? So what if I can be a male Exile, if the one in Canon is female?

There's various ways to handle that. One, you treat the "hero" as gender- and race- neutral. Two, you have a different "hero" character in each sequel. Three, you release some sort of product that defines the hero as a specific person (for example, a short story as it was in case of Divinity series). The different origins in DA:O hardly mattered anyway (sure, more than transition from ME1 to ME2 as per your comparison, but nothing to get crazy about).


QUOTE 1. Its just an inversion of "Nazi Elves" trope. Millions of things have used that. But yes, noo ne is questioning DA:O.

Perhaps. But it really stood out so much with DA:O coming out so soon after the Witcher that my first thought was "ripoff".


QUOTE last Bioware game i liked was DA:O, because, you know, not only was it actually a game, it was actually a return to form to good storytelling bioware has forgotten with ME2 and TOR.

Sorry, but calling the effort in DA:O "good storytelling" is like comparing Twilight to Crime and Punishment. I haven't seen a game make "high fantasy" look so boring in a long while.
 
@Anybody: DA2 isn't out yet. Neither is old republic. It's not really fair to complain about something you haven't played just from the previews. I mean really.

It sounds like your opinion is that ME2's major flaw was that it didn't incorporate enough changes from your actions in ME1. Let's think about that here: The game's major flaw was that it didn't implement a mechanic (changes based on previous games in the series) as well as it could have, a mechanic that no other game has pulled off successfully? Sorry, that's a pretty shallow complaint.

Actually, Bioware admits as much themselves, and has a fairly reasonable explanation for not making too many of the changes matter (yet). They're making a trilogy, so they want everyone to start at roughly the same place for ME3. Otherwise it would have been hugely more difficult to make both ME2 and ME3. Even so, I agree that some of the choices could/should have mattered more. That said, it would have still been a lot harder to do. Its a lot easier to do something like that within one game, since you don't have to worry about setting up the beginning for the next game. I happen to agree with you that replacing dead

The second part of your criticism is basically "ME2 wasn't as good as Alpha Protocol, because the choices didn't have as much impact." I'm not going to say that Alpha Protocol is a bad game. I have a huge amount of respect for Obsidian as a developing house, but to say that "Mass Effect/Mass Effect 2 were much more linear than Alpha Protocol, therefore they are bad games" is just downright unreasonable. By that logic every other RPG you've ever played is terrible. Instead isn't it more reasonable to say that Mass Effect was good, but Alpha Protocol was great?

@Ausdoerrt: Actually I found the Witcher's story less compelling than DA:O. But while we're trashing Bioware here, you realize they made the engine the Witcher runs on right?

Ok, the Witcher did a lot of the same stuff DA:O did before it did it. Fine. One prior work with similar elements does not make it a trope or copy-pasta, or even "bad".

If you want to talk about originality, it's not like those were new ideas in the Witcher either, the game was based on a polish book series that was out over a decade before the game was published. That's how invention works. People don't just spontaneously come up with new ideas, they take old ideas and tweak them a bit, then other people take those ideas and tweak them more. That's why we have phrases like "nothing new under the sun."

How good a product is is always relative to the other products on the market. We don't say "jeez, BMW sucks at making cars! why can't they make their cars as perfect as I think they could?!". We compare auto manufacturers to other auto manufacturers, not our platonic ideal of what a car should be.

If your thinking is "the entire RPG industry is so crap, I could do it better," then your expectations are unreasonably high. Get out there and change it, or at least give those who deliver the best we've got some credit. Doing otherwise, and just shitting on everyone, is just plain curmudgeonly.
 
QUOTE Actually I found the Witcher's story less compelling than DA:O.

Fair enough, some people may prefer something more cheesy/less intellectually and emotionally involving for a game story. Comes down to preference.


QUOTE But while we're trashing Bioware here, you realize they made the engine the Witcher runs on right?

I don't see how that has anything to do with anything. Also, I think that they'd probably have been better off using something other than an ancient engine that was barely pulling its weight just dealing with the high-resolution textures.


QUOTE Ok, the Witcher did a lot of the same stuff DA:O did before it did it. Fine. One prior work with similar elements does not make it a trope or copy-pasta, or even "bad".

The problem is that it was more than just a little similar. To be fair though, probably coincidence more than intentional ripping, but it looked pretty sketchy when DA:O came out regardless. Just that, of course, doesn't make DA:O's writing look bad. What does is that The Witcher did most of those similar elements better. Well, and there's a plenty of places DA:O story sucked on its own merit, but I won't go into that.


QUOTE If you want to talk about originality, it's not like those were new ideas in the Witcher either, the game was based on a polish book series that was out over a decade before the game was published. That's how invention works. People don't just spontaneously come up with new ideas, they take old ideas and tweak them a bit, then other people take those ideas and tweak them more. That's why we have phrases like "nothing new under the sun."

There's a significant difference between a direct adaptation and "idea borrowing", mind you. Although, this defines the difference between the story in The Witcher and DA:O; the first is adapted from a critically acclaimed fantasy novel series, and the latter comes off as a B-rated fantasy movie.

PS. The Witcher isn't perfect. The gameplay is clunky, and then there's the technical issues. But storywise it's in a league of its own, up with the RPG classics, while DA:O is not. (IMO, of course)


QUOTE How good a product is is always relative to the other products on the market. We don't say "jeez, BMW sucks at making cars! why can't they make their cars as perfect as I think they could?!". We compare auto manufacturers to other auto manufacturers, not our platonic ideal of what a car should be.

Bad comparison. Games are an entertainment product, so they're more similar to things like music albums or books rather than cars or tomatoes. Besides, we're just talking about writing, and it's not constrained by any technical limitations. So the comparison works differently. Let's imagine that Twilight was the only movie released last year. Does that make it comparable to Kurosawa's films? I think not.


QUOTE If your thinking is "the entire RPG industry is so crap, I could do it better," then your expectations are unreasonably high. Get out there and change it, or at least give those who deliver the best we've got some credit. Doing otherwise, and just shitting on everyone, is just plain curmudgeonly.

That's not my point. The point is more like "they're not trying hard enough anymore, partly because of lowered standards and consumers' excusing attitude". Also, "if you can't make it better you can't criticize it" is a ridiculous argument that doesn't work. Entertainment products are made for the general public, and they absolutely have a right to critique it as they see fit. That's the only way to ensure the developers don't get lazy. I only give credit where it's well-deserved. I also don't see why "aww but they tried hard" excuses work at all, but they do consistently these days, along with other devious marketing ploys, especially by the big-name companies, to ensure that the public eats up whatever they release.
 
QUOTE
Fair enough, some people may prefer something more cheesy/less intellectually and emotionally involving for a game story. Comes down to preference.


Not what I'm saying. I didn't find Witcher's story as emotionally engaging, frankly I did not find either particularly interesting intellectually. Witcher just did not do as good a job as pulling me into the game world as DA:O did. The use of sound, in particular, I thought was much better in DA:O. DA:O's camera angles were also more immersive than Witcher's.


QUOTE
I don't see how that has anything to do with anything. Also, I think that they'd probably have been better off using something other than an ancient engine that was barely pulling its weight just dealing with the high-resolution textures.

This thread seems to be all about how you guys think bioware sucks dick. I'm pointing out they deserve some credit for something you purport to like.

Actually, CD Project Red rewrote most of the engine's graphics code, which they didn't do a great job of optimizing.

They could have made their own engine, instead of licensing an older one from Bioware, but that would have cost money they didn't have (seeing as Witcher was their first game...).


QUOTE There's a significant difference between a direct adaptation and "idea borrowing", mind you. Although, this defines the difference between the story in The Witcher and DA:O; the first is adapted from a critically acclaimed fantasy novel series, and the latter comes off as a B-rated fantasy movie.

You need to watch more B-movies. You don't actually seem to understand how bad they are. The voice acting in DA:O alone was infinitely better than any so-called "acting" you would encounter in a B-movie. Not to mention the special effects.


QUOTE
Bad comparison. Games are an entertainment product, so they're more similar to things like music albums or books rather than cars or tomatoes. Besides, we're just talking about writing, and it's not constrained by any technical limitations. So the comparison works differently. Let's imagine that Twilight was the only movie released last year. Does that make it comparable to Kurosawa's films? I think not.

I don't think you understood me quite correctly here. I could have used anything, cars, pancakes, mustard spreads, and it would not have altered the example. It's grossly unfair to compare X with your platonic ideal of X. What X is, be it cars or mustard spreads or pancakes. Whatever X you compare to your platonic ideal of X (the ideal X) it will virtually always fall short. So when you compare a video game to your ideal video game, the magic game where everything is perfect, just the way you wanted it, you should be shocked if you are not incredibly disapointed. The end result of this worldview is that you will find 99% of everything to be crap, because you are judging the world by how perfect you imagine it could be. At the same time, it results in an extremely negative attitude about the world around you, which makes things less fun for others, as well as yourself.

On the other hand, if you compare X only to the set of all existing X (video games only to other videogames) you'll be much less disappointed in the world, and an overall more pleasant person.

I said nothing, nothing at all, about limiting anything to a year's worth of comparison. That's an artificial restriction you created.


QUOTE The point is more like "they're not trying hard enough anymore, partly because of lowered standards and consumers' excusing attitude".

What developers are trying to do is sell games, and make money. I think you will agree, Bioware is remarkably good at that.

That said, "incredible" RPGs really only ever come out once every couple years. It's not that games are somehow steadily getting worse, or companies are trying less anymore. Things are the same as ever.


QUOTE
Also, "if you can't make it better you can't criticize it" is a ridiculous argument that doesn't work.

A common argument among children, but not what I said. I said your expectations are unreasonably high. IE: you are creating a world for yourself that will only disappoint you. This is partially because you do not appear to understand how hard it is to make any kind of creative product. I suggested you try it yourself so that you might understand what a realistic game product (that makes money!) might look like. That would be a good way of A. contributing to an industry you seem to care about and B. resetting your expectations to a reasonable level.


QUOTE entertainment products are made for the general public, and they absolutely have a right to critique it as they see fit. That's the only way to ensure the developers don't get lazy.

Developers know and recognize what problems are without people shitting all over them. There are a lot more polite ways to criticize a product than what you've done here. Moreover, you're posting here on FTV not on their board, not sending feedback to them, so frankly, they're not even going to read what you say. Saying "I complain because it helps fix things" when you complain in a place that noone with the power to fix things reads is no more than a weak rationalization of your own negative attitude.

Shockingly, some developers actually do try to do creative things because they're interesting. They don't do that for you, me, or any other consumer. The developers who do that, choose to do it because they find it rewarding and think it's a good thing to do. Most of the time, they're prevented from doing that because the interesting thing they want to do won't actually make any money.


QUOTE devious marketing ploys, especially by the big-name companies, to ensure that the public eats up whatever they release.

Of course they are going to market what they're selling. Assuming marketing works, they would be stupid not to. Game companies exist to make money. If they didn't make enough money, they wouldn't exist at all, because they would be forced to close! Marketing helps them make money, which makes them exist. E.g. marketing, so long as it is an effective expenditure of money, is good, in that it ensures we still have games to play! So, it's not really in your self-interest to even complain about game marketing, so long as it is effective.
 
QUOTE Not what I'm saying. I didn't find Witcher's story as emotionally engaging, frankly I did not find either particularly interesting intellectually. Witcher just did not do as good a job as pulling me into the game world as DA:O did. The use of sound, in particular, I thought was much better in DA:O. DA:O's camera angles were also more immersive than Witcher's.

I'm just comparing the writing, not any outside factors. I also don't see how camera angles can be immersive. (Plus, I think the camera in DA:O was pretty annoyingly bad, because I could never quite get the strategic camera work the way it should in closed spaces).


QUOTE You need to watch more B-movies. You don't actually seem to understand how bad they are. The voice acting in DA:O alone was infinitely better than any so-called "acting" you would encounter in a B-movie. Not to mention the special effects.

Once again, I'm just talking about the story, the *script* if you will. And in DA:O it reads just about cheesy enough to make the comparison I'm making.


QUOTE On the other hand, if you compare X only to the set of all existing X (video games only to other videogames) you'll be much less disappointed in the world, and an overall more pleasant person.

To be fair, if I compare the writing standards for videogames today to ALL videogames, it still looks like utter crap. My ideal isn't platonic that comes out of thin air, it's based in the games of the past that I hold as a standard. There's been little improvement and probably even some decline in all aspects of RPG games other than graphics. Heck, I haven't even seen a proper RPG game in a while, it's mostly hybrids.



QUOTE A common argument among children, but not what I said. I said your expectations are unreasonably high.

Following that, you said:


QUOTE Get out there and change it, or at least give those who deliver the best we've got some credit.

Which reads quite like "if you can't make it better, don't argue". Your argument that one needs to be involved in the industry to be able to criticize something doesn't really work either. What was the last time you've seen a book review that gives the author credit because "it's so hard to write books"? On the other hand, extending your argument to your example, you'd also want everyone who wants to criticize a book to write one first. It just doesn't work that way.


QUOTE E.g. marketing, so long as it is an effective expenditure of money, is good, in that it ensures we still have games to play! So, it's not really in your self-interest to even complain about game marketing, so long as it is effective.

The million-dollar question is, do I even want those kind of games anymore. DA:O was advertised as a "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate", and in the end it was anything but. Should I be happy because marketing made BW a bunch of money and delivered me a game I don't like? I think not.

PS: The only thing worse than misleading marketing is the excusing attitude some gamers seem to exhibit in the face of glaring flaws.
 
So the pc demo has hit and:


- Controls are clunky at best, very consolified. And unrensponsive on pc. Feels like a shoddy console-to-pc
- All spells have no casting times - yay no more tactics, no need to protect your mages....
- No friendly fire up to the highest difficulty...APPARANTLY BIOWARE DEVS THOUGHT THAT FIRST GAME WAS TOO HARD LOL (I fear to think on what a cakewalk this will be even on hard now...)
- More cheese! ("Hold on my dearest love!", "So you want to know about the Champiun" "Castillos The Vigilant Prince is looking for your head, pirate scum!" "we still have our pride!")
- DDD breasts everywhere....your companion pirate hispanic thief has it, your SISTER has it, your 70 year old mother has it, even Flemeth has it


For interested those here some screenshots:
Marvel at beautiful landscape:

dragonage2demo2011-02-37z3.jpg



Marvel at armor designs:

dragonage2demo2011-02-j7ef.jpg
 
which console should i get dragon age on?

MOD Note: Post merged since this is more or less on topic. Next time please search the section before posting a new thread.
 
So the pc game has leaked already(although most people wont be able to actually run it) and new "awesome" features show themselves:


- Game is THRICE as short as DA:O.
- Game is locked on MEDIUM graphical settings with a notice that "High Graphics DLC will come out soon".
- Those who loved the DA:O music will be disappointed. The game now is full of cellos and guitar solos.
- crafting completely removed. You find "craft material crates"in secret places, like breaking a wall, ala Prince of Persia secret rooms. Then you note the vendors of the place and thus unlock new weapons to be bough...
- The only difference between Hard and Nightmare is that Nightmare difficulty has friendly fire while others do not. So far Hard has been outrageously easy, easy enough to play through first five or so chapters by just using the starter abilities of Backstab, Fireball and Shield Smash.
- YOU WILL HAVE TO PAUSE. Because the speed is ridiculous to the point that the attacks look like benny hill movie segments.
- No map travel. The world map is there but for a different reason. It now acts as God-of-War, Lords-of-Shadow type of map with "played through"levels displayed on it. YOu can no longer travel to previous locations or wander around the places randomly doing bit of there and bit of there.
- Game's ending identical to Mass Effect 2, just replace the setting and characters.
- Leliana, Zevran, Alistair are in the game, but you will be disappointed at their looks, attitude and dialogue lines. Alistair gets whopping 2 minutes of screentime in a cutscene.
- So far no need for tactics. even if entire party dies, mage continues slaughtering stuff by spaming aoe(no cast time remember?) and then running around outrunning enemies till cooldown.
- Rogues move like ninja, disappear in puffs of smoke, mages breakdance while casting, Archer spells look more like magic(laser arrows from the sky, SERIOUSLY?)
- Mabari warhound is now a summon spell. no equipment.
- YOU CAN'T equip or change equips of your companions. Only things you can equip are two rings on them.
- So far, half the game in(menu says 44%), pretty much every level has been this.

TUTORIAL:
Run forward. -> Cutscene -> Voice shouts about another wave -> kill darkspawn -> kill more darkspawn -> Cutscene -> run forward - > cutscene -> kill darkspawn -> cutscene -> cutscene -> chapter ends.
(Cutscene telling that CHAMPION arrived into the Kirkwall Town of Chains and that a year has passed and that he met a hot pirate chick)
CHAPTER II
Cutscene -> Run forward -> fight mercenaries -> cutscene -> loot mercenaries -. run forward -> fight mercenaries -> run forward -> fight -> cutscene ->slo-mo -> "boss fight"-> cutscene.
Chapter III
New member joins -> run forward-> cutscene -> accept decline side objective -> storm Castillo's place -> another new member -> fight mercenaries -> fight mercenaries -> cutscene -> boss fight. CHAPTER ENDS.
Chapter IV
pretty much meredith(female amazon leader of CHantry) introduction.
Chapter V
(cutscene tells us that two years passed and CHAMPION and his companions who are so liek very epic are living in kirkwall. Now the quanari invasion got in some way to there and are for some reason stranded. FIGHT.)
Go Forward -> cutscene -> fight qanari -> go forward -> cutscene -> fight off groups of qanari -> cutscene -> cutscene -> go forward -> go forward -> automatically get healed -> fight more quanari...PAUSE.

- Dragon Age III will yet again be about Garret J. Hawke who, according to narrator is the most important person to appear since maker walked this world.(even though so far all I see is him kicking people, sorting his personal grudges and leading a small temper tantrum against people in power of ONE CITY, aka everything pales in comparison to Warden)
 
QUOTE (Anybody @ Mar 05 2011, 05:19 PM) <snip>
Can't comment on all the stuff since I only just recently finished Act 1, but there are a few things i can talk about.

-Graphics, only a super high setting i believe is set as a downloadable. You can set the game to high right at the beginning, which is how i've been playing.

-Crafting, yea, i kinda miss the old style. Now it's just like you find a resource in a place that the crafting vendor will be able to always go back to in order to make stuff for you, instead of you picking up and crafting everything yourself. Downs and Ups to the new system, but it doesn't bother me too much.

-Combat. It's a mixed bag. While I like how all the action feels faster and has a more visceral feel to it, I feel it traded for that by getting rid of some of the more tactical feel of the game. Just not being able to zoom the camera out to an eye-in-the-sky view to give me a nice overview of the battlefield constricts my ability to properly micro-manage my group in some situations. It just doesn't provide me with the awareness I may need at times.

-Equipment, yea, you can't equip you're partner with armor. Instead you just get upgrades that adds stats to their armor. But you can still equip them with weapons and all the accessories (for 5 things total). This doesn't bother me at all, except for the fact that I now get so much armor and such that I have 0 use for. I'm a rogue and its kinda annoying that I'll get a new piece of armor only to see that it requires Strength to use (for a warrior) or Magic to use (for a mage) and then just have to sell it.

-Characters and Interactions. The conversation system in DAII is definitely better than Origins. Maybe even just for the single fact that your character talks and expresses emotion. That was one aspect that I found really took you out of the game in Origins. You're character would just be there with a kind of blank stare at people and it was really jarring. Just being able to hear the way the character talks in different situations really brings me into the game more.


-Another note on combat that I miss is the combo mechanic from Origins. In origins they had just different combos of abilities that when used in conjunction with one another had different results. One that I used all the time was laying down a Paralysis Glyph and a Knockdown Glyph on top of each other, which would create a massive glyph that would CC a large group of enemies. Now the only type of combo abilities I've found in game is through the cross-class combos where it's just one class either staggers or disorients or makes an enemy brittle, and then another class has an ability that does more dmg to targets with those affects, which, while useful, is far less exciting.
 
QUOTE (Barbobot @ Mar 18 2011, 09:49 PM)
-Graphics, only a super high setting i believe is set as a downloadable. You can set the game to high right at the beginning, which is how i've been playing.


And without DX11(which is buggy on NVDIA cards, thanks bioware), the game looks like crap. ANd with DX11 and very high settings, all that is "better"is that the game has more bloom effects... Character armors still look clunky, polygon count is incredibly, laughably low and areas still have no style or well, variety.


QUOTE (Barbobot @ Mar 18 2011, 09:49 PM)
-Combat. It's a mixed bag. While I like how all the action feels faster and has a more visceral feel to it, I feel it traded for that by getting rid of some of the more tactical feel of the game. Just not being able to zoom the camera out to an eye-in-the-sky view to give me a nice overview of the battlefield constricts my ability to properly micro-manage my group in some situations. It just doesn't provide me with the awareness I may need at times.

Thats not the worst part.

The worst part is "reinforcement"mechanics, with enemies appearing out of thin air. It makes any sort of planning or micromanagement impossible. "yay, lets position my mage there and....he gets slaughtered by a skeleton who spawned behind him".

Not to mention the no-cast-time stuff, which makes sure that you will always go with mage and spam skill buttons, while running during cooldown.



QUOTE (Barbobot @ Mar 18 2011, 09:49 PM)
-Equipment, yea, you can't equip you're partner with armor. Instead you just get upgrades that adds stats to their armor. But you can still equip them with weapons and all the accessories (for 5 things total). This doesn't bother me at all, except for the fact that I now get so much armor and such that I have 0 use for. I'm a rogue and its kinda annoying that I'll get a new piece of armor only to see that it requires Strength to use (for a warrior) or Magic to use (for a mage) and then just have to sell it.

It bothers me whole a lot. It makes the companions seem even more like generic fps goons(you know, those nameless guys that run around with you during some über serious fps war game mission). IT dumbs down the rpg part of the game.

And you bought armor? Playing on hard and so far felt no need to even change the default armor of mine...


QUOTE (Barbobot @ Mar 18 2011, 09:49 PM)
-Characters and Interactions. The conversation system in DAII is definitely better than Origins. Maybe even just for the single fact that your character talks and expresses emotion. That was one aspect that I found really took you out of the game in Origins. You're character would just be there with a kind of blank stare at people and it was really jarring. Just being able to hear the way the character talks in different situations really brings me into the game more.


Opinions, opinions.

IMO, voiced gruff space marine of DAII is way more immersion-breaking, as you do not feel as if YOU ARE the main character.

In da:O, frankly, the silent character was great, because he could talk in any voice your mind can think up. Giving voice, predefined name and predefined backstory to character dumbs down the rpg aspects and just makes it way less fun to play it.

DA:O would let you to build any character personality you want, in a sense. My first playthrough was Human Noble, hellbent on revenge, who eventually fell in love with leliana and changed his ways sacrificing himself to end the blight, second play through was as city elf female with intense hatred for humans and men, third playthrough was as sarcastic cruel human noble, who eventually became the king. Then a good-hearted, confused mage, authoritarian evil human noble, sad city elf and so on and so on.

In DAII you basically have:
- Neutered Space Marine Hawke on Drugs.
- Sarcastic Bastard Space Marine Hawke.
- Evil Angry Bastard Space Marine Hawke.


And whats worse, you have them right in that order in that annoying dialogue wheel.

Try to mix and match opinions? Your character sounds like a psycho with multiple personality syndrome.

Mass Effect's Sheppard was decent because he had some character and all the opinions sounded similarly in character. It was like bioware guys told the VA to "now sound depressed", "now sound curious"and so on, while with DAII its more likely "do angry guy impersonation" "do george w bush impersonation" "do jack sparrow impersonation".


Not to mention that most of side characters are just as ridiculously annoying as Mass Effect II goons. The only at least a bit interesting guy is Varric, while others annoy you to no end. And even if you try to get along, the PRESET ENDING THAT ALWAYS HAPPENS NO MATTER WHAT will still make you hate everyone but Varric.


QUOTE (Barbobot @ Mar 18 2011, 09:49 PM)
-Another note on combat that I miss is the combo mechanic from Origins. In origins they had just different combos of abilities that when used in conjunction with one another had different results. One that I used all the time was laying down a Paralysis Glyph and a Knockdown Glyph on top of each other, which would create a massive glyph that would CC a large group of enemies. Now the only type of combo abilities I've found in game is through the cross-class combos where it's just one class either staggers or disorients or makes an enemy brittle, and then another class has an ability that does more dmg to targets with those affects, which, while useful, is far less exciting.
http://blog.brentknowles.com/2010/08/15/bi...08-summer-2009/


Read this. Its the original Lead Designer of Dragon Age, who left after Bioware forced the new "darker and edgier" direction onto the Dragon Age franchise, A man who has been with the company since baldurs gate was released.

He is still talking with people in comments and reveals some quite interesting things
 
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