alanschu

Haha I knew who she was talking about!

Yet you did!

I didn't mean it in an elitist sort of thing. I more meant that I don't see the trailers as being detrimental, because in the back of my mind I still know how the game is. For everyone else, they don't have that luxury, so I can understand the cause for concern.

OK, it's a gentle rebuke to the marketing guys at EA, but you'll see other comments that share the hey-it's-those-chumps-up-at-marketing-not-me theme. Bio Kremlinologists may well translate this into 'Dave Gaider is pissed off with EA marketing.' If it is indeed the case that DA is a serious, mature, DaRK HeROIc FanTaSY (etc) and one or two scenes have been represented as what the game's all about just to market it to the non-CRPG market then I think he's got a point. Then again, DA might be unintentionally hilarious, campy, mainstream CRPG fun. We'll see. But as usual, the problem is the usual Bio hype machine, which looks like it might have collided, messily with the Imperial Battlecruiser that is EA marketing. Cheers MC I don't know if it was EA's decision to market the game in that way or not. That's the only one I saw (I've been checking out the Bio forums the past day now), but Mr. Gaider does have his fair share of "Just because we've shown some videos that display stuff different from other videos, does not mean that the stuff we displayed from other videos is no longer in the game" type posts too. I think the big thing that affects my different perspective of how the trailers seem is that I have had the luxury of playing the game first.

I have loaded up Mount and Blade. It has it's charm for sure.

Er, forget the E3 videos, what about the new website? And marketing campaign? And that the developers are clearly embarrassed by the marketing campaign? And that on the website the origins / RPG stuff is hidden in a bit about 'The Hero', as if your are playing a game where you're a pre-defined character? And the Paper / Scissors... review that outs the frankly toe-curling romance content? Hey, I know you are involved in all this and you know stuff we don't, but please don't take us for complete mugs. Cheers MC I only interact with a small group of people on a consistent basis, but where are you getting the idea that the developers are clearly embarrassed? From Bio's boards? I can agree that the decision to show the romance scene was a bit perplexing (though I do think the Dragon fight was pretty cool). I find that scene to be rather awkward in general. Though reading the rock paper shotgun review is entertaining as he describes the characters and Flemeth and the reason for the dragon fight. Not much else he can do based on the minutes of footage shown, but it is fun seeing the assumptions that had to be made Though the author was keen to stress that he's only gotten a short glimpse of the game. I'm curious what the reasoning was to show off that part of the game in the behind closed doors showings. The marketing I don't have a problem with really though. Though admittedly, I have no idea what the website used to look like. I do like the blood dragon though.

The assumptions in this thread are very entertaining. All this from some E3 videos?

The re-marketing might make commercial sense but what strikes me as interesting is the downgrading of the whole origin story / RP aspect of the game. Why was that? I'll need you to elaborate. What was downgraded?

Is The Anti-DRM Champion Stardock's action too intrusive?

Cue numbers man hehe

Okay, I just saw the linked videos. Hype videos to build excitement for the game written all over them. I wholeheartedly disagree that the two game trailers links on this page are either "low quality" nor "embarrassing." What I find ironic is we have different threads where BioWare is accused of being standard and cliche. I wonder what the responses would be to the music had it been some standard, cliche Tolkenesque fantasy score. The one with Marilyn Manson was standard, splicing in a variety of footage, but I actually really liked the teaser-like video where people. Watching it got me excited to play the game. Given both of those videos have scores of 9.4, I'm certainly going to have to call bull**** on BioWare receiving nothing but criticism since E3. What more were people really hoping for with respect to the E3 videos? E3 is often the place where upcoming games demonstrate their hype machine. They've already shown gameplay footage and if that hasn't changed a whole lot, why should they just show the same stuff they've already shown? Though they did show some gameplay footage of a fight against a dragon, and that gets criticized for just being characters running up and smacking it. Though the fight very much reminded me of the dragon fights from Baldur's Gate II (which were, appropriately, long fights with a lot of running around recovering from Wing Buffets and **** like that). The Baldur's Gate 2 trailer is . Does the fact that the video shows gameplay footage as opposed to some CGI screens really make it that much better? I don't think so.

Well, it does say PR "Producer" so I suppose that's fair. Though honestly I would hope a PR person knows their stuff anyway

I was thinking that the "going off to meet someone to talk" could be more of a Hub related activity, rather than a specific "mission."

Fair enough. But people can get pretty impatient and skeptical. Games with really long development times tend to have them because of issues during development. Unless you're Blizzard haha.

It's possible that those types of meetings tend to not be "missions" so to speak. Depends on what he means by mission

Hopefully some of the stuff you're worried about isn't an issue. That's always a pleasant surprise. I've been enjoying it thus far.

Given the closeness of the release date, they could just as easily be giving demonstrations like that simply to try to build hype and excitement for the game. If the gameplay hasn't changed a whole lot from previous videos, then there's little benefit to showing the same gameplay footage. Showing the dragon fight and whatnot is something new, and something that will get game players talking about the game as they head into release. You state that the E3 material is low quality and embarrassing, yet much of the feedback I'm aware of had Dragon Age being one of the big things about E3. You claim that the only thing they've gotten since E3 is criticism, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The game was nominated by Game Critics Awards for Best PC Game and Best RPG for E3. For all intents and purposes, the feedback from E3 for Dragon's Age seems to be quite positive. I can understand being cautious, especially given the rather lengthy time in development (it's tough not to be somewhat jaded as a result. I was), but add these things with other comments about how Morrigan's voice actor was poor because she couldn't do a very good British accent, when in fact the voice being used IS the voice actor's actual voice, seems like you're starting to nitpick for the sake of nitpicking.

I didn't think you were knocking the story haha. I have some thoughts on some of your comments, but should probably wait until after release to discuss them with you

I probably can't say too much about the story for more obvious reasons. I agree that a personal story works well because it illicits that emotional response.

I think it's fair that there are some similarities to Mass Effect. The way dialogues proceed for one thing. But I don't know if that is necessarily a bad thing.

I wasted far too many hours playing the game last night

Agreed, which is certainly what I have noticed. Some of the criticisms levied toward Dragon Age just strike me as unusual (or even nonsensical). I actually like their remarketing of the game with respect to the blood dragon and so forth, though I do agree that the romance scene demonstrated is an unusual part of the game.

Okay I'm familiar with the romance stuff. I'll take a look at the second video when I get home though.

The big drawback of the game from my perspective (and part of why I wasn't following it too closely) is that it's been in development for so long.

Oh?