Dragon Age 2

[CoM_Solaufein]

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[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I'm still not okay with purple hair.

[Thorton_AP]

Who has purple hair?

[WorstUsernameEver]

Who has purple hair?

 

It's just a a shade, and probably due to the lighting/brightness setting of the screenshot, but Bethany has purple hair in a shot.

 

Since I don't want to doublepost 1UP preview.

Edited July 24, 2010 by WorstUsernameEver

[Volourn]

Poor preview.

 

 

"The narrative shift to a single character has allowed the team to craft a long and single narrative around a defined person like Hawke (who can be female as well)."

 

The narrative shift was always focused on the PC, dumbnutz.

[WorstUsernameEver]

GameInformer : The New Art Style

[Flouride]

I wonder how many people Hawke will accidentally hurt with that armor of his during the game.

[WorstUsernameEver]

There are some impressions from the Comic-con demo at the Bioware's boards, apparently the graphics look better than the screenshot, Hawke has an english accent, Flemeth has the same voice actress but looks completely different, and the combat was super easy (but according to Mike Laidlaw, it was like that because the guy narrating that part of Hawke's story is one of his fanboys).

Also, they're still thinking whether implementing top-down view or not in the PC version.

Bioware apparently stated that the lead platform is the Xbox360 this time.

Edited July 24, 2010 by WorstUsernameEver

[HoonDing]

Bioware apparently stated that the lead platform is the Xbox360 this time.

...

 

And the BioWare Social Network was engulfed in flames.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Bioware apparently stated that the lead platform is the Xbox360 this time.

...

 

And the BioWare Social Network was engulfed in flames.

 

It was mostly hidden between the message, and posted by a guy with a remarkably low grasp of spelling and grammar, so most of the forum actually ignored it, and on the topic there was a divide between who goes 'I haven't heard anything like that' and who is already threatening Bioware of.. *GASP!*.. pirating the game.

[Hurlshort]

Poor preview.

 

 

"The narrative shift to a single character has allowed the team to craft a long and single narrative around a defined person like Hawke (who can be female as well)."

 

The narrative shift was always focused on the PC, dumbnutz.

 

I believe they are referring to the multiple origin stories from the original. The narrative was different for a dwarf compared to a human, at least in some parts of the game. The splitting of those resources is no longer necessary.

[Monte Carlo]

A Bioware minion wrote of the art direction for Hawke...

 

We wanted to take it into more of a desolate feel and kind of strip it down to a hot-rod Samurai look.

 

I presume that where this person works this actually makes sense.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Mike Laidlaw confirms that Bioware is indeed developing all the game's versions simultaneously without a lead platform on the Bioware's boards.

Still different than what they did with Dragon Age, so hopefully the game will remain fine-tuned to PC gaming (obviously in its PC incarnation, the console versions should be as intuitive to play as the PC's one, no doubts about that).

[Gromnir]

Poor preview.

 

 

"The narrative shift to a single character has allowed the team to craft a long and single narrative around a defined person like Hawke (who can be female as well)."

 

The narrative shift was always focused on the PC, dumbnutz.

 

 

...

 

am not thinking that you meant what you said. how the heck can a "narrative shift" have an "always"? perhaps you suggest that the narrative focus were always directed 'pon the protagonist/pc... but that ain't what the quoted material is saying.

 

*shrug*

 

bio, sadly, appears to be returning to the Revan/Shep kinda protagonist... a far more defined protagonist than were available to players in da:o or the bg games. am kinda sad that we were correct 'bout the waste and impotence o' the origins. if origins had been more successful, and more capable o' producing differentiated storytelling, then perhaps bio would not have abandoned so quick.

 

'course the "narrative shift" stuff could all be more bio bs. this game gots a relative short development cycle, and the move towards full vo no doubt necessitated some changes. writing dialogue for Hawke, a human protagonist with defined qualities, makes the writer's task much less onerous... and by utilizing the dialog wheel, bio can save significant vo resources as well. this Hawke stuff may simply be a time/resource saving measure that is getting sold as a boon to the player.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Magnum Opus]

" am kinda sad that we were correct 'bout the waste and impotence o' the origins."

 

You and me both. Me, I thought the game was successful enough, but I suspect I'm using a different measure for success than BiowarEA. To me, 3 million+ in sales seems pretty good, but I suppose the long development time ate away at the profits too much.

 

Leading to...

 

"'course the "narrative shift" stuff could all be more bio bs. this game gots a relative short development cycle, and the move towards full vo no doubt necessitated some changes. writing dialogue for Hawke, a human protagonist with defined qualities, makes the writer's task much less onerous... and by utilizing the dialog wheel, bio can save significant vo resources as well. this Hawke stuff may simply be a time/resource saving measure that is getting sold as a boon to the player. "

 

Savings on development. Higher profits.

 

"HA! Good Fun!"

 

It was fun. More fun than I've had with any other Bio game since the BG series wrapped up, at least. I suppose I'm being a little unfair, given how little of the game has actually been revealed, but DA2 has somehow gone from a "must-buy" to "something to keep an eye on" with all this wonderful-sounding PR-speak. Maybe Origins was simply meant as a one-off thing all along: give fans of that style of game something to chew on, and allow players to "customize" the world of Thedas with Their Warden as a jumping off point for all of these Hawke-like legends, many of which -- explicitly or no -- have some sort of genesis in the Warden's episode. Would be an interesting take on personalizing the experience of gaming, if nothing else.

 

My only beef is that I prefer the more ambiguously defined hero over the more Shepard-Hawke type.

[Oblarg]

I found DA:O to be the exact opposite of fun, tbh. I recently tried playing through it again, and lost interest even earlier this time.

[Tigranes]

Hawke has an english accent, ... and the combat was super easy (but according to Mike Laidlaw, it was like that because the guy narrating that part of Hawke's story is one of his fanboys).

 

I can totally get behind this, actually, though people will complain about the latter.

 

Anyway. Video game PR has long become not something to be consumed, but a pile of **** to be sifted through, like a detective looking for clues to the mystery in a madman's diary.

 

I sound like 4too, but you know, it's depressing how much of 4too's 1984 discourse is on the mark.

 

If you don't know 4too, never mind.

[Gromnir]

" am kinda sad that we were correct 'bout the waste and impotence o' the origins."

 

You and me both. Me, I thought the game was successful enough, but I suspect I'm using a different measure for success than BiowarEA. To me, 3 million+ in sales seems pretty good, but I suppose the long development time ate away at the profits too much.

 

the game were successful, but were the origins. bg were a successful game, but the biowarians changed many things 'cause o' overwhelming complaints and perceived feedback.

 

we never saw no payoff for the extravagance o' the origins, but we does also like the more ambiguous bhallspawn and grey warden protagonists. developers not gotta add origins to keep a protagonist vague. however, we didn't see much complaint 'bout the origins. sure, there were some folks who, having played multiple times, observed that origins had little impact and changed very little in the da:o gameplay experience. nevertheless, we never observed any kinda fan fallout regarding origins. regardless, bio ain't doing origins in da2. why? whim? doubtful. the obvious reasons we can come up with for abandoning origins so soon after da:o is cost and player preference. if bio data gathering showed clear that folks much preferred ReavnSheps to origins (in spite o' what we were seeing on their boards,) then the origins abandonment would make sense particularly if such origins were prohibitive expensive to implement... more zots.

 

am not seeing a "The Origins as an Experiment" kinda thing from bio. is too expensive to experiment that way, and even if it were a one-shot feature, why would bioware abandon if it were successful? am recalling that biowarians were mildly surprised by the overwhelming approval regarding the bg2 romances. Gromnir loathed such stuff, but the fans liked and bioware is noting if not reactive. romances quickly became a staple o' the bio crpg experience.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Magnum Opus]

am not seeing a "The Origins as an Experiment" kinda thing from bio. is too expensive to experiment that way, and even if it were a one-shot feature, why would bioware abandon if it were successful? am recalling that biowarians were mildly surprised by the overwhelming approval regarding the bg2 romances. Gromnir loathed such stuff, but the fans liked and bioware is noting if not reactive. romances quickly became a staple o' the bio crpg experience.

The origins in DA:O, I liked them, but they must've been prohibitively cost-ineffective to implement. Never held out any hope that they'd become a standard feature, even if they'd found a way to make them more meaningful later on in the game without breaking the budget.

 

No, the experiment I was referring to is the possibility that they might use Origins game data going forward, and not just for DA2. The Warden in Origins could turn out to be the Kevin Bacon for Thedas... but would be happy if DA2's events/characters recognized King Alistair and Loghain as the slaer of the archdemon, if that's the way Origins played out with the import. Subsequent games could offer a different viewpoint into that period of time, rather than following along from DA2 in chronological order the way most series do, and could also import an Origins save to set up the world state.

 

As far as experiments go, that one hasn't had a chance to yield any results yet. Not even sure if that's what they're doing with the series, but I think it might be a neat way to give a certain meaning to what players did in Origins (beyond a simple end-game slide show). The effects could be complex and meaningful or they could be as inconsequential as an email from the cerberus network; need not be all that onerous to implement (though the likelihood of the game pulling a Conrad Verner/Helena Blake would still be high, I suspect).

 

But the expense of setting up the origins in Origins has already been paid. Might as well squeeze a little more out of them if they can do so easily.

[Tigranes]

Grommy on the mark here, I think. Bioware has always been very sensitive to fan input / feedback, especially in terms of story/gameplay features. Their own research on Origins probably showed that the amount of work put into it and the PR focus put on it (it was one of the big bullet points) was not justified / cost effective. They probably also looked at how much fans (they think) liked how ME2 streamlined things and offered a more focused experience.

[Azure79]

If Bioware can really create a combat system that is similar to Ninja Gaiden like the 1up article describes, I might even get the console version.

 

I doubt it will be anything like that though. But here's hoping.

 

Of course I'd prefer the old system with better animations and some revamped skills, but it Bioware seems to be set in a new direction, so I hope they make the best of it.

Edited July 25, 2010 by Azure79

[Thorton_AP]

You and me both. Me, I thought the game was successful enough, but I suspect I'm using a different measure for success than BiowarEA. To me, 3 million+ in sales seems pretty good, but I suppose the long development time ate away at the profits too much.

 

Does the social site have any stats for most common character or anything like that? If 80% of people all picked human noble I can imagine there'd be some disappointment with respect to the effort put into the Origin stories.

 

I think the length of the game is a large handicap in this regard. Decisions that you make probably aren't transparent enough that players don't get the "reinforcement cookie" that something they did 30 hours ago actually changed something now, and the sheer length of the game I think makes it intimidating for restaring with a different origin story.

[Monte Carlo]

Bioware has a history of implementing grand features like this, it's to their credit by-and-large. Prime example? BG2 Strongholds. Most gamers will play BG2 once in one class and access one stronghold.

 

Bio wrote, what, five or six?

 

Magnificent, but futile from a mainstream gaming point of view. I think the origins are the same, but agree with Grom in that it simply wasn't viable to see them through. Which was when Bio hid behind the hype to conceal how, after the initial fireworks, they petered out like a damp squib.

[Spider]

If they remove the top down view from the pc, that's another strike against this game. I'm getting more and more skeptical.

[WorstUsernameEver]

If they remove the top down view from the pc, that's another strike against this game. I'm getting more and more skeptical.

 

Just to be fair, the one saying that was the same guy who talked about Xbox360 being the lead platform, something Bioware's developers have denied on their boards.

So, take it with a grain of salt.