Dragon Age 2

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

It's normal mapping now. They're pretty much the same thing.

All these years my life has been a lie, always believing one doesn't do mesh distortion and the other one does

 

I'll drown my sorrow in mocha

Oh of course one is better, but it's still very similar.

 

Also I just realised Normal Mapping is incredibly old. Bump Mapping must be ancient.

[Maria Caliban]

Whole crew in this picture?

 

No, it has some party members and some non-party members.

 

... my issue with the screen shot is the models looks plastic.. fake.. like barbie dolls.

 

Really? A image taken by hitting prt scrn while watching a low rez video in IE doesn't meet your standards for game graphics? This is my shocked face.

 

That said, what bothers me is the hands. Those hands are freaky.

 

The animation still looks god awful on some characters - namely that weird elf(?) woman to the left in the middle of doing god knows what with her arms. At least the shoulder pads don't look as silly.

 

There's one elf in that image and he's male.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Maria Caliban

[MrBrown]

Is it just me or is the woman on the right stabbing herself in the arm?

Edited December 9, 2010 by MrBrown

[Cantousent]

I don't see her stabbing herself, MrBrown, but I went back to see and it looks like she's playing pocket pool with her right hand. Maybe it's the hour, but it made me laugh out loud.

[HoonDing]

It's funny how one of the devs mentions DA:O had a thousand possibilities in the epilogue slides. Not even Todd Howard went that far.

[Orchomene]

No, it really isn't.

 

Internet crowd is full of asocial beings that fall in love with people they have never seen and just discussed with through chat. Of course, not every people on Internet, but if you go to a lot of places, you will be amazed. Just go to MMO sites. Millions of people playing WoW that I feel a bit "strange" to stay polite and here, you see at most 20 people lurking frequently. Compare the figures.

I can also add that maybe 80% of internet are porn sites, and you would get the whole picture.

So, Bioware forum is exactly what I'm exptecting from an internet forum with "normal" people, that is people obsessed by relationships in video games with pixelized npcs. A bit like some japanese obsession for used panties.

 

It's funny how one of the devs mentions DA:O had a thousand possibilities in the epilogue slides. Not even Todd Howard went that far.

 

Thousand comes quickly. Say you have ten different choice branches (like ally with mages or templars) with two choice each branch, that becomes 2^10 endings, i.e. 1024.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Orchomene

[WorstUsernameEver]

Facial animations are surprisingly bad for a Bioware game.

And yeah, characters looks plastic-y in the screenshots too. It was probably intentional though, they didn't look that bad in Origins from that point of view (they look like apes without hair, sure, but not like plastic dolls).

[HoonDing]

I wonder whether trailers/previews featuring the female version of Hawke will be released.

[Guest Slinky]

Facial animations are surprisingly bad for a Bioware game.

Based on that pic or is there a vid somewhere where you can see them? Either way, hopefully they are at least better than in DA.

 

I wonder whether trailers/previews featuring the female version of Hawke will be released.

Never probably.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Facial animations are surprisingly bad for a Bioware game.

Based on that pic or is there a vid somewhere where you can see them? Either way, hopefully they are at least better than in DA.

 

Based on this video

 

Hawke has about the same wealth of expressions that the Grey Warden had.. except with the voice acting it's all the more jarring. Also the combat footage seems taken from the PC version and unsurprisingly it looks exactly the same as the console version with a quickbar. There's very little of it, too.

[meomao]

Facial animations are surprisingly bad for a Bioware game.

Based on that pic or is there a vid somewhere where you can see them? Either way, hopefully they are at least better than in DA.

 

Based on this video

 

Hawke has about the same wealth of expressions that the Grey Warden had.. except with the voice acting it's all the more jarring.

 

A dev on Bio boards (you know, I'm one of them freaks...) have allready explained that facial expression are not in and that they will only be added in the last build of the game.

 

Also the combat footage seems taken from the PC version and unsurprisingly it looks exactly the same as the console version with a quickbar. There's very little of it, too.

 

And the difference with DA:O is? And that's not completely true since in the PC footage there is a pulled up camera view that is completely absent in the consolle game. And I would say that it's difficult to show in a gameplay footage how point and click works compared to a controller...

Edited December 9, 2010 by meomao

[WorstUsernameEver]

And the difference with DA:O is? And that's not completely true since in the PC footage there is a pulled up camera view that is completely absent in the consolle game. And I would say that it's difficult to show in a gameplay footage how point and click works compared to a controller...

 

Some people thought that somehow the PC version would have been a "true notary-verified DA:O experience". Turn out they'll get the same thing as the consoles. There's no pulled camera in the footage shown, so I don't really see how that's relevant anyway.

[Nepenthe]

And the difference with DA:O is? And that's not completely true since in the PC footage there is a pulled up camera view that is completely absent in the consolle game. And I would say that it's difficult to show in a gameplay footage how point and click works compared to a controller...

 

Some people thought that somehow the PC version would have been a "true notary-verified DA:O experience". Turn out they'll get the same thing as the consoles. There's no pulled camera in the footage shown, so I don't really see how that's relevant anyway.

 

I'll only make the call on what's in the game when it's released, not before. An unpopular viewpoint, I know.

[entrerix]

normally a sequel to dragon age would be a prepurchase for me, but this game looks significantly worse than part 1, so i'm forced into a wait and see approach (the kind of approach I normally take to games that aren't sequels to games i really like).

 

the graphics look fine to me, i seriously don't get why people complain so much about graphics, complaints about design I get, but not graphics, maybe its because I still think fallout 1 has good graphics...

 

but yes, that photo makes everyone look like a stupid clown. only hawkes armor doesnt make me gag, it just makes me giggle a bit. hopefully not all the character design is so bleh

[Monte Carlo]

I have to wonder if Bioware has listened to it's core fanbase a bit too much on this one.

 

Am hoping that the DLC strategy is as classy as DA1's :: snicker ::

[entrerix]

were the core fans asking for clownsuits and boring looking characters?

[HoonDing]

At least the female Hawke looks good. They should use her as the token character, the male one looks and sounds like a douche.

[Hassat Hunter]

Graphic whores.

 

As long as it plays good I couldn't care less for graphics. I rather play a good game than Flashy Soulless FPS #4432 which only selling point is it's pictures, 3 hour 'plot', and that's it...

[Labadal]

I don't see myself as a gamer obsessed with graphics, but when BioWare themselves say that DA2 will look many times better than DA, and you see these screens, you can only shake your head in disbelief.

[TheHarlequin]

I don't see myself as a gamer obsessed with graphics, but when BioWare themselves say that DA2 will look many times better than DA, and you see these screens, you can only shake your head in disbelief.

 

I agree. If bio is going to talk the talk...

 

That said, I know it's all cool to pretend to be 'old skool' and act as if we went back to ANSI graphics it would be ok if the game play was good enough. However this is 2010 not 1990. FX -does- matter in todays market and most gamers do care about such. While they don't need to be bleeding edge they need to at least look the part and help with immersion. As someone who did grow up playing text adventures (Zork, Madness & the Minotaur, Dracula's Castle) and ANSI fx games (Rogue anyone?) I am quite happy leaving those to the past and enjoying some eye candy as well as good gameplay. Both are NOT mutually exclusive as much as some of the arm chair game devs here might think.

Edited December 10, 2010 by TheHarlequin

[Labadal]

I don't see myself as a gamer obsessed with graphics, but when BioWare themselves say that DA2 will look many times better than DA, and you see these screens, you can only shake your head in disbelief.

 

I agree. If bio is going to talk the talk...

 

That said, I know it's all cool to pretend to be 'old skool' and act as if we went back to ANSI graphics it would be ok if the game play was good enough. However this is 2010 not 1990. FX -does- matter in todays market and most gamers do care about such. While they don't need to be bleeding edge they need to at least look the part and help with immersion. As someone who did grow up playing text adventures (Zork, Madness & the Minotaur, Dracula's Castle) and ANSI fx games (Rogue anyone?) I am quite happy leaving those to the past and enjoying some eye candy as well as good gameplay. Both are NOT mutually exclusive as much as some of the arm chair game devs here might think.

 

*nods in agreement*

[Tigranes]

I know it's all cool to pretend to be 'old skool' and act as if we went back to ANSI graphics it would be ok if the game play was good enough. However this is 2010 not 1990. FX -does- matter in todays market and most gamers do care about such.

 

So are you saying

(1) In today's market, graphics matter and many gamers care about this.

(2) Logically, this means that those who say they don't care about graphics are insincere and only pretending;

(3) and that to not care about graphics is an incorrect/invalid position because of (1).

 

...because, as you can see, (2) and (3) don't follow from (1) logically, at all. In any case, the argument often expressed is that good gameplay is more important than good graphics, not that gameplay and graphics are mutually exclusive. I know we get tired of the kneejerk "graphics whore" talk, but overreacting the other way doesn't get at the reality, either, IMO.

 

Anyway, personally it's funny to me because I don't think most AAA games these days look that 'good' at all. Now I have a terrible eye for such things, but there have been very few games since the 3D era that have made me just wow at the beautiful scenery and just look around for a bit. There have been moments in some particular games, but to me it really feels like the linear trajectory we draw of technological advancement just doesn't reflect the reality of game graphics. Of course sometmies you get games generally looking better after generational jumps, but to me it's a case of - there are mostly games that look meh/good enough, then a few games that look really good in different ways - that includes old games and new games.

 

Of course, I think I have no authority on visual matters because my fashion sense is so bad, I don't really notice much wrong with the crew in that latest DA2 screenie. Maybe I'm just so used now to wacky fantasy attire in games...

[TheHarlequin]

I know it's all cool to pretend to be 'old skool' and act as if we went back to ANSI graphics it would be ok if the game play was good enough. However this is 2010 not 1990. FX -does- matter in todays market and most gamers do care about such.

 

So are you saying

*snip*

 

What I am saying now is you spend way too much time analyzing my posts far deeper then you should.

 

That said to answer in a nut shell there is no clear answer as it all depends on the poster in question. Some fall in #2 and others #3 simply put.

[TheHarlequin]

Really? A image taken by hitting prt scrn while watching a low rez video in IE doesn't meet your standards for game graphics? This is my shocked face.

 

That said, what bothers me is the hands. Those hands are freaky.

 

Since I cant rebuttal to the first aspect because Gorth deletes my replies as apparently my sarcastic tone back to you makes me a big meanie.. that said, ill just say the hands have been overly large since da1 so at least they are being consistent.

[Tigranes]

Well, if you want a short, concise version, I suggest you are making clever remarks that don't really address the issue but rather reflect the silly and unrealistic polarity we now have between 'elitists' and 'halo whores' these days. Certainly there are some of those out there, but [see my position above].