Dragon Age 2

[Malcador]

Canada has a national identity ? Seems it's just beer, hockey and trying desperately to be different from the US

[Volourn]

"Problem with Quebec leaving is its the source of 80% of our national identity, history, and symbols. Canada without Quebec is not Canada."

 

Disagreed. That's a Quebecer myth. Besdies, Quebec would always be a part of our history whether they left or not. That isn't an issue. Identity? If anything, Quebec is the antithesis of Kanada's reputaion. Even though I don't enccessarily agree with what the world believes, but our rep is of being a nicer, more peaceful, and relaxed version of the US. The quiet younger brother if you will (of coruse, the whole 'younger brother' things gives many a Kanadian major butthurt) who has less violence and not as messily intervering in the rest of the world thoguh we're swamped by US culture even if that makes us cry on one hand while we lap it up otherwise.

 

Kanada without Quebec is still Kanada - just smaller since it's our second biggest province. We would still have a sizeable French minority as well so we wouldn't lose that either. And, we'd get rid of the shackles of some majorly bigotry. Our country is over 100+ years old yet Quebec still has a hard time remembering the value and goal of Kanada.

 

If Quebec can't even respect the country its apart of... why is it still here? Oh yeah I know. Even if it left, Quebec would be heavily dependent on Kanada's goodwill.

 

Quebec is maybe 10% of our antional idendity. If you had simply said French Kanada was a big part of our idenity, I'd agree... but Quebc as a province is so irrleveant other than they bring bigotry to an artfrom. They're still stuck in the old Europe way of thing that settlers brought with them - we're better than anyone different than we are. It's taen NA years to shed much of that kind of backwards thinking.. even Europe itself has largely turned its back on that.. but Quebec hasn't.

 

 

P.S. QUEBEC RAGING was not my intention. L0LZ

 

 

"Canada has a national identity ? Seems it's just beer, hockey and trying desperately to be different from the US "

 

hey, you have to start somewhere...

Edited February 26, 2011 by Volourn

[Nepenthe]

no, it not mean that there will always be same in-game results... but that is frequent the case. regardless, is lazy and cheap, and it is a shortcut that tends to lead to more uninspired lines o' dialogue from the protagonist. the writer has already identified to the player what is the protagonist's intent, so convey meaning becomes less complex but also more crude. takes the art out o' the writing for sake o' simplicity. is a trend in bio games to simplify. simple ain't bad, but to craft simple requires much skill if one is to avoid dumbing-down.

Agreed. I'd also like to point out that they cut down a lot of the above syndrome in ME2, so there is hope that it won't be in DA2, either. My point was merely that dialogue wheel =/= lack of C&C+ripoff automatically. And that it wasn't even automagic lack of choice even when it was a ripoff, and certainly not automagically more limiting that an equivalent 3-4 point list that has been the bio staple since forever.

 

da2 can still be a good game, but it does appear to be what many o' us feared it would be: a moderate rushed frankenstein monster amalgam o' da:o and me. maybe the unholy melding o' the two franchises actually works and we all cheer biowarian vision, but...

I'm not seeing the ME, really. I'm not even ready to call out the rush part, but it sure does look like some areas that could've used improvement have been left untouched and some things that were working, if not fine, at least ok, have been changed.

 

ps we did a disservice to kotor when we compared da2 demo combat to kotor. kotor had the combat queue that were far more intuitive and functional than is the console controls for da2.

 

Definitely. OTOH I don't think there was a command queue in BG1-2 either, but I could be misremembering. It's been a couple of years...

 

Also, the PS3 version of the DA2 demo downloaded while I was typing this message. Love Sony servers, speediest 1,7 gigs of my life. ;D

[Gromnir]

ps we did a disservice to kotor when we compared da2 demo combat to kotor. kotor had the combat queue that were far more intuitive and functional than is the console controls for da2.

 

Definitely. OTOH I don't think there was a command queue in BG1-2 either, but I could be misremembering. It's been a couple of years...

 

Also, the PS3 version of the DA2 demo downloaded while I was typing this message. Love Sony servers, speediest 1,7 gigs of my life. ;D

 

 

why bring up bg? we specific compared the console controls o' the da2 demo to kotor, so it weren't Gromnir that tried to bring bg into the discussion. the reasons we initially gave for comparing kotor and da2 were that combat felt similar 'cause camera were so tight and 'cause the player weren't really necessary to succeed in combat. mindless button mashing in the da2 demo did not slow down Gromnir one bit. in our ps we observed that with the combat queue, kotor actually had Console Controls that were more intuitive than functional than da2.

 

bg? not really relevant.

 

however, since you did raise the decade old spectre o' bg, we will confess that we is happy to see that bio did not regress to old infinity engine options for their warrior class. once combat started in the ie games, tactical considerations for fighter-type combatants was limited to proper positioning. attack. attack. attack. attack. attack. maybe switch between range and melee were the big tactical consideration? *shrug* peoples scoff at d&d 4e (and Gromnir is one such person) but the addition o' powhaz that is usable during every combat encounter is a welcome change from the old ie games.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Nepenthe]

The BG thing wasn't directed at you - in case you haven't noticed, there are other people in this forum as well.

[Niten_Ryu]

I'm sure that most who have followed Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 development have already read this but now after the demo it's good to repeat it again.

Changes

We were nearing the end of active work on design content for Dragon Age

Edited February 26, 2011 by Niten_Ryu

[MrBrown]

Isn't the whole dialogue symbol thing supposed to track player characterization or whatever? I remember reading that the response style you choose will have effect in the long run, so that if you choose (for example) peaceful lines, you'll have peaceful solutions to some later quests.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Cant you customize your PC in DA2? Are you stuck with that guy on the cover?

[MrBrown]

Cant you customize your PC in DA2? Are you stuck with that guy on the cover?

 

You can. Not in the demo, though.

[Majek]

Well i like the default designs of both male and female hawke, there's really no need to change anything or just the color of the eyes on the male. At least that's positive about it.

[Nepenthe]

It's interesting that Bioware (orders must have come from the very top, meaning docs or some EA people) knew early on that Dragon Age 2 had change design dramatically. I wonder how early... perhaps same time when they chose to pursuit consoles?

I'm sure that I've spent already way too much time in a courtroom, since I feel obligated to point out what should be obvious, again.

 

The guy is A) an ex-Bioware employee B) it's conjecture. We'll see if he was right, but his purported gut feeling is hardly more important than what we can see ourselves.

[Niten_Ryu]

It's interesting that Bioware (orders must have come from the very top, meaning docs or some EA people) knew early on that Dragon Age 2 had change design dramatically. I wonder how early... perhaps same time when they chose to pursuit consoles?

I'm sure that I've spent already way too much time in a courtroom, since I feel obligated to point out what should be obvious, again.

 

The guy is A) an ex-Bioware employee B) it's conjecture. We'll see if he was right, but his purported gut feeling is hardly more important than what we can see ourselves.

 

I don't speak lawyer jargon, so if conjecture mean something other then what I think it means, feel free to correct me. You think he lies? Or was fired or removed from his position and now he makes things up in his own blog (that I linked in previous post). Changes in Dragon Age 2 are just random and nothing to do with him not wanting to design such a game?

 

He made that post august 15h 2010 and what we have all seen in demo suggest that what he told is accurate.

[Volourn]

Ex employees are poor sources hence the ex in the tag. Just like I hate the idea of references from 'ex employers'. There ex for a reason. LMAO

[Maria Caliban]

Any idea on how big the download will be for this ? I weep for my bandwidth cap

 

Demo is ~ 2 GBs. The game itself is 7 GB.

[Malcador]

Ex employees are poor sources hence the ex in the tag. Just like I hate the idea of references from 'ex employers'. There ex for a reason. LMAO

 

You mean like...leaving to find something new ? Not like every time one person leaves it's firing or escaping from a hellhole of despair.

[Nepenthe]

It's interesting that Bioware (orders must have come from the very top, meaning docs or some EA people) knew early on that Dragon Age 2 had change design dramatically. I wonder how early... perhaps same time when they chose to pursuit consoles?

I'm sure that I've spent already way too much time in a courtroom, since I feel obligated to point out what should be obvious, again.

 

The guy is A) an ex-Bioware employee B) it's conjecture. We'll see if he was right, but his purported gut feeling is hardly more important than what we can see ourselves.

 

I don't speak lawyer jargon, so if conjecture mean something other then what I think it means, feel free to correct me. You think he lies? Or was fired or removed from his position and now he makes things up in his own blog (that I linked in previous post). Changes in Dragon Age 2 are just random and nothing to do with him not wanting to design such a game?

No, it means that he's guessing and that, as Vol pointed out, it's possible he has an axe to grind. It doesn't mean that he's wrong, but he's "fairly certain" about something that was going to take place in the future. Basically, it's just like his opinion, man, and I'm not seeing less party control/tactical combat than DAO had. Which doesn't mean that there was a lot of it, or that there couldn't have been more, but...

 

Also, he apparently works for Empire Avenue now.

Edited February 27, 2011 by Nepenthe

[213374U]

Re: no need for pausing. Play on a higher difficulty. Normal in these games is obviously not designed for people who have played RPGs for 10-20 years. At least not if they want to be challenged.

This is missing the point completely. You know that the way difficulty sliders work, only coefficients affecting enemy health and DPS are changed, and maybe stuff like crit % and resists. Turning up the difficulty doesn't result in more complexity in encounters, smarter enemies, or more dangerous use of the abilities they have. They are basically the same, with artificially inflated stats. This causes two main problems: combat is just as boring, but now it requires more micromanagement as you are forced to repeat the same kiting/healing/potion AI-exploit cheese routines in every fight - in short, managing combat becomes a chore. The second problem, it doesn't help with immersion if the lowest sorry ass bandits can stand up to the Savior/Champion/Hero in question, and give him a run for his money, because they have end-boss level stats as a result of lazy difficulty scaling design.

[Maria Caliban]

Re: Graphical comparisons to the Witcher 2: It's easier to make a game look pretty if you're focused entirely on development for PC and don't have to worry about making your engine scale down well enough to function on limited xbox hardware.

 

I think Crysis 2 looks very good as well and it's multiplatform.

 

It seems to me that there are a number of other cRPGs coming out this year that look better than DA II. If others feel differently, that's fine. I also think that DA II has better graphics and is prettier than DA:O, which matters more to me.

 

Origins has only one answer mostly, too. it does have a couple of nice instances where the Warden's choice affects the game world. if DA2 had more of those, I could live with the non-existent dialogue tree in the rest of the game. give me 10 serious encounters (as in, plot defining) with C&C, and you can make the rest of the NPCs Oblivion style

I think that's fair.

 

 

Could somebody explain to me how the conversation options are any less "rich" now that they are in a circle as opposed to being a list?

Bioware, if they so choose, can hide responses in circles. You might have 3 different symbols, but only one answer. If texts were in lines, Bioware could still do that but players would most certainly notice the lack of optionsd. Personally I think it's cost cutting move and the fact that modern players don't finish the game at all or finish it only once, so why should Bioware care if all 3 symbols have same answer (maybe just slight variation in VO).

 

I asked on the forum about this and a developer was kind enough to answer...

JohnEpler wrote...

 

Well, I've only seen about 1/8th of the game 'in-depth' (toolset and such), but no, I don't think there are any cases where we use the same player line for two tone responses.

 

I could be mistaken, of course, but I don't believe I am.

[Maria Caliban]

Tidbits from Gamestar (German PC mag), taken from another site.

 

- Sub-header: Dragon Age 2 is a first class RPG, but not quite as good as its superb predecessor. This has multiple reasons.

 

-EA did not let them use their own screenshots for the article without explicit approval, even though they were given the final version. The reviewer calls this "inexplicable". Hence, the article uses a few stock screenshots and generally shows nothing even remotely new.

 

- If you choose not to import and use one of the 3 predefined "lore backgrounds" instead, the backstory is explained in a short cutscene of the final moments (Landsmeet+Archdemon fight) of DA:O.

 

- Cameos: Alistair is available for an "inconsequential" 1-2 minute long chat if you imported the right DA:O ending

 

- the prologue is described the same way as the demo

 

-quest samples: break into a house at night to retrieve the will of Hawke's father, save a woman from her abusive husband, hunt an Abomination, and decide whether to turn in a dude using blood magic to

impress his girlfriend

 

- Hawke has up to 9 companions, who generally feel alive and responsive. However, they have consistently less depth and weaker characterization than the cast in Origins. The only exception is Varric, whose frequent banter with Cassandra provides much of the game's tension and humour. He's described as "a d*mn cool sock" (don't ask)

 

- Main Quest takes 12-15 hours, you can double that number "if you take your time and explore everything the game has to offer".

 

-The game does not feel long or epic, and the central conflict (mages vs. chantry) is not as dramatic as the reviewer would have liked. But although it doesn't have anything comparable to the Battle of Ostagar or the final attack on Denerim, it still has some very tactical boss fights.

 

- ugly ("texture mud") and low-polygon graphics, especially in the areas outside of Kirkwall. Generally feeling of emptiness/lack of NPCs. Constant encounters with "clonecellars" and "clonecaves", which can be a huge source of frustration. However, beautiful spell effects and good character models that can graphically compete with ME2.

 

- combat is generally tactical, though frequently unbalanced. The lack of an iso-style camera was a huge problem for the reviewer.

 

- The number of talents is huge. The game offers class specific weapons and some crafting options.

However, overall you generally have a small selection. (they don't expand on this)

 

- The ending is described as open ended and unresolved .

 

- final rating is 87%. "Although the fans' fears have partially come true, this is still a magnificent RPG"

 

Full score

 

Graphic:7/10

 

+ detailed characters

+great animations+nice spell effects

-surroundings have little polygons and details

-textures often seem "muddy"

 

Sound:9/10

 

+dynamic orchestra music

+suiting fighting sounds

+good English voice actors

-not all parts are cast well in German

 

Balance:9/10

 

+four difficulties

+easy access

+fight are always fair

+talents and classes are well balanced

-difficulty can change during the campaign

 

Atmosphere:9/10

 

+fantastic cutscenes and dialogs

+dark brutal fantasy world

-recycled areas

-often lifeless landscapes

 

Controls:8/10

 

+free saving

+easy to use UI

-hard aiming due to no tactical view

-needlessly complicated menu

 

Content:8/10

 

+long campaign

+high replayability

+many main and side quests

-few areas

-restricted on being human

 

Story/Quests:9/10

 

+very thrilling, varied quests

+nice surprises

+often different solutions

-story lacks epicness

-open ended

 

Fighting system:10/10

 

+tactical but not to complex

+many specialisations possible

+interesting boss battles

+many different talent trees

 

Character development:9/10

 

+partly distinctive, multi layered NPC companions

+fast and dynamic

+many options during dialog

-it is seldom necessary to use companions in dialog

 

Items:9/10

 

+countless spells and talent

+class specific weapons and armor

+crafting

-little choice overall

[pmp10]

Are thoes just negative highlights or does the reviewer really complain incessantly before giveing the game an outstanding score?

[Tale]

So an unsatisfying ending and repetitive level design seem common to reviews.

 

I'm surprised we haven't heard more along the lines of that one reviewer who felt the game was the best attempt at producing cause and effect. I want to be hopeful for that. Still 10/10 for the fighting system is enough to make me giddy.

Edited February 27, 2011 by Tale

[Gromnir]

I asked on the forum about this and a developer was kind enough to answer...

JohnEpler wrote...

 

Well, I've only seen about 1/8th of the game 'in-depth' (toolset and such), but no, I don't think there are any cases where we use the same player line for two tone responses.

 

I could be mistaken, of course, but I don't believe I am.

 

two quick observations...

 

1) we didn't see any examples o' writing duplicity in the da2 demo.

 

2) the developers has made such claims in the past, and been wrong. whether they were intentional fibbing or not is up to you to decide.

 

*shrug*

 

bio has simplified and streamlined many aspects o' their games. self-identified hardcore fans has been less than welcoming o' such changes as they see such simplification as dumbing-down a medium that ain't all that complex in the first place. is bioware writers so clumsy that they need the dialogue wheel to make intent apparent? is the Average Gamer so unlettered as to require dialogue wheel guidance to navigate successfully through dialogues? however, we will note where bioware writing becomes less engaging, the dialogue wheel makes easier for us to skip through sections o' the game w/o actually missing anything. two word emote, then skip through the vo. oddly, maria contrasted with paragon v. renegade, but the demo so far were more polarized than any previous game we has seen so far. no need to even read the dialog choices as they is all coded with halo, anvil or comedy tags. yippie.

 

bio: simplifying and streamlining crpgs since 2003.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[WorstUsernameEver]

I'm glad that the story lacks epicness for once. Bioware sorely needed to make a story like that, and just forget about epic battles that decided the destiny of the world.

[sorophx]

even real medieval European history has had "epicness" in spades. I don't see why a game should evade it. the problem doesn't lie in levels of epic in the story. it's the freakin' one-man-army approach that ruins most games. and ironically DA2 is all about that, it seems.

[Nightshape]

Here's something, lets imagine that a new console is announced and bioware decides they're going to develop a release title for it... Do they port their current engine? Or do they start from a blank sheet?

Well I really hope they start from blank sheet.

 

I don't know a thing about engines or coding in general, but the rather big amount of unfixed bugs in DA either mean the devs are lazy, or they can't fix them for a reason or another. I'm inclined to believe the latter.. or atleast I really HOPE it's the latter. There was some big bug in Awakening, can't remember what, but the devs told that they CAN'T fix it.

 

Like I said, don't know a thing about these things, but I'm having trouble to call a engine as a good one if the devs themselves can't fix the bugs in it.

 

Well there are such things as hardware, and api bugs, but in all seriousness, no bug is unfixable, they can be extremely expensive bugs which essencially mean a large amount of code ends up being rewritten, that's usually because whoever wrote it left, or someone made a bad decision.

 

A blank sheet? Not if they're going to be a release title, this is unlikely.