Dragon Age 2

[Nepenthe]

Multiplayer component is nearly certain as EA CEO said they want that in all games. Multiplayer component could mean just co-op (or something like semi-persistent worlds as in NWN series). Pure deathmatch for all games is unlikely.

Yes, he said that, which was why everybody was expecting MP from ME3. Which there isn't going to be.

 

So let's relax a bit, eh?

[Humanoid]

EA have said that as far back as Wing Commander Prophecy, which had some abandoned multiplayer code in it.

[Nepenthe]

EA have said that as far back as Wing Commander Prophecy, which had some abandoned multiplayer code in it.

OTOH, both Baldur's Gates had multiplayer.

[HoonDing]

Will Mike Laidlaw still be in charge?

[Orogun01]

Will Mike Laidlaw still be in charge?

Or will he be sacrificed to appease the anger of the gaming gods?

[Volourn]

Laidlaw was never 'in charge'. EA and the docs are.

[Nepenthe]

Will Mike Laidlaw still be in charge?

He wasn't the project manager (casey hudson equivalent), they just seem to like him as a a mouth piece.

[Bendu]

Patch will be out next week maybe. Here are the patch notes. But it is not the full list.

 

Hi everyone,

 

I promised you more detail about this patch and I apologize that it's taken me until Thursday to deliver on that. First off, a quick note about expected timelines - I've confirmed that the patch will not be out in time for this weekend. That said, PC, X360, and possibly PS3 Europe are all trending well for sometime next week. PS3 North America remains uncertain at this point and we've confirmed with TransGaming that, due to some work they still need to complete on the launcher, the Mac version remains highly unlikely for next week.

 

At any rate, there's lots of good stuff coming with this patch - almost 200 fixes, as I mentioned last week and our patch notes will attempt to do a better job of calling those out than we were able to on Patch 1. There's never a 1:1 correlation between bugs logged and fixed within our internal tracking system and the individual entries that get called out in the patch notes, just because patch notes are really all about describing the symptoms whereas bugs sometimes focus on causes. But we've made an effort to call out the symptomatic changes you can expect to see in a little greater detail.

 

So what are some of the hot button, big ticket items that we've addressed in the upcoming patch? We'll release the proper patch notes soon but, in the meantime, here's an overview of the big picture:

 

Failure to Launch - Some PC users were still encountering some strange edge cases that were fundamentally preventing them from being able to launch the game. Some Windows administrator accounts were receiving errors about insufficient priveleges - it turns out that was due to a corrupted file in the Windows OS so we changed our code to fail more gracefully when it encounters that problem, allowing the game to continue. This same issue was also causing an error regarding an AWC.dll file and that has also been fixed. A variety of other launch issues were also fixed. Importantly, a lot of these fixes have made their way back into some of our central EA technology, ensuring that these edge cases are addressed across a wide range of recent and upcoming EA titles.

 

DirectX 11 - Outside of the patch, AMD and nVidia have both released new drivers that greatly improve the speed and stability of the game on various cards and configurations. If you don't have the latest, definitely get them. On our side, we've added some additional checking and error messaging to our options page, preventing users from selecting certain settings if they don't have the drivers they need. Also, we had a wierd case where the full-screen gamma settings weren't saving properly and were interfering with your choice of DirectX 9 vs DirectX 11 renderer, resulting in a lot of confusion around precisely which renderer was in use.

 

Crashes - Did you know that when you play logged in on some platforms, if you crash, you're presented with an option to send us an error report? Thanks to all of you who've done so, we've been able to track down and resolve a variety of crashes. We found one that was tied to the animation of the shimmer effect you see on corpse loot, for example, and another that was tied to how arrays were sometimes used and cleared in scripting (this particular one was most evident in some combat that would occur in the Lowtown Night area). So thanks to all of you who sent in those automated error reports - it really does make a difference!

 

Achievements - The Epic, Supplier, and Archeologist achievements were all experiencing some logic errors and not unlocking reliably in all cases. We dug in, figured out what the problems were, and fixed them one by one.

 

Character Corruption, Slow-Mo Hawke, etc. - Not only did we find and correct a lot of these issues at the source (some of which was already tackled in the previous patch) but we also went in and added some code to the "Load Game" process to ensure a retro-active fix for everyone and to catch any other rare cases that might have slipped through.

 

Broken Plots - We made a bunch of fixes to plots like "Who Needs Rescuing," "Friendly Concern," "Act of Mercy," "A Murder of Crows," "A New Path," "Bait and Switch," "Demands of the Qun," "Dissent," "No Rest for the Wicked," "The Captain's Condolences," "The Last Straw," "Wayward Son," and more. We've also tweaked some banter, how some Rivalry/Friendship points are assigned, and corrected a lot of the references to events imported from your Dragon Age: Origins playthrough.

 

Traps - Trap behavior no longer gets out of synch with the visual effect and we also decided they shouldn't cause injuries (a neat idea in theory but it wasn't fun in practice and was never properly communicated within the game).

 

Items - We had some items that were supposed to be class-specific and weren't, we had some where the damage type didn't match their elemental bonuses, and we had some where the item properties interacted with certain abilities in uncool ways. The Maker's Sigh potion was causing a variety of issues and exploits (if you gave it to an archer, it would alter your inventory capacity... Huh?). Item use within the tactics menu was also improved. All of this should now be much happier.

 

Runes - When a party member changed their armor, the runes would often vaporise never to be seen again. We fixed that little five-finger discount and made Varric go stand in the corner until he's willing to apologise for what he's done.

 

DLC - We made sure that your storage chest carries over properly to the Hawke estate after you complete the main campaign and also got rid of some edge cases where it would have items in it but not open until you left the area and returned. Even better, your Mabari Hound from the Black Emporium content now follows you more reliably and has a new interaction with Fenris during your fourth year in Kirkwall. We also fixed a timeout that was occurring when players with a large number of promotional items would attempt to log in.

 

Audio Balance - We weren't happy with how loud combat audio was in comparison to exploration and dialog so our audio team did some fine-tuning on that.

 

Gameplay Options - We now offer PC users two new settings in the Gameplay Options menu. One allows you to enable persistent highlighting on useable objects, similar to holding down the Tab key, while the other allows users experiencing performance issues to select a faster but less accurate mouse targeting method.

 

There's obviously lots more in there as well. I've asked Mike Laidlaw to write up an article covering another section of the patch notes that I haven't even touched on yet and I'll post that as soon as it's ready - hopefully sometime tomorrow so you have lots of info going into the weekend. In the meantime, hang tight and we'll get this patch out to you across the various platforms as soon as we can.

 

Thanks!

Rob

 

Maybe I can finish my first playthrough finally.

[Nepenthe]

Maybe I can finish my first playthrough finally.

You're probably better off restarting, at least if you were importing a DAO character.

 

I was going through Bio Social, and they pretty much said outright that they've had to go back and entirely rework their DLC plans due to "feedback" (****ing up the first time around). It's actually going to be pretty interesting to see what they are going to do/change for the PRC.

[Nepenthe]

Also, Laidlaw speaks

 

I'm not sure if it's in that particular thread or elsewhere, but apparently the exploding bodies were bugging, it was supposed to only go off in the case of massive hits, but the threshold was either wrong or not working as it should.

[Orogun01]

Also, Laidlaw speaks

 

I'm not sure if it's in that particular thread or elsewhere, but apparently the exploding bodies were bugging, it was supposed to only go off in the case of massive hits, but the threshold was either wrong or not working as it should.

So that's his way of saying Dragon Age had problems but it was perfect. What a load of corporate bull:

"From my perspective, as someone looking to the future and the DA franchise, I think that DA II moved us into a space that has more potential."

[Nepenthe]

Also, Laidlaw speaks

 

I'm not sure if it's in that particular thread or elsewhere, but apparently the exploding bodies were bugging, it was supposed to only go off in the case of massive hits, but the threshold was either wrong or not working as it should.

So that's his way of saying Dragon Age had problems but it was perfect.

I'd say that's as close an admission of ****ing up you're going to get from any game company that isn't three guys in a garage, these days.

 

Of course, I'm also in the camp that thinks that it would have been a really good game, if they hadn't gone overboard with waves and area recycling. It's still good, just not Bioware good.

[Monte Carlo]

This game is as dead as disco, please stop talking about it.

[Orogun01]

I'd say that's as close an admission of ****ing up you're going to get from any game company that isn't three guys in a garage, these days.

 

Of course, I'm also in the camp that thinks that it would have been a really good game, if they hadn't gone overboard with waves and area recycling. It's still good, just not Bioware good.

Ok then, what do you believe that DA2 did that was salvageable and that will transfer into the future of the franchise?

[Nepenthe]

I'd say that's as close an admission of ****ing up you're going to get from any game company that isn't three guys in a garage, these days.

 

Of course, I'm also in the camp that thinks that it would have been a really good game, if they hadn't gone overboard with waves and area recycling. It's still good, just not Bioware good.

Ok then, what do you believe that DA2 did that was salvageable and that will transfer into the future of the franchise?

All the rest.

[Volourn]

"So that's his way of saying Dragon Age had problems but it was perfect."

 

Where does he say it was perfect? Can you even read? He says everything but that. L0L

[Morgoth]

Anyone else thinks Bioware should license CDProject's Witcher 2 engine?

 

Because I want DA3 to look pretty this time.

[Nepenthe]

Anyone else thinks Bioware should license CDProject's Witcher 2 engine?

 

Because I want DA3 to look pretty this time.

With the art direction in DA2, they could license the engine from God and it still wouldn't look that good.

 

Amend my earlier post to include art direction as the third thing that has to change.

[entrerix]

DA3 needs to fix:

 

1. enemy waves

2. lack of areas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. all the existing areas were hella boring and forgettable (ie towns did not look like actual towns, just big empty spaces with static people standing around)

4. things need to actually happen in the game. DA2 was very forgettable, in terms of characters, plot, and sidequests. the only character and sub plot worth the time it took to play through it was the stuff with that big-horned chief guy.

 

i can think of more, but they start getting nitpicky after a bit, so i'll leave it at these 4 HUGE things. if not all 4 of these are dramatically improved then i will skip da3.

[Bos_hybrid]

DA3 needs to fix:

 

1. enemy waves

2. lack of areas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. all the existing areas were hella boring and forgettable (ie towns did not look like actual towns, just big empty spaces with static people standing around)

 

i can think of more, but they start getting nitpicky after a bit, so i'll leave it at these 4 HUGE things. if not all 4 of these are dramatically improved then i will skip da3.

 

4. Updated graphics.

5. Return of Intimidate, persuasion skills.

6. More QA

 

4. things need to actually happen in the game. DA2 was very forgettable, in terms of characters, plot, and sidequests. the only character and sub plot worth the time it took to play through it was the stuff with that big-horned chief guy.

 

I actually prefer a story concept DA2(long term PC focused) was based on, rather than the 'OMG it's the uber evil comming for us all'. They just need to implement it better then they did with DA2(Superior quests, better characters, a more interesting locale etc).

[HoonDing]

Maybe they should just let CD Projekt develop DA3.

[Orogun01]

DA3 needs to fix:

 

1. enemy waves

2. lack of areas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. all the existing areas were hella boring and forgettable (ie towns did not look like actual towns, just big empty spaces with static people standing around)

4. things need to actually happen in the game. DA2 was very forgettable, in terms of characters, plot, and sidequests. the only character and sub plot worth the time it took to play through it was the stuff with that big-horned chief guy.

 

i can think of more, but they start getting nitpicky after a bit, so i'll leave it at these 4 HUGE things. if not all 4 of these are dramatically improved then i will skip da3.

I'm I the only one who thinks that the 1,000 fetch sidequests should be out?

[Nepenthe]

6. More QA

Show me a game that didn't need more QA... I can think of several that needed it MORE than DA2, though.

[Meshugger]

Also, Laidlaw speaks

 

I'm not sure if it's in that particular thread or elsewhere, but apparently the exploding bodies were bugging, it was supposed to only go off in the case of massive hits, but the threshold was either wrong or not working as it should.

 

Before release he was proud of the streamlining, and now he is sorry for it. I do not think that the guy is completely honest here.

[MrBrown]

He speaks too much like a politician. He says he understands what people are saying, but doesn't reiterate what it is that these "people" are saying, so it's impossible to know what he is actually agreeing or disagreeing with. He's trying to calm the crowd, without going to specifics.

 

Oh well. I liked DA2 enough, so I'll be on the lookout for what DLCs they come up with, but Laidlaw's posts don't really impress me.