Anti-Dragon Age 2?

[anubite]

Alan if you're close to the writing team, you need to convince them to play this for inspiration http://www.talesofgames.com/related_game/barkley-shut-up-jam-gaiden/. It's free.

 

I am not kidding when I say it's one of the greatest RPGs of our generation.

[GhostofAnakin]

Who knows.

 

All I know, no matter what, he survives, even if he's been lobotomized. Cause in Gaider's last novel, they found a cure for that, being possessed. It's a cop out in order to give feynriel a role, since he has VERY unique and kind of extreme powers in the lore.

 

As far as I recall, the mage who found a way to "reverse" tranquility died, and his knowledge of the process with him. So it'd have to be quite a leap for the writers to make it seem like such a widespread practice. Though, at this point, I wouldn't put it past them if it meant being able to tell their story regardless.

[Cultist]

A

From 34:30

...I think that nowdays it is important trying to constrain your projects as much as possible not because you are trying to reduce financial risk, but because you are trying to get your customers to tell you how to make product better as quickly as possible, so you can iterate it. And that's one of the important characterstics is to get feedback from your customers on which you doing right and what you are doing wrong...

...we find that best partner we have to get new customers are our existing customers...

- Gabe Newell

Come to think of it - Dragon Age: Origins acted just like that. They presented DA:O as a spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate. origins had many flaws and fandom expected them to be fixed and tweaked. But DA2 was nothing like Origins. It hardly could be called RPG at all. BioWare tried to tradeoff RPG fans for more action and arcade auditory, but failed to compensate "old" fan loss. that was the fate of many "inovative" overhauls.

- Tiberium Twilight - a huge fiasco that effectively crippled the franchize.

- Master of Orion 3 - same story, cmplete overhaul and a complete disaster.

- Heroes of Might and Magic - 4 and 6 were total failures, fifth were sucessful by sticking to 3's mechanics.

- Syndicate - another failure due to "new EA vision of the game".

- Civilization 5 - almost deserted and forced to add game to free Steam addition(story with X-Com preorder)

And there's another story:

- X-Com tried to keep to original series' "spirit" and were successful.

- Starcraft 2 - were able to repeat the success as majority trasferred from Brood Wars to S2.

- Deus Ex: HR - developers repeated their previous game success by refining Deus Ex and avoiding radical changes. Result - huge financial success.

- Dead Space, Portal 2, Skyrim, New Vegas - all avoided total overhauls and kept to polishing the game. All were successful.

DA2 were the victim of failed expectations. Fans wanted bigger and better Origins and got game so different from what they were waiting for that even after 1.5+ years after release holywars are still raging.

[melkathi]

 

- Master of Orion 3 - same story, cmplete overhaul and a complete disaster.

 

 

Repeat after me: there have only been two Master of Orion games.

There never was a Master of Orion 3.

No third game in the series was ever made, has ever existed.

Some misguided people may try to say otherwise.

They may bring "proof" and talk about release dates etc.

They are wrong. (Just ask Jack Ryder)

 

A lot of people would like there to be a Master of Orion 3... but the sad fact is, there isn't one.

 

 

 

[Cultist]

IGN

Master of Orion 3 - 9.2/10

Dragon Age 2 - 8.5/10

Oh, the irony.

[melkathi]

Says a lot about IGN that does

[aries101]

Bioware's formula, have been from day 1, when they started making rpgs, like this: slay the evil thing that destroys the land, then it went into the join a supersecret organization, and then it went into the become a grey warden/spectre terriritory. I, and many others at the BSN were quite happy when David Gaider announced that there would be no secret organization, no joining of such an thing and no slaying the big bad thing at the end. OK, that one they kind og missed - with not 1, bit two! boss fights at the end. One of them rumored to be in there because EA wanted it so....

 

To me DA2 tells a personal story about Hawke wwho rises from poverty to riches, because of her own deeds, because of what she does. The characters and story to me are really memorable and stand outs like characters in a play or in a movie: varric, isabella, aveline, fenris, sebastian and so on. They all have their own motivations for what they do, whih gives way for interesting emotional storytelling:

 

I was crushed when, after I killed the arishok, isabella din't bring back the book she stole from them.

I was horrified when I found out what happened to my mother, and tried to save her, but couldn't.

 

As for the reused areas, yes DA2 had them plenty - like most other games have. However, DA2, did not conceal these reused areas as well as other games do or did.

 

Bioware's games have always told a story - and alas, a story must end. In the end, you can support Anders, you can kill him, you can help him gather the material he neeeds, but he still does what he does. Because he must - so the plot and story of the game can move along. (a very interesting thread over at the bsn forum exists about what he did, why did it, and should he have done it).

 

I agree, though, that Bioware needs to learn how to add player agency (or maybe rather the illusion of player agency) into their games. It is sorely lacking from DA2, maybe because it went too fast and quickly with developing the game. However, two dlcs have come out: Legacy and Mark of the Assasin. Legacy had great strategic and tactical combat as well as very interesting fight at the end with the conductor of the elements. Mark of the Assasin had a branching story where the story split up in two ways for you to take: in the castle, either the stealth route or the combat route. It has a very long boss fight at the end; there's no autosaves or any possibilities for saving the game, meaning if you don't kill the boss in the first try, you're in for long fight. (nearly 20-30 minutes, I think) The story in Mark of the Assasin was also rather well done and told.

 

Bioware's strengths have always been their stories, their characters etc. --- not the gameplay nor the combat in their games. And as said, choice and concesequence? in a Bioware game? Choices nearly all lead to the same conesequences in games from Bioware.

[Volourn]

"Choices nearly all lead to the same conesequences in games from Bioware. "

 

Not true. Many choices lead to different outcomes and cosnequences. The real issue, and this is true with 99% of ALL RPGs, is there is no long term consequences most of the time. Just instant consequences. In your own post you even mention a few C&C that occurs. *shrug*

[anubite]

The main problem is that RPGs are a wide genre which could more appropriately be divided into ARPGs, Action games, beat-em-ups, CHYOAs, adventure games, roguelikes, et cetera.

 

Of the kind of RPGs BioWare's games used to be long in, long-term choice did matter. Ninety-nine percent is an exaggeration. But Volourn isn't completely wrong, for once. Many RPGs have short-term consequences for actions, DA2 has one or two quests like this where short term consequences do change, but DA2 hardly even has that. The difference between most quest outcomes is superificial (basically, the difference is that character X dies or lives, but the actual outcome of the quest is still the same, because character X's role in the story is terminated at that pont anyway). What we like about PnP-style cRPGs is that a gamemaster would probably utilize NPCs for more than one scene and your actions would have consequences on the outcome of the story. cRPGs were moving in the direction of this kind of thing happening much more often and to much greater degrees, but BioWare is one of many companies that has shored up on the complexity of their game in order to please the casual marketplace.

[BruceVC]

". The real issue, and this is true with 99% of ALL RPGs, is there is no long term consequences most of the time. Just instant consequences. In your own post you

 

Can you give some examples of RPG that do offer your definition of long term consequences? The reason I ask is that there generally has to be an end objective to every game and surly the narrative can't deviate too much from you fulfilling that so what are you asking for?

[aries101]

An example of long term consequences in an rpg is the now famous first Witcher game. The game plays out differently if you side with the elves or the law? (sorry, I forgot what the elves opponents are called). Also, some quests in DA:O and even 1 or 2 in DA2 do this.

In the first Witcher game the story also unfolds differently if you kill certain people or don't kill certain people. Also, the game just moves on with the story if you take too long to finish certain quests.

 

What is the casual marketplace these days for computergames? I would consider myself a rather hardcore gamer ---- however, I simply don't have the time anymore to sit down very night and play for 3-4 hour straight. I like DA:O and DA2 because the game can be played immediately, without a walkthrough at hand, and it is (nearly) always clear what I, or the party, needs to do.

 

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

In baldur's gate, the party is poisoned if you talk to a certain npcs. there's no warning of this.

 

Another example is this:

In HotU, I'm at the ilithid and beholder caves. Little did I know that I needed the mirror from another quest here. No hints of this are given anywhere in the game that this piece of glas/mirror is important and that one needs to hold onto it. Because it is a quest item to be used later.

 

DA:O and DA2 did away with these sorts of things. I like this, since I, as said, don't have time anymore to travel back and forth etc. too many times.

[BruceVC]

An example of long term consequences in an rpg is the now famous first Witcher game. The game plays out differently if you side with the elves or the law? (sorry, I forgot what the elves opponents are called). Also, some quests in DA:O and even 1 or 2 in DA2 do this.

In the first Witcher game the story also unfolds differently if you kill certain people or don't kill certain people. Also, the game just moves on with the story if you take too long to finish certain quests.

 

What is the casual marketplace these days for computergames? I would consider myself a rather hardcore gamer ---- however, I simply don't have the time anymore to sit down very night and play for 3-4 hour straight. I like DA:O and DA2 because the game can be played immediately, without a walkthrough at hand, and it is (nearly) always clear what I, or the party, needs to do.

 

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

In baldur's gate, the party is poisoned if you talk to a certain npcs. there's no warning of this.

 

Another example is this:

In HotU, I'm at the ilithid and beholder caves. Little did I know that I needed the mirror from another quest here. No hints of this are given anywhere in the game that this piece of glas/mirror is important and that one needs to hold onto it. Because it is a quest item to be used later.

 

DA:O and DA2 did away with these sorts of things. I like this, since I, as said, don't have time anymore to travel back and forth etc. too many times.

 

Okay I agree with you about how the Witcher developed. I like that style of RPG where choices matter in that context

[anubite]

I do agree that games should cut out the bull**** so you can sit down and just play the thing when you want to.

 

Want to play Zelda: Skyward Sword? Zelda: TP? Zelda: Wind Waker? Better not, there's like 30+ minutes of forced tutorial and cinema before you get your bloody sword.

 

Want to play OoT or Majora's Mask? Sure, you're already playing the game after the first, relatively short cutscene that is usually skippable.

 

This is what's wrong with "cinematic" games.

Edited November 18, 2012 by anubite

[anubite]

First draft of a (small) part of my video analysis. I'd love to get some feedback on it, even if it's only trolls telling me it's just my opinion / it's bad. Right now it's mostly words, kind of messily broken up, but the main point that I'll be delivering is in there, the video evidence for my points in my possession, though obviously not displayed here.

 

The tone here is very informal, with too many air-headed likes/i means, but that and the grammar, and probably most of the informal stuff, will be cut out, though a some of it will linger, just so I can hopefully entertain while still being analytic. Polished youtube poop still has to be poop.

 

My video analysis is divided into two major parts, part one is about the roleplaying aspect of the game - namely why the world of DA2 doesn't work. My second part focuses entirely on the "gameplay" - the itemization, the classes, the spells, character advancement, strategy and tactics, boss fights, enemy variety, and more.

 

 

 

 

People have misanalyzed RPGs. I don't blame them. But their understanding is critically flawed.

 

RPGs are not about characters, story, or choices. That is not their central focus. Those are prominent elements in them, yes, but an RPG is not merely a choose your own adventure game.

 

Roleplaying games are about worlds.

 

In order for a world to be plausible, which is necessary to have a good world for an RPG*

(add some note here that there may be an "implausible" RPG-world, something zany or wacky, but ultimately it is still consistent unto itself, even if it may seem 'un-possible' to the reader)

 

we need to accept the universe being shown to us. A good RPG presents its world in the same way a good orator presents a hypothetical question. A scifi, fantasy, western, dramatic, romantic, and/or gothic otherly world is a hypothetical question. "What if the world were really flat? And it were populated by elves. And humans were in this setting too and they built cities there and had to deal with water flying out into some strange abyss." That there is a fantasy world that an RPG would take us to AND let US explore.

 

But in order for this to work, the audience first needs to accept the hypothetical question. We must admit there must be something familiar to the audience to pull them in. Although we can disorient the audience with things that are completely bizarre, human imagination will only go so far. We can fatigue our audience. To create utter nonsense with language, symbols and images - birdsong - is so disorienting, that the audience will simply reject an implausible world. Perhaps this is narrow-minded of them, but our imagination is vast and powerful... Powerful things need restraint, or they will bring ruin to themselves. We must refine our thoughts in order to accomplish anything.

 

Dragon Age 2 does not present a plausible world. It does not present us with something refined that we can immerse ourselves in.

 

First, we must visit all the physical locations of Kirkwall - the places the audience sees with their eyes, hears with their ears and walks across with their virtual feet. I will demonstrate that each location of Kirkwall and its surronuding landscape is implausible to the audience.

 

Tutorial World - [obligatory batman sound segway] Holy mother of environmental artist interns batman! Who in god's name made this map? BioWare! I understand... that you were rushed, but this is...

the tutorial level. The stuff you must have shown at E3? I vaguely, maybe recall seeing a trailer with this art and I was just confused.

 

We're standing in black, blasted earth. Like... I mean, we're in the blasted lands, or some kind of mortal hell. What happened here? Did a fire scorch all the plant life in a fifty mile radius? Is there a volcano near by? What mineral is this? Basalt? I don't think we're on an island and I don't see a volcano anywhere. I mean I know it's cliche, but a little molten lava here or acrid fumes would do so much for this landscape, it'd at least give it some context. The sky is kind of dark... maybe there was an eruption somehwere.

 

So we're surrounded by this black earth for no apparent reason and we came through this narrow valley with our family. We're treated to a sight out by a ledge after killing some darkspawn and we see ... a bridge. I have no idea what this bridge is, especially if I'm a newcomer to the dragon age universe, and if I look into the distance all I can see is ground shaped by an artist's 'raise texture' tool.

 

See, this is so jarring for me as a player because I grew up on Starcraft and Warcraft 3's world editors. Amazing programs they are still today, I'm sure I'm not the only one who grew up trying to make beautiful landscapes by randomly rubbing the cursor at dirt. I'm always so amazed by environmental artists and what they can do for some video games, but this is by far one of the most amateurish landscapes I've ever seen in a triple A video game. If the draw distance were greater, and this strange white myst weren't obfuscating the horizon, I wonder what kind of landscape lies beyond that bridge, what we could see. Could we see darkspawn ravaging the country side? Could we see the shadows of cities burning? It would not be realistic at all I think, to see clearly burning in the distance, as perhaps most settlements are far from here, but it would be an effective image for the new player, to show them the PLAUSIBILITY of this world, that hypothetically, this is a fantasy world where an quasi-undead or ancient evil is destroying civilization.

 

It's not like BioWare didn't have opportunities here. Ferelden is not a bad fantasy setting, at least from what we saw with DA:O. What potential this location had, to show us the true extent of the destruction afflicting this fantasy land... to see it so squandered is truly baffling. I suspect that is the kind of feeling most players have during this area, baffling. Kind of like an empty wonderment and dizzy excitement.

 

But instead we aren't really given any question here. We see black, smothered dirt beneath our feet. Which by the way, looks awful. I'm running a decent computer here with most of my settings on high, and although this youtube video may not give justice to what I'm saying, do believe me when I say the landscape here is very bland, muddy, smooth, shapeless, and difficult to reconcile with. The environment does not seem plausible to me. ESPECIALLY since we're introduced to it after a moment of hyperbole from our narrator.

 

I think it is absolutely necessary to return to this element later on, but for the discussion of plausibilty right now, our dwarven narrator is really hurting the game here. I know most people thought Varric was the best part of Dragon Age 2, but in the beginning, where you have a real tutorial, where you're given skills

and fight dark spawn randomly, when your sister's breasts are magically enhanced and you're killing hundreds of darkspawn effortlessly... and it's kind of like my japanese animes and Varric is revealed to just be making all this up for his audience, some french dominatrix, you might immediately wonder here if this setting is real at all.

 

It is certainly very dreamlike, though I do not believe this is BioWare's intention at all, this landscape is so vague and not well grounded, that with Varric's earlier behavior, the audience must begin to question what the hell is going on here. What is the question? What is the world we are in? What is this universe? Inside a dwarf's mind? Does it really exist? What makes it different from our own world?

 

These questions only become more compounded on later in the story - because for instance, Varric was never here with us in this scene. How could he ever properly narrate it? This cannot be his recollection because he was never here. If we are not witnessing his testimony coming to life, then is he repeating the beginning of the story as Hawke told it to him? Or is he just entirely making this all up?

 

Although an untrustworthy narrator is a lovely device for a story, introducing many interesting elements and possibilities, here it counfounds the genre. Action games are like action movies. Fantasy games are like fantasy movies. BioWare's previous owners are said to have agreed to work with EA, to shoot for larger budgets for their games, because they wanted to make them more cinematic. BioWare's ethic was to make their critical cRPG, Baldur's Gate, and turn it into Lord of the Rings, except... as you know, a video game. However, what Tolkien has taught us, and finally what literary scholars have begun to agree upon, is that fantasy worlds require what is known as, a "suspension of disbelief" - a concept Tolkien expounded upon with Lord of the Rings, a concept he wanted to expand into the concept of virtual, living world.

 

Dragon Age 2 is only doing a disservice to itself, by using an unreliable narrator here. The goal is to make a plausible world, but they've only muddied this. I don't even know how real this location is, or if anything here really happened at all. This is so espcially jarring if you played the previous game. Flemeth looks nothing like she did in the previous game. The timeline is also screwed up - I guess this is all happening during the previous game? While the warden was still on his or her quest? Or maybe it was before it? Before when the battle was lost at Ostagar? But then again, aren't we fleeing from Lothering as it is destroyed? Lothering isn't destroyed until after Ostagar is, in the previous game. Suffice to say, we have no temporal or logistical idea of where we are, what we're doing, or where we're even going. We're just blindly running away from these monsters with no apparent motive, plan, or idea.

 

And then we meet Aveline and her husband. I don't understand this, why did a Templar in his uniform break away from the rest of his brothers? Were they slaughtered? Is he just a coward? I guess that's more a consistency problem, I mean, I would be under the impression that Aveline, knowing her character later in the game, would be a soldier trying to fight the Darkspawn, not a defenseless civillain fleeing for her life like a coward. But we don't know these characters yet and we don't know what any of this means if we're a new player. So I'll just carry onto my next gripe.

 

We agree to help Flemeth with this vague task that she refuses to explain. And because of the dialogue wheel we can't really interrogate her about what all this means. Why I as the player cannot simply refuse her help and find my own way down the stupid mountain at my own peril is a minor one of plausibility - and I guess - this is important to note - that people believe choices to be so integral to RPGs because if we DO NOT have choice, the world feels less alive to us. We begin to ask ourselves, "Why must I kill the evil demon king? Can't we just do X, Y, or Z?" If an RPG allows you try X, Y and Z, to succeed or to fail based on these choices, the world seems more alive, because we can interact with it, we can explore this hypothetical question. We can believe that the situation, the world, its setting and characters are plausible. We have to kill the demon king beacuse we the player cannot find any other way, we resign ourselves to doing it just like some narrative hero would.

 

So we accept Flemeth's help regardless, oh and wait, I'm forgetting the most important part here, the thing that is just so jarring here --

 

We are humans. All of us, well, except maybe Flemeth, but all of us are seemingly human by our appearence, speech, and mannerisms. Yet, no matter what you do here, Carver or Bethany bite the dust.

 

Hawke seems to have absolutely no emotional attachment to this sibling, because all of your choices are immediately about moving forward, stoicly looking at a corpse, or being angry at Mother and saying, "Get a grip, he/she's dead, who cares, let's get out of here."

 

Hold on, how am I supposed to roleplay here? My sister or brother just died, we've been travelling for days, with who knows how much rest or food. I'm probably exhausted and confused and my sibling has died and I'm just supposed to act like some dettached space marine here? What? This is so inhuman and bizarre that I as the audience cannot reconclie any of this. This is even more confusing... Varric is telling the story, so why can't I feel his influence all that much on it? This part of the story SHOULD be vague because Varric is the one telling it and not Hawke, but I would expect Varric to interject his feelings of family in here, which are thoroughly explained through the entire game, but instead... we just have stoicism. It is just absolutely confusing. And even if Varric is transferring his emotions here into the story, how am I supposed to roleplay? This is supposed to be MY story not Varric's, or at least, that's the impression I got, by playing RPGs for the last 20 years of my life. That if a story isn't mine, it's part of a larger group's - but I am at least a part of that group. In a good RPG I do not mind at all if I am simply a pawn in another's story, but my story is still mine within that larger gestalt. Here, I'm like a puppet for Varric's thoughts and emotions, if that is even true. In a worst case scenario, I'm playing a role BioWare has forced me into, or I'm trying to roleplay as Varric's imagination. After giving me the freedom of moving my avatar about, after having nothing about my character previously established, I am just supposed to accept that I have no feelings for my siblings.

 

And then Aveline's husband is revealed to be tainted. We have to give him mercy and kill him. I can do it or Aveline can. For this playthrough, I kill him. Aveline is somber, but also, awkwardly stiff. Her display is... I mean I know this isn't a soap opera, but you just can't treat human life this way. We expect humans to care about other humans. If they DO NOT then this is something that is established in our fantasy world. The hypothetical question for Dragon Age 2 is, "Suppose there is an ancient evil destroying civilization AND humans do not feel emotion for their loved ones." I would expect Aveline to be more broken up and I would expect Aveline to not "get over it" over the course a boat ride, continuing to linger by my side. Why does she stay with us after I basically murder her husband? A normal person SHOULD feel some amount of anger or dislike for the executioner of your loved one. I would expect her to have difficulty reconciling her feelings of loss with my noble action of ending her husband's life. I don't believe Aveline's emotions, her reactions, are real. And yes, I know she's supposed to be a "stoic, tough soldier" - but come on, this does NOT seem real.

 

See, we can have an "unrealistic" story. I am not clamoring here for some kind of fixed, static "real world" logic in my video games, I just want a plausible world. It is plausible that we can have an "unrealistic" world, but we have to be shown and/or told of this. What I'm talking about is ver...ver...versilimilitude. Our world is NOT like their world in the ways the hypothetical, socratic question specificates. If we were orcs or trolls and didn't care about our family members dying on us, I'd as a viewer chock this up to trolls or orcs being unattached to family. But since these are humans, we as an audience have an expectation that needs to be satisfied in an appropriate manner.

 

This scenario IS NOT PLAUSIBLE. This would not happen. Maybe it could, maybe, but I as the viewer do not accept it. I mean, anything can happen and I acknoweldge there are people out there who hate their family and wouldn't care if they all died in a fire. There are psychopaths that kill their partners without reluctance. But these characters are not presented to be like this in the beginning of the story and nowhere else throughout. Aveline is demonstrated to be caring, awkward, fierce, loyal, loving and strong. Hawke can be... a selfish authoritarian, a righteous hero or some kind of sarcastic anti-hero, but nowhere even in all three of these possible Hawkes, is a lack of concern for family ever shown. I played this game as a "red" Hawke, picking mostly aggressive options and towards the end of the game, he demonstrates some attachment to his mother.

 

As a result, I reject this world, it is not real. It is fake. An illusion. It could not happen, ever. This is someone's stream of consciousness, or maybe a dream, but it's not a world I can be immersed in, because it has yet to feel real. This entire tutorial zone should have just been cut from the game, it only serves to completely break its beginning, getting started all on the wrong foot. If Hawke and Aveline are psychotic then this should be established immediately to the audience. But since their characters are apparently straight forward, it's hard to reconcile their inconsistent behavior.

 

Okay, so I've laboriously explained why this scene is so messed up. But what happens next in the blink of an eye is what's really jarring.

 

Firstly, Flemeth will not escort us the whole way. They even joke of this, that 'we cannot ride on the backs of a dragon. We'll be seen!' Which I suppose could be a bad thing. That is even assuming we would want to risk flying several thousand miles above the ground on what may as well be a wild animal.

 

So how do we get to the next scene? We never actually find out. Did we teleport? Worm holes? Did she eat us and carry us across the border?

 

The next scene has us on a boat. Where did we get the tickets, the faire, the money for this boat? Surely the number of refugees leaving Ferelden must have skyrocketed the price? Where was this dock? Was it not overrun by dark spawn? How were we so quickly able to acquire passage? Did any time pass? What happened during the moments leading up to this scene? These questions may not enter your audience's mind directly, but their unconscious can FEEL this disconnect. It's very jarring to go from a vague black landscape to the ocean, since we didn't even see it in the distance back there. This is what I'd say is BioWare trying to pull a fast one on us. They didn't want to go through the trouble of actually making us go to a dock and interact and all that, so they just threw us onto a boat and hoped we wouldn't notice it, that we'd just buy it - that Flemeth would entrust us with some phylactery of hers and that the boat wouldn't capsize and doom her to the bottom of some sea.

 

But I digress. What hurts me the most here is that we're on a boat. This scene is very interesting and suggests so much possibility. Boats are amazing literary devices. Many games have used them in the past. Even Baldur's Gate 2 had us using boat, acquiring a faire to take us to a crucial place. Boats can have slaves, captains, workers, all walks of life really, on them. It would have been THE perfect location for us to acquire new party members, of interesting, fascinating ferelden origin, before we get stuck in the Free Marches the rest of the game. It also would have provided necessary CONVEYANCE for the theme of leaving ones home and starting a new, we could have had a scene standing out by the bow of the ship, watching as Ferelden fades away into obscurity. very little would be a better mechanism for sending the audience on a journey to a new world, than using a boat.

 

But instead this entire thing is glossed over. Instead, we get blacktar level. It could have been cheaper just to give us a boat-based level, you know? Surround us with water and make us fight giant squids or something.

 

But anyway, plausibility. Boat journeys, especially long ones, are tough as hell. But apparently everything went fine and we're here in Kirkwall now! See, this is incredibly jarring. We are now on the docks of a city. How plausible is this location? Are we still dreaming? Have we finally set foot onto solid soil?

 

Unfortunately, I do not think so. We haven't met varric yet, and we won't even until another supposed year of time. The meaning behind all these scenes is mostly lost, because it's hard to believe it's happening.

 

The main problem I have with this landing dock though, is the lack of communication. As punk youtuber RazorFist points out in his reaction video to Dragon Age 2 a while ago, "The best way to be understand a world is to speak to its people." And here, we are robbed of this. I don't mind set-dressing NPCs in my video games, many great games have done this to give players the illusion of size and liveliness.

 

But here, we should have gotten a welcome party of some kind, a few NPCs to ground us in this new place. But instead, we talk to a man who says we can't come here. So we walk right on past him anyway and we meet another man who says we can't stay here go away. And then we learn we can bribe our way to stay in the city and that we have an uncle here who we just wait around for, for three days, who can arrange us with some dirty businessmen to hook us up with enough money to bribe our way into the city.

 

I don't think I need to go into any detail here. The plausibility of this world is still not well established. We just got off this boat, somehow had enough food and money to just sit around waiting for three days for some supposed uncle to find us, and we somehow able to be recruited by some criminal organization just like that. Then, we are treated to a one year time skip. A timeskip, by the way, which was JUST as long as that 3 day skip we just endured. So, as far as we're concerned right now, time has no meaning. Three days may as well be three years. This is just so upsetting. Playing this game will make you nauseous.

 

As if to make things worse, everything that JUST happened is now mostly meaningless because this one year time skip has completely disconnected whatever tethering we had to with the world. The plausibility of this world now comes into greater question, and really, perhaps this whole time, I should really be explaining what plausibility really is - I mean, ALL things are plausible. Human imagination is immensely powerful. But a fictional world is ONLY plausible when we believe it to be so. Our belief in this world, that we believe it is possible to exist in theory, stems from our integration with it. We are not integrated into this world at all. There are no literary, physical, audiovisual cues to get us to believe this world exists. Everything done so far as done the opposite in-fact, we have established nothing, presented conflicting information and otherworldly human behavior and locale, and are now finally informing our audience that they know about this world already, they've been living in it for one year now even though our audience really hasn't.

 

And apparently, we know all the merchants in the square because we shop from them every day and nobody gives us an appraising look because, well, they've seen us around town! They don't even have to introduce themselves to us, because we know them already, obviously.

 

How jarring would it be, for you to wake up in a town you've never been to, to be greeted by men on the street and to dash into a diner only to be asked if you'd like your usual. You would certainly feel mad, wouldn't you? Well here you should feel no different. This world cannot be real, in your eyes. I don't care how much you like Dragon Age 2 or thought it was a pretty good game, there is no way you were immersed at this point in the game. If nothing else, this entire beginning sequence is quite possibly one of the worst executed in all of modern video game history.

 

Edited November 28, 2012 by anubite

[Hurlshort]

I did really hate the transition from trying to get into the city to being there for a year. It was terrible abrupt.

[Orchomene]

I haven't all read so I'll comment only on the beginning.

I'm not sure you should begin with your point of view about RPG as being the norm/standard and consider the other as invalid.

I could argue with you by just saying that the coherence of the world is a quality of the RPG itself, but without being the essence of being an rpg.

d&d had nothing like a coherent world at the beginning. Of course, it improved and delivered some different settings, one better than others.

 

For me, a RPG is a set of rules that allow the player to have a "model" of a world. In this model (i.e. with the rules and backgrounds), they can incarnate a character that will interact with the world (pc, npc, environment,...). The model (with the help of the storyteller/dm/whatever is it called, arbiter) will define the outcomes of this interaction.

If your rule sets are poor -- not simple, poor ; a simple system (like GURPS) can be rich --, then the interactions will be restrained to only few actions and the outcome will appear as arbitrary and may lead to frustration.

 

Just to illustrate the point. If you begin your analysis with a personal definition presented as universal, you don't appear as being serious in your development.

[anubite]

I do have an introduction which explains my tone. I am not trying to be "arrogant" however, there is no "accepted" or "universal" theory to most things, let alone art (if video games are an art, if game design is an art), however, we can still be critical of them and present arguments. If the arguments I present in my video are not sufficient to back up the theory behind them, that will be for the viewer to decide. Video games in their current state are still developing and it should not be wild at this point for people to put forth their ideas as how they "should be" developed. Consensus can only be reached after a sufficient amount of structured debate and analysis, of which I have seen little, at least for public consumption. Perhaps there is literature I'm not aware of, where people in the industry have analyzed Dragon Age 2 for its faults, but I believe I will be the first to be putting out in plain view all of its faults for examination. I will be accompanying my findings with my own "opinion" but I think there is a very large disconnect when the word "opinion" gets mentioned.

 

Everything is everyone's opinion. Facts, I feel, are hard to pin down. Yes, there is a Queen of England. We can go see her today if we wish, we might call this a fact, but to what degree is it a fact? What if she's really NOT the queen of england, but some kind of impostor, who's been fooling us all along? As silly as it sounds, there is such a thing as 'unreasonable disbelief', but the degree at which we say something is sufficiently reasonable or not, can vary.

 

My opinion is not simply the statement, "dragon age 2 is a bad game" - my opinion is a long, drawn out argument that uses evidence from dragon age 2 as well as evidence from DA:O (which I have also recently replayed), VTMB, BG2 and other RPGs/cRPGs. The point is to compare DA2 to these other games, point out what THEY do well and try to explain them using my analysis. Then it's to compare that understanding to DA2 and explain WHY things don't work.

 

Perhaps I should structure what I posted above better, by analyzing the openings for VTMB, BG2 and other games. Though, I'd like to keep the running time of this analysis under one hour, as it is it's going to be tough keeping this thing at a reasonable length for people to consume and I do want to be very specific and point out some of the flaws in DA2 by example. Urgh. In any case, DA2's opening scenes are integral that I examine in depth, I'm not sure I can do the same for every good RPG ever. If I only try to compare DA2 with one other game, I will simply be accused of wishing DA2 were that game, which isn't the case at all. I want DA2 to be its own game, but I want it to be GOOD AND BE ITS OWN GAME.

Edited November 28, 2012 by anubite

[IcyDeadPeople]

The full game, start to finish was done in around 11 months.

 

Wow! If that's the case, I'm really impressed with what they managed to do, despite all the flaws.

 

They had six years to work on Origins, no wonder it turned out to be a better game.

Edited November 29, 2012 by IcyDeadPeople

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I think that it is impossible to role-play your own character in DA2, because DA2 railroads the PC internally constantly and you have no idea what they will say due to that damn wheel. The biggest fault any RPG can have us that it will not allow you to completely control the PC.

 

Good luck in your video analysis anubite.

[Hassat Hunter]

The full game, start to finish was done in around 11 months.

Wow! If that's the case, I'm really impressed with what they managed to do, despite all the flaws.

 

They had six years to work on Origins, no wonder it turned out to be a better game.

Hmmmm, KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 come to mind.

OE did way better in 11 months than BW in 11 months...

[Volourn]

No. No, they didn't.

[IcyDeadPeople]

The full game, start to finish was done in around 11 months.

Wow! If that's the case, I'm really impressed with what they managed to do, despite all the flaws.

 

They had six years to work on Origins, no wonder it turned out to be a better game.

Hmmmm, KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 come to mind.

OE did way better in 11 months than BW in 11 months...

 

Never heard of OE, and I don't know about KOTOR2, but KOTOR1 had 3 years production time.

 

The really good RPGs seem to take a long time to iterate and improve on the gameplay systems, especially when using a new engine, compared with a sports game that comes out every year. For example, Bethesda has spent about 4 years developing each of its past few titles.

Edited November 30, 2012 by IcyDeadPeople

[Nepenthe]

Never heard of OE,

[melkathi]

Never heard of OE,

 

or I can't decide

[IcyDeadPeople]

sorry, I see you were talking about Obsidian Entertainment.

 

I thought OE was referring to the name of some game.

Edited December 1, 2012 by IcyDeadPeople