Dragon Age II
- Thread starter Skywalker
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There's usually different teams working on each game but today it's unavoidable to have bugs in games because companies want to earn money with these games as soon as possible and a 95% finished game is marketable.. you'll annoy a few customers but after a few weeks most bugs are gone and everyone's happy.
What's disappointing though is that this kind of attitude has entered the console market too.. a friend of mine had some bugs with his 360 version of DA2. Nothing major but still.. this has been unheard of a couple of years ago but since consoles are now able to be hooked up to the Internet and have harddrives to store data on it seems companies also don't bother to test these games to death because they know they can fix the games later on.
What's disappointing though is that this kind of attitude has entered the console market too.. a friend of mine had some bugs with his 360 version of DA2. Nothing major but still.. this has been unheard of a couple of years ago but since consoles are now able to be hooked up to the Internet and have harddrives to store data on it seems companies also don't bother to test these games to death because they know they can fix the games later on.
I'm in Act III and to be perfectly honest I felt DA:O was a much better game. DA:2 is ok but the plot doesn't really feel "epic" enough to warrant a story built around it. For as often as they talk about the first game lasting only a year, this game is well into its 10th year I think and it makes the hero of the game seem like a flunky. Yes she lost a year working off a debt we don't see, but still....
And for being a DA game, there is a shocking absence of both Dragons, Dark spawn, and puzzels. I have done every quest and the companion quests and can count the number of dragons I killed at two ( I know there is another one coming up soon), so that makes three. I've killed a number of dragonlings, but who cares.
The Dark Spawn may as well not exist at all. I call BS on the fact they changed how the Qun people look and used that as the marketing like Hawke was actually fighting a Dark spawn when in reality he was fighting the leader of the Qun race.
Its like they shipped the game minus all the art work that went into DA:O. The world graphics (to me) are not better than DA:0 and are in fact a distraction from the world as their too repedative, too "new', and not life like. Not that DA:O was life like either but seemed to cary better on the whole.
Just lazy and for $60 bucks I can't say I'm pleased.
And for being a DA game, there is a shocking absence of both Dragons, Dark spawn, and puzzels. I have done every quest and the companion quests and can count the number of dragons I killed at two ( I know there is another one coming up soon), so that makes three. I've killed a number of dragonlings, but who cares.
The Dark Spawn may as well not exist at all. I call BS on the fact they changed how the Qun people look and used that as the marketing like Hawke was actually fighting a Dark spawn when in reality he was fighting the leader of the Qun race.
Its like they shipped the game minus all the art work that went into DA:O. The world graphics (to me) are not better than DA:0 and are in fact a distraction from the world as their too repedative, too "new', and not life like. Not that DA:O was life like either but seemed to cary better on the whole.
Just lazy and for $60 bucks I can't say I'm pleased.
One of the things that turned me off of DAO was how buggy it was. That didn't lead to ME2 being particularly buggy.
After 1005 saves I have completed the game in 30 hours with all quests completed. I never enchanted an item or crafted one, so I'll need to head back and make a new toon to get those achievements.
I'd say the ending was rather odd and I am somewhat regretting the side I choose at the end, but my team held together and it all went down quite nicely.
Not as epic as the first one, but many of the plot threads from all of the side quests and secondary quests do feed in well with the act movements and the plot does come together and at the end it all makes perfect sence.
I'd say the ending was rather odd and I am somewhat regretting the side I choose at the end, but my team held together and it all went down quite nicely.
Not as epic as the first one, but many of the plot threads from all of the side quests and secondary quests do feed in well with the act movements and the plot does come together and at the end it all makes perfect sence.
Finished it yesterday myself and mostly enjoyed it. There are some things I preferred in the first and some I preferred more in the second.
For my next run, I have a few other ideas to try
For this playthrough as a rogue, I sent Bethany off to the Gray Wardens and sided with the Mages. Romanced Merrill and gave her a free pass when it came to what she wanted to do. I also let Anders off. I missed recruiting Fenris, scared Isabella off (though not on purpose) but got most of the rest up to 100% friendly. I also lost Sebastian but that was a given with Anders. I also ended up killing the Qunari.
Nice to see "Sister Nightingale" and as I'd heard Alistair did call my Cousland a "ball and chain"
Nice to see "Sister Nightingale" and as I'd heard Alistair did call my Cousland a "ball and chain"
For my next run, I have a few other ideas to try
^I tend to agree. A big, over arching, "epic" narrative has a way of being predictable. I mean by the time you get to Lothering in DAO you have a pretty good idea how the rest of the game will play out. With DA2, each act is it's own story. In a way I think it's more like a classic heroic saga in the vein of the Illiad, the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Argonautica or the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
Just finished it. I went in expecting to hate the storytelling, the dumbing down of RPG aspects, the Mass-Effect-2-iness of the whole thing - imagine my surprise when I realized those aspects of the game worked perfectly for me.
I've been playing BioWare games for almost 15 years now, and I have to say, DAII lacks so much polish it almost doesn't feel like a BioWare title. They have cut a lot of corners to shorten the dev cycle.
It's still a brilliant, enormously ambitious game.
Deeply, deeply flawed, but brilliant.
I've been playing BioWare games for almost 15 years now, and I have to say, DAII lacks so much polish it almost doesn't feel like a BioWare title. They have cut a lot of corners to shorten the dev cycle.
It's still a brilliant, enormously ambitious game.
Deeply, deeply flawed, but brilliant.
I've heard that argument before and I don't understand it. Dragon Age II, like Mass Effect 2, does not "dumb down RPG aspects". Quite the contrary. It focuses on genuine roleplaying-game elements, i.e. "playing a role", while downplaying all the unnecessary and outdated baggage that computer RPG have accumulated throughout the years (constant numbercrunching, insane inventory management, byzantine game rules). As a lifelong pen&paper gamer, I feel that those two games are much closer to an actual RPG than any old-fashioned computer dungeon crawl.
^Seconded. I'd take engaging action and a focus on story and characterization over number fiddling micromanagement any day.
Still, I have to agree that as good as DA2 is, it defiantly falls far short of it's true potential. Aside from the obvious like the endless cave map recycling, the rushed third act and the suspicious number of glitches that should have been caught by QA, the ending is where the game really suffered. With DAO, after you slay the archdemon you get that little extra post coronation scene when you can talk to your companions and get some sense of closure.
Part of the problem I think is the act structure as the game is basically three smaller games stacked end-to end. In some ways it almost seems like when they were brainstorming the plot, they came up with three great story ideas but couldn't choose between them and so went and did all three. Except rather than seamlessly threading them together into a rich narrative, they're very clearly delineated and have very little connection with one-another. Plus, lets face it, if you just stuck to the primary quests and skipped all the secondary, companion and sidequests then you're left with a very short game for an RPG. In fact I feel that Dragon Age 2 as a whole rather smacks of middle child-syndrome, as if the whole game only amounts to set-up for the inevitable Dragon Age 3.
Speaking of which, anyone care to speculate where they're planning to take the series next? I'm going go out on a limb and predict it'll be as a new character, not Hawke or the Warden and it'll be set primarily in Orlais, most likely as one of the Seekers.
Still, I have to agree that as good as DA2 is, it defiantly falls far short of it's true potential. Aside from the obvious like the endless cave map recycling, the rushed third act and the suspicious number of glitches that should have been caught by QA, the ending is where the game really suffered. With DAO, after you slay the archdemon you get that little extra post coronation scene when you can talk to your companions and get some sense of closure.
Part of the problem I think is the act structure as the game is basically three smaller games stacked end-to end. In some ways it almost seems like when they were brainstorming the plot, they came up with three great story ideas but couldn't choose between them and so went and did all three. Except rather than seamlessly threading them together into a rich narrative, they're very clearly delineated and have very little connection with one-another. Plus, lets face it, if you just stuck to the primary quests and skipped all the secondary, companion and sidequests then you're left with a very short game for an RPG. In fact I feel that Dragon Age 2 as a whole rather smacks of middle child-syndrome, as if the whole game only amounts to set-up for the inevitable Dragon Age 3.
Speaking of which, anyone care to speculate where they're planning to take the series next? I'm going go out on a limb and predict it'll be as a new character, not Hawke or the Warden and it'll be set primarily in Orlais, most likely as one of the Seekers.
I think your point is more a general one, but I'd like to reiterate that as I said, I feel this aspect of DAII was actually really well done, despite my initial expectations.
To address your general concern: I totally get where you're coming from and I think we can agree that in the end, it's a matter of personal preference.
I enjoy complexity in my RPGs - offering the player as much choice and freedom to customize as possible, so I generally react at least highly skeptical to any efforts that reduce that.
Admittedly, I'm partly kind of an elitist asshole that wants to keep casual gamers from enjoying RPGs, so that may inform my opinion
In all seriousness though, I think these aspects should be completely optional. ME1 did a pretty good job with that, you could completely turn off most of the "hardcore" RPG mechanics and just play it as a decent if not great third-person shooter.At the end of the day, that's my mantra: Player choice. If people don't like theory-crafting, inventory management, stat point distribution, let them turn it off/give them optional auto-level up features and the like - just don't patronize me due to some accessibility edict.
Oh yes, definitely. I guess it's fair to say, however, that there have been quite a lot of old-fashioned computer RPG throughout the years, and some of them still get released these days, while efforts to focus on actual role-playing are still relatively new. People such as myself who enjoy that kind of experience but don't feel like micromanaging hundreds of inventory items don't have a lot of options.
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