BioWare Slays Dragon Age II Expansion

[Furism]

Doing what you say would be the worst thing to happen to RPGs. See, old farts like me (and I'm just 29 years old) like "old school" RPGs where you have a high difficulty, where you can pause, think about tactics, where friendly fire is on, etc... DA1 has been the only major one like this since NWN2, which was not as good.

You were right however that the bigger issue with DA2 was the ludicrous re-use of assets (dungeons). The second worse part was that they removed the Tactical View and only kept the Third Person one. The third was the dumb waves during the fights, nullifying any tactic you could come up with.

Wow... you don't play a lot of action and/or fighting games, do you?

I like my RPG to be RPG-y and my action and/or fighting games to be action-y. I don't like the idea of mixing the two. Dragon Age was always presented as a RPG, not a Beat 'Em All.

 

[SageRuffin]

I like my RPG to be RPG-y and my action and/or fighting games to be action-y. I don't like the idea of mixing the two. Dragon Age was always presented as a RPG, not a Beat 'Em All.

I should have clarified my original statement, so apologies in that regard. Anyway, you said this before:

See, old farts like me (and I'm just 29 years old) like "old school" RPGs where you have a high difficulty, where you can pause, think about tactics, where friendly fire is on, etc...

As such, we're simply not gonna agree on this. Your previous statement implies that you see RPGs as more stat-juggling than, say, playing a role. Further extrapolation reveals that you probably despise games like Kingdom of Amalur or even BioWare's previous effort Jade Empire just for the gameplay alone; at this point, it becomes rather obvious that you (and others, no doubt) classify RPGs based off gameplay, whereas folks like me classify RPGs based on presentation (which is why I never qualify the FF or Tales series' as RPGs).

I do concur with DA2's combat system striving for "either/or" instead of the "mix and match" we were presented with. A good idea poorly executed I say.

Aside: I'm not far behind you in terms of age, by the way. Only 4 years - I grew up with Sonic, Vectorman, Pokémon, and Killer Instinct though. Good times either way.

 

[Kahunaburger]

As such, we're simply not gonna agree on this. Your previous statement implies that you see RPGs as more stat-juggling than, say, playing a role. Further extrapolation reveals that you probably despise games like Kingdom of Amalur or even BioWare's previous effort Jade Empire just for the gameplay alone; at this point, it becomes rather obvious that you (and others, no doubt) classify RPGs based off gameplay, whereas folks like me classify RPGs based on presentation (which is why I never qualify the FF or Tales series' as RPGs).

Not all definitions are equally valid. If you decide that the mammalian companion animal that people take on walks, give bones to, and play fetch with is called a "car," expect to be confused by conversations about dogs chasing cars.

A video game has RPG elements to the extent that it has elements that are initially from P&P RPGs. That's why the RPG genre is so broad and poorly-defined.

 

[SageRuffin]

As such, we're simply not gonna agree on this. Your previous statement implies that you see RPGs as more stat-juggling than, say, playing a role. Further extrapolation reveals that you probably despise games like Kingdom of Amalur or even BioWare's previous effort Jade Empire just for the gameplay alone; at this point, it becomes rather obvious that you (and others, no doubt) classify RPGs based off gameplay, whereas folks like me classify RPGs based on presentation (which is why I never qualify the FF or Tales series' as RPGs).

Not all definitions are equally valid. If you decide that the mammalian companion animal that people take on walks, give bones to, and play fetch with is called a "car," expect to be confused by conversations about dogs chasing cars.

A video game has RPG elements to the extent that it has elements that are initially from P&P RPGs. That's why the RPG genre is so broad and poorly-defined.

Hmm. Good point. Still, it makes the most sense to me that the main qualification of an RPG is to "play a role", as flawed a thought process that may be.

Love the avatar by the way. You can never have too much Samuel L. Jackson.

 

[Faerillis]

I guess thats cool for those who liked DA2. I used to want Bioware to make a new KotOR, but seeing their new games I knew it would just blow, so I've given up. Just like DA3 will be a horrible piece of streamlined poop.

I almost don't want to respond to this, but I can't just leave that be. Streamlined is more often good than bad. Was Dragon Age 2 streamlined? Not really, it was a complete overhaul. Was it bad? Yes. Mass Effect 2 was streamlined, but while armour customization was way down, the gameplay was much, much better. Mass Effect 3, still lacking the armour customization, was even better gameplay-wise ? even if the ending blows chunks.

Games evolve, old systems get new features added and systems that were kept around to deal with low processing power. This is how it is, and how it should be.

It doesn't matter if you call it "streamlined" or a "complete overhaul", It blew anyways. As for Masseffect 1 vs 2, I disagree. While the first one had alot of fucking around with the menu system it was easy enough to complete without changing equippement constantly. In ME2 you had about 2 of each different guns, which were still really similar. (One would think that you'd atleast make the 2 different) Also having to play a stupid minigame, that doesnt relate to the rest of the game at all, to get upgrades was stupid.

You mean like the lockpicking mini-games of Skyrim, the Dispelling mini-games of KoA, or a million other mini-games? Now I don't defend planet scanning in ME2, which was droll and poorly thought out, but griping about minigames seems pointless.

As for the equipment of ME2, I agree they didn't have enough equipment; everyone agreed on that, but frankly the gameplay was nowhere near as good as the second or third. Were the guns very similar? Yes, yet also a fair bit more different from each other than Mass Effect's weapons. Also, if the defence for an incredibly cluttered inventory is that it is mostly unnecessary, than that's a design failure.

 

[A Weakgeek]

I guess thats cool for those who liked DA2. I used to want Bioware to make a new KotOR, but seeing their new games I knew it would just blow, so I've given up. Just like DA3 will be a horrible piece of streamlined poop.

I almost don't want to respond to this, but I can't just leave that be. Streamlined is more often good than bad. Was Dragon Age 2 streamlined? Not really, it was a complete overhaul. Was it bad? Yes. Mass Effect 2 was streamlined, but while armour customization was way down, the gameplay was much, much better. Mass Effect 3, still lacking the armour customization, was even better gameplay-wise ? even if the ending blows chunks.

Games evolve, old systems get new features added and systems that were kept around to deal with low processing power. This is how it is, and how it should be.

It doesn't matter if you call it "streamlined" or a "complete overhaul", It blew anyways. As for Masseffect 1 vs 2, I disagree. While the first one had alot of fucking around with the menu system it was easy enough to complete without changing equippement constantly. In ME2 you had about 2 of each different guns, which were still really similar. (One would think that you'd atleast make the 2 different) Also having to play a stupid minigame, that doesnt relate to the rest of the game at all, to get upgrades was stupid.

You mean like the lockpicking mini-games of Skyrim, the Dispelling mini-games of KoA, or a million other mini-games? Now I don't defend planet scanning in ME2, which was droll and poorly thought out, but griping about minigames seems pointless.

As for the equipment of ME2, I agree they didn't have enough equipment; everyone agreed on that, but frankly the gameplay was nowhere near as good as the second or third. Were the guns very similar? Yes, yet also a fair bit more different from each other than Mass Effect's weapons. Also, if the defence for an incredibly cluttered inventory is that it is mostly unnecessary, than that's a design failure.

I disagree on the lockpicking argument. Since in most games (for example KotOR, Fallout or the Elderscrolls series or KoA) you can get everything (excluding some unique stuff) from other means than lockpicking. But from what I've experienced for myself (Might be wrong here) the minerals you get from crates during normal gameplay is so little that you cant get even 1/3rds of the upgrades without scanning. If you got more stuff from missions and the scanning just gave you stuff faster, (maybe some unique stuff in the mix) I'd have no problem. Then again, like ME1's system its in no way required on Normal, since the game is pretty easy. But getting nothing new, as opposed to only changing your equippement when you feel like, is worse.

While I think you're right that ME2 did make some good gameplay changes, I still think it did more wrong changes than right ones. But I admit that I'm the minority and understand that there is no reason for Bioware to cater to my tastes.