Dragon Age 2 and Bioware

[Yeager942]

As many of you may be aware, Dragon Age 2 has recently been released. As a fan of the first one, I am quite excited to get the chance to play its sequel. However, I did not anticipate the flak it would get from much of the PC playing community. I know the steam and bioware forums are an absolute riot right now, but most of what I'm reading is just vicious rhetoric.

What do you, members of the Escapist, think about Dragon Age 2 and its overall direction? Do you think its become just a shoddy console to PC port? Or do you think we've moved on from an outdated style of rpg's?

(Note: I am a PC player and love old-school rpg's. Personally, I have no opinion of Dragon Age 2 as I have yet to play it.)

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

As a console player, one of the few things I dislike is how we don't get the auto-attack toggle. I hit attack A LOT as a rogue. A LOT.

And the stupid achievement for not having anyone fall in battle for a year in Kirkwall. Damnit. I'll probably have to leave Hard soon if I want to get that.

I also especially dislike the way your family's appearance is dynamic, depending on your Hawke's appearance. I made 10 Ser Hawkes before I could get my mother and sister to not have hideous hairstyles.

 

[Korten12]

As a console player, the few things I dislike is how we don't get the auto-attack toggle. I hit attack A LOT as a rogue. A LOT.

And the stupid achievement for not having anyone fall in battle for a year in Kirkwall. Damnit. I'll probably have to leave Hard soon if I want to get that.

I also especially dislike the way your family's appearance is dynamic, depending on your Hawke's appearance. I made 10 Ser Hawkes before I could get my mother and sister to not have hideous hairstyles.

Odd. For me, I made a whole new Hawke and my family looked the same as in the demo...

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Odd. For me, I made a whole new Hawke and my family looked the same as in the demo...

I had short hair Bethany, and a bowl-cut mother at one point.

Carter...well...who cares? I'm not a mage, so...

Spoiler

He dies.

 

[Korten12]

Odd. For me, I made a whole new Hawke and my family looked the same as in the demo...

I had short hair Bethany, and a bowl-cut mother at one point.

Carter...well...who cares? I'm not a mage, so...

Spoiler

He dies.

Spoiler

wait... if your a mage, carter lives?

 

[AlternatePFG]

I'm about 5 hours in and I love it. It's true that it's further departed from Origins but the combat itself is fast and crazy. The game is challenging on Hard mode and I feel like the talent trees are a welcome improvement. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the dialogue wheel, but it's okay.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Odd. For me, I made a whole new Hawke and my family looked the same as in the demo...

I had short hair Bethany, and a bowl-cut mother at one point.

Carter...well...who cares? I'm not a mage, so...

Spoiler

He dies.

Spoiler

wait... if your a mage, carter lives?

Yeah.

And it's very annoying.

 

[kuyo]

I'm about 5 hours in and I love it. It's true that it's further departed from Origins but the combat itself is fast and crazy. The game is challenging on Hard mode and I feel like the talent trees are a welcome improvement. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the dialogue wheel, but it's okay.

I don't see why Bioware thinks it's so bad to actually let us know what we're going to say before we say it. It breaks immersion when I think I'm going to compliment someone's outfit and instead invite them to bed.

 

[The Madman]

I haven't picked up Dragon Age 2 yet, though I undoubtedly will eventually. But one of the things holding me off from buying it is, bluntly put, I'm tired of this goddamned DLC crap. I refuse to buy it, period. I've never payed for DLC for any game ever, nor will I ever because I feel that to buy this shit only supports what I feel is a piss-poor money-grabbing sceme the likes of which is capable of ruining the gaming industry as a whole should it continue to grow and become so pervasive.

So when before Dragon Age 2 was even released they're already discussing future DLC and the like, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If you want to expand on the game that's what expansions are for. Compile your additions, make them worthwhile, then package them into one convenient and fairly price deal. None of this nickle and dime crap!

Eug.

Plus I'm a bit disappointed that Dragon Age 2 drops the 'Origin' feature. I understand that it was a mechanic centred around the first game and that with the sequel Bioware are trying to go with a more singularly focused approach, but damn it, the origins were the best part of Dragon Age for me, they really were. It was the one really well implemented and genuinely clever mechanic in an otherwise somewhat forgettable experience. And I say that as a huge fan of Bioware to the degree I even put this together a few days ago:

Spoiler

But between the money-grubbin DLC and the loss of my favourite feature from the original game... well, I've little urge to pick up Dragon Age 2 right now. Oh I'm absolutely certain I'll get it eventually, but I'm in no rush and I'm willing to wait for a cheap deal.

Gameplay changes don't particularly bother me. Disappoint me a little maybe, I like the more heavily tactical combat approach and would have liked that to have been expanded upon rather than made yet more streamlined. But that's not what's left me so 'meh' about the sequel.

You asked, there you go.

 

[Souplex]

They're forcing us to play as a human in a fantasy RPG. That's like forcing us to play as an accountant.
I know voice acting can make that an issue, but couldn't they just have made Hawke a dwarf instead?

 

[Vanaron]

As many of you may be aware, Dragon Age 2 has recently been released. As a fan of the first one, I am quite excited to get the chance to play its sequel. However, I did not anticipate the flak it would get from much of the PC playing community. I know the steam and bioware forums are an absolute riot right now, but most of what I'm reading is just vicious rhetoric.

What do you, members of the Escapist, think about Dragon Age 2 and its overall direction? Do you think its become just a shoddy console to PC port? Or do you think we've moved on from an outdated style of rpg's?

(Note: I am a PC player and love old-school rpg's. Personally, I have no opinion of Dragon Age 2 as I have yet to play it.)

I'm still waiting for my unlock (24 hours to go). But one thing I learned from when ME2 was announced and is specially true on the internet:

"Hatters gonna hate".

Personally I'm going to reserve judgement 'till I actually play the game.

 

[BRMXJzjsoawk321]

-

 

[Shoelip]

All modern big name games must have full voice acting because someone arbitrarily decided that that was the case. Of course there's nothing that says they can't cripple other features in order to save money for the absolutely unquestionably essential fully voice acted dialogue.

FSM forbid we actually be required to use our imaginations.

The demo was really terrible. You can't even use the inventory. I had little interest in this game to begin with and it didn't help.

 

[Volkov]

Basically I agree with most of the flak it gets. I am more-or-less fine with keeping the main to a human, BUT - I am very much against the dumbing down of combat. The lack of friendly fire from mage spells, for instance. Lack of isometric camera. Essentially the conversion into an action-RPG.

I dislike console RPGs, and it is now a console RPG with a PC port. So, screw it. I realize that I am in the minority - but the minority is not as small as the analysts seem to think. Witcher did fine, and that was PC-only. So Witcher 2 is now the light in the darkness that I'll be looking too, and probably not just me.

 

[Shoelip]

Basically I agree with most of the flak it gets. I am more-or-less fine with keeping the main to a human, BUT - I am very much against the dumbing down of combat. The lack of friendly fire from mage spells, for instance. Lack of isometric camera. Essentially the conversion into an action-RPG.

I dislike console RPGs, and it is now a console RPG with a PC port. So, screw it. I realize that I am in the minority - but the minority is not as small as the analysts seem to think. Witcher did fine, and that was PC-only. So Witcher 2 is now the light in the darkness that I'll be looking too, and probably not just me.

You know that reminds me. I couldn't help but feeling during the city scene in the demo that this felt a lot like Final Fantasy 12 with more violence and less interesting art direction.

 

[Mr Thin]

It's awesome!

The only significant change I've noticed is that the combat is less tedious. For some reason it's become a staple to have RPG combat be insanely tedious, and Dragon Age 2 dared step away from that and make it slightly interesting and fast paced.

I have to admit I've only played the demo, but I don't care if it is a console port, it's way better than the original.

 

[adrian_exec]

There are many good and bad things that I can say about Dragon Age 2, but what I hate the most is how they managed to butcher one of my favorite characters from Origins, which of couse makes a comeback.

Spoiler

And namely Sandal, not only that he looks like a freaking zombie in Dragon Age 2, they even managed to destroy he's lovable line.

Check it out yourselves, it's horrendous now.

ps: have a little patience with the first video, it will load eventually or try to skip ahead a bit.

 

[MercurySteam]

Living in Oz so it doesn't come out till tomorrow.

 

[Volkov]

You know that reminds me. I couldn't help but feeling during the city scene in the demo that this felt a lot like Final Fantasy 12 with more violence and less interesting art direction.

I highly doubt that's where the inspiration came from. In the west, good artists simply won't work on video games, it's that simple. So if it feels uninspired... that's probably because it is. I mean, again, vast majority of game art is.