Preview: What's New in Dragon Age II

[CatmanStu]

Although I found the lack of a character voice somewhat jarring for a current generation game, I'm not sure about the direction of a completely new character. I assumed the idea of the name Origins was to give you a cast of characters that you would care about from game to game (as in Mass Effect) so if you want to use a fully voiced character rather than waste narrative time building empathy for a new character, why not choose two characters from the supporting cast (the obligatory one male one female). I think it would be really interesting to play as someone who has a defined characterisation and watch them evolve based on your playing style (Leliana becoming a cynical agnostic or Sten becoming a warmer people person.) I personally would accept a shorter game to be able to see something like that.

They could even do something with Morrigan to give insight to what the hell is going on with her because the Witch Hunt expansion sure didn't.

 

[Seneschal]

Don't care..

Everyone trots out the same tired old BS about Bioware's 'excellent' writing....

Well I say you're all just sheep bleating away and that you wouldn't know HONESTLY good writing if it bit you on the arse.

Bioware's spewings are the same crap reguritated again and again, there isn't an 'original' story in the entire house.

GOOD writing is tight, cohesive and logical, with twists here and there.... Bioware has none of that any longer and haven't had since Jade Empire and that was truly the end of it and it's been sketchy at best since BGII.

Good ISN'T pages and pages of turgidly dry backstory that hopes to beat you down with the sheer amount of irrelevence, and Bioware is now all of that... DA is just the same story they've been telling since BG1... the stage is the same, they just messed around with some of the players backstory. Is no-one surprised they're not sick and tired trotting out the same old wretched fantasy offering, because I'm CERTAINLY sick of the same crap over and over again.. Big evil rears it's head, only one man can stop it and on the way he makes some friends.. Is Bioware really unable to think of another senario? REALLY?.. and DA2 looks more of the same, but this time you don't even get make your own character .

And the less said about the mish mash of broken ends, contradictions and plot holes that CONTINUES to be ME, the better. The first sets a good stage, they fire the writer.. the second goes off at a tangent, taking your char down paths that weren't even cosistant with the char of the first and NOW for the third they can't even stick to the rules for the big bad that they set in the first, good grief it was only a few years agao.. didn't they READ what they were writing?... WAAAA FANBOY ALERT... don't say that, you suck.. lies, WAAAA. I DEFY any of you to find ANY part of their recent storylines that can actually be called original.. or at least not rehashed from the same old same old stories that are constantly and persistantly told again, and again, and again.

If ANY of you are actually interested in good writing and originality, go play Arcanum.. or better yet Planescape: Torment, Bioware couldn't hold a candle to those games in terms of writing, not even in their hayday.

Biowares constant repetition is almost as bad as your constant procamations of their 'leetness'... I suppose it just gives you someything to say, and makes you feel as if you're all a part of something.

And I haven't even started on the dumbass gameplay.....

You know... I kind of agree with you. There's a lot of people that just equate "best videogame writing" with "world-class written material", when BioWare is and has been writing pulp for the last 5 years. Previously great pulp, nowadays outright repetitive pulp. I was stunned by how bad and contrived the main plotline of Mass Effect 2 was (in comparison to KotOR, or even ME1 for that matter, a game I considered unplayable but interesting).

But like all genuinely great pulp, they have their moments of brilliance - all of Mordin, Jack's loyalty mission, Morrigan's proposal at the end of DAO... It's just that they used to have loads of those back in the day! No more shocking Darth Revan reveals or Jon Irenicus' wife's glistening perfectly-preserved bedroom in the middle of his torture-dungeon!

And I don't believe they have the best-written videogames either. They just have loads of dialogue, a lot of it's humorous, and they focus on the characters' backgrounds and motivations. It's like Buffy the Vampire Slayer in videogame form. Only Whedon kept it tight and mixed things up ("Hush", "The Body"), while BioWare is just dumbing it down lately. Not that ME2 wasn't a fantastic shooter to play (I've shot my share of guns in gaming, and this was probably the most satisfying shooter yet) but the main plot is so bare-bones and devoid of urgency and drama that they might as well have called it "Dr. Shepard's Therapy Ship for Troubled Milky Way Denizens". At least that would be charming and without the forced epic space opera.

 

[OniaPL]

I never felt Dragon Age was too hard, in fact it was pretty average difficulty on nightmare. But then again, Bioware assumed people would know in what order to complete the "missions". They just had put it up on the internet somewhere. At first I struggled too, but after finding this it was pretty easy.

Ostagar / Korkari Wilds > Lothering > Mage Tower > Redcliffe Village and Redcliffe Castle > Brecilian Forest > Haven > and then after all this you can hit Denerim or Orzammar in either order you prefer > then Landsmeet and the rest of the game.

 

[Supernova2000]

I just hope the give the Grey Wardens more powers than a) having nightmares about a black dragon b) the ability to sense - and be sensed by - Darkspawn (which just leaves you back at square one) and c) a shortened lifespan.

DA:O was the 1st game I'd ever played where there was absolutely no benefit to joining it's own exclusive badass organisation!

 

[Fumbleumble]

l:Ol

Dude.. I don't mind someone saying I'm wrong... what I DO mind is someone saying I'm wrong and providing absolutely no justification for their point of view.

So tell me.. what part of my statement is inaccurate?

He's just trolling, let him be.
Me, on the other hand, just think your idea of context is a bit off. T.S. Elliot said it best, "Good writers borrow, great writers steal."

Of course they are telling the same story, most epic tales are just repeats of the old ones. DA:O is copying BG which is borrowing from Lord of the Rings, which takes a lot of information from Norse stories (and I skipped a few steps in there). I can do it again with other epics. Paradise Lost borrows from the Divine Comedy and in that Dante clearly states he is taking passages directly from Virgil's Aeneid which is a Roman retelling of the Odyssey that some modern scholars are doubting came from Homer (and if that is the case, someone else is concluding the Iliad story).

Absolutely agreed.. fair point, I won't argue there.

However Bio don't even try now, they don't have to, there's enough people saying how marvellously super uber they are that all comments to the opposite are drowned out in a fanboi squee.

Those of us who continue to actually read books in this age recognise their meanderings as trite and tired, I'll conceed that they can sometimes write dialogue adequately... Alister honestly made me laugh more than a few times, but mostly that was down to the vioce actor who's inflections were immaculate and not down to what was actually said/written. However Bioweary's (see what I did there :O) bigger pictures are so godawful cliched and regurgitated that you can see the joins from everyone elses efforts that have come before them.

There are only a few original stories to be written, but they can be written in infinately varying manners. Why is it always the big bad and the chosen one with his friends?.. That's not the only senario that can be written, but it's the only one Bio are capable of writing and that fact that that has become so screamingly obvious is what makes them the tired old man at the orgy.

Bioware are now irrelevent to original, though provoking storytelling and gameplay, and their persistance at this new gameplay direction is what proves it. The only reason it has become so hot now is that it is actually so dumb in general now that the masses can finally 'get it'.

Real RPG player's have been playing this kind of story for decades and we're tired of it's unoriginality and angry at how such a thought provoking and original genre has become so dumb and common place.

If rpg's were STILL the game's that they used to be, they WOULDN'T be as popular as they are, because by definition though provoking originality is a niche market and doesn't travel to the masses, because like it or lump it, the masses gravitate to the dumber bands of playing and complexity scares the shit out of them because they would never want to ruin their own self image by coming to see themselves as anything other than equal, in inteligence or capable understanding, as those of us who seek out complexity in our leisure.

If someone wants to flame me for that statement be my guest.. but it's never gonna make it less true.

 

[Fumbleumble]

l:Ol

Dude.. I don't mind someone saying I'm wrong... what I DO mind is someone saying I'm wrong and providing absolutely no justification for their point of view.

So tell me.. what part of my statement is inaccurate?

Is it the the part about the same old, same old? Or maybe it's the incohesive storylines?... It can't be the dumbing down (sorry, WHOLESALE REMOVAL) of rpg gameplay, that one's a given.

I never said you were wrong, just said you were mad. I could feel the anger oozing out of the words. Was it pointless to point that out? Yes, very. But... yeah.

OH.. mad as in pissed off angry..... then yeah... have a biccie.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Can someone clear something up for me I'm slightly confused, I know that you can't pick your race etc. but can you make the character look the way you want to? Because I read somewhere you can't not a massive concern because the game itself look awesome but I think costumization is important in sense of uniquness and immersion.

Thank god the combat mechanics are different it was infuriating waiting for my warden to go and attack something it did feel much like dice rolling, but when it got going it was good. But I'm also grateful for the graphics revamp see I thought the Brecillian Forest looked pretty, but there was a HECK of a lot of brown, but I did LOVE DA:O

Oh, excellent question. Yes, you can customize your appearance however you like, though both of the defaults are pretty damn hot.

I just hope the give the Grey Wardens more powers than a) having nightmares about a black dragon b) the ability to sense - and be sensed by - Darkspawn (which just leaves you back at square one) and c) a shortened lifespan.

DA:O was the 1st game I'd ever played where there was absolutely no benefit to joining it's own exclusive badass organisation!

Grey Wardens don't actually feature much in DA2. They are part of the world, but not the part you're focused on.

 

[Grey_Focks]

snip

http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/u-mad1.jpg
Seriously though, chill out.

OT- Sounds good to me. First one was awesome, but some of the classes (or parts of the classes) just felt "blech" to me. Hopefully this time a dual-wielding rogue will feel different than a dual-wielding warrior, at least.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I don't think it was very professional to crap all over DA1. It wasn't pretty but it wasn't butt ugly and I was plainly aware of my character's race. Also: I don't see why the character is referred to as 'silent' and being without personality. Your main character takes on whatever character and voice you, the player, give him or her. From a vocal sociopath, to a well mannered murderer to a silver-tongued angel of mercy. Saying the main character of DA is without personality is synonymous with saying you personally have no personality.

Anyway: my interest is finally beginning to arise when I read about journeying with a sibling, mainly to see if incest will be in the game. I loved how in DA I got to play as a male elf and bed Zevron.

The level system sounds like a great improvement and yes, adding color to the world sounds great too. I just wish I could continue playing as an Elf.

When was the difficulty balance "way off"?

I never noticed difficulty issues. I remember killing Revenants and, Orges relatively easily no matter where they were.

 

[CJ1145]

or better yet Planescape: Torment,

Oh fuck, you're one of THEM, aren't you? That crazy *****-ass cult that's been coming out of the woodwork all this month to verbally rape me and anybody else that likes BioWare games, and then gush and gush about Planescape and all the other half-finished piles of Black and Gray morality bullshit from Black Isle and its demonic bastard children Troika and Obsidian. Well, no more! I've been letting you nightmarish creatures torment me for too long, but I shall not tolerate your presence! Therefore, I SAY TO THEE:

If you don't like the game, please kindly leave the thread and do not come back.

OT: Well, that relieves my fears a lot Susan. I've been having some big fears about the weird changes this game's making. If you've played it, can you confirm if the darkspawn are as stupidly cartoony as they look in the concept art?

 

[Fumbleumble]

Can someone clear something up for me I'm slightly confused, I know that you can't pick your race etc. but can you make the character look the way you want to? Because I read somewhere you can't not a massive concern because the game itself look awesome but I think costumization is important in sense of uniquness and immersion.

Thank god the combat mechanics are different it was infuriating waiting for my warden to go and attack something it did feel much like dice rolling, but when it got going it was good. But I'm also grateful for the graphics revamp see I thought the Brecillian Forest looked pretty, but there was a HECK of a lot of brown, but I did LOVE DA:O

Oh, excellent question. Yes, you can customize your appearance however you like, though both of the defaults are pretty damn hot.

I'm sorry Susan, but that's twice now you've made some kind of psuedo sexual referrence in relation to this game, unfortunately I have to hold you up as a prime example of the new RPG player that is being catered to now.

Yes, relationships (although relationship used to mean just the type of camaraderie you had with your party, not 'relationship' relationship, although they exisited in moderation too) have always been a part of Biowares games and they used to be done with at least a modicum of wit and subtlety... but all that's gone now. It was beaten to death with obvious innuendo and the unending need for vicarious cheap thrills, and today's market is what we are left with.

I hope you don't see this as an outright personal attack, however you (and may I say most of today's audience) are an anathma to players of my particular bent.

It's only pixels.. how satisfying can that actually be? :/

 

[NooNameLeft]

I just hope the give the Grey Wardens more powers than a) having nightmares about a black dragon b) the ability to sense - and be sensed by - Darkspawn (which just leaves you back at square one) and c) a shortened lifespan.

DA:O was the 1st game I'd ever played where there was absolutely no benefit to joining it's own exclusive badass organisation!

You can kill the Archdemon?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

''Even on the Xbox 360''... - Oh lord, take cover, the trolls! they are coming!

Yeah, I read that and went, "Um, probably not the best phrase."

On Topic: They are fixing the two things that bothered me. The visuals (how many times did my character's head twitch when he was trying to look somewhere, or her hand go through her forehead instead of just rubbing her brow?) and the dialogue. I was a bit miffed when I got to choose a voice, and then my character never actually TALKED!
I'm more intrigued by the story however. How is there another Blight so soon? What happened with the events in Awakening? Where are the Wardens? So many questions...really looking forward to this.

EDIT: Good Lord, there's a lot of hate in this thread. Calm down people.

 

[Woodsey]

I don't think it was very professional to shit all over DA1. It wasn't pretty but it wasn't butt ugly and I was plainly aware of my character's race. Also: I don't see why the character is referred to as 'silent' and being without personality. Your main character takes on whatever character and voice you, the player, give him or her. From a vocal sociopath, to a well mannered murderer to a silver-tongued angel of mercy. Saying the main character of DA is without personality is synonymous with saying you personally have no personality.

Anyway: my interest is finally beginning to arise when I read about journeying with a sibling, mainly to see if incest will be in the game. I loved how in DA I got to play as a male elf and bed Zevron.

The level system sounds like a great improvement and yes, adding color to the world sounds great too. I just wish I could continue playing as an Elf.

Agreed with your personality points - the character is there to take on fully the personality that you give them.

I'd have preferred them to be voiced if I'm honest, but it's impossible to say they didn't have personality since that's what you spend the entire game crafting.

 

[Seneschal]

When was the difficulty balance "way off"?

The difficulty would adjust automatically to follow the player's progression, but there seemed to be a weird random factor. I know a friend of mine gave up the game for a long while because he got stuck on Normal, then picked it up again and it was a breeze. Generally people give inconsistent reports on the difficulty, and even within one playthrough it would shift from piece-of-cake to insanely-frustrating and back.

I'm not entirely sure that what they're doing here is in the best interest of storytelling. I couldn't care less if they simplified the interface for consoles, less is more for me. But a voiced protagonist and a conversation wheel? Since when did Mass Effect have better conversation choices than DAO?! Isn't the general consensus that the wheel is far less expressive and accurate, that ME had much less complex moral choices, and that the neutral choice was entirely pointless because it didn't give you paragon/renegade points? Regardless of the quality of the writing in ME (and I felt ME2 characters were slightly better-handled than their DAO equivalents), ME2 conversations were more linear and misleading than any other WRPG, much closer to JRGP territory of interactive movie.

Yes, the customized silent protagonist was better in the Baldur's Gate era when everything was 2D, all characters were abstract representations of themselves with limited animations, and 50% of the game you already had to imagine yourself. Imagination was the strength of those games, that's why they felt vivid. In DAO, with good graphics and facial animations, it's hard to suspend disbelief when your avatar just stoically stands and clicks on conversation choices.

But if better graphics and voice acting means we have to let go of roleplaying because it's too resource-intensive, aren't we on the wrong path as far as RPGs are concerned? Maybe I should rename BioWare my favorite "action-adventure" developer now.

Allow me to just interject one thing about the dialog wheel in DA2 - it offers far more choices than ME2 (or seemed to, anyway). In ME2, you pretty much had the Paragon choice, the Renegade choice, maybe something neutral and then choices that let you probe for more information. In DA2, the top choice isn't always good-natured, and the lower choice isn't always "bad guy." From what I saw, it seems more nuanced than just good/bad, but of course it's tough to get a real perspective on something like that from just a few hours of play.

Oh! Phew! I really feel that the grey-and-grey morality is at the heart of what DAO was trying to be, especially with 50% of the choices never appearing twice (encouraging careful choosing) and most lines being arranged randomly, which made you read through them and choose more cautiously.

Without wanting to bash the near-perfect experience that was ME2, it really did drop the ball on this one. All it had was two insufferably extreme Picard/Mal Reynolds choices, and a neutral choice that penalized you later in the game. As far as consequence goes, most of them were just "press X to see Shepard act as a douchebag/Mother Teresa", and purely for spectacle. Plus, you get to exhaust all dialogue choices except the paragon/renegade ones, so conversations are usually a linear "click on everything" sequence.

The wheel arrangement does work for thumbsticks, though. I'm just worried that every line in DA2 will now have to be neatly summarized in two words. It's quite a limiting factor.

 

[Fumbleumble]

Seriously though, chill out.

Sorry man.. but, no.

As long as I see this type of gameplay being lauded as the best thing since sliced bread, and having the audacity to call itself a 'real' RPG, then I'll be here raging away and trying to avoid the banhammer long enough to make my point... over and over again if I'm not being heard or understood the first time.

THEY ARE KILLING MY GAMES :<

 

[Seneschal]

When was the difficulty balance "way off"?

The difficulty would adjust automatically to follow the player's progression, but there seemed to be a weird random factor. I know a friend of mine gave up the game for a long while because he got stuck on Normal, then picked it up again and it was a breeze. Generally people give inconsistent reports on the difficulty, and even within one playthrough it would shift from piece-of-cake to insanely-frustrating and back.

Well yeah, some areas are set for higher level characters so you have to go back to them later.

Did people not know that?

I sure didn't. Am I supposed to read the manual or the website for it? Other BioWare titles have equally challenging choose-quests-in-whatever-order parts, so I just assumed.

Plus, I've tried to play the game in reverse and even then the difficulty was all over the place. I dispatch the broodmother easily, then I get killed by a horde or regular darkspawn. Not even an Elite amongst them. Then quickload and I kill the same group effortlessly. Then Branka kicks my ass. It's just weird.

 

[Fumbleumble]

or better yet Planescape: Torment,

Oh fuck, you're one of THEM, aren't you? That crazy *****-ass cult that's been coming out of the woodwork all this month to verbally rape me and anybody else that likes BioWare games, and then gush and gush about Planescape and all the other half-finished piles of Black and Gray morality bullshit from Black Isle and its demonic bastard children Troika and Obsidian. Well, no more! I've been letting you nightmarish creatures torment me for too long, but I shall not tolerate your presence! Therefore, I SAY TO THEE:

If you don't like the game, please kindly leave the thread and do not come back.

OT: Well, that relieves my fears a lot Susan. I've been having some big fears about the weird changes this game's making. If you've played it, can you confirm if the darkspawn are as stupidly cartoony as they look in the concept art?

Wow... I and people lke me are the 'raper's' but it's you who can't even stand to see a different point of view written on your screen and aren't even willing to post an arguement, eloquent or not, in favour of your point of view, but you want us all gone?.. I have the feeling we make you inadequate.

Yeah.. guess how relevent your screaming abdab witisms are.