Preview: What's New in Dragon Age II

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RatRace123

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OniaPL said:
Second is the game's lenght. DA:O was really long, and it gave you a run for your money. Also, it felt really epic. I really had time to get to love the characters and the world. And lately I've heard talk of it being 1/2 of DA:O's lenght.
I hadn't heard that, but I agree DA:O did have a huge and epic length.
Still, even a game with half of DA:O's length is a still about a 30 hour game.
 

Fumbleumble

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RatRace123 said:
OniaPL said:
Second is the game's lenght. DA:O was really long, and it gave you a run for your money. Also, it felt really epic. I really had time to get to love the characters and the world. And lately I've heard talk of it being 1/2 of DA:O's lenght.
I hadn't heard that, but I agree DA:O did have a huge and epic length.
Still, even a game with half of DA:O's length is a still about a 30 hour game.
Is 30 hours an acceptable drop for you seeing as it comes from such an 'epic' heritage?

I'm not sure it is for me... that would be another strike against it and further proof that it's not really the game for me.. If I needed further proof that is. :/
 

AlternatePFG

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RatRace123 said:
OniaPL said:
Second is the game's lenght. DA:O was really long, and it gave you a run for your money. Also, it felt really epic. I really had time to get to love the characters and the world. And lately I've heard talk of it being 1/2 of DA:O's lenght.
I hadn't heard that, but I agree DA:O did have a huge and epic length.
Still, even a game with half of DA:O's length is a still about a 30 hour game.
Which oddly enough was how long it took me to complete Mass Effect 2.

IT'S A CONSPIRACY!
 

RatRace123

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AlternatePFG said:
Which oddly enough was how long it took me to complete Mass Effect 2.

IT'S A CONSPIRACY!
I didn't mention that... but me too!
Should we get the tinfoil hats?
 

AlternatePFG

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RatRace123 said:
AlternatePFG said:
Which oddly enough was how long it took me to complete Mass Effect 2.

IT'S A CONSPIRACY!
I didn't mention that... but me too!
Should we get the tinfoil hats?
Possibly, let's hope this is just a rumor. If it's true, I'll make an entire suit an armor out of tin foil just to be safe. While ME2's short length wasn't a deal breaker for me (It was much more fast paced than DA), I think if Dragon Age 2 isn't just as long as the first I might feel ripped off.

If only because, the quest is supposed to be spread out over a larger period of time, and it needs to be long to give it a sense of bigness.
 

jamesworkshop

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JaceValm said:
Two things I want in this game is the epiphany that all fantasy RPG makers need to have: Bigger doesn't always mean slower. Also, make the character have an ability to stand out from the crowd. I'll explain:

1/ Bigger doesn't always mean slower. In Medieval times there were soldiers that wore full body platemail and had large 2 handed weapons able to cleave a foe in half. They were not slow and ponderous like DA:O and TES have us believe. In actual fact, to keep up momentum with the weapon they needed to be constantly moving. Platemail slows people down like nothing else and is heavy. OK it is quite heavy but in quite a few instances it was lighter that chainmail and allowed for better movement. A soldier could do somersaults in platemail if they had the right acrobatic skills. In one of the DA2 trailers Hawke spins a greatsword with skill, this is what I want to see in DA2.

2/In the Wardens Keep DLC you get some really nice platemail, nobody else in Ferelden has the Warden Commanders platemail. When my warden wore it I felt special, when I wore apparel nobody else had I felt like a warden, unique, powerful, an expert. When I wore armour that wasn't unique I felt like a common soldier without any defining features. Weapons and armour should be unique to Hawke and his companions like Shepherd and the crew in ME2. Duncan had unique armour and he was the defining warden, unique with his own armour not available to anyone else. Something acquired by a legendary man such as a Warden Commander.

I just want to feel powerful, I never felt powerful in DA:O I felt like a soldier in a battle for attrition. Only the finishing moves on foes such as the Broodmother or the High Dragon made me feel powerful.Wearing Warden Commanders Plate with a unique greatsword standing atop a dragons or broodmothers head as it tries to buck you off but you eventually manage to kill it. That is cool, that is a protagonists way of fighting. I want the feel that you are a cut above the rest (the wardens select only the best right? and a champion should be as equally badass) and can hack people to bits.
I disagree DA:O did not make 2 handed warriors slower (combat was fairly slow in general) or made heavy armour (refers to full body protection not raw weight) walk or move slower.

They used fatigue which is appropriate, plate armour is tiring because it has poorer ventilation and inhibits breathing it requires a more judicious approach to combat.

Weight is mostly a non issue the load is distributed with mail shirts it could sit looped over a thick belt so it does not sit uncomfortably across the shoulders and plate supported itself to a degree.
It's self evident that people could effectivly fight in both, no one would spend the vast amounts on personally made armour only to make them less effective warriors.

Plate does inhibit movement for instance you lose a lot of flex that your torso has
(not that the torso can flex a great deal)
but the reality is that fighting doesn't require it, the articulation of limbs is more important and the level of enginering displayed in those areas is impressive.

2.
As for the fiction I saw the Wardens being in the same possition as the Templars vs non mages or non Darkspawn in the GW case simply being as good as any other warrior, the PC in DA:O was just a warrior.
Why would you feel unique in basic armour i'm not sure what you are try to say with that.


As for DA2 I would not worry Hawke is brutaly fast and the combat is much more kenetic
 

Fumbleumble

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blue_guy said:
Fumbleumble said:
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.
I agree that Bioware's "bigger pictures" are a bit crap, but its the smaller stuff like character interaction and development that makes their games great. Thats how it should be, really, games are limited to only a few plots because there must always be a Big Bad to kill, some friends to help and a whole bunch of other stuff that happens inbetween to justify spending $50 on the thing.

Oh, and get off your high horse about the "thought provoking originality" thing. The only difference between the RPGs of yore and the RPGs we have now is the lack of micromanaging your inventory and fiddling with your stats, neither of which helped with actual role-playing.

The masses aren't scared by "complexity", most people just prefer to avoid needless complexity (and unless you are currently using MS-DOS, so do you). If you want to manually dress and equip your hero and distribute "skill points" thats fine, but most people find it more of a chore (at least, I do). The new RPGs stand up on their own as good games that people can enjoy without also enjoying creating spreadsheets in Excel and that is why they are popular.

Anyway...

Looks like a pretty good sequel, the only thing I don't like the sound of is the crafting system. It would be fun the first time, but after you've found all the resource locations once it would just become a chore you do each playthrough.
You see needless complexity and a high horse... I see depth and a sidelined opinion.

.. see here we go again.. you say 'people' are happy.. I say the 'masses' are happy... where they NEVER were before... so something has changed, and quite significantly at that.

BTW.. don't get start getting sniipy 'cos you think you have a more valid opinion than mine... ...(edited)...

And I'm neither in the mood to let it pass... or get banned... so keep it nice.

You point of view isn't more valid to you than mine is to me.. and so far in the thread no one has managed to give even partial justification why it's better this new way, apart from that it appeals to more people... then the arguement just gets circular all over again.
 

SpireOfFire

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its anyone else kinda pissed that ur character is named "hawke"? i mean, hawke? thats not exactly androgenous or original or catchy. and in a fantasy world, that doesnt sound "fantastic". i can understand giving the protaganist a personality, a face, a voice, etc, and thats fine with me. but hawke?
 

Chadling

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....Meanwhile, I'll have to actually get around to playing the first. Oh, but I love the holidays.
 

s0m3th1ng

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Fumbleumble said:
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 o_O.

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.....
Marry me.
Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and ME2 were boring piles of shiny crap with "storylines" the length of the asteroid belt. It felt like a chore to slog through the endless linear corridors.
 

PiercisionBass

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Fumbleumble said:
I think devs have to stop holding our hands in combat.. 'balancing' sucks.. too MMO-ish if I come across a monster I can't kill, let me get better and come back too it.. and if I'm finding it too easy then let ME slow up a bit... TBH, I thought it was ME playing the game and NOT the designer. :(
This. I agree with this.
While I don't see eye to eye with you on BioWare's more recent games regarding story (I appreciated the stories in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2), I miss the not-so-far-gone days when I would get my low-level character smacked around by a monster and have to get better to defeat it.
I only felt like that maybe three times in Dragon Age.
 

Fumbleumble

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s0m3th1ng said:
Fumbleumble said:
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 o_O.

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.....
Marry me.
Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and ME2 were boring piles of shiny crap with "storylines" the length of the asteroid belt. It felt like a chore to slog through the endless linear corridors.
We're a dying breed... they're killing our games and we can't do a damned thing about it except for ***** on boards and piss off the insecure.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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Yeah, I'm not seeing these new graphics. If anything, the overall quality looks worse than Origins.

While Origins might have been brown and dated, it was still very detailed, at least on PC. I'm not really liking this new art style too much. They keep going on about how colorful it is, when all the gameplay trailers have been dominated by bland, grey areas.
 

ZippyDSMlee

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Sep 1, 2007
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unless they overhaul skills,equipment,ect to be deeper/more customizable and a true over world one can chose to fast travel in its just another 10$ game posing as something more.
 

ZippyDSMlee

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Sep 1, 2007
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Fumbleumble said:
s0m3th1ng said:
Fumbleumble said:
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 o_O.

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.....
Marry me.
Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and ME2 were boring piles of shiny crap with "storylines" the length of the asteroid belt. It felt like a chore to slog through the endless linear corridors.
We're a dying breed... they're killing our games and we can't do a damned thing about it except for ***** on boards and piss off the insecure.
Damn I thought I was along, I like the stories to ME,DA and such there is some witty if not cliche writing, but god...game play is lacking. Less deep/content is bad regardless of what it is. More is never ever a bad thing if there are choices to play it as simply as possible.
 

zedel

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Sep 16, 2010
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Velocirapture07 said:
This pisses me off so damn much. No offense to Susan who was reviewing the game, but I refuse to believe some of the stuff that the bioware guy said. "Lots of people didn't like the silent protagonist"....UM WHAT? Dao was game of the year and a best seller. The game was "old schooly" but that's one of the reasons I think it was successful.

There was no need to rewrite the book with the next installment, just fix the problems from the first one going forward. I think Bioware really kicked the can this time. There is no reason why DA had to be another Mass Effect.

I LOVE mass effect. But not all games have to be the same! The only excuse I can see (which bioware will never admit) is the money reason. But even that doesn't seem to make sense considering the unanticipated success of DAo with all its flaws...

Long story short I'm not buying this game. No matter how much everyone tells me it's better and how great it is, there is no excuse for such a dramatic shift. Dragon age didn't need fully voiced player characters to tell a good story, no game does. The loss of choice and customization is just too much for me. Try again bioware...
This mirrors my feelings on the matter fairly well...though I didn't like mass effect, but c'est la vie. I truly enjoy games that allow for choice and customization. I had been waiting in anticipation for years for Dragon Age because it was heralded as a throwback to the good days. Thus, I would feel far too much cognitive dissonance should I purchase a game that becomes the opposite of what it stood for.
 

Loonerinoes

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Yep. This topic had a lot of replies and I just knew that it had to be due in no small part to all of the 'hardcore crusty veterans of old', who have to tell us how RPGs are dying in front of our eyes and how *TRUE STORIES* are being killed (lolwut? Last I checked Baldur's Gate or Planescape aren't being stricken from the Earth's collective memories because of newer games) and how they're the only ones smart enough to recognize it and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a sheep and how Bioware have totally sold out now.

*chuckles* As someone who's been around the RPG scene since the early 90s, I guess it's just interesting to watch a person I could've been.

Aaaaanyway...to not get into a discussion about that, which will surely end in bans or probations, to the topic at hand.

As far as I remember archery did not suck...so long as you *really* knew what you were doing in maths. It was one of those things for min/maxers really. Either you didn't know how to properly stat and gear your rogue archer and it sucked for you big time (which happened to me on the first playthrough btw), or you looked up the mechanics and you wound up with an overpowered PC that could kill with a look. And it just got more insane in Awakening, even if it changed to a DEX/STR basis from CUN.

As for everything else...I love the new skill system idea really, as said - it looks a lot more forgiving. Though if I were to guess it does look a bit as dry as that of Mass Effect 2. Nothing significantly wrong with that, since I'm sure there'll be plenty of abilities hidden within those trees regardless, but they might want to think about expanding that in any future installments. Part of the reason DA:O's spells and skills took so much of one's time was exactly because there were so many of them, which allowed for so many different combinations.

So I guess I'm just a bit concerned that type of variety will possibly be gone in DA2 in the favour of having classes have their signature moves. And I agree - a rogue should play like a rogue and a warrior should play like a warrior. Just...would be nice if a bit of room would be left to give that rogue or warrior something different from most.

Otherwise things look alright. Guess none of us will really know until we get to play it, but that said I don't mind the changes too much. I only worry that the DA team might decide to start emulating the design choices from the ME team a bit too much. You see, part of what made me excited about Bioware's approach to Dragon Age and Mass Effect was that they used different design philosophies. And no matter what all the pundits and experts in the stands said, it provided a different experience - and that's a good thing! I read about people saying that they played Dragon Age, but had no interest at all in playing Mass Effect and viceversa. And you know what? I loved seeing that!

I guess I'm just worried that the DA team might decide to take the easy way out when it comes to design choices and emulate Mass Effect to the point where playing Dragon Age games will feel...a bit too much like Mass Effect. :S But other than that, looks alright and I'll definitely be getting it either way.