Why Dragon Age II Should Have Been a New IP

[Krantos]

You got one thing wrong! A party member from one of the origins in DA:O returns alongside Anders. Also Justice returns but he is part of Anders cause he possessed him at some point. Also Hawke is related to the mage from DA:O.

All of which sounds slightly contrived. Does it actually impact the story or is it simply something they throw in for the hell of it?

Also, Hawke being related to the mage doesn't make much sense. The Prologue established his sister is an apostate. It seems a little counter-intuitive that he has another relative that is part of the circle.

 

[ultrachicken]

I have to disagree with you that the combat is completely different - it's essentially the same thing, with a different coat of paint. You still press the same buttons to activate abilities, the action wheel is the same, you rotate through team members the same way, etc. The only difference is the speed and style of animations.

Also, why does the fact that the original Dragon Age used generic fantasy land discount the concept that the devs wanted to expand on the world? It wasn't an original concept, but plenty of people found the presentation top-notch, and expanding on a universe you've created is a satisfying activity, which the devs are most likely eager to continue.

 

[Aris Khandr]

My character in Origins is dead. Not much story to continue there. I like DA2, and if DA can turn into Bioware's own personal Forgotten Realms, I'm all for it.

 

[Shycte]

Umad? I fail to se why it should have been a new IP when the one that exists is perfectly fine. I haven't played the game yet, although I'm intend too. It hasn't been released here yet.

Anyway, I think that the universe that it takes place in is great and I'd love to return there. Also, if someone gets mad and starts hatin' on BioWare because of DA2, they need to get their head out of their ass.

 

[omegawyrm]

Also Dragon Age 2 is like an anime? WTF are you talking about?

Unrealistic physics, Character design, absurdly large weapons. I mean really:

need I say more?

Yeah you do need to say more.

The 2 handers are the same size they were in origins.
The physics are exactly the same as Origins' except people move fluidly now. And the game even does away with the ludicrously over the top execution animations from what I've played. Not sure how the first game could be described as having "realistic" physics anyway since you could do magic...
And the character designs look nothing like the traditional anime style.

So I still have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Rayne870]

Funny random thought, if you don't like it being called dragon age but can tolerate it as its own IP just make your own game cover for the case and skip past the intro sequences as fast as you can No harm or offensiveness meant by the statement, I just pictured some guy with a sharpie and a sticky note furiously renaming his game.

...I'm one of those people that pictures a one legged man with a hackey sack and starts laughing.

 

[RoBi3.0]

I think we get it. You don't like Dragon Age and would have preferred the Bioware 86 everything mention of it in DA2 and changed all the names and what not so it could be sold as a new IP.

The thing is it takes a lot of time and money to developed a game and game world. Why would a company waste all that with a shot shot game, only to start all over next development cycle to make a game that is stupid similar to the one they just put out. Especially when there is so much potential to continue developing the world.

You can't please everyone if Bioware made DA2 a new IP, there would be someone posting a thread right now ranting about how Bioware tricked him/her into buying a re-skinned and re-tool DA:O

 

[Super Toast]

Could and should are two very different things.

 

[Rayne870]

Could and should are two very different things.

I totally thought that earlier but then I decided not to say it for some reason.

 

[Kyogissun]

Sorry, I just see a lot of bitching for the sake of bitching.

The game's still fun, the world still feels like Thedas, the new party members are awesome and just...

Fuck man, play the game. If you're sitting there hating it that much as you play, then whatever, more power to ya. I'm gonna get back to adding onto the 4/5 hours I've already sunk into it, I stopped worrying about games needing to be new IP's and being innovative and being original a long time ago cause when I did, I started having fun.

Out of all the offenders of 'cash in sequels' out there, Dragon Age II has GOT to be at the bottom of the list of the most obvious choices.

And last I checked, Dragon Age II doesn't force you to run down a single line that curves every now and then like a certain other series from Bioware. The depth and freedom is still there, as is the SRPG style of gameplay and the world itself.

 

[pezwitch]

Dragon Age II > Dragon Age: Origins in my opinion.

They HAD to make it a sequel, or else people would've been like 'Why is there someone called Flemeth with the same voice as Flemeth in DA:O in the Age of Dragons: Kirkwall?'

I don't get why people are making such a big fuss about it.
It's a great game. They've made changes, yes, but if you don't like, then fuck off and play DA:O.

Why does the dragon mage person have to be named Flemith? Actors, voice actors in particular, often play different roles in different games.

And, since Bioware annoyed me by adding this game to the Dragon Age franchise, I pre-ordered The Sims Medieval this month instead of Dragon Age 2. The Sims Medieval game trailers and reviews made me excited about the game. I am only going to spend my money on games (and books and movies) I am excited about.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well known names sell better, and they sure as hell won't throw that opportunity away.
Most companies are atleast decent enough not sh*t on their own names, as is in this case, the game comes close enough to the first one and gone casual enough for every new player to hail it as "the best hardcore RPG ever made".

I do wonder if they went with a new IP how that would turn out.

 

[Krantos]

Unrealistic physics, Character design, absurdly large weapons. I mean really:

need I say more?

Yeah you do need to say more.

The 2 handers are the same size they were in origins.
The physics are exactly the same as Origins' except people move fluidly now. And the game even does away with the ludicrously over the top execution animations from what I've played. Not sure how the first game could be described as having "realistic" physics anyway since you could do magic...
And the character designs look nothing like the traditional anime style.

So I still have no idea what you're talking about.

I guess anime was the wrong term. JRPG would be more appropriate.

And the physics are considerably different. In Origins, movements had weight. The animations gave a good feeling of heft to everything the characters did from swinging a sword to casting a spell. In DAII (at least the demo) nothing seemed to have any weight. My character jumped four feet in the air with a two handed sword to do a standard power attack. Origins had similar moves, but there were only about 3 in the entire game (Ogre, Broodmother, and the Dragon finishers). DAII throws moves like that around like they're candy.

Also, the two handed sword is at least a good foot bigger in DAII. On a human they were slightly less than the height of the character. In DAII they go all the way to Hawke's feet and extend at least a foot above his head.

 

[omegawyrm]

I guess anime was the wrong term. JRPG would be more appropriate.

And the physics are considerably different. In Origins, movements had weight. The animations gave a good feeling of heft to everything the characters did from swinging a sword to casting a spell. In DAII (at least the demo) nothing seemed to have any weight. My character jumped four feet in the air with a two handed sword to do a standard power attack. Origins had similar moves, but there were only about 3 in the entire game (Ogre, Broodmother, and the Dragon finishers). DAII throws moves like that around like they're candy.

Also, the two handed sword is at least a good foot bigger in DAII. On a human they were slightly less than the height of the character. In DAII they go all the way to Hawke's feet and extend at least a foot above his head.

You played Origins, right? The animations in that game were incredibly floaty. You could cancel the biggest attacks and swings (other than executions) at any point by tapping any movement button. The mages looked incredibly silly because most of their animation consisted of slightly poking at the enemy. And in DA2, if you miss or are blocked then the attack animation is different, which almost never happened in Origins. In DA2, the animations are more closely correlated with what is actually happening.

And to me the two-handers in both games look like they are roughly the size of the characters carrying them.

It seems kind of pointless to continue this discussion honestly. You clearly hate the game for some reason that's not actually representative of what is in it. I'm sorry if you liked Origins and are upset at DA2 because it is different, but Origins was broken in many ways that have been fixed for the sequel.

 

[Krantos]

You clearly hate the game for some reason that's not actually representative of what is in it. I'm sorry if you liked Origins and are upset at DA2 because it is different, but Origins was broken in many ways that have been fixed for the sequel.

No, I don't hate the game. You clearly haven't been following what I've been saying. I'm not calling the changes from Origins to DAII bad. They're just different. Too different, imo, to be called the same name.

That's the point I've been trying to make. I'm not opposed to what BioWare did with DAII. I'm opposed to the fact that's its supposed to be a direct sequel.

There's a difference between an animation being fluid and having weight. Yes, the animations in DAII are much more fluid, but the character doesn't show any strain for what they're doing. Take the Ogre finishing move from Origins. Take the opportunity to watch a video of it sometime. The character goes through an considerable wind-up before jumping. They bend their knees and throw themselves forward. It's not a move any of us could make, but you still get the impression they had to work to pull it off.
To execute the four foot high jump in DAII I mentioned earlier, the character barely bends their knees before leaping straight into the air. There is little feeling of effort in anything they do.

Also, rather than simply saying Origins was broken, try telling me how. I'm not interested and won't bother responding when people just say I'm stupid, or that I hate the game. But if you can actually give a reason for your stance, please do so, I'd be happy to converse.

edit: as to the size of the weapons, I'm basing my estimates on the demo, maybe they're more reasonably sized in the actual game.

 

[Starke]

Honestly, the same argument is probably at least as valid when regarding Mass Effect 2 as DAO/DA2, and I think that might partially explain the situation on the whole. Bioware has taken to meddling with their sequels far too much, basically in the ways you're outlining. They want to further explore the setting or continue the story or whatever, but they seem to have no idea how to do that without massively altering or undermining the setting.

To an extent, but ME2 was at least still about Shepard and the Reapers. And the art style was the same. Less colorful, yes, but character models were at least recognizable.

Was it? Look seriously at the armor between games. It's still recognizable, but it's still distinctly different. The actual plot itself is another matter, the reapers are at best a parenthetical boogieman to the actual plot, they're there, but they aren't really relevant to the plot, if you dropped them from the game you'd lose basically nothing. Or if you dropped Shepard from the plot and replaced him/her with a Cerberus operative you'd lose nothing and seal up several serious plot holes.

They changed the mechanics, in both cases, claiming that they were streamlining the systems, but really it strikes me as after the fact meddling. So the short answer, why is it DA2 and not some new IP falls down to two points, 1) they can draw sales in on day one with a sequel far more effectively than they can with a new IP, and 2) because it began as a DA project, so why would it become something else just because they massively overhauled it in development.

Guess you have me there. Dragon Age II did get a lot of free advertising based on name recognition alone. It was only those of us paying attention to the press releases that realized how radically different it was.

As to the last point, we don't really know when in development the changes occurred. Remember the game came out roughly 1 1/2 years after the first. That's not a lot of time to have the mechanics change midway through. I suspect the changes were planned since the beginning, but, obviously, that's only conjecture.

You can add a year onto that for the timeframe between the completion of DAO and it's release, which puts it about at the same timeframe as ME2's development, and we can see how much it's systems mutated.

 

[DanielDeFig]

Lore. You dismiss it too quickly, it's the main reason why they made it a sequel. From the moment you finish Origins, it's clear from the epilogue that the developers hope to continue the story of what happens in Ferelden, and at the epilogue of Awakening, it's clear that they want to expand to somewhere else in Thedas. The choices and effects your characters had on the world can be imported from DA:O, but even if you don't do so you have the chance to explore more of the world and the lore of Dragon Age.

My argument was that the other elements are so drastically different that it should have a new setting. My statement about the world was there to say that the setting was not distinct enough that changing the names of things would change the experience or story.

For the same reason i play Kingdom Hearts on significantly different platforms (and usually with drastically different mechanics, like Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days) and swallow anything with the Star Wars label that piques my interest, i will buy Dragon Age 2. I have experienced Star Wars through just about every conceivable medium (And in gaming, throughout several different genres), including novels and videogames. I do it because i want to expand my experience of what can be done with the fictional Star Wars galaxy.


Your argument is that DA2 should have been a new IP because the game was so drastically different from DA:O, and the world in itself is so generic that it wouldn't make a difference if it was a different world.
So what? Star Wars started out as: young farmer boy meets mystical mentor and teach him about his powers, so he can go save a princess and "fulfill his destiny" by destroying the evil oppressors (how many times hadn't that been done?). But with the survival of Darth Vader and the Empire as a whole, we knew there must be more to it. And there was! A ton of new stuff. It turns out Lucas had actually started the story with this premise: War hero succumbs to his own darkness, but his twin children grow up to oppose him and ultimately save him from himself.

My point here is that you shouldn't dismiss DA just because its "another medieval fantasy", because for once the people who created the world actually care about it and are willing to use it to create interesting personal, political, and legendary stories within this world. And the point about how drastically different the game is not only irrelevant (as i explained above how method is irrelevant to presenting the same lore), but somewhat false. Yes, major changes were made, but they changes to areas of the game that could use improvement. But at the end of the day it still FEELS like Dragon Age, because that's what the developers wanted to create, despite the changes. (I have only played the demo, if the experience in this respect is significantly different in th full game, then i'm sorry but i wouldn't know. I highly doubt it though)