I for one am looking forward to it. The character models look so much better than DA:O.
The demo had decent gameplay, but I will definitely be switching to the more classic Origins style with auto attack, and the roll numbers showing up. While there were some glaring flaws with the first one, and undoubtedly there will be similar flaws with this, the story looks to be an interesting change compared to the last 5 Bioware games.
Finally, I haven't ever been let down by a Bioware game, and I have been sorely missing an RPG since New Vegas.
Gonna roll a Dual Wield female Rogue, screw Carver.
SA forums user gibbed is hacking the demo and he was able to import his save into the demo. Here's what he has to say (might be spoilers? Perhaps? There's not really anything spoilerish to me personally):
A save creator would be incredible. Barring that, I really wish there was a website that had a bunch of DAO saves, similar to the Mass Effect one prior to ME2's launch last year. http://dragonagesaves.com/ seems to have been made for Awakenings, besides having so few selections.
Then again, I was generally underwhelmed by how ME2 handled most references, so I have low expectations for DA2, being a quasi-reboot. "Hey, you've never met me, but let me tell you about how I knew this Warden guy back in Ferelden!"
Eh, I'm kind of drunk, so I wish I hadn't posted that bolded part. My point was that despite my personal hype for the game, the PR wasn't great. Like I said, I'm still there Day 1 for DA2, but you can't fault people calling a spade a spade with some of those PR quotes. I'm biased in this debate in that I loved DA:O. But, I can remain objective. The game is coming out March 8. The PR quotes don't match up with what we've been shown or played. DA:O wasn't a techical showcase on consoles, but it's still my favorite RPG this gen partly because they said what it was and didn't promise so much.
Yup, right there with you. I love DA:O and I'm replaying right now, actually I'm choking on the amount of content I need to get through by next tuesday. I'm getting DA2 day one but I won't play it until I've finished my "master" DA:O save state.
But I digress, the DA2 marketing campaign has been a train wreck. This David Silverman that EA/BioWare has as the franchise's "brand manager" clearly doesn't care about appealing to BioWare's established audience that existed well before the company's success on consoles. I hope the sequel does well, but more so I hope that BioWare/EA understands that they've clearly made a mistake with their marketing strategies.
Correction. Female character models. However, Male character models now suck (like default Hawke and that templar; his cheeks, what happened to his cheeks?). I don't understand why they don't pull a Shepard and get a real life model to base the default on. The Shepard default completely outclasses anything that Bioware's shitty character maker can make in ME2.
I thought the demo was servicable (PC) for my RPG needs, I will be keeping my pre-order; though I will not be able to FULLY enjoy playing this game until the following mods are available:
-Iso/Detatchable Camera
-PC friendly User Interface
-Reduced Combat Speed
-Reduced Cooldown Timer for Heal(s)
Until then, I'll probably stick with DA:O and complete my 5th playthrough. Then I'll come back after whatever patches and mods DA2 needs are available.
Correction. Female character models. However, Male character models now suck (like default Hawke and that templar; his cheeks, what happened to his cheeks?). I don't understand why they don't pull a Shepard and get a real life model to base the default on. The Shepard default completely outclasses anything that Bioware's shitty character maker can make in ME2.
That admittedly may be the case. I always play females in Bioware games however. Generally the VO work is far superior, and in my experience that is the result in DA2 as well.
Cheeks have always looked really weird in this series, even in Origins. The characters either have mumps or haven't eaten in weeks. They get it right with Morrigan and the ladies, why must the men look so weird at certain angles?
Yup, right there with you. I love DA:O and I'm replaying right now, actually I'm choking on the amount of content I need to get through by next tuesday. I'm getting DA2 day one but I won't play it until I've finished my "master" DA:O save state.
But I digress, the DA2 marketing campaign has been a train wreck. This David Silverman that EA/BioWare has as the franchise's "brand manager" clearly doesn't care about appealing to BioWare's established audience that existed well before the company's success on consoles. I hope the sequel does well, but more so I hope that BioWare/EA understands that they've clearly made a mistake with their marketing strategies.
That I think we all can agree to. Starting with DA1 "this is the new shit" and continuing with "press a button, awesome things happen" the management of the brand has been shit.
If what he says is true my own worst fears are materializing. Developers who would use these player-tracking statistics to influence game development are only looking at half of the data, and the lowest common denominator at that. You know what you get when you cater to those fools? McDonalds.
I'm finding this rhetoric to be pretty shortsighted. One common thing regarding the complaints of this game is the failure to acknowledge that streamlining something is not the same as dumbing it down. Using five-dollar words doesn't make you smarter, and needless complexity doesn't make a game better. That's not an attack at you. It's just something I've noticed in general.
WanderingWind said:
Except we have no way of verifying that, those numbers could be based on faulty reports, rentals, etc. It could also be the result of a piss poor marketing campaign - which if this is the case - the game won't sell this time around because those same people won't bite a second time with a name they've come to recognized.
Well, I can only speak for myself here. I did not enjoy the time I spent with Dragon Age: Origins, but I also didn't see (or maybe remembered seeing) any of the marketing before doing so. I enjoyed KOTOR for its time, but I think many tedious aspects of the game are best left in the past. When I saw some of those things come up again in DA:O, I was turned off. I spoke with someone recently who is a big fan of DA:O, and he said he spent something like 60 hours with the game, and half of those hours were spent wading through the inventory. Unless the menus are a lot of fun to play with, I am an adult who values his free time and I don't find anything appealing about that, especially having experienced DA:O's menus. While I think the main concepts of Dragon Age are great, I don't think that streamlining all the superficial tediousness around it ruins it.
I'm finding this rhetoric to be pretty shortsighted. One common thing regarding the complaints of this game is the failure to acknowledge that streamlining something is not the same as dumbing it down. Using five-dollar words doesn't make you smarter, and needless complexity doesn't make a game better. That's not an attack at you. It's just something I've noticed in general.
Well, I can only speak for myself here. I did not enjoy the time I spent with Dragon Age: Origins, but I also didn't see (or maybe remembered seeing) any of the marketing before doing so. I enjoyed KOTOR for its time, but I think many tedious aspects of the game are best left in the past. When I saw some of those things come up again in DA:O, I was turned off. I spoke with someone recently who is a big fan of DA:O, and he said he spent something like 60 hours with the game, and half of those hours were spent wading through the inventory. Unless the menus are a lot of fun to play with, I am an adult who values his free time and I don't find anything appealing about that, especially having experienced DA:O's menus. While I think the main concepts of Dragon Age are great, I don't think that streamlining all the superficial tediousness around it ruins it.
If the inventory is broken they should fix it. Instead they choose to remove as much as they can to avoid any issues. That is dumbing it down because they are making it simpler to play by deleting features from a previous game.
I thought the demo was servicable (PC) for my RPG needs, I will be keeping my pre-order; though I will not be able to FULLY enjoy playing this game until the following mods are available:
-Iso/Detatchable Camera
-PC friendly User Interface
-Reduced Combat Speed
-Reduced Cooldown Timer for Heal(s)
Until then, I'll probably stick with DA:O and complete my 5th playthrough. Then I'll come back after whatever patches and mods DA2 needs are available.
Except we have no way of verifying that, those numbers could be based on faulty reports, rentals, etc. It could also be the result of a piss poor marketing campaign - which if this is the case - the game won't sell this time around because those same people won't bite a second time with a name they've come to recognized.
Regardless, trying to tailor a sequel toward people who didn't give a shit enough to play your first game, rather than the people who did is fucking ridiculous logic, and the fact that anybody believes so ought to be fired from any decision making position. It's bewildering ass backwards to market an already successful product at people who hate you. You're not going to win them over.
I would amend that a little to say "trying to tailor a sequel toward people who didn't give a shit enough to play your first game, to the exclusion of the people who did is fucking ridiculous".
There are arguments to be made in favour of catering exclusively to an existing fanbase (and in principle I support the idea, even though in this case it would probably mean I wouldn't touch DA2 with a 20-foot pole taped onto the end of a 30-foot pole), but from a business standpoint, if you don't try to broaden the game's appeal you're almost definitely going to see stagnation in the game's sales.
The thing is though, that definitely doesn't require you to alienate that preexisting fanbase. There's always going to be a group of curmudgeonly old fans who will react violently and negatively to any change, whether it actually affects what they liked about the first game or not, but you can definitely keep the soul of your game intact and deliver to the majority of the fanbase while still branching out to new players - look at how Dead Rising 2 turned out, even with all the esoteric design decisions that were kept from the first game.
I don't even think Bioware necessarily failed at juggling those two goals with DA2, at least going off of what I've seen/played so far. It's more that they've made so many ridiculous blunders in speaking publicly about the game that its perception among the fanbase gets more tarnished every time they open their mouths. Going on about how much work has been put into improving the graphics only to come out with "Shit Mountain" as the first thing anyone sees is going to create a first impression that's hard to bounce back from. The "Fight like a Spartan" nonsense and trying to show off the game as an action RPG is one hell of a backfire - people who want tactical combat are going to go in expecting and looking for ways to see it as an action RPG (when for the most part the only differences are a zoomed in camera and defaulting the console versions to what is essentially just a gimped version of the normal auto-attack that requires maintenance), and people who are initially attracted by the idea of an action RPG are going to notice immediately that all they're controlling is a gimped version of a normal auto-attack that requires maintenance. "Press a button and something awesome happens" just sounds stupid and condescending, when all they really mean is "the combat animations should have more flair".
You can just go on and on, through goddamn near every single thing they've said. If you take the PR at face value, it sounds like the game's received a more drastic overhaul than from Mass Effect 1 to 2. In reality, I'm fairly sure there have been expansion packs that introduced more drastic mechanical changes than the ones made from DAO to DA2. Perception of the former is going to piss off old fans, and the reality of the latter is as likely to make the people who hated the first game feel duped and irritated as it is to draw them in to the franchise. I think once the PR is over, there's going to be a pretty big contingent of old fans who realize that it isn't really all that different, and I think there are actually some definite improvements that will bring newbies in and satisfy people who had certain issues with the first game, but that's all going to happen in spite of the PR, not because of it.
The beard and facial structure looks off. Why they didn't just dump the morph from the CGI trailer into the game, I don't know. Or maybe they did but the skeletal structure of the game engine warped it.
Awesome, awesome OT. I recall GAF being very critical of DA:O's marketing job, and I liked how that game turned out. I'm going to remain naively hopeful for DA2 as well. Day 1.
Male Hawkes beard is just god damn ridiculous. If he looked like the CGI Hawke, it probably would of been bad ass. Also the more I see default fem Hawke the more I hate her. I think it has to do with smugness of the voice actor not matching the model. I just don't like it.
I'm finding this rhetoric to be pretty shortsighted. One common thing regarding the complaints of this game is the failure to acknowledge that streamlining something is not the same as dumbing it down. Using five-dollar words doesn't make you smarter, and needless complexity doesn't make a game better. That's not an attack at you. It's just something I've noticed in general.
That's fair. I wasn't referring to any specific changes they may have made to DA2, I'm just more concerned in general that developers will start to let stat tracking affect a games development and that path leads to garbage. Some of his comments sound like they take that stuff seriously, which is scary. I actually think (the console version of) DA2 could use a lot of streamlining from the first, as long as it's in the right places.
There are arguments to be made in favour of catering exclusively to an existing fanbase (and in principle I support the idea, even though in this case it would probably mean I wouldn't touch DA2 with a 20-foot pole taped onto the end of a 30-foot pole), but from a business standpoint, if you don't try to broaden the game's appeal you're almost definitely going to see stagnation in the game's sales.
For me, had they changed nothing else other than the combat and labeled it DA2, it would have been a day 1 purchase. Anything more would have just been icing on the cake. Now however, I'm rather disappointed. I enjoyed DA:O a great deal, and I still see the shuffling even through the fast past animations. I still see the AI bugs even through the tactics. The console oriented UI, the "hot rodded" art style, the what sounds like an even more linear environment, etc.
It makes me kind of sad, in a "what could have been" way, rather than a "oh man I'm all choked up" kind of way :\
For me, I dislike the tone and the art more than anything else. It's like a full realization of the 'this is the new shit' style that DA:O was marketed as. The goofy, failed attempt at edgy design with the characters, enemies and environments is just a major boner. I may be premature with that, I can only hope that the full game proves me wrong, and there is a good chance it will, but based on pre-release media and the demo, this game is gonna be ugly as shit and embarrassing to watch.
All I gotta say, is anybody remember the Prince of Persia trilogy?
First game was beloved, but then they injected copious amounts of baditude into the second in order to get more of those target demographics. Second also happened to be sloppier and buggier. Then they realized the error of their ways and made Two Thrones, which was great.
All I gotta say, is anybody remember the Prince of Persia trilogy?
First game was beloved, but then they injected copious amounts of baditude into the second in order to get more of those target demographics. Second also happened to be sloppier and buggier. Then they realized the error of their ways and made Two Thrones, which was great.
SA forums user gibbed is hacking the demo and he was able to import his save into the demo. Here's what he has to say (might be spoilers? Perhaps? There's not really anything spoilerish to me personally):
I wonder if he played Agmarrak & Witch Hunt as I didn't notice any plot points from those two. Are they worth playing through before DA2 comes out as I've heard they're both a bit poor.
SA forums user gibbed is hacking the demo and he was able to import his save into the demo. Here's what he has to say (might be spoilers? Perhaps? There's not really anything spoilerish to me personally):
For those interested he's created and shared the files that enable what he's unlocked which includes character creation and difficulty adjustment. Having just tried it I can confirmed it works for me.
Extract this to My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age 2 Demo\
It enables the appearance customization and other junk in the character generation screen. Note: to customize appearance, slide the preset slider over a few times (you can't customize the default faces for some reason).
I also think I fixed the crash issue I mentioned earlier.
Edit: another note, it also enables the difficulty selection after you complete character generation, nightmare demo anyone?
For those interested he's created and shared the files that enable what he's unlocked which includes character creation and difficulty adjustment. Having just tried it I can confirmed it works for me.
I wonder if he played Agmarrak & Witch Hunt as I didn't notice any plot points from those two. Are they worth playing through before DA2 comes out as I've heard they're both a bit poor.
If you're a fan of DA:O then sure. Agmarrak is a stand alone dungeon in the Deep Roads and is probably the hardest DLC. Witch Hunt kinda / sorta bring's Morrigan's story arc to a close, especially if
romanced her and accepted her bargain
. You'll get a few hours of gameplay from both. YMMV but I enjoyed them.
I'm finding this rhetoric to be pretty shortsighted. One common thing regarding the complaints of this game is the failure to acknowledge that streamlining something is not the same as dumbing it down. Using five-dollar words doesn't make you smarter, and needless complexity doesn't make a game better. That's not an attack at you. It's just something I've noticed in general.
Well, I can only speak for myself here. I did not enjoy the time I spent with Dragon Age: Origins, but I also didn't see (or maybe remembered seeing) any of the marketing before doing so. I enjoyed KOTOR for its time, but I think many tedious aspects of the game are best left in the past. When I saw some of those things come up again in DA:O, I was turned off. I spoke with someone recently who is a big fan of DA:O, and he said he spent something like 60 hours with the game, and half of those hours were spent wading through the inventory. Unless the menus are a lot of fun to play with, I am an adult who values his free time and I don't find anything appealing about that, especially having experienced DA:O's menus. While I think the main concepts of Dragon Age are great, I don't think that streamlining all the superficial tediousness around it ruins it.
But the problem with this thinking is that it comes with an assumption that no gamer finds going through the inventory fun.
Which leads to the essential question: Why should a company value your sale more than the sale of an existing fan who has already shown that they will buy and love your games?
One thing, though, that both sides must remember is that this change in direction had nothing to do with sales, as work on Dragon Age 2 was started well before Dragon Age: Origins was released. Which begs the question: Did they make the changes because of a lack of faith in DA:O (which was proven wrong, given how well DA:O ended up selling), or because this is simply the type of game that Bioware is more interested in making?
While there's a part of me that is inclined to say that it was short-sightedness (and I have argued that point before), I've really come around to the idea that DA2 is simply the type of game that modern Bioware enjoys making. I look at Brent Knowles' comments, and his admission that "Bioware isn't the same company I started working for."
Sure, that could mean that they care more about demographics, marketing patterns, etc., but I think it's simply that the company has moved on from the making of truly "hard-core" RPGs. The kind that has dice rolls ruling everything and isn't afraid to show it. They're more interested in exploring the interaction of action and RPG.
And you know what? That's their prerogative. And while it's not necessarily the direction I'd want them to take, I can't necessarily say that I hate it. I've railed against Mass Effect 2 many, many, MANY times on this board, but most of my problems stem from its place in the Mass Effect Trilogy and not so much its quality as an isolated game.
Which explains why, despite my criticisms, I still have a signature edition pre-ordered, and I'm still going to play the hell out of it.
As for that screenshot of histories, I'm going to guess No Compromise is (Awakening spoiler):
You rejected the Architect's offer?
Or will they bother acknowledging Awakening beyond the presence of Anders?
As for Amgarrack, it's the hardest DLC, but that's only because of 2 fights. At least one enemy type in DA2 comes solely from Amgarrack, apparently, and for me at least, when I see it in DA2, I'm going to be all "FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"
Ahahaha, I think I found out why they locked character customization in this build of the demo. Give Hawke a dark skin tone, and watch your entire family run around as a bunch of stark white people wearing blackface.
Also: On Nightmare, this is a whole hell of a lot more difficult than the Origin portions were in DAO.
Well the combat is a little more difficult on Nightmare but it really isn't any better. Bethany was able to tank about as well as my actual tank. Friendly fire does seem to do a lot of damage to your allies though, so at least there's that to worry about.
Ahahaha, I think I found out why they locked character customization in this build of the demo. Give Hawke a dark skin tone, and watch your entire family run around as a bunch of stark white people wearing blackface.
Yeesh, I'm seeing this for myself right now. I pray to god they fixed this in the final retail build. I'm playing on Hard and the combat now feels right to me.
Anyone know if importing your save affects anything in the demo? I quit right after the first "real" cutscene, because Ive played this thing so many damn times.
All I gotta say, is anybody remember the Prince of Persia trilogy?
First game was beloved, but then they injected copious amounts of baditude into the second in order to get more of those target demographics. Second also happened to be sloppier and buggier. Then they realized the error of their ways and made Two Thrones, which was great.
It still bugs the shit out of me with DA:O, that if you chose the sacrifice ending you can't import that save into Awakening without retconning your character back into existence. What the fuck were they thinking?
It still bugs the shit out of me with DA:O, that if you chose the sacrifice ending you can't import that save into Awakening without retconning your character back into existence. What the fuck were they thinking?
I think some of the criticism DA2 is receiving is downright ridiculous. There was that one guy earlier in this thread who claimed that most of the positive comments in the demo thread were from the people who never played DA:O plus the occasional odd PC Gamer as well. That is such fucking bullshit.
I played the 360 version of DA:O and Awakening through its entirety, including all the sidequests as well. In addition, I've been a huge fan of Bioware since the BG1 days so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to such stuff.
On the whole, I enjoyed the DA2 demo quite a bit. The graphics are a HUGE step up from DA:O which was utterly disgusting. I thought the Mass Effect dialog wheel system does the job well enough. I mean, how many times did you select a conversation choice in DA:O and realize that the eventual effect wasn't what you intended at all? And voicing the main character is a decision that I can stand behind as well. It just adds so much more to the entire experience.
Now, when it comes to the combat, considering that I came from the Baldur's Gate day, I can understand that the loss of the isometric perspective is a huge deal. Honestly, I can see where the PC gamers are coming from and if I was gaming on the PC, I'd mourn its loss. However, the whole pause-unpause and overall tactical nature of combat remains and I don't see how a lack of a iso view changes that.
Friendly fire comes back if you turn on Nightmare difficulty and that seems perfect for people complaining about the lack of difficulty. The skill trees also appear far better thought out this time.
My point is, just because they made some changes that you don't like, it doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy the game for it is anyway.
The complaint isn't that you can't enjoy it for what it is, although I am sure some can't because they think its a bad game. But that you can't enjoy DA2 for what Origins was.
Actually I think his comparison is more than fit because Prince of Persia Sands of Time is a great game, the second one is pretty good but not as good as the first one and the third one is right up there with the third.
I think it's how it's going to go that the first game is great, the second game is pretty good and the third game will be great again but who knows I am still excited for DA2 and it's gonna be interesting once the game is launched.
The complaint isn't that you can't enjoy it for what it is, although I am sure some can't because they think its a bad game. But that you can't enjoy DA2 for what Origins was.
I'm still suffering from a WTF at them making such fundamental changes on the PC version. I'm still hoping for the MOD community to step up and fix some of the issues. Maybe bioware will bundle some good stuff in a patch, who knows.
Awesome, awesome OT. I recall GAF being very critical of DA:O's marketing job, and I liked how that game turned out. I'm going to remain naively hopeful for DA2 as well. Day 1.
The bald fact is, if only 10-20% of people played the game more than an hour, then we are lucky to get anything at all in sequel form. But they should change as much as possible if the average playtime per user is less than an hour. Its just not acceptable. The business model goes beyond the point of initial sale - obviously.
I think some of the criticism DA2 is receiving is downright ridiculous. There was that one guy earlier in this thread who claimed that most of the positive comments in the demo thread were from the people who never played DA:O plus the occasional odd PC Gamer as well. That is such fucking bullshit.
I played the 360 version of DA:O and Awakening through its entirety, including all the sidequests as well. In addition, I've been a huge fan of Bioware since the BG1 days so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to such stuff.
On the whole, I enjoyed the DA2 demo quite a bit. The graphics are a HUGE step up from DA:O which was utterly disgusting. I thought the Mass Effect dialog wheel system does the job well enough. I mean, how many times did you select a conversation choice in DA:O and realize that the eventual effect wasn't what you intended at all? And voicing the main character is a decision that I can stand behind as well. It just adds so much more to the entire experience.
Now, when it comes to the combat, considering that I came from the Baldur's Gate day, I can understand that the loss of the isometric perspective is a huge deal. Honestly, I can see where the PC gamers are coming from and if I was gaming on the PC, I'd mourn its loss. However, the whole pause-unpause and overall tactical nature of combat remains and I don't see how a lack of a iso view changes that.
Friendly fire comes back if you turn on Nightmare difficulty and that seems perfect for people complaining about the lack of difficulty. The skill trees also appear far better thought out this time.
My point is, just because they made some changes that you don't like, it doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy the game for it is anyway.
The complaint isn't that you can't enjoy it for what it is, although I am sure some can't because they think its a bad game. But that you can't enjoy DA2 for what Origins was.
Maybe it's because I'm just a simpleton console gamer, but based on the demo, I will be enjoying DA2 for all of the reasons I enjoyed DA:O but without a lot of the hassle/annoyances. I never was a big fan of the combat in the first game and I'm not a huge fan of what I saw in the demo for DA2, so that's not a huge change.
Lothars said:
Actually I think his comparison is more than fit because Prince of Persia Sands of Time is a great game, the second one is pretty good but not as good as the first one and the third one is right up there with the third.
I think it's how it's going to go that the first game is great, the second game is pretty good and the third game will be great again but who knows I am still excited for DA2 and it's gonna be interesting once the game is launched.
No, it's a lazy comparison because it's just focusing on the supposed "rage" aspects of the sequels, which I just don't see there in DA2. The tone is very similar to the first game based on the demo and other media I've seen.
Prince of Persia was a masterpiece and there wasn't much to change in the sequel so they tried to just change the tone to get it out to more people. On the other hand, Dragon Age: Origins was an unpolished, rough game with a great heart that needed some polish and streamlining to get it out to more people.
