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Dragon Age II |OT| The Revenge of Shit Mountain

Xilium

Member
Vamphuntr said:
Or maybe overstock simply ordered a large amount that is not yet presold? Isn't that the purpose of overstocking?

I suppose that's possible but Overstock's name comes from the fact that their primary business model is to purchase other companies surplus or returned merchandise and resale them online at reduced prices.
 

Patryn

Member
Xilium said:
I suppose that's possible but Overstock's name comes from the fact that their primary business model is to purchase other companies surplus or returned merchandise and resale them online at reduced prices.

Actually, looking at the site, it looks like Overstock is ONLY listing the Signature Edition - not the regular editions. That strikes me as a little strange.

Which makes me wonder if they just never updated their listing, and when they say Signature Edition, they mean regular editions?

Because literally every other retailer stopped taking orders on the Signature Edition back at the cutoff date.

For those ordering off Overstock: Caveat emptor.
 
Xilium said:
There will be no mod tools for DA2 and we are still unsure about how much editing, if any, can be done with the DA:O toolset.

The direction this game isn't so much "right" or "wrong" as much as going away from my CC account.
 

kai3345

Banned
Inventory and Journal Screens:
5EVhj.jpg

dLFlr.jpg

zKG2L.jpg
 
Dark Stalkers said:
A few of the choices in my import save game are wrong :/
I noticed some issues too. I checked the official forums and most people over there are getting issues as well. Basically, it was locked in the demo for reason. The full game shouldn't have any issues.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
It's hilarious that important information was left in the demo. RE 5 all over again. It's now cracked open and people are spoiling everything. Even the last boss data is in the demo with its journal entry.
 

Zzoram

Member
meltingparappa said:
Part of that UI feels strangely amateurish, yet another part seems so simple and elegant.

They probably had a lot of different people working on it without any one person responsible for keeping it consistent.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
EviLore said:
However, discussion will be as normal as soon as normal discussion is possible (i.e. the game comes out). Take a look at any OT before the game gets in gamers' hands. "OMG HYPE! HYPE!" is the gist of it. I don't see any value in preserving that for the sake of it. Also, I find the practice of creating 10,000 word mini PR websites for a game's official thread kind of dreadful these days. It's like a contest to try to correlate hype levels with official thread grandiosity. I embrace and encourage the idea of doing something different when possible, so that there is real value and purpose to the effort being put into an official thread's OP.
Well said.
 

kai3345

Banned
Vamphuntr said:
It's hilarious that important information was left in the demo. RE 5 all over again. It's now cracked open and people are spoiling everything. Even the last boss data is in the demo with its journal entry.
I swear if that shit leaks.....
 

Ferrio

Banned
Wow at this inventory screens. You know when I joked that it looked like an Ipad game when the game's screens were first shown, I was only sorta joking... but man.... it's like they made it for a touch interface.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Xilium said:
There will be no mod tools for DA2 and we are still unsure about how much editing, if any, can be done with the DA:O toolset.

Guess all their efforts went into making things explode and finding new hues of brown.
 

JoeBoy101

Member
Those UI screens are ridiculous. The information is great and a step up from Origins, but the design is horrid. Like its been said, its looks like iInventory App.
 
Patryn said:
Actually, looking at the site, it looks like Overstock is ONLY listing the Signature Edition - not the regular editions. That strikes me as a little strange.

Which makes me wonder if they just never updated their listing, and when they say Signature Edition, they mean regular editions?

Because literally every other retailer stopped taking orders on the Signature Edition back at the cutoff date.

For those ordering off Overstock: Caveat emptor.

NewEgg was taking orders for the Signature edition last month. Somebody finally called them and they said it was a mistake, anybody who ordered was either cancelled or told they would get the regular edition (don't recall which). I imagine this is the same. The whole strategy is very confusing to retailers, even Amazon, who view them as two different products for the purpose of price matching and such.
 

Hixx

Member
TerminalDogma said:
Spoilers abound, eh? Time to leave this thread then I suppose, and the rest of the video gaming internets.

Yep time to go. You just know someone will fuck up a spoiler tag eventually!
 

Vamphuntr

Member
SerArthurDayne said:
NewEgg was taking orders for the Signature edition last month. Somebody finally called them and they said it was a mistake, anybody who ordered was either cancelled or told they would get the regular edition (don't recall which). I imagine this is the same. The whole strategy is very confusing to retailers, even Amazon, who view them as two different products for the purpose of price matching and such.

Exactly. Products are very different this time. Unlike ME 2 and DAO not everyone gets the DLC character for free if you buy the game new. Only if you buy the Signature Edition that you get the DLC character. If you buy the vanilla version new you have to spend 7$ to get the DLC character. For DAO and ME 2 everyone who buyed the game new would get Shale and Zaeed respectively.

Oh and there are some files related to the DLC character in the demo according to the leaks so you are paying for something that was ready and should have been in the game day 1.
 

Gvaz

Banned
meltingparappa said:
Part of that UI feels strangely amateurish, yet another part seems so simple and elegant.

It's because it's a console oriented UI.

- Poor design choices (for PC). Certain hotkeys should go to certain menus. Example: Character screen should be one screen with all the information. Instead, everything is extremely large and takes up several sections. You can't press backspace or RMB to back out of the menu, instead being forced to click a button to go back. Pressing the directionals such as UP and DOWN should move a selection cursor over the sections in question. Generally you should be able to navigate with the keyboard in most situations. Enter doesn't always default to the OKAY button.
- buggy selection detection
- overall takes up way too much real estate.
- redundant elements. if clicking the portrait gets you into the character screen, why have the right options at all? ESC goes into all the menus including some not on the right, so again, why have them?
 

Patryn

Member
Vamphuntr said:
Exactly. Products are very different this time. Unlike ME 2 and DAO not everyone gets the DLC character for free if you buy the game new. Only if you buy the Signature Edition that you get the DLC character. If you buy the vanilla version new you have to spend 7$ to get the DLC character. For DAO and ME 2 everyone who buyed the game new would get Shale and Zaeed respectively.

Oh and there are some files related to the DLC character in the demo according to the leaks so you are paying for something that was ready and should have been in the game day 1.

Without online multiplayer, EA needed something for their $10 initiative.

On the bright side, this hopefully means that the character will have banter and interactions with the other companions and not just Hawke.
 
kai3345 said:
Then console players should be bitching more

Why would I bitch about things that don't bother me? The pre-release news, footage, and demo all make me happy. Graphically its a huge step up from Origins, and control-wise it's a vast improvement. If I want to auto-hit, I do that. If I want to control it more, I can do that. My only concern is that in the demo you couldnt make tactics for your party members that tells them to drink a potion if they hit specific levels of health.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
Patryn said:
Without online multiplayer, EA needed something for their $10 initiative.

Buying this game used would be a nightmare. I think the dog and a store are only available if you buy the game new. Changing your character appearance in game (to recreate his appearance after creation) is a feature that use an item that you only get for buying the game new.

The download queue will be horrible as soon as I unshrink the game and pop it in the drive.
 

Gvaz

Banned
kai3345 said:
No.

Its about the character's stat progression, and in some cases the gameplay systems used in tabletop roleplaying games.
While I agree, roleplaying is hard to quantify. There's roleplaying then there's roleplaying. Yeah.

kai3345 said:
Then console players should be bitching more

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that DA2 is actually an improvement over the console version of DA:O. Right now mod tools are officially up in the air, with conflicting information. Some say it works, some say it doesnt. Some say it works halfway. Laidlaw has gone on record saying they have no plans to release mod tools for DA2 (verbatim).

However, the PC version of DA2 is suffering the same stuff that ME2 and most console games get, elements that the PC gamers would rather have that tend to be removed or streamlined because publishers/devs have said (verbatim) that "console players are impatient. They want to pick up the game and play and for it without much effort". You can see an example of this here:

Cervat Yerli said:

This of course isn't the case 100% of the time. Is it the case for me? I don't know yet, but it's clear they were concerned more with console accessibility this time around.
 
itxaka said:
One think I did like about the new figthing system/speed/whatever is that seems more fit for rogues.

I mean, on the first one if you wanted to get behind the enemies and you were on their side it moved so slowly it was ridiculous. It seems now that being a rogue means you are agile and get behind your enemies easily.

Yeah, I gave the demo a second run over the weekend as a rogue and had a blast. My first playthrough of the demo was as a warrior and I had lukewarm reactions because there were so many enemies and combat was so fast. As a rogue, the action controls were really satisfying. My big connundrum now is whether to main as a rogue with the action controls or play as a warrior with auto attack. I played as a two-handed warrior in DA:O and decimated once my strength stats got high. My concern with playing as a rogue in DA2 is party balance.
 

EDarkness

Member
One thing I hope they fix in the next game is the crappy selection of light/medium armor. All the really badass looking stuff was plate and my rogue ended up looking pretty much the same all the way to the end of the game, but my plate wearers ended up looking awesome. Just because it's leather doesn't mean it has to look so damn mundane.
 
GillianSeed79 said:
My big connundrum now is whether to main as a rogue with the action controls or play as a warrior with auto attack. I played as a two-handed warrior in DA:O and decimated once my strength stats got high. My concern with playing as a rogue in DA2 is party balance.
Yup, I'm right there with you in regards to an auto attack warrior or an "A for Awesome" archer. I think I'll roll a custom male warrior on my first play and a default Fem-Hawke archer on my second.
 
I feel like DA2 seems disproportionately ugly because it suffers from sparse environments and some ugly direction on the models, specifically the awful red hair on one of your companions, and a weird red/orange/poo color scheme.

I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because the shit mountain in the demo is an area you probably only spend 20 minutes in, so it looks shittier than anything that can be built on recycled assets, or assets that can be shared in different environments.
 

EDarkness

Member
HeadlessRoland said:
They really are recycling all of the same models/textures from the first game? Lame. I never realized how horrible the Xbox version of DA looks.

I'm playing through the Xbox version of DA:O for the first time and this game looks pretty bad. I'm no graphics whore, but I do expect the HD systems to have better texture quality. DA:O on the 360 is a mess. At lest the frame rate is pretty constant, but it sacrifices video fidelity to do so. Dragon Age 2 looks MUCH MUCH better by comparison.
 
meltingparappa said:
I feel like DA2 seems disproportionately ugly because it suffers from sparse environments and some ugly direction on the models, specifically the awful red hair on one of your companions, and a weird red/orange/poo color scheme.

I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because the shit mountain in the demo is an area you probably only spend 20 minutes in, so it looks shittier than anything that can be built on recycled assets, or assets that can be shared in different environments.

Yeah. Shit Mountain, and pretty horrendous design on some of the party members. Most of them look like random NPC encounters.
 
SerArthurDayne said:
Yeah, I don't know about that. Some of the animations like running and facial expressions are somewhat improved. Textures aren't (although consoles might see an upgrade based on that video). Art design seems to be somewhat worse.

Meh...looks better to me. Better, richer color palette. Shadows are better, textures are improved, especially skin texture on characters, and the character animations look much better overall, much smoother in my opinion.
 
Ysiadmihi said:
It is a bit funny that you respond to every single bit of criticism with a reply equal to "I don't think that's the case at all." though.

What do you mean? We're conversing, isn't that what we do on forums? Am I not allowed to voice my opinion?
 
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