Support NeoGAF

[MirageDwarf]

all righty I have some insight on review scores of a few sites that i won't mention names... they are in the range of 9

Spoiler

.4 to a 10

AWESOME!!! All reviews are very positive except for minor problems on consoles. Hope sales are good so Bioware has incentives to make more games like this.

 

[LCfiner]

This might be my favorite and most telling sentence from that part:



I think the boys at Bioware did their job.

completely agreed.

man, I can't believe I'm this excited for a fantasy world RPG. I've always been more of a sci-fi geek but the gameplay videos I've seen plus the info of the storyline complexity have just blown me away.

this might even warrant a lunchtime pickup and half day workday for me tomorrow. All hail flex hours! :lol

 

[Minsc]

Not sure, I can only go based on the review:

If that's the case I take it back, I was expecting ranged leveling, like an Ogre can be found to be a level 15-20 creature, and a rat a level 1-3 creature, not say, level 1-100 range for both the Ogre and rat. :/

 

[hulot]

Is anyone having trouble checking their order status on the the EA store? It repeatedly returns a 'web page cannot be found' error....

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

completely agreed.

man, I can't believe I'm this excited for a fantasy world RPG. I've always been more of a sci-fi geek but the gameplay videos I've seen plus the info of the storyline complexity have just blown me away.

this might even warrant a lunchtime pickup and half day workday for me tomorrow. All hail flex hours! :lol

 

[LCfiner]

what did I do?

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

what did I do?

You just reminded me that Idle Thumbs is ending this week.

 

[HK-47]

That IGN UK review is the exact thing I've wanted from Bioware for years. I hope it's all true and not hyperbole.

IGN reviews are made of 90% hyperbole.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Hey, RPG developers: the whole point of levelling up is we feel more powerful. Autolevelling breaks that.

 

[LCfiner]

You just reminded me that Idle Thumbs is ending this week.

ah, OK. I don't listen to that podcast so I'm not aware of their sayings and in-jokes

Spoiler

All Units

 

[hermit7]

So I have been back and forth probably 5 times on what version to get. 360 or PS3, now I have seen some guides on how to use a laptop for your wireless router and was wondering the ease of this? I think that if it were easy enough I would choose the 360 version, but the online component is somewhat important (Stone Prisoner, future DLC) so I want it too be somewhat simple/

 

[Zeliard]

If that's the case I take it back, I was expecting ranged leveling, like an Ogre can be found to be a level 15-20 creature, and a rat a level 1-3 creature, not say, level 1-100 range for both the Ogre and rat. :/

Indeed, that was the only part of the review that gave me pause. I don't mind scaling if it's done right, but Oblivion's issues with it came when you started facing stuff like Bandits in Daedric Armor at a higher level, and it sounds like it's a similar sort of thing here.

However, Dragon Age's combat and general gameplay will likely be far superior, so it may not be that big of an issue. Plus, I assume mods can fix the scaling like they did Oblivion.

 

[Gestahl]

That IGN UK review is the exact thing I've wanted from Bioware for years. I hope it's all true and not hyperbole.

Hope being the key word. I'm waiting for a few months of player impressions to build before I go anywhere near this. Reviews are too untrustworthy in general.

 

[Woo-Fu]

Look at me! I'm totally not menacing at all! I hope my purple skin matches the drapes in my lair.

I probably wouldn't even notice the horns until the next morning.

 

[Tenks]

Scaled level generally doesn't piss me off too much but when my fighter is using a Longsword of Epenis+over9000 I want to kill a god damned wolf in one hit

 

[Caspel]

Hey, RPG developers: the whole point of levelling up is we feel more powerful. Autolevelling breaks that.

Personally, I feel my team is super powerful and can run through dungeons without much concern (unless squads of enemies have their own mage that focuses on controlling the battle).

Alongside the negatives, I think there's a fair amount of positives of having enemies scaling with the team.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

just preordered the regular 360 version at Gamestop, and the manager told me that it would be there when they open in the morning.

All of the Gamestops and EBs here in Canada have the game in the back. I ALMOST had the assitant manager convinced to let me have my copy on Friday...

Oh well...tomorrow, first thing.

 

[Kintaro]

Why should you and your party be the only thing in the whole world that can get more powerful? That's reason enough.

Is every mob in the game going on an 80 hour quest to level up and save/destroy the world as well?

If there are level ranges, that's fine. But if level 1 mobs magically become lvl 80 mobs, that's stupid and just negates the point of leveling and the feeling of accomplishment.

 

[TheUglyDrunk]

Anyone playing this on a standard def TV? Alas, I shall have to, I just want to know how bad the text is going to make my eyes bleed. As long as it is legible, no Dead Rising shit.

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

Is every mob in the game going on an 80 hour quest to level up and save/destroy the world as well?

If there are level ranges, that's fine. But if level 1 mobs magically become lvl 80 mobs, that's stupid and just negates the point of leveling and the feeling of accomplishment.

But that's not how it works in Dragon Age...

 

[Zeliard]

Personally, I feel my team is super powerful and can run through dungeons without much concern (unless squads of enemies have their own mage that focuses on controlling the battle).

Alongside the negatives, I think there's a fair amount of positives of having enemies scaling with the team.

The huge positive with scaling comes with the ability to offer the player a consistent challenge throughout the game, but the huge negative in my view comes from it hurting the exploration factor heavily, along with potentially damaging the sense of character progression.

One of my favorite things to do in more open RPGs is to wander and come across an enemy that beats the ever living shit out of me my first time facing it, but that I can later on come back to and wipe out. Or even something that I shouldn't be facing, but that I manage to barely defeat within an inch of my life - full level scaling basically makes those types of things impossible. You know that you're always meant to beat whoever you're fighting, so a lot of tension and excitement is gone.

 

[Caspel]

Goodness this character looks like a crackhead.

just you wait

 

[Tenks]

The huge positive with scaling comes with the ability to offer the player a consistent challenge throughout the game, but the huge negative in my view comes from it hurting the exploration factor heavily, along with potentially damaging the sense of character progression.

One of my favorite things to do in more open RPGs is to wander and come across an enemy that beats the ever living shit out of me my first time facing it, but that I can later on come back to and wipe out. Or even something that I shouldn't be facing, but that I manage to barely defeat within an inch of my life - full level scaling basically makes those types of things impossible. You know that you're always meant to beat whoever you're fighting, so a lot of tension and excitement is gone.

I assume you've played Demon's Souls, right? Because thats what it does -- and it does it in glorious fashion.

 

[charsace]

Goodness this character looks like a crackhead.

Looks like the character on the right, but older. That's what I see at least.

 

[TheFightingFish]

Retail PC version has only disc check which is very good. No frustrating DRM hell.

I like Steam, but I'm going to be nabbing a boxed copy for this reason alone. I want to support actually being able to own PC games the same way that I do console games and I want to reward EA for doing the right thing with just a disk check.

 

[Jayge]

Goodness this character looks like a crackhead.

Flemeth is rad, don't hate :lol

Spoiler

All Units

Spoiler

I have a Wii.

 

[Zeliard]

I assume you've played Demon's Souls, right? Because thats what it does -- and it does it in glorious fashion.

Demon's Souls is one of my favorite games probably ever.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

:lol :lol :lol

Joke post?

Doubt it. And I kind of agree. Even when I do play PC games I rarely use mods (although the one that allows you to play BG1 like it's BG2 is awesome, and also the widescreen mods are welcome). Most of the fan created stuff I've played in the past like some of the old NWN modules are terrible. Reminds me of fan fiction. I know there's some great stuff out there but it's not really that big of a deal for me.

I probably will play Dragon Age on a PC at one point, but doubt I'll be using any mods.

In the meantime, my DA has shipped from Amazon and will be here tomorrow. Yay!

 

[Tenks]

Doubt it. And I kind of agree. Even when I do play PC games I rarely use mods (although the one that allows you to play BG1 like it's BG2 is awesome, and also the widescreen mods are welcome). Most of the fan created stuff I've played in the past like some of the old NWN modules are terrible. Reminds me of fan fiction. I know there's some great stuff out there but it's not really that big of a deal for me.

I probably will play Dragon Age on a PC at one point, but doubt I'll be using any mods.

In the meantime, my DA has shipped from Amazon and will be here tomorrow. Yay!

Ignore the fact that a mod is arguably the single most important PC game ever created in Counter-Strike. But yeah, mods are so terrible.

Don't forget to disregard that mods fixed Oblivious glaring faults.

 

[Druz]

Hmm... Normal or Deluxe edition? Normal is less of a price to pay if I discover the game sucks. Alternatively, the deluxe hands me some items that might make the game too easy + a new dungeon

 

[GDJustin]

Sacred 2 is a terribly overrated loot RPG, but one thing the game NAILED was the auto-leveling system.

Mobs in a zone had a level range, which changed based on the region they were in and the game's difficulty setting.

So a rat in the beginning reason on Easy could be level 1-3. A rat at the end on Easy could be 19-22. A rat in the beginning on hard could be 5-15 (or whatever).

And all the mobs were like this. It really was perfect. It was the best of both worlds. Rats always remained weaker than Ogres, but end-game rats would be way more powerful than beginning zone rats. And the difficulty slider just slid the floor & ceiling for mob levels. So if you were uber-powerful, you could still dominate beginner zones, as you should be able to.

It was an elegant and well-thought-out solution. Hopefully Dragon Age's is similar, and other RPGs took note as well.

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

Doubt it. And I kind of agree. Even when I do play PC games I rarely use mods (although the one that allows you to play BG1 like it's BG2 is awesome, and also the widescreen mods are welcome). Most of the fan created stuff I've played in the past like some of the old NWN modules are terrible. Reminds me of fan fiction. I know there's some great stuff out there but it's not really that big of a deal for me.

I probably will play Dragon Age on a PC at one point, but doubt I'll be using any mods.

In the meantime, my DA has shipped from Amazon and will be here tomorrow. Yay!

Depends on what kind of game it is, though. Stuff like the Elder Scrolls games have fantastic mods that make the game much, much better.

 

[RPGCrazied]

Anyone playing this on a standard def TV? Alas, I shall have to, I just want to know how bad the text is going to make my eyes bleed. As long as it is legible, no Dead Rising shit.

I am too, hows the text mainly? hopefully not to bad.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

Ignore the fact that a mod is arguably the single most important PC game ever created in Counter-Strike. But yeah, mods are so terrible.

Don't forget to disregard that mods fixed Oblivious glaring faults.

Sorry, didn't realize that mods were such a sensitive subject.

 

[Tenks]

Sorry, didn't realize that mods were such a sensitive subject.

No, horribly uninformed consolites is my chord

 

[speedpop]

Sorry, didn't realize that mods were such a sensitive subject.

I think it has more to do with people brushing them off without realising how important they have been, and continue to be, for the gaming industry.

 

[Woo-Fu]

Mods have always been worthwhile, nowadays doubly so since the first ones are usually released specifically to rectify consolitis. The first inventory mods for Oblivion are a good example.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

No, horribly uninformed consolites is my chord

Ouch?

 

[RS4-]

Playing on hard, just hit level 7 with the main human knight

it hasn't exactly been a cakewalk, been making friends with the quick save and reload lol.

 

[Zeliard]

Sacred 2 is a terribly overrated loot RPG, but one thing the game NAILED was the auto-leveling system.

Mobs in a zone had a level range, which changed based on the region they were in and the game's difficulty setting.

So a rat in the beginning reason on Easy could be level 1-3. A rat at the end on Easy could be 19-22. A rat in the beginning on hard could be 5-15 (or whatever).

And all the mobs were like this. It really was perfect. It was the best of both worlds. Rats always remained weaker than Ogres, but end-game rats would be way more powerful than beginning zone rats. And the difficulty slider just slid the floor & ceiling for mob levels. So if you were uber-powerful, you could still dominate beginner zones, as you should be able to.

It was an elegant and well-thought-out solution. Hopefully Dragon Age's is similar, and other RPGs took note as well.

Possibly, though when they've built what appears to be a huge, coherent and internally logical fantasy world with tons of backstory, there's no way an otherwise normal human in armor should ever be more powerful than something like an ogre. Beyond the impact that scaling has on gameplay, it also takes you out of the world.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Re: level scaling

We have some degree of level scaling, depending on where you are and who you're facing, but it's not unlimited in the way that Oblivion's level scaling was (if that's what you're asking). But this is not new -- we even had some level scaling in BG2. The idea is for it to be mostly unnoticeable.

We're scaling both with a bottom and a ceiling - so if you enter an area that got a ceiling of 13 at level 8, you're probably going to be in trouble.

Likewise, it is possible to outlevel areas and then clean them up later.

Origins uses a system which I call "Persistent Scaling."

Essentially, the game has the capability to scale around your level and adjust encounters, but it does not do so in a way that means the challenge level never changes. Some areas are harder, even at the lower end, and others are a bit on the easier side.

Better, the game remembers when you visit places, so if you are having trouble with a particular encounter, you CAN leave, tackle a few side quests and come back tougher and know that the game won't have suddenly jumped the difficulty up on you to match. Hence "persistent."

It's a very refined system. Some creatures are handled specifically, even. *cough*dragon*cough*

All the brainchild of the DA systems guys, who are, I believe, Space Wizards in disguise, given the level of awesome they deploy on a daily basis.

 

[Zeliard]

Ok that sounds a bit better, especially this:

Better, the game remembers when you visit places, so if you are having trouble with a particular encounter, you CAN leave, tackle a few side quests and come back tougher and know that the game won't have suddenly jumped the difficulty up on you to match. Hence "persistent."

 

[Lostconfused]

been making friends with the quick save and reload lol.

Trully a game for the master race.

Possibly, though when they've built what appears to be a huge, coherent and internally logical fantasy world with tons of backstory, there's no way an otherwise normal human in armor should ever be more powerful than something like an ogre. Beyond the impact that scaling has on gameplay, it also takes you out of the world.

Unless that human is you.

 

[kyo_daikun]

Sounds good, I prefer this system way over the oblivion style, seems developers learned their lesson from that mess at least.

 

[EviLore]

I've played through BG2 like five times and never noticed the scaling. Unconcerned.

 

[bengraven]

Finally shipped!

And as soon as it did, my fiancee said she heard packing tape sounds from the attic.

THE DEPOT IS IN MY ATTIC, RUN.

I think the boys at Bioware did their job.

I find "mods" about as big of a selling point as what kind of paper the manual is printed on.
Bioware already dropped an 80+ hour game here. With all the other stuff out there to play, why do I care about this?

I don't know why we have to go through this pissing contest every time a PC/console game drops. It's like the PC-only guys are trolling in an attempt to increase sales of the PC version of the game, thereby staving off the death of big-budget gaming on the platform. I don't really care enough to get into this debate, but your efforts would be better spent getting your friends to buy these games instead of pirating them.

*snort*

Looks like the character on the right, but older. That's what I see at least.

(she's her mom)

 

[Cheech]

Spoken like someone who's never used a mod.

Go back to the shadow! The dark will not avail you!

I haven't installed a mod since Doom. They're good for the community because it lets the talent rise to the top and get hired in at developers, but I'm not going to waste time personally separating the wheat from the chaff. I'll play their polished games when actual developers release them.

 

[MotherFan]

Ignore the fact that a mod is arguably the single most important PC game ever created in Counter-Strike. But yeah, mods are so terrible.

Don't forget to disregard that mods fixed Oblivious glaring faults.

.

OOO, Supreme Magicka, Quarl's texture pack...those are 3 really good comprehensive mods that took along time to make and were very high quality. These 3 are shining examples of what a good mod community can do. Other good mods can add a new quest line, or even make one encounter more exciting. Take a look at the lost spires mod to get a good look at how well a new quest line can be done, or mannimarco revisited to see an improved encounter. Even some of the small mods can make a difference. I don't think many of the people that talk down on mods have ever tried a pc game that has anything resembling a decent mod community.

Anyone that says Oblivion on the 360 or PS3 is the same as it is on PC, or even as good is deluding themselves, and the same will be said of this game as well. That does not mean consoles are bad, it just means that some games are more geared to a PC and some consoles.

Edit: Cheech, it does not take long to seperate good ones from bad ones. Your just troll the PC with no real arguments.

 

[Reluctant-Hero]

Ugh... I really can't wait to finally play this game again! I've been looking intensely forward to it since the demo I played at PAX.

I just recieved the second book, "The Calling", from Amazon and my hardcover LE guide should arrive tomorrow. Now I'm just waiting on EBgames to ship my copy of the '360 LE through overnight UPS/Fed-Ex. But if EBgames screws up my shipping, I've got another '360 LE reserved at my local Gamestop. :lol

Can't wait to get home tonight so u can finish Uncharted 2 and complete the DA:O flash game!

 

[Anerythristic]

It is fucking depressing that PC and Console gamers can't even coexist.

I posted on a couple of review sites asking when they will post the console reviews (approx. time). I wonder if they are allowed to answer.