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On February 26 2011 09:23 Bibdy wrote:Yeah, there's no friendly fire. If its like DA:O, there'll be increased friendly fire in Hard and Nightmare (presumably 50% in Hard, 100% in Nightmare going by their track record). The actual differences in combat mechanics between Hard and Nightmare in DA:O were laughably weak. http://www.dragonage-wiki.com/origins/difficultyThe difference between normal and hard was really just double the amount of friendly fire (from 50% to 100%). Almost everything else is negligible. Going From Hard to Nightmare mode was even LESS of a difference. I browsed the Bioware forums a lot back when this game was released and these were enormous issues brought up time and time again. They utterly screwed the pooch on difficulty. I even made a mod that put a shared cooldown on potions, so you couldn't just spam every type of potion in quick succession just so I could find myself in situations where a character might actually fall over unconscious in the middle of a fight, heaven forbid. Nothing would shock me more than if they had absolutely TONS of feedback from players of the original, about how the difficulty was horrifically lackluster, and they just repeat the same mistake. I don't even want to imagine that.
Yet another reason I play these games on PC. The mods that are released fix so many problems that the devs are often unwilling to change (or if not they fix them faster). I seem to remember there was an issue with DA:O at release that didn't give dual wielding rogues their DEX bonus modifier to their attacks when using daggers. It sounds silly, but it makes a big deal given that you take some penalty for dual wielding in the first place. There was an unofficial fix out within a couple days. I recall the official patch that fixed it did not come for some weeks later.
Back to the topic however. I think the most concerning thing to me is that the combat is so sped up. On the harder difficulties, I wonder if this is going to lead me to spending nearly all of my time in pause issuing orders and microing my party. I would really hope there is some sort of "game speed" slider or something. Though I doubt it. It seems they really want to do away with the RPG system underneath this game and push it as an action game.
Don't get me wrong, I love action games. Mass Effect 1 and 2 were amazing. It's just not what I want in my CRPGs. Though I hesitate to even call this game a CRPG at this point, instead reserving that title for the RPGs of yore based on the Infinity Engine (BG1 & 2, Icewind Dale, etc).
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Uuuuh... so that demo was short and felt extremely rushed. I'm not satisfied with it, although there are some nice ideas implemented.
Some things that immediately alienated me was the scene with Varric and Cassandra and these simple refugees fighting like heroes with legendary weapons (Carvers sword ~.~ it has the model of "Ageless", my favorite sword in DA:O)
I... don't know. It's definitely too little to judge the game from. I'll wait for the first reviews.
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On February 26 2011 08:57 Rayeth wrote:
The big problem I have with this game and the demo in general is the lack of the zoomed out isometic view (PC here). I played 100% of DA:O in that view on every difficulty. It made the combat a breeze and gave you an understanding of how the fight was going to go down. It did allow you to cheat a bit by seeing around corners to a small extent and to knowing the routes down hallways and such.
That said, the combat did feel a lot faster paced in this demo compared to DA:O. I also didn't feel like there was any point to controlling the AI characters as I could just rotate all the cooldowns on my character (rogue melee and rogue archer played) and keep myself busy and kill all the enemies.
I can't tell if that is because of the difficulty level (locked at normal in the demo) or the ease of the game in general. I did play DA:O on Hard. Also was I hallucinating or was there no Friendly Fire from spells? That is a terrible loss, though considering mages feel much less powerful overall, maybe not an important one.
I think it's also partly because you were playing a rogue. I've played it on mage, melee rogue, archery rogue, and sword and board warrior, and the rogues breezed through everything. It was still easy on the mage and warrior, but not quite as fast (and since things aren't dying as quickly, you take a little more damage). With a rogue, you really do just have to spam all your skills and you steamroll.
I definitely missed the isometric view, too. I didn't play dao from that all the time, but I used it almost every fight to make targetting easier. I kept trying to do it in the demo. I love the explanation for why they took it out, too. Basically, it was "it makes the game too easy, so it was hard to balance, so we made everyone play the hard way." Seriously, that's what it says right here: http://kotaku.com/#!5692653/dont-worry-dragon-age-ii-is-for-you-too
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On February 26 2011 11:27 BatCat wrote:
Uuuuh... so that demo was short and felt extremely rushed. I'm not satisfied with it, although there are some nice ideas implemented.
Some things that immediately alienated me was the scene with Varric and Cassandra and these simple refugees fighting like heroes with legendary weapons (Carvers sword ~.~ it has the model of "Ageless", my favorite sword in DA:O)
I... don't know. It's definitely too little to judge the game from. I'll wait for the first reviews.
It was a short demo but I don't agree that it felt rushed. Honestly I don't really feel like it was unreasonable to cut it off short in this situation. The demo almost played out like an interactive trailer. You met the main character, you met the (what I presume) primary characters, the primary drive of the game. It did a decent job at giving you a feel for the game, too.
Why would the scene with Varric / Cassandra alienate you? As to your refugees with legendary weapons...well...*shrug*
Good call waiting on the game to actually release to judge it.
One thing I always do in RPGs is tank...I just trust myself not to let everyone die if I'm playing tank. DA:O I was like, let's change it up! and I rolled rogue..and then played Alistair all the time rofl.
The mage class looks AWESOME. I played through it to get a feel for the mage after my first tanky playthrough...I was like, "holy shit I gotta try out these mage spells" and man I had a blast. The new staff-blasting "melee" animation was fucking sweet, I feel like such a hardcore badass with that shit.
Speaking of mages... Bethany is hot. :x I am secretly hoping (and know it's not true or going to happen) that Bioware is like LOL YOURE ADOPTED GO AHEAD AND BANG BETHANY and I'm like awwwww yeah but I have a feeling I'm in for heartbreak. 
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The demo was freaking awesome. I am defiantly buying this game when it drops as it looks immense :D.
In regards to Bethany, it sucks you cant pick the female mage because then Bethany dies right at the start (spoilerslol) Shes such a QT, I couldn't possibly play through without her haha
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will the second one be as "hard" as the first one (PC version). Cause i know the console version DA:O was way different and easier and there was a rumor that Dragon Age 2 on PC would be a port of the console version but i haven't read any confirmation about this.
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On February 28 2011 12:47 Gfox wrote:The demo was freaking awesome. I am defiantly buying this game when it drops as it looks immense :D. In regards to Bethany, it sucks you cant pick the female mage because then Bethany dies right at the start (spoilerslol) Shes such a QT, I couldn't possibly play through without her haha
Yeah, I went rogue in the demo to try something new and then my friend told me that he went mage and she died.
Welp guess I'm not playing mage. LOL.
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Haha, Yea such a shame ;(. I wont be able to play through as the mage for a long time Bethany must live! ;D Thank god the rogue is a F*kin machine lol, so is the warrior for that matter. I lol'd a little at the end when the chick invites you back to her quarters at the tavern when I was playing as the female warrior :D
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Haha, yeah, Bioware totally doesn't give a shit about homosexuality vs "moral compass" or whatever. They just do it cause it's awesome.
I have to say, ever since Bioware and I crossed paths, I've loved to roleplay (back when I still did, no one does anymore! ...and no not LARP.) their style on dwarves. None of the scottish accent stereotypical yarr harr dwarf anymore. Stout, hardcore, tougher-than-a-motherfucker, beat your head in, loves to get drunk, awesome dwarf. Excited to have Varric join in, Ogrim was one of my regulars in my DA:O party, and I think Varric is going to stick with me as well.
I usually skip playing demos because now I'm DYING to play this game and totally get into the story and the personalities of the characters. So basically the next two weeks are me being miserable and dying to play. Why must you taunt me, Bioware. I preordered SO long ago, I don't need to be convinced to buy the game now!
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Hah, Yea I'm really looking forwards to getting into it. Recently i've been replaying just about every Forgotten Realms rpg and such that I own in anticipation for this :D. Might even go to my uni's DnD meet this week to get some of it out of my system haha
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When I first started combat during the demo my first reaction was "Is this a korean action mmo?" The game is so hyper and the animations are so stylized. The main character design looks like he's trying to please western and asian audiences as well...
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I don't really mind the ridiculous fighting moves. My main characters moves like a ninja and his powerlevel seems to be real LARGE. That's fine, not a big deal.
But the damn mass effect choice system has to go.
I remember a moment from the demo, after the main characters brother gets killed like a sap, I got the ME wheel up and I chose "He won't be alone." thinking that the character would say something badass like he would kill every last enemy until he himself rejoined his brother in the afterlife or something.
Instead he said: "Our father will be with him" or some bullshit like that, I was shocked. That is not what I thought I wanted my character to say .
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On February 28 2011 15:39 HeIios wrote:I don't really mind the ridiculous fighting moves. My main characters moves like a ninja and his powerlevel seems to be real LARGE. That's fine, not a big deal. But the damn mass effect choice system has to go. I remember a moment from the demo, after the main characters brother gets killed like a sap, I got the ME wheel up and I chose "He won't be alone." thinking that the character would say something badass like he would kill every last enemy until he himself rejoined his brother in the afterlife or something. Instead he said: "Our father will be with him" or some bullshit like that, I was shocked. That is not what I thought I wanted my character to say .
100% agreement here.
They troll you with the wheel. First off...okay.
I can say A, B, C to a person after an event. And let's just say "A" is friendship building towards the character, B is neutral, C negative.
I want to be this person's friend...I pick A, I want to say A or at least something close to it. If it worked out this way, we wouldn't have to be hand held in the dialogue wheel like we are now with the hammer/face/olive branch or whatever they are.
What seems like it ended up happen is you pick "He won't be alone" and he said "Our father will be with him" and the game QA or dev testers are like...WTF does that mean, we need to make the good/neutral/bad choices more apparent and gave us the ME wheel.
I really liked the DA:O conversation choice style better.
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On February 28 2011 20:18 Torenhire wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2011 15:39 HeIios wrote:I don't really mind the ridiculous fighting moves. My main characters moves like a ninja and his powerlevel seems to be real LARGE. That's fine, not a big deal. But the damn mass effect choice system has to go. I remember a moment from the demo, after the main characters brother gets killed like a sap, I got the ME wheel up and I chose "He won't be alone." thinking that the character would say something badass like he would kill every last enemy until he himself rejoined his brother in the afterlife or something. Instead he said: "Our father will be with him" or some bullshit like that, I was shocked. That is not what I thought I wanted my character to say . 100% agreement here. They troll you with the wheel. First off...okay. I can say A, B, C to a person after an event. And let's just say "A" is friendship building towards the character, B is neutral, C negative. I want to be this person's friend...I pick A, I want to say A or at least something close to it. If it worked out this way, we wouldn't have to be hand held in the dialogue wheel like we are now with the hammer/face/olive branch or whatever they are. What seems like it ended up happen is you pick "He won't be alone" and he said "Our father will be with him" and the game QA or dev testers are like...WTF does that mean, we need to make the good/neutral/bad choices more apparent and gave us the ME wheel. I really liked the DA:O conversation choice style better.
Yeah, I actually think a little more ambiguity in the conversation/dialog options is good because now its sort of polarized like this:
- Paragon
- (sarcastic/humorous)
- Renegade
I fear it's not really going to be that engaging because you don't have to think about it anymore, just pick the obvious one based on the icon. Same with mass effect 2, for me it basically became pick paragon/renegade option each time unless it was not available. Such a conversation choice style was a bit too apparent and polarized for me at times.
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dragon age 2 is pretty much dead for me .
dragon age already was a disappointment for me with the limited and bland world,mmo like quests,weak caracters and very limited RPG factor. it was hyped as a succesor to baldurs gate when infact it was just another rpg and couldnt reach baldurs gate in ANY aspect(not even close).
now they dumb down the rpg part even more and turn it into some kind of semi mass effect with a fantasy setting. dont get me wrong, mass effect is great and even dragon age i can see why some people like it. but i want a game with deep character customization,a big rich world and real "roleplay" and not another semi hack n slash with some dialogues thrown in where the games only "cool" features are blood,shiny fights and "hurr you can sex this gurrrrl".
/edit and before people tell me "omg just nostalgia! you jsut remember them beeing so good!". no. i recently played through planescape torment and bg2 again and they are worlds better then ANY rpg released after them. the world is just so rich with unique characters, awesome writing (reading the 30 minute dialogue between the lady(and later others...) and the nameless one is one of the best expiriences i EVER had in a game) also played through nwn2 and even that i enjoyed much more then dragon age.
guess for me its about skyrim and ME3 this year since i HATED the first witcher (i never deinstalled a game and esp a rpg that fast) and doubt witcher 2 can change much about that unless they totally change all mechanics and arent so incredibly cheesy and cheap anymore.
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On February 28 2011 22:59 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
/edit and before people tell me "omg just nostalgia! you jsut remember them beeing so good!". no. i recently played through planescape torment and bg2 again and they are worlds better then ANY rpg released after them. the world is just so rich with unique characters, awesome writing (reading the 30 minute dialogue between the lady(and later others...) and the nameless one is one of the best expiriences i EVER had in a game) also played through nwn2 and even that i enjoyed much more then dragon age.
I played BG2 post release and yes it is very good, in fact it is the best computer RPG to date. Kind of unfair to Dragon Age: Origins though, it is by far the best attempt to make an engaging RPG in late 2000's.
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I kinda liked the demo. There is no sign for the technical problems that plagued DAO and the gameplay is fast and flows very nicely with excelent animations.
The conversesions are somewhat dissapointing. I liked their decision of implanting the conversation wheel from Mass Effect (don't like reading walls of text) but from what i've seen from the demo the writing and voice acting isn't as good as Mass Effect 2 (where is Jennifer Hale ??). Sadly the only character I saw interesting there was Isabela.
The combat is very fun albeit pretty easy. (MUCH easier than ME2 Insanity and DAO's Nightmare (Insanity?) difficulties) but I believe this is only the beginning of the game and it will be more challanging.
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On February 28 2011 23:34 HeIios wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2011 22:59 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
/edit and before people tell me "omg just nostalgia! you jsut remember them beeing so good!". no. i recently played through planescape torment and bg2 again and they are worlds better then ANY rpg released after them. the world is just so rich with unique characters, awesome writing (reading the 30 minute dialogue between the lady(and later others...) and the nameless one is one of the best expiriences i EVER had in a game) also played through nwn2 and even that i enjoyed much more then dragon age.
I played BG2 post release and yes it is very good, in fact it is the best computer RPG to date. Kind of unfair to Dragon Age: Origins though, it is by far the best attempt to make an engaging RPG in late 2000's.
well imo the likes of nwn2 etc all are better too. (nwn2 is still played online i think cause of the deep mechanics). and its just sad when over 12 years the genre doesnt improve but actually constantly gets much worse to a point where you can barely call it a rpg anymore.
no immersion, no interesting mechanics and character customization, boring stories and terrible writing with dumbed down dialogues and fights. just a glorified torchlight with less customization/mechanics and slightly more text.
and i know im harsh and most likely represent only a small group of todays playerbase. but when i hear even gamejournalists talk about dragon age like its some awesome baldurs gate like game i just feel terrible inside and am sad cause with the current trend we will never see a RPG as good as BG/ps:t again and isntead have call of duty like games with swords and a bit text thrown in.
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On February 28 2011 23:46 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:Show nested quote +On February 28 2011 23:34 HeIios wrote:On February 28 2011 22:59 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
/edit and before people tell me "omg just nostalgia! you jsut remember them beeing so good!". no. i recently played through planescape torment and bg2 again and they are worlds better then ANY rpg released after them. the world is just so rich with unique characters, awesome writing (reading the 30 minute dialogue between the lady(and later others...) and the nameless one is one of the best expiriences i EVER had in a game) also played through nwn2 and even that i enjoyed much more then dragon age.
I played BG2 post release and yes it is very good, in fact it is the best computer RPG to date. Kind of unfair to Dragon Age: Origins though, it is by far the best attempt to make an engaging RPG in late 2000's. well imo the likes of nwn2 etc all are better too. (nwn2 is still played online i think cause of the deep mechanics). and its just sad when over 12 years the genre doesnt improve but actually constantly gets much worse to a point where you can barely call it a rpg anymore. no immersion, no interesting mechanics and character customization, boring stories and terrible writing with dumbed down dialogues and fights. just a glorified torchlight with less customization/mechanics and slightly more text. and i know im harsh and most likely represent only a small group of todays playerbase. but when i hear even gamejournalists talk about dragon age like its some awesome baldurs gate like game i just feel terrible inside and am sad cause with the current trend we will never see a RPG as good as BG/ps:t again and isntead have call of duty like games with swords and a bit text thrown in.
The main problem with deep and complex games like BG/PS:T/NWN/... is that it's extremely hard to balance. There is just so much that can go wrong.
I played the second NWN2-add-on having the knowledge of the main game and the D&D ruleset. I still managed to make a goup that was subpar for the game(too dependant on physical damage, not enough spells to counteract enemy magic, etc...).
Also, there is no way for developers to know how you think a class has to be played. Hardcore min-maxing charisma to get a high bonus may result in...nothing. Because the bonus is not needed.
I like complex games, being a pen&paper player, but I can see the appeal in "dumbed down" games like Dragon Age and I'll definitely play the second game.
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EPT
