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On February 15 2011 11:00 dukethegold wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 09:50 Zocat wrote:On February 15 2011 09:36 lastmotion wrote:
-Very linear / no exploration (Decisions do have impact but not impacting enough to change the outcome of the story. you can't even explore after beating the game. There is absolutely no open world like Obilivion, you're very confined. Considering most places are recycled, there are not many places to go. )
-Game is too short.
Too short? Wtf. And I hate Oblivion "free world" styles - because the "vast" world feels just empty in those "1st person action RPGs". Or has multiple repetetive generated dungeons which are a snorefest with absolutely no story behind them. Not if you mod Oblivion! With enough mods, you will be surprised. I have like 4 overhaul mods working on my Oblivion + a bunch of others. They essentially remade Oblivion. The bad side is that Oblivion's engine is so trashy that it randomly crashes after heavy modding.
That's very likely because the mod load order is not optimized on Oblivion's engine (even worse for Morrowind) so conflicts can occur. Using external load order programs might solve most of those issues.
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Why the developers for Dragon Age 2 decided to shit on their core audience and screw the return to old-school tactical RPG will forever be lost to me. At least Blizzard tried to strike a balance with SC2.
Also, about DA:O difficultly... I've got the PC version and I find the game to be quite difficult even on normal. Am I just doing it wrong, or what?
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i never finished da1 even though i really enjoy it. I got real pissed off when i kept picking up super cool items that nobody in party could use and having to sell them. Oh and also the fact that that i spent a shit load of stats teching to the earthquake spell which did nothing more than piss me off.
I want to start over, maybe go arcane warrior instead of rogue/assasin, but when i think about how many hours i have to play to get to where i was...
T-T
Other than that i loved it
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On February 15 2011 18:47 Shrewmy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 06:54 Telcontar wrote:On February 15 2011 06:30 Bibdy wrote:On February 15 2011 06:14 mordk wrote:
The other incredibly weak aspect of Bioware's RPGs in both DA and ME is main antagonists. They absolutely suck and have no real personality. The faceless reapers and the archdemon do no justice to the likes of Jon Irenicus, now THAT was a solid nemesis, I actually hated the guy and got really excited when I finally finished the game, that was such a great storyline.
That's a really good point I've never thought about. Irenicus, Sarevok and Melissan were all very hateable and victory felt very satisfactory. DA:O had characters like Loghain and Vaughn (if you were a human noble) who paled by comparison and weren't even the ultimate bad guy who were just some faceless horde of creatures. I thought Bioware did a good job with ME 1&2's villains. Sure Saren and the Harbinger + Show Spoiler +(who technically is a reaper) aren't the most devious or terrifying foes but they do their jobs. Anyways, ME3 is going to show what the reapers are really capable of and how badass they truly are (hopefully!) Same kind of goes to DA:O. Sure, they're not the most in-your-face evil villains but Loghain and the Archdemon do what they're there for and serve the overall story. Saren was a great villain, but the Collectors over all were just a horrible enemy. And the plot twist + Show Spoiler +a human reaper (The idea of a human shaped reaper ship just sounds stupid, and why do machines need biological material?) was retarded and didn't fit the lore from what you'd learnt in the first game. That and the reapers went from a terrifying and nearly unstoppable nemesis to a race that needs to attack and physically land on Earth in order to do damage, despite the fact that the only instance of a reaper being taken out was with a gargantuan mass accelerator cannon that tore a huge gash in a planet. Instead we have these neutered reapers who appear very, very beatable. I'm noticing a very disturbing trend in RPG's these days, they're being dumbed down and packed with more action at the cost of decent writing and mechanics. The most annoying aspect was Mass Effect 2, they remove the inventory completely instead of just fixing the issues it had, and giving all weapons 'ammo'.
Agree here, Saren was really an awesome Villain and part of what made the game great, along with the final fight that actually makes me want to complete it all the way to the end on my second, third and forth playthrough.
The lack of any good villain in DA:O and in ME2 (ME2 story was pretty awful, i really enjoyed playing it but story was awful) might be one of the reasons i do not feel that compelled to replay them.
But i do not find that "trend" to true, was not to long ago since Mass Effect one came out, and before that i think The Witcher did a great job with the storytelling aswell. Fallout:NW defined the world and all parties pretty well and leaves it up to you wich one to "follow".
Looking back at how many RPG's that have been produced each year that has really made me go "wow" with gameplay/story/lore i think it remains at a steady rate of 1-2 games/year who fullfills all three, most games dont deliver top notch for all three.
List o games that delivered for me:
+ Show Spoiler +2010: Fallout:NW gave me the full RPG experience with gameplay/story/lore.
2009: Dragon Age: Origins, it was lacking in some departments but it was the only notable RPG that came out that year so...
2008: The Wither (EE) and Mass Effect both delivered and are among my favorites of all times.
2007: None that made me go wow =((
2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
2005: SW:KotOR 2 - first game was better, but the second one was still awesome imo.
Considering counting Fable:Lost chapters here aswell, that game was pretty great.
2004: Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
2003: SW:KotOR - one of the alltime great.
After this i start having trouble remembering, but i admit my personal preference of never bying into Neverwinter nights series or Might and magic series might make my list a bit flawed.
2002: Morrowind delivered tho, i remember that!
2001: Expansion year iirc...
2000: BG:2. Nuff said. Also Diablo 2 even if it was more hack'n'slash than RPG imo. Icewind Dale really stuck with me aswell, this was a good year =)
1999: Planetscape Torment & Baldurs Gate.
1998: Fallout 2. FF7.
1997: Diablo and Fallout. and there i am going to end my list, since they introduced me to RPG-gaming.
Looking back 1997-2000 was exeptionally good RPG years. As for a trend or not, thinking more of the lines of what some of the "almsot great" RPG's lately was lacking i agree that they where dumbed down and focusing to much on action or failing in lore/story.
But i think even looking back that was always true for most RPG's, only a precious few manage to hit everything spot on for me to love them and not merely like them. For every stunning RPG each year on that list there are loads that did not quite make it, and i think that holds true today aswell and will hold true for the future.
I am very interested to see what direction they take with DA:O2 and ME3.
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On February 15 2011 18:49 Fa1nT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 11:00 dukethegold wrote:On February 15 2011 09:50 Zocat wrote:On February 15 2011 09:36 lastmotion wrote:
-Very linear / no exploration (Decisions do have impact but not impacting enough to change the outcome of the story. you can't even explore after beating the game. There is absolutely no open world like Obilivion, you're very confined. Considering most places are recycled, there are not many places to go. )
-Game is too short.
Too short? Wtf. And I hate Oblivion "free world" styles - because the "vast" world feels just empty in those "1st person action RPGs". Or has multiple repetetive generated dungeons which are a snorefest with absolutely no story behind them. Not if you mod Oblivion! With enough mods, you will be surprised. I have like 4 overhaul mods working on my Oblivion + a bunch of others. They essentially remade Oblivion. The bad side is that Oblivion's engine is so trashy that it randomly crashes after heavy modding. Sorry, but you can't compliment a game where it's not good unless the players themselves fix it. My laptop could not run Oblivion a year ago so I got GOTY edition on PS3, and if was pretty meh without being able to mod anything. It has the worst leveling system of almost any game I have ever played, it makes you not want to even level.
yea I dunno why anyone would get oblivion on a console the game is terrible without mods...I'd give it like a 5/10 without mods but 9/10 easy with the right mods since they can fix pretty much everything wrong with the game
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On February 15 2011 19:10 Bartuc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 11:00 dukethegold wrote:On February 15 2011 09:50 Zocat wrote:On February 15 2011 09:36 lastmotion wrote:
-Very linear / no exploration (Decisions do have impact but not impacting enough to change the outcome of the story. you can't even explore after beating the game. There is absolutely no open world like Obilivion, you're very confined. Considering most places are recycled, there are not many places to go. )
-Game is too short.
Too short? Wtf. And I hate Oblivion "free world" styles - because the "vast" world feels just empty in those "1st person action RPGs". Or has multiple repetetive generated dungeons which are a snorefest with absolutely no story behind them. Not if you mod Oblivion! With enough mods, you will be surprised. I have like 4 overhaul mods working on my Oblivion + a bunch of others. They essentially remade Oblivion. The bad side is that Oblivion's engine is so trashy that it randomly crashes after heavy modding. That's very likely because the mod load order is not optimized on Oblivion's engine (even worse for Morrowind) so conflicts can occur. Using external load order programs might solve most of those issues.
Oh, I use Wyre Bash + Mod Manager + Masterupdate + BOSS + bunch of optimization mods such as Oblivion Stutter remover etc.
Crashes still happen, but at a tolerable rate.
You can mod Dragon Age too. But since Oblivion is one giant open world, Oblivion mods are far more epic and Dragon Age can't reach my expectation even with modding.
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On February 16 2011 02:39 antelope591 wrote:
yea I dunno why anyone would get oblivion on a console the game is terrible without mods...I'd give it like a 5/10 without mods but 9/10 easy with the right mods since they can fix pretty much everything wrong with the game
Come on, seriously? The game is heads and shoulders over 85% of everything that comes out of developers. Is it better with mods? Yeah. Is it a 5/10 without? Absolutely not.
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On February 16 2011 03:14 dukethegold wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 19:10 Bartuc wrote:On February 15 2011 11:00 dukethegold wrote:On February 15 2011 09:50 Zocat wrote:On February 15 2011 09:36 lastmotion wrote:
-Very linear / no exploration (Decisions do have impact but not impacting enough to change the outcome of the story. you can't even explore after beating the game. There is absolutely no open world like Obilivion, you're very confined. Considering most places are recycled, there are not many places to go. )
-Game is too short.
Too short? Wtf. And I hate Oblivion "free world" styles - because the "vast" world feels just empty in those "1st person action RPGs". Or has multiple repetetive generated dungeons which are a snorefest with absolutely no story behind them. Not if you mod Oblivion! With enough mods, you will be surprised. I have like 4 overhaul mods working on my Oblivion + a bunch of others. They essentially remade Oblivion. The bad side is that Oblivion's engine is so trashy that it randomly crashes after heavy modding. That's very likely because the mod load order is not optimized on Oblivion's engine (even worse for Morrowind) so conflicts can occur. Using external load order programs might solve most of those issues. Oh, I use Wyre Bash + Mod Manager + Masterupdate + BOSS + bunch of optimization mods such as Oblivion Stutter remover etc. Crashes still happen, but at a tolerable rate. You can mod Dragon Age too. But since Oblivion is one giant open world, Oblivion mods are far more epic and Dragon Age can't reach my expectation even with modding.
Yeah, there isn't a whole lot of good stuff that came out of the Dragon Age modding scene, even after a year. Mostly because the toolset is a proper software development toolkit, making it very complex and difficult to use for your first-time modder. Making something worthwhile in that game takes an entire team of people and most modders are only capable of working on something small and simple.
Oblivion modding can be really as simple as finding a nice wide-open space (of which there's lots) and slapping a bunch of buildings and creatures in. DA:O's modding takes a lot more work and there are tons of core files that tend to get overridden, making most mods completely incompatible with one another.
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On February 16 2011 03:49 CatsPajamas wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 02:39 antelope591 wrote:
yea I dunno why anyone would get oblivion on a console the game is terrible without mods...I'd give it like a 5/10 without mods but 9/10 easy with the right mods since they can fix pretty much everything wrong with the game
Come on, seriously? The game is heads and shoulders over 85% of everything that comes out of developers. Is it better with mods? Yeah. Is it a 5/10 without? Absolutely not.
-worst leveling system ever designed for an RPG
-world is basically empty
-main storyline is atrocious
-all the dungeons look the same and don't even contain any gear worth getting 99% of the time
The only thing really worth playing in the original oblivon is the thieves/assassin guild storylines...other than that there's not even a leveling/gear progression curve. wtf is the point of an RPG without one? Bandits with glass armor at level 20? lawl
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My main problem with Oblivion is that it bites more than it can chew. It has a-l-o-t of gameplay elements, but everyone of them is VERY shalow. Take the spells for example: there are three types of damage, there is single enemy damage and aoe, there is instant damage and continual damage and all the spells are variesions of this. When I play RPG I liketo get exited over a new spell i get (hence dragon age where spells look AWESOME) but i dont get exited because i get basicaly the same spell with the same graphics but with more damage.
Same with gear, especialy if you compare it with a game like Diablo 2 LoD or Dragon Age.
Also the leveling system in Oblivion actualy punishes you instead of rewarding by not strenghning your character much and give the enemies a serious bust.
The combat if you dont have any kind of magic is extremely shallow and boring: basicaly whack your sword and avoid enemies that jump at you most of them in the same manner.
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The previous two posts sum up my thoughts about Oblivion.
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I've tried to get into Oblivion since so many ppl swear by it, but I just cannot do it. Honestly, what I find really terrible with the game is the 1st person camera. I feel like that is reserved only for FPS games.
But getting back to Dragon Age 2, I'm really looking forward to it! I was doing some google searches and found this 50+ min gameplay + interview video with the game's lead designer: http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=23302
Also, a demo of the game is to be released on Feb 22 before the actual release of the game: http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo/
So many good games are coming out this year!! Let's hope D3 is one of them ^_^
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On February 17 2011 02:03 Sultan.P wrote:I've tried to get into Oblivion since so many ppl swear by it, but I just cannot do it. Honestly, what I find really terrible with the game is the 1st person camera. I feel like that is reserved only for FPS games. But getting back to Dragon Age 2, I'm really looking forward to it! I was doing some google searches and found this 50+ min gameplay + interview video with the game's lead designer: http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=23302Also, a demo of the game is to be released on Feb 22 before the actual release of the game: http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo/So many good games are coming out this year!! Let's hope D3 is one of them ^_^
I usually have a boner for third or first person medieval-themed action/RPG games; Heretic, Hexen, Hexen 2, Dark Messiah, Rune, and many more, but yeah I just couldn't get into Oblivion. I got bored very quickly and just ploughed through the main story, smashing things with the best melee weapon at the time, because there was nothing else worth spending time on. Spellcasting was an enormous disappointment. Its usually what makes or breaks a game for me.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/10/leaked-blizzard-roadmap-shows-release-dates-for-pretty-much-everything/
This roadmap says D3 should be out at the end of this year, or (more likely) the start of next. Lots of waiting to do!
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Really looking forward to Dragon Age 2 and hope Bioware will do the same treatment from Dragon Age Origins they did to ME2 from ME1.
Dragon Age Origins was a very good game with significant technical problem in for of bugs, memory leaks, crashes, unreasonable difficulty spikes and balance problems (overpowered two handed dagger rogue, overpowered bloodmage\archane warrior combo, overpowered Crushing Prison, Mana Clash, Blood Wound spells) and the so ever annoying Scatter Shot when the enemies chain you with that abillity.
Despite o those flaws it was a very good game with good story, great memorable characters, challenging and fun tactical gameplay, and big ass scary dragons (as they should be) and alot of good humor.
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Thanks for the link, looking through it now 
I have the usual high expectations for DA2 as I have for any Bioware title, and I'm sure they are gonna deliver. Really hope they kept friendly fire on AoE spells in the game though, it had a great impact on tactics in combat situations, and kept the credibility intact of cause.
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On February 15 2011 20:14 LunarC wrote:
Why the developers for Dragon Age 2 decided to shit on their core audience and screw the return to old-school tactical RPG will forever be lost to me. At least Blizzard tried to strike a balance with SC2.
Also, about DA:O difficultly... I've got the PC version and I find the game to be quite difficult even on normal. Am I just doing it wrong, or what?
Well I played dragon age quite a bit. Once you figure out encounters and such the hardest difficulty, insane or whatever it was called is very easy. When you start to whorecraft some cheesy builds and effective strategies on top of knowing every encounter you should be able to solo the game on hardest, at least I did.
Dragon Age 2 looks like a dumbed down version of Dragon Age: Origins.
I will probably play it once or twice for the story, but it doesn't seem to have any gameplay that seems to last in the long run. Just another meaningless sequel without any ambitions.
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So
Dragon Age 2
Mabari Warhound
Mirror of Transformation
Magic & Crafting Stores
Registering Dragon Age 2
Boots of the Frozen Wastes
Secondary pre-order before March 8th
Lion of Orlais Shield
Fadeshear Sword
Initial pre-order before January 11th
Extra character
Extra missions
Sound track
Apostate's Courage
Seeker's Bulwark
Adder of Antiva
Might of Sten
Pre-orders from best buy/play.com
Amulet of Ashes
Pre-order from EA stores
The Irons
Pre-order from BioWare store
The Antivan Garrote
Dragon Age newsletter promotional
Staff of Parthalan
Penny Arcade promotion
Hindsight
Purchasing Dead Space 2
Ser Isaac's armor
Completing Demo
Hayder’s Razor
IF there are a million downloads on the demo
Lothering’s Lament
Far Cliffs of Kirkwall tomes
IF there are a million shares (I don't know how Facebook works) to the Dragon Age Facebook page
Of Things Not Lost
Playing the Dragon Age: Legends Facebook game
Air of Confidence
Dura's Blue Flame
Evra's Might
Evra’s Trophy Belt
Ivo Family Crest
Purchases of $15 upwards on epicweapons.com or Razer products
Ring of Whispers
Boy! I can't wait to see what other DLC will be released while we wait until the game launches!
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Ugh there was an even earlier preorder time? I missed that one. I completely forgot to reserve this one when I went to the store and reserved every good game comming out (D3, Portal 2, SWTOR, Fable 3, Fallout NV, Dead Space 2).
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heard that german demo leaked today. Anyway tomorrow we gonna have it officially, can't wait :>
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EPT
