Mordrak
2682
I think there’s far more legitimate criticisms than the lead designer implies. The narrative is a bit of a mess so far (at least for me). It does a lot of telling and not a lot of showing and skips over what should be significant character/plot building moments. It seems haphazard at best.
And maybe I’m misremembering how frequent this was in Origins, but I distinctly remember your party members making their displeasure at your choices during the relevant conversations. It made them feel more responsive and like they weren’t just following you around like lap dogs. Of course, because of that it makes it hard to sell more characters as DLC. So far in DA2, it’s just +'s and -'s after a conversation is over, where you’re left making educated guesses about why or why not they did not like your actions and of course doesn’t give you the opportunity to argue your side to them.
It’s interesting to have been just playing BG1, because even in a game that old, the way it builds up its narrative and world seems superior. I’d go into more detail about contrasting the two, but don’t want to
nordhus
2683
Is there some kind of organized campaign against DA2? The user reviews at Metacritic seems overly critical.
Review campaign: probably some kind of bullshit.
A few more hours in, and I’m still loving the game. I’ve got a pretty good handle on combat now. At level 7 I’ve got a few good abilities under my warrior Hawke’s belt, and am starting to feel more powerful. I still get the shit beat out of me if I get a little overzealous and allow him to get surrounded by too many dudes, though. The “second wave” thing isn’t every fight, but it is a lot of them. It makes for some hectic encounters where you wear yourself down to that last health potion and hover the cursor over it while eying your last fighter’s dwindling health because maaaaaybe she can pull it out… but it can wear a little thin when that happens two or three times in a row.
Thanks for the tip about putting potions in the quickbar. For some reason my built-in health potion button was acting like a global timer for everybody, which meant if Varric used a health potion I couldn’t give one to Hawke until the timer ran out. Without that, things are a little more survivable.
ShivaX
2685
I would imagine people that like it are still playing it, while those that don’t aren’t and are writing reviews. Give it a little time to balance out.
stusser
2686
Nah, something’s going on. It’s clearly a drop in quality from DA:O, but there’s no way DA2 is a 3.9 game.
rei
2687
I am, however, quite disappointed by the claustrophobic lack of story/narrative scope/scenery being walled into Kirkwall. :(
Ninyu
2688
“The Blooming Rose? I wonder what goes on in there?” LOL
Overall, I like the game and many of the changes are improvements. It’s just not the game I was expecting. I wanted Dragon Age 2 and got Mass Effect with swords. That said I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my money and I enjoy playing it.
I imagine some of the lower scores could be based on expectations following the first game.
There’s lots of shit to do in Kirkwall, I feel. I’m not particularly missing the locational variety of Origins just yet. These locations are much better realized, I feel. And I’m enjoying a good amount of the secondary development I can have in Hawke’s rise.
‘Are you crazy?! People can’t go back to that mine! It’s a death trap!’
‘I’ll cut you in for half a share.’
‘I’ll get them back to work right away.’
Also,
‘Forget city guard - this guy should be in politics! AMIRITE?!’
‘Not now, Hawke.’
Senjak
2692
When you get to level 7 and pick your first specialization, I highly recommend the Templar spec. The description for it mentions that you don’t have to be a Templar to learn their tricks, so choosing it doesn’t agro the sister. For your first Templar ability you can pick an awesome AOE nuke that affects a decent sized area around the caster. I forget what it’s called, because I immediately started thinking of it as “Kill Everyone”; though it doesn’t kill stronger enemies, it kills or severely weakens the chaff nicely.
That reminds me - because there’s a brothel, naturally you can pay for sex. When I did, out of curiosity, I was treated to a brief cutscene of my character standing in front of a bed, apparently receiving oral service…and then the rest of my party barging in, including my brother. Aaawkward…
I greatly enjoy annoying Aveline.
Hawke muses on the Wounded Coast: “I wonder if it’s near the Injured Highlands? Or the Crippled Hills? Massive-Head-Trauma Bay?” [crickets] “No one? Just me?”
BlakeD
2696
Well, I found another major bug in the game.
MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW
At the beginning of the game, you can break Isabella’s “Fools Rush In” quest pretty easily by looting a certain body before she tells you to search them. Doing so breaks the quest and she will stand uselessly in front of a door that you can not go through even if it has a quest marker.
I’m editing to note that this is important because you lose out on the experience for that quest line and additionally are unable to use Isabella as a companion NPC, which is pretty major.
END OF SPOILERS
So, basically, I thought it would sort itself out and went on happily questing for a few hours. Now I’ve found (thanks to this thread: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/dragon-age-2/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-58409072&pid=988966) that I basically have to reload a save from about 4 hours prior to move forward. That’s two major bugs I’ve found in just a few hours of playing and it’s pretty annoying.
I’m very sidetracked with NWN2’s virtual world stuff right now and after reading that I’m kinda glad. I’ll wait for the bugs/patches to sort things out before playing.
Interesting interview with Inon Zur, and not only for this bit:
Unlike other titles from Bioware, this [score] was kind of a rush job. EA really wanted to capitalize on the success of Origins, so the game was really being pushed hard to be released now.
Was this posted already?
“We were nearing the end of active work on design content for Dragon Age… there was still a lot more bug fixing/polishing/ and fill-content generation ahead but the core plot/writing and level design was finished. My work was rapidly shifting into that of reviewing what the team had put together.
Discussion on Dragon Age 2 began around this time and looking ahead I knew that I wasn’t going to be satisfied with what Dragon Age 2 would be. Party control/tactical combat are huge factors in my enjoyment of a role-playing game as is adopting the role of the hero (i.e., customizing my character). I was fairly certain Dragon Age would transition towards more of a Mass Effect experience, which while enjoyable is not the type of role-playing game I play. Could I be the lead designer on such a title? Certainly… though if I were going to work on a game adopting a set-in-stone protagonist I’d rather work on something lighter, like a shooter.
Through a series of circumstances it was decided that with my not wanting to participate on Dragon Age 2 it was time to transition in a new lead to finish the Dragon Age console versions and ramp up for Dragon Age 2. I moved out of an active lead role though I stayed on for several months performing quality assurance and helping with the transition. I completed the game several times during this period and racked up the second or third highest bug totals… so, still busy but doing something quite different.
After this was over and the content locked down I took a sabbatical. When I returned to work I was hoping that there would be a new project lined up for me.
There wasn’t, not really. I did some high level design for a potential new project but a few months later I realized that, given cutbacks and other things that it really seemed unlikely that the project I had been ‘assigned’ to was ever going to materialize. I can’t/won’t go into any other details other than to point to an old entry I made about this and reiterate: “I’m not the same person I was when I started, and BioWare isn’t the same company. ”
So I quit, giving a couple months notice to finish up my obligations on the new/hypothetical project and then in early September 2009 I left BioWare.”
- Brent Knowles
Lead Designer for Dragon Age: Origins
(written in the August '10).
BTW, how is the game? Anyone have finished already and can make a summary of pros and cons? I didn’t follow the development.
