I preordered, but since I’m only now–after more hours with DAO than I’d care to admit–just at the point of finishing DAO and still need to play through DAA, I think it likely the game-breaking bugs will be patched.
Or at least I hope they’ll be patched.
flyinj
2702
Along those lines, I’m wondering how the friendship thing works. It seems like people that aren’t in your party don’t get influenced by your decisions that they like or don’t like. Is that true?
There are a few quests that are definitely questionable that I’d like to do (such as that one). I bet Miriam or whatever the city guard tank character’s name is would hate me for it. But if I take other people who wouldn’t mind, it won’t negatively affect her friendship, will it?
BlakeD
2703
Whoops… Thanks, EA for specifically telling us this wasn’t included and including it anyway!
Yet another reason to leave it alone for now.
That seems to be the case for the most part. The transaction usually happens in the dialogue.
Though that doesn’t preclude the possibility that the issue comes up later, through the consequences of your actions. Or that the person could bring it up at a completely different time.
Mordrak
2706
My early impression is it’s unfortunate that I’ve been playing BG1 before I tackled DA2. There’s so much that this next gen title could have learned from the game that started Bioware on its path to being consumed by EA.
Without getting into spoilers, DA2’s most noticeable problem is it does a lot of telling and not showing and this permeates everything, except perhaps the combat. The game abstracts so much of the experience away with its new UI philosophy that I feel somewhat disconnected from the world. It’s often the little conceits that sell me on the virtual world as much as the character arcs. My companions feel a lot more silent than in DA:O, relying on rivaly/ally adjustments after the conversations to inform me of what they thought rather than contributing to make their opinion known.
To get into some things I like, the combat interaction is better than its first impression once you’ve given it time but the lack of friendly fire toggle is head scratching and the only gimmick so far seems to be reinforcements on every fight. The limited camera is my constant enemy as well. :( The effects look much better with DX10+ rather than dx9. I’m using 11 but due to the slowdown/stutter they mentioned in an article from the DX11 implementation, I’ll be switching to dx9. I don’t want my new video card to have a meltdown.
None of the characters so far have ingratiated themselves with me, but I’m still only about 4-5 hours in I’d say. Are the review scores too low? Except for the really low outliers, it doesn’t feel like it so far.
Sorry, but there is some confusion on this. We use Sony Release Control which shares some functionality with other Sony products (SecuROM), but once the Sony Release Control check is passed, Release Control self-destructs, removing the Release Control wrapper and it is never used again. Game updates will not use Release Control because obviously the release date is passed.
Sounds like a feature, not a problem.
Mordrak
2709
Hah, thanks, ingratiated themselves with me. Durrr. Sorry.
Edit: DOH! Thanks again.
I’m not sure why use of SecuROM would matter, anyway. It’s not Starforce, which had a reputation for actually damaging hardware (possibly apocryphal, admittedly) and conflicting with some fairly basic utility programs. It’s just a DRM product, one which happens to be most famous for implementations in which the number of available installs are limited, but which has a variety of other possible configuration down to a simple disc check (actually the most common implementation). Dragon Age 2’s DRM is certainly a potential issue depending on your level of anti-DRM sentiment, but it was fully disclosed ahead of time and the brand name of the DRM seems entirely irrelevant to me.
BlakeD
2712
Thanks for the update, Derek. False alarm. I thought it was legit since it was on Ars Technica.
edit: malkav11, I think it’s more that EA specifically said they weren’t going to use it and then (supposedly) did so anyway. It’s all been cleared up at this point so rather a moot argument on both sides.
As for the game itself, I’m love the stylized direction Bioware took with characters in this game. It evokes them a better sense of personality and you can easily tell them all apart simply by silhouette. Armor and clothing seem less generic fantasy and the faces are more varied. NPCs in general seem better this time around and are definitely more memorable. I think the interface is fine and makes things less cluttered although I am missing stuff like where the “select all party members” button is located. I’m a bit concerned about some things, but I feel like the world is simultaneously more alive with personality and confined to the empty streets (even during the day) of a single city. It’s a weird vibe from the game, but I feel like I need to play a hell of a lot more to generate a real opinion.
serling
2713
Yeah, I’ve pondered this as well. Bioware has stripped an entire layer from the role playing experience for the sake of streamlining. There’s a lot of stuff between pure dialog and pure combat that is missing here. I think that pissed off a lot of people – rightfully so, I might add.
Am I late to the outrage bandwagon on this one? From the Bioware forum:
not-url h ttp://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6459941/1
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A user posts the comment “Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?”
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Someone reports him to EA which earns him a 72 hr “EA Community” suspension.
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Unlike a Bioware forum ban, this affects all your EA profile and online content, so when he gets DA2 he finds he can’t register it with servers or play at all.
“These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC…
Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you’re going to follow.”
How have we gotten to the place this is considered an acceptable response for a single player game? I guess he is “lucky” he didn’t say anything that made them really mad.
He also said tits, so well deserved imo
BlakeD
2716
Turns out the forum/game banning was a mistake:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/55656/ea-not-banning-game-access
edit: Just to clarify, I wish EA would stick to their own rules, is all I’m asking
While some of what goes on on the Bio forums these days may seem heavy-handed, I personally think a lot of people get off pretty light. They are company-owned forums, after all, and the people out there that think net anonymity gives them the right to do and say whatever they please need a good smackdown from time-to-time. Considering that most of these kids have no willpower when it comes to buying anything, I expect any backlash against EA/BioWare for any sort of banning is going to be weak in financial terms.
Banning from forums is fine and good. Banning from a game you already purchased is crappy. Glad that is not what happened.
Yeah, and from what I saw the guy deserved to be banned from the forum. Very happy with the result, here.
Read a few posts above, he was banned for more than just that.
