Killzig
1581
Are the Alistair fans pleased? I’m scared to peek in on the official boards.
I’d say most people are happy, less so with the MASSIVE SPOILER that was revealed, but still generally upbeat.
Killzig
1583
Ah just read that other spoiler. It’s like an episode of the odd couple in a single NPC. Oh Bioware, you so crazy.
I couldn’t help myself, I looked at the forum.
Found this:
Glad to see they didn’t take the CD Projekt approach to it: cower when some critic (Alec Meer, RPS) talks about boobies and promise to tone it down.
Really, it’s ok to see a video game character behead another video game character but if it’s videogame boobies they go OMFG IT’S SEXUAL CONTENT!
Meh.
Oh yes, there’s a lot of that going on. Take a look in the Varric thread, if you dare, I am sure there will be a link to Aimo’s animated Varric striptease gif on pretty much any page generated in the last week.
Killzig
1586
I’m going to go cry in a corner now.
Yeh Bioware games or more correctly the game fans get more freaky with every game.
If I recall, I played the Baldurs Gate games a few times before I realized there were romance options at all, let alone several of them.
I would likely never had known there were romance options in ME1, except for that news coverage of it way back when.
Fast forward to Bioware forums today. At any moment in time, if a mod isn’t combining and deleting threads, the first page or two of any Bioware game forum reads like it is a dating game, not a fantasy rpg.
They introduced a new character today, actually one of my favorite sarcastic characters from Awakening. I liked his personality and was glad to have him back. I figure 1/3 of the posts about him being announced are asking if he is a love interest, is he gay, is he bi-sexual, who can romance him!
I felt so out of place, I wanted to ask what his mage specialization was, and what spells were new to the game.
Thanks for this. I was wondering why I’m supposed to know this character. I never played Awakenings.
Crap now I have to suffer through Awakenings. That expansion is so bug-ridden and crash prone you’d think Obsidian made it.
Really? Can’t say I remember all the little details but I don’t recall that many bugs and not a single crash.
No crashes on 360 to the point that I got really bored, but the whole product looked a little unfinished. Quests were showing up before you’d think they should and you could practically see the flowchart, and I’m pretty sure that I walked through a solid object or two.
I met him in DAO, but I play(ed) a mage.
It was mostly a lot of little things that just proved the game was rushed and not well tested. Things like “monster closet” spawn triggers tied to a quest repeating over and over, like the Quest Complete boolean never got set. NPCs using their walk animation when standing still instead of their stand animation. Getting trapped in the geometry and falling through floors.
I can only remember one actual lock-up, but I only played it for like 4 hours before I shelved it for good. I’d have put up with all the bugs if the story had grabbed me in any way at all. Alistair came to my Warden keep and acted like he never met my character, so I was like “wtf this game is garbage and is ruining Dragon Age in my head”.
Giant Bomb has a quicklook roadshow thing up:
Looks alright, definitely better then I had heard from announcements. That said, I was very dissappointed by two things:
1- When he said “PC users have to click for each attack”
2- The UI feels too slick/futuristic/not sure. Weapons no longer appear to have actual icons, just a generic “DIS IS A HAMMAR” looking stuff (Hopefully that’s placeholder but the game comes out in a month) and the in-game healthbars just look too… dunno, not fantasy I guess.
It sounded to me like the 360 version is “press a button to attack” and the PC version is still the same as it was before, he even said it was the same as Origins (I believe he was trying to say it’s auto-attack in the PC version).
Joe_M
1596
Yeah, I can’t say I remember having any issues with Awakening. I would imagine your case is an outlier and not the average players experience.
New trailer out:
So, quick recap for myself:
DA1 (Origins & Awakening)
Six unique origin stories
Three base classes to choose from: rogue, warrior or mage
Three playable races: dwarf, human, elf
Real-time pause-and-play tactical combat
in DA:O - 4 specializations for each base class (total 12)
in DA:A - +2 class specialization per class (total 6)
Now, in Dragon Age 2:
You play as female or male Hawke, human. No other race choices available.
New crafting system with emphasis on gathering raw materials
New talent trees
Each companion has a specific personalized spec
No information yet on specializations for the player character but we can assume roughly the same number as in the previous game.
Real-time pause-and-play tactical combat (?) with, according to the creators, more emphasis on visceral combat instead of tactical approach.
The demo will be out in 14 days and the full game in 28 days, I’m trying not to make up my mind until then but so far, not really inspired to buy it. Why couldn’t they just give us a class/race rich environment with multiple origin stories and instead decided to just emulate Mass Effect?
So, my question is this: They already had a story-driven, single character RPG which was assisted in it’s rise to fame and glory by companions: Mass Effect.
Why turn Dragon Age into Fantasy Mass Effect?
They think it will increase sales if they make the game more Xtreme, which explains the game’s box art:
Joe_M
1600
It may be a simplistic explanation but I think it has to do with time and budget. How do you write, implement and test five or six new origins in such a short period of time while also including a rich campaign with various sidequests? I don’t think what you’re asking for is something they can just decide to do (in the context of the two year period of time) without making huge sacrifices elsewhere.
Maybe we can write EA asking them to extend the development time by a few years? :)
