Joe_M
1741
The items will be trivial but at least it gives us something to bitch about for the next few days. Thanks, Bioware!
As far as modding goes, there were rumors about the original toolset working with DA2. I’ve no idea whether that’s been confirmed in the past few months.
You take all the fun out of being an internet crank.
That’s what makes me cackle with malicious glee.
I didn’t want it to come across as if I was personally offended, it just strikes me as kind of dickish to say: “Hey fans if you do this for us, we put more items into the game, which we could do anyway with no effort on our part. Isn’t that great?”
Turin
I hear ya…and it is just the usual hollow marketing bullshit. It is not meant as personal offensive, but instead as more pellets. And WoW has proved people love the mother effing pellets.
They, the marketing guys, really think that this will get people jazzed about their game. They literally think this most likely. And maybe they are right. If you pay attention, humans are not as cerebral as we like to believe. We are base beasts easily swayed by things we do not consciously recognize. The whole point of marketing is to play on that…
mixuk
1746
I’m just thinking how awkward it would be if they wouldn’t get the million downloads.
I doubt there’s really enough demand for it, but if there was a ‘no promotional loot toggle’ I would toggle it every time.
All it’d really do is obviate the need to grit your teeth and destroy an item that the bag vendor would give you some coin for. In other words to completely abandon your extremely dedicated wandering second hand clothing salesman ethos.
Tony_M
1748
I can’t remember if its was the RPS guys or Tom that pointed this out: Each game is carefully playtested and balanced with all the standard loot, then at the 11th hour they introduce this marketing loot. So your choices are: 1) Buy the standard edition that has been carefully balanced, and play it as the designers intended, or 2) Buy the fancy pants edition which has been broken by our marketing guys.
And somehow they make you feel like you are missing out if you don’t get the broken edition.
Tony
Mordrak
1749
They are thinking items are cheap. And yeah, they are being manipulative, but that’s the nature of marketing.
Mordrak
1750
Which kind of makes the whole point of marketing kind of dickish and personal. Here monkey, chase the shiny. It purposefully attempts to undermine rational deliberate responses. It kind of scares me how gleefully people admittedly respond to such manipulation (like that point based steam sale contest awhile back). People basically jump up and down saying, “Can you believe I went through this effort to get a Team Fortress 2 hat?”
I can believe it, I’m not to sure it’s something to brag about though. Heh.
For shooters, this may hold true. In those games it is usually an addition to your arsenal that you not only get earlier than other similar weapons, but remains useful for the entire game.
For rpgs, DAO specifically most of the free swag is early starter equipment. If I recall correctly, even then, some of it was just added to vendors like the Blood Armor set, whatever it was called. You still had to be of an expected level to have made enough gold to purchase it.
I’m not really defending the practice. I realized how out of hand it was when either the DA or ME2 forum had stickied a thread and spreadsheet link to keep track of all the varied DLC promo offers.
You are assuming that a) the item is unbalanced and b) that this was a promotion planned right now and as such the items are rushed and unbalanced.
I doubt any of the above is true, it’s just marketing, once the game starts production the whole hype marketing machine starts turning it’s wheels, I doubt it’s an 11th hour thing.
Regardless, even if you get the items you can simply ignore them if want, I remember that one DLC in DA1 added some sort of cakes or whatnot that increased your relations with party members by a gazillion times more just as a way for you to rush your status with them to friendly or hated; again, you can simply ignore whatever items they put in and play as you want.
Watching those three gameplay trailers is really reinforcing what a step back Bioware took with the graphics (and this despite one of the two Drs claiming a year ago how they were going to do the exact opposite). No shadows, baked low res lighting. It just looks really bad, like a PS2 game. And that wretched UI isn’t helping. I know those videos were recorded with the DX9 preset, but I’m somewhat doubtful that the DX11 profile is going to add good shadowing or dynamic lighting.
The third trailer’s combat looks like a step backwards too. When the female is fighting the ogre alone toward the end, that constant, repetitive stabbing with the right arm over and over and over. . . . This is supposed to be the improved combat engine?
Dhruin
1754
And yet, every preview talks about how much the graphics have improved. Is this a console difference or the “wasteland” areas we commonly see just look dull?
Not quite. You got the ugly chest armor at the start. You did have to buy the rest of it from the vendor in camp, though it wasn’t really that expensive.
Mazuo
1756
I think it’s the setting more than any technical defects. From the livestream set in tKirkwall it really does appear to look better than Origins.
In a flat, lifeless orange wasteland there’s not much going for it. The character models certainly look more detailed.
Like that preorder dagger you could get, The Edge; which was available immediately, and was for me as good an offhand weapon (dual wield warrior) as could be found in the game itself. Added 5 damage…to both main and offhand…and unlike the other 2 equally good offhands, didn’t run 130 (The Veshaille) or 150 gold (Rose’s Thorn).
Yeah, DA is the game that made me swear off special promo items forever. The special Warden armor was the same way–I think I ended up wearing it for, like, 90% of the game. A special item that makes all the game’s other loot drops seem lame by comparison makes for a really weird reward. Thanks for making the game less fun! So my new policy towards this stuff is: I’ll pass.
On the other hand, I recall the ring that gave an extra 1% experience. So after you reached level 101, you could be certain that every player without it would only be at level 100.
There will be hit or misses, but I do find it odd to think that the developers wouldn’t have this stuff in mind when making the game. I think it’s fair to share the blame, and there’s quite enough to go around (including to the obsessive consumers). Ben’s resolve exempts him from such critique ;)
Razgon
1760
Two Worlds 2 has the same - the dragon armor you get there can carrry you through most of the game, letting you ignore the 50 different other armors you can get.
