Still prefer DA2 to DA1, but that’s not particularly high praise from me. I’m all for games exploring alternatives to the “save the world” cliche, but usually you want to come up with an actual alternative rather than a yawning void of unfocused meandering.
The “save the world” bit was the only point on which I disagreed with him. I actually appreciated that DA2 tried to present an alternative to that, even if the execution was uneven.
JoshV
4323
I also think its funny he mentioned that DA1 didn’t have a hub system. Which it did, it was just the same template as all previous bioware games, go to one of three places in any order and then go to a final place, finish game.
maxle
4324
All previous Bioware games except their best one and its prequel.
Of course, Athkatla was a hub.
That’s not what a hub system is. And there were considerably more than three places that you could visit, if you count all the side adventures.
DA1 still didn’t really have any more physical territory than any other hub-based BioWare game. And it felt far more disjointed than most of their other games due to the clunky map system. At the very least, the map in DA2 provides more information and is much more use friendly. If they’re absolutely married to the idea of a map travel system, DA2 is at least a step in the right direction.
I agree on that count. I thought the DA2 map was fantastic.
But DA1 was definitely not hub-based. A hub-based game is where you have one central base of operations that you return to again and again. Demons Souls is a hub-based game. DA2 is a hub-based game. DA1 is not a hub-based game.
Mordrak
4328
What was fantastic about the DA2 map? The more stylized city map for instance felt like it held little relation the actual locations. Or are you talking about the map for while you’re within a subsection? The latter worked well for me as a tool, the former I don’t think really added anything to the experience except for making the world feel disjointed.
ShivaX
4329
You don’t have to save the world to have a hero’s journey neccessarily.
His point was that you didn’t really do anything other than wander randomly around.
ie. there was no real plot and no real goal.
DA2 Spoilers
Dragon Age 2’s “call to action” is abysmal. BioWare utterly failed to make me care about any of the major story beats. Hawke cares so freakin’ much about the Underdark exposition…I don’t. The actual exposition is reverse DA:O Deep Roads. An afternoon jaunt. The Qunari threat was whimsical at best and showcased the worst boss fight I’ve every had to endure in an RPG. At the end I wanted tell both the First Enchanter and The Knight Captain to go pound sand and then have Hawke sail out of Kirkwall into the sunset leaving the wretched city to it’s own terrible legions of fodder/carbon copy passage ways but BioWare would have none of it and as it turns out that choice doesn’t even matter as both turn on you.
No, I liked the stylized map. It felt like a version of the typical overland travel map that was streamlined in a good way. And I liked that you could control the time (night or day) that you visited a location. And the art was great. The whole thing just clicked with me.
Oh, I agree. Like I said, the execution wasn’t great. But I still appreciated that they at least tried to pull off a “low fantasy” storyline. I wish more RPGs would do that.
Mordrak
4332
I liked the night and day choice as well*. It was also featured in the introduction in Age of Conan. I preferred the implementation there, because it made you go to an inn to make the transition. That felt more natural than just flipping a toggle switch on an abstract map.
I agree that the map looked nice, but it didn’t add much for me because it didn’t feel connected. In a different game, with a different style, I probably would have like it more. Maybe it’s because it felt like the influence of EA after seeing terrible flash like animated movies in Mirror’s Edge. Anyway, that’s more a matter of taste too.
*Though I don’t think the choice is a universally good one. In an open world game, I think’d I’d prefer normal real time transitions with a wait command for instant time passage instead.
Senjak
4333
Agreed. NPCs kept asking Hawke if Kirkwall felt like home, or if he would go back to the place they left at the beginning (Lothering?) and I never knew what answer to give, because the real answer was, “I don’t care about either.” Hawke may have had a connection to one or both, but the player was never given a reason to care. Possibly the hypothesized cut-content re ownership of the mansion and mine would have helped; also, allowing the player to make some decisions and affect events at all would have been useful in giving Kirkwall a real sense of place.
It could have been worse, they could have given him a helicopter.
So the inherited mansion and the co-owned mine were cut from the game? I was wondering if the writers had just forgotten about that…
Senjak
4335
You inherit the mansion at the beginning of ACT II, and you can become “co-owner” of the mine during a sidequest, but you can’t do anything with either property (though the mansion replaces the Lowtown hovel as your storage locker). There are hints in dialogue and sidequests that more was planned:
-The other owner of the mine talks about the profit that you’re both making, but you never see a penny.
-One of the mine sidequests involves getting the miners back to work, and you can resolve it by promising to increase their pay, but this doesn’t actually cost you anything; possibly it would have reduced mine revenues if the mine had been fully implemented.
-Another mine sidequest is just a fedex run to order new pickaxes for the mine, on the theory that it will increase productivity and therefore profits. You have to pay 15g to order the pickaxes, which is just lost money because you never see any of the mine profits that your partner keeps talking about. This quest makes no sense as implemented now, but it would have if you were receiving a share of the profit from the mine, and the 15g investment would have resulted in higher income over time.
-Some NPCs comment on the huge amount Hawke spends on his mansion, so possibly they had originally intended to let you upgrade your mansion as a money-sink for the mine revenue.
I didn’t read any of the previews or other pre-release hoopla while DA2 was in development, so I’m curious to know if any of the things which seem incomplete were ever discussed by the devs.
Nothing feels connected in either Dragon Age game, so that’s a lost cause already to me. The map is good because it provides all the information I need about what’s at each location and why I’d go there for what quest, something the map in DA1 had no interest in telling me. It tells me what locations are connected to key locations and what quests those are related to. It removes the guesswork from things and doesn’t require me to double-check my quest log as a result. Therefore, I find it an effective upgrade from the first game’s map and something they should continue to move forward with in the inevitable DA3.
I liked the night and day choice as well*. *Though I don’t think the choice is a universally good one. In an open world game, I think’d I’d prefer normal real time transitions with a wait command for instant time passage instead.
I agree with this, but Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 are not open world games.
No, that’s the thing – I had prepared for the inheritance in Act 1, with Mom saying she would petition the Viscount, but then in Act 2 I had bought the mansion with my new-found wealth! The inheritance never came up again.
and you can become “co-owner” of the mine during a sidequest
Yes, I did that too, and like you say nothing else ever came of it. Disappointing.
Senjak
4338
I forgot about the strange way Hawke actually acquires the mansion. Weird, it’s like they took pieces from different possible paths to ownership and stapled them together.
I didn’t find anything wrong with Hawke “buying” the estate a problem or a source of disconnect in the story. While yes, Mother was petitioning the Vicount, it’s been clear from the beginning that to really do anything in the city, you need to grease some palms. After coming into all that wealth, I just assumed that that’s exactly what you did.
For the sharing profits thing in the mine, you can demand your share upfront instead of waiting for a share that will never come.
The point is that if this was the intention they should spell it out, for what is a rather important plot point (the bridge between the first two chapters).
For the sharing profits thing in the mine, you can demand your share upfront instead of waiting for a share that will never come.
The point is that you should get your share of the profits later if you don’t demand payment upfront, or else an explanation why you don’t get anything. You’re really just making excuses for shoddy writing/plotting here.
