Dragon Age II: now more like Mass Effect 2

The Bioware writing staff is very diverse. Some are pretty good (David Gaider is overall decent, but their best is Lukas Kristjanson, he was there since the company began and wrote Aveline and Carver, two of the three best companions if you ask me), while most of the other writers are... not so good, while also being mostly women (I make no correlation at all, to clarify). Case in point; Isabela, a character about as subtle as her outfit, written by a women. That said, Mary Kirby wrote Varric, another excellent character, and the best of Origins too (the Sten, Loghain, the Landsmeet)

Also, looking at her Wiki page http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Jennifer_Hepler , Helper is pretty good actually (the Grand Cleric and Cullen in DA2 are both well-written characters and their reactions towards you change based on how you treat them, especially Cullen).

I would really like to know who wrote the Act 2 main quest and the Arishok. These were the best pieces of writing in the game as far as quests went, but I could not find who worked on it.
 
so I gave in and tried the game out. I'm kinda hooked to be honest, it definitely keeps me interested so far. there will be some minor spoilers below, so if you don't want to know anything at all of the plot, don't read any further.

I like how the game flows, the way everything is presented like a side-quest instead of having a few major plot points and then some random "kill this and talk to that" quests you can pick up from chanter's boards and whatnot. sure, in the end most quests end up having you kill something, but at least in act 1 (only just started act 2) it feels like you're seeking out worthwhile work to be able to pay for the expedition and you get deeper and deeper into several plotlines along the way. choices seem to have at least some minor effect on what happens in the game and a lot of side-quests are actually pretty long and will continue with new quests throughout the game. so, to put it simply, questing is fun and doesn't feel nearly as much as mindless grinding as in most other rpg's. so far.

also, the main story is indeed interesting and manages to keep me playing to see where it all ends up. it's not epic in any way and it doesn't exactly keep you on edge out of suspense, but it makes you interested in the characters and to see their fate and try to affect the outcome best you can. parts of it are kind of stupid on the other hand, for example the whole thing with Aveline. she is a well written character. I like her lines and her personality, and that she's not your average big breasted bimbo. but why the hell would the captain of the guard follow you around and put her life at risk for some clearly illegal and highly suspicious jobs? and why does she let a nobody like Hawke stir up trouble all over town and kill whoever he/she pleases?

also dialogue in general is all over the place. some of it is great. some characters have among the best voice acting I've heard in a game. while some of it borders on embarassing. mainly female Hawke. how the hell could they let that dialogue through? I've never before actually hated my main character. but no matter how I attempt to roleplay her to my liking, she ends up saying something utterly stupid and acting like a complete moron. not to mention the horrible voice acting. picking the "evil" option, which I tend to do most of the time, ranges from being calm and straightforward but still caring to being a raged lunatic who'd murder anyone from looking at you wrong. and the "jokes"... well, let's just say I'd trust a 3rd grader to write better comedy.

and then we have combat, which is the absolutely weakest part of the game. I'm playing on hard and it definitely offers a lot of tactics and frequent use of pausing and giving orders. but the times when the game is incredibly hard is when the computer more or less cheats and throws wave after wave of enemies at you that spawn in the middle of the battlefield, preferably on top of your weakst characters and more or less kill them in an instant. too many fights in the game consist of first dying, then figuring out where the next group will spawn and try to move your characters out of reach in time. I'm slowly realizing that having a tank is useless since they don't do any damage but still can't control the battlefield in an effective way. Taunt is useless and it's way too easy to lose threat to a high damage dealer. a group of mid health/high damage warriors or rogues plus a healer seem to get the job done. except for some boss fights. and these are a whole different story. the two hardest fights so far consisted of a boss that managed to kill my damage dealers easily but couldn't touch my tank. but the boss just wouldn't die becaue the tank deals next to no damage at all. these were fun fights, I give them that, but they definitely didn't feel very tactical. too much luck and quick reflexes involved.

and finally, the overuse of repeated scenery. lazy is the only word that can describe it. extremely lazy.
 
Act 2 is actually the best part of the game imo, especially when you start dealing more and more with the Qunari, and the Arishok is an excellent character. The story also feels focused without the 'save teh world naow!!!' feel so many games have, very refreshing if you ask me.

About Aveline following Hawke, yeah, suspension of disbelief on that one. She kinda hand-waves it by saying she is keeping an eye on you, but she lets highly obvious crimes let go with a meager +5 rivalry. I guess it's the same as playing a mage; you go around in robe and staff, blasting your way through the city (in the Gallows, even, at the very start of the game) for hours, and the Templars never notice. Again, I think a random conversation with Varric reveals he bribes people to keep it secret, but there's only so much coin he must have considering how many fights you pick. A quests like in BG2 where you get an important person on your side (say, Cullen? you do save his butt) so that they leave your magic alone would go a long way towards fixing the issue.

And you just listed the two biggest issues pretty much anybody have with the game; magic adds and level re-use. But I doubt the later is laziness, remember, they had 1 year ans a third (November 2009-February 2011) to produce a 50-hours long CRPG. Considering the ridiculous deadline, I say they did a good job (not an excuse, but there's only so much they can do).

And true, the sarcastic option is very hit-and-miss. It does have some good lines once in a while, but companions have most of the game's comedy (I urge you to do Varric's Act 2 quest as soon as possible, pure gold)
 
No doubt they did as much as they could, but they're putting a lot of pressure on DLC sales to get as much money as they can.
Was it not possible for them to wait a little longer and work on gameplay more?
They always had great stories and writers. I mean it's Bioware, when they say they're going to do something they usually do it. What happened now?
 
sea said:
I think the way BioWare phrased it is, they had a bunch of ideas for new quests and content which weren't initially proposed in development, but not enough time to built new unique areas around them. They decided that new content was worth reusing some of the environments for. Pretty much, a management issue coupled with a lack of time to overhaul certain aspects of the game. They at least said they could have easily avoided the mistake and would strive to in the future.
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And you buy that? They had a minimum amount of game time to fill, and since they did not have the budget to do so, they had to shove in hasty shitty copies of the same dungeon over and over. It's got suit decision written all over it. "We didn't want to sacrifice our great ideas" is one heck of a thin excuse.
 
I think Dragon Age 2 would have been a lot better as some kind of "Ad-don" maybe named Dragon Age Hawke or something like that instead of making some sequel. Somewhat like what they did with Throne of Bhaal for Baldurs Gate 2 and simply make a "good" Sequel some time later. I mean it seems like "good" Ad-dons died out with the age of DLCs anyway.

Something different though. It seems BioWare's member Mike Laidlaw saw some need to defend Dragon Age 2 from the criticsm it received so far. Here the interview

BioWare's Mike Laidlaw: A defence of Dragon Age II
 
^
Completely agree with addon.

But there they go in the interview again bitching about something their eye saw, like they can please every fucking human(baby) on this planet:

"I couldn't play Origins, I thought it was too slow, the story was too plodding, too typical, and Dragon Age II is awesome by comparison!"

Please point me to this guy, i wanna make him tell something else about the game. He might live after our talk actually.
Perhaps they will listen to simple (not to say TARD) looking requests more than eloquently described ones.
I think they should have gone to 4chan and asked about DA:O, they are excellent at helping people in that "shitty game make more haxor hacsz sex kill all MAGIC SHINING!" kind of way.
 
I see some mindless trolling around here. Despite it's flaws, DAII is a good game. Not living up to the hype, but a good game nonetheless and certainly not of an add-on quality. The whole story of Hawke's rising is pretty plausibile, as far as fantasy games go. Never had I the feeling that what was I doing was pointless, the game is coherent, the content interesting and there is awful lot to do. Dialogues are a rip-off of Mass Effect 2 "OMG Shephard you are so awesome". Mages vs Templars plot was done properly, though templars were shown as those more unjust.

Reused levels? So the fuck what? Oh, and Origin WAS too slow and cliche.
 
Although positivism about DA2 is very refreshing, Ravager, and I mostly agree, gonna have to discuss about some little things. Re-using assets is something every game does, but having the whole game not change in scenery after 10 (ok, 20 if you count the Deep Roads) hours at all is not acceptable for a AAA title. At least make main plot missions take place in unique areas.

As for Mages vs Templars, I have two criticisms; it was already done in Origins (albeit it was more one-sided, the Templar option was clearly evil there), so focusing on the Qunari would have much better imo. Also, the plight of the mages sound very much dry after all the wacky shit that happens in Act 3 because of rogue/insane mages, and also because the mages in the story that aren't either blood mages or stupid can be counter on the fingers of both hands.

I do agree Hawke's personal story was good, better than Origins's save the world thing. Just wish the family took a bigger role.

That, and at least the game is challenging this time around. I am on Nightmare and am getting consistently mauled by the more difficult fights, something that happened only twice in Origins (Ser Cauthrien and the Harvester from the Golems DLC). There's a bloody good reason Friendly Fire is only on in that difficulty too.
 
The question for me isn't so much if DA2 is a "good" or "entertaining" game. But if it is a good RPG. And sadly nothing that I have seen or heard so far really tells me that it stands out in that part. But that is just my humble opinion.

But to be fair the last time we got a really good RPG in the direction of the "known" games (be it Fallout or Arcanum) is quite long ago. But I think even for todays standart DA2 is ... just mediocre.
 
Well, from what I gather, Dragon Age II is a decent game, but not a decent RPG.
But in my view, Dragon Age Origins is a decent game, and more or less, a decent RPG by today's standards - pure mediocre. I enjoyed some parts of it, and I'm generally satisfied.
But if Dragon Age II is a worse game, than how should I see it? Certainly not as an AAA game.
 
Man you're way behind, LinkPain, that happened ages ago. Since then they've permanently banned another play from the forums and his account and I've yet to hear the resolution of that one.

sea said:
if you read between the lines I think it's pretty clear that they simply had bigger ideas for the game than they had time to implement, and didn't manage the project in a way where they were able to handle them in a satisfactory manner.
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That is always true of any game project. BioWare is too experienced to fall into that trap.
 
I have actually started writing a review, and came to the conclusion that it was a decent game that had lots of potential and several good ideas but was or rushed and suffered from bad design decisions. If I had to give it a score, a 7 or 7.5 would fit (for reference, origins is about 8.5-9 in my books). It's nowhere near bad, but for anybody but the most fanatical Bioware fan it's not worth the 70$ price tag. It still has enjoyable moments, and a couple of priceless scenes, so I do not regret my purchase, but I am disappointed and will be more wary of future Bioware titles.

I still cannot fathom what EA expects to win by releasing such a rushed product. Hell, the sales so far are looking to be much lower than Origins's 4-5 millions. Even if it cost less in development, I doubt they will make more money because of the execrable marketing and word of mouth.
 
What I still cannot fathom is how EA doesn't get that rushed products are bad...or that they can be better. A lot better.
Is it so hard to learn from mistakes you've already made?
 
Atomkilla said:
What I still cannot fathom is how EA doesn't get that rushed products are bad...or that they can be better. A lot better.
Is it so hard to learn from mistakes you've already made?
Click to expand...
EA knows this full well. That doesn't mean rushing products is a mistake, though, as EA's primary concern isn't producing quality products, it's making money. A shorter development cycle means less money spent producing the game, so fewer sales needed for the same profits.
 
Vault Dweller's review is up on the Codex http://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=224

Good review, and I agree with his conclusion (I would have used less strong words maybe). I disagree on the character creation system, however (especially fighters having more flexibility in Origins) and I think the situation with the Arishok was more interesting than he says, but different strokes for different folks. At least most of his comments are consistent with what he thought of Origins.

Oh, and I myself prefer bosses having lots of HP to you having to guess which spell to use to bring down their invincibility barrier and then right click on them with your fighters to melt their tiny health bar before the spell is re-cast. Again, opinion.
 
Brother None said:
Man you're way behind, LinkPain, that happened ages ago. Since then they've permanently banned another play from the forums and his account and I've yet to hear the resolution of that one.
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Sorry but i wasn't up to date, saw this thing recently on wiki and then checked links.
Who is the other one? And why would they do the same stupid thing?
Customer payed for the product and they ban him because he is behaving bad? There should be a heavy fine for that, or the law sucks so bad.
 
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