Dragon Age II: now more like Mass Effect 2

About difficulty, apparently DA2 will feature special Assassin, Commander and Somethingelse ennemy types that weill give the player headaches. I imagine that's just a return of Origin's yellow monsters with fancy names and that it only means they are the first to bite the dust because of their dangerous abilities. It's still a more difficult game and is more tactical than any RPG I played save BG series which as I have said felt like a chore to me, particulary because I never liked the DnD system.

On a more positive note, I was pleased with the most recent previews (see the official forums for like 4-5 of them). The Destructoid one (http://www.destructoid.com/bloody-gritty-sexy-hands-on-dragon-age-2-189549.phtml , don't mind the name it's actually well-written) is very informative and made me want to play the game. At least Bioware tries a different storyline approach for once, can't wait to see how it turns out.
 
Someone has the demo and put videos online

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRQzl5u5oeQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BlDtbXW3o4[/youtube]

I have been consistently underwhelmed by the look of this game. The writing strikes me as a joke, the voice acting tepid and oh god the art design.
 
DAO really felt like a crap at some moments, not to say many.
But this is... Has Bioware any brains left?
It's like Dynasty Warriors hits Mass Effect...and bounces of to God knows where...
 
Sadly, it'll outsell the first game, and Bioware will continue their devolution to generic 3rd person shooter hell.
 
I agree that video really looks not impressive. Actually a lot worse then DA:O in its worst moments. It seems like the art department for DA2 was fired or something.

And call me a idiot ... but something which really bothers. Still no scabbard for weapons. Oh when will RPGs have those for your swords and such. I have seen the Witcher has it. Its a small visual detail but it means to me a lot because it simply feels more realistic then to have the sword magicaly sticking to the charcater floating in mid air. And I like well animated and good looking gear for characters.
 
to be honest I dont expect much of the decisions in DA:O to effect DA:O2 in any way. Probably not more like from Me1 to Me2. It will get "mentioned" here and there. Or something like that. But a game breaking WOW didnt expect THAT to happen situation ? Probably not.

Also the animations look like SHIT. Sorry BIoware. But thats how I feel about it. It could be straight from some of those exagerated japanese anime fighting games. Just that it fits those games. Not a dark-fantasy game like Dragonage. I wish they would get away from this black-flip-jump-around-swing-sword stuff and get a bit more realistic with the human movements. Agile characters could still do dramatic movements. But 2-3 backflips over the enemies ? Com on ...
 
I was pretty optimistic about DAII at first, but now my concern has grown....the game looks silly most of the time. I don't even know what are they aiming for? Comic style? Perhaps, but it doesn't quite click with me. I really liked the direction where the first one went and hoped they'd improve on that, but it seems someone told them it ain't cool enough.

Fortunatly Witcher 2 is not far away.
 
Witcher 1 beat the crap outta DA:O, and Witcher 2 will no doubt do so for DAII. It's like comparing crap with candy.

The surprising thing is that the trailers seemed to hype the graphics a lot, but they don't look all that impressive in the gameplay video. The gameplay also looks as good as or inferior to what I've seen from DSIII trailers.
 
Ravager69 said:
Fortunatly Witcher 2 is not far away.
Click to expand...

Sad thing is, it will probably the only worthwile RPG to stick around.

I had my hopes up for DAII. I'm not going to lie - I enjoyed some moments and aspects of DAO really much, but at the same time, hated many of them too.
I hoped that these "problems" would got fixed in DAII because, even though it's a mediocre game, it's an enjoyable one...to the extent.
I hoped for more "gray" in the game, because DAO was black and white, practically. Just without a Paragon and Renegade bar.

Combat in DAO wasn't (that) boring to me, but neither was it tactical. It was basically a micromanagement, but I didn't mind it, really, because that kind of battle is way better than, for example, Bethesda's formula. But, no, they make it faster here, and as I said before, my first impression was that it's like Dynasty Warriors, or some other hack & slash game. It really reminds me of it.

Dialogue...I hate that wheel. And will hate it forever.
I can't judge yet, but dialogues don't seem like anything special. Although, the wheel kills it for me, no matter how well the dialogue was written.

I don't know why they changed that interface (I think that's the name) from DAO which looked really great if you ask me. Yellow pages, in blood and ink, and stuff like that - I really liked it.
But now, they go (again) with this ME...thing... Hate it.

Graphics seems even more poor then the one in DAO. To be honest, I liked DAO graphics, especially animations and stuff, at least some of them, but this is really, really poor. I mean, just look at PC's legs in the video...

The only highlight seems to be the music - which is of course, DAO soundtrack with some new tunes. But I like Inon Zur, so that's ok.


All in all, buying Witcher 2, as long as I'm in a right mind.
I'll buy DAII...in couple of years or something. When I find it on sale for about 7$ in local bookstore...
 
Even as a bit of a Bioware fan, these videos were underwhelming. The combat has only really changed in the appearance; the skills are similar and it's the same ruleset. It's just that they wanted to make it more hack-and-slashy for some reason because animations in DA:O were 'shuffling', whatever that means.

Well, truth be told, I like the new mage animations, there's more punch to their spellcasting, and the Sword+shield ones are nice too, it's just the 2handers that lack any sense of weight making them feel ridiculous. They looked too heavy in Origins, now it looks like the characters are waving bamboo sticks around or something. And the rogue melee animations are even worse, true DMC material.

Art direction has me puzzled. On one side some things are nice (the stark white Kirkwall high town looked real nice in another demo video, the new emissaries darkspawn look frightening for once) on the other side Hurlocks are now Skeletor ripoffs who die with pathetic piggish screams. Still, not 'cartoonish' to me, just different but to each his own I guess. At least they tried to give the game a proper visual identity instead of LOTR rehash; whenever it will be good or not will be judged upon playing.

As for the writing, I think it wasn't that bad. There's not much to say when you are fleeing from a horde of evil nasty stuff. On the other end, the cutscenes with Varric and Cassandra (the two at the beginning, for the uninformed ones) are really well done, Varric has especially good lines, animation, and voice acting. He is the only part of the demo that made me want to play it, ironically.

I will still buy the game because the whole framed narrative, while certainly not ground-breaking, has potential. That, and the other gameplay video we saw (the one in which Mike Laidlaw played) was much better looking in general. At the very least I will download the demo.
 
Ilosar said:
the cutscenes with Varric and Cassandra (the two at the beginning, for the uninformed ones) are really well done, Varric has especially good lines,
Click to expand...

Seriously? :|

I actually liked the ingame ones better. The ones in the cutscenes are trying way too hard to be edgy. And aren't really special.

They actually remember me of very cheesy tv shows.
 
Here's another sign DAII will suck: they're including limited internet-activation DRM with it (supposedly same as ME1 don't know never played that). Now they can conveniently blame poor sales on metaphysical pirates who probably wouldn't even care enough to crack it :roll:

EDIT: Oh yeah, and more day-1 DLCs it seems. Oh, how I hated DLC ads in DA:O.
 
The DRM is really nothing to worry about. Unlimited activation, you just cannot activate (read: activate, not play) the game 5 times in 24 hours. You can install and play it as many times as you want on as many computers as you want so long as you don't do that. It's absolutely nothing compared to ME1's 3 (5?) activation limits, period, and I seriously doubt anybody plays the same game on more than 5 computers.

You also need an EA account to access some goodies (Day 1 DLC et all), but since it's required to log into the Bioware forums and it's the same account as Origin's and ME2's lots of people already have one, so still no biggie. DA2's day-1 DLC isn't a must-have either, just some shop with fancy stuff and a magic appearance-altering mirror. Meh. Nothing like Shale.

And IIRC the devs said there will not be any DLC salesmen like that guy in the camp for Vigil's Keep, and I certainly hope so because that annoyed me to no end too.

@ C2B. Ah well. Let's just agree to disagree. I found Varric's mannerisms and arrogance convincing.

Oh, and the talents trees have been made public http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6090138

Some really good stuff if you ask me. The synergy between classes and sheer freedom of build really impressed me. Seems like this is one area where DA2 will blow Origins out of the water. And warriors seem to be as interesting as Mages, for once in a RPG.
 
because you can finally build a jack-of-all-trades ? I mean thats pretty new. Never had that in RPGs of any kind before.

*actually in DragonAge I found warriors to be a lot more interesting and entertaining then mages as you dont have to go trough a shit load of skills you never ever will need anyway and youre not always reduced to 2-3 spells since the rest is just useless magic throwing around. With the warrior you have at least a two hand sword, shield and sword and different skills for it.
 
people sadly miss that its not so much about the game but the principle. I value freedom and choice. I dont mind game developers and publishers which choose to protect theirgames. Thats alright and they should do it. I would not want that people steal my art either (when I have to make a living out of it).

But I question the motiviations behind such obtrusive DRMs like Ubisoft is using which pretty much kill any seond-hand market around games or make it even ILEGAL (which means nothing in Germany because I can still sell MY games to whom ever I want!).

On the other side I also have a huge antipathy to games which push some "social" programm down my throat like Windows Life or anything similar just because THEY think for ME that I should have it and it was for the players to come up with solutions how to remove that Windows Crap for example. One reason to buy Steam games is because they usualy dont come with Windows Life. I hate that crap. As simple as that. And I usualy avoid games which make it a mandatory.
 
The combat on that video looks like the real tiem combat on the Van Buren Demo, it really looks boring.
 
Ilosar said:
The DRM is really nothing to worry about. Unlimited activation, you just cannot activate (read: activate, not play) the game 5 times in 24 hours. You can install and play it as many times as you want on as many computers as you want so long as you don't do that. It's absolutely nothing compared to ME1's 3 (5?) activation limits, period, and I seriously doubt anybody plays the same game on more than 5 computers.
Click to expand...

It also has to connect to the internet every once in a while to "check" the game. I don't care cause I won't buy anyway, but I've seen people "whine" about it.

It's not so much the DRM that is the issue. But the devs/publishers putting on restrictive DRM plus not releasing a demo is usually a sign that they have sth to hide.
 
Well in this perticular case there's really nothing against the second-hand market since activations are unlimited. And the account is just if you want extra goodies or to post in the official forums. Seriously, as far as the somewhat necessary evil of DRM goes, this is a pretty lenient one. I mean, companies have the right to demand even basic copy protection; this is business after all. I would have no special problem with DRM if they all were like that. Certainly a step up from other DRMs anyhow (looking at you, Ubisoft).

EDIT: Oh, and there's a demo coming February 22th. What's the complaint here?
 
NVM, forget what I said then.

I guess we'll just see how good/bad the game is when the demo is out. Hats off to them for actually releasing one.
 
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