Dragon Age? What the hell happened to you?

well, you should check out the character generator in Aion then, for comparison.

hang on, I'll find a video of it.

here you go, found a decent video:

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

nevermind the asian style, it's not for everyone. what impresses me about the character generator is the amount of freedom you have and the amount of details you can change. and stull you have so many presets to choose from.

the problem with the character generators in Mass Effect and Dragon Age is that, even though there are many options, your characters always end up looking somewhat similar. and there are just a handful of presets.
 
I dunno, I though the character generation was fairly all-encompassing, and realistic. There were a few problems I saw, mainly their failure to capture the cool looks of dwarves - beards, forehead-to-nose straight bridge, etc., as well as a lack of body options (it's face only). Still, it was fairly good, and I can say I should be able to craft a wide variety of characters. Also, as much as DA tries to be an MMO (a game that depends largely on its looks and style to draw audience), it still isn't, so maybe it doesn't REALLY need an extensive system like Aion's. Also, regardless, it was a nice step up from FO3's asinine character looks.
 
well, all I can say is that I'd rather be able to create my character just the way I want it in a "real" rpg than in an mmorpg. in an mmo all characters end up looking very much alike since there's always one or two sets of armor you must get and so on. not to mention that no one really cares how your character looks in a massive zerg pvp encounter or 20+ man raid.

as soon as I'm done with Risen I'll give Dragon Age a try. at least the characters look better than in Risen :D
 
In DA, Esc button is your friend ^____^ Just skip everything aside from the key story dialogues.

Also, I love how much bullshit there's around about how "morally gray" the game is. How can sth be morally gray if there's a defined and evil antagonist? :lol:
 
Some things are. The Harrowmont vs Bhelen quest, for example. You're going to put one of them on the throne, and it isn't a clear-cut choice of good vs evil.

[spoiler:9e332e8d61]Do you support Bhelen, who is incredibly violent and power hungry? Or do you support Lord Harrowmont, the level-headed traditionalist? Backing the guy you "like" the best isn't necessarily going to be the best decision for the people of Orzammar.[/spoiler:9e332e8d61]

The Dalish Elves quest is like that as well, but I really can't go into that without ruining it for those who haven't done it yet.
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
Some things are. The Harrowmont vs Bhelen quest, for example. You're going to put one of them on the throne, and it isn't a clear-cut choice of good vs evil.

[spoiler:7927ffbc6b]Do you support Bhelen, who is incredibly violent and power hungry? Or do you support Lord Harrowmont, the level-headed traditionalist? Backing the guy you "like" the best isn't necessarily going to be the best decision for the people of Orzammar.[/spoiler:7927ffbc6b]

The Dalish Elves quest is like that as well, but I really can't go into that without ruining it for those who haven't done it yet.
Click to expand...

You could argure SOME ASPECTS are, but they're few and far in between. Also, "power-hungry and violent" sounds like distinctly "evil" to me in your example. The Anvil quest is also pretty much black-and-white like that (gray-and-white at best). In the Dalish quest, the elven dude is pretty much a negative character, and quite obviously "evil" at the point you meet him. The Redcliffe and Urn quests are even more clear-cut than that. The Circle one is about the only one I can accept as being more or less successful in gray-ness. I can see your point about the elements, but it's not even close to what was advertised/promised. Even Arcanum, as b&w as its main conflict (Nasrudin vs Kerghan) is, is more "gray" than Dragon Age.

And that's just the main quest line. The side-quests rarely offer any kind of choice at all, gray or not, let alone affect gameplay.

Dragula said:
It's all about how the means justify the end, and that feels pretty grey to me.
Click to expand...

The Archdemon and the Darkspawn pretty much just kill shit and are the Big Bad bastard child of orcs and undead. They're the Bad, you're the Hero.

As for Logain, they tried to make him "gray", I agree, but imho gave him a pretty poor justification. He may not be "evil", but neither is he "prudent" in a Machiavellian sense.

Regardless of what you do, you cannot even side with Logain, or help the Darkspawn. You're a knight in shining armour to begin with, and that changes little regardless of what you do. You're forced into the conflict, and the game gives you the authority to make the choice, and everyone asks your view as if it were somehow superior to theirs. After the choice, you don't have any lingering regrets at all.


In the end, it looks like they TRIED to come up with some meaningful choices, but somehow still ended up with the usual Bioware-style mishmash.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
You could argure SOME ASPECTS are, but they're few and far in between. Also, "power-hungry and violent" sounds like distinctly "evil" to me in your example.
Click to expand...

[spoiler:2a2431f821]
Exactly. You've got the "evil" guy who actually brings a new age of prosperity to Orzammar (Making changes to the discriminatory Caste system, expanding relations with the surface).

And then you've got the "good" guy who doesn't act with the people's best interests in mind (shuts down the new Chantry, murders the priest, and completely closes Orzammar off from the surface).

If you don't talk to the many vocal NPCs, and investigate each of the candidate's poltiics; then it may seem like a black and white decision, but it's very much gray.[/spoiler:2a2431f821]
 
That is not "gray", that is an unexpected outcome. It's the same trap that FO3 fell into with its "grayness" - remember, for example, the Pitt where the "evil" slavers actually save everyone and supporting the "good" slaves leads to a bad end?

While you may have a point, the game presents it in a very poor fashion. You get a good character with one deliberately bad aspect, and vise versa. There's no lead-up, no nothing.

Then finally, even if we all accept that this one episode, and maybe a few others, are at least partially morally gray, it is not nearly enough to extend the description to the whole game, which was sort of my original point.
 
Never tried the Pitt, but it sounds like what they did with Tenpenny tower.


There IS a lot of information available on both Bhelen and Harrowmont, you just aren't spoon fed it. The outcome is only unexpected if you didn't go around and talk to the non-quest flavor npcs and listen to the ambient conversations.


Also, I haven't seen any specific example of the game being marketed as 'morally gray' (feel free to correct me here). From what I saw, it was all:

BLOOD, GORE, SEX, FUCK YEAH!!!*


*May contain traces of RPG.


Personally, the fact that it isn't ALL black and white is good enough for me.
 
Also, I haven't seen any specific example of the game being marketed as 'morally gray' (feel free to correct me here). From what I saw, it was all:

BLOOD, GORE, SEX, FUCK YEAH!!!*


*May contain traces of RPG.
Click to expand...

To be fair.....

This game's marketing was made purposely misleading by EA in order to get more $$$

The actual developers had indicated, before the game was released, that the marketing really doesn't represent much of anything in the game and overexagerates that which it represents...

Considering that I haven't played the game, I wouldn't know but still...
 
I just finished it and....I must say I was hoping for more. It's far from being mature, but there are some mature themes here and there. Grayness? Little of it and it's amount lessens as the story progresses. The ending...it was alright I guess. Kinda Baldur's Gate 2-rip off, but still OK.

Can't asy I'm disappointed, but I doubt I spent 80+ hours playing it, even though I've done 90% of quests. Most of them weren't very interesting or well-designed, though.

As for the difficulty...now I can say it without fear - if this game is too hard for you on normal, you simply made a weak party or choose wrong companions to go around with. Even the hardest battles usualy take just a couple of times to beat them (I killed the Archdemon after 4 tries). Sure, the game will kick your ass if you aren't careful, but it doesn't put unbeatable challenges before you.

It's worth the money IMO and I hope Bioware will do as Valve did with Half Life 2 - instead of 5 years gaps between the next games, just make campaigns and improvements to the current engine, it's good enough to last some time at least.
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
Also, I haven't seen any specific example of the game being marketed as 'morally gray' (feel free to correct me here). From what I saw, it was all:
Click to expand...

Plenty of "previews" were pissing themselves over it. A crapload of talk about awesome c&c and grey choices (which never made it to the game I guess). Also, they really HAD to call the good guys "Grey Wardens", they're not suggesting anything at all.


Personally, the fact that it isn't ALL black and white is good enough for me.
Click to expand...

I dunno, after the Witcher experience, it just blows. I mean, not even comparable, yet it still gets more credit/attention because it's from Bioware/EA.
 
So.. someone sometime is bound to post a link to this, might as well be me.

A lot of things in Dragon Age feel like a lamer version of The Witcher, so I have to agree with Ausdoerrt.

Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
Personally, the fact that it isn't ALL black and white is good enough for me.
Click to expand...

Perhaps lowering your standarts is a healthy step nowadays, but it's still kinda sad.
 
Multidirectional said:
So.. someone sometime is bound to post a link to this, might as well be me
Click to expand...

Wow, that was...useless. Honestly, what credibility does this guy has, barely talking about the game and instead spitting out half-assed insults WAY TOO FAST during the whole video?

I agree that Dragon Age has many faults (including those mentioned in the Escapist review), but this isn't much of a professional journalism, now is it?
 
Ravager69 said:
this isn't much of a professional journalism, now is it?
Click to expand...

It's a comedy, not a review. It's not supposed to be "useful", only entertaining. Why would it have to be a professional journalism? I hope you don't think I implied it would be very informative by posting it? Yahtzee doesn't even like RPG's very much, wouldn't do no good if he tried to actually review it.
 
Multidirectional said:
Ravager69 said:
this isn't much of a professional journalism, now is it?
Click to expand...

It's a comedy, not a review. It's not supposed to be "useful", only entertaining. Why would it have to be a professional journalism? I hope you don't think I implied it would be very informative by posting it? Yahtzee doesn't even like RPG's very much, wouldn't do no good if he tried to actually review it.
Click to expand...

Well then, he failed both at entertaining the audience and reviewing the game. I've seen a couple of videos on Escapist and they are ALL the same, gets boring real fast. I understand this wasn't entirely serious, but I suppose this should be useful somehow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top