Dragon Age? What the hell happened to you?

[Brother None]

That was just posted, Arr0nax.

Since Zero Punctuation is not a reviewer, please refrain from posting and discussing it too much on topics like these. It's just not useful and doesn't add to the debate. We have a ZP thread somewhere for people who still enjoy this banality.

 

[Dragula]

New DLC on it's way: http://dragonage.bioware.com/addon/

 

[Arr0nax]

I don't agree with Zero Punctuation being qualified as "not reviews". How can you set the limit between what is a review and what is not ?
He's playing the game and sharing sarcastic criticism. It's his way of doing it.

In fact, with the direction game industry is taking nowadays, I think an all-bashing sarcasting tone is almost the only way to go. Especially, he's bashing content here, where content is precisely the thing that is not found in games anymore.

I would take its reviews any-time over the monotone so-called "game reviews" that are literally overflowing on the net these past years.
Less descriptive, less rational, more personal, but yet the only way to criticize the unpersonal machines that modern games became.

 

[Brother None]

I don't agree with Zero Punctuation being qualified as "not reviews". How can you set the limit between what is a review and what is not ?

Any material that does not attempt to fairly weigh all the game's elements is not a review. ZP does not attempt to do so, he finds flaws and stabs them. It is not a review.

This is not a ZP-discussion thread. This is exactly why I always steer threads away from the feature, it always becomes about it. If you wish to discuss the merits of ZP, go to the ZP thread. This is the last time Zero Punctuation shall be mentioned in this thread.

 

[Wooz]

Pretty weird to call Dragon Age an 'unpersonal machine'. Best cRPG this year, if not of the last three or four.

 

[Ravager69]

Pretty weird to call Dragon Age an 'unpersonal machine'. Best cRPG this year, if not of the last three or four.

I wouldn't put it above the Witcher. It may have better gameplay and more content, but certainly is inferior to it in the terms of story depth and characters.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

New DLC on it's way: http://dragonage.bioware.com/addon/

This is what I feared. I'm unhappy with the way they handle the DLCs/addons for the game. Instead of making a whole new story, they simply sell an extra dungeon to you. Ends up being the "hey, go kill enemies in THIS linear dungeon that adds nothing to the story!"

Pretty weird to call Dragon Age an 'unpersonal machine'. Best cRPG this year, if not of the last three or four.

Can't say it's weird. It may be a decent and polished RPG, but I'd say "unpersonal" sounds about right; the character you create is about as bleak and uncolourful as it can get, and the relationships with the rest of the team are implemented so poorly (gift-giving JRPG style) that it negates any sort of attachment to the characters and/or the game's cheesy story.

 

[Wooz]

I wouldn't put it above the Witcher.

You wouldn't, because you don't know shit about games

I kid, I kid.

Better gameplay, more content, more eye-candy, more areas, less linear...

In TW, The interesting characters were taken from Sapkowski's novels, they weren't created specifically for the game... and to be honest, TW's story wasn't exactly 'Genious'.

 

[AskWazzup]

I wouldn't put it above the Witcher. It may have better gameplay and more content, but certainly is inferior to it in the terms of story depth and characters.

Agreed. Also have to add that it sometimes feels like a cheap copy of TW (though might not be intentional), and plus TW has a more interesting setting.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Better gameplay, more content, more eye-candy, more areas, less linear...

Really now? Gameplay is a matter of opinion, of course... Eye-candy is pretty non-consequential to most people here, most are RPG players...

BUT.

More areas/content. Really? You've got to be kidding me. Unless by "content" you mean different varieties of loot. DA consists of prologue, 5 quests and the endgame. Each of those has a pre-quest area, then a dungeon, then a second dungeon. Denerim doesn't even start to compare to Vizima, and it's supposed to be the biggest city of the game. There's no people in the streets except the key NPCs most of the time. Just where is it more content? The areas are also a lot smaller, and you can't even enter the buildings in the cities. So, more content, huh?

Less linear? You've got to be kidding me. Being able to choose the order in which you do the dungeons doesn't mean it's non-linear. All the dungeons are straightforward, and almost nothing you do affects the endgame until the last few quests in Denerim. Non-linear, really?

In TW, The interesting characters were taken from Sapkowski's novels, they weren't created specifically for the game... and to be honest, TW's story wasn't exactly 'Genious'.

Compared to what, though? The story carries the game in Witcher, and it's far above the video-game average. The fact that they try to emulate the Witcher so much also says something.

 

[aenemic]

so I've been playing for a few days now and so far it's great.

nice atmosphere, combat is challenging and fun, the world feels really alive and there seem to be some real consequences to your actions.

what I don't like is that the story so far is really predictable and they seem to stuck with a lot of typical fantasy clichés. character development feels very restricted (especially when at level 11 I still haven't found a specialization I want). and I still hate how the character models look. the animations are very nice, especially in combat, but the models themselves look horrible. characters just standing around look really stale and like they're slightly leaning forward and pushing up their shoulders a bit. and while it might sound like a pretty shallow/sad thing to complain about, I just need to mention it... female characters are amongst the least sexy I've ever seen in a game.

 

[Hamenaglar]

I liked the story and the writing and the overall setting and atmosphere of the game. However combat and level scaling were a flocking pain in the ace. I guess that at level 7-8 I'm supposed to be a tough bastard yet my fighters are struggling to beat ordinary bandits, not to mention that some boss battles are so logic-breaking when humans/dwarves have more hit points than dragons. Why is it harder to kill a genlock when I'm lvl 15 than when I'm lvl 4. Yes I know that genlock is tougher, but why? I don't mind having difficult opponents if they make sense.

It would be nice to finally see an rpg that implements a "one-hit-kill" system.

 

[Nexuiz]

Why is it harder to kill a genlock when I'm lvl 15 than when I'm lvl 4. Yes I know that genlock is tougher, but why? I don't mind having difficult opponents if they make sense.

Does it make sense, that you become godlike when you are at lvl 15, like in Fallout? Like killing Deathclaws with your bare hands? It's funny of course, but not quite logical.

In DA your character gets better in the way of learning new possibilities to defeat the enemy and thus gets better. But not because he becomes a god, just because his level rises. -.-

DA is certainly the best rpg in the last few years. TW was utter crap in my opinion. Combats were a really dumb clickfest. Story was idiotic, chars... omg...

 

[Ravager69]

I liked the story and the writing and the overall setting and atmosphere of the game. However combat and level scaling were a flocking pain in the ace. I guess that at level 7-8 I'm supposed to be a tough bastard yet my fighters are struggling to beat ordinary bandits, not to mention that some boss battles are so logic-breaking when humans/dwarves have more hit points than dragons. Why is it harder to kill a genlock when I'm lvl 15 than when I'm lvl 4. Yes I know that genlock is tougher, but why? I don't mind having difficult opponents if they make sense.

It would be nice to finally see an rpg that implements a "one-hit-kill" system.

To be really good means that you'll be the one left standing after the battle is done, it won't guarantee that you will slaughter everything, always. Even an ordinary bandit can be a challenging opponent in the right circumstances.

As for the one-hit-kill system, it would had to be done Rainbow Six style, where you are either unhurt, wounded or dead. So, combat would be all about avoiding or shrugging off damage via armor, with a low threashold of damage a character can take at once. In other words - you get stabbed in your arm, you survive, you get stabbed in your gut, you don't survive. It'd be pretty tedious to implement, if y'ask me.

 

[Serge 13]

I wouldn't put it above the Witcher.

You wouldn't, because you don't know shit about games

I kid, I kid.

Better gameplay, more content, more eye-candy, more areas, less linear...

In TW, The interesting characters were taken from Sapkowski's novels, they weren't created specifically for the game... and to be honest, TW's story wasn't exactly 'Genious'.

You are half polish...you should be excuted for this!!!

 

[Ausdoerrt]

To be really good means that you'll be the one left standing after the battle is done, it won't guarantee that you will slaughter everything, always. Even an ordinary bandit can be a challenging opponent in the right circumstances.

Still, I agree that the level scaling is poorly implemented in D.A. I mean, logically, the "tough" (orange) enemies should remain tough at a high level, while the weaker enemies are easier to dispatch (and thus compensate by appearing in larger groups). Having a group of "white" bandits be more tedious to deal with than a High Dragon is pretty stupid, imho.

I say for an RPG dependent on stats and character development, the traditional fixed level system works best. There's of course the question of whether D.A. fails to be one and aspires to be an SP MMO instead. In some ways, it's even JRPGish, although w/o the charm of well-crafted characters and a cheesy but awesome story.

 

[Ravager69]

Yes, it seems Bioware was reluctant to make dragons really challenging, since most people would likely get frustrated that they can't kill a dragon in a medieval fantasy game. That's what these games are all about, aren't they?

But even though I agree that the game needs balancing in some places, I'd rather they keep the current difficulty level. It's always fun when even simple skirmishes require a degree of concentration, unless you want to get owned.

 

[Hamenaglar]

Why is it harder to kill a genlock when I'm lvl 15 than when I'm lvl 4. Yes I know that genlock is tougher, but why? I don't mind having difficult opponents if they make sense.

Does it make sense, that you become godlike when you are at lvl 15, like in Fallout? Like killing Deathclaws with your bare hands? It's funny of course, but not quite logical.

Who said anything about being godlike. However when I'm lvl 15 I am much more powerful than when I'm lvl 4. The abilities and stats say so. And yet the same old bandits are still equally challenging. I don't mind having tough oponnents.

I would rather have a level cap of 7 (like in baldur's gate) where leveling actually means something. When I go to denerim why is everybody there lvl 12+?. That doesn't make sense most characters in the world should be lvl 1-5. Not everybody around you should be an experience battle hardened soldier tougher than Sten when you pick him up.

Sten and Alistair (when you meet them) for examples are actually very weak fighters compared to the rest of the world.

 

[Ravager69]

Who said anything about being godlike. However when I'm lvl 15 I am much more powerful than when I'm lvl 4. The abilities and stats say so. And yet the same old bandits are still equally challenging. I don't mind having tough oponnents.

I would rather have a level cap of 7 (like in baldur's gate) where leveling actually means something. When I go to denerim why is everybody there lvl 12+?. That doesn't make sense most characters in the world should be lvl 1-5. Not everybody around you should be an experience battle hardened soldier tougher than Sten when you pick him up.

Sten and Alistair (when you meet them) for examples are actually very weak fighters compared to the rest of the world.

Well, you have a point there. Right now I'm replaying DA with a human noble rogue and 4 of my armed-to-teeth party members had a hard time killing a bunch of unarmed and unarmored cultists (simple humans) in some old temple. Not that they did much damage to me, but they didn't go down as quickly as they should.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

But even though I agree that the game needs balancing in some places, I'd rather they keep the current difficulty level. It's always fun when even simple skirmishes require a degree of concentration, unless you want to get owned.

Well, who said anything about lowering the difficulty level; challenge is good, but it also should be reasonable, and make sense in the gaming world. Otherwise, it's just lazy game design.