Dragon Age 2

[kali o.]

I really disliked DA1. I can honestly say I hate it. In fact, I think all of what Bioware has done since Jade Empire has been hacky and bland -- quality and fun trumped in their search to find their own IPs.

That said, the DA2 demo is pretty good. The gameplay at least. A lot more action and the combat definately *feels* more ...substantial and visceral. I don't really know how to describe it...it could be the hit detection, maybe the graphics/sound...I dunno, but it is much better than DA1. I really, really like what I played.

The glimpses of the DA2 story leaves me with a few worries but games are all about the gameplay for me. I'll be picking this one up March 8th for sure, based on the demo.

[Eric]

I loved eveything about Dragon Age except for the combat, it seemed like your special attacks had damn near 0 impact, and unless you were a caster blowing people up to hell and back it was really hard to get into in general.

From the demo, it's apparent that your special attacks have far more impact, and shorter cooldowns. Tanks can actually *Gasp* tank, and not get 2-shot by some caster or massive enemy like an Orge.

My only concern is if healing will remain kind of meh, from the demo I think heal still had something like a 40 second cooldown, meaning you're probably gonna end up chugging health potions on cooldown like you did in DA1.

[Shellie]

Gonna have to try the demo..

How is the managing, is it as bad as it was in DA1 with the level of micromanaging you had to do?

[Shrinweck]

From the demo I would have to say no but it's a fucking shitty demo that amounts to a fifth of listening to a great bands "best of" album.

Don't get me wrong, I consider my pre-order from Steam completley justified it's just I've taken better shits than that demo.

It skips ahead in the story very far just to give you an idea of what it's like to be several levels in but it also gives a glimpse into how boringly sexual the pirate female companion is for the kiddies.

[Eric]

Yeah, boringly sexual.

[Shrinweck]

There's a companion that's more specialized for healing but it's still pretty lacking. Unless there's another character later you basically have to bring this person around for the entire game on every playthrough which is pretty lame. Mixing cross class abilities for what basically amount to instant kills could possibly replace healing for a lot of the game, though.

There's a fair amount of events from DA:O that have an affect on the game and you can choose through three presets or load your own.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Fea is enraged because DA2 has an Australian region unlock date set for about 18 hours from now, and Steam helpfully just advised her that "Tessian is now playing Dragon Age 2".

Region locks! When there are torrents right there for the downloading! EA, you damn fools.

[Chris]

my biggest concern....is it still just bloody mormon propaganda? What with the magic underwear to make babies and whatnot?

on a serious note...really kind of annoyed. I've gone through the same dungeons about 20 times. all they do is put up metal doors/walls in different places but they don't even bother changing the minimap....realllllly dissapointing that is

[Shrinweck]

The regional lock dates are there to ensure digital distribution doesn't progressively stronger and stronger incentives that put boxed copy retailers closer to being put out of business.

The same dungeon thing is certainly annoying but these are side quests. Main quest stuff has been particularly different. I just wish they would change the fucking mini map.

Also... do you really want to to see graphical depictions of people fucking? Graphics have gotten better but it's creepy enough.

[Chris]

The regional lock dates are there to ensure digital distribution doesn't progressively stronger and stronger incentives that put boxed copy retailers closer to being put out of business.

The same dungeon thing is certainly annoying but these are side quests. Main quest stuff has been particularly different. I just wish they would change the fucking mini map.

Also... do you really want to to see graphical depictions of people fucking? Graphics have gotten better but it's creepy enough.

no. I just enjoy laughing at how horrible it's been done with dragon age being hilariously bad with the ability to give me the ability to make mormon jokes....and I always enjoiy a good magic underpants joke

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

The regional lock dates are there to ensure digital distribution doesn't progressively stronger and stronger incentives that put boxed copy retailers closer to being put out of business.

I know, but it's not a choice between buying a retail boxed copy or buying a copy on Steam. It's a choice between those two options and downloading the thing for free. Any PC gamer savvy enough to use Steam is savvy enough to use the Pirate Bay. EA needs to point this out to its bricks-and-mortar retail partners.

Also, fuck bricks-and-mortar retailers. If a 2-day release window is the only thing keeping them in business, they deserve to die.

[Shrinweck]

I don't disagree but failing businesses dick a lot of people over. Dying businesses should probably just die out as they're made obsolete but it gets really complicated quickly and that's a debate that I don't want to get into.

Also people still using the Pirate Bay should probably stop considering it's crawling with law suits and watchers not to mention Punk Buster is a joke. And waiting an extra day or two shouldn't be the deciding mark in dicking over developers and publishers. It should be the zero day DLC and simplification of the dialog system. Joking.

[Shrinweck]

Pah. Good replayability but total single game play length is a sad sight compared to Origins and I tried to do everything I could find and then some. The main story dungeons remain fairly diverse but the side quest stuff is basically the same thing every time. Literally. It sends you to the same place.

Still disturbingly satisfying even with the issues. If DA:O was a 9/10 this would be an 8.5/10 for me. It is what it is. I liked the combat more in the sequel strangely enough.

RANDOM fucking crash after the end cinematic though. Had to go Google a Youtube video to see if I missed anything more than the credits.

[kali o.]

I am a little off in my March 8th declaration, but I will play it pretty hard tonight when I am done with work.

None of your opinions have altered my anticipation much...after all, most of you liked DA:O, while I thought it was utter shit (voice acting aside).

[kali o.]

Pah. Good replayability but total single game play length is a sad sight compared to Origins and I tried to do everything I could find and then some. The main story dungeons remain fairly diverse but the side quest stuff is basically the same thing every time. Literally. It sends you to the same place.

The reuse of maps for seperate locations is unbelievably lazy, I'll give you that.

And not to spoil anything, but how many "time jumps" are there? I just basically finished the first major one (ignoring the intro segment)...if there are at least 3 equal segments to the first, total, the playtime will be ample for my tastes. Less than that, and you have a point for sure (I am also doing every quest possible).

[Shrinweck]

You have

Spoiler: show

one more

time jump before the last story arc. All of them seem to be about the same length except for perhaps one that seemed slightly shorter but that could just be me. What class are you trying? My rogue was beastly by the end. There's some kind of bug with "immunity to knockback" because it sure as hell didn't work and I spent like over a goddamned 100 gold on a ring just for that effect.

[kali o.]

What class are you trying?

Mage (Spirit Magic, Blood Magic). Kinda sucks right now, but there is supposed to be a point where you can get some sort of item/potion to reset your attributes...at that point, I will convert to more of a walking Health Pit...Arcane Warrior type deal.

If I am mistaken about the attribute reset, well then I am pretty screwed

Oh and PS - Spirit line really sucks this time -- I guess I was expecting Prison to still rock.

[Shrinweck]

Also, yeah, building an Arcane character is pretty bad... You can make a great character that has Arcane magic as their base but you need a basis in primal, elemental , etc. Spirit can lag behind but Spirit Bomb can do some ridiculous damage. even near the end.

[Eric]

I'm enjoying this game alot more then Origins.

I find a lot of the rabid Bioware fan feedback hilarious they've taken to the interwebs to campaign against this game because it's not exactly how they wanted it.

[Shrinweck]

There's a trend of Bioware oversimplifying their RPGs in sequels that actually is pretty worrying. Mass Effect 3 will be an interesting example of what road they're going down with this stuff - I'm hoping they find a way to compromise between complexity and dumbed down features. The dialog system still pisses me off. It spoon feeds you. I don't need to be fucking babied. There's absolutely no reason I can't read through my options and choose what I want to say other than people being brats who can't spend 3 seconds reading a sentence. It also takes out a lot of the guess work involved in dealing with people. For example in Origins if you were trying to court Morrigan it was complicated and you had to get to know her yourself as the player. Here all you have to do is choose the dialog choice with a heart. Are you kidding me?

[Eric]

I think that had more to do with the fact that people would simply save and reload and keep playing the dialogue trees over and over trying to get the best approval rating, nobody actually tried to "get to know the character", so it was simplified.

[kali o.]

Well, I gave it a good go (2 full playthroughs -- one female mage, one male archer). I'll post some specific thoughts below, but generally speaking, I liked it more than DA:O (as a game). The majority of that boils down to the overhaul in combat. I also didn't mind the time jumps, as that is a nice vehicle to make "choices" reflect consequence...but Bioware didn't really capitalize on this, as far as I can tell. Keeping the game largely confined to a single city also didn't bother me as the reduction in scope of world just means more focused content (see TES games...), but again, this was something Bioware didn't seem to follow through on. It's kinda odd how DA2 turned out -- it's like it was rushed out the door or they stripped over 50% of the content out. I guess it doesn't really matter what happened, but it's painfully obvious that this is a game phoning in and padding content (day/night maps, reusing interiors over and over). Either way, I liked it more than DA:O, but Bioware definitely isn't a name whose games I will rush out for anymore.

Pros:
- Combat is much better now, imo.
- Voice acting is still top notch.
- I liked the lack of "outfitting" your companions, I just want to pimp out my main guy. Less invetory headaches.
- Time/consequence in a game is a nice idea.
- Friend/rival system is better than those that proceeded it, but not a lot of application in game (at least that I saw).

Cons:
- reusing the same maps over and over.
- Friend/rivalry system needs tweaks.
- Dialog system overly dumbed down.
- Writing/Story still bland Bioware stuff.
- enemies popping up out of nowhere is lame.
- the entire game feels lazy -- the original gameplay aspects were left half baked.

I hope this game says less about Bioware's current level of talent and more about where that talent is being directed -- because I am really looking forward to the SW MMO.

[Oracle]

2 playthroughs in 4 days? Do you work? :p How many hours did each take you?

I'm on chapter two on my first playthrough. Playing on Hard as a male Mage.

I died a lot in the first chapter, mostly due to having squishy characters (as their talents didn't really help them out much at that point) and to not being able to plan out battles (hello ninja... Quirani? Where the fuck did you come from!?).

The hardest battle for me so far was, by far, the Ancient Rock Wraith (won't tell you where that occurs, or how to avoid it).... I died so many times, mostly because my characters wouldn't do what the hell I told them to do. It was annoying how much you need to micro-manage in that fight. I also didn't have the spell debuff that increases the damage that enemies take (apparently makes this fight way easier). I picked it up soon after that boss fight, and shit just explodes now.

Either way, I like the game, aside from the re-used dungeons. But, as mentioned earlier, it's for side-quests, so it doesn't bother me too much.

Anyone play it on nightmare? I am gunna do that on the next playthrough, but I wouldn't dream of doing it with an AoE damage focussed mage :p

[Shrinweck]

If you Ctrl-A to select all your characters ordering them to protect themselves from the rock wraith is easier. Tactics don't override what they're doing if you have them selected like that.

[kali o.]

2 playthroughs in 4 days? Do you work? :p How many hours did each take you?

I work when I want to

Both ended around 30 hours...

...thanks for the revelation/math, btw. Now I am sad.

[Oracle]

Did you just zip through it? I'm doing everything I possibly can. On chapter 2 with 32 hours put in.

[Shrinweck]

I did everything I could get my hand on in my first play through (just under 29 hours), and now that I've been through a lot of it again and seen what I possibly could have missed, can't see it taking much longer than 30 hours any way. Note that I did skip dialog that I wasn't finding particularly grabbing here and there after reading through the subtitle which slowly saves a LOT of time. So if you're finding yourself listening to every tidbit then that's probably the discrepancy. Or you're slow :D

[Oracle]

Just got to chapter 3 last night an I've put in around 35 hours.

Although that is probably a bad representation since I believe it logs time played when you 'pause' the game (i.e. for battle purposes). I do the same method of pausing when I walk away from the computer (sometimes for hours) rather than escaping to the menu.

Still, tons of stuff to do in the game. And I shop around a lot and talk to non-quest NPCs for story updates (like the Viscounts son). I wonder if it logs time from when you die an re-load as part of the total play-through as well. I died a LOT in the beginning, and still die every now and then (hello 5 waves of 20 fanatics... wtf. Or 2 assassins [with 10x the HP of my tanks] double backstabbing insta-killing my main character to start the fight :p).

I can't imagine playing this game on nightmare with a mage, hard is bad enough. I could, however, see doing it with a 2-handed warrior. Fenris is a freaking BEAST.