[Gaming] Official Dragon Age 2 Thread - Thar be Spoilers
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Jay, they had better not screw up Mass Effect 3 or heads will roll...
Shep wouldn't let that happen... Right?
You know, I was apprehensive when EA bought Bioware, since EA tends to not give a DAMN about quality but instead make a lot of profits. Then again, all companies do that however EA does it with a stank that resounds strongly. Bioware and Blizzard always made good money and always cared for the product. "aka it will be ready when it is ready"
Sure people can feel differently about KOTOR 2 and NWN but in essence they were pretty decent games with LOADS of replay value. DA2 had a very SHORT production cycle and it's very clear. I'm 3/4 through the game and I'm revisiting the same fucken areas, OVER AND OVER, DAY AND NIGHT. I swear to god, if I get that "alley" again where 4 fountains of birds or some shit is there again I will literally drive to Edmonton, find the Lead Designer and shove my cock promptly in his mouth because after all, he just told me in this game : "Suck it".
DA2 is a clear step down and despite what Bioware dev/employees/fan boys are posting to defend themselves it's abundantly clear that there's a clear portion of gamers who truly feel let down by what they did to the game and the state of the game reveals a lot on how they approached the game (watch page 5 I think for vids) as well as the way they handled certain parts of their marketing. Steam fiasco. DLC not included on Day 1. Etc...
I respect those who like the game. I really do. You paid for it? Great. I didn't. And before you do judge me, let me tell you I have DA:O as well as every DLC for it as well as the entire Mass Effect Series and their respective DLCs. I have NWN, KOTOR1, KOTOR 2, Jade Empire and the entire Baldur's Gate series. I got them ALL but this game last month during the Steam fiasco it made me go... "This reeks. Are they.... really?" and I felt great dread and knew full well what is happening.
Is it a terrible game? No. Is it anywhere near DA:O? No. Heck, it's a bad Mass Effect game.
But to answer your question. Am I worried about ME3? No, not really. An entirely different team is working on that game. Will they learn from this and make DAMN SURE that game gets done well? Fuck yes. There's a LOT of proud people at Bioware. While they won't admit it, there's a clear reason why the DA:O lead designer left early in production on the sequel. They know this isn't "Bioware" quality.
If anything, if all goes well... Mass Effect 3 will be an even BETTER game because of Dragon Age 2.
Sure people can feel differently about KOTOR 2 and NWN but in essence they were pretty decent games with LOADS of replay value. DA2 had a very SHORT production cycle and it's very clear. I'm 3/4 through the game and I'm revisiting the same fucken areas, OVER AND OVER, DAY AND NIGHT. I swear to god, if I get that "alley" again where 4 fountains of birds or some shit is there again I will literally drive to Edmonton, find the Lead Designer and shove my cock promptly in his mouth because after all, he just told me in this game : "Suck it".
DA2 is a clear step down and despite what Bioware dev/employees/fan boys are posting to defend themselves it's abundantly clear that there's a clear portion of gamers who truly feel let down by what they did to the game and the state of the game reveals a lot on how they approached the game (watch page 5 I think for vids) as well as the way they handled certain parts of their marketing. Steam fiasco. DLC not included on Day 1. Etc...
I respect those who like the game. I really do. You paid for it? Great. I didn't. And before you do judge me, let me tell you I have DA:O as well as every DLC for it as well as the entire Mass Effect Series and their respective DLCs. I have NWN, KOTOR1, KOTOR 2, Jade Empire and the entire Baldur's Gate series. I got them ALL but this game last month during the Steam fiasco it made me go... "This reeks. Are they.... really?" and I felt great dread and knew full well what is happening.
Is it a terrible game? No. Is it anywhere near DA:O? No. Heck, it's a bad Mass Effect game.
But to answer your question. Am I worried about ME3? No, not really. An entirely different team is working on that game. Will they learn from this and make DAMN SURE that game gets done well? Fuck yes. There's a LOT of proud people at Bioware. While they won't admit it, there's a clear reason why the DA:O lead designer left early in production on the sequel. They know this isn't "Bioware" quality.
If anything, if all goes well... Mass Effect 3 will be an even BETTER game because of Dragon Age 2.
Prolly never. Though you have reason to worry, I'll pay for ME3... unless....
As far as to why I'm playing? For small things that make me continue playing
Oh and new DPS high score.
As far as to why I'm playing? For small things that make me continue playing
Leiliana showing up. Zevran showing up. Characters talking to eachother. Isabela and Aveline getting on eachother's nerves. The High Dragon combat last night.
Oh and new DPS high score.
I agree with you Frankie. I don't think it will have the re-playability the first one did.
I will say this though, it's a good game. The more I play the more I like it, BUT it feels rushed, like they had to get it out the door so fast they had some serious limitations thrown at them, things that make little sense. Like why is EVERY map the same for everything? House has "House map", Cave has "Cave map", etc.
Makes me wonder if EA was forcing them to go so fast they had to really keep their sights limited. I hope they take the things that made this better than DA:O and take the much better and more epic scope of DA:O when they make DA:3.
That being said the game is still totally worth paying for and I don't regret giving them my money for it.
I will say this though, it's a good game. The more I play the more I like it, BUT it feels rushed, like they had to get it out the door so fast they had some serious limitations thrown at them, things that make little sense. Like why is EVERY map the same for everything? House has "House map", Cave has "Cave map", etc.
Makes me wonder if EA was forcing them to go so fast they had to really keep their sights limited. I hope they take the things that made this better than DA:O and take the much better and more epic scope of DA:O when they make DA:3.
That being said the game is still totally worth paying for and I don't regret giving them my money for it.
As I am now in Act 2, the same zones are starting to get on my nerves also.
Merrill I both love and hate, because I am trying to be her friend but all the good choices I do seem to piss her off most of the time. Just taking her into the Fade, which she WANTED to do, gave me +10 rivalry. I stopped even using her when it came to destroying the book in Forbidden Knowledge, because every time I destroy the books I get rivalry.
It's silly really, because the biggest reason I want to romance her is because she came to me in a really kinky dream last night, so I have been working harder to get her in the sack in the game too.
Merrill I both love and hate, because I am trying to be her friend but all the good choices I do seem to piss her off most of the time. Just taking her into the Fade, which she WANTED to do, gave me +10 rivalry. I stopped even using her when it came to destroying the book in Forbidden Knowledge, because every time I destroy the books I get rivalry.
It's silly really, because the biggest reason I want to romance her is because she came to me in a really kinky dream last night, so I have been working harder to get her in the sack in the game too.
You probably insulted demons or blood magic when agreeing to take her to the fade.
Of course the blood mage will hate it if you destroy things relating to blood magic.
Also, they don't have to be your friend to be your romance partner. They'll just say different things if they're your friend or your rival when being romanced.
I don't remember saying anything negative about blood magic while getting ready to go into the Fade. What is also strange is when I had to reload up the autosave in order to redo one of the barrel puzzles, it updated the codex but didn't give me the rivalry like it did when I went straight in.
Sadly the whole experiance was still rather bad. I ended up getting rivalry when I turned down the sloth demon, and a +20 rivalry when she turned on me with the pride demon. Thankfully I got back +15 friendship when she apologized to me afterwards, so I decided rather then do the whole thing again to just eat the rivalry and try with other quests to get her up.
Yes, but I always found Merrill to be one of the more innocent characters, so it always throws me off when I do good things and she gets all mad. I now just don't take her when I know a blood mage is involved. I hope before the end of Act 2 I can get her up to 100% though, because then she locks down as my friend and it won't matter. I already got Varric to that rank, we are total bros4life.
I know that, but I am one of those guys that needs to make everyone my buddy, not my rival. It would have been really easy to get Merrill into the romance as a rival (I could have done it after destroying those five books) but I don't want to be her rival, I want to be her friend.
As for Mass Effect 3, I have one fear. They are focusing a lot of the game taking place on Earth. I worry that the game will take place almost entirely on Earth once we get to it, with similar themes and locations overlapping over and over. If we don't get to visit other planets I am going to be really peeved.
Just finished Act 2. Was finally able to get Merrill to max friendship and get her into bed. I thought Isabella was going to be angry but she actually was rather happy about it. My goal of maxing everyone's friendship is coming along well, with Aveline, Merril, and Varric already maxed, and Isabella and Anders only one quest away or so. Fenris of course is a long way off, not sure if I will even attempt to get him to max though.
The loss of Bethany made me switch up my group a bit. The only "normals" I take with me now are Merrill and Varric, both of which I push to better support my characters own abilities. Otherwise I switch out between Anders, Aveline, or Isabella, depending on which one I think would be the most "logical" to go with me. Like any quests that involved city politics or conspiracies, I brought Aveline because she almost always interjected with unique dialog options. I took Isabella on the more unsavory quests. And I take Anders when the quest involves a mage or something I think a Grey Warden would be involved with, even though he comments how much he hates it. I still never take Fenris, I have no idea why I don't like the guy.
One thing that involves a bit of spoilers.
I found my damage absorbing spec to be... not so adequate for that type of fight, since I was alone with Hawke.
So I used the item you get from the Black Emporium for the first time and decided to try something a little different. Rather then concentrating on a defensive based sword and shield fighter, I thought it would be interesting to try an offensive one. I removed all my points from the more defensive trees and put them into offensive ones. I admit, it really helps a lot and I was able to get through the fight no problem the second time using Bravery and Might, the occasional Second Wind, and abilities like Cleave. So far continuing to use it in Act 3 and am glad I did, I find it much more effective while still being hard to kill.
The loss of Bethany made me switch up my group a bit. The only "normals" I take with me now are Merrill and Varric, both of which I push to better support my characters own abilities. Otherwise I switch out between Anders, Aveline, or Isabella, depending on which one I think would be the most "logical" to go with me. Like any quests that involved city politics or conspiracies, I brought Aveline because she almost always interjected with unique dialog options. I took Isabella on the more unsavory quests. And I take Anders when the quest involves a mage or something I think a Grey Warden would be involved with, even though he comments how much he hates it. I still never take Fenris, I have no idea why I don't like the guy.
One thing that involves a bit of spoilers.
When the Qunari attacked after Isabella ran away with the relic, I fought my way to the Arishok expecting to probably not see Isabella again (friends told me she left for good in their game). I think because my friendship was high with her, she returned during the confrontation to give the book back to the Qunari. He was going to take her also, but we instead dueled for her life
I found my damage absorbing spec to be... not so adequate for that type of fight, since I was alone with Hawke.
So I used the item you get from the Black Emporium for the first time and decided to try something a little different. Rather then concentrating on a defensive based sword and shield fighter, I thought it would be interesting to try an offensive one. I removed all my points from the more defensive trees and put them into offensive ones. I admit, it really helps a lot and I was able to get through the fight no problem the second time using Bravery and Might, the occasional Second Wind, and abilities like Cleave. So far continuing to use it in Act 3 and am glad I did, I find it much more effective while still being hard to kill.
Soooo... I brought Bethany into the Deep roads without having Anders along and now she's dead for good? I have to go back and replay the whole bleeding thing if I want her alive?
Thanks for the heads up Bioware!
Thanks for the heads up Bioware!
"If Hawke knew what would happen down there, s/he wouldn't have brought his/her sister along."
Just wait till Act 3 with Anders... yikes.
Just beat the game, the ending felt a little meh. It does not really have the big ceremony ending like Origins, which I loved. It also was bugged and said Isabella stayed by my side after it was all done, even though I romanced Merrill, that was a bit odd.
I think it also messed up a bit with the old save, because a few referenced never matched up with what I did. Like I made Anora the Queen of Fereldun, but at one point while speaking with Aveline she says the "King" offered her a lot of money if she returned.
That's great and all... but that cinematic happens after you already choose your party so she still dies if you picked the wrong combination.
It just feels like you're being shoehorned into who you have to take with you.
Oh joy... lol
I really don't understand this complaint in a story-driven rpg. Stuff like this happens.
Sometime we grow attachments to characters, and other times our personalities just don't like to have "casualties" in our adventures. A good example was in Mass Effect 2, I made sure to gather everyone, do all the loyalty quests, get all the upgrades, everything I could, just because I wanted it so that during the final mission no one would perish. I would have restarted the whole thing if one person died, because I just can't stand losing someone. A good commander will not lose his people if he can help it.
At the end of the game I couldn't bring myself to kill Anders, but I did kick him out of the party for betraying my characters trust. I then kicked him out of the Gallows when he later appeared there wanting to take part in the final battle, which in hindsight was almost a mistake, that last fight was a pain, but I got through it.
Surprisingly, even though I never really did anything with Fenris, he still joined my side before the final fight. I had a feeling he was going to turn on me but I guess my charming personality won him over.
Surprisingly, even though I never really did anything with Fenris, he still joined my side before the final fight. I had a feeling he was going to turn on me but I guess my charming personality won him over.
All in all, I give the game credit for having decent characters (though not as good as Origins) but it felt way to restricted, way to cut-and-paste, and for the most part kind of short.
This.
When you are reading it, yes, but not always when you are experiencing and controlling it. If I have no vested interest in the character other then just being the floating eye, then I enjoy the drama of tragedy. When I am the one whose choices shape the life and death of others in the story, I am not so interested in the tragedy, only preventing it.
I should clarify that, like you say, tragedy is a valid part of any story, but when I am the adventurer, I would rather do everything in my power to avoid that tragedy. When games make you create tragedy by your choices even when you do everything you can to prevent it, I find myself getting a little more angry then I should (I am looking at you, Fallout 3).
Don't... don't remind me.
I kind of agree, it's a little bit of cheating on the game's part, but then, it's also interesting to have consequences you didn't expect.
Like maybe that ghoul really was a total asshole. Though I cheated right back--I chose not to help them because I didn't want Dashwood to die.
I agree that tragedy and drama have their places in games like this... like the choice you had to make in Mass Effect... but that choice was far different than how Bethany was handled in Dragon Age 2.
My annoyance with how Bethany was handled stems from the fact that if you don't take Anders in the deep roads with her... she dies. You can leave her at home and then a whole different set of events unfolds but I really liked her so I wanted to bring her along and was forced to play the whole level, and then reload an earlier save to bring Anders. Annoying. Not game breaking... just... annoying. It certainly doesn't evoke the sense of loss or choice that it's supposed to. There's also no hints that you should bring Anders along to prevent tragedy (other than he's a Grey Warden with a spirit living inside him). I just don't feel it was handled well.
In regards to the complaint that there was no forewarning that you should probably take Anders into the Deep Roads:
*Wesley lays dieing, infected with the blight*
Wesley: Darkspawn blood... it's poisonous, I'm dieeeeing!
Hawke: Is there no cure?
Avaline: The only cure I know of is to become a Grey Warden, and they're all dead.
Flemeth: Not all, but none here.
Wesley: Darkspawn blood... it's poisonous, I'm dieeeeing!
Hawke: Is there no cure?
Avaline: The only cure I know of is to become a Grey Warden, and they're all dead.
Flemeth: Not all, but none here.
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