The Dragon Age game must have been made for a high end system since it would not run on my system Intel Dual Core 3.6, Nividia 9800, 4GB Ram, Winxp SP3. When I contacted Bioware support, they suggested I upgrade to a faster system using Windows Vista or Windows 7. If I had the money to spend would upgrade, stupid bastards.
Thats very odd, my machine is going on 4 years old, Amd dual core..Nvidia 7600 GT and it ran fine? I have 3 gigs of ram, but Win Xp supposedly doesn't recognize the third gig.
Not sure whats going on with your machine, but I have played through Dragon Age three times thus far, with no problems whatsoever.
Bioware clearly is one of the best in doing fantasy. I would rather give my money to Bioware because I know I'll be getting a quality game. This mmo genre needs companies that actually care about making great games rather than other companies who push out unfinished products just to make a quick dollar.
Agreed, although I am slightly biased, seeing as Bioware employs a member of my family :P
Bioware has really hit the mark with DA:O, it is without a doubt the best single player rpg developed since the early 00's, and I think it will hold that title for the next few years. It is going to be very difficult to top what they have accomplished.
Epic doesn't even begin to describe the game, and the guy above who considers it a "generic setting" is clearly someone who just shouldn't play rpgs at all. You think LOTRO and DA:O have similar storylines because each story features an antagonist? That's as ridiculous as someone saying one book is the same as another just because they both have pages...
I love your response and have to wonder if the person complaining that DA:O is a generic setting...didn't choose all the "safe" choices instead of experimenting and trying other options. It "could" be a game that came off that way if you only chose generic paths.
Played 3 times through..chose different endings, have to say the first time through I got emotionally involved...good story and thats a fact.
...Literally, the people selling the ads are in Hawaii and the people doing the editorial are in Eastern Canada and the New York/New Jersey area.
I don't care (ty adblock/flashblock) but just as an FYI, in the internet age, the above statement has absolutely no bearing on the the point in question that is being responded to.
Yes and no. If we were all in an office together, we'd pick things up is my point.
The general point is: the editorial team never discusses ads with the advertising team. Period.
Perhaps some interdepartmental communication would do you guys some good then. Question, do the writers LOOK at the site? You do know the ads for Dragon Age were up far in advance of the article right?
Do you guys not run the articles by Craig and Ben? How much input do they have on what you guys write about? Just curious.
Did they not know that might come across looking like more paid advertising?
How important is it for mmorpg.com to have the appearance of journalistic integrity? I'm not mocking here, I'm being serious, because if appearing to have journalistic integrity is important on this site, I have to say you're failing.
Why would they care? If you don't like it..don't look at the ads. Wow advertises here all the time..and so??? Many other games advertise here and so???
I'll toss this in once since it's come up. We have zero idea what's on the page as far as ads go beyond what we see visiting the site like the rest of you.
Well boss I don't actually care, but I'd like to point out:
Large featured story on DA
The article brings up "what MMOs can learn from DA", which is quite a convenient segue for Bioware to hype SW TOR's primary bullet point.
Every slide on the front page has "brought to you by DA", except for the DA slide itself, of course.
There's a DA give away
Purely by coincidence, and thus not in the button list, but still having a psychological effect was the DA-related comic that I saw on loading the front page. Collectively it was DA overload.
Now maybe you don't know anything more about it than we do, and I'm generally inclined to believe that you don't on a professional level, but you do have to admit that it's a perfect storm of coincidence.
With that said I don't personally care if it is all arranged or not. I find their (apparent) attempt to connect DA's success with SW TOR quite frankly amusing.
If SW TOR is anything like DA then:
your NPC henchmen will randomly stop what they're doing and proceed to do nothing
They will randomly stop following you, forcing you to manually tell them where to go
the healers will rush face first into the front lines to attack at melee distance with their ranged weapon
rogue-types will never, ever try to get behind a mob. You must do that for them. On every. Single. #$%ing. Mob.
Ranged weapon classes will flat-out refuse to use their ranged weapons and will instead rush in to melee (unless you remove their melee weapons - yeah, Liliana is now a duel-wielding rogue.)
You will need to baby sit them during any challenging fight because of the above issues
and, in short, the scripts (or instructions) that you set up for them will - for all appearances - randomly turn off for no ryme or reason.
Mobs will rush your main character at the beginning of every fight regardless of the proximity or attacks from your henchmen until you run around for a few seconds so that your henchmen can build up hate.
You will be forced to watch (or otherwise try to skip through as quickly as possible) some long dialogue scene in order to repeat the same boss fight for the 10th time due to the above issues.
...and countless other Bioware quirks.
Bioware is as cliche as anime. The bad guy is always obvious. The betrayals are always obvious. The plot points are always the same. The same character archetypes are always used. The only thing that we're missing is the blue spikey hair.
Good thing I like anime then.
Um you forgot to use the tactics screen on each character to set up what they'll do? I set tactics up to instruct the AI exactly what I want them to do...basically have them all protecting each other and my main. Sometimes I leave my main doing what I have programmed her to do...and I work with the healer..for battles such as as attempting to kill the Sloth demon in
The Fade for instance. Stop what they are doing? Heck they even heal themselves I have them set up to drink health poultices if their health goes down to a certain per centage. I don't get what you are talking about at all. Bioware has set up some extremely good AI there, all you have to do is take advantage of it.
One other thing, I have found if I failed a battle...that I had to review my tactics, and yes sometimes the cutscenes CAN be annoying, but I have found if I can hit pause and save after the cutscene but before any bloodshed takes place I can avoid seeing the cutscene over and over...but you have to be right quick about it. Otherwise it doesn't work. :P
Please watch your step there are now WoW hand rails for you to grasp onto for this ride. the height ...errr IQ requirement for this ride exceeds the requirement of your currently played mmo. Keep your hands inside and enjoy the ride
It really has nothing to do with Smart people vs Stupid people.
It has to do with Good User Interface Design vs Mediocre or Bad UI design.
It has to do with making things easy for the user so that the UI becomes almost transparent and is something that the user does not even think about while they play, yet all the information they need is available to them with as little manual input as possible.
Well I have to agree with you there..an auto target would be nice, and who knows...Bioware has already implemented TWO bug patches thus far, maybe we'll get an improved UI as time goes on. They released on November 3, its now the 20th and already two patches to an rpg game. Never seen that before, seems to me when I played Oblivion it took a long time to get patches improving things, and then it was modders improving stuff mostly.
Oh one other wish I would want to see is a second toolbar even if you had to click it to make it show, so that I could add more skills..hehe but its not a must, just something that occurred to me while playing. Currently you really have a decision as to what is most useful and what you think you "might" be able to do without. Reminds me of Guild Wars...having to decide before battle what you were bringing to the table so to speak, but not knowing before the pvp contest started what your opponents would be like. Guessing game. Its okay I guess, just a wish for the future.
You will not find better RPG game out there anytime soon. Its a diffrent kinda game to the crawlers - but its built on the same gameplay as pretty much every Bioware RPG. This includes the handeling of death - wounds (witch are the death penalty) and the stop/start spacebar feature.
Its not a perfect game - but by far the best out for very long time. Hopefully we will see more content released soon.
As far as DAO and MMOS. I would not like the game as MMO in current form. Its got a single player RPG written all over it and thats how it should be. And it is a RPG... Not a mindless MMO experience where all your actions are worth zero. Even if you piss off every single person on your server - ninja loot - call ppl names - You simply transfer to another server, changes look - even faction - and whooola... you can start again...
How long before we get this in MMO's? “Party wiped? Fear not, with DA (tm) rezzing technology our new MMO brings you all back if one survives.” So casual you can play it in a coma.
It works well in a single player RPG. I wonder how many of you have actually played the game before coming in here and ranting about something you haven't experienced for yourself?
It really has nothing to do with the game being "casual" or "hardcore".
You could definitely levy a number of criticisms against this game, but this is not one of them.
I have played the game, enjoyed it quite much till I realized death meant nothing.
immersion counts for something to some gamers...
I like to be able to relate to my games with something that would happen in real life.
and getting up and being fine after being so close to death is about as far away from immersion as one can get.
Methinks if fantasy has to be like real life....that totally destroys the whole idea of fantasy does it not? :P
I like fantasy to be fantasy...which includes an ability to suspend disbelief. That means in suspending my disbelief, magic exists and party members DO get up after the battle is over...if one managed to survive.
Comments
Thats very odd, my machine is going on 4 years old, Amd dual core..Nvidia 7600 GT and it ran fine? I have 3 gigs of ram, but Win Xp supposedly doesn't recognize the third gig.
Not sure whats going on with your machine, but I have played through Dragon Age three times thus far, with no problems whatsoever.
Agreed, although I am slightly biased, seeing as Bioware employs a member of my family :P
Bioware has really hit the mark with DA:O, it is without a doubt the best single player rpg developed since the early 00's, and I think it will hold that title for the next few years. It is going to be very difficult to top what they have accomplished.
Epic doesn't even begin to describe the game, and the guy above who considers it a "generic setting" is clearly someone who just shouldn't play rpgs at all. You think LOTRO and DA:O have similar storylines because each story features an antagonist? That's as ridiculous as someone saying one book is the same as another just because they both have pages...
I love your response and have to wonder if the person complaining that DA:O is a generic setting...didn't choose all the "safe" choices instead of experimenting and trying other options. It "could" be a game that came off that way if you only chose generic paths.
Played 3 times through..chose different endings, have to say the first time through I got emotionally involved...good story and thats a fact.
I don't care (ty adblock/flashblock) but just as an FYI, in the internet age, the above statement has absolutely no bearing on the the point in question that is being responded to.
Yes and no. If we were all in an office together, we'd pick things up is my point.
The general point is: the editorial team never discusses ads with the advertising team. Period.
Perhaps some interdepartmental communication would do you guys some good then. Question, do the writers LOOK at the site? You do know the ads for Dragon Age were up far in advance of the article right?
Do you guys not run the articles by Craig and Ben? How much input do they have on what you guys write about? Just curious.
Did they not know that might come across looking like more paid advertising?
How important is it for mmorpg.com to have the appearance of journalistic integrity? I'm not mocking here, I'm being serious, because if appearing to have journalistic integrity is important on this site, I have to say you're failing.
Why would they care? If you don't like it..don't look at the ads. Wow advertises here all the time..and so??? Many other games advertise here and so???
This is a nitpick.
Well boss I don't actually care, but I'd like to point out:
Purely by coincidence, and thus not in the button list, but still having a psychological effect was the DA-related comic that I saw on loading the front page. Collectively it was DA overload.
Now maybe you don't know anything more about it than we do, and I'm generally inclined to believe that you don't on a professional level, but you do have to admit that it's a perfect storm of coincidence.
With that said I don't personally care if it is all arranged or not. I find their (apparent) attempt to connect DA's success with SW TOR quite frankly amusing.
If SW TOR is anything like DA then:
Bioware is as cliche as anime. The bad guy is always obvious. The betrayals are always obvious. The plot points are always the same. The same character archetypes are always used. The only thing that we're missing is the blue spikey hair.
Good thing I like anime then.
Um you forgot to use the tactics screen on each character to set up what they'll do? I set tactics up to instruct the AI exactly what I want them to do...basically have them all protecting each other and my main. Sometimes I leave my main doing what I have programmed her to do...and I work with the healer..for battles such as as attempting to kill the Sloth demon in
The Fade for instance. Stop what they are doing? Heck they even heal themselves I have them set up to drink health poultices if their health goes down to a certain per centage. I don't get what you are talking about at all. Bioware has set up some extremely good AI there, all you have to do is take advantage of it.
One other thing, I have found if I failed a battle...that I had to review my tactics, and yes sometimes the cutscenes CAN be annoying, but I have found if I can hit pause and save after the cutscene but before any bloodshed takes place I can avoid seeing the cutscene over and over...but you have to be right quick about it. Otherwise it doesn't work. :P
It really has nothing to do with Smart people vs Stupid people.
It has to do with Good User Interface Design vs Mediocre or Bad UI design.
It has to do with making things easy for the user so that the UI becomes almost transparent and is something that the user does not even think about while they play, yet all the information they need is available to them with as little manual input as possible.
Well I have to agree with you there..an auto target would be nice, and who knows...Bioware has already implemented TWO bug patches thus far, maybe we'll get an improved UI as time goes on. They released on November 3, its now the 20th and already two patches to an rpg game. Never seen that before, seems to me when I played Oblivion it took a long time to get patches improving things, and then it was modders improving stuff mostly.
Oh one other wish I would want to see is a second toolbar even if you had to click it to make it show, so that I could add more skills..hehe but its not a must, just something that occurred to me while playing. Currently you really have a decision as to what is most useful and what you think you "might" be able to do without. Reminds me of Guild Wars...having to decide before battle what you were bringing to the table so to speak, but not knowing before the pvp contest started what your opponents would be like. Guessing game. Its okay I guess, just a wish for the future.
You will not find better RPG game out there anytime soon. Its a diffrent kinda game to the crawlers - but its built on the same gameplay as pretty much every Bioware RPG. This includes the handeling of death - wounds (witch are the death penalty) and the stop/start spacebar feature.
Its not a perfect game - but by far the best out for very long time. Hopefully we will see more content released soon.
As far as DAO and MMOS. I would not like the game as MMO in current form. Its got a single player RPG written all over it and thats how it should be. And it is a RPG... Not a mindless MMO experience where all your actions are worth zero. Even if you piss off every single person on your server - ninja loot - call ppl names - You simply transfer to another server, changes look - even faction - and whooola... you can start again...
It works well in a single player RPG. I wonder how many of you have actually played the game before coming in here and ranting about something you haven't experienced for yourself?
It really has nothing to do with the game being "casual" or "hardcore".
You could definitely levy a number of criticisms against this game, but this is not one of them.
I have played the game, enjoyed it quite much till I realized death meant nothing.
immersion counts for something to some gamers...
I like to be able to relate to my games with something that would happen in real life.
and getting up and being fine after being so close to death is about as far away from immersion as one can get.
Methinks if fantasy has to be like real life....that totally destroys the whole idea of fantasy does it not? :P
I like fantasy to be fantasy...which includes an ability to suspend disbelief. That means in suspending my disbelief, magic exists and party members DO get up after the battle is over...if one managed to survive.