GS: In terms of the story in Dragon Age II, it feels like Hawke's rise in Kirkwall comes at the expense of the gameworld as a whole. In contrast, the player saw and learned a lot about the world in Origins. Is the idea that Dragon Age II has a narrower focus and lacks the broader context a fair assessment of the story?
ML: The goal that we were going for is twofold. First, we did want to focus in on a more personal experience--the experience of one person and not the avatar of an organization. To be quite frank, that's a story we told before, and while there's nothing wrong with it, we really wanted to challenge ourselves to not have you end up in the Jedi Order or a Child of Baal, what have you.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Opinion-like it's a bit like I am on Venus and you are from Mars, Bill Murphy. I could not be further apart my how I saw it. To make it short:
- the companions were dull, lackluster, neurotic and non memorable; their personal story was randomly tossed at me
- given how small the world is, the lack of visual detail of Kirkwall was stunningly bad; on top, you'd expect a city to somehow change over 10 years! Or the companions clothings. It totally ruins the feeling of having 10 years when everything is exactly the same every moment.
- the copy paste "dungeons" were AWFUL: after 3-4 hours you had seen ALL, what a yawnfest
- combat with beaming in and ALWAYS in the exact same pattern was terrible repetitive and disallowed any stratetic placing
- almost all sidequests were noxiously bad "fetch me my lost X" type not connected to the overall story whatsoever. After saving the world from doom and fighting an archdemon, I was down to find my lost wife and solve some dumb murder!
- Hawk never was a hero or champion in any sense like MAKING events, in the way the Grey Warden did, on the contrary Hawk was only merely REACTING to events he was acidentally stumbling into. That's not a hero or champion of a story AT ALL, which is one of my main critique points. The hero does nothing decisive, instead he is just caught in events that he has zero influence on. He remains to just accidentally be in the "right time" at the right place. Or wrong, as you wish. With those jumps the story remains odd.
DA2 totally doesn't feel like a sequel but merely some expansion pack story, some side-quest like that of Leilana from DA1. So for me it was 6.5/10 or so.
Personally, I hope to never ever hear from Hawk EVER again.
I agree with almost everything, except the part about the companions. I liked them, would've loved to see more personal quests involving them. I particularly enjoyed Isabela, hehe.
But you're right, I too was a little disappointed with the copy/paste approach to areacrafting. And the warping monsters. What the hell? That was really weird. And yeah, "strategic placing" seems like an almost comical phrase in the context of DA2. Combat was so amazingly uninteresting.
I don't know if I agree that "making" events is better than reacting to them. Either way, there was no compelling story to speak of, so the events were uninteresting regardless of their instigator.
It seems people would just rather be the cliche hero in saving the world. I enjoyed the different plots in DA2 more than the one in Origins.
I liked Geneforge's (which has a far more complex morality concept than DA2) storyline. I loved Avernum's. I liked Nethergate Ressurection's.
DA2 tries to emulate these games in order to give a complex and morally troublesome choice and fails at the first hurdle. I'm not paralysed with indecision in DA2 because it's just going to end up the same whatever you do. In Geneforge, helping out the Shapers will result in a thousand years of stable tyranny (or end in the death of all shaped creatures, or whatever, there's a lot of different factions), whereas helping out the Rebels (or the Drakons, in this case) results in pretty much the entire destruction of civilisation.
DA2 is just like, "LOL PICK TEMPLAR OR MAGE LOL". They're both irritating turds.
Opinion-like it's a bit like I am on Venus and you are from Mars, Bill Murphy. I could not be further apart my how I saw it. To make it short:
- the companions were dull, lackluster, neurotic and non memorable; their personal story was randomly tossed at me
Felt same way with a few exceptions.
- given how small the world is, the lack of visual detail of Kirkwall was stunningly bad; on top, you'd expect a city to somehow change over 10 years! Or the companions clothings. It totally ruins the feeling of having 10 years when everything is exactly the same every moment.
Same thing I said to myself. Played through game twice. First on Nightmare then Hard. My original plan was to do 3 playthroughs one for each class, two as male and one as female. I started my third playthrough and right after I got to part where you are gathering money for Deep roads expedition. I sat back, saved, and exited game. I didn't really see the point anymore. The ending wasn't going to change. The city wasn't going to change.
- the copy paste "dungeons" were AWFUL: after 3-4 hours you had seen ALL, what a yawnfest
Very true.
- combat with beaming in and ALWAYS in the exact same pattern was terrible repetitive and disallowed any stratetic placing
Yep, BW got lazy and went with a quantity over quality approach to mobs.
- almost all sidequests were noxiously bad "fetch me my lost X" type not connected to the overall story whatsoever. After saving the world from doom and fighting an archdemon, I was down to find my lost wife and solve some dumb murder!
Very true. Most of the side quest aren't worth doing. Hell most of them when you turn it in. All you get is a cold one line thank you from the quest giver and some pocket change.
- Hawk never was a hero or champion in any sense like MAKING events, in the way the Grey Warden did, on the contrary Hawk was only merely REACTING to events he was acidentally stumbling into. That's not a hero or champion of a story AT ALL, which is one of my main critique points. The hero does nothing decisive, instead he is just caught in events that he has zero influence on. He remains to just accidentally be in the "right time" at the right place. Or wrong, as you wish. With those jumps the story remains odd.
DA2 totally doesn't feel like a sequel but merely some expansion pack story, some side-quest like that of Leilana from DA1. So for me it was 6.5/10 or so.
More generous then me. I'm probably a very big BW fanboy, and even I would only give it a 6 at best.
Personally, I hope to never ever hear from Hawk EVER again.
I must be losing it. I actually agree with most of what Elikal said. I didn't like all the companions. My favorites were definitely Isabela, Merril, and Varric. To a lesser extent Aveline & Bethany. I wish they were fleshed out more, because I actually enjoyed having them in my group.
IMHO the game could have just as easily been a multi-part DLC or multi-part expansion pack. Just my personal opinion but DA2 just isn't worthy enough of being called DA2. As bad as FFXIV and FFXIII was, BW could stand to learn something from Squaresoft about numbering and franchises. Alot of Final Fantasy games out there, but only certain wants get numbered. DA2 named something else still wouldn't fix alot of the problems I had with the game. It would just make the game easier to accept, at least on my part. Dragon Age: Chronicles of Kirkwall anyone? lol
Edit: The poster above me pointed out one of the two big problems with the game (the other being the passage of time. Can you really tell difference between say Year 1 or Year 3?). For as much as BW talked about choices being important. DA2 choices are VERY VERY unimportant. The game's ending differs so little at the end, no matter what choices you pick.
In War - Victory. In Peace - Vigilance. In Death - Sacrifice.
It seems people would just rather be the cliche hero in saving the world. I enjoyed the different plots in DA2 more than the one in Origins.
I liked Geneforge's (which has a far more complex morality concept than DA2) storyline. I loved Avernum's. I liked Nethergate Ressurection's.
DA2 tries to emulate these games in order to give a complex and morally troublesome choice and fails at the first hurdle. I'm not paralysed with indecision in DA2 because it's just going to end up the same whatever you do. In Geneforge, helping out the Shapers will result in a thousand years of stable tyranny (or end in the death of all shaped creatures, or whatever, there's a lot of different factions), whereas helping out the Rebels (or the Drakons, in this case) results in pretty much the entire destruction of civilisation.
DA2 is just like, "LOL PICK TEMPLAR OR MAGE LOL". They're both irritating turds.
this is not exactly correct but it is mostly correct.
There are a few decisions in DA:O 2 that result in a different outcome. I tend to try to play through as many as I can at times to see what the outcomes are.
Having said that, Bioware tends to fall down in this regard because they tend to be more about telling you what happens because of your decisions rather than showing you.
Going back to DA:O you get a run down on what happened to the characters and places at the very end. But it would be more impactful if players got to really experience some actual differences as opposed to being told about them.
That is why, say with a good play, you don't want to tell the audience what happened but you want it revealed to them by the actions of the characters and what happens in every scene.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Fuck DA2 its total piece of crap compared to the first one (or ME which is similar action but much more epic)
I hate the UI (I mean wtf, this is a fantasy game not syfy ..so wtf is with the whoe edgy and simple UI, I want books, runes,decoration all that stuff as in the first one or any other fantasy RPG)
The combat is gay : Yeah hawk, jumps,flips, falls, bleed and all but the first one felt much more RPGistic (and it WAS SUCCESFUL SO WHY THE f...DID U CHANGE THAT???!)
Spell combos are gone (or rehashed so they dont look like combos anymore)
Dialogue choices are like WTF ME all over the again (we dont want fantasy ME, wwe want RPG which feels at least kinda old school!!)
I heard the story is kinda lame (I started playing threee days ago, not sure how it'll all end up so idd bout that)
Companions feel cheap and I dont like them (except maybe varric)
It all happens around kirkwall(or w/e the name is) ..I mean like seriously, when I first saw the destiny trailer I was thinking about more that running around one stupid city which is almost unmentioned in the first one...
hawke VOers are meh...shepard much better, if he'd be silent like in the first one it'd be better IMO
Bleh, BW pissed me with this one, Im going to finish it just for the sake of story but dont gimme this shit again BW pls...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
I don't think that the characters are worse than the ones from DA:O (I like Isabela at least).
But they are a lot less fun the the classic Bioware characters from BG 1 & 2 and NWN ("Go for the eyes Bo!").
The combat looks a lot more impressive but it frankly doesn't feel that different when I play.
The plot is not anything special. It is in the same class as Interplays Icewind dale 1 & 2 and Torment. Rather fun but not really a classic Bioware game.
My rating; 3/5 (worth playing but nothing I will discuss on a forum 10 years from now, or probably not even remember by then).
The plot is not anything special. It is in the same class as Interplays Icewind dale 1 & 2 and Torment. Rather fun but not really a classic Bioware game.
Did you really just compare DA2's (or even DA:O's) plot to Torment? Man, that's like blasphemy in RPG circles.
( Also, it was Black Isle that did Torment, they also did Fallout 1&2. You might have heard of them. )
Another issue with DA2: So much of it was directly ripped off of Alpha Protocol it's not funny. The conversation system (peaceful, angry and silly) correlates exactly to Alpha Protocol's (professional, angry and suave). The plot structure (based around telling of past events through an interrogation) whilst much better done in AP was still directly ripped off. The rivalry system (you can either make friends with someone and gain bonuses or make enemies with them and gain bonuses) was, again, ripped off of Alpha Protocol. Etc etc.
It's like someone at BioWare said, "HEY GUYS. I JUST FINISHED THIS ALPHA PROTOCOL GAME AND NO ONE ELSE HAS PLAYED IT. LET'S RIP IT OFF!" but failed at doing anything that made AP good (like, you know, an amazing tangled plotline where you get told minor lies that have big reprecussions later on like when a girl gets killed and you have no idea why but it turns out she's a major federal agent's daughter near the end of the game).
Stuff like them not being able to do many of the things that AP did right such as the SAME SYSTEMS THEY TRIED TO RIP OFF (the conversation system in AP was PERFECT, you always knew pretty much exactly what your character was going to say) just makes me laugh immensely hard.
The plot is not anything special. It is in the same class as Interplays Icewind dale 1 & 2 and Torment. Rather fun but not really a classic Bioware game.
You sir, deserve to die...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
Comments
This is sort of interesting:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6305575/index.html?tag=topslot;img;1
GS: In terms of the story in Dragon Age II, it feels like Hawke's rise in Kirkwall comes at the expense of the gameworld as a whole. In contrast, the player saw and learned a lot about the world in Origins. Is the idea that Dragon Age II has a narrower focus and lacks the broader context a fair assessment of the story?
ML: The goal that we were going for is twofold. First, we did want to focus in on a more personal experience--the experience of one person and not the avatar of an organization. To be quite frank, that's a story we told before, and while there's nothing wrong with it, we really wanted to challenge ourselves to not have you end up in the Jedi Order or a Child of Baal, what have you.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I agree with almost everything, except the part about the companions. I liked them, would've loved to see more personal quests involving them. I particularly enjoyed Isabela, hehe.
But you're right, I too was a little disappointed with the copy/paste approach to areacrafting. And the warping monsters. What the hell? That was really weird. And yeah, "strategic placing" seems like an almost comical phrase in the context of DA2. Combat was so amazingly uninteresting.
I don't know if I agree that "making" events is better than reacting to them. Either way, there was no compelling story to speak of, so the events were uninteresting regardless of their instigator.
It seems people would just rather be the cliche hero in saving the world. I enjoyed the different plots in DA2 more than the one in Origins.
Yes, we're all simpletons, while your tastes are refined and sophisticated.
the game has too much drama.
I liked Geneforge's (which has a far more complex morality concept than DA2) storyline. I loved Avernum's. I liked Nethergate Ressurection's.
DA2 tries to emulate these games in order to give a complex and morally troublesome choice and fails at the first hurdle. I'm not paralysed with indecision in DA2 because it's just going to end up the same whatever you do. In Geneforge, helping out the Shapers will result in a thousand years of stable tyranny (or end in the death of all shaped creatures, or whatever, there's a lot of different factions), whereas helping out the Rebels (or the Drakons, in this case) results in pretty much the entire destruction of civilisation.
DA2 is just like, "LOL PICK TEMPLAR OR MAGE LOL". They're both irritating turds.
I must be losing it. I actually agree with most of what Elikal said. I didn't like all the companions. My favorites were definitely Isabela, Merril, and Varric. To a lesser extent Aveline & Bethany. I wish they were fleshed out more, because I actually enjoyed having them in my group.
IMHO the game could have just as easily been a multi-part DLC or multi-part expansion pack. Just my personal opinion but DA2 just isn't worthy enough of being called DA2. As bad as FFXIV and FFXIII was, BW could stand to learn something from Squaresoft about numbering and franchises. Alot of Final Fantasy games out there, but only certain wants get numbered. DA2 named something else still wouldn't fix alot of the problems I had with the game. It would just make the game easier to accept, at least on my part. Dragon Age: Chronicles of Kirkwall anyone? lol
Edit: The poster above me pointed out one of the two big problems with the game (the other being the passage of time. Can you really tell difference between say Year 1 or Year 3?). For as much as BW talked about choices being important. DA2 choices are VERY VERY unimportant. The game's ending differs so little at the end, no matter what choices you pick.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
this is not exactly correct but it is mostly correct.
There are a few decisions in DA:O 2 that result in a different outcome. I tend to try to play through as many as I can at times to see what the outcomes are.
Having said that, Bioware tends to fall down in this regard because they tend to be more about telling you what happens because of your decisions rather than showing you.
Going back to DA:O you get a run down on what happened to the characters and places at the very end. But it would be more impactful if players got to really experience some actual differences as opposed to being told about them.
That is why, say with a good play, you don't want to tell the audience what happened but you want it revealed to them by the actions of the characters and what happens in every scene.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
no its good game, but is it rpg.com or MMOrpg.com here?
Fuck DA2 its total piece of crap compared to the first one (or ME which is similar action but much more epic)
I hate the UI (I mean wtf, this is a fantasy game not syfy ..so wtf is with the whoe edgy and simple UI, I want books, runes,decoration all that stuff as in the first one or any other fantasy RPG)
The combat is gay : Yeah hawk, jumps,flips, falls, bleed and all but the first one felt much more RPGistic (and it WAS SUCCESFUL SO WHY THE f...DID U CHANGE THAT???!)
Spell combos are gone (or rehashed so they dont look like combos anymore)
Dialogue choices are like WTF ME all over the again (we dont want fantasy ME, wwe want RPG which feels at least kinda old school!!)
I heard the story is kinda lame (I started playing threee days ago, not sure how it'll all end up so idd bout that)
Companions feel cheap and I dont like them (except maybe varric)
It all happens around kirkwall(or w/e the name is) ..I mean like seriously, when I first saw the destiny trailer I was thinking about more that running around one stupid city which is almost unmentioned in the first one...
hawke VOers are meh...shepard much better, if he'd be silent like in the first one it'd be better IMO
Bleh, BW pissed me with this one, Im going to finish it just for the sake of story but dont gimme this shit again BW pls...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
I don't think that the characters are worse than the ones from DA:O (I like Isabela at least).
But they are a lot less fun the the classic Bioware characters from BG 1 & 2 and NWN ("Go for the eyes Bo!").
The combat looks a lot more impressive but it frankly doesn't feel that different when I play.
The plot is not anything special. It is in the same class as Interplays Icewind dale 1 & 2 and Torment. Rather fun but not really a classic Bioware game.
My rating; 3/5 (worth playing but nothing I will discuss on a forum 10 years from now, or probably not even remember by then).
Did you really just compare DA2's (or even DA:O's) plot to Torment? Man, that's like blasphemy in RPG circles.
( Also, it was Black Isle that did Torment, they also did Fallout 1&2. You might have heard of them.
)
Another issue with DA2: So much of it was directly ripped off of Alpha Protocol it's not funny. The conversation system (peaceful, angry and silly) correlates exactly to Alpha Protocol's (professional, angry and suave). The plot structure (based around telling of past events through an interrogation) whilst much better done in AP was still directly ripped off. The rivalry system (you can either make friends with someone and gain bonuses or make enemies with them and gain bonuses) was, again, ripped off of Alpha Protocol. Etc etc.
It's like someone at BioWare said, "HEY GUYS. I JUST FINISHED THIS ALPHA PROTOCOL GAME AND NO ONE ELSE HAS PLAYED IT. LET'S RIP IT OFF!" but failed at doing anything that made AP good (like, you know, an amazing tangled plotline where you get told minor lies that have big reprecussions later on like when a girl gets killed and you have no idea why but it turns out she's a major federal agent's daughter near the end of the game).
Stuff like them not being able to do many of the things that AP did right such as the SAME SYSTEMS THEY TRIED TO RIP OFF (the conversation system in AP was PERFECT, you always knew pretty much exactly what your character was going to say) just makes me laugh immensely hard.
You sir, deserve to die...
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them