Started the demo last night for some mindless hacking and I accidentally noticed something that some might find funny, some strange, some hideous and some utterly unimportant - I am, of course, talking about Bethany's geriatric hands:
Show spoiler
For the sake of comparison, Aveline, the rugged (and older) warrior woman seems to have much softer hands:
Show spoiler
And I can't believe I actually made this post, but there it is.
Yeah that's almost certainly a normal map issue (and I agree, a pretty ugly one). I suspect Bethany - in that demo build at least - may have somehow ended up with the male normal map for her hands. Certainly as far as the model goes there should be no difference in the hands, as both were undoubtedly originally derived from one single base mesh.
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Yeah that's almost certainly a normal map issue (and I agree, a pretty ugly one). I suspect Bethany - in that demo build at least - may have somehow ended up with the male normal map for her hands. Certainly as far as the model goes there should be no difference in the hands, as both were undoubtedly originally derived from one single base mesh.
I thought that she was slowly turning into an abomination
BTW, I decided to set aside my initial frustration and reinstalled the demo to give it another go (two, in fact). My previous comments still stand but I enjoyed the demo a bit more playing as a mage and a warrior. During my first playtrough, I found that the rogue combat animations were quite over the top, more so as the only thing I was doing was clicking the right mouse button...
The mage seemed to be way overpowered at high levels but it gives the impression that the story will be more interesting if one plays as an apostate.
I also experienced some button problems this time: npcs wouldn't drink their health potions or, sometimes, I couldn't select them in the level up screen.
So, in conclusion, while I am disappointed by some of the choices that were made for this game (and the fact that the story will " unfold over the course of a decade " which apparently means a very "directed", movie like scenario and few options to come back to complete quests, thus less freedom and immersion) I think I am still looking forward for the game
And am I the only one who lold when seeing Flemmeth in a tight leather suit showing a protruding breast? It somewhat felt as if my (now deceased) 80 something year old grandmother was wearing a catsuit after undergoing a breast implant There's also how my female PC looks when she runs (it gives the impression she's going to fall and break her neck every second). There must be some huge nerds working at Bioware...
I gave the demo a try tonight, and WOW! I loved playing a rogue. The fact that you can teleport right behind an enemy and backstab it instead of doing all that tricky maneuvering with the mouse and the keyboard pleased me to no end. That said, um...I'll try to explain, though I may not make sense:
I know this was only a demo and not the full game, but to me it was like a handful of potato chips: delicious while you're still chewing on it, savory and salty, but when you're done with it your stomach still feels empty. Somehow I felt unsatisfied with the end of this, and with the storyline so far. "Become A Champion", yes, but for what cause and for what purpose? The DA:O Grey Warden is the one who vanquishes the Fifth Blight, and possibly becomes king/queen of all Ferelden in the process. You...? I mean, sure, you're great and powerful by the end of the game, but as for your choices "changing the world"? I highly doubt that Ferelden cares whether you joked around with Flemeth or gave her the old heave-ho even though she rescued you.
And how, exactly, are you going to bring Ferelden back from the brink of war? What kind of war--against the darkspawn? Again, the Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Origins is the one who defeats them and their High Dragon, not you (as Hawke). I miss all the dialogue options that Origins had, too. Why did BioWare have to "dummy down" this game--or, at least the roleplaying part?
*sigh* If I were a Gamespot reviewer, I'd give this game a 7.5 or an 8.0, but nowhere near the 9.0 that Dragon Age: Origins got. More potato chips, plz!!!
Well, to be fair, I don't think any of us were expecting Dragon Age II do deal with another Blight (though I was curious as to whether or not Hawke would also be a Grey Warden). And keep in mind, ordinary people can be just as much of a threat to the stability of Thedas (not just Ferelden) as a horde composed of a horrific cross between zombies and orcs.
And how, exactly, are you going to bring Ferelden back from the brink of war? What kind of war--against the darkspawn? Again, the Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Origins is the one who defeats them and their High Dragon, not you (as Hawke).
I doubt DA2 will have anything to do with Ferelden. After all, it doesn't even take place in it - it takes place in the Free Marches, a completely different part of Thedas (north of Ferelden, I think). I don't mind the new area, nor do I mind a new protagonist. I do, however, mind the lack of different prologues (origin stories) and playable races, as well as the ME dialogue system. They say it's the same, just visually different, but that's only partly true. In Origins there were many instances where you could ask a question (the ME "investigate" group) and then be allowed to ask a series of additional questions related to that topic and get pretty long and detailed, not to mention interesting, answers. In DA2 it seems they eliminated this, as they did in ME, so you get to ask a few questions in the "investigate" section, but each question is related to a different topic and gets a rather short answer.
I haven't delved too deep into it, but from what I have heard the main plot centers around the Chantry, as hinted at by Varric in the prologue shown in the demo.
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I suggest holding on to your second game code. Keep it in reserve, as it were. If that really rubs you the wrong way and you just have to get rid of it then I guess you could put it up for sale on Ebay or Craigslist.
I won't be playing Dragon Age 2 for at least another week due to failure of my main rig's power supply. At this point I'm just trying to get a sense of how many technical issues/bugs PC players are running into with DA 2.
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Since I found the first game disappointing, as in it started out strong, only to devolve into monotonous garbage combat that involved fighting the same dozen darkspawn over and over and over again, I'll definitely be holding off on acquiring this game for a little while, at least.
"Mind your wants, 'cause someone wants your mind."
Bioware sure as hell learned a few things in skinning since DA1, pretty much everything has better skins than they tended to have in DA1.
I think it has something to do with reduced use of generic models, and a greater leaning towards unique ones. It's not just BioWare. Unique models generally look a lot better than generic models.
Ok, I know I've already aired my grievances about this game, but does anybody else not think that BioWare have gone massively overboard with DLC and bonus items?
Hey, weren't you supposed to be able to change your gender as well with the 'Mirror of Transformation'?
Or did i just imagine reading that somewhere?
You probably just read that somewhere. Based on how both the mirror and player details are implemented, I don't see how it would work. Also, it could potentially break game stuff (even though all the proper romances are bi).
Something stupid is brewing on the Bioware forums. If you got a free five minutes you might take a look at it. All I can say about it is that it's some of the best entertainment I've had in along time and that we should all rush down.....as spectators. I'll go ahead and set up the bleachers and get the popcorn and vending machines set up.
edit-sorry, dragon age 2 general discussion. If you haven't gotten my opinion of the whole thing it is that you shouldn't get involved.
It's just like chicken-only different.
Last edited by Hunters Run; 03-11-2011 at 07:25 AM.
Bioware are, apparently, stamping out any and all criticism of ÐA2. In case anyone thinks this is simply a forum ban, you could also lose access to the game for it. Here's the original thread, replete with Bioware trained monkey Stanley Woo's copy-paste response (press 3 if you need help with making replies to other people).
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Bioware are, apparently, stamping out any and all criticism of ÐA2. In case anyone thinks this is simply a forum ban, you could also lose access to the game for it. Here's the original thread, replete with Bioware trained monkey Stanley Woo's copy-paste response (press 3 if you need help with making replies to other people).
Yeah, I don't think that'd be unique to Dragon Age II, or even BioWare games. I'm guessing this is standard for EA. And while I agree with that posted who got banned, saying that on an EA-controlled forum probably wasn't the smartest thing he could have done.
Not the point. He bought the game, he should be able to play it.
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There I agree with you. I'm just saying the blame should be on EA, not necessarily BioWare.
There are only so many things one can shift the blame to EA on before we have to acknowledge that the problems might lie with Bioware itself, at least in part.
We reached that point a while ago, IMO.
Edit: Been reading some of the threads related to the guy who can't play his game, and wow. Seriously, have Bioware/EA apologists lost any sense of perspective? I'm seeing people saying that the guy was vulgar, and comparing calling EA the devil on a forum to entering a store and beating the **** out of the manager, then being surprised at not being able to buy something. Of course, the fact that money had already been exchanged for a product, and that saying 'sold their soul to the EA devil' isn't even approaching vulgarity.
Edit #2: Apparently Bioware/EA oh-so-generously granted the man permission to play the game he payed for, and said that it was caused by a system error... yeah sure. After Stanley Woo straight up said that they could take away your games whenever they felt like it, that has to be one of the most obvious instances of post ****storm CYA lying.
I really really hate saying this, but Bioware's starting to remind me of what happened with Westwood, Origin, and Bullfrog.
--Too Dumb to Quit--
Last edited by Liverandbacon; 03-12-2011 at 11:38 AM.
There are only so many things one can shift the blame to EA on before we have to acknowledge that the problems might lie with Bioware itself, at least in part.
We reached that point a while ago, IMO.
Edit: Been reading some of the threads related to the guy who can't play his game, and wow. Seriously, have Bioware/EA apologists lost any sense of perspective? I'm seeing people saying that the guy was vulgar, and comparing calling EA the devil on a forum to entering a store and beating the **** out of the manager, then being surprised at not being able to buy something. Of course, the fact that money had already been exchanged for a product, and that saying 'sold their soul to the EA devil' isn't even approaching vulgarity.
Edit #2: Apparently Bioware/EA oh-so-generously granted the man permission to play the game he payed for, and said that it was caused by a system error... yeah sure. After Stanley Woo straight up said that they could take away your games whenever they felt like it, that has to be one of the most obvious instances of post ****storm CYA lying.
I really really hate saying this, but Bioware's starting to remind me of what happened with Westwood, Origin, and Bullfrog.
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Straight up--I read the review of Dragon Age 2 on GameSpot and have some serious questions:
1) How's the dialogue? Dumbed-down, or still as clever as it was in Origins?
2) How's the plot? Are there mysterious secrets and lots of intrigue?
3) How are the characters? I don't mean how they look, but how they ARE.
4) How's the romance? Awesome a la Origins, or censored a la ME2?
5) How's the addictiveness factor? Is it a game in which I'll be hooked in 5 minutes?
Straight up--I read the review of Dragon Age 2 on GameSpot and have some serious questions:
1) How's the dialogue? Dumbed-down, or still as clever as it was in Origins?
2) How's the plot? Are there mysterious secrets and lots of intrigue?
3) How are the characters? I don't mean how they look, but how they ARE.
4) How's the romance? Awesome a la Origins, or censored a la ME2?
5) How's the addictiveness factor? Is it a game in which I'll be hooked in 5 minutes?
I'm still playing it, so I can't give you 100% definitive impressions, but here's what I think so far:
1) It's variable. Some is short and to the point, with little to none extra info that might be interesting to hear, but some is pretty good and adds to the atmosphere.
2) Can't say for sure, since I'm somewhere in Act 2 so far, but there are some interesting moments, yeah.
3) This is my biggest disappointment so far. The interaction between Hawke and companions is crap. I'm in the second third of the game and I haven't had more than three conversations per companion, all of which were quest related, rather short and didn't give me anything new about any of the characters. There's a lot of party banter too, but it's nowhere near the banter from Origins - basically they try very hard to end each banter in a funny manner, but they fail miserably in most cases. Origins didn't do this - there were many hilarious banter conversations, but there were also serious ones.
4) Can't say anything about it yet, I've had one scene with Isabela and that one was short and censored nudity-wise, but it was at the beginning of her romance, so there's a possibility of something else coming up later, if I decide to follow through.
5) It takes time to get used to the game, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of graphics. Definitely longer than five minutes.
Ah, crap. I can't remember how i did the spoiler thing, ah well...
Show spoiler
I was personally a bit annoyed that if you have Bethany in your party in Kirkwall, should you take her with you to the Deep Roads she ends up with the same 'sickness' Wesley did in the prologue.
And if you choose *not* to take her with you, the bloody Templars walk off with her when you get home again and you don't get her back into your party again until very close to the final battle.
Btw, does anyone know why *Anders* was the DA1 character that was lifted over into DA2 to join the 'party' there?
I'd kinda hoped to have Leliana, or Morrigan, in my party again as they where my favorite DA1 characters.
In the last few days i've been working on a list of where to find the more special outfits for Hawke, specifically the ones that give you a bonus when you wear a complete set.
Unfortunatly, this list is not yet 100%. Though, soon, it will be.
If anyone is interested in this list, let me know and i'll hurry up and finish it.
Edit: Btw, does anyone know what the 'Rogue Daggers' are called ingame? And where to get them? (If you don't know which daggers, it is the daggers you can see the Rogue Hawke use in the character selection screen and in the middle of Korvals dagger selection on the right side of his stall)
Ah, crap. I can't remember how i did the spoiler thing, ah well...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Payne
Show spoiler
I was personally a bit annoyed that if you have Bethany in your party in Kirkwall, should you take her with you to the Deep Roads she ends up with the same 'sickness' Wesley did in the prologue.
And if you choose *not* to take her with you, the bloody Templars walk off with her when you get home again and you don't get her back into your party again until very close to the final battle.
Btw, does anyone know why *Anders* was the DA1 character that was lifted over into DA2 to join the 'party' there?
Well...
Show spoiler
You can bring Bethany to the Deep Roads and have her survive, but I assume you must have Anders in the party as well for that to work. If he's along he'll convince some of his former Grey Warden buddies to take in Bethany and give her the Joining. So she becomes a Grey Warden and still leave your group, but at least she survives.
Anders was probably the most suited one to bring over both because of the above, and to tie in with the whole brewing Mage vs. Templar plot that I suspect is going to turn into the as-of-yet absent main plot. And he's probably the easiest character to destroy by turning him from a mostly jovial wisecracking guy into a brooding fanatic.
Straight up--I read the review of Dragon Age 2 on GameSpot and have some serious questions:
1) How's the dialogue? Dumbed-down, or still as clever as it was in Origins?
2) How's the plot? Are there mysterious secrets and lots of intrigue?
3) How are the characters? I don't mean how they look, but how they ARE.
4) How's the romance? Awesome a la Origins, or censored a la ME2?
5) How's the addictiveness factor? Is it a game in which I'll be hooked in 5 minutes?
A bit varied. Rather straightforward and to the point in some places, but more witty and interesting in others. With the dialog icons signifying the tone of your dialog choices you can more clearly define a personality for your Hawke, which seems to reflect in their overall manner of talking after a while. Haven't finished the game yet though so can't tell what will happen later on. The dialog wheel still has the same kind of blind guesswork of what Hawke will actually say despite the icons. How hard would it be so put the subtitles of the dialog choice in a tooltip when you hover over the wheel, really? Though personally I prefer having a voiced protagonist, gives more immersion than the nodding mute that was the Warden in ÐA:Origins.
I'm only up to Act 2 so far, but as of yet there is no trace of a main plot. Tons of sidequests of varying complexity and quality, and it's mostly been about establishing the Hawkes in their new home in Kirkwall. But since it's supposed to stretch over several years I suppose the characters need to be established before the main plot catches on. Quite a bit of difference from ÐA:Origins where you knew who the end boss would be as soon as you reached Ostagar.
A fair mix of characters and personalities, the available squad members seem to be built for some in-party intrigue. You got your mix of wild, profiteering rogues, lawbook-brandishing paladins, mages and mage haters. Some of them are pretty extreme, though I've mostly stuck with the crowd that's somewhat "normal" so far. Some returning characters from Ðragon Age 1 that join you as party members too: one (well, technically two) former Warden-partymember(s) from ÐA:Awakening, one temporary Warden-party member from the Dalish elf (now Irish Elf) origin, and a certain pirate queen NPC you might have run across briefly in Denerim to learn the finer points of being a Duelist from.
The romances seem to be tied in with the storyline, so you can't finish it as soon as you get to camp like you pretty much could in Origins. Still on my first playthrough so I haven't finished it yet, but from what I've seen so far it's not censored.
If you're used to Origins it might take some re-learning since it's a new game. There are some fairly substantial gameplay changes between the two games. Some for the better and some for the worse. So far I've been enjoying the game though, no regrets buying it. If you're expecting and wanting Ðragon Age 1.5:More of the Same instead of a new game with its own merits you might be disappointed though.
ÐA:Awakening, one temporary Warden-party member from the Dalish elf (now Irish Elf) origin.
That's Welsh Elf not Irish they sound completely different (maybe just to an English person), Eve Myles (Gwen from Torchwood) is from Wales, although the other elves have Irish accents for some reason.
"Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all things, Revan… and yet you are nothing. In the end, you belong to neither the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone."
Last edited by Thanatos9t; 03-15-2011 at 06:11 AM.
The Ðragon Age 2 Flying Circus continues! Roll up, roll up...
Quote:
"The immersion and combat of this game are unmatched! A truly moving and fun epic," the Metacritic user known as Avanost wrote in his glowing review of Dragon Age 2, which he scored a perfect 10/10. "Anything negative you'll see about this game is an overreaction of personal preference. For what it is, it is flawlessly executed and endlessly entertaining."
Whether or not you agree with the accuracy of that assessment isn't particularly relevant. What has people up in arms is that it was apparently written by an applications engineer named Chris Hoban, who also happens to be a BioWare employee - and who made no mention of that fact in his review.
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Finished the game yesterday and my final impressions are rather mixed. Overall, it's an OK game, but it's nowhere near the quality of Origins.
The story itself is OK, with a few interesting plot twists, but it also has many flaws - some are related to the direction they chose to take it in and others are related to the presentation itself. First off, the whole "framed narrative" concept is nothing new or revolutionary. Basically, what they did is linearize the flow of the story and divided it into acts, similarly to what The Witcher did. To clarify, if you remember, The Witcher's story had a prologue set in the fortress, then there's a small time skip and Act One is set in that village with your final objective being to enter Vizima, after that again a very small timeskip and you're in Vizima and the Swamp for the duration of the second act, etc. Similarly, Dragon Age 2 has a prologue and three more acts, where each act has a specific main goal (not always known at the start of the act) and quite a few sidequests. The difference is that all three acts take place in one location - Kirkwall. The final villain was very well done, both as a character and as a boss fight, but the pre-final villain was rather disappointing, primarily for story-related reasons.
Now we slowly get to the combat. Functionally, it's more or less the same as in Origins - you right-click on an enemy and your character starts auto-attacking it (unless you're playing a console version, in which case, my condolences). Your spells/abilities are mapped to numbers in the quickbar, much like in Origins and the combat can be paused at any moment. Now come the differences. The positive difference is that the combat is a lot more fluid and the whole shuffling thing, as the devs call it, has been reduced. The negative side is that the animations are just ridiculous, unnatural and way too over-the-top, along with the fact that the number of abilities has been reduced. There are still plenty of abilities to choose from and their organization into trees is a nice improvement, but overall there's far less of them than in Origins. Another negative aspect of the combat is that it's way too fast. You'll often find yourself pausing simply so you could target your next enemy, not because you want to go into some elaborate tactical solution. Another interesting thing I noticed is that this game seems to have a built-in god mode. It kicks in in several major boss encounters, starting with the Rock Wraith and basically enables you to finish the fight, which would otherwise be unwinnable. The boss fights in which it activated all had the same scenario - you fight an overpowered boss creature which at several points summons waves of moderate-to-hard enemies (i.e. Rage Demons, Revenants) to help it. Since those enemies will eventually overwhelm you, your job is to stay alive long enough for the god mode to kick in, so when your health and mana/stamina start instant-regenerating you can turn the situation around. This made those boss fights completely pointless and boring, since you knew you would win and were simply wondering when that fight would end already so you can move on to another quest.
And so we get to your companions. What I stated in my earlier reply to Tysy stands - companion interaction is crap. Most companions are rather monotonous and you won't really learn that much about them, nor will you be able to change their minds about an important issue. Anders, for example will start with "I hate the Circle, the Chantry and the Templars and I must destroy them" and will stay the same by the end of the game. The Justice merger element could have easily been left out completely, since you will only get one short interaction with Justice during a sidequest. You can only talk to your companions when a Companion quest is activated, otherwise they will just make short comments. I've already commented on party banter in my previous post, so I won't repeat myself.
Gameplay-wise, the way you level them up has also been restricted - meaning that Varric can't use meele weapons (he can't use any weapon other than his shotgun-crossbow Bianca for that matter), Isabela can only be a dual-wielding meele rogue, etc. On the other hand, each of them has a unique specialization with unique abilities, which is a nice touch.
When it comes to leveling your characters, it's important to note that the Skill tab is gone, meaning there's no Coercion, Herbalism, Pickpocketing, etc. Lockpicking is now bound to your Cunning attribute and increases with every ten points, meaning you must have a rogue with up to 40 points in Cunning to be able to open Master level locks, which is a very bad and limiting design decision, to put it lightly. The rest is largely the same.
Moving on to customization, as you know your companions can't be fully customized, but your Hawke can. However, the amount of armor and weapons is seriously disappointing. There are only three armor sets that provide a set bonus (unless you count the Blood Dragon armor and Dead Space 2 armor sets) and there are several Heavy armor variations that all look exactly the same, but have slightly different stats. This, of course, applies to warriors, but I'm pretty sure it's not that different for other classes. The same goes for weapons, rings, amulets and belts, with the last three having largely uninspiring names like "Ring", "Belt", "Amulet", or "Ornate Ring", "Ornate Belt", etc.
When it comes to the environment, there is a Pearl-like establishment, and a day and night version of Kirkwall's quarters, along with a few unpopulated areas outside of Kirkwall. They all look relatively nice, once you get used to the graphics. The biggest flaw is the reuse of caves and mansions for almost every side quest. I remember people complaining about the reuse of bunkers in Mass Effect's UNC quests, well, let me tell you: this is much, much worse.
Now, I know I've pointed out more negatives than positives, but remember what I said way above - this is an OK game, perhaps not worth an immediate purchase, but it's worth a playthrough. As we all know, they made it in about a year (or less), so you can't really expect it to be on par with Origins, but it's interesting enough. There are some interesting NPCs and plotlines to keep you busy. The qunari redesign works surprisingly well, but the elves and Darkspawn look really really bad. Length-wise, it's not much shorter than Origins as it took me around 54 hours to finish it on Normal difficulty. However, it's how you spend those hours that differs from Origins.
There you go. Wall 'o' text finished. I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention a lot of other stuff, but this post is too long as it is.
)
There's also how my female PC looks when she runs (it gives the impression she's going to fall and break her neck every second). There must be some huge nerds working at Bioware...
That said, um...I'll try to explain, though I may not make sense:
Linear Mode
