103 réponses à ce sujet

[Hollingdale]

I agree with pretty much all of what you said in that post Shallow89.



Imo for the urgency caused by the Darkspawn invasion to be believable the game needs a solid way to illustrate. I think the passing of seasons would've sufficed (with an implication that ferelden will fall by next winter or whatever season a year from start or so) which could've been implimented either through linear area progression (which would've allowed for other big improvements aswell but alas would probably not be well liked by much of the community) or through weather effects.



Another big thing that sucks is how little the crap that you have to do for the treaties has to with the actual main plot. I know a friend of mine tried to explain this on theese boards before but his post was met with scorn and contempt. But I mean come on, I know they want to introduce their new world and all but running errands solving petty local problems is tiresome.



All this crap (lack of suspense, lack of believability, lack of actual gameplay revolving around it midgame) makes the main plot fail at engaging, in fact even the hated Awakenings has a much more well carried out main plot.

[SOLID_EVEREST]

[quote]_-Greywolf-_ wrote...
I am sorry but how is Kotor 2 LucasArts fault? Unless of course you are
implying that there was something wrong with the first Kotor because as I
am sure you know that LucasArts were the publishers for that game as
well, but if that is what you are implying then I am not sure what your
point is.[/quote]
Because LucasArts gave Obsidian 18 months to write, design, create, test and then release an RPG. The guys at Obsidian hadn't played KotOR, from everything I've heard, so they effectively went in blind. Most games have a 2-3 year dev cycle, 18 months is just ridiculous.
[/quote]

Wow, they only had that long to dish out a game... I heard that KotOR 2 isn't that bad either especially for being developed in that amount of time. I have to give props to Obsidian because that is amazing.

[AlanC9]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
 I think the time scale for Dragon Age is about a year in Ferelden, but it doesn't feel like any time has really progressed. Instead of events being weeks apart, it feels like they're the next afternoon or the next morning and that really grates with me.

Hmm... what led you to believe that the time scale is that long in the first place? I thought it was only a matter of maybe a dozen weeks myself, but I haven't sorted through dialogs to see if there's any actual evidence.

I'll agree about the color palette -- I though there was something wrong with my video settings when I first saw the game.

But biased towards the melee classes? Really? Mages more than hold their own in my experience. 2-handed warriors strike me as being the only truly weak class -- sword-and-board fighters don't do much damage, but that isn't their role in the first place.

Modifié par AlanC9, 29 juin 2010 - 10:38 .

[troyk890]

AlanC9 wrote...

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
 I think the time scale for Dragon Age is about a year in Ferelden, but it doesn't feel like any time has really progressed. Instead of events being weeks apart, it feels like they're the next afternoon or the next morning and that really grates with me.

Hmm... what led you to believe that the time scale is that long in the first place? I thought it was only a matter of maybe a dozen weeks myself, but I haven't sorted through dialogs to see if there's any actual evidence.

I'll agree about the color palette -- I though there was something wrong with my video settings when I first saw the game.

But biased towards the melee classes? Really? Mages more than hold their own in my experience. 2-handed warriors strike me as being the only truly weak class -- sword-and-board fighters don't do much damage, but that isn't their role in the first place.

A character mentions that a trip from orzammar to the circle tower and back takes a little over two weeks. So it can be assumed that the whole story takes several months at least.

[Kail Ashton]

AlanC9 wrote...

virumor wrote...

Competition for Dragon Age is -for instance- Final Fantasy XIII on PS3,  that more than likely greatly outsold it.

Really? My impression is that JRPG fans and WRPG fans are largely different communities.

lol that's somewhat true, i as a very old school jrpg fan normaly wouldn't touch a western rpg with a ten foot stick, but honestly after 2 decades of metrosexuals in nausiatingly bright color palletes with awkward japanese ways of expressing themselves (i punch you in the face to show concern for you!!) most of us older ones are open to western rpg's these days,

You can generaly judge a jrpg fan by the Final Fantasy game they started with lol, the earliar their first FF the more sick of jrpgs they'd be

Proberly why i'm so critical bout the graphics & art direction, say what you will bout japanese games (and they're quite bad this generation) they always look gorgeous and with hair...that moves!! omg!!

[Loerwyn]

AlanC9 wrote...
Hmm... what led you to believe that the time scale is that long in the first place? I thought it was only a matter of maybe a dozen weeks myself, but I haven't sorted through dialogs to see if there's any actual evidence.

Bits of dialogue, common sense, so on and so forth.

AlanC9 wrote...
But biased towards the melee classes? Really? Mages more than hold their own in my experience. 2-handed warriors strike me as being the only truly weak class -- sword-and-board fighters don't do much damage, but that isn't their role in the first place.

I think, from a gear perspective, it's completely biased towards the Massive/Heavy armor wearers. There's a lot of longswords and 2H weapons, a fair selection of massive armor (incl. DLC gear), but not as much in the way of gear for mages or rogues. Would have been nice to see a little bit of variation, y'know?

[_-Greywolf-_]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Could you go into more detail? I don't know why you feel that way from your posts in the thread.

Something about Dragon Age, for me, just doesn't click. For what it is and what it tries to be, I find it... poor, I guess. Well, maybe poor is the wrong word. I just feel that there's no sense of urgency in regards to the Darkspawn, or that there's any real sense of time. I think the time scale for Dragon Age is about a year in Ferelden, but it doesn't feel like any time has really progressed. Instead of events being weeks apart, it feels like they're the next afternoon or the next morning and that really grates with me.

I think it's also quite dull visually. Everything's brown, grey, dark shades of colours such as red and green. Even the Brecillian Forest feels dull and lifeless, and I didn't get any sense of the game world being alive. There's also a lot of minor problems I have with the game such as the game feeling heavily skewed towards the melee/warrior classes, and things like skeletons of the Dwarves. They're just so wrong proportioned, and I find it near-impossible to believe that they couldn't have fixed it.

_-Greywolf-_ wrote...
I am sorry but how is Kotor 2 LucasArts fault? Unless of course you are
implying that there was something wrong with the first Kotor because as I
am sure you know that LucasArts were the publishers for that game as
well, but if that is what you are implying then I am not sure what your
point is.

Because LucasArts gave Obsidian 18 months to write, design, create, test and then release an RPG. The guys at Obsidian hadn't played KotOR, from everything I've heard, so they effectively went in blind. Most games have a 2-3 year dev cycle, 18 months is just ridiculous.

Yeah you are right, that is a pretty **** move by LucasArts. Bioware had more than 3 years to develop Kotor yet Obsidian get less than 2? Yeah no wonder Kotor 2 seemed so unfinished.

[Hollingdale]

But Kotor 2 had a much deeper philosophical and involving story That's what really matters imo.

[Domyk]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

Domyk wrote...
Speaking of which I am trying out Drakensang now.  The Control keys defaults to A and D to move the character left or right.  However when I do so the camera does not pan and stay locked onto the player characters back.  Am I doing something wrong with the user interface?   Yes I know another option is to hold the right mouse button as character is moving to turn ...

I'm not sure, as I don't really think about how I'm playing it. The camera is a bit finnicky, so you might just have to get used to using the mouse.

I figured it out, you can turn using keyboard as well.  For those looking for a cheap quality entertainment that has about 80plus gameplay hours with WOW style cartoon graphics which works pick up Drakensang.  Can be had for <30 bucks.

[ObserverStatus]

Definately the best rpg made since the release of DA:O

[AlanC9]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

Bits of dialogue, common sense, so on and so forth.

Funny how "common sense" gives different answers for different people; that's the same method I used to come up with 1/4 of the time you did. We could post this over on the campaign board so one of the folks who gets into this sort of thing could tear into the dialog files for us, I guess.

I think, from a gear perspective, it's completely biased towards the Massive/Heavy armor wearers. There's a lot of longswords and 2H weapons, a fair selection of massive armor (incl. DLC gear), but not as much in the way of gear for mages or rogues. Would have been nice to see a little bit of variation, y'know?

Oh, OK -- I thought you were talking about systems, not gear.

[AmstradHero]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
Have you actually played Drakensang or Div 2?

No, I haven't. I should have explained that in my post and that I was merely reposting opinions collated from numerous reviews that I found. This isn't to say that they are bad games. Heck, some of the reviews were pretty positive - but they still consistently picked up on the (same) bad points of both games.

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
Das Schwarze Auge, the ruleset and setting Drakensang uses, has been
around 26 years. It's as old as many of those RPG clichés, if not older. 
Plus it's not like Dragon Age is immune to the "cliché complex", is
it? Demons, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Magic, "European"-esque setting,
Dragons,
Oh-God-The-World-Is-Ending-And-One-Person-With-Conveniently-"Equal"-Friends?

Just because a world has a backlog of lore doesn't mean it can get away with cliches in a modern game. I'd pan a D&D game if it were cliche ridden too. We're judging the game, not the setting. Now, I won't argue that DAO has cliches, however, some of the "cliches" you've mentioned aren't actually cliches. Humans are a cliche? Geez, almost every game is cliche then. Heck, BioWare ever put their own spin on elves and dwarves to make them different from the standard mould.  Elves aren't the ancient race with mystical powers... they're second class citizens conquered by humans. And dwarves have an incredibly rigid caste system that is steeped in so much tradition that it's practically killing their society.  Those aren't cliches.

I'm not arguing that Dragon Age doesn't have cliches. It does. They're just not what you've mentioned. Again, it's my point that the flaws that exist in Dragon Age exist in other games just as much if not more so.

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
What about Obsidian, then?

Actually, if you read one of my earlier posts, you would have noticed I mentioned Obsidian. Mask of the Betrayer, specifically.  I like Obsidian. They produce really interesting games with good stories... but they always lack that level of polish that BioWare delivers. Yes, I know KotoR2 was rushed, but despite that, it was fantastic until Malachor 5... at which point it fell into a horrible confusing mess. I actually finished the game wondering what on earth had happened. Obsidian were also forced to cut (a lot fo) content from NWN2 because they were too ambitious initially. Then there's Alpha Protocol. This has been bashed by lots of reviewers and gamers... and I see where they are coming from, but seriously, they need to get over themselves. The bulk of the complaints seem to stem from the fact that they were expecting something different to what they got. It is a great game that I really like, but.... it still could do with a few extra months of QA work.

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
Yes, I do. It's not about the volume of sales, it's about what people think of them. Two Worlds and Divinity 2 have this quite quirky charm about them ...

Ehhhh... you're putting me off wanting to try Divinity 2 now. I have had a couple of friends (whose opinions I respect quite a bit) tell me how Two Worlds is utterly atrocious. If you're mentioning it in the same breath as Divinity 2 as a recommendation, I'll have to steer clear of the latter.

OnlyShallow89 wrote...
BioWare have the funds, the talent and
the publisher to make an amazing roleplaying game, but they're just not
doing it for some reason. Dragon Age could have been so much better than
it was, but it feels like they didn't really try.  ... Dragon Age, for
me, is a big lump of a grey/brown
slightly-better-than-good RPG. It's got a good customisation menu, it's
got three reasonably well made classes,

I think this is probably the heart of the matter for you. You're adamant that Dragon Age isn't great, but from where I'm standing you're struggling to provide evidence as to why. I'd suggest it might be an issue of expectations. It seems you were expecting a free-flowing epic with the atmosphere of a sandbox game, the NPC depth of a BioWare game, and the combat and character creation complexity of D&D.  Dragon Age doesn't provide that.

Now I must admit that I find sandbox games a bit dull because of their lack of direction, but I can't argue the depth of atmosphere created by an unbroken world. Yet their plot seems to suffer as a result, and the depth of the interaction you have with individuals is diluted because of the amount of content that is there simply to make sure the world isn't completely empty.

Nor can I argue that Dragon Age's character development system is complex.  Three classes, but mage is the only class that gets some real flexibility in its development. For everyone else it's "pick your style" and you're simply going to level up the skills with very little variance. I don't want Dragon Age to be D&D, but the phenomenal amount of variety in classes and skills in that system mean you can create so many unique characters.

BioWare have a "formula" when they make games. Sure, they tinker around the edges, but in general, there's some basic expectations that will be met.  There's a linear beginning followed by a "hub" section where you get to pursue a few different questlines, and then a final funnel which concludes the game. You'll get a party of characters including romancable characters, and a big boss battle at the end. Spoiler alert for BioWare games (including Dragon Age) with this chart of BioWare cliches. There's basic structure and gameplay elements that I've come to expect from a BIoWare game. That's not to say they're all the same, but there are structural elements that are similar throughout many of their games.

So when I buy a BioWare game... yes, I typically know what I'm getting. But that doesn't make it bad.  Would I like it if they shocked me out of my reverie by delivering something completely different next time around? I imagine I would. But that's because I try and judge a game based on its merits, not what I was expecting it to be.

If I judge the RPGs in the past 5 or so years on what they actually delivered, BioWare wins hands down over any other RPG developer. I also love Mass Effect 1 and 2, but they're different to Dragon Age. Dragon Age has some fairly notable flaws, but in terms of the depth of the story, the world and the characters it delivers, it's hard to beat.

[Kail Ashton]

Hollingdale wrote...

But Kotor 2 had a much deeper philosophical and involving story That's what really matters imo.

That matters in reading a book lol, gameplay first than graphics & plot 2nd is what true video games are, all 3 aspects must be equaly fleshed out and apreciated or the game & yourself suffers from the experience.

[alickar]

i think it is the best Rpg game ive play i have 4 playthroughs and still not bord of it

[Carmen_Willow]

TheDayWarden wrote...

I love it, I've played a helluva lot of rpgs and games in general over the years, but never have I felt so emotionally connected with a world and the characters in it as I have in Dragon Age. It's a fantastic piece of work.

And this is it for me.  As a person new to gaming, after playing DA:O, I've gone back and purchased many of the other well-recommended rpg's from these forums. 

Some of them have been very interesting:  Oblivion comes to mind.  But none of the other games, including Mass Effect, have made me care about the characters as much as DA.  Whenever the final credits roll at the end of a playthrough, I feel sad, because I will miss my companions.  That is an amazing thing for a game to accomplish.   I love that so much about this game.

Improve the combat system and stat system if you must ( just please don't make it too hard), but for me the most important thing is the fantastic, deep, compelling story and companion interaction that will keep me coming back.

[BallaZs]

I've never played better game than DAO.

Oblivion was pretty good tho, but I get bored when we had to defend Bruma....

But it has never happened in DAO, it was exciting til the end, and made u think after that.

I'm just hoping that the DLCs and DAO2 wont be like the Awekening (u know: less talk, more killin')

Best game ever 10/10

[Ken555]

MrFireal wrote...

Ken555 wrote...

Arttis wrote...

I would say it is the best RPG since Oblivion.

I think that if DAO and Oblivion combined would be something to behold, the graphics of DAO and roaming options of Oblivion.

I would rather combine Dragon Age with Morrowind. People who say that Oblivion is the best RPG are people who haven't played Morrowind

Right, I'll look into the game.

[AlanC9]

AmstradHero wrote...
I don't want Dragon Age to be D&D, but the phenomenal amount of variety in classes and skills in that system mean you can create so many unique characters.

You mean 3.0/3.5, right?

[AlanC9]

And going back a little....

Hollingdale wrote...
Another big thing that sucks is how little the crap that you have to do for the treaties has to with the actual main plot. I know a friend of mine tried to explain this on theese boards before but his post was met with scorn and contempt.

This was a surprise? Main quest components in a Bio game typically don't have too much to do with the main plot. Most had nothing whatsoever to do with it in BG2  and NWN1, two of the four didn't have anything to do with it in KotOR and one only barely did. ME1 is somewhat of an outlier for Bio because of the mains, only the Feros mission has essentially nothing to do with the main plot. 

Main quests that aren't essentially related to the main plot is more or less Bio's house style. It's OK to dislike an element of that style, but when you complain about it on Bio's own boards you shouldn't expect to get too much agreement.

[Templar_Avenger_1]

I agree that its an awesome RPG there were a few things I didn't like but other than those few things I loved it

[AmstradHero]

AlanC9 wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
I don't want Dragon Age to be D&D, but the phenomenal amount of variety in classes and skills in that system mean you can create so many unique characters.

You mean 3.0/3.5, right?

I'm mainly going on its implementation in computer games, here. So I have no idea how 4th Edition compares. I was firstly thinking of the ridiculous amounts of customisation possible in NWN1/NWN2, but even if you go back to the AD&D system as implemented in the Infinity Engine games, there was customisation there due to the limitations. None of this simple, martial and exotic weapon proficiency business. Sure, it was a little bit of an annoying limitation at times, but it made you want to add that fighter with axe proficiency to your party to use that really powerful magical axe to your party, even though you didn't like the character very much.  In 2nd and 3rd edition, one sword and shield fighter is not equivalent to the next sword and shield fighter. In Dragon Age, unfortunately, they are.

MrFireal wrote...
I would rather combine Dragon Age with Morrowind. People who say that Oblivion is the best RPG are people who haven't played Morrowind

Morrowind had some great aspects, including a really enjoyable main plot line, but it had some huge drawbacks as well.  The fact that you were pretty much abandoned and left with zero direction at the start of the game is a big drawback, and just lots of "ease of use" aspects make the game more frustrating than it should have been. It took me failed attempts before I got into the game, and even then I had to persevere for quite some time before I finally stopped fighting the UI and game mechanics, and became powerful enough to not die to piddling creatures.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 03 juillet 2010 - 12:01 .

[AlanC9]

AmstradHero wrote...
.....but even if you go back to the AD&D system as implemented in the Infinity Engine games, there was customisation there due to the limitations. None of this simple, martial and exotic weapon proficiency business. Sure, it was a little bit of an annoying limitation at times, but it made you want to add that fighter with axe proficiency to your party to use that really powerful magical axe to your party, even though you didn't like the character very much.

You're serious? You'd let item finds dictate party membership, rather than have party membership dictate which items you sold and which ones you kept?

Modifié par AlanC9, 03 juillet 2010 - 01:27 .

[soteria]

For a while I loved 3.0/3.5, but I've since gotten over it. A number of things frustrate me, from the spell system to the way characters can totally change at certain levels to the way weapon proficiencies work. For example, I wanted to make a dwarven defender/weaponmaster specializing in dwarven waraxes. And then, I got to the end of the game and found out that even with all my proficiences, the SSoG was still better. I got over it, and played the expansion, thinking, "Well, surely the best weapon in the game won't be so OP, or a sword, this time." Oops? Playing a wizard or cleric annoyed the heck out of me because I had to choose between resting, and therefore buffing, or just not casting spells. Just casting 6 buffs, a moderate number for a 4-man group, takes 30 seconds. And people complain about Miasma's cooldown resetting when they zone...

[HoonDing]

AmstradHero wrote...
The fact that you were pretty much abandoned and left with zero direction at the start of the game is a big drawback, and just lots of "ease of use" aspects make the game more frustrating than it should have been.

How are you left with zero direction? You immediately receive orders to get to one Caius Cosades in Balmora, and there's a silt strider right outside the town. Alternatively, it's also possible to get a scrap of paper from a scout with detailed directions of how to get to Balmora on foot. 

In any case, it's way better than following a quest compass like in Oblivion.

[Ken555]

OBlivion and Morrowind seem pretty similar.