1230 réponses à ce sujet

[Jallard]

Playing a male character I especially liked romancing both Morrigan and Leliana. I would romance Morrigan first until she dumps me. Then, I would turn my favor toward Leliana and romance her. Plus, during the night before the final onslaught I would sleep with Morrigan, which never affected the relationship that I had with Leliana. She would still go away with me in the end.

Modifié par Jallard, 17 juillet 2010 - 12:47 .

[Jimmy Fury]

naumutroi wrote...

Sequel: The most common approach is for the events of the second work to directly follow the events of the first, either picking up dangling plot threads or introducing a new conflict to drive the events of a second story. The origin of the sequel as we think of it today is most closely connected the novel which developed from the novella and romance traditions of the 17th century. It is impossible to say for sure when the history of the exactly sequel begins, as the concept of the sequel in its loosest definition has presumably existed since the advent of storytelling. One of the earliest sequels being the Illiad, the Odyssey and the Aenead.

I'm confused...
By this definition DA2 is indeed a sequel with a small dash of "sidequel" (which isn't actually a word btw) since the very begining occurs during the events of Origins and then the rest of the story, at least what we know about it at this point, directly follows and picks up a few dangling plot threads. The fact that flemeth is a confirmed character in DA2 supoorts this, not to mention that there has been hinting that Morrigan will be involved somehow.
It also introduces a new conflict to drive the events of the second story.
So... yeah. Thank you for agreeing?

[Uzzy]

I'm pretty sure that a 'Stand Alone Sequel' would be the best way to describe DA2, going by the given descriptions. Yay semantics.

[hk47_]

I think it's very obvious as to "why" they chose the new art direction. Dragon Age's visuals looked dated because the Eclipse engine is old. But it's not just it's age - it's inferior to just about any post 2004 game engine.

Bioware started work on the Eclipse engine way back in 2004. I'm sure they kept trying to improve it and all, but it just didn't work out in the end. They obviously don't have what it takes to make a state of the art game engine. (And they have the gall to call it a Next Gen engine believe it or not.)

Not only is the Eclipse engine old and inferior but DA:O was delayed for almost a year after it was done on PC, simply because EA wanted a simultaneous launch on all platforms.

Now since they are stuck with this piece of turd engine they made, they will try to get the most out of it. The only way they can do that is to try to "update" it. But since the engine is such a big stinky turd, the only way to freshen it up without having to re-write a large % of the code is to give Dragon Age 2 a "creative/artistic" art style. That's marketing talk for cartoon design (SWTOR).

No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd. Even if they manage to make the second game look any better in less than a year (which is looking worse so thus far), they still won't be able to get around many of the engine's other limitations, such as the claustrophobic level size, plentiful loading screens and stiff NPCs...

The Eclipse engine is a fail of epic proportions. For all you blinded Bioware pilgrims just note the following. CD Project made The Witcher on a modified version of Bioware's older Aurora engine. The Witcher came out in 2007 and it is hands down the better looking game.

I have a lot of respect for Bioware, but Dragon Age was a huge letdown. Not only was it an ugly looking game, but the small areas felt like I was back in 2005 playing Kotor. Still I never said any of this before now, because I knew that they were probably too far into development to change their crappy engine. But now there is just no excuse. If they actually wanted to improve Dragon Age 2's visuals  they would've just licensed a good engine like they did for Mass Effect, instead of resorting to this new "creative" design overhaul. Dragon Age is supposed to be a darker fantasy, and yet all I see so far is He-Man fighting Skeletor clones wearing polygonal armour... Bioware had years to polish DA: O and it still looked pretty bad, so excuse me for not having much faith in DA2 when it's supposed to come out yearly next year.

Well at least they haven't cell-shaded it yet like what happened to Borderlands. It was supposed to have a gritty realistic style, but it was starting to look very dated and they "updated" their graphics with the cell-shaded design. The game ended up appealing to the casual market, and the niche harcore post-apocalyptic market be damned.

Modifié par hk47_, 17 juillet 2010 - 01:35 .

[errant_knight]

hk47_ wrote...

I think it's very obvious as to "why" they chose the new art direction. Dragon Age's visuals looked dated because the Eclipse engine is old. But it's not just it's age - it's inferior to just about any post 2004 game engine.

Bioware started work on the Eclipse engine way back in 2004. I'm sure they kept trying to improve it and all, but it just didn't work out in the end. They obviously don't have what it takes to make a state of the art game engine. (And they have the gall to call it a Next Gen engine believe it or not.)

Not only is the Eclipse engine old and inferior but DA:O was delayed for almost a year after it was done on PC, simply because EA wanted a simultaneous launch on all platforms.

Now since they are stuck with this piece of turd engine they made, they will try to get the most out of it. The only way they can do that is to try to "update" it. But since the engine is such a big stinky turd, the only way to freshen it up without having to re-write a large % of the code is to give Dragon Age 2 a "creative/artistic" art style. That's marketing talk for cartoon design (SWTOR).

No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd. Even if they manage to make the second game look any better in less than a year (which is looking worse so thus far), they still won't be able to get around many of the engine's other limitations, such as the claustrophobic level size, plentiful loading screens and stiff NPCs...

The Eclipse engine is a fail of epic proportions. For all you blinded Bioware pilgrims just note the following. CD Project made The Witcher on a modified version of Bioware's older Aurora engine. The Witcher came out in 2007 and it is hands down the better looking game.

I have a lot of respect for Bioware, but Dragon Age was a huge letdown. Not only was it an ugly looking game, but the small areas felt like I was back in 2005 playing Kotor. Still I never said any of this before now, because I knew that they were probably too far into development to change their crappy engine. But now there is just no excuse. If they actually wanted to improve Dragon Age 2's visuals  they would've just licensed a good engine like they did for Mass Effect, instead of resorting to this new "creative" design overhaul. Dragon Age is supposed to be a darker fantasy, and yet all I see so far is He-Man fighting Skeletor clones wearing polygonal armour... Bioware had years to polish DA: O and it still looked pretty bad, so excuse me for not having much faith in DA2 when it's supposed to come out yearly next year.

Well at least they haven't cell-shaded it yet like what happened to Borderlands. It was supposed to have a gritty realistic style, but it was starting to look very dated and they "updated" their graphics with the cell-shaded design. The game ended up appealing to the casual market, and the niche harcore post-apocalyptic market be damned.

Okay, I'm willing to believe they needed to change game engines, but the new graphics are hideous and the world looks like it's made of plastic. It looks like an old comic book.

Modifié par errant_knight, 17 juillet 2010 - 01:50 .

[tbsking]

errant_knight wrote...

hk47_ wrote...

I think it's very obvious as to "why" they chose the new art direction. Dragon Age's visuals looked dated because the Eclipse engine is old. But it's not just it's age - it's inferior to just about any post 2004 game engine.

Bioware started work on the Eclipse engine way back in 2004. I'm sure they kept trying to improve it and all, but it just didn't work out in the end. They obviously don't have what it takes to make a state of the art game engine. (And they have the gall to call it a Next Gen engine believe it or not.)

Not only is the Eclipse engine old and inferior but DA:O was delayed for almost a year after it was done on PC, simply because EA wanted a simultaneous launch on all platforms.

Now since they are stuck with this piece of turd engine they made, they will try to get the most out of it. The only way they can do that is to try to "update" it. But since the engine is such a big stinky turd, the only way to freshen it up without having to re-write a large % of the code is to give Dragon Age 2 a "creative/artistic" art style. That's marketing talk for cartoon design (SWTOR).

No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd. Even if they manage to make the second game look any better in less than a year (which is looking worse so thus far), they still won't be able to get around many of the engine's other limitations, such as the claustrophobic level size, plentiful loading screens and stiff NPCs...

The Eclipse engine is a fail of epic proportions. For all you blinded Bioware pilgrims just note the following. CD Project made The Witcher on a modified version of Bioware's older Aurora engine. The Witcher came out in 2007 and it is hands down the better looking game.

I have a lot of respect for Bioware, but Dragon Age was a huge letdown. Not only was it an ugly looking game, but the small areas felt like I was back in 2005 playing Kotor. Still I never said any of this before now, because I knew that they were probably too far into development to change their crappy engine. But now there is just no excuse. If they actually wanted to improve Dragon Age 2's visuals  they would've just licensed a good engine like they did for Mass Effect, instead of resorting to this new "creative" design overhaul. Dragon Age is supposed to be a darker fantasy, and yet all I see so far is He-Man fighting Skeletor clones wearing polygonal armour... Bioware had years to polish DA: O and it still looked pretty bad, so excuse me for not having much faith in DA2 when it's supposed to come out yearly next year.

Well at least they haven't cell-shaded it yet like what happened to Borderlands. It was supposed to have a gritty realistic style, but it was starting to look very dated and they "updated" their graphics with the cell-shaded design. The game ended up appealing to the casual market, and the niche harcore post-apocalyptic market be damned.

Okay, I'm willing to believe they needed to change game engines, but the new graphics are hideous and the world looks like it's made of plastic. It looks like an old comic book.

I'm pretty sure all the screens are still in a pre-alpha state. I would hold my judgement of the graphics/art style until they have some final product pictures to show.

[hk47_]

errant_knight wrote...
Okay, I'm willing to believe they
needed to change game engines, but the new graphics are hideous and the
world looks like it's made of plastic. It looks like an old comic book.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I already came to terms
with the Dragon Age: Origins graphics and shortcomings.
It might not have been pretty, but it was a dark and gritty fantasy setting as
promised and was a worthy spiritual successor to Bauldur's Gate. Dragon
Age 2 looks so different it might as well be a different game.

tbsking wrote...
I'm pretty sure all the screens are still in a pre-alpha state. I would hold my judgement of the graphics/art style until they have some final product pictures to show.

Alpha or not the Hurlocks look like Skelletor. You can't just change the look of the darkspawn so dramatically becuase it changes the lore itself, changes what was already established with the first game. They are supposed to be filthy, ugly, scary demonspawn, not whatever they come out as in these screenshots.
In any case, the point I wanted to make originally is that the artistic style already established with the first game is just fine. If they wanted to "improve" graphics so much, they could've licensed a better engine instead of trying a brigther, lighter, simpler (somewhat cartoony) design, which the Eclipse engine can handle.

Modifié par hk47_, 17 juillet 2010 - 02:10 .

[AlanC9]

Pocketgb wrote...
Here's the difference: ME1 had the illusion of depth. Heck, most of Bioware's games do. ME2 was different because it tore away the veil and pretty much showed people the amount of 'depth' that actually existed: not a whole lot

I guess that I liked ME2 because ME1's illusions never fooled me in the first place?

[Vicious]

They already said the game looks far better than the released screens.



So wait and see, I guess? Most of you will buy the game anyway.

[AlanC9]

hk47_ wrote...
The Eclipse engine is a fail of epic proportions. For all you blinded Bioware pilgrims just note the following. CD Project made The Witcher on a modified version of Bioware's older Aurora engine. The Witcher came out in 2007 and it is hands down the better looking game.

The main difference as far as I can see is that DA has a restricted color palette, and doesn't attempt to do rain and so forth. Other than that I don't remember any big superiority, though since I don't have TW installed right now I can't check it out for myself.

[TheMadCat]

AlanC9 wrote...

hk47_ wrote...
The Eclipse engine is a fail of epic proportions. For all you blinded Bioware pilgrims just note the following. CD Project made The Witcher on a modified version of Bioware's older Aurora engine. The Witcher came out in 2007 and it is hands down the better looking game.

The main difference as far as I can see is that DA has a restricted color palette, and doesn't attempt to do rain and so forth. Other than that I don't remember any big superiority, though since I don't have TW installed right now I can't check it out for myself.

Lighting was much, much better in The Witcher.

[CarlSpackler]

Pocketgb wrote...

I called Leliana a ****, made her feel like crap all the time, never complimented her, always degarded her - but ended up living 'happily ever after' with her at the end because I showered her with earrings and all sorts of other gifts.

It was far from a legit playthrough and I'm a big fan of Leliana so I felt like crap, but I really wanted to see how far I could go, how much I could get away with - and man, I could get away with it all!! The approval system was a great concept, but it shouldn't be easily tampered with.

Treating a girl like crap but still having her pine over the guy who does so?  Well, honestly, that might be one of the more realistic things I've heard about in a video game.

As for the approval system, I certainly hope it makes a return with an improved iteration.  There has been a lot of chatter regarding what folks like/didn't like regarding the system.  I definitely think there's room for improvement, but as a whole a good idea.  Two things I discussed previously about the system in the DAO forums were the gifts and the approval vs disapprovals.  While the gifts were a little unrealistic at times, I was glad they were there because I didn't always have dialog options to explain my actions to complaining companions.  It was kind of a way to pretend I could talk my way out of disapprovals.  In a perfect world the dialog would be there to explain and try and reason my way through a disapproval, but realistically I suppose that would require a lot more dialog in what is already a dialog heavy game (at least I hope DA2 will be a dialog heavy game.  Please let it be a dialog heavy game!)  The other aspect that I think would be a good feature for the approval system is to track the # of disapprovals vs overall approval.  The easiest example is Morrigan - everyone's favorite malcontent.  Now it was pretty easy to boost Morrigan's approval through some key gifts/actions.  But she could in the same breath disapprove of just about all of your minor decisions.  It would have been interesting either on the romance for friendship track for her to comment on this.  Something along the lines of "It seems odd that we're friends, we look at the world so differently" or something like that but with better writing etc. 

So I hope DA2 will improve upon the approval system.

[hk47_]

AlanC9 wrote...

hk47_ wrote...
The Eclipse engine is a fail of epic proportions. For all you blinded Bioware pilgrims just note the following. CD Project made The Witcher on a modified version of Bioware's older Aurora engine. The Witcher came out in 2007 and it is hands down the better looking game.

The main difference as far as I can see is that DA has a restricted color palette, and doesn't attempt to do rain and so forth. Other than that I don't remember any big superiority, though since I don't have TW installed right now I can't check it out for myself.

The Witcher has weather cycles, day and night cycles, better lighting, better shadows, better skyboxes, better textures, even better draw distances (which results in bigger areas). It's superior in almost any way I can think of, except maybe combat. The combat system was always a bit weird. It was a funny hybrid between tactical and action and it worked but I was never a fan of it. But there's no doubt that it is a technically superior game. Check the screenshots if you don't take my word for it. http://media.pc.ign....220/imgs_1.html

Most important of all is that it ran on the Aurora engine. Here's some info on how they achieved all that.
http://en.wikipedia....me)#Game_engine

The initial launch was of a so-so game, but the Enchanced Edition fixed almost everything that went wrong with the launch version. New voice over, more npc skins, more animations, fixed bugs, everything that was needed.
Anyway what irks me is that Bioware has so much more resources and experience and yet...

[Pocketgb]

CarlSpackler wrote...

Treating a girl like crap but still having her pine over the guy who does so?  Well, honestly, that might be one of the more realistic things I've heard about in a video game.

Crap. You're right

[AlanC9]

hk47_ wrote...
The Witcher has weather cycles, day and night cycles, better lighting, better shadows, better skyboxes, better textures, even better draw distances (which results in bigger areas). It's superior in almost any way I can think of, except maybe combat.

I don't find weather cycles and day/night cycles to be worth doing, but I'll give you the rest.

[Sylvius the Mad]

hk47_ wrote...

better lighting, better shadows, better skyboxes, better textures

I count all of these as a waste of resources.

[Jimmy Fury]

-edit.-
nevermind I think I misunderstood the post about the witcher's graphics... or did i?
Was he suggesting DA2 should have them or was he just ranting in general?

I get confused when there isn't a clear argument being presented.
I think i agree with Sylvius though... although not sure what i'm agreeing with...
But if it's "Let's not throw everything story related out the window just to make it pretty" then yes I concur.

Modifié par Jimmy Fury, 17 juillet 2010 - 04:44 .

[LPPrince]

Could you imagine the DA setting on CryEngine 3? My God.



I wish more developers were jumping on that engine.

[errant_knight]

Jimmy Fury wrote...

told ya there were people who wanted to sacrifice everything in exchange for Witcher's graphics.
So truce time, I wouldn't mind a bit of graphical improvement but yeah, throwing everything else away just to make it look like Witcher? No sir. I still want some control over my character.

I just plain don't care all that much about graphics if the story, interaction and gameplay are good. I was fine with DA:O. I'd rather not be trying to believe that I'm still in Thedas while handwaving away the fact that it looks like aliens have kidnapped everyone and transplanted them to a different planet while doing something to their genes. When they said there would be better graphics, I assumed they were talking about texture maps and such--fine if you care, but no biggie, not that the creatures would be somehow transformed into something else, and everyone would look entirely different. It may be a good thing we won't see our companions or our PCs. It would be scary as hell.

Modifié par errant_knight, 17 juillet 2010 - 04:51 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

hk47_ wrote...

better lighting, better shadows, better skyboxes, better textures

I count all of these as a waste of resources.

It's only a waste of resources if there was a disproportionate investment to produce them.

Now, I agree with you in principle: the most valuable content is gameplay, story etc. Graphics ought to be low on the priority list. The thing is, some basic level of energy must be invested in producing the graphics as well. I believe the argument hk47 is making is not that Bioware should have  invested more time into the graphic engine, but rather that the time they invested did not produce a quality engine. Put another way: if Bioware and the Witcher producers invest an equivalent amount of resources (relative to the total resources) in the graphics, and one product better graphics, I would think it is pretty clear that we can say that one is objectively better than the other without saying that it is a waste of resources at all.

Modifié par In Exile, 17 juillet 2010 - 04:52 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Jimmy Fury wrote...

But if it's "Let's not throw everything story related out the window just to make it pretty" then yes I concur.

Basically, yes, though I'm also worried about these pretty elements disrupting roleplaying and otherwide interfering with gameplay.

The loss of the text box is a big blow to stat-driven gaming.  I dislike how the UI disappears and reappears without my consent.  And I dislike how the close-ups of my character's face seem to try to tell me things about my character, when it should be me tellign the game about my character.

So the loss of zots for story-telling is important, yes, but some of these features associated with the game looking pretty I wouldn't want even if they were free.  I think the opportunity costs alone are too high.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Put another way: if Bioware and the Witcher producers invest an equivalent amount of resources (relative to the total resources) in the graphics, and one product better graphics, I would think it is pretty clear that we can say that one is objectively better than the other without saying that it is a waste of resources at all.

There's no reason why we couldn't still claim both to have wasted resources.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
There's no reason why we couldn't still claim both to have wasted resources.

Fair enough. What is the bare acceptable minimum for graphics for you?

[Jallard]

I don't understand what the contention is here about graphics? I thought the graphics in DA:O was just fine: Although the characters did tend to look like porcelain dolls at times. But I overlooked that because I was more interested in the interaction between the characters and the game play. Incidentally, even with all of this talk about DA 2 and where it is going --albeit graphically, I pre-ordered it today. Call it or me stupid or a good faith gesture on my part.

[Terror_K]

In Exile wrote...

ME2 was barely an RPG from a gameplay standpoint - sure. But so was ME1. I suppose this is my issue. It's not that I disagree with the criticism of the
series - it's just that I simply do not see the transition from ME to
ME2 as indicative of any shift in a less RPG direction.

Both were always hybrids rather than pure RPGs or pure shooters, but ME1 had the balance better. ME2 weighted far too much on the shooter side and cut out or down far too many RPG elements. They took stats away from items, reduced the items entirely and made them completely linear and basically a shooter-based weapon system, they removed armour classes, they removed armour actually acting like armour, they removed omni-tools and biotic amps, they removed weapon and armour modding and replaced it with a linear upgrade system with no penalties or trade-offs meaning every character can easily upgrade everything without having to pick and choose (essentially allowing players to have their cake and eat it too), they cut the class skills in half (making less possible builds for each class), removed skill determining weapon capability, removed pretty much all non-combat skills, removed hacking, electonics and decryption skills determining ability to unlock or decrypt things, removed first aid, cut the persuasion skills into one and merged it with a combat skill, made XP completely meaningless by giving a set amount after every mission no matter how the mission is done (how do we know the XP is even real and not just an arbritrary number now?), removed different ways of completing a mission beyond Paragon/Renegade dialogue at the end, made most of the levels a linear line from A to B, took away planet exploration entirely, etc.

Now, whether one thinks these things were an improvement is a matter of opinion, but the fact that it did happen is an out-and-out fact. And I just can't help but see parallels between what's happening here with DA2 and what happened with ME2.

At least ME2 didn't suddenly change its art direction on us though. Seriously... what's with that?