CalJones wrote...
(...)But it has its flaws too. Never mind that the whole keep upgrade/maintenance schtick is ripped off of NWN2 (in fact, there was actually more you could do with NWN's keep), the missions are actually pretty cool.
Yup, and they ripped it off too for a NWN2 expansion - Storm of The Zehir - in fact, it's the same Crossroad's Keep that you have to upgrade all over again. (Which reminds me, if you think Awakening is rushed, you should check out that expansion - feels like seeing a puzzle with half its pieces missed). Come to think of it, it's somewhat there too in NWN's HotU, even if you don't really have to upgrade the keep per se, but rather gather allies to protect your base when the siege starts. It seems they really have a thing for this sort of scenario. But I don't think they ever managed to pull it off as brilliantly and masterfully as with NWN2's OC... IMO, it's one of the most remarkable gaming RPing experiences. It really manages to make you feel confronted with a siege and with all that's at stake with it. And it really makes you experience the constant changes and situations brought about by your living in and commanding of the keep. I loved to come back to the keep and find out that someone wanted to talk to me about a deal, or that this party of nutjob adventurers was back yet
again and I had to find another excuse to keep them off trouble while simultaneously leading them to believe that they were up to some great adventure.
Skadi_the_Evil_Elf wrote...
Two examples of games that had great expansions, both Bioware titles,
were the baldur's gate series and NWN1: HotU. (Though HotU's lack of
contiuity from the OC sucked, other than that, it was pretty well paced
for an expansion.)
MotB for NWN2 was, at least in
concept and primary plot background, was pretty epic in my opinion., for
an expansion. If anything, an expansion should actually up the ante
plotwise as well as gameplay wise, from the original game.
But
after killing the less than epic archdemon, the whole mother/Architect
didn't really make me feal like something even more major was afoot.
I also think HotU is a heck of an expansion; and while it didn't have any continuity with the OC, it did have continuity with the first NWN's expansion pack, Shadows of the Undrentide. I honestly think it's one of the best things Bioware has ever did. If I'm not mistaken, it's also where the whole party-interaction thing came to a whole new level - with your party members talking to each other and with you, and even possibly falling in love with you.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about. While Dragon Age has a lot - and really quite a lot - of qualities, specially dialog and interactions wise, I cannot help but feel always as if there's somethings missing, things that bioware managed to pull off before and apparently gave up on doing for some reason. It's not only that its expansion is lacking comparing to it; its also that DA:O is lacking in some senses comparing to bioware's previous releases. Sure, DA:O gives a lot of depth to the dialogues with your party-members; but, compared to NWN2, the situations in which those dialogues are triggered are far more limited and much more repetitive. Most meaningful conversations with your party members are restricted to player-triggered dialogues - that's to say, you have to click on your party member to get to talk to him - or restricted to your companion's side quests. You don't get many - if any -
story/quest situations (other than the ones really crucial to the plot, like the Landsmeet or after Ostagar) triggering
meaningful conversations with your party members - mostly either you do something that makes them like you more or less, hardly having any real discussion about it, or you say one line of persuasion to them and that pretty much ends it. And party banter is mostly restricted to dialogues between your party members in which you cannot intervene - and most party members interactions between themselves are restricted to these banters. The end result is (or at least was for me) that most real interaction with your companions is confined within the party camp and within individual conversations, giving the feeling that the actual quests, adventures and travels you went through didn't really have the meaningful role in developing your relationship with your companions that it should have had.
That wouldn't be really that much of a reason to disappointment, if bioware hadn't done it better before. In NWN2, your interaction with your companions, as well as their interaction between theirselves, was simply astonishing. It's like every quest had some sort of situation that would naturally trigger a dialog between you and your companions. And these dialogs would play a major role in setting the tone of their relationship between theirselves and with you, often involving three or more of your party members (when possible), not to mention you and the influence you played in their dialog through your own lines. Not only this, some situations would pop up completely unexpectedly and yet naturally, such as having your companions arguing with each other in a hilarious way in the tavern, or watching cutscenes where two of them talk alone about you (Bishop and the paladin I forgot the name), and so on. Living with your companions felt a lot more natural, the least of the reasons not being that there was a "day-to-day" setting of sorts that not only makes your companions known to you, but also to each other. This is something I really missed in DA:O: You don't ever (or mostly never) get to the party camp and see something going on, like an argument, or your companions sitting around the fire and talking, or bringing wood, stumbling and being made fun of, or whatever. The party camp is simply motionless, lifeless. Mostly no conversation happens while traveling from one point to another - its basically random encounters with most no opportunity to deepen your relationship with your companions or to be meaningful any other way. In short, I honestly think NWN2 was far better in developing relationships between characters than DA:O is. DA:O seems to confine party-interaction to very restricted situations and very restricted frames of dialogue; NWN2 managed not only to work and develop these interactions through the whole game, but also to do it in many different settings. Thus, interactions felt much more real, much more involving.
Overall, it worries me that Bioware's tendency seems to be simplifying their games (whether from franchise to franchise or from expansion to expansion), and sacrificing this way much of their best features. It's not that they don't bring new features to their games which weren't there before; it's just that it seems that what was already there gets, more often than not, simplified to a point it gets spoiled. It would be less worrying if it was only an expansion thing, since then it could be explained by the rushing and what not. But it's also something that happens from franchise to franchise, something that, IMO, happened from NWN2 to DA:O and ME. Sure, they brought about new things, like the gift system and the relationship with your companions playing a role in determining whether they'll survive or not the last mission... But much of what was already there in NWN and NWN2 was either lost or grossly simplified. Interaction with companions was confined to very limited situations (specially in ME's franchise) and restricted to very few settings (most meaningful interactions being confined to two speakers only - you and a companion - dialogues).
Of course, that gets me worried about DA 2 too. I'm pretty sure it will be a very good game. I'm just worried that, as it seems to happen often, bioware doesn't manage to keep up with what they themselves managed to achieve before.
Sorry for ranting, but I got this stuck on my throat for quite awhile.
Modifié par NuclearSerendipity, 19 décembre 2010 - 04:42 .
]. First, I don't know if it's just me but I feel that while the story is interesting, it lacks something that the main game had. It feels somewhat empty in comparison, like there's no soul behind it. Maybe it's just because I don't feel as invested in it as the original, it's just that the scenery and all seems lifeless in comparison. Very pretty but lifeless [maybe that's just because I didn't feel as invested].
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DAO so much 
