168 réponses à ce sujet

[Foolsfolly]

Impresario wrote...

Another example about what's wrong w/ the writing (as others have noted) is the Isabela romance (the only one I've tried).

In a game that gets it right like "Deadly Premonition," York and Emily's relationship develops in such a quirky natural way (and achieving that in a surreal environment is no little feat). When York occasionally visits Emily's house for dinner and teaches her about cooking it's extremely funny and endearing. The banter between the two has a certain twisted Hepburn & Grant repartee--much closer to Morrigan's witticisms than what Isabela offers.

But Isabela, yikes, it as if her romance dialogue was taken straight from some cartoonish script that goes bawdy, brash, pirate covering up a good heart. It's "Pretty Woman" ultra light. Sure that's a common theme in various mediums but the big difference is that when the romance works it's because the writers have a sense of their character's identity. The romance isn't just a device created as an option w/ throwaway dialogue that fits the character's expected template.

I didn't romance Isabella, I romanced Merrill. She wasn't all that interesting of a romance. You talk a few times...flirting whenever you can. Do her missions. Have sex and invite her to move in. And then she's moved in. She stands at the stairwell and doesn nothing. She doesn't talk, the house doesn't change by her addition to it. Nothing.

You click on her and she says she thinks Sandal's watching her. Nothing romantic about that.

And there's one moment in the game where you love interest comes to confort you. I get the feeling that it would have been a good place for more dialogue. You barely talk to these people.

And I dig the redesign on the elves. I like them a lot.

[Harcken]

Completely agree, this is honestly the first Bioware game, perhaps the first single player RPG that felt like a giant grindfest. I played for the sake of playing, I honestly had no drive to finish the game aside from the fact that it's Dragon Age. I felt like a random dude running around 4 copy pasted environments killing thugs for 20 hours, all the while the game is telling me how awesome and rich I am. It just wasn't a very satisfying experience (immersion/story wise).

[Jaduggar]

EccentricSage wrote...

Seriously, this game is hideous.  That's a bit of criticism I don't need to play the game to come up with myself.  The elves look severely deformed... Like some sort of alien/human hybrid, and the colors are so washed out.  Everything looks so flat.  The change in art style has done nothing to improve the week points in the rendering of the previous game from what I've seen thusfar.  If anything, it looks more cartoony to me now, with overexagerated, overstylised bodies and faces, instead of an attempt at believable natural skin textures and anatomy.  The humans look decent, if a bit flat, sure, but I can't get past the elves, who are supposed to be so atractive, looking like tall emaciated freeks with eyes too far apart and deformed nosees that are super thick at the upper bridge and taper to a point.  It reminds me of when American action figure and doll makers first tried to enterpret anime faces into 3-D figures.  (it was frighteningly bad)  I think it's wonderful that they gave us Zevran fans a cameo, but my god, how do I even describe how bad he looked, without being accused of hiperbole? 

If I'm to stare at this for hours on end, the story and world have to be so engaging and immersing, and the combat so well balanced and fun (tactical fun, not hack n'slash), that I will come to enjoy it despite all the ugly.  That is what I'm trying to find out more about from the few well thought out threads like this.  I already don't like the dialogue system, I know that much.  

Y'know, I never understood this complaint.
As far as I can tell, the color is this game is vibrant, with the exception of Hightown--which is just about as brown as you can get. The leaves and vines don't help at all.

But comparing the outdoor environments in DA2 to the ones in DA:O, I think there's a significant improvement. The colors look more vibrant, the textures aren't as messy, and they have better looking models for the trees and such. Also, comparing Denerim to Kirkwall, the layout makes a hell of a lot more sense.

As for the indoor environments, yeah, DA:O did it better. DA2 just has a cave (albeit, it is an absolutely gorgeous cave. I'm still not bored of staring at it) and the estates. They look nice, but they don't have the beautiful architecture that DA:O had.

It's not ugly by any means, it just needs more variation. In some areas, inspiration.

Modifié par Jaduggar, 15 mars 2011 - 03:41 .

[Blood-Lord Thanatos]

I think that the writing for the quest descriptions was hilarious in a sad sort of way. I also think that character specializations were poorly done. Tactics and AI behavior was atrocious, but I admit that I started laughing at the repeatedly silly enemy mages triggering their own traps.

[Cajeb]

I think the romances wouldn't have been so poorly done if the time gap wasn't there. If you think about the three year gaps it makes very little sense

[EccentricSage]

Jaduggar wrote...

EccentricSage wrote...

Seriously, this game is hideous.  That's a bit of criticism I don't need to play the game to come up with myself.  The elves look severely deformed... Like some sort of alien/human hybrid, and the colors are so washed out.  Everything looks so flat.  The change in art style has done nothing to improve the week points in the rendering of the previous game from what I've seen thusfar.  If anything, it looks more cartoony to me now, with overexagerated, overstylised bodies and faces, instead of an attempt at believable natural skin textures and anatomy.  The humans look decent, if a bit flat, sure, but I can't get past the elves, who are supposed to be so atractive, looking like tall emaciated freeks with eyes too far apart and deformed nosees that are super thick at the upper bridge and taper to a point.  It reminds me of when American action figure and doll makers first tried to enterpret anime faces into 3-D figures.  (it was frighteningly bad)  I think it's wonderful that they gave us Zevran fans a cameo, but my god, how do I even describe how bad he looked, without being accused of hiperbole? 

If I'm to stare at this for hours on end, the story and world have to be so engaging and immersing, and the combat so well balanced and fun (tactical fun, not hack n'slash), that I will come to enjoy it despite all the ugly.  That is what I'm trying to find out more about from the few well thought out threads like this.  I already don't like the dialogue system, I know that much.  

Y'know, I never understood this complaint.
As far as I can tell, the color is this game is vibrant, with the exception of Hightown--which is just about as brown as you can get. The leaves and vines don't help at all.

But comparing the outdoor environments in DA2 to the ones in DA:O, I think there's a significant improvement. The colors look more vibrant, the textures aren't as messy, and they have better looking models for the trees and such. Also, comparing Denerim to Kirkwall, the layout makes a hell of a lot more sense.

As for the indoor environments, yeah, DA:O did it better. DA2 just has a cave (albeit, it is an absolutely gorgeous cave. I'm still not bored of staring at it) and the estates. They look nice, but they don't have the beautiful architecture that DA:O had.

It's not ugly by any means, it just needs more variation. In some areas, inspiration.

It's possible that the vibrancy issue has to do with one's computer.  Origins looked very vibrant on my computer... One of my favorites was in the werewolf lair, where the light was filtering down through the crumbling roof, and there were all these vines and trees alight emerald green with it, contrasted against the greys and browns of the crumbling structure, and there was also purple tints to the shading.  But I've not seen any screencaps or youtube videos yet that looked that vibrant.  I'll look some more.

My bigest complaint is the rendering of characters.  The shading on them looks so flat and drab, and the elves look sickeningly deformed... the shape of their chests for instance, is too narrow too far up, and too elongated.  Their lips look painted on, lacking the protrusion of flesh that makes up real lips.  Their ears look too smooth and stand out too far, which adds to the cartoony exageration of their over all shape.  I'm hoping the bad skin is just a woeful lack of screencappers and youtubers maxing out settings.  *crosses fingers*  But even so, the basic body shapes of the elves is just disturbing, and that weird nose only works on the right face, like on Fenris.  His face manages to be weird, yet rather atractive.  But most elves I'm seeing, and especially Zevran, just look like they have crippling genetic dissorders.

I will grant that over all female facial rendering looks like it improved, though.  There was something I can't quite put my finger on wrong with the basic structure of the female face morphs for humans and elves in Origins that made most of them all look alike, or unpleasant, and made it really hard to make a female character beautiful without going the big eyes/doll lips rout like Anora's face.  Even my most beautiful female, an elven mage, looked a bit drag-queen like.  (My prettiest elf or human was Dristen, my male elf, imo.  XD  My prettiest female was a Dwarf... Dwarven women have great face structure, it seemed)

[nightlordv]

DA2isBad wrote...

Design flaws.

I agree with this second picture, many of the hands in the game are atrociously ugly.

[tex5150]

 Just Because I Just Finished it & Spent 2 full days of play, I was a mage & All The Staffs Sucked & when I did find a nice or tough looking staff it was many levels below me?

 I Would Like To Suggest The The Black Market Hire A Weapon Crafter So I Can Costumise my own Staff Or Other Weapon Or Let me at least change the way the one I bring in looks, Just a Craftsmen that for a price ofcourse make your staff look like um say have soom models u can chose from Hell like the one your hold on select your character Screen? Or Parthlan or the one from demo silver spike ball on top the black shaft with the small knife on bottom?

     Please I can't spend 2hrs leaving screen & comming back just to get new stuff in at the merchant? & never finding any but the one that looks like the hand guard is a knife strapped on with cord.

                Thank You For Your Time,
                       BILL

 ( This is my first post so if its in the wrong plase or was of topic please forward to the right topic Thank You)

[TyDurden13]

In response to the OP:

I agree with the design flaws portion - Kirkwall looked pretty good but there was little sense of it be a living, breathing city. That can be overlooked when the city is one location in a much larger gameworld, but when the entire game is based around the city, it has to be more convincing.

I disagree on the writing portion (or most of it). I found the characters engaging and I LIKED that you weren't being whipped by King Plot the entire game. The fact that there was no overarching quest was interesting to me, and I wish more games would do the episodic approach, with the throughline being that it is all chapters of this one character's life. I did have some issues with the ending of the game, but I won't get into that in the non-spoilers forum. But overall I liked the writing, especially when it came to the characters.

But yeah, the design portion seemed rushed/lazy, and perhaps poorly conceived. The recycling of maps just shouldn't happen in a AAA release in 2011.

[Taura-Tierno]

I actually liked Kirkwall. Aside from the fact that there were just a few estate layouts that were used (which didn't really bother me that much, but just a few more variants would have been an incredible plus) it was a nice city. I got the sense that it was alive. I liked the environment in it.

[Monica83]

The elves:

Need to be improved now they look to much like the na'vi of pandora but much more ugly... In the next game i suggest you to make them less skeletric and maybe... fix eyes.... i really don't like the mantids eye look....... O.O

Avoid the Japan influence on the game... Please no more Emo drama queen like Fenris with that ridicolus outfit... And please don't make any elves with bare feet i have nothing aganist bare feet... I love it but... see all the elves with bare feet its annoyng....
Also the animations next time make them more realistical im not talking about the speed but that anims broke my immersion on the game... Also the teleport attack are really silly.... And please avoid non sense body explosion...

[BarroomHero555]

Modifié par BarroomHero555, 15 mars 2011 - 07:38 .

[Unionhack]

The more I play this game, the more disappointed I get. I can safely say I will most likely not be playing through it again. I think I'll go sell it back to Gamestop and then start up another go-through on Origins. I still haven't tried a Dwarf Commoner...

EDIT: Also, WTF with the elves? My elf was so appealing to the eyes in DA:O , and everytime I saw myself in the kickass Kal'Hirol armor set my eyes leapt for joy. Now the elves look like they just got back from Jak and Daxter. I honestly hope the change isn't permanent.

Modifié par Unionhack, 15 mars 2011 - 08:10 .

[Valfreyja]

Monica83 wrote...

The elves:

Need to be improved now they look to much like the na'vi of pandora but much more ugly... In the next game i suggest you to make them less skeletric and maybe... fix eyes.... i really don't like the mantids eye look....... O.O

Avoid the Japan influence on the game... Please no more Emo drama queen like Fenris with that ridicolus outfit... And please don't make any elves with bare feet i have nothing aganist bare feet... I love it but... see all the elves with bare feet its annoyng....
Also the animations next time make them more realistical im not talking about the speed but that anims broke my immersion on the game... Also the teleport attack are really silly.... And please avoid non sense body explosion...

I completely agree with the elves. If it wasn't for the fact that Merrill was so likeable, I would've never used her in my party at all because the elf models look so utterly badly and remind me of the na'vi. The anime style on the ears doesn't help either as it clashes so badly with the rest of the style in the game. Can't say I liked the darkspawn either and much prefer the original look over this... whatever one can call these new models.

Also what was up with all that teleporting? I thought teleportation in this manner was impossible in the Dragon Age setting?

[Biefstukfriet]

Whow OP, I wish I had your way with words! I normally stoop down to superlatives and hyperboles to get the annoyance out of my system.

If only all critical threads were written in this manner!

[Tripedius]

It feels as a game for 12-18 year olds, but the gore, harsh language and violence make it an adult game. Or maybe the guys who develloped this really thought only antisocial nerds who live with their mothers (notice all the 'parents aka mother' issues in-game) would buy this game.

[Xaltar81]

There is a lot in the game that had potential, the problem is, throughout the time I played I kept expecting this potential to be realised only to skip 3 years into the future and be transported back to buildup again. The sidequests are unimaginative and repetative, the "enemies" that randomly spawn are more annoying than anything else. I often found myself presetting the game to easy whenever I had to walk the streets at night just so I didn't have to go through 20 mins of pointless combat. The overuse of certain plot devices was glaring, I mean seriously what is with every mage turning to blood magic the second they feel threatened. I found it impossible to relate with the city and its occupents, there was nothing to draw me in to the world and its denizens at all. I couldn't even get a token "Hello" comment from the random NPCs that populate the city. Most of them were not even interactable.

The companions I felt were weak and predictable with the only times they acted outside of what I expected feeling forced and out of nowhere. Romances were really bad aswell, there was no real sense of seducing these people or even getting to know them. The whole dialogue system was a major immersion breaker for me. While the wheel system used works fine in hybrid RPGs it really has no place in one where the large part of the players enjoyment is meant to be in interaction. I don't like my character being voiced either, its not that the idea was bad its that he/she will often say something completely contrary to what you thought they would, yet again breaking immersion.

I think the key here is that DA2 simply fails to immerse you, whatever crimes it is guilty of can all be forgiven save that one. Without the immersion an RPG is boring and a boring RPG is pointless to play. There were many improvements over DA:O but sadly they were all overshadowed by the negative elements. Now bare in mind this is from the point of view of someone who does not like the things I have mentioned. I am in no way saying that my views are the only ones. I know a lot of people liked the convo wheel, I however hated it.

I can understand and to a large extent forgive the reuse of areas and NPCs given the timeframe that DA2 was developed in, in fact, I am in favor of it if it gives the developers more time to focus on the story elements. The problem is, the story was just as repetative and boring as the environments. Now the ending I have to admit was a lot better, maybe even than DA:O in its execution but it failed in one key area, you were given 3 choices which in the end only turn out to be 2. There were no real choices availble in DA2 reguarding story, you did what the story dictated you would and while a linear story can work well in a game it needs to have all the supporting elements, a hook as a previous poster stated. DA2 really needed that extra edge to get you into it properly.

The begining of the game once you got passed the whole running from the darkspawn bit did grab me a little, the cutscene of you arriving by ship was pretty cool. I also liked the idea of having to do some less than honorable things to get into the city but just as I was looking forward to getting into that there was a time skip. This I think was one of the biggest failings of the game as a whole where it comes to immersion. How you start a story is perhaps one of the most crucial elements of drawing your audience in and to simply skip it over as was done really was a mistake. There should have been more involved in the begining of the game to get you familiar with the city and its moods. As it stands the city has no real mood, I never felt the growing tention the story was trying to convey nor did I feel any reason why my character shouldn't just leave rather than dealing with it. There absolutely must be some sort of sense of investment in a local if you are expected to fight for it and I just didn't feel that with DA2. I honestly would have prefered worse graphics and combat than DA:O if it meant that the RPG elements of the game were the focus rather than the eyecandy.

To sum up, DA2 felt like it should have been released years before DA:O rather than after it. It felt as though all that made origins good was either cut out or glossed over in DA2. Yes, a lot of the elements are still there but the ones that counted, the immersion, the sense of drive and the feeling that your character somehow was important in the events that unfolded were all lacking. I mean one of your companions has more effect on the game than you do, perhaps even all of them. I felt like my character was just tagging along and that it was the companions and not my character that were driving the story. Perhaps that is a failing of the narative style chosen, everything being told in retrospect really belongs more in SciFi than in a medievil fantasy setting or at the very least needs a lot more focus on the supporting elements to work well.

Keep the feedback calm guys, this is a good thread, lets try not to ruin it.

[Galad22]

Op was well said and I agree with everything in it.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Story bad?
It's not bad it just seems to..lack something.

It's the late game that suffers the most. Early on you have a goal - enter Kirkwall, buy back estate.
Later on it feels...somewhat forced.

I don't think the writing itself is bad..Dialogues are OK, I adored some companions. I love Merril.. and Varric and Aveline became my standard companions, even tough I didn't like em at first and though I never would. That I changed my mind shows they are well written. They all have good reasons to follow me around (except maybe Isabella)

But the last act severly limited my choices and pushed me.

I do agree that there is a somewhat sterile feeling to everything. Kirkwall is somewhat bland. Colors are washed out...the Wounded Coast and Sundermount have a total of 3 trees, who have more grey in it than green. Constant re-use of areas didn't help.

And the diconect with the whole PC being a amge or having mages in Kirkwall was a problem. This could have been handeled better..with the mages in your party having to hide (not carry staff trough the city, not use magic in public)

There are many plot holes and Gameplay and Story Segragation moments - too many.Those issues combined undermine the entire atmosphere.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 16 mars 2011 - 11:32 .