454 réponses à ce sujet

[Persephone]

Galad22 wrote...

Persephone wrote...
Look at Gamlen. Her brother who has just as much noble blood as she does.

He is also poor, doesn't actually mean that he isn't of noble blood anymore.

That's not what I mean. Noble blood or not, having no money, no power, no nothing makes it possible for even a guard captain to mock him as a weasel.

[JamieCOTC]

Wow, great review. Spot on, especially regarding the discontent to the family.

[Galad22]

Persephone wrote...

That's not what I mean. Noble blood or not, having no money, no power, no nothing makes it possible for even a guard captain to mock him as a weasel.

Gamlen still does have some influence. It is just severely limited since he doesn't have money. I am not saying it necessarily have anything to do with his noble blood, but it could just as well be the case. I don't know that well how nobility works in Kirkwall.

[Persephone]

Galad22 wrote...

Persephone wrote...

That's not what I mean. Noble blood or not, having no money, no power, no nothing makes it possible for even a guard captain to mock him as a weasel.

Gamlen still does have some influence. It is just severely limited since he doesn't have money. I am not saying it necessarily have anything to do with his noble blood, but it could just as well be the case. I don't know that well how nobility works in Kirkwall.

Me neither. Could work either way. Much as I hate to say this but I need to get off the boards & get some sleep now. Thank you Gala, this was really interesting. We may not agree but you've given me lots to consider. I hope I did not frustrate you too much.:happy:

[Galad22]

Galad22 wrote...

Persephone wrote...

No, it is not a bug. The correct dialogue isn't in the toolset either and Mods had to splice the King related dialogue out. So either it was never recorded at all or Bioware was super lazy.

There are still bunch of bugs in Origins. Seriously this is similar if I said, that having Merrill talking how keeper is dead long before it happens is actual plothole. When it is kinda obvious that it is bug.

By the way, can't Anora be sole ruler in the end slideshow then?

Since if she can doesn't it proof to you quite clearly that this is just bug.

[Galad22]

Persephone wrote...
Me neither. Could work either way. Much as I hate to say this but I need to get off the boards & get some sleep now. Thank you Gala, this was really interesting. We may not agree but you've given me lots to consider. I hope I did not frustrate you too much.:happy:

You didn't frustrate me.

It was a pleasure!

[Persephone]

Galad22 wrote...

Galad22 wrote...

Persephone wrote...

No, it is not a bug. The correct dialogue isn't in the toolset either and Mods had to splice the King related dialogue out. So either it was never recorded at all or Bioware was super lazy.

There are still bunch of bugs in Origins. Seriously this is similar if I said, that having Merrill talking how keeper is dead long before it happens is actual plothole. When it is kinda obvious that it is bug.

By the way, can't Anora be sole ruler in the end slideshow then?

Since if she can doesn't it proof to you quite clearly that this is just bug.

The slide for Anora (In the scenario I mentioned with Non-king Ali sacrificing himself because he thinks he is king) is the same as the "Arranged a marriage between Alistair&Anora - Killed Loggy - King Alistair sacrificed himself" . Unless my memory is completely shot. Feel free to correct me, if I am wrong.

[Cybermortis]

Persephone wrote...

Wasting weeks while a Blight is raging to find a mythical relic you don't even know will work let alone if it effin' EXISTS. Yes. That makes a lot of sense. And don't tell me you need Eamon to do the LM. He is totally useless during the LM and Teagan could have rallied allies to call a LM just as well.

Ferelden has a Feudal system, in which land is divided by the King between the lesser nobles - in this case the Arls. The Arl's further divide their lands between nobles lower than themselves - Bann's being the next down. Teagan (A Bann) is subordinate to Eamon (And Arl), likewise Howe is a Bann and subordinate to the Couslands who are Arl's.

The system works by the lower nobles swearing allegance to the noble above them - a Bann's oath is to his Arl, the Arl's oath directly to the crown. We even get to see this in Awakenings.

The problem with this system is that the Bann's clearly have no power to raise troops on their own, that lies with the Arl. So Teagan had no authority to call up troops while his Brother was still alive - he probably has the authority to give orders to the standing guards, just not to raise new troops. Even if the populance of the Arling of Redcliff was willing to respond to a call to arms from Teagan, this would be viewed as a rebellion both by the other Arls and by the law of the land.

Teagan would also lack the authority to call for a Landsmeet, as once again he is a minor noble. He can appear at a landsmeet in his Brothers place of course - and does - but can't call for one himself. Plus as I noted if he started to raise troops himself he'd been seen as starting a rebellion.

Teagans lack of authority outside Redcliff can be seen from him noting that no one responded to his calls for help. Clearly the other nobles just don't consider him important enough to listen too.

Eamon, however, has the authority to do all of the above since he is an Arl. Further it is noted several times that he is well respected in the Landsmeet, meaning that he is someone the other nobles will listen too. In fact it is this latter point that is given for seeking the Arls help in the firstplace.

Modifié par Cybermortis, 02 avril 2011 - 04:13 .

[ejoslin]

Persephone wrote...

Galad22 wrote...

Galad22 wrote...

Persephone wrote...

No, it is not a bug. The correct dialogue isn't in the toolset either and Mods had to splice the King related dialogue out. So either it was never recorded at all or Bioware was super lazy.

There are still bunch of bugs in Origins. Seriously this is similar if I said, that having Merrill talking how keeper is dead long before it happens is actual plothole. When it is kinda obvious that it is bug.

By the way, can't Anora be sole ruler in the end slideshow then?

Since if she can doesn't it proof to you quite clearly that this is just bug.

The slide for Anora (In the scenario I mentioned with Non-king Ali sacrificing himself because he thinks he is king) is the same as the "Arranged a marriage between Alistair&Anora - Killed Loggy - King Alistair sacrificed himself" . Unless my memory is completely shot. Feel free to correct me, if I am wrong.

I'll correct you on this point.  Anora has a few different slides that trigger if she is sole queen -- and another that triggers if she's married to a HNM.  Even drunk Alistair only triggers if she's sole queen (if she's married to HNM, that slide doesn't trigger -- probably because with a Cousland on the throne, there was no rebellion).

Since there is at least one unique dialog if you don't make Alistair king (though it's also bugged so it doesn't trigger -- it's a data entry error, and an obvious one -- it wasn't kept out of the game deliberately), it stands to reason that the King Alistair dialog at the time of the ritual was an oversight.  The end game was probably the last part added/coded.  There are actually notes in the toolset about how other end game dialog is in the wrong place because they ran out of resources (the talk Loghain gives when you switch to warm was supposed to trigger automatically when you went to camp with him but they didn't have the resources to move it) -- it could be that the non-King Alistair dialog fell victim to that as well.  Certainly the reference to him being king at the gates is a bug as the condition for that line is inappropriate.

Edit: This conversation is very interesting, btw.  I like seeing all the points of view, though I did have to skip over a screamer.

I'd also like to point out that DAO really does have a crazy amount of dialog bugs.  DA2 has a lot as well, however, and it's a much smaller game.  I'm really hoping that the dialog bugs in DA2 do get corrected -- or that a toolset is released.  However, if a developer is going to focus on consoles, it would make sense to have this fixes done officially via patch.  Otherwise your main demographic is getting an experience that is not going as intended.

Modifié par ejoslin, 02 avril 2011 - 05:41 .

[Apirka]

Great review, however I don't agree with his view on Aveline. She is my favourite companion.

[ejoslin]

Apirka wrote...

Great review, however I don't agree with his view on Aveline. She is my favourite companion.

It is a good review.  The author tries to figure out exactly what it is he doesn't like instead of just bashing.  That I happen to agree with much of it probably is why I like it.  The stripped down character interaction from DAO was my least favorite part of DA2.  I did like DA2, though; much like the author, I was just disappointed about many aspects of it.

[Maconbar]

Apirka wrote...

Great review, however I don't agree with his view on Aveline. She is my favourite companion.

I have to say that I really like Aveline also.

[nicethugbert]

Galad22 wrote...

Persephone wrote...

That's not what I mean. Noble blood or not, having no money, no power, no nothing makes it possible for even a guard captain to mock him as a weasel.

Gamlen still does have some influence. It is just severely limited since he doesn't have money. I am not saying it necessarily have anything to do with his noble blood, but it could just as well be the case. I don't know that well how nobility works in Kirkwall.

Nobility isn't displayed as much as money is.  The power of money is displayed repeatedly, and the power of arms.  Nobility is not shown to have any power separate from money, as far as I remember.  There is a quest from Meeran to assasinate a nobelman, for pay.  He remarks that it's what the nobels do for sport, "shank each other for sport", and that people like he and Hawke are just the knives. 

Anyway, Persephone answered how the whole mansion thing works.  You two showed how both DA:O and DA2 have plot holes or plots sections requiring the player pay attention to details and peice it together.  All games have this.  But, DA2 is not allowed to be like other games.  It must be ultra pure or suffer the Wrath of the Nerd Rage Blight.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 02 avril 2011 - 06:26 .

[nicethugbert]

Galad22 wrote...

I find it funny that you always go back to bashing DAO when someone is critical about DA2. DAO has no actual bearing to this conversation you know.

Edit. If you can rationalise this glaring plothole away, I am sure you can do the same for every other plothole there is.

Walker makes DA:O referances in his review.  So does every other DA2 basher.

[TJSolo]

[quote]

Right, without all the extreme exaggeration what you describe sounds like DAO combat where some enemies were specialized and used(not stagger locked) their abilities along with basic attacks in parity with the player. But hey sacrifices must be made so that the player feel powerful and get the Thermopylae experience.

[/quote]

But, I have played both games and I see no attack speed difference for mobs, only party.

[/quote]

That is part of what I described.  Both games have the mobs attacking at the same speed but the base speed of the player's team is higher in DA2. Since the mobs are using slower attacks than the player, have almost no access to class talents, and dependent on waves to create difficulty that makes those encounters less tactical because the wave mechanic is counterable the same way every time, move ranged away from multiple enemies and get aggro to a character with high defenses.

Now I guess it is time for me to do some comments about story and the article...later.

[Dormiglione]

Please excuse my bad english, its not my native language.
Here my 2 cents to the discussion. DAO is a real RPG, its pure magic. I think i made 10 playthroughs, bought every DLC and enjoyed it. Im not saying that DAO is a perfect game, it has its bugs and story flaws aswell. But it has alot of major and minor decisions that i can make:
- Tower of the mages: Annulment or Save the first enchanter
- Brezilian Forest: Kill all elves or free witherfang
- Quest for the andrastes ashes: side with the fanatics or kill them

DAO2 has no real choices. Example: Shepherding wolves
Do you have a choice to escort the qunari mage? No, it doesnt matter what you choose. You have to escort the qunari to the coast.

In DAO you had 6 different openings. Ok, as i saw that there were 6 different openings i thought by myself "an absolute overkill, how can Bioware make DA2? How can a sequel handle this 6 different characters and stories?"
So we see the result in DA2, they put the warden aside and started with a new hero. I understand this decision, but im not happy about that.

I mean, what had happened if Mass Effect 2 started with a complete new Hero and a complete new crew. Old shepard's story were just imported and affected the story like it is in Dragon Age 2. What do you say, acceptable? And dont come along to tell me that this is a complete other thing. No, its absolute the same.

So there is no wonder that alot player of DAO are disappointed that the story of her/his warden was thrown away.
Dragon Age 2 is not a mediocre game, its a good game. I mean, close the eyes, forget DAO for a moment and compare it with other RPG that you have played. You have to admit, that Dragon Age 2 is a good game. The problem is, that Dragon Age 2 is in the shadow of DAO.

In Dragon Age 2 you have only the choice between human male/female and 3 classes warrior, rouge, mage. Focusing on this restriction Bioware could have made much more with these characters, but they decided to give an odd opening for all three classes.
Just imagine this opening. Carver stated that they were fleeing from Ostagar. You started the story in Ostagar in the middle of the fight, you were there realizing that Logain betrayed the Cailan. You fight your way from Ostagar back to Lothering, to meet your sister and your mother. At least this scenario would have give a proper introduction for all DAO player.

Fast forward, we arrived in Kirkwall. Now there, Bioware had the Opportunity to give each of this three classes a own story, specific missions, another story board for the warrior, rogue and mage. Sure, in the end all three stories joint together to same end. Instead, it doesnt matter if you are a warrior, rogue or mage. Its allways the same story. Why should i replay the game once i finished it?
I could continue for hours writing down my ideas, what i like and what i dislike.

Bioware, i really hope that you read all the player reviews. We wouldnt post, if we didnt care about this game.

Modifié par Dormiglione, 02 avril 2011 - 06:59 .

[emlit]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Thanks for the link, guys. It was a very well-written article.

Except for:

"Let’s not lose site of that."

Apologies for being the grammar , but if you're a published author, you should at least ask your roommate to proof your work.

[Horus Blackheart]

It really added to the thread as well.

[daemon1129]

Dormiglione wrote...

Just imagine this opening. Carver stated that they were fleeing from Ostagar. You started the story in Ostagar in the middle of the fight, you were there realizing that Logain betrayed the Cailan. You fight your way from Ostagar back to Lothering, to meet your sister and your mother. At least this scenario would have give a proper introduction for all DAO player.

Fast forward, we arrived in Kirkwall. Now there, Bioware had the Opportunity to give each of this three classes a own story, specific missions, another story board for the warrior, rogue and mage. Sure, in the end all three stories joint together to same end. Instead, it doesnt matter if you are a warrior, rogue or mage. Its allways the same story. Why should i replay the game once i finished it?
I could continue for hours writing down my ideas, what i like and what i dislike.

Bioware, i really hope that you read all the player reviews. We wouldnt post, if we didnt care about this game.

I think you bring up an interesting point about the opening of the game.  If the game start you at Ostagar or Lothering, just living your everyday life, dark spawn attacks. You and your siblings are only level 1 and you evade as many darkspawn as possible (because your supose to be weak<_<) and only fight when cornered.  As a player put into the position where you simply have to think and fight with little skill to no gear, it will quickly exhaust us.  Desperately trying to get supplies and better gear from the closest civilization.  This will really put us in Hawke's situation, and with teamwork with you sibings to reach that wasteland part, one of them finally fallen.  This would have a much better emotion impact to us.  Once the Hawkes finally reach a city where they have an estate, the relieve and then the sudden lost of hope when Gamlen lost the house give us a probably reason and goal to aim for.  Now we will really want to get rich. 

[noxsachi]

Well I read it and can say I agree in some parts of it, especially the shoddy execution of the time lapses, he says he got 100 hours in a DA:O play through. How on earth is that possible? Even with all the dlc my longest play through was 44 hours, only 4 hours longer than DAII. And I mean praising the combat of Origins...he clearly was playing a different game cause combat in Origins was an even more tedious and repetitive chore than it was in DAII. At least my mage didn't have arbitrary friendly fire to deal with so I could blast away with impunity; this did much to make DAII combat at least entertaining rather than something I slogged through for the wonderful dialogue.

[Horus Blackheart]

Blasting away with impunity is rather shallow after a while.

[Sidney]

Cybermortis wrote...

The IMdb scores go like this;

Dragon Age 2; 8.4
Dragon Age Awakenings; 8.6
Jade Empire; 9
Dragon Age Origins; 9.5
Mass Effect; 9.6
Mass Effect 2; 9.8

...and that is about right. DA2 isn't a brilliant game. It is not a total disaster by anymeans - the 25 on metacritic from Gamecritics for example is pure stupid.

I don't think it is the weakest Bioware game (not even counting something about hedgehogs) either - NWN out of the box was a lousy game and BG2:ToB was a waste of time. DA2 is better than those but worse than the other Bioware games - and I'm glad to see some Jade Empire love on IMDB. Can we get a sequel to that please.

[LukaCrosszeria]

Rockpopple wrote...

LukaCrosszeria wrote...

(snip: original post here: social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/315/index/6872167/6#6883104)

I actually found this a more insightful review than the one linked. 

Thanks. I just wanted to put a few bits into words myself. There are things I really like, such as the dialogue wheel, brilliant conversations (the banter had me laughing so many times), enjoyable companions and (side) quests (Varric's gung ho shoot out in the mansion was awesome), the way combat is more dynamic, Hawke's comments about Gamlen's house and the mansion, little things showing that the devs listened to feedback (shortcuts so you don't have to hike back all the way down the mountain, hiding the helmets, etc),.

The guy in the article knows that too, and he's not bashing BioWare or the game. What he is writing about is disappointment, something that is not easy to pen down. He said it would be wrong to call it a bad game and that's true. It's a good game and I would hate for BioWare to get discouraged at the criticism. But despite all the good points I summed up, the flaws seriously detract from the game. BioWare seems to have unlearned key principles that made other games of theirs work.

Flemeth said in the beginning, the world will tremble before you, and something along the lines of leap when your moment comes. After playing the demo for days in anticipation of the game, I was so excited when Hawke finally left Lothering. I expected a protagonist with a family and a home I would come to care about (something I haven't experienced yet in other games). That was the whole idea behind limiting the race choice + giving a family, to commit the player more to the character. I was excited about the companions I'd meet. I didn't mind knowing that Hawke would become the Champion, since you got to shape how he got there. The road is more important than the destination. I was curious to see how it would come about. But after a while, it became clear that instead of impacting the world around him, Hawke was a character in a book that was already written out to the end and nothing he said or did really mattered. Bonds with family and companions felt contrived because not enough time was put in developing them, scenes that should have been incorporated in the game were handled in timeskips (poof, hello mansion?) and too much was out of Hawke's control. At the end I didn't get the feeling Hawke made that leap that Flemeth talked about.

Came across another example just now in the game: I gave Fenris the blade of mercy and Hawke starts asking him about Tevinter, blood mages and slavery. Over the course of seven years, Fenris has outlined how the power struggles between Tevinter magisters work, how they use blood magic. He's talked it to death with Anders and Merrill. Hawke has dealt personally with the issue of elves being treated as slaves by Tevinter magisters. He knows all of this, asking these questions now makes it seems as if those conversations and events didn't even happen, or don't matter.

Modifié par LukaCrosszeria, 02 avril 2011 - 10:14 .

[2kgnsiika]

I was more impressed by this review than by DA2. 'Nuff said.

[nicethugbert]

TJSolo wrote...

Right, without all the extreme exaggeration what you describe sounds like DAO combat where some enemies were specialized and used(not stagger locked) their abilities along with basic attacks in parity with the player. But hey sacrifices must be made so that the player feel powerful and get the Thermopylae experience.

But, I have played both games and I see no attack speed difference for mobs, only party.

That is part of what I described.  Both games have the mobs attacking at the same speed but the base speed of the player's team is higher in DA2. Since the mobs are using slower attacks than the player, have almost no access to class talents, and dependent on waves to create difficulty that makes those encounters less tactical because the wave mechanic is counterable the same way every time, move ranged away from multiple enemies and get aggro to a character with high defenses.

Now I guess it is time for me to do some comments about story and the article...later.

We're both wrong here.  I just saw a dual wield skeleton in DA:O attack about twice as fast as a SnS skeleton in DA:O.  So, DA:O monsters are in some, if not many, cases built like PCs.  It's kind of like PvP in some, if not many, cases.

DA2 is very much like DA:O but stream lined and augmented for more action.  In DA2 you have to control agro.  It doesn't automatically go to the character with the heavy armor as it does in DA:O.  Plus, DA2 mages have shorter spellcasting ranges.  So, you can't safely leave your mages a mile back from your meat shields.  You have to work for battle field control in DA2, unlike in DA:O  Therefore, DA2 is the more tactical game.

DA2 has much tougher force rules than DA:O.  All actions can be interupted so escape is not so easy as it is in DA2.  You always want to keep an eye open towards a path of retreat in DA2.  DA2 is simply less static, more active than DA:O.  So it is the more tactical game and aggresive game, as far as battle go.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 02 avril 2011 - 11:06 .