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[HSHAW]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sidney wrote...

Again, the best part of DAO had nothing to do with the AD and Darkspawn. In fact, if you had dropped that entire element of the story and the whole point of DAO was to force the murdering usurper off the throne by gathering an army to defeat him would that have been any worse a game? No. Is that scenario a whole lot more "real world" than a magical dragon and his zombie hordes? Yes.

Actually, I was hoping that something along these lines was going to happen. Anders blows up the Chantry, starts a war between the Templars and Mages... and after the dust settles, a Big Bad comes out of the wood work. This was HEAVILY suggested by the Enigma of Kirkwall writings and other things that point to serious magical instability in and around Kirkwall.

It would have been GREAT to have something insanely bat sh!t crazy to be unleashed with all of the death and destruction being rained down by the characters at the end of Act 3. For something bigger to pop out at the end would have been a good way to tie the realistic and fantasy aspects together in a cohesive story, just like DAO did.

Is it a bad thing that I allowed the Arishok and Anders to live so that either the Arishok or Sebastian would destroy Kirkwall and trigger this?

[Fast Jimmy]

If it could have made Act 3 more of an exciting finale, then no! I'd say the ends justify the means.

[HSHAW]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

If it could have made Act 3 more of an exciting finale, then no! I'd say the ends justify the means.

Act 3 is exciting enough already, what needs to be done with it is get rid of the bits that don't make sense like the mages not using a funnel to their advantage or burning the Templars' boats, the mages in the room where you and Orsino make your stand all dying of plot induced heart attacks and Orsino thinking turning himself into an abomination would help the situation.

[XX55XX]

Sidney wrote...

XX55XX wrote...

If movies and books reflected reality, then I doubt very many people would be watching or reading them at all.

Do you think before writing this? What won the Oscar this year? King's Speech which while not a 100% history certainly "reflects" reality. You want more of the Michael Bay-ian eye-candy a *boom* effect well then what Blackhawk Down which, again, is based on a real story and certainly reflects some sort of reality. See also: Schindler's List, Battleship Potemkin, M, Mutinty on the Bounty, Titanic, Judgement at Nuremberg, Partton, "Tora,Tora, Tora,", Breaker Morant, Gallipoli, Saving Private Ryan and many many others and that is just film we're dealing with. You might not be watching films that reflect on reality but notice plenty of people are. Also notice that in many of those films the people in them aren't the ones making history, they are a part of history - no one saves the Titanic, no one stops Pearkl Harbor, *spoiler* they're dead at the end of Gallipoli and so on.

It IS a different type of story. Maybe one you aren't comfortable with but that remains a reflection on you and others that want/need the "Great Man of History" type of story but certainly not all stories are like that.

I like reality. But not when it's poorly implemented and a complete borefest. Reality can be entertaining, it just needs to be something interesting. Watching someone wander the desert for two hours isn't exactly thrilling, even if it did really happen. Movies like those pluck out certain realities and leave others alone. So should video games. 

For example, the first act of Dragon Age II involved raising a large amount of money to buy into part of expedition. The task was fairly mundane. But, the developers could have engaged the player some more had they introduced a series of complications and conflicts that impeded the completion of that task.

Would you watch a movie which featured a man eating cornflakes for twenty minutes? That was what Dragon Age II was like - a lot of random killing with extremely limited context.

[Gabey5]

i dislike most save the world games

[Cutlasskiwi]

The story in DA2 felt more real to me, sure. But the biggest thing for me was that I kept being surprised during the game, something I missed in DAO where I could pretty much picture how everything would play out.

Also I thought it was a breath of fresh air to play a character who couldn't save everyone and everything.

[Smilietime]

It is more realistic, because of something called the "sliding scale of idealism versus cynicism"

http://tvtropes.org/...mVersusCynicism

Also, while Dragon Age was CALLED Dark fantasy, Dragon Age II actually IS dark fantasy; a human conflict, with honorable people and psychopaths on both sides of each conflict present...

[Sajuro]

I thought it was more realistic because you had to spend more than just one or two quests to solve the major problems of the city, hell it takes 7 years for Merril to get the hint that blood magic and working with demons will end up killing you or everyone you love. I liked it because it was able to give a sense of time passing that no other video game I have played could (maybe Fable 3 but barely)

[Sajuro]

HSHAW wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

If it could have made Act 3 more of an exciting finale, then no! I'd say the ends justify the means.

Act 3 is exciting enough already, what needs to be done with it is get rid of the bits that don't make sense like the mages not using a funnel to their advantage or burning the Templars' boats, the mages in the room where you and Orsino make your stand all dying of plot induced heart attacks and Orsino thinking turning himself into an abomination would help the situation.

I think the game thought you would have a harder time with the templars to where they would actually reach the mages and kill them, instead I dismissed that like the claim it was and used both Bethany and Merril to rain down flames and lightning while they were in the hall.

[Sad Dragon]

Hate to burst your bubble but there are a few key parts you seem to have forgotten.
I can agree that the time frame was a nice one, but that in itself was highly underused -- you where still playing shorter periods of time and then you skipped another 3 years to the next part. Sure you can say that saving the world isnt too realistic and that would be true -- not many of us save the world on a regular basis after all -- but I am not so sure that saving a nation -- twice -- and starting a world war (or well continental war anyway) is much closer to home. But now im getting ahead of myself to let me take a step back.

You do not have to save the word to have an epic story, anything presented in the right way can be epic. Act 1's fight against poverty could have been made to the main goal of the game and turned into something epic itself -- and you would have something far more realistic then the story you have today. The game however opted to try and go for an episodic story that only had strong connections between Act 1 and Act 2. Act 3 however is more stand alone -- which could have worked just fine if it was the most developed Act -- sadly that is not the case.

As for choises mattering or not most choises I make IRL will have a consequence for me, one way or another -- it might not always be something I have forseen and might instead catch me blindsided but they are more definetly present IRL. You would expect the same to hold true for a game if it is supposed to be realistic, the fact that you deal with rulers and just about every influential person in Krikwall should just make the effect bigger -- at least on a personal level. Sure we dont have 100% control over everything in our lives, but then again you could use the same argument for Origins, I sure didnt have any control of the gaming world, sure it didnt really catch me by surprise but then again neither did DA2. I hate to bring up this game, but it really shows how you can make some seemingly random choice have consiquenses beyond your controll. Im am going to envoke The Witcher -- the first game not played the seconed game and i will not say that its the best game of all time or something like that cause I really dont think it is, but ill be damned if it didnt handle consiquences better then anything i have played to date.
You get a choice at the end of one quest that severly affects how another quest playes out over two hour later. At the time of you are making the choise you know nothing about the other quest or those that quest involves but your choice still affects them beyond your control. DA2 instead opted for 0% control making your choices more or less poitnless and having your character mearly reacing to events rather then being proactive about it and this is where I think the biggest change is.

Normaly you start out as reactive; your village is attacked and you have to react, your father was murdered and you react, the princess gets kidnapped by a giant firebreething turtelsaur and you react. During the course of the story however you start to become more proactive, seeking allies to further aid your goal, finding magical equipment to aid your quest and gathering more information that you will need to finish the game. Hawke was more or less just along for the ride, and could really not affect the outcome of anything, except the fate of his siblings which -- while nice -- was more up to chance then Hawke being proactively trying to do anything. Though I have to say that you where at least partly proactive in Act 1.

Now before I ramble on even further and possibly go off topic ill try to round this up.
There is a term called "uncanny valley" this is primaraly used in relations to videogames when talking about graphics, but the same consept holds true for any part of the game. For those of you who don't know the term, ill try to give a short explaination: when something unrealistic trys to be realistic there is a point where the belivability drops severly, even though it put more realism into its try then it previously did it suddenly becomes less belivable -- That is uncanny valley. Now im not saying that DA2 got near the uncanny valley in terms of the uncanny valley effect but what I will say that it felt just as unrealistic as Origins to me, though for different reasons. Still not a bad game though.

Also: sorry for any spelling errors

-TSD

[bdcgvshujvgjvgsdjjgvsd]

"Dragon Age II's story is more realistic than Origins'. "

That may be true but in a FANTASY role play game is it necessarily a good thing?