384 réponses à ce sujet

[spiritofretribution]

First of all, this isn't just another troll/hate/spam/bash/rage thread. And, actually I even enjoyed playing DA2.


Story:

A game with a compact and interresting storyline will have good sales (e.g. DA:O)

A game with interresting side-quests as filler will sell well (if it has good gameplay/graphics) (e.g. ME2)

DA2 unfortunally tried to built a compact storyline by taking a lot of side-quests and dividing them into 3 Acts, without connection between the acts... I guess it was not only the auto-attack that was lost in the mastering process...

Animations:

To be succesful you should either have:

High realism, e.g. "Total War".

Low realism, e.g. "Final Fantasy".

Again DA2 was a mixture of both, the animations were to over-the-top to be reallistic and in the same time to realistic to appease the FF group. imo DA2 should have animations where, for example, an archer jumps 12 feet high, stays 10 seconds in the climax of his jump and pumps an enemy with 500 arrow in the meantime, or maybe a rogue that zips around the battlefield in 100 feet jumps with a speed that he is just a blur. That would be AWESOME.

Graphics:

There are games that live of their awesome graphic quality, e.g. Crysis, GoW, CoD, those games are short living, but sell well. And there are games that don't need good graphics due to their awesome gameplay, e.g. Tetris, Diablo II, those games are long living.

Now guess how long a game lives that mixes the graphic quality of Tetris with the gameplay of CoD? Right, stillbirth (well, actually the DA:O machine artificially kept it alive for a week). I wished DA2 had used the Frostbite 2 Engine or the CryEngine.

Cinematics:

If you make a game based only on lots of pre-rendered cinematics it will sell well (look at Final Fantasy or check "interactive movie" on wikipedia).

If you make a game concentrating solely on a good story/gameplay it will sell well too (e.g. Deus Ex: HR).

If you make a game with mediocre cinematics without having a good story or gameplay to pull it out it will be, well, mediocre (e.g. DA 2).

Player Character Customization:

You can have 2 ways to do this succesfuly:

Set character without any means to customize, e.g. "The Witcher".
A lot of customizations on the PC (race, physical appeareance, gender), e.g. "The Elder Scrolls".

DA2 was a mix of both, it was mediocre in both ways, it had a set character with some customizations available, imo Bioware should had made it like "The Witcher 2" and leave any customization out, your Hawke should be male and have a predefined appeareance. (EDIT: little joke, just to see if someone would believe that I could believe such a thing)

Toolset:

A toolset can be a great thing for a game, Warcraft 3 is still played only due to custom maps (e.g. DotA), but then again Warcraft 3 was (and still is) an AAA title, a toolset on a mediocre game won't make it any better, so kudos for BioWare for not releasing a toolset, it would just be wasted ressources.

EDIT: changed the color to yellow and changed the order of my points.

Modifié par spiritofretribution, 08 octobre 2011 - 06:30 .

[Heimdall]

I really don't think making the character customization non existent would have helped matters. Then again, that's part of the reason I've never really been able to get myself into playing the Witcher or it's sequel.

[whykikyouwhy]

You make quite a few broad statements here - for example, under "Animations" you cite "To be successful you should either have..." I don't know that you can base success with regard to animations, or anything, on solely two criterion.

While "mediocre" can mean "medium" or "middle" (as in middle of the road), it also means "of moderate or low quality." And sorry, imo DA2's quality was neither moderate or low. Nor was it second-class, run-of-the-mill, etc and so forth. So too, while you may have a great game, with a fantastic storyline, awesome cinematics, etc, that may not always translate to high sales. Sales rankings and profits are dependent upon marketing, word-of-mouth, production numbers, etc. So even with the right formula, your sales may still wind up being low.

[rak72]

I stopped reading at your Hawke should be male & predefined. If I were forced to play Douchy McDouche Garret Hawke, that would have been enough to make me storm the bioware office with my pitch fork. You may be a dude & like to play dudes, but many of us ladies would like a character WE can relate to. This is the whole reason I didn't bother trying the Witcher.

[naledgeborn]

@ whykiky

Mediocre when compared to Bioware's standards. From a business standpoint. I expect quality from Bioware. That's been their reputation with me and other customers. I pay for it (DA2). If the quality I got was different (not saying good or bad) from what I was expecting eyebrows will be raised.

The sad thing is, for all it's unrefined innovations (there were a lot) to the RPG genre what's going to get called out is where they failed... simply because it's different; good or bad. It's feels like DA2 is a distant cousin instead of DA:O's sibling. That IMO is it's biggest failure.

[spiritofretribution]

Lord Aesir wrote...

I really don't think making the character customization non existent would have helped matters. Then again, that's part of the reason I've never really been able to get myself into playing the Witcher or it's sequel.

I agree on that, but I wished that BioWare had done it just so I could say to the Withcer lover & DA2 hater group "You asked Bioware to make DA more like the Witcher, now suck it."

[spiritofretribution]

whykikyouwhy wrote...

You make quite a few broad statements here - for example, under "Animations" you cite "To be successful you should either have..." I don't know that you can base success with regard to animations, or anything, on solely two criterion.

While "mediocre" can mean "medium" or "middle" (as in middle of the road), it also means "of moderate or low quality." And sorry, imo DA2's quality was neither moderate or low. Nor was it second-class, run-of-the-mill, etc and so forth. So too, while you may have a great game, with a fantastic storyline, awesome cinematics, etc, that may not always translate to high sales. Sales rankings and profits are dependent upon marketing, word-of-mouth, production numbers, etc. So even with the right formula, your sales may still wind up being low.

True enough, but normally succesful games have either very realistic animations for the sake of realism or very unrealistic animations for the sake of coolness, imo. With mediocre I meant more what I expected from Bioware, and I expected something way more polished, but none the less DA2 is still a good game. And lack of polish tends to show of in every part of a game.

[Heather Cline]

I completely disagree with the OP's post. I enjoyed DA2 immensely. I think the game should have had more time to be polished. We should have gotten the final product that was played in the online demo's that we were shown instead of what was put to disc when the game was launched. But as for it being exactly like the Witcher 2, having no male or female protagonist option, no option for customizability. Completely wrong.

Bioware's games are all about choice. Yes DA2 had problems with the choices not being long reaching with few exceptions in the game. Yes they did reuse environments and there were many other problems. But saying one game should be exactly like another is just wrong.

So no. I will not agree with this thread. Frankly this is just another troll thread. Saying that DA2 sucked and that The Witcher 2 is better just because it had a single pre-defined character.

I wish people would just grow up and get over stuff like this.

[chart4ever]

Change the color from blue to yellow. Until then it's to painful to read.

[naledgeborn]

It's not a troll thread. Concerns are valid. You and I may not agree with them but opinions are like...

[Phaffner]

DA2 had and has a lot of flaws and mistakes in it there is no doubt. But it is a good game if taken as a game in its own right. Doing away with character custimization and forcing you to play a pre determined character as in the witcher is one of the very things I hate about the witcher. I hate being forced to play their idea of what the character should look like and what sex it should be. That has always been one of Biowares strong points in that they allow you to custimize your character and chose your sex and at times even race.
The biggest downfall with DA2 to me was the streamling and lack of real rpg in the story. It was more along the lines of JRPG's in that nothing you could try to do really altered the story line in the way they had desided it should be. But all in all it was a pretty good game. Not in the way Origins was which is and most likely always will be my favororite rpg.
Those that like the witcher over DA, fine you love it, go and play it and leave those of us that like DA to our choice.

Modifié par Phaffner, 08 octobre 2011 - 06:26 .

[Heather Cline]

It is a troll thread Naledgeborn. The concerns are not concerns at all. The OP use broad sweeping generalizations, no real specific concerns at all. Instead the OP's entire post is "DA2 should have been like The Witcher 2". That is the entire point of this thread. It's a troll thread plain and simple. Every thread we get saying "Such and such game should be like such and such game" is a troll thread.

So you saying it isn't a troll thread proves the point that it is one.

Modifié par Heather Cline, 08 octobre 2011 - 06:31 .

[seraphymon]

While it prolly coulda used a bit better wording, this is nowhere near a troll thread. Th OP voiced his concerns and his opinions in an calm way. JUstbecause your sick of these kinds of threads or fully disagree with what the OP likes or suggests, doesnt mean hes trolling. At least not yet anyways. This is nowhere near the the troll quality like certain users on this forum are putting forth.

[spiritofretribution]

Heather Cline wrote...

It is a troll thread Naledgeborn. The concerns are not concerns at all. The OP use broad sweeping generalizations, no real specific concerns at all. Instead the OP's entire post is "DA2 should have been like The Witcher 2". That is the entire point of this thread. It's a troll thread plain and simple. Every thread we get saying "Such and such game should be like such and such game" is a troll thread.

So you saying it isn't a troll thread proves the point that it is one.

Really? The entire point of this thread is to say that DA2 should been like the Witcher 2?

I only mentioned "The Witcher 2" twice, but I guess after that you stopped reading and just put me into the category "The Witcher fanboys & DA haters". Such a shame.

[Pzykozis]

spiritofretribution wrote...

Such a shame.

No, no no. What a shame.

Can't say I agree much, I mean middle of the road is harder and requires more time (which is one of the things DA2 lacked a lot of) but it doesnt necassarily make a better game to choose one or the other.

[naledgeborn]

Heather Cline wrote...

So you saying it isn't a troll thread proves the point that it is one.

Being blunt doesn't make a person a troll. It makes them blunt. 

DA2 sucks balls. It's the worst game EVAR!!!! <--- an example of trolling.

DA2 wasn't as polished as DA:O. It could have been better by... <--- is an example of an opinion.

[removed fighting]

Modifié par casamar, 08 octobre 2011 - 07:32 .

[spiritofretribution]

Pzykozis wrote...

No, no no. What a shame.

Can't say I agree much, I mean middle of the road is harder and requires more time (which is one of the things DA2 lacked a lot of) but it doesnt necassarily make a better game to choose one or the other.

This is true, but if you can not or don't want to spend that extra money and time you should choose one side. DA2 could have been a truely awesome game, if it were to be released now.

It's like a guy who only gets A's and then he gets a C, for some people a C would be good but not if you consider that the guy normally has A's and just got the C 'cause he was to lazy to study this time.

[spiritofretribution]

naledgeborn wrote...

Being blunt doesn't make a person a troll. It makes them blunt. 

DA2 sucks balls. It's the worst game EVAR!!!! <--- an example of trolling.

DA2 wasn't as polished as DA:O. It could have been better by... <--- is an example of an opinion.

Pull your head from out your orfice Heather Cline.

The definition of troll in BSN: A person who has a different opinion.

This is sadly a true story.

[The Executioner]

spiritofretribution wrote...

First of all, this isn't just another troll/hate/spam/bash/rage thread. And, actually I even enjoyed playing DA2.


Story:

A game with a compact and interresting storyline will have good sales (e.g. DA:O)

A game with interresting side-quests as filler will sell well (if it has good gameplay/graphics) (e.g. ME2)

DA2 unfortunally tried to built a compact storyline by taking a lot of side-quests and dividing them into 3 Acts, without connection between the acts... I guess it was not only the auto-attack that was lost in the mastering process...

Animations:

To be succesful you should either have:

High realism, e.g. "Total War".

Low realism, e.g. "Final Fantasy".

Again DA2 was a mixture of both, the animations were to over-the-top to be reallistic and in the same time to realistic to appease the FF group. imo DA2 should have animations where, for example, an archer jumps 12 feet high, stays 10 seconds in the climax of his jump and pumps an enemy with 500 arrow in the meantime, or maybe a rogue that zips around the battlefield in 100 feet jumps with a speed that he is just a blur. That would be AWESOME.

Graphics:

There are games that live of their awesome graphic quality, e.g. Crysis, GoW, CoD, those games are short living, but sell well. And there are games that don't need good graphics due to their awesome gameplay, e.g. Tetris, Diablo II, those games are long living.

Now guess how long a game lives that mixes the graphic quality of Tetris with the gameplay of CoD? Right, stillbirth (well, actually the DA:O machine artificially kept it alive for a week). I wished DA2 had used the Frostbite 2 Engine or the CryEngine.

Cinematics:

If you make a game based only on lots of pre-rendered cinematics it will sell well (look at Final Fantasy or check "interactive movie" on wikipedia).

If you make a game concentrating solely on a good story/gameplay it will sell well too (e.g. Deus Ex: HR).

If you make a game with mediocre cinematics without having a good story or gameplay to pull it out it will be, well, mediocre (e.g. DA 2).

Player Character Customization:

You can have 2 ways to do this succesfuly:

Set character without any means to customize, e.g. "The Witcher".
A lot of customizations on the PC (race, physical appeareance, gender), e.g. "The Elder Scrolls".

DA2 was a mix of both, it was mediocre in both ways, it had a set character with some customizations available, imo Bioware should had made it like "The Witcher 2" and leave any customization out, your Hawke should be male and have a predefined appeareance. (EDIT: little joke, just to see if someone would believe that I could believe such a thing)

Toolset:

A toolset can be a great thing for a game, Warcraft 3 is still played only due to custom maps (e.g. DotA), but then again Warcraft 3 was (and still is) an AAA title, a toolset on a mediocre game won't make it any better, so kudos for BioWare for not releasing a toolset, it would just be wasted ressources.

EDIT: changed the color to yellow and changed the order of my points.

I liked the character creater it's basically the same as it's always been with the exception of choose race. I liked the story i even liked the combat though it should be more realistic in DA3. There mistake was the dumbing down of the RPG elements and customization that made Origins great.

Modifié par The Executioner, 08 octobre 2011 - 11:58 .

[MagmaSaiyan]

spiritofretribution wrote...

Pzykozis wrote...

No, no no. What a shame.

Can't say I agree much, I mean middle of the road is harder and requires more time (which is one of the things DA2 lacked a lot of) but it doesnt necassarily make a better game to choose one or the other.

This is true, but if you can not or don't want to spend that extra money and time you should choose one side. DA2 could have been a truely awesome game, if it were to be released now.

It's like a guy who only gets A's and then he gets a C, for some people a C would be good but not if you consider that the guy normally has A's and just got the C 'cause he was to lazy to study this time.

its actually kind of a good analogy. so basically if we look at it, Da2 is our C now and now we can build back up to an A, better sooner than later.[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/joyful.png[/smilie] it might of been a B if the Warden was playable(possibly), races, choices of the last game were in an effect, and probably toned down combat

[Orc Town Grot]

Witcher 2 is more linear and limited than DA2. It's also technically flawed: the textures take ages to pop in and it looks ridiculous (on my machine). So both games are imperfect. But then I'm interested in trying my hand at doing better and my jaw hits the floor as I try to navigate through the menus on the toolset. We have been so spoiled by good games but we aren't actually aware of how much work goes into them, and learning how to make them in a field of ever-changing technology. Criticism is the EASIEST activity in comparison, especially lazy trolling style. DA2's critical fault was breaking the logic of Origins, and leading the players further and further away from an open playable Thedas. The franchise is probably unsalvageable in terms of a coherent trilogy of games because the systems and engine have been changed too much from Origins to '2'. Thedas could have been the basis for a grand single adventure, but has drifted into a dozen distinct gaming products with no central coherence. There are errors, but so much in the details, as in leadership and central vision for the franchise.

[MingWolf]

The OP here uses the word 'mix' a lot, and I find this rather interesting, because when I played through DA2, I find that the game does tend to mix a lot of things together and this to me caused a bit of inconsistency that negatively impacted my experience with said title. Not sure if mixing is quite the accurate term for it, mind you.

I speculate (note the speculate), that the root of why DA2 suffered is largely because the development of the game focused too much on appeasing certain crowds and lacked emphasis in the 'art' of game design itself. It tried to cram techniques that have worked with other titles (Mass Effect comes to mind), and tried to make a game out of a mess of different mechanics but completely ignored the identity of what Dragon Age was conceived to be. In turn, the game became more of a tool than an art piece. The statement from Bioware that DA3 will try to blend both DA2 and DA:O together seems to point to this fallacy (or at least, I would assume).

Just a blind assumption I'm throwing out there.

[Chiramu]

I do agree with the OP, it does seem through Bioware's experimentation that Dragon Age 2 didn't exactly become a strong title.

It perhaps would've been more successful if they stuck with the old formula for Origins and expanded on that.

Although to add, the script of Dragon Age 2 was not the strongest script you could use to make a game. If the script for Dragon Age 2 was worked on a lot more they could've worked out the connections between the Acts a lot more thoroughly.

It is a shame that they rush the initial writing of Dragon Age when the Mass Effect titles are so strong :<.

[Orc Town Grot]

The fun thing about this forum is how carefully we parse our words, and offer our opinions in gentile and civil non-sequetors.... the form of tenative, self-censored 'maybe's. Wonder if the very same posters have said similar things at about 1000 degrees higher temperature in other forums..... 'It perhaps could have been more successful if....', 'a case of misconceived identity'.....LOL. Too bad the forum doesn' t havea second layer where we could have the unedited version of the comments. it would be hilarious to compare the two ways of composing an ode to why DA2 was 'maybe....slightly.......perhaps.....a little,.. rather...not quite as perfect as it MIGHT have been.....LOL. I can't finish the punch line of the joke for fear of being mistaken for a TROLL and banished to the places where the trolls all go. Please don't banish me good sirs, I LOVE DA2...(slightly, perhaps, a little)

[Melca36]

rak72 wrote...

I stopped reading at your Hawke should be male & predefined. If I were forced to play Douchy McDouche Garret Hawke, that would have been enough to make me storm the bioware office with my pitch fork. You may be a dude & like to play dudes, but many of us ladies would like a character WE can relate to. This is the whole reason I didn't bother trying the Witcher.

Its funny how some male gamer conveniently forget that women play games. Its almost like some resent it or something.