The Dragon Age franchise should stay where it always belonged: in DA:O territory. Now, I understand how you need to step forward from there. Though I think it's a rather flawless design, I see the certain lack of polish here and there, and the combat was cluncky and felt very aged. But first, here is where I think DA2 failed.
- Level Design.
There is nothing worse that being put into a room you've been in before. It's cheap, and feels lazy. Though I don't think it was the result of laziness, no, especially from you guys. This was EA's doing. I know the devs can't really say much since they are your bosses. But I hope everyone understands how time was pressed on to you.
- Waves.
Not so much that there were waves, but how they were done. Your DLC proved that it can be done, and be accepted as a tactical challange. It's all about presentation in some areas.
- Animations.
The combat was similar, if not the same, infact, I saw it as an improvement. It was quicker, more fluid and the flow was much nicer than before. But as I said before, it's all about presentation. So when you make combat animations as wacky as they were in some cases, then people are bound to call it a hack n slash.
- Marketing.
Nothing to do with the game, I know, but people are attracted to Dragon Age because what they got with DA:O. If David Silverman is promoting this game like if it was a bloody Tekken game, then vad vibes will come all around. Understand this: people are inlove with Dragon Age, because of Dragon Age: Origins. Go forward in your designs, but keep to the same foundation.
- Lack of expansion.
And no, I don't mean the exatled march. I'm talking about act one and act three. These two acts built up to something, but then you cut us short. Act one was the best in roleplaying terms, allowing us to give Hawke motives on why she's doing things a particular way, but as we reached the Deep Roads, we we're never thrilled by mysteries or any foreshadowing... it was all just sudden. We fought, we won, we left. Act three was rushed. I can tell, we all can. But once again, I'm putting the blame on EA.
Now, out of all of those, the top one probably hurt the most. Why?
Because it's so damn obvious that it's pretty hard to look by. When you
have a good game, people will look over the flaws. But when that flaw is
slapping you across the face everytime you go into the next room, a
****storm is bound to happen.
- The Darkspawn.
The new art design needs a revamp. But the darkspawn need to be built from the ground up. But if you could replicate the ferocity of your DA2 Legacy Darkspawn, then I'd be more than happy to see them return.
- Lack of consequence.
Note: not choice, but consequence. Why? Because DA2 gave us a tonne of choices, but in the end, the consequences were very minor. The thrill of an interactive medium is to live with your choices. This is especially important with RPGs. I don't think you have to go very far with it, you've done it before, and it's worked fine.
Now here's a few things I think DA2 did right!
- Companions.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head here. And from all he DA2 fanfic, I think you can tell why. It's a pretty subjective thing to talk about, but I felt that the DA2 companions were more my friends than just 'brothers in arms.' So whatever your doing with your companions, reflect on DA2. But let us talk to the guys whenever we want. You don't have to engage in interesting dialogue at all, you can leave the steps of the relationship via quests like you didn in DA2.
- Combat flow.
Again, you hit the nail on the head. It's faster, more fluid etc... it didn't feel like an action RPG at all, I don't know where these claims come from, but I have my suspicions it's to do with the combat animations. The game was unbalanced at first, though with the 3.0 patch it really fixed things up. The only thing I'd say is to cut the damage from archers by half, those ****ers are dangerous.
- Pre set character development. AKA: Roleplaying with a pre-set character.
I've played a lot of games with pre-set characters. All roleplaying games, three were made by your cousins in montreal. And I know it's harder to roleplay with one.
Alpha Protocol, the Witcher one and two, the ME trilogy... all of them have done it superbly well. But you've beat them all. The way Hawke is shaped by our dialougue choices is really well done, and I've never felt a pre-set character was more mine than I did in DA2. Keep that up.
The only criticsm I can add is just this: expand on the dialogue choices some more. And perhaps, get rid of the paraphrase system. Keep the full line and add the tone icons and you've got your self a solid pre-set character RP experience.
- Choice.
Before I get burned on the steak for witch-craft, I'd like to note that the kind of choice I'm talking about is directly related to the above point.
The choice that impacts our character as a person is another thing that shines in this game, keep at it. Though I'd prefer a silent protagonist, I know your not going to do that again. So it's better to just improve on what you have no?
- DLC
You took your time, and you made bloody good DLC. Make DA3 awesome and do the same, you'll be making pools of money.
There are of course, other minor things that can be put into both sections, though those are the major things you need to focus on.
Now, heres where DA3, and indeed, all DA games should focus on the future...
Build from Origins. You have two games in the franchise and you can clearly see which one is favoured. I have friends who are XBOX360/PS3 junkies who love to go online and swear at kids through CoD. But they have also played Origins, and they loved it. They have never seen anything like it before, and they were amazed.
The Dragon Age franchise can't keep doing a 'DA2.' I loved that game, but I can see it's flaws from Mars. It needs to build from Origins and take ideas from Baldur's Gate. It has to be innovative, but at the same time, keep that same old feel.
And how to do that? Look at your own games, look at your fans, look at your bloody forums! And you are, I know you are. And I wish for the best. And please... whatever you do.
Don't **** up the last 10 minutes of the game
Heres a good video for you to look up. Better constructive critism than I can ever spew.
www.youtube.com/watch
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