127 réponses à ce sujet

[Samuel_Valkyrie]

Actually, I replay DA2 more than DA:O. However, ironically, that has mostly to do with just how big DA:O is.

DA:O, along with all its add-ons, is positively huge. It is massive. And that is its problem. Just knowing how big it is, means for me that I have to invest a couple of weeks in it, to completely finish it. And I simply can;t afford to invest that much time. I can't sit in front of a TV screen every day for a couple of hours. I neither have the time, nor am I willing to, especially considering that, in order to actually accomplish something, you need to invest at least a couple of hours in a row to it.

DA:O is huge. But because of that, it's very easy to give up somewhere half-way. Not because the game isn;t good, but because you just can't invest that much time into a game.

I still haven;t finished Kingdom of Amalur. It's a good game, marvelous fighting mechanics, looks really pretty, and it's got a pretty neat story (not as good as Bioware games, though). However, it is also very, very big, and I just cannot invest the time to continue my game. And I KNOW it's not as big as DA:O is.

Fact is, games keep getting shorter, because audiences don;t want long games anymore. Sure, die-hard RPG gamers like the ones who frequent these forums, they want 100, 200, 5000+ hour games to roam within. But most don't. And those are who EA wanted to attract.

How did EA know this about DA:O? Because you have to log into the EA servers, EA can keep track of how much you play, and whether you ever finished your game, and all other kinds of information. As such, they decided to split DA2 up, where you have one quick part as the game itself, and other add-on parts to extend the game, giving a lot of people that essential experience of the whole game, without having to invest hundreds of hours into it.

But what about other big games, like Skyrim and WoW? Well, Skyrim wasn;t out yet, but it implemented a solution to the same problem, but more like WoW, namely, instead of shortening the time between big achievements, they create more little achievements between the big ones. It's that sense of getting an achievement, finishing the Circle of magi quest, or hitting the next level, that hooks players to a game. In WoW, as in Skyrim, you have far, far more hits of achievement than in DA:O, so people get hooked on that sense of accomplishment, and keep playing the game, whereas in DA2, you have a shorter timespan between the achievements to try and get the same effect. Sadly, turns out that EA's solution wasn't as effective as they had hoped.

[Sidney]

cindercatz wrote...

And I don't get this idea that if it's not incredibly hard and impossible to overcome without doing something x certain way, it somehow loses it's value as an option. There has to be a certain amount of flexibility if you're going to accomodate multiple play styles and varied character builds like DA:O had (which was another thing I loved that DA2 removed...) That's a strength in a game like this, not a flaw. I'm not a gaming masochist. I play for fun, and giving me tactics and options to play with and take advantage of is fun. Funnelling me into one playstyle and one repeated scenario is not.

Hard shows that you need tactics. Trying being "stupid" in XCOM and see how long you last. There is no penalty for stupid on DAO. Truthfully DA2's gawd awful encounter design ensures you have to mange things a bit more careffully just because of the cheap way it can suck the mana/stamina out of your party very quickly before the second and third waves arrive - not that that in and of itself is a good thing but i does add some challenge. Toss in that DAO allowed you to spam potions and it was really insanely easy on every fight. To be fair, most melee based games don't handle tactics well because the basics of melee combat (not getting flanked for example) go out the window when you have a swarm of trash mobs and the encounter ranges (mostly in rooms) don't aloow for real missile tactics either.

Not sure how you get "open" out of a lot of rooms with corridors. DAO has big maps for an area but each "fight" is mostly a self contained room where the fight happens. You have rare "big" areas like the cave with bridge in the Roads where you ironically face a wave mechanism but overall you are going room to room to room to fight.

I'm cutting all your bit about elevantions because you are wrong, there are rarely elevatiions and there is elevation in DA2 about as often. If it mattered like in, for example, XCOM then you should care but it really doesn't matter. Instead DAO gives you things like the Brecillin Wood where there are hills and such most most fights take place on one level or, like with the bears in there, make it matter not a whit.

You can also talk about your kiting efforts and ambushes like you are clever but it stinks as a "tactic" because the enemy has YOU coming into a killzone (as you describe) and they leave to go get you? Would you do that? That's not you using good tactics it is them using bad tactics/bad AI.  The best encounters in DAO are where the enemy stays put (the blood mage hideout in Denerim where they have the barricades seems unkitable). I have no issue with dumb wolves or undead but the humans and darkspawn should have more going on upstairs.

As for variety, DA2 allows for as much variety as DAO. Frankly neither game punishes really any build or party composition. There are better builds in DAO (the all mage party kills faster than anything) but none that are so broken they won't work. The same is true in DA2.


Let me also make a distinction between "comabt" and "encounter design". Combat are the basic how you fight things. Encounter designs are the situations where you have to use those mechanisms, You can see how not broken the combat is in DA2 in the DLC stuff. When the encounter design is fixed the game plays pretty much the same as DAO only fast enough that moss doesn't grow on your characters.

[Sidney]

Samuel_Valkyrie wrote...ours into it.

But what about other big games, like Skyrim and WoW? Well, Skyrim wasn;t out yet, but it implemented a solution to the same problem, but more like WoW, namely, instead of shortening the time between big achievements, they create more little achievements between the big ones. It's that sense of getting an achievement, finishing the Circle of magi quest, or hitting the next level, that hooks players to a game. In WoW, as in Skyrim, you have far, far more hits of achievement than in DA:O, so people get hooked on that sense of accomplishment, and keep playing the game, whereas in DA2, you have a shorter timespan between the achievements to try and get the same effect. Sadly, turns out that EA's solution wasn't as effective as they had hoped.

Skyrim is much easier to play in short bursts than DAO. I agree with you but it is less about the achievements than the fact that you can go dive a random dungeon in Skyrim and finish the whole thing in about 30 minutes - 1 hour if you count all the adminsitirative crap of selling the stuff you find and travelling. You can feel like you "finished" something in a reasonable time whereas that feeling of "finishing" anything in DAO is harder to get.

[K_Tabris]

EntropicAngel wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

Well, it's not gonna change, is it? xD Of course it's a great game, always will be. Just like BG, BG2, KOTOR etc...

...ME1, ME2, ME3 JE, DA ][, SC:TDB...

:devil:

*fixed

[Samuel_Valkyrie]

Sidney wrote...

Samuel_Valkyrie wrote...ours into it.

But what about other big games, like Skyrim and WoW? Well, Skyrim wasn;t out yet, but it implemented a solution to the same problem, but more like WoW, namely, instead of shortening the time between big achievements, they create more little achievements between the big ones. It's that sense of getting an achievement, finishing the Circle of magi quest, or hitting the next level, that hooks players to a game. In WoW, as in Skyrim, you have far, far more hits of achievement than in DA:O, so people get hooked on that sense of accomplishment, and keep playing the game, whereas in DA2, you have a shorter timespan between the achievements to try and get the same effect. Sadly, turns out that EA's solution wasn't as effective as they had hoped.

Skyrim is much easier to play in short bursts than DAO. I agree with you but it is less about the achievements than the fact that you can go dive a random dungeon in Skyrim and finish the whole thing in about 30 minutes - 1 hour if you count all the adminsitirative crap of selling the stuff you find and travelling. You can feel like you "finished" something in a reasonable time whereas that feeling of "finishing" anything in DAO is harder to get.

That's what I'm talking about, that sense of achievement, accomplishment, or finishing something. It's not about getting another XBOX live thing, but the feeling of having done something. It could be a dungeon, like Skyrim. It can be a new power (Megaman). It can be a new Piece of Heart (Zelda). It can be all sorts of things, as long as you get that rush of having done something. Which DA:2 accomplishes better, I think, than DA:O.

[Mantaal]

Sidney wrote...

cindercatz wrote...

And I don't get this idea that if it's not incredibly hard and impossible to overcome without doing something x certain way, it somehow loses it's value as an option. There has to be a certain amount of flexibility if you're going to accomodate multiple play styles and varied character builds like DA:O had (which was another thing I loved that DA2 removed...) That's a strength in a game like this, not a flaw. I'm not a gaming masochist. I play for fun, and giving me tactics and options to play with and take advantage of is fun. Funnelling me into one playstyle and one repeated scenario is not.

Hard shows that you need tactics. Trying being "stupid" in XCOM and see how long you last. There is no penalty for stupid on DAO. Truthfully DA2's gawd awful encounter design ensures you have to mange things a bit more careffully just because of the cheap way it can suck the mana/stamina out of your party very quickly before the second and third waves arrive - not that that in and of itself is a good thing but i does add some challenge. Toss in that DAO allowed you to spam potions and it was really insanely easy on every fight. To be fair, most melee based games don't handle tactics well because the basics of melee combat (not getting flanked for example) go out the window when you have a swarm of trash mobs and the encounter ranges (mostly in rooms) don't aloow for real missile tactics either.

Not sure how you get "open" out of a lot of rooms with corridors. DAO has big maps for an area but each "fight" is mostly a self contained room where the fight happens. You have rare "big" areas like the cave with bridge in the Roads where you ironically face a wave mechanism but overall you are going room to room to room to fight.

I'm cutting all your bit about elevantions because you are wrong, there are rarely elevatiions and there is elevation in DA2 about as often. If it mattered like in, for example, XCOM then you should care but it really doesn't matter. Instead DAO gives you things like the Brecillin Wood where there are hills and such most most fights take place on one level or, like with the bears in there, make it matter not a whit.

You can also talk about your kiting efforts and ambushes like you are clever but it stinks as a "tactic" because the enemy has YOU coming into a killzone (as you describe) and they leave to go get you? Would you do that? That's not you using good tactics it is them using bad tactics/bad AI.  The best encounters in DAO are where the enemy stays put (the blood mage hideout in Denerim where they have the barricades seems unkitable). I have no issue with dumb wolves or undead but the humans and darkspawn should have more going on upstairs.

As for variety, DA2 allows for as much variety as DAO. Frankly neither game punishes really any build or party composition. There are better builds in DAO (the all mage party kills faster than anything) but none that are so broken they won't work. The same is true in DA2.


Let me also make a distinction between "comabt" and "encounter design". Combat are the basic how you fight things. Encounter designs are the situations where you have to use those mechanisms, You can see how not broken the combat is in DA2 in the DLC stuff. When the encounter design is fixed the game plays pretty much the same as DAO only fast enough that moss doesn't grow on your characters.

Its kinda funny you mention Xcom here. Ive seen almost the exaclty same Post about "How braindead the Tactics in Xcom are" like you did a page ago, in the Steam Xcom Forum.
Just do A, B, C and you win the game because its easy and simple. (i dont think it is)
I hope you are not the same person. 

[Sidney]

Mantaal wrote...

Its kinda funny you mention Xcom here. Ive seen almost the exaclty same Post about "How braindead the Tactics in Xcom are" like you did a page ago, in the Steam Xcom Forum.
Just do A, B, C and you win the game because its easy and simple. (i dont think it is)
I hope you are not the same person. 

There are always people who think any game is braindead. I can see the same things in Hearts of Iron forums. Thing is that can you run a "gameplan" on XCOM. Yes, of course. The gameplan is snipers snipe, use grenades on groups of foes and so forth. There is always that "repeatable" nature of things because the basis of tactics is exploiting what you do well and what the other guys doesn't. The thing is that even in XCOM you have to adapt those tactics to each situation - terrain, enemy type, mission type and so forth.

In DAO other than boss fights you don't have to adapt your script at all because every fight is the same thing. It is what happens in any game where you are basically fighting masses of trash mobs in a room which you do in DAO and DA2 for that matter.  Can you kill more effectively with proper use of powers...yes but even without them you will win.

The real problem is that most fights in DAO aren't actually dangerous. They are fights that are there to generate cash/ XP plus chew up time. They aren't there to present an interesting situation for the characters to overcome or to threaten them with death.

[Samuel_Valkyrie]

Sidney wrote...

Mantaal wrote...

Its kinda funny you mention Xcom here. Ive seen almost the exaclty same Post about "How braindead the Tactics in Xcom are" like you did a page ago, in the Steam Xcom Forum.
Just do A, B, C and you win the game because its easy and simple. (i dont think it is)
I hope you are not the same person. 

There are always people who think any game is braindead. I can see the same things in Hearts of Iron forums. Thing is that can you run a "gameplan" on XCOM. Yes, of course. The gameplan is snipers snipe, use grenades on groups of foes and so forth. There is always that "repeatable" nature of things because the basis of tactics is exploiting what you do well and what the other guys doesn't. The thing is that even in XCOM you have to adapt those tactics to each situation - terrain, enemy type, mission type and so forth.

In DAO other than boss fights you don't have to adapt your script at all because every fight is the same thing. It is what happens in any game where you are basically fighting masses of trash mobs in a room which you do in DAO and DA2 for that matter.  Can you kill more effectively with proper use of powers...yes but even without them you will win.

The real problem is that most fights in DAO aren't actually dangerous. They are fights that are there to generate cash/ XP plus chew up time. They aren't there to present an interesting situation for the characters to overcome or to threaten them with death.

Well, you're right. DA:O  was never set out to create enemies you have to approach with many different tactics. The world remains the same, and each of the classes and their specializations has to be able to adequately respond to encounters. If not, you can have a situation where you can't defeat a group, because you're the wrong class/spec with the wrong companions, and you'll have to start all over again to defeat that group of enemies. So, no, no real tactics when it comes to taking down enemies. Now, the team can create a whole new adaptive system that reacts on different variables like class, specialization, companion, level, skill, and can generate in real tim a wide array of different enemies tuned exactly to the potential set of tactics available to your specific situation. However, even if that was possible (which so far, is one of the holy grails of gameing design), if they would focus on that, we'd see the next incarnation of this game in abot a decade or two, and with severe lack of development when it comes to what really attracts us to Bioware games in the frst place: the story. In short, the kind of game everybody asks for here, isn;t likel to be created by this company any time soon.

[Scarlet Rabbi]

Yup, masterpieces tend to not lose their appeal over time.

Modifié par Scarlet Rabbi, 18 février 2013 - 03:22 .

[Huyna]

Of course it's great game. Such games are like wine - with age they are getting only better (try Planescape or BG2), especially when you compare DA with it's sequel. We had an actuall dialog options instead of wheel-of-no-choice. "Our audience was unhappy with silent protagonist boo-hoo", yuck.

Modifié par Huyna, 17 février 2013 - 09:35 .

[cindercatz]

Sidney wrote...

Hard shows that you need tactics. Trying being "stupid" in XCOM and see how long you last. There is no penalty for stupid on DAO. Truthfully DA2's gawd awful encounter design ensures you have to mange things a bit more careffully just because of the cheap way it can suck the mana/stamina out of your party very quickly before the second and third waves arrive - not that that in and of itself is a good thing but i does add some challenge. Toss in that DAO allowed you to spam potions and it was really insanely easy on every fight. To be fair, most melee based games don't handle tactics well because the basics of melee combat (not getting flanked for example) go out the window when you have a swarm of trash mobs and the encounter ranges (mostly in rooms) don't aloow for real missile tactics either.

Not sure how you get "open" out of a lot of rooms with corridors. DAO has big maps for an area but each "fight" is mostly a self contained room where the fight happens. You have rare "big" areas like the cave with bridge in the Roads where you ironically face a wave mechanism but overall you are going room to room to room to fight.

I'm cutting all your bit about elevantions because you are wrong, there are rarely elevatiions and there is elevation in DA2 about as often. If it mattered like in, for example, XCOM then you should care but it really doesn't matter. Instead DAO gives you things like the Brecillin Wood where there are hills and such most most fights take place on one level or, like with the bears in there, make it matter not a whit.

You can also talk about your kiting efforts and ambushes like you are clever but it stinks as a "tactic" because the enemy has YOU coming into a killzone (as you describe) and they leave to go get you? Would you do that? That's not you using good tactics it is them using bad tactics/bad AI.  The best encounters in DAO are where the enemy stays put (the blood mage hideout in Denerim where they have the barricades seems unkitable). I have no issue with dumb wolves or undead but the humans and darkspawn should have more going on upstairs.

As for variety, DA2 allows for as much variety as DAO. Frankly neither game punishes really any build or party composition. There are better builds in DAO (the all mage party kills faster than anything) but none that are so broken they won't work. The same is true in DA2.


Let me also make a distinction between "comabt" and "encounter design". Combat are the basic how you fight things. Encounter designs are the situations where you have to use those mechanisms, You can see how not broken the combat is in DA2 in the DLC stuff. When the encounter design is fixed the game plays pretty much the same as DAO only fast enough that moss doesn't grow on your characters.

Honestly, I've played all the way through X-COM on Ironman and I don't think it's any harder than DA:O. The only distinctions are that death is permanent, there's a more strict fog of war (neither of which would make any sense in DA) and you're playing a tRPG with guns. Yes, elevation can effect damage and chance to hit in X-COM, but again, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability to use terrain to change the flow of battle. You can do that in DA:O. A lot. You can't really in DA2.

Your arguement about real melee tactics I agree is a difficult thing, but DA:O did it better than most games, and while it's not Total War (my favorite tactics franchise), it was a fun, compelling party combat system so long as you didn't torture it to death. DA3's been touted as improving this and I hope it does. It can of course be improved a great deal still.

DA2's only issue with mana/stamina/cooldowns I found was the godawful wait on healing spells, considering you've usually got one healer or none, unless you play one yourself. But hey, you can still spam heal potions.

"Open I get from most of the areas being.. quite large and open. If I can see enemies at long bow range and they can see me, and we can all fire at each other, and I can shoot an enemy four+ times before they have the time to close the distance or vice versa, and then the group near them gets involved, and the group near them, etc., that's a pretty wide open space and combat scenario. And yes there were tighter areas like most of the Mage tower or the first area of the Braecillian Forest, and the Blood Mage hideout, but even there I could approach each of those areas in multiple ways. I could bring the fight back out into the hall. I could choke the door and had to avoid getting choked in it. I could enter from a door to one side or the other, changing the dynamic of the fight. I could go around the Forest loop the other way to approach each fight up until the bridge from the opposite direction. I could hold the others back just outside the door and stealth up to the mage at the far end for a quick kill to start to the combat with an advantage, then call the others into the fight. You really can't do any of that in DA2, simple as it might look. You enter combat, you're locked into a defined, relatively small but not too small space, just exactly wrong, and you can't do anything that changes the flow of that combat. Most of the areas, though, both in all the major combat hubs and in most of the travel sidequest zones, were relatively large and open, frequently with a good bit of geometry to play with. Acknowledge it or not at this point.

On the kiting and ambushes: The ambush of the bloodmages etc. I described is in the first area of the bloodmage hideout, which you just described as unkitable. So I think that makes my point. The AI then either follows and attempts to kill me with whatever they've got (and magic needs line of site to target me), or it sits there like a bump on a log. Neither is particularly smart if it wants to absolutely beat me, but it's a lot more fun if it tries to kill me rather than forcing me to just walk into it because it refuses to do anything, and it allows me to use the geometry of the house in my favor, which means I get to employ some tactics, which is fun. Like I said, I play for fun. If the AI sees my character, it should use whatever it's got to try and kill me, because otherwise I'm just staring it down and forced into a scripted scenario. Also, I run a fully scripted AI in both games, so my characters are staying together as much as they should, switching from ranged to melee on the fly, and attacking on sight, which keeps large groups of enemies active. I'm not playing 'stupid' by any means, but I'm also giving myself that extra charge in the battles by keeping them active. I don't kite small groups and then move forward and do it again, etc., because I know that's not how I'm going to get the most out of that game.

DA2's only improvement in the combat build variety department was the developement of more specialized weapons skills and the animations that came with them. I also like the skill trees, but a third of the skills on them were CCCs, which are boring super gamey stat tweakers as far as I'm concerned, so the skills themselves, some were new fun, like all the rogue stuns, back to back, etc., some not so much. That stuff was almost entirely automated for me like most of my skill usage always will be in DA, aside from a character I directly control for most of a fight, so while I like that, it didn't come close to making up for what it lost. The actual stat builds, companion equipment, any variety in my own character's equipment, were extremely linear in DA2. You had to pump the same two stats to use any weapons or armor that your class could use (for all characters), you could only use one weapon type in total for all but your own character, and only one at first choice for them, the combat areas were pretty well always similar in size and tactical variety available (not much).. There was no such thing as an alternate build or alternate strategy in DA2. You could only tweak around the edges and pick from three specs, as opposed to the four specs and massive flexibility in DA:O. You can throw out any set of characters you want to form your party and you can select this skill tree or that, but that's about it.

Encounter design is a fundamental part of what makes or breaks the combat system, which is why so much of what I'm talking about is absolutely encounter design. Level design, AI, all of it. I did also mention things like the quick jump attack, the non-synched choppy combat animation, and the giant life bars as other problems if you want to dissect the discussion. It all works together. Like I said, there are things I liked, but as a whole, I hated it, and I'm just telling you why. I'm not arguing about what was and wasn't true about the game. We both played it. I'm just telling you what worked and didn't for me from Origins and from DA2, and why I loved Origins' combat overall, and loathed DA2's overall. I actually advocate a hybrid system that leans more heavily towards Origins, improves further on the tactics side, and adds a few other things I think would be fun like mounted combat in places, going back to a few weeks after DA2 released, and I'm sure you can find what I've posted about it on here if you want. I'm not going to argue facts with you, though.

edit: I've completed both dlcs, too. Like I said early on, the patches etc. steadily and noticeably improved from what the original game was. The dlcs were much better, but they still weren't on par or close to par with Origins overall, not to me. I did very much like Tallis throwing knives (and the character), and I'd love to have that weapon return, but limited as a short range projectile. That's another problem with DA2. Everything is equal range. They took out short/medium/long/very long range combat. It's just range/melee.

Modifié par cindercatz, 17 février 2013 - 10:42 .

[ForThessia]

DA:O was amazing. Sure the animation could use a little work but it was still a great game. That said, I liked DA2 as well although that could be because DA2 had some amazing DLCs (Mark of the Assassin, Legacy.)

[AlanC9]

Sidney wrote...
Toss in that DAO allowed you to spam potions and it was really insanely easy on every fight.

There is a fairly common mod that puts all healing potions on the same cooldown timer. It keeps spamming under control, though I wouldn't say it turns DA:O hard or anything.

[AlanC9]

cindercatz wrote...
Honestly, I've played all the way through X-COM on Ironman and I don't think it's any harder than DA:O.

You guys are both talking about the newfangled version of X-COM, right?

The ambush of the bloodmages etc. I described is in the first area of the bloodmage hideout, which you just described as unkitable. So I think that makes my point. The AI then either follows and attempts to kill me with whatever they've got (and magic needs line of site to target me), or it sits there like a bump on a log. Neither is particularly smart if it wants to absolutely beat me, but it's a lot more fun if it tries to kill me rather than forcing me to just walk into it because it refuses to do anything, and it allows me to use the geometry of the house in my favor, which means I get to employ some tactics, which is fun. Like I said, I play for fun.

I guess exploits can be fun, yeah.

[cindercatz]

Yep and yep.

[MidnightsFury]

I am on my 8th or 9th play through. I didn't realize I had never played as a Dalish so it's like playing a whole new game. It's so interesting how everyone treats you! All the phrases they say when greeting your character or interacting make me want to learn Dalish! I am ashamed to say this is the first play-through where I have committed to not looking a thing up. Usually with a new game I dive in blind and don't look anything up but I got frustrated with the gifts first go around and got dependent on looking them up each go round. I know, shame, shame. I do miss the full color, glossy guides that used to come with games though.

[horacethegrey]

MidnightsFury wrote...

I am on my 8th or 9th play through. I didn't realize I had never played as a Dalish so it's like playing a whole new game. It's so interesting how everyone treats you! All the phrases they say when greeting your character or interacting make me want to learn Dalish! I am ashamed to say this is the first play-through where I have committed to not looking a thing up. Usually with a new game I dive in blind and don't look anything up but I got frustrated with the gifts first go around and got dependent on looking them up each go round. I know, shame, shame. I do miss the full color, glossy guides that used to come with games though.

The Dalish was my first Warden and is still my main playthrough. I know a majority of people say it's the weakest of the Origins overall, but I I still like it a lot. And unlike the other origins, the Dalish Warden's story has the most prescence in Dragon Age 2, what with his/her clan being present in Kirkwall.

[KimH56]

I bought DAO deluxe and can't get the promised "in  game" items and quests. I can't get support to recognize my account. Can you tell me what to do. It did accept that my game is registered. tx

Kim

[hazarkazra]

horacethegrey wrote...

The Dalish was my first Warden and is still my main playthrough. I know a majority of people say it's the weakest of the Origins overall, but I I still like it a lot. And unlike the other origins, the Dalish Warden's story has the most prescence in Dragon Age 2, what with his/her clan being present in Kirkwall.

Has this majority never played the Mage Origin story? Because Mages are my favorite class but it's definetely a horrid origin story after the interesting start. I felt the Dalish was quite interesting throughout. Also shouting Human Lord at Cailan never gets old.

[Angrywolves]

Obviously DA1 is a great. I never tire of it. I wish the game didn't limit players to 8 active playthroughs. My issue is that the folks at Bioware don't seem to love DA Origins like we do. They don't seem to respect the game. Whether that's because some people who worked on Origins such as Brent Knowles no longer work for Bioware or it's just a self motivational device they are using aka we can do better I don't know. But Bioware needs to respect Dragon Age Origins . a great game they created.

[thepringle]

Yup, I still go back and play DA:O every summer, usually in July when there's positively nothing to do.
DA:O is such a long game that I need to prepare myself for a playthrough.
I usually ask myself, "will you be able to spend somewhere between 40 and 80 hours over the next few weeks on this?" After much deliberation I find myself sitting back and staring at the screen as DA:O and DA:A reinstall on my Xbox.

At the end of the journey, I always smile to myself and let out a happy sigh, since it's truly one of the greatest gaming adventures to be had.
No matter how it ends, I always feel like my Warden's story is done, and that the adventure is finally done.

Still haven't played through as a Dwarf, might just have to do that this next time through.

[devSin]

I still appreciate it, although it's become much harder to justify investing the time required to play it anymore.

I think my current playthrough may end up being my last. It's just too much.

Modifié par devSin, 13 mars 2013 - 10:36 .

[Fishy]

Samuel_Valkyrie wrote...

Fact is, games keep getting shorter, because audiences don;t want long games anymore. Sure, die-hard RPG gamers like the ones who frequent these forums, they want 100, 200, 5000+ hour games to roam within. But most don't. And those are who EA wanted to attract.

Stop being so pretentious. There's plenty of room for long RPG. The day bioware try to sell their game to Mario Cart racing and Wii fit player it's the day I stop their game. It's won't be a rpg anymore anyway. It's would be like Kurt Cobain singing Celine Dion song.

Also game in general are becoming longer not shorter. Also why you don't have any time to play a 100 hours game when you have time to play 5 35 hours game ? It's really the same thing and you save money.  RPG fan would rather play  1 DA:O than 5 Call of Duty.

Also this mentality that I dislike  of new kind of gamer ''needing'' to finish everything the fastest possible. It's killing a lot of game in general. Making everything too easy so everyone can skip through a game like a movie. A game should be a game .. Not a movie Marathon.

Modifié par Suprez30, 13 mars 2013 - 10:49 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Suprez30 wrote...

Samuel_Valkyrie wrote...

Fact is, games keep getting shorter, because audiences don;t want long games anymore. Sure, die-hard RPG gamers like the ones who frequent these forums, they want 100, 200, 5000+ hour games to roam within. But most don't. And those are who EA wanted to attract.

Stop being so pretentious. There's plenty of room for long RPG. The day bioware try to sell their game to Mario Cart racing and Wii fit player it's the day I stop their game. It's won't be a rpg anymore anyway. It's would be like Kurt Cobain singing Celine Dion song.

Also game in general are becoming longer not shorter. Also why you don't have any time to play a 100 hours game when you have time to play 5 35 hours game ? It's really the same thing and you save money.  RPG fan would rather play  1 DA:O than 5 Call of Duty.

Also this mentality that I dislike  of new kind of gamer ''needing'' to finish everything the fastest possible. It's killing a lot of game in general. Making everything too easy so everyone can skip through a game like a movie. A game should be a game .. Not a movie Marathon.

I can fall on both sides of the camp.

I love games that result in huge, long, 100+ hour campaigns... if they can keep my attention that long. If a game has 100+ hours of filler (read: Kingdoms of Amalur - in my opinion, at least), then it winds up being a huge waste of time, for both the developer as well as the gamer. Making a game that is truly great, that is truly replayable and that has a genuinely engaging 60, 70 or even 100 hour campaign is incredibly difficult. Honestly, its only fallen to the Greats of RPG history - DA:O, Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Arcanum, etc. to achieve this perfect balance. Were these games perfect? No, but they did offer a truly fun experience that can vary pretty significantly and also can have campaigns that can take as long or as short as the player desires.

Saying "I want all RPGs to have 100 hour long campaigns" is misleading, as it may result in 100 boring hours. Saying "I want an RPG to be replayable, with new stuff going on each time" is also misleading, since DA2 could arguably fit this bill, with all the different auto-dialogue that can change based on your dominant tone and your previous decisions. The key is making the hours played truly engaging and memorable. 

Short campaigns are rarely memorable, simply because they lack true time to develop. And replayability that doesn't show you different options, but simply gives you different results also tends to not be as enjoyable, since you aren't making different decisions, you're just seeing different results. Removing player agency and control and, instead, making the player passive and just watching the same movie with a few different scenes. This isn't an attempt to bash DA2, as I realize a lot of people love the game, but the reductionism in logic of "we can give players tons of different outcomes" becomes moot when a player doesn't realize it, but just thinks they are heading down a tunnel with no control over the ride (even though they may have more than they think). 

Allan had talked about player choice/outcome divergence and game length and stated an outcome I hated at the time, but which has really begun to make more sense the longer I think about it.

A game can have a short(er) campaign. Maybe 20-30 hours. But then it can give us option/choices that can result in DRASTICALLY different outcomes and variances based on those choices. No more railroading into the same path, with slight detours, but truly and completely different paths. So much so that you could legitimately say you were playing a different story on your second, third and fourth playthroughs. 

Such a game could offer an experience that many could consume at a more realistic rate, it could give us tons of REAL choices that make us enjoy and experience different stories in each run through and it would financially feasible for a developer to make the game and not take half a decade or more to make a sequel (and where they could make money off said game). 

We'd all like Bioware to make the next DA:O. But what if they could give the concept of Choice and Consequence a true steroid shot in the arm? What if they take what CDProjekt did with the Witcher 2 and put it in the dust? What if they could tell not just one story that grips us and hooks us in, but a dozen, all fo which are equally explored and developed? Wouldn't that be an experience that would keep us coming back over and over again? Or would we rather they try to cram four years worth of development into a more profitable two/three year development cycle and wind up with a game that leaves us saying "meh" and reminicising about the good old days?

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 14 mars 2013 - 12:13 .

[Sir George Parr]

Having being away from it for just over two years i started a fresh game today. Playing as a human noble.