216 réponses à ce sujet

[Steppenwolf]

If they hadn't wasted their time with such drastic and awful redesigns of the elves and Darkspawn I wouldn't have been opposed to the art style. And it seems like they themselves were displeased with the elf redesign too, since Fenris and Merrill looked more human than any of the other elves in the entire game. If they would find a middle ground between the "short humans with pointy ears" of Origins and the alien lifeforms of DA2 and make the Darkspawn scary looking again I would be more or less fine with the DA2 art style sticking around.

[grumpymooselion]

EJ107 wrote...

I wasn't a huge fan of DA2's visuals. Not because they were "cartoony" per se (Although some of the combat animations looked like they belonged in a Tom-and-Jerry cartoon, not a fantasy game) but becuase a lot of them were just... bleh.

Kirkwall looked very bland and brown/grey, not a very visually interesting place. It would have been fine if there were multiple locations, but as the only area...

And then of course we have abominations like the decrepit zombie hands :shudders:. The only things I remember really standing out in a positive way visually were the Qunari redesign and the way hair occasionally moved (ever so slightly more realistic than DA:O, though still nowhere near what the thread about the new hair modelling software in TR allows is promoting)

What's strange is your notes on what are wrong with DA2's art style (talking about how it was bland, lots of brown/gray), and the messed up looking hands are complaints I more often hear about DA:O rather than DA2.

POETICDRINK wrote...

 I hated it. The cartoony look
reminded me of Anime. The fast combat lended itself to the look. I
appreciated Dragon Age: Origin characters. They were realistic and more
engaging.

This consistently boggles me. DA:O didn't look even slightly realistic, it looked like it had been drained of color and populated with oddly proportioned, dead eyed characters models with giant hands. Most of the environments looked dead and lifeless, there wasn't an ounce of vibrancy or anything resembling nature or an old village/town/city, and I do nature walks, hiking and visit old historical locations in my spare time quite often.

I'm fine with people liking more stylized or more realistic visuals, that's fine, but DA:O didn't look realistic in the least. It just looked ugly. There are realistic looking games out there to point at if you want a realistic style, DA:O's visuals are a 100% go to book of things 'not' to do with the visual design of your game. We have realistic looking fantasy games 'this console generation' like the Witcher 2 that show a realistic visual style done right . . . by going in the exact opposite direction of DA:O at every single step, and it's only one of several realistic styled RPGs that did a realistic visual style right this generation.

DA:O is not realistic looking. It just looks ugly. It didn't even look good for the time it came out because we had better looking realistic styled games coming out prior to its release, near the same time as its release and very soon after its release.

I think people that want the DA:O style back . . . well, fine, but you'd never catch me asking for DA:O's visuals or its massively generic, constantly repeated and rehashed 'hero saves the land from the dark army' narrative to make a come back. For DA2's many, many flaws it attempted to do something different on a visual and story front, and I wholly believe the only thing that held it back was the super sonic development time that resulted in the DA2 mess we all know and love or hate respectively.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Janan Pacha wrote...

This consistently boggles me. DA:O didn't look even slightly realistic, it looked like it had been drained of color and populated with oddly proportioned, dead eyed characters models with giant hands.

It's not realistic.  It's realist.  Realist art has washed-out colours.  And some of us like that.

As for the eyes, DA2's characters had insane eye colours.  Was that better?

As for the hands, yes, those were terrible.  I complained about those extensively even before DAO was released.

[Steppenwolf]

Janan Pacha wrote...
For DA2's many, many flaws it attempted to do something different on a visual and story front, and I wholly believe the only thing that held it back was the super sonic development time that resulted in the DA2 mess we all know and love or hate respectively.

For a whole lot of people the story DA2 tried to tell was not appealing. Was it fairly unique? Sure. But it was also meandering and moronic in the way it assigned Hawke credit for everything that happened in a 10 year period.
"I need to find the Champion!"
"Why?"
"He started all fo this!"
"No he didn't. He was standing there when it happened. Any of the dozens of witnesses, including the Templars, could have told you this."
"But.. but he was important to the events!"
"Not really. He killed the one dude and everyone started calling him Champion, but it didn't have any significance whatsoever because Meredith was running the show."
"..."

The story was 3 acts of nothing, basically. Act I-"I need some freakin' money!" Act II-"The Qunari are a-holes!" Act III-"These mages and Templars are a-holes!" Hawke was completely irrelevant aside from killing the Arishok, but any mage with a few competent spells could have killed the Arishok...

[BonFire5]

I love the cartoony style, then again, I actually enjoy DAII (though ME3 has a lot to do with that). My Hawke looks awesome, especially after giving him the wicked mustache (he does look like and updated, non-mute, version of my original Warden too).

[EpicBoot2daFace]

Everything about DA2's art I hate with the exception of the Qunari. It's the only thing that was improved over Origins. I Still have a very hard time believing that it was the Origins team who made DA2. Such a tremendous drop in quality across the board usually happens when a franchise is handed off to another developer who isn't up to the task. But to think that this was the same team who gave us Origins? It's still shocking.

It's almost as if the team lost all of their creative ideas, talent, and skill, for this project. If this game was made by Reality Pump (Two Worlds games) or some other mediocre developer, I would understand. But this game was made by Bioware, and it certainly did not meet the bar of quality set by their previous games.

Modifié par EpicBoot2daFace, 12 mars 2013 - 05:34 .

[imbs]

its pretty easy to explain imo. Ea influence. Every franchise they have ever touched has become mediocre. It's a pretty blatant pattern.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

imbs wrote...

its pretty easy to explain imo. Ea influence. Every franchise they have ever touched has become mediocre. It's a pretty blatant pattern.

You might have a point.

[The Elder King]

imbs wrote...

its pretty easy to explain imo. Ea influence. Every franchise they have ever touched has become mediocre. It's a pretty blatant pattern.

EA influenced Bioware in making the hurlocks similar to clown zombies? Or ogres with a retarded look?
I could understand EA's influence on the more action approach in DA2 (and ME2), the MP or something similar, but for the art style, you should point your critics fully at Bioware.

[grumpymooselion]

BasilKarlo wrote...
"Not really. He killed the one dude and everyone started calling him Champion,

Funny, multiple people witnessed my Hawke doing quite a few things to help individuals and groups large and small leading up to that across all prior content.

The story was 3 acts of nothing, basically. Act I-"I need some freakin' money!"

If you're wearing blinders that block everything else that was happening out, yes, I do suppose you could purposefully cut everything else significant out and say that only that one theme occured.

Act II-"The Qunari are a-holes!"

Far more to the act than just the Qunari, starting with a stolent recipe and leading to more, in addition to all the plotlines you can explore, and pick back up from the first act, in addition to that one. In addition, the Qunari aren't. You can see their logic in several portions of the game, and even side with them over Aveline and say you'd have done the same as the Elves. You can trick that thief of a companion into thinking you care to get her to bring you the relic, and then hand it and her over to the Qunari and they leave.

Act III-"These mages and Templars are a-holes!" Hawke was completely irrelevant aside from killing the Arishok, but any mage with a few competent spells could have killed the Arishok...

Act 3 is built up over all three acts, and Hawke is far from irrelevant. He or she has moved up in the world, gained wealth and a title and possibly more depending on your decisions outside of the saving the nobles from the Qunari at the end, and you can do that through several means.

In Act 3 it's actually shown you could have been more, there are even discussions amongst NPCs of little and large influence gossiping that Hawke should take the seat of power. Hell you walk into the Chantry at one point and one of the highest powers in the land mentions it in passing, as well as the DLC character who makes his home in the Chantry. I'm going to blame Act 3 dropping the ball and not following through with this plotline on the super sonic accelerated development time, really.

It would have made sense for Hawke to continue rising to rule the city as a Warrior or Rogue character, but, in a Mage play through, it makes sense that Meredith absolutely blocks you from taking power - because she outright does so in a dialogue if you mention it. For the Warrior and Rogue it probably shouldn't have gone that way, but for a Mage it makes perfect sense your rise stops there. Meredith would never allow a mage to take the seat of power in Kirkwall.

There's quite a lot to it, more than I even brought up - far more - so that even this little bit is substantial, and you're claiming none of it was there . . . it just sounds like you have blinders on.

[The Elder King]

Hawke had indeed a role in the mage-templar conflict. He was the one (along with Varric in Act 2 and 2) responsible of keeping Anders safe from Meredith and the templars, so that he could destroy the Chantry. and trigger a world-class conflict.

[grumpymooselion]

DA3 is going to be changing art styles again, from what little we know. They mentioned the Elves specially as somewhere between DA:O and DA2 . . . which makes me wonder if that's the direction of the larger question mark hovering over the overall art style.

hhh89 wrote...

Hawke had indeed a role in the mage-templar
conflict. He was the one (along with Varric in Act 2 and 2) responsible
of keeping Anders safe from Meredith and the templars, so that he could
destroy the Chantry. and trigger a world-class conflict.

I swear I knew he was up to no good, and was screaming for the dialogue option to just plain kill the abombination like I'd been wanting to since I met him. I just didn't like Anders in the first place though.

Modifié par Janan Pacha, 12 mars 2013 - 06:01 .

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

imbs wrote...

its pretty easy to explain imo. Ea influence. Every franchise they have ever touched has become mediocre. It's a pretty blatant pattern.

You might have a point.

lol You know its a EA game because the right hand holds the gun and the left hand holds the orange

[Ianamus]

Janan Pacha wrote...

EJ107 wrote...

I wasn't a huge fan of DA2's visuals. Not because they were "cartoony" per se (Although some of the combat animations looked like they belonged in a Tom-and-Jerry cartoon, not a fantasy game) but becuase a lot of them were just... bleh.

Kirkwall looked very bland and brown/grey, not a very visually interesting place. It would have been fine if there were multiple locations, but as the only area...

And then of course we have abominations like the decrepit zombie hands :shudders:. The only things I remember really standing out in a positive way visually were the Qunari redesign and the way hair occasionally moved (ever so slightly more realistic than DA:O, though still nowhere near what the thread about the new hair modelling software in TR allows is promoting)

What's strange is your notes on what are wrong with DA2's art style (talking about how it was bland, lots of brown/gray), and the messed up looking hands are complaints I more often hear about DA:O rather than DA2.

It was kind of a problem in DA:O, but only accentuated in DA:2. I had no problems with Kirwall being brown and grey, it made sense considering the city was, for all intents and purposes, an old quarry. The problem was that this was the only area, and Origins had variety. 

In Dragon Age 2 we had these locations: 

Kirkwall:

http://cloud.steampo...6BA12F6BD5FAA5/

Sundermount:



wounded coast (aka boring beach I had to google the name of because I forgot it):



And finally, the deep roads:



With the exception of the deep roads all areas were very brown and very plain, and we are only in the deep roads for one mission (and a handful of cut-and-paste mini dungeons later). Again, It''s OK to have area's that are plain, but these are the only real four areas in the game. Just compare this to the diversity of different visual themes going on in Origins: 











These complains are far more viable to DA2 because it just didn't have anything close to the variety Origins had. Yes Origins may have been mostly brown, but there was a forest an icy temple and a studious academy, DA2 just had a muddy city, a muddy beach, a muddy mountain and some (admittedly slightly more interesting) muddy caves. Finally (It pains me to have to bring this up again, but It's completely relevant):



THE HANDS... OH GOD, THE HANDS! Origins had nothing like this! sorry for the colossal post by the way.

Modifié par EJ107, 12 mars 2013 - 06:03 .

[EpicBoot2daFace]

hhh89 wrote...

imbs wrote...

its pretty easy to explain imo. Ea influence. Every franchise they have ever touched has become mediocre. It's a pretty blatant pattern.

EA influenced Bioware in making the hurlocks similar to clown zombies? Or ogres with a retarded look?
I could understand EA's influence on the more action approach in DA2 (and ME2), the MP or something similar, but for the art style, you should point your critics fully at Bioware.

Perhaps. But they do focus-test everything now.

[The Elder King]

Janan Pacha wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

Hawke had indeed a role in the mage-templar
conflict. He was the one (along with Varric in Act 2 and 2) responsible
of keeping Anders safe from Meredith and the templars, so that he could
destroy the Chantry. and trigger a world-class conflict.

I swear I knew he was up to no good, and was screaming for the dialogue option to just plain kill the abombination like I'd been wanting to since I met him. I just didn't like Anders in the first place though.

Well, with rival Anders you can convince him that he's going too far, and he tries to to stop his plan. To bad that Justice doesn't like his change of heart.

[EpicBoot2daFace]

hhh89 wrote...

Janan Pacha wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

Hawke had indeed a role in the mage-templar
conflict. He was the one (along with Varric in Act 2 and 2) responsible
of keeping Anders safe from Meredith and the templars, so that he could
destroy the Chantry. and trigger a world-class conflict.

I swear I knew he was up to no good, and was screaming for the dialogue option to just plain kill the abombination like I'd been wanting to since I met him. I just didn't like Anders in the first place though.

Well, with rival Anders you can convince him that he's going too far, and he tries to to stop his plan. To bad that Justice doesn't like his change of heart.

I hate what they did to Justice. They completely ruined his character along with Anders.

[grumpymooselion]

[quote]EJ107 wrote...

It was kind of a problem in DA:O, but only accentuated in DA:2. I had no problems with Kirwall being brown and grey, it made sense considering the city was, for all intents and purposes, an old quarry. The problem was that this was the only area, and Origins had variety. [/quote]

But it wasn't?  And the locations besides Kirkwall you gave weren't even all of them.[/quote]

I saw mines, the underground city, the deep roads, massive shining lirium vein growths, beaches and sea-side trails, mountains, caves, a greeen green forest, a massive city with a distinct lowtown, hightown, dock, chantry and keep - not to mention the wonderful statue/metal work sculpture/etchings/carvings/paintings/graffiti and more throughout the city and all over the game in general. We even got to see another green forest and another large castle in a DLC and a vast forgotten ruin in yet another DLC. And more.

I won't deny DA2's problems, but point them out where they are. The issue was that they re-used the same environments several times over (due to the game being put on super sonic development speed, and coming out unfinished and buggy as a result). That was a problem, but the amount of area types wasn't the issue, it was that, to create this amount, they re-used the same exact area several times over, instead of making several different locations. This was actually a problem present in DA:O as well, if you look for it, showing that Bioware actually seem to do this a lot during early development . . . some of it getting left in the game for DA:O but to a much lesser extent. The only differentiating factor was DA2 having less time, being kicked out far too early, and thus not having those copy paste areas made more unique.

DA:O wasn't a big game, it really didn't have much more than DA2. It was bigger than DA2, no doubt, but it was quite claustrophobic itself. The major difference was simply the time it was given to develop, and it had much - much - more time, for what amounts to far less difference than you'd think in size of the games.

[quote]THE HANDS... OH GOD, THE HANDS! Origins had nothing like this! sorry for the colossal post by the way.
[/quote]

The post was just fine, not too big at all, but the hands in DA:O were ungodly massive only further adding to DA:O horribly proportioned bodies.

[Ianamus]

Janan Pacha wrote...

EJ107 wrote...

It was kind of a problem in DA:O, but only accentuated in DA:2. I had no problems with Kirwall being brown and grey, it made sense considering the city was, for all intents and purposes, an old quarry. The problem was that this was the only area, and Origins had variety.

But it wasn't?  And the locations besides Kirkwall you gave weren't even all of them.

The only non-kirkwall locations I didnt mention were the cut-and paste mine dungeons, of which there was 1 used about 3 times (ocassionally with everything reversed, if I remember correctly), the ledge-bit for the bone pit and the starting area. 

Modifié par EJ107, 12 mars 2013 - 06:30 .

[The Elder King]

EpicBoot2daFace wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

imbs wrote...

its pretty easy to explain imo. Ea influence. Every franchise they have ever touched has become mediocre. It's a pretty blatant pattern.

EA influenced Bioware in making the hurlocks similar to clown zombies? Or ogres with a retarded look?
I could understand EA's influence on the more action approach in DA2 (and ME2), the MP or something similar, but for the art style, you should point your critics fully at Bioware.

Perhaps. But they do focus-test everything now.

Indeed, but I doubt that they could influence that greatly the work of the artist and the writers. For example, I doubt that EA have any faults in the story, plot (and plotholes) of ME3.
And about DA2, considering that it was probably EA that decided to make DA2 be released that soon, it'd have made sense, in their perspective, to not change the art style, since the development time wasn't that long.

[Howlsfury]

I would not say i disliked it so much, as it confused me. Things like the exploding meat pinatas that are enemy npcs to the change in Elven faces ( i liked it but they went just a tad to far ) to the fact that you went from Origins a game that felt like you had weight, it gave it a feel of realism that helped it stand out and gave it a darker mystique with out going overboard.
Now Despite that, i am one of those people who really liked DA2, it did do some things right ( such as having more varying looking armor) I think they just went a bit to far to try to cover the things that was wrong with DAO on a dyeing rickety engine while being rushed to get the game out. More cartoony looks helps cover some of that stuff up. Its why I'am glad they where given a long development time and use of FB2 engine this time around for DA3. Da3 has some real potential for being an magnum opus for Bioware. /end rant

[grumpymooselion]

hhh89 wrote...

Janan Pacha wrote...

hhh89 wrote...

Hawke had indeed a role in the mage-templar
conflict. He was the one (along with Varric in Act 2 and 2) responsible
of keeping Anders safe from Meredith and the templars, so that he could
destroy the Chantry. and trigger a world-class conflict.

I swear I knew he was up to no good, and was screaming for the dialogue option to just plain kill the abombination like I'd been wanting to since I met him. I just didn't like Anders in the first place though.

Well, with rival Anders you can convince him that he's going too far, and he tries to to stop his plan. To bad that Justice doesn't like his change of heart.

I didn't like Anders enough to use him much, so his friendship/rivalry never really advanced much either way. It was annoying to even deal with him. At least I did see his fall from hopping mad to completely looney over the course of the three acts. I saw it coming. It wasn't out of knowhere. It's just . . . he was completely bloody mad if he actually thought killing the one person who was keeping any semblance of peace would help anyone.

Another option I wanted in DA2 was actually to push to Divine toward selecting a ruler, and knocking both the mages and templars over the head - in addition to a fourth option to take rule into your own hands if you were a Warrior/Rogue. The options I had were great, but there were clear options in these two regards that were begging to be implemented, so much so that both alternatives are mentioned several times but never go anywhere.

[Rawgrim]

Janan Pacha wrote...

DA3 is going to be changing art styles again, from what little we know. They mentioned the Elves specially as somewhere between DA:O and DA2 . . . which makes me wonder if that's the direction of the larger question mark hovering over the overall art style.

hhh89 wrote...

Hawke had indeed a role in the mage-templar
conflict. He was the one (along with Varric in Act 2 and 2) responsible
of keeping Anders safe from Meredith and the templars, so that he could
destroy the Chantry. and trigger a world-class conflict.

I swear I knew he was up to no good, and was screaming for the dialogue option to just plain kill the abombination like I'd been wanting to since I met him. I just didn't like Anders in the first place though.

Indeed. And no matter if you do his quest or not, the chantry still gets blown up. Hawke was just a bystander to events he could not affect at all.