317 réponses à ce sujet

[Lucky Thirteen]

Too many games out side of Bioware's stuff have been crap for me. ME3 literally has been the breaking point where I don't want to preorder games anymore, no matter how much I enjoy the previous parts of the series.

 

I'm especially wary as more and more developers adapt their games to "statistics" and proceed to butcher their sequels into something awful, cutting out great features all because they think they will save time and money for themselves.

 

I want to wait for consumer reviews of the games and just wait for the price drops. Favorite critics of mine are even untrustworthy to me now.  With both DAO & DA2 I actually waited for consumer reviews and spoiled myself on a lot of stuff before buying months/years after their release. I played DA2 first and ended up enjoying that game very much, all after listening to what players were saying about it. Yes, DA2 gets a lot of flack, but when I looked at what people were saying critically, such as saying the game was ruined because gay people and women and non-white people, I got a good idea what was a real problem and what wasn't.

 

I'm going to treat DA:I the same way and I'm going to read every spoiler.

[Sidney]

Most RPG tropes bore the hell out of me. I care about the story and characters not the game mechanics so much. The things that spill so many tears here REALLY don't interest me. Companion dress up..,.seriously?!?! I thought ME2 and JE were two of the best games for doing away with inventory management for example. I loved ME2 for not giving me XP for pointlessly killing every minor minion. Unlike others the spoken dialog doesn't bother me because the written dialog didn't say I wanted anyways -- apparently only hearing dialog you didn't want to say bothers people. I enjoyed DA2 despite the obviously rushed nature. For an 18 month game it was actually pretty good. I thought ME3 was a fine game other than the ending bit but I'm not sure there was a good ending at that point.

[Eledran]

I did not dislike Dragon Age 2, even though I was disappointed with the duplicated dungeons and the lack of variety in the zones. I'm also not one of the people who keep nagging about the ME3 ending, the biggest problem was that it was too abrupt and didn't give the kind of closure that the trilogy deserved. Otherwise I was fine with it. People also seem to forget that the gameplay in ME3 was improved a lot over ME2.

 

Their biggest failure was SW:TOR in my eyes. I followed that game intensely but there's no denying that it was managed extremely badly and that stupid design decisions were made.

 

However, I fully trust that I'll like DA:I. Because:

1) I'm just a sucker for that kind of isometric tactical play. There aren't too many games out there that still do the kind of play you saw in Baldur's Gate and NWN. Most of the other games go for turn-based instead, which is a totally different feel.

 

2) Even though there were some disappointments in recent years, Bioware has never let me down in terms of VALUE. There are no other game companies that I've clocked in so many hours with on their games combined, except perhaps Bethesda. My first DA2 playthrough was like 55 hours (I'm not the kind who goes easy difficulty and skips dialogue) and I played it twice. The same goes to an even greater extent with their other games.

 

Honestly, with most other games that come out nowadays, you can be happy if you manage to get 10 hours of gameplay out of them. Except if they're 4X games or something, which take long by default (and not because of the storyline).

[nihiliste]

Most RPG tropes bore the hell out of me. I care about the story and characters not the game mechanics so much. The things that spill so many tears here REALLY don't interest me. Companion dress up..,.seriously?!?! I thought ME2 and JE were two of the best games for doing away with inventory management for example. I loved ME2 for not giving me XP for pointlessly killing every minor minion. Unlike others the spoken dialog doesn't bother me because the written dialog didn't say I wanted anyways -- apparently only hearing dialog you didn't want to say bothers people. I enjoyed DA2 despite the obviously rushed nature. For an 18 month game it was actually pretty good. I thought ME3 was a fine game other than the ending bit but I'm not sure there was a good ending at that point.

 

In terms of story - I agree, it is the most important thing to me in an RPG.  And yet, there are amazing books out there if all I want is a story.  The lack of player agency in the last two major Bioware releases was the primary problem for me and the one I'm most wary of in the future.  The decline in writing quality for DA2 I hope was simply a function of the rushed schedule.  Quite frankly the two best stories in cRPGs that I've played in the past 15 years were Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer - both that took a much more nuanced and thought provoking approach to exploring a personal story than DA2 - they both had their gameplay flaws too but were far superior games.

 

As for gameplay, the changes you describe are relatively immaterial taken one at a time but the summation of many of them create an altogether different experience than what I'm personally interested in.  I'm not particularly interested in a hack and slash game where I click a couple of buttons and hordes of identical monsters die around me. That's not to say the old games didn't have their flaws, but we're now at an endpoint than has very little resemblance to its starting point.  I'm curious to see how much of that DA:I reverses, if at all.

 

I loved DA:O for bringing back some old conventions but maintaing what I thought was a pretty modern direction for RPGs.  But the games that came after were a big tipping point for me personally, away from the style I enjoy.

[AlanC9]

I believe Sidney's point was that CRPG conventions typically give the player too much agency, so this is a case of irreconcilable difference in tastes.

[nihiliste]

I believe Sidney's point was that CRPG conventions typically give the player too much agency, so this is a case of irreconcilable difference in tastes.

 

Indeed it is.

[Sidney]

In terms of story - I agree, it is the most important thing to me in an RPG.  And yet, there are amazing books out there if all I want is a story.  The lack of player agency in the last two major Bioware releases was the primary problem for me and the one I'm most wary of in the future.  The decline in writing quality for DA2 I hope was simply a function of the rushed schedule.  Quite frankly the two best stories in cRPGs that I've played in the past 15 years were Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer - both that took a much more nuanced and thought provoking approach to exploring a personal story than DA2 - they both had their gameplay flaws too but were far superior games.
 
As for gameplay, the changes you describe are relatively immaterial taken one at a time but the summation of many of them create an altogether different experience than what I'm personally interested in.  I'm not particularly interested in a hack and slash game where I click a couple of buttons and hordes of identical monsters die around me. That's not to say the old games didn't have their flaws, but we're now at an endpoint than has very little resemblance to its starting point.  I'm curious to see how much of that DA:I reverses, if at all.
 
I loved DA:O for bringing back some old conventions but maintaing what I thought was a pretty modern direction for RPGs.  But the games that came after were a big tipping point for me personally, away from the style I enjoy.

Yes PST was a great story, likely the best in any video game. Fair to say not much will measure up to that, MOTB might have been good but like anything by Obsidian the bugs got so much in the way it was hard to know.

Not sure how you had less agency in any of the last 2 games than the first DAO or the first ME let alone BG2 for example - unless you are gonna whine about dress up Barbie gameplay. Here is where the die hards will always parse every minute detail of BG2 or DAO and high level summarize DA2 or ME3 to make them seem different.

As for hack n slash killing hordes of identical monsters the heck are you even talking about? DAO was a raft of dungeon crawling,trash job killing nonsense that I ran on any level as a series of scripts. BG2 was if anything as bad if not worse. DA2 had a ton of flaws but you had to do more to manage your battles than DAO...granted it was because of the suck wave mechanic but if you just want to hit hack n slash DA2 required more planning than DAO to win an average fight.

[Sidney]

I believe Sidney's point was that CRPG conventions typically give the player too much agency, so this is a case of irreconcilable difference in tastes.

No, it is that agency is about playing a role, not the rolls of the game. I care about the content of a man's character not his wardrobe and ability to dress his adult friends. A game like Skyrim has a crap ton of customization but none that that really counts as agency because, well, there is no story to even care enough about to build a character. Saying that a character is a dark elf Mage who specializes in fire and wears armor of the Phoenix and uses the staff of wurblegarble doesn't tell me anything about that character. It is Lucasian in the shallowness of letting that define a character. I can tell you what my Warden, Hawke or Shep would do in almost any setting, I can't even recall the name of a character I played in any elder scroll or recent fallout game.

[nihiliste]

As for hack n slash killing hordes of identical monsters the heck are you even talking about? DAO was a raft of dungeon crawling,trash job killing nonsense that I ran on any level as a series of scripts. BG2 was if anything as bad if not worse. DA2 had a ton of flaws but you had to do more to manage your battles than DAO...granted it was because of the suck wave mechanic but if you just want to hit hack n slash DA2 required more planning than DAO to win an average fight.

 

This applies to what you say about the narrative as well but much more so to your assessment of gameplay - we have pretty much the opposite perspective on everything.

 

DA:O had way too much trash combat - that's what made it a lot less interesting to me than BG2 gameplay wise.  But there were enough other aspects of the game that I enjoyed that I could overlook it.  I can't imagine you ever ran BG2 on scripts since the AI was terrible - but certainly the combat required significant hands on involvement to move through many of the encounters - any of the party vs party encounters (e.g. in the Underdark), Firkraag, Kangaxx, etc.  The other good thing about the gameplay in those games was that the enemies played by essentially the same rules as you, minus whatever special species or class abilities they had.  They could incapacitate you with the same spells that you attack them with and they could counter your attacks with the same defenses you use.

 

DA:2 could easily be played without ever shifting to take control of a party member. The best thing about the combat in DA2 are the cross class combos but they're hardly necessary to navigate encounters; sure they help you deal with the ridiculous HP bloat of enemies faster but that's its own problem.  Boring encounter design, lack of need to rely on party management, ridiculous trash mobs of things like level scaled bandits, and lack of the isometric view made it feel like an entirely different gameplay experience than what I'm personally interested in.

 

I'm not trying to say that the changes are objectively bad things - I imagine there are many people who prefer them.  But its not for me.

[MisterJB]

No. Why? Because...

[Cyonan]

I'm not pre-ordering the games, but then I don't pre-order anything because I'll be buying it digitally and pre-ordering just feels irrelevant to me for a digital purchase. No matter what game it is, I can wait the extra couple of hours which I'll probably be sleeping through most of to see if it's a complete disaster or not. It saves me from buying things like Aliens: Colonial Marines, and it's not like the server is going to run out of copies.

 

Then again I'm also of the "Dragon Age 2 wasn't that bad" crowd. Certainly not without flaws and not really up to the level of quality I expected from BioWare, but not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be.

[AlanC9]

This applies to what you say about the narrative as well but much more so to your assessment of gameplay - we have pretty much the opposite perspective on everything.

 

 

 

Can't be everything if you're both still here.

[Thandal N'Lyman]

I'll defintiely be pre-ordering Inqusition. 

 

I have an incredible amount of faith in the abilities of the DA:I team.  That faith is justified, (in my mind) by the entire DA:O experience, and the story and characters of DA2.  Since those last two factors are far more important to me than the shortcomings found in DA2; "overuse of map areas", "kiting enemies", "absurd combat animations", etc., etc., I'm very optimistic.  And of course the biggest shortcoming of all for DA2 -- the rushed release date --  isn't the case for DA:I.

 

I just hope it's still going to be offered for pre-order as a physical boxed product on disc! 

(I know that a disc version will be available through other retailers, but can anyone from EA/BioWare confirm that there'll be a physical edition available for pre-order since the EA/Origin store switched to download-only this month.)

[Eshaye]

I'm a Bioware fan through and through and will always pre order every new thing they do as long as they make RPG's. To me they are still kings and queens of story telling and there are no other games that enthrall me as much as their games and allow me to play a character I can design. That's worth all my attention to me. It might not be to others, but what Biowares does with their games at their base design means a lot to my enjoyment. \

 

I don't understand all the hate towards certain games even if they do disappoint. Yes the ending of ME3 doesn't do the series justice, and we've said our due, that doesn't mean every game or series after that will be the same. I've seen Bioware change over the years, some for better and some for worse, but at least they change and are willing to hear what we say, however reluctant they may be to admit it. 

 

Unless Bioware suddenly starts making games that no longer supports a character creator, great stories and memorable characters I will always be a fan and will more then likely always pre order, and buy the game over and again on different platforms. Not to mention the art books, novels, comics, t-shirts and such lying around in my home right now. 

 

And I love DAII. Muah ha ha. 

[General TSAR]

Dragon Age II was break for me, now I have an obligation to see this monstrosity end kind of like Star Wars fans in viewing the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. But who knows? maybe BioWare can pull off some magic and make Inquisition extraordinary. 

[Mockingword]

Why do you have an 'obligation'?

 

What if Dragon Age never ends?

[General TSAR]

Why do you have an 'obligation'?

 

As a fan of Dragon Age Origins and Awakening.

 

What if Dragon Age never ends?

 

Then I'll be disappointed in the cooking of the duck meat. 

[Mockingword]

As a fan of Dragon Age Origins and Awakening.

I'm a fan of lots of things, but I don't buy every single product in those franchises.

[Aremce]

Ok, personally, I don't have any second thoughts about buying DA:I. I won't pre-order it, though ... just buy it the day it comes into the stores here. I don't feel like taking a risk. I love both DA:O and 2 and what I've seen about DA:I so far excites me to no end. The chances that I'll love this game are in fact so very high, it's basically certain.

[General TSAR]

I'm a fan of lots of things, but I don't buy every single product in those franchises.

I only buy the games, not "every single product" in the franchise.

[Han Shot First]

I'm part of an incredibly niche market, and although for the most part I don't like the direction Bioware is taking, they are still the only ones that will make tactical RPGs like Dragon Age. So if I don't like DA:I I am very likely to whine a lot but Bioware is the only dealer on the block and I need to get my fix.

 

They are even more niche when you consider that they are one of the few RPG developers who craft RPGs where the characters are the focus. Most are like Bethesda games, where the world is the focus and the characters an afterthought. If you prefer the former...there is Bioware and maybe CD Projekt Red. And that's it.

[mopotter]

No.  Won't make or break me.  

 

I'll just wait to see what the game is like before buying it.  If it's something that interest  me,  I'll get it asap.  It if isn't something I'm interested in I won't get it. 

 

I'm still debating with myself on DA:I.  I like what I've heard and seen, it's not the same character from previous games and I adore David G.  I'm on the cliff, getting closer to pre-ordering, but sill undecided and not ready to take the leap yet.  

[AlanC9]

 
I just hope it's still going to be offered for pre-order as a physical boxed product on disc! 
(I know that a disc version will be available through other retailers, but can anyone from EA/BioWare confirm that there'll be a physical edition available for pre-order since the EA/Origin store switched to download-only this month.)

Meaning that EA might be planning to hog all the pre-orders?

[Bail_Darilar]

Regardless of how I feel about certain aspects of some of the games, I have never regretted a purchase. So to answer no it won't.

[Mockingword]

I only buy the games, not "every single product" in the franchise.

That's still an awful lot of money to spend on something you don't really want and don't think you'll like.

 

But whatever man, it ain't my money.