In my opinion the only major problem with DA2 was the reused environments. Despite the story being less 'epic', it worked a hell of a lot better than DA:I's story. A secondary problem for me was dumbing down on the tactical system.
Being acknowledged by the world around you certainly helps in creating depth for the character. What's the point if it's all in your head? It's the case of the tree falling in the forest and no one being around to hear the sound.
As for comparing Hawke to NPCs. I actually believe Hawke would have fit in much much better at the Wicked Grace scene than the IQ. Heck I would have loved a Wicked Grace mini game in DA2 with Hawke hanging out with his companions because they were so freaking good together, disagreements and all. Hawke fit in and felt like one of the many people in Thedas, just another story, albeit a special story. And Hawke has enough of a background to tell just what his life was like in Lothering. Hiding his Mage abilities, going off to learn from his father while his resentful brother keeps watch at home, some random girl had a crush on him (that his brother liked). We can see piece by piece why Carver resented him. We see the type of man his father was in Legacy, how Hawke is just like him in many ways. We know that Hawke's parents loved each other, we know that they did everything they could to keep Hawke safe when he was a baby. How his father hoped he wouldn't become a Mage. If Hawke is sarcastic, we know he's been like this for a long time as his mother mentions this. Even his brother comments on it. "Oh yeah tell your jokes." or something like that.
None of this is headcanon. To say Hawke had no story before DA2 is just wrong. The only headcanon is coming up with the whys about Hawke's personality, but I'm not understanding how that makes Hawke lacking when the IQ's entire freaking background, personality, and motivation is all pure headcanon. How does Hawke stack up to someone like Morrigan, darn fine IMO. As we know both Hawke and Morrigan's background, their relationship with their parent, how they were each raised, how that impacted their behavior, and so on. People can complain about their blood mage Hawke all they like, but Malcolm didn't teach Hawke to embrace blood magic so choosing it as a game play mechanic doesn't mean Hawke will start loving it. Although I did enjoy having specializations commented on in DAI. It would have been nice to be an acknowledged Blood mage or Spirit Healer in DA2. Although Merrill begging my Spirit healer Hawke to heal her friend was good enough for me.
You are missing points. First of all IQ is not NPC, so there is no point discussing or bring him up into this.
Hawke doesn't react to his background much, sure he has a back-story (half of which seems to be hidden in the DLC), but that's not the same thing. The farthest Hawke react in this regard is by bickering with his brother and that's if the said brother is alive and the fact that he is defined as family caretaker which put Hawke on the stage as the main character. This all is quite different with sarcastic Hawke losing his sense of humour over their mother's death.
As for having it all in your head, my point is exactly the opposite of that. It should not be in the head, but right in front of you, on the screen. The environment can help flesh out the character, but it does this best not just by acknowledging that the character exists but by providing opportunities for the character to show and react to it in more than just binary way in which the said character progress the story. A good character has many layers, but Hawke doesn't quite achieves this, not to the level he/she should as the main character.
Again I must point out that this goes for every single PC character in DA, some in lesser extend than others.
Are we grading games on curves now. It was a AAA game from a AAA studio that they had no issue charging full price for. Either what they did worked or it didn't. "It was good for the amount of time they put into it" is not something I will never say if the end product was bad or half assed. I would just be excusing the rush job, the standards should be equal.
As for what would happen at work. If my boss gave me a short deadline and I turned in the financials half assed and incorrectly done I guarantee the CFO would not say these spreadsheets are sloppy and incorrect but for the amount of time You had for this its fine. I would get taken to task by the people who use the numbers and rightfully so. If the job was bad it's bad and the criticism by the people who use it would be more than warranted.
Kindly tone down the snark, please, I am not "grading games on curves". I'm just stating facts: DAO took 5 years to develop and DA2 took a little over one year.
Was DA2 rushed? If you're comparing it to Origins in terms of game-world, story and content, yes. But is laying total blame on BioWare fair? My opinion is 'no' - I feel that EA should take most of the heat for pushing BW with an unreasonable release date and still expecting the same level of quality.
You are missing points. First of all IQ is not NPC, so there is no point discussing or bring him up into this.
Hawke doesn't react to his background much, sure he has a back-story (half of which seems to be hidden in the DLC), but that's not the same thing. The farthest Hawke react in this regard is by bickering with his brother and that's if the said brother is alive and the fact that he is defined as family caretaker which put Hawke on the stage as the main character. This all is quite different with sarcastic Hawke losing his sense of humour over their mother's death.
As for having it all in your head, my point is exactly the opposite of that. It should not be in the head, but right in front of you, on the screen. The environment can help flesh out the character, but it does this best not just by acknowledging that the character exists but by providing opportunities for the character to show and react to it in more than just binary way in which the said character progress the story. A good character has many layers, but Hawke doesn't quite achieves this, not to the level he/she should as the main character.
Again I must point out that this goes for every single PC character in DA, some in lesser extend than others.
I brought the IQ into it because both Hawke and the IQ are leading characters and thus they should be compared. Actually, I think Hawke is the most fleshed out PC out of the three when it comes to personal family history. And I did bring up an NPC, Morrigan. Another character I liked very much and believe was fleshed out well in terms of background, history (pregame and ingame in DAO).
Yes Hawke does react. Hawke talks to his mother about his father, Leandra has brought up their past more than once, the dynamic between Hawke and Carver where both express familiarity with Carver's attitude toward Hawke and him being a Mage growing up. I've only had Bethany once but I do recall her mentioning how things were growing up as well. A large chuck of DA2's game is all about the Hawke family. No need for a DLC. The only thing you learn in the DLC is that Malcolm Hawke used Blood Magic and his family was threatened by Larius. And you get some insight into Malcolm Hawke's teachings. Other than that, you already know That Malcolm and Leandra were from two different backgrounds, fell in love, and ran away together. And Hawke certainly comments on this during the convos with his family. You can even call your grandmother a ******.
I'm not saying Hawke is perfect, the rivalry/friend system needed tweaking, and more reactivity could never hurt whether it's NPCs reacting to the PC and vice versa but BW was on to something good with him, at least he could actually have a conversation with people instead of make a single statement, hear the other's opinion, then walk away or ask question #42.
I brought the IQ into it because both Hawke and the IQ are leading characters and thus they should be compared. Actually, I think Hawke is the most fleshed out PC out of the three when it comes to personal family history. And I did bring up an NPC, Morrigan. Another character I liked very much and believe was fleshed out well in terms of background, history (pregame and ingame in DAO).
Yes Hawke does react. Hawke talks to his mother about his father, Leandra has brought up their past more than once, the dynamic between Hawke and Carver where both express familiarity with Carver's attitude toward Hawke and him being a Mage growing up. I've only had Bethany once but I do recall her mentioning how things were growing up as well. A large chuck of DA2's game is all about the Hawke family. No need for a DLC. The only thing you learn in the DLC is that Malcolm Hawke used Blood Magic and his family was threatened by Larius. And you get some insight into Malcolm Hawke's teachings. Other than that, you already know That Malcolm and Leandra were from two different backgrounds, fell in love, and ran away together. And Hawke certainly comments on this during the convos with his family. You can even call your grandmother a ******.
I'm not saying Hawke is perfect, the rivalry/friend system needed tweaking, and more reactivity could never hurt whether it's NPCs reacting to the PC and vice versa but BW was on to something good with him, at least he could actually have a conversation with people instead of make a single statement, hear the other's opinion, then walk away or ask question #42.
I'm just going to say that "commenting" is not the reaction I'm talking about and leave it at that, because I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing and I'm not sure if I can explain it any differently than I have before.
Are we grading games on curves now. It was a AAA game from a AAA studio that they had no issue charging full price for. Either what they did worked or it didn't. "It was good for the amount of time they put into it" is not something I will never say if the end product was bad or half assed. I would just be excusing the rush job, the standards should be equal.
As for what would happen at work. If my boss gave me a short deadline and I turned in the financials half assed and incorrectly done I guarantee the CFO would not say these spreadsheets are sloppy and incorrect but for the amount of time You had for this its fine. I would get taken to task by the people who use the numbers and rightfully so. If the job was bad it's bad and the criticism by the people who use it would be more than warranted.
It's kind of a different case when talking about a creative work, and unlike something like financials, it's not totally a matter of fact whether or not the end result really works.
By all means, yes.
DA2 had really great potential, but failed to deliver in almost every important aspect - due to either time restriction, budget restriction or just plain old laziness.
To be honest, I'd love to see a personal story (but written properly and with direction!) of a customizable hero in form of Dragon Age 4.
I'd love to see it set in a vast, open city - preferably Minranthous (they said action is moving to Tevinter, and this setting has so much potential) with some surrounding areas. Focused, story driven game with not so global consequences, but instead filled with secrets, expanding upon worlds' lore, political intrigue, characters with their own agendas (something BioWare is getting better and better at), alliances and betrayals and actions that have actual, game changing consequences.
All done in a stunning, detailed city with the size of areas in Inquisition. That's a game I want to buy.
Guest_ShadowHawk28_*
By all means, yes.
DA2 had really great potential, but failed to deliver in almost every important aspect - due to either time restriction, budget restriction or just plain old laziness.
To be honest, I'd love to see a personal story (but written properly and with direction!) of a customizable hero in form of Dragon Age 4.
I'd love to see it set in a vast, open city - preferably Minranthous (they said action is moving to Tevinter, and this setting has so much potential) with some surrounding areas. Focused, story driven game with not so global consequences, but instead filled with secrets, expanding upon worlds' lore, political intrigue, characters with their own agendas (something BioWare is getting better and better at), alliances and betrayals and actions that have actual, game changing consequences.
All done in a stunning, detailed city with the size of areas in Inquisition. That's a game I want to buy.
Im thinking it was all 3: time restriction, budget restriction and plain old laziness for DA2.
I'm just going to say that "commenting" is not the reaction I'm talking about and leave it at that, because I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing and I'm not sure if I can explain it any differently than I have before.
No problem. We just have different opinion on reaction, because I consider a back and forth covno a reaction, as well as seeing him saddened by the death of his mother, a reaction.
Im thinking it was all 3: time restriction, budget restriction and plain old laziness for DA2.
True, I heard that the reason why the dungeons in Oblivion were so crappy was because they had only one guy working on all of them. I can't imagine them having only one guy working on those caves et al in DA2.
Guest_ShadowHawk28_*
True, I heard that the reason why the dungeons in Oblivion were so crappy was because they had only one guy working on all of them. I can't imagine them having only one guy working on those caves et al in DA2.
i wouldn't be surprised if it turned out just as you described it. LOL
True, I heard that the reason why the dungeons in Oblivion were so crappy was because they had only one guy working on all of them. I can't imagine them having only one guy working on those caves et al in DA2.
How many guys do you really need to design 3 caves? There were two different outskirts caves, one dwarven dungeon and one house/mansion area.
I'm pretty sure one guy could do this in half a year 
.
DA2 had a lot of good things. I liked how the story was paced. I did not like re used environments and the usual problems people have with DA2. I also didn't like friendship/rivalry system. No one actually behaves like that, its pointless and encourages players to game dialogue instead of actually caring. But other than that the game was solid. Came out the same year as Skyrim, so it was really overshadowed as far as 2011 RPGs. (Yes I know the two are very different blah blah)
Pfft, a failed experiment my ass. It was the blatent rush job, dev's denial, wtf orsino moment, that made most people mad. DA2 did not completely fail,: people liked the characters, most of the story, humerous Hawke, and ect.
They should just come out and admit that they did a half-assed job, and thought people wouldn't notice. It backfired on them, and long term sales suffered.
Ultimatly the fault was with Bioware/EA and not the games concept, or characters.
You're not going to get an argument with me. What they saw as a "failed experiment" I saw as unrealized potential hurt because of zero time to develop the game. It's what I was talking about. Instead of refining and retooling, they burnt the whole franchise to ground (again) and gave us a third Dragon Age game that tried way to hard to please way too many different niche audiences and ultimately created an underwhelming, bland experience that most people kind of shrug their shoulders at. A kind of "okay, I guess this is Dragon Age now. I guess I need to collect elfroot and place a flower on that dude's wife's grave....fun stuff...."
It sure looks pretty and the devs are probably thrilled about that. But, it's not fun to actually PLAY. Again, speaking for myself.
You're not going to get an argument with me. What they saw as a "failed experiment" I saw as unrealized potential hurt because of zero time to develop the game. It's what I was talking about. Instead of refining and retooling, they burnt the whole franchise to ground (again) and gave us a third Dragon Age game that tried way to hard to please way too many different niche audiences and ultimately created an underwhelming, bland experience that most people kind of shrug their shoulders at. A kind of "okay, I guess this is Dragon Age now. I guess I need to collect elfroot and place a flower on that dude's wife's grave....fun stuff...."
It sure looks pretty and the devs are probably thrilled about that. But, it's not fun to actually PLAY. Again, speaking for myself.
To be fair, similar criticism was made when they shifted from DAO to DA2. Doing a similar shift from DAI wasn't that big of an issue to me, or changing the focus to big maps and exploration. Even the change in the combat system and removing healing actually fit, for me, what they had tried to do in DA2, where there was a constant effort to force the player to be present in the combat situation instead of just watching it move roll out. While none of those switches in focus weren't really appealing to me, they didn't need to be and for me at that point it was more of a sign of how strong the Dragon Age world was. You could tell these massively different stories in it, do these vastly different games in it, and it was still Dragon Age, it was still Thedas, which is something very few gaming universes is able to do.
For me personally, things became troublesome with some of the terms used before and after the publication of the game. When promoting DA2, the developers did talk about what they hoped to improve from DAO and I never saw those comments as the bashing they were often referred to as, as all developers are probably left with a feeling of what could be done better or wanting to try new things instead of just churning out a clone. The same thing mostly happened with the promotion of DAI, with the developers discussing what was better this time around, which again, seems like a normal way to talk about an ever-evolving product. At that moment, there were a couple of things that were really puzzling such as Day 1 DLC decision and those failure comments, which I didn't pay attention so much at the time. Then came the award acceptance speech in which it was thoroughly stressed how this was Bioware returning to form, which you usually only do if you fail at something. It also ended up giving those failure comments a pretty strong new context.
The thing is, completely independent of what DAI is or isn't, despite DA2 having its vocal critics, it also has a lot of fans who go out of their to proclaim their love for it and the things it managed to do even with such a crazy production cycle. Why would one of the primary forces behind the game tell those same fans that they themselves consider the game a failure? What exactly is achieved by that? How does that make any future game better? Are those fans now worthless because they didn't spend their time viciously bashing Bioware on the boards? Part of me is sad about it because it makes it unlikely that we will see something more experimental in their future titles, although I keep my hope up with the new IP and the ME team, but also some of me just sad that the makers of a rare game that actually said something to me chose not to stand behind that game. At the same time I am somewhat amused by my reaction, as my favorite Alan Moore comic of all time is The Killing Joke and reading what Moore has to say about TKJ is always a blast.
At the end here I do wish to apologize monologuing in such a manner and stress that I do not claim that Bioware should ultimately care what I think about this. I doubt anyone is rushing to Laidlaw's office at the moment screaming how there is a person at the internet sad about what was said, actually I would be extremely concerned if that were to happen. And it doesn't in anyway affect my enjoyment DA2, which still remains to me one of my favorite games of all time. I guess now I can only enjoy as the crazy diamond the like of which will not be seen in a long time.
I think DA2 would have been a much better game if it wasn't rushed out the door. That would have given Bioware time to make all the maps unique, make the city prettier and fuller, and make a great concluding Act 3. Those 3 things were the biggest problem with DA2, and problems that have to be attributed to being rushed.
It was nice to have a version of Hawke who could be sarcastic and humorous. I missed that in DA:I. My Inquisitor is always so earnest and serious.
Why not? They got it right the first time when it was called Baldur's Gate II. They could have a return to glory.
If they do another game in a similar style to DA2, BG2 should be looked at because of one thing in particular. Athkatla.
Athkatla came across as so much bigger and more "alive" than Kirkwall, with more to see and do. The same goes for both Origins and Inquisition to be honest.
It's one thing to increase the scale of areas to explore, but I always feel that urban and suburban areas in Inquisition were crying out to be bigger and more populated by friendly/neutral NPCs.
The palace in the Wicked Hearts mission certainly felt more immersive than other areas, because of both how populated it was and how much there was to explore.
Skyrim and the Mass Effect sequels had this issue as well though, and it most certainly comes down to pushing graphics/visuals further than a previous installment in a series.
Dying Light (though a zombie survival game) has impressive graphics in so far as the quality scales well between highest and lowest. It also has extremely highly populated areas and two extremely large open areas to explore and travel around. The day & night transitioning is a welcome mechanic, not because of the change in danger to the player, but simply because it is a day/night transition.
If they don't try and push graphical quality further for the next DA game and work with what they've been able to achieve so far on that front, then they can devote more resources to creating and populating more expansive areas to make them feel more immersive.
Not to mention it opens up possibility for larger scale battles, where it feels like you're actually in the midst of a deadly melee between at least two armies.
That was one thing I like about the combat in Mount & blade + Warband. The gameplay of combat and scale of battle was the focus of design over making things look pretty.
Kindly tone down the snark, please, I am not "grading games on curves". I'm just stating facts: DAO took 5 years to develop and DA2 took a little over one year.
Was DA2 rushed? If you're comparing it to Origins in terms of game-world, story and content, yes. But is laying total blame on BioWare fair? My opinion is 'no' - I feel that EA should take most of the heat for pushing BW with an unreasonable release date and still expecting the same level of quality.
It's kind of a different case when talking about a creative work, and unlike something like financials, it's not totally a matter of fact whether or not the end result really works.
It was nice to have a version of Hawke who could be sarcastic and humorous. I missed that in DA:I. My Inquisitor is always so earnest and serious.
The Inquisitor is funnier than Sebastian, at least.
The Inquisitor is funnier than Sebastian, at least.
I quite liked Sebastian. He was someone who stuck to his principles. And as such, he was a welcome contrast to the other characters in DA2.
The Inquisitor is funnier than Sebastian, at least.
It's like saying that someone is more entertaining than a rock.
The funniest thing about Sebastian was Varric in DA:I making fun of him.
Which is fine - not every character need nor should be a comedian.
I quite liked Sebastian. He was someone who stuck to his principles. And as such, he was a welcome contrast to the other characters in DA2.
I would actually argue that almost all the characters in DA2 were deeply principled. It is just that in some of those cases those principles were somewhat extreme. Besides, how were Varric or Merrill unprincipled even in the traditional sense?
A controvesial question!
Well, not for me. DA2 gets a lot of flak for the wrong reasons. But I liked the idea of the game. Basically DA2 was probably meant to be the full-game-origin-story for Hawke, setting her up as the main hero of Inquisition. Some people moan about the lack of depth of our current inquisitor...well, now imagine instead of a short little quest in DAI we would have had an entire game the size and scope of DA2 to set up our hero(s)?
What I mean is: Make a game similar to DA2...not about saving the world and all the uber-stuff...but smaller in scope, yet still with a hero we can create, and then later import into the "grander" game ... a playable, full-game prologue to DA4...
Needs to be done well, of course (no recycling of levels, not feeling too "cliff-hanging" in the end etc). But really, why not?
Alternatively, even without such a connection to a bigger game later...some smaller games, with their own heroes set in different parts of Thedas? Why not? I'd totally play a DA-game set in Antiva, or Nevarra, that is self-contained and stand-alone, and not tying-in into the "larger" Thedas-affecting stories, like a spin-off
I agree, OP - the core elements that I look for in a Bioware game (character & story) were present in DA2, so I was very happy with the end result despite the missed opportunities and cut corners. If DA4 advertised (for example) a Tevinter-centric story of one person's rise from slavery to power I would be down - I don't need to be trotting around the world or solving some grand Thedas-encompassing problem to feel like my character made an impact. All I need are characters I can invest my time and affection in, and a PC that inspires me to replay and replay and replay. And replay and replay. And then replay again.
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