295 réponses à ce sujet

[Hiemoth]

If it had been the one they wanted to make (incidentally, they say this with every game), it wouldn't have been the one they made when they only had 11 months to do it.

 

Really, if there was a game BioWare really wanted to make, I suggest that was DAO.  They spent years as an independent company developing that game, and so thoroughly did they not kowtow to publishers' expectations that they couldn't sell the game when it was done (thus forcing them to sell the whole studio to recover from funding its development).

 

For people who believe that BioWare died when EA bought them, it must then be true that DAO killed BioWare (much as Wizardry 8 killed Sir-Tech, and Wizardry 8 is similarly excellent).

 

This argument is insanely self-serving. Bioware really only wanted to make the game I liked, hence it is a good game. It ignores outside factors and pressures, as no sane game company tries to put out a game in a such a short time. Besides, if it truly woudl be that Bioware didn't want to make DA2, then why would have tried so many new things with it instead of just copying the mechanics from DAO?

[Sylvius the Mad]

This argument is insanely self-serving. Bioware really only wanted to make the game I liked, hence it is a good game. It ignores outside factors and pressures, as no sane game company tries to put out a game in a such a short time. Besides, if it truly woudl be that Bioware didn't want to make DA2, then why would have tried so many new things with it instead of just copying the mechanics from DAO?

We can't know the minds of BioWare. This is my point. Any argument that claims to advance a comparable position is equally baseless.

And it's not "the game I liked." While I do prefer DAO to DA2, DAO is perhaps my fourth favourite BioWare game, and DAI surpasses it in my opinion.

If I wantes to argue that they really wanted to make my preferred game, I would have agreed with their most recent marketing claims and said they wanted to make DAI.

Your objection is also unfalsifiable, thus making it unhelpful.

[straykat]

We can't know the minds of BioWare. This is my point. Any argument that claims to advance a comparable position is equally baseless.

And it's not "the game I liked." While I do prefer DAO to DA2, DAO is perhaps my fourth favourite BioWare game, and DAI surpasses it in my opinion.

If I wantes to argue that they really wanted to make my preferred game, I would have agreed with their most recent marketing claims and said they wanted to make DAI.

Your objection is also unfalsifiable, thus making it unhelpful.

 

If you consider yourself a hardcore rpg and/or pnp fan, I just don't understand this at all.

 

And then you act like this game is really open, when it's just as focused as any of the others in the series. Just because they crammed in options in the last year to appease people who whined about DA2 doesn't change that. Lastly, you're a mage fan, but you favor the most boneheaded mage game of the bunch. Then you scoff at DA2, but it carries much of the same animations for mages as DA2. Just worse gameplay. Then the first thing always out of your mouth is trivial nonsense about camera angles. To focus on such a thing as some sort of winning feature is bizarre. It doesn't make a difference. Autodialogue cinematics are bad, but that's not what "pulled in" cameras always mean. I don't even know why I have to say that.

[AlanC9]

If you consider yourself a hardcore rpg and/or pnp fan, I just don't understand this at all.
 

Doesn't that imply that you two have different definitions of what it means to be a hardcore fan?

[Lucca_de_Neon]

Doesn't that imply that you two have different definitions of what it means to be a hardcore fan?

[Ahglock]

Doesn't that imply that you two have different definitions of what it means to be a hardcore fan?

I'm pretty sure it was established in section 5 subparagraph 3 line 28 that there is only one accepted definition of a RPG for which we derive our fandom.

[Seraphim24]

I'm pretty sure it was established in section 5 subparagraph 3 line 28 that there is only one accepted definition of a RPG for which we derive our fandom.

 

It's actually section 5 subparagraph 3 line 39, specifically, the appendices on "RPG mechanics exhibit A"

 

Which brings me to why Dragon Age 2 is so good, it's a confession that all these big open world chernabogs don't actually know what makes for a great game at all, and consequently is a lot better than nearly all of them.

 

Has anyone seriously tried to play Skyrim or even SWTOR, and the like, without being tethered to the map and waypoints? It's impossible, heck, eve in Dragon Age 2, as small it is, it's still not possible to play organically, people go "oh in the house by the docks" it's like well er which house.

 

It's extremely dense and sumptious gameplay which is a rare commodity in todays "gaming" environment, especially the AAA one.

[Seraphim24]

As for Sarcastic Hawke it's hardly the most central element attracting me to Dragon Age 2 but there I would have to single out SHawke and Merrill's interactions as being pretty memorable... there was one thing I was trying to find where Merrill says something and it literally cuts to Hawke who just stares blank faced back at Merrill who then picks it up again it's just perfo.

 

It's on Sundermount somewhere.

[GoldenGail3]

As for Sarcastic Hawke it's hardly the most central element attracting me to Dragon Age 2 but there I would have to single out SHawke and Merrill's interactions as being pretty memorable... there was one thing I was trying to find where Merrill says something and it literally cuts to Hawke who just stares blank faced back at Merrill who then picks it up again it's just perfo.
 
It's on Sundermount somewhere.

To me, Snarky Hawke defeats all!

[Seraphim24]

To me, Snarky Hawke defeats all!

 

I know right! Honestly though DA2 in general like this stuff is like comedy gold... I mean there's serious stuff too but yeah you know..

 

 

It's amazing to me now that nerdy and geeky humor is mass commercialized the world over Bioware can still manage to stand out on stuff like that..

[Hanako Ikezawa]

If they do add a sarcastic tone, there's one line of dialogue I'm never choosing. I hate Sarcastic Hawke.

[Seraphim24]

Hahaha oh my god and the similar thing was ME2 all the silly stuff there

 

[Seraphim24]

If they do add a sarcastic tone, there's one line of dialogue I'm never choosing. I hate Sarcastic Hawke.

 

I don't really view sarcastic Hawke as cruel though, most of the time s/he is pointing stuff out.. but honestly another thing is s/he doesn't really press it on people that aren't that way.. like I pointed out the whole thing with Merrill because the sarcastic options are never really cruel or anything, more just puzzlement and stuff.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I don't really view sarcastic Hawke as cruel though, most of the time s/he is pointing stuff out.. but honestly another thing is s/he doesn't really press it on people that aren't that way.. like I pointed out the whole thing with Merrill because the sarcastic options are never really cruel or anything, more just puzzlement and stuff.

I never said they were cruel. Then again the Sarcastic choice of dialogue when the Viscount was grieving Saemus' death was just despicable and cruel. 

[KaiserShep]

I never said they were cruel. Then again the Sarcastic choice of dialogue when the Viscount was grieving Saemus' death was just despicable and cruel. 

 

Well, isn't that kind of the point of having these options in the first place? My sarcastic Hawke makes fun of almost everyone throughout the game, but I don't bother choosing that line, because I don't feel it fits the kind of character I'd like to imagine Hawke to be. This is no different from the Warden having the option to knife random people for petty reasons, or Renegade Shepard shooting Mordin in the back.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Well, isn't that kind of the point of having these options in the first place? My sarcastic Hawke makes fun of almost everyone throughout the game, but I don't bother choosing that line, because I don't feel it fits the kind of character I'd like to imagine Hawke to be. This is no different from the Warden having the option to knife random people for petty reasons. 

I agree. I was just saying that the OP put words in my mouth, but there are certainly scenes that do match said words in my mouth. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

If you consider yourself a hardcore rpg and/or pnp fan, I just don't understand this at all.

And then you act like this game is really open, when it's just as focused as any of the others in the series. Just because they crammed in options in the last year to appease people who whined about DA2 doesn't change that. Lastly, you're a mage fan, but you favor the most boneheaded mage game of the bunch. Then you scoff at DA2, but it carries much of the same animations for mages as DA2. Just worse gameplay. Then the first thing always out of your mouth is trivial nonsense about camera angles. To focus on such a thing as some sort of winning feature is bizarre. It doesn't make a difference. Autodialogue cinematics are bad, but that's not what "pulled in" cameras always mean. I don't even know why I have to say that.

The camera angles are important because they allow us to focus on the things our character thinks is important, rather than what the devs want us to notice.

Cinematic camera movement forces us to break character.

DAI exceeda DA2 (by miles) because combat makes up less of the game, because quests don't magically appear in our journal, because quest givers actually provide information, and because the combat mechanics are far less restrictive.

Also, we can dress our companions, the crafting system makes more sense, the game doesn't presume the PC's motive as much, and the paraphrases are vastly better written (something that was probably impossible in DA2 given the dominant personality system).

We can actually go do things in DAI without first being told to do them (only BioWare's third game to allow that).

How is the mage gameplay in DAI worse? All the combat is made better by the tactical camera. Yes, the animations are still dumb, but that's just aesthetics.

[ModernAcademic]

Watch as a completely irrelevant topic spawns a critical discussion about the future of the franchise.

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

There is at least one thing, so far, that I liked about DA2 that DAI changed for the worse. In DAI, a lot of NPC dialogs don't pull the camera in for a "cinematic conversation" camera angle. I hate that. I much prefer the way that DA2 handled conversations.

[Lucca_de_Neon]

Watch as a completely irrelevant topic spawns a critical discussion about the future of the franchise.

 

I always considered myself an optimist but you've overcome me!

[KaiserShep]

Lastly, you're a mage fan, but you favor the most boneheaded mage game of the bunch.

 

I myself was not a mage fan in the beginning, but it's hard to see how Inquisition's is the worst of the bunch, as I totally despise the mage gameplay of Origins, which I consider to be akin to taking several Ambien during a fireworks show. At least with Inquisition, I can zap the sh*t out of everyone and watch them scream and explode into paste, and of course there's a bit of vanguard-y goodness with Fade Step combined with KE powers. 

[Laughing_Man]

I myself was not a mage fan in the beginning, but it's hard to see how Inquisition's is the worst of the bunch, as I totally despise the mage gameplay of Origins, which I consider to be akin to taking several Ambien during a fireworks show. At least with Inquisition, I can zap the sh*t out of everyone and watch them scream and explode into paste, and of course there's a bit of vanguard-y goodness with Fade Step combined with KE powers. 

 

Well yeah, the KE was more or less the most fun you can have with a mage in DA:I, and even this got old quickly.

(How many times can you abuse fade step, spirit blade, chain lightning and that ground target fire spell? Every fight is the exact same.)

 

The low number of spells, the outright removal or locking of all the most basic and useful spells under specializations -

stone fist, single target fear, fireball, spirit/arcane bolt, all force spells including fan favorite crushing prison, etc.

 

Added to the annoying and constant required ground targeting, and the eight ability restriction that did no favors to the mage class.

The eight ability restriction was annoying for all classes, and straight anti-fun for the mage class.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well yeah, the KE was more or less the most fun you can have with a mage in DA:I, and even this got old quickly.

(How many times can you abuse fade step, spirit blade, chain lightning and that ground target fire spell? Every fight is the exact same.)

 

The low number of spells, the outright removal or locking of all the most basic and useful spells under specializations -

stone fist, single target fear, fireball, spirit/arcane bolt, all force spells including fan favorite crushing prison, etc.

 

Added to the annoying and constant required ground targeting, and the eight ability restriction that did no favors to the mage class.

The eight ability restriction was annoying for all classes, and straight anti-fun for the mage class.

What's wrong with ground targeting?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I myself was not a mage fan in the beginning, but it's hard to see how Inquisition's is the worst of the bunch, as I totally despise the mage gameplay of Origins, which I consider to be akin to taking several Ambien during a fireworks show. At least with Inquisition, I can zap the sh*t out of everyone and watch them scream and explode into paste, and of course there's a bit of vanguard-y goodness with Fade Step combined with KE powers. 

I genuinely enjoy combat in DAO.  In DAI isn't not particularly fun, but nor is it frustrating or particularly dull (DA2 was both of those).

 

I do wish DAI had kept the melee friendly fire from DA2, though.

 

All three games suffer from their asymmetrical combat mechanics.  All pale in comparison to NWN's combat on that front.

[KaiserShep]

Well yeah, the KE was more or less the most fun you can have with a mage in DA:I, and even this got old quickly.

(How many times can you abuse fade step, spirit blade, chain lightning and that ground target fire spell? Every fight is the exact same.)

 

The low number of spells, the outright removal or locking of all the most basic and useful spells under specializations -

stone fist, single target fear, fireball, spirit/arcane bolt, all force spells including fan favorite crushing prison, etc.

 

Added to the annoying and constant required ground targeting, and the eight ability restriction that did no favors to the mage class.

The eight ability restriction was annoying for all classes, and straight anti-fun for the mage class.

I don't really consider the other games to be much better about this. DA:O has a lot of spells available, but I found a lot of it to feel like chaff and didn't do much to offset the action chess piece feeling of its combat. I do like DA2's the most though, because Force Mage is like violent Jedi Kung Fu, marred only by having to keep Carver alive to use it.