206 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

CRPG's don't need facial expressions, that's what I was getting at when I mentioned "realism and tacky graphics". What is essential in a CRPG is to convey a sense of D&D-like adventure - good technical graphics are not necessary for that, in fact they're detrimental. 

Look guy - I loved Wizardry, Ultima, Might & Magic, Bard's Tale (the original), in their time, also (and yes I'm dating myself but have to to respond to your point), hell even Temple of Apshai had its weird charms (watching an arrow fly slowly across the screen) - and I remember fondly that all you got from most actions was a textual readout of the results of your spell/attack - everything was shaped by the constraints of its time.

There's only one real way to replicate true tabletop on the computer and that's to run NWN with the DM client enabled and somebody playing the DM; nothing else does it. 

For some, it's not "true" to the experience unless they're controlling only one character; personally, I like the current mix of player control & AI for your party (but the AI can still get better); for others it's not "true" to the experience unless they are moving chars. around on a 2D board with hexes (given that tabletop evolved out of tactical military simulations on hex paper); and sorry but Diablo is an action dungeon hack, not a RPG (feel the same way about Dungeon Siege for many of the same reasons). 

DA may have some tweakable areas (I bring them up plenty), but it offers the right mix of action & interaction (meaning doing things other than just killing monsters or fedex quests) for a modern CRPG. That's not the problem. 

[el-pinko-grande]

attackfighter wrote...
Round 2: CHARACTERS!

Who can forget Jon Irenicus? Or Minc, Jan Jansen and Tiax? Baldurs Gate characters have wonderful and memorable personalities. They're quirky, funny, cruel or just plain awesome! They also have nicely written dialogue: it's theatric, too the point and read by (what I can only assume are) enthusiastic voice actors.

Um. Me. I played BG1/BG2 quite a bit and liked it a great deal, but I have no idea who Tiax or Jan Jansen are. I remember the three romantic interests, of course, as well as Imoen and Minsc, but that's about it. Also, I hate to say it, but Minsc is vastly over-rated. IMHO, all of the characters in DA are funnier than Minsc at his best. The humor in BG seemed to rely entirely on whackiness, which I found really annoying because it ruined the immersion for me. It no longer felt like high fantasy when Minsc started babbling about his hamster.

[Frumyfrenzy]

I have to agree with the thread starter on this: Maps the size Baldur's Gate 2 had would be awesome. Especially Denerim was rather small and I couldn't stop thinking how great Denerim could have been if sized like Atkatla. All the maps should have been bigger for my taste. But I guess that's the trade-off for releasing Dragon Age as a cross platform game.

[AlanC9]

maxernst wrote...
  The reason they made the first games in 2-D was not because it was cheaper (I've actually heard gaming companies claim 3D is cheaper)

Indeed. Even if you can find 2D artists these days  -- and that's become difficult -- 3D is easier to work with. Note that the IE modding community never produced much in the way of new maps for mods, whereas there are several all-new tilesets for NWN1

And speaking as somebody who was playing D&D before 1st edition AD&D, it sounds like by "D&D-like" adventure", you mean the sort of game I played until I was about 16-years old...and got bored of.  A series of one combat after another, loosely connected by a plot

In defense of D&D, how D&D was actually played isn't necessarily how it was supposed to be played. Though one of the funny things about classic D&D modules is how the DM notes always tell you not to present the adventure the way it appears in the module. Take G3, where the notes specifically tell you that the king will surely not stay sitting on his throne while an attack is in progress, but the throne room description assumes that he will do exactly that.

[kayapo]

BG2 was a great game. One of my favorites of all time, no doubt about it.

That said, this whole debate is so old. The problem here is that a rather "geeky" community that formed around what ended up being the best RPG game of all time (or so I'm told) now feels raped because games nowadays are mainstream entertainment, consumed by millions of people and not only by geeks anymore.

Obviously I'm not saying BG was only consumed by geeks but there is a clear difference in the type of player both games were made for. It was a different period for computer games too, things that could be done then, can't be done anymore. Too little time, too much money needed etc.

In other worlds...this is pretty much the same thing as Star Wars fans going crazy with the new episodes. People just don't like when their little babies sudenly became food for the masses.

To the OP I would say: Let it go son, enjoy DOA for what it is and maybe let's get on some productive discussions about how to improve the game.


Edit: On a non related note @Haexpane : With all due respect, if there is an award for largest number of "double, triple, quadruple,..." posting in a single thread, you should get it.

Modifié par kayapo, 23 février 2010 - 06:38 .

[maxernst]

AlanC9 wrote...

maxernst wrote...
  The reason they made the first games in 2-D was not because it was cheaper (I've actually heard gaming companies claim 3D is cheaper)

Indeed. Even if you can find 2D artists these days  -- and that's become difficult -- 3D is easier to work with. Note that the IE modding community never produced much in the way of new maps for mods, whereas there are several all-new tilesets for NWN1

And speaking as somebody who was playing D&D before 1st edition AD&D, it sounds like by "D&D-like" adventure", you mean the sort of game I played until I was about 16-years old...and got bored of.  A series of one combat after another, loosely connected by a plot

In defense of D&D, how D&D was actually played isn't necessarily how it was supposed to be played. Though one of the funny things about classic D&D modules is how the DM notes always tell you not to present the adventure the way it appears in the module. Take G3, where the notes specifically tell you that the king will surely not stay sitting on his throne while an attack is in progress, but the throne room description assumes that he will do exactly that.

Certainly, the style of game you play isn't forced on you by the system, but--if you take your cue from early D&D modules (except S1)--you're going to have a very combat-oriented game.  And frankly, if the Fire Giants responded intelligently in G3, it's difficult to imagine how any party could possibly survive.  It was a meat-grinder as it was.  You don't have to play D&D in a hack & slash fashion, but the game is designed so that it's feasible to mow down enormous numbers of enemies in a single gaming session...something you couldn't really do in Rolemaster, for example.  That said, in my last D&D-campaign (mid 80's), I completely abandoned dungeon-crawls in favor of an urban environment in which characters couldn't really run amok without serious consequences. 

I was mostly reacting to the OP disdaining DA:O's emphasis on dialogue, and his implication that that wasn't what made the BG games fun.

[CybAnt1]

Especially Denerim was rather small and I couldn't stop thinking how great Denerim could have been if sized like Atkatla.

What would you have liked to see in Denerim that it didn't have?

Be specific. I'll agree the Chantry should have been explorable. 

That, and sewers where you can fight giant rats, beholders, or crazed cultists. 

(Sorta kidding, but yeah, it could have had its own sewers/dungeons, not just back alleys.) 

[Taitas]

Destrier77 wrote...

Why are the dragon battles buggy? I found it virtually impossible on ps3, well after about 4 goes and doing very little damage i thought it was time to play nice (battle with the witch dragon)

With the exception of the Arch Demon the other dragons basically stay in one spot. Occasionally they lift off and do an area attack, pull someone to them, etc., but then they land right away, again in the same spot. Very quickly you find the AI pattern and fall into an easy rhythm. You just have one tank whack away at the dragon while everyone else does ranged attacks/heals. It's boring. Sometimes the dragon will just stop attacking and sit there like a dumb turd until you kill it. I'm fairly certain Bioware didn't intend for this to happen so I'm calling it a bug.

Dragon battles in BG series were epic. The dragon didn't sit around in one spot, they would buffet your entire party with a wind attack and knock everyone flying across the area (not just on their backs). AND they would chase party members that pissed them off. They had a variety of aoe attacks, melee attacks and loads of offensive and defensive spells. You'd have to strategically  peel back their magical defenses before your spells would have any effect. And this took time. All the while your party is getting creamed. They were frantic, intense battles and a hell of a lot of fun. 

Dragon combat in DA is just plain boring and I'm just happy the lame battle is over so I can move my party on to more interesting things.

[Cadarin]

attackfighter wrote...

Actually it is you who is incapable of reading between the lines. Read
this whole thread, another poster went into a detailed talk about how
there's more to Minsc then meets the eyes.

Also,being more detailed doesn't make Morrigan better; after all, writers aren't judged by the volume of their work.

Right.  Everything Minsc said either revolved around Dynaheir or Boo.  He was probably the most one-dimensional character Bioware ever created.  It's just that people like space hamsters and his good-natured "thickness" was appealing. 

Modifié par Cadarin, 25 février 2010 - 05:34 .

[AlanC9]

CybAnt1 wrote...

(Sorta kidding, but yeah, it could have had its own sewers/dungeons, not just back alleys.) 

I'm not 100% certain Denerim would have big sewers -- do they actually have the technology? Depends on how big the city was in the Tevinter era, and IIRC it wasn't all that big.

[RangerSG]

AlanC9 wrote...

CybAnt1 wrote...

(Sorta kidding, but yeah, it could have had its own sewers/dungeons, not just back alleys.) 

I'm not 100% certain Denerim would have big sewers -- do they actually have the technology? Depends on how big the city was in the Tevinter era, and IIRC it wasn't all that big.

Agreed, tech-wise they wouldn't have sewers because it's almost certain they don't have running water (since you do have wells in the city). Probably classic medeival urban hygiene... makes you want to look up in those back-alleys now, doesn't it?

That said, there could be a catacombs or such under the city...

[Shallina]

LoL at the graphic comparaison. Even if Overall BG2 is still a better game than DAO. For the technical aspect of the 2 games it's night and days. DAO is 100 of time ahead BG2.

DAO could have been better than BG2, but they tied themself with a cross platform release. They were free when they made BG2, they were not when they made DAO. And it's a shame.

Modifié par Shallina, 25 février 2010 - 01:25 .

[HoonDing]

Taitas wrote...
Dragon battles in BG series were epic.

Doom  + Greater malison + Chromatic orb/Finger of death = dead dragon

[devSin]

AlanC9 wrote...
Indeed. Even if you can find 2D artists these days  -- and that's become difficult -- 3D is easier to work with. Note that the IE modding community never produced much in the way of new maps for mods, whereas there are several all-new tilesets for NWN1

C'mon, people! THE AREA ART IS 3D.

2D artists won't help you. You need a 3D artist who can render at a fixed perspective to a fixed scale and accommodate the needs of 2D representation (i.e., once your work is rendered, it needs to be playable served as a fixed 2D bitmap), including the enhanced resolution/detail you can get away with since everything will be pre-rendered. (Your 2D artist can help with texturing, sure, but there's enough free texture packs floating around in the world that you can make do without.)

IE areas are tough, even if you can get around the art by just touching up existing area art (which is what most of the few new-area mods do), because the support data blows (it's just a lot of grunt work to come up with the wall/walkmesh data and the area def and the LUM and height and search bitmaps and incorporate it all); maybe if we had better graphical editors, but area editing has never been a very high priority.

[AlanC9]

Yeah, but that's what people mean when they say "2D artist". But you're right -- shouldn't give in to incorrect usages when they're actively confusing.

[Sam -stone- serious]

Viglin wrote...

Im worried that this is "Round 1"

And yah, another BG vs DAo thread.

Dont blame us. Blame Bioware for falsely advertising the thing as a spiritual successor to BG. Very much like Bioshock that is a spiritual successor to Systemshock. Unlike Bioshock (who is very true to its roots and gameplay mechanics to its spiritual predecessor) however DAO  does not deliver in any way, shape or form the same things that made BG what it was therefore the advertisment was at best inaccurate and plain fraud and missleading at worst. 

[Haexpane]

Well after playing RTO over the weekend, I am looking more favorably again on DAO graphics. But it was mostly out doors, I enjoy those 3D areas more than the indoor zones for sure.



But the combat was still, press X to win.

[Moogliepie]

attackfighter wrote...

Round 2: CHARACTERS!

Who can forget Jon Irenicus? Or Minc, Jan Jansen and Tiax? Baldurs Gate characters have wonderful and memorable personalities. They're quirky, funny, cruel or just plain awesome! They also have nicely written dialogue: it's theatric, too the point and read by (what I can only assume are) enthusiastic voice actors.

Dragon Age on the other hand, doesn't have any memorable characters.  Yeah sure, they have personalities and decent voice acting, but there's nothing to seperate them from other cliche fantasy characters. They're also way to concerned with their "unique" moral compasses ( for example, Morrigan doesn't seem like a sociopath, so I don't see any reason for her to not feel any empathy at all), it's just clich, uninspired writing to have the characters act in such linear, predictable fashions. A third complaint is that it's too dialogue heavy; being wordy is fine in some occasions, but when the whole game is like that it really strikes me as being poorly written (clearly the writers were too caught up in making an "EPIC STORY" to consider the phrase "brevity... is wit").

You have to be kidding me. If I had to pick one game that had silly characters, it was BG. Minsc was a brain-damaged barbarian with a hamster, who had a bunch of funny one-liners. The characters in BG seemed like typical Forgotten Realms characters, written by 12 year old kids for their table top game. DAO characters have far more depth to them, and certainly aren't cliche in any way. Only Oghren fits the stereotpye of a beer-swilling dwarf, but there is more to him than that if you talk to him. 

[Moogliepie]

Destrier77 wrote...

I loved baldurs gate but there really is no comparison. Though dragon age is more arcady with the healing after fights (which i thought i would hate but dont) It has far more wow moments which thinking back baldurs gate didnt really have a lot of. It was great but what were the real OMG WOW moments in bg?

I just had 2 in the space of 10 minutes!!! Real wow wow moments.

Im a fan of both i just love DA though.

Auto-healing isn't "arcady" it's a feature all game genres have adopted. Even old FPSes and side-scrollers didn't have auto-healing. 

[Moogliepie]

GeorgeZip wrote...

While this game is awesome and imrproves the gameplay by leaps and bounds from BG, with a few exceptions it is missing some of the flavor. The npc approval system works well, better than the alignments, but it would be nice if they initiated more conversations with you. Lots of little short talks versus long player initiated interrogations.
.

That is a problem with DAO. They really need to space the conversations out more. I was making out with Morrigan in Lothering right after she joined my party, and banged her not long after, thanks to being able to go through a ton of her dialog right away.

[Highdragonslayer]

Red Frostraven wrote...

... I think you're a tad hard on the companions in Dragon Age.
The problem beeing, your characters talked to YOU in baldur's gate, when THEY felt like it (after X hours of gameplay after quest Y). The average run-through was about 100 hours, so the dialogue was spread out pretty heavily. But it was spread out.

In dragon age, I quest for three hours, then pick the new dialogue options in the camp before I go to bed.
The game is kind of forced to do this, because the story is just too short to have companions fetch your attention every fifteen minutes to build up your relationship with them -- like they talked to your charcter every hour like in BG2 -- so the developers chose to let you talk to them instead, when you feel like it.
Problem is, when everything happens when YOU tell things to happen, characters become less interesting.
...
I expect dialogue when I enter the camp.
Not when traveling.
The fact that your companions TOOK your attention in BG2 caused them to seem more alive.
There were five companions with you at all times in BG2, and many of them interacted with eachother and forced you to listen by normal dialogues.

I love that characters interact with eachother in Dragon Age, but I wish they interacted with ME half as much as with eachother. Or one quarter. I'd settle for one tenth!
But at the very least talk to me, or I will feel alone. Talking to, and talking with are two entirely different breeds of conversation.
When characters "talk TO you", they start the conversation. That is a forceful action which bonds the player with that character.
When you talk with them you start the conversation every single time, which makes them just another NPC with dialogues which may lead to loot.

The same is true ingame: I skip a lot of dialogues I initiate because I know there will be a quest added to my list.
I listen to the NPCs that come and talk TO me.

maxernst wrote...

Minsc was the mindless barbarian with the hamster. A completely 1-dimensional character.

Very funny, considering that the development of minsc progressed YEARS ahead of the making of the game:
He was originally a pen and paper character some of the developers used in a Dark Sun campaign.

His Giant Space Hamster isn't necessarily just a hamster: If Minsc is truthful, the hamster IS actually an intelligent alien hamster-like lifeform bred to minatyre size for the purpose of light travels on the ground, beeing wiser and more intelligent than most ranger animal companions.
It also would explain why Minsc appears to be mad. He has actually listened to and followed an alien lifeform's advice and may have started to see the world differently through the advice of his companion.
This is not something I make up, minatyre giant space hamsters ARE D&D source material, albeit probably just random material provided for fun by Wizards of the Coast -- it is officially D&D source material, used by Black Isle.

Note that the Black Isle developers have never said Minsc is insane, nor have they said that Boo is a regular hamster.
Other than that, if anything made minsc insane rather just unsane and unsanitarty, it was the death of Dynaheir: He wasn't too bad in BG1, but in BG2 he's pretty messed up.
... and I actually felt for him and HOPED there was a quest to restore (a part) of his sanity.

...
You may think he's one-dimensional, but I beg to differ. His dialogue is ment to be witty and lighthearted, but he is also disturbingly accurate in his assumptions provided by boo.

Finally.
Most people in the Dungeons and Dragons setting have never seen nor heard about most types of dragons, and don't know that gods exist in the D&D world. Raise Dead and Ressurection are spells that not even kings can afford when they fall in battle... and how many people in the game world EXACTLY, do you think have actually interacted with extraterrestial mindflayers and aquired the knowledge of there actually BEEING giant space hamsters in the D&D world considering people don't know about dragons despite there beeing thousands of them?

...
THAT is a quite disturbing and game altering observation right there.
Boo is in fact a giant space hamster: The only way Minsc, a simple barbarian, could have known about the existence of such creatures is if someone told him. He has an effing hamster. What if that hamster told him about giant space hamsters?
The plot thickens.

Don't take me too serious on this matter, because I'm certainly not taking this discussion very seriously myself, but all I've stated is the truth.
Source material for giant space hamsters: 
The Spacejammer campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

If you bother to read the source material, why of ALL THINGS would Minsc know about giant space hamsters (which is too fantastical to be thought up by D&D characters randomly) and not EVER mention Thri-Kreen or other D&D space creatures -- creatures that are both more dangerous and more fantastical than magical hamsters?

Remember that next time you play: Chances are -- Minsc is sane or at least not as insane as the developers want us to believe, and Boo is actually a giant space hamster bred to minatyre size by extraterrestials like mindflayers, and Boo itself told Minsc about their existence... and listen to Minsc whenever he tells you what boo has told him... just try. And see if he's ever mistaken. EVER.

I don't if anyone responded to this but I don't feel like looking through the thread. You have to agree that the Dragon Age universe is much easier to take serously and more mature than the DnD one, espiecally if there's... giant... space... hamsters, that your supposed to take serously.

[Haexpane]

I disagree, the BGII story/characters are just as "SRIOS" as DAO. If not more so. I'm not a big fan of the dorf, and it's often hard to take Alistair seriously with his constant "oh I am unsure of myself" routine.

[Highdragonslayer]

Haexpane wrote...

I disagree, the BGII story/characters are just as "SRIOS" as DAO. If not more so. I'm not a big fan of the dorf, and it's often hard to take Alistair seriously with his constant "oh I am unsure of myself" routine.

     Was there a creature in BG2 that was made by forcing a woman to eat the flesh of monsters that have a taint in order to turn her into a horrible monster to make more of them?
 
     All the dwarves in the DnD universe are Ohgren, the difference in DA:O is that he's an exception and is shunned for being a drunk.

     Also nothing in DA:O that isn't a silly easter egg(super man reference) can be as silly or dumb as... giant...space...hamsters... also the races don't have as much depth. Look at the drow for instance, each and everyone of them is evil, no exception just all evil. Not one is good execpt for that guy from the books, but every single one is evil. Of course your good guys are the generic fantasy races elf, dwarf, and human. Don't get me started on how the dragon's alignment is dependeble on the colour of their scales.

[AlanC9]

But the combat was still, press X to win.

Is that actually true, or just typical internet overstatement? I've heard the console versions were a little easier than PC version, but I've never seen a gameplay vid of someone winning one of the tough DAO fights without at least some player interaction.

[Haexpane]

Highdragonslayer wrote...

 

     Was there a creature in BG2 that was made by forcing a woman to eat the flesh of monsters that have a taint in order to turn her into a horrible monster to make more of them?
 

OMFG that's soooo serious?  

Highdragonslayer wrote...

     All the dwarves in the DnD universe are Ohgren, the difference in DA:O is that he's an exception and is shunned for being a drunk.

Umm so what?  Explaining a character that everyone already knows makes him extra serious somehow? What is the point of rehashing the drunk dorf trope background?

Highdragonslayer wrote..
  Look at the drow for instance, each and everyone of them is evil, no exception just all evil. Not one is good execpt for that guy from the books, but every single one is evil. Of course your good guys are the generic fantasy races elf, dwarf, and human. Don't get me started on how the dragon's alignment is dependeble on the colour of their scales.

And why is that wrong again?  Not every drow was evil btw.   I still don't understand how black dragons being evil is "omg that's not serious enuff!!!"  Eating flesh man, that's like seriously serious!