212 réponses à ce sujet

[SurfaceBeneath]

vometia wrote...

One thing I miss in ME2 compared to Dragon Age, and ironically which it took in turn from Mass Effect, is the random conversations you hear between team-mates.

They were doing that back in Baldur's Gate 2. That definitely didn't originate in the first ME.

ME2 and DA:O are both very different games, and I actually think I like the NPCs in both equally. They both excel in different ways. DA:O definitely spends a lot more time aquainting you with its party members and the interplay between them, which really makes you feel like they're more real characters. You spend a ton of time talking with them, far more than you do to anyone in ME2 (except Sten and Dog I suppose). ME2 aquaints you with these characters in an actiony way instead of a talky way. There is less dialogue, but the recruitment missions introduce them with a bang and the whole loyalty mission concept really does add a ton of context to who they are and how they relate to the world in a way that DA:O doesn't. But then, DA:O is nearly twice as long as ME2 while having a smaller cast of characters, so these are both appropriate ways to deal with characters in the time you had. One thing that annoys me is that ME2 has too little content for how many characters it has. I feel like it takes multiple playthroughs to really become familiar with them. I definitely don't wish for fewer squaddies though.... just wish the game was a bit longer to suffice for so many great personalities (which seems odd since 35-40 hours is a very respectable length).

So DA:O's strengths are in its sheer content and interplay between party members.
ME2's strengths are in characters that are colorful and feel a part of the universe they exist in.

I do hope that ME3 takes a bit more time to evolve the characters. Banter between them would be a welcome return. In both sequels I want the party camp / Normandy to be more lively, with NPCs visiting each other and chatting in a way where you can familiarize yourself to them just by how they interact with each other.

Modifié par SurfaceBeneath, 27 février 2010 - 10:44 .

[StreetlightEagle]

In my opinion, Morrigan may be the best character that Bioware has ever written. Pleasant? No Likeable? maybe not.... but she just felt so real and human, a truly deep and tormented person unlike Jack who just fell apart as another 'badass' cliche or Thane, who we get so little insight into his character to really know the depth of it.

[Annjul666]

Hell, hard to say. Me2 lacks such converstations like those is DA, but... we have to give a credit that Bioware makes great characters, especially females. We cant compare me2 to DA. there are both interesting npcs. Morri and Miri FTW

i am to lazy to write full opinion.

[Kenshen]

More emotion with the ME2 cast than I ever felt with the DA cast. Character devolopment was better in DA. Also I never felt like if I failed in DA that the world was lost as if I fail in ME2 the whole galaxy is doomed.

[Halfheart]

DA:O>ME1>ME2

The party banter is what kills ME2 characters for me. For a game driven by characters, ME2 fell flat in that they never really interacted. That and the banter in DA was just amazing, My favorite was probably when Leliana started calling Sten a big softie... That was just epic.

[Pannamaslo]

Mass Effect crew. DA:O does not have Garrus. XD

[Booglarize]

Pho Kadat wrote...

Booglarize wrote...

As for the loyalty missions, I'd say they were only gimmicky to the extent that there was a formulaic payoff for each character - new outfit, power and invincibility in the final mission and so on . However I thought the missions themselves were very thoughtfully designed and most of them felt quite meaningful. 

I agree with this, and the missions, in and of themselves, were good. The forumlaic payoff, as you say, was the basis for my statement. It just makes more sense to me to build loyalty over time than for one mission, albeit a significant and personal mission, to instantly make someone loyal. Granted, I don't think that would have fit the game's pacing.

That's true. What made DA:O slightly better in this regard was that it had both - all companions eventually offered some sort of personal quest that you could take on to gain more approval with them, but at the same time you had to be mindful of other things, like what you say to them, what you do around them and so on. And if you didn't game the 'gift' system, it really did add quite a refreshing diplomatic aspect to the game. 

[Kalfear]

Booglarize wrote...

Pho Kadat wrote...

Booglarize wrote...

As for the loyalty missions, I'd say they were only gimmicky to the extent that there was a formulaic payoff for each character - new outfit, power and invincibility in the final mission and so on . However I thought the missions themselves were very thoughtfully designed and most of them felt quite meaningful. 

I agree with this, and the missions, in and of themselves, were good. The forumlaic payoff, as you say, was the basis for my statement. It just makes more sense to me to build loyalty over time than for one mission, albeit a significant and personal mission, to instantly make someone loyal. Granted, I don't think that would have fit the game's pacing.

That's true. What made DA:O slightly better in this regard was that it had both - all companions eventually offered some sort of personal quest that you could take on to gain more approval with them, but at the same time you had to be mindful of other things, like what you say to them, what you do around them and so on. And if you didn't game the 'gift' system, it really did add quite a refreshing diplomatic aspect to the game. 

I liked the Loyalty missions myself
What I didnt like iks everyone gave yolu the loyalty mission on cue. You didnt have to earn the mission.
What Bioware should do is keep the loyalty missions but add DA:O influence checks and you only get the loyalty mission from a character if their influence 80%> and the loyalty mission, upon successful completion, gives the remaining 20% influence to the character.
ME2 made the loyalty missions meaningless because you didnt have to earn them.
Anouther case of being far to linear in ME2 as compared to other Bioware games.
Having 100% loyalty should take careful planing and attention and shouldnt be a forgone conclussion of a pay off imo.
Which in turn might up the mortality rate in the final combat which would create a more varied responce rather then endless threads on 100% survivors from the mission.

[TOBY FLENDERSON]

Mass Effect has more 3D characters, but Alistar is one of the better ones out there.

[Unit-Alpha]

I liked more of the DA characters than those of ME2; I even sort of understand Morrigan. However, I hate/dislike half of ME2's characters.

[Kalfear]

Unit-Alpha wrote...

I liked more of the DA characters than those of ME2; I even sort of understand Morrigan. However, I hate/dislike half of ME2's characters.

See, im different in that I dont like or hate many of ME2 characters.

I simply dont care about a great many of them.
They failed to connect on a emotional level were as DA:O character all hit the connection button.

Only down side DA:O has going for it is its Fantasy and im so sick and tired of fantasy that once the initial rush over, I find replaying DA:O hard cause of setting. Where as love the ME2 setting but find replaying hard cause of the emotional disconnect with the characters.

[BlackFox26]

I like mass effects characters better than dragon age origins, but there just two widely different games focusing on purposely differnt characters.

but if we do go down the line with the *squadmates*.

Even the bottom feeders like Kaiden, and well.. .. everyone i'm alright with.

Beat like Sten... lol

but ya morrigan and all that can stand up to ashley and liara in my book.

[BlackFox26]

My bad double posted

Modifié par BlackFox26, 27 février 2010 - 11:47 .

[keginkc]

My opinion is that you have more far more opportunities to get to know the the Dragon Age characters (and I'm currently tabbed out of Dragon Age right now!), be that talking in camp, or listening to them chatter with each other, so in the end they're fleshed-out to a greater degree, but the Mass Effect characters are actually more interesting.



Except for Jacob.

[magnuskn]

I want Zevran, Alistair, Leliana and Shale on the Normandy and kick off Miranda, Jack, Zaeed and Grunt to Dragon Age.



Not that I didn't enjoy DA ( although I absolutely hated the Deep Roads ), but overall I prefer the characters from Mass Effect. Just change out the characters mentioned above. ^^

[eternalnightmare13]

I prefer the ME2 characters. I found the bickering amongst the DAO characters annoying and didn't add anything to my gaming experience. I'd hate to see this type of stuff in ME3.

Characters like Thane, Garrus, Jack, and Grunt had back stories that were more interesting to me and their personalities were likeable. Thane as a whole really stood out to me as a well written and VA character. I felt something for him after I failed his loyalty mission and the consequences it had with his son.

I didn't care about any of the characters in DAO. They seemed trying to hard to be funny and came off as obnoxious. Aliester may have had some funny lines early on but came across as an ass later in the game. As a whole DAO's characters were very shallow and not developed well.

The majority of people on here must have a different definition for character depth and/or development.  I see it as being characters that actually make some changes in their attitude or personality along the course of the game.  Not how much characters chatter.  In ME2 Miranda, Thane, and Grunt (perhaps more) show more development/depth over the course of the game then any character in DAO in my exp.  Miranda is not the same at the end of the game if you do her quest, Grunt is completely different after his quest, and on down the line.  At the end of DAO everyone seemed the same static personalities.  That's what I'm looking for in character development - not party banter excusively. 

Modifié par eternalnightmare13, 28 février 2010 - 12:27 .

[ComTrav]

I like the ME2 characters better, but the character development was better handled in DAO (besides loyalty missions). Having played ME2 more recently it's quite possible I'm biased--after all I like both quite a lot, but I never made or posted in a "character love" thread in DAO. (Though they don't exist on the DAO half of the board...probably because DAO2 may be in a different part of Thedas, hundreds of years in the future, etc.)



Lots of non-LI dialogue--Alistair actually felt like my dwarf's best friend, Wynne felt like my Mage's mentor, etc. As everyone has said, the party banter adds a ton to character development. Garrus feels like MaleShep's friend, but that has more to do with going back to ME1 then his ME2 dialogue.



And almost everyone likes the way it handled the romances, too. Actually being able to 'seal the deal' on the relationship before the final battle and have follow-on conversations with your LI allows for further development and plot complications.



I think the beg leg-up in character development for ME2 is the loyalty missions, though, especially the well-done ones. The character sidequests in DAO make for nice little character moments, but none of them provide as much insight or development as most of the ME2 missions.

[Booglarize]

Kalfear wrote...

Unit-Alpha wrote...

I liked more of the DA characters than those of ME2; I even sort of understand Morrigan. However, I hate/dislike half of ME2's characters.

See, im different in that I dont like or hate many of ME2 characters.

I simply dont care about a great many of them.
They failed to connect on a emotional level were as DA:O character all hit the connection button.

Only down side DA:O has going for it is its Fantasy and im so sick and tired of fantasy that once the initial rush over, I find replaying DA:O hard cause of setting. Where as love the ME2 setting but find replaying hard cause of the emotional disconnect with the characters.

That's kind of true about fantasy being overdone, which is why I found games like Fallout so awesome back in the day. Also, not that I'm complaining about Bethesda's efforts (they did a pretty good job), but I wonder how things would've turned out if Bioware had done Fallout 3 instead.

Though I hear that Obsidian's doing the next Fallout game, and they're basically Bioware's little brother so that should be interesting. 

Modifié par Booglarize, 28 février 2010 - 12:46 .

[Darth Garrus]

I don´t think DAO discussed things as the issues on Mordin´s loyalty quest, or Jacob´s. Those are fantastic moral issues discussed, and great dialogues and confrontations. DAO, although a good game, lacked a lot in terms of characters and quests. They didn´t sound fresh, they just sounded like overcooked "medieval-like rpg quests and characters". And the drunk, fight loving, dwarf, for the 100th time. Please...



ME2 was, by a long shot, better written, and with better elements for the most part. Not that DAO didn´t have its moments and good things. But can´t scratch the writing of ME.

[ammobake]

Nozybidaj wrote...

All the new characters in ME2 just didn't strike a chord with me.  I wouldn't be bothered enough to go out of my way to kill them in the suicide mission but I wouldn't jump through hoops to save them either.  They are just kinda there.

I completely know what you mean.

Overall, ME2 was alot of fun and I think the main plot was better structured and organised than in ME1.  But for me it was like, "Great!  A new whiny character I'll have to do a loyalt quest for"..  Dragon Age had the unique ability to increase loyalty based on everything from shooting the **** at random times while just roaming around to destroying an enemy together as a team.

LOYALTY QUESTS?..
"The universe is at stake here.  But, NO REALLY, complete my sidequest or I won't be loyal".
This is where I think Dragon Age just leaves ME2 in the dust (i.e. Loyalty and social interaction with your team).  The team members in ME2 just didn't seem that interesting other than a couple of the new ones (gotta love the toosh on Miranda).  In this aspect, ME1 was so much better than ME2.  There was a mutual respect and loyalty between Shepard and every member of the crew that didn't have to be continuously addressed by doing these silly loyalty quests.  The universe was at stake and the entire crew understood the threat. 

In ME2 they just didn't get it.  Until the final 2 or 3 missions, Noone fully understand the gravity of the mission other than Shepard.  Especially after visiting the Normandy wreckage.  Everyone else was so worried about personal matters they just couldn't let their baggage go.  Until team members started getting killed, noone of them seemed to care about the overall mission.  ME1 seemed to be alot more "important" if that makes sense.  People understood there wasn't time to deal with "X" when the entire galaxy depended on accomplishing "Y".

DIFFICULTY LEVEL:
The final boss battle in ME2 was also way too easy, IMO.  Dragon age seemed much more challenging and the battles seemed much less structured and organised.  It just seemed more realistic.  You could just open a door and end up in a 20 minute battle for your team members' survival in a friggin doorway.  Some of the battles in Dragon Age were EXTREMELY tough.  The final battle in DAO was difficult but I thought some of the earlier battles in the game were just completely insane (and this is with regular difficulty level).  ME2 just really didn't seem like it was challenging enough.  There wasn't any point in ME2 where I had alot of difficulty beating a battle.  You just had to maximize your abilities.  Some of the battles in DAO I had to do 10 or 12 times just to get right.  It makes it so much more frustrating, but that also makes the game seem more realistic and more enjoyable when you DID win.  I also loved the ability to program the actions of each member of the party in Dragon Age based on the situation they were in.  That kind of complexity just hasn't been incorporated into Mass Effect yet.

-ChriS

[Sesshomaru47]

StreetlightEagle wrote...

In my opinion, Morrigan may be the best character that Bioware has ever written. Pleasant? No Likeable? maybe not.... but she just felt so real and human, a truly deep and tormented person unlike Jack who just fell apart as another 'badass' cliche or Thane, who we get so little insight into his character to really know the depth of it.

I liked Morrigan. Once you got to know her and became friends with her she was ok. At least if you were a female Warden, not so much if you're a guy. Plus she saved my Allistair when I sacrificed his virtue to her. Yup....Jack is ok too as long as you play as a male Shepard, not much to say if you're a girl. The problem with the romancable characters in ME2 is they all seem to have one thing on their mind, which leaves you with about 3 people on the ship you can acutally carry on a conversation with.

It's more about the fling or not too fling rather than the character development....not me though. :innocent:

[Homebound]

Noobius_Maximo wrote...

I felt the character development was better in DAO.

I agree, and I dont even have that game.

[Beerfish]

I would have fully expected the DA ones to be better before I played either game but I actually like the ME2 ones better overall. Even though DA might have had more npc content I just think the ME2 ones for the most part were terrific.

[ODST 3]

XX55XX wrote...
As much as I liked Dragon Age and its writing, I didn't really like any of the characters whatsoever. The only exceptions were Oghren and Dog. The rest of them... were pretty meh.

Me too! My dog (Bubulo) was always loyal and I sort of like Leliana in a cutesy-retarded kind of way but most of them were just lame or all-out ****es (Morrigan <_<). In addition to Mass Effect's better characters, I thought the storytelling was much better too. The ending to Dragon Age was not suspenseful at all (partially because I didn't care about the weak-ass characters) but there was no sense of accomplishment because of those vague and depressing epilogues they stick on the end. Horrible.

[RPGmom28]

I've developed attachments to both groups of characters. In DA I'm really fond of Alistair, Zevran, and Wynne, and in ME2, Garrus, Thane, and Zaeed. Both games have been played over and over. I love the voice acting and never seem to get tired of hearing the same stories repeatedly.