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[Noilly Prat]

When I played DA:O, I thought it had some of the best characters I'd seen in a BioWare game yet, but I definitely think ME2 trumps it. Yeah, you get to talk a lot more with the DA party members, but that goes with the territory in that sort of game, and it doesn't necessarily make them better developed.



When it comes to it, a lot of the dialogue with the various party members in Dragon Age is them telling you stories or talking about their background, which is interesting, but honestly not vital to character development, which, for me, depends more on how they react to the events of the story, not all the stuff they did before the story began. Though it does help flesh them out a bit. Example: remember Canderous Ordo's stories in KOTOR? Sure, some of them were kinda cool, but that's really all he does... tell you stories. You never really get to know him or develop any kind of relationship with him. Obviously, this is not the case in DA, but my point is simply that characters talking more doesn't necessarily equal better developed characters and relationships.



I would have liked to see more squadmate banter in ME2, and see them interact on the ship more (beyond certain pairs of people trying to kill each other at certain points). I also thought the romances were a bit better developed in DA, though I think I liked the ME2 love interests more (at least for the guys).



One positive mark ME2 gets for me is that I ended up really liking pretty much all of the squadmates (no Live for me, so I don't have Zaeed yet). I found Jacob the most boring, but aside from him, I ended up quite liking even the ones I didn't really expect to like (like Grunt, Thane, and Samara). I never liked Garrus at all in ME1, and even he grew on me.



I liked all of the companions in DA to some degree, but a few of them, like Zevran, Wynne, and Oghren, didn't make as much of an impression on me as the others. They were still better than most game characters, but for me, Alistair, Morrigan, and to a somewhat lesser degree Leliana were the really great characters in the game.

[sagefic]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

This is actually the big problem for DAO, both games need to force you down certain plot avenues, however DAO kind of rubs your face in it even more.  ME kinda says "Yeah, you can make changes to some aspects of Commander Shepard, but there are fundamental parts of him you can't change and they will lead alot of the plot" whereas DAO says "You can create your character however you want, but we are then going to force people on you that alot of your characters will hate and then rub the fact that you can't kill them repeatedly in your face".  Many of it felt contrived, for instance the joining ceremony for the gray wardens, instead of killing off Daveth and Jorey they should have just assumed you wanted to join it instead of trying to contrive reasons that just end up making it even worse.

exacitically.

and yes, i AM talking about ME2 being better than DAO, but i sort of view the ME games as the same story.

why i like ME (1 AND 2) better:

"post cards" vs. emails
 i HATED the end of DAO with the little "this is what happened." it basically sounded to me like nothing you did made a dang bit of difference at all, having played through it a few times. side with this faction, side with the other - who cares? no one really. in the ME saga, the emails are a small thing, but they really give a sense that your actions had some sort of consequence (or Admiral Hackett's constant phone calls in the first game)

love interests
WAY better in ME imo. a little less conversation and a little more action, please. the ME romances were shorter, yes, there was less there, but there were more options over all. and in ME, the fact that each LI has a different romance scene really gives each romance a different nuance, rather than DAO, which were really...awkward... and seriously, for all the blah, blah, blah, i found the love interests in DAO much less likeable. heck, you have to practically sell your soul to end up with some of them. meh.

shep talks back
it's a little thing, but it makes all the difference. in a game where you choose the full line of dialog, you can never say much. i think it makes your char either sound ignorant (tell me about that, please) or just a non-entity. they speak so little. but because shep can interact more fully, giving entire speeches even, they feel more part of the world. a little thing, but one of my faves, is where in ME1 kaiden asks shep about her past. seriously, no one ever asks you about yourself in dao. even alistair always forgets your whole family just got killed. so shep feels more a part of things and a more dynamic figure in the world.

range of shep vs. open ended char
true, shep can't go beyond a certain scripted "range"of motion. but within that range, he/she is friggin' awesome. also, the slight defining of shep makes the char feel more real. in some ways, by limiting the options (a or b, paragon or renegade) i think it makes shep feel more fun to play than DAO where it could be a or b or c or... oddly enough, i felt the slight restraints on shep give more of a guide to how to role play the game and so enjoy it. DAO felt like it was going to be open to any kind of role play, but in the end was actually just as restrictive.

morally unclear is NOT morally grey
sorry witcher, you're not my style. some people may get their jollies out of "morally grey" stuff. i don't really. but DAO even failed to be morally grey. it was more just morally unclear. the "grey" moments were more cases where it wasn't clear what was actually the case. IF morrigan is telling the truth that the god baby will be free, nice. but if she's lying, we might be in trouble. this is not a "wow, i can see it from both perspectives" thing (which i would say things in ME like the krogan genophage really are) but just a "ha ha, the player doesn't know what's actually the case here." my opinion? lame. in ME, there are moments where you really do think huh, i can see it her/his/their way. but the facts of the matter are not obscured in every case.

why we should care
in DAO and ME, both deal with the end of the world. but in DAO, i just really had a hard time caring. maybe someone else can shed light more fully on this. maybe it's because ferelden seemed so nasty and unjust. maybe it's not my world, not my problem. ME isn't a much happier universe, but i felt like it was worth fighting for. DAO, i just had a hard time caring. flemeth and morrigan are up to something - do i care? not really. TIM is up to something - do i care? well, i sure plan on buying ME3. DA anything else? not so much

[Druss99]

sagequeen wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

This is actually the big problem for DAO, both games need to force you down certain plot avenues, however DAO kind of rubs your face in it even more.  ME kinda says "Yeah, you can make changes to some aspects of Commander Shepard, but there are fundamental parts of him you can't change and they will lead alot of the plot" whereas DAO says "You can create your character however you want, but we are then going to force people on you that alot of your characters will hate and then rub the fact that you can't kill them repeatedly in your face".  Many of it felt contrived, for instance the joining ceremony for the gray wardens, instead of killing off Daveth and Jorey they should have just assumed you wanted to join it instead of trying to contrive reasons that just end up making it even worse.

why we should care
in DAO and ME, both deal with the end of the world. but in DAO, i just really had a hard time caring. maybe someone else can shed light more fully on this. maybe it's because ferelden seemed so nasty and unjust. maybe it's not my world, not my problem. ME isn't a much happier universe, but i felt like it was worth fighting for. DAO, i just had a hard time caring. flemeth and morrigan are up to something - do i care? not really. TIM is up to something - do i care? well, i sure plan on buying ME3. DA anything else? not so much

I have this same issue, I only really finished DAO because I felt like beating up a dragon. Never quite figured out exactly why I felt that way. Think its a mixture of things, a dark dark world that never really felt worth saving, characters I didnt overly care about, spending most of the game wanting to kill my squad more than the darkspawn, the knowledge the warden will die anyway, alot of other small things that just added up. Dont get me wrong I really liked the game, it just got a bit meh.

ME 1&2 hooked me from the start though. Something about the universe makes it feel like its worth saving, even more so with of the characterisations in ME2. Cant quite put my finger on exactly what ME has that DAO doesnt though.

[FlintlockJazz]

Druss99 wrote...

sagequeen wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

This is actually the big problem for DAO, both games need to force you down certain plot avenues, however DAO kind of rubs your face in it even more.  ME kinda says "Yeah, you can make changes to some aspects of Commander Shepard, but there are fundamental parts of him you can't change and they will lead alot of the plot" whereas DAO says "You can create your character however you want, but we are then going to force people on you that alot of your characters will hate and then rub the fact that you can't kill them repeatedly in your face".  Many of it felt contrived, for instance the joining ceremony for the gray wardens, instead of killing off Daveth and Jorey they should have just assumed you wanted to join it instead of trying to contrive reasons that just end up making it even worse.

why we should care
in DAO and ME, both deal with the end of the world. but in DAO, i just really had a hard time caring. maybe someone else can shed light more fully on this. maybe it's because ferelden seemed so nasty and unjust. maybe it's not my world, not my problem. ME isn't a much happier universe, but i felt like it was worth fighting for. DAO, i just had a hard time caring. flemeth and morrigan are up to something - do i care? not really. TIM is up to something - do i care? well, i sure plan on buying ME3. DA anything else? not so much

I have this same issue, I only really finished DAO because I felt like beating up a dragon. Never quite figured out exactly why I felt that way. Think its a mixture of things, a dark dark world that never really felt worth saving, characters I didnt overly care about, spending most of the game wanting to kill my squad more than the darkspawn, the knowledge the warden will die anyway, alot of other small things that just added up. Dont get me wrong I really liked the game, it just got a bit meh.

ME 1&2 hooked me from the start though. Something about the universe makes it feel like its worth saving, even more so with of the characterisations in ME2. Cant quite put my finger on exactly what ME has that DAO doesnt though.

I think that this is a problem a lot of people seem to mistake: being a dark world doesn't mean that the characters have to be jerks to each other!  A more realistic, morally unclear world has people doing what they believe to be right, but with right and wrong itself not being absolutes, resulting in many 'good' people fighting each other over a perception.  Loghain and Alistair were the only two characters to really come close to this in DAO in my mind, both doing what they felt was the right thing to do (Loghain trying to save Ferelden, Alistair demanding Loghain's head in vengeance while oblivious to the darker side of being a warden), with others such as Morrigan coming across as more "Rar, I'm all dark and mysterious and evil!  Hear me roar!" as opposed to actually being morally grey.  The choices as well seemed rather contrived, especially when there is a character who could have told you all those things earlier on when you could have used that info. <_<

They were headed in the right direction with making religions more uncertain in their authenticity like in real life, they just seemed to lose it on several large parts.  And don't get me started on the whole Grey Warden plot holes I have issues with.

[lexicality]

Bioware is exceptionally good at character development and humour in both games.

ME steals and puts to good use some of my favourite sci-fi - Asimov, Aliens, Babylon 5, etc, - and in turn, has the pacing of and, plays more like an epic movie.

DAO has long drawn out relationships, whereas MEs are shorter, more dynamic, more focussed on the evolving story and their relationship.



I dont think I'll ever forget falling in love with Tali, then racing to save her life, only to see her take a headshot closing the door...



ME2 for me!

[etonesmith1]

one thing to consider also,where DAo is the first game of a (possible) series, ME2 is oviously, a sequel.with DAo, you need to start, find problem,resolve problem,go about your merry way, very similar to the events of ME1. ME2 has already established the basic framework for the universe, and is merely a stepping stone to reach a grand finale.

[Druss99]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

Druss99 wrote...

sagequeen wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

This is actually the big problem for DAO, both games need to force you down certain plot avenues, however DAO kind of rubs your face in it even more.  ME kinda says "Yeah, you can make changes to some aspects of Commander Shepard, but there are fundamental parts of him you can't change and they will lead alot of the plot" whereas DAO says "You can create your character however you want, but we are then going to force people on you that alot of your characters will hate and then rub the fact that you can't kill them repeatedly in your face".  Many of it felt contrived, for instance the joining ceremony for the gray wardens, instead of killing off Daveth and Jorey they should have just assumed you wanted to join it instead of trying to contrive reasons that just end up making it even worse.

why we should care
in DAO and ME, both deal with the end of the world. but in DAO, i just really had a hard time caring. maybe someone else can shed light more fully on this. maybe it's because ferelden seemed so nasty and unjust. maybe it's not my world, not my problem. ME isn't a much happier universe, but i felt like it was worth fighting for. DAO, i just had a hard time caring. flemeth and morrigan are up to something - do i care? not really. TIM is up to something - do i care? well, i sure plan on buying ME3. DA anything else? not so much

I have this same issue, I only really finished DAO because I felt like beating up a dragon. Never quite figured out exactly why I felt that way. Think its a mixture of things, a dark dark world that never really felt worth saving, characters I didnt overly care about, spending most of the game wanting to kill my squad more than the darkspawn, the knowledge the warden will die anyway, alot of other small things that just added up. Dont get me wrong I really liked the game, it just got a bit meh.

ME 1&2 hooked me from the start though. Something about the universe makes it feel like its worth saving, even more so with of the characterisations in ME2. Cant quite put my finger on exactly what ME has that DAO doesnt though.

I think that this is a problem a lot of people seem to mistake: being a dark world doesn't mean that the characters have to be jerks to each other!  A more realistic, morally unclear world has people doing what they believe to be right, but with right and wrong itself not being absolutes, resulting in many 'good' people fighting each other over a perception.  Loghain and Alistair were the only two characters to really come close to this in DAO in my mind, both doing what they felt was the right thing to do (Loghain trying to save Ferelden, Alistair demanding Loghain's head in vengeance while oblivious to the darker side of being a warden), with others such as Morrigan coming across as more "Rar, I'm all dark and mysterious and evil!  Hear me roar!" as opposed to actually being morally grey.  The choices as well seemed rather contrived, especially when there is a character who could have told you all those things earlier on when you could have used that info. <_<

They were headed in the right direction with making religions more uncertain in their authenticity like in real life, they just seemed to lose it on several large parts.  And don't get me started on the whole Grey Warden plot holes I have issues with.

Agreed, they did get alot of it right. I especially enjoyed Loghain. People thinking they are doing the right thing not realising how wrong it actually is I loved, but it just seemed to go too far at times. It left alot of the characters feeling a bit hollow to me. I did like the religion thing too. I cant even remember the plot holes havent played in a couple of months, but I do recall some "huh?" moments.

I think something that got to me also was you werent ending *THE* blight, you were ending *A* blight. You were gonna slay the arch demon and another one would rise eventually, I know it was supposed to be dark but it just felt like delaying the inevitable. Whereas ME setting up to defeat the Reapers feels more like a final battle, I know thats probably because ME is probably setting the Reaper fight to be the end of a trilogy and DAO was just starting its story with fighting the Arch Demon. But I think that could be the real compelling diference between the 2 games for me.

Modifié par Druss99, 03 mars 2010 - 12:25 .

[Heimdall]

I liked ME2's characters a bit more but I liked DA:O's character development better. In ME2 the characters were great but the conversations just seemed a bit limited, especially if you didn't want to romance a particular character (Another thing I liked about DA:O, the 'friend' option for romances)

[sagefic]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

I think that this is a problem a lot of people seem to mistake: being a dark world doesn't mean that the characters have to be jerks to each other!  A more realistic, morally unclear world has people doing what they believe to be right, but with right and wrong itself not being absolutes, resulting in many 'good' people fighting each other over a perception.  Loghain and Alistair were the only two characters to really come close to this in DAO in my mind, both doing what they felt was the right thing to do (Loghain trying to save Ferelden, Alistair demanding Loghain's head in vengeance while oblivious to the darker side of being a warden), with others such as Morrigan coming across as more "Rar, I'm all dark and mysterious and evil!  Hear me roar!" as opposed to actually being morally grey.  The choices as well seemed rather contrived, especially when there is a character who could have told you all those things earlier on when you could have used that info. <_<

They were headed in the right direction with making religions more uncertain in their authenticity like in real life, they just seemed to lose it on several large parts.  And don't get me started on the whole Grey Warden plot holes I have issues with.

once again, i totally agree. dark world does not mean main char always has to get lied to. omega, jack's past, etc. all these things are very dark. even ME1, the entire colonist quest with talitha - way dark. however, because shep has friends - friends that stick by him/her - that world seems worth dealing with.

i think a lot of why i didn't like DAO was the chantry: ME has it's corrupt politics, DAO has corrupt religion. and while the chantry was well written, the fact that everything was obscured in this haze of misinformation actually made the entire story so much less compelling. after a while i stopped trying to find out the "real" story, because i began to wonder if the writers even knew what was really the case. ME, i keep thinking i'll get the real story eventually. and seriously, why play a game like this if not to find the real story.

i also didn't care for the friend/love graph in DAO. i find it so cheesy. i'd rather have a shorter friendship/romance option, and read into the conversations what i think is there (love interest, friendship, etc.) than be told "this character is now friendly. this character is now in love with you). really, does anyone go along a scale like that - and because of gifts? i really prefer that in ME you hang out with people and then all of a sudden out of the blue, tali says she loves shep. or kaiden, or whatever. 

mostly, i think the point is well taken that in dAO you only stop A blight - you only save the world FOR NOW. with shep, your every action seems to carry much more weight.

again though, i know a lot of people loved DAO. i tried to like it. i really did. just never warmed to it.

[tehprincessJ]

I think compairing the 2 games is like compairing apples and oranges. They're just completely different.

My gut reaction is to say that with the exception of my Shepard, I prefer the DA chars by a long way. But then, we do get to see way more of them through dialog and approval.

A few of the ME2 bunch are still growing on me. I hated Zaeed and Jack at first, but now I really like them. Jacob is boring, and since I always play as a Vanguard myself, he's useless as far as his abilities are concerned. If I can get passed Miranda's smoking-hot looks, I find that there's really nothing for me to like there, either. But I love Garrus, and a host of other NPCs that aren't even part of my squad (parts of my ship crew, mostly, and others). I also really, really like Thane (not for romance, but still), and Legion.

ME needs all the random talk between NPCs that DA has. Every time I hear Zev hit on Wynn, I laugh my butt off. And most of Alistair's random remarks are the biggest reason why I love him so much.

[sagefic]

it is sort of like comparing apples and oranges...but you wouldn't make an orange pie, now would you? in the same way, there are some things that DAO does that just don't make for good game play in general. ME does that less, imo.



a few other things i think ME does better: (i was thinking this over after my long list and feel the need to add a few)



classes and skills:

DAO drove me nuts. you have essentially 2 classes: mage and not-mage. if you're not a mage, you pick a weapon type and buy up every skill for that weapon. then you can buy a few skillzors like dualist, war cry, etc., that give slight bonuses to what you're doing. if you're a mage, you try to find some combination of spells that is useful. but really, you find a few spells you like, use them all the time, and then wish you could level them stronger (or at least i did). ME, even in ME1 had more interesting classes imo. you only have a few skills per class, but really, you use them over and over and can level the skills you like best. the classes were interesting, too. soldier really plays differently from vanguard, from adept, etc. i saw biotics as the future's version of magic, so you can make a hybrid "magic"/warrior type - something you could not do in dao.



Origins

in DAO, you don't find until later in the game that certain origins (notably human noble) are the only way to unlock certain options (notably, royalty). okay, so i guessed at that, but it means if you really want to play a mage, you just get stuck doing the mage story over and over and over. also, by starting DAO with a 2 hr campaign, it just makes ostagar such a slog. ME, by contrast, started the story in media res, classic epic style, just jumping ahead to the important part where the story really got started on eden prime. having your "origins" show up in conversations and back stories and side quests gives a subtle nod to them without making them the defining characteristic of shepard. i thought it made for much better storytelling in ME, and sped the narrative along. and because you can be any class of shep with any origin (not possible in dao) it made for more replayability (As opposed to dao, where i stared way more chars than i ever played through with).



Love interests

i did love all the conversation in DAO. but once you've gotten past the in-camp sex scene and all the companion dialog about it, there remains nothing for your characters to do but either a) kiss occasionally or break up. seriously! ME sidelines the romances, true, but they end up being paced to the storyline. and of what i've seen so far, the ME romances develop so well over the course of the games (speaking mainly of ME1 import romances and tali here) they feel more like developed relationships.



grey wardens

suck. seriously, why should i want to join this group? all i can tell is that if you can swallow tainted blood, you're in. the alliance has higher standards for joining. duncan just seems like a jerk. anderson and hackett and the alliance crowd sometimes get mired in politics, but at least they aren't killing people as they recruit them. the retirement plan for the alliance is better, too.



Freedom vs. Survival

DAO seems like it's only about survival. the point is to survive the origin story, the blight, the war, perhaps even (if you side with the ultimate survivor, morrigan) to survive the blight by doing some pretty nasty stuff. you want the world to survive. but ME seemed to me to be about more. yes, you're trying to survive the reapers. but other races HAVE survived the reapers - and in ME2 we find out how and at what cost. Saren suggested in ME1 that we simply join soverign to survive the coming harvest. shepard can reply (and mine did) that being a slave is not an option. paragon OR renegade, shep seems more interested in freedom. ultimately, you're fighting to free the galaxy from the reapers, to end their dominance over life - both the current human lives and the cycles of life to come. it's really about being free to life as you want, not just getting by at any cost. i guess that's really what i find compelling about it.



eh...i should stop. i could go on and on. the more i compare the 2 games, the more i really feel like DAO had such good ideas, but they should have taken the orange of fantasy genre and made juice out of it - not a pie. or something. to quote garrus, i think that metaphor just went somewhere horrible.

[Segameister]

ME has better quality to their characters, DAO has more interactions - the character discussions as you wandered around were great!



Overall it doesn't matter - DAO's character AI in combat is terrible, and I don't want to bother constantly tinkering with the custom AI settings to make up for it. I'll play ME over many times, but DAO I may just sell, as I don't ever see myself finishing it on the higher difficulties without wasting time messing with the custom AI.

[GenericPlayer2]

I only played through DA once over the holidays, I didn't like the game much, but as far as the party characters go I liked that you could get rid of them whenever you wanted. That is something that ME lacks. I don't want to have to take someone to the suicide mission just to get them killed and get rid of them, being able to drop them off somewhere would have been much better. I don't want to get into a character-fan war, I just want to say ME would have done well to include some options. Since any combination of people can die, its not like any one person would have been too important for the next game.