Barbarossa2010 wrote...
@Brock: Brock you've been a pillar of hopefulness throughout. You started this (what I like to refer to as a) vigil; and it's the one place a group of loosely like-minded could get together and vent, with a bit of intellectual speculation thrown in as a bonus, without the insanity of troglodytes interjecting and spamming to no end to turn this thing into something resembling the tapestry of mental illnesses that is the Tali thread. I can only imagine your disappointment. I went ugly early, spent my rage up front and embraced pessimism and myopia with vigor, so I was way past acceptance long before the announcement.
Thanks for the respect, I do try to keep hope alive *
bro hug, since apparently thats what BioWare thinks its fanbase consists of*I feel like a broken record, but its just disappointing and to me at least it feels slightly insulting the way some of the GI comments were made. I fell for Origins in part because of the insistent developer claims that it was a return to BioWare's roots and for their constant invoking of one of my favorite game series of all time, Baldur's Gate. More or less, I felt like Origins was a worthy successor to BG. And what I was expecting out of DA2 was the sort of evolution we had from BG1 to BG2. But thats not what is happening at all- they're taking it in a seemingly totally different direction from the character driven narrative of BG2 to just doing one shot tales to flesh out the timeline of the Dragon Age in Thedas. I'm still holding on to some twisted mutant form of hope, but the DA2 we've heard about thus far is just about the worst case scenario I would have thought of prior to last Thursday.
And then you've got the higher ups like Darrah, Muzyka and Zeschuk. I'll try and make sense of some of their quotes for my own sanity and peace of mind...
"With success to call its own, Dragon Age is no longer bound by the concept of being a spiritual successor to another series. BioWare is making some major modifications to the formula, giving story and mechanics a more contemporary twist while retaining the essence of what fans loved about the original."
- I'm pretty sure that a good chunk of people were drawn into Dragon Age not on its own, but because BioWare hawked it as the spiritual successor to BG. And the old school twist on the mechanics is also something that attracted many people- so yeah, good luck keeping the fans that loved all the stuff you're trashing for ME-lite.
"'At the core, what we're doing is trying to give Dragon Age a shot of adrenaline,' says executive director Mark Darrah. 'It means amping everything up that maybe was a little lacking, but keeping what already works.'"- So yeah, the dialogue in Origins really just sucked, right? Totally needed a shot in the arm. If by shot in the arm they mean, oh yeah we're trashing the Origins system. *facepalm*
"The focus on Hawke as a known quantity also allows the team to address an area of concern from Origins: voice acting for the player character. In this case, BioWare took a cue from its own Mass Effect series, which has been lauded for its cinematic feel and believable conversations between characters. These goals are difficult to achieve if the main character is mute. 'Especially when compared to Mass Effect, this is something that prevents it from telling a really immersive story, so we're going to add player VO,' Darrah says."Yeah! I just love Role Playing known quantities! THANK YOU BIOWARE!!! Oh boy, I can't wait for more Mass Effect inspired "believable conversations" like this one!
Shepard: Got a minute?
Garrus: Can it wait? I'm in the middle of some calibrations!
HOLY **** STORM BANANAS! I am blown away by that conversation! The character development and nuance there was UNHEARD of! *swoons*
And ahhh yes! The PC being mute totally kills my ability to get involved in an immersive story. You know because instead of being able to ROLE PLAY my character, being able to whisper vague suggestions into a known entity and guess at their response really immerses me in the story and gives me a personal connection to all of the characters. *facepalm*
"An icon in the middle of the wheel even illustrates the line's basic intent (like aggressive or sarcastic), so you can focus more on the interaction rather than reading and analyzing your dialogue choices."Oh AMEN! Being the illiterate Bro that I am, thank god I don't have to read in a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Because there is so much to focus on when interacting with someone in dialogue besides the dialogue...like staring at the screen...trying to read... the dialogue....GREAT JOB BIOWARE!
Seriously though, I'm not totally averse to the wheel, but its the unintentional dialogue and actions that WILL happen which will ****** me off. And with the pure text choices, you can read all of the choices before deciding and actually appreciate the writer's writing- can't do that now and to boot there is a good chance whoever the VA is will just mangle it up anyway so instead of a sarcastic response in my head, it'll be some ****** voice actor droning in some over played sarcastic voice. WOW that really gets me immersed in the character!
"'We do know that, in Mass Effect, most people do not skip the dialogue. They actually sit through it and experience it as a whole,' Laidlaw says. 'It tells us that people are experiencing it in a more cinematic way, in that case. Whereas the Origins style is a little more choppy, where you read and listen and read and listen.'"Yeah most people don't skip the dialogue because the only way to know what the hell the rube you are directing is supposed to be doing is to be forced to sit through some terrible voice acting and mediocre animations. How cinematic. Ahhhh yes! Having to read just makes things so choppy! I might actually have to pay attention to what I'm doing in the conversation instead of blindly clicking on a pretty color...
"You'll still direct Hawke's choices and shape his personality, but he won't be a blank slate where the playerneeds to fill the gaps. He can speak when not spoken to, and offer contextual insight. Even better, the characters around Hawke will have something to react to, eliminating the stilted, stop-and-go dynamicof Origins. Just as Commander Shepard proves a compelling anchor for the Mass Effect series, the Champion of Kirkwall will be a mythical and charismatic figure."Oh thank goodness! I thought for a second I'd actually have to use my brain in this game! Being the illiterate ****** I am, thank you BioWare for spoon feeding me every little bit about Hawke. I really can't wait for him to go off on a murder spree when all I wanted him to do was say "Hello" in an angry tone. And I can't wait for the characters to react to Hawke! Oh wait, they already do that just fine in Origins....
Ray Muzyka: We learned the hard way in Dragon Age: Origins how hard it is to work initially on the PC and then convert the game back to console. In the case of Dragon Age II we're doing all versions simultaneously (PC, 360, and PS3) but we're definitely ensuring the features we put in work well on console as well as PC, because it's typicallly much easier to convert back to PC. The PC has a wider range of potential control options and can thus accommodate different designs easier in many cases than consoles can. Both consoles and PC are important to us, and we have great fan communities we plan to support in the future on all of these platforms."Well AMEN. You know not enough games these days, especially ones supposedly the successor to a popular CRPG are built with consoles in mind. I cannot WAIT to have DA2 ported back to the PC with all of those in depth console features! YES!!! You know because when they worked on ME2 simultaneously for the PC , that puppy was just so well tailored for the PC gamer! You couldn't create hotkeys, about a dozen actions were tied to the spacebar and you had those amazingly awesome pop ups that took up half of the screen! Oh but I fogot! They let us change the screen resolution even though the textures on everything besides the faces looked like hammered ****! WOOOOHOOO!
Greg Zeschuk: We're always trying to evolve all of our games, so it's fair to say that Mass Effect has had an
influence on Dragon Age.
AKA, we're evolving all of our games into one big pile of homogenous Mass Effect inspired glop. How original.
A common problem in the games business, and one key thing that we try and avoid, is being reactive and not seriously considering the implications of even the smallest feature changes in our games.So yeah, bravo. For the sequel to DAO how about we completely abandon the silent PC, throw in a slightly tweaked ME dialogue wheel, redo the combat, totally change the visual style and lets call it a direct sequel! No major changes there, right? Nothing knee jerk about ripping the originality, the heart and soul out of DA and shoving Mass Effect guts back in, no?
We're always trying to make our games more accessible and easier to play while not removing any of the depth and detail that players value. essentially, you don't want to fix something that isn't broken, so it's a careful balancing act.Yeah man! Games are too hard, especially ones that make me think and read words! Wooo- thats stressful on my Bro brain! I sure am glad they aren't fixing the dialogue...oh .... they're ditching the silent PC dialogue system?....Well, I guess that system was just totally broken then, eh? No redeemable qualities...
*sigh* What the hell happened to you BioWare?
Terra_Ex wrote...
I too suspect EA's hand at work, my list of grievances against EA is lengthy and stretches back to the mega drive/genesis era. On DeadSpace 2 - so Isaac is to be voiced now as well... as you say, we've got to mainstream everything.
Yeah, they're giving Isaac a voice. Meh. Apparently they want a more "cinematic" experience to enhance "immersion" and "amp up" the action- oh wait, where have I heard that before???
Terra_Ex wrote...
Yeah, its as I've said before, DA2 is the game that will decide whether I'm interested in sticking with the series. a promising start has been followed up by several decisions that remind me of NWN more than BG.
Same here. For all of my over the top rantiness, I WANT to like DA2. Its just that almost every single thing thus far does not appeal to me that much. If they are staying with the "one shot" episodic nature of moving from story to story every game, that could get old really quick.
Terra_Ex wrote...
Regarding DA2 bombing (not that it'll happen) all that'd happen then is EA would kill it forever more, so you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
In some ways I'd like to see DA2 bomb just because it seems like everyone thinks BioWare can do no wrong. Humility is a wonderful thing sometimes. Taking a franchise which you've claimed would be old school and then doing a 180 for the sequel is a bit of a dick move, no matter how you cut it. And if EA kills it, then so be it, hopefully it would teach BioWare a lesson. (maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but thats my mood right now)
Terra_Ex wrote...
Side note, since I can't be bothered to scan through pages of info and haven't read through all of Quett's posts yet, have we discovered who the "cover girl" is on the DA 2 art yet? I'm also gathering via Laidlaw's comments that the Morri plot thread (and morri herself) is to be dragged on through DA2 for Hawke to deal with (and likely milked till its dry for the foreseeable future)?
We haven't officially confirmed the white haired mage identity, but it seems reasonably safe to say its Flemeth, given what Quett mentioned. And yeah, they're seemingly trying to milk the Morri plot dry. If all we keep getting is their "Morrigan's story isn't over" rubbish over and over....I'm a patient guy, really. But even my patience wears thin after a while. My worst fear is that DA turns into LOST- where you've got dangling plots hanging left and right with unanswered questions being teased and then never resolved. I fear Morrigan's story is just going to go on and on and on....
*apologies for the spontaneous rant, I feel better now:D
Modifié par Brockololly, 12 juillet 2010 - 05:03 .
Let's face facts here, I'm your pet project and I certainly can't stand in the way of you meeting that awesome responsibility. 
Retour en haut
Oh, and another staple feature of Bioware's fantasy RPGs is present - bugs, you'll want the final official patch and fan-made patch if you want to avoid headaches. BG2 is still the defining moment in the RPG world, however DA wishes to style itself. Jade empire is worth a look, but fell short of its potential, perhaps if things were amped up...
Not that sad, because I was out doing other things rather than playing RPGs, but it's a bit frustrating to think that no one wants to make something I'm willing to pay for. Of course, that's usually how I feel when I look at the movie listings, too.
