63 réponses à ce sujet

[durasteel]

I should begin by saying that I actually enjoyed Awakening - if it had not been fun, none of these little details would matter.  The story and characters were top-notch, in my opinion, but the execution fell short in a few glaring ways.  I read that this expansion was the first project that was completed within the initial time frame in BioWare's history, and I have to tell you... I will never complain about another late game.

The most obvious factors that make this product seem rushed are the glitches in the game flow, such as the impossibility of completing Sigrun's joining if she is the last party member you get.  I imagine that any party member you pick up last will receive short shrift, although on my next play-through I'll try to grab Justice last and see if I can finish up all his content anyway.  These characters are otherwise pretty tight, well written, well voiced, and rather endearing once you get to know them, so it is very frustrating when the game's overall pacing and design flaws get in the way of enjoying them fully.

There are a number of things that I was expecting during my initial play-through of Awakening that I did not get, and missed seeing.  The first was any sort of reason for leaving my girlfriend Leliana behind, along with my 'mascot' Zevren and my ever-faithful Dog.  No one even mentioned any of these characters until the wrap-up at the very end, where I'm informed as a casual throw-away that I left the Grey Wardens (which I would never do) and rejoined my red-headed bard, whom I would never have left in the first place.

Another glaring omission was the other half of the big war at the end.  After Origins, I was expecting the intermission in the Amaranthine fight (you know, the part where you're warped into the Chantry to rest and re-supply before the tavern-smuggler tunnels-boss fight) to switch to the Vigil, where I would choose one of the party members left behind (you know it would have been Ogren) and lead the rest (with the Seneschal as a temporary member) against the attacking darkspawn.  When the objective had been reached, a conversation option would send me back to the Warden Commander.  Why was this not included?  I can only imagine that it was because y'all ran out of time.  Don't tell me that it wasn't ever contemplated - it's just too obvious.

Another thing that is missing is that after the Warden Commander completes "Law and Order," you don't receive the key to the guardhouse.  You don't get to go talk to the Elven Archer, Jacen, and recruit him for the defense of the Vigil, and instruct the Lieutenant to release him.  This is another element that is simply too obvious for me to believe that it wasn't contemplated, or that it wouldn't have been included if you'd had more time.

Awakenings felt to me as if it was originally intended as a stand-alone campaign, for the Orlesian Warden (which is how I'll be playing it next time through) but that at some point into the development cycle the decision was made to allow for the import of Origins characters.  That's certainly how I felt as Awakening began, all alone without the characters who had promised, in one form or another, to remain by my side.  Ogren seemed to remember me pretty well in terms of what we had done, but seemed not to remember that we were already good friends.  King Alistair was as snooty as if I were a stranger from Orlais.  Wynne, for all that she called me "my friend," was likewise distant and distracted.  Now, I cannot claim any special knowledge of BioWare's development cycle or process, but it feels like development was moving along with Awakening when the decision was made to import characters from the main campaign, but no additional time was allocated to make sure that carrying-over felt right.  This put additional strain on the development of  the expansion, such that it was impossible  to really finish it on time, so the defense of the Vigil from the inside was cut, and little tidbits like Jacen the Elven Archer were only half implemented.

I am fully aware of the fact that I could be completely wrong about all of this, but this is my perception of the expansion, and my perception drives my opinion.  My opinion of Awakening is that it was released without being finished or polished, so that y'all could meet a deadline.  My opinion is also that you should have pushed back the deadline.

This is the first product that you guys have rushed out (that I am aware of) in quite a while, and I hope it is the last.  I'll continue to pre-order and purchase every product you release for the PC, and all of the DLC as well, but I do ask that you release those products when they are ready.  I pre-order to appease your bean counters, and I expect finished products in return.  I think that's reasonable.

Modifié par durasteel, 19 mars 2010 - 08:04 .

[Nyaore]

I definitely believe that Awakening should have been held back a few more months to work out all the kinks in it's coding honestly - so I agree with you. For an expansion it was top notch if you ignore some of the more glaring flaws, but at the same time I can help but wonder how much better it would have been if they ironed everything out ten times over before releasing it.

A few other issues that I noticed:
-Several of the cut-scenes just abruptly transition from one scene to the next, this being the most prevalent in the beginning of the expansion when you fight to get back the Vigil. (Example: You save the Senescal only to have him immediately jump up, mindless of the trauma he probably just went through, and immediately sees Alistair or Anora coming down the road. It's abrupt and feels unnatural.) Even just one piece of dialogue, or a well placed panning shot could have easily helped the game flow better in those areas and probably wouldn't have turned people off the game so quickly.

-The story ended abruptly right when things got good. It felt like there should have been one more major dungeon romp to tie everything together after you get all of the companions and before you are forced to take your forces to war...

-After I finished the Fade portion of Justice's quest a lot of the textures and meshes started behaving wonkily. Blood turned into little red squares, a couple of Ander's Spirit Healer spells caused HUGE blue squares to appear where there should have been an effect, my character disappeared completely when fighting an Ogre in Amaranthine, the Animated dead were immune to damage and stood stock still when summoned in that same mission, etc, etc, etc. Oh, and the loading screen now displayed a white background with black squares expanding where the turning symbol was. Just having one of these happen wouldn't have been such a big deal, but having all of them happen in such rabid succession and often in tandem really broke immersion for me. Though Amaranthine was always full of bugs even before then - what with the floating noble near the Chantry (yes he literally floated thirty feet off the ground) and those Apostate mages attacking me after returning to the area without provocation. (Where as before then I had to touch them to get them to attack me.)

Modifié par Nyaore, 20 mars 2010 - 04:14 .

[durasteel]

Yeah, there should have been some kind of denouement, a ceremony in Amaranthine or at the Vigil after the cockroach Queen got a face full of stab.  Someone should have given you a pat on the back for having done such a great job, or lamented the fact that you couldn't save Amaranthine if you put it to the torch.

"Stab face, roll credits" was not very satisfying.

[Booglarize]

The title of of the thread says it all - though the wall-of-text was spot-on as well.

Well said, durasteel..

Modifié par Booglarize, 19 mars 2010 - 08:27 .

[maikel1977]

I have to agree with you. I liked awakenings simply because it answers questions to the blight, but as far as the game itself goes, this was clearly a cashcow pushed to make a deadline when instead they could have waited, put some more in, develop and test it better and made it as good as it could have been. Nobody in the gaming community anywhere in the world would mind or be surprised by having a release date set back a month or even two. Not if that means getting a game that lives up to its potential. This just doesnt quite cut it for me.

Modifié par maikel1977, 19 mars 2010 - 08:36 .

[DIrishB]

I had a rather strange glitch occur early on in the game: Just after arriving at Vigil's Keep, my character's arms got stuck in a strange position (it looked like we was doing the waltz by himself: one arm held out and up to the side, the other lower and to the side). It happened in both the cut-scenes and gameplay. It was so bad I couldn't even swing my swords. My character would grab them and just hold them in a strange manner while he'd run around. Pressing A (I'm playing the Xbox 360 version) did nothing at all, and his special attacks worked but he wouldn't make the appropriate animation/movement.



I just saved and re-started the Xbox and it was fixed, but I thought it was a rather glaring glitch.



That was the most obvious, I ran across plenty of others, so I have to agree...this game could definitly have been improved by a few more months of play-testing and fixes.

[Brockololly]

Well ignoring the patch 1.03 issues I'm having where Awakening crashes repeatedly in combat, Awakening definitely could have used some more polish.

Little things like transitions to new scenes  or adding in little callbacks to Origins maybe via letters from characters would be nice.

The ending is a whole other can of worms- in general I really wish we had gotten more of the Architect throughout the game. It seemed like they saved up all of the "surprises" and revelations for the last 30 minutes or so of the game and then you go all stabbity, kill, kill on the Mother and the game just ends. You don't get a chance to talk to the Architect again if you spared him or go back and see the consequences of your actions with Amaranthine or Vigil's Keep. The whole coronation/ epilogue scene in DAO was outstanding and was definitely missed in Awakening.

Maybe it turns into a budget issue or something,I'm sympathetic to that fact- I mean just look in the credits for Origins as compared to Awakening and see how small the team for Awakening was. Then throw in the fact that that small of a team with likely a small budget were able to turn out an enjoyable DA product- Its impressive in my book but ultimately in part because of its price tag, we're going to compare Awakening to Origins, which had WAY more polish than Awakening.

As it stands, Awakening is merely "pretty good" when it could have been great.

Modifié par Brockololly, 19 mars 2010 - 09:04 .

[maikel1977]

It clearly is a budget issue which is proven by the facts you mentioned, but i am not impressed with that "achievement". As a customer i see only 1 side to things i buy...mine. Theres somany things that should have gone into this expansion to make it live up to its predecessor's reputation that it allmost pales in comparison. (the op summed the most important reasons up allready, no need to repeat them^^) Sure you get answers to the blight but the overall feeling the game left me with was a little unsatisfying. Im not all negative though, i loved playing it, got all the answers i neededfor the story to end but just got kinda shocked when the game ended when i was seriously expecting more. That and the obvious missing pieces of the game that should have gone in but didn't.

[JamieCOTC]

Actually, I have to disagree slightly w/ the OP. While I agree w/ all points, I think Awakening was intended as an expansion for an imported character, but was whittled down and thus seems more generic. In this thread, someone found out that letters from past romances Leliana and Zev were to be in the game, but got cut. Whether this was due to time, budget or team number constraints, I don't know.

While Awakening does have many good points and is quite entertaining, I agree w/ the OP. I would willingly wait a few more months for a better game.

Modifié par JamieCOTC, 19 mars 2010 - 09:46 .

[RPGmom28]

I'm only finishing it this one time because I paid for it. Next time an expansion comes out I'll check before buying to see if your decisions in the past matter and whether or not there is player/party interaction. Otherwise it's not really an in-depth sequel with 3 dimensional characters.. It's like a player made mod. And even players write party interaction into their mods. In Neverwinter Nights 2, the player base wasn't satisfied with the amount of player/party interaction, so they made their own mods to fill in the holes. That should tell you something. What we want. Why we spend our money. They know what creates and keeps an offline RPG's fan base. And it's getting to know and caring about your party.

[Venatio]

A good game is worth the wait. Simply put, better late than incomplete - release it when it is done. Only small time companies should worry about releasing late.  

Modifié par Venatio, 20 mars 2010 - 12:03 .

[odiedragon]

The OP says what I wanted to say, without the copious amounts snark and the bitterness.



Though I'll be posting said snark and bitterness once I'm done compiling it all together. ;P

[Lady Jess]

I agree. I had fun (while it lasted), but it was...shallow might be the word I want. I spent weeks on these boards reading the reaction to the information that was given. But I did my best to think positively.

"It's an expansion, not a sequel" I told myself.

"surely theres more to it than they're saying, and all the panic will be proven wrong" I thought.



I thought I'd have surprises in store, or more hints at my previous adventures. Most of all, I expected it to leave me with a post game save to carry over to whatever is next, but no. my sword was stolen by the crows even...not amusing by the way.



So all the upgrades I made to my armor, weapons, and all the time spent making runes for them, seem to not be carrying into any future for my character. Play again? Why?



Pre-order again? Not likely. Leson learned. Wait for the release and see what others think.

[Livinki]

I totally agree to the OP.

[DJ Doc]

Lady Jess wrote...

Pre-order again? Not likely. Leson learned. Wait for the release and see what others think.

Can't agree more

[Leon Elsa]

Great post, a lot of facts without all the whine. Very well done.

[Aehuir]

I was coming on the forums to write my own impressions, but then I discovered that durasteel already said everything I had to say.



I really did enjoy the expansion, I swear. There were plenty of little interesting touches and codex entries and conversations. The new skills and talents were great and added new life to my character build.



But I lost count of the small glitches I encountered. Like Nyaore said I also had graphical glitches in Blackmarsh. When fighting the Baroness in her honking great demon form she was shedding placeholder blocks instead of... blood or light or sparkles or whatever. She also tossed out this huge aoe placeholder oval.



When using the rogue skill Unending Flurry on some bosses (from a backstab position), the boss would also begin to saw its arms in the Unending Flurry animation. I had this turkey carver conga line going on. While hilarious, it was not right.



Many dialogue cutscenes got abruptly cut off halfway through the last sentence. Some sentences simply didn't play any sound or show any lipsynch animations. A few times the area went completely black except for any particle effects (fog or the like) and only the subtitles showed until the dialogue was finished "playing".



I too didn't get to go through Sigrun's joining because I grabbed her last. I'm going to try the same thing as the OP and get Justice last instead for this play through.



Where's my dog?? Is he alive or dead? Of ALL the party members I used to have, I'd expect my own faithful warhound to remain by my side. If he has to be dead of old age or too much darkspawn taint or whatever, at least explain this to us. Leaving it completely unacknowledged just feels like somebody forgot to include part of the game.



It was nice to see Wynne again, but, what about Shale? No explanation of their adventures in the Tevinter Imperium together. If I imported a character, shouldn't all of that information have been there? Even just a fast mention like, "Shale says hi, also death to all pigeons" would've been nice. Too bad Wynne was in such a hurry to do whatever it is she was doing.



And finally (for now) it would've been nice to at least go back to the Vigil after slaying the Mother. I was really taken aback at how abruptly her death cutscene turned into an epilogue.



I feel like I missed out on a bunch of quests and options because things were thrown at me with no explanation. I guess I'll go play through it again now that I understand what the heck is going on. Awakening just feels... finished, but not polished. Like the closed beta version. I guess a patch can fix the technical stuff, but I doubt there'll be a patch for the story.

[Lord_Breetai]

It was like one of those movies where all the best scenes and lines are actually in the trailer. I liked the game but I was looking for more behind what I saw months earlier in trailer videos on the site. I feel a little bit like I've been left something back in the game - not that I want to replay it, just like I left something incomplete.

[Finnegone]

I'll echo what others have said here - terrific post, durasteel.

In terms of the overall story elements, I have an additional (and major) gripe: I had a very hard time actually believing my character was indeed the Warden Commander, the Arl of Amaranthine and the Hero of Fereldan, seeing as the majority of the populace treated my charcter (even after figuring out who he was) as yet another wayward adventurer, eager to help them track down a maleficar or slay a few lawless bandits. Couldn't they have designed quests that at least seemed like they were something that a high ranking Grey Warden and Arl might do?

I'm all about getting my hands dirty, but it sort of breaks the immersion a bit when my character is supposed to be the highest military official in the land, and yet he's nevertheless spending his time helping the Chantry shore up their potion supply or delivering ransom money for some random girl. Isn't the Warden's time a little more valuable than that? We should, at least, be led to believe that it is; otherwise, why make him or her the Warden Commander? BW could've installed a more senior Orlesian as the Commander, and the Hero of Ferelden would be there to do what he or she does best - kill darkspawn. And that would be just fine by me. It's certainly preferable to the many strange and awkward encounters one has with various NPC's, who address you as Warden Commander before asking you to go do another errand for them.

Modifié par Finnegone, 20 mars 2010 - 01:34 .

[Aehuir]

Hm, Finnegone's got a good point about the Warden Commander doing busy work. Being the top-ranking official/politician/commander/whatever means you're necessarily removed from getting your hands dirty. You've got layers of subordinates to do that. I mean, the Prime Minister of Canada doesn't knock on your door and ask you why you forgot to include your RSP contributions when you did your taxes. (sorry, I just did my taxes and I forgot to include my RSP contributions)



Maybe it would've been better to be, like Finnegone suggested, just the Hero of Ferelden and not an Arl or a Commander or anything. We're good at getting our hands dirty, killing and stealing and fighting and solving people's personal gripes. Leave the politics to a fully voiced NPC, heh heh.

[Lasombra74]

Here Here..durasteel



I am still stuck at the begining trying to get Oghren's cut scene to work. sigh......

[Janni-in-VA]

This is the most moderate, thoughtful and insightful thread to criticize Awakenings that I've seen since it hit the streets. No flaming, no swearing, no name calling, no threats to boycott BioWare forever -- it's so refreshing. (And that's kind of sad, isn't it.)

Thank you all for your time and comments. I've found this thread very informative.

[durasteel]

Finnegone wrote...

I'm all about getting my hands dirty, but it sort of breaks the immersion a bit when my character is supposed to be the highest military official in the land, and yet he's nevertheless spending his time helping the Chantry shore up their potion supply or delivering ransom money for some random girl. Isn't the Warden's time a little more valuable than that?

"Commander?  Oh, Warden Commander?  Excuse me... Pardon me, Commander, but... the privies are backed up again.  Would you mind terribly?"

I actually didn't mind the menial side quests.  The basic ones were posted on job boards for anyone that might care - the  Warden Commander just happens to care (when I'm at the helm, anyhow.)  The bigger ones, like rescuing the kidnapped noble girl or taking out a gang of smugglers that rivaled the city watch in power, those were big enough in scale that they were rightly brought to my mighty attention, I thought.

One thing I learned from the responses to this thread was that you could not deceive the Architect to use him against the Mother, then turn on him and slaughter him after wards.  I didn't try it - I was very confident in my ability to take out the Momma Roach without any help from him.  Still, it seems like another obvious plot element that fell as a casualty of the deadline.

While I am sensitive to the issue of budget limitations, I would point out that Awakening is built using the Dragon Age resources and models, is about a quarter the length of Origins, and costs about two thirds as much.  I would have been willing to pay a little more to get a little more, too, although any more than $40 and people would have expected a full-fledged sequel.

Thanks for all the positive responses, I appreciate them.  I was initially hesitant to list flaws and omissions in a game that I basically enjoyed quite a bit, so it is reassuring to see that I am not alone in my observations.

Modifié par durasteel, 20 mars 2010 - 03:24 .

[Danijou]

This, if any, is one post that I would love to see "BIOWARE" flagged next to sometime in the future.

How you managed to say this without a single insult is beyond me, but you really hit the nail on the head. If this was meant to be a standalone for an Orlesian Warden -- let it be so. Who, HONESTLY, would have decided to simply not play it if they couldn't be their pet character from Origins? If my Zev wasn't mentioned in the hi-here's-the-ending crap, I would have been heartbroken. But the Crows as a whole were something that certainly made no manner of sense in this expansion. Never take another contract, you should JOIN the crows... Bah. More pointing towards the Orlesian Warden Only school of thought.

And frankly, that is a school i'd have been fine to attend. Awakening was fun, maybe not $40 fun, but here i'm knee-deep in debt and probably shouldn't have even spent $1. But, I did anyways, and unfortunately all i've got is a slightly bitter taste about my mage and his lover and the country's new opinion of its once-savior. THEY ALL TOLD ME AMARANTHINE WAS LOST! Jeeze. Sigh.

At least my subsequent play-throughs, less though they will be than I played Origins, will have a slightly better ending. I hope.

Modifié par Danijou, 20 mars 2010 - 06:56 .

[krylo]

I think what you're missing here is that expansions don't have as much money or time or continuations thrown at them to have come out much better than this.

The Expansion was highly ambitious for an expansion, and may have been served better as a stand alone game. I won't argue that. There were areas that could have been expanded, sure.

However, as that it was an expansion, one can not expect that they would spend years on developing it. Bioware has learned over the years (and its merger with EA was deemed necessary because of this) that just putting out amazing games isn't enough to succeed as a company. They need to have some level of fiscal responsibility as well, or they won't make enough money to make games like DA:O anymore.

As a result, they simply can't plunk down enough money to iron out every single little thing and expand upon every single point and spend two years in development for an expansion. Expansions, as an immutable rule, will NEVER sell as much as the full fledged game. They can't, as that one must own the game in order to play the expansion, and to expect everyone who ever bought the game to get every expansion is fool hardy.

As a result they had an option of either being fiscally irresponsible and crippling other works by keeping the expansion in production a bit longer, or deciding 'this will have to be good enough'. Hopefully they'll iron out some of the bigger issues (like the Morrigan 'love' epilogue bug) in patches, but I can't say that I'm unhappy with what they had as an expansion.

I'm not going to argue with the errors that are there, or that they should have, ideally, been fixed. I'm only going to argue that it wouldn't be fiscally responsible or reasonable to have stayed production of an expansion until every single thing was fixed.

It is an unfortunate truth of game design and business.

Modifié par krylo, 20 mars 2010 - 07:43 .