Dragon Age: Choose Wisely

[Digitalos]

I think I will post this here rather than start a new thread, I'm very interested to hear what people think because I wasn't interested in DA:O at all. But their marketing machine insisted on releasing lots of trailers about it. So I started watching some, and noticed a few things. First up, most of their trailers (bar the violence trailer - I think less said about that the better) contain the same info, scenes, shots and everything. From the trailers, I literally could not learn anything about the game.

So I went to la Bioware DA:O forum and started posting some concerns and such about the game. It's being touted as a spiritiual successor to Baldur's Gate, which of course interested me. But after a lot of reading/digging, I can find no hint of a connection except for:

1) Fantasy RPG.
2) Created by Bioware.
3) Party based tactical combat.
4) Emphasis on story.

Really, I can draw those links to nearly any RPG game in one way or another. A lot of the threads on the forum go into more detail, but it seems to be missing all the fine details that gave BG it's charm. These are not things that would totally destroy a game, but they are things that when put together, give the game a certain feeling to it which I would assume, to be what makes a game a spiritual succesor - ie it doesn't have the same things as the game it is following, but it feels very much the same, and has a certain charm to it.

Also the kicker is that there is no multiplayer whatsoever, so no playing this with your close friends or LAN circle or online buddies. So it's solely a single player RPG that has no realy connection or ties in any shape or form to the BG series, which it is purportedly following and trying to be like.

Have I totally misunderstood all this, is anyone here actually keen on the game, and what are you keen on, in it, precisely?

 

[aries202]

I think one of the most anticipated features for this game actually are the Origin stories where your choice of your specific origin somehow will carry you through the game i.e. certain quests etc. will only open to you, if you're a mage for example.
I'm very keen on this aspect of the game, myself.

Some new info have since come to the light, Mike Laidlaw, the lead designer, said in a recent interview, I think, with bit-tech.net, that you being a Grey Warden basically is a 'raiser of an army' to defeat the Blight. Why this task would fall on an unproven young man or woman, who just had joined the Grey Wardens five minutes ago, I don't know. Why should people listen to you, the newcomer?

And why can't I (as a Grey Warden) side with the rogue mage? I'm not that keen of this aspect of the game, actually. I just get a Lords of the Ring feeling about this or maybe I get a Mass Effect feeling about; seems to me like all Bioware's game recently (including the Sonic DS game) have followed the same formula: There's a threat to the galaxy, world, or country which must be crushed, and you are the hero that must save the day. Because you must...

I'm also keen on the influence system where you can influence people in your party by saying the right thing at the right time, or by giving people in your party gifts. And some of the people in your party might betray or leave (for good), if they don't like where you going...dialogue or mapwise.

I agree with you that it is sort of a bummer that there is no LAN capability at all. But it is a single-player game only, and I do think that Bioware knows what they're doing. I don't know many people who played the Baldur's Gate games in LAN or multiplayer. Bioware probably thought that be making DA: Origins single player only many more copies would be sold in comparision to how people would play with their friends over LAN or even use multiplayer as an option. And I must say, I'm inclined to agree with Bioware's decision.

Then there will be the thing aabout the spell-combso for mages, which won't be mentioned in the manual at all. (many a few will). We will have to figure out these spellcombos for ourselves.

To me this game seems more like a cross-breed between an rpg and rts game...

 

[Digitalos]

Yeah the Origins stories and the spell combos sort of intrigued me too, but I rarely buy anything that I can't play coop with my wife and that is a real deal-breaker for me. :'( I was quite surprised to discover it was SP only.

We have finished all the Infinity Engine games bar Icewind Dale 2 in coop, and are halfway through that currently, then there is NWN and NWN2 both of which have a fair few addons. Coop is pretty much the unsung game-mode for me, and if you implement coop wisely, like proper drop-in/drop-out coop, I don't feel it has to impact the single player experience in any notable way.

 

[Volourn]

"There's a threat to the galaxy, world, or country which must be crushed, and you are the hero that must save the day. Because you must..."

It's not justy because 'you must'. It's also ebcause if you don't; you will be negatively effected as well.. Seriously, you really think their should be a legit option for you to side with Saren in ME? Give me a break. Side withLizard queen in NWN OC when her entire goal was to enslave all the 'lesser races'? You could turn in KOTOR, btw. You can even even give up the fight vs your former Master in JE.. but, that leads to a not so nice ending. For shame your ignorance is so obvious.

 

[Warden]

"There's a threat to the galaxy, world, or country which must be crushed, and you are the hero that must save the day. Because you must..."

It's not justy because 'you must'. It's also ebcause if you don't; you will be negatively effected as well..

Volourn, of course you'll be affected negatively if the world is going to be destroyed.

 

[Volourn]

The world isn't being 'destroyed' literally in any BIo game except possibly ME.

 

[Xaus]

Well, in ME it was the entire freaking galaxy on the verge of destruction by the Reapers. It really was a case of 1 man vs. a horde.

 

[Azrael the cat]

"There's a threat to the galaxy, world, or country which must be crushed, and you are the hero that must save the day. Because you must..."

It's not justy because 'you must'. It's also ebcause if you don't; you will be negatively effected as well.. Seriously, you really think their should be a legit option for you to side with Saren in ME? Give me a break. Side withLizard queen in NWN OC when her entire goal was to enslave all the 'lesser races'? You could turn in KOTOR, btw. You can even even give up the fight vs your former Master in JE.. but, that leads to a not so nice ending. For shame your ignorance is so obvious.

Yes, Volourn, you've pointed out the limitations of the 'EPIX-hero-vs-ancient-evil' plotline, how it inherently narrows the scope of the story that can be told, and why it is a poor choice for a multi-use template. Have a cookie.

 

[Digitalos]

No one cares about ME. :p At least I don't, which is clearly the important issue. I guess the nice feeling in BG and to a degree, IWD too, is that you get kind of wrapped up in something larger than you. I don't doubt that DA:O will do that, I just doubt that it will 'feel' like the IE games because from everything I've read and seen on their forums, they've lost the ability to recognise those things. Whilst that may seem like an audacious claim, when talking about weight limits in respects to inventory, one of the developers said when they asked what people liked about BG, no one said weight limits - it's that kind of ad-hoc reasoning that alarms me, and thinks that a lot of the mechanics that gave BG it's feel, have vanished, because individually they were small, and not game-breakers if they were missing, but eventually, 1+1+1... and so on, will start to add up to something large.

 

[scient]

The first time I played Super Paper Mario, I did this (without knowing what would happen). I couldn't be arsed to sit through another 15 mins of the intro which you can't skip. C&C at it's best not that I really should expect much from a console game.

 

[chips]

Not that it should surprise you, but Dragon Age takes the dialogue trees we've loved since Knights of the Old Republic

What the fuck is this fucking shit? Is KotOR suddenly the first game in existence that featured fucking dialogue trolls

fuck

You know what pisses me off, what really makes me want to go on a murder rampage? The fact these guys make me feel so dinosaur old.

don't.
im 21 and i played pre-kotor rpg before kotor was released

 

[Hamster]

No one cares about ME. :p At least I don't, which is clearly the important issue. I guess the nice feeling in BG and to a degree, IWD too, is that you get kind of wrapped up in something larger than you. I don't doubt that DA:O will do that, I just doubt that it will 'feel' like the IE games because from everything I've read and seen on their forums, they've lost the ability to recognise those things. Whilst that may seem like an audacious claim, when talking about weight limits in respects to inventory, one of the developers said when they asked what people liked about BG, no one said weight limits - it's that kind of ad-hoc reasoning that alarms me, and thinks that a lot of the mechanics that gave BG it's feel, have vanished, because individually they were small, and not game-breakers if they were missing, but eventually, 1+1+1... and so on, will start to add up to something large.

Yeah, BG and IWD never had this epic "chosen one must choose the fate of the world" crap, even BG2 was relatively modest in this department. Unlike you, i am very concerned that DA will fuck up here.

You are absolutely right about small elemenst, seemingly uimportant on their own, forming something bigger when combined. Bioware is trowing out more and more such elements with each game.

 

[Arcanoix]

I think one of the most anticipated features for this game actually are the Origin stories

And the toolset, so we can make our own games from their tools.