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Preview Dragon Age II Review Tidbits

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Yeah...while Dragon Age wasn't gangbusters in the quest design department, it was a damn sight better than BG1 (and BG2 in certain senses), and I like the Baldur's Gate series. Need evidence? Check one of the many BG Let's Play threads. That said, Dragon Age wasn't spectacular in quest design, but it did alright. For the most part, it's standard Bioware fare, in which most choices and consequences are self contained in the questline. They do a much better job flavoring the quests though, even if they choke a bit on execution (the obvious facist dwarf leader is one such choke, and the ability to come out totally ahead in the possessed child quest is probably the biggest).

As for VD's position that Dragon Age Origins is supposedly the best RPG since Arcanum...I'm a little confused on that stance. Mostly I don't quite understand why Bloodlines (and Alpha Protocol as well) is arbitrarily counted out of the running by the way it handles combat. My assumption was that DA and Arcanum were both being held up as standout role-playing games solely for how well they handle, well, the role playing elements, namely choices and consequences that one can experience. Bloodlines arguably does a better job of this than Dragon Age, having many more conversation abilities (essentially two useful, and truly separate, skills in Persuade and Intimidate as well as Dominate and the Malkavian equivalent) as well as other non-combat skills that had a much larger impact. It seems silly to disqualify Bloodlines from best RPG just because it handles it's combat less traditionally, especially when looking at Arcanum as being carried almost solely one the back of role-playing, with a little bit of setting/flavor, with combat and such better left unmentioned.

And I'm going to have to throw my hat in with the crew backing BG1 as having much better combat gameplay than Dragon Age, as a consequence of much more meaningful variety in encounters and a combat system that, I'd argue, is a bit better than Dragon Age's. While Dragon Age does have some encounters that are interesting, the sheer quantity of filler cannot be denied. And the filler combat in this game is bad, making gibberlings/xvarts/tasloi mobs seem great if only because they don't have gobs of HP, and can be quickly wiped out at least. Worst of all, Dragon Age filler combat serves no purpose, as within seconds of a battle, you regenerate mana, fatigue, and health. Filler encounters had at least some purpose in BG, forcing some bit of resource management with spells/ammo/HP, but padding out game length is the only reason for most Dragon Age scruffs. Later in the game I actually appreciated the "Storm of the Century" spell combo, as I could at least "skip" trash encounters by dropping in rooms before entering them.

Of course, Dragon Age does have some good encounters, but most of these are limited to boss fights. This is because most Dragon Age enemies are very boring, often melee fighters that rush at you, with few distinguishing characteristics. BG1 at least attempted to give differently enemies some defining characteristics. Spiders could be simply poisonous fellows, speed freaks, or teleporting goofballs. It's not great, but at least regular enemies had some special, unique abilities. The only, non-boss, enemies that really stood out in Dragon Age were the drakes, demons, and the Revenants. Everything else blended into some sort of mass of humanoid beaters, with occasional rogue or magician.

And even when Dragon Age made specialized boss encounters, some of them were simply terrible. Flemeth and the high dragon stand out as particularly terrible examples, in which the "strategy" to defeat them is to simply get one member of the party resistant to their attacks, have them draw the fire of the dragon, and then have them be healed as the rest of the party slowly chips away from afar for 15+ minutes. Brilliant design. Not. To be fair though, fights like the corrupted spider queen, the golem paragon, the broodmother, and the final battle were pretty well done, if a little formulaic with the whole big-bad monster who changes attack routine/spawns more dudes when it reaches certain health intervals. A little MMO-ish, and not particularly wide open in strategy, but still rewarding of proper tactics and management.
 

Grunker

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@VD: You're right, sorry; the part about the characters and the writing being good, you told me when we discussed the game for the first time in the original DA:O thread.

GarfunkeL said:
Grunker said:
On the high difficulty "spam abilities and hope for the best" is not a viable strategy, period

Contrast this to even BG1, where the plethora of various enemies with special abilities/equipment made for a large selection of different fights and no wonder that experienced players were frustrated with it.

Well there ya go. Third time in this thread people have told me, "but BG is better!" after I've just said that myself.

You guys are getting old, it takes some time for things to sink in ;)

A lot of bullshit going on in this thread btw. People are now claiming that Baldur's Gate had better quest design than DA:O - what the fucking hilarious fuck? :lol:
 

Vibalist

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People are aware that you think BG is better than DA, Grunker. The reason we keep bringing up BG anyway is because we need another game to compare DA with, so we can illustrate DA's shittiness.
 

Grunker

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Vibalist said:
People are aware that you think BG is better than DA, Grunker. The reason we keep bringing up BG anyway is because we need another game to compare DA with, so we can illustrate DA's shittiness.

That's my fucking point, mr. Nørrebro. Saying "BG is better!" is not an argument that DA is shittyness taken to the next level. It's an argument that BG is fucking good, which DA ain't.
 

kris

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Volourn said:
"You basically walked the "tunnel" for most of the game,"

No.

Is this what you turned to? I remember those "levels" clearly, most were linear, not as much as in the ME games, but the exceptions were pretty much only the city.
 

Sceptic

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Vault Dweller said:
this time you can kill a lot more party members, which is a must-have feature in a Bioware game
I'm ambivalent about this. On the one hand, yes, it is a must-have feature in a Bioware game. OTOH... you STILL have to wait until the plot allows you to kill them rather than just be able to KICK THEM OUT OF THE PARTY. You can tell a few of them to leave (or to not join at all - but if we're gonna praise DAO for this, ME1 did it first), but the others are pretty much forced on you in the typical Bioware fashion (ie for no reason whatsoever other than "the developers said so").

I liked the golem though. He was fun to hang around with.
By far the best (I'd say the only tolerable) companion in the entire game and the only one with actual character progression and a not-completely-retarded backstory. AND the companion quest ties into the MQ. If only the other companions were half as good.

KotC is a pretty cool dungeon crawler but I don't think it's in the same ballpark as Dragon Age.
Judging by those who have played and praised it it's a hell of a lot better :smug:

The Witcher is meh at best. Clickfest combat, painfully linear story, pretty graphics, good atmosphere, fucking amazing journal.
I have not played TW but I find these things odd to criticize when specifically comparing to DAO. Let's see: DAO has brain-meltingly boring combat, painfully linear story (yes, you get lots and lots and lots of choices that seem like they will affect the story. Good luck getting them to actually affect anything other than flavor dialog), mediocre graphics, mediocre atmosphere, OK journal marred by utterly idiotic integration into Codex.

The options and choices. Like it or hate it, Dragon Age is the only game that comes close.
I just can't agree with this. Choice-wise? yeah sure, DAO has TONS of these, I'll give it that. Consequences? in the ending slides maybe. Actual SEEN consequences? yeah there's a few, such as Redcliffe being taken over by the undead. Actualy MEANINGFUL C&C, where you don't pick a suboptimal choice just because you're LARPing a jerkass? nope, not a single one. That the game goes to painful lengths to LIE about such meaningful C&C and then completely ignores the "&C" part makes it all the more irritating (Connor situation springs to mind). Let's be fair here: Two Worlds II had more C&C than DAO. Which, TBH, is what really sucks.

sgc_meltdown said:
BG sprites looked a lot less muddy though.
I've always wondered if my eyesight was going or if this was a problem with modern games - most of the time I can no longer tell different enemies by sight alone. Every humanoid starts looking like every other humanoid. Glad it's not just me.
 

Vibalist

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Grunker said:
Vibalist said:
People are aware that you think BG is better than DA, Grunker. The reason we keep bringing up BG anyway is because we need another game to compare DA with, so we can illustrate DA's shittiness.

That's my fucking point, mr. Nørrebro. Saying "BG is better!" is not an argument that DA is shittyness taken to the next level. It's an argument that BG is fucking good, which DA ain't.

But nobody said that DA was bad on account of BG being good. We merely said that DA sucks, and then brought up a similar game to illustrate this.

Fuck it, whatever. And I'm not from Nørrebro.
 

Grunker

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Vibalist said:
Grunker said:
Vibalist said:
People are aware that you think BG is better than DA, Grunker. The reason we keep bringing up BG anyway is because we need another game to compare DA with, so we can illustrate DA's shittiness.

That's my fucking point, mr. Nørrebro. Saying "BG is better!" is not an argument that DA is shittyness taken to the next level. It's an argument that BG is fucking good, which DA ain't.

But nobody said that DA was bad on account of BG being good. We merely said that DA sucks, and then brought up a similar game to illustrate this.

Fuck it, whatever. And I'm not from Nørrebro.

How so? BG is really good, DA is just okay. Bringing BG up doesn't really prove anything.

I thought you said you lived in Nørrebro?
 

sgc_meltdown

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My post was meant to be a specific response to the part of VD's quote I isolated.

I do not consider BG to be especially good in any department. The part on the graphics you are free to take as an actual departure to a comparison between DA and BG, and even that was segued from whether the monster roster was 'better'.

Assuming that I am somehow taking a side in the whole BG and DA sum of their wholes debate is your mistake. Happily this means I am free from addressing the rest of your blather.
 
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Grunker said:
Vibalist said:
Grunker said:
Vibalist said:
People are aware that you think BG is better than DA, Grunker. The reason we keep bringing up BG anyway is because we need another game to compare DA with, so we can illustrate DA's shittiness.

That's my fucking point, mr. Nørrebro. Saying "BG is better!" is not an argument that DA is shittyness taken to the next level. It's an argument that BG is fucking good, which DA ain't.

But nobody said that DA was bad on account of BG being good. We merely said that DA sucks, and then brought up a similar game to illustrate this.

Fuck it, whatever. And I'm not from Nørrebro.

How so? BG is really good, DA is just okay. Bringing BG up doesn't really prove anything.

Ehm BG is not "really good", it is barely ok. And this is the point made here: DA fails in comparison with a 10+ year old game that was mediocore at best when released to begin with.
 
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Ah. Whatever. I think serious business nailed it on the head. You just have shit taste. Sorry, but thinking BG1 to be "really good" is proof enough for that.

Edit: Yes I was talking about BG 1. I thought this was clear, since BG 2 wasn't really mentioned that often in this thread.

And yes, Baldurs Gate 2 is a far better game than the first installment, in fact so much better that you can call it good.
 

Grunker

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TalesfromtheCrypt said:
Ah. Whatever. I think serious business nailed it on the head. You just have shit taste. Sorry, but thinking that BG1 to be "really good" is proof enough for that.

Good argument there. I guess you're right.
 

J_C

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TalesfromtheCrypt said:
Ah. Whatever. I think serious business nailed it on the head. You just have shit taste. Sorry, but thinking BG1 to be "really good" is proof enough for that.
Or maybe you have shit taste. Who knows? It is a possibility, isn't it?
 

Vibalist

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Grunker said:
Vibalist said:
Grunker said:
Vibalist said:
People are aware that you think BG is better than DA, Grunker. The reason we keep bringing up BG anyway is because we need another game to compare DA with, so we can illustrate DA's shittiness.

That's my fucking point, mr. Nørrebro. Saying "BG is better!" is not an argument that DA is shittyness taken to the next level. It's an argument that BG is fucking good, which DA ain't.

But nobody said that DA was bad on account of BG being good. We merely said that DA sucks, and then brought up a similar game to illustrate this.

Fuck it, whatever. And I'm not from Nørrebro.

How so? BG is really good, DA is just okay. Bringing BG up doesn't really prove anything.

I thought you said you lived in Nørrebro?

I've lost track of what the hell this discussion was about. But I'm pretty sure I'd have won it. :smug:
And no, I'm from Østerbro.
 

Storyfag

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Sceptic said:
I liked the golem though. He was fun to hang around with.
By far the best (I'd say the only tolerable) companion in the entire game and the only one with actual character progression and a not-completely-retarded backstory. AND the companion quest ties into the MQ. If only the other companions were half as good.

Notice how all the best things in DAO are associated with dwarfs in some way. Them little buggers sure provided a lot of :incline: for that game.
 
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J_C said:
[
Or maybe you have shit taste. Who knows? It is a possibility, isn't it?

Or maybe you are just a shitty newfag who knows nothing about what makes a good RPG?
I have observed your posts J_C. You seem to live in the dellusion that the BG games are somehow "oldschool" RPGs and venerated on the Codex. Here's news for you newfag: They are not. The Codex has a long tradition of making fun of the Baldur's Gate series. Of course, as users change, so do the codex preferences, but a few years ago, even saying that Baldur's Gate 2 is a good RPG (like I always did) was stretching it. Just look at the desciriptions of the Baldur's Gate games in the Codex game database. Does that sound positive in your ears?
Baldur's Gate is the game that started it all for BioWare. You play as a child of a god who has to fight off evil in exactly the same way every time.

Shadows of Amn follows up on the first game. The PC finds himself in a new land with new foes to face, in the same terribly linear and ph4t l00t ridden style we've come to know and love from BioWare.
 

Grunker

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^Careful J_C, he's using the N-word at you now. Means it's serious business.

He's right though. When I came to the Codex I recieved tons of flag for liking Baldur's Gate. Still do I guess. Some people on the 'dex seem to align join dates with a person's age, and thus makes the connection: Newfag that likes Baldur's Gate = Must be young and hasn't played many RPGs. I'm 23, I've played almost all of the Codex' favourites, and I've loved almost all of them. Guess what though - the Baldur's Gate Series is still in my TOP10, and I don't think people like Tales shouting I'm an idiot for having it there is going to change that anytime soon. There are people who seem to think that way however, and my guess is Codex has almost always had people who loved the games shunned on here. We know from when Dragon Age came out that a lot of codexers like it. Why don't they join in the discussions about it? My guess is they're pretty fucking exhausted from having the same old bullshit argument.

Storyfag said:
Sceptic said:
I liked the golem though. He was fun to hang around with.
By far the best (I'd say the only tolerable) companion in the entire game and the only one with actual character progression and a not-completely-retarded backstory. AND the companion quest ties into the MQ. If only the other companions were half as good.

Notice how all the best things in DAO are associated with dwarfs in some way. Them little buggers sure provided a lot of :incline: for that game.

Derp Roads.

Derp.
 

Vibalist

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Storyfag said:
I didn't say *everything* dwarf-related is :incline: Derp Roads are a major source of :decline: . Clearly the dwarfs dug too derp there. But Orzammar politics are DAO's only saving grace.

What was so great about the dwarves, though? The city of Orzammar was not that exciting to explore and the dwarven politics thing that people seem to hail around here wasn't anything special either. I guess the fact that Bioware managed to at least make minor changes to the dwarven race (such as the caste system) rather than pulling them straight out of AD&D like they did the elves somehow counts in their favor or something.
Not that the changes they made to the dwarves was anything amazing. Bioware still stuck to all those other cliches sorrounding them, like how they like to drink ale and swing their axes and all that shit.
 

Grunker

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Vibalist said:
Storyfag said:
I didn't say *everything* dwarf-related is :incline: Derp Roads are a major source of :decline: . Clearly the dwarfs dug too derp there. But Orzammar politics are DAO's only saving grace.

What was so great about the dwarves, though? The city of Orzammar was not that exciting to explore and the dwarven politics thing that people seem to hail around here wasn't anything special either. I guess the fact that Bioware managed to at least make minor changes to the dwarven race (such as the caste system) rather than pulling them straight out of AD&D like they did the elves somehow counts in their favor or something.
Not that the changes they made to the dwarves was anything amazing. Bioware still stuck to all those other cliches sorrounding them, like how they like to drink ale and swing their axes and all that shit.

So fucking what? Jesus christ, you might as well call it a day and stop playing or reading anything. The Witcher (the books and the universe) is critically acclaimed for being original, and it has less original dwarves than DA:O. You don't have to invent the wheel everytime; using clichés in an interesting faction is the core of many good works.

Again, I'm not saying DA:O is fucking brilliant, I'm saying it does away with some old fantasy staples and plays a little with some others. How is that a bad thing?
 

J_C

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TalesfromtheCrypt said:
J_C said:
[
Or maybe you have shit taste. Who knows? It is a possibility, isn't it?

Or maybe you are just a shitty newfag who knows nothing about what makes a good RPG?
I have observed your posts J_C. You seem to live in the dellusion that the BG games are somehow "oldschool" RPGs and venerated on the Codex. Here's news for you newfag: They are not. The Codex has a long tradition of making fun of the Baldur's Gate series. Of course, as users change, so do the codex preferences, but a few years ago, even saying that Baldur's Gate 2 is a good RPG (like I always did) was stretching it. Just look at the desciriptions of the Baldur's Gate games in the Codex game database. Does that sound positive in your ears?
Baldur's Gate is the game that started it all for BioWare. You play as a child of a god who has to fight off evil in exactly the same way every time.

Shadows of Amn follows up on the first game. The PC finds himself in a new land with new foes to face, in the same terribly linear and ph4t l00t ridden style we've come to know and love from BioWare.
Or maybe you are just a dumbass, who thinks that the date of registration decides a person's knowledge of RPGs. I know that I'm not an expert on the RPGs from the 1980s, early 1990s, but my date of registration doesn't have to do anything with that. A person registered in 2011 can be an RPG expert, s/he might have just found this site in this year. So fuck you your newfag bullshit, and stop acting like a 12 year old troll. Registration date doesn't mean shit. Also, registration date doesn't refers to the person's age. I'm not old (27), but I'm sure older than some people, who proudly call themselves oldfags. I just found the site last year. So what?

As for BG2. Yeah, I read the kind of negative discription about it. I wonder why it is in the Top 10 of Codex for several years than? I think most people who voted for it were older Codexers, since they are in majority on the site. So it is not the "newfags" who pushed it into the Top 10. Truth is, BG2 is a good RPG, and most of the Codex like it. And yeah, I think BG1 is also a good a RPG, because it is. I call them oldschool, yes. I know they are not oldschool in a way as the older Ultima, Wizardry, or the Goldbox games. But if you have a exact definition about the word "oldschool", please, enlighten me.

Oh, and you can check my posts whenever you want. I don't care about self-appointed RPG experts like yourself.
 

Storyfag

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Vibalist said:
Storyfag said:
I didn't say *everything* dwarf-related is :incline: Derp Roads are a major source of :decline: . Clearly the dwarfs dug too derp there. But Orzammar politics are DAO's only saving grace.

What was so great about the dwarves, though?

Great? Nothing much. Well, maybe the Bhelen/Harowmont choice. They were just massively better than any other part of DAO. Not a huge feat in itself.
 

sgc_meltdown

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Bro I don't want to get in your way or anything but just because he doesn't like the dwarves as much as you it doesn't mean he's saying they're bad. He just doesn't think it redeems that area.

Somewhere in him there saying they aren't amazing you seem to have seen a paragraph calling you a stupid fucker or something.
 

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