Dragon Age Dragon Age 2 was released ten years ago

[Fedora Master]

Fuck Gaider, the story woulda been shit either way. Gameplay too.

 

[Skinwalker]

I had to write that dialogue where Orsinio turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot.

Huh? His boss battle wasn't cut, it happened whether you sided with him or with the templars, in complete defiance of logic. Did he mean that there was supposed to be a proper boss fight with this character, and not have him turned into an unrelated monster from DAO? Sure, but why would the asset reuse need the boss fight to happen regardless of your choices?

I literally have no idea what Gaydar is blathering about here. I think he's completely retarded.

 

[Roguey]

Did he mean that there was supposed to be a proper boss fight with this character, and not have him turned into an unrelated monster from DAO?

That is correct. People siding with the mages would only fight Meredith, people siding with the templars would only fight Orsino.

Sure, but why would the asset reuse need the boss fight to happen regardless of your choices?

Once they cut the branching they had to justify why you couldn't side with Orsino, so they made him flip out and turn into a demon.

 

[Skinwalker]

Did he mean that there was supposed to be a proper boss fight with this character, and not have him turned into an unrelated monster from DAO?

That is correct. People siding with the mages would only fight Meredith, people siding with the templars would only fight Orsino.

Does this mean that the plot device idol's possession would be retroactively determined by player choices? If Hawke sides with templars, then Orsino was the one being driven insane by the red lyrium and not Meredith?

Sure, but why would the asset reuse need the boss fight to happen regardless of your choices?

Once they cut the branching they had to justify why you couldn't side with Orsino, so they made him flip out and turn into a demon.

Why did they have to justify why you couldn't side with Orsino? Was it just about content? People siding with mages would get one less boss fight than those who sided with templars, and that's so unfair that they had him deliberately turn himself into a demon even when he is winning?

 

[Roguey]

Does this mean that the plot device idol's possession would be retroactively determined by player choices? If Hawke sides with templars, then Orsino was the one being driven insane by the red lyrium and not Meredith?

Going by what Gaider said, red lyrium wouldn't have been a factor at all. They had to add that to justify why Meredith would turn against people who sided with the templars.

Why did they have to justify why you couldn't side with Orsino? Was it just about content? People siding with mages would get one less boss fight than those who sided with templars, and that's so unfair that they had him deliberately turn himself into a demon even when he is winning?

They couldn't do branching "this person fights this boss and that person fights that boss" so they just made you fight them both. Many years ago Gaider said that he still fought for Orsino to only be included as an optional fight for those who hated mages, but was overruled by the level design lead.

 

[anvi]

Everything people are playing was released 10 years ago.

 

[Skinwalker]

Going by what Gaider said, red lyrium wouldn't have been a factor at all. They had to add that to justify why Meredith would turn against people who sided with the templars.

This is absolutely insane. An entire plot device with a ton of bullshit mystery lore added solely to make a character make an illogical choice they otherwise would have no reason to make. It's even worse with the mage guy, he doesn't even have the excuse of insanity to turn on the people who are helping his faction survive (and winning).

What an absolute failure of game development. Imagine trying to put a positive spin on this steaming pile of shit (referring to Gaydar's interview).

Many years ago Gaider said that he still fought for Orsino to only be included as an optional fight for those who hated mages, but was overruled by the level design lead.

So DAII was designed by mentally retarded people, understood. It shows.

 

[deuxhero]

P.S. Reminder that some biodrones still have DA2 tattoos.

...And amongst the living are seen, carriers of the accursed Darksign.

 

[Camel]

The time to make this thread would have been back in March or at least back in April when Gaider posted a bunch of tweets about it, not now.

Not gonna lie, I was inspired by your thread about DA:O. But since I made a Codex account on September that was simply impossible.

For posterity

https://twitter.com/davidgaider/status/1382001252641370116

DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible.

DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsinio turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment.

So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore.

Almost all Bioware devs are incapable of admitting mistakes and they always get incredibly defensive if their game gets criticized immediately after the release. When the BSN exploded with vitriol after DA2 one Bioware developer complained that their every game was criticized, even BG2. Ignoring the fact many times there was a valid critique and vitriol after DA2 and especially ME3 was something else.

One of the writers still working there talking about important things.

Mary Kirby

@BioMaryKirby
She/her. Writer at BioWare Edmonton. Sometimes brews coffee from the tears of fans. Mostly tweets cats. Views are my own.
The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Only ever played the demo back then. Not since the 1990s had I ever seen such an irritating, limiting and outdated divide between gamplay and story-telling (aka cutscenes). The demo literally was like: Movie sequence -> controls again in your hands for a few bits of combat -> again a movie sequence -> combat, rish wash repeat. Outside of combat, you couldn't walk two steps without triggering another Hollywood-wannabe sequence.

How come this kind of stuff was actually frowned upon back then to the point that old-Bioware and Interplay could advertise their original BG as of consisting of 5 CDs of gameplay on their old website ("general info" -- "NOT just a bunch of FMV") -- and by the time DA2 was released it was seen as like perfectly fine?

What the hell happened here?

 

[Gargaune]

Re: Post #50

So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise

No, David. It isn't safe to say.

I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game.

No, you won't. The only interesting aspect about DA2 was the premise of following a single character's rise across the years, but that premise didn't translate to anything material in the final product. And even if it had, it wouldn't have been enough to carry the title.

You might've envisioned a "fantastic game", but you didn't actually make any part of it, not a stitch. It's not on the fucking disc.

On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion!

Lovely, thanks Roguey. So it's confirmed, EA didn't pull the rug out from under 'em, BioWare knew how much time they had from the start. But instead of producing game content to that schedule, they decided to overhaul the Origins platform, then sold us three maps and half a .jpg for fifty bucks.

I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that.

Uh-huh... It's fascinating how one can build a successful career in videogames and yet remain so utterly clueless outside of their narrow field of expertise.

 

[Larianshill]

I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that.

This IS pretty damning.

 

[Roguey]

Lotsa games have repeated levels/level design, including Mass Effect, The Witcher, and a few spots in Dragon Age: Origins. The key to avoiding complaints about it is to make it not totally obvious, which is done through cosmetic changes to make them at least look/feel a bit different and cutting off all the currently-unused portions from the map/minimap. With DA2, they didn't have the time to do either so it just looks extra lazy.

 

[Camel]

Lotsa games have repeated levels/level design, including Mass Effect, The Witcher, and a few spots in Dragon Age: Origins. The key to avoiding complaints about it is to make it not totally obvious, which is done through cosmetic changes to make them at least look/feel a bit different and cutting off all the currently-unused portions from the map/minimap. With DA2, they didn't have the time to do either so it just looks extra lazy.

Mass Effect had a same warehouse on almost all planets and it was terrible but unless you completed all sidequests, most normies who finished only the main quest didn't see it. I don't remember reused environments in the Witcher, and well, last I played it in 2007. So my memory might be hazy. DA:O had some irritating places with Tower of Ishal, the Mage Circle, goddamn the Deep Roads and the Fade.
Even BG2 had an identical royal mansion everywhere which was jarring during the second playthrough.

 

[Gargaune]

Lotsa games have repeated levels/level design, including Mass Effect, The Witcher, and a few spots in Dragon Age: Origins. The key to avoiding complaints about it is to make it not totally obvious, which is done through cosmetic changes to make them at least look/feel a bit different and cutting off all the currently-unused portions from the map/minimap. With DA2, they didn't have the time to do either so it just looks extra lazy.

Come on, you're grossly understating things. This isn't copy-pasting a few rooms here and there or mixing and matching a bunch of prefab corridors, the game only has a handful of environments that you revisit over and over and over again. DA2's levels are MMO-tier design but at the much smaller scope of a single-player RPG, it was all just taking the piss.

 

[just]

cant wait for "dragon age inqisition was released 7 years ago" thread in like a week

 

[Camel]

cant wait for "dragon age inqisition was released 7 years ago" thread in like a week

Patience. Three more years and your wish will be granted. Then we will have a trilogy of threads.

 

[Anthedon]

There's three DA threads on the first page already, do we need more?

 

[Roguey]

I don't remember reused environments in the Witcher, and well, last I played it in 2007. So my memory might be hazy.

Twitcher only has one cave, one crypt, and one home interior, and it uses them over and over again.

Come on, you're grossly understating things. This isn't copy-pasting a few rooms here and there or mixing and matching a bunch of prefab corridors, the game only has a handful of environments that you revisit over and over and over again. DA2's levels are MMO-tier design but at the much smaller scope of a single-player RPG, it was all just taking the piss.

It was time/budget restrictions. Comparable to the same time/budget restrictions Witcher had (or more recently, Greedfall, to name another example).

 

[Gargaune]

It was time/budget restrictions. Comparable to the same time/budget restrictions Witcher had (or more recently, Greedfall, to name another example).

A restriction which BioWare was well aware of when they began production. The sane thing to do would've been to scrap the engine overhauls in favour of local updates, reign in the cinematic scope, and focus on developing proper game content on the Origins systems and pipelines. And that doesn't mean just levels, but encounters and narrative agency as well, DA2 has basically bugger all of anything. You don't get a free pass charging me AAA prices because you fucked up your development priorities and only had time to develop indie-grade shovelware.

 

[Ulysa]

Game was absolute trash, but I hated it less than the first one. Yeah I know it is crazy, is just a personal thing, but for me , the general story and characters were more attractive. In DA2 I had this feeling that the game wasn't taking itself seriously, unlike the first one which was extremely gloomy but at the same time ridiculous. Like that absurd ritual at the end just to justify Morgan and Alistair having sex. On the second, it was more like DOS, they went full campy mode so I just laughed with all those hate sex encounters. Also, the second one let you choose your way, unlike the first one where Duncan just kidnaps you and you are forced to help humanity.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

Just to play devil's advocate:
Some of the DLC were cool. They took the main villain from Inquisition from one of the DLCs(dumb)
The game felt like a CoD of RPG games. Finished it like 3 or 4 times. Good C&C, good pacing, partly due to the act structure.
Anders' reasoning for blowing the tower is just a cope. If I remember correctly, he was controled by the spirit of Justice that transformed into a spirit of Vengeance and pushed him over the edge.
I liked the retrospective storytelling with the unreliable narrator.
The Quanari act was probably the best one, plus it expands a lot on their lore.
Someone complained there was no central theme? So what? Game can be polythematic.
People then already noticed reused location. I don't think it was that extreme. The problem was that everything looked architectualy similar and samey. Plus you revisit almost all of the location in
each act. So it creates the illusion that they're reusing assets. No. You've just been there before and the map is extremely small overall (which is a problem in and of itself)

Anyway, I'm currently replaying Origins, then I'll move onto Awakening and DA2, see how bad it really is. I remeber Awakening being the best of all the Dragon age "stories".

 

[anvi]

I love DA: Origins! Kinda. I wouldn't want to play it again, and it kinda sucks, but I think the competition and the state of gaming is so bad that Origins has become like an emblem. It had all the right ingredients too, it just needed better sequels.

 

[perfectslumbers]

Just played this game for the first time. The combat could've been fun if it had a tactical cam and had an option to remove ai and didn't have constant respawning enemies. It was close to being a perfectly fine system but it's just so uncontrollable that it's rage inducing instead. The rest of the game was pretty unsalvageable though. The story was filled with awkward moments and contrivances like "wow, every single mage in the city really is an insane murderous blood mage!" And this is the first game with a dialogue wheel that I've ever played, and oh boy is the dialogue wheel fucking awful. Sucks having to reload every few dialogues because you press a dialogue option and it's completely different from what you expected. If indie devs can make an entire new UI when porting their 140 hour rpgs to a console why can't AAA studios do the same when porting it to pc??? Only upside to the game is the pacing really, although even then it's bogged down by trash encounters more often than it needs to be.

 

[Nano]

You know what's one of the most facepalm worthy things in this game? If you turn on friendly fire, the anime style swings from those giant-ass two handed swords are also included, essentially making it unplayable unless you only have one person in melee.