Dragon Age Dragon Age 2 was released ten years ago

[Roguey]

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

The systems and content were designed with the intent that you play as your character with AI scripts handling your companions because that's how most console players wanted to play Origins.

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???

I've read that it makes patching more of a hassle because then they have to make changes to two different builds instead of just one on top of having to put in the additional work of making two UIs.

 

[Gargaune]

Centre for Decline Control - Public Health Advisory


Dear citizen, did you know...

... that Obsidian Entertainment developed Fallout: New Vegas in approximately 18 months? That's thereabouts as long as it took BioWare to regurgitate Dragon Age 2 and only twice as long as it took your mum to make you!

"Wow, does that mean that all three of these things are of the same quality?"

No, citizen. One of these things is good.


This PHA has been brought to you by the Republic of Codexia CDC. Roll smart, roll safe!

 

[baud]

Centre for Decline Control - Public Health Advisory


Dear citizen, did you know...

... that Obsidian Entertainment developed Fallout: New Vegas in approximately 18 months? That's thereabouts as long as it took BioWare to regurgitate Dragon Age 2 and only twice as long as it took your mum to make you!

"Wow, does that mean that all three of these things are of the same quality?"

No, citizen. One of these things is good.


This PHA has been brought to you by the Republic of Codexia CDC. Roll smart, roll safe!

well, Bioware decided to develop a new engine (because of consoles, of course), instead of Obsidian just using Bethesda's engine

 

[Gargaune]

well, Bioware decided to develop a new engine (because of consoles, of course), instead of Obsidian just using Bethesda's engine

Which as I said before, knowing their timeframes, was the wrong decision. And Origins did ship on consoles too, it even got IGN's "Best XBox 360 RPG" of 2009, apparently.

 

[Roguey]

well, Bioware decided to develop a new engine (because of consoles, of course), instead of Obsidian just using Bethesda's engine

DA2 still uses the DA:O engine (which still contains code from the Infinity Engine). They did overhaul the renderer, reused almost none of the graphics from Origins, and rewrote all the underlying RPG systems which was certainly not the most efficient use of time/resources.

 

[Orud]

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.

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. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that.

You know, the product might be terrible but it was a great learning experience making it. If you can see past the game and image how great the experience was making it, you'll like it.

What the fuck.

 

[Camel]

The systems and content were designed with the intent that you play as your character with AI scripts handling your companions because that's how most console players wanted to play Origins.

I played like that and the Origins had adequate scripts so you could fine-tune your party AI to work as a well-oiled machine on the highest difficulty. Only the hardest required to pause and take control of other companions.

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.

That’s retarded and the Origins had a normal friendly fire.

 

[Fedora Master]

Close the fucking thread already, it's embarrassing.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Bioware downward spiral started with Jade Empire.

I agree with this. However one feels about the cinematic storytelling/dialogue with full VO (sort of) that was introduced in KotOR, it's had its successes that are very easy to point to. Jade Empire was the point where Bioware abandoned taking it farther, improving those immersive elements and expanding the C&C, and just decided to remove every other thing that makes an RPG an RPG. Shocking to see how fast it happened too. Added on top of dialogue responses that were ripped verbatim from KotOR, there is nothing coming to mind in any other game that they've made that was more of an obvious decline between titles than Jade Empire. It's really a shame too because I found the Kung Fu movie setting to be a nice break from the standard Sci-fi and Fantasy fare, even if Bioware were always better at creating material for other people's IPs.

 

[Roguey]

I played like that and the Origins had adequate scripts so you could fine-tune your party AI to work as a well-oiled machine on the highest difficulty. Only the hardest required to pause and take control of other companions.

My experience was needing to frequently micromanage, especially with things like area-of-effect spells.

That’s retarded and the Origins had a normal friendly fire.

Yeah, that's another thing. In DA2 they decided to go with an asymmetric system where your damage and enemy health is always going up by large degrees with level ups but player character health remains the same unless you spend points on the health stat which doesn't increase it by that much. This means that friendly fire would instantly drop any person on your team while only denting any given enemy. They ended up applying a bandage with a patch, but the system wasn't designed with friendly fire in mind and they only included it because there was a demand for it from people who didn't know what they were asking for.

• On nightmare difficulty, party members no longer suffer friendly-fire damage from warriors' basic attacks.
• On nightmare difficulty, party members can no longer suffer more than 75% of their health in damage from a single friendly-fire attack.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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).

I recall spending most of my time in twitcher exploring open outdoor areas and those areas were just small detours.
DA2 formula was:
pickup quest
->
go to mission area (surprise it's a copy of a place you've already been to)
->
fight enemies who drop from the ceiling in constant waves
->
repeat


I didn't complete DA2 and I have a high tolerance for this sort of bullshit and general bioware faggotry, so...

 

[Nano]

They ended up applying a bandage with a patch, but the system wasn't designed with friendly fire in mind and they only included it because there was a demand for it from people who didn't know what they were asking for.

They must've screwed up the patch, basic attacks from warriors still cause friendly fire in the latest version.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They ended up applying a bandage with a patch, but the system wasn't designed with friendly fire in mind and they only included it because there was a demand for it from people who didn't know what they were asking for.

They must've screwed up the patch, basic attacks from warriors still cause friendly fire in the latest version.

I remember disabling friendly fire because it was too difficult to not keep blowing my own people up constantly

 

[Camel]

My experience was needing to frequently micromanage, especially with things like area-of-effect spells.

I got nice working scripts for companions with the Advanced tactics mod and it almost removed the need for switching companions. Well, sure I deleted all scripts with AOE spells from companions tactics after getting freezed by Morrigan's ice cone. Party AI is too retarded to trust them with anything AOE-related. Mods are another advantage for DA:O unlike DA2 - Advanced tactics, Skip the Fade(my personal favourite), having the Dog in the party but not counting as a party member. But one of the most popular mods was a mod with "improved" sex scenes.

Yeah, that's another thing. In DA2 they decided to go with an asymmetric system where your damage and enemy health is always going up by large degrees with level ups but player character health remains the same unless you spend points on the health stat which doesn't increase it by that much. This means that friendly fire would instantly drop any person on your team while only denting any given enemy. They ended up applying a bandage with a patch, but the system wasn't designed with friendly fire in mind and they only included it because there was a demand for it from people who didn't know what they were asking for.

Damn, I didn't know. I think BioWare committed a rookie mistake and no one can justify it with a short development cycle. Even with a streamlined but functional MMO-style combat of DA:O instead of improving they bastardized it even more.

They must've screwed up the patch, basic attacks from warriors still cause friendly fire in the latest version.

I don't remember anything about friendly fire, it's been long ago but I vividly remember hating combat, environments, characters.

 

[Roguey]

I got nice working scripts for companions with the Advanced tactics mod and it almost removed the need for switching companions. Well, sure I deleted all scripts with AOE spells from companions tactics after getting freezed by Morrigan's ice cone. Party AI is too retarded to trust them with anything AOE-related. Mods are another advantage for DA:O unlike DA2 - Advanced tactics, Skip the Fade(my personal favourite), having the Dog in the party but not counting as a party member. But one of the most popular mods was a mod with "improved" sex scenes.

That would explain it. Console players don't get mods. Sure, Bioware could have just improved their scripts, but they decided to "fix" the problem by going another way.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Close the fucking thread already, it's embarrassing.

BTW guys, stay out of Dragon Age 2 threads. Prolonging such discussions embarrases the Codex more than it does you.

 

[Camel]

Anders Behring Breivik
I just completed Dragon Age Origins not long ago. A brilliant game!:D
I just bought Modern Warfare 2, the game. It is probably the best military simulator out there and it's one of the hottest games this year. I played MW1 as well but I didn't really like it as I'm generally more the fantasy RPG kind of person - Dragon Age Origins etc .and not so much into first person shooters.
It was now April 25th and I was finally back to normal. I had spent the past couple of weeks playing through Dragon Age II and a couple of other newly released games. Awesome!

P.S. I think he'd fit right in on the Codex. As a cRPG fan of course!

 

[Nano]

P.S. I think he'd fit right in on the Codex. As a cRPG fan of course!

Holy fuck, this is so creepy. Apparently the guy on the left was a fan of Dragon Age, and he went on this killing rampage just months after DA2 came out. But here's the kicker: apparently Anders is his birth name, not a pseudonym. What the fuck?

 

[Camel]

Holy fuck, this is so creepy. Apparently the guy on the left was a fan of Dragon Age, and he went on this killing rampage just months after DA2 came out. But here's the kicker: apparently Anders is his birth name, not a pseudonym. What the fuck?

I was shocked by the rampage and parallels but I learnt only today he liked Dragon Age.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Bioware is responsible for terrorist attacks?

 

[Kem0sabe]

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Ten year later and still not finished.

The scope of the blunder of BioWare's fuck up with Dragon Age 2 is kind of hard to measure. It's like every choice was the wrong one. I know they didn't have the time they useally get, but their were better ways of going about designing thing to maximize that year and a third of development time they had. Instead of trying to pair things down in scape like they talked about, they basically just did what they normally do but within one city. I'm actually a little surprised Dragon Age 2 wasn't just dungeon crawling in the Deep Roads, and random encounter solo fights around the city when moving about the fast travel World Map. They said they wanted to do a more personal small story, the game could have just been about you going to whatever that walled of city was, and becoming some Deep Roads adventure that slowly gains fame and fortune by exploring the Deep Roads. Locations were also all extremely poorly thought out, and not just the copy paste caves and houses, all the locations; just the normal city streets could have been totally rethought and much small, and gave the appearance of more lively real locations than what they ended up doing.

The combat system was definitely a weird choice. A lot of times people here will say this or that changed because of consoles, and a lot of times I'm not sure now true that is, but the combat in Dragon Age 2 I'd say definitely changed because of consoles. But here's the thing about the change: It fucking sucks on consoles too. It made no sense. They're trying to make it feel more like an action game, but hits still register with stats, so it's like a action game with the worlds worst hit detection where you can be hit by enemies you've moved out of the way of and whose weapon visibly missed you by three feet. It's like they made Devil May Cry if Devil May Cry was total fucking shit. It's something that isn't going to make the people that want some kind of tactical combat system happy, and it's not something that's going to make people that want action combat happy. It's like BioWare split the difference and decided to make nobody happy.

 

[Camel]

Ten year later and still not finished.

The scope of the blunder of BioWare's fuck up with Dragon Age 2 is kind of hard to measure. It's like every choice was the wrong one. I know they didn't have the time they useally get, but their were better ways of going about designing thing to maximize that year and a third of development time they had. Instead of trying to pair things down in scape like they talked about, they basically just did what they normally do but within one city. I'm actually a little surprised Dragon Age 2 wasn't just dungeon crawling in the Deep Roads, and random encounter solo fights around the city when moving about the fast travel World Map. They said they wanted to do a more personal small story, the game could have just been about you going to whatever that walled of city was, and becoming some Deep Roads adventure that slowly gains fame and fortune by exploring the Deep Roads. Locations were also all extremely poorly thought out, and not just the copy paste caves and houses, all the locations; just the normal city streets could have been totally rethought and much small, and gave the appearance of more lively real locations than what they ended up doing.

The combat system was definitely a weird choice. A lot of times people here will say this or that changed because of consoles, and a lot of times I'm not sure now true that is, but the combat in Dragon Age 2 I'd say definitely changed because of consoles. But here's the thing about the change: It fucking sucks on consoles too. It made no sense. They're trying to make it feel more like an action game, but hits still register with stats, so it's like a action game with the worlds worst hit detection where you can be hit by enemies you've moved out of the way of and whose weapon visibly missed you by three feet. It's like they made Devil May Cry if Devil May Cry was total fucking shit. It's something that isn't going to make the people that want some kind of tactical combat system happy, and it's not something that's going to make people that want action combat happy. It's like BioWare split the difference and decided to make nobody happy.

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.

Yeah, as Gargaune already mentioned, Bioware already had a solid foundation based on DA:O which they flushed down the toliet. But they built an upgraded version of the Eclipse Engine - Lycium engine which was used only for DA2 and then EA forced Bioware and other studios to use an abortion of the engine - Frostbite for all their future games.

 

[Fedora Master]

Ten years later and people are still COPING

"Could have been good" my unwashed stinking ass.

 

[c2007]

Got the DLCs on sale a year or two ago.

Did another full playthrough (this time complete), with mods and cheats you can cheese through the garbage combat quickly and just play for storyfag.

As such, it has moments but the ending is garbage and so are Gaider's excuses.

I was banned by Allan Schumacher for criticizing this game at release. It was my first temporary. Of many. "Toxic"