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Game News Dragon Age II Has the Best Writing since PS:T

circ

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Re: Dragon Age II Is Better than PS:T

SPOILERS AHEAD DOUCHEFAG

Retard said:
This isn’t the same old end-of-the-world, hero-saves-us-all-from-the-apocalypse story that regularly passes for narrative in the game space.

Except it pretty much is. Here's the simplified story: You're an ex-nobleman refugee, now on skid row. But no worries, soon you're nobleman-ish again. How you could possibly live a nobleman's life in Lothering I don't get, because it was a shithole, not unlike Kirkwall. Anyway, along the way you do a few dozen missions, that all play out the same in pretty much the same 3 dungeons. Only some exits are blocked off at 'random' and you sometimes enter through another entrance. Inventive. There are no consequences for anything. No, not really. Some missions are just there to influence your retarded groupmates. If that's your idea of consequence, then ok.

In between ex-noble and noble, you go by the Deep Roads to get money. Funnily enough, that moniez is just enough to cover your investment. This segment contains the only passable and coherent writing in the entire game. And then there's a betrayal.

Later, back on the surface... Seems some Qunari are camping in Kirkwall, your new hometown. Qunari now have horns and a different skintone. Before they were just big humans. I guess it's like old Klingons and new Klingons. Except Star Trek writers understand the difference between writing and eating twenty servings of jello. Now, Qunari are big on combat, so just sitting around, doing jack shit eventually boils over and they attack Kirkwall. Because they were bored. Yeah, pretty much. Because Gaider can't write.

But, because you're the hero-that-saves-us-all, you kick some Qunari ass. But oh shit, the Qunari killed the viscount, so now there's no one to mitigate the templar vs. mage shitstorm.

O shit.

Oh, in between bored Qunari attacking and something, your mom gets murdered. Or zombified. Whatever. It has no purpose in the story. Or so you think at first. This was after all a Toupee Gaider story, partially. No, you can't save your mother, whom you barely know. She has about three repeating conversation snippets, and very few cutscenes where she either cries or whines, usually both. That's mom. See, initially, during play testing, you could save your mother. But that was bad. Your mom is just there as a story motivator, so you think about who to side with when the real shit hits the fan; templars or mages. And your mom was killed by a mage. A deranged, psychotic mage, but a mage none the less. Wow, choices. Do I side with the batshit crazy, badly written, obviously hypocritical templars, or the mages that had nothing to do with my mom dying? Consequently, the templars are led by the queen of batshit crazy, and the primary antagonist. But mages killed your mother! Except, they didn't. That's first class writing if I've ever seen any.

Oh also, main antagonist went insane because of your earlier Deep Roads adventure. But it's not important, as there is no way to influence anything other than your groupmates whatever your class or playstyle. And influencing groupmates doesn't matter at all. Some might leave you if you're not their buddy, but yeah, doesn't matter.

Yeah, you're not the hero at all. You're just the Champion, because you saved the city from a bored Qunari, and who else to save the world, or Kirkwall. I say bored, but the Qunari badguy is a complex character. Well except he really isn't. He's just bored.

Retard said:
Even if the fate of the city Kirkwall is at stake, and I’m not so sure that it is, most of Dragon Age II is about the story of your character. The construction of that story does keep hinting at some greatness associated with The Champion, which presumably is you, but it’s easy to forget that you are fated toward some imbued station of quality while kicking around in the dirty, underground politics of the city.

What politics? I saw no politics, just bad writing. The kind of writing that gets you an F in special ed class.

Retard said:
Smaller stakes make the story that much more personal, and you care for what is happening not because the countless, anonymous multitudes are threatened, but because the consequences are so personal to the central story. That is a subtle art that few video games get right.

Smaller stakes? Don't you mean 3 repetitive dungeons? Consequences are personal? Did we play the same game?

Retard said:
As I played Dragon Age II last night, I came to yet another choice. It was a small moment in the middle of a side quest, one of countless little vignettes in the larger tapestry of events in Kirkwall, but I was frozen, indecisive in how to make my decision. Both sides of the argument at hand seemed so equally balanced, but there were consequences that I cared about, and I didn’t know which way to proceed. As I finally made the call, I was already looking forward to going back through the game again to explore the impact of the road not taken.

Dude! Pick whatever gets you laid the fastest with whatever groupmate you're hot for!

Retard said:
That’s just about the highest praise I can give a game.

I'd call a BioWare game something other than shit, if there was a shit scale, but why bother. Shit is shit, man.
 

Volourn

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" There are no consequences for anything."

FFS This is just a flat out lie. Why lie?


"they attack Kirkwall. Because they were bored."

More lies. L0LZ
 

circ

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What's the link for the review?

Volourn said:
" There are no consequences for anything."

FFS This is just a flat out lie. Why lie?

"they attack Kirkwall. Because they were bored."

More lies. L0LZ

There are no consequences Volly. You side with one faction and that's it. There's your consequence, who backs you up. Unless you meant cookie cutter kindergarten consequences like handing Isabel over to the Arishok or shit like that. Because hey, that's some supremo storytelling right there.

Did you talk to the Arishok? Ask him about his motivations? Notice how he says 'U R 2 DUMB 2 UNDASTAND LOL'. Just like Reapers in Mass Extreme. Shitty writers come up with some pretty shitty excuses.
 

IronicNeurotic

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Messages
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Morgoth said:
The best writing since PS:T comes from Avellone himself, Dead Money.

fixed.

Actually, the best charachter writing is more true to it. I freaking loved the Dead Money charachters. There were only four, but every one of them had different personalitys, mannerisms (incredible distinct, beautiful mannerisms)..... It was just .... love.
 

youhomofo

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Messages
142
easychord said:
For me Shogun 2 has better writing than DA2. See what I did there, I said "for me" so nobody can disagree. But the writing is better.

I disagree. For you Dwarf Fortress has better writing, bitch.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
attackfighter said:
Arcanoix said:
Overweight Manatee said:
I still can't figure out what Loghain was supposed to be. He feels like a bad use of the 1. XXX 2. ??? 3. Profit joke. Did Bioware ever try to explain him or did his whole story arc just slip through the cracks?

His intent is explained when you find a letter at Ostagar between Cailan and the Empress of Orlais. It's hinted that Cailan kind of had a thing for her, given their informal tone. Loghain acts like he doesn't know what you're talking about, and then admits he feared Cailan would have set his daughter aside and she'd lose her rights to the throne.

Of course, Return to Ostagar is paid DLC with textures that have an internal date around the time the PC version would've released. (before the 6 month delay) More proof of cut content being put into the game for an extra price. :/

So you have to buy DLC just to give the antagonist a motivation?

His motivation was pretty clear from the original: he was the guy who kicked out the orlesians and Cailan was bringing them back in.

What I hated about loghain is that they made him look and talk like the worst stereotypical villain anyone could've come up with. They couldn't have done a better job at being less subtle even if they had called him Mr Evil.
 

RK47

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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
Volourn said:
"they attack Kirkwall. Because they were bored."

More lies. L0LZ

This isn't true. I agree with Volourn.
 

Drakron

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Messages
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Well true but it just shows a bit of lack of direction.

In DA:O we fight the "end all" Boss of the place, a Archdemon and in DA:II we fight a insane-by-artifact Templar Knight-Commander that is a lot less that a Archdemon.

If anything DA:O had a idea that pretty much ended with it because it could run off in several directions (starting with Morrigan's Child) and so a continuation was unlikely were DA2 reeks of "to be continued" and have a very distinct feeling from DA:O, even with all the changes ME2 still felt like being ME.

Now personalty I am tired of "EPIC!!!" like in DA:O and prefer more "local" threats like DA2 but still there is a timing and this feels more like a "reboot" that a sequel.
 

circ

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Mastermind said:
attackfighter said:
Arcanoix said:
Overweight Manatee said:
I still can't figure out what Loghain was supposed to be. He feels like a bad use of the 1. XXX 2. ??? 3. Profit joke. Did Bioware ever try to explain him or did his whole story arc just slip through the cracks?

His intent is explained when you find a letter at Ostagar between Cailan and the Empress of Orlais. It's hinted that Cailan kind of had a thing for her, given their informal tone. Loghain acts like he doesn't know what you're talking about, and then admits he feared Cailan would have set his daughter aside and she'd lose her rights to the throne.

Of course, Return to Ostagar is paid DLC with textures that have an internal date around the time the PC version would've released. (before the 6 month delay) More proof of cut content being put into the game for an extra price. :/

So you have to buy DLC just to give the antagonist a motivation?

His motivation was pretty clear from the original: he was the guy who kicked out the orlesians and Cailan was bringing them back in.

What I hated about loghain is that they made him look and talk like the worst stereotypical villain anyone could've come up with. They couldn't have done a better job at being less subtle even if they had called him Mr Evil.

I don't think it was just his motivation people had issue with. It was the fact that he, supposedly a supreme strategist, decides to leave his king in the shit against darkspawn, darkspawn that end up fucking up half of his own country. That's not strategy, that's fucking retarded. He's more worried about Orlesians, except those guys don't even make a cameo. And in the end, that's retarded, bad writing.

Gaider, Kirby, Hepler and whatever, simply can't write. I doubt they could write a cook book. They equate badly written double entendres with funny as shit, prostitution being equal to a cleaning lady and STD's as fucking hilarious. To give a few examples. I haven't read any fanfic, but I bet in most of the cases, the fanfic is universally more professional than what these bottom of the hackest hacks type out.
 

Volourn

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hate it or like it, DA2 is very much a sequel. DA2 doesn't really work without DA1. there's too many tie in both story/character wise, background wise, and gameplay wise.
 

Drakron

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Volourn said:
hate it or like it, DA2 is very much a sequel. DA2 doesn't really work without DA1. there's too many tie in both story/character wise, background wise, and gameplay wise.

No.

The only thing that DA:O does is the Blight that serves as a catalysis for them to go to Kirkwall as the rest is just background information that does not really plays out much, even ME2 had bigger "deal breakers" with importing saves.

Its not terrible hard to remove the DA:O bits as its just flavor that can be reworked since Kirkwall is too removed from Ferelden to any impact to actually exist, we do get some DA:O bits but if you gone into the game without playing the first you will not be lost at all, in fact they might as well make "Origins" were instead of Human Hawke we could play other races since the story only "hinders" on Hawke because they forced a story-family-connection, as if a Elf or a Dwarf would not have reasons to join The Deep Roads Expedition.
 

circ

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Right. The only thing tying in DA 2 with DA: O are a few cameos, including, Flemeth, Alistair, Zevran, and a full blown NPC, Isabela, who wasn't fleshed out in the first one anyway.
 

Arcanoix

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Volourn said:
" There are no consequences for anything."

FFS This is just a flat out lie. Why lie?


"they attack Kirkwall. Because they were bored."

More lies. L0LZ

You obviously haven't played the game, retard. Or you have an earlier, probably better, build of it. Care sharing?
 

Arcanoix

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Gosling said:
attackfighter said:
So you have to buy DLC just to give the antagonist a motivation?

Antagonist motivation DLC. Brilliant.

What's next? A DLC that explains me why I should feel motivated to play the game?

Apparently if they release 50 Day One DLC's, that should motivate you to buy the game because 25 of those DLC's will be FREE if you register the game the first week of it's release... :rpgcodex:
 

Volourn

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"The only thing that DA:O does is the Blight that serves as a catalysis for them to go to Kirkwall as the rest is just background information that does not really plays out much, even ME2 had bigger "deal breakers" with importing saves.

Its not terrible hard to remove the DA:O bits as its just flavor that can be reworked since Kirkwall is too removed from Ferelden to any impact to actually exist, we do get some DA:O bits but if you gone into the game without playing the first you will not be lost at all, in fact they might as well make "Origins" were instead of Human Hawke we could play other races since the story only "hinders" on Hawke because they forced a story-family-connection, as if a Elf or a Dwarf would not have reasons to join The Deep Roads Expedition."

Bullshit. There are so many tie ins to DA1. So fukkin' many. The Fade, the tons of cameos, returnable joinable, , templar-mage battle, and tons of other shit. the game has more ties in to D1 than BG2 did with BG1 where the only real connection to the game was the PC and a handful of companions.


Gamepklay wise it's basically the same system. Same three classes, talent trees, specialziations, runes, equipment slots, how inventory works, how stats effect combat, coin system.

Sorry, DA2 is DA2 and only a retart can miss it. LMAO
 

J_C

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Volourn said:
Bullshit. There are so many tie ins to DA1. So fukkin' many. The Fade, the tons of cameos, returnable joinable, , templar-mage battle, and tons of other shit.
The fade and the templar-mage battle is not a tie in, those are just part of the same lore. It's like saying that there are many tie ins in BG2 for Icewind Dale, just because you can find the same gods in both games. The only real tie ins in DA2 are the returning characters, and a few references to earlier events. That's all. There are no events in DAO that have major effect in DA2.
 

attackfighter

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Mastermind said:
His motivation was pretty clear from the original: he was the guy who kicked out the orlesians and Cailan was bringing them back in.

Actually Cailan agreed not to bring in the Orlesian reinforcments.
 

J_C

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Volourn said:
That's true for BG2 to BG1.

Or FO2 to FO1.

LMAO
I myself never said otherwise. DA and BG are not different in this regard.
 

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