Preview Dragon Age II Previews

[Jaesun]

Jaesun! SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Sit back and enjoy the fucking show.

Allrighty then.

 

[janjetina]

"which was their best-selling game"

ME2 would argue with you. The games are pretty much neck and neck.

Even in that case, they manage(d) to publish two games quite different from each other in parallel and both sold well, since target audiences differed. Now they will have two titles competing for the same audience, alienating a part of their costumer base. It doesn't seem like a savvy business decision. You don't mess with the winning team (regardless of the quality of their games, it is obvious that following the formula resulted in a financial success).

 

[Roguey]

I'm convinced this is EA's doing. Bioware actually tried to make RPGs before being bought out, even if they basically kept making the same game over and over.

Craigy seems to be right for once (or twice or thrice). I just love mashing my print screen button on the Bioware forums:

I guess he could be lying, but eh. I like how he frequently interacts with the fanbase, even if he says a lot of crazy things (that's part of the entertainment truthfully).

 

[MetalCraze]

Stop fucking blaming EA like some slavers. Devs work for them willingly you know. If Bioware devs didn't like to rape their games they would've left and found a new publisher in an instant.

 

[Sergiu64]

Stop fucking blaming EA like some slavers. Devs work for them willingly you know. If Bioware devs didn't like to rape their games they would've left and found a new publisher in an instant.

I worked for EA for a couple of months. If there is ever a company that deserves being equated to slavers, its that one.

 

[flushfire]

Playing as a Rogue proved to be a faster, more strategic experience than our last encounter with the game in which we played a sword-wielding knight. In this go-around, we dodged and slashed our way through the encounter

in addition to just slashing the enemy's face you also have to dodge a few times as a rogue. that's definitely more strategic, wow. also, no more flanking/backstabbing with the rogue, straight up combat is better? cool

 

[racofer]

also, no more flanking/backstabbing with the rogue, straight up combat is better? cool

In DA:O later on that happened as well with paralysis runes and all those stun spells.

 

[torpid]

"which was their best-selling game"

ME2 would argue with you. The games are pretty much neck and neck.

Even in that case, they manage(d) to publish two games quite different from each other in parallel and both sold well, since target audiences differed. Now they will have two titles competing for the same audience, alienating a part of their costumer base. It doesn't seem like a savvy business decision. You don't mess with the winning team (regardless of the quality of their games, it is obvious that following the formula resulted in a financial success).

I doubt they'll alienate much of their core fanbase. Although they may complain, Bioware holds them -- quite literally -- by the balls. The fans are in it for the "storytelling," so as long as they can delve into many a furry dungeon they'll buy the game.

 

[Drakron]

I doubt they'll alienate much of their core fanbase. Although they may complain, Bioware holds them -- quite literally -- by the balls. The fans are in it for the "storytelling," so as long as they can delve into many a furry dungeon they'll buy the game.

Maybe but those will be hundred or thousand and not millions and the ones that are complaining are not really Bioware fans, a example if how the Nexus that been a "Bethsoft" site had a Dragon Age site, you think this kind of crap will fly with Bethsoft "open world" crowd?

Also they did say Mass Effect 3 will have more RPG elements and I dont think it will compete against DA2 that is going out the door March next year as ME3 does not even have any kind of date indicated, its likely to have a late 2011/early 2012 release date but nothing have been said, in fact I find all affair confusing as this rush out of the door seems to indicate someone at EA upper echelon wants to bury the IP.

 

[DalekFlay]

There's a good thread running right now on the Bioware forum about New Vegas adding in some depth and complexity and whether that means RPGs like DA2 are going to be expected to do so as well, or at least keep the depth they have.

Gaider responded by saying Bioware makes linear story-driven games so the comparison is flawed, which might be correct.

Thread here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic ... /5239812/1

 

[Shannow]

"which was their best-selling game"

ME2 would argue with you. The games are pretty much neck and neck.

Even in that case, they manage(d) to publish two games quite different from each other in parallel and both sold well, since target audiences differed. Now they will have two titles competing for the same audience, alienating a part of their costumer base. It doesn't seem like a savvy business decision. You don't mess with the winning team (regardless of the quality of their games, it is obvious that following the formula resulted in a financial success).

First of all: The suits think they know what sells. They've made their jobs into selling bullshit to people, afterall.
Secondly, they're probably right this time. The non-codexer I met who loved "RPGs" was all over DA:O. But not over the gameplay/mechanics (as they were mostly shit anyway), he agonized for hours over the face-gen...
And he loved the story...
And in contrast to most codexers he was a likable, fairly intelligent guy.
I'm not a hardcore RPGer and I found DA:O to be a far too moronic and boring experience (= too non-hardcore) to have been interested if DA2 had copied everything with only changing the story. So additional dumbing down doesn't affect me. Should be similar for some people.
A few who liked DA:O might be turned off, but to compensate Bio hopes for even more morons out of the action-crowd.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The non-codexer I met who loved "RPGs"

All over ME, ME2, F3 and F3:NV. They just lap that shit up. Then you ask them why? And they naturally have no answer. But it's still the bestest game evah!

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Thread here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic ... /5239812/1

Ha! Very interesting thread, indeed.

Nothing for BioWare. Obsidian is superior in game mechanics, BioWare excels in storytelling.

 

[Drakron]

Gaider responded by saying Bioware makes linear story-driven games so the comparison is flawed, which might be correct.

Except that DA:O was a (relative) open world and non-linear at approach and even quest completion that offered cosmetic C&C.

Gaider is, as I expected. to not address the issue but giving a statement that even if true its still not the point as we are talking about DA:O ... not strange as even if he think DA2 is rubbish he will spew the company line, as any company employer is expected to.

... Until the next game that is, then suddenly "flaws! flaws everywhere !!!" comments will start as a assurance their new shit will not stink, kinda like game journalists that will suddenly find flaws in games that expected their notice when they doing the review.

I sooner trust a politician that a game developer.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Even on the off chance that we did go "OMG choice is in again? We need to change everything!" there'd be little we could do to change course without delaying the game and starting over on huge parts of it.

lol.

 

[Data4]

DA2: Furry Dungeon.

My God in heaven.

 

[Rhalle]

I guess he could be lying, but eh.).

It's all "thoughtful" bullshit. Their interaction on the boards is to hone their poor lying skills and trick the kids.

Plus, what in the fuck does Laidlaw care about vdieogames? He's a damn hired gun whose job it is to sell shit, whatever that shit may be.

They fired Dan Tudge so they could bring in a pair of Chosen salesmen-- Laidlaw and Silverman-- to pimp the piece of garbage that DA was and DA2 will be.

Do either of them really know anything about video games?

 

[Roguey]

Except that DA:O was a (relative) open world and non-linear at approach and even quest completion that offered cosmetic C&C.

I'm pretty sure DA was as story-driven as it gets (Don't want to be a Grey Warden? Too bad, drink the blood). You had your choice of hubs but that didn't make it non-linear considering each one had its own linear progression. You couldn't break a sequence or go to places you're not "supposed" to be in yet like you can in a proper open world.

 

[racofer]

 

[Volourn]

"Even in that case, they manage(d) to publish two games quite different from each other in parallel and both sold well, since target audiences differed. Now they will have two titles competing for the same audience, alienating a part of their costumer base."

BIO's audience has always been the same. they never have two different audiences. It's not like 3 mil people bought DA2, and 3 million different people bought ME2. A high percentage bought both.

 

[Xor]

I didn't buy either but I played both

 

[Volourn]

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/201 ... =500&h=400

 

[forgotmypasswordagain]

Re: Dragon Age II Preview

Delve into her furry dungeon.

So, is there going to be a dungeon full of skunk-people to battle, or is that just a euphemism for her vagina?

 

[Needles]

Re: Dragon Age II Preview

Complexity is for work. Fun stories are for games.



BioWare will continue to streamline the banal aspects of RPGs (loot, useless items, complexity for no reason). This will continues to annoy the "Old Skool" (I call them Excel gamers) because they love to see how the numbers "move" in the equations and impact the mechanics, but most people won't care. Most people want the character and plot choices and the fun story to look back on. Dragon Age 2 looks (we don't *know*) like it is going to offer a play style that takes a solid step toward the storytelling they did with Mass Effect 2... The games is going to rock so much ass.

edit: also, I present to you Epic Chess Story 2.0, made by bioware.

Complexity is for work. Fun stories are for games!!!

 

[MetalCraze]

That "moron" sounds very much like many people here.

Money suits just found a way to make people who hate games buy them - they watch those interactive movies called "games" and think they are gamers and people who indeed like games are just some bitter oldfags that don't know how to have fun to them.

When I tried playing ME2 I was really amazed at how shitty Bioware "games" have become. It's like you are riding on rails from one tedious cutscene to another and shooting gameplay is so fucking badly done it feels like it's a poor excuse to have some reason to call it a game, a filler between neverending cutscenes that aren't even interesting to watch because it looks like today we need a cutscene whenever some bitch breaks a nail.