BioWare Slays Dragon Age II Expansion
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
- Start date
It's like a Dragon Age Zeel... I'm scared.Zeckt said:
OT: I still need to play origins. I loved it for a while then... then it just sort of wore off on me.
You and a few other people didn't like it, but I and I know many many more people actually loved DA2.Zeckt said:
I hated DA:Origins, DA2 was great.
For a future DA game, the only thing I want different is that the game should be a little longer.
Keep the Mass Effect style dialogue wheel.(It was was a vast improvement over the ancient/obsolete dialogue choice system of DA:O.) The reason I like the wheel style, is that it separates the choices in a manner that I know which one is the right choice for me. The old style form DA:O was a guessing game, if what I didn't want happened with the choice I went with, I had to restart from the last save and do it over again, and that happened so many times in DA:O, that I put it down after a little over 20 hours and never picked it up again, because it wasn't worth my time. The only reason I know what happens later on, is because a couple friends of mine have more free time on their hands and have a little more patients with broken systems.
Keep the combat system. I loved it because it finally gave me full control over my character, instead of the stupid DA:O system where I had no control over my basic attack, so I could only watch as my guy slowly swung his sword like his sword arm was sinking in a vat of tar, and I only cold occasionally press a special power button. DA2 made it so that I could make my basic attack go at the speed I wanted, and actually humanly unencumbered speed, making combat fast and fun instead of slow and boring.
Keep the leveling system with the actually rewarding ability trees. DA2 actually made me feel like the abilities I was upgrading actually were getting better. Being able to upgrade abilities took way too long in DA:O, there were times where couldn't purchase any new ability boost when I leveled up, because the abilities were stupidly tied to the stats. In DA2, stats met crap-all for learning new sections of abilities; when I leveled up I got and ability point which I could used on anything that was next in line on the trees, and that felt awesome.
I want them to write the new party member characters like they did the ones form DA2, where all the characters actually feel different from each other. The vast majority of the characters in DA:O felt like copies of each other personality wise, they were closed off jerks that all changed and saw the light because the player character showed them the way or some such crap. DA2's characters for the most part, didn't change their personalities, Varric stayed the wise-cracking dwarf, Merrill was still naive, etc, etc. The reason DA:O's character set up was bad was because that 360 change of personality is something that is highly rare in real life, so it makes for stupid and childish story telling in a series like DA.
If they want to change or add anything other than length, appease the people that were angry because they didn't get to play dress up with every piece of their party members' clothing.
I think the sales numbers can easily be explained away by:Mcoffey said:
1.) I've seen quite a bit of hate from people, even on these forums, against DA:O, and that they didn't by DA2 because of it.
2.) I know that there are way too many people out there that buy because of word of mouth on the internet from places like Metacritic, and because of all the insanely rabid and unwarranted zero to two bombers, these these people I speak of, didn't get DA2 because they saw the user score was so bad. Zero to two is for games that are broken because of glitches, not because you didn't like the story or characters, or it wasn't long enough, or you didn't like the controls. All opinion aside, from a technical stand point, the game could be played from beginning to end with no errors. So the lowest score it could get if you hated everything else, is a three.
If had been enforced, the game would have gotten a decent 6.5 to 7, maybe even higher, and the score would have actually reflected the product on a proper balance between the haters and the people that loved it.
That is how it works from a professional stand point. I have never seen a professional reviewer give a totally working game a zero.
For the most part, it wasn't the game that hurt the sales, it was the people that don't know how to review a game when they don't like anything about it, or are to rabid(not having a clear mind) to see the actual good points of the game.
I'll translate this article for you all:
"We were going to make an expansion to Dragon Age II, but instead we decided to turn it into Dragon Age 3! Profit!"
"We were going to make an expansion to Dragon Age II, but instead we decided to turn it into Dragon Age 3! Profit!"
I'm very sad to hear that.
Dragon Age II is easily my favourite game of BioWare's so far, and to see it axed, partly likely due to the hyperbolic response from the fanbase, is very frustrating.
Dragon Age II is easily my favourite game of BioWare's so far, and to see it axed, partly likely due to the hyperbolic response from the fanbase, is very frustrating.
Shame, it was a perfect opportuinity to get some things right in the expansion where the main game fell flat on it's copy-pasted face.
I fucking loved that game, even if most hated it and I didn't know they were working on more DLC... This is how I found out..
Captcha "First world" as in first world problem XD
Captcha "First world" as in first world problem XD
Damn, would have loved me more Dragon Age 2. (I liked it, don't need to defend that point today, I do it more than I should.)
Here's hoping DA3 is following the same story but intelligently shrugging off the dreaded "2" in a hopes to give it a clean shot. Don't mind leaving Hawke's story behind to much, she's in a sort of good place I guess.
I do want to see more of the consequences of Anders' actions though, less formulaic "Hate the templars, hate the mages" hopefully. But free magic is an interesting element to include, the towers are a bit old by this point.
Sooo, coherent bullet points to take away are.
-Want more Dragon Age
-Don't need Hawke
-Show us that DA2 meant something and Anders' wasn't being an idiot for nothing.
-Add more onto this DLC tradition (Though preferably in the main game) of killing the alleged "original mages that toppled heaven". Those guys are both classy and stabbable.
Here's hoping DA3 is following the same story but intelligently shrugging off the dreaded "2" in a hopes to give it a clean shot. Don't mind leaving Hawke's story behind to much, she's in a sort of good place I guess.
I do want to see more of the consequences of Anders' actions though, less formulaic "Hate the templars, hate the mages" hopefully. But free magic is an interesting element to include, the towers are a bit old by this point.
Sooo, coherent bullet points to take away are.
-Want more Dragon Age
-Don't need Hawke
-Show us that DA2 meant something and Anders' wasn't being an idiot for nothing.
-Add more onto this DLC tradition (Though preferably in the main game) of killing the alleged "original mages that toppled heaven". Those guys are both classy and stabbable.
Really? You cancel an expansion pack that is exactly the kind of content I would LOVE, 15-20 more ohours in a fun universe, and instead give us 2 hour DLCs that are barely worth mentioning. Great thinking.
Can we at least have a toolset to make our content please, as we did for Origins?
Can we at least have a toolset to make our content please, as we did for Origins?
That's a pity, because I thought the DLC was brilliant. I guess the DLC sales were not enough to justify a proper expansion.
Plus, no more Merril or Varric? That makes me sad.
Just give us a toolset, then, Bioware!
Plus, no more Merril or Varric? That makes me sad.
Just give us a toolset, then, Bioware!
That's a mixed blessing if you ask me. Fans are great at having opinions, but there's a reason we're playing the game instead of developing it. A game more in line with what the fans want isn't always going to be a better game.Marshall Honorof said:
Still, it's nice to know someone is at least listening ^^