Critical Miss: Dragon Age 2

[Canadish]

It's rather amazing just how much goodwill Bioware has managed to burn through over the space of one game. I'm less than certain the sheer volume of ire being cast in their direction is really deserved, or how much might have been overlooked if the game said ire was orbiting hadn't been developed in ways that made the "loyalist" fanbase feel betrayed.

Hopefully ME3 will earn some forgiveness.

Well, a reputation takes a lifetime to build, a moment to ruin....

Bioware staff must be pissed at EA for rushing them into release though.
Not that this excuses alot of their other questionable behaviors. Awesome comic. I've been following this train wreak story from early on, so it struck a cord with me

 

[TilMorrow]

Is there an elf, flirting with a sheep in the background?

*sigh* The dalish in this Game were Welsh, Irish and Scottish, its a Welsh joke. (I get tired of the Welsh jokes, atleast have somthing to back up the things, like Americas obesity problem. The Sheep joke shouldnt even exist.)


However I found this amusing all of BWs recent PR fails in one image.

I didn't even relate Sheepx jokes with the Elf in the background until I read your post. I was thinking more along the lines that the Elf must know Zevran and his strange 'tastes'.

Hawke works for Bioware's PR department? I thought he was only working as an actor in the game. Looks like I'm going to have to be careful when talking about Bioware now. Don't want a mage/warrior/rogue/champion-of-Kirkwall appearing on my doorstep anytime soon.

 

[ObsessiveSketch]

I absolutely love watching webcomic art get steadily better as the strips progress

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Feel sorry for all the people that ended up buying the "RPG of the decade" ^o^

As someone who loves DA:O and DA2, I can confidently say you don't need to feel sorry for me

Seconded! I love this game! it's fantastic!

The welsh joke was a tad much... PR blow up did suck for EA though

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Hmm. I'll admit, the PR fiascos that I've witnessed so far have been wryly amusing to me, but in terms of negative impact to the actual product? Origins had some massive bugs right out of the gate, including a fairly substantial memory leak that eventually extended load times between zones so much that you could brew and drink an entire pot of coffee before the zone would finish loading, plus the usual slew of random crashes to desktop. Dragon Age 2 on the other hand has crashed all of 3 times in the I've lost track of just how many hours I've been playing that damn game but it's a lot that I've been playing it, and I'm not entirely sure that one of those instances was the fault of the program and not my computer itself. Apart from that, the only in-game glitches that I've encountered were:

• 1. A couple of times[footnote]And by that I mean literally twice, once in a conversation with Bethany and once with Fenris. In both cases reloading from an earlier save (the last autosave for me) convinced it to play that missing first bit of the conversation.[/footnote] the first line that an NPC delivers in a conversation didn't "trigger" somehow, and it jumped right to Hawke's response options.
  
  2. One sidequest apparently completed but didn't leave my active quest list (the one with Fetch).
  
  3. I think one conversation with Merrill in her home triggered too early, but I might be misinterpreting it.

From a coding standpoint I would definitely contend that Dragon Age II is a more solid initial product than Origins, that had all sorts of bugs, including real whoppers that rendered entirely playstyles ineffective. Still, the PR miss-steps are pretty darn hilarious.

 

[Canadish]

Elf flirting with Sheep. Talk about being at one with nature
I still wanna play this game though, just to see what all the fuss is about.

Dont buy it. Is a good solid C+ game. 7/10. Not a bad buy.
But from Bioware? You'd be encouraging them to be lazy and sloppy again.

Its like the kid that's got all A's suddenly taking up chain smoking, and suddenly drops to a C. You dont want to encourage it.

 

[Irridium]

...And this is why PC gaming is dying: because you don't have to deal with this shit with the consoles.

I... kind of agree. I don't think PC gaming is dying, but it seems publishers/developers seem to be trying their hardest to kill it with all this DRM and other bullshit...

snip

Which is odd, considering the game crashes every 2 hours for me no matter what I do. It is a graphical issue, since the error seems to be talking about the display drivers. Which is odd, since 1) my drivers are all up to date, and 2) my card is the exact same card the box recommends I use. Doesn't matter if I'm playing at the lowest settings, or the highest. It crashes.

Although a new patch just got released, hopefully that'll fix things.

 

[Bad Cluster]

For everyone who is blaming EA from what DA 2 is, read this: http://blog.brentknowles.com/2010/08/15/bioware-brent-year-10-fall-2008-summer-2009/

Changes
We were nearing the end of active work on design content for Dragon Age? there was still a lot more bug fixing/polishing/ and fill-content generation ahead but the core plot/writing and level design was finished. My work was rapidly shifting into that of reviewing what the team had put together.

Discussion on Dragon Age 2 began around this time and looking ahead I knew that I wasn?t going to be satisfied with what Dragon Age 2 would be. Party control/tactical combat are huge factors in my enjoyment of a role-playing game as is adopting the role of the hero (i.e., customizing my character). I was fairly certain Dragon Age would transition towards more of a Mass Effect experience, which while enjoyable is not the type of role-playing game I play. Could I be the lead designer on such a title? Certainly? though if I were going to work on a game adopting a set-in-stone protagonist I?d rather work on something lighter, like a shooter.

Through a series of circumstances it was decided that with my not wanting to participate on Dragon Age 2 it was time to transition in a new lead to finish the Dragon Age console versions and ramp up for Dragon Age 2. I moved out of an active lead role though I stayed on for several months performing quality assurance and helping with the transition. I completed the game several times during this period and racked up the second or third highest bug totals? so, still busy but doing something quite different.

After this was over and the content locked down I took a sabbatical.

Not rushed, it was intended to be the way it is. I love me some Mass Effect, and I love me some Dragon Age: Origins, and I loved them more as different games.

PS: There is a spot on review of DA 2 demo on that blog as well.

 

[Alar]

...And this is why PC gaming is dying: because you don't have to deal with this shit with the consoles.

-cough- STEAM. -cough cough-

Yeah, I don't know if it would avoid the whole forum banning incident (because you have to register an EA account regardless), but I'm relatively certain SecuROM doesn't affect Steam versions of the game.

Also, I'm pretty sure I pre-ordered the game, so why would a review that came out AFTER the game's launch bother me?

PC gaming is going on strong.

 

[therandombear]

The drama mask in the speech wheel should be a troll face... :3

 

[D Moness]

2. One sidequest apparently completed but didn't leave my active quest list (the one with Fetch).

Yep known glitch just as the exiled prince 360 achievements not unlocking on the x-box(they are on your bioware profile) plus on act 3 there is a glitch of a sidequest not starting at all (some girl you need to rescue on wounded coast(most people think the immobile npc at the top right corner is the problem.

I spend 40 hours in this game in 5 days, starting my second playthrough now feel the different playstyles (and achievement hunting). Not many games i played made me not wanting to quit.

For the sheep joke i thought that was more a universal farmer joke.

 

[Zerbin]

It's funny because it's true.

 

[mjc0961]

I just hope Bioware gets their shit together for Mass Effect 3... Starting to get worried a bit.

...And this is why PC gaming is dying: because you don't have to deal with this shit with the consoles.

Do I even have to go get the image? I think we all know what it looks like and what it says by now. Just pretend I went and posted it here. And why would I do that concerning this statement? Because not every game is published by EA or Ubisoft, so not every PC game requires you to deal with that shit either.

 

[James Raynor]

It's dragon effect now.

 

[PerfectDeath]

Better to go water those indie flowers now, so we can put them into bigger pots eventually.

But Instead their releases get pirated and the problem turns full circle. It is a lack of responsibility on a lot of peoples' parts.

 

[standokan]

That was very much amusing, yes.

 

[OblivionRegained]

Do want. Or Do i!?

 

[flying_gazzelle]

...And this is why PC gaming is dying: because you don't have to deal with this shit with the consoles.

Oh ho ho. I'll post an anti-PC gaming comment on a forum filled with Pc gamers!
Seriously though, from what I've seen at least, PC gaming is thriving. You don't have to deal specifically with DRM shit on an Xbox but, I at least, didn't have to deal with it on my PC either as I just simply used Steam. If you hate accounts then sure, you have every reason to hate it but, for me, I find steam rather useful. Hell, if I hadn't started using steam when I did I would have a load of shelves filled with games by now.
Furthermore, most people I know are buying Gaming pcs nowadays because they are tired of the shit they deal with on their xbox. Ie, Controller is sub-par compared to mouse and keyboard, they are trying to add on gimmicks to allow them to live for longer and bring them closer to Pcs, but only end up having a sub-par PC with 2 or 3 games they can't play on the PC.
On top of that it costs more to have an Xbox nowadays due to their lifespan+Game cost.
In any case, DA2, whilst most likely not achieving the "RPG of the decade accolade" is definitely a fine enough game. That being said, I only had one bug that was fixed by a quick tinker with settings. Wasn't even a game breaking bug.
(How many of you are incapable of taking a joke? There hasn't exactly been any other RPG worth mentioning so far this year and PC gamer decided to make a joke combining that with the quality of the game. It was phrased as a rhetorical question, in any case)

Oh, also, good strip. I hope EA see it.