Critical Miss: Dragon Age 2

[D Moness]

LIES! There is no sheep in Dragon Age 2!!!

That is because all the Dalish keep them hidden >

 

[Worr Monger]

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!

Thirded. Haters gonna hate.

 

[Ajna]

I get tired of the Welsh jokes, atleast have somthing to back up the things, like Americas obesity problem.

It's funny, because I have this crazy feeling you haven't even been to America, so you only have news outlets to rely on for the "obesity problem".[rant snipped]

Wow. Somebody hit a nerve.

But yeah. Nobody who's ever been to America could come away with the impression that a large percentage of the country really sits around the house when it sits around the house. Totally absurd.

Yes, totally absurd, but unlike you, I don't say that sarcastically.

The average American is no fatter than, to pick a country "completely at random", the average Canadians.

Also, nice passive aggressive use of the term "rant snipped" when it was literally four sentences. One paragraph of disagreement is a "rant" now, I suppose.

I don't claim America to be inherently better than other countries, but to claim it is inherently worse without any proof is just asinine.

 

[mireko]

It doesn't have SecuROM. Learn to use a computer.

EDIT: Allow me to expand upon this. When the game is installed, Sony Release Control distributes two files to the user's temp folder and deletes itself. The files in the temp folder are identified as SecuROM because they call on similar functions, but they are inactive. As in, they don't do anything. You can delete them and nothing will happen.

If there is SecuROM in this game, then it remains undiscovered and unreported. The thing that has been reported is not SecuROM. This has gone beyond being a misunderstanding and become a myth. People are so eager to believe that EA, being the antichrist, has thrown everything they don't like into every new game. While there are a lot of things worth criticizing EA for (their marketing, business practices, etc), this is not one of them.

 

[JediMB]

Except for the sheep joke, I deem this comic a... critical miss.

 

[Jerusalem]

So I bought DA2. It's still in her shiny wrappers, since I decided to play the pirate version instead. And my life is better because of that. QED for the problems facing AAA industry, I guess. Sure doesn't make me feel like buying many games with what limited budget I have to use for entertainment. But I guess natural selection will eventually work these problems out.

 

[Sartan0]

It's dragon effect now.

Yeah I was afraid of that. One of the reasons I am waiting for a cheap game of the year edition. I will stick to that if they keep rushing them out. I am going to go ahead and pick up ME3 as it is the last in the series and I like the feeling they create for it. Matches the setting in my opinion.

As for the comic: made me laugh. Keep them coming!

 

[dmcc85]

once again a "no getter" because i dont get it.
and i 'd rather play risen and risen2.
arkania can sock it , because it is just a stolen copy.

 

[Catalyst6]

To be fair, I bet that review writer played the game once. Therefore, he's technically a "user", making his review a "user review".

Also, Dragon Age 2 is the best game evar. It totally has awesome quets and skillz that make you leetz. And itll totally max out your gamerscore like the cool cats... (oh, wait dammit) umm, "cool dawgz".

(Hauls off phat lootz from Bioware)

 

[JordanXlord]

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

this

i actaully enjoyed dragon age 2

 

[fundude365]

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 Ssheep joke shouldnt even exist.)


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

Most jokes in the vein are now tired stereotypes that only have the barest justification for their existence. Just take comfort in the fact that whoever is telling the joke, even if its in a really ironic way, usually ends up looking like a much bigger fool than whoever the target of their joke was.

 

[Silent Biohazard Solid]

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!

Thirded. Haters gonna hate.

F...Fourthed?
DA2 kicked ass. I hope DA3 is closer in gameplay to DA2, than to DA1 and its clunky combat system.

I mean, here's the thing. I didn't really like the combat system in DAO, but you know what? I didn't throw a big hissy fit over it. I enjoyed the game for what it was, and got past my issues with it.
Haters need to get past the issues they have with DA2, instead of hating one thing about it, and then coming up with excuses to hate every other thing about it.

OT: Funny comic, though. Not as good as CAD ones.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

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

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108588-Microsoft-Defends-Games-on-Demand-Pricing

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103890-Nintendos-Iwata-Blames-You-for-the-Price-of-the-3DS

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101736-Pachter-PS3-Sales-to-Grow-Price-to-Remain-the-Same

Yeah...only us PC people.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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!

Thirded. Haters gonna hate.

And then there are the people like myself who have valid criticisms of the game, so we sort of fall in the middle category between to extremes of fanboyism: ignoring flaws, or drowning in them.

I want more people like me, I've been spending too much time on the Bioware Social Network that I am getting sick of all the trolls and delusional fanboys.

This isn't really directed at you, just know that there is more than two ways of looking at Dragon Age 2.

 

[w-Jinksy]

I get tired of the Welsh jokes, atleast have somthing to back up the things, like Americas obesity problem.

It's funny, because I have this crazy feeling you haven't even been to America, so you only have news outlets to rely on for the "obesity problem".

The definition for obesity used in the US is based entirely on weight-height ratio. Not body fat percentage, or anything reasonable. Most bodybuilders are considered "obese" under the US definition. Even though people like to talk about how "One fourth of Americans are obese", I'm sitting in a room of 40 people, and not a one of them looks in the least bit fat.

I'm about to start raging here, so I'll cut this off.

Watch the documentary "Fat Head". It explains the whole "obesity epidemic" far better than I ever could.

it's funny because i have this funny feeling you haven't been to wales so you only have idiots on the internet to rely on for "sheep shagging"

but dude seriously he was making a point that if your gunna stereotype someone you can also be stereotyped.

OT: T'is a shame whats happening with DA2 the demo was fun and it looked good but all this shit thats piling up about it is working against its favour.

 

[theultimateend]

I get tired of the Welsh jokes, atleast have somthing to back up the things, like Americas obesity problem.

It's funny, because I have this crazy feeling you haven't even been to America, so you only have news outlets to rely on for the "obesity problem".

The definition for obesity used in the US is based entirely on weight-height ratio. Not body fat percentage, or anything reasonable. Most bodybuilders are considered "obese" under the US definition. Even though people like to talk about how "One fourth of Americans are obese", I'm sitting in a room of 40 people, and not a one of them looks in the least bit fat.

I'm about to start raging here, so I'll cut this off.

Watch the documentary "Fat Head". It explains the whole "obesity epidemic" far better than I ever could.

While folks might not be fat I'd be careful to never understate just how bad the western diet is. We do terrible things to our bodies (well most Americans do).

 

[sanzo]

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.[/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 whoopers that rendered entirely playstyles ineffective. Still, the PR miss-steps are pretty darn hilarious.

I'm on upwards of 50 hours now, and I just had my first crash yesterday; right after I saved, so I lost pretty much nothing. I do remember DA:O crashing quite a bit

Yeah, the Fetch sidequest is bugged to still show up even after you beat it. And there is a bug for Merrill as well; I think if you're in a relationship with her, you might see that scene too early. I don't think it's every time, but it did happen to me on one of my playthroughs. You can read about both of them on the Wiki

Really, I don't get all the hate for this game. Probably just people's expectations being different from what they got when it wasn't exactly like Origins

 

[mireko]

and i 'd rather play risen and risen2.

Funny, I'd rather get shot in the foot than play Risen again.

So I bought DA2. It's still in her shiny wrappers, since I decided to play the pirate version instead. And my life is better because of that. QED for the problems facing AAA industry, I guess. Sure doesn't make me feel like buying many games with what limited budget I have to use for entertainment. But I guess natural selection will eventually work these problems out.

What?

You bought DA2, but played a pirated version because you don't have enough money?

Wait, no, those are obviously unconnected.. but that makes less sense. How did it improve your life?

 

[The Wooster]

You make it sound as if the Metacritic "scandal" was an official BioWare initiative and not the singular effort of a DA2 developer praising his own game.

Two developers did it and EA then went on to defend the practice. "Of course the people who make the game vote for their own game," a senior PR manager said. "That's how it works in the Oscars, that's how it works in the Grammy's and why I'm betting that Barack Obama voted for himself in the last election."

You make it sound as if the vestiges of SecuROM on the game that no-one cried foul about until it was "exposed" by a single website is a game-breaking issue.

What annoys people is not that SecuROM is in the game (hey it's bullshit but at least it's not TAGES) but the fact that the developers and publishers stated quite clearly that it wouldn't be.

You make it sound like sucking at PR is a new concept for EA.

For EA? No. For Bioware? Yes.

Thank you for reading!

It doesn't have SecuROM. Learn to use a computer.

EDIT: Allow me to expand upon this. When the game is installed, Sony Release Control distributes two files to the user's temp folder and deletes itself. The files in the temp folder are identified as SecuROM because they call on similar functions, but they are inactive. As in, they don't do anything. You can delete them and nothing will happen.

Reclaim your game [http://www.reclaimyourgame.com/content.php?774-RYG-News-Connecting-Dragon-Age-2-s-%E2%80%9CRelease-Control%E2%80%9D-To-SecuROM] seems to think otherwise.

 

[mireko]

And then there are the people like myself who have valid criticisms of the game, so we sort of fall in the middle category between to extremes of fanboyism: ignoring flaws, or drowning in them.

I want more people like me, I've been spending too much time on the Bioware Social Network that I am getting sick of all the trolls and delusional fanboys.

This isn't really directed at you, just know that there is more than two ways of looking at Dragon Age 2.

No need to get defensive. People can say they love a game and not mean that's completely perfect and flawless. Only the most delusional (or easily pleased) believe there are no flaws in DA2 (or any other game, for that matter), but the accusation of DA2 being 'dumbed down' is kind of stupid. To a certain extent, anyway (I don't like the companion armor system either).

That's where the problem lies in this discussion, I think. Somehow people have convinced themselves that BioWare used to make "hardcore" RPGs until right now, when everything suddenly became simplistic. In reality, they haven't made a "hardcore" RPG for about thirteen years[footnote]Which is fine, I hated having to rest every five minutes with my mage in BG.[/footnote]. A lot of the problems with DA2 were also present in DA:O[footnote]and Mass Effect, and Jade Empire, and KOTOR[/footnote], but nobody complained then because it didn't fit the narrative of a franchise being dumbed down for the console kiddies.

We just need to separate discussions of the merits and faults of BioWare's games from that of the unbelievably gullible and stupid culture that permeates the internet. Maybe say "I'M NOT A PART OF THIS AND THIS SUBCULTURE/BACKLASH" or something. I know it shouldn't be necessary. I know people should be able to read an argument without automatically assuming that the poster is picking a side, but that's not how it works. People are always picking a side.


TL;DR: Eh, deal with it.