Critical Miss: Dragon Age 2

[A_who]

I'm just really glad I didn't preorder the game. I mean they threw all those goodys out and didn't deliver on them if I have the story correct. That is just bullshit even if it was a terrific game, to mean it seems solid but not necessarily living up to the hype, I wouldn't take not having my preorder signature edition.

 

[MeTheMe]

NOOO! Don't say ANYTHING bad about EA or they will ban you from their site and screw up so that you can't play any of their games either! Then them and Bobby Kotick will abuse your right to play games! Shhhh!

 

[darthricardo]

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

Oddly enough, that was the very first thing I noticed. No joke.

 

[Cory Rydell]

I feel sorry for all the idiots in this thread like you that actually think this is valid satire. Seriously, is this what people think is funny?

And who ever tried to claim it was the "RPG of the decade" as no such line came out of Bioware. (They are far prouder of ME2)

http://dragonage.bioware.com/

you can scroll down a bit to their news feed to see that PC Gamer are the people who brought up the "rpg of the decade" bit. Bioware doesn't have to say it for the comment to be refuted. Even when it is brought up with a question mark it still is a fairly bold statement.

Seems to me that the players of this game is divided into a couple of camps:

The players who went into it guarded, but with open minds and willing to suspend their expectations and were willing to engage the game on its own terms. These people all seems generally positive and pleased. (Also, there are fanboys, but who the fuck cares about them?)

Then there are the people who keep thumping their chests in righteous indignation at the game for failing to live up their personal, and very specific, ideas of what a Dragon Age game is supposed to be. As if they would know. Clearly, I don't need to point out intellectually dishonest, and outright arrogant that is. That they are disappointed is obvious, and irrelevant.

That some reviewers may have swung hard against so much love for Da2 is in some ways intellectually dishonest to their craft but glowing reviews for a game that may otherwise be considered an 8 (maybe even a high 8 which is still amazing just when you see a lot of As it can be sad to see a B) are also intellectually dishonest. Arrogance seems unrelated but what they do seem to be is presumptuous. The fact they are disappointed is not irrelevant, by providing more criticism the developers are able to grow and learn more about what they may have done wrong. To not say anything would be a disservice.

Or there could be, you know, people who dislike the game because of it's rather large flaws.
I quite like the game, but accusing people who don't of being "intellectually dishonest" and arrogant isn't an argument. It's simple name calling.

It's not name calling in the least. It's a statement at how flawed their thought process is. MatsVS post is one of the most intelligent dealing with DA2 I've seen yet. And humor me, what "large" flaws are there? Everyone that has claimed that so far is nitpicking to an extreme degree like Mats pointed out that something minor they don't like is "broken."

So go ahead, what massive flaw broke the game?

Notice Grey never said the game was broken. Even to say it has large flaws may be overstating it from how I understand it. I would say it has some downfalls in design that keep it from being super-awesome-orgasmic. These are a few legitimate complaints about the game as I see it, though they use some more powerful language that can distract from the actual criticism the points are still there.

http://geekrevolt.com/2011/03/14/kirkwall-dragon-age-2%E2%80%99s-biggest-flaw/
http://donthatethegeek.com/2011/03/15/geeky-game-review-dragon-age-2/
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6531015&lf=8

I also feel that I should point out that I drew this up during finals week so I was fairly preoccupied with other business and I asked Grey to throw together something short, its the reason an elf is fingergunning a sheep. We do what we can.

 

[Jennacide]

*snipped for page size*

I respect you guys for bothering to respond to me, and maybe I should apologize for how irate I'm getting. But honestly I'm sick and tired of all the hyperbole being spewed out over DA2, and how everyone and their brother is trying to nitpick every little thing. Like seriously, the overreactions to a Bioware member posting a user review and a forum ban accidently carrying over to a user ban. The former happens all the time and nobody has cared, it's just the raging fans trying to use it as ammunition. The latter was an accident, that EA issued a public apology for and fixed.

I still don't feel any aspect of the game is a "large" flaw. Large in my vocabulary would indicate it's a major hinderance to the game, which DA2 suffers no such issue. There are a lot of questionable design changes, but I'd hardly call any of them flaws. What it boils down to is the game is still a solid 8 or 9 (on a REAL scale, not a reviewer 7-10 scale), it's an above average game compared to most of the rubbish that keeps coming out. But like ME2, it diverged a little more than some would of liked, and anyone defending it now is being treated like a heretic.

As for finals, hope they went well. I guess I'll stop arguing at this point as I know how hectic my week was prepping for my midterms and 2 finals.

 

[Ajna]

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

No he wasn't. Did you read his post?

 

[Kilgengoor]

*snipped for page size*

I respect you guys for bothering to respond to me, and maybe I should apologize for how irate I'm getting. But honestly I'm sick and tired of all the hyperbole being spewed out over DA2, and how everyone and their brother is trying to nitpick every little thing. Like seriously, the overreactions to a Bioware member posting a user review and a forum ban accidently carrying over to a user ban. The former happens all the time and nobody has cared, it's just the raging fans trying to use it as ammunition. The latter was an accident, that EA issued a public apology for and fixed.

I still don't feel any aspect of the game is a "large" flaw. Large in my vocabulary would indicate it's a major hinderance to the game, which DA2 suffers no such issue. There are a lot of questionable design changes, but I'd hardly call any of them flaws. What it boils down to is the game is still a solid 8 or 9 (on a REAL scale, not a reviewer 7-10 scale), it's an above average game compared to most of the rubbish that keeps coming out. But like ME2, it diverged a little more than some would of liked, and anyone defending it now is being treated like a heretic.

Aye. I can't possibly understand why everything regarding Dragon Age 2 has been so fiercely ripped apart from right on day 1. The people downloaded and seemed to enjoy the demo, and even though it was a similar, if not better in my opinion, than the first game people didn't wait to spew all kinds of rage over it while comparing it to games like Planescape which this game clearly isn't, or games like KOTOR which DA2 is based on and furthermore improves in many ways.

The EA ban shit has been so overblown I can't really wrap my mind about it.

1- Bioware uses EA activation system
2- People need EA account for playing game
3- Person gets banned on Bioware forum, ergo EA.
4- They rescind their whole user, so he can't play game.
5- They revert the error, user can play.

Easy, right? I still can't get why there's people treating this like it's the new Apartheid when it's clearly a mistake in EA's part. and regarding why that guy was banned, well, forums have their rules. Deal with it.

And i'd like to think the SecuROM shit wouldn't even be mentioned if bashing on this game hand't become so cool for now.

I really can't understand how DA2 would be up to the expectations. Release the best RPG in history when it's clear it was going to be pretty much like the first only slightly different? Expect Bioware/EA's webpage to work flawlessy when help.bioware.com 404'd me a couple weeks ago for days at an end?

Hater's gonna hate and shit, but... I still can't tell why all the rage.

Oh, and about the Metacritic reviews? Those guys were morons to use a username with such evident ties to their real identities. I don't think anyone should deal with their idiocy other than themselves.

 

[EllEzDee]

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

Linux, bitches! It's the shizzle! Can ya dig it?

Windows =/= PC.

 

[MatsVS]

Or there could be, you know, people who dislike the game because of it's rather large flaws.
I quite like the game, but accusing people who don't of being "intellectually dishonest" and arrogant isn't an argument. It's simple name calling.

You misunderstand.

Clearly, disliking the game for legitimate reasons is fine and presenting said reasons as a well-conceived argument is even better. Obviously. That's helpful. It's also not been the case.

Going into the game with a preconceived notion of how the game ought to be and then complaining when the game falls short of said expectations most certainly is not. Well, it would be if they did not proceed to point to their own personal disappointment as solid proof of the game's lack of objective quality. You judge a game on its own merits, its own premises, and as a blank slate. Anything less is intellectually dishonest.

That some reviewers may have swung hard against so much love for Da2 is in some ways intellectually dishonest to their craft but glowing reviews for a game that may otherwise be considered an 8 (maybe even a high 8 which is still amazing just when you see a lot of As it can be sad to see a B) are also intellectually dishonest. Arrogance seems unrelated but what they do seem to be is presumptuous. The fact they are disappointed is not irrelevant, by providing more criticism the developers are able to grow and learn more about what they may have done wrong. To not say anything would be a disservice.

Indeed, and fair point. However, most of the glowing reviews I have read cited specific points to defend their position, such as the deep, visceral battle system, the effective use of storytelling, the interesting characters, etc, etc. There has been a whiff of, ahem, over-excitement, yes, but these are still valid points, and more importantly, actual arguments. Detractors seem content to resort to straw men (it's not the same as Origins), sensationalism (an employee wrote a review as a counterpoint to all the zero star reviews) and hyperboles (worst Bioware game everrrrr) that are hardly educational, which all good criticism, as you pointed out, should be.

I'd rather not get into which numerical value best represents the game quality, as I find that way of reviewing limiting, but I think I mostly agree with the donthatethegeek review you pointed out.

Then again, I smirked at the sheep-gunner, so what do I know?

 

[Irridium]

Semantics. The major problem people had with SecuRom was with all the services it was executing. Read the conclusion of reclaim your game, they are saying that using A PART of SecuRom is USING SecuRom. So yeah, they are right, by that definition they are. But if we become a bit more pragmatic, youll see that using a Release Control, a service that was present in SecuRom, isnt what pissed off people before about SecuRom.

In short, Reclaim Your Game is right that it is SecuRom by definition of the subject, but are wrong by reality, since the service in the game that was part of SecuRom isnt that big of a deal, it simply has the SecuRom name attached to it.

The game either features SecuROM, or it does not. Again, the reason this bit of news caught my eye is not because the game actually contained SecuROM (again. Not too bothered by it as a product.) but that EA stated categorically that it did not. They realized that SecuROM, as a product, has some seriously negative connotations and instead of using a different security product or attempting to explain to the relatively small section of users that actually give a shit what they were actually doing they instead chose to lie about it. A poor decision, in my opinion and indicative of EA and Bioware's utter PR failure when it came to DA2.

The game, however, is great.

Indeed it is. I think weve reached a point where gamers are now just becoming game snobs. This story is more down to earth, you have the same amount and depth in the characters, it can be difficult(FUCK THAT ROCK WRAITH IN HARD DIFFICULTY, FUCK HIM) and it builds upon its predecessor and tries sth different, wich is what a sequel should be ideally(lookin at you CoD).

There's a strange phenomenon that happens every time a sequel comes out. When Origins came out I remember people absolutely hating it because it wasn't what they thought it would be, namely a 3d Baldurs Gate (would have be sooo awesome) and it had a fair few flaws. The combat was wonky, it was buggy as fuck, the difficulty was all over the place.
Then when DA2 is announced all of a sudden Origins became the shining example of what RPGs should be. Oh it'll never live up to the sequel yadda yadda. I guess Bioware was handing out the rose tinted glasses.

Edit: If I have one problem with DA2 it's male Hawke's voice. He's like Alistair tuned up to 11. His dialogue choices are generally. SMUG/SMUG/SMUG.

And that is exactly what happened with Fable and Fable 2. Me thinks people forgot how awful Fable 1 truly was. Yeah I found it fun, but I remember shit-tons of rage about it. Then when Fable 2 came out it was suddenly a "fantastic classic" or something like that.

 

[RA92]

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

Linux, bitches! It's the shizzle! Can ya dig it?

Windows =/= PC.

That was actually a jab at the PS3 to counter Gentleman's console love. I can install Linux in my PC, PS3 owners can't anymore.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

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."

Ok, so two individual devs wrote stellar reviews for DA2. BioWare encouraging the people on its social networking forums to write good reviews for the game may be a little iffy, but why was it such a big deal when two individual developers followed suite? EA only commented on that only once the hyped up self-righteous flame war started. And even then, it wasn't so much of a defense, but more of a statement of the obvious.

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 this is a new, earth-shaking development for the gaming world. It happens ALL THE TIME, especially in the case of DRM specifics.

For EA? No. For Bioware? Yes.

True enought to an extent. Still, I'd cut BioWare some slack here. They're not really used to negative review trolling on Metacritic and other review sites. You can talk all you like about how DA2 was "Dumbed down" from Origins and how people would have a problem with that, but that alone should not mean that an artistic, balanced, well-designed game like DA2 should earn 2's and 3's on Metacritic. It's simply purist nerd-rage fueled trolling. Reading those low-rated reviews was very enlightening.

 

[el_kabong]

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.)

Jokes about more rural people getting off with livestock are common the world over. It's just city folk being mad jelly that Wales hasn't been completely covered in concrete.

It's pretty common. In the US, the butt of livestock jokes are directed at states like Montana (probably my own, as well, but I've never heard about it). I think in Canada they use Newfoundland as a punching bag (real Canadians feel free to correct me).

 

[Arizona Kyle]

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.

yes thank you for saying that, good lord i hate it when people say that most of america is fat

 

[Mechsoap]

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.

Fourthed. I really don't see what all the fuzz, about the game being bad is.

 

[direkiller]

...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-

steam is a DRM
you still have to put up with more bullshit from them then you do with consoles

 

[Jennacide]

Oh, and about the Metacritic reviews? Those guys were morons to use a username with such evident ties to their real identities. I don't think anyone should deal with their idiocy other than themselves.

That's what makes it really funny IMO, he didn't use a blatant user name. Some guy on Reddit went on a crusade wondering why such a glowing review came from a guy with only one post on Metacritic ever. He googled the name used, which led to a Linkedin acct, which led to Hoban's account on Plurk.

What makes the whole ordeal even funnier is his job title is so vague we have NO IDEA what he actually does, as it's just 'Applications Manager.' For all we know, he could be an IT guy. But, no, we aren't done yet! He didn't even WORK ON DA2 according to the games closing credits. So, basically we have a guy that works at Bioware, but seemingly had no hand in DA2, but gave a glowing review of it. The haters only latch onto the first part, as in their eyes nobody should enjoy the game because they didn't for whatever assinine reason. And will happily ignore everything I just said, like how complicated it was to find this out, or that fact Hoban didn't work on the game. No, he works for Bioware so he is clearly biased and should be burned at the stake!

I love the logic of crazy fanatics. It always brings a smile to my face.

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.

yes thank you for saying that, good lord i hate it when people say that most of america is fat

Because most of America IS obese. Anja, sorry, but that's a load of bullshit about bodybuilders and you know it. It's not like there is some random census that just asks your height and weight and decides it. It's phsyicians that do. And no physician has ever claimed a bodybuilder is overweight. I'm an American citizen, and I know full well how bad the problem is. I wonder if either of you two have even traveled the country, let alone left your home towns. I've been all over the US, and I'v been out of the country numerous times. Visiting Germany and England in particular is what really gave me a stark view of how bad it really is in the US. You can close your eyes and plug your ears, but that doesn't change facts.

 

[sosolidshoe]

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

It's a lot easier to ship a game without bugs when, comparative to the previous iteration of the franchise, it has half the content. And before anyone jumps on me for that statement, no, I've not directly compared hours total played on both games, but DA2 uses the same six or so "dungeon" levels throughout the entire game, at least a third of the companion content has been eliminated(no doubt due to the extra time and cost of voicing Hawke), there's a serious lack of loot thanks to the "companion armour" system(translation: rushed schedule meant they couldn't afford to design armours that would fit anything other than human-standard character models), and perhaps the most heinous omission of all - Arcane Warrior was cutP).

And yet still, while playing DA2, I've had four broken quests, two corrupted saves, and a minor conflict with my phenom 2 cpu that caused the game to chug like a steam train whenever I entered the Wounded Coast area.

As far as why Bioware have burned so much credibility with this, it's not hard to see why really. Anyone who was born before the mid 90's and played games growing up will likely have played Bioware's games, and most loved them. Bioware are one of the few cases when you can go back and play those games today and still enjoy them without relying on nostalgia. So people have high expectations of them.

Mass Effect 2 was their "gimmie" - sure, it streamlined out a lot of the RPG features, but it was excusable because the game was still awesome, and because the franchise was always intended to be about telling the story of Commander Shepard, not the player. But Dragon Age was supposed to be a game for the fans of their oldschool work, a proper CRPG with customisation and stat calculation, a chance to create a character and play them the way you chose to over the course of an epic story. And it was pretty much spot on. Issues? Of course, but it was a great game.

Dragon Age 2 doesn't elicit the same response as Mass Effect 2 did. This time, they're not just streamlining small parts of what was already a pretty mild RPG system, they've changed the entire tone of the game. When you also consider that Bioware were pretty much the last old developer that hadn't yet drunk the console kool-aid, and now they've evidently been on an EA-sponsored IV drip of the stuff for the entire DA2 development cycle, it's a bit depressing for fans of CRPGs.

 

[Arizona Kyle]

Oh, and about the Metacritic reviews? Those guys were morons to use a username with such evident ties to their real identities. I don't think anyone should deal with their idiocy other than themselves.

That's what makes it really funny IMO, he didn't use a blatant user name. Some guy on Reddit went on a crusade wondering why such a glowing review came from a guy with only one post on Metacritic ever. He googled the name used, which led to a Linkedin acct, which led to Hoban's account on Plurk.

What makes the whole ordeal even funnier is his job title is so vague we have NO IDEA what he actually does, as it's just 'Applications Manager.' For all we know, he could be an IT guy. But, no, we aren't done yet! He didn't even WORK ON DA2 according to the games closing credits. So, basically we have a guy that works at Bioware, but seemingly had no hand in DA2, but gave a glowing review of it. The haters only latch onto the first part, as in their eyes nobody should enjoy the game because they didn't for whatever assinine reason. And will happily ignore everything I just said, like how complicated it was to find this out, or that fact Hoban didn't work on the game. No, he works for Bioware so he is clearly biased and should be burned at the stake!

I love the logic of crazy fanatics. It always brings a smile to my face.

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.

yes thank you for saying that, good lord i hate it when people say that most of america is fat

Because most of America IS obese. Anja, sorry, but that's a load of bullshit about bodybuilders and you know it. It's not like there is some random census that just asks your height and weight and decides it. It's phsyicians that do. And no physician has ever claimed a bodybuilder is overweight. I'm an American citizen, and I know full well how bad the problem is. I wonder if either of you two have even traveled the country, let alone left your home towns. I've been all over the US, and I'v been out of the country numerous times. Visiting Germany and England in particular is what really gave me a stark view of how bad it really is in the US. You can close your eyes and plug your ears, but that doesn't change facts.

Calculating BMI is one of the best methods for population assessment of overweight and obesity. Because calculation requires only height and weight, it is inexpensive and easy to use for clinicians and for the general public. The use of BMI allows people to compare their own weight status to that of the general population.

And yes when people talk about how fat america is this is solely what they are using... Its called bias and its very easy to sway the numbers in your ways... Yes i have been around the country and out of the country i travel quite often its not as bad as you think, also everyones view of obesity differs. In the south of the country it is much lower of a weight then it is in the northern part of the country... Also when most studies are taken they are taken more from the northern part of the country and also during the colder times of the month.

 

[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-

steam is a DRM
you still have to put up with more bullshit from them then you do with consoles

And yet the amazing deals, great support, chat system, and ability to gift games to friends makes up for it! Hooray!

This is, of course, my opinion and that of many others (but who cares about them).