Dragon Age : Origins - An utter disappointment ?

[Snowalker]

Xbox version, nuff said.

Xbox version had the shittest graphics of all the options. You are just a fanboy, aren't you?

My mistake, I thought ppl were smart enough to assume by me saying "xbox version" I was refering to why ppl where whining about the game. ofc the pc version is better.

Oh, ok, then I agree whole-heartily with you, my mistake.

 

[No_Remainders]

Oh, whine more about graphics please.

Who cares about graphics? They're not important. Deus Ex is still one of the best games ever made and Crysis is still not that good.

It was fun. The combat system worked well and I liked how I could make my people do things.

 

[Eduku]

I think the thing is they are as much RPG as each other. Rather, there is never just something which makes it an RPG, just different types of RPG.

Hence why I said this.

An RPG in my opinion is like Fallout, and, even though I wasn't too happy with it, Oblivion, where you have total freedom to do whatever.

Hence also why I said 'I think'.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Well...
I wasn?t too impressed with Fallout 3 after only the first couple of hours. I certainly am glad I played on though because after the slow start, it became my favorite game of this gen.
That said, after playing through quite a bit of DAO, my opinion of it didn?t improve. I can?t say it?s a terrible game but IMO it was a little too plotted to be a proper rpg but mixed in it was all the elements of an rpg. I also wasn?t very fond of the soundtrack or the extensive amounts of dialogue which all gave it a hint of pretentiousness it could?ve done without.
Like I said, it isn?t a terrible game but I can?t say I?m really looking forward to the sequel either.
Here?s the thing, in an rpg I like to feel like I?m creating the story as I go along and with DAO, I just felt like I was playing through a story being dictated to me.

Exactly! Said what I felt with less swearing. ^ This, this this thiiiis.
An RPG in my opinion is like Fallout, and, even though I wasn't too happy with it, Oblivion, where you have total freedom to do whatever. And make your own story, not get given one.

The funny thing is that it isn't always rpgs that give me that feeling I'm making the story up. I felt that way while playing San Andreas too. I think it just has to do with options and how they're picked up and presented. If it's randomly placed, it makes the experience feel more organic. Like finding the pimp-car in San Andreas. All of a sudden while just going to get flowers, I find I can be a pimp, and not just any pimp, but one with a kick ass arsenal which I got from my gang for tagging the town up in our colors. Fallout 3 had that same feeling to it where out of the way places you felt like exploring open up an odd side mission or trigger a random event that you wouldn't know about if you stuck to the path.

 

[Captain Pirate]

Hence also why I said 'I think'.

Fair play, my mistake.

 

[Snake Plissken]

*shrugs*

I enjoyed it. Perhaps you should just play a different game. I do understand your pain, though. I'm sure there are games you love that I hate. It's all subjective.

 

[Eduku]

Hence also why I said 'I think'.

Fair play, my mistake.

No worries. It was just a 'food for thought' sort of statement.

 

[Tarakos]

It's a love note to old-school RPG tropes, so unless you dig that style of game, then Origins won't appeal to you.

Personally, I liked it. Good game.

Keep in mind that the sequel looks like it's completely different, so maybe you should still try that out.

As for the graphics, the game was like a proof of concept. A big graphics budget was out of the question for the first game in a series. And they used a new engine they created.

 

[DSK-]

DA:O was enjoyable, but I really hated the mages tower and I am not looking forward to it on my current playthroughs.

I also agree that it doesn't hold a candle to the likes of say...BG2. I only played an hour or so of BG2 and was blown away by the character interactions and what little story I saw. Unfortunately I got pwned my vampires and I had no idea what I was doing with the spells and stuff (no tool tips game up :S) so I uninstalled and never played it again.

 

[Frenger]

It is almost identical. 1,2,3,4, move to back of npc whilst being outnumbered, 1,2,3,4, rebuff. How is that not like WoW?
And the graphics are bad, go look at the requirements.

I guess you're the type that let the computer handle the decisions of the other three characters.

A game's requirements don't make the graphics bad.
Are you saying they're bad because they required so much?

I have to wonder how many games you actually play, or at least, pay attention to.

Oh my god, please tell me there is a typo somewhere in the quote "A game's requirements don't make the graphics bad." Such horrifically low specs = bad graphics compared to any game nowadays. If it only needs at 8800GTS to run it at full, then it is horribly dated by all genre's.
Why are you saying the game required a lot of power??? What computer are you running it on and what games are you comparing it to?

And I played it on the PC. It still has terrible graphics. Why was a game like this released in 2009 when it could have easily been released in 2006/7?

What? Did you honestly just ask that question? Graphics aren't the only thing that designers spend their time on. If you think that graphics is all that matters then it's no wonder you didn't enjoy the game. Also, the graphics really aren't that bad. Not everything has to have Crysis level fucking graphics.

Sorry for not wanting to pay for a half arsed game. If I am going to part with my money, I want everything to be done well. It is not asking much now is it.

FFS. You compared the game mechanics to WoW, a concept is over 30 years old. But graphics matters? Always? People still play games that are 5- 10 years old, when there are top-of-the-line games out there. People still play Counter-strike 1.6 and Starcraft, yet those games have have absolutely dreadful graphics. What are you getting at? All I see here is that you believe hardware is more important than the games they run on. Man, I rather play Dwarf Fortress than Crysis any time of the week. Immersion *IS* in the eye of the beholder. Graphics are worse than new games, and sometimes even old ones, but the "fact" you point as are not infact... err, a "fact".

It's an opinion. On a technical standpoint, there is nothing "bad" about the graphics in DAO, or Starcraft, or Civ 2, or Ultima IV. Why? Because they do the job. If the graphics doesn't load properly, then I guess it's bad(had no glitches in DAO yet, plenty in RRD, but that's expected). I had screentearing on Half-life 2, but not Quake 1 on the same machine. Guess Quake 1 had better graphics then... OR NOT. Maybe it's a faulty driver, or maybe Quake runs differently than Half-life 2, since they are on two different engines. Or better yet, they are two separate games, 6-7 years apart. Hell, I get less graphical errors in Baldur's Gate than Mass Effect 1. Damn, they can't make decent graphics these days...

also,

On topic, yeah, Dragon Age was pretty good. Liked KOTOR better, though.

A 30 year old concept?
That is my point. It is dated and boring as sin.
Why do people play old games? Because they are cheap and/or nostalgia. Within 10 years new games do come out that progress the genre, yet people stick with the old games as that is what they are familiar with - not because it is better. Look at DOW, look at MW 1. Yet people still play CS and StarCraft.
Again, graphics helps with immersion. Unless someone can explain why something looking more realistic does not help, then I will keep calling you people cheap. And the quality (not immersions, don't know where you read that ) of graphics is a fact as it is technical and you can simply compare the maths.
On the technical side, DA graphics are bad. To argue they do the job is to argue why move to colour film? Black and white worked right? Screen tearing? Learn to use V-sync....As you do not know about this, I feel that yet again I am debating with someone who has no knowledge of the topic at hand. Every heard of polygon count? Texture resolutions? Thought not.

Well, to be perfectly honest, MW2(or any "modern" shooter) is built on a concept that is 15- 20 years old aswell, so that is old as sin too. Every game are built on some idea that have been conjured up the past 20-25 years. The rest of your arguments are irrelevant too, at least to me, as I don't give a shit about them. I do know what polygon count, texture resolution mean. But why should I care about that if that's the last thing on the list, if on a list at all. I just bought Civilization 5. Do you honestly believe I cared about the graphics when there are more changes to the game than what meets the eye(or ears). Hell, I still play Civ 2 on my shitty netbook, and that game was released 1996.

Good graphics are fine, no argument from me here, but I honestly don't care what a game looks like, I want a game that is fun. If you don't like playing games with "bad graphics", then don't. But trying to impose an opinion as "fact" is just silly. And there is no math behind your argument, no matter how hard you try.

PS. Honestly, I would love to see those numbers. And a reason why I (or anyone) should care.
DS.

I never mentioned MW2..?
Games are built on ideas, but then those ideas are developed on. This is how we went from Doom to decent modern fps like MW 1. I found DA developed in very few ways outside on the speech/choice menu (which itself was dated ). The combat was identical to WoW, and the graphics were horrific for a game released in 2009.

Oh, sorry, I meant MW1. Not that there is much of a difference, both are rail-shooters more or less. So much for innovation...

Still waiting for those "numbers", yo.

 

[Ayjona]

While I found the gameplay and graphics to be mostly mediocre (with the exception of the combo attacks in combat, and the fact that the game performed well on low-end computers), the story was the major disappointment for me. While some in-game texts were rather well-written (such as the lore notes that are added to the journal for just about every location, creature, NPC and special item encountered), the dialogue was tired and lacking in originality and character, the plot twists and turns not very engaging, the characterization archetyped, and the campaign world and backstory was surprisingly uninspired and shallow.

I'm trying to discern why the game would receive so much praise. Perhaps that particular kind of story-driven and party-based third-person RPG is just uncommon these days (as compared to the late 90s and early 2000s, when Fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Planescape Torment, Arcanum, and quite a few less known similar titles, where released within a few years of each other). Perhaps the game had just enough MMO mechanisms in it to appeal to the new MMO generation of gamers. Perhaps Bioware has released enough excellent titles to get by partly on their good name.

 

[Jimbo1212]

Oh, sorry, I meant MW1. Not that there is much of a difference, both are rail-shooters more or less. So much for innovation...

Still waiting for those "numbers", yo.

Urgh, does no one understand anything to do with graphics eg. it runs well on an 8800 GTS 512MB, it only uses DX 9, its texture resolution is far less then standard, along with polygon count. As I have previously said, what games would you comparing it to graphically?

 

[Loonerinoes]

Still replay it now and then. Story was great for me, but that's up to each to decide. Mechanics were okay, but once you figure out how they work it becomes waaaaaay too easy, even on nightmare difficulty. Especially in the expansion. Think of unhittable rogues that eviscerate enemies in seconds and can solo final bosses or archers who solo with pet tanking while they one-shot anything in their path and kill final bosses in less than 30 seconds. And when in doubt, they just spam an endless supply of potions.

To be honest, I was really glad when I heard combat was getting a major revamp on many fronts for Dragon Age 2. It was definitely one of the things I wanted to move on from. But having said that, I also played through DA:O twice already and plan to 4 more times with 4 more characters in the coming years so...make of that what you will.

And oh yeah...graphics rocked. It was a welcome alternative to WoW's cartoony style, awesome though it might be as well, and the blood splatter was a cool feature as well for me. And for those of you who don't think so, feel free to toggle it off. No one is forcing you to have it on.

 

[Powerslave26]

I never liked the combat in Dragon Age, reminded me of just a sped up version of the some-what sluggish combat in KOTOR(Not saying that KOTOR is a bad game), but I guess like all great Bioware games you can forgive the game because of it's amazing story-telling abilities. I have to say though, Dragon Age isn't one of Bioware's "best" so to speak, as I thought Mass Effect offered a more in-depth story and better combat to say the least, but Dragon Age is certainly a good Fantasy RPG.

The world of Ferelden, although not the most explorable of landscapes it offers real depth in every town and village, and it is really visible as well, like the complete change in Culture between the three main races, although some places can get repetitive like the Deep Roads.

As for the graphics, I can't see nothing to complain about, sure it isn't graphically superior, but graphics isn't what makes Bioware's games, they just seem to keep up, Mass Effect although having amazing and somewhat beautiful graphics, the main thing that won it for me was mainly it's epic sci-fi storyline, much like Dragon Age, although not as great as Mass Effect in terms of graphics, the amazing storyline of Dragon Age just made up for what the rest of the game lacked.

I was exactly like Loonerinoes, I was really glad as well when I heard they are doing a major revamp on combat.

 

[MarsProbe]

The only thing that slightly disappointed me was that the world wasn't truly open. Though to Fereldens credit, I could at least tell where certain locations were in the world, unlike certain other fantasy realms where everything somehow felt strangely disjointed (looking at you here Albion).

Thankfully, it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the game in anyway.

 

[RatRace123]

I like it and I find it to be fun, and it's freaking BIOWARE!

I enjoy it for the immersion and the characters and the dialogue, the combat is okay, but the atmospheric stuff is really where I think it shines.

 

[Kortney]

I got 27 hours in and decided I couldn't take it anymore.

 

[jtesauro]

Something that needs to be said here is that Bioware generally has their strengths, and they play to them. Graphics have never been a priority for them, or for many other western RPG developers. ( Does anyone else here remember Daggerfall for crying out loud? )

Bioware Strengths:
Excellent writing and storytelling.
Good world creation ( NOT Design, necessarily, this ties into story )

Bioware Weakness: Lazy in game features.

Yes, I said it. I've been a fan of their since KotoR which is STILL one of my favorite games, but Bioware is typically extremely lazy when it comes to game feature creation. This is why their menus are fundamentally the same as since 2003. I'm not saying they don't try different things, ( The combat in Mass Effect series and Jade Empire for example ) but they know their strengths, and that is the cornerstone of their games.

Some people really like this. ( Myself included ). Some people do not.

To answer the original poster, I think that graphics can add alot to the immersion, but sometimes they also break immersion completely. Fallout 3 was frankly, a pretty ugly game, and characters still had sticks up their bums when you spoke to them and eerily followed you all over the place, but the world design made up for it. The Wastelands weren't as big as Cyrodil, but they were dense and varied enough that it FELT like I was wandering a new world. So, immersion, very good.

Does anyone remember Silent Hill 2? Playing that game, back to back with the more recent Silent Hill Homecoming for the Playstation 3, SH2 is far and away the more immersive of the two. Homecoming looks much nicer yes, the graphics are much more detailed, but that actually breaks the immersion in the game. Some games, especially in the horror genre, rely on psychology and tense atmosphere, and leaving detail out of in game images actually serves to force the gamer's imagination to fill in the blanks. We will ALWAYS scare ourselves better then someone else can scare us, if we're put into the right frame of mind.

Another example for Oblivion, which at the time had amazing graphics which many people had a hard time running on their PC's. Yes, the world looked very pretty, but you still had to click on a sign to read it, and that's the kind of thing that will make someone realize very quickly they're still in a game.

Graphics are a piece of the puzzle, absolutely, but you can not neglect other areas of game design in favor of pixel count. Doing so will just make the entire project suffer.

I could be wrong though. Frankly, the fact that Modern Warfare 2 sold a billion copies means not EVERYONE gets hung up on story as I do. But that's where personal taste comes into it. To answer the original question; Is Dragon Age an utter dissapointment?

Dunno. Alot more people bought it then even Bioware was expecting. For my part, I got more or less exactly what I expected. A story driven, lazily designed world with very interesting people living in it, using archaic gameplay and mediocre graphics.

And I had an absolute fucking blast with it.

To the one guy who mentioned it, you're right, Awakening was absolute shit however. But that's another story.

 

[gurall200]

You've fucked up our Red Dwarf, our Life on Mars, our The Office, and now our Dwarves. .

Tv Shows aside (haven't seen nor care to), since when have we decided that dwarves have to be british (I believe yahtzee said something to that effect), they could be talking with a african accent far as we know.....hey that would be kind of awesome.

 

[Captain Pirate]

Tv Shows aside (haven't seen nor care to), since when have we decided that dwarves have to be british (I believe yahtzee said something to that effect), they could be talking with a african accent far as we know.....hey that would be kind of awesome.

I may be very wrong, but perhaps since they were created? American accents just DON'T suit Dwarves.... like, at all.
I don't think an African accent would work either.