Dragon Age : Origins - An utter disappointment ?

[Axeli]

Hated the graphics and I'm pretty sure that the game is better overall (combat wise and graphics wise) on PC. I had the 360 version. Other than that, I loved it. Good story, good characters, great dialogue.

The game actually looks ten times better when you lower the graphics setting. I rather play with good last gen console graphics than creepy wax-doll up to date graphics.

But anyway, I like the game but it is padded like hell and I definitely see how that might kill it for many people.

 

[Bat Vader]

Most people, myself included, think you're flat out wrong about the majority of that. I liked the game, and the only real point I see is older graphics. I will give you that, however graphics are the number one thing that most gamers are willing to sacrifice, if it means more strengths elsewhere. Personally, I liked it better then Mass Effect.

Well if I am wrong, then please explain why, rather then just claiming that my points are invalid.
On the point about graphics, I feel that the only people who are willing to sacrifice graphics to such a horrific level are cheap gamers. Such poor graphics does break the immersion of a game and begs the question why did you pay so much for something that is already dated.

Your opinion is that you did not like the game. That is not wrong at all.

I love Dragon Age: Origins. I think the story is excellent and to me the game-play is quite fun. It may be repetitive but I still found it fun. I don't care if the graphics seem dated. The story, good character development, and game-play of a game are more important to me than graphics will ever be. It seems a bit rude to call some gamers cheap just because they don't care about graphics all that much. Some gamers care about good graphics and some gamers don't. It is mainly just differences in opinions.

The reason I call them cheap is because a person should appreciate every part of the game, from graphics, to the soundtrack, to the gameplay. For so many people to ignore graphics, which can make a game very immersive, I feel there has to be another reason at hand rather then " Graphics don't matter for computer games".
Also, why did you find the gameplay fun? Other people in this thread and myself found it boring and similar to WoW, or is that just the style of gameplay DA has to offer?

I agree a person should appreciate every part of a game. I am not saying I don't appreciate graphics. I appreciate them but not on the same level as I appreciate the story, game-play, and character development. It differs between each person and not everyone is going to appreciate everything about a game which is sad.

I found the game-play fun because I like being able to mix and match different attacks to find out what works best on which enemy. I also like not being able to rely on a heavy attack, medium attack, or weak attack all the time. I like how in some fights I need to rely on the other characters to help me win the battle. I really don't have any good reason to say why I liked the game-play. I just liked it. I don't know why, I just do.

 

[Spark Ignition]

Most people, myself included, think you're flat out wrong about the majority of that. I liked the game, and the only real point I see is older graphics. I will give you that, however graphics are the number one thing that most gamers are willing to sacrifice, if it means more strengths elsewhere. Personally, I liked it better then Mass Effect.

Well if I am wrong, then please explain why, rather then just claiming that my points are invalid.
On the point about graphics, I feel that the only people who are willing to sacrifice graphics to such a horrific level are cheap gamers. Such poor graphics does break the immersion of a game and begs the question why did you pay so much for something that is already dated.

Your opinion is that you did not like the game. That is not wrong at all.

I love Dragon Age: Origins. I think the story is excellent and to me the game-play is quite fun. It may be repetitive but I still found it fun. I don't care if the graphics seem dated. The story, good character development, and game-play of a game are more important to me than graphics will ever be. It seems a bit rude to call some gamers cheap just because they don't care about graphics all that much. Some gamers care about good graphics and some gamers don't. It is mainly just differences in opinions.

The reason I call them cheap is because a person should appreciate every part of the game, from graphics, to the soundtrack, to the gameplay. For so many people to ignore graphics, which can make a game very immersive, I feel there has to be another reason at hand rather then " Graphics don't matter for computer games".
Also, why did you find the gameplay fun? Other people in this thread and myself found it boring and similar to WoW, or is that just the style of gameplay DA has to offer?

Well I would say there is another reason at hand, that reason being that the gameplay is very, very fun if you're into this kind of thing. Sorry to be a drag and compare DA:O to Baldur's Gate AGAIN, but to use that as an example I got into Baldur's Gate 2 years ago, by which time the infinity engine graphics were obviously horrifically outdated. But you know what? That DIDN'T MATTER at all, because the game has so much to offer in other areas. Despite the lo-tech realisation, the visual design is still striking, memorable and imaginative, and the dialogue is top-notch (Bioware doing what Bioware do well). In DA the same applies, the game is so involving in other areas that it doesn't need fantastic graphics to draw the player in, Bioware are counting on the overall game design being exciting enough to give players a sense of immersion and agency without having to concentrate on realistic graphics.

On why so many people can enjoy the gameplay when you don't, I will merely say that obviously different people have different tastes. I've never been a big fan of WOW, depsite apparent similarities, and yet I wouldn't say the millions of WOW subscribers are wrong to like it, just that we differ in what we look for in a game.

 

[Uber Waddles]

Most people who liked this game (aka 90% of user on this forum) are a very specific breed of RPG player; the BioWare fan. BioWare releases a very specific type of game; almost to the point where I could take a character from one universe and swap it into another with almost no difference to the game at all.

The BioWare fan is a person who can appreciate the game despite its flaws, because of what the game does do right. They like how BioWare creates and handles their games. So if you can handle the ridiculous ammount of junk dialogue, the voice acting, combat, and all the other clutter that just made the game a giant headache, chances are you would LOVE Mass Effect and KOTOR just because you actually 'influence' the game, rather then just walking from Point A to Point B to kill Villan A after Plot Twist B (...in theory...).

Theres nothing wrong with being a fanboy, but thats essentially how this game boils down. If you like BioWare games, you liked Dragon Age. If you would rather pull toe nails then play a BioWare game, go get the pliers because Dragon Age isn't your type of entertainment.

My opinions on the game? I hate BioWare games. I hated Dragon Age, but played it because much like most of the games that I own that I hate, it was a gift. I did not like the combat, the story and choises you could make were dull and unappealing, and the game was just bad. Does that mean you agree? Certainly not. But yes, in my eyes, it was a massive disappointment. The game probably could have been pulled off if a better company did it, but the way it was, the "create your own origin" aspect was the only interesting part of the game, and even THAT was short lived.

 

[Toasted Nuts]

I loved it, great game, great story and gave me hours of entertainment.

As for why you dont like it.. you just dont like it, as is pretty obvious in this world not everyone likes the same things and even explaining why you like something doesnt mean it will change someones mind.

I and others who love it know why. If you didnt like it thats fair enough you just didnt like it.

Thats all there is to this discussion.

 

[Starke]

I'm more inclined to say, this game should only be judged after either finishing it, or after the player's utterly random bullshit quotient fills to the brim.

xD ... what?

ORKZ IZ MADE FOR ROKIN!


Okay, so, seriously though. I don't see a reason that someone should be forced to subject themselves to this any further if they've already gotten to hating it.

That, and that the more I played it the more I realized it was (more or less) a direct copy paste of Warhammer's setting with less inspired art(, less humor, and fewer guns).

 

[Starke]

EDIT: And then there are those days where your internet flakes out and it doesn't show the post at all... so you go back to fix it and bam! Double Post...

 

[JuryNelson]

Mass Effect was a third person shooter disguised as an RPG with a cheesy plot. Dragon Age was an Isometric RPG with horrifically bad writing. I don't really see the similarities...

Spoiler

So, you have a background, but it's not important for more than one or two missions. Then you get recruited into the military. Something goes horribly wrong when Someone betrays the government and you become the super special leader who is the only one of your kind of a ragtag team in order to stop them. One of them will be the warrior dude, one will be the young guy who makes dry comments and one will be the sweet, meek bisexial girl who is trying to deny something. You go through three major missions with lots of side quests and wind up confronting Bad Guy. Somewhere around here at least one person who has the potential to be in your party will die. Then you wade through a bunch of minions to kill the Big Bad that has threatened the world countless times and are a big hero. Then you get to choose who's in charge of the government.

Your choices in classes are the damage guy, the dude with super powers and the guy who can open those damn chests/lockers. You choices in dialogue are to threaten bodily harm on everything that moves, offer help in every situation or to ignore everything. There will also be an option to make yourself more persuasive to get some of the most hilarious dialogue in the game.

EDIT: Added a few.

My god, Bioware is ripping themselves off... again!

Okay, in fairness, that seems to be the plot of basically every Bioware game since... actually, pretty much all of them with the possible exception of Baldur's Gate (1 & 2) and MDK2.

This really needs to stop being a problem. Or at least stop being surprising.

It's news to us all. A horde if idiots were released onto the Internets.

Here, Nelson, let me demonstrate how to identify them for you, so you can avoid them in the future.

Stories are stories, and successful stories are successful stories and just because the structure is the same doesn't mean they're not excellent and unique.

You're quite right. A lot of material, even classical legends are not exactly original. Everything from Arthurian legend to Dragon Age Origins is derivative of something. The only question is this; Does it do anything interesting with it's influences? An idiot will tell you that it doesn't matter because it isn't completely revolutionary, but an intelligent person will attempt to assess if a given work does something interesting with its influencing sources. Needless to say, there is a lot of debate on what constitutes "interesting."

Do any research about Shakespeare and you'll learn that he didn't "Write" any of his plays, in the contemporary sense of the verb. The stories were adaptations, down to a one. But you can still go to college and specialize in Shakespeare.

They will then often draw upon some deranged and (often) technically correct historical detail and misrepresent it.

For example, if someone were to, say, praise the originality of Shakespeare, then they would be missing a fundamental aspect of the individual and his work. Shakespeare was, as a playwright, a sensationalist. In a modern context he is analogous to Joel Silver or Michael Bey. He provided visceral entertainment to make his living.

The only legitimate similarity between the work of Shakespeare and Bioware is that there are many individuals out there today that mistakenly believe that the bulk of their content is much deeper than it actually is.

Point is: Don't act all bored just because every moment of your life doesn't revolutionize everything.

Or you can make your own entertainment? Anyway, hope this has helped you learn how to determine if you're speaking to someone who has something relevant to offer in a discussion.

Hey, no fair suddenly being smart and then taking me to task for calling out something dumb you said!

Let me ask you this: What if someone were to, say, call a video game unoriginal? Would that be missing the point?

Whether it does anything original with its source material SHOULD be the question, but it was NOT in the post that I was responding to. You list things that happen while deliberately ignoring the interesting parts about them and what the games did differently from each other. "Lots of Sidequests" and "confronting Bad Guy" are not cheats or ripoffs or clichés, they're conventions. They're the things a video game story needs to make it recognizable as a video game story.

And I DO make my own entertainment, thank you very goddamn much.
http://earlymorningelectronicmusic.wordpress.com/
http://thewriteoff.wordpress.com/

 

[JuryNelson]

The point I'm making to you is: in my brief study of Shakespeare (two classes in college) in my English Major education, I learned more unique, useful, interesting things from him in the way to tell stories. From Bioware I have only learned what not to do.

I, too had two shakespeare classes in college. I, too was an English major. And everything you learned from Shakespeare about the way to tell stories, you actually learned from folklore. But now you have a name. It's a personal vendetta and a personal issue, sure. But I don't think the guy was magic. He was just a guy, and if he didn't do it some other prick would have. (maybe it's just because those two classes were required and the Shakespeare collection we had to buy was HUGE and expensive and impossible to resell.)

Oh yes, and Shakespeare's stories are much, much, much better. Richard III, Henry VIII, Henry IV, Titus Andronicus, King Lear, A Winter's Tale, The Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Merchant of Venice... There are so many and they are all so excellent that writers, movie executives, etc keep returning to them for inspiration and that they continue to be revived and modernized, their themes used and reused, and Shakespeare still has a very large following of people who genuinely love his works from the 1600s until now.

Can Bioware say the same?

Shakespeare's stories aren't his stories. That's my point. The themes he used, the stories and relationships that people keep revising and modernized were themselves revised and modernized by Shakespeare himself.

And when Bioware has been around for four hundred years, I'm sure they'll let you know. If their games are all we have left after the Grandest LifePurge, then yeah. There will be people who genuinely love their work.

I'm willing to admit (and celebrate) that I am being VERY unfair to Shakespeare and those who love his work. I disagree with the idea that he is the founding Jesus of Western Literature, because there was literature before him and it was good, too, and there was literature after him and a MOST OF IT was not his.

Why can't you major in Asimov? or why don't universities have a Kafka department? Shakespeare is treated like a genre unto himself and it just gets annoying.

 

[faspxina]

I'm more inclined to say, this game should only be judged after either finishing it, or after the player's utterly random bullshit quotient fills to the brim.

xD ... what?

ORKZ IZ MADE FOR ROKIN!


Okay, so, seriously though. I don't see a reason that someone should be forced to subject themselves to this any further if they've already gotten to hating it.

That, and that the more I played it the more I realized it was (more or less) a direct copy paste of Warhammer's setting with less inspired art(, less humor, and fewer guns).

you mean the MMO?

 

[Starke]

Hey, no fair suddenly being smart and then taking me to task for calling out something dumb you said!

No, I made a sarcastic comment to someone, and we've since sorted that. What I didn't do was misuse the verb "to write" blatantly.

Let me ask you this: What if someone were to, say, call a video game unoriginal? Would that be missing the point?

Probably not. It depends on the game. You're an (alleged) English major, you of course understand that you can lump all of any medium together and label it with the same brush... right.

Whether it does anything original with its source material SHOULD be the question, but it was NOT in the post that I was responding to.

Then you need to work on the clarity of your writing.

You list things that happen while deliberately ignoring the interesting parts about them and what the games did differently from each other. "Lots of Sidequests" and "confronting Bad Guy" are not cheats or ripoffs or clichés, they're conventions. They're the things a video game story needs to make it recognizable as a video game story.

So what you're saying is Videogame writing needs to be pants on head? Sorry, I don't buy that, at all. The same argument was made about comic books about 40-60 years ago, and now we have Watchmen. The same argument was made for films ~110 years ago, and now we have... well, a fuck awful lot.

 

[Starke]

you mean the MMO?

Nope, the tabletop miniatures game, which the MMO (and for that matter the entire Warcraft franchise) is based on. I'll admit, I'm more familiar with 40k than the basic Warhammer Fantasy Battles setting. But there's a lot of stuff that strikes me as eerily parallel between the two. That and WHFB dates back to the early 80s.

 

[nightwolf667]

The point I'm making to you is: in my brief study of Shakespeare (two classes in college) in my English Major education, I learned more unique, useful, interesting things from him in the way to tell stories. From Bioware I have only learned what not to do.

I, too had two shakespeare classes in college. I, too was an English major. And everything you learned from Shakespeare about the way to tell stories, you actually learned from folklore. But now you have a name. It's a personal vendetta and a personal issue, sure. But I don't think the guy was magic. He was just a guy, and if he didn't do it some other prick would have. (maybe it's just because those two classes were required and the Shakespeare collection we had to buy was HUGE and expensive and impossible to resell.)

Other pricks did. That time period is very rich with many playwrights who were also extremely successful. If you were to compare Shakespeare to say Thomas Marlowe or Ben Jonson, we would be having a different discussion. And no, I everything I learned on how to tell stories was actually from Shakespeare himself. You say it's from "folklore" while citing no examples for me to go and look up, but my professors also shared where Shakespeare got the ideas of several of his stories from. The Greeks for instance, but what's important about Shakespeare is the way he told those stories. As an English Major, I'd think you'd know this.

Or did you not trace the evolution of English Literature?

Shakespeare's stories aren't his stories. That's my point. The themes he used, the stories and relationships that people keep revising and modernized were themselves revised and modernized by Shakespeare himself.

No, Shakespeare isn't magic, but he was both extremely popular and able to touch on thematic elements (and as we know, thematic elements are fundamental to an underlying story structure) that were unique and different. As you've admitted and I've said, what makes material become original is "what you do with the material you're given". This is what Shakespeare succeeded at and Bioware has failed at.

And when Bioware has been around for four hundred years, I'm sure they'll let you know. If their games are all we have left after the Grandest LifePurge, then yeah. There will be people who genuinely love their work.

Maybe, but I'm going to go with probably not. For one thing, they don't do anything unique or interesting with the materials they use and they don't even bother trying.

I'm willing to admit (and celebrate) that I am being VERY unfair to Shakespeare and those who love his work.

Your bias is fairly obvious and I wouldn't say you're being unfair. Instead, you come across like you've missed the point.

I disagree with the idea that he is the founding Jesus of Western Literature, because there was literature before him and it was good, too, and there was literature after him and a MOST OF IT was not his.

No one is saying that he's the "founding Jesus of Western Literature". I'm pretty sure that most scholars will agree that Western Literature starts with Beowulf and the Anglo Saxons. But the truth of the matter is that he's been extremely influential to the way that stories are told. Such as the five act structure, his comedy, his villains, the fact that he used minorities in his plays who were (for the most part) more than simple caricatures. Yes, if he never existed someone else might have taken his place.

And no, depending on how you look at it, his stories did come from other places (including real life). The plot of Richard III is not from "folklore" and neither is Henry VIII or Henry IV. Well, I suppose it could be depending on what you want to define as "folklore". The point is the way that Shakespeare told his stories was done in a different manner from what came before and that's why they are memorable.

Why can't you major in Asimov? or why don't universities have a Kafka department? Shakespeare is treated like a genre unto himself and it just gets annoying.

And here's where you just shot your last bit of credibility in the foot. (Not that you had any left after misusing the verb: to write.)

You can in fact major in Kafka, just like you can major in Shakespeare, Russian Literature, Medieval Literature, ect. It just requires going to graduate school. When we get our Bachelors we are not majoring in Shakespeare, we're majoring in English Lit. No matter how you personally feel about him, Shakespeare is an important part of that tradition and just like John Donne, Edmund Spenser, and all the other great writers of the past centuries (leading all the way back to Beowulf) he has to be learned whether we like it or not.

Thankfully, Bioware doesn't.

 

[Zenn3k]

I could never get into it either, I found it really repetitive and boring.

The combat system was terrible and didn't work nearly as well as I would have liked.

I never finished it and I don't really care that I didn't.

 

[MR.Spartacus]

For me it had a bland story and rubbish combat. It just felt like it was unfinished. Plus it was nearly impossible to tell the fights apart. It was just overwhelmingly underwhelming.

 

[artstsym]

So after an entire game of trying (in vain) to get it on with Alistair, I've come to several conclusions: 1) Goody-good paladin types are extremely lame, 2) Dragon Age: Origins is a rather bland - if professional - RPG that brings almost nothing new to the table and 3) The thief or whatever class is totally unequipped to do any real battle, which unfortunately is the only type of battle there is.

Furthermore, there aren't that many dragons for a game called dragon age, and the last one you encounter is rather disappointing, especially when compared to a previous one you meet.

Overall, not worth the hype, but then what is? I didn't like it, but I won't say it's a bad game, just not stimulating in any way. Also, the ending sucked and I don't think I've ever seen credits that long in my life.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Most people, myself included, think you're flat out wrong about the majority of that. I liked the game, and the only real point I see is older graphics. I will give you that, however graphics are the number one thing that most gamers are willing to sacrifice, if it means more strengths elsewhere. Personally, I liked it better then Mass Effect.

Well if I am wrong, then please explain why, rather then just claiming that my points are invalid.
On the point about graphics, I feel that the only people who are willing to sacrifice graphics to such a horrific level are cheap gamers. Such poor graphics does break the immersion of a game and begs the question why did you pay so much for something that is already dated.

Your opinion is that you did not like the game. That is not wrong at all.

I love Dragon Age: Origins. I think the story is excellent and to me the game-play is quite fun. It may be repetitive but I still found it fun. I don't care if the graphics seem dated. The story, good character development, and game-play of a game are more important to me than graphics will ever be. It seems a bit rude to call some gamers cheap just because they don't care about graphics all that much. Some gamers care about good graphics and some gamers don't. It is mainly just differences in opinions.

Exactly that. Why do some people like Dragon Age and some Mass Effect, Kotor, MBA Jam, Grand Turismo, Grand Theft Auto IV, etc? Because they find it appealing.

You may also dislike a summer blockbuster that everyone else liked. I actually liked the graphics in Dragon Age just fine. I was more annoyed about not being able to jump, swim, or fast travel inside sections of the game with long, winding paths that I had already traversed. But the story, characters and voices were great.

Oh, I know what's wrong. You haven't played Culdcept Saga yet have you? Go do that and you will RAVE about this game! Ha ha ha ha ha!

 

[JuryNelson]

No, I made a sarcastic comment to someone, and we've since sorted that. What I didn't do was misuse the verb "to write" blatantly.

I don't mean he didn't put paper to pen. I mean they weren?t his stories. The themes and relationships and characters he explored and employed came from other sources. A lot.
But we can sure stop talking about Shakespeare if you feel like it.

Probably not. It depends on the game. You're an (alleged) English major, you of course understand that you can lump all of any medium together and label it with the same brush... right.

The point is: If you don?t expect originality from Shakespeare, who is often referred to as the ORIGIN OF WESTERN LITERATURE, why do you expect it from video games, an avowed COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY?
If I?m missing the point of Shakespeare by saying he?s unoriginal, are you missing the point of video games for the same reason?

Then you need to work on the clarity of your writing.

I mean your post. YOUR post. You weren?t talking about whether the game did anything interesting with the material. You were just listing the material.

So what you're saying is Videogame writing needs to be pants on head? Sorry, I don't buy that, at all. The same argument was made about comic books about 40-60 years ago, and now we have Watchmen. The same argument was made for films ~110 years ago, and now we have... well, a fuck awful lot.

I?m saying don?t confuse convention with cliché. Who would play a video game that didn?t have a bad guy? Who would play a video game without sidequests? These aren?t things that make them unoriginal, because ?Innovative? games have them, too.

Also: Watchmen is conventional as FUCK. Part of the reason Moore kept saying it was unfilmable. Because it deals so much with the conventions of comics.

I?m not saying it needs to be stupid. I don?t think sidequests are stupid. I don?t think adherence to a given genre makes a work without value, and I kind of liked the story of Dragon Age, all right?

Jesus.

 

[Starke]

No, I made a sarcastic comment to someone, and we've since sorted that. What I didn't do was misuse the verb "to write" blatantly.

I don't mean he didn't put paper to pen. I mean they weren't his stories. The themes and relationships and characters he explored and employed came from other sources. A lot.
But we can sure stop talking about Shakespeare if you feel like it.

Ah, so when you wrote this:

Do any research about Shakespeare and you'll learn that he didn't "Write" any of his plays, in the contemporary sense of the verb. The stories were adaptations, down to a one. But you can still go to college and specialize in Shakespeare.

What you actually meant to say was you failed the class five times because your "research" kept being debunked by the professor? Yeah, that I can understand. Unfortunately, in the real world, we don't get to make the truth up as we go along. It tends to kinda undermine an argument.

Probably not. It depends on the game. You're an (alleged) English major, you of course understand that you can lump all of any medium together and label it with the same brush... right.

The point is: If you don't expect originality from Shakespeare, who is often referred to as the ORIGIN OF WESTERN LITERATURE, why do you expect it from video games, an avowed COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY?
If I'm missing the point of Shakespeare by saying he's unoriginal, are you missing the point of video games for the same reason?

Because as we all know Shakespeare wrote Beowulf... no, wait, that's not right... Look, I'm sorry to say this. If you're college class told you that Shakespeare was the father of all literature, you had a shitty education, and you should see about getting your money back.

Then you need to work on the clarity of your writing.

I mean your post. YOUR post. You weren't talking about whether the game did anything interesting with the material. You were just listing the material.

Again, if you want to write for a living, you're going to need to work on the clarity of your writing.

So what you're saying is Videogame writing needs to be pants on head? Sorry, I don't buy that, at all. The same argument was made about comic books about 40-60 years ago, and now we have Watchmen. The same argument was made for films ~110 years ago, and now we have... well, a fuck awful lot.

I'm saying don't confuse convention with cliche. Who would play a video game that didn't have a bad guy? Who would play a video game without sidequests? These aren't things that make them unoriginal, because "Innovative" games have them, too.

I'm not. Bioware doesn't write conventions, they write cliches. Now, that might be an argument their writers would forward (that what they're doing is building conventions). But, it's like your argument that Shakespeare didn't write anything. It is patently wrong, and repeating it over and over may make them feel better but it doesn't change the fundamental nature of reality to conform to their desires.

EDIT: Looping back for a second, who would play a game without side-quests? Lots of people. Every day. Loads of games like Doom, or CoD4 or HL2 have no side-quests. And some games do lack a clear "bad guy" on this page, at this moment, there are two visible ads for Civ5. Who's the villain in Civ5? Hell, even Far Cry 2 lacks a real villain.

Also: Watchmen is conventional as FUCK. Part of the reason Moore kept saying it was unfilmable. Because it deals so much with the conventions of comics.

And as you said, convention is not necessarily cliche. Now, what Watchmen is is a good old fashioned deconstruction. A format of literary critique that has gone the way of the dodo, for good reason. The point is, it is still doing something interesting with the material, and unless you've consumed a pint of absinthe in the last half hour, even you can't claim it is simply bad writing.

I'm not saying it needs to be stupid. I don?t think sidequests are stupid. I don't think adherence to a given genre makes a work without value, and I kind of liked the story of Dragon Age, all right?

Again, like I said, you seem to have a hard time distinguishing between cliches and conventions, so let me help you. Bioware doesn't use conventions. At least not when it comes to their writings. They use cliches. The difference is, there is nothing presented in Dragon Age Origins that is the slightest bit original or interesting. The game is, quite literally without artistic merit of every kind. It isn't that "it's all been done before", it is that DAO is a direct plagiarism of other sources.

EDIT: For the record, side quests, experience points, crits, shit like that? That is a convention. It's a gameplay convention. And DAO does nothing other than have them. Nothing new, just the same old shit that's been in every RPG since... fuck... D&D 1st edition?

Jesus.

Meh. (Jesus is plagiarized from the Roman god Mithras.)

 

[nightwolf667]

and I kind of liked the story of Dragon Age, all right?

And there goes the last of your credibility. Not that you like bad writing, that's perfectly acceptable for an English major. It's that you defend bad writing. Yeesh.