Kraj said:
D_987 said:
Paragon Fury said:
You've already announced that you are completely forgoing one of the most interesting and praised things about the first game.
Yeah, I think people have a right to question you and be pissed.
I agree; at the same time, having just finished Leliana's Song I am a lot more hesitant to criticise Dragon Age 2 - that DLC has a pre-set main character, with a voice and back-story, yet was probably the best quest in Dragon Age - certainly the most personal. If Dragon Age 2 is like that piece of DLC then I'll be happy.
However, the whole "simplified combat" is still worrisome...
... "people" have no right to be "pissed". Its their game; they can build it as they want. Making a judgement call on such minimal information is foolish for anyone to do in almost any situation, especially a video game thats barely through beginning stage production. . . seriously guys. seriously. If "people" are "pissed" maybe they can GET A JOB THERE AND DO IT THEMSELVES if their so awesome. :>_>
just my 2 cents.
I think your missing an important point here. Bioware leaked information looking for feedback from the community. The feedback they are receiving is negative, which they apparently did not expect despite the purpose of their "feelers". Not wanting to change the game radically they are resorting to a "well, you don't know anything because we haven't released enough info" as a sort of cop out. Truthfully given what happened with "Mass Effect 2" when similar things were said, it's not surprising a lot of RPG game players are upset.
Generally speaking when they drop a bomb like this, they have no right to take the approach they are using, and if they think the conclusions based on what they said are "unfair" then they should prove why by releasing the information.
Being a cynic the vibe I get from this is that Bioware doesn't want to release more information because they are concerned it will ruin their chances of marketing what they have already produced. Basically if they can convince people that the problems being complained about are not an issue, people will buy the product and then complain when Bioware has already made it's money. Them basically trying to avoid the whole problem that "Alan Wake" had when Remedy revealed that they had scrapped making the game a "Sandbox", which is also when a lot of the support for the game seemed to erode.
I for example am not going to be running out to pre-order a collector's edition of "Dragon Age 2" if it's a shallow shadow of the RPG that the original was. "Mass Effect 2" sold so well becase I think a lot of people like me who ordered it did not fully realize exactly how dumbed down it was and how much of the RPG mechanics were missing on release. By the time we figured this out, it was too late other than post-purchuse complaining. Honestly I probably still would have bought "Mass Effect 2" but I would not have paid full price for it, or budgeted money to get it immediatly after release. This kind of attitude about waiting is not the kind of thing Bioware wants to see though.
Truthfully I think the strong sales, and positive reviews (from professionals) of "Mass Effect 2" deluded Bioware into thinking that the success of the game was due to that simplification and shooter-fication (a new word!), which is why it's being emulated for "Dragon Age 2". I think they are oblivious to how much "Mass Effect 2" divided the player base, and for all of the praise out there, there were just as many people vocally expressing dismay over the changes. Things like "we wanted you to improve the inventory system and itemization, not remove it entirely!".
At any rate as the customers who are going to be buying this, we DO have the right to be POed, and some right to expect a quality product. That's what this is about, people saying that the changes being mentioned are not a good thing (and the response has so far been overwhelming as far as I've seen) and pretty much saying that they aren't going to support the game going in this direction.
Fans tend to get loyal to franchises, and "Dragon Age" might have just started, but a lot of people see a lot of potential there, and are irritated about it being squandered when if they don't dumb it down this could be the next great fantasy RPG franchise. Making a bad game that they don't want hurts the fans who won't have their RPG fix.
Simply put "Origins" came out less than a year ago, and the new installment is being planned for early next year which means that it will only be a bit over a year between installments. "Dragon Age" was more successful than they anticipated it seems, and I get the impression they are trying to jump on a sequel while the fire is hot. The simplication allows them to build the game a lot quicker, and they can justify it by pointing to the way "Mass Effect" was dumbed down. Bioware pretty much came out and said that the new game in a series that was possible due to reasonably large amounts of character customization (skill, abillity, and attribute selection, a vast arsenal of weapons and armor, etc...) and an attention getting "origin" system that impacted the game's development based on what kind of character you were playing would not involve any of these elements. Nope, now we'd get a simplified character and combat system (when the relative depth was part of the appeal), and would be handed a guy named "Hawke" who would always begin as a Refugee instead of being able to have any real choices in who we wanted to play.... but hey, it's all good because in exchange for all of that he'll have a voice actor (who for all we know is some Hobo they hired on the corner, who tries to change is voice to sound like a girl for a female character option if you choose that route).... needless to say Bioware got their head bitten off by the fan base of the game that wanted all the stuff being removed, and now they are getting all butthurt because of it.
For anyone who read this far (the person I'm responding to, or in general) my basic advice to Bioware would be to keep what assets as far as artwork and such can be salvaged, scrap this whole "Hawke" idea except maybe to have "Refugee" as one of the possible character backrounds, and develop the game as deeply (system, story, and origin wise) as the previous installment. Generally speaking I'd expect it to take a couple of years to do right. With all of the DLC and such being released I was *really* surprised to find that Dragon Age 2 was coming out so quickly. Basically I think they'd do better to take an extra year or so to do a proper sequel, rather than what seems to be a rapidly conceived cash in product from what they are saying (and honestly, what they said stands on it's own pretty bloody well, there is no way to dress up those statements. Simplified is simplified. One origin is one origin, being handed a guy named Hawke is being handed a guy named Hawke... maybe I want my guy to be named Bobo or George or Glorfindel or whatever else).
Some people have been wondering how Bioware could be keeping all these balls in the air while maintaining their level of quality. I mean they are juggling Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and a major MMORPG project at the same time. Simply put I think this is showing that they simply can't because it seems to me that the "Dragon Age" ball is coming awfully close to hitting the ground.
