chainguns said:
I'm sorry you don't share my enthusiasm for variety.
Yes, clearly the problem here is that I do not share your highly cultivated tastes, just as the problem before was that "gamers" as an amorphous unit do not "realize" that good games actually align with YOUR tastes, rather than theirs. Let's just put aside that I've been gaming since 1980, that I've played (and loved) everything from text adventures to physics puzzles games to hardcore simulators to RPGs of every stripe to strategy of every variation to FPS to racing games to sports games to MMOs and on and on and on. The issue here CAN'T have been with the tone you took. It must be with my lack of appreciation for
variety that is the problem.
chainguns said:
Principally there used to be room for thinking- based games to exist along side reflex- based games.
And there still is. There are games of every variety available. Indeed, the rise of digital distribution has been a GODSEND for niche gamers and far flung genres. Maybe five, six years ago I would've had to scour the earth to find a turn based strategy game, and what few there were needed to be ordered special at EB Games, and would take weeks to ship in. Now I'm positively spoiled for choice. I honestly CANNOT comprehend how anyone could sit there and groan that there was no variety in gaming, unless they were being willfully disingenuous or they limited their gaming experience to what was on the budget shelf at the local Walmart.
chainguns said:
It's a pity you think asking for one deep, non-action game per year, is "whining" and intolerant.
Ah, our good friend, Captain Strawman. Did it feel good when you knocked him down? I bet this one went over particularly easily. Let's look at what I DID say...
BloatedGuppy said:
Actually, it would be nice if gamers realized that action, "cinematic", hack and slash, etc are also valid game play formats and can be perfectly entertaining in their own right. I hear more whining about that these days than anything else.
Look at that. All I said was "These genres are perfectly valid", and not "Asking for even one game outside these genres is whining". That was a pretty bad paraphrase, chainguns, even by internet debate standards. Let's not even get into the hyperbole of claiming that there isn't "one deep, non-action game per year". Let's just give you a mulligan on that entire sentence.
chainguns said:
In older games, you would look beyond graphics and see what the core mechanic was. And yes, imho it works exactly as you said with 'functional' visuals - your mind and imagination make up the difference. It's your world. Now people expect to see perfect hair physics in someone else's world. They'd rather 500 man hours went into a 10 second cutscene than into level design that would add depth. And that's the way Dragon Age 3 will go.
Yeah yeah. I've been hearing this "Graphics killed the video game star" lament ever since Myst set inexplicable sales records, and it wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. And I see we're back to talking about what "people" would "rather" see. Damn those "people"! Screwing it up for the true aficionados by liking what they like! Rather than just take advantage of the STAGGERING variety of games available to us, we should shit on them and the titles they enjoy! Viva la gaming elite!
Chris Tian said:
For me the thing i didn't like about DA2 combat is that is so badly balanced. They should have sticked with balanced tactical combat or go full on hack and slay action style, but not this weird combination. Its not so bad on the lower difficulties, but on Nightmare the game favors pure Damage Dealers above all else and the most effective way is to just make every char a damage dealing glass-canon. That takes most of the depth out of the combat. If they went full action game they could have implementet a better balanced combat system that offers a different experience depending on which class Hawke is, like Diablo.
I preferred the way DA2 combat handled, because DA:O combat was a sluggish mess, but the "waves" were irritating and the highly silly arcade feel were often at odds with the game's grim-faced grasps at realism. Dragon Age has always been a troubled series though, that can't seem to decide which direction it wants to cut in. It feels like a pastiche, like multiple visions all pulling in different directions. It's a dour faced, gritty, black/grey morality tale. It's a classic fable about bold heroes battling Ultimate Evil. It's a lighthearted romp with goofball companions. It's a heavy handed parable about racial tension and bigotry. And on and on. They really need to find an identity. That's far more important with a game like Dragon Age, really, than making sure combat is finely balanced. It needs to be a tonal match. The entire game needs to be a tonal match with itself, and so far they haven't been. This is something they handled far more expertly with ME, at least through the first two games.
Games like Fallout, Planescape, Baldur's Gate, the Ultimas, Elder Scrolls, etc have a very consistent vision and tone. Even when the thematic presentation is weak, it's at least consistent. I can't say the same about Dragon Age. Some of the main complaints about the 2nd chapter have been true of the series as a whole. It's a lot of good ideas that work well in isolation and then just become a bit of a mash when they're brought together. I think the first game was embraced at least in part because it was something of a throwback, and its issues were hand waved or at least more readily overlooked. Even putting aside 2's ghastly-short production time, the style and presentation made it a more direct comparable against the far more assured (at the time) Mass Effect, and it was not a flattering comparison.
TLDR - Dragon Age needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up.
