Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition to Share "Core Systems"

[bug_of_war]

It actually wasn't and if it was it should be a testament to their utter laziness in fixing that. Over 3 games they didn't even BOTHER fixing such a glaring issue with the visuals? Oh that says nothing but good things about them

I base this on two games... which were the last released games by that company. It's a game studio, you judge them by their work which the last of their two franchises they currently work on have been utterly lackluster and disastrous depending on opinion.

I enjoy Deadly Premonition. Enjoying something is by NOOOOOOOOoooooo means a measure of quality. I have a number of games I enjoy ironically and some that are just so bat-shit insane crazy and bad they become fucking legendary steamroller rides of amusement and frustration, see the earlier mention of Deadly Premonition.

I already cited Valve as an exemption. I don't know which point you are trying to make? I trust Valve to be able to pull off making 2 games using the same assets! I don't even trust Bioware enough to not photoshop a picture and put it into their game rather than designing a fucking alien character!

You're forgetting Star Wars: The Old Republic came out before ME3, and while it had it's issues it was still a decent game. Also, I am basing my opinion that this is a good thing seeing as how most games made in between 2006-2012 were using the Unreal 3 engine, as well as having faith in a company that has made many games, not just 2. As for the "glaring issue with the visuals" having the wrong gun out isn't a glaring problem in a game that has good graphics, has tight game play, sound design and voice acting are fantastic. You're pointing out one detail that is so minuscule and blowing it up into a huge deal when you could point out other details in that game that have bigger reason for being lacking in quality.

Yes, enjoying a game does not = good quality, I really enjoy Dragon Age 2 and was able to overlook the whole copy paste room crap even though it was a definite sign of lack in quality. Which brings me to the conclusion that you are letting your bad experience with ME3 to cloud your judgement on the game. The graphics were great, the sound quality and voice acting was top notch, and the game play was very solid. It had some issues in story, character development and (while in my opinion is of little value) the gun in cut scenes, but this is all subjective, I thought the story was great, others didn't, I was fine with the character interactions, others weren't, these are both points that cannot be summed up as fact as each opinion is different.

You're citing Valve as an exemption because of their entire history, yet you are damning Bioware because of 2 games? That's just not fair. At least with Bioware the AI has some sense of survival instinct when compared to the AI in Half Life and Left 4 Dead, in fact you could say that Valve is more lazy because they rely on multiplayer to fix these problems rather than fixing it themselves. I don't hate Valve, I enjoy their products, but they have done nothing to suggest to me that they are excellent game makers.

 

[Shaun Chang-Time]

fingers crossed EAware dont dumb this one down just to get more casual gamers on board we all know how that went....

 

[Abomination]

Where are the PC sales for Dragon Age II? Because according to that graph it sold at least a million copies on consoles for a game that was primarily for the PC crowd... for its short development cycle and cost of production that's pretty damn good.

It most certainly was NOT a failure.

How in the world was Dragon Age 2 "primarily for the PC crowd"? It was a highly console-oriented game, with its "awesome button", the waves of enemies, the focus on action rather than tactics, and the general simplification all round. PC gamers bought it because we loved Dragon Age Origins, and we were lied to about what DA2 was going to be like. It was designed for the console crowd.

Yeah, it sold a million copies to consoles and how many for PCs?

Dragon Age: Origins was definately a PC game first and foremost with Dragon Age II being a PC game that was made more console friendly. More people bought the game on PC than on console and the figures we saw were for combined sales for consoles. with no mention of PC.

The game was NOT a failure, it just wasn't as good as Origins.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

epic storylines

I am sorry, but if there is an Epic side of a storyline, Dragon Age 2 falls somewhere toward the deep dark end of minuscule.

There was very little "Epic" about it beyond the fact that you are kind of sort of a hero.

As for the rest of it... This just sounds terrible.

Good News everybody! We found a way to cut more corners!

couldn't agree more, just reading ME4 and DA3 in the same sentence, you KNOW it's going to be cutting corners.

it'll be hilarious to see what people find in the code that the games both share, i'm sure the corners will be cut more times than is atomically possible.

 

[infohippie]

Where are the PC sales for Dragon Age II? Because according to that graph it sold at least a million copies on consoles for a game that was primarily for the PC crowd... for its short development cycle and cost of production that's pretty damn good.

It most certainly was NOT a failure.

How in the world was Dragon Age 2 "primarily for the PC crowd"? It was a highly console-oriented game, with its "awesome button", the waves of enemies, the focus on action rather than tactics, and the general simplification all round. PC gamers bought it because we loved Dragon Age Origins, and we were lied to about what DA2 was going to be like. It was designed for the console crowd.

Yeah, it sold a million copies to consoles and how many for PCs?

Dragon Age: Origins was definately a PC game first and foremost with Dragon Age II being a PC game that was made more console friendly. More people bought the game on PC than on console and the figures we saw were for combined sales for consoles. with no mention of PC.

The game was NOT a failure, it just wasn't as good as Origins.

DA2 wasn't a commercial failure, unfortunately. It was just shit. You are right about Origins being a PC game first and foremost, but DA2 most resembled a console hack-n-slash. Something like Darksiders, only crappier, with a conversation system tacked on. It may have been marketed as a "console-friendly PC game" but that was certainly not what it actually turned out to be.

 

[Abomination]

Where are the PC sales for Dragon Age II? Because according to that graph it sold at least a million copies on consoles for a game that was primarily for the PC crowd... for its short development cycle and cost of production that's pretty damn good.

It most certainly was NOT a failure.

How in the world was Dragon Age 2 "primarily for the PC crowd"? It was a highly console-oriented game, with its "awesome button", the waves of enemies, the focus on action rather than tactics, and the general simplification all round. PC gamers bought it because we loved Dragon Age Origins, and we were lied to about what DA2 was going to be like. It was designed for the console crowd.

Yeah, it sold a million copies to consoles and how many for PCs?

Dragon Age: Origins was definately a PC game first and foremost with Dragon Age II being a PC game that was made more console friendly. More people bought the game on PC than on console and the figures we saw were for combined sales for consoles. with no mention of PC.

The game was NOT a failure, it just wasn't as good as Origins.

DA2 wasn't a commercial failure, unfortunately. It was just shit. You are right about Origins being a PC game first and foremost, but DA2 most resembled a console hack-n-slash. Something like Darksiders, only crappier, with a conversation system tacked on. It may have been marketed as a "console-friendly PC game" but that was certainly not what it actually turned out to be.

Calling it "shit" is also hyperbole.

The game wasn't mechanically a failure, the characters and voice acting were actually very good, the story - while concentrated - couldn't be called unenjoyable, and the combat - while different and made a few errors - was actually better than Dragon Age: Origins in some areas.

It wasn't as good as Origins, but it wasn't objectively a bad game.

 

[infohippie]

DA2 wasn't a commercial failure, unfortunately. It was just shit. You are right about Origins being a PC game first and foremost, but DA2 most resembled a console hack-n-slash. Something like Darksiders, only crappier, with a conversation system tacked on. It may have been marketed as a "console-friendly PC game" but that was certainly not what it actually turned out to be.

Calling it "shit" is also hyperbole.

The game wasn't mechanically a failure, the characters and voice acting were actually very good, the story - while concentrated - couldn't be called unenjoyable, and the combat - while different and made a few errors - was actually better than Dragon Age: Origins in some areas.

It wasn't as good as Origins, but it wasn't objectively a bad game.

I would say it was mechanically a failure. The whole combat system was unenjoyable and in fact a chore. It was very poorly designed and unsatisfying. I also totally disagree about the characters being good - Varric was good, Aveline was okay. Every single other character was completely awful. The story was bland, dull, full of holes and unexplained leaps of logic. I would certainly call that "unenjoyable". And nothing about the combat system was better than DA:O. The combat was utter tripe. There was no real opportunity for tactics at all with the whole "materialising enemies" schtick. As I said, combat was essentially just an arcade-ish hack-n-slash. The entire game was just all-round bad. Every RPG I play, I always replay after completing it so I can try out different classes and different play styles. I tried to do that with DA2 and found I just could not force myself to go through that again.

 

[1337mokro]

It actually wasn't and if it was it should be a testament to their utter laziness in fixing that. Over 3 games they didn't even BOTHER fixing such a glaring issue with the visuals? Oh that says nothing but good things about them

I base this on two games... which were the last released games by that company. It's a game studio, you judge them by their work which the last of their two franchises they currently work on have been utterly lackluster and disastrous depending on opinion.

I enjoy Deadly Premonition. Enjoying something is by NOOOOOOOOoooooo means a measure of quality. I have a number of games I enjoy ironically and some that are just so bat-shit insane crazy and bad they become fucking legendary steamroller rides of amusement and frustration, see the earlier mention of Deadly Premonition.

I already cited Valve as an exemption. I don't know which point you are trying to make? I trust Valve to be able to pull off making 2 games using the same assets! I don't even trust Bioware enough to not photoshop a picture and put it into their game rather than designing a fucking alien character!

You're forgetting Star Wars: The Old Republic came out before ME3, and while it had it's issues it was still a decent game. Also, I am basing my opinion that this is a good thing seeing as how most games made in between 2006-2012 were using the Unreal 3 engine, as well as having faith in a company that has made many games, not just 2. As for the "glaring issue with the visuals" having the wrong gun out isn't a glaring problem in a game that has good graphics, has tight game play, sound design and voice acting are fantastic. You're pointing out one detail that is so minuscule and blowing it up into a huge deal when you could point out other details in that game that have bigger reason for being lacking in quality.

Yes, enjoying a game does not = good quality, I really enjoy Dragon Age 2 and was able to overlook the whole copy paste room crap even though it was a definite sign of lack in quality. Which brings me to the conclusion that you are letting your bad experience with ME3 to cloud your judgement on the game. The graphics were great, the sound quality and voice acting was top notch, and the game play was very solid. It had some issues in story, character development and (while in my opinion is of little value) the gun in cut scenes, but this is all subjective, I thought the story was great, others didn't, I was fine with the character interactions, others weren't, these are both points that cannot be summed up as fact as each opinion is different.

You're citing Valve as an exemption because of their entire history, yet you are damning Bioware because of 2 games? That's just not fair. At least with Bioware the AI has some sense of survival instinct when compared to the AI in Half Life and Left 4 Dead, in fact you could say that Valve is more lazy because they rely on multiplayer to fix these problems rather than fixing it themselves. I don't hate Valve, I enjoy their products, but they have done nothing to suggest to me that they are excellent game makers.

I don't count games I didn't play. I also said nothing about the quality of the other games. I just said that Bioware is continuing their tradition of cutting corners to the max. Citing games where they cut corners as much as they could to support the argument that Bioware has become beyond lazy. They are no longer the studio they once were.

To bad ME3 had none of those elements you mentioned

The graphics weren't good in ME3 they were copy pasted from ME2 as much as possible and the environments were allot smaller and absolutely linear. The gameplay was a weak sauce gears of war rip off that was done extremely badly, most of the RPG elements were ripped out. One button runs, rolls, dodges, slides, goes into cover and interacts with things, the controls are a fucking nightmare, they are the worst thing I ever saw in the ME series.

When my character pulls out a gun I didn't have with me NOR could I equip it to my class is a glaring issue. You see that screams to me "WE ARE LAZY!!!" it distracts me from the terrible story, which you might say is a good thing, but it's still a glaring issue, it's right there in every cutscene. Distracting you with their utter laziness and indifference.

Also I'm sorry but are you comparing the AI from a game from 1998 and one that has zombies with human AI from a game in 2011 and later? The AI also wasn't great, basically walking around in the open, not to mention it's a cover shooter. Most of the enemies either hide behind cover, not that well, or just walk down to your location. I would not call that superior AI.

No I trust Valve because they didn't cut corners. They almost never do. They release the game when it's done and not when EA wants it to be done. I trust too fuck up Bioware because the last two games showed they no longer are who they are. They have been EAed. They are dying from all the blood getting sucked out of them. There was corner cutting in other Bioware games like how badly balanced Jade Empire is where you can walk into a death ring and never be able to leave it because you are just not high enough level.

However there it at least wasn't staring you in the face like with ME3 and DA2.

How about it shall we just wait and see if ME4 and DA3 are just as bad? If they are you'll have to write a poem about how right I was and how much the games suck

 

[bug_of_war]

I don't count games I didn't play. I also said nothing about the quality of the other games. I just said that Bioware is continuing their tradition of cutting corners to the max. Citing games where they cut corners as much as they could to support the argument that Bioware has become beyond lazy. They are no longer the studio they once were.

Wow, 2 games as proof, how can I possibly think they were a good company after 2 games were mediocre/bad in the opinion of one person as opposed to looking at their entire history.

The graphics weren't good in ME3 they were copy pasted from ME2 as much as possible and the environments were allot smaller and absolutely linear. The gameplay was a weak sauce gears of war rip off that was done extremely badly, most of the RPG elements were ripped out. One button runs, rolls, dodges, slides, goes into cover and interacts with things, the controls are a fucking nightmare, they are the worst thing I ever saw in the ME series.

The graphics were good, better than the first and second game, better than anything Valve has ever done, better than the Assassins Creed games. The controls were simplified which meant that game play was more tight, there's a reason why most games follow the Gears of War button mapping, it's because it works. Yes the levels were linear, but the levels in most of the games were quite linear, this is nothing new and it never came out to detriment the game. It was less of an RPG, but it was still a good game. I notice you have nothing to say about the audio quality, so I guess even if my retorts are biased, at least that one we both seem to have agreed apon.

When my character pulls out a gun I didn't have with me NOR could I equip it to my class is a glaring issue. You see that screams to me "WE ARE LAZY!!!" it distracts me from the terrible story, which you might say is a good thing, but it's still a glaring issue, it's right there in every cutscene. Distracting you with their utter laziness and indifference.

Well, in the first game if I recall you always equipped a pistol, which every class could use, the second game your point is valid, but the third game stopped all class specific weapons, any class could use any weapon. So even though you may have not had that gun equipped, it's still a possibility for your character to be holding an AR or a pistol. So again, it's not that much of a glaring issue, and if something as small as the weapon not being right in the cut-scene annoys you so much than you really need to take a chill pill.

Also I'm sorry but are you comparing the AI from a game from 1998 and one that has zombies with human AI from a game in 2011 and later? The AI also wasn't great, basically walking around in the open, not to mention it's a cover shooter. Most of the enemies either hide behind cover, not that well, or just walk down to your location. I would not call that superior AI.

It's superior in comparison to the Half Life series in whole and Left 4 Dead. Whilst the AI in ME3 isn't perfect, they at least take cover, try and flank you, and require different classes to easily take down. Because of Valve's reliance on multiplayer I really do only have two examples where in which their AI can be properly scrutinized. Left 4 Dead is worse than Half Life, at least in Half Life the enemies are fair, Left 4 Dead, Smokers can constrict around corners, team AI will only shove Hunters and Smokers whom have attacked, and team AI is unable to use certain weapons like pipe bombs or molotovs.

No I trust Valve because they didn't cut corners. They almost never do. They release the game when it's done and not when EA wants it to be done. I trust too fuck up Bioware because the last two games showed they no longer are who they are. They have been EAed. They are dying from all the blood getting sucked out of them. There was corner cutting in other Bioware games like how badly balanced Jade Empire is where you can walk into a death ring and never be able to leave it because you are just not high enough level.


How about it shall we just wait and see if ME4 and DA3 are just as bad? If they are you'll have to write a poem about how right I was and how much the games suck

Valve haven't changed their engine for nearly 10 years, they're the biggest corner cutters, they have terrible AI and rely on multiplayer to fix the problems instead of being capable developers and fixing it themselves. Also, look at Aliens: Colonial marines and Duke Nukem, they had long development times and the games ended up sucking, sometime pumping out games every 2 years makes better games because people are working harder. You're also basing this whole, "Bioware is just dead to me now, they suck" opinion off of 2 games, it's just stupid.

As for the next Mass Effect game and Dragon Age 3, we will have to wait and see but looking at ME3 and SWTOR I'd say that I'm quite confident that Bioware will make damn fine games.

 

[Fox12]

I really want to see what they are going to do with Mass Effect 4

Like, what are you gonna do? You either have to continue based the story to varying degrees based on your stupid endings, retcon the whole thing to make it work with minimal effort, or do a prequel of a series of events everyone knows about already.
It was meant to be a trilogy. Let if fucking end as a trilogy.

Like, I don't know how they are going to continue this, and quite frankly I'm not going to sink my money into it like I did for ME3. I'll watch from the sidelines

It could work. If they play their cards right then they can easily dig themselves out of this hole they dug for themselves. Look at Majoras Mask. Nintendo had to make a sequel to the most critically acclaimed game ever made at that time, and the developers had half the amount of time they'd had on Ocarina of Time. They scaled down the story and world, pouring detail and innovative game play into a smaller, but more detailed world. It felt more concise, and better made as a whole. Many of my friends consider it the best Zelda game.

Bioware can't raise the stakes, because they already had the reapers threaten all forms of life that ever existed, and ever would exist. Since they can't make a grander, more epic story, their only choice is to scale down the story and make a smaller, more character driven piece that has absolutely no relation to the larger events in the Mass Effect universe. It can still carry emotional weight. After all, a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. The crux of the story can rely on the fates of the main cast, or a single colony, if they make you care enough about whats at stake. If they did something like Firefly, with a small, closely knit cast of characters trying to survive in the universe, it could work.

Bioware won't do this, of course. Everything has to be "bigger and more epic."

 

[Waddles]

How are they going to make a new Mass Effect when everything died.....

 

[1337mokro]

Snip

I'm just going to keep this short (no I am not, I lied ) because this is utterly pointless now. You fanboying out over ME3 has no value here. You want to debate the quality of ME3, it's shit, there is no other way around it. It's also extremely telling that you picked ME3 rather than DA2 to defend. So are you telling me the same team that made Dragon Age 2 is going to make a good Dragon Age 3? How droll!

Bioware with their two latest games, and some people say even with SWTOR have cut corners and failed to deliver good games. You can look at their library all you want but it's not going to change the present, nostalgia is a thing best left in the past rather than let it blind you for the future. I didn't mention the audio simply because there is no point to mention it, I already talked about the audio when I discussed the ME1 music several years ago. It is recycled from ME1 and ME2 and the voice acting is horrible for some characters. See Jessica Chobbit. Oh and "Simplified" controls makes them more "tight"? No it doesn't, all it does is dumb it down and it decreases the complexity of movements and actions. You see it says two things: "We are lazy and you are stupid so we condensed everything into one button for you". You need not look any further for how much this fails than to look at skipping dialogue and selecting dialogue being on the same button, which was present in all games.

Dragon age however didn't do that and it's "amazingly complex" and "loose unwieldy" method of not having the same buttons skip and select dialogue was so awful!!! I never accidentally gave a wrong answer at all during the entire game!!! OH NOES the horror!!!!!

Though two more points, namely the weapon spawning, I will address separately, the rest we can talk about until you are blue in the face and we'd still end up on a one way trip to opinion ville. However it's not about the weapon TYPE, it's the weapon BRAND! I am NOT holding that BRAND of assault rifle. They just spawn the standard assault rifle, even when I take a different one. There is no way for my character or NPC's, who DO still have a class restriction, to get their hands on that weapon. It just spawns there because Bioware was to lazy to write an algorithm that replaces assault rifle models based on equipment. You can't defend this laziness with "take a chill pill" why is my character holding a weapon he didn't have? You didn't even see this crap in Dragon Age 2! Damn they got lazy in ME3.

This is the equivalent of a character in a movie changing clothes between scene cuts. It's called continuity, it's a thing most good games have

The L4D AI does not use items for a very simple reason... inconveniencing the player. If they would they'd just use them as they got them, there is no way to program dynamic AI that can asses situations in which to use scarce resources. I hardly think this AI can then be held inferior to ME3, which is just run to cover and shoot you AI, flanking is just a fluke of their movement, though like I said this is just opinion and we can go at this forever, sadly in opinion ville even blatantly wrong opinions like yours are valid

Anymore than this is utterly pointless like I already said.

We can solve this with a simple method. We wait and see. You think Bioware still got it? Fine, you can hope. I on the other hand am sure they will fail and pull the same crap again, heck I am willing to go overboard and say the entire game of DA3 will be just one room rotated at different angles and ME4 will reach such heights of laziness that it will just be a 4 hour scroll of text Star Wars style. The story will also be horrible

Be sure that I will be back to gloat if my assessment of Bioware's future endeavours holds true

Oh and to give you a simple analogy for why your whole nostalgia goggle thing is quite stupid, think of a doctor who has treated you for allot of years. Always been a good doc giving you what you needed. Then he got hired by a different company, he continued on a strong note for a while but soon you noticed small mistakes and errors. You see he had to work harder for less money and was starting to make mistakes. Now in the end your lost 2 limbs (DA2 and ME3) whilst he sure was good to you in the past, I sure as hell would be looking for a different doctor.

 

[bug_of_war]

You fanboying out over ME3 has no value here. You want to debate the quality of ME3, it's shit, there is no other way around it. It's also extremely telling that you picked ME3 rather than DA2 to defend. So are you telling me the same team that made Dragon Age 2 is going to make a good Dragon Age 3? How droll!

though like I said this is just opinion and we can go at this forever, sadly in opinion ville even blatantly wrong opinions like yours are valid


Be sure that I will be back to gloat if my assessment of Bioware's future endeavours holds true

Okay, it's already been established that most of this argument will stagnate as we've both given our own opinions and they're both set in stone, but I would like to just point out a few things.

1: I acknowledge that ME3 has some issues, however these issues seem unimportant to me because I was enjoying the game and my standards are not set at 10 all the time. I don't care if the gun isn't right because I'm focused on the story, Jessica Chobot's character can be ignored entirely if need be, and because this is the third game in the trilogy, I don't really care if it looks like the second game with some touch ups, it just seems to trivial to care about.

2: I said previously that I can't defend DA2 because it's quite obviously a very mediocre game, I had fun with it, but it's cracks show big time. I agree that the re-use of rooms is a flaw, but the game had less than a year of development, it's not lazy, it's rushed. I agree, the dialogue system was unimpressive, but it was nice to see the character I created actually speak, rather than have him be a mute psychic whom projects his answers, questions and statements into the minds of those around him.

3: Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one so it's stupid to get overly fussed about it like you are, take a chill pill.

4: If you seriously do track me down 1 - 2 years from now simply to gloat about how right you were (assuming if you're right about the quality of the games) then all I have to say is that you have issues and should see a psychiatrist as someone of you mental health should not be on a forum where in which differing opinions are discussed in a usually civil matter.

 

[1337mokro]

You fanboying out over ME3 has no value here. You want to debate the quality of ME3, it's shit, there is no other way around it. It's also extremely telling that you picked ME3 rather than DA2 to defend. So are you telling me the same team that made Dragon Age 2 is going to make a good Dragon Age 3? How droll!

though like I said this is just opinion and we can go at this forever, sadly in opinion ville even blatantly wrong opinions like yours are valid


Be sure that I will be back to gloat if my assessment of Bioware's future endeavours holds true

Okay, it's already been established that most of this argument will stagnate as we've both given our own opinions and they're both set in stone, but I would like to just point out a few things.

1: I acknowledge that ME3 has some issues, however these issues seem unimportant to me because I was enjoying the game and my standards are not set at 10 all the time. I don't care if the gun isn't right because I'm focused on the story, Jessica Chobot's character can be ignored entirely if need be, and because this is the third game in the trilogy, I don't really care if it looks like the second game with some touch ups, it just seems to trivial to care about.

2: I said previously that I can't defend DA2 because it's quite obviously a very mediocre game, I had fun with it, but it's cracks show big time. I agree that the re-use of rooms is a flaw, but the game had less than a year of development, it's not lazy, it's rushed. I agree, the dialogue system was unimpressive, but it was nice to see the character I created actually speak, rather than have him be a mute psychic whom projects his answers, questions and statements into the minds of those around him.

3: Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one so it's stupid to get overly fussed about it like you are, take a chill pill.

4: If you seriously do track me down 1 - 2 years from now simply to gloat about how right you were (assuming if you're right about the quality of the games) then all I have to say is that you have issues and should see a psychiatrist as someone of you mental health should not be on a forum where in which differing opinions are discussed in a usually civil matter.

Why would I track you down, also why should I have to you are literally in my mailbox? I just said I would be back to gloat. Do you really think there won't be an Escapist Review of this? I will probably post something along the lines of "Bioware strikes again and the lamentation of the fanboys reaches the sky."

I am sorry that you are so absorbed in the horrible story of ME3 (retcons and plotholes HUZZAH!) that you can't notice Biowares laziness on full display

Though I do hope Bioware drops the whole magicians are outcasts bullshit in DA3. It got pretty definitely proven that the Templars and the Circle are 100% right with their actions in DA3. Every mage not in the circle outside of the main character is Insane and will turn into an abomination.

Them hammering on it for a good 30 more hours is not something I am looking forwards to.

 

[mgs16925]

Though I do hope Bioware drops the whole magicians are outcasts bullshit in DA3. It got pretty definitely proven that the Templars and the Circle are 100% right with their actions in DA3. Every mage not in the circle outside of the main character is Insane and will turn into an abomination.

Them hammering on it for a good 30 more hours is not something I am looking forwards to.

Dude, the Templars were all insane or incompetent too. Their crackdowns mostly hurt the innocent, while the real nutters got away easily and it fell to a band of mercenaries (the player party) to take care of them. The entire point of the story was that sometimes situations are so fucked even an epic hero can't save it.

Honestly I think the main problem people have with DA2 story-wise is the genre shift. The first game is ISO standard epic fantasy, the second is a superhero team story complete with patrolling the streets for muggers. Everything constantly going to shit and never accomplishing anything meaningful other than defeating the threat of the week is perfectly normal by those standards.

 

[1337mokro]

Though I do hope Bioware drops the whole magicians are outcasts bullshit in DA3. It got pretty definitely proven that the Templars and the Circle are 100% right with their actions in DA3. Every mage not in the circle outside of the main character is Insane and will turn into an abomination.

Them hammering on it for a good 30 more hours is not something I am looking forwards to.

Dude, the Templars were all insane or incompetent too. Their crackdowns mostly hurt the innocent, while the real nutters got away easily and it fell to a band of mercenaries (the player party) to take care of them. The entire point of the story was that sometimes situations are so fucked even an epic hero can't save it.

Honestly I think the main problem people have with DA2 story-wise is the genre shift. The first game is ISO standard epic fantasy, the second is a superhero team story complete with patrolling the streets for muggers. Everything constantly going to shit and never accomplishing anything meaningful other than defeating the threat of the week is perfectly normal by those standards.

Actually I really really liked the shift. The problem was the way they executed it. Which was horribly! They could have actually crafted a living breathing city that you eventually came to lead, thus making the Hero Of Dunwall part actually make sense. Rather than the Hero of Dunwall being a gopher boy who runs random errands and killed the insane Templar ***** at the end. Had it been about the internal politics and threats from outside and inside the city that you had to take care of and fix then it would have been a much better game, now they did do some of that but it was mostly tangential and never really connected to anything or had any real purpose except drive the plot forward.

Well yes the Templars in this city, under the leadership of an insane woman, yes she is insane, she had a magical sword crafted out of a poisonous mineral, whilst she herself was a Templar, are on the extreme side. Other than that most Templars really weren't that bad, they were jack booted thugs yes, but when you see the shit they have to deal with on a daily basis I can kinda sympathize. I mean really ask yourself this how many abominations did you fight in this game alone? This is just one city with one circle.

If the moral of the story is a hero sometimes can't save everything why then is there not an option to stab Meredith in the gut? If you can't be a hero be a villain, it is quite obvious the only problem here is her and the insane mages, for example remember Anderson, I think it was him, or was he named Anders? He blew up the fucking Chantry, the people that hold the Templars leash and the only people that could have helped the mages.

The moral of the story for me ended up being. "If you can't write well. Just scribble some stuff on a piece of paper and sell it as a videogame script"

There really was no conflict other than Meredith who through her extreme actions alienated both people in the Templar order and drove some mages into blood magic, though let's be honest here the fucking head mage is a blood mage, I don't think her suspicion of them was that unwarranted.

 

[bug_of_war]

Why would I track you down, also why should I have to you are literally in my mailbox? I just said I would be back to gloat. Do you really think there won't be an Escapist Review of this? I will probably post something along the lines of "Bioware strikes again and the lamentation of the fanboys reaches the sky."

I am sorry that you are so absorbed in the horrible story of ME3 (retcons and plotholes HUZZAH!) that you can't notice Biowares laziness on full display

Though I do hope Bioware drops the whole magicians are outcasts bullshit in DA3. It got pretty definitely proven that the Templars and the Circle are 100% right with their actions in DA3. Every mage not in the circle outside of the main character is Insane and will turn into an abomination.

Them hammering on it for a good 30 more hours is not something I am looking forwards to.

Wow, you don't even get idioms and are so uptight that you are still passive aggressive responding. Okay mate, you keep banging on about whatever it is you are, I have said what I've had to say, you have a nice night, cool that rump and hopefully the next time we speak it's under more civil circumstances where in which you can accept that not everyone will agree with you.

 

[1337mokro]

Why would I track you down, also why should I have to you are literally in my mailbox? I just said I would be back to gloat. Do you really think there won't be an Escapist Review of this? I will probably post something along the lines of "Bioware strikes again and the lamentation of the fanboys reaches the sky."

I am sorry that you are so absorbed in the horrible story of ME3 (retcons and plotholes HUZZAH!) that you can't notice Biowares laziness on full display

Though I do hope Bioware drops the whole magicians are outcasts bullshit in DA3. It got pretty definitely proven that the Templars and the Circle are 100% right with their actions in DA3. Every mage not in the circle outside of the main character is Insane and will turn into an abomination.

Them hammering on it for a good 30 more hours is not something I am looking forwards to.

Wow, you don't even get idioms and are so uptight that you are still passive aggressive responding. Okay mate, you keep banging on about whatever it is you are, I have said what I've had to say, you have a nice night, cool that rump and hopefully the next time we speak it's under more civil circumstances where in which you can accept that not everyone will agree with you.

Well when you use the idiom badly I can't help but point it out, like I am going to do again

If all you wanted to do was have your say you could have just posted it in one go and not even bothered responding, after all preaching does not have to involve a dialogue. Not to mention the hilarity of saying other people have to accept that not everybody will agree with them, whilst arguing that your way of seeing things is the correct way "If you can't enjoy it take a chill pill" hmm it's almost like you just told someone else to conform to your opinion and just ignore their own

Oh the irony. It's so delicious! I really need to cut down on that stuff it's making me fat

 

[bug_of_war]

If all you wanted to do was have your say you could have just posted it in one go and not even bothered responding, after all preaching does not have to involve a dialogue. Not to mention the hilarity of saying other people have to accept that not everybody will agree with them, whilst arguing that your way of seeing things is the correct way "If you can't enjoy it take a chill pill" hmm it's almost like you just told someone else to conform to your opinion and just ignore their own

Oh the irony. It's so delicious! I really need to cut down on that stuff it's making me fat

Which brings me to the question, why are you still responding? Also, arguing does not mean that one opinion is right or wrong, it's the sharing of differing opinions which allows us to grow and understand. I believe neither of us have asked for others to confirm our own opinions, but you have outright dismissed my opinions and disregarded any validity to them and coughed it off as "Nostalgia" which has blinded me, as is your right, however this doesn't show any signs of either of us being right or wrong, which I believe I have been saying for the past 3 posts. So, instead of saying take a chill pill, I'll instead ask you to please take a deep breath, and stop using arguments on the internet to validate yourself. It's a much healthier way of life if you ask me.

 

[1337mokro]

If all you wanted to do was have your say you could have just posted it in one go and not even bothered responding, after all preaching does not have to involve a dialogue. Not to mention the hilarity of saying other people have to accept that not everybody will agree with them, whilst arguing that your way of seeing things is the correct way "If you can't enjoy it take a chill pill" hmm it's almost like you just told someone else to conform to your opinion and just ignore their own

Oh the irony. It's so delicious! I really need to cut down on that stuff it's making me fat

Which brings me to the question, why are you still responding? Also, arguing does not mean that one opinion is right or wrong, it's the sharing of differing opinions which allows us to grow and understand. I believe neither of us have asked for others to confirm our own opinions, but you have outright dismissed my opinions and disregarded any validity to them and coughed it off as "Nostalgia" which has blinded me, as is your right, however this doesn't show any signs of either of us being right or wrong, which I believe I have been saying for the past 3 posts. So, instead of saying take a chill pill, I'll instead ask you to please take a deep breath, and stop using arguments on the internet to validate yourself. It's a much healthier way of life if you ask me.

For the same reason you are still doing so.

Not really what I said was your argument is flawed because their current work has been crap. Referring to their glory years as proof of them still being good is just being blinded by nostalgia. That's not really dismissing more pointing out that right now they suck balls and until proven otherwise their previous work has no bearing on why they should suddenly stop sucking balls.

Well I didn't ask you, which is strange why you would assume I would because you just said I blatantly dismissed all your opinions so why should I now ask you for your opinion about life, which I am sure is vast improvement seeing as you are bickering with me on the internet, which makes you a totally different person from me.

Oh the irony of that little statement and your rage over me taking idioms literally again will be so entertaining