The Things I Hate, Part One: Dragon Age II

[funksobeefy]

There's books, comics and various other tie-ins.

True, I was only thinking the only other thing was that Face Book game. Well Ill give you that.

 

[TorchofThanatos]

NOT ANOTHER ONE OF THESE!
DA2 was different then DAO and most people can't get past that point.

I am not even going to bother explaining why you are wrong on many of your point because it won't change your mind and you can't change mine.

Was DA:O a good game? Yes it was. Was it so super amazing? No.
Was DA:2 a good game? Yes it was. Was it the biggest piece of carp ever? No!

The sooner people get over the fact that it was not a copy of the first game the better. Bioware always makes good games, if you want more DA:O then go play that game again!

 

[Agayek]

I agree with the OP for the most part. Most everything in DA2 was a train wreck.

There were a handful of things they did very, very right though.

1) The combat. It was much more visceral and just felt a lot better than DA:O's clunky as hell combat mechanics. The abilities were much more honed, and everything flowed much better. I heartily enjoyed the core mechanics of the combat.

Now, don't get me wrong, the encounters themselves were fucking completely awful. Not a single encounter was well designed. They all consisted of waves upon waves upon waves of mooks endlessly spawning while you fought. It took away any semblance of strategy or thought and replaced it with "everyone stand in a clump and AOE everything". That was quite literally the only strategy I employed for the whole god damn game, and that is a terrible thing.

2) Varric. Varric was amazing, easily my favorite character in any Bioware game since HK-47. He had a lot of character, and was genuinely likeable all throughout.

Every other character in the game I hated, especially Anders, but Varric made dealing with them bearable.

3) The narrative framework. The story itself was garbage, and told terribly, but the idea of playing through the events as someone recounts them is excellent. They introduced a number of patently ridiculous segments that perfectly captured the essence of this framework. The most memorable one is during Varric's quest, where you play as Varric as he endlessly slaughters mooks, ending whole waves with a single shot.

The little bits of exaggeration and other moments like that really made me feel like I was immersing myself into someone else telling their story. I really, really liked the execution in that regard. It's unfortunate that everything else about the narrative failed to live up to that standard.

 

[StarCecil]

NOT ANOTHER ONE OF THESE!
DA2 was different then DAO and most people can't get past that point.

I am not even going to bother explaining why you are wrong on many of your point because it won't change your mind and you can't change mine.

Was DA:O a good game? Yes it was. Was it so super amazing? No.
Was DA:2 a good game? Yes it was. Was it the biggest piece of carp ever? No!

The sooner people get over the fact that it was not a copy of the first game the better. Bioware always makes good games, if you want more DA:O then go play that game again!

Wow, way to miss the point. I'm not trying to change your mind, just giving my personal opinion of the game. I feel that Dragon Age II is proof enough that Bioware doesn't always make good games. I would be interested in hearing you refute a few of my points, for the sake of discussion.

Oh, and I'm not asking for a clone of Origins. I just want a good sequel.

 

[StarCecil]

3) The narrative framework. The story itself was garbage, and told terribly, but the idea of playing through the events as someone recounts them is excellent. They introduced a number of patently ridiculous segments that perfectly captured the essence of this framework. The most memorable one is during Varric's quest, where you play as Varric as he endlessly slaughters mooks, ending whole waves with a single shot.

Surprisingly, I don't have a problem with the idea of a "framed narrative". It's not especially unique and has definitely been done way better, however. But, because it can be done well, there's really no problem with it. However, I thought that Varric scene was jarring. That scene, while comedic, came literally out of nowhere. The rest of the game took itself quite seriously (with a dark atmosphere all about) so a sudden shift to comedy was a bit off putting. And the still having to fight a fucking horde of bad guys sucked.

 

[Terminal Blue]

The devs, however, have always been clear that there's no "right" ending, and that however you personally played is how the story and the world pans out.

World, yes. However, they were always clear that it was the setting they were interested in, not the individual stories of the characters. There was never any pretence that subsequent games would follow the same story.

There's also a middle-game issue here. I think originally it wasn't clear how long the Dragon Age series was going to be, and that they were waiting to see how Origins did. Well, Origins did much better than expected so rather than going game by game and seeing how it goes, they clearly decided very quickly that they wanted a full trilogy.

There's a problem with the trilogy structure in RPGs, and that is that the middle game has to be quite linear otherwise the storyboard for the third game becomes a fractal nightmare. If they resolved any of these events which might or might not have happened and imposed meaningful consequences for those resolutions, then there would be so many potential possibilities by the time Dragon Age 3 rolled out that that there's no way anything could be done justice.

If you ask me, they should have spent a lot longer on Dragon Age 2, set it maybe 40 years after the events of Dragon Age 1 following a completely different story and characters and yet with connections to some of the events in Dragon Age 1, and abandoned forget any pretence of making a trilogy until that second game was done.

Origins, no matter how you look at it, is character-driven, which itself doesn't lend well to the "it's about Thedas" thing everyone insists.

I completely disagree. No offense, but I think you're probably saying this because you've tended to make very similar characters so the game. For you, has become about that character, quite artificially so.

For me, a character driven game is one in which the choices you make to define your character or their relationship with other characters, rather than the overarching 'big quest', drives the story. Origins is pretty much the opposite of this, interacting with the other NPCs only takes place in one specific location, it is a minigame where the objective is to say whatever is required to get the best rewards. Your character will never be defined by anything they do or say to other characters unless you imagine so.

Dragon Age 2 at least made an attempt at a character driven game, by basing most of the story around a consistent cast and trying to make Hawke a more stable persona than the blank-faced warden.

I loved some of Origins characters, particularly Sten and Zevran, but the only meaningful choice you made with them was in the epilogue, (which was tacked onto the original game to try and make the ending less jarring, and thus wasn't actually reflected in any of the ending text or the save file, and was then totally retconned in the DLC, heck, your characters death was retconned in the DLC with no explanation). A character driven game would have made the choices you made with those characters determinate of the story, it's virtually impossible to do this with a 'generic fantasy protagonist', as the Warden certainly is.

I mean, why bother letting me import the save if it doesn't matter - indeed, they retconned whole events.

As I said, there were always extreme limits on how much information the exported saves contained. Those limits were hardcoded into Origins.

The only thing they retconned was the possible deaths of certain characters, because the save game export system didn't record that. One can only presume that when they made Origins they weren't planning to use the same characters at all in a sequel. If you ask me, they probably shouldn't have done.

Clearly, at some point a plan was changed, I think Bioware should have stuck to their guns and focused on their original intent, to make loosely interconnected stories set within the same setting, and abandoned the idea of direct sequels altogether.

 

[StarCecil]

World, yes. However, they were always clear that it was the setting they were interested in, not the individual stories of the characters. There was never any pretence that subsequent games would follow the same story.

The lead writer, David Gaider, was clear in saying that however the player played the game, that was the story would be "canon". I understand this didn't necessitate following the same story, however a world canon was definitely superimposed on my playthrough when certain major events of the previous game were retconned to accommodate entirely different events in this game.

I think we can both agree that Bioware very clearly and deliberately dropped the ball in this regard and that it is a valid criticism of the game as a whole.

For me, a character driven game is one in which the choices you make to define your character or their relationship with other characters, rather than the overarching 'big quest', drives the story.

Perhaps it's all up to interpretation - and the phrase "for me" would suggest so - but a character driven story is one in which the characters are the driving force behind the plot. And I very much felt this was so. The player character is debatable since it relies on the player's input, but the characters, from the supporting cast to the villains, make a good portion of the plot and motivation.

Compare Lord of the Rings. Middle-Earth is definitely the main character and we see this by experiencing much of the world, and all the lead characters are consequently flat.

As I said, there were always extreme limits on how much information the exported saves contained. Those limits were hardcoded into Origins.

Which would then lead me to the question: why allow imports? Especially seeing as the major decisions, the make-or-break decisions - and we all know which ones those are - the ones we were really looking to pay off. The developers promised there would be consequences for our actions, and much of both games is constructed on that premise, but seemed to have made it a point to avoid and retcon the ones that were important after all.

The only thing they retconned was the possible deaths of certain characters, because the save game export system didn't record that.

I can't speak for the tech stuff, but I'm sure that since at least one death is reflected in the epilogue there would be appropriate plot flags for that. But more to the point, why include these characters again if they knew there was a possibility for the player to kill them - especially if they knew they couldn't reflect it properly? Especially since the characters themselves weren't vital to the roles played - they could easily have been replaced at the cost of a "hey, it's that guy" moment.

It wouldn't even be so much of a problem if it didn't immediately declare that my choices were not, in fact, important. As I said, in my games Anders stayed with the Wardens. Dragon Age II decided not. To which I said, "Then why the fuck did I import it at all?"

Besides, the ending always states the Warden vanished, even if the epilogue can clearly account for their whereabouts.

But for me, and again this is all opinion, it was the fact that the real hooks I was in it for were ignored entirely, not even referenced. It makes me ask what they left open certain plotlines, most egregiously in Witch Hunt when they were well aware of the impending sequel.

I think many of these things wouldn't have happened had the game not been rushed out the door.

 

[Sudenak]

As someone who never played DA:O, or anything else by Bioware besides DA:II...I just don't get it. DA:II was a good game. Some of the characters irritated me, but by video game standards they were miles above the rest that I'd dealt with.

I liked Varric. While the start of the friendship was poorly executed, he ended up being a staple of my party simply because I enjoyed his character overall. There was something nice about having one reasonable character that didn't have some absurd bigoted chip on his shoulder the entire time.

I stuck with Aveline enough to watch her grow, too. For her, it was the design; she was a battle-hardened guard, but despite being female she was -not- stick thin and hyper-sexualized. I ended up liking her because she was not hilariously poorly proportioned.

And of course, Anders. I chose to romance him 'cause I figured it'd make for a fun challenge. It ended up being surprisingly stressful, with my Hawke changing from a peace-seeking man of equality to a blood thirsty mage supporter.

The rest I could take or leave, as I didn't really spend much time around them. The point being that the characters develop the more time you spend with them, and if you can step into Hawke's shoes it becomes rather engaging. I sort of get the feeling that you stepped into the game and immediately said "NOT LIKE ORIGINS D8" and didn't want to be engaged.

The story could have been handled better (although, again, in terms of video game stories it was still leaps and bounds better than most). At the same time, the twist ending coupled with romancing Anders was so jarring to me that it stuck with me for a few weeks. It's been a while since a game actually threw me for a loop story wise. My lack of understanding of the DA-world also made it possible for me to not really know how to predict the reactions of certain groups, leaving me to make my best guesses in situations. That ended up helping me to enjoy the story, as it gave me the sense that Hawke wasn't some Anakin-end-all-be-all and was being elevated to that level by an ignorant people who thought he was something he was not.

Battle wise...eh. The battles just felt like they were getting in the way of the story, with most of it just being a frantic button masher. Once I'd upgraded my team properly, it was only slightly challenging from here to there. It could have been improved, although I don't know how.

But when I finished DA:II, filled with warm fuzzy-fuzzies about how the characters had developed, how Hawke had developed, and where the story could go, I learned that I was apparently quite wrong.

Now, at first I'd been a little interested in poking my head into DA:O, figuring that I enjoyed II and could use some proper background on how this silly world works. The way that the fans are, however, has all but frightened off that aspect. This long after DA:II was released, people are still griping that it was the Worst Thing Ever. I feel that DA:O will never meet up to the expectations I now have for it, since it's apparently some sort of holy, flawless game with no rival.

Ultimately, it's an opinion. Everyone's got one. It seems as though most people hate DA:II, but their hatred is because it's not DA:O. It's otherwise a good game, a great game if you compare it to the average game. I read over your opinions on the matter, and it just sounded as though you started out hating it because it didn't continue with your character from Origins, so you therefore made it a point to distance yourself from the game, finish it as quickly as you could, and then shove it aside.

This reminds me of Fallout 3 compared to New Vegas. Everyone and their mother told me that 3 was far better than NV. I played NV first, and while the ending irritated me, liked it overall. When I played 3, I actually hated it. I didn't like the beginning, I didn't like the characters, and the ending was just as horrible as it was in NV. So, I ended up hating the "first" game because I'd sampled the second game without a prior bias. There was a time when everyone griped about New Vegas being the Worst Thing Ever, too. Makes me worry if I'd play Origins and go "wow...this is awful".

There's my two cents. Probably not a popular opinion, but I felt the need to share it.

 

[Terminal Blue]

The lead writer, David Gaider, was clear in saying that however the player played the game, that was the story would be "canon". I understand this didn't necessitate following the same story, however a world canon was definitely superimposed on my playthrough when certain major events of the previous game were retconned to accommodate entirely different events in this game.

As I said, the only thing I can think of being "retconned" is the fate of certain characters, largely because the export system of Origins was never made to accomodate it.

And I very much felt this was so. The player character is debatable since it relies on the player's input, but the characters, from the supporting cast to the villains, make a good portion of the plot and motivation.

The motivation was to kill a dragon and his army of slavering orc-analogues (although to be fair, Tolkien's orcs had more personality). That is established before you even meet any of the supporting characters.

Ultimately, you can say that any story is "driven" by characters because any story is likely to have characters and include expositional dialogue as a part of its plot. I personally don't think that alone makes it a character driven story.

Origins is not the story of Alistair, it's not the story of Morrigan, it's not even really the story of the Warden in the sense that the Warden's character development is in any way important or essential, after all the Warden is a blank slate character who can come from a range of different backgrounds and needs to be generic enough to accomodate them all. Ultimately, it's the story of the blight. It starts because the Darkspawn are attacking and it ends with the death of the Archdemon.

Compare Lord of the Rings. Middle-Earth is definitely the main character and we see this by experiencing much of the world, and all the lead characters are consequently flat.

To confess, I immensely dislike the Lord of the Rings. I'm aware this is blasphemy to many people, and it's kind of strange because I kind of like the Hobbit.

Still, I think you're completely wrong in saying that Lord of the Rings is less character driven than Origins. It's true that Tolkien doesn't describe his characters in great detail and can't do (or rather refuses to do) any kind of psychological writing, but he pretty much follows the heroes journey (which was the big idea in the study of mythology at the time) word for word. It's a bog standard coming of age story.

Which would then lead me to the question: why allow imports?

Presumably because they weren't originally planning to make the second game so closely tied to the first. That seems the simplest explanation to me.

The developers promised there would be consequences for our actions, and much of both games is constructed on that premise, but seemed to have made it a point to avoid and retcon the ones that were important after all.

Avoiding is not retconning. Also, just about every decision is mentioned.

The game was never going to spend hours dealing with Morrigans kid, for example, because it probably didn't happen. It's a waste of programmers time to spend a really long time on something which only 33% of the audience will see (probably more, but the principle applies).

I can't speak for the tech stuff, but I'm sure that since at least one death is reflected in the epilogue there would be appropriate plot flags for that.

I'm no expert, but from what I understand of the modding community the export system is based on very simple yes or no flags. It records whether you defiled the urn of sacred ashes, but not whether Leliana died while you did it. It doesn't draw from the same pool as the epilogue.

But more to the point, why include these characters again if they knew there was a possibility for the player to kill them - especially if they knew they couldn't reflect it properly? Especially since the characters themselves weren't vital to the roles played - they could easily have been replaced at the cost of a "hey, it's that guy" moment.

Presumably because they weren't expecting people to get so rabid about the characters, and were then put on the spot of having to tear up their original plan and include them for the sake of fan service.

I mean, look at this thread. Most of your story complaints seem to come down to the fact that game didn't spend its entire length dealing with the (potential) unresolved elements of Origins. How do you think people would have taken it if none of the original cast reappeared and the decisions you made in origins only came across in general background material, which seemed to be the original intention.

It wouldn't even be so much of a problem if it didn't immediately declare that my choices were not, in fact, important. As I said, in my games Anders stayed with the Wardens. Dragon Age II decided not. To which I said, "Then why the fuck did I import it at all?"

My (favourite) Warden died killing the Archdemon. Awakening decided not.

I'm still glad I got to play Awakening.

Also, I fail to see how Anders leaving the Wardens isn't explained. Beyond the stuff Anders actually says in Dragon Age 2, it's kind of a horrible life. You fight darkspawn until you die, preferably before you lose your mind. Did Anders in Awakening seem like the kind of person cut out for that life, or did he just seem like he was taking the only option which allowed him to escape the Templars?

Besides, the ending always states the Warden vanished, even if the epilogue can clearly account for their whereabouts.

..unless the Warden died.

But for me, and again this is all opinion, it was the fact that the real hooks I was in it for were ignored entirely, not even referenced. It makes me ask what they left open certain plotlines, most egregiously in Witch Hunt when they were well aware of the impending sequel.

As I've said, problem with trilogy - you can't resolve everything in the second game.

I think many of these things wouldn't have happened had the game not been rushed out the door.

I think many of these things wouldn't have happened if Origins fans hadn't become so rabid, but maybe that's just me being harsh.

 

[TorchofThanatos]

NOT ANOTHER ONE OF THESE!
DA2 was different then DAO and most people can't get past that point.

I am not even going to bother explaining why you are wrong on many of your point because it won't change your mind and you can't change mine.

Was DA:O a good game? Yes it was. Was it so super amazing? No.
Was DA:2 a good game? Yes it was. Was it the biggest piece of carp ever? No!

The sooner people get over the fact that it was not a copy of the first game the better. Bioware always makes good games, if you want more DA:O then go play that game again!

Wow, way to miss the point. I'm not trying to change your mind, just giving my personal opinion of the game. I feel that Dragon Age II is proof enough that Bioware doesn't always make good games. I would be interested in hearing you refute a few of my points, for the sake of discussion.

Oh, and I'm not asking for a clone of Origins. I just want a good sequel.

Okay here i go!

First, you said that you liked the Warden not speaking his lines in the game. You liked the fact that he was "mute" because you could interpret how the lines were being said. Well here is the problem. If you take a line like "Oh, well that did not work!" You could read the line as a normal speak or you could read it as very sarcastic. That would be up to you to interpret but the problem is how the other characters react. If everyone else takes it as sarcastic then it does not matter how you wanted the line to come across. You might have thought something but the game reacted a different way.

Second, what most people were expecting with DA:2 was Dagon Age: Origins 2 and it was not. It was still a Dragon Age game but not the same. Some Dragon Age fans wanted a squeal like KOTOR 2. More the the same! The same boring "you are special therefore you must save the world" storyline. DA2 was not and shouldn't be considered DA:O2!

Third, the characters in DA:O were not shades of grey! There is a difference between having multiple levels to your character and have the character be jumpy! Loghain being a great example of this. For most of the story line, he is simply evil! He does only evil things and haas no redeeming qualities but when he is suddenly about to die his character jumps to someone who was nice and not an evil idiot. He didn't have multiple levels to his character it just jumped form one to the next! DA2 characters were more simple and direct! They made the characters more like Sten which I think is a good thing. Fenris hates slaver and mages. If he decided to spare his sister or his slavers it wouldn't make sense. They did lose some "dept" but made them less jumpy.

Forth, I hate sports game. I don't like them one bit. I don't find them fun to play BUT it doesn't mean that all sport games are bad. You said that Bioware made a crap game. No they made a game that you don't like. There is difference, again this goes back to my second point. IT IS NOT DAO, get over it!

Fifth, DAO was not all that good. The origins would have been more fun if the effected the rest of the game but they didn't. The first hour of game play was different but the last 29 hours was the same. Maybe someone would walk up to you and say 'Hey, you are an elf!" but that was the only difference. As a dwarf I went back to my city and no one recognized me! What the Hell! There were other problem like balance too. The Arcane Warrior be at the lop f the OP list.

And Last, I am not stupid, I know that DA2 is afar from a perfect game. Just as far as DAO was! The problem that I have with your post it that it is mostly options. You din't like this or you thought this was bad. If you didn't like that is something but it was not a crapy game!

If you have any question post them, I do like to argue with people.

 

[StarCecil]

You might have thought something but the game reacted a different way.

This was very rarely ever an issue (in the "I can't think of a single instance" sense) and where it did appear there was a very clear justification in characterization for the given reaction.

In fact, ironically enough, Dragon Age II was the game in which I had a real problem with what I thought was going to be said not actually being what was said.

Some Dragon Age fans wanted a squeal like KOTOR 2.

It's interesting you mention KotOR2. Because that's a textbook example of how to construct a great sequel (Lucasarts meddling not withstanding). It managed to have a different story than the first, a different cast of characters, and yet managed to be entirely about Revan and the repercussions of his decisions. It also was a great deconstruction of the Star Wars franchise.

And I do not think either KotOR2 or Origins had a "boring 'you are special therefore you must save the world'" storyline.

the characters in DA:O were not shades of grey!

Yes, yes they were. To use your Loghain example, he only appears evil to the player who doesn't know anything about his background or who is too dense to pick up on context clues. Aside from the companions, everyone in the game revers him as a hero and he is a greatly respected tactician. Should you recruit him, he'll gladly shed light on his "evil" decisions from his perspective and should you kill him will die satisfied that his ultimate goal is accomplished by one who can accomplish it. He also establishes himself as a caring father and deeply patriotic individual.

In fact, if one reads either of the prequel novels one could examine his rise from peasant to hero - his supposed tactical genius and his degeneration to hatred and paranoia of Orlais in the post-war period. His friendship with King Maric, Cailan's father, is also explored and, yes, this all makes him a very layered character.

They did lose some "dept"

Which is never a good thing. I can tell you that as a writer; you never want less of what is a vital aspect of storytelling. In fact, the depth of the characters in Origins was held up by fans and reviewers alike as being one of the better aspects of the games. Comparatively, the depth of Dragon Age II characters (or lack thereof) is a point of contention - and I would say that whatever your opinions of either game it is very well apparent that the writing of Dragon Age II's characters was inferior to that of Origins' companions.

I hate sports game. I don't like them one bit.

Neither do I. But I don't argue that they are somehow bad because I don't play them. They are a genre apart from Dragon Age II and as such have different merits and flaws that should be taken into consideration by one more familiar with them than me. Dragon Age II, however, is a game I have played in a genre I am familiar with and even by fans is considered to have many flaws that are to its detriment.

IT IS NOT DAO, get over it!

There seems to be some misconception here that I want a clone of Origins. I do not, and if I got one I would probably be upset that they had sold me a game I already own. However, I do want a worthy successor to Origins. This was not.

And let me say it now, I could have accepted that Dragon Age II was not going to be a "real" sequel to Origins... if it had been done well. It wasn't - the gameplay was marred by flaws both technically oriented and story oriented that would have greatly diminished any game, but especially Bioware, the gold standard of video game design.

DAO was not all that good.

That is your opinion (and a fine one to have). I would disagree because, as has been established, I really liked Origins. I do acknowledge it had some flaws but, as I said in the beginning of my review, however the parts that I did like were good enough for me to forgive them. Dragon Age II is about the exact opposite; there were parts I liked, but they were overshadowed by the myriad flaws.

Maybe someone would walk up to you and say 'Hey, you are an elf!" but that was the only difference.

Zero Punctuation had about the same to say about that. And that is something I didn't quite understand. Going from a Male Human Noble Warrior to a Female Elf Mage was a huge difference - and not just in the playing style. The origins were great for establishing the "mood" of the game, which was in turn directly affected by the origins being played.

There were other problem like balance too.

Not to mention that there were a number of bugs that caused certain parts to not work or screw up randomly. I don't see your point. I never said the game was perfectly balanced (and this might be an argument if Dragon Age II was perfectly balanced, but it's not).

The problem that I have with your post it that it is mostly options.

You, sir, have done what many great and wise men could not - despite years upon years of journeying and study. I am proud. You, my friend, have discovered the point of a user review. Somebody get this man a sticker.

If you didn't like that is something but it was not a crapy game!

However even people that like it acknowledge that many of my points still stand (in addition to other flaws I didn't mention). And even in this very thread you have people that disagree with my review call it "good, but not as good as..." I might have a highly polarized view, but I have a valid view nonetheless.

As I said, the only thing I can think of being "retconned" is the fate of certain characters, largely because the export system of Origins was never made to accomodate it.

And that brings me back to a repeat point: Why allow me to export a non-canon save? Or, if you'd prefer, why then write a set state that more likely than not would directly conflict with exported saves?

To confess, I immensely dislike the Lord of the Rings. I'm aware this is blasphemy to many people, and it's kind of strange because I kind of like the Hobbit.

It is blasphemy and you are a terrible person.

But not really, though.

Still, I think you're completely wrong in saying that Lord of the Rings is less character driven than Origins.

I don't know if I would agree. The LotR characters, even the characters in the Hobbit, were very flat. But this isn't a thread for literary discussion, so it should probably end here.

Presumably because they weren't originally planning to make the second game so closely tied to the first. That seems the simplest explanation to me.

Which is fair enough. But they allowed me to import a save, a save that was largely neglected and in fact altered to fit what they had decided happened, and consequently my experience was diminished. If they didn't want to tie the games so closely together that would be a different can of worms entirely, but they did and did so poorly.

Avoiding is not retconning. Also, just about every decision is mentioned.

I said that they were avoided and retconned. Some were one, some were the other. Namely, the many dangling plot hooks were avoided, and certain major characters fates were retconned.

The game was never going to spend hours dealing with Morrigans kid, for example, because it probably didn't happen.

I'm not asking for a proposed sequel to have necessarily anything to do directly with Morrigan's kid. But it was an important aspect of my playthrough and even David Gaider referred to it as the most important decision in Origins. It raised a huge number of questions and managed to change the tone of the player's relationship with Morrigan and the interactions with Flemeth drastically. I've seen entire threads devoted to discussing this one aspect of the game.

Combine that with Witch Hunt's non-ending (I'd do a review of that but then I'd have acknowledge that piece of shit again) and Gaider solidly stating that Morrigan's story was not over and you can understand that Dragon Age II was rather disappointing for fans like myself who were quite interested in that line of storytelling.

I'm no expert, but from what I understand of the modding community the export system is based on very simple yes or no flags. It records whether you defiled the urn of sacred ashes, but not whether Leliana died while you did it. It doesn't draw from the same pool as the epilogue.

I'm certain that Anders was plot-flagged seeing as his epilogue changes immensely. It is therefor more egregious that he reappears when there are a number of possible conclusions for him - and only one would fit with his appearance in Dragon Age II.

Presumably because they weren't expecting people to get so rabid about the characters, and were then put on the spot of having to tear up their original plan and include them for the sake of fan service.

Which itself is an issue with the design of the game, and something we could go into great length discussing.

Most of your story complaints seem to come down to the fact that game didn't spend its entire length dealing with the (potential) unresolved elements of Origins.

Not all my complaints. But it is a major issue, seeing as - again - a major source of my enjoyment came from the personal investment I had in those elements. Certainly they were potential, but the broad strokes remained the same in all iterations of the story (for instance, I really want to know what both Morrigan's and Flemeth's plans were for the child, I don't want an entire game devoted to it). It's all the more irksome that Witch Hunt was promoted to be the one to solidly conclude this line (which would have certainly ended my criticism in this regard) yet turned out to be an advertisement for Dragon Age II, paid for by viewers like you.

My (favourite) Warden died killing the Archdemon. Awakening decided not.

That's something that in itself is bothersome. They really couldn't have figured out how to keep a dead Warden dead? At all?

And the very fact that one can't have a "true" playthrough without retconning their own death is a problem unto itself.

Also, I fail to see how Anders leaving the Wardens isn't explained.

In my game, the epilogue clearly stated that the Wardens remained his home, and he and my Warden were amiable friends. I didn't talk to him in Dragon Age II where I could avoid it but I don't really recall him stating why he left the Wardens except for a brief tirade about having had his cat taken from him. I think there is also some background information that a Templar was Joined to watch Anders, but I don't recall him mentioning that as a major motivation.

There's also the fact that he can die during the battle at Vigil's Keep, with an arrow through his neck surrounded by Darkspawn killed via magic. He states that the body was in fact too badly burned to be identified, but the finality of the epilogue and the flimsiness of this answer clearly indicates that he was meant to die, if that did in fact happen.

There's also the potential for him to be refused conscription and handed over to the Templars not an hour into Awakening. He does eventually escape but will never have been made a Grey Warden.

The only epilogue that agrees with Dragon Age II is for the player to have not performed his companion quest, causing him to resign peacefully from the Wardens (though that itself would clash with the view that he left the Wardens in bad blood). I'm also to understand that there is an epilogue where he resigns the Wardens peacefully, is captured by the Chantry, but then escapes again.

..unless the Warden died.

However, Awakenings establishes that this isn't the "true" ending. That in itself sucks. Regardless, my epilogue, and many other people's epilogue, firmly accounted for the whereabouts of my Warden.

As I've said, problem with trilogy - you can't resolve everything in the second game.

Perhaps not, but I don't think that changes the validity of story-related complaints.

I think many of these things wouldn't have happened if Origins fans hadn't become so rabid, but maybe that's just me being harsh.

I think no matter what, we can both agree that Dragon Age II has the distinct elements of a truncated development cycle. Even the composer went on record saying that, at least his share of the design, was rushed.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Spoiler

It's a different game, with different priorities. Stop thinking of it as a sequel, and more of a continuation of setting (the main character of the series, according to the devs, is Thedas, not any single person). The only things that I personally thought were bad were the constant waves of enemies, the reused locations, the general size of the areas, the use of the speech wheel, and the pacing of the story. Everything else was at least as good as Origins, and sometimes better. The combat was more frantic, character relationships were slower and more even, and you didn't have to be their best friend to build a rapport with them. Your companions acted more as individuals- they chose to wear what THEY wanted to wear, and knew not to bother trying to wax philosophical with you while on a mission. In short, they had their own lives. Which was, I think, an improvement. Hawke was very well voiced, both with male and female, and the fact that his personality options are rather limited to saint, sinner and trickster do little to change the fact.

Some of the things you said were outright wrong, anyway- You CAN improve people's armor, by buying armor fragments from stores and finding them during specific quests. They also improve with level up- so unless you completely ignore upgrades and rune slotting, they're perfectly ready for endgame.

Basically, all I see is you complaining that it's not exactly like Origins. DA2 isn't perfect, and I would say it isn't quite as good as it's predecessor, either, but it's fun if you don't have a familiarity obsession.

The only thing I can agree with you fully on is the speech wheel. A list of exactly what you're going to say makes so much more sense that this shit; I don't understand how it came to be considered a good idea.

Pretty much says everything I was thinking whilst reading the original post.

Don't think of it as a direct sequel to DA:O, It's merely another story in the same universe.

Also, maybe you should research your games more carefully before buying them. Especially when big game publishers are involved.

 

[zehydra]

how was the gameplay?

 

[StarCecil]

how was the gameplay?

Eh, meh. The combat was repetitive, what with the hordes of bad guys. I felt that playing as a mage was a lot of hurry up and wait; my mana bar could never be full enough to last out a fight before I was standing off tapping buttons until I could get enough to shoot another spell.

The dungeons were horribly copied. The first two I entered outside of the city were the exact same layout with altered enemy and item placement. It smacks of a rush job.

The actual city itself was woefully bland. The art style, despite Bioware's hiring of a new art director to create an "ownable" style, was unimaginative. Nothing really "popped" and nothing was memorable.

A situation exacerbated by the fact that the city never changes and the entire game takes place there. You visit the same locales dozens of times.

There's also the greatly reduced character build options compared to Origins. Also, I played a Bloodmage and it had no bearing on the plot. It sort of saddens me that there was so obviously a missed moment of drama.

Altogether, on gameplay alone, Dragon Age II is very bland and seen-it-before-but-better. But, as I said in the review, I'm a huge proponent of story and I think we should all agree that the plot - if not the most important aspect - is definitely a vital aspect to an RPG.

 

[StarCecil]

Also, maybe you should research your games more carefully before buying them. Especially when big game publishers are involved.

That's something that has always bothered me, on a real life personal level. I was one of those folks that railed against the proposed changes to the game structure. I was one of those people against introducing a new character when I felt as though the story was not finished.

And I was also one of those people called an alarmist, "sky is falling" type, "entitled" and was even called out by a developer personally. I was told "just wait and see", "you don't even know what we're doing yet", "Hey, it's Bioware!"

So, fine. I like Dragon Age and I like Bioware. Fine, I'll pre-order the game, experience it myself and then we'll see. Maybe they're right and I'm just an alarmist.

...nope. Turns out everything I was afraid of happening happened, and the experience was notably cheapened for it.

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

Good points generally.

I wasn't bothered by Anders 'retcon' personally, because I never found him terribly interesting in Awakening. He always struck me as the annoying, 'wacky' elements of Alistair with none of the emotional heart and character growth. It's also clear from his meetings with the warden characters in Dragon Age 2 that there were personal tensions, which frankly bears out pretty well with his personality in Awakening. The epilogue might say he lived happily ever after, but I see no way for that to be true, and it this stage I think it's becomming clear we should ignore the shit out of the epilogues.

It occurs me that I haven't really given my opinion, so here we go.

I played Origins for an enormous amount of time. Like you, I had a clear 'favourite' playthrough but I never felt a great emotional connection with the game because I always knew it was the RPG equivalent of wallpaper paste. Really nice, tasty wallpaper paste which I couldn't get enough of, but wallpaper paste nonetheless. The protagonist is generic, the story is just 'fantasy 101', the characters vary from brilliant to mediocre recycling of tired archetypes, and actually the gameplay isn't even that good. The classes are poorly balanced (mages can be broken like a glass house in a stone throwing contest, rogues are monsters but require far too much micromanagement and unintuitive min-maxing to be effective, and warriors just suck) the abilities are unbalanced against each other. Character generation looks great on the surface but actually just boils down to a few optimal strategies. The specializations are really bizarre in some cases (who decided that mages should spend most of their time pretending to be warriors, and can I slap them). It's a good game, it's probably the best RPG to come out in many years, but it just doesn't deserve to be treated as a shining example of brilliance, because the only really fascinating thing about it is the original setting, everything else is either generic or just not that good.

Now, I play Dragon Age 2, in fact I'm in the middle of another playthrough now. I know with some degree of authority that it's a more flawed game. The wave combat is really annoying, the recycled environments feel like a step down, even if Origins environments felt like they were put together with spit and string. The console porting was apparently awful but I don't know or really care, and yet when I try to go back to Origins I just can't do it. The sluggish combat, the severely broken character generation system. It just bugs me in a way it never did and I'm forced to admit that for all its flaws, DA2 did a lot of important things better.

Then there's the story, which as many have pointed out is a little schizophrenic, but also far less predictable in its structure, and that's actually kind of fun in a 'solving the mystery' kind of way. When you start a quest in Origins, assuming you have any familiarity with fantasy or mythological cliche, you can probably guess roughly how it goes and how it ends. While Dragon Age 2 occasionally had some logical screws loose, it was also much better at avoiding those cliche story structures which any fantasy writer can pull out of their arse.

It is a rushed game, and it feels it. Yet it's easy to forget that Origins is an unrefined game made by a company which clearly didn't expect it to be an enormous hit.

Also, I played a Bloodmage and it had no bearing on the plot. It sort of saddens me that there was so obviously a missed moment of drama.

It didn't in Origins either, other than having to be a bit of a dick to unlock the specialization.

Then again, you could spec wynne as a blood mage and it was in fact incredibly advisable to do so I think any conception that specialization ever had any meaning to your character or occupied any universe other than the small, combat related one which you teleport into when fighting starts has long since flown out of the window and exploded.

I mean, the whole point of blood magic is its ability to influence the minds of others and summon demons. The blood magic specialization allows neither.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Fine, I'll pre-order the game

I know it's not worth much anymore in relation to this thread, but there's your problem.

I stopped pre-ordering games a while back, and have saved tons of money. Only buying games a while after release has given me a chance to sit back and wait for the real reviewers to buy those games, and tell me what is wrong with them. Also seeing 'Let's play's of them really helps.

My point is don't trust either your instinct or another's word before release, you will often be disappointed.

 

[StarCecil]

snip

Okay, I suppose that's a fair assessment. I have to say that I am huge, huge proponent of story in games. So, for me, the story of Origins, especially with the personal bent it took on for me, made any of its more minor flaws quite excusable. The fact that I spent most of the time in Dragon Age II just trying to figure out what anything had to do with anything else did a lot of damage to its perceived quality.

And, you know what? I really liked Velanna from Awakenings. I hated Anders, and I would rather have re-adventured with Velanna, instead of having to leave my healer somewhere where he couldn't bother me.

Fine, I'll pre-order the game

I know it's not worth much anymore in relation to this thread, but there's your problem.

I stopped pre-ordering games a while back, and have saved tons of money. Only buying games a while after release has given me a chance to sit back and wait for the real reviewers to buy those games, and tell me what is wrong with them. Also seeing 'Let's play's of them really helps.

My point is don't trust either your instinct or another's word before release, you will often be disappointed.

Yep, I learned my lesson. After Origins, however, I was firmly in the "Bioware makes great games" camp. Needless to say, I'll be quite wary when the next Dragon Age release comes out, assuming I buy it.

 

[Takolin]

Eh, meh. The combat was repetitive, what with the hordes of bad guys. I felt that playing as a mage was a lot of hurry up and wait; my mana bar could never be full enough to last out a fight before I was standing off tapping buttons until I could get enough to shoot another spell.

While I agree that the combat was somewhat repetitive, I rarely had problems with mana as soon as I got into the 2nd act due to an upgraded death syphon and the fact the waves of mobs would just replenish your mana assuming you had enough base mana to kill the 1st wave of mobs. And in the 1st part, I just gobbed lyrium potions if I didn't have enough mana. They dropped enough and money was never an issue.

The only time where mana was an issue was on boss fights with only 1 enemy (until they spawned a wave of adds) and only because I was casting AoE spells which just isn't mana efficient on a single target. The only reason I kept spamming my X button, was because everything was on cooldown.


I never played DA:O, but I can't say I dislike DA2. I can see the flaws the game has, but they never bother me enough to make me quit playing.

 

[TPiddy]

I didn't really have a problem with the combat per se. I played as a mage, though, and when I'm waiting for my mana to recharge (and can't take another bloody potion, because it has a long-ass fucking cooldown!) I get a bit bored tapping X to the same three fire-y slash-y animations. I'd rather them have made it a bit more hack 'n' slash if they wanted to go this route, something like the Lord of the Rings games. That would have been pretty cool.

I didn't get through an entire mage playthrough, at that point more games came into play, but my evil rogue character was just as fun to play in Origins as it was here, if not more-so. The combat was faster, more frenetic and, in some cases, actually harder. There had to be a strategy you took into some battles or you'd be completely wiped out.

There were interesting parts to the story. The Qunari thing was my favorite. But there were so many things that held it back. Not only were the cool parts decidedly not "the point" of the tale, but it was structured in such a shambolic manner. Take for instance the entire second act. You're suddenly introduced to the Viscount, told of the growing problems with the Qunari, and asked go to save the day.

My reaction was "who the fuck are you and why should I care"? Then, most prominently in the first act, most of the quests are related in a "so I guess I'll go ever here" kind of way. Where in Origins the quests were really straightforward in a "my mission requires that I do this" way. If there had been an overarching goal then it would have made much more sense.

Plus, the final two bosses are introduced at the God damn end of the second act, and at the end you have to fight BOTH no matter who you picked...

Would the Viscount have really given a shit about you had you not done anything in the first act? Hawke had to first rise to prominence before he would even be granted and audience with the Viscount. Hawke also made inroads with Aveline in act 1 as well. Key plot elements that laid the groundwork for Act 2.

However, I agree with you on the boss fights. I figured Meredith would be the big bad, but I chose both approaches in the mage war and had to fight that abomination thing regardless, which I felt was cheap.

Basically, it seemed like they were so intent on this mage storyline that they plastered over or outright ignored certain interesting stories, and completely forgot about the "story of Hawke" aspect. It doesn't become the story of Hawke's rise to power so much as it's about how wrongly the mages are treated, so on and so on.

Most prominent figures DO rise up through times of intense conflict. His rise to power is not at all interesting if everything is all hunky-dory all the time. The mage storyline is central to Hawke's rise to power and makes his decision in it that much more important. Add to the fact that he was allies with Anders as well and you just add another layer of intrigue and betrayal. In fact, one of my regrets is not playing through AS a mage Hawke because I'm sure that could have been WAY more interesting.