Why the Game's Title Should Have Been Dragon Age: Impositions

[Chaos Isaac]

The fuck is this guy talking about?

As someone who plays the game, and has spent a fair share of time on multiplayer, the entire article is utter bullshit.

There is no pressure to buy with real money, and as far as getting upgrades, you don't use in game cash or real cash to get them. You buy boxes to get items, which you then breakdown for upgrade materials. The kicker? Every box comes with potions, and the potion specific boxes are cheaper and come with more potions. IF you just buy a small box after every round, you're gonna get two potions, which is all you need for a single run if it goes bad and you need to heal.

And even in the scenario you don't have potions. (Which I have been in.) No one gives a shit if you don't have two potions. Every player with a mic who cares, will get pissed if your a shitty player and lure 7 Templar into a Revenant fight. Basically if you play your role badly, then people will hate you. But even then, I've never seen any vitriol or 'pressure' to buy with cash, unless your impatient as hell and just want more items to see if you get something super sweet. (Like a big hammer or a character class.)



Geez, it was kinda the same in Mass Effect 3 too. If you sucked, people didn't like you. (Unless they were hilariously destroying things by themselves.) But in no way were you ever forced or encouraged to buy boxes with real cash, unless you were just impatient and wanted to blow your money.

 

[gamegod25]

Why not? Destiny's already charging you for the rest of its story. That was another thing that was unthinkable when it was first suggested.

I'd argue that episodic games are a whole different beast than charging real Earth currency for in-game ammo clips.

Or like charging real money for extra lives as in Sonic: Lost World.

 

[RJ 17]

You know, one of the best aspect of Dragon Age 2 is that even if you took the Healer specialization, a mage Hawke was never completely unkillable and could be beaten if you were not careful enough.

The thing is, I suspect the reason sequels and supplementary material keep bashing the audience's heads with the idea that the Hero of Ferelden was this unstoppable force of nature way above archdemons in the food-chain comes from the fact that after the game was released, the writers realized that the Arcane Warrior was so overpowered that the only way for their story to keep making sense was:
1. Assuming that most players had chosen this specialization (because most did: I mean, which character will you choose: the one with the very big sword, or the one who can do That [http://i.imgur.com/SLVMihK.png]?)
2. Run with it and build their canon around the idea that the Warden was this abnormally powerful freak before sending him/her on a wild goose chase far away from Thedas in order to get rid of their marysuesque presence.
3. Make sure to avoid giving players the possibility to create another overpowered medieval Jedi.

Apparently, they missed step 3.

Arcane Warrior was nice, but it was Blood Magic that was the most overpowered thing from the first two games...I'd imagine that's part of why they got rid of it for Inquisition. That or maybe they finally decided it didn't make sense to have Blood Magic be a serious crime and yet the hero of the story is openly using it in combat. Hemorrhage is what sealed the deal, really...it's an AoE DoT Stun that was the perfect way to start every fight, allowing you to just start dumping your other massive AoEs all over the battlefield.

Sure, Arcane Warrior increased your suitability by giving you heavy armor, but it wasn't needed as long as you could manage your health properly...and by that I mean know when you go ahead and vampire some life from an ally or switch blood magic off so you can heal the normal way. Quite simply if built with cheese in mind there's no excuse for dying as MageHawke. That's why Mages got smacked with the nerf bat for DA:I...no more blood magic and their AoE's no longer take up the entire screen. Hell, the lightning AoE isn't even technically an AoE as it forces a ring that damages enemies that pass through it.

OT: I hate micro-transactions as much as the next person, but in terms of "nefarious plots to suck money straight out of your wallets" schemes this one is pretty mild...seeing as how from what I've seen you get potions with every equipment pack and aren't ever in any real danger of running out. And if you lose a game...so what? It's frustrating, yeah, but I'm not going to cuss out the person that died because t's no secret that everyone has a crap game from time to time, so I wouldn't want people cussing me out when it's my turn to have a crap game.

 

[RobertEHouse]

Personally I don't like micro-transactions in my games; but EA is only following the rest of the gaming industry. How many people have smart phones / tablets and have bought an app which uses micro-transactions and have not given it a second thought. A small few of those consumers actually buy in game items even if they only buy an item once.

I hate to say this but it's the consumer whom for their own part have been very passive in letting micro-transaction become a stable for many gaming companies. So EA figure since many of DA:I consumers will have used smart phones/tablets and have at least three paid apps that have micro-transactions on them. That those very consumers would be willing to overlook the difficulty spikes and pay for instant gratification and buy game items. As for it being part of a 60 dollar game, I don't agree with that, nor do I agree with the strange difficulty spikes that seem to pop up which to try and force players to spend money.

It seems the gaming industry is becoming more like the television industry in which networks don't need 100% of a viewing audience they just need 25-35% to watch to make a nice profit. Same as with EA all they need to justify why is just a small percentage to buy into multiplayer micro-transactions' to justify continuing the practice.

 

[Tuxedoman]

Mmm.

I dont really think that the game has ever once forced me to buy anything at all. Ever.

The multiplayer has its issues. Hell, It has some pretty awful -connection- issues that I think are a much bigger deal than this. Honestly, I think its just popular to hop on the micro-transaction hate train and condemn the entire game due to one poor decision.

Mass Effect 3 did the exact same thing. Legit, the exact same thing. The only difference was that enemies didn't get harder when players died, which yeah. Thats kind of stupid I think.

Furthermore on the topic of Mass Effect 3, the game had six maps on launch from memory, and three variations of each class (not including the human male/female reskin.) The post-launch support for that game was really good, doubling the number of original maps before introducing those 'Hazard' modes. They also easily doubled the number of classes. And all the while, it was rampant with micro-transactions that I don't think anyone complained about.

Probably cause they were too busy complaining about the ending. huehue.

But I digress.

I haven't once had anyone yell at me for dying. I haven't once been angry at someone else for dying. I haven't ever run out of health potions, and I haven't dropped a cent on micro-transactions.
Tis a shitty practice, but to be totally honest, this article is just wildly exaggerating the problem.

 

[SecondPrize]

Some of us are fed up with this kind of bullshit and wouldn't purchase a game with this kind of system in the multiplayer even if we'd never play online, due to not wanting to support these practices. It worries me that I'm first reading about this here, rather than in any of the glowing reviews of this game.

 

[Tarfeather]

I think at this point we all know that buying games published by EA is a bad idea. I really wish Shamus, Jim Sterling, etc. would focus more on something constructive: Where *can* we buy games and actually be respected as long-term customers rather than money dispensers? I think the list must be pretty short..

 

[esserin]

Well, based on the comments that ave been posted so far, this seems to have been an exaggeration, this is just like in ME3's multiplayer. You won't be punished for not paying and the money from those who paid is used to release more free content like extra maps and classes.

Honestly, this seems like microtransactions done right, which is all that we can hope for at this point.

 

[Czann]

EA is pure, undiluted evil. Just because there more noxious, concentrated evils out there it doesn't mean EA isn't too evil.

Good thing I can't care less about multiplayer.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Okay... just... WOW. Mind blown!!!

This is truly, truly disgusting!!!
Very nicely written piece, Shamus! I loved the tone through out!!!

 

[Drizzitdude]

I am not sure what game Shamus was playing but it certainly isn't that same one as me.

First of all, a box of health potions costs 100 platinum, which is 1 dollar. Not three. It is 20 cents per health potion not sixty, huge difference.

Second: A crate of health potions costs you 250 gold (the in game currency), you can get 600+ easily on a single run on the easiest difficulty, and seeing as you can only bring two health potions into each dungeon, that means you handily get enough health potions from a single crate to last you at the very least two runs assuming you drank them both. Not to mention you would get enough gold from a single run to get you 2+ crates. So one run through a dungeon on the easiest difficulty, gets you more than enough in game gold for two or more crates meaning one run gave you enough pots for five more runs. So why the hell would you buy them?

Third: Item chests also give you health potions, so assuming your not drinking that shit like a you are at a kool-aid drinking contest you should have more than enough gold to get items AND health potions easily.

Fourth: Getting in game gold is incredibly easy and health pots are incredibly cheap with the in game currency. If you were really at such a low amount of health potions you could easily take a high level character into an easy difficulty dungeon and get free money without ever needing to drink one.

I don't know what is going on here honestly. This article seems like it was written with "a friend of a friend told me that" information. I am not normally the kind of person who defends EA of all people, but from what I have seen none of this is true, and if someone is going to get flak, they should at least get it for a good reason.

 

[VoidWanderer]

The last line reminds of the quote from Family Guy, "Why just cure someone of a disease, when you can bill them for the rest of their life?"

 

[cynicalsaint1]

Wait, Greg Tito said that this game is the best game since Dragon Age 2! Is that not to be trusted?

I wouldn't go that far, the multiplayer is a little lack luster - though Shamus is vastly overstating the issue with potions - you'll make enough in game money that the health potions should never really be a problem. This is also tempered by the fact that you can only bring a max of two per mission, so its not like the game is "Spam Potions to win".

Really the incentive to spend real money is the loot system. The game is more dependent on your gear than how many health potions you chug. And it does the ME3 where most of your loot comes from "chests" you buy with in game money or real money - and what you actually get out of the chest is completely random. You can 'disenchant' your crap gear for mats to craft better gear though, so there's that at least. ... Of course all the crafting schematics for the better gear comes out of the randomized chests as well ... so, yeah ...

That would be my real gripe - basically the loot system incentives you to gamble with real life money for in game loot that has no guarantee of not being absolute shit.

The Single Player campaign has been great so far.
Though the way they made the combat work is a bit wonky (especially on PC), and the UI and crafting system can be a little cumbersome to use. But other than that I've been loving it.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Luckily I haven't felt any urges to play the multiplayer ever in close to 40 hours. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

[Wulfram77]

Like the other people in this thread who have played the game, I don't recognise what Mr Young is talking about. The cost in in game money of potions is not significant.

 

[WarpZone]

Why the Game's Title Should Have Been Dragon Age: Impositions

We are getting used to the idea of microtransactions, but virtually forcing players to buy health potions for multiplayer with real cash is a bit too much.

Read Full Article

And now you're as depressed about the future of video games as I was when I first started looking into mobile games.

This is the future. This is the recent past. Once one corporation made a deliberately bad game that made a lot of money, there ceased to be any incentive to make a good game ever again. I saw this coming. Dragon's Age doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of an ongoing trend. And no amount of bad reviews, poor word-of-mouth, or low metacritic scores will take us back to the days when AAA developers actually made good games. You can pray for market fractionalization to kill off individual companies, but there will always be one dogged holdout feeding off of its fallen bretheren until it's the only company in the room again. Why shouldn't it be the once and future Worst Company in America?

I basically have no hope of ever playing a "good" AAA game again. Video Games is now dead. There is nothing left. The very idea that good game = money has been discredited. You can keep reviewing AAA games if you want to. I suppose it's what The Escapist, as a publication, is optimized to do. But there's no longer any point in the exercise. All of the people reading this can safely assume that, from now on, every new AAA game will a 0 out of ten. It will not be a game at all, but a painful cash-extraction mechanism. Only people with unlimited money to spend on one video game need bother even playing AAA video games from now on.

I suppose this will be your core audience of readers now. Whales-only. What is left here for the rest of us?

 

[Blackbird71]

I think at this point we all know that buying games published by EA is a bad idea. I really wish Shamus, Jim Sterling, etc. would focus more on something constructive: Where *can* we buy games and actually be respected as long-term customers rather than money dispensers? I think the list must be pretty short..

This is just one more reason that I'm glad I swore off Bioware games when they first sold out to EA - I'd been burned by EA enough before not to get pulled into that again.

As for where to buy games? I find more and more lately that I'm becoming almost exclusively a customer of GOG.com. No DRM, good prices and sales, and none of this crap to deal with. For example, they just released a "director's cut" of a game I had already bought through their site. If it were EA, I'm sure they would have charged me for this new version; GOG gave it to me for free. Sure, the selection isn't huge and may not work for everyone, but it suits my needs just fine.

 

[beddo]

Where to start? How about - don't buy virtual goods if you don't want them. Seriously, you don't have to.

 

[Nixou]

Arcane Warrior was nice, but it was Blood Magic that was the most overpowered thing from the first two games...

Especially since you could ignore willpower and dump all your stats into constitution. If at least they had included drawbacks, like half of teammates leaving of choices in dialogue being closed off because a demon was pulling your strings, or made blood magic spells much more costly (empty your HP bar, have an enormous cooling off time, make your character's aggro go through the roof) that they were...

 

[qsuide]

Attention moderator!

Sorry for off topic but the main page picture of this article contains my art (The four potions). I am a bit baffled as I made those as concept art for a mod and I have not released them into the wild.

If a mod could provide an answer where the pictures were acquired I would be very pleased. I have no ill will and you can keep using them for this article.