Dragon Age 2 Announced

[muse108dc]

First off, greetings from France. And while I sit here working on a report, drinking real european espresso I read that Dragon Age 2 has been anounced. At first I am amazingly excited, I loved the first one, I think since its come out I have completed no less than 7 play thorough (roughly, I haven't actually kept track). Then I remember that hideous expansion and manage to calm myself down.

Now the thing is the news so far is bad news. They are turning it into Mass Effect. This is a very bad thing. You can no longer change your race first off all, and the one Shepard character is voiced. The voiced is a double edged sword. Cinematically its nice but then again it takes away some of the imagination of it from your end. The no race choosing limits the replayability severely. And they are making it pretty, I like pretty.


But they are changing the combat system. Despite it I like the combat system and if they move it towards a mass effect style combat significantly I will probably not be buying. The combat system was a little clunky and a little rough around the edges, not to mention that it had an increadably high learning curve. But it was rewarding, it was dynamic, and there was a sense of accomplishment when you succeeded in killing a big baddy such as an orc on the very first level once you are a grey warden. I liked the control over every party memember, I liked trying to come up with tactics to get my rogue behind, or my mage at a distance while my warrior pummeled the darkspawn. If they move it towards the mass effect you only really control "Shepard" and even mages are right in the thick of things on purpose you loose a lot of what made Dragon Age Dragon Age.

Rant done for now. I loved dragon age and I'm just hoping they dont completely ruin the sequel. They have just under a year to not ruin it, I will be praying that entire time.

[Chromey]

I loved Everything about DA-O, Could have used a more Open Landscape Like Oblivion/Fallout.

I wont like being stuck as a character Like Masseffect.

I guess we will see when it comes out.

[Sagath]

My problem with a DA2 is the same problem Ive had with most of Biowares recent releases. They all feel the same, but in a different setting.
Never Winter Nights (all '63' of them)
Star Wars: KOTOR & Old Republic (Unreleased)
Jade Empire
Mass Effect, ME Galaxy, ME2 and ME3 (Unreleased)
Dragon Age: Origins, DA:OA, DA2 (Unreleased)

They may use a different engine (or a modified one, under a different name ala Never Winter Nights) but the gameplay still feels eerily similar. In my opinion Bioware (as an entire company) feels like it is getting the usual EA 'run it into the ground!' cash-cow treatment.

I played DA, and to be honest I enjoyed it (I didnt dig Mass Effect), but I wont play any more of their games until they change up the gameplay. Too much of 'the same'.

[thorn]

Gaming Everything

Based on this, the major combat changes appear to mostly on the consoles with PC still having the same style as the first (with some smaller refinements I would guess).

But man oh man are people ever up in arms over the use of a dialog wheel. What a bunch of whiners who assume something to be true because they want to be negative instead of waiting for actual gameplay to come out.

[thorn]

Originally Posted by Sagath

My problem with a DA2 is the same problem Ive had with most of Biowares recent releases. They all feel the same, but in a different setting.
Never Winter Nights (all '63' of them)
Star Wars: KOTOR & Old Republic (Unreleased)
Jade Empire
Mass Effect, ME Galaxy, ME2 and ME3 (Unreleased)
Dragon Age: Origins, DA:OA, DA2 (Unreleased)

They may use a different engine (or a modified one, under a different name ala Never Winter Nights) but the gameplay still feels eerily similar. In my opinion Bioware (as an entire company) feels like it is getting the usual EA 'run it into the ground!' cash-cow treatment.

I played DA, and to be honest I enjoyed it (I didnt dig Mass Effect), but I wont play any more of their games until they change up the gameplay. Too much of 'the same'.

They are all RPG's what kind of differences do you expect? Obviously it is your choice to like/dislike a game and I am not here to change your opinion because I don't care. But I don't get your gameplay comment.

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by thorn

Gaming Everything

Based on this, the major combat changes appear to mostly on the consoles with PC still having the same style as the first (with some smaller refinements I would guess).

But man oh man are people ever up in arms over the use of a dialog wheel. What a bunch of whiners who assume something to be true because they want to be negative instead of waiting for actual gameplay to come out.

Heh, some pretty strong feelings on that site....

I'm not sure the tidbit they offered about the console combat is clear enough to confirm that they are going to leave the PC combat as-is. There's enough ambiguity there to allow someone down the line to say "that isn't what was meant by that statement".

We're not just talking controls here, it sounds like they're talking the actual combat system, and I find it hard to believe that they'd actual produce two different combat systems for the same game.

[thorn]

Originally Posted by sswilson

Heh, some pretty strong feelings on that site....

I'm not sure the tidbit they offered about the console combat is clear enough to confirm that they are going to leave the PC combat as-is. There's enough ambiguity there to allow someone down the line to say "that isn't what was meant by that statement".

We're not just talking controls here, it sounds like they're talking the actual combat system, and I find it hard to believe that they'd actual produce two different combat systems for the same game.

Strong feelings for sure. Obviously it isn't mentioned exactly how the control schemes will be changed, all they really mention is that the console version will be better optimized for use with a controller.

Either way before joining the pitchfork and torch brigade I will wait for some actual PC gameplay.

[Shadowmeph]

I prefer PC games over all others one of the reasons is that I can actually look at the files and see whats in there then I can remove some things like languages that I don't need and in some games even tweak them the way I want it. and maybe even make it portable :)
I liked dragon age it is \was a good game for me I still have it installed hehe

[Caldezar]

Originally Posted by Sagath

My problem with a DA2 is the same problem Ive had with most of Biowares recent releases. They all feel the same, but in a different setting.
Never Winter Nights (all '63' of them)
Star Wars: KOTOR & Old Republic (Unreleased)
Jade Empire
Mass Effect, ME Galaxy, ME2 and ME3 (Unreleased)
Dragon Age: Origins, DA:OA, DA2 (Unreleased)

They may use a different engine (or a modified one, under a different name ala Never Winter Nights) but the gameplay still feels eerily similar. In my opinion Bioware (as an entire company) feels like it is getting the usual EA 'run it into the ground!' cash-cow treatment.

I played DA, and to be honest I enjoyed it (I didnt dig Mass Effect), but I wont play any more of their games until they change up the gameplay. Too much of 'the same'.

I'd have to agree that a lot of Bioware games do feel like they follow a similar 'formula'. Not so much with gameplay, but more with story progression and choises/options. However I wouldn't attribute it to EA, as that was a more recent acquisition. (ME1 and DA1 were made independently of EA, they only carry the label on the packages because those boxes were made after the purchase.) Not to mention, Bioware is one of the only studios under EA that has a written agreement to be able to continue operating in their own studios with their own ideas. EA is a financial backer that provides a time-line, that's all.

I think it has a lot more to do with their staff and mentality. It's largely the same core group of employees making all the major choices in all their games for the last 15 years. Combine that with the company focused almost entirely on the same kind of games (RPG's) and you can't help but bleed the same ideas together; just in different settings.

All that being said, I still love almost everything Bioware has done. They're one of my favorite company's, and I'm always happy to continue supporting a great Canadian developer. (I still think of them as Canadian anyway)

I'm currently playing through ME1 and 2 again as I uninstalled the first one before ME2 came out. Because of this I never got the chance to see my choices in the first, effect the universe of the second. (A great concept!)

[muse108dc]

to be honest, the effects the first ME had on the second where quite minimal and I was disappointed at the lack of integration. Basically you get a few emails and a few random mentions in side quests but really nothing at all to do with the main story at all. A good concept that in reality was near impossible to do properly just because of the sheer amount of work involved.

I'm going to hope for the best but expect the worst. DA1 will remain one of my favorite games but I am really afraid that they are going to muck this sequel up. Hell, I didnt even like the expansion for it, and that saddened me severely.