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Dragon Age Journeys - Early Impressions @ RPS

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has posted a brief early impressions article titled Dragon Age Journeys Live, and Rather Good. The game has exceeded their expectations in terms of being a real RPG with a unique combat system. I was also pleasantly surprised by the complexity of the game:

Quote:

So Dragon Age Journeys is live, and… blimey, it’s good stuff. EA 2D’s free project designed to promote and link into Dragon Age: Origins is a 2D browser based RPG, letting you pick a character from the regular Dragon Age selection and then go exploring in the Dwarven Deep Roads. I wasn’t sure exactly how they’d do it, presuming something very simple, hack-n-slashy, but fun all the same. I wasn’t expecting a fully-fledged RPG with a unique combat mechanic.

I’ve only played briefly so far, but I’m already really pleased with what’s on offer. In fact, so much of it directly reflects the full game, from the content to the screen furniture. Even the tutorial pop-ups are the same. You’ve got an inventory, weapons and armour along with weapons and armour stats (using the very appreciated super-simple window pop-ups for comparing with what you’ve got equipped that’s in the main game). In fact it’s also got the two weapon setup, letting you switch between them during combat. There’s your character’s own stats, with the full range of skills available to pick from as you level up. There’s towns to explore, quests to pick up, merchants to trade with, party members to gather, and plenty of dialogue. I really wasn’t expecting this.

More information.

My first impressions were very similar. The shine does dull as you play a bit further though, but for free you can't complain and the surveys are worded well enough that they'll gather lots of good feedback to take the series further.

Did you play on hard or normal? I've started on hard and even then the enemies were a bit easy in the beginning. Soon after you complete the first quest the enemies become harder and the items become more interesting. The tactical parts of the game start to really come out the further you progress through the game.

I haven't played many browser based games. My experience is limited to The witcher's game and a few silly action ones online so I really didn't think they could pull off anything remotely like a normal rpg. It's a simple one granted, but still fun to play when I have a few minutes to spare.

It is a good distraction. And even at normal, fights can get very tough if you are unlucky with enemy composition (Ogre + 2x Alpha Genlocks made me cry…).

One thing that gave me an uneasy feeling was the Surveys. It is obvious from taking them that EA is thinking about micro-transactions, for DA:J or even DA:O. That said, we do get to voice our opinion on that.
So I URGE ALL OF YOU TO TELL EA HELL NO to micro-transactions in these surveys…

Btw, you get DA:O unlockables for doing all 3 surveys too. ;)

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Originally Posted by skavenhorde (Post 1060979294)

Did you play on hard or normal?

Normal for now - the fights are quite easy for the most part, but very variable if you get stuck with a bad situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leth (Post 1060979295)

One thing that gave me an uneasy feeling was the Surveys. It is obvious from taking them that EA is thinking about micro-transactions, for DA:J or even DA:O. That said, we do get to voice our opinion on that.
So I URGE ALL OF YOU TO TELL EA HELL NO to micro-transactions in these surveys…

And I urge all of you to say absolutely YES to micro-transactions. I'm fully in favour of paying for game content, and with micro-transactions I'm getting the most choice in not having to pay for stuff I don't want.

But that's the great thing about opinions, we all get to have one :)

I urge all of you to say "why bother" or "what's all of this fuzz about ?" ;)

Between the character generator and Journeys, I'm actually less interested in DA:O than I was, which is frustrating as I've been going all out, pre-ordering the CE and buying both the books. While I understand the skills/spells are scaled down for the flash game, from playing w/ the character generator, they don't seem to be THAT scaled down.

I think DA is going to have too few accessible skills/spells for me and those they have are going to be more for combat than "utility", the latter of which I drastically prefer. And I don't like the rigid/linear skill paths and how strictly abilities are tied to class. I'm starting to worry, at least game-play-wise, that DA:O is going to be another dumbed down ARPG.

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Originally Posted by kalniel (Post 1060979298)

Unfortunately, while DLC can be ignored, since it's something with deal with and consider outside the game, in-game micro-transactions cannot be ignored. When I see that guy telling me I have to pay 5 USD for something or another that's going to just rip my immersion into the game right out of my hands.

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Originally Posted by Guhndahb (Post 1060979312)

Sure, I don't like in-game micro transactions, even though DA:O won't be the first to have that. But out of game MTs I like.

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Originally Posted by kalniel (Post 1060979321)

Sure, I don't like in-game micro transactions, even though DA:O won't be the first to have that. But out of game MTs I like.

Fair enough.

On a different note, I still am wary of them because, while I believe in paying for content, I feel that MTs are going to lead to an effective price hike - getting less content and paying more. It'll certainly be harder to gauge value and our spending with MTs. But right now I'm just speculating on this.

I haven't played many flash games, only 1 or 2 and never for more than half an hour.

I was really surprised by DA:J. It had quests (I would like more though) and conversations (too linear but ok) and great combat. The turn based hex grid worked very well here and was a lot of fun.

It took me over 7 hours to finish as a warrior, wow I am slow! Some people said they finished in 2 hours.

I did get all the unlocks and am actually interested enough to play through as a mage and rogue now. We'll see how that goes as I really wanted to get NWN2: SoZ finished before DA comes out and then there was NWN2:MoW ready to be played as well…