Dragon Age 2 - Shorter but More Cinematic

Because watching crappy computer graphics cinematic movies is just awesome! I'm loving this trend in video games. The oscar worthy voice acting and writing, the emotions on the character faces... If there isn't a movie every 5 minutes in DA 3 then I will be disappointed.
 
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Dragon Age: Origins
• 56,000 Spoken Lines
• 60 Hours of Gameplay


Dragon Age II
• 38,000 Spoken Lines
• 40 Hours of Gameplay

Don't forget that your lines are all spoken now, assuming 1/2 of the lines are you speaking only 19,000 lines from npc's......... 33% of npc chat
 
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Dragon Age: Origins
Don't forget that your lines are all spoken now, assuming 1/2 of the lines are you speaking only 19,000 lines from npc's……… 33% of npc chat

Not to mention this is even worse if they count fem/male hawke as unique voice chat.
 
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Haha, yeah, quite so.
PS:T isn´t a superlong game, but 20 hours is seriously pushing it.
I´d say an average around 35 hours is better estimation.
PS:T took me 19 hours on my first play through.

Because watching crappy computer graphics cinematic movies is just awesome! I'm loving this trend in video games. The oscar worthy voice acting and writing, the emotions on the character faces… If there isn't a movie every 5 minutes in DA 3 then I will be disappointed.

This 'trend' has been present almost as long as video games have. DA2 is still nowhere near the likes of Wing Commander IV, or if you want extreme, something like Dragon's Lair ;)
 
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Yeah I get it guys, mainstream bad, indie good. Is this a Euro centric site?

Does the reverse deduction of this statement mean that mainstream = american ?

(Not to speak of South-America, Asia, Africa ...)
 
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PS:T took me 19 hours on my first play through.
Took me about 36.12 and I´m not a slow reader.
These estimations are always relative and without further context meaningless, but 20 hours average for a complete playthrough (aka main quest and all side quests + dialogues) of PS:T is simply off in my opinion.

Speaking of which, when reviewers give these estimates they really should provide as much context as possible (difficulty settings, amount of side quests, comparison with other games played by the reviewer, etc).
 
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I suspect people claiming I'm pushing it by saying PS: T is a 20 hour game are simply being nostalgic. Go on and replay it, count the hours. I always complete it several times per year, and it never takes me more than a weekend, which means a good 12-15 hours tops. For a first time playthrough I'd say 20 hours is realistic. The first playthrough of kalniel at 19 hours sounds spot on.

PS: T really is a much shorter game than a lot of people realize, as is the original Baldur's Gate. BG2, on the other hand, is simply massive. It's easily twice the length of BG1, and 3-4 times the length of PS: T.

I complete all these games every year, so my memory is fairly fresh regarding the time it takes to go through them.

Bottom line: The quality of PS: T means it simply doesn't have to be 50+ hours, especially since the 800.000 words in question are of exceptional quality.
 
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Q. Why don't they just skip the gameplay part (I would argue that they substantially have already) and just make a film?

A. You can't charge people $60 to go see a film.
 
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ME3 will be so awesome and streamlined that when you install it, all you have to do is press a space bar and the game will play itself and then uninstall once it's done.
 
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DA1 got really boring to me towards the end. I stuck with it because I wanted to see how the story played out. I think I ended up around 40 hours when I finished it as a mage. I tried replaying it a couple times and couldn't bring myself to do it. It just got boring.

This is a big part as to why I'm happy that they changed it so much. As mentioned upthread, so much of DA1 was long, tiresome exposition about the world and background, as it was an introduction. I don't think they did it very well. The characters were great, and I enjoyed the mechanics. But as mentioned a million times before, the fights became really tiresome, and there was too much padding.

I'm happy things are changing. I think so many RPGs simply use "Over XX hours of gameplay" as a marketing gimmick for press releases and box art, then fill the games with boring filler.

We'll see.
 
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Q. Why don't they just skip the gameplay part (I would argue that they substantially have already) and just make a film?

A. You can't charge people $60 to go see a film.

Fairly certain there's a lot more content, even without the gameplay, in DA1 and 2 than in any movie. A movie with 1.000.000 words? Or 400.000? Most solid games are a bargain compared to movies in terms of content:money ratio.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but a Mass Effect movie is in the works.
 
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Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but a Mass Effect movie is in the works.

its true, no really.

dunno whether to masturbate excessively or weep at that fact. i'll most likely do both.
 
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The playtimes so often coveted by fans before games are released are just completely meaningless. The individual experiences and times just vary way too much to gain anything useful from such numbers. One guy will say 20 hours, the next guy will claim 60+, it's all over the place.
 
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Did I do this? Did I talk to you as if you were "a bit stupid"? Tell me where and I will apologize.

I don't ever get offended on a public forum, only annoyed :)

So apologies are not needed.

It's just that your way of explaining to me how everything in life is boring if you master it, coupled with your Codex assumption was annoying - because the first is supremely obvious and the second something without any kind of basis - beyond the fact that I dislike filler combat in Dragon Age.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that, even outside the Codex :)

How about the line starting "I don't know about your life…" Or the next line of your response "you must live another kind of life". I can assure you, I am an inhabitant of planet earth, much like yourself.

You call that a personal attack?

We must think of that concept in very different ways :)

The point you make is valid. The way you make it is unfriendly. Believe it or not, I can imagine things! I can imagine combat being better than DA1. My point was not that combat is perfect in DA1, it was "why do you dislike it so much". It's counter-productive and leads BioWare to dumb their games down.

I'm not particularly interested in being friendly when I make my points. It's not something I consider all that relevant.

However, I'm also not interested in hurting your feelings or insulting you.

I'm just trying to make my points as clear as I can - and I sometimes forget how people can be very sensitive to how I word things. Still, I'm probably not patient enough to articulate myself in ways to ensure what I say is received with appreciation.

In any case, I don't agree at all that having a problem with filler combat will lead to Bioware dumbing down their games. How does that work, exactly?

Even if it was counterproductive - it has nothing to do with the opinion itself. Do you form your opinions based on how productive they might be? I don't have that option.

Maybe you could explain what you were saying, then we can work out if the problem was with your writing or my comprehension.

I think that's what I've been trying to do. Is it not yet clear what I mean by boring filler combat?

Yes, I liked DSII a lot, in fact it is still installed on this machine. But to compare just clumps of -albeit varied- mobs to the intricate orchestra that was Branka or Caradin or Silverfang is not fair, in my opinion.

I'm not specifically comparing fights within games. I'm giving you examples of combat systems that worked well for me.

Again, there are certain unique fights in Dragon Age that were very good and interesting.

The problem, once again, is that most of the combat was superfluous and boring.

Are you sure you were playing on nightmare? If I set tactics to autopilot on hard, I will die with any party composition. This is because some battles were against archers, some against bosses, some mages, some in corridors, others in fields, and one size did not fit all.

No, I was playing on hard - as I said.

My battles were pretty much on autopilot - except for my own character, and the taking out of the "hard" enemies. Mostly, I did that with control spells - or by focusing DPS on the bosses.

I merely asked if the Dragon Age bashing was for fun LIKE on the codex. Because it seems grossly unfair to me, especially when benchmarked against anything else we've had in the last 4 years, possibly excepting NWN2.

Are you not taking things a little personally in general?

I mean, I think people are entitled to hate or despise anything they want, and I think they should express it exactly as they wish.

The Codex does seem to contain primarily very jaded gamers, but I have no problem with that.

An opinion is valuable to me if it's supported, and I can understand where the holder is coming from. I don't need polite language or special consideration for that. I need solid arguments - and that's all.

In any case, I don't think an opinion can be unfair.

It's fair that YOU think the game is great and that nothing else in the past 4 years comes close - but it's nothing but YOUR opinion.

No I understand perfectly how its possible not to like BioWare and yet not be from the Codex. What I don't understand is why that dislike has to be expressed in an aggressive 'we hate', 'we mock' attitude, like they have on the codex. There is not a thread on there about Origins that does not have the words "cliched" and "filler combat" and 'trash mobs". Anyone who praises anything about the game, has their sexuality questioned… Not quite that bad here, but I just wanted to know if it's serious and whether there are reasons behind this that I missed.

I'm not sure who you are talking about.

I'm wording things so that my meaning should be clear. If I say something bad about the game, then it's not for fun - it's for purposes of communication.

If I say something is crap, it's to make it plain that I really didn't like it. I'm not what you'd call a sensitive person, and I'm a big fan of not mincing words.

If some people have a problem with my opinion - I have to say it doesn't really worry me all that much.

I'm not on a mission to hate or love - just to be honest and direct.
 
Last year I formed a team that consist of 5 people and we have localized DAO in our native language. With all the dialog lines, item and quest descriptions, codex there're more than 70.000 lines of text in the DAO. It took us one year to translate all these texts. Although there were too many similaries between the history of Ferelden and the real world, it's apparent that Bioware spent so much time writing all these conversations, creating the lore and history of Dragon Age world. It's hard not to impressed with it.

Although I generally have negative impressions about DA2 (and sometimes bashing it maybe a bit too harsh in these forums ;) ) I definitely agree with Dhruin, the length of a game has no relation with the quality. Quantity has nothing to do with quality. But, of course this fact doesn't change my opinions about the combat and dialog system of DA2.
 
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It really is amazing that the game has stirred up so much buzz ! Every game site has hate or love / passion on the way people feel about the game . Old school gamers feel abandoned , gamers welcome to the change are excited. Maybe this will inspire a developer to give old school gamers what they want . I want more isometric advanced character creation tons of spells lots of choices. Anyway , its not just this site that is giving negative comments. I feel that Biowares new game marketing is where the went wrong . I feel it is bold/ in your face .Just make a great game and it will sell ,Bioware is a house hold name in gaming . When the marketing budget is more than the budget is to create the game is crazy. The marketing is a joke to me and gets treated as such.
 
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I'm not particularly interested in being friendly when I make my points. It's not something I consider all that relevant.
I'm not what you'd call a sensitive person

Yup, that sums you up quite nicely. If you have no interest in keeping a discussion about a game polite and pleasant then don't bother replying to my posts. I have no wish to get into flame wars and personal attacks here, so this is the end of the line for you and me discussin this.
 
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Yup, that sums you up quite nicely. If you have no interest in keeping a discussion about a game polite and pleasant then don't bother replying to my posts. I have no wish to get into flame wars and personal attacks here, so this is the end of the line for you and me discussin this.

The ignore option is useful when you don't feel like reading posts from specific users.

So, if you insist on imagining these personal attacks from me - I think it might be very wise to place me on ignore.

I'll try to remember you don't like my posts - but I can't make any promises. So, if you happen to write something I find interesting or relevant - I'll probably respond, and I doubt I'll be able to figure out whether it's polite or pleasant enough to fit your standards.
 
60 hours for DA: Origins? I spent at least 110+ hours doing almost everything. (40+ more playing Awakenings, I think)

And I'm still surprised by the whole 'combat is way to easy, even on hard difficulty' in DA: Origins, I found the combat on casual difficult to be rather challenging, especially dring the later stages of the game. And don't mention the Deep Roads....

That's why game length is really not a problem for me; I'd rather have 40+ game with high quality than a 80+ game with low quality. One of the Bioware devs. (Peter Thomas?) said in a post that he spent 50+ hour playing Dragon Age, but then he also did nearly everything.
 
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