Dragon Age 2 - News Roundup

I thought the demo had been cancelled or some such thing due to "security reasons"? Ah well, I'll grab it when it's out.

Karmapowered said:

May I respectfully request to please stop getting frontpage news about Dragon Facebook Age 2 every other day, especially since there is nothing… new ?

I realize it must not be easy for you folks working for the Watch, being constantly inundated/harassed by EA's spam mails, but come on, there is quite a number of other games to cover, you know.

I seriously doubt the interest of most readers here in that game is anywhere close to the attention it is getting.

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Hi Karmpowered,

Thanks for your comments, though I don't intend to change the coverage at this point. I'm unclear if you think I am intentionally posting 'advertisements' or simply careless in the coverage, so I'll respond to both. I assume the first isn't correct but, just in case, I get precisely nothing for anything - even the one little (GOG) ad we have goes to Myrthos for bandwidth expenses. I'm sure that's not what you mean, so moving on.

Most things we post could be considered advertisements - in that sense, it's inherent in the nature of the site. There is undoubtedly some subconscious (and even conscious) censorship/bias in what I do but the intent is to cover everything we find within the parameters of our mandate (western CRPGs and issues we think are of peripheral interest to CRPG fans). I do sometimes prioritise newsbits when the workload exceeds my ability to post or I get sent things outside our core mandate - but that's the minority. Otherwise I find it (or it gets sent in), I post it.

If I were to decide a particular game was less important than others, you might be surprised at the outcome. For example, I think Two Worlds II is highly overrated…but I don't presume you readers agree. I do largely ignore fluff like local contests, XBL avatars and other marketing minutiae.

On Dragon Age 2 specifically, please remember the demo is days away and the full release a mere three weeks away - EA and BioWare are at fever-pitch. This isn't that unusual and, in the past, people have complained about too much Morrowind coverage, too much Witcher coverage and no doubt other stuff. It will calm down but if it bothers you that much, there will be a lot of it until late April-May, when DX:HR and The Witcher 2 will take over.

I personally consider the Dragon Age: Redemption TV coverage and the fan-made demo footage are core newsbits. Lots of people will want to see Felicia Day's work and I think people will want to see the DA2 demo running on some guy's PC, rather than filtered through marketing. If you disagree, we just see it differently. The "Call to Arms" bit is less important but I think you might surprised how many people like their items and it was sandwiched in the one newsbit, anway.

Finally, as to other games - if I had other material to post, I would. I can't post newsbits for previews or interviews or whatever for indie games I either haven't found or don't exist. Please use the submit news link if you know something I don't.

Final note: just to make sure I'm not way off base, I checked GameBanshee. Five of the first 10 newsbits are BioWare related and I can't see any indie or other stuff I've missed. Some days it just goes that way.

Thanks for the comments, though. Genuine feedback is always welcome.

OP said:

According to my spreadsheet with Signature Edition, preorder, GameStop, Staff of Parlathan, demo completion, Facebook game and these bonuses, I should have 642* in-game items before I start the game. Woo!

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Been lurking here for the past 2 years. Very good site. Just signed up to underline how much I hate these "gifts". They completely ruined the immersion in DAO for me, more so then any NPC trying to sell me DLC. I always love the early stages of RPGs, where you're over the moon, when you find a +1 sickle (or other whimsical weapon), because you know how hard it is to come by anything good, and this meagre weapon will be your companion for the next 10 hours or so. In DAO I didn't bother much with the higher lvl loot. What I got from pre-order, EA store, other promotionals and what not, was not only good enough to get me from the start to endgame, but also vastly superior to anything I found along my travels. So to Bioware; you can stick your promotional items up your arse, as far as I'm concerned.

Dhruin said:

and The Witcher 2 will take over.
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Thanks for the comments, though. Genuine feedback is always welcome.

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More cleavage, less coverage, please

/spoof

skavenhorde said:

Dragon Age 2 is a RPG. News about it will be posted due to this fact.

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Word.

And some of us less jaded types are quite excited about DA2.

DoctorNarrative said:

Word.

And some of us less jaded types are quite excited about DA2.

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Always excited about any RPG coming out. You always hope it's going to blow your mind, innit?

Soulvomit said:

Always excited about any RPG coming out. You always hope it's going to blow your mind, innit?

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Pretty much.

Plus I liked the first one, and unlike some I don't think they are changing that much or making bad changes. Faster combat is a good thing if you ask me, it became a slog in DA:O during the long dungeons. The PC videos show it is still very much a tactical RPG. I think the set character and ME dialogue system works best for Bioware too, regardless of genre or game style. The art style looks awesome if you ask me.

About the only bummer I have seen is the lack of way-back camera, but I'm not heartbroken over it.

Why are people complaining about Bioware/EA making efforts to promote the demo using the social media channel? Why is that evil, or even a bad thing?

Personally I like demos and hate the trend toward big companies not bothering with them. I'd much prefer them to consider demos as great marketing tools and continue to put effort into them. And if that means using the new social media channels with some minor in-game incentives to ensure that the effort they put into making a demo results in as much return on investment as possible, so what?

People respond to minor purchasing bonuses, this isn't EA, this is a fundamental concept in the field of marketing. It's a trivial doodad that doesn't hurt your ability to use the product like a toy in a cereal box, why get so worked up about it?

I'm actually glad that viral promotions via social media like this are a powerful marketing tool. Because they're accessible to me, the indie, without massive financial investments.

Naked Ninja said:

Why are people complaining about Bioware/EA making efforts to promote the demo using the social media channel? Why is that evil, or even a bad thing?

Personally I like demos and hate the trend toward big companies not bothering with them. I'd much prefer them to consider demos as great marketing tools and continue to put effort into them. And if that means using the new social media channels with some minor in-game incentives to ensure that the effort they put into making a demo results in as much return on investment as possible, so what?

People respond to minor purchasing bonuses, this isn't EA, this is a fundamental concept in the field of marketing. It's a trivial doodad that doesn't hurt your ability to use the product like a toy in a cereal box, why get so worked up about it?

I'm actually glad that viral promotions via social media like this are a powerful marketing tool. Because they're accessible to me, the indie, without massive financial investments.

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I beg to differ. I'm not complaining that Bioware/EA promote their product in any way, shape or form. I'm complaining that their promotional items, made DAO a wee bit less fun for me. It ruined the immersion of finding loot yourself; the treasure hunter role-playing, I love so much. Give me a nice wallpaper or a rubber duck of a t-shirt, instead of in-game items that are overpowered for low-levels or just plain and simple overpowered (or any in-game item for that matter). A personal preference, your experience might differ?

EDIT: And really my gripe is easily fixed. Just hide the 'promotional loot' some place in the game world, instead of putting it in my inventory (or my personal shop, at bargain price). Simples really. If quest designers are feeling less lazy that day, maybe even put a little puzzle or fetch/kill quest in, so I actually feel I'm earning the 'promotional loot'.

Soulvomit said:

EDIT: And really my gripe is easily fixed. Just hide the 'promotional loot' some place in the game world, instead of putting it in my inventory (or my personal shop, at bargain price). Simples really. If quest designers are feeling less lazy that day, maybe even put a little puzzle or fetch/kill quest in, so I actually feel I'm earning the 'promotional loot'.

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It's fixed even easier if you just stop caring about it.

DoctorNarrative said:

It's fixed even easier if you just stop caring about it.

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And I will for DA2. But, I didn't really have a clue for DAO, because I've never been given so much (or so powerful) free loot from the go, in any game before. So at first I thought; cool, after the game ended, I thought; 'That really hurt the treasure hunting experience for me'.

Soulvomit said:

And I will for DA2. But, I didn't really have a clue for DAO, because I've never been given so much (or so powerful) free loot from the go, in any game before. So at first I thought; cool, after the game ended, I thought; 'That really hurt the treasure hunting experience for me'.

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Yeah, I learned my lesson from DA:O. With pretty much every game since then the little promo trinkets either never get activated or I sell the codes on ebay. People pay stupid money for that stuff, I sold my amazon.com Fallout: New Vegas outfit and machete code for $10 in like 2 hours.

Story content? Gimmie! Overpowered trinkets? No thanks.

The only DA1 trinket I got was Embri's Pockets because I bought it at Best Buy.

I think it gave 5% resistance to fire, cold, electricity and acid... but my memory is a little fuzzy. I put it on but it really didn't seem like a powerful item at all... 5%? Who cares?

I'm curious what the "game breaking" powerful items were. I didn't get any of those.

There aren't any as far as I know. I have no idea what people are going on about. The best was the helmet if I recall correctly, which was pretty decent, but easy to replace.

You do get some very powerful items through DLCs though, but not the promo stuff.

Ovenall said:

I'm curious what the "game breaking" powerful items were. I didn't get any of those.

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Getting uber-items when you start the game messes with balance, which is why some people call it game-breaking. It doesn't mean the game is actually broken, it just means it messes with balance and the intended loot and power scales.

The core game on the disc is how it is intended to be played, how it was balanced and QA'd and all that jazz.

Off the top of my head, there was the "dragon full suit of armour" (the red and black one), there was a couple of very powerful rings and weapons (I remember a rouge knife) and then there was the "bangor winged-helm" (can't remember name but it caused a bit of an uproar, because it didn't look as advertised), which was probably the best helm in the entire game. I used all of these through the entire campaign! Not to forget the items, which were just needlessly powerful for lower levels and were in my inventory when I started the game.

DoctorNarrative said:

Yeah, I learned my lesson from DA:O. With pretty much every game since then the little promo trinkets either never get activated or I sell the codes on ebay. People pay stupid money for that stuff, I sold my amazon.com Fallout: New Vegas outfit and machete code for $10 in like 2 hours.

Story content? Gimmie! Overpowered trinkets? No thanks.

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You hit the nail on the head, son.

Well ... I think I've missed something ... What is "Redemption"'s place within the franchise ? Or is this the title of Dragon Age 2 ? Or is it another browser game like "Legends" ?

I think I'm slowly losing my overview ...

Dragon Age 2 is three weeks from release in my country, Denmark. Bioware and EA are rolling out the PR-machine. And it'll be on sites such as Gamebanshee, BlueByte's, Kotaku etc. And also on the rpgcodex, this news is being posted. DA2 is an RPG, so the Watch will cover any news on this game. Like the Watch covers news on indie games like Eschalon: Book 1 and Book 2, Frayed Knights and other indie games.

The demo that was cancelled was apparently an early -ahem- build that Gamestop's employees would get access to. The demo will still be out on February 22nd. And I predict the usual choir asking i't is 10 AM in Europe, or in Russia, where is the demo...?' And apparently this demo (the 16 minutes) is footage from a convention, it is an early build apparently.

As for Redemption, I think it is the Facebook game?

Also, I really this line 'according to my spreadsheet'* ---- very nicely, done

Soulvomit said:

Off the top of my head, there was the "dragon full suit of armour" (the red and black one), there was a couple of very powerful rings and weapons (I remember a rouge knife) and then there was the "bangor winged-helm" (can't remember name but it caused a bit of an uproar, because it didn't look as advertised), which was probably the best helm in the entire game. I used all of these through the entire campaign! Not to forget the items, which were just needlessly powerful for lower levels and were in my inventory when I started the game.



You hit the nail on the head, son.

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There were these items, although the more powerful ones required you to be of quite a decent level (and correct class/build) before you could even use them. Some of these items came available to me and where replaced quite fast with gear I found better for my play style, or where never used because I didn't have the correct attributes/class. Although I agree with the overall attitude and caution towards DLC and gifts, I think it's too easy to state that the DAO "gifts" were overpowered.

I don't see it as a major issue but I certainly agree. The Dragon Armour (or whatever it was called) was the either the best or second best armour I had and it came as a promo code. I also agree these things could be hidden (which makes exploration more interesting) rather than dumping them in the inventory.