Dragon Age - Desslock Comments

Kostaz said:

I enjoyed Oblivion but IMO F3 is another story.

Click to expand...

rune_74 said:

I enjoyed oblivion, and I'm really enjoying playing fallout 3.

The troll who posted earlier about all the things you can do in oblivion made me laugh. What else do you do in other RPG's? It is the same in just about every other game. I can't think of many modern RPG's that you don't do exactly that(most if not all older rpg's as well.) Mostly though, as soon as he mentioned the codex of a place of wisdom and insight he lost me.

It is sad that it seems to be the trend with alot here to pick apart Oblivion and Fallout 3 but then bless the gothic series and even two worlds....the anti bethesda glasses must be working.

I think the difference between Desslock and alot of you is that he hasn't become so jaded that everying new is bad.

Click to expand...

Alright, it's settled, this is the forum of the graphic whores.

LMSBRFAO

I find it laughable that people are always "If he liked *THAT* he sucks!" here. I had a teacher in high school who drilled into us that in matters of *taste* what YOU like has nothing to do with "goodness". There are many movies (and games and food and books and drinks and sports and ...) that are generally considered to be good that I do not like but my opinion of them does NOT make them bad.

I no of no one whose tastes exactly match my own in games so I ignore the pre-game hype, read up from a number of sources, try it out if I can, and decide on my own.

woges said:

It's connoisseurs, and Desslock's rep with the 'elite' appears to have slipped over the years.

Click to expand...

Somewhat, but not terrible. He's still one of the more respected game journos. And in this case, it's not so much what he says as how he says it that interests me; I kind of suspected the game wasn't as bad as PR made it look, and he confirmed as much. If he claimed DA is BG2 reborn I'd be dubious, but claiming combat has the BG2 feel and dialogue is more meaningful than BioWare standard (not hard, BioWare is infamous for fake choices) sounds plausible enough.

BillSeurer said:

I find it laughable that people are always "If he liked *THAT* he sucks!" here.

Click to expand...

I dunno. I mean, obviously he doesn't "suck", but if a reviewer, professional or otherwise, simply has wildly different tastes than you, his opinion is irrelevant to you. For example, I like Zero Punctuation, but I know Yahtzee pretty much loathes RPGs in the mold I like to see 'em in, so when he talks about those, I don't take him very seriously. Not because he's wrong, but because his tastes are too different from mine.

That's exactly why Desslock is/was so popular. He's a smart journalist whose tastes and opinions coincide more closely to that of the Watch than the tastes and opinions of most journos.

Quests.Muin said:

Alright, it's settled, this is the forum of the graphic whores.

LMSBRFAO

Click to expand...

Well, that was a well reasoned post....I can see where you came to that conclusion.

DArtagnan said:

For what it's worth, my original response to Oblivion was very positive indeed - and it took me quite a while to appreciate just how shallow it really was. If you, as someone who writes in public under the circumstances that are true for Desslock, you can't just easily "back out" if you've praised a game to high heaven.

Not that I know what he originally wrote, but I can't fault anyone for having an initial positive reaction towards Oblivion - because that's exactly what Bethesda are so damn good at - namely first impressions.

Click to expand...

That pretty much sums up how I feel about this Deslock comment. When I started Oblivion, I also thought it's a great game. There were a few obvious warts even in the beginning, but the initial atmosphere was captivating, and the game had a few great quests. It took me a while to see that the initial atmosphere was all you would ever get, the main quest was incredibly boring, and that the level scaling was absolutely horrible.

If you had asked me what my opinion of Oblivion was after the first 8 hours, I would probably still have given an enthusiastic endorsement. My opinion completely changed after I had some more experience with the game. That's why I see this Deslock comment as a neutral piece of information: Its take home message is that DA seems to make a good first impression.

Quests.Muin said:

In the case of RP gaming the truth can only come from the most hard-assed uncompromising elite players...

Click to expand...

The Truth®? "Elite" players?

Aside from technical foibles or stuff like huge plot holes (if appropriate), there's not much "truth" in game evaluations. Much of it comes just down to personal preferences. Regarding DA, I could make some "dark and gritty" jokes here, but this would be dishonest, because I'm not a big fan of "dark and gritty", anyway, whether it's well done or not.

And the concept of "elite players" just makes me laugh .

rune_74 said:

Well, that was a well reasoned post....I can see where you came to that conclusion.

Click to expand...

Turjan said:

And the concept of "elite players" just makes me laugh .

Click to expand...

He stated in his second post on these forums that he was a troll, and has done nothing to contradict that through actions since.

BillSeurer said:

I find it laughable that people are always "If he liked *THAT* he sucks!" here. I had a teacher in high school who drilled into us that in matters of *taste* what YOU like has nothing to do with "goodness". There are many movies (and games and food and books and drinks and sports and ...) that are generally considered to be good that I do not like but my opinion of them does NOT make them bad.

I no of no one whose tastes exactly match my own in games so I ignore the pre-game hype, read up from a number of sources, try it out if I can, and decide on my own.

Click to expand...

I would never say anything bad about the man. I have been playing games for the last 20 years, and I have read some good reviews by Desslock in the past. From what he has written about Oblivion and FO3, however, I must assume his taste has grown to be very different from mine.

Dhruin said:

Yes...it's an opinion. I'm not sure why you think this needs to be pointed out.

Click to expand...

I felt it was needed to point out in this case, where character worship and endorsements seemed to walk in hand in hand.

Dhruin said:

As for questioning his views...remember that it was an opinion, yes? Most of us are capable of rational thought and his opinion is simply an additional piece of information to consider.

Click to expand...

Do you ever happen to get into situations where you find yourself tired of scratching through review one after another trying to find the least bit relevant information about the product itself? After the reader has read through multiple reviews, the image of the product pieced together in the reader's mind has ended up being constructed from a general mean of others opionions. Some like friends' opinions might carry more weight obviously. If a writer would bother to focus less on opinions and more on facts, his/her written article alone in itself just might help the reader.

The sad state of affairs is there is nothing but opinions when it comes to game reviews. It's totally out of norm to even point that. The so called industry will remain in its infant shoes when reviewers are just flushing out their general feelings without any coherent thought or insight. Which is why I felt there was no need to give any free air to breathe even for a veteran like Desslock.

One must remember that Desslock absolutely LOVED Morrowind back in 2002. Back then he disappeared for a month after giving us almost daily reviews (today we call them blogs) and shocked everybody including Bethsoft: he locked himself in his house and did nothing but track down every thing that could be possibly done in Morrowind. I believe he wrote the games first walkthrough.

It shouldn't be to anyone's surprised that he would want more of the same and would love Oblivion and FO3 as well in spite of their flaws.

What he says about DA doesn't surprise me in terms of gameplay because I've watched the videos. As BroNone says its not hard to improve on Bio's dialogue choices and they've had several years to watch how the good NWN modders do it, have sunk millions into hiring decent writers, etc.

IMO the type of game this is (how both Bio marketed it) is enough to make me not intereste and truthfully I think EA is actually being more honest.

The only thing that had me was multiplayer with the toolset and since they took the MP away I'm not interested.

I wonder what Dess' take is on the new Chinese Ultima Online?

I dunno. Morrowind and Oblivion are quite different, I loved Morrowind, but pre-modded Oblivion was "meh".

I enjoyed both Fallout 3 and Oblivion out of the box, despite some very obvious flaws. I guess with many games I can very much appreciate what they do well and phase out the rest.

Towards the end both games got tedious though. I think this is one flaw of Bethesda games. you play them until you get utterly bored, and then you finish the main plot. Not very climatic.

Anyway, to stay on topic, I still have a lot of respect for Desslock.

God, I think I have finally come to the conclusion that the rpg websites in general are rigid in what they believe is a rpg and what is a good one. The funny thing is you ask anyone about music and they have a very wide range of tastes and that is acceptable. But games? No way, you either like what the hive mind(and unfortunately that is what the hardcore have become) or you get labeled as a graphics whore or somehow not smart enough to enjoy a "real" rpg. I have played so many rpg's I actually have to look up a name if I come across one just to see if yes I played this wayyyy back. Fallout 3 is a great game, so is oblivion....so is BG2, planescape and diablo 1 & 2...divine divinity(great also) I loved the bards tale games and all of the ultima games(the last one not as much, I think mostly due to the games technical dificulties). I'm an avid supporter of indie games(ask basilisk games) was a content creator for minions of mirth a very long time ago. What does all this rambling have to do with this? Well I guess I'm trying to show that taste is subjective, depending on what you like. As a whole I think rpg fans should be a bit more open to others opinions and not so much on this predefined mold that all rpg's fit into.

To those that said oblivion sucked? Your right, it was a horrible turn based game but a great action rpg

Its all about taste. If you dont like what the main audiance likes then your taste belongs to a niche. I myself dislike wow and play niche mmos like ww2ol and darkfall - however I dont consider myself "elite" as codex people likes to think.

rune_74 said:

As a whole I think rpg fans should be a bit more open to others opinions....

Click to expand...

Yet if we were to award a prize to the poster who had shown the most disdain for the opinions of others, I think you might win (See the opening sentence of your post for example).

I remember liking Desslock's review of Oblivion at the time, but I was liking Oblivion back then too. So I can relate. It's not that I hadn't noticed Oblivion's shortcomings, it was that I was willing to forgive them and still had hope that there was intrigue to be found, mysteries to be solved, and adventure waiting somewhere in all that graphic goodness.

I read this entire thread and think Lucky Day put his finger on it best. Desslock has his tastes, and IMO I think at this point you would have to call them "mainstream."

If Dragon Age is the game we've been promised, I imagine you might have to play it a lot longer than eight hours to appreciate it fully. Let's keep our fingers crossed for that.

Edit: Zakhal beat me to it!

Grandor Dragon said:

I enjoyed both Fallout 3 and Oblivion out of the box, despite some very obvious flaws. I guess with many games I can very much appreciate what they do well and phase out the rest.

Towards the end both games got tedious though. I think this is one flaw of Bethesda games. you play them until you get utterly bored, and then you finish the main plot. Not very climatic.

Anyway, to stay on topic, I still have a lot of respect for Desslock.

Click to expand...

And a lot of the "elite" RPGs have huge flaws too but nobody talks about them. If you bring one up the response is "Well THAT horrible flaw in <RPG I hate> is different than the horrible flaw in <elite RPG>!".

BillSeurer said:

And a lot of the "elite" RPGs have huge flaws too but nobody talks about them.

Click to expand...

Yeah, every game has its flaws.
However, I´d say those "elite" RPGs usually do some things so well that it´s much easier to forgive their flaws.

Average or below average RPGs just do nothing remarkably well.
I think that those elite (lol) RPGamers maybe wouldn´t be so angry if media weren´t consistently putting this mediocrity on pedestal.

DeepO said:

I think that those elite (lol) RPGamers maybe wouldn´t be so angry if media weren´t consistently putting this mediocrity on pedestal.

Click to expand...

I can totaly relate to that i.e eurogamer gave both wow expansions 100% (perfect) and df 20% while calling everyone (me included) who plays it "mad". I just have to ignore the site and their "opinnions".

BillSeurer said:

And a lot of the "elite" RPGs have huge flaws too but nobody talks about them. If you bring one up the response is "Well THAT horrible flaw in <RPG I hate> is different than the horrible flaw in <elite RPG>!".

Click to expand...

Well, it probably is . In the end, everyone of us balances the pros and cons of game according to his or her own criteria, and the verdict will look different. I asked myself why I still have such fond memories of Morrowind, whereas Oblivion left me in a sour mood. Both games are somewhat similar and have tons of flaws and lots of things they get right. I recognized that I enjoy the exploring aspect of RPGs most, and Morrowind somehow managed to keep me curious, whereas Oblivion just left me with the impression that any further exploration would just turn up more of the same. That's obviously my personal make or break criterion, and other people will have different ones.

On the other hand, some typical, eh, "elite" RPGs leave me cold. Wizardry 8 may have one of the most intricate party and combat systems, but that's not really what I look for in an RPG. I would never say Wizardry 8 is bad, it's just not the right game for me.

In this sense, I will see whether DA will be the right game for me. As I don't buy games at release anymore, I will just wait for the first impressions and reviews I'll get here and try to get a feel of the game from there. Whether it's a hardcore RPG (whatever that is) or not is a purely technical question that is not really that important for me.

I was totally taken by the world of Morrowind. The visuals were beautiful, varied, and consistent; the world felt genuinely deep, what with the Daedric ruins, the Dwarven dungeons, the Ashlander camps, the ancient cities with their living gods... the factions were well fleshed-out, genuinely creative and exotic -- a far cry from the "fighters' guild/thieves' guild/assassins' guild/wizards' guild/mercenary guild" setup in Oblivion.

The thing sucked like a tornado in some ways (badly enough that I haven't managed to replay it, despite my very fond memories of it), but it also had a depth, charm, and consistency that Oblivion totally lacked. It felt like there was something new and surprising behind every corner; in Oblivion, it is, indeed, just more of the same. And more. And more. And more.