Dragon Age 2 - News Roundup #4

Dhruin

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Here's today's collection of Dragon Age 2 newsbits.
There's another Mike Laidlaw live chat coming up on Saturday:
On Saturday March 5 at 1pm PST, Dragon Age 2 Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw will be holding a live demo of the game followed by a question and answer chat with Dragon Age fans. Mike will be playing the Exiled Prince downloadable content as well as showing off the character creator and DA2 promo items. After the demo he will be answering your questions.
Don't miss out on watching Mike's live demo and asking your questions about Dragon Age 2. You can take part here: Live Demo and Chat
The Bioblog has Part 2 of The Technology of Dragon Age 2:
One of the major goals of the team was to make the game look great on all platforms. Having accomplished that, we started researching what additional features we can offer to our users that have invested on higher end PC hardware. The latest PC GPUs that have been recently released on the market are very powerful. DirectX 11 technology is a great way for us to target this advanced GPU hardware, as DirectX 11 is fully backwards compatible with DirectX 10. So if you have a video card that supports DirectX 10, DirectX 10.1 or DirectX 11, and Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7, you’ll be able to benefit from additional technology features as described in this post.
Gaider Gaider has been interviewed by the NY Daily News:
DN: It seems like more and more open-ended RPGs are cropping up these days. You guys keep things more focused. Is there a risk in the open-ended RPG?
Gaider: It is hard. One part of an RPG is letting the player tell their own story. That's something like "Fable." If you're letting the player wander where they will and do what they will, you le the player create the story in their head.
In my experience, you can go too far down that side. You run the risk of sort of depersonalizing it for the player. They can do lots of things, but do they care?"
DN: But with "Dragon Age II," you guys wanted a balance to it, right? How hard was that?
Gaider: Finding the balance between the two is difficult. They're kind of diametrically opposed. In order to offer the player to make their own story, you have to surrender some control. But in order to keep it under control, you have to take some control from the player.
...and Gamasutra has a blog post titled A Critcism of BioWare, which makes some good points that are lost in the poor writing:
In The Witcher, you can improve Geralt's fighting abilities and magical signs to improve your odds in combat. Integrated with the consequences of your decisions there are some upgrades that are only accessible if you make certain decisions in game. By the end of the game you have more abilities and utility then at the beginning and chaining attacks at the hardest difficulty required good timing to master.
What I love about the SMT series (and most of Atlus's rpg lineup) is that they challenge the player. Just pressing the attack button will not win fights in their games. The SMT series is known for unique boss fights with twists to mix up the regular fights. Their games reward players for learning and mastering the mechanics with better items and challenging fights. There is that sense of mastery when playing their games, when you reach the point that you fully understand the mechanics and get into a groove with winning fights.
That sense of challenge and reward is nowhere to be seen in the Bioware games I've played. Side quests require me to do the same thing I've done before and exploring with the only reward being experience points or morality points don't interest me. Battles don't offer variety and the only challenge is dealing with a stat difference. There is no sense of learning the game mechanics after the prerequisite tutorial and no growth of the established game mechanics. Which leads me to this: If a game doesn't have a compelling story or good game-play, what is left to keep me interested in playing?
More information.
 
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Edit: Changed my mind. I've grown tired of complaining about today's Bioware. I hope everyone who buys DA2 enjoys it. I won't be bothering, myself. :p
 
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"One of the major goals of the team was to make the game look great on all platforms. Having accomplished that..."

LOL Well, to me the new DA 2 looks like crap. But maybe its a matter of taste I suppose.
 
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I don't think DA2 looks like crap, but I definitely preferred the style of the first game.

Doesn't matter... I recently decided that I'm not buying it either. At least not anytime in the near future. There are too many other games I'd rather play.
 
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Well, I will be buyiing it. Looking forward to it actually.
 
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LOL Well, to me the new DA 2 looks like crap. But maybe its a matter of taste I suppose.

Maybe? I would say obviously.

For me DA2 looks a lot better than the first if for no other reason than actual design work is better than copy and pasting from every medieval fantasy game ever made.
 
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Maybe? I would say obviously.

For me DA2 looks a lot better than the first if for no other reason than actual design work is better than copy and pasting from every medieval fantasy game ever made.

Sure, it looks way better - if you like cartoons or anime ;). I'm kidding, but for those of us that enjoy realism/believability, the original is much better. Obviously, this is a subjective thing based on personal tastes.
 
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Sure, it looks way better - if you like cartoons or anime ;). I'm kidding, but for those of us that enjoy realism/believability, the original is much better. Obviously, this is a subjective thing based on personal tastes.

No need to kid… you hit the nail on the head, imo :)
 
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I don't know, I like the stylized new look, and I liked the old look...maybe to me graphics aren't the end all be all. But I think it can't be argued they are technicaly good. However, it is a good thing we don't care so much about graphics here right?
 
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Sure, it looks way better - if you like cartoons or anime ;). I'm kidding, but for those of us that enjoy realism/believability, the original is much better.

I enjoy realism and I enjoy stylized, there is plenty of room for both in the world.
 
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However, it is a good thing we don't care so much about graphics here right?
Art direction and graphics are two very different things.
For example in this thread, all talk has been about art direction thus far, not graphics.
 
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Indeed.

For example many (including me) prefer Morrowind's bizzarre mushroom forests and ash lands rather than Oblivion's traditional medevil setting, even if Oblivion has better models, shadows etc
 
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I enjoy realism and I enjoy stylized, there is plenty of room for both in the world.

The problem here is the first used realism and the second game used a stylized
approach. A big change to some.
 
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Not buying , the art and animation look silly . Whats up with those Darkspawn they remind me of the foot clan from TMNT.
 
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I actually think the animations look better in this one. The faces really shine too, they really feel more detailed and expressive.

I'm looking forward to some good times with this, I enjoy a good story and this most likely will have one. First day purchase.
 
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Well I didn't take part in any Bioware or DA2 bashing fest that have gone on but I'll say this heh…

While I really loved the first game, I've been disappointed with most of the changes I've read about in the 2nd game. The departure from Origins, various story elements/characters revealed so far, the art style (not the graphics quality) doesn't suit my taste nearly as much as it used to in the first game… and lastly the hype and marketing they have been (ab)using has been annoying as hell heh.

It reminds me of your random average cheesy song that plays so often on radio and everywhere else that it makes you want to bang your head against a wall when you hear it.

So anyway, the game may turn up to be good. But for now I figured I'd exercise my right as a customer and not buy the game… and who knows, if there's more like me out there (unlikely as it is :p) maybe they'll return to game closer to Origins on their next title.

Still, I somewhat hope that I'm proved wrong and that the game turns out to be awesome. So I guess I'll really reserve my final judgement for when the game is actually out and I can check out trusted reviews…but for now it ain't looking too good.

G.
 
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On the hype discussion:

Perhaps it is a good thing that I try to ignore most news/marketing shemes for high profile games. It just feels so much better not knowing all that stuff.
 
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Dragon Age 2 For Xbox 360 Leaks. How Will This Be Blamed On PC Gamers? (Update: And Now The PS3!)

I have to laugh at this news post I found on the web. Bet Bioware pretty pissed off right now.

Its kind of sad in a way.:lol:
Link-http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/03/03/dragon-age-2-for-xbox-360-leaks-how-will-this-be-blamed-on-pc-gamers/

Winch reminds me this post a few months back that might become reality in the future.

It’s time we start implementing DRM on console games. I mean, look at this nonsense. The Xbox 360 version of BioShock 2 leaked yesterday, a full five days before its official release. The same thing happened with Mass Effect 2, which leaked something like six days for the Xbox 360 before its official release. Since publishers are so keen to treat PC gamers like filthy thieves, I say we start implementing annoying DRM on console games, too.

Granted, the differences between PC games and console games are such that you’d need to implement different forms of DRM, but here’s a few ideas.

• Game discs will be permanently linked to consoles. No taking that new game you just bought to your friend’s house to play there!

• On every disc is a special phone number that you need to call to get permission to play the game (phone centers open only from 9-5pm EST)

• To prevent online cheating, all game saves will be stored on, and only on, the publisher’s servers

• You need to sign up for four different “value enhancement” accounts in order download any and all DLC, which will then be linked to your social security number (or equivalent)

• Any game discs inserted into a console before the approved release date will result in a temporary console lockout, rendering your video game console inoperable until publishers’ technicians come to your house to verify that you are, indeed, a legitimate owner
 
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