Dragon Age 2 - Retrospective @ 102.1 the Edge

Andy Borkowski is a news anchor and host of the radio show “VGS” (=Video Game Sophistry) across the Corus Radio Network. He continued to talk with the lead writer of the Dragon Age franchise David Gaider all about the series.

This time he sunk his teeth into Dragon Age 2. He outlines exactly why it major portions were cut, how the game could be better and why he nearly walked out.



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Thank you for the interview, Andy!

Here's a link to part one if you missed it.

Confession: I really enjoyed DA2. Yeah, I said it. I really enjoyed it. Granted I played it years later and knew it had much cut content and all that. So my expectations were low. But still, I loved the setting, characters, and overall story. I'm not sorry for that.

102.1 the Edge is the best radio station around. When I am not listening to 550AM sports radio that is what I have on.

As for DA2 Blah!!!

Gaider seemed a bit nervous and flustered in this interview, and I got the impression he was both somewhat evasive and as honest as he dared to be about the DA2 development process.

So it was a bit of a mess, but I think most people figured that one out. Interesting to learn that the Qunari are the ‘child’ of Lukas Kristjanson. I’ve had this sneaky suspicion that some of the Ferelden-related stuff (lore, names) is his work as well. Ferelden was and is boring as crap, but its lore has some nice touches that seem to be derived from Old Norse (specifically Icelandic) history and sagas and Kristjanson’s name suggests he’s a (first or second) generation Icelandic immigrant.

Anyway, wishing Gaider well with his current project at BioWare.

Fluffyhotep said:

Gaider seemed a bit nervous and flustered in this interview, and I got the impression he was both somewhat evasive and as honest as he dared to be about the DA2 development process.

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I'm not really interested in DA2 interviews but it's not surprising.

DA2 was not a horrible game. It did have it's moments.
But the problem was that it was a sequel to a highly superior game and not a new IP. Even for a new IP it looked so basic, smelled like an indie and not AAA game.
EA, as usual, tried to smuggle lazywork as AAA, slapped the superexpensive price on it instead of putting $30 max like normal indies would do.

The worst thing in the story about DA2 were paid2praise reviews. Instead of criticizing the content and price that doesn't justify that content, suggesting the bargain, instead of seeing through annoying triplewaves of mobs appearing out of thin air, reviewers just concentrated on chain lighting special effect and went with 10/10 and 9/10 basically scamming the audience.

EA seems can't understand fans and constantly refuses to make what fans really want. It was not just DA2, we've seen the horrible decisions with Dungeon Keeper for phones, SimCity and Sims 4.

Bioware warmed chairs and made DA3, still not without flaws (filler problem, sonar) but vastly superior to everything DA2 brought to the table.
DK on phones still remains possibly the worst game that ever existed, SimCity is dead and the new king on the throne is now Cities Skylines.
Sims 4 pulled through somehow, got "enhanced" through patches (added pools, ghosts and locked doors for free), the expansion opened a new ways of modding (a certain modder released something of such huge scale he's perceived as "godlike" by the community). But it's still not *it*. Fans are eagerly waiting for Paradox' "life sim" that should be announced next year (not a rumor, came from official source).

Ah yes, yet another DA2 bashing thread.

The inconsistency of having a magic-using PC roaming the city was indeed questionable, plot-wise. It sounds like they never did figure out a good explanation. Perhaps they could have used something like a secret rebel faction that had a way of cloaking the use of magic in the streets? Say, a magical amulet that clouded the memory of weak-willed viewers.

DA2 would have been hailed as 'a pretty good addition to the DA franchise' had they called it 'Dragon Age Chronicles: The Champion of Kirkwall,' and made Inquisition into 'Dragon Age II.'

Mosaic said:

DA2 would have been hailed as 'a pretty good addition to the DA franchise' had they called it 'Dragon Age Chronicles: The Champion of Kirkwall,' and made Inquisition into 'Dragon Age II.'

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I think that highly unlikely – it just wasn’t good enough on its own to be of interest to anyone but diehard DA fans. Basically they would have ended up with a Jade Empire minus the interesting setting, cool characters or decent story. Not terrible, mind you, just rather forgettable.

Even then, people would probably still have made a fuss, because it would have been seen as part of a pattern, together with ME3 and (to some extent) SWTOR.

I get it why this claim is made, though. It sort of trivialises the criticisms and the gamer backlash against DA2.

David Gaider’s interview, by the way, is the first one I remember where – as veiled as he does it – a BioWare dev admitted that something seriously went awry during the dev process, at least from the writers’ point of view. It must have been a hell of a stressful time for him, and a lot of the flak, probably undeserved, went in his direction.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was really, really glad to leave DA and start on an entirely new project.

I would totally buy his future memoirs…

Fluffyhotep said:

Even then, people would probably still have made a fuss, because it would have been seen as part of a pattern, together with ME3 and (to some extent) SWTOR.

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The pattern is the most important aspect IMO. There's a clear 'something' going on between 2006 and 2011 which is piling on stacked negativity regarding the big-name western cRPG creators. Here's the list of big-name cRPGs from that era with dates and colour coded by (general) fan reception:

Mar 2006 - Oblivion
Oct 2006 - Neverwinter Nights 2
Oct 2007 - The Witcher
Nov 2007 - Mass Effect
Oct 2008 - Fallout 3
Nov 2009 - Dragon Age Origins
Jan 2010 - Mass Effect 2
Oct 2010 - Fallout New Vegas
Mar 2011 - Dragon Age 2
May 2011 - The Witcher 2
Nov 2011 - Skyrim
Mar 2012 - Mass Effect 3
May 2012 - Diablo 3
Nov 2014 - Dragon Age 3
Mar 2015 - Pillars of Eternity
May 2015 - The Witcher 3
Nov 2015 - Fallout 4… ?

Where pink represents some serious concern about the direction of the title and red indicates very widespread visible anger that goes beyond some disappointed individuals creating threads on specialised forums or somewhat dumb Metacritic reviews.

You might say the list doesn't look so bad, you could do a list for any era and invent some similar reasoning, but the fact is you can't really. All this Pink is quite unique to the era and the red, from AAA developers, is really quite alarming and cannot be underestimated.

The stats speak for themselves, a 50% chance you're not going to have your expectations met by the big-house cRPG makers - that's a huge amount of stacked over time cumulative negativity. And even the AAAs could give you a big fat red, not just unusually, but a distinct quantifiable possibility - that's an industry which parallels the mindset of someone with clinical depression.

Look at Skyrim all alone there in the middle of it's competition. 20m sales? No wonder, it's not competing with anything, for nearly 5 years… And you can see why 2015 is turning out to be the best year for an aaaaawful long time even before you factor in the indie revolution.