Dragon Age 2 - Demo Released

After playing he demo I found I enjoyed it. Sure I hated it based on early info but its not that bad . Its a shame the inventory cant be used in the demo you couldn't use potions to heal. See I admit I was wrong even if I hate bioware sometimes.

There is alot of cannon fodder so its great to be a mage just keep blasting the opponents as they clump in groups. I'll probably buy it when it goes on a half price sale on steam or any other download service.

The art style is different and takes getting used to but at least the game has more color than the first one. As for linear combat zones I dont mind. The game never promised an open world. If you want that play 2worlds or wait for skyrim.

One problem I see the load time for cutscenes and conversations.It gets annoying.

I'll give the game a 8/10 and that's high praise from me as I mostly give most a 6 or 7. Its time for me to eat my words and say I WAS WRONG.Taste will probably vary.

Just finished the demo. Definitely a step backwards. The combat is way to fast played as a rouge and the jumping around was very annoying. Being able to reach enemies in one jump from 30 ft. away was ridiculous. Can you backstab an enemy just from being behind them or is the new backstab talent the only way now. which by the way looks terrible when you are already behind the enemy you want to backstab.

The cartoon like graphics were also a turn off and I experienced many graphical glitches as well. It was unplayable using dx 11 it stuttered terribly. on an i7@4009 with gtx480 graphics card and 12gb ram. Ran just fine on dx 9. Both my son's however, were able to use dx 11 with amd cards. (5770 and 6950).

Hopefully the sheer number of enemies was just something for the demo and hopefully the sheer number of times hawke repeats the same lines when he see's enemy's was just for the demo as well.

What's up with no access to inventory i hope it's not because they bilked it like in mass effect 2. Can anyone confirm what the inventory will be like I haven't heard anything about changes to it.

Overall it feels more like a diablo than a baulder's gate. Not terrible but far from great. I wish they never would have said dao was the spiritual successor to baulder's gate, as it was far from it and with da2 we've only gotten further away. They made me expect a baulder's gate type experience and gave us this. While dao wasn't bad at all and da2 is much worse, neither is close to baulder's gate.

You know what? The graphics really work. In it's favour, it doesn't look like every other RPG out there. Combat works, it is quick but manageable. I won't judge the story, since this demo is clearly just a combat quick look. If it is anywhere as deep as the first one I think it could work.

You still have the pause feature to give orders, and whoever said the voice acting was bad...wow. I'm not sure what games you were playing that were better. Seems fun, and on the PC it didn't feel that for off the first one(yes combat was faster) but overall it was interesting.

Oh, the demo has DX11 going? I wasn't planning on messing with the demo but that changes things.

DX11 is dodgy:

The PC demo has known performance and stability issues with DirectX 11. These have been fixed in the final game.

We recommend that all users disable DirectX 11 while playing the demo, including those with high-end machines.

Click to expand...

I don't actually mind the graphics, though it would have been nice to see more exterior areas than that wasteland.

Well the demo is very linear, it's just a rush forward, dialog choices are well just influences on relationships with companions which is a point i don't like much.

For the fights not sure you couldn't setup a difficulty level and I died once because of a little lack of attention but didn't lost the fight. The fights can't show their tactical values if they don't involve challenge so I don't consider it a good test because clearly I need level up the difficulty level and dig possibilities.

Selections in menus had bugs and it seems a bit less efficient than DAO but apart the menu bugs it was ok. The graphic style is well a bit flat for me but I suppose not all game can impress me visually as much than Venetica. It will take me some time to get used to this graphic style but I think this will be fine.

But there's one thing that worked very well, the story. The winks to DAO are very pleasant, echoes in stories are always a great point. I got some wet eyes few times and get interested by few characters despite there isn't that much in this demo. I'd say rather efficient from this point of view.

But for sure I don't think the demo is a good preview of the game which can't be that almost constant rush forward and almost constant fighting. I get good time, that's the most important and for the full game I'll see.

I just finished playing a bit with DX11 and max settings, and it ran without any issues for me.

I agree with most of sakichop's comments above. I thought both the combat and visuals were a step backwards from the first game.

The gore is absolutely ridiculous, it makes DA:O look like Disney. Some of the new effects of certain talents are way over the top. For instance, the Warrior's whirlwind attack literally cutting multiple Hurlocks into pieces.

The Xbox kiddies are going to love this one...

The first fight is the legend version with the character overpowered, possibly this whirlwind effect in particular is a deliberate exaggeration to figure the legend telling.

At least you can expect that a single attack which isn't a high level attack can't have such an easy effect. But other than that yes it seems the dynamics has been increased, probably because too many idiots whine about some attacks being too slow in DAO.

For the blood I suppose you deactivated the "persistent" blood" like everybody, for other gore effect appart the mentioned whirlwind effect I didn't noticed the gore approach, I don't mean there isn't a gore approach just that I didn't noticed apart for this special attack.

Im holding out hope that playing on maximum difficulty will mask the arcade-iness. Honestly I'd have no problem with the new "fast" movement if they had allowed me to use the 360-controller with the game. Seems like it was designed to be more enjoyable using a controller & mashing a button to attack, though they decided to remove the "toggle click to attack" option from the PC version so it wont be immediately easy to set a xpadder type profile for it. I've yet to see the full differences of the GUI among the platforms, but I'd assume its just the conversation "wheel" element and the quickslots/bar.

For the record: Potions can be used in the demo and can be accessed from the red or blue weird looking things on the bottom right hand side of the screen.

Fingers crossed the modding community can offer a few tweaks make it a bit more similar to DA:O, though I'd assume bioware's legal team would throw a hissy fit if they offered assets from original on a site like the nexus.
—Edit—
Did anyone else find the Ogre retarded? All I had to do was keep dodging, but perhaps he was dumbed down since hes meant to be a introductory boss?

For me DAO fights was a very interesting draft with many good idea but once you dig them and know them you could rely on a small set of tactics relatively simple to apply. The team you was using and an abuse or not of character optimization could also change the figure a lot. But overall despite I got a lot of fun from DAO fights it's really something I hope changed and improved in DAO2.

I'm not sure if fights and attacks are just faster or if it's more that they involve huge exaggerated movements to give them more kinetics but keep the whole time of attacks still relatively slower. In no way I got the feeling it became an action game, it's far from that and you still control with a distance, activating special attacks and looking the character achieve them. Play Torchlight and switch back to DAO2 demo and you'll see the huge difference despite both are heavily based of special attacks.

But if it's not just an impression and the speed is really increased then it' s definitely not a good point. Anyway for me the demo can"t give a good idea of the fights.

Well to be honest I was very opposed and vocal when I first saw the so-called "new" art direction of the game. I very much enjoyed the style and atmosphere of DAO and thought it crazy and a huge leap backwards. And I still do...when I consider what Origins did and brought to the table. No it wasn't perfect but to sure was a great start imo

That said, I just played the DA2 Demo.

Here's my thoughts:

The game works IF you take it on it's own and don't constantly compare it to Origins.

It's a whole NEW game (should of never been called DA2 imo...but rather just a new game set in the same game world) with a new vision and feel.

Played the Warrior Class and actually enjoyed it. The game does play quite a bit faster then before. And it does seem to be quite over-the-top when it comes to visceral effects. Can only imagine the Rogue class...quite arcade'ish I'm sure.

But playing it as a more ARPG and not bemoaning it for what it lacked in more traditional rpg trappings...I can see it being quite a bit more enjoyable than I first thought.

I just have to separate it from what I wanted DA2 to be and accept it as a new, completely different approach and feel.

I personally thought the Voice acting was quite good to be honest.

It played well on my somewhat old system (nvidia 460 though)

So I'd say, try and play the game for what it is, not what you wanted or even expected...and with new eyes enjoy it for what it does do right.

A strategic/ARPG set in the DA world

Regards

I've played through a decent portion of it but ran into stability issues when Alt-Tabbing out and back in. Brief debugging session says its in memcpy around SetVertexShaderConstant or something not sure I believe it but perhaps DX11 related.

Between Torchlight and this I do prefer this more and have hopes that it will be decent. I do wish it was more tactical but with the tactics system and pausing I think I can manage it as it is. The increased speed is annoying which just led me to pausing more to reassess the situation. One thing I've had problems with is that sometimes skills dont activate even if there is time. I cannot tell why if its because I'm surrounded and its a mechanic or its just ignoring me. Not that it really matters as you can just brute force the whole thing but doing it this way feels more interactive to me.

figment said:

One thing I've had problems with is that sometimes skills dont activate even if there is time. I cannot tell why if its because I'm surrounded and its a mechanic or its just ignoring me.

Click to expand...

I found this, as well, but it's hard to isolate in the chaos and without a save and proper feedback window.

After playing some more, I did notice a few glitches. Sometimes when trying to switch characters in battle it would go to their character screen instead of just controlling them. I was also kicked out the menu a few times when trying to select NPCs to level up.

Also couldn't figure out how to select the entire party to move as a group...

I switched back to direct x 9 and adjusted my settings to wide screen at full everything. Gotta say, I really like the art style. The faces look great.

The combat is not that much different over the first, you give orders and the interface is just more streamlined. Would like to see the inventory system(betting this was disabled due to the large amount of assets it would take to have your character show his weapons etc.

I hope the main game is an overland map with areas like the first was.

Seems pretty good to me - mostly more of the same. I *really* like that 'legend' mode at the start! It's a great way to test out the different character types. I'm not so happy with the lower number of spells. I found I had to take control of Bethany to keep her from shooting off fireballs at empty ground, too.

I'm definitely going to want to play at harder difficulty. The gang-up-and-fireball-your-feet tactic works far too well at normal difficulty and, to get friendly-fire to kick in, I think you have to pick a higher difficulty level.

Linearity… hard to call right now. The blasted plains sure were terribly linear but the town looked to have a lot of options.

Oh, and I do like how the game takes line of fire into account. Shooting a fireball at enemies behind an object results in blasting the object.

I didn't play in fast mode at all. I never went more than 5 seconds without hitting space.

Stereoscopic 3D worked fine, though conversations brought the camera VERY close in at times. I would really like more camera control, too. I can see why they don't let us zoom all the way up, but why can't we move the camera around freely around a battlefield?

P.S. After looking at Bethany and the female-version Hawke, I'm convinced that Lara Croft must be a descendent of the Hawke family.

JDR13 said:

Also couldn't figure out how to select the entire party to move as a group…

Click to expand...

I could only do it by rubberbanding everyone - anyone figure out a better way?

I did finally complete it and no crashes this time though I also played it in a window to so I could alt-tab out as needed. Regarding the inventory system, the download was 1.9 GB I would hope that they could stuff in enough to show the assets they had. But I can also suspect that they may not want to show everything in the demo. They disabled specializations by and large so you cant select those for instance.

Another problem I had was with the Tactics screen. Sometimes you can drill into sub-menus for selecting actions (usually just once) and other times I wont let you. And then clicking on unrelated items will reset actions in the first row. That screen was frustrating to use but at least they provide defaults. I'm sure they will need to fix that before release.

just finished the demo as a mage. i enjoyed it and some new features such as the attributes sheet (which thank god they didn't remove) now gives more feedback as to what they are directly affecting(derived stats). the new abilities system could work though i can not believe it that the healing spell has a 60 second cooldown?!? i guess this game is going to be like diablo in that it will a potion popping affair. hopefully i'm wrong.

i'm less worried though than i have been for the past few weeks. it was obvious with the amount of dev time we weren't going to see the grandness of the first game with a more "non-action" rpg feel but this still could be a great game if its not thought of as a sequel.

i'm going to go out on a limb and say the harcore "rpgers" will se this as a deus ex 2, which by the way i'm a huge fan of in some ways. if it maintains a good story and has good gameplay then it should be a huge success unlike deus ex 2 which suffered from coming out at a bad time for "game tech" and also with so many years from the first had much more expectations.

bottom line is my pre-order won't be cancelled.



game hypothesis------

so will you become Flemeth's champion that will battle the grey warden's god
child? is bioware looking for writing material from jerry springer reruns?

Just finished the demo as a mage. Didn't particularly like it. Major complaints:

- Mass Effect dialog wheel aped/inserted into Dragon Age, creating the Dragon Effect. Dialog options are imprecise and don't fully detail what will be said, making the character feel much less like your own. Shortened responses and lack of text feedback is highly noticeable to the detriment of the demo.

- Combat is definitely faster and feels as others have said, over the top. It's rather easy to be lulled into the speed of activity and simply let things happen.
For the most part, it seemed to play itself with only one or two fights (notably the last Ogre/darkspawn one) requiring any real degree of thought. I found very little need to think tactically and you could easily argue that the demo doesn't offer a great deal of motivation for doing so.

- The lack of a tactical view (which I liked from DA:O) sometimes makes the camera view manipulation a tad frustrating. I got used to it I suppose, but it wasn't especially pleasant.

- I also couldn't find the 'select all' button for an option that is usually easy to spot in Bioware games and needed to be told via a loading text that a shortcut was CTRL+A.

- Awkward silences amid painful, hammy dialog which the cinematic approach fails to conceal. I guess it's possible that the content won't be the same in the full game, but this general feeling of a hollowness in the writing was strong to me.

It's clear what the market demographic is and unfortunately those of us seeking a refinement of the Baldur's Gate experience will have to look elsewhere.
This will be a bargain bin purchase for me.

Cheers

P.S: How many others reacted to seeing Flemeth with "Hey, aren't you meant to be dead?" (I know, easily rationalised/explained..)