Poll: How much is Dragon Age 2 worth?
 

I am curious about Dragon Age 2, but am not entirely sure when to buy it. So here is a poll for those who played the game. What is the price that justifies the purchase?

Maybe if you were paid $1000 to play it……

Oops. Forgot to add a "don't buy it" option. Feel free to post if you think this game is worth nothing.

At half price, it's well worth it in my opinion. It's mainly considered bad because it's compared to Origins, which was fantastic, not because it's a rubbish game.

I'll say only that DA2, no matter what others say, is not a bad game, not at all.
It's definetly not a masterpiece nor classic. But it's good enough to have fun with it.
Buy it.
Maybe the best suggestion here is to wait a bit more till a gold/diamond/platinum/whatever edition is released that'll include all DLC.

P.S. I'm not being payed by Bioware like those metacritic trolls that give 10 to FA2 and 0 to TW2. I just can't say DA2 is a bad game. That'd be a lie.

I paid full price and enjoyed it. So, yeah. Full price for me.

I'm waiting for the Platinum edition, but that is mostly because I find it tedious to buy DLC one at a time. I enjoyed the demo well enough, and would have bought the game already if I knew it was "finished"…

Do the world of gamers a favor and skip this one. No need in supporting EAs effort to churn out games with 1 year development cycle.

Half price!
I'm not going to say there's no redeeming qualities, it can be a fun game at times. Just not at over 20.oo imo ='.'=

I might buy the GotY edition (lol) if the remaining DLC are worth a damn and not just item pack filler.

In its current state, $20, and only if there's nothing else to play.

What does this mean ? "10 US$ off" ?

Waiting for the special edition (and the price going with it, around 25€) is the best monetary option.

Full price minus 10 US$.

Considering it didn't give me half the play time that the first game did - I'd pay what I paid for Mass Effect. About $20 AU.

It was worth the $30 or I spent on it, when I did - thanks, Origin. :)

Still, it's nowhere as great as DAO.

I got it for about 15 Euros which is relatively cheap for a one year old game. It was definitely worth that price. Given that I would rate DA2 as a strong B game I chose 10 dollars off as an appropriate price point.

Hmm, that might compensate you for the disappointment and depression you're likely to feel afterwards…

Hmmm, if I couldn't stomach DAO because of all the companions, would DA2 turn me off even more? I'm kind of a single-character player unless the game is turn-based.

playing a game where someone named Anders commits a terrorist act and "bombing" innocents make this lakeluster game lower in value even more--voted half.

Oh please, how ridiculous.

15$ tops now that I've beaten it. Finishing it was a chore!

what's riduculous? the fact that I played the game as a female mage and as such sympathized with anders and his plight. despite what happens in the game i stuck with him even though i had zero respect for him as i didn't like the alternatives i was left with. this left the game on a bad enough note.

in reality when something similar occurs with someone trying to convey a message through death and distruction doesn't become relative to you in anything real or not that you do i feel sorry for your lack of empathy and understanding if that is the case. if not no worries. also the fact that his name is anders is simply icing on the cake and wouldn't change the fact that because of what's happening in reality i wouldn't want to roleplay the scenario again anytime soon.

I apologize. I dont know really who you are and how you take these things.

To me, as I'm scanning thru the threads and see this I think "f^$%$ get over it! it's a game". If the game depicted Chantry twin towers going down a week after 9/11, and someone was saying that it bothered them - I'd say the same thing. It's a game, with dwarves, wizards, magic, incomprehensible evil, all that. "Innocent" little video game sprites dying is just par for the course in the world of high fantasy. There is just no way that I could be offended by a video game, personally. I cant get that emotionally invested in it, certainly not enough to let it bother me. That's just me tho, i dont truly know you or your situation..

So again, I'm sorry if I offended you w/ my off the cuff remark. That is not the atmosphere i wish to perpetuate on this site.

I will however stick to my turnips when it comes to saying that finishing DA2 was a chore!

If not to immerse yourself in the story, atmosphere, gameworld and social construct of a "roleplaying" game, then why do we even bother calling them "roleplaying " games?

I had quite a similar reaction to Curious. I like some degree of escapism in my games, but as far as DA2 was concerned, not only did that aspect not work for me, but gameplay was also dumbed down and "streamlined" from the cool magic and combat systems you had in DA:O.

Once again the fast-twitch people will disagree with me here, though, I realize this in advance. There are many who like the DA2 system more because there's less skills to choose from, and you can mash those buttons faster. ;)

Where's the "you'd have to pay me to play it"-option?

Got it in that Dragon Age Complete bundle Steam offered, which included Dragon Age with all DLCs and Awakening as well as Dragon Age II for less than 40 Euros.

Awakening is great. Just more DA:O goodness with the pretty cool "managing the keep" decisions that reminded me of my beloved NWN2. I played some of the DLCs, which were nice but nothing special.

DA II feels quite shallow so far, as the gameplay has been reduced substantially. The only gameplay change I really like is the character system with the skill trees. The storytelling is confusing at times, and as soon as you start to vary in the tone of your dialogue responses Hawke starts sounding extremely bipolar. I am happy to say that my low expectations were not disappointed and that I find the game to be quite entertaining so far. It will be interesting to see whether the game will manage to keep me motivated until the end.

If only the game was actually more like the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and not the devolution of that fine series - we'd be able to kill the self-righteous scumbag before he can commit the act! :lol:

Does anyone else feel that having Hawke voiced makes him feel more bipolar than if he'd say the same stuff using text only? :p Bipolar good-evil stuff isnt news in the genre…

I actually found character building an improvement over DAO. The completely linear skill "trees" of the first game was one of the weaker points of the first game. The non-combat skills that were removed didnt do much for me either.

The one real option that was removed was to make a dual-wielding or archer type warrior, but that is not a build that I normally would go for anyway.

And I am the opposite of a fast twitch button masher:p

Shepard never felt bipolar. I guess the trick is to make the lines sound like different sides of one character. You might end up with a more narrow range of character expression, but at least you can make the occasional joke without feeling that someone suddenly hit the player character on the head. Seriously, the "Joke" option, at least in case of the female Hawke, sounds almost like another character.

They should have paid me to play it…it took 4 days…and it was a chore…because it was so boring with copy and paste dungens…and a plot my 8 year thought was dumb…

Now i have read a few more of the posts…
There was a guy named hawk…
He wasn't much of a hero…
His father died…
His brother died
His sister no matter what your choice is taken or killed
His mother gets raped and killed…
He makes lots of money doing this an buys a house
Every dungen..wait there really isn't any are cut and pasted
The dark roads are a waste of time…
If you play on hard the dragon at the pits takes over an hour to kill….and is boring running around to hea; yourself….
Random people show up in the same places to kill…just when you think you have them all 50 more show up ….
There is no story to it…a dead person with a rock as the head of the story and programing team could have did a better job…
I know DA1 wasn't perfect..but at least it was a game…

Well, I can agree on one point, I suppose - that restricting skills to classes in DA2 made those classes more.. "true"?
Unfortunately for me, though, I'm one of those hybrid bunnies who like mixing up my classes if I possibly can - I like playing a mage with some warrior skills and a touch of rogue if the game allows it, so in that sense DA:O was totally up my street; I used 2 mages in my party at all times and my main was a dual-wielding warrior. (..erm, I can enjoy a bit of button-mashing when it looks spectacular, in limited doses… :biggrin: :blush: )

I was more talking about my involvement with the story and characters, though - I felt pretty betrayed that a character that I had invested in, could have acted the way he did, especially since in Awakening one kind of gets the sense that Anders is a good guy.

Also, I was playing a mage in DA2 (since no more dual-wielding fun for warriors :P ), so I didn't enjoy the idea of mages being the "bad guys" right through, and it also felt pretty anti-immersive that all other mages in the gameworld were kept in chains (so to speak) throughout the game, yet I and the mages in my party were given the run of the town. The game didn't have strong enough reasons IMO to make us (who were also mages) exceptions to the rule and give us the freedom to do what we liked.

I mean, a lot of the quests were to do with turning in mages who were trying to run free, and you could never just give them a chance, or they would reveal that they gave in to practicing blood-magic. *Yawn*
Even you own companion mages, all of them..- so how come I'm the only damn mage in the entire game who didn't practice blood magic? It just didn't feel consistent to me- especially since this wasn't the picture you got of mages in Origins.

@RivianWitch - and the fact that you could boldly use blood magic around people during combat, and no one batted an eyelid ;-) Yup - immersion/believeability was sorely lacking in DA2. It is now safely stashed in my cupboard!

Heheh - true…- here the game has you killing other mages because they are so BAD using blood magic, yet you yourself had the options to use it with zero penalties being imposed for doing so yourself. In fact I only chose not to use it because I didn't like the loss of health it required.

But you're quite right- there were no moral consequences or other social or punitive measures taken against yourself should you choose to use blood magic, yet you had to exterminate every other mage in the game for doing the same… ummm… that boggles my mind more than the makers of the show Dexter do when I realize they managed to make me root for a serial killer. :thinking: x_x :P

Oh I thought that particular aspect of character building was worse objectively, but irrelevant to me personally. Otherwise I found that character building was better than in DAO, where you dont really have the options to give mages many warrior and rogue skills regardless. :) I guess I misunderstood you since I thought of "character building" as the pure technical aspect of building up character skills.

This I pretty much agree with. I didnt really find the story and companions that bad, but since it seemed like everyone was doing blood magic and my first instinct was to RP that blood magic is nasty crap I found that it was impossible to side with mages most of the time.

I think BWs explanation is that the Kirkwall circle is under ridiculous pressure that makes the mages take drastic measures, but their presentation and writing skills arent quite up to presenting this desperate situation well.

And it makes zero sense that Anders can stay off the radar for so long. If it was enough to move to the ass end of town in order to avoid templars then one would expect a whole cabal of mages in Darktown…

EDIT: On a related note it also makes zero sense for my fighter to have access to berserker and reaver specialisations (templar made some sense). They should have tied those specialisations to quests or NPCs as in DAO.

I'll probably buy it when the 'gold box' (i.e. with all the DLC) is $10 in Steam or similar site

Oh, I can now vote on my own poll! My answer: 10 bucks.

I find the "bipolar" label on Shepherd fitting.

In the past, dialogue have been context-based. This means that the dialogue you engage in is made up with elements drawn from the context in which the dialogue takes place. This means within the physical environment that the dialogue takes place, the relationship with the NPC you speak to, the events in the world around you etc.

Individuals react differently to different contexts. They may react differently to specific ideas, to specific behavior, to specific events. Such distinct reactionions may be empowered by emotions so that an individual occasionally overracts to that specific element while the person is normally calm. However, a persons persona is normally not part of a dialogue. Much of a time an adventure asks NPC's they are doing inquiry in which drawing out information is the task. At that point the persona usually rests, as it keeps focused/interested on the information. Such inquiry offers little chance to flash ones persona.

The dialogue-wheel made dialogue persona-based in which the developers had to produce two distinct personas that were consistent regardless of context. To be distinct enough they are often pushed to the extreme. They also had to make sure that there were almost always an option to use this persona-driven option by rewarding points to it, so your persona was more frequently pushed forth than what's normal in other games.

If you begin to swap between the two, Shepherd begin to sound very bipolar, skipping between two extremes.

Interesting thought.

Yes, this matches my own perception quite good.

Here is how Dragon Age 2 dialog works:

Option 1

Hawke: We need help.
Flemeth: Okay, I'll help you.

Option 2

Hawke: You're a bitch!
Flemeth: Okay, I'll help you.

Option 3

Hawke: Dragon's are cool!
Flementh: Okay, I'll help you.