Dragon Age - Rage of Mages
 

Gamespot has a detailed preview of the Mage class for DAO with an excellent outline of the various spell groups avaailable. Here's a taste:
The four additional talent trees for mages are primal (elemental damage spells); creation (healing and protective magics); spirit (which focuses on countermagics and controlling enchantments); and entropy (which focuses on hindering magics). Primal, for instance, includes four different talent lines for fire, ice, lightning, and earth, each of which has four levels of abilities, including the classic fireball, lightning bolt, and cone-of-cold spells you may remember from BioWare's previous Dungeons & Dragons-based games. However, the primal talent group also includes certain spell abilities with combinatorial effects. For instance, the most powerful talent in the earth line, petrify, briefly turns an enemy to stone and makes that enemy vulnerable to instant death by shattering if attacked with a concussive spell, such as the earth line's stonefist spell. As it turns out, certain spells from the ice talent line can also freeze enemies solid, rendering them similarly vulnerable to being shattered. The primal line also contains two different weapon enhancements for all characters in your party; the fire line causes weapons to deal fire-based damage; and the ice line causes weapons to deal cold-based damage. The remaining spells in the primal talent lines are generally powerful damage-dealers with large radii that can also damage your teammates if they get in the line of fire. Careful micromanagement (or combinatorial strategies, discussed later) is crucial in using these talents, lest you blast your own party to smithereens.
Thanks Leth for the headsup
More information.

Reading these kinds of articles is what gets me salivating for this game. Finding all the spell combos should be great fun. I love the idea that sleep + horror = nightmares, and that frost spells cancel out fire spells etc. It almost seems emergent, at the very least it should give the combat a sort of simulationist feel. It's great that they've thought about you might reasonably expect different effects to interact, and implemented it. I do wonder how extensive the interactions are, hopefully it's not just a handful.

I wonder if it will be viable to have my main tank focus on 2 handers now. Maybe he can switch, use a 2 hander for trash and a sheild for bosses. Or maybe I can switch characters in and out, set up a boss fight team and a trash fight team.

If the combat is as fun and engrossing as it sounds, then I can see this game having huge replay value. Play a different type of character, different origin, try different choices, and use different strats. Fun fun fun.

This sounds very interesting. I didn't read the article, because I don't want to spoil the fun of discovering it on my own.

I'm hoping it's not about linear specialisation - ala Dungeon Siege 2 - because that makes character building all too predictable.

all this comparison with bg, but why?
they try to develop something that's no longer tied to a well-designed complete world like that of d&d, but then every comment they make is a comparison with it?
that was poor, we make it better.
that other was cool, we make it similar.
the're still hanging from that branch, and cannot really take their own path.
it sounds like the guys who made lands of lore after getting tired of eye of the beholder.
eob still kind of beats the crap out of lol. (although both are enjoyable)
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Jolite Vaporizer Manual

There's some new screens with this article.
Flying vegetation for the win! Detached grass in the background.

Not the first DA screenshot I've seen that contains floating stuff. Coupled with weapons on te back clipping with some armors.. :/


Baron, that's totally true. On their forums, they kept repeating how bad D&D is in this and that and bla bla bla, especially this guy who worked on the ruleset (George Zoeller). And it's kinda super stupid to say things like that since they are what they are thanks to D&D… and now they spit on the plate they were eating from.

D&D (4th edition not included) is one of the richest and most entertaining RPG systems in existence, and if I was responsible for Mass Effect, I'd be VERY careful criticising ANY RPG system, let alone the grandfather of them all.

I almost always play warrior-type characters in RPGs, but the possibilities here are tempting, very tempting!

@Tan: Why do you even care any more after having dissed the game in a hundred different ways?

Is it me, or do mages sound very overpowered? I suspect they'll start out slow, and become increasingly more powerful near the end of the game (as usual).

It's also very possible that backstabbing Rogues and two-hander swinging Warriors will put out a lot of hurt as well.

Why do you care why I care?

@Tan, it is a bit curious. I find it hard to understand why someone would spend as much time and effort as you do on a game -- and a studio -- that you appear to dislike very strongly. Why *do* you bother?

I think his favourite game of all time is probably BG or some such, and he is very dissapointed by the games Bioware are doing now, if this is indeed the case I could understnad it…. what he wants is they would make a game like his favourite again…. this is just my theory of course… to achieve this he complains as much as he could if they focus on other things…

That would explain it, in which case I can only fault his poor taste… ;)

Time and effort? Posting a few lines here and there? I'd call effort reading a 400-pages-long book you apparently disliked till the very end and then writing a few pages long review.

I like the concept of party based fantasy rpgs so this is the only rpg that I'm currently interested in. And since this is a site called RPGwatch - I'm discussing about an rpg that I want to discuss about… focusing on things I believe are flaws of said rpg. Was it that hard to grasp in the first place?

GothicGothicness, not exactly. I don't bash them for their recent games (which I have played none except NWN and BG which are not recent). I bash them because I dislike them as a company. Self-righteous, arrogant, obnoxious..

So acctually you keep bashing the only game you are currently interested in? If everyone would bash the game they are so inetressed in with such a passion… I guess the game would never be finished :P

You do give the impression of being very au fait of what's going on with DA — the CV's of the people involved, the shenanigans at the BioWare forums, user interface details, details of game mechanics, and so on. You certainly know way more about all that than I do, and I am actually interested in playing the damn thing.

The book was quick reading; it took me about two or three sittings to read it — and, as I said in the review, it wasn't actually a chore. If I had hated reading it, I would've stopped.

Okay, that would explain it. Thanks for the clarification. That must kinda suck, though.

Yes, that's because I started following the game almost 3 years ago. And when you follow it you slowly get more informations so you see what's shit and what's not. Of course, shit bothers you more so you talk about it more.. if nothing else - to vent.

About the book - you ridiculed it though. ;) It was a funny and well written review, anyway.



It does. I'd be more happy if for example Obsidian did a non-linear high-budget fantasy rpg, I think..
Who knows, maybe I'll enjoy DA more than I think if I will be able to disregard all the little flaws I see along the way.

Or, alternatively, you lose interest and walk away. That's what happens to most people most of the time, anyway.

Well, it was a somewhat ridiculous book, especially in the way it took itself so terribly seriously -- but that doesn't mean reading it was a chore. And I *am* interested in playing DA, and expect to rather like it, cliché and all.

Ever consider exploring ways to expand your tastes? Might give you other things to look forward to.

Prima Junta

It's about caring about the industry and what's wrong with it - from our perspective. It's not about some kind of hidden agenda against someone, and you can have a problem with something like this without having mental disorders or whatever it might seem like to those who shrug off this direction.

Though I've long since given up on the industry, I can still catch myself making an effort to lament what's wrong - and detail why.

I don't necessarily agree with Tan, but I can sympathise easily - and some os us aren't happy about the changes that's been happening - and maybe it's because we're more deeply invested in our hobby than others seem to be.

You don't simply "expand your tastes" if you've spent a lifetime investing in them, and discovering what you love to do and what your preferences are. It's not incidental or trivial to some of us, and we might even have a long history that makes us who we are, and makes us unable to "adapt" to the modern industry because we simply don't believe it's the best thing for it.

What was the old prayer again?

"Lord, give me the courage to change what I can, the strength to endure what I can't, and the wisdom to know which is which."

Gaming has become a mainstream hobby. The same thing happened to films. There won't be high-budget magnificently experimental stuff like Metropolis again — but there's a burgeoning art-house film industry going on underneath. If you miss the good old days of cRPGing, that's where you should be looking IMO — BioWare and big-budget houses have gone the way of Hollywood.

Thing is, IMO this is not a bad thing. The world needs both big-budget box-office mega-hits, and small-budget, artistically ambitious, challenging art-house films. The same goes for games. IMO it's a bit of a waste of effort to bitch at big, successful studios doing big, mass-market projects. It'd be sort of like ranting at Peter Jackson for not making Meet the Feebles or Forgotten Silver anymore, now that he's made it big with The Lord of the Rings.

The thing is that you see the positive side of it, and I see the negative side of it.

I don't think any of us are necessarily right or wrong - we're just different.

As long as I don't believe that the business angle of approach to game design is the best one, I will speak against it when I see it happening to the detriment of the game experience.

Does this mean it would be better business to care about game design before revenue? Of course not.

The thing is, I don't give a shit about business. That doesn't make me blind to how things work, and I'm 100% fully aware that I can't change anything - so maybe you could argue it's wasted energy.

But I believe in my position, so I will keep it.

This Christian notion of enduring what I can't change is not for me. I know one thing, though, and that is that nothing is ever going to change if we all simply endure. Whether I make a difference or not, isn't really a concern I'm going to bother with.

Then why is BioWare even on your radar? They, and Black Isle, and Troika, and Obsidian, etc. etc., all had business models and wanted to, or did, or do, run commercially viable enterprises.

Tan and DAr, I have solution for you guys go to the Tactica: Maiden of faith forum here at RPGWatch :D :D :D You can have two games to look forward to Tan ( that is if you like party based CRPG's ) and I think it might right some things which you consider broken DAr…… gawd that made me feel a little like a certain Fable Peter…. better be careful about what I say :P

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

You can't create this kind of game without money, and it's a balancing act.

Lord of the Rings is an example of a near-perfect balancing act, though I could write several pages of what's wrong with it, and what mass market appeal decisions were made to keep it commercially viable.

You must understand that my problem is at the very core of what's wrong, and the gaming industry is just one example and the issue is huge.

It just happens to be about games, and I do so love games.

Bioware is on my radar because there was a beep on it in the shape of a forum thread.

Those others you mention could just as well be there, and will be as soon as a thread about them is started.

I don't blame Bioware for focusing on money, I just don't like what it does to the game design. I think there's a middle-road and I think it's become invisible to most AAA developers, because they're caught in the race.

You don't seem to mind what it does, so that's nice for you. But note that I don't question that, I just acknowledge that we're different people with different ideas of what's beneficial and what's not.

Okay, then I must be misunderstanding you. I thought you were against the commercial motive in making games. I'm saying that the size of your budget determines the constraints under which you're operating, unless you have a rich sponsor. With a small budget, you need to please fewer people, which means you have more creative freedom; with a big budget, you need to please more people, which means you have to take more of their tastes into their account.

You think? I thought it was an OK adaptation of the books, but fell short in many, many ways. In particular, one of Tolkien's most central and most important themes entirely fell by the wayside: the tragedy of the Elves.

That's it exactly -- I haven't managed to figure out exactly what you believe is the thing that's wrong, with the gaming industry or in general. Sometimes you say something that sounds like you'd love some kind of Communist system where the profit motive was completely absent and people did things out of pure passion or altruism; other times (such as at the beginning of the post I'm replying to) you cheerfully admit that the profit motive is a necessary element of most things and it's all a matter of balancing creative integrity against economic reality.

Help me out here, DA -- I would honestly like to understand what you think. It's just that either I'm really bad at understanding or you're really bad at explaining, or perhaps a combination of the two.

Oh, there are a whole bunch of things I think BioWare could do without compromising its business model. Hiring better writers, for one thing, so their characters wouldn't be paper-thin, their plots clichéd, and their dialog wooden. However, I do get the impression -- and, mind you, this is just an impression since I don't actually understand what it is you're saying -- that we differ as to the depth of the problem.

From where I'm at, BioWare has a pretty clear mission in mind, and it's been hammering at that mission with great determination to succeed in it. That mission is to be commercially successful at making blockbuster cRPG's, with creative risks and artistic ambitions taking a backseat. Second, I kinda agree with them that if you want to make blockbusters, that's a compromise you're going to have to make -- unless you're working in the USSR and have sponsors high up in the food chain, like Tarkovsky and Solyaris (which, FWIW, I thought was a steaming pile of pooh).

So IMO BioWare's failures are mostly superficial, small things; it isn't, doesn't want to be, and can't be an art-house studio making creatively ambitious, risky projects for niche audiences.

That is a near perfect summary of how I felt as well. The only people who believe the LotR movies were great were those that never read the books.

I don't know what happens to most people most of the time if they're still more interested in the game than not..



You can't "expand tastes" just like that, whatever that means, as DArtagnan has nicely explained.

As interesting as this discussion is, we should probably just make a BioWare topic instead of derailing every single thread about Mass Effect 1/2 or Dragon Age: Origins.

This thread was originally about the mage class in Dragon Age, in case anyone forgot.

That's actually a very good idea, in fact, I'm surprised no one has done it already.

You can, actually. It's not even difficult if you try it. All it means is trying different things, trying to take them at their own merits, and then deciding what you think of them. Games, broccoli, opera, French movies -- it's all the same thing; you can teach yourself to like almost anything if you put your mind to it.

That's simply not true PJ, I tried to like broccoli all my life since it should have a lot of nutrition but no matter how much I tell myself it is delicious and good for my health…. I am in the throwing up stage every time, the same goes for mackarel in tomatoe……………

We're talking about games here. Sorry, I don't think I'd enjoy "barbie goes to ponyland" rpg even if I tried hard. It's not like I only played party based rpgs in my life. I played many games and my tastes have been formed. You might need to experiment some more, I don't.

*Almost* anything, GG.

I used to feel like that about beetroot, btw, but nowadays I love it. (That's not how I went about learning to like it, though.)

It was just a suggestion, Tan. You seem very unhappy about the situation, and I was thinking of things you could do that would make you less unhappy: play the same old games over and over again, or find some other hobby, or try to learn to like what's out there. IMO all of these are better than obsessing about what does get made and then ranting about how UNFAIR it all is -- that just makes you even more bilious than before.

(There's always rolling your own, of course, but that's a very different kind of enjoyment than playing a game someone else has made.)

Why do you always have to include something insulting? That's not genuine suggestions you're giving, smartass, you want to start a fight. My life doesn't revolve around DA, Prime Junta, I have other interests as well.
And I don't know where the word "UNFAIR" comes from, since I don't remember ever saying anything related to biowhore or DA is unfair - stupid, idiotic, superfluous, yes - but unfair not. I'm merely pointing out things I dislike. Gee.

I apologize. It's a bad habit I have, and one I'm trying to get rid of.

Also, I don't want to start a fight with you, and since it's clear that this discussion is headed that way, I hereby respectfully bow out of it.

It's ok. :)

Try broccoli with melted cheese. Not as good for you, but makes it bearable. ;)

Just got home from work… :)

Wow, this looks like it could be quite exhausting. I'm more than willing to explain my position - but it should be in a more appropriate thread.

If someone cares enough, I'll pop in ;)

Ahhh man, I missed the fun. Someone was finally calling Tan out for only posting in DA/BG threads and I missed it. DAMN!!!

It is a little weird that DA is the focus of Tan's obsession, but if that is his only interest then good for Tan. He has about the same stamina as Wesp. Except in a "omg what did they do now?" sorta way. Maybe he can fix anything they broke like Wesp does with Bloodlines.

BTW that wasn't sarcasm, I'm being totally honest here. You seem to have quite the obsession with these two games. Why not use it for a force for good? Instead of making threads like that "R" one you made awhile ago. Who has that kind of dedication? Not I. You actually went through all that research for something as trivial as how many times they used the letter R.