Dragon Age 2 - The Making Of Video, Part 1

Interesting info there and new small little gameplay video…

Not really surprised by learning that DA2 design start in early 2009, almost 1 year before DA:O was released. This mean most of the changes were already planned well before people got to play DA:O.

small edit:
DA:O was supposed to release in March 2009 for the PC, but they pushed it back to have a simultaneous release in October 2009 (and later November) with the xbox. Hence my comment about early 2009.
 
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I wish it were their "most reactionary game ever" instead. Rebelling against all the current trends in PC gaming and forcefully turning back the clock to show these kids what a CRPG is supposed to be.
 
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To sum up:
- the original gameplay was a design error
- the main target is consoles
- it's going to be more violent than fist of the north star! rrraaaaahhhh!!!!!
 
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"..something that would work as well on the consoles as it did on the pc"

"..kept what was good about Origins and shaved off the edges and made something really unique"

"hard to communicate how much this game still feels like Origins - yet feeling completely different."

Just some quotes that stuck out. It's puzzling how they seem to lament the gameplay of Origins, yet moments earlier theyre throwing all their awards in our faces. How do they think they won all those awards, the brilliant story? The thousand books that everyone quit reading halfway thru the game? Well, if that's the case then going the all-action route is the wrong idea.

You sold a zillion copies because people were looking for the spiritual successor to the infinity engine games, namely Baldur's Gate. The edges youre now "shaving off" as you so eloquently put it, to make another console beat-em-up..

I see they still have the ridiculous blood splattered all over the characters during cutscenes as well. You'd think that with all this attention to graphical detail they could do a "wiping off" animation or something, so you dont have people covered in blood having a pleasant conversation like a couple absolute psychos who just got done murdering a family of four.

I hope the console market treats them well, because I dont think theyre going to get the same success on the PC this time around.
Who am I kidding… i hope it's the biggest flop ever
 
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I hate these guys. Seriously hate them.

"If you're telling a dark fantasy story, you don't want combat to feel like you're playing a chess game."

If I want to watch LOTR, I'll watch LOTR. If I want to PLAY A GAME!!! I want to be engaged with the combat. If not I'll get bored and move onto something that is better. When I say engaged I mean more than holding down the left mouse button and hitting the "awesome" button.

"So that seem to be the reviews……if there was anyway to take the 'rpg concepts' and move it forward"

The console reviews maybe had issues with the gameplay.

Forget Dragon Age 2. I almost never have passed on a RPG game that looked interesting no matter how bad the reviews were (unless the reviews were from here or some opinions from here), but this……..

The thing that gets me is that they pushed all the right buttons last time in their PR. Yes, I know it was stupid with "The new shit" stuff, but the core message was everything I wanted to hear from an RPG. This time they are pushing exactly all the wrong buttons. "RPG concepts" "moving it forward" and hardly even mentioning anything for the PC. They got their hit game and now they want even more money so they're focusing on the console.

Good move business wise, but shut up about it being "just as good on the consoles as on the PC". Just say you are focusing on the console for this game. Have some backbone for a change.
 
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Hm. The only reviews I recall for DA:O were all 8 or 9 out of 10 and very complimentary. I'm actually replaying DA:O now with another origin story - I still have issues the the basic skill system, but combat is pretty fluid and it can mostly run itself because of tactics. I really fail to see why they think it was so terrible. Unfortuantely, I think they will do well enough on just console sales that they can safely ignore any dissenting voices from the PC community. And by the time DA3 comes around, all pretense at pandering to the PC markey will have vanished.
 
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I hate these guys. Seriously hate them.

"If you're telling a dark fantasy, you don't want combat to feel like your playing a chess game."

Dark Fantasy = Blizzard Action-RPGs ???

To me, this sounds exactly like that.

"..kept what was good about Origins and shaved off the edges and made something really unique"

Oh, no ! I think they've misunderstood something entirely.

Something uniue (not awesome, but unique !) can only be achievbed WITH all of the edges !

A good artistic thing must disturb people - either positively or negatively - in order to be remembered ! Imho.

Here in Cologne, we have the so-called "Originals". Which were people who were so weird and had particular habits everyone knew them, in the past. They are the incarnations o "wedges", yet everyone knows some. There are even a few monuments for them, because they are still so well known within the public, even after a hundred years or so.

Or let's take the original Nasreddin, for example : He is ull of wedges - and he is able to disturb people in a positive way.

No, no, no, polishing things too much leads - in my opinion - into forgetting. It is the wedges that are remembered, in my opinion.
 
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- it's going to be more violent than fist of the north star! rrraaaaahhhh!!!!!
I chuckled.

I remember how right before the release of DA:O the game suddenly became less interesting because of that "SEX AND VIOLENCE WHEE!" marketing move, but the game turned out to be a lot more than that in the end. Since I'm not *that much* interested in most games nowadays to need to follow every newsbit, I think I'll probably ignore a lot of the previews just to spare myself these frustrations of "damn, they're going to change this and that". I don't even expect Bioware to make a "Baldur's Gate spiritual successor" game anymore. Ever. I'll just wait for the release of whatever they're working on, and if it's a good and interesting game, I'll probably buy it - whatever they might call the genre at the time.
 
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Does anyone really know the reason why they are changing the combat system ??? What exactly did Bioware say the reason was because it wasnt bad , very manageable . I cant begin to tell you how frustrating this is to watch. a good game company that was great at story telling and creating a deep gaming experience has completely turned its back on the PC and more importantly its FANS and this is happening to the PC all the time .Bioware is fuking with my favorite pass time. Forget about anything else the PRs say THIS GAME IS FOR CONSOLES AND YOUNGER KIDS AGES 12 . God i hate consoles!!! Im done with DA2 . I will not waste my time with it, i wont support this disassembling of RPGs FROM RPG experts . wont type another word about DA2 .I hope the console owners get bored with Da2 in the first 20 min. Not enough blood, to many words, no action ,to confusing !!! WTF
 
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Does anyone really know the reason why they are changing the combat system ??? What exactly did Bioware say the reason was because it wasnt bad , very manageable.
They want a game that's sellable on consoles. That means they cannot reuse the old engine and need to rewrite the game. The old game took years to complete and this game will have a much shorter development time. Hence all the bullshit excuses in the video. And, it also looks like the good designer/writers of the old game moved on. :)
 
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I think I played 4 RPGs that year. Oblivion (got it late), DA, Fallout 3 and Fable 2 and DA was my favorite by far. I really liked it.

It had great interaction between characters, great plot/story, nice graphics, decent combat tho magic was to powerful and a nice new universe to learn. It was linear instead of a sandpit game but I didn't mind. It was nice to have a clear and direct goal to work towards.

I'm even gonna buy the 360 version instead of the computer version (mostly because my laptop is getting oldish and I don't consider playing new games a good reason to buy another).

Anyway, I'm excited about DA 2. Its the only game I know for sure that I will be buying next year so far.
 
That was just sad.

Trim the edges… like getting rid of all the end states and making a linear game. Like getting rid of the smart combat and using something twitch based. That's core gameplay, not 'edges'!

I've been willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt. After all, they just had a megahit. The corporate "if it ain't broke…" rule should be in effect, right? Guess not.

(Then again… if it gives me an excuse to touch my Awesome Button…. ;))

Edit: You're right, Toff, new games are not a good reason to buy a laptop. Laptops are pretty weak at games. New games are a good reason to buy a new desktop!
 
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I've gone total portable. I'll never buy another desktop again. Not that I think desktops are bad (they are superior for games) but i greatly prefer portability.

I couldn't live without my smartphone and can't wait to grab a nice tablet in '11.
 
I've gone total portable. I'll never buy another desktop again. Not that I think desktops are bad (they are superior for games) but i greatly prefer portability.

I couldn't live without my smartphone and can't wait to grab a nice tablet in '11.
Then I assume this message comes from your shiny new iPhone? ;)
 
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A lot of the people who bought DA:O did so because it was named the 'spiritual succesor' to one of the greatest RPGs ever. I bet a big part of that group won't be as interested when they see that the succesor to the 'spiritual succesor' of BG is an RPG-lite.
Then again, losing a part of this group won't be bad for them business wise. The game will be cheaper to make, and it will attract alot of new people who enjoyed games such as Fable. It's probably gonna be alot more profitable than DA:O.
With the game being alot shorter and cheaper to make etc, they're probably gonna push out a lot of DLC in order to "keep fans busy" or w/e. There will probably even be some DLC on the first day…

It's probably not a coincidence that they have set such an early deadline on the signature edition, if you want the signature edition you'll have to order it before they've even shown any gameplay footage etc. I think it's kind off obvious they don't want to scare certain people away by showing off an RPG-lite…

They say they'll still have tactical combat. But what's the point of even using this when just pressing the 'awesome-button' will be way more than sufficient? Like in ME2, the so called "tactical-combat" was never needed, even on Insane, because the realtime combat rarely gave you any problems.

I'm most likely going to buy it, but that's only because there's such a small selection of games that arguably can be called RPGs nowadays…
 
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...It's probably not a coincidence that they have set such an early deadline on the signature edition, if you want the signature edition you'll have to order it before they've even shown any gameplay footage etc. I think it's kind off obvious they don't want to scare certain people away by showing off an RPG-lite…

There will be gameplay videos released before the end of the year. See the other news about the embargo on the gaming press until the 20th.

And I have seen gameplay footage of the game on the xbox and it look just like DA:O, except for the console UI (I played on the PC, no idea what the DA:O UI looked like on the console), faster combat speed (no faster than playing DA:O on easy) and the new animations.

Also, I wouldn't call DA2 RPG-lite, before playing it... But then, nobody seems to be able to agree on the definition of RPG anyway.
 
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RPG - a game where a large portion of the fun comes from taking on the role of another person - either one designed by the player or the game developers or some combo of both.

Anyone who tells you otherwise isn't me. ;)
 
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