Re: Dragon Age
 

Well, I kinda lost my love at the same time they started to speak a load of nonsense which always turns out to be not true, or not valid cause EA overrules them. Mass Effect had me in gripes witht he DRM scheme, and after many debates and BW claiming to be "oh so understanding" they just shut every discussion down and goes ahead with the activation crap anyway. Most of the other games around with activations today have received - or comes from start with - a de-activation program to save your activation.
Now, I echo Ziroc's feeling regarding activations and stronghanded DRM- and I don't see it do anything it is claimed to do - sto piracy. The only thing it do well is to stop second hand market - annoy paying consumers and show who is and who is not a fanboi. ;)

BW has since NWN not realeased a really good game IMO, I didn't like Jade Empire and didn't loose my pants in excitment over KOTOR, it was fine, but the game mechanic bored me halfway through the game and I found the comabt to be tedious and rather uninteresting and thats not so good when you have to do combat A LOT! So Bio love? Nope, I am BioWare/EA wary - YES.

Re: Dragon Age
 

No SUCKIEROM or online activation for DA. Good news in PC gaming, here's to making it a rule rather than exception.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...activation.ars

Re: Dragon Age
 

Just read they're making a pen and paper Dragon Age RPG game. Sounds interesting, I may get the core rulebooks.

Re: Dragon Age
 

This game looks absolutely horrible. Yet another in the series of EPIC IMMERSIVE GRAPHICS kind of games which turn out to be empty when you look at the actual game. Yes it will all be there. The typical Biowarian grind, lots of filler combat, simple dialogues without too many choices beyond "yes/no". And to make matters worse, this time they've tried to be more 'mature' and 'gritty'. But these guys wouldn't know those two concepts if it hit them in the face. All it is is just naked women with 'perfect' bodies, some harsh language and a lot of blood. Dagnabbit it takes much more than that to actually be mature. Something like good writing, something like addressing the ambiguity of morality, something about not handholding the player. And certainly not something about showing lots of tits, ass and blood.

Just look at that combat video... That looks freakishly boring. Wait until action cycles through, launch spell, watch how party members go through their boring and jarringly out of place combat animations... One by one the characters will do their attacks but then stand there doing nothing. That just doesn't work with these types of graphics.

Re: Dragon Age
 

I was dissapointed by the video in the castle.

Ah, well - looks like another one bites the dust...

Hopefully Hearts of Iron III will save the year as far as PC games go :hehe:

Re: Dragon Age
 

Uh, what are you taking about, is this a joke? You didn't like Baldur's Gate? You didn't like Neverwinter Nights? How about KOTOR? If you didn't like these games then obviously you won't like this one, but I remember the dialogs in these games to be pretty good, and I didn't see any filler combat and grind.

But yeah I remember all the naked women, harsh language and blood in Baldur's Gate 2. http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/...ons/icon15.gif

Oh wait. You're actually talking about Age or Conan aren't you? It all make sense now; the bad dialogs, the grinding, filer combats, the nudity and all the blood. But JrKASperov. Surely you know Age of Conan wasn't made by Bioware? :P

Re: Dragon Age
 

BG was okay, but not great. Story was pretty good but the choices were as simple as they come. NWN outright sucked outside of multiplayer and KOTOR was mediocre at best. You must have pretty low standards as far as dialogues are concerned, if you consider NWN and KOTOR to be good in that department. Hardly any creativity in those areas in most Bioware games. Same old same old. Also writing =! dialogue.

No fillercombat/grind in NWN and KOTOR? You sure you played those games? Let's take some of many examples:
-NWN: prison district pretty much throws you right into "hey lets kill ANOTHER bunch of those prisoners". Actually, all the districts do this, as well as every "go to this are for 1/4th of this chapter puzzle". Just a bunch of weakling enemies for you to kill until you get to the boss.
-KOTOR: the hordes of Kath hounds on Dantooine anyone? The endless sith in the final level? The seemingly infinite amount of sand people on Tatooine? Now that I think of it, this is another great example of Bioware mediocrity and copy-paste. It had the same "go to one of 4 places to get part of the solution" type of nonsense as NWN.

As far as BG is concerned, that was a game pretty much before Bioware went crappy. Although I can't be too positive about its RPGness. You can play only two characters: the good one and the evil one and both get to kill the bad guy. So lets return to the issue at hand: Bioware NOW. Look at the games they released latest: JE, ME, KOTOR, NWN. As far as I'm concerned, there is a chronological decline in quality, with NWN only saved by the multiplayer.

That's because I really compared previous Bioware games with DA in those departments.. FYI I only complained about these aspects because they are crappy as presented in the previews.

That's funny, you'd almost think Bioware suddenly was trying to copy the success of Conan/the Witcher. Now that I mention it, DA is starting to look more and more like the latter. Except without the moral quandaries and consequences of your actions beyond good/evil. And the good writing.

Re: Dragon Age
 

Anybody know if you can make multi-player mods with the toolset and run them similiar to NWN? Or is the whole game single player only?

Re: Dragon Age
 

AFAIK SP only. Pity, I wanted Co-op gameplay at least.

Re: Dragon Age
 

Then what RPG has good dialogs?

And I wouldn't call going through a couple of small areas 2-3 times on your way through the game to be grinding. In none of these games do you have to stop and spend hours killing the same enemy over and over again just to keep up with the game.

In fact I think off hand these games are the only ones I can think of where you simply play through without stopping to grind levels or items. Which other rpgs do you know of where you never have to stop your progression to amass items and levels before you can proceed?

Re: Dragon Age
 

I was hoping you'd ask me that question. Two simple names which have rocked the foundation of RPG's, and I wish more people would make games by their standards:
Planescape: Torment and Fallout. Sure, you can stop to amass items and levels, but it is not necessary. Both games feature a large amount of optional combat as well, coupled with some of the best dialogues ever written. I can remember lines from Dak'kon and the Master for instance, while KOTOR/NWN/ME etc. leave me dry. BG was okay in this department, Sarevok's lines in the beginning were memorable and of course Jon Irenicus were some of the better dialogues. It is too bad that kind of quality is lacking in the rest of the games mostly. :)

Re: Dragon Age
 

Ahhhh I totally forgot about the DA thread on this forum. For those who don't know yet, the release date is October 20th. System specs are:

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
AMD Phenom II X3 Triple-Core 2.8 GHz or greater
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Re: Dragon Age
 

Sure they are good games, but Planescape had one fixed character and so could take more liberties.

I didn't see anything special in the Master's lines. Nothing that make them stand out any more than those from Balder's Gate II. I can still hear Irenicus voice in my head, and some people still make replays just to hear the characters banter.

Fallout had plenty of random encounters while you travelled the map. And the thugs in Planescape kept respawning for example. How was that any different?

Re: Dragon Age
 

One character in PS:T was necessary for the story. And that character had plenty of customization as 2nd ed. was concerned. Too bad you didn't like the Master's lines, but I suppose you're just saying that for the sake of argument since it is kind of hard to believe: "NORMALS? They brought nuclear death to us all".

Oh gee, a few random encounters that can be avoided with proper skills/running away and thugs that respawn a few times certainly weigh up to the endless hordes you're facing in NWN/KOTOR/ME. Yes you're certainly just saying that and not for the sake of argument. :p

Re: Dragon Age
 

Zero Multi-player. A *HUGE* no-no these days. That's gonna kill some sales for sure. :( Yeah it has a neat editor, but jeez, people wanna play online these days.

It just means DA's life cycle is 6 Months instead of 6 years.
With that aside, It does look kinda cool. We'll see. I'll let ya know when a demo/review copy is sent...

IF they maybe add multi-player with an add-on, I can see DA being the 'true' NWN2 maybe.

Re: Dragon Age
 

I didn't even want MPer in the sense of "log on to server and play with 10 people"....just wanted some co-op, is all.

Re: Dragon Age
 

That aside, I mean, even though the BG Games had online, it wasn't really used much, that I recall. I've been party (pun intended) to a few online BG games, but they were more of a hassle than anything.

Assuming the modding community falls in love as I hope, the lifespan of Dragon Age should be long and healthy. :)

Re: Dragon Age
 

That was in the days some moderate amount of effort was invested in actually making some creative gameplay.

Re: Dragon Age
 

BG MPer may have been buggy and kinda unsupported ( I mean, I do recall them patching some issues with MPer back in the day) but it was in there, at least. Just the fact that they made it possible counted as an added something. I have to agree, some dev's are quite lazy and/or greedy.

They say things like "We're focusing all our time on creating an excellent and abundant single-player experience, so we'd prefer to get that right rather than have two modes of play that aren't fleshed out properly". So, then you say "Okay, makes sense, can't wait" and you buy the game, expecting an amazing adventure, and it turns out that it isn't all that. So you're stuck with an "okay" SP-game and no MP aspect, which at the very least least, may liven things up and grant some form of replayability.

Now, of course this is not the case with all develepors and designers. Some truly do deliver an excellent SP experience while omitting multiplayer. And, you feel grateful for it and forgiving because it was worth the investment and time and love that was given to the game. But I have seen the above line in one form or another on many titles and alot more so in recent years.

I do notice however, that MPer is kinda making a comeback. Not MMO play but co-op or LAN type stuff. Many upcoming titles now boast this aspect, as if they finally realized that the old package really worked. I am just surprised to not have it in Dragon Age...I thought for certain Bioware would have it in there. It won't deter me, but it will deter me from encouraging my friends to buy copies because I can't join 'em.

Re: Dragon Age
 

I'm sure because of them also making it for the fraking CONSOLE platform is why they didn't add MP. Consoles make the PC version limited many times. even down to the texture resolutions and poly counts. Many times, they game is only as good as the weakest console.

Such innovation.... limited.