Dragon Age

[WOLFGIR]

Originally Posted by SecretMaster Has everyone here at IW lost all love for BioWare or something? I thought us fellow IWers would be more excited about DragonAge... Anyway, this is just a bump. For those who haven't been following this recently, there is a crap-load of information on their website. Many a nice demo video as well.

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.

[Chewbacca]

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

Bioware has announced that Dragon Age will not use SecuROM, and will only require a basic disc check to play offline... no online activation required.

[Luvian]

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

[JrKASperov]

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.

[Kezardin]

Originally Posted by JrKASperov 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.

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

[Luvian]

Originally Posted by JrKASperov 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.

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.

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?

[JrKASperov]

Originally Posted by Luvian 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.

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.

But yeah I remember all the naked women, harsh language and blood in Baldur's Gate 2.

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.

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?

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.

[Chewbacca]

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?

[SpiritWarrior]

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

[Luvian]

Originally Posted by JrKASperov ...

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?