Duck and Cover

Blargh wrote:Probably because Bioware are to Good Writing what Liberace was to Good Taste.

You're losing it, Blargh old buddy.

Kashluk wrote:What's good:
+ the story is pretty catchy and well-written, IMHO
+ most characters are memorable and their dialogue makes sense
+ it gives a great illusion of the player having a choice and making a big difference with his decisions..

What's bad:
- ... but it's still just mostly an illusion. No matter what you do some things still end up in a certain way.
- this one's big: DUMBING DOWN NON-COMBAT SKILLS and by dumbing down I mean they completely removed them (no persuasion, no herbalism, no trap-making, no stealing...)
- protagonist dialogue sometimes makes absolutely no sense and some of the 'persuasion attempt's are pretty un-believable, like a marauder wants to corpse-rape you but you tell him "isn't that pretty naughty?" and he whimpers off.

About the difficulty curve - I personally thought that the beginning was easy, then it got a bit harder step by step until a sudden incrase in difficulty around ½ way through the game. Then it gradually got easier since your characters begin to hit so high levels and get so super-duper equipment that they become a team of four Supermen, essentially.

And yes, it's quite short, even with 90% of the side quests done.

I played about 25 hours. I'm at Orsino turning into an abomination. From what my brother told me I'm already at the end. How did it happen? I missed like 2(or 3?) characters. I haven't met Isabela and Fenris. There's still some loot in my inventory I can't use. And this is the end of the game? It happened so fast? And I did most of the side quests I could fetch.

I can't believe the game takes place in one city and 2 side areas(Sundermount and Deep Roads).

I'm afraid we'll get like a bunch of DLCs which will "expand" the game. But they'll all be side-stories which add nothing to the core game.

The main story is stunningly short and superficial.

This is a big let down, since I liked Dragon Age Origins a lot and I was looking forward to get more of the same stuff. And I'm not even talking about the shitty skill trees, dumbed down skills and abilities and the damned Mass Effect dialogue wheels. I'll be hating this stupid game mechanic for years to come.

Guess I'll have to wait for The Witcher 2 or start over DAO.

Damn I miss good RPGs so much.


EDIT - Kashluk, help me find a good RPG to play

I, too, missed out Fenris completely. Isabela's a bit weird, since she's the worst slut in modern gaming history, but still the hardest one to romance? Still, probably one of my favorite NPCs dialogue- and story-wise.

I always go back to playing Mount & Blade: Warband (I check if there are any new mods out and then test them) and Minecraft after the latest disappointments in AAA game titles. Revisiting Fallout 1-2 and PS:T aren't bad ideas either. Risen was pretty good if you like Gothic 1-2 style gameplay. Waiting for Witcher 2 isn't a bad idea either.

Shogun 2 Total War is also out...

S4ur0n27 wrote:Damn I miss good RPGs so much.

I share your pain, bro. I truly do.

Kashluk wrote:I always go back to playing Mount & Blade: Warband

Heh, having a go at Prophesy of Pendor myself. It's well 'ard. Top troops have like 90+ health and 400 proficiency in all weapons, the fuck. My advice? Hex editor.

I really like the Musket Batallion / Frontier 1755(?) and other musket fighting mods. Also, Brytenwalda is very nice, historically accurate and all that shit, I think.

Mount & Blade, at some point, always ends up stale and repetitive.

S4ur0n27 wrote:Mount & Blade, at some point, always ends up stale and repetitive.

I haven't played it since it was the "non complete version" a couple years ago but I came to this similar conclusion.

Kashluk wrote:Also, Brytenwalda is very nice, historically accurate and all that shit, I think.

Yeah I tried it on your word but found it had very little in the way of items and stuff to do besides fighting to keep it interesting. I signed on with some dudes, took Ireland and then... well, then I looked at the map. I still think the fak'n huge map and the bigger battle maps are its strong points though. Pendor has neither of these (and it doesn't use the latest diplomacy build), but there seems to be more shit to keep you entertained, at least in the 80 or so days I've played. I do find them both worthy of a recommendation, though.

As for the muskets, I'll wait on the next game.

S4ur0n27 wrote:Mount & Blade, at some point, always ends up stale and repetitive.

True. However, as I believed Kashluk said at some point, it's the type of game best suited for numerous short playthroughs rather than one big one. I think that's what's kept me interested so long.

But man, do I share in your want of a decent [muthafuckinstrikethru]RPG[/muthafuckinstrikethru] game to play.

So wait, I just ill-eagle torrented this shit. Should I even bother? Will it at least look pretty? Because I spent like six hours or something fucking up my bandwidth to download it (although I was asleep my roommates suffered) and amazingly I'm running out of space with a terabyte hard drive, so I even deleted some sorts of internet-wrought treasure to install it.

Oh and I've heard it got "streamlined" or some might say "made so a retard could play it". I wonder if it pretty much degenerated into an action game with long cutscenes.
Cause that would be just fabulous. :homo:

Really ruins my feeling of being immersed in a game when you spend even like 20% of the time watching cutscenes. It makes me feel like they are the reward for whatever you did and therefor makes all gameplay a chore instead of the gameplay itself being what you enjoy in what is supposed to be a GAME. Good storytelling is NOT turning a game into a movie.

S4ur0n27 wrote:Damn I miss good RPGs so much.

Yeah, I think I'm going to pass on DA2 barring any good feedback of Tormentian proportions.

I found Origins just decent and passable, almost fit to be called Baldur's Gate 3. So if it's going to dumbed down further, I think that's the cutoff point for me.


I've never tried any of these M&B mods, maybe should pick one up. But yeah, I played that game quite a bit and love it's open ended nature, the impact you have on the world (both the extent and limit) and the blending of gameplay (combat, rpg elements, and later on larger scale army and city management). Nothing really beats riding full speed and planting a spear right through some poor bastard's face.

But yeah, it sometimes teeters on the brink of that fine line between sandbox and aimless wanking.

I downloaded the demo for shits.

The combat was fun as a rogue in the opening mandatory battle with Darkspawn.

Haven't even made my charcter yet I just picked "male rogue" and the game threw me into combat. Had to leave when character generation popped up.

Try to look at modern Bioware games as arcade games instead of failed Baldur's Gates and they may be worth torrenting.

It's weird how every game developpers nowadays are selling their games as being "immersive". But how is a 20-hour-long-interupted-by-cutscenes-hack'n-slash-game in any way immersive?

PS:T was as immersive as a fucking book. Where's the writing gone?

In a few years, games' dialogues will be like text messages or tweets : very few characters sentences packed with acronyms, contractions, no punctuation marks and typos, so kids can understand them.

A few years time, D5it-m38 ? It is already here.

On the upside, you no longer need live with the looming dread of The Future. Like everything else, it has become victim to entropy. Huzzah.

Thanks for that link Blargh you blobby piece of shit now I just wanna face-slam hipsters that seem to be dominating Australia's youth. I can't tell which is worse, wiggers or hipsters.

So I finished the demo a while ago and after that opening battle it wasn't even a decent action game it was just fight/cutscene/shitty voice acting and script.

People should have expected no less from them, look elsewhere.

The worst part of DA2 is having to dungeon crawl more than once the said dungeons. I've seen some of the dungeons more than twice. I think there's a set up which comes back like 5 times, with chests and bad guys at exactly the same place. And a few others come back at least 3 times.

How lazy is this? At least change some textures or chest locations.

From what I understand, "Dungeons" is a misnomer since it's all the same dungeon, just with afew different doors closed/opened.

S4ur0n27 wrote:It's weird how every game developpers nowadays are selling their games as being "immersive".

Just a PR big word. Like streamlining. Only unlike streamlining (AKA dumbing down) it means everything and fuck all at the same time; usually it merely plays the part of an excuse in a debate (about said game) that you'd want to be as precise as possible. It's sex-of-the-angels.

But how is a 20-hour-long-interupted-by-cutscenes-hack'n-slash-game in any way immersive?

Precisely. An imbecile would argue that it is (for reasons that are beyond me, and you know just how tenacious video game fans get), and the ensuing debate would be shallow and pointless and revolving around "what the fuck does being immersive even mean?" instead of focusing on how bad the game you're debating actually is or how games had considerably more gameplay when the word "immersion" wasn't thrown around like a fucking live grenade.

Danny Glover avatar would fit like a glove right now.

So is Fenris supposed to be a subtle jab at Final Fantasy or is Bioware really this bad? I don't know whether to chuckle or cry every time that music hits when he starts talking.

Bioware, subtle ? Ahahaha.

Just Say No to B-O'ware





My opinion, while watching the sample gameplay of DA2, it looked like the BG / EQ Snowblind engine Gauntlet clones, of 9 or TEN years ago!

Hardly new nor appealing.

I see more of a de-evolution that will diminish any attraction in this next round of standardized, (one hole, one dark hole to fit them all) mass marketing.

The dating sim in DA-O titillated my arousal until I realized the character of interest was a lisping, spattered, ... retread of Imoen.

Funny, might have liked the BG Imoen character BECAUSE there was NO, NO, NO ---> R-O-M-A-N-C-E, or limp, emaciated, dialogue trees.
Just a happy " ' Let's go this way' " in BG, and a combat fatigued ennui in BG2, that mirrored my boredom with the series.

I have not bought nor played a B-O'ware product since BG2, and may, with this improbable utterance of an absolute, *never* will.


Take note how the thread abandoned DA2 discussion and moved on to non B-O'ware products.
So, the 'hollow men' of puerile product design and masticated marketing are whipping the BG series to a whimpering end.


I thank you heros for sharing what was worthy of interest in the DA series and what may offer rewarding RPG gameplay among other non B-O'ware titles.





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