Dragon Age II Demo - Feb. 22nd

spicey said:
My thoughts on the demo are almost universally negative so far. I think I have totally lost interest in Dragon Age. I never thought I say that after the original, it was a game created with love and attention to detail.

Been having issues in battles where I select a spell and try and click on an enemy but even though the mouse is over the object the cross-hair doesn't highlight.

No character generation as such, is this an RPG? The choice is limiting. Perhaps the final game will be different?

As stated above the voice acting is dire and a major step backwards. Accents are embarrassingly bad.

The faster more fluid battle animations are over the top and annoying to watch. Everything is so busy I can't see what the fuck is going on.

Lack of splash damage on normal difficulty makes tactics and positioning superfluous.

Graphics on DX9 look poor. Texture details are low resolution and washed out. Landscapes are dull and uninspiring.

Sound - where is the epic title music? It's been replaced with some insipid background music.

Crashing - 2 crashes already. I'm hoping this is due to the age of the demo build.
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The textures are clearly high resolution. One look at your party members, and it's difficult to return to the original game.

That said, you don't sound too happy about this.
 
Just gave the demo a try, didn't really get into it. Might pick it up when its in the bargain bin in a couple of years if I have nothing better to play.

I do find it funny how people blame the young console crowd when, personally at least, I had far more time and patience with games when I was younger. There's RPGs I spent heaps of time with back then that I probably wouldn't play for more than an hour these days.
 
Tried it and I'm not impressed. It felt like playing some extra fast sci-fi game. I spent 80+ hours in DAO1 and really liked it, but I don't seem myself picking this up until I can find it on steam for $5.
 
The original voice acting was superb: Morrigan, Alistair, Oghren and Lelianna.

Feels like DAII the voice acting is a bit forced
 
acidic said:
The original voice acting was superb: Morrigan, Alistair, Oghren and Lelianna.

Feels like DAII the voice acting is a bit forced
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DA II did come from the game making machine. It's also what happens when you have EA as a publisher. DA:O was nearly complete when EA signed on. The only real effect EA had on the first one is delaying the PC version for 8 months in order to ship it on consoles simuaniously.
Ryoohki360 said:
Very High is not selectable (DX11), only HIGH (DX10/9)...
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They may not have very high selectable to help reduce the size of the demo (smaller textures).
 
acidic said:
The original voice acting was superb: Morrigan, Alistair, Oghren and Lelianna.

Feels like DAII the voice acting is a bit forced
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Forced is a good way of putting it, it certainly sounds that way
 
Well, after I got home from work yesterday and rebooted my PC I played the demo.
Ran DX 11 mode with everything cranked and this time it ran like a charm. Looked good, played good and was one helluva lot of fun. Demo was too damn short. Man that fucking troll was hard to beat.

Was kinda of suprised to see Flemeth back. Though, her being the Witch of The Wilds I should have expected her to not truly be dead.

Can't wait for my SE Edition on the 8th.
 
Are we playing the same demo? It seriously didn't feel that much different from DA: O to me. Sure you attack a bit faster but it's no hack n slash, like God of War. Far from it. The graphics took some getting used to but they grew on me the more I played the demo. I don't get the complaints. It's what I wanted, more Dragon Age and I’ll be buying it day one.
 
Kinsaras said:
Are we playing the same demo? It seriously didn't feel that much different from DA: O to me. Sure you attack a bit faster but it's no hack n slash, like God of War. Far from it. The graphics took some getting used to but they grew on me the more I played the demo. I don't get the complaints.
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Same here.
 
CannibalTrout said:
It might as well be. The Dragon Age just got dumbed down to a console game. It makes me sad.
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I don't agree with this. PC gameplay and combat is exactly the same. Just the animations are quicker. Consoles got a revamped combat system, but that's it.

Kinsaras said:
Are we playing the same demo? It seriously didn't feel that much different from DA: O to me. Sure you attack a bit faster but it's no hack n slash, like God of War. Far from it. The graphics took some getting used to but they grew on me the more I played the demo. I don't get the complaints. It's what I wanted, more Dragon Age and I’ll be buying it day one.
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Agreed. I think the game will be great. No opinion on the voice acting. I'll have to go back and listen more carefully.
 
In DA:O I skipped/ignored most of the voice-acting that wasn't handled by Black or Mulgrew, and just read the subtitles. Will probably do the same for DA2.

If you're demanding quality voice-acting in a videogame, you're doing it wrong.
 
Plague_Injected said:
In DA:O I skipped/ignored most of the voice-acting that wasn't handled by Black or Mulgrew, and just read the subtitles. Will probably do the same for DA2.

If you're demanding quality voice-acting in a videogame, you're doing it wrong.
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The voice acting in Mass Effect 2 was stellar, why not the same quality from Bioware in DA 2?
 
acidic said:
The original voice acting was superb: Morrigan, Alistair, Oghren and Lelianna.

Feels like DAII the voice acting is a bit forced
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You must have played a different game to me. From the moment I launched DA:O I was shocked that people had actually paid other people for the voice acting. It sounded like a middle-school drama club putting on a production.

spicey said:
The voice acting in Mass Effect 2 was stellar, why not the same quality from Bioware in DA 2?
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I guess they're different parts of the studio that focus on each game or something.
 
NathanP2007 said:
Cause they have a new audience, the console gamers..and you know how badly those racist sexist 14 year old boys want to see a hot witch with a DD rack. :/ hell im a guy and even i find it sad EVERY female character has to have FULL C cups minimum.
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Not a console gamer or racist and not 14, but never one to disparage a nice rack.
I recall even the NPC fems in PS:T were stacked and dressed like strippers.

Given how elaborate avatar customization has become, perhaps they should incorporate cup size. 'A' for feminists and manginas and C and up for everyone else. The real pervs populate the seedier corners of 'Fallout:nexus'.
 
Plague_Injected said:
In DA:O I skipped/ignored most of the voice-acting that wasn't handled by Black or Mulgrew, and just read the subtitles. Will probably do the same for DA2.

If you're demanding quality voice-acting in a videogame, you're doing it wrong.
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Yeah because people are only supposed to appreciate the same qualities as YOU do. How dare they like different things?
 
Monkey God said:
Yeah because people are only supposed to appreciate the same qualities as YOU do. How dare they like different things?
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Voice-acting in videogames is getting better, but that is hardly an achievement considering what it had to improve upon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdZQ5KjgbU

If bad voice-acting in a videogame is a dealbreaker for you...maybe you should find another hobby.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Voice-acting in videogames is getting better, but that is hardly an achievement considering what it had to improve upon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdZQ5KjgbU

If bad voice-acting in a videogame is a dealbreaker for you...maybe you should find another hobby.
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Its not a dealbreaker, unless someone is trying sell AWESOME VIDEO GAME PART #2, JUST LIKE PART #1 ONLY BETTER when in fact its a steaming pile of shit.
 
The demo runs like crap on my system in DX11. I get in the 20's with 2x AA on. This is lame, my 5850 can handle more then this.
 
I may or may not buy it, not sure. I am sure it will be good but DA for PC was 50 and this is 60...and now DA w/ all dlc is only 40...I may just wait a year or so for it to come down and get all the dlc as well.
 
Anyone have bizarre issues with this game in Eyefinity? So fucked up. The abilities and the icons for them magically disappear where I play in 16:9 Eyefinity whereas they're all fine in 16:10 regular. It's not like the screen is cropped, they just literally have disappeared. Can't even use the keyboard shortcuts to activate them.

Not sure about 16:9 regular but I assume it's fine.
 
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Bioware has jumped the shark IMO. I started playing BW RPGs back with BG, then BG2, NWN, KOTOR.

I played DA:O but I did feel it was a step in the wrong direction, with nearly non-existent RPG system (fill in ability trees, but pretty much every fighter is identical) this fixes none of that and goes way over the top in the wrong direction.

This is some conglomeration of action RPG (like Diablo) with oddly MMORPG elements.

I tried a rogue in the demo and he was a ridiculous super natural powered juggernaut. The "Rush" ability makes no sense. A rogue charges headlong into hordes of enemy, and nearly takes out the whole mob single handed with a frontal assault. Did someone forget that Rogues are about stealth/avoiding head on attacks/looking for weakness to exploit?

Actual mechanical abilities have been replaced with more supernatural powers. Backstabbing used to be a more mundane mechanical ability which involved getting behind foes to expose their weaknesses. Now it's another supernatural ability where you click backstab, click foe, disappear, teleport behind them, super attack. W.T.F. ??

This has no soul, it has reduced the great Bioware RPG legacy to a silly fantasy fighting game.

I would be concerned about the ridiculous amount of loading if I were going to buy this game but there is no danger of that .

I figured when EA acquired Bioware, they would ruin it. It has come to pass.
 
Plague_Injected said:
I'm not completely understanding the hate either - the core gameplay is unchanged.
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Not true. Abilities have very short cooldowns, stamina regenerates rapidly IN combat, there are no negatives to spamming abilities over and over, camera zoom is nerfed, inventory and item stats have been simplified quite a bit, tactics are rarely needed at all, AOE effects have no tactical repercussions unless you play on Nightmare, Mages are somehow ninjas with spells, Rogues are Kratos, I didn't have to plan *any* of the battles out, pause was only needed because spells and abilities are spammed so quickly.

Unless there are some incredibly complex encounters in the full game, I doubt there will be much challenge in this game, besides hit point bloat on Nightmare.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Not true. Abilities have very short cooldowns, stamina regenerates rapidly IN combat, there are no negatives to spamming abilities over and over, camera zoom is nerfed, inventory and item stats have been simplified quite a bit, tactics are rarely needed at all, AOE effects have no tactical repercussions unless you play on Nightmare, Mages are somehow ninjas with spells, Rogues are Kratos, I didn't have to plan *any* of the battles out, pause was only needed because spells and abilities are spammed so quickly.

Unless there are some incredibly complex encounters in the full game, I doubt there will be much challenge in this game, besides hit point bloat on Nightmare.
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Normal in DAO was pretty damn easy as well. You could mostly just let the AI do what it wanted and not worry about being tactical.
 
Derangel said:
Normal in DAO was pretty damn easy as well. You could mostly just let the AI do what it wanted and not worry about being tactical.
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I played it a bit differently then. I had complex tactics for every one of my characters, yet I still micromanaged depending on how a battle played out. Other than that, yup DA:O could have been alot harder. Beat it on Nightmare twice, even once was with melee.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Not true. Abilities have very short cooldowns, stamina regenerates rapidly IN combat, there are no negatives to spamming abilities over and over, camera zoom is nerfed, inventory and item stats have been simplified quite a bit, tactics are rarely needed at all, AOE effects have no tactical repercussions unless you play on Nightmare, Mages are somehow ninjas with spells, Rogues are Kratos, I didn't have to plan *any* of the battles out, pause was only needed because spells and abilities are spammed so quickly.

Unless there are some incredibly complex encounters in the full game, I doubt there will be much challenge in this game, besides hit point bloat on Nightmare.
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Demos are supposed to give you a taste of what the full game will be. Give you an idea of what the gameplay is like. You can't honestly expect that with a game as expansive as Dragon Age to really get a full idea of how everything will play out.

That's like saying a 10 day trial of WoW will tell you everything about the end-game.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I wouldn't bitch if this had been a good demo.
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I'm not going to dig through to see all of your posts in this thread, but the post of yours I responded to was actual constructive criticism, entirely different from bitching. That post was more me rolling my eyes at people who are just bitching to have something to bitch about instead of backing up their points and being at least semi-intelligent about it.

LeninGHOLA said:
I played it a bit differently then. I had complex tactics for every one of my characters, yet I still micromanaged depending on how a battle played out. Other than that, yup DA:O could have been alot harder. Beat it on Nightmare twice, even once was with melee.
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You could do that, but the game really didn't force you to. Unless you got into my mindset at one point in the game and forgot that characters need to specialize and that putting points into everything is bad. That makes the game significantly harder.
 
Dallows said:
Demos are supposed to give you a taste of what the full game will be. Give you an idea of what the gameplay is like. You can't honestly expect that with a game as expansive as Dragon Age to really get a full idea of how everything will play out.

That's like saying a 10 day trial of WoW will tell you everything about the end-game.
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I hope you're right. The demo gave me a bad taste, though.
 
Derangel said:
You could do that, but the game really didn't force you to. Unless you got into my mindset at one point in the game and forget that characters need to specialize and that putting points into everything is bad. That makes the game significantly harder.
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Depends on the party build, but there were some battles I absolutely had to play this way. The golem fight at the forge was definitely one, the mafia boss dwarf lady was another. For trash mobs, I agree. You could steamroll almost any trash fight with your eyes closed.

I don't really play games for the sole purpose of beating them, I play them to play them. Sure, you could play DA:O with a full party of mages, but is it fun? I usually like rogue builds or tank builds in this type of game.

I played this demo as a rogue and was able to go toe to toe with the first ogre with NO worry about losing. Sis big juggs took care of all the adds, and I just meleed the ogre down. WTB challenge!
 
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