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Dragon Age II

Oldie

Oldie

Mean Old Administrator
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Hey guys, this thread disappeared temporarily due to an unexpected result of another change. I had to do some fancy moderating to get it to reappear, sorry it was gone. FYI, if you were subscribed to this thread, I'm not sure if you still are, so if you want notices and aren't getting them, just hit the "subscribe to this thread" link up in the thread tools.
 
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Unlocked in North America.

Thoughts, opinions?

As always, watch the spoilers. Obviously it's difficult to discuss an RPG without talking about the plot - just exercise judgement. If, say, Sten makes a surprise appearance, and it turns out that he had a sex change operation, and is now being possessed by an 18-year-old female apostate Mage who's on a quest to find and kill the brute who lopped off the head of her pet poodle and used it in a stew, then you might want to keep that to yourself.

This discussion is bound to get heated, so you might want use it to warm your house. In other words, turn down the thermostat when posting.

Thank you, and may your god go with you.
 
First comment:

DX9 looks better than it did in the demo.

DX11, however, looks WAY better - you actually see the cloud shadows rolling across the ground, spell effects are vastly superior, the motion blur adds to the feeling of speed, the textures are clearly superior - and it runs like shit.

I installed the new Nvidia driver this afternoon. This on a core i7, GTX 480, VISTA 64 setup, at 2560x1440. In DX11 I must be getting 15 frames. In DX9 I'm through the roof.

Ah well.

EDIT: note that switching from Very High to High in the video settings makes a huge damned difference with very little loss of quality. Ambient Occlusion is still on, clouds shadows are still rolling across the landscape, spell effects still look amazing (you can see shadows cast on the ground beneath fireballs as they shoot across the land), textures are still great... in fact it's hard to see any difference at all between high and very high... except my frames have gone from 15 to something way higher, and completely playable.

Would be difficult to go back to DX9.

So remember. High.

Not Very High.

In DX11, with the high res texture pack, on High settings, I'd say the game looks like it has a new coat of paint, and looks noticeably improved over the demo.
 
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quackduck said:
i like everything about the game except that the characters seem less interesting (opinion) ...
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I was thinking the same thing when I was playing the demo. The characters and the dialogue is beyond bland. The demo actually gave me second thoughts about buying the game :eek:.
 
quackduck said:
i like everything about the game except that the characters seem less interesting (opinion) and I don't like that you can't equip them with helmets, armor, gloves, etc. I guess bioware didn't want you stripping them down or ruining their style. On the otherhand it lets me focus more on my character. So it's a tossup.

But overall it's a better game. The combat is way more fluid, everything is simplified without being dumb-downed, and the graphics are nice with the texture pack.
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What the heck? What can you equip, then?
 
YEs... game with good plot without wondering if +1 sword that gives you 0,00001 to something is better then +1 mace that gives you +0,00001 to another.

RPG it's all about plot and storytelling. I don't care about game mechanics, if the story is good. That's why I always preferd Mage:Ascension storytellin mechanics to AD&D with rolling dices and all that crap.
 
I was put off by the demo just like everyone else seemed to be. However, after having gone back to the demo a few times I warmed up to the changes made.

That said, the full game is LEAPS and BOUNDS better than the demo. Aside from the obviously better graphics of a working DX 11 on High setting, the narrative has been slightly tweaked already from the demo.

It's also good to know I didn't ruin much of anything having only played the first portion of the demo and quitting after you leave the first area and party and got whisked away to a far away city... errm, yes.

The game is definitely feeling a LOT more like a real PC game than the fear-mongered "consolization" we all feared was going on with the demo. Quick saves (fast ones, no less) are even still retained. It's a miracle!
 
Very High is with Tesselation ON, i took screenshot.. but the FPS is near 4 Times lower..
 
A quick google hunt confirms it on the bioware forums. No changing party member's armor. Sounds like you can change their weapons to a limited degree.

Seriously?

I actually was itching to buy this tonight seeing the reviews come out. Regardless of Normal mode being a snooze with no friendly fire. I thought the silly teleporty-anime/DMC style would be OK (I like anime and DMC after all).

But this is ridiculous. It's suddenly Chrono Trigger, where all you can equip is the weapon style that that character uses, and a bracelet is the only armor option. LOL.

Someone tell me if the hard difficulty is hard at all. So far I'm not liking anything I'm hearing. It seems like they've screwed up whatever was good about DA:O to me.
 
Funny, story, quests, NPC history and their interaction in party all doesn't count. Suddenly is "ZOMG, I can't give stufz" that makes people dislike the game.

That decision however, for me is a plus. No more problems with overcrowded inventory (Mass Effect 1 anyone? :p) with junk that was either useful or needed. Inventory was just a chore to do. So doing what they done in Mass Effect 2 was great thing to me.

And yeah, some like to repeat the fight 30 times, because of the fight. I prefer to enjoy the story, and not chew through keyboard, because it's hard. I don't have time for this. WIth 1 hour or less of my daily gaming time, finishing any game, if it would be too hard, would be impossible.

I guess, you can call me "casual gamer", I don't care... but I like the direction that games are following. And I guess, juding from number of copies sold, and the change in all the games, it's not only me who like it that way.
 
I have no problem with games being dumbed down for gamers who actually appreciate it, I just wish that they'd not take a previously good series and totally spoil it by doing that, if they want to make some action adventure RPG thing with a totally new intellectual property then great, I'm all for that.

But when they take a really good game and ruin the franchise/IP by turning it into generic console sludge, that's just insulting to the fans of that series.
 
How are people finding the story and the acting in the final game? Is there an improvement over the demo?

Also has the constant pausing during cutscenes been resolved?

The demo seemed like a very early build.
 
Well i suck at WOW style gameplay (click and fast bar click). So far it's nice, but i haven't played the first one a lot since i kept dying like a moron near the start of the game LOL!
 
spicey said:
How are people finding the story and the acting in the final game? Is there an improvement over the demo?

Also has the constant pausing during cutscenes been resolved?

The demo seemed like a very early build.
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There no pause that i could see so far. The Sampling rate of the voice is better than in the demo (sounded cheap in the demo) and voice acting has been ok so far
 
Derangel said:
You can equip yourself with anything, but you can not change the equipment of your other party members.
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So, even worse than Dragon Effect huh? At least in ME2 you could tell them which KIND of assault rife to use (out of 3 different kinds). Hahaha :rolleyes:
 
DA1 was a great old school RPG, the sequel is not really an RPG but an action adventure. And thus the misconception is producing fans of the original to voice their displeasure.

Ask yourself this, if DA2 was an original IP would more people be enjoying it?
 
I'm really enjoying the game so far. It looks much better than Origins. Sharp, detailed textures and interesting art design from the areas I've seen. I'm running DX11 + high res pack + very high settings at 1920x1080 and getting around 30fps. Playable but hopefully future drivers will help.

I'm playing on Nightmare and the combat is fairly challenging. With only 1 heal on 60 sec timer and a potion cooldown of 30 seconds you have to approach every fight tactically.

Seems they also removed the cheese spells, no more force field (nerfed) or mana clash.

Story is interesting, it actually feels like I'm a refugee in Kirkwall. Should be a fun journey to rise to power.

Overall, excellent game.
 
Difference between High and Very High.

High:
DragonAge22011-03-0808-31-32-38.jpg


Very High:
DragonAge22011-03-0808-31-46-39.jpg


Mostly just tessellation. Look at the tiles, rocks and pillar on the left for the differences. To see it better save both pics and flip back and forth between them.
 
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It's a nice effect on the tiles but a bit jarring as the tesselation seems to be restricted to certain things in game so it's not a balanced look. It's like the ground is extra 3D and the rest is flat.
 
I only had time to un-encrypt everything this morning, but I was having issues with the DLC items. I went to Bioware's website (it sent me to the DA1 page for some reason) and after finally putting in my codes from Steam using the same account, they didn't seem to appear in-game in the DLC menu. Anyone know if it's just because they're getting hammered or is there something up?
 
spicey said:
DA1 was a great old school RPG, the sequel is not really an RPG but an action adventure. And thus the misconception is producing fans of the original to voice their displeasure.

Ask yourself this, if DA2 was an original IP would more people be enjoying it?
Click to expand...

or if DA2 was an original IP, would as many fans of the original buy it? that sword cuts both ways. So this "action adventure" has less customization than a jrpg on my DS, relegated to wait for sale item.
 
Domingo said:
I only had time to un-encrypt everything this morning, but I was having issues with the DLC items. I went to Bioware's website (it sent me to the DA1 page for some reason) and after finally putting in my codes from Steam using the same account, they didn't seem to appear in-game in the DLC menu. Anyone know if it's just because they're getting hammered or is there something up?
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You have to download the dlc from their webpage (which is super hard to navigate) as there is no ingame downloader like in DA:O. There should only be 1 download (unless you have sig edition or payed for the other dlc)
 
Ugh...thanks for the feedback. On Steam it gave me a couple of codes, but I think some of them are just to enable content that's already in-game.
That site is a complete pain now. The way Dragon Age 1 handled things was pretty much ideal, IMO.
 
Do they still have the random(or not really) chats that a character will start up as you are walking around?
I loved those about DA1
 
I'm playing through the first one and it's... alright. This has to be at least 75% less before I risk my money on it. So 2 steam sales from now I'd predict. Looking at this game I can definitely wait.
 
The idea that the Origins was old school is baffling to me?

Origins was so not old school! That was my chief complaint at the time. It just wasn't the contemporary version of Baldur's Gate I had been hoping for.

One person above has already commented on something that's apparent in five seconds of playing - namely, that the cool down meter for the heal spell has been drastically lengthened. The result: at least on Hard, and early on in the game, the battles are more tactical than the average battle in Origins. So far, the experience of playing this is much more reminiscent of Baldur's Gate than the original game was.

The idea that this is an 'action adventure' is just nuts. Play it one setting above Normal. It's far from an action adventure. It's very much a party based RPG in which you have to use your party members in their appropriate roles, and have them working together - leveling is obviously going to have a profound influence on how your characters play and feel. I've also heard that the story is very compelling.

Yup, sure sounds like an RPG to me - I only played for about an hour and a half last night. But I've already got a much better taste in my mouth than what I got from playing Origins early on.
 
MorgothPl said:
I guess, you can call me "casual gamer", I don't care... but I like the direction that games are following. And I guess, juding from number of copies sold, and the change in all the games, it's not only me who like it that way.
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OMFG..Wow... I guess I have to come to grips with the fact that gaming is becoming just like the radio. Catering to the mainstream audience. This game is no exception. Just look at the trialers/commercials for this shit with that emo fag...RIP Bioware of old, we had a good run back in the day.
 
~sigh~ Had to order pre-order mine from Best Buy. I t probably won't be here until next week to get it at $50 dollars. Sounds like it will be a very interesting wait. Anyone pull over game saves from DA:O/Awakening? Haven't finished my new run through yet and was wondering if it was worth hit.
 
holy conflicting information batman. I think I'll just wait for a buddy of mine whose getting it to tell me how it is.
 
kledar586 said:
holy conflicting information batman. I think I'll just wait for a buddy of mine whose getting it to tell me how it is.
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Take a second look at the thread so far and you'll see that there isn't conflicting information, only conflicting opinion.

There are those who have played the game some, and are starting to provide information, and there are those who haven't. So far, those who haven't are the usual suspects. They're here to tell us that Bioware is dead, that DA 2 was released unfinished, that EA loves to screw its customers, etc. etc.
 
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