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Freya
02-22-2011, 07:37 PM
Comes out in a few weeks! The demo just went live. I already played and beat it and got the special sword for the actual game.

I was throughly impressed. It was more of a button pushing Action RPG. But when they ported Da:O over to the 360 originally, it sucked. It wasn't very responsive and you couldn't even use strategy if you wanted. DA2, at least on the 360, was much more fun combat wise than DA:O. Or so I thought. I can't say how the PC is, but I really like DA2 so far.

Much like ME2 you get a dialogue wheel. It also gives you pictures to represent stuff. I asked a certain dragon lady if she could teach me how to be a dragon cause i'm cocky like that. They also give dynamic angles to things rather than the just looking at the character during interactions from the first game.

If you have pre-ordered or are going to buy when it comes out, go get you some promotional items! Penny arcade has one and on their(DA2) site is another. If you play the demo you get ANOTHER. If you have Dead Space 2 you get a set, if you preorder you get some stuff. STUFF!

Are you guys excited? :D

nirojan
02-22-2011, 08:11 PM
If you have pre-ordered or are going to buy when it comes out, go get you some promotional items! Penny arcade has one and on their(DA2) site is another. If you play the demo you get ANOTHER. If you have Dead Space 2 you get a set, if you preorder you get some stuff. STUFF!

Are you guys excited? :D

Hellz YEAH! got the bioware signature edition pre-ordered. Will download demo tonight and already bought DS2! Umm did you get DS2 for 360? If so was the Sir Issac armour code included with the game? I bought it on PS3, but it didn't come packaged with the game.

Freya
02-22-2011, 08:49 PM
There should be an insert code in your DS2 case for 360. For the PS3 you need to log in to your EA account in-game (DS2). Then go to the site and it'll be on your promotion items page (http://social.bioware.com/user_entitlements.php), same with the other extras. When you get DA2 you just log on while playing and tada! You'll have it.

Jessweeee♪
02-22-2011, 09:59 PM
I really like how they're handling the protagonist the same way they do with Mass Effect. I don't care if it's not original anymore, it's a great system. Normally when you have a protagonist that can be whoever you want you end up with a silent hero that usually has no personality. No longer do I have to give up character for customization!

Ouch!
02-22-2011, 10:12 PM
I know there are some people who get really disappointed about the shift towards a Shepard-esque hero and away from pure customization that was allowed in the first game. Honestly, though, I don't play a video game to imagine certain aspects of character anymore. If I want the experience of imagination and filling in all that, I'd play a table-top campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. Hawke, I think, is a step in the right direction toward better storytelling and better expression of character.

I'll be playing the demo tonight when I get out of my study group for an exam; I am excited.

Flying Arrow
02-22-2011, 11:01 PM
I had an okay time with DA:O last summer. Thing is - and I might be the only one on this whole planet - I generally just don't like Bioware games very much. Every single one I have ever played has irked me in some way. I may try the DA2 demo whenever it comes out on PSN - that is, when I'm done with the MLB 11 demo and XENOGEARS.

kotora
02-22-2011, 11:16 PM
Wasn't too impressed with the first one but I'll give the demo a try. We'll see if it's just another fantasy themed mod of Mass Effect/

Ouch!
02-23-2011, 03:22 AM
You've referred to Dragon Age: Origins as a fantasy-themed mod of Mass Effect multiple times now, and it's always bothered me. Not in the sense that I'm deeply troubled by it, but I guess I just don't see it. Sure, it follows the same formula that all the Bioware games typically do, but that doesn't make it a fantasy mod for a science fiction game, it just makes it a high fantasy Bioware game.

Beyond that, the original was, if anything, in many ways a major step backwards (or perhaps just away from, depending on how you feel about it) from Mass Effect. The dialogue trees were the exact same out of Knights of the Old Republic. If anything, DA2 will be more like Mass Effect by adopting the dialogue wheel (an improvement I feel, but I'm unsure if you'll agree). The game play was also extremely different: full control over party members, detailed stat, skill, and talent allotment. The mechanics scream Dungeons and Dragons, not Mass Effect.

Further than that, the exclusion of any sort of morality meter was another further step away from Mass Effect. Dragon Age: Origins was interesting in that it liberated itself from the dichotomy that other Bioware games have offered where everything you do clearly fell into a defined black and white morality. You're either a douche or you're a saint with a very unsatisfying middle ground. Dragon Age: Origins explored various moral shades of grey that were distinctly lacking in Mass Effect.

That's not to say that the game was by any means perfect. Far from it. The overall plot was pretty much stock high fantasy and it was driven by a relatively uninteresting main protagonist. Further, the gameplay mechanics were so clearly designed as a point-and-click PC user interface that at times the management of skills and targeting on the console versions can become damn near unbearable. The game has some serious faults, and I can understand criticizing it for those, but I really just don't get the "fantasy mod of Mass Effect" criticism.

I'm probably giving you too much credit and you're just trollin', though.

McLovin'
02-23-2011, 04:00 AM
Daayum March is turning out to be an amazing month for games and movies!

Ouch!
02-23-2011, 04:26 AM
Finished the demo. The conversation wheel with the images indicating tone of the dialogue is definitely an improvement. I'm also impressed with the new attribute distribution screen and how it shows the exact correlation of the core stats and the various other stats that they affect in turn. The skill trees are also an improvement over their Dragon Age: Origins counterparts.

The battle system is certainly more frantic than the previous title. Not entirely sure how I feel about it just yet. It definitely flows much more on consoles than it did before, which is an improvement if you're playing that version, I suppose. My only concern is that it feels that the demand for tactics has all but disappeared. Then again, I imagine that might be different on higher difficulty settings; you could pretty much go in guns blazin' in Dragon Age: Origins on most difficulties and for most encounters anyway.

New gameplay footage. (http://www.gamespot.com/shows/now-playing/?event=now_playing_dragon_age_ii20110222&tag=topslot;img;1) Spoilers in that video, I suppose. It's some gameplay from the mission which results in the acquisition of the character Fenris. Who else recognizes the voice actor?

Psychotic
02-24-2011, 05:23 PM
Can you play as a Dwarf? I heard you can't.

If you can't, this game will be nothing compared to the original. Nothing. I will refuse to buy it. :colbert:

Honestly I don't think anything in video games will ever come close to the gay sex scene between Zevran and my stout hairy dwarf.

Freya
02-24-2011, 06:17 PM
Unfortunately you can't. Just the human. I hear out of the 4 main LI, they all can be romanced by either gender though. They haven't officially said that but it's what has been implied.

Vyk
02-24-2011, 10:31 PM
They've yet to explain why they decided to gimp the character creation in this game as opposed to the first one. Its not like the voice would need to be different. You can get a neutral voice that might seem light for a dwarf and harsh for an elf, but it wouldn't break believability. So I refuse to believe this is because the protagonist is voiced in this game. Just like Shepard could have easily been any other species, except maybe Krogan or something more exotic. But in that game the plot was very human-centric so it was a choice they made regarding the story at least

Shadowdust
02-25-2011, 03:44 PM
Played through the first half of the demo. I had a lot of fun playing through it and look forward to doing a full run of the demo sometime this weekend to unlock the additional items. Also, I just checked the DA 2 demo page and it's been downloaded more than 1.2 million times. So Bioware reached their goal. :D

Ouch!
02-25-2011, 04:16 PM
Vyk, what leads you to believe that the decision to have Hawke as a human only is not a story based decision? The story is the rise of the Champion of Kirkwall who escaped from Lothering (which is important insofar as the resulting encounter with Flemeth). I don't know about you, but I don't remember many races other than humans hanging around Lothering (there was the elf family and Sten, but that's about it).

Beyond that, voices do matter. Humans are intentionally given Received Pronunciation English accents (most are hardly perfect, but that was Bioware's stated intent) while City Elves and Dwarves (although they originally wanted to use German) are intentionally given a Midwest American accent and the Dalish are Welsh. Beyond that, merely giving a character a voice enforces the necessity for an identity. Quite frankly, if my dwarf character spoke the same way as my elf character, it'd drive me insane, and it's not fiscally sound for Bioware to record every line in the game six times.

For reference, for Antivans they hire Spanish voice actors and French for Orlesians. As I'm sure everyone already figured out.

Freya
02-25-2011, 07:18 PM
That's wrong actually Shadowdust. They had some cheating so they bumped it down AGAIN to 700k this time.

Unbreakable Will
02-26-2011, 12:35 AM
I'm psyched for this game, but not half as excited as I am for Elder Scrolls V

Psychotic
02-26-2011, 12:39 AM
the Dalish are Welsh.Ehhhhh I've never really noticed that, they sound pretty RP too, to be honest. Still, makes me feel even better about my choice to murder them all.

Shadowdust
02-26-2011, 01:35 AM
That's wrong actually Shadowdust. They had some cheating so they bumped it down AGAIN to 700k this time.

Ah, that sucks. Shame on the cheaters. :p Anyway, at 700,000 it still looks like it should reach its goal before the release date.

Ouch!
02-26-2011, 03:51 AM
the Dalish are Welsh.Ehhhhh I've never really noticed that, they sound pretty RP too, to be honest. Still, makes me feel even better about my choice to murder them all.
I'm actually with you on that one; the developers said that they used Welsh voice actors, though.

Vyk
02-26-2011, 03:24 PM
Vyk, what leads you to believe that the decision to have Hawke as a human only is not a story based decision?

No, I figured it was, I was just saying something like that had better be the reason. And I never noticed any accents in the first game. Just gruffer or lighter voices (I guess the Orleseans were pretty obviously accented, but that was about all I caught)

And I gotta say I really don't like a lot of design decisions going on at BioWare. Played through the demo the other day and what is with all this mashing the A-button garbage? Much preferred the more strategic aspect of the combat in the original where you tell someone to attack and they do it, rather than having to run up yourself and hit the A button a bunch. This isn't Fable or Diablo. Well, I guess it is now. But still. I liked how it was different from most games in its style, where you micromanage your team and give orders instead of actually running around whacking stuff. They're effectively dumbing down the combat. No longer the spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate legacy. It'll probably still be a great game. But that's two complaints from me. And I still have very little faith in the conversation wheel. All the conversation options in the demo were pretty straight forward. I have no doubt it'll have quite a few misleading instances in the game. And the little icons didn't really mean much. I liked that an olive branch represented condolences though lol

Also, for 2 gigs, the engine wasn't running all that great. You totally just kinda floated over the surface. You'd think with a demo bigger than Mass Effect 2's it'd run at least as good as Mass Effect's. And I don't understand at all why it had to be that big when half the options were gimped out. You couldn't customize a character (which I believe the ME2 demo did let you do) and you couldn't fiddle with your inventory (can't say ME2 let you do that, since there is no inventory in ME2 lol). The graphics just seemed unfinished, which is understandable for a demo, but then why is an unfinished engine so freaking massive

And I completed it, but it didn't say I got anything. What's all this talk about completing it to get bonus equipment?

kotora
02-26-2011, 03:58 PM
Unfinished graphics are not understandable for a demo. A demo is supposed to be a demonstration of the full finished product, not some watered down buggy beta version.

Freya
02-26-2011, 07:30 PM
No it's not unfinished, at least for the PC. It's just the full game comes with Dwhatever 11 and the demo only runs on 9. So it can't go up to par unless they include that upgrade, and that would have been silly to add that just for the demo. I think the reason it was so massive was the cutscenes and the actual quality of the fights. They were much more involved than ME or DAO. Or so I thought.

You can still turn on the a to attack and they do it on their own feature. By the way vyk. So if you don't want to button mash then you can just go back to the boring swing when they feel like mode. I personally like things to attack when I tell them to attack. So I have NO problem with the change

I linked it before but I'll do so again. It'll appear on this page http://social.bioware.com/user_entitlements.php. For the item you get.

Vyk
02-26-2011, 09:51 PM
Sweet. Thanks. Always appreciate when developers allow you to not join in the changes to a franchise haha (still undecided on which weapons system I prefer in ME)

Also, one last rant, I hope they don't go so much towards build styles in this game. I hate that MMO set-up where it punishes you for building a well-rounded character, and you're actually rewarded for ignoring a whole bunch of stats. Like why shouldn't you want dexterity and wisdom for a warrior? Maybe you want to switch between weapons and bows, and have a plentiful stamina pool to use abilities from. Not to mention those kind of set-ups always require you to read ahead and figure out how you want your end product to be. My first Dragon Age character was completely gimped because I mixed and matched my skills and stats. You don't get punished for having a wide range of abilities in Mass Effect. In fact they kind of encourage you to be prepared for most situations. DA:O kind of expected you to choose two skill trees and 2 (maybe 3) attributes to work on, and already have your specialization in mind while working towards all that. Did not like. Leave the MMO set-ups to the MMO games. So since they're dumbing things down, I hope they "dumb" that down as well, or at least take a whole new angle at it. But I think that's it for my gripes. I'll be playing the game and enjoying it regardless

Ouch!
02-27-2011, 10:52 AM
I don't know why you'd expect a jack of all trades to be particularly good at anything in the game. Of course specialization and planned attribute and talent distribution will be superior while an amalgamation of multiple different roles would have a rougher time excelling at anything. Because the game is heavily party-based, it makes sense to have each character focus on a specialized role. In Mass Effect, it's mostly Shepard doing the work (with a little bit of assistance from allies as far as biotics or techs are concerned); by nature Dragon Age's system encourages micromanagement on higher difficulties (the kind of customization you're talking about only matters on Hard and Nightmare anyway) which lends itself to a party with specialized roles.

Doing one or two things very effectively with three other characters who also do one or two things very effectively is much better than characters who do a great deal of things somewhat well. The whole point is to develop a party of specialists who complement and compensate for one another.

Vyk
02-27-2011, 12:34 PM
I'll grant that's a good explanation for specializing skills. It still feels like a terrible idea to leave 90% of your stats disgustingly low, though. But I think my problem has less to do with the requirement and more to do with how none of that is really ever explained. Like say you're a rogue and you start out having to put your points in strength to do damage until you unlock the skill that lets you replace strength with cunning for your attack rolls. If you didn't read ahead and worked with what you could, you'd end up wasting a bunch of points on strength when you should hold out and unlock that skill as soon as possible and focus on cunning. Why the curve ball? Why not just say rogues use cunning for their rolls. There's a lot of instances like that where you get halfway through a skill tree or get a new badass item that works totally differently and all of a sudden you're like 'well :bou::bou::bou::bou:, guess I just wasted all those points before'. I guess you could argue its a reward for knowing what you're doing, but it really just feels like you're being punished for being ignorant of the game planning on changing the rules on you. As far as I'm aware, MMO's are the only games that work that way. If this were Dragon Age Online, it'd make more sense to expect people to be prepared for that kinda stuff

Edit: Also, I don't think its explained anywhere that if you have two rangers, you can only summon one companion animal. I found out the hard way long after making a second character a ranger, so I couldn't just revert back to an auto-save. So that was a COMPLETE waste of a skill tree. I was planning on having two companion animals, and again you're punished for being ignorant of how the game bends the rules

Ouch!
02-27-2011, 07:14 PM
I don't know about you, but I absolutely read ahead skill trees. They're all there right from the beginning; you can see every talent in each tree and plan accordingly. I will grant that Dragon Age: Origins was not exactly transparent in explaining how each stat actually affects your character (for example, they never properly explain the relationship between attack and strength or spellpower and magic), but they have addressed this in Dragon Age 2 on the attribute distribution screen.

What they really need to do is include the ability to respec in the actual game. They added an item that cost about six gold in Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening that allowed you to redistribute all attributes, skills, and talents. Mass Effect 2 also introduced a way to respec at a slight cost. I would hope there is a way to do this in Dragon Age 2 as well.

Vyk
02-27-2011, 07:56 PM
True. Its just my play-style. Instead of reading everything ahead and having my head swimming with information to keep in mind as I progress towards something, I prefer to just wait until I get a level, read the two or three skills I can get and choose one. I don't mean to say that they're wrong in wanting to make a game in that manner. Its just completely incompatible with me. And yeah, it'd have been nice to be able to go back and fix things once I knew what I was doing. I imagine they'll give that option in DA2, it seems pretty standard for them now. Nice to hear they fixed up the explanations of the mechanics. I didn't spend a lot of time reading stuff while playing the demo since I knew it was only going to be like half an hour long, no point in getting a tutorial on everything

And I imagine the dual ranger limitation on only allowing one companion familiar for the party was more a glitch or limitation on the engine they used than them actually pro-actively flubbing the idea. But it was still a massive inconvenience. Woulda been nice to have two rangers, one for archery and one for back-stabbing and have a mage and a warrior available, and two attack bears to make up for the lack in brute force by not having another warrior or whatever sacrificed for the second ranger. But oh well. At least now if I ever play the game again, I know all the pit-falls in the rogue trees at least

Freya
02-27-2011, 08:32 PM
Yeah every stat had a description though and they said "this is good for rogues" or warriors or whatever. So I don't see why you would play strength in a spot when you have a mage o.o

Ouch!
02-27-2011, 09:03 PM
There are much better party set-ups than one that involves two rogues specializing as rangers anyway. The ranger specialization is only especially useful in conjunction with a blood mage who can use the summoned beasts as free healing. Otherwise, assassin, duelist, and bard all offer far more in the way of party utility than ranger.

Vyk
02-28-2011, 12:24 AM
Ranger was just the first specialization I unlocked. And since I didn't read up I had no idea about assassins. So aside from Leliana's bardness, it was the only option available. So I became a dual-wielding ranger who later added assassination (took forever to finally meet Zevrand..), and she was an archer bard ranger. An obvious time where reading up would have helped me out I guess haha. But yeah, I wouldn't presume my team would be anywhere near a top-tier idea. I just wanted to have Leliana and the idea seemed balanced enough. I just wasn't ready for that MMO style of supplementing everyone with stuff from everyone else and trying to work two or three skills together to make an insane killing machine. I'll be going into Dragon Age 2 a bit more prepared...

I suppose if I ever felt motivated to play the game a second time I'd have a lot less to complain about since it won't all be so jarring and surprising

And I never found the blood mage specialization, so that idea would have never occurred to me haha

nirojan
02-28-2011, 01:14 AM
Okay got the Sir Issac's Armour (from Dead Space 2) and got my Hayder's Razor (courtesy of DA2 demo). It was such a pain in the ass, had to play the demo 3 times, cause i got disconnected from the EA server, right near the end of the demo (there's no save in the demo either). Check Bioware forums and apparently alot of people are having that problem on 360/PS3, but PC seems to be good.

Now I hear about this Dragon Age Legends which unlock 3 more items, but it's in closed beta right now. Anyone have a spare code or something? Signed up for the beta thru facebook, but have yet to receive my entry to the beta.

Freya
02-28-2011, 01:31 AM
Yeah I have a beta key if you want. I'll pm it to you.

nirojan
02-28-2011, 02:44 AM
Yeah I have a beta key if you want. I'll pm it to you.

ahhhhhhhh OMG!! thank you thank you thank you!!

*Starts Homer Simpson kissing*

McLovin'
02-28-2011, 03:19 AM
Warrior controls were way more fun in this game than in the first. Whirlwind is so fun!

And looooooving the battle mage stuff with the staff tricks.

And graphics are A++ as always.

Freya
02-28-2011, 05:11 AM
I was going to go rogue all the way but I played through as a mage and I really liked it. So really it's if I want carver or bethany. (if you play a mage you get your brother if you play a rogue or warrior you get your sister so you have an equal party at least at first)

Vyk
02-28-2011, 09:49 AM
Yeah, when I switched to playing as Bethany she was doing all kinds of spinny tricks with her staff, looked pretty bad-ass. Makes me tempted to create a mage. Didn't realize that scene was scripted to even out the team. But it makes sense

kotora
02-28-2011, 09:49 AM
Demo crashed for me after the character 'customization' thing. Guess who certainly won't be getting the game now. I wasn't too impressed with the combat anyway and the story and setting seemed kinda generic as well. Graphics are also a letdown compared to Mass Effect, which has way better looking faces.

Freya
03-03-2011, 10:37 PM
http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/xx68/Prettyypenguin/dragonagepromos.png

That's everything you can get RIGHT NOW. Well kinda. Up to now. That's mine. Of course. They are having another promotional thing through their facebook for another tomb. Also they are doing a swag one too with razer stuff...

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/7224/schwagg.jpg

FREEEEEEEEEEEE STUFFFFFFFFFFFF. I also have the signature edition preordered so I get the DLC exiled prince (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDwWNvWoQws). I like his accent. If you didn't preorder it in time the DLC for him is released the day when the game comes out. So you can get him right away. They haven't said he's a LI or anything yet. I know it's like 560 mircosoft points, dunno about PS3 or PC though.

EDIT: I found out.

Price: PSN - $6.99 | PC/MAC - 560 BioWare Points | Xbox - 560 Points

nirojan
03-08-2011, 03:35 PM
Yay just got my DA2 Bioware Signature edition. Can't wait to start playing it!

@Freya: I have everything on your promotions list except "hindsight". Any clue as to how I get it?

EDIT: okay nvm! Here's where to find bonus item info for anyone interested:
http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/info/bonus_items/

Freya
03-11-2011, 12:59 AM
OMG this game is amazing. I'm 15 hrs in and still only barely on ACT 2. OMG amazing.

Aerith's Knight
03-11-2011, 12:32 PM
Man, I just got bombsmurfed by a ginormous spider in the beginning of the deep roads. Does anyone know a way so I don't lose 3 injury kits in the first 5 min of that act?

Freya
03-11-2011, 06:42 PM
Don't suck :smug:

Laddy
03-12-2011, 04:11 AM
It's awsome!

*continues playing*

Aerith's Knight
03-12-2011, 02:09 PM
ISABELLA SEX.

...is awesome. But then 3 min later she betrays me in the fade. What a bitch.

Freya
03-12-2011, 07:16 PM
I romanced anders cause i'ma mage and I sympathized with him. It was cute but I think he's going crazy o.o

Aerith's Knight
03-12-2011, 07:37 PM
I don't like Anders. He's whiny. My usual part consists of Varric, Isabel and Aveline. I'm a mage, so it rounds it off well enough.

I have too much money now that I'm out of the deep roads. I spend and spend but there is no end to it! It's madness!

DMKA
03-13-2011, 12:00 AM
/v/ told me this is the worst game ever made.

Jessweeee♪
03-13-2011, 09:27 PM
It'll be a looooong time before we get this game probably (I still don't have Brotherhood :() so I just have some questions:

1. Are mages as awesome as they were in the first Dragon Age?
It seemed so in the demo -- spells don't seem to have changed much. When I fought an Ogre and a mob of darkspawn the rest of the party fell and I was left to fight them on my own. Mage Hawke proved to be very squishy, but I was able to just run circles around the field, occasionally casting a spell before taking off running again. Once the goons were gone, the Ogre was very easy to avoid.

2. Does friendly fire still depend on difficulty? I like making GIANT FIRE TORNADOES but they just aren't as fun if my party gets boo boos :(

3. Importing! I read you could import a DAO save file. Is this true, and if so how much effect will this have?

Aerith's Knight
03-13-2011, 11:49 PM
It'll be a looooong time before we get this game probably (I still don't have Brotherhood :() so I just have some questions:

1. Are mages as awesome as they were in the first Dragon Age?
It seemed so in the demo -- spells don't seem to have changed much. When I fought an Ogre and a mob of darkspawn the rest of the party fell and I was left to fight them on my own. Mage Hawke proved to be very squishy, but I was able to just run circles around the field, occasionally casting a spell before taking off running again. Once the goons were gone, the Ogre was very easy to avoid.

2. Does friendly fire still depend on difficulty? I like making GIANT FIRE TORNADOES but they just aren't as fun if my party gets boo boos :(

3. Importing! I read you could import a DAO save file. Is this true, and if so how much effect will this have?

1. A mage is dandy enough. Only once I had a problem with it. On the end of act II, you may have to fight a boss battle, 1 on 1, which was grueling for my mage. I just kept running in circles until my few effective spells recharged.

2. No idea. Only played on 1 difficulty.

3. Yes, and I have no idea how much, because I didn't have one left.

Mikztsu
03-14-2011, 12:25 AM
By all means it's not a bad game, but very disappointing by Bioware standards.

Game feels too simplified on every department, plot is pretty weak ( big part of the game you collect money to travel to the Deeproads by weak motive), dungeons are identical copies of each other ( except the parts where paths are blocked by cement door) which makes the game feel pretty cheap. Something that was better compared to DA: O is companion quests; they are long and well done.

As I said, it's not a bad game and I'm having fun with it. I just hope Mass Effect 3 won't disappoint me this much.

Freya
03-14-2011, 12:51 AM
1. I am damn squishy! But if done right, I can wipe out a whole mob very very easily. If they resist >.> I just got a :bou::bou::bou::bou: load of aggro. It's best to have a tank at all times with taunt when you're a mage.

2. It hasn't affected me on normal. So I'm thinking it's based on what level setting you have.

3. Yes importing does kinda affect it. I haven't played too much but I hear some old faces pop back. Also there are some quests that you'll recognize that have something to do with what you did in the first game, and it's expansion.

Aerith's Knight
03-14-2011, 01:05 AM
You're not that squishy. Plus, with upgraded Fireball, upgraded mind blast, that ice area attack, and a couple Force mage spells, no enemy even gets near me.

NeoCracker
03-14-2011, 02:07 AM
Alright, just beat it. And after some of those last scenes, Anders is officially cemented as a bad ass.

And I don't think there was a big issue with why you go to the Deep Roads, it wasn't a great reason but It's nothing I'll call Bull:bou::bou::bou::bou: on though. On a whole, I loved the story and characters.

Merril is my favorite though, she's a damn awesome character and a freaking beast in a fight. Her Sustained Area of Effect and Snare are amazing.

Plus, her outfit change after moving in with me was bad ass. My favorite character design in the game.

Mikztsu
03-14-2011, 12:40 PM
And I don't think there was a big issue with why you go to the Deep Roads, it wasn't a great reason but It's nothing I'll call Bull:bou::bou::bou::bou: on though. On a whole, I loved the story and characters.



To me it was, because I was expecting somewhat epicness through and through as in Origins, and first half it was far from anything epic. More whinge from me about the fact you actually spend all game around Kirkwall; not traveling on the world map was a big let down for me. Doesn't feel like adventuring. :S

Aerith's Knight
03-14-2011, 05:41 PM
That mother quest is still creeping me out. I did not need to see that.

Freya
03-14-2011, 08:41 PM
I literally said "WTF BIOWARE?!" after that quest.

Aerith's Knight
03-14-2011, 10:10 PM
Holy.. Did I just kill the entire SMURFING DALISH VILLIAGE?

WHY?

Also, why can't I bed Meryll and still have Isabel as my romance option. Ugh, I can't stand that elf.

NeoCracker
03-15-2011, 01:04 AM
And I don't think there was a big issue with why you go to the Deep Roads, it wasn't a great reason but It's nothing I'll call Bull:bou::bou::bou::bou: on though. On a whole, I loved the story and characters.



To me it was, because I was expecting somewhat epicness through and through as in Origins, and first half it was far from anything epic. More whinge from me about the fact you actually spend all game around Kirkwall; not traveling on the world map was a big let down for me. Doesn't feel like adventuring. :S

I was saying I don't call Bull:bou::bou::bou::bou: on the basis that I didn't find it contrived at all. :P

I have no real issue it's story wasn't as epic in the sense that it wasn't solving some world wide crisis. I am actually very fond of following the Champions Rise to power, and their inevitable involvement in the start of a world wide event by the end of it. If you've beaten the game, you already know what it is, so I wont' bother with spoilers and just leave it at that.

More then anything, this game served as a bridge to another game.

Also, the final battle has far more tension and feelings of grandure then the first dragon age, where the last battle was sorely disappointing.

Iceglow
03-15-2011, 02:22 AM
My only major comment so far in this game (I'm not very far in to it) is just about the Qunari, in the first game Sten and all other Qunari are depicted as tall gold skinned giants but still clearly human, comparing one to the Ferelden humans imho was much like comparing a 40k Space Marine to a normal Imperial Guardsman. In this game they're pretty much no longer even slightly resembling their appearance in the first game. I know it was pointed out in the first game that the Qunari did not consider themselves as Human and neither did the rest of the world but this is a major artistic change in depiction.

The Summoner of Leviathan
03-15-2011, 05:38 PM
It'll be a looooong time before we get this game probably (I still don't have Brotherhood :() so I just have some questions:

1. Are mages as awesome as they were in the first Dragon Age?
It seemed so in the demo -- spells don't seem to have changed much. When I fought an Ogre and a mob of darkspawn the rest of the party fell and I was left to fight them on my own. Mage Hawke proved to be very squishy, but I was able to just run circles around the field, occasionally casting a spell before taking off running again. Once the goons were gone, the Ogre was very easy to avoid.

2. Does friendly fire still depend on difficulty? I like making GIANT FIRE TORNADOES but they just aren't as fun if my party gets boo boos :(

3. Importing! I read you could import a DAO save file. Is this true, and if so how much effect will this have?

1. I only tried Mage on the demo but it seemed pretty cool, maybe will try it on my second play through. The skill trees group a bit different though I like it. Just make sure you occasionally level up their constitution, just to make sure they have plenty of health!

2. Difficulty affects friendly-fire. In Easy, Normal and Hard friendly-fire does not occur. Anything higher, like Nightmare, it does occur.

3. It affects you in small ways, like you get the allusions that Flemeth make, or the occasional mentioning of the "Hero of Ferelden", plus some of the characters who make cameos and such.



Game feels too simplified on every department, plot is pretty weak ( big part of the game you collect money to travel to the Deeproads by weak motive), dungeons are identical copies of each other ( except the parts where paths are blocked by cement door) which makes the game feel pretty cheap.

That's just the first Act, plus if you concern yourself with getting your companion and doing other things than getting the sovereigns needed, then it actually goes by fast plus there's a last minute quest where someone offers to compensate you if you lack the required amount of coin. Also, some minor sidequests in Act 1 evolve into major plot points in Act 2.

As for the dungeons being the same, I never did feel that way in DA:O but it was like that in ME1, all the mines and labs and spaceships had the same layout. Whereas it doesn't break it for me, it makes me a little bit sad every time I see that. The blocked doors and passages that appear of the map make my inner completionist sad as well.

Aerith's Knight
03-15-2011, 05:42 PM
That's it? 10 minutes of credits and not even a bonus movie.

*grumbles*

The ending was good, but I don't want to sit through long credits like that for nothing! Halo franchise spoiled me.

Although it wasn't as bad as PoP

Ouch!
03-18-2011, 11:17 PM
First of all, they said the story takes place over ten years, and we've only seen seven at this point. I do not appreciate that it seems we're going to need to buy some DLC or something to get the conclusion that we had been hoping for.

At any rate, I enjoyed the first and second acts. For the first act, I felt enthusiastically overwhelmed by all the side quests I could do before I even entered the Deep Roads. The story of the second act was awesome to experience as well. The third act, by comparison, was a complete and utter let down. I kept hoping that something more interesting might happen, but it never did. Every step of the way, I expected Flemeth to come back and do something interesting. I expected Merill's attempts to rebuild the Eluvian so we can see a return of the Warden and Morrigan from the Witch Hunt DLC.

I expected more.

I'm not disappointed by the gameplay. The class trees were better done than in Dragon Age: Origins and unless you played on a lower difficulty, I didn't feel that the game turned into a blind hack-and-slash. You still had to think about what you were doing for most encounters on the challenging difficulties.

Given how much the developers said that they were trying to capitalize on the same kind of streamlining that made Mass Effect 2 so successful, I expected a better experience. They totally missed the boat in many regards. One of the things that made ME2 so much better than ME1 was to eliminate the recycled environments for all the side quests. The game is already divided into three distinct acts which very little back-tracking from act to act. Give the game a second disc if you have to; the reused caves was lazy and inexcusable.

The game was fun, but I feel cheated.