Learn About the Makings of Dragon Age 2

" @lucas_kelly said:

" @zoner said:

" "You don't want combat to feel like a chess game"  Says who, guy? I completely want that for Dragon Age. Did they only listen to the ADD kids who didn't like the combat, and not the people who did? "

The combat in Dragon Age 1 was very dated and very repetitive. How is pressing the same button combinations over and over again fun at all?  "

 By that logic how is clicking LT and holding down RT over and over again fun at all?     "

" Yes, its an ARPG now! Maybe I will like this one... "

" @zoner said:

" "You don't want combat to feel like a chess game"  Says who, guy? I completely want that for Dragon Age. Did they only listen to the ADD kids who didn't like the combat, and not the people who did? "

The combat in Dragon Age 1 was very dated and very repetitive. How is pressing the same button combinations over and over again fun at all?  "

This is just developer BS. They dumbed down DA:O for console gameplay, no way around it... but it probably will still be a good game. 

" "You don't want combat to feel like a chess game"  Says who, guy? I completely want that for Dragon Age. Did they only listen to the ADD kids who didn't like the combat, and not the people who did? "

This game better have some fucking ragdoll in it or I'm not buying it. 

I found the combat fine on PC as, if you're smart, you have the ability to pull out, RTS style, and control everything that is going on with your team of fighters, mages and rogues. 
 
I've also played and completed the Xbox 360 version and found it a completely different experience. 
I found that it's much more time consuming to control your whole team, and this leads me to just control my own character. Leading to a much more "Chess-like" feel, that I constantly repeat the same attacks over and over again. 
And because it's easier on the Xbox 360, for obvious reasons, it's a lot less interesting and ultimately long periods of the game on the 360 platform tended to lead me to boredom. 
 
EDIT: I can have fun for hours on PC and just be in battles the whole time. 

"You don't want combat to feel like a chess game" 
 
Says who, guy? I completely want that for Dragon Age. Did they only listen to the ADD kids who didn't like the combat, and not the people who did?

Looks... great. 
 
Still I'm wondering of how good will be the plot and background of the world. The first one felt very bland.  

Hey guys, remember how the entire point of Dragon Age as a franchise was to be a revival of hardcore CRPGs like Baldur's Gate, with tactical combat, point-and-click controls, deep character creation systems, expansive worlds to explore and a forgoing of technical polish in favour of intelligent and multi-faceted storylines and quests which allow for real choice and consequence?  Remember how awesome it was to see Dragon Age leading what could have been a veritable Renaissance of the Western RPG, returning it to its pen and paper-based roots?
 
Because I think BioWare forgot.

" ...did he say 'murlocs'?  "

...did he say 'murlocs'? 

Only three months until this is out, but Origins still feels like it just came out. 

But I loved the combat in DA:O....

"

I enjoyed Dragon Age but I love Mass Effect. A happy medium would be perfect. 

To the naysayers complaining about its similarities to a certain other Bioware franchise. Do you really think this game is going to suck? Really? It may be different but I bet it will still be good. Bioware is the only dev to never actually let me down on a game.

"

Would they have the temerity to call this some semblance of successor to Baldur's Gate that gave up ghost eons ago now? Come on now, I dare them. Essentially Dragon Age: Mass Effect, the developers saw how little work of streamlining to the consoles made everything that much better for the second installment of that 'Action RPG', so isn't it only natural introducing the same dumbed down concepts to this game as well. Oh don't worry, it will still have a laughably limited and linear story with castaways only possibly conceived by fanboys lurching left and right to any NPCs with boobs on them, with more EXTREME elements including but not limited to those silly canned animation quick time events and overwrought blood splashes, topped with overbearing marketing blaring with some generic metal trope. Boy, Bioware sure knows how to pander to their base and I thought Jade Empire was an abhorrent change of vision.  
 
Yes, fancy art and a pretty trailer courtesy of some outsourcing and whatnot, but how about gameplay? Go to Youtube, there are videos for your revelatory experience. Hack and slash, stiff and repetitive at that, bolstered with replenished health meter and severely trimmed skills system are what portends to be the biggest features of the next year's biggest RPG. And no, your character will not carry over and some pansy named Hawke with a debonair goatee will hijack your experience from the first game. So edgy and radical! And EXTREME! Rise to the power begins on March 8!

That lady has video game boobs.

fuck bioware we liked its combat style they would screw up the one game they make that i really like.

I can't wait!

I've had this preordered since forever...fucking March can't come soon enough

Yess! finally i have a game that i am genuinely looking forward to! 
 
i loved dragon age, maybe even because it was so oldscool but change often times does good things.  
still like 3 months but maybe ill will even pre-order it somewhere 

I enjoyed Dragon Age but I love Mass Effect. A happy medium would be perfect. 

To the naysayers complaining about its similarities to a certain other Bioware franchise. Do you really think this game is going to suck? Really? It may be different but I bet it will still be good. Bioware is the only dev to never actually let me down on a game.

Am I crazy for being sad that even Bioware is giving up on the RPG format?

Goddamn conversation wheel...

Oh my god they didn't use the word 'innovative'. This is madness!

" It's wonderful that, despite Bioware's essentially perfect track record, there are STILL doomsayers who think this game is going to not just be bad, but straight-up suck. Change does not equal bad and streamlined does not equal dumbed down. This is Bioware, folks, let's not lose sight of that. As for those who don't want "cutting down murlocks by the millions," did you play the final act of the game? They essentially made all normal-level enemies one-hit kills. The problem with "dice-rolling" combat like you found in the Baldur's Gate games, in Dragon Age and even in World of Warcraft is that it feels like your character is doing a canned animation and then the enemy is taking damage, it doesn't feel like there's a point of impact. This looks like it's going to change that. "

Okay.. I'll give it a try, but I do not like the way this is heading. This is no longer spiritual successor to Baulder's Gate whatsoever.

Eh the truth is pretty clear. They want to make it so its more appropriate for consoles, plain and simple. Its a smart move because theres more money in it for them.  Having two different versions is just annoying because one will always be the primary game.  
 
On other things I like the character design of the main character, to be honest I love crafting my own character but I'd prefer if he was more narratively involved. Its hard to be immersed when hes standing there with a dumb blank look on his face the entire game.  
 
That said I played Dragon Age for 80 hours straight between sleeping and sometimes eating, and I think this will be just fine. 

The direction they are taking this game is making me a little nervous, but hopefully it's good.

Dragon Age + Mass Effect! YES! I am sold.
Dragon Age wasn't bad, but what I loved about Baldur's Gate II was that it told a story of a Bhaalspawn and you had little effect on that story. It was your interactions within that story that you controlled.
This is exactly what they want to do with Dragon Age 2! I hope it beats Baldur's Gate 2.

" Yes, its an ARPG now! Maybe I will like this one... "

It's wonderful that, despite Bioware's essentially perfect track record, there are STILL doomsayers who think this game is going to not just be bad, but straight-up suck. Change does not equal bad and streamlined does not equal dumbed down. This is Bioware, folks, let's not lose sight of that. As for those who don't want "cutting down murlocks by the millions," did you play the final act of the game? They essentially made all normal-level enemies one-hit kills. 
The problem with "dice-rolling" combat like you found in the Baldur's Gate games, in Dragon Age and even in World of Warcraft is that it feels like your character is doing a canned animation and then the enemy is taking damage, it doesn't feel like there's a point of impact. This looks like it's going to change that.

"we're trying to make a game that we would find fun to play" 
 
That is how good games are made. Love that line.

Literally every thing they said they were doing to "improve" the game makes me sad and is the exact opposite of what I want from a Dragon Age game.  The first game was one of my favorite games in over a decade, and it makes me sick to see them going out of their way to dumb it down for the console kids.
 
Please Bioware, stop trying to dumb down all your games. You are one of the few people who still make RPG's with any kind of production value. If I wanted to play a brainless game I would play Halo or Call of Duty. I want my RPG's to have complexity.

I'm looking forward to this game. Bioware hasn't put out a bad game yet, so I have faith in them to deliver in DA 2.

I only want to know how the combat plays on the PC ... thats the only thing that keeps me from preordering it.

So looking forward to this.

Well, it still looks like a Bioware game. So I am automatically sold.

So they had already decided the direction they wanted to take DA2 in (Xtreme, bro!) before DA was even out?  Figured as much.  I think they assumed DA:Origins would be rejected by console gamers, and by the time they realised they were wrong they were already well into DA2.
 
It's also amusing how they set out the Dragon Age universe to be this grim and grounded Martinesque low(er) fantasy setting, and then in the sequel they've had to introduce a framed narrative in order to justify your character being able to kill enemies 'by the million'.  It's fantasy; if they wanted a regular ass OTT fantasy setting, why did they bother with setting it up differently in the first place?
 
It'll still be a good game -because Bioware don't make bad games- but it's kinda sad to see them backtracking on so many things, especially after they tried something a little less safe with Origins and the market (PC & console) rewarded them for it. 

Hopefully it turns out good.

so they made Mass Effect in Dragon Age...

This is how you kill a franchise

Yes, its an ARPG now! Maybe I will like this one...