Ostriig on 3/9/2013 at 14:23
Dragon Age II was a genuine experience in my gaming career, since it showed me the full frontal difference between being disappointed by a solid game due to my own high expectations and being disappointed by a blatant ripoff. It sort of made me understand where the guy who (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-22887138) called the police on a hooker for misrepresenting herself was coming from. And some months after launch EA showed sympathy and the indication that they may have had their own disillusionments with unattractive escorts by (
http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/dragon_age_ii/news/dragon_age_ii_buyers_given_mass_effect_2_for_free.html) giving out free copies of Mass Effect 2 to everyone who'd ponied up for Copypaste Age II. Naturally, Bioware and EA are quite eager to spin up the hype machine around the notion that they've learned from the debacle.
And it looks like those PR gears are starting to grind, perhaps also in part due to all the attention that The Witcher 3's marketing is getting, with the longest showing so far coming from PAX Prime. Thanks to audience member Simone - who I hope will not mind me saying that she sounded
really excited by the demo, as I am genuinely grateful for her taking the time - you too may behold the "pre-alpha" demonstration.
[video=youtube;IML4hhg8Yz0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IML4hhg8Yz0[/video]
I was going to link all three videos, but the motherforum doesn't like that. So see the description on Youtube for parts 2 and 3.
Anyway, a few observations.
* DA3 isn't running on whichever version of Aurora nor on Unreal, but on Frostbite 3. And it looks awesome, at least as much as I can tell from the cam. The downside, however, is that there may be no modding. So yeah, quite possibly this one won't have any
user made content tits.
* BioWare are going the semi open world route, as I gather, a small number of very large areas. Kinda like an MMO, maybe? Or, um... The Witcher 3?
* A single one of these areas is supposed to be "larger than all of Dragon Age 2!" In other news, did you know that many countries in the world are larger than Luxembourg?
* Tactical camera is back, and at the same time the "up close" camera has apparently gone for an over-the-shoulder action viewpoint. It also seemed like there's a good deal of physicality to character movement, struggling through mud and up hills, and also rolling sideways to dodge enemy attacks. Not unlike... hm, The Witcher?
* Inventory and resource management is pitched to go old-school, with careful budgeting of healing items and party-wide pretty dress up in the works.
* Choices and consequences. Apparently there will be a great many of them. It's a good thing they didn't say there would be more than in Dragon Age II, cause that one had like, you know,
one. Also, more nuanced party interaction.
* Different playable races are back in as well, adding the Qunari as the fourth option.
* Partly destructible environment?
And other stuff which I forgot. There's about half an hour of footage of various bits in there if you're interested to check it out.
It's not a coincidence that I've mentioned the Witcher a few times in here, at the time of playing DA2 it was my impression that BioWare wanted to do something a little more in the vein of how Assassins of Kings turned out. And failed collosally.
But this looks interesting. After having been burnt with the previous title I could say that I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. I think the pressure's quite high for BioWare to make an impact with this one, seeing as how CDPR have set a definite course to take their lunchmoney. I'm also quite keen on seeing both companies taking aim at Bethesda, at least with CD Projekt it's quite (
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-18-witcher-3-dev-says-skyrims-story-and-quests-were-generic) out in the open.
Malleus on 3/9/2013 at 14:48
Good thing you put "Inquisition" in the thread title, otherwise I would have thought this was a DA2 rant thread. gg :)
Anyway, what I gathered from the preview is that they are going back to Bioware Cliche Chart for a story and you'll have to save the world again (this time from the Fade), which is rather disappointing if it's really the case.
Ostriig on 3/9/2013 at 16:03
Heh, I suppose the vitriol is seeping through. But yeah, I agree with you on that, the more personal and less messianic plot line in Dragon Age II was one of the few things I really liked about the game. Videogames in general could do with more of that.
EvaUnit02 on 3/9/2013 at 21:12
Quote Posted by Malleus
Anyway, what I gathered from the preview is that they are going back to Bioware Cliche Chart for a story and you'll have to save the world again (this time from the Fade), which is rather disappointing if it's really the case.
While DA2's story structure was fresh, it was very poorly executed. Stuff just happened around Hawke and she had no real impact on anything, aside from kicking the Qunari invasion force out of Kirkwall in Act 2.
Yakoob on 4/9/2013 at 05:07
Haven't played DA 2, but I was surprised by how much better DA1 was than I initially expected. Yea it's Bioware's standard "from zero to hero great evil blah blah" story with tropes, but it also had a lot of unusual and unique elements like the mage tranquility, criticism of church/organized religion and parallels to real world medieval ones (and inquisitions), flirting with your squad members, some interesting moral choices (like the kid demon), etc.
I only got about halfway through until I felt I kinda experienced everything the game had to offer (and combat/scavenge hunt also got tedious), but still, better than anticipated.
Starker on 7/9/2013 at 16:51
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Haven't played DA 2, but I was surprised by how much better DA1 was than I initially expected. Yea it's Bioware's standard "from zero to hero great evil blah blah" story with tropes, but it also had a lot of unusual and unique elements like the mage tranquility, criticism of church/organized religion and parallels to real world medieval ones (and inquisitions), flirting with your squad members, some interesting moral choices (like the kid demon), etc.
Flirting with your squad mates is definitely not unique or unusual in a Bioware game. It's kind of what they are known for. I think you could romance party members as far back as in Baldur's Gate.
Yakoob on 8/9/2013 at 04:12
Ah fair enough; I haven't played many Bioware RPGs except NWN, Kotor and Mass Effect and, aside from ME, none of them really had any significant party-interaction-mechanic or romance that I recall. I never got into Baldur's Gate, tho I kinda wish I did; but Dragon Age has been filling that craving I guess.
Pyrian on 8/9/2013 at 07:12
Quote Posted by Yakoob
Ah fair enough; I haven't played many Bioware RPGs except NWN, Kotor and Mass Effect and, aside from ME, none of them really had any significant party-interaction-mechanic or romance that I recall.
It's pretty easy to miss in KotOR, but it's definitely there.
It's between the internet and HK47.Not really. I mean, really, but not what I was referring to.Tomi on 8/9/2013 at 07:13
It's been a looooong time since I played KotOR, but wasn't there some romance stuff too? I haven't played Mass Effect (yet) or NWN so don't know about those.
edit: got ninja'd by Pyrian, but I don't even know what his reply is supposed to mean :p
Jason Moyer on 8/9/2013 at 15:19
Kotor and NWN had the exact same romance subplot, which was hard to miss unless you were playing a female character AFAIK.
