The BioWare / EA / Origin thread
I couldn't readily find a thread specifically about Western RPGs or BioWare, so I made one, and expanded the title to inclue EA and Origin in case the topic changed to such.
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1) I have yet to play a Mass Effect game, despite owning the first two on PC. Should I start?
2) The video game retailers Game and Gamestation (the UK equivalent of EB), are having financial difficulties and due to stupid, stupid reasons that will forever elude me, have decided not to stock Mass Effect 3, nor any other March release from EA, as they cannot agree on credit terms. Story on Kotaku.
GAMEstation.
...
I need to complete Mass Effect.
I have played Mass Effect through more than once, and I find it to be a very good game. However, many of the Assignments (sidequests) include clearing a cave, base, or bunker, most of which look identical to each other. It also occurs to me that one of the major gripes against Dragon Age 2 is that many sidequest areas look identical.
This being said, why then is Mass Effect considered a good game while Dragon Age 2 is said to suck (having never played DA2, myself)?
Well, that's not entirely true. Mass Effect is less of a full-on RPG. It's got over-the-shoulder shooting and taking cover and stuff, so repetition isn't such an issue because it's still involving that fun combat aspect.
Dragon Age is much more of an old-school style RPG, and the combat is much more melee focused, not to mention stat based. As a result it gets much more repetitive, which is why it's come in for so much stick.
Also:
Gee, can't see any capitol letters there. Hmm.
That's all? RPG's usually get repetitive to a point anyway as a result of having to grind levels. Is that really mainly what people are complaining about?
I was pointing out that GAME and gamestation are owned by the same people.
(hence why I fused the two together! XD)
EDIT: (Maybe you already know that, and I'm being played a fool again. Not too suprising these days really..
There is one city and you are having the quest in a number of caves that is a lot smaller than the number of the quests --> playing in the same cave over and over again. At least that's what I heard. I wouldn't touch DA2.
Especially Garrus and Mordin. Especially Mordin singing his own version of "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General"
I need to play those games again, if only to keep the single person who marred my nearly perfect playthrough of the second one. Lookin' at you, Tali...
That's the problem.
Dragon Age was never supposed to be like Mass Effect. Dragon Age: Origins did a lot of things that obviously were meant to be a throwback to Bioware's earlier games, like Baldur's Gate series. More tactical combat, a wide range of character customization options, a more PC-friendly UI setup, less of a cinematic and more of a video game feel.
Dragon Age 2 pisses that away and shits on its grave.
People don't like Dragon Age 2 because it is like Mass Effect and it never should have been. It's okay for Mass Effect to exist. I don't like what it became, some sort of weird cinematic thing with token attempts at making the player feel like they're doing something, now with a deathmatch shooter thrown in for good measure, tied into various social gaming and pre-launch DLC measures and whathaveyou, but whatever. People like that for some reason, so sure, let them have that.
The PROBLEM is that Bioware crafted Dragon Age 2 in Mass Effect's image. A single, voiced, human protagonist rather than the slew of mythical races possible in Origins. Quest types reduced to "go and kill things for me now", in a much less strategic way, like Mass Effect does.
Everything important is a step back from Origins for the people who actually enjoyed Origins. It's more limited in terms of locale, more limited in terms of how it looks, more limited in terms of customization, more limited in terms of strategy, more limited in terms of characters, worse story, they stripped out crafting, you can't customize your companion's armor....
The game is considered awful for being Mass Effect 2 because it's NOT MASS EFFECT 3: FANTASY EDITION. It's DRAGON AGE 2. Dragon Age and Mass Effect are different series, you know, not the same series with different genre skins.
Again, in Mass Effect 1, you explore planets in the Mako... the ME version of the Warthog (I like the Mako but apparently many complain about it.) On many planets which are not involved in missions (ie. the main plot), there is either a cave, a base, or an underground bunker. Despite there being quite a number of these planets to explore, nearly every base looks the same, nearly every cave looks the same, and nearly every bunker looks the same. It still doesn't mean the game sucks because of it, so I'm not sure why having to melee in one game instead of shoot in another makes the difference between a good game and a bad one.
Well, Mass Effect actually received a fair amount of flak for its side quests and irritating planet exploration sequences, both things that changed/vanished in 2. The praise for it is far from universal.
Mass Effect was more experimental, a mish-mash of ideas and design features that didn't always come together well. However, it was also pretty well polished, deep, well-written, and basically competent. Dragon Age 2 showed very little effort, made a few really terrible design decisions, and had an overall rushed and slipshod feel -- not to mention a story where you had basically no influence on anything that happened, and no obvious reason to be doing what you were doing until the very ends of the chapters.
Anyway, DA2 wasn't a horrible game or anything, it was just more of a letdown for people used to actual quality games from Bioware. I personally liked Mass Effect 2 a lot as it fixed a lot of the problems that ME1 had (though not without controversy) and was more assured in what it wanted to be. Dragon Age 2 was just a mess, a mix between a mediocre action RPG and a party based RPG. Some people liked it, many people (myself included) were disappointed by it. Such is life.
‘SEQUEL TO A BELOVED VIDEOGAME IS A BIT DIFFERENT.’
Ironically, DA:O (by almost all accounts) was a better selling product that Mass Effect and the best selling product in Bioware history at the time. They just didn't know that when they started development on DA2, and expectations for it were pretty low at EA. Hence the massive overhaul.
Dragon Age 2 was the better game in quite some aspects, the graphics were better, it performed better, the characters and dialogues were less stereotypical, it was available as a crossrelease, the story was shorter but more dense and actually interesting, some of the levels had more attention to detail, less annoying micromanagement, combat was a lot more fun and looked cool, it had replay value, it overall felt fresh and tasty instead of dusty and traditional in a bad way.
I agree with others that the most interesting part about Dragon Age was to get Leliana. So the love story was worse in Dragon Age 2 and of course they had some linear levels which they reused to often but in a whole it was the much better experience, especially story wise.
Dragon Age 2 felt after a good and short roleplaying session with a interesting story. Dragon Age felt after some never ending i've seen it a hundred times before. Hey Dungeon Master, can't we play a new campaign? It took many ideas from everywhere else which i found boring.
The one place where I will *strongly* disagree is on the combat part. There was no possibility for tactical combat or planning due to how the enemies rushed in in waves. It was annoying and clunky to control your party members beyond maybe pausing and casting a single spell, and there was really no strategy involved.
You think DA2's ending was better than DA:O's? Really? In that case this is kind of like a debate on religion where there is no common ground between two people.
Regarding a crossrelease i was talking about a Windows/OS X (Cider) DVD. Story wise DA borrowed a lot of its elements and scenes from Tolkien and others. The story in Kirkwall about the Qunari was great. I replayed DA2 several times whilst i had to force myself to finish DA already once. Micromanagement can be annoying if it isn't done well and occupies a to large percentage of the game. Chris Taylor and others already improved things a lot, i don't see a reason why things must be cumbersome again.
I rather play through well designed levels a couple of times instead of playing boring wide open spaces where nothing meaningful happens only once. Combat looked better in DA2 and it didn't take ages for members to get to certain positions. The tactical map was overrated and not well done in DA.
I think DA2 had several endings and the last ending wasn't as good as the ending before, which might be due to a lack of time but it nevertheless was more interesting than DA.
It wasn't just a couple of times. The increased reactivity of combat was better in DA2. Nothing else about it was imo.
DA2 has one possible ending and only one. Your decisions have zero effect on anything. DA:O has somewhere in the area of 100 if you count all the permutations in the epilogue. Again, this is just down to matters of opinion. I didn't despise DA2 or anything, but I thought pretty much everything about the gameplay was worse than DA:O.
Totally agree! Same reason Skyrim starts to suck.
This doesn't make sense to me. A company has a budget/idea for a certain game which for instance results into 13 quests, they produce it and sell it. Afterwards, because the game was a success and designed flexible enough to offer some additional content, they produce another quest which they offer for sale. What's wrong with that?
The old skool way would be either offering no additional content at all or producing more and then releasing it as an Add-on. Especially in RPGs the DLC concept works pretty well. I have no problem with DLC if it's fair (pricing and DRM wise) and if the quality is convincing. I'm not talking about that i could get some better weapons/magic items i otherwise can't have to pimp the existing game. I'm talking about real value in form of additional quality content, like in having another pen&paper RPG session.
I've no real problem with single-player DLC (not multiplayer stuff or new skins, those I've an issue with) but if the DLC is better than the core game, then why on earth should I bother with the game itself? It doesn't make sense to pay however-much for a game and then only be interested in the extra stuff they make for it.
You may have enjoyed Dragon Age 2. Fair enough. A lot of others, however, didn't.
Put yourself in the shoes of those who didn't like DA2 for a minute. Along comes a sequel to a great game which is, aside from they mythology behind it, almost completely different to the game it's a follow-up to. And then the developers start putting out DLC that's more similar to the stuff in the original game, but in order to play it, you have to have the sequel that's completely different.
Can you see why people are irritated?
I *do* have a problem with day one DLC and CE exclusive DLC and all that garbage though. The explanations for why they aren't included with the main game frankly smell of BS to me (just start development on them earlier), and it just seems like a way to increase the price of the game without actually having to list it higher.
Also, that $40 worth of ME2 DLC is about 11 hours of gameplay, max. Compare that to one of Bioware's previous add-ons, Baldur's Gate Tales of the Sword Coast. That expansion pack cost $30, made numerous refinements to the game, and added 20 - 30 hours of gameplay.
It's not an excuse for missions and stuff, which is frankly inexcusable, but that sort of thing I don't have a problem with (as long as its reasonably priced).
When it comes to DLC, there's very few instances of it being done properly. The Fallout 3/New Vegas style is one example of DLC done right. I don't know about Call of Duty Elite, since a lot of that's not come out yet, but I have my doubts as to whether it'll be worth it or not.
But that's not really Bioware / EA / Origin related, so I'll leave it at that.
They released a 'complete' version of Dragon Age (Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Collection), which did exactly what you describe. It was awesome (except for the PAL PS3 version, which didn't have Return to Ostagar, but they gave you a DLC code for it, so minor issue). Fallout 3 GOTY and New Vegas Complete did that as well, which is also cool. I wish more companies did that.
...I suspect Saints Row: The Third will practically need one with all the DLC they're doing. Ugh.
I don't share your opinion. I think the story of DA2 was interesting and so was the DLC released so far. Ultimately they could offer more depth but compared to most other stuff they dare to sell you these days, they were very good.
I also don't see a valid point to complain about things which improved, so in your position i would be more happy that the DLC is enjoyable.
You may not have enjoyed Dragon Age 2. Fair enough. A lot of others, however, did.
I would aks myself why i dislike the game. Is it primary because i'm upset because it's different to what i expected or is it really this bad. I can understand why some people who were primary more after the more boring parts of RPG experiences initially thought this way but if you give the game a chance then i think there are many aspects speaking for it as well.
I am going to un-friend you right now. Traitor!
You completely failed to put yourself in the shoes of others, as I asked you to. You just keep ramming home that this game is good. Well, I don't think it is. I think it's a massive letdown. A lot of other people think it's a massive letdown. And you need to accept that.
We think what we think, and we're not going to change our positions based on the arguments you're giving us. A good game for an RPG minded person? I AM an RPG-minded person, and I thought the game was repetitive and boring. You can't sell a game on story alone, because it's a GAME. Something you PLAY. Hence the word GAMEPLAY.
And the gameplay in Dragon Age 2 was a massive step down from Dragon Age 1, it took place in copy-pasted locations and the fights happened every other minute. It was tedious, mind-numbing and boring. And it may have had a fantastic story with brilliant dialogue, but if I don't want to slog through god-knows how many fights to get to it, then it's all for nought, isn't it?
I'm glad you enjoyed the game. It's good to know at least one person did. But please stop trying to tell us it's a good game, because most of us don't think the same way you do.
I'm sorry but i don't want to wear the shoes from other people. I understand what you're trying to tell me but it doesn't make sense from my point of view. If you ditch it for specific reasons than that's fine but it's rather pointless doing so just because it's different without giving the game a real chance and i also know a number of more traditional people who liked it after they gave the game a more open minded second chance.
It would be nice if they could produce much more DLC though and i expect at least a third one in the not so distant future, wonderfully set up and integrated with the dwarf still reporting.