Dragon Age Thoughts

[Chaos Wielder]

Glad to see some NWN2 love here. Dramund, have you checked out the expansions? The first one, "Mask of the Betrayer", is pretty interesting from a "story" perspective(be wary if you will, but it's quite fascinating). The latter, "Storm of Zehir", is old school dungeon crawl with some badass encounters in it(IMO, best final dungeon/boss I've seen in years). If you can, check them out--they're far more polished than NWN2 vanilla.


Bioware's most intersting title they've made was "Kingmaker", a NWN1 premium module, and "Witch's Wake", another NWN1 premium module. Aside from those, it's tough to take them seriously. DA being generic was pretty clear from the title and, well, the damn enemies being called Darkspawn. Made me not bother with it.

[Dramund]

That's a good point about the title. "Dragon Age: Origins" sounds like a fantasy novel you would find a bargain bin - basically anything with "Dragon" in the title is guilty of this unless it involves Bruce Lee.

I did play Mask of the Betrayer but I did not finish. I had career priorities make me drop gaming completely for a time and didn't want to jump in halfway through the story afterwards. It was well polished I remember. Storm of Zehir looks like good dungeon crawl fun, especially since I liked the Icewind Dale series a lot. I wanted to start that after I finished Mask of the Betrayer, but it all got put aside until DA:O came out, and now I don't want to leave DA halfway through ><. Plenty of RPG this winter...

[Dramund]

So, I am going to post one more brick of text on this thread I have invaded with bricks of text. I have finally figured out what exactly in this game enrages my bile ducts. After this realization, I am more heartbroken than ever.

You can basically chalk Bioware as one of the final and most surprising member of the "Let's copy lots of stuff from WoW." bandwagon. (Before anyone jumps on my nuts, I know WoW has copied from everything else, but nothing has become so incredibly popular that its spawned dozens of games that are as legally similar as possible, or can get away with calling themselves original by simply adding "Tactics slots"). Apparently, every fantasy RPG from now on has to aim to be as comfortable and familiar as possible to WoW players.

There are many specific things that raised an eyebrow in Dragon Age. Exclamation marks over quest givers. Did it have to be exclamation marks? Pointless quests for the sake of questing; one paragraph of weak backstory, and you run around town clicking on things before you return and get some XP and Gold! Run to this zone and clear the enemies, then return for XP and Gold! Couldn't this all have been crammed into a sprawling dungeon instead of an MMORPG quest grind?

The biggest offender is the combat system. There was a time when D&D players complained that warriors didn't have any special abilities besides attacking. This was fine for pen and paper, and fine when in Baldur's Gate, for instance, you have to worry about controlling 6 people at once. Eventually when MMORPGs came around, people realized 2 abilities might not be enough when controlling a single player. WoW perfected this philosophy by giving you several hotbars of abilities to spam all battle to be effective, some of which really serve no purpose but to be used as soon as the cooldown refreshes so you can do a decent amount of damage, maintain threat, etc. Dragon Age takes this MMORPG philosophy (along with health, mana for casters, and stamina bars for martial classes that recharge faster out of combat) and puts you in control of 4 characters, with only a pause button to help you. And since you can only assign 1/2 or less of your abilities to the Gambits - I mean Tactics - the AI is useless if you want to get the most of your characters, not to mention the AI can't do basic things like flank targets, nor does it have a lot of important situations covered. In a nutshell, I am quad-boxing WoW characters with a pause button to help issue orders.

In Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate, combat was relatively fast paced and I usually only had to worry about casting spells and repositioning martial classes. In Dragon Age, I am constantly pausing to help every single character spam abilities they should be spamming anyway in order to push through the battles like it's some kind of challenge. The hotbars don't help either since you have to select each individual character to use an ability. I've seen multi-character control done much better since Baldur's Gate, most notably in an obscure free MMORPG called Sword of the New World - grindfest, but the multi-character control is phenomenal, particularly considering you can't pause the game. Even in that game, using abilities were meaningful as well. Dragon Age feels like the busy work of playing DPS classes in WoW times four. It's tedious, slow paced, and above all else, not fun. That's not even touching on the "difficult" mobs, that basically revolve around lots of HP and immunity to everything but damage, meaning its straight tank and spank or kite for an aggravatingly long time. After each battle, I get to regenerate health and mana likes in MMORPG and twiddle my thumbs while my bars slowly fill back up because I could be ambushed around the next corner.

Honestly, I now have no idea what reviewers were playing. I have found nothing compelling about this game. It feels like a F2P MMORPG with dialogue choices, cut scenes, and no other players. If only I could have returned it, I could have spared these forums a final rant.

[joetbd]

Originally Posted by Dramund

Dragon Age takes this MMORPG philosophy (along with health, mana for casters, and stamina bars for martial classes that recharge faster out of combat) and puts you in control of 4 characters, with only a pause button to help you.

This really bothers me.
It might be different if the AI were better. But having to play an entire MMO party, by myself, is way too much micro managing.

It seems like the AI characters are actually dumber than they were ten years ago. My AI allies stand around doing nothing (in battle) more than they ever did in BG, IWD, or NWN.

[Li-Ion]

Looks like I'm skipping Dragon Age and hope the best for Mass Effect 2.

I had my first doubts about DA when looking at trailers where characters covered in ridiculous amounts of blood where talking as if they just discuss last Sunday's bingo game. I also already play WoW, so no need for playing WoW 4 times simultaneously and with a pause function.

I wonder when developers will realize that making a game that does look and feel like WoW not necessarily means that they can tap on the crowd playing WoW? People who like playing something like WoW already play WoW, they are lost, you can't have them anymore, forget about them! ;-)

[joetbd]

Originally Posted by Li-Ion

I wonder when developers will realize that making a game that does look and feel like WoW not necessarily means that they can tap on the crowd playing WoW?

Bioware (and everyone else) has been doing that for years. They said, while developing NWN 2, that they were going for a more MMO feel. Making fights last longer, in an attempt to give their games more of an MMO feel.

I hate when developers use random elements from popular games. Come on guys... your bioware. For a lot of people YOU ARE RPG's.

[Dramund]

Thanks for responding. Nice to see I'm not alone because the game seems to be universally acclaimed. Yeah, I think the MMO combat system would be more bearable if the AI pulled more of its own weight. But I'm not even sure I can call the combat system a bad decision on Bioware's behalf because people are gobbling it up. I think we're in for a dark age of stagnant fantasy RPGs until a developer grows some balls. I don't see that happening during a recession.

[Chaos Wielder]

Something which has been lacking in the DA discussions is the evolution of its "point".

When the game was first announced, Bioware was deeply upset at how they had been treated by Atari. Neverwinter Nights was starting to seem like an "infinite" game, where small premium modules(think digital content) would finance the modding community for a long, long time. Atari and WOTC cut that short, however, so they could release the next game, Neverwinter Nights 2.

Bioware, pretty explicitly, said they wanted to make a modding game that was totally in their control. Basically, a game for gamers. Individuals could mod it to their heart's content.

Now, flashforward to the game everybody sees now. It is released on three major consoles(PC, PS3, X360) and only one of them has a modding component, and even then that modding component has to be downloaded apart from the product. I see discussions here and elsewhere about the MMO influence, which is pretty far removed, I think, from any sense of a modding community. The project originally started with the player in mind, but it seems very different than that.

I'm not sure what to make of this, and unless you were meshed into the NWN1/NWN2 modding community, this history might seem sketchy(take my word for it). It really looks like the lesson Bioware took from the experience was not that a modding community bolsters the game but, rather, that digital content, when carefully managed, can make a game last longer than it ought to.

The "point" of DA, I think, is that it represents a shift in how games by Bioware are being managed: rather than reaching out to the community with whole hands, they want more money to continue their own product line. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this, but it is telling Bioware has changed so much from their so-called 'glory days'.

@ joetb

Bioware did not make NWN2. Obsidian entertainment did. And they had some balls, especially with their two expansions. They are quite elaborate, albeit somewhat failed, experiments, and I respect them for it.

[Boy]

Well, since everyone is chiming in with their negative impressions of the game, I figure I'd hop in here with my own.

My brother rented the game after the conversation on GC had already heated up, so I immediately went in with a critical eye. What's funny is that the thing that stuck out to me most of all wasn't the MMO nature of things (though it was very apparent) or the generic setting (which I feel has been overstated...I mean, it's generic, but I've seen much worse), but the interfacey-ness of the whole thing.

After playing Demon's Souls, which had a very minimalist HUD, and Rise of the Argonauts, which had no HUD whatsoever, it's weird to play a game that's just numbers and giant thick-lined circles and meters and action bars everywhere you look. I can only describe it as the game itself constantly proclaiming "LOOK AT ME I AM A VIDEOGAME", and it feels very quaint and archaic in this respect.

The game actually seems both interesting and fun to me, and my sadly limited experience with WRPGs may partially account for this (Planescape: Torment and uh...), but the amount of interface going on seems pretty over the top.

[joetbd]

Originally Posted by Chaos Wielder

@ joetb

Bioware did not make NWN2. Obsidian entertainment did.

... OK, let me the correction

Bioware (and everyone else) has been doing that for years. [OBSIDIAN] said, while developing NWN 2, that they were going for a more MMO feel. Making fights last longer, in an attempt to give their games more of an MMO feel.

[Dramund]

Originally Posted by Boy

My brother rented the game after the conversation on GC had already heated up, so I immediately went in with a critical eye. What's funny is that the thing that stuck out to me most of all wasn't the MMO nature of things (though it was very apparent) or the generic setting (which I feel has been overstated...I mean, it's generic, but I've seen much worse), but the interfacey-ness of the whole thing.

The interface is actually very clean by MMO standards

With all the criticism and even with the fact that I can't finish it despite my efforts to tell myself I didn't waste my $50 (Those Gamefly ads make a lot more sense now), I still would recommend Dragon Age to most people. My experience with it is rather unique and consequential. I had just finished Demon's Souls, which conjured of feelings of awe and reminded me why I started playing video games in the first place ("stiff challenge" also describes my reaction to those experiences). Dragon Age, on the other hand, reminded me why I stopped playing video games for a time (time sinks for time-sinking sake, witless dialogue with characters that are a poor substitute for actual people, and tedium, tedium, tedium). Above all else, it conjured up severe feelings of exhaustion, mostly in part to over a year of WoW and over a year of Everquest. If I never saw the fantasy MMORPG combat system for the rest of my life, it would be too soon.

[Brad Gallaway]

Hey all.

Well, the review's in the can. Should be going up soon. I don't suppose you guys'll like it much, but i am interested in your feedback.

funny thing, i've never played an MMO so i saw different sorts of parallels in the game. it's curious to me how someone's personal experiences color their view, but that's so true of much in life, i think.

anyway, LMK what you make of my review, good or bad. (and i'm prepared for bad.)

[Dramund]

I should mention that I have been playing the PC version. The big advantage of the PC version is that the player can precisely place area of effect abilities. To compensate for this advantage, many spells do 50% friendly fire. I'm not sure I would call this more "tactical," it simply shifts the balance of spells so you have to be more careful of what you regularly cast during regular battles. Damaging spells become more situational, so I suppose more tactical by definition. However, blood magic is ridiculously powerful in the PC version, as are a few enemy-only AoE spells, so it simply changed what I usually casted. By the way, did you notice the gigantic plot hole that occurs when you specialize blood magic? No one notices, no one cares. I'm not sure if I would say DA:O has any "hard" encounters either. There are simply encounters where I had to drink potions and encounters where I didn't. Thanks, potions. There is also a clear indication that Bioware doesn't understand the basics of fantasy combat. I'll touch on that later.

I disagree about the moral "choice" in the game though. In most crossroads of the story, I found it to take after Baldur's Gate where there was a benevolent way, an evil way, and then the benevolent way which is more rewarding than both the other ways because it adds an extra step (e.g. Arl of Redcliffe choice). Several other branches are dictated by your party members because there is no benefit to pissing them off.

Speaking of characters, I think Bioware did a great job writing the characters and it's definitely the high point of the game. The characters I find less than endearing aren't so because they are poorly written, but well-written enough to bring out an actual personality conflict. It's just too bad they didn't do the same for the main character. I like to develop my own personality when I play an RPG yet in Dragon Age, more than any other RPG, I felt like a straw man for every other NPC's "witty dialogue." They say what they are going to say, and I often found myself with a multiple choice of responses I would never use. Then when I pick an option, it became horribly clear that every other character's lines were written first.

My biggest problem with the characters and I wager what actually ruined the game for me is the complete disconnection from game play. I'm guessing Bioware never played a game that used their own system because if they did, they would understand that there is a very clear, classic, tried and true, and proven over and over again build. It gives you 4 slots - just enough for a tank, rogue (damage and lockpicking), mage (crowd control, either through area effect damage or incapacitation), and a healer. If you do this, you will breeze through the game. Dragon Age gives you, if I remember right two mages to account for healer and crowd control, two rogues and FOUR warriors. Only one of these four warriors is a proper tank. What? Keep in mind, I did experiment with swapping out characters. It was doable, even if it made the battles more drawn out.

I'll be honest here. I hate Morrigan. She comes off as the "nerd-magnet" of the game; the scantily-clad woman who's social awkwardness is passed off as independence. I don't find her interesting and I found her to be the worst offender of the Straw-man player writing. Moving back to the character selection issue, you can see that playing as a rogue, she is one of the two ideal mages, so I have little choice. Furthermore, there is nothing to gain from pissing off party members, especially if they are in your regular party. It's worse than good and evil meters because there is clearly a "right" option. Maybe I'm just not far enough into the game, but a companion system done properly should ensure that not getting along with certain companions should be a viable option. I've never felt like I've had less choice in an RPG. A game should always have at least two characters for each archetype. 5 warriors? How about 2 mages, 2 healer-mages, 2 warriors, and 2 rogues. Oh yeah, and Shale. That makes nine. Maybe a fifth character slot would have made it more engaging, or maybe the combat difficulty actually choked off half the interesting characters. Maybe the console version is better.