I figured they had god mode on, which is fine. My big issue is with the fact that the darkspawn are swinging swords at the characters, and are either just swinging right through them, or otherwise having no effect whatsoever. Ie, it's not even really combat. The darkspawn are just in a loop attack animation, and the game likely just randomly assigns damage to you.

I also really enjoyed how the player could keep doing shoulder rolls while staying right in the same spot.

Blegh. There goes my excitement for the game.

Creston

The total lack of tactics or strategy shown in those videos was pretty depressing. That said, it was a demo so I'm guessing they made the player very high-level (which would explain why the Darkspawn weren't doing any damage). But yeah, it's pretty clear that DA2 is being designed for the console audience, not the hardcore CRPG audience.

That's why they want to force the preorders now before they have to start showing people the game. There is literally no other reason to do time limited preorder stuff this far in advance unless you are concerned about the game and we've seen countless examples of that ripoff method by the industry already. Most other games start doing previews long before this but Bioware refuses to show anything, all we have is trailers and shaky cam stuff that they tried to prevent from being released.

They overreached with a short development time and it seems on the surface that they changed the entire game around from the original. Seriously, that seems nothing like the RPG I remember and frankly it looks like a B-quality studio effort.

Verno wrote on Oct 16, 2010, 11:33:
Yeah well...

Feast your eyes on these folks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G-I_afgJHc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG_-XQNR0JM

Seriously, I was speechless after watching those videos.

Cloned the Mass Effect dialogue wheel entirely. The combat looks like a basic version of God of War. Lifeless, bland environment with spawning waves of enemies just mindlessly running in to attack the PC. I don't know what else to say, it looks awful. I don't know how they can even call this Dragon Age with a straight face, it's like a different fucking game series.

Holy shit, that REALLY looks fucking pathetic. Insta-spam the same attack over and over, enemies that you can just run past (swords? What swords??), attacks of theirs never do anything and just pass right through you, EXPLODING darkspawn (wtf?? What happened to all the cool finishing moves of DA:O??).

Okay, this is definitely getting reassigned to the "I'll get it when it's ten fucking bucks" bin.

Good job, Bioware. You've really accomplished your goal of making a pisspoor Devil May Cry clone.

Creston

Verno wrote on Oct 16, 2010, 11:33:
Yeah well...

Feast your eyes on these folks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G-I_afgJHc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG_-XQNR0JM

Seriously, I was speechless after watching those videos.

Cloned the Mass Effect dialogue wheel entirely. The combat looks like a basic version of God of War. Lifeless, bland environment with spawning waves of enemies just mindlessly running in to attack the PC. I don't know what else to say, it looks awful. I don't know how they can even call this Dragon Age with a straight face, it's like a different fucking game series.

Like I said, Dragon Effect 2, The Mass Age. Its sad that the whole spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate marketing tagline that Origins carried for so long lasted all of 1 game. I mean its not like theres a ton of developers out there making CRPG's with full party control or pause and play tactical combat these days.

Yeah well...

Feast your eyes on these folks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G-I_afgJHc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG_-XQNR0JM

Seriously, I was speechless after watching those videos.

Cloned the Mass Effect dialogue wheel entirely. The combat looks like a basic version of God of War. Lifeless, bland environment with spawning waves of enemies just mindlessly running in to attack the PC. I don't know what else to say, it looks awful. I don't know how they can even call this Dragon Age with a straight face, it's like a different fucking game series.

I am very discouraged by the previews and announcements I've seen for DA2. Then again, I was completely certain the first one was going to suck the nads off a chimp before it released too, and I ended up considering it one of the better RPG's of the modern (post Baldur's Gate 2) age. So I guess there's always hope for a repeat of that. Given Bioware's recent penchant for "streamlining" sequels though, I think there's less of a chance of a surprise this go-round.

Yes, we know. That is the entire point of this announcement and news item.

It is also why we are mad...
No, I do not want fries with that. KTHX.
Noting the asterisk mentioniong the 01/11/11 date,
Ray

Thanks for explaining. It doesn't sound thrilling... :\

Creston

Were those the ONLY conversations they'd have, though? Or was that just in addition to being able to talk to them? To be honest, I didn't think that walking across the bridge in the zombie town over and over to hear party banter was all that great either.

No, you could talk to them in camp, but it wasn't done in the same fashion. Usually it would just consist of you walking up to them and then you have the conversation with them and it's over. In some situations depending on influence, they would initiate a dialogue during camp. You might get a few other conversations scattered throughout but all in all there wasn't much there in the 'camp,' and it didn't seem like the NPC's had enough dialogue

In a sense, I guess it accomplishes the same purpose, but it feels less organic, and with the NPC's just didn't have as much dialogue, hopefully that was an issue of it being a terrible expansion and not reflecting a deemphasis in that regard.

StingingVelvet wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 17:13:

Creston wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 15:46:
I still haven't played Awakenings. How was it different from Origins? Where the party is concerned, I mean.

You initiated dialogue by clicking on landmarks within the world. Fore example clicking on a beer keg in the local bar would make the little dwarf guy talk about something. Basically it worked the same as Mass Effect 2 outside of the ship, where randomly there would be a place to examine to get some dialogue.

It worked alright, how upset about it you would be depends on how much you enjoyed the long stories your companions in the main game would tell. The companions in Awakening themselves were a mixed bag... Anders and Legion were awesome, the rest kind of meh. Legion turned on me at one point, which was kind of epic.

Were those the ONLY conversations they'd have, though? Or was that just in addition to being able to talk to them? To be honest, I didn't think that walking across the bridge in the zombie town over and over to hear party banter was all that great either.

Creston

It worked alright, how upset about it you would be depends on how much you enjoyed the long stories your companions in the main game would tell.

I was one of the people that loved the depth of the companions in DAO. Your interaction with companions in Awakenings was very limited. You could only directly talk to them at your base, unlike DAO where you could talk to them at any time. Coincidentally, we saw the same exact change between ME1 and ME2. This does not bode well.

VoodooV wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 17:14:

StingingVelvet wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 17:09:

Rattlehead wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 16:51:
The planets in Mass Effect 1 were lifeless, dull and basically felt like someone took a terra former for each planet, closed their eyes and whatever they pressed on the keyboard they stuck with.

Indeed.

The real solution though would have been making 3-4 planets that each were an open world about 1/4th the size of Oblivion. One would land from the ship in a town, get quests and such, then go exploring in the countryside. That would have been a lot more unique than cover-based shooter #347. Bioware seem to want Mass Effect to be the RPG for Halo kids though.

And I'm not saying Mass Effect 2 was a bad game, it was actually a brilliant game, it just should have been more.

That sums it up pretty good. I lol'd at RPG for Halo kids part. so true I liked ME2...but just felt like so much was missing.

Story-wise, I don't really care for the collectors, I thought they were too much of a distraction from the reapers themselves. Im worried that ME3 is going to feel rushed because they spent ME2 focusing on the collectors instead of exploring the reapers more.

This is how I feel about ME2 as well. I enjoyed it, but would certainly like some more RPG tossed in the mix. I'm really hoping they can find a happy medium between the first game and the second for the final game, but given what they are doing with DA2 it may be nothing more than a pipe dream

Nameless Again wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 19:37:
Why is it that game publishers are offering extra content, etc. for pre-orders? It's like they've turned into used car salesman, trying to sweeten the deal on a piece of shit.

There are several places (Best Buy, GameStop, EA Store) offering the Signature Edition for the regular edition price of $59.99 (PS3, 360) or $49.99 (PC) if you pre-order now.

Why is it that game publishers are offering extra content, etc. for pre-orders? It's like they've turned into used car salesman, trying to sweeten the deal on a piece of shit.

If you wanna new game, go see Cal.
If you wanna new game, go see Cal.
The prices we won't slash,
if you want to hack and slash,
and you got the extra cash, go see Cal.

DAO was pretty meh IMO. I'll be skipping this one entirely, or at least the bargain bin.

StingingVelvet wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 17:09:

Rattlehead wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 16:51:
The planets in Mass Effect 1 were lifeless, dull and basically felt like someone took a terra former for each planet, closed their eyes and whatever they pressed on the keyboard they stuck with.

Indeed.

The real solution though would have been making 3-4 planets that each were an open world about 1/4th the size of Oblivion. One would land from the ship in a town, get quests and such, then go exploring in the countryside. That would have been a lot more unique than cover-based shooter #347. Bioware seem to want Mass Effect to be the RPG for Halo kids though.

And I'm not saying Mass Effect 2 was a bad game, it was actually a brilliant game, it just should have been more.

That sums it up pretty good. I lol'd at RPG for Halo kids part. so true I liked ME2...but just felt like so much was missing.

Story-wise, I don't really care for the collectors, I thought they were too much of a distraction from the reapers themselves. Im worried that ME3 is going to feel rushed because they spent ME2 focusing on the collectors instead of exploring the reapers more.

Creston wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 15:46:
I still haven't played Awakenings. How was it different from Origins? Where the party is concerned, I mean.

You initiated dialogue by clicking on landmarks within the world. Fore example clicking on a beer keg in the local bar would make the little dwarf guy talk about something. Basically it worked the same as Mass Effect 2 outside of the ship, where randomly there would be a place to examine to get some dialogue.

It worked alright, how upset about it you would be depends on how much you enjoyed the long stories your companions in the main game would tell. The companions in Awakening themselves were a mixed bag... Anders and Legion were awesome, the rest kind of meh. Legion turned on me at one point, which was kind of epic.

Rattlehead wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 16:51:
The planets in Mass Effect 1 were lifeless, dull and basically felt like someone took a terra former for each planet, closed their eyes and whatever they pressed on the keyboard they stuck with.

Indeed.

The real solution though would have been making 3-4 planets that each were an open world about 1/4th the size of Oblivion. One would land from the ship in a town, get quests and such, then go exploring in the countryside. That would have been a lot more unique than cover-based shooter #347. Bioware seem to want Mass Effect to be the RPG for Halo kids though.

And I'm not saying Mass Effect 2 was a bad game, it was actually a brilliant game, it just should have been more.

RollinThundr wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 16:36:

Verno wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 15:19:

Draugr wrote on Oct 15, 2010, 14:35:
queue up the disappointment, as I understand it party interactions will reflect the Awakening style moreso than vanilla, though there is no shock there.

They flipflopped on that, it will no longer have party interaction based on environmental interaction objects. Your guys will go off and supposedly live their days while not in your party, doing jobs or whatever. They will send you a letter or something if they want to talk to you. It sounds bizarre and not fully developed yet so I don't want to pass judgment on it. They did however confirm that they weren't going to do the Awakening style crap after all.

Actually Gaider mentioned the other day the Awakening crap is still there as well. To be honest, after not really liking ME2 much, and not being all that big on a voiced protagonist ala dialog wheel, along with the console looking super fast combat, I kinda hate to say it, but I'm not entirely sure I'm Bioware's target demographic anymore.

Agreed. As much as I loved DA:O I doubt we'll see anything like it again.

Don't get me started on ME2 ... I'll just say that ME3 will be a bargain bin purchase for me.