Dragon Age

[Jae Onasi]

Here was an interesting article on Dragon Age on MMORPG.com.

[stingerhs]

Here was an interesting article on Dragon Age on MMORPG.com.

quite truthfully, i don't have a problem with it. i'm a mature adult, and i'm entitled to make my own decisions. if a parent is stupid and naive enough to be surprised that mature content is in an M-rated game that they just bought for their own child, then there really is no hope for our species.

[mimartin]

I agree with stingerhs.

 

There is a Big M and a Mature 17+ warning on the case. If parents are too stupid to read it, then the children have more problems than playing this game.

 

I got the all the romance Achievements without having a homosexual relationship with the elf. My Female elf did have Lesbian sex with a human though.

 

I’ll wait patiently for the Fox News segment entitled “Frodo meets Debbie Does Dallas.” The right wingers must think BioWare is a bunch a perves after the same type of controversy with Mass Effect. Hope they at least do their research this time before making compete fools of themselves like they did in the Mass Effect fiasco. Oh, what am I thinking research is a socialist word to them.

[Jae Onasi]

Oh, what am I thinking research is a socialist word to them.

Or a fascist word--it's all the same to them.

 

It's easy enough to read the warning on the box and read reviews. I do that for every game that my kids are going to play. I decided that the violence and gore was far more of a problem for their age group than the 'let's get into the tent in our underwear and make mad passionate whatever'. If my son happened to play that, he'd probably end up choosing all the non-romance options anyway (because he's 12 and the idea of kissing is still totally gross to him), so he wouldn't be in danger of seeing the 'love' scenes.

[cire992]

Just played... most of the game. It was alright, all the stuff I disliked about the game pretty much hit home within the first 5 minutes of gameplay, so it only got better from there. Haven't finished it though, accidentally read the ending on the interwebs, and it sounded pretty dull and a long ways away so I gave up.

 

Couple things I liked:

- A couple characters: The elf Assassin and Alistair were hilarious. There were some other guys you ran into during the game who were fun, too.

- The character customization. I played as a nomadic tattooed Elf warrior named CocaCola, 'nuff said.

- You could choose not to pick up certain followers. That makes things significantly less flabby, especially when there are only 3 classes anyways. I basically used the same 3 party members the entire time.

- The Dwarf city. Ever since I first saw the Lord of the Rings, I've wondered what Moria would have looked like when People were living there. And now I know.

 

Couple things I didn't like:

- The gameplay/combat. Its not compelling at all, you point and click. Sucks all the fun and adventure right out of it and turns the action into a grind-fest. Half the reason I didn't bother finishing the game was because I knew I would have to face the boss in the end who would probably test my patience more than my skills.

- The story. I hate when people complain about "generic fantasy" games, but Bioware's cookie cutter story arcs are getting old. I often found myself accurately predicting events well before they unfolded, and being frustrated when it was supposed to come as a surprise later on.

- A couple characters. The Qunari guy had no personality, the dog was just a toy, and a lot of npcs took forever to say nothing, causing me to occasionally zone out on important details.

- The graphics. The facial animations were pretty stiff, the environments were well designed but lacked detail, almost as if they had been made for an older game.

- Performance. I'm running the game on nearly 10ghz of processing power, 4gigs of ram and a pair of HD4870s in Crossfire, I should not be getting any lagging. Memory leaks EVERYWHERE.

 

The mod tool is pretty extensive, just makes me wish KOTOR had some of that action, though.

[stoffe]

- Performance. I'm running the game on nearly 10ghz of processing power, 4gigs of ram and a pair of HD4870s in Crossfire, I should not be getting any lagging. Memory leaks EVERYWHERE.

 

That's weird. I'm playing on a 3GHz Core duo machine with 2 GB RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 4850 card, with all graphics features set to max, and I've not experienced any lagging or slowdowns anywhere in the game.

 

(Crashes is another matter though. The game is extremely unstable on my computer. Maybe I'm just not running the game long enough between the crashes to start experience performance issues. I'd have given up trying to play it a long time ago if the game wasn't as good as it is.)

[DarthParametric]

Sounds like Mass Effect 2 would be more to your taste cire992.

[mimartin]

A couple characters. The Qunari guy had no personality, the dog was just a toy

You never even finished the game once, but you are critical of the characters? After my first complete play through I would have tend to agree with your point that Sten had no personality. Even after my second and third playthrough, I still would have agreed with you. However, on my forth playthrough I figured out the dog was not useless. If you take him with you and then ask the dog “Do you see anything interesting” in various locations, he will bring items including gifts to bribe your companions. There are also some very funny random comments between the dog and your other companions (especially Morrigan). The extra gifts allowed me to get Sten’s friendship up and have some very interesting (yet short) conversations with him including his side quest. I would say that your assessment of him having no personality is an overstatement. He provides one of the funniest lines in the game during a random conversation with Morrigan (I think it is the third or fourth time they talk). He has a stoic honor bound personality, but if you get what you can out of his story, then you know that is the way of his people. He definitely has a personality, it is just different from others within the game and it is logical that it should be since he is a foreigner in a strange land.

 

He is definitely not my favorite NPC, but he is at the very least interesting. Sten is just a little more difficult to get to know compared to Leliana or Alistair. Hell, I still don’t even know his name, just his rank.

[Rake]

The one thing I agree with is the story was pretty dull. I guess it fits the whole "introduction to the world" thing, but now that we know more about Thedas, I'm hoping they up the story to the next level.

 

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Also, Loghain was a joke of a tragic hero, and the Archdemon a joke of a main villian.

 

However, I really enjoyed the artistic style, the dialogue, the characters, and the lore behind the world. Just needs an awesome story .

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

- Performance. I'm running the game on nearly 10ghz of processing power, 4gigs of ram and a pair of HD4870s in Crossfire, I should not be getting any lagging. Memory leaks EVERYWHERE.

That's weird. I'm playing on a 3GHz Core duo machine with 2 GB RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 4850 card, with all graphics features set to max, and I've not experienced any lagging or slowdowns anywhere in the game.

I've got a similar setup to the stoffe, but with 4 GB of memory, and an 8800 GTS 512, the unpatched version of the game let me play with everything maxed out at 1920x1200, although I've had to scale some stuff down to just high or medium since the (first) patch.

 

(Crashes is another matter though. The game is extremely unstable on my computer. Maybe I'm just not running the game long enough between the crashes to start experience performance issues. I'd have given up trying to play it a long time ago if the game wasn't as good as it is.)

I haven't had it crash for me. Windows 7 superiority

 

The one thing I agree with is the story was pretty dull. I guess it fits the whole "introduction to the world" thing, but now that we know more about Thedas, I'm hoping they up the story to the next level.

 

Show spoiler

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Also, Loghain was a joke of a tragic hero, and the Archdemon a joke of a main villian.

 

However, I really enjoyed the artistic style, the dialogue, the characters, and the lore behind the world. Just needs an awesome story .

I definitely agree with you about Loghain, his stated motives didn't really make sense, and he was just a dick for the most part. Also he has a bad name. As to the Archdemon, I'd have liked it if the final battle with it was more than just fighting off hordes of Darkspawn footsoldiers while it hacks up fireballs at you and looks vaguely menacing. And if it had an objective beyond wreaking havoc.

 

 

I am but a speck of dust in the unused fruit bowl that cages the unwashed masses, however, so it's still one of my favorite games in spite of the game's prose not moving me to tears with its beauty, since it was fun for me to play. I like blowing things up with magic a bunch.

[igyman]

I haven't had it crash for me. Windows 7 superiority

 

QFE, QFT and any other QF you can think of.

 

As to the Archdemon, I'd have liked it if the final battle with it was more than just fighting off hordes of Darkspawn footsoldiers while it hacks up fireballs at you and looks vaguely menacing. And if it had an objective beyond wreaking havoc.

 

 

Yeah, I agree that the one thing that lacked was for the player to learn the Archdemon's final objective before hacking it up. Considering the connection between the Wardens and Darkspawn and all those nightmares, I had hoped to eventually hear the Archdemon speak and perhaps even have some sort of a brief conversation with it before crushing its skull. As it was, it definitely lacked a personality. I suspect Loghain was there as a secondary villain to make up for the fact that you won't hear anything but roars from the Archdemon.

 

 

Fortunately everything else about the game is simply awesome, so the above didn't ruin the experience for me.

[stoffe]

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Yeah, I agree that the one thing that lacked was for the player to learn the Archdemon's final objective before hacking it up. Considering the connection between the Wardens and Darkspawn and all those nightmares, I had hoped to eventually hear the Archdemon speak and perhaps even have some sort of a brief conversation with it before crushing its skull. As it was, it definitely lacked a personality. I suspect Loghain was there as a secondary villain to make up for the fact that you won't hear anything but roars from the Archdemon.

 

Fortunately everything else about the game is simply awesome, so the above didn't ruin the experience for me.

 

Was it ever established in the lore if dragons are intelligent sentient creatures in Dragon Age, or if they're just huge, awe inspiring, instinct-driven animals? I can't remember anything being said about that in the game.

[igyman]

Was it ever established in the lore if dragons are intelligent sentient creatures in Dragon Age, or if they're just huge, awe inspiring, instinct-driven animals? I can't remember anything being said about that in the game.

 

I've looked at the Archdemon, Dragons, Dragon Cults and Old Gods codex entries, as they are related to the question and as far as I've seen, the writers left it somewhat of a mystery. There are valid suspicions of higher intelligence in dragons and there's one sentence in the Archdemon entry that gives further hints, saying about the current Archdemon that "he is now a maddened husk of his former self", from which it is logical to conclude that he has to be more than a simple beast. The Dragon Cults entry is also interesting as it explores the possibility of higher intelligence in High Dragons. In the end I guess it's up to the players to draw their own conclusions.

[cire992]

You never even finished the game once, but you are critical of the characters?

 

I don't care if Qunari or whatever his name was suddenly became more lively in the last hour of gameplay, it doesn't make up for the fact that he was a mannequin with a sword for the rest of the game. Useless, too. I played as a warrior and Alistair is a warrior, so he's pretty much just baggage. Same with the other mages. I'm stuck with Morrigan from the get-go, so I never even bothered with Lelina or the other lady, they're just kind of redundant. I guess my point is that they're optional characters. Ultimately, they don't contribute anything vital to the story, and in Qunari's case, they didn't even do a decent job of hiding it. Just makes me stop and wonder if designing certain characters in the game was the best use of the devs' resources. Dragon Age is the first rpg I've ever played that put me in that 'less is more' mentality. Makes me wonder about the new Mass Effect game.

[mimartin]

Did not say he did liven up in the last hour of the game. However, he did have some interesting things to say if you actually took the time. BioWare just did not design their usual easy level conversation system like KOTOR or Mass Effect. In Dragon Age you actually have to work to get to know your companions. However, if you don’t like that system then you are more than entitled to your opinion. I’d just be critical of the system instead of the NPC.

 

For what it is worth, I find Leliana, Morrigan and Wynne the most useful companions. It has nothing to do with one companion being better than another, it has to do with my playing style. I’ve also use Sten in my last playthrough and had no problem with his survivability. To me he was very useful, but I’d still rather play the game with two rogues (including my PC) and two mages.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

"he is now a maddened husk of his former self"

motive found

[Darth Avlectus]

Wow. Just got a glimpse of this game last night. Un-freaking-believable. Saw it on a pal's PS3--got it for his woman.

 

In the gameplay it even had a familiar written dialogue feeling to another Bioware game I played not too long ago. *smug face*

 

Some glitches and flaws, granted, but all in all it looks to be a MORE-than decent game.

[DarthParametric]

Windows 7 superiority

I finally managed to finish my 2nd playthrough after my old comp died a couple of weeks ago. Playing it on my new machine - i7 860, 8GB RAM, GTX260 Super Overclock, Win7 x64 - it still runs just as crap as it did on my old box. Memory leaks lead to ever increasing load times of ridiculous proportions. Haven't had any crashes as yet, but I imagine that was only because I didn't play it long enough (the save I resumed was at the Landsmeet).

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

what's that? you haven't had crashes on windows 7 either?

 

windows 7 superiority

[DarthParametric]

Yeah I don't think a sum total of 2-3 hours on Win7 is a thorough benchmark. I'm about to start my 3rd playthrough, so we'll see what the verdict is after another 30-40 hours.

[Star Admiral]

Interesting. I must be really lucky to never have issues with any of my games. Played Dragon Age for 16 hours straight on one weekend. Apart from some loading slowdowns as I passed the 12 hour mark, no crashes whatsoever.

 

Using Core 2 Quad Q8300, GTS 250, 4GB RAM, Win7 x64. To quote a wise man:

windows 7 superiority

 

 

- Star Admiral

[igyman]

Yeah I don't think a sum total of 2-3 hours on Win7 is a thorough benchmark. I'm about to start my 3rd playthrough, so we'll see what the verdict is after another 30-40 hours.

 

Well, I'm playing on Windows 7 too and I haven't had a single bug, let alone crashes.

[cire992]

I’d just be critical of the system instead of the NPC.

 

The system worked fine for everyone else. Because everyone else was interesting, this guy just spouted out blunt, emotionless 1 liners. Never left me particularly curious about him. Its like a page straight out of the 'how not to develop characters' book.

[Laar_Dha]

Still loving this game after a month of playing. I've finished the game with three different characters; one of those I played through two different endings. Played all the origin stories at least once and am thoroughly enjoying delving into different aspects of the character interactions. I spend a lot of time talking to everyone and trying to find all the little details I may have missed before, so a complete play through takes about 70 - 80 hours with both the add-on quests installed. I love seeing some of the NPCs recur throughout the different story lines. I've gotten used to the combat system and find it easily adjustable to suit different situations. I switch between easy and normal, depending on whether I'm feeling ambitious or lazy.

 

The increasing load times are only a problem after a couple of hours and reloading the game takes care of that well enough until the problem is fixed. Other than that, the game has run very well. I get some lag in very populated areas, but not too surprising with my video card (only a GeForce 8200) and graphics settings. ( I decided I preferred a slight lag to the lower graphics settings) Crashes have been rare and I've put in a lot of hours of game play (WinXP), so no complaints there.

 

All in all, I find very little to criticize. The game is entertaining to play and beautiful to look at. I really like the style they chose to use: that slight look of a painting rather than a more photorealistic aesthetic. Thoroughly satisfying in my opinion.

[mimartin]

Its like a page straight out of the 'how not to develop characters' book.

 

A book on how not to develop a character to cire992 taste, if that was what BioWare was shooting for then they obliviously failed miserably. However, that does not mean everyone thinks Sten was uninteresting. I found his back story and his side quest vastly more interesting than Oghren’s. I thought he gave the PC the most interesting send off in the ending and in one of the endings where Sten could not talk to the PC, I found the description of what happen to Sten the best, even if it was the shortest and most non-descriptive. It is just a matter of a differences in opinion and taste.