[General Battuta]

So, I was going to do a long preview post with David Gaider's trenchant remarks and a summary of what we know, but I'll cut to the chase:

It looks bad. Possibly really bad.

[NGTM-1R]

Considering what I thought of DAO, I'm not terribly surprised.

So can we get a link to trenchant remarks or something instead?

[General Battuta]

This is my favorite thread on SA right now.

Just be aware that Snakes and Cakes is a decent stealthtroll, he acts super enthusiastic about the game but is really in the DtB camp.

Good David Gaider quotes earlier in the thread.
ahaha ogod

"We had a simple design principle: when you press a button, something awesome has to happen."

"Think like a general, fight like a Spartan"

DtB

[NGTM-1R]

Bioware are developing different combat systems for the 360/PS3 and the PC. It's not perfectly clear in how far the combat will actually differ between the versions, mostly because we haven't seen a single PC presentation yet.

Uhhhh...okay. I'm not sure what this means. They later apparently refuted it, but...

And here's the catch: Someone else is actually making it up. The main characters of Dragon Age 2 are actually Cassandra and Varric, two people ten years down the line from the first game, that have to save a world on the brink of war not by fighting their own battles, but by finding out just what Hawke's been up to since Dragon Age: Origins. In other words, the game is told in flashback, by a not-always reliable third party.

Goddamn it, Bioware! You're literally just going to go throw up your hands and scream "**** it!"?

[General Battuta]

Hey Alpha Protocol used a framed narrative and had a good story (maybe the best story in terms of actual responsiveness to your decisions.)

There's no more tactical view on the PC; you can still zoom out but not quite as far. In a triumph of PR they explained this at one point as an art decision; they didn't want to 'waste all that effort on ceiling textures PC players wouldn't see.'

[NGTM-1R]

Hey Alpha Protocol used a framed narrative and had a good story (maybe the best story in terms of actual responsiveness to your decisions.)

Whenever someone gives themselves a free pass to ignore continuity or other elements of good storytelling, the odds they will use it grow exponentially. It's not the framed narrative that worries me. It's the emphasis on "sure this might not make sense but we gave ourselves an out".

[General Battuta]

Yeah, they've already done that a bunch. Plus some really roundabout answers to questions like "How does Varric know what Hawke was doing at [x time when Hawke was alone/in private with someone else?]"

"Oh well Varric has an extensive spy network"

love scenes are gonna be more awkward than ever 

Man where the **** did our hot thread go, I had that thing way up in the top ten all time on HLP for post and view count 

[Ravenholme]

Yeah, I watched the 55 mins live footage and I'm inches away from cancelling a pre-order made before their hype machine began to kill it for me. I'm waiting to give the demo a try, and if I don't like it I will get rid of my purchase.

It's like the ME1 -> ME2 transition but bad, because at least some positives came out of the aforesaid transition. This one just looks BAD

[Ransom]

Yeah, it looks hilariously awful. If I didn't know any better I'd think it was a parody of BioWare games. It was the Giant Bomb quicklook that made me lose hope: http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-road-show-dragon-age-ii/17-3772/

Even the UI looks ****. That was the one thing about DA:O that was actually good.

Goddamn it, Bioware! You're literally just going to go throw up your hands and scream "**** it!"?

Ordinarily I wouldn't agree with you because I'm a big fan of unreliable narrators, but this being the same studio that couldn't even pull off a decent LotR-wannabe I'd be surprised if they didn't just use the device to cheat. DA:O had so many situations that could've been really interesting in good hands, but the writing staff fumbled it every time.

[Ransom]

hahaha oh god the short stories bioware nooooo

[General Battuta]

hahaha oh god the short stories bioware nooooo

i knooooooooooooow

[Tyrian]

I'm not usually in the habit of ing things or jumping in midstream, but the demo for DA2 just came out on Steam.  (You can get it off Bioware's site too.)  I grabbed and played it...and was promptly unimpressed.  While DA:O required some thought and careful planning before jumping into a fight, DA2 just seems cut down and way oversimplified.  The whole combat system just seems to be run up to a group of enemies and start hitting quickslot abilities as fast as you can.  To boot, the animation for characters isn't all that great either.  I've got a pretty powerful system (i7-920, GTX285, 6GB RAM) and it just seems like everyone's being jerked around like marionettes.  The UI is truly awful too.  It's so minimalist as to be ridiculous and the ability icons just look ugly and don't fit well with the rest of the game.  Even the main character's voice doesn't seem right.  I picked a male warrior and he just sounds like he's a snotty nobleman, not a villager fleeing a disaster.  The greatest irony?  One of the first things the game tells you is that the "inventory will be unavailable for the demo."  Not a good sign, considering that you can loot axes, armor, etc. off of bodies.  About the only good thing I can say is the branching skill system looks like it'll work better than the old, linear system. 

I actually got a good amount of enjoyment out of DA:O and dropped in a couple of mods.  I even had DA2 on my wishlist.  It's gone now.  I just hope Bioware doesn't screw up this badly on ME3. 

Has anyone else had a chance to play the demo?  What do you think?

[General Battuta]

I played it, it's awful. There are literally load times between individual lines in a conversation (probably unoptimized ****ty demo code) the writing is awful (probably gonna stay that way) and Isabela doesn't wear pants.

[Ransom]

so it's a faithful sequel is what you are saying

Is Isabela supposed to be the same person who taught you the Duelist specialisation in Origins? Because that's hilarious.

[Kolgena]

I watched some gameplay, and it did look pretty bad. Part of why DAO was so good was because there was lots of complexity in the game system. A lot of that got lost when they tried to make it into ME2.

[mxlm]

I liked the demo enough that I'm no longer nervous about my pre-order. Normal is the new easy, though, so if you're looking for anything resembling a challenge upping the difficulty is going to be necessary.

Is Isabela supposed to be the same person who taught you the Duelist specialisation in Origins? Because that's hilarious.

Yes

[Spicious]

Random demo thoughts:
 - People behind unskippable logos should be shot tortured.
 - A "press any key" screen does not belong in a PC game.
 - Fallout Brown is still ugly.
 - Why are there so many loading jitters?
 - Why doesn't escape go back into the game from the menu?
 - Why can only one ability tree be viewed at a time? There's a lot of wasted space there.
 - At least the gui isn't as terrible as mass effect 2.
 - Looking forward to the next dialogue system based only on choice of facial expression.
 - Bring back the loading lifts!
 - Flemeth seems to have had a mid-life crisis between games.

[TrashMan]

I am not impressed by he demo..Oversized-weapon, super-fast, over the top combat.... Feel like I'm playing a JRPG!

[Locutus of Borg]

I died twice at that second troll. Very annoying.

[Fury]

Just played the demo. It's not as bad as you lot make it sound. I like the faster paced combat because traditionally combat in RPG's is dull and boring, this is a step in right direction to make combat a bit more interesting as it plays a large role in these games. I like that mages basic attack is more useful than spitting and yelling bad words, which is how it usually goes.

The demo doesn't really tell me much about writing, but it didn't seem particularly bad. I think DA2 is going to be good enough to buy it, from what I can tell from the demo anyway.