[karajorma]

You must be the first person I've ever heard say that Frankly I found DA:O's characters better (not brilliant, but I can still remember them all, as opposed to DA2's).

I suppose I should have made it clear that I meant the fact that they actually tried to do something more interesting with the characters than the stock types you got in DA:O. Shale is about the only one who isn't a very, very well worn trope. With her exception (and Dog) you could pretty much find anyone else in any other fantasy setting.

DA2 managed to come up with interesting ideas for many of the team. We had a guy who was possessed by a spirit and therefore torn in two (yet not one that was evil), an elf who actually had managed to get herself wrapped up in blood magic, and another one who had been horribly abused by a mage who saw him as property. On top of that they came up with an idea of having characters who didn't like you see you as a rival rather than hating you and simply leaving. Meaning that you no longer had to be nice to everyone in order to avoid losing someone you wanted to keep. Nor could you get away with doing things they completely hated by not bringing them along.

And then they completely stuffed up their own ideas and made the characters as bland and boring as you said. Horribly missed opportunity to do something interesting.

[TrashMan]

Personal prefferences.

I generally don't like the "special & unique" party members.
You know... the rare kinda very few poeple ever get to see (if at all) and yet hre you are runnign around with a whole colelction of them, like you raided all the local circuses for their attractions.
Characters like Shale.

[Luis Dias]

I'm not terribly worried about this. If I run into a plot development that contradicts a decision one of my characters made in DA:O or DAII, I'll just adjust my monitor's color balance to compensate.

BURNNNNNNNN

[TrashMan]

I'm not terribly worried about this. If I run into a plot development that contradicts a decision one of my characters made in DA:O or DAII, I'll just adjust my monitor's color balance to compensate.

 


But seriously, Bio painted themselves into a corner.
You end up doing far too many really big decisions and trying to construct a story with all those taken into account..it ends up a branching nightmare.

Do you wonder why each sequel takes place in a different country? So the player would be away from the places where the econsequences happened.

Expect one or two cameos. That's all you're going to get.

[karajorma]

Well that's not surprising. Only a human (or AI) GM could keep up with that kind of branching.

[The E]

Not to mention that when you're producing fully voiced games, the amount of dialogue you can realistically have diminishes rather drastically.

[Spoon]

What turned me off Dragon age was when they announced that in DA2 you'd play as a set character instead of your own custom character. Since they don't seem to be having the real intention of going back to the DA:O format I can't muster up any intent of being interested in DA anymore.
A shame, cause I did enjoy DA:O. Sure it wasn't Baldur's gate, but it was a pretty darn good RPG regardless.

[Luis Dias]

I wonder what games will be like when you can program actual AIs with natural language processing and caractherization as NPCs. The branching can become infinite!

[newman]

I suppose I should have made it clear that I meant the fact that they actually tried to do something more interesting with the characters than the stock types you got in DA:O. Shale is about the only one who isn't a very, very well worn trope. With her exception (and Dog) you could pretty much find anyone else in any other fantasy setting.

DA2 managed to come up with interesting ideas for many of the team. We had a guy who was possessed by a spirit and therefore torn in two (yet not one that was evil), an elf who actually had managed to get herself wrapped up in blood magic, and another one who had been horribly abused by a mage who saw him as property. On top of that they came up with an idea of having characters who didn't like you see you as a rival rather than hating you and simply leaving. Meaning that you no longer had to be nice to everyone in order to avoid losing someone you wanted to keep. Nor could you get away with doing things they completely hated by not bringing them along.

And then they completely stuffed up their own ideas and made the characters as bland and boring as you said. Horribly missed opportunity to do something interesting.

Oh, that's all true, and I guess I prefer a decently executed seen-before type of character than badly executed DA2 types; I honestly found the DA2 characters so boring that I barely remember the stuff you say as examples. Whole game was just so underwhelming and forgettable to me that even some interesting ideas on the side couldn't save it

[BrotherBryon]

My major concern is that they take their time with it, I would rather wait an extra 6 months to a year and get a more polished product over yet another obvious rush job.

One my biggest pet peeves outside of the god awful main plots and huge amount of bugs in both DA2 and ME3 has been the jerky awkward way the characters move. I used to think that Shepard's head looking at the floor in ME2 while running was kind of odd but it was loads more fluid than the comical jerky character movement in DA2 and ME3. If they can't get the basic mechanics to look right then how can we expect them to get the rest of right.

As far as story goes they need to break away from that whole "the player should be able to experience everything on a single playthrough" mentality they have had over their last couple of games. They paint themselves into a corner every time they do this and it takes away from the game's replay value.

[starbug]

My major concern is that they take their time with it, I would rather wait an extra 6 months to a year and get a more polished product over yet another obvious rush job.

As far as story goes they need to break away from that whole "the player should be able to experience everything on a single playthrough" mentality they have had over their last couple of games. They paint themselves into a corner every time they do this and it takes away from the game's replay value.

Yeah i would agree with those points, thats what i love about blizzard, they release something when its ready. Thats my worry with EA as they seem to want to just push out titles, even when they aren't ready.

Also yeah i agree with the replay as well, i only played Origins a couple of times for the different origin stories. DA2 have never replayed it. Now with the 3rd one they are saying that the origins will play a big part, so will each different one play different to the other for the majority of the game because that would increase the replay value, Also Bioware i think need to start supporting Modding as a lot of developers have. Modding can greatly increase the replay value of the a game. Freespace, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim to name a few.

[MP-Ryan]

I want to love BioWare, I really do - they're based in my city! - but they really keep pissing me off lately.

I haven't bought DA2 - I probably will eventually, when I can get it for a ridiculously cheap amount of money - but I loved Origins and if the third game is moving back in DA:Os direction, I'll probably enjoy it immensely.  I played the crap out of DA:O, having bought the Ultimate Edition, and I enjoyed the DLC just as much as the full game.  If BioWare can bring back that type of game then they'll see my money early on.  Otherwise, I'll do what I do with most singleplayer games - wait until they're ridiculously cheap in a sale.

I hope to hell they decide to go multiplatform again though.  I play a lot of ME3 multiplayer, and Origin is slowly killing my soul.  I don't think I can stand to get another game on that awful, awful, featureless Steam clone.

Regardless, my next RPG purchase is probably going to be Skyrim, assuming the Christmas Steam sale is as epic as ever.

[Meneldil]

Horribly missed opportunity to do something interesting.

This is an excellent description of DAII as a whole. In fact, the saddest thing about it is how much potential it had.
For example, I vastly prefer the idea of DAII's campaign to DA:O's save the world by killing a dragon. As someone already said, Darkspawn are boring: mindless monsters you need to kill. Mages vs. templars and Qunari vs. the rest of the world offers a potentially far deeper story by asking who do you need to kill and why... But of course it all goes to hell if you decide to cut the Gordian knot of moral ambiguity with a magical sword made of bull****ium. (And it doesn't even come in three different colors, it's invariably red.)

But as for the party, I wouldn't say all characters ended up completely bland and boring. It is of course a rather subjective thing, but some of them had a lively feeling DA:O's party usually lacked.

[SpardaSon21]

Morrigan was pretty awesome, even if every conversation she was involved in ended with "Morrigan Disapproves".

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Horribly missed opportunity to do something interesting.

This is an excellent description of DAII as a whole. In fact, the saddest thing about it is how much potential it had.
For example, I vastly prefer the idea of DAII's campaign to DA:O's save the world by killing a dragon. As someone already said, Darkspawn are boring: mindless monsters you need to kill. Mages vs. templars and Qunari vs. the rest of the world offers a potentially far deeper story by asking who do you need to kill and why... But of course it all goes to hell if you decide to cut the Gordian knot of moral ambiguity with a magical sword made of bull****ium. (And it doesn't even come in three different colors, it's invariably red.)

But as for the party, I wouldn't say all characters ended up completely bland and boring. It is of course a rather subjective thing, but some of them had a lively feeling DA:O's party usually lacked.

This post pretty much echoes my own thoughts about DA2. I've actually been playing through it again recently, and despite the endlessly recycled environments, I still enjoy it.

I find it odd that the sarcastic version of Hawke is actually probably one of the most unambiguously good characters in the game - more so than the "heroic" Hawke. And much funnier. Call it cheap laughs if you want, but Sarcastic!Hawke, Varric (whom I actually like immensely as a character), and Isabela make me laugh just as much as Morrigan and Alistair did in DA:O.

It did have a lot more potential (Kirkwall is a really, really ugly city) that it showed, but I like that it's a more personal story than DA:O, which at times can just feel too big. Kill dragon, save world, blah blah blah. Hawke is trying to make the best out of a crappy situation and just keep his/her family together.

Spoiler:

I expected Leandra Hawke to bite it at some point in the story, but the way it was done was just so BRUTAL. Also, my first playthrough, I didn't know that I shouldn't have taken Bethany along to the Deep Roads and I wound up having to kill her. Ouch.

If they can keep the character charm and correct even some of DA2's major mistakes, I'll be tentatively excited about DA3.

[TrashMan]

You know what would make Leandra's death better? No stupid goodbye speech. Dead is dead.
Not being able to say goodbye is more gut-wrenching than speeches.

[Topgun]

I don't mean to sound like a troll, but are people actually looking forward to this? Bioware hasn't made a good game in years. Dragon age 2 was terrible.

[MatthTheGeek]

Well, I'm still playing ME3 multi...

[Scotty]

And I'm still playing the rest of ME3 that isn't the last 15 minutes (or Kai Leng.  **** that guy).

Aside from DA2, Bioware hasn't really released a bad game, and even DA2 had some redeeming characteristics.

[Topgun]

Aside from DA2, Bioware hasn't really released a bad game, and even DA2 had some redeeming characteristics.

riiiiight



I never played ME3, but I was under the impression the fans didn't like it.