Unfortunately most games released nowadays fall in one of these categories:
a) Action RPGs that are basically RPGs only in name. b) FPS or FPS-wannabe. c) Made for multiplayer, with a single player campaign placed in game almost as an afterthought.
ME3 was heavily on categories b and c above requiring you to participate either in an online multiplayer FPS mode or a boring portable game to even allow you to have access to all endings.
I fear what they'll do to DA 3 and will wait until a demo version is available. Mainly because EA is going heavily with category c on their games.
@State_Lemming Anders wasn't much of a brooding character in Awakening. I guess shit got to real when they took his cat away.
Now that you mention it, yeah he seems to be in a better mood.
Though considering I just got Justice, and he clearly isn't IN Anders yet, I can see how regular Anders could be more cheery than spirit-jacked Anders.
Anders is a LOT more fun in Awakening. He's much more likeable. As for Justice...Dunno, he reminds me of a Lawful Good Grandpa at times. I never really liked lawful good characters. They just seem so narrow-minded at times and accept only their own beliefs and opinions, with the only thing coming out of their mouth being 'Justice!'. Seems a bit one-sided to me. You have to look at situations from different perspectives to make a morally stable judgement, I think. Anyway, I liked Awakening. It was much darker than Origins at times. Also, the concept of evolution with the Darkspawn is quite intruiging and let's be honest, the Architect is just badass. One of the better character designs in my opinion.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud Well, Justice is a spirit. Much like the demons in the setting they are narrow minded and stick to their principle because it's in their nature. Apparently the reason demons make their way in to the mortal realm is that they find it quaint. Rules and boundaries is a different kind of freedom to them.
Yeah, the Architect is pretty cool and I like his H.R Giger he has going on.
Shame that the setting seems to get totally wasted now. It started out with a bit of potential.
As for Justice...Dunno, he reminds me of a Lawful Good Grandpa at times. I never really liked lawful good characters. They just seem so narrow-minded at times and accept only their own beliefs and opinions, with the only thing coming out of their mouth being 'Justice!'. Seems a bit one-sided to me. You have to look at situations from different perspectives to make a morally stable judgement, I think.
I agree, but that's part of why found his character concept so intriguing. The way I see it, Justice is about the physical manifestation of a virtue, but it is a virtue he himself know nothing about except what he has glinted from the dreams of mortals. In the fade, the concept is simple and pure, he doesn't need to know or think about what justice is, he is justice, he doesn't need to doubt. Then, with no forewarning, he gets sucked out into the real world by mistake and he finds that justice isn't always as simple out there as it was in the Fade, and
@scriver: Gotta agree with you there. The real 'mortal' world is a bit more complicated and has more shades of grey than the Fade has, so to speak. Yet I wonder how Justice came into existence in the Fade...He must have been created somehow, right? Also, at some point Justice said something that really intrigued me:
****SPOILER AHEAD****
After the Baroness has been defeated, Justice says that there might be another realm beyond the Fade where souls of living beings go to. It got me wondering on what the Fade is actually supposed to be. A kind of Purgatory in between the mortal world and that other realm beyond, then?
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud - Since I was overly nonresponsive in the above post, I'd just like to add to it that originally, my post also went on about how I see Justice's story as being about how he, once out of the fade, has to learn how to deal with morals, specifically justice, in a world that is less black and white. Then I also complained a bit about DA2, but that's really not worth repeating.
came into existence in the Fade...He must have been created somehow, right? Also, at some point Justice said something that really intrigued me:
****SPOILER AHEAD****
After the Baroness has been defeated, Justice says that there might be another realm beyond the Fade where souls of living beings go to. It got me wondering on what the Fade is actually supposed to be. A kind of Purgatory in between the mortal world and that other realm beyond, then?
If I remember correctly, Justice also talks about spirits being the Creators first-created children which he wasn't satisfied with (which basically makes them allegorous to angels, I guess), but I don't remember much about that.
Regardless, it seems that spirits only take form/gain a personality after interacting with mortals in some way (they all, except dwarves, go to the fade when they're dreaming, iirc). It's when people travel the fade that the spirits gets to know the concepts that they will come to embody, or something, before that they're shapeless and malleable. I also remember reading somewhere in DA:O that the seemingly lifeless landscapes that we traverse in the Fade is actually made out of spirits in themselves, forced into that shape by the mortals mind. The spirits, as such, have the potential to manifest in a "physical" form (as kuch as things are physical within the Fade), but lacks the ability, or perhaps imagination, to realise themselves on their own. This leads me to one of my favourite theory - spirits are leftover "building" magic/energy from the creation of the world. They were made first, because the Maker needed them to Make the world, but when the world was finished, a lot of it remained. So it lingers in the Fade, ideas without purpose and thoughts without shape, raw unrealised potential as it were, until some mortal happens to traipse by in their sleep and"Make" something out of them, and when that happens we call them "spirits" och "demons".
That is entirely possible, for the most part you only get the Chantry version of fade lore. The people who might know otherwise never want to tell you.
Why did Justice exactly merge with Anders of all people? You'd think they're quite each other's opposites. Anders is carefree and has loose morals (at least in Awakening), while Justice seems to follow a strict moral code. But this probably got explained in DA 2, I guess. Haven't played the game myself, to be honest, but all of the negative feedback is kind of putting me off from buying it. Also, I've seen a lot of videos on YouTube and I wasn't really that impressed, actually. From what I've seen, DA 2 doesn't 'feel' like a Dragon Age game. It's hard to explain.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud Well, they completely overhauled almost all designs from previous game in pursuit of a unique identity for their franchise. They took out the origins part completely in favour of having a voiced protagonist.
They also made combat hack'n'slash with lots of enemies just spawning out of nowhere to make all fights seem like small battles.
I played it recently, and I enjoyed it in spite of myself. I had the same problem where I thought it didn't "feel" like Dragon Age, but I think it is. It got me (cautiously) excited for DA3, so that's something.
The combat isn't actually that much different, the problem is that they didn't do a very good job with battles, they all sort of blend together after awhile.
Ahh...been here for ages but only just signed up...
DAIII? Not a chance in hell. In that is not just indicitive of how (in my opinion) what a disgrace DAII was. It's the company and it's employees as a whole. The fact that Bioware no longer exists, as the company is now EA, the Bioware name is purely a tax dodge and because people recognise it. It will no longer exists in 12 months, mark my words.
People ask where the hate comes from, especially on the BSN? (Such a vile cesspit of a site).
Well. Lets start at the beginning shall we? DA:O was released (Finally), after it was delayed by 8 months. Why was it delayed? Because EA 'demanded' it was available for consoles (because we all know, EA do not make pc games). Now DA:O was always intended to be a pc only title. Was designed from the ground up to be that way. EA changed it.
Then came awakenings. And the first of the lies. The sacrifice was completely ignored. The lore was completely ignored. And they changed the game mechanics of conversation in an 'expansion'.
Then came comments from Mr Gaider such as 'Suck it up princess' (in the official forums)...dev posts being deleted so they could be not proven they were lying. Chris Priestly, the most useless 'customer manager' I have ever had the displeasure of conversing with dishing out bans left, right and center and publicly 'goading' Bioware fans.
Then came ME2, and while I loved it, angered many 'rpg' fans of the first. I personally believed it made the game better, but each to their own.
DA2 came along. More lies. Total change of mechanics and style. Let's be honest (and I own a console too), but console sales were very disappointing to EA (You every played both console/pc version of DA:O, you will know what I mean). So what did they do? They turned DA2 into a console game. THAT is what pissed off the majority of the fans. It was so dumbed down, my 5 year old could finish it.
ME3, now, I have mixed feelings here. I thought the 'game' was fantastic. Huge improvement over the first two. But yes, the ending was just a disgrace. There was no 'artistic integrity'...they screwed up. Some official dev quotes:
Your choices matter. We did not simply decide to go with red, green or blue. Multiplayer does not affect the single player game.
All said before launch. All proven to be lies.
You don't understand the ending, not our problem. (Said after launch)
Now, this is what is ruining Bioware as a company. This is what has caused a very large section of their core, loyal fanbase to lose interest. I for one believe Bioware as a company were in trouble financially, hence why they sold out when EA started sniffing. Why were EA not interesting in any other rpg developer? Make on wonder doesn't it? Mass Effect was always the cnsole shooter EA wanted, so largely left it alone...everything else since EA aquired Bioware has progressively got worse and worse. No one can argue that fact.
We were originally told that the Ultimate Sacrifice in Origins would be honored, and that if that's the ending you took, that was the end of your story and you would 'have to' create a new character. Gaider then decided to completely ignore this fact and allow you to actually use said same character, regardless of whether he/she should be dead. (but then, we both know how Gaider likes to 'resurrect' dead people don't we lol)...
IIRC, his words were such as: I can do what I like, I'm the writer, just pretend you didn't die.
They changed the lore and timeline in Awakening from what was seen/told/explained in Origins. I cannot give you specific lore changes right now, but if you wish me to, I will trawl through the old posts that were made on the BSN, they shouldn't too hard to locate.
And then they did it again with some of the DLC, they did it in DA2...
I just played Awakening recently and I feel the same way about the Joining, but in that I thought they made it trivial, didn't know characters could just come back, that is lousy.
The only lore thing that came to me from one playthrough (I like to read the codex entries but for Awakening I didn't bother) was the timeline gets a little iffy with Anders, since he is in Kirkwall a year after Hawke and friends leave Lothering.
Actually my biggest complaint with Awakening was that there was never a good explanation for the antagonists being intelligent among darkspawn, I think the Architect says something that amounts to "Baby I was born this way."
The conversation mechanics weren't bad, but they should only add to the dialogue, not replace the old one.
We were originally told that the Ultimate Sacrifice in Origins would be honored, and that if that's the ending you took, that was the end of your story and you would 'have to' create a new character. Gaider then decided to completely ignore this fact and allow you to actually use said same character, regardless of whether he/she should be dead. (but then, we both know how Gaider likes to 'resurrect' dead people don't we lol)...
IIRC, his words were such as: I can do what I like, I'm the writer, just pretend you didn't die.
I understand your thoughts about the lore (even though I personally found ithe stuff about the Architect interesting but very badly explained), as I myself go into fits of fanly anger whenever they change the Elder Scrolls lore to the worse, but the above I don't really understand. They did let you play as an Orleasian Warden if your sacrificed yourself, didn't they? I don't know how through that feature was, though, as I never player through with it.
What I was the most interested in was the dialogue changes, though, because I can't remember any. Or did you mean how the interaction with party members were much more regulated (for a lack of better word)? Because that I would agree with, and in hindsight, it could be seen as an early sign of how formulaic it would become in DA2.
the timeline gets a little iffy with Anders, since he is in Kirkwall a year after Hawke and friends leave Lothering.
If I remember my timeline correctly, the Archremon has already been defeated (or is shortly after) when they arrive at Kirkwall. Which makes the weird thing that it took the Hawkes 1-2,5 years (which is my guesstimate on the timeline for DA:O+Awakening) to cross Ferelden.
The DA2 dialogue was okay for me in the long run since there where still frequent opportunities to talk with them outside of their little bases, what with each having multiple side quests and in typical DA fashion , commenting on the quest decisions you make.
Yes you can start a new warden. You can also use your 'dead' warden if you so choose. Try it This was categorically stated not to be able to happen, until they decided, let's just forget we included that option. After all, despite what they say, there is a cannon story line for DA:O...
As for conversation mechanic, yes you said it as I intended heh. The changed the way you interacted...not good for an expansion. And yes, very indicitive of the way EA wanted things to go (Mass Effect Age 4 anyone? lol).
As for the lore, most of it was timeline wise...things did not add up with what we were told/read (codex wise etc) in Origins. It was chapl put together with little regard for Origins.
Then we get to more dead people being alive in DA2....etc etc....
I really can't see DAIII being any improvement given half the staff are now no longer working for Bioware (EA have laid off half the Edmonton staff btw)...and that the game is turning into generic EA Console game number 476.
And to add to that (and this says it all to me)...Biowares next big release (not counting DAIII) is a Command & Conquer game lol...
Why blame all of this on EA? Dead characters coming back for no apparent reason is a Baldur's Gate legacy. :P
I'm not sure I understand why changing the dialogue system for an expansion is a bad thing. I primarily took issue that they companions didn't have anything interesting to say. DA2 and Mass Effect used a somewhat similar model that works just fine.
@State_Lemming: Because ever since EA has become in charge, there has been a significant change in the way the current Bioware has been handling its games. Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 clearly were rushed and contained streamlined features. Dragon Age 2 became more of a hack 'n slash game and Mass Effect 3 heavily focused on multiplayer (even more so with the mindfuck endings that made no sense). I think for most Mass Effect fans, the multiplayer is still the main reason why they keep on playing Mass Effect 3 and nothing more. Also, micromanagements, anyone? Since when did a Bioware game actually contain micromanagements?
Where's the quality of former Bioware games gone off to? They used to make great games with beautiful graphics, compelling stories and interesting characters. But all of that has gone downhill recently. Just compare DA 2's graphics with DA:O, compare the story's evolution in both the Dragon Age franchise AND the Mass Effect franchise, romance characters in Mass Effect 2 got largely shoved aside for sexbot EDI in Mass Effect 3 and the only sensible thing Merrill can do is ask whether Hawke wants some water and defend blood magic, as demons should be considered 'friends', while looking at you with her big anime puppy-eyes.
I expect this game to be a complete worthless pile of garbage just like DA2. And with Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, BGEE, BG2EE, Grim Dawn and Shadowrun coming, who needs this trash anyway?
DA2 was rushed, the reused maps and general ugliness of Kirkwall make that sort of evident. I don't really see the argument for ME3 being rushed. Couldn't say anything about the graphical quality, but then I don't really have an eye for that sort of thing.
I can't speak for any other ME fans, but I did play the game for a bit after I finished it with multiplayer. I'll probably play through the whole trilogy again at some later date. With story heavy games I enjoy, I tend to make an effort of getting in a semi-annual playthrough. What you do you mean by micromanagements?
You're last paragraph, the one about the sexbots and puppy eyes, confused me. Could you elaborate on that?
I certainly don't fault anyone for disliking a game or the even the direction a developer has gone, but I think we are forgetting what an evil EA takeover really looks like. Even if you dislike DA2, compare it to the games Origin Studios was putting out under EA. DA2 is no Ultima 9, for example.
I don't plan on buying it, that's for sure. EAware has determined that it's alright to deceive and cheat their customers and I won't give them a dime any more.
Comments
a) Action RPGs that are basically RPGs only in name.
b) FPS or FPS-wannabe.
c) Made for multiplayer, with a single player campaign placed in game almost as an afterthought.
ME3 was heavily on categories b and c above requiring you to participate either in an online multiplayer FPS mode or a boring portable game to even allow you to have access to all endings.
I fear what they'll do to DA 3 and will wait until a demo version is available. Mainly because EA is going heavily with category c on their games.
The whole ME series could fall into category B by the way. Now that you mention it, yeah he seems to be in a better mood.
Well, Justice is a spirit. Much like the demons in the setting they are narrow minded and stick to their principle because it's in their nature. Apparently the reason demons make their way in to the mortal realm is that they find it quaint. Rules and boundaries is a different kind of freedom to them.
Yeah, the Architect is pretty cool and I like his H.R Giger he has going on.
Shame that the setting seems to get totally wasted now. It started out with a bit of potential.
****SPOILER AHEAD****
After the Baroness has been defeated, Justice says that there might be another realm beyond the Fade where souls of living beings go to. It got me wondering on what the Fade is actually supposed to be. A kind of Purgatory in between the mortal world and that other realm beyond, then?
Since I was overly nonresponsive in the above post, I'd just like to add to it that originally, my post also went on about how I see Justice's story as being about how he, once out of the fade, has to learn how to deal with morals, specifically justice, in a world that is less black and white. Then I also complained a bit about DA2, but that's really not worth repeating.
If I remember correctly, Justice also talks about spirits being the Creators first-created children which he wasn't satisfied with (which basically makes them allegorous to angels, I guess), but I don't remember much about that.
Regardless, it seems that spirits only take form/gain a personality after interacting with mortals in some way (they all, except dwarves, go to the fade when they're dreaming, iirc). It's when people travel the fade that the spirits gets to know the concepts that they will come to embody, or something, before that they're shapeless and malleable. I also remember reading somewhere in DA:O that the seemingly lifeless landscapes that we traverse in the Fade is actually made out of spirits in themselves, forced into that shape by the mortals mind. The spirits, as such, have the potential to manifest in a "physical" form (as kuch as things are physical within the Fade), but lacks the ability, or perhaps imagination, to realise themselves on their own. This leads me to one of my favourite theory - spirits are leftover "building" magic/energy from the creation of the world. They were made first, because the Maker needed them to Make the world, but when the world was finished, a lot of it remained. So it lingers in the Fade, ideas without purpose and thoughts without shape, raw unrealised potential as it were, until some mortal happens to traipse by in their sleep and"Make" something out of them, and when that happens we call them "spirits" och "demons".
Or, you know. Something.
So maybe the Golden City was just a dream and when the magisters visited it they turned it in to something much more real and malevolent?
Well, they completely overhauled almost all designs from previous game in pursuit of a unique identity for their franchise. They took out the origins part completely in favour of having a voiced protagonist.
They also made combat hack'n'slash with lots of enemies just spawning out of nowhere to make all fights seem like small battles.
I played it recently, and I enjoyed it in spite of myself. I had the same problem where I thought it didn't "feel" like Dragon Age, but I think it is. It got me (cautiously) excited for DA3, so that's something.
The combat isn't actually that much different, the problem is that they didn't do a very good job with battles, they all sort of blend together after awhile.
Also, I vote for better companions in DA 3. Isabela was just too much. I'm ashamed to almost share the same name with her.
DAIII? Not a chance in hell. In that is not just indicitive of how (in my opinion) what a disgrace DAII was. It's the company and it's employees as a whole. The fact that Bioware no longer exists, as the company is now EA, the Bioware name is purely a tax dodge and because people recognise it. It will no longer exists in 12 months, mark my words.
People ask where the hate comes from, especially on the BSN? (Such a vile cesspit of a site).
Well. Lets start at the beginning shall we? DA:O was released (Finally), after it was delayed by 8 months. Why was it delayed? Because EA 'demanded' it was available for consoles (because we all know, EA do not make pc games). Now DA:O was always intended to be a pc only title. Was designed from the ground up to be that way. EA changed it.
Then came awakenings. And the first of the lies. The sacrifice was completely ignored. The lore was completely ignored. And they changed the game mechanics of conversation in an 'expansion'.
Then came comments from Mr Gaider such as 'Suck it up princess' (in the official forums)...dev posts being deleted so they could be not proven they were lying. Chris Priestly, the most useless 'customer manager' I have ever had the displeasure of conversing with dishing out bans left, right and center and publicly 'goading' Bioware fans.
Then came ME2, and while I loved it, angered many 'rpg' fans of the first. I personally believed it made the game better, but each to their own.
DA2 came along. More lies. Total change of mechanics and style. Let's be honest (and I own a console too), but console sales were very disappointing to EA (You every played both console/pc version of DA:O, you will know what I mean). So what did they do? They turned DA2 into a console game. THAT is what pissed off the majority of the fans. It was so dumbed down, my 5 year old could finish it.
ME3, now, I have mixed feelings here. I thought the 'game' was fantastic. Huge improvement over the first two. But yes, the ending was just a disgrace. There was no 'artistic integrity'...they screwed up. Some official dev quotes:
Your choices matter.
We did not simply decide to go with red, green or blue.
Multiplayer does not affect the single player game.
All said before launch. All proven to be lies.
You don't understand the ending, not our problem. (Said after launch)
Now, this is what is ruining Bioware as a company. This is what has caused a very large section of their core, loyal fanbase to lose interest. I for one believe Bioware as a company were in trouble financially, hence why they sold out when EA started sniffing. Why were EA not interesting in any other rpg developer? Make on wonder doesn't it? Mass Effect was always the cnsole shooter EA wanted, so largely left it alone...everything else since EA aquired Bioware has progressively got worse and worse. No one can argue that fact.
DAIII will be no different.
Fenris too, they didn't really go anywhere with his character besides "I hate mages."
We were originally told that the Ultimate Sacrifice in Origins would be honored, and that if that's the ending you took, that was the end of your story and you would 'have to' create a new character. Gaider then decided to completely ignore this fact and allow you to actually use said same character, regardless of whether he/she should be dead. (but then, we both know how Gaider likes to 'resurrect' dead people don't we lol)...
IIRC, his words were such as: I can do what I like, I'm the writer, just pretend you didn't die.
They changed the lore and timeline in Awakening from what was seen/told/explained in Origins. I cannot give you specific lore changes right now, but if you wish me to, I will trawl through the old posts that were made on the BSN, they shouldn't too hard to locate.
And then they did it again with some of the DLC, they did it in DA2...
The only lore thing that came to me from one playthrough (I like to read the codex entries but for Awakening I didn't bother) was the timeline gets a little iffy with Anders, since he is in Kirkwall a year after Hawke and friends leave Lothering.
Actually my biggest complaint with Awakening was that there was never a good explanation for the antagonists being intelligent among darkspawn, I think the Architect says something that amounts to "Baby I was born this way."
The conversation mechanics weren't bad, but they should only add to the dialogue, not replace the old one.
What I was the most interested in was the dialogue changes, though, because I can't remember any. Or did you mean how the interaction with party members were much more regulated (for a lack of better word)? Because that I would agree with, and in hindsight, it could be seen as an early sign of how formulaic it would become in DA2.
If I remember my timeline correctly, the Archremon has already been defeated (or is shortly after) when they arrive at Kirkwall. Which makes the weird thing that it took the Hawkes 1-2,5 years (which is my guesstimate on the timeline for DA:O+Awakening) to cross Ferelden.
Yes you can start a new warden. You can also use your 'dead' warden if you so choose. Try it
As for conversation mechanic, yes you said it as I intended heh. The changed the way you interacted...not good for an expansion. And yes, very indicitive of the way EA wanted things to go (Mass Effect Age 4 anyone? lol).
As for the lore, most of it was timeline wise...things did not add up with what we were told/read (codex wise etc) in Origins. It was chapl put together with little regard for Origins.
Then we get to more dead people being alive in DA2....etc etc....
I really can't see DAIII being any improvement given half the staff are now no longer working for Bioware (EA have laid off half the Edmonton staff btw)...and that the game is turning into generic EA Console game number 476.
And to add to that (and this says it all to me)...Biowares next big release (not counting DAIII) is a Command & Conquer game lol...
I'm not sure I understand why changing the dialogue system for an expansion is a bad thing. I primarily took issue that they companions didn't have anything interesting to say. DA2 and Mass Effect used a somewhat similar model that works just fine.
Where's the quality of former Bioware games gone off to? They used to make great games with beautiful graphics, compelling stories and interesting characters. But all of that has gone downhill recently. Just compare DA 2's graphics with DA:O, compare the story's evolution in both the Dragon Age franchise AND the Mass Effect franchise, romance characters in Mass Effect 2 got largely shoved aside for sexbot EDI in Mass Effect 3 and the only sensible thing Merrill can do is ask whether Hawke wants some water and defend blood magic, as demons should be considered 'friends', while looking at you with her big anime puppy-eyes.
It's just pitiful to see, really.
Bioware is done as far as I'm concerned.
DA2 was rushed, the reused maps and general ugliness of Kirkwall make that sort of evident. I don't really see the argument for ME3 being rushed. Couldn't say anything about the graphical quality, but then I don't really have an eye for that sort of thing.
Bioware always wanted to have a multiplayer feature in Mass Effect, from the very beginning. If you have an issue with it that is Bioware's doing, not EA's. http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/11/17/bioware-has-wanted-multiplayer-since-mass-effect-1
I can't speak for any other ME fans, but I did play the game for a bit after I finished it with multiplayer. I'll probably play through the whole trilogy again at some later date. With story heavy games I enjoy, I tend to make an effort of getting in a semi-annual playthrough. What you do you mean by micromanagements?
You're last paragraph, the one about the sexbots and puppy eyes, confused me. Could you elaborate on that?
I certainly don't fault anyone for disliking a game or the even the direction a developer has gone, but I think we are forgetting what an evil EA takeover really looks like. Even if you dislike DA2, compare it to the games Origin Studios was putting out under EA. DA2 is no Ultima 9, for example.