Im gonna to play as the suicidal user and say that

Dragon Age 2 is better than Dragon Age: Origins IMO

The Bioware Forums are pretty much, shattered to pieces, nobody cant talk, (even the devs) without get bashed

(waits for the flames of Bioware devoted fans )

You're a brave man, Dario. You can hide in my basemant until the angry mob gives up :hehe:

Actually I'm surprised this thread is as stable as it is with two polar opposite groups of people. The one for Mass Effect 2 eventually devolved into a complete and utter trash pile, but it got better. Through force of moderators. :batman:

This

I've played about 23 hours, I think I'm about 25% into the main quest (haven't gone to Orzammar yet), playing a female rogue with Merril, Bethany and Avelline rounding out the party. The only other companion I've encountered so far is Varric. The voice actress who performed Fem Hawke's dialogue is simply brilliant. Likewise for the actors playing Merril, Bethany, Varric and Avelline.

At this point, I have definitely noticed the recycling of a few dungeons and int/ext maps. It doesn't bother me too much, but it is very noticeable.

Some have complained that the story is more mundane and less epic than DA:O. I actually like the fact that the main quest is on a somewhat smaller scale, the player character trying to recover family honor and establish his/her own identity, just one lowly person among many refugees from Ferelden, rather than "the chosen one to save the world," etc.

I was really surprised about the ending of the Shepherding Wolves quest - fascinating! I also love the Dalish elves and Merril's Welsh accents - she sounds like the lead actress from Torchwood.

The excellent level of balance in combat more than makes up for any shortcomings in recycled terrain. Nightmare/Hard in DA:O was a joke. You could simply spam potions and healing spells and get through any battle easily.

In DA2, even "Hard" is, well, HARD! And Nightmare mode kicks my ass! I'm loving it - I try playing through battles in nightmare mode and find myself switching back to Hard frequently, and still dying a lot. Combat in DA2 is a lot more tactical simply because it's more of a challenge. For example, you really have to plan your moves and positions carefully. For all the people who seem to be having difficulty getting their party members to do what they want, I suggest you completely turn off all tactics. It's really the only way to micromanage every action by every party member. And it's still very challenging on Hard mode, unlike DA:O.

I have to reload the last save numerous times on almost every large battle and most battles are won with only one or two survivors. Sometimes I have to run away with the last remaining survivor and attempt to draw the enemies out of their area one by one.

I love the fact that even healing potions have really long cooldowns - this is a major improvement over the level of balance in DA:O.

I think most who play this game find the combat enjoyable even if they dislike some other aspects. If you like the tactical, turn-based combat, you can still have it by micromanaging the party. I tried using tactics a couple times and it felt more like watching an animated movie than actually playing the game, so i went back to turning off all tactics and constantly pausing to give each character commands.




The base level taunt perk has a very small area, you have to be almost right next to whoever you're taunting for it to have any benefit.

I have been using Avelline's taunt frequently with no problems.

Before you can ever get to the stage of discussing whether a game's features are good or not, it's very common for a substantially different sequel to split people. Games come in all sorts of genres and everyone has their preferred experience, which is fine. When you make a game that's Genre A, however, and then a sequel that's Genre B, you have instantly annoyed the people who like A, who played the first one for A, and bought the sequel expecting even better A. The people who prefer B just think the game is better now, and any further discussion is clouded by people being too angered at the existence at the other side to accept any positive or negative comments about the game, regardless of whether they're valid.

In this case, I think A gamers are getting increasingly pissed off because they are not the majority, and in big business, not the majority = constantly screwed over. The same thing happened with Mass Effect, going from A to B. From a company people mostly associated with A. Because it's the most profitable and majority-bought game type, most games out there are B. This is a nuisance to gamers of any other letter, but since they are by definition a minority, they get drowned out by supporters who tend to see their objections as groundless nostalgia or popularity-hating. It's basically like having a twin who gets lots of presents every year at the birthday, while you get one, if that. The reason? Being told to your face that they're the favorite. This continues for, say, a decade, and the favored twin looks at the other and says "geez, I don't see why you're so resentful. Look at all this stuff I've got! Birthdays are great!"

This is made worse because companies still want that minority money too, and do things like this; advertise that a game is going to be A, or make one with elements of A, dangling a hook in front of those gamers who often bite simply because they've got nothing else. And then oops, turns out the game or sequel is B-type! Oh well, thanks for the money, see you next year when we do this again. This is a lot of the basis, I think, behind things like hatred of Oblivion, hatred of Mass Effect 2, and now hatred of Dragon Age 2. It's not that B games are a worse product, or even that the B in question is a good or bad example of that genre. It's just that the way the market works, it tends to be constantly jabbing the A's with a pointy stick until they've gone insane, and then the majority players look at a game with A elements, see it's making a sequel, and say aloud "you know what this game needs? To be more of a B-type/present for ME." People are naturally going to suggest that a game be more like their own preferences, and when they stabbing begins they don't understand why the other guy is "so angry."

If your unhappy with the game, mabey you should buy the DLC. Try it, you might like it.

Myt reasons are

dlc. Witholding sebastian is wrong, so I pay extra becuase of a stupid pre order, secondly the end is left for MORE dlc.

Gamaeplay fails becuase its too fast for tactics imo (the demo is terrible I cant keep order, too fast) and dumb AI.

Allthough the recycled content sounds bad, but really if it was a bit slower, with good AI I wouldnt care too much, recycled content would annoy me, but DAO had plenty too, as did ME1 I ignored that fine.

Its mainly the dlc however that makes me hate it, then BW banning anyone who they dont like.


I am actually on the BW forums expressing sympathy for the devs, even defending some of them (I think the plot is better than DAO so props to writers.)

Its funny too the BW forums, becuase it reminds me of DA2, I stll cant decide who is who yet though. I think the haters are mages.


Also this split is like MW and oblivion, and soon skyrim and oblivion, more recent is FNV and F3. Splits are common when sequals change.

Sure, but i see differences of Origins and 2 being more superficial. Art Style (love the cutscene graphics style BTW), combat being faster and flashier (though i do prefer Origins' encounters more than the constant reinforcements of 2), and of course the classes, crafting and talent trees. Still they have IMO enough in common to consider 2 a sequel :shrug:

BTW, Mike Laidlaw answered to the criticism in EuroGamer interview: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-10-biowares-mike-laidlaw-a-defence-of-dragon-age-ii-interview

Recycled material in ME1?

Only every single base and mine in sidequests

As many of you know, I loved Dragon Age Origins. I've played through it completely four times, and tried every origin combo, and played a ways into each one. I've played Awakenings, which was okay, if a bit rushed. I've avoided this thread for a bit as the DA2 launch approached, as I never let myself get too overhyped for a game. But I broke down and bought it, even being on a very tight budget these days. I am about 8 hours in, I guess -doing my usual thing of tracking down every sidequest, going in every door, attempting to open every chest, and doing the main quest sort of haphazardly while I do sidequests and get gold.

I don't hate DA2, I am having decent fun with it. But it has no "heart", at least not so far, for me. I don't get too freaked out over the gameplay mechanics changing - the map is fine by me, the journal system, though clunky, is deal-able. Origins has some great writing and excellent character development. The multiple and multi-layered conversations with your character and your party members in Origins was stellar and great fun, and often surprising. It sort of helped define YOUR character, as well as the party member characters - at least most of the party members. I have often said that Alistair, and Morrigan to a lesser degree - were the "heart" of Origins. They were with you the longest, they had pivotal roles to play, there was tremendous depth to their dialogue - with you, with other party members. The writing made DAO for me, I think. But the gameplay itself was satisfyingly challenging (for me). And I liked the story - it was a traditional fantasy story arc - scrappy hero starts from nothing, saves the day after many trials and tribulations. But it was done freshly and it made me laugh, occasionally choked me up (don't make me go into the first ending I got again... *sniffle* )

DA2... well, I know Bioware said they weren't ME2'ing the game... but... they did. That said, I really enjoyed ME2, played through it a couple of times, in fact. But it seems very obvious they made the same design decisions in DA2. I don't mind too too much that Hawke is voiced, but I dunno, i think I projected a lot more onto my unvoiced toon in the first game. The party I have so far, having just picked up Fenris, is... just not that interesting. I am playing a female Hawke, and whoever wrote her whiny brother Carver needs to be slapped. What an uninteresting petulant character. He's not even fun to have in the party. So far only Varric has left a solid impression, and he'll probably stay with me the entire time. The Guard Captain... okay, I admit I got choked up in the prologue, her scene with her husband, but after that... so far she hasn't grabbed me - she dully stoic so far. I am kind of digging the she-elf, but she may have the potential to be annoying. Not very impressed with Anders so far, he had potential in Awakenings that was not really used, but just making him have this Justice issue doesn't actually make him cool or interesting thus far.

The party "banter" has thus far been minimal. I hate that my character can't stop and have a conversation with a party member. I can click on them and get a line. Feh. That's bumming me out a bit. Oh, and I seriously -seriously- dread the tortured fanfic that will spawn around Fenris. Be afraid, be very afraid.

I haven't gone too far into the story, so I can't comment to much on that. Seems okay - scrappy hero or heroine comes up from nothing, saves the day after many trials and tribulations. I do like the attempt at some politics and such, that was one of the good things about Awakening, though it was not fully realized there.

Combat-wise, they SERIOUSLY overpowered mages - and I am playing a mage. I have fairly uber spells by level 7-9. Really? They jazzed up the combat, speed-wise, and thus deprive me of the enjoyment of planning a battle. I guess they improved the AI on the party members, because thus far, I just let them run through their various skills, with minimal input from me. I kind of enjoyed queuing up actions in DAO. I kind of don't... have time to do that in DA2.

tl:dr version:

So, thus far, I am a bit disappointed, but don't hate the game. The biggest let down so far, for me personally, is the dialogue writing/character development. I will play it through most certainly, but whether this game will have me immediately re-rolling remains to be seen.

I agree that Varric is the best written and voiced character I have come across. I really enjoyed Flemeth, in both games. I wonder if they'll make a prequel where you play as Flemeth on how she ended up in Thedas. I think she comes from that Mirror Realm that Morrigan went into.

More overpowered than DAO? That's a feat. Maybe they get weaker later on as enemies take more damage.

That's how i see it too, DA2 is to Origins what ME2 was to ME.

But it's better, mechanics and gameplay weren't ...uh, streamlined (?) as much as in ME2, it still is a Dragon Age. Not to say that ME2 isn't Mass Effect, but DA2 is more Dragon Age than ME2 is Mass Effect. If that makes any sense :shrug:

While transition from "free" (it had many limitations) to predefined character is a big deal the fact that you can define his/her personality (by the most commonly selected dialogue tone) helps to set different Hawkes apart better than different Shepards.

If you haven't yet tried playing a few battles by constantly pausing and controlling all the party members, I'd recommend giving it a shot, as it's lots of fun and retains that tactical side to the combat from DA:O.

It is a lot more challenging than DA:O, however, especially on Hard/Nightmare levels.

EDIT: Regarding mages, on the harder difficulty settings, they seem to be a bit more balanced vs. DA:O, as I find it difficult to keep my mages alive, especially vs. enemies with any sort of knock down ability. Long cooldowns for healing spells and potions are a major improvement to the game balance.

I think she


One issue I have with what I read in DA2 is it dosent talk about darkspawn, the OGB and the black city. Those have so much potential.

Except that ME2 had fun shooting/magic combo combat, and DA2 has the same combat as DAO, but faster and with more flourishes. The "action" combat is nowhere near as good as an actual action game like DMC.

Basically, I liked ME2 for what it was. DA2 shuns what it was, but doesn't do it particularly well. There's and IGN article where Inon Zur stated that DA2 was rushed out. Too lazy to find it, but yeah. I don't remember anyone saying that ME2 was rushed.

tl;dr: ME2>DA2

Personally I find the ME2 change worse than the DA2 ones.



Damn I know want this game, must resist.

I found a real bug this time:

Buy the game. I'll keep using my words to fight the good fight on the internet.

Thanks for the alert. I'm almost done with that quest myself, and would have been very confused by that bug.

I cant I disagree with them witholding content to bleed more money out of me.

Wow can't believe what's going on at the Bioware forums, thank god Bethesda forums won't go to [censored] like that. Right?

Yeah. Good thing nothing like this ever happened when any Bethesda game was newly released. Yep.