BioWare's Mike Laidlaw: A defence of Dragon Age II

By Robert Purchese Published 11 March, 2011

"I'm a little surprised by the 6/10s."

No more hype: Dragon Age II has landed and the reviews are in. "An enduring classic?" asked Eurogamer's Dragon Age II reviewer Dan Whitehead. "Not quite." He might as well have said, "An enduring classic like Mass Effect 2?" It's BioWare's own fault; if Mass Effect 2 hadn't been such a thunderous realisation of what Mass Effect started, perhaps we wouldn't have expected the same from Dragon Age II. And then there are the people miffed because they really liked Dragon Age: Origins and why did BioWare have to go and change it? I want Baldur's Gate II, stamp stamp.

A tricky position for Dragon Age II lead designer Mike Laidlaw to be in. So, what does he think? Is the criticism fair? The post-mortem interview is here.

Eurogamer: What's the mood like out there?

Mike Laidlaw: We're just very happy to see it out. What we're seeing is something not really a surprise to us: we're seeing a bit of polarisation. It's not radical, it's not like people are bursting into open warfare about things, thank god. We knew going into Dragon Age II we were making some changes. I wouldn't necessarily say changes to make it more accessible, but to make it present itself in a different way. We knew it carried some elements of risk. Some people are reacting to that, and it's fine - it's actually good. I'd much rather make a game that challenges people and doesn't just rest on its laurels.

Eurogamer: Are you happy with the reviews of Dragon Age II?

Mike Laidlaw: I am. What we're seeing is a pretty wide range; I've seen perfects, I've seen less than perfects. There are some things I think that are certainly fair criticisms: the re-use of the levels is something we knew was a bit of a risk, but we wanted to make sure there was more content rather than less, so re-using some of the spaces and coming to them again was certainly one we were careful about and tried to re-use as artfully as we could. When we look at reviews and certain concerns that gives us really good, solid feedback to work from in the future. When I see reviews that comment on the way the story is told or interactions with the followers, those are very, very positive, and I'm extremely gratified.

"... honestly our goal as a studio is to try and aim more for 90 per cent ..."

Eurogamer: I've seen scores as low as a 6/10 - what do you think when you read those?

Mike Laidlaw: Well it's hard to know exactly what's going on with scores that are really, really negative. One possible culprit could just be a change backlash, i.e. this isn't Origins and I wanted Origins 2. There may be some degree of what I would honestly say is emotional investment in the Origins story, or in the way Origins was presented which is leading to a stronger than average reaction of disappointment. That's understandable, and if anything that really is a compliment to the work on Origins. I'm not sure it's an entirely fair assessment to say all games must be like the previous game. I think we would have seen just as much negativity if we just, as I used to joke, stapled two Archdemons together and called it a super blight. It boils down to a game that challenges a fair amount of convention: it doesn't tell the usual fantasy story or present the usual fantasy combat, and in doing so it does run the risk of someone going, "Wow, this is just too different and I cannot handle it."

Eurogamer: Is Dragon Age II better on PC?

Mike Laidlaw: I wouldn't say so. We actually did extensive work to make sure the experiences were much closer aligned. I would say the gulf between the two was quite significant in Origins, simply because the consoles were tackled second as opposed to concurrently with the PC. There's some amazing visual work on PC - a high quality texture pack and DirectX 11 - and one that nicely scales to the PC's stronger hardware. In terms of the way it controls and the way it plays: the game's are quite identical, it's just that the interface is different.

The console experience doesn't fight itself as much as it did in Origins. The targeting is smoother than Origins was by miles. The console versions now have options like being able to pause and say, "Move to Point", so you can position your archers. There's a greater degree of parity between the two. Our goal was that it was always going to be personal preferences; you were going to get a great experience on whichever platform you chose to play.

There's this strange perception that because the combat is faster - characters leaping into place or charging forward - it's an inherently console thing. We designed that because we thought that the ability to whirl around and snap off a fireball at a guy who's charging you, rather than shuffling in and launching it usually a couple of feet behind him, created a much stronger sense of responsiveness. To me that benefits the PC players and the console players.

Eurogamer: What do you say when people accuse Dragon Age II of being a console game?

Mike Laidlaw: There may be some element of... I guess it's fear that if the PC has certain capabilities and they're not being used 100 per cent of the way then the game must have inherently had things removed because of that. I can understand that. I paid a fair amount of money for my gaming rig and I love to be able to crank it up and push it up. But the simple truth is that PC gaming has never been a platform of a single hardware spec. You've always had to support both lower-end and higher-end PCs. You don't want to design a game that cuts out everyone except the guy who bought his computer this month.

Origins had this legacy of being designed for PC. That was an early and strong opening message when it was first announced in yesteryear, back when we were working on Jade Empire, which was for console. There's definitely a sense that if you didn't design it for PC only then there's some sense of abandonment. Our goal was always to design a good game and move some sliders, as it were, in terms of how fantasy RPGS are typically presented, both from a story and combat standpoint. Doing that is not really a platform-specific choice.

Eurogamer: Did Mass Effect influence the evolution of Dragon Age?

Mike Laidlaw: Having technology in proximity for the conversation system certainly had an influence on Dragon Age. We decided for Dragon Age II that we wanted a voice for the player fairly early on and so there was an obvious... Well, what would be the best system we have - readily accessible, easily transported, writers who are familiar with it? And all of that made that a very simple thing.

In terms of other elements of Mass Effect influencing it: I wouldn't say so. They're very, very different beasts - a cover-based shooter set in space is going to be very different than a 'fantasy control four players at once with a heavier tactical bent' kind of game. We certainly looked at the work Mass did and all of us played it several times, but I wouldn't say it had a direct influence other than the way we're doing the writing and player voice-over.

Me as warrior Hawke, post-demo.

Eurogamer: The Metacritic score for Dragon Age II (at the time of writing) is 82 per cent. Is that in-line with expectations?

Mike Laidlaw: It's a little bit lower than we were expecting. We knew going in that this may not sit around the same spot as Origins on all platforms (86 for the 360). There's been, I would say, more strongly negative reviews appearing on Metacritic than I expected. I'm a little surprised by the 6/10s and they have a fair amount of weight early on. If the Metacritic isn't where we want it to be, and honestly our goal as a studio is to try and aim more for 90, then our next step will be to, very easily, go through those reviews, go through fan feedback, especially over some time - as opposed to the day-one initial response - and look at that in a measured way and say, what didn't work, what did work, where did we go too far, where did we not go far enough, where was there just an inherent dissonance, and try to refine the experience and try to move forward for any future products.

Honestly, it's always a learning process. Dragon Age II comes out of some things we'd identified for Origins and anything we do in the future is going to come out of this response to Dragon Age II.

Eurogamer: One stronger criticism levelled at Dragon Age II was that it was designed by committee; it tried too hard to appeal too far and wide, and in doing so it lost a sense of self. What do you say to that?

Mike Laidlaw: Dragon Age II was designed by just the senior, core team. Honestly I don't feel it's a game that's been designed to appeal far and wide and so on. If it were, there were choices we could have made that would have taken it much, much further. We would have probably simplified down to a single character, maybe with companions; probably looked at doing some even deeper changes to inventory management, making sure that... You wouldn't want to confuse people with enchanting or anything complex like that. Really what we wanted to do with the game, just talking about first-principles, was to look at elements of Origins that were over complex and needlessly so and see if we could pull those out in a clean way and didn't take out what I always saw as core elements of the experience: strong, character-driven stories, and the idea that the combat should be a party working together, especially at higher difficulty levels.

Dragon Age II certainly made some changes but holds very true to what us as a team sees as core tenets of the series. There's certainly refinement to do, there's learnings to be had, but I don't think it loses as much of the personality as it certainly could have.

Eurogamer: Mass Effect 2 was a tour de force and, to an extent, Dragon Age II has been cast in its shadow. Why do people consider Mass Effect 2 a better game?

Mike Laidlaw: If I were going to point at something and say 'well this is the shadow', it's really the shadow of Origins. And with Origins it was the shadow of Baldur's Gate II. Back in the day we certainly drew that comparison ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that: you should absolutely be compared to other projects within the same series for sure. But the expectations that Origins created were of a more traditional, classic style of fantasy story and a different pace in the combat, even though I think the fundamentals are still the same.

Eurogamer: Should people let go of the idea that Dragon Age is a reincarnation of Baldur's Gate?

Mike Laidlaw: I would say get rid of the idea it will be a re-hash. Getting rid of Baldur's Gate is a terrible idea, it created some really fundamental elements of what we've done with Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. It's never going to be the same game every time out. We see Dragon Age as a story about a place and a time, not just a singular story that continues through games.

Eurogamer: Imported saves don't appear to do much in Dragon Age 2. Will they be beefed up for Dragon Age 3?

Mike Laidlaw: Well the intent was to make sure it was used in a way that makes sense for the story we're telling. We had access to virtually every possible state or piece of data that came out of Origins, but what we realised over time was there were elements that we were including that felt honestly shoehorned in. It was the obligatory cameo and so on that didn't make a lot of sense. The big thing we wanted to achieve with that import was that there was a degree of homage paid, that the world still had the appropriate information regarding who is the king of Ferelden, who is in charge or Orzammar and so on. But in order to create earth-shattering new story-arcs or huge, huge changes to the game from the import really does run the risk of alienating people who didn't play the first game and were maybe turned off by it.

I've certainly seen a fair amount of feedback that says, "I couldn't play Origins, I thought it was too slow, the story was too plodding, too typical, and Dragon Age II is awesome by comparison!" For those people we don't want to create this swathe of content that is closed off and exclusive. We really honestly were driven by what felt right for this story; would Hawke know whether or not the Warden had worked with the Mage collective in Origins? Well, I mean, we probably could have made that work but it would have felt extremely artificial. In the long-term, the information that's included in the end of Dragon Age II does include information from Origins, including stuff that was only referenced very lightly - it's still encapsulated and carries forward into the Dragon Age II save.

More exclusively captured footage of Dragon Age II.

Mike Laidlaw is lead designer of Dragon Age II.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (138) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • karooo #1 1 year ago

    "I'm a little surprised by the 6/10s."

    Really? We expected that even before the game released. Shows how clueless you guys are.

  • thebuzzard #2 1 year ago

    I can only see one 6/10 on metacritic and the PC scored just higher than console versions. I much prefer 2 over origins much better interface, gameplay and graphics.

  • Zomoniac #3 1 year ago

    the game's are quite identical

    The game's what?

  • Old_Books #4 1 year ago

    Completely disagree with the opening statement re ME2. This is a far better sequel IMO; ME2 ripped out far more of its predecessor's core mechanics than DA2 has done. I'm disappointed at the lack of customisation in some areas, especially for other characters, but it seems more polished overall without sacrificing the majority of the content like ME2 did. I think Dragon Age has become the superior series to be honest, (though ME1 is still the best game I have played this gen). :-)

    Edited for spelling. Doh!
    Edited by Old_Books at 11/03/11 @ 08:17

  • steve1979 #5 1 year ago

    Well i've been playing this for a few hours so far, and there's no way it's a 6/10. An 8 at the moment, easily.

  • ExplodingClown #6 1 year ago

    "I'd much rather make a game that challenges people"

    It seems that many people feel that's exactly what you *should* have done, sir.

  • Goodfella #7 1 year ago

    After playing it I'm surprised it hasn't scored lower.

  • unacomn #8 1 year ago

    A score of 6 is a negative review?
    I gave Rise of Prussia a 6 when I reviewed it last year. I wouldn't call that a negative review.
    I gave Aces of the Pacific a 1, now that was a negative review of a blatant lie of a game.

    It may be a case of confusing honesty with negativity, and I can see the damage control already starting, by distancing the game from Origins and it's fanbase. It's a common tactic. Cause a divide between the players, incite them, and let peer pressure take care of everything.
    I'll give you an example of this. Try saying that Morrowind did something better than Oblivion, something that it actually did better, without being called a Morrowind elitist. Can't be done.

    Here's a fun thought for the studio heads, actually read those reviews, don't take into account the score, just read them. Understand what the reviewer considered wasn't working as it should, or could have been better. Address that issue.
    That's how reviews used to work, heck, sometimes they still do. Of course, it only happens now when dealing with companies that are worth less than one billion dollars(Doctor Evil pose), but it still does.
    But if the reviewer was just being popo-head, and I mean, an actual popo-head, not gave the momentary impression he was being one, than just ignore him, or even better, prove him wrong.

  • Darren #9 1 year ago

    "Is Dragon Age II better on PC?"

    Ahem., what about Auto-attack... you know, the option that you omitted from the console versions? ;)

  • faselei #10 1 year ago

    The arrogance of explaining away anything less than amazing review scores as being the fault of people who can't handle change... when i read reviews, i didn't see evidence for change being the culprit.

  • ChthonicEcho #11 1 year ago

    There's damage control, and then there's this - denial.

    None of the concerns the community has raised were ever addressed by BioWare. Instead, they kept reiterating points such as "the combat is faster, the tactics remain in place", as though they were trying to convince themselves, rather than their fans. Trying to address disagreeable features in the sequel would get your thread locked or ridiculed by BioWare staff.

    "...re-using some of the spaces and coming to them again was certainly one we were careful about and tried to re-use as artfully as we could."

    Oh, you mean adding stone walls in doorways and stone debris in passageways? Areas are recycled 1:1, down to a bloody fireplace. Not even lighting is changed.

  • 5h1nj1 #12 1 year ago

    The sole need for this defense talk means that there has been a mistake somewhere.

  • crimsoneer #13 1 year ago

    Guys, the 6/10 review came out YESTERDAY. He clearly states that they'll get around to considering feedback and reviews, but for now, I think we can safely forgive him not having read the damn thing.

    Also, EDGE gave Origins a 5. Just going to throw that out there.

  • RoOhDaMite #14 1 year ago

    The Art-design is super boring on this one. The characters look lame. All enemies look the same. The surroundings are sterile. I just don't want to spend my time in this, because there is nothing to explore, nothing to wonder about, nothing worth seeing.
    How good is the best gamemechanic if the world itself is designed so completely uninspired?

  • ubergine #15 1 year ago

    Laidlaw's assertion that Mass Effect 2 was not a big influence on DA2 is not credible at all. They've clearly come up with a playbook for the transition from ME to ME2 and attempted to apply the same principles to DA2. It's simply in the case of DA2 it's backfiring.

    ME2 removed a swathe of elements from ME and replaced them with only two things: a polished combat model and some truly great character writing. You could add in improved graphics to that but I felt the design work in ME2 became a little more vanilla in places as a consequence. So many reviews for ME2 started "You'll miss these features for ten minutes then forget about them." and was pretty much right.

    Dragon Age Origins however, was a game only looking for improvement in two areas: better graphics, and a better explanation of the combat to new players. I am not a Baldur's Gate veteran or of all these other Bioware games over the years, and it took me the first 50 hours of the game to get a grip on the combat. Mass Effect had a similar problem which is why they thankfully added a great tutorial to ME2.

    Having suffered to learn how to play Dragon Age, to learn from the demo that the combat has been nerfed into a "mash win button to win!" model... well, that's one thing which may now be fixed in a patch from what I've read, but what won't be fixed is what's been taken away. Reviews have not described great character writing. Party customisation has been nerfed, not to serve any audience desire but to make the game cheaper to produce (ie no new armour art for each character), the reuse of very limited environments again to save money.

    Reviews have said - reviews from sites like Eurogamer, heavily shrouded by Dragon Age 2 advertising I might add - that the writing overall bears reward, which is the greatest plus in my mind, but the demo you guys released showed horribly boring environment design, aggravatingly frequent and horribly acted and written cut scenes, a taste of your Win Button combat system (which reviews do say gets better as you progress... I'm not sold on it) and to add insult locked off the inventory system, rendering the compulsive loot-gathering RPG fans often love not a part of your sales pitch. Maybe you did that to lend the spotlight to the areas you thought "improved" but, well, it just shone a light on stuff I simply don't want.

    I went from being a day one cert to being very unsure I'll drop big money on DA2, based on the demo and all the things you've talked up as "improvements" without thinking of who you were improving them for. Making it cheaper to produce obviously improves it for YOU, I'm not sure what we get out of it. Applying principles which make a third-person shooter better to a party-based rpg doesn't fall into my range of features and benefits.

    I hope DA2 finds an audience, having alienated a chunk of it's original audience. I think I'll be waiting until there's at least a auto-attack patch for the 360 version before considering buying.

  • erp #16 1 year ago

    I've already said this in a video comments thread, so applogies for repeating myself. I was a little unsure about the game from the demo yet still quite looking forward to it, but unfortunately the Edge review has now put me off of it completely.

    And, importantly concerning this interview, Edge's low score cannot be attributed to "emotional investment" in the original (or however it was he put it), because if I remember correctly Edge disliked that game even moreso.

  • ubergine #17 1 year ago

    Also, the new look for Flemeth was completely ridiculous, I just about found it offensive.

    Now, to oil my beardy throat.

  • thedaveeyres #18 1 year ago

    Mass Effect 2 was bum gravy. There, I said it. ;)

  • BillyBrush #19 1 year ago

    Perhaps the 6/10's are becuase it's worth 6/10?

    I read the Edge 6/10 and it wasn't chiding the game for changing from Origins, rather it explained clearly a few key reasons why the game wasn't all that good. It was an excellent review.

    If you take a sideways glance at the game an ugly brown art style and fantasy cliche galore are imediately apparent...those are not good things.

  • StolenGlory #20 1 year ago

    "Mass Effect 2 was bum gravy. There, I said it. ;)"

    It wasn't though was it?

    Let's be honest.

    Edited by StolenGlory at 11/03/11 @ 09:44

  • Murton #21 1 year ago

    Not a great interview, why didn't you ask him if he felt they'd dumbed down the game too much and maybe that's why it wasn't as well received as Origins was? There were a couple of lines in the interview that made me think "what the hell are you talking about Laidlow? You fucked up, just admit it and move on"

    "Wow, this is just too different and I cannot handle it."

    I'm not sure just how patronised to feel about this one. You said yourself that you believe that the bulk of the criticism stems from people expecting a more Origins-like experience or people hanging onto the ideals carried over from Baldur's Gate 2. I find it highly unlikely that these people "cannot handle it" more like, they don't like it and didn't want it. You knew long before development began what your fans like and your game design didn't follow that formula, instead you "streamlined" and created the answer to a question nobody really asked.

    "We decided for Dragon Age II that we wanted a voice for the player fairly early on and so there was an obvious... Well, what would be the best system we have"

    And having a voice means you have to remove the choice from the dialogue system? I'm reasonably sure that you could give us at least summarised lines to choose from in the same way as DA:o rather than the retarded anti-RPG method of selecting a mood. How am I supposed to roleplay my character if I have no idea what he's about to say? You already had the best system in place, and you abandoned it in your quest for increased accessibility, you messed up.

    "Getting rid of Baldur's Gate is a terrible idea"

    Yet that's exactly what has happened. Baldurs Gate not only had more in depth mechanics for RPG fans to sink their teeth into but also had a richer and more compelling world. You seem to have forgotten how to do all of the things that made you kings of the RPG genre, you got away with it with Mass Effect because it was a new franchise and could be pitched as a new breed of game, DA:o was pitched as a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate and it had some elements of BG in there, elements which aren't present in its direct sequel DA2 and that, that is the source of the criticism you're seeing. DA2 doesn't feel like an RPG, doesn't feel like a Bioware game, it's just doesn't have that special spark that was present through BG, NWN, KOTOR and DA:o, and that's what people are upset about.

    Yesterday Todd Howard your counterpart at Bethesda revealed that Skyrim was going to bring back the sense of discovery that made Morrowind feel special. To achieve this he says they're going to get away from the familiar feeling of Oblivion and the pointlessness of some of its locations by making lots of things actually worth discovering and exploring. Hopefully you'll come to a similar realisation when you start on DA3 and try to recapture some of the magic that you let go of while making DA2 otherwise I think you can look forward to some pretty mediocre review scores and slightly harsher criticism from fans.

  • osh #22 1 year ago

    I agree about the world design. That hasn't been mentioned by most people because they've probably poured their scorn on the decisions regarding the game mechanic changes. I don't mind the 'new' combat. I DO mind going through the same place again and again. I really expected much more from this. At least Witcher II and Skyrim are coming out this year. I don't foresee world design being a problem with THOSE two ;)

  • butler` #23 1 year ago

    This interview does little to reassure me. It's obviously a good, if not great, game, but I think it's fair to say it has missed its mark.

  • thedaveeyres #24 1 year ago

    Yes it was. Bum gravy.

    You may not agree, but I am 153% correct.

  • Mr_Brown #25 1 year ago

    I saw this coming after playing the demo. They seem to have take. The best bits away from the original, creating and experimenting with different character types and orrigins and the whole choose your own route through the game. Didn't seem like a bad game just controlling characters I didn't know or care about through a story I found dull.

  • Olemak #26 1 year ago

    The gameplay in the original bored me to tears, but I still played it to the finish - mostly because of the characters. I thought Alistair was Funky, and made him king for it, and I had fun triumf to seduce Leliana and Morrigan. And Shale was brilliant In every way.

    Problem was that the gameplay wore very thin after 10 or 20 hours. I kept playing, but actually pressing the bytting bored me. By the end, I was seriously byenes out on the gameplay.

    Picking up the demo for DA2, I realised that the gameplay was actually even more monotonous and unengaging. Also, there was a full set of compelling from the Get-go, and none of tjene dermed very engaging. So no thanks. I just do not want to sit throug another 70 hours of that.

    Dumbing down is not the issue for me, it is simply about the quality of the second-to-second gameplay and overall pace. Batman: AA set the bar for me. Just not interested In monotonous games droning on and on anymore.

    I hope Skyrim will get it right, but at the moment I have more faith in Hunted and Witcher 2.

  • rob_of_the_robots #27 1 year ago

    I got my pre-order copy yesterday (win!) and have to say I'm enjoying it at the moment. I have the 360 version and in my opinion from the bit I've played is that it's a better game that Origins on console. PC gamers or fans of traditional RPGs may not like it so much but there's always Skyrim right? They're trying something different, which in today's market is nice I think, and not everybody will get what they want from every game (else we would all be pretty broke). I suppose some that some people will be disappointed with the change of direction, I know I was when they decided to make Lost Planet 2 a more multiplayer focused game (I really enjoyed the first one), but some people will really enjoy it and if they had just made it a carbon copy of Origins but with updated graphics then I'm guessing that we'd have seen our fair share of moaners about that too.

  • rob_of_the_robots #28 1 year ago

    Also, an interesting thing I found pretty much straight away. After Varric's intro/tutorial was finished and I got into the game proper (where your family is a escaping from the darkspawn) I found an interesting glitch. The first lootable body you see (on the left pretty much straight away) I found just a weapon and an ordinary shield (Ferelden soldier's shield I think). When I equipped it my defense went up despite the shield having the same stats as the shield you get at the start (I'm a warrior). I then swapped the shields back and my defense went up again! And then again! And again! Seeing as how I'd only just started the game and I didn't know that the number which was increasing was actually my defense (It's at the bottom, when I think it was fatigue at the bottom in Origins), my defense had gone up to about 1000 before I realised what it was that was increasing (woops).

  • Goodfella #29 1 year ago

    @Olemak

    Are you using some crazy spell checker or do you normally write like that?!

  • Slipstream #30 1 year ago

    The Art-design is super boring on this one. The characters look lame. All enemies look the same. The surroundings are sterile. I just don't want to spend my time in this, because there is nothing to explore, nothing to wonder about, nothing worth seeing.

    Did you play Origins?

  • Shikasama #31 1 year ago

    I am sick to the back teeth of being told that I the reason i don't like this game is because I am some mouthbreathing basement dweller who hates change.

    I had enough of it in the EG review, I had enough of it in this interview.

    The game is boring, bland, anonymous crap. That isn't my fault. It is yours.

  • Widge #32 1 year ago

    Not sitting down to play DA2 on the basis of Bioware's history and past games, nor on gamers expectations of what their games should be about and contain. Going to play DA2 and experience without expectations and judge it that way.

  • DefendoCroc #33 1 year ago

    Why not ask him his opinion on the 4.1/10 user score on metacritic instead of the critic score .... we already know most critics are corrupt so asking him what he thought about that was pointless , grow some balls mr Purchese and ask him how he feels about how *we* feel.

  • beastmaster #34 1 year ago

    "I'm a little surprised by the 6/10s."

    Should read


    "I'm a little surprised by the 8/10s."

  • TheApologist #35 1 year ago

    I am a big fan of Origins, but I liked Mass Effect AND I loved Mass Effect 2. This is not about not being able to cope emotionally with change. For heaven's sake, Get Over Yourselves, Bioware.

    I played the demo, and I thought that Hawke was an utterly dull protaganist and poorly acted in comparison to my beloved female Shepard. And the startout was dull in comparison to the enjoyably grumpy working-class dwarf I played in Origins. I was left with no desire to play this bland character in a world that seems blander than Ferelden did.

  • Goodfella #36 1 year ago

    @Shikasama

    +1

  • defdaz #37 1 year ago

    Can someone explain to me why the first one was called Origins? Seems like whatever they intended to create as a follow on from the stage origins set got cast aside after ME2 came out and this quickly hashed into place. There's no colon or subtitle to be seen now. Bizarre.

  • geeza2020 #38 1 year ago

    "There's certainly refinement to do, there's learnings to be had, but I don't think it loses as much of the personality as it certainly could have."

    So he admits here that DA2 has lost some of its personality from DA:o. Still holding off on buying the game myself, after this shit-storm I think I'll probably wait until its cheapy cheap cheap.

  • Pac #39 1 year ago

    I may be alone on this but after recently completing DA:o on the PC and having also completed BG and BG2 when they first came out I am actually liking the combat in DA 2 much more than I thought I would. Due to the fact that the combat seems more visceral and less prone to ridiculous path, finding, aiming and A.I. problems which plagued DA:o

    I'll give you a good example: In one part of the DA:o you confront a mage and host of troops from a raised platform. After the combat begins you try and target the enemies below in the normal fashion only to find that due to the awful targeting/A.I. it is impossible for any of your party to get a lock with either spells or missiles. The only way you can get at the enemies is to take a nice long walk to the end of the platform down some stairs and confront them head on in the area below. Meanwhile the high level mage and 9 or 10 archers and knights are pounding your party from below, seemingly oblivious to the difference in height. The only way I found to resolve this encounter was to run away in to some previous rooms and draw the enemy out one by one so my party had a fighting chance. This kind of problem crops up all the time in the game and in my opinion serves to erode any sense of satisfaction or immersion you get from the combat.

    In the end I spent 90% of my time in DAO exploiting a really cheap flaw in the enemy A.I. rather than actually squaring up to the enemy and I do not see why this really any better than mashing the A button.

    To be honest it is too early for me to tell if all these issues have been resolved in DA 2 but right now I actually welcome the change to more simple visceral combat, Even if it comes at the expense of a little over simplification.

  • Machetazo #40 1 year ago

    "There may be some degree of what I would honestly say is emotional investment in the Origins story"

    Which they absolutely sponsored and pushed for, and should have expected there to be a response based on that. I have barely skimmed the DA2 reviews, in the larger scale, but one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was a quote about how, bar those cute Bioware cameo nods, your previous DA:o buildup is scarcely reflected in II...NOW, from the pre-launch, I took and understood the state of play to be that Hawke's own adventure for 2 was taking place within the timeframe and around the locations established during my Origins playthrough. That doesn't appear to be the case, and unless I grossly misunderstood, the reality represents a sizable backpedal from that place.

  • Stuz359 #41 1 year ago

    I found Origins to be a bit of a slow burner myself. I wasn't exactly that enamoured with it the first few hours. All I could think was 'this is LOTR done badly.' I am glad to say I kept playing though and it really grew on me. This game has been out what, three days in the US and only out today in the UK? Give it a chance it might surprise you.

  • Murton #42 1 year ago

    Can someone explain to me why the first one was called Origins?

    I think it's because you got to play out your character's backstory, which I really enjoyed actually. They even called those prologue chapters your "Origin" You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was creating a setting for the franchise because judging by how little impact DA:o's world has on DA2 that simply isn't the case.

  • GamesConnoisseur #43 1 year ago

    I dont think users score are always that reliable a gauge, for every game, as when you are annoyed with the cerain issues then likely some would give an extreme rating and vice versa. 1/10 given when person actually still playing and enjoying said game.

    Most likely slanted i noticed occurs most on platform exclusives AND where there arent fair parity or PC version too 'consolfied'.

    So if person got DA2 now and playing through it and Two WorldsII, would be likely confused by user rating of 4.1 for DA2 and far more respectable 7.1 for Two World II.

    Now is this actually the true state of these games? Would you seriously finds twice as much enjoyment and half the annoyance with Two World II over DA2?

    I m pretty open minded and am going to test this theory of mine re Users with Agenda by playing throughly both games.

    But make your own mind up, and i though the responses in article was largely pretty fair, and obviously would be more considerate and cautious for DA3... If its not killed as a franchise.

  • Widge #44 1 year ago

    Although I'd find users would uprate flawed but solid, overlooked games while marking down very public mainstream games.

  • timberwolf #45 1 year ago

    Bioware have you sold your soul to the EA devil?!!

  • andywilkie35 #46 1 year ago

    It got loads of 6/10s because it's a rushed sequel to an average game. That and it's not even finished, hence all the extortionate DLC announced to come out at the same time as the game launches! Fucking unbelievable Jeff!

  • Arsecake_Baker #47 1 year ago

    First off +1 Shikasama, -1 Mike Laidlaw,

    ME1 whilst fun was nothing hugely special, ME2 was a awful it was a dumb downed excercise in trying to appeal too a mass market that doesn't exist and Eurogamer like a lot of other people fell for it! Thanks to the praise lavished on ME2 Bioware got away with the steaming pile of horse manure that is DAII.

    It's not an RPG no matter how you look at it, it's an action adventure designed for the mass market (profit over people) i've been playing it for about six hours now and it's tedious and yes i mean utterly utterly tedious, now at the same time i'm also playing TWII and Torchlight both of which destroy DAII for gameplay and RPG mechanics, i actually stopped playing DAII and went back to Torchlight and have not picked up DAII since.

    We need a return to old school RPG's and we need it yesterday, the likes of Molyneaux and Bioware are destroying a once beautiful game......it's up too you Bethesda. Save Our Souls!

  • darkmorgado #48 1 year ago

    Try saying that Morrowind did something better than Oblivion, something that it actually did better, without being called a Morrowind elitist. Can't be done.

    Levelling, skill progression, story, exploration, interesting environments, interaction with NPCs, sidequests...

  • Vlad27145 #49 1 year ago

    "There's some amazing visual work on PC - a high quality texture pack and DirectX 11 - and one that nicely scales to the PC's stronger hardware. In terms of the way it controls and the way it plays: the game's are quite identical, it's just that the interface is different."

    But, and forgive me if I'm wrong... I was under the impression that the control input for PC and consoles are NOT the same. At all. So if you make them control and play the same, how the flying f*ck do you fail to see a problem????

  • neems #50 1 year ago

    As Murton has suggested, Dragon Age : Origins simply refers to the different back stories / intros you can play in that game, it's not about setting up the series as a whole. Basically, despite the name, Dragon Age 2 is not a sequel to DAO. It's an entirely different game that takes part in the same universe.

    Bioware probably could have just made a hack and slash / dungeon crawler type game to stand on its own, but that's not how it's done these days. You have to have a franchise so that we, the plebs, know what we're supposed to buy.


    Try saying that Morrowind did something better than Oblivion, something that it actually did better, without being called a Morrowind elitist. Can't be done.

    Isn't this the perceived wisdom these days? That Oblivion looked better, but in virtually every other way Morrowind was more sophisticated? Either way, I wouldn't pin your hopes on Bethesda saving the traditional CRPG.

    Maybe they should have gone the whole hog and gone either full God of War but with conversations, or Demons' Souls stylee only with a more defined story. That's something I wouldn't mind seeing.
    Edited by neems at 11/03/11 @ 10:47

  • darkmorgado #51 1 year ago

    I would have liked to see more questions put to them about why such a large section of the community don't like their perceived dumbing down of the genre. When he says they streamlined needlessly complex systems, I feel rather patronised to be honest. You can simplify something without sacrificing depth, and I never felt that the crafting or inventory management in DA:o was confusing - if anything it added to the experience by increasing my options and the sense that my character was developing in a direction of my choosing.

    Are IQs really so low these days that modern gamers can't get their head around the concept of inventory management and crafting?

    It's no more valid an argument now than it was when Invisible War came out. Didn't work then, doesn't work now.

  • CrispyLog #52 1 year ago

    the re-use of the levels is something we knew was a bit of a risk, but we wanted to make sure there was more content rather than less, so re-using some of the spaces and coming to them again was certainly one we were careful about and tried to re-use as artfully as we could.

    Or you could have spent more than one year on the game and designed new areas instead of re-using areas and rushing the game out.

  • hazelam #53 1 year ago

    i'd like to see them try to defend their fucking douchebag actions since launch.
    delete any threads on your forum that are criticial of the game? ok that's an arsehole move but relatively harmless.
    preventing a player accessing the game they bought just because they criticise you on the forums? that's fucking pathetic, and that's tantamount to theft, i hope this game gets pirated to shit.
    and lastly using securom without actually letting people know beforehand, or after for that matter.
    total bunch of fucking douchebags, that's how i'd describe bioware if all i knew about them was recent news about DA2.

  • Lalaland #54 1 year ago

    Can you imagine if Godfather 2 decided to focus on a low level thug fighting his way around New York and decided to completely ignore the Corleone family in favor of an action packed crime movie? Would critics praise how it 'streamlined' all that politics and human relationships? Would I have to listen to the producer tell me how I was too attached to the 'old ways'?

    Only in gaming can you completely gut your franchise of everything you pushed in the last game and call it an 'improvement'. DA2 is a glorified hack 'n' slash with action game mechanics, railroading and Hanna Barbara like scenery repetition. If they wanted to make Gears of Swords they should have just done that or been clear in their previews that's what they were doing. All along they've been claiming that this is somehow 'the way of the future' for RPGs, in which case they're saying that there is none and we should all just get on the 'press X to win' bandwagon and give up on actually influencing the story in our games at all

  • Murton #55 1 year ago

    "We need a return to old school RPG's and we need it yesterday, the likes of Molyneaux and Bioware are destroying a once beautiful game......it's up too you Bethesda. Save Our Souls! "

    Bethesda started the accessibility arms race with Oblivion, which was vastly diluted compared to Morrowind, which then continued with Fallout 3. Obsidian are the people you should be looking to, I doubt that Dungeon Siege 3 will bring the level of depth that we're looking for but it'll likely be better than DA2 in this area. Also DS3 is the last of their "studio for hire" work, after that we have some new IPs using their own engine that's specifically designed for complex RPGs to look forward to. That recent interview with Obsidian on EG a couple of weeks ago left me feeling quite confident that these guys will save the genre that Bethesda and Bioware have left behind, provided of course their publisher maintains a respectful distance and doesn't meddle or force a release that isn't ready (yes, Im looking at you Lucas Arts and SEGA) I just hope that there's still a genre for them to save rather than resurrect.

    That being said, bringing discovery and meaningful exploration back to Elder Scrolls is a good move, Skyrim will almost certainly be better than Oblivion for it, but will it make up for the increased dumbing down of the skills system? Seriously aged engine even with enhancements? Bethesda's piss poor memory optimisation on all platforms? Time will tell, I'm confident we'll have something better than Oblivion and Fallout, but it still won't be a patch on Morrowind.

  • The-Jack-Burton #56 1 year ago

    I've been playing it non-stop, about 30hrs worth. Combat is excellent, voice acting and characterization are excellent. The incessantly repetitive and boring/shallow level design is ridiculous. I have no idea how they thought that reusing the exact same handful of levels over and over and over for every single goddam mission was a good idea. I'm baffled by this game. It's fun, it's addicting and it's completely disappointing. 8/10

  • darkmorgado #57 1 year ago

    delete any threads on your forum that are criticial of the game? ok that's an arsehole move but relatively harmless.
    preventing a player accessing the game they bought just because they criticise you on the forums? that's fucking pathetic, and that's tantamount to theft, i hope this game gets pirated to shit.
    and lastly using securom without actually letting people know beforehand, or after for that matter.

    Is that true?

    Surely banning someone from playing your game just because they post a critical comment would be illegal?

  • Vlad27145 #58 1 year ago

    @darkmorgado

    Levelling, skill progression, story, exploration, interesting environments, interaction with NPCs, sidequests...

    Then again, darkmorgado, even people like me who rarely post around here, are perfectly aware that you ARE an elitist. Of course though, at least half the times I find myself agreeing with you, and this is without a doubt one of those times :D

  • Widge #59 1 year ago

    "We need a return to old school RPGs."

    This is the issue with DA2, with many comments being things like "isometric view? gone?". People are judging the game on what they expect it to be and what they want it to do, not what the game actually is and what it actually is doing. So it isn't a hardcore RPG tactical experience, if it isn't actually setting out to be that, then that is fine. Go buy a game that is actually trying to be what you want.

  • Tyronne #60 1 year ago

    Sad thing is that by trying to make the game a jack of all trades, they have made it a master of none resulting in these lower than expected review scores.I honestly hate it when you invest quite a considerable amount of time in a rpg only for the sequel to come along and ignore all of that because the developers have this wonderfully new `vision` in their heads that none of the players actually wanted but have forced upon them should they buy it.

    Shame really.

  • miiiguel #61 1 year ago

    though ME1 is still the best game I have played this gen

    I wouldn't go that far, but I agree ME1 is a much better game, more charismatic, with an identity of its own. ME2 is a forgetable, polished "holywood game".

  • Andeus #62 1 year ago

    /sigh

    Laidlaw only talks hardware when asked about PC gaming/community. Probably doesn't know a thing about that. Maybe he should read some of the comments here to understand that transforming a game from a more traditional and complex game to a more dumbed down icon dialogues/action game that would appeal more to a console crowd is the real bad design goal.

    I guess it's partly due to theinput method too. DA:o was made with keyboard+mouse in mind thus giving you the freedom of more dialogue options, better party/individual member movement, better forming of combat strategies, complex inventory systems etc. DA2 is more gamepad friendly, and although it's something that the console versions needed, it eventually affected core gameplay mechanics for the PC too.

    It's a choice, not necessarily a bad one, but it's expected to alienate a lot of people.

  • INTVGene #63 1 year ago

    Oh well, at least I'll have Skyrim and Dark Souls to play this year. REAL RPGs.

  • Arsecake_Baker #64 1 year ago

    "Go buy a game that is actually trying to be what you want."

    This is not the point, the point here is that a game pretending to be an RPG is in fact not an RPG!

  • Widge #65 1 year ago

    ME1 actually had a really disappointing combat engine. It felt floaty and had a distinct lack of connection, plus the enemy behaviour was rather sub-par. Then there were the endless side missions which involved going to a rock to kill a room full of people, a room you have probably seen many times before with the boxes in a different order. Dumping you onto the Citadel straight after the exciting opening mission was a bit of drain. Most of the conversation boiled down to uninteresting small talk that just dragged on a little bit too long. I like Metal Gear Solid, so I can sit through a bit of exposition, this was just a little too much each time. Then we have our side characters, the two humans being rather dull with Wrex, Tali and Garrus only standing out. The entire "inventory becomes cash" situation was ridiculous. Having to sell and maintain such a vast array of equipables which only had the effect of getting in between you and enjoying the game.

    Mass Effect 2 took all of that and focussed it, improving on it. The universe felt a hell of a lot more solid and well realised. It felt populated, lived in, with a sense of meaning and purpose behind all its locations and species. Just by looking around you could see the story behind the locales. The conversations were more interesting, the variety of missions were more interesting, and as a result you felt like there was a story attached to each one beyond the "kill people over here" fleet mandate from the original.

    Disappointment, I would have liked better armour customising - if only for the visual impact, not particularly fussed about the weapons as you upgraded them over time. Mass Effect 2 WAS better than the original, it doesn't make the original a worse game though.

  • apoc_reg #66 1 year ago

    Gotta love denial....

  • darkmorgado #67 1 year ago

    @Truthslayer

    Cheers for that.

    EG, can you pick this up? Maybe question Bioware about it? This is a complete abuse of their authority.

  • skyrend #68 1 year ago

    "The console versions now have options like being able to pause and say, "Move to Point", so you can position your archers."

    And then move them when the next wave comes, and then move them again when the next wave comes, and then move...

    This is not game difficulty. This is tedious garbage.

    This game was designed with only casual mode in mind. You have AOE damage skill that has a dodge upgrade to allies caught in the blast (the fire blast arrow for rogues). In a game with friendly fire, this makes no sense at all.

    Developers got rid of the iso camera so we can see how well textured the corridors are.

    Companion customization locked so that they can be sold as DLC's.

    Suffice it to say I will never pay for an EA/Bioware game again. That includes ME3.

  • easychord #69 1 year ago

    Mark Laidlaw complains a lot about people not understanding his vision for the game and being humbled enough to have to actually read some apparently shockingly low 6/10 critic review in Edge. (that's an above average score, bud.) But what about the people who actually buy his game? The long term, loyal customers who are expected to pay more than ever for a rushed, watered down experience. The part of the customer base who only get insulted and ignored, even in EG reviews, because they are more interested in more traditional gameplay instead of love interests and voice acting.

  • Murton #70 1 year ago

    @Andeus

    I know there's a consensus that somehow consoles are responsible for developers dumbing down their mechanics but it's totally misguided. Console owners are every bit as capable as PC owners when it comes to gaming and most of us would like to see more depth in their games as well. Until this gen I was exclusively a PC gamer, but the over-restrictive DRM and piss poor optimisation on most PC games have put me off PC gaming and drove me to get a console and I feel that my experience is better because of it.

    We're all gamers and we all agree that some games are being dumbed down way more than is really necessary, but don't blame console gamers for that, blame developers trying to appeal outside of their demographic, they're the ones trying to make their game appeal to people who weren't interested to be begin with and are giving us lower quality gaming experiences as a result.

  • PseudoDuck #71 1 year ago

    My only major disappointment with the game so far is the apparent removal (unless I just haven't seen the option) of the weapon sets. I don't seem able to swap my rogue from using melee to ranged combat without pausing, going to the inventory and manually changing my weapons. You could swap them (and respective assigned actions) instantly through DA:o's radial menu, so why not this?

    It sped the combat up in the first game, but now that they have actively sped the combat up they remove the seamless weapon switching.

  • HermitArcader #72 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Snidesworth #73 1 year ago

    I think the reason they released gameplay footage of Dragon Age 2 so early on was so that people could get used to the idea that it was going to play quite differently than DA:o. I was shocked when I first saw it but after months of acknowledging it I found that I was alright with it being different. Not that there aren't flaws with the game, but I feel that a good deal of the outrage stems from it not being a very traditional RPG. I can understand that, since they're hellishly rare these days, but I've still been finding it fun. I feel that the core elements of the original combat are still there (positioning, crowd control) while improvements have been added (synergy between different classes moves, clearly defined class roles, warriors not being underwhelming). The flashy veneer of fast and spectacular animations are a matter of taste. I like them but I can see why others may not.

    All that said, Laidlaw is in a fit of denial here. A few people could stand to do with judging the game more on its own merits than what it could have been but it's far from perfect. The lack of solid voice acting for the main character is a big problem, some of the dialogue is a bit iffy and, at least on Normal, most fights are quite easy. The inability to customise party member's gear is also annoying; they could have always made a handful of variant appearances for each character and had them change slightly depending on how you equipped them. That way you could preserve their unique appearances while also allowing the player to choose what armour they get. Refusing to listen to criticism and trying to discredit anyone who doesn't unconditionally love your game is the height of arrogance.

  • SlackMaster #74 1 year ago

    I really don't see what the problem is with people moaning. You can still pause the game to plan what to do, select character tactics, and the progression trees are, although they may not look that way initially, rather deep.

    The graphics are better and the story is really gripping and interesting. Ok, it would have been nice to have more customisation options and the ability to pick your race but still into not too negative a mark on the game.

    TBH I think having played it non stop yesterday, that it's a big improvement on the original console version.

  • FiReTiGeR2K #75 1 year ago

    "There is a risk they are going to be overshadowed, not by Mass Effect by but other high profile fantasy rpgs out this year, The Witcher 2, Skyrim and Darks Souls as well as Obsidian with Dungeon Siege 3. "

    you forgot 2 worlds II which i was pissed at for having a huge island unplayable and all that controversy blah blah BUT its sounding like a better and better option to buy this year instead of DA II which i saw coming

  • spekkeh #76 1 year ago

    Don't really get the gushing over DAO's combat systems. It's pretty contrived and gets really boring after a while because there's basically one tactic for every set of enemies, and there's a near endless set of sets of enemies that keeps on getting spammed in samey rooms. And then there's the horrible AI that Pac already mentioned on the first page. I'm still playing DAO but after twenty hours I just moved the difficulty down to casual. Not that I don't understand the best tactic, but if you're attacked from two sides it's nigh on impossible to get your companions to follow it, what with them all running in different directions. Babysitting them becomes horribly laborious.

    I get that you PC lot are complaining about the general direction of PC RPGs; but by championing a game that excels in bad usability design, frankly he's correct in being patronising.

  • rob_of_the_robots #77 1 year ago

    Why does it have to be classed in a specific genre? Why does it HAVE to be an RPG? It's clearly not an out and out RPG, it's an action game with RPG elements. The comments seem to be complaining about how it's not good as an RPG, but if you know (from reviews/feedback) that it isn't a traditional RPG then you can't complain about it not being a traditional RPG.

  • SvennoJ #78 1 year ago

    After playing it for over 8 hours now the story, characters and decisions are fine. (not as good as origins but still good) The combat however has lost all its appeal. It's the same every time, you see a few guys and after you start fighting 2 to 5 waves of more guys spawn in all around you. You never know how to pace the combat, will I run out of mana / stamina in wave 2 to face another 3 waves or is it only 2 waves this time. Combat is too fast, targeting locks on to who ever is closest, trying to stay locked on the boss is a lot of work and unless you pause the action every second you end up wasting your status affecting spells on recently spawned in cannon fodder. There is a still a delay on area effect spells so best to cast them on your own party since the enemies still run out of range.
    I changed the difficulty to casual yesterday and now play it like god of war which feels like the way it was meant to be played. Lot of pretty effects and blood flying everywhere, not a lot of group tactics.

  • timberwolf #79 1 year ago

    To be fair it isn't a very good action game either.

  • strangerism #80 1 year ago

    the problems I am having with this game so far:

    - bland story and characters
    - annoying dialogue wheel. I much prefer longer conversations where I read stuff and immerse myself in a more convoluted story. I must say efforts in making the interaction with NPC more cinematic just make the whole thing silly to watch, fairly breaking the suspension of disbelief.
    - battles artificially choreographed: mobs continuously spawning up your ass from the ground just for the sake of making the encounter have some challenge, compared to DAO where some encounters had like 10/15 enemies from the start and you had to study how to take the fight, rather that waiting for the next wave/stage a la MMO
    - tunneling quest fetching: navigate through 4 boxed zones and loading screens to talk to 2 NPC and fight some mobs in between.
    - dispersive quest design: you just go navigate between city zones all the time with 10 silly quests up at the same time with no clue what is going on, who is who what is what.
    - the goal of the game seems to be clearing your packed quest log rather that going adventuring.
    - locales with no charm, just a series of boxed and recycled battlefields.
    - game lore delivered in such a lazy way, just a series of scattered codex entries to look for. DOA did it better by encompassing it into the exploration of different places (Orzamaar, Denerim, Redcliffe, Brecilian forest, Haven,Circle of mages)
    - Removing the world map, making the world where this story take place clearly less important, anonymous, thus the story too.
    - EA blackmailing the previous DA dev team into making a game for the sake of keeping their job and feeding their families rather for desire of doing something out of their vivid imagination and artistic aspiration.


  • UncleLou #81 1 year ago

    Not that I don't understand the best tactic, but if you're attacked from two sides it's nigh on impossible to get your companions to follow it, what with them all running in different directions. Babysitting them becomes horribly laborious.

    Played DA:o on hard all the way through, and had none of the problems you mention. Although you'd think the solution to bad AI would be to improve it, not to simplify the rest so it fits better to the AI.

    Anyway, few hours in, and I'd give it a 6 as well so far. Don't mind the streamlined skilltrees/inventory etc., but I miss the better camera (tilting, panning, turning and moving the camera really becomes tedious very quickly on the higher difficulties) of DA:o and stuff like friendly fire (except on nightmare), positioning, etc.

    Also not really impressed by Kirkwall, an allegedly busy town that's actually all but deserted. Compare the tavern in DA2 to the ones in The Witcher, and DA2 begins to feel very dated.

    It's alright-ish so far, but feels a little rushed and uninspired.
    Edited by UncleLou at 11/03/11 @ 14:17

  • spekkeh #82 1 year ago

    Could be that that was a console-only problem. I read that you can position your companions in the PC version; on the console you have to walk them over there yourself, but the moment you choose another character they forget this and run away again.

  • hulahoops #83 1 year ago

    "It's not an RPG no matter how you look at it, it's an action adventure designed for the mass market (profit over people)"

    Why does this argument come up time and again?

    Studios don't close down because they didn't please the followers. They get closed down because they didn't make enough profit.

    Damn them for putting feeding their families first over pleasing 'the people'. Who are whom exactly by the way? Are you sure you don't by "people" mean "me"? How does a wider audience and hence profit mean the people are being put last?

  • strangerism #84 1 year ago

    BlankOBlank!

    sorry man, but making a product designed for the mass market (profit over people) is not to help poor employee feeding their families (minimum wage does that already), instead is to fill those greedy corporate pockets (CEOs, stakeholders, etc) with more cash. And what do these few greedy elitarian 'evil doers' do with all that cash spilled from the masses? well the answer is in your eyes if you look at the world today.

  • Scimarad #85 1 year ago

    You lot really are bunch of children. Once again we have someone being minused for saying they actually quite liked it...

  • arcam #86 1 year ago

    To some extent you're right, and we do have to accept that many games makers are going to choose higher profits over making the best game they can.

    But feeding their families? This is Bioware and EA we're talking about, not some over-worked dev teetering on the brink of collapse. The ones who make the decisions are already millionaires.

    And if you're looking for people who'd rather make awesome games than awesome profits, you're more likely to find them among the £20-40k workers at Bioware and EA than the people who've already made enough money to keep the family table covered with food for the next few hundred years.
    Edited by arcam at 11/03/11 @ 15:27

  • spekkeh #87 1 year ago

    And what do these few greedy elitarian 'evil doers' do with all that cash spilled from the masses? well the answer is in your eyes if you look at the world today.

    .... yeah then don't buy it.
    Edited by spekkeh at 11/03/11 @ 15:21

  • arcam #88 1 year ago

    @spekkeh

    i think his point was we all end up being affected by it whether we individually buy it or not.

  • tyrant1 #89 1 year ago

    @BlankOBlank!

    Why is it always about "feeding families" with developers? People make out they are like impoverished steel workers from the 1980s with the threat of redundancy hanging over their heads, jeapordizing their poor, malnourished families.

    For fucks sake, these people get paid a lot of money to make these games. Why? Because WE pay a lot of money for them. If they are going to be lazy, and go for the quick buck, people can fucking tell them what they think. Without someone coming along and making some shit up about putting food on their poor families tables.

    If someone fucks up in any other aspect of life, they get sacked. But dont sack devs for making shitty games! They need to put food on their families tables!

  • immateriaux #90 1 year ago

    Mike, in future, should take off his "Plainshirt of Patronising +4" and his "Boots of Unbelievability +2" before giving any further interviews. Bizarre how out of touch he sounds.

  • varkdm #91 1 year ago

    I liked DA:o and I like this. Sorry.

    I haven't finished it yet and I suspect when I do I wont feel that it was as good as DA:o as a whole, but just because it isnt as good as the original, doesnt make it a shit game.

  • johnnyan #92 1 year ago

    So, is Mike Laidlaw complaining that we "didnt get" the most stupid game Bioware made ? Yes dude, you are spot on, all those (obviously not payed) "professional critics" praising your creation must be geniuses, we, the retards, cant get your masterpiece...
    Edited by johnnyan at 11/03/11 @ 17:02

  • Gunship #93 1 year ago

    There is a little project under way now (links soon) for all those who have had their games deactivated (or were denied the ability to activate their games) for criticizing Dragon Age 2, BioWare or EA on any forum.

    Please keep screenshots of the forums you made your "reported" posts in, and any EA correspondence you receive. Make sure you get a reason in writing as to why your game was not allowed to activate, and how long you had to wait.

    In a number of countries, regardless of the EULA, freedom of speech (at least of the type we are talking about here) cannot be restricted or penalized by any contract. This is often a constitutional provision. Furthermore, in many countries under consumer law, basic rights (eg having a game that you paid for actually run) can be taken away from you only under very specific circumstances. It is very possible that those circumstances have not been met in your case.

    More soon.

  • popflux #94 1 year ago

    I'm playing the game and loving it. I'm a console player and I love the new more active battle system but I still micro-manage all of the battles. In all honesty, it feels like the same game to me. I don't understand the criticism of the game being "dumbed down" or of it being fundamentally different from Origins.

  • legendaryaxe #95 1 year ago

    Murton posted an excellent comment (see below) which essentially spoke about the "dumbing-down" of the game. Nearly all that made Baldur's Gate such a great game has been stripped away in the case of DA2, and we're left with an RPG that requires a lot less input from the gamer. It's not nearly as rich or absorbing an experience. I too am eagerly awaiting the release of Skyrim and hope it can capture some of that sense of wonderment that was certainly lost with DA2.

    Here's the most significant portion of Morton's post I'm referring to:

    "Getting rid of Baldur's Gate is a terrible idea"

    Yet that's exactly what has happened. Baldurs Gate not only had more in depth mechanics for RPG fans to sink their teeth into but also had a richer and more compelling world. You seem to have forgotten how to do all of the things that made you kings of the RPG genre, you got away with it with Mass Effect because it was a new franchise and could be pitched as a new breed of game, DA:o was pitched as a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate and it had some elements of BG in there, elements which aren't present in its direct sequel DA2 and that, that is the source of the criticism you're seeing. DA2 doesn't feel like an RPG, doesn't feel like a Bioware game, it's just doesn't have that special spark that was present through BG, NWN, KOTOR and DA:o, and that's what people are upset about.

    Yesterday Todd Howard your counterpart at Bethesda revealed that Skyrim was going to bring back the sense of discovery that made Morrowind feel special. To achieve this he says they're going to get away from the familiar feeling of Oblivion and the pointlessness of some of its locations by making lots of things actually worth discovering and exploring. Hopefully you'll come to a similar realisation when you start on DA3 and try to recapture some of the magic that you let go of while making DA2 otherwise I think you can look forward to some pretty mediocre review scores and slightly harsher criticism from fans.

  • anomagnus #96 1 year ago

    I disagree with most of the whingers about DA. Its the same shit i heard when DA:o came out and it wasn't a real RPG, and when ME2 came out, and it wasn't a RPG, and when ME1 when came out, and it was just flawed.

    But i for gods sake, Bioware, never do a defence of a review interview. It just gives the forum whinge fest wankers more ammo.

  • strangerism #97 1 year ago

    well guys its just a game, peace you all. The world is about to collapse if you haven't seen the news today. amen

  • darc #98 1 year ago

    @strangerism - It is an especially terrifying day; I'll grant you that.

  • digitalash #99 1 year ago

    So there you have it; those cool at Bioware people abbreviate Mass Effect to just Mass.

  • MaxiSleep #100 1 year ago

    The reason they take out mechanics is they dont have time to test em, and fuck all to do with players.

  • TRUTH #101 1 year ago

    The problem I find with DA II is that there is no real sense of adventure or solving situations - the only way to deal with situations is by using speech dialog options - then you follow a fixed path from one section to the next and have a battle, then a discussion, then a battle, then discussion, then....etc - throughout the whole game. No real open options and ways to do things as in Oblivion, Divinity II:DKS, Fallout 3; with no real adventure as discovering areas, new hidden areas, freedom of movement in open spaces and able to do more then just chat and fight (swim, climb, duck, pull, push, defend, jump - all making it more involving with movement and options and uses)... Even the fights were fairly standard and no way as strategic or deep and open as Demon's Souls or even Oblivion.

    Bioware need to bring more then chatting options and fighting as that's all it really is once you seen past the smoke screen of garphical dialog - it's just two mini games glued together!

    ME 2 was the same - chit chat - choose option, have a battle, move a bit, chit chat - choose option, have a battle...Yawn!
    Edited by TRUTH at 11/03/11 @ 18:46

  • ChadSexington #102 1 year ago

    Mass Effect 2 is shit.

  • epiazk #103 1 year ago

    EDGE was right to give DA:o a 5. It was a terribly average game regardless of how well produced it was. Just because there is a dearth of games in that genre to compete with doesn't excuse it. Even simple staples of RPG's such as loot were made dull as hell by DA:o, where the hell was carsomyr, where were my status effects and immunities? Why were the sub quests non voiced fucking "quest boards" with MMO style "kill 10 xyz"?

    Bah, anyway, haven't played DA2 yet, so this isn't written as a reflection of that.

    Best RPG around at the minute was made over a decade ago :/ Hah, you know what, i'm reinstalling it, gonna have another play though. This inspired me :p Ironman solo run + PNP rules. First post picks my class! (not a thief please >

  • Gastrian #104 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • Kostas #105 1 year ago

    2 things alone blew this game out of the water for me. The first is the recycled environments. Why the hell did they use the same settings and tilesets again and again for a -20- hour long game? The second thing that busted me was no doubt the over simplification of everything. Dungeon Siege 2 looks like a true hardcore gamers experience by contrast and everybody knows how simplified this game was.

    I am not even going to speak of the rest of the flaws since those two above were enough to bitter my experience. 20 hours of my life NOT well spent. Roll on Witcher 2 so we can finaly get our hands on a proper RPG experience.

  • strangerism #106 1 year ago

    Since the last 20 hours I keep running up and down the same shitty town, looking for NPC so i can complete these damn puerile template quests and progress this game, how fun is that? Bioware thanks for your crap storytelling
    Edited by strangerism at 11/03/11 @ 21:06

  • TRUTH #107 1 year ago

    Thank-goodness for Divinity II: DKS for my Rpg/adventure/action fix - this is so much better then DA II!!!...cheaper too.
    Edited by TRUTH at 11/03/11 @ 21:55

  • Kami #108 1 year ago

    I must admit it, Dragon Age: Origins wasn't my thing. It isn't that I dislike RPGs or tectical RPGs or anything - truth be told, it just struck me as dull. There was more fun reading the codex than doing quests. They made a wonderful new world and then decided - you know what? Let's use as little of it as possible.

    Dragon Age 2 is a different beast - I'm going to be blunt here. I like it, in part. I still despise this idea that rogues are the only ones who can dual wield. Call me new-age but surely in enlightened times we can move beyond that stereotype? I dislike the character creator in DA2 - honestly, cannot wait to see some mods to fix that. It looks a bit too much like Dragon Age: Origins - same tileset, I know. But also, the voice acting. I'm sorry, but the moment I started hearing the guy who voiced Garrus I almost balked. GET. SOME. NEW. VOICE. ACTORS. Bloody hell, cheapskates. I understand keeping the talent busy, but not when it's so patently obvious!

    But other than that, I think it IS a better game - arguably what I would have wanted in the first place with Origins. But it's becoming abundantly clear Bioware is juggling too much. Bioware are a sign of quality - but Origins wasn't, in my opinion, quality. And nor is DA2, in all honesty. It's too straight-laced for an RPG. It follows the template just a bit too closely - it's just a bit too cliché for its own good as a franchise.

    Mass Effect for me was amazing not because I like Shepherd, although I do. Or the companions (I'd certianly like to be alone with Tali in an airlock...). I was a bit meh at the start - and then Saren kicked in. I have never wanted to kill a baddie as much as I wanted to kill him. And that was it, I was gone - sucked into the world. It had identity, it had charm and most importantly for me - it had someone I loved to hate. Mass Effect 2 didn't quite scratch that same itch, although competant I just found it a bit dull.

    I'm supposed to be making a point here and you want the chase, so I'll cut to it. Dragon Age, as a franchise, is nice - but it is generic fantasy RPG #432,890. It has nothing I can see that makes it jump out and stand out - the characters, the world, the plot, it's all far too safe and far too within normal parameters. They don't ring as true as Justin and Feena slowly falling for each other. They don't have the texture of Maxim and Selan from Lufia 2, as they realise the gravity of their destiny.

    After a day with Hawke in the Freemarches, I just feel... bored. And that's not usually the best first impression to get from a game. Maybe I just have more imagination than most, but I'd rather have a big lizard man, a mechanical construct, a misguided but sweet member of the Nobility who thinks he/she is doing the right thing in the wrong way and a werewolf in my team than several mages all with the same trees.

    Maybe DA2 is a slow burner. I don't mind that. I have enough faith that it is a satisfying action-RPG which will come good in the end. I just lament the fact that so many heroes and villains these days lack personality... and surely, in a genre that prides itself on storytelling, that's a cardinal sin?
    Edited by Kami at 11/03/11 @ 22:39

  • immateriaux #109 1 year ago

    I think Bioware are a sign of quantity now, not quality - how much download content can we wring from a depleted, rushed out franchise is more their focus from the feel of things

  • Nameless-001 #110 1 year ago

    I didn't even bother to download it, that should tell you the type of opinion I have on the junk you've just released.
    These are the times when I stop spending money on a developer. Say hello to all my future potential purchases, because you will see none.
    Edited by Nameless-001 at 11/03/11 @ 23:23

  • svenjl #111 1 year ago

    If you have not played the retail version you have no basis for comment. Fact. This is not a sequel either, nor is it Baldur's Gate. The core gameplay, including combat, has been tweaked but not fundamentally changed. Please read Gamespot, PC Gamer and Games Xtreme for more in-depth reviews that actually give insight into the game (IGN was useless). The amount of uninformed rubbish parading as commentary is unbelievable in relation to DAII. The only complaint I have about the game is the inability to fully customize whole party inventories. Other than that I have found the game to be exciting and dramatic, while remaining familiar in a good way. I don't think Bioware have anything to answer for and have created a great DA game.

  • Kami #112 1 year ago

    Really Svenjl? In part, the first seven or so hours I've spent feel like a copy of Dragon Age: Origins. The same human family with similar problems. Similar landscapes, the same voice actors (I really can't get over that, no matter how hard I try). Flemeth - well, I can buy that much. But more or less same introduction. It's so far, for better or worse, doing what DA:o did in a different engine. I am not in any position yet to judge if that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'm going to finish it at least once before I pass that sort of judgement upon it - but it is noticable for someone who has played Mass Effect, ME2 and DA:o and Awakening.

    I must admit I prefer the combat system. I think for me these days the era of the old-school isometric RPG is somewhat of a lost art. It's not trying to be Baldurs Gate, I agree, and no game should lay claim to that - it is a poisoned chalice from which nothing but ill will can arise. My problem is - what is it trying to be? If all they did was make a decent hack and slash action RPG, that shows a dangerous lack of judgement on the part of Bioware. If they tried to create a world in which future games can flourish, then recycling the same old concepts isn't really developing it, which shows a lack of foresight. If they wanted to undo what they started in DA:o, then surely that demonstrates a worrying lack of belief in their own product?

    You could argue I'm looking into it too much - but I like to believe a game is made to be the very best it can be. No compromises, no middle ground, just striving to be the best. Some games miss the point and fall on their swords - that's fine. Not all can survive to rise to the surface. But being content to stay somewhere in the middle means you're not going anywhere.

    Perhaps the biggest failing I've gotten from my several hours in DA2 is that it's a different engine, but it's trying to do the same thing. Maybe they thought that would bridge the gap for DA:o fans - but if you've played DA:o, you don't want the same story. I mean sure, you can do her if you want - but it's a bit creepy if she's wearing the same clothes as her sister...

  • jamesworkshop #113 1 year ago

    It's funny to me all this

    No we're not angry about DA2 being different...(but then in the same sentance)

    What we need is a return to Baldur's gate

    Honestly DA2 is exactly the kind of game the last 8 months of marketing advertised it was going to be, if you only just learned about the dialogue wheel 3 days ago that's your problem.

  • Grayvern #114 1 year ago

    Played the game for about 8 hours on pc, the skill trees have been given a new look and juggled a bit, the attribute system has been changed, mostly so that rogues have a chance as they were stat point starved in origins, combat has been considerably sped up, but on pc at least its no 3rd person actioner.

    I really wish people would stop comparing this to other RPG's though, the more people say, it's no Shadows of Amn, the more you force me to look at BG2, I want to keep those memories, if you go back now you find that while planescape torment is ever young BG2 is in fact a combat heavy almost hack and slasher with some conversations and some cities.

    The ability to look at stats and chose the higher ones for armour do not make a game more complex, theres always a break point of ac verses added abilities so armour choices nearly always end up in the long run being a non choice. The inventory management is nearly identical to dragon age except with added features to make it less of a chore to sell candlesticks, and crafting in origins was an also-ran to make potions cheaper even though there was so little to but you may as well have just bought the potions to save the hassle.

    A return to Baldurs gate would be a return to combat heavy RPG's with even less player input into the story than we have now.

    The furore and idiocy on display about Dragon Age Origins and 2 has made me lose faith in CRPG fans and the Eurogamer community.
    Edited by Grayvern at 12/03/11 @ 03:11

  • svenjl #115 1 year ago

    Kami and Grayvern, I enjoyed reading your thoughts. Kami - I don't disagree with you necessarily, I just think the familiar feel of the game is a good thing. It is after all a story that begins during the same period as DA:origins, with characters in a similarly desperate situation. I think the visuals are cleaner and less chunky, although the environments are still a bit drab and sterile (to be picky). I don't think we can expect a quantum leap in every game over the previous, so I think Bioware have actually shown a fair bit of creativity in so far the story and audiovisual effects are concerned. I really do not buy the suggestion that they are trying to undo any aspect of Origins which received high praise across the board. DAII is a different game, not a sequel, and has received a bump in quality in some areas. I don't see it as being better though.

  • Inmediasress #116 1 year ago

    I knew from the start when they announced voiced hero and no tactical view that its going to be something bad and average.
    I dont know why people and for some reason the developer keep protesting that mass effect had no influence on DA2.
    I mean open your eyes you have the wheel thats not a big problem (for me it is) then you have abilities like singularity ala ME2.
    You have a freakin mansion/house wathever where you recieve mails and even spam mails like in ME2. The whole focus of the game is not adventure but screwing some of your companions just like in ME 2 wich isn't necessarily bad but in case of DA2 it feels really tacked on.

    The other half of the game is some copy of WOW and some jrpgs. The rouge in particular is something like shadow stepp ambush rogue from wow. I know that everyone copies from someone it is not necessarily bad but most developers do it so that you have a hard time to recognise it and its not copying at least in my book if you make something unique from the copied parts but here its just in your face. Also the sword Hayden's razor or whatever the name I'm pretty sure I saw that in some final fantasy game or maybe some famous japanese cartoon.

    There is also the problem that the game feels really unpolished with almsot no content. Companions are really shallow they said something like they will have more personality than origins, well that failed. Even Sten has more personality than most of the companions in DA2.
    The story is also really badly written I'mean***** 'Spoiler Warning'***** you go to the deep roads you have there an 'adventure' at the end your brother collapses just like that an then you say somethig like 'Oh shit mothers going to be pissed of' the next time you wake up 3 years have passed.*****Spoiler end*****.

    All in all major step back Bioware said something that they worked for 5-6 years on Origins rich lore and continents/kingdoms what not and then they produce a sequel in 6 months where you are stuck in a city for the entire game. I don't think they worked on this game for more than 6 months I applaud that they put this together on such a short notice but EA shouldn't have pressured them to squezze out a sequel this soon.

  • OliverH #117 1 year ago

    @Grayvern

    Sorry, but while you COULD play BG2 as a pure hack&slash, nothing forced you to do so. Frankly, I disliked the main storyline because it involved plenty of railroading. But the game gave you plenty of options to tweak each run-through into your own personal experience. Things like trying to convert Viconia, the various romance options...plus it gave you the idea that being a spawn of the God of Murder is not necessarily a nice thing...additionally, it was part of the D&D franchise so gave you a feeling of being part of something much greater.

    The reason why people get so upset is twofold. First, while stats-heavy gaming can be quite cumbersome in the pen&paper environment, the computer can take away a lot of the chore character. Look at some of the games, such as parts of the Wizardry series, which had mechanisms of learning through usage. Extremely tedious to do with paper (What are you going to do, make a tick mark for every 10 minutes the character spend swimming? Hardly makes sense especially if you can just fast-forward the scene) So one reason why people like to see a lot of possibilities to tweak is because the computer can actually make it nice and easy for you instead of a chore. If I am using a computer anyway, why not use its capabilities?

    Second, and Dungeon Siege was a good example for this, "streamlining" all too often is a pitiful excuse for being butt lazy and still wanting to run off with the money. Compare what the creators of DS did with what some volunteers did with Project Lazarus - using a story from ages ago, no less! It's the same engine, but an entirely different experience. And frankly, given the recycled areas in DA2, being butt lazy seems like a good explanation of why the game is the way it is.

  • Andeus #118 1 year ago

    @Murton

    Actually it's not misguided. In my previous post I didn't say that they dumbed down DA2 due to console players being idiots or anything, they are not. But the game design IS affected in order to become more gamepad friendly and to appeal to the broader audience that is the console market. Remember how around 2-3 weeks ago they said this:

    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-25-bioware-dont-be-scared-of-rpgs
    ]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-0...[/link]

    which shows how they wanted to reach out to that broader audience.

    Now for "console dumbing down" outside DA2's case, it's also a fact. Again it doesn't necessarily mean that console players are idiots ( and hey, I have a gaming PC, X360, PS3, Wii, PSP. So I'm probably a mega-idiot or something :p ). Many game designers, including Bioware's own 2 head-honchos in an EG interview, have stated that today's generation doesn't like the 100 hour mark games that much and they tend to lose interest after some time, which is why we get games that are 10 hours long but are more packed with action in that timeframe.

    So why dumb it down if console players are not "idiots" ? It's simple, the console audience has a broader range of ages. There are kids 10 years old that got a console for the holidays and they didn't get it to play the new version of Peppa Pig. Or on the other side there are people that want to play something straightforward without a lot of mumbo jumbo in it. It's not that they are idiots, it's just that consoles are a different medium than PCs that looks easier to use for quick bursts of gaming sessions, for example: when you just don't want to think a lot in your gaming after a hard day's work. Now the "easier than PC" part is some misguided info, right there.

    Anyway we are trailing off, and this is a very big discussion with lots of design talk, for those that are interested there are many many interviews from game designers out there and many articles. To close this post I'm gonna recap with what I said in my previous post: Bioware decided to fix how DA:o was horrible as a mainstream "gamepad game" by easing up a bit on the classic RPG design to make it more action packed, in line with today's games that everyone loves, and making it less complicated and overwhelming for newcomers who were put off from DA:o (even though DA:o was not complicated, but that's another story)

  • septimus #119 1 year ago

    Sadly bought this useless crap from steam. If it doesn't crash I get a warning telling me I don't have a disk in my hard disk and continue, cancel or quit. Securom I guess?

    Assholes.

    Mass Effect 1/2, and every one of my steam games works perfectly and all drivers are latest.
    Edited by septimus at 12/03/11 @ 12:39

  • strangerism #120 1 year ago

    @septimus

    EA sneaks SecuROM DRM onto Dragon Age II disc

    [link url=http://www.destructoid.com/ea-sneaks-securom-drm-onto-dragon-age-ii-disc-196185.phtml
    ]http://www.destructoid.com/ea-sneaks-sec...[/link]

  • Kami #121 1 year ago

    I doubt that Bioware can win here. They took Mass Effect/2 and they thought "We'll do it in fantasy form!", but it doesn't translate well either way. DA:o was too PC-centric for consoles and likewise, DA2 feels somewhat too console-y on a PC. Truth is, that is the reason there's a lot of confusion over it. What is Dragon Age? Is it the sprawling tactical RPG with a thriving modding community? Or is it the hacky-slashy action game that console gamers will love? Is it the hundred-hour epic with thousands more hours of fan-made content, or the simple clean action-RPG for the masses?

    That's really the main issue for a lot of people - I'm not entirely sure Bioware know yet what they want out of it. And that confusion is translating in the game for so many of us - it's half-hearted and a bit bland. It's good, but it could have been so much better - they kept too much of Origins in it to be a departure for the masses, but didn't keep enough in to sate the fans of the original who have stuck with it all this time. In effect, it's the worst of both worlds - broadening their market? I'd say based on this that DA2 could end up more niche than Origins could ever have hoped to be...

    I'm not surprised by the 6/10s. Maybe it's a little mean, but certainly not as mean as the idea to not get out some modding tools out for the PC community. That's a far more damning internal judgement than any review I'd ever read or write, and one I fear this series may live to regret...

  • Inmediasress #122 1 year ago

    There are games that are critically succesful and comemrcially flop.
    I think DA2 will be the opposite critically it sucks but commercially it will be a succes. I am guessing that Biowares name will pull it through and yeah i know it had great reviews from some sites but also less than stellar ones as well. Usually that means that it's overhyped and conflicts arrise from the paid and unpaid reviews and of course I saw more unsatisfied remarks from people on forums thant satisfying ones. Most big review sites are biased anyway. Then again it is just specualtion and I'm not trying to bash the game. These are just my thoughts.

    Oh and by the way. I think they expected this to happen thats why there was the undoubtedly early paid review and all the dlc nonsense for preorderign the game and the bland demo that gave nothig away. kind of marketing startegy bythe time anyone will complain they would have bought it. I remeber how early on people protected it and said things like it will be the same length and other ridiculous stuff.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 12/03/11 @ 13:07

  • immateriaux #123 1 year ago

    I think the fact that they already have an interview out defending the game, before most of the first people playing it have managed even more than a few hours of gameplay, makes me think they were indeed aware that they had done a poor job. They seem a bit over anxious and now the some real reviews have come in, their fears are realised. We've noticed its shit!

  • Inmediasress #124 1 year ago

    @Speedy1982

    I'm not jumping on the hate wagon. The fact is that mass effect is built more or less for this kind of fighting and chating and it worked for it and had a fairly memorable story. The thing is DA2 tries to please both mass effect fans and dragon age fans probably that was the idea behind it but the ME style and Origins style gameplay does not go very well hand in hand it could have been better I suppose if they spent more time developing it but I think to merge the two styles to create something new
    would have required more developing time and probably more consideration. Now it just seems really rushed like when people throw together great ideas but fail to make something cohesive.

  • Yossarian #125 1 year ago

    This is the first Bioware RPG I have not bought on the day of release. I've been putting money in Bioware's pockets since Baldur's Gate, and it stops here. It won't matter a jot, but I'm voting with my wallet.

  • Kami #126 1 year ago

    I'm not hating on DA2 without having tried it. I kinda had some disposable cash in my pocket, and I'm sure DA2 will scratch my back for a week or two. And that's fine. I've bought worse games than DA2 for a few weeks of satisfying violence.

    I suppose my main problem is - I expect better from Bioware. DA: Origins was bland, but it was huge. It had content. And it had modding tools - so the userbase could not only polish off the majority of annoying issues but add more content on top. Whilst I can't say I found the main story of Origins much fun, there was plenty more to be had modding the nuts off it - so I looked upon Origins much as I look upon Oblivion - it's nice but bland, and it's the community that puts the make up on. Sorta like the gaming version of Girls World.

    DA2 can't really get away with what Origins did. It can't be a blank canvas with no modkit out there for us to tinker with - it has to have an identity to pull this off, and for me - likely closing in on the end now - I'm not sure it's got away with it. It's a nice game with an identikit personality, and that for me isn't a sign of quality I'd usually assosciate with Bioware - not without something to compensate it. Which DA2 doesn't have.

    So if they have any DA2 modkits in the wings, they'd better get them out - like, pronto. Because after a second playthrough, that's when I like to start looking at mods. And if DA2 doesn't have any... well, let's just say I won't mourn its loss from my hard drive. DA2 is disappointing - but it's not crap. Just not the game people wanted. And that's why Bioware can't win. Because it isn't the game anyone expected, and now no-one is sure what to say to the girl whose nose job has gone horribly wrong...
    Edited by Kami at 12/03/11 @ 22:41

  • dachunk #127 1 year ago

    Here are some more objective reviews from people that were not caught up in the hype and blinded by the reality of what the game actually is -

    [link url=http://www.thekoalition.com/47021/dragon-age-ii-review-worse-than-ever/
    ]http://www.thekoalition.com/47021/dragon...[/link]
    [link url=http://n4g.com/news/719612/dragon-age-2-review-gamekult/com#addcomment
    ]http://n4g.com/news/719612/dragon-age-2-...[/link]
    [link url=http://www.next-gen.biz/features/dragon-age-ii-review?page=0%2C0
    ]http://www.next-gen.biz/features/dragon-...[/link]

    Two 5's and a 6 I believe. And I happen to agree. It's over simplified combat, no thought required and no real tactics required. Every fight can be handled the same manner - run in and keep blasting away with spell or sword. Very limited role playing aspects as you know you dialog decision is either bad good or in between before you decide... takes the fun out of discussion if you already know the repercussions if you ask me. Exploding enemies with almost every hit = Stupid! Boring adventure stuck in one city. Next to no options for party gear changes which is also boring. Rather boring party interaction which for me, was one of the highlights of DAO... The banter between NPC's was hilarious at some points.

    Overall DA2 has taken a HUGE step back from the original in terms of intelligent combat strategies, expansive world environments, lack of interesting plot, limited spell combination's and NPC gear options, linear game play and no tool set! To many to list really.

    Fun but I'll be going back to Origins after another day or two, complimented by my frequent trips into any virtual world created by Bethesda - now these guys know what a 'role playing" game is.
    Edited by dachunk at 12/03/11 @ 22:53

  • Inmediasress #128 1 year ago

    @Kami

    They don't release modding tools because of dlc in the comming months there will be probably a truckload of dlc comming along most of whic will probably be only a quick grab for cash. That is why you can't change your companions armour I predict mass effect style appearance packs in the future.

    Oh and I played like half of the game by now (fortunately i recieved it as a gift otherwise I wouldn't have bought it) and the story is how should I put it maybe like nonexistent.
    Something is really wrong here, was this actually made by Bioware? Who wrote this story? I mean this is so unimaginitive and bland that I can't describe it in words I never search for great stories in games but at least origins and mass effect ahd some tension and bit drama and emotion this abomination of DA2 has nothing literally. Everything feels so artificial
    ****spoiler**** I don't want to get in to major spoilers but if you played the demo then the loss of one of your siblings by the ogre was for me so far the only emotional high point and I think that sums it up. You just wander around the city doing dirty work for some people although you are fillthy rich at least thats wath the story says.*****Spoiler end*****

    I just saw that the DA2 composer stated that EA pushed the game out quickly to ride the popularity of origins. Said somethign about the score also being a rush job. Now that he mentions it I didn't even reallize that there was a score or any kind of music under it apart from the main menuXDD. Seriously though it seems like the shit hit the fan no wonder that they do massive damage control. Biowares reputation will be stained by thsi business but then again money is a nice remedy for most everything can't say I blame them just sad.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 13/03/11 @ 09:40

  • Kami #129 1 year ago

    @Inmediasress; That would be a disaster for Bioware if they restricted modding of DA2. DLC is fine, even Origins had official DLC sitting alongside fanmade content.

    I'm sure there WILL be a toolkit - it has the same override folder setup of Origins. But I fear you may be right that they'll spend the next few months ripping us off on content that should have been in the game before the playerbase has a chance to mod themselves.

    Again... they can't win here.

  • h4rm0ny #130 1 year ago

    This interview is really not quite honest. It's not right to try and dismiss all criticism as "afraid of change." Many people have given very clear and supported reasons why they are disappointed in DA2. And saying they tried to make things equal across all platforms is just a shiny way of saying they lowered things to the capabilities of the lowest common denominator. And it's just downright divisive to try and suggest that opinions are only either in the "Wah I hate everything" camp or in the "It's a great game because...". The simple truth is that there are many people who are disappointed in this game and are perfectly capable of listing the good points of it whilst still finding the whole thing lacking.

    Most of all, I'm really tired of a few people dismissing all the complaints as saying "you're just unhappy because it's not like Origins". Uh, yes, a lot of us are that's our right. If people went to a restaurant one day and had a fine steak, then the next time they went there they were served White Castle hamburgers, you wouldn't expect the waiter (and a few customers who wanted hamburger anyway) to start shouting "they're just unhappy because it's not the steak they had last time". Yeah - that's partly why we're not happy. How is that our fault?

  • spekkeh #131 1 year ago

    How is going to the same restaurant and demanding the same steak not being 'afraid of change'?

    If anything the main problem with the Dragon Age series (DAO especially) is that it doesn't change enough, it's the same steak we've eaten hundreds of times, only this time slightly overcooked too. It's the same fantasy tropes, the same leveling and crafting system (I actually started preferring FFXIII's horrible Cryssarium, at least they tried something new), the dwarfs are all drunken brawlers, oh in the end you fight a dragon, sure I'll help you but first you have to do these 3 random fetch quests all the fucking time, etc. It was all completely derivative. Its only saving grace was some of the story heavy quests (I especially liked the Fade bits).
    Edited by spekkeh at 14/03/11 @ 10:02

  • Inmediasress #132 1 year ago

    @h4rm0ny

    Now that some honest and more or less unbiased reviews have creept in they do damage controll and from looking at the web the less favourable reviews will outweigh the big gaming sites reviews which usually came with a DA2 advertisement to buy the game. Sometimes I really get the feeling that said big gaming sites are just a marketing tool for the big companies. That is why their game ratings are so screwed not just in DA2's case.

  • TRUTH #133 1 year ago

    Divinity II: Dragon King Saga is worth checking only £24 NEW!...and fine game too!

    Two Worlds II is also worth checking - I really love some aspects of this game, though still not as polished as I hoped. A game has got both a lot of praise good and bad.

    BUT! both games feel like an Rpg/adventure/exploration game and a lot more rpg orientated then anything DA II.
    Edited by TRUTH at 14/03/11 @ 18:40

  • cee_stone #134 1 year ago

    I'm so sick of the companys and their bullshit interviews and their bullshit score rating to last me 3 decade, Now really what was the point of Mike Laidlaw defence to the downfall of Dragon age 2 absolutely nothing. The game was Rush and everyone who play the demo or even bought the game like i did have common sense know this, the debacle of dragon age 2 lies at ur feet and anyone who came up this stupid half ass idea are surely out of touch with the gaming industry and the fans as well. Oh now, lets get to the nitty gritty! Just face it Mike and everyone at Bioware sold their soul to Ea which is good at destroying companys and destroying a franchise with ease. Hell i don't even trust critic reviews cuz they are biased period and they do get their grease palm period some critics went so far as to say to give a rating of 10/out 10 is plain ridculious if u actually play dragon age 2. Not going to keep bashing this title cuz alot folk already did it for me. For Now Bioware u better get ur asses in gear because if mass effect 3 is a fisaco u lost a long time fan and a consumer!

  • Inmediasress #135 1 year ago

    The problem is they loose a long time fan but they get 3 for this shit because of bigboobs in DA2 it' so obvoius they target teen boys and japanese animelovers with this shit talk about making something mainstreamXD.They rushed it like hell so let's make big boobies that always gets them.

  • orctowngrot #136 1 year ago

    Mike should be aware that one major limit of the game is: having a voiced character limits the story to variations of ONE PERSON (ie: Mass Effect). This is the largest problem with a game claiming to be RPG. It was friendly fire! Self inflicted injury. Change this and the sky is the limit

  • Efef #137 1 year ago

    I gave up on finishing the game. UI, class design, pace of the story, enviroments, dialogs all worse than in Origins, mages that swing their staves around like ninjas ... it's not funny. I appreciate that BW is trying to evolve the game, but this is massacre, 6/10 is deserved. I actually started to play DAO again, rather than continue playing DA2 ... the atmosphere of the game has vanished in DA2, the whole game feels rushed. Style over character ... that description fits. I fear a bit for ME3 after experiencing DA2.

    @Inmediasress I honestly couldn't believe character model for Isabela. It reminded me of tomb rider, cheap fan service ... no way I will take the bimbo as a companion.
    Edited by Efef at 12/04/11 @ 17:41

  • google_calasade #138 1 year ago

    Laidlaw is a prime example of what's wrong in today's gaming industry. He's asinine, egotistical and unwavering. He cares nothing for customers or quality. He took a super successful first offering in a franchise and pretty much singlehandedly destroyed that franchise with the direction he took.

    He's an ass, an idiot and needs to be fired.