f13.net

Is anyone else getting this? And are you getting it on PC or console? I want it for PC but am scared of the DRM which I am becoming convinced is a way to force people into giving up PC gaming.

I will purchase it for PC so long as its EA DRM free on STEAM.  I know I am very excited about the title and have been following it for a few years now since it appears to be the very first credible effort to recreate the gaming experience of Baldur's Gate II: SoA & ToB.

This pretty much sums up my feelings. I've kicked around Steam but I like having the physical disk and manuals and all that stuff.

As with all games, I will let those of you with more money than children purchase it and render judgment before I contemplate it.  It does, however, look like a game that might scratch that itch that NWN only barely managed to do.

I'm with Riggs on liking to have the manuals and what-not for RPGs.

Do they even package manuals any more?  Seems like lately you get a "quickstart" guide and are told the name of the manual.pdf and that's it.

Ya got me. Because of the requirement above,  I don't buy PC games all that often anymore.  I bought ONE new PC games in '08, for example, the Orange Box for TF2 and who needs a manual for a FPS? Anything else was just expansions like Beyond the Sword, which - IIRC - did come with a manual.  Either I'm increasingly irrelevant to the market and it's moved past me, or the market is increasingly getting shittier.  I haven't decided which.

Dumb question: Is this close enough to being released to warrant this thread? I only ask because I have no idea if a release date has been set.

There's no release date yet AFAIK, only speculation. "Soon (we'll delay releasing a release date)." :why_so_serious:

All the online outlets are claiming March for PCs and Q4 2009 for consoles. It might be BS.

I'm going to be all over Dragon Age, most likely. I just played Eschalon Book I over the holidays and I'd really love a AAA-quality, graphically-lush RPG with content and systems akin to BG2.

Although preferably not with the awful D&D 2.5 game systems. Preferably. The exploding arrows from BG1 are totally welcome though.

I need something to scratch my character building itch, if this has anything like the nwn (or i guess dnds) multiclassing system and baldurs gate style storyline/gameplay ill be all over it.

Based on how underwhelming NWN 1 was at launch (the editor mostly, but still), I'm going to wait for you richer fuckers to hash it out before I even consider it.

Ditto.

I'm totally looking forward to this. I can't stop playing with the NWN1 editor, even though it's rather dated, so I want something new to channel my creativity through. (And NWN2 made me sad.)

Plus it's a new fantasy world, and it's been a while since I explored one of them.

Dragon Age is a bit uninspired as a name.  They should call it Imperial Empire:  Empire of Imperialism. 

I'm more interested in what game your avatar is from than the original topic.

Persona 4.

Thx.

Yeah, it's Chie from Persona 4. The NPCs can do followup attacks and hers was by far my favorite. It was called Galactic Punt and she would literally kick an enemy out of the battle and get an instant kill.

I almost coughed up my drink when she did it to a "mini boss," after I had knocked down its summoned minion.

And on Dragon Age....I'll be getting it for 360, ONLY because my PC is so dated. I'm really wondering how it will work out, though I'm somewhat comforted by how Mass Effect played, which I had very few problems with.

Also, last I heard, they're using a new internally-created IP, so there should not be any DnD rules present.
Not that I would mind necessarily, as I'm liking 4th edition now...not sure how well it'd play in a CRPG though.

I'm hoping to get it for the PC (provided my PoS PC will play it....) -- if not, I will definitely get it for the 360.

Totally looking forward to the game.

I've been hearing about DA from the inside for five years now. I'd stopped caring about it. You could say I had even become a bit skeptical.

At the company meeting this morning, they showed a video that was a "cliff's notes" version of the demo they gave journalists a few weeks back (the elves-and-werewolves plot).

I am excited about DA again.

That's some seriously jedi shit right there.  I was thinking "Holy shit, he can't badmouth DA!", and then after you have my full attention (through shock) you turn around with the killer plug.



Note:  I'm not saying you're being a shill or anything.  That's just really damn effective.

Yea, but you can't spitshine anything that involves elves, not even with werewolves. It will never stop bothering me that elves, dwarfs, and such keep making it into games, even fantasy ones. Please, god, someone reinvent this genre. ANYONE. I don't even care if the game is bad.

If a fantasy game doesn't have elves, it will have a race very similar to elves. People will go to great lengths and put up all sort of caveats to compare a "non-standard fantasy race" to elves or dwarfs and such.

I can deal with elves being in the game; I don't normally use them anyway.

This isn't Voltaire. If elves don't exist we don't need to create them. At what point does a developer just throw up his arms and say "Humans are humans, quit it with the fucking almost human bipeds!"

Humans. Monsters. Supernatural shit. Etc. All OK.

Elves and Dwarves, Halflings, hobbits, etc need not apply.

If you play Evil in DA, you can kill all the elves and make them not exist. :grin:

I'm not one of those people that takes glee in eradicating unoriginality.

That's not to say I'm not excited about Dragon Age. I am, very much so, but balls to stuff like elves. Just lame.

Haha reinvent the genre.

It wouldn't sell to the mass market, despite the Witcher trying hard to give a rougher setting in terms of really ugly dwarves, savage elf rebels versus evil human supremacists with some sex cards thrown in, people still don't think it was 'different' enough. Those who noticed it either liked it or hated the 'childishness' of the F word used in dialogues. Your mama suck dorf cock is one of those  :uhrr: random lines.

I dunno the animations closeup just like hinky to close to original NWN for this day and age.

Excited yes hopeful it is great yes Day one purchase no partly because strapped for cash. PC version for sure.

I got a kick out of one of the answers to "Why do humans hate elves?" being "Why do cocks go into cunts? It just is" (paraphrase). That was :drill:

Without elves there are no elf tits. And that's just sad.

About a quarter-century ago with Ultima 4, when Garriot decided that he was a big enough boy to quit plagiarizing Tolkien quite so much. By Ultima 6 there weren't even orcs anymore. Half the reason I spat blood when UO added elves was because... well... elves are ghey. But the other half was because they just didn't fucking belong in Ultima.

Yes, elves are gay, ninjas and samurais are cooler.  :drill:

Still bitter they took down Elf Porn, are we?

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?elfporn

I guess you'll have to sign up then.

They did?  Huh, I knew but forgot I guess. I brought back the avatar out of nostalgia.   It's ok we have World of Whorecraft for our girls with fake ears fetishists.

... I just noticed your avatar had elf ears.  And you switched from the Kasumi one ages ago.

I don't really know how to deal with this revelation.

What, that the avatar is from the old Elf Porn website or that I switched avatars a long while ago?

... Wait. No, I wasn't being self-referential with the fake ear fetish.

The revelations were either: a) "Oooh, elf ears." or b) "How did I not notice the ears after all this time?" or c) "What does it all mean?"  Bonus revelation, the word "fetishists".

Alpha Protocol was recently announced to be an October release, so it looks like we could be getting a Bioware RPG and an Obsidian RPG this Fall.  A new trailer for Alpha Protocol was also released. (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/46677.html)

So I decided to check up on Dragon Age today, and noticed that Bioware announced an October 20 release date.

Now I know what Santa will be bringing me for an early Christmas gift.    :grin:

I'm desperately trying to keep my hopes from getting too high with this. I'm also trying to ignore what Bioware's marketing department has been doing for the game. I don't hate Marilyn Manson but those ads are fucking ridiculous.

That's why you watch the version with Hawaii 5-O theme music, pretty hilarious and fits the trailer quite well.   :why_so_serious:

Holy shit, they really may as well have named this game Generic RPG. I watched that silly Marilyn Manson ad and I started yawning as soon as I heard the Generic Inspirational Speech about how they will defeat "the blight". Which I'm guessing is actually the Blight(tm), Generic Evil Legion of Doom. You know, like the Horde or the Scourge or whatever. Also, yeah, that chick in a bikini sure was scandalous. I think my monocle popped out.

Bioware will always be bioware.

A dark storyline set in a dark world where you have a chance to make dark decisions to overturn the ultimate darkness that threatens to consume the darkened lands. Experience jealousy as you develop romance between party members and it may develop into something deeper than your left hand in a dark basement.

Or you could say that they're trying too hard?

At least it will likely have action combat instead of shit-tastic AD&D "Save vs Fucked failed, load saved game" combat. Between the two of them, Bioware and Bethesda seem to be destroying the whole "RPGs must have shitty slow-paced fighting" trope.

Isn't it just using the KOTOR combat system?  Pause, move your guys around, queue up some moves, unpause and watch the fireworks?

Don't think action combat works with a bad party AI. I'm struggling to remember the last time I played with a great party based AI. Even Diablo only had a semi-retarded henchmen. KOTOR combat was a simple 'buff & win' so it doesn't really count as much.

A plain old d20 system would be nice and generic, but I had hoped for better.

Edit:  As far as I know Bioware has never made a bad RPG, but they should fire their marketing people and give this game a new name.

I'm on forums where people are lamenting the loss of "old-school RPG gaming" to "twitch-based consoletards". There are a vocal group for who slow combat was an integral part of RPG gaming.

It wasn't the slowness they wanted, they wanted tactical depth. Something akin to a board game on PC that automates the dice roll but give rise to multiple approach in combat. This is done very well in Temple of Elemental Evil with turn based system and D&D rule implemented.

ToEE is held back by some interface problems, I think.

I admit I tend to prefer the slower pace when it comes to games that involve significant melee combat - neither Mass Effect nor Fallout 3 do, so the faster shootery feel is better there, but I think the faster paced 'click button swing sword' thing is a big part of why Oblivion fell kind of flat for me. It works for Diablo-like games, but for whatever reason it just feels really lame in first person.

I like both and my only fear is that we end up with neither, just a shitty washed down hybrid of the two. Which is more or less where we are now.

Would you count Fallout 3 as the hybrid? Or just very shooter-ey? I kind of like the ability to use a system like VATS. I remember not digging Morrowind too much because of the first person melee without something like VATS. The combat style in games like BG and BG II was pretty nice, and my preferred method. (Fallout and Fallout 2 as well.)

For some reason, I really like the ability to pause and issue orders (or at least aim at the enemy) before the fight continues.

For less deep storyline games (Bioshock had a good story, but was mainly a shooter), the lack of a pause is just fine.

I think there is definitely an appeal to the slow combat.  Sure, it isn't pulse pounding or exciting, but there is definitely something to be said for a more tacitcal slower based RPG combat.  I mean, I like action games too, but if its going to be die-roll based, I want to be able to position and hem and haw over ability use. 

Give me Fable with a little more fighting game mixed in, and decent AI for party members. This other shit can shuffle off to wherever they keep the hex-based wargames these days.

Yeah, the fast pace games keep pushing toward isn't really that great because it removes tactical considerations and a lot of the strategic thought simply because you don't have time to do much.  It also makes it so you have to limit the amount of abilities a character has at their disposal, since the player doesn't have time to consider each of their abilities and decide which to use.  Most fast-paced games give you button-press combos to activate different but still rather similar abilities, and most players simply can't memorize very many of them, much less all of them AND tactically choose which to use in an intelligent manner from moment-to-moment.  Most people end up picking a few combos they like and sticking to them.

I don't know that I'd really tie "has a storyline" with "has a pause function" that tightly together.  Unless the combat is tied in with the story somehow (and it almost never is), there's no reason one would impact the other.

BG and Icewind Dales have good storylines and pause button.  Just sayin'.

I'm still excited for it - I'm sure the actual game will be top-shelf as others mention. But the generic title, trailer and descriptions are sig worthy...

Are they some how different than humans?

They're more pointy? Or wait, that was the ears. Hm.

at least i'm spared from this epic inter-racial romance

(https://files.getdropbox.com/u/829607/MELOVE.jpg)

I think it's all about the moves. Ultimately these things in the game aren't us, so we're really witnessing other people doing what we tell them to. Swinging a sword is more a bodily experience, so if you're not doing it yourself, it can seem a bit silly watching over someone's shoulder. But if you're watching it happen from afar, you get to see the whole body work together, and thus empathize more with the action.

Ranged weapons like firearms are a bit different. They're more a "death button" kind of thing, where you press a button and whatever you're looking at is dead. From that perspective, a closer viewpoint is more immersive.

Could it be that it's a matter of perspective enforced in other media types?

In many movies you often see from the sniper's perspective, and will see the kill shots in a first person view. However, with sword fighting it is almost always a third person view. (In fact I can't ever think of a time when a movie/tv show has shown 1st person with a sword)

Another factor might be than many people (at least in America) have at least fired guns at targets. Granted I grew up in Oklahoma, where it's difficult to find someone who hasn't fired a gun, I'm sure someones experience in an area without gun culture would be different.  Even a toy gun shooting a dart at a target would help with this effect. Whereas perhaps only people who have tried fencing, have any idea of what handling a sword is like and only one style at that. I'm not sure that toy swords have the same effect that a toy gun would even have.

Admittedly, I've always thought even knifing people in FPS games looked and felt weird too, so it might just be my personal bias.

They're immune to gravity. No sag.

I think it's the same thing. We don't see first-person sword fights because they'd just be shaky shots of someone's face going 'WAAUUGGHH' a lot. I want to see Obi-Wan do backflips, not watch the scenery get blurry for a while.

lol.  quote worthy.

Everything decent Bethesda does is probably by accident.  Or have you forgotten the combos in Oblivion already?  Fuck spamming the disarm combo thirty times (and missing fifteen times because a keyboard is not an analog controller) to get an effect, only to have the skeleton run over and pick the fucking axe up and be ready to fight again in three seconds like the smart lad he is.

Anyone remembered Jade Empire?  :why_so_serious:
I don't mind fast paced combat as long the action flows seamlessly, not like the disjointed experience of Neverwinter Nights 2. It was acceptable in Baldurs Gate, but after they made the transition to shitty looking 3d graphics, I can't be interested enough to endure the fights. There wasn't enough feedback to tell me what sort of spell effects the magic casters are under. Commands are carried out with delay due to phase based action in a real time environment. Pausing, Cancelling current action and queuing up heal does not fire off as expected. Most of the time the character would stand there till his casting phase starts again (most often I had no idea WHEN or WHY he CAN / CANNOT start casting) while his fighter companion dies. And that's why I'm skeptical with this RT party combat promises.

From the perspective of someone who's done fake medieval fighting in the SCA you don't really notice what your own body is doing. Your focus is all on your opponent(s). Then there's the fact that they never do anything resembling proper weapons technique in a game. I have no idea how they could get that effect short of some sort of VR.

Mind you I just like all the Bioware games to varying degrees anyway, so I don't let it bother me.

Yeah, this issue has been a problem throughout all the AD&D based video games cause you don't have any idea what the initiative order is, who's turn it is, and what actions you've already used in your turn.  If there was a UI window or something that you could open up while paused so you could see who's turn it is, who's already gone this round, and who's still going to go this round, most of that problem would be solved, you'd be able to see that cancelling the spell wouldn't do any good cause you've already started to cast it, or that that character's turn isn't going to come up until next round, after those three enemies move.  One way to solve this in Baldur's Gate, and I think NWN/NWN2 also - if you want to live with the constant pausing - is to turn on a ton of the auto-pause options, which then allows you to issue commands for the next round, every time.  But, in non-challenging combats, which is most of them, this is pointless and irritating.

My tent is SOOOOO COOOLLLLLLLD alone.


 :roffle:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=659507958654&ref=mf

I like the way Drakensang handles this, you can hit k to open up the detail window and see what's going on under the hood. Also, the nicest initiative system I've seen is in HoMaMV with the scrolling window at the bottom.

I absolutely cannot get into any RPG romance, because there's always a dude behind it all.

And yeah, looks pretty generic. I'm sure it'll be great exploration, so that's what I'll be getting it for.

I'm embarassed for having watched that.  :uhrr:

The shoulderpads aren't generic dude. Check out that 1 foot wide broadsword too.  :awesome_for_real:

(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/8573/dragonage.jpg)

No, just no.  SCA (from what I can find) lifts their training from renaissance dueling manuals, which is very atypical of conditions you would find on a battlefield.

Speaking of which, it's time for another shortbus argument, maybe this time katanas versus mechs?

Not to mention that SCA fighting is very atypical of conditions that work in a video game.

and @ RK47, YAY innovation at last! ^_^

Lets go with silver nunchaku vs. werewolf.

Yeah, that was pretty painful.

Oh, and did I call it on The Blight(tm) or what?

Second that being painful. Oh, Black Isle, why have you left us?

Ugh....Still going to buy it, HOWEVER, that damn romance dialog was PAINFUL.

And the dude narrating did the game no favors.

Well google Pennsic War and tell me the SCA has no experience of the battlefield. I'm not saying it's valid from a real battle perspective, however from the viewpoint of what you see in front of you in armour while in a 500 on 500 battle (with no fear of death which may change everything) you aren't paying attention (yes you see them) to your own moves which is why in most games having your arms/weapons flash into view is jarring (to me at least).

That kind of crap is why I play with sound off and ignore any potential romance plots.

I did the romance in Mass Effect purely for the achievement. I still don't remember how I got her into bed as I just hit spacebar through the responses until that shit was over with. It was the first in game romance I ever participated in and it felt creepy even with actively trying not to pay attention. I just don't understand why some people get into those.

As far as the rest of Dragon Age goes: First, I think the marketing department needs to be rounded up and taken out back and shot. Second, I've been chanting "please don't suck" since they first announced this game and will continue to do so until released. I hope this bears delicious RPG fruit.

I'm just gonna start replaying Mass effect again to get the save game for its sequel. I'm not really looking forward to DA much after much of the previews sucked.

Do you skip pages when people start kissing in books?

:uhrr:

Buks r nut Gaems  :awesome_for_real:

Honestly there's a Dragon Age novel coming out, just like Mass Effect. You can go and read about kissing over there. I'm just gonna forgo this optional romance shit if it doesn't actually 'INSPIRE' your party stats bonuses. It's almost as if Bioware is trying to catch up to JRPG relationship system with their writing is still taking babysteps but that doesn't stop the marketing to label them as the 'GOOD' parts of the game.  :uhrr: I believe some game preview sites have already commented on how horrible the romance demo was, but mr Gaider of bioware said it was 'unfair' to criticize it based on a short demo. Right, I guess more suck up lines have to ensue before we get the cold tent event unlocked. >_<

Lessened situational awareness in "the real thing" isn't a compelling reason to design a certain way when your test subjects are weekend warriors. :awesome_for_real:  Regardless, I was addressing your point of "proper weapons techniques."  You know, the bolded part.  SCA is flat out fantasy LARP, case in point:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Shineygauntletpennsic32.jpg/500px-Shineygauntletpennsic32.jpg)

Something is missing here:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Bad-war.jpg/220px-Bad-war.jpg)

Hmm... Maybe I'm just confusing the period?

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Hattin.jpg/250px-Hattin.jpg)

Nope.

This reminds me of the time I linked a Japanese manuscript with a picture of a dozen samurai fighting with polearms and bows to some random fucker with a katana fetish...  You don't happen to think that swords are meant to be primary battlefield weapons, do you? :grin:

But...but...

I wanna be a jedi ninja samurai knight in shining armor...

(http://www.smileyshut.com/smileys/new/Battle/lightsaber-battle.gif) (http://www.smileyshut.com/Smileys/Smiley-Huts-Free-Battle-Smileys.html)

I couldn't agree more.  This looks *so* promising as a classic RPG.   Bioware has yet to disappoint me with their RPGs......so "Please Don't Suck."

Umm. No.

http://lalartu.smugmug.com/photos/447769070_MChgP-S.jpg

http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/uploaded_images/DeTaaheBattle-PW-36-field-battle-797839.jpg

http://www.softwareartist.com/SCA/War_14.jpg

And on and on. You can get better pictures than the one you posted. I have a buddy that's been a lifelong member since damn near the beginning of the SCA and has videos of their wars. They're not LARP. Not in the least. There are rules that obviously wouldn't apply in real life, but they beat the shit out of each other. There's no roleplaying about it.

This. I want. Soon as my PC is fixed, but I assume that'll happen well before Dragon Age comes out. Of course, this title also makes me realize that while I've been playing fantasy-themed RPGs since Ultima II, apparently I still have the capacity for more  :grin:

:oh_i_see:

IT'S MAKE BELIEVE.

Tackle make-believe rather than flag make-believe, ok.

Yes, when I know the author writes shitty love scenes.

"Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo."

Writing in computer RPGs is notorius for it's badness. Going romantical is just awful piled on dreadful. Pressing "A" to kiss is just retarted. Unless it's a Sims game.  :grin:

Sigh. Fine. Technically it's roleplaying. But the fights involve fully armored and trained combatants and outside of a few rules to keep the currently living alive, its about as real as its going to get. Its not that bullshit from Role Models (although a pretty damn funny movie). Its Medieval combat reenacted as close to the original as possible without actually killing anyone.

:oh_i_see:

 :roll:

Are you guys really Dashing up a Dragon Age thread by debating the combat merits of the SCA?

Umm. *cough*

(https://files.getdropbox.com/u/854620/lookduck.jpg)

*runs*

As you run away, please keep the SCA nonsense out please, thanks. Make sure you take the pipe insulation with you, too.


Not to shit all over your hobby, but...SCA is not a terribly good representation of period combat. Training? Really? Maybe the guys who use Live Steel have SOME training, but for the most part, people are just sallying forth onto the field to whack each other with foam-covered bits.

While I can appreciate their enthusiasm for period combat, the vast majority of them could certainly stand to open a few books and actually learn something. For Reals.

I dunno, weren't most combatants on the field back in the day likely to be untrained peasants anyway?  :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, and armed with pikes or longbows.  As was said, it's tackle LARP.

Enough of the SCA talk. I don't feel like nuking this thread, but I'm too lazy to split off the SCA crap to the den.

So stop it. Go back to rampant speculation on Cold Tent Syndrome.

The ME screenshot is funny, but remember that those aren't the *actual* lines Shepherd delivers, they give you the TLDR version on the dialogue wheel for space reasons (compare to Torment or Baldur's Gate where you have PARAGRAPHS of dialogue options to pick through). The actual spoken lines are usually at least a little less corny, and have the benefit of being delivered by an actual actor. Maybe this game will be similar.

Actually, no. If you look at the DA Video. I'm actually predicting DA will not feature the protagonist voice acting. I could be wrong though.

Man, this feels like it's going to have all the modern fantasy game tropes, I'm sure it will be awesome. :why_so_serious:

With Ohlen off doing SWTOR and most of Bioware's other top guys working on Mass Effect 2, they seem to have a fairly inexperienced team working on Dragon Age.  Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw's past experience for instance seems to be that he was one of the lead writers on Jade Empire, and did some Additional Design work on ME 1.  Oh, and he's got some "special thanks" credits on NWN: HOTU and Sonic Chronicles.

Maybe in DA we can just devolve it to grunts and guttural wheezing.

I liked paragraphs.

Dave Gaider (he of BG2) is the lead writer so that's promising.

Having played KOTOR1 and Jade Empire, I am in no way looking forward to the ham-fisted "romance" angles in Dragon Age. The more I see of the game, the less I want to play. If you can't write a convincing romance, WHY BOTHER WRITING IN A ROMANCE? Oh right, so sweaty palmed geeks can FAP to it.

Did you like the BG2 romances? I think Gaider wrote those, so if you found those passable these may be as well. They're not really important to me either way, more often than not I don't do one at all on a particular playthrough, but given the amount of attention threads about romance options tend to get on their forums there's clearly a segment of the audience who wants them.