Dragon Age 2 - Here be spoilers.

[Simond]

Finally finished. Great game, you can see the shorter development time (~1 year for this vs. ~5 years for DA:O) in the limited number of area maps and such, but you sure as hell can't see it in the writing. Best work Gaider and Co. have ever done on that, IMO.

Gaider is an overrated hack who thinks Twilight is a good series of books. There, I said it.

Want to know who the good writer for Bioware is? This guy.
What's he done? He was lead writer for the (criminally under-rated) Jade Empire, and also created & wrote a few NPCs for most other Bioware games. Which NPCs? Well...Minsc. And Edwin. And Mordin. And Wrex. And Garrus. And, well...if you liked a character in a Bioware game, there's a better-than even change that he created and wrote them.

On the other hand, given the crater that DA2 has made for the Dragon Age 'franchise', it seems more likely that we'll see Jade Empire 2 than DA3 at this point.

[Mosesandstick]

Don't want to start a circlejerk here, but Stormwaltz wrote a lot of stuff that pretty much everbody on the board enjoyed.

[caladein]

I liked JE a lot more than most I think.  That said, I've soured on it over the years as its seemed more like a KotOR with Kung-Fu.  A sequel would hopefully not feel like it's stuck on one moral axis with the extremes being to save and to kick the puppy.

That said, I think DA2 is pretty fantastic so I wouldn't mind a sequel to either .

[Reg]

I can understand it if the story wasn't to someone's taste or if they absolutely hated the changes to the game mechanics but trying to pretend DA2 was a FFXIV caliber failure that will "crater the franchise" is pretty unrealistic. The reviews have been positive and most people here seem to like it. The game will sell lots of copies, make lots of money and the DA franchise will continue.

[tmp]

Edit: FFS, what's the possible rationale for not having good, old-fashioned "turn"?  Consolitis, I assume. 

I'm still trying to figure out why console version gets the AoE-target camera that detaches from your characters and allows precise placement, but PC doesn't.

(and no, being able to pull camera farther out a little doesn't help in placing that AoE on the opposite end of the area in middle of bunch of NPCs)

Want to know who the good writer for Bioware is? This guy.
What's he done? He was lead writer for the (criminally under-rated) Jade Empire, and also created & wrote a few NPCs for most other Bioware games. Which NPCs? Well...Minsc. And Edwin. And Mordin. And Wrex. And Garrus.

Also, Aveline

I liked JE a lot more than most I think.  That said, I've soured on it over the years as its seemed more like a KotOR with Kung-Fu.  A sequel would hopefully not feel like it's stuck on one moral axis with the extremes being to save and to kick the puppy.

That said, I think DA2 is pretty fantastic so I wouldn't mind a sequel to either .

Given the lead designer and related changes to mechanics et al, DA2 effectively is sequel to Jade Empire. I liked animations in JE better, though.

[Simond]

I can understand it if the story wasn't to someone's taste or if they absolutely hated the changes to the game mechanics but trying to pretend DA2 was a FFXIV caliber failure that will "crater the franchise" is pretty unrealistic. The reviews have been positive and most people here seem to like it. The game will sell lots of copies, make lots of money and the DA franchise will continue.

http://www.gamezone.com/index.php/news/item/top_five_game_sales_according_to_amazon_3_11/

The theme of this week’s Amazon charts is Pokemon, Pokemon, and a lot of familiar faces. In North America, the two Pokemons top the charts, with returning favorites Just Dance 2, Black Ops, and Killzone 3 rounding out the top five. That would be unsurprising, except for one suspicious omission: Dragon Age 2 fell just outside of the top five despite being one of this week’s new releases. Perhaps the reported negative fan outcry on Metacritic is actually more than just a few vocal users

EA expected to sell 5 million copies across all formats, but DA2 didn't even make the top five in its week of release. That's a franchise-ending failure in EA-think.

[Merusk]

Side note:

If you stopped playing Dragon's Age Legends check it out again.  You'll get a Hawke NPC this week only if you login to play and have purchased DA2.  There's also ME2 and DS2 "packs" with themed armors for your character. (Not owning DS2 I only got the N7 "Armor" that requires level 7 on your DA:L character.)

They're also doing a head start this week, so it's apparently going fully live soon.   I've got 6 Keys if anyone's interested and hasn't gotten in yet.  Also, apparently
GameSpot is giving away keys as well.

Ed: Linkage to offers.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/dragon-age-legends/how-to-get-hawke-in-dragon-age-legends/187525917949432

[tmp]

EA expected to sell 5 million copies across all formats, but DA2 didn't even make the top five in its week of release. That's a franchise-ending failure in EA-think.

That's... optimistic expectations, to say the least. Still, with the release for three platforms one would imagine it had decent chance to show up in that top five. Wonder what actual sale numbers were for those titles that made it.

[caladein]

I can understand it if the story wasn't to someone's taste or if they absolutely hated the changes to the game mechanics but trying to pretend DA2 was a FFXIV caliber failure that will "crater the franchise" is pretty unrealistic. The reviews have been positive and most people here seem to like it. The game will sell lots of copies, make lots of money and the DA franchise will continue.

http://www.gamezone.com/index.php/news/item/top_five_game_sales_according_to_amazon_3_11/

The theme of this week’s Amazon charts is Pokemon, Pokemon, and a lot of familiar faces. In North America, the two Pokemons top the charts, with returning favorites Just Dance 2, Black Ops, and Killzone 3 rounding out the top five. That would be unsurprising, except for one suspicious omission: Dragon Age 2 fell just outside of the top five despite being one of this week’s new releases. Perhaps the reported negative fan outcry on Metacritic is actually more than just a few vocal users

EA expected to sell 5 million copies across all formats, but DA2 didn't even make the top five in its week of release. That's a franchise-ending failure in EA-think.

I can't see any list on the Amazon bestsellers section that has that order of games.  Maybe they have some kind of chart that lumps in all pre-orders into release week/month instead of when the order takes place?  (Which Amazon clearly doesn't as Pokemon White/Black charted a month before they were out.)  Here are the US numbers:

Week of March 7th is: Pokemon White, Pokemon Black, Bulletstorm (360), Just Dance 2, Homefront (360)

Month of March to-date is: Pokemon White, Pokemon Black, Dragon Age 2 (360), Just Dance 2, MLB 11: The Show.  On this one the PC (box) and PS3 versions are 8th and 9th when you take out peripherals/hardware.

Edit: I just realized after more time looking through Amazon's charts, the difference between the current week's charts for me and for Simond's link might just be the past two days (since we're still technically in the week of March 7th).  Black Ops (360) is down a few spots from where it was four days into the week.

Really, if they're just taking the top five software from a weekly page mid-week they also run into the issue of Amazon doing a lot of sales before a title comes out.  For example, last week's "top five" would have only had one title that was even out at the time.

[Sjofn]

Finally finished. Great game, you can see the shorter development time (~1 year for this vs. ~5 years for DA:O) in the limited number of area maps and such, but you sure as hell can't see it in the writing. Best work Gaider and Co. have ever done on that, IMO.

Gaider is an overrated hack who thinks Twilight is a good series of books. There, I said it.

Want to know who the good writer for Bioware is? This guy.
What's he done? He was lead writer for the (criminally under-rated) Jade Empire, and also created & wrote a few NPCs for most other Bioware games. Which NPCs? Well...Minsc. And Edwin. And Mordin. And Wrex. And Garrus. And, well...if you liked a character in a Bioware game, there's a better-than even change that he created and wrote them.

On the other hand, given the crater that DA2 has made for the Dragon Age 'franchise', it seems more likely that we'll see Jade Empire 2 than DA3 at this point.

Wrex was amusing, but just not that interesting. Minsc was funny, but also not that interesting. Mordin is pure love though. There, I said it.

Gaider wrote some of my favorite characters, personally. I love Alistair, Morrigan and Zevran more than is probably healthy, and he wrote them all.

Honestly, I like all the writing done for Dragon Age thus far. If you don't think Varric is goddamn awesome (written by Mary Kirby, who also wrote Sten and most of Loghain), you are broken.

[Merusk]

They must be aggregating them somehow, because the Amazon bestsellers list is weird.  You can find DA at #4 for the 360 and #14 for the PC, but it also shows up again at #35 and #44 for the same platforms.

Also, I'd expect the PC release to be low on Amazon.  Steam, Impulse, D2D and even direct from EA are where PC gamers are going to buy their games.  This Site indicates DA2 was one of the top sellers this week. but only on D2D & Amazon, not Steam. (Odd that.)

[tmp]

Wrex was amusing, but just not that interesting. Minsc was funny, but also not that interesting. Mordin is pure love though. There, I said it.

Mordin is Cassandra Claire's "the very secret diary of..." style turned into a game character. And his interest in my Shepard's sex life when she didn't even plan to have one was creepy. Especially when he apparently has extensive collection of materials about the subject.

[caladein]

They must be aggregating them somehow, because the Amazon bestsellers list is weird.  You can find DA at #4 for the 360 and #14 for the PC, but it also shows up again at #35 and #44 for the same platforms.

The archived lists beyond the top 20 are completely bugged: they're all the same.  (Along with some other oddities based on how you get to one list or another.)

Was pulling my hair out for a while trying to figure it out until I realized Move bundles shouldn't have been selling in early 2010 .

[Sjofn]

Wrex was amusing, but just not that interesting. Minsc was funny, but also not that interesting. Mordin is pure love though. There, I said it.

Mordin is Cassandra Claire's "the very secret diary of..." style turned into a game character. And his interest in my Shepard's sex life when she didn't even plan to have one was creepy. Especially when he apparently has extensive collection of materials about the subject.

The man's a doctor, he has to be prepared!

[Velorath]

I can understand it if the story wasn't to someone's taste or if they absolutely hated the changes to the game mechanics but trying to pretend DA2 was a FFXIV caliber failure that will "crater the franchise" is pretty unrealistic. The reviews have been positive and most people here seem to like it. The game will sell lots of copies, make lots of money and the DA franchise will continue.

http://www.gamezone.com/index.php/news/item/top_five_game_sales_according_to_amazon_3_11/

The theme of this week’s Amazon charts is Pokemon, Pokemon, and a lot of familiar faces. In North America, the two Pokemons top the charts, with returning favorites Just Dance 2, Black Ops, and Killzone 3 rounding out the top five. That would be unsurprising, except for one suspicious omission: Dragon Age 2 fell just outside of the top five despite being one of this week’s new releases. Perhaps the reported negative fan outcry on Metacritic is actually more than just a few vocal users

EA expected to sell 5 million copies across all formats, but DA2 didn't even make the top five in its week of release. That's a franchise-ending failure in EA-think.

I can't see any list on the Amazon bestsellers section that has that order of games.  Maybe they have some kind of chart that lumps in all pre-orders into release week/month instead of when the order takes place?  (Which Amazon clearly doesn't as Pokemon White/Black charted a month before they were out.)  Here are the US numbers:

Week of March 7th is: Pokemon White, Pokemon Black, Bulletstorm (360), Just Dance 2, Homefront (360)

Month of March to-date is: Pokemon White, Pokemon Black, Dragon Age 2 (360), Just Dance 2, MLB 11: The Show.  On this one the PC (box) and PS3 versions are 8th and 9th when you take out peripherals/hardware.

Edit: I just realized after more time looking through Amazon's charts, the difference between the current week's charts for me and for Simond's link might just be the past two days (since we're still technically in the week of March 7th).  Black Ops (360) is down a few spots from where it was four days into the week.

Really, if they're just taking the top five software from a weekly page mid-week they also run into the issue of Amazon doing a lot of sales before a title comes out.  For example, last week's "top five" would have only had one title that was even out at the time.

Yeah, it's really hard to get any solid information from Amazon's best seller chart, especially since it's so glitchy. Clicking on any of the other pages causes it to show February's sales for me while still saying March 7th at the top (something I only figured out after noticing sku's on the list multiple times, and the fact that when I went back to the first page, the list was completely different).  It doesn't matter what month or year I click on, as soon as check any other page, it loads up February's sales.  Without being able to look past the first page of sales it's hard to make any conclusions.  DA2 seems to show up in February's sales.  Is this a glitch, or do pre-order sales count for the month they were ordered and not when peoples' cards were charged?  If they were counted for the month they were pre-ordered in, that might make a difference for a game that had heavy incentive to pre-order before the end of January.  If pre-orders were all counted in March, did the Signature Editions get counted as separate Sku's since they have their own pages on Amazon?

[tmp]

The man's a doctor, he has to be prepared!

Hey, just because dentist is a doctor doesn't mean i'd be letting him check out my vagina, even if that's another body cavity allegedly equipped with teeth. Especially if he just happens to have lots of reference materials about this subject

[Mrbloodworth]

Marketing info.

Demo. 

And?

If you want me to check out your game, don't as me to fill out a form.

But but but then how will they collect all that valuable marketing information?  You were interested enough to check it out, so clearly it appeals to your demo.  Getting you to buy might mean just a small tweak here and there.

Seriously though, that's why.  It's valuable information.  If you're arsed to download and check it out then it's another bit in the data.  Everything we do is collected and mined for better ways to get us to spend our money. The better the profile of the customer, the more valuable the information is.

I knew this from the beginning, I just do not approve.

[rk47]

Marketing info.

Demo. 

And?

If you want me to check out your game, don't as me to fill out a form.

But but but then how will they collect all that valuable marketing information?  You were interested enough to check it out, so clearly it appeals to your demo.  Getting you to buy might mean just a small tweak here and there.

Seriously though, that's why.  It's valuable information.  If you're arsed to download and check it out then it's another bit in the data.  Everything we do is collected and mined for better ways to get us to spend our money. The better the profile of the customer, the more valuable the information is.

I knew this from the beginning, I just do not approve.

The Canadian developer sees similarities between COD's progression and Dragon Age's foundations
With Dragon Age II’s release imminent, senior producer Fernando Melo feels the sequel has far more reach than Origins, even potentially attracting the same kind of crowd that flocks to gaming’s biggest franchise, Call Of Duty.


Speaking to NowGamer Melo said: “We have data that shows there are a lot of people that enjoy playing RPGs although they won’t necessarily call them RPGs. They’ll play Fallout, Assassin’s Creed and even Call Of Duty, which have these progression elements – you’re putting points into things – but they don’t necessarily associate that as an RPG. So we think that if we expand that out we’ll attract a much bigger audience.”

“They'll play Call Of Duty but they don't necessarily associate that as an RPG”

There’s certainly logic in his thinking, and with individuals who failed to be enticed by BioWare’s original epic actually being swayed by the sequel – not to mention the upcoming demo giving gamers a chance to sample its goods first – there’s every change Dragon Age II may succeed in this goal.

[MournelitheCalix]

Did anyone here buy the retail box version for PC? It came with secret Securom.

It wasn't a secret if you followed the boards.  That is why I missed out on the "signature edition" and bought the Steam edition.

[Ingmar]

Finally finished. Great game, you can see the shorter development time (~1 year for this vs. ~5 years for DA:O) in the limited number of area maps and such, but you sure as hell can't see it in the writing. Best work Gaider and Co. have ever done on that, IMO.

Gaider is an overrated hack

Maybe you should stick to the Sylvanas fanfic. 

Anyway, Jade Empire was certainly well written, but I couldn't really stand the gameplay, so it hasn't gotten much action from me replay-wise.

[tmp]

Still playing through the first year, but i've figured out why Kirkwall is so desolate during the day. It's because apparently 80% of the population works the night shift as robbers in Lowtown. Where i kill them.

It's a good thing the city is carved from the rock, because with the number of people who spend their nights sitting on the roofs i shudder to think how many buildings would give up under the load and collapse.

edit: regarding the Securom thing, there was reply to that made on qt3 forum here

Sorry, but there is some confusion on this. We use Sony Release Control which shares some functionality with other Sony products (SecuROM), but once the Sony Release Control check is passed, Release Control self-destructs, removing the Release Control wrapper and it is never used again. Game updates will not use Release Control because obviously the release date is passed.

Dunno how accurate it is. That reclaim report page times out on me so can't tell what they say about files actually being left behind.

[Xuri]

I've now played through the game twice. Once on hard/normal (swapped a bit forth and back) as a mage - where I followed rule #1 for adventurers and did every single side-quest, picked up every single bit of trashy loot I could find in every single corner of every map - and once on casual as a warrior - where I skipped all side-quests (including companion ones).

The first time I played as a witty and "good" mage, supporting the mages, etc. The second time I played as an angry warrior siding with the templars. Very little that actually mattered played out differently for my characters, despite me making the opposite choices where I could. Very disappointing.

[rk47]

There's a perfectly good in-game explanation.

See, Varric is telling the story, right?

He may not even have been there for every single warehouse/cave/cellar jaunt the Champion made. So obviously he just skims over it with "generic warehouse map", not bothering to go into detail. Those houses you can't go into? Varric didn't go in there. He doesn't know what's in there.

It makes so much sense, and it's a very interesting piece of meta-fiction. It's realistic and it plays on your perceptions of the story!

 

[Sheepherder]

I also drink my Kool-Aid laced with Heroin.

[Tebonas]

Anybody got the boxed Signature Edition? Is the Signature stuff packaged in a way that it would be possible to insert it into a Steam-bought Dragon Age 2 version? (extra Serial Number for Signature Edition).

I'm really thinking about buying it on Steam and gifting my boxed copy to my Brother-in-Law (minus the Signature gimmicks).

[amiable]

amiable:


Kildorn:  The mines one had me laughing so hard my daughter thought I'd lost my mind.  She's well voiced and written, hands-down my favorite companion.

Merusk, I have an update!

[Sjofn]

Just entering Act 2.  Playing nightmare forces me to slow down and actually enjoy the game as well (my wife completed it on normal yesterday, and has been dying to talk to me about the plot, but so far has avoided spoiling anything).

Ugh, you're so cruel. I feel your wife's pain, it was killing me not being able to talk about the parts I had done that Ingmar hadn't. But I didn't want to ruin it because oh shit.

[Mazakiel]

I've just started in on Act 3 a bit, and while I'm loving the game overall so far, I really think it could have used a few more weeks of polishing.  The game will occasionally slow to a crawl, and I'll have to alt tab out and back in to get it back to normal speed.  And it will once a night or so lock up completely.  It was worse the first few hours when I was still fiddling with graphics settings, and has cleared up enough to where I don't mind as much, but the quest related bugs are annoying as hell.  I've had a quest or two where the game acted as if I chose different options in following dialogue/letters, and Merrill is pretty buggy.  Her Act 2 catch up dialogue quest auto-completed when the chapter started, and during the first parts of Chapter 3 it seems as if the post-companion quest dialogue triggered before that quest was even open.  And once it should have unlocked, it didn't, so I had to open up her debug menu to activate it.  If I hadn't been reading up on issues with her due to the Act 2 bug, I'd have had no way to know that the Act 3 quest hadn't triggered.  Considering she's one of my favorite party NPCs, it's been annoying as hell. 

[Sjofn]

Merrill being buggy as shit makes me sad. After <act 3 personal quest shit>, she never talked about it, and I was all "wtf, don't you care?" Well, it turns out, if you're romancing her, the fall out thing WILL play after all ... before you do the thing that's supposed to trigger it, so you're all "what the hell are you even talking about?" when it happens.

By the way, make sure you click on Hawke while controlling a different party member a few times, especially if you are playing a Sarcastic Bitch Hawke. Some of what s/he says is funny.  

[Tarami]

Apparently I like this Mary Kirby's writing, because she's written all the characters that I've enjoyed in the DA franchise. Sten (never had Wynne, though) was the only character in DA1 I cared for and Merrill and Varric are just fun and troublefree to have in the party. Most of the others are just self-absorbed asshats that I would punch in the face if only I could, especially Anders. Each of his companion quests I'm hoping for a dialogue option that lets me ram my 38 DPS hammer up his ass. (Free double entendre!) Aveline gets a pass too, though, she's actually kind of funny in a stuffy, true-to-character way.

Ok, had to vent.

I think Dwight Schultz does a fantastic job as Bodahn, anyway. The casting is good overall but I think Bodahn stands out as a truly convincing character, despite the small part.

[Ingmar]

I actually find Bodahn a little overdone this time, but I think this is overall the best voice cast they've had, there's nobody that stands out as bad. There were a couple characters in DA:O that I really didn't like the voice work on (Queen Anora comes to mind.) Both Hawkes outdo both Shepards, IMO.

By the way if anyone wants an object lesson in what a tremendous difference a good voice cast makes just go back and replay NWN2's core campaign, holy shit the voice acting is terrible. ME and DA franchises have really moved the bar on that, I don't remember being as horrified by it at the time as I was on my recent messing around with it.

[Xuri]

I've just started in on Act 3 a bit, and while I'm loving the game overall so far, I really think it could have used a few more weeks of polishing.  The game will occasionally slow to a crawl, and I'll have to alt tab out and back in to get it back to normal speed. 

Oh thank God, it's not just my computer then. I'm having the exact same problem.

[Ingmar]

That's the one technical problem I have had as well, but I don't have to alt tab to fix it, just wait a minute and it perks right back up.

[Merusk]

I haven't had that problem.  Everyone else is in Vista/ Win7 I assume?

[caladein]

Haven't run into that myself but I alt-tab pretty constantly so that may be why.  I've had some isolated cases of slowdown, namely the first time you run into Isabella or when there's a torch/flame in shot during a dialogue sequence.