Dragon Age 2 - Here be spoilers.

[Azuredream]

I thought the patchworky-ness was attributed to the shorter development cycle? Unless they decide that they can make DA3 in an even shorter amount of time..?

[Sjofn]

Dragon Age 2 was hardly a "mess."

[Reg]

I'm about halfway through my third playthrough so as far as I'm concerned I've gotten my money's worth.  It wasn't as good as the first Dragon Age but it certainly didn't leave me with buyer's remorse.

[Sjofn]

Yeah exactly.

[Surlyboi]

Meh, unlike DA1, I finished DA2.

[Raguel]

Does anyone else plan to have multiple DA2 playthroughs for their multiple DA1 playthroughs? 

[Ingmar]

Of course. 

My other ones are on hold waiting for DLC before I do them though.

[Sjofn]

Does anyone else plan to have multiple DA2 playthroughs for their multiple DA1 playthroughs? 

Of course! Four down so far. 

I'm probably gonna wait on DLCs to do the others, though. Depends on if I get an urge to get my doom on before they finally release something I want to pay for though.

[Simond]

The best thing about DA2?
The sales chart:


Looks like buying reviews only goes so far.

[Mosesandstick]

Those are weeks right?

[Sjofn]

Did DA2 run over your puppy or something, Simond?

[El Gallo]

One of the many annoying things is how they seemed to go out of their way to write the story to present obvious options that you aren't given.
e.g.
-Opening sequence: injured templar wants to murder your sister, your options are to say "'sure, come along' while smiling" or "'sure, come along' while glaring."

-A2, end of quest involving qunari mage: evil nun just betrayed you, says she'll get revenge on you later, goes out of way to say I couldn't pin it on her because she's met me out here in this abandoned shack where nobody knows she is.  Options do not include: kill her.

-A2, after you get back from deep roads, the dwarf who loaned you 50g before shows up at your house demanding more money.  I say no.  He says "too bad your not home so often, it'd be too bad if I came back here and KILLED YOUR MOM mwahahahaha!!!"
Options do not include: kill him.

-Near the end.  If you go with the "no, I'd rather not side with Hitler kthx" option, Sebastian goes apeshit, says he's going back to his city to raise an army to flatten Kirkwall and specifically to murder my friend.
Options do not include: kill him (as he sloooooooowwwwwly saunters away).

[Sjofn]

The Sebastian one didn't bug me only because I was a) his friend so wasn't gonna do it, b) he's a wishywashy babypants that will take 9-10 years to actually get his ass in gear and c) I wasn't going to be in Kirkwall anyway.

Plus I was pretty mad at Anders myself, so I couldn't really blame Sebastian for being mad. 

[Tebonas]

So that happens if you don't kill Anders on the spot? I must try that one of these days. 

[Azuredream]

-A2, end of quest involving qunari mage: evil nun just betrayed you, says she'll get revenge on you later, goes out of way to say I couldn't pin it on her because she's met me out here in this abandoned shack where nobody knows she is.  Options do not include: kill her.

This is the only one that bothered me. They perfectly set her up so that I hated her fucking guts and then you're never given the option to kill her. It seems like she knows this and starts taunting you about it too. Ha ha, you're playing DA2, you think you'll get the option to kill me? I think not!

[Sjofn]

So that happens if you don't kill Anders on the spot? I must try that one of these days. 

Yeah, Sebastian goes into a berserker rage about it. If you want to still kill Anders for his little episode, side with the templars but tell Anders to get the fuck out, which will still trigger Sebastian RAEG. You wind up fighting Anders later. Or so I hear, I've never actually done it.

[Koyasha]

One of the many annoying things is how they seemed to go out of their way to write the story to present obvious options that you aren't given.
e.g.
-Opening sequence: injured templar wants to murder your sister, your options are to say "'sure, come along' while smiling" or "'sure, come along' while glaring."

-A2, end of quest involving qunari mage: evil nun just betrayed you, says she'll get revenge on you later, goes out of way to say I couldn't pin it on her because she's met me out here in this abandoned shack where nobody knows she is.  Options do not include: kill her.

-A2, after you get back from deep roads, the dwarf who loaned you 50g before shows up at your house demanding more money.  I say no.  He says "too bad your not home so often, it'd be too bad if I came back here and KILLED YOUR MOM mwahahahaha!!!"
Options do not include: kill him.

-Near the end.  If you go with the "no, I'd rather not side with Hitler kthx" option, Sebastian goes apeshit, says he's going back to his city to raise an army to flatten Kirkwall and specifically to murder my friend.
Options do not include: kill him (as he sloooooooowwwwwly saunters away).

All of these I find annoying.  Honestly I was just recently replaying older RPG's - the Arcanum radicalthon made me want to replay that one - and one thing I noticed was: Hey, they have no problem holding the plot together even if you kill every single 'plot-critical' NPC within 5 seconds of meeting them!

It's of course far, far worse when they give you ample reason TO kill someone, and then no option to do so, which is why those in particular stand out far more than just the average 'wish I could kill that guy now' sort of thing.

Although in the end I like siding with Petrice rather than killing her (different reasons, but I agree that the Qunari need to be wiped out).  It's kind of funny that the one time that Elthina actually takes any action at all, it's to remove Petrice's position, but only after the fact, rather than when it might have actually made a difference.

[rk47]

People love it. It's the railroaded syndrome. The trademark of JRPG. Yet people refuse to see it or deny, citing freeform exploration of a single. fucking. city.
They called the lack of logical choice 'great writing/plot.' Game telling the players 'You've paid $50 to reach this far, so come kill 2 final bosses' is just full retard.

Did DA2 killed his puppy? No. It sucked as a sequel. And that was all his point.

[Nightblade]

So that happens if you don't kill Anders on the spot? I must try that one of these days. 

Yeah, Sebastian goes into a berserker rage about it. If you want to still kill Anders for his little episode, side with the templars but tell Anders to get the fuck out, which will still trigger Sebastian RAEG. You wind up fighting Anders later. Or so I hear, I've never actually done it.

This is for the mage siding path: I told Anders to fuck off and leave, Anders slinks away only to somehow get to the rendezvous point before you, in which you can tell him to fuck off again.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, but you don't get to kill him for it. I know some people feel really strongly about knifing Anders, so that's why I mentioned the "still get to kill Anders" way. 

[caladein]

All of these I find annoying.  Honestly I was just recently replaying older RPG's - the Arcanum radicalthon made me want to replay that one - and one thing I noticed was: Hey, they have no problem holding the plot together even if you kill every single 'plot-critical' NPC within 5 seconds of meeting them!

When a game adds voice acting, plot flexibility and size have to be sacrificed to fit the same budget.  Where that trade-off goes wrong is different for everyone.  Now, dialogue obfuscation can help, but it can also turn some people off just by itself.

In my case, I really don't care if an RPG has little plot flexibility if the moment-to-moment experience of having conversations is engaging and fluid.  At this point in time, that means great writing combined with full VO and a dialogue wheel of some kind.

[tmp]

People love it. It's the railroaded syndrome. The trademark of JRPG.

I don't know if people actually love it, but the fun part for me is, not that long before DA2 shipped the good BioWare doctors publically mocked the JRPGs in general for that very "but thou must" approach to the plot, amongst other things...

[El Gallo]

When a game adds voice acting, plot flexibility and size have to be sacrificed to fit the same budget.

Who needs plot flexibility when you have TEH SHINY!  Going to main character voice acting, more than anything else, doomed this game to a CBS-midseason-replacement-police-procedural caliber story.  But, hey, why read OK stuff when you can HEAR utter shit?

This is magnified because they're trying to present "greyer" overall plots.  Good ol' black v white scenarios might work with the limited choices you get in DA2.  But they try to present a more nuanced world, and then only present you the 2010 Democratic/Republican Platform soundbytes as options: i.e., on a scale of 1-10, you get to chose between 4.9 and 5.1.  I ended up being almost happy that the "BUT IT HAS SOUND" system gave me no connection at all with the main character, because I felt insulted as it was almost every time I had to fill in a blank in the game.

Looking only within the four corners of the game, vanilla NWN might be worse.  But considering the impact I fear this will have on the genre, this is the worst fantasy game Bioware has done. 

[El Gallo]

Plus I was pretty mad at Anders myself, so I couldn't really blame Sebastian for being mad. 

I was OK with Anders blowing shit up.  The way I saw it, Meredeth tortured the circle mages until they had no choice but to turn to blood magic.  All the templars knew it and the bishop chick knew it and did jack.  Letting any of them walk is like letting Dachau guards walk.  Then all the blood mages they created need to die to keep the demons out (which the plot forces you to do anyway).

That, or nuke the city from orbit.

[Sjofn]

I was all "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU" because I just wasn't prepared for said terrorist action, plus he was my boyfriend, etc. I've never killed him for it, though, I merely thought about it.

[El Gallo]

Woah, I had insomnia and was a little crankier than usual last night. 

[El Gallo]

I was all "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU" because I just wasn't prepared for said terrorist action, plus he was my boyfriend, etc. I've never killed him for it, though, I merely thought about it.

Yeah, my guess was that he'd just steal/destroy some phylacteries. 

[tmp]

Same, thought he's sneaking in to steal something rather than put things in. There was a mention at some point how there's remaints of saints or something along those lines kept in the building and i imagined maybe it'd be extra component for whatever he was scheming.

Speaking of choices, really missed option for the Aveline approach at the end -- that is, keeping Anders alive so he can help to clean up the very mess he's made, with either stabbing or prison as the long-term option afterwards. Instead it's pretty much presumed if you don't stab Anders right there then you must be supporting him. blah.

[eldaec]

When a game adds voice acting, plot flexibility and size have to be sacrificed to fit the same budget.  

You know who managed to do this without the unreasonable or jarring compromises of DA2? Bioware. In DA:O (among other titles).

[Sjofn]

Same, thought he's sneaking in to steal something rather than put things in. There was a mention at some point how there's remaints of saints or something along those lines kept in the building and i imagined maybe it'd be extra component for whatever he was scheming.

Speaking of choices, really missed option for the Aveline approach at the end -- that is, keeping Anders alive so he can help to clean up the very mess he's made, with either stabbing or prison as the long-term option afterwards. Instead it's pretty much presumed if you don't stab Anders right there then you must be supporting him. blah.

The rival path + templar ending is supposed to basically give you the ending you describe, but it's apparently bugged. Which annoys me. But yeah, I didn't especially enjoy that my options at the end as his ladyfriend were basically "GO AWAY I HATE YOU" and "IT'S ALL GOOD, I WUVVUM WOO." I mean, yeah, I can dump him for it while still keeping him around, but it was still more "Our Love Comes Second to Our Great Crusade" than "Jesus Fucking Christ, on what planet was what you did a good idea?!" I mostly wanted a "Now we have to clean up your mess, you jerk. You're lucky I like you so much! But seriously. That was really, really not cool," sort of ending. For LadyHawke anyway, my dude Hawkes either gave him a brofist for it or sent him away in a little fit of RAEG, so it worked better for them.

One day I'll kill him for it. Maybe.

[tmp]

I mostly wanted a "Now we have to clean up your mess, you jerk. You're lucky I like you so much! But seriously. That was really, really not cool," sort of ending.

That's exactly the sort of thing i'd like to have, since my Hawke was a mage and for the most of the game he was trying to make it easy for other mages. So the whole rivalry path + templars wouldn't really suit him when he was instead " now we have to defend the local mages from a crazy woman. Nice fucking job breaking it, hero" ... and i can't even punch the bastard in the mouth for admitting that's pretty much the situation he wanted to force.

[Ingmar]

FYI a big rebalance/bugfix patch hit today. Sauce here:

http://social.bioware.com/page/da2-patches

[lamaros]

When a game adds voice acting, plot flexibility and size have to be sacrificed to fit the same budget.  

You know who managed to do this without the unreasonable or jarring compromises of DA2? Bioware. In DA:O (among other titles).

Eh? Really? DA: O was more "hey, you gotta do these 5 things for sure, but you can do them in ANY ORDER! woah! freeform and flexible right? ALSO we have about TEN (very small) starting areas!" Maybe better than DA2, but nothing like some older examples.

[Sjofn]

I loved DA:O FAR FAR MORE than is healthy, and I have to say, I think there is a weeee bit of rose-colored glasses going on. DA:O was better at making you think you had made a choice that mattered, but when you get down to it, none of them really did from a gameplay standpoint.

It's because there aren't little flashcards at the end, isn't it. There's no "You were a bitch to X, so they went on to do Y" closure, or whatever.

[Bunk]

Thats a big ass list of balance changes.

The Rune of Valiance now provides a +2 bonus to all attributes instead of a variable bonus that could rise as high as +7. As well, equipping and unequipping multiple pieces of armor that each bear a Rune of Valiance no longer results in incorrect attribute scores.

You mean those runes weren't meant to instantly turn you in to a god?

This one is a pretty big shift balance wise:

Items that improve the Blood Magic cost ratio now provide 0.25 mana per point of health instead of 1 mana.

Might actually matter if I ever decide to finish my mage playthrough.