Dragon Age 3

[Sjofn]

The 'realistic' one is specifically about the shit they catch for including gay characters/relationships.

And sometimes even just for having badass women fighters! Like Aveline! Which is just crazy, because Aveline is the best.

[Ingmar]

Yeah that comes up too, but I have read "but it just isn't realistic for all these characters to be bisexual [therefore you should take options away from gay players]" about 5 billion times.

[rk47]

If you ask me, catering to bisexual romance is making that 'grim dark' brand of Dragon Age world harder to sell.
Not that the blood explosions and 's'plode' kill animations helped. Didn't seem so bad with DA:O, but DA2 takes it a tad too cartoony for my liking.

[Venkman]

Bioware goes "fuck it, importing saves, especially when there's a new generation of consoles coming out, is a pain in the ass" and decides the best way to deal with it is this:

http://blog.bioware.com/2013/08/28/the-dragon-age-keep/

Late to the party, but I love that solution for a number of reasons. It's great for explorer types who hate when the game gets in the way. It also means making a business out of savefile manipulators, even if "business" is nothing more than eyeballs and awareness.

[Bunk]

Best news I took out of the various Bioware panels I sat in on this weekend? - DA3 is still a year away. Listening to them stutter and mumble about the issues the time constraints on DA2 created was quite amusing.

They seemed quite insistent that the game would be playable as a top down, party based, strategy game if you chose to - despite Frostbite being primarily an FPS engine. They spent a whole panel talking about how they were adapting and adding to the engine to suit an RPG's needs.

[Ingmar]

Some gameplay footage, minor(?) spoilers involved:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8xJMWRI-cA#t=172

[Tannhauser]

Looks good and the open world exploration is very welcome.  But no Day One purchase from me. 

[Azazel]

If you ask me, catering to bisexual romance is making that 'grim dark' brand of Dragon Age world harder to sell.

Isn't DA, like, totally, single player, though?

So who gives a fuck if other people who you'll never meet people want to virtually fuck girls, boys or both in their videogames?

[eldaec]

I don't really understand the complaint. Without wishing to drive this thread into politics, if the gays are causing civilisation to collapse I would have thought all the buggery in DA would make it more dystopian.

I will add though that the template of 4 predictable romance options does add to the bioware cookie cutter plot feel.

Anyway, as Bunk says, the delays on this are making me dare to hope. Cookie cutter or not, the only bioware game I've found satisfying since KotOR was DAO, and very occaisionally SWtOR.

[Reg]

Yeah. The fact that it isn't being rushed out the door like DA2 was is very encouraging.

[Tannhauser]

I think they realize that they fucked up two of their brands (DA, ME) with their last games so hope to turn it around.

[Falconeer]

I am pretty sure Mass Effect isn't considered fucked up at all.

[Paelos]

I am pretty sure Mass Effect isn't considered fucked up at all.

Hahaha, ok.

[Venkman]

I am pretty sure Mass Effect isn't considered fucked up at all.

It isn't. It was, but hasn't been since. DA2 did not get a similar treatment, launched weaker, is up against a much bigger similarly-positioned RPG, and had more fundamental issues throughout the whole game than which could be solved by editing a video sequence.

Gameplay video looks good though. Pretty bright. Like Skyrim with a color paletter 

[Falconeer]

They are really not comparable. Some people love to hate Mass Effect 3 and they are free to think they are the majority but they are not. Despite the uproar for the original 3ending and the loud disappointment of lots of people, the game got amazing reviews, several awards and accolades, scooped up an insane amount of money and still has about 89 average score on Metacritic. Dragon Age 2, well, didn't get any of that stuff. Not even close.

[Venkman]

All of which I agree with.

Which makes me think your earlier post was not sarcastic

[Morat20]

They are really not comparable. Some people love to hate Mass Effect 3 and they are free to think they are the majority but they are not. Despite the uproar for the original 3ending and the loud disappointment of lots of people, the game got amazing reviews, several awards and accolades, scooped up an insane amount of money and still has about 89 average score on Metacritic. Dragon Age 2, well, didn't get any of that stuff. Not even close.

ME3 was great right up until the end, wherein it got...less great.

So like if 95% of the game is great and the ending pisses off tons of people, you still have like 95% of a great game worth playing.

Whereas DA2...I never finished. After playing the shit out of DAO and Awakenings and all the DLCs. Multiple full play throughs. I didn't like the changed combat, didn't really like the maps, the story didn't seem all that great....it just wasn't nearly as good. It was weak all over, basically. Not horrible, I mean it was playable. If  it had been a stand alone game rather than a sequel, it probably would have done better.

ME2 was basically a hands down improvement of virtually every aspect of ME without losing any of the great parts of ME. DA2 was the exact opposite. Everything just got a little shittier, and the gameplay changes made the game less fun. (At least to me).

[Paelos]

I think it's laughable that anybody can say ME3 wasn't fucked up. It was. Totally. You can still fuck up a good game with a bad ending, like cutting a huge fart as you leave the room. They had to fix it to somewhat appease the fans, and the two co-founders of BioWare just happened to exit stage left after the outpouring of denial and vitriol.

Whether or not it damaged the brand forever? I guess we'll see.

DA2 was just copy-pasta garbage. That said, anybody who trusts EA now with their release day money is a fool in my mind.

[Venkman]

What about ME3 besides the ending sucked? I loved it. I loved the stories, the multiplayer and eventually all the DLC (especially Citadel). I got sucked into multiplayer before I finished it originally, and by the time I 100%'d, they announced a "fix" to this "broken" endgame I heard about so i waited. I never experienced what everyone complained about.

But aside from how it all ended, I thought it was great.

And even how it ended, nothing ever "ends". If there's a business rationale to continuing something, they'll make it happen. Movies (look, suddenly more SW movies), books (there will be more Harry Potter eventually, I am quite sure), TV (how many more series are getting rez'd anew on Netflix?), games (rebuilds on iPad, new as online/f2p). So I never thought ME3 was "the end forever and ever and the ending better be epic". I'm too old to believe that hypeshit, so didn't have that expectation, especially since one of their endings included shaky-helmet glimpse.

[Paelos]

We've danced around this maypole before, but I'm of the opinion that when you sell an entire game series around your story-telling and then shit on the ending, you fucked up.

We also can't really ignore that there was a gigantic backlash to the game on that basis, so much so it had to be resolved after weeks of posturing and PR BS explaining that it wasn't fucked up. That happened.

[eldaec]

Issues I personally had with the whole of the ME series:

The writing felt like every encounter was written by a different author who hadn't even met the previous authors, let alone considered the tone and direction if the story so far. By half way through the second one everybody seemed to be trying to out-epic the last guy.

The gameplay and UI consistently felt like a console shooter from two generations back.

[Koyasha]

The Mass Effect series has lost me far, far more powerfully than the Dragon Age series.  After the ending, I had no interest in replaying the games, when even while I was playing through ME3 I was imagining my next replay.  I thought perhaps I'd come back for some of the DLC.  They released the 'fixed' ending.  Even now I have yet to drum up enough interest or care to watch it.  They released two DLC.  I looked at some of the previews and screenshots, thought I'd buy them when they came out.  But...I didn't drum up enough interest to actually get them.  Right now, pretty much anything that says 'Mass Effect' fails to get me interested enough to give a damn.

Dragon Age, on the other hand, had some missteps with DA2, but I still enjoyed that game a lot.  The story was good - it had no more derp moments than most RPGs, and the fact that it wasn't the oh-so-common 'hero saves world/city/universe/designated victim' story really helped it along in my eyes.  The copy/paste crap was annoying, the gameplay did take a step backwards from Dragon Age...  But the voiced protagonist was done incredibly well - better, even, than Mass Effect did it, because I felt that the choice system better reflected differing personalities.  So it had definite pluses and minuses, but based purely on DA2, I would buy the next game from that series.  It certainly did not sour me on the series at all.

[Mazakiel]

Yeah, ME3's ending sequence pretty much killed the franchise for me and my friends who had played it.  I've never been able to work up the drive to try the 'fixed' ending, let alone the DLC.  I really have no interest in seeing what, if anything, they do with it down the road. 

I liked DA2 quite a bit, and never really agreed with most of the common complaints I heard.  But between ME3 and some Bioware account issues I had that they were never really able to get fixed, I'll probably hold off on DA3 until awhile after release.  I just don't have faith in the company's ability to deliver anymore. 

[rk47]

ME3 had the co-op bit that made it worth playing after finishing it. I clocked a hell lot longer hours in there than single player.
DA2, the moment I'm done, I reloaded - pick option B before finale and fought the same battles saw the same stupid chain of events that made zero sense.
How can anyone tolerate this is beyond me,
I didn't even bother going to the ending slides before uninstalling.
DLC - lol. They only did one before realizing nobody gave a a shit about DA2 anymore.
Stores cancelled the Collector Edition re-stock.
DA3? Yeah, I'm not too desperate for that. I'll wait for sale.

[Sjofn]

Everything just got a little shittier, and the gameplay changes made the game less fun. (At least to me).

I disagree. The combat was entirely almost better, imo. If it had tactical view, it would've been just about exactly what I wanted. I also vastly preferred the way you built your character in DA2. I loved the fuck out of DA:O, as everyone knows, and have many, many, many more hours sunk into that game over DA2, but I really do not understand how on earth people prefer DA:O's slow-ass underwater-feeling combat.

It's a toss up for me story-wise between the two, as I usually don't care too much about the plot so long as it doesn't get in the way of the thing Bioware is better at, characters. ME3's ending, for example, got WAY IN THE WAY of their strength. DAO got out of the way better, but I kinda liked that DA2's story of How Hawke Fails at Basically Everything was pretty different from anything else I've done. I don't need too many game plots to tell me that story, but I don't mind it once in a long while. :P

The copypasting of maps and stupid waves of enemies jumping down from nowhere? Totally awful. And totally not in either DLC (there were two, rk47, not counting anything dumb like the equipment packs). They know that was a huge fuck up.

[Falconeer]

but I really do not understand how on earth people prefer DA:O's slow-ass underwater-feeling combat.

I agree with that too. I never understood the hate for DA2's combat, especially when compared with DA:O.

[calapine]

but I really do not understand how on earth people prefer DA:O's slow-ass underwater-feeling combat.

I agree with that too. I never understood the hate for DA2's combat, especially when compared with DA:O.

Believe me, I hated it. But it's too long ago and I hardly remember. The really overblown casting animations (actually, all fighting animations) were the very first thing that stuck out. But it wasn't just a visual issue.

[Ingmar]

DA2 actually had 2 DLCs, not 1, and they were both well done IMO.

[Raguel]

I think the most fun class to play was a rogue, and DA2 rogue was better imo than DA:O.

[Rasix]

Yah, I played a rogue in both and the experience in DA2 was a lot better.  I actually enjoyed the combat a lot. 

Plus, Merrill.   

[Sjofn]

Rogue had the goofiest animations (the DW one in particular), but was probably my favorite too. Mage was way more fun for me to play in DA2 too, really. I actually finished some mage playthroughs, which I cannot say for DA:O.

[Sjofn]

LOOK WE'RE SORRY ABOUT THE MAP REUSE IN DA2 CAN YOU PLEASE TRUST US

[Merusk]

I figure I'll do the same as I did with MA3 after being so very disappointed with DA2.   Let you all buy it and act as my beta testers so I can find out if they really learned their lessons.

Then I'll have to decide if I want to fuck around with Origin.

[rk47]

LOOK WE'RE SORRY ABOUT THE MAP REUSE IN DA2 CAN YOU PLEASE TRUST US

$10 humble bundle in 2015

[Khaldun]

That felt really generic.