Dragon Age: There Goes The Neighborhood

[Disconnected]

Are there people here who don't?

Nope, it's just the mat.

 

[Kiree]

Yeah if you like lots of isometric sprite-based combat...

Are there people here who don't?

Depends. I have spent many hundreds of hours with UFO (X-Com). I could just barely bring myself to finish BG2.

 

[Lesifoere]

No, not really. Asian mythology is pretty shitty. Norse or Celtic alone is a much better place to draw from than all of Asia.

No, not really. Celtic stuff is boring beyond belief. As for Norse, well, go play Too Human, ahahaha.

(Hi, ethnocentricism.)

 

[Azarkon]

No, not really. Asian mythology is pretty shitty. Norse or Celtic alone is a much better place to draw from than all of Asia.

Because we all know Western RPGs haven't been doing Nordic/Celtic mythology-inspired settings for the last thirty years, amirite?

As for Asian mythology, you need to fucking expand your mind. Hindu/Buddhist mythology alone is worth a dozen games; the whole idea of karma, reincarnation, etc. - PST barely scratched the surface. Some settings based on Semitic mythology, the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, etc. - could also be very awesome and might invoke what VD called the "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON" syndrome.

Western RPGs have been constrained by the Nordic/Celtic-inspired stereotypes of Tolkien and D&D for way too fucking long. The Japanese, at least, try to experiment with other settings - even if they ultimately reduce everything to teen soap opera.

 

[santino27]

I've claimed to fall asleep during many dull games, but Mass Effect was the only one where I ever actually passed out.

Have to agree. I thought ME was mind numbingly boring. I (very quickly) started just ignoring the dull, largely pointless subquests, so I could finish the very short main storyline and be done with it.

Edit: And I liked the BG series a lot more than KotOR. It's damn odd to see someone on this site complaina bout isometric perspectives or sprite-based gameplay.

 

[Volourn]

ME > BG+KOTOR

 

[DefJam101]

ME > BG+KOTOR

 

[Andyman Messiah]

ME = JE = KOTOR = BG

 

[SuicideBunny]

ME = JE =<KOTOR>> BG

 

[sportforredneck]

DA = ME + BG - BG2

Discuss.

 

[Lesifoere]

No, not really. Asian mythology is pretty shitty. Norse or Celtic alone is a much better place to draw from than all of Asia.

Because we all know Western RPGs haven't been doing Nordic/Celtic mythology-inspired settings for the last thirty years, amirite?

As for Asian mythology, you need to fucking expand your mind. Hindu/Buddhist mythology alone is worth a dozen games; the whole idea of karma, reincarnation, etc. - PST barely scratched the surface. Some settings based on Semitic mythology, the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, etc. - could also be very awesome and might invoke what VD called the "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON" syndrome.

Yes. Hindi/Buddhist mythology kicks an amazing amount of ass. But he probably thinks Asia consists of only China and Japan.

 

[Shannow]

ME > BG+KOTOR

Yes, but ME < BG(2) - KotOR
Carry on.

 

[Azarkon]

Yes. Hindi/Buddhist mythology kicks an amazing amount of ass. But he probably thinks Asia consists of only China and Japan.

Well, I will say that Japanese mythology is kind of overdone due to all the JRPGs and such, but with regards to the Chinese, look: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, Feng Shen Yan Yi, and Wuxia literature in general may be way overdone in Asia, but in the West their representations are rather - shall we say - pathetic?

If you're going to treat Chinese culture as if it were only about kung fu fighting and eating rice then yeah, Chinese culture sucks. But that's your problem. True, Chinese mythology isn't as well standardized as Nordic/Celtic mythology so if you're trying to rip it off wholesale for a setting you're going to have to take some more creative license. But really, if you're to look at China for inspiration why settle for mythology? Why not, instead, look at the three thousand years' worth of East Asian history that the Chinese meticulously wrote down (relative to what other cultures did) for you?

And it's not boring, "oh yeah, it rained in year 333 and the emperor broke his toenail" history, either. East Asia was a historical battleground - full of empires, brutal warfare, ethnic strife, religious rebellions, and interesting characters. You've heard of Confucius, but have you heard of Mozi - a pacifist military engineer (wtf?) who, it was said, tried to stop warfare by forming an army of followers who would show up to defend states that were about to be attacked, hoping to dissuade their enemies?

In the end, it's your choice as a designer what to focus on, and if you choose to be banal and cliche no amount of magical awesomeness in history or mythology will save you. Just as you can take D&D and come up with a game about dwarves and elves and humans joining forces to fight an ancient evil, you can take the same D&D and come up with a MOTB or a PST. An inspiration is only a starting point, and as much as I rag on the overuse of Nordic/Celtic/Japanese mythology, I'm not going to pretend we've exhausted the possibilities.

It's not how rich your inspiration is - it's how rich your imagination is.

 

[Drakron]

Actually ... jRPG rarely use Shinto or even Eastern Mythology as they prefer Western Mythology.

Not they bother to get it right mind you ... I guess its more exotic for then, look at NGE as a example, they just use Christianity for show, not that mindless fanboys keep argue about it ... hell Shinji character design is a recycle of Nadia for god sake.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

FO3>DA

 

[Chefe]

HG:L > ME + [(BG2 - BG)^2 x JE] + NWN

Yes. Hindi/Buddhist mythology kicks an amazing amount of ass. But he probably thinks Asia consists of only China and Japan.

Well, I will say that Japanese mythology is kind of overdone due to all the JRPGs and such, but with regards to the Chinese, look: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, Feng Shen Yan Yi, and Wuxia literature in general may be way overdone in Asia, but in the West their representations are rather - shall we say - pathetic?

If you're going to treat Chinese culture as if it were only about kung fu fighting and eating rice then yeah, Chinese culture sucks. But that's your problem. True, Chinese mythology isn't as well standardized as Nordic/Celtic mythology so if you're trying to rip it off wholesale for a setting you're going to have to take some more creative license. But really, if you're to look at China for inspiration why settle for mythology? Why not, instead, look at the three thousand years' worth of East Asian history that the Chinese meticulously wrote down (relative to what other cultures did) for you?

And it's not boring, "oh yeah, it rained in year 333 and the emperor broke his toenail" history, either. East Asia was a historical battleground - full of empires, brutal warfare, ethnic strife, religious rebellions, and interesting characters. You've heard of Confucius, but have you heard of Mozi - a pacifist military engineer (wtf?) who, it was said, tried to stop warfare by forming an army of followers who would show up to defend states that were about to be attacked, hoping to dissuade their enemies?

In the end, it's your choice as a designer what to focus on, and if you choose to be banal and cliche no amount of magical awesomeness in history or mythology will save you. Just as you can take D&D and come up with a game about dwarves and elves and humans joining forces to fight an ancient evil, you can take the same D&D and come up with a MOTB or a PST. An inspiration is only a starting point, and as much as I rag on the overuse of Nordic/Celtic/Japanese mythology, I'm not going to pretend we've exhausted the possibilities.

It's not how rich your inspiration is - it's how rich your imagination is.

 

[inwoker]

Who cares? The only good game Bioware ever created was Baldur's Gate 2.

fixed

Yeah if you like lots of isometric sprite-based combat...

What is sprite-based combat, man?

 

[Shannow]

 

[Warden]

 

[Shannow]

Hey, I never thought you'd show a picture of yourself before your transfomation.

Well, at least you don't need plane tickets. Just <s>jump</s> fly off a skyscraper. I'll not be waiting.

 

[Warden]

And it'd be much easier to ignore warden if you all stopped responding to his crap. Just saying.

...And you're doing picturz with wordz for me.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Who cares? The only good game Bioware ever created was KOTOR, and that fell apart half way through the story. NWN was a toolkit, so I don't count that as a "game".

Mass Effect is okay. It has a hell of a lot of faults, but it's not bad for a lark. Then again, if I looked at it as an evolutionary game from KotOR, it's a step back in several ways - like picking the good dialogue option in one game and the bad option in a different game only to find out that your character says the exact same thing!

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Mass Effect did combat better than KOTOR, but KOTOR did dialogue better. Since dialogue was pretty much meaningless in both games, however, I'll give ME the edge. BG2 was also fun, as were some NWN1 modules like Honor Among Thieves.

So I don't get the absolute hate for Bioware, but I don't get why anyone would look forward to Dragon Age either. It looks bad. Painfully bad. I laughed at some of Fallout 3's bad dialogue; I cringed at Dragon Age's.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I will say the one thing that gripes me about BioWare's sci-fi games is they just can't break away from the high fantasy model of TEH ANSHUNT EEVLE. It's sci-fi, guys. The big bad evil thing should probably be from present day development as opposed to something made thousands of years ago. In high fantasy, sure, the bad thing can be some forgotten magical doom. That's expected. Sci-fi, though, should be a different animal entirely.

I made that point with KotOR, and it's kind of goofy that Mass Effect follows the same thing. I could understand the centuries old evil idea in post apocalyptic sci-fi, but that's about it.

 

[Warden]

You should understand that biowhore designers and writers simply can't come up with anything better. The ancient evil thing is their only way of railroading the player through their digital interactive book at a fast and urgent pace. And they simply love the part in italic and scorn at a free roaming, explorable world.