What was RIGHT with DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS

[Shannow]

1. Combat was ok for the first 8 lvls or so. Then repetition, bad character system and lvl scaling killed it.
2. Scripting your party's behavior via the Tactics screen was good. But more options should have been available from the start and independant from the "Tactics" skill. Sadly the Tactics screen lacked important options and conditions.
3. DAO finally had some instances where you could influence your party members via the dialogue skill. Sadly they didn't go the whole way and didn't remove the atrocious suck up to your companions to gain stupid, shitty immersion-breaking bonuses.
4. Liked the special presents concept that gained you some dialogue and were hinted at previously by your companions. But I hated the whole generic presents shit.
5. They made an attempt to improved armour by giving it flexible and stiff parts. There still was clipping and "flexible" breastplates put far less than in other games.
6. Graphics were ok for a 3D RPG.
7. I found the quests and story extremely shitty in the latter 2/3 of the game, but before that it was ok. Some nice touches like getting the family sword as a dwarven noble if you managed to "no means no" the intrigue. (Of course that ancient family treasure didn't survive 2 hours of level scaled loot and I'm not quite sure if you might not also get it if you murdered your brother without hesitating...)
8. At least on (Very? - one under Nightmare - ) Hard the game had some challenging encounters, not interesting but challenging. I had to adapt they way I went about them and even had to reload 6 or 7 times. Should have been Normal, but what the hell...


Hey, this is good. A post about everything that sucked without any redeeming qualities would have been at least thrice as long...

 

[ricolikesrice]

combat in DA:O could have been good if they knew what they were doing balance-wise and IF they had good encounter design (they didnt).

from what i remember i initially even somewhat enjoyed the combat (on nightmare) and had a few challenging fights...

.... that was before i realized that the encounter design wouldnt get better from there (repeat itself over and over ... ) and that certain spells abilties were so good that you could / should use them for the rest of the game.

granted, you could always "gimp" (i.e. purposly avoid overpowereed abilities) yourself in order to have a challenge but with that reasonening you can excuse almost any game with "well if i played drunk with only 1 arm and on a broken keyboard...."

to be fair though, the same can be said for baldurs gate 2 to some extent as well and almost any other RPG.... BUT in DA:O you can get the unbalanced stuff as early as 3 hours into the game .... while in the better RPGs out there you usually encounter the broken stuff only late game.

...

as for the rest of the game i found it utterly meh as far as i played it (deep roads) until i got bored. crappy dungeons, very linear level design, bland setting, mediocre to bad writing (i found the companions cringeworthy....) , dull visuals. most importantly though its the bioware effect though: cutscene after cutscene after cutscene , 50% dialogue, 40% filler combat .... yawn. if neither is interesting than thats already enough of a turnoff no matter what might be in the other 10%...

...and even the one basic thing that would keep me playing through even much shittier RPGs/games with RPG elements sucked.... LOOT. i havent seen uglier weapons & armour in any other non-asian RPG yet and well ... stats- and variety wise gear was pretty boring and uninteresting as well....

no clue about DA2, not interested in playing nor circlejerking about how bad it is

 

[Tycn]

I suspect most of DA:O's strengths stem from the fact that it was initially conceived as a spiritual successor to BG2 and was developed as such until the streamlining initiative was set forth.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

There was still a lot of nerdiness in DAO, I can't taste it in DA2.

 

[Nael]

WoW also has better lore. And better balanced classes and abilities.

<3

And better graphics/art direction too!

I hope you aren't serious. WoW looks like a fucking fat girl's vagina.

 

[Baddygoal]

What was RIGHT with DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS

Nothing!!!

 

[Ulminati]

WoW also has better lore. And better balanced classes and abilities.

<3

And better graphics/art direction too!

I hope you aren't serious. WoW looks like a fucking fat girl's vagina.

Considering the age of WoWs engine and the low system requirements it had on release, few games have aged so well graphically. The cartoony style may not satisfy your personal need for more grimdark and gratuitous blood splatter, but at least it's mild on the eyes. Most games that go for OMG GRIMDARK REALISM end up looking brown and crap after a few years once everyone gets used to faster graphics cards. WoW still looks passable.

Also, Lesi <3 40K. Of course she'd be a fangirl of oversized pauldrons on the orcs.

 

[Nael]

WoW also has better lore. And better balanced classes and abilities.

<3

And better graphics/art direction too!

I hope you aren't serious. WoW looks like a fucking fat girl's vagina.

The cartoony style may not satisfy your personal need for more grimdark and gratuitous blood splatter, but at least it's mild on the eyes.

Uh... Mild on the eyes? Are you fucking serious?

You have to be trolling me. That "cartoony style" is fucking seizure inducing.

 

[circ]

H-H-H-H-HI-G-G-G-G-G-G-U-Y-S-W-W-W-W-WWHAAAAAAAAAAA-W-W-H-A-T-S-GO-GO-GOI-NG-NGNGNGNGNGNGNGNGNGNGHHHAAHGHGHAHG-O-ON-H-H-H-H-HHERE?

 

[Xor]

WoW also has better lore. And better balanced classes and abilities.

<3

And better graphics/art direction too!

I hope you aren't serious. WoW looks like a fucking fat girl's vagina.

The cartoony style may not satisfy your personal need for more grimdark and gratuitous blood splatter, but at least it's mild on the eyes.

Uh... Mild on the eyes? Are you fucking serious?

You have to be trolling me. That "cartoony style" is fucking seizure inducing.

People rarely play that zoomed in. Or at least I didn't. Things tend to look much more normal zoomed out.

 

[Lesifoere]

WoW also has better lore. And better balanced classes and abilities.

<3

And better graphics/art direction too!

I hope you aren't serious. WoW looks like a fucking fat girl's vagina.

Considering the age of WoWs engine and the low system requirements it had on release, few games have aged so well graphically. The cartoony style may not satisfy your personal need for more grimdark and gratuitous blood splatter, but at least it's mild on the eyes. Most games that go for OMG GRIMDARK REALISM end up looking brown and crap after a few years once everyone gets used to faster graphics cards. WoW still looks passable.

And its palette actually includes, I don't know, green, blue and red whereas DA:O's palette is "gray, brown, shit brown." There's something to be said for Blizzard's cohesive design. They picked a style and stuck with it. whereas Bioware derped all over the place chasing the gritty NEW SHIT. Your average character model, from WotLK on, likely has a higher poly-count than anything in DA:O, too.

Also, Lesi <3 40K. Of course she'd be a fangirl of oversized pauldrons on the orcs.

Oversized shoulderguards show up on everybody in WoW, unfortunately. It's not so much that I adore WoW's aesthetics--remember, shitty pauldrons are in DA:O too--but that I can recognize that technically it's superior to DA:O's, and aesthetically it's done by people who have a good idea of what they're supposed to be doing, i.e. they're working under solid direction.

 

[ortucis]

After finishing DA2 I loaded up DA:O and it's just.. better. I was impressed by the GUI when I first played DA:O and after DA2 I was again happy to experience PC friendly smooth interface (which doesn't look like it was created by someone who just started using Photoshop and Flash).

Overall DA:O feels like they took their time refining the interface to presentation in-game. Level design is better and except for blurry textures (forcing AF is a must since it's broken in-game and never fixed) the game feels like developers were aiming for a proper PC release until they fucked up in the end to make it console friendly. Anyone else remember how DA:O was announced as a PC only experience and as they neared the end of the development cycle the producers/directors started making noise about console version. So much that they would keep asking previewers to ask them questions about console version over PC.

Anyways, I always played DA:O as a human so just started playing as Elf and will try Dwarf later. Nice replay value.. which DA2 will never have.

 

[made]

The only time you'd see a closeup of a belf face in-game like that is if you're gay and/or a larper and purposely zoom in on one.

Which reminds me, WoW camera > DAO camera. xD

 

[SCO]

If you hadn't played this you wouldn't be doing this to yourselves now.

 

[Lesifoere]

Which reminds me, WoW camera > DAO camera. xD

Fuck yeah. Super-flexible camera that can pan WHEREVER YOU FUCKING FEEL LIKE and zoom/in or out AS MUCH AS YOU WANT.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Don't make story-focused games if you can't write good stories.

 

[kris]

You can ditch party members in DA2. You can kill them. You can avoid them altogether. people are fukkin'

How can you kill them?

 

[ortucis]

You can ditch party members in DA2. You can kill them. You can avoid them altogether. people are fukkin'

How can you kill them?

By snu snu, obviously.

 

[Volourn]

"How can you kill them?"

FFS Weapons and magic. FFS

 

[Xor]

I like how Volourn is just making shit up now.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

DA2 > DA:O

DA:O played like an offline MMO, while DA2 has actually good pacing and dynamics. I hope Bio doesn't listen to the whiners and go back to the grindfest that was DA:O.

 

[kris]

"How can you kill them?"

FFS Weapons and magic. FFS

So you were just lying?

(pre-empting a "the codex lies all the time" comment)

 

[Volourn]

Play the game and find out for yourself if I'm lying.

 

[waywardOne]

I like how Volourn is just making shit up now.

only now?

 

[Commissar Draco]

DA2 is much shorter than DA1 and trash mobs leave less trash loot and it's the only of her. Shit they even made Anders the only funny new NPCs from Awakening into the whiny fag.

Is Volo always like that, criticisng games he defended a year ago only becouse Biowhore just released NEW SHIT?