Is Dragon Age worth the hype?

Remove all ads!

The total length of gameplay doesn't matter to me as much quality of gameplay. I'd rather have a good 15-20 h game than a 30-40 h game that sucks.

I find to be somewhat arrogant to think their game is going to be so good that would merit a 3 part split of the story. What if it's a commercial flop and the publisher decide to pull the plug in any further games in the serie? Now they would look stupid

 

Still Mass effect and Jade empire were short and sucked on the side quests. Both had silly combat.

So the track record is bad. I expect the worse and will wait, the same whit Storm of Zehir until it hits the budget bin. If the reviews are positive I will be tempted.

 

Mass Effect plays more as a shooter.
Once I accepted that I had a lot of fun.
The main story is excellent, too.
I'd avoid the sidequests, though, they are mostly boring.
I did exactly two and that's it . This way the end fight was more challenging as well ^^.

Jade Empire is designed as a fighting rpg mixup, so I doubt that it will have any influence on DA.So far I have yet to finish it *sigh*.

I think, Bioware will hardly base DA on these two games.
I feared at first it might inherit elements of ME, but after watching some previews, I doubt it.At least not by combat design.

What I am pretty reserved about is the new combat system of DA (as previewed in various gameplay vids).
I hope it won't end in a click fest a la WOW:
press putton A, wait for cooldown to end (or mana to refill), meanwhile press button B, and so on...
Something I don't find enjoying.
Maybe it's just me, but I like to lead my fighter/tank to the mob, where he happily hacks away, without me worrying to micromanage him with a pletory of clickable special moves.
My hope is that it's true what Bioware says about automatization of the use of skills, and its customization by the player.
Let's hope this system will be enjoyable .

 

Let us not mix Jade Empire or Mass Effect into this too much. They represent a bit different types of CRPGs and both are also based in a completely different setting than Dragon Age.

That aside, the combat of Dragon Age seems to be like that in KoTOR or maybe even classic BG. It looks good so far, I am quite excited actually.

 

Well well, EA pushed the PC release date to autumn 2009 now. Probably because they want the big title for a 2009 fiscal year release (EA made a quite big loss now during the christmas sales). The PC and console versions will now be released at about the same time, if not at the same time. So much for a spring release...

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=363368
http://dragonage.bioware.com/gameinfo.html

 

Actually, from the forums, it looks like the heart of the reason is to co-release the PC and console version, so they're putting off the PC release until the console port is done. It makes a certain financial sense, only one marketing blitz instead of 2, but this game was THE promised PC exclusive for about three years, and then a 'PC first, ports after' game for about a year. Delaying the one to release the other at the same time kinda feels like spitting in the face of PC gamers.

On top of that, with the tactical focus, I'm not even sure how well it'll work on a console. As has been said, the 1st person perspective doesn't really hold up to tactical battles, and mass-select (selecting multiple people at once for one command) never really works well without a mouse.

 

the last couple pf games from Bioware where disappointments for me, nwn1 OC was such a huge step backward, that even obsidian haven't made it back to the standard of BG yet and they are on the third expansion to nwn2.

jade empire, pretty graphic but not one I played a lot,

Kotor, played through it once, wasn't impressed and didn't feel like doing it again.

haven't tried mass effect, but from what I hear, it is not really worth it either, so for me Dragon age: origins seems overrated. I'm not that impressed by Bioware, imho they live high on BG2 still. as for Dragon age toolset, rumors say you cant make your own modules and DA:O doesn't support multiplayer, I'm sticking to NWN2, as far as I'm concerned, Obsidian delivers better rpg's than Bioware, despite the many bugs.

ps: BG2 was shorter than most Jrpg's

 

Equester, I've played hoards of JRPGs, and with the exception of FFT I can't think of a single one that was longer than my experiences with BG2 average to. Mind you, FFT was insanely long.

I agree with you on much of the rest, but this is a good portion of the team that made BG2 (ME had none of them), with claims of the same style as BG2, and video showing similar capabilities (selecting multiple allies for a group command, etc.). DA:O is my last hope for the continuation of good gaming, but it is still a hope.

 

One positive aspect of the delay is, that the PC version can be further finetuned.

On the other hand, I fear that the game will feel console-like.
If I understand it correctly from the original forum, the inventory system is a list system, so that's already a downer .

 

The crowd at bioware is not pleased. The regulars seem not to realize things. If anyone wanted proof that console is the number one platform than nothing will convince you if this did not.

To delay a game so that it will not mess up console sales. Right in the middle of the busy sason when people has to make a choice which game to buy.

I will leave the ranting for the people at Bioware. 71 pages whitin 3 days.

 

I remember before they released NWN. Bioware went out of their way hyping it it. Calling it a roleplaying revolution, and such. They said you could import your BG2 character ( that bit was even in the trailer), you would finally get to play a drow-elf. And lots more. They pretty much lied, really. I bought the game because they said the story would continue the BG saga, I remember. I have no doubt they will do similar stuff now, to boost sales.

 

Yeah, we forumites over there are not happy campers, at the moment.

Hannibal, the inventory is list-style, but I've seen that for PCs before. I don't really think things will feel too console-ish. I'm still betting this will be a great game, mind you. It'll just take longer to get here. And I'm more worried than ever about the future of PC gaming.

 

What? Now only they made a console port of it, they decide to make a simultaneous release? Meh!
So, the controls of the game would have to be made simpler for the console, will this affect the PC version? I hope not!

I think the computer gaming scene is slowly dying in favour of the console. It's a little sad, I've always prefered computer gaming anyway, you can truly configure how the game plays (well, most of the time), and uh, I don't know I just prefer it .

Mind you some game are better played with a gamepad than a keyboard, but a RPG just need a keyboard / mouse combo! Just imagine playing BG2 using a gamepad!

I don't mind list style, it's kinda how you manage your file on your computer anyway.

 

The financial crysis is giving them second thoughts. They are all scared and fear is a bad advisor. It is the other way around. I even say it is smarter to release the pc version in a timeslot whit less competition but before the summer holidays. If the game was released for pc in march a lot of feedback would have come, given them six months to get the bad content out for console. That way the reviewscores would go up. The fans like us will buy anyway, it is the art to get the casual gamer to go for it. During the holiday season everybody is releasing.

I will wait until I have a few reviews from places I trust. Not by the paid reviewers like gamespot which rate is based on the size of the ads, but by userreviews. Whit me. millions more wait those few days. No matter how huge your advertising budget is EA. The internet is a negating factor if you overhype. I miss the times it was save to preorder a pc release from Bioware.

So returning to the question is Dragon Age hyped. Yes It is in my opinion. I suspect they lack the confidence to release it on the date they intended, March 8. If it is as good as they claim sales would have skyrocketed.

 

Actually many of the people who where directly responsible for BG, IWD, PST and so forth works for Obsidian

I think bg2 took me about 50-60 hours to complete, which is long, I'll grand you. but from Final Fantasy 5 and up until 10, none of does took me under 70 hours, 10 I think I spend +100 hours on, which is insane when thinking about it.

I don't doubt DA: O will be a good game, but I doubt it will be anything wild, with it's very limited toolset, classes and race choice. In my mind it is prety clear that Bioware now prefers to make interactive movies over actual multiple choice rpg's.

that said, I don't feel there is a complete lack of good rpg's. Obsidian have kept me entertained, despite their sad history of bugs, and that Polish company that made the Witcher are good to. And it was cool they released an almost 1gb big patch, updating graphic and adding new quests/content.

 

I think BG2 Took be 80+ hours my first couple of times through, but I tried to get everything done. The Final Fantasy games generally took me between 40 and 60 hours, also trying to get everything. Of course, I'm also a good tactician, pathfinder, and strategist, which means I usually don't have to spend much time leveling in JRPGs, or raising cash. My gametime relies more on how much total content there is, and there is a lot more extra content in BG2 than in any JRPG I've seen, which means game time varies much more for it than for JRPGs.

As for Obsidian, I've only played KOTOR II and NWN2, and I didn't think either was particularly strong, especially as concerns plot and character, and I don't see anything else coming out by them that holds much hope in my eyes. Small companies and Indie Developers (if they get anything out) still hold hope in my eyes.

 

try MoTB, also ff8 took me well over 80 hours, and I was no more than level 40 near the end. I am not trying to bash BG2 as I still hold it as one of the greatest rpg's ever, but it wasn't long compared to most JRPGs, and it have nothing to do with grinding levels, I have seldom felt forced to that in any rpg.
you should try some of the old for SNES, Lufia 1 and 2 was insane, the second one is the one of the first game that had a random dungeon generator. it has the optional dungeon with 100 levels, random generated each time you enter, you had to do it 18 times to get all items (I never did, got boring after 1 or 2 times), as for content, it had tons more then BG2.

but each to his own. I think it is more of a subjective meaning of what adds to game, than actual a "which game have most content" discussion. I actually think bg2 had relatively few areas compared to many JRPGs, but it had often longer dialogs.

 

I played Dragonage for about twenty minutes on the gamescom fair today, and I liked what I saw. My first impression:

Graphics are really nice. One peculiarity that struck me is that after a fight your hero and your co-combatants are inevitably bloodstained. NPCs react on conversation, that is, if your gruff, they're miffed, which suggests a satisfactory degree of game depth. Controls were intuitive. The combat system I didn't try to understand due to the limited amount of time. Given the tight window given to me (after 1+ of waiting) I wanted to see how the game looked and played, not how it worked. Anyway, combat was intuitive in the brief fight I had with a few overgrown rats. You can pause during combat, which is also nice.

I think I'll definitely get the game.

 

I largely agree about the blood spray, and the weirdness of it, except for part about the 'realism' of cleaning yourself up after battle. To me it is disputable whether it makes sense to debate the realism of fantasy games and I won't open that can of worms Personally, I find it a little gross, that's it.