Jump to content
IGNORED

Dragon Age 2

JPR

By JPR
in Discussion

 Share

Recommended Posts

Kayin Amoh

Kayin Amoh

Posted
Posted

Finally got bored of waiting for the patch and restarted this with a new character. Finished it this morning.

Hmm. After telling Merril to sod off and stop being so stupid, she turns up at my house and I can either be a total bastard towards her or end up sleeping with her. Hence, since I hate being an arse, I ended up with her in the end instead of the character I was actively going after. Weird.

Not a great game, some stupid achievements (The Enigma of Kirkwall can piss off, as can the supplier one) and there's so much they should have improved, but it wasn't completely awful. Dragon Age still needs to reach its own potential - there's so much that this series has going for it, but then they shove in the Fade, or repeat a bunch of maps over an entire game, or force you to dance around your companions if you want to keep them happy... I dunno, I'd like to see them just have a big main story in the third game with the companion character development coming from how that progresses rather than your interactions with them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RubberJohnny

RubberJohnny

Posted
Posted

Penny Arcade did a post:

Dragon Age II is firmly, deeply situated "in the bag" at this point, completion time thirty six hours or so, and the experience has been completely bizarre. As the resident Lore Hound, and indeed, for any person who knows what a Thedas is, there is a substantial quantity of aged narrative beef present. Cultural stuff barely hinted at by Origins' inclusion of Sten takes center stage, bolstered by ecstatic writing (that's ecstatic, definition 2) that has an entire alien culture as its payload.

I don't know how successful the original Dragon Age was, but given its interminable development cycle "success" as humans perceive this phenomenon may not have been possible. I don't think the climate at EA allows for that kind of build anymore, I don't think even BioWare can get away with something like that when it isn't attached to an ongoing payment structure. Something had to give, somewhere, and it's not hard to see where.

RPG as a genre is practically a sauce, now: it's something you stew other genres in, imparting an addictive progression arc in terms of equipment or capability. Mass Effect couldn't be a more perfect example. But the flavor was too strong, they determined, too piquant, and ME2 was the result. Most people seemed to prefer the taste. The thing that people are never trying to impart from the conception of an RPG is micro-managerial combat. I say this as someone who likes that and would start a foundation to preserve it. That's what Dragon Age is about, essentially. They have a challenge ahead of them; generally speaking, people don't make games like this anymore, not at this tier of development, and there is a reason.

We have expectations about what an RPG is that are deeply, deeply at odds with the way the industry currently works. It is our expectation that we will purchase a forty hour game, or a sixty hour game, or a hundred hour game for the same price that we purchase a game that lasts four to six hours. BioWare has tried to chart a course for the franchise that is remotely fucking possible in the current environment. They're up to their elbows in some pretty sacred zones, and the result has been confusion and rage. It's full of experiments, though, some brilliant and some less so, but I'm wired to think of even failed experiments as progress.

The way these games are "supposed" to go, expressed both by ancient CRPGs and the more modern Mass Effect series, is that you follow a single character's journey through multiple discrete chapters. Dragon Age II confounds this in what I think is an interesting way: they are not telling the story of an individual person, or even a group of people. You would get the impression from DA that this was a game about "The Grey Wardens" and "The Blight," the way that ME is about "The Spectres" and "The Reapers," but you don't have to play that game long to understand that it isn't entirely true. It's actually a story about the people and the power structures of a particular time. Dragon Age II cements that these games are about the world itself: yes, it remembers your old character, and the effect you had, but not just in a localized way: your effect on the motion of history.

Do people like that as well? Generally speaking, I would say no; it's a pretty high concept play. They chose a very peculiar moment to focus on, here: something that would have been a cross-media piece, or an animated short, or a tie-in anywhere else gets the front page. I will tell you that it will be fascinating, beyond fascinating, to see how this tumult crystallizes into the DLC. They have been "given" an incredible, nearly unprecedented opportunity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Talk Show Host

Talk Show Host

Posted
Posted

They have been given the opportunity to make money by releasing a shit game, with almost ancient mechanics and static world, looking like amateurs to advanced RPGs like The Witcher 2 or Skyrim, and actually make a LOT of money out of it.

And they can make MORE money by releasing even more parts of this shit game as DLC.

They are geniuses.

Nice article but it essentially over analyses a pretty shallow game. It won't surprise me if BioWare use some of the above points to defend their shit game, maybe going as far as to claim that "gamers didn't get it"

2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
JPR

JPR

Posted
  • Author
Posted

To which we can reply yes we got it BioWare, you where just rubbish at telling it. :twisted:

What they're more likely to listen to is the fact that they might not be making a lot of money out of it and the DLC, or at least not as much as they'd hoped. Looking at some sales data from VGChartz, so obviously an estimate but it's interesting to compare it to the sales of Origins at least. DAII had a strong first week which I imagine the Signature edition helped with, but it doesn't seem to be maintaining it unlike Origins.

An aside which is nice to see, the PC is looking pretty strong compared to the PS3 considering there's no digital sales included.

Dragon Age: Origins

XBOX 360

Week 1 - 335,941

Week 2 - 173,230

Week 3 - 96,340

Week 4 - 134,460

Week 5 - 107,755

Week 6 - 121,373

Week 7 - 153,855

PS3

Week 1 - 155,660

Week 2 - 72,304

Week 3 - 80,920

Week 4 - 77,414

Week 5 - 59,219

Week 6 - 63,881

Week 7 - 76,906

Dragon Age 2

XBOX 360

Week 1 - 392,508

Week 2 - 128,897

Week 3 - 61,735

Week 4 - 40,841

PS3

Week 1 - 163,410

Week 2 - 61,210

Week 3 - 35,455

Week 4 - 25,976

PC

Week 1 - 148,830

Week 2 - 38,002

Week 3 - 26,165

Week 4 - 16,082

Note: no digital sales for the PC and no complete sales for Origins on the PC.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
SqueakyG

SqueakyG

Posted
Posted

I'm still waiting for the patch before I continue playing. Getting fed up waiting :(

I'm still waiting for the patch to start my FIRST playthrough. I have no idea if I would even want to be friends with Isabella or Sebastian, but I'm not playing it with such huge bugs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SqueakyG

SqueakyG

Posted
Posted
The 1.02 Patch on PC/Mac (1.01 Title Update on X360/PS3) is still in the final certification process with EA, Microsoft, and Sony but is not expected to come out this weekend. Thank you for your continued patience and we look forward to getting this in your hands soon.

The patch includes fixes for over 100 issues. We’ll discuss some of the platform-specific issues in greater detail next week and we’ll release the formal patch notes once the updates are actually ready to download and install but here’s a high level view of some of the core gameplay fixes that everyone will see regardless of platform:

- The effects of various follower talents and item properties are now being properly removed and re-applied when loading and saving.

- Party members who are resurrected during a fight now rejoin combat properly.

- Hawke no longer gains random spells or talents after using the Maker's Sigh potion, then saving and reloading.

- The “Duty” plot will now appear on the Chanter’s Board even if the player accepted all of the board’s quests before installing the Exiled Prince premium content.

- In the “Finders Keepers” plot, if the player leaves Woodrow’s Warehouse before finding the crate, it is now possible to return to the warehouse to complete the quest.

- Merril no longer refers to the aftermath of “A New Path” before the plot has been completed.

- Aveline’s final armor upgrade is now available during the “Favor and Fault” plot.

- Varric is no longer confused about which character Hawke has been romancing.

- Various other gameplay and story-scripting issues no longer appear.

We’ll delve into some of the platform-specific details early next week. In the meantime, a special shout out and thanks to our mighty beta test group who’ve been a big help in confirming how these fixes will behave in the wild.

-----------------

UPDATE: Monday, April 11, 2010.

Hi everyone. I hope you had a good weekend. We're working with Valve right now on dotting the i's and crossing the t's for the Steam rollout. Based on our current estimates, we expect the 1.02 Patch to go live on PC/Mac sometime tomorrow (Tuesday, April 12).

On consoles, the 1.01 title update is progressing smoothly through final certification at Microsoft and Sony. No issues have been found and they're currently projecting release dates of sometime next week - we're working with them to see if we can pull those dates in any further.

Last Friday we discussed some of the universal fixes that we’ve made across all the platforms. Today we’re providing a high-level view of some of the platform-specific fixes that you can expect.

CONSOLES:

- The options menu now includes auto-attack.

- Armor values now adjust correctly when changing shields.

- Choosing a target at close range is now easier.

- Cinematics are no longer distorted on certain standard-definition televisions.

- Hawke no longer gains excessive coin and experience from rapidly and repeatedly completing a single sidequest.

- Various technical changes should improve performance, limit crashes, and address memory-related issues.

PC & MAC:

- Various issues specific to DirectX 11 no longer occur.

- It is now easier to select party members by clicking on their portraits when the level-up arrow is displayed.

- The game now functions correctly across different desktop sizes.

- The video options menu now allows a wider full-screen gamma range.

- Various technical changes should improve performance and limit crashes.

- We’ve improved our crash reporting and our ability to analyze those reports. If you’re still experiencing crashes, we encourage you to play logged in so we can identify and resolve your issues in the future.

This patch should address the bulk of the major issues that people are experiencing. We’re already hard at work on addressing further issues with our next patch and we’ll be setting up some specific threads in the various tech support forums to help capture any major issues that you’re still facing after these patches go live.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JPR

JPR

Posted
  • Author
Posted

PC patch has just gone live, my Steam version has just updated, might try and complete it now. Can't see anything new posted on the status of the console updates.

Quick go and DX11 performance certainly seems improved, feels much smoother.

Patch details:

------------------------

Dragon Age II 1.02

------------------------

AMD and NVIDIA have recently released new graphics-card drivers. Using old

drivers may cause Dragon Age II to crash, run poorly, or display graphics

incorrectly. Please visit your hardware vendor's website for further

information on obtaining new drivers:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst114earlypreview.aspx

NOTE: Some plot fixes are retroactive, but not all. Players with plot-breaking

bugs may need to revert to an earlier save, particularly a save prior to

visiting the affected area during the current year in the game.

GAMEPLAY

- The effects of various follower talents and item properties are now being

properly removed and re-applied when loading and saving.

- Anders's default set of tactics will now activate Haste when appropriate.

- Aveline's final armor upgrade is now available during "Favor and Fault."

- Aveline's Retaliation talent no longer imposes a delay when activated.

- The warrior's Rally talent now functions as described.

- The rogue's Lacerate talent now functions as described.

- Party members who are resurrected during a fight now rejoin combat properly.

- Hawke no longer gains random spells or talents after using the Maker's Sigh

potion, then saving and reloading.

- Potions, poisons, grenades, and runes can now still be ordered from the Hawke

estate after the main campaign is complete.

- Various minor gameplay issues no longer occur.

QUESTS (SPOILER WARNING)

- "Duty" will now appear on the Chanter's Board even if the player accepted

all of the board's quests before installing the Exiled Prince premium content.

- The journal for "Duty" will now update if the player left the Docks (Night)

area immediately after killing the Flint Company mercenaries.

- In "Finders Keepers," the door to Woodrow's Warehouse will now open if the

player steals the location to the warehouse from the harbormaster's office.

- In "Finders Keepers," if the player leaves Woodrow's Warehouse before finding

the crate, it is now possible to return to the warehouse to complete the quest.

- In "Herbalist's Tasks," the varterral's heart is now available even if

the player killed the varterral before receiving the quest.

- Merrill no longer refers to the aftermath of "A New Path" before the plot

has been completed.

- Varric is no longer confused about which character Hawke has been romancing.

- Various minor story-scripting issues no longer occur.

PC/MAC-SPECIFIC FUNCTIONALITY

- Varric's Embellishment talent no longer incorrectly refers to movement speed.

- It is now easier to select party members by clicking on their portraits when

the level-up arrow is displayed.

- The game now functions correctly if the Windows desktop is set to 150% size.

- The video options menu now allows a wider full-screen gamma range.

- Various issues specific to DirectX 11 no longer occur.

- Various technical changes should improve performance and limit crashes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Retroguy

Retroguy

Posted
Posted

According to this you'll need to go back before the glitched parts.

Isn't that nice.

Think it depends on what bugs you're talking about- looks like if you had trouble recruiting him you'll need to go back quite far, which must be annoying as hell. Didn't even know people had issues getting him, must have just been lucky!

I'm assuming his (and Isabella's) glitched friendship bonuses will be fixed without having to go back to an earlier save though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kayin Amoh

Kayin Amoh

Posted
Posted

I'm assuming his (and Isabella's) glitched friendship bonuses will be fixed without having to go back to an earlier save though.

I'm sure that the glitch itself will be fixed, but I've a suspicion that it won't undo any damage that's already been done to your character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Anubis

Anubis

Posted
Posted

I presume this patch will unlock the achievements I didn't get for completing The Exiled Prince?

Exiled Prince was "fixed" a while ago, you have to re-download the dlc and then replay that part to make the achievements pop. :facepalm:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bigfoot

bigfoot

Posted
Posted

I was totally shocked to have to do that, left a bad taste in my mouth.

Tell you what, I would almost be tempted to do a Dalish Warden DA:O playthrough just on the slight offchance that DA3 will have a

"YOU HELPED THAT RETARD MERILL WIPE OUT MY ENTIRE CLAN, PREPARE TO DIE"

moment with Hawke. But that would mean suffering through DA2 again so fuck that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JPR

JPR

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The 360 update 1.01 is live now, a list of fixes below and they're now working on 1.02. Nothing definite on the PS3 patch, but someone from BioWare did post saying they think it will be Tuesday.

1.01 fixes:

------------------------

Dragon Age II 1.01

------------------------

NOTE: Some plot fixes are retroactive, but not all. Players with plot-breaking

bugs may need to revert to an earlier save, particularly a save prior to

visiting the affected area during the current year in the game.

GAMEPLAY

- The effects of various follower talents and item properties are now being

properly removed and re-applied when loading and saving.

- Anders's default set of tactics will now activate Haste when appropriate.

- Aveline's final armor upgrade is now available during "Favor and Fault."

- Aveline's Retaliation talent no longer imposes a delay when activated.

- The warrior's Rally talent now functions as described.

- The rogue's Lacerate talent now functions as described.

- Party members who are resurrected during a fight now rejoin combat properly.

- Hawke no longer gains random spells or talents after using the Maker's Sigh

potion, then saving and reloading.

- Potions, poisons, grenades, and runes can now still be ordered from the Hawke

estate after the main campaign is complete.

- Various minor gameplay issues no longer occur.

QUESTS (SPOILER WARNING)

- "Duty" will now appear on the Chanter's Board even if the player accepted

all of the board's quests before installing the Exiled Prince premium content.

- The journal for "Duty" will now update if the player left the Docks (Night)

area immediately after killing the Flint Company mercenaries.

- In "Finders Keepers," the door to Woodrow's Warehouse will now open if the

player steals the location to the warehouse from the harbormaster's office.

- In "Finders Keepers," if the player leaves Woodrow's Warehouse before finding

the crate, it is now possible to return to the warehouse to complete the quest.

- In "Herbalist's Tasks," the varterral's heart is now available even if

the player killed the varterral before receiving the quest.

- Merrill no longer refers to the aftermath of "A New Path" before the plot

has been completed.

- Varric is no longer confused about which character Hawke has been romancing.

- Various minor story-scripting issues no longer occur.

XBOX 360-SPECIFIC FUNCTIONALITY

- The options menu now includes auto-attack.

- Armor values now adjust correctly when changing shields.

- Choosing a target at close range is now easier.

- The rogue's Goad and Armistice talents now target party members directly.

- Hawke no longer gains excessive coin and experience from rapidly and

repeatedly completing a single side quest.

- Cinematics are no longer distorted on certain standard-definition televisions.

- The timestamp for saved games now displays correctly.

- Various technical changes should improve performance and limit crashes.

- Achievements now unlock properly in a new version of the Exiled Prince

premium content. To re-install the Exiled Prince, follow these directions:

Uninstalling Old Data:

1. In the Xbox 360 dashboard, go to "System Settings" under "My Xbox."

2. Choose "Memory."

3. Select the memory device on which the DLC is installed.

4. Choose "Games."

5. Choose "Dragon Age II."

6. Scroll down and choose "The Exiled Prince" Marketplace Content.

7. Select "Delete," then "Yes" to confirm the action.

Installing New Data

1. Press the Xbox Guide button.

2. Scroll right to "Settings," then choose "Account Management" and

"Yes" to confirm.

3. Choose "Download History."

4. Choose "The Exiled Prince" game add-on.

5. Select "Download Again."

Post 1.01 issues:

Current issues, post 1.01:

General Issues

- Import Issues (Awakenings; re: Approval levels)

- Import issue with Zevran, Alistair and Morrigan (all)

- Olaf's Armory - Chest is invisible. Can still be interacted with, you just can't see it. (Act 3)

Companion Issues

- Carver goes from Grey Warden to Templar in act 3 during Best Served Cold hostage scene

- Isabela doesn't switch to her alternate outfit after the romance scene (requires using makers sigh to fix currently)

- Companions lose upgrades when they switch outfits

- Fenris' Dog conversation (Black Emporium) is not firing

- Merrill's 'Mourning' quest at the beginning of Act 2 is auto-completing. This quest is not supposed to be in the game so for now just disregard the message about it. (it does not affect your game at all)

- Varric's 'Friendly Concern' conversation trees are not firing for any LI except Anders currently

- Sebastian Vael - Despite having friendship maxed, his companion power does not show as active on his Abilities page (the bonus is working, however)

- Anders' rivalry dialog doesn't trigger (friendship instead) during endgame after the 'chantry part'

- Anders' Tevinter chantry amulet turn-in does not give the appropriate reputation modifier when in a rivalry

Quest Issues

- 'Who Needs Rescuing' quest still broken

- 'Sketchy on the Details' doesn't clear from the journal upon completion

- During 'Demands of the Qun' Aveline's guards are aggressive if you go to the docks at night

Combat Issues

- Varric's Disorienting Shot doesn't disorient (for more than a split-second)

- Modal abilities that should be exclusive are stacking if you toggle two of them on quickly

- Hawke can become immune to Injury occassionally

- Magic Resist is affecting Haste (causing the duration to be shorter, essentially resisting your own buff)

- Issues with Gravitic Ring under certain circumstances

Xbox360 Only Issues

- Epic achievement doesn't seem to fire without importing a DAO game (ie. doing two new playthroughs)

Current issues that require new playthroughs (or older saves) in 1.02

- Slo-mo hawke (as well as other stat modifiers) are not retroactively fixed. The problem will not reoccur or get worse but whatever value you currently have will be stuck with you for now (there are many helpful threads about editting the save to manually fix the issue in the mean time)

- Aveline's 4th upgrade (Favor and Fault) will not appear if you've already entered the area once in Act 3 before applying the patch

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kayin Amoh

Kayin Amoh

Posted
Posted

- Slo-mo hawke (as well as other stat modifiers) are not retroactively fixed. The problem will not reoccur or get worse but whatever value you currently have will be stuck with you for now (there are many helpful threads about editting the save to manually fix the issue in the mean time)

I bloody well knew it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mallet

Mallet

Posted
Posted

Play it on hard and read the talent tool tips to plan your cross class combos in advance. Make sure to set up your tactics and your companions will behave quite intelligently.

The best defence is a good offence, no need for a sword and board warrior in this game at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
roskelld

roskelld

Posted
Posted

I'm wondering what peoples opinions are of the general combat in DA2 in comparison to Baldur's Gate II?

Do you find the more frantic and visceral, punchy combat in DA2 more fun or the outright tactical base of the AD&D ruleset in BGII?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Use of this website is subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Guidelines.

  I accept