Dragon Age.

So since the game has been released for those who own it how are you liking it?

 

Pretty much.

 

epic, i'm telling u
kept me nights playing it, finished it twice
incredible story-telling, graphics and engine, you will not be dissapointed

 

I've given up playing Dragon Age, I'm afraid.

Because I finished it.

3 times.

In about as many weeks.

 

Absolutely the best single-player game out there.

Nothing even comes close for me.

 

So far I"m a mage. I have about 44 hours into it so far. Its been really great. I plan on playing this game several times over.

 

Yup very great game.

 

I've liked it very much, but there are a few things that bug me.

- Yes, having the random encounters scale with party level means the game remains challenging, but it also means that every encounter can mean a reload from last save... i kinda like that my band of heroes is EPIC and can take your average random encounter - having the potential to get destroyed by any random group of bandits you meet kinda reduces my feel that my guys are the toughest heroes in the land.

- Also, for random encounters... how did my hardy, experienced band with a rogue in the party with a huge cunning score get surrounded by melee enemies with no stealth capability??

Don't get me wrong - overall, i love the feel and scope of the game. These are just minor irritations in an otherwise great game.

 

Loved it. Finished it in the first week on the PS3, but traded it in for ACII, which I thoroughly enjoy. One of the best RPG's I think I have played since Oblivion. The battle system threw me at first, but once I got used to it, I loved it. Like the others said- EPIC.

 

Unoriginal and unremarkable.

 

I liked playing it, I'm looking forward to the awakenings expansion.

 

Original and remarkable.

 

What is original about this game? What is remarkable about this game?

Answer: nothing!

I believe I already argued for this case in another DAO worshiping thread, but needless to say this game is about as original as all the authors who have written Tolkien fantasy AFTER Tolkien, and about as remarkable as a... I don't have a comparable analogy. Its just a mundane game in almost every respect.

 

Anybody who calls a Bioware game "mundane" is in serious need of phsycological evaluation by a certified professional.

I'm sorry but this is a fact.

 

It's not a fact that any Bioware game is automatically worthy of praise. Every company produces a piece of crap at some point.

 

It's a really good game though I'll argue with Boq that it's not "original" nor "remarkable"(in the sense of it being something to note).

I mean, the whole fantasy thing has been done before and Bioware didn't aim to re-invent the wheel lore-wise with DA:O. I mean, the story was good but nothing spectacular; I'm hoping maybe the arrival of Awakening will enhance it a bit. Story-wise it was a bit linear, it's the smaller lore details which made me appreciate the setting of DA rather than the main plot. Things like "good guys don't prosper"(think of the king of the dwarves vote), "the world isn't pretty" and stuff like that...Bioware put attention to those smaller details to make a nicely polished world.

The gameplay is also not all too remarkable, but it's a solid one. As I said, Bioware tweaked and refined already existing game mechanics rather than invent an entirely new one. The skills seemed a bit lackluster to me and lacked a bit of in terms of noticeable effects. I think the specialization stuff also didn't root as deep as it could've/should've IMO.

All in all, it's a very good game, but I'm with Boq that it's not super original. Bioware played on their strengths and did a good job at it but I won't say that they made something new. If you want to look at some of Bioware's more "adventurous" stuff, check out Jade Empire, for a PC game it was pretty less "cliched" than DA:O(note I'm just taking about the originality, not the game quality itself).

My main gripe with DA:O was probably the lack of diversity in terms of...well everything graphical lol Items were kind of redundant, so were enemies & bosses and as I said above, the skills IMO could've been more varied.

 

^ Saying that it is a cliche is perhaps an even more accurate criticism than saying that it is unoriginal. Indeed, DOA is one massive cliche.

 

To call a game "unoriginal" is pretty narrow-minded seeing as almost every game is more or less built on one of a handful of pre-existing frameworks.

In your opinion Bog, name a great, original game?

EDIT: Infact, don't bother. I really can't be assed with another dime-a-dozen know-it-all. They're far too common in forums these days.

 

^ In a sense, you are correct; every idea worth doing has just about been done, but it's a question of going outside the comfort zones if not at least in certain aspecs. I mean, I'd applaud Jade Empire and Mass Effect/KotOR(well maybe not KotOR since it's based on the Star Wars franchise) for being more adventurous than Dragon Age because they tried something different for an RPG both in terms of gameplay and setting.

Like I said, it's not a question of Dragon Age being a bad game; it's not. However, it IS a cliche. There are details which make it nicely different(ex: tyranny is actually not so bad in DA).

Like I said, Bioware played its strengths with Dragon Age and they did a wonderful job, but I won't go praising them for pushing the envelop of their creative department here.

 

It's OK, guys - Bog's on a quest, I think, as I've seen his posts on his feelings towards dragon age now in every thread that appears that has to do with the game. He doesn't like it at all.

Personally, i see his point in that it draws from elements of fantasy stories that have been used in various stories at various times in the past - but, to me, that is the essence of fantasy, and if those things are missing... well, I'd argue that some of the things described as 'unoriginal' need to be there to help establish the genre.

But, hey, that's just me. And, no, I'm not a rabid Dragon Age fan - I enjoy the game, and feel I'm getting my money's worth, but I have a few gripes with it. All in all, I'd recommend it if you like fantasy RPG titles.

 

Playing as a mage is a blast. Playing as any other class, much less so... click enemy, use skills 1, 2, and 3, wait until enemy dies. Wash, rinse, repeat. Pick up bigger swords when you find them (maybe a new sword every 2-3 hours of gameplay if you're playing fast).

Quests are lackluster, the story is predictable (including side stories), and the setting is cliche.

The dialog, however, scores an A+. It makes roleplaying actually kinda fun.

Overall, the game gets a C+ or B-.

 

Hmmmm.... Well, I dunno - I like the feel overall, and the graphics are good. The interactions between characters are pretty good, as well, and the fact that you really are free to choose your own path on the whole good vs evil thing.

Even with faults, I'd probably go B+ range; certainly not perfect (few games, if any, are!) but certainly worth playing if you like this style of game.

 

Sure, I can respect that view. Let's just leave it at that.

 

Best game I've played in the last 5 years.................yes including ME1 !

 

ME2 is much better than this IMO, but I think its still a pretty spectacular game. I am very pleased with BIOWARE's efforts the last few years.

 

As are the majority of games, produced today, including RPG's, FPS's, Strategy, you name it !

What game do you believe, recently produced, is original ?

Bioware went back to their roots with DAO's , which imo, is a good thing other companys might want to take notice of ! DAO sales don't look too shabby to me either !

 

I've had to put Dragon Age down, for the sake of my GPA.

Anyone here a part of the Bioware Social forums?

 

The Mass Effect series is one, which is incidentally made by Bioware.

And again, sales are not a good measure of how good something is, either.

 

my buddy is supposed to be dropping off dragon age for me some time soon.

i hope it lives up to the hype as i am a big fan of a good RPG.

 

The game is definatly an A for me, and i've played different rpgs in my life. None of them came close to the experience of this one.

 

Mass Effect is not ground breaking ! It's a hodge-podge of FPS,RPG/Strategy that trys to please the everyman......................just like FO3, which doesn't compare to FO1 and 2. Everything has been done already, the eye-candy is just better !

So when did people start to buy crapware in the milions ?

 

Cleary you never tried playing a game with a 'real' dragon.
Try these: Spyro the dragon; road to glimmer & Spyro the dragon: year of the dragon.
Those games will blow your mind away. Especially that 'year of the dragon' game, it has a flying pinguin with 2 rocketlaunchers on his shoulders, a kangaroo, you can do some boxing with yeti's (or was that in road to glimmer?), oh and the skateboarding is also way better than any tony hawk game could achieve ^^

 

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, although I think the Spyro series is for consoles which is slightly out of place in a notebook forum.

I like RPGs occasionally but I decided against buying the game since all reviews I've seen so far give me the same impressions as Bog with regards to the gameplay. The storyline is supposed to be quite solid but I'll pass and wait for the Witcher 2 to be released.

 

Look, I think we can agree that nobody is 100% original anymore. However, I think we can also agree that Bioware didn't even aim at being original in any way, shape or form with DA:O, which is fine since it's still a great game but don't use the whole "things aren't original anymore" because while it is true, some people still strive to do half original things or build on new ideas off old stuff. Bioware did not intend to do this IMO and that's fine.

 

Absolutely love the game, just having some trouble with the combat. I'm playing as a warrior, and it seems like I easily get stuck on various parts and my whole team dies while my warriors left tanking a big mob. I think it's because I get to distracted on my own character, and forget to micro-manage the rest of my team. Nonetheless, I love the game itself.

 

i'm pickin up this game on monday for only $30 bucks. i found a guy on my local forum selling a "like new" copy. supposedly he only played it for 5 mins and took it out cuz it wasn't his type of game. he said he'll give it to me for $10 or $20 bucks if i even find a scratch.

 

You don't have a clue what you're talking about when it comes to the meaning of the term "originality". Just because any piece of entertainment or art can be categorized into a genre, or multiple genres, does not make that piece of media unoriginal. The factors to consider in "originality" are things like:

- PC and NPC characterization
- game level design
- gameplay design
- storyline
- art design (this is completely different from graphics)

These are elements that are distinct, unique, new in every original game out there.

And speaking of buying crapware, I wouldn't regard you as a well-decided consumer, given that your criteria for measuring how good a game is consists of how much it has sold. "If a lot of other people are buying it, then it must be good" is not the thinking of a savvy consumer. This thinking is more along the lines of, "monkey see, monkey do."

 

Bog quite obviously has no soul, we should pity him and humor him a bit.

Let him feel he is right so he can fill that hole in his heart.

 

What's with all the aggression against Boq? He doesn't like Dragon Age, so what? He isn't exactly wrong in saying it's a cliche, because it is...

 

And thats exactly why I said Bioware went back to their roots ! Think Baldurs Gate !

 

Which is fine! See, Dragon Age being "unoriginal" or "cliche" doesn't mean it's bad, it just means that it isn't "new" in a sense. When you think about it, Lord of the Rings wasn't super revolutionary in its genre, yet it was a big success; mind you, LotR had smaller details which did set it apart from other fantasy stories, but in general it wasn't too groundbreaking, even for the fantasy genre.

 

I thought that was what he wanted, why else troll?

 

How is he trolling? He has a right to dislike a game and call it unoriginal/cliche. I think it(Dragon Age) is unoriginal yet nobody's calling me a troll -_-

To me it seems everyone doesn't want to hear him dislike DA:O so they call him a troll.

 

You have a right to an opinion, but not state it over and over again when you know that no body else really cares about it.

 

Then do precisely that: don't care about it. No offense to Bog in particular, but unhappy people tend to like to voice their unhappiness, more so than happy people.

Easy example: customer service. Unhappy people are usually those who bother to take the time to fill those surveys; satisfied customers just go on their merry way. Few of those happy people will take the initiative to show their happiness, but when someone is unhappy, the whole freakin' world needs to know and know why they're unhappy and how to "never do business with x people". See my point?

It's just how people are, negativity outrules positivity in our current society .

For the record, Bog only stated his opinion twice(in this thread), his subsequent statements were retaliations to people commenting against his comments.

Before you ask, I'm not Bog's lawyer(lol ), but calling people trolls and just trolling them afterwards is no better IMO and borders on hypocrisy. If you disagree with him, fine, say so. Once it's been said don't try and convert the other party! Sheesh >.>

 

it's Bog not Boq. 10 char

 

Fixed

10 char

 

I really don't like it. I absolutely loved Oblivion, but I can't get into this one. I just became a Grey Warden or whatever so I'm still pretty early in the game but I'm just not feeling the overall mechanics. No motivation to continue...haven't touched it in 3 weeks.

 

why are so many people bringing up oblivion? bioware marketing fail?

 

Really? At the time it was written, I thought only Conan existed