Review: Dragon Age: Origins

Since the release of Baldur's Gate in 1998, BioWare has cultivated a strong reputation for quality role-playing games, exploring various aspects of the genre ranging from traditional D&D roles and rules to space marine and Jedi Knights. Dragon Age: Origins is a shift back to traditional swords-and-sorcery standards, unashamedly embracing the archetypes that made RPGs what they are, and using them to tell a complex, interesting story in a familiar yet unexplored world. In addition, BioWare has done yet another iteration of their combat system to make it deeper and allow the player to dictate the level of engagement. The result is that Dragon Age: Origins is one of the best RPGs in recent history. Read on for the rest of my thoughts.

• Title: Dragon Age: Origins
• Developer: BioWare
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• System: Windows (Also: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Reviewer: Soulskill
• Score: 8/10

Character creation starts you off with a few simple choices that have far-reaching effects. There are three races (Human, Dwarf, Elf), and three classes (Warrior, Mage, Rogue), and they are much as you'd expect if you've ever played a fantasy RPG before. Depending on what you pick, one or two of the 'Origins' stories becomes available. These are short scenarios which detail the introduction of your character to the main plot line. For example, Human Rogues get their beginning as part of a noble house. Dwarf Warriors can choose either the dwarf noble or dwarf commoner starting areas, and both Elven and Human mages share a starter-story due to their class. (The only race restriction is that Dwarves can't be Mages.) These decisions affect how NPCs interact with your character throughout the game.

While only having three classes may seem limiting, your characters will have a high degree of customization as you start leveling up. You have talent trees (well, not so much 'trees' as 'lines') and each level gives you a talent point to spend. The talent lines are divided up into major fighting categories. The categories for Warriors are Dual Weapon, Archery, Weapon and Shield, and Two-Handed. Within each of these categories are sets of activated and passive abilities that grow progressively more powerful as you spend more talent points in that line.

The result of this is that you can easily have multiple Warriors in a group, each performing a different role and having different gameplay. One can swing a massive axe and lay waste to whatever he touches, and another can grab a shield and take on the tank role, utilizing a host of defensive talents. Mages get a similar selection of roles, and are able to play as elemental sorcerers, healers/buffers, or dabblers in the dark arts. On top of all this, each class has a set of four Specializations, which confer certain bonuses and unlock another set of abilities. Rogues can choose to become bards, which grants them songs to buff their party and mesmerize their enemies; they can also choose Assassin, making them better at finding weak spots, or Ranger, which lets them summon forest creatures to their aid. You get to pick a specialization at levels 7 and again at 14, but perhaps the most interesting part is how you acquire them. Some you can purchase, some are trained by various NPCs or party members, and others are unlocked by quests.

The stat system will be instantly familiar to anyone with experience in the genre; strength makes you hit harder, constitution makes you tougher, etc. It's quite simple, and the tooltips explain everything you need to know. Every level gives you three stat points to spend as you will. Various items and talents will have a stat requirement to use or acquire, but it's a fairly smooth progression. You won't typically have to wait very long to use that shiny new sword you picked up. There's no single, monolithic alignment system, but your actions will have an effect on how NPCs treat you. Perhaps more importantly, your actions will have an effect on how your group members feel about you. Each of them has an Approval Rating, which is a measure of how much they like you. Extreme ratings can unlock side plots — friendship and romance for high ratings, mutiny and abandonment for low ratings — and they can have an effect on the characters' stats.

The Approval system is a fun way to learn about each of your companions. There's a surprising amount of story to be told for each of them. Surprising, at least, until you realize how much story there is in the rest of the game. I was impressed by how often I had a meaningful choice in how the plot unfolded. That is, when the dialogue allowed for different options, they didn't feel like window dressing. (e.g. Do you want to kill him? Yes/No Yes. Are you sure? No/I Guess Not Damnit.) I just picked whichever option I felt like picking, and the plot still worked.

The story succeeds, by and large, for two reasons: the writing and the voice acting. BioWare made a lot of noise about getting some big names for Dragon Age: Origins (and they did; Kate Mulgrew, Claudia Black, Tim Curry, Steve Valentine, and Tim Russ, to name a few), but that isn't a guarantee of good voice work. Virtually all of the NPC dialogue in this game is spoken (you can skip through it if you care to; I rarely felt the need to), even when you're asking them about mundane things, so poor voice acting would be hard to tolerate after a while. But this cast turned in a performance that (sadly) I don't tend to expect from video games. What helped a lot in this regard is that the characters are very well written — which is to say they actually seem fleshed-out and believable, with a personality that's consistent from one scene to the next. The details of how the characters react to events and interact with each other are spot on. Your companions will occasionally trade jokes or insults at random times throughout the game, whether you're in the middle of dialogue or just wandering through a city.

Now, don't get me wrong; the plot itself is interesting too, but it's hard to tread new ground here (Doom threatens the world; a hero arises; things go wrong that the hero must put right), and the writers don't really worry about doing so. They're just trying to tell a cool story. Without spoiling too much, the Mage Tower story in the main plot is particularly fun. The writers leave you a trail of breadcrumbs to figure out what happened, dump you into fantasy land for a few puzzles and a different way of fighting, then top it off with an epic battle, all while maintaining an atmosphere of hopelessness and dread. What's more, all the different portions of the main plot are completely distinct, each with its own moral dilemmas, level layout, look, and back-story.

In addition to countless hours of dialogue, one big way BioWare goes about establishing their game world is through books, scrolls, and notes scattered around the areas you visit. When you click on them, they'll put a page or so of text in your Codex explaining who's who and what's what, so you're not inundated with a flood of made-up, fantasy-world names at any one time. The Codex entries are relevant to whatever task you're currently doing, and vary in form from dictionary-style explanation to diary entries to poems.

So, how about the gameplay? Many RPGs have met their downfall on the weakness of their combat mechanics, or have succeeded in spite of it. (I'll name no names, but one such rhymes with Moblivion.) Like several other BioWare games, you can pause the action and queue up an ability that will fire off when you un-pause. You can also take control of any other party member(s) whenever you please. Group size tops out at four, which allows a fair amount of micromanagement without becoming tedious. For general commands like attacking or movement, you can control multiple party members at once. There's not a lot of movement during combat. Rogues have bit of an incentive to move behind their targets, and mages will occasionally have cause to kite a monster, but most of the running you do will be to get your melee in range to hit something. My only major gripe is that melee classes tend to run out of stamina quickly, so for long battles they spend a lot of time auto-attacking.

Even with just that, it would be a solid combat system, but there are three other major features which allow you customize your level of engagement. First, there are four difficulty settings. Easy will let you basically just point-and-click to win. Normal will require some planning and pausing, and some potion use on the tougher fights. Hard makes you do a lot more micromanagement, use consumables often, and watch out for friendly fire. Nightmare is for people who should probably be medicated. Second, you can set generalized behaviors for each of your party members; this will make them run to seek a fight, run away, ignore it altogether, or a few other options.

Third is your Tactics page. This lets you set up responses to a large variety of actions or game states. For example, you can set a Mage to cast a heal when somebody drops below 50% health. Or, you could have your warrior tank run over to attack whatever monster is beating on your rogue. There are hundreds of trigger conditions neatly laid out in a set of drop-down menus. You can set some some fairly complex behavior if you'd like to, or just automate the basic tasks. When you put this whole system together, you end up being able to tailor the fighting to your personal preference for involvement. You can micromanage as much or as little as you want.

The UI is very streamlined and responsive. The camera is over-the-shoulder, and if you zoom out far enough it pulls back to an almost top-down, "tactical" view. (The console versions are restricted to over-the-shoulder.) For using your abilities, you have a boilerplate action bar, and your group portraits are off to the left for monitoring health and mana. If I were nitpicking, I'd say the health and mana bars should be somewhat thicker; they're a bit small to take in the whole group at a glance. Click-able bars pop up on the bottom of your screen whenever you get quest or codex updates (and a few other things), which makes it very easy to keep track of what's going on with the plot. You can hold down a button to highlight everything on screen that you can interact with (chests, NPCs, monsters, loot-able corpses, quest items, doors), so finding what you're looking for is dead easy.

That streamlining carries over into the gameplay as well. Any of your party members who fall in battle come back to life if the remaining characters win the fight. It's silly from a realism perspective, but at the same time it saves me from spending 30 seconds casting Resurrection every other battle or keeping 500 Phoenix Downs in my bags. (Though, oddly, characters come back to life with injuries — minor stat debuffs — that require an item or a visit to base camp to heal.) Itemization is perhaps a victim of this streamlining. As I leveled up, I naturally picked up better gear, but it never felt like the items made a significant difference. On the other hand, stat gains from leveling were constant, and new talents provided obvious improvements. Quests are sometimes quite simplistic because of the interface as well, but those quests mainly exist to serve the narrative. I expected this to bother me, but it didn't; I just wanted to see where the story was going.

Dragon Age: Origins has a ton of (quality) playtime in it; even more when you consider replayability. I'm sure I could go through the entire game again and have a largely different experience, both in story and in combat. (I tend to stick with a group configuration I like, so one of my potential companions has been sitting on the sidelines the whole time, and I slightly killed another one. Not to mention different talent choices and specializations.) BioWare didn't blaze a new trail within the genre, but they succeeded in their effort to create a game that presents a new, fun take on the familiar with elegance and polish. (And Claudia Black.)

Comments

Black Isle

[jgtg32a]

Hopefully next year Black Isle or whatever they're called these days will get hold of this engine and make an absolutely amazing game

...

with a minimum of 4 game ending bugs forcing us to wait at least 3 years for the modding community to fix them all.

Re:Black Isle

[Samalie]

Black Isle Studios is LONG dead, killed by the once-mighty and now defunct hand of Interplay.

The closest remaining to BIS is Obsidian Entertainment, which was founded by some of the old BIS people. Their credit is Neverwinter Nights II, while some would also argue that Obsidian has shown it is Full of Fail with KOTOR II.

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

how about "maybe they'll actually release a complete game and not ask people to buy an addon with the original release".

I'll pass, pass, not buying this for this exact reason. Oh and slashdot's sellout here is disappointing. The more people try to milk a game beyond it's cost the longer before they actually develop something new and interesting.

Re:Black Isle

[TheKidWho]

You're implying they didn't developing something new and interesting to begin with which is wrong IMHO. The game is very well done and they have spent almost 7 years developing it.

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

I was also disappointed by the requirement of buying additional content for the game right out of the box. They don't even tell you straight up that you need to purchase it - the game justs asks that you register or log in to your account so that you can download the content. And THEN they tell you that you need to buy it. I was annoyed, though not surprised, about this.

The game is excellent by itself though. You don't need the extra special content at all. I wouldn't boycott the game over this issue, just choose not to buy the extra content. I'm sure that there will be some fan-made content that will be just as good, if not better, though lacking in the voice acting department. (o:

Re:Black Isle

[Chaotic222]

KOTOR 2 was unfinished, but still good until the end. With the missing content restored by a modding project, it's great. And MotB, the first expansion for NWN2, was also great. Both games are similar to Black Isle classics like PS:T. For someone who misses Black Isle, Obsidian is pretty much the only substitute nowadays.

Re:Black Isle

[stagg]

It is very much a complete game. I hate DLC as much as anyone else, but it's not like they hacked pieces out of the original game and offered them up for sale. The DLC is extra, totally unnecessary, and IMHO not that impressive. I'd try not to confuse hating DLC and hating the original product, if you do that you risk missing out on enjoyment you could otherwise appreciate. ;)

Re:Black Isle

[Cornflake917]

The more people try to milk a game beyond it's cost the longer before they actually develop something new and interesting.

It's a shame that game companies actually have to, you know...make money...if they want to survive in the industry.

Re:Black Isle

[cheesybagel]

KOTOR II was good IMO. It was more of the same, but more of the same when the original was good isn't bad.

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

if you make a, oh you know, not a shitty game in the first place, that money part is not an issue.

Indie devs happen to make serious money that way too, as an easy aside world of goo and gratuitous space battles are two games that have been successful and done by indie developers.

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

from what I heard, they actually offer the DLC content as a quest in game that you'll get a "you must buy this to do it" type thing.

that's about as hard a sell short of in game/loading screen advertising that you can get.

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not required. Stop trolling.

Re:Black Isle

[TheKidWho]

How is the Gameplay/storyline shitty?

Re:Black Isle

[Chyeld]

This sort of money grab is inevitiablly countered by my own purchasing tactics: Wait till it's on a 50% off sale.

The more expensive the game, the longer they have to wait to get my $30. And lets face it, no matter how orgasmic it is, there isn't a dereth of good cheap games waiting to be played out there these days. The age of "you better buy it now because they'll stop selling it in six months and you'll only be able to find it used on ebay then" is long dead now that digital distribution is around.

Re:Black Isle

[Narpak]

Hopefully next year Black Isle or whatever they're called these days will get hold of this engine and make an absolutely amazing game.

I for one would not object to a remake of Planescape: Torment.

Re:Black Isle

[Narpak]

Oh and slashdot's sellout here is disappointing.

I don't see how "slashdot" are selling out as the dude posting the review is writing down his personal opinion.

Personally I don't mind DLC, if the game is good I'll happily shell out a few bucks for a bit more gameplay and/or shinies.

Re:Black Isle

[stagg]

The problem with game remakes is rights. My only insights here are from working with Bioware briefly, but I understand that the rights to a lot of their older games are all over the damn place. In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission. It sure doesn't help that the gaming industry is absurdly unstable, with small companies being bought, swallowed or merging left right and center. My understanding is that these days rights are handled a lot more solidly, but that a lot of old material is going to remain unavailable. (Thank god for torrents or some of them might vanish entirely.)

Re:Black Isle

[jgtg32a]

So instead of a ? over the quest givers head there is a $

Re:Black Isle

[RMingin]

Did you finish it? Did you (not) notice the absurd truncation and lack of ending? Multiple party PCs just DROP OFF THE FLIPPING PLANET, never to be mentioned again. The main PC suddenly makes a few leaps of location and status and is fighting the Big Bads. This was the result of Obsid. getting the 'release now or never' deadline from the publisher, after delays. There are tons of now-unused voice and animation clips left in the data files, from the very raggedly axed endings.

I would mind this less if they patched it up and restored it in patches, then released a completed GOTY edition, or somesuch, but instead they all scattered and ran as KOTOR2 flopped, besmirching the KOTOR brand near-fatally.

Re:Black Isle

[_KiTA_]

if you make a, oh you know, not a shitty game in the first place, that money part is not an issue.

Indie devs happen to make serious money that way too, as an easy aside world of goo and gratuitous space battles are two games that have been successful and done by indie developers.

Dragon Age Origins is ANYTHING but a shitty game. It's great. The DLC is more a fuck you to glorified video game Pawn shops like Gamestop, as you are given it for free if you buy the game new but have to pay $15 if you buy it used. Since Gamestop is rather evil, I'm all for this.

Re:Black Isle

[Chyeld]

You are aware there is a patch out there now that restores a good bit of that content to working order?

And as much as I understand your frustration with them not updating KOTOR 2 themselves, when you are a game developer attempting to make ends meet, if the folk who paid you to make the game aren't willing to pay for you to update it, then it doesn't really matter your intentions, you can't afford to throw development time down the drain on unpaid projects.

Re:Black Isle

[Schadrach]

It's the "digital deluxe" edition content, which you can purchase separately if you didn't pay out for said digital deluxe version outright.

The big piece of content that people are complaining about being "required" is a stash box for persistent storage, which I have and haven't ever really used, since I dump most of my unwanted consumables and "generic" armor on a vendor, though I'll probably use it for various no longer used magical doodads before the game is over.

Although I will admit the DLC companion is my favorite party member so far, I typically run Leilana, Alistair and Shale, with Alistair and Shale both set up like tanks.

Re:Black Isle

[Schadrach]

Actually, following the general reasoning people have shown on here, if you had to buy the "deluxe" version to get the content and it was otherwise inaccessible, that would be fine? If you had to buy the "deluxe" version and then register the key online to download it (as an antipiracy measure), but it was completely inaccessible otherwise, that would also be fine? The problem emerges entirely because you can buy the regular version and then pay more afterward to purchase the "deluxe" content if you didn't pay for it to begin with?

Or is it because of how they phrased it on everything, where it sounds less like "you can buy the extra stuff that came with the "digital deluxe" version if you want it but didn't buy that version to being with" and more "Here's DLC you can buy, digital deluxe users can check in their serial and get it free"? I mean, that's more or less a matter of semantics.

Re:Black Isle

[Narpak]

Oh there is no rush. We'll just have to wait until 2074 when it becomes public domain ;)

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

KOTOR 2 wasn't even finished, that was the travesty.

I actually quite liked the improvements they made to the gameplay and character interactions though.

Re:Black Isle

[Z34107]

This is kind of true, but it's not as dire as you make it seem. The DLC is just side quests; they contribute to the story but they're in no way essential to the game's plot.

You access the DLC through in-game NPCs, like you say; that's how they tie the side-quests into the main story. If you don't have the DLC, there's a "(Purchase this DLC) Let me think about that..." dialog option that opens the EA store in-game. If you don't want to shell out for the DLC, you don't have to do the side quests.

That said, the base game is massive. My cousin and I both bought it and hacked away at it without sleep over the weekend. The game claims were 8% and 10% done, after two days and who knows how many hours. So, it doesn't look like they butchered the core game to sell DLC!

Re:Black Isle

[greenreaper]

It's a !

Re:Black Isle

[Sparklepony]

The game is just as "complete" without any of the DLC installed, actually. The addons are just that - addons, extra stuff, things that aren't really necessary. There's 80+ hours of gameplay (including plenty of side quests) already in the game out of the box.

Re:Black Isle

[jgtg32a]

Oh yeah, that's right. All I can say is I've been clean for 9 months

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

who said it was shitty? I never even tried it, as I said. I'm just saying the money excuse people pull all the time is because lots of released games nowadays *are* shitty and half assed releases with payable side-content or a payable beta or just straight up stupid cash stores. There are seriously few exceptions to that.

Dragon age seems to get good reviews, but there are enough other games on the way that this will likely just pass under my radar. Really, we've seen like 6 or 8 actual good games lately be released for all systems. Even I, who said I would avoid paying for games in perpetuity, have ended up paying for a few lately.

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

see my reply above, I'm not saying DAO is bad, just that lots of games do use the money excuse and are shitty games.

Re:Black Isle

[MaineCoon]

The base game comes with codes for 2 of those DLC items. They are also available for purchase separately for anyone who gets the game second hand and wants them.

None of them are necessary in any way to play the game.

Re:Black Isle

[nomadic]

Did you finish it? Did you (not) notice the absurd truncation and lack of ending?

Yes, that really, really sucked, but even with that KOTOR was still a good game. It just missed being amazing; the potential was there, in fact up to the truncation I think it was better than KOTOR 1 storywise.

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

Many new games are $33, if that's cheap enough.

Borderlands 4 pack split or Left 4 dead 4 pack split. All you have to do is pick the gaming forum of your choice (or discussion forum) and find 3 other people to get in on it. Took me ~20 minutes with goons.

Neither game is amazing, but both are fun multiplayer games that don't have crazy recurring subscriptions or something.

Re:Black Isle

[Ceiynt]

Since it is based on DnD, they should really only have to ask WoTC for permission to do it. Everyone else would get a notice in a trade industry publication stating, "Looking for all 3rd party rights holders for said IP. You have until 20xx to speak up, or your claimed rights to said property are forfeit for said new imaging of said property, as per current IP holder."

Re:Black Isle

[Chyeld]

Many (but not most) new games are $30 if you go to the effort of looking for deals and are willing to then buy the DLC separately.

Most no longer new games will be $30 with DLC included, eventually, if you are willing to wait and don't need to be the first kid on your block to play it.

I used to buy games impulsively due to the fact that in the 80's and 90's it was anyone's guess how long a game would be on the shelf. And once they were gone, they were gone. But in today's day and age, if a game manages to drop off the edge of the Earth it's normally because it was crap and not worth paying for.

Throw as many "you pay as much for a few hours at the movies" arguements at me as you wish, it's been a long, long time that I've come across a game that was so "WOW" that I've felt paying $50-70 bucks for the 'privilege' of being in the first wave of people playing it was actually a worthwhile investment. And as long as year old (and older) games are being bargain binned on things like Steam, it's likely I never will again.

Do you know what they were charging for Mass Effect this weekend? $10.

Do you know what they'll be charging for DAO in a year or two? $10.

I can wait. I picked up Oblivion finally this year, I've still got to find time to play either of the Far Cry games, and even if I push those out of the way, I've got ~80 more A list titles from the 2000's that I paid a pittance for and are just waiting for me to pick up.

That reminds me, I never did get around to finishing Psychonauts ...

Re:Black Isle

[sqlrob]

if you make a, oh you know, not a shitty game in the first place, that money part is not an issue.

yeah, Okami really tore up the charts.

Good != sells well, Bad != doesn't sell well.

Re:Black Isle

[negRo_slim]

You are aware there is a patch out there now [deadlystream.com] that restores a good bit of that content to working order?

On that note, we are all aware of Unfinished Business for BG 1 & 2 correct?

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. It took me a little over 50 hours of in-game time before I beat the game. And that is only playing as 1 out of the three races as 1 out of three character classes. People who complain about the DLC for this title are idiots -- the game is SO FUCKING huge as it is..

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

You tool. The game was released with two, TWO DLC available. One of them is FREE as it was suppose to be included in the game. The other is not - nothing to see here..move along.

The PA guy is just trolling at this point. It is a good game with many, many hours of enjoyment.

Re:Black Isle

[AlamedaStone]

Hopefully next year Black Isle or whatever they're called these days will get hold of this engine and make an absolutely amazing game.

I for one would not object to a remake of Planescape: Torment.

What can change the nature of a game?

Re:Black Isle

[Z34107]

I replied below about how the game is ridiculously long WITHOUT the DLC, and how the DLC adds non-essential side quests and extras as opposed to being mandatory or why-the-heck-did-I-have-to-pay-extra-for-that-ish.

But, the DLC actually adds some value in this case. Go play Dragon Age Journeys. It's a free flash game that's kind of a cross between Diablo II and Heroes of Might and Magic. Earning "achievements" in the flash game gets you items that you download as DLC in Dragon Age proper.

It's kind of a nifty feature, and it gives me something to do during philosophy lecture...

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

The dude posting the review works for Slashdot.

Re:Black Isle

[nomadic]

In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission.

Trust me, with Planescape it would be worth the effort. Best game ever.

Re:Black Isle

[PopeRatzo]

Hopefully next year Black Isle or whatever they're called these days will get hold of this engine and make an absolutely amazing game

While we're at it, can we also hope for "whatever they're called these days" to set this game-to-be in a world that doesn't have dragons and swords and medieval drag?

I keep praying for a game with the depth and detail of Dragon Age or Oblivion (or any of the many others) that doesn't resemble the airbrushed scene on the side of a 1979 Dodge Van belonging to someone wearing a mullet.

Fallout 3 was a step in the right direction. I'd really like to see a game of this level of imagination and care based on one of the novels of Richard K. Morgan. I could totally go for playing the Takeshi Kovacs character from Woken Furies.

Re:Black Isle

[mabhatter654]

but as Tycho pointed out over at PA, he ran out and bought the BOXED collector's edition and they didn't include the extra content... why would you spend money on a "premium" product with no extra content or pay extra only to get the "download only" version?

The idea is that they're assuming you'll buy the extra content to the point NPCs are asking you right in the game to get it. I don't think DLC is a bad idea... the other option is to make subscription games like WoW but people can't afford more than one or two of those. Packs don't always work because due to the internet it's hard to keep the surprise factor going... everybody finds a walk thru spoiling the "fun" factor like 5 minutes before buying it. I think the "magazine" model might work, having small, interconnected pieces but you don't have to buy all of them... about the only game to really pull this off was the Sims though.

I think it's the presumptuous part that they're not even bothering to add DLC as a pack or download later... it's just in-your-face to pay them more money and they're going to do it in the game, not at a news or logon screen.

Re:Black Isle

[mattack2]

I agree with you, but Okami is now $20 (PS2, less than that for Wii, at least via Amazon). At least one of the comments there says that this is a 'greatest hits' release. Isn't that based upon actual sales figures?

Re:Black Isle

[Nazlfrag]

They never said it was required. They said it was pushed in their face and they were dissapointed by this, but it's still a great game. Who's the troll?

Re:Black Isle

[sqlrob]

Last figures I had heard was around 200K, and wikipedia mentions 270K. I have trouble believing it hit the 1M for greatest hits, although it does show in the greatest hits list there.

Re:Black Isle

[darthvader100]

I think it was better than KOTOR 1 storywise.

The storyline was better than kotor1?
Which version were you playing? It can't have been the obsidian version. The main goal is to save 4 jedi, and then if you are good or bad they still all die(what the hell one of them died before you got there, leading to the second most boring planet in the game)

And the prize for most boring planet in the game goes to....
That awful asteroid ship depot thing at the beginning. It has about 15 million cross eyed robots that couldn't hit a large country if they tried.

But turning your party to jedi is cool, right? Not really when they only start getting force points 4/5 of the way through the game then good luck in getting them any decent powers
Even the villains sucked. Notice the big face on the box? He is only named in the game after you kill him
Even the boxart is wrong 3/4 of the pictures on the back are *impossible* to achieve from having lighsabers too early to having a female PC with the NPC you only get if you play as a male.
Even the plot line was broken. Revan was trying to bring down the republic to *save* it? Oh yes Sith regularly try and save the galaxy(because that is what sith do)
In the first section there is a bug that freezes your character when running through some smoke. The only way through is to use an adrenal stimulant or target an enemy on the other side
Character interactions were also mucked up
eg. near the end of the game, NAME used to replace the real name to avoid spoilers>
Handmaiden: My name is actually NAME
~~random conversation~~
Player:So what is your name?
NAME:I'm not telling you that, i don't know you well enough

KotOR was the best game i have ever played(it just had so much awesome) and it is what episode 1-3 should have been. It had all the best parts of the original trilogy redesigned with an exciting plot and fun characters
KotOR2 on the other hand is most likely the worst game i have ever played(and will not be trying NWN2 because of it), dropped plotlines, and oh so many bugs

Re:Black Isle

[TheKidWho]

Uhh the collector's edition most definitely includes the DLC, it just has to be downloaded with a coupon code that comes with the game.

Re:Black Isle

[TheKidWho]

Bioware also made KOTOR and Mass Effect which take place in a futuristic world.

Re:Black Isle

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should read the post I was replying to?

It starts,

I was also disappointed by the requirement of buying additional content

Re:Black Isle

[Nazlfrag]

Followed by: "the game justs asks that you register or log in to your account so that you can download the content. And THEN they tell you that you need to buy it."

He's disappointed in that if he wants the extra content which appears to be a free download he is in fact required to buy it.

It also states: "You don't need the extra special content at all."

Try reading the whole post before dismissing it as a troll.

Re:Black Isle

[Schadrach]

There's a "collector's edition" of some kind that's midway between the base version and the "digital deluxe" edition apparently, which doesn't provide access to both pieces of launch day DLC.

Re:Black Isle

[Anzya]

So... reviewing a game is now selling out? Would it be less "selling out" if they gave it a bad score or would that be selling out to their competitors?

Are you still beating your wife?

Re:Black Isle

[Don_dumb]

Seconded.
I was playing Dragon Age Journeys over the weekend while I wait for DAO to turn up. The fact that this might give me extra stuff for the game just adds to the fun.

Re:Black Isle

[TheKidWho]

No, there isn't. Unless you have a link to prove it, there is only the Base game, Digital Deluxe Edition, and Collector's Edition.

Both the Digital Deluxe and Collector's Edition contain codes for the all of the DLC.

In fact, 2/3 of the DLC is free to begin with, the only one that costs money is Warden's Keep DLC which is included in the DDE and CE.

Re:Black Isle

[Mursk]

I can try to find a link later when I'm not at work, but I got the collector's edition; it comes with Stone Prisoner only, not Warden's Keep. I think only the "digital deluxe" edition comes with both.

Re:Black Isle

[Fozzyuw]

First, I think the in-game DLC note is actually quite a good (usable) way to implement DLC. It ties the extra right into the game, so you can understand what you may/may not be buying into. Instead of, say, buying some DLC and it just being a tacked on side game.

Second, haven't spent more than a few minutes with this game yet. One of the reasons is I'm waiting for my bigger better gaming computer to come in so I can crank up the graphics. Second reason is, I saw the "mage" class can specialize into "shapeshifters". I thought this sounded kind of cool, so I started a mage. Except, I don't see a single mention of shape-shifting powers in "talent tree" thing. I was wondering if this was one of those DLC things or if there's some other thing you do to play a shapeshifter class?

I guess I'll find out later on when I actually sit down and try to play through it some. I'm looking forward to trying it, for sure!

Re:Black Isle

[Z34107]

If you look on your character sheet when you level up (the one where you place your stat points) you should see four specialties you can unlock. NPCs in your party can teach you these skills, if your approval with them is high enough.

For example, Morrigan is a shapeshifter and can teach you as well if you can make her think you're not scum of the earth. Likewise, Allister can teach Templar abilities, and I'm sure other NPCs can teach different things.

But, it's not DLC!

Re:Black Isle

[Alvara]

You get to sub class options at L7 and again at L14. A mage can become a shape shifter. To get this option, I believe you have to convince Morrigan to teach you. Or find a book for sale at one vendor or another, that teaches you. I am my second play through now. Graphics are good, though I have seen a lot of places they could be better. But. It is the story and game play that make this game great. imo

Re:Black Isle

[poetmatt]

Oh, I agree. Not only that, but you don't end up spending an arm and a leg on software.

For actual online games, if you start late, you may miss a community. Otherwise, buying games late really doesn't signify anything really, except that maybe the bugs are fixed by the time you buy it for $10.

In the past 4 years I've maybe bought 8 games or so total, so I wouldn't consider myself a power buyer either.

Re:Black Isle

[Fozzyuw]

Very interesting. Thanks for the info!

Re:Black Isle

[Petrushka]

That reminds me, I never did get around to finishing Psychonauts ...

... which, incidentally, has just recently become available on GOG (i.e. DRM-free), priced at 10 USD.

Re:Black Isle

[mcvos]

KOTOR 2 was unfinished, but still good until the end. With the missing content restored by a modding project, it's great. And MotB, the first expansion for NWN2, was also great. Both games are similar to Black Isle classics like PS:T. For someone who misses Black Isle, Obsidian is pretty much the only substitute nowadays.

Like PS:T? Really? To me, the description of Dragon Age: Origins sounds much more like PS:T than NWN2 does. Intra-party banter, party members each having their own story, and really, really, tons and tons of story in the game. That's what PS:T was, and that's what this review sounds like too.

But what made PS:T really unique is that you're not a generic hero come to save the world. You're just trying to figure out who the hell you are. The main storyline is entirely about you, and and that got you involved in the story in a way that no other CRPG has ever accomplished. I mean, KotOR also sort-of revolved around you, but not in the way that PS:T did. Unfortunately Dragon Age doesn't seem to be missing that aspect completely.

Re:Black Isle

[mcvos]

Also an interesting link is the comic they made about it.

Even so, DLC doesn't mean the original game lacks content. From what I understand, the game has tons and tons of it. That they try to pimp some additional DLC sucks, but doesn't have to hurt the rest of the game. You could punish them for trying to sell DLC this way, but you might also end up punishing the makers of a really good game.

Personally I'm very wary of all those expansions, DLC and other additions for games, and especially expansions that are basically a completely new story. Why try to sell that as an add-on? Why not sell it as a stand-alone game? Don't invent a new engine for each new game, but re-use the same engine as long as its good enough, and publish more games at a lower price. That sounds like a much more effective business model, if you ask me.

Re:Black Isle

[mcvos]

Perhaps you should read the post I was replying to?

It starts,

I was also disappointed by the requirement of buying additional content

And that's apparently when you hit the reply button. Maybe you should read the rest of what he said.

Re:Black Isle

[mcvos]

In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission.

In order to make an official remake or sequel, they would. But to make a game like Torment (but differing in all the ways that matter to copyright/trademark lawyers), they wouldn't need anyone's permission. To make a game making use of D&D material, they just need WotC's permission.

Re:Black Isle

[brkello]

Yes, which doesn't apply in this case so it makes your point meaningless. Quite frankly, all you are saying is that good games make more money then bad ones. I don't think that point needs to be made.

Re:Black Isle

[bmatt17]

wrong! only the DDE comes with Wardens keep. This is to make up for the physical items(cloth map) that you don't get in the boxed CE. All new copies of the game get Stone Prisoner, even the base game.

Sounds good

[dusanv]

I was a huge fan of the Baldur's Gate (got both PC and Mac versions of all of them) series so I'll be getting this. It also helps to know that there's no DRM other than the disk check. So Bioware have come to their senses after the excursion into the DRM land with Mass Effect (that was using the dreaded SecurROM).

Re:Sounds good

[Killer Orca]

Good to know, this plus Left 4 Dead 2 and Borderlands are all making compelling cases for me to finally build out a gaming PC.

Re:Sounds good

[Spazztastic]

Good to know, this plus Left 4 Dead 2 and Borderlands are all making compelling cases for me to finally build out a gaming PC.

I went over the top with mine and I have to say it was certainly worth it 100%. Nothing beats being able to play a game like Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Fear 2, all at full specs. You can budget it and still play them very comfortably for about $1200 (Including keyboard, mouse, case).

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

That and laughing at all the kiddies playing their games on consoles!

No really though, once you get spoiled to the high fidelity of a well built gaming PC, it's hard to go back to consoles.

Re:Sounds good

[Spazztastic]

That and laughing at all the kiddies playing their games on consoles!

No really though, once you get spoiled to the high fidelity of a well built gaming PC, it's hard to go back to consoles.

Once you get used to a keyboard and mouse you can't go back to a console. I had trouble adapting. Not to mention the number of other things you can do with a high powered computer. I donate my spare cycles to Folding@Home.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry if this is a noob question but is there PvP in this game? I played the baulders gate series a long time ago, and i can't remember...

I went to their site but didn't find it after reading all the FAQ's

thanks

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

It's strictly a single player game, so no.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

Except you can only play it on high fidelity for a relatively short window of time compared to consoles. That's why people get consoles - because while you "only" get the resolution of HD, you never have to worry about upgrading anything.

After you get to a certain age, you care more about having fun and playing the game rather than higher pixel counts and running on the upgrade treadmill.

Re:Sounds good

[Ceiynt]

Do you even know what the hell the game is? It's single player. PvP in single player? Only if the other player is the AI, which is called PvE.

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

Last I checked, an 8800GT from 2 years ago can still run any game released today at very high quality settings. Except Crysis...

Re:Sounds good

[Chyeld]

Once you get used to a keyboard and mouse you can't go back to a console. I had trouble adapting. Not to mention the number of other things you can do with a high powered computer. I donate my spare cycles to Folding@Home.

Congratulations, I honestly don't know if you are trolling or just ignorant of the fact that the PS3 lets you do the same. That said, I do think PCs are still the high end of the gaming quality spectrum.

Re:Sounds good

[Cederic]

On the flipside, as you get older you can afford the upgrades, and you care more about having fun than about learning the complex and finger-breaking control system on the controller to play the game that uses your tv preventing your partner from watching it while you play.

Not to mention the riotous joy of 4 person Borderlands in full 1920x1200 beauty with mouse aiming and in-game text chat.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought my version off of Steam. No need for a disk check, and the install is rather streamlined.

Also, Steam had a $10 off discount on today (Nov 8), if I recall.

Re:Sounds good

[RMingin]

Conversely, if that new title gets choppy and stutters at certain points in the game, console owners are boned and just suck it down, while PC users can investigate, tweak settings, or even make a strategic hardware upgrade, and it's fixed.

Don't tell me it doesn't happen, I played Army of Two on X360. If you want more recent but less severe, Halo: ODST got rather ragged at several places.

Re:Sounds good

[vishbar]

Is Crysis considered the be-all-and-end-all test of graphics cards because of super high quality graphics or super inefficient graphics programming?

Not trying to troll, I'm really curious.

Re:Sounds good

[Spazztastic]

Congratulations, I honestly don't know if you are trolling or just ignorant of the fact that the PS3 lets you do the same. That said, I do think PCs are still the high end of the gaming quality spectrum.

Congratulations, you're jumping to conclusions! Yes, I know the PS3 allows you to do it as well -- PS3 is the group with the most points and work units. I was simply stating one of the many things that a high end computer can do.

Anybody who read my comment and took what I said as trolling probably owns a PS3 or is just trying to bait me or others into an argument, like you just did.

Re:Sounds good

[Chyeld]

Wikipedia!

"Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1 GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders.

Crysis is often used as a benchmark in computer tests, as Crysis with the highest settings and resolutions requires a very powerful PC."

My personal opinion is that it's a little from category A and a little from category B.

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

Super High Quality Graphics IMO. The game looks jaw dropping on a high end system at high resolution.

Re:Sounds good

[UttBuggly]

Good to know, this plus Left 4 Dead 2 and Borderlands are all making compelling cases for me to finally build out a gaming PC.

Indeed! I "salvaged" some parts to build a dual-core PC with 4GB of RAM and an nVidia 8800GT to play Left 4 Dead.

I pre-ordered L4D2 to play the demo...pretty good stuff, by the way...then bought Borderlands because my son was raving about it.

Spent this last weekend taking a Soldier up to Level 15. I was doing the "Sledge's Safehouse" mission, got the Mine Key, fought my way out, and couldn't remember where I parked my car. No problem, I think, I'll trot back to turn in the mission and just kill more stuff on the way.

I was leaning over a cliff to snipe skags and accidently fell into the midst of about 12 Adult and Spitter Skags. Bad news for me...my Scorpio Turret got some before I went down under 5-6 beasties. Got a Second Wind twice, but eventually died and was eaten.

I love this game.....

Re:Sounds good

[Chyeld]

1. If it were obvious that you were trolling, I wouldn't have congratulated you on being so subtle that I couldn't tell.
2. If you post in the middle of a "PCs are better than consoles because..." thread with something along the lines of "plus look what else I can do with my PC!" one sort of expects that "what else" to be exclusive to PCs. Otherwise you are just adding a non sequitur to the mix. Why mention it if it's not exclusive.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

REALLY? It's just a plain disk check? Wow.

I'm amazed. I am a great deal more interested in buying this game. I just assumed it would be the usual online registration/phone home stuff, and I hate going through all that nonsense every time it starts or if I build a new machine and have to reinstall. Also, I wish to support game developers that care enough about their customers not to put them through that rigmarole. I'll have to check other reviews, but this is looking better than I expected.

Re:Sounds good

[SB5]

"The result of this is that you can easily have multiple Warriors in a group"

I thought it was single player till I read that line in the review.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem, It was EA that forced the DRM on Mass Effect. The pushing chargable DLC also stinks of EA. I know that Bioware had "premium" mods for Neverwinter Nights but it was still open for everyone else to produce free mods. I know that Bioware may have defended the DLC as if it was their idea but I very much doubt it was theirs. They defend it because EA told them to. Much in the same way the David Cage of Quantic Dream defended "Heavy Rain" being a PS3 exlusive with ludicrous assertions such as believing that people would buy the console just to play one game. I really don't think he would be foolish enough to think that being locked to not just a single console but the console that had the worst launch in recent history would do them any good.

It looks like we are beginning to see the formation of EA's strategy to drive Bioware into the ground. EA has obliterated every single successful company they have acquired. Every single company that was an important part of the game industry's history. Developers that kept delivering one hit after another until they were acquired by EA and now no one even remembers them. Developers like Origin Systems and Bullfrog.

Re:Sounds good

[Toonol]

Once you get used to a keyboard and mouse you can't go back to a console.

Works both ways. Once you get used to using sitting on a couch using a controller, it's hard to go back to playing with a keyboard/mouse in front of your monitor. Ideally, you do both, I suppose. Neither platform is 'superior', they're just different niches.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I don't really care that my console is inferior to a PC. That doesn't matter, what matters is I put the disk in, and it works. No having to mess with settings, etc. I admit its much better than the DOS days, but its still not to the point of insert disk, game works.

If I want to see a ton of graphics, etc, I'll watch tech demos on youtube. What I want from my game is fun. I'll certainly take lower graphics and more fun, than higher graphics and less fun.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't upgraded my PC in at least a year, probably two. It still plays everything fine, and I can play multiplayer without giving money to Microsoft regularly. Consoles are slightly easier than PCs, yes, but PCs are hardly arcane. Do a little research, buy high-end hardware from the last generation, and you'll do just fine. And you can do what you like with it, not what Microsoft allows you to do.

Re:Sounds good

[sqlrob]

Once you get used to a keyboard and mouse you can't go back to a console.

Baloney. I started on PC and don't have a problem with consoles.

Re:Sounds good

[Lord_Jeremy]

Yeah pretty much everything on the Infinity Engine was great. However NeverWinter Nights for a long time made me think that there's no way a 3D RPG could ever be good. Oblivion only reinforced that sentiment. Then I played Mass Effect a few weeks ago and had a ton of fun. Granted it's more of an FPS that an RPG, but the storyline was great (BioWare quality) and overall I love the game. Anyway this review is piquing my interest, and I'm tempted to pick up this game and see how it is. I'm a little wary of that fact that it's not based on the tried and true Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, but I'm wondering if that's what has held back so many RPGs.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

You both sound like assholes, STFU.

Re:Sounds good

[GryMor]

It is single player. What about having multiple characters of the same class in your party makes you think it isn't?

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing those games on my now older AMD 6000+ (dual 3.1 ghz) and ATI 4870 and 2 GB of RAM at max video settings, usually at 1280x1024, some at 1920x1080 depending on the game. You could build a $600 (minus monitor) computer that would play these games at max video.

Re:Sounds good

[MBGMorden]

Common mistake - this game, much like the majority of Bioware's previous single player games, allows you to have multiple characters under your control at once. It's single player with 1 player that your create and several other NPC's that are also under your direct control.

If you're familiar with the WOW system, imagine multiboxing 4 different toons in a dungeon, except that the interface to do so it built into the game so no need to switch computers, and you can pause the game at any time in order to issue commands to your party members.

Having spent most of the weekend playing this, I must say I have been thoroughly impressed. I've not missed any of Bioware's RPG's since Baldur's Gate came out, and this has a very nice depth. Feels much like BG2.

Re:Sounds good

[the bear troll]

You can always buy a 360 controller for your PC.

It's a bit spotty with older games, but a lot of newer titles support it.

Re:Sounds good

[Creepy]

There is DRM of a sort, though - any premium content including stuff you might have gotten with the game (e.g. preorders) require the PC to be connected to the Internet when you start the game or that content is not available. This is rather annoying when you have the game installed on a laptop like I do.

So far, the game seems pretty solid, but is certainly not without flaw. It still has the partial "rails" feel of NWN2 and Mass Effect which for me is always a nick in Bioware games (take a week and read about threads and background loading already), but the voice acting and plot seem quite good. I've played the first part of the game as a Thief, Mage, and Warrior and by far Warrior is easiest (except the Ogre), followed by Mage (freezie-mage is massively unbalancing though - makes Ogre easy even on Hard), and melee Rogue, which is extremely difficult even on Normal (light armor and hard AoE knockback hits made me suck down health too much - had to keep my rogue back and melee alternated tanking - probably easier with missile rogue). There also are parts of the game where you get an optional order to do things in, but there are no hints - in particular, I was having horrible problems with a rogue in the fade (having only 1 health potion left didn't help...) and had to hit a cheats site that basically told me the optimal order to do the quests - then it was trivial. The game also is fairly heavily geared toward combat - if you don't have some combat skills the game will be nearly impossible in some areas even on easy (I tried speccing a thief in talk skills and stealth - doesn't work). Basically, there is no way to win without combat - lots of it, so it doesn't offer a lot of gameplay styles.

So the reality is, I still have yet to find a game that gets all the parts right. Gothic 1 was close - it had good plot and voice acting and decent gameplay in an excellent game world but lousy combat (I personally feel the series has gone downhill since - many of the original programmers left Piranha Bytes after the first game) and while you always needed to be combat oriented, it didn't play out like that mattered as much as the factions you chose. I loved Fallout 1-2, but they were very buggy on release. NWN1 and 2 didn't really get much right IMO - I played some great mods, but I had a hard time getting into either and only found them interesting near the end - a BAD sign - you need to capture the gamer's attention much sooner than Act 3 or 4. Mass Effect had decent plot but some mechanics that needed work (esp. the Mako) and the dungeons were all similar and on rails. Also it is possible to max all armor and weapons after the second play-through which makes the third rather dull (never did finish the third and barely the second). Oblivion had a massive open world, but only one well developed character out of thousands (who dies in the intro), and quests that lacked variety. Ditto Fallout 3 (Bethesda - find characters that people can relate with already... aside from dad, that is... nobody) - they put all this work into giving people routines and a life schedule but emotion causing events? None. Name one character you think is worth keeping. Nobody travels with you, you have no friends (you have alliances, but characters don't act like they miss you or care about you), and this makes it wooden. Not to mention the quests, which are all basically - "I would do it, but I'm too lazy." MMORPGs as a whole pretty much run on rails plot-wise because it is difficult to branch.

Re:Sounds good

[pant]

Ten years ago, you would have had a point. Today, not so much. I built a new gaming pc about six months ago, before that I built a gaming pc about 3.5 years previous to that. To expound on that, I built a pc 3.5 years ago that I never upgraded. I went from ddr1 to ddr3 and dual core to more highly advanced quad core, along with a single gpu card to a dual gpu card. Did it cost more money? Undoubtedly.Was it worth it? Undoubtably. I just quit falling for the benchmark trap, and still enjoyed higher qualty gaming.

Re:Sounds good

[westlake]

That's why people get consoles - because while you "only" get the resolution of HD, you never have to worry about upgrading anything.

Consoles have a life-span, same as a PC.

The Wii tops out with composite video at 480p - and that is not going to cut it the next time around.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

Consoles last much longer than the same PC and require little, if any further investment to keep up with what's being released for the console. For a little sacrifice in display quality, I get a) a giant screen b) a monstrous sound system c) something I will never have to tweak d) something that invites others to join in. To me that's a huge win, to others, well... more power to you. That doesn't invalidate what I said.

Also I'm not sure what you're talking about with regards to composite video. No composite video supports 480p. The Wii DOES support component video at 480p. That wasn't supposed to cut it for THIS round of console, yet look where the Wii stands. Where will Nintendo be during the next generation? Who cares? I don't plan my game playing based on what's around the corner.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

Um, you're the only person ever to describe control schemes on a PC as simpler than a console, and then you pick a game which is almost ridiculously simple control-wise. The fact that you point out 4 player Borderlands with text chat being a bonus is mind boggling, not to mention that Borderlands is 1080p on the consoles - I'm sure those 180 extra pixels on your screen are really make-or-break.

Re:Sounds good

[MikeBabcock]

Conversely, if that title were made for a console platform, it would most likely never be choppy or stutter at any points in the game since they have a fixed hardware spec to write and test against instead.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

What exactly constitutes "higher quality gaming"? That's extremely nebulous. Better textures? Higher resolution?

The only thing PCs have over consoles these days are those (which I don't find much appeal in) and mouse aiming. If you're into modding stuff, there's that and a good reason to stick with the PC. Otherwise, consoles win out - you paid out to upgrade, while the 360 is still going 4 years later with the same hardware. Sure, the graphics aren't as good, but you get a) giant TV b) giant sound system c) no upgrading / no tweaking d) something everyone can join in on.

Trust me, I've been on the PC side of things, and while the upgrade treadmill has slowed, it's definitely still there, and for those of us who grew up doing this sort of thing (I was around when you had to tweak QEMM386/HIMEM stuff), the time investment and singular aspects of the PC are no longer balanced out by the enjoyment.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

Logic says that would be the case. Real world documentation says otherwise.

Re:Sounds good

[Cederic]

hmm, ok, so you never chat with people you're playing with, or everybody you play with has a headset and nobody in the room with them?

My friends, they can't stay on headsets all the time. Text chat is quiet and unobtrusive to initiate, and readable if the sound's turned off.

Borderlands may be 1080p on the consoles, but since I don't own a 1080p television the resolution on my PC is significantly better - and it's on a 17 inch screen, which is far easier to put at a distance that both fits in my field of vision and yet is close enough to benefit from that extra detail.

As for controls, it's tedious seeing PC games with crap control setups because they're crippled console ports. I hate playing games that need you to hit 3 buttons at once while moving a joystick in the right direction. Just give me a different button to hit, I'll hit it - I'm playing a computer game here, not performing a dexterity test. Oddly enough I have real sports for those.

Hell, I suspect even Borderlands is easier to manage on the PC. In fact, the PC version is also compromised by the control defaults left in from the console port - you have to go into the ini files and alter the game configuration to make it play properly.

Aim assist? Mouse smoothing? Double-tap a key to get another function (which happens to be mapped to the next key on the keyboard)? Buggered up field of view? Why, 'tis a console game.

Nonetheless, ten minutes in the ini files and it plays nicely and is excellent fun in co-op mode. As games should be. And with TV in the background. And with partner able to talk to you. And with in-game communication.

Re:Sounds good

[PopeRatzo]

I donate my spare cycles to Folding@Home [stanford.edu].

Big deal. I donate any cycles left over to making a living.

It's hard to do that on a console.

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

Very few console games run at 1080p, they run at 720p or less and are up scaled to 1080p...

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

If you bought a PC shortly after the PS3/360 were released with an 8800gt, your PC would still easily play any game being released today at higher graphical quality than any console... And considering the PS3 cost nearly $600 when it was released...

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

I guess you missed the part where I mentioned I used to be a PC gamer but realized it's just not worth it anymore.

Honestly I'm too tired to pull out the rusty old PC vs console debate, as it's completely lost on people like you. I'll put it simply: the cost vs benefit of consoles is far greater than anything a PC can come close to. These days the benefits are so lopsided in favor of consoles that it's kind of a joke; no one is saying PC gaming is dead or offers some advantages, but in the longview, the advantages are few and miniscule and you will always be in the minority. Get over it. You want to pay for that extra little love? Go for it. Are you sad because you think things are getting dumbed down for you? Deal with it - either figure a way to improve the situation, or move on to other things. Bitching about it and doing nothing is impotence.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

And your point is...? That graphics on the PC are better? When did I say they were not?

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

Real world examples please. Give me something from that day that will play Modern Warfare 2 at 720p @ a 60FPS average for $600 - because the 360 and PS3 do that on their dated hardware today. Bonus points if you can do that for what a console today would cost.

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

Uhh, an 8800GT will run MW2 at 1080p@60fps... You can get an 8800GT equivalent card for less than $100 today...

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

You said Borderlands runs at 1080p on consoles, this is false because it does not. Like other UE3 games, it runs at 720p.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow - your entire post applies to all the comments you have made in this thread. Your self-denial and angst is impressive.

(And by the way, before you trot out your "I'm older than you defense" in the many fashions you have here, I suspect I am a good decade older than you. People usually grow out of the "older than you" defense by mid-40's...)

Re:Sounds good

[JosKarith]

Doesn't happen very often though - on a console the designers know exactly what their customer's gonna be playing with so can optimise their code for that hardware. On a PC anything can (and usually does) happen.

Re:Sounds good

[JosKarith]

"Bullfrog"
Nooooooo. Damn you EA for killing DK3. I wanted my hi-def Mistresses...

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

A video card does not a PC make.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

*shrug* so even if it scales up from 720p (I can find no evidence of this for Borderlands specifically or UE3 in general), you're still dwelling on a point of no contention - graphics are probably going to be better on a PC. The extension to that is while PC gamers consider graphics to be the end all, in reality, most of us have moved on to more pertinent aspects of what makes game playing just as if not more fun on consoles.

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

So you're saying there are no fun games on the PC? They only exist on consoles?

Explain to me how to play Starcraft or any RTS on a console please.

Or again, look at Dragon Age, the game would be a PITA to play on a console because of all of the tactical decision making.

Re:Sounds good

[lidocaineus]

Sigh, no, and only a troll would believe that. I suggest a reading comprehension class would be in order for you.

Re:Sounds good

[TheKidWho]

The reading comprehension goes back to you.

In case it isn't clear enough,

You said Borderlands runs at 1080p on the console, I replied and told you that it didn't. You then brought up a completely tangential argument.

P.S. Some people actually like building their own computers, having control over their system/software, and running user created mods.

Re:Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to bring up reading comprehension, how could I possibly comprehend this line "...just as if not more..." ...lol...

Re:Sounds good

[Dr. Impossible]

I once mistook a Crysis screenshot for a photo. After examining it for a while, I realized it's just Crysis.

Re:Sounds good

[Dr. Impossible]

I was a fan of Baldur's Gate as well, but there's just something about DA that's giving me a bad feeling. I can't put my finger on it, but something feels off. In recent years I've wasted far too much money on AAA titles where the AAA apparently stood for Abomination & Atrocity from Ass (hello Fallout 3), so I'm being very cautious now. But there isn't a demo available, and I can never bother with piracy because it's too much of a headache. I might take a risk and buy DA, but I'm not sure yet.

Re:Sounds good

[Nicolay77]

Having recently started to use Steam, having a superb Sidewinder Force 2 joystick, a couple of Logitech Rumblepads for the games suited to them ( like Batman, that game is amazing ) and a wonderful Logitech G25 for driving games ( iRacing ), I have to disagree with you.

I buy and install games far easier than my console-using friends. The cost of my Geforce 8600GT is not very high, in fact my computer was mid range when new, and far less now, and my only problem is just having enough time to play all the games I have.

I laugh at your superiority complex and your poor aiming. Mouse users will always rule the FPS arena. And PCs have the best driving simulations. With mods!

Re:Sounds good

[Nicolay77]

I can't see why I can't have a giant TV and the giant sound system in a PC.

In fact, I have the giant sound system (Logitech X-540) and I plan to buy the HDTV shortly.

Re:Sounds good

[mcvos]

Is Crysis considered the be-all-and-end-all test of graphics cards because of super high quality graphics or super inefficient graphics programming?

I only saw a demo, but seeing the moving shadows of swaying branches on the back of a crawling turtle was very impressive indeed.

Re:Sounds good

[mcvos]

What exactly constitutes "higher quality gaming"? That's extremely nebulous. Better textures? Higher resolution?

Better gameplay and story.

No coop or multiplayer?

[elrous0]

It's a shame this game has no coop or multiplayer. I know a lot of you will say there is nothing wrong with a well-done single player game, and I agree with you in spirit. But, in practice, a part of me looks at a game like this in 2009 and can't help but see it as, well...old-fashioned.

It seems that this would have been the ideal game for coop, and whatever Bioware's justification for not including it, I can't help but wonder if it wasn't just laziness or "We'll just do it the way we've always done it" obstinance. Bioware one proposed foray into multiplayer gaming seems to be Star Wars: The Old Republic, and even that (with it being PC only) seems kind of old-fashioned (made even more bizarre by the fact that KOTOR I and II made most of their sales on a console). I give them kudos for what they've done with single player games in the past, but I'm not confident they're adapting well to an online future (DLC aside).

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Knara]

The game is solidly single player, for the folks who like single player RPGs.

I really don't get the need for people to have coop/multiplayer in EVERY GAME they come across.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Reibisch]

I'm all for being a social animal, but every now and then I like to retreat to my own private world and enjoy a game crafted around the single player experience.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[shutdown -p now]

... part of me looks at a game like this in 2009 and can't help but see it as, well...old-fashioned.

"Old-fashioned" is a lucrative market niche in and of itself. I like DA:O because it reminds me if NWN and BG so much. I'm sure many others do, as well.

As a side note, speaking of single-player only... have you seen this tiny but awfully addictive thing called Torchlight? Yes, it's 2009 - and these things still sell like hot cakes. And where there's a buyer, there's a seller.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive actually been craving old school single player Computer RPGs recently. Was trying to hunt down possible ports of the old Ultima series, to no real success... so, this product appeals to me..

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[illumin8]

It's a shame this game has no coop or multiplayer. I know a lot of you will say there is nothing wrong with a well-done single player game, and I agree with you in spirit. But, in practice, a part of me looks at a game like this in 2009 and can't help but see it as, well...old-fashioned.

Coop or multiplayer only works in a game where the story is completely linear. This game has so many different plot twists and the story can change so dramatically that there is no real way you could do coop; the story would have plot holes all over the place. Also, what would happen if two people tried to play completely different in the same game world? One person could go around killing NPCs that the other person wanted to keep alive. It would be complete and total chaos.

If you played the game you would understand why coop wouldn't work. Also, the combat in this game, while it can be played in realtime similar to WoW, is deep enough that it requires pausing the game to give command to your party members. Have you ever seen a coop game that allowed one person to pause the game? It would be a nightmare because one person would be pausing the game when then other wanted to play it.

I don't fault Bioware at all for not having multiplayer in the game. This game is meant to be played like a well run pen and paper RPG, or a great fantasy novel. You need to take the time to read Codex, immerse yourself in the game world, and that just doesn't come through in a "twitch" oriented action RPG.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

What online future? Even for mutliplayer oriented games, the majority of players will never go online. Over half of Dawn of War 2's legally sold copies have never created a GFWL account to play their game. Over two-thirds of Demigod's players, a game expressly designed for online play, have never created an account to go online, much less actually played a multiplayer game. There is no online future for all games everywhere because the vast majority of gamers don't want it. By leaving off unwanted multiplayer options in their games that only satisfy the minority, Bioware keeps down production costs for all players.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[vga_init]

I agree that multiplayer games are great (especially cooperative RPG's), but not every game has to fall into one genre. There are many things that can be done with a single player design that you simple can't do with multiplayer, so expect Dragon Age to offer a unique and comprehensive experience you wouldn't otherwise get if they included multiplayer. Sometimes games get torn between the two and end up suffering the most that way; they want to be both a single player and multiplayer game, but ideally you'd pick one since it defines how the entire game plays out.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[interkin3tic]

I really don't get the need for people to have coop/multiplayer in EVERY GAME they come across.

It's a bit of a vicious cycle. GP demonstrates that well: old fashioned? Justification for not including it? Que? People are putting multiplayer into almost every game, so players come to expect it from almost every game, which justifies putting multiplayer into almost every game. A game is old fashioned if it doesn't include multiplayer? Multiplayer is pretty old, I had the option of multiplayer for Marathon (the FPS) 15 years ago. Shoot, Mario Bros had multiplayer. Not having multiplayer feels old fashioned only because so many games have multiplayer tacked on. Justification wise, they probably didn't want to delay release to make a good multiplayer system. I've heard there's constant pressure to get the game out as quickly as possible, for obvious reasons.

If they didn't spend much time on it, and slapped one out that was weak, they'd get dinged in reviews. If the multiplayer option is pretty terrible on a game that is clearly for single player, I think that's alright, that's not what I bought it for. Crappy multiplayer on a great single player game is a little bit better than just the single player game by itself. Even if I only play the multiplayer once as a novelty, that's more use that I'm getting out of it than just the single player mode. But that's not how everyone else thinks apperantly. Reviewers would point out the bad multiplayer and game sales would suffer.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[A Friendly Troll]

As a side note, speaking of single-player only... have you seen this tiny but awfully addictive thing called Torchlight?

I have considered buying it after trying the demo, but a friend of mine says the game quickly loses its charm and there's no replayability. There's about 10-12 hours of play inside, and once you're done, there's nothing left to do except roam in some endless dungeon and collect uniques that are worse than your enchanted basic gear... That, and the classes are supposedly all mages in disguise.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Random2]

But, as the game describes itself, it's focused around a party of four members. It doesn't seem too unreasonable to allow at least one of those characters to be a PC, even if it's just during battles. It's not like having a co-op option would ruin the 1-player aspect of the game.

That being said, they couldn't easily modify the main story of this game to be co-op. The interface and statistics are too focused on one player (the relationship ratings, decision points with NPC reactions, and tactics). It could probably have been done, but with some sacrifice to the customization of the current system.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Baldur's Gate 2 which has very similar gameplay and combat mechanics had a multiplayer mode, which was ... well, not used very often.
Bioware probably learned from that.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you played the game you would understand why coop wouldn't work. Also, the combat in this game, while it can be played in realtime similar to WoW, is deep enough that it requires pausing the game to give command to your party members. Have you ever seen a coop game that allowed one person to pause the game?

I sure do. It's called Baldur's Gate (you should try it - BG2 is an amazing game!): all coop party members were allowed to pause and unpause the game, at any given time. Only the host was allowed to save the game, though.

Both Icewind Dale games have the same feature, and I'm pretty sure that Planescape: Torment would also allow that, but I'm not sure it has a MP component.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Monkeedude1212]

Well - if you haven't played Mass Effect - you don't understand how BioWare tailors their Single Player Experience.
And if you have played Mass Effect - and you didn't like it, you are the first person I've encountered who didn't enjoy it.

The thing with these SP RPG's that Bioware makes is that they are more or less trying to put you inside of an interactive movie, almost moreso than they are trying to make a game. Don't get me wrong, they have always been solid in their gameplay elements, but whenever anyone talks about Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age, the things they generally tend to mention are its incredible story and how well they get immersed in the game, usually through dialogue.

The Trend that Bioware and myself are noticing is that when you make something Multiplayer - Pretty much the whole story element gets shot out the window. Its no longer about you being a hero to save the princess, its more about you and your friends having a fun social experience trying to kill the biggest badest thing you guys can find. Which is fine for some games, like World of Warcraft. But How many MMO RPG players read the quest text? How many players on Halo 3 consider themselves the heroic Masterchief when every other player in the game is just as equal?

As for Co-op, there are always limitations to Co-op, and in my opinion they always detract so heavily from the game that I wouldn't even Bother. Fable 2 is an excellent example of how Co op ruins the experience. You can have 2 people in the same world, for sure, but they can't venture further than 20 feet from each other, and whoever is in the lead ends up running into an invisible wall and can't move forward. Meanwhile slowmo over in the back can't get around this fence because his buddy is so far ahead it restricts his lateral movement. And even if they managed to sort out those sort of issues, it still always feels like 1 person is the Hero and everyone else is just side kicks.

  The only games which seem to properly implement Co-op are First Person shooters, like Left 4 Dead, or ODST, where everyone is essentially Equal and MUST work together. Mass Effect (and probably Dragon Age) While approaching the FPS kind of gameplay, are still more Roleplaying games then they are shooters. You got levels, stats, and gear. Once you take those out, your gameplay is fleshed down a point and shoot. Which not everyone wants. There are plenty of Fantasy co op games out there, where you can get with your party of 5 and do an instance, get your gold and get your gear. Bioware wants to tell a story. And they do a hell of a job doing it.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[vlm]

It's a shame this game has no coop or multiplayer.

Multiplayer DA:O would be as bad as multiplayer coop solitaire.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Jaysyn]

Neverwinter Nights is multiplayer. Not massively (100+ player per server limit with certain NWNx plugins), but it is multiplayer.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Shikaku]

once you're done, there's nothing left to do except roam in some endless dungeon and collect uniques that are worse than your enchanted basic gear... That, and the classes are supposedly all mages in disguise.

Sounds a lot like Nethack.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[omi5cron]

yes-got it nov. 1, played ~35 hrs. this past week while on vacation, finished it saturday. great game of dungeon crawler type. not much story, but cool effects. frankly, i haven't played a game straight through in many years. this was like diablo 1 , diablo 2, sacred, and WoW had an orgy, and torchlight was the unlikely off-spring. totally addictive!!

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Chyeld]

Multiplayer makes sense for some things but for some things less so.

Multiplayer RPGs in the fashion that Bioware makes their RPGs would be sufficently different from current multiplayer models that it would require alot of thought and effort to make even a cursory system.

At the worse, you'd just be playing seperate characters in a party, one where the entire story is geared towards the idea where your main character is "The One". That isn't plot details concering the most recent game, that's just what BioWare games are about, single character going through the universe righting or doing wrongs along the way to defeat the big bad guy after having a couple of 'bonding moments' with their sidekicks. So who gets to be "The One" and who is the sidekick. And when your teammate starts the romance sideplot with you, are you going to feel uncomfortable about the sex scene?

Or perhaps that isn't the worse, how about two competeing parties. "I'm sorry, you would have been able to save our village from the bandits, if your friend hadn't rolled through town last week and killed all the NPC's himself! Hope you didn't need that XP for leveling!" "Yeah, all the cool NPC's have joined your rival's party. Here are the NPC's no one ever plays with if they can help it.."

Really, a multiplayer version of a Bioware game would need a completely different story structure (not to mention tech) than the one they use. Sometimes just because you can bolt a jet engine to a car, doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Narpak]

I don't see why Co-op wouldn't work, it worked fine in Baldur's gate. Where, if I recall correctly, one was the "main character" and the other(s) basically played sidekicks.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[filekutter]

I have been pondering the lack of coop and multi in the game since buying it, but, I also haven't enjoyed singleplay this much in any other RPG since NWN 1 (which just doesn't hold up in comparison). I do wish I could play this on a social server, but I"m perfectly happy to enjoy the level of writing depth in exchange. Absolutely gorgeous game.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, to a point. I don't want every game to have multiplayer, but I want every GOOD game to have multiplayer. There's far too few excellent games like this around, so it seems a waste that some kind of multiplayer was excluded. Campaigns are so much more entertaining with multiple human players. Plus, it doesn't make sense these days for game developers, who know for a fact that their game is likely to be pirated, to avoid multiplayer when it can motivate people to buy the game. Multiplayer makes licence keys worth something.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[TheKidWho]

Dragon Age will have free community created mods too.

And Dragon Age is already a 100hour+ game.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[ParodyMan]

We had plenty of fun playing Baldur's Gate II co-op, despite only one character being the story's main character. It was nice splitting up the duties of micro-managing combat and inventory management. It may not have saved us any time, but the jokes were well worth it.

There were three of us, so the main character's player also controlled the romance character. Then the other two fought over who got Minsc. :)

It's definitely not a necessary feature for a CRPG designed for single-player, but for some groups it can work just fine.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Schadrach]

Yeah, and unless everyone was on exactly the same page (say on the phone, in Vent, or in the same room), that feature alone was the slayer of friendships. That and the Thieves stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. When I did BG2 MP, the guy in the group playing the lawful good cleric got somewhat annoyed at hearing the "pickpocket" voice bit for the two thieves (I was one of them) spammed like crazy, ending with "There's a shiny in your inventory, cleric. You'll like it. Oh, I also bought that shiny magic armor, except I somehow ended up with more money that we started with and the shopkeeper wants to kill us. You should run now."

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[mqduck]

a part of me looks at a game like this in 2009 and can't help but see it as, well...old-fashioned.

What's wrong with old-fashioned? I'm playing Fallout, which I've never played before, and I'm loving it.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, whenever I'm playing a single-player game, I always think, "If only this game had a 13-year-old calling me a faggot Mexican Jew lizard!"

Multiplayer is highly overrated. People suck.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Urkki]

It's a shame this game has no coop or multiplayer. I know a lot of you will say there is nothing wrong with a well-done single player game, and I agree with you in spirit. But, in practice, a part of me looks at a game like this in 2009 and can't help but see it as, well...old-fashioned.

I dare say it's impossible to do a good single player campaign so that it's also playable (by today's standards, raised by current MMORPGs) in co-op. If it has an immersive BG-like plot tree and deep characters (implying deep conversations), doing that in multiplayer isn't very fun. If you're playing for the hack&slash, pillage&burn kind of fun, it needs a different game, something like NWN (which was rather mediocre as a single player game IMHO), or a real MMORPG.

So first of all doing a best possible single player campaign without compromising for multiplayer was a great great decision. And after that, not wasting time and money on adding some half-assed multiplayer mode was an excellent decision too.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

  I have friends, but I actually enjoy single player games too. I agree that not all fraking games in the world has to have coop/multiplayer. Maybe the game developers already thought about this and made the decision that the game might not be appealing with coop/multiplayer options?

  Don't like it, don't play it.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[ajs]

Why is this modded insightful??

Because it is.

It doesn't need to be in every game (any more than the game NEEDS to exist in the first place)

Correct.

but there's no reason to NOT build in the option for people who want it.

• Delays in production/release
• Single player play typically gets second class status when multiplayer is a requirement
• UI must be more complex for multi-player games
• A game which is fundamentally paced for single-player play is not well suited to multiplayer
• They felt like it

It could turn a $50 40 hour game into a $50, 100 hour game.

True, but there is an audience for games that are designed to be single-player, and not multi-player.

They could offer it and you could ignore it.

Typically, no. The impact on gameplay and UI are deep and, I suspect, intractable.

Then people who *have* friends could play this game together.

Cheap and inaccurate shot. I play highly cooperative games ranging from multi-player to MMOs and I still appreciate a good single-player only game.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[nullChris]

It can be nice to play cooperatively with one's significant other, or kid. Whether it's helping them, experiencing great game moments together, or just having fun, It's a welcome option. The original Baldur's Gate series had it, as did the Neverwinter Nights series. This didn't detract from the single player experience, it just opened up an additional way to have fun.

I really don't get the need for people to sneer at others who enjoy having that option in games they like.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Wildclaw]

but there's no reason to NOT build in the option for people who want it.

Except all the time and effort that gets wasted into it, instead of on better things.

It could turn a $50 40 hour game into a $50, 100 hour game

Or it could turn an excellent $50 100 hour game into a $50 40 hour game with sucky "game prolonging" multiplayer and an unpolished singleplayer experience.

i spent more time playing mods for NWN than i did with the original content.

NWN is a prime example of a game that sacrificed a lot to add multiplayer and superior modding functionality.

They could offer it and you could ignore it.

Even better. They could not offer it and instead focus on better single player content, while the multiplayer fanatics go and play another game. (it isn't like there is a shortage of multiplayer games on the market)

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly we're playing two different games.

Spoilers

___
For example with the elves in the forest. If you don't talk to the hunter's wife and break the curse first she just vanishes. Yeah, you have a 2 line 'wrap up' to the quest where you tell the husband "you are SOL, never saw her". Then he 'goes to look for her' but never leaves or appears in the forest.

Likewise the Hermit line is fubared/precluded randomly by something (I had all 3 items he'd trade for but never had any of the dialogue options).

Telling the Arl of Redcliff to send your mage buddy to the circle = nothing happening, at all. (yes I do appreciate the option of getting a different choice to resolve this quest, but seriously the option blows).

The assassination quests are random. I have 3 different saves with the quest line open, the quest line closed (I killed them) and the quest line missing.

You get setup in the brothel, yet nobody comments (even yourself) about it.

Party members comment on things they've never done. (Take mr golem to the mage's tower after clearing it).

The mage origin line is so painfully linear it is almost comical. You've got a choice of helping your buddy with the outcome. Or squealing with the EXACT same outcome, only you're a little less to blame but we need a way.

I have two other broken quests in my quest log too.

____

But that doesn't bother me I'm having fun playing, I just find the plot holes/broken quests/stupid shoehorned options funny.

What DOES piss me off is the stupid ass idea to limit macros at low levels (when you need your party to not be retarded). Now at level 16 and about halfway done having 10 lines of tactic options is a joke. Every fight is the same. Tank (who is constantly tank buffed) taunts the strongest enemy. Dps focuses fire on the main character's target. That's when the fights last longer than 8 seconds :P

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Your.Master]

I agree with everything you say here, and would like to add that the finely tuned play balance of human vs. campaign is often compromised by the human vs. human balance.

In the case of dragon age, tactics slots make it even worse than in most such games, because part of the game's balance and an entire skill line is dedicated to the fact that you control the AI of your companions, and you get more detailed control the more you invest in that line.

There are *very* few games that don't make design tradeoffs on the decision to be single-player or multi-player or both (and what sorts of multi-player to support).

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Baldur's Gate I and II both had multiplayer, and playing them over a lan with a friend of mine was great, we probably played through the games four times. Frequent pausing was fine (except when a mage would cast Improved Alacrity with the Robe of Vecna and unload their spellbook by abusing 'pause after spell cast' ) because it gave us an opportunity to plan and yell at each other.

Ah, memories

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[elrous0]

I'll have you know I turned 14 last month, buddy!

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[JJBird]

How is 10-12 hours of play not a good bargain for $20? And as for the character development, it is entirely up to you how you build your character out. Magic is certainly not a big role for my (now dead) main character. Hardcore also adds a "fun" dimension to the game that I love.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Knara]

It's not a matter of sneering at multiplayer *in general*. It has its place, just not in a game that is very obviously in the single player RPG genre.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[El Gigante de Justic]

In hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers like the Diablo series or Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance multiplayer can work because those games area really action games with an RPG shell put around them, and the story related elements are minimal. In Neverwinter Nights it worked because people could create custom servers with persistent worlds and it wasn't a party based game. Multiplayer was designed into the game from the beginning because they designed it around the creation of custom mods.

      For story driven RPGs like this, multiplayer just doesn't really work, especially if its something with over 100+ hours of gameplay and hours of spoken dialogue. Does each player have to talk to every NPC separately, or do both have to wait for all of the others to say its ok to skip the dialogue? What about areas that require the party be kept together to exit? What if one of your party member players is unavailable for a while - then you can't do anything.

  Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale had multi-player, if you can call it that, and it was pretty lame. Basically it let you create more than one custom character (in the case of BG), and then each player in the session could be assigned exclusive control of certain PCs and NPCs - I don't recall if it still let you pause or not in combat. The only real advantage of it in BG, is that you could use "multi-player" to make a completely custom party for a single player game instead of using the NPCs.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Darinbob]

Are there really that many players that do cooperative multiplayer on these games? It would seem to cause major hiccups to the storylines to have to arrange to get your friends (my friends don't play computer games, so it would have to be strangers in my case) to all log in at the same time, and do the parts of the story that everyone wants to do. Then when someone has to leave early, or they can't play that day, what do you do? Keep a second single-player campaign around? Almost all the multiplayer that I've seen that's popular has been because of player versus player, not cooperative. MMOs seem better suited for this.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Darinbob]

Comparing this game to NWN just seems off. NWN had a really lousy single player game, and the game essentially only succeeded because of the online multiplayer aspect. This game is more like Baldur's Gate II it sounds like, where multiplayer was a hindrance (you have to kick out interesting NPCs and side plots to make room, and only one player gets to be the "main" player).

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[sheehaje]

I preffer a solo game sometimes. For one, I can easily pause it, and that's important for someone with an 8 month old baby.

Secondly, I've played a lot of MMORPGs, and I sometimes don't feel like my character really impacts the game world. Especially in games like WoW and LOTRO. EVE-Online is one of the few where even though the gameworld is relatively static, the politics and story are player driven.

I just started playing Dragon Age: Origins. Maybe it is a throw back, but I fills a niche for me. So far, I think the game is fantastic. I love the story it is telling, and there are only a handful of games I've played that have engrossed me. All of them have been solo player games. Bioshock (and before that system shock), Planescape: Torment, Elder Scrolls: Morrowind....

Don't get me wrong, there are great multiplayer games with great stories like the Halo series... I guess it wouldn't be hard to add a co-op mode to Dragon Age: Origins, but it would undermine both the qualities of the game I mentioned above. I wouldn't be able to pause it. And I wouldn't be as immersed if I had to keep talking tactics to another person over a headset.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Moonchen]

I have played this game, and it's pretty standard Bioware stuff. Bioware has already figured out how to make this kind of RPG work in co-op. If you played Neverwinter Nights 2, for example, you would have seen it work.

Basically, there is one main player who makes the plot decisions. The co-op partners control other members of the party.

Granted, in this game there are parts where you must work alone, but they're relatively short, and I don't mind waiting.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[dr00g911]

The lack of co-op is likely due to the fact on tougher battles in the game (at least on the PC version), you'll quite literally need to pause every single round to micromanage your troops to keep them alive. The AI's good, but it's not particularly great at:

1. Not standing in fire
2. Spell interrupts
3. Healing intelligently / pre-healing / mana conservation
4. Positioning for backstabs and staying out of caster cones / dragon breath

Pausing isn't any fun at all in co-op, but I can assure you that the depth of strategy required for the combat system outweighs bolting on a multiplayer aspect for this particular title. It has the most punishing/unforgiving combat design I've seen in an RPG in many years... and I like it that way.

When I came across my first "real" dragon in the game (near some plot-related ashes), I must have reloaded that battle from scratch for around 4 hours before I beat it, pausing every 1/2 second each battle. That's no fun at all multiplayer.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Knara]

I agree. I play MMOs for the multiplayer experience, and single player games for the "immersive universe" experience. MMOs are well known for the problem that not everyone can be the legendary hero, known for doing the things that no other person could, since the point of the game is to make everyone a legendary hero, so long as they grind long enough.

They're game types that serve different purposes.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[A Friendly Troll]

$20 is currently 3% of my monthly salary. A bargain it might be, especially since the USD is so pathetically weak right now, but it's still a lot of money.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am afraid your friend is full of shit, because I have put more than 24 hours into the game and am nowhere near the end, and my warrior is most certainly NOT any kind of mage. Tear the head clean off a mage, yes, but a mage he is not.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument is just plain stupid. Your arguments for why co-op will not work center around the idea that players will run off and do separate things. Then they aren't really playing co-op are they? It doesn't have to be linear, quests you get are marked for everyone. Quest completions count for everyone. And if people want to play "co-op" but not play cooperatively, then they're not very intelligent are they?

BTW, good thing you pulled out the "if you would actually PLAY the game then you would know".

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[sqlrob]

Ditto. Although I've been playing some of the old point and clicks I haven't gotten through and that's dragged me away from it. Just finished Amerzone the other day.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded insightful??

Because it is.

No, it isn't. It offers no insight (nor does it claim or attempt to) and therefore isn't and cannot possibly be insightful. The fact is, it was modded that way because some people on Slashdot are liars and/or morons who behave as though "Insightful" means "I agree with this".

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Chris Burke]

Comparing this game to NWN just seems off. NWN had a really lousy single player game, and the game essentially only succeeded because of the online multiplayer aspect.

More to the point, NWN was designed entirely around the multiplayer aspect, with the single-player campaign basically being a showcase for the game design tools and an obligatory device to get people to buy it who wouldn't want to play online. User-made adventures were fun to play with a friend, but what truly made the game awesome, and clearly where it was designed to shine, was when you had a group of friends and (at least) one of them was using the DM client.

NWN with a DM beats every other multiplayer computer RPG experience EVER.

However as a single player game, it suffered (and even the expansions where they did a much better job creating the single-player campaigns, the game was still not that great).

Dragon Age was designed around being a single player game. Trying to force in multiplayer would mean that the multiplayer was bad, or worse, that the single player game suffered.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

PC only games are old-fashioned? Fuck you, console tard. Stop shitting all over my games market.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[LrdDimwit]

I have a lot of friends (no, really, I swear :) but I don't have many friends willing to spend 80 hours co-op with me on an RPG. Furthermore, given the nature of the game's willingness to let you make choices, it's an experience that would not gel well with multiple PCs. Suppose I want to kill the spy, but my co-op partner doesn't? Now either they don't allow such conflicts at al, in which case, the co-op "partner" isn't really a partner, or all of a sudden, co-op has a divergent storyline from single player. That would be a huge amount of extra work for something that (see my first point) would not often be played.

We already have enough games that tried to do too many things, or overly ambitious things, and had to be chopped up to be shoved out the door.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Biowared Baldurs Gate had an excellent coop and allowed either play to pause the game...

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[MBGMorden]

As others have said - it's not sneering - I LOVE the fact that Dragon Age is single player and you know the most common game I've played before this? World of Warcraft. I play with a huge guild, up until about 3 months ago raided quite a bit, and was largely into the multiplayer aspect of WoW.

HOWEVER, I can accept that not every, single, game has to have multiplayer. It'd be like saying every single game had to have any other aspect it in - be it swords, spaceships, side card games, RTS, voice acting, CGI-rendered cutscenes, etc. Not every game has to have every possible gameplay style or visual element in it.

I personally can't friggen stand sports games for example (curiously enough I do like watching an ACTUAL football game - just not playing one in video game form). If you ever catch me buying a copy of Madden then shoot me because an alien has taken over my body. That said though, I don't complain that there's no option to play as a dwarf and stab the running back in Madden '09. I just accept that this is a game for other people with other tastes. Similarly, please accept that Dragon Age was created to be a single player focused story driven CRPG. It is not intended to be a multiplayer experience. If that's what you're looking for, then look elsewhere. You get enough bones thrown your way - let us enjoy ours.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[ravenshrike]

This is why the OC for NWN was utter crapballs.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[shutdown -p now]

Multiplayer RPGs in the fashion that Bioware makes their RPGs would be sufficently different from current multiplayer models that it would require alot of thought and effort to make even a cursory system ... that's just what BioWare games are about, single character going through the universe righting or doing wrongs along the way to defeat the big bad guy after having a couple of 'bonding moments' with their sidekicks.

Yes, which is something totally novel to BioWare. Wish they could learn from some established titles in "multiplayer co-op story RPG" genre, such as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, or Icewind Dale...

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Chris Burke]

OC = Original Campaign?

Agreed 100%.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Chyeld]

My sarcasm detector is trying to tell me something here... hmmm. No. I don't know what it's beeping about.

Just for the record again, how deep was the multiplayer in any of those listed titles? Especially the main campaigns? As I recall, it was fairly cursory. There were no accomidations made in the game for the idea that more than one player might by playing, in fact, in all the 'official' stuff, the first player was the "Chosen One" and the rest just got to follow the lead player around doing the janitorial work.

Hardly an established genre, the only one that actually acted like it cared to cater to multiplayer was NWN.

That being said, I did overstate that portion of my arguement. Yes, Bioware had been tacking on multiplayer as an afterthought for it's games for a while before they got their first person mojo on. Maybe they just don't want/know how to make a multiplayer FPS.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

The bg2 multiplayer was awesome. We spent so many hours playing through the story together (ah btw yes, you could pause in mp). Was just awesome. Want more :-)

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[MikeBabcock]

Exactly.

Oblivion and Morrowind are two of the best examples of why multi-player is not necessary to make a game fun.

That said, Bioware's NWN was an excellent example of a multi-player RPG done right.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another reason not to add multiplayer to it is game balance.

To truly have your traditional RPG classes work the way they are supposed to work, you need a single-player game. MMOs universally get this wrong, mostly due to caving into class envy from a large portion of the player base.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[techprophet]

I'm all for being a social animal, but every now and then I like to retreat to my own private world and enjoy a game crafted around the single player experience.

QFT. Having a weekend long D&D session is a hell of a lot of fun, but sometimes you just want to be alone with your thoughts and a huge fire-breathing dragon.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed 100%. In fact, I'd stress your point on single player play getting second class status when multiplayer is a requirement more. Too many games have had their single player enjoyability ruined because of multiplayer(or worse, PvP) balancing requirements.

I will be getting this game precisely because it seems to be a good single player game without a "multiplayer feature".

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[mqduck]

Fallout isn't a point and click?

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[dilvish_the_damned]

Then people who *have* friends could play this game together.

Why do *you* worry about those people?

( -1 flame, +1 burn. Net 0 )

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[LurkerXXX]

Because there are many cheaper things to do for entertainment for 10-12 hours.

For example, Netflix lets you rent more hours of movies cheaper than that.

Heck, the game under review in this topic costs $49 for 100+ hours of gameplay. That's ~$0.50/hour. Your 'bargain' is ~$2.00/hour.

It's not an exorbitant price by any means, but I don't consider it a bargain.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot that 90% of the patches/fixes released are for the multiplayer component, usually for crackers but sometimes for plain old network bugs (some devs can make amazing graphics and still not know how to handle TCP correctly).

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[sqlrob]

Compared to say, Sam and Max, Monkey Island and Myst? No.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs a new job instead of loathing around on slashdot.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[TheKidWho]

That's because if you actually PLAYED the game you would know why co-op wouldn't work in it...

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Gel214th]

I don't see why they could not add Co-Op multiplayer of the same type that we have in Neverwinter Nights, and Neverwinter Nights 2. Or for that matter the type found in Fable II, or Borderlands.

It is accepted that one person is the Leader of the group who clicks the relevant dialog choices. What happens is that the players may discuss what they want to do , and come to a decision and one person clicks. Simple.

The combat will work just as well for an additional Human character,or an additional human controlling the characters. Again, this is nothing new or ground breaking. It has been done successfully before in several games.

The comments presented make me wonder if any of the posters have ever played an RPG in co-op mode?

I think the reason Dragon Age has no co-op are economic, and the fact that the game also appears on the Xbox 360. The time investment for co-op multiplayer would have been doubled because they would need to accommodate both the whole Xbox Live platform, and the Windows platform. If the argument is Economic then no one can argue, it is cheaper to produce a Singleplayer game without Co-Op Multiplayer.

It is 2009 though, and from Bioware, I expected more. The ability to play an RPG, Action or otherwise with 2 or more people greatly enhances the gameplay. I do not agree that the second, third , or fourth players need to be somehow specially accommodated in terms of Story, things to do etc. etc. It would be nice, but it is by no means necessary.I can imagine Dragon Age perfectly with someone else being able to control the characters, and nothing else changing. It is a lot better than two people sitting side by side while one plays.

You know for the folks who have significant others that game, close friends who chat etc. online...the advantages and benefits of the Option for Co-Op play are obvious. It's just a lot more fun.

You know, if in a year or two they announce Dragon Age: Parties Edition , or Dragon Age 2 Now with Multiplayer I'll be a bit pissed. :-|

but i would probably buy it :-)

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and I couldn't imagine DA:O working reasonably as multi-player.

There are some recent exceptions where strong single-player games have managed to add reasonable multi-player features, but they almost exclusively happen entirely outside the story, which would be totally pointless in DA:O.

Just on the PS3 in the last couple of months, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Uncharted 2 both have some multi-player modes which are supposedly fun. I don't know because I've only played the single-player portions of those games and very much enjoyed them. Uncharted 2 totally spoiled me as well in terms of graphics, voice acting and character animations, DA:O seems downright clunky in that sense...but I like the latter for the challenge and longer and more complicated storyline.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[eharvill]

Exactly. I'm already pausing the game every 2 seconds during combat to make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to. I would hate for two people to fight over the pause during co-op play.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically, no. The impact on gameplay and UI are deep and, I suspect, intractable.

You say this about a game that is basically a WoW ripoff when it comes to UI and combat mechanics.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[A Friendly Troll]

Wouldn't help much, unless I move to a different country (and then get attacked by xenophobes).

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[ProfBooty]

You never played baldur's gate 1 coop? It came that way out of the box, you could control multiple characters and so could a friend, or you could have a party each with their own character.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bioware one proposed foray into multiplayer gaming seems to be Star Wars: The Old Republic, and even that (with it being PC only) seems kind of old-fashioned (made even more bizarre by the fact that KOTOR I and II made most of their sales on a console). I give them kudos for what they've done with single player games in the past, but I'm not confident they're adapting well to an online future (DLC aside).

Bioware's "Neverwinter Nights" was released in 2002.

Among other things it allowed up to 64 clients to connect to a single server, "portals" which allowed you to link one server's game space with another, and provided modding tools which allowed fans to create dedicated persistent world servers.

Pretty much was a "build you own mini-MMO" on top of a great single player game.

Bioware's already been in the online multiplayer arena for a long time. My guess is that the double console port won over the multiplayer in the design phase. Multiplayer between PCs, they know how to do. Multiplayer between PC, XBOX 360, and PS3? Probably a little more difficult.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neverwinter Nights is multiplayer. Not massively (100+ player per server limit with certain NWNx plugins), but it is multiplayer.

And it's, let's put this politely, less than stellar in single player...

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Jaysyn]

The original campaign was kinda crappy, but there are hundreds of great user made modules out there. Darkness Over Daggerford was one of the best.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

All your points are good, but I still appreciate a game where I'm allowed to play through with a friend -- even if it's just me pasted into it instead of an AI ally. Heck, worst case just let the second player control one of the AI allies, while the main player still controls all the dialogue and quests (Ala the Tales of X games).

Even basic levels of coop play during combat can greatly enhance a game's experience.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[mcvos]

Then people who *have* friends could play this game together.

If my friends had time to play, we'd get out our dice and play a real RPG.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[mcvos]

I have a lot of friends (no, really, I swear :) but I don't have many friends willing to spend 80 hours co-op with me on an RPG.

My friends and I have spent years co-op in RPGs. But those were real RPGs, and not some computer game. CRPGs are for when my friends aren't around.

Re:No coop or multiplayer?

[ajs]

... who behave as though "Insightful" means "I agree with this".

And yet, you haven't responded to a single one of the points raised, which seems to indicate that you didn't actually have a viable answer to the "Because it is." statement which I backed up on several fronts, later in my post. "No it isn't" doesn't actually comprise a valid argument.

As long as you love cut-scenes...

[Degro]

You can't go two minutes in this game without being thrown into a long cut-scene. I like to play my RPGs, not watch them.

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[Knara]

The intros are heavy on cut-scenes due to them being "intros". They're not really cut-scenes, anyway, due to you having to make choices in the middle of many of the dialog sessions.

It's nowhere near as cut-scene heavy as MGS4, though, so I'm happy enough.

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[Spazztastic]

The intros are heavy on cut-scenes due to them being "intros". They're not really cut-scenes, anyway, due to you having to make choices in the middle of many of the dialog sessions.

It's nowhere near as cut-scene heavy as MGS4, though, so I'm happy enough.

It's also not as bad as your average Final Fantasy game which you can't skip through at all.

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[Valdrax]

You can't go two minutes in this game without being thrown into a long cut-scene. I like to play my RPGs, not watch them.

It's called "plot," and not all RPG fans are as convinced as you are that it should be given cursory treatment. Anyway, Bioware's RPG have had long scenes of linear dialog for as long as I can remember. (Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, etc.)

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[sw33tjimmy]

Go watch a final fantasy game and then get back to me.

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[brkello]

Bah, Final Fantasy barely has cutscenes when compared to Xenosaga.

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[psyph3r]

The game has an intro story and game play period that lasts about an hour or so depending on how you play. I'm guessing you played this game very little. I'm about 15 hours in and it is an awesome world with many options and little cut-scenes once they cut the umbilical cord and let you play the game. This by far my favorite game of this genre this year...and maybe for the last few years.

Re:As long as you love cut-scenes...

[mcvos]

You can't go two minutes in this game without being thrown into a long cut-scene. I like to play my RPGs, not watch them.

It's called "plot," and not all RPG fans are as convinced as you are that it should be given cursory treatment.

No it's not. Plot is not the same thing as cut scenes. Good games make their plot playable. Resorting to cut scenes is a sign of weakness.

Anyway, Bioware's RPG have had long scenes of linear dialog for as long as I can remember. (Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, etc.)

Planescape Torment had tons and tons and tons of dialogue, but as far as I remember, it was 99% playable. I don't remember many cut scenes in Baldur's Gate either. Vampire Bloodlines had maybe 3 or 4 cutscenes? And all short ones. The vast majority of the plot was playable.

No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[tangent3]

And I haven't had much luck trying to get it to run on Wine. 1.1.31 from wine1.2 package on Kubuntu 9.10, hangs at the end of installation when it tried to install Nvidia PhysX. I'm using an ATI 4770 with FGLRX drivers, running the game gives me garbage on the screen.

Had to boot back into my WinXP partition that I haven't touch since April.

Looking at appdb, it seems not many people have much luck either, but some have managed to get it to run. Wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder what I'm doing wrong.

You're trying to play a video game on Linux. Just stop it already.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Anonymous Coward]

Had to boot back into my WinXP partition

Oh noes the sky is falling HELP HELP! BAWK BAWK BAWK!!!

Wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Trying to play a Windows game in an OS other than the one for which it was designed.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[amicusNYCL]

Wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Trying to run it in Linux. Think back to when you set up your system, I'm sure there's a good reason to have that WinXP partition there. But when you buy a game and try to run it on an OS that it wasn't built for, you can sort of expect as much..

You did buy it, right?

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[asylumx]

Iterator i = your.getBase().iterator(); while (Base b = i.Next()) { i.remove(b); us.getBase().add(b); }

Modifying a list whilst you're iterating through it is a big no-no!

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Obyron]

Mod parent insightful instead of funny. I came to post pretty much the exact same reply. This is the same crap I went through trying to get Fallout 3 to work in Wine under Ubuntu, and it was a colossal waste of time. I was actually impressed with what Wine can run, but it's not going to work for the latest and greatest new games.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[lhoguin]

An alternative is to setup Windows in a VirtualBox VM that has 3D acceleration enabled, install WineD3D in it, and then install and run your game.

The results vary depending on the game and on your system, but it's worth a try. Some games definitely work better this way than through Wine, and you don't have to reboot.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Kjella]

It becomes a bit of a sport in itself, I find it pretty cool when it DOES work and you can put that platinum stamp on it "runs as good or better than in Windows". Granted, there's many games I can't play so it really makes no point, I'm not deleting Windows... but hey, where would we all be if we didn't waste time tweaking wine and wasted time playing games instead? Not getting anything more productive done, that's for sure :)

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Anonymous Coward]

While everyone else is all "Hurr durr you can't run game in lunix OLOLOLOLO!" like a bunch of smug idiots, and actually getting modded insightful for it by even more smug idiots, I'd like to take a moment to actually solve this guy's fucking problem. What a concept, eh, people?

Get a copy of winetricks, chmod +x it, and do: ./winetricks vcrun2005 ./winetricks vcrun2005sp1

  This will get the MS Visual C 2005 runtimes installed (which are required by the PhysX installer, but not shipped with DA:O) and then PhysX will install, and the game will run.

  Some people with nVidia cards have black flickering in videos, there's a way to fix it listed on wine's appdb. Similarly, some people have had the installer disable the sound, which can be changed by editing an .ini file and setting "DisableSound" to "0" instead of "1".

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's insulting and unfair. Most games run on linux. It's now a very small minority of games which don't run.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Chris Burke]

Trying to run it in Linux. Think back to when you set up your system, I'm sure there's a good reason to have that WinXP partition there.

You did buy it, right?

Windows XP? No, I didn't, which is why I don't have that option for playing games.

Oh, you meant games. Yeah, well, I knew what I was getting myself into when I went Linux-only, so no I don't tend to buy many games. I will only if wine/cedega users report that the game works great (e.g. World of Warcraft), or they have a download-able demo I can test (a test which most games fail, though sometimes it's only because of the demo installer heh). If the demo does work, and I buy the game, but the full game won't work... well, guess I should have checked winehq more closely!

The only time I've really felt like this bit me was with Popcap games. The Peggle demo worked perfectly in Wine. So I bought the full version, which basically just means 'registering' the demo you already downloaded. Well it didn't work. Long story short, it requires you to have Internet Explorer running some funky ActiveX control while the demo-version of the game is also running. Ugh. The reason this ticked me off is because it's the first time that the only obstacle between me and playing a game was their method of letting me buy the game. Oh well. I consider that $10 to be a donation to the indie game developer scene, and the Peggle demos are still fun. :P

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[ravenshrike]

This'll probably run on Wine as well, in 6 months to 2 years.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder what I'm doing wrong.

You're trying to play a windows game on Linux. Just stop it already.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[jyx]

Huh wot? I play Savage2 pretty much exclusively these days - and its a full on 3d shoot and slash and build em up with a propa musical score and everything.

Linux can play nice looking video games just fine thank you very much.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Sparr0]

Give me your email and I will send you a Heroes of Newerth beta invite if you don't have one yet. It's S2's new game, a clone of Defense of the Ancients (a popular custom scenario for WC3). VERY Nice, for it's niche.

Re:No, it doesn't run on Linux..

[Anonymous Coward]

Had quite a similar problem with Plants vs. Zombies. Demo worked great with Wine, purchased it, registration failed due to IE/ActiveX... But since I don't really see the point in donating money for a fun demo, I found a cracked version on TPB and play happily ever since. That registration process for PopCap games is a perfect example for stupidity, they should take a look at Introversion Software or 2dboy.

New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[illumin8]

First of all, let me just say that I'm loving this game so far (about 10 hours in). This game has all of the rich storytelling and character development that Bioware are famous for, with an updated graphics and combat system that really works well and is extremely polished.

With that out of the way, let me just say one thing: EA, keep your fucking money grubbing hands off of Bioware! You can see their "mark" on this game in the DLC.

In your party camp, there is a quest-giver that actually tries to sell you DLC! I started chatting him up, since he has a quest ! above his head. He starts talking about how Duncan of the Grey Wardens owes his family a debt, and would you be so kind as to assist him. I get 3 minutes through the conversation about how his family needs help, and just when I'm about to agree to help him, it gives me a menu option that says something like "Help him - Purchase Downloadable Content."

Let that sink in for just a minute... there is an NPC quest giver that tries to sell you content that is available on the day of release! This makes me think even more that EA intentionally stripped content out of the game to try to nickel and dime you. Tycho and Gabe talk about this and have a hilarious comic strip at Penny Arcade.

I'm still enjoying every minute of the game, but it kills the immersion when I have a quest giver try to hawk DRM laden "premium content". What makes it even worse, in order to get a storage chest, you have to purchase this content. No thanks, I'm not going to buy it. You already got my money, and that's all you're going to get.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[TheKidWho]

Thankfully the toolset for the game has been released and the game will fully support FREE user made mods.

Although as for myself I did purchase the Digital Deluxe Edition which includes the DLC.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[stagg]

That content had development/testing deadlines that came AFTER the cert date of the game itself. It was developed separately. I'm not a fan of DLC either and find it jarring that it's not handled entirely outside the game, but I don't believe that anything was hacked out of the game to facilitate it.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let that sink in for just a minute... there is an NPC quest giver that tries to sell you content that is available on the day of release!

...

Your actions have shifted your alignment 5 points toward evil

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[denton420]

I laughed pretty hard when I was going through the dialog for the DLC. I thought the guy was trying to pull a nigerian inheritance scam on me, talking about family debts and assisting him to unlock untold fortunes!

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[illumin8]

That content had development/testing deadlines that came AFTER the cert date of the game itself. It was developed separately. I'm not a fan of DLC either and find it jarring that it's not handled entirely outside the game, but I don't believe that anything was hacked out of the game to facilitate it.

I know they said this, and I can believe it, knowing how the software dev lifecycle works, and how different content teams can have different schedules, however, they still had to have someone QA the quest-giver that hawks the DLC, and they had to know that it would be ready on launch day, or the quest-giver would have to be removed.

So you see, this story is not completely true. How can you certify the quest-giver is in the game and working properly unless you're confident the DLC he links to is working properly as well?

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[TheKidWho]

Planning Ahead?

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[stagg]

Oh, they always intended to have DLC start rolling out the day of release. The quest giver was in loooong before the content he linked to was completed. It certainly shows their intent. But for the content he triggers to have been included as part of the core game, they would have had to push back the cert date. Cert isn't very forgiving, especially for consoles. (ESPECIALLY for PS3) I totally agree that there are a lot of scuzzy things about the way DLC works, but I don't think that it stole content or resources from the core game. ;)

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[LandDolphin]

How can you certify the quest-giver is in the game and working properly unless you're confident the DLC he links to is working properly as well?

They chose to risk it. On the off chance that they did not hve the DLC ready in time, they would have to field your exact same comment in relation to putting the quest-giver in without the DLC being ready.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they were being ironic?

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[Sparklepony]

Actually, the quest-giver is added dynamically to existing game areas by the DLC itself. There's future DLC in the pipeline even now and there's no way all their quest givers could have been pre-loaded into the game, they haven't even been written yet.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[RAMMS EIN]

I had to read almost to the end of your post to figure out that DLC is "stuff you have to pay extra for", but thanks for pointing that out. If I can't even play the game that I got without getting the feeling that I'm missing out because I haven't bought extra goodies, that's a deal breaker for me.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[elrous0]

In your party camp, there is a quest-giver that actually tries to sell you DLC!"

Oh, PLEASE tell me you have the option to kill him!

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[dr00g911]

I've got to say that the two quest givers that I've run into so far who ask for real life money in order to take some of their quests are about the sleaziest thing I've ever seen in a game.

From what I understand, each of the initial DLC packs are fully integrated into the main campaign, with dialog, new characters, character interaction, etc.

That means more than likely that they stripped side quest stuff out of the core game and decided to sell two chunks as DLC, in effect making a $60 game an $85 game.

I'd be more upset if the game itself wasn't huge and really well done for the most part. I'm enjoying the hell out of the game, but DLC available at launch -- with in-game paywalls soils the experience a great deal.

If this was a "finish it in a single sitting" game like Fable that tried to pull DLC this aggressively, I'd be pretty irate.

That doesn't excuse the strategy that they're using, but it does soften it a bit because there's more than enough game there without the add-ons. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a game this long since Baldur's Gate 2.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[doug141]

I don't think that word means what you think it means. (Alanis?)

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thou hast lost an eighth!

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[ravenshrike]

Two quest givers? Is someone playing a used/downloaded version perhaps?

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[dr00g911]

No, I'm using the version 100% legit off of steam, purchased "standard edition" -- not "collector's".

They're making a sales pitch for DLC on launch week via the quest givers in-game... on the day of launch. There's a questgiver in your camp that gives you about 3 minutes of dialog tree before "you don't have enough bioware points" -- and another at a mountain pass.

One unlocks the only decent tank NPC in the game, while the other gives you a party chest and an upgraded base with vendors that alleviate the mana potion scarcity in the base game.

It's really, really, really sleazy.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the quest giver is there in the standard game. If you do not have the DLC, he is still there trying to convince you to buy the DLC, while leaving an undoable quest (and then once you get the DLC, you must be connected to the internet to use it and any save game made with it loaded; "No DRM"?).

I agree with the parent. How could they not have had time to put in the quest, yet have time to not only put in the quest giver, but also give him the ability to pawn the DLC and implement a way for you to go buy it from the game?

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[aggie_knight]

Having bought the DLC and run the quest - I tend to agree with you. The $5 quest that is pushed on you (Warden's Keep) results in getting your own personal castle that you can store stuff in and several vendors to sell you stuff. I'm ~12-ish hours into the game and haven't found an alternative place to store extra loot. This content is so well integrated into the game, that had it not been for the PAX pair, I wouldn't have realized that it was an extra add on. The other available DLC is so obviously tacked on that it is nearly painful (you get a stone golem...for $15). I had picked up the Warden's keep DLC while concentrating very hard on my last conference call on the day the game was released and staring intently at the Dragon Age start screen. *Cough*

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[Nazlfrag]

I think "Will you assist me to unlock untold fortunes (CLICK HERE TO PAY FOR MORE CONTENT THAT WAS AVALIABLE AT RELEASE)" is fairly ironic.

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[sw33tjimmy]

Damned Mobuto Sese Seko...Now his children/lovers/lawyers/psychiatrists are showing up in videogames too?

Re:New and more disgusting DLC abuses...

[jaggeh]

This whole thread is absolutley untrue

i pre-ordered on steam, preloaded on thursday, got it unlocked friday, played for a few hours then over the weekend moved to a new apartment, i wont have internet for another 2 weeks at home.

im still playing DA:O and my DLC is working fine, stats say im 19% in to the game and i havent had a problem.

Btw the Dragon armor is totally worth it :D

They're called "bankrupt" these days

[Rix]

Unfortunately :(

Obligatory Defense

[eldavojohn]

Way to be a sellout Slashdot.

For shame.

I can only think of three Soulskill reviews that I know of to rate this review against others. To be fair, he gave Lord of the Rings: Conquest a bit of a bad review. Whereas Halo Wars and Resident Evil 5 were for the most part positive. Give him time to post some more reviews before you accuse the over doting as a Slashvertisement. Scores of 5, 7, 7 and 8 are pretty fair if you imagine they're trying to cherry pick to begin with (who wants to play Madden 20XX? over and over?).

My biggest complaint is not the Slashvertisement but actually the lack of reviews. Is this the fourth review since Soulskill took over from Zonk? I was hoping for more frequency ... granted Zonk wasn't that great at hitting all the major games. I guess the most difficult thing is just the amount of free time a fellow has. While Slashdot seems to promote user based book reviews, it never seems as though users are promoted to review games. I guess I would have liked to see a review of Braid and I have just finished up everything in Eufloria.

Hell, if any Slashdot admins are reading this, are non-editor game reviews accepted ever?

Re:Obligatory Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

"I guess I would have liked to see a review of Braid "

Braid was overrated.

There. Fixed that for you.

DLC Abuse -

[gadlaw]

I bought it pre order, the game has already had it's first Patch for the PC and it's still buggy. All that but the game itself is awesome, completely awesome. Now the DLC - Downloadable Content stuff is not making me happy. I've bought it all but apparently it's not actually mine if my internet connection goes down. WTF? That's not acceptable, I bought it, give it to me, don't make me a prisoner of my internet connection. That particular aspect of the game is a true 'bend over and prepare for your surprise' moment. I don't know why they felt it necessary to do this either. I'm reading also that you need your 360 connected to the internet to be able to play the downloadable content and not just to download it. Another slap in the face of the fans. So I'm torn, love the game, hate the crap surrounding it.

Re:DLC Abuse -

[Ceiynt]

I don't know what kind of copy you bought. I got mine from D2D, got the 2 "free" DLCs and I bought Warden's Keep, all day one. I then proceded to to play the game, all while disconnected from the interwebs without any issue, AND use the DLC without any issue.

Re:DLC Abuse -

[Narpak]

I've bought it all but apparently it's not actually mine if my internet connection goes down.

Yeah I had the same problem. Bought the game on steam, internet went down for a few hours and I got a message I wasn't allowed to load my game since I had activated DLC on it that required I log into EA. Which is pretty crappy; so I wrote and complained about it (and hope others do so to).

Re:DLC Abuse -

[baalz]

Yes, this is my experience with the game. I'm excited because of Bioware's pedigree, so I not only pre-order the game (something I rarely do) I also spring for the collectors edition with all the DLC. Release day, I excitedly download the game only to be hit with some bug related to their authentication servers not communicating amongst themselves which apparently hit most of the people who bought the game through stardock. After over an hour bounced around among various support people who didn't have any idea what was going on they said they'd get back to me. 4 days later they did. Meanwhile I get fed up and - timed it - spent 3.5 minutes to locate, download, install and launch a crack.

As a double strong "fuck you customer", not only can you not access the DLC without an active net connection, you can't play your save game which has touched the DLC, so assuming you don't want to just start a brand new game you can't play your game at all. So the other day when my flaky ISP is down and I can't do much else with my computer I figure it's a good time to play the new single player game I got. "Fuck you customer! You really should have just pirated the whole thing" Great job EA, I would love to support great games like this with my dollars but this is the last cent you'll ever get from me. You make it so....much...more...painful to actually buy the game.

Re:DLC Abuse -

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I had the same problem. Bought the game on steam...

Not defend EA's honor here (they have none), but Steam could be the root problem here and not the DLC. I haven't bought DA:O at all, but I have used some of Steams competetion, Stardock/Impulse and Direct2Drive, to buy downloadable PC games. As far as using single player content goes, none of those purchases required the computer to be online beyond downloading, an initial registration. Of course if I want to use any multiplayer or update servers I would have to have an internet connection, but a flaky ISP won't keep me from playing these games after the installation.

I've also had some experience with Steam, and while technically you should be able to play off-line with most, if not all, Steam games. However, I've run into glitches that prevent me from running non-online games without being logged into my Steam account. I would have to say that both Stardock's and D2D's content deliver systems have given me far less aggrevation (basically none) than Steam (not a lot but still an appreciable amount).

No demo

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, that was what I needed to know. I have already spent more than two hours looking for a playable demo (and failed to find one, of course).

Well al least now I won't have to reconsider my Electronic Arts boycot ..

Control Scheme Differences?

[vga_init]

I've always played PC role playing games, but nowadays my computers don't cut it for games even though they are perfectly good for everything else. I don't want to buy a new computer (upgrading existing hardware would also entail buying a new motherboard/case/everything). For this reason I've been tempted to buy a console just to play games like Dragon Age, but I have a hard time imagining how you would adapt a computer RPG to a console control scheme. Isn't the game crippled without a keyboard and mouse? I have similar concerns over the upcoming Final Fantasy 14, which is supposed to be an MMORPG (but how do you communicate with other players if you can't type?).

If anyone could share their insight on this issue, I'd be grateful. I don't have a lot of experience with PC->console migration.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Final Fantasy 11, the precursor to Final Fantasy 14, has been available on PS2 and the 360 for years and it manages. That being said, it's virtually impossible without an added keyboard, but that's why usb ports exist. You will manage moving to console, but it'll feel strange and take time to get used to. But that's just part of the game if you're not interesting spending the money need to update your PC.

Also, this one lacks any multiplayer content, so there should be no need for a keyboard.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[Alexpkeaton1010]

According to the reviews and talk online, the PC version is the superior version by a significant margin. Some of the advantages of the PC version are better graphics (obviously), a better UI, and the ability to put the camera into isometric view similar to the old infinity engine games (i.e. Baldur's Gate et. al.). For control, on PC you have a standard spell bar and can click the ground to move, but on console you have a radial menu for your skills and have to move using standard 3rd person controls. This means that in combat, on the PC, you can queue up all parties members exactly where you want them to go without controlling them manually. But the biggest advantage to the PC version, in my opinion, is the toolset that Bioware just released to create user campaigns that you can download for free. They talked about porting some of the best ones to PS3, but on PC you will have access to everything.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[acohen1]

I was a big fan of NWN on PC but I picked up DA:O for PS3 and the controls work quite well. You can toggle into the radial menu and switch to any of your party members to set targets and use spells, abilities, and items while the action is paused. The only major thing its missing from the PC is click-to-move from an overhead view, instead you have to run your characters in place if you need to move them without selecting an attack target. It also has an FF12 "gambit" style system called tactics that allow simple logic for automatic actions, and you don't have to buy the conditions unlike 12. The number of lines increases with skills and levels. As for FF14, I assume it will support keyboard since FF11 on PS2 did via USB. It also had an autotranslate function that would let you select from various predetermined text chats which would show up in the appropriate language for all players since the servers had no region restriction, so very often there was a mix of English and Japanese speaking players in party. I only played 11 on PC but I know these existed for console. Haven't seen the 360 version but I assume its similar.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[Monkeedude1212]

Its a steep learning curve, I'll give you that. Console Chat is usually done through voice, every X-box360 comes with a plug in Headset so you can chat live with your friends. It IS possible to type into your console, as it brings up a keyboard on screen and you move the cursor to a hilighted letter and press, which makes text speech unbearably slow and ultimately inpractical. (The only time I ever us it is to ask people what they are doing while they are playing other games and I want them to join me).

As for gameplay controls, while not as elaborate as most, they are usually enough to get you through the game. Essentially you've got your 2 joysticks which handle movement and looking, pretty standard. Then you've got a D-pad (which is the equivalent of 8 buttons), 4 buttons on the right, 2 buttons on the top (known as the bumpers) and 2 triggers, generally used for firing and secondary attacks. I haven't played Dragon Age yet, but I can tell you that for Mass Effect and Oblivion (both Single player RPGS) the console controller worked just fine. For special abilities, usually what happens is you press one of the bumpers and it brings up a wheel of your abilities and you aim one of your joysticks at the ability and press A or the bumber again.

So while it seems like a complicated system at first after a dozen times doing this you'll be a pro. Essentially you'll know the direction of your ability you want and its just a simple, bumper-direction-button combo you get used to pressing, takes less than a fraction of a second. And for Mass Effect and Oblivion, you can pause and set up your spells and such mid combat so its not so bad if you're just starting out.

All in all, Consoles do handle these games just fine, in their own way. I played Oblivion on both the Console and the PC and I can't really tell you which I prefer more, because the console movement controls seem a bit more.... I can't quite find a way to describe it, but I guess smoother is the best way. With analog joystick for movement you can really determine your speed and strafing etc etc alot easier than with a keyboard, which is basically 100% or 0% or possibly 50% if you press the walk key.

However, if you haven't used a Console before, I don't think I'd recommend shelling out the hundreds of dollars just to try it, because its not for everyone. If you've got a friend who has one, try using that a couple times and see how you like it.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what hardware you're using, but I've got a socket939 board that I got back in spring 2005 running 3 gigs of DDR333, an Opteron 180, and a GTX260. It'll play this game on near maxed out settings. Also since I've had almost 5 years to wait for prices to drop I've probably invested about $600 for the initial build, and put in another ~$410 in upgrades over time ($200 for the video card last christmas, $60 for an additional 2 gigs of ram early 2008, $100 for the processor during the summer of 2008, $50 to replace a bad power supply).

I always wince a bit inside when I see someone starting out with a $1200 gaming system. Just put down some money for a solid AM3 board and a quality 650 watt power supply and skimp and scrape the rest of the parts. Right now I'd probably go with a cheap PhenomX2, HD4850, and maybe 2 gigs (single stick) of some of the cheapest DDR3 you can find. If you price that out to anything over $500 your getting ripped off. Then down the road when DDR3 comes down in price you can pop in another 4 gigs, and upgrade that Phenom to a quad core, then way down the road pick up a shiny new video card.

You're a slashdot reader. Either stop getting ripped off or turn in your geek card at the door. There's no shame in investing $100 into an xbox if you can't be assed to keep your PC upgraded, but getting ripped off isn't something any nerd should take willingly.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[__aalruu9610]

I bought the PS3 version of the game since I'm in a familiar place with my PC being outdated. Overall, I feel like the game runs differently than experiences on the PC. Instead of a cursor they implemented a "reticle" that lets you target enemies and perform actions on them from the character's point of view. You can control each team member and do the same. The solution originally seemed like an elegant solution to me since pulling up the reticle paused the game, lets you assign actions, etc. But it quickly becomes clear that it's not a good solution to micromanaging. I find it nearly impossible through the course of a battle to assign actions to my primary character, target the same enemy in first person on another character, assign actions using the gamepad, etc. Where it became even more useless was when I started to get more spells. The controls allow for 6 quick slots per character. Everything else is controlled through menus in the reticle, which means that to cast a spell beyond your 6 quick ones, you need to hold (or press, it's an option) L2, move your cursor to spells, press X, find the spell, if it's on more than the first page (there are about 15-20 per page), move your cursor to the next page, press X, find the spell, press X...then hope that you remembered to target the right enemy. Rinse, repeat, for each character, depending on your micro-controlling wants. Most of the time the quick slots are fine, but you can only use the quick slots in live action with the game unpaused. All in all, the game is beautiful on ps3 and is very fun, and I suppose could be micromanaged with enough patience. However, I find it more fun just to play my main character, let the other characters do what they want and assign tactics to them unless they're about to die (which is pretty often since I often don't see that my rogue decided to run up to the main boss and steal aggro). What this also means is that I probably can't play on anything harder than Normal because it would take far too much micromanaging and I don't have enough patience. None of that would have kept me from buying the game, but it definitely seems like a different experience than I would have on PC.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[vga_init]

This is pretty informative

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually researched and priced out an upgrade? You're probably American, check out newegg. You should be able to put together a computer more than capable of running Dragon Age for $300 to $400. Somewhat more expensive than a basic 360, but multiplayer service is almost always free, games are usually cheaper, and you're not limited to what Microsoft say you can do. Please don't assume a console is the only option!

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[masmullin]

As I've said in a previous post. I am very disappointed in the xbox version of this game. I highly suggest you do not buy a console just for DA:O.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[ink]

According to the latest PC Gamer podcast, the PC version also has many more enemies, and is therefore a lot more difficult than the console versions. I'm playing on "normal" difficulty on PC, and have died too many times to remember (level 9). I can play through Mass Effect without ever dying once on Hard. The quick-bar at the bottom of the screen (1920x1080) is already full of spells, potions, elixers, etc.. My brother has the 360 version, I'm intrigued to go find out how different they really are, and how he could possibly play it without a mouse. The game feels like the old Baldur's Gate games; even though it's using a variant of the Mass Effect engine, it uses it very differently. Great game.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[Titanarm]

Isn't the game crippled without a keyboard and mouse? I have similar concerns over the upcoming Final Fantasy 14, which is supposed to be an MMORPG (but how do you communicate with other players if you can't type?).

The same way PS2 users did/do it with FFXI. They plug a USB keyboard into their system because typing with the controller is a pain and very slow. FYI, like FFXI, FFXIV will probably be completely controllable with the keyboard, nobody who plays the game uses a mouse, EVER.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[vga_init]

I'm totally down with keyboard-only controls. I hate dealing with the mouse when it's much more convenient to automate tasks like selecting targets with a hotkey.

Re:Control Scheme Differences?

[vga_init]

I full agree that DA:O will offer the best/full experience on the PC, but there are a bunch of other console games I plan to get, so it kind of makes sense to shoehorn DA:O in there instead of upgrading my PC, although I suppose it may only be a matter of time before I do; I still want to play Diablo III. :)

Needs more death traps

[Kenoli]

As far as I've gotten, it seems all too easy to live. I think extensive foreknowledge of intricate mechanics and game events as a prerequisite for mere survival makes for some interesting gameplay. Then again, the totally unrestricted save/load capability would pretty much negate that.
Maybe I just played ADOM too much...

Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[0xdeadbeef]

Why didn't they just call the classes Plate, Cloth, and Leather?

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[jgtg32a]

That's a very good point, I was rather amused to find that the Bard class was part of a Rogue's progression

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[kramerd]

Because those are materials, not classes.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

It simplifies things when the abstraction is completely unnecessary. With the way magic works in the game, anyone with magical abilities is technically a mage - that includes healers.

Also, I'm perfectly fine having an archtype that you can later expand on. I may know I want to play a healer in WoW, but how do I know if I want to be a Druid, Paladin, Priest, or Shaman? I like that in Dragon Age I know I want to play a magic-using character of some sort, and I can pick how I want to specialize later.

On a side note - there are no restrictions to what kind of armor you want to wear. I gave my mage a high enough strength to wear plate armor because it just looked awesome. Tank mage ftw.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[smartaleq]

Arcane mages (a specialization) are mages that wear plate. Shapeshifters are mages that spend all their time in animal form. Warriors specialized in ranged weapons are equally competent at it as rogues.
It isn't as simplistic as the review makes it, and I've been quite happy with it.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

why is that, bards in almost all fiction have been rogues at heart, pickpocets and traveling scountrals with a tale to tell, its fairly rare that they have magical talents.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Narpak]

Why didn't they just call the classes Plate, Cloth, and Leather?

Among other things because what armor you can wear is limited by strength (and how much fatigue you are willing to accept) rather than class.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[amicusNYCL]

It's also amusing that there's no Priest class, and all of the priests in the game tend to be rogues instead of mages.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

because you can wear any kind of armor on any class if they have the stats to do so

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Schadrach]

You should read the codex-stuff on Bards. They're under Rogue because their origin in the setting is as much as spies/assassins as anything. Still the Antivan nobles hire them, knowing full well that most of them are spies of some competing noble, as the Antivans love their music, and it makes the "Game" (basically Antivan politics, which they actually refer to as the Game in character) more interesting.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Schadrach]

On top of that, doesn't one of the Mage specializations get to use their Magic stat in place of strength for equipment requirements? Or am I thinking wrong (I think that's an Arcane Warrior thing, but I don't have them unlocked yet).

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they are part of the RIAA Guild?

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they just call the classes Plate, Cloth, and Leather?

simple: magi can also wear plate.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Sinning]

Wouldn't they be classes of materials?

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

The predominant religion in the game is adamantly anti-magic. Mage priests would make even less sense than rogue priests.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the bards are from Orlais, not Antiva.

Re:Healing mages? Rogues with pets?

[MBGMorden]

One of the main reasons for this is that different classes, races, etc have completely different starting storylines. Developing those for too many classes would have been painful.

Besides, it works. In the games' universe being magically attuned (to use magic at ALL) is something you're born with (and seen somewhat as a curse as mages are largely feared and kept in check a la the PsyCorps from Babylon 5). Everyone who can use magic is called a mage.

For the true "classes" like with other RPG's, I'd suggest you add the specializations as well.

Mages for example can remain unspecialized mages, or they can become Blood Mages, Spirit Healers, Arcane Warriors, or Shapeshifters.

Warriors can become Beserkers, Champions, Templars, or Reavers.

Rogues can become Bards, Assassins, Rangers, or Duelists.

The classes really aren't that much of a hindrance, and truthfully seem a bit more real-world-ish, in that most people will fall into a few basic categories where your basic skills are all the same with a little bit of specialized knowledge thrown in where needed.

Content Galore

[Anonymous Coward]

While I too, like many of the posters here, was a bit annoyed by the $7 "Warden's Keep Tax" - the sheer breadth of the game has won me over.

I'm over 20 hours in and (except for the opening Origins section) I've barely touched the main storyline. I've just been doing sidequests and experiencing the huge amount of dialog options your companion characters have.

In other words, I suppose I'd rather pay $57 for a fantastic game than $50 for a mediocre one.

Re:Content Galore

[blahplusplus]

"In other words, I suppose I'd rather pay $57 for a fantastic game than $50 for a mediocre one."

But weren't you supposed to pay $50 for a fantastic game when you bought it? DLC is basically extortion, when you buy a car and it's missing it's doors, would you be happy if they sold you the doors after you just laid down 20 or 30K for a car? I didn't think so either.

When you buy a product it should be the WHOLE product. DLC has shown itself to be nothing more then ripping off gamers everywhere and these stupid gamers keep this crap afloat.

Re:Content Galore

[amicusNYCL]

So you're saying that the $7 Warden's Keep content is the difference between mediocre and fantastic?

Re:Content Galore

[bigstrat2003]

But weren't you supposed to pay $50 for a fantastic game when you bought it?

He did.

Cut Scene Overkill!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked no one is talking about this. I like the game...in face I'm a HUGE fan of Baldur's Gate, NWN, Diablo, WoW, etc, etc. Even the old school Bard's Tale. Most of the aspects of this game are top notch...however I'm surprised no one else is talking about the cut scenes. I honestly feel like I am not playing a game as much as I'm watching a movie. Every time I walk into a new zone I get a new dreaded cut scene and more dialogue. Please, let me just control my character for five minutes. Let me do something rather than sit back in my chair and watch something. I'm watching more than interacting. I applaud the effort but for as much as people are crying about DLC...how about the obvious hint of a real attempt at creating a hybrid game/movie? We've all been hearing about stories of these two generes being converged at some point in the upcoming decades...but this truly feels like the first feeble attempt at doing so. (Albeit VERY first and feeble). Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Re:Cut Scene Overkill!!

[cptnapalm]

I know the feeling. I was playing Metal Gear Solid 4, the first I had ever played, and the shear number of cut scenes really got to me. During one, which seemed interminable, I thought, "hell with it" and went outside and smoked a cigarette. Upon returning, the cut scene was STILL going. A minute or two later, it finally finished. "Thank God!" The next thing in the game, I hardly need to tell you. It was another cut scene. I brought the game into GameStop for trade in. I simply got sick of it.

Re:Cut Scene Overkill!!

[Draek]

How is that any different from what we've always had? I'm not aware of any RPG that let you move around while you chatted with an NPC, its just Dragon Age puts some black bars and moves the camera angle during the conversation so it has a more 'cinematic' feel.

Re:Cut Scene Overkill!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like KOTOR only more, and better. I very much appreciate the cut scenes, especially since they change depending on who you bring with you, and who you killed earlier in the game, or who you decided to help etc. It's excellent, feels like a real world.

(captcha is "acting", even slashdot's page code agrees that the voice acting is good)

No PvP

[PincushionMan]

Kinda hard to have PvP when there's no multiplayer...

I know I'm in the minority

[lidocaineus]

but I have to yell anyway :)

Fantasy RPGs are so boring. I can't handle the whole elves and goblins and swinging swords thing. I'm not saying other settings are automatically more interesting but fantasy just seems to tired, kind of like WW2 FPS games. Futuristic settings at least seem to offer more possibilities (even if they're not always used) and what about a modern day RPG? Persona did it with a J-RPG series.

Swinging a sword with a leather clad character versus some dumb goblin makes me want to retch.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fantasy very much in the vein of George R. R. Martin, rather than, say, World of Warcraft or D&D.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

Any plot that you can come up with in a Sci-Fi world, you can do just as well in a Fantasy setting. The inverse is also true. Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Alternate History... It's just window dressing.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Monkeedude1212]

Every boy, when they were five, did 1 of 2 things.

Shoot pretend guns, or
swing pretend swords.

Sometimes a little of both, but one is always dominant. I think I know which was yours.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[IamTheRealMike]

So try Mass Effect then. It's by the same company and has the same trademarks - mind-blowingly huge world, great and ubiquitous voice acting, well written plot. It really feels like the 90s dream of an "interactive movie" actually came true. And it's classic space opera.

Or for a modern world, GTA4. Though I found GTA4 couldn't hold my interest for some reason, but I completed Mass Effect (I rarely bother to complete games).

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[hansamurai]

Mass Effect is out and Mass Effect 2 will be out in two months.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallout 3 is pretty close to what you are looking for, and it's very well done...

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[lidocaineus]

I did like Mass Effect, just wish there were more like it.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[thetagger]

Agreed in part. I think a lot could be achieved by merely reusing the old tired models in different genres. I think a WWII RPG would be awesome (where you control a spy double/agent trying to infiltrate the SS, for example), same with a medieval FPS (I want to help the Black Prince torch down France).

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[jollyreaper]

Fantasy RPGs are so boring. I can't handle the whole elves and goblins and swinging swords thing. I'm not saying other settings are automatically more interesting but fantasy just seems to tired, kind of like WW2 FPS games. Futuristic settings at least seem to offer more possibilities (even if they're not always used) and what about a modern day RPG? Persona did it with a J-RPG series.

Swinging a sword with a leather clad character versus some dumb goblin makes me want to retch.

Blame that on a lack of imagination on the part of fantasy writers. Tolkien started the trope with "fantasy = medieval Europe with hints of a grander older age that's like Rome -- only there's magic and dragons and shit." While other authors have tried breaking the trope, Europe with dragons and castles remains dominant. Some have tried doing stories like "Ancient Greece as seen in the myths." Some have had success, some not. But it's hard to find fantasy that tries moving the history forward. How about seeing the Renaissance in that Europe analog? How about the introduction of firearms? How about sword and sorcery in the age of piracy? You sort of kind of had a sense of that in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie with magic being real but why not go nuts with it? You've got your civilized races from across the sea trying to conquer a new continent. The native empires have strong warriors but are turned against each other allowing for a divide and conquer approach. So you have the fall of great magic-using civilizations, rouges and scoundrels and adventurers scrambling for treasure. You've got gunpowder, you've got swords, you've got magic and humanoid beasties and possibly flying feathered serpents to go along with the dragons.

Of course, there are the more notable scifi efforts like Shadowrun, directly transplating a D&D sensibility into a cyberpunk setting. You also have Warhammer 40k which takes the Tolkien by way of D&D world of Warhammer and puts it into space.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Darinbob]

Hmm, I've never played a WW2 FPS game, so if they're an old and tired genre, they'd be new to me :-)

Also, as far as fantasy goes, if the game is good then that can make up for a lot. Personally, I might get tired of it when I've run across tons of good fantasy RPG games. However most of them are very mediocre. There's almost always a feeling that something is missing and that maybe the next game can capture just the right feeling.

Though I can agree, too many games keep rehashing the same old D&D stereotypes that got old in the '70s.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

So, uhm... go play a different game? Dragon Age is basically the same story as Lord of The Rings, with enough changes to avoid lawsuit.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[sqlrob]

Tolkien Lord Dunsany started the trope with "fantasy = medieval Europe with hints of a grander older age that's like Rome -- only there's magic and dragons and shit."

FTFY.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, I've never played a WW2 FPS game, so if they're an old and tired genre, they'd be new to me :-)

Have you never played a FPS? If so how have you missed the WW2 games? They make up an amazing amount of the entire FPS genre.

Personally, I might get tired of it when I've run across tons of good fantasy RPG games.

Really? Complaining about having too many good fantasy RPGs? This is a bad thing? The mediocre ones sure, agreed, but good ones being a problem? Your post, it confuses me.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Labcoat Samurai]

The issue I have with this analogy amounts to scope and creative freedom. A WWII game isn't, by and large, a setting in which you can exercise a lot of creative discretion, if you're trying to be remotely historically accurate. Fantasy sword and sorcery, by comparison, isn't even a setting. You have some basic guidelines (dwarves are short; elves have pointed ears), and then you make your own setting from there. The dwarves of Dragon Age aren't the proud, honorable mountain people of Tolkien. They're just as petty and flawed as humans, given to backstabbing and infighting. The elves of Dragon Age aren't the proud, graceful, and enigmatic people of Tolkien. By and large, they are slaves who have forgotten their culture and heritage after being conquered and subjugated by humans. Are dwarves still short? Do elves still have pointed ears? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's a retreading of the same old fantasy we've seen time and again.

On the other hand, if you just don't care for the notion of medieval technology (e.g. swinging a sword), I guess there isn't much that can save it.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Homburg]

with enough changes to avoid lawsuit.

Though I think they might face some legal trouble about the music.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[ImNotAtWork]

Thanks for the Lord Dunsany/Edward Plunkett reference. My library carries it and will definitely check it out.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[sqlrob]

I'm reading some now for the first time. It's... different. The section I'm in is just little bits covering the various gods and lands, no real plot of any sort. I'm hoping the other stories in the collection are a little more traditional.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[7Prime]

The problem with earth or earth-like historical settings is that you have technological boundaries that keep the settings fairly similar. Either you have wood or brick interiors, or forrest or plains exteriors. The more alien (Final Fantasy) or Sci Fi (Mass Effect) you go, the more creativity you have to open your environments up to very different locales. Mass Effect may be sci-fi, but you spend part of the game walking around a desolate ice-dield, or tropical paradise. So you get both natural and artificial environments. An "alien world" based game (Final Fantasy for example), opens up the possibilties of completely un-earth-like environments and technology. You can have stone age cultures, fantastic etherial backdrops, and space ships all in the same game. It just allows for more freedom and variety. My biggest complaint about DAO is that a lot of it looks and feels the same. Locales change, yes, but I'm only 10 hours in, and I'm starting to confuse the few locales that I've visited thus far.

Can middival fantasy be done in fresh new ways? Yes, but DAO isn't really setting out to do that, they seem to be setting out to take old tropes, and expand upon them. There's nothing wrong with that, but an open-ended RPG isn't probably the best place to do that. If you want to really bring out the full artistic experience of a sophisticated setting and story based on old tropes, make the game tighter, do away with dialog trees. Give the player a single character with a personality, and build a very linear narrative. That's why Zelda does so amazingly well. They take old tropes, make them very tight, and the creators create a very interesting experience. On the flipside, use non-linearity for less over-used tropes like in Mass Effect, where the player doesn't know what to expect, and can do whatever they want.

There's a place for linearity, there's a place for nonlinearity. Some people have the idea that linearity is inherently bad, and that games should ALWAYS strive for that, I disagree. Different amounts of player freedom depend upon how tightly the game should be controlled. Unfortunately, with wRPGs, D&D environments are always incredibly non-linear and uncontrolled, which often makes their progression quite bland. This is precisely the opposite of what SHOULD be done.

I'm sort of regretting picking up this game, but I'll continue playing it, since I have nothing else going, and I paid $60 for it. But come Assassins Creed II and FF:Crystal Chronicals, this one will likely be collecting dust.

Re:I know I'm in the minority

[Labcoat Samurai]

You make some good points in that first paragraph about how much freedom a science fiction or alternate universe setting can have in its set pieces, and that spectacle is certainly a draw. But what drew me to Mass Effect was less the exotic set pieces and more the engaging story and characters.

In general, that's what always draws me in with an RPG, and that's why I tend to disagree on Zelda, if you can even consider the games comparable (action adventure vs immersive western RPG). I mean, Dragon Age is less like Zelda than Mass Effect is like Halo, and the comparison seems about as fair.

While I agree that Dragon Age is largely building on what is known, I think that's a strength. It's a deep and complex world full of lore, and familiar fantasy tropes make it more accessible. But once you're past that, virtually nothing in the game meets the expectations of its nearest applicable analogue in other fiction.

If you want to really bring out the full artistic experience of a sophisticated setting and story based on old tropes, make the game tighter, do away with dialog trees. Give the player a single character with a personality, and build a very linear narrative. That's why Zelda does so amazingly well. They take old tropes, make them very tight, and the creators create a very interesting experience.

I'm not really following what this accomplishes or why this is necessary. In fact, I tend to think that a great deal of choice and freedom is what makes a deep and complex world worth exploring. Why go to all this trouble if you're going to railroad the player? Zelda is a fine example. Its lore is extraordinarily shallow, and its main character has the personality of a tree branch. It works for that game, because it's about the childlike wonder of it all.

Still, I wouldn't presume to say you're wrong. Zelda is a great game. I don't exactly see why sword and sorcery games need to be like Zelda, and I, personally, have grown tired of every Zelda game basically rehashing its predecessors (100000 to 1 odds the next Zelda game has a boomerang), but it's undeniably a formula that works, and it's hard to argue with the quality. To each his own.

360 Owner's POV

[svendsen]

So far 20 - 25 hours in and the game is pretty good. Few complaints:

1. Seems every 10 hours or so the game locks up and have to restart the 360. 2. If you tell a person no who wants to join you then you can never get that person again. It would have been nice to get a warning or something like "Hey if you say no one more time you will never ever see this person again". I did this to 2 characters before I found out. Crap. 3. Triggers for battles drive me nuts and you better save often. For example walking down a hallway in a dungeon you get attacked by a few skeletons. You bet them and as you recover 8 more rise up around you and attack. Game over every time. I've encountered a few places like this and it is frustrating. I think to truly to get into this game a 2nd replay is in order but not sure if I will have the time to do that

Re:360 Owner's POV

[greenreaper]

Heh, I know the skeleton battle you're talking about. You need to use tactics - like sending one guy ahead to test while the others hold back. Sometimes you can split them up. And take it slowly! Real adventurers who just ran into every battle would get slaughtered, and rightly so. You also have to read the location. For example, if there's a bunch of webs around, maybe you should be on the watch for a spider ambush - or if there's a huge pile of bones and rusting weapons on the ground, chances are you shouldn't touch that vial . . . they give you lots of hints.

Re:360 Owner's POV

[svendsen]

Ya I am figuring all of that out very slowly. Thanks for the tips though! :-)

I think this is the first area I have been at (redcliff before this and the mage tower) where the tactics really matter. In the Mage tower it wasn't required. In the dungeons it really does.

I'm having a blast with the game though so i can't complain too much!

The Ugly Bat

[STRICQ]

I would play this game except for the fact that it's impossible to make a character that hasn't been hit with the ugly bat.

Re:The Ugly Bat

[amicusNYCL]

Morrigan turned out all right..

In fact, half the NPC women in Redcliffe turned out all right.

Re:The Ugly Bat

[Draek]

Try females then, its pretty hard to make an ugly one (well, unless you go for a female dwarf, but I'm assuming you're going for a human character).

Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

My main gripe with it is lack of detailed talent / spell tooltips, paired with a lack of a "respec" ability.
It is no fun to play a game, and upon reaching lvl 2 have to read through 50 spells to decide which "tree" you want to delve into, especially when the spell's descriptions are vague or don't give you an idea of real world usage.
EX: Arcane Mastery

        * Passive
        * Requires: Level 10

The mage has gained keen familiarity with the arcane arts, granting a permanent bonus to spellpower.

This is one of the top tier spells, but it gives 0 indication of how good it is.

compare to a typical wow tooltip. . .

Arcane Empowerment Rank 1
Increases the damage of your Arcane Missiles spell by an amount equal to 15% of your spell power and the damage of your Arcane Blast by 3% of your spell power.

I can make a decision based on numbers, i do not like to have to make alot of permanent decisions, based on adjectives such as "moderate" or "skilled" alone. Not to mention specializations that give you no clue as to the abilities they unlock.

I do not think it unreasonable to let people respec mid game. Let it cost gold + time, but people trying new things and trying different specs is a big part of keeping it fun, having a character that you feel comfortable playing without having to start over 5 different times is key.

just my 2 cents.

Realistic Review

[Anonymous Coward]

Start up game, oh christ it's not been QA'd on AM2's kill the 2nd core with affinity settings, alt tab back. MMMM pretty intro, a little choppy but still good.

1 Hour in:
Jeezus it's choppy as hell on my 8500 GT on the lowest settings (AM2 3800 w 4GB ram and Windows XP Sp3 + 28 minimal running processes). I'll stick with it and see how far I get. Wife's card looks fine, and it's not much newer.

OMG fight scene is 4FPS on Lowest Res and Lowest Textures can't move, thank god for space bar pause.

Ok Fine, it's an old card, time to Upgraaayyyyyd

5 Hours in:
New 9500 GT can handle fight scenes at modest resolution, running 18FPS now. Oh god giant fight scene, laaag, ok caught up. *sigh* half a processor not very fast, when will these game companies start writing software that works on my AMD?

Storyline is engaging, game is fun, can't save stupid dog picked up herb but was the wrong herb aargh... Moral imperative's fun to mess with, evil babykilling monster seemingly quite possible as protagonist... intriguing.

10 Hours in:
My wife has now nearly completed the first half of the game and I'm finally a Warden. Going to get bored with this game soon as she beats it, must get some more playtime out of it before all the cut scenes are ruined for me.

Re:Realistic Review

[Anonymous Coward]

Your 9500 GT is still the bottleneck in your system which is why your CPU is pretty much unused.

I'm sorry to say but upgrading from a bottom of the range last-last generation GPU to the bottom of the range last generation GPU was probably a waste of time and money.

Nerf... not debuff.

[AP31R0N]

The opposite of a buff is a nerf.

Re:Nerf... not debuff.

[Blakey Rat]

Uh, not really...

A nerf is a permanent reduction in an piece of equipment, character class, or skill's ability. For example, "Fireball now does 30% less damage" = nerf.

Debuff is removing a buff from a character. For example, "the Lich cast Neutralize Magic on me and now I no longer have my Shield spell up" = debuff.

A buff is a temporarily increase in stats. A nerf is a permanent reduction in stats. I don't think there's an accepted opposite term for nerf other than just "made more powerful."

Re:Nerf... not debuff.

[jaraxle]

Another bit of clarification:

- Nerfs are done by developers to the game itself, typically in patches or hotfixes
- Debuffs are in-game abilities used by NPCs or PCs

I don't think there's an accepted opposite term for nerf other than just "made more powerful."

Technically, "buff" is used as the opposite of "nerf" as well as "debuff".

ie. The developers nerfed the Wizard spell "Fireball" by reducing its damage by 30%, but compensated by buffing the Wizard spell "Blast Wave" by 20%.

~jaraxle

Re:Nerf... not debuff.

[brkello]

No. Nerfs are an out-of-game concept when a game company (usually in the MMORPG genre) makes a character weaker by reducing its stats or effectiveness of its abilities (generally for balance issues). Debuffs are an in-game concept that is the opposite of buffs...a reduction in stats.

For example, if you were to die in WoW and choose to not rez at a graveyard, you would get rez sickness which is considered a debuff. No one would say, "Hey, I don't feel like running back, I'll just take the rez nerf." So the summary is using the term correctly and you are not.

Well, screw that then

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not paying $60 for half of a game. Either sell me the game or don't.

Re:Well, screw that then

[amicusNYCL]

Half a game? The game has, what, 80 hours of gameplay? It's a 20GB download, and you're bitching over an extra 4 or so hours worth of play time?

Re:Well, screw that then

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at 60 hours already and my progress estimate is sitting at 27% of the game complete. I bought the one for pay DLC available (Warden's Keep) day one and it wound up taking around 5.5 hours to complete.

The other quest content related DLC (Shale/Stone Prisoner) and a variety of somewhat useful items were free DLC for anyone who bought a copy (of the right version/from the right store in the case of the exclusive items) or downloaded the Character Creator demo and uploaded a character to the social site.

I'd like to re-iterate as well that the DLC wasn't actually completed until months after the content for the gold version of the game had gone into lockdown mode. If the game hadn't been delayed for additional polish of the console versions you likely would only have had the exclusive items for pre-orders and the CE as DLC at launch and Shale and Warden's Keep would have been released (at least) a couple of months later.

All that being said, letting the fact that DLC is offered on day one cause you to miss what (IMO so far) is BioWare's best game since BG II is a bit ridiculous, but hey, your loss. DA:O is definitely one of the biggest bangs for the buck in terms of volume and quality of content per dollar I've ever seen.

Re:Well, screw that then

[dilvish_the_damned]

The way I understand it, all box sets comes with keys to get you the downloads. I think the idea is if you borrow/purchase the game second hand, you get to pay EA some dues ( ~$15? ) if you want the extra content.
At least you don't need a unique CD key registered on some central server in order to play. I haven't looked but I doubt you can rent Diablo 2 very effectively.

I LOVE THIS GAME!

[CraniumDesigns]

I LOVE THIS GAME! Been hooked on it all weekend. Best RPG in a LONG time.

Neverwinternights engine = fail

[blahplusplus]

The game uses the same base engine of previous neverwinter games and you can tell when you look at the combat mechanics of the game, go play some quick battles in NWN1 and NWN2 and you can still feel how the never got rid of the clumsyness of battle system itself.

Dragon ages would have been better as an ARPG instead they tried to stuff it into Neverwinters moldy engine. The only thing that keeps the game going is the art and interesting characters and dialogue.

I must admit though the art direction is what really makes this game, it's a miracle they got decent art finally out of the abortions in terms of ART that Neverwinter 1 and 2 were.

You can still feel the sluggishness of the aged aurora/NWN engine though, even on the latest and greatest it will chug in some area's.

Re:Neverwinternights engine = fail

[MemoryDragon]

That is one of the things I dislike about bioware games, the engine, walls are mostly invisible barriers, the path is highly linear and there is no environmental interaction except crates. I currently play Riven which has all the interaction I want.
My personal guess is too many games have forgotten the groundwork Ultima 7 has laid, and only a few of them have managed to pull another Ultima 7 off.

Re:Neverwinternights engine = fail

[MBGMorden]

Dragon Age uses a new engine. It uses the same basic COMBAT style is NWN because, well, that's what Bioware does, and they've made a hell of a name for themselves doing it.

Re:Neverwinternights engine = fail

[blahplusplus]

It's not "new" it's just a modified aurora, i.e. the toolset gives it away bigtime.

"Dragon Age: Origins Bioware uses the newly developed Eclipse engine. This new architecture uses parts of the Aurora engine"

Which is code for we're taking aurora and modifying it, it's not really "new" it's just (now) more heavily modified aurora, but the crappyness of aurora is still all there, esp with the combat mechanics.

DLC made scary

[Lemming Mark]

I was going to say exactly what you've said, basically. Firstly I'm definitely going to buy the game (for the Xbox 360). And I may buy the DLC if it's worth it. But I won't buy the DLC straight away and I'll consider not buying it at all. The excuse is that the DLC couldn't have been put into the game during time constraints - I say, fair enough, but if you have expansions coming out on the same day of release you are Doing It Wrong. If you deliberately end up with DLC that's ready for release day, you look like a cynical nickel-and-diming businessman - don't do that. If you accidentally end up with DLC that can be ready for release day, consider expanding the scope of the DLC, that way it'll be better value for gamers (though you could even charge more and profit) and it doesn't look really really cheeky. There's nothing that forces them to release DLC at the same time as the retail box.

Whilst I'm sure, based on BioWare's previous record, that it'll be an excellent game and excellent DLC I really want publishers and developers discouraged from making the mental link "DLC = printing money". The equation should be "Good DLC, with reasonable restrictions and decent value for money = happy customers and more profit". If they continue the nickel-and-diming trend, I'll move to playing games I can afford. Which probably means instead of buying the DLC for a single retail game, I can buy three second hand games which will provide me with a more varied and enjoyable experience. Yes, that's right EA, you're encouraging the second hand market - well done.

There's a direct link to the Penny Arcade strip here: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/6/ (nb. contains profanity, as you'd expect from PA)
Also, Tycho's take on the situation is here: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/11/6/

My own review, after having finished the game

[SmallFurryCreature]

Bioware has done it again... and that as I will try to make clear is not entirely a compliment.

Dragon Age is the fantasy RPG from Bioware that is NOT D&D. As you may know, Baldur Gate and Neverwinter Nights were both based in this universe. And to be honest, after having the same exact skillset for over a decade, it was time for something new. Anyway, Bioware no longer got the license so they set out to create a bright new world with dragons and dungeons and elves and dwarves and magic...

So what is new in this brave new world? No magic arrow and colored spray. Everything else is the same. Oh okay, not exactly the same, stats are simpler but if you played Baldur's Gate, you will have a strong sensation of Deja Vu. But then you should be used to it, because you had the same sensation in Neverwinter Nights.

So it is more of what we come to expect, is this bad?

Yes.

Why? It is NOT because we got dwarfs and elves and such. Their are enough subtle changes to make it interesting while at the same time giving us that warm feeling of a familiar place.

The problem is that the game STILL plays the same. You will STILL need a rogue who is useless in combat because they need to be specced to the max to detect the traps that are only in a few dungeons but then are so numerous you can't move an inch. You STILL get locked wooden chests that this time you can't even bash, even with a golem around. You STILL only get 1 ingredient from said locked chest that is 1/5 of a potion. You STILL get said chests in the end game where you are fighting for your life and stop the entire war to pick a chest that then has a shield that never was of any use during the entire game.

Some, like me, might have hoped Bioware had gotten past this, that the endless looting of chests all over the place every 2 meters, the idiotic loot drops etc had just been part of D&D. But that is not true. No dungeon master would do that. Loot goes at the end of the game, the dragon horde. Not every 30 seconds.

Will I like the game

Yes: if you want Baldur's Gate 3.

No: if you are sick to death of the same game OVER and OVER.

A brief walktrhough

You choose a race, a class and a origin. This bit is actually very well done, you can really see the different stories blend in with the main storyline and they are interesting enough. It is once you get on the main story that you get another MAJOR and disappointing Deja Vu moment. Bla bla bla, world in danger from an enemy, unite the races, all three races want you to do something for them, gain a force, give them better equipment, assault the enemy in a final battle. Been there, DONE that. It was TWICE in Neverwinter Nights.

Is it REALLY that hard to come with a new story type? Apparently it is for Bioware.

Remember please Bioware, people play your games multiple times, so we have united armies and equipped them dozens of times before. COME UP WITH SOMETHING NEW PLEASE! And no, collecting 3 items to create a weapon is NOT NEW.

But how is the combat

Messy and idiotic.

One of the most braindead decisions by Bioware is to limit you to four, to make story dependant on who you pick (only people in your part comment and get affected by choices) and to LIMIT their AI settings based on skill points you NEED for other things.

So unless you cheat, you are either going to have to do without skills like herb and tracking or do without a full list of ai options.

The idea is that you can create a very simple "if this, then do that" list for your party members. It works, it takes some thinking but it really does work. Provided you pick your own because the ones Bioware has cooked up suck donkey balls. Oh, and you got to cheat.

Let me explain:

The ideal foursome in DAO would be a tank who can gain agro, a DPS who shoots the crap out of enemies, a disabler who disables stuff you ain't ready to deal with and a healer.

The only decent tank is Shale, a golem

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, it seems like you just never really got the hang of *playing* this. All the people I know that are playing this have no complaints about pacing, lack of mana potions, use of rogues, etc. I haven't had problems with Alistair. You don't have to use him. There are other characters you can choose in your party. You can level Wynne (and it is Wynne, not Wayne) so she gets more stats to Willpower which will give her more mana to use, did you know that? You can make the party stay where they are during combat with the button on the screen that makes them do that, did you know that?

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Minwee]

I sucked at the game, and didn't enjoy it.

There. Edited that down a bit for you.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Anonymous Coward]

About halfway through your review of the game you say "The ideal foursome in DAO would be a tank who can gain agro, a DPS who shoots the crap out of enemies, a disabler who disables stuff you ain't ready to deal with and a healer," then going on to explain how this is nearly impossible to set up.

This seems to ignore the most obvious argument: that that is not, in fact, the ideal foursome in Dragon Age: Origins. If you go to the forums there are hundreds such complaints coming from users with similar problems, people who insist on playing this like the game it isn't. When you're given a system, the "ideal" build is dictated by the rules of that system, not whatever you've cooked up in your mind beforehand.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it REALLY that hard to come with a new story type? Apparently it is for Bioware.

And the fine makers of Doom/Quake, Civilization, the Sims, Half-Life, Call of Duty..

hell, pick a game that's come from a studio that has made any other popular game in the past that's NOT a clone - your argument can be applied to almost, if not every, game to date that's ever come after another game. Which is most of them.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Reason58]

Planescape: Torment.

You're welcome.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[MikeBabcock]

That's almost exactly what I was thinking. Besides, since when does any set of characters need to be ideal at all? I find it much more interesting to try and play through RPGs with less-than-optimal character sets anyway.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Wurm42]

Second this!

DAO is not World of Warcraft or a typical dungeon brawler.

It's a game built around a complex story, with multiple paths through that story. That flexibility means that there's no single "ideal" party, and that there will be multiple ways to achieve most game objectives (including winning combats).

Also, it sounds like you're trying to charge through every combat and turn the game into one long frontal assault. Bioware's pause-and-click combat system is designed for *tactics*, not tanking. Each combat demands a different approach, and your party members' relative strengths and weaknesses change as they level.

I think you're missing a lot of the game's depth and making a lot of unnecessary frustration for yourself.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome write-up, but DA is a far cry from the Baldur's Gate series in terms of freedom, number of meaningful chocies, dialogue, interesting characters, and having a simulated world that feels like it could go on without the player. I wanted Baldur's Gate 3, I got KOTOR 3.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[jaggeh]

One of the most braindead decisions by Bioware is to limit you to four, to make story dependant on who you pick (only people in your part comment and get affected by choices)

If you make bad or particularly good decisions the guys you left out of your party will talk to you about it when you return to the camp, i lost about 30 favor points with alistair for leaving him out of redcliffe and taking the wrong choice for the moral dilemma.

ive managed to bring him back up to where hes no longer openly hostile tho :P

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[space_jake]

I had similar complaints with lack of stamina/mana until I realized what the willpower stat did. After raising willpower to around 20 my warrior/berserker/commander can easily roll with three sustained abilities up and still have plenty of stamina for activated abilities. The AI is pretty good once I learned how to use it. My defender (Alistair worked great) and healer (I devoted all my mage's attribute points to willpower/magic) were just set on default. I put my rogue and berserker on scrapper and set one tactic to make the rogue follow the target of my berserker. The over abundant crafting stuff is in there because harder difficulties require a lot more consumable use.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[mcvos]

Exactly. The OP sounds like he's trying to play WOW rather than DAO.

The cool thing about real people and believable RPG characters is that they're not optimized to do one thing and one thing only. They have quirks and shortcomings, and that's what makes them cool.

Re:My own review, after having finished the game

[TheEden]

I`m not even going to start playing it. :\ BioWare really sucks in storyline departement... oh, Sooo predictable plots of nwn/nwn2/ME, I really felt like I`m wasting my time and money for hothin` when I played that, even though games looked Sooo beautiful. Looks like they first come up with a collection of skills/spells and create a battle system suitable for all that, and only then they start thinking about the plot. Don`t just play mmog, folks@bioware.com, try reading some books... Its not like everyone writes about someone saving the whole world... again.

Good game, but problems.

[spitzig]

The world is deep, and the interaction between the characters is great. Beautiful graphics. The story is good, so far.

My main problems with the game have been because it's 3d. It seems that all the RPGs these days must be 3d, even if the only benefit is beauty. The set of games based on the Baldur's Gate engine were the last games that I played that didn't have problems seeing the characters. But, because all games must be 3d(and the camera rotatable), I frequently can't see my characters from the overhead view-no matter which way I rotate it. There is also a first person view, but it's not as effective for controlling 4 characters. Also, the overhead view is not as good as in Baldur's Gate, because you can't get as high. So, you can't see as much of the battle.

It's the first game I've had to put on the easy setting in a while. Before that, I was getting killed at almost every battle. I had to replay almost every battle, with foreknowledge to win. This was on the normal setting. It's hard to imagine how hard the highest setting would be.

Re:Good game, but problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before that, I was getting killed at almost every battle. I had to replay almost every battle, with foreknowledge to win. This was on the normal setting.

Pre-patch Normal is beautifully challenging. Yeah, there are some battles you have to play a few times over, but that's just learning and applying tactics. Post-patch 1.01, Normal mode is much much easier. Where I was quaffing potions constantly before and replaying difficult battles 3-4 times, now I have a ton of leftover potions and the genuinely tough battles are quite rare. Kinda disappointing, IMO. Hard is a bit too much, and Normal is a cakewalk now.

xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivion

[masmullin]

This game is absolutely inferior to Oblivion on the xbox. There are lots of invisible walls, most doors are artwork and cannot be opened. There is only a single path through "levels"... there are "levels" rather than being an open world. Cutscenes are slow and boring.

Dragon Age for xbox is VERY similar to Fable/FableII

Overall I would give this game a 7/10, and only because there aren't many game choices for people who like this Genre (6/10 if your not an rpg fan).

I guess you could say that I am very disappointed with this game.

Great game with some issues

[r6_jason]

The game is really good, I'm still playing through the Human Fighter story line, but, the game has a bug where it will start to eat CPU and the FPS will drop to unplayable levels, you can just wait it out and it will return to normal, but, despite that, I am still playing it, the story is that good.

Re:xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivio

[Alexpkeaton1010]

Different people want different things out of an RPG. I prefer the tighter story and awesome dialogue of a Bioware game and loathe the lack of direction in Oblivion. I also prefer the combat in Dragon Age to Oblivion, since it is based on party tactics. Oblivion is simply swing sword/cast spell. But if that is what you like, then go for it!

Note:

[Derosian]

If you play the game for about 48 hours in a single run the load screens start to take longer and longer and eventually the game just crashes. Hopefully that was just that one time though, also it might be my specific computer setup.

Re:Note:

[nedlohs]

Maybe save and reboot while you catch 5 minutes sleep???

Re:Note:

[pwfffff]

Yeah, if you play for about 27 hours straight without pausing then it can get kind of jittery. To be fair though, that could have been the methamphetamines.

Re:Note:

[Nazlfrag]

Also, if you play the game for about 48 hours in a single run your reactions start to take longer and longer and eventually the brain just crashes. Hopefully that was just that one time though, also it might be my specific body.

Re:Note:

[Tukz]

I noticed this too doing the weekend.

I have a habit of not really quitting what I am playing, just minimizing the game and doing whatever.
Sometimes I have 3-4 games running.

DAO had enormous load times after the first 30 or so hours.
Restarting DAO solved it instantly.

Summary of an AC "Realistic Review"

[timster]

1. Despite wanting the game to work, I'm playing it on a PC. It didn't work! I wasn't surprised.
2. The game seems fun.
3. My wife is playing it too. I hate that.

Well...

[rcuhljr]

I'm certainly enjoying it. The characters are just wonderful to interact with, and combat is actually challenging which is a fun change of pace. I've managed to glitch the game once so far in about 20-30 hours of playtime, which doesn't seem egregious. The only problem I've noticed is loading slows down the longer you run the game on PC, after a 4-5 hour stretch loading times are up from 5-15 seconds to 30-60. Exiting and re-opening the game solves that. I love how they've broken out of the common Good Choice/Evil Choice decision trees, it's not uncommon to have 3 or more solutions to a given problem, and frankly none of them is wholly 'Good'. I'm also enjoying the overall darker tone of the setting/game.

not true.

[johncandale]

Lies and deceit The PC hasn't had a patch yet and you don't have to be online to play. that is all

Re:not true.

[sqlrob]

Lies and deceit The PC hasn't had a patch yet

It hasn't?

Re:not true.

[Yosho]

Uh... I don't know what to tell you except that you're completely wrong.

The patch is out right here: http://social.bioware.com/game_patches.php

Also, you don't have to be online to play the base game. However, if you have any DLC, you must be connected to the internet and logged into your BioWare account through Dragon Age to access it -- and if your saved games have any of that content in them, that means you can't load those saved games unless you're connected to the internet.

Re:not true.

[nitehorse]

Oh really?

Joystiq and Kotaku seem to disagree with you.

I don't know about the having-to-be-online-to-play thing. I'm usually online. But there has in fact already been a PC patch.

Re:not true.

[ravenshrike]

mmm, not true, there are ways to get around that. I believe all you have to do is go to the AddIns.xml file in your Documents/Bioware/settings folder and change all the RequiresAuthorizations to 0.

Re:not true.

[PunchMonkey]

Also, you don't have to be online to play the base game. However, if you have any DLC, you must be connected to the internet and logged into your BioWare account through Dragon Age to access it -- and if your saved games have any of that content in them, that means you can't load those saved games unless you're connected to the internet.

I have DLC and have no trouble loading my saved games while disconnected from the internet. Oddly enough, while I *am* connected to the internet I occasionally get an error saying I must login to load a saved game with premium content. So far I've always just been able to click "OK", and then "Resume" a second time and I get in just fine.

I'm playing the PC deluxe edition ordered from Impulse.

Re:not true.

[Nazlfrag]

So in other words it is true in every way, but there is a complicated workaround that only works on a PC.

Re:not true.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same shit bioware pulled with NWN DLC. What a horrid mess.

Re:not true.

[Krneki]

So in other words it is true in every way, but there is a complicated workaround that only works on a PC.

Yap, this is how a PC works, it might be complicated , but it can get the job done. As for consoles, well, you know what do we think about them. :)

If you are a gamer, Best RPG in years

[johncandale]

It is down right good. The colors used have a life and brightness to them so often lacking in games. It's the first game in a long time where I turn the sound up because the music and the battle explosions sound awesome. It seems almost everyone is voiced and the voice acting is not bad. The story is good and the diolog is good. The game play is fun and engaging. It's does everything well, and somethings amazing.

Don't buy it for the plot.

[Anonymous Coward]

The plot is about as cliched as you can get. Basically every single "twist" is utterly predictable. I think there's only been one spot that surprised me in the slightest, and that's not because it's original or surprising, it's just because I predicted the wrong cliche.

The playable characters, on the other hand, are nicely designed and well characterised, and their interactions (while still rather predictable) are at least amusing and well-scripted. So it's not a dead loss for writing fans.

Just don't expect the main plot to be interesting. It almost makes "Neverwinter Nights" look good ... at least that game had a traitor whose identity was not obvious from the moment you set eyes on his hairstyle.

Re:Don't buy it for the plot.

[pwfffff]

Isn't the cliche why we like it? It's one of the best games I've played in a long time, and yet I can't think of anything truly original that it's done. And that's fine by me.

Dragons and elves and magic, hell yeah.

Re:xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivio

[SuiteSisterMary]

A few things that really jumped out at me:

1: The bad: this was pretty obviously an Xbox game originally. That's why people bitch about the graphics. Details on armour and what not are just textures. No bump mapping or whatever the kids are using these days. If a shield has a hide with a coat-of-arms strapped onto the front, it's a flat texture with a picture of a hide with a coat-of-arms. Doesn't cut it these days.

2: The good: No arbitrary alignment axis. If you're mean to person X, person X doesn't like you. You don't get pushed to renegade/The Dark Side/Evil/whatever overall. This makes for much more realistic sorts of interactions. For example, and ever-so-mild and obfuscated spoilers ahoy: (skip the next paragraph if you don't want them)

Yeah, when I'm trying to save a kid from demonic posession without sacrificing his mother in a blood magic ritual, you're damn right I'm going to be slightly less kind with the ferryman who's not letting me get to the island I need to get to.

Re:Yes they can

[RMingin]

Well, I never got to finish Army of Two. There's a big huge gunfight in a courtyard at the end, and I couldn't wipe out the incoming bad guys fast enough. Once enough of them piled up in the courtyard, the frame rate began to plummet. After a minute of that, you're moving the controller, and the screen doesn't follow for 3-5 seconds or more. Unplayable.

On the other hand, I don't spend any time tweaking on my desktop. I start games, they run, they run very well. This 'spend hours for 3FPS' is a completely different thing.

If you're spending hours, you clearly don't understand what you're doing.

Mixed Bag

[Ender77]

I have been playing Dragon Age at a friends house, and have been tempted to buy it, but I think I will hold off after running into the guy trying to sell me DLC in the camp site. WTF?!?! Bioware, how you have disappointed me. I am sure this is EA's decision to milk the franchise even more, and this is what all of us were screaming about when EA bought them out. Ah, how the mighty have fallen. Whats next? In the next game, we will have ads playing during loading screens? Or perhaps we will have company brand names put on items? Pathetic. Still, the game IS fun, and besides the DLC annoyance I am having a blast. I will probably get it, but not as it is. Why buy an incomplete product? I will wait till the mondo, super, complete edition will be released in a year or two at a reduced price that will include ALL the DLC, addons, extra content, etc.

Re:Mixed Bag

[Anonymous Coward]

So buy the Dragon's Age: Origins Deluxe edition and you get all the DLC included in the package, no more need to whine about it being DLC (that it's cheaper to buy as DLC is besides the point).

better question: why doesn't it run on linux?

[je ne sais quoi]

As far as I can tell, this game is only planned to be released on Windows, Xbox 360, and the PS3. My question is, isn't the PS3 running linux? Doesn't it use OpenGL? I don't know much about consoles, and some quick googling didn't turn up the answer but maybe somebody could enlighten me, does the PS3 even run DirectX? If not, Bioware must be going through a lot of trouble to port it to the PS3, and I know there's a lot more PS3 owners than linux gamers, but if they have to rewrite it in openGL then it seems like a lot of the work necessary for a linux port would already be done.

Re:better question: why doesn't it run on linux?

[Rycross]

No, the PS3 doesn't run Linux for its normal function (Blu-ray, games, PSN, etc). It has the *option* to run Linux, but that isn't exactly the same thing. Whether or not it uses OpenGL, I don't know, although I've heard from online game development discussion sites that it uses a Sony-specific API that resembles, but is not quite, OpenGL.

Regardless, development is only part of the equation where Linux support is concerned. There's also QA and support costs that have to be factored in. And then, you're limited to the cross-section of gamers who use Linux, but don't own an XBox, PS3, or Windows PC. I can't imagine that amount of sales adds up to anything significant.

Re:better question: why doesn't it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS3 only runs linux on certain versions. The gods at Sony have decided that we mortals are not worthy of runing Linux on their hardware anymore, and have thus disabled it on their newer hardware revisions. It is likely that the PS3 version is running linux, but the ps3 port is the demonstration of why it's a good thing there's no linux port. First off, the PS3 uses OpenGL ES, and I'm sure your propriatary drivers do not support those APIs. Secondly, there are so many bugs with the PS3 port, you'll never want to play it. Seriously - the PS3 version is crap. I'm going to try to return this game as soon as possible. Bioware, as I understand it, didn't even touch the system - it was ported by Edge of Reality.

My Dragon Age Review

[junglebeast]

For reference, let me start by giving my opinion of some previous BioWare titles.

In my opinion, Baldur's Gate is the best RPG series ever made. I also enjoyed Neverwinter Nights, but I was a bit disappointed that the tilesets and UI made the game feel stale. I enjoyed the LAN play ability of BG, and I thought NWN online was a bit of a failure.

I was also really blown away by Mass Effect, I loved the dialoge interface that allowed me to easily choose options that corresponded to my emotional response without needing to read in my head the exact words that my character would be saying. The dialogues were so well recorded that they seemed more engaging than Star Wars episodes 1-3. Truly this is one of the first games where I actually enjoyed sparking new dialogues.

Now onto my review of Dragon Age Origins. The game feels like NWN with improved graphics mixed with Mass Effect style scripted dialogues. Unfortunately the dialogues do not work so well in Dragon Age and quickly become monotonous, because none of the character responses are pre-recorded (making them sound oddly one-sided), and also because you need to read through the full sentence as opposed to the easy to use dialogue interface of Mass Effect. This was a step backwards towards Baldur's Gate style dialogue. Despite BG being my favorite RPG, I can admit to sometimes getting impatient with the dialogues. Also, there is a bit too much dialogue in this game and not enough fighting.

I was excited that they strayed from traditional D&D rules with Dragon Age because I thought it would be fun to learn new spells. An example of where that worked very well was Guild Wars. Unfortunately, the skill trees remind me more of Hellgate London...although a little better than that.

First, they are highly unbalanced. There are WAY too many "sustained" abilities because you can only active one at a time and yet they occupy nearly 1/3 of all skills. This is a waste because any build is simply going to pick 1 that remains active 99% of the time.

Second, the skills themselves are highly unbalanced...some of them are awesome, and some of them totally suck. There's no way to tell which ones are good because the skill descriptions don't give any stats or equations, so the only way to figure it out is by trial and error. Trial and error works fine in an action RPG like Diablo, but it's not fun to re-do the same story lines over and over just to try out a different spell build, especially when there's no easy way to go out and level without having to go through the story.

The skills for the Warrior are even more unbalanced. The skill categories are broken into sections like "dual wielding," "sword and shield" and "two handed." Obviously a fighter is going to specialize in only 1 area, which makes 1/3 of all skills useless. Then because 1/3 of those are all sustained, this makes only 1 + 1/9N of all N skills actually by any one build. A further 1/3 of those are passive, leaving only a petty few active combat skills to choose from, and 90% of those are so useless that when I level up, I can't think of a single skill to put a point into that would have any practical value...so sometimes I don't even bother to use the skill points anymore. Also, the skills all have level requirements for the Fighter, whereas the Mage skills (spells) have no level requirements. That's not really fair!

There are more class/party unabalances. First, it seems like 2/3 of all chests in the game are locked, but for the entire first act you can't open these locked chests unless you are a Rogue. It's really annoying to torture the other 2 more popular classes (Fighter and Mage) by not being able to open any chests, and not providing any party members that are Rogues that could join the party except for short durations of time.

this brings me to my next complaint: The chests never contain anything useful. After a while, you will discover that pretty much the only loot you ever find is useless crafting materials and potions. I'v

Re:My Dragon Age Review

[rcuhljr]

and also because you need to read through the full sentence as opposed to the easy to use dialogue interface of Mass Effect.

If you spend more time reading a sentence then you do thinking about what response you'd like to choose I think that says a lot. I disliked Mass Effects one/two word selections because they often didn't accurately reflect what he was going to say, I like more control over my character.

there is a bit too much dialogue in this game and not enough fighting.

Again I can't agree here, I spend a lot of time reducing things to rubble.

First, they are highly unbalanced. There are WAY too many "sustained" abilities because you can only active one at a time and yet they occupy nearly 1/3 of all skills. This is a waste because any build is simply going to pick 1 that remains active 99% of the time.

Many sustained abilities can be activated at the same time, I have 4 I keep up all the time on my character, and 3 others I use periodically. All of my other characters switch between their sustained abilities, maybe melee rogues only use one, but what you've said isn't true for any of the classes I've played.

Second, the skills themselves are highly unbalanced...some of them are awesome, and some of them totally suck. There's no way to tell which ones are good because the skill descriptions don't give any stats or equations, so the only way to figure it out is by trial and error. Trial and error works fine in an action RPG like Diablo, but it's not fun to re-do the same story lines over and over just to try out a different spell build, especially when there's no easy way to go out and level without having to go through the story.

This is a valid complaint, they could have used a lot more information on most spells.

The skills for the Warrior are even more unbalanced. The skill categories are broken into sections like "dual wielding," "sword and shield" and "two handed." Obviously a fighter is going to specialize in only 1 area, which makes 1/3 of all skills useless.

You meant 2/3d's, although if you have so many wasted skill points why not pick up sword and shield and either two hander or dual wield so you can switch depending on the situation?

Then because 1/3 of those are all sustained, this makes only 1 + 1/9N of all N skills actually by any one build. A further 1/3 of those are passive, leaving only a petty few active combat skills to choose from, and 90% of those are so useless

My warrior has 17 points spent, 3 of which are sustained (that's closer to 1/6th then 1/3), and only two of those can't be activated at the same time. so assuming you always use either "blocking arrows" mode or "increase defense but lower attack" mode you at most waste 1 talent that's a pre-req for others. (I know I use both modes, and have you ever played diablo 2?) I have 7 passive abilities, and 7 activated abilities, all of which get used regularly. (skills and spells have meaningful cooldown timers so you need multiple ones to interleave)

I can't think of a single skill to put a point into that would have any practical value...so sometimes I don't even bother to use the skill points anymore. Also, the skills all have level requirements for the Fighter, whereas the Mage skills (spells) have no level requirements. That's not really fair!

You are aware that you get 2 specialization schools to spend skill points in right? Also melee skills and caster spells are an apples to oranges comparison in relative power. The highest level requirement on a melee base skill is 12, hardly a huge hurdle. (And a mage even spending 66% of his leveling attributes on one stat won't meet the higher requirements until level 8-9)

but for the entire first act you can't open these locked chests unless you are a Rogue. It's really annoying to torture the other 2 more popular classes (Fighter and Mage) by not being able to open any chests, and not providing any party members t

Re:My Dragon Age Review

[TibbonZero]

I'll second many parts of this review. I'm feeling that more and more of the 'review' websites were paid off to give perfect reviews of this game.

First, there's the bugs. The camera is nothing but annoying. I started as an elf and went on a rampage through his manor. My character was screaming half the time about killing humans, even when he was killing guard dogs. Didn't make sense. There's more little things like this throughout.

The "this can be played like four games" thing that they were spinning the other week is totally bunk. It doesn't come off as that- it seems instead scattered and inconsistent.

The graphics aren't bad, but they certainly aren't good. The way they just blurred the backgrounds (which you can sometimes see in focus around people's hair and stuff) instead of doing real DoF like most modern games. Kinda a cheap way out. The faces generally look pretty good, but the scenery really isn't anything amazing.

This game is NOT Baldur's Gate. The AD&D rules held Baldur's Gate together really well. It made it a little unshocking when you'd get a new spell, but it was a comfort that I enjoyed. It also made it so that things had real numbers behind them. The Talent Tree sucks and is hard to tell what in the world I should do. Also- unlike AD&D your stats constantly increase per level. I initially assumed that they'd stay firm like AD&D or at least close like Fallout 3.

While it might have made the dialogue even longer, I really voice they had voiced the PC's parts. Otherwise you seem mute and without character or life. A lot of the characters are supposed to be 'likable', but I didn't find that to be true at all. There is no Minsk and I constantly disagree with the actions of my character, let alone the party.

I definitely miss finding 'good stuff' in the chests, and the battles just didn't seem tactical enough. I wish I could make it actually stop after each turn like Baldur's Gate for those battles that MUST be executed perfectly. Feels much more 'hack and slash'. It being a game that's born out of AD&D (somewhat) I was also disturbed at first with the death system. I guess it does stop just me resurrecting people or carrying pheonix downs or similar.

Not a bad game, but some of these 'pro reviewers' were definitely paid off. Not perfect. BG:2 was perfect. This is more like a 7/10.

Re:My Dragon Age Review

[DNS-and-BIND]

You actually liked Minsc and Boo, the miniature giant space hamster? I couldn't stand them and thought they were about as entertaining as Jar-Jar Binks.

Re:My Dragon Age Review

[cjb110]

I do agree with the looting, you kill some badass baddy and get a single healing potion. Where did their armour and weapon go? Doesn't always have to be special, just represent what they were holding.

I also think its been dumbed down a bit, possibly for the console generation (or console tech limitations). Very simple stats and skill trees, no mage loosing powers in armour stuff, no needing to learn spells or stupid identify crap.

But I also played it for 23 hours over the release weekend...so maybe that's more telling:)

Re:My Dragon Age Review

[bartok]

I agree with everything you said.

Re:My Dragon Age Review

[mcvos]

You actually liked Minsc and Boo, the miniature giant space hamster? I couldn't stand them and thought they were about as entertaining as Jar-Jar Binks.

Are you kidding? Minsc is the most popular character from BG.

Next up: EA/Bioware to revolutionize visual arts

[Lemming Mark]

EA / Bioware to revolutionize viewing and distribution of paintings and photographs

EA and Bioware have teamed up once again to revolutionize an art form that was previously stagnant and unsatisfactory for consumers - the humble picture. "It's hard to believe that when you purchase a work of creative art, such as a photograph or a picture we still have to cope with an entire picture arriving in our hands or on our screens.", said EA's chief executive "this is really a tremendous amount of information overload for a consumer to process.". EA aims to challenge this situation by bringing lessons learned from their decades in the software industry. "We've developed a new technology, which we call Just-in-time Information Gathering with Self Advertising Workloads or JIGSAW for short. We're breaking down the monolithic 'picture' into bite-sized chunks".

The company's chief market researcher commented "Put simply, our consumers, they demanded a solution to the systematic inefficiencies of the current paradigm. By decomposing what we call the 'viewing experience' into a set of micropayments, we have made it possible for consumers to purchase a variety of upgrade to the basic experience or 'piece'. These upgrades take the form of other 'pieces' which the consumer can use to enhance their viewing experience". As well as the empowering nature of allowing consumers to make repeated credit card payments, the company also expects that different consumers will get more out of the product "Our focus groups show our customers taking a variety of unique approaches to consuming the content. Whereas before they were limited to simply looking at a picture, they can now determine the order in which the 'pieces' are discovered. Some individuals enjoy starting with areas of detail, while others prefer to start with the edges. It's really exciting to see existing content reinterpreted in a new way".

Back in 2009, EA and Bioware amazed the world by successfully producing a game which did not restrict customers to a single purchase on launch day. It seems strange to think of this today but prior to Dragon Age: Origins, customers who had queued for hours on launch day were only able to make one payment when purchasing a video game. Die hard fans who wished to pay more were forced to buy multiple boxed copies of the game, bringing the disadvantages of a second physical disk (sometimes called a 'backup') that could not be lost due to computer error and an unfortunate ability to resell the game when bored of it.

EA's JIGSAW technology will be arriving at art galleries in Fall next year.

So there's dragonage...

[lennier]

and elfage and dwarfage... and hackage and pillage and luggage...

but is there winnage?

Archetypes or cliches?

[YourExperiment]

unashamedly embracing the archetypes that made RPGs what they are

Or "little more than a collection of tired old genre cliches and tropes"?

Annoying camera in PC version of Dragon Age

[rcb1974]

I played through all the BG series and NWN series games. Loved them all, but Dragon Age has a really annoying "feature" with its camera that I have been unable to figure out how to disable. If you zoom out all the way, you cannot tilt the camera down to see the horizon. This makes it tough to see enemies far in the distance. Someone needs to make a hack that unlocks the camera in Dragon Age and makes it like the camera in NWN or Fallout 3.

In NWN, you had full control over the camera. In Dragon Age, you only have full control when it is zoomed in about 50%. Anything between 0% and 50% zoomed in is locked so you can't tilt the camera down towards the ground. It is really annoying.

The camera problem is the only gripe I have against the game. Otherwise, it is very polished and stable. The graphics are awesome -- you can see the pores in the skin of people's faces, and the lips move in a pretty realistic fashion and in sync with the speech. They also implemented non-verbal communication (facial expressions, mannerisms, etc) that are quite good. The voice acting is excellent. The sound and music are good. The story is pretty good. The engine and abilities/spells/skills are good, especially considering that Bioware developed them from scratch (probably so that they don't have to pay licensing fees for the Dungeons and Dragons rules). It would be nice if the character wasn't so locked into following a linear quest series. Baldurs Gate was more open ended -- you could just wander all over the land and explore whatever looked interesting to you.

Re:Annoying camera in PC version of Dragon Age

[jaggeh]

this is a feature that i actually love, its very useful during large fights to plot out AOE and cone spells/abilities

Re:xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivio

[masmullin]

This game is way more Fable like than it is BG (the controls and graphics are worse than fable though). I absolutely adored balders gate, and this game is nothing like it.

I have yet to find any "awesome dialog" in dragon age, like I said, the cutscenes are really boring.

Re:xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivio

[masmullin]

SPOILER

I chose to sacrifice the mother (I didn't think I had the time to run around the world to get the ritual w/o bloodmagic). Alistar totally FREAKS out on you if you do this. and is the one shining gem of dialog in an otherwise dull game.

DLC ok, but not 'in game'

[Roger W Moore]

Not owning the game but listening to the comments here I am not at all happy with what they imply. I have no problem with optional DLC provided that the advertising/nagging is done outside of the game itself i.e. while loading, in the main menu etc. Being continuously nagged about DLC in the middle of in-character conversations is NOT acceptable because it gets in the way of me enjoying the game that I already paid for. Apart from destroying the atmosphere - which is a good portion of the appeal of a good RPG - who wants to be continuously reminded about all the stuff that they are missing?

Re:DLC ok, but not 'in game'

[Z34107]

You don't get nagged during in-character conversations. Except for the character whose sole purpose is to take you to the DLC. He'll give you the option to buy it if you don't have it.

Re:DLC ok, but not 'in game'

[Schadrach]

This. Although I didn't even know that the NPC in question did that initially as I handed in my "deluxe" serial and got the content in question downloading right off the bat, and it had finished downloading and installed itself before I got remotely close to said NPC.

It is literally the NPC who tells you about the place in the DLC that tries to sell you the DLC. Somewhat silly, but the only alternative would be to simply remove him from camp entirely if you don't have the DLC installed.

what no Minsc!!!!!

[__aapspi39]

"go for the eyes boo!"

To be honest - this game looks great. If it has the graphics of Oblivion and the depth of BG2, then it should be the best game in a long long time.
Long overdue, even without the big guy.

Yes, it does run on Linux..

[Rendonsmug]

Dragon's age does run in linux. I am playing it on wine 1.1.32 in Ubuntu 9.10. When it hangs at the end of installation you have to quit out and download the nvidia physx driver's from their site and install them first. I have played all the way through the mage tower segment. It doesn't run perfectly though, cinematics show blank screen (even though audio works) and all visual effects had to be turned to the lowest setting so it didn't wonk out. Otherwise it runs great on linux. (Note, in-game cutscenes work fine, cinematic ones don't.)

My Favorite Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

I am loving this game so far, but my favorite moment by far was last night at about 5am. Being the evil bastard my character is I decided to destroy a holy relic. Well 2 of my buddies didn't like that so much, one being a former priest and the other an uptight mage. So they decide to KILL me, yes kill as in they went hostile and joined the crowed of pissed off people attacking me. I throw some fancy spells and they both fall dead, and never get up again. Their Journal stories update and say they died in battle after I was a bad man and destroyed that relic. Games almost NEVER do this! I felt like there was actually consequences to my actions! Most games NPC's get pissed sure but they still will still grudgingly go along. But no, I stepped over the line and that was it. So that's my epic story, makes you really wonder what's going to happen next.

Also that left me without some necessary characters... it was totally worth it though!

So long old friend

[dirkdodgers]

I understand why Bioware cut ties with WotC. They didn't feel they were given the flexibility to develop the game they wanted under the D&D license.

However, the Realms setting that I loved was what kept me coming back to their prior games. Don't get me wrong. This isn't a bad game. It's as good a game as Morrowind or Oblivion.

But it will never be a special game. It will never be more than a good game. Maybe in another 10 years if Bioware sticks with this setting and develops additional content around, it could be, but that seems unlikely.

I refuse to play 4th ed. due to the forced miniatures requirement, but at least that could have been hidden by a CRPG.

World of PauseCraft

[TheRealRainFall]

Until they fix/patch the tactics to allow more and a smarter AI where your players don't get stuck when you're kiting mobs around it's a game that plays much more like a TBS(turn based strategy) than an RTS. The squad based play is very clunky and you have to constantly pause the game to assign new commands for your players to execute. Thankfully the cooldowns on most of the abilities are fairly long so it's not a total nightmare but if you hate a game you have to pause constantly to setup commands you will really dislike this game. Solutions: Double the number of tactics at least, Make any untargeted PC auto-follow/attack his target(As it stands right now if you kite a mob your players will gets stuck and just stand there), and give the ability to link commands between players. Let me macro all of my characters' main offensive ability to 1 key as if i'm a 5 boxing shaman.. It wouldn't really be OP because you do that while paused anyways.

Re:World of PauseCraft

[Tukz]

Obviously you didn't play Baldur's Gate.

Baldur's Gate had same combat system, except there WASN'T tactics.
Had to do everything yourself.

Oh and I haven't had problems with my characters following their target, if it moves.

Re:World of PauseCraft

[TheRealRainFall]

Are you using kiting strategies? And what system are you playing on? I'm using PC. Try kiting the first boss in the tower with your mage and see if all of your party stays on him. I also played Baldur's Gate ... 10 years ago. So i don't recall TBH. Either way they need to expand the tactics list.

Re:World of PauseCraft

[Tukz]

I assume you are talking about the Ogre in the Tower.

Actually, now that you mention it, that fight was a bit strange. I did try to kite it, but my melee's just ran somewhat behind him at all times and stopped when they got close. Eventually I had to freeze kite him (cone of cold).

However, that's the only fight I can remember acting dodgy. I can kite just fine now (on regular encounters though, maybe it's a boss issue? I'll take notice on next boss fight)

Oh, I play on PC.

Re:At least Digg is a bit more obvious about it.

[smitty97]

mod parent up.. folks are pissed about it taking over the backgrounds

Re:xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivio

[Homburg]

this was pretty obviously an Xbox game originally

Not so much - it's been in development since 2004, and was originally planned as PC only, and indeed was still being talked about as PC only back in 2008.

You're right about the simplicity of some of the models (although I'm pretty sure they are using bump mapping), but that's not because they were originally targeting consoles.

Re:My Dragon Age Review...EA bleeding cash

[Anonymous Coward]

I should really login, but why bother with it. After playing DAO for about 10 hours I have to say that smallfurrycreature's and junglebeast's reviews are pretty accurate. The game is well crafted, but it's Fantasy RPG on Rails and it all feels... derivative. A stronger crafting system, a larger party or a more detailed skill/spell set would make game more interesting. The game is certainly hyped enough, you can barely visit a website without seeing a Red Dragon.

On a side note EA is bleeding cash like a stuck Madoff http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091109/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_electronic_arts.

Difficulty

[bigstrat2003]

Mostly, I wish the difficulty wasn't so punishing. I'm by no means bad at RPGs, but I get my ass handed to me on a regular basis. I spent an hour dying to one particular room in Denerim (the capital city) where two mages and their assorted henchmen killed me over and over and over. I never even got close, and this was on normal difficulty! I finally said "fuck this", and turned it down to easy for the remainder of that dungeon. I then turned it back up after downloading 1.01 (which makes normal a bit easier), and picking up a heal spell for Morrigan. It's been better since then, but I still run into some seriously cheap battles periodically, which I only get through on luck at times.

I've heard that there's a healer character you can pick up, which might make things much better for me, but if you really need her to progress well, how did they allow such a crucial character to be avoided while you pursue other forks in the main quest line? I appreciate challenge in a game (and even expect it to an extent), but Dragon Age definitely has been regularly crossing the line from "challenging" into "cheap and frustrating" on a regular basis for me.

Re:Difficulty

[Tukz]

Well, either get the "healer character" (I can tell you where if you'd like), or slap some healing spells on Morrigan.

Personally I skipped the "healing character", since I play a mage myself, with a healing spell.
My mage is primarily DPS / CrowdControl because you always seem to fight at least 6 other people.

This frustrated me to no ends with my first character, a warrior, so I restarted with a mage and focused on frost (cone of cold, winters grasp) and crowd control (nightmare, sleep, horror, paralyse etc). Worked a lot better.

A sword and board warrior, a ranged rogue, dog and my mage isn't afraid of anything, if I get the right angle of things.

Keep as many as possible frozen by cone of cold, sleep or otherwise disengaged, and take things down one by one by brute force. Heal where required or quaff some potions, which I make myself.

Re:Difficulty

[sw33tjimmy]

Love the game, but...
i find the difficulty to be all over the map, personally. I fought against an orange guy and 4 whites last night and after I was laid waste to the first two times, I easily whipped them on the 3rd go-round. I think it has to do with a wildly random enemy AI.

I'm finally getting better at playing strategically I guess, but before I hit level 10 I was getting routinely killed by the random encounters. Pretty infuriating to bring down two ogres at a time and then get obliterated by a handful of wolves.

Its about the story telling. DA rocks

[guidryp]

I am huge BG/BG2/Planescape/NWN fan. As a single player campaign this is the best I have played. I have ~30 hours in and I don't think I am half done.

I won't claim the 6 origins lead to six playthroughs, the story converges about two hours in at Ostagar, though each will likely encounter a nemesis or friend from you origin that remembers you(I encountered many as a Dwarf Noble).

What I did was first play all 6 intros. These are story heavy and combat lite. They were all very good and good insight into the society of the world (castes/casteless, ghettoized elves freed from slavery) you get to see the class/race struggles from boths sides. It is a perfect intro to the world they created.

They have created a living breathing world populated by interesting and believable characters. The story is immersive, they voice acting is wonderful. I think everyone one you talk to in the game is voice acted, you don't read a line of their dialogue.

There are some issues of course.

Yeah there is the whole lame DLC stuff(Shakes fist at EA). Ignore. I bought the cheapest most basic version and I didn't even go online for my freebies. Unnecessary in a game this big.

There does seem to be some kind of resource leak for fragmentation that slows down loads after you play about 2 hours. You then need to save exit/restart (what I was doing when I spotted this review).

The RPG system. Well it's new, it will be tweaked, but it isn't multiplayer so "balance" between the classes is not much of an issue.

Bottom line here is a great story on the EPIC scale of LOTR, where you really feel at the center of it. Certainly there is some linearity, but that is part in parcel with telling an epic story based on you.

All in all epic storytelling wins the day. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go to the Landsmeet to pick a new king.

What do you mean?

[jonaskoelker]

Are you saying that the DLC gives you a good amount of ! for your $?

Re:What do you mean?

[greenreaper]

That's a good joke - but no, I mean it literally is a ! symbol. :-)

Re:Sounds (somewhat) good

[someone1234]

There is DRM. You cannot even continue a saved game if you started it with premium content (like Stone prisoner) enabled, unless you are connected to the Net.

Some encounters are insanely difficult, even on Normal.
For example, a "random" encounter with a dozen tough archers. http://daforums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=705371&forum=135&sp=0

There were numerous problems with the social site/game registration, patch and toolset cause serious trouble for some people. This isn't a news for games of this size, but BioWare and EA apparently are not up to the task to support this game smoothly. Information from them regarding the problems were scarce. Usually you had to decide on better informed fellow players' tips.

Bioware rules, EA sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what's up with all this presell bonus stuff and special items you get in relation where you buy? I pay for the game but i do not get all the content?
The marketing guys shouldn't fiddle about with the game desgin!

Re:xbox version - doesn't hold a candle to Oblivio

[SuiteSisterMary]

Nah, look at the chainmail on shoulders, for example. Straight flat texture of a picture of chainmail with shadows and stuff drawn in.

it's like a gifted child

[blahnut]

Certainly fun. Oblivion and FF12 met one night in a bar and produced this gifted offspring.

speculate this

[Anonymous Coward]

nyar nyar DRM nyar nyar DLC

get over yourselves. it's a solid game despite last gen graphics. the voice acting and plot are matched by few other current games, any genre.

buy it if you think you'll like it. don't if you don't. speculation is for the weak.

PC vs console

[mcvos]

I'll put it simply: the cost vs benefit of consoles is far greater than anything a PC can come close to. These days the benefits are so lopsided in favor of consoles that it's kind of a joke; no one is saying PC gaming is dead or offers some advantages, but in the longview, the advantages are few and miniscule and you will always be in the minority.

You honestly mean you don't own a PC? Because if you do, why would you need to buy an additional machine just to play games? Nicer graphics? For the cost of a high-end PS3 you can get a very nice gaming PC. On a PC, you get a wider range of games and other applications to choose from, and most of them are cheaper than what you pay for a console game.

The only real advantage of consoles (although it's a big one) is that a lot of publishers are producing big blockbuster titles that Just Work, and can be bought in lots of stores. No need to figure out what's cool, no need to check for system requirements, no need to download anything. Just do what everybody else does, and it'll work. Which is great for people who just want to play the latest blockbusters but useless for people who want to play something else instead.

No fluff

[Anonymous Coward]

Great review.

Enchantment?

[sw33tjimmy]

ENCHANTMENT!