Dragon Age - What is your feeling on this?

ghostryder

The story is good the first 25 percent- not so much after your goals are laid out. (getting the factions to honor thier promise)- It then goes like this- "We will but we can't until you do this first"--I've seen nothing else outside of this.

I don't know, I think the story lines in the various quests is pretty decent, and several of them fit very nicely into the related origin stories. The Brecilian forest story is probably one of the weaker story lines along with the Circle of Mages (which I also felt was rather weak). Don't want to be too spoilery, but:
- Redcliffe has an excellent set-piece battle and also sets up one of the more complex "shades of grey" decisions in the game with lots of different potential resolutions.
- The Ashes with its She-Jesus story has one of the more awesome moments in the game. The fight with Flemeth is but a pale imitation. You think Dragons don't run? No ... they fly.
- The dwarf quest is quite long, but the ending is excellent. Probably the best of the base quests; receives extra bonus because it ties into both the Dwarven Commoner and Dwarven Noble origins.

A really nice element of the game is that all of the main quests have at least 4-5 (if not more) different ways that they can be resolved, allowing lots of scope for roleplay. Not only that, but a lot of the sidequests also have multiple resolution paths The sidequests also do a good job of expanding on the character of the NPCs. I'm dubious as to how much difference this will actually make in the long run (vis a vis future games/expansions), but it does mean that each player creates (more or less) his or her own little story.

/Strategy
Designer/Developer, The Imperium Project

I really think the criticisms of the Fade/maze/puzzle were overstated; I found it to be quite enjoyable and fun without giving away anything. It fits in with the world lore and immersion, and the actual maze/puzzle, if it can even be called that, was well done and not long at all. Try playing Wizardry 7 for some mind-numbing and excruciating puzzles. Same with the 'been here/done that' complaint - that can be said for 99.9% of everything said and done on this earth.

I second what Strategy said above, there are many paths to resolution and lots of room to roleplay. I think the key to any good roleplaying experience is the relationship developed, not just with your own character, but with the world itself and the personalities involved. Here I think Dragon Age has excelled - the full-blown NPC characters with their own interactions and banter, the epic battles and awe inspiring cutscenes, the Codex, the overriding main story. Think Fallout/BG/NWN all rolled up into one. It's not perfect, has quirks and limitations, and doesn't do some things like how I think but I can't deny the superb quality here. I think it's a disservice to pawn off preferences as objectivity. Some may not like it but it is a great RPG. Goody for me? Uh huh.

^HA, good post...

Just remember kids, when you need something wholesome and innocent like Sesame Street twisted into something sick and perverted - I'm just a phone call away.

-HR

Maybe I'll write a lengthy review if I ever finish a playthrough - I'm on my fifth start now, with my most complete game having gone about 2/3 of the way through the plot.

But I'm really settling in and enjoying the game now, and getting the feeling I will play this thing a whole bunch before I hit the wall.  For a while I had the feeling that there was too much text and dialogue for replay value, but as I'm replaying the first parts I'm finding that not to be true.  It's not difficult to skip dialogue when desired, and I get different dialogue by making different choices, so there's a lot I don't want to skip.  Plus several scenes are just good enough to watch a few times.

The combat is becoming more enjoyable the more familiar I am with the system.  At first it seemed twitchy and overly difficult.  I didn't want to micro-manage because I wanted to just win the battle and get on with the plot.  Now that I am putting that behind me, and just enjoying micromanaging the combat for its own sake I'm finding that combat has plenty of enjoyabiliosityness.

I've put about 40 hours, have finished the dwarf, mage and redcliffe sections, just starting on the elves.  My human rouge duelist is level 15.   Most of the time I use Alistair, my dog, and Wynne.  I am enjoying this now as much as when I started.  Great game and story.  The dwarf piece was well done.

Gusington


OT: this thread is very popular, but not the most popular one around here by a long shot. Do I really have to tell you which one get's that prize? :)

Something to do with God, right? I mean the Almighty. Thanking God anyway.

(Or the military. Or both.)


 

I have no sig. I often have no sig--it's part of my charm.

JasonPratt

Gusington


OT: this thread is very popular, but not the most popular one around here by a long shot. Do I really have to tell you which one get's that prize? :)

Something to do with God, right? I mean the Almighty. Thanking God anyway.

(Or the military. Or both.)


 

I do mean in the General Computer Section now as far as the most views of a single thread in this section.

A.I. production-it's more like, Okay, the games about ready--lets stick some A.I. in- you have 3 weeks:Creative Assembly and Paradox ai's are the worst I've ever played against. ala Johan's quote: You mean your games have an ai?{g}

Jason your last little avatars there are very close to correct.

Abe as far as the general computer section [and I know you'll hate this] typically Creative Assembly and Paradox threads get the most hits. There was that one thread that involved both, with Johan's comment on CA AI, that got thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hits.

But this thread is doing very well and I expect it to have a fulfilling happy life. I know I will be reading it like the gospel when I finally get DA: O.

Just remember kids, when you need something wholesome and innocent like Sesame Street twisted into something sick and perverted - I'm just a phone call away.

-HR

One thing they did very well was the creatures. hough the NPC bipeds seem a bit stiff the animations are very very good- and sthe same goes for the animations of the monsters. Often times the sound effects are also perfect for whatever is presented- something screenshots can't convey. They are about the best I can remember seeing.

Yeah it's just eyecandy but it does add something most games seem to skimp on. Animation is very important. Remember the awful job in UFO:Extertersials? It killed the game dead for me. This on the other hand is very good for not being motion capture.

I have been extremely impressed with the combat animations.  Even though many of the combats devolve into scrums, each fighter always appears to realistically relate to the other combatants around him, even when the action goes from swordplay to wrestling, as it does when certain special moves are executed.

Ghostryder, I know you have some technical knowledge about such things; do you have any comments on the combat animations?

The parts where the character goes into a special 'death kill' animation took some time- usually in keyframe or bones animation certain states trigger the animation- such as ...walk, swim, jump. climb, death. You can add more than one...say 2 or 3 different deaths animatons- but to add something like a character climbing up on a Ogre to drive a sword in had to be done independantly for that one character and creature. (The same character biped is used so doesn't matter which NPC)

This is a lot of work. BVH files can't be used here. it's hand done. Though Max10 helps a lot as you can skip a lot of frames and let it auto fill them when animating- the more you depend on that the worse the results- I'd quess it took an animator well over a week to do just one. And i've seen these special moves on 3 different creatures thus far...dragon, Ogre-

I've also seen a couple decapitations done pretty well. It's an excellent job and adds to the fun of the combat-

Yeah, I've killed the ogre a few times.  Typically, my first tank dies 30 seconds in or so, and then whoever the ogre picks runs around in circles kiting the ogre.  But I've learned to turn back and engage in melee just before he dies just so I can watch that cool chest-climbing animation.