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Dragon Age Thread - Own DA2? Want a free copy of Mass Effect 2 on PC? Check the OP!
Dashui
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Experience the epic sequel to the 2009 Game of the Year from the critically acclaimed makers of Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. You are one of the few who escaped the destruction of your home. Now, forced to fight for survival in an ever-changing world, you must gather the deadliest of allies, amass fame and fortune, and seal your place in history. This is the story of how the world changed forever. The legend of your Rise to Power begins now.
Dragon Age 2 thrusts players into the role of Hawke, a penniless refugee who rises to power to become the single most important character in the world of Dragon Age. Known to be a survivor of the Blight and the Champion of Kirkwall, the legend around Hawke’s rise to power is shrouded in myth and rumor. Featuring an all-new story spanning 10 years, players will help tell that tale by making tough moral choices, gathering the deadliest of allies, amassing fame and fortune, and sealing their place in history. The way you play will write the story of how the world is changed forever.
Key Features:
* Embark upon an all-new adventure that takes place across an entire decade and shapes itself around every decision you make.
* Determine your rise to power from a destitute refugee to the revered champion of the land.
* Think like a general and fight like a Spartan with dynamic new combat mechanics that put you right in the heart of battle whether you are a mage, rogue, or warrior.
* Go deeper into the world of Dragon Age with an entirely new cinematic experience that grabs hold of you from the beginning and never lets go.
* Discover a whole realm rendered in stunning detail with updated graphics and a new visual style.
You are a Grey Warden, one of the last of a legendary order of guardians. With the return of mankind's ancient foe and the kingdom engulfed in civil war, you have been chosen by fate to unite the shattered lands and slay the archdemon once and for all.
Key Features:
* Immerse yourself in a shattered world on the brink of annihiliation
* Experience complex moral decisions that have game-changing consequences
* Sculpt your hero in your own image or fantasy
* Engage in bone-crushing, visceral combat against massive and terrifying creatures
News
04/05/2011 - Because of Dragon Age 2's retail success, for a limited time BioWare is giving away copies of Mass Effect 2 for PC for free for those who qualify. You can find more information and get your free game at the following link: http://dragonage.bioware.com/me2offer
03/08/2011 - Dragon Age 2 is now available for purchase! And a launch trailer has been released that can be viewed at the following link: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-launch-dragon-age/711123
03/07/2011 - The high resolution texture pack has been released. You can view information and download it at the following link: http://social.bioware.com/page/da2-patches
02/22/2011 - The Dragon Age 2 demo is now available for download.
02/11/2011 - Dragon Age 2 has gone gold!
Older News
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Dragon Age: Origins - PC Mods
Many of the following links and descriptions are courtesy of Ranadiel!
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Dragon Age 2 - Articles & Reviews
5/5 - The Escapist - "A pinnacle of role-playing games with well-designed mechanics and excellent story-telling, Dragon Age II is what videogames are meant to be."
94/100 - PC Gamer - "The best RPG combat ever. Not gaming's best story, but maybe it's best storytelling. Darker, sexier, better."
94/100 - Xbox360Achievements - "Manages to be the same great epic as its forebear in terms of sheer scale and ambition, while packing in superior visuals, improved gameplay and a stronger grasp on its own unique identity."
92/100 - Gametrailers - "Though it doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor when it comes to sheer breadth, Dragon Age II has quite a bit more soul."
90/100 - Official Xbox Magazine - "Next to its predecessor, Dragon Age II may be a slightly altered beast, but the minute Isabela slyly chirps "I like big boats, I cannot lie" to a Desire Demon in the murky Fade, you'll realize this game offers some of the deepest, nerdiest, most worthwhile 40 to 60 hours you'll ever love losing sleep over."
90/100 - Games Master UK - "BioWare have comprehensively hit back at detractors of the original game and Dragon Age II delivers a distinctive fantasy RPG with far broader appeal and personality than before. Mega-nerds may feel slighted that they can't dig into the mechanics quite so easily but few would argue that this slicker, more streamlined approach isn't a vast improvement."
86/100 - GamingXP - "Unfortunately, Dragon Age 2 has not met my expectations. The epic story of Dragon Age: Origins made me play the game for hours, but Dragon Age 2 lacks a gripping story. Most of the time you create bloodbaths by running through the same dull dungeons. There are some improvements like a talking main character, but it's not a new Dragon Age, it's rather a hack'n'slay with a touch of roleplaying. If you missed some action in Dragon Age: Origins, then you should get Dragon Age 2, but if you loved the atmosphere, the story and the freedom of choice, then you should expect something different."
85/100 - IGN - "The combat is more responsive and bloody, you don't need to fight the inventory system anymore, and conversations are more engaging thanks to the adapted Mass Effect wheel. There are downsides though; the semi-linear story and repetitive environments have a negative effect on what is otherwise a great role-playing game."
83/100 - 1UP - "It really seems like the biggest mistake is calling it "DA2," as it's just different enough from Dragon Age: Origins to not feel like a sequel, but more like a reboot. The different main character, the faster and more streamlined combat, and the overall structure makes it feel like a fine Dragon Age adventure, but not a direct follow-up to DAO."
83/100 - Game Informer - "Part of me was disappointed with Dragon Age II. I hoped for an improvement on the original, but it ultimately feels like a step back."
72/100 - IncGamers - "While the gameplay is far from perfect, Dragon Age II is an absolute must for anyone interested in the world, the lore and a good story - but anyone hoping for something that feels and plays like Origins might want to adjust their expectations accordingly."
70/100 - Gamer Limit - "While Dragon Age II doesn't quite measure up to it's predecessor, the streamlined approach was a solid effort - if Bioware can somehow marry the best parts of Origins and Dragon Age II, it will produce one of the best RPGs the world has ever seen."
70/100 - VideoGamer - "Despite the way narrative has been re-structured and the combat made meatier, this sequel follows the old conventions of the genre too literally to develop an individuality beyond them. Two entries down the pipe, and Dragon Age is still experiencing the growing pains of a series that's more dedicated to studying fantasy games than developing its own personality in the genre."
Dragon Age: Origins - Articles & Reviews
Witch Hunt the Penny Arcade Dragon Age comic
5/5 - Giant Bomb review - "However, as the sort of guy that has lovingly played an Infinity Engine game at least once every year for the past decade, I can think of no higher praise for this throwback than to say that Dragon Age: Origins leaves me feeling fairly confident I won't need to dig out the classics for this ritual next year."
9.5/10 - GameSpot video review - "If you're hungry for a fantastical original fantasy setting, an awesome story filled with memorable characters, and fun multi-layered questing, Dragon Age will fill you up. This is the RPG you've been waiting for, the one that's going to keep you up at night and invade your dreams."
94/100 - PC Gamer UK - "Roleplaying games now have a great deal to live up to."
9.2/10 - UK IGN PC - "Bioware’s achievements in all this are incredible. It cannot be stressed enough at the depth of the universe they have conjured. Every corner you look, there is a sense of age, of something old. Entire mythologies for multiple cultures have been brewed up, entire religions mapped out in their own belief systems, history that stretches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Cities look lived in, worn – majestic and squalid places that spill with times gone by and a sense of place. The castles look like they have been there for centuries, and truly, there is an uncertain sense that they have been. That Ferelden and its inhabitants were waiting patiently in the wings for all this time, waiting for their chance to shine. Well, like the Grey Wardens, their time has come. Let us unite then, and in the words of an old friend: We shall show those cursed Darkspawn our hearts – and then show them theirs."
92/100 - Absolute Games review - "It has everything that is sought by the most jaded fans of the genre..."
9.1/10 - Gametrailers video review
90/100 - Game Informer review - "Even more than Mass Effect, the nation of Ferelden feels like a fully realized setting with its own history, conflicts, and power groups."
8/10 - Eurogamer PC review - "In its desperation to infuse this setting with 'maturity' - be it of the sober, political kind, or the game's painfully clumsy gore and sex - BioWare has forgotten the key ingredient of any fantasy: the fantastical. Without it, you're still left with a competent, often compelling, impressively detailed and immense RPG, but it's one that casts no spell."
The People of Dragon Age: Origins – An Interview with Sten, Wynne and the Tower Guard
Dragon Age 2 - Screenshots
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Dragon Age: Origins - Screenshots
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Dragon Age 2 - PC System Requirements
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Dragon Age: Origins - PC System Requirements
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Dashui on
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I haven't played a mage yet, but I keep hearing how blood mage was disappointing and force mage is unstoppable destruction.
I haven't been able to bring myself to play MageHawke yet. I played warrior, then rogue, and now I've been dicking around with yet another warrior.
I'm thinking I might make a Mage, spec him out as a healbot, and then just control Varric through the whole game.
That's part of the Mass Effect route, though. Bioware stripped down the NPCs to make them more visually unique, but in the process reduced the complexity of builds and (in my opinion) weakened the RPG aspects of the game. It's still a good game, its still a lot of fun, but I really feel that it's weaker for the integration of the Mass Effect stylings.
I was hoping that Dragon Age 2 would be to Dragon Age what Baldur's Gate 2 was to Baldur's Gate, a bigger, more complex version that expanded and improved everything that came before it. Instead we got a completely new direction. Its not a bad thing, I just would love a bigger, more complex Dragon Age.
I'm trying to decide if a quick runthrough is worth it to get things exactly right for my Nightmare run.
If you just want to get things right for a DA2 import it's probably easier to use a save game generator...even a "quick" runthrough of DA:O is gonna be 20+ hours.
You typical Dragon Age 2 side quest - go through the cave/ruins/mine/storehouse/mountain/cliff side and kill all bandits/demons/skeletons/spiders/dragons, have a short conversation with the dungeon boss, kill said dungeon boss. This will be repeated over and over and over and, yes, over again and you always go to the very same locations and kill the very same enemy hordes. There are preciously few side quests that break up this routine and it drove me mad (I even switched to casual difficulty mid-way through the game). The game basically assumes you are brain-dead, because that might be the only possible reason to enjoy this sisyphean task. Most MMOs have probably a more diverse quest range than DA2.
Wow did we play the same game? I can't help but feel like you're trolling quite a bit. The quests were varied, a lot of the companion and major side quests were great. I think you're being a little to general. I mean you could describe any game like that. Go here... killl this and this and this.. talk to someone... etc etc, it really doesn't mean shit when you say it like that
I think this change would've added more urgency/motivation to the first act.
For me, when you are immersed in a game world you feel what the player character is feeling and the PC behaves in a way consistent with the role you're playing, this gives motivation to follow the story and weight to decisions that are made.
For example, in the DA:O noble origin I felt pretty damn sad when those bastards killed 'my' family and I was angry and motivated to go get revenge. This sad feeling gave the whole storyline resonance and interest that would have been lacking if they didn't portray it so well - by having you speak to your dying father after seeing many innocent members of your family killed and the heroic last stand of your mother. That was easy immersion to evoke because of the extreme nature of the events.
Now, as for the DA2 situation of being poor: If you want to get your player immersed in this situation and hence the storyline, then you need to illustrate what the situation is well in order to motivate them to go acquire the funds. For some people the fun of getting that money is not motivation enough. If you don't have that clear initial motivation then the adventure part may seem a little aimless, which is something that a few here have commented on (but not I, because as I said, I haven't played it yet). My argument was that it is difficult to immerse the player in that specific situation and therefore generate the motivation that is necessary to give the player drive and purpose, something that I would suggest is essential to a story driven RPG.
Obviously people are going to be more or less familiar with poverty and hence will have different thresholds for immersion in that situation, but based on some of the comments here, Bioware could have done a better job.
indeed, we must have played different games
Big shoe-horns.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel:
Maledictions: The Offering.
Now in Paperback!
Sure, and I feel like I'm feeding the trolls even as I write this, but there is all kinds of quests in this game. There's a quest to escort a Qunari mage through the underside of the city, there's a quest to help your companion come to grips with family that has betrayed him. There's quests to help your companions deal with their weaknesses, whether it's insecurity, being pursed by others etc etc. You're being way too general when you say all the quests are the same. Just because some of the quests require you to go to the beach, doesn't mean every quest in the game is the same, come on now..
Also for real: every time I go to the Only Mansion in Kirkwall I just want to hit the level designers.
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
Your description of a 'typical' side quest in DA2 is pretty much identical to the description of a 'typical' side quest in every RPG ever made.
What's more, it's not even accurate. There's the escort the qunari mage quest, the hook up the guard captain with her main-squeeze-to-be quest, the meet the party member's long-lost sister quest, the save the kid you met in act one from fade demons quest...
It doesn't actually change anything gameplay-wise if I escort a character, have to light up torches on the way or collect some rare minerals, it plays out exactly the same every time. Those things are just flavor. And you're already accusing me of being a troll the second time, I just have a different opinion than you man. Basically I agree with what durandal4532 wrote.
I like the talky bits!
@Yougottawanna
I did say there are exceptions, but the vast number of quests are identical
Yes but different doors are unlocked each time what fun! It's like a dx9 version of hide and seek. Hit Tab.. look around ooh that says door. As opposed to mysterious unopening door with no nameplate.
Yeah, but PS3 saves are encrypted.
Yes, I DO know that I'm doing it wrong, but it's a little late for that...
Force magic is unstoppable... CC.
It's really not that destructive. It has one small AoE that does really great damage against staggered targets. That's kind of it. But it has great direct control, and it adds force to your elemental attacks, granting them control as well.
I'm sorry, but occasionally right-clicking on an object and otherwise doing the exact same thing as always does not make for varied quests
as for examples, my memory is bad for this, but in Fallout:NV you have to guard a weapon store and control the customers at the entrance, and in Oblivion: Shivering Islands there is a quest where you have to set up traps in a dungeon to kill an adventurer group.
I wouldn't mind having more level-upgrading gear at all, but a lot of people love upgrading their gear through loot. It's why games like Diablo exist.
As streamlined as it was, ME2 had a good idea with allowing for unlocked stuff to be available for all teammates, eliminating a lot of pointless stuff from our inventory. It might be interesting to go a little further with crafting/inventory for DA3: make it so that you can find recipes (and recipe upgrades) for various kinds of gear, and then you can slot in as needed. Like, you find a diagram for an Amulet of Hit Points, which gives a certain bonus to (duh) hit points, which you can use, or you can use that other kind of amulet you found, the Amulet of Attack Bonus. The bonuses would either scale with level or need to be upgraded as you progress through the game. There's something there; I wouldn't want to entirely eliminate unique loot, though. Just make it so that you can always equip generic gear without it cluttering your inventory.
My main problem with DA2 inventory was that it was kinda difficult to assign rings or dual weapons while looking at the stats; they'd inevitably go into the wrong slot for some reason.
Also, the font was way too small. I was glad that there were no descriptions of items, because it would've caused me massive eye-strain.
As much as I love the story and gameplay of DA2, the fact of the matter is that it could've used another six months or so of playtesting and UI improvements. The whole promise of EA to not interfere with the release schedules of Bioware games is starting to ring a bit hollow. Glad the Good Doctors got to be Vice Presidents or whatever, though...
Because "collect X bear tongues" is more diverse than "gather proof of templar abuse" or "go into fade to rescue a budding mage from demons" or "help your party tank get a date"? Seriously, I know that almost all the quests result in Hawke killing a bunch of dudes, but that... that's kinda what the game is, and the first game was about some Warden killing a bunch of dudes. I'm not seeing how you were snookered into something you wouldn't like, here.
Yeah, those were cool but each was the exception and not the rule (and there were similar exceptions in DA2, as listed above by me and others). In both New Vegas and Oblivion, as in the bulk of all RPGs, most side quests are "go here, kill that," and it's the same in DA2. If you don't like side quests where you have to kill bad guys and retrieve macguffins you're in the wrong genre, not just the wrong game.
Nobody's getting offended, I don't think. We're just pointing out how you're kinda, well, wrong. I mean, I get what you're saying, there is a certain repetative nature to the dude-killing in the quests, but the actual quests themselves, like what you're trying to do, in the story, are pretty diverse. I mean, I couldn't for the life of me imagine that All That Remains and The Long Road were generic, even though the basic gameplay elements: go through area, kill dudes, go further, kill more dudes, meet up with NPC, talk (then kill even more dudes), are both essentially the same.
And to those claiming a lack of imput on the story: Just because you don't get ending slides (I do love ending slides, by the way) doesn't mean you couldn't change the ending. All the people that lived or died hinging on your actions essentially effects the ending. It's not like two people's endgame save-state to bring to DA3 will be the same, generally... meaning that they got different endings, even if the Varric framing device that carried us out-of-game wasn't different.
Another thing with playing a spirit healer. Do I just dump all my points into willpower or should I balance it out between Magic/willpower?
2.) What is their tactics setup?
May be a bug though
Man, they had the perfect set up with the Mercenary/Smuggler thing and then after giving you this choice.....it was all fucking irrelevant.
Weird as hell there.
Borderlands 2 PA Xbox Metatag - Bazillion Guns
It wasn't irrelevant. Your old employer would contact you back with jobs now and then. Unless THOSE quests were the same, which I doubt.
I've heard you have to erase & re-download it.
right, I did that, I was just wondering if playthroughs in progress will recognize it or if you have to start over.