Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls

nyarlothothep

Dragonage was a brilliant game but DA 2 was ass and I didn't even have to play it to know it. The fact that your character was pre built and called Hawk was an instant no I'm not buying that. But now for DA 3 they're analyzing Skyrim to improve upon the mistakes of DA2.http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6347939.html?sid=6347939&part=rss&subj=6347939

Now I actually decided to get Skyrim because once again I'm open minded and if there is an overwhelming consensus on something I will at least try it out. So Skyrim is a decent game so far but as with all the Elder Scrolls games there is something lacking. Its just a bit lonely, too open and almost too real to be what games are supposed to be...fun. DA was a masterpiece because you had excellent characters, a tight plot and the ability to command a party. Also Skyrim's graphical style puts me off, its too pastel. For DA3 if they successfully combine both the expansiveness of Skyrim with a good plot and likeable characters like they did with DA, then it will be the ultimate rpg game.

And also I really don't get this removing stats/character classes/D&D rules with games. When I was playing the classics I barely noticed the D&D aspect, it wasn't complicated then and its not complicated now. So for DA3 they better bring back whatever it is I'm talking about because I enjoyed that over whatever system is used in games nowadays like ME2.

Skerries

Spunge

All bioware do now is copy whats made the most money.

hooradiation

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Dragonage was a brilliant game but DA 2 was ass and I didn't even have to play it to know it.

That's some sterling research you've done on your dragon age 2 opinion, I'll be sure to pay the fuck attention to whatever conclusions your in depth research has reached.
Oh yes.

ionapaul

I'm a long time RPG fan, almost two decades of experience playing them on PC, and I have to go against the grain with regard Dragon Age - I thought it was only ok, no better than mediocre. Some parts of it REALLY dragged, the story was ok, many of the characters interesting but the actually map 'levels' were uninspiring, the closed world got really old really quickly. I had no interest in DA2 as a result. For a much better example of how to get a closed world RPG right, see The Witcher (haven't played it's sequel just yet, as I'm about to start Skyrim and anticipate a month or two of playing nothing else!)!

MitchKoobski

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Dragonage was a brilliant game but DA 2 was ass and I didn't even have to play it to know it.

Now I actually decided to get Skyrim because once again I'm open minded

So for DA3 they better bring back whatever it is I'm talking about because I enjoyed that over whatever system is used in games nowadays like ME2.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

wait, dragon age doesn't have any heavy metal.. surely it's terrible

ShadowHearth

Everyone using elder scroll style as standard like they do use call of duty for all fps these days.

In my opinion it's not good thing. Oblivion/skyrim are over rated.

I enjoy more limited game with great story and polished detail world, then open World with hundreds on mediocre copy paste dungeons and characters.

Let's be fair, skyrim has no story and no interesting characters. It's just: go and hope to discover random dungeon, clean the dungeon and get chest in the end of it. Rinse and repeat.

johnny_ultimate

Dragon Age: Origins is one of the most insipid, cliched Tolikenesque fantasy worlds I've ever come across. The gameplay isn't much better. Open door, kill enemies behind it. Repeat ad nauseam, broken up only by a piece of crap story, moderately engaging moral choices and laughably bad sex scenes that put game storytelling back a decade or two.

nyarlothothep

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Everyone using elder scroll style as standard like they do use call of duty for all fps these days.

In my opinion it's not good thing. Oblivion/skyrim are over rated.

I enjoy more limited game with great story and polished detail world, then open World with hundreds on mediocre copy paste dungeons and characters.

Let's be fair, skyrim has no story and no interesting characters. It's just: go and hope to discover random dungeon, clean the dungeon and get chest in the end of it. Rinse and repeat.

Finally a voice of reason amongst the chorus of consensus opinions. Yeah, I'll go out on a limb here and say Skyrim sucks, all the elder scrolls games suck and the only reason they win awards is because people get confused by the fact that all the work that goes into making a game as huge as Skyrim somehow equates to it being good. No! It just means that there are a lot of samey dungeons, weak plots and boring NPCs because the fundamental basis for the game is flawed to begin with, namely lets build a world so huge that even if we put millions of hours into creating it the game will still be sh1t because we set ourselves a task which coudn't be properly completed to begin with. Skyrim is ass. DA still sh1ts all over it.

DA had a cliched plot, but it zipped along at a fast pace and as with all great narratives it was the characters that made it. The characters in DA are brilliant. That's not debatable, its fact.

nyarlothothep

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Everyone using elder scroll style as standard like they do use call of duty for all fps these days.

In my opinion it's not good thing. Oblivion/skyrim are over rated.

I enjoy more limited game with great story and polished detail world, then open World with hundreds on mediocre copy paste dungeons and characters.

Let's be fair, skyrim has no story and no interesting characters. It's just: go and hope to discover random dungeon, clean the dungeon and get chest in the end of it. Rinse and repeat.

Finally a voice of reason amongst the chorus of consensus opinions. Yeah, I'll go out on a limb here and say Skyrim sucks, all the elder scrolls games suck and the only reason they win awards is because people get confused by the fact that all the work that goes into making a game as huge as Skyrim somehow equates to it being good. No! It just means that there are a lot of samey dungeons, weak plots and boring NPCs because the fundamental basis for the game is flawed to begin with, namely lets build a world so huge that even if we put millions of hours into creating it the game will still be sh1t because we set ourselves a task which coudn't be properly completed to begin with. Skyrim is ass. DA still sh1ts all over it.

@ everyone else

DA had a cliched plot, but it zipped along at a fast pace and as with all great narratives it was the characters that made it. The characters in DA are brilliant. That's not debatable, its fact.

super_furry

Dragon Age 2 frustrated me like no other game. They created this great story and great characters in Origins and then just dropped them. The warning signs were there with the awful Witch Hunt DLC - in which they left the story of the two main characters hanging in the air with no resolution. After that they completely abandonned the story and ploughed headlong into the tedium of DA2.

It was made on the cheap and rushed, which shows is it's reused assets. The biggest mistake however, was trying to copy Mass Effect and attempting to replace Shepard with Hawke. The then proved that they didn't understand what made Mass Effect so good with a bland and empty game full of bland characters.

Now another RPG is grabbing all the attention, and what do the Dragon Age devs say they're going to do? Copy that one - and they'll mess it up just as much as when they copied Mass Effect.

You know what? Sometimes I'd gladly pay for an open world game than a closed world one. With the likes of Skyrim/Oblivion/Fallout, you're getting a guaranteed 100-300 hours of gameplay, which most definitely means you're getting your moneys worth.

I love exploring and discovering new things, you just can't get that in closed world games.

johnny_ultimate

Deleted User wrote: »

I love exploring and discovering new things, you just can't get that in closed world games.

But there's also huge benefits to more 'closed' experiences, particularly in terms of the designer being able to 'control' the pacing and narrative to a much finer degree.

Both will always have their place until someone finds a welcome compromise between the two.

OctavarIan

It's not a case of 'closed' games being better or worse than 'open' games. You can't compare the two like that. Completely different experiences with completely different approaches.

It's fair to say you personally prefer closed games to open ones, but to try claim one experience is objectively 'better' than the other is very close-minded and stunted thinking.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Let's be fair, skyrim has no story and no interesting characters. It's just: go and hope to discover random dungeon, clean the dungeon and get chest in the end of it. Rinse and repeat.

The only point you're illustrating there is the blunt tip of ignorance. You could apply that model of simplification to make any game sound crap.

ShadowHearth

OctavarIan wrote: »

It's not a case of 'closed' games being better or worse than 'open' games. You can't compare the two like that. Completely different experiences with completely different approaches.

It's fair to say you personally prefer closed games to open ones, but to try claim one experience is objectively 'better' than the other is very close-minded and stunted thinking.



The only point you're illustrating there is the blunt tip of ignorance. You could apply that model of simplification to make any game sound crap.

it would be ignorance, if i would ignore one of the compared items.

i played skyrim and i honestly have to push myself to play it. recycling of same structures and dungeon paterns. New towns are just same towns you found before, just with different layout. all structure in each town same: go to towns main building and do **** for towns "big cheese".
i played a good wee bit and not even one character stuck in my head, all of the people are just sea of recycled npcs. in elder scroll they go for quantity over quality.


If someone enjoys that sort of open world, then good luck to ya, but for me its boring and a grind fest ( and i know a thing or two about grind fest as i loved runescape ).

witcher 2 is a great example of closed world rpg. GREAT story, each side quest is a quest, not bring x here, kill y there, find z in that cave. environments are live and make you feel like a small gear in the big world. Yes, witcher has its big flows too, but i will take witcher 2 flows over skyrim ones.

in the end of the day, if you like a game, then play it, and you should not care about internetz opinion, but when developers want to copy flowed design in to games that are not broken and work fine with theyr own system ( DA1, not DA2 ), then it really makes it annoying.

nyarlothothep

I don't think copying Skyrim is necessarily a bad idea, unless it doesn't work, in theory it could potentially create a new gaming experience, but the conflicts between open and closed gaming styles might prevent that from happening, unless they find some kind of solution whereby for example, you can have a closed narrative driven experience with specific locations plonked into a massive sandbox world which users can create content for. That was one thing that dissapointed me with DA, it ended, I wanted more gameplay, I liked the world, I liked the characters, everything about it was brilliant, especially commanding party members and assigning new spells/combat skills to them. DA2 was an up yours to people who liked DA in the first place, that it was reminiscent of the classic rpgs, Baldur's Gate etc.

OctavarIan

ShadowHearth wrote: »

recycling of same structures and dungeon paterns. New towns are just same towns you found before, just with different layout. all structure in each town same: go to towns main building and do **** for towns "big cheese".

The dungeons in Skyrim are actually surprisingly different. I can't recall encountering a duplicated layout in my 57 hours of play so far. Oblivion had a lot of duplicated layouts, but it's not the case for Skyrim. As for duplicated structures, I'm not sure what you mean?

With the towns comment, you're doing that crazy simplification thing again.

"New games are just the same games that came out before, just with different graphics."

"New phones are just the same phones that came out before, just with different designs."

The major cities (and small towns) in Skyrim are both very unique and yet also retain the identities associated with their geographical regions.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

all of the people are just sea of recycled npcs.

Again, wrong.

I intentionally ignored the personal elements to your post, because you're entitled to those opinions. The parts I quoted were merely the ones that are factually wrong.

I myself prefer a more 'closed' game 95% of the time, because most open world games are lackluster.. Strangely enough I loved Morrowind but hated Oblivion, but maybe that's nostalgia talking.

Spunge

OctavarIan wrote: »

Strangely enough I loved Morrowind but hated Oblivion, but maybe that's nostalgia talking.

A lot of people share that opinion. Not myself though i never bought Morrowind back in 2002 or whatever i just assumed it sucked. I realized my folly in 2006 when i got oblivion. Oh cruel fate.

Black Swan

The disconnect between DA and DA2 was disappointing.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Black Swan wrote: »

The disconnect between DA and DA2 was disappointing.

was the same with mass effect and ME2. at least we can have some clue about how da3 might turn out when me3 comes out early next year