Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.

[Divayth Fyr]

Except for cross-class combos.

At the cost of spell combos.

And a whole lot of new non-weapon-centric skills.

I think you mean talents - we had skills in DAO (herbalism, poisoncrafting, coercion etc), and they were removed from DAII.

And new specializations.

How is this a new concept? They added some, but at the same time allowed us to take them without having to do anything before (unlike Origins, where we had to earn them on way or another).

And two-handed weapons doing AoE damage. And allies having custom specializations.

Well these ones are new - but on the other hand most allies have specializations made by combining some PC ones... And they took away customizing their armor and conversations in the field.

And armor runes.

Those were in Awakening.

[Yora]

Damn, I still have not finished the game. I once got to the "WTF, Anders?!" moment but decided to load my last save since I want the armor from the dragon. Havn't continued since.

[Giggling Ghast]

At the cost of spell combos.

I'm not missing them. Aside from the Cone of Cold+Smash combo, I hardly ever used them. On the whole, mages needed to be de-powered from DAO to DA2.

I think you mean talents - we had skills in DAO (herbalism, poisoncrafting, coercion etc), and they were removed from DAII.

I can only shed a single tear for the loss of skills. Unless you were a rogue, there was only one way to "build" the Warden in terms of skills — put them all into Coercion and then the rest into Weapon Training or Herbalism, depending on whether you were a warrior or a mage. Stealing and Poison-Making were only marginally useful, while Trap-Making and Nature were the Maker's cruel joke on the world.

Those were in Awakening.

Don't remind me. I still have nightmares of the runecrafting system in Awakening. "No, Mommy, don't let the Evasion runes get me!"

[Joran]

Don't remind me. I still have nightmares of the runecrafting system in Awakening. "No, Mommy, don't let the Evasion runes get me!"

Runecrafting was an abomination, mostly because of the loading screens; I made the mistake of making another character the runecrafter.

So, to make a rune, I had to go to Vigil's Keep (loading screen), go into the throne room (loading screen), go to the merchant (shop menu), buy the runes and recipes, go out of the throne room (loading screen) and finally create a rune (crafting menu).

Heaven help me if I screwed up and bought too few blank runes, because I'd have to go back into the throne room (loading screen), go to the merchant (shop menu), buy the proper things AGAIN, go out of the throne room (loading screen) and create the rune again. =P

So, yes, very, truly, not a fan =P At the end, none of my weapons and armor were fully runed because I couldn't stand having to do that much loading. I won anyway =P

[Mukora]

For those disappointed by Exalted March being cancelled, apparently, its plot elements are being incorporated into DAIII.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

For those disappointed by Exalted March being cancelled, apparently, its plot elements are being incorporated into DAIII.

That makes sense, considering DAIII is supposed to be dealing with the fallout of the rebellion and stuff.

[Zevox]

At the cost of spell combos.

No loss. As Candle Jack said, the only one of those worth using was freeze + stonefist/crushing prison. Which the new brittle + other class' skills mimics nicely.

I think you mean talents - we had skills in DAO (herbalism, poisoncrafting, coercion etc), and they were removed from DAII.

Yes, I meant talents. Simple terminology error.

Well these ones are new - but on the other hand most allies have specializations made by combining some PC ones... And they took away customizing their armor and conversations in the field.

You can still customize their armor. They get rune slots after all. Which actually provides more meaningful customization than DA:O ever did, since there were just a few clear "best" armor sets in the game there, and prior to getting those everything was just generic armor and you equipped the highest-tier version you had of whichever style was appropriate for the character.

Those were in Awakening.

Ah, forgot about that. They still weren't in Origins, though.

Zevox

[cellingwood]

The overall tone of DA2 was a lot darker, but some people like that. I didn't like Game of Thrones because bad things always happened to the characters (providing no suspense since I knew they were all going to get screwed), and the bad things always outweighed the good things (Leaving me apathetic. Why should I care about a character if I know they are going to die anyway?). I just think that some of the things felt to contrived.
Sometimes I didn't feel like I had any choice.
Ex.

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Why can't I just kill that one priestess? She betrays me like 3 freaking times and the best I can do is give her a stern talking too? This reeked of railroading.

Sometimes I felt like my choices didn't matter.
Ex.

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You can quit Anders' endgame quest at several points during it or you can complete it, but no matter your decision, he always blows up the chantry.

So I didn't feel like I had enough choices/choices that mattered. I seem to recall 'choice' being one of the main draws of playing RPGs in the first place.

My second complaint is that the 3 act structure broke up the plot too much. There didn't seem to me enough time to develop the story in each of the three plots, making them seem unnecessarily fast-paced and contrived. I think if they had dedicated a whole game to each act, that the story would flow more naturally and allow for more buildup of tension.

Those are my big complaints, the rest are just nitpicks.

[Joran]

I felt similarly about the Priestess. I wanted to murder her so badly after the first time she tricked me. Anders had to happen just because that was a crucial point of the plot; it could have been handled better, but I wasn't bothered by the railroad necessary for that to happen. I also agree that the Acts jumping between years was jarring.

My main complaint was about the lack of a compelling reason for my Hawke to stay in Kirkwall. Literally in Act 2 and Act 3, I thought to myself, "Why am I still here? This place brings me nothing but misery."

[Knight13]

My second complaint is that the 3 act structure broke up the plot too much. There didn't seem to me enough time to develop the story in each of the three plots, making them seem unnecessarily fast-paced and contrived. I think if they had dedicated a whole game to each act, that the story would flow more naturally and allow for more buildup of tension.

I don't know about that. The tensions with the Qunari are developed in Act 1 and then built on in Act 2 and the whole Mage vs Templar thing is developed over all three acts. The two main "plots" of the game are the Qunari and the Mage-Templar tension and they are developed concurrently, not just in the act where they come to a head.

[cellingwood]

Yeah, Kirkwall is a terrible place to live. I think the codex explains that since a whole bunch of slaves died there way back when, it made the veil to the Fade weak, causing an increasing number of blood mages and insanity. I read this and I was like:

Also, some railroading is necessary since it's a videogame, but they could have handled it better. What they do is just rip choice away from you. I felt like someone was reading me a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book, and was allowing me to tell them my choices. I would tell my choice, but it turns out they were reading a regular old linear story.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yeah, Kirkwall is a terrible place to live. I think the codex explains that since a whole bunch of slaves died there way back when, it made the veil to the Fade weak, causing an increasing number of blood mages and insanity. I read this and I was like:

Not to mention in the Legacy DLC...

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...it's hinted that the presence of Corypheus' prison near the city may also contribute to the madness.

[Aux-Ash]

I'm sort of getting the impression that nowhere in Thedas is that much better. The core of the Tevinter Imperium probably have the same problems, and it's borders are instead dead wastelands since the first blight (you know... 1,2 thousand years ago).
Anderfels is almost completely a dead wasteland filled with dour people and it's political landscape is torn between the king and the wardens. Rivain is a mess after the qunari landed. In Antiva the political climate is entirely controlled by the one currently hiring the most crows. Half of Orlais is the Dales and the other half was burned to the ground several times over by the Dalish before the Orlesians pushed them back. There's also apparently more or less kilometer wide chasms gaping down into the deep roads that the darkspawn makes picnic trips from.
Nevarra is gearing for war with just about everyone. Ferelden has it's own problems after the last blight.

Considering that all it takes to sunder the veil is the spilling of a lot of blood. I don't think there's many better places about. Life in Thedas is actually kind of dark...

Besides... as we've clearly seen... the dwarves, Zathrian's tribe and the werewolves, Loghain and the bannorn had at least as much infighting and animosity as we saw in Kirkwall... so the supernatural affect on it all is probably a bit exaggerated.

[Giggling Ghast]

Yeah, Kirkwall is a terrible place to live. I think the codex explains that since a whole bunch of slaves died there way back when, it made the veil to the Fade weak, causing an increasing number of blood mages and insanity. I read this and I was like:

Thedas is a terrible place to live, especially if you're a minority that faces prejudice from the general populace. Kirkwall may be a dung pit, but are its citizens really worse off than, say, the casteless dwarves of Orzammar?

[Knight13]

My main complaint was about the lack of a compelling reason for my Hawke to stay in Kirkwall. Literally in Act 2 and Act 3, I thought to myself, "Why am I still here? This place brings me nothing but misery."

Aux's post and because just about everybody Hawke knows is in Kirkwall.

[Mukora]

You know, I'm seriously wondering which is worse: The Seven Kingdoms, or Thedas.

On one hand, you have near-constant war, rape, incest and everyone being huge jerks, but on the other you have blood mages, demons, and Orlais.

Discuss.

[Aux-Ash]

You know, I'm seriously wondering which is worse: The Seven Kingdoms, or Thedas.

On one hand, you have near-constant war, rape, incest and everyone being huge jerks, but on the other you have blood mages, demons, and Orlais.

Discuss.

Considering that the former inspired the latter? Probably about the same...

That said though... I think both places are considerably better places to live in than they seem to be. We sort of see them at their very worst, but most people live long and relatively happy lives. All in all, it's probably comparable to ours.

[cellingwood]

I sold my copy of DA2 soon after I played it, so I didn't play the DLC, I read about it. When I read about the Legacy DLC, I was glad I didn't buy it; the story of the DLC seems to have the same problems that I had with the main game. Namely that no matter what choices you make, the bad guys win/the story ends in failure.
Now I know some of you will say that it's a 'darker' story, but it's also a roleplaying game, and as such I expect my choices to have some impact on the plot. No, I don't expect to turn the world into rainbows and sunshine, but if my choices in the game can't make a the world just a little better before the game's end, then I don't see the point of getting to make choices in the first place.

[Joran]

Aux's post and because just about everybody Hawke knows is in Kirkwall.

I think the only place that I'd think of Hawke wanting to go is probably Denerim. Sure, it's still rebuilding from the Blight, but otherwise it seemed like a nice place the last time the Warden was there. Sadly, Alistair didn't survive Dragon Age 1, so I didn't get to meet King Alistair.

[Aux-Ash]

I think the only place that I'd think of Hawke wanting to go is probably Denerim. Sure, it's still rebuilding from the Blight, but otherwise it seemed like a nice place the last time the Warden was there. Sadly, Alistair didn't survive Dragon Age 1, so I didn't get to meet King Alistair.

It was a nice enough place at it's prime as a respected (despite everyone's insistance of the contrary) grey warden with the full backing of Ferelden's second most powerful man.

As a rootless refugee (who may or may not be an apostate) from the southern country with no money or possessions to speak of and an apostate sister to care for while the ruined city is desperately scrounging to rebuild and the devestated political factions are rebuilding their powerbases, I assure you, Denerim is going to be far from the "nice place" it was for the Grey warden.

And unlike Kirkwall... your name will not carry weight and you'll have no property to speak of. Not even family to help protect you (even if Gamlen did a mess out of it... he did protect you).

[Joran]

It was a nice enough place at it's prime as a respected (despite everyone's insistance of the contrary) grey warden with the full backing of Ferelden's second most powerful man.

As a rootless refugee (who may or may not be an apostate) from the southern country with no money or possessions to speak of and an apostate sister to care for while the ruined city is desperately scrounging to rebuild and the devestated political factions are rebuilding their powerbases, I assure you, Denerim is going to be far from the "nice place" it was for the Grey warden.

And unlike Kirkwall... your name will not carry weight and you'll have no property to speak of. Not even family to help protect you (even if Gamlen did a mess out of it... he did protect you).

Screw the rules I have money! I mean, after Act 2, in the middle of Act 3 of DA2, my Hawke is pretty wealthy, has a house that could be sold, and few ties to Kirkwall, outside of a few close friends.

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I epic failed my family with Carver dying in the intro, Bethany dying in the Deep Roads, and mother dying at the hands of the serial killer. I also romanced Merril and then slaughtered her entire tribe. Everything that Hawke has ever loved has been destroyed and blood mages are appearing on every corner. If I was Hawke, I would have sold the house and gotten the ever-loving heck out of Kirkwall.

Also, the Champion of Kirkwall's renown is well-known, even in Fereldan. I don't doubt Hawke could find some kind of backer or employment in Fereldan, with the king or queen, especially if it happens to be King Alistair.

[VanBuren]

It's been a few months since BioWare's Ray Muzyka suggested that Skyrim was a basis of inspiration for Dragon Age III, but it wasn't until today that Kotaku addressed that notion, as well as some of what the company has been revealing about their future Dragon Age plans, in a new community-driven "Speak Up" editorial. In short, the author doesn't think that chasing "the hottest new thing on the block" is in BioWare's best interest:

On their forums they've confirmed that the dreaded dialogue wheel, and the even more dreaded paraphrasing system, will return, along with a voiced main character. Now, I won't spend too much time ranting about the dialogue wheel, because we all have experienced it enough to know it's pro's and con's (namely that it automatically highlights the "Good" and the "Bad" options in dialogue and reduces the amount of meaningful decision making), and we all know why the paraphrasing system is bad.

Of course, BioWare remains entirely unapologetic in this regard, insisting that there is no chance of a full text dialogue system because of problems involved when having a voiced character. They also, of course, state that a voiced character is all but guaranteed and that arguing against it is pointless because they've "weighed" the choices.

Now, there's something to be said about the voiced character. The biggest thing that comes to mind is: How are they going to voice a main character and allow different races/origins? One of the fairly large complaints weighed against DAII before and after release (And with BioWare insisting before release that they knew best and that we should trust them, glad that one worked out) was that being forced into the role of "Hawke" was not Dragon Age, and abandoned one of the coolest features of DAO.

Other things to note is that they are, by their own word, looking at Skyrim for inspiration. Yea.... So, I'll preface this one by saying I love Skyrim, because I do. But here's the thing: Skyrim is the last place they should look for inspiration for a Dragon Age title. Hell, Skyrim is in the exact opposite direction. When we have dozens of tactical RPG's over the years to look at, why in god's name would they look at an Action RPG with an open world? More action is the direction DAII went, and we all know DAII did much worse commercially than DAO, and did worse critically than DAO. But, instead of looking at the classics like they should, BioWare is looking at the hottest new thing on the block trying to capitalize on its success.

[JadedDM]

Eh, I'm not going to play DA3 anyway, on account that it will be Origin only and Bioware has done enough to turn me away.

Still, I'm curious what they mean exactly by taking inspiration from Skyrim. A setting based on vikings? First person? A system of perks instead of classes? There are so many things that could mean.

I agree with the article, though. Bioware shouldn't be trying to jump on the closest bandwagon.

[Knight13]

I'm getting the impression that the guy that wrote that didn't like DAII and is worried that DAIII will be more like II than I. Well, that's fine with me. I don't know about the Skyrim thing, but I guess all the people like myself that thought DAII was vastly superior can just sit here laughing at this bozo and eagerly awaiting III.

On their forums they've confirmed that the dreaded dialogue wheel, and the even more dreaded paraphrasing system, will return, along with a voiced main character. Now, I won't spend too much time ranting about the dialogue wheel, because we all have experienced it enough to know it's pro's and con's (namely that it automatically highlights the "Good" and the "Bad" options in dialogue and reduces the amount of meaningful decision making), and we all know why the paraphrasing system is bad.

Really? The dialogue wheel "reduces the amount of meaningful decision making"? Okay, the Good and Bad options are labeled, so you know what you're picking, but it's not like you can't do the exact same thing by just reading the options in a full text dialogue system.

One of the fairly large complaints weighed against DAII before and after release (And with BioWare insisting before release that they knew best and that we should trust them, glad that one worked out) was that being forced into the role of "Hawke" was not Dragon Age, and abandoned one of the coolest features of DAO.

Meh, the multiple origin thing seemed like a cool idea when you first got DAO and were trying the different origins out, but once you actually got out into the main story and found out that your origin had very little effect on it, it rapidly lost its appeal.

[Lord of the Helms]

No loss. As Candle Jack said, the only one of those worth using was freeze + stonefist/crushing prison. Which the new brittle + other class' skills mimics nicely.

Storm of the Century. Grease Fire. Shockwave. Entropic Death. Improved Drain. Plus all-around a wider selection of spells offering far more tactical options, especially with superior range and battlefield control.

Now, it was totally and insanely unbalanced (especially Storm of the Century) , and nice that they tried their best to balance classes better in DA2 as well as improving cross-class cooperation, but for all its over-poweredness, the magic in DA1 was still way more complex and fun, and really made you feel like you had a large-scale, long-range effect in fights.

[Arbitrarity]

Storm of the Century. Grease Fire. Shockwave. Entropic Death. Improved Drain. Plus all-around a wider selection of spells offering far more tactical options, especially with superior range and battlefield control.

Now, it was totally and insanely unbalanced (especially Storm of the Century) , and nice that they tried their best to balance classes better in DA2 as well as improving cross-class cooperation, but for all its over-poweredness, the magic in DA1 was still way more complex and fun, and really made you feel like you had a large-scale, long-range effect in fights.

Eh, DA2 is pretty much the same there. Some things were toned down (forcefield) but... large AOE disrupts are pretty much the same (cone of cold is MASSIVE) if not stronger (force staggers aren't common in DA:O; see Firestorm). There's a bit of a problem on nightmare, since DA2's number scaling is idiotic (any friendly fire at all is pretty much certain death, only alleviated by hardcapping FF at 90% health in one hit). Force Mage is amazing for AOE control, for example.

Sure, there's no Storm of the Century, but that power was DUMB. It was completely unusable in 90% of situations, impractical in another 9%, and only vaguely useful in the remaining 1%. (Drains entire mana pool, aoe increases enormously and somewhat unpredictably, slaughters party members) Unless you're playing on some easy difficulty without friendly fire.
Or maybe you miss the amazing cheapness that was Mana Clash? Nah, probably not. DA2 even has Blood Wound, so I can't think of any more particularly ridiculous spells from DA:O that weren't translated over.

[Dienekes]

Meh, the multiple origin thing seemed like a cool idea when you first got DAO and were trying the different origins out, but once you actually got out into the main story and found out that your origin had very little effect on it, it rapidly lost its appeal.

You see this part of the guy's post I can agree with. DAO's gimmick was multiple origins, and while I really enjoy the multiple origins (come now, how many rpg's do you know where you wish you could just skip the origin? This game at least allows variety), I agree after the beginning they weren't really of use. However to me that means the goal should be: How can we improve these origins to better create diversity, not let's scrap them. I really enjoyed playing a dwarf noble with a very different motivation than a city elf, and would like to see that happen again.

[Calemyr]

I'd be torn on DAIII. DAII's gameplay was a LOT more fun, I think. In DAI I played an arcane warrior (modded the game to be a Dalish mage), and it was fun in its own way - storm of the century and other spell combos were cool, though a lot of them were gimmicky and not worth the setup required. DAII, however, managed to make all three classes fun to play, including both variations of the mundane classes.

My biggest problems were the incomprehensibly wave-based encounters (it's rather hard to build any functional tactics when the next enemy can spawn in the corner behind you) and the general futility of the whole game. The only victories Hawke ever is allowed to have are Pyrrhic victory, and even the most glowing successes are only obtained after roughly half the people involved are dead.

If DAIII could refine the active combat style further, I wouldn't mind, but they still have to fix the wave mechanic and get whoever writes their stories these days some Prozac. Not even Kefka Palazzo was as nihilistic is this guy,

But it's all pretty moot. Until Bioware cops to the obvious mistake they made in ME3's ending (even if it'd been planned against, they obviously underestimated the fan response) and does something to fix it, I am never going to buy another game from them blindly. If I hear enough good word from the gaming community (not the reviewing community, I want to know the quality of the game, not the quality of the kickback), maybe I'll buy the game used. If Bioware does man up and show some integrity, though, I'd probably buy it, though probably not the collector's edition or pre-order.

[Psyren]

My Warden spammed SotC in every fight. Even if you run out of mana, you get it all back when combat ends, so no reason not to.

[ZeltArruin]

My Warden spammed SotC in every fight. Even if you run out of mana, you get it all back when combat ends, so no reason not to.

Given that you can cast it from outside the range that enemies would fight you at, it trivializes many encounters, that is, any where you get to initiate them. More so when you have three mages, now that's a storm.