Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Dragon Age Origins vs Oblivion vs Divinity 2 TDKS?

Mass effect 2 was one game I just couldn't stand. Cut out the second rate and terribly boring shooting parts of the game, and you are left with the cut scenes. Cut scenes that many people mistakenly think they have some form of control over. The greatest thing about Mass Effect 2 was all the hype and teasers leading up to the games release.

Dragon Age was amazing. It makes you question the the fact that the two games were made by the same company.

I don't get why not everyone on the planet loves Mass Effect 2, but to each his own I suppose I'm not going to enter into a discussion about ME2 on the Larian forums.
To be honest, between Oblivion, Dragon Age and Divinity... I've loved all of them! I don't think I'm particularly easy to please but I really do feel all of these games are great in their own way... I've had enormous fun with all of them. I also don't really have any clear rational underpinning for why I feel a certain way about a game. I've played Fable II and Venetica for a bit but couldn't really get into them. Fallout 3 I really enjoy, but not for long periods of time. The reasons for this have more to do with my personality and sensibilities than any flaws in the games themselves.

Dragon Age: Origins grants you higher abilities as you level up as well as better equipment, near the end, I was killing everyone with two or one hits and didn't even need a team. Perhaps you were playing on a higher difficulty?

The quests I were playing had you tracking down Gaxkang and fighting him, breaking into properties and stealing (get this series of questline when you have the stealing skill from a man in the market place in Denerium), working for the Chantry with one quest having you join a little battle raging on and then there's the interesting companion quests. Another one had you finding bodies and chucking them down a well. While in another quest, you summon a spirit, later you see that this spirit has been causing trouble on the roads and can undertake a quest to stop him. Lots of RPGs have those fetch or kill quests - it's the way they execute them differently that makes them unique from one another.

The Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion was based of off the Keeper faction in Thief 3, so the Kudos goes to them in my opinion. Keepers in that game even wear the same clothing as the Dark Brotherhood, are experts at hiding and even have skilled assassins. The grey fox poster is just a copy of the Garret poster that you find on the walls in thief 3 as well, everything Oblivion had - I saw in Thief 3.

The mages guild just had you gaining recomandations from all major guild halls and then you get three quests in which you become the archmage. The fighters guild is pretty boring and despite the fact it is called the "fighters" guild, there wasn't much fighting.

Morrowind had more guilds if I recall and a bigger world, so Oblivion was a great fail in my opinion.

Dragon Age on the otherhand was an improvement from Mass Effect 1 as was Mass Effect 2.

I never did enjoy Morrowind, however, the world was way bigger than Oblivion's world and actually contained original RPG elements. Then Bethesda go and make Oblivion which is even smaller and then Fallout 3 which was even smaller than The Shivering Isles. After that, I stopped buying everything they made or published. I hear Fallout New Vegas was bugged as well - although not made by Bethesda - it's still a fail to contain that many bugs.

You've written this on a very nice way !
I recognize myself in your writing about "personal sensibilities" ...
I explain :
sometimes when I have "time" (yeah, when have I much time??) to begin playing a game I prefer a game (mostly a rpg!) depending on my mood ! Mostly I choose divine Divinity, but yaeh, when I always play DD, I NEVER can begin/end The Dragon knight Saga and other rpg's who wait for me

So also I buy rpg's making use of my intuition.
Oblivion is nice if I wish to explore hours and hours ... and sneak around ... just like in an adventure ... Divine Divinity is pure my "fever" to become a real Divine Hero and search whole the time for new great equipment and weapons .... and I have the same kind of "fever" in the DKS ... Mostly I love it doing quests, quests and quests in all the Divinity games and in sooo many other ways I have a funny time playing the games of Larian !!
So briefly : most of the time I prefer playing Divnity games because they suits my "mood" the best

Note: I never bought Dragon Age or never bought a shootergame like Falout NV, simply because it can't "suit my mood" ...

Actually, the only RPG (R for role) here is DA. All others is some kind of... imposters.

'Action rpg's' is the term I believe. I enjoyed all the Balder's Gate and Icewind Dale games, but for some reason I don't care that much for DA, though there were some really excellent stories in it. Just was too tedious and not very fun for me overall.

Balder's Gate is an RPG too. But it wasn't mentioned in this thread.

Yes, I mentioned it because it was made by the same people who made Dragon Age, but I don't care for DA as much as it's predecessor. But they are both what you would call 'true' rpg's.

I think true rpgs are still the pen and paper ones crpgs tend to be more action/combat oriented

A lot of tabletop RPGs are very action oriented as well... Depending on the DM and the group of course. It's all about personal preference... Personally, I feel Oblivion is very much an *R*PG, maybe even more so than some of the others. Just browse the Elder Scrolls forums and see the elaborate personal backgrounds people come up with for their characters. It's inspiring.

I simply can't agree with what you said Kein

But I'm afraid this can be an endless discussion about WHAT are real Role Playing Games and WHEN is a game a RPG ?

For me a game is a RPG when it has at least:
1) Skills and statpoints the gamer can invest per level he/she gained
2) Via killing monsters etc and solving quests your hero collect XP points for leveling-up
3) Quests (main quests + side quests) to solve
4) Weapons and armor and other loot to find/equip to make your hero stronger (fever)
5) And last but not least,of course, a nice/funny/ ... story !

Nice atmosphere and music (and more) are welcome extra's to make each rpg fun !

So for me all Divinity games (and many other games) are REAL RPG's !!

In case of BioWare, "R" stands for Romance, which is all the majority of their fanbase (or rather the majority of their forum fanbase) cares about.

Am I allowed to say I actually quite enjoyed them all? I'd entertain discussion about which is closest to a "true RPG" but it rather makes me lose the will to live.

Try`d Two Worlds 2 for around 10 minutes, after 2 min my eyes started to roll:S the voice acting good a lot better then divinity. however the game-play sucks monkey balls.

Divinity is an action/rpg more action then rpg, the other two are rpg basically.

It's ok, that's why we have opinions.


Leveling-system is not an RPG's only element.



STALKER is an RPG too? You can kill the enemies there and solve the quests...
Oh, yes. you can alter your stats as well there (via artefacts)!



No comment - there is a lot of non-RPG games that allows you to do so.


Totally agree here. Divinity 2 has a nice and funny story. It is like.. a fairy tale, yes! Nothing serious, but a lightweight bed-time story you can tell and quickly forget on next day. Compare to DAO or Planescape: Torment.. oh well, let's not, it makes me sad.



For me, RPG stands for ROLE play game. When you play a role, when you CAN CHOOSE how do you play the game, When there isn o pre-defined path lies ahead. Want to be a bad-ass and wipe-out entire city in Fallout? You're welcome! Want to sold your companions to slavery in P:T? Easy.
Want to be a good guy and help everyone in BG? Then do it!

Tell me, can you really make choices in Div2? No, you can't. You can't kill Talana, you can't play as Dragon Slayer, you can't join Damian. Unlike TES3, for example, you can't kill everyone (like Vivec) and made your own path, via not joining to anyone. There is no real choice.

Don't get me wrong, I don't say it is all that bad. It's just... no need to compare it with real and "serious" RPGs. D2 is good as it is.

this is why when my friends and i talk about games, we make a distinction between RPGs and action RPGs. DA, FO, BG belong to the former, DKS to the latter. which is not at all saying it isnt good. in fact, DKS is probably the closest to an RPG than any other action RPG ive seen since it at least contains some choices, unlike, for example, Diablo or Borderlands.

Meh, in Dragon Age there's a predefined path as well. Can you choose not to become a Warden? Can you choose not to kill the Archdemon? The story is completely linear, and choices are mostly illusory.

Genres overlap so much nowadays that everybody's got a different opinion on what constitutes a RPG and what doesn't.

Did you complete DAO? If so - which ending?