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In several interview one could actually witness that the Bioware people really listened to the critiism of Dragon Age 1 - and drew the WRONG decision out of it !!!

Several times when I was reading interviews linked at RPGWatch, I had this "facepalm feeling".
"How can one be SO dumb ? SO studid ???" I often asked myself.

And Dragon Age 2 is the exact result of these wrong conclusions they drew out of the DA1 criticism.

At least that's my personal opinion - and I do know quite a lot of people ovver there at RPGWatch who've expressed similar feelings/thoughts ...


Another point is that incredibly ... worrysome marketing for Dragon Age : The "this is the new shit!" marketing campaign.
The worrysome thng with it s - imho - that it drew people towards he game who were rather attracted by this "sex thing" - rather than by the "playing a role" concept. The result is watering the "plaing a role" concept for RPGs in general.
And do you know what's even worse ?
Even worse is the fact that - according to several interviews - Bioware tried to attract shooter players to their game !!!
There's this infamous quote ... Don't remember it nymore, I'm sorry ... But it indeed said they wanted to attract shooter fans to this game series ...

They are consciously destroying the old and basic concepts of "role-playing" games - ME & ME2 are examples of this.

And give then insane amount of influence EA has a business giant ... Good night ...



One day I'll try The Medieval SIMs.
I only wish it hadn't been EA who had this idea ... Because everyone knows they're going to exploit and squeeze it out like King John did with the citizens in Disney's "Robin Hood" animated movie ...
I just wish a more creative company had had this idea ...

And that EA actually developed this game ... This just shows me how much ahead of my time I am with my own thoughts ...
Because I came to similar consclusions like those who had the idea o do this game ...


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Originally Posted by AlrikFassbauer
In several interview one could actually witness that the Bioware people really listened to the critiism of Dragon Age 1 - and drew the WRONG decision out of it !!!

Several times when I was reading interviews linked at RPGWatch, I had this "facepalm feeling".
"How can one be SO dumb ? SO studid ???" I often asked myself.

And Dragon Age 2 is the exact result of these wrong conclusions they drew out of the DA1 criticism.

At least that's my personal opinion - and I do know quite a lot of people ovver there at RPGWatch who've expressed similar feelings/thoughts ...


Another point is that incredibly ... worrysome marketing for Dragon Age : The "this is the new shit!" marketing campaign.
The worrysome thng with it s - imho - that it drew people towards he game who were rather attracted by this "sex thing" - rather than by the "playing a role" concept. The result is watering the "plaing a role" concept for RPGs in general.
And do you know what's even worse ?
Even worse is the fact that - according to several interviews - Bioware tried to attract shooter players to their game !!!
There's this infamous quote ... Don't remember it nymore, I'm sorry ... But it indeed said they wanted to attract shooter fans to this game series ...

They are consciously destroying the old and basic concepts of "role-playing" games - ME & ME2 are examples of this.

And give then insane amount of influence EA has a business giant ... Good night ...



One day I'll try The Medieval SIMs.
I only wish it hadn't been EA who had this idea ... Because everyone knows they're going to exploit and squeeze it out like King John did with the citizens in Disney's "Robin Hood" animated movie ...
I just wish a more creative company had had this idea ...

And that EA actually developed this game ... This just shows me how much ahead of my time I am with my own thoughts ...
Because I came to similar consclusions like those who had the idea o do this game ...


Agree with everything except the ME qoutes. ME 1 and 2 are some of the best games ever created imo.

But Dragon age 2, they took everything that made the first on successful and threw it away. You are right that they tried to attract shooter fans to DA. But in doing this, they alienated the fans that made them successful in the first place. DA 2 is one of the most rushed, least thought out sequels ever

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Nah. Fable 2 steals the title for the most rushed, least thought out sequel ever. It contained game-killing bugs.

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Originally Posted by born2beagator


Agree with everything except the ME qoutes. ME 1 and 2 are some of the best games ever created imo.

But Dragon age 2, they took everything that made the first on successful and threw it away. You are right that they tried to attract shooter fans to DA. But in doing this, they alienated the fans that made them successful in the first place. DA 2 is one of the most rushed, least thought out sequels ever


ME1 and ME2 are right up there. I'm not a big fan of shooters, and if it were 1st per I would have never picked up the controller. The way the story changes, affected by your choices and moral actions, kept me locked in for several playthrougs. The way those choices carry over from ME1 to ME2, it really feels like the story actually continues, and the choices from ME1 will affect the story in ME3.

They dropped the ball when it comes to DA2. To start with you're playing with a completely dif character and dif story. The combat improved somewhat, but nothing that makes you say OMG THAT'S AWSOME...They just went the wrong direction with everything else.

It comes down to sales and money. Some of these companies are making a killing, just from the DLC and expansion packs. Which is fine, but don't cut the player short in the original release to further profits from DLCs. That's the way I felt with DA2, cut off.

Don't sell me a game at full price w/halfass content and then try to sell me later on something I should have got to start with!

I'm just glad that they didn't destroy ME2 like they did DA2.

EDIT: Having the possibility of potentially engaging in the BIG NASTY does give a draw-you-in effect. Sex sells...

Last edited by SENIOR CINCO; 25/04/11 08:10 PM.

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Both Mass Effect games were a very fun blend... of shooter and Rpg. Not sure if I like
launching probes in ME2, I did enjoy the buggy ride but it was kind of empty all over the
universe lol... The giant worm from ME1 must have mated on every planet.

One of the strangest and most interesting side quests ME1 was on a planet with some captian
that went rouge and started a cult.. That was funny and good but wish they had more to
it.


We have come a long way from pong.....


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Thats what made them great IMO. A more 50/50 balance. A fine line that devs need to walk to keep from being Space Invaders or just an electronic book.


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To AlrikFassbauer :
I've read you like a "light hearted" RPG ?
I've read you haven't already buy the Dragon Knight Saga ?

Worst the pity !!!

The DKS is IMO for sure light hearted !
Okay, it is an action RPG, but there're soo much great Quests, so much humour and the whole atmosphere where your hero walk is ligth, sunshine, lovely nature and great music and sounds ...

A suggestion (I'm serious!) :
You can set the difficulty on "easy" (easier for defeating enemies, but the way you must find solutions for quests don't change wink ) and invest all you can in Summon skills & your Creature so you can take a break while your summoned buddies make (short) work of all that is evil (enemies) so you can focus on quest & the story line wink
You can also take the Skill "Charm" so you can Charm an enemy so he/she become a buddy also fighting for You ! smile





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I already have Ego Drakonis, even the Collector's Edition - but I don't have FOV (have tested it at Larian last year in May, though), and I don't on DKS.

With "light-hearted" I really mean Drakensang 2 - and to me - for my personal taste - it's still *miles* away from Divinity 2 ...

Just look at this gallery (several in-game screenshots were made by me, but not all) to see what I mean : http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/images?ref=0&id=361

Last edited by AlrikFassbauer; 26/04/11 12:01 PM.

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I take a look to all the screenshots.
Honestly :
if you say & find Drakensang is light hearted ... I'm wondering How much hours you've played the DKS for now ? confused

Because if I see the screenshots of Drakensang and compare these with the DKS ... it's for sure NOT the same game (world), but many screenshots I've seen in Drakensang I can easely find many many places in the world of Divinity II that are at least even beautiful !!
(with green vegetation, different cloured flowers, trees, bushes, a river, shiny rocks in the sunlight, etc ... )

And there's something I can't "follow" you Alrik :
some kind of "antinomy" I find difficult to write down (because of my mother language is not english), but all I can say is:
I have the feeling you wish to play a RPG that is MORE like the reality (conversation with NPC's etc!)
and
at the same time a RPG that is LESS like it is in real life (dark & grindy etc)

I'm just "worried" about you Alrik ! hug

EDIT 1 :
And honestly: I don't like shooter games at all and for me it is totally not important a fight is with blood and gore (more realistic!)... so Divinity II is for me also light hearted regard the combat: no blood after killing an enemy: the enemies flow away, disappear ! I can imagine some RPG players "hate" it like this is maked in Divinity II, but I like it very much, it's all "fantasy" and I like RPG's with lots of Fantasy in it !!
EDIT 2:
AND I read on the site of RPG Watch Drakensang River of Time, "Genre: Action-RPG" !!
Or is Drakensang II( The Dark Eye) much less "Action" ???
I read something about Drakensang is "old school RPG" and that seems to me "Great" biggrin ... in many ways DKS is also "old school PRG" ! (the game don't "hold your hand", I love that)

Last edited by Joram; 26/04/11 01:55 PM. Reason: see EDIT's

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Originally Posted by Joram
EDIT 2:
AND I read on the site of RPG Watch Drakensang River of Time, "Genre: Action-RPG" !!
Or is Drakensang II( The Dark Eye) much less "Action" ???


Now you see the influence of "Action-RPGs" on the whole genre : They ALL call RPGs nowadays "Action-RPGs", because everyone appears to assume that a "non- Action RPG" just wouldn't sell !

What I love of Drakensang 2 is the scenery, and that it is "old schiool" and "non-action".
I must admit that the scenery is very much like the first village of Ego Drakonis (never went too much past it because the game's difficulty was too hard for my taste - and that's why I lost interest for so long).

I want to play - so to say - games where the story is king, not the action, and not the combat ... And this comes because I just love adventure games (which are almost ALWAYS called "action-Adventures" nowadays ! - Due to the influence of Lara Croft et. al. - I'm glad that at least here in Germany "non-action adventures" are still being produced ...

And in gaming, I follow rather two "rules" :

- gaming is for relaxing, for entertainment, or pure escapism from real life affairs ...
- gaming should be fun, not work

"Gaming should be fun" is also the reason why I don't like parts o Dragon Age. This "bloody mess" and all of this drama ... This just isn't funto me. It's rather rather ... Yes, almost into the direction of a theatre play.

But fun ... Fun is something different to me. Fun is like ... playing a session of board games with friends ... Or the card game I know as "Uno" ...

Shooters aren't "fun" to me. Especially not what I see in magazines about them. They're too much real-life related for my own taste.

And combat ... I believe that comvbat in games should never be "combat for the combat itself", like in "art pour l'art". A game that includes combat only for combat's sake just isn't a "game" to me anymore ... It might be something different, but a "game" is in my opinion only a "game" if that what constitutes it to be a "game" is still retained ... And contained ...

Quote
I have the feeling you wish to play a RPG that is MORE like the reality (conversation with NPC's etc!)
and at the same time a RPG that is LESS like it is in real life (dark & grindy etc)


I don't want games that are closer to reality, or at least what I wrote wasn't intended to be so.

This "more to reality" thing is ... so that I want a game to focus more on a story, more on a living, breathing world, as a background for a story ... Even in games like in ... Quest For Glory, for example, the world seems to be *living* to some extend ... And it just doesn't act as a background-filler for several combat-scenes.

The direct opposite is to me what Blizzard did - their Action-RPGs.
The social interaction and especially *the whole background* are minimized to the greatest extend possible - so, tht the town just stands there just like a filler for lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of combat scenes ... "combat for the combat's sake", so to say. And itm-collecrting, of course.

This might be a design decision, but in my eyes a story-driven world *demands* a living world - if the story wants to be plausible, so to say. Or otherwise you'll get something like this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

That's my intention. I just don't want any Potemkin Village.

But to create a living world means costs bbecause of the needed richness of detail ... - And that's somthing companies often shy away from, especially because of the costs.





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Thanks Alrik wink

Now I know a little bit more. So Drakensang is more of an Adventure RPG.
To say : I really like Adventures (in every game a player does "actions", of course each game is in fact an action game :hihi: )
& Adventure genre was my first game experience (especially the Myst's games, also Syberia I & II etc ...).

I wonder: can you play Drakensang without combat any or just a few combat moments ?
I read the combat is "Turn Based", right ? smirk I like Chess and other board/card games, but in a game (RPG) I don't like turn based things (so far).
Maybe one day I darf to give myself more time to play a turn based game like Drakensang and if that is a success I'm sure I gonna love Drakensang . But for now I prefer a board/card game if I wish to play turn based.


Quote
And in gaming, I follow rather two "rules" :

- gaming is for relaxing, for entertainment, or pure escapism from real life affairs ...
- gaming should be fun, not work


For me:
1) gaming is just for fun (relaxing, yes yes!) and going for some "challenge" in a RPG is really Fun for me ! So for everyone "Fun" isn't the same thing ! biggrin
2) indeed, Fun and not work. If you love "old school" I'm very sure you're writing down on a piece of paper making "notes" about Quests etc ... while playing Drakensang, isn't it ? wink
3) gaming is also for me a place of "a fantasy world" where I can live in for awhile, escaping the sometimes "hard" reality !

I can imagine for some kind of players "writing" = working !
Not for me, I love it and give me much more satisfaction because it helps me to be extra relaxed playing a RPG with my "notes" nearby smile !
It seems to be writing = time eating, but in fact it's NOT because later on it reward me well with "No need for endless searching" etc ... just take my notebook and it's done smile .

For me the DKS is really Fun ! In the beginning this game was too fast for me, but I give myself patiently the Time to learn (playing DKS on Xbox) the controls ... just to learn I can take THAT kind of strategy plan so I don't must always be THAT fast hahaha ... the more I'm relaxed playing DKS, the better it goes !

I haven't play Dragon Age (because looking at that game it can't take my attention).

I hope one day you give DKS a second change Alrik wink
Till next post wave


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- I still haven't bought DKS - but as a fan, a buy is a natural thing for me. wink

- I played Dragon Age - if you take away all of this bloody and dirty stuff, then - at its core - Dragon Age isn't a bad game/experience.

It's just the overal look/art direction that's so much distracting, imho.

Quote
I wonder: can you play Drakensang without combat any or just a few combat moments ?


The combat there is story-related. It's only there where it is necessary for the plot.

And, in contrast to the Divinity series, the country of both Drakensang games isn't a war-torn land.
Everything's quiet and peceful there - but this doesn't mean that there are no evil things going on ...

Other areas of Aventuria are much, much darker, of course ...

And they will be seen in the upcoming (rather) action-oriented RPG called "Demonicon". It WILL be "dark & gritty", as far as I know.

Another TDE game taking place in Aventuria is "Satinav's Chains". There are even screenshots available - but the screenshots look too dark for my taste as well.


To me, RPGs have always been kind of "expanded adventure games", and I think that's why I'm so disappointed when they're motly about combat ...

Last edited by AlrikFassbauer; 26/04/11 08:05 PM.

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Glad you have a RPG, Drakensang, you're happy with for a long time (I can imagine) because I find it sadly to read you're so so disappointed in most RPG's coming out these days ...

You played Dragon Age - with blood & dirty stuff eek ???

Hmmm ... think

... one day ... you will play the DKS !



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Didn't Larian work on a game set in the Dark Eye setting? I wonder how much of this work inspired some elements in Divinity II, considering that there are also Flying Fortresses in Aventuria (Galotta's) and the Elves in Divine Divinity used the same language.

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They were working on LMK and that was waaayyy BEFORE anything recent happened in Aventuria !

LMK was in development in the mid-90s, if I remember correctly.

I don't know in how far they monitor the TDE developments, but Galotta's Flying Fortress was a relatively recent incident.

LMK should have taken place during the infamous "Mage Wars" - and that clearly included TDE elements, but not recent ones.

But since they were working on it (together with Attic), they should have at least *some* TDE-related material available, I guess (don't kno how much has survived through all of these years, though).

This Elves thing ... I really have not the slightest idea ... It could be a kind of testament regarding LMK ...


Originally Posted by Joram
You played Dragon Age - with blood & dirty stuff eek ???


Yes, partly. I managed to ignore this "blood & diirt" stuff, and thus, it was quite an interesting experience.
I even had several times the impression as if they had "borrowed" some elements from Drakensang ...



Last edited by AlrikFassbauer; 27/04/11 02:41 PM.

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Tons of great ones I played on the PC, years ago... Hard to start, each one, had there great
moments and some were lacking. I just could not keep up with the PC constant upgrades and then
MMO games came out I went there as well, many fun memories DAOC, WOW, Those were my downfall
lol, had to just cancel and uninstall. The MMO was sucking away all my time, so I went to
Xbox 360 console no upgrades to buy, set and play when I want... Lots of good balanced
RPG type games but I did enjoy Jade Empire the begining was a bit drawn out but by the end it
got really good. I love turn based , action, shooter RPG's Obilvion was very good.

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You know, Divinity II is one of my best RPGs. It's quite addictive and the atmosphere of some caves and areas are very good as are the quests.

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Apparently Drakensang: River Of Time is out in Britain, which is good! And has abusive DRM, which is bad. So I'll pass, thanks!


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After reading this topic and the worst RPG ever one I actually went and bought a new sealed copy of DA2 - shock horror - for the PS3! It was very cheap at £17 and after playing both the PC and PS3 demos I decided it's more of a console game anyway. I thought it would be something I can play now and again on the sofa without my ass going numb sat on a chair for hours at a time like it would for the PC version.

I'd have to agree it looks like crap and it's very linear but if you approach it with the right expectations (i.e not much) smile it's not too bad. Just don't play it for hours at a time, you WILL get bored of it. Definitley no DKS which I could not put down and have played through twice.

I bought ME2 as well on the PC which is significantly better and from what others have said I have downloaded the Drakensang demo and Ill probably buy that too. Next on the list is the Witcher 2. Gothic 4, not sure of yet. Might wait for it to become a budget title.

This is one area where the PC is still king; good, solid RPG games. Games from the big publishers (EA and their ilk) just seem to churn out 'cash cow' games nowadays - DA2 is definitley one of them. There are a few exceptions but game sequels are often ruined by the need to rush them out so they can make as much money as possible. They get them onto all platforms for maximum coverage in most cases sacrificing quality but making sure their main selling point (sh****ng in DA2) makes it into the game. Does not matter if the rest of the content is poor.

Sadly profit takes priority over creativity; this is why I always look at games from lesser known publishers and developers as there can be some hidden gems. Take the Witcher games for example and of course the Dragon Knight Saga. Often smaller talented developers see their games fall under the radar swamped under the weight of mediocre titles published by the big boys who advertise heavilly.

Buyouts are another thing that are ruining good games - look at Surreal software who made Drakan. Small developer who made some good games got bought out and their games cancelled, forced to make mediocre guff for the publisher then sacked shortly afterwards.

BTW the Witcher 2 was released today and it looks S**t hot. I personally like action RPG's but they have to hold my attention with a good story, attention to detail, good quests and a freedom to explore. DKS & the Witcher are good example of this.

Last edited by Arokh; 17/05/11 04:10 PM. Reason: Added info

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Sorry, PC gaming is dead, and the CRPG genre is gasping its last dying breaths as well.

Best RPGs Ever:
1. Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
2. Baldur's Gate
3. Baldur's Gate II
4. Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
5. Fallout
6. Wizardry 8
7. Ogre Battle 64
8. Diablo
9. Divine Divinity
10. Super Mario RPG

RPGs that I plan to get, eventually:
- Planescape: Torment
- Ultima VII
- Neverwinter Nights 2
- Drakensang: The River of Time
- Temple of Elemental Evil

RPGs that I already own, but have yet to play:
- Fallout 2
- Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

RPGs that I'm not even going to bother with:
- Fallout 3
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Dragon Age 2

Currently playing:
- The Witcher 2

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