Goddamn why are their no actually attractive companions? Their all ugly. Even the Elf chick looks like a man. Thanks Bioware.

I was really disappointed with the original, and only recently I have actually managed to get trough my problems with it and am actually in the process of finally finishing the damn thing right now. Baldur's Gate is what I expected for sure, nonetheless Baldur's Gate was not what I got - Dragon Age: Origins was a lot more linear and closed off experience, which did not make me particularily happy to say the least. The generic storyline, at least from what I've seen so far (got to Deep Roads now and I left that to be the last of the traditional "tier 1" quests in Bioware games) didn't make me particularily happy, and I just got bored of the game's encounter design, which I still consider its biggest weakness (I dislike dungeons in DA: O even more than I disliked those in DA2, believe it or not. At least in DA2 they were short.) The biggest mistake I made in the previous attempts at playtroughs, however, was not disabling AI. I'm enjoying the game soo much more now that I have disabled any semblance of artificial stupidity and scripts all of the characters had and just micro everything by myself.

Playing DA2, on the other hand, was just plain fun. Aside from some weird lore issues like killing Revenants really easily, I just loved the storyline and how it was presented. I always felt that the biggest problem of DA2 was that Bioware attempted to do Mass Effect in Dragon Age universe, which, for one, was a really stupid marketing move as people expected something entirely different, and second, we've already had a Mass Effect, and it was far better at being Mass Effect than Dragon Age 2 was. But I really enjoyed it. I just had to shatter any connections to the original, which is not something you should ever do in a sequel.

And so, now we've got inquisition, which promises to be open world, and that gives me a lot of hope. I mean, that's what I loved about Baldur's Gate after all. And it's supposed to bring the tactical combat from the original back (I just hope they leave the encounter design behind). And it seems that the storytelling has taken a lot of cues from the second game, which I sure as heck am not going to complain about as I find the second game's story to quite simply be superior to the first one's. All in all, albeit I'm sure people are now going to go "Dumbed down console port herp derp!", from what I've seen from Inquisition, it might just be the Baldur's Gate we've been waiting for, updated and polished up into a proper, story-based experience. Eh... Make of that what you will I suppose :D

Over-reaction? DA2 was a terrible game. I think it's easily one of the bottom worst games I've ever played, even if I don't compare it to Origins. When I compare it to Origins, it simply becomes the worst game I've ever played.
It suffered from extreme simplicity, uninteresting story, dull characters, bland environments which kept repeating and repeating and repeating.
It was a treatise on how NOT to make a game.

Metacritic looks good, but I can't wait for the user rating :D

I'll take a look at that first hour of DA:I, too.

Shouldn't we get a discussion thread or something?

DA2 was a really startling transformation. The interlocking animations which Bioware had been developing for eight years had been dropped for fast-paced JRPG style combat, enemies came in drop pods, the interface was streamlined for console use with the tactical camera removed and an inventory system that looked like it belonged on a Facebook game, areas were repeated and assets stripped down (I wish I could find some of the quotes by marketers for that one because they were gold), a dialogue wheel to make it ‘more like mass effect’, and a washed out colour pallet punctuated the whole mess (everything is really beige and characters especially look far worse than in Origins).

When you consider that Bioware claimed DA: Origins was the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate and they wanted to prove a sweeping PC-centric fantasy RPG (that wasn’t The Elder Scrolls) could still sell, and then when it did they immediately turned around and made a console port called DA2, it’s no wonder fans were up in arms. That’s not to say DA: Origins is a masterpiece of course. But it’s reasonable for fans of a game to expect a sequel to at least be recognizable.

Anyway, keeping an eye on Inquisition for now. Here's hoping a DLC seller doesn't hang around at the base.

Yup, I disabled AI right off the bat when I started playing DAO for the first time. DAO was pretty good for a successor at that time especially when there was a lack of cRPGs and the constant, tiring statements of PC gaming dying during that particular era and the couple of years before it. The encounter leading up to the Broodmother was pretty chilling and memorable for example. If you took in account of the game as a whole, it felt like it was lacking the epic punch that Baldur's Gate delivered, either story-wise, character wise or gameplay wise, so in a way there's no comparison between BG and DAO. Although it's still good for a spiritual successor.

Fixed :D

DA2 did all manner of atrocities to my expectations. The repeating environments were one thing, the repeating spawning out of nowhere enemies were another. Let alone the characters and story in the game which I can't even remember shortly after I played it shows how much impact they made with me.

This article's pretty informative about the state of the game:
http://kotaku.com/11-things-you-should-know-about-dragon-age-inquisitio-1657127952

Not too enthusiastic about the combat with no healing spells. Sounds pretty good and that they learnt their lesson from DA2. I'm gonna get the boxed copy come 18th. Hopefully it's cheaper than whatever Origin's asking for. Haven't bought an EA game in a long time. Last game was ME3. Hopefully I don't regret giving them money.
Wanted to start one, I posted in this thread instead.

I don't understand the complaints about the story to be honest. I do understand complaints about the ending, albeit I loved precisely what all people seemed to hate about it (you not really being able to change anything that is, I felt it went with the overal tone of the game quite well). I also understand that the tone is a lot different, taking a grand epic and turning it into a centralized, personal storyline, so that might be a problem and it definitely won't suit everyone.

Nonetheless, the story was really well written for the most part, and I found most of the party characters fairly interesting (and a few of very interesting ones). As for botched combat, meh - I've seen worse, and it's what I care the least about in an RPG. I can actually distinctly remember at least 3 companion quests in DA2, which is more than I can say for 90% of other RPGs that I have played. DA2 was different - I like different. Thing is, it was different as a part in the series, and most definitely not always for the better.

Heh, I also liked ME3 :-P I just hated what they did with DLC, damn disgraceful. Not to say the original Dragon Age wasn't...

At any rate, do let us know what do you think of Inquisition. It looks really interesting, and it seems that it'll run on my computer, so yay.

ME3's SP was mediocre. I only bought it to see how the darn story ended, and it ended with disappointment. You win again EA! /shakes fist
The funny thing about ME3 was that the saving grace of that game was the multiplayer. And holy crap, the MP's actually good. Of course it's laced with dirty in-game microtransactions which makes it extremely dirty. The way the RNG runs on the loot you gained after a successful session is also shitty. But the MP was fun. Successfully completing a Gold match felt really good especially when playing with friends. And as much as I've played, I could not get the Black Widow Sniper Rifle, and I watched in envy as the people I played with obtained it. I played MP hell alot more than the SP and I didn't spend a single cent on the microtransactions unlike some people in the Bioware forums who have mentioned they spent as much as $300 on in-game weapon packages and not get the weapon they want... Like MapleStory's Gachapon of sorts.

Yeah, I'll play DA3 with extreme expectations. After Divinity Original Sin, Shadowrun Returns Dragonfall and Wasteland 2, you'll expect my RPG-expectations to be sky high. After all they're all stellar RPGs.

Got this from a post in Neogaf, a compilation of negative points from some of the reviews:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=138344173&postcount=713

"Seems like many of the negatives in some of the reviews are things I've been worried about for a while:

- Story is a rehash of Origins just on a bigger scale- Chosen One, Save the World from Ancient Evil.
- Taking design queues from AssCreed in terms of junk filler collectable quests, even if they tie into the Power mechanic
- Lack of big city areas- The RPGFan review mentions Val Royeaux, supposedly one of the biggest cities in the DA world, is limited to a marketplace and there are no areas like Denerim or Athkatla from BG2
- The PC menus are rubbish
- The tactical camera is not as versatile as the Origins tactical camera. The Eurogamer and RPGFan review mention how the Tactical Camera frequently gets stuck on objects in the environment and in areas with low ceilings. Which means its very much not like the Origins tactical camera which had the ability to break from the geometry to give you an open view on things, regardless of whether you were in an open area or an indoor location.
- The Tactics menu (that they've been reluctant to show in any streams) has been severely gimped and dumbed down.
- Various technical glitches unrelated to bad firmware- characters glitching through geometry, dialogue options disappearing.
"

Troubling. I hated Assassins Creed's quest system, played the first 2 games and avoided the series since. Found the sidequests banal and pointless.

Like any Bioware game ever. Except for Dragon Age 2. Did I mention liking Dragon Age 2? :-P

As long as the button to turn tactics off is easy to reach...

And there's the reason of me not buying games day one fully priced. You can either get a buggy experience full priced or fleshed out one for half the price. Not a difficult decision that

To be fair, it sounds to me that they just added a whole bunch of collectibles as opposed to replace side quests with them. Which I will ignore completely when playing.

Even in good games there are so many zeroes because they had a crash or what not. So it's all good and I have pre-ordered it month ago so it's promising. I'm not hoping it surpassing origins but better than second which I replayed is ok too.
It's just weird that so many has said that they are interested that game even they haven't played previous games. Origins is still great. Seems to have too much spell effects though inquisition I mean. Dragon age 2 had no strategy almost involved in combat so if it gets even a bit then it's great.

Romance options, well, personality counts I guess like in real life. ^^ There's still so much time to 21 or when it get's released in europe.

Yes, over-reaction. The amount of people on the BioWare boards pissing and moaning about how BioWare shot their dogs, ate their babies and killed their mothers was pathetic. People threatening to pirate all BioWare games in the future, people saying BioWare was dead to them. Over a single game? Yeah, over-reaction. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like the game at all, and will never play it again, but FFS it's not the end of the world. And I've played far worse games than DA2.

Me too. But just a couple of them.

No way.gif

We could ask Elmofongo to ask Judas to change the name of this thread then, so people know this is the central discussion thread.

Angry Joe plays DA3 tutorial on Nightmare. Think it's the Xbone version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VCJfuY142I

The environments seem look better than DA2 already, closer to DAO's style, probably better. Paranoid and troubled about the combat. No healing spells for combat. You can rez downed party members, L4D style, so no rez spells or scrolls, no perm deaths either. 8 limited potions I think. Think it uses some armour or shield system like Mass Effect or something.
We could start OT threads like what Neogaf does lol