Dragon Age 2: Gameplay and Discussion

[Kekvit Irae]

For example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

During one of the main quests you have to escort a rogue qunari mage out of the city to some beach on behalf of a chantry sister, he's also mute, I can't refuse, its a main quest. Ok the sister isnt exactly miss nice and is getting on my nerves; screw her I'm going to blow the whole thing to the arishok... Ok he doest care, just says "I'm worthy".

With no other option I agree and take the walking magic-brick-out-house to the beach, sounds like the start of a picnic. After beating up the usual thugs on the way (kinda missing the option to intimidate by pointing out that I beat a fricking dragon in an earlier quest, mage didnt help much by the way) I get to the beach and there's a bunch of qunari who ask for him back, I say get lost he's mine and a fight ensues. After I've finished up and take a rod from the qunari, the mage starts talking, but says he has to die. I tell him no but the mage still sets himself on fire and dies , apparantly none of my mages can summon a pail of water.

Annoyed I reload to an earlier save and hand him over to the qunari hoping for a better outcome, nope, the qunari executes the mage and then attacks me in fear that I was possessed by a daemon the mage might have summoned. In retrospect maybe having anders/daemon of vengeance along might not have helped my case.

In the end, no matter what I do the qunari group attacks me, the mage burns to death, the arishok ignores me and I can't even kill the sister that started all this just threaten her. Even that just gets a dismissive reaction out of her.

And that's one of the least disasterous quests.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You'll see that sister again real soon...

[rajpoot]

Song dedicated to DA2.....It's by the same people who did the Commander Shepard song.

Link, to listen, or to buy.

[Greyblades]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You'll see that sister again real soon...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I know I've allready finished the game. I realy hated the final meeting, I actually had become somewhat fond of the viscounts kid, Him being one of the few characters who seemed the least bit idealistic in the game, and after yet again not being able to prevent his death It was realy frustrating that a qunari shot the sister before I could. Freaking kill stealer!

[Mailman653]

Buy Dragon Age II, get a free digital copy of Mass Effect 2 for the PC.

[Scienter]

Just an FYI to people who are still playing: Isabela's friendship perk causes a game breaking bug. If you gain her friendship perk, you'll lose 5% of your attack speed every time you save a game w/o her in your party. The save game is broken, and it will assume that she is in your party when she is not. You probably won't notice the decrease in attack speed until your attack animation slows down. I had this issue w/ my rogue, and fixed it by downloading the gffeditor (http://social.bioware.com/project/1936/#files), running daosavegame.exe, and changing my attack speed animation back to 0.0. It's value number 42 if you use the editor I posted. There hasn't been a patch yet, so this is the best way to get around it IMO. It works, but occasionally you need to go back in and re set it unless you keep Isabela in your party. If you get the bug, it eventually makes your character unusable because the attack speed is so low.

Apparently, this also happens with the DLC companion Sebastian, but I don't have him so I can't verify this.

[rajpoot]

Just an FYI to people who are still playing: Isabela's friendship perk causes a game breaking bug. If you gain her friendship perk, you'll lose 5% of your attack speed every time you save a game w/o her in your party. The save game is broken, and it will assume that she is in your party when she is not. You probably won't notice the decrease in attack speed until your attack animation slows down. I had this issue w/ my rogue, and fixed it by downloading the gffeditor (http://social.bioware.com/project/1936/#files), running daosavegame.exe, and changing my attack speed animation back to 0.0. It's value number 42 if you use the editor I posted. There hasn't been a patch yet, so this is the best way to get around it IMO. It works, but occasionally you need to go back in and re set it unless you keep Isabela in your party. If you get the bug, it eventually makes your character unusable because the attack speed is so low.

Apparently, this also happens with the DLC companion Sebastian, but I don't have him so I can't verify this.

^^^ What he said.
It does happen with Sebastian too.
You need to open the savegame and modify it each time they are removed automatically from your party....like say when you go to your homebase. On the other hand you can simply change the base value so that it can neutralize the effect once and for all.
When it first happened with my warrior I thought the slow animations looked kind of cool...till I got kicked in a big fight.
Even if you don't have the bug get the editor. It has tons of stuff you can play around with including inventory, talents and approval of companions.

[Scienter]

^^^ What he said.
It does happen with Sebastian too.
You need to open the savegame and modify it each time they are removed automatically from your party....like say when you go to your homebase. On the other hand you can simply change the base value so that it can neutralize the effect once and for all.
When it first happened with my warrior I thought the slow animations looked kind of cool...till I got kicked in a big fight.
Even if you don't have the bug get the editor. It has tons of stuff you can play around with including inventory, talents and approval of companions.

I edited my save game and zeroed out the attack speed animation every couple of saves. That said, Bioware really ought to patch this. It's a game breaking bug unless you hack your savegame. I don't know why I didn't notice it w/ my warrior the first time I played through. I think I kept Izzy in my party most of the time, and didn't use her as much w/ my rogue. Maybe that's why.

[rajpoot]

I edited my save game and zeroed out the attack speed animation every couple of saves. That said, Bioware really ought to patch this. It's a game breaking bug unless you hack your savegame. I don't know why I didn't notice it w/ my warrior the first time I played through. I think I kept Izzy in my party most of the time, and didn't use her as much w/ my rogue. Maybe that's why.

Actually it depends a lot on co-incidence. Like I said, AFAIK, it only happen when they're removed automatically, so if you like go change the party at some companions base it won't happen. On the other hand if you simply click on your home and they're removed automatically it will happen. By the time I fixed it in my first game I was on -65....lol....for a while I was stumped...I thought it was some talent one of companions had activated or something.
That said I agree it ought to be fixed....I still haven't checked out the latest patch, maybe they've already done it.

[Krusader]

Unless its empty investor talk, Dragon Age might be a year-release franchise according to EA

The first, he said, is pushing EA's stable of popular IP, including FIFA, Madden, Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Tetris, Dragon Age and other titles. The company will also leverage the popularity of labels such as EA Sports and its casual Pogo brand.

"We fully intend to make these properties into year-round businesses that lead their sectors across a range of platforms," Riccitiello said.

If it holds water, I don't think Dragon Age ever will return to Origins style (or near Origins style rather. DA2 did a few things right).

[rajpoot]

Found something interesting.
Ever since Mike Laidlaw starting doing those interviews before DA2's release, I knew, vaguely that he wasn't hadn't been the lead designer on DAO...I can't remember if I'd read it somewhere or heard it somewhere or seen it in the game credits, but I had a vague idea.
Browsing through the forums I found this -
http://blog.brentknowles.com/2010/08...8-summer-2009/
It's a blog entry, by Brent Knowles....the man who was the lead behind DAO....one of the reasons that lead to his leaving Bioware (as one can read between lines in the blog) was because he wasn't happy about where DA2 was going.
This guy is my new hero.

[Krusader]

By spending some time at Bioware forums it seems this Mike Laidlaw fellow is anathema to most people who enjoyed DA:O and BG2. Apparently he was the lead designer on Jade Empire and that was in his idea how a good RPG is supposed to be, with DA2 being the result. I think he was also the one who coined the "Press a button and something awesome happens" marketing campaign before DA2 was released. I actually thought they couldn't make the ads worse for DA2 than DA:O with its Marilyn Manson ads, but was wrong there.

[Greyblades]

Oh I realy hope he's not heading mass effect 3.

[rajpoot]

No big surprise\news but -
DA3 confirmed
IMO they should do something about DA2 first though, instead of leaving the game in the ditch it is sitting in now. Some DLC with more cohesive story....some new dungeons and stuff.

And

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It shouldn't be so hard, if the sound files in the install folder are anything to go by. Apparently one avid fan found out some dialogue between Hawke, Bann Teagan, and Conner, who's been brought to the Kirkwall circle.
And ofcourse there is the Morrigan's character mesh that was lying hidden amongst the files.

[Mailman653]

Dragon Age II and the Decline of the Old-school RPG

[rajpoot]

This thread seems to have reduced more into bashing DA2 rather than anything else....and within 3 pages...
Anyhow...Mike Laidlaw has returned to the forums after a sabbatical.

This thread is probably closest to what we'll be getting as an apology for everything that was wrong in DA2.

On a note of hope though, now that they're past the denial phase, maybe they will start taking older fans more seriously and bring back some good features.

[Krusader]

Doesn't exactly give me hope for a better DA3. While DA2 did some things right, it did others very badly.
I thought Star Wars Galaxies would show game developers what happen if you flat out discard your original fanbase.

Plus, maybe it's just me, but my impression about Mike Laidlaw is that he must have been bullied or beaten up on a regular basis by someone who loved Baldur's Gate games.

[seireikhaan]

While I can hope that a DA3 will show more signs of DA:O than DA2, I'm going to have to be skeptical. DA2 did some fine things, and did some pretty poor ones too. It does give me a teeny glimmer of hope that they at least noticed people upset with how DA 2's plot was essentially unchangeable, the absurd waves of combat, and the profuse level recycling. Really quite annoying, because DA 2 *did* do some thing better than Origins, especially in regards to balancing the class system out(seeing as mages in origins were to balance what a lead pipe is to a knee cap). So there's still promise in the franchise, imo. Just sad that there were some patently obvious design flaws which hinder the experience.

[rajpoot]

Been cruising through ML's responses, and I must say, for a chap who's had to bear quite a lot of flak, he's taking it well now.
He's made some things clear. We won't be going back to DAO's gameplay. That's gone. For good. So say goodbye to Baldur's Gate successors now.
Number two, no silent protagonists...player imagination just doesn't cut it with thirteen year olds playing who need voiced dialogue to visualize a conversation. (What the hell happened to the rich imagination of the human mind? I swear I could hear every word the Warden said when I clicked on the line...)

I really don't want the franchise to go to ruin...the first game made me fall in love, and now I can only hope that they do the future games better.
While I'm not jumping with joy as yet, the lead designer admitting they made some mistakes, is a big step towards what is right.

[Mailman653]

EA Details First Dragon Age II DLC, Legacy