Comments on: DAO: Awakening Trailer, Ostagar Released

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:40:57 +0000

It always annoys me that people look at Dragon Age and see “bog standard fantasy world.” It shares a few of the broader strokes of other fantasy, like having men in armor with swords running around, magic, dwarves, and elves, and demons, and some vaguely orcish guys. I guess if you never look even a little bit closer you could argue bog standardness. But it just isn’t. There’s backstory and elements to just about all of that that’s anything but standard.

And yeah, there’s a few fantasy games out there that are more immediately and strikingly different (Planescape: Torment, for one), but just because Dragon Age is generic in comparison doesn’t mean it actually is -generic-.

By: Lilliput King

Lilliput King — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:00:14 +0000

To be honest, much as I love the Fallout games, they don’t really have an original world either. Post-apocalyptic fiction has been around since the 1800s, and Fallout’s particular brand of post-nuclear apocalypse since the 1950′s.

And like you say, Mass Effect’s space opera is something we’ve heard, read and seen before.

But then, it’s difficult to come up with immediately obvious as different without resorting to surrealism, as your examples would suggest (Planescape: Torment, The Void, Zeno Clash. All brilliant games, though).

By: MadMatty

MadMatty — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:45:08 +0000

Ditto

By: invisiblejesus

invisiblejesus — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:55:57 +0000

@Ian: To answer your question, I’d say Warden’s Keep is worth it if you expect to play through the game more than once. And if you like the game, you probably will. I’m not sure I’d recommend a DLC that short at that price if it was something most people would blast through once and move on, but there’s good odds you’ll spend enough time on repeat plays to get your money’s worth. It’s not a lot of content, but it’s good quality stuff.

Jury’s out on Return to Ostagar as far as I’m concerned, I’m waiting on more reviews and info before I consider ponying up the cash. Even if I do it’ll likely wait a bit, as my head is firmly in Mass Effect 2 right now.

By: Taillefer

Taillefer — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:44:28 +0000

Took me 100 hours on hard as a fighter. There were numerous hold ups though. I did the Elves first, refusing to give up until the Elves were on my side; so that was slow progress, and I had to come back to kill the revenants and open the chests which were too high a level to unlock. I did the mage’s tower as the second to last thing, so I went through a majority of the game with only Morrigan to cast spells.

By: Tom o'bedlam

Tom o'bedlam — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:34:55 +0000

@lilliput ah sorry, the age old problem that it’s hard to discern motives in forum posts. If only there were some kind of “emotion icon” to solve this problem.

I can’t fathom the behaviour of people like my friend who read the plot summaries of every tv show and game before watching/playing. It always seems… Wrong.

By: KillahMate

KillahMate — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:51:42 +0000

I find it fascinating how much I totally don’t give a crap about Dragon Age. It’s amazing, especially considering that I find the Mass Effect games incredibly attractive.

It may have something to do with the bog standard fantasy world. Was it Yahtzee who noted how ridiculous it is that there is such a thing as a “standard fantasy world”? We desire to escape, go to a new, fresh, universe – but after a quarter century, the fact that it’s always the same “new” universe in each game, with what amounts to a new wig, is starting to really get on my nerves.

I’m big on new realities. Planescape: Torment is one of my all time favorites, as are the Fallout games (haven’t played 3, hope it’s worthy – meaning, evocative). Zeno Clash was an instabuy. I have a soft spot in my heart for Albion, if anyone remembers that Blue Byte gem. The Void is coming up on my shopping list. And I can still recall seeing the first Baldur’s Gate for the first time, and thinking, even as I gaped at the incredible Infinity Engine graphics, “Gee, that’s not very innovative now is it?”

So come to think of it, Bioware have been doing it forever. Dragon Age is nothing new, in both senses of the word. But what about Mass Effect? Oh yes, utterly generic space opera pastiche. So why do I care? Maybe because RPGs are so starved for new worlds that even something as cliched as that seems fresh in this context. I doubt they’ll be able to hold my attention past the Mass Effect trilogy though (if that).

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:47:38 +0000

Re: hours spent in the game, I’m just at the Landsmeet (about half an hour into that stuff) and I think my save has me at about mid-40s hours.

By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:39:18 +0000

@Damien Stark

Yeah, my only real complaint about DA is these immersion-breaking in game DLC ads. I’d like to behead that jackass standing around in my camp with an exclamation point over his head.

By: Damien Stark

Damien Stark — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:36:51 +0000

I think it might actually be worse. I should have been clued-in by the gold icon on the map, but I somehow thought that location had cropped up as part of my quests.

So I went there, and see a man arguing with some guards. It tells me he was at Ostagar, that he’s important – I should save him! Battle ensues, and he is killed. After finishing the guards, I go to search his body (which also has the glowing quest marker). The search dialog then says “press 1 to download content, 2 to leave”.

Not impressed.
IMHO, it should be like Steam News Updates, when you “login” to the game, it pops up a menu saying this content was released, do you want to buy it? After you say no to that, it goes away, and can only be viewed in the Downloadable Content menu.

By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:32:03 +0000

I’ve been enjoying the hell out of DA, probably more than any other Bioware game since the Infinity Engine days. It really does have some of that “Baldur’s Gate” feel that I thought had disappeared from gaming entirely.

As to length, my save game says I’m 50 hours in, I just finished Orzammar (last thing before calling the Landsmeet) but have a number of side quests left to do. For that matter, there’s a bunch of stuff I know I’ve missed this play through, in no small part because I killed both Wynne and Zevran. And then there’s the fact that the 50 hours in question doesn’t account for any of the reloading I’ve done, and I’ve done a LOT of reloading.

As to DLC, it’s my understanding that Warden’s Keep is only about an hour long? I know it adds a chest, but I already have the official mod that adds a chest in camp so I’d never use another one anyway. Is Return to Ostagar preposterously short for its price tag as well?

I really hope Awakening has enough content to be worth $40, I certainly wouldn’t mind having some more DA.

By: Nimic

Nimic — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:10:16 +0000

I finished the game in 41 hours, and I watched every single cut scene.