Does anyone else think Dragon Age is a huge disappointment?

[RPGguy]

*sigh*

This thread caught my attention because I've yet to play the game. And by the way, thanks for keeping it relatively spoiler free! I scrolled through it slowly to make sure.

I guess the complaints I'm hearing are things I know I will hate. I have enough experience playing these games now to know what the deal-breakers are.

I was optimistic when I heard the "spiritual successor" babble, and then GameSpot.com gave it a 9 out of 10, but I have been burned by their financially motivated reviews before.

So bottom line is, unless I am really, really bored...I will probably pass on this...at least for now. Give it another 6-12 months for some good patches to come out.

Thanks for the opinions guys. Appreciate it.

[rhetthom]

I like DA:O

and haven't found anything I didn't like about it.

[Nightmare]

I enjoyed DA:O tremendously, and rank it near the top of my favourite RPGs. It doesn't compare to BG2 or PS:T, but really, nothing would. As for details, I generally agree with Xandax's points.

Interestingly, @DesR85 and your spoiler text, I had the opposite reactions. I saw the first one a mile away and the second one shocked me.

[Xandax]

*sigh*

This thread caught my attention because I've yet to play the game. And by the way, thanks for keeping it relatively spoiler free! I scrolled through it slowly to make sure.

I guess the complaints I'm hearing are things I know I will hate. I have enough experience playing these games now to know what the deal-breakers are.

I was optimistic when I heard the "spiritual successor" babble, and then GameSpot.com gave it a 9 out of 10, but I have been burned by their financially motivated reviews before.

So bottom line is, unless I am really, really bored...I will probably pass on this...at least for now. Give it another 6-12 months for some good patches to come out.

Thanks for the opinions guys. Appreciate it.

Your choice of course, but frankly - I think you're denying yourself a great RPG for no solid reason.

[RPGguy]

Your choice of course, but frankly - I think you're denying yourself a great RPG for no solid reason.

Well now that my expectations have been shredded, you're quite possibly right.

I guess I should add some context. I have been putting off a PC upgrade for 5 years and was using this game as an excuse to do it.

My current PC meets the minimum, but not the recommended.

[Scottg]

Well now that my expectations have been shredded, you're quite possibly right.

I guess I should add some context. I have been putting off a PC upgrade for 5 years and was using this game as an excuse to do it.

My current PC meets the minimum, but not the recommended.

..Don't believe the "minimum", it's complete cr@p.

There are some areas in the game that will drop to a crawl at best, while other areas are perfectly fine with the "minimum". CPU seems to be every bit as important as GPU.

Yeah, I actually did upgrade for this game (..and other games as well that I've stayed away from). Played it for a bit and then put the game on hold for almost a month to due so. (..It was a royal pain to install the new build, and I'm still having occasional memory issues - likely the result of a poor motherboard, BUT it did make the game playable and there were other improvements in over-all video quality that went beyond frame-rate - like subjective depth and color saturation.)

IMO I'd give it a 7/10 for Dragon Age, (and not including expansion modules): NWN2 5.5/10, NWN1 4/10, BG 2 8.5/10, BG 1 5/10, PS:T 9/10 - *overall*. Hell, Wizardry 8 I'd give a solid 8/10, and you can play that on just about any computer built this millennium.

[RPGguy]

Thanks for the advice. Will definitely avoid DA:O until I upgrade.

One of the reasons I have gone so long without upgrading is that I have been spending the last few years playing all these golden oldies, which run no problemo on my system. No motivation as these old rpg's have been a blast to experience for the first time.

The only cprg I played back in the day, at the time of release, was Eye of the Beholder 2 which will always have an iconic place in my gaming heart.

I just spent the next 15 years finishing university, finding a career, burning out in said career, getting married, getting divorced, hating the world, so now I am finally back to playing these awesome games and escaping reality for large chunks at a time

[jouke1988]

On another forum, I heard someone made a mod to fix this "little problem"....

Who would even bother the dental problems in a game, you are an adventurer they don't always carry a toothbrush in their backpack do they?

[fable]

Who would even bother the dental problems in a game, you are an adventurer they don't always carry a toothbrush in their backpack do they?

The sheer number of mods out there doing nothing but altering the faces of various party NPCs is already staggering. It's as though DA:O were the Reader's Digest of RPGs, and had attracted the most superficial modders in the world.

[Da_venom]

is Doa easily modable?

for example like BG and IWD?

would make this game alot tougher it's a bit easy if u ask me ^^

[fable]

is Doa easily modable?

for example like BG and IWD?

would make this game alot tougher it's a bit easy if u ask me ^^

Not as much, no. Remember, it runs in 3D space, so you have all sorts of mesh considerations.

[dragon wench]

Now that I have DA:O game, guess I'll throw in my two cents. Bear in mind, I'm very early in, last time I checked I'd uncovered something like 7% of the game.

So far however.. I'm frankly blown away. I'm somewhat wary of comparisons, but I'd rank DA:O alongside BG2 in terms of sheer quality, polish, depth, character interaction, story and scope. (and that says a lot because I view BG2 as very nearly the best RPG I've played, second only to PS:T)

While the battle interface can take a bit of getting used to, I generally find the UI well-implemented, and game-play nicely balanced.

I often turn the music off in games, but so far I've kept the music in DA:O on.. it is well done and adds significantly to the atmosphere. Speaking of audio-related features.. I think the voice acting is outstanding, if it's not the best I've ever seen, it's pretty close to it.

Also, I have to say, I was really impressed by character creation and the sliders, I was able to create a character with almost exactly the features I wanted.

In terms of "originality," sure there are some obvious influences. I can see aspects of the Lord of the Rings movie, plenty of elements from The Witcher.. not to mention mechanics adopted from MMOs. I could go on.
However, I don't think any of this detracts from DA:O, it has become quite difficult to create something original, and sometimes in order to do so, artists, chefs and the like have went overboard and ended up with something that is just weird. In this genre, especially, it has become difficult to create something completely new, so much of it has already been done.

So, to answer the question posed by this thread, no I have not found the game to be a huge let down, quite the contrary. I concur with Xandax, I suspect that first love and nostalgia might be affecting the judgment of some. DA:O is what NWN I should have been (technology and graphics obviously exluded), but was not.
Of course, we'll see.. like I said, I'm barely into the game

[Nightmare]

DA:O is what NWN I should have been (technology and graphics obviously exluded), but was not.

This is, essentially, why I ended up liking DA:O so much. Whereas NWN was marketed as the NEXT THING to the Baldur's Gate community, just as Dragon Age was, DA:O actually delivered on it.

[DesR85]

I often turn the music off in games, but so far I've kept the music in DA:O on.. it is well done and adds significantly to the atmosphere. Speaking of audio-related features.. I think the voice acting is outstanding, if it's not the best I've ever seen, it's pretty close to it.

The music is definitely better than Mass Effect. Not memorable, but still good nonetheless.

So, to answer the question posed by this thread, no I have not found the game to be a huge let down, quite the contrary. I concur with Xandax, I suspect that first love and nostalgia might be affecting the judgment of some. DA:O is what NWN I should have been (technology and graphics obviously exluded), but was not.
Of course, we'll see.. like I said, I'm barely into the game

I wasn't looking forward to this game at all when I first saw the gameplay demonstrations (reminds me of NwN with better graphics) and that Marilyn Manson-themed trailer. After getting it as a birthday present some time ago, I find it to be okay, better than Mass Effect, though.

But I still did not find it to be as fantastic as what the critics claim it to be. Feels like it's trying hard to be edgy - as in the excessive blood splatter - while at the same time, appeal to their intended audience. Not to mention that after playing it for a while, probably two and a half weeks, I got bored of it and haven't touched it in a while. Probably chalk it down to the way how the story unfolds or its edginess.

[Da_venom]

have to agree it doesn't give so much replayability like bg did ;-)

bg had farmore classes and races

and ALOT more SIDE quest
^^

[Xandax]

The music is definitely better than Mass Effect. Not memorable, but still good nonetheless.


I wasn't looking forward to this game at all when I first saw the gameplay demonstrations (reminds me of NwN with better graphics) and that Marilyn Manson-themed trailer. After getting it as a birthday present some time ago, I find it to be okay, better than Mass Effect, though.

But I still did not find it to be as fantastic as what the critics claim it to be. Feels like it's trying hard to be edgy - as in the excessive blood splatter - while at the same time, appeal to their intended audience. Not to mention that after playing it for a while, probably two and a half weeks, I got bored of it and haven't touched it in a while. Probably chalk it down to the way how the story unfolds or its edginess.

It is not difficult to be better then Mass Effect - now that's a game that's disappointing.

[Xandax]

have to agree it doesn't give so much replayability like bg did ;-)

bg had farmore classes and races

and ALOT more SIDE quest
^^

The reason it doesn't give as much playability is because you don't like the game as much.

For one the races in BG2 were all but insignificant and had absolutely no real meaning other then some small bonuses and perhaps a quest text once in a while.
The side quests argument is pretty silly, because if you went through the quest once, it is also the same the second time around so it doesn't matter there are more of them as they don't change or anything.

The classes are true, because it can provide a greater "flexibility" of strategy in fights, but ultimately it doesn't matter much either, because you most often end up with something similar ..... and the class choice has not really much influence on the story, except on the "stronghold" quests.

So the playability aspect is simply down to a matter too which game you like the most and little else.

[Da_venom]

have to disagree xandax

i do like doa although i like bg more xD

but let me elaborate

with more races (the different bonusses and such) were nice to experiment with and made me make abnormal characters a cleric dwarf and alternate his stats so it's more like a warrior or something. furthermore bioware itself that they would race responders. but why only 3 types of races?

it would be a lot more fun when there were dark alves(instead of those dalish elves) or duergar, gnomes, halfflings, snifverblings and half orc and let those come into play meaning that duergar and dark alves are -4 in race responders to the rest maybe half orc-2 or something that would make DOA alot more interesting

which i liked from bg where you go underground and moph into a dark elf party to sneak dark elf city(really a race matter). those were fun things to see


on the sidequest matter
the most side quest are just MMRPG quest like get 10 of this and the total quest is done


while in bg you really would have to pick up something then go somehwere else to bash someone in the head then go back to the npc that gave u the quest which was alot more interesting and also more deep quest which i enjoye alot more then those little simple quest from DOA

and for the classes thing
they made a mage a cleric/fighter/mage from bg :'(
mage can be switched to any of these which tottaly lacks

i truly wish there was just a clas called CLERIC or PRIEST what the hell is the use a of a spellcasting healing mage? xD
nobody fears that ^^

i also find it bad that each specialization doesn't have draw backs like in bg
would be alot more fun and intersting to see drawbacks to a specialization


and on another note i find the spells BAD in DAO xD
so little and some are really laughable

[Xandax]

But the races in BG2 had no consequence or influnce and the bonueses were all but insigniifcant.

And yes - there were more side-quests in BG2, as I said, but their influence and meaning were also irrelevant to story, and once you played them - they never changed either.
Kill tasks are just as much MMO as fed-ex.
There were some good side quests in BG2 no doubt, but as said - once you played them, they are still as static as the ones in DAO.

The advantage of more side quests is that you're more likely to miss content if not paying attention providing incentive (for some) to reroll.

But BG2 and DAO are actually very similar on many counts, making the comparisons rather shallow and thus making me question all the "Oh it was so much better in BG2" because when looking objectively at it - they are very similar. BG2 was just a "first love" for many. I still personally like BG2 over DAO as well, but many of the critique points people have - well, shows it is mostly nostlagia moreso then anything else.

[QuenGalad]

Apologies for getting off-topic, but Fable, if you think 'beauty mods' for DA:O are shallow, clearly you have not plumbed the dephts of NWN animation and graphic mods. You might want to remain ignorant in this matter.

(And someone used the term 'back then', regarding the 'dental problem'... The game is set in a fictional universe, where magic actually works and so on, so whatever happened to people's teeth here surely is irrelevant.)