Does anyone else think Dragon Age is a huge disappointment?

Curry · Post by **Curry** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:13 pm

I can't believe I'm saying this but this game isn't much different from Drakensang and the game of year should be Risen, not Dragon Age.

anyone else feel disappointed?

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:21 pm

I haven't played Drakensang or Risen, but I am quite enjoying Dragon Age so far, myself.

Merlanni · Post by **Merlanni** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:30 pm

Risen makes me sleepy. Every fight is a mini game. Drakensang was nice. D%D but not as we know it. A good first attempt that demands improvement.

As for Dragon Age, it is what you expect. I did not expect a spiritual successor to BG2, but a good RPG. If you craved a spiritual successor to BG2 , yes dissapointed you would be.

Aqua-chan · Post by **Aqua-chan** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:45 pm

Curry wrote:I can't believe I'm saying this but this game isn't much different from Drakensang and the game of year should be Risen, not Dragon Age.

anyone else feel disappointed?

Could you perhaps be a little more specific about why you feel Dragon Age is a let down?

I confess, there are some things about this game that I wish were carried out a little better, but the essential elements I was looking for - character development, hardcore strategics - are there, so to me the goods outweigh the bads.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:39 pm

Admittedly, the engine does appear quite dated, but mostly on account of the 5 year development period. Not to mention it embraces what appears to ailing RPG formula that Bioware, for all the good they have done, has failed to update in their games.

It features the same hidden linearity, ambiguous morale scale, and rather typical character development.

Of course, having said all that, there is a lot of good that has come to the table with Dragon Age. For instance, the origin stories are a nice touch, though could have been expanded upon to make them more integral to the game.

The story is also remarkable, especially in comparison to many other RPG's (both western and eastern), but even there, they could have given more urgency to the game. It felt like the Darkspawn invade, and then you can take all the time in the world to do what you need to do. A nice touch would have been to add a calender that had certain events and occurrences along the way, along with travel time, to give the player a sense of urgency.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:41 pm

It depends on in what aspect DAO is disappointment. Graphically, yes, it may be, as at least in XBox version the graphics ain't the best you could get.

Story, character development and general world side, no, the game ain't disappointing. It's actually the best we have seen since BG series and Fallout series.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 8:41 pm

Kipi wrote:It depends on in what aspect DAO is disappointment. Graphically, yes, it may be, as at least in XBox version the graphics ain't the best you could get.

Story, character development and general world side, no, the game ain't disappointing. It's actually the best we have seen since BG series and Fallout series.

Again though, the graphics are a result of the dated engine. It almost seems to be that Bioware is trying to force as much use out of the Aurora engine as possible (though, I am unsure if it is still the Aurora Engine).

Aqua-chan · Post by **Aqua-chan** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 9:16 pm

Dragon Age was made on the Eclipse Engine, if I recall correctly. Slightly newer, but again, still at least five years old.

endboss · Post by **endboss** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:34 pm

Curry wrote:I can't believe I'm saying this but this game isn't much different from Drakensang and the game of year should be Risen, not Dragon Age.

anyone else feel disappointed?

I am afraid to point out that your argument is not as good as the ones I've seen on here where Dragon Age appears to be a very nice game.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:38 pm

endboss wrote:I am afraid to point out that your argument is not as good as the ones I've seen on here where Dragon Age appears to be a very nice game.

Let's let him reply. He hasn't been back since his initial post, and it's inappropriate to criticize him for not elaborating on what he first wrote.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:20 am

Granted. I've only played a portion of the game several times over (the chronic restarting syndrome), but I'm pleasently surprised about the quality of the writing and voice acting in this game unlike so many other RPGs.

So, thus far for me - then as a very critical consumer, I can't say I'm overly disappointed. It might change further into the game, but not for now.

zippythezip · Post by **zippythezip** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:53 am

Drakensang was a game I enjoyed, Risen I disliked and uninstalled after about 10 hours. Hey I even disliked Masseffect and it joined Risen in the junk bin.
Now this game has me playing and enjoying the time spent gaming. The graphics are not that bad, only I notice that dental care in the game is pretty poor :laugh: Guess we all have different oppinions eh?

Gauda · Post by **Gauda** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 5:46 am

Strongly disagree. But then again, my expectations were close to zero at launch

, so it was hardly possible to be disappointed. Rather, I've got rather enthusiastic about this game lately, and have been playing it almost non stop for the last couple of days. There are so many things I love about it: the story is interesting, but dwarfed by the obvious love bioware put in to the game play: Almost every fight is designed to be challenging, and often in a different way, and it is really showing how much effort the developers made to design tactical elements in the scenery that you and the enemy can take advantage of. The underlying class system, skill ability and spells are also satisfactory deep, and allows for much customization.

All is not perfect however: I wonder where the humor from BG2 went? There are some attempts but most of them fall flat for me; maybe I'm just a sucker for strongly caricatured character like Jan and Edwin. That said, I don't believe I've met every companion in the game yet.

Also, many of the side quests are really short and MMORPGish (fetch 10 health/lyrium pouchers, 10 mushrooms and so on). I really miss the long and involved side quests from BG2 such as the one involving the shadow and red dragon in BG2. But otherwise, the game seems great untill now, but as Xandax said: that might change. But as of now the game claims I'm finished with 19% of it, which is rather extraordinary since I've, also according to the game, spent about 40 hours on it untill now. So we'll see.

Curry · Post by **Curry** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:09 am

I guess I feel disappointed mostly because I had very high expectations and Dragon Age didn't really meet them. In fact, I was quite shocked when I realized Dragon Age is just a mediocre cRPG and almost identical to Drakensang.

What I was expecting was something like BG2 with awesome graphics but the graphics aren't that awesome, the quests are 'go fetch 10 potions' like someone mentioned above, the combat AI is bad, level scaling is bad and some fights feel insane even on normal difficulty because of it. Then there's of course the pile of bugs I mentioned in the other thread - I had to turn off Directsound acceleration before I could even play the game.

Attle · Post by **Attle** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:35 am

One thing that bothers me are the soulless mmorpgish side-quests. Go to location X, kill X amount of mob X, get reward. Other than that not much to complain about. Though I am more of a BG-fan.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:37 am

Curry wrote:I guess I feel disappointed mostly because I had very high expectations and Dragon Age didn't really meet them. <snip>

I think that properly is the most pressing issue.

I had pretty much no expectations about DA:O until Buck previewed it when I started to be convinced it was something worthwhile and not just a hack n' slash diablo clone type game.
Therefor DA:O could not in any way disappoint me, because I had no high expectations - and in fact I find the game having quite good quality compared to so many other recent cRPGs.
I knew we weren't getting Baldur's Gate 2, despite what people and Bioware might claim with the "spiritual successor". So I never fell for that hype.

But compared to the RPGs I've played since Baldur's Gate 2 - DA:O ranks very high amongst those.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:38 pm

Attle wrote:One thing that bothers me are the soulless mmorpgish side-quests. Go to location X, kill X amount of mob X, get reward. Other than that not much to complain about. Though I am more of a BG-fan.

I'm afraid there's a lot of kill quests in most RPGs, where the quests are simply added on top of the the plot to provide experience and hours of play. Exceptions would be BG2 (for the most part), PS:T, and Anito, to name a few. But those are all a decade or so old, or more. The dumbing down of RPGs to reach a lower age group has arguably meant less time spent on story-related elements, and more on graphics and sound.

endboss · Post by **endboss** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:04 pm

Gauda wrote:Also, many of the side quests are really short and MMORPGish (fetch 10 health/lyrium pouchers, 10 mushrooms and so on). I really miss the long and involved side quests from BG2 such as the one involving the shadow and red dragon in BG2. But otherwise, the game seems great untill now, but as Xandax said: that might change. But as of now the game claims I'm finished with 19% of it, which is rather extraordinary since I've, also according to the game, spent about 40 hours on it untill now. So we'll see.

... now that's a complaint. Since I'm still unsure whether or not to get this, only because I've promised to myself I wouldn't waste anymore cash on games out of newly released expectations... I have to ask. I wonder, maybe you have 19% after 40 hours because you've been caught up in fetch quests? I would hope that they're just there as extra padding in addition to all the great BG style side quests and the massive main quest.

GoldDragon · Post by **GoldDragon** » Sun Nov 08, 2009 11:15 pm

zippythezip wrote:The graphics are not that bad, only I notice that dental care in the game is pretty poor :laugh: Guess we all have different oppinions eh?

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

Gauda · Post by **Gauda** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 2:34 am

endboss wrote:... now that's a complaint. Since I'm still unsure whether or not to get this, only because I've promised to myself I wouldn't waste anymore cash on games out of newly released expectations... I have to ask. I wonder, maybe you have 19% after 40 hours because you've been caught up in fetch quests? I would hope that they're just there as extra padding in addition to all the great BG style side quests and the massive main quest.

Well, yes I've been using most of my time doing side quests - and there are a lot of them, bioware obviously focused on quantity rather than quality this time around. However, though many side quests are fetch-quests, I would say that it is not true for the majority of the quests, most of them actually have some background story and is enjoyable to do. Also, the fetch quests do them selves if you are like me: I just pick up everything I see on the ground (Yes, I've been playing Monkey Island and other adventure games a lot)

(There is plenty of inventory space, so you will not have to go to town to sell your stuff that often).