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Dragon Age 2 Goes Gold, Live Developer Gameplay/Q&A [Update 2: Recorded Version Up]
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WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
cartman414 said:
I do agree. I hope that somebody produces another RPG in the same vein this generation. I had hopes that DA would be that series. Alas, it is not to be. I think I'm beginning to come to terms with that.
cartman414
Member
I wonder what that VGCats strip was created in response to. The whole "Nintendo becoming casual" thing at the time?
I guess the most annoying thing is the more recent, casual fans who don't see the issue here, even if you tell them. Becomes too tempting to slag them in retaliation when they make fun of you.
I guess the most annoying thing is the more recent, casual fans who don't see the issue here, even if you tell them. Becomes too tempting to slag them in retaliation when they make fun of you.
Not sure if people have visited the BioWare forums lately, but someone managed to find 99% of all the talents for the 3 classes (not including specializations).
Take a look. Warrior class has gotten a huge upgrade.
BioWare Forums - Talent Descriptions
Take a look. Warrior class has gotten a huge upgrade.
BioWare Forums - Talent Descriptions
bishopcruz
Member
WanderingWind said:
I dunno I still very much see DA as the spiritual successor to the BG series. Nostalgia can be a tricky bitch and while I love the BG series to death... it has issues, ones that have come across with age more than anything else.
Some of those issues will never be a problem again (D&D 2e rules suck, especially when they are put into a video game. THAC0, AC, Spell Memorization, it all pretty much blows chunks. You had a TON of choices in BG2 but so few of them meant anything. Your race was pretty much cosmetic, if you were a warrior or rogue character progression was nearly nonexistent, and it was QUITE easy to break the game, hell Dual Class made it silly to rolly anything BUT human.
You character's alignment was set at the outset of the game with no (almost) way to change it, the game had difficulty spikes that were harsh and unforgiving, and it rarely felt like you had an impact on the world as a whole. Then there was the fact that its nonlinearity was frontloaded into Chapter 2.
What it did have was amazing writing, 6 characters in your party, a much more expansive quest, and the awesome feeling of leveling your character from a schlub to a god. Oh and some of the best NPCs in Bioware history.
That being said the scope that was BG2 is probably something that we won't see again, at least for a little while. It is simply too damned expensive to create art assets for a game that big. Not to mention having voice for all the dialogue, animate the cut-scenes, party members, monsters and the like. Dragon Age 1 took 5 YEARS, remember that.
Are we doomed then? No. The core of the BG series lives on in DA1 at the very least, tactical combat, an interesting world, great characters, and a cool story. DA2 looks to be cribbing even more from BG2 with its Chapters, city hub, and darker story.
As far as BG2 selling as well as DA back in the day... it didn't. According to an old NextGen article from 2006 up until that point the game had sold 480,000 copies, great for a PC game mind you, but it got its ass handed to it by Neverwinter Nights, and was only 10k in front of KOTOR. This comes from NPD data, and it is before the advent of DDL services.
Bioware tried to take the magic that existed in BGII and make it something that more people could get into. And it seems they succeeded. Whether or not you prefer DA to the BG series (I still prefer the latter, warts and all, as I said nostalgia is a bitch.) is up to you, but in many ways DA handles the game aspect incredibly well, and it has been rewarded with sales.
P.S. That VG Cats comic was awful, it could have gotten that point across in 6 panels maybe even 4. Why do webcomic artists almost always think more is better?
IoCaster
Member
bishopcruz said:
Sorry dude but that's some wrong info you got there. Baldur's Gate sold ~2M and combined with Baldur's Gate II and expansions almost 5M copies. I'm pretty sure it was mentioned in PC Gamer at the time, but I may have it mixed up with another magazine. Anyway here's a link-->Click
Both of those games sold huge on the PC back in the day.
cartman414
Member
I agree that the 2nd ed rules are antiquated, but that's pretty much the only mark against BG2, which holds up remarkably in every other aspect. I'd love to see it remade with 3.5 ed D&D.
I believe it was the expansion Throne of Bhaal that only passed the 500,000 mark, not BG2.
I believe it was the expansion Throne of Bhaal that only passed the 500,000 mark, not BG2.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
cartman414 said:
3.5? 4e, baby!
Fimbulvetr
Member
JaseC said:
I was under the impression that most hated it.
Omotesando
Member
Damn the more I see of this game.....
This game (probably minus the script) has shovelware written all over it.
It should be canned like True Crime.
This game (probably minus the script) has shovelware written all over it.
It should be canned like True Crime.
bishopcruz
Member
IoCaster said:
Different data sets. the info I had came from here, was based on NPD data, so it was US only, and was through 2006. Your link was worldwide, and it was the franchise as a whole through 2008. In either case DA:O sold 3.2 million as of last February, and who knows how many since then, that is one game in the franchise, it HAS sold better than BG2.
I will give a my bad to misreading the numbers though, it looks like the 480,000 was the highest selling individual SKU of BG2, with 900,000 being the total as of August 2006 when you included the expansion packs, combos, and the like. NWN1 still had better US sales at the time.
Question for anyone who knows what were the total sales for the Mass Effect series? Because it seems like Dragon Age is trending towards being Bioware's best selling franchise of all time, unless I am missing something.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
bishopcruz said:
Sorry, but when talking about how something sells, you can't discount it because it some of those sales didn't come from NA. In any case, your point that BGII didn't sell is erroneous using either sets of numbers. It was highly successful, and this was before Steam, DD and it was only on one platform, compared to the 3 for DA:O.
There is a market for more traditional RPGs. DA:O proved that. However, DA2 is clearly moving away from that market, toward their entrenched ME fanbase. Nothing necessarily wrong with that (yes, there is goddamit!) but again, I hope some other company picks up the mantle and creates an RPG that more closely resembles the BG and other Infinity Engine games.
I love the 2nd Ed. rules. It's clunky and antique and that's what I love about it. 3.0+ is just a bit too freeform for my taste--I like having restrictions forcing you to work around the weaknesses of your chosen build.cartman414 said:
No idea what 4+ is like.
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And really, DA1 was successful, they're just fixing what wasn't broken in the first place with DA2. I think it's going to backfire pretty badly. I loved ME2, but you still need that quasi-old school RPG fix now and then.
Yeah Mass Effect isn't even that big of a seller. Kind of funny that a fantasy old school rpg game has outsold a sci fi shooter with some rpg elements. Mass Effect might have a problem where it doesn't hook the traditional RPG fans by being too much of a shooter and doesn't hook Call of Duty fans because the shooting is limited by comparison.
I think Dragon Age 2 is going to sell worse than the first game due to when it is being released outside of the holiday season. Dragon Age had a lot of hype behind it and a holiday release. DA2 is also losing a quality a lot of people enjoyed in the first game to become a Dynasty Warriors clone with some rpg elements. Beyond this, DA2 has a ton of stiff competition coming out in March and I don't feel the same amount of hype behind this one.
I think Dragon Age 2 is going to sell worse than the first game due to when it is being released outside of the holiday season. Dragon Age had a lot of hype behind it and a holiday release. DA2 is also losing a quality a lot of people enjoyed in the first game to become a Dynasty Warriors clone with some rpg elements. Beyond this, DA2 has a ton of stiff competition coming out in March and I don't feel the same amount of hype behind this one.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Long story short, BioWare has some of the worst marketing in the history of gaming. It's not offensive or anything. It's just offensively bad. Their games succeed in spite of their marketing department, all of whom really just should be straight ashamed of themselves. Yes, you, lurker/plant. I'm talking to you. Deal with it.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
This is going to be a huge problem for TOR. You need to have subs asap and even if 10% of people are dissuaded because of poor marketing, that will probably be enough to totally sink Bioware.WanderingWind said:
IoCaster
Member
bishopcruz said:
From their Jan 06, 2002 </bioware_info/about> page...
BioWare said:
BioWare said:
BioWare said:
Here's the link-->Click
So as early as January 2002 they were at ~4M sold combined. That's BG 1.5M, BGII and expansions with another ~2.5M additional units. Like I posted earlier, your numbers are bad and/or misleading. Considering the fact that BG, BGII and expansions were limited to one platform (PC) they had great sales and I'm not sure why you'd want to claim that they didn't. With DA:O having the benefit of being available on three platforms it's understandable that it would garner higher sales, but that doesn't somehow invalidate the fact that the BG series was a big seller.
cartman414
Member
Dresden said:
Even with 2nd ed. rules, it was still possible to exploit BG2.
bishopcruz said:
The entire series sold nearly 5 million copies. Again, it was ToB that just passed the half million mark. Do the math.
And it's important to remember that DA:O achieved 3.2 million between 3 different platforms, including those peasant gamer doohickeys called consoles. Baldur's Gate II sold in the neighborhood of 2 million as a PC-only game. And this was from pre-KotOR Bioware. Not too shabby, eh?
BTW, I just realized that BG1+2, IWD 1+2, and NWN 1 all debuted on Impulse last month. Pretty cool that they're becoming just a little more available. All they need are PS:T and Greyhawk.
Lostconfused
Member
Well I have good news for you, DA2 is right up your ally!WanderingWind said:
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Lostconfused said:
Hush, you.water_wendi said:
It's the survival of the fittest out there.If they aren't good enough,ultimately it will backfire and kill them.
Although FF XIV didn't sink SE because they probably didn't invest all that much in it,it's another huge blow/money sink for the company.You have one offline FF bombing and it's game over for SE at this point,so they might be forced toward the handheld market soon enough anyway. My guess concerning TOR is that it won't bomb,mostly because they will come at the right place,right time.Lot's of people are tired of WOW and waiting for a legit alternative.TOR will be the most content packed mmorpg at launch since WoW and should be the best reviewed knowing how Bioware can easily garner great review from critics.Despite not seeing or hearing much from the TOR team,there's already 1 million people registered to the site.
I also think Mass effect 2 outsold the first,so it's probably around 2.5-3 million sold and Dragon age must be at 4-5 million.