• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

New Dragon Age: Origins Screenshots And Trailer

Gorgon

Member
Dance In My Blood said:
...even when you're banging the girl she says "we shall make this a night to remember"!

:lol

I have too say though that Mass Effect was also choke full of cliches. The Liara chick could just be Spock after a sex operation and a bad case of blue skin fungus.
 
Gorgon said:
Like in The Witcher?

To be honest, The Witcher was CD Project's first game and it totally shitted on anything Bioware has ever done IMHO, which is a pitty because Bioware has the money and the means to be much more.

Anyway, I went from "curious about the game" to "completely uninterested in anything Bioware seems to be abble to put out". I gess good western RPG deveopment nowadays is in the hands of CD Project and maybe, MAYBE, Obisidian. Bioware and Bethesda are lost causes for all I care.

I haven't played The Witcher, but better than anything Bioware has made? I'm certain that I would never agree. Strategy games are my favorite genre, I like my RPGs to have strategic depth. As a result the Infinity Engine is, in my opinion, the best computer RPG engine ever designed. The Witcher's just got action combat. It's never going to compare.

Plus, I do actually think that Baldur's Gate I, as well as II and ToB, has a good, interesting story... I thought the iron shortage thing was a fine plot for a low-level D&D adventure. :)

I might play The Witcher sometime, I don't know.

Blackace said:
Actually, one that does interest me about Dragon Age is the storyline and world. I heard a huge chunk of time went into that before gameplay, before UI, before anything. Bioware had writers working on Dragon-Age while they were doing other projects so I am very pumped for it.

Yes, and I do think that despite what everyone has said, the world does seem to have a solid backing... it is important when making a new world just for a game. That's one of the biggest advantages of D&D, you can come in with the world already there and extremely well designed. When making their own worlds, games usually just can't do as good a job, and you end up thinking that everything was just designed for the game story or gameplay points or whatever, and not for an actual solid world backing... if I'm explaining that well at all.

Basically, I think that having a believable world behind the game is important. D&D has that. Other PC/videogame RPGs not based on pen & paper games often do not. I'm still hopeful that Bioware did put the effort into building this one up well, hopefully the bad stuff is just marketing... (the whole ridiculous Marilyn Manson thing, etc)
bigdaddygamebot said:
I love me some D&D and fantasy settings and I'm currently playing through The Witcher right now. I'd say Dragon Age graphically appears to be at parity with Witcher if not a bit worse looking.

For a company with the assets that BioWare does, I'm surprised at how "last gen" it looks. Hammy writing aside, during the most recent trailer, on two seperate occasions there were two characters completely covered with blood, yimmer-yammering and yukking it up with their comrades in arms as calmly as if they were brushing their teeth.

It looks like a game that got totally derailed by some ridiculous exec that thinks he's a genius for trying to appeal to the Gears/Halo/CoD crowd.

What went from a sure thing has become a wait-and-see when it comes to reviews.

I'm certainly not saying that Sacred 2 or The Witcher appear to be profoundly better games but considering BioWare's pedigree...what a tremendous fuckin' disappointment. It's released six to eight weeks from now and it looks the way it currently does? Fail.

As long as the actual gameplay is the Baldur's Gate-style stuff that we've always heard it will be, and you can turn off whatever automating features the game has, like you can do in NWN2, the game will be good. Gameplay matters most in games, and they really haven't shown much of that in most of the trailers... but what we have seen of the actual gameplay is consistently good. That's why I can't agree with things like this -- yes I think the trailers look horrible too, but I'm trying to see the actual game behind the stupid trailers... and despite all their marketing efforts it IS still looking good. :)

Dance In My Blood said:
I guess this is where we differ, because for me decent writing is not good enough when I have to trudge through it for the sake of progression. This is Bioware, one of the top companies who had phenomenal writing in Mass Effect, and now are showcasing absolute garbage in their trailers for Dragon Age.

Cliche after cliche manifests itself in the dialogue shown; streets will run red with blood, if someone says something unwelcoming in the North a quip is made about it getting colder, even when you're banging the girl she says "we shall make this a night to remember"! Nothing makes me angrier than cliches. It's lazy, boring, and predictable writing from a company that's supposed to be in the top tier of writers. This is a mistake fit for the bottom end of a high school creative writing class.

Even in the longer videos every character talks like a god damn quest hub, and the presentation that these characters have another boring quest is on their lips with every single word. I don't want to play World of Warcraft with worse art as a single player experience. This is really the best they can do after they've been sitting on this "new shit" for so long? Jesus Christ is it sad, but my expectations for a single player RPG are significantly higher than this.

Hopefully I'll be proven wrong when the game actually releases, but right now the game's problems are readily apparent. The nicest thing I can say about this game right now is they had the sense to include a very deep tool set, so I won't have to sleep through the main campaign and can actually enjoy the combat system alongside a story that's actually interesting.

As I said I love fantasy games and books, so you expect a lot of those cliches... what's wrong with using fantasy cliches in a fantasy game, particularly when you are trying to have some original elements as well, as they have definitely done here? Nothing's wrong with that, in my opinion. :)

Also, the gameplay in this is should be more BG than WoW...

Of course the writing is only decent and not great, the voice acting is just average, but I don't think things are as bad as you say. Look at it again after we see the actual, final game. We'll see then how good the final game is.
 

Gorgon

Member
A Black Falcon said:
As I said I love fantasy games and books, so you expect a lot of those cliches... what's wrong with using fantasy cliches in a fantasy game, particularly when you are trying to have some original elements as well, as they have definitely done here? Nothing's wrong with that, in my opinion. :)

I guess that's why I don't read "fantasy books" anymore, just good books regardless of genre. I feel that 99.9 % of "fantasy books" are trash. I really don't care for it as a genre since many years ago. After reading Gene Wolfe everything else pales by comparison, to be honest. I guess we just have different preferences. I feel that you will be happy with DA.

Regarding the Witcher and combat in RPGs: I was talking about world building, atmosphere, characters, writing, etc and not so much how good the combat system is. But anyway, if your kind of thing is tactical party combat then I certainly believe that DA will be far more satisfying than the Witcher for sure.
 

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
Gorgon said:
I guess that's why I don't read "fantasy books" anymore, just good books regardless of genre. I feel that 99.9 % of "fantasy books" are trash. I really don't care for it as a genre since many years ago. After reading Gene Wolfe everything else pales by comparison, to be honest. I guess we just have different preferences. I feel that you will be happy with DA.
This is pretty much sums up how I feel.

I don't put up with lesser works of literature just because of their theme or genre, and I'm not about to start for Bioware.
 

Caspel

Business & Marketing Manager @ GungHo
thought I'd mentioned that I've received confirmation that the press event I'm attending will have Greg and Ray readily available to answer questions for interview purposes. I know I've received a few q's already through PM about the marketing, but feel free to drop me any q's you may have for the Dragon Age team.
 

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
I expect Dragon Age to be a D&D version of KOTOR, if thats what I get, I'll be satisfied. The promo trailers are cheesy and funny, the actual gameplay trailers look fine to me.
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Suairyu said:
Given their intentions, I'd say Gears Of War is more competently written than anything we've seen of Dragon Age so far.

The Mad World trailer has more ambition than Gears or DA.
 

taoofjord

Member
I'm totally with everyone here who thinks that Dragon Age is embarassing. I hate to say it, because at the end of the day, these peopel are hard working and no doubt passionate about what they're doing. I'm happy for them that they got these jobs... but when all is said and done, this game just doesn't live up to the Bioware name. Everything about the technical and artistic side of its presentation is a let down. If anything, this should blow away Mass Effect - but at the very least be able to stand along side it.

I can forgive its technical shortcomings, or at least, I could if the art direction was anything worth ogling... but it's one of the most bland looking games I've seen from a high profile company. It's very confused, inconcistent, and unoriginal. What a shame.

On top of all that, the writing isn't good from what they've shown in the trailers. For me, RPGs live or die by their story and the trailers (awful marketing aside) don't show me a story that I want to invest many hours of my life into.

And with other, better stories coming out in a couple weeks... why bother with this? Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 will definitely scratch my "I need a good video game story itch".

And for the PC gamers, well, there are a bunch of great stories to sink your teeth into. Go play Ben There, Dan That! or Time Gentlemen, Please! or play some of the classic pc adventure games you missed. Or, hell, just go play Planescape: Torment again.
 
Wag said:
Here is that music trailer in HD on Gametrailers

It's a miracle, the first Dragon Age trailer that I can remember that's not broken in some way or another! (... okay, unless you count the 'blood flying' intro stuff, but that's in all their trailers...)

Anyway, yes, from that the music definitely sounds good. :)
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
The actual ingame music sounds pretty good and the cutscenes aren't nearly as cringe worthy when viewed in proper context (most of them at least). I really wish they would lose the blood splattered dragon and heavy metal riff at the end of each promotional video. God that shit is lame.
 

Gorgon

Member
Francinium said:
Lol oh man, the lines in that op are so bad and I remember all of them. Totally kills my hype, especially considering what's been shown.

Not to mention the art direction. I don't care much for the actual quality of the graphics, they look fine to me. But the art direction looks unispired as hell. For me this feels like "generic fantasy world clone #245".
 

Yasae

Banned
Suairyu said:
Given their intentions, I'd say Gears Of War is more competently written than anything we've seen of Dragon Age so far.
I understand their intention, but the writing in Gears is exactly the lowest-common-denominator stuff you expect it to be. That's bad writing. I don't consider Dragon Age to be well above that bar, but as usual this forum is run by ridiculous hyperbole, so all bets are off.
HK-47 said:
The Mad World trailer has more ambition than Gears or DA.
Funny, I thought it was the most derivative, schlocky piece of shit I've ever seen. Kind of the, uh.. "Let's use this bad song from a bad movie" idea that didn't really work for me.

I'm one of those people that can forgive a lot if the experience/presentation is right. It's how I like Final Fantasies without ripping apart the dialogue - the writing is at the bottom of my list compared to the things it does right, some things that no other game has ever done.

I'm not excusing any of the faults DA:O has, it's got plenty, but people love to shine the light on one area and obsess about it. That's what ridiculous hyperbole is. I feel the experience could trump any of the weak areas we've seen so far.. But maybe not. I'll see once I'm done playing. I was very put-off about the bland NWN2 campaign, but that was primarily due to - you guessed it - sub-par presentation. You just sit there in dialogue trees while characters incessantly mouth off, maybe the camera angle changes some etc. I'm tired of seeing that game (KOTOR) after game (KOTOR 2) after game (Jade Empire). It's been done, let's move on.
 

masterkajo

Member
Dynoro said:
Achievements are out at x360a - hope this is the right thread :)

Looks like a fun set
I don't know... it looks more like a do every character with every possible choice list... and it will take a lot of time to get them all. Nothing originally or a bit of the beaten path. BTW, SPOILER alert! when watching the achievement list!!
 

Kittonwy

Banned
elbkhm said:
To be fair, people were complaining about the writing in Mass Effect prior to its release as well, and that turned out okay, at least in my opinion. Taken in the context of the full game, this dialogue may turn out to be more acceptable.

Outside of the Wrex storyline I didn't like the plot at all, the game tried so hard to gratuitously build up the player's self-esteem which was completely unnecessary.
 
taoofjord said:
On top of all that, the writing isn't good from what they've shown in the trailers. For me, RPGs live or die by their story and the trailers (awful marketing aside) don't show me a story that I want to invest many hours of my life into.

And with other, better stories coming out in a couple weeks... why bother with this? Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 will definitely scratch my "I need a good video game story itch".

But we don't yet know anything about the story of this. We've seen scenes, and nothing more. If somebody wrenched a scene out of one of the games I've worked on, yeah, it could look really stupid. Good writing isn't just about dialogue and character - it can also be about context. Personally, I don't think that Uncharted 1 was that well written, but the context and performance made it great. ODST has some stinking writing (those radio play-esque tapes are pretty damn patchy) but they're sold well, so people are enjoying them.

Play Dragon Age all the way through and then we can talk about the writing. As somebody pointed out earlier in the thread, people reacted like this to Mass Effect, but I actually thought ME was, on the whole, well-written: it set up a universe and a style and it absolutely adhered to that throughout. It wasn't Pinter, but then I wouldn't actually want it to be.
 
Archie said:
Four sex related achievements, sheesh.
First Knight 10
Experienced the thrill of romance with Alistair
Witch Gone Wild 10
Experienced the thrill of romance with Morrigan
Easy Lover 10
Experienced the thrill of romance with Zevran
Wine, Woman, and Song 10
Experienced the thrill of romance with Leliana
 
Lostconfused said:
There is also 1 for getting all of them.

Holy shit! That's a lot of points for fucking. I think the one achievement they gave in Mass Effect was a lot better. I have a feeling I'm going to compulsive about getting the achievements in this game, and now I'm going to have to play through all the horrible written romances.
 

JayDubya

Banned
FYI: in Alpha Protocol there's actually a Ladies' Man achievement for fucking everyone possible in one playthrough. IIRC, there's also one for ignoring all romance content.

As far as the game goes, my Amazon preorder of the CE still stands, I guess we'll see in a month if it was worth it or not.
 

Asmodai

Banned
Gorgon said:
:lol

I have too say though that Mass Effect was also choke full of cliches. The Liara chick could just be Spock after a sex operation and a bad case of blue skin fungus.

Enemies are everywhere!:lol

The combat dialogue that human enemies spouted in Mass Effect was hilarious. Of course, Dragon Age's dialogue looks to be that cheesy throughout the entire game.
 
Is it just bad marketing or is this game going to be terrible?

Everything about this game seems that it's being catered to 16-18 year olds who care more about sex and violence.

I am concerned that this game is going to be very shallow.
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
The most hilarious aspect I've seen from the trailers is how everyone is nonchalantly conversing while covered with blood splatter.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:
Yeah, do they really need individual achievements for fucking each fuckable character?

If The Witcher made it to consoles, you'd have had a couple dozen achievements for all the women.

What's wrong with keeping a scorecard anyway? You track your experience in RPGs, why not track your women too?

playing devil's advocate here, I think it's ridiculous you're awarded anything for sleeping with women, it's turning them in to objects to gain points by using
 

Azih

Member
Minsc said:
If The Witcher made it to consoles, you'd have had a couple dozen achievements for all the women.
God yeah, that game gave you freaking unlockable nudie cards for getting down to business (three different ones for the main wimmenz). What's with the sudden prudish elitism on this now?

I agree with Minsc, but only if female characters don't get equivalent boinking achievements
 

Gorgon

Member
Minsc said:
playing devil's advocate here, I think it's ridiculous you're awarded anything for sleeping with women, it's turning them in to objects to gain points by using

EDIT: they should just give you achievements for sleeping with either men or women, independent of sexual orintation. If not, Bioware is just playing safe and clearly directing this at the teen "sex & blood" crowd.
 
Gorgon said:
Wich just proves how imature Bioware as a company is; they should give you awards for sleeping with men too!
They do

2 achievements for 2 female characters
2 achievements for 2 male characters
and 1 for all of them
 

Gorgon

Member
Lostconfused said:
They do

2 achievements for 2 female characters
2 achievements for 2 male characters
and 1 for all of them

I have nothing to complain then. Carry on. :lol
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Lostconfused said:
They do

2 achievements for 2 female characters
2 achievements for 2 male characters
and 1 for all of them

What about female with female and male with male achievements? Hell, why not have whole orgy achievements? And an achievement for not sleeping with anyone?
 
Minsc said:
What about female with female and male with male achievements? Hell, why not have whole orgy achievements? And an achievement for not sleeping with anyone?
Ask Bioware, these are things i cant answer. All i can say is that they have included "romantic" subplots in their games for a couple of years now. But what happened with mass effect probably sent a wrong message to them.
 

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
Minsc said:
What about female with female and male with male achievements? Hell, why not have whole orgy achievements? And an achievement for not sleeping with anyone?
Wouldnt that be possible if you can choose your gender at the start of the game?
 
My complaint is that if I want all the achievements I'm going to have to play through the game about 4 times and have to do all the brilliantly written (probably sarcasm) love stories.
 

Azih

Member
Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:
My complaint is that if I want all the achievements I'm going to have to play through the game about 4 times and have to do all the brilliantly written (probably sarcasm) love stories.
Shit you had to do that with Mass Effect 1 for the ally achievements. Which wouldn't be so bad if the Asari Ally thing wasn't IMPOSSIBLE. F U BIOWARE. Ask them that question. Ask them about the Asari Ally achievement. ASK THEM!
 
Gorgon said:
EDIT: they should just give you achievements for sleeping with either men or women, independent of sexual orintation. If not, Bioware is just playing safe and clearly directing this at the teen "sex & blood" crowd.

SEX & BLOOD????

WHERE? DADDY LIKES




:lol :lol :lol
 

Gorgon

Member
Count of Monte Sawed-Off said:
My complaint is that if I want all the achievements I'm going to have to play through the game about 4 times and have to do all the brilliantly written (probably sarcasm) love stories.

I'll never understand the love people have for achievements/trophies. I really couldn't care less. But it was a brilliant idea from a market point of view, no doubts about it.
 

Suairyu

Banned
Yasae said:
I understand their intention, but the writing in Gears is exactly the lowest-common-denominator stuff you expect it to be. That's bad writing. I don't consider Dragon Age to be well above that bar, but as usual this forum is run by ridiculous hyperbole, so all bets are off.
It was military barks (impossible to fuck up anyway) and pastiche of military/sci-fi films. People shudder at "giant woooorrrm", but it's quite obvious it was meant to be that cringe worthy. Of course, that doesn't make it good writing at all, but it does make it amazing competent. There is a certain goal there the writer is shooting for beside lowest common denominator (aside: who did write Gears 2? Was it Susan O'Connor again?) - you can see it reflected in the exagerated body proportions, melodramatic performances and overblown soundtrack - and they achieved it magnificently. I didn't exactly savour it, but I could get in on the fun.

Dragon Age? The writers are attempting to do something apparently way beyond themselves, and the results stick out like a sore thumb. You probably could argue that it is still ultimately 'better' writing than that of Gears, but it certainly isn't anywhere near as successful.
 

Yasae

Banned
Suairyu said:
It was military barks (impossible to fuck up anyway) and pastiche of military/sci-fi films. People shudder at "giant woooorrrm", but it's quite obvious it was meant to be that cringe worthy. Of course, that doesn't make it good writing at all, but it does make it amazing competent. There is a certain goal there the writer is shooting for beside lowest common denominator (aside: who did write Gears 2? Was it Susan O'Connor again?) - you can see it reflected in the exagerated body proportions, melodramatic performances and overblown soundtrack - and they achieved it magnificently. I didn't exactly savour it, but I could get in on the fun.
Look, don't bother explaining this to me repeatedly. I like Final Fantasy XIII for christ's sake. That has plenty of melodramatic, out-of-proportion characters that fit generally rigid archetypes squealing about their problems. It's not going to become a writing standard.

I also said I'm willing to forgive a lot if the presentation is sharp. I don't see anything amazing from Dragon Age, but it's hard to say the presentation is below NWN2, another game in the genre that is totally middle-of-the-road like when it comes to story. It had the edge in (tirelessly snarky) writing, however.

Whatever. They set incredibly lofty expectations EVER comparing this to BG2, a game that wasn't perfect but had some great storytelling elements. I don't understand how that title was so well-crafted in a similar setting and this one.. This one seems like their first outing into high fantasy.
 
Top Bottom