Dragon Age 2 Demo (Out Now)

[Cronky]

So, it came out today.

http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo/

There's the link for those who somehow don't know where to go to get it. Either you take that route or find a torrent of it (I prefer the torrent because it's quite the big file. Choppy internet connectivity can ruin a browser download).

Here are my thoughts about it, because I know you are all on the edge of your seat waiting for them.

(If you didn't see it already. Wall of text incoming)

If you'd seen any of the developer videos then you'd probably heard about how they wanted to make the game more fast paced. Origins had some delay on when you say "DO THIS SKILL" and the character actually doing it. They wanted to cut down on that time so it would be more, "Instant reaction" when you told them to do something. I was skeptical, as were others, that depending on their definition of "Instant" could make it more Hack n' Slash, rather than Tactical RPG. I was quite satisfied with the result though. There is indeed less wait time between you activating a skill and you executing a skill, but it's far from instant. There is still a activation time with skills.

Also on most of the trailers and whatnot the battles look REALLY fast paced (to me) and the main character looked like he was, for lack of a better description, cartoony-like jumping around the battlefield. Hopping HUGE distances instead of running to over to an enemy and fighting. Actually seeing it in action (I played as a rouge to test, as that was the class I was most worried about), I was much more pleased. While you do take leaps at enemies, it's usually only when you're in quite close proximity.

They did do some fun time savers though that take out lull of doing a skill like "Backstab". You simply poof right behind them in a cloud of smoke and do the skill. Instead of your character having to run all the way behind them and do it anyway... or attempt the skill from the front side (which equals fail).

Steam lining of skill was put in order, which is a nice touch. Instead of looking through a big list there are only like... 6 little skill trees to click points into. Each tree having somewhere between 4-8 skills to acquire. These include Sub-skills that simply enhance the skill you had before. Such as, Healing having a sub-skill of Greater Healing. Enough choice is given to feel like YOU are making the characters, but not enough to feel lost in a sea of skills icons and description text.

The graphics are quite nice too. I mainly noticed that people... look like people. Granted all they really show in the demo up close are "Main" characters and they don't let you customize your main guy (or gal), it still looks like a step up to me. I've been playing a lot of Fallout: New Vegas, so that step is a lot further up when considering that fact.

Only things that kinda irked me where little things like:

-Pauses for loading were a little random for me. At certain points in battles where a conversation was about to start (sometimes after killing X amount of enemies), or after you made a conversation choice it would just stop the game and bring up a little "Loading..." deal. Broke the fluid-ness of the game, but again, maybe that's just my computer not being smart enough to pre-load stuff. They never lasted more than, say, 5 seconds at most though, so I'm not kicking and screaming about it.

-Path finding to loot bodies on the ground was a little bit off. I'd click on a body to loot and my guy would run over there... then stop right in front of it for a second... then slowly walk up to the body and loot. Sometimes it was spot on and there was no pause, but most of the time I'd run into that stopping bit.

Those seem like things that will be fixed in the final game, so I'm not too downed by them at all. Otherwise, it seems like it's going to be just as fun, if not better than Origins. If anyone else played it and had different opinions please do comment.

[Spark Mandriller]

This is the game with the fucking shockingly bad writing, right? I think I'll pass. That's like the whole point of RPGs if you ask me.

[Cronky]

You're probably thinking of the same game. I liked what it offered though, so I'll partake in another helping. Especially if the new one plays, looks, and is told nicer than it'd predecessor.

[monterto]

Played a few hours of the first one, got bored really fast. Played the demo, got bored even faster.
What's the point in playing an MMORPG if there are no other people?
bad game design blended with a thin story and a poorly executed choice system.

pass!

[Cronky]

This is the game with the fucking shockingly bad writing, right? I think I'll pass. That's like the whole point of RPGs if you ask me.

Played a few hours of the first one, got bored really fast. Played the demo, got bored even faster.
What's the point in playing an MMORPG if there are no other people?
bad game design blended with a thin story and a poorly executed choice system.

pass!

Out of curiosity, what RPGs in general would you guys say was well made?

Then to change it up a little...

Space, which current day RPG would you say has a well told story?

Monterto, which current day RPG is engaging enough to keep your attention and/or has a well executed choice system?

(Note the "current day RPG" part, by which I mean this generation of gaming. Since PC gaming seems to be tough to nail down when that would be, I'm going to define that as since the 360, PS3, Wii generation began.)

Or anyone else can pop in that has an answer to those questions.

[Spark Mandriller]

Out of curiosity, what RPGs in general would you guys say was well made?

Fallout was cool. VTM Bloodlines was cool, but buggy as hell so I dunno if it'd really be honest to call it well made. Planescape Torment was kinda cool but also sorta weird and not really a game. KotOR 2 was sort of okay but even worse than Bloodlines in the bug department.

BGII was fun to coop, and you could have sex with like three different elves, so obviously 10/10 game right there.

Space, which current day RPG would you say has a well told story?

Uh am I allowed to say Bloodlines? I think that's too old. I'll say Witcher then. Poland did something right for once!

[frvge]

Downloaded and installed it yesterday but didnt get round to playing it yet. I first want to finish BS2 and PB Winterbottom.

[DreadStunLock]

This is the game with the fucking shockingly bad writing, right? I think I'll pass. That's like the whole point of RPGs if you ask me.

Played a few hours of the first one, got bored really fast. Played the demo, got bored even faster.
What's the point in playing an MMORPG if there are no other people?
bad game design blended with a thin story and a poorly executed choice system.

pass!

Out of curiosity, what RPGs in general would you guys say was well made?

Then to change it up a little...

Space, which current day RPG would you say has a well told story?

Monterto, which current day RPG is engaging enough to keep your attention and/or has a well executed choice system?

(Note the "current day RPG" part, by which I mean this generation of gaming. Since PC gaming seems to be tough to nail down when that would be, I'm going to define that as since the 360, PS3, Wii generation began.)

Or anyone else can pop in that has an answer to those questions.

WoW is technically counted as RPG, it's great made, most played game in the world by Xfire statistics and overall since more than half of the world pay the subscription to it.

[Farley4Fan]

Space, which current day RPG would you say has a well told story?

Uh am I allowed to say Bloodlines? I think that's too old. I'll say Witcher then. Poland did something right for once!

But the Witcher is based off a book, so it has to have good writing. 

I think Mass Effect 1 had a well told story with good writing, at least better than ME2 and it was more of an RPG.  I still prefer ME2 though.

Fallout New Vegas actually has a surprisingly good story.  There are so many ways to branch the game's narrative it's surprising that it even holds together at all.

[DreadStunLock]

Mass Effect really had weird graphics when you see the Normandy flying around the city :/ It's so pixelated :( I even had my settings on max and still pixelated....Some of those graphic bugs just put me off big time.

[Farley4Fan]

Mass Effect really had weird graphics when you see the Normandy flying around the city :/ It's so pixelated :( I even had my settings on max and still pixelated....Some of those graphic bugs just put me off big time.

That's not really a reason to dislike a game.  A CGI animated movie maybe.

[puuusianka]

I would never say WoW is an RPG. It's MMoRPG which is hell big difference! I wish for RPG like oblivion but with multi  like one person host and others join in. Up to let's say 8 players and that would be just awesome!

[DreadStunLock]

So you are telling me that an RPG has to be a game with a host and 7 players connected?

[Cronky]

Out of curiosity, what RPGs in general would you guys say was well made?

Fallout was cool. VTM Bloodlines was cool, but buggy as hell so I dunno if it'd really be honest to call it well made. Planescape Torment was kinda cool but also sorta weird and not really a game. KotOR 2 was sort of okay but even worse than Bloodlines in the bug department.

BGII was fun to coop, and you could have sex with like three different elves, so obviously 10/10 game right there.

The games you picked were indeed well told. I feel if I would have played Planescape Torment when it first came out that I would have had a different beginning into RPG games with choices. God knows I installed Baldur's Gate enough times to memorize the Trailer for that game that it had you watch after it completed. The reliance in conversation versus combat is pretty interesting as I played a bit of it just recently.

I'm surprised you said Kotor 2 though, considering how much crap it gets for being "Unfinished"/Rushed. It was only a bit of time later that people unlocked some of the content that was mostly made, but not implemented into the game.

Aside from all that, when you say Fallout do you mean all of them, or the first two, or a single iteration of it?

So you are telling me that an RPG has to be a game with a host and 7 players connected?

Pretty sure you should read what he said again. He said he wished there was a game like oblivion, but multiplayer. Not that ALL RPGs have to have 8 players.

;)

[DreadStunLock]

The funny thing is, he actually stated that WoW is an MMO-RPG, so I am really confused...