Dragon Age Snark Thread (Spoilers possible)

[peterb]

TOP TEN IDEAS FOR THE NEXT BIOWARE GAME

10. When you introduce the Good Guy Who Is Obviously Going To Betray The Other Good Guys Just Like In The Previous 5 Games, maybe you could have him say "Mu-hu-hu-hu-hu-haaaaaaa!" and twirl his handlebar moustache ominously, just in case the audience doesn't see it coming.

[Angie Gallant]

So Alistair asks if we can make out, I say yes, and then he turns to warm his hands on the fire while my character is frenching the air. Dude, this was your idea, don't leave a girl hangin!

[Lum]

ProTip: if a character is supposed to have a French accent, make sure the actress doesn't mysteriously drop the accent in a third of the voice overs.

When you introduce the Good Guy Who Is Obviously Going To Betray The Other Good Guys Just Like In The Previous 5 Games, maybe you could have him say "Mu-hu-hu-hu-hu-haaaaaaa!" and twirl his handlebar moustache ominously, just in case the audience doesn't see it coming.

I dunno, he had black eyeshadow. I think all villains are supposed to have black eyeshadow. Never trust anyone wearing kohl, people.

[peterb]

Boy, I sure am enjoying the comments on the Eurogamer review where the most important possible topic is whether the reviewer's words ("these sound like a 6 or 7 to me") agree with the final numeric rating.

[Pentadact]

I'm close to adding this to the pile of RPGs I gave up on once they skipped to an interminable dream sequence - doubling the pile's size. (Fable 2).

-

[MattKeil]

ProTip: Knockdown attacks probably shouldn't stack if they hit a character who has already been knocked down. At the very least, just make him stay on the ground longer, rather than standing up and then comedically falling back over.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

In fantasy, everyone is British... except for selected American dwarves. Get with the program, guys: dwarves are Scottish. Always.

Edit. (http://jlutes.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/tolkien.jpg)

[checker]

ProTip: Knockdown attacks probably shouldn't stack if they hit a character who has already been knocked down. At the very least, just make him stay on the ground longer, rather than standing up and then comedically falling back over.

I had a similar rant about the combat animations. Like, it's not a fighting game, the guys are under pseudo-autonomous control, and latency isn't an issue, they should be able to make the animations register perfectly, yet dudes are still swinging randomly in the air, through each other, etc. Kwality!

Of course, the exact same criticism could be applied to Spore. Games are hard to make!

Yours,
The Pot

[mystery]

ProTip: if a character is supposed to have a French accent, make sure the actress doesn't mysteriously drop the accent in a third of the voice overs.

Hell, this goes for all the characters, and all of their various affectations. If you play your cards right, the mayor of Redcliff will be all gruff and hoarse, and then for 4 out of 10 words of one particular sentence, it's as if he suddenly cleared his throat. I'm reminded of the Futurama where Fry gets a Lucy Liu bot.

[Eric T Cheng]

After finishing Uncharted 2 I'm becoming more and more disappointed with Dragon Age.

The animations in Dragon Age are meh. People stand like stiffly instead of hands resting on hips or sword hilts or even crossed over their chests. The facial animations are horrid -- in Saints Row 2 your character is customizable too but he/she still had decent facial animations in the cutscenes.

I agree with checker's previous post. The combat animations lack any oomph. It's a single player game. Give me some custom animations for special attacks!

And what's with the lack of jumping or climbing? Or the invisible force feed around the water's edge?

I'm having buyer's remorse...

[Mordrak]

I had a similar rant about the combat animations. Like, it's not a fighting game, the guys are under pseudo-autonomous control, and latency isn't an issue, they should be able to make the animations register perfectly, yet dudes are still swinging randomly in the air, through each other, etc. Kwality!


I'll take a closer look, but that generally happens at the end of a fight when the guy is dead because another character finished him off and I happened to trigger the swing right near that.



People stand like stiffly instead of hands resting on hips or sword hilts or even crossed over their chests.


You mean player characters? Most of the time, you'll probably be moving rather than just staring at your characters. If you're talking about cut scenes, well it hasn't been much of an issue for me personally. Though, even SR2 had what you describe for many of the side mission cinemas and I figure the number of cut scenes in SR2 are both fewer and shorter, and none have an branching that I can recall. If you want to compare it to Mass Effect that's cool, but SR2 seems a bit odd.

How many cut scenes total are in Uncharted 2?



I agree with checker's previous post. The combat animations lack any oomph. It's a single player game. Give me some custom animations for special attacks!


Errrr.. what? This is the most oomphy combat I've seen in an RPG in a while. There are a few custom animations at the end of fights I've seen with sten and his two hander, decapitations, lunges, combo swings, etc. He swings as if the sword has weight.

Also, although I'm not sure, but it seems like mighty blow has a custom animation, but it's not static. It depends on the direction of your current or last attack.

And anyway, this is a RTS style game. If you had a long custom animation that seemed super snazzy in the middle of combat, it leaves the character vulnerable. You'd have people complaining that it takes too long, so that'd lead to making the character invulnerable during the animation.. which might unbalance the combat system and make the moves too advantageous since you'd have to up DPS to make it cost effective and then they'd also be immune while doing it.

However, if you want lots of sparklies and shit, sorry.. I'm not interested.

[Unicorn McGriddle]

I had a similar rant about the combat animations. Like, it's not a fighting game, the guys are under pseudo-autonomous control, and latency isn't an issue, they should be able to make the animations register perfectly, yet dudes are still swinging randomly in the air, through each other, etc. Kwality!

Of course, the exact same criticism could be applied to Spore. Games are hard to make!

Spore had to make its animations work with player-made models, though. Dragon Age just has to make animations work with its own models.

There are occasional sync kills, which is nice.

The animations in Dragon Age are meh. People stand like stiffly instead of hands resting on hips or sword hilts or even crossed over their chests.

The real puzzler is that Mass Effect had better animations, particularly facial animations. Get those guys to animate your faces, Bioware.

And what's with the lack of jumping or climbing?

Jump/climb puzzles in RPGs are something we're better off avoiding. Unless it's an open thing like climbing in Daggerfall. But don't make me jump from ledge to ledge and stack crates.

[Mordrak]

Spore had to make its animations work with player-made models, though. Dragon Age just has to make animations work with its own models.

There are occasional sync kills, which is nice.


Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you guys are talking about, are you talking about syncing like in Assassin's Creed? Even that game has enemies around back off, so the animation can sync properly and the player doesn't take damage for just finishing off their attacks. Or are you just talking about the characters facing the enemy? I'll take a closer look.


The real puzzler is that Mass Effect had better animations, particularly facial animations. Get those guys to animate your faces, Bioware.


Mass Effect had better facial animations, but it was mostly marginal unless it was an important scene. It still relies on the same basic set of patterns that Dragon Age does in most regular conversations. I remember being disappointed that how much closer most the animation in Mass Effect was to Knights of the Old Republic than to their demo videos. And again, that's still not taking into account the amount of animation that needs to be done. It'd be interesting to see the number of scenes and choices for each of the games in relation to each other.

Comparing SR2's cut scenes though is comparing apples and oranges.


Jump/climb puzzles in RPGs are something we're better off avoiding. Unless it's an open thing like climbing in Daggerfall. But don't make me jump from ledge to ledge and stack crates.

I'm not even sure what good jumping or climbing would in this kind of game. He wants to jump and climb just because? The only modern game that handled climbing particularly well was Assassin's Creed and that was because traversing the environment was a central part if not the central part of the gameplay.

[idrisz]

rrrr.. what? This is the most oomphy combat I've seen in an RPG in a while. There are a few custom animations at the end of fights I've seen with sten and his two hander, decapitations, lunges, combo swings, etc. He swings as if the sword has weight.

Witcher!!!

[Mordrak]

Witcher!!!

Do you have a party that's also acting at the same time in Witcher? Does it rely on the same kind of mechanic of having other enemies back off while attacking as AC? I always meant to check out the Witcher. I loved its concept art, but missed out on the last sale.

These are honest questions. Personally I get the feeling that the way animation is handled is integral to the balance.

[idrisz]

nope, you just control witcher, enemies doesn't back off either.

cool moment in witcher is when you decapitate like 4 guys simultaneously.

[Mordrak]

nope, you just control witcher, enemies don't back off either.

cool moment in witcher is when you decapitate like 4 guys simultaneously.

Hrmm, cool. I guess Witcher is next on my list after Dragon Age. :)

[Ben Sones]

I agree with checker's previous post. The combat animations lack any oomph. It's a single player game. Give me some custom animations for special attacks!


Er... the special attacks DO have custom animations. Like, all of them. Even debuff attacks like Sunder Arms. I love the animation for Pommel Strike, and the one where the sword-and-boarder takes a swipe and then follows through with a chain of shield bashes. Even some of the sustained abilities have animations--a character will actually hunker down behind their shield when you have Shield Wall active, for example. There also seem to be a number of special finishing moves (when a character lands the killing blow) that aren't tied to any special attack, but are just there for the sake of variety.

That game is packed with attack-specific combat animations. I agree with some of your other complaints, but this one is simply not accurate.

[Lum]

There's also dramatic killing-blow animations for many boss monsters.

[merryprankster]

I like it when everyone explodes from a virulent walking bomb spell. I'm a simple man really.

EDIT: Fireballs are fun too, I wish I'd named my wizard Fizban.

[MattKeil]

That game is packed with attack-specific combat animations. I agree with some of your other complaints, but this one is simply not accurate.

They might have more "oomph" if they were synched with the enemy's reactions more than half the time. There's a very odd disconnect between the actions of the attacker and the actions of the attackee. This may be a more prominent problem on the console version.

[Igor Muravyev]

Why does all the armor look terrible? There's maybe some heavy/medium armor that's barely passable, but the mage/light armor is always terrible no matter what though.

[Naeblis]

They might have more "oomph" if they were synched with the enemy's reactions more than half the time. There's a very odd disconnect between the actions of the attacker and the actions of the attackee. This may be a more prominent problem on the console version.

It's kind of a funny comment, because it is actually a bit insightful. I suppose the game animations are the same in pc and in console (i can't think of technical limitations in consoles that limit animations), so the problem shouldn't be more prominent in one version or the other. But it's my experience that in console gaming, players usually take care more in consideration things like animations, how well is the action done, the visual polish in general, and specifically how visceral is the movement and action. In pc, there is more a tradition in WRPG of games that are directly focused in roleplaygaming stuff, these types of games are about plot, dialogue, quests, puzzles, worldbuilding, tactical combat, loot, etc, while the graphics/animations and all the technical stuff is more subpar or behind the curve, but rpg players just doesn't care for that stuff, they play these games (instead of say, a fps) for all the previous mentionated stuff, so it's admissible to be lacking in the technical side.

[Brian Rucker]

As far as accents go, they're pretty consistent in some ways.

Ferelden : Anglo-Saxon English. Complete with freeholders and moots and (anachronistic) British accents. There are even Pictish(ish) barbarians and pagan witches in the woods!

Orlais: High Middle Ages France. Complete with a tradition of female chevaliers (knights) ala Joan of Arc, tournaments, a troubadour tradition much like that of southern France and a generally snooty and foppish approach to things. Possibly the most civilized place in the world.

Antiva: Spain and possibly the warmer climes of Italy, Sicily, and North Africa in general. The capital is described as being in a desert after all. The characters speak with Spanish accents. Assassins rule the night much like the, well, historical Assassins were a big political force in the Middle East but also it brings to mind renaissance Italian intrigue and murder. Very civilized and, yes, foppish place as well.

I suspect other settings in the game run along these lines too with real life inspirations.

It's really interesting to see what they did with the dwarves, making Mithril into Spice essentially, and speculating what effect that kind of trade along with the threat of Darkspawn might do to a Dwarven culture. I do agree that the accents for dwaves are regrettable though.

Edit: Tevinter Imperium sounds like it might be based on Rome or the Byzantines but I haven't actually met anyone from there yet. They've got qunari barbarians at the gate, a version of the Chantry that's split off to form its own schismatic order (Catholic vs Orthodox split anyone?) and is thoroughly mixed up with the politics there run by the mage-based theocracy. I suspect it's a very dangerous and subtle land. Byzantine in complexity one might say.

[Kevin Grey]

Initially I thought the character models and animations in cutscenes were a big step back from Mass Effect. But as I play more I've become pretty impressed by some of them. Maybe they just got better with them in the later content but I've been quite pleased with them for the most part now.

[Skipper]

ProTip: if a character is supposed to have a French accent, make sure the actress doesn't mysteriously drop the accent in a third of the voice overs.

I'm assuming this is about Leliana but I don't remember a specific point where she drops the French accent. In fact, I'm thinking that would be kind of hard for her to do, she's a native (http://www.justvoicesagency.com/artists/international_female_voice_artists/corinne_kempa) French speaker (http://www.excellentvoice.co.uk/voiceartist.php?id=134). Is there another character here I'm missing?

[Mordrak]

Ok, I see what you guys are talking about now. Horizontal swings don't line up with the enemy necessarily because of the difference in height between the two characters. I didn't notice it as much because I tend to play my fights from the tactical view by the end.

You aren't necessarily talking about syncing them up like I thought you were. Heh, sorry.

[Mordrak]

I'm assuming this is about Leliana but I don't remember a specific point where she drops the French accent. In fact, I'm thinking that would be kind of hard for her to do, she's a native (http://www.justvoicesagency.com/artists/international_female_voice_artists/corinne_kempa) French speaker (http://www.excellentvoice.co.uk/voiceartist.php?id=134). Is there another character here I'm missing?

This came up in Bioshock too, with everyone complaining about the French guy's accent and he turned out to be French. I don't have a good enough ear for accents to complain about it myself.

Lately, I'm beginning to take many of QT3's complaints with a grain of salt.

[Skipper]

This came up in Bioshock too, with everyone complaining about the French guy's accent and he turned out to be French. I don't have a good enough ear for accents to complain about it myself.

Lately, I'm beginning to take many of QT3's complaints with a grain of salt.

Someone should repost the QT3 thread breakdown pic. Everything starts off elated, then the complaints come out, then comparisons to future games, then everyone disses it for the next up-and-coming. Funny pic.

[Ben Sones]

A complaint, without so much snark in it: Item variety, while better than Mass Effect, is not that great. Maybe it picks up later on in the game, but at level 9, I've only found a couple of items that are remotely interesting or memorable. My warrior character has replaced her greatsword twice, each time with a new sword that uses exactly the same model as the old one, and has slightly higher damage output, crit chance, and armor penetration. Yawn. Leliana just replaced her bow for the first time, with a new bow that does slightly more damage.

The only noteworthy items that I've found are a couple of longswords (the Green Blade, or whatever it's called, and Asturia's Might, which came in the Warden's Keep DLC), a Dragonbone staff that is awesome but way, way too powerful for me to use until my mages are much higher in level (requires Magic 36), and a couple of suits of armor. Of the armor, only one suit is really magical--the Warden's Armor, which came with the DLC. The others, like the Heavy Steel Chainmail that my warrior is wearing now, just have nice models. Stat-wise, they are exactly like my old armor, but with higher armor and fatigue values. I also find a lot of crafting items that I can't use, and vendor trash, though most of it isn't worth much money.

I don't know how high you typically are by the end of the game, but I've put a good number of hours in now, and you'd think that by level 9, you'd start finding some good magical gear.

[Kevin Grey]

I don't know how high you typically are by the end of the game, but I've put a good number of hours in now, and you'd think that by level 9, you'd start finding some good magical gear.

For me it's the opposite- I have so much good magical gear (Level 12) that I find the armor and weapon selection in most shops pointless because I'm already using much better gear. Hell, I have to put a fair amount of good stuff into storage just waiting for my characters to get their stats high enough to use it.

[Ben Sones]

Huh. I must be going to the wrong places or something.

[Mordrak]

Weird, I didn't start getting decent magical gear until 10-12, but even now it's hit or miss at level 15 if I find something I want to equip, but that's mostly when it comes to armors. I have an ok selection of magic weapons. They are nothing like the 30-100+ gold items in the shops though. I hope it doesn't pick up too much. I like the long low magic segment at the beginning.

[Ben Sones]

Also, crafting. They could take it out of the game altogether, and I wouldn't miss it. In fact, I think it would be a a better game without it. It's just a tedious inventory management minigame. Just have all of the consumables show up as drops, or vendor items. If you want to have a skill path for using them, that's fine. But searching for raw ingredients, storing and managing them in your (limited) inventory, looking for recipes, and them clicking to combine stuff from time to time to give yourself a slight increase in the number of consumables you have on hand... well, let's just say that it's entertaining in the same way that making your RPG characters eat at regular intervals isn't.

[Kevin Grey]

Also, crafting. They could take it out of the game altogether, and I wouldn't miss it. In fact, I think it would be a a better game without it. It's just a tedious inventory management minigame. Just have all of the consumables show up as drops, or vendor items. If you want to have a skill path for using them, that's fine. But searching for raw ingredients, storing and managing them in your (limited) inventory, looking for recipes, and them clicking to combine stuff from time to time to give yourself a slight increase in the number of consumables you have on hand... well, let's just say that it's entertaining in the same way that making your RPG characters eat at regular intervals isn't.

Wow, I guess it's opposite day for us. I'm quite fond of the crafting and I use all three aspects extensively. Indeed the bulk of my money probably goes to consumables so I can replenish my potions, traps, and poisons. I'm actually excited when I find metal shards in a drop because it means that I can make more traps.

[idrisz]

does trap do armor ignoring damage, like small claw trap always do 100 damages?

if so.. oh man, time to laid down those traps before optional boss fights!!!!

[Unicorn McGriddle]

Edit: Tevinter Imperium sounds like it might be based on Rome or the Byzantines but I haven't actually met anyone from there yet.

I don't have a clear picture of the world's global politics because I spend most of my time covered in blood and casting Death Cloud, but I vaguely thought that, like Rome in the Middle Ages, Tevinter was a vanished empire that had once spanned the known world. I didn't realize that it was still around. If so, perhaps it's a Byzantine-comparable remnant.