Bay 12 Games Forum

I quite enjoyed SWTOR, I think mainly because I refused to play it as an mmo instead playing it as a singleplayer game. I turned of the chat and ignored other players as much as possible while I just went through the storyline with my Sith-Hating Imperial Agent. Unless the game dies in the near future I plan to go back and go through one of the republic classes stories as well.

I tried that, but for me the story alone really isn't worth the monthly subscription, nor the annoyance of having to ignore so much of a game in order to enjoy a part of it. I did that in WoW for way too long already.


*eyes screenshot*

Wow. Can you actually, deliberately kill your customers in that game? That is ... rather dwarfy. As is said customers' apparent disregard for their own safety. :p

I thought the Blight was actually the most endearing and interesting part of DA1. The rest of it struck me ME Soap Opera plus your bog-standard RPG. The Blight was the only thing that really drove me to think critically about my choices or how I used my time. And even that wasn't enough to get me to actually finish the game.

I got really into the Blight and the Grey Warden theme too, which is part of why I love my Sacrifice ending, but unfortunately both don't get nearly enough focus. With a time limit of sorts, a meaningful progress of the Blight (losing more locations and their associated resources/allies/services), and the need to protect non-Warden party members so they don't turn into ghouls due to constant exposure to darkspawn gunk, we could've had some very tense and atmospheric situations. Instead everyone happily fights the terrible, scary badguys without any ill effects ever, and the only effect of the Blight is the loss of Lothering, which is handled completely off-camera and without giving us time or reason to become attached to the place and really care. Much lost potential there. I do enjoy, say, characterization and interaction with party members as much as anyone, but I'd prefer them to be woven more tightly into the "greater whole" of the plot instead of feeling like a separate game sometimes.

Though I often have the same complaint about alleged big story hooks which fade into the background for most of the game.

To all those "Bioware was good before EA got them"..

..remember Bullfrog?

And Origin and the decline of the Ultima series into a more "mainstreamed" action fest that had little to do anymore with its former self ...

... But that's exactly what they did? Except instead of the same character it was a new one.

I don't know what you're referring to, here. My point is: in order to have a Warden-focused sequel, you'd have to retcon elements of DA out of existence. Does DA2 have moments in which previous choices, either from it or from Origins, are treated as not existing and something that you never did is forced on you as "canon"?

But then you're ignoring all the people who left the warden alive?

No. There is a huge difference between not continuing with the same character, and completely invalidating a character by retconning their choices out of existence. It would also be extremely bad form IMNSHO to know in advance that you're offering "false choices" which you will then ignore in the sequel in favor of a single canon story, just so you can continue using the same character. I don't personally care for DA2 and have no intention to play it, but the decision not to continue with the Warden is not among the reasons for that opinion.

Admittedly, I'm slightly biased in this case because I chose the Sacrifice and cannot imagine ever going with anything else. I had been hoping for a good ol' heroic death option ever since the release of the Calling trailer, and the Sacrifice was a perfect fit. Still, I wouldn't want it to become "canon" anymore than the Ritual should be "canon". It would be wrong either way.

One of the major problems with Bioware games is that they like to pretend that it's all about player choice and agency, but when it comes right down to it most of your choices are meaningless because they're so afraid of people missing out on content that every outcome is essentially the same.

Now this I fully agree with. It is one of my old pet peeves, not just with Bioware. In order for choices to actually matter, you need consequences. To be precise, you need both positive and negative consequences. Players shouldn't feel entitled to always get their cake and eat it too. As an extreme example: how willfully stupid would a player have to be to whine about not having any companions after they chose to murder their companions? Apparently, that is exactly why the ability to kill followers was removed from TOR. That sort of attitude shouldn't be pandered to, it should be laughed at and slapped down hard. It should, IMO, be quite possible to get stuck and lose a game because you fucked up the story with selfishness and stupidity so that no one trusts your word or your leadership anymore -- or because you ignored clear signs that Doom(TM) is headed your way and you need to get ready for it instead of chasing sidequests and ogling NPCs.

One of my biggest peeves in their recent games is the dialog wheel. It is really hard to feel like my character is my character if I can't actually decide what she will say instead of having to play a guessing game of "what will this brief cryptic line on the wheel actually turn out to be". It annoys the living daylights out of me, and I honestly cannot see a single reason for doing it this way. It looks "cooler" than the traditional old line-by-line list of the full, actual dialog choices? Shorter lines are less of a chore for the twitch kids to read between action scenes? I just don't get it.

Add voice acting for the protagonist and the guessing game gains the additional component of trying to anticipate how my character will say whatever option I chose. Not fun at all.

It is impossible to make a game that really appeals to everyone, and IMO trying too much to do that -- as Bioware appears to do with their "RP goes mainstream action" approach in the ME series and DA2 -- just sacrifices too much.

Cave adaptation is the reason why I prefer my military to train outside, too. Don't want them whining and puking all the way to their exciting date with the latest siege. It's a good idea to put a roof over the barracks though, in order to avoid rain-related bad thoughts.

Speaking of changes, would there be a way to get the old weapon rack icon back? The check mark looks a bit odd as a replacement.

You need to download dfhack separately and put that zip file's contents in the DF folder.