[PC] Dragon Age 2

In most voting machines, it would be best to just ignore the binary voters or give viewer an ability to ignore their impact.

On another note, has anyone found a way to disable the parallax mapping effect?
It is does cause some not so velcome artifacts to the image and is very slow.

Currently the only 'dx11' effect I might want on is the additional light sources, but dropping the framerate to 1/4 is just too much.

 

DA2 appears to be getting the Metacritic equivalent of a DOS attack from butt-hurt PC gamers. I'm 10 hours in and haven't had any of the LOD issues in those screens and the dialog is actually really good. It's a step back in certain ways, but DA:O wasn't a perfect game by any means.

 

If anyone wants a beta key for the Dragon Age Facebook app:

YYZD-YFMA-42RM-CR82
YYZD-YK5T-K5QT-JRX4
DEED-W73S-XRTR-KRR3
DEED-XCQB-CVSY-NWXJ
DEED-XJAT-SYR7-NQKM

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Ahem... continue.

 

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/...d-From-Dragon-Age-II-Over-Forum-Post#comments

So that story is up at /.

http://kotaku.com/#!5780876/how-saying-bad-things-can-keep-you-from-playing-a-video-game

Looks like they bought themselves some bad PR.

Edit: http://social.bioware.com/forum/Dra...a-game-because-of-a-forum-post-6465725-1.html

 

I thought some of the complaints regarding the graphics were a bit over wrought, but go into Lowtown (or is it darktown, it's hwere you find Anders) and jesus christ how anyone at Bioware signed off on letting that area ship in the final game will remain a mystery to me for the remainder of my life. Probably fair to say that's PS2-era graphics, creating such a boxey area comprised entirely of one repeated texture. . even on the ceiling. Looks like a Lego-land constructed out of cardboard boxes. There's nothing in DA1 that comes close to how bad this area looks.

The waves of enemies used in so many fights is about as uninspired a design choice as I can imagine. And it's so over-used it's ridiculous. I know it's a fantasy game, but watching every fight devolve into waves of enemies who magically appear in front of you is pretty jarring.

I'm about 5-6 hours into the game, and feel like I'm stuck in side quest hell. The main quest line certainly isn't grabing me, and at this point with DA:O I was pretty enthralled. Even ME2, for all its console-based simplifications, appears far superior to DA2. I think Desslock's Jade Empire comparison is going to turn out to be damn accurate.

 

Could you take a couple screenshots of that area please ?
I hear a lot of complain but only have seen a couple shots of the same area of the game (or so it seemed to me), so I'm wondering how widespread the problem is.

 

At least Jade Empire had lots of charme and personality. Certainly more than a boilerplate LotR knock-off. It was also a gorgeous game for its time, with none of that repeated environments crap (or at least Bioware was adept enough to hide the repetition) It certainly wasn't a hardcore role playing game, but then it also never claimed to be the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.

 

I don't think it looks too bad.

EDIT: Oops, John meant Dark Town. Here's a shot from there:

 

That bottom screenshot reminds me, I saw a pic comparing the character select screen between DAO and DA2 ... and DA2 comes off looking pathetic. A lot of the characters just stand there in a stupid looking posture (That elf always haunches? Why?) and of course the DA2 programmer art UI looks fugly in comparison.

That the game was rushed is one thing, but that they shipped DA2 with programmer art rather than the DA:O UI shows just how fucking arrogant the new crew was. Why are there so very few people in the games industry which can take a game and just improve upon it, instead of feeling the need of scent marking it just to make it their own?

BTW do enemies really spawn, as in out of thin air? I thought the waves were just reinforcements coming running from the edge of the map. Spawning out of thin air is so fucking MMO (which I don't play enough to find things like aggro and spawning not to be terribly grating in a cRPG).

 

I haven't noticed any enemies literally spawn out of nowhere. Usually they run in from off screen or jump down from rooftops. Undead enemies and shades kinda climb out of the ground. I don't think the UI looks that bad.

 

But it does look worse.

 

Oh wow, that looks absolutely patheticly bad. I'm more and more convinced that the people at Bioware just went insane after finding out they are now working for EA.

Regards,
SB

 

I think that comparison needed Repi style smilies to further emphasise the point!

Anyway as an aside, some crazy poster thinks you're their husband.

Another aside, I guess we've got Witcher 2 action incoming to soften this blow, right?

 

Oddly enough I'm looking forward to Fable 3 more than the Witcher 2. Mostly because while I have yet to force myself to finish the Witcher, I had no problems finishing Fable.

Graphically, I'm expecting the Witcher 2 to look better though. So I may end up getting both.

Regards,
SB

 

I haven't played Fable 3, really liked number 2 but decided to wait for it on PC. Then the PC version got delayed!

 

Interesting, in the latest Digital Foundry comparison featuring DA2, like many of us out there, they also get the feeling that the PC version was the red headed stepchild of the bunch receiving less developement time than the console versions. Almost as if they just threw something together to release a PC version rather than the loving care that DAO received on PC.

Quite obvious, IMO, that Bioware couldn't give a rats arse about PC gamers anymore despite the fact that DAO did far better on PC than console.

Regards,
SB

 

I was in the Broken Coast zone and watched templars wearing full plate dropping down from teh sky. Completely ridiculous looking, but when you've made a design choice of having 99% of combat consist of staggered waves of enemies attacking. . . .

That's not a good Darktown shot either, that area actually looks far worse than that.

 

Is the city as empty as the above shots make it look?