I'm surprised the front page article didn't have Dragon Age: Brought to you by Dragon Age picture on it... the irony.

Am waiting on purchasing Dragon Age (Dont pay full price for games, perhaps on Black Friday it may go cheap for  a day and Il grab it then)  but having played BG2 and the newer bioware games, I can tell just from looking at it and reading certain reviews, its better than pretty much all the MMORPG garbage around nowadays.   Im pretty tired of mmorpgs (or at least what is out there right now) perhaps the new Star Wars game may change that.  Im done with the Warcrafts (which I stopped playing 2 years ago) and Aions (Which i never have, and never will play) types, which would be better off dead. (And yes, I actually played Champions Online unfortunately)

Originally posted by Thalarius

The Dragon Age game must have been made for a high end system since it would not run on my system Intel Dual Core 3.6, Nividia 9800, 4GB Ram, Winxp SP3. When I contacted Bioware support, they suggested I upgrade to a faster system using Windows Vista or Windows 7.  If I had the money to spend would upgrade, stupid bastards. 

 

Please, I went out and paid 50$ for a Nvidia 8600GT on my computer that was top of the line back in 04 and I can run it with the textures and graphics maxed (no AA).

Also, to all the people dissing Dragon Age; you've clearly been numbed to a brilliant RPG experience due to your MMO"RPG" exploits.

The only Generic characters I was really aware of at first were Sten (still badass, his complacency is quite entertaining) and Wynne (who in reality, is not generic).

There is more to a true RPG then "LOL I CAN TAB TARGET".

And FYI, (for all your people that think it) World of Warcraft is not a good RPG experience (though it is a good MMO experience, there is little to no "RPG" about it). Cancel those subscriptions and go Bauldur's Gate, or Knights of the Old Republic or whatever.

A good RPG is an RPG that sucks you into the world, and I damn well felt like a Dwarf. Mission Accomplished and well worth my 50$.

Now I can't wait for some of those more tech savvy people to make some additional content with that toolset!
 

I have been playing Dragon Age from release day and can tell you I find it more engrossing that ANY MMO. Somewhere along the way MMOs lost the RPG at the end. There is great potential in many MMOs for serious RPG but none of them develop it and the communities then to attack attempts at RGP inclusion.

For those areguing about the story line not being original, you are correct and wrong at the same time. It is hard to create a truly original storyline in fantasy anymore since in fairness there is just so much stuff. My opinion is this storyline drew from Tolkien and George R. R. Martin (Ice and Fire Series) pretty heavily.  At the same time they put their own twist into the storyline and have prodcued a GOOD story to follow.

In fact Bioware should be appluaded for their commitment to this storyline. I have commented elsewhere that they have already released two full novels and the CE Stratgey Guide contains 50 pages of lore. This is a LOT of background material to put out for a first release of a game world.

The bow to MMO elements in the game by Bioware was brilliant. This allows MMO players, not always the same as RPG players, to feel more comfortable in the game and introduces them to RPG concepts. At the same time it allows some RPG players that never went to MMOs to get used to some MMO concepts of play.

For me the games big strength is the fresh feel to it. It is fantasy but does not feel like other fantasy worlds or games. I know it is similiar to many but the depth and twist of the storyline combined with a return to real RPG elements makes this game feel fresh compared to titles out today.

The only other current title I know that comes close is the Witcher, however at the end of the day I think Dragon Age wins.

I find it very interesting that an MMO site and so many MMO players are taking time to really look at this title. This is very telling and the MMO industry needs to stand and take notice. RPG is alive and well and many MMO players would like to see it come back to the MMO.

On a side note, to the person that did the interview. I was very disappointed. As a professional interviewer and journalist I would have expected the interview to have direct quotes and a question and answer sesson not a rambling of your thoughts of what he was saying.

Love the game, but my personal "hype" meter for SW:Tor has gone down some after reading their thought on MMORPG's, was already afraid of that but am sure SW:Tor will be a great game, but after this interview I feel it's just going to be that, a great game, but I want a great MMORPG, not just a Action Online Game. Again hope Bioware can proof me wrong with SW:Tor.

Story: Every MMORPG ever made had story, gladly within the MMORPG scene story is a backbone but not the most important aspect of a MMORPG, it is for a singleplayer game. For a MMORPG story is a choice you either follow or you don't.

The build of a MMORPG, they say: MMOs have the luxury of carrying a player through the game on different levels. 1.The first being small solo content, simple quests and story lines that a player can do alone. 2.The next is small group content, whether it is small dungeon raids or group quests. 3.The third is large scale raids, giving players a huge area to work with and allowing for teamwork and guild development. 

I want 1/2/3 to be mixed together, If I play a singleplayer RPG I know I can expect to be carried from place to place, in a MMORPG I don't want this, I want freedom, I might make a wrong turn somewhere and get killed but I will learn from that experiance. It sure looks as if Bioware only focus is World OF Warcraft.

I mean is it that hard to creat group content at the start of the game, why should raids or groupcontent be something you experiance at a certain lvl. The same with allowing teamwork and/or guild development, why start that late.

Overall as I started my personal hyp meter has gone down some after this interview. But still love DA

I found DA:O to be the only thing that completely removed any desire to log into an MMO ever since i got it. No single player RPG (apart to some extent Mass Effect for the first couple of days) has managed to do so.

So kudos to Bioware :D

Blah blah blah....so much hate on these forums...Waste of my time and energy.

Couple comments above that I wanted to address.

I'm also noticing that the "traditional party" structure is all but required (PS3 console version: Normal Difficulty) and even then in large parts it is very challenging.  I'm a seasoned gamer so I know what I'm talking about.  Come back and call me newb after you've taken on Korea in Falcon 4.0 or laid down the smack in Operational Art of War.   I'm also getting very frustrated with that to tell the truth.  "Casual" difficulty mode is just "Tourist" mode.  There's no difficulty involved.  From there Normal jumps up, once you hit a certain level, to really smack you around if you're not a dedicated min-maxer and micromanager.

Now the PC version might be easier to manage and that's seeming like the way I should have gone.  But I do love my comfy couch.  Next time I wait for more reviews before jumping on the bandwagon.

Now why is challenging, difficult, gameplay a problem?   It isn't necessarily.  If you're playing a game that's about being a general you want lots of detail to sift through and build a strategy around.  That's a wargame.  If you're playing a game about flying a top-of-the-line, high tech, jet fighter then you want all the radar modes and HUD configurations and aerodynamics to create the illusion of the experience.  That's a flight sim.  However, if you're playing a game that's about being an adventurer wandering with colorful companions you really need a little more leeway for picking characters, or skills, you have fun with rather than slipping into a min-maxing grognard, or raid monkey, mindset.  That should be an option but that should be Hard difficulty mode.  Hard mode should push gameplay over narrative as a distinct challenge just as, conversely, Casual mode lets you romp effortlessly through combat to enjoy the story.

I'd actually love to see a CRPG that was a great wargame or simulation but, sadly, that flies in the face of what CRPGs are thus far about.  D&D's draconian and abstract logic still rules the day.

Normal difficulty should give you some challenges but shouldn't always hit you with tactical challenges that force optimal strategies or party compositions on you.  Forums are full of people giving other people advice on Dragon Age.  This is absolutely normal for any new game.  What's different is that in many cases that inside knowledge, OOC (out of character) knowledge in roleplaying terms, is almost essential for success in DA.  You almost definitely have to go and get that uber healing mage.  You almost definitely need to bee-line for Shale if you want a decent tank.  Given the huge amount of damage everyone seems to take, get ready for frequent flier miles garnered from trips to the Daleland merchant for elfroot.

And if you don't know these things, if you're trying to play DA as a straight adventure rather than an MMOish grind to maximum power for minimum effort, and you're playing the console version on Normal difficulty then Maker help you.

The other point I'd like to address is the idea that this kind of storytelling will be a good thing for MMOs.  Maybe it will be, we'll see when KOTOR Online hits.  But it's not good for roleplayers.  Here's the problem. If everyone's having the same adventures then what kind of reality do they share to roleplay in?   Almost all MMOs have this problem to one extent or another, continuity issues, and the usual method of handling that in the community is to treat the canned, scripted, MMO quests as something apart from the reality folks are roleplaying in.   Otherwise it's all but impossible to reconcile.  In an MMO that depends so heavily on very structured and central storylines you're going to see real problems because those quests are harder to ignore.  People will lean on them more as "real" things that have bearing on their character's lives.  

Imagine this.  Han Solo's just helped to destroy the Death Star and he meets an Obi Wan who is still living in a cave on Tatooine.  Two hobbits walk into a bar and find they've both destroyed the one ring.  Let the immersive roleplaying commence...

Good luck with that.

DRAGON AGE IS NOT AN MMORPG.

www.mmorpg.com is becomming less and less about mmorpg's and more and more about advertising for any video game with a sword and a dragon in their theme. It underscores a poor journalistic/editorial focus IMHO. MMORPG used to be specialists on MMORPG's and used to be the go-to place for MMORPG info. Now they are starting to muddy the waters and in turn muddy their own specialization...

Thats not to say that Dragon Age is a bad game because it isn't. After all it was given great reviews at a real multiplatform site www.gametrailers.com who specialize in cross platform gaming.

And yes I do realize that one of the reason for interest in Dragon Age by www.mmorpg.com is because Dragon Age uses what some call traditional MMORPG combat mechanics. Fine and well... but so does Fable, Gothic, Witcher etc... what we are actually talking about here is RPG mechanics not mmorpg mechanics. The MMORPG industry learned ALL of their tricks from the standard RPG platform games (not as if its a big head to head face off or anything). Its just a historical trajectory. Games with an RPG element will inspire each other...golly go figure. Hardly news...and definitively not explicitly mmorpg news.

I read somewhere that the game world of Dragon Age is not an open one, you basically fast travel to points of interest.  That killed my interst in the game as I like virtual worlds because they seem more alive and immersive to me.  Also, the stop and go combat where you pause to issue orders to your character or team mates, while useful from a strategic point of view, does not really reflect the dynamic, furied pace of combat.

However, on character creation and graphics they get 10/10.

Originally posted by Terranah

I read somewhere that the game world of Dragon Age is not an open one, you basically fast travel to points of interest.  That killed my interst in the game as I like virtual worlds because they seem more alive and immersive to me.  Also, the stop and go combat where you pause to issue orders to your character or team mates, while useful from a strategic point of view, does not really reflect the dynamic, furied pace of combat.

 

However, on character creation and graphics they get 10/10.

The problem with your logic is that on paper and in discussion it sounds pretty sound. But without playing the game and seeing how the perspective of this relates to its style of play you are applying “apples” to “oranges” from a judgment perspective. Also, remember where there’s smoke there’s fire and if this game was not threatening to be the best thing since sliced bread we would not even be having a heated discussion over it. 

Originally posted by SaintViktor

Originally posted by Ravanos

Originally posted by SaintViktor

 I hppe someday they make Dragon Age into a mmo.

 

why? with its generic setting you can get that from most MMOs. heck go play LOTRO, its basically the same overall story. a evil presence is trying to take over the land, humans, dwarfs and elves are trying to unite to stop it.

 

Lotro is done horribly but that is my opinion. Bioware clearly is one of the best in doing fantasy. I would rather give my money to Bioware because I know I'll be getting a quality game. This mmo genre needs companies that actually care about making great games rather than other companies who push out unfinished products just to make a quick dollar.

Hella ya, LOTRO is a joke imo. The cutsceens got old quick for me not too mention the horrible character models. As my g/f keeps mentioning everytime she watches me play DAO...."This is what LOTRO should have been" (we both played LOTRO)

Re-due Middle Earth Bioware!!! For the love of god!!! LOL

Originally posted by majinant

Originally posted by Ravanos

I don't know why all the hype over Dragon Age to be honest, the story is generic the characters are bland and the classes are extremely limited in customization. when i got my first advanced class i was really excited till i found out how little it impacted my characters playstyle.

what because i can choose my dialog? wooo so i can be snarky, or evil or the good guy but really nothing changes except my party members may not like me .... awwww.

 

its a decent game, just glad i didnt spend money on it if you know what i mean.

 

I know what you mean. I only played for an hour and couldn't stand the combat anymore. Glad I didn't waste any money on it!

What I like about the combat the most is that you actually get to enjoy step by step every single element and aspect of each characters struggle and triumphs as the battle progresses to its conclusion. There are times when a battle is done I find myself physically clapping (yes really clapping) at how the team pulled it off or how a character was instrumental in turning the tide. You get an in-depth perspective to your team and it just rocks! I find it much better than real-time since you can miss allot of what’s going on and don’t have a full understanding of each characters contribution. 

Originally posted by Dana

I'll toss this in once since it's come up.

 We have zero idea what's on the page as far as ads go beyond what we see visiting the site like the rest of you.

Well boss I don't actually care, but I'd like to point out:

• Large featured story on DA
• The article brings up "what MMOs can learn from DA", which is quite a convenient segue for Bioware to hype SW TOR's primary bullet point.
• Every slide on the front page has "brought to you by DA", except for the DA slide itself, of course.
• There's a DA give away

Purely by coincidence, and thus not in the button list, but still having a psychological effect was the DA-related comic that I saw on loading the front page.  Collectively it was DA overload.

Now maybe you don't know anything more about it than we do, and I'm generally inclined to believe that you don't on a professional level, but you do have to admit that it's a perfect storm of coincidence.

With that said I don't personally care if it is all arranged or not.  I find their (apparent) attempt to connect DA's success with SW TOR quite frankly amusing.

If SW TOR is anything like DA then:

• your NPC henchmen will randomly stop what they're doing and proceed to do nothing
• They will randomly stop following you, forcing you to manually tell them where to go
• the healers will rush face first into the front lines to attack at melee distance with their ranged weapon
• rogue-types will never, ever try to get behind a mob. You must do that for them. On every. Single. #$%ing. Mob.
• Ranged weapon classes will flat-out refuse to use their ranged weapons and will instead rush in to melee (unless you remove their melee weapons - yeah, Liliana is now a duel-wielding rogue.)
• You will need to baby sit them during any challenging fight because of the above issues
• and, in short, the scripts (or instructions) that you set up for them will - for all appearances - randomly turn off for no ryme or reason.
• Mobs will rush your main character at the beginning of every fight regardless of the proximity or attacks from your henchmen until you run around for a few seconds so that your henchmen can build up hate.
• You will be forced to watch (or otherwise try to skip through as quickly as possible) some long dialogue scene in order to repeat the same boss fight for the 10th time due to the above issues.
• ...and countless other Bioware quirks.

Bioware is as cliche as anime.  The bad guy is always obvious.  The betrayals are always obvious.  The plot points are always the same.  The same character archetypes are always used.  The only thing that we're missing is the blue spikey hair.

Good thing I like anime then.

Originally posted by BattleFelon

The only thing I don't like about Dragon Age is how it's adopted standard party structure for most MMOs - that is, you need a tank, healer, and  mage in your NPC party. I'm finding it extremely difficult to progress unless you run a standard "MMO" party of NPCs. Even the strategy guide highly recommends that you run one of a handful of "suggested" group strategies, most of which are built around tank N spank.

The thing I love about first person RPGs is I don't need to have the "perfect" party structure to beat certain content. In games like Oblivion, I could run a mage tank or a fast but fragile rogue and still be competitive. I really feel that DA:O forces me to take certain NPCs for certain quests, much like MMOs force me to group with certain classes in order to beat raid content.

Good point! Who needs MMO's anymore, in DA I feel like the people are very real and I get to switch out party members and dont have to worry about people leaving my group during a quest and LFG issues. 

Originally posted by Horkathane

Originally posted by Terranah

I read somewhere that the game world of Dragon Age is not an open one, you basically fast travel to points of interest.  That killed my interst in the game as I like virtual worlds because they seem more alive and immersive to me.  Also, the stop and go combat where you pause to issue orders to your character or team mates, while useful from a strategic point of view, does not really reflect the dynamic, furied pace of combat.

 

However, on character creation and graphics they get 10/10.

The problem with your logic is that on paper and in discussion it sounds pretty sound. But without playing the game and seeing how the perspective of this relates to its style of play you are applying “apples” to “oranges” from a judgment perspective. Also, remember where there’s smoke there’s fire and if this game was not threatening to be the best thing since sliced bread we would not even be having a heated discussion over it. 

Good point.  There's definitely something there as many people are enjoying it.   I haven't played the game myself, only seen vids on you tube, gamespot, etc, which can be misleading.  Maybe playing the game, the lack of an open world would not be as great a detractor as I imagine.  I don't know...

If this game learned so much from MMO why does it not have a decent patcher built into the game.

PC games these days need to have a better patcher that comes with the game than relying upon everyone having the latest MS compilers loaded on their PC.  Come on that is the ONE thing they SHOULD have learned from an MMO.

Otherwise I think the game is fun...

Originally posted by Mysk

Originally posted by Dana

I'll toss this in once since it's come up.

 We have zero idea what's on the page as far as ads go beyond what we see visiting the site like the rest of you.

 

Well boss I don't actually care, but I'd like to point out:

• Large featured story on DA
• The article brings up "what MMOs can learn from DA", which is quite a convenient segue for Bioware to hype SW TOR's primary bullet point.
• Every slide on the front page has "brought to you by DA", except for the DA slide itself, of course.
• There's a DA give away

Purely by coincidence, and thus not in the button list, but still having a psychological effect was the DA-related comic that I saw on loading the front page.  Collectively it was DA overload.

Now maybe you don't know anything more about it than we do, and I'm generally inclined to believe that you don't on a professional level, but you do have to admit that it's a perfect storm of coincidence.

With that said I don't personally care if it is all arranged or not.  I find their (apparent) attempt to connect DA's success with SW TOR quite frankly amusing.

If SW TOR is anything like DA then:

• your NPC henchmen will randomly stop what they're doing and proceed to do nothing
• They will randomly stop following you, forcing you to manually tell them where to go
• the healers will rush face first into the front lines to attack at melee distance with their ranged weapon
• rogue-types will never, ever try to get behind a mob. You must do that for them. On every. Single. #$%ing. Mob.
• Ranged weapon classes will flat-out refuse to use their ranged weapons and will instead rush in to melee (unless you remove their melee weapons - yeah, Liliana is now a duel-wielding rogue.)
• You will need to baby sit them during any challenging fight because of the above issues
• and, in short, the scripts (or instructions) that you set up for them will - for all appearances - randomly turn off for no ryme or reason.
• Mobs will rush your main character at the beginning of every fight regardless of the proximity or attacks from your henchmen until you run around for a few seconds so that your henchmen can build up hate.
• You will be forced to watch (or otherwise try to skip through as quickly as possible) some long dialogue scene in order to repeat the same boss fight for the 10th time due to the above issues.
• ...and countless other Bioware quirks.

Bioware is as cliche as anime.  The bad guy is always obvious.  The betrayals are always obvious.  The plot points are always the same.  The same character archetypes are always used.  The only thing that we're missing is the blue spikey hair.

Good thing I like anime then.

All your bullet points are user error lol! 

- Forget you put them on Hold

- Dont know how to use part hold or the tactical interface

- Does not know how to operate ranged character Behaviors in the Tactical menu

-Does not know how to deploy a strategic group

Sorry sir, you are the problem. This game takes skill, L2P

Originally posted by Terranah

I read somewhere that the game world of Dragon Age is not an open one, you basically fast travel to points of interest.  That killed my interst in the game as I like virtual worlds because they seem more alive and immersive to me.  Also, the stop and go combat where you pause to issue orders to your character or team mates, while useful from a strategic point of view, does not really reflect the dynamic, furied pace of combat.

 

However, on character creation and graphics they get 10/10.

The easy mode, besides being easier for players who don't like to micromanage or who aren't as good dealing with multiple party dynamics, is actually touted as an option for players who don't want to pause and want to conduct the battles in real time. I mostly use this option so that I can minimize pausing and get a more fluid feel to the combat.

As far as the fast travel, that is correct. But this is how Bioware typcially designs their games.( Unless someone knows of a bioware game that doesn't use this design?)

I've been thinking a lot about this as I have been playing a lot of Oblivion which of course has an open world.

If one really looks at it, Bioware's games are more about set pieces that hold the story and action. They are less about players exploring and more about the story at hand.

There is a part of me that would love to just explore the world of dragon age with a party that's just not what bioware's games are about. They are very story related. If you look at all the options and intertwined bits in Dragon Age, and given that it took years to make, I dont' think having an open world would have been feasible. well, it would be feasible if they took longer to design and make and we can see that though the graphics are decent, they are a bit aged given its develpoment timeline.

I do think that anyone who loves role playing games and who likes a good story, even if there are derivative elements would very much enjoy Dragon Age. lol, heck, I'm still lauging about the npc who, when you kill him, shouts his last words "I wish I could have lived to see the ending".

It's bits like that (which are strewn about the game but not so much as to take away from the story) that really make Dragone Age a very fun experience.

Or your first battle in the human noble story where you have to kill giant rats in a pantry. One character states something like "Giant Rats? sounds like the beginning of every bad adventure story that my father used to tell me".

Clearly the devs know the genre and were having a good time. And by doing this they also freely invite us into their good time.

Originally posted by NovaKayne

If this game learned so much from MMO why does it not have a decent patcher built into the game.

 

PC games these days need to have a better patcher that comes with the game than relying upon everyone having the latest MS compilers loaded on their PC.  Come on that is the ONE thing they SHOULD have learned from an MMO.

 

Otherwise I think the game is fun...

QFT

I wish all single player games came with this feature.  That would just be too convenient.  I had a guildmate in an old online fps that made one for our game and it was amazing how easy everything became, as opposed to hunting down files everywhere.