Dragon Age 2 Incoming. - Part 1

[X Knight]

All the people exploding nonsense got taken out in the DLC's so I imagine that, thankfully, will not be in DA3.

really??

didn't know that ( never played the DLCs ).

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

Yeah there were a lot of mechanical improvements in the DLC's.

Positioning and enemy placement was pretty good in Legacy if I remember correctly and pretty much got rid of the enemies leaping in from above that DA2 is so infamous for.

 

[Wolfwood]

I so enjoyed the constant spider ambushes. Did wonders for my arachnophobia.

 

[El Bastardo]

My female Hawke has Jack's hairstyle from ME3.

I am pleased.

 

[Slushy]

IMO they probably just decided to move onto 3 because they ran out of ideas on what to do with Part 2.

 

[X Knight]

I really hope the DA team redeems itself with DA 3.

 

[El Bastardo]

They won't.

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

I really hope the DA team redeems itself with DA 3.

I don't know if they can ever really put something out as fantastic as Origins again, but at the very least if they continue to take the lessons they seem to have learned in the DLC's and implement them in the main game it could be a very fun series again.

 

[Drz]

I think it's just important they have enough time to work on this game, since alot of the reasons fans hated, such as re-used areas came from the short time budget they had, but the jumping ninja villains was ultimately a rushed design, since they showed in Legacy how villain wave spawns can truly work out.

I also hope they'll make a proper ending for the protagonist, we'll never experience or make a proper Hawke conclusion to his full story with DA2: Exalted March canceled.

 

[Slushy]

I liked Merrill in Origins, but then they turned her into a dumbsh** blonde in Part 2.

I just want two things in DA3: A female Dwarf and Qunari to join my party.

Agreed. I was so bummed that Tal Vashoth mercenary didn't become a party member.

 

[Benstamania]

They won't.

Even if they do.

 

[El Bastardo]

Even if they do.

You got it, my brother.

 

[Drz]

Yeah i was heart crushed by no Female Dwarves, but perhaps finally Varric is a love interest in DA3? He's a fan favorite for pete's sake! I liked Mark of the Assassin alot for the sole reason Tallis was a Qunari, not a Kossith by race, but she had the religious themes.

Bioware & Dragon Age at PAX official video.

 

[The Infernal]

Y'know watching the video, their idea of a middle ground between giving your companions armour and keeping their iconic looks isn't that bad. I'm a bit impressed. From what there was it looked fairly varied (something even DA2's armour sets for Hawke couldn't manage). Though it's a relatively small selection if they kept that idea as varied as it looked and expanded on it for the full game it could work.

Though saying that I'd still like the ability to toggle off the iconic looks and just have them wear armour that looked like it did on our player character. I understand them wanting to give companions a look that stands out, but I think that had more to do with Origins bland art style and reuse of armour sets (like effectively only have on armour style for rogues). I can't imagine it being that technically difficult to allow (though I could be wrong).

 

[X Knight]

besides customizing armor, I want to be able to customize/forge my own weapons ( and name them, too ).

I'm tired of weapons with awesome designs but crappy names/stats or vice versa.

 

[Upset Spideyfan]

The Legacy DLC had a customizable weapon that you added stats/traits to as it went along. I thought that would be cool for a whole game to revolve around.

 

[X Knight]

The Legacy DLC had a customizable weapon that you added stats/traits to as it went along. I thought that would be cool for a whole game to revolve around.

yeah......but the Hawke Key weapons were kind of ugly, imo. lol

I would love to be able to have our weapons ( and armor ) level up with our characters.

perhaps they could add a "level up" rune that would allow the weapon/armor to do that.

 

[El Bastardo]

I just modded that onto just about all pieces of equipment for DA2.

 

[zenith16]

Dragon Age 3 won’t reuse levels, will feature follower customisation
at 12:23pm April 13 2012

Comments 3

Bioware used a PAX East panel a few days ago to talk about their plans for the next Dragon Age, which still isn’t technically announced, even though Bioware have been dropping hints about it on and off since May last year. During the panel, hosted on Gamespot, Dragon Age lead designer, Mike Laidlaw managed to navigate this strange realm of marketing doublethink to talk about the team’s plans for the sequel without ever actually saying the words “Dragon Age 3.”
The talk centred around three bits of fan feedback, all of which Bioware are planning to address. The main requests from players were as follows: “Stop reusing levels. Decisions that matter. Equipment for followers.”
“Boy, those three came up,” said Laidlaw. “Those three came up quite a bit.”
Read and comment >


sourceC Gamer


it 's an issue site on both the show "Reviews on the run" and Gamers them selves.(some here mentioned it as well) Glad to see they are listening and addressing issue.

 

[Drz]

If you're curious about David Gaider's Dragon Age comic, you can read #1 for free at Dark Horse's digital service with the discount code Dragonhorse! I liked the art, the characters come off nicely, maybe abit of exposition here and there as Varric rambles about Orzammar Dwarves to Alistair, but yeah it looks nice. I've got the hardcover pre-ordered, you can get it for like 8€ and it's a 80 page Hardcover, so fun short story!

Dragon Age: Follower Customization:

There’s been a few questions about the Dragon Age presentation at PAX East this past weekend (which you can watch here, if you like), specifically with regards to the plan for follower equipment. It might be kind of hard to see the slides in that video, so I thought a bit more detail might be called for… in addition to offering us a chance to get some feedback on this proposed system.
But first, as in Mike’s original presentation, a caveat: this is a work in progress. It shows our thinking on this particular topic, but should not be taken as a promise. The reason for that caution is there are a number of technical systems to work out before we can say this is even feasible. Still, it’s where we would like to head.
So what was Mike talking about? Let’s say you have two followers in your party, one a Grey Warden and one a Seeker. Their initial appearances are thus:

I then find a piece of plate armor, the “Sterling Breastplate”. Normal class restrictions apply, but in this case both followers are Warrior class and can wear this plate armor. I can place it in their chest slot… but now, instead of changing their entire appearance, it changes only a part. If I were to add that item to the Warden character, it might look like this:

See the difference? This piece of plate has a different result on each follower that can use it, but has a “look” that is specific to that piece of armor. So the Sterling Breastplate results in a silvery piece of chest armor on any given follower which stays silvery but doesn’t remove that follower’s visual identity. If we moved the same piece of armor to our Seeker, for instance, it would look like this:

Doing armies in “pieces” like this means we can expand the variations to other portions of the armor… so gauntlets, lower body, or shoulders. Like so:

With the armors in pieces, that means you can assemble them into a “look” that would have many variations… yet would still be individual to the follower. Take the example below: the complete “Sterling” armor, and yet it looks very different on the Grey Warden as opposed to the Seeker… but not so different as to be unidentifiable as that armor type.

You can see some of the effects we can produce with the combinations. Below is an example of another “look” that is possible, again slightly different on the Grey Warden as opposed to the Seeker:

Another couple of examples below (though these are unlikely to be from the same “set”), showing the different sort of looks we could achieve with the same characters:

We have more opportunities for variation when it comes to the color and material type of these individual pieces. Perhaps this is something we’ll even be able to offer to the player (in terms of customizing their own armor to their tastes), but whether that happens or not it’s still something we can set ourselves. Between the “look” of a particular armor piece, the color and the material we suddenly have a huge number of appearances possible for a given character… way more than we could achieve solely by replacing the character’s entire body model.


I’m sure this all brings a few questions to mind:


What’s wrong with the inventory system used in Dragon Age: Origins? Why not just use that?

There’s nothing wrong with that system per se. It was, however, a lot of resources that led to end results which weren’t ideal… namely that we had less appearances overall in addition to very little visual identityfor the followers. Morrigan was the only character in Origins who had a unique appearance, and one which was immediately lost the moment you put different armor on her. Other followers had little visual identity at all outside of their faces, and ended up looking like every other character who wore that armor. Again, that’s not terrible in and of itself (characters are defined by more than just their appearance, after all)—but we’d like to do better.
Did you do it “better” in DA2? If that was so great, why not just do it again?

We did like the visual direction for follower appearances in Dragon Age 2—but resource limitations meant that we couldn’t do the number of variations on those appearances as we would have liked. So you couldn’t change their armor at all, and that had a negative impact on player agency… as in the agency one feels by having control over their gameplay. It also meant you found a lot of armor that you simply couldn’t use at all, while this proposed system eliminates that problem. So, ultimately, it was good on one side and very bad on the other.


Isn’t this new system still incredibly expensive?

On a per-follower basis, there’s a certain investment in that we’d need to determine what the various pieces look like for that character. So, yes, it’s expensive in that sense. However, by breaking these looks down into “pieces” and having each piece systemically changeable in terms of its color and material we end up with way more variations overall. So it’s an investment that pays off in terms of both agency (you place equipment on a character and see a resulting change) and character identity. This is a good investment, in our books.
Why are you telling us this?
We’ve read the feedback on DA2, the bad as well as the good, and as we slowly move forward we intend to explain our intentions in more detail. This system is an example of something we’d like to change, and we’re showing it at a stage where we could still get feedback that would matter. If someone wishes to offer their thoughts about the system, or has questions regarding it, we’d be pleased to hear it.


Why aren’t you telling us about [insert other topic here]?

As Mark stated in his initial thread about discontinuing the production of new content for DAII, we’re committing to show-not-tell whenever possible. We’re certainly aware that people have questions about combat, follower interaction and more, but until we can actually demonstrate our direction we want to keep quiet about it.
Discuss This!

 

[Fading]

I have to admit...2 is REALLY boring me now. It's getting hard for me to finish it...a shame considering how awesome origins was. I'm finally experiencing the complants others have had first hand. The gear system for companions, being confined to Kirkwall and it's surrounding mountains, reused maps, ect. Even the combat and skill trees were a let down for me.

if it wasn't for funny smartass Hawke banter, the sibling story, and Varric and Merril..,I may have just quit. Gah...and I spent nearly $40 on the DLC (Origins DLC added so much value for me). The Emporium could have ATLEAST added a quest...Back to Disgaea 4 for me. I will finish it at some point, but DA 3 is going to really have to impress me to renew my faith in the series...let alone get me to buy their endless stream of DLC.

 

[Drz]

Warning, this is those kinda trailers that seem to give away everything:
[YT]EsFzNB8In68[/YT]

 

[Drz]

The digital comic Dragon Age: Silent Grove concluded this week, the 80 page story can be pre-ordered already with a hardcover incoming in August, also coming in August is another DA Comic starring Alistair, Isabella and Varric:

DRAGON AGE: THOSE WHO SPEAK #1 (of 3)
David Gaider (W), Alexander Freed (W), Chad Hardin (A), Michael Atiyeh (C), and Anthony Palumbo (Cover)
On sale Aug 22
FC, 32 pages
$3.50
Miniseries
In this essential story from the lead writer of BioWare’s Dragon Age games, a king travels to an empire of evil mages to uncover the fate of his lost father! Accompanied by the pirate captain Isabela and the underworld merchant Varric, King Alistair will stop at nothing to learn the truth—even if it means battling an army of cultists single-handed!
• Story by David Gaider, lead writer of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II!
• An essential addition to the Dragon Age canon!

1st 5 mintues of DA: DotS
[YT]-SThl-oEH8M[/YT]

 

[Matt]

What I don't like about these comics is how thoroughly they define the canon of the series. Everyone knows now, if you picked Anora for queen, sacrificed Alistair or anything of that nature you are playing an elseworld.

 

[Drz]

Well it's like the Mass Effect comics and books, they all follow their own canon.