Bioware’s Dragon Age II, the troubled and much maligned follow up to their universally acclaimed cRPG inspired Dragon Age: Origins, is now available to play on Xbox One, thanks to the console’s backwards compatibility functionality. The game was the newest added to the list of Xbox 360 games that can be played on Microsoft’s newest console.

Unlike the epic scope of Origins or Inquisition, Dragon Age II focused on a smaller, more intimate story, trying to focus on cinematic storytelling instead of the nuanced roleplaying of Origins– essentially attempting to emulate Mass Effect 2, which released to rapturous acclaim. Unfortunately, players did not appreciate this, and II remains the black sheep of the series. For all of its divisiveness, Inquisition would go on to see a huge amount of critical and commercial success when it launched in 2014.

It’s still a game worth playing, however, and it’s an interesting experiment, if nothing else. And now you can check it out on a current gen console.

https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/992071349244870657

So… yeah. The Fade. Apparently, in an attempt to make Dragon Age Inquisition as much like Dragon Age Origins as possible (owing to the overwhelmingly negative response to Dragon Age II), Bioware is turning to what made Origins good, and what made it bad. Unfortunately, the latter also involves the return of The Fade, only greener this time.

Seriously. This is happening. Why.

After months of teasing and hyping the game, GameInformer and Bioware have collectively taken the wraps off the much anticipated Dragon Age: Inquisition. Get ready.

What were you expecting? Did you want a return to form? Did you want it to be like Origins? Well, tough luck; looks like Bioware wasn’t kidding when it said it was looking at Skyrim closely, because that is exactly what Inquisition looks to be. It looks like an Elder Scrolls game, down to the UI (seriously, just look at that in game footage near the end of the first video; I’ll wait).

If I wanted to play Skyrim, I would play Skyrim. I wanted to play Dragon Age. That lovely, tactical party based game I fell in love with back in 2009. Instead, I get what looks to be a mish mash of Dragon Age II (urgh) and Skyrim; at least races are returning this time around.

Dragon Age: Inquisition hits Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC next year. Let’s see if we’re jumping the gun on this one too early, but Bioware’s recent efforts have resulted in them losing a lot of goodwill and a chance for the benefit of the doubt.

For a long time now, BioWare has been counted amongst not only the top RPG developers in the gaming industry, but the top game developers period. They’ve delivered several games that simply took our- and many others’- breath away, like the Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights and more recently, the Mass Effect series and Dragon Age: Origins.

However, in light of recent events, BioWare have started receiving more hate than respect, more disgust than love. Dragon Age II, people say, was the beginning of BioWare’s downfall, and that even with the Mass Effect series, they’re trying to attract the “Call of Duty” crowd. But is it fair to “hate on the”, as we say, after all BioWare has done in the past many years?

Baldur's Gate- one of the finest RPGs ever created. Has everybody forgotten the all the excellent games BioWare has made till date just because of one bad game?

Let me begin by saying that I’m a huge BioWare fan. I’ve played and loved almost every single game BioWare ever made, and respected them greatly for the great products they have developed over the years. However, I will keep my bias out of this editorial, so you can keep the “this post is biased” comments to yourself.

I mean, hasn’t BioWare delivered some of the best, deepest Role Playing Games, some of the best video games period in the past? Baldur’s Gate II is still regarded my many as the greatest RPG ever created, and BioWare has, at several times, been the leading developer in the RPG genre and a milestone that all RPG developers try to mimic, follow and beat. And Baldur’s Gate I and II are not even it. Knights of the Old Republic has to be one of the most enjoyable, engrossing and deep experiences to be provided by any game last generation, across all platforms.

But then, many people overlook all these great games, and take up Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age II as examples of BioWare’s “consolizing” and “casualizing” their games, appealing to the masses rather than the hardcore RPG fanbase. Yes, I agree that Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age II were not as much RPGs as they should have been, and definitely not even half as much as their predecessors. Yes, I know that BioWare has let go of their fans who support hardcore, stat-grinding RPG mechanics and have been loyal to BioWare for so long. I agree with all that. But I have several counter arguments.

Maybe this game will change your mind...

First of all, Mass Effect 2 was, RPG or no, an excellent game, worthy of a 10/10 from us and even the Game of the Year 2010 award. It had a great story, some very memorable characters, excellent morality system and element of choice and enjoyable combat. True, the light RPG elements must have been a huge put off for fans of the genre, BioWare and the first game. But if one put his or her preconceptions and biases aside, they’d see what a wonderful and beautiful game Mass Effect 2 truly was.

Secondly, while it is true that BioWare has always been more or less like a blueprint for all western RPG developers to follow, BioWare themselves have always said that they’re more about the story, the element of choice and how their stories are presented than RPG elements and stat grinding. Agreed, the latter was once more important to the devs than it is now, but as I wrote above, BioWare has always primarily been about telling a great story that hooks and doesn’t let go of the player. And Mass Effect 2 delivers in that respect in all ways possible.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/opinion-piece-bioware-is-all-the-hate-justified/feed 4 50297 https://gamingbolt.com/dragon-age-ii-scavenger-hunt-puzzle-piece https://gamingbolt.com/dragon-age-ii-scavenger-hunt-puzzle-piece#respond Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:27:55 +0000 http://gamingbolt.com/?p=48918

In celebration of the ‘Mark of the Assassin’ DLC coming to Dragon Age II, a scavenger hunt has been out into play. Actress, Dragon Age fan and a voicing character in the DLC, Felicia Day has partnered up with Bioware to hold the contest in which the winners will get exclusive Dragon Age prizes. Felicia Day will reveal the last piece on October 11th, when the first people to find and put all the pieces together will win. Below is just one of the Scavenger Hunt pieces, follow the community and learn more here.

Dragon Age II - Scavenger Hunt Puzzle Piece

BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka said in an interview with Xbox World Magazine that while BioWare’s ”delighted” with the new, larger fanbase for the Dragon Age franchise, the polarized and mixed responses that Dragon AGe 2 got upon release caught them “off-guard.”

“Our goal is to take all the feedback we get on any of our franchises and use it to make the next game in the franchise better,” he said.

“Dragon Age 2 was incredibly polarising and it caught us off-guard, honestly. It appealed to a new fanbase and we were delighted by that, but we’ve heard fans who wanted more of the Origins experience. We have to take all that feedback and find a way to marry those together, so we can bring everyone on the journey with us.”

In another interview, he also said that BioWare was considering making a Mass Effect MMO. Read the report here.

Stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated.

BioWare has announced a new DLC for Dragon Age 2, and it’s titled ‘Mark of the Assassin.’ It debuted on Game Trailers with an exclusive trailer, which looks mind blowing. The music, for one, is great, and the action sequences and the entire concept of the DLC look great. But then again, even the Legacy DLC looked very good, but it received bad, bad reviews on release.

Anyway, Mark of the Assassin will have you getting into an impregnable fortress with is surrounded by monsters, and you have to make your way through traps and enemies and dangers to steal a jewel or something.

The DLC will star The Guild’s Felicia Day, who’s been involved in making the live-action series Redemption for Dragon Age.

The DLC will release on October 11 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

BioWare says the future DLCs for Dragon Age II will address the core problems in the main game, as they attempted to do in the recently released Legacy DLC.

“We have some more DLC plans, that actually address some of the feedback from some of our core fans. I think that’s going to be really satisfying to fans who liked Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2,” BioWare co-founder Ray Mazyuka said while talking to IndustryGamers.

“Maybe some of that can be attributed to some of the fans of Dragon Age: Origins who were maybe expecting a similar experience. But we actually innovated, we took a lot of risk, we were pushing the envelope on how we told the story, the gameplay, the action moments, the graphics – a lot of things were changed. And, actually, I really believe it was the right direction.

“We were proud of the team. We think they were the right changes. We wanted the team to push in that direction.”

BioWare, however, is also looking to keep the best of both worlds- Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II- in future projects of the series.

“What we want to do in the future is make sure we integrate that feedback from our core fans, so they come along with us for the journey, as we continue to build up the Dragon Age franchise and make the next ones even bigger and better so that all of our fans are delighted and surprised,” Muzyka said.

“We think we can do that. We can actually take the best of breed features from the original game in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II and put them together.

“We also want to integrate feedback from our core fans because they’re really important to us. So I think there’s a nice balance that can be struck to achieve that.”

No future DLCs have yet been announced, though.

Dragon Age II’s director Mike Laidlaw said on the BioWare forums that the Legacy DLC has proved that BioWare is listening to what the fans want with the Dragon Age series, and that they’re not just turning the series into Call of Duty or other popular franchises.

“Pause is given as people wonder if, just maybe, Legacy is a hint that Dragon Age is not trying to be Call of Duty, or Devil May Cry or whatever other franchise people have prognosticated in dire tones and with furious shaking of head will be the future of DA,” he said. “And that’s a great development; and one that I think required us to both put up and shut up. Saying we were listening would always be less effective than releasing something that demonstrates it.”

Laidlaw said that nothing will ever please everybody, but as long as the end product delivers properly, he will be satisfied.

“DAII clearly didn’t deliver on all fronts for you guys. For some it did, but I’m truly, deeply cognizant of the parts that are weak, and while we’re not going to agree on everything, there’s a game out there that’s better than both Origins and DAII, and I’ll be damned if the talented folks of the DA team can’t find it.”

Here’s what we think BioWare needs to do with the Dragon Age series to undo the damage they did with DA2.

However, Dragon Age II undid almost everything that the first game managed to accomplish- it was a heavily dumbed down, “casualized” and “consolized” RPG with more focus on action than on elements that all RPGs should have. But BioWare have admitted the fact that Dragon Age II was greatly flawed, and that Dragon Age III will be much better than its predecessor.

But what exactly must be done to make Dragon Age III a good game, and not a disaster like Dragon Age II? Given below are seven things we think BioWare must implement in their third Dragon Age game. Without further ado, let’s begin!

Graphics shouldn’t suck

The game would have looked great 6 or 7 years ago.

Dragon Age II looked bad- bland and blunt textures, a lot of pop-ins, rough edges… overall, the game was hideous. Not just that, bad art design, repeated environments (we’ll get to that later) and poor draw distances were pretty bad too. The game would have looked great if it was, say, a PS2 game. But in today’s day and age, when games like Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2, Battlefield 3 and Crysis have set new standards, we expect a lot more of a game of this caliber. BioWare should, ideally, build a new engine for Dragon Age III, and they should work extra hard on the visuals part. Bad graphics have always been a problem with the Dragon Age games, so BioWare might want to change that with DA3.

Give us a proper overarching, coherent story 

Dragon Age II often felt like a collection of DLCs that were completely unrelated to each other.

One of the biggest problems everybody had with Dragon Age II was that its story was very loose, very unfocused. There was no overarching plot throughout, no main purpose that we were playing towards, and the game just felt disjointed. Yes, the political setting was interesting, and yes, the plot did kind of come together in the end, but it still was a huge put off. What we want BioWare to do is make Dragon Age III along the lines of Dragon Age: Origins, or any normal, conventional game with a story focus, for that matter. We want a proper, overarching, tight and coherent storyline that keeps us hooked and actually makes sense. While Dragon Age II did set stage for DA3 pretty well, we don’t want to see a repeat of that again.

Improve the level design, environments and focus more on exploration

The extremely linear nature and repeated environments of the game were probably the biggest flaws.

Dragon Age II was set in one city- Kirkwall, and its surrounding areas. Some could say it was probably because of that the environments felt familiar, but simple things like different houses were exactly the same from the inside, many dungeons and corridors were exact copy-pastes of other areas we’d visited before. Most of the times, we kept visiting the same are again and again, because of the fact that Dragon Age II didn’t even give us an entire world to explore, rather just a single city. Then there was the fact that environments were very linear, and they didn’t even have tiny little branching paths for chests. You just had to keep walking down a single path until you reached your destination. Most of the areas didn’t even pretend to be expansive. All these things made Dragon Age II feel like a very rushed title, and most of all, a very restrictive, linear title. We want Dragon Age III to have a vast world to explore, beautiful, un-repeated environments, awesome sprawling dungeons with tonnes of branching paths, like a true RPG should have. That’s the least BioWare can do for their fans after the debacle that was Dragon Age II.

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