Dragon Age Origins

[Monsterland]

I regret buying this game for the 360, it's so much better on the pc but my pc is rather dated

[Marcuz]

sorry but where are gone all plankton' posts?

[Graham Humphrey]

He went and deleted most of them himself. And got himself banned. Nice work eh?

Do people want me to undelete them in this thread? I guess it doesn't always make sense if they're not there.

[onkelarie]

Plankton got banned? I hope not for the discussion in this thread?

[Graham Humphrey]

No he didn't and if you go into off-topic you'll find out why (and anyway he was only an old banned member who re-registered so was breaking the rules regardless) but I don't really want to discuss it here.

(EDIT: Offending thread in OT General has been deleted so maybe not...)

[Marcuz]

pity, insults aside, he was making sense here. can you please undelete his posts about the games?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Hey! MM6 and MM7 have their charm as mass-murder simulators! When you get the area of effect mass-damage spells in MM6 it becomes a blast - I have never had a bigger sense of power in any other game. Love the terrible voice acting also. "See you, tightwad!"

MM8 and MM9 are completely arse though...

Okay, you have a point there I enjoyed the Xeen 'series' and was a bit disappointed about MM6 RPG wise. The combat was fun indeed and except for some 'homebrew' spells in Morrowind and Oblivion, I agree on having a great time using them

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

pity, insults aside, he was making sense here. can you please undelete his posts about the games?

Done.

[radon_22]

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

You have to be pulling my leg, man. A signature of Bioware was never great dialogue, just lots of it. Reams and reams of boring text. If you want to see great dialogue, play Planescape. Play Arcanum. Play Fallout and Fallout 2.

I've played all but Arcanum. Planescape was a riot (Mort!), and I adored FO 1&2. But there's never the level of character development you see in Bioware games, with backstories and so on.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

As for your moral dilemmas and choices comment, I admit I doubled over at it. There are no moral dilemmas, only choice of good/evil and dark side/light side. No shades of grey. I assume by choice you mean choosing to be Vader or Luke? Lol. If you mean plot choices, there are none in those games that have a basis ON the character's stats; any character can make them.

Now I'm the one laughing here! No offense, but I'm starting to doubt you've played the game. Heck, ther are a *lot* of gray choices, and sometimes they are preferrable to light/dark choices, especially how they impact your standing with your team. And there are several choices you cannot make if, for example, your persuasion abilities are too low, greatly altering the course of several elements of the game.

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Bioware games have great combat? Again it is quantity over quality. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bioware's fame began with Baldur's Gate which was based on Dungeons n Dragons? That system is turn based, not real time with a pause button. You don't know great RPG combat until you've played a Troika game, like Temple of Elemental Evil, or some Goldbox game. Even Jagged Alliance 2, though not strictly a role playing game, has more of it than most Bioware garbage. And it also happens to have the greatest turn based combat ever conceived, pissing on even X-Com.

And this is why I'm saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Bioware has made quite a few games since Baldur's Gate, and their combat systems have evolved dramatically since then. I personally like a "realtime with a pause button" combat system, but then I was never a hardcore non-pc RPGer.

I would agree that Jagged Alliance 2 combat was nice, though.

[mattbarton.exe]

MM6 is one of my favorites, too. I always loved it in those games when you finally get flying and can soar over the world--plus, they always hid lots of nice goodies in areas that couldn't be reached any other way.

I agree, though, it was all downhill after 6. I haven't played the earlier games much, though I was impressed with what I saw of Xeen. Massive game there if you combine them all!

I did play Temple of Elemental Evil and didn't like it all that much. It did have a great engine, but the story, setting, or gameplay just didn't really grab me like Baldur's Gate or Dungeon Master did. As I recall, at some point you get a golden skull that pretty much lets you obliterate anything with impunity.

[Falcon Flight]

Originally Posted by radon_22

I've played all but Arcanum. Planescape was a riot (Mort!), and I adored FO 1&2. But there's never the level of character development you see in Bioware games, with backstories and so on.

I don't think you have a solid understanding of character development since you only mentioned backstories (I assume of both protagonist + NPCs) which are only a single aspect of it. It is much broader than that but I will start with it for your benefit. :-)

Your statement that Planescape does not match the level of Bioware games is, frankly, laughable. Planescape, and there is not doubt about this, has the deepest protagonist ever conceived with an absolutely immense backstory that puts Bioware Bhaalspawn to total shame, even without mentioning their other pathetic efforts. More over the NPCs that can join your party have an a depth unequaled in any Bioware game.

I dare you to compare a NPC like Dak'kon or Grace to any Bioware NPC; none of those utter retards come close to that depth.

Arcanum is the same but since you have not played it, you of course know not. Honestly, since you have not played it, you're really unqualified to speak about these kind of CRPGs, which are the hardcore form that's closest to pen n paper.

But this is just backstories and, as I said, merely one aspect of character development. Much of it in Fallout, for example, does not come from backstories, but from what the player chooses or chooses not to do, based on what is perhaps the most complex stat system of any CRPG. There is a lot of cause and effect in these that penetrate the gameworld quite deeply, that no Bioware game comes close to matching.

Now I'm the one laughing here! No offense, but I'm starting to doubt you've played the game. Heck, ther are a *lot* of gray choices, and sometimes they are preferrable to light/dark choices, especially how they impact your standing with your team. And there are several choices you cannot make if, for example, your persuasion abilities are too low, greatly altering the course of several elements of the game.

OK... Cite ONE. Since you used the term "persuasion", I assume you're talking about a Bioware DnD 3.0 game like NWN? Even in Hordes of the Undredark, their least wretched effort, persuasion has nothing to do with altering the course of events at all, and is only about asking for a reward that is only marginally better than the one you would receive if CHA (and therefore persuasion skill) was a DUMPED.

Fallout and Arcanum have similar stats which allow FULL diplomatic approaches that solve not only sub quests but the whole game in entirety.

About these "heaps" of grey areas, there are none, man; you're simply deluded, I'm sorry to say. Only Planescape, Fallout and Arcanum have these and they're surprisingly complicated.

Bioware have always been light/dark, black/white, good/evil. They don't understand morality, which I guess is why they release trashy games and pass them off as "revolutionary". Most Bioware games are shackled by ADnD or DnD alignment, but don't enforce it. A chaotic neutral Bard can act like a lawful good Cleric in the role playing aspects of dialogue and choices and it WON'T MATTER ONE BIT.

And this is why I'm saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Bioware has made quite a few games since Baldur's Gate, and their combat systems have evolved dramatically since then. I personally like a "realtime with a pause button" combat system, but then I was never a hardcore non-pc RPGer.

I would agree that Jagged Alliance 2 combat was nice, though.

OK... so "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". A nice little cliche, that. Tell you what. You can have all objectively FAT RETARDED UGLY WOMEN and I'll have all the objectively THIN DUMB SUPER MODELS. That cool with you? ;-)

Real time with a pause != combat system of CRPG and turn based != combat system of JRPG.
Western turn based systems are the most complex of all (again, see TOEE + Jagged Alliance 2) and Japanese turn based is simplistic rubbish for children.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Falcon Flight

Your statement that Planescape does not match the level of Bioware games is, frankly, laughable. Planescape, and there is not doubt about this, has the deepest protagonist ever conceived with an absolutely immense backstory that puts Bioware Bhaalspawn to total shame, even without mentioning their other pathetic efforts. More over the NPCs that can join your party have an a depth unequaled in any Bioware game.

Seconded (except for the pathetic bit maybe) Best effort to tell a big story without a book background in a computer RPG is for sure Planescape : Torment and I think it'll take some time until we see another game that gets where Planescape is storywise.

[Falcon Flight]

Originally Posted by mattbarton.exe

I did play Temple of Elemental Evil and didn't like it all that much. It did have a great engine, but the story, setting, or gameplay just didn't really grab me like Baldur's Gate or Dungeon Master did. As I recall, at some point you get a golden skull that pretty much lets you obliterate anything with impunity.

I think you're right about the STORY of TOEE sucking badly, but you're wrong about the setting and gameplay.

The setting is Greyhawk and that pisses on the Forgotten Realms in which Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale were set. I don't know QUITE how ignorant you are about ADnD in general but Greyhawk is not generic Tolkien fantasy like The Realms are. It is a weird blend of rather odd novels that Gygax had read.

Gameplay? Well, the dialogue sucked badly but the combat is the best you're going to find, thanks to the turn based engine and best UI ever in this type of game. I really don't think you can argue this. TOEE = dungeon crawler and better than any other CRPG where you have a party.

Maybe you just like real time or real time with pause systems, but they're inaccurate and in fact BROKEN, including Baldur's Gate. Fallout has better combat than BG, because it is turn based and therefore EXACT control. This equals superior tactics and it is seen in TOEE where you can pull off subtle manoeuvers. I would love to see you take EXACTLY a 5 ft step towards a foe in your cherished BG. :-)

Now about the skull. Yeah, there's power in it but that can't be assembled until you've conquered the demon nodes, which are the hardest battles. Did you even play on IRON MAN mode? I think not.
And sure, there are not items of mass destruction in Baldur's Gate are there? I was hallucinating when I bought the Robe of Vecna and looted the corpse of a dragon for Carsomyr in Chapter 2, wasn't I...

Last, but not least, TOEE was rushed out the door by the publisher and a huge amount of content was cut because it was "edgy" and loads of bugs remained. If the game succeeded, we would have had a second Goldbox era, but it flopped and failed.

Now we have "RPGs" like Jade Empire, KOTOR, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Oblivion, and DA:O that makes the shoulders slump, and that are conceived by twits, it seems.

[Marcuz]

If ToEE would have had a higher (not much at that) cap for levels and experience, some more external dungeons / areas to the temple and no bugs, it would have been a masterpiece.

scripted encounters are great, the story is cool, all the different possibilities (ok they were written already in the original pen and paper campaign) IMHO made it way superior to the whole BG saga.

graphics were more beautiful than Bioware' / Black Isle' games of the same period, characters were not so encoumbering and tedious, meaning they were defined more by their behaviours (for instance the evil cleric, or the drunken fighter) than by obnoxious (to me) backstory and chat.

fighting was ok, imagine my stupor the first time i was eaten by a frog!

enemies and bosses are cool!

it's just a pity it was so unstable and bugged and sometimes unplayable (elemental nodes) because of not so great coding.

to me it's one of the best RPG ever played, surely one of the best stories.

if such a depth of scripting was applied to a whole large world (imagine for instance the moonsea area of a Pool of Darkness' game) plus a playable and modern engine, that, and not a all in all watered down Newerwinter Nights, or a imho, lame Dragon Age, would be THE paragon rpg for a decade.