I finished Dragon Age last night, but I nearly didn't bother. I had reached the final battle with the archdemon, and after taking a couple of goes at it, I set the game aside for 2 or 3 weeks. The last battle was interminably boring. That damn dragon took forever to go down, and (I guess because I had only killed one of the two generals beforehand) even that fight was interupted with dreary battles against lesser minions. Finally, because I did want to see the end of it, I set the difficulty to casual and got through it. I had already encountered this problem. I had started the game with the difficulty set to Hard. Maybe a third of the way in, I had become sick of every battle requiring micro-managment of the characters, and the tough battles requiring several attempts. So I set the difficulty to Normal. Even then, making my way through all the dungeons often seemed more like a dreary chore than an entertaining pass-time, something I endure to get to the good stuff.

And yet, I'm tempting to make a second run through it. There are enough interesting decision points and dialogues, playing with the sidekicks, that I'd like to play it with a different personality. It was a lot of fun to decide on a personality for my Warden, and struggle with some tough decisions. (I played a Dalish Elf, often torn between being pragmatic or noble but never selfish; compassionate, but chauvinistic when it came to his race.) I'd like to play it with reference to a walkthrough and see the things I missed. But then I think of, ugh, all that dreary fighting. Even going through the game with the difficulty set to Casual and letting the fights run on autopilot feels like too much work. And I thought, wouldn't it be nice if there was a game that was 90% conversations, and meaningful, morally complex decisions.

Anyone know of a game like that?

Yes, Dragon Age 2 which they've apparently just announced.

I thought DAO was bollocks personally. Fifty million dialog options every time you met someone. Awful AI and messy combat. Looked like a ps2 game as well.

Shame, bioware should just concentrate on the infinitely superior Mass Effect (especially with regard to programming my teammates to USE FUCKING COVER AND GET OUT OF THE WAY! )

At about the 60% mark I got board of the routine.  The combats were either to simple or just an exercise in luck since tactics on the console version are pointless and the AI scripting didn't seem to do much other then burn through potions endlessly or have characters break out of logic to follow AI that got bugged up.

Yet for some odd reason I felt the need to struggle through and finish the game.  I think it was more a case of getting so far and feeling that finishing it somehow justified the time I'd spent on it so far.

As far as a game that was all dialogue and moral based without focusing on action.  Sure there are games like that you could go back to the old text based games.  But more recently there have been some smaller games like that.  The DS has a fairly big selection of games that are based around dialogue and choices.  There's court room based ones, detective based ones and ghost based ones.  You also have more tongue in cheek games like the Monkey Island series.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines had a really good script, interesting characters, awesome atmosphere, and a lot of choices.  The first half of the game can mostly be completed with dialogue and exploration if you don't try to make your guy a combat monkey.

Unfortunately, due to the rushed development towards the end, the latter half is mostly dull, clumsy combat sections that don't add anything to the first portion of the game.

But hey, Joe DiMaggio voices a pirate vampire, so it was worth it enough for that.

DAO is one what I consider one of the worst Bioware games to date. Just a sort of "third string" effort. Tactics for what they are don't do much--can't buff party members or debuff foes much its mostly about aggro control like an MMO and smashing through.  Dialog is fun.

Graphics suck. Glitchy, horrible errors (hat on, hat off, hat on, hat off, floating weapons and general crappy unrefined bits.) I've stopped playing it for now, I imagine I'll go back and finish it with my Elf Mage, but really wish they'd done better.

The graphics suck?  Are you playing it on a console or old PC?

Not to argue, but I'm running it on a newer video card, and as far as CRPGs go, it's lovely.  The console versions look like trash, though.  The controls also suffer and, as a result, the amount of engagement you get from the combat system.  Playing on the PC, for me, feels a lot like Baldur's Gate -- consoles don't have the tactical view option, though.

Quote from: Peregrin;392834The graphics suck?  Are you playing it on a console or old PC?

Not to argue, but I'm running it on a newer video card, and as far as CRPGs go, it's lovely.  The console versions look like trash, though.  The controls also suffer and, as a result, the amount of engagement you get from the combat system.  Playing on the PC, for me, feels a lot like Baldur's Gate -- consoles don't have the tactical view option, though.

I played it on a console and they certainly do suck. Piss poor effort from Bioware really. Quite sad.

Well originally it was supposed to be a PC exclusive, so no surprise there.

I loved DA:O because, for me, it was what cRPGs should be, but have forgotten. It's a return to what made Bioware the only company I will unashamedly admit to being a fanboy about.

It had a grand sweeping plot that actually FELT important. I felt like I was saving the world every step of the way. I felt like I was changing things with every step I took, even if those changes were mostly pre-scripted it still FELT epic. There was an ever present threat that felt huge.

There was choice, both character-based and story-based. Too often with cRPGs I feel like I'm playing the developer's character, rather than my own. But in DA:O because I crafted the character, chose his class and specialities, and chose where he came from (albeit from a small list), I feel more like this is MY character I'm unleashing upon the world. And as he progresses I feel like he is making a difference upon this world through his choices.

I will admit the combat is a bit clumsy at times, but to me it has a certain kind of charm. A lot of it's clumsiness comes from the fact it is trying to marry old school cRPG style combat (ala the original Neverwinter Nights) to more modern MMO style combat. As said, it's a bit clumsy in locations. But I still managed to enjoy it.

Finally, character creation. I love this side of RPGs, often my interest in the system or game lives or dies depending on the character creation. DA:O character system works for me because I feel like I can create a large number of different characters with different focus', even within the character class'.

tl;dr version. I liked it, but I understand it's not to everyone's taste.

I've done both Dragon Ages on the Xbox, and I may feel somewhat left out when I talk to my PC playing friends, I had no real problems with the game play itself.

Almost ANY cRPG game has combat that tends to get a bit tedious by the end. I"m going through ME:2 (again) right now and most fights are cakewalks simply because I've leveled to the point where I've more or less broken the difficulty curve.   Any open ended exploratory game will have this, as all world fights have to be beatable by starting characters, tough for middling characters and somehow threatening to high end characters, and only the scripted fights at the beginning and end can even be remotely scaled to where the characters should be.

The Archdemon fight was long, slightly tedious, with almost game breakingly bullshit 'challenges' thrown at you to make it 'fair' to the boss. Yes.

That said: I ALSO speed through the dialog options in cRPGs these days as well, particularly if I'm only going through the conversation to unlock goodies or advance a quest rather than actively exploring the world. This is even more true of second play throughs than firsts.  A game that was 90% dialog would bore me to tears.  Yes, I like advancing the story, and even having some control over how the character interacts with others, but seriously, you are getting a single thing to do for every thirty seconds to a full minute of dialog. There are actually games that cater to that (Xenosaga I believe is one), where the entire point is to watch a thirty plus hour movie with occassional pauses to 'find the button to push to start the next scene) thrown in.

Fine. There you go, there is what you are looking for.  Stop trying to muck about and 'streamline' my cRPGs less dialogy aspects (as they did for ME:2, combat and character building are vastly paler shades of ME:1), and go play Star Ocean or some shit.

I've not played the game, as my poor little eee pc couldn't handle it.

A game I enjoy is Mount & Blade. It exists in two versions, the original and Warband. The former was produced by just one guy over several years. The latter with more commercial support has extended the gameplay a bit. The graphics are ordinary, however the gameplay is fairly good. There also exists a very strong community of modders who improve the graphics and extend the gameplay.

For my part, I'm more interested in the play than the pretty pictures. That's why I've enjoyed Fallout 1/2 more than HALO or the like.

You get battles, but exactly what purpose they serve is up to you. Just for xp and loot, trying to capture lords of different realms so that they agree to make peace, capturing castles, and so on. There's not a heap of roleplay, but it's fairly sandboxy tactical.

Fully-functional demos can be downloaded from here, they let you play until your character is level 7; that's about the level where you stop just having to fight battles and do the bidding of lords, and may be able to be your own lord.

Quote from: Peregrin;392834The graphics suck?  Are you playing it on a console or old PC?

Not to argue, but I'm running it on a newer video card, and as far as CRPGs go, it's lovely.  The console versions look like trash, though.  The controls also suffer and, as a result, the amount of engagement you get from the combat system.  Playing on the PC, for me, feels a lot like Baldur's Gate -- consoles don't have the tactical view option, though.

High End Computer Graphics Card, decent memory and so on. It is the glitches and poor design that eat it. Floating swords (no scabbards), hats that vanish and re-appear, poorly drawn fur (that's the best dogs and werewolves you could do? Poor effort entirely. Sure there are nice bits--but there is better to be had, even by Bioware.

Consoles, bleah.  Platform, fighting and driving games are all they're good for.  The PC version of DA:O looked good on a decent machine.
The gameplay I attribute to the acquistion by EA.  Lots of blood and gore, Marilyn Manson music in the trailer, the thing screamed Metal.  Underneath it all, Bioware was able to create a really engaging adventure I thought.  I thought the cosmology of the setting was very interesting and am looking forward to running the Dragon Age RPG.

Mass Effect 2: I hated the combat changes.  Clips now (excuse me, ejectable heatsinks), standard FPS crosshair, Gears of War cover without the spray and pray, armor, weapons and skill variety very thin.  Again, EA fucking with the game, making it more a 3PS and less a RPG.  Again, Bioware managing to create a great game despite this.

To be honest, the adventure was a little bleagh--save the world in the most circuitous manner possible. You have to deliver a treaty to 3 separate kingdoms and each kingdom just so happens to be in the middle of a big crisis which only you can solve! There were details (e.g. some cool choice points and dialogues) that I liked, but overall it was pretty banal.

My experience with the game is limited; I spent a weekend visiting my buddies and I watched one of them play Dragon Age during some slow times.  I thought the game looked cool but maybe a bit repetitive?  Replay potential looked promising.

My interest in this thread is actually about the pnp rpg, supposing some of you DA fans own it.  How well does the RPG simulate the observation in the OP?  Is there a robust social/rank/honor system or anything that maps to the choices you have to make in the video game?