Dragon Age: Origins Catch-All

KingGorilla wrote:

Also, I am not sure how I like this game bucking the open ended trend. Bethesda has gotten me used to going where I please, plot be damned. There is a definite track at play here.

I'm on the opposite side of the fence there. I found Oblivion to be an absolute snoozefest partly because it let you be everything to everyone by the end of the game. Sure, it's an open world and you're free to do whatever, but what's the point when there are no lasting consequences to any decision? I like the feeling that going through certain doors closes other doors off (at least for that playthrough) because it makes the game world feel more organic and believable.

For me, it is looking at that map and seeing I can, realistically, only go to one or two locations at a time.

One last gripe. What is up with all of the text? I do not mind reading, but would it kill them to have paid a quest narrator? Even Civ has Spock letting me know the bullet points.

Kehama wrote:

Speaking of generic settings, I'm so tired of generic FPS's too. I mean humans with guns shooting other humanoid shaped objects. It's been done to death. When can I get an FPS that will let me play a nebulous thought wielding a flower that polinates boson particles in order to alter the reality of a parallel dimension. I'm so sick of FPS tropes! Give me something original! I'm sure it would be a massive hit as opposed to some garbage like Modern Warfare 2.

This is going a bit far. No one here is disparaging the quality of Dragon Age because of it's use of fantasy standards. In fact the quality of the game itself wasn't being discussed at all. We're talking about aesthetics. I enjoyed Dragon Age just as much as I'd say I enjoyed Mass Effect, but I think Mass Effect's atmosphere was superior.

NSMike wrote:

No one here is disparaging the quality of Dragon Age because of it's use of fantasy standards.

I am But only because its the only glaring problem I can find in my GOTY. I have a bad habit of really pulverizing aspects of games I love that prevented them from achieving perfection. In this case, phenomenal combat + epic scope + interesting characters + pushing forward on impactful choices - generic setting = ARGGG!! So. Close.

Dysplastic:

Actually, you met the Elves in an encampment just on the outskirts of the Forest. The camp isn't actually in the forest, and the only Elf you meet in the Forest is a nearly-dead scout. As far as I can tell, Forests are associated with Werewolves in DAO, not Elves.

Elves are associated with wagon camps and slums.

As for Dwarves, I never got the impression that Orzammar was in a cave - it was just a location - the ceiling was so high it never really got into view most of the time. You were assuming that it was a cave and therefore felt it was a cave, even though the visual cues in the game were subtle and mostly nonexistent.

The Orzammar questline involved caves and tunnels, but again, few actual dwarves. For the most part, the Deep Roads appear to house Darkspawn and Spiders.

My bottom line is, why start with the traditional models of Elves, Dwarves, and OrcSpawn at all? Why not toss the Elves in the caves, the Dwarves in the massive city, and the humans in the forest? Or better yet, come up with totally new races, and an enemy that isn't so straightforward? The Magic/Fade/Templar relationship was a great example of where they succeeded with this, but didn't carry it forward into the rest of the game.

They DO have the Qunari, which is a totally new race. New races are a hard sell because they don't come with pregenerated concepts. Even Mass Effect's races are patterned after well-worn tropes.

I have to confess that tossing Elves in caves or Dwarves in cities wouldn't feel all that fresh to me - still the same guys, after all. If you ask me, the dominating theme throughout the game WAS the Magic/Fade/Templar thing. In most situations, it was a pervading theme.

If you want crazy hairyball depictions of traditional fantasy races or all new races, you should check out Japanese stuff. Just avoid the hentai.

As for Dwarves, I never got the impression that Orzammar was in a cave - it was just a location - the ceiling was so high it never really got into view most of the time. You were assuming that it was a cave and therefore felt it was a cave, even though the visual cues in the game were subtle and mostly nonexistent.

Except the Codex tells us it's in a cave.

Dragon Age Codex on Orzammar wrote:

The dwarves are lauded for their craftsmanship, and the city of Orzammar is one of their finest works. Orzammar lies at the heart of the Frostback Mountains, deep underground. The city arcs outward from the royal palace, which is built around a natural lava vent, continually fountaining liquid rock, which both lights and heats the entire cavern.

By the way, this is pretty nifty:

Dragon Age Codex

Spoilers abound, naturally.

NSMike wrote:

This is going a bit far. No one here is disparaging the quality of Dragon Age because of it's use of fantasy standards. In fact the quality of the game itself wasn't being discussed at all. We're talking about aesthetics.

In my pre-lunch post flu medicated haze I was somehow pointing out in an overly snarky way that the majority of the time the big blockbuster games are those games that take a tried and true formula, tweak it, and polish the heck out of it. DA:O is classic fantasy with a fresh background and some unique twists. Your "new sh*t" players are going to recognize the dwarves, elves, and mages in this game. It's a comfort zone and if you start to dig deeper you see it's not a Tolkien re-hash. It's really more like another D&D setting. Think Forgotten Realms versus Greyhawk. It's all elves and dwarves but they've got their own history and own rules.

And yes, there's definitely a market for the boson polinating fps's of the world but that's usually handled by smaller developers. They can afford to take the chances with an untested idea/setting and that's also how they can grab attention for themselves. To look at another medium, film for example, Lord of the Rings was a big budget movie because the studios had a good idea the audience was already there to support. The first Matrix movie was (relatively speaking) a smaller release. Once they saw that people liked the idea then they poured money into the (lesser) two sequels.

To me, BioWare has become the big budget rpg developer who's going to stick with tried and true settings and they're going to deliver an amazing experience in that setting. I think they got a little gun-shy with the whole non-traditional story after the sales of Jade Empire. If you want completely original fantasy just look at a lot of the Asian and eastern European games. New ideas, usually not million unit sellers.

*edit*
btw, there's an initial exchange between Zevran and Oghram that goes something along the lines of

Spoiler:

So, are we now going to engage in some stereotypical elf dwarf banter? To which the dwarf replies uhhh... no.

So at least the developers are aware of what's going on.

Kehama wrote:

To me, BioWare has become the big budget rpg developer who's going to stick with tried and true settings and they're going to deliver an amazing experience in that setting. I think they got a little gun-shy with the whole non-traditional story after the sales of Jade Empire. If you want completely original fantasy just look at a lot of the Asian and eastern European games. New ideas, usually not million unit sellers.

Is this really news to anyone, though? From any big budget developer?

I think I've gone past expecting such things from a big studio. It's almost like a phrase "big budget, original, big returns on investment - pick two", and I don't expect a big company with shareholders to answer to to try and go for all three because it's such a big risk, where as picking two has worked so many times. Bioware make good games, but they're not the place to be looking (IMO) for a big game with a lot of originality.

NSMike:

That's just text. Would it affect the style and aesthetic of the place much if the Codex told you that Orzammar was actually a spaceship in space?

The making of disc that comes with the Special Edition says that the dwarf's style of architecture was Mayan/Incan influenced.

Kehama wrote:

It's a comfort zone and if you start to dig deeper you see it's not a Tolkien re-hash. It's really more like another D&D setting. Think Forgotten Realms versus Greyhawk. It's all elves and dwarves but they've got their own history and own rules.

You're right. I guess I'm especially sick of D&D settings, though, because that doesn't really help me.

Kehama wrote:

If you want completely original fantasy just look at a lot of the Asian and eastern European games. New ideas, usually not million unit sellers.

You're right again. It just sucks that those games don't have the resources to make a game with the scope and polish of Dragon Age.

Scratched wrote:

I think I've gone past expecting such things from a big studio. It's almost like a phrase "big budget, original, big returns on investment - pick two", and I don't expect a big company with shareholders to answer to to try and go for all three because it's such a big risk, where as picking two has worked so many times. Bioware make good games, but they're not the place to be looking (IMO) for a big game with a lot of originality.

All good points. I guess I just want to have my cake and eat it too. Is that too much to ask? I promise I'll buy a lot of DLC!!!

I will say, however, that just because we can understand why Bioware made these decisions and maybe even expect this kind of stuff from them, I'm not sure it makes the criticism of the product itself any less valid. It was an aspect of the game I played that I wish was different, and I still cling to the hope that millions will rise up with the fury of a thousand internets and make my wish of original Bioware content come true!

Kehama wrote:

btw, there's an initial exchange between Zevran and Oghram that goes something along the lines of

Spoiler:

So, are we now going to engage in some stereotypical elf dwarf banter? To which the dwarf replies uhhh... no.

So at least the developers are aware of what's going on.

Ok, that's pretty cool

Well, poop. I wish I had caught this discussion earlier, but good points were made on all sides.

I do have to say that I'm a bit frustrated at people referring to the Darkspawn as Orcs. The only way in which they resemble Orcs is that they're ugly, not very smart, and they like to fight. Their origins are different. The Darkspawn are not created as the Orcs were, they are a direct result of dire mistakes made by evil, ancient mages. They are not driven by a single evil mind, they are driven by chance or by instinct to look for Old Gods and release them on the world. The Orcs are slaves, the Darkspawn are soulless seekers. Of course once they find their Old God, they do its bidding, but it's really not the same as the whole Orc/Sauron arrangement. The different kinds of Darkspawn are "born" from different kinds of corrupted races: dwarves, men, qunari. I don't recall the story mentioning elven Darkspawn.

As someone else mentioned, just because there are stout dwarves, lithe elves and ugly monsters in this story, don't fill in the blanks and assume it's Tolkien-based fantasy, because it's really, really not.

LarryC wrote:

NSMike:

That's just text. Would it affect the style and aesthetic of the place much if the Codex told you that Orzammar was actually a spaceship in space?

Well, apparently the text behind the elves being nomads was enough for you, despite the biggest elf section of the game being smack in the middle of the woods.

BadKen -

Good points, though I can see the argument that those are all minor tweaks to the Orc archetype.

The more you dig in, the more you realize that all points of the game are fleshed out. For the first half of the game Darkspawn are just a horde you know little about, and the Orc similarities seem strongest, then in the Deep Roads you get quite a bit more insight on them, at least from the perspectives of the Dwarves and what you personally learn about their breeding process. The Elves may have a different perspective that reveals even more about them, and could even conflict with some of the stuff you learned in the Deep Roads about them, and I'm sure the Tevinter Mages have even more info on their origins and such.

I certainly don't fault Bioware for their creativity. Some of the naysaying comments seem to come off that way, though that doesn't seem to be their intent given future commentary.

I guess I can understand the annoyance some people have with the setting of the game. Personally I got annoyed when the Final Fantasy games started bringing guns and higher tech into their games. I wanted the creativity of the series, but in the FFVI genre setting.

Bioware specifically wanted to recreate the Baldur's Gate magic with this game. Frankly, I don't think they could have done that if your party consisted of purple fairy berserkers and leopard headed shaman gumbas. I was ready for elves, dwarves and humans again. Actually, I've been ready for elves, dwarves and humans done this way for years now.

I'm surprised that nobody brought up Planescape:Torment in he discussion of the genricness (if that's a word) of the setting. PS:T seems like a good example of having standard RPG mechanics in a non-standard fantasy setting. The fact that it was a critical success and commercial failure sort of lends weight to both sides of the argument, of course. While people on a site like this would probably appreciate more games like it, I'd agree with the point made earlier about recognisable touchstones making it accessible to a much wider audience.

NSMike wrote:

By the way, this is pretty nifty:

Dragon Age Codex

Spoilers abound, naturally.

Whoa, thanks for that link. Very handy. I can catch up on my Codex reading while not in the game.

BadKen wrote:

I don't recall the story mentioning elven Darkspawn.

Shrieks are the elven-originated darkspawn.

Hi Dragon Age, I love you. I just finished putting 75 hours into you exploring every nook and cranny, and I can't wait to do it again with a super awesome and evil Blood Mage. High five!

P.S. Morrigan - you may be morally bankrupt, but you're still awesome and I loved your ending.
P.P.S. - Game of the year, hands down, no contest here.

LarryC wrote:

The Orzammar questline involved caves and tunnels, but again, few actual dwarves. For the most part, the Deep Roads appear to house Darkspawn and Spiders.

Orzamar questline involved few dwarves? Um, I'm pretty sure they were like, um, EVERYWHERE! That's the whole point of Orzamar, it's a city full of dwarves.

Or did I just totally misinterpret what you were saying?

There's enough meta-humor and ott 'generic epic fantasy' moments that show the devs were fully aware that this generic fantasy setting has been done to death. So what? They still tell a great story, and personally, it was satisfying to relive some of those cliche novels I read as a teen. There were enough tweaks, interesting history and characters to make the game fun to play.

(ALSO NOTE: NO HORSES. OR CHOCOBOS. ONLY DOGS.)

It's just that I've been reading several very original takes on the fantasy genre recently (Adrian Tchikovsky's Apt Series, Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard Series, Song of Ice and Fire), and this seems extremely conventional in comparison. There may be different armwaving in the background to explain the origins, but the standard fantasy tropes are much in evidence here.

As Bullion Cube said, there was clearly a conscious decision by Bioware to stay in the fantasy comfort zone, and they were creative where they wanted to be creative, and I have no doubt that it was the right commerical decision to make, since the familiarity with elves and dwarves is a useful shorthand for people who aren't reading the codex, but the upshot is that for those of us who've been into this stuff for decades, it's very familiar stuff.

And derivative as Mass Effect was, with the Asari being like vulcans, and the Krogan like Klingons, and the Reapers like Alastair Reynold's Inhibitors, I found it much more distinctive as a whole.

DudleySmith wrote:

It's just that I've been reading several very original takes on the fantasy genre recently (Adrian Tchikovsky's Apt Series, Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard Series, Song of Ice and Fire), and this seems extremely conventional in comparison. There may be different armwaving in the background to explain the origins, but the standard fantasy tropes are much in evidence here.

I must actually get back into some fantasy again. Wheel of Time totally killed the genre for me when I got to the third book, there were six more already out and nothing had happened yet.

Apparently Robin Hobb is good?

Just wrapped up my first playthrough. My RPG itch has been scratched, that's for sure. I'll play it again sometime early next year - was worth every penny! Clocked in at 48:01 on the 360, too.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
DudleySmith wrote:

It's just that I've been reading several very original takes on the fantasy genre recently (Adrian Tchikovsky's Apt Series, Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard Series, Song of Ice and Fire), and this seems extremely conventional in comparison. There may be different armwaving in the background to explain the origins, but the standard fantasy tropes are much in evidence here.

I must actually get back into some fantasy again. Wheel of Time totally killed the genre for me when I got to the third book, there were six more already out and nothing had happened yet.

Apparently Robin Hobb is good?

She is great, for really unconventional fantasy though go with China Meiville. Hobb has better characters but if what your looking for is non stardard fantasy go with Meiville.

NSMike:

Haha. Touche.

That said, I didn't even need to read the Codex to realize the differences. These Dalish Elves were housed in wagons. What kind of forest-savvy people need moving houses made in that style? Clearly, they were more Gypsy-like and gave off a strong vibe as such. Most of the missions involving actually interacting with Dalish takes place around campfires and wagons - not forest platforms and such.

BullionCube:

I think there is something to be said about using the usual tropes to establish a comfort zone. Even some of the zaniest Japanese fantasy products are based on peoples that look like Elves to begin with. It's only later that you find out that these guys are actually horrific tentacle aberrations from some mad world and that their ears are pointed because they can't tell the difference between round and pointed ears (so they keep making oversights when forming into humaniform shape).

It's comforting and easy to be able to fill in the blanks. I look forward to elves and dwarves as well. It's just that you have to be aware when you're doing it. It's unfair to characterize a work as generic when the fault is largely your own for making so many assumptions.

BlackSabre:

That would be the Anvil quest through the Deep Roads. Very few dwarves there.

MrDeVil909:

WheelofTime is a pile of steaming dung. The plot structure is usually completely borked, the writing style is uninspired, and the novels rarely leave you satisfied, since nothing of note ever really happens.

Jordan had the chance to create something truly great with that series. Too bad he sold out and focused on making lots of money.

NathanialG wrote:

She is great, for really unconventional fantasy though go with China Meiville. Hobb has better characters but if what your looking for is non stardard fantasy go with Meiville.

Word of caution, I found it impossible to force my way through Perdido Street Station by Meiville. Try it from the library first.

There are also other Fantasy threads out there, I'm sure if you dredge one up more of us will start suggesting things.

I'm at about 75 hours played across all characters, and the more I play and learn the more I realize none of my characters are where I want them. I wanted one character that I was happy with for each class, and I've become unhappy with all three of my level 15+ folks. Normally I'd just say, "eh, they're good enough to beat the game," but Bioware's promise of 2 years of DLC has me wanting them to be the perfect vessels for the journey.

Not to mention the possibility of a full sequel importing characters...

I think with my Warrior I'm going to take a risk and avoid sword n board in favor of two handed stuff. I've experimented with only-Sten tankin' parties and it has worked out well enough that I figure a PC 2h Warrior would do well.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm at about 75 hours played across all characters, and the more I play and learn the more I realize none of my characters are where I want them. I wanted one character that I was happy with for each class, and I've become unhappy with all three of my level 15+ folks. Normally I'd just say, "eh, they're good enough to beat the game," but Bioware's promise of 2 years of DLC has me wanting them to be the perfect vessels for the journey.

I, too, have become increasingly disillusioned with my crew of flop-out halfwits. Either I'm caring/trying less because I'm close to the end of the game, or I just totally mis-specced them, but they are dying on a rather regular basis.

I already know I'll be playing a second time though, so I think I can accept their / my incompetence for now and just bull through.

Get the Respec Mod.

I found that by level 21 my main character had all the skills I could ever want for a duel-wielding fighter - when i play through as a mage, it should be quite interesting. I bought every book that promised more skills and probably racked up an extra 5 or so from those alone. I bought the books for specializations and then reloaded to the save I made right before I bought the book, to save money. I was rather overpowered, I feel. Still, the final battle on normal posed quite the marathon - I suggest making sure you have enough health potions for a large army.