Bioware already working on Dragon Age 3

[Themadcow]

Good that the PAX panel seem committed to fixing many of the issues in DA2 (and an average user rating of 4/10 from 1400 people says there are a LOT of issues - regardless of the defence it's getting on this forum) but a shame that they state that the combat engine is here to stay.

DA:O was such a flawed game in so many ways that it had no right to work as well as it did, yet people loved it. All they needed to do was improve the visuals, unbreak some of the combat mechanics, iron out some of the storyboarding bugs and hey-presto, they'd have had a game that would have appealed to the original purchasers AND attracted a larger audience drawn in by better graphics.

It's one of the biggest fails in recent gaming history.

[Maxximum]

They want to keep the battle system? I guess when you bind every key to "awesome" there's no going back.

[Kevadu]

The problem with DA2 wasn't the battle system, it was the encounter design: Waves of enemies spontaneously spawning out of nowhere all the time.  This is something that Bioware certainly is aware of and at least claims to be working on (we haven't actually seen anything yet).  In addition they want to add a lot more environmental interaction and effects, which I can only see as a good thing.

Why some people insist on getting their panties in a bunch over some flashy attack animations I'll never understand.  DA:O was a functional system, but watching your characters repeat the same simplistic attack animations over and over really wasn't that great.

[Eusis]

DA:O was a functional system, but watching your characters repeat the same simplistic attack animations over and over really wasn't that great.

People are going to repeat simplistic actions because it's practical. Having them putting on a show with every fight can get old even faster since it'll stick out so much yet you'll see it so often.

[Annubis]

Why some people insist on getting their panties in a bunch over some flashy attack animations I'll never understand.

Sorry, but not every mage in the world should be a kung-fu master and know the ranged shaolin firebolt tossing style.
Usually they waste too much time learning... well... magic.

[Yggdrasil]

They want to keep the battle system? I guess when you bind every key to "awesome" there's no going back.

Don't you know? Pressing buttons is fun.

[Draak]

Don't you know? Pressing buttons is fun.

Fun? There can only be AWESOME.

[Ashtrot]

I can see where the problems in DA2 lie, but people's opinions of it are so low as to be comical. It's seriously hilarious that some people have "lost total faith" in Bioware over one flawed game, and proof that gamers are just a whiny bunch of shit sacks.

Making the game faster (and 'binding awesome to keys' or whatever bullshit people are calling 'crap' nowadays ... I hardly noticed it) was not the problem, yet people are being absolutely absurd in their hate for the game. I'm inclined to agree with Parn, it's a 6 or 7 out of 10 game. Any lower and you're just being a drama queen.

[Kevadu]

I can see where the problems in DA2 lie, but people's opinions of it are so low as to be comical. It's seriously hilarious that some people have "lost total faith" in Bioware over one flawed game, and proof that gamers are just a whiny bunch of shit sacks.

Making the game faster (and 'binding awesome to keys' or whatever bullshit people are calling 'crap' nowadays ... I hardly noticed it) was not the problem, yet people are being absolutely absurd in their hate for the game. I'm inclined to agree with Parn, it's a 6 or 7 out of 10 game. Any lower and you're just being a drama queen.

This.

I really appreciate what DA2 was trying to do, personally.  It was a different kind of story than you usually see in RPGs, and I like that.  It was great to get involved in the politics of a city that is experiencing a period of strife and see how things change over time.  But then, I love politics in my RPGs so I guess I'm just weird like that.  What Bioware didn't succeed in giving the player anyone to root for.  Both sides of the conflict were so exceedingly unlikeable that by the end I was wishing I could just leave and let them kill each other.  Why wasn't that an option?

But the game's biggest problems were the constant dungeon reuse and lazy encounter design.  These are obvious symptoms of the game's rushed development and fans deserved better.  I really hope they take their time with DA3.

[Themadcow]

Oh yeah, I don't doubt for a minute that DA2 isn't a perfectly decent game in it's own right, and in isolation from DA:O.

The low scores you see over at places like Metacritic are protests rather than objective reviews. Just like the stupidly low scores for games that have unpleasant DRM, or shooters that get slated for having online multiplayer that is slighly slower than the last version. Even for the short amount of time I played it, I knew it was an OK game - just not what I wanted to spend my (very limited) time playing.

If you don't shout, you don't get heard. People don't want EA/Bioware thinking that just because they bought the game, it was what they wanted - they want the developers to understand loud and clear that the market doesn't need another action adventure game.

[Demon_Princess_Kay]

It's one of the biggest fails in recent gaming history.

Oh yeah, I don't doubt for a minute that DA2 isn't a perfectly decent game in it's own right, and in isolation from DA:O.

How can it be decent yet "One of the biggest fails in recentt gaming history?" DOES NOT COMPUTE!

[Themadcow]

The 'biggest fail' is that it didn't serve the audience that loved and appreciated the first game. Instead it tried to meddle with the formula to produce a slightly different 'perfectly decent game in it's own right' to attract a wider audience and ended up angering (see 4/10 user reviews) and disappointing it's fanbase.

I think that's pretty straightforward.

[Demon_Princess_Kay]

The 'biggest fail' is that it didn't serve the audience that loved and appreciated the first game. Instead it tried to meddle with the formula to produce a slightly different 'perfectly decent game in it's own right' to attract a wider audience and ended up angering (see 4/10 user reviews) and disappointing it's fanbase.

I think that's pretty straightforward.

If you seriously think simply disappointing its fanbase makes it "one of the biggest fail in recent gaming history" you're crazy. The fact that they're making a third one proves that DA2 wasn't even that big of failure, and all things considered if EA made a profit off of it (which I'm sure they did) it's not even a failure.

[Themadcow]

Selling less of a sequel (less than half as many units on Xbox? not sure of the exact figures) when you clearly spend a lot more marketing it is a failure, yup.

Say you rent a market stall for 3 months and sell cheese, and make $10,000 dollars in the first month.

Next month you spend some of your profits on a bigger stall, and more people know about it, but you decide to change the type of cheese you sell and the quality. You make $4,000 that month because people turn up to the stall and don't get what they wanted, telling other potential customers about their disappointment.

I'd consitute the 2nd week as a massive failure in the context that if you'd set up a bigger stall BUT with the same cheese you'd have made far more money AND made more customers happy.

Now, in the third month... do you go back to the month 1 cheese type and quality, or do you hope that people start liking your month 2 cheese?