64 replies to this topic

[Kulyok]

"Terminator, Terminator!" ©

Anyway, I am downloading. Are you?

Oh, link: http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo
Apparently, they have Russian subtitles, even.


EDIT: AAAAaaand... DONE!

Edited by Kulyok, 22 February 2011 - 11:21 AM.

[Archmage Silver]

Yeah, I'm downloading it now... apparently their servers were too busy earlier.

Edit: Done

Edited by Archmage Silver, 22 February 2011 - 11:50 AM.

[vilkacis]

Gameplay is... basically the same as DA:O. After about 1.3 playthroughs of DA:O, I'm pretty bored with it already.

Grunts take too much damage. It was a bother in Origins, and it's a bother here. In the last part, I counted 22 hits from my mage to kill a generic nameless archer. TWENTY FUCKING TWO HITS. With my buff spell up. Not difficult, tedious.

Yes, that twirly-spinny attack sequence is getting old already.

No, I still don't care that Bethany dies, try giving her ACTUAL LINES before killing her and maybe I'll give a shit.

No, I don't care about Carver either. Why is he my "rival" again?

No, the icons on the dialogue wheel aren't enough to replace full text choices. The "put him out of his misery" option results in "whatever you're going to do, do it quickly". Okay...?

Half the skill trees are locked, probably because Bioware assumes you're too dumb to figure out how they're used.


...It's better than I expected, but I've basically set my expectations for this game so low that they could have mailed me a piece of poo on a plate and I'd probably say the same thing.

[the bigg]

Grunts take too much damage. It was a bother in Origins, and it's a bother here. In the last part, I counted 22 hits from my mage to kill a generic nameless archer. TWENTY FUCKING TWO HITS. With my buff spell up. Not difficult, tedious.

You should try Mount and Blade: Warband if you want realistically brutal combat. Both your enemies and you can die / go unconscious with a single well-placed hit.

[Archmage Silver]

RPGs have never been about realistic combat. There are a few exceptions, but generelly developers don't really bother with it.

[the bigg]

M&B:W is an action RPG / RTS hybrid, actually

I don't really care about having a realistic game (magic != realistic), I just find that it detracts from immersion when you need to spend ten minutes hitting an humanoid enemy in the face with a sword before you can drop him (cough Oblivion cough).


Edit: also, what are thee anime-esque androginous people doing in my western RPG?

Edited by the bigg, 22 February 2011 - 01:05 PM.

[berelinde]

Fiance has been trying to DL it all day. It keeps crashing at 25% downloaded. Maybe later...

[Archmage Silver]

Demo download mirrors:

• Gamershell [Recommended]
  
• AtomicGamer
  
• WorthPlaying
  
• ComputerGames.ro

M&B:W is an action RPG / RTS hybrid, actually

I don't really care about having a realistic game (magic != realistic), I just find that it detracts from immersion when you need to spend ten minutes hitting an humanoid enemy in the face with a sword before you can drop him (cough Oblivion cough).


Edit: also, what are thee anime-esque androginous people doing in my western RPG?

I agree, you'd figure that mobs would generally die faster when hit with a sword, provided that they're not wearing full plate. But it is what it is, and most developers don't want go through the trouble of finding a balanced and somewhat-realistic combat system (which I admit can be very hard).

Combat can easily add (artificial) length to playthroughs though. Unmodded Wizardry 8 could be used as an extreme example of this, although it's turn-based, so it doesn't really compare that well.

[vilkacis]

You should try Mount and Blade: Warband if you want realistically brutal combat. Both your enemies and you can die / go unconscious with a single well-placed hit.

Since the enemies tend to outnumber you two or three to one in every fight, that might also be problematic. Somewhere in between would be ideal.

RPGs have never been about realistic combat. There are a few exceptions, but generelly developers don't really bother with it.

I don't care about "realistic" as long as I get "entertaining". Watching my character repeat the same four-hit combo for 30 seconds before the enemy decides to fall over is neither of those.

(...granted, this might not have been so much of a problem if the game hadn't decided that since I put my first skill point in healing, I must not want any damaging magic at all, ever, and gave me a bunch of useless support spells post timeskip.)


Edit: also, the characters run too slowly out of combat. Maybe there's a tweak for that somewhere...

Edited by vilkacis, 22 February 2011 - 01:49 PM.

[the bigg]

Since the enemies tend to outnumber you two or three to one in every fight, that might also be problematic. Somewhere in between would be ideal.

If you're talking about M&B, you can win even against an army that outnumbers you 5 to 1; it depends a lot on your tactics (and the quality of your vs. the enemy troops).

[Darziak]

Yay I can't get the demo to run.

Seems my demo can't recognise my directX.

[vilkacis]

If you're talking about M&B, you can win even against an army that outnumbers you 5 to 1; it depends a lot on your tactics (and the quality of your vs. the enemy troops).

Nah, I was thinking about improving DA2. That does sound interesting, though. I should check it out.

[Vicen]

Downloading it now...had to try another demo today first...How long does the counter count for to get to a million for the 2 items or whatever I wonder? Day before it comes out? A week?

[Archmage Silver]

Downloading it now...had to try another demo today first...How long does the counter count for to get to a million for the 2 items or whatever I wonder? Day before it comes out? A week?

The counter stops after the date changes to March 1st. My guess is that it stops at 00:01 Mountain Standard Time (BioWare's headquarters are located in Edmonton, Alberta, CA).

[berelinde]

Heh. I'm thinking that they'll get their 1M download count just from fiance's PC. We're still trying. If this one doesn't work, though, I'm probably going to give up.

[the bigg]

Use a download manager to restart downloads that died mid-way. Also, they only count people who logged in to their EA/Bioware account from inside the demo, not raw D/Ls.

[Archmage Silver]

Yeah, definitely use a DL manager. I used Free Download Manager (FDM) myself.

Yeah, it's the activations of the demo that count (I think I posted this earlier... ah, there it is). Finishing it isn't required though.

• Lothering's Lament, Book - Demo IF Activations ≥ 1 000 000 By March 1
  
• The Far Cliffs of Kirkwall, Book - Demo IF Activations ≥ 1 000 000 By March 1

[Vicen]

The item you get for finishing the demo is Hayder's Razor right? Just want to be sure it was applied to my account...or if thats something else I got somehow heh...

Overall combat and what not was decent but...id have to say I prefer DA:O style better imo...

[Solar's Harper]

M&B:W is an action RPG / RTS hybrid, actually

I don't really care about having a realistic game (magic != realistic), I just find that it detracts from immersion when you need to spend ten minutes hitting an humanoid enemy in the face with a sword before you can drop him (cough Oblivion cough).


Edit: also, what are thee anime-esque androginous people doing in my western RPG?

M&B: W can also be guilty of that actually, try using only a dagger from horseback against a minimum of ten guys lightly armoured, without any backup of your own, yet have them with plenty of missile weapons. Lost twenty minutes I think, but won reject loot without ending up as a sandwich! That's always good right?

Again though the core difference between that (besides lance being king and not at all relatable to ME's prodding planets idea), and this is that mobility was a heavy emphasis of the game's battle mechanics. Here you essentially stand in one place and pummel at large mobs of enemies with ludicrous hit-points (seriously for regular goons, do they spend any time blocking your attacks at all?), and questionable hit-box physics. Suffering from the exact same problem as its fail-get predecessor really, less so in terms of fluidity, but still very noticeable.

As for those would be anime people, this is indeed Dragon Age II: Cosplay-igins.

Edited by Solar's Harper, 22 February 2011 - 06:23 PM.

[Archmage Silver]

The item you get for finishing the demo is Hayder's Razor right?

Yes.