64 replies to this topic

[Kulyok]

Folks, if you're into torrents, there's a mirror at rutracker.org - it's Russian and you have to register, though(just use Dragon Age Demo in the search function, and it's there). Four or five hours, and it's all yours. Also, thepiratbay.org has it, but it's frighteningly slow.

[Kaeloree]

The fastest way I've found is through Steam.

Played it for a bit, my laptop overheated and crashed about ~15 mins in. Jeez, my laptop is getting old. Will be buying the game for 360 I suspect.

[Kulyok]

Some of you may get an error concerning this file: d3dx9_43.dll. It means the game wants new DirectX.
Here's a working solution: http://social.biowar...-6147820-1.html

[Kulyok]

So, is this right: the demo ends when Isabella says she may tag along for a while? Then the Champion video plays, and that's it?
(God, Isabella is FAT! Like that Archdryad from Dungeon Crawl comic, heheh).

[Kaeloree]

Personally, I think it's awesome to see a romance who isn't stick-thin. Isabela has curves, and I don't think that's really a bad thing.

Edited by K'aeloree, 23 February 2011 - 12:31 AM.

[Kulyok]

Her waist is okay, breasts and hips are roundish, but fine, it's just her face looks really, really, um, plump.

[Vicen]

MINOR Demo SPOILER BELOW

Spoiler

Was anyone else baffled at how fast Wesley was turning into a ghoul? The few times in DA:O we saw people fighting them or the aftermath of fighting ones...(like the guy you meet almost instantly in the wilds near ostagar...and the solider you met in the camp) did not seem to at least have the coloration of the taint(baring that one random npc in awakening who I forget is)...or if they did they certainly did not change as fast as Wesley did...

Edited by Vicen, 23 February 2011 - 01:43 AM.

[the bigg]

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?

What difficulty are you playing on? If you use full damage (and wear beginner armor) two arrows are enough to get you, and on smart AI enemies will poke your horse with spears or pikes (stalling him) and quickly mob him and you.

Played it for a bit, my laptop overheated and crashed about ~15 mins in. Jeez, my laptop is getting old. Will be buying the game for 360 I suspect.

Yeah, the game is pretty brutal graphics-wise. I can get a playable 15~20 FPS on max detail in DA and just 5~7 in DAII. But then again, I hope I'll have something better than a laptop with an entry-level discrete graphics card by the time I buy the game.

Her waist is okay, breasts and hips are roundish, but fine, it's just her face looks really, really, um, plump.

I think she's fine as she is - real world women with large breasts and hips tend to have meat on the rest of their bodies as well. Aveline is far worse IMHO - she has a manlier jaw than all male characters you meet.

[Solar's Harper]

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?

What difficulty are you playing on? If you use full damage (and wear beginner armor) two arrows are enough to get you, and on smart AI enemies will poke your horse with spears or pikes (stalling him) and quickly mob him and you.

Yeah I know, died more than a few times before I finally got it, often thanks to the horse saying hello to the dirt. But it is gratifying nonetheless, especially with the arrow in the throat as a trophy. Helped perhaps that my machine lags just enough to predict which direction you should go before they throw stuff, add a combination of luck - yeah, didn't help I was a terrible aim too.

Played it for a bit, my laptop overheated and crashed about ~15 mins in. Jeez, my laptop is getting old. Will be buying the game for 360 I suspect.

Yeah, the game is pretty brutal graphics-wise. I can get a playable 15~20 FPS on max detail in DA and just 5~7 in DAII. But then again, I hope I'll have something better than a laptop with an entry-level discrete graphics card by the time I buy the game.

Load-bearing brown landscapes? Hell yes, optimization for the win.

(God, Isabella is FAT! Like that Archdryad from Dungeon Crawl comic, heheh).

Now that you mention it, beyond a few differences - they do look kinda similar too. Hmm, this would explain some of the earlier character trailers.

[Kulyok]

(slight spoiler)

Was anyone else baffled at how fast Wesley was turning into a ghoul?

I agree, it was strange. Unless they've been running from the spawn for weeks, then it would make sense. (Then again, nothing happened to Dalish Warden at first, but that's why he/she became a Warden - resilience).


My game stuttered a little(I got "loading" for half a second or so) sometimes between videos. Other than that, the performance was okay, but I was running it on "low" video settings.

[berelinde]

Finally got the demo downloaded. In this case, the fault was probably on our end. Our internet connection is a bit spotty, and things like the telephone ringing, high winds, or snow tend to cause it to fail. After we finally got it downloaded, we ran into the missing DirectX file problem, but that was easily solved. Then, we encountered the char gen screen crash issue. A couple of hours and five restarts later, fiance decided to check the forums (he's one of those who refuses to google questions or ask directions), but that too was easily fixed by switching off VSynch. He still has not managed to play through. Since the demo cannot be saved, and since the game cannot be restored if it is minimized, he kept getting booted out because of stupid things like the AV software deciding it was time for a scan, the computer telling us that a new version of Dell Support Center was available, etc. If I get to use the computer tonight... if I get to use the computer tonight, I really should update Lucy. (sigh) Having a broken laptop sucks.

From what I saw of the female characters, they looked OK. On the women, breasts and butts are big, waists are small. Isabela's face is indeed round, but I don't have an opinion on that. I simply loved Aveline's face. She is not beautiful, but her face is very agreeable, and I adore her freckles. While I'm sure there will be unattractive men, we have not yet met any. Is it my imagination, or are the males taller than the females in DA2? That would be a novelty. As expected, everyone has a signature look except the PC, who looks depressingly generic.

[Eleima]

Well, I downloaded it last night (I got lucky, hit refresh at 17:59 and beat the server crash, still took over 2 hours to download though), and did a playthrough with a FemHawke Mage.
Be warned, slight spoilers ahead, but they can't be that bad.

I've mixed feelings about this. I was a bit disappointed about now being able to customize my FemHawke, but I knew that that wouldn't be possible.
I, too, was surprised at how fast Wesley went bye bye and the absurdity of that small dagger going through sturdy templar armor was just so ludicrous that I spent most of his death scene giggling.
Didn't really care about Bethany pretty much for the reasons that Vilkacis stated. I mean, I know she's supposed to be my sister and my friend, but... meh.
Also, suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite: Mama Hawke harboring and training not one but two mage apostates from the Chantry for all those years in Lothering?? I mean, templars aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed, but you gotta give them *some* credit.
The graphics and the ambiance is a bit surprising at first, kinda gritty in the "glaring light of day" sense. I kinda miss DAO's graphics, oddly enough. I much preferred the scenes with Cassandra and Varric, with the dark background, it didn't seem as bad (although I had some stuttering as Kulyok did, which kinda gives me pause, because I was looking forward to Skyrim in November, and looks like I might have to inject with rig with some steroids).
I died three times facing that frakin' ogre, annoyed me to no end, because it wasn't hard per se, it just got *tedious*, so in the end, I got my mage to run around in circles around him while Carver and Aveline pummeled him... Yeah...
And yeah, I'm already tired of my mages' moves, too...

Also... I already hate Isabella. (and I don't think she's fat, but she annoys the heck out of me, and every time she turns to talk to my PC, there's clipping on her face)


So, that's my two cents. :=)

Edited by Eleima, 23 February 2011 - 04:41 AM.

[berelinde]

Is it my imagination, or do the choices given on the dialogue wheel bear absolutely no resemblance to what the character actually says?

[Tempest]

Not your imagination, Berelinde. Another reason I'm aggressively meh about this game - I like knowing what the character I'm supposed to be playing as is actually going to say rather than picking something and hoping the character interprets my desire correctly.

[Daulmakan]

Finally managed to download the thing after several tries. And I have to say, I'm not impressed. EVERYTHING from graphics, interface, combat system, wheeled-base dialogue, and general premise of the game seem inferior to the first DA. Granted, it's only a demo and some things are expected to improve, but I doubt the end result will considerably change any of the above.

* Graphics look, for a lack of a better word, ugly. The darkspawn & the ogre looked much better in their previous incarnations.

* The interface looks generic and unpolished, there seems to be no "theme" to it. The potion graphics are hideous. I found myself sorely missing the old one.

* As berelinde and Tempest said, choosing a dialogue option carries with it the suspense of seeing if it's actually close to what was intended to say.

* Combat is boring and over the top. Much ado about nothing, franky. Movements seem far too grandiose to the little effect they actually accomplish. DA:O was both more realistical (you had to gain swing before striking with the 2h sword, now you can simply jump 10 feet towards the enemy) and entertaining/less annoying.

* I really liked the feature of the different origins and how choices and backgrounds reflected in the gaming world in the first installment. That seems to be completely lost here, but without anything gained in the process.


Oh, yeah, I forgot. THE ORDER DICTATES I FIGHT LIKE A SPARTAN.

[Darziak]

Managed to play on max settings with DirectX11. I get Lag when it comes to cutscenes or talking but the rest is ok which it was opposite for DA:O

Got some screens.


The blood looks more fake to me.


I guess men fall for Isabella's cleavege?


Huh? Oh! I thought I was playing WoW for a sec there.


I felt battle is more fluent but I noticed I can't run straight from battle mode to standard mode.?

I don't get why the area from Lothering is a giant empty landscape.

Armours look better at least.

If you use a bow and an enemy gets close you go in punching style though it sounds like your holding two blades.

[vilkacis]

the absurdity of that small dagger going through sturdy templar armor

I forgot to mention that, but yeah, my thoughts exactly. There are much easier ways to kill someone in full plate, especially when they're not resisting, but it wouldn't be as ~*~DRAMATIC~*~ I guess.

Also, suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite: Mama Hawke harboring and training not one but two mage apostates from the Chantry for all those years in Lothering?? I mean, templars aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed, but you gotta give them *some* credit.

"Remember not to throw fireballs in front of strangers."
"Yes, mother... "

Is it my imagination, or do the choices given on the dialogue wheel bear absolutely no resemblance to what the character actually says?

It's not just you.

Replacing the traditional dialogue choices with that fucking useless wheel is THE single worst decision the DA2 devs made.

And I have lots of problems with the decisions they made.

THE ORDER DICTATES I FIGHT LIKE A SPARTAN.

Managed to play on max settings with DirectX11.

The demo does not support DX11. Turn that shit off.

[Tempest]

Frankly, this demo has done little but turn me off to DA2. The dialogue wheel is terrible, the art mediocre at best, and most problematic of all, from my perspective, is the roster of characters: I had a really hard time caring about anyone in the demo. Oh, I know in the full game they'll all get expanded on considerably, but if this is meant to get us interested in the characters or care about what happens to them ala what Mass Effect has done where you can lose people and you feel the punch, Bioware is losing its touch.

And as has been mentioned, the Origins in DA1 were creative and interesting and did a wonderful job introducing you to the setting and game. This... is not and does not. Not that I don't think Dragon Effect could work, but I'd say the concept needs a lot of tuning from its current incarnation.

[Darziak]

The demo does not support DX11. Turn that shit off.

I noticed no fps difference or bugs anyways.

[Vicen]

The demo does not support DX11. Turn that shit off.

I noticed no fps difference or bugs anyways.

When I had mine turned on the second my male warrior hawke used Mighty blow I crashed

Edited by Vicen, 23 February 2011 - 12:31 PM.