Dragon Age: Origins thread II

[Relic]

Do you know how to upgrade a graphics card? You can probably get a much better one for $50-60.

kuro - yeah that's what im worried about. i dont want to look at a shit game but i DO want the option to play it BG2 style if i want. I dont understand why that isnt possible on the 360.

Alth - What do you mean, do i know hot to upgrade? As in can i put a new one in myself?

[emberling]

I dont understand why that isnt possible on the 360.

Supposedly it's a memory issue; zooming out to that overhead view means more stuff on screen, at least, which could cause that kind of problem depending on how the engine is coded. The 360 has less than half of the memory of a minimum-spec PC, and is less forgiving if that memory is all used up. Sure, it would have been theoretically possible for them to use some kind of level of detail scaling or special low-quality-texture mode that you could enable to activate overhead view. I find it hard to believe that they didn't try it in-house and decide that it was simply not high enough quality, between the graphics/performance issues and the clunky controls, to bother with -- especially considering that one would expect the vast majority of those looking for a BG style experience to want the PC version anyway for mods and mouse control.

Though I suspect they may have underestimated the number of people who would prefer the PC version for mods and mouse control, except for the fact that their PC sucks, or their couch and 54" HDTV rocks, or what have you.

And PC suckitude can't entirely be measured by specs -- my experiences with the Witcher and Fallout 3 were fairly marginal, and I'm pretty sure Wert's computer is theoretically worse and he says they ran fine. There's plenty of other less tangible factors, many of which, in my case, are probably related to the fact that I haven't reformatted for six freaking years. Stupid lost Windows CD.

[Relic]

Apparently the rec is to run the character creator and see how well that works.

Just tried the character creator and it ran very smooth. I can't see how it's an indicator of the in game engine tho.

[Werthead]

That's weird, as that was BioWare's advice on the forum. I haven't tried it yet though. If the creator doesn't use the game engine itself, then I can see why it's not much use.

I'm getting opposite the vibes I got from C&C Generals. It came out in 2003 and looked shite. Games that were in some cases 3-4 years older than it looked much better. It should have ran like greased lightening on my PC and instead ran at an incredibly slow speed, even on minimal detail. EA simply hadn't optimised the game at all (and I had just bought a new PC at the time which ran much later games like Rome: Total War, Half-Life 2 and Dawn of War superbly), and it showed.

In this case, the PC version of Dragon Age appears to have been locked months ago, when they came up with the specs, and have been optimising since then to hopefully create a much more memory-efficient and scalable game. Considering that Mass Effect ran fine and Dragon Age doesn't look noticeably better than that two-year-old game, I'm thinking it should be okay, even if some things have to be turned down.

[Relic]

That's weird, as that was BioWare's advice on the forum. I haven't tried it yet though. If the creator doesn't use the game engine itself, then I can see why it's not much use.

Well it uses the in game character models, but there's nothing else on screen, and no movement other than 360 camera. so, i don't see what that tells me.

[Slurktan]

BG=Baldur's Gate? If so, no.

The reason I asked as it was also a Bioware game and it also had 'exclusive' content for buying other stuff. (IIRC it was a disk you got from buying either Planescape or Icewind Dale) And don't let these people in this thread fool you, the equipment in those added shops was very good and very useful.

There was of course an easy mod to get all that stuff in later for everybody in the PC version but I doubt console versions will get that if its something similar.

[Jon AS]

Considering that Mass Effect ran fine and Dragon Age doesn't look noticeably better than that two-year-old game

Actually Dragon Age looks significantly worse than Mass Effect in my opinion. Of course contrary to DA, Bioware didn't build the ME engine themselves. I'm slightly worried that this might be a case similar to NWN2. That game didn't look all that great but ran much worse than much prettier ones. But it was an Obsidian product, not a Bioware one.

Well it uses the in game character models, but there's nothing else on screen, and no movement other than 360 camera. so, i don't see what that tells me.

Yeah, I don't get it either. Have you tried dialing up the graphic settings to see if that changes anything?

The reason I asked as it was also a Bioware game and it also had 'exclusive' content for buying other stuff. (IIRC it was a disk you got from buying either Planescape or Icewind Dale) And don't let these people in this thread fool you, the equipment in those added shops was very good and very useful.

There was of course an easy mod to get all that stuff in later for everybody in the PC version but I doubt console versions will get that if its something similar.

The preorder-store items were ridiculously overpowererd, particularly the Robe of Vecna. IIRC Bioware actually released them themselves later on free, or at least officially sanctioned fans to distribute them.

[Altherion]

Alth - What do you mean, do i know hot to upgrade? As in can i put a new one in myself?

Yes.

Just tried the character creator and it ran very smooth. I can't see how it's an indicator of the in game engine tho.

The character creator (CC) uses the same exact engine as the game will (you can tell by the CPU usage and the fact that they've included a bunch of files that aren't necessary for the CC at all). Thus, if you can run the CC, you can run the game as well -- the only question is at what frame rate. As you said, there is exactly one model being displayed which is probably why I can turn everything up to the maximum settings with a relatively wimpy laptop card.

Actually Dragon Age looks significantly worse than Mass Effect in my opinion.

Really? It looks of the same quality as Mass Effect to me. That is, the videos don't look very good, but the models in the character creator are fine.

[emberling]

Mass Effect had UE3 texture pop-in and thus looked like ass in practice, even though the stills looked pretty good. Not as bad as some other games (Last Remnant) but bad enough.

Some of the Dragon Age videos have looked pretty blocky but others look okay, and the graphics in the character creator look pretty excellent, though not any better than a Mass Effect still.

Mainly I think the videos that look bad have had a bunch of guys in armor that is deliberately designed in a way that makes it look like a low-polygon model, and the persistent blood splatter thing looks pretty lame; those combined with a couple dubious character designs (such as Morrigan's attire) make it seem worse than it is. I know I'm going to disable the blood splatter thing; it might be 'realistic' but it just looks stupid most of the time.

[kungtotte]

The persistent blood-splatter is looking great! If I'm wading through a sea of enemies, turning them into dead enemies, I should look like I've been at a vampire orgy.

[Jon AS]

The texture pop-in in ME wasn't that noticeable in many areas, but when it reared its ugly head it was indeed spectacularly bad. Of course it went away after half a second, but still...

Some of the Dragon Age videos have looked pretty blocky but others look okay, and the graphics in the character creator look pretty excellent, though not any better than a Mass Effect still.

The character animation (out of combat), especially the minimal facial animation, makes it look pretty dated.

[Relic]

The persistent blood-splatter is looking great! If I'm wading through a sea of enemies, turning them into dead enemies, I should look like I've been at a vampire orgy.

i think it looks pretty bad. and pretty...corny.

[emberling]

The character animation (out of combat), especially the minimal facial animation, makes it look pretty dated.

I have yet to see character animation that doesn't look like some kind of horrendous marionette to me in any game ever. I'm not really capable of detecting degrees to which one horrendous marionette is better than another, aside from a few technical details such as "does it smoothly change to the next animation or just kind of warp there".

I guess a few games have gotten running and jumping to an acceptable level - Prince of Persia '08 is one, IIRC - but body language, expressions, and other out-of-combat-RPG stuff has rarely if ever been anything but horrible.

[Jon AS]

I have yet to see character animation that doesn't look like some kind of horrendous marionette to me in any game ever.

It's definitely improving though, except in Dragon Age where it seems to have taken a step or two in the opposite direction.

[Altherion]

So they've finally decided to release the 2D flash game: http://www.dragonagejourneys.com . It's fairly amusing if you enjoy turn based combat.

[KazigluBey]

My impressions of the browser flash based game is that if the writing in Dragon Age is anything like that game, I'll be extremely disappointed. Wow. I'm assuming the browser game had more than a $100 budget, can't they just go to a local liberal arts college and get an actual writer, rather than letting the programmers write this nonsense? Jesus.

That actually brings me to a point about video games in general. Why is all the writing, in my own limited knowledge, done by the creators of the game? Why don't they just hire actual writers? Maybe I'm just spoiled because I read books, but the amount of tacky, shallow, pointless dialogue and story that I encounter in video games is sad.

[Werthead]

That actually brings me to a point about video games in general. Why is all the writing, in my own limited knowledge, done by the creators of the game? Why don't they just hire actual writers? Maybe I'm just spoiled because I read books, but the amount of tacky, shallow, pointless dialogue and story that I encounter in video games is sad.

Actually, a lot of the time they do. That just obviously didn't for the flash game.

Marc Laidlaw is a 'proper' SF writer who got roped in to working for Valve and basically never left. Drew Karpyshyn is another writer who has also worked with BioWare on a few of their games now, including Mass Effect and BG2.

As I think the thread has already said once before though, the generally-held-to-be-the-best-written-game-ever, Torment, was written by game designer Chris Avellone, who is a dedicated games writer and has never written any novels at all (although he later wrote a Star Wars comic). So there you go.

[Altherion]

My impressions of the browser flash based game is that if the writing in Dragon Age is anything like that game, I'll be extremely disappointed.

There's writing in the flash game? :o Seriously, the flash game is about turn based combat. The writing is just the means of telling where to go. The actual (3D) game will have the usual Bioware writing.

As to why they don't hire any writers of books... as Werthead said, sometimes they do -- but more often, they're happy with what they've got. Not everyone who can write a story is capable of writing the kind of branching stories games require.

[gladius]

I decided to give this game the benefit of the doubt. The whole darkspawn concept is unexciting, I just hope there will be some interesting enemies. Evilness is so boring.

[Shryke]

I think it's also worth remembering that Video Games are probably the WORST medium to work in for "Constraints" getting in the way of story.

"Sure, they WANTED to add X or Y in to make the story way better, but the devs ran out of time/money/ability/etc."