The Drunken Lizard Pub

't Wasn't a pitcher, 't was a Carlsberg, which is one of the cheaper beers. But I found Edinburgh expensive in beers. Normally I would expect to pay £2,50 - £3,00 for a beer in Scotland, but you'll see many beers below and above that range, it depends in which pub you are.

But Edinburgh seemed expensive. Apart from that - I hadn't thought about that - this is Britain, we have pints here. And our pints are big, about 0.568 lt. In Europe glasses are normally smaller. USA I had to look up, but according to Wiki you're calling your beers pints as well, but they're smaller; 0.473 lt Wiki says. Please correct me if Wiki is wrong.

But back to Dragon Age and being critical about the game:
I'm not sure who noname was addressing, I thought he(?) probably meant you, Evnissyen, as you said you were disappointed in the game, and you're writing a lot more about games than I do.

But I don't think either of us would buy a game to pick it to pieces, or would you? I think we're starting up a game with good hopes, and sometimes we're getting taken away by a game and sometimes we're left disappointed.
And I believe you've posted several times that for you a story is very important. When you're story-focused you can't help but getting disappointed by Dragon Age, I've had it myself.

Take Alistair's quest for example: I knew from NeverWinter Nights that Bioware often writes quests around party members and I was really looking forward to starting my first of those quests, even if it was only to get a little break from fighting through all those hoards of Darkspawn.
So then Alistair at some point brings up his sister, who he says he has lost touch with, but would like to see again. Aha, I'm thinking, what's around that corner? The party visits Denerim, in a cutscene Alistair points to a house and says that's the place where his sister must live. He's quite apprehensive about going in, and there's of the dialogue choice of knocking on her door or moving on - obligatory in RPG's. Of course, you will take the option of meeting the sister, so you knock on the door. I was expecting something to start from there, but what's the case? Sis doesn't give a damn, has five mouths to feed and shoves you straight back on the street! Huh?! I immediately grabbed a walkthrough to see what I had done wrong, but no, that's it. You meet Alistair's sister, she says 'beat it', you get 250 XP and that's all there is to it! Back to killing Darkspawn.
I was disappointed!
Dragon Age is a good game, but not because of the writing. Probably an average television series has better plots than this.

When it comes to game critique on this forum, I'm very much appreciating that, because it gives me a better idea of a game then official reviewers. Take Gamespot: the first accolade they're giving Dragon Age is 'Incredible storywriting'. What?
Gamespot always has those 'exclusive previews' of games, showing exclusive footage and interviews. Is their relationship with the big game makers perhaps a little too good to remain objective? I feel I can't trust those guys. They never wrote a word about Eschalon, why not?

Last point; I would like to stress again that I find Dragon Age a good game. Good mechanics... spells... spell combinations... forming a team... member interaction... team work in battle... that's really well done. I enjoy the game.

What you neglected to mention, though, about Alistair's quest, is that depending on how you play it, you can drastically alter his character--hardening him, making him less of a doormat and learning to take charge and become a leader (something he refuses to do otherwise, hence why he lets you, the recruit, lead the party).

That's a valid point to make about Alistair's quest, but I was purely looking at the story telling.

There are plenty of points in the game where you can change a character's attitude a bit by choosing a certain dialogue option or gifting them something, but for me that's character interaction or character development, and that part I find well done.

Yeah... well, for me the characters are the most important in an RPG, since they really drive the immersion aspect of the game... and directly after that is the narrative -- the thread that pulls you through.

With Alistair... yeah, that story was sort of cut off abruptly, but so were everyone else's quests. Leliana's just ended and was never picked up again even though we expected more from her former mentor/lover . . . the woman never showed up again. Wynn's quest ends as soon as she finds her lost pupil, they say have a good life and that's that... but really, I can't fault the writers for this: no game can be perfect. They're just little side-quests meant to elaborate on the character, I don't think they were ever meant to be elaborated on.

...At least with Alistair it was sort of a surprise that his sister was bitter as hell and didn't want anything to do with him -- which is decent writing. ...But, yeah, I guess I was sort of disappointed that it sort of just ended with Alistair saying, "I promise I'll do whatever I can to help you," and her saying basically, "yeah, whatever, just leave." ...And that was the end of that.

...Still, I forgot it as quickly as the game forgot it.

And all told, the writing in Dragon Age, comparatively speaking, really was pretty damn good. Not so much the story, which was sort of lame, but the characters... it was the characters who were interesting.

(Ironically, though, there's a thread on the DA site suggesting that Loghain was the deepest character... yet... I don't see him being all that deep. He's really sort of the stereotypical treachery-for-power's-sake sort of character and he really isn't elaborated upon all that much. ...Whereas Leliana's and Alistair's characters are much more fleshed-out.

So... yeah, as I'm sure everyone on here knows by now, I'm really critical of writing in rpg's, too... and I'm really into narrative and character... few games are all that well-written, so I don't dwell on it, but when I see potential that's not realized: that's when I get upset. ...Which might seem kind of odd... that if a game has interesting writing in it but the writing isn't fleshed out enough for my satisfaction, I get upset.

...I guess I'm perverse, that way.

...Of course, it also bothers me when I see virtually no writing-effort at all. Like all those hack & slash games. ...But in those cases I just don't bother playing the game, so there's nothing for me to complain about.

Of those here who've played the game: have you found Dragon Age: Origins as disappointing as I have?

No, actually it is best RPG been out for a while i dont know why any1 would say other-wise

I mean... the graphics, rendering and animation really aren't that much better than NwN2, there's no weather, no passage of time (sun & moon movement)... graphically there doesn't seem much improvement

1st of all did u play game on high resolution maxed graphics or just low or normal 1 cuz there is a "big" deference between i tried them all never felt right playing on low graphics
2nd Dark theme of game over-all gives it its reality and the maps arent repeatable all are unique so u never get the felling u saw that place before somewhere unless it is the same place of course

( Dragon Age 2 Note :those 2 points were Dragon age 2 major fall back bad camera control - repeated maps - less reality graphics - and on the same Pc which runs DA:Origin Maxed on HD run DA2 low and lagging havent they ever heard of performance control )

plus far fewer spells (making mages a lot less fun), fewer learnable techniques/talents... character-building isn't much better, either. (And only a few voices, this time, though admittedly I haven't checked the website to see if anyone uploaded any voice packs . . . I can't adjust how tall or thin my character is . . . and they've gone back to NwN1-style men, except that now, not only do all the Humans look like Mr. Universe, but all the elves as well. Why do I have to play a muscle-bound guy? Surely not for realism's sake, considering the thin-boned elven women who get to swing around great-axes and greatswords and wear really heavy armor.)

*there is alot of skills already and advanced skills and skills combinations in addition to that plot re-acts differently to different builds - u never get to notice those stuff unless u try multi-runs on hard-core lvl
* and actually i loved how pt char talks when u r walking around in addition to the screams of ur main char while clicking on him or through fights but he doesnt talk through conversations if that what u mean u just chose his line kinda creepy sometimes tho

Plus, the narrative is... well... lacking, in comparison to NwN2. The plot as well. I'm not big on plot, generally, but I have to admit that NwN2 had a pretty strong plot and that this plot really did make it that much better a game, whereas Dragon Age has a very thin one. (And it certainly doesn't help to have six different possible openings, although it's an interesting addition. Some of these are better than others.)

NARRATIVE i played same build of same origin never ran in same situation or solved things same way , 1 run saved people other send them to there end
also did u get DL-content with those u can never run out of good stuff

Some parts are a little too predictable, too. And sometimes deliberately so -- Hollywood-style, as if the developers were trying to ease us into what happens because they feel we'll like the game less if we're shocked or surprised.

I agree they did that on purpose cuz if they didnt i would lose track of story line due to loads of details about 200 codecs page no more or less details is required

On the positive side: the dialogue is a little better, generally. Also: I like how they've taken the intra-party banter and made it incidental (although placing some of the triggers just before an area's exit was a pretty bad idea)... but on the other hand: I miss my character being able to interact with the arguing companions, and having to determine what to say knowing that what you say will make one character like you more and another like you less . . . also, the banter is not scripted, it's random, so it doesn't feel so much a part of the story, like the banter in NwN2 did. This is Planescape-style banter -- which is fine . . . but it would've been nice if they'd also kept the NwN2 style banter.

I would like to add that some of the extra Campaigns adds more Back-story and aftermath to it which was nice to i recommend to try them out (5G Extra damn that is alot of space required but worth it if u like the game)

Loved DAO for all the points given already.

thought DA2 was pretty average and dumbed down alot.

Thinks NWN2 was pretty bad all the way around, evidenced by me not even making it halfway through the story before i wanted to pick up other games.

and an american pint is definitely smaller than an "imperial pint" which is what we call your pints in places over here that actually serve GOOD beer.