Yesterday (Sunday) GameStop called me up to tell me I could pick up my copy of Dragon Age 2 Monday night at midnight, but, that I should get there early, as early as 10 P.M.. I'm guessing GameStop is having a release party and maybe even giving away some free swag (possibly DA2 shirts or something). I'm going to call them this afternoon and ask them if I should really be there a whole two hours early. If they're not going to put it in my hands until 12 A.M. I'm not going to be there two hours early. For one I'm way too sick to be able to stand there for that length of time. I wouldn't want to sit there for that long either as I'd still be in pain either way. I'll probably show up around 11:30 or so. If they're giving away free stuff that probably means I'll miss out on it, but, I'm just happy to get the game.
Who all has played the demo? I've played through it twice now on a lap-top I can use from in bed. I've played through it as a mage and a warrior. Depending on how I feel I may give it a run through as a rogue some time today. Honestly, I'm liking the feel of the game (demo) minus a couple small annoyances.
1. Even on the PC version, unless it's in the full version and wasn't in the demo, they got rid of the Isometric over-head view. That kind of pisses me off. I've read two separate previews and one says the iso view is in and another says it's gone, so, I guess I'll find out tonight.
2. I'm not sure I like the conversation "wheel". I preferred the method of conversation from DA:O. I may be in the minority there, but, I feel this wheel thing is just an excuse to use a short-cut. It only gives you the "gist" of what the actual reply is anyway and doesn't list what your character will say word for word. It does how-ever give you a little picture representing the emotion that will be conveyed in the reply you give (good, neutral, evil).
Aside from those two things I didn't see anything else in the demo I didn't like. I was honestly afraid that by speeding up the combat like they did that they would have gotten rid of the tactical feeling that DA:O's combat had. Fortunately the tactical feeling is alive and intact despite the more action oriented combat. If you haven't played the demo because of the fear that the sped up combat has taken away the tactics, have no fear, it's still there.
Most of the sites that have given previews say the graphics are much improved over the first game, but honestly, aside from some better animations (which really doesn't count as "graphics" if you ask me) it looks pretty much the same except with a slightly different style to parts of the games over-all look. The graphics are good, just as good as the first game and the newer look does indeed look good as well, but I'm not seeing a huge improvement in the graphics that some of the sites are raving about.
The voice work in the demo is great and I can't complain there. The UI is basically non-existent how-ever. At the bottom of the screen where your skills are displayed there's not even a box to outline them. There's a slightly grayed area where your skills are listed side by side in what-ever order you'd like to list them. You can arrange them in which-ever order you'd like.
So, originally I had my doubts that by changing the combat the game wouldn't feel like Dragon Age, but that's not a worry anymore. The only real important draw back to me has been the lack of a pulled back iso view. Needless to say for the most part I'm greatly looking forward to getting the game tonight. If you haven't pre-ordered the game and you liked the first one, get your ass to the store and lay down the money. If you don't you're missing out!!!
Alas, the only .ini I was able to find doesn't have any more options than the configuration utility itself. It's possible more will be created when the game is first run, we'll have to see I guess.
Yeah, I read that, and I can see where they're coming from. Unfortunately, consoles win this round.. I definitely would've liked at least a greater zooming out distance, though, since isometric wouldn't happen.
I wouldn't be too sure on that. I'd guess that if you can at least do DX10 you "should" see some improvement. With just DX9 though I'm not sure the high res textures will show up or not nor if you'll be able to enable them. Notice the page on that link with the download says:
Requirements:Using high-resolution textures requires a graphics card with at least 1024MB video memory.Most of the benefits from the Hi-resolution textures will only be seen if you are able to run the game in DirectX 11.
If you meet the memory requirement you should see some kind of improvement I would think. I'm not %100 sure though. I guess we'll find out tonight.
The 285 is a DX10 card, and even if some DX11 features will be lacking, if the textures are high res at least they'll look more detailed
I'm just glad devs are finally getting past dx9, its about freakin time
We'll see if Valve gets onboard too, but they said their DX8 renderer users were less than 2% so it stands to reason they'll cut that for DX10.
I think DX10 will largely be skipped over completely, since DX11 just builds off it and already there are probably more (or as many) games with DX11 support than DX10
Most DX11 games support 10. Hell, Lost Planet 2 is the only one that doesn't afaik.
11 and 10 are similar to code for afaik.
I have to go with Annatar over-all on that reply, but, I see where Savyg is coming from as so far all the games I've played that support DX11 support DX10 as well. I didn't play Lost Planet 2 but it did look pretty cool from what I saw of it.
They are, 10 just have some features missing (such as the ability to use shaders as a means of leveraging the GPU for general calculations).
I doubt 11 will be used exclusively much (my video card is only two years old and only gets 10, and I imagine that there are plenty of people with cards that are not old that do not support 11) for some time to come; however, from a programming prospective 10 is far better than 9 (even more so that the improvement in graphics quality for the players). Makes it far better for ensuring compatability on different hardware and it appears to handle the issue of alt-tabbing internally (if there is still an issue).
That's pretty much what I meant. 11 builds on 10, so it makes more sense for developers to go straight to 11, rather than developing on 10.
I believe DirectCompute was enabled for DX10 cards (version 4.0, where the version for DX11 is 5.0) when DX11 was released.
Valves hardware survey says over 50% of peeps have DX10 card+OS, and only 5% for DX11.
It is, but there are restrictions. And you need to use the interfaces for 11 to get at it. So you are basically using 11 in compatability mode for DX10 hardware at that point. Everything that is in 10 is the same in 11, they just added new stuff. All that is needed to convert is to replace the DX10 types & functions with DX11 types & functions (changing the '10' in the name to '11'). With a few exceptions though, and the list of those is pretty short.
Of course, OpenCL is better for general purpose hardware acceleration as it is not restricted to the GPU. It already has the ability to use dedicated APUs, once they are availible.
I'd be surprised if OpenCL made any headway in gaming though...the only reason it stands a chance is Valve with their cross platform crap.
...I should be programming stuff by now, heh. I suppose that requires more sanity than I currently have.
My main issue is that if a major gameplay changing problem can happen on the console version, what problems might there be with the PC version that Bioware is concealing? (For those that don't know, not having auto-attack means that console players will have to press the attack button everytime they want to use a normal attack. Auto-attack was also in Origins and people expected it in DA2)
Lack of auto-attack on consoles was one of the larger complaints about the console demo. Players were told that there would be an option for auto-attack in the full game and there was no further mention of it until today. It is either blatent lying to boost sales from people who played origins on the console or an epic level of incompetence.
What I am afraid of is that the PC version might have a problem that Bioware told everyone was fixed from the demo. For example, if the aoe targeting is as broken as it was in the demo, there will be furious PC gamers.
A lot of furious PC gamers.
RavenX, while you have a very good point, I think the issue here is not consolization but eaifaction (Command and Conquer 4 was PC only and look what happened to it).
Wish I could get into the DirectX talk but I am still stuck with XP for at least 3 or 4 more months.
For use directly it in a game/engine may not, but I would be suprised if it does not get through some library for game development or other.
PC patches don't have to go through certification. They'd have a day 1 patch ready if something like that cropped up.
Indeed, I think you're right.
Also, I'm pretty pissed off atm. Why? Because I dragged my-self out to the midnight release, waiting in the cold, had to go through a bunch of other BS I won't go into here, and then when I got home and installed my game and went to play it it's telling me I'm LOCKED OUT until 3AM!!! WTF!!!!
Meanwhile, the official forums are saying the console versions that people bought are playing fine and don't have any time zone or unlock restrictions!!! F'kin SecuROM anti-piracy BS!!!
Also, just so everyone knows this anti-piracy works so well, I went ahead and looked on Usenet and they've already got a fully working cracked version of DA2 on there!!! WTF!!!! Way to go ati-piracy...nice to know us paying PC users are getting SCREWED while the console players and pirates are happily enjoying their games....
Don't blame release dates on the drm, blame it on the publisher.
Honestly, DA:O left me feeling a tad underwhelmed by the end, and unfortunately the shift towards a more Mass Effect styled experience for DA2 has left me feeling fairly uninterested. I hope you guys enjoy it, but I'll be sitting this one out.
Dragon Effect 2?
I'm going to pass on this one.
Not even going to take the time to pirate it.
What can you say about the combat system in DAO2? Is it the same chaotic mess as in the first one?
If you thought DA:O combat was chaotic (I disagree on that, but..), then DA2's combat would be more so. They made everything faster, and at least in the beginning it seems that you face a lot more enemies at once in general.
I started on Nightmare difficulty (highest possible) and had several tough fights already that required several reloads. I've only gotten as far as the demo took us (minus stuff with Isabella, that was a continuity break), but the Ogre fight was pretty tactical as far as that goes, had to be very careful.
I haven't gotten far enough to judge the game, since I only had about an hour to play it this morning before work.. but at least the Nightmare difficulty shows promise of making the game challenging, unlike DA:O.
I'm enjoying it, played it for about 4 hours last night. Yes, I uped my geek street cred and picked it up at midnight.
What I did not like most on combat in DAO was how the combatants were running around each other like crazy chicken. You tried to form a protective line of warriors, but the enemies just jogged between them and all whacked your mage.
I don't think you used your talents and tactics right then. The idea was to have tanks to taunt and tank, set mages to ranged. Tactics made the difference. I never got the idea that people in DAO ran around all crazy like...
You will run into the same issue in DA2. The good thing is, you get Taunt very early on so with good positioning you can keep things off your mage. Like Xia said, tactics were pretty important to set up well.
I see prompts telling me I have more tactics combat slots but I don't see any tactics menu in this game. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm not missing anything. I don't know, but I'm definately enjoying myself.
Gotta say though, I like the characters so far. They do seem less one dimensional, at any rate.
Been playing since I woke up...now that I finally stopped I ran my defrag
Also, don't think I still have my original DA character :/ Damn. Come to think of it, let me check my other external drive and laptop...just in case.
I think the Tactics thing is on the char sheet for each person.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
