On My Shelves today...

[seawasp]

... Dragon Age II, a very worthy successor to the original Dragon Age!

Comments

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be the voice of dissent here. Dragon Age II isn't a bad game. It's a decent game when judged on its own merits, but I found it lacking as a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. DA2 may be a better story than DA:O but in my opinion it isn't a better game.

[seawasp]

Are you referring to things like mechanics? Because I noticed relatively little difference between the two.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

That's probably because you play on the lowest difficulty. DA:O is very tactical but you can get by just button mashing on the lowest settings. You'll get wrecked if you try that on the higher settings. On the other hand, DA2 is almost all button mashing regardless of the difficulty setting.

[seawasp]

I suppose. To me, of course, that's a feature rather than a bug. I don't mind tactical stuff being THERE, but I do object to a game REQUIRING me to do all that work just to get through it.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

This is why DA2 was so divisive. Fans of DA:O expected DA2 to be similar but more refined and streamlined, like what Bioware have done with the progression of D&D and Star Wars games. They delivered something else, something intended to appeal to the critics of DA:O's complexity.

What you call "all that work" is what I call "playing the game." The obstacles aren't there to prevent me from continuing the story. Rather, the story is my reward for overcoming those obstacles and my sense of accomplishment is linked to my characters'. When gameplay is reduced to "press A to win" then I don't get that connection and rewards don't receive the same degree of emotional investment.

[seawasp]

I still find myself having to work even on the "easy" settings -- getting killed and having to try again, sometimes multiple times -- so from my PoV I'm doing the work necessary to get the story and have the emotional connection.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

If you're getting clobbered on easy settings then I figure your tank isn't generating enough threat to offset your other characters' attacks and spell casting. Button mashing works against you in DA:O.

If you ever do go back to DA:O then look up the tanking builds for Alistair. There are a couple of variants that make him nigh-indestructible at anything less than the highest difficulty settings.

[seawasp]

This just points up the difference in our approaches; I would never DREAM of going through a build just to make a character badass. It would be like choosing character design options in a real RPG just because they made my character tougher, rather than choosing them because "yeah, that made sense for him". I choose CRPG "builds" based on "that looks cool" or "yes, that sounds like something he'd do".

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

That's like me saying don't want to give Ariane Austin top-notch piloting skills and a fast ship in the GCA RPG because I think that is making her badass for the sake of making her badass.

Really.

Alistair is a tank. He is potentially the best tank in the game other than the PC. Learning tanking abilities and acquiring tanking gear is what he would do. Giving him these tools isn't making him badass for the sake of making him badass; it's fulfilling his potential.

Of course, it's your play-through. You're free to build your party however you like but I don't think it's fair to blame the game for being too difficult if you've created non-viable characters.

[seawasp]

First, let me note that I haven't "blamed the game" for anything; I LIKE these games, and I thought that -- at Easy - they were pretty much the right level of difficulty for me. They made me expend enough effort to feel like I was parallelling the struggles of the characters, but not enough to make me frustrated with PLAYING (which is the point at which I either quit, or check online guides to see if I'm doing something stupid. Or if I'm playing a _Persona_ game I know to look when I'm getting close to the end because their dialogue choices are always Guide Dang It).

I agree that your approach is undoubtedly going to allow you to play through on higher difficulties, while mine will get me killed. But that's because my experience with these games is that to actually *make use* of the interplay of the different skill groups and approaches to derive better strategies, you need to spend a *lot* of time thinking about how the fights go, which approach works best under different situations, which characters fight best under different circumstances... time that I really can't spend, and don't usually have much INTEREST in spending. I want the game to help me relax and immerse in the universe, and having my ass handed to me because I'm not the strategist or warrior that the CHARACTER is supposed to be doesn't help me do that.

When I was a teen and had 8 hours a day to game in, that would be different (if there'd been games like this then); back then I did things like memorize the entirety of the AD&D manuals to the point I could recite monster stats and tables verbatim, and knew the right way to build a character to "get the most plusses". I can't do that now, nor, honestly, do I have much interest in it (my son can do it these days, and when I need advice on that I ask him).

Note again I'm not saying your approach is wrong; it is, in fact, the RIGHT approach from the point of view of one -- very large -- segment of the audience.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Okay. It's difficult to gauge another's frustration with a game from a Livejournal thread. I apologize for reading too much into it.

FWIW, I don't have time do all the math and statistics to figure out ideal combinations of abilities and gear, either. And I'm too old for that s*** :). That's why I rely on other players who do have the time and inclination. But I don't follow their builds and tactics verbatim. I take what they've done and tweak to fit my own play style.

[seawasp]

An example of where I Blame the Game is the Tomb Raider series. I've tried to play at least three of those, and no matter what, eventually I hit a point at which I simply CANNOT pull off whatever sequence of moves that they want, or I have spent four hours trying to figure out what the heck they want me to do. Usually both one after the other. In one instance, I hit that wall in the OPENING (i.e., the sequence that's just supposed to teach you how to use the controls defeated me). At that point I decided that cool though the games looked, I was never going to be able to play them.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

No argument there. The first, and last, Tomb Raider game I played is the first one and that was only for a few hours before I hit a proverbial wall. Not my kind of game.

[seawasp]

Games like that need a "geezer" option: "You've tried and failed three times. Would you like the game to get you past this obstacle?"

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

That's what god mode is for. :)

[seawasp]

Except that "god mode" isn't in my list of choices.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

No, not if you play console versions of games. Amusingly enough, it was DA:O that finally convinced me to always choose PC versions of games that are released on both PCs and consoles. The PC version of DA:O got the dual-dagger rogue damage fix. Last I knew the Xbox version never did, nor is it possible to edit the config files on the console to implement the fix by hand.

[seawasp]

I'd have to buy a PC for that to work, though.

I'm saying that such modes should BE choices. Why limit the player? If they want to go "Ultra hard mode, the Computer is a Cheating Bastard", great. If they want to go "A GOD AM I", fine. They paid for the game, they can play it their way.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Last I knew you had two: an iMac and a MacBook of some flavor. They're not high-end PCs but they're still PCs.

[seawasp]

Oh, usually when people say "PC" they mean "Windows" for 90%+ of games.

I'm not sure how I'd play games like DA on a regular computer. I really, really, *really* like the controller approach, and really, really, *really* hate keyboard controls. I gritted my teeth and used them when playing Escape Velocity Override/Nova, but overall I was very happy to give up mouse and keyboard control schemes once I got a dedicated console.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. Mac hardware has been able to run Windows just fine for something like 10 years, now. If dual-booting isn't your thing then I recommend Wineskin. I've had good results running Steam and games this way.

If you want a console-style controller then get a Logitech F310 game pad. Very good controller, and it works on Windows and Macintosh without needing special drivers.

[seawasp]

I tried Wineskin, it didn't seem to work; rather it would SORT of work, and then the game would crash/freeze.

My experiences with the emulators were that they slowed the computer down so much that you could play games... about six years older than everyone else. Is that still true, or is the emulation better now?

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

IME, games running under WINE (note: WINE Is Not an Emulator :)) run as fast as they do on Windows on the same hardware. Some games require tweaks which is why I recommend Wineskin: it has a very nice UI for that.

[seawasp]

"Tweaks" is one of those things that makes me shy away. I just want to play the game; the one Wineskin game I tried had some rather complex instructions involved in just getting it to work, and even then it only sorta-worked.

As opposed to most Mac games, and all PS* games, where you put the disc in, and play.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Don't fear the tweaks. They're necessary for tuning the WINE environment for various games' eccentricities. I say "eccentricities" when I really mean "crap code". Commercial game developers are notorious for poor code quality. WINE is under continuous, active development and it's always getting better at handling games' bad code.

As opposed to "most" Mac games just working? I wish. The list of Mac games that I own that don't just work is larger than the list of games that do work. Each iteration of OS X makes the not working list grow longer. It's a reason why I stopped being a Mac evangelist and stopped buying Mac games.

Console games do just work. Most of the time. But when they don't you're up the creek. Not getting bug fixes for Knights of the Old Republic sucked. Not getting bug fixes for Dragon Age sucked. Not getting bug fixes for DDS1 and DDS2 sucked. NB, I'm not trying to be down on consoles. I've owned more of them (including portables) than I've owned proper computers, and I still use the recent ones on a more or less regular basis. I'm just saying that when given a choice of platform I go with Windows first because at worst it usually sucks less than the other options.

It helps that Steam and GOG have been getting a lot of console games ported in. For example, I picked up Valkyria Chronicles a while back and Grandia II (IMO one of the best JRPGs ever) last month. Yes, I play them with a controller, and yes, they work just fine that way.

[seawasp]

Huh. I've NEVER had a problem with games not working on their original platform with Mac or console.

With games being OBSOLETED, yes, but that, as far as I could tell, was true with Windows, Mac, or console generation changes (and Sony did, to its partial credit, try to address that to some extent; my PS original games run fine on PS3).

It was in fact trying to play an obsoleted game (Alpha Centauri) that led me to try the Wineskin thing.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

"Dragon Age II", the last game for Macintosh that I bought, is officially not supported on Lion later despite the box requirements stating "Snow Leopard or greater". I've not tried running it on anything later than Snow Leopard (I never ran Lion on any hardware I personally owned). I'll try it on my work Mac with Yosemite tomorrow and let you know what happens.

The vast majority of console games I own run without problems. Noticeable bugs are few and far between but they do happen. Most recently I ran into several freeze bugs in "Class of Heroes 2" and possibly one in "Dungeon Travelers 2" (not sure if this was the game or the underlying OS).

As for SMAC? It's listed as "gold" on WineHQ. I don't own it so I can't test it for myself.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

So. The DA2 installer worked. That was a good sign.

Then the launcher failed to install the 1.04 patch, said something about key validation failure. After some searching about I found out how to download and manually apply the patch. Finally got the game to start.

Only to be stopped by the on-line authentication. More searching about for my EA account credentials. Found those, finally got the game to start? Yes. Started playing the introduction.

And it crashed at what I recall is a cut scene transition. I don't know if it was a problem with the game itself, the weaksauce video card in my iMac, or Apple's drivers. Which one doesn't really matter at this point, though. The game doesn't "just work" any more.

But I will give you this: I'd forgotten how horrible the keyboard and mouse controls are. If games like this are what you've been gauging PC/Windows gaming by then I can't blame you for preferring gamepads.

[seawasp]

Well, you'll note I said "on their original platform". I.e., once they change the OS on you, all bets are off. One reason I rarely changed OS's; at that point you're betting that the company making the OS is going to pay attention to whatever it was that made your game work, which isn't likely, and/or that the company making the game *CAN*, and *Will*, make an update that fixes any issues. That can range from "fairly likely" to "ain't ever happening" (the latter, for instance, is a real issue if you end up with a game whose company is no longer, like Kingdoms of Amalur).

Thus one of the major reasons for my preference for consoles. If they broke the games with an update (has happened on rare occasion) they will do a great deal to try to fix it, since the games are the raison d'etre of the console. For a general-purpose computer, it's Microsoft Office and web browsers that will get any attention paid to them. I kinda expect Word to keep working through multiple updates, partly because Microsoft expects to update them. Games? not so much. MAYBE you can get them to work. If you want to f**k around with finding updates and drivers, or maybe your video card sucks, or whatever.

And yes, you've now encountered my controller issue. Things like Oblivion, Dragon Age, Fallout, etc., are THE reason I play CRPGs. Things like SMAC are very strange exceptions; SMAC works fine on a keyboard. But RPGs like DA* and Elder Scrolls and Fallout? Not so much.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

My work iMac can't run Snow Leopard. Drivers for the hardware don't exist. This is true for every new Mac model since Lion's release. Thus my assertion about each iteration of Macintosh making existing games not work. I've had drastically fewer problems with games since I switched from Mac to Windows 7. All of the Windows XP games that I own that I've tried still work fine. Even some of my Windows 95/98 era games still work. None of my Mac games work on a current system.

I still have to disagree over the controls. I tried to play Skyrim and Fallout 3 with a game pad. I hated it. Quick and precise aiming is difficult/impossible without a decent mouse.

[seawasp]

Maybe our brains and hands work differently. I had no trouble making headshots in my PS3 versions of both Skyrim and Fallout. (Fallout of course has the VATS which reduces the need to bother to be accurate personally, but sometimes I enjoyed doing it myself, and I was able to take down Deathclaws quickly from range without much difficulty.

By contrast I found trying to do games with mice or, more commonly since I have laptops, trackpads, wasn't really happening. Oh, with a mouse I can be pretty accurate... if I have all the time in the world. But if it's a "quick, react, aim, shoot!!!" situation, the game controller is lightyears better for me.

Or perhaps the different difficulty levels also make aiming harder.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Possibly. I think what bugs me most is that tracking speed with a controller is fixed. If it tracks at, say, 90 degrees per second then it's always 90 degrees per second. A second is a long time when you have two or three Deathclaws charging at you from different directions.

Tracking speed with a mouse is entirely based on how much I move my hand. I can move a little or a lot as the situation dictates. I can track and fire off two to four on-target shots with a mouse in the same time it takes to get just one shot off with the controller, or I can nudge my aim in order to hit a Deathclaw in its left eye with a gauss rifle. I can't do both with a thumb stick.

Notebook trackpads absolutely suck for games. That's why I have an extra mouse which I stuff in my pack.

[seawasp]

I can see that. Trackpads are the best compromises for a laptop, but they're not matching a mouse.

Honestly, aside from things like NWN (which I can't play any more with the updates) and EVN, I can't see wanting to play games on the laptop much anyway; the screen's too small. I also like gaming in comfort -- i.e., not sitting at a desk, which I do all day at work -- which eliminates any surface that a mouse would work on. So game controllers are winning by default.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I found the Mac version of NWN to be flaky. MacSoft did a pretty half-ased job with the port. The Windows version running under WINE on Mac and Linux always worked better for me.

You could grab the NWN Diamond Edition from GOG. It's ten bucks, includes the two expansions, the three Kingmaker set modules without needing a network connection to use them, and it's solid under WINE although you may need to rename the executable if you have an ATI/AMD video card due to some broken attempts at optimizations in the drivers.

[seawasp]

That's tempting. What will I have to do to actually make them run? As I said, I tried to do it with SMAC, and it sort-of-works (starts, crashes, starts, runs for an unpredictable time).

Another thought: does that edition allow the dungeon-making tools to work, also? Because that was what really sucked about the Mac version of NWN and NWN2.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

It's probably easiest to use doh123's NWN wrapper and follow the instructions included in the zip file:
https://www.mediafire.com/?2img3h1oh8j03
doh123 is Wineskin's author, FWIW. Porting Team has a wrapper for SMAC that you might want to try (registration required):
http://portingteam.com/files/file/7695-sid-meiers-alpha-centauri/

WineHQ lists the toolset as working but it doesn't work with doh123's NWN wrapper.