Mass Effect 3 or Skyrim?

[Dirt E Gomez]

Dirt ...... No. Just, no.

Right now tell me: what was the Plot of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Don't tell me what you did, tell me the plot. Tell me the why. Tell me the who.

Dragon Age 2 had many, many faults that were judged more harshly because the standard was set so high for DA2. While Oblivion was a better game in terms of what it compared against around its release, DA2 stands better in hindsight.

[Grand Champ]

Right now tell me: what was the Plot of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Don't tell me what you did, tell me the plot. Tell me the why. Tell me the who.

Dragon Age 2 had many, many faults that were judged more harshly because the standard was set so high for DA2. While Oblivion was a better game in terms of what it compared against around its release, DA2 stands better in hindsight.

The plot in Oblivion WAS weak but DA2 was a straight up pain.. You play as a ''hero'' you have no connection to then you reach Kirkwall and play as an errand boy for a bunch of hours, then you head to the deep roads which turn out to be trivial and now you're suddenly important....

There was so many fundamental flaws with DA2 from the narrator who would tell you what happened next before you played it to the same re-used dungeon you would play in throughout the game! Not to forget the atrocious waves after waves of generic enemies that ****** all life out of strategic gameplay and turned it into a hack n' slash or on, higher difficulty, a trial and error game where you had to learn the gimmick of the next wave and grind it out.

Even the famous bioware character development for the companions was atrocious - walking from one end of the city to the next and hope your bi***ual companions (whom you no longer can equip items on) would have a new line of dialogue for you......

Point is, a sandbox RPG like DA2 should've been much more focused, and polished and not dumbed down to the point where you get a linear dumbed down hack n' slash ''RPG'' with a mediocre story.

Oblivion had its flaws, it was very superficial but it made up for it with the shear amount of content, freedom, gameplay and exploration!

[Ether]

I didn't even bother finishing the DA2 demo.

[Grand Champ]

I didn't even bother finishing the DA2 demo.

You didn't miss out on anything.. Bioware got whipped by EA to turn Dragon Age into a cash in, rush title. Forced the ME2 formula on the franchise and failed miserable.

[Dirt E Gomez]

There was so many fundamental flaws with DA2 from the narrator who would tell you what happened next before you played it to the same re-used dungeon you would play in throughout the game! Not to forget the atrocious waves after waves of generic enemies that ****** all life out of strategic gameplay and turned it into a hack n' slash or on, higher difficulty, a trial and error game where you had to learn the gimmick of the next wave and grind it out.

These exact same arguments could be made for oblivion. A hundred identical encounters of useless enemies on the road or in caves that serve no purpose to advancing the plot or game. It quickly turns into a hack n' slash or spell spamming because magic is overpowered as **** and you regen mp fast or you get such a strong weapon that you kill most opponents in just a few melee swings.

Don't get me wrong on DA2's difficulty though. It was bad on the the highest difficulty. The whole game revolved around not dying to rogues, and some fights you'd be forced to rinse and repeat until you landed a couple of good crits to finish them off before they kill your party. That said, on simply "hard" instead of insane or whatever, the combat was still fun. It was extremely fluid and fast paced, and you felt in control of your party and characters.

Even the famous bioware character development for the companions was atrocious - walking from one end of the city to the next and hope your bi***ual companions (whom you no longer can equip items on) would have a new line of dialogue for you......

The characters were all rich and deep and made for entertaining dialogue and overall an enjoying story. Obviously, Bioware ****ed up by having character stories more important than actual plot (similarly to ME2, but done more poorly), but it was still interesting. Whereas ever aspect of plot inside Oblivion was lacking.

Point is, a sandbox RPG like DA2 should've been much more focused, and polished and not dumbed down to the point where you get a linear dumbed down hack n' slash ''RPG'' with a mediocre story.

DA2 isn't a sandbox RPG. That's why people are so frustrated by it. Even DA:O I wouldn't qualify as a sandbox game, but it felt more like one, especially compared to DA2. However, that wasn't the game's aim or focus, and makes it fundamentally different than what the Elder Scroll Series tried. I didn't love DA2, but I know I'll play it again in the future, whereas I haven't touched oblivion since my second playthrough ages ago.

That being said, to focus on the original topic a little, that doesn't mean I wont love Skyrim. Bioware's rushing of some of its game worries me a lot, but knowing this is the last in the series and the care they put into ME2, I have to feel that amount of care will translate to ME3 as well. I'd prefer to hear they were releasing it 6 months after their present expected release time, but only time will tell which is better. Either way, both games will make my **** hard.

[gatagata]

These exact same arguments could be made for oblivion. A hundred identical encounters of useless enemies on the road or in caves that serve no purpose to advancing the plot or game. It quickly turns into a hack n' slash or spell spamming because magic is overpowered as **** and you regen mp fast or you get such a strong weapon that you kill most opponents in just a few melee swings.

Don't get me wrong on DA2's difficulty though. It was bad on the the highest difficulty. The whole game revolved around not dying to rogues, and some fights you'd be forced to rinse and repeat until you landed a couple of good crits to finish them off before they kill your party. That said, on simply "hard" instead of insane or whatever, the combat was still fun. It was extremely fluid and fast paced, and you felt in control of your party and characters.



The characters were all rich and deep and made for entertaining dialogue and overall an enjoying story. Obviously, Bioware ****ed up by having character stories more important than actual plot (similarly to ME2, but done more poorly), but it was still interesting. Whereas ever aspect of plot inside Oblivion was lacking.



DA2 isn't a sandbox RPG. That's why people are so frustrated by it. Even DA:O I wouldn't qualify as a sandbox game, but it felt more like one, especially compared to DA2. However, that wasn't the game's aim or focus, and makes it fundamentally different than what the Elder Scroll Series tried. I didn't love DA2, but I know I'll play it again in the future, whereas I haven't touched oblivion since my second playthrough ages ago.

That being said, to focus on the original topic a little, that doesn't mean I wont love Skyrim. Bioware's rushing of some of its game worries me a lot, but knowing this is the last in the series and the care they put into ME2, I have to feel that amount of care will translate to ME3 as well. I'd prefer to hear they were releasing it 6 months after their present expected release time, but only time will tell which is better. Either way, both games will make my **** hard.

Why do you always write such ****ing novels. Can't even bring myself to start reading it.

[Dirt E Gomez]

Why do you always write such ****ing novels. Can't even bring myself to start reading it.

Because it's 5:00am and I'm not exactly in a hurry to do anything, so I'll take a few minutes to type up a well thought out post as opposed to a paragraph that can't articulate all of my points.

Also, 5 paragraphs is nothing. I could write 30 paragraphs about the Witcher 2 and post it up since it's fresh on my mind.

[Grand Champ]

These exact same arguments could be made for oblivion. A hundred identical encounters of useless enemies on the road or in caves that serve no purpose to advancing the plot or game. It quickly turns into a hack n' slash or spell spamming because magic is overpowered as **** and you regen mp fast or you get such a strong weapon that you kill most opponents in just a few melee swings.

Don't get me wrong on DA2's difficulty though. It was bad on the the highest difficulty. The whole game revolved around not dying to rogues, and some fights you'd be forced to rinse and repeat until you landed a couple of good crits to finish them off before they kill your party. That said, on simply "hard" instead of insane or whatever, the combat was still fun. It was extremely fluid and fast paced, and you felt in control of your party and characters.



The characters were all rich and deep and made for entertaining dialogue and overall an enjoying story. Obviously, Bioware ****ed up by having character stories more important than actual plot (similarly to ME2, but done more poorly), but it was still interesting. Whereas ever aspect of plot inside Oblivion was lacking.



DA2 isn't a sandbox RPG. That's why people are so frustrated by it. Even DA:O I wouldn't qualify as a sandbox game, but it felt more like one, especially compared to DA2. However, that wasn't the game's aim or focus, and makes it fundamentally different than what the Elder Scroll Series tried. I didn't love DA2, but I know I'll play it again in the future, whereas I haven't touched oblivion since my second playthrough ages ago.

That being said, to focus on the original topic a little, that doesn't mean I wont love Skyrim. Bioware's rushing of some of its game worries me a lot, but knowing this is the last in the series and the care they put into ME2, I have to feel that amount of care will translate to ME3 as well. I'd prefer to hear they were releasing it 6 months after their present expected release time, but only time will tell which is better. Either way, both games will make my **** hard.

True enough, Oblivion did have huge balance problems if you knew how the gameplay functioned you could easily exploit it. From the poisons on master alchemy level that would deal 600+ life damage over 30seconds or the redicoulous 100% chameleon on gear.. Still, it became sort of a personal challenge to find different ways of turning myself into a living GOD without cheating, only using the vanilla gameplay as was given to me.

I'm not gonna start making a scene and say Oblivion was without flaws cuz that would be a lie, the main plot was repetitive as fuck, and it serously lacked some good companions or colourful characters (personality wise) but they sort of redeemed themselves with the Shivering Isles expansion, and the ever so interesting Sheogorath the Madgod! still one of my favourite expansions to this date!

DA2 on the other hand was a whole different beast for me to tacle, I didn't care for any of the PC transgender companions what so ever, except maybe the pirate with the big ******* and hated that I in and RPG couldn't customize them to my liking and style of play. I found the gameplay insanely repititive with the waves, and the story did not draw me in at all. Maybe I'm judging the game too harshly because they dropped the ball so bad compared to Orgins and I expect much of Bioware. But Dirt, both you and me know Bioware can do soooooooo much better than what they gave us with DA2.. It had cash in title written all over it.

[Dirt E Gomez]

Blame EA. They **** good game companies and turn them into shadow of their former selves by forcing deadlines and firing many people who disagree with them. DA2 was definitely rushed. No doubt about it at all. I have a little bit of added faith to ME3 because ME2 was still a masterpiece, and you could see the massive improvements to its weakest elements from 1 to 2. I'm glad they extended the release date to push it back a couple of months, but it feels more like they did it just so Star Wars the Old Republic didn't come out as close to it compared to simply spending more time polishing.

I will say something in regards to DA2 though, and the characters were really, really hit and miss. Anders was a whiny *****, Merril was boring, and you brother or sister were non-existent and empty shirts even when they were in the party. Aveline wasn't too interesting, but some of her banter with Isabela made up for it. Isabela was a dirty pirate hooker, but had her moments. Fenris was emo as ****, but still awesome 90% of the time. Varric was one of the best character companions in any rpg I've ever played. The best of both dragon age games, no doubt.

[KESSLER]

Skyrim all the way.