Dragon Age 2

alright this *** comes out in 2 days over here in amurica, who else is buyin it simply to hold them over until the orgasm that is skyrim comes out? dont get me wrong DA2 is lookin to be pretty sweet too

Everything between 20 March, 2006 and 11 November, 2011 is filler! But in all seriousness, looking forward to DA2. Preordered the signature edition and will be attending the midnight launch.

doh lucky! i asked my gamestop if they had any collectors but they didnt know there was one ._. im hopin they got one though be nice to not have to pay for content thats already on the damn disc

Signature edition was only preorderable up until I think some time in January. It contains all of the preorder and collector's DLC stuff to my knowledge, dunno what else it entails, but I think it's all only the DLC stuff that has been announced as preorder bonuses.

I'll be getting it..

I'm so excited for both!!!!

I just need to figure out what system to get it for.. PC PS3 or XBOX

I'd go PC, but personally that's just me. Console versions of games that are also on PC tend to be more prone to problems than vice versa.

I'm waiting to see how good it is, I should know with the Bioware pedigree, but every video I see throws up a lot of doubt. I played the demo, and liked it, but I also liked the Too Human demo, and that game was pretty bad.

For skyrim I think i will get console version at first so I dont have the temptation of using cheat codes or mods lol.

Isnt the battle system for the console versions of DA2 better? Heard the PCs battle system is the same as the first game

Well then good, I like the battle system of the first.

Well that works. Still think they should have made the PC battles able to switch like choose either like the first or more action like the console version of DA2

I can't vouch for the PC version but I downloaded and played the PS3 demo and it seemed to work nicely. I did find that it got quite over crowded when your party got rushed by a few mobs and you're left trying to figure out who's fighting who/what. Very hack 'n slash where u spam the x-button in between waiting for your Abilities to be ready. But again...this is only in the demo...you may be able to use more strategy in-game and "pluck" harder mobs to fight by themselves.

I agree it seems that Bioware is going more hack and slash with DA2 instead of the tactical of the original. But then agian I've only played the PS3 demo as well

I'll be pirating it. Bioware has really disappointed me recently with the amount of DLC they are peddling. Especially with DAII, I don't think it's acceptable to have Day one DLC so yeah.

Also the demo was bad.

you're such a pirate

You're not the only one.

I'm definitely looking forward to Dragon Age 2.
I haven't bought a console game since FF13, but I'm definitely getting this one. It looks and sounds awesome.

Anyone actually get into playing it yet? Is it as good as the first one?

For those upset about DLC, expect to see a lot more of it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say you should expect every game to have it within a few years.

Making a game is understandably expensive, but it's even more expensive to press CD's, make boxes, print manuals, ship them to retail stores, pay an enormous cut (sometimes more than half) to the publisher and store, etc.

Game studios would much rather sell their games for what they're already making -- maybe $15-20 or so -- and just get them directly into the hands of the consumer. They'd sell a lot more product that way. Unfortunately, publishers and retail giants oppose this pretty strongly.

The way studios are trying to get around it is by offering DLC, sometimes on day one.

DLC sales go (mostly) straight into the studios' pockets without the middle men, with very little risk in terms of operational overhead. And with anywhere from 6-26% of gamers reportedly paying for DLC, (and growing rapidly), it's starting to get pretty stupid not to use it as part of your development strategy.

The only problem I have with DLC is the fact that America's internet infrastructure and stability are far under par, considering the large amounts of areas that are still unable to obtain high speed internet it's quite sad.

As for the studios making more profit instead of retail giants, *** yeah!

It really disappoints me. And I'd venture a guess that an increase in expensive DLC will be synonymous with an increase in piracy to be honest.

And another problem is, they won't sell the game for $15-20 they'll still slap the full RRP on it as well as expensive day one DLC.

Everyone that pre ordered the game before a certain date got the dlc for free. Even then I don't think the 1 dlc was that expensive.

They also gave a lot of free dlc away through promotions.

Typical BioWare romance.

And yeah, them DLCs. I love the idea of more for my vidya, but it seems a little shady when a good chunk of the game seems missing for later DLC use. Could be just me and my paranoia, since it's ungrounded observation (half of New Vegas seemingly missing for future use as an example).

It's said there's been instances where the payer simply pays to unlock data already on the disk (Soul Calibur IV comes to mind).

Not so sure about this.

Look at digital music sales. What we've seen there is that people are happier paying $1.20 for one or two songs they like, rather than $20 for the entire album they likely don't give a rat's *** about. Retail record stores can't keep up, and are folding like lawn chairs left and right.

At the same time, cutting out the middle men in terms of delivery, packaging, shipping, etc means that overall, costs to consumers are going down. The average cost, per song you actually care about, is 1/10th what it used to be in some instances, compared to 10 years ago.

At the same time, the amount of money actually ending up in musicians' hands is increasing, and the increased competition on a per-song basis is arguably only going to drive quality up over time.

I can totally see the game sales landscape following this same trend over the next few years. So do big publishers and retail giants like GameStop. They see the writing on the wall, and are panicking.

They still want their $60 for the box off the shelf, because that's how they make their money, existence of DLC be damned. But that's probably gunna be a losing battle over time.

Gamestop is actually in the middle of a class action lawsuit over DLC atm. Developers will make box art that says "xxxx DLC included!" and people buy new, and get the DLC. But when they trade it back, the person that buys it used obviously wont get the DLC.

Edit: linkify http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108264-GameStop-Nailed-With-Class-Action-Over-Deceptive-Used-Sales

I know it seems shady, but try not to hold it against the studio. The logic goes like this:

1) I can sell 100% of the game off a shelf for $10. Of that, I give half to the publisher and retailer, and I'm left with $5.

OR

2) I can sell 50% of the game off a shelf for $5. Of that, I give half to the publisher and retailer, and I'm left with $2.50.

But then I sell the last half of the game for another $5, which I get to keep. The consumer still paid $10, but I'm left with $7.50.

That's $2.50 I can turn around and make better games with.