A question about Biowares work.

[Harabec Weathers]

Hey guys, Ive been hearing a lot about Dragon Age but never read much about it since Im leaving for Marine Corps boot camp soon, so I cant really cant get too involved in any games right now lol.

So far Im hearing pretty good things about the game, but I know nothing at all about the story, style of gameplay, etc etc.

 

One thing did catch my eye though, its made by Bioware.

 

The reason I bring this up is because of previous PC titles released by Bioware. Primarily Mass Effect for the PC.

I found that game to be almost unplayable because of the bugs (even after patches) and system locks I would get while trying to play it. Not to mention the fact that I HAD to be connected to the internet just to play Mass Effect, that really irritated me to no end.

Now I understand that no game is perfect and there are always going to be bugs, but what bothered me about Bioware is that pleas for help on their forums went ingnored, bugs werent fixed, etc etc. From what I understand if you had an Intel core, Mass Effect would run fine. Ok, well thats all well and good but theres a lot of people who also use AMD cores (ME!) and the game simply did not want to run on a platform with an AMD core. All my system specs were definately up to par, but the game would crash and crash and crash. I called Bioware, I posted on forums, and even after the patch, the game ran no differently.

 

Now Im not trying to bash Bioware or anything like that, but that whole experience has left a pretty bad taste for them with me.

Since mods are popping up Im assuming the PC version is out by now.

 

I gotta ask is this game buggy? Unstable? Fitted to run on Intel cores or anything like that?

If it is, them I simply wont get it. Im very fond of my AMD 6400 BLACK and have no desire to go to an Intel quad when my AMD dual is screaming fast.

 

I guess Im just looking for general gameplay and performance of the game itself.

 

Any input?

[Thasic]

I played the game for about 3 hours prior to the first patch and I didn't run into any bugs at all. I also played ME beginning to end twice and never ran into any problems either. A lot of the time game play problems are due to the rig you're running. I play on a Dell machine with an i7 processor and 4 gb ram. I also use a high end Radeon video card. I guess what I'm saying is my experiences and yours may vary a lot due to having different rigs. More to the point I haven't heard of any significant problems with this game.

[VictoriaG]

Bugwise, this game and Mass Effect are paradise compared to Oblivion/Fallout.

[JimboUK]

http://thenexusforums.com/index.php?showtopic=163526

 

There's a couple of things mentioned in this thread but Floydian is right, it is flawless work of art compared to Oblivion and Fallout. There's been one patch already, they're working on a patch for the toolset and they're still talking to people on the forums, collecting info on problems. They're not ignoring the issues like some developers do.

[Harabec Weathers]

Hmmmm maybe Ill end up getting this one lol. Thanks for the info.

[jwvanderbeck]

Bioware has always been one of my favorite companies. They really understand and care about the CRAFT of game making and storytelling. They have created the gems such as the Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale and of course one of the best games ever made, Neverwinter Nights.

 

Unfortunately, I HATE EA as much as I love Bioware. EA is a darn anchor pulling down the spirit of Bioware and tainting an otherwise stellar company. I almost swear the distribution of Mass Effect was designed by EA to destroy Bioware.

 

With Dragon Age I still see EA's damned influence but it looks like they backed off at least a small amount, thankfully.

[Curious002]

DA doesnt have many bugs. I didnt had any crash yet.

[ericazwel]

I am running DA:O on a 7 years old machine with a AMD Athalon 3500+, 2 gigs ram, a decent video card and an Xtreme sound card and haven't has any issues with the game. Oblivion limps along compared to DA:O. The only issue I have had is with the EA side of the deal. And the first patch that wouldn't allow me to start thegame. It was fixed pretty quick. Problems downloading and extracting DLC's. Attributing that to heavy server load. I am thoroughly enjoying this game.

[neeyonlytz]

OOOrah! Semper Fi Marines!

 

Sorry just had to get that out of my system having served in the corps myself for eight years. Stay tough in boot camp, recruit! The light at the end of the tunnel will get closer as each day passes. It's only 90 days, albeit, it's probably the toughest 90 days you have ever done. Stay tough and you will earn the right to wear that eagle, globe and anchor.

 

Back on topic...

 

As other posters above have said, Bioware is the story teller of the gaming industry. They weave the most engaging tales in RPG's that I have played. Much like a good book that you fondly reminesce of characters and situations that involve them, I have many fond memories of the games I have played bearing the Bioware title. This game is no deviation from their tried formula. It is epic and engaging.

 

As far as running it on a 7 year old AMD machine, I have seen this game scale down considerably on my friends PC and he is running it on an Intel first generation dual core machine with a Geforce 8800 and 2 gigs of ram. That's probably a low to midline system according to system requirements and he manages to run it with some of the bells and whistles turned on. Instability is not an issue here. Rock solid so far unless you run some programs in the background. That's definitely not recommended with this game as it is a resource hog. My recommendation is definitely get it and enjoy it.