Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - First Impressions

So how does the pawn system work if one chooses to play in offline mode? Are the pawns and their stats just randomly generated by the game?
 
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You've never really mentioned it before, Brumbek. Tbh, I'd have never guessed that you'd even played it just by talking to you on the forums. I don't buy it, and if you want to convince me that you like this game even a little bit, you'll probably need to talk about it some more.
So tempting! Must...resist...urges...hey, did I tell you guys Dogma has one of the most insanely interesting stories? It starts real generic for the first 10 hours or so, but then gets all trippy. And then it gets really interesting with metaphysical concepts and stuff. It's very much like Alice going down the rabbit hole. IT. IS. AWESOME!

So how does the pawn system work if one chooses to play in offline mode? Are the pawns and their stats just randomly generated by the game?

Yes. Exactly this. I played almost all of my 200 hours offline because I'm unfit for society. You make a main pawn at the beginning of your adventure and you can equip he/she with gear and change classes and skills. The other two pawns you pick from a pool of random pawns, and you can favorite certain ones.

If you are playing online, you can "rent" another player's main pawn for a time, which is a fun way to share with others and you can give them gift items if you enjoy their pawn. Again, this online part is TOTALLY optional. It isn't obnoxious or forced at all, but it's there for fun.
 
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Wait... what? More than 30 FPS doesn't add to the game experience!
 
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Wait… what? More than 30 FPS doesn't add to the game experience!

The original Dragon's Dogma on console would often slow down to about 10 FPS. It would literally go in slow motion. And I have to say it really helped to give you time to think and contemplate life when the game slowed down to 10 FPS. Sadly, the PC version runs at 60-150 FPS...which means no slowdowns and silky smooth gameplay. Oh well... ;)

AND HAPPY NEW YEAR. I want to take this time to thank everyone at RPGWatch. I know I can be difficult at times with my crazy love for some games, my deep agitation for others, and my general paranoia and my shifty eyes...I could go on. HUGS TO EVERYONE.
 
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The original Dragon's Dogma on console would often slow down to about 10 FPS. It would literally go in slow motion. And I have to say it really helped to give you time to think and contemplate life when the game slowed down to 10 FPS. Sadly, the PC version runs at 60-150 FPS…which means no slowdowns and silky smooth gameplay. Oh well… ;)

Was that on Xbox? I never had anything remotely like a slowdown on PS3, no matter how much crazy stuff was going on.
 
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Thanks for the info everyone. I'll probably get this when it comes out - as long as I can play offline and I'm not forced to be social ;-) then I'll be happy . And happy new year too!

You can definitely play offline, the entire time, without ever interacting with another human being. :)
 
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Was that on Xbox? I never had anything remotely like a slowdown on PS3, no matter how much crazy stuff was going on.
The 360 and PS3 versions both suffered from persistent, unavoidable slowdowns. I play on PS3, personally. Most of the slowdown was from casting spells. If you didn't encounter slowdowns then you must not have gotten far enough to encounter many magic-casting enemies, and you probably didn't personally use the sorcerer spells. I assure you the slowdown was real, and it was intense. ;)

You can definitely play offline, the entire time, without ever interacting with another human being. :)
Yep! Just like I'm doing now, you can simply choose to not be online and only interact with semi-random offfline AI pawns…like all of you. Right?!?!
 
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So…

Returning to the question regarding mouse and keyboard: Do we know how well it will play for we old Luddite gamers that prefer M+K?
Given Capcoms past PC ports it's usually hit or miss. :thinking:

As I haven't played this yet I cant officially comment.
 
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Returning to the question regarding mouse and keyboard: Do we know how well it will play for we old Luddite gamers that prefer M+K?
We just have to wait and see but the several previews from sites like RPS and Destructoid had nothing bad to say about the KB/M (the preview pictures do show a mouse cursor in the menus which means it should be great).

Destructoid Quote:

Playing on a keyboard and mouse feels rather comfortable, and I'm generally not happy with third-person action games using this control scheme. The keyboard keys can be remapped, so if the defaults don't tickle your fancy, change them! The individual controller buttons cannot be changed, but there are six different control schemes provided. The game also automatically detects the controller (in my case, an Xbox One gamepad) immediately and even adjusts the button prompts.


Nearly all recent Capcom ports have had perfectly fine KB/M. Short list of them below:

RE5
DMC4
DmC
RE6 (fine controls, but worst game ever)
 
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Oh well, I will just plug in my xbox one controller:) works perfectly good:)
 
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Playing on a keyboard and mouse feels rather comfortable, and I'm generally not happy with third-person action games using this control scheme. The keyboard keys can be remapped, so if the defaults don't tickle your fancy, change them! )

Thanks
 
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You make a main pawn at the beginning of your adventure and you can equip he/she with gear and change classes and skills. The other two pawns you pick from a pool of random pawns, and you can favorite certain ones.

So wait, you only get to design the "main" pawn, not the secondary ones? That's disappointing.
 
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So wait, you only get to design the "main" pawn, not the secondary ones? That's disappointing.

The main pawn is a constant companion, you select its appearance, vocation, skills, level-up options, etc and its behavior evolve based on how the player play the game. It's basically a secondary character with a fancy AI.

The other two pawns are hired adventurers. They don't level up and getting the same one back after they went *poof* require searching for them. That is also where the online features comes into play: you can hire unique pawns from other players and gift items to other players through them.
 
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So wait, you only get to design the "main" pawn, not the secondary ones? That's disappointing.

I know. :-/ Though when you go into the "pawn cave" there's a seemingly limitless amount of pawns that are available, either randomized or someone else's creation (maybe both - Brumbek can answer this one) - and you can eventually find one or two that suit your fancy. Then, if I remember right, there's an option to favorite them so you can find them again easily if you need to.

Edit: Ah, right. Brumbek already explained what I was trying to say (though you probably already read all of it…):

Yes. Exactly this. I played almost all of my 200 hours offline because I'm unfit for society. You make a main pawn at the beginning of your adventure and you can equip he/she with gear and change classes and skills. The other two pawns you pick from a pool of random pawns, and you can favorite certain ones.

If you are playing online, you can "rent" another player's main pawn for a time, which is a fun way to share with others and you can give them gift items if you enjoy their pawn. Again, this online part is TOTALLY optional. It isn't obnoxious or forced at all, but it's there for fun.

So it ends up not so bad. You can usually fill out your party to your liking.
 
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Okay, thanks for the explanation. Can you at the very least rename them, or is even that not possible?
 
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