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This game deserves its own topic now that its been released. I've been playing it since Monday and it is awesome. Finally a game that is worth every cent, I mean I'm still not done even a quarter of the game even though I've been playing it all week. Take that stupid shooters with 2 hours of playtime. There's lots of cool stuff I could mention about this game, but since the game is full of awesomeness I'd rather not waste my time.
Instead if there's something that I should complain about, it would be once again, yes you guessed it, inventory system. It's miles better than what we saw in Mass Effect, but I still would have preferred something like what was in good 'ol Baldur's Gate, only with some sort of advanced sorting options. My inventory is a horrid mess right now and I have no friggin' clue which items actually take up space in there and which do not, yes some items besides of quest items are weightless. Good luck guessing which because inspection doesn't say. Also, inventory doesn't really optimally make use of the screen estate available at higher resolutions.
Another complaint would be crafting. It took me a long while to realize that you actually need to buy recipes from merchants or loot them. Which is strange because I have yet to loot a single recipe or seen a merchant selling recipes. So I'm getting by with lesser health pots, having expended all my lesser mana pots already with no materials to craft new ones not to mention higher level pots. This really could have been designed to be more intuitive and obvious. Today I'll have to go and make a round to look for the usual suspects to see if any merchants are actually selling those goddamn recipes.
Oh and thirdly. For some reason the game, or its launcher doesn't seem to notify you in any way if there's a patch available. Which is certainly a step down from Neverwinter Nights. I only realized there was a patch out when I was googling wtf is with crafting system recipes. I took such a feature for granted really.
So, Bioware didn't quite get these two aspects right as both of them can be classified as design failures. While these are certainly important parts of the overall gaming experience, rest of the game makes up for it by being so awesome.
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My biggest complaint with DA:O ended up being the story.
The characters are generally very enjoyable, but the main plot is awfully trite. The darkspawn threat is abstract, Loghain is more of an obstacle than a force of opposition, and as a whole it feels very impersonal. Maybe the worst offender is the archdemon, who just doesn't really work as the main antagonist. I mean, it's a dragon. You kill it: the end.
Not that I would count the game as a disappointment. It's a very good effort in practically every other respect. I was just hoping for a story with a little more to it.
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Spoiler tags added, don't forget to use them.
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There's nothing in there you don't find out in the first hour or two, but fair enough.
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I was going to start a thread about this last night but didn't so you beat me to it :). Was considering purchasing this but wasn't sure if it was worth 25 of my hard earned pounds or not. On the other hand EVERY article, review or even general comment about this game has been extremely positive. I think the biggest problem i have is that I'm not a huge RPG fan, tho do have both kotor's and mass effect, but the closest I've played to this would probably be the witcher . How does it compare to that?
Also, I've never played any of the Baldurs Gate games. Is that going to be a problem if i get this?
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it needed to have a twist. i was disappointed at the lack of twist
otherwise, tons of fun. Much harder than KotOR. And Fury, it sounds like you need to get Wynne in your party ASAP.
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Odd, I've never heard of this game. RPG I'm gonna assume?
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I am loving the game! pure genius, got the collectors edition and watched the making. I didn't realise captain janeway from star trek was in it. Also the soundtrack is beautiful. Bioware have never made a bad game.
Odd, I've never heard of this game. RPG I'm gonna assume?
Yip its the spiritual successor to baldurs gate.
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it needed to have a twist. i was disappointed at the lack of twist
otherwise, tons of fun. Much harder than KotOR. And Fury, it sounds like you need to get Wynne in your party ASAP.
Honestly, just because Baldur's Gate and KotoR had (seen a mile away for most people) massive plot twists doesn't mean that it was needed in Dragon Age. For that matter, even Mass Effect had a pretty major and nasty one. Something more on par with that, turning the mythology of what the darkspawn are on its head, might have been good however.
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Wouldn't not having a twist be a twist?
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I imagine the 'twist' is coming in a sequel, if in fact
The whole Morrigan child thing turns out to be more devious than it appears. If you let that option happen, I can see some very dire consequences for the next game. I also imagine that will turn out to be the 'official' ending. They also do reveal several smaller twists during the game. Flemeth's immorality, the long term effects of the taint in the grey wardens, and the archdemon killing solution
I thoroughly enjoyed the game myself, and thought the story and the characters were both excellent. I didn't need for there to be some big twist to enjoy it. I'm happier without it, actually.
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can you still get Morrigan preggers if you have a girl character?
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Wouldn't not having a twist be a twist?
Man has a point. If they set you up for the last several games to expect one and it doesn't come, they still fooled you. :P
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yeah but in this case, the twist would mean having a final battle that wasnt a final battle at all. that would be really neat, if they built it up the way they did, with everyone being all 'so this is how it is, at the end' and then it WASNT THE END and it totally caught you off guard and you still had another 20 hours of gameplay and you are really Darth Revan or something. :-P
oh yeah btw this is Tura im just posting on iamzacks tiny little netbook
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It seems you've enabled the enabler of llamas one more post recognized by the HLP...
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Enchantment?
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Enchantment!
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...Something more on par with that, turning the mythology of what the darkspawn are on its head, might have been good however.
You mean the space ship depicted in the intro cinematic is not enough of a twist in the origin story of the darkspawn? :p
(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4964/dragonagespaceship.png)
"The Mages had sought to usurp Heaven; but instead, they destroyed it..."
Of course, I might be reading too much between the lines, but if I'm correct in my assumption, then Thedas might be one case of this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AfterTheEnd)... or more likely this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndManGrewProud). :nervous:
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You (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheTetrisEffect) just (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArchiveBinge) had (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WikiWalk) to (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArchivePanic) go (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrowserNarcotic) there (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife) didn't you. Now I won't get to bed tonight.
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...Something more on par with that, turning the mythology of what the darkspawn are on its head, might have been good however.
You mean the space ship depicted in the intro cinematic is not enough of a twist in the origin story of the darkspawn? :p
(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4964/dragonagespaceship.png)
"The Mages had sought to usurp Heaven; but instead, they destroyed it..."
Of course, I might be reading too much between the lines, but if I'm correct in my assumption, then Thedas might be one case of this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AfterTheEnd)... or more likely this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndManGrewProud). :nervous:
funky, is that the Mass effect spaceship?
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funky, is that the Mass effect spaceship?
It could be. There are some similarities, but they are somewhat limited nonetheless.
(http://www.completemasseffect.com/images/b/b8/Normandy_spec_sheet_1200.jpg)
It might just be epileptic trees, but nonetheless it's an interesting possibility to think of while playing the game...
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No wonder the Reapers want to wipe out all organic life, it's to prevent Blights :p
I wonder what indoctrination would do to Fade spirits...
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Been having quite a ball with this, but a few sore points ...
I think the game needs a stash. Desperately. I'm a walking armory now, lugging around all my unique weapons and runes. Also, ingredients are hard to find once you start really getting into the whole crafting thing. And not enough magical boomz for my liking. Also, during a certain defensive mission, I laid traps down, but they removed them for the actualy defense, and then after the battle was over, lo and behold! My traps!
But the game is freaking awesome! I don't know if any of you have noticed the sync kills your melee characters get, but I love watching the decapitations. Especially the sync kill on the dragon. I wonder what if you're a two-hander ... The characters are very memorable, especially Shale and the mabari. I like watching the dog needle Morrigan.
Yeah, the story is a bit limp though.
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Still in the early stages, quite enjoying it so far, but it's still to early to form an opinion, nice gameplay, but so far, too much of the 'wander round and talk to people' syndrome for my taste, hopefully there's more bashing and less chatting later on...
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I think the game needs a stash. Desperately. I'm a walking armory now, lugging around all my unique weapons and runes.
There is, it's the Warden's Keep which comes with some versions of the game like Shale. You can't have both for free I think, but you can buy it. IMHO it's stupid to have those two as DLC's because they are both notable part of the game.
Still in the early stages, quite enjoying it so far, but it's still to early to form an opinion, nice gameplay, but so far, too much of the 'wander round and talk to people' syndrome for my taste, hopefully there's more bashing and less chatting later on...
:lol: This is not Diablo you know.
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I'm not expecting Diablo, but what I am expecting is a game, not a glorified chat room staffed entirely by bots ;)
Something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights would be fine, but at the moment, I've done considerably more chatting to people than anything else.
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Also, during a certain defensive mission, I laid traps down, but they removed them for the actualy defense, and then after the battle was over, lo and behold! My traps!
Let me guess. Redcliffe?
the day and night maps are two different things. You placed the trapns on the day map and when you started the conflict it loaded the night map. No wonder your traps were gone.
I agree that the game is great. But there are several things that rub me the wrong way:
1) Weapon scaling - one the importer/exporter is finished, I can hopefully fix that rather fast. Some weaposn are OK, but msot are not.
2) Attributes. Absolutely hate how they are handeled here. Frankly the whole leveling scheme doesn't sit well with me. Why? Let's see - you start off as a healthy, trained individual. So physicly, you're as fit as your'e average soldier - or slightly above average. Just how much better can you get?
If 15 is roughly an average strength, and 0 is no strength, then 30 should be the ABSOLUTE maximum anyone can ever hope to achieve (that's assuming 15 is average). Except you can go far beyond that. So either your character starts like a total wuss(which makes no sense) or he can become stronger than superman (which makes no sense).
The second problem with this is that it encouranges min/maxing to an awful degree. A good wariror should be well rounded, but in this game this is rarely so, since you need super-high scores for talents. Which sucks.
Now, I'd gladly change the starting stats, point and limits (and spells, feats and items corespondingly) so that you get 1 attribute point per level, but it plays a bigger role. Still not sure if I can do that..I'm still playing so I don't spend much time with the toolset.
Long story short, I'd re-balance everything.
3) Bioware still didn't learn one lesson - nobody wants to get a allready fully-speced NPC. IF I go to the Circle Tower and get Wynne that's level 10, then MOST of her spells and talents are alrleady assigned. And usually in a terrible manner that completely clashes with my party.
SOME pre-configured skills are necessary, but not so damn many. If she was lvl3-5 and just got an XP boost when joins, she's still be the same level and still mantain her "vibe" but I could guide her tactical development somewhat at least.
4) Smaller inventory - a storage box in the camp. Tehre's n oneed to carry gifts adn runes with me anyway.
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Something along the lines of Neverwinter Nights would be fine, but at the moment, I've done considerably more chatting to people than anything else.
Welecome to roleplaying - where everything is NOT about combat.
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Thanks for completely missing the point.
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Honestly, I thought some of the combat sections were altogether too long. The dialogue was the fun part for me and there were times when you'd go for hours without any of it. The game would've benefited from a more even mixture, I think.
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There is, it's the Warden's Keep which comes with some versions of the game like Shale. You can't have both for free I think, but you can buy it. IMHO it's stupid to have those two as DLC's because they are both notable part of the game.
Apparently if you buy the Collector's Edition. Damnit. I was debating to get it, but defaulted to the normal.
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Honestly, I thought some of the combat sections were altogether too long. The dialogue was the fun part for me and there were times when you'd go for hours without any of it. The game would've benefited from a more even mixture, I think.
Exactly, I haven't come across any combat sections that were too long, but then, as I said, I haven't played it far yet, but I did feel the first few sections of the game contained far too much talking and not enough doing stuff. I can understand the need to set the scene, but most RPG's tend to intersperse that with interaction, whereas I found myself wandering around Elf encampment for 40 minutes, taking a quick break hitting stuff in the castle, only to presented with yet more talking, a short cutscene, and then a repeat of being left to wander around, only at a different location, I hope this isn't a theme that continues throughout the game. At the moment, it plays like Titan Quest without the Quest.
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If 15 is roughly an average strength, and 0 is no strength, then 30 should be the ABSOLUTE maximum anyone can ever hope to achieve (that's assuming 15 is average). Except you can go far beyond that.
This is not D&D you know? :p
Considering you need 36+ strength to wear most platemails, you can naturally assume that a healthy fit knight requires a lot more strength then 15 and thus, strength of 30 is not 'superhuman'. Also, you can play as a dwarf, so stop comparing everything to humans.
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What I found odd that the most lethal parts of the game thus far have been random encounters while traveling (plus a few templar-filled rooms in the Circle Tower). I mean what the heck, you encounter a wolf pack with like twenty wolves and all your characters are immediately Overwhelmed and mauled to bits since you only have Morrigan's Mind Blast to really affect all the enemies within range and it takes rather long (in combat time) to charge. Sure, a couple boss fights were sort of hard (Circle of Magi end fight and the subquest in the Fade mostly), but I've had random encounters at least as difficult as them.
Then there's the fact that in most cases you can just sit outside the combat range from the majority of enemies, equip ranged weapons and just keep shooting at them, which lures individual combatants to your party leaving the majority of the enemies just standing there stupidly while their pals are getting killed one by one... of course, the situation changes drastically when the enemies ARE smart enough to attackyour party as a group when you shoot one of them.
Also the most hilarious combat method to me is to put the group in the adjacent room to the large group of enemies, then make the dog aggro the hell out of the enemies (I called him Fluffy) while Morrigan bombards the enemies with Drain Life, Winter's Grasp and Affliction hex from the adjacent room and the two other party members block the route to Morrigan. The dog usually buys it, but most enemies aren't smart enough to run to Morrigan's location as a group, and instead focus on the dog. And when the dog is dead, usually just the individual being attacked starts running towards Morrigan, and when they get in range you can use Cone of Cold to let your melee fighters hack them to bits. Or you can lop an area-effective spell at the hostile occupied room when you start getting them.
Of course, this has the unfortunate side-effect of Morrigan starting to level faster than other party members and it also shows in the statistics; Morrigan is responsible of 45% damage my party has done...
The most difficult fights are thus the ones where you have to initiate conversation or step within close range before they turn hostile (cause you can't really attack non-hostiles), which brings your group clustered within the enemy ranks in a very un-tactical manner, and fights where your group is heavily outnumbered.
Summa summarum, most of the time I don't have any difficulty getting my party through the fights at Normal difficulty, then all of a sudden a Revenant or a group of Shades pop up with a bunch of minions and utterly decimate my party.
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TrashMan has failed reasoning. While attributes are measured by numbers, increase of 10 might be only a minor, albeit noticeable increase in strength if it were real life. It is just a way to measure attributes, you shouldn't read too much into it.
There is a mod which allows you to reset character stats. http://social.bioware.com/project/469/#details
Flipside, personally I'm a bit baffled by your complaints for lack of combat. There's been plenty of it so far. I never even had any such thoughts as it having too little combat. On the contrary actually, some of the areas are so large that I've been wondering whether it ever ends and I can get back to the camp, equip newly found items and sell off the rest.
Too bad the game does not allow more than three companions in the party. It'd be pretty fun to storm places with your full merry band of misfits. Assuming of course that the game auto-balances encounters accordingly.
HerraTohtori, that is why especially in the higher levels your main tank will need a shield and Shield Wall ability, which prevents knockdowns. It is also funny how useless my primal-specialized mage is most of the time, because he can't blast enemies away without also blasting his own melee warriors away. :lol: Well, he works well as a healer.
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As I've said, I've really not got that far into the game, so I'm only speaking from first impressions, and the pace is a bit slow at the start. I don't doubt from comments on here that it will improve, but that was my feelings from the first hour or two of play :)
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HerraTohtori, that is why especially in the higher levels your main tank will need a shield and Shield Wall ability, which prevents knockdowns. It is also funny how useless my primal-specialized mage is most of the time, because he can't blast enemies away without also blasting his own melee warriors away. :lol: Well, he works well as a healer.
Yes, but since Wynne is worthless at dealing damage and Morrigan is worthless at healing (since I built here as a damager/debilitator; in retrospect getting some spirit healing ability would've been wise but it doesn't seem to fit her character at all ;) ) I need to have both of them in my group unless I want to rely on health poultices all the time.
Also, since I'm a munchkin of highest order I need a rogue to be able to loot locked containers, and that means Leliana or Zev, and neither are well suited for prolonged melee combat - Zev perhaps slightly better, but I usually take Leliana along because I don't exactly trust Zev.
That leaves my PC who is built as a sort of balanced DPS warrior rather than a tank, but with Wynne in the group he usually lasts long enough, especially when I position Morrigan tactically enough to disable multiple hostiles at once with a single Cone of Cold (wonderful spell that). Which is why I usually disable free movement as soon as combat begins and micromanage my party members each to where I want them to be.
Also, even if I had a main battle tank in my party, it doesn't usually help that much at the hardest battles where there are enemies everywhere and all your party members are just swarmed... makes me miss my good old Force Wave. :D
Also also, I hate Fireballs...
Also also also, the injuries and their consequences are ridiculous. Cracked skull -> penalty to Cunning? You'd be hospitalized for a cracked skull! heck, you would hardly be conscious because of concussion and you could die of brain swelling or hemorrhage. Torn jugular, penalty to Constitution? Gimme a break, if your jugular veins are torn you're getting a massive penalty to "consciousness" and "staying alive despite massive bleeding". It's a lethal injury in a very short time. Same with stuff like wrenched limb, broken bone, coughing blood and other similar stuff; the party continues as before, moving at same rate and even running (with torn jugulars lol) and just suffer some penalties to their stats. And it takes all believability from the whole system of injuries... :sigh:
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TrashMan has failed reasoning. While attributes are measured by numbers, increase of 10 might be only a minor, albeit noticeable increase in strength if it were real life. It is just a way to measure attributes, you shouldn't read too much into it.
No, my reasoning is not flawed. If you have a numerical mesure for strentgh, then you have some minimum, average and maximum numbers.
The way the attributes and it's effects on spells/skills/itmes scale make no sense. The way the game encourage/forces you to destribute makes no sense.
You can argue that the values scale by some strange function, but in that case the system has failed in being intuitive.
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Herra Tohtori, so uh your party consists of a melee dps warrior, two mages and a melee rogue? Well, rogue archer works much better I think. You'll probably end up having quite a bit of hard time in many fights because your warrior gets absolutely mutiled due to different knockdown abilities tossed at you. Not only that but any enemies who flank your warrior receive bonuses to their damage and hit. One of the shield abilities prevents those flanking bonuses. I'm not saying a tank without shield doesn't work, but some fights are much, much harder. Though I reckon one mage for crowd control and another for healing makes up for it.
At the moment my usual party is my own character which is primal-specced mage and healer (have yet to specialize him as spirit healer, but intend to do that), Alistair, Shale and Leliana. Where Alistair fails as a tank, Shale usually pulls off and vice versa. Though in my setup Shale works as melee dps, which is really good btw. I might just try to see what he can do as ranged dps.
What really bugs me is how limited straight damage dealer mage is in usefulness. There just aren't enough situations where you can make most use out of the primal magic. Though it is funny to cast tempest and firestorm to an adjacent room and block enemies way to my mage, if it is possible at all. So in the end most useful mage is one that does crowd control and healing. I wonder how gimped that makes player character in those solo situations you're forced to enter into. Bah. :(
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Well, my character does use shield and main hand weapon and he does have that shield specialization... so maybe DPS is a bit of a bad term to use. Let's just say he's more of a balanced character between str, dex and con attributes rather than a primary tank. And I usually try to keep the rogue at the back with a ranged weapon. But still, my PC doesn't usually last all that long when he's bogged down with enemies. And it gets even more difficult when the enemies swarm upon the rest of my group.
Let's call it a challenge rather than dumb character leveling. :lol:
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TrashMan has failed reasoning. While attributes are measured by numbers, increase of 10 might be only a minor, albeit noticeable increase in strength if it were real life. It is just a way to measure attributes, you shouldn't read too much into it.
No, my reasoning is not flawed. If you have a numerical mesure for strentgh, then you have some minimum, average and maximum numbers.
The way the attributes and it's effects on spells/skills/itmes scale make no sense. The way the game encourage/forces you to destribute makes no sense.
You can argue that the values scale by some strange function, but in that case the system has failed in being intuitive.
Your reasoning is flawed because you are trying to impose your own artificial ideas on what average and superior should be, not what the game designers did as such. Remember the 36+ strength to use platemail. I suggest, instead of decrying the system for being broken, look at the skill growth as if it were less direcly linked to the average, and more relative. Basically, 15 may be the average, but that doesn't mean that 30 is automatically the maxiumum. It could follow a logarithmic leveling pattern after a certain point, based on the average.
Also remember that nigh imperceptible changes in strength (HINT!) and other attributes can be decisive, and the designers could have decided that raw strength doesn't necessarily increase so much as the advantages that come with it. Say, your character has learned how to use it better.
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I usually have wynn and morrigan with me. I can clear most rooms now without the enemy ever being able to hit me...
Tempest, earthquake, inferno, grease, etc.
Oh my! the mongrels dare attack?!
Sleep, horror, waking nightmare, mindblast.
So yeah, the game gets easier as you progress.
also: Morrigan disapproves
Morrigan disapproves
Morrigan disapproves
Morrigan disapproves
Morrigan disapproves
Morrigan disapproves
:lol:
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If 15 is roughly an average strength, and 0 is no strength, then 30 should be the ABSOLUTE maximum anyone can ever hope to achieve (that's assuming 15 is average).
Wow, TrashMan, you fail at taking averages. I thought you were a math person?
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Assume he meant median.
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It's also to do with the levelling system, if your player specialises in Strength then he/she should be able to get a high level of it, but at the cost of other skills, since you only get so many points to spend on a level-up, it means that, hopefully, you won't finish the game with an uber-killer, twin-axe wielding Mage with Plate Armour or something equally silly.
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Assume he meant median.
Even then it doesn't make sense. In this scale:
1 2 3 15 15 15 400
15 is the median strength.
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Your reasoning is flawed because you are trying to impose your own artificial ideas on what average and superior should be, not what the game designers did as such. Remember the 36+ strength to use platemail. I suggest, instead of decrying the system for being broken, look at the skill growth as if it were less direcly linked to the average, and more relative. Basically, 15 may be the average, but that doesn't mean that 30 is automatically the maxiumum. It could follow a logarithmic leveling pattern after a certain point, based on the average.
Also remember that nigh imperceptible changes in strength (HINT!) and other attributes can be decisive, and the designers could have decided that raw strength doesn't necessarily increase so much as the advantages that come with it. Say, your character has learned how to use it better.
Nope, youre reasoning is flawed.
A system should be simple to understand and intuitive. If it follows some f****-up function then it isn't.
The falloff with more points thing doesn't work because the spells and skills and combat formulas don't work like that. Really, if you haven't bothered to check the underlaying calculations why are you even trying to defend it?
It just doesn't make much sense. It's restrictive, it strongly encourages min-maxing and it's probably the worst thing in this otherwise superb game.
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Hardly, but you're entitled to your opinion. I have much more dislike for issues in actual gameplay. For all its faults, I've been playing DA almost all time as I've been at home, neglecting BP among other things. :p
But hell, why are random encounters so much tougher than static encounters... I've been clearing Deep Roads without much effort and then I go to visit another place to get an item, only to meet a random encounter of darkspawn which repeatedly kicked my party's asses. While not exactly random, back alleys of Denerim were proportionally tougher too.
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I'm actually rather miffed that my journeys from place to place keep getting interrupted by random encounters. The funniest one was when I was leaving Orzammar after wrapping up that quest area, then I got a random encounter which turned out to be ... a merchant asking me if I was on my way to Orzammar.
Also, I'm rather irritated that selecting warrior for human/dwarf automatically nets you a shield bash point. It's like, "Hey, I'm trying to do a two-handed warrior here, can I have that point back?" And the Arcane Warrior class has a minor irritation; casting most of the Primal spells causes him to holster his sword, blam out the spell and draw the sword again. Rather irritating, though I discovered the Spirit school is unaffecting by such trivialities.
My normal party consists of my PC, a Templar Champion with maxed out Shield and Weapon, Wynne and Leliana. The last member I roll a dice. Usually Morrigan/Alistair. Unless I anticipate a high dragon, then I pull out Sten/Shale.
Also, Zavran is gar for my PC. Rather disturbing.
And a rather funneh bug; my PC had sex with Morrigan, but through some random glitch, the game didn't remove his armour resulting in a fully armored PC with his sword and shield making out with a naked Witch of the Wilds.
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And a rather funneh bug; my PC had sex with Morrigan, but through some random glitch, the game didn't remove his armour resulting in a fully armored PC with his sword and shield making out with a naked Witch of the Wilds.
had the same thing only with a kiss :lol:
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And a rather funneh bug; my PC had sex with Morrigan, but through some random glitch, the game didn't remove his armour resulting in a fully armored PC with his sword and shield making out with a naked Witch of the Wilds.
Hey least you didn't opt for unprotected sex.
yeah that was bad I know
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-3 to your impregnation roll....
Sorry...
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-3 to your impregnation roll....
Sorry...
Flip, just for that, I'm tempted to start posting statblocks from FATAL. You're lucky as hell I can't do it from work.
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I finished the game, opted for the ultimate sacrifice option.
The first stage of the endgame was very drawn out and I kept having to run around the map. And it would've been nice to see the dwarves, elveses and magi all running in alongside each other rather than just Redcliffe soldiers. Plus I kept OHKO-ing the darkspawn, making me feel overpowered.
But the final battle, now that was a final battle. Swarming after the Archdemon, then getting my party to hold them off whilst I lobbed balista shots at the damn dragon .... Sweeet.
And then they wrapped it up with my glorious funeral, and a what-happend-to-your-frenz slideshow. I would've like having more people and a more epic funeral, but meh.
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FATAL
NO!
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back alleys of Denerim were proportionally tougher too.
I say we round up all the gang members and bandits from the alleys and make them Gray Wardens. With the ones that live, it'll be an unstoppable army!
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NO!
My only link is currently down, you'll be spared.
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I say we round up all the gang members and bandits from the alleys and make them Gray Wardens. With the ones that live, it'll be an unstoppable army!
And how.
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Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game? ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7
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I didn't see this (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1096-Dragon-Age-Origins) posted, so....
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Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game? ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7
Morrigan, Leliana, Player, and Zhevran?
I hope that's the case, since involving Sten or Oghren could get weird, Wynne's a bit old for that, and Alistair's too shy
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Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game? ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7
Heh. And how.
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Including the golem? :P
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So I just completed the elven female city opening, and I have a complaint. Specifically, I now want to be playing a game about murdering the **** out of the human nobility, not about combating the threat of darkspawn or whatever. I'm much more interested in the former. Though, well, I haven't done much in Ostagar yet, so that may change.
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Yeah, I did the Elven male version. It's rather more hardcore than the human one, and the game itself seems to acknowledge this.
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Let's discuss mages a bit. What you think are the best spells or spell categories to have? I'm a bit miffed I went with elemental because there's not enough opportunities to use these spells, unless soloing, micromanaging or using inferno/blizzard combo to clean adjacent rooms. But I wonder if I had went with another spell school my mage could have been more useful offensively, not just healing all the time.
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Yeah, it's real tough to use the devastating spells, simply because you are going to end up putting the nuke onto your allies. What I tended to do was use the entropy line to paralyze and weaken my enemies so everyone else could cut them down. it also gives you the life drain, which is actually a pretty nice spell.
My other plan for my mage is to go for Arcane Warrior, and use all the weapon buff spells (fire weapons, ice weapons, telekinetic weapons) in combination with the combat magic spells and miasma, and have a super strong 3-man front line with wynne in the back (or 2 man front line, with alistair as a proper tank and whichever rogue i take with me to open boxes and doors.)
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Let's discuss mages a bit. What you think are the best spells or spell categories to have? I'm a bit miffed I went with elemental because there's not enough opportunities to use these spells, unless soloing, micromanaging or using inferno/blizzard combo to clean adjacent rooms.
Buff your resists. Or play on easy, where friendly fire doesn't exist. Honestly, this whole thing smacks of the old AD&D fireball problem, where it had to occupy a set space, and because of the size of your average dungeon corridor was too small, DMs like that space to include party members when operating under the Zero Sum Game Theory: RPGs are competitive event between the GM and the players. Bioware's been playing reconstructionist for older concepts in their last few releases, usually to great effect, but this particular thing not so much.
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Weird. On another forum, the board consensus was that mages were way the hell overpowered (some said something about a Morrigan/Wynne combo making everything easy), with no mentions of friendly fire problems at all. These people were playing at normal and up. *shrug*
For myself, my initial experience with mages--letting the AI run that tower mage guy at Ostagar--was about as negative as it could be. I. ****ing. Hate. Burning. Hands (or whatever they called it). However, I then tried driving Morrigan and letting the AI run my rogue and the rest of the party, and discovered I can put out a hell of a lot of (no friendly fire) damage with her, much more than the AI does. I think because I burn through mana a lot faster than the AI is willing to.
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Did you know you can have a threesome or foursome in the game? ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7 ;7
Morrigan, Leliana, Player, and Zhevran?
I hope that's the case, since involving Sten or Oghren could get weird, Wynne's a bit old for that, and Alistair's too shy
Nope. Leliana (or Allistair), Zevran, the PC and some chick in Denerim.
F'course, you have to get Leli or Allistair in the right set of mind before that....influence them enough, convince them tehsy are naughty..
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Yeah, I did the Elven male version. It's rather more hardcore than the human one, and the game itself seems to acknowledge this.
both are different.
As female you break out of the cell, see your spouse cut down and careve your way to the lordling.
As male, you break into the castle, witness a very disturbing scene with some guards and a corpse of a dead female elf, and carve your way to the lordling.
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I play on hard and consider it too easy. Heck, I'm half trough the game playing with a sub-optimal active party aTM and it's the first time I actually got injuries.
Regarding mages - be carefull how you set up their tactics AI. I customize it to my preference and I have no problems when the AI is driving.
EDIT:
Speaking of reviews:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/component/content/article/40-front-page-scroller/13832-angry-joe-dragon-age-origins-review-sex-a-violence
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If you think that scene was disturbing, that's kinda sad.
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I do find necrophilia disturbing, yes. The fact that you don't scares me....
That was a (well placed) squick moment in the game.
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As female you break out of the cell, see your spouse cut down and careve your way to the lordling.
The best part was when your cousin strolls in to your cell.
The guards: "lol"
You cousin: "*slides sword to player*"
The guards: "Oh."
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Just completed the game, human mage origin. The final fight was too easy. :(
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Everyone all decked out
(http://i45.tinypic.com/x4fyw2.jpg)
and after the game I took the winning team down to Cadash Thaig for a photo
(http://i50.tinypic.com/2mqivl2.jpg)
Nobeard is wearing the Wade's Superior Dragonscale set, the Helm of Honnleith, and wielding The Veshialle and Asturian's Might
Alistair is wearing the Warden Commander's Plate set, using the Keening Blade and Duncan's Shield
Wynne is wearing the First Enchanter's robe, dragonbone splintmail boots (not visible) ancient elven gauntlets (not visible), and the gryphon helm, using the Final Reason staff
Sten is wearing the Armor of the Legion set and wielding the Starfang sword
Morrigan is wearing the Robes of Posession and using the Piece of Wood
Oghren is wearing the Blood Dragon Plate set and wielding the dragon killing blade Yusaris
Leliana is wearing the Wade's Superior Drakescale armor, and the Lion's Paw boots, wielding Marjolaine's Recurve
Zevran is wearing Wade's Drakescale, wielding a crow dagger and "fang" which was my dear mum's before she got killed
Meatslayer (the dog) is wearing the Pure ***** braid and the Kaddis of the Lady of the Skies
and Shale is wearing some brilliant large fire crystals and some brilliant small lightning crystals in the first pic, brilliant large spirit crystals and brilliant small ice crystals in the 2nd pic
It's sad because I had like 3 other unique heavy armor sets and i dont have any strong folks to put them on, even though I could have had Wynne wearing one since she's got Arcane warrior specialization and Combat Magic (felt that she was better off with less fatigue)
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If I loved NWN will I like this?
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Weird. On another forum, the board consensus was that mages were way the hell overpowered (some said something about a Morrigan/Wynne combo making everything easy), with no mentions of friendly fire problems at all. These people were playing at normal and up. *shrug*
For myself, my initial experience with mages--letting the AI run that tower mage guy at Ostagar--was about as negative as it could be. I. ****ing. Hate. Burning. Hands (or whatever they called it). However, I then tried driving Morrigan and letting the AI run my rogue and the rest of the party, and discovered I can put out a hell of a lot of (no friendly fire) damage with her, much more than the AI does. I think because I burn through mana a lot faster than the AI is willing to.
Did you looked into a PC forum or console? As far as I know the friendly-fire has been dissabled on the consoles completly. So yes on a console the mage is pretty devestating. Still you can make use of the area effect spells without harming your party.
I just completed the game with a human mage and it needs a bit of managing the group but worked well for me. Also on normal the AI was sometimes stupid as hell.
I told the group to wait, then walked forward alone, casted lighningstorm (or whats its called in english and run way. AI didn't followed me and there you go. Nice BBC ^_^
Also a idea is to use the icestorm (guess that the english name) to freeze your enemy in a position, then to whatever you want.
Last but not least my favorite.
A room full of evil guys, open the door to look into the room and close the door again. If no one follows you, cast a storm/whatever into the room. Wait a bit then come in an collect the loot.
Something more general about the game.
I have never been a fan of fantasy RPGs or RPGs in general. Still this game entertained me a lot. Enough to spend 70 hours of my life playing it and now I am still interested in seeing one or two different variants of the ending.
A realy fun game and even understandable/playable for someone who don't has any big experiance with RPGs.
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I do find necrophilia disturbing, yes. The fact that you don't scares me....
One oblique reference is enough to bother you? Get some intestinal fortitude man. This is the same game where you end up spattered in ridiculous amounts of blood in every melee combat. Hell, you meet one of your potentional love interests when she's spattered in a ridiculous amount of blood, and it helpfully zooms in for the conversation.
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Mages:
For a mage who's actually going to spellcast, and not try to be a man in a metal suit, crowd control is rule number one.
The sleep tree is incredibly useful. Sleep is an area affect, no cast time disabler, and it works quite well. Followed up by a horror, it does significant damage, and horror will keep it's single target help for some time. Waking nightmare is more chaos then disabler, but it still helps.
The entire cold tree is amazingly useful. Just take it. It won't get you through every fight, as a fair number of targets are cold immune, but for everything else damage + freeze/slow is too good to pass up.
The fire tree is good for damage. Not quite as useful as hold, but certainly has it's place. Inferno does buckloads of damage, and does not require line of sight - very useful for tossing into rooms before opening the door.
The tree with grease can be useful. The wisp doesn't cost much, and spell power always helps. I think that also has the one that lets you absorb mana from corpses - far more useful then the health version of it.
The runes tree has it's uses - primarily the repulsion/paralyze combo, which requires no line of sight and is a high magnitude paralyze AoE. Great to pull off before an inferno, so they have to stay there and bake.
Force fields - get it. Mind blast is very useful early on, force field removes an enemy from the battle entirely - useful on non-gargantuan bosses with minions. Crushing Prision can stop and then kill most spellcasters, and the forcefield/prision combo is a non-friendly fire AoE damage effect.
Lightning....kind of sucks. Earth is OK, but there are better places to put your points.
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If I loved NWN will I like this?
I didn't... this game is good, but they did not learn anything from NWN in a gameplay point of view, in fact... it seems they did it ridiculously easier in terms of classes, spells, skills, etc.
I must say I was expecting DA:O to be far more elavorated in that area, still it's a great game.
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Yes, the game system is much more user friendly than D&D 3.0. That's not a bad thing.
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Yes, the game system is much more user friendly than D&D 3.0. That's not a bad thing.
Well, I for one, would love to have a completely new complex game to play with, like the good old Baldurs Gate, "user friendly" often turns out to be a game stupid and simple for the masses, not something I'm looking for... but I guess that's what sells best right now.
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Say hi to being in the minority in wanting a complex game. But keep in mind that "complex" is completely arbitrary and varies depending on who you ask.
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Say hi to being in the minority in wanting a complex game. But keep in mind that "complex" is completely arbitrary and varies depending on who you ask.
True, but you've got to be able to see the flaw in DA:O, it's class and abilities system is just crap compared to previous games.
Of course this is just a personal opinion on the matter, no flaming intended to Bioware.. I still think they did a good job overall, not great, but well.. I guess you just can't have it all.
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Sorry, but wrong on the first count. I don't actually have the game. I'm broke just about.
And sometimes its nice to have unbalanced classes, as long as they form an unbalanced regular polygon :P
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Meh. Baldur's Gate, and the whole lot of them weren't complex so much as they were purposefully arcane, as if the system was designed by people trying to sell you rulebooks. Probably because the system was in fact designed by people trying to sell you rulebooks.
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True, but you've got to be able to see the flaw in DA:O, it's class and abilities system is just crap compared to previous games.
Buhhhh..whaaaa? :wtf:
How the hell is hte class and skills system crap?
You thinkD&D was so awesome because it had 20 classes? Rubbish. ALL classes you cna think of WILL fall into either fighter, warrior or mage categories.
IF anything makes sense and is nicely done, then it's the class system.
Skills are OK. IMHO it could be better to have weapon-specific skills (axe and sword? You dont' use em the same way bub).
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Skills are OK. IMHO it could be better to have weapon-specific skills (axe and sword? You dont' use em the same way bub).
I'd rather not, it limits weapon options too much.
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I loved how I finally got to carve up Arl Howe. Never have I ever wanted to murder a virtual character more. Oh, on Human Noble, by the way.
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I'm ok with the skills system, it provides the ability to personalise without taking hours spending skill points, which is just as well considering the amount of time spent rummaging around in the Inventory to make sure everyone has enough armour etc.
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I loved how I finally got to carve up Arl Howe. Never have I ever wanted to murder a virtual character more. Oh, on Human Noble, by the way.
I kept the Cousland Family Sword for the entire game specifically so that I could kill him with it when I had the opportunity.
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Does anyone know what the 2nd DVD is for? I installed and finished the game without ever needing it. :wtf:
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....Second DVD? My copy only has one.
Killed my first dragon, and it was ****ing hard. And it was only a sissy male dragon, too.
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A quick glimpse at contents of said DVD revealed it contains french, german and polish languages. :doubt:
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Is this accurate?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1096-Dragon-Age-Origins
??
srsly....... :confused:
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No. It's not.
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yeah it is. It's medieval fantasy KOTOR on hard mode. it tries to be dark but really its just normal with the occasional child murder, prostitution, and extortion to spice things up a bit.
that doesn't mean it's not really good though
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Consider it non-sanitized Gothic Romance if you like, read some of the older texts and it really is 'Fields of Limbs' and 'Lakes of Blood' stuff ;)
And yes, very much enjoying it, even if I had to restart the Circle Tower/Fade because I hadn't taken enough health poultices with me and wasn't prepared for what happened there :/
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Is this accurate?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1096-Dragon-Age-Origins
??
srsly....... :confused:
I haven't followed this game closely, but he pretty much summed up my thoughts on medieval fantasy games in general. :p The game universes are neither believable nor creative and original.
This seems to be a good game for what it's supposed to be though.
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I haven't followed this game closely, but he pretty much summed up my thoughts on medieval fantasy games in general. :p The game universes are neither believable nor creative and original.
This seems to be a good game for what it's supposed to be though.
:wtf:
You expect a fantasy ANYTHING to be believable?
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You missed my point. I want plot universes in games to at least be one or the other. If a game has a fantasy setting, then it should be something original and unique. One example that comes to mind is Grim Fandango.
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Then you, and Yahtzee, didn't pay much attention, since this one actually is rather unique. The familar elements, like Elves, are there, but they have been arranged in a much-different form. (The Elves are part post-Civil War blacks and part medieval Jewish analog, for example.)
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And that was already done in The Witcher, where humans had conquered the Elvish lands and forced them to live in slums inside their cities.
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If we're talking about making a darker fantasy setting D&D got there years ago with Dark Sun and their tribes of desert wandering cannibalistic halflings. :p
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And that was already done in The Witcher, where humans had conquered the Elvish lands and forced them to live in slums inside their cities.
BioWare makes retreads. Nobody ever pretended otherwise. They make very good ones, however, and we're here on a forum dedicated the best of the best of rebuilt games on rebuilt mechanics using rebuilt plots, so what are you *****ing about? :P
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If we're talking about making a darker fantasy setting D&D got there years ago with Dark Sun and their tribes of desert wandering cannibalistic halflings. :p
Thee years ago? Older... much older...
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You expect a fantasy ANYTHING to be believable?
If you don't, then you haven't been reading the right stuff.
Go pick up A Game of Thrones or The Darkness That Comes Before. Not coincidentally, AGoT was one of the influences Bioware was citing for DA.
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You missed my point. I want plot universes in games to at least be one or the other. If a game has a fantasy setting, then it should be something original and unique. One example that comes to mind is Grim Fandango.
BAh! Keep your tastes. Something like Grim Fandango is interesting as a diversion once in a while.
I like my fantasy like fantasy. And I like it fantastical and realistic (or should I say, believalbe?) You can have both. DA:O is both. It's universe is familiar, but fresh. Fantastical, but believable.
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Final Fantasy 4 was the best Fantasy seting made...ever.
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BAh! Keep your tastes. Something like Grim Fandango is interesting as a diversion once in a while.
I like my fantasy like fantasy. And I like it fantastical and realistic (or should I say, believalbe?) You can have both. DA:O is both. It's universe is familiar, but fresh. Fantastical, but believable.
You must live in another world if you consider things like elves, dragons and magic to be believable. :p
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you can't prove that there wasn't a Red Book of Westmarch!!!!
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Dragon wings. They are curious constructs, are they not?
I once estimated that a mid-sized dragon weighing the same as a large bull elephant, about six tons, would be largely similar in size (length, wing span) and weigh to Chance Vought F4U Corsair. However, a dragon typically has slightly larger wing area, and therefore lower wing loading which reduces stall speed, but nevertheless I would estimate that in order to maintain altitude, the airspeed velocity of an unladen dragon must stay above 60 knots, or about 110 km/h. The portrayal of high dragons in flight actually fit this estimation fairly well; they are going pretty fast.
Of course, this also means that the dragon wings must have structural strength comparable to medium sized aircraft's wings, which is quite impressive from bone and especially muscles and tendons. Of course, this isn't an impossible feat in locked flight configuration, and I suspect that like many species of birds, dragons also can lock their wings for glide, but for the dragons to be able to flap their wings, truly their muscles must be comparable to hydraulic pistons and tendons to thick steel cables. For the dragons to be able to control their descent in a stall, withstand the impact on landing, and even produce enough lift to hover is truly impressive from an engineering point of view - these things must have some pretty intelligent designers behind them!
Since dragons like birds produce both thrust and lift with their wings, the requirements on their bone structure, flight muscles and tendons are sky high, pardon the pun. For the sake of comparison, the heaviest flying birds are around 20 kg in size. If we were to grow this bird's size until it reached the dragon grade weight of six metric tons, it's muscle and tendon cross-section area would only increase up to 44 times, while it's weight increase would be 300-fold. That means, in order to produce and withstand the required forces for comparable operation, the muscles must be about seven times as dense, and tendons and bones made of seven times as durable material as the original bird's muscles, tendons and bones.*
So, estimated bone strength of a bull elephant sized dragon would be about seven to ten times that of bird bone, and similarly it's muscle density and tendon durability would have similar quantities.
Of course, a bull elephant sized dragon is not exactly large. But the problem with LARGE dragons is that they usually are proportionally scaled-up models of the smaller, somewhat sensible dragons. Which means that their stall speed would be comparable to a large airliner rather than a WW2 fighter airplane, and no amount of muscles could possible move those flappers of wings effectively enough to produce the thrust required to maintain such airspeed velocity, nevermind hovering or taking off from a standing start. Truly, some powerful magicks are required for these creatures to function.
This excercise should be sufficient to make you comprehend why materials such as dragon bone are so sought after for weapons use. I doubt even nanocarbon tube constructs would have better strength or durability.
In fact it might be possible to build a space elevator out of high dragon tendon, if it were possible to aquire a long enough piece.
*Of course, since it's wing area would also only go up to about 44 times the original, it would mean it would also need to fly about seven times faster than it's original-sized bird counterpart... it would also need to land seven times faster, and I shudder to think of the logistics of providing it enough food to power those turbocharged muscles. Not only would it require 300 times the amount of food as it's normally weighted counterpart, but the increased muscle power means its metabolism would be boosted up to about 7-10 times as high as the original bird's, bringing the required amount of energy content to about 2000 times that of the original bird.
And remember, this creature we're talking about here is comparable to only a very small, elephant-sized dragon.
This is a very good reason as to why dragons are typically very, very hostile to anything they come across. They are undoubtedly plagued by constant hunger and forced to use their magic constantly in order to sustain themselves. It also explains why dragons - especially large ones - tend to hoard magical loot and sleep on top of it most of the time.
IT ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE! :lol:
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these things must have some pretty intelligent designers behind them!
Don't be silly, they're obviously under extremely strong selective pressures. Which means heavily reduced genetic diversity and inbreeding that explains some of their insanity. (coupled with always being hungry)
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*MUH-MUH-MEGA-SNIP* (w/echo)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v74/GenoStar/piccolo8tz.jpg)
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Either that, or someone has read 'Guards! Guards!' by Pratchett ;)
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...
IT ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE! :lol:
I stand corrected. :D
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Obviously someone has never heard of the acidic blood to produce hydrogen for lighter-than-air flight sacs theory.
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Obviously someone has never heard of the acidic blood to produce hydrogen for lighter-than-air flight sacs theory.
Well, there's just not enough volume within a typical dragon to reduce it's net density in a meaningful way. I mean, sure, it could be that the body of a dragon is akin to that of zeppelin, but I still find myself quite doubtful on that account - if that were the case, they would not have much body weight to throw around in melee combat, and melee combat with a dragon is almost universally portrayed as a capital bad idea. For a dragon to reduce it's density by such structures, it would require the majority of the things within the dragon's skin to be filled with gas at 1 atm pressure.
Of course they could maybe expand their body when flying, making them more like a biological blowfish blimp than a zeppelin, but you don't see that kind of badyear blimps in the fantasy skies, do you? I for one have never heard this sort of behaviour associated to dragons. It would be most demeaning and there would still be the matter of propulsion, unless they simply behaved like hot air balloons.
No, I am fairly certain indeed that dragons are in fact heavier than air and do not use hydrostatic buoyancy as their primary method of aerial locomotion. Other options are more unlikely from physics perspective, but this is simply unacceptable.
Of course, it WOULD explain why Bard of Esgaroth was able to slay Smaug with a single arrow; a punctured blimp would eventually lose it's buoyancy and when in ground eventually collapse without internal pressure to keep it together. A flaming arrow puncturing a hydrogen bag would ensure a bad day for a dragon, apart from lost integrity it would soon become a flaming, falling wreckage. Maybe Smaug's heart was more of an analogy. Anatomically I find it not very plausible that an arrow would easily pierce the chest cavity of a dragon the size of Smaug deep enough to hit it's heart, but maybe that would be a matter of another essay about the effectiveness of bow and arrow on dragon hunting...
This is disturbing. I now have suspicions that every story about dragons has been somehow subtly manipulated for storytellers who wanted to portray a fierce monster rather than a species of tranquil, sedate floaters of the sky. :blah:
@Flipside: I had in fact read Guards! Guards as well as Colour of Magic, but I was not thinking of them while writing that post, I was just pondering the plausibility of draconian flight from the engineering perspective.
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There was an entertaining novel that dealt with the physics of dragon wings thusly: it's magic. Of course it violates the laws of physics. Consequently, if a dragon ever leaves a zone of rich magic, its body immediately fails and it dies. Horribly.
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perhaps the dragon's magic is used altering the dragon's weight, instead of used driving muscles at impossible forces. Also, it is reasonable that as flying reptilians, dragons would have hollow bones and other weight-reduced components similar to birds
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So, you've got a two story tall flying lizard that breathes fire, and it's the flying part you guys have trouble with, not the 'fire breathing' part?
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So, you've got a two story tall flying lizard that breathes fire, and it's the flying part you guys have trouble with, not the 'fire breathing' part?
there are all sorts of chemicals in real life that you can mix together to make fire. there aren't all sorts of chemicals that can make a giant reptilian monster easily achieve flight.
Oh, and also, if you are playing the game and you notice that corpses are taking a long time to become lootable, this is due to the memory leak. Save and restart your game and corpses will become lootable in a shorter amount of time.
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perhaps the dragon's magic is used altering the dragon's weight, instead of used driving muscles at impossible forces.
Mass Effect.
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Wait, there's a dragon in Mass Effect? There's magic in Mass Effect? Or is that some reference I'm going to understand once I've played the game (which will be, uh, after I finish Dragon Age)?
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He's referring to the phenomenon known as mass effect within Mass Effect.
Explanation starting at 0:37 if you still don't get it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tBFPy8sauw&feature=related)
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Dragons are made of Eezo!
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So, you've got a two story tall flying lizard that breathes fire, and it's the flying part you guys have trouble with, not the 'fire breathing' part?
Shale + Large Flawless Fire Crystal = Instant Fireproofing
Plus they aren't very ... dragony. Taking them down was rather ... I dunno, not so epic as I'd hoped. Sync kills are always nice though.
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BAh! Keep your tastes. Something like Grim Fandango is interesting as a diversion once in a while.
I like my fantasy like fantasy. And I like it fantastical and realistic (or should I say, believalbe?) You can have both. DA:O is both. It's universe is familiar, but fresh. Fantastical, but believable.
You must live in another world if you consider things like elves, dragons and magic to be believable. :p
Believabel in their actions, the consequences and bahavior. And to a point, physicly.
Can't you immage a earth where evolution went differently and humans ended up with pointy ears?
Relistic, beliavalbe are two different but simmilar things. Is the movie Dungeons and Dragon as immersive/believalbe as LOTR? Which one requires less suspension of disbelief? NOt all things are equal mind you.
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Believabel in their actions, the consequences and bahavior. And to a point, physicly.
Can't you immage a earth where evolution went differently and humans ended up with pointy ears?
What about the fire breathing dragons? :p
I don't necessarily need believability though. As I said earlier, I like fantasy worlds if they use that freedom from reality to be creative. The problem is that most of these medieval fantasy universes rely on the same tired old concepts as if they were imposed by reality, even though they are all just made up. Basically, I don't like "standard fantasy," as Yahtzee put it.
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I think Stephen Fry summed it up quite well where he said there were two specific themes in all Legendary tales, either of 'punishment from high' (which he defined as the Christian legacy, such as the expulsion from Eden) and the 'They're no better than us' fable (such as many Greek legends), and that all these tales told an interesting story about the development of the countries that extolled them.
Magic Fantasy, such as Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights or Oblivion all follow very much the same rules, the original stories were basically morality plays, like a 1600 page version of 'the boy who cried Wolf', they are usually tales of either redemption or responsibility, and the Dragon (at least in Western culture), in many ways, was a personification of 'bad morality', burning homes, 'destroying' virgins, stealing and hording gold, Consdering this type of Fantasy was at its original height in the 16th Century, it's no real surprise that this is also the time that modern conceptions of Hell, Satan and Demons was formed, there's a definite similarity.
As an interesting aside, I found it personally fascinating that, pre-16th century, the UK was much more rural in nature, the enemies of smaller communities were famine, pestilence and, to a lesser degree war (note the Horsemen of the Apocolypse idealogy rearing its head), however, come the 16th Century, more and more people were living in cities, and a new additional enemy reared its head, fire, which wasn't nearly the threat to small rural communities as it was to a large urban one. Just an interesting note ;)
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... I suppose it's unreasonable of me to hope for once the topic stays on topic rather then being de-railed into discussions totally unrelated to the original topic?
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Yes :p
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:(
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I think a discussion about fantasy cliches is pretty appropriate for a Dragon Age thread, really.
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Actually, it's only lost one word from the start, it was Dragon Age: Origins, my last post was about Dragon Origins, that's not bad for 7 pages on HLP ;)
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Yes, but knowing HLP, talking 'bout fantasy cliches is bound to lead to a raging debate about underlining philosophies inherent in different intepretations of fantasy.
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... I suppose it's unreasonable of me to hope for once the topic stays on topic rather then being de-railed into discussions totally unrelated to the original topic?
In the spirit of youtube:
Gay.
Anyway, just wondering, a friend said this game is great... though, I can't really tell from what's been said here?
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It's a good game if you like RPG's with very involved storylines, a complex world that requires buckets of reading to learn the history of etc, if you like games that you just drop into a go, it may not be so great, but if you can get into the storyline and enjoy the atmosphere, yes.
It's certainly, as RPGs go, one of the more varied starts with regards to the character you choose at the start of the game, but I don't see any real change in-game depending on alignment outside your relationships with your team, though, maybe that will come in later, since I'm still at the earlier stages (Just killed the Desire Demon in the Fade) that may simply be that my actions have had a knock-on effect yet.
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Yeah, it's pretty much as Flipside says. Also, if you're a completionist, you might have to backtrack around the map multiple times, hunting for all the codex entries.
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It's a good game if you like RPG's with very involved storylines, a complex world that requires buckets of reading to learn the history of etc, if you like games that you just drop into a go, it may not be so great, but if you can get into the storyline and enjoy the atmosphere, yes.
Erm. I finished DA:O last night and started Mass Effect today. So far, I'm finding that DA:O does a much better job of explaining the way its world works as you progress. Like, I work for a council on a citadel, but I can't tell you a damn thing about who's on the council, how much power it has, how much autonomy the various races have (or whether there are any cases where a race is not some ridiculously homogeneous political unit) and so on.
Perhaps more importantly, no one has bothered to explain what this mass effect thing is and where my magic abilities come from, but whatever.
Incidentally, the voice acting is much better in DA:O. My PC in ME is, like, always pissed off. Doesn't matter what I'm talking about, or with whom, my character is always angry. And urgh, sometimes (like when talking to the council the first time), it's just painful. Like, mr PC, why are you so angry? You don't have any evidence. What, you think they're just going to take the word of a random dock worker? Seriously? Are you twelve?
To a lesser extent, it seems like most people in this game are always angry. It's somewhat annoying.
I still enjoy it, mind.
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I guess the PC in Mass Effect likes green and purple.
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Erm. I finished DA:O last night and started Mass Effect today. So far, I'm finding that DA:O does a much better job of explaining the way its world works as you progress. Like, I work for a council on a citadel, but I can't tell you a damn thing about who's on the council, how much power it has, how much autonomy the various races have (or whether there are any cases where a race is not some ridiculously homogeneous political unit) and so on.
Perhaps more importantly, no one has bothered to explain what this mass effect thing is and where my magic abilities come from, but whatever.
Read the codex entries as you get them (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual)... and you'll find out just why dragons are made of eezo (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum) (or Element Zero). Among other things.
Incidentally, the voice acting is much better in DA:O. My PC in ME is, like, always pissed off. Doesn't matter what I'm talking about, or with whom, my character is always angry. And urgh, sometimes (like when talking to the council the first time), it's just painful. Like, mr PC, why are you so angry? You don't have any evidence. What, you think they're just going to take the word of a random dock worker? Seriously? Are you twelve?
To a lesser extent, it seems like most people in this game are always angry. It's somewhat annoying.
I still enjoy it, mind.
The thing in Mass Effect that irked me was the dialogue options menu that never quite made you sure what sort of retarded drivel Shepard was actually going to say. Usually it was close enough to what you selected, but sometimes it... wasn't. I much prefer the more traditional system to which they went back on Dragon Age.
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Read the codex entries as you get them (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual)... and you'll find out just why dragons are made of eezo (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum) (or Element Zero). Among other things.
Right, but in DA:O I didn't need to use the codex entries to learn anything. Well, I needed to read them for some quest hints, but those were rare.
Incidentally, ME just gave me paragon points for not killing a slaver, and instead letting him go free. To go be a slaver again. This is why I'm glad DA:O did away with that alignment horse****.
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Well you did spare his life. Maybe if you killed him, you would've gotten more? :p
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The thing in Mass Effect that irked me was the dialogue options menu that never quite made you sure what sort of retarded drivel Shepard was actually going to say. Usually it was close enough to what you selected, but sometimes it... wasn't. I much prefer the more traditional system to which they went back on Dragon Age.
Yeah, this was a little annoying, especially since there were situations where different dialogue "choices" led to the same actual dialogue.
One thing I did like about Mass Effect's dialogue though is that your guy's lines are actually voice acted. This somehow seems to be uncommon in RPGs. DA:O doesn't have it from what I've heard, and Fallout 3 didn't have it either, which I thought detracted from the game.
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They went with an unvoiced PC to allow for more dialogue and character customisation options. Voice acting is nice to have, but especially in the game DA was trying to be I'd much rather better roleplaying.
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Voiced PCs tend to be annoying cause you have to sit there and listen to them say a line you've already read (and possibly re-read).
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The PC is still voiced, in much the same way the NWN PC was voiced, and they talk in combat or map movement but not in dialogue. It's...a little wierd here. It worked in NWN because of the lack of closeups, I suppose. You didn't actually see your character's lips not moving.
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What makes it weirder is that the lips move when doing those general sounds.
Dragon Age, NWN2, and KotOR are a little awkward in how dialog is done depending on if the camera cuts back to the other character once you make a dialog choice. (which it doesn't always in DA)
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Some of the camera angles in DA make me scratch my head. Like for example ...
After you rescued Anora, and went back to the Arl's estate and spoke to Riordian(sp?), the camera eventually cuts to a bird cage behind him, and him walking towards it, and remaining there for the rest of the convo. It actually took me a minute to realise that that was the bird cage, and not a graphics glitch.
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Sten looks adorable in the little hat I gave him.
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Voiced PCs tend to be annoying cause you have to sit there and listen to them say a line you've already read (and possibly re-read).
Plus, the PC never really sounds like the way you imagined him during Character Creation :P.
and Fallout 3 didn't have it either, which I thought detracted from the game.
There ain't much about the role playing aspect in that game that doesn't detract from it, IMO (Compared to what I am used to with Bioware and the original fallout's*, which is a pretty high standard, I know). And all their voice actors were terrible (Doctor Li comes to mind).
* And... Obsidian entertainment is part of Bioware. Obsidian Entertainment originated from Black Isle. Who made the original Fallout,.. I think.
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Fallout 3 wasn't made by Obsidian Entertainment, it was made by Bethesda Softworks. While Obsidian was founded by some employees from Black Isle, it is not part of Bioware.
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I said Original Fallout. I meant Fallout 1. I never meant fallout 3. That game's terrible. Bethesda did not live up to... Black isle.
Obsidian is not part of bioware? They released NWN2 under the Bioware flag...
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Obsidian is not part of Bioware.
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They're going to be releasing Fallout: New Vegas under the Bethesda flag, and they're not part of Bethesda either.
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They're going to be releasing Fallout: New Vegas under the Bethesda flag, and they're not part of Bethesda either.
Ah yes, I forgot about that.