Tale

I noticed something really really neat last night that I forgot to mention. If you hit someone hard enough with spirit damage, they start to freak out. Anders hit a guy with his staff and the guy just started screaming. Right before he exploded. I guess Anders got a crit. I'm really digging the elemental effects.

Whoah whoah, 500+ missing and 200-300 bodies washed up that aren't what's included? I was considering 100+ dead to be an immense tragedy. I... am at a loss. My sympathies.

I have to agree with Volo here. Dragon Age 2 is far more of a traditional sequel to DAO than people give it credit for.

My experiences are very much the same. I haven't had my attempts backfire, but every time something comes up, I'm afraid they might. Last night I did a quest to catch a killer. I get there, he claims to be innocent. And for the first time in a Bioware game, I'm... not sure. Could this little tit be lying to me? Or did the guy who sent me lie? Is there a third option? Edit: And another situation I'd like the stress. This was the first game, ever, that I killed a character begging for their life. But they made it more personal than anything I'd seen before. The character was truly a threat. And I felt I had to. I don't play characters that do what they "had to." But oh god... The whole Chantry/Mage thing is what I wished DAO was. Dragon Age is supposed to be oppressive to the Mages, but paint that as a necessary evil. DAO didn't really do that, it didn't come across as oppressive, and barely came across as necessary either. DA2 does. You have seemingly good people being threatened with death from Templars. And you have other seemingly good people turning into monsters. It's a recurring theme and not just some little boy who went nuts. Well, it kind of does. Apparently the Templars have Nazis. "The Tranquil solution to the Mage problem." I am not making that up. I like that there's no central villain (so far). People love to talk about seeing a political plot and that seems to be what the game is so far.

Ahh, maybe I see the mistake. You hear "dark" and think it's the end of the world. It's not really dark and it's definitely not that kind of dark. Lothering (where the game starts) is not the world. He's a merchant prince in a fairly rich city.

Thanks for reminding me of that other thing I don't like about steam.

Well, for one thing, I absolutely fail to see the connection you're making. Beards are dark? How does that make sense? Second, that's why he's different from the stereotype. He was raised apart from tradition.

Varric was born on the surface.

Barney? Dinky the Dinosaur confirmed for companion in the DLC.

I still miss the detached camera. It's hard to position some AoEs on open ground precisely. However, it helps that if you pause, select an AoE, then change characters, you can aim the AoE from the other character's position. It's a brilliant little feature.

By foreboding I mean Cassandra's "He had to have known what was down there!" and "You know what he did!" It's that stupid Omniscient Council of Vagueness. It doesn't make me anticipate what's going to happen, it just makes me feel like I'm trapped in a room with a couple of pretentious douchenozzles telling each other in-jokes.

I've only heard them do it if you purchase one of the copies that are sent out to high piracy/impoverished regions. Those get extra low price points to try to fight piracy. I've never heard of them doing it to US copies. Just don't go buying from Southeast Asia or particular parts of Eurasia unless you live there. Where the copies cost maybe $20. Though I never heard about Fallout New Vegas doing that for Britain -> Poland. So I might not be well enough informed.

I will say this about the framing sequences. They're awful. It's 1/2 rapid fire recap, 1/2 vague foreboding. I make this judgement early. It may actually prove itself later, but the two that show up near the end of Act 1 were just painful.

There are helmets. There's just an option to turn them off and they're automatically off for cutscenes.

DAO also had a toolset.

Demo doesn't appear to have ever been actually tuned.

I think your very existence is offensive, Carlo.

Anyone know what's up with finishers? I don't think I've seen them. It's possible that they're in, but lacking a slowdown I've just never noticed.

If you're hoping they're more strategic and intelligent than DAO, they aren't. You can no longer do pre-emptive attacks against guys standing around by attacking them out of their aggro range. Their aggro range is line of sight. If they're spawned in and you can see them, they are going to attack (with rare exception). I kind of like this bit. A lot of the fights are wave based. Enemies will start appearing to reinforce. It nicely limits AoE, since they show up either after it's gone or don't necessarily run into it. Might make Glyphs more useful, too. Some people hated fights like this in DAO. I enjoy them. Encounters tend to be mixed. Most larger groups have Archers and/or Assassins mixed in. A few lieutenants (or so I assume, they have longer health bars). If you played the demo, the very last fight, against Hayder, is what most encounters are kind of like. Hayder was boss class, though. Most just have lieutenants.

What's the save corruption bug?

That's the one and only thing I don't like about Steam. I actually used to keep a collection of Counter-Strike patches. I always, and still do, like the idea of playing the version you want to play.

I'm not talking about the main quest heating up to the climax. I'm talking about running out of sidequests by act 2.

There are three types of side quests. Only one of those types feels like cheap filler. And they are literally find an object on the ground, now go find the guy it belongs to. You're running the bloody lost and found. This type of quest is called "side quest," but secondary quests and companion quests are also side quests in the traditional sense.

It's just like BG2, and everyone loved BG2, so that's must be good, right? Right? It's also just like Mass Effect 1. And simply too many games. They drop you in a major hub and put all the quest givers out there. So you spend the first half of your time (sometimes more) doing sidequests, then the second half wrapping up the main plot. It's just uneven. One thing I like about Mass Effect 2 is that it alternates. Companion quests, collector mission, companion quests, collector mission, etc. Maybe DA2 does something like that, I'm only in the first act. But yeah, they're definitely trying to channel Baldur's Gate 2. All these sidequests are you trying to earn money for a main quest.

Thoughts so far. Visuals + Everything seems more detailed. - Old models and textures from Origins stand out as incredibly bad. Quest + Lots and lots of sidequests. Quests are divided into main plot, companion, secondary, and side. Only side quests feel like cheap filler and they're easy to hit up while doing the rest. - It's a slow start. I've spent way too much time running in circles just to get quests. I don't know if this continues throughout. Companions - Everyone wants to get in my pants. I'm not a piece of meat, damnit! - Friendship/Rivalry is apparently an excuse to approve and disapprove of everything you do. Everyone is Morrigan. I lost points with Anders and Aveline just because I didn't bitch at someone using blood magic. This wouldn't be half as bad if I wasn't gaining points for everything else I do. Two steps forward, one step back, every single time. Combat (on Normal) + Faster and more interesting. Enemies feel weaker, with normals going down in 2-3 hits, but often come in greater numbers. - Sometimes too fast. When they don't come in greater numbers, a single lightning is usually enough to clear them out.