Monte Carlo

Your input as a scion of the family / recognition is diminshed oon the pretext that you were banished.

Yep, the elves as a race of bitter, not-very-nice terrorists who have decided on a nihilistic existence of vengeance and spite. Instead we get the usual poetry and camping. Yawn. The dwarves should have been even nastier, I want to play one but someone said as a noble dwarf you get airbrushed out of the Orzammar scenario. WTF? It's your brother.

^ Aristes, you only unlock the Champion by completing the Arl Eamon quest cycle - i.e. Redcliffe Village / Castle / Urn of Sacred Ashes! There's a lot of elf hate here. Yeah, the DA elves are pretty pathetic. The Dalish should have been feral, revenge-driven psycho barbarians, that would have been more fun.

I'm a complete downloading n00b. However, I found THIS French website for Mysteries of Westgate, have used it since and found it to be reliable, easy-to-use and not at all invasive. Have heard great things about D2D as well. Steam is reportedly invasive but great if you want to integrate your online gaming into one portal. I won't be touching Steam, personally. As for DA - what the other guys said. Strongly suggest a physical retail version. Cheers MC

I am 85% of the way through with my human rogue, it's been good fun, recommend it to anybody looking for something a bit different from tanking and spell-slinging. I am doing one more playthrough then I think I'll be giving it a rest. This one will be a two-handed weapon specialist - seen some interesting posts about this on the Bio boards. The mentat POV over thereis that the trick is how you use the talents as much as the build - we shall see. There is a Maul which apparently is a bit of a win button, too. What origin would you all suggest - was sorely tempted to go dwarf but apparently you don't get a lot of feedback in Orzammar. Which would be pretty poor, given the strength of those two origin stories. How do the elf ones play out throughout the game? Cheers MC

Like I said, this thread might as well be entitled 'Ask me about Fascism.' All play nicely with the wordy authoritarian, but I'm out of this thread.

Re-speccing now allows me to make Sten a sword and board guy --- therefore I don't even need to take Alistair anywhere. He can just sit in the camp whimpering before I marry him off.

IIRC the game is being consistent with regards to the Crimson Oars quests - the guard sergeant asks you to resolve the matter peacefully if possible. Ergo you should get more XP for doing so.

^ My bad. I'd go coercion, it can have lots of uses. You can scam an elf messenger who you'll find talking to the Ash Warriors in camp, near the King's tent. Talk to him and he'll ask you if you are the person he needs to deliver a sword to. Of course, you say yes and that's it. Probably a coercion and / or cunning check.

^ If you want to go with a plain cost / benefit analysis go locks - the junk you can pick up and sell will see you heading off to Lothering with up to 10 gold in your grubby mits. A point in coercion will allow you to solve two quests IIRC in Ostagar, the mage's chest is particularly worthwhile (although you can also solve that one with stealing or coercion), the other gets you a nice early game longsword. I went one point coercion / one point locks and got everything. I was a human noble though, but I didn't feel any rush to get momentum - early game dirty fighting and dual weapon sweep are pretty good.

^ I agree, polish / optimize the engine and go for it. EA will want to build on momentum in fact I'd be amazed if milestones weren't established a long time ago for DLC > XP > Sequel. I don't know the figures, but in my local gaming store this morning it was number 3 in the (PC) gaming chart a month after release. How's it doing on console? Anyhow, I'm pleased, it shows the still impressive market for single-player CRPGs.

Collective Farm 76 made 57,000 of those watches last month, comrade. The workers are getting some extra gruel to reward their diligence and effort for the People's Democratic Government!

The ending was great, in my humble, but for me the clue is in the word 'ending.' It's the end. Finished. Over. Epic Level DA? Hmmm. No thanks, let's have a new story set after the funeral of King Alistair (who died in the bath aged 85 staring at his navel) and just crack on as a level one whatever you are. Preferably elsewhere in Ferelden. DA is nothing like, say Baldur's Gate where at the end it was pretty clear that your story as a child of Bhaal was incomplete. One of the good things about DA is the closure. Don't spoil it.

No, I mean bringing that MMO mindset to a single-player game. From my camouflaged bunker at the Bio site you can see that lots of hardcore MMO players are completely smitten with Dragon Age and want it to be a MP / MMO style game. Of course, they don't realise that the reason they are smitten with DA is because it isn't a MP / MMO style game. Oh the irony. Anyhow, with Morrigan and dopey Al there are already enough griefers in the game without the MMO crowd joining in

^ This is why I use my Zen method. The MMO crowd will destroy, like math-obsessed locusts, any game they get involved in. Competition does that - my Company of Heroes experience teaches me this too.

^ Good point from newc, for a game so rich in lore and so meticulously planned, those elements are a bit of an ambush and unexplained. As for Morrigan, hell she tells you enough times what she's like, what her agenda is and that she can't be trusted. She tells you. Bio are figuring, however that: 1. People will like her spiky personality and cool persona 2. She's a hot goth chick with a smokin' leather get-up 3. You can sleep with her 4. (MOST important) there are only two mages - unless you are playing one yourself Morrigan is the only viable offensive spellcaster. This is straight out of the BG2 school of NPC manipulation - of course you'll take Yoshimo, he's a smooth-talking high STR single classed thief you can dual to fighter! Imoen's just left, you need a thief... Cheers MC

I am finally winning. OK, it's a bit of a spam tactic but not half as spammy as some of the stuff out there that's been kicking my arse. This works on most maps, but relies on mobility and aggression (then again, CoH is a race that relies on mobility and aggression. I call it Tanks & Paras and basically I copied a guy (level 10) who bashed me up on the Lyon map where I was Wehrmacht and very smug, looking at sitting pretty until I could panzer rush across two bridges simultaneously. I've adapted it a bit, and here's how it works - assume for now a small 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 map. Airborne Company (USA) is very good. In fact, your first four command points give you AT guns and AT infantry you can drop anywhere on the map. So you don't need a motorpool and you don't need a barracks. This saves manpower that you can spend elsewhere. Command Point Spend Early / Mid Game * Para Inf. * Para AT * Scout Plane (open up map with scout in fog of war allows you to drop paras there, this is excellent for driving the enemy nuts by siezing behind the lines resource points or harrassing base raids) Build Order 4 x Engr (2 x flame) Weapons Support Centre --- 2 x snipers, 2 x MGs, 1 x mortar This team can dominate / capture resource points. Let the snipers perform recce / interdiction / suppression. MGs hold buildings / cover RPs, mortar seriously ruins day of any ealry Axis infantry probes and wipes out inf suppressed by MGs. --- By this time your para inf come online. Three squads with recoilless rifles are ample at this point, back them up with an AT gun if the enemy are playing the same game and jumping to AFVs early rather than climbing the vanilla tech tree. Keep assaulting forward, always flanking (the paras don't like frontal assaults... they are good at fire and manouver though). The enemy will be very jumpy by this point as the para inf with recoiless rifles are very effective against armour. This will keep them at bay for a bit while you build a supply centre and armour support. Whilst the Axis are busy fighting paras (who you can reinforce in the field, keep pumping your squads up with replacements) you are building three or four shermans, throw in a flamethrower for pesky enemy At inf. Hold a forming up / assault point and marshall your forces. By this stage you can use supply drops to cheaply buy HMGs and mortars - just crew them with para inf and top up the remainder by reinforcing. Leap frog forward and unleash your tanks. If you keep the tempo up (you really can do this tactic quickly) the enemy won't have panther or flak-cannon to shred your inf. They'll go (like some poor guy did last night when he saw the Shermans) WTF? Tanks already? Then it's game over. Cheers MC

^ Yes, it totally depends on your playing style. I'm not advocating making a character like mine unless you like wandering around levels unseen, more or less solo, whilst looting and figuring out how you are going to lay traps / ambushes. You can play DA that way if you like, it's kudos to an otherwise system that has lots of strange flaws.

Tier 4 Stealth doesn't work on top-end bosses, well I'm a Tier 4 with 40+ cunning and it still fails with a few. That includes dragons. However, I can still get backstab bonuses on them by flanking, unlike D&D where it is nerfed against undead, dragons etc. Traps are a bit ho-hum against dragons, they can help but I've not been able to use trap cheese on them. On mobs and lower-level bosses, yeah, I've set up a circuit of traps that has decimated dozens of mooks. EDIT: Yes, bomb use doesn't de-cloak you from stealth like attacking does. You can abuse it to hell.

If confronted by a heavily-armoured boss I - * Go Dirty Fighting - The only critters that seem immunne to this are demons and dragons. Heavily armoured bosses? STUNNED. * Shimmy into back stab - quick attack + dual-weapon sweep does about 100-odd damage * Stealth Up! OK, I might take the odd hit while I'm doing that but whilst stealthed I can use poultices. Also, in that time the rest of the party are with me to help out. Conclusion: Tier 4 Stealth is priceless.

I totally agree with developers on the point about horses - the benefit versus effort dividend in terms of gameplay is so negligible that it's not worth it. Horses? Are you gonna make a jousting minigame? A horse archery minigame? Honestly, will you spend mage skill points on Equestriasm so they can cast 'sleep' from horseback? If the RPG was 'Knights on horseback' I could dig it. Or an open-ended world where horses allowed you to move faster (and let's face it, most of those are twitchy Diablo type games that I love but many here don't). Horses = red herring. Equine / piscene comparison done.

^ well, Vol, that serves you right for posting over there in the first place. I mean, here it's lively but at least you are allowed to bash what you like when you like. Typical Bio board banter: Unsuspecting Poster: I'm a bit disappointed by the DLC. Bio Forum Regulars: TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! I've just sent Bio details of my bank account - they can freely access it if they create three new eye tints for elves! --- Unsuspecting Poster: That puzzle in The Gauntlet is a bit tough, can anybody help please? Bio Forum Regulars: TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! In my day we sat and suffered for hours with a pen and pencil to solve puzzles like that, and we were grateful! Bugger of back to WoW*! TROLL! --- Unsuspecting Poster: I'm finding the Rogue a bit gimpy. Bio Forum Regulars: TROLL! Heathen! BURN THE WITCH! I have solo'd the game on NIGHTMARE FIVE TIMES with all my skill points spent on survival and potion brewing! Bugger off back to WoW! TROLL! Then, so as to add some proper top cover, a (junior) Bio dev will pop in with a one-line post to tell The Inquisition how their unquestioning love makes them feel even fuzzier. Tell me it ain't so. I'm embedded there with a proper alt.account and it ain't pretty. Cheers MC

^ The left fear the truth: that the indigent will sit by and wait. Then, given weapons by the Communists (or socialists, whatever Red Fascists are calling themselves these days), they will take your land. A technical-political officer will note the Ayn Rand quote in your sig and recommend re-education, it will be a long train ride followed by a short stay somewhere the regime chooses. I know LotF is an expert troll, a skill I never wish to develop. But would you all sit an ignore any other stripe of totalitarian just because he's good at trolling? I won't.

Reductionism yaaaaaaay You don't know me very well. I like fighting in tunnels. A lot.

How can somebody, seriously, actually use the phrase 'Dictatorship' (albeit of the proletariat, whoever they are) then go on to talk about non-coercion? Because they have taken a potion of disingenuosness. That's how. Listen, sonny. I grew up in a piss-poor neighbourhood and went to a school that was like something out of Mad Max 3. The vast majority of the 'proletariat' with or without 'class consciousness' think middle class leftists (among which I strongly suspect you number) are misguided halfwits. I grew up in the 1970's and early 1980's. I remember living under a proper left-wing government, and I remember bodies un-buried, the three day week and bread shortages (that's right kids, freaking bread shortages. In England.). So, please, take your totalitarian fantasies elsewhere, because as far as I'm concerned your post could just have easily been called 'Ask me about Fascism.'