Monte Carlo

^ Yeah, that was me. Imoen-Chick did 138 and used all her stamina. And stood at the back. And died shortly afterwards. Dwarf warrior can heft his shield, rely on his awesome hit points and dish out consistent damage. Like you say all have strengths and weaknesses... but all these games are party based and there is an expectation that the classic 2 + 1 + 1 model will be followed (i.e. two combat capable characters, a spellcaster and a utility guy / cleric). Cheers MC

^ +1 That drives me nuts... <CHARNAME> Cousland is obviously meant to be a vanilla S&S warrior archetype. Dwarf Noble story screams warrior - nobody acknowledges your roguishness, not even a line about "how you didn't turn out the way Pa wanted." To be fair, Dalish Elf and Dwarf Commoner work either way and Mage speaks for itself. The noble origins highlight the rogue identity crisis even Vol acknowledges.

I'm sure Gromnir will speak for himself, but he played on Hard with a 2H fighter. The Dawn of the Dead scenario at Redcliffe is an early game nightmare for a 2H fighter. 2H fighters excel in boss combat / one-on-one. Redcliffe is mobs. My sword and shield guy was last man standing, my DW warrior went all Chuck Norris on them.... when Sten was my last dude in that battle. Hmmm. This game isn't scaled for every class / specialisation / party combo... it couldn't be. I see why Grom struggled with that battle. Me? I'd have switched difficulty down to normal but I ain't Grom. Cheers MC

I don't think there is an 'Evil' path in Dragon Age. There's a mercenary path, an occasionally-selfish path and a morally ambiguous path... but Evil? I mean evil in a "MWUHAHAHAHAH" and EnSLaVinG NatiONs WitH NEcrOMAnCY sort of way. Don't get me wrong, I like it. For example, in the Warden's Keep The Blight is WW2. Some guys want to beat the Nazis via the Queensbury Rules, others a la The Inglorious Basterds route. I'm going to play my Dwarf Rogue the bad boy route next time. Re-Speccing Sten as a Sword & Shield guy and leaving Alistair at the camp navel-gazing.

^ Dude you've just described the world Futures market in Wall Street, London (etc) for the past ten years.

^ Genuine LOL!

^ I'm a ruthless thief and pack-rat. Imoen-Chick opens and steals everything, GreyWardenCorp © is the Ferelden version of one of those US private military companies, we never turn down the offer of a gift or reward. The stuff in locked chests looks like it's rubbish, but for some reason armoured gloves and boots sell like hot cakes in kooky Denerim economy. And when I sell stuff I'm ruthless - if I ain't wearing it or don't need it I sell it. I make all my own potions courtesty of endless Elfroot Dude in the Brescilian Forest and Flask Guy in the Mage Tower. Result? Usually cruise around with 25-50 gold spare. Spend this on R&R in the Pearl and Backpacks (naturally). Enchantment! Boy also does his thang for free, unlike other games where you pay for magic items. Groovy. Cheers MC

^ With regards to archery... Don't feel the need to take all the talents... you get the feeling with this game that you need to pad out all the skills in a tree, maybe because many of them are symbiotic. Imoen-Chick is a fairly useful character, she's a thief and can help your party get seriously rich (she has for me). Re-Spec her with the Arrow of Slaying archery tree, boost her STR to 20 for decent armour and throw in a couple of DW melee skills. Max out locks and poison, stealth can come later. The result is an archer who can (a la the Sacred Ashes trailer) kill enemy mages or finish off boss critters with one shot (my max damage with that skill using Imoen-Chick is 134 I think). She can use two daggers and backstab when mob combat gets out of hand. She can make and use grenades, the last-ditch fix bayonets weapon of choice that's saved my ass on numerous occasions. And she can steal everything. And pump Cunning, not a problem because all those tomes and books become easily affordable with a good thief on the team. Don't ever use her as anything other than a Swiss army knife, though, because she will get killed very quickly in combat. Anyhow, that's how I used her (admittedly on Hard setting) and found her to be superior to Zevran straight outta the box. Zevran is more amusing, to be sure, but after the first playthrough we tend to be more pragmatic about these things. Cheers MC

I am a Grey Warden. I spend all my money on unusual sexual experiences and backpacks. Occasionally at the same time. Dressed like Bob Hope. Honestly, this game is more fun than a sack of squirrels playing bagpipes. Some of it is intentional. Cheers MC

This post is about armour, this is the only tenuous link to the topic. Then again, I started the thread yadda yadda. There is a piece of armour crafted from a block of pure awesomeness. I wish I knew how to post pictures. I genuinely wonder if it's an Easter Egg. Equip, on a human, the Armour of Diligence (I think that's what it's called) and the Heavy Dwarven Boots of Something or Another (I paraphrase). Result? I s**t you not, golfing plus fours. And they're plaid. Honestly, you look like Bob Hope in a screwball 50's comedy or something. Either that or they were trying for a sort of Asterix the Gaul tartan type effect but honestly it looks like I'm playing golf in a New England country club circa. 1949. LOL! Cheers MC

I went to the forest on my first game - slugged through it all with great difficulty (still learning the game) but couldn't beat Second game went straight to Redcliffe - I never thought I'd be able to save the militia so slugged it out there too, Hamburger Hill style! Kept kiting the zombies under spell and missile fire back up the hill to fight the knights at the top, then found a little spot where the game lets you rest. Cheesy, but I was low level, out of poultices ammo and everything else. My S&S guy was last man standing with about 11 or 12 health left. Then and fought the Revenant, about level 8 or 9, Alistair last man standing this time! Now I'm on top of the combat mechanics and spell combos - next (and probably last for a while) playthrough will be my amoral Good Fellas dwarf barrio rogue. For some reason I stop and make final end saves before the final battle - so I haven't finished the game! I'll have three level 20-22 characters with three end saves then decide which one to finish with. Strange, I know, it's just the way I've decided to finish what has been a really enjoyable game. Cheers MC

More general SoZ awesomeness.

And you still like pie, well done.

^ Yeah, I think The Harlequin's assessment is fair, I agree with about 85% of it. I didn't really notice the texture issue you mention, but I love the character avatars and combat animations, my only beef is that some of the armour designs are a bit goofy and MMO for my tastes but this is me being picky. I score it a solid 8.5 because I loved the combat - I'm a diehard Infinity Engine fan and love the respect DA:O gives real time with pause combat. The setting, again to be fair, is about as dark and gritty as Bio would ever get: i.e. not very. I was hoping for a Conan vibe more than LotR, but as a LotR homage it's pretty good. Little touches like the warriors cheering you into combat at the end I take my hat off too. I'm pretty cool with it overall, it's a campy vanilla CRPG with flashes of brilliance. Some of the NPCs are great, I like about half of them and it doesn't get better than that for me in any game let alone a Bio one. For me to take Sten all the way, an NPC as fragile as a sparrow when he's meant to be as tough as old boots... fair play to whoever wrote him. Morrigan wins points for the VO and also for the black leather get-up - coolest looking mage in any CRPG (not that it would be difficult - my magic-user clothing issues are a matter of record). As for the music, as ever Mister Z is on the money - kudos to you, sir. Loving the 30 Seconds to Mars too. What would propel DA:O into greatness for me? 1. Push the boat out just a few feet more on the setting - do something that would make all of us go.... WTF? The game is solid enough for you to have gotten away with it. 2. Make it classless - be brave. DA:O played with the character I wanted to make would have been an awesome experience. 3. Less linearity... be confident in the setting. Ferelden is promising, let me explore it not rescue it like an unexploded bomb with the big red LED clock ticking. 4. More critters. Slaying waves of the same flavour enemy infantry got old. Anyway, like I say 8 - 8.5 out of ten and the most solid CRPG release of the last ten years. Awful marketing, too much hype but an offering Bio should be proud of. And good luck to Gaider, now get on with writing the XP. Cheers MC

In addition to Tigrane's (excellent) post about some of the mechanics in DA, here's my similar round-up of classes. Warrior All about DPS, 2H is gimped, the other two builds (DW / sword & shield) are great. Pump STR, CON and DEX (DEX no greater than 36, swap CON for WILL if you want). It's the middle path for a fun, vanilla game. Mage You will look like a freak with your strange Hugh Hefner lounge-wear and condom hats, but who cares when you are the wlaking equivalent of a Soviet-era Shock Army artillery regiment? Mage = Win Button. Rogue Used to hate it, now realise it is in fact the tricky choice of the renaissance man. Lots of routes to choose, but the main advantage is that if you go lockpicking you will be rich. Seriously rich. So rich that your party will be decked out in the most Gucci kit and you can buy lots of extra skills. If you want to play combat rogue go dual-wielding, if you want to play tactical leader go archery (the arrow of slaying is actually good fun). If you pump coercion + cunning you will also enjoy some dialogue options that your plate-clad and lyrium glugging compadres won't often get. Also, like BG2, going the rogue route allows you to arguably build the best NPC team (unless you are going uber-mage). Cheers MC

Easy, link it to cunning or a skill... OK not in Dragon Age but like Gromnir I literally run around with TAB stickied down. I hate leaving chests unopened, even if they only contain two coins and a returning frost dart. Whassup with the lack of bash / knock spell?

^ Thanks Spider, it's a deal although I'll have to bank it because I've got so many great games on the go at the moment.

As I've mentioned before I don't really play magic-users in RPGs. Warriors? Yeah, Rogues? Definitely. Clerics? Why not? But the nerdy mage who stands at the back casting sleep? Nope. Dragon Age changes that, right? After all, it's the most powerful class, you are a walking avatar of arcane power, capable of dealing with any given problem as long as you have one or two side-kicks to kite for you. There's all those spell effects to experiment with, Blood Magic, Arcane Warrior, blowing stuff up... But... You look like an idiot. For. The. Entire. Game. Maybe I shouldn't care that mage-hats look like condoms with teeth. Maybe wearing Liberace's dressing gown for fifty hours of gameplay should be strangely liberating. OTOH, even my crap rogue who dies all the time looks like Russell Crowe in Gladiator. My warrior looks completely badass, straight out of King Arthur, y'know the Dark Ages Special forces version with Keira Knightley in camouflage paint. So, i've already given up on my mage in Hogwarts. He looks so goofy it's making me laugh. This is the power trade-off that the developers decided was the best way to balance Dragon Age - you might be Ownage personified, but you are gonna look like an extra from a really bad pantomime for the entire game. LOL!

I'm finally at the point with my DW juggernaut of destruction (now has two runed, full size swords) that I'm having to crank up difficulty to hard for everything. Have all DW talents by level 12 with the statuory 36 DEX (you have to do the Fade early, I suppose). Cheers MC

I don't find the banter that annoying, in fact the acoustics for some reason mean that I have to zoom right in to hear it. Alistair's explanation of Fereldan cuisine to Imoen-Chick was actually rather witty ("you have to cook everything until it's completely grey...")

I'm online playing CoH tonight (27 November) from about 20.00 GMT (wearing my panzer commander's hat mit goggles) if anybody is interested. PM me for my username / password, I'll probalby play a game or two over the weekend. Cheers MC

Am wondering - why doesn't my much-vaunted "Detect Darkspawn" ability work? It's meant to be my special GW trick yet it hasn't worked once.

I love Diablo but I'm never buying an Elder Scrolls game ever again. I'd rather buy a compilation CD of Al Gore speeches.

I take Grom's point about the (albeit less than transparent) game mechanics, but the fact remains that my DW warrior really is Captain Destructo - I just queue up more damage dealing abilities than the shield guy or 2H weapon guy. Mages especially feel the pain - dual weapon sweep, riposte and punisher kill them before they get their second spell off by the time I've charged across the room (yes, in massive armour). DW sweep even damages / finishes off any of their nearby compadres. I'm only level 11 at the moment, will continue to report how the tough boss battles pan out but if folks haven't tried the build I can recommend it heartily.

Banter? Options > Gameplay > Banter On / Off Simple, treat like blood spatter. The developers have an extremely detailed tactics options system but you can't shut the NPCs up. Strange.