Monte Carlo

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.

^ Spell Spammer My team heroically fixed bayonets and charged, like the heroic but doomed halfwits we are.

^ I loved the Deep Roads, they could have been twice as big but with more battles like the one on the bridge. Am a bit disappointed that there isn't more variety of Darkspawn Enemies, that would be my only criticism...

I'm currently playing a dual-wield warrior (Human) and it's a pretty good build - I'm keeping DEX & STR on a par (OK, dex a bit higher) and wearing fairly heavy armour - feats like Punisher (comfortably achievable by level 9/10) are great for finishing off tough boss monsters and dual-weapon sweep is great for post-spell crowd control / putting critters out of their misery. I burn through stamina so have to pick and choose when I use them but my passive DW skills make up for it in that I'm dishing out decent baseline damage anyway. Ironically, he survives longer in combat than my walking panzer sword and shield guy, even when Sten is with me as the only other tank. Go figure. If you put Wynne and Sten together they're not a bad combo - Wynne keeps him (and everybody else) alive whilst Sten can put down large amounts of damage. It's just not optimal. I'd say, having tried out all three, the DW warrior is my fave build - haven't got to DW Mastery yet so I can use two full-size weapons but there are lots of decent daggers anyway. DW Warrior, therefore, has it all - high DPS, survivability and interesting skills that stun / knockdown / lacerate opponents. I've not yet enchanted any weapons beyond +2 electricity, but that will only add to the carnage. Cheers MC

Dragon Age (dual-wielding Human warrior - very good option) Company of Heroes (Wehrmacht or US airborne, baby!) That is all I've got time for, both are excellent, up-all-night games for totally different reasons. CoH is the only MP game I've ever fallen for. MC

I saw the THQ package in my local store for a silly cheap price... was going to get it for Titan Quest and XP. Is it any good?

There needs to be some gimped spells to reign in the uber-power of mages. I refer you back to my experimental re-specc of Morrigan, which I deleted because it was too easy. And now I've got Volourn on 'ignore' I can say this - the metric to determine the 'difficulty slider' on a game shouldn't be which class you choose - at the moment it's EASY (Mage) NORMAL (Warrior) and HARD (Rogue). Cheers MC

Before this thread gets locked down due to size, I thought I'd play cultural influence spotting. Dave Gaider really has been an intellectually superior Ed Greenwood (Forgotten Realms) with DA:O and I salute him for it. Although I'm not a big Codex reader in the game, there's clearly a lot going on "under the hood" that you pick up by osmosis - the hallmark of a superior homebrew RPG setting. It is, however, a bit all over the place but hey, it's a game. --- DA:O Cultural Influence Spotting --- The Tevinter Imperium (Rome with a smattering of Byzantine Empire / late Ottoman Turkey) fades as it gorges on Blood Magic (i.e. pagan worship and decadence) that gives way to a shaky but growing world religion (The Chantry) that wants to curb paganism (magic). Meanwhile, in Dark Ages / Celtic Ferelden (Tolkien's Rohan filtered through Welsh and Irish mythos) they've developed high medieval armouring technology, probably due to the dwarves and magic. The Darkspawn is Revelations writ large, every early Christian's worst end-of-days nightmare. The warring Banns are straight out of late Dark Ages Briton or even high medieval Scotland. The architecture in most chantry buildings can be seen in Canterbury Cathedral, about 60-odd miles from where I live. Meanwhile, in faraway Qunnari land, a mystical, technologically advanced people with a rigid theological doctrine (er, the Almohads advancing on Poitiers, or the Turks advancing on Constantinople if you want to factor in the cannon) scare the Franks (sorry, Fereldens). Any takers?

Does that mean lots of cliched NPCs with laser guns can be recruited to fight the Darkspawn? Because that would be so cool my head would like explode. Or something.

^ I'm familiar with the argument, which is about as valid as burning left-handed people at the stake. In the UK the game has an '18' (adult) certificate anyhow. "Don't look son, he's left-handed!"

DA2 should be called Dragon Age: Deities, where you become a god and build cities, transport infrastrucure, power, light transit networks and culture / entertainment facilities for the people of Ferelden. You can then post your virtual Ferelden on a special website with all the other virtual Fereldens and argue about who has the biggest Chantry / aqueduct / tavern.

Hey, they had a Gay romance in a game and guess what? The sky didn't fall in. Obviously, I'd rather there were no romances for anybody whatsoever, but at least I'm completey equal opportunities about that

^ Ostagar, not (I think) Orzammar. Y'know, the place where you join the Wardens.