Monte Carlo

^ Yeah, the devs on the Bio forums are manifestly refusing to rule out traditional XPs when asked straight out... there's probably a "Big Squadron" approach to this game - DLC and expansions, in fact any vehicle to build up a head of steam for the sequel (and why not - the reception the game has had so far suggests this is a major hit for Bio / EA). Because I'm not a console gamer, can I ask how big an expansion can you D/L onto a PS3 / Xbox 360? Cheers MC

SoZ = I know it's a controversial position, but it's true.

50% - either neutral or supportive, about 15% being kamikaze Bio-shills who'd buy anything Bio make anyway 25% - thoughtfully upset 25% - serious acceptance of reality issues Anyhow, 78.9% of all statistics are completely made up.

I've had three: Fido, Rover and Spot. I'm going for FanTAsY immersion, big time.

^ Yep, it's not paper / scissors / stone like most games... it's more like tissue / small piece of tin / 10 ton boulder.

^ Because they are so fragile, you have to plan which appeals to me. I like wading in as a DPS tank, but I also like sneaking about. I'm looking forward to tier 4 stealth, I think it might be fun. Where rogues struggle is in proper mob combat, but I'm already at the point (level 4) where two or three hurlocks are no problem at all. And, because I understand the game a bit better now, I entered the tower with 20+ health poultices.

Am playing tower of Ishar as a commando mission, trying to use all stealth opportunities with my rogue. Most fun moment so far was using Dog as bait for the darkspawn, then my stealhed character letting rip with the ballistae on the second floor. Dog, having passed basic training, is capable of ballista gunnery and we took out the hurlock infantry before closing in on the archers for the kill. Good fun, OK you are playing the game much more slowly and filling up your inventory insanely fast, but that seems to be the rogue way in this game.

^ Agreed, and it's only right that as a homage to BG2 they have a munchkin Kensai / Mage build in the mix. Shame there's nothing similar for the poor, unloved rogue

Squeezed in a quick (well, 2 hour) 3 v 3 multiplayer game this weekend, Wehrmacht x 3 versus 2 x Brits and 1 x USA. The enemy obviously planned a defensive battle (British strength) with the perfectly viable tactic of the US player making nothing but rangers. Just pumping points into blobs until the pop cap was reached. I built a small force of 2 x stormtroopers, 2 x StuG, a MG team and a sniper and did a recce in depth. Ranger Blobs! went up the cry on the chat-room function. I immediately sent in my two Goliaths I have in reserve at all times for this eventuality and ruined their day a little bit. I then held the line with infantry and a couple of Mark IVs and returned the serve with the only polite response to ranger blobs. Werfers. Yep, I just went werfer spam (6 werfers in pairs, each firing volleys of 12 almost continually) on their HQ. When my stealthed sniper saw that their HQ was FUBAR and they couldn't make rangers for a bit I rolled in the panthers, StuG x2 and a Tiger. With the ranger spam out of the picture my team mates rolled over the second-rarte Brit armour and we won. If they'd been more aggressive with the ranger blobs we might even have lost, they don't play as well defensively. At last, I gained another wehrmacht level. Cheers MC

The Bioware Dragon Age social networking place forum is interesting. Usually the place is packed with Bio shills who would thank the developers if every game came with an OS-shredding virus ("but it's a Bioware virus, is there DLC for it?"). This is why I only post there occasionally under a nomme de guerre and only ask questions if I'm stuck and need a mentat to help me who isn't here (rare). Anyway, there is probably a 50/50 split on the DLC issue, unusual for over there and indicative of the depth of feeling. Of the fifty percent who are miffed with DLC, 25% of those who I'd describe as not-very-credible whiners with entitlement issues. They would have whined anyway. The other 25% are more thoughtful and realise that the current DLC model is potentially bad news for PC gamers (i.e. everything has to be cross-platform, a big traditional XP looks unlikely) or have legitimate suspicions about EA and the length of DLC. OTOH I've seen some pretty fair arguments by some of the developers there about the economic realities of DLC - at the end of the day they need to pay salaries and turn a profit. One thing that keeps cropping up is the cost of VO (see my argument about this on the other DA thread)... so why not half partially voiced DLC and make it longer and cheaper? There's also this quality versus length argument - they're saying "do you really want a big dungeon full of darkspawn and not too much plot?" Er, yes, sparky, I do. Your writers are OK, but the Tolstoy estate ain't trembling in their boots just yet. There's room for all sorts of DLC - this is why come the March of the Modders (OK, in about 6-8 months) I'll be able to download a big Deep Roads, monty haul dungeon hack for free and some of the DLC argument will be moot. Bio need to do well what the modders struggle with (or can't turn around quickly) - professionally balanced classes and skills (although with the mage they struggled on the vanilla game ) NPCs, a proper expansion / alternative plotline... or dammit just crack on with DA2. In fact, will DA2 be announced with indecent haste? So, for me, I'm still split on DLC. I like the ease of just hitting a dialogue option in game and buying something. I'm realisitc about what that something might cost. But I'm not convinced that an hour of fully voiced micro-game is the way forward. I'd rather pay the same money for two hours of blissful dungeoneering with good dialogue and 15% of it voiced, y'know, the important bits not a peasant telling me what he had for breakfast. Cheers MC

Am now playing a rogue and getting to grips with the build - to make it enjoyable you have to be sooooo discriminating with skill choices. This isn't the case with the warrior (choose a weapon style, armour up, go kill things) or mage (choose spells, glug lyrium potions, go kill things). I'm going dual wielding with poison for now. I'm going to start throwing in stealth and I like coercion to make things go my way. I have also noticed new (non-persuade) dialogue trees which must be my high Cunning score coming into play, which is nice to see. Am pumping Strength (will stop when I can wield best melee weapons), Dex (will stop at 36) and Cunning (which I am going to pump, along with Willpower - my skills burn stamina very quickly). Thoughts: * Dual sweep is a great early game tactic for two weapons, I didn't realise it was a crowd control skill * Terrain... I've found that in the overland maps there are more possibilities for choke-points / height advantage than in dungeons. Shields to the fore to suck it up and I lurk about finishing bad guys off * Is there, for the love of god, anything worth actually stealing in a locked chest in the whole of Ferelden? * Solo-ing this game with a rogue on normal would be a massive challenge, don't think I could be bothered * Bombs - I've said it before but bombs are under-used and are really cool early game life savers - backstab, bomb, dual weapon sweep = crowd control win on minor darkspawn, wolves, spiders etc. Anyhow, I now don't need Imoen Chick or Zorro Elf so I can hire two good warriors and a mage and do the game properly this time, and yes I am re-speccing all the NPCs to suit my style. Cheers MC

Has anybody played with a DW warrior build, how did it work out?

Can the guys who've played rogues give us a lowdown of their builds please? Am slightly baffled over the DEX versus STR versus CUNNING issue. I'm going to buy every freaking upgrade book I can find, I want a two-weapon (each will be studded with paralysis / stun runes) stealth-meister who can open locks. Or is there a compelling reason to take archery? Also, traps or poisons initially? Can't do both. Cheers MC

^ In the last XP Brits get the Kangaroo APC, basically a Sherman tank with the turret taken off. You can fit two squads of infantry and an officer in it. It has very high armour and moves fast. If you pack it with engineers with PIATs or commando AT infantry then it becomes a cheesy, over-powered unit that can zip through enemy lines and cause havoc. You see a lot of kanga-spam in CoH, and the thing is the Brits can get them relatively low down the tech tree whilst the Germans are still racing up there to get Panthers or (gasp) the Tiger.

Di, whilst in the city the little 'Change Party' icon should glow gold at the top of the GUI, you can just access the 'Cast 'O NPCs' screen automatically. It doesn't work in other areas, you need to access camp.

CTRL + F has just changed my life and you, sir, are a genius. I forgive every moment of bone-headedness you have hitherto displayed

^ I put this to the forum... Fully voiced dialogue is a waste of money. I do not, for a moment, want to rob my fellow Briton, the inimitiable Tim Curry, of a penny. However, how much does a fully voiced game cost for chrissakes? I'm hitting Esc through lots of dialogue... some werewolf wants to threaten me? OK, the first taunt voiced is cool... but every single time? Ditto merchants. And peasants. And the guy who sells mushrooms. This money would be better spent elsewhere. Just VO the really important stuff Bioware. Spend the rest on crunchy stuff like a 10 hour XP with a new NPC and skills and stuff. Please. I don't know much about game development, but do (vicariously) about voice talent... the top end pays pretty good and DA:O has some top end VO. Cheers MC

Sure, you can still play with me but I have the two XPs (which should be pennies on Steam etc), which means you won't get Kangaroo APCs. But it's no biggie. That's the only difference I've mentioned thusfar you still get the same support companies (etc).

Let's do Lyon as a sort of gentle introduction to brutal, savage house-to-house fighting. We can use the in-game chat to ensure that there's no spam and it'll be fun. Will open a decent bottle of claret and await your PM, mon ami. The arty units, IIRC, are Canadian in CoH if that helps you get in the mood. Cheers MC Edit: In MP you can use your manpower to just respawn lots of rangers into a tank-slaying horde that cannot be supressed by MG fire. The CPU does it occasionally, just not as egregriously as human players can. CoH is chock full of spam-tastic design loopholes like this, it's still fun but I now pick and choose who I play. Hint: Kangaroos and Brits with Royal Commando PIAT infantry on board = win button.

^ I'm probably more like Volourn (gasp), I sort of chill out, sometimes re-play a particularly interesting battle for fun, travel around buying stuff and doing side quests... just like BG2 in fact. I did one character to level 11, then did a restart (currently level 20) and another origin out of curiosity. This is generally how I play CRPGs, DA is well set up for my meandering style. I don't really like getting to the end. In fact, I'd love a "re-spawn tougher monsters" mod so I could have some more combat. So, with that in mind I'm at about 70 hours and have enjoyed almost all of it, I have both DLC quests (which adds about 2.5 hours including travelling to Soldier's Peak for the merchants there after I've finished that quest). On my next run-through I'm going to do everything. Why? because I'll be a rogue and I want to be the highest level possible before the end... and no chest unlocked! Cheers MC

^ Thanks for entering into the spirit of friendly assistance for your fellow gamers this thread was meant to encourage.

^ I said dungeon areas. I sort of do recce in depth with the warrior then retreat when it all gets a bit hairy, that's when the mage steps in and finishes it off. I made Morrigan an arcane warrior with sword and shield and elemental / death magic. Her + undead archer = teh win.

If I suspect the enemy are going ranger spam I always choose luftwaffe support + snipers. Luftwaffe mooks can knock up barbed wire and obstacles that they have to run around whilst my flakpanzers and snipers eviscerate them. Whilst they are negotiating the obstacles I then drop werfers on them. Also, a well-placed Goliath (150 points) can take out a whole blob (600+ points). Of course, as soon as you've made the blob go away you have to shout "Panzers, March!" and go on the offensive. Ranger spam, like all the infantry spam in CoH, is supremely annoying and I tend to avoid people who rely on it (ditto engineer and sniper spam, fought a guy who just kept storming with engineers and snipers... boring).

I'm not a MMO player, so I'm not really best qualified to comment on the comparison. However, in a single player game, with only three classes, where you can only have four party members at a given time... I expect all three classes to be as viable as the other (note - I said viable, not the same). I have been playing, obviously, all of the classes because I control the party. It is fairly easy to solo dungeon areas on normal with the mage. It's also perfectly manageable with the warrior (mine was a walking tank division towards the end). It's really tricky and fiddly with the rogue - lot's of little, itty-bitty skills that you have to join together to get right. Before Volourn says it, Rogue shouldn't necessarily be the support character - none of us play as the protagonist in a CRPG to be the caddy for the more powerful NPCs. Of course, maybe i'm just not playing my rogue right but I've been playing these sorts of games for a while and should be able to pick it up faster than I have. Rogues have traditionally been my favourite class in CRPGs... so a rather damning indictment of DA is that for the final battle I've left a rogue out of the final four lineup for three warriors and a mage. Why? Because even I, lover of tactics and micromanagement, am getting eyebleed / migraine from getting my rogue to work optimally. Not overly complaining, just a bit miffed that the DA rogue didn't work out for me. Am still going to play one next time to try to properly get the hang of it. Cheers MC

OK, I've not quite finished but I'm near the end engaged in one of the sub-final-but-not-quite battles. It's a complete homage to LotR (Peter Jackson's vision, naturally) but I say that in a "and that's OK" sort of way. All in all it's been a blast, am looking forward to the end, and playing it again. There's stuff I didn't really get into but should have (er, enchanting weapons properly) but the game mechanics are like a roadkill pizza - hey it's pizza (yum!) but there's bits of roadkill in it (eeeew!). Well done Bio, I stand by my 8/10. Sort out the (currently dodgy) looking expansion DLC strategy and support the modding community - it could easily rise to a 9/10. Cheers MC