HoonDing

Doing Orzammar early until you get Oghren, and then head out instead of doing the Deep Roads works fine too. Otherwise you're missing out on much of Oghren banter & quest input. Besides, Oghren > Sten.

Magic is much more fun in Dark Messiah. With Telekinesis you can pick up the statues outside the temple and throw them into the faces of the Orcs. Comedy gold.

Only way to get rid of Curse of Mortality is Cleanse Area or Dispel Magic. But putting the schmuck in a Force Field probably helps too. Wade's drakescale sucks since it looks like generic leather armour. At least Ancient Elven armour looks slightly different from chainmail.

If enemy 'blood' mages would actually use blood magic spells the game would be much harder. As it is now, the tag above their heads should be changed to "Amateur Poser". If enemy mages would use Mana clash, the game would be nightmare for PC mages. The only time my mage fell in her playthrough was when by chance that special mage in the Temple of the urn used Mana clash on her = instant 202 damage & knock-out. *giggle* Usually when Emissaries use Curse of Mortality or Crushing Prison, it's knock-out time for one of the party members too. But they hardly ever do. In Baldur's Gate at least enemy mages didn't hold back... but usually cast 500 spells instantly as soon as they spotted the party.

Arcane Warrior's attack rating is always going to be mediocre, unless your spellpower is very high which is a no-go since AWs need high willpower to toggle all the sustainables. I only picked it for Shimmering Shield so I could solo dragons. Even without wearing armour, my mage has a higher armour rating than Sten/Oghren in dragonbone armour with Rock armour activated & dressed in Reaper's vestments. Even Alistair's armour rating isn't too far away. I set her from "default" to "ranged" behaviour.

I use the following tactic for Leliana: "Enemy: Nearest visible mage -> Use ability: Arrow of Slaying" But I notice she's still randomly using Arrow of Slaying on anything when there's no mage around, which just wastes an ability. Is this normal?

I'm worried about these mysterious game additions installing without me even knowing. Next BioWare's new patch will automatically download & install and destroy my Kensai Mage build by nerfing Shimmering Shield.

Three mages with Fireball, Cone of Cold & Force Field could conquer all of Thedas.

I'm sure rogues work fine, but it just seems too much work for the same result. Use a mage instead of a rogue and battles end thrice as fast. And if one wants to be smart and sneak into a room to fill it with traps, one just runs into an enemy trigger 3/4 of the time. Much simpler to just unleash a couple of AoE arcane combos and be done with it.

And there's the rub for me. My Dalish Elf playthrough will basically feature a Leliana-clone combat wise just for this reason. With some stealth & traps thrown in for a bit more variety.

I'm only asking because apparently there is no PC demo available.

That would've worked if the Blight & Uber Bad Guy had been more like in Morrowind. That choice was even offered to the PC during the course of the game, and before the end. But the way BioWare typically handles their Evil & UBG, of course that wouldn't work out.

Does this game compare to Call of Cthulhu regarding atmosphere & overall scariness?

I'm sure The Edge is a quest reward somewhere in Orzammar, no? I didn't notice it first time I went through the game, though.

By all means, spill the beans.

I must be really lucky as I didn't encounter traps in the City Elf origin and I went through it twice... also with the Dragon in the Elven ruins I only discovered there were traps after wasting the dragon. Only nasty trap I've encountered is one in the Dalish Elf origin.

I actually care most about the in-game lore & setting. Morrowind wasn't exactly stellar in gameplay either. But it was the setting, atmosphere & lore that made the game and which Oblivion sadly lacked.

Apart from people complaining on their forums, Beth might not even realize something was wrong with Oblivion. The game certainly sold enough and is highly ranked on Metacritic.

Maybe a future game will deal with a war between the Black Chantry of Tevinter & the White Chantry of Ferelden/Orlais. The Black Chantry basically consists of mages that rule Tevinter... exactly the opposite of the Inquisition-like Chantry in Ferelden/orlais. It would be interesting to learn about the Tevinter interpretation of the life & death of Andraste... since Tevinter was the old battleground and the place where the chick was burnt, I'd say theirs is probably the accurate one.

That is something many classic Greek heroes have in common.

Viconia makes Oblivion better.

Was there any honor gained in those battles? Might as well make Medal of Honor: Bay of Pigs.

Dex hotfix means that enemy archers will kick your ass too. Ecce those very fun random encounters with 50 archers in Denerim. *giggles* I just went into Denerim with PC mage, Wynne & Morrigan -> Fireball + Fireball + Fireball = random encounter is over. But, I am not having the impression archery is bugged in my game. Leliana seems to be doing the damage she's supposed to be doing.

Dear Lord, look at how far Kal Sharok is from Orzammar. That's would be a lot of Deep Roads.

TES IV didn't break any lore, aside from not making Cyrodiil a jungle but generic fantasy land and messing up the names of Daedric realms (which was a case of writers passing the wrong notes to programmers, apparently). In fact TES IV introduced some interesting new ideas regarding the Towers & their focusing stones (White Gold Tower + Amulet of Kings, Red mountain + Heart of Lorkhan, etc). Kirkbride wrote Nu-mantia Intercept after Oblivion. If TES V deals with finding a new Emperor before the EMpire crumbles, for instance by tracing old Septim bloodlines (surely there were tons of bastard children created throughout the years) all over the Empire it could be pretty interesting.