Niten_Ryu

My rogue is still gimpy at level 12 but less then before. Leliana (or the redhead rogue as I often forget her name) is getting bit better too, thanks to Arrow of Slaying and good bow (too to drop Blood Mages from great distances). I also changed templar tank to Shale and Wynne is still on healing spot. Finally it start to feel like I have somewhat balanced team. I tested 2 mages on my team but I found it really hard not to cheese thru encounters as it's so stupidly easy with CC + AoE damage. Something like earthquake + grease + fireball is fun but ultimately destroy all balance. Amount of mages affect game difficulty more then actual difficulty settings. I find it really odd that Bioware managed to mess up class balance this badly, especially since there's only 3 classes (and differences between rogues and warriors are small). Stamina vs. mana system is the main failure. It's even bigger blunder then mages suprime ability to CC and AoE. Mage can drink unlimited amount of mana potions (well, your cash reserves are only thing that might limit it but even full stack of dust and flasks are very cheap) but there's only slow means to regenerate stamina. Bard song, Wynnes spell ect ect work very slowly. Heck, my rogues are still in low level light armor (and Shale don't have "real" armor at all) and I'm still out of stamina all the time. Patch in stamina potions or increase stamina gain. It's not like Bioware had to reinvent the wheel as WoW (among other games) have perfectly fine energy / stamina system already developed and tested. That was the bitter part, now to more positive things. I really enjoyed dragon aggro system. It was great to watch it to take off and fly to the characters who did most of the damage. I was sure that I'll outsmart it right away but it either wiped aggro list from time to time or had some distance reductions (like in many MMOGs) in aggro. It kicked Shale away and moved to my archers or healer. Other thing that I really enjoyed was the mage tower after I got . I was great to leave gimpy rogue form behind and melt everyone. And then it got even better when I got . It reminded me of few WoW encounters and I played rest of that area without pause as it was fun to change forms real time and use different abilities. While I don't like mod in general, I'd try solo run with such character.

DLCs like Dragon Age's Wardens Keep or Oblivion's stuff are barely worth if they are free. Actually I wouldn't DL em manually even if they were free. Only reason why I have ring, Shale and dragons armor is because those got loaded automatically when I first started the game. I most likely skip more stuff on main game (and I'm person who usually does several runs unless gmae is really bad) when I'd get from DLC. Expansions or expansion type of DLCs like in GTA 4 are whole different matter. They can be even better then original game (happend for both NWN and NWN2 with HotU and MotB ). Same could be true for Dragon Age too.

http://kotaku.com/5400728/ea-cutting-1500-...to-reduce-costs Maybe risks with IPs like Mirror's Edge were too big. Or maybe it's just good ol' fashion greed (as their revenues rise 2% from last year) -edit- More stuff at http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25999 No word on Bioware. EA Black Box (Need for Speed), Tiburon (Madden) and Mythic Entertainment (Warhammer Online) are hit hardest. EA Redwood including Visceral Games (Dead Space) and The Sims teams might be under axe too. Oh yeah, EA bought PlayFish (somekind of facebook game developer) for 300 million dollar earlier today

I don't really care about money or loot in Dragon Age but on certain places inventory do fill up rather fast. If you dont' happen to have PC version and want to keep your items, Bioware included store items option on Wardens Keep DLC. You know that same one that NPC tries to push on your normal camp. Too many items? Pay up sucker My NPCs just have to learn to live without gifts

I've seen some traps but generally they are not worth disarming (unless you want the expo). This is because it's suicide to run into room full of enemies, with or without traps. So you end up pulling mobs away from room and after combat is over, who cares if trap goes off or not. Especially when you see 'em just before you're about to step on 'em (at normal running speed).

Or more likely 1. Poison Blade (yay for 1 extra damage if I'm lucky) 2. Engage Enemy (oh crap, missed) 3. Dirty Fighting (wow, target didn't resist this time) 4. Strafe behind the enemy 5. Backstab (hopefully Coup De Grace helps) 6. You notice that you took 1/8 of the total health and now enemy stuns you 7. Wait for heal and after that drink health potion 8. Now where's that taunt mr.templar? I kinda like it. My dwarven commoner rogue is probably most gimpy character I've played since the full diplomacy character in Arcanum. I wonder how bad my other character are as I still have: Greatest damage dealt: 60 Contribution to party damage: 39 Hit rate: 78 Must be something to do with the fact that I'm always in party and rest rotate or joined later.

Of course. New game, new rules. Speaking of mages, Wynnes earthquake + Morrigans (or your own mage) grease / fire change combat dynamics so much (at least in PC version as mob groups are big) that it might be complitely different game vs. melee group. Probably less of issue on consoles as they get less enemies at the same time. I did meet first opponent that I couldn't defeat at my level (I think lvl 8 ) . Have to remember these small details on next run, if I choose to do it.

I'm not sure if Dragon Age is more difficult overall then Baldur's Gate series but 4 person group do put certain limits. I played few areas in Dragon Age without healer (or any mage) and game felt very challencing at the times. Especially larger pulls and boss fights. Sometimes templar tank couldn't drink health potions fast enough while my dwarven commoner rogue, redhead rogue and Cujo the dog couldn't dps targets down fast enough. By chance and following certain questline I managed to to meet Wynne and suddenly it felt like whole different game. My own fault really for ignoring the golden rule of any MMOG - Don't do anything without healer. I think Bioware deserve a bit blame on this one too. Without spoilers you don't know where to meet Wynne nor know the fact that healer makes all the difference. And there's only one NPC healer in game (or you could create PC healer). I'm not happy with this design choice. At least there should have been option for Morrigan to spec healing or perhaps even another healer PC. I find it really odd that they made only 2 mage NPCs, espcially when mages in this game include both healers and nukers.

encounter have to be bugged or it's really stupid design. This was on hard difficulty.

Few quick first impressions. I got game today from local store and I think I have something like 4 hours played. Bioware has definately watched WoW development close and created combat system that feel very much like MMOG combat. It's way more balanced when D&D as every encounter assume that you'll start with full health and stamina/mana. I'm playing on hard difficulty and I think it works rather well. I've had few full wipes because I wanted to play without pause and sometimes mobs aggro very far away and someone will run in and pull huge crowd. That too reminds me of WoW's less then successful PUG runs After I refined Tactics options (I don't understand why these have to be limited and only raise with levels) and found out "hold" button, things have been much more smooth. I don't have healer and I'm stingy with potions (paradox, I don't use 'em because I'm always waiting next "hard" fight... and not to use 'em there either). I did use few potions for first Orge fight as it literally kicked my ass. My female dwarven rogue was collecting teeth thanks to impressive backside kick. Ogre has taken some of lessons from Bruce Lee. When I did kill the Ogre, I lost both of my warriors so I'd say difficulty of that fight in that level was just great. More careful manouvering might have saved me but I didn't have stun ready when Ogre crushed Tower Guard (Grip of death). Best way to deal with huge amounts of orcs is to pull 'em like you do in MMOGs and fight in small corridors or doorways. I'm not sure what to think of stamina system. I seem to drain it rather fast even in light armor (and warriors in medium). I haven't done any calculations but I've invested in willpower (might be stupid but such is the charm of the new game) in order to gain more stamina to use special attacks. Characters acting is wooden (but not so much as in Oblivion or Fallout 3) and voice acting is rather dry too. Didn't help that I played GTA 4 earlier this weeks as it does both of those thing as good as it's possible in this generation of games. World is very generic and I often forget what world it is. It could be LotR, Warcraft, Forgotten Realms ect ect. It don't bother me and in strange way feel extremely familar. Like 2nd or 3rd run on same game. Graphics are ok 2007 quality. I think enough have been said about graphics over the years so I think best way is to say that graphics are dated and art design normal NWN / NWN2 / 1999 poser stuff. It's another of those things that make game feel familar. You yhink you're re-playing game that was released few years ago. Codex is nice but I wish there would have been narrator like in Mass Effect. I remember spoken stuff better then text. Silent protagonist divides CRPG players but it definately bothers me. Mass Effect's system has left permanent mark on me, even after 25 years of text only games. It just feel like there's something missing is protagonist just stay mute in all cutscenes. So far plot has been very preditable. Nothing in game has suprised me and I really hope that'll change later on. Dwarf commoner origin was way too linear to be anything special. I would have taken non-linear first chapter rahter then 6 different origins. Only bug / missing feature I've experienced so far is "exit combat" button. Sometimes party stay in combat mode way too long, even if no mobs are nearby.

Time for tiny personal rant. Drawing tablets with integrated graphical display are useful in all kind of various design work. Only problem is that there's only one company that manufacture 'em. Wacom from Japan. They basically own all patents for that type of technology. If you can get new 21" LCD display for $200, Wacom type of device will cost at least 10 times as much. Technology is very simple, as there only need to be some way to handle the pressure in order to be able to draw different type of lines. Wacom products like Cintiq are not even that durable and spare parts (or fixing it) cost small fortune. There's also tons of issues with drivers, jitter, scratches, heating, dead pixels ect ect. I'd say lack of competition in this area creates serious issues in all kinds of design and creative work. When amatours start to hack normal LCD displays and start to build their own DIY projects, you know there's a problem in somewhere. Don't too wide patents or strict licensing policy create automatical monopoly ?

I'm loving the some of the more bitter posts on offical boards but nothing too bad. I like that character stats page, it's very much like Wow's armory feature. Steam changed EU release date to 5th (I think midnight, so only 10 hours away) but I think I'll go get physical and strangely enough, cheaper copy from my local store tomorrow or friday. I'm not going to pay $73,77 (that's €50) for normal digital copy. Euro to dollar exchange rate sucks as no matter how cheap the dollar is, prices are 1 to 1.

I always name all dogs Cujo. I blame early 80's movie. Read the book later.

What's the problem ? Morrowind and Oblivion suffered from same issues and they are THE CRPGs for the new generation. Dragon Age is calculated product and thus it's only natural that vision, inspiration, innovation and soul are not the highest priorities. 8/10 is fine score for such product.

Thanks to character creator, I've made several possible characters for my first run. Hideous female elven mage, genderbender male human noble templar, goodie-two-shoes female dwarven commoner rogue and male dwarven noble champion with Proteus syndrome. Dwarf commoner origin sound the most interesting for me and I haven't roleplayed ultra idealitist utilitarian for a while.

I love it how easy it's to troll with certain topics Year after year, nothing ever changes

Heh. Torrent trackers have several thousands leeching Dragon Age for Xbox360. And then there's those who use Usenet and private servers. And street sale of burnt DVDs. I think piracy is far more common for Xbox360 then you think

I have to stop watching these combat previews. People who play 'em do it so badly that I'm grinding my teeth to dust. Then again, this time it wasn't entirely players fault. I was thinking - Crouch stupid, crouch... and then I remembered that Bioware axed that feature.

I'd say don't bother. I replayed Arcanum last month and it was even worse then I remembered. I used those unoffical patches but performance nor worst bugs didn't change much for the better compared to vanilla version. I was amazed how badly game still runs, on modern computer that's many times more powerful then computer I had back in 2001. Game is total rubbish nowadays. Design choices, combat system, graphics and UI have all aged very badly (if they ever were good in first place). And I say this as a Troika games fan. I don't know what I was thinking for defending Arcanum back when it was released. I do like the magic / technology dualism and steampunk but certainly not enough to forgive all the technical and design issues.

your entire thread is based on this statement, do you have any evidence of this statement being true? Less then 30% of the games break even And it's for this generation. If prices stay the same and games sell as much as they do now, in next generation situation will be even worse. Personally I think something need to change but there cerrtainly ain't easy solution. I hate the whole DLC idea for singleplayer games. I don't need extra content unless it's total new adventure like in MotB or GTA 4 (exclusive damnit) DLCs. Content like Wardens Keep or Fallout 3 DLCs mean nothing to me.

The fine art of rickrolling.

US dropped out. I guess helmets are good idea

Tournament is now on. Truely bizarre event. They have live actors who opened the events but none to tell us what's going on. They should have hired Leeroy Jenkins or someone to be the MC One per team play at the time, rest look very bored on the background.

Wardens keep competition sound good, especially for me as I don't plan to buy DLC. I wonder who got invited. It's easy to say who are best speedrunners, MMOG guilds, Star/warcraft players, CS players but I have no idea who are good singleplayer CRPG players. If such thing even exist as there's no need to be good player in singleplayer CRPGs. Good micro is useful if first to complite the quest will win the price.