IndiraLightfoot

Yeah, that was an entire fairy-tale, and it sure dragged on. However, here's the reality. The very beta launched at the premise of the attributes being ... Now, Nipsen, I'll assume you'll give it a rest, lest you be delusional or something. Peace!

You mean realistic? Haha! CRPGs are never realistic. That's no argument that holds sway here, that was why I turned the tables and used that as an argument myself. Seriously? Adventuring is a very dangerous line of work - but let's throw practicality out of the window, because **** it, I wanna look fashionable. If that bandit I just killed has a shortbow, I wanna see it on the ground, I don't care if I'll use it or not. Heh! Depends on what character you have, I guess. Still, like Endrosz showed us. These games flooded us with junk, and for no real reason, actually, and I say this as someone who likes invo shuffling. Who says you have to hoard everything you see FFS. If stuff has monetary value in a CRPG, I can't help myself. I just hoard them and sell them. You wouldn't believe how much toing-and-froing I've done in the BG games, for instance. It's my flaw, I get it, but I'd much rather do without this excessive tedium.

Rumsteak: I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment. I am holding my breath, perhaps naively, for combat to find its natural rhythm and variation soon, hopefully already in the upcoming patch. There is this bizarre mix of urgency, indifference and helplessness to combat that I want to bury for good in this beta.

Hmm. Infinity Engine style can't take precedent each and every time. Not every single bit in those games was worth preserving for future generations. Sensuki: You claimed that archangel979's feature would encourage save scumming, so you discarded the idea. Then I tell you, as a modder, that it is easy to prevent that aspect from ever being save-scummable. And you go: "Not in an Infinite Engine style game". If you just don't like the feature, just say so.

True. Whatever my list was, it was simply my impressions of the game.

That is not technically correct. You can make PoE saves devoid of random seeds generated when reloading. It's easy. The CiV series, which I know very well, have in years and years have no-random-seeds-on-reload activated by default.

archangel979: That is a pretty neat idea! I like it. And I'd like to add to that cool idea: If you have more of some skill like Lore or a higher stat, say Perception, you get slightly better rolls for good items to survive or be found/noticed.

Then just don't pick it up. You don't have to carry it. But I don't want to have it in at all... No, I keed, I keed. I can live with a system like you describe here, and then I wouldn't pick everything up, but I honestly like the scattered-remains-approach better.

MrBrown: Yeah. I've already noticed mage-only stuff like that. It's a bit of a bummer, but I'll press on without a mage anyways, since I intend to replay this game with a mage of my own, perhaps in my next playthrough. Hopefully, I don't miss out on too much essenti-good stuff.

On this, I beg to differ. It was clunky, rather boring and over the top. I'd much rather have it NWN2 style - mostly hand-placed loot on NPCs - and it's scarce and just one or two items. I always chalked that scarcity up to some good old RPGing in me fantasy-head. I saw before me reasons like: -As I assaulted the baddies, much of their equipment broke (if non-magical) -And much stuff simply didn't fit my character, or it was discarded for other reasons (e.g. vanity - cloak smelled, boots were ugly) -Other stuff, my character naturally overlooked when searching in a distraught state after all those battles in hideous environments Well, you get my drift, and also: Much less stuff to carry around (even if we have the Stash Portable Hole-thingie. So, I say, good riddance!

I haven't encountered Cole yet, but I was under the impression he was some wild mage/Veil phantom. I'll definitely let you guys know how it goes with an all-Rogue party. So far, it's actually Cassandra that dies the most, but that is indeed because she stands in the midst of everything painful, while the others dart in and out of the wasp nests. Combat is quite fun, though - heh, it's even fun to watch! Funny thing is: A few weeks ago, I swore I wouldn't pick Varric simply because he did those back flips, and now I even had him pick those abilities on purpose. My mind is still malleable. That's nice to know when you get a little bit older.

BruceVC: I haven't gotten that far into the game, yet. Any consummation will surely happen quite a bit into Skyhold and such. I have my eyes set on a person that I just picked up in my party. I ditched Solas just to make room for some closer socializing with her. So far, my companions behave themselves in a more natural manner (compared to Alistair and others) in DA:O, where they got too hot to handle very fast. I have slowly made Cassandra more positively attuned to my way of thinking. Also, Varric seems to warm up to me. He's the one I know most about at this point. However, I have my sights set on the slightly mad and annoying hothead Sera. We'll see how it goes. She's pretty unpredictable and seems to be hard to please. I have this weird goal of all Rogue characters on Nightmare level, if it's at all viable, and right now I have three in my party + Cassandra.

Indeed pause is in, as is tactical view. Imagine a game, where you can... -roam around rather freely, if not to the extent in the Elder Scrolls games -where the size of the maps and their great number is overwhelming, and just as varied as in Kingdoms of Amalur (you'll need steeds, goddamn it!) -where the tempo and balance between combat and RPG-ing, if you will, is cleverly varied. You can have 1h just exploring and talking, and then 1h fighting -where the music, the sound FX, and the graphics are top notch (and the character creation is extremely detailed) -where the colours are vibrant, but not all the way cartoonish, like in D3 or D:OS, but rather more Bioshock, with some spooky elements and bloody gore to it all -where you have great writing and loads of varied and interesting VOed NPCs (like the Mystery Box ware), involving companions, and gazillion of choices -where hidden stuff, places and items abound (a reminder - you can jump! Use those frog-legs! And how about some astro-mini-puzzles?) -where you very soon get a strategic mission perspective on both Ferelden and Orlais in the War Room, using your influence and your agents IAoVH2-style -where you get a stronghold that put all other strongholds to shame, including that in NWN2 -where any need for manic collection of ingredients will get madly stimulated, and you'll have an easy and fun crafting system to beat (I usually hate crafting) -where itemization and item comparisons are bordering on ARPGs like D3 (the amount of stuff, though, is not that crazy) -where Hard and Nightmare actually is pretty strategic as far as combat goes -where you don't have any awful QTE combat, like in Amalur -where scouting ahead and sneaking is in, but not always overpowered, like in Skyrim -where you easily can run into enemies that will pulverize you -where you actually care about your character and those companions in your party (all fully VOed) -and, where you have romances for those so inclined! I'm not exactly an EA fan, as previous posts of mine can prove, but having installed Origin and bought DA:I is nothing I regret in the slightest. It's entertaining, addictive and a darn good CRPG! I haven't played MMOs (well, I tried LotR Online just for Ziets' sake), so I can't tell if it is similar to any of them. But who cares? Obviously, there is some handholding, the controls and camera in the PC version take a bit of time to get used to (nothing my gaming mouse can't handle) and some stuff is simplified and not very intricate. It's still a great game. In my opinion, it's already the best DA game so far. I really liked DA:O in many ways, but combat was pretty awful, and I got sick of Darkspawns, Darkspawns, Darkspawns everywhere and its faction quest predictability.

*Not reading, not reading* Nice. As a happy Radeon owner since years back, I just got some in-game items for DA:I via my AMD_Gaming Evolved: A con+2 necklace, which I still had use for on a character and a Steed with an AMD logo on it. How bizarre is that? Still, it looks pretty cool, at least when moving, the red and white version of the war paint of the Picts or Braveheart or something similar.

Alright, I have three final games of the year 2014 to report: Dragon Age: Inquisition (20+ hours in, and I have a hard time letting go of it and do sensible things like sleeping, eating, working and delivering #1s and #2s): Hookability: 92 (Some say it looks and plays like an MMO, but as I don't play those, I just got sucked into it hard in SP-mode) Lastability: 89 (I'll be returning to this game a lot until I've exhausted the roles I want to play in it) Entertainment value: 94 (Fantastic music, brilliant graphics, very nice areas deeper into the game, interesting characters with surprising twists) Total average score: 91.7 (My personal game of the year! Yes, the story certainly is run-of-the-mill high fantasy, but wow, what a high fantasy indeed!) Lords of Xulima (I've merely played for nine hours, and at the highest difficulty - it's very unforgiving and pretty vast. I really like it so far): Hookability: 71 Lastability: 82 Entertainment value: 70 Total average score: 74.3 COH2: Ardennes Assault (nearing the end of all the missions, and I've started over and taken my time): Hookability: 74 Lastability: 68 Entertainment value: 83 (Surprisingly high - the historical atmosphere and fantastic VO makes it a little gem) Total average score: 75.0 At the end of the day and year, this results in the following table, using overall scores based on the scores above: 1) 91.7 Dragon Age: Inquisition 2) 84.0 Wasteland 2 3) 83.7 Endless Legend 4) 82.7 Divinity: Original Sin 5) 80.0 Company of Heroes 2: WF 6) 79.0 Civilization: Beyond Earth 7) 78.3 Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls 8. 77.3 Might & Magic X: Legacy 9) 75.0 COH2: Ardennes Assault 10) 74.3 Lords of Xulima 11) 73.0 The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 2 12) 67.7 Wolfenstein: The New Order 13) 66.0 The Tesla Effect 14) 64.3 Thief 15) 63.3 Unrest 16) 30.0 Goat Simulator And here's a plain old time-killer list of these games (Value For Money?), but lumped together with older base games, up until now: 1) c. 600h COH2 + Western Armies and Ardennes Assault (lots of those hours are from idling and farming though while doing other things) 2) c. 500h D3 + RoS (So my perfect lunch break game would be this one this year) 3) c. 130h CiV + Civ:BE 4) c. 80h M&M X 5) c. 75h WL2 But I can promise that DA:I will push into this list of top-five time-killer games before New Year's!

Perhaps PoE only should allow taking a second class after level 10 or something, so it would fit the expansion nicely?

Oh, Games For Change == War Is A Tragic And Horrible Ordeal...

I can see why. I would most likely love it too, from what I've seen and heard of it. Fantastic narrative too, and great graphics.

Nice to see Wolfenstein: The New Order getting nominated for best narrative, especially considering its prominent features (gory action), and I actually think it deserves the nomination. The music in Child of Light is brilliant. My daughter loved that game.

I agree. Not allowing multi-classing (at least for a number of class combos), seems to be a great opportunity lost. It would make for so many cool builds and strengthen the replayability of the game in a manifold of ways. I'd love to open up that aspect of character building.

Who?

Great sum-up, and you're not drunk, merely tight as an owl.

Josh's last post in this thread certainly whetted my appetite for the next patch even more. What I really like to see and feel is the combat being something that I can handle. Since I rarely pause, at least for trash mobs, it would need to meet that RT criterion. Also, I'd love to see movement of our baddies moving at a more reasonable speed. If I pause, un-pause and then quickly pause again in an action-packed game like DA:I, no creature in those action-heavy games can match the ferocious velocity of PoE enemies, and that's just feels wrong for an isometric IE-inspired, party-based CRPG. Fingers crossed that combat will feel right before X-Mas and New Year's!

On the Broadcasting House of BBC, translated from Latin: "It is their prayer that good seed sown may bring forth a good harvest, that all things hostile to peace or purity may be banished from this house." Sadly, this prayer was far too weak to counter the hostile, the non-peaceful and the dirty.

If you want the combat to be decently tactical and fun enough in DA:I, I'd warmly recommend Hard or Nightmare. Anything else would be you merely clicking your way through the great saga, and that would be a great shame (I'm assuming here that you are a seasoned CRPGer). I've watched a number of starting vids (tutorial/early), and it's on this I base this conclusion.