MrBrown

They're really not that bad... unless you want to use the tactical mode.

Archery as a combat style is really good. I used mainly archers + a tank for my nightmare playthrough. In Awakening, Archers are way more powerful than anything else. The talents themselves are pretty badly designed, yes. You're almost always better off just using basic attacks, except Mages and a couple of exceptions in warrior/rogue talents. It's kinda funny that despite the infamous "Press A for awesome" line for DA2, in it too, you're better off mostly using basic attacks as warrior/rogues.

It's fairly standard save the world stuff without straying too far from fantasy conventions. Nothing particularly game changing, but aside from Sera and romances nothing particularly cringe worthy. Although it does seem to shift lore around, similarly to how ME changed from guns having unlimited ammo to guns using heatsinks as ammo. It just seems weird that blood magic(the supah controversial stuff from the first 2 games) is skimmed over most of the time, garnering a mention at best. Also the Qunari now use toxic warpaint instead of helmets, something never mentioned in previous games. Just feels a bit strange. To be fair they did all have warpaint on in the second game, we just didn't know it was toxic or not. I like the changes they've added to the Qunari over time though. I wanted to make hulking guy in a plate, not in warpaint. Though, I'm more bummed out by the Inquisitor and Iron Bull having more human faces than Qunari in DA:O and DA2. I miss those grumpy looking guys.

What difficulty are you playing at? I get beaten up by dragon 4 levels below me. :/

It's probably the clunkiest menu in the game. Well, maybe after the tactical view. The top of my please-patch-this-list. Edit: Especially since I play Nightmare, and want every edge I can take; so I have to use it often.

To anyone who's far into the game: Is there any use for all this Power? I've opened up all side areas, and some restricted areas in them, but I still have over 100.

I don't think that's necessarily a bug. While they do sometimes banter more often, it's not at constant intervals or anything. 2 hours seems a bit long, but I've definitely gone for an hour without any banter. The amount of banter in general seems just right for me. On the topic of bugs, the biggest one I had was where everyone refused to speak any of their lines; I got the subtitles, and it wasn't a sound issue as everything else played alright _and_ their mouths didn't move. Had to re-install for that one. I'm running below min-specs though, so my experiences are probably not very valid.

The main story quests have recommended level ranges, and for the side areas, you can just go in and check the enemy levels. Storm Coast and Forbidden Oasis are about the same level as Hinterlands, the somethingsomething Mire is higher. Actually, the Oasis has level 12 enemies that will rolfstomp you if you're at a lower level. Well, yeah, most of the areas have variance in monster difficulty.

The main story quests have recommended level ranges, and for the side areas, you can just go in and check the enemy levels. Storm Coast and Forbidden Oasis are about the same level as Hinterlands, the somethingsomething Mire is higher.

This from a review of Metacritic that gave the game a 5. It makes me sad. When I remember awesome Dragon fights in BG2 and ToB it makes me even more sad. 15-20 minutes sounds like a lot of time, my first impression was that his party is really defensive which is why doesn't take damage and why it takes so long. That said, I haven't beaten any dragons yet (I did try once), so no idea here.

DA:I does indeed have less character customization when leveling up. They've added more customization to equipment though, so that's another way to make your "build". The downside is the crafting/customization menus are a chore... they really should have streamlined them for PC.

It's a bit different from both DA:O and DA2, actually. In DA:O, you got attribute points to distribute, but the dependant statistics also rose by level. So you got more HP even if you didn't put points into Constitution. In DA2, you got points to distribute per level, but the dependant stats were only effected by putting points to stats. So you only got more HPs if you put points to Constitution. In DA:I, you don't get points to distribute, but the dependant stats go up per level. IIRC, this applied to all dependant stats in all games, but I might be wrong. Bottom line is, they're all a bit different.

Crap, I forgot DA2 had this thing with elemental immunities on Nightmare. Looks like DA:I has them too; now I really regret making up a party with two mages. :/

I played to when you go to Skyhold for the first time to see how the game works, then restarted on Nightmare. I'm currently on level 10, have mostly done Hinterlands and now working on Storm Coast. I plan to take it slow, otherwise I might get stuck in the story quests.

I wanted to play a party with three rogues and a warrior tanking, which is how I did DA2 Nightmare, but there's just too much little stuff to do with Mages in various areas. For instance, I've found two runes that I wouldn't have gotten without a Mage. It's kinda neat that's there little special stuff to do for all classes, but also makes me feel forced to have all of them in the party, leaving me with only the 4th to vary.

I seem to have a knack for running into random dragons that one-shot my party-members.

The xboxone trial period has begun. Time to fill the internet with people brooding over how they wanted to play more, and other people making snap decisions on the game based on the posts of the first kind of people.

I kinda like the quotes you get with techs, wonders, etc. They're quotes from the made-up leaders of the factions, and emphasize that they're just as stupid as real leaders.

I liked DA2 well enough, and I like most of Obsidian's games. Deal with it.

I think the moose is collector's edition only.

PC spec requirements: http://www.dragonage.com/#!/en_US/news/pc-systems-requirements-revealed

Considering that in DA2 the higher difficulties were much more difficult than in DA:O, I doubt they'll ramp them down this time. There was a comment on the bio forums from one of the devs that his <10year old nephew or something could play the easiest difficulty without help, so it'll be easy if you want it to.

BTW, DA:O free on Origin for a week: http://www.dragonage.com/#!/en_US/news/dragon-age-origins-on-the-house

Probably all Rogues backflip when using some skills. Personally, I can't understand why effects like that are a big deal to some people.

There's apparently going to be an open beta for the Keep.