Dragon Age story/plot discussion

[Fighter]

Can we turn off the ridiculous blood splatter effect on character models and can we play through the entire without any sex scenes/romance?

 

And it bothers you sooo much that you simply cannot handle that for like a minute or two?

[taks]

Or was an in game conversation during one of the origin stories?

yes. the mage story intro.

the sloth that poses the three riddles to change mouse into a bear. fortunately, the riddles themselves were given subtitles, but the rest of what he had to say was indecipherable.

 

 

taks

[Tigranes]

Not sure what you're asking Tigranes. Are you referring to the highlighted sparkles on lootable items and whatnot?

 

Highlighted sparkles, the big massive gold circles beneath your characters, any floating text that is there during battle (there is some, right?), etc. It's not too big a deal, but I always turned off the green circles for IE games as well.

 

I think the world of Ferelden should meet its end through a nasty disease that spreads through blood contact, by the way.

[alanschu]

Or was an in game conversation during one of the origin stories?

yes. the mage story intro.

the sloth that poses the three riddles to change mouse into a bear. fortunately, the riddles themselves were given subtitles, but the rest of what he had to say was indecipherable.

 

 

taks

 

 

He does speak bizarrely, but I never had a hard time understanding him personally. It could be something weird happening, but at the same time, I wouldn't be THAT surprised if someone couldn't understand him.

[alanschu]

Highlighted sparkles, the big massive gold circles beneath your characters, any floating text that is there during battle (there is some, right?), etc. It's not too big a deal, but I always turned off the green circles for IE games as well.

 

There MIGHT be. I'd have to check the video options in the game. I suspect the circles below characters can't be removed though, but maybe. I know that the floating text can be disabled on the consoles, so I imagine it can be on the PC as well.

[Tigranes]

And it bothers you sooo much that you simply cannot handle that for like a minute or two?

 

I've played the Witcher at the girlfriend's and will probably do so with Dragon Age as well. I was annoyed and embarrassed with the idiotic romance dialogues and sex scenes because firstly, I was purely embarrassed to be associated with such low-quality dross; secondly, I disliked how there was a potential that her opinion of role-playing games might be unfairly influenced by it.

 

Surely, 'eh dont whine so much mate' has to be the most misused argument in gaming today (even if most of us need it from time to time).

 

Anyway, impressions I'm getting from across the board are quite positive, pointing to a fun, well-made game with good, challenging combat. Excellent. The Codex has a couple of nice balanced impressions as well (if you can sift through 10 pages of "IT SUCKS" and get to the intelligent members).

[Azure79]

Played for a few hours, before the responsibility part of my brain kicked in to do some work before bed time.

 

I started as a human noble, and the origin story is pretty much what you would expect. I enjoyed it though, thought the voice acting was pretty good and it was a nice set up for the character having some personal motivation to hurt some people.

I'm at Ostagar right now fighting my way through the tower and I actually managed to die a few times, until I remembered my BG game habits of keeping my party together, forming a line with my fighters and letting the magic user do his thing. I was actually quite pleased upon dying. I guess I had gotten used to just rushing in and killing everything and am anticipating some great set combat pieces later in the game.

 

I really like the over the shoulder view for running around and exploring and the isometric view for combat. Its something I've wanted for a long time, and DAO pulls it off quite smoothly. Too bad for the console versions. I think this feature is the best part of the game so far.

 

Ok, back to work then back to the game.

[Deraldin]

I have to admit that the game is a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. Maybe it's because of party composition or something, I don't know, but I've had several full party wipes already. I did manage to make it through the origin story (Human Noble) with only one person (well, dog) incapped thanks to a lucky critical hit by an enemy just before he died. My next full party wipe didn't happen until Lothering when I tried doing some quests out there.

 

The Ogre at the top of the tower seemed to be rather luck based on whether or not he'd incapacitate any of your group. My first time through I ended up taking him down with Dog and a Circle Mage kiting him around the room as fast as he could. The Ogre would either pick me up and repeatedly punch me to death, non-stop ramming or various other stunning attacks that ended up with someone killed.

 

Performance seems pretty good overall. No major slowdowns yet. Two unexplained crashes with a generic "This program has encountered and error..." messages and some absurdly long load times for the tiniest areas I've come across. Will need more testing to diagnose, but in the mean time I'm having fun.

[alanschu]

Too bad for the console versions. I think this feature is the best part of the game so far.

 

It's really a result of the control scheme. There's no way to give move orders to all 4 of your party members at the same time (since the Left Stick is used to move). The tactical abilities with the mouse are limited, though perhaps it still would have been useful from a visual standpoint, I don't know if it would have worked as well with the Radial Targeting menu of the console.

 

But yes, PC reigns supreme!!

[Monte Carlo]

A quickie, but what a rogues for in this game?

 

Are they an alternative ligh fighter / archer option or do they have the full raft of thief skills a la D&D (i.e. traps / dialogue / high level skills)?

 

Someone mentioned you really need one - which seems to me being doomed to have Imoen chick in the party for a time (NOOOOOOOOOOOOO). Am thinking do I play one to spare myself the indignity?

[Fighter]

I've played the Witcher at the girlfriend's and will probably do so with Dragon Age as well. I was annoyed and embarrassed with the idiotic romance dialogues and sex scenes because firstly, I was purely embarrassed to be associated with such low-quality dross; secondly, I disliked how there was a potential that her opinion of role-playing games might be unfairly influenced by it.

 

From what I've heard of Witcher it is quiet 'special' in that regard.

 

Surely, 'eh dont whine so much mate' has to be the most misused argument in gaming today (even if most of us need it from time to time).

 

Surely no more than the actual whining at every insignificant thing.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Fighter

[Masterfade]

The game runs silky smooth on my PC and implements multithreading exceptionally well. It has been a while since the last time I saw close to 100% CPU utilization while playing a game, but Dragon Age manages to do that and I'm impressed.

 

The control scheme and gameplay mechanics are a lot like those of fantasy MMOs, and since the engine handles large crowd rather well I'm not surprised if BioWare decides to build its next MMO upon Dragon Age.

 

The game is a bit on the difficult side, the first boss

(Ogre at top of the tower)

gave me quite a bit of headache until

I decided to play cheap and kite

, then it became a cakewalk.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Masterfade

[Maria Caliban]

I rather like Leliana.

 

The hardest part of the game so far is the 'Morrigan approval' mini-game; the spirit of Viconia is strong in this one.

 

To answer you question, rogues get a skill every level, whichi is nice, and they have access to lockpicking. If you don't create a rogue then you won't get lockpicking until you reach Leliana. This was over ten hours into the game for me. I seem to be going slower than others. Rogues are light fighters; they're good with DW, and if you constantly position them behind monsters, they do nice damage.\

 

Users on the BioWare Social Network forums are pitching a fit. Every time I glance in there, I find about two dozen people I want to backhand.

[alanschu]

A quickie, but what a rogues for in this game?

 

Are they an alternative ligh fighter / archer option or do they have the full raft of thief skills a la D&D (i.e. traps / dialogue / high level skills)?

 

Someone mentioned you really need one - which seems to me being doomed to have Imoen chick in the party for a time (NOOOOOOOOOOOOO). Am thinking do I play one to spare myself the indignity?

 

 

In combat they are primarily light combatants, with the ability to stealth. Stealth can be useful for scouting, and at higher levels you can use items (good for placing traps, or interacting with the environment if necessary), but isn't needed. The only reason to "need" a rogue is to open locked doors and locked chests, and to disarm traps. Opening up locked stuff primarily just gives you access to loot, but the ability to disarm traps is pretty useful. Though I wouldn't say that it's essential. Some areas WILL be hard without the ability to disarm traps.

 

However, there is an alternative rogue, Zevran, that you can bring along if you decide to. From this point on, you can drop off Leliana if she still grates on your nerves.

[Maria Caliban]

Leliana > Zevran.

 

Also: Couldn't Morrigan start out with one AOE attack? Just one? I constantly get opponants in nice bundles that I'd love to lob a fireball at.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Tigranes]

The only real 'fun' thing rogues could do in IE combat was stealth, scout and backstab to get the enemy mage or something down before the battle (and at higher levels, use their evasion to lure enemies to one spot for an AoE spell). I expect it will be similar, unless backstab is 'nerfed'?

[Starwars]

The game is quite a lot better than I expected which was a nice surprise. Glad I plunked down the cash for it. I think it takes a while to really get going though. The Origins are interesting because they define your character but the parts after the Origins (before the world map opens and you can choose where to travel) were pretty slow and kinda boring to play through IMO. Not something I'm looking forward to on replays.

 

However, after the game opened up things got much more interesting. While the difficulty for the first hours was a bit meh, I've found quite a few battles where I had to reload my game after getting pwnd (playing on Hard). Nice. I really, really, *really* miss a proper death system though. It would've fit in well with the whole "return to the roots" stuff. As of now, while many battles *are* challenging, it can still feel like battles are lacking that real 'oomph' or excitement.

 

There are also some other things. I had hoped my being an elf would've had a greater impact on the game, insofar how people treat you and all that. But while the game *does* recognize it fairly often, there doesn't appear to be much consequence to it. Maybe there really is and I'll see it on another playthrough. But my character doesn't really feel like a second-class citizen which is what appealed to me about playing an elf in this game, oh well.

 

As someone who usually gets really annoyed at Bioware companions, I find most of them to be pretty likeable here. They still bicker childishly at times, but I'm actually talking to them in this game and am eager to find out more about their backgrounds and such. Many NPCs are really well done.

 

The only real 'fun' thing rogues could do in IE combat was stealth, scout and backstab to get the enemy mage or something down before the battle (and at higher levels, use their evasion to lure enemies to one spot for an AoE spell). I expect it will be similar, unless backstab is 'nerfed'?

 

It appears to function basically the same in DA. You still have your stealth and sneak attacks and what not. Lockpicking so far have been very disappointing for me, not much fun stuff to be had unfortunately. The skills like poison-making are pretty cool though, and I wish I had leveled it up more at the start. It can be quite useful in some situations.

 

On the whole I'm really enjoying it though. Again, I've not been much of a fan of Biowares games since the BGs (and even those I find to be sorta overrated) so this was a really nice surprise. The effort they put in this is appearant and I hope they won't be discouraged by reviews whining about difficulty and how it's a step from ME and all that rubbish. Nice to see such a huge budget game take the risk of incorporating some more old-school values.

[HoonDing]

I'm getting the impression the Benelux version is delayed. I 'pre-ordered' but haven't heard anything yet and it's almost Friday, the supposed official release date.

[Starwars]

I picked up my copy yesterday at my local game store, which was a bit surprising considering it isn't supposed to be out here until tomorrow (I think?). It was afaik the cheapest edition and I got the Stone Prisoner DLC, but not the Keep one. Didn't really look into those when pre-ordering.

[Maria Caliban]

I love you BioWare, but why did you make my sword and board warrior solo four mages? It's only a little funny that the fireball that took me out also killed two of the mages.

 

Edit: *laughs* Okay, I see what you did there.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Lare Kikkeli]

How graphic are the sex scenes? Fapworthy?

[HoonDing]

How graphic are the sex scenes? Fapworthy?

Ten seconds of snuggling people in medieval underwear. Hawt.

[kirottu]

Got me copy!

[Majek]

I'm getting the impression the Benelux version is delayed. I 'pre-ordered' but haven't heard anything yet and it's almost Friday, the supposed official release date.

I don't think i'll get mine this week as well. If i'm lucky maybe monday

[mkreku]

The game is quite a lot better than I expected which was a nice surprise. Glad I plunked down the cash for it.

I'm sure you did. Especially since it's not been released in Sweden yet. Friday is when that happens.