Monte's Dragon Age Thread

[Volourn]

"I'm not a console twitch gamer"

 

Actually, resting after every battle is soemthing that is more likely to be done by a PC gamer than a console gamer. Afterall, how many BG fans were wussies who rested after every major or semi major battles? Quite a bunch.

[Maria Caliban]

That would be me.

 

Sorry, I like the health/stamina/mana regeneration. I find the combat fun. I don't want to be rewarded for not using my abilities because five battles from now, I might have to use an ability. One of my basic manuvers is Cold of Cone + Stonefirst/Overpower for a shatter. I usually take out two opponants a fight this way, and I like doing so. If I only used my spells and abilities in big battles than regular combat would be boring.

[Monte Carlo]

I think when you're getting used to the game Sword & Shield is the safest, most effective option.

 

I'm about to head out into the wilds with the other GW recruits and suspect that my character (very high STR and heavy investment in Sword & Shield) and Alistair will be doing most of the butt-kicking for goodness.

Edited November 5, 2009 by Monte Carlo

[alanschu]

Sword and Shield is certainly the most survivable to start. Which isn't surprising, as you'll get the HP from being a warrior, plus the most armor.

[Aristes]

Okay, I customized my PC's face. She's a complete babe. Looks just like my wife did when I met her 26 years ago. ...And I like the way my PC looks in the cutscenes. No problem on that end. This is a much better feature than Oblivion or Fallout 3. I even had a better time of it than I did when I used the character creator download.

 

Now, I will say that I find the dialogue irritating in that I would like to read the dialogue and respond. The voice acting has been some of the best I've heard in any game. Still, I'm an impatient sort of guy, and I don't like being forced to wait. I'll look in the options, though. Maybe I can switch it around.

 

The combat is easy so far. I started the game on normal, though, since that's my normal modus operandi. I'll finish it on normal, go to hard, and then hit nightmare. If it's too boring, I guess I'll restart or switch the difficulty (assuming I can do that in the middle of the game). Anyhow, combat in these games has been on the easy side for years. I would think that, on nightmare, it will probably be tough in some fights. Early fights are generally easy in every game. even in the 'good ol' days.'

 

So far, I think this is an excellent game. Time will tell of course, but it surpasses my expectations and those expectations were fairly high this time around.

[alanschu]

You can turn on subtitles so that they always show up.

[Wrath of Dagon]

ESC is supposed to let you skip the VO.

[alanschu]

That will happen, but if you don't have subtitles on, I believe you will miss the dialogue (you can go back into the journal and see the dialogue history though).

[Maria Caliban]

The combat is easy so far. I started the game on normal, though, since that's my normal modus operandi. I'll finish it on normal, go to hard, and then hit nightmare. If it's too boring, I guess I'll restart or switch the difficulty (assuming I can do that in the middle of the game). Anyhow, combat in these games has been on the easy side for years. I would think that, on nightmare, it will probably be tough in some fights. Early fights are generally easy in every game. even in the 'good ol' days.'

 

I played my first 24 hours on normal and found it very comfortable. There are a number of people who find the game HARD, and think that people who are having an easy time of it are bragging douches. It's a very strange place to be in as I don't consider myself l33t and I dislike combat heavy games. Telling others that the game isn't that bad and that they (sigh) need to learn to play isn't an expeirence I'm used to. I really have no idea how people are stuggling so much with it.

 

I will say that around 2am last night, I bumped the game down to easy. I'm running into a 'random' encounter whenever I travel, and they annoy me. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the loading times.

[HoonDing]

Speaking of character creation, I had created two female characters in that separate DA character creator thingie that were actually good-looking for once, but when I tried importing them in the actual game *of course* some weird glitch happened that destroyed their faces and I had to start anew.

 

Anyway, I've been exploring the Ostragar camp and getting lectures from soldiers about Ferelden lore. Pretty good stuff. This sure beats Morrowind where one had through plough to 100+ books in Jobasha's bookstore.

Edited November 5, 2009 by virumor

[Maria Caliban]

The character creation glich can usually be fixed by hitting previous and forcing it to reload the face.

[Tigranes]

I am sure that in due time, people will mod away the auto-regen, implement a death system and more. Actually, not having played the game, I think the blood, auto-regen and moronic romances are the only things I want gone - the first is already an option in the vanilla game and the third is easy enough on your own.

 

Monty, you cad, you didn't start hard from the beginning?

[entrerix]

i love autoregen systems, im the cautious player who rests after every fight anyway, this saves me the hassle!

 

i dont think autoregen is perfect for EVERY game though: left 4 dead with autoregen would not be very fun...

[Tigranes]

Auto-regen removes choice from players who don't like it, though. I think in this case it's all about choice. Hopefully it will be easy enough to mod the regeneration rate down - just a single variable.

 

It seems my retail regular version comes with Stone Prisoner and Shale, is that normal? In any case, let's see how smooth installation goes.

 

edit: What in the world of - you won't let me choose where to install? You stupid, stupid morons.

 

edit: and I have to register on their social network to unlock Shale, according to my instructions. This is like installing a Microsoft product, christ.

[theslug]

Auto-regen removes choice from players who don't like it, though. I think in this case it's all about choice. Hopefully it will be easy enough to mod the regeneration rate down - just a single variable.

 

It seems my retail regular version comes with Stone Prisoner and Shale, is that normal? In any case, let's see how smooth installation goes.

 

edit: What in the world of - you won't let me choose where to install? You stupid, stupid morons.

 

edit: and I have to register on their social network to unlock Shale, according to my instructions. This is like installing a Microsoft product, christ.

yeah the choice between waiting around for 5 minutes doing nothing, continuing with low health only to have to reload and or leaving the area to go heal. Great game pacing choices.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

edit: What in the world of - you won't let me choose where to install? You stupid, stupid morons.

 

Huh? I could do a custom installation...

 

edit: and I have to register on their social network to unlock Shale...

 

Yeah, that was a bit annoying to say the least.

Still... It is sort of cool once you set it up.

[Tigranes]

It simply did the EULA thing then skipped straight to the progress bar. Perhaps something just went wrong with my one. It's also taking a good 20 minutes, but that's probably my computer. Now trying to do the DLC installation, let's see if it works.

 

edit: Well that was alright. Ran game, logged in, redeemed code through in-game link, d/l appeared but failed, went to Config, cleared cache, tried again, now it's going. With my internet it'll take all night, though.

[Magnum Opus]

Am also really enjoying the game so far. Have been at it for 10 hours and only just made it to Lothering so far (game tells me I'm around 4% completed) and I'm at level 6. Game also tells me that my mage is doing the lion's share of the killing at present.... to the tune of doing 85% of the party's damage, and killing 105 of the party's 180. S'pose I ought to start using my party members more, but even that's an improvement from where it was a level or so ago.

 

Game seems a bit heavy on the cutscenes, but maybe that was more for the exposition in the beginning.

 

The dialogue is excellent, for the most part. Voice acting the best I've encountered in a game to date. I like the characters, too. Banters between Morrigan and Dog (named "Mutton" this time around) are priceless.

 

Ran out of inventory room before reaching Lothering. Boo. And I didn't even have anyone around to open those locked chests in the tower (or maybe I just don't know how to open them).

 

The injuries... can't say I like them any better in this game than I did in Drakensang. They're still straddling that funny line: make the injuries too severe, and they'll prompt a reload. Make the injuries not severe enough, and the character's going down in battle means squat. Had my mage walking around with a cracked skull and a couple busted up limbs for quite a while before I noticed something was up. That suggests that injuries aren't really meaningful enough to impact the way I play the game, so... *shrugs* Hurl them into the fray and then mop up whatever's left of them if I survive, because they'll be fine no matter what eats them. Sacrificial lambs. Although... that might explain why my mage is the one who ends up with most of the kills....

 

All in all, I think I'm going to be playing this one for a long, long time. Excellent game, this.

[HoonDing]

Yeah, that was a bit annoying to say the least.

Still... It is sort of cool once you set it up.

Just noticed the game is actually tracking everything... now everyone can see how much I suck.

[Aristes]

Actually, the only real beef I have with the game so far is the blood. I'm not being squeemish. I don't find it repulsive or frightening. Quite the opposite. It's so overdone it's comical.

 

Otherwise, I think they did the things they needed to do to make a solid game and some areas are truly excellent. The dialogue is well done, but there's too much of it sometimes. Still, the voice acting is better than any I've seen in a game. I'm with MO on that one. In fact, beats out even Blizzard in that regard. I think my character looks better than I've seen in any other game also. Much better than the Bethsoft games.

 

The controls are quite similar to World of Warcraft. Sometimes identical. Of course, some folks will see "World of Warcraft" and immediately assume that's a bad thing, but it's not. World of Warcraft has a good control scheme and it works well for Dragon Age also.

 

I did find the quest in the Wilds finding hidden signs irritating. Same with the Rigby quest in the same area. My suggestion? Just run around with TAB pressed. Yeah, it can feel like cheating, but unless you pride yourself on meaningless effort, it makes some things so much easier.

 

I'm now a Grey Warden. I thought that scene was well done. There's only one *twist* so far, and that was in the Fade. I don't count something that was twistesque that happened in the tower because I didn't think they meant it to be a twist and it was fairly well telegraphed. I do think the game could be more... nuanced? But it's been great fun so far. Perfectly wonderful tonight since I haven't been able to sleep anyhow. Take this as a good or bad thing as you so desire, but the game was easy enough for me to play while hopped up on narcotics. (legal narcotics, just to be clear)

 

I don't care about bragging rights, so the auto-regen and normal difficulty work just fine for me. I'm with MC. I don't see how folks can complain about the game difficulty, but I notice Bio made the easy setting even easier, so no biggie on that end.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I HAS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

First impressions:

 

-The story seems rather generic and clich

Edited November 6, 2009 by Kaftan Barlast

[Gromnir]

The combat is easy so far. I started the game on normal, though, since that's my normal modus operandi. I'll finish it on normal, go to hard, and then hit nightmare. If it's too boring, I guess I'll restart or switch the difficulty (assuming I can do that in the middle of the game). Anyhow, combat in these games has been on the easy side for years. I would think that, on nightmare, it will probably be tough in some fights. Early fights are generally easy in every game. even in the 'good ol' days.'

 

I played my first 24 hours on normal and found it very comfortable. There are a number of people who find the game HARD, and think that people who are having an easy time of it are bragging douches. It's a very strange place to be in as I don't consider myself l33t and I dislike combat heavy games. Telling others that the game isn't that bad and that they (sigh) need to learn to play isn't an expeirence I'm used to. I really have no idea how people are stuggling so much with it.

 

I will say that around 2am last night, I bumped the game down to easy. I'm running into a 'random' encounter whenever I travel, and they annoy me. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the loading times.

 

...

 

am not sure if we would call you a "bragging douche" (charming), but although Gromnir ain't played the game, we might be tempted to deride your observation 'bout combat difficulty. after all, in the other thread you referenced a portion o' the game as being something o' a deathtrap, with those evil biowarians leading you into a portion o' game that were far too difficult for you when you first encountered. no doubt you see the seeming contradiction.

 

as we said, Gromnir ain't played yet-- we waits for feedback... and typical we hold-off til the first patch. unfortunately, am looking at some scheduling issues in a couple o' weeks that may result in Gromnir choosing to forgo our patched-first policy and ignore good sense. feedback from folks sounds mostly positive. if we is real curious we can head down to best buy and watch while some 20-something slacker plays the xbox version they got on display... guy was playing on tuesday and when we stopped by yesterday he was there again... probably a liberal arts major at local university.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 6, 2009 by Gromnir

[entrerix]

The combat is easy so far. I started the game on normal, though, since that's my normal modus operandi. I'll finish it on normal, go to hard, and then hit nightmare. If it's too boring, I guess I'll restart or switch the difficulty (assuming I can do that in the middle of the game). Anyhow, combat in these games has been on the easy side for years. I would think that, on nightmare, it will probably be tough in some fights. Early fights are generally easy in every game. even in the 'good ol' days.'

 

I played my first 24 hours on normal and found it very comfortable. There are a number of people who find the game HARD, and think that people who are having an easy time of it are bragging douches. It's a very strange place to be in as I don't consider myself l33t and I dislike combat heavy games. Telling others that the game isn't that bad and that they (sigh) need to learn to play isn't an expeirence I'm used to. I really have no idea how people are stuggling so much with it.

 

I will say that around 2am last night, I bumped the game down to easy. I'm running into a 'random' encounter whenever I travel, and they annoy me. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the loading times.

 

...

 

am not sure if we would call you a "bragging douche" (charming), but although Gromnir ain't played the game, we might be tempted to deride your observation 'bout combat difficulty. after all, in the other thread you referenced a portion o' the game as being something o' a deathtrap, with those evil biowarians leading you into a portion o' game that were far too difficult for you when you first encountered. no doubt you see the seeming contradiction.

 

as we said, Gromnir ain't played yet-- we waits for feedback... and typical we hold-off til the first patch. unfortunately, am looking at some scheduling issues in a couple o' weeks that may result in Gromnir choosing to forgo our patched-first policy and ignore good sense. feedback from folks sounds mostly positive. if we is real curious we can head down to best buy and watch while some 20-something slacker plays the xbox version they got on display... guy was playing on tuesday and when we stopped by yesterday he was there again... probably a liberal arts major at local university.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

sounds like gromnir is developing a bit of a crush on a certain young hot n manly college boy...

[HoonDing]

-The clothes and armors are amazingly odd-looking and ugly as always with Bioware games (seriously, they should fire their AD)

-The weapons are waaay too big, they look scaled up about 1,5x their normal size

Things look quite normal compared to Divinity 2

[Gromnir]

"sounds like gromnir is developing a bit of a crush on a certain young hot n manly college boy... "

 

no... but admitting that we feels a great deal of envy for those folks who enjoyed their 4-5 liberal arts education/vacation. sounds critical, but isn't. honest, if we could do all over again, we woulda' taken advantage o' those college years to do more than study, work, and play ball.

 

to stay on-topic, Gromnir rarely understands the graphics wh0res who dissect screen shots. silly big weapons is... silly. *shug* is hardly something that is gonna discourage us from playing or enjoying. is a couple o' fantasy crpgs that don't use over-sized weapons, and they suck. Gromnir dealt with wacky big weapons in ps:t, bg, nwn2 and a host o' other crpgs we did like. am too tired to be bothered by big weapons, particularly as da does not appear to have reached the excessive anime standard for such things. excessive blood spatter is also a bit cheezy, but the persistent blood can be disabled, no?

 

HA! Good Fun!