Dragon Age

[Kest]

As for being a completely original world... Darkspawn, the blight, lead by an arch-demon *cough*darkone*cough*, ghouls *cough*darkfriends*cough*, mages being corrupted by demons because of their magic... Why not just call it a The Wheel of Time game?

i hear wheel of time invented those tropes

also why would you pay them royalties when you could just steal what you want and leave the boring shit that makes up the majority of those books (like pulling braids and smoothing skirts) behind?

[DMyles]

I was excited about this game about 4 years ago, but now I don't think I will get it. I don't understand why they wouldn't add some form of arcade style combat. Jade empire is one of my favorite bioware games to date. I want a mount and blade style game play with updated graphics and a good story. With this game not having the latest graphics, no arcade style combat, no rideable mounts, and no persistant worlds what is to like?

[Rotku]

Just finished five minutes ago. Bloody brilliant game. If only more RP games like that were made.

[Vendrin]

I was excited about this game about 4 years ago, but now I don't think I will get it. I don't understand why they wouldn't add some form of arcade style combat. Jade empire is one of my favorite bioware games to date. I want a mount and blade style game play with updated graphics and a good story. With this game not having the latest graphics, no arcade style combat, no rideable mounts, and no persistant worlds what is to like?

Um... The story? The music? The characters? Graphics look fine to me tbfh. These are pictures from my 3-4 year old computer.

[Burt]

Boobz.

[Vendrin]

Boobz.

Boobz indeed good sir. Boobz indeed.

[Swift]

I was excited about this game about 4 years ago, but now I don't think I will get it. I don't understand why they wouldn't add some form of arcade style combat. Jade empire is one of my favorite bioware games to date. I want a mount and blade style game play with updated graphics and a good story. With this game not having the latest graphics, no arcade style combat, no rideable mounts, and no persistant worlds what is to like?

Modern Warfare 2 is that way -->

[DMyles]

I was excited about this game about 4 years ago, but now I don't think I will get it. I don't understand why they wouldn't add some form of arcade style combat. Jade empire is one of my favorite bioware games to date. I want a mount and blade style game play with updated graphics and a good story. With this game not having the latest graphics, no arcade style combat, no rideable mounts, and no persistant worlds what is to like?

Modern Warfare 2 is that way -->

I would say modern warefare 2 has the latest graphics

[Vendrin]

Which is why he was pointing you towards MW2 then a game with actual depth and story.

[Magile]

I'm on my fourth play through of Dragon Age: Origins. Loving the game.

[Blindhamsterman]

I finished it after a 24 hour marathon with a mate on the weekend... all I can say is this: The dragon fights (all 3) are AWSOME. Especially finishing moves

Played it on Hard first time round, did my traditional character of elf mage then into arcane warrior.

The story was fantastic, first game in years that drew me in so much I genuinly couldn't stop... The music as others have said was also fantastic, very moody and dark at times. The graphics are IMO rather lovely, better than NWN2 and on par with oblivion I thought, possibly not quite as good as the witcher... but the gameplay was far better.

The Combat was good I felt, a bit too much need for healing potions (as in using lots of them in some of the bigger combats) and it does kind of push you into keeping Wynne with your or making Morrigan or yourself into a spirit healer (conisidently we all were by the end )

I have to say though, supposedly the combat was meant to be REALLY REALLY hard (so says half the folk on the forums and the reviewers) yet I think in the entire game even on hard i had trouble with maybe 2 of the fights (my first attempt at a Revenant and the High Dragon due to having no healing potions or lyrium potions with me and a poor party choice, after swapping to a different group it was easy). Supposedly the Archdemon is the toughest enemy and Gaxxkang is second(hah! Kangaxx made his way in ) yet I managed both with no issues first attempt.

Again a big Kudos to the designers on a fantastic game!

p.s. What sort of play times did you guys end up with? I had 85 hours which makes me happy, nice large amount of play time!

[Magile]

The Combat was good I felt, a bit too much need for healing potions (as in using lots of them in some of the bigger combats) and it does kind of push you into keeping Wynne with your or making Morrigan or yourself into a spirit healer (conisidently we all were by the end )

The entire finale (from the point of no return to the final climax), I did not have a "healer" (Morrigan or Wynne) for it. With a Dalish Ranger/Bard, Alistair, Oghren and Sten, I did ALL of the side quests and such in that finale and defeated the Archdemon with only the use of potions. It's definitely do-able, and it's definitely easier than you think... on Normal.

To the difficulty, a patch came out that evened out the difficulty in most forms. People without that patch were playing on Normal but experiencing Nightmare difficulties -- this has been fixed, and now Nightmare is where you go to get your PG on.

p.s. What sort of play times did you guys end up with? I had 85 hours which makes me happy, nice large amount of play time!

My first play through was about 45 hours (Elven Mage). Second, with a Dorf Berserker, took about 35 hours. The one I just completed last night, Dalish Ranger/Bard, took about 33 hours. This includes doing all of the content, Warden's Keep/Shale DLC, over 75% of side quests each time, etc. My characters always ended around 22 - 24 in levels, to further prove I did all that jazz.

Again, I've been sticking to Normal difficulty (and will be with my Arcane Warrior/Shapeshifter build I'm doing now), so time is easier spent in battle -- plus, I remember most puzzles off by heart now.

[Blindhamsterman]

heh, as I said in a different part of my post, I only found 2 fights in the entire game to be at all difficult, the Archdemon was easy, no breaking a sweat at all.

reading the patch notes it simply made easy easier, didnt change the others I thought. Either way I played it on Hard and am now doing it on Nightmare.

I ended up almost 23 when I completed the game as well. seems thats pretty much the expected level to get to. Oddly enough I don't think I got 75% of the quests, a lot of them I made stupid mistakes on (forgetting to do the bits in lothering, destroying a garnet or two i shouldn't have etc)

Let me know what you think of Arcane warrior, I myself found the class to be insanely good, I mixed it with spirit healer though, purely because the bonuses from that class seemed to fit better. Shapeshifter doesn't seem to play nice with any of the other specializations.

Those are some crazy completion times though I must admit! were you skipping dialogues at all? I think I likely gained a few hours from times when we simply left the game on pause but generally the 85 hours I played it in was from exploration/dialogue I think.

p.s. Anyone tried naming their dog boo as a human? supposedly the voice set says 'go for the eyes boo!' but i've not tried it...

[johnlewismcleod]

Me wonders when these PGing serial gamers are going to quit spanking their dragons and get back IG for some roleplay.

[Magile]

heh, as I said in a different part of my post, I only found 2 fights in the entire game to be at all difficult, the Archdemon was easy, no breaking a sweat at all.

I agree. The Archdemon fight was the easiest boss fight.

reading the patch notes it simply made easy easier, didnt change the others I thought. Either way I played it on Hard and am now doing it on Nightmare.

It was in an unreleased portion or something. Normal was spikey until they released this patch, trust me, haha.

Let me know what you think of Arcane warrior, I myself found the class to be insanely good, I mixed it with spirit healer though, purely because the bonuses from that class seemed to fit better. Shapeshifter doesn't seem to play nice with any of the other specializations.

I just got to level 7 and specialized. I plan to have it as an aura machine, getting all of the auras that boost combat/curse the enemy, with some healing capabilities -- I mostly have it planned out to have stuff like Miasma, Telekenetic Weapons, etc. Shapeshifter will be for the bonus it grants automatically, none of the abilities will be used. I don't see my character having the mana to make Spiritual Healer worth it, since essentially he'll be casting a few spells, then activating his "sustained" abilities when his mana is near-gone and going haywire.

Those are some crazy completion times though I must admit! were you skipping dialogues at all? I think I likely gained a few hours from times when we simply left the game on pause but generally the 85 hours I played it in was from exploration/dialogue I think.

I tend to skip dialogue and videos now, if I know where it's heading. If it's something new, I'll listen to it (like, just after leaving Lothering, I spent about five minutes to butter Morrigan up and have a relationship with her for the first time), but a lot of the quests are just from memory in what to do. Since my character will be acting differently than the other ones, I'll be choosing different options, but I find a lot of responses are geared around the same thing from NPCs.