# Dragon Age: Origins



## Chainsaw (Nov 2, 2009)

So... this bad boy's coming out Tuesday. What's the scoop? There's tons of hype and the early reviews seem positive, but... you never know. Anyone read anything contrary to all the positivity? 

I'm hoping it's good!


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## Phaezen (Nov 2, 2009)

Chainsaw said:


> So... this bad boy's coming out Tuesday. What's the scoop? There's tons of hype and the early reviews seem positive, but... you never know. Anyone read anything contrary to all the positivity?
> 
> I'm hoping it's good!




Bioware are like Pixar in that have yet to produce a flop, and judging by recent efforts (Mass Effect) they are still on top form.  That said they are due a dud and I am really hoping that this isn't it.


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## LightPhoenix (Nov 2, 2009)

I'll be getting it Tuesday via digital download.


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## fba827 (Nov 2, 2009)

I'm looking forward to the game but I know I won't get to play it until later in the month, so I am not going out of my way to look for early reviews -- i'll just wait until first hand player reviews are out. 

Of the stuff I have read/seen so far, it looks good.  I like turn-based rpgs, so the ability to pause between rounds looks like it will be functional in that capacity (as well as real-time).  And replayability looks high given the alternate origins (though I am curious to know how far in to the game before those origins overlap, to know how much will be 'very unique' through each play through)


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## Chainsaw (Nov 3, 2009)

fba827 said:


> I like turn-based rpgs, so the ability to pause between rounds looks like it will be functional in that capacity (as well as real-time). And replayability looks high given the alternate origins (though I am curious to know how far in to the game before those origins overlap, to know how much will be 'very unique' through each play through)




I like turn-based rpgs as well.. my favorite childhood RPG was Bane of the Cosmic Forge, though I liked Wizardry on NES as well. 

Good point on the origins.


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## Cergorach (Nov 3, 2009)

When Bioware announced that Dragon Age doesn't have multiplayer at the last moment, my interest waned considerably...


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## Tilenas (Nov 3, 2009)

Cergorach said:


> When Bioware announced that Dragon Age doesn't have multiplayer at the last moment, my interest waned considerably...




Then Dragon Age probably really isn't a game for you.

In other news: Gamespot gave it a 9.5 rating (Dragon Age: Origins Review for PC - GameSpot). Savvy players will point out that this ought to be taken with a grain of salt, as GS is known to be less-than-objective at times. That's why I'll check out a number of other reviews (most notably from Gamebanshee) before buying it.


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## Thanee (Nov 3, 2009)

It's like Mass Effect, just better (as in, the sideplots are cool, too, now), in a mature fantasy setting.

I will definitely get it. 

And hopefully Mass Effect 2 will also feature these improvements (not that there is much to improve in this game, apart from the sideplots and some minor stuff it's sheer awesomeness).

Bye
Thanee


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## Gulla (Nov 3, 2009)

Both major Norwegian tabloids have net-reviews today. 6/6 and strong 5/6 verdicts.

I'll get it in the mail and will probably go (away) on holliday before I get to play. 

Cergorach: Dragon Age has been announced as a singel player, group based RPG since they gave the first hints 4-5 years ago. Why the surprise of no MP? I've at least expected no MP possibility for years.

Thanee: Mass Effect 2 actually seems to change quite a bit. Going further away from a turn-based RPG and much closer to a FPS :-(


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## Chainsaw (Nov 3, 2009)

Cergorach said:


> When Bioware announced that Dragon Age doesn't have multiplayer at the last moment, my interest waned considerably...




At the last moment? I never remember reading that it was going to have multiplayer, but I've only been paying attention for the last 6-9 months or so.


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## Thanee (Nov 3, 2009)

Gulla said:


> Thanee: Mass Effect 2 actually seems to change quite a bit. Going further away from a turn-based RPG and much closer to a FPS :-(




Turn-based? Mass Effect isn't turned-based.

Bye
Thanee


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## Phaezen (Nov 3, 2009)

Cergorach said:


> When Bioware announced that Dragon Age doesn't have multiplayer at the last moment, my interest waned considerably...






Chainsaw said:


> At the last moment? I never remember reading that it was going to have multiplayer, but I've only been paying attention for the last 6-9 months or so.




As far as I can recall it has been slated as a single player game.  This is possibly Bioware's big strength, singleplayer story driven rpgs.


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## Gulla (Nov 3, 2009)

Thanee said:


> Turn-based? Mass Effect isn't turned-based.



I know (played it through twice) but it will take another (by the rumor mill, big) step towards being a pure FPS with a story, and I'm not sure I appreciate that. But it is still BioWare, so I'll buy it and probably grit my teeth and enjoy it


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## LightPhoenix (Nov 4, 2009)

Thanee said:


> Turn-based? Mass Effect isn't turned-based.




For that matter, Dragon Age: Origins isn't turn-based either.



			
				fba827 said:
			
		

> Of the stuff I have read/seen so far, it looks good. I like turn-based rpgs, so the ability to pause between rounds looks like it will be functional in that capacity (as well as real-time).




There's no concept of rounds like in NWN and other D&D-derived games.  You can certainly pause in the middle of combat, but you can only give one order at a time.  You can't queue them like in NWN.  Otherwise, combat is real-time.

I've gotten through a bit of the Mage origin, although my computer is crying for an upgrade.  I probably won't be playing it again until the weekend when I can grab a new processor (mine is ollllllld).  Ironically, my graphics card is fine.

My one big complaint right now is that the camera doesn't pan far enough upward in the overhead view.  It's highly annoying when you're in a small area (like say, the intro to the Mage origin).  Also, there were a couple of quirks with the DLC; I had to reload the game to get it to recognize I had used the codes.


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## horacethegrey (Nov 4, 2009)

My brother just got the collector's edition for my 360 yesterday, and he's been loving it so far.

My reaction has been a bit muted.  Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great game, but it's not exactly been wowing me as much as when I first played _Mass Effect_. For one, the graphics don't look exactly next gen. After being wowed by _Mass Effect_'s realistic character models and stunning environments, I'd expect other RPGs to match it. A bit of a spoiled reaction? Probably, but DA's visuals still leave me a bit underwhelmed. 

The combat too is a bit clunky at times. For the record, I've played through all of the _Baldur's Gate_ series, so the whole *pause and click* system is nothing new to me. But that was on a PC, and what works for a keypad and mouse may not necessarily translate well for gamepad. At times it was a bit of chore to micromanage your unit during a fight. The lack of the overhead view available on the PC versions kinda stinks as well, but it hasn't been much of a bother for me. 

I am digging the whole dark fantasy vibe that I've been getting from this game, and the NPC's look interesting, though I've only just started so I can't give an accurate judgement of them as of yet. 

Despite my misgivings, I still think this is a good game.  And it's enough to tide me over until _Mass Effect 2_ comes around next year. My female Da'lish Ranger will have to suffice for now until I step into Commander Shepard's boots once more.


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## Cergorach (Nov 4, 2009)

Phaezen said:


> As far as I can recall it has been slated as a single player game.  This is possibly Bioware's big strength, singleplayer story driven rpgs.



Could be me and a case of selective memory, but wasn't DA supposed to be a spiritual successor of NWN1? Could have sworn that there was also some mention for party play...


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## John Crichton (Nov 4, 2009)

I'm thoroughly enjoying this game so far.  About 5 hours in. 



Cergorach said:


> Could be me and a case of selective memory, but wasn't DA supposed to be a spiritual successor of NWN1?



Nope, Baldur's Gate II.


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## Runestar (Nov 4, 2009)

Restarting ever so often to try out all the various backgrounds. Only complaint so far is that the scrolling system seems very restricted, so my view tends to get blocked by walls from time to time.


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## Chainsaw (Nov 4, 2009)

Didn't get a chance to play yesterday, but read through the booklet - just as much fun, right? Haha, yeah right!

The weak graphics and battle lag seem to be a common complaint here and elsewhere. My comps are probably not that impressive though - 640K RAM era computer games, so I'm guessing it won't bother me too much. 

Not to derail my own thread, but I stumbled across a YouTube walkthrough of Ultima Exodus for NES and am considering playing through it. I tried as a kid and just got my butt kicked time and time again.  Stupid food!


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## Aus_Snow (Nov 4, 2009)

I remain curious enough to try it. Might be a couple of days or more before I actually see my copy, but that's OK. A bit o' backlog to get through, and - oh yeah! - some pesky life stuff too.


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## Thanee (Nov 4, 2009)

Gulla said:


> I know (played it through twice) but it will take another (by the rumor mill, big) step towards being a pure FPS with a story, and I'm not sure I appreciate that. But it is still BioWare, so I'll buy it and probably grit my teeth and enjoy it




Heh. Yep, I guess we will see how much they change it... surely all for the better. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Nov 4, 2009)

Anyone know of links to actual play screens?  The official site seems to have mostly movies.

I'm interested in this -- I've loved most of BioWare's games, especially the BG series (and IMO moving Mass Effect toward a better FPS is a good thing, given the interface & design) -- but need to decide whether to go with the PC or Xbox version.  My PC is just above minimum system requirements for the game, so I'm wondering if getting the additional top-down view is worth dialing the details down, or if I should give up that view and just use the Xbox where the game should run better.  

Can anyone compare/contrast play on the two different platforms?  I prefer party-based play (BG) over "Main character plus NPCs" (ala NWN & NWN2) if that helps at all.


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## Thanee (Nov 5, 2009)

If the XBOX does not have the top-down view, I would probably go for the PC version, because I think that view will be quite useful.

If you barely make the minimum requirements, you will have to tone the quality down quite a bit, of course.

As for screenshots... just google for "Dragon Age Screenshots" ?

Bye
Thanee


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## Chainsaw (Nov 5, 2009)

Watched my wife play XBOX 360 version from the disk last night. Immediately decided to install to hard drive.. cut scenes dragged and jerked a little. Haven't played from hard drive yet though.

Only saw brief combat scene between her and some rats. Looked more chaotic than I would have expected given the "turn based" option. Also, the angle could have been more top down to help. She's no expert at games though, so the jury's still out. Will reseve judgment until I get a chance to play myself.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 5, 2009)

Chainsaw said:


> Only saw brief combat scene between her and some rats.



Note to Self: In event of writing a computer fantasy roleplaying game, do not include rats as enemy.


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## Chainsaw (Nov 5, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Note to Self: In event of writing a computer fantasy roleplaying game, do not include rats as enemy.




Haha, I hear you! 

For better or worse, one of the NPCs she'd picked up by then actually makes a comical reference to the cliche..


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## ffanxii4ever (Nov 5, 2009)

Phaezen said:


> Bioware are like Pixar in that have yet to produce a flop, and judging by recent efforts (Mass Effect) they are still on top form.  That said they are due a dud and I am really hoping that this isn't it.




Are you forgetting a certain game they released on the DS not too long ago?
Sonic Chronicles was Bioware's dud (it was only mediocre)



Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Anyone know of links to actual play screens?  The official site seems to have mostly movies.
> 
> I'm interested in this -- I've loved most of BioWare's games, especially the BG series (and IMO moving Mass Effect toward a better FPS is a good thing, given the interface & design) -- but need to decide whether to go with the PC or Xbox version. My PC is just above minimum system requirements for the game, so I'm wondering if getting the additional top-down view is worth dialing the details down, or if I should give up that view and just use the Xbox where the game should run better.
> 
> Can anyone compare/contrast play on the two different platforms? I prefer party-based play (BG) over "Main character plus NPCs" (ala NWN & NWN2) if that helps at all.



It is party based, much more like KOTOR than NWN
and get the PC version because of top-down and because of community mods


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## fba827 (Nov 5, 2009)

ffanxii4ever said:


> and get the PC version because of top-down and because of community mods




And I'm seeing early comparison reviews say that graphics are better on the PC version (*presuming your computer can handle it). so that's another reason to get the pc version if you have the option.


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## Runestar (Nov 5, 2009)

> Note to Self: In event of writing a computer fantasy roleplaying game, do not include rats as enemy.




IIRC, that quest involved you clearing giant rats out of your larder...

Looks like some habits die hard...

On a side note, is anyone a little dismayed that character creation consists of only 3 races and 3 classes, and dwarves cannot be mages (though to be fair, there are specializations for each class). Or maybe I am spoiled by most RPGs consisting of at least 1 exotic race...


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## Chainsaw (Nov 6, 2009)

Runestar said:


> On a side note, is anyone a little dismayed that character creation consists of only 3 races and 3 classes, and dwarves cannot be mages (though to be fair, there are specializations for each class). Or maybe I am spoiled by most RPGs consisting of at least 1 exotic race...




Doesn't bother me.. I think I actually prefer it because it makes the racial differences feel  more than just cosmetic (or +/- small % starting differential to some stats).


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## Aus_Snow (Nov 6, 2009)

Runestar said:


> On a side note, is anyone a little dismayed that character creation consists of only 3 races and 3 classes, and dwarves cannot be mages (though to be fair, there are specializations for each class). Or maybe I am spoiled by most RPGs consisting of at least 1 exotic race...



Anything but 'dismayed'. It's very close to being in line with my own preferences, generally speaking.

Dwarven wizards? Feh. 

And wacky races, yeah, I can take or leave them. Usually leave.




fba827 said:


> And I'm seeing early comparison reviews say that graphics are better on the PC version (*presuming your computer can handle it). so that's another reason to get the pc version if you have the option.



But that is always the case. For example, the PS3 uses a GPU based on the 7800 from nVidia. Gee. Currently, that's several gens ago, for PCs. . .


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## Banshee16 (Nov 6, 2009)

Anyone have it on PC?  I'm trying to decide whether to play it on 360, PS3, or PC.  Apparently it's best on PC.....but I don't know how the requirements compare to other games.  Is it at all comparable to The Witcher or NWN2?  Or even slower?

Banshee


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## Thanee (Nov 6, 2009)

It surely has somewhat higher requirements than The Witcher and especially NWN2.

Recommended:
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Phenom II X2 Dual-Core 2.7 Ghz or similar
GFX ATI 3850 512 MB or NVidia 8800GTS 512MB or better
RAM 2 GB Windows XP (3 GB Windows Vista and Windows 7)

Bye
Thanee


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## stonegod (Nov 6, 2009)

Most of the time, as long as the graphics are "good enough", I don't mind getting the 360 version (I wanted to get out of the upgrade-my-PC rat race). While Dragon Age is nice most of the time, the foilage (and esp that at a distance) does make my eyes cry. Close things are fine.

Mass Effect had it good in that it rarely (i.e., never) really had to do earth-like terrain.

Its a minor quibble, though. Still rock'n the game.


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## Punnuendo (Nov 6, 2009)

I'm playing it on PC and loving it so far. I honestly can't imagine running the game on a console. How are the controls on the consoles?


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## Remus Lupin (Nov 6, 2009)

I'm playing it on my iMac using bootcamp and Windows XP. I just downloaded it yesterday, but so far I've been pleasantly surprised at how nice it looks and how good it plays.

It really is a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series, and frankly, I've been missing that level of immersive gameplay. You can only play through BGII so many times!


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## Felon (Nov 6, 2009)

All the reviews are prety quick to state that this is a game designed first and foremost for the PC. The console versions do not enjoy the same level of graphics or tactical options.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 6, 2009)

I think that's generally why I'm interested in the PC requirements....I've got The Witcher, NWN2, Medieval: Total War2, Oblivion, and Drakensang, and all run pretty much fine (The Witcher is the only one that lags)....my CPU is still a 2.2 Ghz AMD X2 processor, and 2 Ghz RAM.....but my vid card is a little under the recommended value.  It's so hard to tell.....I find some games that I should be too slow for *do* play fine.

I've thought of just sinking to getting it on a console, but I find RPG's are often somewhat dumbed down on console, so I'm not a fan of it.

Been waiting for this one for awhile....

Like others have mentioned, I'm trying to get out of the "upgrade PC" cycle....but it's been three years, so I do want to get around to updating it....but I have to pay off a laptop I bought for work first.

Banshee


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## Punnuendo (Nov 7, 2009)

For what it's worth Dragon Age on similar settings runs a good bit more smoothly for me than The Witcher ever did on the same machine.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 7, 2009)

Punnuendo said:


> For what it's worth Dragon Age on similar settings runs a good bit more smoothly for me than The Witcher ever did on the same machine.




That's helpful info.....System Lab shows my comp as being too weak....but it ran the Witcher fine, with a few places, like boss battles in a few levels, requiring me to lower my graphics for the few minutes it took to finish the battle.

If it runs smoother than The Witcher did, then I may be fine...

Banshee


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## Thanee (Nov 7, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> trying to get out of the "upgrade PC" cycle.




You can get a completely capable gaming PC for about the price of a console.
You need to upgrade (well replace) consoles, too, every now and then.

Not really seeing the big deal here. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Punnuendo (Nov 7, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> That's helpful info.....System Lab shows my comp as being too weak....but it ran the Witcher fine, with a few places, like boss battles in a few levels, requiring me to lower my graphics for the few minutes it took to finish the battle.
> 
> If it runs smoother than The Witcher did, then I may be fine...
> 
> Banshee





Yeah, that is just for me though. Might be some strange setting on one or the other I had set differently that made DA run better. So who knows?


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## Runestar (Nov 7, 2009)

One interesting feature about the game is that your hp/mana regenerates very quickly outside of combat, so you will almost always enter a fight at full life.

An attempt to simulate the healing surge/encounter power system of 4e?


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## Remus Lupin (Nov 8, 2009)

Well, what makes (a bit) of sense in D&D has always made for frustratingly slow computer gaming. You can handwave an 8 hour rest in game, but Baldur's Gate made you sit there for 30 seconds doing nothing and watching a camp fire in order to get back your health.

Plus, I get the impression there's less D&D-eseque healing magic in this game, so quick health recovery is  a very good thing.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 8, 2009)

Runestar said:


> One interesting feature about the game is that your hp/mana regenerates very quickly outside of combat, so you will almost always enter a fight at full life.
> 
> An attempt to simulate the healing surge/encounter power system of 4e?



Certainly the same design philosophy, but I am not sure it was taken from there directly.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 9, 2009)

Thanee said:


> You can get a completely capable gaming PC for about the price of a console.
> You need to upgrade (well replace) consoles, too, every now and then.
> 
> Not really seeing the big deal here.
> ...




Except that when the economy bailed last year, my entire division was shut down.....so, I decided to start my own small company....money's a little tight while I work on building up sales.....so my gaming PC is also my business desktop, and I am paying off a laptop I bought for presentations.  So, until that's paid off I'm trying to be careful about expending too much cash in too many places.

The PC needs an upgrade anyways.....I damaged the mother board by shorting out some ports while working on a client contract.....and if I have to replace the MoBo, I need to pretty much replace the CPU as well.

Maybe prices are cheaper in the U.S......in Canada, a decent PC generally costs about $800-1000.....twice the cost of a console....at least from the price research I've been starting to do.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 9, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Well, what makes (a bit) of sense in D&D has always made for frustratingly slow computer gaming. You can handwave an 8 hour rest in game, but Baldur's Gate made you sit there for 30 seconds doing nothing and watching a camp fire in order to get back your health.
> 
> Plus, I get the impression there's less D&D-eseque healing magic in this game, so quick health recovery is  a very good thing.




That might be a good thing.....(waiting while resting, that is).  I find in NWN, resting probably took 3 seconds, and it encouraged a play style where you basically blow all your best spells immediately in every battle, and rest frequently.  Making it so that you have to sit there and wait for a "time out" during rest periods makes you at least consider whether to rest, instead of taking it for granted.

Banshee


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## Cergorach (Nov 9, 2009)

Thanee said:


> You can get a completely capable gaming PC for about the price of a console.
> You need to upgrade (well replace) consoles, too, every now and then.
> 
> Not really seeing the big deal here.



Your definition of a completely capable gaming PC is certainly different then mine, an Xbox360 currently starts at $200 and ends at $400 and includes a very new game. You can't get a comparable gaming PC for that price...


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## Aus_Snow (Nov 9, 2009)

Cergorach said:


> Your definition of a completely capable gaming PC is certainly different then mine, an Xbox360 currently starts at $200 and ends at $400 and includes a very new game. You can't get a comparable gaming PC for that price...



You certainly can. One that will kick any given console's ass every which way, in fact. That isn't asking much, you see.

Minus monitor, that is. . . Still, it's not like consoles include a monitor / HDTV, so.


edit --- hm. actually, if you bought a fairly cheap (i.e., small) LCD monitor, you might even be able to squeeze that into that price too ($400, not $200.)


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## John Crichton (Nov 9, 2009)

That's gonna be one crummy little rig for around $200-400.


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## The Merciful (Nov 9, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> The PC needs an upgrade anyways.....I damaged the mother board by shorting out some ports while working on a client contract.....and if I have to replace the MoBo, I need to pretty much replace the CPU as well.




If you need to upgrade your MoBo and CPU, the only item left to make it a gaming PC is the graphics card. Is a decent Graphics card more expensive than a console?


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## fba827 (Nov 9, 2009)

John Crichton said:


> That's gonna be one crummy little rig for around $200-400.




Agreed - but maybe it is a regional thing... cheaper parts available elsewhere in the world?  But around here (near washignton dc, usa) I wouldn't be able to get a motherboard, cpu, graphics cards for that price range.  the graphics card alone would easily eat half that range (100-200), ram would eat the other half, etc.  or off the shelf prebuilt that budget wouldn't even come close.  But, other parts of the world may very well have cheaper access to parts, or maybe i just don't know the right rocks to look under for deals, so your experience may vary.



Back on topic -- I was noticing that the PC version users can also use the toolset (build your own character, adventures, etc - it's for download from the bioware site), so if that stuff appeals to you, you may well love that feature.


i recently got it for console (my PC can't handle games), but I have yet to play it.  I am waiting until after grad school semester ends in a few weeks or else i know i won't get any work done   -- it sits there, on the shelf, taunting me though... calling to me like a siren's call.  i'm pretty excited to hopefully get to play it soon.


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## Gregor (Nov 9, 2009)

Im currently running Dragon Age on the following rig:

Intel Core i5 750 Quad Core Processor 2.66GHZ
4GB DDR3-1333 RAM
Radeon HD 5850
24 inch monitor
Windows 7 OS (which I am surprised to actually like)

I am playing the game on maximum graphics and at the highest resolution, which is effectively 1080p (1900 x 1200).  I can tell you that on PC, with top graphics and resolution, the game is gorgeous and extremely smooth.  Sure there are a few graphical parts that could ideally be improved or pumped up (this isn't Crysis after all) but it seems to me that the developers went for a more accessible and scalable product.  I have seen the game run on lower power machines (slower processors and cards one generation earlier than mine) and the graphics were still able to be bumped up with smooth performance.

I watched a friend play the game on his 360 and while still extremely enjoyable, the graphics definitely do not look as good as on the PC and the  interface is not very intuitive (for me).  

With respect to the game itself, I am totally buying into the whole "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" thing.  I played the hell out of the BG series and its IWD friends and I have been waiting for this game since it was announced.  I can honestly tell you that Dragon Age is, imho, one of the best roleplaying games I have experienced.  There is a bit of a learning curve on their ruleset but I think that will just make for more efficient play throughs once I have it down solid.  The races feel distinct and the world is dark and gritty.

Check it out.


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## Banshee16 (Nov 9, 2009)

The Merciful said:


> If you need to upgrade your MoBo and CPU, the only item left to make it a gaming PC is the graphics card. Is a decent Graphics card more expensive than a console?




Well, my current PC uses the ATX form factor motherboard, and a case to match....if they've changed the motherboard format, then the case will no longer fit.

What I *know* is that I need to replace my motherboard, CPU, probably my RAM (mine is DDR1), my sound card (mine seems to be shorting out....it's an old Soundblaster Audigy, and I'm getting static now, that intermittently comes in and out when playing anything with sound....music, games, video files, etc.).  And my video card.  Also my power supply fan is on the fritz, and just about ready to kick the bucket.

At least from what I've seen, to get a decent video card, you're looking at about $120-200.....and that's for a slightly older one....you *could* pay up to $600 for a top of the line video card, but that's more than I need.

I don't need a monitor, keyword, mouse, speakers or printer, as over the last few months, I've added dual LCD monitors, a new router, network card, and a laser printer/scanner/copier (didn't pay for this....my old printer broke, and I found that I had bought a four year extended warranty on it at Future Shop, so I brouight the old one there, found that they don't service the manufacturer anymore, so they gave me a new Samsung unit for free).

So I pretty much need to upgrade the core machine, because most of the parts are getting old.

Banshee


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Nov 9, 2009)

My copy is in the mail.  I'm hoping this will be my next addiction now that I've finished Fallout 3.  (By finished, I mean "seen absolutely everything included in the game and all of the DLCs, up to and including the room filled with plungers, the recording of the Flatbush drunk insulting the aliens, and the Roach King.")


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## Runestar (Nov 10, 2009)

These are my laptop stats.

4gig ram
2gig ati radeon hd 3450

Game runs just fine on 1024x768 res, low quality (but lags somewhat on high quality).


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## Steel_Wind (Nov 10, 2009)

The game runs smoothly for me at 1920x1200, all eye candy on.  I've played for about 20 hours now. Not one lockup or bug yet within the game (BioWare social server?...not so much).  That's a record for me and BioWare.

I don't understand the squawking about graphics. Graphics are better than any other CRPG's. _The Witcher's_ lighting engine _appeared_ to be better at times - but that's because they used 3rd party middleware to bake the lighting into some textures.  A clever lighting engine design for a PC game, but totally a non-starter for a console game. Which is one of the reasons a console port of _The Witcher_ has yet to be released, I might add.

Playing a noble warrior. Definitely the best start to any BioWare game I've ever played on that Origin path. Given that the start of their games tends to rather weak, that's a big deal to me.

I know for marketing they would rather pitch this as a "spiritual successor" to BG2. I think a more accurate assessment is that it is KotoR 1, with one extra party member, and a top down iso camera on the PC -- looking very pretty and in very detailed and fully realized fantasy world. On a console, you don't get that additional top down persepective and KotoR1 is very much the style it evokes.

In any event, the game so far is excellent.


----------



## Falkus (Nov 10, 2009)

I finally got my copy last night. This is the game I have been waiting for ever since Baldur's Gate 2. I'm playing a City Elf Rogue, and I'm loving every moment of it.


----------



## Thanee (Nov 10, 2009)

Steel_Wind said:


> The game runs smoothly for me at 1920x1200, all eye candy on.




What kind of CPU/gfx do you have?

Bye
Thanee


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## Thanee (Nov 10, 2009)

Should get my copy today or tomorrow. 

My machine is only slightly below their recommended specs (Athlon X2 2.8 GHz and GF 8800 GTS 640 MB), so I should be fine (maybe not with everything set to highest quality, but most).

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Steel_Wind (Nov 10, 2009)

Thanee said:


> What kind of CPU/gfx do you have?
> 
> Bye
> Thanee




Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 at 3.16 GHz, 4 gig DDR2 800 on a P5QLPro mobo, Asus ENGTX260 / 896 Mb video under Vista 32.

A middle-of-the-road leaning to higher end gaming PC by tody's standards. Not slow, not bleeding edge. About 18 months old.  Certainly more expensive than a console though


----------



## fba827 (Nov 10, 2009)

So what origin story / class combos are people using for their first run through?  Does gender choice make big or small differences (i.e. hardly noticeable, or does every interaction also skew towards your gender choice, etc)?

And, as someone who is not allowing himself to play until next week (homework first), what are some small detail gems that might get overlooked but are well worth the notice? -- By that I mean "pay attention to how your NPCs interact" or "watch how the weather changes" or "don't gloss over any dialogue choices, read them all before picking because one is always humorous" etc.  -- not asking for actual spoilers, just detailed attention that I might otherwise overlook when I start playing...


----------



## Remus Lupin (Nov 10, 2009)

Daleish Elf Warrior.


----------



## The Serge (Nov 10, 2009)

I bought mine for my PS3.  Even though I have the PC hardware for the game, I wanted to see it on a huge screen and play it on the comfort of my sofa.  I can, though, see why the PC would be a better experience: the interface is a little clunky (you have to hold multiple buttons to move through the menus; while I don't mind given my significant backgroun with fighting games, I can see where this would frustrate others) and you can't get a decent overhead view (its more of a point of perspective view).  In a couple years, I might buy the PC version when it's $20 bucks, but I don't regret my PS3 version.

I'm playing an elven mage.  I am loving the dialogue interaction options not just between my character and the various party NPCs, but am getting a real kick out of NPCs interactions with each other.  Listening to the introductory conversation between Alistair and Stern was a real hoot, and I thought Morrigan's argument with the dog was hilarious.  I like how much effort your PC has to spend interacting with the party NPCs; the interactions really make the experience richer and more meaningful.  In essence, it's everything BGII (and _Planescape: Torment_) had multiplied by three in addition to phenomenal graphics.

Speaking of graphics, while it's not quite as good as those in _Mass Effect_, I'm having a hard time understanding all the complaints associated with the visualization.  Event though there's not much in the way of variety for the mages, the textures on their robes is really well done.  The faces are generally well done too (wish I could make a real "black" character, but I'll get over it).  So far, the voice acting is superb as well.

So, while I would love for Bioware to return to the D&D rules set (preferrably 3.5), this game has been a great experience so far.  I've played 17 hours and I'm only 8th level and completed less than 10% of the game.  AWESOME.


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## The Serge (Nov 10, 2009)

fba827 said:


> So what origin story / class combos are people using for their first run through?  Does gender choice make big or small differences (i.e. hardly noticeable, or does every interaction also skew towards your gender choice, etc)?



From what I understand, gender matters for the romance.  I can't tell if it matters elsewhere since this -- like BG -- appears to be a fairly egalitarian (and acronistic) society.



> And, as someone who is not allowing himself to play until next week (homework first), what are some small detail gems that might get overlooked but are well worth the notice? -- By that I mean "pay attention to how your NPCs interact" or "watch how the weather changes" or "don't gloss over any dialogue choices, read them all before picking because one is always humorous" etc.  -- not asking for actual spoilers, just detailed attention that I might otherwise overlook when I start playing...



Other than the weather part, everything you've written here is in the game.  As I mentioned in my previous post, the interactions between your character and your party members is not only immersive, it's pretty essential if you want to get the most out of them.  Depending on how well you interact with them, you can enhance their effectiveness (like the githzerai in PS:T) and some of them can teach your character new tricks.  And some of the characters are absolutely hilarious.  It's great listening to them banter back and forth while you're walking around.  I've actually made sure I didn't interact with another person/item in order to hear the entirety of an NPC-to-NPC conversation.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Nov 10, 2009)

My favorite bit of dialogue so far is when the female rogue starts commenting on Morrigan's clothes, which ends with Morrigan crying: "Stop staring at my breasts!"


----------



## John Crichton (Nov 10, 2009)

I now have the PC version in addition to the 360 version.

I hooked my laptop up to the 50" plamsa via HDMI and now I feel stupid for ever getting the 360 version.  I kinda forgot I could do that.  Doh!

The lappy can't quite do 1920x1080 but it can do the setting just below that with everything maxed.  Excellent stuff.  I'm finding that I really like the codex/inventory screens much better on the PC.  And the overhead tactical view.  I'm sure the gaming rig can do everything at full resolution but it's still downloading at the moment so I'll have to wait and see.


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## Thanee (Nov 11, 2009)

Steel_Wind said:


> Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 at 3.16 GHz, 4 gig DDR2 800 on a P5QLPro mobo, Asus ENGTX260 / 896 Mb video under Vista 32.




Ok, that should have no trouble with the game. 

On another forum, someone posted he can run the game completely fine with most things turned to high with a C2D 2.2 GHz and a GF 8800GTS320. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Thanee (Nov 11, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> Except that when the economy bailed last year, my entire division was shut down.....so, I decided to start my own small company....money's a little tight while I work on building up sales.....so my gaming PC is also my business desktop, and I am paying off a laptop I bought for presentations.  So, until that's paid off I'm trying to be careful about expending too much cash in too many places.
> 
> The PC needs an upgrade anyways.....I damaged the mother board by shorting out some ports while working on a client contract.....and if I have to replace the MoBo, I need to pretty much replace the CPU as well.




Ok, I can certainly see your reasons here. But like someone said above, if you need to replace the PC anyways, I see very little reason to also buy a console then, but rather spend that money on the PC to get one that works well for everything you do.



> Maybe prices are cheaper in the U.S......




Maybe. I'm not in the U.S., though, so I do not really know. 



> in Canada, a decent PC generally costs about $800-1000.....twice the cost of a console....at least from the price research I've been starting to do.




That's not decent. That's bordering on high-end.

For that kind of money you should get a Core i5 with a Deluxe mainboard, 4 GB RAM, and a Radeon HD57XX or even HD58XX plus all the bells and whistles (case, quality PSU, 1 TB HDD, CD/DVD RW, etc). 



Cergorach said:


> Your definition of a completely capable gaming PC is certainly different then mine.




Very much possible. In my opinion, a decent gaming PC doesn't need a quadcore or a newest generation gfx card, but a CPU/GFX combo that runs all modern games in a decent manner (settings moderate to high, but not necessarily maxed out). A PC like that is far more powerful than any console on the market already.

You get that _easily_ for $400.

Bye
Thanee


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## Thanee (Nov 11, 2009)

Banshee16 said:


> Well, my current PC uses the ATX form factor motherboard, and a case to match....if they've changed the motherboard format, then the case will no longer fit.




ATX is fine. The "newer" standards havn't really surfaced on the mass market, there is also µATX, so you need to make sure you actually get a mainboard that fits your case.



> What I *know* is that I need to replace my motherboard, CPU, probably my RAM (mine is DDR1), my sound card (mine seems to be shorting out....it's an old Soundblaster Audigy, and I'm getting static now, that intermittently comes in and out when playing anything with sound....music, games, video files, etc.).  And my video card.  Also my power supply fan is on the fritz, and just about ready to kick the bucket.




Yeah, so pretty much a complete system.

Mainboards have an onboard soundchip, no sound card necessary
CPU A decent Core 2 Duo should be sufficient
RAM 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz is sufficient
GFX Maybe a GF 9800 GT with 1GB RAM if you don't want to spend too much
PSU That's an important part to replace! Don't save here!

Bye
Thanee


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## Obryn (Nov 11, 2009)

Steel_Wind said:


> Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 at 3.16 GHz, 4 gig DDR2 800 on a P5QLPro mobo, Asus ENGTX260 / 896 Mb video under Vista 32.
> 
> A middle-of-the-road leaning to higher end gaming PC by tody's standards. Not slow, not bleeding edge. About 18 months old.  Certainly more expensive than a console though



This is eerily identical to my own PC's specs, apart from running Vista x64.  I'm running super-smoothly, no hiccups, with maxed detail settings ... but only 2xAA.  If I turn on 4xAA, I get a few hiccups, but it remains very playable.  Have not tried 8xAA.  It's one of the prettiest games I've played yet; the faces and expressions, especially, are amazing.



fba827 said:


> So what origin story / class combos are people using for their first run through?  Does gender choice make big or small differences (i.e. hardly noticeable, or does every interaction also skew towards your gender choice, etc)?



Erm...  all of them?  I made about 5-6 different characters right at the outset and finished the intro on 4 of them.  (One dwarf, I had to put down because I noticed - too late - that he looked just like Santa Claus.)

So far my favorite characters - the ones I'm running the game with for now - are both Dwarves.  One is a Commoner Rogue, and one is a Noble Warrior.  For the warrior, if you want a tip... 



Spoiler



sell everything you don't immediately need - like everything but the specific weapon you're using, shield, armor, and healing potions - before the end of the feast.  Sell the Helm, if you get it, too, because although it rocks, it's worth more as cash right now.


  At least, that's IMO. 



> And, as someone who is not allowing himself to play until next week (homework first), what are some small detail gems that might get overlooked but are well worth the notice? -- By that I mean "pay attention to how your NPCs interact" or "watch how the weather changes" or "don't gloss over any dialogue choices, read them all before picking because one is always humorous" etc.  -- not asking for actual spoilers, just detailed attention that I might otherwise overlook when I start playing...



If you've played any Elder Scrolls games, there's a quick shout-out to Bethesda in your first Intro mission if you play a Human Noble.

Otherwise, your background decides what story you start with and which NPCs you already know.  Your sex modifies both this story and how later NPCs react to you.  (Although it _doesn't_ always change which NPCs you can seduce.)

I listen to all the dialogues the first time I run into them.  They are acted better than any other CRPG I can think of right now.  The cut-scenes are likewise pretty brilliant.  On your third or fourth time after the plotlines merge, you will probably be sick of them, at which point you can ESC through them.

And yes, the game of course has lots of good dialogue options and a few completely psychotic ones.   I'd pay attention.

-O


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## Banshee16 (Nov 11, 2009)

Steel_Wind said:


> Which is one of the reasons a console port of _The Witcher_ has yet to be released, I might add.




I thought the team that was producing the console port was in another country (France??) and CDProject took the project away from them and laid off the team or something....the rumour mill covers all kinds of ground....layoffs due to the economy, no appetite for the game, concentrating resources on making sure that The Witcher 2 will be on consoles *and* PC...

In any case, I have to say, The Witcher was one of the best CRPG's I've ever played...right up there with Planescape: Torment.

Banshee


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## Banshee16 (Nov 11, 2009)

Thanee said:


> Ok, that should have no trouble with the game.
> 
> On another forum, someone posted he can run the game completely fine with most things turned to high with a C2D 2.2 GHz and a GF 8800GTS320.
> 
> ...




Well, Dell had a 12-hour sale on Monday, and the game was $10 off with free shipping....they got it to me within 24 hours, so I tried it last night on my PC.

On medium or high details, it's working fine...now, I'm trying an Elven Mage, and I'm doing the Origins test of sorcery thing, and it's running fine at the moment.  Not sure if it'll slow down significantly when I get into the regular world.

But it's running fine on an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (2.2 Ghz), with WinXP SP3, 2 GB RAM, and an ASUS GeForce 7600GT card with Sound Blaster Audigy.

Guess I'll see what happens when there are more opponents on the screen, but for now, it's working silky smooth.

An observation I'll make is that I find that system requirements seem somewhat less cut and dry than they did in the early days of PC gaming.  I remember getting some of the Wing Commander games way back when, and if you were just a smidgen off the specs, it was brutally slow.  At least with games I've seen recently, having minimum specs or below minimum can often still result in a playable experience.

Banshee


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## Silverblade The Ench (Nov 12, 2009)

Freakin' enjoying this game big time!  Maybe the best CRPG, ever, IMHO, right up there with Planescape Torment.

Zevan is a riot, haha!!! 

Oh any of you seen the loading screen that says:
_"When in doubt: go for the eyes!"_
Hm?
GO BOO, WE KNOW THEY MEAN YOU!!!


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## Thanee (Nov 12, 2009)

Got my copy installed yesterday, too. Runs perfectly smooth so far on highest with 2x AA even (Athlon X2 2.8 GHz with GF 8800 GTS 640 and 2 GB RAM).

Some of those diaglogue options are really crazy, heh. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Steel_Wind (Nov 12, 2009)

In terms of dialog, the one thing I would have much preferred to have seen in DA:O would have been the _Mass Effect_ dialog system. The Mass Effect radial system has you pointing your PC's response in one direction using a few words, and the game cinematically shows you the results of that dialog choice by depicting your PC speaking very different words in more complete sentences -- and then shows the interaction of the PC with the NPCs response to your own words.  It's a genuinely very cool and innovative convo system in a CRPG and one of BioWare's most important contribution and innovations to the entire RPG genre.

I can only guess that the larger number of possibilities for main PC characters, longer game length, and the increased burden all of that would have had on voice acting requirements persuaded BioWare to not implement that convo system in DA:O. It may also well be that the game dialog would have had to be completely rewritten - and they didn't want to have to do that. Not sure.

Whatever the case, I though that aspect of _Mass Effect_ was very well done (I was not otherwise much of a fan of ME, either on 360 or PC) and would have preferred to see the same approach to have been used in _Dragon Age._

Don't get me wrong - its absence was not a surprise to me. The devs at BioWare had been clear that DA:O was not using the _Mass Effect _conversation system. That doesn't mean that the game would not have benefitted from it though. I think it certainly would have.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Nov 14, 2009)

Still hammering away at this game, and enjoying it a great deal. Right now, I'm romancing both Morrigan and Zavran, and trying to work Leliana into the mix. I'll be interested in seeing where it all goes.


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## wolff96 (Nov 16, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Still hammering away at this game, and enjoying it a great deal. Right now, I'm romancing both Morrigan and Zavran, and trying to work Leliana into the mix. I'll be interested in seeing where it all goes.




Make sure you sleep with Leliana FIRST.  She's a bit of a prude, so it's MUCH harder to do it the other way around.  Not to mention that she doesn't get along all that well with Morrigan...

As a side note, I love one of the conversations between Morrigan and Alistar.  She accuses him of staring at her breasts and he covers by saying he was admiring her profile -- that her nose was exactly like that of Flemith.  There's a brief pause, then she replies "I hate you SO MUCH" in a very level and spaced tone that somehow conveys the exact depth of how much he just pissed her off...   GREAT voice acting!


----------



## fba827 (Nov 16, 2009)

Ijust started my first play through.

I picked human noble fighter because i find for initial play throughts on rpgs, a fighter tends to have the 'simplest' combat mechanics and then once i get used to the game i go for more complicated classes like mages.

I'm having a lot of fun so far.  I like the characters -- all well thoughout.

I am getting frustrated (not in a bad way) because i obsess over the equipment -- i am constantly "at full" but i can never decide what equipment will be useful and what won't so i keep trying to keep everything that has some marginal circumstance benefit over the others.  and these gifts i'm collecting, i'm scared to give it to the wrong people  (don't tell me, i'll figure it out on my own once i get over my neurotic behavior)

The controls on the console are taking a lot of getting used to -- i can see how this would be vastly better in terms of control scheme on a pc.
voice acting wise, i'm enjoying almost all of them, though there was one npc tossed in that i met so far who seemed to have the flatest delivery that went 
graphics - it looks nice but there are a couple character models that just seem odd (someone who has disproportionate hands, for instance).   all very minor things though.

anyway, as said, just started (am as far as the road where you first make camp and decide which city to go to first.  And i'm immesnly enjoying it so far.


----------



## fba827 (Nov 16, 2009)

I never played Mass Effect but that sounds like an awesome system.

true, DO:A isn't bad for not having it, but it sounds like it would have been a fun addition  (though, logically, yeah, adding all the voice dialogue, etc -- would have added a lot of both time and money to the development of the game)



Steel_Wind said:


> In terms of dialog, the one thing I would have much preferred to have seen in DA:O would have been the _Mass Effect_ dialog system. The Mass Effect radial system has you pointing your PC's response in one direction using a few words, and the game cinematically shows you the results of that dialog choice by depicting your PC speaking very different words in more complete sentences -- and then shows the interaction of the PC with the NPCs response to your own words.  It's a genuinely very cool and innovative convo system in a CRPG and one of BioWare's most important contribution and innovations to the entire RPG genre.
> 
> I can only guess that the larger number of possibilities for main PC characters, longer game length, and the increased burden all of that would have had on voice acting requirements persuaded BioWare to not implement that convo system in DA:O. It may also well be that the game dialog would have had to be completely rewritten - and they didn't want to have to do that. Not sure.
> 
> ...


----------



## The Serge (Nov 16, 2009)

wolff96 said:


> As a side note, I love one of the conversations between Morrigan and Alistar.  She accuses him of staring at her breasts and he covers by saying he was admiring her profile -- that her nose was exactly like that of Flemith.  There's a brief pause, then she replies "I hate you SO MUCH" in a very level and spaced tone that somehow conveys the exact depth of how much he just pissed her off...   GREAT voice acting!



Claudia Black, ladies and gentlemen!

I am trying to figure out if there's a way to get the two of them to sleep together...  

I'm just focusing on Zevran.  I've considered Morrigan, but I really don't like her myself (too CN for my tastes).


----------



## Remus Lupin (Nov 16, 2009)

Well, I've managed to get both Morigan and Zavran into bed. I think I missed my shot at Liliana. I think that there's actually a way to engineer a three way among your character and two of the others.

The sex scenes are ... hilarious. It reminds me of the doll sex scene in "Team America." But also, the 30-Rock episode about video game porn and the "uncanny valley." These characters definitely fall into the uncanny valley.


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## John Crichton (Nov 17, 2009)

wolff96 said:


> As a side note, I love one of the conversations between Morrigan and Alistar.  She accuses him of staring at her breasts and he covers by saying he was admiring her profile -- that her nose was exactly like that of Flemith.  There's a brief pause, then she replies "I hate you SO MUCH" in a very level and spaced tone that somehow conveys the exact depth of how much he just pissed her off...   GREAT voice acting!



Well, it *is *Claudia Black after all.


----------



## LightPhoenix (Nov 17, 2009)

fba827 said:


> I picked human noble fighter because i find for initial play throughts on rpgs, a fighter tends to have the 'simplest' combat mechanics and then once i get used to the game i go for more complicated classes like mages.




I'm playing a mage, and at first I let Alistair just run in and do his thing (based on his tactics setting).  As I've gotten farther in the game, I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying micromanaging him (and Oghren) for greater control over the battlefield.



fba827 said:


> I never played Mass Effect but that sounds like an awesome system.
> 
> true, DO:A isn't bad for not having it, but it sounds like it would have been a fun addition  (though, logically, yeah, adding all the voice dialogue, etc -- would have added a lot of both time and money to the development of the game)




It was definitely one of the things in ME that worked well.  It probably would have added a bunch of work to DA:O though, especially given it's increased focus on character design.  It's at the very least six voice sets (one for each gender/race) and probably would have ended up as twelve (one for each gender/origin).


----------



## Brandigan (Nov 17, 2009)

I got the PS3 version and I'm really enjoying it. If I had a better computer, I would have gone with the PC version though! My biggest complaint is the lack of 'hot keys'. Basically only 6 (including one for healing pots). But at least you can pause it to select others through the radial menu.
 I created a human warrior, tank spec, so I'm going to have to dump Alistair(who goes down like a sack of potatoes anyways). I'm lvl 10 with Leliana, Wynn, and considering Sten or the dog for the final spot. I screwed Morrigan's spec because I didn't know what I was doing, so she's basically camp eye candy now!


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## Obryn (Nov 17, 2009)

I think Shale is pretty much superior to the Dog in every way.  Since he came with the package for free, I'd go with him instead.  Don't get me wrong - the dog is kinda awesome in a lot of ways, and fetches great stuff for you, but he just can't compare to a golem!

-O


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## LightPhoenix (Nov 18, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I think Shale is pretty much superior to the Dog in every way.  Since he came with the package for free, I'd go with him instead.  Don't get me wrong - the dog is kinda awesome in a lot of ways, and fetches great stuff for you, but he just can't compare to a golem!




The biggest problem with Dog is basically two-fold.  First, while Dog has some great crowd-control abilities, he rapidly gets overshadowed by the other warriors.  Alistair's a better tank, Oghren and Sten are better at damage (and Two-Handed Sweep rocks), and Shale has vastly more flexibility.  Second, Dog's lack of versatility really only makes him useful in the beginning of the game.  You certainly _could_ use him all the way through, but he's very limited in scope.  If Dog had access to some of the Warrior talents, he'd be a lot better.  Personally, I'd give him access to some of the Rogue talents instead, given the abundance of warriors already.

Regarding Shale, it's biggest benefit is that in addition to the Warrior talents, Shale gets some great crowd-control as well.  You can spec Shale as a tank or to do damage, and additionally you can swap out crystals to do any elemental damage (although IMO Spirit is probably the best).  While I don't use Shale right now, it'll definitely be going on my play-through next time around (probably Shale/Wynne/Zevran, with me as a second Warrior).


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## Brandigan (Nov 18, 2009)

I didn't come across Shale yet, just finished the castle Redcliffe quest. I guess Sten would be a good fit for my group right now then because I really need to boost the damage output.


----------



## Sabathius42 (Nov 18, 2009)

So far just a couple of complaints...

1. Party AI seems all screwed up.  Half the time when I get a spare few moments in battle I can turn an eye towards what the other party members are doing and one of them will just be standing around doing nothing.  I have checked all my Tactics sliders and everyone SHOULD be doing something.

2. Why on earth is there no place in the camp to store things I don't want to sell?  I know the merchants all have a "Buy Back" section to repurchase whatever you sold to them previously, but I don't want to trust stashing all those armor sets there waiting for people to stat up and be able to use them.

3. Pick-Pockets is lame.  I have invested 3 slots in it and I am am getting bupkis from it (even from merchants and named NPCs).

4. Teleporting my party to me whenever you launch a cutscene with my stealthy rogue.  I had them waiting somewhere else for a reason, and thats because I didn't want #5 to happen to them.

5. Enemies spawning from nowhere and swarming my parts.  I want my mage and archer to be AWAY from the battle, but I can't do that if people just show up from thin air.


And to balance, some likes...

1. Voice acting is A+ so far.

2. Great mix of serious and humor in the dialogue.

3. Interesting take on elves and clerics.

4. The dog rocks!  I will tell tales of the Mimbari Dominance power for decades to come.  Or at least how you activate it.

DS


----------



## LightPhoenix (Nov 18, 2009)

Sabathius42 said:


> 1. Party AI seems all screwed up.  Half the time when I get a spare few moments in battle I can turn an eye towards what the other party members are doing and one of them will just be standing around doing nothing.  I have checked all my Tactics sliders and everyone SHOULD be doing something.




It sounds like they're on Hold.  Under the portraits, there is a small circle with either a hand (Hold) or a running man (Tactics).  Having your characters on hold prevents them from using tactics, generally.



> 2. Why on earth is there no place in the camp to store things I don't want to sell?  I know the merchants all have a "Buy Back" section to repurchase whatever you sold to them previously, but I don't want to trust stashing all those armor sets there waiting for people to stat up and be able to use them.




There's one in Warden's Keep (DLC) but I agree it should have been in the camp in the first place.  There's a mod by one of the developers (Brian Chung, I think) that puts one there.



> 4. Teleporting my party to me whenever you launch a cutscene with my stealthy rogue.  I had them waiting somewhere else for a reason, and thats because I didn't want #5 to happen to them.
> 
> 5. Enemies spawning from nowhere and swarming my parts.  I want my mage and archer to be AWAY from the battle, but I can't do that if people just show up from thin air.




These I agree with.  Bioware has a bad habit of doing this.  I wouldn't mind so much if it was something like one of the "bosses."  I wouldn't mind it if there was character specific dialogues and those characters were in my party (for example, the end of Orzammar).  However, it seems like often there are too many times where they do it and shouldn't.  Furthermore, if I have a character with Survival, I shouldn't be getting ambushed _ever_.  That's why I put points into that skill.

That said, I haven't run into _too_ many tactical problems with it.  Generally I take my mage and Leliana and move them back before they take any actions, while Alistair and Oghren run in screaming.  That prevents the others from taking too many hits.  Once in a while it's ridiculous though, especially when you're fighting a lot of mages.

My big "encounter" related pet-peeve is how difficulty is often established by swarming the party with enemies.  It makes tactical positioning of my warriors damn near impossible when eight guys are on them.  In fact, that's how I started to learn to micromanage them; it's still not 100%, but a well placed Two-Handed Sweep can do wonders.  Still, I think that Bioware's encounter design is fairly lacking.  I can't help but compare it to 4E encounter design, where there's a lot of synergy between enemies, a lot of interesting tactics and abilities enemies have access to, and overall less strong enemies and more minions.  All in my opinion, of course.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Nov 18, 2009)

fba827 said:


> I am getting frustrated (not in a bad way) because i obsess over the equipment -- i am constantly "at full" but i can never decide what equipment will be useful and what won't so i keep trying to keep everything that has some marginal circumstance benefit over the others.  and these gifts i'm collecting, i'm scared to give it to the wrong people  (don't tell me, i'll figure it out on my own once i get over my neurotic behavior)




Regarding normal items--for weapons and armor, pay close attention to the tiers listed.  There are 7 tiers.  The higher the tier the better suited it is--better armor, better damage, more enchantment slots, etc.  Once you have the minimum attributes needed for it, feel free to sell off your old stuff.  I'd save "named weapons" though at least until the pros and cons are figured out.  Some "regular weapons" are better than a few named weapons when the pros and cons are figured out, although it depends on anything else the weapons do.  

I learned this the hard way when I found my warriors a little ineffective until I switched gears.  It's hard getting out of the D&D mentality and paying attention to the metal/wood of the weapons used.  I figured this out 2/3rds thru the game.

Gifts you'll have to experiment with.  Hints can be found in the codex entry for the character, provided you talked to them enough and figured out what they like.  I strongly suggest taking time and reading a codex entry when it appears in your bar.  Put it this way, for most gifts, if you get a +1 or +2, it's nice but not their preference.



> The sex scenes are ... hilarious. It reminds me of the doll sex scene in "Team America." But also, the 30-Rock episode about video game porn and the "uncanny valley." These characters definitely fall into the uncanny valley.




That's the only drawback IMO (and a minor one).  I mean, this engine is great--I love the camera effects you get when in the Fade, when you're dreaming, and all the angles and things that can be done (such as Field of Vision where you blur the background scenes, or seeing the characters through a demons infravision-like eyes).  There's virtually no scenes pre-rendered as Bink video like some games do, it's all in-game like Half-Life.  Some people are saying it's not the best, but I think its the best so far for an RPG.  I really only see the uncanny valley when there is a love scene that's more than kissing.  Maybe they should have blurred the entire FOV for that--or do a long shot in camp farther away.  It's odd because for me the romance aspect is one of the fun things--playing as my character and interacting with other's stories is just like reading a novel or being in the Peter Jackson LoTR movies.


----------



## Obryn (Nov 19, 2009)

I installed the Camp Storage Chest above, and absolutely love it.

Last night, I grabbed the HD Textures from dragonagenexus, and am impressed with the difference it makes for the game's appearance.  It was a pain to download and install (I'd rather download and unzip 1 file instead of 6), but it's pretty amazing.

I plan on getting a few more mods - like one that changes the nuisance Stealing cooldown from 10s to 1.5s - but am looking for more.

Are you folks planning on installing any user-created mods?  Have you found any that you'd recommend?

-O


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 19, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I installed the Camp Storage Chest above, and absolutely love it.
> 
> Last night, I grabbed the HD Textures from dragonagenexus, and am impressed with the difference it makes for the game's appearance.  It was a pain to download and install (I'd rather download and unzip 1 file instead of 6), but it's pretty amazing.



Haven't even bought the game yet, since I'm waiting to upgrade my computer, but does the HD texture mod up the system requirements much?  i.e. if I wanted to use such a thing, is that going to mean buying a better video card?


----------



## Obryn (Nov 19, 2009)

It shouldn't take much - if any - extra processing power.  Your game will only get choked if your card has minimal on-board RAM.

Mine is choppy for a second or so at first, while waiting for the textures to load into the card's memory, but otherwise just as smooth.

-O


----------



## Sabathius42 (Nov 19, 2009)

Storage chest sounds good....except i'm playing on the 360.  

I don't plan on paying for any expansion materials, so I guess I am just gonna have to keep trimming my inventory all game long.

DS


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Nov 19, 2009)

Obryn said:


> It shouldn't take much - if any - extra processing power.  Your game will only get choked if your card has minimal on-board RAM.



Aye, there's the rub.

My current rig won't run it at all.  I need a new video card for sure.  Buying a new video card makes it into probably a $150 game, possibly more than that.  This is where I consider plugging my ears for a year and waiting to pick up the game in a $20 bin after I can more readily afford video card upgrades.


----------



## fba827 (Nov 21, 2009)

i am (presumably, based on the way the story line is climaxing) almost done with my first play through (male human noble warrior).

have to say, i am addictively playing it -- i'm really enjoying lots of the details (town criers that change announcements, companion banter, etc), story, and cut scenes.  i also really like how certain things from earlier come back to help or hinder me .... (won't say what to avoid spoilers)

normally, i'd get bored of the story and start 'steamrolling' through everything with quick dialogue choices and skipping whatever was extra. but i find myself wanting to see more, so the fact that the story is holding my interest is a big thing...  i'm interested to see how it plays out and will probably start immediately playing again on a new origin making new choices.

of course, the game isn't without faults (i've run across a few odd glitches/bugs and not every artistic choice is to my liking, but nothing that has been so major that it has stopped me from enjoying the game).


----------



## Remus Lupin (Nov 21, 2009)

I've been plugging away at it pretty obsessively myself. I gave up trying to do every side quest, but I'm sure I'll catch some of them next time around.

Just completed the Landsmeet, and Morrigan made me choose between her and Zavran. I chose her. Zavran was just a phase, I guess!


----------



## fba827 (Dec 8, 2009)

so i'm on my third play through (and still not bored of it) - i like seeing the story from multiple angles and perspectives....

i tried being a 'jerk' and side with someone i wouldn't normally chose to side with... and, well, i felt so bad about the reprucssions that i had to immediately reload my previous save... (which, to me is a big deal because i don't do that, ever, i just go with the flow of what i pick.. but i felt so bad.. so very very bad.   )


Though, I came here to post about summoning spiders.  I made Leliana a ranger and just learned summon spider and... well, let's just say it doesn't "poof" like the wolf and bear do.  I just wasn't expecting it.... nice detail though, i'll give them that.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Dec 21, 2009)

I'm kind of waiting for the Return to Ostagar expansion before I give myself another playthrough. Though this time I think I'll play a human noble rogue.


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## Blastin (Dec 28, 2009)

Just got this for Christmas and have put about 5-6 hrs into it. All I can say is wow! I'm loving it so far. All of the voice acting, even the kids, have been great so far. Started as the human noble warrior. The intro story was actually pretty intense. Looking forward to putting many more hours into this.


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## Phaezen (Dec 31, 2009)

Hmm the announcement for the first Box expansion for Dragon Age - Dragon Age Awakening has been leaked.

Official announcement is expected early January, with a March 2010 release.

Some details here.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Dec 31, 2009)

At this rate, I may never stop playing it.


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## John Crichton (Jan 1, 2010)

It'll be interesting to see if the rumor turns out to be true.


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## Phaezen (Jan 1, 2010)

The rumoured expansion pack has also shown up on some New Zealand web stores, with a price and release date, so I will be holding my breath slightly.


----------



## Felon (Jan 5, 2010)

So, is anyone playing this on a console? I heard the PC version was vastly superior, both graphically and tactically. 

Was listening to an IGN podcast that touched on Dragon Age and how harsh it is. It was hilarious The guy mentioned that early in the game you get sent to clear out 



Spoiler



some wizard's guild tower or somesuch, and he went in with the impression that it would be some kind of quick tutorial. Instead it was a huge floor-by-floor slog that took twelve hours. Then at some point you get sent to another dimension, which again he figured would just be some minor fetch-quest that introduces you to dimension-traveling. Again he was proved wrong when a detailed map popped up with all the places he needed to go. And then when he was done and returned to his dimension, the boss was still waiting for him. He had played about thirty hours total at that point.



All this, and no vendors, no chances to resupply. Sounds rough. Is it really like that?


----------



## ffanxii4ever (Jan 5, 2010)

It didn't take me quite that long, but yeah it was fun.
Personally, I like the kinda hardball approach that it takes, its not so common anymore and I think it makes less of a diablo hack-n-slash type of game, and makes things a touch more tactical, just how I like it


----------



## Ahnehnois (Jan 5, 2010)

Felon said:


> All this, and no vendors, no chances to resupply. Sounds rough. Is it really like that?



Kind of. That segment is hard, but the rewards for it are immense and you get fun shapeshifting that you can use. It's also worth noting that you get a lot of choice of where to go and when to do things. Most of the game you have a 4-man party and can control everything about them, and the NPCs don't suck. It is harder than Baldur's Gate/NWN; you do have to use some tactics. I'd suggest the first playthrough be on easy.

As for vendors, the tower is one of the few times where you don't have one, and they have infinite money (the economics are rough though, 100 coppers to a silver, 100 silvers to a gold; stuff costs a lot).

I'm on my second playthrough on normal, and most battles I can handle with time (a few optional hard ones I haven't yet).


----------



## The Serge (Jan 5, 2010)

John Crichton said:


> It'll be interesting to see if the rumor turns out to be true.




The rumors are true!


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## fba827 (Jan 6, 2010)

The Serge said:


> The rumors are true!




That makes me happy 


(Hopefully it will be within my gaming budget, though didn't have any major gaming spending plans around that time, so it should be fine  )


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 6, 2010)

Felon said:


> So, is anyone playing this on a console? I heard the PC version was vastly superior, both graphically and tactically.
> 
> Was listening to an IGN podcast that touched on Dragon Age and how harsh it is. It was hilarious The guy mentioned that early in the game you get sent to clear out
> 
> ...



It is that harsh without vendors, but I think if you follow the conversations it's clear that this is not just some tutorial, especially considering that you already went through your background story (which is a form of tutorial) and the battle of Ostagar at that point.

It's one of the major arcs on your way to securing assistance, and the different arcs can be taken on in different sequences, too.


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## MarkB (Jan 6, 2010)

One thing to look out for during the Ostagar section is buying a couple of backpacks to increase your party's carrying capacity. For some reason, they're a lot cheaper there than later on.


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## Thanee (Jan 6, 2010)

Goodness, what are they doing!?

Mass Effect... Dragon Age: Origins... Mass Effect 2... Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening... The Old Republic... (not to mention all the great games that came before...)

Will it ever end!? 

Bye
Thanee


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## frankthedm (Jan 6, 2010)

Saw the game played at a friends house. looked good, but does the HUD have to stay on? It eats a LOT of screen room. 







Thanee said:


> Goodness, what are they doing!?
> 
> Mass Effect... Dragon Age: Origins... Mass Effect 2... Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening... The Old Republic... (not to mention all the great games that came before...)
> 
> Will it ever end!?



A testament to Bioware and a high proof of the folly of allowing the D&D brand and bioware to part ways.


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## MarkB (Jan 7, 2010)

frankthedm said:


> Saw the game played at a friends house. looked good, but does the HUD have to stay on? It eats a LOT of screen room.




Was that a console version? On the PC, I can't say I've noticed the HUD dominating the screen - it's just a few sets of icons around the edge. Here's a screenshot from IGN.

I've had to pull the quickbar out across the bottom of the screen (mages' spells eat quickslots fast), but it's still not obtrusive.

Hmm, actually, taking a look at their X-Box screenshots, they certainly do look more cluttered. The price for playing on a TV screen, I guess.


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## Phaezen (Jan 7, 2010)

Thanee said:


> Goodness, what are they doing!?
> 
> Mass Effect... Dragon Age: Origins... Mass Effect 2... Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening... The Old Republic... (not to mention all the great games that came before...)
> 
> Will it ever end!?




Hopefully not, we need a reliable source of crpgs.


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## LightPhoenix (Jan 7, 2010)

Felon said:


> All this, and no vendors, no chances to resupply. Sounds rough. Is it really like that?




I happen to agree with the review regarding what a slog-fest the Tower is.  While I was playing, I kept waiting and waiting for it to be finished, and it kept on going.  Luckily, it's the only quest that's like that; the rest are decent length but not absurd.

As to difficulty - I did the Tower first (after the origin, which is basically the tutorial), and I didn't find it difficult at all.  I think the reviewer simply wasn't up to snuff on his basic tactics, and that's ignoring stuff like kiting.


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## MarkB (Jan 7, 2010)

LightPhoenix said:


> I happen to agree with the review regarding what a slog-fest the Tower is.  While I was playing, I kept waiting and waiting for it to be finished, and it kept on going.  Luckily, it's the only quest that's like that; the rest are decent length but not absurd.




And to be fair, you're given plenty of indication that it'll be a long slog, and there's a vendor right outside to cater to your last-minute shopping needs.



> As to difficulty - I did the Tower first (after the origin, which is basically the tutorial), and I didn't find it difficult at all.  I think the reviewer simply wasn't up to snuff on his basic tactics, and that's ignoring stuff like kiting.




The only serious difficulty I had was with the penultimate boss fight 



Spoiler



(the Sloth Demon in the Fade nightmare)


. Everything after that was a relief by comparison.


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## Krug (Jan 8, 2010)

Just purchased it. Didn't have much time last year. Played through the starting area for a Dwarf Commoner Warrior and in the middle of playing a Human Mage. I'm really impressed with the voice acting so far, and the little details. Stuff that you're not part of, but happening in the background, such as the other 



Spoiler



Grey Wardens praying before a battle


. The stories so far have been interesting and entertaining. 

Graphics-wise, I saw a lot of clipping with the dwarven beard (also a problem in WOW), particularly when you have a helmet or armor on, but my machine is probably on the low end for the game. 

One thing did bug me. You're like a mute in the game. Everybody else is talking except you. Sometimes it just feels as though the game is going on AROUND you.. ah well.. Still, will not rush through it and savour it slowly.


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## MarkB (Jan 8, 2010)

Krug said:


> One thing did bug me. You're like a mute in the game. Everybody else is talking except you. Sometimes it just feels as though the game is going on AROUND you.. ah well.. Still, will not rush through it and savour it slowly.




That part does feel weird, but I get why they did it. There are about five different voices each for both male and female characters, each of which would have to record every major line of dialogue - a lot of extra recording time. And since Dragon Age's dialogue system works by letting you choose exactly what you're going to say, mostly what you'd get is a voice actor delaying the dialogue process by speaking the words you just read on-screen. Add to this the fact that Dragon Age puts a lot into letting you personalise your character, and it's easy to see why they didn't want that character speaking up independently of your input too often.

Contrast this with Mass Effect, which is built for the opposite effect - just two voice actors, a main character with a rather distinct personality for all that you can mold their ethics, and a dialogue system which has you tending to choose attitudes of response rather than exact words, so you need to hear what Shepard actually says.

I get the impression that each of these methods were something of an experiment for Bioware, and hopefully they'll build on both of them for the sequels.


----------



## Felon (Jan 9, 2010)

So, is anyone playing this on a console rather than PC?


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## fba827 (Jan 9, 2010)

Felon said:


> So, is anyone playing this on a console rather than PC?



i'm playing it on console (rather than PC) because my PC could never handle it.

interface: I'm not very game-controller-inclined so there was a bit of a learning curve to get used to the control interface, but it wasn't that bad for me (some other games are MUCH harder for me, game control use wise).

graphics wise, i play it on a 420res tv so i don't get the same graphic quality that PC users or even most other console users get, but frankly i still find the graphics decent.

content: the content is almost entirely the same between console and PC, though I understand PC has an extra mod or two (i vaguely recall reading that they had some extra mod from bioware that let you have more control on the design of your character... or something like that, i didn't read it very closely so someone else will have to confirm). and i'd imagine software patches are easier and more common on the pc version (but, just speculating on that).

i'm on my 4th play through and am not yet -entirely- bored of it, though halfway through this 4th play through i could tell i was starting to get tired of the repetitive parts.  i still want to play more though to see how things work out in the epilogue.

over all impression of console vs pc: i think i'd probably enjoy the interface a little more on the PC, but it wouldn't such a big difference that i'm willing to change my computer and get the pc version for it.  on the other hand, i feel much more relaxed sitting back on the couch playing it on console rather than sitting up at the computer for so many hours (because a lot of time can be spent on the game if you're enjoying it) - so my back is thankful for the console version actually.


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## Aus_Snow (Jan 9, 2010)

I won't go on about it, because I don't have much good to say at all.

_But_, I found the graphics very disappointing indeed, even at a _higher res than full HD_, with everything maxed. It ran very smoothly, with no glitches, so that was something.

Also, I found the gameplay irritating more often than not, and it's not what I would call replayable, being so very linear.

All in all, it looked and played just like some *very* old PC games that come to mind. A missed opportunity, IMO.

But, like I said. . .


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## Krug (Jan 10, 2010)

Graphics aren't that great but I'm quite impressed by what I've seen of the story so far. Just finished going to the elves and I think it was very engrossing.


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## John Crichton (Jan 10, 2010)

LightPhoenix said:


> I happen to agree with the review regarding what a slog-fest the Tower is.  While I was playing, I kept waiting and waiting for it to be finished, and it kept on going.  Luckily, it's the only quest that's like that; the rest are decent length but not absurd.



I just dissagree and say that I quite liked the Mage's Tower.  Didn't feel like a slog at all.


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## LightPhoenix (Jan 11, 2010)

John Crichton said:


> I just dissagree and say that I quite liked the Mage's Tower.  Didn't feel like a slog at all.




No!  No differing opinions from mine!  Whaaaa!  

(It was more amusing in my head than "To each their own.")

I think if the Tower and the Dream were two separate missions, I would have been more okay with the length.


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## John Crichton (Jan 11, 2010)

LightPhoenix said:


> No!  No differing opinions from mine!  Whaaaa!







LightPhoenix said:


> I think if the Tower and the Dream were two separate missions, I would have been more okay with the length.



Hmm ... the dream/puzzle was my favorite part of the tower.  Orzammar feels like more of a slog than the tower.  That's not a knock on it, I'm loving it so far.


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## MarkB (Jan 12, 2010)

John Crichton said:


> Hmm ... the dream/puzzle was my favorite part of the tower.  Orzammar feels like more of a slog than the tower.  That's not a knock on it, I'm loving it so far.




Orzammar has the advantage that you can at least return to town or camp with relative ease. Even in the Deep Roads, you can make the return trip each time you discover a new location and still pick up where you left off.

Meanwhile, in the Brecilian Forest, I'm close to the climactic encounter, but am about to have to slog back to camp to offload or else forego any other loot I find, despite having expanded my backpack space significantly.


----------



## Enforcer (Jan 14, 2010)

I'm playing Dragon Age on console and am loving it. I'm on my 4th playthrough, and after comparing notes with my PC-using friends, the content is pretty much identical.

FYI, I'm doing it with Xbox 360 and a 37" LCD 720p HDTV. It looks great!


----------



## John Crichton (Jan 14, 2010)

MarkB said:


> Meanwhile, in the Brecilian Forest, I'm close to the climactic encounter, but am about to have to slog back to camp to offload or else forego any other loot I find, despite having expanded my backpack space significantly.



There isn't any decent loot in those rooms anyway.  



Enforcer said:


> I'm playing Dragon Age on console and am loving it. I'm on my 4th playthrough, and after comparing notes with my PC-using friends, the content is pretty much identical.



It should be _exactly _identical.  The only difference on the PC is the interface and a better selection of camera angles.


----------



## Krug (Jan 14, 2010)

Yeah the loot-tetris is occasionally annoying. 

Just done with Redcliffe. 



Spoiler



I let the mother kill her child. Not something my dwarf commoner could have done, though thinking back maybe I should have gone to the Circle of Magi. Was tempted to 'go back' to redo that part, but I'm going to let the story play out as naturally as I can for now.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 14, 2010)

Krug said:


> Yeah the loot-tetris is occasionally annoying.



The single most annyoing feature of most CRPGs. 
The second is fighting rats.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Jan 14, 2010)

And sure enough, if you play the human noble, you get to fight some rats.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 14, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> And sure enough, if you play the human noble, you get to fight some rats.



Do you have to fight them? One of the plots in the mage tower involved 



Spoiler



fighting spiders


. I totally failed to complete that because I went on with the main story line, believing I could get back to that later...


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## Remus Lupin (Jan 14, 2010)

Well, I fought them, so I don't know what would happen if you didn't. But yeah, basically you're sent to the kitchen to collect Dog, whose barking at a door. You open the door, and the rats attack. I suppose you could just not open the door though ...


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## Enforcer (Jan 14, 2010)

As a Human Noble you do fight rats as your first battle, but one of the NPCs makes fun of the idea after you're done. It's actually pretty funny.


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## MarkB (Jan 14, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> Well, I fought them, so I don't know what would happen if you didn't. But yeah, basically you're sent to the kitchen to collect Dog, whose barking at a door. You open the door, and the rats attack. I suppose you could just not open the door though ...




As I recall, there's a plot-locked door involved. You can't progress until you get Dog out of the kitchen.


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## Remus Lupin (Feb 2, 2010)

By the way, they've just release the "Return to Ostagar" expansion for the game. It's short, only a couple of hours play time at most (particularly if you're inept, like me), but well worth the $5 price of admission.


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## Banshee16 (Feb 3, 2010)

Felon said:


> So, is anyone playing this on a console? I heard the PC version was vastly superior, both graphically and tactically.
> 
> Was listening to an IGN podcast that touched on Dragon Age and how harsh it is. It was hilarious The guy mentioned that early in the game you get sent to clear out
> 
> ...




There are places where there are no vendors, and the Mage Circle is one of them.  Pretty much from the moment you get there, until you finish that part of the game.

That's about the only place I can think of.  Even in the finale of the game, where you can't go back once you get to a certain point, there's a vendor standing in the middle of a bunch of enemy corpses, right before the end battle.

As to graphics, I played on PC, and my friend played on 360.  He's got a high def TV, and I've got a monitor running at 1080p resolution, and the graphics on the PC version are infinitely better.  I'm even on an old computer.....AMD Athlon II 2.2 Ghz single-core processor, 2 GB RAM, and an NVidia GeForce 7600GT video card.  At times, particularly at the end, it *did* get sluggish, but I made it though 95% of the game without changing the settings.....so, a computer with 4 year old technology was still powerful enough to run the game.

The only thing I can say is that, though the game scales according to your level etc. so that encounters stay hard, but not impossible, the amount of money you can get is really somewhat limited.  It's very hard to accumulate enough GP to buy the better equipment in the game.  In the end, before going to the final chapter, I had to spend time using the Potent Lyrium Potion gold farming thing to get enough to improve my equipment as I needed it.

They say it shouldn't be necessary, and the trick is to save all your gold all game long and save it for the end, but when the difficulty is at a point where you have to keep either buying healing poultices, or ingredients to make them, it makes it very difficult to avoid spending a majority of your money on healing, lyrium potions etc.  Maybe I just suck at the game, or I'm not optimizing my characters correctly....but I also don't read books on "ideal builds" etc. and then spec my characters to conform.  I know my friend wasn't able to beat the final boss battle, and gave up, as did the guy at the local EB who we usually get to tell us the lowdown on new games.

Overall, an excellent RPG though.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.   It took me about 120 hours to get through it though, and I did about 80% of the quests in the game, so I don't think I'm going to be rushing to replay it anytime soon.  There are others to try out 

Banshee


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## Phoenix8008 (Feb 15, 2010)

I've been enjoying DA:O very much playing on the Xbox 360. I'm about 51 hours into it so far and I figure I'm about halfway through. Did my Mage origin, the Broken Circle quest, and the Arl of Redcliff quest. Just today finished vanquishing the high dragon on the mountain after the Urn of Andraste quest. What an epic battle! Probably took nearly 30 minutes to grind away that things hps.

Yes, the long slog in the mages tower was grueling. I've also done some of the DLC stuff like the Warden's Keep and the Return to Ostagar. Might do the Stone Prisoner quest next before going for the dwarves and elves. I'm using an Elven Mage for my character with Alastair as Tank, Lelianna as Striker, and Wynne to keep everybody alive. The first time I tried the dragon fight, Wynne got killed and it all fell apart after that. Watched things more carfeully the next time and made it through with all of the party intact.

Like I said, I'm loving it so far but I'm one of those who likes to do every little quest possible. My kids call me a 'quest whore'. As opposed to one of my sons who plays all the games with the goal of getting all the achievements. We joke about him being an 'achievement whore'.  Heck, I haven't yet completed the Oblivion game because I've been working on completing all the misc quests before finishing the main questline. And I mean *every *quest. I've got the strategy guide which has little checkmarks here and there to keep track of what I've done already and what's left.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 18, 2010)

Don't know if anyone else has picked it up, but I downloaded DA: Awakenings last night to play. It's the big expansion pack. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I'd be interested in others' reactions.


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## The Serge (Mar 18, 2010)

I have it.  Loads of fun already.  Great new abilities and powers.  I feel really powerful.

The only thing I don't like (so far, anyway ) is that some of my DLC items didn't seem to transfer.  In particular, my Starfang (the Superman-metal sword tied to Warden's Keep) didn't make the switch.  However, my Return to Ostagar stuff DID make the switch.  I don't get it.

For those who are comparing this to Baldur's Gate, this seems bigger than Tales of the Sword Coast...  It's probably more comparable to Throne of Bhaal in size.


----------



## fba827 (Mar 18, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> Don't know if anyone else has picked it up, but I downloaded DA: Awakenings last night to play. It's the big expansion pack. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I'd be interested in others' reactions.




Given how obsessed I was with playing DOA, I promised myself I wouldn't play Awakenings until I finished some important work stuff.  So I won't get to play until until sometime next week... but, it's just sitting there, taunting me... 

*sigh*


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## LightPhoenix (Mar 18, 2010)

If it makes you feel better, my desktop monitor died and I don't have the funds to get a new one, so I haven't even finished RtO, let alone Awakenings.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 18, 2010)

I was a bit annoyed to loose Starfang as well. At least I got to keep my Dragonskin armor, but I would have liked to keep all of the first class goodies, and even some of the second class stuff, like the Warden's Armor. But hey, there are still lots of great goodies, so there's no point complaining!


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## The Serge (Mar 19, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> I was a bit annoyed to loose Starfang as well. At least I got to keep my Dragonskin armor, but I would have liked to keep all of the first class goodies, and even some of the second class stuff, like the Warden's Armor. But hey, there are still lots of great goodies, so there's no point complaining!




I'm still trying to figure out the whole rune-creation thing...  I have a lot of empy rune slots...


----------



## The Serge (Mar 23, 2010)

*Done?*

I just finished this on Sunday with my two-handed weapon DPSer.  I spent about 20 hours on the game and, IIRC, I reached 34th level (I think the cap's 35th).  I was hoping for another 10 hours, but I had no problem killing everything I ran into on the first try...

There were a few side-quests I didn't complete, the most notable being the Blight Orphans.  For the life of me, I couldn't make a donation.

I really enjoyed the experience, though.  After I play ME2 for the second time, I'm throw in my mage.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Mar 24, 2010)

Just finished it. It left me dissatisfied, in a good way. I was hoping for more involved character interactions and side-quests, but it is, after all, an expansion pack. I was pleased with it, and would happily have played an adventure twice as long.

I also wasn't able to complete a number of side-quests, most notably getting ingredients for Wade to craft special armor and weapons for me. It seems like it's harder than I would have expected to get gradmaster runes without crafting them yourself.


----------



## Phaezen (May 19, 2010)

New DLC available as of yesterday: Darkspawn Chronicles - take splace in an alternate timeline where the hero died during the Greywarder ceremony.  It allows you to control Darkspawn


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## Remus Lupin (May 20, 2010)

Hm. I may have to try it out. Of course, I'll have to reload the game onto my hard drive, since I cleared it off to make room for Mass Effect. But I actually have the new Splinter Cell to try out first.


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## Remus Lupin (Jun 18, 2010)

Well, I finished the Darkspawn Chronicles, and started in on another playthrough, this time as a human mage, just to check out the origin story. Now it's got me wondering: Does anyone know if the Arl of Redcliff mission plays out any differently playing it as a mage? I'm thinking I don't want to play through the whole game again, but I'm very interested in seeing what, if anything, changes, since I'm now much more familiar with the backstory of one of the key players.


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## fba827 (Jun 18, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> Well, I finished the Darkspawn Chronicles, and started in on another playthrough, this time as a human mage, just to check out the origin story. Now it's got me wondering: Does anyone know if the Arl of Redcliff mission plays out any differently playing it as a mage? I'm thinking I don't want to play through the whole game again, but I'm very interested in seeing what, if anything, changes, since I'm now much more familiar with the backstory of one of the key players.




if i recall correctly, the redcliff mission has a handful of slight changes for that origin including:

[sblock]
 *if you send a mage to the fade, -you- have the choice of going there in addition to any of your mage party members (Wynne, Morigan - if you have either with you and active in the party), the circle wizard (if you already freed them and kept them alive rather than having them killed/disbanded), or the guy from the cell (forgot his name if you already spoke to him and he's still down there)
 * some conversation changes with the guy in the cell
[/sblock]

But is there an outcome difference? na.  not for this anyway.  At least none that i found.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Jul 17, 2010)

Anybody playing the Lileanna's Choice DLC expansion? I just got into it last night. it's fun as a short campaign. I'll be interested in seeing where it goes, though if you talked to her in DA:O you know where it's headed.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Jul 18, 2010)

I enjoyed that one.

A lot of people complain about Bioware's DLC--mostly being "too short".  But I think this one hit all the good things--had new voice acting and music, dealt with a popular character, and had an interesting story.


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## Phaezen (Jul 19, 2010)

they are releasing a new patch for the PC version today, the xbox and PS3 patches are awaiting certification.

Source.


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## Remus Lupin (Aug 8, 2010)

New Dragon Age DLC due out Tuesday, "Golems of Amgarrak."

BioWare | Dragon Age: Origins


----------



## stonegod (Aug 8, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> New Dragon Age DLC due out Tuesday, "Golems of Amgarrak."
> 
> BioWare | Dragon Age: Origins



I was a bit out of sorts that they used the Mass Effect 2 theme in the trailer; DO:A has their own pretty good music, no reason to import from their other game.


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## Remus Lupin (Aug 17, 2010)

Finished "Golems" last night. It was alright, though not thrilling. I think in terms of the additional content, including awakenings, I'd thus far rate them so:

1. Awakenings
2. Lilianna's Song
3. Golems of Amgarrak
4. Darkspawn Chronicles.

Of course, there are the in-campaign add-ons like Stone Prisoner and Return to Ostagar that were also good, but folded into the larger narrative. Of the stand-alones, that's how I'd rank them.


----------



## fba827 (Aug 18, 2010)

the trailer for Dragon Age 2 came out today.

random things i noticed (admitedly, these are obvious things)
[sblock]
* I noticed the narrator's voice (though it was already reveal that person would be in it). But if you hadn't been watching the info for it, then I guess it will be news to you
* it looked like, thematically, the main concept of Hawke fighting for the Kirkwall throne (in this case, against a qunari (sp?)).
* he was definately using blood magic of some sort (he smeared it on his face and then it caused the enemy pain when he headbutted; he also seemed to smear a little of his own blood after his wound while chating that called the big effect at the end).
* he had a little flash back of various other fights and meetings, as if to show how he got to that point with that power, calling on everything he learned, to make that final blood effect.  I would be interested to know what was shown in some of those rapid-succession flashbacks.  The only thing I saw clearly was the woman at the start of it that I am assuming is Bethany, Hawke's sister.
[/sblock]
again, these are obvious things, just random observances from watching.

But, like the DA:O trailer was only inspired by the events of the game rather than an actual game scenario, i'm guessing this is similarly just inspired by and not an actual scene you can expect.


----------



## frankthedm (Aug 18, 2010)

So any way to turn full friendly fire on without making enemies harder? For the 360 version specifically.


----------



## John Crichton (Aug 18, 2010)

frankthedm said:


> So any way to turn full friendly fire on without making enemies harder? For the 360 version specifically.



I've heard that feature is numero uno on Bioware's to-do list.


----------



## Someone (Aug 18, 2010)

I may come late to this thread, but I got (and finished) the game recently. I wasn't so impressed with it, to be frank; while the voice acting was superb and the relationship between characters excellent I found nearly everything else contrived, exhausting, boring, repetitive, plainly unbalanced and frustrating. I'll elaborate.

Graphics, textures and effects were meh, and the palette of brown, rust brown and bits of red was jarring after the first few hours. There are way too many combats, each one long, with little variation to the rest. Usually the best way to deal with them is the old fashioned, time consuming mmo way of pulling-CC-tank and focus fire spank. Mages are hilariously overpowered: can neutralize huge numbers of enemies and kill them with impunity, have effective unlimited mana (since mana potions are quite easy to come by and have a ridiculous short cooldown) and it even becomes worse with advanced classes. The priority list for autopiloting your group has some merit, but since the character you have selected has to be manually directed, and the AI is quite an idiot (you can't trust them with area effects, they never try to flank, etc) you have to stop the game every 2 seconds anyway. 

Some story subarcs are incredibly long and tiring; I didn't find the quests to get the help of the elves too long, but the wizard tower and the dwarves ones certainly were. Not to mention that wherever you go they have a huge crisis that you must solve. Not even Mass Effect 2 loyalty missions ("Sorry commander, I suddendly have a problem that can only be solved with copious amounts of flying lead") felt so much IN YOUR FACE like these.

Even then I was entertained while it lasted. Even then I'm glad I picked this one from the discount bin instead of buying it when it came out. I'll probably do the same with the second part.


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## Remus Lupin (Sep 7, 2010)

Witch Hunt, the final downloadable campaign for Origins, is being released today, also new DLC for Mass Effect 2.


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## Remus Lupin (Sep 9, 2010)

Finished it up last night. A bit disappointing in all honesty. It felt a bit under-inspired, and could have used a few more encounter areas. Oh well. Now to go back and replay some of the stuff I liked until DA2 comes out!


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## stonegod (Sep 9, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> Finished it up last night. A bit disappointing in all honesty. It felt a bit under-inspired, and could have used a few more encounter areas. Oh well. Now to go back and replay some of the stuff I liked until DA2 comes out!



This. A lot of build up, no payout. The mass Effect DLC, which had some similar themes (reconciling with past loves/friends) was much more satisfying.


----------



## Remus Lupin (Sep 10, 2010)

I'll probably start playing the ME2 add on tonight.


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## fba827 (Sep 11, 2010)

i haven't played any of the DA:O DLCs (I don't do DLC as a general thing), but it doesn't sound like i've been missing too much from the DLCs in general.
Still anxiously awaiting DA2... and it's half a year away!


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## Blackrat (Sep 16, 2010)

I just got this game. Going to start playing today evening. I'm thinking of running through all the origin stories first and then decide which to play. Although I heard they can take up to few hours each to play so I'm not sure yet.

If I don't bother, I think I'll go with Dwarven Noble Warrior. Any tips for beginner who doesn't bother to read the whole thread?


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## John Crichton (Sep 16, 2010)

Blackrat said:


> I just got this game. Going to start playing today evening. I'm thinking of running through all the origin stories first and then decide which to play. Although I heard they can take up to few hours each to play so I'm not sure yet.
> 
> If I don't bother, I think I'll go with Dwarven Noble Warrior. Any tips for beginner who doesn't bother to read the whole thread?



Pick your fave.  Have fun!  

Seriously, the game is fantastic.


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## amerigoV (Sep 16, 2010)

Blackrat said:


> If I don't bother, I think I'll go with Dwarven Noble Warrior. Any tips for beginner who doesn't bother to read the whole thread?




I finished my first playthrough with that and it was fun. I then did all the opening stories. The one that has me intrigued enough to run though the game again is the elven alienage one. I picked a female elf for the heck of it. At the end of that, I was hopping mad at the humans. After I get through some Mass Effect, I plan to go back and run that character with the "screw you, humans - you brought it on yourself" answers. I have a feeling she and Morrigan will get along just fine.


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## fba827 (Sep 16, 2010)

Blackrat said:


> I just got this game. Going to start playing today evening. I'm thinking of running through all the origin stories first and then decide which to play. Although I heard they can take up to few hours each to play so I'm not sure yet.
> 
> If I don't bother, I think I'll go with Dwarven Noble Warrior. Any tips for beginner who doesn't bother to read the whole thread?




The main advice I'd have is:

*Generally speaking, quests (be they main quests of one of the many side quests you can pick up later on) there is no time limit no matter how urgent they make it sound.  So if it's not near by, save it for later since you're bound to get more quests for that later part.
* However, there are two points of no return - once you meet Duncan in your origin story.  And then again once you leave Lothering.  At either of those two points, you can't go back (although you can revisit previous areas, things will be changed that you can't complete some lingering quests).
* After Lothering, however, it's pretty much - go where where you want to and revisit as many times as you want.
* Note that some (optional) quests conflict with one another since it shows you are allying yourself with by doing which task.  So there will be one or two things that you simply won't be able to do.
* After leaving Lothering, you'll have a party camp.  After every "main quest event" make a habit of speaking with the party members in camp that you want to be friendly with and advance.  As their liking of you increases, so does some of their abilities.
* Also, stick with a couple primary companions that you always keep in your party since some of them open up companion quests based on whether or not you used him/her in your party.

Honestly, my first play through I was still trying to understand the gameplay and the game world.  It wasn't until my second play through that I actually "got in to it"


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## Blackrat (Sep 17, 2010)

amerigoV said:


> The one that has me intrigued enough to run though the game again is the elven alienage one. I picked a female elf for the heck of it.




This and the Dwarf Noble had me most intrigued. I started with the dwarf now, but I have a long weekend so I might just run all of the origins and see how the others are.

One thing that bugged me with the game is that my character doesn't speak. I mean, when I choose dialog, I'd like to hear him actually say that. It's so outdated to have "mute" characters. I'd rather have that than the choice to choose the voice of battlecomments.


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## amerigoV (Sep 17, 2010)

Blackrat said:


> One thing that bugged me with the game is that my character doesn't speak. I mean, when I choose dialog, I'd like to hear him actually say that. It's so outdated to have "mute" characters. I'd rather have that than the choice to choose the voice of battlecomments.




Same here. I understand why to a degree - you have 3 races and 2 genders - that is a ton of voice over. But I am now playing Mass Effect (yes, I am behind) - I love the voice/visual integration of the character into the game. I would have been fine with just one set of male/female voiceovers in DA - I think that would have been better and just deal with the "well, a female dwarf would not sound like that!"


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## John Crichton (Sep 18, 2010)

To contrast, the lack of main character voice didn't bother me at all.


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## JediSoth (Sep 20, 2010)

I played DA:O right after ME and then ME2 right after DA:O. Aside from suffering from Awesome Overload, I found I do prefer a voiced protagonist, because the minimal voice work for my dude in DA:O was just too repetitive and annoying after about two hours ("Can I get you ladder so you'll get off my back?", etc.).


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## drothgery (Sep 21, 2010)

fba827 said:


> The main advice I'd have is:
> 
> * After Lothering, however, it's pretty much - go where where you want to and revisit as many times as you want.




... though unless you're planning on being 100% Pure Evil or your PC is a healer Mage, go the Mages first, be helpful, and get Wynn. Having no healer, or trying to make Morrigan into a decent one is teh suck (well, without using respec hacks, anyway).

At that point you'll have a tank (Alistair), an offensive mage (Morrigan), a rogue (Leilana, unless you blew her off), and a healer mage (Wynn), and so you can have an effective party whatever your PC does.


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## fba827 (Sep 22, 2010)

drothgery said:


> ... though unless you're planning on being 100% Pure Evil or your PC is a healer Mage, go the Mages first, be helpful, and get Wynn. Having no healer, or trying to make Morrigan into a decent one is teh suck (well, without using respec hacks, anyway).
> 
> At that point you'll have a tank (Alistair), an offensive mage (Morrigan), a rogue (Leilana, unless you blew her off), and a healer mage (Wynn), and so you can have an effective party whatever your PC does.




True... I also tended to do the mage tower first because of
[sblock]the stat boosts hidden around - that made it easier to qualify for various skills while leveling up over the course of the rest of the game and made me more survivable in general due to higher stats.[/sblock]


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## Remus Lupin (Sep 22, 2010)

Both times I did a complete playthrough, I started with the Arl of Redcliff, then went to the mages. But I can see the logic of going through the mages first.

Also, don't forget you get pick up Sten in Lothering as well.


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## drothgery (Sep 22, 2010)

Remus Lupin said:


> Both times I did a complete playthrough, I started with the Arl of Redcliff, then went to the mages. But I can see the logic of going through the mages first.




The NPC chatter seems to strongly encourage going to the Arl first, but I only did that my first play-through; after realizing that it had no effect on the game to go to the mages first, I was like "forget this, I'm getting my healer first".



Remus Lupin said:


> Also, don't forget you get pick up Sten in Lothering as well.




But he's so forgettable  (Alistair is a better tank and more plot-critical; Oghren is funnier).


----------



## stonegod (Sep 22, 2010)

drothgery said:


> The NPC chatter seems to strongly encourage going to the Arl first, but I only did that my first play-through; after realizing that it had no effect on the game to go to the mages first, I was like "forget this, I'm getting my healer first".



This. Though I usually do all the Denerim side quests first (and maybe pick-up Shale/do the Keep) just to get some more Xp under the belt.


drothgery said:


> But he's so forgettable  (Alistair is a better tank and more plot-critical; Oghren is funnier).



I thought so as well, but he adds a lot if you have in your party. He'll have random observations that you can then talk to him more about in 1-on-1 convos. But, yes, he isn't as "talkative" as the others, otherwise.


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## JediSoth (Sep 22, 2010)

I thought I was slick and all, reading the Wiki to find out I should go to the Circle Tower so I could get the mages help with the Arl's quest.

Then I screwed up using the Litany and all the mages died.



Spoiler



It was heartbreaking to have to condemn Conner to death. People complain about Isolde, but that actress SOLD the cries of a mother begging for her son's life. Man, I haven't stared at a decision screen for that long EVER. It almost brought me to tears. I'm such a big sap these days.


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## The Serge (Sep 23, 2010)

stonegod said:


> I thought so as well, but [Sten] adds a lot if you have in your party. He'll have random observations that you can then talk to him more about in 1-on-1 convos. But, yes, he isn't as "talkative" as the others, otherwise.



Having Sten in your party with Morrigan is actually a hoot!  The conversations they have are great, particularly one of the later ones.  

He's also very amusing with Alistair and Zevran.  In fact, I think that -- in his own way -- he's funnier than Oghren.  The only thing I don't like about Sten is that I don't think you can give him more than one speciality class.  

I can share more in a spoiler if folks are interested.


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## Merkuri (Nov 26, 2010)

I know I'm coming to the party way late and resurrecting this thread, but I just finished DA:O and loved the heck out of it.  I could not put it down, and when the credits were finished rolling and I shut down my PC for the night I had this hollow feeling inside like, "What am I going to do now that it's over?"  (The answer is, of course, start over again with a different PC. )

I'm a woman in real life (thought I'd mention it because sometimes you can't tell on forums) and I played a female human mage.  I'm a sucker for awkward, funny guys, and immediately fell in love with Alistair.  I never went without him in my party, and eagerly jumped at the romance option with him.  (Don't tell my husband. )  

I was actually impressed at the amount that the romance worked into the plot.  The last time I played a game with romance options was Baldur's Gate II, and if I recall correctly it just happened as a footnote and didn't actually interact with the main plot at all.  There was a bit of a dry spell after I finally got him into my tent, and I thought for a moment that this romance would also be just a footnote, but then as the main plot climaxed it became relevant again.

JediSoth, that bit you mentioned in the spoiler block is one of the things that made me love this game so much.  It was not afraid to have you make hard decisions.  I ended up 



Spoiler



going with Jowain's plan to use blood magic and trade the mother's life for the son's.  I also have never stared at a decision screen so long in my gaming life.  It surprised the heck out of me when Alistair's approval didn't go down immediately, but then I actually cringed and felt like crap when he started yelling at me when we got back to camp.  I hated what he thought of me, but I really felt like it was the right thing to do.


  I don't think a video game has ever evoked that sort of emotional reaction from me.


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## fba827 (Nov 26, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> I played a female human mage




One of the most subtle things I noticed that I think was a great touch in that scenario is when you're at the starting, the one templar (forgot his name) 



Spoiler



acts all shy and nervous around you if you talk to him (and talking to him was completely optional, though on the way) and then later just before the big fight at the end of the circle tower, he's the guy trapped in the forcefield and he is obviously riddled with pain and guilt about having a crush on you



The fact that it was unnecessary and subtle was just nice detail that made me appreciate and enjoy the game.



Merkuri said:


> I don't think a video game has ever evoked that sort of emotional reaction from me.




I did multiple playthroughts, one of which i even tried to do all the "against my better instincts" and yeah, the 



Spoiler



conner choice as well as the elf choice, i sided with the wolves and watched what they did ...


 that second one in particular just left me stunned and shocked and i felt so so so so bad afterwards that i just couldn't continue that save game for days until i got over how bad i felt.


While I haven't touched the game for a couple months, i expect i'll do one more run through before DA2 comes out in early march.


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## Thanee (Nov 26, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> "...I shut down my PC for the night I had this hollow feeling inside like, "What am I going to do now that it's over?"  (The answer is, of course, start over again with a different PC. )




Heh. I thought the most obvious answer was "Awakening". 

Or "Mass Effect". 

Bye
Thanee


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## Merkuri (Nov 26, 2010)

Thanee said:


> Heh. I thought the most obvious answer was "Awakening".
> 
> Or "Mass Effect".




They are on my Christmas list, so I won't be playing those immediately, in any case.   My husband has heard me ranting and raving about this game for a few weeks now so I'd be very surprised if he doesn't get me Awakening.

I'm also drooling over DA II, but I can no longer justify paying full price for any video game, no matter how awesome, so I'll probably end up waiting a year or so after it comes out until it drops into the $30 price range (which is where DA:O was when I bought it).


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## Welverin (Nov 26, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> I know I'm coming to the party way late and resurrecting this thread, but I just finished DA:O and loved the heck out of it.




Heh, I just started playing, and I too love the heck out of it.

I have a question though, does anyone know if there is a mod for the PC version that turns the key for highlighting objects into a toggle instead of a hold?


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## Merkuri (Nov 27, 2010)

Tip for those playing (you'll probably figure this out soon enough anyway): kill or incapacitate the casters first.  Knock 'em down, stun 'em, kill em, just don't let them get those fireballs out.  Though there was one fun moment when 



Spoiler



trapped in the Fade at the end of the Circle quest, I was in mouse form and crept into a room of dream-mages.  I got in the center of them when they all noticed me, turned, and all let off fireballs.  Somehow I managed to survive, just barely, but all the mages had burned to death.


  It was hilarious.


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## Felon (Nov 30, 2010)

I keep meaning to get into this. So, lemme ask you guys for some advice about what class to play as.

What is a rogue going to do for me that other classes won't? It's a party-based game, right? So, even if I'm good at sneaking, other players will give our presence away. 

Do mage spells duplicate (or eclipse) rogue capabilities as they often have a tendency to (q.v. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)?

I'm leaning towards mage because otherwise I would have just stuck with the console version, but I love sneaking through dungeons and setting up ambushes, so rogues have appeal as well.


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## Merkuri (Dec 1, 2010)

You can tell your party to hold their position and not move unless ordered, so it's still possible to take control of your rogue and sneak ahead of the party to scout or lay traps.

Mage spells cannot duplicate rogue abilities as far as I saw.  Rogue is the only class that gets to be sneaky, and rogue is the only class that gets to pick locks.

That being said, for about 90% of the game you are playing a party of four characters, and you can recruit enough people early on to fill out your party with whatever classes you want.  It really doesn't matter what class your main character is for most of the game as long as you're good at what you do, but that goes for all of your characters.

One benefit to playing a mage is that you can have a healbot right away.  That's what I did on my first play-through.  Now that I know where the other healer character is, though, I'm heading straight for her on my second play-through, now that I'm playing a rogue.  You do get a mage pretty early on, but she's not that great as a healer.


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## Felon (Dec 1, 2010)

So, if you have a rogue NPC, you can also tell it to scout ahead and lay traps?


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## fba827 (Dec 1, 2010)

Felon said:


> So, if you have a rogue NPC, you can also tell it to scout ahead and lay traps?




Yes (presuming your NPC rogue has skill ranks put into all that).
Basically, you command your PC and the other 2 companions to hold position.  Then you switch to the rogue companion and control him - move him up set traps, etc.

later, when you're ready, tell your PC and other 2 companions to stop holding position.

It takes some getting used to the controls to switch around between PCs/NPCs.


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## Thanee (Dec 1, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> They are on my Christmas list, so I won't be playing those immediately, in any case.   My husband has heard me ranting and raving about this game for a few weeks now so I'd be very surprised if he doesn't get me Awakening.




You might want to consider DA Ultimate (it also includes the base game, which is a bit redundant for you, but on the plus side it has all the downloadable content as well (as actual downloads, apparantly, however, so it probably just contains some codes for those)). Might be worth it despite the redundancy bit.



> I'm also drooling over DA II, but I can no longer justify paying full price for any video game, no matter how awesome, so I'll probably end up waiting a year or so after it comes out until it drops into the $30 price range (which is where DA:O was when I bought it).




Luckily, the games are not worse a year after they first arrived... in fact, many are better with some waiting time (like Temple of Elemental Evil). 

Bye
Thanee


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## Merkuri (Dec 2, 2010)

Thanee said:


> You might want to consider DA Ultimate... Might be worth it despite the redundancy bit.




Wow, yeah, I just crunched the numbers, and if I bought all of the download stuff on its own it would cost me about $40.  DA Ultimate is going for a little less than $50 on Amazon.com.  That's definitely worth it.


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## Merkuri (Dec 2, 2010)

Okay, on my second playthrough I had some problems with the Qunari Prisoner quest...

[sblock]My first time through I managed to convince the revered mother to give me the key with no problems - the quest was barely a speed bump - but this time I had no points in persuasion (whatever that skill/talent is called) and she was just not giving it up.  

No problem, I thought.  I'm a rogue.  I'll just pick her pocket for the key.  I pick it, and the message says "Nothing to steal".  What the...? 

Okay, I'm still a rogue.  I'll go pick the lock on his cage!  I head over to Sten's cage and... there's nothing to click on aside from Sten himself.  The cage is not an interactive object! 

Fine, I give up.  I look online for tips.  The solutions are: convince the revered mother, pick her pocket, or pick the lock on the cage.  

I finally managed to get him out by going for Lelliana, getting her to convince the mother, then dumping her from my party for Sten.  Well, I was trying to go for more of a jerk character this time. 

Any ideas why I couldn't pick the lock or the revered mother's pockets?  Did that change in a patch or something?  Or is it hard-wired that you have to get Lelliana first?[/sblock]


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## Ahnehnois (Dec 10, 2010)

Felon said:


> I keep meaning to get into this. So, lemme ask you guys for some advice about what class to play as.
> 
> What is a rogue going to do for me that other classes won't? It's a party-based game, right? So, even if I'm good at sneaking, other players will give our presence away.
> 
> ...



Locks and traps are a big part of DA, and wizards and fighters never gain any ability to beat them. As with any class, you can get an NPC rogue to do that, but having a main character rogue allows access to more stuff sooner (and a bit of extra XP since locks and traps are worth a significant amount of XP and there are some in places where you don't have a party yet or the party is unavailable).

Pickpocketing is not essential but handy; you can basically pick one random item per NPC. This adds up to a significant money boost if you spend some effort doing it and occasionally something more useful.

I've never tried sneaking, but you can break apart from the party. Sneak attacking is very useful, because like D&D it works when you're flanking (each creature has a flanking zone indicated on the screen so it's easy to find). A combat-oriented rogue with two weapons can deal excellent damage, and nobody is immune to sneak attack in this game.

Rogues are also pretty good at getting high defense. It's hard to make monsters consistently miss you in this game but you can do it with a rogue.

Bottom line: mages don't replace rogues. There's no Open Lock or Invisibility or anything similar. Mages are special because they do area damage, better status effects, and healing.

Mages are extremely useful because there are limited NPC optoins available (for in-game reasons) and because healing is powerful in this game and because there are many very different but good spell trees. There's even ways of making a very effective "gish" (called an arcane warrior) that has constantly active self-enhancement spells.

If anything, I would say fighters make the least interesting PCs but you can build very good ones. The thing is there are a lot of decent NPC fighters, two somewhat flawed rogue options, and two decent mages (and you should have at least one rogue and two mages in your four-man party).


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## Joshua Randall (Dec 10, 2010)

Rogue is my favorite class in DA:O. It's definitely not overshadowed by the mage.

Sneaking (stealth) is quite powerful as it allows you to scout out areas before a fight. With properly high stealth -- and you'll need lots of Cunning -- you can walk all around the monsters, disarm any traps, plant your own traps, and then position yourself for a devastating sneak attack on a key monster (usually an enemy spellcaster). There are few things as satisfying as sneaking into position behind an enemy, attacking (which will be a crit), then using Dirty Fighting to stun the target, then unleashing about half a dozen backstabs.

Also, don't understimate the Survival skill. It lets you see (on the mini-map) icons of the monsters up ahead, complete with their name, creature type, and level. This can give you valuable information even if you can't or won't sneak into their area. For example if you see a bunch of darkspawn up ahead, then you know to equip your anti-darkspawn items. If you see skeletons then you equip your anti-undead items. Etc.

You can also tell if you're about to face a really tough fight or a relatively easy one.

Finally, if you've got the PC version, there is a mod that allows you to bash open locked chests (at risk of destroying the contents). For when you want to channel your inner barbarian, or just don't want to carry a rogue along.


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## Joshua Randall (Dec 10, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> Okay, on my second playthrough I had some problems with the Qunari Prisoner quest...
> 
> [sblock]Any ideas why I couldn't pick the lock or the revered mother's pockets?  Did that change in a patch or something?  Or is it hard-wired that you have to get Lelliana first?[/sblock]



Sounds like a bug or glitch. I was able to
[sblock]pick the lock on Sten's cage with my PC rogue, without even approaching the reverend mother or meeting Leliana[/sblock]


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## Piratecat (Dec 10, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> [sblock]
> Okay, I'm still a rogue.  I'll go pick the lock on his cage!  I head over to Sten's cage and... there's nothing to click on aside from Sten himself.  The cage is not an interactive object!
> [/sblock]



If it makes you feel better, I've picked that lock before - and he refuses to leave! Stupid sense of honor...


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## Merkuri (Dec 11, 2010)

So, what did everyone name their dog?

When he showed up grinning, tail wagging, and covered in blood I couldn't think of a better name than Sanguine.  And I still can't.  I'm on my third character, and the dog's always been Sanguine.


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## stonegod (Dec 11, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> So, what did everyone name their dog?
> 
> When he showed up grinning, tail wagging, and covered in blood I couldn't think of a better name than Sanguine.  And I still can't.  I'm on my third character, and the dog's always been Sanguine.



Mine first two were themed (guess!):
- Dogmeat
- Worthless Mutt

I think Barkspawn is a perennial favorite.


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## drothgery (Dec 11, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> So, what did everyone name their dog?




Eh, I just left it as Dog, when I didn't skip him entirely. Not a big fan of pets in video games or RPGs.


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## fba827 (Dec 11, 2010)

stonegod said:


> Mine first two were themed (guess!):
> - Dogmeat
> - Worthless Mutt






drothgery said:


> Eh, I just left it as Dog, when I didn't skip him entirely.




Not that it makes much difference, but if you have Dog in your party, there are certain spots that he can "mark" (in the way that dogs do) to give your party some sort of bonus while fighting in that area (it's a clickable thing - I never figured out what to do at those spots and then someone pointed out it was for the dog).  One was down  by the docks to the tower, another was the big tree in the elven slums, and a couple more scattered around.  Also (supposedly) you can have dog go and find stuff.. but every time i gave him that command, he came back empty handed so i don't know if there is a certain circumstance you're supposed to use it in ...

in any case, i found other companions more interesting so i used them in my party rather than dog.  though, i have to say, dog was a terror when leveled up....


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## Merkuri (Dec 11, 2010)

fba827 said:


> Also (supposedly) you can have dog go and find stuff.. but every time i gave him that command, he came back empty handed so i don't know if there is a certain circumstance you're supposed to use it in ...




I've seen this work.  For my first playthrough I kept him in my party almost the entire time (the only exceptions were where I was needed to keep a particular person in my party that I normally did not have, like 



Spoiler



Oghren in the Deep Roads


) and I used that trick a lot.  I think there are specific maps where there's something specific for the dog to find, and I think they're mostly "RP" areas, like cities, not "combat" areas like dungeons.  In Lothering he brought me a really old bottle of wine (which I'm saving for 



Spoiler



Oghren


 on this playthrough), and at one point (I think in Denerim) he brought me a ratty old pair of pants.  There were other things, too, but those were the ones I remember most.

At one point in Denerim he brought me 



Spoiler



a little boy.  I told him he couldn't keep him unless the boy could fight darkspawn, and Sanguine reluctantly put the boy back where he found him.


  I thought that was hilarious.

Surprisingly, the dog also has some pretty funny banter with other party members.  You wouldn't think that a character who couldn't speak could have funny banter, but he does.  He also has some really funny moments at camp if you go interact with him, like the time 



Spoiler



he and Sten have a face off


.

He's far from my favorite character, and I probably won't bring him out often on this playthrough except to go fetch for random objects, but I found him a worthwhile addition to the game.


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## John Crichton (Dec 11, 2010)

I use the always-in-the-party Dog mod.  Just makes sense.


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## Croesus (Dec 12, 2010)

I've seen DA: Ultimate Edition on sale this week and was tempted to get it, but some quick research led to a couple important questions about the game:

1. Ultimate Edition comes with the DLC's (downloadable content), but the content isn't on the disks, it still has to be downloaded. But based on the threads in the customer support forum, a lot of people have had trouble getting the new content to work. The issues encountered ran the gamut, so it's clearly not just one problem. But all seem related to problems with the Bioware server and the DRM used. 

2. More importantly, there was quite a bit of discussion of patch 1.04 for DA:O. Apparently the fourth patch added a host of new bugs to the game, including a number of CTD (crash to desktop) bugs when using certain items, casting certain spells, and/or exiting certain areas. Apparently Bioware has publicly stated that they are not going to release a fifth patch, so anyone encountering such problems won't have recourse (other than to not use the patch). 

Does anyone here have any useful info on these issues? 
Any known issues running either game under Win7 Home Edition?
Any idea what version of DA:O is included in the Ultimate Edition? (If it's 1.04, then purchasers won't have the option to avoid that patch.)

Thanks.


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## John Crichton (Dec 13, 2010)

Croesus said:


> I've seen DA: Ultimate Edition on sale this week and was tempted to get it, but some quick research led to a couple important questions about the game:
> 
> 1. Ultimate Edition comes with the DLC's (downloadable content), but the content isn't on the disks, it still has to be downloaded. But based on the threads in the customer support forum, a lot of people have had trouble getting the new content to work. The issues encountered ran the gamut, so it's clearly not just one problem. But all seem related to problems with the Bioware server and the DRM used.
> 
> ...



There are problems with every game and those people get very vocal especially with a massively popular game like Dragon Age.  There was some issues with the DLC in the original release of the game as well and Bioware did everything they could to fix the problems.  Purchase without fear.

Also, I had no problems running the game using Windows 7.


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## Merkuri (Dec 13, 2010)

One of the first things I do with any PC game is go find the latest patch, so I was running 1.04 from the start.  Using Windows Vista.

I have been playing the game now for a few months and I had just one single crash.  It was in the middle of dialog and happened after I had alt-tabbed to the desktop to look something up (I just suddenly realized why Morrigan sounded so familiar and went to confirm it - I hadn't heard that Claudia Black did a voice for this game).  I've alt-tabbed in and out of this game many times since then, both in and out of dialog, and it hasn't crashed a second time.

If there's a spell you cast or a room you can enter that crashes the game every time, I haven't seen it.  I finished the game with a mage, so I saw a good number of the rooms and spells it has to offer.

I don't have Ultimate (yet... waiting to see if it shows up in my stocking), but I did get one free download with DA:O.  The only problem I had related to the downloaded content was one time when I tried to create a new character it told me I needed to log in with a user that has access to that content if I wanted to use it with this character, even though I was already logged in.  I logged out and back in again and that seemed to fix it.


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## Joshua Randall (Dec 13, 2010)

I have Ultimate, and while it has crashed a few times, so does every other game. It's not super buggy or anything.

Re: the DLC, I've never had any problems with it not being recognized. But if you do, there are some very detailed threads on the Bioware forums explaining various workarounds.

= = =

Re: Dog. He's definitely awesome for magekilling when leveled up. I, too, use the always-in-the-party mod. 

However, each playthrough the dog has to have a new name. The funniest one was one of my early plays when I named him Zev, not knowing that I would later get an NPC companion also named Zev(ran).


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## Welverin (Dec 21, 2010)

John Crichton said:


> I use the always-in-the-party Dog mod.  Just makes sense.




Didn't know about that one, installed now.


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## Merkuri (Dec 21, 2010)

Does anybody know if my badges will carry over to a new machine if I log in with the same account?  I may be getting a new PC soon, and I was wondering if my badges will be lost or if there's something (either the account or a file) that will let me carry my DA:O badges to a new box.


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## Asmo (Dec 21, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> Does anybody know if my badges will carry over to a new machine if I log in with the same account?  I may be getting a new PC soon, and I was wondering if my badges will be lost or if there's something (either the account or a file) that will let me carry my DA:O badges to a new box.




Badges = Achievements? 

Asmo


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## Merkuri (Dec 21, 2010)

Asmo said:


> Badges = Achievements?




Yes, sorry.  They look like badges, so that's how I think of them.


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## Blackrat (Dec 21, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> Yes, sorry.  They look like badges, so that's how I think of them.




Then in that case they should be stored in either your xbox live or games for windows live account. So when you get a new machine you can retrieve your old achievements from there.


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## John Crichton (Dec 21, 2010)

Blackrat said:


> Then in that case they should be stored in either your xbox live or games for windows live account. So when you get a new machine you can retrieve your old achievements from there.



Yeah, I've done this twice already.  It'll just sync up.


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