Dragon Age impressions

[Darth Roxor]

But when you replay it and fuck the friend over, the EXACT same scenario ends up playing out.

How surprising.

r00fles!

 

[Junior Boy]

By the way, since most of you are probably virgins, sex in DA is pretty much like sex in real life. Sorry, you can mock it all you want, but every sexual experience I've ever had was exactly like that trailer. I even own a lot of animal skin thongs. And an open fireplace.

 

[Ch1ef]

 

[aboyd]

Huh. I assumed that my dislike of DA would be fleeting once the game hit. I expected to be a common hypocrite, saying nasty things and then secretly playing it.

However, the launch has come & gone, and I've not read a damn thing that makes me want to buy it. I've left it unpurchased. Instead, I'm continuing my first play through of Icewind Dale 2.

IWD 2 has been good so far. I was previously told that I would hate it, and yet I don't. I used to be into those super-talky games like PS:T, but lately a barrage of interesting combat seems to do just fine. I enjoyed using the lightning gun and mirror system in the icy keep. I took out a ton of guys using that. Now I'm working on a riddle, and enjoying it a lot.

So... no need for DA at this time. I'm grateful for all the reviews & comments, though. It definitely helped me to determine if I cared about it.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

By the way, since most of you are probably virgins, sex in DA is pretty much like sex in real life. Sorry, you can mock it all you want, but every sexual experience I've ever had was exactly like that trailer. I even own a lot of animal skin thongs. And an open fireplace.

Where did you find a male elf in real life?

 

[Ch1ef]

Bloodeyes

 

[baronjohn]

I've been thinking of doing an homoelf LP, but since the fonts are tiny and your character isn't voiced (wtf?), I'd either have to transcribe everything (no thanks) or record in 1080p so you could read it.

Here's the intro though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgVeimso55Y

I might do a couple more videos

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

OH GOD YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssssss

So would you say Dragon Age is HEAVAN?

I believe I would. Though I do have another negative to add to the pile, I just finished up questing in a little village area. There's a quest board where you pick up some small sidequests, find a corpse, kill some bandits, kill some bears. That's dull enough on it's own, but what is extra ridiculous about it is all the quest objective spawn in this little field barely outside of town. I'm not kidding. First you get the bandit quest, so there are 3 little groups of bandits scattered around this bit of grass, then you get the bear and corpse finding quest and the corpse and bears appear roughly where the bandits were. It makes gamey quests even gamier.

Still, even with that I'm having a good time. Money seems relatively hard to come by and actually quite useful, so even the gamey quests have a useful reward. Party banter has been pretty good too. I think I could safely say I'm enjoying it more than any other Bioware game in recent memory. I'm planning on coughing up the money for the fancy hardcover guide, since I was able to buy the game itself so cheap. And the combat seems deep enough and I've heard enough good about the guide itself it sounds like I'll actually use it some, instead of just reading it for the hell of it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

I'm purchasing the new shit when it's out, but only because i have nothing else to do in between waiting for the world wide release of Stalker: Call of Pripyat.

There is english patch for CoP now, so there's no reason to wait.

 

[serch]

At least, they've got their code right:

Dragon Age: Origins CPU benchmarks - 75 percent boost for quad-cores

I'm buying this to see what modders can do with it and hoping for the best with the original campaign.

xoxoxox to Codex

 

[Azrael the cat]

At least, they've got their code right:

Dragon Age: Origins CPU benchmarks - 75 percent boost for quad-cores

I'm buying this to see what modders can do with it and hoping for the best with the original campaign.

xoxoxox to Codex

What are the mod-tools like, compared to, say, Oblivion or NWN? Unlike Bethesda's products, Bioware's aren't usually broken at an engine level.

 

[serch]

I don't know shit about modding but I've heard from some prominent guys in NWN's tools scene, that received a demo some time ago, that the tools seems pretty cool.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

OH GOD YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssssss

So would you say Dragon Age is HEAVAN?

I believe I would.

So Dragon Age is at least as good as a turd glazed in delicious honey, with whipped cream and a cocktail cherry on top?

 

[asper]

Are there any well-designed, long, dungeons in this game? (I mean this in the classical sense. Large variety of monsters, strange contraptions and machines, traps, an onmious atmosphere, never a boring, dull grind.)

Are there dialogues with skill-checks, or dialogue options that are available depending on your skills? Is it possible to play a 'diplomacy' character? How are social skills implemented?

Are there non-obvious multiple solutions to quests?

What are the quests like? FedEx, or something creative?

 

[kris]

Most people haven't played enough to really know. The start of the game is the really linear stuff you expect from Bioware.

 

[racofer]

Most people haven't played enough to really know. The game is the really linear stuff you expect from Bioware.

Fixed.

 

[Nael]

Yay! Dumbfuckery!

No shit. Did you clap your hands and jump up and down after you typed that? You really are a dumbfuck.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Very enjoyable so far. Auto-regen is well done; I actually like it.

 

[Killzig]

Wow, this thread doubled in length since last time I checked it. Spent 3-4 hours with this game yesterday, created a mage and away I went. The origin stories were more bark than bite, pretty short affairs with no real cnc. I ended up replaying it to see what happened when I kept the blood mage's escape plan between friends. Same results, slightly disappointed dialog from the first enchanter + talk of punishment afterward, still can't keep shiny new staff. It might just be me but it seems like every character in a position of authority is either a dick, an idiot or both. The first enchanter putting a young mage and the entire circle really at risk for the sake of sticking it to the templar leader was so petty I wanted to gut the first enchanter myself. It'd have been nice if when telling him about the plan in advance they'd have added a little wrinkle like replacing the blood vial, putting some of those anti-magic runes down, etc...

Speaking of idiot npcs, fuck you King. Loghain seemed the most pragmatic of the bunch for a second and then irrationally recoiled at the thought of reinforcements from the former imperial overlords. The Joining seemed like a pretty serious proceeding but I've watched way too much porn in my life to not laugh uncontrollably when some haughty Englishman is repeatedly commanding me to 'taste the taint' ... well played, fat man. Did he really have to run Jory through? Couldn't he have just shuffled him off to operation human shield? "I TOLD HIM THERE WAS NO TURNING BACK"

Also, waiting 3-4 hours to get the opportunity to tell Alistair to shut the fuck up is way too long to wait. It was totally worth the -5 favor. The guy seems like a sociopath's take on Nathan Drake, "Hi allied soldier who appears mortally wounded, let me make a joke at your expense!"

He'll be replaced with the dog pretty shortly I think.

I agree with VD, the auto regen is fine. It's the same as resting or any other gamey mechanism in RPGs released in the last 15 years.

PS - This game is ugly. The environment design looks like the first thing they did back in 2000 or whenever they started. TOEE's levels looked better.

 

[Silellak]

Same results, slightly disappointed dialog from the first enchanter + talk of punishment afterward, still can't keep shiny new staff.

For the record:

Spoiler

You can keep the staff if you have high enough coercion. Not sure what dialog options you had, but I had the option to [Coerce/Lie] when asked if I'd taken anything from the storeroom, and the First Enchanter believed me. This was even after I'd sided with my friend and not told the First Enchanter about his plans.

 

[Killzig]

Mother fuck. I saw coercion in the list of talents and my eyes glazed over as a little voice in my head said 'harhar, that'll be useful in a dungeon'... Where can I buy a respec?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

TOEE's levels looked better.

Not that I care about graphics, I thought this when watching the hilarious videos. What is the excuse for yet higher specs this time? My machine played The Witcher quite comfortably, but it seems I don't have the recommended specs for this game. No biggie, I won't be picking this up until the gold/super/full edition hits the bargain bins anyway, but it does pique my curiosity how specs keep rising without any real viewable differences.

 

[Killzig]

Not that I care about graphics, I thought this when watching the hilarious videos. What is the excuse for yet higher specs this time? My machine played The Witcher quite comfortably, but it seems I don't have the recommended specs for this game. No biggie, I won't be picking this up until the gold/super/full edition hits the bargain bins anyway, but it does pique my curiosity how specs keep rising without any real viewable differences.

It's not even so much about the graphic fidelity so much as all the levels look like movie sets (CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE?) there's very little in the way of debris/clutter. Nothing that makes these places look lived in. It's all very unfinished looking, like a first pass that is waiting for the next layer of detail to be added on top.

Witcher actually ran worse for me than this game. I don't if it's because I'm on Windows 7 now instead of Vista (I suspect that might be it), maybe ATI's 4800 drivers are better now than when I played Witcher EE but I haven't had so much as a hiccup in the frame rate, though the prerecorded cut scenes all look terrible.

Reading over my posts it sounds like I'm not enjoying the game. I'm actually liking the combat quite a bit, enough that I didn't mind at all replaying the mage origin story to see the different conclusions and enough that I will probably end up replaying that segment again a third time to get that staff, make sure to piss the enchanter off something fierce and also spend my talent points on some offensive spells worth a damn (fyi, MIND BLAST is not as über as it was in the flash game, it doesn't seem to deal damage)...

 

[Trash]

While the art design of the menus and journal and the like is top notch, many of the enviroments look a little bland and uninspired. They could have done a lot more than they have. The game its looks constantly remind me of the graphics in NWN2. Then once in awhile you enter a locale that does look absolutely fitting and good and it puzzles me where they went wrong.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I even own a lot of animal skin thongs. And an open fireplace.

pics or gtfo!