Dragon Age

[Elerion]

Mkay, trying to pick a class without reading into spoilers too much.

Thoughts:
- Mages look like a more active playstyle than the others, which would make it well fit for a PC (+1 for Mage)
- I hear mages are strong. I like my PC to be the strongest character (+1 for Mage)
- From what I understand of game mechanics, mages are also healers. Playing healbot in a single player game? Meh. (-1 for Mage)
- From the characters described on the homepage, the only two mage-types appear to be a shapeshifter (awesome, but not quite a nuker/healer?) and an old goody-two-shoes hag that I don't want in my party. Seems like there's a need for a kick ass mage in there. (+1 for Mage)
- Like everyone else, I prefer wearing some of the cool armor and bad ass swords I find instead of standing around in a dress the whole game (-1 for Mage)

I'm leaning slightly to that end right now, but a stiff breeze would make me change. Help me choose!

[schild]

Eh? Really? 25 years of RPGs and you're having trouble picking between the three most traditional classes in existence?

I'm failing to see the problem.

Here: It doesn't matter what you pick because Bioware fills out your party within 2 hours.

[Draegan]

Pick a backstory you want, because some of the intro/tutorials are pretty fun.

[Elerion]

Eh? Really? 25 years of RPGs and you're having trouble picking between the three most traditional classes in existence?

25 years of RPGs and I have yet to encounter one where picking my class wasn't a massive dilemma (Assuming I had an option).

[slog]

Eh? Really? 25 years of RPGs and you're having trouble picking between the three most traditional classes in existence?

25 years of RPGs and I have yet to encounter one where picking my class wasn't a massive dilemma (Assuming I had an option).

Same here. I went with an elf Mage.

[Sophismata]

I'm leaning slightly to that end right now, but a stiff breeze would make me change. Help me choose!

Pick a Mage. Try and grab the Arcane Warrior specialisation. This will allow you to substitute Magic for Strength when it comes to armour and weapon requisites. Focus on magic that isn't healing (ie, most of it).

Walk around in heavy armour with a two handed sword and beat the shit out of people while also setting them on fire.

(For extra fun, take Blood Mage later on, allowing you to heal, but only yourself.)

[Rasix]

Eh? Really? 25 years of RPGs and you're having trouble picking between the three most traditional classes in existence?

25 years of RPGs and I have yet to encounter one where picking my class wasn't a massive dilemma (Assuming I had an option).

I have this quandry in every game.  Sometimes it's a pretty paralyzing choice and in rare occasions can affect my enjoyment of the game.

Usually in this type of I gravitate towards a sword/board warrior, since it's easiest to lead from the front, and I hate being the squishy one.  But for whatever reason, I picked a rogue.  Having fun so far, but I find my party as a whole, including whom I've chosen to tank, to be a little fragile.   In battle I tend to switch between micromanaging the mage or rogue.  The first mage you get has a ton of crowd control options, which can really decide a lot of those early swarmy encounters.

[Bunk]

So I went with a city elf chick. Within ten minutes of starting, a gang of human nobles are out to rape me and my girlfriends. After about one hour of reducing the human population in the castle, my wedding dress now a motley red color, and my fiance I never liked conveniently eviscerated, I'm ready to go off and save the world.

Decided the duel weild rogue would be a fun main, fits my RPG playstyle. I was especially excited to see a talent option that lets me apply my cunning mod as a damage bonus instead of strength. Guess I'll be giving that dragon armor to my meatshield brave templar guy.

[Segoris]

Guess I'll be giving that dragon armor to my meatshield brave templar guy.

I thought all chars received the armor just upon creation? So grats on 5g to you sir!

[Zetor]

Swiss are screwed? wtf 

Same here (2.5 days until unlock), so hungary - and possibly continental europe - is screwed too. I think it's because the hungarian team beat the Bioware team during the pre-launch event, or something.

(otoh the VPN trick for borderlands will probably work here too -- preload, get a proxy with a US ip, restart steam, decrypt, start game, exit, switch steam to offline mode, disconnect from proxy, profit)

[tmp]

How come, my steam says :

Available: 7 November 2009
This game will unlock in approximately 2 days and 14 hours

Am seeing the same thing. Between this and charging through the nose i'm guessing Valve isn't really interested in having market in Europe. (for comparison d2d sells the same regular edition for something like $23 less and unlocks at 12 am of November 6th)

[Riggswolfe]

After the annoyance of getting DLC I'm off to the races. I played about 7 hours last night and have hit the point where the game world truly opens up. I'm one of those dorks who is doing a ton of talking to my NPCs and stuff so it's really slowing me down. On the other hand, I'm just past the intro stuff and Morrigan is already making eyes at me. But, considering I managed to seduce an Elven lady in waiting during my Human Noble opening I guess I'm just a male slut.

I also think one of my party members might be homosexual or at least bi. It's not a bad thing at all it just surprised me. Bioware tends to shy away from male homosexuals.


BTW, I am loving that NPCs have dialogue between themselves sort of like they did in Baldur's Gate but without pausing the action. I have been known to stop what I'm doing and listen to them especially when Morrigan is verbally sparring with someone. My current party is Leliana, Morrigan and Alistair but I might swap out Stenn for Alistair since he looks quite powerful.

Edit: I chose a warrior as my main and my major issue is what combat style will I use? I'm leaning sword and board with maybe some two hand in there but I also sunk two talent points into dual wielding. *sigh*

[Stormwaltz]

Try this Storm:

 right click the disc in my computer then "explore" > right click setup.exe or install.exe > run as admin

Yeah, I tried that. I even tried copying all the files to my HD and runnning setup from there, "just in case." No dice. Still waiting to hear back from EA Tech Support.

I also think one of my party members might be homosexual or at least bi.

Yes.

[AutomaticZen]

I went with a human noble warrior.  Dropped the shield instantly, pumped up the Dex a bit to equal out the strength, and grabbed me a nice offhand.  Scalemail and Dual Wielding for the win.

[Elerion]

I'm leaning slightly to that end right now, but a stiff breeze would make me change. Help me choose!

Pick a Mage. Try and grab the Arcane Warrior specialisation. This will allow you to substitute Magic for Strength when it comes to armour and weapon requisites. Focus on magic that isn't healing (ie, most of it).

Walk around in heavy armour with a two handed sword and beat the shit out of people while also setting them on fire.

(For extra fun, take Blood Mage later on, allowing you to heal, but only yourself.)

Sold. Solves the conundrum of having users of all major weapon types too. One nuker/arcane warrior with 2h, one tank with sword/board, one rogue with dual wield/archery, one healer/controller with staff.

I'm probably overthinking this, but that's half the fun of new RPGs.

[Riggswolfe]

This game reminds me of Mass Effect in one way: I'm already planning out what other characters to play. I suspect I'll play a female city elf rogue since the description gives me a very "Bride from Kill Bill" feeling.

[Murgos]

So, the day 1 DLC content.  Worth getting the Deluxe edition for?  Or not really anything interesting in the grand scheme of things?

[Broughden]

Damn you people and your "this game is fun" crap!  

Now I have to get a shower and leave the house to go buy this somewhere.
Wife leaves town tomorrow for a weekend with the girls, so I will spend it in an old fashioned game fest of pizza, coke and no sleeping or showering for three days.

Edit:

And I also have Murgos' question....si the deluxe edition worth the extra money?
Also do we get anything for playing the Dragon Age: Journeys game? Added content or items to the Origins game? Or is it just marketing fluff?

[Rasix]

So, the day 1 DLC content.  Worth getting the Deluxe edition for?  Or not really anything interesting in the grand scheme of things?

I think the Warden's Keep is the cheaper DLC and the other two were included with the regular box purchase.  I don't know what else the deluxe version offers, but it seems to be a bit of time before I get any mileage out of the DLC myself.

[Segoris]

I thought the price difference was worth the deluxe edition, but I was also a pre-order so it was bonus on top of the bonus content. Even without pre-order stuff though, the Stone Keep costs almost as much to buy separately as it does to buy the deluxe edition iirc, then you get items in addition. So you may as well get it. After 1 night of play with this game, I don't think I'll be regretting this purchase either fwiw.

As for DA:Journeys, it does give some in game content. There is Embril's Many Pockets (belt), Helm of the Deep (helm), and Amulet of the War Mage (amulet). It doesn't take too long, especially if you get a good weapon from the start (vendor's loot changes each time you zone, but isn't randomly created).

Edit: updated with DA:J items.

[gryeyes]

Biggest flaw beyond the absolutely fucking retarded AI (regardless of how you tweek it) is the inconsistency in difficulty and item "levels". Killing these revenants that literally took 15+ minutes of running away from only to find out the gear they drop is absolutely fucking impossible to use for at least 3-4 levels of stacking strength/dex, something I had already invested heavily in throughout every level. There is no way it would even be possible to kill these guys on anything beyond normal difficulty. And then it required kiting around the area so I could get my guys to res a few times.

Keep reading all this stuff about how the game is balanced around hardest difficulty, bullshit.

[Sky]

Lum, did you get that misprint pricing from Steam?

[Dtrain]

I get a little "A Game of Thrones" off of the human noble intro.

Also, the delay before a corpse gives loot is driving me up the frickin wall. 

[Bunk]

Biggest flaw beyond the absolutely fucking retarded AI (regardless of how you tweek it) is the inconsistency in difficulty and item "levels". Killing these revenants that literally took 15+ minutes of running away from only to find out the gear they drop is absolutely fucking impossible to use for at least 3-4 levels of stacking strength/dex, something I had already invested heavily in throughout every level. There is no way it would even be possible to kill these guys on anything beyond normal difficulty. And then it required kiting around the area so I could get my guys to res a few times.

Keep reading all this stuff about how the game is balanced around hardest difficulty, bullshit.

From what I remember reading, they have stated that it is possible to run in to fights that are tougher than you. Apparently if you leave, go do something else to level up a bit, and then come back - the things that gave you trouble will not scale up, thus should be easier to kill. Plus, you'll probably have the stats to use those drops by then.

[Montague]

Biggest flaw beyond the absolutely fucking retarded AI (regardless of how you tweek it) is the inconsistency in difficulty and item "levels". Killing these revenants that literally took 15+ minutes of running away from only to find out the gear they drop is absolutely fucking impossible to use for at least 3-4 levels of stacking strength/dex, something I had already invested heavily in throughout every level. There is no way it would even be possible to kill these guys on anything beyond normal difficulty. And then it required kiting around the area so I could get my guys to res a few times.

Keep reading all this stuff about how the game is balanced around hardest difficulty, bullshit.

From what I remember reading, they have stated that it is possible to run in to fights that are tougher than you. Apparently if you leave, go do something else to level up a bit, and then come back - the things that gave you trouble will not scale up, thus should be easier to kill. Plus, you'll probably have the stats to use those drops by then.

Yep, had to do that in the Wilds. Normal difficulty is just right for me at the moment, Hard looks like it would just be cockstabbingly frustrating.

I've only had one boss fight so far (at the end of the Human Noble tutorial) but I replayed it a couple of times simply because it was so damned cool.

Oh and:

Time played: 9 hours 21 minutes 13 seconds
Percent of game completed: 6%
Percent of world explored: 10%

 

[Tebonas]

"Unlocks in 2 days and 8 hours".

They hate the whole of middle Europe it seems.

[Triforcer]

Its slightly more accurate to say their lawyers hate you. 

[gryeyes]

From what I remember reading, they have stated that it is possible to run in to fights that are tougher than you. Apparently if you leave, go do something else to level up a bit, and then come back - the things that gave you trouble will not scale up, thus should be easier to kill. Plus, you'll probably have the stats to use those drops by then.

Yeah I figured but some places have already gotten "locked" after Ive completed the main series of tasks. So I have no clue what I can return to and what is a one shot deal. And even then these place cant be directly warped to, so you gotta walk through an empty lowbie area to even get back. Also a few of those items aren't being dropped by bad asses, they are found like anything else, they are just vastly out of league of the player level the area that drops them is. I got a bow like 5 levels ago that is still 10 points of dex above the pure dex rogue characters range. The whole randomness of difficulty seems to be everywhere, you can do 90% of an area on hard with some effort but easily doable, then enter the next room that isn't exceptional (no named dudes,no legendary drops, usually even the same types of guys) that is not possible. You must adjust difficulty to get passed that one random room and then everything scales back to normal. Strangely its not even the boss fights. Its a random door that triggers 20 guys in every direction that pretty much instantly nullifies any strategy.

[Xurtan]

/facepalm


Rolled an Elf Mage. Damn the Dwarves for not being able to use Magic.

[Lantyssa]

What are my romance options as a female character?

[angry.bob]

What are my romance options as a female character?

Alistair, Zevran, and Liliana.

Male options are Liliana, Morrigan, and Zevran

[Montague]

Anyone else not have Warden's Keep available to download? I redeemed codes for the Blood Armor and Shale but there was no option to purchase Warden's Keep anywhere.

[gryeyes]

/facepalm


Rolled an Elf Mage. Damn the Dwarves for not being able to use Magic.

Pretty sure you can, I also didn't notice it until after the battle. If you notice a fight seems exceptionally stacked looked around, sometimes ya get lucky and theres a lever/ballista whatever to help out. Seems like a pretty common gimmick.

[schild]

What are my romance options as a female character?

Alistair, Zevran, and Liliana.

Male options are Liliana, Morrigan, and Zevran

You sure? I'm playing a female and I'm getting lots of hearts on Morrigan.

[angry.bob]

What are my romance options as a female character?

Alistair, Zevran, and Liliana.

Male options are Liliana, Morrigan, and Zevran

You sure? I'm playing a female and I'm getting lots of hearts on Morrigan.

No, but I'm going by the online Prima thingy. It says Morrigan is male only. They could certainly be wrong.