Dragon Age

[Venkman]

I believe their point wasn't that it was a weak toolset, just very difficult to use. I dabbled with it a bit and would agree. It was really cool what I could get it to do, but I didn't feel like learning a whole new development environment.

Which incidentally is why so much talk of "shit I'll just build it myself bettar!1/" dies on the vine. People eventually learning in their own way just how goddamned hard it is to make a game. Unless you're skinning some QA's game mechanic with fansite toolkit assets, you need to be an expert in more things than you've got time to be an expert in, or get some friends to give a shit beyond the whiteboard/flipchart phase.

Or you could get lucky and build Flight Control, which is now coming (arrived?) on the DSi. But if you're looking at the NWN toolsit, you're not looking to build Flight Control

[rk47]

Awakening out on 16th March.
I wonder if they'll handle the export character bit like ME 2 whereby decisions made will affect something.  But I died a martyr anyway, might as well start a new Jedi.

[tmp]

Looks BioWare has quietly snuck another hook for the DLC in the main game -- you can now get an encounter in marked new spot on the map, where you witness a guy getting stabbed in the gut by group of lackeys. When you try to interact with the hapless chap afterwards you get a "buy content to revive him" option which i presume links with the "Return to Ostagar" thing. If you refuse to shell out the poor victim stays there, patiently bleeding to death in case you ever change your mind

[NiX]

Looks BioWare has quietly snuck another hook for the DLC in the main game -- you can now get an encounter in marked new spot on the map, where you witness a guy getting stabbed in the gut by group of lackeys. When you try to interact with the hapless chap afterwards you get a "buy content to revive him" option which i presume links with the "Return to Ostagar" thing. If you refuse to shell out the poor victim stays there, patiently bleeding to death in case you ever change your mind

Wow, that's incredibly sleazy. I'm of the camp where I think I shouldn't be affected if I don't want to buy DLC.

[Ingmar]

Yeah that is over the line.

[caladein]

Aren't all DLC-areas spots colored in Gold?  I remember seeing a new area over by the mage area, it was gold, and so I figured it was about RtO (which I don't have), and haven't touched it.

Now I guess I won't ever.

[sickrubik]

Looks BioWare has quietly snuck another hook for the DLC in the main game -- you can now get an encounter in marked new spot on the map, where you witness a guy getting stabbed in the gut by group of lackeys. When you try to interact with the hapless chap afterwards you get a "buy content to revive him" option which i presume links with the "Return to Ostagar" thing. If you refuse to shell out the poor victim stays there, patiently bleeding to death in case you ever change your mind

That's been in for awhile, at least for the PC. At least as far back as Jan. 29th. (Which I only know because I was attempting to buy said DLC when I realized some incredibly irritating issue with my bioware account was preventing me from GETTING DLC.)

But, yes, it is quite ridiculous.

[tmp]

That's been in for awhile, at least for the PC. At least as far back as Jan. 29th. (Which I only know because I was attempting to buy said DLC when I realized some incredibly irritating issue with my bioware account was preventing me from GETTING DLC.)

Yup, i was completely distracted playing ME2 for a while so didn't know when exactly that spot was added, it just kind of jumped at me when i launched the game again after a break.

In other apparently pretty old news, it'd appear EA has something DA-related and worth teasing about planned for February 1st, 2011. Probably the same thing mentioned in their financial report a few pages back. There's speculations of full sequel, but considering BioWare said for the sequel they're "doing a lot of work on the Dragon Age engine, and doing a lot of stuff to pump it -- to make it visually super hot" that'd be pretty hard to pull off with any decent results in such tight timeframe...

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I really don't want DLC ads to appear in the game if I haven't bought the DLC.

I finally managed to get Leilana's loyalty quest on my second playthrough--I hadn't realized there was a quasi bug where if she's too friendly with you too quickly, she won't start it. Did Sten, too; in my first playthrough I got it too late, or so I thought (apparently you can still visit Redcliffe proper after the Landsmeet). Wish his sword was a bit more kickass. I noticed with some amusement that you can sell it without him freaking out.

Heard some different party banter this time around that was pretty funny. Leilana's teasing of Sten is pretty fun.

I might do a third playthrough with a completely nasty mage--desecrate the ashes, extort money, get blood magery, kill Wynne, all that stuff. I did enjoy my second playthrough's completely anti-human city elf, she's going to get along famously with the NPC from Awakening. Wish there were a few more anti-human things to say during the dialogue of the endgame political maneuverings. Chose to be rescued instead of escaping this time, by Morrigan and Leilana, and that was fairly amusing, especially when I let Morrigan have the dialogue for convincing people that she was a Chantry priest. On the other hand, this was one place where the bloodspatters were especially stupid looking--persuading the guard of the back part of the fort to leave while both characters were covered in blood was anti-immersive to say the least.

One thing that still bugs me about the game is that you can take stuff out of chests in houses all over the game without anybody objecting. Not that most of the time it's worth having or anything, but still.

[tmp]

One thing that still bugs me about the game is that you can take stuff out of chests in houses all over the game without anybody objecting. Not that most of the time it's worth having or anything, but still.

I generally chalk that up to self-preservation -- it's four heavily armed people in your house, are you really going to start shit over that piece of elfroot with them...

The only one thing that really bothered me personally was the auto-scaling loot when you hit the elf alienage. Finding random items worth 5+ gold in chests around the place when at the beginning of my city elf game 20 silver was big deal.. welp.

[Njal]

The thing that bothers me about loot in these games is the fact that for say 500G you could buy everything you would ever want to outfit your party and nobody of the rich people/factions that you save is willing to pony up so you can literally save the kingdom.

The dwarves esp could easily part with that and given how much the mages are spending on their lyrium addiction I bet they could easily give a sizable donation. I know that would ruin a bunch of RPG conventions. Actually it bothers me even more in ME2 where Cerberus can't spring for another lousy million credits after blowing billions on the new Normandy and ressing Shepard.

Bah!

/grumpy old man

[Riggswolfe]

I might do a third playthrough with a completely nasty mage--desecrate the ashes, extort money, get blood magery, kill Wynne, all that stuff.

This is how I played my female mage and it was pretty fun. Right up until the endgame I was planning to let Mr Royal bite it during the final fight but in the end I had her sacrifice herself. It was totally worth it to hear everyone talking about how great and noble I was while I'm remembering how I did more damage to Ferelden than the damn Darkspawn did.

[Sir T]

I stopped playing it. Something about wandering around this damn dream fade puzzle in the circle of mages nuking random badguys just frustrated the hell out of me. I might get back to it in a few weeks.

[trias_e]

Yeah, IMO the fade itself is not the problem.  I thought it was pretty cool to have a morphing/ability switching character for a while at least.  However, sticking it in the middle of an already long combat-fest going up the mages tower is the problem.  Dumb design decision.

[tmp]

Looks the release of Awakenings for online retailers in US got changed to March 18th. Brick and mortar stores still get it on 16th, supposedly.

That means this time the Europeans only get theirs a day later if nothing changes for them too. Justice  

edit: or maybe not. D2D switched US date back to 16th. Confusing.

[Khaldun]

Playing a complete douche mage is in fact quite a lot of fun. I hadn't realized how many seriously nasty (plausibly nasty) things you can do. Only time I've ever gotten approving remarks from Morrigan for dialogue choices, though. Going to take a lot of gifts to get Alistair into bed (he's the only character I haven't romanced yet)...the character I made is seriously nasty ugly, though, so I might just skip it.

[tmp]

My douche mage has looks of young Thulsa Doom from Conan movie. It's glorious.

In fact, he's not as much a douche but complete asshole bent on getting as much personal power as possible and getting his kick out of making people suffer. My female noble has the other angle covered -- snotty, spoiled pious princess who thinks elves should be flogged often to improve the morale. Not many games has enough of assholish content for two very different characters without much of overleap.

[schild]

Milk that license.

[stray]

Considering the lack of competitors, I say milk it dry. There really isn't much out there, especially western fantasy/rpgs. It's a generic/broad enough license to stay fairly interesting for awhile anyways.

[Tannhauser]

Bioware seems to be copying Blizzard.  Have a small stable of hit games and keep making sequels to them.  Unlike Blizzard, Bioware can put out a good game in a reasonable amount of time though!

Dragon Age=Diablo
Mass Effect=Starcraft
SWKOTOR=WoW

[stray]

One makes decent art, but shitty gfx. The other makes shitty art, but decent gfx. 

[Lantyssa]

It's a generic/broad enough license to stay fairly interesting for awhile anyways.

Which is exactly why I lost interest before even finishing all the areas.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I like mass effect it is still one of the best franchises out there, I forced myself to beat dragon age.

[Ingmar]

Unlike Blizzard, Bioware can put out a good game in a reasonable amount of time though!

DA was announced in what, 2004?

[eldaec]

Bioware seems to be copying Blizzard.  Have a small stable of hit games and keep making sequels to them.  Unlike Blizzard, Bioware can put out a good game in a reasonable amount of time though!

Dragon Age=Diablo
Mass Effect=Starcraft
SWKOTOR=WoW

Yes, I'm sure you are right.

After all, EA have never previously been known to build a franchise and then flog it to death, this is an entirely new business strategy for them.

[Rasix]

Bioware seems to be copying Blizzard.  Have a small stable of hit games and keep making sequels to them.  Unlike Blizzard, Bioware can put out a good game in a reasonable amount of time though!

Dragon Age=Diablo
Mass Effect=Starcraft
SWKOTOR=WoW

Is the combination to your luggage 1-2-3-4-5 by any chance?

[Lakov_Sanite]

God of War=Bayonetta
Spore=Civ IV
Mafia Wars=WoW


I can make charts too! 

[caladein]

Awakening reviews from Eurogamer and 1UP.

Also, more DLC-related weirdness uncovered in the 1UP review:

A slight random aside: while the PC version requires Origins, the console versions can be played as stand-alone titles.

...

Also, since it takes place after Origins, that means that, while you can bring in a character into Origins, you can't take that character from Awakening back into any DLC for Origins. What this means for future DLC is unknown, but as a general warning: whether you play it on console or PC, you need to make sure to finish Origins and all of its DLC to date, before tackling Awakening.

The first bit might explain the "DLC for Origins doesn't carry over" because they're different games on the console side... which is weird.

The second part just seems to confirm that DLC and this game are just never going to get along.

[eldaec]

You'll still be able to take the Origins character you used to start an Awakening campaign into more Origins DLC, you just can't use an Awakening save from TEH FUTURE to play Origins. You have to fork your timeline exactly the same way you do whenever you go back to an old save.

There is nothing EA can do to stop this unless Awakenings searches your file system to hard delete every DA save you have, then implants a personalised virus on your PC to eliminate any saves imported from external storage in future.

All that quote indicates is that the author at 1up lacks basic critical thinking skills.

You can't migrate Mass Effect 2 saves into Mass Effect 1 either. Oh noes.

[stray]

I'll probably make an entirely new character. My Origins character is toast. It doesn't make any sense to resurrect him somehow.

[caladein]

You'll still be able to take the Origins character you used to start an Awakening campaign into more Origins DLC, you just can't use an Awakening save from TEH FUTURE to play Origins. You have to fork your timeline exactly the same way you do whenever you go back to an old save.

There is nothing EA can do to stop this unless Awakenings searches your file system to hard delete every DA save you have, then implants a personalised virus on your PC to eliminate any saves imported from external storage in future.

All that quote indicates is that the author at 1up lacks basic critical thinking skills.

You can't migrate Mass Effect 2 saves into Mass Effect 1 either. Oh noes.

But this isn't Dragon Age 2.  This is a campaign that you launch from the same damn game.  As a big (and possibly from a box) piece of DLC, it should play nicely with all the others and at least offer a Post-Campaign save (like the base game) where you can play any of the other DLC.

[tmp]

I'll probably make an entirely new character. My Origins character is toast. It doesn't make any sense to resurrect him somehow.

You could always pretend he was resurrected by mysterious (but infamous) Watchdog organization from Orlais, for reasons yet unknown...

One rather annoying thing about starting new character for expansion is, apparently you can't use the save with your old dead character to determine the state of the world for the newcomer. If your first character kicked the bucket in the grand finale it's like they've never existed at all. Disappointing.

[eldaec]

This is a campaign that you launch from the same damn game.  As a big (and possibly from a box) piece of DLC, it should play nicely with all the others and at least offer a Post-Campaign save (like the base game) where you can play any of the other DLC.

[tmp]

But this isn't Dragon Age 2.  This is a campaign that you launch from the same damn game.  As a big (and possibly from a box) piece of DLC, it should play nicely with all the others and at least offer a Post-Campaign save (like the base game) where you can play any of the other DLC.

As i understand it the "main game" is really but a regular 'adventure module' which sits atop of base set of rules, content etc. The main DA executable is pretty much just universal launcher for these modules. Any add-on you install can either expand such adventure module or create entirely separate module itself. (which in turn can be also expanded)

The pieces of DLC they've released so far are such extensions to the adventure module that's the main DA campaign. Awakenings on the other hand is separate adventure module and the new content it includes (new levels, skills, item tiers etc) are someting the main campaign has no clue about, so it cannot import character/save from the Awakening like it's possible the other way.

[eldaec]

One rather annoying thing about starting new character for expansion is, apparently you can't use the save with your old dead character to determine the state of the world for the newcomer. If your first character kicked the bucket in the grand finale it's like they've never existed at all. Disappointing.

Now *this* is something worth moaning about.