Dragon Age

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Best game I have played in a very very long time, more should be made like it...

Blazher

Leslie Massive Paperboy wrote: »

Best game I have played in a very very long time, more should be made like it...

The new DLC is out on Tuesday

WolfForager

Forget the DLC, what they realy need to release is a HD texture pack of some sort, i'd say they've lost a fair chunk of their market to people who really wanted to play the game but couldn't stick the terrible graphics.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Blazher wrote: »

The new DLC is out on Tuesday

More DLC? Oh nice I shall google that.

WolfForager wrote: »

Forget the DLC, what they realy need to release is a HD texture pack of some sort, i'd say they've lost a fair chunk of their market to people who really wanted to play the game but couldn't stick the terrible graphics.

The what? :eek:

ballybay_eh

WolfForager wrote: »

Forget the DLC, what they realy need to release is a HD texture pack of some sort, i'd say they've lost a fair chunk of their market to people who really wanted to play the game but couldn't stick the terrible graphics.

I didn't think the graphics were terrible but considering that Oblivion came out 3 years ago and Dragon Age looks worse at times... probably not a good sign though.

Also, I found the final boss a bit of a drag.

Still, great game. (It's no Baldur's Gate 2 though)

calex71

ballybay_eh wrote: »

Also, I found the final boss a bit of a drag.

Yeah me too

call in the elves and man the ballista's

calex71

dlc info here http://dragonage.bioware.com/addon/rto

doesn't look to be massive, maybe same as other 2 only 400 points though.

leninbenjamin

calex71 wrote: »

Yeah me too

call in the elves and man the ballista's

Indeed. I called the mages first, then when they died, called in the elves, and stood off in one of the turrets and waited. Overall he was far too easy.

Bit too much of that in general in the game, the brood mother in the deep roads being another example. Stand off behind her on the platform and just hit her at range. Heck the hardest thing in the game I found was Berahts (the dwarf commoner origins) because you've no magic to do that stand offish approach.

Praetorian

I'm about 10 hours in and I'm enjoying it. But I think I've made some bad spell / upgrade choices, because I'm finding it quite difficult. I almost always have to micromanage each battle, and constantly find myself in no win situations, having to retreat & try and level up a bit more.

Something happened on Friday that really got up my nose. I was travelling somewhere & there was an encounter on the road which I couldn't win no matter what. My previous usable save was 3 hours back. Now that was annoying!

Story / characters all very enjoyable so far. Love the music too.

humanji

Praetorian wrote: »

I'm about 10 hours in and I'm enjoying it. But I think I've made some bad spell / upgrade choices, because I'm finding it quite difficult. I almost always have to micromanage each battle, and constantly find myself in no win situations, having to retreat & try and level up a bit more.

Something happened on Friday that really got up my nose. I was travelling somewhere & there was an encounter on the road which I couldn't win no matter what. My previous usable save was 3 hours back. Now that was annoying!

Story / characters all very enjoyable so far. Love the music too.

I've found a few battles to be like that. All you can really do is try and save often. It happens to me a lot in games, so I have a timer on my desk that goes off every 15 minutes to remind me. Sad that I have to rely on something like that. :P

But in the end, I got through those battles mainly due to luck. And I was micromanaging every move too. I guess you just have to think up a strategy and go by that.

super_furry

Think having the right team helps a lot. I've got Wynn solely dedicated to healing, Morrigan on crowd control, Allister hacking everyone up and me - Elf mage doing a bit of everything.

I've recently just gone Arcane Warrior with my Mage, but right now can't see any difference aside from the fact that it allows you to wield swords - which is useless for me because my strength is low. Are there any other benefits?

BeansBeans

I was having a bugger of a time earlier in the game, probably due to the fact i went to Denerim way too earlier. Also should have done the circle quest way earlier for the substantial boost gained.

But I must say since i got Shale its a bit too easy. Playing as a Rogue (assassin/duelist) with Morrigan and Wynne (a few glyphs and stonefist/petrify help a lot) i havent had any issues, even with the harder bosses. Shale with stoneheart is an amazing tank and has damage output up there with my rogue and Morrigan, its a bit silly, but i love the character. Advancing relationships helps hugely as well.

Anyway loving the game, but yes the graphics are a bit awful really.

Sarn

leninbenjamin wrote: »

Indeed. I called the mages first, then when they died, called in the elves, and stood off in one of the turrets and waited. Overall he was far too easy.

The end boss was fairly easy, line up the ballista a few area effect spells and that was pretty much it. I found the generals to be harder. Although saying that, I didn't use any of the reserves.

I found the graphics to be fairly good so it didn't bother me. Total play time in the end was 67 hours after doing virtually every side quest save Warden's keep. Great value for money.

Cunny-Funt

The graphics were stunning in mass effect, I wonder why they stepped backwards for this?

EGriff

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

The graphics were stunning in mass effect, I wonder why they stepped backwards for this?

Because there's no elevators for you to wait in for 5 minutes while they load up the next floor.

uberpixie

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

The graphics were stunning in mass effect, I wonder why they stepped backwards for this?

Mass Effect had sh it textures, playing the game again atm and you really notice this on the character models. Plus that texture pop up where the detail on the texture degrades and goes back to normal on some models when you move the camera slightly is really annoying. They tried using a lot of bloom and ansio to cover this up and fail miserable to do so.

To be fair with Dragon Age: they put all the detail on the character models at the expense of the terrain.

super_furry

To be honest, the graphics haven't bothered me in the slightest - aside from everyone being covered in blood.

quarryman

Is this game really any good? I've read a bit on it now and it seems that after an initial honeymoon period it becomes a slog and a punishing one at times if you aren't micromanaging everything to perfection.

Also I'd be playing it on the 360. Are things really watered down forthe console version

Making It Bad

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

The graphics were stunning in mass effect, I wonder why they stepped backwards for this?

You can go into the isometric camera in Dragon Age too. If you had this in Mass Effect when you zoom out/in of the action, I could see you losing lots of textures.

uberpixie

quarryman wrote: »

Is this game really any good? I've read a bit on it now and it seems that after an initial honeymoon period it becomes a slog and a punishing one at times if you aren't micromanaging everything to perfection.

Also I'd be playing it on the 360. Are things really watered down for the console version

mate of a mate played it on easy to get any joy out of it on the xbox, he doesn't have a gaming pc. By all accounts it is much better on the PC as you are able to micromanage better. The skill settings are a little easier on the consoles Vs the PC seemingly.

played it on the pc myself on medium for most of the game and turned the difficulty down to easy for some of the fights as things were just getting to pissy.

Making It Bad

After the patch things got too easy for me on normal difficulty so I turned it up to hard. Get the patch, it also balances things better because it nerfs mages a bit and buffs rogues.

BeansBeans

quarryman wrote: »

Is this game really any good? I've read a bit on it now and it seems that after an initial honeymoon period it becomes a slog and a punishing one at times if you aren't micromanaging everything to perfection.

Also I'd be playing it on the 360. Are things really watered down forthe console version

Brilliant game ya, on the PC anyway at least, i couldnt play this on a console too used to mouse and keyboard.

I would say the opposite to what you read though, its a bit of a bore and a slog at the start but when you get into it the characters go up a gear as does the story and action. Although there is one part of the main story which is a bit lacking. Otherwise great game, i would highly recommend it.

WolfForager

And we have an expansion pack! $40 though! Bit steep heh? I'd be expecting another 100 hours of gameplay for that.

http://ie.pc.ign.com/articles/105/1058169p1.html

Wossack

40! is he havin a laff? :eek:

calex71

Christ I only paid €35 for main game, no way I'd cough up another 30-40.
Wonder is it stand alone or installed along side and accessed through the main game, but then what are the odd's of xtravision having it for rental

Lafortezza

I've been pretty unimpressed with the small DLC quests so far, the Stone Prisoner one and the Wardens Keep one. While they added Shale and some nice equipment, they were over so quickly it was ridiculous.
On my first playthrough of DA I took nearly 80 hours because I hate missing any small details/encounters/sidequests/loot. SP and WK were finished in about 2 hours each. And I checked the wiki's for both and had missed nothing.
Looks like Return to Ostagar has been delayed also.

I definitely won't be buying the Awakening DLC if it doesn't have at least 75% of the content and playtime of the original game.

Vegeta

quarryman wrote: »

Is this game really any good? I've read a bit on it now and it seems that after an initial honeymoon period it becomes a slog and a punishing one at times if you aren't micromanaging everything to perfection.

Also I'd be playing it on the 360. Are things really watered down forthe console version

On the 360 turn the difficulty down one notch. It's a much better game as a result. It's not fun to have to pause the fighting after every attack, switch character, pause, attack, switch character, pause, attack etc etc They should have made it turn based if that was the intention of how it must be played

Seriously drop it down a cog on difficulty and it flows a lot better requiring less micro managing. I had to do it about 3/4 of the way through the game as typical of the developer there was a moral choice, but I was not strong enough to choose the option I wanted and really didn't want to go with the alternative.

anonymous_joe

lafortezza wrote: »

I've been pretty unimpressed with the small DLC quests so far, the Stone Prisoner one and the Wardens Keep one. While they added Shale and some nice equipment, they were over so quickly it was ridiculous.
On my first playthrough of DA I took nearly 80 hours because I hate missing any small details/encounters/sidequests/loot. SP and WK were finished in about 2 hours each. And I checked the wiki's for both and had missed nothing.
Looks like Return to Ostagar has been delayed also.

I definitely won't be buying the Awakening DLC if it doesn't have at least 75% of the content and playtime of the original game.

One thing that bugged me was that I thought the Shale quest chain was actually one of the best in the game. As in, well put together, cool area, etc.

If the rest of hte game was that polished it would be even better.

Black Swan

Praetorian wrote: »

Something happened on Friday that really got up my nose. I was travelling somewhere & there was an encounter on the road which I couldn't win no matter what. My previous usable save was 3 hours back. Now that was annoying!

In addition to auto save, do a few manual saves too.

anonymous_joe

And always bring a healer. Always.