I have a love/hate relationship with the origin stories concept. On the one hand, they’re engaging, and the sheer bastardness of the NPCs really got me going. I want revenge, durnit ! But on the other hand, it sort of kills basic roleplaying. What if I want to be a lowly dorf miner, or god forbid a human who’s not The Last Heir ?
Compounded by the fact that Mage is the richest, most diverse class among the three, but there’s only one fidgin’ mage story. Mage is also the one class where you want to experiment with the different spells, see what they do… but there’s only one story. Who didn’t thump the devs over this ?! Own up.
Second insight : the blood shower system is funny. There seems to be only two appearance states : clean, and covered in gorespray from head to toe (though maybe that is because I’m not playing with every graphic bell and whistle turned on). And, to be honest, it works great in most situations… except the human noble backstory. Being showered in gore after disposing of a bunch of rats ? That’s hilarious, not gritty.
Finally, @ the poster who earlier refered to the dog as “the little guy” : ARE YOU INSANE ? That dog is huge. That dog is crazed with bloodlust. It’s a pitbull on copious steroids and speed. Its head is level with my elbows. And… and… he’s so kawAIIIIIII when he rips people apart with his bare teeth and then pisses on the corpses ! ^_^;
I need help.
What’s really going on is that Bioware/EA decided to fuck over the player by making the game available on both Steam and Impulse (good!) but tied DLC to their own shitty-ass player registration.
Plenty of professional reviews have commented that the ideal platform for this game is the PC. And I agree. I struggled with the DLC boondoggle for a few hours, but now I’m set and loving the game.
Excellent game. My only complaint is the graphics and animation.
Seriously - I haven’t played all the chars. I’m playing a city elf right now.
The run animation for the male city elf would have been embarrassing in 2002. Now it’s 2009, and I’m gobsmacked by how amateurish it looks. Really.
I’ve been playing this game like crazy since Friday (when it came out over here) I’ve played through all the origins and I have to say I’m most impressed with the Dwarf ones. I’ve never cared to play a dwarf character before but I love how real and dynamic the dwarven city felt.
Elves were the worst. The Dalish felt like it was either the first (when they didn’t know what they were doing) or last (when they were running out of time) story they made. The city elf was a little better but only because you get to walk around in dress clothes covered in gore.
Human one was alright and the mage one was pretty fun. Not as fun as I expected but still a decent playthrough.
I’ve now got three characters past the light the beacon part of it. It’s not enough to really judge the combat system but so far it seems crowd control options (even if it’s just pommel strike) make all the difference. My dual wielder warrior struggled until he unlocked Riptose. Whereas my dual wielder Rogue was fine as he had dirty fighting. Took me awhile to get a bead on Rogues they’re fine as long as you vanish when the enemy is only a blur in the background and let your warriors close a bit and then backstab away. Staying behind or to the side of the enemy really seems to help. I know it mentions flanking in a few talent descriptions. I guess I better crack the manual to see what kind of attack bonus you get. By the third time I also started working on tactic slots. I don’t waste a slot on healing as I seem to be able to keep an eye on that myself so far instead I work on
Crowd control for ranged characters (mages, Archers) something like pinning shot on nearest melee
Focus Fire on what I’m on (if I’m Rogue have my tanks use their special abilities like shield bash on what I’m fighting to keep it off balance, if I’m tanking have DPS use abilities to burn down HP if it’s above 75% health or so)
Whatever useful abilities the characters have per character.
I’m not very far yet so obviously as I get more slots and more abilities this list will grow but it seems to work great to keep guys on who I want to be attacked and doing what I need them to do instead of having them wander off and each find their own target.
I feel the opposite. The origin gives me more freedom to roleplay. I’m not some farmer of prophecy that was plucked out by fate. No I’m a badass that scrabbled out of a disaster. Really most RPGs offer you far less. NWN 2, Fallout 3, SWKotoR, Gothic 3, Fable, all have set in stone backstories (or backstories where you know all the important information). Whereas say Oblivion or Vampire the Masquerade I guess you could make up your own backstory but it won’t have any impact in game other then the choices you make. Which you could have made anyway. In this case I feel I know where my character comes from and what he or she will do in a situation. I could just decide the opposite play a rogue who only did what he did to get out and now is going to redeem himself with the Grey Wardens or a Rogue that is only going along to avoid death and doesn’t care a thing about his new quest.
I don’t really know of any RPG on the PC that lets you play the level you seem to want. I mean I guess you could play WOW and do nothing but mine copper in the starting areas.
No, I’m really talking about the Oblivion or Vampire the Masquerade kind - nothing at all is said about your character, save that he’s a man/woman of race X and he got thrown in jail/bit by a fang, so you’re free to fill in the blanks about his life and personnality yourself. Sure, the game itself doesn’t change at all, only your imagined perspective on it, and the dialogue options you choose… but that’s what roleplaying is about, innit ?
On the other hand, I have a real hard time playing a character with the noble dwarf background as anything but a scheming, wheeling, dealing, pragmatic, emotionless, smirking Borgia bastard. And I think Bioware had that in mind, because half the speech options fit the type exactly. You just offed your own brother, and your second brother stabbed you in the back bigtime, yet one of the possible answers is : “Gotta admire how Bhelen plays the game.”.
It’s beautiful. But constricting, somewhat. But beautiful. It’s a rare game that lets you play a bad guy that isn’t just randomly punting kittens because he’s Eeeeevul.
I decided to make my first character a tank. I was having a lot of problems until I realised Alistair’s tactics included “When surrounded by 2 or more enemies: Taunt”. Things are going much smoother now.
Unfortunately I continued spec’ing Alistair as an off-tank when I really wish I had made him 2-handed. Too late now. I really don’t want to rotate him out but I may have to.
I’ve just finished Redcliff and I desperately want a healer now please.
I’m loving the game.
I didn’t have any problems downloading the DLC thankfully. My only problem is that some of the text in-game is a little on the small side (1920x1200 on 24").
Well roleplay isn’t always make the story you want but instead play the character sure it may be funner to make your own but it’s hard for a game designed by others to allow you that kind of freedom and still have a compelling intro. Too many games make me feel like I’ve just been chosen randomly by fate. In Dragon Age I feel like my character has earned his/her place in history before Duncan even shows up.
The lack of a steam manual had confused me. I thought most Steam games showed a manual with a right click on the icon… Fortunately after a little digging around I found a link to the PDF file. I don’t know if there’s an obvious link on the main page or something that I never noticed but if anyone is looking for it Here is where I found it. Not too detailed but it did clarify some game mechanics I was unsure of. I’m still tweaking my tactics slots and it really is a powerful tool. I need to focus on one character so I can see some of the higher level spells and abilities. I wonder if they’d ever do a spin off focusing on tactical combat as I might enjoy something like that.
Oh also I’ve been able to get all my DLC for my game but I can’t actually register the game itself. It’s apparently a known issue with the English Deluxe Steam edition or something.
I guess it’s not all that important but it is annoying.
Over the handwringing for the DRM for Spore, Grand Theft Auto 4, this game, et cetera, you’re either willfully ignoring it or it’s become so commonplace that you don’t even notice anymore.
I had never heard anything about an update having that much problems with Assassin’s Creed. Is that an isolated incident? Registering for multiple things you don’t want or need just to install or play the game must get old after a while.
Microsoft has been great about repairing and getting the consoles back in relatively good timeframes. That’s also an “isolated incident” confined to one console, and at that, one certain build of one console.
I guess it’s probably down to the difficulty level + console vs PC + playstyle (probably this one is the most important). I usually found it annoying that my characters go haring off on their own and having to pause just to focus fire everyone. I would forget to cast a useful spell like paralyze or forget to check to see if my tank’s shield bash cooldown had passed. It’s good to turn around and see the creature that was going after your mage already paralyzed. Or a bolt of lightening finishing off the creature you were tanking.
As I said though I imagine playstyle and your ability to remember everyone’s state would make the tactics slots less useful. I just like tweaking the command lines and seeing if it makes a difference or not. I get a real sense of satisfaction when I see a command I set change the course of a battle.
After having played through about 15 hours so far (completing the Elves and the Circle) with a Mage/Arcane Warrior, I can confidently state…
This game is not difficult. To say so would be a lie. It is not hard.
It is, however, cheap. Most of the game’s difficulty comes from something I hated in BG2, but was not done nearly as much there. Basically, for any big fight, the game forces you to walk right up into the faces of the Incredibly Tough Villain, and thus far I haven’t found any way to stop this.
And not suprisingly, the villains bloody well have a dozen mooks and some area attacks, which they then deploy en masse. Add that to an iffy AI, and it means I wind up playing some sections several times over. It wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t so bloody predictable. I’ve even seen ti suddenly shift me and some NPC’s nearby fifty feet part just so their bloody mage could fireball my butt twice (and knicking everyone down. Twice :rolleyes: ). And honestly, some of the party memebers are about as useful in a fight as a rancid rotting goat.
Right now I am tryig to figure out how to make Sten and Zhev useful in a fight. Zhev can theoretically do A LOT damage, but his AI doesn’t appear to do any good. He just walks up and stabs people in the face, which isn’t very good in a Rogue-type. Sten does a lot of dmage any way you slice it, but he’s a glass cannon. He just doesn’t have the health to last, although that should get fixed with one or two more levels when I can put the Juggernaut Armor on him. If Alistair is around, I like to use a more powerful weapon; otherwise I grab a shield.
Granted, Wynne can keep anything alive as long as she has mana. She makes a good vombo with Liliana; Lilly doesn’t take much damage since I have her use bows, and she helps regen everyone’s mana.
I am enjoying playing, but some of the combat sections just make me groan with pain. And of course, since I don’t save after every fight, there always winds up being an annoying “death penalty” of time.
The only battle I’ve found exceedingly cheap so far is the (spoilers?) Reaver in Redcliffe. Mostly because of his stupid pull attacks. I managed to beat him with only my mage up, and one swing away from death. Granted I did beat him on my second try, but the Reaver was bad on his own, adding in mooks made it really, really annoying.
Edit: I should mention though that undead are my caster’s bane in general, my focused trees are lightning (tempest is useless in a mosh pit, but worked on the archers at least) and my other main focused trees are in entropy, and undead are stubbornly immune to all the status changing AOEs in that tree.
I’m playing as a noble dwarf warrior. I finished Redcliff and decided to try and save Connor, so I’m trying to get to the Circle Tower, only the game has decided that impossible packs of wolves should tear me to shreds when I get on the road.
Anyone has problems getting your party members to follow you or auto attack after issuing a “move freely” when you have held your position? It’s annoying - at times only one or two would follow me while the rest would just watch me being pounded to death.
