Dragon Age: Origins

[lazygecko]

I never bothered with shapeshifting personally, seems to be the subpar one out of all the mage specs. You might have to do Morrigan's personal quest first before she can teach you. You start it by getting her special gift in the circle tower.

I'm disappointed by the disproportionate amount of warriors in your party compared to other classes. Would have prefered some more mages besides Morrigan and Wynne. Thankfully with console commands I can multi-spec anyone I want into a mage. And there's probably some decent companion mods in development as I speak.

Wynne is a commendable choice of character though. It's not very often at all video games feature women who aren't 20-somethings.

[Archaon]

I never bothered with shapeshifting personally, seems to be the subpar one out of all the mage specs.

To be honest, I'm not going to bother with it either. I'm just an obsessive completionist.

[anosou]

Wynne is a commendable choice of character though. It's not very often at all video games feature women who aren't 20-somethings.

Very true, I've grown quite fond of her as a person too. She's very well written.

[Tensei]

I like Wynne because she's very easy to influence with smooth-talking. Had this conversation just now (paraphrased):

After the reveal with the Lady of the forest and the werewolves etc.

PC: "Oh, let's go kill some Dalish Elves then."

Morrigan: "Fuck yeah, awesome idea."

Shale: "I LIKE CRUSHING!"

Wynne: "What? Are you mad? Are you seriously planning a genocide?!"

PC:[Persuade]"But dude, we could have a fucking werewolf army. How awesome is THAT?"

Wynne: "Oh..alright I guess. Kids these days."

Wynne disapproves for a measly -3

Morrigan and Shale approve for like +5

I'm holding out for a Wynne romance mod

[anosou]

I'm holding out for a Wynne romance mod

I should get a PC.

[prophetik music]

I never bothered with shapeshifting personally, seems to be the subpar one out of all the mage specs. You might have to do Morrigan's personal quest first before she can teach you. You start it by getting her special gift in the circle tower.

I'm disappointed by the disproportionate amount of warriors in your party compared to other classes. Would have prefered some more mages besides Morrigan and Wynne. Thankfully with console commands I can multi-spec anyone I want into a mage. And there's probably some decent companion mods in development as I speak.

Wynne is a commendable choice of character though. It's not very often at all video games feature women who aren't 20-somethings.

i did shapeshifting for two reasons. in the event that one of my mages runs out of mana and i don't have a potion (happened often earlier in the game), and a tank dies, i have another free tank without effort. the bear is really damn powerful later in the game, too. plus, there's the constitution bonus. morrigan and wynne both had ridiculous stats in the magic department but were getting killed in three hits. the extra health helped a lot.

[Archaon]

If the shapeshifting forms were anything like the temporary ones you get in the Circle of Mages segment, I'd be all over it.

[Tensei]

Fun thing is that both of the alternatives to Shapeshifter (blood mage and especially arcane warrior) provide you with MUCH better tanking than shapeshifter could hope to achieve. And they don't necessarily disable your spells either.

[prophetik music]

eh, whatever. it worked. and it's fun to be a bunch of flies. i should point out that when i said tank, i meant 'damage sponge'. i didn't actually mean 'distraction with damage included', like most people think of tanks.

also, if you think that those two forms are better than a corrupted bear with overwhelm, you'd be very surprised. bears have no armor, therefore are always the last character to be attacked. bears do more raw damage than any other form, and can still take the effects of frost weapons and the like. a well-classed corrupted bear can knock over any enemy - my bear beat loghain easily - and overwhelm will knock out 3/4 of most enemy's health. considering i only needed it for a few specific situations, it worked.

[Kanthos]

EDIT: Anyone know what Morrigan's deal is? Everyone else seems perfectly happy to teach me their specialisation once their approval hits 25-30, but Morrigan's is nearly maxed out and she's still being a damn cocktease about it. Do I have to shag her first or what?

I've slept with her, broke up with her, got her approval up to 100 before and after dumping her, and did her sidequest and she still wouldn't teach me. Luckily, you can buy the shapeshifting tome from the vendor in the Dalish camp.

[Archaon]

ARGH.

I really, really, really hate it when you splurge on some fancy new item you find in a shop and then ten minutes later you find a better one lying around in a dungeon.

"Just this once," I thought. "Just this once I'll stop being so damn thrifty and actually spend some of the money I have before the end of the game." The one time I let myself go and it comes back to bite me in the ass.

Well, that's it. I'm never buying anything in a video game again.

EDIT: OK, so getting a peck on the cheek from some lady you helped out gets you a -10 disapproval from Leliana...but sleeping with a prostitute only gets you a -1? What's going on with this woman?

[Thalzon]

Maybe she values genuine affection over "just sex".

[Archaon]

Maybe she values genuine affection over "just sex".

Possibly, but she gets pretty damn stroppy over it if you offer to sleep with Isabela with her in the party, so I don't know about that.

Also, I find it odd that they went to the trouble of making the characters' helmets invisible during cutscenes...but they didn't do the same for sustained spells and whatnot. It's a little jarring to be transparent, glowing white and emitting three different auras when you're having a casual conversation with someone.

That said, I wish they'd just had a "Do not show helmets at all" option, because the majority of them look so damn goofy. Especially the cowls.

[prophetik music]

they did the same thing with kotor. at least they took them out of cutscenes. i liked what they did in Guild Wars, where you can choose to see them only in the field (not in towns), always, or not at all. same with the capes that GW has.

[OverCoat]

the fucking mages cowls look so dumb

why can't I just have a hood

[Arcana]

the fucking mages cowls look so dumb

why can't I just have a hood

this plz

10 characters

[Archaon]

Huh. You know, something just occurred to me. How come there isn't any "One-handed" talent tree? I think that'd be pretty nifty. It'd be the weakest option for auto-attacking and pure damage output, but it'd make up for it with more powerful talents. And they'd be awesome and flashy.

As it is, if you're going to put a weapon in one hand, there's just no reason not to put one in the other as well. Or a shield. That kind of sucks. It'd be cool to play a fencer type of warrior.

I have to say, I found the Landsmeet cutscene to be a bit...underwhelming. I was expecting something more like the courtroom scene in Neverwinter Nights 2, where you finally get to put all those points in Diplomacy to real use and commit a verbal massacre against your enemies, bringing every single one of their lies and misdeeds to light, turning everyone against them with a ferocious speech and leaving your lawyer completely awestruck. None of the actual battles in the game were as satisfying as that moment.

Instead I just felt like I was being cut short. Like the scene was just pressing on without me, even though I had more to say.

*spoiler* And why the hell is Alistair bitching at me for making him king when I already got him to agree to it and marry Anora? You cannot tell me you're OK with me doing it and then give me the "How could you do this to me?" spiel when I do it. Also she is totally hot and honor-bound to get it on with you. Grow a pair.

EDIT: OK, I think my game is bolloxed. *SPOILER* Firstly, Alistair is acting like he's the king now even though I went back and decided to let Queen Anora rule alone to put a stop to his whining. Secondly, when my party members were giving me the send-off before I went to fight the archdemon, Loghain said that it was an honour to stand with me. Except that I personally beheaded Loghain at the Landsmeet. So presumably it was Loghain's invisible ghost?

If I get the wrong ending(s) because of this, I'm going to be very annoyed.

[lazygecko]

Man, there are so many more or less direct analogies to the NWN2 campaign. All the encounters during the road to Lothering is just like getting out of the swamp area in NWN2, complete with a highwayman toll. The landsmeet/trial chapter to disprove the accusations thrown against you (which of course ends with an inevitable duel no matter how well you perform diplomatically), the Ferelden/Orlais grudge and Neverwinter/Luskan grudge, raising your own army to battle the darkspawn/king of shadows, etc.

[Archaon]

Man, there are so many more or less direct analogies to the NWN2 campaign. All the encounters during the road to Lothering is just like getting out of the swamp area in NWN2, complete with a highwayman toll. The landsmeet/trial chapter to disprove the accusations thrown against you (which of course ends with an inevitable duel no matter how well you perform diplomatically), the Ferelden/Orlais grudge and Neverwinter/Luskan grudge, raising your own army to battle the darkspawn/king of shadows, etc.

No kidding, though at least the duel isn't as weakly justified this time around. "OK, you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm guilty, but if I beat you in a duel then I get off scot free and you die." Why would you ever have a law like that??

Anyway, I just finished the game. For all its flaws, even the monotonous and sometimes frustrating combat, AND THAT GODDAMNED SCALING ENEMIES BULLSHIT, I did like it, and I'm probably going to play through it again sooner or later. However, it still didn't come close to dislodging Baldur's Gate from my "King of RPGs" throne. Not that I really expected it to.

[OverCoat]

I think I understood the real meaning behind Dragon Age: Origins

Bioware is pretty much trolling us by making a game that pretty much lifts EVERYTHING from their old D&D RPGs, their "origins" if you will, and then puts a new face on it. There is absolutely nothing new and original about this game, no matter what Marilyn Manson tells you. It's simply a rehash, albeit a very fun and very good rehash of everything they've ever done before.

Maybe they really want people to look at their older D&D games again.

[Archaon]

I think I understood the real meaning behind Dragon Age: Origins

Bioware is pretty much trolling us by making a game that pretty much lifts EVERYTHING from their old D&D RPGs, their "origins" if you will, and then puts a new face on it. There is absolutely nothing new and original about this game, no matter what Marilyn Manson tells you. It's simply a rehash, albeit a very fun and very good rehash of everything they've ever done before.

Maybe they really want people to look at their older D&D games again.

It wouldn't surprise me. They did throw a lot of references to their older works in there. Like the dirty pair of pantaloons that were "possibly golden or silver at one point". Or Gaxkang the totally-not-a-lich.

I'll tell you what, though. I'm definitely not touching this game again until they do something about the memory leak. If I see a loading screen and go off to make myself a sandwich and a cup of coffee, the game should not still be loading by the time I get back. Especially not if it's an area I only left a minute ago.

[lazygecko]

Yes the overall plot is really standard, but that doesn't bother me when it's executed well. What really makes it shine is the party interaction being on the same level as Baldur's Gate 2 (if it doesn't actually surpass it, I've yet only discovered a fraction of it).

I just "cheated" by turning Zevran into a mage. That way I can enjoy all of his banter with Shale and Leilana without having to worry about no healing/CC. Shame it didn't work with the mabari. I gave him flame blast but nothing happens when he uses it... I want my fire-breathing dog, damnit!

[Arcana]

I think I understood the real meaning behind Dragon Age: Origins

Bioware is pretty much trolling us by making a game that pretty much lifts EVERYTHING from their old D&D RPGs, their "origins" if you will, and then puts a new face on it. There is absolutely nothing new and original about this game, no matter what Marilyn Manson tells you. It's simply a rehash, albeit a very fun and very good rehash of everything they've ever done before.

I've never played Baldur's Gate before, but almost all of the reviews I've read said that Dragon Age is a "throwback" and that it's very much a traditional RPG.

I'm fine with that, I don't need every single game to shower me with innovation and unique mechanics. I'm at the point now where I kind of am waiting for the game to end, but if Archeon just beat it then I'm getting pretty close. I see "Landsmeet" and I skip the post contents after it to avoid spoilers.

[anosou]

I think I understood the real meaning behind Dragon Age: Origins

Bioware is pretty much trolling us by making a game that pretty much lifts EVERYTHING from their old D&D RPGs, their "origins" if you will, and then puts a new face on it. There is absolutely nothing new and original about this game, no matter what Marilyn Manson tells you. It's simply a rehash, albeit a very fun and very good rehash of everything they've ever done before.

Maybe they really want people to look at their older D&D games again.

No it's because they will release more Dragon Age games where you import the character and events from "Origins". I bet make-believe money!

[Archaon]

Speaking of sequels, how many of you out there are playing your character as an extreme religious skeptic, knowing full well that you'll be in some way vindicated by the end of the trilogy?

I can almost guarantee that "The Maker" will turn out to be either secretly evil or not real.