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Dragon Age: Origins |OT| Letting The Fade fade out of memory

Ceebs

Member
DieNgamers said:
Deep Roads seriously are much much worse than the fade in that regard. I think I'm stuck now forever. :( I can't defeat
branka
:O There are some problems:
1. I have to use the
stupid dwarf
for story reasons
2. As far as I know there's no turning back because I'm trapped
3. I don't have a single lyrium potion. :(
4. The battle is just unfair!
...When I thought I was close to winning (all golems destroyed) my mana was gone and I used all the lyriumthings on the battlefield. Finally she somehow duplicated herself and gave me the rest. :lol
I may switch to easy for the first time, hopefully that helps.
Have you tried setting the game to easy for just that fight?
 
I am very underwhelmed by Dragon Age: Origins.

I think I am at 80% and does not feel any incentive to finish the game. I play this game on hard PC version. Most of the time I only need to micromanagement Morrigan and Shale (tank) and go through this game with my eyes closed. Then the game throws you a unbalanced group of mercenaries/darkspawn or whatever and I cant seem to beat them without depleting my cache of potions. I refuse to lower the difficulty, the game would fall even further down. The fairly long loading session after death is completely unexcusable. After 5 contineous deaths I just calkl it a night.


+ Though Bioware needs to know when drama is befitting and less jest is more, humor is applied handsomely and it pays off
+ Soundtrack does the job, epic orchestrated music brings the cutscenes to life, the VA is good, so does the script
+ Impressive level of variety in the people that inhabit Ferelden with their own identity and voice, ambitious scale
+ The story is worth telling, Grey Warden mythos feel abit contrived, yet it does the job better than most rpg's through the extensive dialogues
+ The choices feels less black and white than in KOTOR, the game is richer in it choice making and the consequences it befalls the characters
- Graphics are uninspiring, Ferelden is a bland and simplistic place, needs a lot of reading Codex to articulate Ferelden
- Reading Codex feels like watching MGS4 cutscenes, the excessive amount of reading derives from the pacing
- Excessive loading times hammer the experience in gameplay aswell as in world immersion, loading after death is curious
- Animation independent control would really benefit the gameplay, in terms of micromanagement and multitasking, could also be more responsive
- AI tactics are cumbersome and not fun to experiment with, requires a lot of involvement and trail and error, ally AI feels broken
- Morrigan and Wynne have a plethora of usefull skills/spells and spell combinations while dog has 2 skills, Shale not included the rest feels meager aswell
- Some glitches, camera issues, frame rate drops, graphically in nature or just plain bugs pile up
-- Dungeon/level design is not only archaic, but it is bested by Biowares own game from 2003 KOTOR, dungeon design derives from playing a second time
-- Gameplay has camera issues, AI issues, balance issues and control issues, had 10+ gamecrashes in first playthrough
-- Absolutely needed a few more years before releasing such a broken game EA / Bioware, Blizzard would have done that or canceled the project entirely.


6/10
 

Rufus

Member
Really then whats the point of going through the annulment, beside just role playing.
I suppose they could have given you an option to somehow resist the demon's magic, but they obviously wanted it to be part of the experience, so...
About the 'just role-playing' bit:
I see your point, but they don't give you total freedom anyway (you just pick pre-set paths), so why would they here? You get about as much role-playing, i.e. choices affecting the world as they can give you while also having the world acknowledge your choice. You wouldn't get the same production values because recording dialogue for every possible outcome is just too expensive, for example. It's not like Redcliffe, where you could just abandon them to their fate and come back later, since you're just avoiding a battle, essentially. The only difference there is that Eamon has some additional dialogue after you come back, after that everything's the same again.
 

heringer

Member
About the Awakening expansion, did they say how it will begin? Will it import your endgame save and begin the game from the ending you got?
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
heringer said:
About the Awakening expansion, did they say how it will begin? Will it import your endgame save and begin the game from the ending you got?

Yes, or if that isn't possible they have a new origin that starts you as a high level character.
 
Wow, harsh review up there and I don't agree. Also I didn't notice any bugs or gameplay/camera issues. This is probably on of the best RPGs I've played.
Next up: Baldur's Gate 2!!

@ Ceebs: yep, I did it and it worked. ;D It was an easy fight after that. :D
 

heringer

Member
Sinatar said:
Yes, or if that isn't possible they have a new origin that starts you as a high level character.
So if your character died in the end you start this new origin? It would be cool to play as Alistair.
 

Rufus

Member
heringer said:
So if your character died in the end you start this new origin? It would be cool to play as Alistair.
You'll play a Grey Warden from Orlais, what makes you think you could play as Alistair?
 
Rufus said:
You'll play a Grey Warden from Orlais, what makes you think you could play as Alistair?

Alistair is featured in the trailer for it. He may be returning as a companion
provided he didn't get executed or become a wandering drunk
.

But yeah, they've said you're either your wardern or a new guy from Orlais.
 

Speevy

Banned
DieNgamers said:
Wow, harsh review up there and I don't agree. Also I didn't notice any bugs or gameplay/camera issues. This is probably on of the best RPGs I've played.
Next up: Baldur's Gate 2!!

@ Ceebs: yep, I did it and it worked. ;D It was an easy fight after that. :D


I'd probably give DAO a solid 8/10, but KOTOR is about 10 times better.
 

Ashodin

Member
Alistair is talking to you about your charge, so he probably won't come.

Also, I'm having a hard time replaying this game. I keep wanting to choose different people to play through with, and I want a healer. I keep choosing Wynne but she's such an old bat I am starting to hate her.
 

Speevy

Banned
Maxrpg said:
Alistair is talking to you about your charge, so he probably won't come.

Also, I'm having a hard time replaying this game. I keep wanting to choose different people to play through with, and I want a healer. I keep choosing Wynne but she's such an old bat I am starting to hate her.

You can be the healer or simply set Morrigan on the path.
 

Ashodin

Member
Speevy said:
You can be the healer or simply set Morrigan on the path.
I know, but Morrigan would take a couple of levels to fix her up. And I ran with her last playthrough. Sucks not being a Mage this time!

I also didn't know they changed the Blood Dragon armor set in the recent PC patch.

Blood Dragon Armor Set (v1.0)
Silverite (Tier 6)

+3 Strength
+3 Willpower
+4 Armor
+50 Health
-10% Fatigue
Set: +3 Armor
Set: +1 Defense
Set: +1 Missile Deflection

Blood Dragon Armor has been updated to version 1.1 in early December 2009 for PC users. The XBox continues to use this version of the armor.

Requires Blood Dragon Armor (v1.0) DLC. The chest piece begins in your inventory. Helmet, boots, and gloves can be brought from Bodahn or Sandal from party camp. The helm is not required for the set bonus.

This set consists of the chest, helmet, boots and gloves.


Blood Dragon Armor Set (v1.1)
Silverite (Tier 6)

+6 Defense
+40 Health
Set: +3 Armor
Set: +1 Defense
Set: +1 Missile Deflection

This is version 1.1 of Blood Dragon Armor introduced in early December 2009. The XBox version has not been updated.

Requires Blood Dragon Armor (v1.1) DLC. The chest piece begins in your inventory. Helmet, boots, and gloves can be brought from Bodahn or Sandal from party camp. The helm is not required for the set bonus.

This set consists of the chest, helmet, boots and gloves.
 

Himajin

Member
Finally finished DA, after a very bumpy ride that left me wishing that Bioware had balanced their priorities a bit better. I enjoyed the game overall, but there were many little problems that detracted from the experience.

Some examples:

- Party members rushing into traps that the thief has announced to get at enemies on the other side, forcing me to put the whole party on hold while the the thief disarms it.

- Similar problems with melee party members rushing into AoE, again forcing me to put them on hold and move each manually. I really wish characters would stay out of AoE by default, or that they would at least provide an override option in the tactics.

- Graphics were bland and glitchy in a lot of places (PC version). Low poly objects, poor textures, cameras going behind walls, etc. It would also have been nice if they fixed the grease pools floating over staircases given how many multi-level rooms there were in the game.

- The quest log was abysmal, and needs an overhaul to make it more user friendly. The codex log was also a mess, making it very hard to find the information you are looking for.

- It feels like they over invested in the written portion of the game at the expense of other areas. Having deep lore is great, but it's only one part of making a game polished.

- Due to the branching nature of the mid game, the pacing of item upgrades was all out of whack. Some of my characters wearing the same gear for most of the game, which takes a lot of the excitement out of loot.

- The combat was enjoyable and deep for the most part, but I hated the way that any battle with an associated cut scene would clump your party all together in the middle when the battle begins. It would have been nice to be able to have some choice in party member placement before engaging.

- Casters are massively overpowered. Being able to cast spells like Inferno through walls is just broken in my opinion, and the duration of spells like Crushing Prison and Curse of Mortality needed to be a bit shorter.

- There were too many items of marginal value. I ended up just vendoring most balms and trap/poison ingredients because it involved too much micro management and took up too much pack space, and in the end they weren't needed anyway (I played through on Normal mode).

- I'm a downloadable content objector, and the Warden's Keep quest giver at camp rankled me no end. I don't mind that the content is out there for those that want it, just don't take me out of the game experience by rubbing it in my face like that.

These niggles aside, the game had a great story, and most of the characters were interesting and well-developed. It's clear that this is what Bioware excels at, and I realize that some of the things above are necessary sacrifices for creating a branching script with a multitude of drastically different possible outcomes. I just hope they can fix a few of my pet peeves for future content, much like ME2 is a significant improvement over ME1.
 
That is a harsh review up there, the RPG part in the game was just entertaining, levelling up, managing your partry members, I have no complaints on this game.

I think I spent more time playing Dragon Age than Mass Effect 2, I also like Dragon Age better.
 

Grampasso

Member
Trying to set this up on my Notebook PC but I just can't manage to make it run fine.
Does any of you have any tip about how to tweak it? It has a T6600 Core Duo 2, Geforce G102M (512 DDR2), 4GB ram.
I didn't even try to change something in the Video Card settings (I'm not talking about in-game settings) because I fear to do something terribly wrong that will break it up :lol
Anyway it stutters a lot even with all minimum video in-game settings.
Thx =)
 
Grampasso said:
Trying to set this up on my Notebook PC but I just can't manage to make it run fine.
Does any of you have any tip about how to tweak it? It has a T6600 Core Duo 2, Geforce G102M (512 DDR2), 4GB ram.
I didn't even try to change something in the Video Card settings (I'm not talking about in-game settings) because I fear to do something terribly wrong that will break it up :lol
Anyway it stutters a lot even with all minimum video in-game settings.
Thx =)

Though Geforce G102M is a fairly new GPU, it just doesn't have enough balls to run a high quality game, if you know what I mean.

Try updating the drivers, look through Windows 7 update if you have it installed, if not here is the link for the latest drivers.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us

I notice that 195.62 is the latest version for your chip and these drivers were released in Dec/2009. So I am pretty sure you might have them up to date already, just re-check before you download.

I am not sure if I want to suggest any of the overclocking stuff, but just try the game on minimum resolution and everything other setting to lowest or turned off, if it does fairly decent, keep upgrading the setting till you think the game is stable enough for you to play, thats the best I can say man.
 

Rufus

Member
HadesGigas said:
Alistair is featured in the trailer for it. He may be returning as a companion
provided he didn't get executed or become a wandering drunk
.
I don't think he is. They've said one of your former companions is going to come back and in two trailers now we've seen a dwarf who has an uncanny resemblance to Oghren. In the debut trailer you could only see him from the back for a split second. In the spirit dragon trailer he's visible from the front and it's undeniably him, if you ask me. So I assume all Alistair is going to do is reminisce about his time as a warden. He's
king, he can't risk his already limited life any more.
(I'm unsure if I should even spoiler-tag this. When's the statute of limitations on these going to be lifted? Ever?)

Maxrpg said:
I also didn't know they changed the Blood Dragon armor set in the recent PC patch.
There was a texture problem with female elfs, I think. I don't know why they had to gimp it to fix that, but they did both at the same time. There#s a thread in the official forums I'm too lazy to dig up.

Himajin said:
- Party members rushing into traps that the thief has announced to get at enemies on the other side, forcing me to put the whole party on hold while the the thief disarms it.
That annoyed me too, especially with all the ambushes in this game. I could swear they would sometimes avoid the leg-hold traps, but most of the time they ran into those, too.

Himajin said:
- Similar problems with melee party members rushing into AoE, again forcing me to put them on hold and move each manually. I really wish characters would stay out of AoE by default, or that they would at least provide an override option in the tactics.
There are options for this, but I've definitely had them walk stupidly into Blizzards or within AoE of my fireballs etc.
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Tactics Scroll down to behaviours.

Himajin said:
- The quest log was abysmal, and needs an overhaul to make it more user friendly. The codex log was also a mess, making it very hard to find the information you are looking for.
The codex definitely (numbers?!), but the quest log? Why?

Himajin said:
- Due to the branching nature of the mid game, the pacing of item upgrades was all out of whack. Some of my characters wearing the same gear for most of the game, which takes a lot of the excitement out of loot.
My guess as to why the loot sucks? Promo items. :/

Himajin said:
- Casters are massively overpowered. Being able to cast spells like Inferno through walls is just broken in my opinion, and the duration of spells like Crushing Prison and Curse of Mortality needed to be a bit shorter.
They did fix Crushing Prison in the latest patch, though it is (thankfully) still a powerful spell, it usually won't outright kill an elite enemy. On normal at least.

Wow, approaching Black "tl;dr" Falcon territory with this post, scroll-length wise...
 

Grampasso

Member
sweetvar26 said:
Though Geforce G102M is a fairly new GPU, it just doesn't have enough balls to run a high quality game, if you know what I mean.

Try updating the drivers, look through Windows 7 update if you have it installed, if not here is the link for the latest drivers.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us

I notice that 195.62 is the latest version for your chip and these drivers were released in Dec/2009. So I am pretty sure you might have them up to date already, just re-check before you download.

I am not sure if I want to suggest any of the overclocking stuff, but just try the game on minimum resolution and everything other setting to lowest or turned off, if it does fairly decent, keep upgrading the setting till you think the game is stable enough for you to play, thats the best I can say man.
Thx for your suggestions, I will do.
As you have guessed I have the latest drivers for the video card, the notebook is mint - bought on 31/12/2009 - with Windows 7 (64bit). I reinstalled the 32bit version to avoid the "32bit emulation" which I think slows down heavy applications like Dragon Age, and I have to say that though it doesn't run smoothly the difference is clear to me - on lower settings. Will check for other updates =)
 

roxya

Member
Rufus said:
My guess as to why the loot sucks? Promo items. :/

Well it's a BG2 successor. BG2 never had lots of different loot, and some of the really powerful items were collectors edition ones :lol
 

Himajin

Member
Rufus said:
There are options for this, but I've definitely had them walk stupidly into Blizzards or within AoE of my fireballs etc.
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Tactics Scroll down to behaviours.

I did use behaviors to keep all my ranged party members in line, but I had the most trouble with the hero (a sword and board tank) running in while I had switched to Morrigan to unleash some AoE. There may have been further tweaking I could have made, but it wasn't apparent to me.

Rufus said:
The codex definitely (numbers?!), but the quest log? Why?

Although quests are marked when they are updated, after reading them once there didn't seem to be any way to differentiate between quests that were ready to hand in and ongoing ones. I guess I'm just used to being babied a little more in this area.

Rufus said:
My guess as to why the loot sucks? Promo items. :/

I heartily agree, and I think Bioware is treading dangerous ground with making items available in DLC and as promo items more powerful than those available in the vanilla game only after considerable effort. The lack of runes for caster weapons was another pet peeve of mine.

Rufus said:
They did fix Crushing Prison in the latest patch, though it is (thankfully) still a powerful spell, it usually won't outright kill an elite enemy. On normal at least.

I have to admit I never checked for new patches except when I first installed the game (I'm used to Steam auto-patching my games now, but the game wasn't available on Steam in my region). I might actually go back and try the game again with the latest updates, and see if anything else has been fixed.
 
Rufus said:
I don't think he is. They've said one of your former companions is going to come back and in two trailers now we've seen a dwarf who has an uncanny resemblance to Oghren. In the debut trailer you could only see him from the back for a split second. In the spirit dragon trailer he's visible from the front and it's undeniably him, if you ask me. So I assume all Alistair is going to do is reminisce about his time as a warden. He's
king, he can't risk his already limited life any more.
(I'm unsure if I should even spoiler-tag this. When's the statute of limitations on these going to be lifted? Ever?)

Well, what I hope happens is that the returning companion is based on the actions in your game. They've said nothing to suggest this, but I think it would make the most sense. Unless the story somehow revolves around Oghren, but that seems... very doubtful.

Like maybe if Alistair
is king he isn't free to go with you
, so in that case it becomes Oghren (or someone else, and if that person is unavailable then Oghren).

I am interested how they explain certain companions not being with you. Since
Leliana or Zevran can both be eager to continue traveling with the warden at the end of the game. Especially if you're in a romance.
 

Rufus

Member
roxya said:
Well it's a BG2 successor. BG2 never had lots of different loot, and some of the really powerful items were collectors edition ones :lol
I haven't played the game in a long, long time, but I (wrongly?) remember many more named items, both found in chests and as drops from enemies.

Himajin said:
I did use behaviors to keep all my ranged party members in line, but I had the most trouble with the hero (a sword and board tank) running in while I had switched to Morrigan to unleash some AoE. There may have been further tweaking I could have made, but it wasn't apparent to me.
I actually debated turning tactics for my hero off completely, but decided against it ultimately. There's a tactics mod for the PC out there that I haven't looked at but it might fix this behaviour.
Somewhat related: I've found my characters would sometimes hit an enemy once and then just stand there and not follow them, as if they were on hold. Never figured out why that happened.

Himajin said:
I have to admit I never checked for new patches except when I first installed the game (I'm used to Steam auto-patching my games now, but the game wasn't available on Steam in my region). I might actually go back and try the game again with the latest updates, and see if anything else has been fixed.
Just look at the changes here: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Patches The dexterity fix for daggers is one of the more important changes in terms of affecting game-play. That and Shimmering Shield actually deactivating for Arcane Warriors as intended.

HadesGigas said:
Well, what I hope happens is that the returning companion is based on the actions in your game. They've said nothing to suggest this, but I think it would make the most sense.
Possible.
If Alistair rules alone, I doubt he'd be free to go. -> Oghren. If he ran away bawling. -> Oghren. If he rules with anora and hates you for letting Loghain live and become a Warden he might even forgive you and let Anora take over in his absence, though I doubt that he would trust her enough at that point. -> Alistair/Oghren. If you rule, Anora can take over in your absence. -> Alistair.

HadesGigas said:
I am interested how they explain certain companions not being with you.
True.
Leliana and Zevran either stay with you at court or help you rebuild the order if you romanced them, so they would either have to stay behind to - I can't imagine why, actually, or... I don't know, be killed off? Beats me.
Interesting point though, haven't thought about that at all.
 
Played through fully a third time after doing origins as male human noble rogue, female dalish elf warrior, and dual-wielding emphasis male dwarf rogue.

This last time was as a dwarf noble female warrior, dual-handed sword emphasis.

At first I was underwhelmed (and she missed half her strikes...). But in higher levels mixing up things like keeping Rally up, using War Cry to stun/knock down, and then when enemies get up knocking them silly again immediately with Two-Handed sweep...makes things as efficient as dual mages spamming aoe effects. More fun too, sweeping feet from underneath enemies than hiding back there as a mage.

And enemy mages, forget about it. Just run up to them letting the party run interference and slap 'em down with Pommel strike IIRC and a couple to maybe a few swipes offs most of 'em.

Been basically playing nothing but this the past couple weeks, now finally moving on.
 
Quick question...in regards to the human noble origin story
what happened to looking for your brother? I remember when you first get to Ostagar, you're told he's up ahead prepping for battle. And yet after the initial initiation quest, he's never mentioned ever again
Did I miss something or will that plot come back later on? It just seems weird that my character's initial motivation no longer plays a part in the game.
 
Gully State said:
Quick question...in regards to the human noble origin story
what happened to looking for your brother? I remember when you first get to Ostagar, you're told he's up ahead prepping for battle. And yet after the initial initiation quest, he's never mentioned ever again
Did I miss something or will that plot come back later on? It just seems weird that my character's initial motivation no longer plays a part in the game.

For my Noble, his brother showed up at Alistair's coronation post game. I think you can even say something like 'dude where have you been?'

also: I think his/her motivation stays pretty consistent. You are constantly reminded by other characters, both in party and npc that you are a noble. You get alot of dialogue options about Howe, your family, and your Noble status.
 
Alpha-Bromega said:
For my Noble, his brother showed up at Alistair's coronation post game. I think you can even say something like 'dude where have you been?'

also: I think his/her motivation stays pretty consistent. You are constantly reminded by other characters, both in party and npc that you are a noble. You get alot of dialogue options about Howe, your family, and your Noble status.

I was just talking
about searching for your kin.
You're right that the revenge part is constantly there. I just remember that
finding your brother was a huge part of your own motivation as well as getting revenge...just strange to see the brother part fall off completely while your desire for retribution remains
. Good to know that the game addresses that later on though but I probably shouldn't have read the spoiler.
 

ajim

Member
BuckRobotron said:
Played through fully a third time after doing origins as male human noble rogue, female dalish elf warrior, and dual-wielding emphasis male dwarf rogue.

This last time was as a dwarf noble female warrior, dual-handed sword emphasis.

At first I was underwhelmed (and she missed half her strikes...). But in higher levels mixing up things like keeping Rally up, using War Cry to stun/knock down, and then when enemies get up knocking them silly again immediately with Two-Handed sweep...makes things as efficient as dual mages spamming aoe effects. More fun too, sweeping feet from underneath enemies than hiding back there as a mage.

And enemy mages, forget about it. Just run up to them letting the party run interference and slap 'em down with Pommel strike IIRC and a couple to maybe a few swipes offs most of 'em.

Been basically playing nothing but this the past couple weeks, now finally moving on.
I'm playing through as a Human Warrior, and I only use dual-handed weapons. Unlocking the final dual-weapon stat (using any weapon in both hands) is awesome. And the dual-hand sweep is great when you're surrounded by 5 or so enemies, it will take most of them out in one go with the right weapons.
 

r1chard

Member
I'm almost at the end of my second play (didn't finish the first play) ... or at least I'm pretty sure I'm near the end. I've cranked up 120 hours on this damn game and I just want it to end already!!! I'm sick of the crappy camera, the awful character models and their armour that appears to have been designed by 14 year old boys with no effort to stop self-clipping, the NPCs that just stop attacking for no goddamn reason, the other NPCs that throw fucking fireballs into a melee my characters are fighting, the graphical engine that simultaneously manages to stress my PC yet look so goddamn bland...

Damn why can't I stop playing??!
 

Minsc

Gold Member


I don't even know what to make of this scene/shot I encountered recently. It's rather creepy, almost disturbing, with the frightened look on the girl's face. But look at the damned cat's expression! Staring right at you and not your character (like the girl is), like it knows better than everyone else.

Let's leave this place Boo, cats and all!
 

Speevy

Banned
r1chard said:
Damn why can't I stop playing??!


Because Bioware designs its games like this. When you know there's a crapton of content which takes little/no effort to experience, you're going to keep playing.
 

Pancakes

hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Sir Garbageman said:
Definately a creepy scene. That fire puzzle was kind of a pain though.

Especially on the console version, the targeting is so bad.
 

Pancakes

hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Hasphat6462 said:
I thought you get the Helmet of Honnleath even if you killed the little girl?

I think you get it only when you kill the girl. If you save her you get some shitty staff.
 
Pankaks said:
I think you get it only when you kill the girl. If you save her you get some shitty staff.

I think it drops as long as you fight the demon, but the father would give you an extra reward along with the code if you saved the girl.

Gah, my computer crashed Sunday and I don't have DA installed, or else I'd be checking right now.
 

Kadey

Mrs. Harvey
So I'm assuming the customization is like not even half as good on the console versions? I mean how do I selectively get characters to perform certain tasks in battle? I have all these buffs and high level spells but it seems like Morrigan only sticks to regular stuff and all the other nimrods basically just do regular attacks. I feel like I'm the only one doing the real fighting.
 
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