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[Swag]

If it's an offensive wide-ranging or area-of-attack of some sort (i.e. most of the mage's spells), chances are it has friendly fire.

Yeah just tested it wtf, now I'm forced to not have sweet aoe clearing damage :[. Oh well I guess I have room in my party for that rogue now.

 

[Durante]

It's really unhelpful that this is my busiest week at work in months :/

Annah was ALWAYS in my party.

<-- !

 

[MirageDwarf]

No idea what's with the difficulty complaints so far as I'm playing on hard and hadn't had to reload yet. Admittedly i only just beat the ogre

It's mostly for console versions. You have much more tactical control on PC which helps a lot.

 

[Mr Spliff]

Got this game solely based on the positive responses here. Chose this over getting MW2 next week, glad I did, I can wait to play another FPS. First funny moment, I made a white-haired rogue and I clearly look older than my father and everyone else at the start :lol

 

[dionysus]

Dog animations are surprisingly good. That is all.

One more thing. High fantasy is starting to annoy me. I think I have read way too much of it. It is all the same.

 

[Swag]

No idea what's with the difficulty complaints so far as I'm playing on hard and hadn't had to reload yet. Admittedly i only just beat the ogre

There are certain parts of the game where if your playing on hard you'll be pausing after nearly every ability.

Minor area spoiler:

Spoiler

Redcliffe Zombie swarm, was hard as hell

 

[Zeliard]

Yeah just tested it wtf, now I'm forced to not have sweet aoe clearing damage :[. Oh well I guess I have room in my party for that rogue now.

I love friendly fire in games in general, since I think it keeps you on your toes and requires more thought, but I especially love it in games like this and BG2. It's a beautiful and pretty damn natural way to balance things out.

The mage's spells are powerful, and I'm assuming Shale's Quake ability is as well, and to balance their power out you have to be mindful of where every character is before unleashing those moves. Just adds to both the general strategy and to individual battle tactics, especially when it comes to choosing which spells to use and properly positioning your people (I imagine this would get annoying in the console versions, but friendly fire is greatly reduced there, I believe).

 

[Shake Appeal]

Dog animations are surprisingly good. That is all.

One more thing. High fantasy is starting to annoy me. I think I have read way too much of it. It is all the same.

This happened to me when I was 16 and I've never really come back around on it. You just sort of get used to it and enjoy whatever quirks there are in a given universe.

 

[Kaibutsu]

Framerate on ps3 for me has been quite good. Only when things get really chaotic does it really ever get low. Visuals seem nice and crisp as well.

same, haven't been bothered by the frame rate on the ps3 and have been playing for about 3 hours. To each his own

btw, my character is a female blond dalish elf rogue named Deedlit and man is she a bitch

 

[Deacan]

A few quick screen shots.

 

[Acosta]

Yeah just tested it wtf, now I'm forced to not have sweet aoe clearing damage :[. Oh well I guess I have room in my party for that rogue now.

Not true, there are many ways you can crowd control a group and use aoe against them. For example, Sleep is awesome for example, has not friendly fire and allows to stop a huge group. I love using a combination of sleep, blizzard (not sure of the english name, is the fourth tier in ice and then a electric storm for good measure) the effect is devastating, but ity has its tactics problems (and some enemies are not easily affected by sleep).

By the way, some of you saying that you are finding it easy for the troll... the troll is nothing, I guess you think it´s a big deal because it was the fight showed in early videos, but that troll against a full group is a joke. You have not seen anything :lol

 

[luxarific]

It's mostly for console versions. You have much more tactical control on PC which helps a lot.

I'm playing on hard on the 360 version. I have tactics set to have everyone attack the enemy I'm attacking as their first priority and I'm breezing through the game. It's almost too easy.

 

[Darkman M]

I think the PC version has been said to be much harder then the console versions, i have died more times in this game already then i can ever remember in any game ive played. Loving it though.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

So on their social networking site, does my website name need to match my gamertag for my character data to update?

Anyone else managing to get their characters updated yet when you're playing on the 360?

 

[dionysus]

I think the PC version has been said to be much harder then the console versions, i have died more times in this game already then i can ever remember in any game ive played. Loving it though.

Yea, I am having difficulty in the PC version as well. No idea if it is harder than consoles but this is not an easy game. The ogre picked up my tank and beat him to death and he wasn't able to do anything to prevent it. I have died a whole lot. There is no way I could focus fire on one enemy either as I need to control agro quite a bit. One character is not able to tank multiple enemies easily. I am still pretty early though, so who knows how the game changes as I level up.

 

[MirageDwarf]

I'm playing on hard on the 360 version. I have tactics set to have everyone attack the enemy I'm attacking as their first priority and I'm breezing through the game. It's almost too easy.

Haha.

Hey thetrin you might want to try this.

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

"The "content" you're missing out on is merely the loot found in the chests that you can't open without a rogue in your already-limited party of four, but it's content nonetheless (doesn't help that damn near every chest is locked). The skills and abilities of the warrior and mage are strictly limited to enemy encounters, so you don't lose out on anything at all by not using them."


You miss out on "content" when you make a choice that won't let a character join you (and vice versa) or any other dozens of choices in the game. That's the whole point of making choices. If you bring a rogue, you get access to the mickey mouse loot you get in random chests. To be honest, it's quite a bit more trivial than most of the other decisions in the game. Inevitably, you're going to lose out on something in the game.

You only need 16 cunning to max out the coercion and lock picking skills as a Warrior (as long as you are willing assign the points). You can just roll a lock picking warrior if you'd like, can't you? I mean, you have to be willing to trade off the skill points, but only so few of those are melee or combat focused. Everything else is kind of a perk. Traps, herbalism, coercion, and lock picking seem like they could be used to their maximum potential by any class in the game even if lock picking is traditionally the domain of a rogue.

 

[iam220]

Couple of questions for tonights session:

Do mages get "knock" spells that unlock doors/chests like in BG?
Can you change your difficulty level mid game also like in BG?

 

[Swag]

Not true, there are many ways you can crowd control a group and use aoe against them. For example, Sleep is awesome for example, has not friendly fire and allows to stop a huge group. I love using a combination of sleep, blizzard (not sure of the english name, is the fourth tier in ice and then a electric storm for good measure) the effect is devastating, but ity has its tactics problems (and some enemies are not easily affected by sleep)

I didn't mean to say that it wasn't possible to crowd control groups, I was just a little peeved I guess that it didn't say in the ability tool tip that it would cause friendly fire. I was kinda left in the dark as to what exactly was killing my clothies so fast.

I like the idea that there are consequences for using powerful abilities and that one has to be mindful of positioning and such, it really is a good idea and adds another dimension to strategy, but I've just tended to gravitate away from those abilities. I find it easier to just take care of enemies one by one instead of having an aoe zerg.

 

[Darkman M]

Yea, I am having difficulty in the PC version as well. No idea if it is harder than consoles but this is not an easy game. The ogre picked up my tank and beat him to death and he wasn't able to do anything to prevent it. I have died a whole lot. There is no way I could focus fire on one enemy either as I need to control agro quite a bit. One character is not able to tank multiple enemies easily. I am still pretty early though, so who knows how the game changes as I level up.

Yeah you can't tank the orge i lost many times trying, i just ran in circles with the character who had aggro while everyone else use ranged attacks/magic to pick him off and ended up barely winning with only one guy left.

One thing that's helping me now is when there are large groups of enemy's i run out and try to draw a few of them at a time and bring them back to the party instead of bomb rushing them all at once.

 

[LCfiner]

Couple of questions for tonights session:

Do mages get "knock" spells that unlock doors/chests like in BG?
Can you change your difficulty level mid game also like in BG?

1. I've seen nothing concerning knock spells when going through the spellbook and I read somewhere that they don't come up at any time, either (in case I missed it)

2. yes. you can change difficulty at any time (maybe not in the middle of battle, though)

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Yea, I am having difficulty in the PC version as well. No idea if it is harder than consoles but this is not an easy game. The ogre picked up my tank and beat him to death and he wasn't able to do anything to prevent it. I have died a whole lot. There is no way I could focus fire on one enemy either as I need to control agro quite a bit. One character is not able to tank multiple enemies easily. I am still pretty early though, so who knows how the game changes as I level up.

Haven't tried the PC version but "nightmare" on the 360 is proving to be no joke.

Focus fire is a must and you leave one character out alone by themself at the start of a fight, they won't be around long.

So far, just going through the dwarf noble intro, the every one of the later fights in the intro require a strategy.

And I haven't even gotten into properly utilizing traps, and random enviromental attacks that seem to be in some of the maps.

Spoiler

ballistas FTW

 

[∀ Narayan]

Got the deluxe version off of Steam.

I need to beat STALKER and The Witcher before I touch this, though.

 

[RoH]

Okay well I went to best buy during my lunch break to check some stuff out, and I came across a demo unit with this game in it (Xbox 360). The game did not look to good. I want to pick this up for my PC should I expect it to look very similar to the 360 version? (its a decent system 4850)

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Okay well I went to best buy during my lunch break to check some stuff out, and I came across a demo unit with this game in it (Xbox 360). The game did not look to good. I want to pick this up for my PC should I expect it to look very similar to the 360 version? (its a decent system 4850)

PROTip

...some games you play because of the graphics. Some games, the graphics do not matter.

Dragon Age falls into the latter.

 

[Tenks]

If you use Weaken on the ogre he becomes significantly easier. I'm not sure if he flat out isn't allowed to pick up and pummel your tank with it or not but he never did that when I cast that.

 

[luxarific]

Haha.

Hey thetrin you might want to try this.

I'm not sure this strategy will work on bosses (unless the

Spoiler

ogre at the top of the What's-It-Called Tower at the beginning of the human noble origin story counts as a boss - he died in less than 60 seconds (although I was ticked because Alastair landed the killing blow and got the XP)

:lol). But for the mobs I'm fighting so far, concentrated fire really makes short work of them. You and your characters take damage, but usually nobody dies before the whole mob is dead.

 

[Zeliard]

My battle with the ogre was pretty epic. The last man standing was my player character, the Elf Mage, and I ended up defeating the ogre with only a sliver of health left.

 

[iam220]

2. yes. you can change difficulty at any time (maybe not in the middle of battle, though)

Excellent, thanks. I guess now I won't be so paranoid about going with the hard difficulty.

 

[Darkman M]

My battle with the ogre was pretty epic. The last man standing was my player character, the Elf Mage, and I ended up defeating the ogre with only a sliver of health left.

Same here :lol but my guy is a warrior who used a bow & arrow to finish him.

 

[Lime]

Damnit, the pre-load for the European release is going incredibly slow. Like below 100 kb/s. I'm afraid I won't be able to launch it at midnight. Any tips or info to avoid this slow speed (besides the obvious "pre-loading days in advance")?

EDIT: Nevermind, the download rate has risen to 600 kb/s. Acceptable, I guess.

 

[MirageDwarf]

Got the deluxe version off of Steam.

I need to beat STALKER and The Witcher before I touch this, though.

You're already late to the party for these two games. Why not wait more and play DA now instead of adding DA in backlog?

For me, it's more fun to play when everybody else is also playing when I'm.

 

[Proc]

The question is steam or retail. Does any one know how big the download is? Knowing this will decide for me

 

[garath]

You only need 16 cunning to max out the coercion and lock picking skills as a Warrior (as long as you are willing assign the points). You can just roll a lock picking warrior if you'd like, can't you? I mean, you have to be willing to trade off the skill points, but only so few of those are melee or combat focused. Everything else is kind of a perk. Traps, herbalism, coercion, and lock picking seem like they could be used to their maximum potential by any class in the game even if lock picking is traditionally the domain of a rogue.

You can't get lockpicking with any class other than a rogue. Even the rogue's lockpicking skill is only an enhancement. Rogues can lockpick without any points in it at all.

Couple of questions for tonights session:

Do mages get "knock" spells that unlock doors/chests like in BG?
Can you change your difficulty level mid game also like in BG?

No knock spells. Yes you can change the difficulty mid-game.

The question is steam or retail. Does any one know how big the download is? Knowing this will decide for me

A little over 15 gigs from Steam.

 

[stuminus3]

First impressions (1 evening of play, around 3 hours I guess), peasant 360 version.

I really have to get further in the game and digest much more of the content before I can make a definitive decision on whether I think or not I think this is the game some of us have been wanting BioWare to make for 8 years now, but I have to say so far so good. I can't put my finger on what gives it that Baldur's Gate vibe because it's superficially so similar to BioWare's other post-BG games but I'm really feeling it already. Curiously, I also agree with the guy that posted a while back that says it's different enough to stand on it's own and shouldn't be shackled to Baldur's Gate at all. I know for sure I was more interested in this than Mass Effect 2 because of Baldur's Gate, but now that it's here I think it should be allowed to stand on it's own.

Visuals were initially a bit of a shock compared to Mass Effect... I was :lol at the opening scene (Human Noble origin) with it's ugly character models with their giant mutant hands and their faces that have clearly been slapped with the Bethesda stick. I got control and started walking around and got another :lol at a game world that felt straight out of a PC game from 2003. Then, I dunno, maybe it was because it was so smooth (very surprising for a BioWare console game!), maybe it was the art direction, it all started looking pretty good to me.

Then I

Spoiler

killed some rats with my dog

which once again brought a :lol to my face as my character casually walked around talking to people drenched in silly looking fake blood. Oh well.

The graphics did seem to get better as I progressed, especially once I got to more open scenic areas, and the visuals during battles can get amazing, so I guess it gets a pass in the end. It's very smooth on 360 too, the difference between Dragon Age and Mass Effect is like night and day in that regard.

I'm not having any problem with the console interface yet, it's very slick for what it is and so far I've always been able to do to exactly what I want to do with it. I'll have to admit, being a big fan of the "space bar" gameplay of the older Infinity Engine games, the first time I held LT to pause and bring up the radial menu I literally said "wtf is this stupid crap?!" out loud. I quickly got the hang of it though, and now I love it. It's odd that it's right there in the middle of the screen you're trying to look at, but it's really not that obtrusive at all, and it's pretty natural once you get it. Kudos to BioWare for getting this right. I really don't buy what some reviewers are saying about the game playing differently because there's not so much pausing on the console versions, I'm dropping straight into tactical pause mode the second I see a single hostile, it's different but I'm paused just as often as I used to be in Baldur's Gate.

Protip: switch the radial menu from "hold" to "toggle" in the options. It makes it easier to naturally spend more time in pause mode since you're not having to hold the button down the whole time and it makes it feel more like the old Infinity games, but in glorious 3D.

So far I'm having a really good time, but I really need to spend a whole lot more time to know where it stands in my hierarchy of BioWare games I love. The potential to dethrone Baldur's Gate and KOTOR is there...

Oh, and you "master race vs peasant" types, give it up please. This game is way too good regardless of what you play on, and I've played CRPGs on PC since before the dawn of time so I know for sure that it's wrong to say the console versions of DA are outright "bad", it's clearly not true. We should all be standing together against those nasty JRPG fans... CRPGs FTW!

 

[JoeBoy101]

For those that finished off the Ogre via Bow or Magic, did you get a similar bad-ass animation flourish like sword wielders got?

 

[painey]

so I normally play as good, but i hate that recent games (fallout etc) limit the achievements you can unlock by making you miss out on major quests by being an arsehole.. can you be bad in this game and still get the romance and main quest achievements?

 

[JoeBoy101]

We should all be standing together against those nasty JRPG fans... CRPGs FTW!

I can get behind this platform.

 

[LCfiner]

so I normally play as good, but i hate that recent games (fallout etc) limit the achievements you can unlock by making you miss out on major quests by being an arsehole.. can you be bad in this game and still get the romance and main quest achievements?

pretty sure if you're an asshole dude, Morrigan will want to have babies with you.

 

[JoeBoy101]

so I normally play as good, but i hate that recent games (fallout etc) limit the achievements you can unlock by making you miss out on major quests by being an arsehole.. can you be bad in this game and still get the romance and main quest achievements?

The game has no indicator/label/measure for good or bad. Either you do them or you don't. Now being a dick might limit your romance options, but you do find and can use a brothel, and I'm betting Morganna won't be shied off from cocking-about behavior.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

I can get behind this platform.

Ding ding!

 

[Zeliard]

PROTip

...some games you play because of the graphics. Some games, the graphics do not matter.

Dragon Age falls into the latter.

Actually, on PC with everything maxed out, the game is frequently good-looking. The graphics have their inconsistencies but they can be pretty damn impressive at times, both in isometric and in third-person. The visuals get better as you progress and start venturing into new environments.

 

[JoeBoy101]

The question is steam or retail. Does any one know how big the download is? Knowing this will decide for me

Steam version does come with the DLC Warden's Keep. Essentially an extra side-quest and your own stronghold, but it also has a chest for storage. And I will say, I have hit the inventory cap already once, not 3 hours in.

 

[garath]

Steam version does come with the DLC Warden's Keep. Essentially an extra side-quest and your own stronghold, but it also has a chest for storage. And I will say, I have hit the inventory cap already once, not 3 hours in.

Only the digital deluxe version comes with Warden's keep (and it's $15 more expensive than the regular version). The regular version is also on steam.

You can buy Warden's keep for $7 separately regardless.

 

[wayward archer]

I've played about 4 hours as a City Elf Rogue and decided to start another game as a human warrior although i'm probably going to play the rogue to completion first. Awesome game so far. 360 version pretty much feels like a next gen fantasy KOTOR (complete with the silent protagonist), although a bit deeper. It is really easy so far but I am playing only on normal but i'm still having a good time because it's rather relaxed and I don't feel the pressure to min-max in order to optimize my performance.

The tactics "programming" is pretty basic but fun for me, but then again I'm one of those people who learned how to script the party AI so I could fine tune every character's behavior in IWD so other people may not be as amused by it as I am.

All in all, top notch game, and from what I've played so far I wouldn't mind if this turned into a decent sized series.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Actually, on PC with everything maxed out, the game is frequently good-looking. The graphics have their inconsistencies but they can be pretty damn impressive at times, both in isometric and in third-person. The visuals get better as you progress and start venturing into new environments.

I just can't remember ever playing an RPG where the graphics rocked me. Although I was weaned on Bard's Tale on the Amiga and Dungeons of Daggorath on the TSR...something or other, so my standards aren't exactly sky-high.

I'm just growing weary of all the graphics/anti-aliasing/sys-spec talk.

 

[CidHighwind89]

Just got this game yesterday. Got the collector's edition for pc. Played through the first part and I am loving it so far.

Question for anyone who has the pc version. Anyone having trouble logging into their account in the game? It keeps on giving me a cannot connect to dragon age servers error.

 

[Minsc]

I just can't remember ever playing an RPG where the graphics rocked me. Although I was weaned on Bard's Tale on the Amiga and Dungeons of Daggorath on the TSR...something or other, so my standards aren't exactly sky-high.

I'm just growing weary of all the graphics/anti-aliasing/sys-spec talk.

Risen seems to be the most recent example of such an RPG.

 

[markatisu]

Just got this game yesterday. Got the collector's edition for pc. Played through the first part and I am loving it so far.

Question for anyone who has the pc version. Anyone having trouble logging into their account in the game? It keeps on giving me a cannot connect to dragon age servers error.

Thats not just a PC error, I had that happen 4 times yesterday on the 360

Just keep trying and you should get through

 

[FlyinJ]

Can someone explain to me how they go about micro-managing their party in the 360 version?

Is there a way to pause the game and give orders without having that huge interface thing on the screen? One of the things I can't figure out is how to tell a character to use on of their quick abilities while I'm left-trigger paused over them. Is there any way to assign orders to each of your guys without the game unpausing every time you give an order?

Also, is there a way to get "switch weapon" on a hotkey?