Dragon Age impressions

[Volourn]

I agree the AI continually attacking soemthing in the immunity lobe when they can't hurt is lame when they should be attacking what they can. Just like a PC would. But, that's not the problem with the spell. That's a problem with the AI. I've said before that the AI is good, but it isn't perfect. This is one example. Then again, this happened in other games that has spells like that (including the IE games). That doesn't make it right, and they should fix it. But, that's irrelevant in the 'mages are too powerful' disucssion.

Rogues are useful. And, yeah, rogue skills ar enon combat. Big deal. That's the way it should work. Let's not forget the ranger and bard specializations. the songs cna be nice. No doubt a rogue isn't as powerful as a mage (or wariror) but that doesn't mean they aren't useful in combat.

Warriors, btw, are extremely useful. Not as powerful as mages but extremely awesome.


All that said..

If I had my way, BIO would have scrapped the rogue class altogether and just went with a warrior class (perhaps with a name change) that combined the rogue *and* warrior talents, and a mage class since mages in the DA world are different enough to warrant their own class distinction. That way, you could build your non mage character as you see fit with a mix of fighting/rogue stuff.

 

[RK47]

Rogues can never win in a straight up fight. The reason why they're 'stealthy' and 'crafty' is such. If they catch the mage by surprise, it'll turn out differently.

But I agree Bioware dropped the ball in putting combat skill choices with the thievery skills. That's just a hard choice to make. Extra loot or more use in combat? Bad design. It turns Liana into a T3 of Kotor. You want her for the skills, not for the combat.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

People are fuckin' dumb! I can't believe people actually believe the game would be 'better' if rogues were the equal of mages. That would take the magic out of magic.

The game is balanced fine. Just as D&D games . Rogues should not be the equal of mages. Period.

FFS People are pussies who want things dumbed down, and have their hand held.

Life isn't fair, and not everything is created equal.

Man you throw around so many insults without reason I'm thinking you must be pushed around a lot in real life

 

[Volourn]

You are better off not thinking. L0LZ

 

[Gay-Lussac]

You have my sympathy I pray that someday you'll grow out of this.

 

[JRPG arr rook same]

My impressions on Dragon Age:

Dragon Age is a piece of shit, I already had to suffer through Neverwinter Turd 2, I am not going to suffer through Dragon Turd, directly to the bin this game shall be off to.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

God damn, just fought the broodmother...

The atmosphere leading up to that was well done. It ended up feeling very creepy with the whispering off screen. That area was very well done.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

God damn, just fought the broodmother...

The atmosphere leading up to that was well done. It ended up feeling very creepy with the whispering off screen. That area was very well done.

Yup. The broodmother trailer was cheesy, but it was handled better in the game itself. Much like everything they previewed. The whole Orzammar bit was pretty good actually. Doing the mage circle now and it isn't as neat.

 

[Aditya]

Bahahha I didn't give a chance to that homo elf assassin. Killed him after I beat his ambush.

And yeah, Lliana is a pretty terrible rogue, character skill wise & personality wise. So...dull.

Zevran is actually NOT a homosexual but a BIsexual. He routinely talks about woman as well, rather disappointing... Also, nothing about him is actually pleasant, his appearance, his physique, his voice, they are so very...ordinary. He even sucks at lockpicking (cunning being low, compared to Lelianna)

Shale, so far is one of the best characters IMO. He is bitter, sarcastic (a perfect fit for Codex!) and totally unlike a standard fantasy golem. Just loved interacting with him.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

IMPORTANT SHALE SPOILER: Her.

 

[Aditya]

Oh noes!

At least, 'she' is fun to interact with, unlike that craapy Zevran.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Something about Dragon Age doesn't make a lick of sense to me. The Dwarves are dying out. They know it, and the surfacers know it. They can't take the fight to the Darkspawn real well because they don't have the armed forces needed. They complain that their birth rates suck.



Why not institute a policy where if a casteless enlists, trains, and then either has a decorated combat career (above and beyond normal bounds, of course, not just standard service), *or* dies nobly their family can be kicked up? At least to servant class, which is considered useful and thus much better taken care of?


They have utter scads of Dwarves that are being wasted, or developing some serious skill and using it for the wrong reasons. Why not give them a reason to develop themselves that works for the betterment of the nation? If it offends the upper classes to serve with the 'vermin', make expendable casteless only units. Send a couple battalions of trained casteless to secure and hold the path to that other remote city that's supposedly much worse off. Strengthen the bond between the two.


Some are happy because tons of the buggers would be dying in these expeditions, others would be happy that they were reclaiming Dwarven territory, the casteless have something else to focus, and maybe I won't have to listen to so much bitching from both sides.

 

[Monocause]

Rogues can never win in a straight up fight. The reason why they're 'stealthy' and 'crafty' is such. If they catch the mage by surprise, it'll turn out differently.

But I agree Bioware dropped the ball in putting combat skill choices with the thievery skills. That's just a hard choice to make. Extra loot or more use in combat? Bad design. It turns Liana into a T3 of Kotor. You want her for the skills, not for the combat.

Rogues take more time to get great in combat. Get the assassin specialisation and all the talents that come with it, skills in dual weapons (especially momentum) and the evasion talent. Coup de grace, the talent before Evasion IIRC gives you backstabs against every debilitated character. Remember to put some points in strength now and then, adds to damage. If you find a tome of martial technique, give it to your rogue as warriors can max skills for their weapon of choice rather quickly without any help. Get items that increase crit chance or backstab damage.

Get two decent weapons and watch hordes get killed. With momentum the rogue gets insanely fast. Plus, you've got bombs and poisons which makes the rogue the most versatile party member.

Right now Sten's my tank and my rogue is the main HtH damage dealer. The problem with Lilliana might be that she's got a couple of talents placed in the archery tab, but having some basic skills for the bow can be very useful. It's especially good for taking out mages from afar, the longbow's got longer range than most spells (like the nasty crushing prison you'll do everything to avoid).
And you're exaggerating the utility thief/combat thief issue. Getting the lockpick mastery costs only four talents in total.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Because that is not how the ancestors did it and the dwarves are all about tradition. Although it mentions (At least one of the town criers do) that Bhelen is going to bring hopechange, so maybe if you put him on the throne he intends to do drastic changes like that.

Though you're right, even the dwarves you would think would be more desperate than they are, since there are only two un-connected cities left.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

After playing Elven Mage since I first got the game, a Dwarf Commoner Rogue is a breath of fresh air.


My mage is always starved for resources, grabbing everything he can sell, combing the stores for crafting stuff or equipment he needs, etc.

Where my Dwarven Rogue is accumulating a massive store of essentials and fencable junk just walking around stealing from people. He's not going to have the same damage ability, but damn if it won't be easier on the purse.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I'm in the warp/dream bit in the circle now. Have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS PARTY RPG WHERE AM PARTY????? On the other hand, it's kind of cool and different compared to the rest of the game. And it's funny how much more dangerous a few darkspawn are when you're all on your lonesome without support.

No Orzammar but not ungodly awful.

 

[Coyote]

Hm... after reading through this thread a bit, Dragon Age sounds much more appealing than it has for the last 2-3 years or so (what with difficult battles, scarcity of resources, the effort put into exploring the world's lore, etc.). Especially since it seems like most of the people ITT who played it liked it well enough, and most of the people who are arguing with them haven't played it.

Does anyone more graphics card-savvy know if it would be playable on a dual-core (1.66 GHz) laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a GeForce Go 7400? I picked it up a few years ago when I was on the move a lot to replace my old gaming PC; the graphics card is the main limiting factor. It can run TW fairly well, which most people say runs worse than DA, but it's old enough that I'm not sure whether DA might require some feature that it lacks.

 

[Jim Cojones]

IMPORTANT SHALE SPOILER: Her.

http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Gladys?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

It can run TW fairly well, which most people say runs worse than DA, but it's old enough that I'm not sure whether DA might require some feature that it lacks.

You'd be right on the minimum specs if you're running Vista, with a bit of wiggle room if you're in XP. From what I've heard DA scales pretty well though, so it sounds like minimum specs actually have the game playable with eyecandy turned off.

Windows XP Minimum Specifications

* OS: Windows XP with SP3
* CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
* AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
* RAM: 1GB or more
* Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
* DVD ROM (Physical copy)
* 20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications

* OS: Windows Vista with SP1
* CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
* AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
* RAM: 1.5 GB or more
* Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
* NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
* DVD ROM (Physical copy)
* 20 GB HD space

IMPORTANT SHALE SPOILER: Her.

http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Gladys?

More Shale and Orzammar spoilers, avert your gaze: More along the lines of big daddies in Bioshock. The big secret of the golems is a dwarf was sacrificed in the making of each one, getting molten lyrium poured on them and apparently go through horrible pain, moaning and shrieking as the paragon hammered their bodies into shape. If you've got Shale with you, you can discover her real dwarf name. Shale doesn't have much in the way of memories due to presumably A: insanity from being left standing in-place years and years in the dark underground, B: insanity from being left standing in-place years and years in the middle of a village, and C: mage was experimenting on her. Apparently the golems didn't even need the control rods, but the dwarf king at the time went golem-hungry and ordered control rods to be used and started conscripting/forcing people into the golem making foundry, which is what filled the paragon with guilt.

I liked that whole bit. Makes Shale have a bit more depth than HK-47 for lol hates humans XD and lol hates birds XD

 

[Vibalist]

Does anyone more graphics card-savvy know if it would be playable on a dual-core (1.66 GHz) laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a GeForce Go 7400? I picked it up a few years ago when I was on the move a lot to replace my old gaming PC; the graphics card is the main limiting factor. It can run TW fairly well, which most people say runs worse than DA, but it's old enough that I'm not sure whether DA might require some feature that it lacks.

My rig is pretty similar to yours and it runs fine enough on my computer, though I'm obviously not able to turn the graphics all the way up. Are you using XP?

 

[Annonchinil]

This is kind of ridiculous, after Redcliff the Circle Tower is a walk over, potions are simply thrown at you and the enemy numbers are greatly reduced with very few unique encounters thrown in. Having two mages with heal also makes the game much more manageable. Of course if there is supposedly a part where you have to rely on a single mage than I am not sure how I am going to handle that.

Oh and I got my first book for Morrigan.

 

[made]

There's a "hardcore" mod out that attempts to tone down mages while making the game harder all around.

http://social.bioware.com/project/493/

Some decent changes in there (as well as a few questionable ones):

Hard* difficulty is now the same as Bioware’s nightmare difficulty (*Playing on hard is recommended)
Nightmare difficulty is significantly more difficult
Lyrium potions, health poutices, and injury kits are not useable
AI improvement: enemies will use powerful abilities more often
All enemies have an innate 30% resistance to all spells
Requirements for spells have been changed to a level based requirement
The mana cost and cooldown of all spells and the mana pool of a mage has been significantly altered
Some spells have been removed (they can be skipped while leveling up that tree)
Players no longer gain small amounts of health, stamina, damage, or defense upon leveling
25 tactic slots per character
Injuries are significantly more severe
Rogues gain a skill (not talent) every level, warriors every 2nd level, mages every 3rd level
All shapeshifting is done immediately

 

[Dnny]

Hm... after reading through this thread a bit, Dragon Age sounds much more appealing than it has for the last 2-3 years or so (what with difficult battles, scarcity of resources, the effort put into exploring the world's lore, etc.). Especially since it seems like most of the people ITT who played it liked it well enough, and most of the people who are arguing with them haven't played it.

Does anyone more graphics card-savvy know if it would be playable on a dual-core (1.66 GHz) laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a GeForce Go 7400? I picked it up a few years ago when I was on the move a lot to replace my old gaming PC; the graphics card is the main limiting factor. It can run TW fairly well, which most people say runs worse than DA, but it's old enough that I'm not sure whether DA might require some feature that it lacks.

It runs on my 13" MBP (nvidia 9400m which is an integrated chipset) with medium settings and native (1280x800) resolution. The framerate isn't good but playable, on low settings you can get a very smooth framerate but it's not a first person shooter game so it's perfectly ok at medium with me.

DA is laptop friendly, even with the laptop 5400rpm HD it loads pretty fast which is something I couldn't say about Vampire Bloodlines at its time with a good desktop. I am deeply impressed by the short loading and saving times.

 

[baronjohn]

I am deeply impressed by the short loading and saving times.

Welcome to the New Shit, where low-res textures, no droppable items, no environmental interaction, totally static NPCs, etc, are met with "I like how fast it loads."

 

[Grunker]

Orzammar might be stuffed with lore, great design, and some very cool scenes, but I disliked it most of all in the whole game. Partly because it's repetitive, but mostly because it showed which possibilities lay in this game... Possibilities it ultimately failed. The Broodmother-stuff actually succeeded in being dark and gritty without making me want to cringe. Very few scenes in the rest of the game did this.

I dislike Orzammar, since it shows this game had potential to be much more than it ultimately was. Nowhere is this more clear than in the dwarven halls, since it's a mix of the world's most boring fetchquests, great political intrigue, fantastic dungeoncrawling, and boring, shit dungeoncrawling.