Dragon Age - New patch released

[Dnny]

Hell, if you want the Blood Mage skill you can always get it and reload since it's just an unlockable. .

Wait, what?

Class specializations are unlockable like achievements and once done, can be given to any character you create or save you reload. So you don't need to pactize with a demon to make your character a blood mage on your next run, or if you are a little bitch, when you reload before your talk with the demon. Which does not make sense because there is no way to learn blood magic if you haven't made contact with a demon or a great human blood mage theoretically speaking.

Roleplaying and consequences, the DA way.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

It's the NEW SHIT.

 

[Volourn]

"DA has better combat. That's about it. "

It also has better characters, better writing, better characetr system, better graphics, better music (except ARC's theme music was fuckin' awesome), etc., etc.



"BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY STEAMPUNK CRPG THE MARKET IS FLOODED WITH THEM LIES"

Fuckin' FF did it first FFS.



"Yeah, black&white. He truly is evil, right.
Ìf you ever played a mage and had the spell that allowed you to call the dead back to the material world you'd realize how wrong you are. They HATED it so much, to be disturbed from the great peace they felt in the state of the "after-death". He is not evil, he wanted the whole world to end suffering through reaching the eternal state of this peace of mind."

Boring. Banal. Bland. Been there done that. He sounds evil to me. Forcing people to do things your way is the fuckin' defintion of evil. Hge was a pyshoc. Fuckin' deal with it.

I cna't believe you would side with a puschopath. LMAO

 

[J1M]

"The setting is original"

No. This is the Ultimate Bullshit Lie tm..

BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY STEAMPUNK CRPG THE MARKET IS FLOODED WITH THEM LIES

"enemy" has an actual motive as to why he wants to destroy the world"

His motive is retarded, and is not really all that different. And, ARC was the ultimate of black and white, sorry. There was no 'gray

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMZi217RUUY

Yeah, black&white. He truly is evil, right.
Ìf you ever played a mage and had the spell that allowed you to call the dead back to the material world you'd realize how wrong you are. They HATED it so much, to be disturbed from the great peace they felt in the state of the "after-death". He is not evil, he wanted the whole world to end suffering through reaching the eternal state of this peace of mind.

That reason is so many levels of retarded that you should be able to come up with several on your own...

 

[Dnny]

"BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY STEAMPUNK CRPG THE MARKET IS FLOODED WITH THEM LIES"

Fuckin' FF did it first FFS.

FF are more like SciFi bits bolted on fantasy than steampunk. I fail to see the Jules Verne in the FF.
Just having "airships" does not make a game steampunk.

I cna't believe you would side with a puschopath. LMAO

I can't believe anyone would think outside the sheepbox. LMAO

 

[Silellak]

Which does not make sense because there is no way to learn blood magic if you haven't made contact with a demon or a great human blood mage theoretically speaking.

Jowan didn't do either of those, from what I remember. He just found some forbidden books inside of the Mage Tower and picked up the basics.

 

[Drakron]

Which does not make sense because there is no way to learn blood magic if you haven't made contact with a demon or a great human blood mage theoretically speaking.

Only Reaver, Duelist, Blood Mage and Arcane Warrior requires some kind of quest to be unlocked.

Funny enough Ranger is only available as a tome.

You have a point if Shapeshifter was shown as a rare and uncommon type of magic keep in secret due to the Chantry and then you can unlock it by a tome.

In short, the specialization system is simply badly implemented.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Guys I've just reached an astonishing conclusion: some people like a game for a reason, while others dislike it for other reasons.

How can such thing be possible :

Best post ever.

 

[J1M]

Which does not make sense because there is no way to learn blood magic if you haven't made contact with a demon or a great human blood mage theoretically speaking.

Jowan didn't do either of those, from what I remember. He just found some forbidden books inside of the Mage Tower and picked up the basics.

Yeah, and that little bitch never offered to teach me, so he got executed by Arl Redcliffe.

May as well put this here because there are 1100 DA topics, but was anyone else disappointed that they were not able to use the warden's right of conscription more often? I tend to play Bioware games by making whatever choice sounds more collar-grabbing, because that's where the good writing seems to go. Destroying the Dalish and turning them into my own personal werewolf honor guard? Pretty damn collar-grabbing if you ask me.

When I got to the dwarves and heard that they were having a petty squabble over who got to be king my first thought was to just conscript all of the candidates for king, thereby converting their political structure into a republic led by the assembly. Sadly this was not an option and I was forced to do the dungeons like a common thug. Not as collar-grabbing as it could have been.

 

[Gold]

I never experienced CTD's. This may have something to do with the fact that I had to restart my game constantly thanks to memory leaks causing slow-downs.

Apart from that--and it's a big that, since the slow-downs got progressively worse--then yeah, it's a technically sound game.

I have 8 gigs of ram, a 4850 and a quad core if I play for more than 45-minutes straight I can get up, go do something else for 10 mins to come back and see it still loading. F5, then Alt+F4 before every loading screen seems to be my only remedy.

 

[Silellak]

Which does not make sense because there is no way to learn blood magic if you haven't made contact with a demon or a great human blood mage theoretically speaking.

Jowan didn't do either of those, from what I remember. He just found some forbidden books inside of the Mage Tower and picked up the basics.

Yeah, and that little bitch never offered to teach me, so he got executed by Arl Redcliffe.

May as well put this here because there are 1100 DA topics, but was anyone else disappointed that they were not able to use the warden's right of conscription more often? I tend to play Bioware games by making whatever choice sounds more collar-grabbing, because that's where the good writing seems to go. Destroying the Dalish and turning them into my own personal werewolf honor guard? Pretty damn collar-grabbing if you ask me.

When I got to the dwarves and heard that they were having a petty squabble over who got to be king my first thought was to just conscript all of the candidates for king, thereby converting their political structure into a republic led by the assembly. Sadly this was not an option and I was forced to do the dungeons like a common thug. Not as collar-grabbing as it could have been.

Fun fact:

Jowan was planned to be another companion. The Warden would have used the Right of Conscription to recruit him after Arl Eamon was healed. However, this was cut very early in the game.

From:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Jowan

 

[Balthamael]

Thankfully Jowan got cut. His voice actor is atrocious. I had the faggot hanged just for that reason.

 

[SCO]

Arcanum has ton more freedom, the story and the ending are spectacularly done and had far more consequences than just "Alistair, or the bitch, or both are king+queen omglol" and while most of the party npc suck cocks the game was truly enjoyable. The setting is original (the only serious cRPG attempt at steampunk) and the music top notch. And I don't ever remember spending AN HOUR in a dungeon while doing nothing but killing monsters. There was combat, and the combat wasn't good in Arcanum but it never dragged you to HOURS long boring encounters.

That's already far more than DA ever achieved. Arcanum easily sits in the top three rpg, in any place you give it (whether it be first, second or third is subjective matter, I'd easily rate it first ignoring the flaws)

There was far more stuff to do in Arcanum. Just something like stealing actually had a risk and consequence, the attempt at doing rogue quests in DA was laughable and stealing shit had no risk to account for.

Arcanum actually gives you a choice as to what you want to be, and do, to the world. You didn't have to be the world-saver. You had a choice.
No matter what you do in DA, you are the grey warden who WILL slay the stupid, animal-brained Archdemon and no matter who's in charge of ferelden things won't change much.

DA boasts itself as a very grey and gritty setting. It was actually bland. What would have seemed like the evil choice in Arcanum actually feels much more grey than anything you can do in DA and your "enemy" has an actual motive as to why he wants to destroy the world, not just "i am a world-destroying beast".

While i haven't played DA, i agree that Arcanum is obviously superior.


But you seem to have blacked out the BTC mines where you spend more than a hour disarming traps if you're unlucky with your build.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I explained why. Haven't seen you addressing my arguments though.

Oh, the famous Redcliffe quest; a quest almost in the level of Megaton moronity. Good argument.

Good "ur arguments r stupid lol" counter-argument.

Explain to me what makes the "choices" so different from one another, and more importantly their outcome. This is nothing but the legendary "fake BioWare C&C" at work, VD. You kill the child, the curse ends. You kill the mother, kill the demon, the curse ends. You don't kill anyone, kill the demon, the curse ends. You don't kill the demon, the curse ends.

If you look at things from this perspective then no RPG has ever had any real choices and no RPG will. No matter what you do in Fallout the master dies and the super mutants threat is over. Teh world is safe once again. Well, at least until the sequel.

Let's take Bloodlines, since you've mentioned it and walk through it.

Hub #1:

Get the explosives from the beach house. You get several different ways, 0 consequences. You've always end up getting the explosives. Duh.

Mercurio asks you to keep his incompetence a secret. You can do so and get an option to buy more guns from him later. If you tell on him, you will have to buy guns from other vendors a bit later or find them elsewhere. Decisions, decisions...

Then walk through a linear and LONG haunted hotel enjoying the scripted events. Did I mention it was long?

Then slash the paintings (optional): different ways to gain entrance, same outcome: slash the paintings, fight the guardian. Then go to the diner, get ambushed, kill the thugs, talk to the "sisters" and pick an option. The only difference between the options is that the hardest option gives you an extra skill point. Yay! Otherwise, there is no difference and no matter what you picked, your next step - the nosferatu - is unlocked.

One hub down, 3 to go.

Hub #2:

Inspect the sarcophagus - one way to get on the ship, two ways to get close, same result, same consequences or lack thereof.

Find Grout - the FPS time! - fight your way through, then fight your way out. 0 variations, 0 consequences.

Go to the museum - fight or sneak. 0 consequences.

Find the nosferatu lair in the sewers - the lowest point of the game where players start regretting investing into conversation skills. You fight a shitload of creatures, or run really fast or sneak until you get to the lair.

Side quests include but not limited to "kill some plague spreading vampire in a hotel", "kill another plague spreading vampire in the sewers", and finally "shoot a LOT of zombies in the face in some warehouse, followed by kill the final vampire culprit". Although you can talk to all of them, the only solution is to kill them all. Whether or not you kill them or ignore, the consequences are zero and the horrible plague doesn't affect the game at all.

Would you like me to continue?

Also, "the best since" doesn't mean "as good as". In case you were, like, wondering.

Remember Bloodlines?

Vaguely. Something about vampires, right?

Don't even get me started on how Bloodlines' quests were designed and handled. It might have been a quite unpolished game, but it's miles beyond the crap that Dragon Age is.

Miles beyond, eh? Sounds awesome. I would surely like to learn more about it.

 

[Tails]

If you look at things from this perspective then no RPG has ever had any real choices and no RPG will. No matter what you do in Fallout the master dies and the super mutants threat is over. Teh world is safe once again. Well, at least until the sequel.

As far I remember player could get "bad ending" by joining Mutants Army or being forced to join. Without slide-show of course but still. Also player could say no and end up in prison, but I quiet don't remember what was beyond it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the escape would be possible.

Also:
"better writing"
No.

 

[J1M]

Which does not make sense because there is no way to learn blood magic if you haven't made contact with a demon or a great human blood mage theoretically speaking.

Jowan didn't do either of those, from what I remember. He just found some forbidden books inside of the Mage Tower and picked up the basics.

Yeah, and that little bitch never offered to teach me, so he got executed by Arl Redcliffe.

May as well put this here because there are 1100 DA topics, but was anyone else disappointed that they were not able to use the warden's right of conscription more often? I tend to play Bioware games by making whatever choice sounds more collar-grabbing, because that's where the good writing seems to go. Destroying the Dalish and turning them into my own personal werewolf honor guard? Pretty damn collar-grabbing if you ask me.

When I got to the dwarves and heard that they were having a petty squabble over who got to be king my first thought was to just conscript all of the candidates for king, thereby converting their political structure into a republic led by the assembly. Sadly this was not an option and I was forced to do the dungeons like a common thug. Not as collar-grabbing as it could have been.

Fun fact:

Jowan was planned to be another companion. The Warden would have used the Right of Conscription to recruit him after Arl Eamon was healed. However, this was cut very early in the game.

From:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Jowan

That is more nepotism than collar-grabbing.

The collar-grabbing thing to do to save Jowan's life would have been to conscript the Arl.

 

[Satori (original)]

Explain to me what makes the "choices" so different from one another, and more importantly their outcome. This is nothing but the legendary "fake BioWare C&C" at work, VD. You kill the child, the curse ends. You kill the mother, kill the demon, the curse ends. You don't kill anyone, kill the demon, the curse ends. You don't kill the demon, the curse ends.

If you look at things from this perspective then no RPG has ever had any real choices and no RPG will.

True, they don't actually affect the game all to much, simply dialogue, but it's how the dialogue and motivations of the characters are changed or not changed, despite the linearity, that really matters and this can be accomplished through dialogue and descriptions, it's a cop-out sure but we're playing RPGs on computers with all the comprises that brings and not P&P.

No matter what you do in Fallout the master dies and the super mutants threat is over. Teh world is safe once again. Well, at least until the sequel.

Aye but at least it was at the end, having side quests/main quests be C&C free doesn't really give off an impression of immersion or quality and unless handled well, feels like the developers didn't give a toss.

 

[Drakron]

You can also end the game by being killed, there is no difference of that and being dipped.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Thankfully Jowan got cut. His voice actor is atrocious. I had the faggot hanged just for that reason.

in german his voice is OK, but if you play elven mage you sound like a 16 year old faggot.
However if you play human mage, there is a voice-set spoken by the same voice actor like Sarevok / Khelgar. Which is kinda cool.


Also: Bloodlines > DA, 'nuff said

 

[aries202]

There is a difference between a story driven game like DA: Origins and a freeform sandbox game like Fallout 3. In the latter, you can go almost anywhere and be everyone, so to speak. In the former, the designers must at some point lead you down the intended road - and so the the game must end.

As for being a Grey Warden (spectre anyone?) I despise this, too. I much better liked the story of BG1 in which you did not know who you were, bit found out about your heritage along the way, trying to solve the iron crisis.

 

[Volourn]

"Just having "airships" does not make a game steampunk"

You are a moron. Who said they did?



"As for being a Grey Warden (spectre anyone?)"

Very little in common with spectrfes. Spectres are just fancy police officers. Grey Wardens exist for one reason only, and that's to end the blight/archdemon/darkspawn.


"I much better liked the story of BG1 in which you did not know who you were, bit found out about your heritage along the way, trying to solve the iron crisis."

You.. are... MY BROTHER... AND WE ARE GODS!


"Thankfully Jowan got cut"

But, eh didn't get cut.

DA > BL

DA > ARC

DA > BG

 

[J1M]

"As for being a Grey Warden (spectre anyone?)"

Very little in common with spectrfes. Spectres are just fancy police officers. Grey Wardens exist for one reason only, and that's to end the blight/archdemon/darkspawn.

In practice they are both elite groups of warriors that operate above the law. Spectres aren't UN peacekeeping troops and Grey Wardens seem to do an awful lot of finding someone's lost son and clearing out dens of criminals to not be considered law enforcement.

 

[Volourn]

In practice they are both elite groups of warriors that operate above the law."

Spectre are police officers. They *are* the law.



"Grey Wardens seem to do an awful lot of finding someone's lost son and clearing out dens of criminals to not be considered law enforcement."

That's YOUR PC's choice. GW's only goal is to stop the blight. Period. Everything else is irrelevant. They don't care about laws, or justice, or any of that other bullshit.

 

[1eyedking]

If you look at things from this perspective then no RPG has ever had any real choices and no RPG will. No matter what you do in Fallout the master dies and the super mutants threat is over. Teh world is safe once again. Well, at least until the sequel.

You can join the mutants; at two points in the game.

Haven't we been over this already? Alzheimer's kicking in, VD, you better check your medication's nearby.

Let's take Bloodlines, since you've mentioned it and walk through it.

Hub #1:

Get the explosives from the beach house. You get several different ways, 0 consequences. You've always end up getting the explosives. Duh.

And what other kind of outcome do you expect?

Mercurio asks you to keep his incompetence a secret. You can do so and get an option to buy more guns from him later. If you tell on him, you will have to buy guns from other vendors a bit later or find them elsewhere. Decisions, decisions...

It's actually a pain in the ass to lose him as a vendor.

Then walk through a linear and LONG haunted hotel enjoying the scripted events. Did I mention it was long?

At least it was atmospheric and well suited. Dragon Age doesn't get anywhere near that. Want me to link Leliana's song?

Then slash the paintings (optional): different ways to gain entrance, same outcome: slash the paintings, fight the guardian. Then go to the diner, get ambushed, kill the thugs, talk to the "sisters" and pick an option. The only difference between the options is that the hardest option gives you an extra skill point. Yay! Otherwise, there is no difference and no matter what you picked, your next step - the nosferatu - is unlocked.

Yes, it's linear as hell. But hey, you can sneak, you can kill, and you can talk. In DA you mostly kill or skip quests. I still don't see the latter being any better.

You also forgot about how different the game plays as a Nosferatu. And as a Malkavian, even if a little less. Now where did you leave those pills...

Hub #2:

Inspect the sarcophagus - one way to get on the ship, two ways to get close, same result, same consequences or lack thereof.

Find Grout - the FPS time! - fight your way through, then fight your way out. 0 variations, 0 consequences.

Go to the museum - fight or sneak. 0 consequences.

Find the nosferatu lair in the sewers - the lowest point of the game where players start regretting investing into conversation skills. You fight a shitload of creatures, or run really fast or sneak until you get to the lair.

Side quests include but not limited to "kill some plague spreading vampire in a hotel", "kill another plague spreading vampire in the sewers", and finally "shoot a LOT of zombies in the face in some warehouse, followed by kill the final vampire culprit". Although you can talk to all of them, the only solution is to kill them all. Whether or not you kill them or ignore, the consequences are zero and the horrible plague doesn't affect the game at all.

You say "sneak" as if it were something minor. Bloodlines is one of the very few games that actually makes being a thief worth it. As for conversational skills, the whole "ZOMG you can't talk your way of everything!!!1!" is one of the most moronic stances people have to cope with in these stupid forums just because their defenders do not realize that some quests can't be solved through combat alone, just as some quests can't be solved through talking alone. It's logical. It's what makes it worth having spent points in said skills.

As for the rest of the questing, you're right, it sucks. But DA with its Chantry and Circle quests isn't any better. Nor do any other side quests save it, for that matter. You can claim it's a semi-fun passatista lite game, but better than Bloodlines? You're far off.

Vaguely. Something about vampires, right?

Wow, you so smug, man!

Miles beyond, eh? Sounds awesome. I would surely like to learn more about it.

I don't have it installed at the time. I would have enjoyed quoting both games just for the dialogue quality, but sadly there's no wiki of "The Vault" proportions for Bloodlines. Maybe someone else who's replaying it now can serve a helping hand.

 

[The Wizard]

DA > ARC

you best be joking, nigger. *fffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu*