Dragon Age I just finished Dragon Age Origins and some parts of it werent awfull

[Thac0]

It's basically the same shit as the IE games but because it doesn't have dnd setting (just like PoE) it gets trashed hard around here from those bigoted dndfags that hate tb combat and have never even heard of kotc.
And compared to BGs or Icewind Dales i am not completely turned off from replaying it sometime in the future.
It was pretty much ok. Not good but ok.

Edit: Also Morrigan is the best waifu.

I finished Shadows of Amn and Origins pretty much simultanously. Killed Irenicus about a week ago
I liked BG2 much more than DAO and I liked BG1 even more than BG2.
Inventory management and itemisation is much better in the IE games. Character progression and itemisation is better aswell, although I gotta say when it comes to magic both systems are probably even. Magic is the best thing about DAO.
6 man group with 10+ classes and multi and dualclassing is much more interesting than a 4 man group with 3 classes. Sidequests take you to more interesting places in BG2.
Characters are prolly the same quality. Xan from BG1 is the best Baldurs Gate character.
Combat against trash is faster and deadlier in the BG games.

Also I liked the writing of the BGs a lot more than that of DAO. DAO is all very generic, Dwarves are fighting an eternal battle in the deep minds against the evil race, elves are hated in the cities and smoking weed in the forest, humans are divided in power struggles. The only cool thing DAO had was the Templar - Mage Tower dynamic, blood magic, golems and that stuff with the Grey Watchers that they can absorb demons which led to a pretty good ending.
The Bhaalspawn lore and the places you go in the games are all much more interesting to me.

Edit: The Baldurs Gates are about 7/10 BG2 8/10 BG1 for me.

 

[Butter]

BG1 is still the best Bioware game.

 

[polo]

Did you play BG1 in BG2 engine?

 

[overly excitable young man]

It's basically the same shit as the IE games but because it doesn't have dnd setting (just like PoE) it gets trashed hard around here from those bigoted dndfags that hate tb combat and have never even heard of kotc.
And compared to BGs or Icewind Dales i am not completely turned off from replaying it sometime in the future.
It was pretty much ok. Not good but ok.

Edit: Also Morrigan is the best waifu.

I finished Shadows of Amn and Origins pretty much simultanously. Killed Irenaeus about a week ago
I liked BG2 much more than DAO and I liked BG1 even more than BG2.
Inventory management and itemisation is much better in the IE games. Character progression and itemisation is better aswell, although I gotta say when it comes to magic both systems are probably even. Magic is the best thing about DAO.
6 man group with 10+ classes and multi and dualclassing is much more interesting than a 4 man group with 3 classes. Sidequests take you to more interesting places in BG2.
Characters are prolly the same quality. Xan from BG1 is the best Baldurs Gate character.
Combat against trash is faster and deadlier in the BG games.

Also I liked the writing of the BGs a lot more than that of DAO. DAO is all very generic, Dwarves are fighting an eternal battle in the deep minds against the evil race, elves are hated in the cities and smoking weed in the forest, humans are divided in power struggles. The only cool thing DAO had was the Templar - Mage Tower dynamic, blood magic, golems and that stuff with the Grey Watchers that they can absorb demons which led to a pretty good ending.
The Bhaalspawn lore and the places you go in the games are all much more interesting to me.

Edit: The Baldurs Gates are about 7/10 BG2 8/10 BG1 for me.

BGs are just too long games for having such bad gameplay.
DA is half as long as BG 2 while maintaining the same low quality of combat mechanics and encounter design.
Both games are mostly just trash encounters.
DA drags but not for so long as both BGs imo. Also you were talking about the deep roads in DAO (which i cant remember as negatively as you stated) but leave out the whole underdark shit in BG2 which felt a lot like a drag at this point.

BG 1 completely lacks good content for me. Maybe it's great if you have a fetish for low level dnd campaign (which a lot of people have on here) but nashkell and some gnoll infested castle just arent so interesting for me.
And BG 2 takes a dive once you took the ship and continue the main story. Athkatla was great fun but they could just included more main story in it and a few maps on the overworld and then end it.
The game would be a lot better.

On the other hand i found visiting the different races in DAO interesting even though it very formulaic but who cares?
They didnt exaggerate it. The elven village is just an elven village and a little dungeon nothing more and thats ok.
And the game ends where you expect it to end.

 

[Gregz]

The best part about DAO is the party AI scripting system.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

the cringe present there is actually charming, as compared to BioWare's "we can do mature games too!" take on game design, complete with its overwritten storytelling brimming with some generic HBO-tier edge

And that is why both Drakensang and Dragon Age have nothing on The Witcher series when it comes to plot, characters and worldbuilding.

 

[Thac0]

The best part about DAO is the party AI scripting system.

Done before and done much better in Final Fantasy XII. Most of the time I was just annoyed that certain condition modifiers which I wanted are missing.

BGs are just too long games for having such bad gameplay.
DA is half as long as BG 2 while maintaining the same low quality of combat mechanics and encounter design.
Both games are mostly just trash encounters.
DA drags but not for so long as both BGs imo. Also you were talking about the deep roads in DAO (which i cant remember as negatively as you stated) but leave out the whole underdark shit in BG2 which felt a lot like a drag at this point.

The underdark is very short in BG2, the game just has the problem that you go Asylum > Sahaguin > Underdark in a single chain without respite. But I rushed Asylum since I wanted Imoen back, so I did Underdark quite early in the game, and it was nice.
Also Drow culture is the best thing Gygax invented for DnD lore wise, so I was entertained by that alone in the Underdark. I Liked Solaufeins character although his name is shitty af.
Also if you were too make a Bestiary of enemies that appear in BG and in DAO the BG bestiary would be double the size for each game. There is only so often I can fight a pack of 1 rogue dark brood, 1 mage dark brood, 1 elite fighter dark brood and a few mooks and it stays fun.

BG 1 completely lacks good content for me. Maybe it's great if you have a fetish for low level dnd campaign (which a lot of people have on here) but nashkell and some gnoll infested castle just arent so interesting for me.
And BG 2 takes a dive once you took the ship and continue the main story. Athkatla was great fun but they could just included more main story in it and a few maps on the overworld and then end it.
The game would be a lot better.

Probably the fetish thing, low level DnD is really fun because the level ups have so much impact. Level 2>3 or 4>5 are complete game changers. But I also liked the slow realisation that you are a Bhaalspawn with the powers you get from your dreams. BG 1 doesnt have much content, but there is some good stuff in there like the carneval where you meet the one petrified priest or minsks story with Dynaheir. BG 1 is much shorter than BG2 in my memory, which made me enjoy it more since I agree that BG 2 is a little bloated.

On the other hand i found visiting the different races in DAO interesting even though it very formulaic but who cares?
They didnt exaggerate it. The elven village is just an elven village and a little dungeon nothing more and thats ok.
And the game ends where you expect it to end.

The big problem for me with the DAO lore is that I read Markus Heitz "Die Zwerge" ( the one the 2 hour rpg the Dwarves with the Blind Guardian soundtrack is based on) when I was younger. I dont know why exactly, but this 2003-2008 mediocre German fantasy series has pretty much exactly the same lore as Dragon Age. It is highly unlikely that Bio copied a German fantasy author of medium size, so it was either a strange accident, or both copied from the same sources. I suspect some of the Dragonlance books which I havnt read.
Everything in DAO was been there done that for me, since all except the afforementioned parts which I liked is identical to the Dwarves or other Fantasy I have read before.
Baldurs Gate on the other hand was original to me. You dont get Godchildren murdering each other over their divine heritage too often in High Fantasy.

 

[JDR13]

BG1 is still the best Bioware game.

It's a tie between BG and BG II for me.

 

[Machocruz]

Hordes of the Underdark is the Bioware I keep coming back to, although I think BG2 is overall better conceived.

 

[Frusciante]

I enjoyed DAO quite a bit, especially the many different ways to resolve conflicts was done well in comparison to most other rpgs.

But most of all I saw DAO as the first attempt in bringing back rtwp top down RPGs and modernising/improving the genre. I hoped that it would inspire BioWare to keep improving on it for further iterations. Needless to say, BioWare had different ideas and went in a completely different direction.

 

[alyvain]

I've replayed it a few weeks ago, for the seventh time or so.

It was good. It's comfy. Not great, not particularly inteesting or fun. Quite shallow.

Maybe it's like like low-alcohol beer.

Cheers!

 

[Absinthe]

DAO with all DLC, expansion and mods is one of the best videogames related experiences I ever had in my life.

No. DAO DLC is blatant level reuse, overpowered rewards, and low-effort garbage for the most part. You're basically paying for cheat codes with shitty fanfics attached to them. The only DLC that was any good was Stone Prisoner and that was because they cut Shale out of Redcliff to attach her as a "free" DLC to nickle and dime anyone who buys used.

 

[Mikeal]

Deep Roads were the best part of DAO. Zero retarded politics just pure combat and slaughtering of orcs dark spawns,

 

[Thac0]

DAO with all DLC, expansion and mods is one of the best videogames related experiences I ever had in my life.

No. DAO DLC is blatant level reuse, overpowered rewards, and low-effort garbage for the most part. You're basically paying for cheat codes with shitty fanfics attached to them. The only DLC that was any good was Stone Prisoner and that was because they cut Shale out of Redcliff to attach her as a "free" DLC to nickle and dime anyone who buys used.

That practise is why I usually dont play any DLCs when I play rpgs of that era. Whenever I read on a wikipost that this weapon is the strongest weapon before DLC I scratch my head a little.
I play RPGs to suffer, why would I want to pay money to make the games easier?

 

[oldmanpaco]

Had the game any interesting mods?

More Options at the Pearl!!!!

Spoiler

You can fuck the rock girl and a goat. Truly a mod for Bioware fans.

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/1176?tab=images

 

[Mikeal]

You know putting Leliana in cage is good idea.

 

[Ashigara]

I think Awakening had decent lore that requires the base game, almost a mini sequel. So play that but ignore other DLC

 

[DalekFlay]

I think Awakening had decent lore that requires the base game, almost a mini sequel. So play that but ignore other DLC

The Shale DLC is pretty good, and she's a solid character. The other smaller DLCs are mostly just too short to enjoy, to my memory. Witch Hunt and Leiliana's Song have decent setups but they're over in like 2 hours, it just doesn't feel worth the effort. I don't think I ever played the Golems one, but I read it's basically a long challenge dungeon.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I felt like the only good gameplay part of it was the area where you had to constantly transform in order to pass barriers. The rest of it was just okay. Mediocre combat peppered by story that's different, but still mediocre. Awakening was also interesting, but still suffered from the gameplay. I think the only other DLC I played was "I Can't Leave My Waifu - The DLC", which was just that, nothing more, nothing less. Because I guess the writers forgot this was supposed to be somewhat grimdark, not a happy tale.

 

[Cael]

DAO with all DLC, expansion and mods is one of the best videogames related experiences I ever had in my life.

Is any of it worth it? Is skipped all DLCs available as I usually do for old games. I looked at what is in there and how they are received and none seemed to be better than the base game.

Awakening is good, Stone prisoner is ok (but it was integrated into the base game).
Rest of them are rubbish.

Worse, the loot bloat meant you are basically on easy mode in the OC all the way once you are done with those DLCs.

 

[eggdogg]

Dao is a fun game. Poe is not a fun game.

 

[NotSerious]

Dao is a fun game. Poe is not a fun game.

I think DAO was okay, but it missed that special something. The whole thing was so mediocre in spite of a decent setting.

POE was awful, I wanted to love it so badly, but no. POE 2 fixed so many of the problems with the first, but still fell well short of being decent. I enjoyed the DLC in the Library, that was it.

 

[eggdogg]

Dao is a fun game. Poe is not a fun game.

I think DAO was okay, but it missed that special something. The whole thing was so mediocre in spite of a decent setting.

POE was awful, I wanted to love it so badly, but no. POE 2 fixed so many of the problems with the first, but still fell well short of being decent. I enjoyed the DLC in the Library, that was it.

Poe brought me to this god forsaken land known as the codex. I wanted poe to be great, i thought it would. I wanted the dex to be wrong, i thought they were....i was wrong and had to admit my defeat bending knee to a superior rpg hive mind. Im still bitter about it.

 

[Falksi]

I'm definitely a DA:O fanboy.

On first playthrough I'd have rated it 7/10 - cliche with a lot of the points Thac0 makes standing up.

However on subsequent playthrough's I really got sucked into it, and I found the C&C very satisfying. I always play as a good guy first time, evil cunt second time, and that latter playthrough's were really fun. The first playthrough was also as a Rogue, the latter ones as a mage, which helped too (one started as Warrior, but that was dull as shit). Defo a 8 or 9/10 experience for them.

I think I'll dust it off over the next few months to see if the taint of the Codex has corrupted me enough yet to hate on it.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

I'm definitely a DA:O fanboy.

On first playthrough I'd have rated it 7/10 - cliche with a lot of the points Thac0 makes standing up.

However on subsequent playthrough's I really got sucked into it, and I found the C&C very satisfying. I always play as a good guy first time, evil cunt second time, and that latter playthrough's were really fun. The first playthrough was also as a Rogue, the latter ones as a mage, which helped too (one started as Warrior, but that was dull as shit). Defo a 8 or 9/10 experience for them.

I think I'll dust it off over the next few months to see if the taint of the Codex has corrupted me enough yet to hate on it.

Yeah, but you like Fallout 3 and dislike Fallout 2, so your standards are incredibly low by default.