Dragon Age: Origins

[The Serge]

As a side note, I love one of the conversations between Morrigan and Alistar. She accuses him of staring at her breasts and he covers by saying he was admiring her profile -- that her nose was exactly like that of Flemith. There's a brief pause, then she replies "I hate you SO MUCH" in a very level and spaced tone that somehow conveys the exact depth of how much he just pissed her off... GREAT voice acting!

Claudia Black, ladies and gentlemen!

I am trying to figure out if there's a way to get the two of them to sleep together...

I'm just focusing on Zevran. I've considered Morrigan, but I really don't like her myself (too CN for my tastes).

 

[Remus Lupin]

Well, I've managed to get both Morigan and Zavran into bed. I think I missed my shot at Liliana. I think that there's actually a way to engineer a three way among your character and two of the others.

The sex scenes are ... hilarious. It reminds me of the doll sex scene in "Team America." But also, the 30-Rock episode about video game porn and the "uncanny valley." These characters definitely fall into the uncanny valley.

 

[John Crichton]

As a side note, I love one of the conversations between Morrigan and Alistar. She accuses him of staring at her breasts and he covers by saying he was admiring her profile -- that her nose was exactly like that of Flemith. There's a brief pause, then she replies "I hate you SO MUCH" in a very level and spaced tone that somehow conveys the exact depth of how much he just pissed her off... GREAT voice acting!

Well, it is Claudia Black after all.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I picked human noble fighter because i find for initial play throughts on rpgs, a fighter tends to have the 'simplest' combat mechanics and then once i get used to the game i go for more complicated classes like mages.

I'm playing a mage, and at first I let Alistair just run in and do his thing (based on his tactics setting). As I've gotten farther in the game, I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying micromanaging him (and Oghren) for greater control over the battlefield.

I never played Mass Effect but that sounds like an awesome system.

true, DO:A isn't bad for not having it, but it sounds like it would have been a fun addition (though, logically, yeah, adding all the voice dialogue, etc -- would have added a lot of both time and money to the development of the game)

It was definitely one of the things in ME that worked well. It probably would have added a bunch of work to DA:O though, especially given it's increased focus on character design. It's at the very least six voice sets (one for each gender/race) and probably would have ended up as twelve (one for each gender/origin).

 

[Brandigan]

I got the PS3 version and I'm really enjoying it. If I had a better computer, I would have gone with the PC version though! My biggest complaint is the lack of 'hot keys'. Basically only 6 (including one for healing pots). But at least you can pause it to select others through the radial menu.
I created a human warrior, tank spec, so I'm going to have to dump Alistair(who goes down like a sack of potatoes anyways). I'm lvl 10 with Leliana, Wynn, and considering Sten or the dog for the final spot. I screwed Morrigan's spec because I didn't know what I was doing, so she's basically camp eye candy now!

 

[Obryn]

I think Shale is pretty much superior to the Dog in every way. Since he came with the package for free, I'd go with him instead. Don't get me wrong - the dog is kinda awesome in a lot of ways, and fetches great stuff for you, but he just can't compare to a golem!

-O

 

[LightPhoenix]

I think Shale is pretty much superior to the Dog in every way. Since he came with the package for free, I'd go with him instead. Don't get me wrong - the dog is kinda awesome in a lot of ways, and fetches great stuff for you, but he just can't compare to a golem!

The biggest problem with Dog is basically two-fold. First, while Dog has some great crowd-control abilities, he rapidly gets overshadowed by the other warriors. Alistair's a better tank, Oghren and Sten are better at damage (and Two-Handed Sweep rocks), and Shale has vastly more flexibility. Second, Dog's lack of versatility really only makes him useful in the beginning of the game. You certainly could use him all the way through, but he's very limited in scope. If Dog had access to some of the Warrior talents, he'd be a lot better. Personally, I'd give him access to some of the Rogue talents instead, given the abundance of warriors already.

Regarding Shale, it's biggest benefit is that in addition to the Warrior talents, Shale gets some great crowd-control as well. You can spec Shale as a tank or to do damage, and additionally you can swap out crystals to do any elemental damage (although IMO Spirit is probably the best). While I don't use Shale right now, it'll definitely be going on my play-through next time around (probably Shale/Wynne/Zevran, with me as a second Warrior).

 

[Brandigan]

I didn't come across Shale yet, just finished the castle Redcliffe quest. I guess Sten would be a good fit for my group right now then because I really need to boost the damage output.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

So far just a couple of complaints...

1. Party AI seems all screwed up. Half the time when I get a spare few moments in battle I can turn an eye towards what the other party members are doing and one of them will just be standing around doing nothing. I have checked all my Tactics sliders and everyone SHOULD be doing something.

2. Why on earth is there no place in the camp to store things I don't want to sell? I know the merchants all have a "Buy Back" section to repurchase whatever you sold to them previously, but I don't want to trust stashing all those armor sets there waiting for people to stat up and be able to use them.

3. Pick-Pockets is lame. I have invested 3 slots in it and I am am getting bupkis from it (even from merchants and named NPCs).

4. Teleporting my party to me whenever you launch a cutscene with my stealthy rogue. I had them waiting somewhere else for a reason, and thats because I didn't want #5 to happen to them.

5. Enemies spawning from nowhere and swarming my parts. I want my mage and archer to be AWAY from the battle, but I can't do that if people just show up from thin air.


And to balance, some likes...

1. Voice acting is A+ so far.

2. Great mix of serious and humor in the dialogue.

3. Interesting take on elves and clerics.

4. The dog rocks! I will tell tales of the Mimbari Dominance power for decades to come. Or at least how you activate it.

DS

 

[LightPhoenix]

1. Party AI seems all screwed up. Half the time when I get a spare few moments in battle I can turn an eye towards what the other party members are doing and one of them will just be standing around doing nothing. I have checked all my Tactics sliders and everyone SHOULD be doing something.

It sounds like they're on Hold. Under the portraits, there is a small circle with either a hand (Hold) or a running man (Tactics). Having your characters on hold prevents them from using tactics, generally.

2. Why on earth is there no place in the camp to store things I don't want to sell? I know the merchants all have a "Buy Back" section to repurchase whatever you sold to them previously, but I don't want to trust stashing all those armor sets there waiting for people to stat up and be able to use them.

There's one in Warden's Keep (DLC) but I agree it should have been in the camp in the first place. There's a mod by one of the developers (Brian Chung, I think) that puts one there.

4. Teleporting my party to me whenever you launch a cutscene with my stealthy rogue. I had them waiting somewhere else for a reason, and thats because I didn't want #5 to happen to them.

5. Enemies spawning from nowhere and swarming my parts. I want my mage and archer to be AWAY from the battle, but I can't do that if people just show up from thin air.

These I agree with. Bioware has a bad habit of doing this. I wouldn't mind so much if it was something like one of the "bosses." I wouldn't mind it if there was character specific dialogues and those characters were in my party (for example, the end of Orzammar). However, it seems like often there are too many times where they do it and shouldn't. Furthermore, if I have a character with Survival, I shouldn't be getting ambushed ever. That's why I put points into that skill.

That said, I haven't run into too many tactical problems with it. Generally I take my mage and Leliana and move them back before they take any actions, while Alistair and Oghren run in screaming. That prevents the others from taking too many hits. Once in a while it's ridiculous though, especially when you're fighting a lot of mages.

My big "encounter" related pet-peeve is how difficulty is often established by swarming the party with enemies. It makes tactical positioning of my warriors damn near impossible when eight guys are on them. In fact, that's how I started to learn to micromanage them; it's still not 100%, but a well placed Two-Handed Sweep can do wonders. Still, I think that Bioware's encounter design is fairly lacking. I can't help but compare it to 4E encounter design, where there's a lot of synergy between enemies, a lot of interesting tactics and abilities enemies have access to, and overall less strong enemies and more minions. All in my opinion, of course.