Erkki

Damn, I shouldn't have read those spoilers. I also thought she was . Anyway I tried to beat the several times, then thought: fuck the dwarves, I'm going to do something else for a while. But now I spent almost all the money I earned in the deep roads on potions and stuff, so I might as well head back there soon while I have them.

Aargh... I'm now at the end of the Deep Roads. I'm facing what I think is the final boss and I'm out of useful supplies, including mana potions. My inventory is filled with crappy darkspawn weaponry. Either I'll spend 6 times trying to beat the boss in my current state or I'll have to backtrace my steps to the next World Map exit, go to camp to heal injuries, probably go to another city to get supplies, and then make my way back into the end of the Deep Roads... Neither option is something I'm looking forward to.

Yeah, I hate that place. Also because if you want to go back to camp (to get injuries healed for example) you have to trudge your way back to the deep roads, can't quick-travel there. Also, where did you even find health potions on sale in Orzammar? I may have found a couple but no more. And no injury kits.

I've become addicted, spent the whole weekend playing it. I kind of dislike that each main location I go to pulls me into a 5-10 hour long quest in that location. I'm in the Dwarwen now and the combat starts feeling like filler. Not that I don't like it but it's just so time consuming. I'd like it a lot more if the game had 3+ times less combat.

I like Aquaria but at times it's kind of boring. They could have made the world smaller; as it is now, the interesting things are too far apart.

I have purchased only a few games based on the Idle Thumbs podcast recommendations: Far Cry 2 King's Bounty (still unplayed), possibly, or that may have been based on RPS Anno 1404 Blueberry Garden (was initially quite disappointed with the demo, ended up liking the game) Civ 4

I actually haven't found the battles too difficult, besides the first ones, and with the exception of a few bosses. I've had to retry a couple of boss battles 3 times, not more. Maybe it's because I did a DLC quest fairly early on and levelled up enough. Or will the game adjust to my level? The tactics menus seem ok. I've tweaked things a bit, but mostly left it to defaults. I control only the main character and command others only when things are going bad. The mages usually heal the fighters fast enough, except Morrigan, to whom I added "Heal ally" to the last row (they are "executed" in order) and since I haven't noticed a way to reorder the rows, I haven't been bothered with changing them all to put that to the top. [edit]I'm playing on normal BTW

It has been out for exactly a month. Isn't it too early to say how much it sold?

I wonder if it's a coincidence or is there a pattern but in each of the three places I've gone to after the village (story spoiler) It'll be funny if that doesn't happen elsewhere and I just managed to pick the three places that basically had the same problem.

You know, I think Dragon Age actually is more mature than BioWares earlier games*, in spite of the trailers and marketing. Disclaimer: I have only completed the Baldur's Gate games, and played no more than 10 hours of KOTOR and Mass Effect. I'm quite liking it. The character interactions so far have been pretty deep compared to other RPGs and you really have to think about what you say to them if you care about their reaction. But sometimes you also have to gamble. I still think they could have fixed a lot of stuff, especially in the UI. I can think of several things that could very easily have been made to require less clicks. And I still find it hard to comprehend whatever made them decide to have a numeric index to the codex. That's a crime against usability. The Witcher for example, has a great UI (of course, it was simpler as it wasn't party based), and so does Torchlight. Even Risen's screens are much more usable, and they were brought up in reviews as a negative. Dragon Age reviews will probably not mention the UI (sorry if it's not so, I haven't read any), it will get a free pass. [edit]* then again, it might just be that my memory of the earlier games has faded a bit

[pessimist]Yeah, as an FPS that drops the parkour element.[/pessimist]

It was too early to complain about choices. After that initial part, I seem to have more and more choices to make, and I find myself unable to decide because I'll piss off either party members. I played one scene 6 times to see what the different outcomes are and then reverted to my original choice. Also got another party member and now I have to dump one. Is it better to accept party members and not use them or to not accept them in the first place?

Aargh.. what the fuck is this Codex thing? When I picked up a note, instead of being readable from the inventory, I have to read it in the codex, where it is distinguished from other things by a number (231). The inventory doesn't even link to that, I will have to open the codex separately and find it (unless I click a notification at the exact time I get the item). What the fuck. This is worse than the 'man' command in Linux. A lot of things like this really make it seem that they haven't improved anything in the UI since Baldur's Gate II, but have made it worse.

BTW. I'm past the first battle and so far it seemed that I couldn't make any really meaningful choices, besides deciding if a prisoner gets fed or not. Maybe it's just that the dialogue is done naturally enough that the points where a choice can be made aren't made as obvious as I'm used to from most similar games or maybe the consequences won't be apparent until later?

So I've played for a few hours now. Feels very much like Baldur's Gate 3(D), with both the good and the bad. Including how I fail at boss battles a few times before finding some trickery to beat them (like running away with the character that is being attacked while other party members fire projectiles). I love how seamless the perspective change feels, but it also made me miss what looked like a pretty cool finishing animation for a boss battle. As I saw it begin, I tried to get a zoom in more, but the camera ended up leaving the dying boss out of the view completely

Yeah, I agree. I love it when a game makes me figure out some things by myself. If the relics in Brütal Legend were also a mystery at first, then I probably would have spent more time trying my luck with the dragons. Right now as most other things were explained and I tried aboud 10 different moves/solos, I ended up thinking the method to ungag them would unlock after a quest in the main storyline. But I guess no-one explained the legend statues as well. It's just that the move for that was more used (was it called Earthshaker?). For some reason I actually never used the set-on-fire move in the game until Thrik said that's what's needed to set the dragons free. I had even forgotten that I knew such a move. I actually had tried giving the dragons an electric shock. Had I remembered I could set things on fire with just one button, I'd have tried that. BTW, I think I did use some other combo that sets things on fire, but that didn't work (But 'emergence' isn't something one would associate with a Tim Schafer game anyway) I also now realized that the final battles would have been easier had I freed the dragons earlier. But I'm glad I didn't as it made the last battle really challenging and now that I finished the game I can just drive around in that incredible world, free the dragons and find other hidden stuff.

I was kidding though, I only played a little of KOTOR and a bit of Mass Effect so I don't know how they compare to Baldur's Gate. I think they are different in structure: in the space games you go to a planet and can do a bunch of stuff there, then move to another planet etc. but in Baldur's Gate you can move through the entire world freely (but there's also quick-travel).

No, it means Dragon Age is Baldur's Gate 15

:frusty:Doh! Thanks for the tip. Now I have another excuse to drive through the entire world again Yes, they are awesome, but I've only found a few and I might have forgotten about those while writing the previous post. Anyway I would have liked some more background about the characters in the main story.

Yeah, I'm really glad there's no Metallica. But I think there are a few Maiden songs that would have fit. Also, I would have liked to see some older stuff from Manowar (anything from up to and including Kings of Metal) instead of the two songs that are there.

This is such an awesome game and I'm sad that it doesn't reach it's full potential due to being a bit shallow. Not as shallow as Assassin's Creed of course, but in some aspects it's not so far from that. The side missions, except for a few, are lacking variety. Even when only the girls are left alive after an "Ironheade Ambush" or whatever-it's-called, the same four guys celebrate and say the same damn lines. A lot of the story seems skipped, Eddy is talking about things I haven't heard about as if he knew them, although he is just as much a stranger as I am. Maybe part of that is because of the dialogue lines during missions that aren't always very audible or are cut short. But I'd really like there to be more background story. The Guardian of Metal seems totally disconnected from everything else, he's just a merchant. He could at least comment on what's going on outside or something. Still, I like this better than Zelda: Twilight Princess mainly because the world is more interesting to me. I do like the RTS part somewhat, but they are a bit too frequent for me, that's why I use the side missions as an excuse to drive around a lot in between main story missions. I've completed all the side quests so far, and I just beat O by the lake. That was fucking hard, I failed three times and finally had to use basically everything in my arsenal to win. 85% done, the game isn't quite as short as I feared at first. Also, I played it for 8 hours straight today... ugh. PS. Is there going to be something that tells me how to ungag those dragons or do I have to figure it out myself? I've tried doing all kinds of things to them but nothing.

Started a female human noble character and played through the origin story. That part was quite short, but I didn't explore everything. The game is not as ugly as I feared from comments here, but the characters sure are. She looked much prettier in the character creator than in-game. Aafter hearing the human noble story is similar to

Happy Birthday, Kolzig!

Almost as old as me. Damn, now I feel so old.

I once lost a buddy like that. I was in a place where patrols were coming and going all the time. My buddy rescued me, but was subsequently wounded. But I had no supplies left, so I thought I'd go and get some. When I returned, I heard some fighting from afar and when I got there, he was gone and I had to fight off another two patrols. At least that's how I remember it happening.