Roderick

Dragon Age

Recommended Posts

As part of my end-of-the-school-year horrible procrastination effort, I fired up Dragon Age for the first time last night. I decided on a female city elf warrior who specializes in dual wield. Did not expect the opener that I got.

I don't think I've ever played a game that starts with me being carted off to a rape dungeon before, then having to brutally murder my way out with my friends. That one of those friends was actually rescued a bit too late actually prompted me to pick the "I'm going to enjoy butchering you" dialogue option on the guy who did it, which I would normally never choose in an RPG.

I'm now doing the Grey Warden initiation, so by no means very far in, but I wanted to start up some discussion again so that I could talk about the game as I worked my way through. At this point, just wanted to say: holy hell, that was an unexpectedly intense start to a game. Well done, BioWare.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Miffy, I'm really glad to hear that. I found out about that opening while listening to the concept guys from mass black talk about it and was like "Is that in the game? shit, that would be awesome" But it's DA is on my other HD so I never took a look.

I'll really want to play through that opening sometime in the future. I haven't bought the expansion, I need to get some crap done before that and red dead eventually takes over my life.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't think I've ever played a game that starts with me being carted off to a rape dungeon before, then having to brutally murder my way out with my friends. That one of those friends was actually rescued a bit too late actually prompted me to pick the "I'm going to enjoy butchering you" dialogue option on the guy who did it, which I would normally never choose in an RPG.

Did you notice that, since you don't really have any karma for your own character, you find yourself more easily picking out things you want to say?

With Mass Effect it sort of becomes a game in the game to always pick the purest choice, be it paragon or renegade. I tended to pick dialog choices more compulsively because of the Good guy/bad guy points attached to it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Did you notice that, since you don't really have any karma for your own character, you find yourself more easily picking out things you want to say?

With Mass Effect it sort of becomes a game in the game to always pick the purest choice, be it paragon or renegade. I tended to pick dialog choices more compulsively because of the Good guy/bad guy points attached to it.

One hundred percent agree Pirate; which is why I think Dragons age "moral" system and choice system and even party system was far superior to Mass Effects.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I also agree completely. I found that the fact that your character doesn't speak made me even more inclined to choose the most "me" response to the various story options I came across. Actually, I think it was one of the best literally "role-playing" experiences I've had in a game, as opposed to walking a character with a pretty established personality through a story. I'm glad you're digging it, Miffy! I had just started that storyline for my second playthrough. It's pretty intense!

Of course, the place where responding naturally totally fell down was when it came to interactions with my party members. I'd go bananas and redo dialogue trees all the time if I ended up losing affection points. I'm such an approval junkie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Kind of lame bumping a thread like this, but I haven't been able to discern much from videos or reviews.

Anyways, I'm thinking of getting Dragon Age for the summer. How does the combat work? Do you press X every time you want to swing ye olde mighty sworde, for example, or do you just tell your peeps to attack and then switch up which attack they use and heal them and so on as they're busy beating a helpless rabbit into rabbit prune? (Aka, is it real time/aggressive or, err...passive?)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Kind of lame bumping a thread like this, but I haven't been able to discern much from videos or reviews.

Anyways, I'm thinking of getting Dragon Age for the summer. How does the combat work? Do you press X every time you want to swing ye olde mighty sworde, for example, or do you just tell your peeps to attack and then switch up which attack they use and heal them and so on as they're busy beating a helpless rabbit into rabbit prune? (Aka, is it real time/aggressive or, err...passive?)

It's a lot like World of Warcraft really friend. Say you play a wizard. You'd select your target, and cast spells from a taskbar, and inbetween that, you autoattack with a staff. Your party will play by AI commands and behaviours you give them. If you've played Final Fantasy 12, you'd get this better, but to boil it down, you give a person either a pre-defined set of behaviours (IE "Brawler" on your melee. They'd just run in and use as many skills as they can. Medic on healers means they'd target and buff your characters) or you purposefully program them to follow a stringent set of rules. For the most part, you select your man and click "die" on a baddy, and theyre very capable themselves. I hope this answers your question.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Been playing the shit out of this for the past week. Gotta say it's been a lot of highs and lows. Particularly the section with the Dalish elves. I find Tolkien-esque fantasy to be boring beyond words at this point, so when I walked into this wooded clearing and was greeted by a bunch of skinny people with bows and pointy ears, I was really disappointed. Especially since I was playing as an elf, but she is a badass who dual-wields swords and loves chopping off heads up close.

The later revelation that the elves were actually kind of sinister and created a race of werewolves brought a huge smile to my face though.

It's sad that I found it so damned refreshing that the elves were actually flawed but there you have it. I just finished with the dwarf stuff today now, not finding the deep roads to be nearly as grueling as everyone else seemed to make them out to be, and that marks the completion of the four factions. I now have everyone entreatied, and thus will shortly be embarking on what I assume will be the endgame. I have to say, given my extreme aversion to high fantasy, I'm enjoying this game far more than I ever would have thought. I'm glad I dropped the cash on it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Anybody that's been holding out, there should be a Steam deal on Sunday for Dragon Age. They uploaded all the banner adds to their CDN with names like ...monday...jpg. I'm planning on picking up Awakenings if it's also on sale.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Been playing the shit out of this for the past week. Gotta say it's been a lot of highs and lows. Particularly the section with the Dalish elves. I find Tolkien-esque fantasy to be boring beyond words at this point, so when I walked into this wooded clearing and was greeted by a bunch of skinny people with bows and pointy ears, I was really disappointed. Especially since I was playing as an elf, but she is a badass who dual-wields swords and loves chopping off heads up close.

The later revelation that the elves were actually kind of sinister and created a race of werewolves brought a huge smile to my face though.

It's sad that I found it so damned refreshing that the elves were actually flawed but there you have it. I just finished with the dwarf stuff today now, not finding the deep roads to be nearly as grueling as everyone else seemed to make them out to be, and that marks the completion of the four factions. I now have everyone entreatied, and thus will shortly be embarking on what I assume will be the endgame. I have to say, given my extreme aversion to high fantasy, I'm enjoying this game far more than I ever would have thought. I'm glad I dropped the cash on it.

Wait, what? Are you playing some super condensed version of Dragon Age? Been playing the shit for the past week and your done 4 race cities? Really?! I mean I played the shit out of it too and it took over a month, the Deeproads themselves was over two weeks I think.

Unless your full timing this thing miffy, I'm pretty amazed.

***

Anyway, Yeah I agree about the things with the elves, actually that whole ending there marks the first time Bioware presented me with something I thought I was doing right and they told me it was the wrong/evil thing to do. I don't even think that was deliberate on their part, I think it was a flaw in their logic with the high fantasy they presented and their typical black and white choices.

Yeah, Dragon Age is... excuse the example I'm brain dead at the moment... a thorny rose. The surface fantasy is the most contrived Lotr presentation and BS I want to vomit on the writer/design for hours. But then all the little nooks and crannies and back story that someone took the time on is just so awesome as it switches preconceived notions up and takes jabs at the those notions along the way.

Now if their art direction can have the same lofty goals for the sequal(something they mentioned) we'll all win.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Deep roads took me a night. Maybe 4 or 5 hours of play? I explored everywhere and did every quest from Orzammar, so I don't know what the issue was for you. In fairness, the past two weeks were the last half of the circle of mages, all of the dalish elves, and all of the dwarves. I had already done the Redcliff stuff a couple of months ago, then stopped playing for a while.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Deep roads took me a night. Maybe 4 or 5 hours of play? I explored everywhere and did every quest from Orzammar, so I don't know what the issue was for you. In fairness, the past two weeks were the last half of the circle of mages, all of the dalish elves, and all of the dwarves. I had already done the Redcliff stuff a couple of months ago, then stopped playing for a while.
I might have already said this in this thread, but I thought that was the worst part of the game, it seriously made me want to quit. Just way too damn long. Which was too bad because underground dungeons like that are a staple of fantasy RPGs.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, it may have been you I was responding to. I remembered some people absolutely hated the deep roads, but couldn't be arsed to look up who. I didn't find them that bad at all, and even if I had, I was done them about as quickly as I was any other section. I don't get the complaints.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Yeah, it may have been you I was responding to. I remembered some people absolutely hated the deep roads, but couldn't be arsed to look up who. I didn't find them that bad at all, and even if I had, I was done them about as quickly as I was any other section. I don't get the complaints.

I have a love hate relationship with it. At the time I was beaten and broken to hell and it I was playing the hell out of it. When finished it felt truly epic, when I left Ozammar and felt agoraphobic from the open sky, I really felt that I experienced something awesome in a game.

So it just felt weird to me, Miffy, that you shrugged it off as no big deal, as it was a big deal for my party... video games! :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What order did you do things in? It may have helped that it was the last thing for me. I died a hell of a lot in the Circle of Mages tower, but since I had already been through hell learning how to play earlier in the game, the deep roads weren't too much for me. I may have just been overleveled, our you were underleveled, or something.

I just finished the Landsmeet. What the fucking fuck? Is there a good way to resolve this? Specifically,

is there a way to let Loghain live and have Alistair not desert you? I tried to show him some mercy, but anything short of slitting his throat made Alistair have a hissy fit. When he left my party, I freaked out, loaded an old save, and just killed Loghain. Now Anora is queen and Alistair is still trucking beside me, but I feel bad that I couldn't just banish the dude or something. Damn.

Also, I noticed that I had a horn in my inventory that could supposedly summon a dragon, so I took it to the mountaintop and tested it out. The thing arrived and started chewing on my mage. Like, actually picked her up and started gnawing. I killed it, but it was probably the most intense fight I've had in the game. Afterwards, I felt pretty bad about the whole thing. It was just flying around doing dragon-y things, and would never have bothered me at all if I hadn't specifically gone to great lengths to piss it off and call it to me. Now this giant creature that had been living for centuries is dead, and all to give me an achievement and some bones that a dude made into armor for me. Oh well, what's done is done.

I assume all I have left now is the endgame. Everyone is building it up as such, anyway. I bought the expansion today as it was on sale on Steam, so I'll be going straight into that, I think. Cool coolgame.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What order did you do things in? It may have helped that it was the last thing for me. I died a hell of a lot in the Circle of Mages tower, but since I had already been through hell learning how to play earlier in the game, the deep roads weren't too much for me. I may have just been overleveled, our you were underleveled, or something.

I just finished the Landsmeet. What the fucking fuck? Is there a good way to resolve this? Specifically,

is there a way to let Loghain live and have Alistair not desert you? I tried to show him some mercy, but anything short of slitting his throat made Alistair have a hissy fit. When he left my party, I freaked out, loaded an old save, and just killed Loghain. Now Anora is queen and Alistair is still trucking beside me, but I feel bad that I couldn't just banish the dude or something. Damn.

Also, I noticed that I had a horn in my inventory that could supposedly summon a dragon, so I took it to the mountaintop and tested it out. The thing arrived and started chewing on my mage. Like, actually picked her up and started gnawing. I killed it, but it was probably the most intense fight I've had in the game. Afterwards, I felt pretty bad about the whole thing. It was just flying around doing dragon-y things, and would never have bothered me at all if I hadn't specifically gone to great lengths to piss it off and call it to me. Now this giant creature that had been living for centuries is dead, and all to give me an achievement and some bones that a dude made into armor for me. Oh well, what's done is done.

I assume all I have left now is the endgame. Everyone is building it up as such, anyway. I bought the expansion today as it was on sale on Steam, so I'll be going straight into that, I think. Cool coolgame.

Regarding the Landsmeet,

You have to choose between Alistair or Loghain. Makes sense, considering Loghain screws over the two people that Alistair cares most about.

Reading how you freaked out about that choice is pretty awesome, because in my playthrough my character was a completely self-centered human noble. Every time I could I called Alistair a crybaby whiner to get Morrigan's approval. When I got to the landsmeet,

I spared Loghain, chose Anora as queen, and then Alistair was executed to prevent any more political uprisings.

Man, that game has some really satisfying roleplaying in it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh man, the landsmeet.

I don't know exactly what I did "wrong", but I guess I forgot to talk to Anora. I thought we had agreed for her to stand up against her own father and take the crown together with Alistair, but once she made her appearance... She turned into a traitorous wench and accused me of kidnapping her, and other such things, completely sucking up to her father! Eventually, I fought Loghain, but let Alistair kill him. Called Anora a bitch and made Alistair king.

When I saw a friend play through this bit with his own character, I was so surprised when she completely went against Loghain, but it made me realize something and it's something I love because it's so consistent for her as a character. Basically, she's a coldhearted bitch and all she wants is for her to be queen. She'll basically fuck anyone over to achieve that goal.

It's funny that I only realized this once I had seen both those scenes play out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Oh man, the landsmeet.

I don't know exactly what I did "wrong", but I guess I forgot to talk to Anora. I thought we had agreed for her to stand up against her own father and take the crown together with Alistair, but once she made her appearance... She turned into a traitorous wench and accused me of kidnapping her, and other such things, completely sucking up to her father! Eventually, I fought Loghain, but let Alistair kill him. Called Anora a bitch and made Alistair king.

When I saw a friend play through this bit with his own character, I was so surprised when she completely went against Loghain, but it made me realize something and it's something I love because it's so consistent for her as a character. Basically, she's a coldhearted bitch and all she wants is for her to be queen. She'll basically fuck anyone over to achieve that goal.

It's funny that I only realized this once I had seen both those scenes play out.

Yeah you really have to work to get the "good" ending out of the Landsmeet. One thing I found was that characters actually change between different branches of choices, not due to your choices, but because Bioware decides that it'd be more interesting if they had ulterior motives.

As to the deep roads problem, I think that everyone has their own individual breaking point with this game. The pacing is just structured in a way that you aren't properly rewarded with a complete quest often enough.

For example,

if you start with red cliff, you have to not only fight your way through the entire castle, but also complete the entire mages circle if you don't want to piss someone off. The mages circle has it's own diversions, and another few hours pass before you can theoretically complete red cliff. Then you find out you have to find the ashes first, and that involves navigating the town, and giant dungeon, slay a Dragon and do some Indiana Jones shit to recover the ashes. I liked doing all those things, but it would have been nice if I had some closure along the way to break up these sections. Personally, I was so turned off at the prospect of having to do the entire mage tower to get a clean resolution on the boy's possession that I just killed the bastard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I didn't feel like making the enormous voyage again. I tried it the first time, but I wasn't strong enough.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As I said, I didn't even know there was a dragon until I noticed there was a horn in my inventory that I didn't know the purpose of. Went and blew it, and it summoned a dragon. Whups. Killed it and felt kinda bad that it would have just left me alone if I'd done the same for it.

Just beat the game. Completion time of about 47 hours, 20 minutes. At least, the save I made in the hall after the victory party was 47:19.

I told Morrigan to fuck off with her demonic bullshit, and then Alistair sacrificed himself before I could stop him.

A good end for the game, I thought. I was quite happy with how it went down. I'm going to take a break from role playing for a bit, probably by finishing the campaign for MW2 so I can uninstall it, thus making room for the Awakenings expansion I bought yesterday when it was on sale. I assume that since my character survived the campaign, I can keep using her in the expansion?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't know why, maybe years of WoW had trained me for the fight, but i had no problem downing the dragon. I had way more trouble with crowd control on the regular pulls than I did on the boss fights. I found the game incredibly difficult, up to that dragon fight. And then when I got the gear from his stash and blacksmith the game got really easy. I'm about to start Awakenings, I hope there are more fights like that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now