Dragon Age: Origins

[TKz]

Isn't New Vegas going for super cheap lately? It's like £15 over here now. I have no interest in buying it because Fallout 3 bored me to tears, but I can't imagine it's that expensive any more in the US?

[GoGo Yubari]

$40. Which for me isn't that cheap, really, but I'm still probably going to do it.

[Hailtothechimp]

I honestly thought the combat was awkward and played more like Dynasty Warriors than Dragon Age. Of course, the first bit was intentionally misleading but playing as a rogue was a mess (fucking cable guy interrupted me on Tuesday so I'm going to try it again as a warrior). Like, it's to the point where I'm heavily considering canceling my preorder and picking up New Vegas instead since I can't really buy two new games pre-Spring Quarter and the King of Trios trip.

This was the first thing I thought of when I dived into the combat. I love Dynasty Warriors and with the added Dragon Age abilities, I was giddy every time I got the opportunity to wreck some face.

I realized that during the demo....I forgot almost everything about the first game.

But yes, the battles...that is the one thing I brought up with Eddie, they look so much better now.

I remembered most of the important stuff, but I was having some problems remembering what city was which and so on. They seemed to be running from Ostagar, but when Flemyth appeared and was all like "LOL THE GREY WARDENS ARE A BIT OUT OF THE WAY" I couldn't for the life of me figure out where they were going, because surely the entirety of the Grey Wardens were back at Ostagar?

They were running away from Lothering (the little shanty village where you get Sten from) after the Darkspawn swept out of the Kocarhi Wilds, which is the forest you went through in the first game before the huge battle, The Battle of Ostagar, where King Callain died. The Hawke Family & Co. were running to another continent away from Ferelden called the Free Marshes, where Kirkwall lies (the city they are fleeing too) because they have a family estate there.

As for the classes. I loved the Rogue. Two Weapon Rogues were my favorite to play as in Origins and they were a blast to play in the demon. Archery with the Rogue was pretty fun too. The Hail of Arrows ability along with the status affecting arrows were good fun. The Mage I think was my favorite. Magic feels faster and much more powerful then it did in the first game. I played a Two-Handed Warrior and just marveled at their abilities. Seriously, using any of their abilities during the first part where you're so over-powered was glorious. One hit kills with heaps of dismemberment & blood, especially when you get surrounded and unleash Whirlwind. Plus, they added more reach effects so if you have three guys in front you, the others next to your target will take some damage too.

Really love what they did with Dragon Age 2. March 8th cannot get here soon enough.

[TKz]

Ah, that sucks. I'm in a bit of a predicament myself with that, though it's not so much Dragon Age OR game I really want as it is Dragon Age AND one of like, four games I kind of want but wouldn't be that bothered not having. Not really much of one I guess, just me being greedy. >_>

Is anyone else a bit bummed about the way the story's going to be told in this one? I liked how they did it in DA:O, I don't really fancy losing out on side quests and so on because the story ends up jumping like four months ahead if I do any of the main story missions. I'm also not a fan of constantly cutting to the dwarf guy telling the story.

[Hailtothechimp]

Ah, that sucks. I'm in a bit of a predicament myself with that, though it's not so much Dragon Age OR game I really want as it is Dragon Age AND one of like, four games I kind of want but wouldn't be that bothered not having. Not really much of one I guess, just me being greedy. >_>

Is anyone else a bit bummed about the way the story's going to be told in this one? I liked how they did it in DA:O, I don't really fancy losing out on side quests and so on because the story ends up jumping like four months ahead if I do any of the main story missions. I'm also not a fan of constantly cutting to the dwarf guy telling the story.

To be fair, we don't really know how often we'll be jumping back to Varic telling your story. But I am interested in how they plan on telling the story. His tale is supposed to span ten years of Hawke and how he became the Champion of Kirkwall. The way it looks to me, it appears that their might be some more stuff to do after he finishes his tale about it.

You are right on about how it will effect gameplay though. The journal system is setup like Mass Effect's is though so you have lists of Main Quest, Secondary Quest, Companion Quest, etc. Unless your talking about moving forward in the main quest without realizing that you've missed some side quests.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

The demo for Dragon Age 2 was pretty dull. Hammer X for 40 minutes, win. That was basically it.

Was never engrossed in the first, can't see this swaying me.

Oh, how about the bit (fairly early in the demo) where they are deciding which direction to go and they're like, "We can't go North, the Darkspawn are there. We can't go South, some Maguffin is there.

If it's a choice between South and Death, I'll take my chances with South..."

Do they realise that a compass has more than two points? Obviously not.

[GoGo Yubari]

The demo for Dragon Age 2 was pretty dull. Hammer X for 40 minutes, win. That was basically it.

The only time it stopped being that for me was when the Ogre showed up and my party got massacred until it was just the sorceress left, by which point I was lucky enough to have at least wiped out the minions. So then it... became fireball, fireball, fireball, fireball, heal, mana potion, fireball, fireball, fireball. Which was at least kind of fun (for a while until it just became an endless pattern since the ogre almost never was able to get anywhere near me after a point) but I shouldn't only be having fun if I'm down to a fucked situation like that.

[TKz]

It was the same in DA:O though, it didn't get too entertaining until you managed to open up the game some more and get more skills/magics. Though maybe it's just a difference of opinion, because I found the demo to be great fun. I'll report back come March 11th on if it opens up more in the actual game. It does seem to have jumped a bit in difficulty though, I found I rarely died in DA:O but I died or most of my team died twice in the demo. I ended up spending the final fight trying to avoid the enemy and occasionally slash once or twice whilst my health slowly regenerated. Would probably have been easier if they'd given you any healing potions to use.

[DMN in the House]

This is one of five games that come out this year that I'm really hyped for (the others being NCAA12, Skyrim, Tomb Raider, and LA Noire (not sure if those last two come out this year, though.)), but you guys are making me re-think that. I love, love, love, Dynasty Warriors, so if they kept everything else the same and just made the combat more like that, I'll be in love.

I'm actually replaying the first one right now. The first time I played through I was a male Dwarf Noble warrior (all battle axes, all day!), so I went with a female Human Noble rogue. Depending on how quickly I get through the game, I might get in a mage play-through, but I doubt it. I forgot how bad DA's cut scenes/etc make games like Fallout and Oblivion look. It's amazing.

[Your Mom]

Does anyone know whats supposed to carry over from Origins to the new one? I saw a video where some Bioware guy said some of your decisions would carry over. I dont have my old save anymore and though its a great game I dont want to replay Origins if its only going to be little things.

[TKz]

Background story is all that's been confirmed I think. Like, they mention what happened. I don't think any old characters reappear or anything, as it's set in a different part of the world. So yeah, I wouldn't be bothered replaying just for that. Well, unless you like DA:O as much as I do. >_>

[Your Mom]

Oh I love it. This would be my 3rd playthrough if I did it again

[Pizza]

I think I spent about 150 hours on two playthroughs. I might do a third soon for the platinum, it would be my first. This has probably been my favourite game since the N64.

[TKz]

I've not beaten it twice, I did everything possible in one playthrough for my first time and got about 50% through a second playthrough. But I've also played the different opening parts of each game with every race. >_> I'm going to miss that in the second one, it kind of feels like there will be less options if the story is pre-determined like this.

[Benji]

Can you obtain all trophies in one playthrough on the first one?

[TKz]

Nope. You could get like 75% of them I suppose, with some hard work and a fair bit of *save game, play through mission, get trophy, reload save, play through again differently, get trophy*. But there are some like 'Get Mage to Level 20' and then 'Get Fighter to Level 20' and trophies specific to beating each races starting mission. There are some trophies that you just can't as well, because you need a certain level of Good or Bad before being allowed to make the decision. So you can't just reload the save.

[Clawson]

Man the combat in DAII is so much more fun than the second one.

[Ace]

Loving DAII so far, although I have only just started it TBF. I love that each dialogue choice has its own symbol, to show you how it would be taken.

Anyone else planning on going through this game being a smart-ass the entire time?

[Clawson]

Thats pretty much what I've been doing unless I'm talking to someone I'm gonna try to bang.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

the biggest gripe I have is that I keep going through the same map over and over. They just have you enter at different angles, but its the same cave same warehouse ect.

That and is like... every mage I meet an apostate? I just made a party of my sister an elf and anders so all I have to do is bad mouth templars and everyone loves me.