What, no post on Dragon Age?

[Evoman]

Is anyone else playing this? It. is. AWESOME.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it. My character is a Human Noble Rogue with an assasination focus. I creep up behind mages and stab em in the back, then stun them, then keep stabbing them.

Been playing for over 20 hours, and I feel like I haven't even skimmed the surface of this giant game. The voice acting is excellent, the story is great, and the NPCs.......the NPCs are amazingly developed.

If you haven't tried it, you definitely should.

[lazarus]

1. what's the combat system?

I avoid RPGs because they tend to do turn-based combat, which I hate. If it's real time, something like Kingdom Hearts, I'm there.

[realisticphish]

3. never played kingdom hearts

but it's basically like knights of the old republic. not a button-masher, but also not a totally turn based thing. YMMV

[Evoman]

5. It's tought to describe....it's not exactly turn based.

But you can pause and give commands if you want to. Sort of like Baldur's gate, Neverwinter Nights, or Knights of the Old Republic. It sort of feels action-y though...your move your character with the analog and can set your buttons to do different attacks.

I would give it a go if I were you...at least rent it. My brother is like you...he hates roleplaying games (especially the Japanese Type Roleplaying games), and like only roleplaying games like Fallout or even Oblivion. However, he still liked Dragon Age, so there is that...

[YOY]

8. Not really. It's real time but with seemless turns like Baldur's gate I and II.

You can pause it of course but if you do not it goes back to letting everyone take their turns automatically. Since the AI is pretty decent it flows pretty well and you don't need to give everyone constant orders every 5 seconds.

[realisticphish]

2. beat it

i got it soon after release. great game, deep story. i thought the romance system was really clumsy, though. definitely a replay, especially with expansions. Awakenings was.... okay. I don't know if it's worth the money, though. You might wait for it to drop in price a bit

[Evoman]

4. Yeah, but video games never have "smooth" romance systems.

Hehe...maybe because they are written by pasty computer programmers who have never been with a woman.

It is a great game though. I'll probably play through it again in the future, except I will be an evil elven mage or something.

Oh, and which romance did you go throught? I'm romancing both Morrigan and Leliana. I think I'm gonna drop Morrigan when I have to make the choice.....I think I like Leliana better.

[realisticphish]

6. did them all

(haha)

I prefer Leliana. Morrigan's just in it for the nookie. Plus I'm a sucker for both red heads and european accents

I also did the Alistair and Zevran romances, because I'm a nerd, and wanted the 360 achievements

Oh, and btw: mages SUCK. I got one to level 20 just to get the achievement, but it was hell. You spend the whole time babysitting your tanks, and running around trying to heal yourself before the darkspawn catch up with you.

One thing that you need to do: play all the origins. Human, mage, dalish elf, alienage elf, noble dwarf, dusttown dwarf. The stories are great. They give a new perspective on a lot of things, and there are tons of easter egg-type references you run across when playing as another origin. But each origin is unique, so it's basically and hour-ish for each one. Nice way to up game length.

What's your prefered team? I usually had Wynne, Shale or Alistair, and Leliana (as my lockpick). Though when I played as a rogue, I replaced Leliana with another tank, or Morrigan, depending on the situation. I hate Sten and Zevran; Oghren is fine as a fighter, but I hate his character. Dog is cool; when you get him to high levels, he DOMINATES

[Evoman]

18. My usual team:

Me {rogue}
Alistair
Morrigan
Dog

However, I switch them so much that the word "usual" has no meaning. I like to switch them so I can hear the conversations between characters. I haven't gotten Ogrhen and can't get Shale (my game is used and I would have to spend money to get him....don't blame me though...I couldn't find a new copy of Dragon Age at the game store so I bought it used, not something I usually like to do but I was in a hurry.....).

[YOY]

7. It's mine and it's way down there.

and if you're point out it's multiple successes, why not mention it's few failures: the inventory system, a lack of a camp storage unit and a few others...

Personally I love it.

[realisticphish]

9. the camp storage thing is a pain

at least warden's keep added one, but i hate having to drag each part member there to get them kitted out.

Awakening added a lot of interesting stuff, but i wish it could have added that to the main game. Awakening felt too rushed, and i couldn't have cared less about the story. why create this deep story with the companions, and then reset it?

I was pissed about not having Leliana in Awakening. The ONLY character that gets brought back as a party member is pretty much my least favorite one

[YOY]

10. I'm gonna bet money had something to do with it.

The ladies who played Leliana and Morrigan were a little better known (more money).

Oghren...I liked Oghren. Zerevan I didn't like. Wynne was a close second.

[realisticphish]

11. as a fighter

oghren was fine. but he needed an english/scottish/irish voice. he used too much uk slang. "sodding" and "bloody" sound moronic when spoken with an american accent.

I guess I would have been fine with leaving out your characters significant other if they had some deus ex machina reason for it. But they ignored the issue. And why not bring back DOG, for christ's sake?

I liked Wynne. I hated Zevran, and wasn't fond of Sten. I was thrilled when, in one of my playthroughs, I got to kill Zevran in his loyalty challenge thing

[YOY]

12. Agreed 100% on Dog. There was no reason not to. Not like they needed new voiceovers...

Maybe they didn't want Oghren to be too much a carbon copy of Korgan from Baldur's gate. Korgan had that angry Scott voice...he was also less of a drunk and more of a psychotic bastard...

Same psychotic lusty dwarf bezerker warrior really...I liked the Throne of Baal ending for Korgan...he dies piling a army sized force of Orcs defending some Dwarf stronghold (for the money and bloodlust and not the nobility) and history remembers the sociopath as a noble hero.

=

There aren't any other BG Characters that have DA clones...that I can. Kind of hard to redo Minsc and Edwin without blatantly copying though...

I kind of liked Sten. You just had to learn how to talk to him. Selecting the "Alpha Male" response gets more respect and not looking at that response as being a dick.

Next time I play through I am going to use Shale, Zerevan, and Ohgren so I have the "asshole" team. I don't use them too often.

[realisticphish]

13. sten was ok to talk to

it didn't take long to figure out what he liked/hated. But it was a pain having him around during quests. "no, i don't think I'll stomp on that puppy with golf cleats" *sten disapproves -10*

I'd be fine with oghren played as a grizzly-sergeant type, or some other rough american character. But get rid of the UK slang, then, or man up and say "fuck" now and then.

[YOY]

14. It's that American what is "Offensive" shit...

You can cut a head off and kill a baby harp seal but shit...don't show a breast, copulation, or someone taking a shit...And whatever you do don't then use 4 letter words to describe it...some homeschooled kid and his mommy may get offended.


It's not like I don't see or do those personally on a mother fucking daily (or weekly) basis...I've only cut off the head of a pig once (after I slaughtered it)...it was not really as fun as any implied violence in a video game. It was not something I'd volunteer for doing on a constant basis...although the reward was yummy.

[realisticphish]

15. in the bioware realm

the shitstorm over the "sex scene" in mass effect is a good example. You see racier stuff in "High School Musical." One psychologist made all these appearances talking about how horrible the scene was, and how it was teaching kids how to have sex, etc. Then someone actually SHOWED her the scene. And she basically said she felt like an idiot.

The sad thing is that I'm sure a lot of people would still have been offended by 6 seconds of alien side-boob. I don't remember what ME or ME2 was rated, but DA:O is rated M. M! Fucking M for Mature. At that point, all bets should be off. Why can you have your dog lick the blood off your armor, but sex scenes have ridiculously bad underwear covering everything? I don't get off on cartoons, but it just feels so ludicrous that it ruins the story. ME did it fine. Liara or Ashley was naked (never played a female shepherd, so I don't know about the dude); they were positioned so you couldn't see anything, but it still looked totally natural and realistic.

lot of ranting about cartoon boobs lol. But the fact that you can't be naturalistic in a rated m fantasy rpg does say a LOT about our culture

[YOY]

16. Furthermore whens the last time a little fucking or nudity killed someone?

Venereal diseases and fundies with weapons overreacting aside.

Hey...at least our friends at Bioware don't mind rattling some cages with the same-sex affair option! My lesbian Gamer best bud loves that shit. nicely progressive.

[realisticphish]

17. yeah

and there's no judgement in it at all. It's identical to the oposite-sex stuff. In DA:O, the lesbian relationship with Leliana is only differentiated by the question "you enjoy the company of other women?" and she basically says "yeah, why the hell not?" and it's never mentioned as being out of the ordinary again

and in ME, Liara is a member of the Asari, a species that only has "females" but is actually unisexual, mating with other species (or their own, of course) to randomize their offspring's DNA. So, to her, there really is no damn difference

[Mojambo]

19. It's the best game I've ever owned that I have absolutely no interest in playing.

I don't know why, but I just can't get into it at all.

I loved KoTOR.