First Impressions

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Wish me luck guys, it's dragon hunting time!

 

Haha, that made me laugh. ^_^

Added note about potion reagents:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure every component for healing/lyrium poultices can be bought from a merchant in a 99x stack (99x stacks from merchants never run out). Lyrium dust can be bought in a 99x stack from the quartermaster on the first floor of the mage's tower. I'm sure most people know flasks and such can be bought in a 99x stack from camp. So in theory the amount of potions you can have is only limited by your gold.

Good luck Caradhras! ^_^
Dragon hunting tips if you have a hard time:

Spoiler

Try not to leave only one melee character by the dragon, or it will pick them up in it's mouth and do massive damage. If it's being flanked by two characters, the dragon will mostly kick with it's back legs or breath attack. The high dragon (the one outside the urn of sacred ashes) will fly up into the air if you only have one melee character too.

Cone of cold and the first tier frost spell (freezing burst or some such) are probably the most useful spells you'll have for dragons, since they're not immune to being frozen. It's a much shorter duration, but it's very useful.

Other than that, it's mostly just outliving the thing, and tends to take a few minutes to kill. ^_^

 

Good tips Rahkir, I wish I had read your post earlier, it might have saved me a few reloads.

 

No problem ^_^ and dying is part of the fun! I most certainly did the first few times I tried, haha.

One thing I was really disappointed about with being a mage in Dragon Age is that you don't get any of the cool 'kill shots.' It just kinda falls over if your mage deals the killing blow, where as if your warrior does, time slows down and a really fancy big animation plays. I think there's a special animation if a melee character deals the final blow to ogres too. I'm not sure if there is for anything else, since one of my mages almost always got the kill. But it sure is much less climactic!

 

The way I see it, you had a choice between being cool and being powerful and you picked mage.

Mages don't seem to get any blood on their clothes that's a bit annoying...

More seriously, the special animation doesn't kick in all the time, I think it has to do with some foes and whether or not you score a critical hit. My rogue seems to like decapitating his enemies.

I've been fiddling with my controller so I can now use it to play the game, it's much easier to play with a controller from an over the shoulder perspective while issuing commands works better from a top view and is faster with the mouse. So now I get to see the surroundings without bothering about typing on my keyboard to move around.

The more I play this game the more I like playing it.

 

Haha, well I initially started an elven warrior, but stopped for some reason. I was thinking of replaying the game when I got some more free time with a warrior... a dwarf warrior... a berserking dwarf warrior, yees.

Yeah, my mage almost never got blood on him. I didn't know special animations occurred on killing blows for normal enemies! :O I'm pretty sure it's a 100% chance on dragons, at least, every time I've seen them killed by a melee character (my housemate played a warrior right next to me while I played my mage) the animation took place. But I could be mistaken about that.

You know, when I first bought the game I thought I'd play from a top down perspective, but it just goes sooo much smoother if you play over the shoulder. Especially since you can customize the player AI so well, and swap between them at will to order individual commands. The only time I used the top down view was in the mage tower.

Spoiler

When I was getting angry at the possessed templars for instantly killing my mage with five divine smites right off the bat. So I'd set the party to hold positions, put my mages way out of range then have alistair open the door and block it. Since Inferno can be cast through walls, I put it inside the room. Kinda cheesy I admit, but!

 

This game is amazing. It's basically the bastard child of BG2, Mass Effect and Oblivion. A good thing. I've not been so impressed with a game in a long while. Mages are overpowered though... If I could, I'd form a party purely of spellcasters. Chuck a few Blizzards and Infernos up their arses and jobs a good 'en.

Quality game. Loads of attention to detail on the gameplay, such as having so many different 'origin' storys to start the game off. I've restarted about 4 or 5 times now just so I can see the different opening stories.

 

With the staff found at warden's keep the cold based damage spells are even more effective. I mean, what is an extra 25% added to damage.

I also trashed my human mage in favor of a elf. I'm throwing all skill points at magic and will instead of one to magic, one to will, and one to one of the other attributes.

 

How are companions handled in Dragon Age?

Is it like the Baldur's Gate games where you can tell a companion to join or not to join? Or is it like the Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights 2 games where no matter what you say every companion is forced on you?

I really really hate having companions forced on me. Having a holy paladin, a chaotically insane sorcerer, and an evil ranger all in the same party peeved me off in NWN2.

 

I've precisely avoided doing that to preserve future replayability. I know people have been trying all origins but personally I want to be surprised with them when I'll play the game again.

It's a bit like the save and reload thing. It may be useful when you play through a game and you know you're not going to play that game a second time, but when it's not the case then it's better to avoid this approach. Of course you don't get a perfect run through the first time.

Origins are definitely a very important part of Dragon Age.

I've never played NWN2 but I can tell you that you don't have to worry too much about that issue. First, there is no alignment in Dragon Age. Second, you can fire NPCs (for instance I fired one of my followers who wasn't too happy about my actions) and I can think of very few occasions where NPCs are forced upon you. I don't want to put spoilers in that post since it wouldn't help but the way some characters are pushed forward is not necessarily bad. You certainly don't have to worry about having to keep someone you don't like around for the entire game.

There is a lot of interaction between NPCs (like in BG2) and although you can't have more than 3 followers the other NPCs you have enlisted are available if you want to change your party (you can't do that outside a certain area and it's a bit like in KotOR or Jade Empire).

Every follower has a % of approval which will vary depending on your actions, choices and what you tell them. I didn't try yet but if you really annoy a character he or she will leave your party. Followers will often give their opinion, at times disagree or even question your actions.

To use your example from NWN2, if you wanted to include a demented sorcerer and an evil ranger in your party, your paladin follower would talk to you about it and possibly disapprove.

In many ways it's like Baldur's Gate without having to worry about XP: a follower's level depends on your main character's so you don't lose anything by recruiting a character whereas in Baldur's Gate (and especially in Baldur's Gate 2) you had to invest time and effort with party members or delay the time when you would recruit them. You certainly don't have to worry about these things in Dragon Age.

 

Yay! Amazon finally had the CE in stock and it'll be here on the 24th!

I look forward to flooding this forum with "how the F*** do I......" questions!

 

There are two companions force on you and of those two you only have to keep one as a companion, though you can do something later on to get rid of him if you so desire.

You aslo don't have to take companions with you if you don't want too. You can go all by yourself if so desire, though it is not recommended.

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LMAO....If you play a mage you can throw quite a few my way as I have been battling my restart syndrome and more recently DAO glitch.

 

Been playing it now adays myself. Playing a human warrior. Plain and simple. Had a blast so far. Then, 1 hour ago, the downside of the game smacked me in the face. YET ANOTHER dreamsequence (at the mage tower). This annoys the hell out of me. why do every single rp-game have to have one of those lame sequences? That cow has been milked dry. I cringe every time i run into something like that. Even fallout 3 had it.

The companions are great though. And so is the gameworld. But the replayability of the game went straight to bottom, when I encountered that seemlingly (not done with it yet) long dreamsequence.

 

You mean the fade? That's not really a dream, is it? You're consciously exploring the realm of demons and spirits; not sleeping through a dream like BG2. That's how I understood it anyway, people's minds go to the fade when they dream, yeah, but that doesn't make anything in the fade a dream. That's my opinion anyway. ^_^

 

That may be a bit of a spoiler for people who haven't played that quest...

It is a bit unfair to criticize this element of the game before even completing it. My first impression was very similar to your own but I have since revised my judgement.

 

I agree with Rahkir. The fade sequence isn't a dream per se. It's more like your character being imprisoned in the astral plane. When people dream, the unconsciously get to the Fade. Only they can't do anything because their not in control of their bodies. Now, your character's soul is fully in the fade, so whatever happens in there affects your body (you can also think of it like in the Matrix).

 

Finished the squence today. And I stand by my criticism. Its a "dream-like" situation, and its dull. Seems like sequences like this is mandatory in every crpg now adays.
Got nothing bad to say about the rest of the game though.

 

I don't agree.

Spoiler

I thought it was one of the sequence on which I had most fun. Being able to switch to a spirit to do a crushing prison spell, than run up to the opponent and switch to the burning man to do a fireball beneath myself and than go to a golem form to tackle whatever is left standing... Or just keep the golem form to go one on one with an ogre-like demon in a slugfest.. Just too cool!

 

I loved the Faed scquence in the Magi Tower. I agee with Triactus 100%. In fact, I was disappointed you didn't keep the special abilities later on in the game when you enter the fade.

 

I finally had time to start playing this. The first reaction was that it looks ugly. Some effort on the graphics department could have been appreciated. But I suppose it is enough for the game. After a few hours of playing I think that this might actually be the spiritual successor of you know what. I do still wonder about the total change in the marketing campaign for this game though, which went totally wrong.

And a bit later...

Hmm, now that I have seen more of the game I think that I might have been a bit too harsh about the graphics initially. Although there are some low quality textures around quite a lot, especially in the outdoor areas.