Dragon Age Origins

[AndrewWiggin]

Anyone else playing Dragon Age?

Rogue, Mage, or Warrior?

 

[BigRich]

Not yet but it's on my short list.

Impression so far?

 

[AndrewWiggin]

Not yet but it's on my short list.

Impression so far?

I'll just go ahead and disclose that I am very new to the world of RPGs, so I'm not as impressed as others who are more familiar with RPGs are.

I enjoy the game because it's supposed to be "loosely" based off of A Song of Ice and Fire. To me, about half the game seems pretty clearly adapted from A Game of Thrones, which is an awesome book. And I'm playing as one of my favorite characters from that book, essentially.

So I like the storyline, I like the environment, and the characters etc. Also love having the dog. My character is a Rogue, which from what I understand is a more difficult character to play. I like being able to sneak/steal/snipe etc. so it seemed right for me.

So far the quests have been enjoyable and fairly difficult, the only exception being when you are trapped in a dream world and have to fight through 8 different levels before getting out. You can't leave that world and I was not near strong enough to finish that quest, which was infuriating. It was just one of those missions where the developers mistake annoyance for harder gameplay. It's not harder to fight w/o your team, it's annoying as hell, why have you spent time leveling them up and buying them equipment if you can't use them?

One of the biggest drawbacks for me is that my character is overall quite weak. He can't stand against a large number of forces because he isn't a warrior, and if a mage focuses on me... it's time to bend over. That being said, I've finally figured out how to draw aggro away from me and I'm doing much better with that, especially as I have added more points to traditional rogue skills rather than strength, as I had previously been doing. But just to point this out, the aggro system is fairly difficult to figure out and use, and it's not very consistent.

This brings me to the second biggest problem with the game: it's buggy as hell at points. In cutscenes, certain characters don't have audio when they talk, the animations are weird, etc.

Overall, it's a fun game, a little buggy, but still enjoyable enough. I'm certainly already coming up with my next character, which I think is a good sign. There you go, probably much more than you bargained for, hope it helps.

 

[Barbarian]

Been thinking about playing. I just gave up on Aion, an MMO.

I am kind of addicted to League of Legends right now. Plus a bonus, it is free.

 

[Amer]

I'm playing a Human Noble Rogue. I'm level 17-18 and probably only a few hours from the end of the game. Things are starting to wrap up and come to a head.

I think if you're a fan of BioWare RPGs (KOTOR, Jade Empire, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect) then this is the game for you.

The tricky part of playing a rogue, as you said, is not having the aggro. You need a warrior to pull that off of you, and then you have to flank from behind. You actually do a sizeable amount of extra damage attacking from behind as a rogue, especially later in the game once you get some great abilities. When a battle begins you should either be laying off or in stealth until the warrior builds up enough aggro and then you get behind people and finish them off. If you just come in and do more damage than the warrior, then everyone is going to start focusing on you. Also, if you don't have Wynne in your party, you're doing a disservice to yourself. She is the healer in this game and once I started using her everything changed. It's enough that on every future playthrough I will be doing the Mages' Circle quest first just to get her.

Mages are really powerful, but really weak. I can get taken out in a few hits by one, but at the same token I can take one down in a few hits myself. As a rogue, it's your role in the party to be over there stunning the mages and taking them out so they aren't messing with you, attacking your party, or healing the baddies. Archer rogues like Leilanna are all about crowd control and melee rogues about doing damage.

In the fade world (dream world), everyone I know who is having trouble with it doesn't seem to realize that you need to be fighting in your spirit forms. The golem is nigh invincible and super powerful. The spirit and burning man both have great magic attacks. If you don't fight in spirit form you are going to be going through potions like crazy. Being in the spirit form makes up for the lack of your party. Once you get your first powerful form after the mouse, you should be fine. BioWare doesn't want you to suffer by being out of potions and having to save before every encounter and pray you make it through. That's just not fun.

What version are you playing? I'm playing on the 360 and I have to say I've only seen one glitch. Once I lockpicked a door instead of using the key off of the guy I killed outside of the door. Opening this door triggers a cutscene and it just wouldn't do it unless I used the key, so I had to reload from a save a few minutes earlier. Other than that I've not had any sound problems, but I do sometimes have to wait a few seconds for loot sparkles to show up.

I've only read halfway through A Game of Thrones, so I can't really compare, but I really like the story. It was slow in the beginning but really picks up to the point where it's hard to stop playing. My only complaint here is I really only like 2 of my party members. Everyone else is meh or I just don't care for at all.

 

[AndrewWiggin]

I'm playing a Human Noble Rogue. I'm level 17-18 and probably only a few hours from the end of the game. Things are starting to wrap up and come to a head.

I think if you're a fan of BioWare RPGs (KOTOR, Jade Empire, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect) then this is the game for you.

The tricky part of playing a rogue, as you said, is not having the aggro. You need a warrior to pull that off of you, and then you have to flank from behind. You actually do a sizeable amount of extra damage attacking from behind as a rogue, especially later in the game once you get some great abilities. When a battle begins you should either be laying off or in stealth until the warrior builds up enough aggro and then you get behind people and finish them off. If you just come in and do more damage than the warrior, then everyone is going to start focusing on you.

Mages are really powerful, but really weak. I can get taken out in a few hits by one, but at the same token I can take one down in a few hits myself.

In the fade world (dream world), everyone I know who is having trouble with it doesn't seem to realize that you need to be fighting in your spirit forms. The golem is nigh invincible and super powerful. The spirit and burning man both have great magic attacks. If you don't fight in spirit form you are going to be going through potions like crazy. Being in the spirit form makes up for the lack of your party.

What version are you playing? I'm playing on the 360 and I have to say I've only seen one glitch. Once I lockpicked a door instead of using the key off of the guy I killed outside of the door. Opening this door triggers a cutscene and it just wouldn't do it unless I used the key, so I had to reload from a save a few minutes earlier. Other than that I've not had any sound problems, but I do sometimes have to wait a few seconds for loot sparkles to show up.

I've only read halfway through A Game of Thrones, so I can't really compare, but I really like the story. It was slow in the beginning but really picks up to the point where it's hard to stop playing. My only complaint here is I really only like 2 of my party members. Everyone else is meh or I just don't care for at all.

I've made my dog into a freaking tank and have him target whoever I'm targeting and he draws so much aggro. I agree about not liking characters... I like Morrigan and Zervan and, of course, my dog. I think Morrigan might be the best character in my group, strangely enough. She isn't the glass cannon that I think most mages are. I got through the Mage level easily enough, I just hated doing it.

I'm on the 360 version and it has repeatedly gone freakish. Cutscenes have repeated several times, people aren't speaking, I killed a drake and it was basically on top of Morrigan for half a level and then finally dropped to the ground (weird).

I'm having better luck with my rogue now, I loaded him up with dex and now I'm upping cunning so I can get lethality. I'm only about level 10 right now, and I'm in the cave getting the ashes (I think I'm about to fight a dragon, but don't tell me). I don't dislike it, but I don't know that it lives up to the hype. The game may have to take a backseat to Assassin's Creed II though...

A Game of Thrones is spectacular.

 

[Amer]

Haha, I actually really like Wynne and Alistair. Morrigan is a good character but I kept getting annoyed whenever I made a selfless decision and she would make some snarky remark about it. Somehow, even though I'm not using her anymore, I still have like, total romance with her to the point where I can't even romance Leilanna and have never had the option to do so.

Plus, Alistair and Wynne have a hilarious conversation when you're walking around where he asks her to fix a hole in one of his shirts so that it doesn't get bigger when he's fighting darkspawn and cause him to catch cold.

The story is not BioWare's best, but I think I find it the most interesting. It also sets it up to make it a fine series. But yeah, I'm hoping to finish it up very soon. I should be getting both Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 in the mail today, along with already playing New Super Mario Bros Wii. And now that Assassin's Creed 2 is getting good reviews I might have to pick it up too. I thought the first one had a lot of potential but was too bogged down in repetitiveness.

 

[AndrewWiggin]

Haha, I actually really like Wynne and Alistair. Morrigan is a good character but I kept getting annoyed whenever I made a selfless decision and she would make some snarky remark about it. Somehow, even though I'm not using her anymore, I still have like, total romance with her to the point where I can't even romance Leilanna and have never had the option to do so.

Plus, Alistair and Wynne have a hilarious conversation when you're walking around where he asks her to fix a hole in one of his shirts so that it doesn't get bigger when he's fighting darkspawn and cause him to catch cold.

The story is not BioWare's best, but I think I find it the most interesting. It also sets it up to make it a fine series. But yeah, I'm hoping to finish it up very soon. I should be getting both Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 in the mail today, along with already playing New Super Mario Bros Wii. And now that Assassin's Creed 2 is getting good reviews I might have to pick it up too. I thought the first one had a lot of potential but was too bogged down in repetitiveness.

Assassin's Creed II looks significantly improved, and I intend to find out for myself tonight. I don't understand any of the "romance" crap with the game, and have no clue how you would get Morrigan to like you short of chucking a puppy off a cliff...

 

[Amer]

The romance stuff is kind of ridiculous, as I haven't really even been trying in this game. The only reason I can think of for Morrigan to like me at all is that I somewhat stood up for her in the beginning of the game against Alistair, and then in the first few quests I could choose to do I found gifts specifically for her. By the 2nd or 3rd time I came back to the campsite I had already unlocked the option to kiss her even though I wasn't using her in my party anymore and I've never had the option to even ask Leilanna any personal questions. So I guess never being mean to Morrigan whatsoever just makes her fall in love with you. I find this strange as you usually have to do more to make characters like you, and I'm never mean to my party members. I can't imagine how she would feel about you if you just went around being an *** all the time.