Dragon Age: Origins gameplay and discussion thread.

[frogbeastegg]

Weirdness. I played several more hours last night and my party AI and influence was working in a sane manner again. In fact I redid one conversation where I got negative influence, picked exactly the same choices, and this time got positive influence! With a smattering of gifts and some functional conversation I have Alistair deeply fond of me, and Morrigan and Leliana to slightly friendly. They didn't have much dialogue for me to work through, and Sten had none so he still hates me.

Leliana is spotting traps all over the place and they appear visually on the game world, and by walking near them I am given the option to disarm them.

Maybe dragon age is a night game? Play it in the morning and it's half asleep? Regardless of the reason I enjoyed my time immensely.

I haven't done the Shale DLC yet; the achievements are broken on it and I don't want to bork my profile. The wardens keep DLC costs 560 points and I admit I am tempted, if only for the item storage. My inventory fills up with runes and ingredients so quickly. Again, the achievements are broken so I can't play it without needing to recover my profile later.

Setting and plot wise I'm still not seeing the dark fantasy, and definitely not seeing any trace of the song of ice and fire inspiration that the developers were talking about. It's basically a standard fantasy novel, which means it's less twee than your usual fantasy game and isn't in technicolour graphics and that's about it. It's very Tad Williams with added blood so far.

[Beskar]

I own the DLC, but the problem is, can't even download it to play it.

It is quite annoying.

Even worse, I heard you cannot even play games with the DLC content, offline.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think I found the "male love interest" for my male character. Morrigan is getting really upset with me, because I have a high approval rating with him.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I decided since I saved just before, to get the achievement... oh my... my eyes.. they are tainted.

[FactionHeir]

Weirdness. I played several more hours last night and my party AI and influence was working in a sane manner again. In fact I redid one conversation where I got negative influence, picked exactly the same choices, and this time got positive influence! With a smattering of gifts and some functional conversation I have Alistair deeply fond of me, and Morrigan and Leliana to slightly friendly. They didn't have much dialogue for me to work through, and Sten had none so he still hates me.

I thought that was only on my end. Did some convos to just look at what the henchie would reply with for giggles and then went back to pick a mod-high path that would fit with the RP. Thing is, sometimes a path seems to give you a boost once, but after a load, that path never gives anything, which is weird. I.e. the convo with Lelianna about the people in the convent and picking a certain option the first time got me +4 but each time thereafter 0.

Re Achieves, are they broken just for the xbox or also the PC?

Even worse, I heard you cannot even play games with the DLC content, offline.

That's true. My connection went down for a while yesterday and when I went to resume my game it told me that due to the DLC I can only play it logged into an account that has them.

[Xiahou]

That's true. My connection went down for a while yesterday and when I went to resume my game it told me that due to the DLC I can only play it logged into an account that has them.

Is this the PC version? I haven't logged in since I downloaded the DLC and I've had no problems using it.

[FactionHeir]

Yeah, PC version

[Krusader]

There was a patch for Dragon Age yesterday...maybe that fixed some stuff?

[Monk]

33.5 hours in. Thinking of taking my foot off the gas today and getting some real work done. This game can be very hard to put down at times.

Setting and plot wise I'm still not seeing the dark fantasy, and definitely not seeing any trace of the song of ice and fire inspiration that the developers were talking about. It's basically a standard fantasy novel, which means it's less twee than your usual fantasy game and isn't in technicolour graphics and that's about it. It's very Tad Williams with added blood so far.

I'm starting to wonder if Bioware has the "Big book of fantasy cliches" tucked away in their writers' office. The story isn't bad per say, it's just nothing special or revolutionary. Fun? Oh absolutely! Highly original? I really don't think so.

Is this the PC version? I haven't logged in since I downloaded the DLC and I've had no problems using it.

Yeah same here, I haven't had any trouble logged in or out in playing.

[Beskar]

Something is bugging me and there are no answers anywhere.

Do the allied supply crates do anything?

Edit: yes, I realised they are for donating, but does that result in anything tangible or affect anything in the game, other than make you poor?

[Krusader]

Just did Stone Prisoner...don't really know if it's worth 15 $. Then again, its there to torment the second-hand buyers most likely.
Entered Orzammar, but think I should head off to Denerim next. Seems to be lots of quests to do there.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And after playing some more, Sten actually likes me more than Leilana even though I've spent more time trying to get her approval

[Monk]

Edit: yes, I realised they are for donating, but does that result in anything tangible or affect anything in the game, other than make you poor?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When you finally get to use your army, the donations you've made will give them bonuses. I believe the type of bonus depends on what they want, i didn't dabble with it very much.

Getting logical results based on what I'd chosen is a massive difference to my party and to my enjoyment of the game. Yesterday my party hated me, today I'm high enough in the esteem of all 3 romanceable characters that they're madly in love with me and the non-romanceable characters who have offered dialogue have recovered their opinion decently. Sten is stubbornly disliking me though; he's not offered any more conversation so I suspect bribery gifts are the only hope. Consequentally I'm half convinced he doesn't have a personality ...

Guess I'm quite the lucky one, then. I haven't noticed anything strange about the influence system. Now pathfinding? Oh sure, that is seriously buggy and needs a few patches.

The camera controls for PC are horrible. I need to use my left hand for rotation, the mouse is only good for zoom. It basically means I need to pause the game to scan the room as I'm trying I use Tab+A to get a 360. It's very annoying. As annoying as the .org now because it's loading slow. This is a persistent problem that will bother me though the entire game.

Mouse wheel can zoom and the right mouse button, when held down, rotates. I found it to be pretty easy to control.

[Vladimir]

I just cut some poor girl's head off! Blood went flying everywhere!

Currently playing on hard, still trying to fight free from the castle in the beginning. I'm only playing a rouge and it's still quite easy. I'm not sure what the fuss is about

Since the right button is also used to move to a location it is an encumbrance. Moving the curser to the edge of the screen should rotate the camera like in many other games.

[seireikhaan]

I wonder something:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

How much its going to come back to bite me that I keep making deals with demons and sparing their lives.

[Beskar]

Since the right button is also used to move to a location it is an encumbrance. Moving the curser to the edge of the screen should rotate the camera like in many other games.

You press and hold, no problems at all. Mouse wheel for zoom.

[Monk]

37 hours and i've reached the finish line, completing the game as fast as humanly possible, i believe. Only plot quests and DLC was attempted as i purposefully skipped probably over three-fourths of the side-quests.

I have to say I am mentally exhausted from this, like reading a book all in one sitting - fun times but I couldn't do it again right away. Even so, I find myself... eager to start another character and go through it all again only this time dungeon crawling and picking up every extra i missed. Maybe not hit it so hard and stretch it out over more days.

The game only hits its stride about 6-8 hours in but once it does the story doesn't let go. It's predictable and cliche, but something about its charm makes me not care so much. I really enjoyed the ride and I'll be playing this for a long while to come. At least until Mass Effect 2!

Pathfinding needs a patch, and tactics behavior needs some tweaking but overall I really didn't find many issues in the game (bugs were pretty limited, and it only crashed once). There was one time when an enemy fell through the world and I had to reload a save but surprisingly I encountered very little in the way of glitches.

If anyone needs tips on the boss fights send me a PM and I can go into them. Can't help with origin stories, i've only done the one. (human noble)

[AggonyDuck]

Is anyone else finding Shale to be ridiculously powerful? I've been sending him alone against hordes of enemies in Stoneheart-mode, with mages supporting him from afar, and he can pretty much tank everything in the game.

About the Sacred Ashes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

He even singlehandedly occupied the High Dragon's attention while the rest of the party killed it from afar.

[frogbeastegg]

Did anyone else notice that the sound effect for changing heavy armour is the same one used for moving plate armour about in your inventory in Baldur's Gate? I got some new gear for Alistair and Sten today and had to equip/remove the chest portion a few times to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

I do like Alistair.

I thought that was only on my end. Did some convos to just look at what the henchie would reply with for giggles and then went back to pick a mod-high path that would fit with the RP. Thing is, sometimes a path seems to give you a boost once, but after a load, that path never gives anything, which is weird. I.e. the convo with Lelianna about the people in the convent and picking a certain option the first time got me +4 but each time thereafter 0.

No, I haven't seen a lack of points. I saw it hand out negative points for a conversation I did before quitting without saving yesterday, and then hand out positive points this morning when I chose exactly the same lines. To use your example, yesterday Lelianna would have given me -4 for the choice whereas today (and logically) she'd have given me +4.

Getting logical results based on what I'd chosen is a massive difference to my party and to my enjoyment of the game. Yesterday my party hated me, today I'm high enough in the esteem of all 3 romanceable characters that they're madly in love with me and the non-romanceable characters who have offered dialogue have recovered their opinion decently. Sten is stubbornly disliking me though; he's not offered any more conversation so I suspect bribery gifts are the only hope. Consequentally I'm half convinced he doesn't have a personality ...

Re Achieves, are they broken just for the xbox or also the PC?

Xbox only, and it was fixed this afternoon.

It's a semi common problem with DLC around release time, common enough that I always check to make sure they're working properly before I play new content. The central microsoft server hadn't been updated with them so obtaining the achievements added them to your profile list but did not award any points. The only way to fix that is to wait for the server to be updated, recover your profile to remove the problematic achievements and then go collect them again. If you're lucky then the achievement will pop correctly and all's well. If not it won't pop because the game thinks you already have it, at which point you're rather stuck.

I'm starting to wonder if Bioware has the "Big book of fantasy cliches" tucked away in their writers' office. The story isn't bad per say, it's just nothing special or revolutionary. Fun? Oh absolutely! Highly original? I really don't think so.

Definitely. It's what I'd call fluff fantasy, the sort of thing I'd read in 3 hours because there's nothing worth thinking or slowing down for. Dragon Age is only different if you compare it to the stereotypical Terry Brooks or Raymond Feist style stuff, and that's a style of fantasy that's been heavily out of fashion for a decade or more,, and which wasn't omnipresent in the genre even before that.

The lore and notes sections of the journal are good to read. The material in there is a bit stronger than what is handed out in the course of the story. One or two of Lelianna's bardic stories are good too.

Doesn't help that some of the cliches are gleefully turned on their heads in a predictable way, such as (spoilers for the bit after the beacon lighting near the beginning)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the way the charismatic and reckless young king got picked up and pulped in the battle. Cliche says he should escape to eventually recover what's lost, and become wiser and more mature in the process. The only simple antidote to that is for him to die as it'd be hard for a game to depict him being dragged from the field half-dead and spending his remaining years in increasing obscurity as his bids to regain power failed.