Dragon Age Origins

[iceberg325]

I was thinking of buying this game this week. I was just wondering if anyone has played it, and if so, what are your thoughts?

[Xiahou Dun]

I won't be able to formulate any particular opinion/view of this game until this weekend, as the store I've pre-ordered my copy won't have them available for pick up until tomorrow (Yet EB Games got their copies a week earlier... goddammit...).

However, I admit I'm intrigued by this game. I am a fan of Bioware games (KotOR, KotOR II TSL, Jade Empire, Mass Effect), and if it has the same focus on story etc like the others the I'll be a fan of it.

Recently I downloaded the trailer movies of Dragon Age: Origins from Xbox Live, and I like what I saw. Granted the majority of them were FMV shots, but the scenes with actual game footage in them did look good.

Check [Hidden link. Register to see links.], for more info about the game, as it has been updated.

[xENOgEAR666]

When I looked at the PC version, I thought it looked just like WoW gameplay, which I thought was really weak...

But they make the story seem cool though in that one commercial with the heavy metal in the background...

At the same time I read the info on the story and setting and it didnt seem intriguing at all...

So I dunno if Im gonna give this one a shot yet or not...

[iceberg325]

Im mainly looking foward to the gameplay. Ive heard the game is very strategic and difficult. Im looking foward to tha challenge. Bioware hasnt failed me yet. I loved Kotor 1 and 2, jade empire and mass effect.

[xENOgEAR666]

I love KOTOR too, from those 2 games BW seems like a good enough company, never played mass effect tho..

Whats up with that chick he bones in the trailer for Dragon's Age though

That girl is not hot...

seems like if you were designing a main character for the lead character to get a sex scene with, you'd make her hot as possible...


not manly looking..

[Xiahou Dun]

I managed to get my copy of this game late last night (about 10 minutes prior to the store closing for the night) and I've managed to play through two of the initial 'Origins' for the races available, with four more 'Origins' to go. My initial reaction to the game so far is this:

Character:
You have six races to choose from, (Human Noble, Dwarf Noble, Dwarf Commoner, Dalish Elf, City Elf and Mage) and you start off in a 'Origins' story chapter. Once you pick your race, you can then pick your gender, alter character's appearance, voice and can name them.

Combat:
Combat wise, it's typical of Bioware's earlier games, not that there's anything wrong with that. Combat is fluid and flows quite nicely (I've only played the Human Noble and City Elf 'Origins' so far.). The battles can get rather 'bloody', usually ending with your character standing around afterwards, talking with your companions, all the while coated in the blood of the enemy you just killed.

Music:
I couldn't really comment on the music so far, as I was playing it rather late and had the tv volume on mute.

Story:
Can't really comment on this aspect much either. Still to soon to formulate thoughts, although the 'Origins' prologue chapter is pretty good. I won't go into detail about them (having only played through 2 so far), but if they are any indication as to how the rest of the game's story is, I'd say well done.

I'll post another response here later, after I've played more and gotten further in the game.

On the Dragon Age website you can download the character creation menu, to create your character in the game, to see what they look like etc. You can create your character via this download and then when you get a copy of the PC version, can transfer your creation into the game.

[Prak]

I've been playing it since Tuesday, so I have some pretty solid thoughts on it by this point.

The gameplay is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Bioware game. It mostly flows naturally, but you can interrupt it on the fly to issue precise commands and direct all facets of a battle. The menus are a bit clunky at first if you're playing on a console (as I am) but that's fixed easily enough by a quick change in the options. I wish there was more variety in the skills available, but the bases seem to be covered regardless.

The storytelling is, as usual for Bioware, top-notch. The writing is often very clever and the voice acting is mostly good, although there are a few rough spots. The different origins seem pretty entertaining, and they're probably even worth going through more than once to see different ways they can play out.

Graphics are a bit dated, as you would expect for a game that's spent over 5 years in development. The orchestral score is quite good.

Overall, it's definitely a worthy purchase for RPG fans, Bioware junkies, and especially anyone who liked the Baldur's Gate series on PC.

[puddles123]

I'm curious; when you all say that it is gameplay just like any other Bioware game, what does that mean? Does that mean it has the gameplay of Kotor, which I found rather simplistic and tedious? Or does that mean it has the gameplay of Jade Empire, which is more button mashing but pretty much the same effect? Or is it a throwback to the better, more strategic days of Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale style gameplay?

[Prak]

Well, KOTOR gameplay wasn't necessarily simplistic, but you could get away with not being very strategic. I suppose the same likely applies here, although I jumped in with a mage on the hard difficulty (friendly fire from spells hurts pretty badly) so pointing my character at an enemy and letting the game go on autopilot isn't an option.

[doomjockey]

Bioware is never going back to those PC days. So DAO is not that challenging, but neither is it a cakewalk. I'm enjoying it so far simply on the merits of it being another well done Bioware RPG. The only things I really dislike about it are a few unfavorable comparisons with their old D&D stuff and the story itself is pretty predictable. Of course it's pretty much a given that anyone who played the BG games won't rate this "spiritual successor" as highly. There are still fun things to be done with it.

[iceberg325]

Ive played for about 4 hours now and I really like this game. I got through the Mage's origin. The story really pulled me in. I cant wait to see what happens. I love the combat system. Im not too far into the game so I wont be able to comment too much, but Im really enjoying it so far.

[Biggiesized]

My biggest complaint is that you can no longer gib your foes like in Baldur's Gate.

This game doesn't match the BG series, but it's fairly good in its own right. Combat is a mish-mash of WoW, NWN, and BG.

[Prak]

Since I didn't mention this before, the lack of alignment tracking is one of the game's best features. In most similar games, you're expected to go as far to one end of the good/evil spectrum as possible, and the game would usually reward you for doing so. That took a lot away from the role-playing aspects of games since most of us would pick a grey area somewhere between the usual bionic superzombie Hitler and Jesus in a Santa costume outcomes.

Here I've found myself developing an actual personality for my character, which goes a long way toward making me care about it.

[puddles123]

Prak, now that makes it sound good. The one singular feature that has prevented me from enjoying many of Bioware's games with KOTOR and beyond is their irritatingly black and white alignment settings. Completely unrealistic. I will definitely have to check out this game and see the difference.

[Xiahou Dun]

Ok, seeing as I've finished this game twice (First as Human Noble Warrior, then City Elf Rogue) and I'm now trying my hand at a Human Magi playthrough. So far I've just entered Ostagar, and trying to refrain from charging into Darkspawn like I did as Warrior or Rogue.

Any advice or tips from others who have played as Mage would be appreciated.

[TK]

My general thoughts on this game are that the role playing is pretty good, just not quite as good as in Mass Effect, and I like that it's huge and I like the way the interaction with the characters is, and the combat is OK though I prefer either true turn based combat or something like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect where it's completely action based. Basically it has a lot of good things, but the story and world are horribly, horribly generic and sometimes it just feels so stupid. I'm pretty bummed out that they didn't create a more original world for this game instead of just using the same old dwarves and elves and shit. And the plot is really pretty bad. The nice thing is that in a game that lets you do a lot of role playing, it doesn't matter as much if there's a bad plot, because you can make the story your own to some extent. I did care about my character and the others because I was able to manufacture good story elements by deciding my own character's feelings. It would be a lot cooler if the story wasn't just an uninspired Tolkien ripoff though.

I yearn for a new era of RPGs. One in which people realize that you don't need to save the universe from a horrible transcendent evil to have a good story. That, in fact, this regularly creates bad stories. Why can't we ever have an RPG where we go adventuring and interesting things happen but we DON'T need to save the world?

Planescape: Torment was the closest game I ever played to this. All you're doing is trying to find your identity. It gets pretty epic, but it's never like THE WORLD HANGS IN THE BALANCE, MUST STOP THIS ANCIENT EVIL FROM CONSUMING ALL THE WORLD DERPY DERR

Torment also didn't have elves and dwarves and all that stupid shit, it had an intriguing fantasy world with a very well thought out mythology behind it. Everywhere you went you felt like you were discovering something really exciting. I definitely did not have that feeling anywhere in Dragon Age. Every area I visited was like... Oh. This again.

Originally Posted by Xiahou Dun

Ok, seeing as I've finished this game twice (First as Human Noble Warrior, then City Elf Rogue) and I'm now trying my hand at a Human Magi playthrough. So far I've just entered Ostagar, and trying to refrain from charging into Darkspawn like I did as Warrior or Rogue.

Any advice or tips from others who have played as Mage would be appreciated.

Buff your magic stat to ridiculous levels, have your other party members be a couple tanks and a rogue to unlock stuff/maybe shoot arrows at bad guys, and learn all the healing spells so you can keep your guys alive because if they die and there's a swarm of enemies around you you're fucked. In this game, enemies first attack whoever is wearing huge crazy armor, so buff the shit out of that person, heal them, cast regeneration spells on them, etc. Then just pick off the bad guys while they uselessly attempt to kill 'em!

Then become an arcane warrior. Holy shit it's awesome. Your magic stat becomes your strength, so you can blast a horde of bad guys with crazy powerful area clearing spells and stun them/light them on fire or whatever and then run in to fuck them up with your crazy ass magic sword.

Oh, and get all the combat training. One spell getting interrupted because you got hit with an arrow or something can fuck up an entire battle for you. Persuasion is very useful too for the parts of the game where you don't have all your party members and can avoid tough battles by talking out of it.

[Prak]

Seconding TK's comments about Arcane Warrior. It's so overpowered that it nearly breaks the game.

[ThroneofOminous]

TK, have you played Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer? If you're looking for an original plot without dwarves and elves that isn't about saving the world, MotB is one of the better ones. Just don't play the original NWN2 campaign, since it's everything that's awful about boilerplate fantasy plots and then some.

I'm 14 hours in, doing a mage playthrough. Up to the

Spoiler!

Sloth boss, who I can beat down pretty easily up to the point where he reaches his last form and decides to kill all my party members with one spell.

So far, I'm really enjoying it. I agree that the plot is really bland and uninteresting and the dungeons drag on way too long, but it's nice to play a PC RPG with decent battles for once. The last one I played where the battle system wasn't the weakest aspect of the game must have been like, The Temple of Elemental Evil or something.

[TK]

No, I played the first NWN and I liked it well enough but it had basically all the same problems as Dragon Age. Maybe if I get a new computer that runs stuff well I'll track down an NWN2 collection.

[doomjockey]

Thumbs up on TK's ramblings.

I almost wish BioWare had gone with D&D again. Mainly because DA lore isn't that fresh and isn't as detailed. But I understand why they didn't.

The Witcher didn't shove a "save the world" plot in your face. Refreshing. Actually I believe it was a pretty similar to Planescape: Torment in using memory loss as a plot device and choice to redefine your protagonist. It could get pretty philosophical leading to some golden lines from Geralt.

[puddles123]

In Bioware's defense, they have had some success creating their own game worlds and accompanying lore. Jade Empire, for example, took influences from eastern mythology to create something entirely new. I haven't played Mass Effect, but I believe that was an original take on things. It is sad that they went with this dwarf and elf thing once again, but their rationale was probably that it would be more accessible to the average joe if they know whats coming along with the gritty hack and slash adventure it has been advertised as being. In fact, this game has received more advertisement than any Bioware game I've seen, which could explain why they chose to go in a more familiar direction as the standard fantasy. They want to appeal to a broader audience. When it comes down to it... they just want money.

[Xiahou Dun]

Originally Posted by puddles123

In Bioware's defense, they have had some success creating their own game worlds and accompanying lore. Jade Empire, for example, took influences from eastern mythology to create something entirely new. I haven't played Mass Effect, but I believe that was an original take on things. It is sad that they went with this dwarf and elf thing once again, but their rationale was probably that it would be more accessible to the average joe if they know whats coming along with the gritty hack and slash adventure it has been advertised as being. In fact, this game has received more advertisement than any Bioware game I've seen, which could explain why they chose to go in a more familiar direction as the standard fantasy. They want to appeal to a broader audience. When it comes down to it... they just want money.

What's wrong with going back to traditional fantasy elements, such as Dwarves and Elves? I kind of enjoy going back to these races and story myself, as it brings back memories of when I used to play AD&D with friends on the weekends when I was a teenager. Still to each their own.

Your last comment though...

When it comes down to it... they just want money.

That's pretty much the standard of all game companies now. They may state they do it for other reasons, but when you get right down to the bottom line, it's to make money. All companies are guilty of that.

[TK]

Well, the game designers are probably for the most part in that job because they are interested in making games, too.

And if you're going to do an elves and dwarves thing for familiarity, ok, I can accept that; not my first choice, but I can take it. The extent to which the game's story is generic goes way past that though unfortunately. Fantasy stories have a terrible habit of just taking all the major elements from Lord of the Rings and thinly reworking them, and this one is majorly guilty.

ANCIENT EVIL IS RETURNING WITH ARMY OF EVIL ORC LIKE GUYS

UNLIKELY HERO MUST FORM A BAND OF ADVENTURERS AFTER BEING BROUGHT INTO THE FOLD BY WISENED OLD MENTOR GUY

MUST UNITE THE VARIOUS NATIONS

OH, BUT THEY HAVE ALL THESE ISSUES TO SOLVE FIRST

BIG HUGE CLIMACTIC BATTLE

[Xiahou Dun]

Nothing wrong with using the template from all fantasy novels eh?

If it aint broken, why fix it?

[doomjockey]

Because it's lazy?

I'd have to say worse than that is this milquetoast version of "dark fantasy". To it's credit, there was at least one very good, very dark scene so far, the Joining. But generally speaking, I'm not sure why I thought this would have a more mature tone than other RPGs. More often than not it's just a bit of extra gore and extended bouts of hugging masquerading as sex scenes.

But that's enough about the negatives, because I actually do enjoy the game in most other areas.