Dragon Age

I've put about 60 hours into it and am on my 2nd character.

The game seems to be pretty awesome.

I wish I had a console to try it.

On a related note, have you tried the free flash game? Was that any good? Did it relate to the story well?

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Original post by jrjellybean I wish I had a console to try it.

They do have a PC version.

I didn't much like it, to be honest. I had similar trouble with Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fable and about every other game I've played that tries to tie character development into a sweeping narrative with the illusion that the player is authoring the story. It always feels thin and canned, and the production values, high as they are, never keep up, so you wind up with a bunch of characters standing around like mannequins talking at each other, and that never seems to blend well with the gameplay, and on and on.

I gave it about 12 hours over five days when I rented it for the Xbox, and it never really hooked me. I did manage to finish Mass Effect, but I think that was mainly because the combat action was so much more engaging for me.

I might just be pessimistic, though. I tend to have very low expectations for writing, voice acting etc. in these games, and so I go into every cutscene expecting it to be an ordeal, which might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I didn't much like it, to be honest. I had similar trouble with Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fable and about every other game I've played that tries to tie character development into a sweeping narrative with the illusion that the player is authoring the story. It always feels thin and canned, and the production values, high as they are, never keep up, so you wind up with a bunch of characters standing around like mannequins talking at each other, and that never seems to blend well with the gameplay, and on and on. I gave it about 12 hours over five days when I rented it for the Xbox, and it never really hooked me. I did manage to finish Mass Effect, but I think that was mainly because the combat action was so much more engaging for me. I might just be pessimistic, though. I tend to have very low expectations for writing, voice acting etc. in these games, and so I go into every cutscene expecting it to be an ordeal, which might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I found it to be very different then what you describe. Although I am only 23% into the game, I do feel like it is a real story. I mean, ALL games at the core don't really let the player author the story; they can just give more options/ways of getting to a point. Some do this better then others.

I found most of the voice acting to be quite good with decent writing behind it. As I said, it is just a game and it ends. No matter how elaborate the story/writing/choices are, there is still an ending to it that is unavoidable.

You are right though that it does not do anything "new" per say. But what does these days? I feel it does what’s been done and does it better. I felt very at home with it, since it almost felt like NWN/NWN2.

Honestly I think Bioware shot themselves in the foot. I really do believe it to be grand high fantasy, and it will be hard to top it.

But, we are entitled to differences of opinion. That is what is so great about it. Something I like you may hate, and vice versa.

I played it on PC though, not Xbox.

p.s. I am not trying to pick at the quoted posts author at all, but I wanted to use it as a base of example. If I offended I am sorry.

I got it awhile ago, and I haven't played it much. I'm kind of getting fed up. The combat is sloppy, uncontrollable and like a buff arms race. It's hard or impossible to play my sneaky rogue.

However I like the overall story and the atmosphere. I just find it a pain in the ass to actually play.

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Original post by Daaark I got it awhile ago, and I haven't played it much. I'm kind of getting fed up. The combat is sloppy, uncontrollable and like a buff arms race. It's hard or impossible to play my sneaky rogue. However I like the overall story and the atmosphere. I just find it a pain in the ass to actually play.

Hmm, I am playing a Mage. I have heard melee is boring. As a mage I let the AI swing swords while I have fun staying back and nuking the $#!^ out of things.

The emphasis is mine:

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I had similar trouble with Mass Effect, Oblivion, Fable and about every other game I've played that tries to [tie character development into a sweeping narrative with the illusion that the player is authoring the story.

I don't personally believe any of Bioware's games (not including Dragon Age, which I haven't played enough yet) have even attempted to make it feel that the player is authoring the story. I think the goal has always been much more modest: to simply make the player feel like he's at least playing a part in the story.

There's a lot of room for improvement, but I think it's worked very well so far. I find it much easier to identify with my character when I can choose the line of dialog that is closest to what I imagine I would say if I were in my character's shoes. This also allows me to choose roughly whether my character reacts kindly or with anger to new revelations. The consequences of these choices are usually small, but they are substantive enough to help me identify with my character more.

Now, all of that is mostly in reference to Mass Effect and KOTOR. I got Dragon Age, and so far I haven't hardly played it much at all. Part of the problem is that the origin story, while interesting, seems like a 2-3 hour minigame that just drastically delays the real story. This means I have to play a lot longer than typical before I get any sort of "hook"--an interesting plot occurrence that makes me want to keep playing in order to advance the story. In Mass Effect, such a hook occurred at the very beginning of the game. In Dragon Age, I've played through my origin story as a mage and then a little bit in the next area, and nothing has happened yet--nothing has happened.

Obviously something will eventually happen, but it's taking too long. For me, these games aren't fun unless there is a compelling story going on all the time. So far, it's just been an onslaught of codex entries telling me all about a world in which there is essentially nothing happening except for a war with stereotypical enemies. I liked the codex in Mass Effect and listened to all the entries with voice-overs, but I only started paying attention to the codex once the plot had me hooked. Before that initial hook, the codex was more boring than all the novels I was forced to read back in high school. It's the same with Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. Nobody's interested in the lore until they've seen the movies; similarly, I don't care about the codex entries until something significant and interesting has happened in the story. Dragon Age has way too many codex entries (indexed by number, not name, thus making it useless to look anything up in) before anything even remotely interesting happens.

I'm sure there's an interesting story here, and I'm hoping the enemy isn't as stereotypical as it sounds. I'll find out eventually, but the delay is certainly long enough to frustrate me.

So ironically the origin stories are the one thing I haven't liked about the game so far.

I played through the game twice. I really enjoyed the combat (but you MUST play it on the PC. From what I heard about the limitations on the console versions, it would not be fun to play). There's a surprising amount of strategy and tactics involved. You really need to micromanage your units and plan things perfectly to win... unless you're playing on easy. That's a huge improvement over KOTOR in my opinion. Unfortunately once you master things, the nightmare difficulty is surprisingly easy.

The plot is... disappointing. It's cliche and mostly predictable. That said, it's very well done and there's a good deal of room to influence the outcome of the game.

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Original post by Straudos The plot is... disappointing. It's cliche and mostly predictable. That said, it's very well done and there's a good deal of room to influence the outcome of the game.

What fantasy RPG game doesn't have a plot that's cliche and mostly predictable?!? We gamers have become too jaded I think.

I'm having trouble with combat on the PS3, so I think I may pick it up for PC if I continue to be annoyed - maybe for a second playthrough. I haven't played many RPGs - the last one I played was Deus Ex, and that was really an Action RPG more than a true fantasy RPG. So I'm also just getting used to managing my party better in terms of weapons and tactics when it comes to battling enemies.

I actually like reading the Codex entries - the backstory is very rich and unfolds in pace with the current game story.

being a completely un-jaded RPG person I'm probably going much easier on it than I would another genre, like strategy, that I'm more familiar with (also prob why the battles are pissing me off so often more than anything, hah). I think at this point I'm sticking with it just to get some fresh RPG experience under my belt more than anything. So... I guess a 6 out of 10?

I really like Dragon Age (and I'm playing on Xbox). Mages are definately more fun to control, but I find Rogues and Warriors are deeper and there is more you can do with them.

I enjoy the game much more than Oblivion, Morrowind or Fallout (but then again, I enjoyed KOTOR and Mass Effect more as well).

I think a lot of problems with the combat are due to the interface being a bit clunky (by necessity on consoles), which just means it takes a little getting used to.

Interesting article on Morrigan here. Amazing the depth to which some people examine a game.

BioWare Social me up :-) .

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Original post by Machaira Interesting article on Morrigan here. Amazing the depth to which some people examine a game.

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Good drama necessitates that bad things should occasionally happen to characters whom you like, but the player's combat strategies are ruined if they are suddenly and permanently forbidden from using a character they like.

I've seen (at least) two strategies for handling this that I like:

1) Have it happen to someone who's designed to be interesting personality-wise, but whose skill-set is easily replaced/covered. E.g. (lawl spoilers for ancient game) Alys in Phantasy Star 4. She gets all the awesome dialogue and leads the party while you have her, but she's just a fighter. (And while she starts out with a level advantage, it's normally evened out by the time she's taken away.) Just wish they could have set up a death that made more sense within the game logic. :(

2) Have it be the player's fault: the Fire Emblem death-is-permanent model.

Neat little gameplay glitch I discovered:
Easy money in Dragon Age: Origins

Thanks for that. Will have to try this out soon!

because load times are longish on the PS3, I do this as I lay in bed catching up on my GReader feeds from the day. I go into the tavern, read while it loads, clean out the store, read while the town loads, and repeat till I have a full pack then sell at the smithy and go back and do it all over again. Just last nite while reading I made about 150 Sovereign :P

Doesn't the PS3 let you install games to the hard drive?