Dragon Age: Origins

[Ganeedi]

Couple of questions for those who are playing:

1) Is there random inter-party banter like in BG2?
2) Can you tone down the blood splatter on the faces, rather than turn it off?
3) Any suggestions on starting class that works well with the NPCs that you meet in the early game? No spoilers, please!

Thanks much, really looking forward to this game.

 

[VashHT]

Couple of questions for those who are playing:

1) Is there random inter-party banter like in BG2?
2) Can you tone down the blood splatter on the faces, rather than turn it off?
3) Any suggestions on starting class that works well with the NPCs that you meet in the early game? No spoilers, please!

Thanks much, really looking forward to this game.

I am playing a rogue atm, focusing my points into stealth and dual wielding right now. It's been working really well so far, I might turn him into an assassin when he gets high enough.

There is some inter-party banter I've heard as well, mayb not on the level of BG2 yet but I'm still pretty early into the game. After playing for 4 or 5 hours so far my progress is only up to like 6%, so it seems like it is a pretty big game.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Couple of questions for those who are playing:

1) Is there random inter-party banter like in BG2?
2) Can you tone down the blood splatter on the faces, rather than turn it off?
3) Any suggestions on starting class that works well with the NPCs that you meet in the early game? No spoilers, please!

Thanks much, really looking forward to this game.

1) Yes.
2) On or off, that is it. I have not tired it on off so I'm not quite sure what it applies to.
3) Perhaps on my 3rd play though I'll be able to offer some advice on this. But at least with the human origin you can collect one of every base class within a few hours.

 

[crownjules]

Couple of questions for those who are playing:

1) Is there random inter-party banter like in BG2?
2) Can you tone down the blood splatter on the faces, rather than turn it off?
3) Any suggestions on starting class that works well with the NPCs that you meet in the early game? No spoilers, please!

Thanks much, really looking forward to this game.

1) So far I haven't heard any but I haven't got any of the main party members yet.
2) People are just starting to explore the developer console commands. I'm sure there's something in there but I'm not aware of it. The blood splatter is borderline ridiculous at time.
3) Mage seems to work well so far. So far, most of the other party members that have temporarily joined my group are warriors or rogues. I've heard that the major party NPCs follow the same trend.

My mage is level 3. For spells, I've got Arcane Blast (or whatever that mage start spell is called), Heal, Rejuvenate, Drain Life, Mind Blast, Force Field, and Telekinetic Weapons. Does anyone know if say Telekinetic Weapons and Flame Weapons, if cast by different mages, would stack? Or would the more powerful one prevail?

 

[AMDZen]

I am playing as a warrior and so far i have ran into a large number of chests that i can't open because it says my skill is too low. i assume they're locked and i don't have a "lockpicking" ability. Is this an ability I can get, or is it only for some classes?

 

[Beev]

It's for rogues only I believe, but you can get rogue party members.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

This game freezes like mad on my PC, even in the character creation screen, once I choose sex, class, etc. on the first screen and hit Next, the face comes up on the 2nd screen to change how I look, and the game freezes. If I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and then Escape, it'll start working again for 3-4 seconds and then freezes again. I actually got far enough to choose the Quick Play option so I could try to get into the game to see if that would freeze up, and it does exactly the same thing. Have spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting it, even going to the extend of formatting and reinstalling Windows 7 x64 last night, still doing the same thing.

Pretty sad, I was looking forward to this, I've seen quite a few other people on the Bioware forums with the same type of issue, although most of them last longer than I do before it hangs up. Out of the 100 odd other games I have on my Steam account, this is the only one with this problem.

My specs:

ABit IP35-E
Intel q9300 running at 3.3GHz
8GB of G.Skill DDR2 800 (2GB x 4)
EVGA GTX 260
Creative X-Fi
MAXTOR STM3500630AS
SAMSUNG HD103SI
SEAGATE ST3320620AS
2x Lite-On LH-20A1L DVDRW drives

Have been playing Borderlands at 5-6 hour clips with zero issues for the past week, along with some L4D, Lost Planet 1, and Assassin's Creed. Not sure what's up with DA:O on my system, but it sure seems to like to screw with me.

Also, sadly, I inadvertently deleted my level 26 soldier in Borderlands last night when I formatted and reinstalled Windows to try and get this game working.

So yeah...that sucked.

 

[Dumac]

I preordered this game, but it is taking forever to come in. Even when it does, I can't play it as I still have The Witcher and Valkyria Chronicles to beat...

But I want to open the box at least!!!

 

[VashHT]

This game freezes like mad on my PC, even in the character creation screen, once I choose sex, class, etc. on the first screen and hit Next, the face comes up on the 2nd screen to change how I look, and the game freezes. If I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and then Escape, it'll start working again for 3-4 seconds and then freezes again. I actually got far enough to choose the Quick Play option so I could try to get into the game to see if that would freeze up, and it does exactly the same thing. Have spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting it, even going to the extend of formatting and reinstalling Windows 7 x64 last night, still doing the same thing.

Pretty sad, I was looking forward to this, I've seen quite a few other people on the Bioware forums with the same type of issue, although most of them last longer than I do before it hangs up. Out of the 100 odd other games I have on my Steam account, this is the only one with this problem.

My specs:

ABit IP35-E
Intel q9300 running at 3.3GHz
8GB of G.Skill DDR2 800 (2GB x 4)
EVGA GTX 260
Creative X-Fi
MAXTOR STM3500630AS
SAMSUNG HD103SI
SEAGATE ST3320620AS
2x Lite-On LH-20A1L DVDRW drives

Have been playing Borderlands at 5-6 hour clips with zero issues for the past week, along with some L4D, Lost Planet 1, and Assassin's Creed. Not sure what's up with DA:O on my system, but it sure seems to like to screw with me.

Also, sadly, I inadvertently deleted my level 26 soldier in Borderlands last night when I formatted and reinstalled Windows to try and get this game working.

So yeah...that sucked.

The first thing I would try is removing your OC, and then if that doesn't do it then run some memtest. You'd think all of your games would crash if it was causing a problem but you'd be surprised, some games are more sensitive to it than others.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

The first thing I would try is removing your OC, and then if that doesn't do it then run some memtest. You'd think all of your games would crash if it was causing a problem but you'd be surprised, some games are more sensitive to it than others.

Yeah, I set it to the default clock, same thing.

If I turn all the graphical setting down to low, turn off Frame Buffer Effects, and run it at 1440x900 or less, it lasts a lot longer, in fact I played for about 15 minutes and it still hadn't crashed before I quit out of the game, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

UPDATE: Looks like it's running a lot better even if I max out everything except Graphical Detail, which I have to keep at Low. The minute I move it up even one notch above Low, it'll hang the game within 20 seconds once I start playing.

Running the game at maxed windowed mode with AA and Texture detail maxed, seems fine as long as the graphical detail is set to low. Guess I'll deal with that for now, but seems really weird.

 

[Zenoth]

I'm very pleased with Dragon Age: Origins so far, it's a very good game, it goes above general standards in story telling, and that's not surprising coming from BioWare. I must admit however, and I'm not shy in doing so, that the fact that the protagonist' dialog in Mass Effect was entirely voiced (and marvelously so especially by Jennifer Hale), for me, forces some sort of a distance between my "involvement" and feeling of concerns in view of the events of the story line.

In other words I feel somewhat less immersed by the story telling in general of DA:Origins than I was in Mass Effect due to the silence of the protagonist in the former. That kind of RPG element was certainly very good a couple of years ago, but today and especially thanks to Mass Effect I would expect most, if not all similar games at least by BioWare to have their protagonists' dialog voiced. To be honest I wasn't aware at all (since I didn't want to see too much of DA:Origins in advance before buying) of that fact, and was absolutely surprised and disappointed to learn it the hard way during the very first moments of the game.

But, I must say it again, despite that I still really like it, it's a great game, but so far I do prefer Mass Effect.

 

[DangerAardvark]

I'm very pleased with Dragon Age: Origins so far, it's a very good game, it goes above general standards in story telling, and that's not surprising coming from BioWare. I must admit however, and I'm not shy in doing so, that the fact that the protagonist' dialog in Mass Effect was entirely voiced (and marvelously so especially by Jennifer Hale), for me, forces some sort of a distance between my "involvement" and feeling of concerns in view of the events of the story line.

In other words I feel somewhat less immersed by the story telling in general of DA:Origins than I was in Mass Effect due to the silence of the protagonist in the former. That kind of RPG element was certainly very good a couple of years ago, but today and especially thanks to Mass Effect I would expect most, if not all similar games at least by BioWare to have their protagonists' dialog voiced. To be honest I wasn't aware at all (since I didn't want to see too much of DA:Origins in advance before buying) of that fact, and was absolutely surprised and disappointed to learn it the hard way during the very first moments of the game.

But, I must say it again, despite that I still really like it, it's a great game, but so far I do prefer Mass Effect.

I dunno, I found the main character's voice acting pretty bland in Mass Effect. But I played a male character.

 

[ZzZGuy]

<snip>
I must admit however, and I'm not shy in doing so, that the fact that the protagonist' dialog in Mass Effect was entirely voiced (and marvelously so especially by Jennifer Hale), for me, forces some sort of a distance between my "involvement" and feeling of concerns in view of the events of the story line.

In other words I feel somewhat less immersed by the story telling in general of DA:Origins than I was in Mass Effect due to the silence of the protagonist in the former. That kind of RPG element was certainly very good a couple of years ago, but today and especially thanks to Mass Effect I would expect most, if not all similar games at least by BioWare to have their protagonists' dialog voiced. To be honest I wasn't aware at all (since I didn't want to see too much of DA:Origins in advance before buying) of that fact, and was absolutely surprised and disappointed to learn it the hard way during the very first moments of the game.

But, I must say it again, despite that I still really like it, it's a great game, but so far I do prefer Mass Effect.

The (male) voice of the main character in ME made me just want to just quit the game and go to sleep.

Now, if you keep the 5 male/female voice options for the characters you have 30 different voices, if you just give each race/class/status/gender one voice it's down to 24 different voices (and don't tell me a commoner talking like a noble would fit well). It would be nice to have all those voices, but I can easily understand why they chose to leave out your characters voice and personally I don't miss it. Bioware deemed it better to put the time & money towards different aspects of the game and after a few hours of gameplay I'm not disagreeing much. Perhaps they will release DLC later that will add this.

 

[Alienwho]

Does anybody else have issues with the game crashing constantly? It's unplayable because it crashes every 5 minutes for me. This is unfortunate because the game seems to be of very good quality and I've enjoyed what i've seen of it.

 

[EnzoLT]

Currently playing this game since I just got it and so freakin addicting!! Good game

 

[coreyb]

I'm very pleased with Dragon Age: Origins so far, it's a very good game, it goes above general standards in story telling, and that's not surprising coming from BioWare. I must admit however, and I'm not shy in doing so, that the fact that the protagonist' dialog in Mass Effect was entirely voiced (and marvelously so especially by Jennifer Hale), for me, forces some sort of a distance between my "involvement" and feeling of concerns in view of the events of the story line.

In other words I feel somewhat less immersed by the story telling in general of DA:Origins than I was in Mass Effect due to the silence of the protagonist in the former. That kind of RPG element was certainly very good a couple of years ago, but today and especially thanks to Mass Effect I would expect most, if not all similar games at least by BioWare to have their protagonists' dialog voiced. To be honest I wasn't aware at all (since I didn't want to see too much of DA:Origins in advance before buying) of that fact, and was absolutely surprised and disappointed to learn it the hard way during the very first moments of the game.

But, I must say it again, despite that I still really like it, it's a great game, but so far I do prefer Mass Effect.

the best rpg's I've ever played (ff7, chrono trigger, ff3, etc) didn't have ANY voice acting and they were amazing games. I find voice acting actually distracting as rpg's to me are like playing one of my fantasty books, I like to leave as much to my imagination as possible.

 

[Jetster]

very good game so far, i actually cared about the characters and pay attention to the story, that haven't happened since I played Baldur's gate II years ago. It got some quality writing, looks like they hired real writers for this game. It also runs butter smooth on my PII 920/9600gt system, with everything either on high or very high. It doesnt look cutting edge, but not bad at all, they paid attention to lot of details, not some copy-paste same texture over and over again. Afterall, good gameplay and story make me forgot about bad graphic, but not the other way around. This game is also designed for PC, with all the controls and interface make u feel right at home with mouse and keyboard, not some crappy console ports.

 

[DangerAardvark]

the best rpg's I've ever played (ff7, chrono trigger, ff3, etc) didn't have ANY voice acting and they were amazing games. I find voice acting actually distracting as rpg's to me are like playing one of my fantasty books, I like to leave as much to my imagination as possible.

I find it annoying because I can read much faster than they talk. And the "acting" in videogames is generally abysmal so there's no reason to sit through it.

 

[mwmorph]

Just finished it, great game, as usual for Bioware, awesome characters.

Morrigan and Allister are are awesome, best characters since Wrex(Mass Effect 1) in any game.

This is a true shift in atmosphere from ME's epic space opera to a darker setting and it shows, Reminds me of BG2 or more accurately, a LOT like Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer story and atmosphere wise. Honestly, this is a successor to NWN2:MOTB, I can personally draw many more parallels than with BG2, though I have to be honest, I played NWN2:MOTB recently and BG2 many, many years ago so my memory might fail me.

Graphics are pretty bad, Slightly better than NWN2, worse than The Witcher by far. It's mostly the low rez textures, though there is also no volumetric fog, which shows in parts of the game that utilize fog effects (In my case a lot because of auras).

No PC voice acting was noticeable, not that bad, and understandable considering all the choices.

Overall, great game, cant wait for Mass Effect 2.

 

[Zenoth]

I dunno, I found the main character's voice acting pretty bland in Mass Effect. But I played a male character.

I agree, I did try a male character in Mass Effect, but I never completed the game with him, instead I chose the female character and I was immersed in within seconds after realizing that the voice actress is the same as the one voicing Bastilla Shan in KOTOR, she's one of the finest female voices in video gaming. It made one heck of a difference.

 

[jonks]

perhaps a nitpick, perhaps not:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/6/

But i'm a P/A fan so I guess I'll just side with them

 

[2Dead]

...
My mage is level 3. For spells, I've got Arcane Blast (or whatever that mage start spell is called), Heal, Rejuvenate, Drain Life, Mind Blast, Force Field, and Telekinetic Weapons. Does anyone know if say Telekinetic Weapons and Flame Weapons, if cast by different mages, would stack? Or would the more powerful one prevail?

Yes. I have Telekinetic Weapons and another mage in my group has Frost weapons. You just can't cast both with the same mage.

 

[Mem]

Reminder PC patch 1.01 out for DA here http://social.bioware.com/game_patches.php .

Patch details:

• fixed potential corruption of character statistics
• fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
• fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
• made Easy difficulty easier
• slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
• fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity display

 

[Alienwho]

For those of you playing as Mages, what spells are you choosing?

I'm thinking of choosing the frost, earth, walking bomb, and disorient line. I'm thinking this may be a little repetitive though, with the frost, earth, and disorient each having numerous spells to freeze/incapacitate the enemy.

What cool combo's have you come up with?

 

[AMDZen]

Do the enemies level up in accordance with your character? I found the game just rought on Normal difficulty so I cheated a little bit with a trainer just to advance a couple levels and I have still died a couple times.

Damn this game is pretty rough. Need to get the patch for sure this weekend since its obvious they think the game is too hard as well. Most of the changes on the patch are to make the game a little easier