Dragon Age: Origins (My new love <3)

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

So who here is playing Bioware's newest epic fantasy RPG?

I am pretty fricken addicted to it at the moment. Been a while since I have been THIS addicted to a game. It feels good, in the "I know this is not good for me, but I love it anyways" sort of way.

Currently playing as a Rogue, Human Noble. I want to play as a Dalish Elf later, or maybe even a City Elf!

So who else here is addicted? I mean I know there are Bioware fans around here. I can't be the only one who is playing this. Though I am surprised that this is the first thread I have seen about it (in EoFF)! Then again, I did not put much effort into looking!

[JKTrix]

Too busy playin'
JKTrix's Player Profile | BioWare Social Network

The online integration is neat, but right now it does take a while. 'Up to an hour' my foot. Maybe it'll speed up once the game gets a little older.

[Dreddz]

I'm on the fence between this and Tekken 6. I like the idea of sinking 100's of hours into a game so what I'm hearing about Dragon Age Origins is good so far. Although I can't help but be reminded of Oblivion (which I hated).

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

It is quite the different experience than Oblivion. Combat wise, it is much more tactical, allowing you to pause and give out commands, or do it in real-time. The plot, as far as I know about either while might be superficially similar, they differ (the whole evil invasion thing). Oh, and the characters? You just can't help but invest into them. Also, there are some hilarious points too.

Dragon Age: Origins, to me, has a lot more personality than Oblivion. At least that's how I feel so far. It just sucks you in.

[Dignified Pauper]

I love it. I'm Human Warrior Noble. But I'm not liking my character. I may switch to a mage.

[Bolivar]

I'm really really hyped for this. Once I heard about the Gambit-like system that bioware has been an innovator of, I was hooked.

Gonna wait a little while though, I got Demon's Souls going on at the moment and the BFBC2 beta hits in less than 2 weeks.

[McLovin']

How is this game compared to Demon's Souls?

[Gilghamut]

I've got a Human Noble Champion at the moment, and am loving the game. This game is just epic, and loved the battle at Ostegar.

To me, the depth of the world and the way the story is presented puts Oblivion to shame.

[JKTrix]

How is this game compared to Demon's Souls?

They are both RPGs, but there isn't much similarity between them.

As far as how I feel about Demon's Souls and Dragon Age, I love them both. Note I am playing on the PC, and I've heard that the PS3 version of Dragon Age is kind of buggy.

[Bolivar]

Can any of you guys speak about the combat system a little bit. I guess you can tell from my last post I'm a little giddy about the gambit-like system, I guess Bioware has their own name for it as they've been doing it for a hwile now, but the ability to make pre-set commands predicting how combat will occur.

[Raistlin]

I've heard this game is pretty awesome, so I may have to get it after this semester's over. I should not tempt myself before exams.

It seems like most people here are fighter classes. Has anyone tried a magic-based class?

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

The gambit part is a lot similar to FFXII's, though the whole thing is accessible from the get go (i.e. no need to buy gambits :P). You have some preset behaviours which are dependent on your character's class as well as room for custom sets too. FYI, the gambit system is called "Tactics".

That aside, the combat system is somewhat RTS. You can manually select any of your four party members, by doing so you override their Tactics. You can also pause anytime and go from each character to give them their next move (where it is moving, changing targets, using specific skill, etc...). You can also do this in real time too, just depends how fast you are at switching and such. Also, each characters can have two weapons set up. Like my Rogue dual wields (long sword and dagger) and his secondary is bow and arrows, another example is Alistar (is a PC you find early in the game, not spoiler since you find can go to the official site and it has had all the PC characters' names for a while now) who I have with Sword & Shield on primary and Two-Handed on Secondary. Switching between them is smooth and easy.

[JKTrix]

I'm playing a mage. I posted this link earlier, if you have the game sign up for a free account and link your own profile. As long as you play online, it will update your progress there

JKTrix's Player Profile | BioWare Social Network

Combat is the basic 'click a target, click a skill, let it rip'. The strategy stems from that. If you played FF12 you would be familiar with it (if you never played something like Neverwinter Nights before). You can pause whenever you like to think about your next step, which is probably going to be required more often than not. The Tactics ('Gambits') are okay, but you will want to micromanage your troops if you want to keep everyone alive. Some of the battles can be pretty rough, and if you take your eyes off of one of your teammates for one second they can probably die.

The position of your party members seems pretty important too. You can tell them to go somewhere and stay there, doing something until you tell them otherwise. Useful when you want your archers to stay perched in one spot, mages in another spot and let your melee guy go in and smash things. Particularly when you come up against enemies who can damage multiple people in one hit, having all your guys bunched up together is a bad idea.

The battle I'm taking part in now, the staff my mage has has zero effect on the enemy, and I had just sold my other staff prior to that. So he's stuck with just his spells, which drain his MP pretty quick while my archer, other mage and weak knight do the bulk of the damage. I like that you recover your HP and MP periodically when you are not 'engaged', but more often than not when you're fighting waves of enemies, the next wave will engage you before you can even start regenerating.

I find myself taking Morrigan out of my party when I plan to go persuade someone to do good stuff. Her approval rating drops quick.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

It annoys me to know end that she gets pissed because (SPOILER)you decide to help Redcliff and she disapproves, but the only way to get into the castle, as far as I know, is to help them. Other than that, I love listening to her and Alistar bicker.

[JKTrix]

Yeah, Redcliffe is where I am now, fighting in that 'Night' battle. I can get past the first part fine, because that's where all the actual warriors are. But when I have to go fight the militia, it's hard to keep my guys alive. Gonna try a few different 'strategies' based on what I have, which is not much.