83 replies to this topic

[Deathsangel]

Dude. Running with 4-5 characters at once? Indecisive much? xD

Dude. I run like 15 BG characters, 12 NWN characters... I want to try all classes and different stats etc. It is fun
Though because of all the praise I start to seriously wonder if I need a new computer for DA and other games I enjoy (Can't play Sims 3 or the last version of HoMM series (and I played all others - and finished the none expansions and some expansions))

[WeeRLegion]

Dude. I run like 15 BG characters, 12 NWN characters... I want to try all classes and different stats etc. It is fun
Though because of all the praise I start to seriously wonder if I need a new computer for DA and other games I enjoy (Can't play Sims 3 or the last version of HoMM series (and I played all others - and finished the none expansions and some expansions))

All of those simultaneously? xD

[Eleima]

And...... for all my blathering, I'm done, too. Took me nearly 49 hours (oh wow...). I hate the ending I got (

Spoiler

I turned Morrigan down, and didn't manage to convince Alistair to let me off the Archdemon myself, so... yeah, my little noble girl is weeping for her lost Alistair

), so I'm probably going to jump right back into the saddle, try a different origin, and hope I get a different one next time. Now, which one of my eight other characters should I pick...

[theacefes]

I forget what you started out as (if you mentioned it) but I've tried out all the origins just to see how they played and my favorite is the Dalish elf so far.

[Eleima]

I forget what you started out as (if you mentioned it) but I've tried out all the origins just to see how they played and my favorite is the Dalish elf so far.

Human noble first time around as a rogue, to get a feel of the game, going mostly mêlée. I always do that: first run with a hitter (in ME1, I went all soldier the first time, which really, isn't all that interesting).

I probably won't start my second run until Monday (have some catching up to do with RL work... *cough* ). I'm hesitating between Mage and Dalish for the second run. I'll either flip a coin or go follow your advice. Did you go mélée (ie, up close & personal), or ranged?

[theacefes]

I've always been a melee fan. The ranged weapons in DA haven't impressed me really.

Oh, and for the first time I watched that 4 minute movie of the DA preview where they kill the dragon. Very cool...be nice if Bioware actually made the game look like that.

[Lord Ernie]

I finished it with my Elven mage a while back. Given the fact he was a ruthless, manipulative bastard, I thought the ending I got was pretty good for most people, except for himself (romanced Morrigan).

I forget what you started out as (if you mentioned it) but I've tried out all the origins just to see how they played and my favorite is the Dalish elf so far.

Interesting. I loathed the Dalish elf origin, and that's the only one that I really didn't like. It was so... bland. Both dwarven origins make the PC out to be a badass (especially commoner, but the noble one is unique with the whole politics thing), the mage origin has a nice sadistic choice even in the beginning, and the human noble one pokes fun at RPG clichés ("Killing rats? This sound like the beginning of the lamest adventure ever...", or something); the City Elf one made me wince several times, especially when playing a female.

The Dalish elf one was so... bland. Nothing much interesting happens, the PC gets caught in the events by coincidence, and s/he survives in much the same way. Meh.

Edited by Lord Ernie, 13 November 2009 - 12:17 PM.

[Crazee]

Just finished my run-through with my male human noble, and was quite satisfied with the ending I got. It was fitting. Most of the important decisions I made throughout the game were pretty easy to make - I thought long and hard about my character's personality in the run-up to release! However,

Spoiler

I really struggled at Landsmeet. In the end, I let Alistair kill Loghain. My PC had his revenge against Arl Howe, it was only fair Alistair got his. And then, picking who should rule - I must have sat there for at least twenty minutes. In the end, I chose Alistair. As a Noble, my GW understood the importance of noble blood and duty. Still, can't wait to start again choose a completely different ending next time!

I'm now debating whether I should run each of my character through their origins and pick which one I should stick with, just go straight ahead and play with my human male mage (romancing Zevran) or run characters through each of the different origins, but the exact opposite of the characters I actually plan to take through the game. Decisions, decisions ...

[Eleima]

I have a question regarding the ending, and I thought this was as good a place to post it as any. Warning spoilers ahead (um, duh?). David Gaider supposedly said on the Bioware forums that female players could also have a happy ending.

Spoiler

Um, where is it? You can get dumped by Alistair if he's king (unless you're a noble and pass the persuade check), you can have him die fighting the Archdemon, or you can have him sleep if that evil, evil Morrigan (I'm not going to start calling her names, even though I really, really want; I always knew she was trouble). How is that a happy ending? Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Sooo, is it me, or did I miss it?

Seriously, I'm a bit miffed at Bioware, I really feel female players got the short end of the straw on this one.

[Lord Ernie]

Well...

Spoiler

IMO, having Alistair not become king (which he really, really doesn't want to do, anyway), and having him sleep with Morrigan (who, all things considered, is not nearly as bad as she makes herself out to be) to save your life, does result in a happily ever after, doesn't it? I mean, at least you guys can get one. Male PC's romancing Morrigan can basically choose between saying goodbye forever, or spending their lives fruitlessly tracking her down.

[theacefes]

Spoiler

If you are a female and romance Leliana you can easily have a happy ending but I'm thinking that's not what you meant.

[Eleima]

@Lord Ernie: I guess you're right: after all, we *were* warned that this was a dark RPG. I guess I shouldn't go in expecting fluffy pink clouds and bunny rabbits, but maybe that's just me...

@Theacefes: I know you're right, and that the other romance options probably would've brought less grief, but I've gone with this one, and I haven't even started my second playthrough yet, so I was just going on the only one I know.


Oh, by the way, another question, if you will, this one regarding Duncan:

Spoiler

Is it just me, or were some of you expecting "the Hero" to reappear before the end? I mean, he had really been painted as this major character, but all he does is narrate the opening and recruit the PC... A major event, true, but still...

Edited by Eleima, 15 November 2009 - 04:17 AM.

[Kulyok]

I think I'd like if people talked about Duncan more, yes. I mean, after what happens at the beginning of the game everyone talks about the King, but not Duncan. Except for Alistair and other Grey Wardens, I guess. Maybe that's how it should be.


So! I finished it, too! (Morrigan's gone with her secret and Alistair and PC are together as Grey Wardens - I guess I'll opt for a sadder ending next time). It was good. It left a good taste. And Sten's and Shale's "floater" lines post-coronation are awesome.

[Kulyok]

The Dalish elf one was so... bland. Nothing much interesting happens, the PC gets caught in the events by coincidence, and s/he survives in much the same way. Meh.

It's the only one I completed, but it's strange how I loved it - almost more than anything else in the game. And two meetings with Tamlen afterwards, too.

I guess the game really has an origin for every player.

[EvaineDian]

I finished it some time ago and replayed some parts of the game to see the different endings. I'm ambivalent about the game. I don't really like the combat system, though it got more entertaining near the end of the game. The final battles could have been more difficult for my taste - everyone made so much fuss about the Archdemon and how it will destroy the world and how you need a huge army, and then I won almost all of the final fights with a lousy group of four...

The quest design of almost all of the quests sucked - worst of all were the quests you can do for the various organisations. In most cases, the quest descriptions were so incredibly boring that I couldn't even bother to read them (even WoW had more interesting descriptions!), and many times, I just went somewhere, saw that arrow sign over somebody's head and got a reward without knowing what it was for. I would have preferred quests for which you have to really explore the world and more often than not have to think a bit before you find a solution. Also, it would have been nice to solve more personal quests, have NPCs approach you and ask you to do something that has a high personal value for them instead of killing random people for an anonymous organisation.

I loathe the journal and the codex. It's a good idea to put some background information about a new setting into the game, but the codex was so ridiculously structured it gave me a headache every time I had to look something up. I read all the books you could find in BG2, but just couldn't bring myself to read the DA codex. I can't really put my finger on it, but I think it was mainly because of the way the files were added to the codex - they weren't added in the order you found them, they weren't clearly labeled, etc. and that just made me not want to read them.

I played as a city elf and I liked the origin and how it keeps popping up again and again.

The main story is ok at best. The beginning in Ostagar was good, but then I got quite bored until I got to the Landsmeet. The Landsmeet, the night at Redcliffe and the final with the Archdemon reconciled me with the game, because of the effect it had on me and my companions. Actually, I think the companions are the only thing that prevent the game from being a complete failure. If you romance Alistair, you have to make some dramatic choices at the Landsmeet and the first few times I tried, I got some sad, moving endings.

Then, the banters. There were so many of them and so many funny ones, and I also liked how one was built on the other - people remembered things the others had said before and you could really imagine that they were developing friendships. I think they should have added more interjections, though. There were many, many situations that just screamed for a comment by certain companions, but they never reacted. I would have liked to introduce Alistair to my father or have some of the goody-two-shoes complain about my burglaries, for example, and there were some situations where the pious Leliana should have interfered. I also think there were too few lovetalks or at least they should have been spaced out more. I think I had seen all of the available LTs before I had even finished 13% of the game.

[WeeRLegion]

Oh yes...
The codex. honestly, one would have to think long and hard to come up with something more terrible and useless.
Seriously, browsing through entries with nothing but utterly irrelevant numbers to guess the content by?It's just terrible... xD

Also, the way you get your quest reward items get packed into your inventory with just a 'You gots some new items now' pop up... Seriously, WTF, I want to know what I'm getting. xD



Oh, and Duncan. Nah, I'm happy he stayed dead.
For one thing, if he'd lived, there would be a sum total of zero feeling of attachment from the player to the dead grey wardens; "Who give's a rat's ass about what that Loghain did, kill a buncha complete strangers, now we're on the same side, rite?".
Seriously, he did have the beard for the Jesus gig, but I'm overjoyed he had the taste to skip the cheese.

Edited by WeeRLegion, 17 November 2009 - 10:51 AM.

[Choo Choo]

Okay, so I've finished it now, and...

WHAT A TERRIBLE DOWNER ENDING I GOT.

Spoiler

Human noble rogue romancing Alistair and he insists to do the DYING thing?

Blah. Silly him.

[Grunker]

I finished it some time ago and replayed some parts of the game to see the different endings. I'm ambivalent about the game. I don't really like the combat system, though it got more entertaining near the end of the game. The final battles could have been more difficult for my taste - everyone made so much fuss about the Archdemon and how it will destroy the world and how you need a huge army, and then I won almost all of the final fights with a lousy group of four...

The quest design of almost all of the quests sucked - worst of all were the quests you can do for the various organisations. In most cases, the quest descriptions were so incredibly boring that I couldn't even bother to read them (even WoW had more interesting descriptions!), and many times, I just went somewhere, saw that arrow sign over somebody's head and got a reward without knowing what it was for. I would have preferred quests for which you have to really explore the world and more often than not have to think a bit before you find a solution. Also, it would have been nice to solve more personal quests, have NPCs approach you and ask you to do something that has a high personal value for them instead of killing random people for an anonymous organisation.

I loathe the journal and the codex. It's a good idea to put some background information about a new setting into the game, but the codex was so ridiculously structured it gave me a headache every time I had to look something up. I read all the books you could find in BG2, but just couldn't bring myself to read the DA codex. I can't really put my finger on it, but I think it was mainly because of the way the files were added to the codex - they weren't added in the order you found them, they weren't clearly labeled, etc. and that just made me not want to read them.

I played as a city elf and I liked the origin and how it keeps popping up again and again.

The main story is ok at best. The beginning in Ostagar was good, but then I got quite bored until I got to the Landsmeet. The Landsmeet, the night at Redcliffe and the final with the Archdemon reconciled me with the game, because of the effect it had on me and my companions. Actually, I think the companions are the only thing that prevent the game from being a complete failure. If you romance Alistair, you have to make some dramatic choices at the Landsmeet and the first few times I tried, I got some sad, moving endings.

Then, the banters. There were so many of them and so many funny ones, and I also liked how one was built on the other - people remembered things the others had said before and you could really imagine that they were developing friendships. I think they should have added more interjections, though. There were many, many situations that just screamed for a comment by certain companions, but they never reacted. I would have liked to introduce Alistair to my father or have some of the goody-two-shoes complain about my burglaries, for example, and there were some situations where the pious Leliana should have interfered. I also think there were too few lovetalks or at least they should have been spaced out more. I think I had seen all of the available LTs before I had even finished 13% of the game.

I agree almost completely. This more or less sums up my feelings of the game. Gaider is not and will never be a skilled writer when he is compared to actual quality writing. He does his thing, and it's seldom totally cringeworthy, but it isn't very inspiring either. I seriously think a lot of what makes DA not fantastic, just good, could be avoided if it had not been Gaider at the helm of the story-department.

[Eleima]

I wholeheartedly agree with what's been said here by Theacefes, EvaineDian or Grunker, among others. The codex was just... too much. Although I found myself reading every line of the codex in Mass Effect, completely drawn in into this new world they had created. But the codex in Dragon Age... I don't know, I just felt bombarded with codex entries, and first time I played the game, I was just too concentrated on getting a handle on it to actually take the time to stop and read the codex. It's a bit of shame, because there seems to be a lot of entries, and I think they put a lot of effort into it, but....

And yeah, I agree with the more interjections remark. Plenty of times came up hen I thought, "huh, *insert NPC name here* is not going to like this", or " *NPC* is going to have something to say about what I just answered", but... nope. I thought that the NPCs in the group were surprisingly silent during certain encounters. I thought that some would have had some opinion on the matter or the choice at hand, but... nope, they just sat there and followed me like sheep. Okay, well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit (I have a tendency to do that), but my point remains valid.

Finally... Choo Choo, my condolences, that's the first ending I got too, and I thought it was a big downer too. Take heart, there are slightly better endings available!