Dragon Age Origins discussion...

Honestly, it's like watching somebody detailing their experience with flaying their own skin.

It's obviously a painful experience for you and it's a painful experience for us to read about.

Anyway, it's still a free world so do as you will, but you're really going around in circles.

If only I were going around in cricles!

That's probably my biggest complaint so far with the game - it's too linear. Or at least, the first 14% (25 hours) that I've experienced so far has been fairly linear. Yes, I will admit that going into this I knew it was a Bioware game and that consequently the story and the gameplay was going to be fairly linear. I just didn't realize how badly I've been spoiled by games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion.

Here, it's almost like you're island hopping. You do one small section, and then you travel over to another small section. The sections themselves are entirely straighforward affairs, with virtually no room for you to explore off the beaten path. Again, I knew coming into the game that it would be like this... but, yeah, it's starting to get a bit tired.
 
But did you enjoy your time in The Fade?

Like I said, I'm at 14%, and I've been forced into the The Fade 3 times in a row now. It seems that I've spent the majority of my time in The Fade. This is the reason I'm continuing in the game. I can only assume that it's going to get better.

And as Desslock said, the part at Ostegar, he felt, was linear, and one of the weakest parts of the game.

I'm just wondering if, at present, I've experienced the worst 14% of the game? Maybe the game is now going to open up? How can I tell unless I continue? Doesn't mean I liked the first 14% though, because I didn't.

I actually did enjoy my time in the Fade parts of the game. To say that you've been in there three times in a row is a bit of an exaggeration don't you think?
 
The part you are at Wabe is pretty much completely explorable. Yes its island hopping, you have to for unlocking the other islands, the forms you get there allow you to explore everything. Fireman runs through the areas blocked by fire, Golem smashes the doors you cant open
 
Just finished the game on hard playing a good alignment mage. Very good game. Gonna start my 2nd game playing evil rogue DW I guess :D

One thing that bugs me though - no matter what level I am, the mobs will always con even or higher than me aka Oblivion. So, even at later levels a few dogs can beat the hell out of me... not so heroic ;p
 
well I just fought another rev, those things got too many hp tbh. use forcefield and still manage to run out of health pots, and of course I can't find anyone in Orzammar that sells health pots or elf roots or other herb crafting shit...sigh.
 
Hit a pretty bad bug with the human noble story line. Just could not find my way to the quest objective. After 45 minutes of wandering around, double checking everything. Trying to figure out what the problem was. Finally I googled it. Its a stinkin bug. A door was supposed to come unlocked after I killed a mob and it didn't. A fairly common bug too, and so early in the game. It could really throw people off (it was my second character though, I have nearly beat the game on an elf mage).

Revenants are hard. Key is to have whoever he is focused on kite him around. I can never get them to stay on my tank and if they get to my casters they have a wicked cleave. Avoiding getting hit is a high priority but if you can't avoid it, atleast keep them away from the rest of the party!
 
well I just fought another rev, those things got too many hp tbh. use forcefield and still manage to run out of health pots, and of course I can't find anyone in Orzammar that sells health pots or elf roots or other herb crafting shit...sigh.

Camp Merchant = Unlimited Flasks and Distillation Agents
Dalish Settlement "Merchant" = Unlimited Elfroot
Kinloch Hold (Tower of the Circle of Magi) Quartermaster = Unlimited Lyrium Dust
 
I stayed up until midnight playing again. Replayed the Redcliffe part so I could go to the Circle of Mages quest. Just entered the fade there.

This game is awesome. Need to find time for homework this week though.
 
Camp Merchant = Unlimited Flasks and Distillation Agents
Dalish Settlement "Merchant" = Unlimited Elfroot
Kinloch Hold (Tower of the Circle of Magi) Quartermaster = Unlimited Lyrium Dust

I think the Dalish merchant also has unlimited toxin extract as well.
 
Camp Merchant = Unlimited Flasks and Distillation Agents
Dalish Settlement "Merchant" = Unlimited Elfroot
Kinloch Hold (Tower of the Circle of Magi) Quartermaster = Unlimited Lyrium Dust

I know i just didn't wanna make the run again cause I made that run not that long ago...
 
Something that's been annoying me is that there seems to be a big 'ole memory leak. When the game is started, loading new areas takes anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds. After 30 minutes or so it takes up to 2 minutes and there's no hard drive access the entire time.

Another thing the really pisses me off is that ranged damage/healers like to follow the tank as he runs up to a gigantic dragon and then stand five feet away. They're not smart enough to stay at max range so you're constantly micro-managing them.
 
you can tap H to make every stay where they are unless told to do something else but also means full micromanagement usually.

Anyone else short on money, been blowing most of mine on pots ingredients.
 
Something that's been annoying me is that there seems to be a big 'ole memory leak. When the game is started, loading new areas takes anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds. After 30 minutes or so it takes up to 2 minutes and there's no hard drive access the entire time.

Another thing the really pisses me off is that ranged damage/healers like to follow the tank as he runs up to a gigantic dragon and then stand five feet away. They're not smart enough to stay at max range so you're constantly micro-managing them.

Hit "H" so that it causes them to stay where they are.

Also, use the tactics screen to set their from default to "ranged" as that helps.
 
you can tap H to make every stay where they are unless told to do something else but also means full micromanagement usually.

Anyone else short on money, been blowing most of mine on pots ingredients.

It seems like being a rogue or having a rogue with max lock picking really helps because you start looting a lot of armor that sells for 50s to 1g a piece. And up to 5+g for dragonbone massive armor.
 
Yeah, I've used hold. But then you need to micro-manage your melee since they won't run back to a creature that knocks them back.

I didn't see much in the Tactics screen about ranged. I tried one of the options that was "enemy at range" but it didn't seem to do anything.
 
Yeah, I've used hold. But then you need to micro-manage your melee since they won't run back to a creature that knocks them back.

I didn't see much in the Tactics screen about ranged. I tried one of the options that was "enemy at range" but it didn't seem to do anything.

There's a drop-down option in the upper right hand corner of the tactics screen. Most of them will be set to "default".
 
Yeah, I've used hold. But then you need to micro-manage your melee since they won't run back to a creature that knocks them back.

I didn't see much in the Tactics screen about ranged. I tried one of the options that was "enemy at range" but it didn't seem to do anything.

He's speaking about the "behaviors" located in the upper-right of the tactics screen. I've never found much use in deviating from default as much as I tried. Anyone else have good suggestions in using this feature?

Edit: I also wound up using the console cheats in order to give myself more gold. I saw no harm in it really since I only needed pots. After a while though you can make some pretty heavy coin by being persuasive with certain merchants or reward givers.
 
Also, I thought the hold command also prevents them from doing their normal tactics "routine." Ie. they just stand there. I've killed myself a few times not realizing I had my dudes on hold and my tank was just taking a beating without fighting back.
 
Desslock recommends that you use hold always - and actually he's right. You might think that having to micro-manage every battle would be tedious, but holding your party members, and spreading them out, is actually the easiest and quickest way to win a fight.

Your tank unit should be drawing all the the threat, and if he's not then he needs to be equipped with better armor (and/or the other units need to remove theirs), he needs the Threat ability to be activated at all times, and he needs to Taunt the enemy. If you do this then your main DPSer will be free to whack away, as will your secondary DPSer, and you healer will be free to heal.

I find that the game is much more enjoyable to play when you hold your units - it feels much more like you're playing a game than observing one.

At least try it out for a few battles - but make sure your tank is operating as a tank. This is just hugely important if you're going to use the hold function.
 
Money seems pretty easy to come by in this game, although I'm only playing it on normal. Also, I have 2 mages with heal so I almost never need to drink any pots.

If you're really hurting for money, Leliana can pickpocket everyone for money. In most towns, it's not that big a deal but in the dwarf town, she was pulling in anywhere from 6-25 silver for normal people (every single white named NPC) and up to 3.5 gold from that prince.
 
Redeemed the promo codes on my EA account successfully and logged in-game with that account but I don't see any DLC's available for download? Whats up with that.
 
Someone dispensed advice in one of the DAO threads that the lockpick skill is fairly useless as it only gives you more "vendor trash". Because of this, I didn't upgrade any of my rogues' lockpick ability and am always short on gold. Some of the items vendors sell are over 100G and I am no where near being able to amass that much at once.

I've noticed that the buy/sell ratio is 4:1 to 5:1 depending on the vendor. Anyone know of skills that can affect this to your favor?
 
I'm really enjoying the game. Finished the game starting as a human noble now I started as a human mage. I do recommend a few mods:

Camp storage chest - very handy to some of the nicer items for later use and crafting stuff.
http://social.bioware.com/project/463/


Character Respecialization v1.6 - handy to redo your spec. (2handers suck, dual wield or 1h/shield is much nicer IMO)
http://social.bioware.com/project/469/
 
I'm really enjoying the game. Finished the game starting as a human noble now I started as a human mage. I do recommend a few mods:

Camp storage chest - very handy to some of the nicer items for later use and crafting stuff.
http://social.bioware.com/project/463/


Character Respecialization v1.6 - handy to redo your spec. (2handers suck, dual wield or 1h/shield is much nicer IMO)
http://social.bioware.com/project/469/

Thanks for the links. I'll probably use this my second time around if I need it. Trying not to taint my first playthrough. :)

Actually, they should have had a camp storage chest to begin wtih. What a good idea for a mod.
 
They did plan to have it in by default, but apparently were having problems with it meeting their level of polish. The mod has these same issues. When your camp changes due to world events, sometimes the chest and everything in it disappears. When it comes back, its empty
 
They did plan to have it in by default, but apparently were having problems with it meeting their level of polish. The mod has these same issues. When your camp changes due to world events, sometimes the chest and everything in it disappears. When it comes back, its empty

Hmm.. I wonder if that's why they added to the Soldier's Peak DLC.. which shouldn't change once you've finished..
 
Something that's been annoying me is that there seems to be a big 'ole memory leak. When the game is started, loading new areas takes anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds. After 30 minutes or so it takes up to 2 minutes and there's no hard drive access the entire time.

Another thing the really pisses me off is that ranged damage/healers like to follow the tank as he runs up to a gigantic dragon and then stand five feet away. They're not smart enough to stay at max range so you're constantly micro-managing them.

So you didn't set the mage as a supporter or healer through the tactics menu then?

That worked for me.
 
I think I'm going to make a backpack mod where you start with 200 slots by default. It's already unrealistic enough to be carrying 10 different sets of armor, why not go the whole nine yards? :p
 
Something that's been annoying me is that there seems to be a big 'ole memory leak. When the game is started, loading new areas takes anywhere from 1 to 10 seconds. After 30 minutes or so it takes up to 2 minutes and there's no hard drive access the entire time.

Just be glad you are not playing this on a console, at least you can close and reopen the game to "fix" it. I checked out some of the final battle sequences on the PS3 version of the game and it was running like shit. I would say 10 to 15fps tops during a large battle and most definitely NOT the time you want to get stuck with unplayable framerate. It doesn't even look terribly good to justify the low rates, its just horribly optimized, particularly in the later areas of the game. They look no better or worse than earlier sections, but it runs like shit.

One of my friends with a 360 was complaining about some significant end game framerate issues as well. I have not seen that myself, hopefully its not as bad as the PS3 version.
 
Just be glad you are not playing this on a console, at least you can close and reopen the game to "fix" it. I checked out some of the final battle sequences on the PS3 version of the game and it was running like shit. I would say 10 to 15fps tops during a large battle and most definitely NOT the time you want to get stuck with unplayable framerate. It doesn't even look terribly good to justify the low rates, its just horribly optimized, particularly in the later areas of the game. They look no better or worse than earlier sections, but it runs like shit.

One of my friends with a 360 was complaining about some significant end game framerate issues as well. I have not seen that myself, hopefully its not as bad as the PS3 version.

The only issues with the PC version are the load times for entering zones. Luckily, the game will play maxed out on even modest systems. Finally, a game that is poorly ported to the consoles instead of vice versa :)
 
The only issues with the PC version are the load times for entering zones. Luckily, the game will play maxed out on even modest systems. Finally, a game that is poorly ported to the consoles instead of vice versa :)

Mine runs maxed out @ 1920 with my sig rig with no AA. But cities like Denirim with a lot of sprites does slow my computer down. A new card with more than 320mb of memory would help.

As for the memory leak... I've always just toughed it out. Maybe I'll try to restart the game next time around.
 
On the rig in my sig, I run the game at the highest settings with 4x AA and 16x AF (forced in CCC), and for the most part, the game runs locked at 60 fps (vsync obviously), but it does dip into the 40s in certain areas, like Ostagar, the Brecilian Forest, Denerim Market District, and the mountain pass leading to Orzammar. Graphically, the game isn't a slouch and it looks good for the most part. The memory leak issue is pretty annoying, though.

Enchantment?
 
In regards to this memory leak...

YES. Goddamn I was wondering what was going on and if it was just me. After a while of running around in Orzammar and then sitting at a loading screen for minutes it started to drive me nuts. It didn't start happening until later in the game though, at least that's what I noticed.

Enchantment!
 
Back
Top