Dragon Age Origins discussion...

Hey, any chance you can dumb the controls down enough for use with an Xbox360 controller? Is there by chance a default option in the in-game menu?

I'd like to play the best version of this game from my couch. I know, the KB/M controls are far superior but I've been getting used to playing PC games from a more comfortable position.
 
^ buy a better computer chair! Never settle for a console controller unless you have to (or if you're playing Street Fighter or somesuch)
 
True, I do need to upgrade my workstation. My 20 year old MDF desk and wooden kitchen chair aren't cutting it.

But I knew that already. Seeing as I already have an Xbox360 controller and my PC hooked up to my Onkyo... well, that's why I asked the question. You basically just repeated what I said in my post. ;)

I don't want to just throw money at the problem... yet.
 
Ok so.... a great game... full of fail.

Wtf? Stupid DLC's... can't make a full game, have to milk people for every penny.
 
There's one DLC for sale...

Never heard anyone complain that DA is lacking in content either. What do you think is missing?
 
BDV said:
Ok so.... a great game... full of fail.

Wtf? Stupid DLC's... can't make a full game, have to milk people for every penny.
Click to expand...

.... 60-100 hours NOT a full game?


OK...
 
BDV said:
Ok so.... a great game... full of fail.

Wtf? Stupid DLC's... can't make a full game, have to milk people for every penny.
Click to expand...

Ugh, not this again.

All the DLC was made by a separate DLC development group. The main game is the main game with or without the DLC.
 
RexPokinghorn said:
Ugh, not this again.

All the DLC was made by a separate DLC development group. The main game is the main game with or without the DLC.
Click to expand...

Bleh, the whole concept of paid DLC is nauseating...

To elaborate... warden's keep DLC...

There is a option in NPC chat asking to buy it... seriously? Wtf...
 
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its games like Dragon Age that make me feel like i did when i first started playing games as a kid.

the polish, the combat, the challenge, the story, the world... a masterpiece.

edit: i just made myself cry
 
yea, the wardens keep thing is sort of stupid. they give you a quest for the place, THEN ask you to buy the DLC. kind of a dick move.
 
Good:

Classy sophisticated baldur's gate feel
Hard, you have to be tactical
Full control of all the chars in your party
Twists (two wtf moments in the first half hour). I missed one, and caught one, made me feel good about myself when i caught one, but bad when i missed the other

Bad:
Too much blank space and non named npcs, i mean seriously, they were trying to emulate candlekeep with the first level, and none of the bookshelves have loot in them, theres no characters to talk to on the entire first floor, etc. I blame consoles for this glitch. In BG, you could loot every bookcase, and talk to every single NPC (even if they did have similar things to say).

Graphics, a bit. Theyre kind of flat and blah in my opinion, doesnt really matter in a game like this though

isometric camera is hard to control, need to autorotate with you i think to be right since we're in 3d now.

Walls arent see through? This one doesnt make sense to me, you cant see yourself if you get too close to a wall, normally in a game the walls would turn transparent when you get near them.
 
jbrukardt said:
Good:

Classy sophisticated baldur's gate feel
Hard, you have to be tactical
Full control of all the chars in your party
Twists (two wtf moments in the first half hour). I missed one, and caught one, made me feel good about myself when i caught one, but bad when i missed the other

Bad:
Too much blank space and non named npcs, i mean seriously, they were trying to emulate candlekeep with the first level, and none of the bookshelves have loot in them, theres no characters to talk to on the entire first floor, etc. I blame consoles for this glitch. In BG, you could loot every bookcase, and talk to every single NPC (even if they did have similar things to say).

Graphics, a bit. Theyre kind of flat and blah in my opinion, doesnt really matter in a game like this though

isometric camera is hard to control, need to autorotate with you i think to be right since we're in 3d now.

Walls arent see through? This one doesnt make sense to me, you cant see yourself if you get too close to a wall, normally in a game the walls would turn transparent when you get near them.
Click to expand...

How would it be th consoles fault when the PC version was done before they even started the console ports?
 
Wow... took me 3 tries to unbug defending redcliffe village... spent wayyy too much time wandering around looking for straggling baddies only to reload out of despair.
 
Well, I just spent a little longer with the game and I have to say that my first impressions are great. I love how much care BioWare puts into their titles.

Even though the fantasy setting is a little generic, I love the twist they took with the Elves back-story...I always hated how high and mighty they are in the stereotypical fantasy settings.

The combat is very tactical, and it's obvious that if you don't pay attention to how you are going to approach a battle, you will end up dying. Good ole quicksave...

Graphically it is a bit disappointing, but certainly not ugly. It's as good looking as it needs to be, and is definitely enough to immerse me. Well done BioWare, I can't wait to play for an extended period this weekend :)
 
Freezebyte said:
The combat system is definently different then im used to. Never played Baldurs gate, but I assume this is how the hardcore RPG fanantics like to control their attacks, parties and what not. Thanks but no thanks, give me oblivions and fallout 3 control scheme any day of the week, including the ability to just simply click a hot key and fire the damn spell or arrow instead of this left click, right click back and forth crap
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The combat system is the game's greatest fault. It's better (as a warrior, that is) than NWN or NWN2, but it's still clunky and the set of class skills falls flat compared to the fun of using a variety of talents and abilities as a mage. It's just somewhat bland in my opinion, and 2h weapons seem to suck, driving me toward using a dual wield setup.
 
i love the combat system. if you arent having fun in combat, you might be playing it wrong. you should spend some time in the tactics menu, thinking about tactics and actions that compliment eachother etc. its basically a tactical puzzle embedded within the game. also, learn to use the environment by looking for chokepoints etc.

i understand that some people wont like it regardless, but i think comparing the game to fallout 3 or oblivion is somewhat unfair... they are different animals, completely.
 
I'm reluctant to add yet another generic comment about Dragon Age, rather than post something very specific about the game, but the only thing that's troubled me a bit about my experience so far has been that I've never experienced that wow-moment you get when you're in the presence of something that's truly great.

Maybe it's because, graphically, this game just resembles Neverwinter Nights 2 so much, that I feel like I've somehow seen this before. I don't know, I can't quite explain it - the game just doesn't knock my socks off.

I definitely experienced the wow-moment when last November I stepped from Vault 101 - for the next 40 hours I pretty much remained in awe of everything that I saw. I even felt this way just recently with Risen. I felt this way, as well, when I spent 6 hours straight playing GTA 4 the first day - driving across The Broker Bridge was an incredible moment for me, especially because I was experiencing it on my new PC. Here, shockingly, I'm not really feeling it.

I'm not saying that DA is a bad game - far from it. It is a very good game indeed. It's just that DA doesn't excite me the way that I thought it was going to. When I'm playing an exceptional game, or what I believe to be an exceptional game, for some unknown reason I tend to feel a very strong urge to visit a forum such as this and post about it. So far, that hasn't happened with Dragon Age - and for me that's just not a good sign.

I should add, however, that this is only my third night with the game, and that I've no desire whatsoever to move on to anything else. I'm still very involved with this game. But it remains to be seen whether or not I'll make it through the next 80-100 hours. Based on what I've read in the strategy guide, and how far advanced I am right now, it's going to take me about 100 hours to finish this thing - if I do finish, then it will be a testament to the quality of the game.

I'll let you know.
 
I just finished the Lost in Dreams sequence in the Circle of Magi quest and god, that was the most boring and tedious quest I've done in any game for a while. It's like there's some scientific law in rpgs that state any dream sequence has to suck.

This part seemed to combine everything that I hated in games into one: constant backtracking, roaming similiar looking hallways and rooms the whole time, being alone, and the mouse holes and doors that would lead nowhere or take you back where you came from, and generally just really boring and very long to finish. Once I unlocked the last area, I didn't even bother backtracking through the previous areas again just to get those nifty permanent stat buffs.

It would've been better if they made this a side quest so I wouldn't have to deal this part on multiple playthroughs. I hope someone makes a mod in the future that lets you skip the entire sequence and possibly give you all the optional stat buffs.

Other than that lame part of the quest, I'm in love with this game. I haven't gotten a tactical gameplay vibe with this game since Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. Me and my dad both loved Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, we would give each other tips on quests and such as we progressed on our characters. I'm upgrading his comp just so he can play Dragon Age and we can relive our times from playing Baldur's Gate. :D
 
oh yea, that Lost in Dreams part really roasted my chestnuts.... you have to basically clear every area twice. the only cool part was playing as the stone guy.
 
BDV said:
Bleh, the whole concept of paid DLC is nauseating...

To elaborate... warden's keep DLC...

There is a option in NPC chat asking to buy it... seriously? Wtf...
Click to expand...

Great, don't buy it then :rolleyes: The game as it ships is supposed to be around 80 to 100 hours depending on your play style. How in the hell is that not a full game. Go cry some more. :rolleyes:
 
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Even more if you decide to start a game with other races/classes to see what they are like.
 
fornarmr said:
There is a way to set your AF through the modification of an .ini file.. kind of like Mass Effect.

Go to C:\User\Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\Settings

There is a file called DragonAge.ini

Search for the line AnisotropicFilteringLevel=0 > change to AnisotropicFilteringLevel=16 or whatever you think your system can handle.

You can also turn on trilinear filtering by changing UseTrilinearFiltering=0 to UseTrilinearFiltering=1
Click to expand...


I fiddled around with that .ini file last night and it still didnt' look like AF was enabled...I finally just forced AF globally through my drivers (since profiles for Dragon Age didn't seem to work with such old drivers,) and then I could immediately see that it was working. I'll update them soon enough, when I feel like taking the time to do so.

I'm running 1920x1200, 8x MSAA, 16x AF, all graphical details on max. There are a few low detail textures here and there in Ostragar, but the wilds and tower that I played through last night looked pretty nice, much better now that I got my settings sorted out. I'm on normal difficulty and the battles are challenging (especially when you are very out-numbered,) but not impossibly so. I have had a few party wipes though- saving often is the key, and when the game auto-saves for you, you know something is about to go down :)
 
Chaos_Being said:
I'm running 1920x1200, 8x MSAA, 16x AF, all graphical details on max. There are a few low detail textures here and there in Ostragar, but the wilds and tower that I played through last night looked pretty nice, much better now that I got my settings sorted out. I'm on normal difficulty and the battles are challenging (especially when you are very out-numbered,) but not impossibly so. I have had a few party wipes though- saving often is the key, and when the game auto-saves for you, you know something is about to go down :)
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Lol yea. I'm always like "Oh God Autosave, ready to get my arse beat". I have the difficulty at Hard, and I havn't had too many probs...Has anyone managed to kill a Revenant (you find them when you are in the Danish Elf woods)? Seriously I don't think they made them to be beatable.
 
Kangg said:
Great, don't buy it then :rolleyes: The gme as it ships is supposed to be around 80 to 100 hours depending on your play style. How in the hell is that not a full game. Go cry some more. :rolleyes:
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Warden's Keep DLC doesn't bother me... it's the inventory one that gets to me. 70 slots is really really.... shitty. Sigh.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
Warden's Keep DLC doesn't bother me... it's the inventory one that gets to me. 70 slots is really really.... shitty. Sigh.
Click to expand...

Yea I find myself dropping items to get the new loot, however I've seen "Backpacks" that you can purchase in game. I didn't have enough cash on me at the time to know for sure, however I'm assuming you can store items in them.

Your guys can carry to different sets of weps, so I have some guys carrying bows/arrows even though they don't use them. Frees up some space ;)
 
WabeWalker said:
I'm reluctant to add yet another generic comment about Dragon Age, rather than post something very specific about the game, but the only thing that's troubled me a bit about my experience so far has been that I've never experienced that wow-moment you get when you're in the presence of something that's truly great.

Maybe it's because, graphically, this game just resembles Neverwinter Nights 2 so much, that I feel like I've somehow seen this before. I don't know, I can't quite explain it - the game just doesn't knock my socks off.

I definitely experienced the wow-moment when last November I stepped from Vault 101 - for the next 40 hours I pretty much remained in awe of everything that I saw. I even felt this way just recently with Risen. I felt this way, as well, when I spent 6 hours straight playing GTA 4 the first day - driving across The Broker Bridge was an incredible moment for me, especially because I was experiencing it on my new PC. Here, shockingly, I'm not really feeling it.

I'm not saying that DA is a bad game - far from it. It is a very good game indeed. It's just that DA doesn't excite me the way that I thought it was going to. When I'm playing an exceptional game, or what I believe to be an exceptional game, for some unknown reason I tend to feel a very strong urge to visit a forum such as this and post about it. So far, that hasn't happened with Dragon Age - and for me that's just not a good sign.

I should add, however, that this is only my third night with the game, and that I've no desire whatsoever to move on to anything else. I'm still very involved with this game. But it remains to be seen whether or not I'll make it through the next 80-100 hours. Based on what I've read in the strategy guide, and how far advanced I am right now, it's going to take me about 100 hours to finish this thing - if I do finish, then it will be a testament to the quality of the game.

I'll let you know.
Click to expand...

Geebus dude make up your fucking mind. :rolleyes: Your threads regarding Dragon Age have been all over the damn place.

For me this game has had a ton of wow moments,all related to story. I love the plot twists I didn't see coming. Sounds like you had too high an expectation for this game, in my opinion when you do that you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

I approach every game I play with an open mind, that way I give myself a chance to judge it based on it's own merits. I almost always know whithin a few hours of play if I'm going to like it or not. Quit comparing it to Baldurs Gate and take it on it's own merits and you just might end up liking it more, maybe.
 
King Icewind said:
Lol yea. I'm always like "Oh God Autosave, ready to get my arse beat". I have the difficulty at Hard, and I havn't had too many probs...Has anyone managed to kill a Revenant (you find them when you are in the Danish Elf woods)? Seriously I don't think they made them to be beatable.
Click to expand...

Ah the dreaded autosave.

I'm up to level 9 on Nightmare, its definitely a playable difficulty, not like Doom-style Nightmare with respawning enemies or anything crazy. And yeah, you do have to kill a revenant at some point. Now that my party is pretty well established, all the roles filled and Tactics set up, most of the fights are not too difficult. Still its never a good idea to rush blindly into a room, thats the quickest way to get wiped.

Doing a play through as a defensive sword+shield dwarf commoner. The Commoner origin is awesome, lots of flavor.

I am finding as I get further along that you cannot please everyone. Some members of your party are just malicious, others less so. A lot of the dialogue options take away influence from one guy, while giving it to another.

Personally, this game is living up to the hype. And its long, I had already beat Mass Effect by now the first play-through, and my world map in DA is mostly untouched.
 
Ritorix said:
Personally, this game is living up to the hype. And its long, I had already beat Mass Effect by now the first play-through, and my world map in DA is mostly untouched.
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Unfortunately ME was too short, I could easily beat it in 6 hours (forced myself not too, lol). It was still a fun game, I have ME2 pre-ordered.

A lot of people are saying DA didn't live up to the hype, I disagree. I think a lot of people were expecting a Oblivion type of game, where you just click your enemy to death. So yea, it lived up to my and maybe your hype. ;)
 
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For those with backpack space issues.

The quartermaster in the Wardens camp area near the start of the game has one. Also when you come back from the wilds if you talk to him before the king/Duncan he has another one.

I missed this as well and the prices for oa backpack are HIGH as hell now. Apparently a lot of people figured they could just grab one later on but didn't expect them to be so freaking jacked up in price. Really wish I knew and bought it back then.
 
Stiler said:
For those with backpack space issues.

The quartermaster in the Wardens camp area near the start of the game has one. Also when you come back from the wilds if you talk to him before the king/Duncan he has another one.

I missed this as well and the prices for oa backpack are HIGH as hell now. Apparently a lot of people figured they could just grab one later on but didn't expect them to be so freaking jacked up in price. Really wish I knew and bought it back then.
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Don't make me restart again.........:mad:
 
snaggletooth said:
Hey, any chance you can dumb the controls down enough for use with an Xbox360 controller? Is there by chance a default option in the in-game menu?

I'd like to play the best version of this game from my couch. I know, the KB/M controls are far superior but I've been getting used to playing PC games from a more comfortable position.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately there's no gamepad support right now...which is strange considering they obviously had to create bindings for the 360 and PS3 versions of the game. I already tried this as I, too, wouldn't mind playing this while being lazy.

Hopefully they'll add this (and some larger fonts) with a patch down the road.
 
If you played BG1/BG2 and the other bioware games, do yourself a favor and play Nightmare mode.

Some Tactics advice that I find works really well. The Tactics system is awesome and I've been tweaking it a lot to buy myself more time to get people into position and manually do the finer crowd-control stuff.

Enemy -> That is the target of main character -> Attack

Doing this sets your guys to focus-fire on whoever your main guy is fighting. Since my main is a tank, that works out really well.

Self -> Any -> Set Mode (shield defense, bard song, flame weapons, etc)

This is how you get guys to automatically use their longterm buffs at the start of combat, and keep them up.

(on the mage) Ally -> Health < 50% -> Cast Heal
(on everyone else) Self -> Health < 25% -> Use smallest healing potion

Using this combo will have your mage top off anyone injured, and buy time if someone gets hit really hard by using lesser potions. Always make potions, the component elfroot stuff is everywhere and flasks are basically free.

Enchanting ... maybe this is in a manual I didnt read, but enchantable items show up as having sockets like Diablo2/WoW. Its not obvious at first. Enchanter NPCs socket them with gems you find or buy.
 
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Stiler said:
For those with backpack space issues.

The quartermaster in the Wardens camp area near the start of the game has one. Also when you come back from the wilds if you talk to him before the king/Duncan he has another one.

I missed this as well and the prices for oa backpack are HIGH as hell now. Apparently a lot of people figured they could just grab one later on but didn't expect them to be so freaking jacked up in price. Really wish I knew and bought it back then.
Click to expand...

What he had two? I didn't have enough money to purchase the first one! :D Plus I see he was nice to Grey Wardens with the raising of the price.
 
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Well, I've given into temptation and ordered the collectors edition. Just hoping it processes properly so I get the pre order bonuses.

Now can anyone tell me: does DA teleport the player character to the front of the party when you start a dialogue? That was one of my pet hates with NWN2!
 
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