Dragon Age

[TFWoods3]

I just sunk the last 2 weeks into this game and it is epic, I recommend it to anyone who loves fantasy games. I also recommend it to any game master as a great reference for encounter and story design.

Anyone else playing?

[Leonal]

Finished it once as a human noble rogue and enjoyed it alot. :)

[DNH]

Yes, this is an excellent game. Well worth anyone's money. Everything about it smacks of excellence, from the visuals to the voice acting (you know those games with conversation trees? Well all the NPC responses are acted out with full voice acting), to the setting, to the story (although this last owes a large debt to George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire), to the sense of humour (I advise you to stop and listen to the others in your party sometimes; they can be laugh-out-loud funny at times). Oh and those conversation trees I mentioned, very complex and with no obvious easy routes through - you will sometimes be forced to make difficult decisions.

All this wrapped up, refreshingly in these MMO times, in a *single-player* game. There is *no* multiplayer option, and that is A Very Good Thing.

Yes, heartily recommended to all here.

[drahkar]

Also there is a toolset available for those who are interested in developing custom content for the game as well. Word from Bioware is that the toolset supports creating not only the levels, but the cut-scenes and everything else as well.

Sadly I won't know first hand for a while. Have my hands full on other projects at the moment. :)

[TFWoods3]

Yes I wish I had loads of free time to dive into the editor and create adventures. I would love to add areas to the deep roads and the capital city. Sadly real life takes most of my time.

[grimm182]

Sorta related, i have used biowares/obsidians Neverwinter Nights toolset to do very detailed overhead battlemaps quickly for FG, so i will keep my eye on this toolset for DA to do the same.

[zWolf]

I ditto the comments saying this is an excellent game, I have put a good 50 + hours in so far, but on in the game where I have gone the furthest, I think I'm still only a good third of the way through... the origin stories are just so fun, I keep starting other characters heh.

-oh, and the prequil novels were great - Gaider (The lead writer of the game and the writer of 2 prequil novels for Dragon Age,) cut his novel writing teeth on this one, but as far as I'm concerned he knocked it out of the ball park.

definitely flavored with R.R. Martin's style - but hells - that's a good thing! :-P

[zWolf]

Sorta related, i have used biowares/obsidians Neverwinter Nights toolset to do very detailed overhead battlemaps quickly for FG, so i will keep my eye on this toolset for DA to do the same.

Hey! this is an excellent Idea!~ thanks for posting it, and if anyone DOES experiment with this and if they wouldn't mind sharing, please PM me with your work, I'd love to check this idea out!

[DNH]

... I think I'm still only a good third of the way through ...

If you open up your character sheet and hit the 'Heroic Achievements' button, it actually tells you what percentage of DA:O you have completed. I am about 13% in, which is simultaneously heartening and frustrating! ;)

[TFWoods3]

If you open up your character sheet and hit the 'Heroic Achievements' button, it actually tells you what percentage of DA:O you have completed. I am about 13% in, which is simultaneously heartening and frustrating! ;)

That number will not hit 100% when you beat the game. I hear it takes a few play throughs to make it go up. I think part of it is the different starting origins, different quest lines/choices, etc.

[Zoso]

And you have to get the two release day DLC's for a few of the achievement things as well which is pretty cheap on EA's part.

[Illrigger]

It was definitely a better deal to get the collector's edition and get them both that way along with whatever other items came bundled. They are both very good little side quests.

My favorite beginning was the dwarven one, although I was a bit upset with my inventory when I got into the main game.

[mattw]

Have you seen that they are releasing an PnP RPG, developed by GreenRonin and written in the most part by Chris Pramas of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fame.

Check the Details Here (https://www.greenronin.com/dragon_age/)

Now if someone could just release a FG2 ruleset for this, we'd be set.

Great game and with expansions to come a lot of juicy story and lore too.

MattW out..

[drahkar]

Once its out you can be sure a ruleset will likely be in the coming. What I would like to see is an Official set for it. :)

[tenkar]

Its out in PDF

[TFWoods3]

I'm actually surprised how much I like the Dragon Age world and history. I wouldn't mind playing in that world at all.

[Answulf]

I heard the Dragon Age RPG is really basic, however - I believe it's targeted at bringing the computer players into the RPG community. Not that that is a bad thing, though!

[Doswelk]

I'll just do what I always do these days and Savage it!

[BruntFCA]

Well everyone seems to love it, so to give the thread some balance I'm one of the people who think it was pretty meh.

I played it on PC at highest rez, and the world map looks like a postage stamp, for such a high-end title they should think about scaling their bitmaps. Also for a modern title, I found is a throwback to 1990s style gaming...

No real world map, just locations stitched together with loading screens, and the lame "postage" stamp type world map. The gaming system is also unbelievably simplistic, try theif level 1...2,3 and top level you guessed it 4. The skills are not trees, in that there's no branching, you simply go from left (number 1) until you reach the right (number 4). Very bland.

I'm interested in reading about the lore and background since they put so much effort into it. However, the info you need is scattered into tiny little numbered boxes, like an advent calendar, except with over 300 entries! In then end it was just giving me a headache playing "chase the lore" entry.

I bought the "deluxe" version assuming I'd get everything, boy was I wrong. People think that this gives you everything, it does snot. I was still missing 1 DLC, and worst of all, *a chest to store your items* is an extra DLC! If EA made cars they'd sell wheels as an option extra. I just found this so cheap and mean.

The combat animations and synching are very nice, but the world feels bland and "dumbed down". There are almost no items you can interact with in the world, and anything you can interact with is highlighted with an "idiot click this highlight". The way not only the world, but even levels within the world are chopped up into tiny map like areas with loading screens really kills the immersion as well.

The story is also incredibly anodine, though there are a few interesting characters, and a few of the sub plot levels are interesting but all too short. There are some areas they could have explored more, but all too soon your dargged back into kill the orcs (darkspawn) main plot. Though the game is rated as adult, I see it more as an adolescent title. Needless to say I was not happy about my purchase of this game.