2841

At least yours has shipped. :-(

2842

If you’re already planning to wait, there’ll almost assuredly be some sort of omnibus or GOTY edition for DA too, including some amount of DLC content in the base purchase.

2843

What do you think the teachers are going to be doing with their half-day - grade tests?

2844

Once you redeem the code in your EA account won’t you be able to re-download this stuff at any time?

2845

True! Heck, it will probably even including other upcoming DLC too and will probably be a much better deal overall.

2846

Ha ha, everyone is doing puppet sex in-game right now except you, loser.

2847

Just when I thought that DLC crap for dragon age couldn’t get any worse.

2848

Hmmm. And after the game is installed, it looks like I can’t redeem the blood dragon armor or NPC and quest. Though it accepted the code at Bioware’s webpage. Hopefully it’ll show up tomorrow and it didn’t just eat my code and not give me the quest.

2849

Hahaha, I spoke too soon. Warden’s Keep is showing up, just not the DLC I don’t have to pay for. Well played Bioware.

2850

I sounds like Bio isn’t going to let people get everything today even though the game is clearly in the wild. They’ve basically posted to that effect several times on the official boards already today.

2851

On the 360 the opposite is happening. My coded DLC shows up fine but I can’t purchase Warden’s Keep.

2852

Is there any process for getting DLC you earned with DA:J or the character creator to load up into your game, or is that automatic if you’ve registered your gamertag?

2853

I bet all the pirates gonna skip all the DLC hassel and get everything at same time in one release.

2854

Well, I spoke too soon again. Took 5 minutes of waiting and refreshing the DLC page before it showed up, but it did, and now it’s downloading. Still having trouble with the blood dragon armor though, and it kind of looks like I didn’t get the dorky EA store preorder items, but oh well.

Getting cranky at this thing before I’ve even started smashing rats.

2855

Man I want puppet sex too! With underwear on, if the game blogs are correct!

2856

Lucky you. I give up on hitting my Walmart for anything new. Although I did check it out last night hoping they might have screwed up and put on the shelves. No luck there.

So ended up getting Steam CE and preloading now.

2857

It probably varies by store and title. At that store it’s pretty scattershot. Empire TW and now DA will have shown up early. Meanwhile, we still haven’t seen the PC version of Borderlands.

It also depends on who is working. Since I pay attention to what’s being released, I usually have a good idea of what should be on the shelves when I go in (I work in the Electronics section). If it’s not, I find out if it ever got put out and in most cases it hasn’t been.

So your earlier point about the 24 hour store not having it out or knowing where it even is could very well be the case, depending on who is working. My store isn’t 24 hours, so I’ll be in the same boat as anyone else if I end up trying to find it tonight. At least in my store I know where the PC version is currently being stored.

2858

So as far as companions go, I see we have a choice between 5-6 warriors of various flavors including a golem and a dog, 1 rogue/assassin, 1 rogue/bard, 1 shapeshifting damage mage, and 1 healing mage.

From various previews and whatnot, it’s pretty clear that you’re going to want two mages in your party at all times. So I was thinking about starting a mage, hybrid between healing and damage (healing first) to experience more of the companion quests and banter.

Any non-spoiler comments on this strategy? Would a rogue be a better choice? I really don’t see any reason to play a warrior.

2859

My understanding is that neither of the mages is a “healing” mage to begin with, but that it’s easy enough to send either down that path. However, as Tom’s Fydgyt diary points out, he’s managed to make it pretty far without healing magic, so it might not even be necessary.

And I’m not sure that what character class you choose will have much of an impact on how much companion quest and banter you will get. Either way you are limited in how many people you can have with you (three) at any given time. One thing I do wonder is if you need to take someone for a significant amount of time to get their full backstory or if the amount of time needed is such that you could rotate people through and end up fully revealing more then three in each playthrough.

2860

I think my current group is composed of a rogue/assassin/bard, templar/champion/warrior, Berserker/templar/warrior(my character), healer mage(Wrynn is a healing mage right off the bat, she is the best healer in the game hands down, probably even better than your own character even if you spec into healing due to her special ability).

You want to have a rogue to open chest, 80% of the chest in the game is locked, only rogue with device skill can disarm trap and open lock.

I had templar/champion tank, while I went with 2 hand skills, you get an PBAOE attack with a 2hander skill which is pretty damn useful, I think if you get a dual wielding templar, it’s possible to get close to 100% magic resist, which makes you immune to magic…

You don’t have to drag characters around to unlock their special mission, just give them correct gift and that’s enough to raise their affection towards you.

This game really plays out more like a MMO than I originally thought, for bosses fights, I just take control of wrynn, as long as I apply the right heal and balance the mana, as long as healer is alive, usually wins the fights.