One thumbstick controls location and the other controls zoom. It feels like it can zoom pretty far out to me, but maybe that’s because I just finished DA1 and DA2 on 360 a few months ago – I had DA1 on PC as well, but it refused to load my save games because it insists I didn’t pay for the DLC, which I know I had, my saves included DLC contents. That really pissed me off. Anyway, the zoom is at least as good as DA1’s XBox zoom and is way better than DA2. I don’t remember DA1 on PC giving better zoom either, but it’s been a long, long time since I played on it. With DAI I can usually zoom out far enough to get the whole party in view, unless I’ve got an unusual setup on them, and if I have, a quick flick of the thumbstick brings me over to my other team members (or up or down on the d-pad). It does get very wonky with multi-elevations though.
I really, really like the trigger fast forward. I give a few orders, trigger forward, pause, zoom in to look at the action, zoom out to get a better view, give a few more orders, hit the trigger again.
Okay, that’s really lame and clearly they were clearly full of it, so fie on Bioware or EA for that. I followed the development pretty closely, and it’s been quite obvious this was a console game with PC interface tacked on as a secondary platform. Is that the Dragon Age/Bioware catch phrase or is that an Origin/EA-wide catch phrase.
This thread is getting tiresome to be honest. There is unholy amount of bitching for a game that is, apparently, liked by most of the people who posted here. I understand freedom of speech and all that but reading all these nit pickings and insightful design ideas wears me down, I should probably stop reading this thread. No offense, I just want to enjoy the game as is without reading countless “the game is great but…”, especially since most of the time it’s just rehashing of the same stuff.
Hey, I love the game. The tactical camera has it’s issues, but it’s far from worthless or the like. There are certain areas where it really falls down, but most of the time it’s perfectly good. As far as M&KB usage, I haven’t remotely had any issues with it.
But then again, Ive begun avoiding reading about games once they are out, due to all the bitching getting me down a bit, sadly. As you say, people can say what they want to , but its depressing when one really likes the game to read.
The fact that using a targetted AoE ability takes you out of pause mode (because pause is a toggle) demonstrates how shonky and tacked on the pause mode is. This may depend on control scheme.
Cheers. Have been loving the game but having a hard time putting into words exactly why. It’s clear there was a lot of effort and love involved in its creation. The story might not be great (well, what game story is, really?) but the storytelling is fantastic. The world is alive with people and their tales. And some have real personality. The combat is flashy and frequently satisfying. When I’m bored of playing the game one way, I can switch it up and go after alternative goals. Lore is liberally dolloped everywhere, which rewards those who like to read and immerse themselves in the fantasy universe. For every gameplay/design stumble there are 2 or more things that make me smile and appreciate what I’ve been given.
You may want to poke around and check the hot keys. Is there a fast forward on the PC? On consoles AoE attacks do not unpause. You can give everyone commands and then either unpause or fast forward. I’ve found the fast forward works better. Unpause tends to have the AI override past commands whereas fast forward everyone does what I’ve instructed.
My friends and I were wondering about this! We had all independently chosen the Mage storyline and thought it was pretty cool. When one decided to re-roll, she kept on trying to find out what the Templar storyline was and was having a hard time. Evidently everyone was doing Mage.
I actually think the Templar quest gets a little under-rated. Yes, I liked the Mage quest especially since it reminded me of a certain seminal comic book, but it felt a little short and half-baked compared to what it could have aspired to, whereas the Templar quest, I felt, hit some pretty cool notes in its own right. I do think the Mage quest was better, but I don’t see the massive gap so many other folks are pointing to.
Either way, you get one of the better followers in the game besides. ;-)
At least she’s not hollering “Say hello to my little friend”.
And all this talk about alternate story lines has me thinking that I may actually play this again after my initial run through as a mage siding with mages.
You get Cole. While I haven’t done the Act I ender, my assumption is that whoever you didn’t get from Templars/Mages is the guy who turns up Paul Revere-style during the following story quest.
You also get some really fun insight into Cole’s introduction in the Templar quest that isn’t there, obviously, if you’re running around with Dorian in the Mage quest.
Your assumption is correct. Dorian shows up out of the blue in the Templar storyline just like Cole does in the Mage. Sounds like the majority of people went Mage overall on the first play through.
I will say that the end boss of the Templar questline is considerably more difficult than the Mage one. The mage one gets beaten (like all casters) by dispel really easily.
No. That said, you do get to decide the terms on which you “side” with them and said terms can indeed focus on the fact that they are fuckheads whose teeth have been recently kicked in by you. They may not even particularly like the way you get them to work with you as a result but they’ll do it, goshdurnit.
Sadly, you need friends, even dumb ones, to face the threat behind the Breach. :)
