2661

Is this like Mass Effect, where there’s a clear quality difference between the male and female main character voice acting, or are they about the same?

2662

Huh. I assume I got the warrior brother rather than the mage sister due to playing a mage, but I’d kinda figured the other warrior I have was guaranteed. Maybe not.

2663

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you will not lack for warriors, if you keep track of them.

2664

Interesting, I’m about ten hours in and have more mages than anything else.

Besides me: Two rogues, two warriors, three mages.

2665

for majority of the game you will have access 2 of each class + player.

2666

Whoa, I’m supposed to have that many characters now? I’m 10 hours in and only have 2 mages, a rogue and a warrior.

Am I supposed to go poking around looking for them? I haven’t been following the main quest that much… is that where they are? I’d really like to have as many characters as I can find to develop friendships with them… but I don’t want to accidentally advance the main plot and lose the ability to complete some of these sidequests…

2667

Yeah I do remember a few places in DA:O where 2nd waves spawned. I remember thinking “Why am I so concerned about killing these guys quickly and efficiently, I’m better off letting the last enemy hang around so that I can heal up and refresh my cooldowns”.

Tony

2668

One of the loading tips on the PS3 tells me that all classes (including mages!) get a damage bonus for hitting things from behind, and as a warrior I have a talent that prevents enemies from getting a damage bonus when they attack me from behind.

Now, I can’t say if I actually see a damage bonus because combat is pretty hectic, but the game at least claims there is one.

Chris Woods

2669

Is paying $7 for Sebastion worth it?

2670

Pssst. Don’t be too much of an ass on Bioware’s forums, or you might be locked out from playing your single player game.

Edit: Apparently threads are being deleted. Someone got a screen capture of the relevent bits for posterity though, for when/if my previous link dies.

2671

This still blows my fucking mind, every time it happens with an EA release.

2672

That is utterly ridiculous. EA BioWare should just stab all of their remaining fans in the face and get it over with.

2673

Another four hours in and all I can say is that even though almost all of the changes to gameplay irritated me to begin with and strike me as being more or less downgrades from the previous Dragon Age…it’s rapidly not mattering that much to me anymore. Combat has gone from tense and tactically involving on normal to being pretty trivial thus far, but at least it’s not obnoxious. The game’s gorgeous and I’m happily poking around sidequesting, resolving family troubles, finding codex entries and crafting resources, petting my mabari hound, and so on. I’m glad I bought it, and I’m glad it was made. I could wish it were less console-oriented in the design and more like its predecessor, but it’s still a keeper.

2674

While Bioware can be pretty harsh (and I don’t think you should lose access to a game if banned), the banned party is not being entirely honest about why he was banned. As Stanley Woo notes in his respons, the guy was apparently banned by EA because someone reported a post. So what posts are we talking about? Well, there is this post:

They overcompensated the fugly elves with huge tits.

A bit vulgar for Bioware board standards. “Tits” is still a bit of a negative slang term in polite company.

But it’s most likely this post, since it was actually deleted in the thread it appeared in. Lucikly, someone quoted the whole exchange:

v_ware wrote…

[quote]Gaius Octavian wrote…

Are you a homosexual as well as a retard?

I am one of those. And you are the other one.

Guess which one I am.[/quote]

That thread was closed for personal attacks.

I’m not saying that a banning was justified or not, but suggesting he was banned because he was saying bad things about Bioware ignores these other recent posts and conflicts he’s been involved in.

2675

Here’s the moderator’s post at the end (emphasis of the most interesting part added by me):

Please review the EA Community Terms of Service, particularly sections #9 and #11. There are two levels of enforcement here:

  1. BioWare community bans are forum-only and can be for as little as 24 hours. These bans should have no effect on your game, only your ability to use all the features of this website/community. these bans are handed out by BioWare Moderators as the result of our travels around the forum and/or issues reported by fellow community members.

2. EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.

Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you’re going to follow.

If there are further questions or concerns, please send them to me via private message. Thank you.

End of line.

Does that mean that if someone hits the REPORT POST button, you’re access to your game and/or DLC is automatically “affected”? If it’s that easy, why haven’t the forums imploded in an apocalyptic frenzy of griefing? Either nobody knew about this, or there’s an intermediate step where some corporate troll manually approves the account suspension.

2676

I wasn’t banned for anything, nor have I commented on anything to do with this on the Bioboards. I was just passing it along. I haven’t even bought the game, and likely won’t until there is an ultimate.

I do sympathise for the Bioware guys. It must be quite soul draining, having to deal with all the hate being flung around.

2677

Sorry, I thought you were posting here because it was you who was banned. My mistake. :-( I will edit the post accordingly.

Edit: By the way, there is a now 14 page thread about this banning/loss of access issue on the official boards and one of the devs is leaving it open, has occasionally posted in it, and says he will pass the uproar on to management in the morning. So in fairness to Bioware, anyway, they do seem to be taking it seriously.

2678

Hey! Quit bagging on the combat engine already. It’s pretty great and could be outstanding with a few tweaks. That said, I think you get a 10% damage bonus for flanking. Backstabs can be initiated from anywhere within range of course, so positioning doesn’t matter in that regard.

I’m shocked, Tim. Shocked I say. That sounds just the tiniest bit presumptuous, but I promise not to get too snarky if they announce Kohan 3 as a platformer and you feel the need to rant about it.

2679

I have not finished the game yet. So far I would give a tentative yes, he’s a good character. His second act quest is so badly written. It’s the Eye of Argon of personal quests. I laughed, I cried.

2680

Have you had a chance to write down your thoughts on the game?