Sarkus
2821
Control panel version is 3.5.797.0 and OS is Vista 32 bit
Definitely odd - perhaps your particular card just doesn’t have that available. It’s a head-scratcher.
I freaking love this game. I pretty much play it as turn based using the hold key for positioning and pausing after every action. I’m playing on hard, and it’s making me hard.
Ranulf
2824
Well, I finally played the demo and its meh, ok. I still haven’t finished DA1 at this point but the group AI doesn’t seem much better. The rogue seemed the most fun even if he couldn’t really off-tank. Is a party viable without a dedicated warrior-tank? Aveline appears to be Jaheira except potentially more annoying.
I can see maybe picking up the game of the year edition in a year or two on sale.
Equis
2825
It is.
Aveline appears to be Jaheira except potentially more annoying.
She isn’t.
Playing through it. Initially loved a lot of the changes, and was annoyed at some. Now the honeymoon period of OMG NEW GAME! is over, I think it’s a good game that definitely could use a lot of polish.
The biggest mistake this game has is putting II at the end of Dragon Age. If it was called Dragon Age: The Free Marches, or Dragon Age: Champion, or something, people’s expectations wouldn’t have been shattered.
Mordrak
2826
Of all the characters so far–admittedly I haven’t played as much as others–I like Aveline the most. She’s straight forward. The writing for her so far doesn’t make me imagine the writer having a smug sense of self-satisfaction upon completion. Isabella is by far the worst to me at least.
That’s similar to how I feel, Mordrak. Merrill wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t resort to the “OH GOSH I’M SO ASHAMED” thing every. single. fucking. conversation. Not a lot of subtlety in her characterization, to be sure.
This game has a couple of quests that really stand out to me, but they’re buried in a mountain of mediocre errands in the same old areas.
What is it about mercy killings in this game? I’m still in chapter 1, and I think I’ve done three so far. Someone in Bioware has some deep-seated issues, I think.
Actually there was a link on the Bioware forum a few days ago about final sales figures for ME2 and in the end it has apparently sold around 2M more units than DAO.
Razgon
2830
Its a commentary on todays society
You got any links to back this claim?
ME2 got GOTYs all over, it would surprise me if that didn’t impact sales in a positive way.
That’s funny you say that. After playing the Demo I was rolling my eyes at Aveline. How boring! But once she settles into Kirkwall she comes into her own. I thought she’d be another Jacob: the “regular joe” sympathetic cypher who is almost immediately forgettable. But no, she’s quite capable and nobody’s fool. A straight-up “good guy” character that’s someone you really want to hang out with.
My character went from angling for a romance with Isabella (who, to the writer’s credit - is so filthy she becomes fairly repellent) to crossing my fingers for another shot at Aveline after I’d passed on it at first.
I chuckled at one point, later on in the story, when my character’s basic reaction to something typical Isabella did was a bored, “Grow up, Isabella.” I think it takes a little skill to create a character with so much potential to be the poster-babe of a game (I was suckered in at first) and then just pile on the logical behavior until it becomes tedious and boorish.
Edit: I can’t say Isabella isn’t entertaining in her own way and there was certainly one other moment, which I won’t spoil, where the game seemed to read my mind on the subject for laughs at her expense.
Haven’t got the ME2’s stats to hands, but the “DA:O is their best selling game” came from some pretty bad reporting. What Bioware released was stats of their sales before ME2 - “this is our fastest selling game at this point”. A lot of people presumed it included ME2, and reported it as such. But anyone who actually read the press-release properly realised it.
This is from memory, so clearly some details could be amiss. But the key point - those numbers never included ME2 - is what I want to make clear.
KG
Strictly PC sales-wise, ME2 sold around 1.5 times more than DA:O. I would imagine the gap is even wider on consoles.
Just curious, but where do you guys get your numbers from? We know NPD is bunk for PC sales numbers, and the only things I see referencing ME2 and DAO are milestone announcements by the company.
Mordrak
2836
So that’s where the decisions are… hint to new players, mix up your quests. Do some side quests (maybe a companion quest) then a main quest. Since I’m a bit of a completionist, I tend to do quests with a priority of doing side quests first. The game divides them up for you. If you prioritize side quests earlier, the game can get really dull.
The choke point for the next chapter is very obvious so as long as you avoid that, you should be able to mix them up without worry of leaving something behind. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the main story quests before moving on to chapter 2.
Though, seriously did no one at Bioware play a mage? There’s a lot of these plots where you being a mage should be problematic and there are many many people who seem to have selective amnesia (everyone but your party and allies?) about you blowing people to smithereens right in front of them before the cut scenes.
Personally, although I like Aveline, I was a bit surprised to even see the “start romance” icon come up. I mean, at that point it’s been about a year since I personally stabbed her previous husband to death. I so wouldn’t go there.
I was wondering about that - there’s a lot in there which would seem to generate a very different experience for playing a mage. Do they not adequately address that?
I got to a point in my game where I’m pretty stuck. I had been directed to choose my party carefully, as I would not be able to swap, and I selected one based on how fights had been going so far, only to encounter a boss fight which is nothing like the other fights. I can’t swap members from my save point, nor back out to improve my stats or equipment. I’m locked in.
These seem like pretty bizarre situations in which to put an RPG player. I’m sure I could do it should I just meticulously manage my party to the nth, but the interface is so fiddly and unhelpful (playing on the console) it is looking to be a super unfun pain in the ass. Particularly when there are moments where each of the characters have to be standing in just the right spots, and there’s no individual hold/move freely command.
I’m actually quite interested to see where the adventure is going and to develop my character, but often I just get tired of the combat. So that sucks.
Do you have a source for that? I haven’t seen any actual DA:O sales figures, just a press release stating that the game had shipped 3.2 million copies in February. And according to an EA press release from May 2010, Mass Effect 2 had sold about 1.6 million copies. ME2 doing that much better on the PC seems strange if these numbers are correct.
Makes sense. In my story I let her decide what to do about her husband so I guess I didn’t feel quite the same about that interaction. I passed because the whole Isabella thing hadn’t cropped up yet and I was curious to see where that would go.
