1981

I dunno, I had a pretty wicked looking winged helmet for my rogue Dahlia that I was digging, I mean, that is if I was going to play a woman character in a RPG, cough.

1982

I don’t remember using much in the way of mods with nwn2 or nwn2 motb (although some people found certain anti rest mechanics in motb too harsh on good aligned parties and thus downloaded half cheat/half fix mods for that).

Only one i can think of off the top of my head that added a lot was some class pack which added a lot of fun classes. I would surely recommend that. Maybe there was an AI one too.

1983

Naw man, it’s all good. It’s what this place is supposed to be all about :-)

Plus now I’ve quoted you so you can’t.

The ending of DA:O is phenomenal too,so don’t worry about it crapping out for that. But do the origins for city elf, dwarf noble and commoner.

1984

24 hours in.

I have left the default tactics on, but micromanage a lot. I am hesitant to mess with things as I have done pretty well playing on normal. I think.

Wynne saved my ass throughout the Circle Tower and allowed me to successfully navigate the whole place with few wipes. Finished the whole Tower right before bedtime. The Fade and the tasks surrounding it were really interesting and well structured, but grew a bit tiresome. Mostly because I was tired and had to think a little harder than I wanted. I couldn’t for the life of me figure something out and had to go to the Google it (boooo) and it was something simple.

Dreamt about quest givers with little dealies floating over their heads and “Selecting all party members” and moving around a series of open rooms and passages. No shades, abominations or demons though. Probably a good thing.

I guess this is kinda one major quest line down?

[EDIT: This may be a mild spoiler. Just realized it was a no spoiler thread.] The Sloth demon and Uldred back-to-back was draining. I almost made it through all the Sloth stages the first time through and then Leilana died literally 2 or 3 hits away. Wiped once on Uldred. Considering my middling skill level at tactics in general, I was quite pleased.

1985

Tough single-enemy boss-fights are one of the areas where a 1HS tank really shines. If you’re really feeling outclassed you can take everybody except the tank out to attack from long range, preferably spread out, with bows/staves, while the tank stays in and keeps the boss’s attention with Threaten. The low-ish damage output from the other characters keeps the boss focused on the tank, and the caster(s) conserves mana for heal and regeneration. (If you don’t have regeneration, the tank might have to use potions to supplement heal.)

Taken to an extreme, two spirit healers, a 1HS tank and another ranged party member can pretty much doze through the hardest single-enemy fights in the game.

1986

I’ve been playing this, and need to take a break. I just got through Orzammer and it had to have been 10-12 hours or so just in that part of the game. It felt much much longer than the other 3 recruitment sections. I beat Redcliffe a long time ago, but the mage tower and elves couldn’t have been more than 5-6 hours.

1987

The dwarf-bit kind of does drag on… And on… and on… :D

IMO the mage tower did too, though. Running back and forth and all over, flickering between forms, took much longer than it should have.

1988

Once I sort of got in a groove and figured it out I was cool, but some parts in there I just wanted to throw something.

1989

So I just picked up the complete Dragon Age Origins set for cheap, and I’ve got a question I hope you guys can help me with. I had already played the core campaign a while back, but none of the dlc. So now I have all the dlc packs and I’m wondering, what order should I play them in? Does that even matter, is there a story thread or is it more like the Mass Effect dlc where they are fairly self-contained?

1990

Almost all of them are their own mini-campaigns, some of which have some connection to the main storyline, some of which don’t. I don’t believe any of them build on other DLC.

1991

Yeah, I agree that they tend to be fairly isolated stuff although a few are built into the main campaign (Warden’s Keep, Stone Prisoner, Return to Ostagar). The only ordering I’d put the external DLCs in would be in relation to where you’d be at in the base campaign, so I guess it depends on whether Pogue has finished everything or not (he said he played the main campaign, but didn’t mention if it was finished so I don’t want to assume).

eg - Leliana’s Song should probably be saved for after you meet her, Awakening should be after the main game is over, etc… Check under “installed content” or in the Bioware store for little descriptors of each and time them up as feels appropriate. The only issue is that the descriptions (and the DLC itself) can provide some spoilers, so you might want to limit your reading depending on how sensitive your are to such things (you meet Leliana pretty early, so I’m assuming that’s not a spoiler for people still reading this thread but I’ll take out the reference if people want me to).

For those included within the base campaign, read the descriptors on the map and take them as they become interesting to you or perhaps after NPC’s drop hints. I did them early on, and wound up with some nice “things that went with me” in the process, so if you’re a gathering kind of guy then that might be up your alley.

1992

I beat the main campaign quite a while back, but got a deal on the complete package so I figured I’d go back and knock out the dlc. I was just curious about this question because one of them appears to deal with what happens to Morrigan after the events of the main quest, so that would naturally have happened probably after most of the other stuff (I guess).

Anyway, as you guys say, probably doesn’t matter too much. Looks like Awakening is a fairly large add-on, so maybe I’ll work my way up to that one. The one where I get to play as darkspawn sounds kind of fun.

1993

Witch Hunt is the only one that directly ties into the events of the main campaign (well, aside from Awakening, but I count that as an expansion pack, personally, not just DLC).

1994

How do I use the bonus content for the Steam edition of DA:OU. I have the CD keys things and the game says I need to enter them somewhere, but I can’t figure out where. There doesn’t seem to be a field for it in game anywhere. sigh Why are PC games always such a hassle?

1995

HAHA! Welcome to Bioware Social!

Seriously though, you need to register the game on Bioware Social after you create an account there, then you need to add the DLC codes to the site. The next time you start the game (connected to the internet, of course) you’ll be able to import the add-ons.

1996

Ugh…

So where do I enter the CD keys on the Bioware site? I wnet to “redeem Codes” on the DLC section of DA and tried to enter the two keys in the provided box on the that came up. Both times it said “code not recognized” so I’m not sure where they want me to enter the codes.

What are people thinking when they design these systems…why not just make stuff that works and is easy to use? You know, download DA:OU and have all the extra content there and “authorized” already. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

1997

I think you need to register under the ‘Profile’->‘Register Games’ section. I wish you luck in this. I did this same thing earlier this year and it took a good bit of futzing to get it all recognized in-game and then partway through playing it all stopped being recognized as authorized. A redownload and numerous other things later I finally figured out how to allow myself to play the game again but it was a monstrous pain in the ass.

1998

Meh…I think I’ll just play without the extra stuff. That just sounds like too much fuss and bother for me. Awakening is the thing I really want to play, and that seems to be there already.

1999

I was going to write something snarky about the social site earlier on, but got distracted. That said, it’s not THAT bad. You want the DLC, and it’s worth the effort. While it isn’t OMGWTFBBQ-awesome, a lot of it is pretty decent.

When you sign up with a Bioware account (note: if you use the same email as you do for EA’s Origin system or registering ME:2, it will be the same login), you’ll see tabs on the left. One of them says “my games” - make sure your game shows up as registered. It will have an option to “remove registration” if it has been.

Next, another tab will be labelled “profile” - this is where you add codes for prepurchased DLC, like what comes with DA:O Ultimate edition. I believe you need to go to “redeem promo code” from the list that opens up, and you enter the special code you got in the box to associate all DLC with your account.

Finally, make sure you have the game set to “run as admin.” Start it up, log into the game (and make sure you pick “remember my info” or whatever so you don’t need to remember) and then go to the main menu and click on “Downloadable Content” in pretty gold letters on the right hand side (btw - if anything in that menu is faded out, that means you’re not logged in). You can watch the download progress as it goes, and thankfully it’s pretty quick. Make sure nothing is showing up as “available DLC,” because that means it’s ready to be purchased, and you should have it all.

Once all downloads are complete, you can select (or leave unselected) various pieces of DLC at your liesure. Important note: this is the same menu that you would select or deselect mods.

troubleshooting:
Every once in a while, Bioware’s server regurgitates and shows various DLC’s as “unverified” or something to that effect. I still have no clue as to why, but I usually solve the issue by closing the game, manually shutting off the DAO service (enter “services” in your search bar, and disable it from there), logging into the social site and verifying your account didn’t vanish, WITHOUT LOGGING OUT OF THE SITE I then open up the game which simultaneously starts the service back up, and then if things don’t show as verified I will log out from the game menu and log back in. Oh, and you can then close the site.

Mind you, there are probably as many methods to work around that problem as there are sold copies of DA:O, but that one worked for me.

2000

I really feel like that all should have been handled in-game or in the launcher (and bundled, in the Ultimate Edition), rather than forcing me to go to a website, especially a “social” website I will never use for any other purpose. Then I was -really- miffed when Dragon Age II handled everything - download, registration, patches - through the social site and not in game or through the launcher. WTF, Bioware. You’ve had proper launcher/updaters for ages and now you’re regressing?