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darchon > GET A LIFE (2092) > 17/03/10 18:57
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Anyone playing it? I just started, not sure what to think yet.
Grunge > LOOT FTW LIKES ME (551) > 17/03/10 19:13
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Played 5min after I completed Metro 2033, was decent at the start, but not that impressed.
Shatter combo doesn't work on yellow mobs & up, but all the other OP'ness of casters is still there.
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
darchon > GET A LIFE (2092) > 20/03/10 02:13
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Just completed with mage pc, Oghren tanking, Anders and Nathaniel. Story was decent, but the game was way too easy. Could play most of the game as hack and slash, on the hardest difficulty. Still, decent game, but doubt I will replay like i did the original.
Rebell > "I TRIED MY BEST" (128) > 20/03/10 11:35
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Any thoughts about the original game? Actually i don't really like single player RP games but thinking of giving it a go for this one.
The "six inches in front of your face", that's where we live. It's the choices you make in that place that ultimately defines you, and over time, the course of your life, until the end.
darchon > GET A LIFE (2092) > 20/03/10 14:32
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Original game is awesome. If you are going to like any single player rpg, this one is probably it. Only minus is that balance is not perfect, mages are stronger than the other classes, but not so much that you can't have fun with a balanced party.
Tristanian > LOOT FTW LIKES ME (528) > 24/03/10 10:59
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darchon wrote:
Just completed with mage pc, Oghren tanking, Anders and Nathaniel. Story was decent, but the game was way too easy. Could play most of the game as hack and slash, on the hardest difficulty. Still, decent game, but doubt I will replay like i did the original.


More or less. The story is decent enough, though nothing we really haven't seen before. The main antagonists are once again a bit 'detached' from the game and you don't get to learn much about them. Other than that, it's a straight up dungeon crawler with a few twists in terms of your keep (nowhere as advanced as the NWN2 keep) and the dialogue system (imho a step backwards since you mostly interact with your new companions, via 'places of interest'). Unfortunately, there aren't really many significant choices to make and in most occasions you don't have enough information to make an informed decision. The new companions are no more or less likable than the old ones, or possess more character 'depth'. Losing Mhairi to the Joining, within an hour from starting the 'expansion', was needless and utterly craptastic/ridiculous. What's the point in acquiring a companion you won't be able to actually use for 95% of the game. Gameplay wise, as darchon stated it's easy, more than easy actually. Effortless. This is mostly due to OP and somewhat 'broken' new abilities such as Accuracy, Massacre, Unending Flurry etc, which enable you to 1-2 shot everything but the toughest enemies. On Nightmare. Not pretty. Lots of glitches and bugs too in both terms of quests, approval, plotline and graphics.

All in all, it's not a bad expansion (expansion is probably the wrong term for it, since you can't really use any of the new stuff in the vanilla game) but you can't help but feel empty in the end, an opportunity wasted. There was certainly enough potential to make it 100 times better, yet it is fairly obvious that it was never properly playtested or polished but rather rushed and thrown together to make some quick buck for Bioware. Pity really. Well, hopefully DAO 2 will fare better.
If you make yourself more than just a man...if you devote yourself to an ideal, then you become something else entirely...
Grunge > LOOT FTW LIKES ME (551) > 24/03/10 14:09
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Pales in comparison to the original.

[Spoiler]




What annoyed me the most is that you can only save either the City or the Vigil.

I upgraded the Vigil to the max, and thought it could take an extra 10 minutes while I mop the floor with the Darkspawn remnants in the City, but after I cleared the city, Codex updated the characters I had left in the keep to "died in the defense of the keep", a heads up by someone would've made sense.
Something in the lines of "It's unlikely the Keep will withstand a second assault, so choose wisely".

I had expected to control the 2nd party in the Keep or something, even made a balanced setup for both parties.


Another annoying thing was Justices logic matrix.

He seemed like a nice chap, but when I sided with the Architect, he went berserk and attacked me instead.
I guess stopping the blights for good isn't a just cause.
No huge war with thousands of soliders and civilians dead and all that jazz, can't be good...

Also when you decide to either burn the city or go defend it he's all up in arms "raaah raah, killing the people in the city is bad", and you can tell him "Trust me, I know what's best.", he's "cool beans, you da boss man", but when you tell the same thing in the Architect situation he's "No, this is Wrong, WAAAAGH".


[/Spoiler]
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
Tristanian > LOOT FTW LIKES ME (528) > 24/03/10 14:53
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I also expected to be able to control the 2nd group (essentially the people I left behind) in the Vigil, but that never happened. The fact that the Vigil gets sacked if you don't choose to defend it (plus codex entries listing your companions as dead) is kinda misleading and most likely a bug, since, depending on your actions, it is entirely possible to get an epilogue where the Vigil actually held off and repelled the attack (it's basically what happened to me), with your companions surviving ! This is exactly why I stated that there are a lot of glitches that cannot really be explained logically. As for Justice attacking you if you side with the Architect, well, I'm not really sure if there's a persuasion (and cunning) based check there, since I elected to kill him (albeit having Nathaniel and Velanna strongly objecting to it). Perhaps it depends on Justice's approval, though that is also unlikely, since due to another bug, his approval gets pumped to max (100), the moment you initiate any sort of conversation with him that yields an approval increase (or if you simply give him a gift, any gift).
If you make yourself more than just a man...if you devote yourself to an ideal, then you become something else entirely...
darchon > GET A LIFE (2092) > 25/03/10 00:00
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Did you complete all the companion quests Trist? I did all except Justice, since by the time i acquired him I sort of wanted to progress the story, and I had Oghren tanking anyway.

I got the achievement for fully upgraded vigil, but did not complete any of the crafting quests (heartwood, dragonstuff, etc). All companions in the keep were dead in epilogue.

And yes, sort of annoying that I couldn't save both when it took me about 15mins as Grungé says to mop up in the city and the epilogue says that the keep withstood attacks for 10 days.

Oh and, the abilities you list Trist, I hardly used any of them. Basic strategy was open with double fireball, continue with some random cc and nukes while Nathaniel and Oghren autotargets and kills the remainders.
Grunge > LOOT FTW LIKES ME (551) > 25/03/10 03:18
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Those are rogue abilities so unless you played a rogue or used Nathaniel / set up tactics for him then obviously you wouldn't know how good those were.

Another thing I liked was Flicker or whatever, was pretty much just like Killing Spree, great for moping up after a Double Fireball opener from Velanna & Anders.
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
Tristanian > LOOT FTW LIKES ME (528) > 25/03/10 14:43
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Did you complete all the companion quests Trist?


All except the one for Sigrun and Velanna. You see, I went to Amaranthine immediately after I left the Vigil for the first time and did all the side stuff that could be completed, without having to visit any of the "main" quests. Big mistake as it turned out later, since if you complete either the smuggler or the guard quest (they are mutually exclusive questlines as you may have noticed, though there are bugs in that :p), the NPC dwarf required to trigger Sigrun's quest does not appear (another bug), so you can never finish her personal quest. For Velanna, I guess I never triggered the random encounter. Ah, well, going for a 2nd playthrough to complete those as well.
As for Justice's quest, well it was quite easy. Again due to a bug, you can get his approval to max the first time you talk to him, so inevitably he will reveal to you that he wishes to meet Kristoff's wife, a small matter of going to the Amaranthine chantry, speaking to her and its done. I'm not really sure but I believe that approval plus personal quests have some form of impact in whether your companions make it in the end.

Last but not least, you are indirectly "forced" to leave Blackmarsh for last, since the companion you recruit there is already a Grey Warden so he doesn't have to undergo the Joining. In any other case, you will not be able to turn either Sigrun or Velanna into a Warden, since speaking to the seneschal, will trigger the endgame (there won't be a conversation option to perform the Joining). Yup, its yet ANOTHER bug (sigh).

Quote:
...but did not complete any of the crafting quests (heartwood, dragonstuff, etc).


Big mistake. The bow you get from Wade is simply put...sick (by far the best in the game). Same thing goes for the unique sword, he is able to make for you, called Vigilance (again the best in the game, better than the old Starfang even). It is even mentioned in the epilogue.

Quote:
Those are rogue abilities so unless you played a rogue or used Nathaniel / set up tactics for him then obviously you wouldn't know how good those were.

Another thing I liked was Flicker or whatever, was pretty much just like Killing Spree, great for moping up after a Double Fireball opener from Velanna & Anders.


Yup those are rogue abilities (my main character in almost all RPG's is a rogue, WoW was an exception heh). Flicker is very similar to Killing Spree Wink, which along with whirlwind, enables you to decimate multiple opponents, while Unending Flurry (preceeded by Twin Strikes) will almost always kill single opponents (unless you run out of stamina, which isn't an issue anymore since there are pots for it :p). Accuracy, is simply...broken. My Nathaniel had around 70-80% crit in the end, with Heartwood Bow he would do more damage than all the party together, including my main. Ridiculous.

I also have to say that I didn't use mage spells that much in Awakening, at the very least not to the degree I used them in Origins, because finally the rest of the classes had some abilities that were actually...worth using. Not that you can go wrong with spells though. Quite the contrary.
If you make yourself more than just a man...if you devote yourself to an ideal, then you become something else entirely...
darchon > GET A LIFE (2092) > 25/03/10 15:32
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What felt like the biggest waste to me was that you get all these new spells, combined with the already long list of available skills and abilities, when you can easily beat the game without even touching most of them. Noticed this a few times where i fucked up the opening of the fight and lost 2-3 members, they could have tuned fights WAY harder and it would still have been possible.

More focus on crowd control, spell interrupts, slows, target priorities etc would have made the game more fun!
Fifty > LESS THAN 250 TO GO! (824) > 20/06/10 19:15
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Being too easy on the hardest difficulty along with the fact it took me 7-8hours to finish we're two of the biggest down sides for me. The Origins part was longer and altho i was a mage myself like in the majority of RPG's since BG2, the kill score in the end surprised me since i could preety much from the point of aquiring Fireball take down whole groups of mobs in 3 spells while my team took time with half as much. In the Awakening story some boss fights we're amazing along with Justice's story, but again i was more playing the rogue guy i completely revamped cos my mage did insane damage with 300 mana upkeep and the elemental talents being just sick on her own.

Origins 9.5/10
Awakening 7/10

These two are the first games i played on my new pc (sponsored by poker hehe) so eventual downsides i could have we're often bypassed by staring into 24'' of perfect graphics, upgraded from a 6 year old 17'' crt.
Asatar > LESS THAN 250 TO GO! (778) > 20/06/10 21:49
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Thread necro much?
darchon > GET A LIFE (2092) > 21/06/10 00:25
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Dragon Age is always hot!

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