[Official] Dragon Age: Origins

[Pupik]

i don't own this game yet but i noticed that the screens look outdated and blocky like nwn.

anyone have any thoughts on this?

What exactly do you mean?

[ylcard]

Screens ? You mean in game screens, as in menus ? Or screenshots ?

The graphics are alright, not Crysis-esque but they're perfectly acceptable, I don't remember the graphics being hyped as the best btw.. so I'm not all that disappointed by it..

[BABYGIORGIO1]

i mean the screens that i have seen on ign, not menus. if you noticed in older games the characters are very square and less polished

here is an sc of nwn2 http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/674385/never...?page=mediaFull

and here is for dragon age http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/682217/drago...?page=mediaFull

you'll notice very little has changed in the gfx department.

btw, i don't think i can buy this game since i heard its very long and i don't have the time to play anymore

[deletedxyz]

i mean the screens that i have seen on ign, not menus. if you noticed in older games the characters are very square and less polished

here is an sc of nwn2 http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/674385/never...?page=mediaFull

and here is for dragon age http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/682217/drago...?page=mediaFull

you'll notice very little has changed in the gfx department.

btw, i don't think i can buy this game since i heard its very long and i don't have the time to play anymore

You don't own the game. You never watched the gameplay and you're taking one terrible screenshot and trying to use it as a representation of a Bioware game? Keep trolling...

Neverwinter Nights was not enjoyable at all and I'm not a fan of D&D type RPG's but Dragon Age is a very enjoyable experience unlike NW2.

[Miuku.]

Great game and got it for a bargain too (29€), the first PC game I've bought in a long, long, long time. If I wore a hat, it would be off to Bioware for delivering "the best RPG" on PCs again.

you'll notice very little has changed in the gfx department.

Clearly, here's a screenshot from my little computer (downsized and cut it from 1920x1200);

Yes, "little has changed". /cough.

[jelli]

Received the game yesterday and all I can think about doing in my free time is play this, very very immersive and such a great role-playing game. I never could get into NWN2 but this has got me completely hooked.

[Spookie]

30 hours later and I've completed it. Rather a heart warming ending I got. My slaying of the arch dragon looked sick too. :p

[Chsoriano]

So when does the new 30 Seconds to Mars song get played in the game? It's not in the soundtrack folder included with the game, what gives?

30 hours later and I've completed it. Rather a heart warming ending I got. My slaying of the arch dragon looked sick too. :p

Aw man... was hoping for more gameplay that than. I've played a couple hours, and I'm currently at Lothering, maybe I'm slow... ?

[Nagisan]

Aw man... was hoping for more gameplay that than. I've played a couple hours, and I'm currently at Lothering, maybe I'm slow... ?

I am at around 10 hours and just finished the Redcliff section, I am now part way into the mage tower part of the story.....I still have to go visit the dwarfs and Denerim then do everything after that which still has a bunch to do (beating the Blight and all). Overall it really depends on how you play the game, I personally check every door, chest, etc and look around in just about every room before moving to the next area, as opposed to just following the main quest line.

[Neoauld]

There is auto follow, check the button the the right under you party list. If it is set to Hold Position, change it to Free Moving.

And I too think there is something wrong with the AI......set to defensive I would think they would attack if something is charging to party with intent to attack (hostile target running straight towards the party). Unstead they just stand around even when its in melee range until it actually hits a party member, then they go after it. Its kinda like "Ohhhh hey theres a monster getting ready to bash my face in! He looks cool!" -2 seconds later- "Oh how dare he hit me!" -starts attacking-

I would prefer it to have a custom AI like they do the tactics, have them set to defensive where they will attack if something hostile is within say 10 yards of the party and do not chase them more than 10 yards from the controlled character.

I was defending a town earlier and found some oil barrels that we set up at the gate and lit on fire and Alister and my dog ran right into the fire and would not come out of it unless I set them to defensive, which causes them to ignore enemies that are not hitting any of my direct party members.....they both died in the fire (along with a bunch of NPCs) and me and Morrigan held off the rest of the monsters. Sadly, something bugged out on that run and it didn't trigger the cutscene and continuation of the mission, forcing me to restart from a save. This time around I left them on defensive and just let all the NPCs fight them (so they didn't push the fight all the way back to the fire) and only 1-2 NPCs died without me lifting a finger.....

oooh i had no idea it was a toggle, i thought it just meant STAY HERE when you click it

thx man!

theres a patch now for the game, i havnet looked at the notes, but it might fix the AI prob

[Treemonkeys]

I'm a little disappointed ... well no... greatly disappointed about the dumbed down console version, nothing to do with the quality of Mass Effect, I know it's a PC game but damn, games like viking or two worlds have far better graphics; one thing is gameplay which is difficult to reproduce with a controller, but graphic quality? oh boy there are times some enemies and other NPC are ultra low poly and some textures terrible, like a PS2 game (a bad one), anyway, that's me ranting because I can't afford to upgrade my PC now :(

How far into it are you? I think the graphics are very good, I'm playing on 360. Not as good as Mass Effect, but ME also had some pretty horrible framerates at times, this game is silky smooth. The reason I asked how far is because I think as you go to different and better looking areas you start to appreciate the graphics more. I thought the human origin story looked pretty bad, but the new scenes keep improving and I am continually impressed with how much diversity there is. Mass Effect recycled A TON of textures. =/

All things considered, I prefer the DA graphics on 360 over the ME graphics on 360. Mass Effect actually seems very crude and rushed after playing this, looking forward to ME2.

I am at around 10 hours and just finished the Redcliff section, I am now part way into the mage tower part of the story.....I still have to go visit the dwarfs and Denerim then do everything after that which still has a bunch to do (beating the Blight and all). Overall it really depends on how you play the game, I personally check every door, chest, etc and look around in just about every room before moving to the next area, as opposed to just following the main quest line.

So how is Redcliff? I skipped that area and left them to their fate at the suggestion of my party members.

[LOC Veteran]

For those of you saying the graphics are underwhelming try to remember that the engine they used for this is quite old. And they've been working on this game for what, 6 or 7 years or something? It's not using current tech, or even what I'd call "last-gen" tech at this point. Still, the graphics are certainly passable and look quite good, especially considering Bioware's art direction is top notch as always.

[trag3dy]

Anyone had any issues with the patch? I read that it breaks the dlc content yesterday.

[Darrian]

Bioware games never look great in comparison to other "new" games released at the same time. Part of it is that they make these massive games and it takes them forever to finish them, and I suspect that part of it is that they just don't care as much. The Old Republic looks horrid from what we've seen so far, and I don't expect it to be any better upon release. Still, Dragon Age has perfectly acceptable graphics. In fact, I think it looks damned good in comparison to other RPGs. Mass Effect looked pretty nice, too. No, it's not Crysis, but who wants a beautiful game that sucks? I think they manage to pull a nice balance of story, gameplay and graphics. If I have any complaint about Dragon Age it's that I'm not fond of the control scheme (way too NWN, which I did like but never finished because as intriguing as the story was I didn't like the D&D system at all) and the load times are quite long (I would probably have finished the game by now if I didn't have to wait 5 minutes every time I changed areas), though that is probably an indication that I could use more RAM and/or a video card with more than 512MB. I've also had a couple crashes and it doesn't autosave as much as it should so I lost quite a bit of progress and have started to use the quicksave quite frequently. Overall though, I'd have to give this game an 8/10. I had to force myself to take a break today so I could catch up on all the TV I've missed through the week, but I'm sure I'll be back at it tonight like the addict I am. Then if I ever finish it I can get back to Torchlight.

[deletedxyz]

How far into it are you? I think the graphics are very good, I'm playing on 360. Not as good as Mass Effect, but ME also had some pretty horrible framerates at times, this game is silky smooth. The reason I asked how far is because I think as you go to different and better looking areas you start to appreciate the graphics more. I thought the human origin story looked pretty bad, but the new scenes keep improving and I am continually impressed with how much diversity there is. Mass Effect recycled A TON of textures. =/

All things considered, I prefer the DA graphics on 360 over the ME graphics on 360. Mass Effect actually seems very crude and rushed after playing this, looking forward to ME2.

I thought Mass Effect looked very polished and fitting to its story. Why do you think they look rushed? The only downside I found in the game was visiting all the generic planets. :p I wished they had more varied side quests and activities.

[Miuku.]

Anyone had any issues with the patch? I read that it breaks the dlc content yesterday.

It also seems to break shortcuts so the Play button for example won't work - I think they already released another minor fix for that. "Oops".

[Nagisan]

So how is Redcliff? I skipped that area and left them to their fate at the suggestion of my party members.

You get a few new quests opened up (obviously not main storyline quests) if you help them. I did it once on my Mage and decided to do it again on my Rogue, sadly both routes I took (when in the Castle) ****ed off Alister, not to the point he hates me and what not, but he disapproved both actions. :(

All in all I figured its a few other quests I can pick up and do as I like exploring and hitting as many of the quests as possible in a playthrough, otherwise I would have definitely ignored the town, the battle is one of the hardest in the game so far and thats on easy (this was pre-patch 1.00 though, 1.01 was suppose to make easy even easier, possibly only in certain areas such as this). The best way to do it is let all the villagers down below fall then drag the mobs up to the knights on the hill so they can help you out, unless your a mage healer yourself theres just way too many to handle at that point, even with giving Morrigan the Heal skill.

[Treemonkeys]

I thought Mass Effect looked very polished and fitting to its story. Why do you think they look rushed? The only downside I found in the game was visiting all the generic planets. :p I wished they had more varied side quests and activities.

Some areas looked absolutely fantastic, others not so much. Especially the generic planets like you said, a lot of the of planets looked rushed, having almost no detail or having the exact same or nearly the same dungeon on many different planets. That and the items and inventory system just left a ton of room for improvement, not a whole lot of selection between guns/armor/items. I hear ME2 is going to have different ammo types, hopefully that is just one piece of many that will add more depth and detail to character customization.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVED Mass Effect, just that now that I can compare it to Dragon Age - DA feels much bigger, more detailed, and more polished. Then again I haven't finished DA, so that could change, hopefully not!

[trag3dy]

It also seems to break shortcuts so the Play button for example won't work - I think they already released another minor fix for that. "Oops".

Ah, yeah, the patch killed my shortcuts. Apparently it's only a problem with Win7 and it's Game Explorer. DAO doesn't official support Win7 yet I guess.

Anyhow, a fix if this happens to anyone else is in this thread here:

http://daforums.bioware.com/forums/viewtop...um=146&sp=0

[toadeater]

All in all I figured its a few other quests I can pick up and do as I like exploring and hitting as many of the quests as possible in a playthrough, otherwise I would have definitely ignored the town, the battle is one of the hardest in the game so far

That battle is either bugged or it is unbalanced for certain party combinations. The monsters respawn if you leave the battle area at the bottom of the village. Since I couldn't kill them at once with the party I had (two mages, Alistair, and the dog), what I'd do is hide my party at the top of the hill in ambush while I'd run down to lure a couple of the monsters to chase after me. Trouble is, they'd keep respawning every time I killed them. So you have to kill them in two stages. Lure like half of them, after you kill them *don't rest*, drink potions to heal and immediately attack the second half of the group at the bottom of the hill before the rest respawn. Then there are a couple of stragglers left over you need to find to finish the battle.

Oh yeah, and it gets worse at the castle. LOL. Now I know what the reviews meant by "some battles are unfair."

[Nagisan]

That battle is either bugged or it is unbalanced for certain party combinations. The monsters respawn if you leave the battle area at the bottom of the village. Since I couldn't kill them at once with the party I had (two mages, Alistair, and the dog), what I'd do is hide my party at the top of the hill in ambush while I'd run down to lure a couple of the monsters to chase after me. Trouble is, they'd keep respawning every time I killed them. So you have to kill them in two stages. Lure like half of them, after you kill them *don't rest*, drink potions to heal and immediately attack the second half of the group at the bottom of the hill before the rest respawn. Then there are a couple of stragglers left over you need to find to finish the battle.

I actually did not have this bug.....they do not respawn if you leave the bottom area, they just keep coming. That is part of the quest, an overwhelming amount of monsters you need to try to kill. As you kill them more and more respawn even if you hold the main town area. On my first playthrough on my mage I actually beat them holding that area, I had no healers and beat them as my Dog (rest of my party was dead) spamming healing potions as soon as they were available. Oddly that playthrough seemed easier with that group I had at the time than when I did it on my rogue. In comparison I got just about all the possible help I could (got the old lady to bless the amulets for the knights, told the knights of the oil, talked that dwarf and his men out of the house and got the barkeep to join in too) compared to my mage who literally had NONE of that extra help, and oddly it seemed easier on a 2-mage, dog and alister party without hardly any help from the town than a mage, rogue, dog and alister, WITH all the available help from the town itself.

Either way I have a feeling 1.01 toned this battle down a little bit (they said easy was made, well, easier), even on easy in the unpatched game its almost impossible to win without losing the Mayor (holding the main town itself without the mayor dying, I held the town on my mage but the mayor still died).

[neoterixx]

For the PC what is the online content do?

Is there online content?

[michealm]

Just thought you guys that are running Windows 7 might like this, I created a theme pack using the wallpapers included on the bonus disc that came with the collectors edition, my post is here

Enjoy

For the PC what is the online content do?

Is there online content?

There is DLC for this on PC but you have to buy Dragon Points to get it.

Which kinda sucks considering most PC players don't like paying for DLC, and from what I've seen so far the DLC is for side quests.

[deletedxyz]

Some areas looked absolutely fantastic, others not so much. Especially the generic planets like you said, a lot of the of planets looked rushed, having almost no detail or having the exact same or nearly the same dungeon on many different planets. That and the items and inventory system just left a ton of room for improvement, not a whole lot of selection between guns/armor/items. I hear ME2 is going to have different ammo types, hopefully that is just one piece of many that will add more depth and detail to character customization.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVED Mass Effect, just that now that I can compare it to Dragon Age - DA feels much bigger, more detailed, and more polished. Then again I haven't finished DA, so that could change, hopefully not!

You're absolutely right about the problems with Mass Effect. Here's to hoping that its sequel will be a more polished product with the same immersion factor and moral choices!

If you say that DA is better than Mass Effect graphically, then I can't wait to play it in the coming few days.

[iamawesomewicked]

If anyone wants to power level.. you know the quest before you join the grey wolves or whatever... where you have to get the 3 viles of blood and the treaties.. well... apparently on the Xbox version I dunno bout PC.. if you just get the 3 viles of blood.. then bring them back to whats his name.. and tell him you have the viles but no treaties.. you get the xp for the quest.. but you can still turn it in.. soo you can get to level 20 in about 25 minutes...