Initial thoughts on Dragon Age

[ptbptb]

New to DA, very late arriver. ;-)

 

In a word - depressing. I think the makers didn't get that people (or at least me) want a little escapism in their fantasy games. I didn't particularly want to be faced with the grim realities of occupied territories in a sexist pseudo-medieval world. :-(

 

(I took the city-elf start-up first, can you tell?)

 

As far as the gameplay goes, I've never played World of Warcraft but if felt a lot like how I imagine that might be. :tongue: I might get used to it, but the initial impression sucked. The "Achievement!" pop-ups distract from the role-play element and I find it weird that you can be at death's door at one moment then bouncing back to full health after a few seconds wait. There's little room for subtlety with the obvious markers on important places, the massive red circles and arrows indicating enemies and such. After Oblivion it was a big culture shock.

 

Maybe I'll be back in six months saying how much I like it now. Who knows. :-/

[RustyBlade]

I recommend you try Circles Be Gone and you can turn off those "obvious" markers in the game settings. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one annoyed by those stupid Achievement and Codex pop-ups. As for the grim realities, it's a dark fantasy and lives up to it.

[ptbptb]

I recommend you try Circles Be Gone and you can turn off those "obvious" markers in the game settings.

 

Thanks for 'Circles be Gone' that looks like a good start. As for the markers, I see you can set them to only show in explored areas, but I don't see how you can turn them off entirely.

 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one annoyed by those stupid Achievement and Codex pop-ups.

If I'd wanted achievements I'd have played Achievement Unlocked again. (Actually it's a lot of fun).

 

As for the grim realities, it's a dark fantasy and lives up to it.

 

Surely the grim realities don't come under dark fantasy. :P

[RustyBlade]

You should be able to set "Plot Assistance" to Off in addition to the other two options.

[ell46]

I'm not an achievement person either, I found after a while I didn't even notice when I got one, but I would turn off that annoying screen shot thing in options that triggers when you get an achievement.

 

I would recommend a really good tour of the mods, there are lots that enhance the aesthetics of the game, at first they didn't mean much to me, but as the game progressed things I'd read and seen began to make sense. I can't even remember what the vanilla game is like now.

 

I have to agree with you in part, I play to escape life's *&$( and some of the decisions and results of those decisions shouldn't be in RPGs, try not to think about things too much that's how I deal with some of it.

[danscott84]

I for one like the darkness to the game's story. Taken to almost nothing to rise to hero. How is that not escapism? And coming from the FPS realm of Half-Life, Doom, Wolfenstein, etc this fits what I have always liked. If everything was so cheerful and happy, for me, would not be an escape, but a nightmare. I like a little realism in my escape.

 

As for the achievment pop-ups, didn't like them either, but once you have them they do not come back. ;) And I have on occasion turned off the music just to play it without a movie type feel. I have never turned on the plot helpers in any game, as has been said, can be an annoyance.

 

Oh, and little off topic, Texas justed got theirs handed to them by Oklahoma. Maybe the Longhorns will be knocked out of the top 25 for the first time in...ever? How's that for a little escapism from a granduate from a Big 12 North school. :thumbsup:

[VGfallout]

agreed, some valid points - i believe a bit too quick in judgment. technically within the games UI most of the annoyances (mentioned) can be solved, circles be gone i think was one of the first handy black-eye removals to DAO here on the nexus, man those things ARE annoying, die!!!

 

personally, dragon age is the best role playing experience i've had the pleasure of...experiencing in so very long, i hear ya about the plot helpers if left enabled, oblivion and fallout are certainly a blast if heavily, heavily modded. its funny you bring that up, cause in oblivion/fallout worlds, they're massive and it's easy to get side tracked, lost and occasional might even have trouble finding a quest target

 

in dragon age, they included these...but its like..dude, you honestly think i wont find the target? there's about 4 corners and maybe 3 or 4 in door areas ...its not like denerim or anywhere is so large that i'm gonna somehow miss finding the quest location. hell, half the time i was running into quests/triggers by Accident - lol!

 

regarding fallout/bigberthastudios - i cant stand the voice acting, and lately - the voice actors. fine, i'll get over the substandard quality/delivery of these guys who sound like they're chillin in a garage drinkin beer with charisma deficiencies...whatever, ill pretend these Anomalies, i mean voices actually fit the world/theme/medievil stuff...but... if Baurus, i mean the white guys with black accents in fallout, i mean, if that same mofo is in new vegas, i swear....im gonna explode with rage. the elven voices from oblivion, all that stuff, Please Hire New Talent before i'm forced to make my own damn voice.bsas to replace these people we've been forced to listen to the past 10 years!! No More Baurus, No More Beth-recycling!!!!! Please?? im sorry i offended you bigbeth, i just dont get the logic (aside from the possibility that voice actors are your child hood buddies or somethin and you wanna keep em paid?) in the voice implementation. patrick stewart is not enough to compensate for hundreds of hours of torture. i rather you ditch the celebrity guests, and get some real voice actors, hell hire me dude ill give you a bang for your buck alright

 

well, before i bring the empty/awkward silence that is the result of most of my posts i just wanted to say...

 

Danscott!!

 

half lifer, wolfensteiner??? what!! me too dude!!

if you own half life 2 and ever want to give it a run again, i have something really special for ya that will certainly be worth your while, changing the way you look at the campaign for eternity - let me know brother ill link ya, if interested - couldnt resist sorry. have a special relationship with the source engine...apologies for going off topic, pushing enter and

 

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i think im actually gonna give fallout a run for a bit, will bea nice break

[danscott84]

VG, I have it but not played for a while, DA came out and I haven't been back to check if Episode 3 ever caame out yet. I had a lot, and I mean a lot, of fun with Gary's mod with HL. :biggrin:

 

And I agree with the voices in Oblivion, although DA is not guiltless here either. How many characters did the Jowan guy do anyway? I lost count at six. And I like Anora well enough in the voice department, but she has to voice the violent voice set for human female's also? Couldn't they have ay least tried to change their accent?

[RustyBlade]

Couldn't they have at least tried to change their accent?

 

That rarely yields a good result, a prime example being Kim Cattrall in The Ghost Writer (2010); her accent is pretty pathetic (and her butt is getting a bit large as well.)

[danscott84]

Couldn't they have at least tried to change their accent?

 

That rarely yields a good result, a prime example being Kim Cattrall in The Ghost Writer (2010); her accent is pretty pathetic (and her butt is getting a bit large as well.)

 

AHHH, bad mental image,ahhhh. :tongue: But good point. :thumbsup: