Dragon Age: Origins

Post by **FatherJack** » November 20th, 2009, 22:04

buzzmong wrote:However, the quest hasn't shifted over to completed and is still saying the ~"spoke to girl, no go until hunt" blurb. The young chap is nowhere to be found in camp or anywhere in the forest. Anyone else run across this apparent bug?

He's still there for me, and says he can go hunting himself now, but the quest remains uncompleted. There wasn't an option to horse a wolf pelt up his ungrateful arse.

Akiakaiu · Post by **Akiakaiu** » November 20th, 2009, 22:11

I persuaded her that he was good enough as is and they lived happily ever after. I did this all before going into the ruins.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 20th, 2009, 22:13

Akiakaiu wrote:I persuaded her that he was good enough as is and they lived happily ever after. I did this all before going into the ruins.

That's what I did too, I think it even gave me an achievement.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » November 20th, 2009, 22:22

I did try the persuade route, probably only had level 1 (maybe 2) persuade at the time so it didn't work. Then I saved the game. Whoops.

Nice to know FJ has the same issue though and it's bugged.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 20th, 2009, 23:18

Yep same with me, quest was incomplete and stayed till the end (one or two others did that as well, where I'd changed my mind and ended up slaughtering the protagonists because it was more satisfying than listening to their whining).

The whole NPC attacking/not attacking thing I got around with judicous use of the H(old) key. Hold position and set up an ambush around a corner, pull a mob or 3 with a ranged weapon, taunt with your tank then press H again to release your chaps and kill everything. Hold again to prevent them running into the main room and getting splatted. Rinse and repeat. Almost all fights can be resolved by finding a corner to run around or a room to hide in that's out of line of sight (and almost all fights have one of these positions conveniently placed nearby)

If you have a free tactic slot on your melee dps, set them to 'attack target of controlled character' so they focus fire. I also had a frost mage automatically target ice thingy on the nearest magic user, and the earth mage automatically donkey punch anyone paralysed. 90% of the time this would shatter the nearest hostile mage immediately.

2 mages set to cast regen on each other at 50% mana, with group regens thrown in at 25% was usually enough to keep mana up throughout.

I skipped the Dragon, it raped my hard. Guess I'll have to get it on the next run through. What's the Dead Thing Bone set?

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 20th, 2009, 23:35

I've got my caster to auto-donkey punch immobilised targets, but with only Wynne in my party it only really works on people turned to stone, which rarely shatters. However, I do like the term donkey punch.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 21st, 2009, 0:08

I have to admit I rarely use tactics, I pick a preset and alter it slightly, but overall I just pause and do it myself, that seems to work for me mostly.
And taking on as few characters as possible, like everyone suggests.

One thing that did bother me though was when I had a random encounter in Denerim, and the guards attacked me (or bandits, I'm not sure), I got ambushed and didn't have a place to retreat, so got slaughtered time and time again. The fact that they had at least 8 archers and 6 fighters didn't really improve the matter.
In the end I was forced to keep reloading the same game and hope I didn't run into them.

Also, what do you mean by donkey punch? in the game, I know the real world meaning.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 21st, 2009, 0:15

Umm, the mage earthy rock skill tree. Second or third sends a lump of rock flying at the target. Icon's shaped like a fist and it knocks them on the bonce. I could probably load the game and give you the proper name, but Donkey Punch seems so much more appropriate. And I'm drunk.

I only ever discovered about 3 of the spell combos. Need to play more.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 21st, 2009, 0:32

Ahh, I figured that's what it was, to be sure and all that.

Post by **FatherJack** » November 21st, 2009, 0:34

friznit wrote:What's the Dead Thing Bone set?

Possibly I'm thinking of the dwarf stuff - it was around that time. All the pieces were in a few rooms of each other either in the dust town bit or the deep roads.

Have finished now:
69:34 hours
46% complete (!)
94% explored
830/1600 points
42/87 achievements
1542 conversations
193 codex entries
Main char L22

I used AoE primal spells on groups a lot, but Morrigan's sleep worked very well too for keeping them off us all at once. Bosses, I basically beat them all with cone of cold - it pretty much freezes anything in the game, giving you time to get clear/do some damage/recharge it for another blast.

Hardest fight was the High Dragon, tried every few levels until nailing it at L18. Shale pretty much soloed it, while I stayed out of range with spells and an occasional heal - the other two muppets died straight away.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 21st, 2009, 0:36

friznit wrote:Donkey Punch seems so much more appropriate. And I'm drunk.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

I've been ambushed a few times in Denerim, and every time I've leathered the shit out of them. That's why I found the guard sergeant so amusing - he knew I'd kick the absolute fuck out of him and his men, and as a good man he didn't want his troops dying, so he just chatted to me. He came off much better for it, and I was genuinely surprised that a law enforcing NPC wouldn't try to fruitlessly arrest me on sight. Struck me as terribly ironic for a videogame, and one of the best minor characters I've met (in a game which already ranks in the top ten best characters list easily).

Since I got a combination of the shield skill that lets me defend in 360 degrees, cover, and taunt skills, I rarely find archers to be more than a pest. I tend to send Al or Leliani after them to hack their face off until I can bring the superman sword to bear. Spellcaster, on the other hand, really fuck up my chi, especially if there are more than one of them. I've only ever encountered two at a time, and three might just have made me rage quit. Bastards, they're always my first off nuke targets. It's the only way to be sure.

Akiakaiu · Post by **Akiakaiu** » November 21st, 2009, 0:54

Yesyesyes, mages must die first! I've been getting gang raped by the guards in the alleys myself, granted I'm fighting them at level 7~ with no decent skills for anyone yet. All the archers eat my tank for breakfast while I'm trying to kill them off. I'll just play with Denerim after I got some more levels in me.

The donkey punch spell is stonefist, which I refer to as fisting.

The dead dwarven stuff is in the Deep (Dead?) Trenches zone (the fortress place with the ode to mass effect codex "Load Limit Reached", pieces are scattered about and there is a fight for the final piece.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » November 21st, 2009, 1:48

Denerim was difficult until I hit level 12-13. And until I got Allistair in Blood Dragon Plate.

Fuck me sideways though the named 38 strength armour stuff is good. At lvl 13 he can go toe to toe with the Revenants (last 3 being the Tevinter Generals) and will happily take the blows and give them back. All I need the rest of the team to do is clear out the inevitable helpers, then it's plain sailing. Considering he (and then the rest) were getting pretty mullered when he was wearing the Gray Warden Commander Armour, I'm suprised at just how good that is. The Jugganaut set has pretty good stats as well.

The alleys did give me the rage though, I managed to do one at about lvl 9/10 because there was a place to hide and pull only a small set for agro. The others are death traps.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 21st, 2009, 1:48

The Dead Thing, as I understand it, is the Legion of the Dead armour. Very good Dwarvern massive armour, named after the Dwarven freelancers who hold their own funerals when they sign up, therefore being already dead in any battle they fight. Brilliant storytelling, but in reality I found them to be mopping up the small fry I left behind. I still like them though, cynical bastards they are (like me).

See, this is the thing that's really grabbed me. I'm not really one for reading quests and following story arcs in Warcraft. But in DAO I know exactly why I'm impaling the hapless cultists, the poor but loyal guards, my own supposed friend, Darkspawn, bandits. Every time I kill a fellow human, or elf or dwarf for that matter, I feel like it's a personal failing because I've seen what happens when you put politics and petty squabbling before the Blight. And I'm always, always, acutely aware that the Blight is coming. Not just coming, but obliterating the map as I progress.

Even now, even though I've put my antagonist to a swift and stony death, I feel as though I've betrayed my family by acting upon my own law. I owe my brother (and I hope he's still alive about 100 times more than I hope Alyx Vanz is) the right to be able to associate justice with our name, and I owe my greatest allies my utmost loyalty even if some of my actions and conversational options would disappoint them. One of the hardest buttons I ever clicked was the one that said "I don't think Alastair would make a very good king", because not only do I think that it's true, but he's an old friend who's stood right there to hear it, and I absolutely hated to let him hear me say it. And the bastard took it.

This is what wants to make me play the game again. I want to run alongside Morrigan naturally, to offend Al and Leilana and be able to deal woth the consequences. To befriend Zevran so that he defends me when the time comes. I want to hear Shale's deadpan dialogue, and to tell the lovelorn Elf to tell me what's wrong or I'll kick him in the teeth.

Magnificent dialogue, backed up by good voice acting, backed up by story and plot that, in today's oversaturated fantasy conscience, is the equivalent of Luke Skywalker hitting the exhaust vent of the Death Star.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 21st, 2009, 2:11

Very nicely put Pants, and spot on too. This was probably the first game I've played that had me agonising over a choice, not simply because one was blatantly Evil Option #1 and I was trying to play Mr Lawful Good, but because I'd built up a close relationship with my party and genuinely didn't want to fuck them over.

One of the more pleasant surprises was having a long convo with a totally random guard about how he felt things were going in Denerim and the up coming battle. I only clicked on him by chance and yet he had plenty to say. The attention to detail is excellent.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 21st, 2009, 2:24

Ironically, this month's PCG suffers a Devil's Advocate article from a Martin Davis which offers that fantasy is the lowest common denominator in terms of PC gaming storyline, and that any fantasy game is pointlessly derivative of Tolkein. Bear in mind that this column is deliberately controversial, but it bodes well that DAO is the antithesis of this sort of opinion, and that what is effectively the next Baldur's Gate has proved so popular.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 21st, 2009, 7:58

You are more than correct pants, normally I tend to give up on games that require work, such as RPG's, and even though I pretty much suck at the fighting bit and I always find stats difficult, I keep coming back to dragon age, just for the characters and the general atmosphere.
Just the other day Shale and Morrigan (I'm trying out different party combinations now) where having a conversation where Shale was offending Morrigan, as he does, but quickly stopped when she threatened to turn into a giant bird.
My favourite one so far though was the one conversation Morrigan and Leliana had about dresses, where Morrigan was expressing how uncomfortable she felt with Leliana looking at her breasts. I did a big lol at that.

And speaking of conversations, when I spoke to Leliana in the camp, you can have a conversation about shoes, and can use options like "ohhh, that sounds magnificent, I love shoes". I'm wondering if you have the same options when you play as a male noble, since it's something a woman would say.

Also, I managed to kiss Leliana, and she likes me a 100%, but is the bedding part at the end of the game or something? so far I've been given no options for it. I tried doing the same with Alistair (which you can only do when you're female, and can actually marry him) but he still hates my guts after I killed that boy's mum, he doesn't like my presents and doesn't have any new conversation options. Miserable sod.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 21st, 2009, 9:07

Mr. Johnson wrote:And speaking of conversations, when I spoke to Leliana in the camp, you can have a conversation about shoes, and can use options like "ohhh, that sounds magnificent, I love shoes". I'm wondering if you have the same options when you play as a male noble, since it's something a woman would say.

Nope, I got that too. Just sounds camp.

Mr. Johnson wrote:Also, I managed to kiss Leliana, and she likes me a 100%, but is the bedding part at the end of the game or something? so far I've been given no options for it.

I was assuming it happens when it fades out. I've only parked Morrigan and the same happened, but I assumed that's what it represented.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » November 21st, 2009, 10:26

Dog Pants wrote:
I was assuming it happens when it fades out. I've only parked Morrigan and the same happened, but I assumed that's what it represented.

You get a cut scene of them getting in on in underwear. While I managed to do the wrong options and make Leliana only like my main as a +100 friend, I can see where the option choices would have been during conversations with her. Notably when talking about her past life as a bard and the seduction conversation, and possibly during the "do you want to go travelling" after conversation.

You normally get them at camp, it's the only place so far that they've appeared for both Morrigan and the Assassin, Zevron or something like that. Oh yes, my character swings both ways.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 21st, 2009, 10:51

Oh right, and here's me bragging to my mates that I've slipped her one, and I've not so much as copped a feel.