Dragon Age: Whatever we were before, we are now... The Inquisition!

[Talleyrand]

Seriously, the weapons and armor in this game look awful: the two-handed weapons in particular are a most unique combination of implausible, bland, and dumb. Seriously, just copy the Witcher 2. By which I mean, just copy actual historical weapons and armor: they look better than what you dream up.

Agreed. I still think Witcher 2 has some of the best graphics and more importantly aesthetics of any game.

Also I really don't like equipment has a level lock. I can understand it for a couple things like the late game superweapons but it just pisses me off when I keep on picking up level 11 or 13 stuff when i'm still below 10, hell I started finding some 11 stuff at 2

[Fez]

Things have improved dramatically. Nearly all of the later zones are significantly more interesting the Hinterlands was, which was basically nothing but a massive list of fetch quests. There's still fetch quests in later zones, but not as many, and they mostly seem to have at least one long, zone-quest that is more involved and interesting. There's been a couple really good main story missions too, and some sidequests in small, one-time areas (which stem from some of the various automated agent missions). I'm also finally at a point where the companions and other NPCs regularly have things to say and do, so they feel significantly more alive than before.

The one new downside I've encountered is that some of the triggers of party conversations at the home base are bugged right now somehow, and I'm getting some of them out-of-order. Nothing too dramatic yet, and nothing's been spoiled yet. Its small stuff, like Solas referencing back to an older conversation as though it just happened, even though there were several inbetween the two; and Iron Bull asking if I still want to get a drink, which is not a thing that was mentioned before.

ETA: Something weird has happened. Varric's character card (the one on the screen when selecting which party members you want) has changed. I haven't noticed this happen any other time, and I'm not sure what it means. I didn't complete any sort of loyalty mission (if that is even a mechanic).

[Jace, Extat]

I sat in judgement of a captured enemy mage, and because my inquisitor is also a mage, I was able to condemn him to the Rite of Tranquility. My boyfriend asked why I was laughing so maniacally, and I explained what being made Tranquil meant, and why it was so horrible for this particular character.

The look of horror on his face was beautiful. :)

[Jon AS]

Finally got around to trying it out this weekend. My new video card will only arrive today after an inexplicable delay, so I've just used fairly modes settings but it's a massive step up in visual quality compared to previous Bioware products (even a massively modded ME3 is still using an eight year old engine, after all). It's also kind of unsettling to be able to jump in a Bioware game, that'll take some getting used to.

I'm also echoing the sentiment expressed earlier: holy crap this game world is huge. The fast travel camps scattered around the Hinterlands make it not too annoying to get around, though, and I've just picked up a horse that I'm going to take for a test drive (but with all those random groups of enemies runnig around I'm not too clear on how much good it's actually going to do me in terms of saving time).

Combat is definitely better than DA2 (so far there's only been multiple waves of enemies in scenarios where that made sense), but I'm not entirely sold on it yet. Since I couldn't decide between warrior and rogue I went with a mage instead, and while that actually makes a lot of sense plotwise so far I feel like I'm not terribly effective in battle. Some of that is obviously down to playing on the highest difficulty, but some of it is are the stupider mechanics, like having to hold down a button for basic attacks instead of just auto-attacking and the tactical camera not zooming out very far and having to move said camera with the movement keys rather than the mouse.

I think I really need to look into into combos in order to be able to dish out more damage, and probably should respec my mages so that one focusses on support and one on attack.

It's also a pity that they massively dumbed down the tactics settings.

What is cool though is the absence of level scaling, there are fights not very far from the start in the Hinterlands that I can't win right now. I think I also like the removal of healing spells, though I wish there was a bit more variety to the defensive spells than just spamming Barrier.

[KiDisaster]

Well, I did it guys. I cleared the Hinterlands completely (except for the dragon and one quest that can't be done until later on in the story). Took bloody forever and I know I'll be over leveled for a while now but oh well...my inner completionist would not allow the diamonds and exclamation marks to go uncleared.

I also cleared Storm Coast apart from the red lyrium cause I can't get into that castle area yet, and Forbidden Oasis apart from 2 of the 3 challenge room things cause I need more shards. Forbidden Oasis is frigging gorgeous but an absolute headache to navigate.

If any of the other zones I now have access to are as big as the Hinterlands I don't know how I'll ever finish this game :lol: Luckily exploring and listening to Iron Bull chat with Viv and Cassandra is tons of fun. He had a chat about chain mail bikinis and how ridiculous they are with Cassandra recently :lol:

I've completely abandoned using mounts because the party banter is too good. Plus constantly getting off and on to pick up herbs and such is too annoying.

[Fez]

If any of the other zones I now have access to are as big as the Hinterlands I don't know how I'll ever finish this game

None of the others I've been to have been quite as big yet. The Storm Coast you know, and its quite a bit smaller than Hinterlands; the Fallow Mire is similar to that. The Forbidden Oasis is smaller than either. Crestwood and The Western Approach are pretty close to the Hinterlands' size, but not quite there.

I've unlocked the Exalted Plains but not spent much time there yet, so I can't comment on its size. And there's at least three other zones I haven't been to yet but that are on my map already. One of them, the Hissing Wastes, supposedly dwarfs the Hinterlands.

There's also quite a few main quest-only areas that you can't return to; which are usually, but not always, fairly small. And they do often have one or two missable side quests.

So far, I've liked every other region I've been to quite a bit more than the Hinterlands. They have fewer side quests, but the ones they have are usually much more involved and long.

[MerenthaClone]

I sat in judgement of a captured enemy mage, and because my inquisitor is also a mage, I was able to condemn him to the Rite of Tranquility. My boyfriend asked why I was laughing so maniacally, and I explained what being made Tranquil meant, and why it was so horrible for this particular character.

The look of horror on his face was beautiful. :)

supposedly they semi-retconned tranquility (in that some writers got the memo and others didn't) to it being more temporary and more emotion-muting than emotion-killing. During that time, the templars help train them to be more resistant to possession.

Iirc, this happened in one of the books, but I have no idea. It certainly tones the templars down from being big dumb Nazis though.

[Jace, Extat]

supposedly they semi-retconned tranquility (in that some writers got the memo and others didn't) to it being more temporary and more emotion-muting than emotion-killing. During that time, the templars help train them to be more resistant to possession.

Iirc, this happened in one of the books, but I have no idea. It certainly tones the templars down from being big dumb Nazis though.

No! NOOOOOOOO!!!

It seems as horrible as ever in this game, so that's what I'm going with.

[Hutch]

A quick question about mounts, are they worth it? My horse disintegrated into oblivion when I tried to do the race in the Hinterlands, never to be seen again. I've thought of buying another, but I'm not sure if its worth the money this early in the game.

[MerenthaClone]

No! NOOOOOOOO!!!

It seems as horrible as ever in this game, so that's what I'm going with.

after some digging, the culprit appears to be Asunder, written by Gaider. And it wasn't a retcon so much as the techniques used improved. Or something. So if for some reason there is a huge disconnect between tranquility options, that's why: bioware (again) decides that major plot changes needed to happen in their shitty tie-in novels.

Bioware and blizzard need to cut that out

[Crom Dubh]

Hm, I thought it was that they found a cure for Tranquility? As in, one Tranquil tracked it down. Spoilers below for Cassandra's plotline

Apparently, the Seekers of Truth created the Rite of Tranquility, and always knew it was reversible. Yet never told anyone, because they are self-righteous religious fanatics. Seekers are created through a months long process in which the applicants are made Tranquil, and then cured of it; this tightens their focus, similar to Tranquil mages, deadens their emotions without completely stripping them of such, and grants them abilities similar to those of Templars, without needing lyrium to power their abilities. The Seekers, of course, do not realize they are being made Tranquil. The process is stretched over months, and disguised as a religious ceremony of fasting and self-denial. None of the Seekers, other than the Lord Seeker, actually know what the process does. It's apparently a quite arduous process, and apparently the rush of divine euphoria Cassandra talks about at the end of her vigil is simply the reversal of the Tranquil Rite, and her emotions turning back on. Made me laugh when I realized that; then a bit sad, because Cassandra seemed pretty bummed, and she's one of my favorite characters. Religious, yeah, bu reasonable about it, and definitely sticks up for me when I need it.

[Fez]

A quick question about mounts, are they worth it? My horse disintegrated into oblivion when I tried to do the race in the Hinterlands, never to be seen again. I've thought of buying another, but I'm not sure if its worth the money this early in the game.

I don't think so. They aren't much faster than running and you have to dismount to do anything. Its weird actually, because judging from the selection screen there's at least 20 different mounts they created, which is a decent amount of work for such a bad, optional piece of content.

At the same time though, there's very little that's worth spending money on; basically just new decorations for Skyhold and if you want to respec. So if you like having a mount, its probably fine to spend the money.

[Jace, Extat]

Hm, I thought it was that they found a cure for Tranquility? As in, one Tranquil tracked it down. Spoilers below for Cassandra's plotline

Apparently, the Seekers of Truth created the Rite of Tranquility, and always knew it was reversible. Yet never told anyone, because they are self-righteous religious fanatics. Seekers are created through a months long process in which the applicants are made Tranquil, and then cured of it; this tightens their focus, similar to Tranquil mages, deadens their emotions without completely stripping them of such, and grants them abilities similar to those of Templars, without needing lyrium to power their abilities. The Seekers, of course, do not realize they are being made Tranquil. The process is stretched over months, and disguised as a religious ceremony of fasting and self-denial. None of the Seekers, other than the Lord Seeker, actually know what the process does. It's apparently a quite arduous process, and apparently the rush of divine euphoria Cassandra talks about at the end of her vigil is simply the reversal of the Tranquil Rite, and her emotions turning back on. Made me laugh when I realized that; then a bit sad, because Cassandra seemed pretty bummed, and she's one of my favorite characters. Religious, yeah, bu reasonable about it, and definitely sticks up for me when I need it.

Wow, Dragon Age, your Wheel of Time is showing...

[Jace, Extat]

I'm suffering from a driver failure and cannot find a solution on the interwebz.

During cutscenes the game will crash and I get a message about a driver failure (that I can't read properly because it goes away too quickly), the google machine said to try adding a framerate code adjustment for the cutscenes, but that hasn't helped at all.

Initially it was just an annoyance, and only happened once every four hours or so. But now I'm at a part of the game where I'm in a cutscene every five minutes and the game has crashed about 10 times now.

Anyone have any advice? I'm shit at figuring out software problems.

[Talleyrand]

A quick question about mounts, are they worth it? My horse disintegrated into oblivion when I tried to do the race in the Hinterlands, never to be seen again. I've thought of buying another, but I'm not sure if its worth the money this early in the game.

Bring up your wheel/quick wheel/whatever the hell its called (press LB on Xbox) and the button that summons your horse is in there

[Hutch]

I don't think so. They aren't much faster than running and you have to dismount to do anything. Its weird actually, because judging from the selection screen there's at least 20 different mounts they created, which is a decent amount of work for such a bad, optional piece of content.

At the same time though, there's very little that's worth spending money on; basically just new decorations for Skyhold and if you want to respec. So if you like having a mount, its probably fine to spend the money.

Thanks much. I think I'll save my money instead.

[Hutch]

Bring up your wheel/quick wheel/whatever the hell its called (press LB on Xbox) and the button that summons your horse is in there

I knew you lot would be helpful. Thank you much.

[Underfoot]

I'm suffering from a driver failure and cannot find a solution on the interwebz.

During cutscenes the game will crash and I get a message about a driver failure (that I can't read properly because it goes away too quickly), the google machine said to try adding a framerate code adjustment for the cutscenes, but that hasn't helped at all.

Initially it was just an annoyance, and only happened once every four hours or so. But now I'm at a part of the game where I'm in a cutscene every five minutes and the game has crashed about 10 times now.

Anyone have any advice? I'm shit at figuring out software problems.

When the error comes up, quickly press PrntScr on your keyboard, and then paste the screenshot into MS Print (or some other software, depending on what you have). That will at least give you the error to work with. Good luck!

[Crom Dubh]

Wow, Dragon Age, your Wheel of Time is showing...

Unfamiliar with the series, thought it was cool though.

[Rhom]

Moving slowly along. I'd say I have about half of the Hinterlands cleared out. What are most people doing? Doing some and then moving on? Or clearing entirely?

I marked a place for some watchtowers and in order to build them, I need the war table. So I thought about leaving to do that and then coming back. :dunno:

Also, I came upon a rift that I couldn't close. It was spawning Despair Demons and I am currently ill equipped to deal with that much cold damage and immunity to cold. Solas has entirely frost and mind stuff and even his staff is throwing cold damage. :bang: And those cold beams they send out decimate the other three. I have tried pausing and using Solas to dispel the green stuff before they can form, but there seems to be too many to catch them all that way.

Lastly, when clearing inventory, there's a category called "Treasures" (I think) that is marked by a diamond icon. Are those just vendor trash and safe to sell? Or are they gifts for your companions and I just haven't noticed that yet?