Dragon Age 2

[karaddin]

Has anyone figured out how to increase your inventory yet? I did all side quests in the city before going on the expedition and I've killed the first boss fight in there and still haven't seen anything yet.

On the difficulty I started on Hard and dropped down to Normal at that first ogre fight. Overall most fights seem easier than DA:O, random fights don't present much of a challenge and with 2 mages with AE you can kill huge numbers at the same time. However once you run into a boss fights and some other non boss but more than one named guy in it the difficulty seems higher - mainly due to the massive cooldown on heal and heal pots.

[a wooden chair]

Has anyone figured out how to increase your inventory yet? I did all side quests in the city before going on the expedition and I've killed the first boss fight in there and still haven't seen anything yet.

On the difficulty I started on Hard and dropped down to Normal at that first ogre fight. Overall most fights seem easier than DA:O, random fights don't present much of a challenge and with 2 mages with AE you can kill huge numbers at the same time. However once you run into a boss fights and some other non boss but more than one named guy in it the difficulty seems higher - mainly due to the massive cooldown on heal and heal pots.

There are backpacks you can purchase to increase inventory space. I've found 2 so far while hitting up lowtown and hightown merchants for about 50-70 silver each. Seems to work just like DA:O in that regards, and I know they are available for you because you're far further than me.

[Kouran]

Thanks for the candor Tobin. Hopefully they will patch any of the little "quirks".

[Merentha]

Eh, it' been up since at least Friday.

Longer if you count console torrents. While the focus is always on PC piracy, console piracy is growing pretty fast. Its getting easier and easier to just mod 360s to avoid validation checks.

[Tyrellius]

Has anyone used the Hi-res download with the pc version?

How prettier is it etc etc etc.

I may have to develop food poisoning this Friday and stay at home.

[Trebla]

The one thing I notice is there are a lot more enemies to fight at once but they are also generally easier to kill. I kinda feel like I'm playing the old Gauntlet game where you slaughter masses of enemies. You do still have to use tactics to avoid being overrun, though.

I've gotten a kick out of seeing more enemies jumping down from the walls! :fencing:

[Returned]

Current metacritic score.

PRESS: 8.5

USERS: 3.5

[Fiddler]

Got this yesterday from gamestop, preordered in december, and was going to wait til the weekend to start it up.

Anyway, got up this morning and couldn't play black ops, psn down or some such, so I thought I would throw DA 2 in and start it up. Playing on a PS3 and went through the first little battle and cutscene and started the character creation. Gave my guy a face tattoo and then my PS3 beeped three times and cut off.

Now all my PS3 does is beep and then blink a red light at me when I try and turn it on. So, have to wait for another 2 weeks before I can actually play this game and I definatly had a little bit of rage about that this morning.

[So1ar]

i've got it for the 360. it's pretty cool so far. however, they seem to have gone the mass effect 2 route and made it so you can't change the clothing of your squad members. oh sure, i can give my sweet sister a small ring or belt to wear but so what? maybe later on you can change their outfits but i've searched hightown/lowtown and they only sell items for my character.

i just finished the quest where you get the emo black elf. how far along are you guys?

[karaddin]

There are backpacks you can purchase to increase inventory space. I've found 2 so far while hitting up lowtown and hightown merchants for about 50-70 silver each. Seems to work just like DA:O in that regards, and I know they are available for you because you're far further than me.

Thanks, I hadn't been looking in the right tab of the vendors so despite searching all of them I hadn't found one. Pretty sure I missed at least 1 bag too as my wife got it off a vendor that didn't have one when I checked :(

[haLobEnder]

I got the game yesterday as well. Spent a good chunk of my night playing.

One question, I'll spoiler text it, but I doubt it requires it:

Where the heck is Isabel? I've recruited every other confirmed companion (aside from Sebastian) but I can't seem to find her or the the quest that may trigger her appearance. Does she not appear in the first chapter?

Maybe it's just my tempered expectations based on the fan reaction, but so far I'm really enjoying it; There's no way that the game can be ranking 3.5 with users if everyone is looking at it objectively. For my part, I don't really see many of the changes to the game as 'bad', only different, and even then, not entirely so.

The things I will complain about are thus:

--The 'normal' difficulty was too easy even for me (who sometimes plays on 'casual' just to experience the story). I had it on 'hard' up until the boss battle in the prologue that just kicked my ass; There seems to be some balance issues for sure.

--I'm having to use injury kits a great deal more in this game than the first one, as injuries now don't seem to be linked solely with characters being knocked out. It also doesn't help that injuries are now generic, having no additional descriptors (unless I'm missing something).

--I hate shops where you don't talk with vendors to access merchandise; It seems every RPG is doing this lately, I don't get it.

--I miss being able to talk to my companions anywhere. It makes the game's companions feel more like Awakenings companions in that way, which I did not enjoy.

[Galactus]

Only played a few minutes but...

The game actually looks worse than Origins. At least thus far. It's very... Blank looking.

There actually seem to be fewer talents than in DAO. (Something like 6 spells per tree+ upgrades rather than 16 in DAO) Also a minor peeve: They renamed "Primal" to "Elemental"...

The actual gameplay seems pretty bad. Way too fast for you to have any kind of control of the situation, which leads to:

Horrific camera. Seriously. It needs to be modded, stat.

EDIT: Oh, also, the interface is generally bad. The icons are too small and has too much dark-on-dark.

[Tobin]

Only played a few minutes but...

The game actually looks worse than Origins. At least thus far. It's very... Blank looking.

There actually seem to be fewer talents than in DAO. (Something like 6 spells per tree+ upgrades rather than 16 in DAO) Also a minor peeve: They renamed "Primal" to "Elemental"...

The actual gameplay seems pretty bad. Way too fast for you to have any kind of control of the situation, which leads to:

Horrific camera. Seriously. It needs to be modded, stat.

EDIT: Oh, also, the interface is generally bad. The icons are too small and has too much dark-on-dark.

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

I'm still not sure I'm a fan of the art style - but I played WoW for years, I can adjust.

The dark interface I think is intentioning to meld into the background - though they could have just as easily made it fade out until mouse-over.

I found myself using more keyboard commands - the toolbar is spaced really wide and doesn't lend itself to quick mousing.

Though after the 'wtf healer!' incident at the first boss battle - I started a new game.

I will spoil this for you: IF YOU ARE A MAGE, TAKE HEAL AS YOUR SECOND SPELL.

This will save you some frustration as cooldowns are long and...well...you'll see.

The combat speed thing takes a little getting used to - but after a while it becomes a little easier.

I had less trouble on this reroll and I didn't change anything settings wise.

I'm not a fan of the Skill Matrix because it takes a while to figure out which choices would sync together well if they're not in the same branch.

It's like they give you too many choices out of the gate.

Maybe I should actually break out the manual and read it - some of the icons are confusing (Diamond? wtf does that mean? I'm not paying that bastard any more than he already got!)

I find myself saying the snarky thing most often, it has yet to bite me in the ass too badly.

just in case....

Yeah, the merchant thing is a little weird, but it's nice in a way too. "Yes, Bodahn. You see me every day - do you have to say the same crap? Just give me the money!"

I did find Bodahn and he had the token 'import' line about my DAO Warden marrying the King. "Fancy that!" I was hoping for more, but it's still very early.

Carver is a bit of a prig, but I guess that's what brothers are for.

I liked how apparently, being a mage, I'm related to the Human Mage Amell in DAO. The exact relationship hasn't come up yet - but I'm wondering if I import my DAO Mage game if that will make a stronger connection and more references.

Merill is awesome, much better than she was in DAO, :lol:

Oh, and Flemeth likes me...I not sure that's a good thing, :leaving:

I haven't read anyone else's spoilers - so take what I said with that in mind.

[Fez]

Post about this in the Videogame thread, but I guess I'll do it over here...

I'm liking this game, I really am. It is a bit faster paced and with the right tactics set I up I haven't had to switch from Hawke once in battle (except the couple times he's been knocked out), it helps that I'm doing some serious damage as a mage though. Since I haven't been switching characters or pausing the game to set anything up, the combat is reminding a lot of a more complicated version of the Dynasty Warriors series.

Right now I'm just doing various side quests raising money for the expedition and generally enjoying things. I like the dynamic Hawke has with Carver a lot, thus far the other characters seem much more faceless though. I'm hoping that changes soon, also I've gone into this game blind. I don't know if there's more characters to find, who I can romance with, how the plot unfolds, etc., etc. That almost never happens, I almost always know a lot more about games going into them, and I'm really enjoying not having any foreknowledge of anything. Of course it was sort of the same in DAO and I ended up killing a whole bunch of potential party members not knowing who they were, but I don't think that's happened yet here and I'm okay if it does.

One question though, I saw under the achievements for the game that one of the smaller ones is for upgrading an allies armor but I haven't seen any option to do that; any ideas? Also actually, how do I attach runes to Hawke's armor (that is what they do, right)?

[Zelgrath]

To add runes to your weapons and armor you need to find an enchanter. That dwarf merchant and his son from the first game are in kirkwall and will do it for free.

I think you upgrade companion armor by buying upgrades from shops. I saw something at a store last night that was companion specific. Don't remember what it was.

Is there a way to sort items by name instead of type? I don't see the options like in the first game.

[Tobin]

Is there a way to sort items by name instead of type? I don't see the options like in the first game.

I haven't seen that either - makes things a little more tedious when trying to search for upgrades.

I love the 'Sell Trash!' button though.

[GuybrushThreepwood]

I think I must be missing something about runes. I was surprised by how cheap runes are to make. At 10 silver a pop, or whatever it is, why would anyone ever have unfilled rune slots? It makes it so that runes don't feel like badass bonuses that make your badass sword extra badass(!), but just something you add by rote to everything you use. It makes it especially odd to see the little loading screen thing saying "Save your best runes for the best equipment!"

So I guess my question is, are there super-runes out there that actually warrant saving for the good stuff, or is that just a misleading loading screen message?

[Galactus]

I loathe the lack of descriptions for items, and the generally sub-par inventory system.

Seriously, I like the story and characters well enough, but it's like they made EVERYTHING ELSE worse.

EDIT: Honestly, the game feels more like Summoner than Dragon Age at this point.

[Insert Edit]

Do rogues progress in lock-picking automatically? I'm not finding a place to upgrade or choose that skill, and yet the dwarf rogue can open 'simple' locks now...

[Galactus]

Do rogues progress in lock-picking automatically? I'm not finding a place to upgrade or choose that skill, and yet the dwarf rogue can open 'simple' locks now...

It's nbased on your cunning score, IIRC.