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Dwarven Noble

City Elf

Human Noble

Dalish Elf

Dwarven Casteless

[Ibid Straydrink]

The last time I picked up Dragon Age: Origins, I played a female Arcane warrior resembling French actress Audrey Tatou. The adventure, the romance, the story- everything seemed to be woven seamlessly with the main plot for the better part of the experience. Alas, after two weeks' of late-nighters and sitting on a bony computer chair my brain turned to mush, and I found myself becoming disenchanted with the game and rushed through the last (and most consequential)  bit, thus leaving many a stone unturned and doing great injustice to an otherwise glorious play-through.

Having reclaimed my PS3, I've decided to have at a second round. This time, I will be playing with all the DLC and and DA:A. This will be my "final" character, whom I plan on exporting to DA II (I know, I heard that the sequel was rubbish, but it's obligatory). However, I am having trouble deciding what to play! While I enjoyed my AW profusely, I don't really want to just act out my last play-through. What's more, her DPS and threat control sucked.


If you were going to sit down and play again, with primary interest in story, what would you play, and (without story-spoilers!) why..?

[Ibid Straydrink]

Double post, deleted.

[forsaken1111]

Are you kidding? Dwarven Noble, obviously. It's an awesome start and storyline.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Are you kidding? Dwarven Noble, obviously. It's an awesome start and storyline.

Urist Aeducan? Tempting.............

[squeakyReaper]

Doubling Dwarven Noble.  If you know how dwarven society feels, it's more touching.  Your older brother is a great dwarf, and I respect him very much.

[forsaken1111]

Of all the origins (I have played 3/6 of them through and gotten through the start of all 6) I enjoyed the dwarven noble the most.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Done! 

So, what are you folks' opinions on DA II?

[squeakyReaper]

Done! 

So, what are you folks' opinions on DA II?

Much better than some would say.  While the user score might be in the toilet, it got a decent metaCRITIC score, signifying that it's a good game on its own merits.  People were just disappointed that it wasn't Origins.  Here's a small list of what I think are improvements:

• Health, Stamina and Mana droughts work for all situations.  No more having a hundred minor and never using your good ones.
• Potion crafting uses money, not ingredients.  You still need to discover the ingredients though.
• Potion cooldowns mean that battle is no longer "who can drink the most", and more "who can avoid damage long enough to heal again".
• The fucking potions were fixed.

There is, of course, more.  But I played a Dwarven Noble Beserker in Origins and seriously fuck potions.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Done! 

So, what are you folks' opinions on DA II?

Much better than some would say.  While the user score might be in the toilet, it got a decent metaCRITIC score, signifying that it's a good game on its own merits.  People were just disappointed that it wasn't Origins.  Here's a small list of what I think are improvements:

• Health, Stamina and Mana droughts work for all situations.  No more having a hundred minor and never using your good ones.
• Potion crafting uses money, not ingredients.  You still need to discover the ingredients though.
• Potion cooldowns mean that battle is no longer "who can drink the most", and more "who can avoid damage long enough to heal again".
• The fucking potions were fixed.

There is, of course, more.  But I played a Dwarven Noble Beserker in Origins and seriously fuck potions.

I will continue to look forward to it, then.

As for potions/poultices- I've never used them much, which is saying something coming from an AW player.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Went out and procured myself a copy of DA II to have at the ready, and now...for as epic as the Dwarven Noble has been, I have to return to my mage.

Why? Simple. Because Hawke's uncle's Amell; the same surname you receive for the Magi background! The idea of DA II's stalwart adventurer and his long-lost cousin(?) living parallel lives on the opposite banks of fate is just too great to resist.

Poor Urist.

[Grakelin]

I played through as a female City Elf my first time. It was a lot of fun. Didn't spend a lot of time talking to my friends, though, so by the end of the game I was always prefacing sentences with "I know we've never really been friends, but..."

Ended the game dual-wielding axes just for kicks.

[Jelle]

About exporting to DAII, I don't think it makes much of a diffence. The warden is sometimes mentioned as recent history or discussed by a companion, but not much more.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I remember one scene where the ruler of Ferelden visits the new main character's home city, this is probably the only time you'll see any difference.

As for DAII itself, honestly I found it to be appauling. I don't know if it was but the game seems rushed, the combat is much more action oriented instead of strategy, the plot is fairly poor with enormous amount of time lapses and worst of all many of the games areas are re used over and over again.
You'll be doing a series of quests in the same quest hub, going through the same dungeons killing the same but more powerful bandits or demons etc over and over throughout the game, literally.
Oh and while you have the ability to make choices none ever them ever matter much, the game is very linear like that. The characters weren't bad though.

Anyway, that's just my opinion, after having played DA to death I just couldn't even bring myself to play through II. I tried really hard to enjoy it to, as a role playing game it's not half bad, but as a sequel to DA I found it horrible. Wouldn't have played it in hindsight, probably best if I had just played DA origins one more paythrough.

[Grakelin]

I didn't play all the way through DAII before Winter's Hell Week tripped me up (I think that's what it was, not really sure), but I also remember bumping into a wilderness encounter featuring

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The werewolves I saved at the end of the Daelish questline

from DA: O.

[Ibid Straydrink]

DA II is something I plan on just soldiering through, just for sake of the references to the first game and what little plot there is to lap up. Luckily, I find plot in these games such a subjective thing that it's mostly a matter of my own attitude toward it.

That said, I enjoy and prefer the action-based combat for the time being- watching your character stand there like a fool and "miss" several times consecutively and having to deal with spammy mage enemies are some of the things that prompt me to lowering the difficulty to casual in DA:O, in particular, when I'm doing the Fade arc (I wish I could skip that part of the game). It's especially bad this time as an AW,  since for whatever possessed me I decided to forgo the 4th tier of Spirit spells since the beginning of the game, and drop a couple of my precious points into Cone of Cold and Stone fist... making me a squishy tank with no threat, not that I want it anymore. :/

It's funny. On my first playthrough, I decided that Arcane Warriors were great. Now that I can look at it objectively, I'd just say Crushing Prison is great, and the AW class is a great way to nerf yourself and balance it all out.

[hermes]

Well, I respect everyone's opinion to like DA2, but as an old Bioware customer and fan, what it represents for me is the worst possible trend in the video games industry.  Some things you should know about DA2 include...

All the key designers and writers left after the first game
The game was rushed to boost 4th quarter earnings by EA
They shamelessly lied about gameplay features which turned out to not be in the game
The game essentially crucifies the whole idea of DA being the spiritual successor to BG

If this doesn't affect you or you don't understand, you might like it.  But even these points aside, it is widely reported to have broken gameplay mechanics (paracuting waves of monsters), broken quests (may have been patched now? I don't know, stopped going to Bioware forums in protest), reused environments and a facile plot in which Hawke has no bearing whatsoever on what happens.  You have to bear in mind, this is a game that got such a slamming online that EA bundled ME2 with it for free about one month into sales.

I wouldn't buy anything with a Bioware label now without reading non-paid-for review sites.  For many fans of DA:O, the series begins and ends with that game.

edit - rant aside, Dwarven Noble is absolutely awesome, some of the best dialogue options in a game ever.  But makes no difference in the long run since the Warden cannot be imported into DA2