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Dragon Age: Origins

MacRumorUser said:
I beat the ogre on first try and with a Mage. 🙂
Though I'm playing on easy because I do not want to micro manage my team.
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At least you admitted your playing on nerf setting.😛 Honestly I've been known to play on easy, when I don't want to work too hard. And having to micromanage a party takes a lot of the spontinaety out of the encounter and feels more like a chore. A tough boss encounter after it takes more than 3 attempts no longer feels satisfying, but annoying!

However I'd like to know, could you just stand your ground and lob spells or did you have to run around kiting it?

Herbalism: Where did you find supplies, like flasks? At the first battle location, before the fight, I'm searching. To avoid mentioning a spoiler you should probably sort this out prior to starting the fight.

Single Most Important DAO Link found so far: WikiCheats/DAO.
 
DAO Tip of the Day 😀

Korcari Wilds: If you meet Morigan, a witch of the wild before you have explored all of the Wilds, decline her offer to meet her Mother until you have explored every square foot of the wilds. She'll be there waiting for you to come back. Once you meet her Mother, you are transported back to Ostagar. I did not check to see if the game would allow you to renter the wilds if you try to go back for a second visit. Will check that next session. Several quests there: A Last Will and Testament, Chasind Trail Signs which leads to a large cache of goodies and lots of opportunities to scoop xp.

Ostagar- When you get back from the wilds turn in your heal the dog quest and take care of the selling and stuff you want to get done before starting the ball rolling into the battle. You get some time for loot management after you complete the "Joining" quest and before the battle. After the fight, you'll find your self in a new location. I don't know if you'll be able to return to Ostagar or not. Of interest, for the doq quest, after giving the dog handler the herb (for he sick dog), he told me to come see him after the battle. I believe you are able to pick up a dog afterwards, but have not yet done it.

DAO Sidequests.

Herbalism: The Quartermaster in Ostagar has flasks for sale to do Herbalism. I've not figured out if you get crafting XP for making herbalism items, or if you just up your herbalism skill when you level.
 
When I got back from the Wilds, I accidentally walked too far to the right. This triggered the cutscenes so I couldn't heal the dog or buy items, etc... 🙁

I was able to explore all of the wilds though. 🙂

I upgraded my Morigan's shape changing ability, so no more GROSS spider shape. They creep me out. I got ambushed by some in the deep forest and it made me jump. At least I didn't scream though, which is what happened to me when playing Zelda OoT early on in the game. 😱

LOL MRU. Easy? I imagine your battle against the Ogre going like this clip from Southpark -- ignore the music, it's all I could find. 😀 I admit, I like micro management, but only if the game eases me into it, which this game has done a great job at doing so. Nightmare is just hard enough, that I don't always live, so I like it! 🙂

++++
I'm not sure on the Herbalism either. I didn't get any XP for making potions. I need more flasks though. I ran out and should have bought more before I traveled east.
 
I don't like micromanaging a party during boss fights. I've made a commitment to a mage and want to play the mage and let other party members do their jobs. 🙂 However, having played several RPGs I realize jumping around characters is more or less a tradition of the genre.

I'll concede that the mage should not be the first one to grab aggro so when traveling across country, I jump to one of the soldiers to lead. Once the fight starts, I switch back to my mage.

With my second shot at a mage, I'm finding Wintergrasp, Distracted, Horror to be better attacks than my first attempt using mostly Arcane Bolt and a the L1 AOE Fire spell.

I've read different strategies for Mage one was splitting points between magic, and the other attribute that increases your mana pool (don't remember the name- constitution? wisdom?) and the other said put all of you leveling points into magic. I might see the wisdom of "all in magic" as the Level 3 skills such as Cone of Cold requires 30 points in Magic. It will take much longer to get there if you split up your points.

Dragon Age Critique- Invisible walls-yes, wide open spaces-no, jump or fall- no. Despite these significant environmental negatives that hurt immersion IMO, the game is done well enough with strong story elements, and outstanding voice acting, that my interest is still there. 🙂
 
They need to trap us in with the monsters some how, so hurray for invisible walls. 😛

OK, I got my arse handed to me buy a dragon last night and the furry things I've been fighting have barricaded themselves in a room. Needless to say, I'm moving to a different area for now that will hopefully be the void of dragons. 🙂 I can't even take on the Darkspawn that ambush me during my travels without getting massacred.

I downloaded all of my free(not really) content last night. The items showed up in my inventory when I resumed my game.
 
If anyone finds a online DAO Class Level chart, please post a link. Thanks!

Just started a DAO Quick and Dirty here at MacRumors. Feel free to contribute! The name somehow got messed up, I asked forum admin to fix it. 🙁
 
Huntn said:
Anything a mage can use? My version of the game includes some kind of downloadable armor.
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The armor requires crazy amounts of STR. Near 40. So your mage won't be wearing it. It's good for a few gold though! 🙂 Long term the only item worth anything is the +1% xp ring... and that's even questionable.
 
I haven't sold that armor, but I've been tempted. 😱

Here's what came with the collector's edition, which of a couple are good for mages;
*Dragon Armor
*Bergen's Honor (Helm -- need to buy it.)
*Final Reason (Staff -- need to buy it.)
*Grimoire of the Frozen Wastes( This was a level up book, which was given to me right off the bat.)
*Shale guy for fighting (I have know idea where he is.)

Originally I preordered this game from GameStop, but canceled it, but I still got the two items they were offering from my friend that works there;
*Feral Wolf Charm
*Memory Band

+++++++++

OK, Redcliffe so far has been WAY easier than an ambush! 😱 I doubt I can yet survive one at my current party's levels. Even the EVIL spiked bear and wolves maimed me in no time. The only reason I made it to Redcliffe, is because I lucked out and got a gentle passage, or something along that lines.

What's with the background noises? Some are quite good, others seem like they're Bioware joking around or something. The crying in Lothering is just bad, it sounds really fake and now in RedCliffe I can hear people screaming nothing but gibberish. I just got used to the Witcher I guess, which has excellent ambient sounds, even if some are a bit repetitive.
 
JackAxe said:
What's with the background noises? Some are quite good, others seem like they're Bioware joking around or something. The crying in Lothering is just bad, it sounds really fake and now in RedCliffe I can hear people screaming nothing but gibberish. I just got used to the Witcher I guess, which has excellent ambient sounds, even if some are a bit repetitive.
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I liked the background noises in Ostagar. It sounded like there was a lot going on in the background, like preparing for battle.

I've got a link for PC cheats- one of them supposedly breaks the max size of your party of 4. Why would I like doing that? Well I resent having to give up my dog! Anyway yes it's cheating, but at times I prefer coasting in a game. However I've not gotten it to work yet. 😛
 
Did you get it to work? 🙂

There would have been a few fights that having one extra party member would have made a big difference.

I bought a G15 keyboard for the backlight, because it was on sale for $49 down from $99 last year, anyways its little screen is compatible with Dragon Age. It shows me the stats of the selected character, or I can hit a hotkey to switch to their stats. Nothing big, but I like it.

If you haven't already gone to the Mage Tower, it's well worth the trek. I leveled my character quite a bit there, and there were some really nice bonuses.
 
JackAxe said:
I bought a G15 keyboard for the backlight, because it was on sale for $49 down from $99 last year, anyways its little screen is compatible with Dragon Age. It shows me the stats of the selected character, or I can hit a hotkey to switch to their stats. Nothing big, but I like it.
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This has been excellent for me. I can't read the health bars in part due to color blindess. Being able to see at least one party members health is nice. Although IMO they could have put all 4 no problem.
 
I never really thought about that tid bit for health bars, just reticules. The screen is nice. I like that it's a clock when not in use by a game. 🙂

This keyboard has made things a bit easier for me, as I can now see which key I need to hit. I'm still getting used to typing on it though, as I normally use an ergonomic one, which I'll continue to use on my Mac.
 
SilentPanda said:
This has been excellent for me. I can't read the health bars in part due to color blindess. Being able to see at least one party members health is nice. Although IMO they could have put all 4 no problem.
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There are 3rd party G15 codes that will give you what you are looking for. Look on g15forums I believe its called. Google for it, there is a mod for the G15 that shows athe whole party.
 
JackAxe said:
This keyboard has made things a bit easier for me, as I can now see which key I need to hit. I'm still getting used to typing on it though, as I normally use an ergonomic one, which I'll continue to use on my Mac.
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My biggest issue was my left hand started being one key to the left due to the G-keys. I am used to it now but at first it was odd.

e²Studios said:
There are 3rd party G15 codes that will give you what you are looking for. Look on g15forums I believe its called. Google for it, there is a mod for the G15 that shows athe whole party.
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Ah I'll have to do that. Thanks!
 
JackAxe said:
*Shale guy for fighting (I have know idea where he is.)
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The Shale "guy" quest is pretty good and having Shale on your team sure beats Alistar and the other goon. At least Shale has some wit about him. He is pretty good in battles and doesn't require upgrading armor etc... He is a sarcastic ba$tard towards "it" 🙂 Find him, itz worth it.
 
JollyRogers said:
The Shale "guy" quest is pretty good and having Shale on your team sure beats Alistar and the other goon. At least Shale has some wit about him. He is pretty good in battles and doesn't require upgrading armor etc... He is a sarcastic ba$tard towards "it" 🙂 Find him, itz worth it.
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He's in a cage in Lothering isn't he ?
 
JackAxe said:
Did you get it to work? 🙂

There would have been a few fights that having one extra party member would have made a big difference.
Click to expand...

Here are two cheat links which I also added to the MR DAO Quick and Dirty:

*VGStratagies CHEATS.
*CheatCC CHEATS.

So far I've not gotten it (the cheat that allows you to break the party limit) to work. With cheats in other games, usually a console window opens and you type in the code. I've modified the game's shortcut on the desktop as per instructions, and I programmed the key to open the console, but no console window opens, and the game is not put into a paused mode (a secondary indication you are in the console). Finally I don't know when I should be putting in this cheat- if you enter it at any time or if you do it on those rare occasions when the party window opens.

BTW, can you pull up the party window (where you pick party members) at any time? If so how? Or can it be done only when you run into a new person who is eligible to join?
 
Huntn said:
BTW, can you pull up the party window (where you pick party members) at any time? If so how? Or can it be done only when you run into a new person who is eligible to join?
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I haven't look at your links but in reference to this, I believe the party window opens every time you leave camp. Also at other various times too of course but this is one way to trigger it.
 
Technical Issues Running DAO on my MBP

Wondering if I can get any assistance regarding running DAO on my Macbook Pro. I'm *attempting* to run it through Parallels 4, only because I'm having trouble setting up Bootcamp on this machine (gives me a message about not being able to partition the disk because some files can't be moved).

So, I'm running XP SP3 with, from what I can tell, the appropriate C++ updates and so on. It installs fine and I can configure and get to the title screen, but when I click New Game, it collapses and give me a generic "DAO has encountered a problem and needs to close" message.

I'm on a 2.2 GHz dual core with 4GB of mem, running OSX 10.5.8 with a GeForce 8600M card. Any ideas?

ANY help at all is insanely appreciated. It's driving me crazy.
 
ravenandcrow said:
Wondering if I can get any assistance regarding running DAO on my Macbook Pro. I'm *attempting* to run it through Parallels 4, only because I'm having trouble setting up Bootcamp on this machine (gives me a message about not being able to partition the disk because some files can't be moved).

So, I'm running XP SP3 with, from what I can tell, the appropriate C++ updates and so on. It installs fine and I can configure and get to the title screen, but when I click New Game, it collapses and give me a generic "DAO has encountered a problem and needs to close" message.

I'm on a 2.2 GHz dual core with 4GB of mem, running OSX 10.5.8 with a GeForce 8600M card. Any ideas?

ANY help at all is insanely appreciated. It's driving me crazy.
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I got it to run via wine. I used macports and installed the dev-wine package. It works, but I get a redraw issue on my ATI card. I had to tweek the Direct3D settings for wine to make it work and the dragonage.ini file also. It's playable though, with no movies. Also had same issues using crossover games. If you want the full DAO experience, bootcamp is the way. I can't help with Parallels, sorry. Just thought I would give you some other ideas.

Maybe try editting the ini file to lowest settings?
 
SilentPanda said:
I haven't look at your links but in reference to this, I believe the party window opens every time you leave camp. Also at other various times too of course but this is one way to trigger it.
Click to expand...

Leave camp? I'm at town just N of the first battle and I'm not sure what is considered "leaving camp." The only time I've seen the party window pop up is when you run into someone new who could join your party.

Regarding the cheats I noticed they have different instructions. I tried the one that tells you to remap the console key from X to Q. That one did not work. I'm gonna try the second one that says use the tilde key to pull up the console and will report back.
Thanks!
 
I'm in Redcliffe again and I can change out my party members.

JollyRogers,

I just got the control staff and a map location of a golem, I'm assuming that's the Shale guy? 🙂

+++++++++

My characters are all about level 10 and I still can't survive an ambush by a pack of wolves without being munched to death. 😱
 
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