"If I cannot post with you, I will post through you!" [Dragon Age II Thread]

Lucent

Legacy DLC out July 26th!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djocoCJo7_g

What the fuck is this fantasy bullshit?

Dragon Age 2 is the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. It's less of a Baldur's Gate style run this time, trading strategy for a more action-oriented approach, which often boils down to mashing buttons and hooting like a monkey on the easier difficulty setings.

The world and story of Dragon Age: Origins focused on a war with the forsaken Darkspawn in the nation of Ferelden, but Dragon Age 2 takes you north, away from Ferelden and (for the most part) the Darkspawn, focusing on the story of a war refugee named of the family Hawke, and their struggle to fit in to a society that does not want more mouths to feed.

Like any RPG since the dawn of time, you gather equipment, party members and participate in quests to progress the story along what arguably boils down to two divergent paths that help decide the fate of the city of Kirkwall and the relationship of the enslaved magi there under the heel of the Templar order.

Yes, but will I like it?

Dragon Age 2 is a sequel that polarized fans of the original Dragon Age: Origins. Criticized for re-use of environments and creatures and its ending, the game has also found appreciation for its intuitive conversation system that borrows from Bioware's successful design in Mass Effect, but introduces a new angle that allows you to gain new dialogue options and reactions based upon your development of a character's personality, tracked by the types of choices you make throughout the game.

More complex than just "renegade" or "paragon", these conversation choices range from antagonistic to sarcastic, diplomatic and charitable. The more you progress with each of these dialogue options, the more of that variety open up for you. It allows you to craft a character personality that is more immersive than the first game.

Here are some fantastic examples of being a big, fat, sarcastic asshole!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0sGW_0b6_s

Dragon Age 2's biggest shortcoming is the illusion that you are making a big difference in the world, when ultimately your choices all get you to the same place in the end, like a choose your own adventure book that only has one ending. But whether you will enjoy the game or not comes down to how you enjoy the journey to the point you get to.

Additionally, your decisions from Dragon Age: Origins can be transferred to Dragon Age 2 (with some unusual discrepancies, such as anything involving Zevran's life...) that create some conversation branches and background dialogue. It mostly peppers the world with flavor, though their impact may be more felt in upcoming DLC.

Are there modding options for the PC version?

There are! First of all you can find the hi-res texture pack for a prettier landscape of Kirkwall.

Additionally you can visit the Dragon Age Nexus for a trove of fan-created content that is surprisingly not terrible that can help augment your Dragon Age 2 experience.


Sell me on this game in two words!

Rude Titties.

Melding

I hope i get this free for pc when i get mass effect 3. that'd be neat. kinda doubt they'd run another promo like that though.

Lucent

Fuck why'd you go and make me think of mass effect 3. So far away

Squall

kinda pissed the steam sale only put it down to $30

Melding

because i can't mod my ps3 version of the game. though a lot of these mods suck. why do they keep making Merrill look terrible? Freaking weirdos.

Lucent

Yeah there's some really horribad mods out there

Melding

"make Marrill look like Morigan!" great idea. i am applauding how creative you are.

Lucent

I especially hate ones that try to make Aveline "prettier." Her looks fit her fine :<

Melding

All of the characters look great. fuck the haters.

Even hawke was easy enough to not fuck up. And i always end up making ugly dough babies.

Orikaeshigitae

for future reference, just because it's okay in a game does not make it safe for work. i've amended your OP accordingly.

Squall

Melding

Hey Karl, how's it going?

Moriveth

I have this for PC, and I made a Hawke that looked almost exactly like Ryan Reynolds. Unfortunatelly I uninstalled DA2 and didn't keep my saves. Curses.

Zen Vulgarity

Squall wrote: »

What in the world

Lucent

Zen Vulgarity wrote: »

Squall wrote: »

What in the world

Whyyy :<

Nerdgasmic

that's perfect

TrippyJing

Lucent wrote: »

Zen Vulgarity wrote: »

Squall wrote: »

What in the world

Whyyy :<

I see you.

Pharezon

Legacy looks great.

Lucent

For a moment it looks like it shows the Architect from Awakenings in the trailer for Legacy. I would kind of like to see some call-back to the events of Awakenings, especially since the decision to allow the Architect to survive or not is one of the transferred points of plot from Origins.

Turambar

I hope Legacy is fun

Has there been any DLC between the launch stuff and now?

Pharezon

Lucent wrote: »

For a moment it looks like it shows the Architect from Awakenings in the trailer for Legacy. I would kind of like to see some call-back to the events of Awakenings, especially since the decision to allow the Architect to survive or not is one of the transferred points of plot from Origins.

I am certain that is not the architect.

Macro9

I have no idea what is going on with Legacy but I am interested in it.

Lucent

Okay there is a screenshot of Creepyface McDarkspawn on the Bioware site and yeah, definitely not Architect.

Didgeridoo

Just started this game! I got halfway through the first one and then quit because I hated the combat scheme. This one's more fun, so far!

Plus I like the fact that you can be a smartass

Abracadaniel

Still waiting for DA 1's Awakening DLC to get cheap enough to buy

Lucent

You can buy like a DA:O + Awakenings + All the goddamned DLC for like 30 bucks used these days.

Abracadaniel

pee see

Didgeridoo

All right I'm digging up this thread because I just want to state how much I love Merrill

She is pretty much the best

Melding

Didgeridoo wrote: »

All right I'm digging up this thread because I just want to state how much I love Merrill

She is pretty much the best

Seconded.

Owenashi

Melding wrote: »

Didgeridoo wrote: »

All right I'm digging up this thread because I just want to state how much I love Merrill

She is pretty much the best

Seconded.

She's pretty cool. About a certain change to mage abilities though...

...does the tweaking to the health to mana conversion for Blood Magic by the patches make her better or worse in fights?

Day of the Bear

Yeah, Merril is pretty darn great.

Also they did what now?

Owenashi

Day of the Bear wrote: »

Yeah, Merril is pretty darn great.

Also they did what now?

Well I think I was mistaken on what was affected.

DA-Wiki's DA2-Patches Page wrote:

- Items that improve the Blood Magic cost ratio now provide 0.25 mana per point of health instead of 1 mana.

I thought they also applied that to Hawke and Merrill as well.

Day of the Bear

Hmmm that's probably a reasonable change given how incredibly good it was before when stacked up.

Nerdgasmic

that makes her worse, but probably not by a significant amount

Lucent

The writing for Merril is pretty damn great, yeah. I really enjoyed having her as a companion in that game. She's a little crazy with the whole crazy mirror obsession, but all in all not enough to make her uncool :>

Owenashi

Lucent wrote: »

The writing for Merril is pretty damn great, yeah. I really enjoyed having her as a companion in that game. She's a little crazy with the whole crazy mirror obsession, but all in all not enough to make her uncool :>

That's true.

She certainly wins over Anders in regards of resolving their problems. No intention of mass murder on her part and even goes as far as ask Hawke to whack her if something goes wrong in her final quest.

Solar

Merril really is great.

Scooter

So can I play Legacy on a finished game or would I have to start a new one?

Owenashi

I'm pretty sure you can. Little point of being able to enter your home (and the Black Emporium if you have it) after loading the cleared save if you couldn't. It'll be interesting to see how doing it before and after finishing a game affects the story.

Viscount Islands

I ordered this and Awakenings used from Ebay, but accidentally got an Origins disc instead of Awakenings.

Iron Weasel

That "Wounded Coast" line cracks me up every time.

I've been thinking of doing a mage or rogue runthrough of DA2. Did they ever fix the bug where you would get the conversation at the end of Merrill's Act 3 quest before you even began it? And is it possible to actually complete Who Needs rescuing?