There is too much. Let me sum up.

[cyrano]

So I started a couple of days ago and one of the first things that struck me is that there seems to be actual depth to this game. Not every piece of background they give me is here so that I can use it later in the game. And although everybody goes through the same chokepoint before hitting open field, the beginnings are significantly different.
Long ago in the wayback time, humans oppressed elves, and they didn't like it. Some elves live in ghettos in the cities and do scutwork. Some elves said 'screw you jack' and wander the lands, shunned and persecuted. My character, Zahara, is of the latter group. My bff and I found some stinky humans in our forest, and they told us about a mysterious cave before they fled in fear of our mighty archery.
So we checked it out. There was of course a contingent of gigantic spiders, and an ugly bear monster who kicked our asses for us. And deep in the heart of the cave was a creepy mirror that my buddy had to touch despite my strongest possible objections. The next thing I remember, I'm back at camp, my bff has vanished, and a stinky human called a Grey Warden is telling the Elder that he dragged me back from where he found me outside the cave.
There infodump is pretty constant for a while--I learn more about elvish culture, about some quick history, about darkspawn (corrupted things with many forms who have poison blood OH PS I'M POISONED), (AND OH PS THE ELDER GAVE ME TO THE GREY WARDEN BYE BYE NOW HAVE FUN SLAYING THE DRAGON), and then we're off for the ancient abandoned city at the edge of the wilderness where they used to fight barbarians.

And that was the first episode, "Haven't we been here before?". The look is lovely, the textures are nice, the music is well done. The art and the story remind me a great deal of EA's line of Lord of the Rings games. The interface and I are not getting along as well as we could, but we're working things out.

I find out that the Grey Warden guy wants me to join because I'm all poisoned and joining the Wardens will cure me. (Oh, and since I'm going to be a Warden anyway, would I mind fighting DarkSpawn?) I did a lot of wandering around camp and talking to people, like a real CRPG, and met my two new thorns in my side team mates, Jory and Daveth. We get sent out into the wilds, along with the dreamy young Cadet Alastair as guardian, to collect some DarkSpawn blood for the mysterious Joining ceremony that makes us real Wardens. Oh, and while we're out there, there's this abandoned keep where they left some important paperwork so if we could just hike out there and pick that up? That'd be great.
And thus began the bloody slog of tactic failure and restarting. See, tactics appears to be an important part of getting by in this game. And so far I suck at it--both the tactics part and the using the interface part. Much of the time, one of my party members would prick up his ears and say "Hark! There are bad guys over the next hill! I'm going to run off and slay them! Be right back!" and then dash off and get himself well gutted. Or they'd stand about gawping at me as I died under a hail of arrow fire. Or I'd finish filling one bad guy with arrows, and then was unable to get a new target. Stuff like that. For those of you who missed the commentary, there was a point where I would have welcomed my new DarkSpawn overlords if they promised to kill off the rest of the party in excessively painful fashion.
Also? There was a big scary monster that we encountered because the game said "If you do this, unicorns will come and give you kisses!" Somehow we managed to limp away from that, probably because there was only one of him.
But we finally collected enough blood to join the Wardens, and stumbled upon the abandoned keep. Where we were met by the hot witch chick in the fishnet bra with the big fat attitude. She taunted us with how much more she knew than we did, until her mom made her give back the papers we needed and took us back to camp.

And that was the end of the episode "Blood, Ash, Paperwork".

I saved, and the next day we snuck out of camp before Duncan (the boss Warden) noticed we'd come back. Because there were some minor plotlines that I wanted to clear up, and didn't want to wait on. So tonight was largely figuring out non-suicidal tactics and digging in the corners. And there was lots of cool stuff. We came back and harassed the bigoted quartermaster, and then Duncan said "Oh hey guess what now you drink that evil corrupted blood and you either die or you get to join the Wardens! Yay!" And both Daveth and Jory opted for the former, while I went with the latter. And, as cranky as I was earlier, I was still kind of '.....oh'. Because, I mean, dying in battle is one thing. This was very different.
And then we had our big strategy meeting with the King. Oh, did I mention that I met the king? Yeah, he's kind of a big deal. He's very Hotspur, young and full of blood, can't wait to go get him some glory. His advisor is cranky and pragmatic, and so of course they get along like lovebirds. I *really* liked the War Council meeting, because there was something below the surface--there was no unctuous prevaricating henchman who's going to betray you in Act II, there was... everybody has at least two character elements to them. And that made me happy.
Of course, I got the crap job of 'Stay in the tower and light the beacon to tell us when to charge into battle'. So I'm betting the tower gets attacked by flying wolverines or something.

And, yeah. That was the end of "Two down, two to go".

If this doesn't make much sense, I wouldn't be surprised. This is largely for Tersa, who will probably be able to sort it out.

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

In fact, I did, and was giggling through most of the recap, although I recognized most of what you'd already told me. :)

BTW, one of the things I do love the fuck out of in this game is what you said early on about how not all the information in the game is for you to make use of later. There is a shitton of that. Gives the world real depth.

Also this: the dreamy young Cadet Alastair? Another serious LOL moment. :) But I'll save the 'why' for later. :)

Yay, Tower of Ishal later!

(Also, when you called Ostagar 'Orthanc' earlier, it was driving me bugnuts trying to remember what I'd dubbed it, which was not Orthanc: Osgiliath. :)

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

Warning: Sharp turn ahead! :)

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Hey, it makes sense to me!

If you need any help with the PC interface, let me know. That's what I'm using. :)

tactics :)

[michelle-connor.livejournal.com]

I was really frustrated with the lack of a way to target with the keyboard. I am used to wow, and not being able to tab totally sucked. However. I learned that setting up your tactics (the \ key) for each character can SO help. Mostly I go with the defaults for each class, and just delete one of the lines that has the same attack for elites and normal. (Elites will still get targeted!) and have the others take heal pots when they are less than 25 or 50 percent health. (You can tell a mage to drink lyrium pot the same way, so it's useful to keep your mages with some mana.)

The other thing that helps -- Keep your healer as a healer. She's gonna have to be focused on keeping the tank alive while the others DPS. If you have 2 mages, having the 2nd be a controller (and getting those two lines of spells in the 'evil' spell section that have mass paralysis (best spell ever!) and sleep with waking nightmares) will help with those dang masses of darkspawn.

Also! Keep your mages as far back as you can. That can sometimes be difficult, but if you can keep them out of direct melee they last much longer. Getting your tank massive armor and the taunt line will help too.

(If you want I can talk more specifically about strategy, but these are the basics of my standard plan.)

Miche

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

And Osgiliath was *exactly* what I was trying to come up with but failed.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Yay! I wasn't sure it was late enough for me to be coherent. (:
I think that, at this point, a lot of it is 'get familiar with how it works, and hit spacebar *a lot*'.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

eek!

Re: tactics :)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

It sounds like I should get a World of Warcraft account so I can talk the jargon. (:

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

I *heart* DA.

When Dan got us a copy, he figured he'd play through, while I watched. And then I got good and hooked. Heh.

This is a game that's actually inspired me to write fanfic. (ME. Writing fic. I'm kind of flabbergasted, honestly!)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, you are not the only one on my fList who is inclined to write of the fanfic here. (:
At what point did you feel truly hooked (if you can say without spoilers)?
And are there origins you're more fond of than others?

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

I love both dwarves, and I've got a weakness for human nobles. I've finished the game with my casteless dwarf (Phuckwhytt) and my human noble (Öömlät). It's funny, because I usually play female characters, but the only ones I've finished the game with have been male.)

I don't like playing the mages - there's a fight that I always seem to hit around level 9 that I just *can't* get past when I'm playing a mage, so I've never gotten very far with them. I might do the main story missions in a different order, and see if I can't hit that fight at a higher level, but I don't know that it'll help.

I think I realized I was hooked when I started dreaming about the world. And the first time I nearly said "Andraste's Flaming Tits!" out loud, in a non-gaming context. *laugh*

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Ah HA. I thought I recognized your username over on the communities. I definitely recognize that icon. :)

*facepalm*

[likable-lemur.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not the only person who's had this reaction to the game.

I'm just a bit farther than you are now (I started playing a couple of days ago), and overall, I'm enjoying it. The game world does have a pleasing depth (Although I've come to expect this from Bioware games - the Mass Effect games and Knights of the Old Republic being stellar examples of worldbuilding and storytelling) and the production values are very high. I'm also playing through the game as a Dalish Elf (wooo) and it's been fun.

The biggest problem I'm having is that I very much feel like I've been here before. It has much better writing than Oblivion (A game I sank an embarrassment of hours into) and more interesting characters too; but a Lone Champion against the Legions of Evil? Stop me when you've heard this bit...

There are also some things that I find to have been hilariously telegraphed and that I was supposed to be surprised and shocked by, but I'll wait until you get farther along to spell them out.

I know that's really not the point. Epic Fantasy is Epic Fantasy, and really, Dragon Age is doing it really well so far. It's sort of like a comfy jacket that you've worn before. It hasn't surprised me or blown me away with anything new, but it's covering familiar, well-trodden ground in a beautiful way. I just hope my interest doesn't taper off before I find out which one of the Orbs of MagGuffin I'm supposed to light/destroy/throw off a bridge/make out with to save the world.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

That is one thing I will give the Fifth Element (aside from 'the first half hour'). "Making out with redheads saves the world" is a unique quest function.

One of the reasons I'm not usually a big fan of Epic Fantasy is that it's so hard to do something new with it. And while they're not doing something *new*, they're doing something *well*. At least so far.

Plus, making NPCs run around in their underclothes never gets old.

[satanya.livejournal.com]

I love DA, My husband and I play on xbox. But it is a fabulous game.