DA:O Played an hour or so - some questions / comments

That sounds certainly easier to manage and less tedious. No timers to worry about…

But let's say you wanted to cast a preset set of of debuffs against a known enemy. If you can't just queue them all up, then you have to pay attention to your debuffer each round, which is more tedious....

Is there at least an autopause at the end of each round, or do you have to deal with a flakey spacebar ala NWN?

Yeah now that I'm in the wild its quite fun. I still despise the camera but everything else is great.

I've JUST started.
I chose a slightly silly class (A wood elf warrior of all things) - I've decided I'd probably play quite a few of the "Origins" stories first, and then continue with my fave, or start over with a new build for the rest of the game, once I've seen how the land lies.

I find the controls clumsy, since I prefer to play WASD. Also, sadly every time I try to enable MB switching, the game hangs on me.

I'm rather irritated that I can't simply move and navigate via normal WASD mouselook, this is the same"hold your button down" rubbish like in KOTOR and Drakensang.

I'd be interested to know how you felt about the camera in NWN2, Todd. Of course, I realize that you prefer isometric. I prefer OTS again.
To me, the Spellforce games have brilliant camera controls. I hated having my view obscured so often in NWN 2.

Btw, I'm finding that the graphics kinda lack depth for me so far. A step down from ME, certainly.

What is 'MB switching'?

I personally like the camera - in '3rd person' mode it is much like any other 3rd person game in terms of camera and controls (other than having people constantly step between you and what you're trying to loot!). And in top-down mode it works as expected.

I still like how I finally got the NWN camera (chase cam) configured ... but I greatly prefer DS to NWN2 in terms of camera control. I have just never fully gotten the NWN2 to the point I wanted to have it work ...

txa1265 said:

What is 'MB switching'?

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Mouse button. To change the functions between LMB and RMB, one to the other.
LMB <-> RMB

…. I greatly prefer DS to NWN2 in terms of camera control. I have just never fully gotten the NWN2 to the point I wanted to have it work …

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Agreed on that.

RivianWitch said:

I'd be interested to know how you felt about the camera in NWN2, Todd.

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I posted another thread to talk just about the camera and tactics. Maybe I'm missing something on those topics. But to answer your question, I thought NWN1 was ideal and simply don't see a compelling reason for any developer to depart from such a functional and intuitive camera. Dungeon Siege had a great one too, but NWN1 is the best. I struggled with NWN2 a bit but adapted. Dragon Age (camera) really isnt working well for me.

The WASD keys could be used while holding down rmb to stir your character around. Kind of familiar feeling with the control, same as in the Witcher?

Remus said:

The WASD keys could be used while holding down rmb to stir your character around. Kind of familiar feeling with the control, same as in the Witcher?

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With The Witcher, you didn't have to hold any key or button down to pan your camera. You could simply move your mouse. That's what I would have wanted here...

So this game has niggling faults. But.... maybe its too early for me to make the call but this game has the potential to be the best game I've played in a looooong time. Great characters, interesting arching plot. Unlike the Witcher I don't mind the constant cutscenes and the sort of "on rails" feeling. At least it has a "hub and spoke" model for where to travel to. Combat is fun.

This is what I was looking for from NWN2.

Hmm so if someone "hated" NWN2 (bored to death of it, couldn't finish it) would you say
that this game is different enough for him to try out ?

I must admit I have not heard many things to be excited about at this point from my
point of view, except people here praising combat (which sounds a lot like NWN2) and
story (which is a very good thing but tastes differ, i.e I loved the Witcher and didn't mind
the cutscenes there and think that most things that Bioware did recently in that area
are a bit too young adultish)…

Any thoughts ?

Character development, plot and combat difficulty are the chief differences as far as I can see. Things don't feel cardboard and generic like NWN2. Then again I still havent managed to give NWN2 a decent shake because I keep quitting. DA draws me in.

I never played NWN2. I have it, along with MotB and SoZ, but it's just one of those games that I haven't gotten around to playing yet, so I can't make the comparison between it and DA.

I can however, make the comparison between DA and Baldur's Gate 1/2, and so far, DA is not as good imo.

ToddMcF2002 said:

Then again I still havent managed to give NWN2 a decent shake because I keep quitting. DA draws me in.

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That is a good sign indeed.

JDR13 said:

I can however, make the comparison between DA and Baldur's Gate 1/2, and so far, DA is not as good imo.

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Didn't really expect it too. I just wished that there was more BG than NWN in there for
me to get interested.

Anyway, thanks guys. I think I'll wait until people around here get a more rounded
opinion of this game before making my decision (I am not in any hurry anyway, just
finished Risen so I think I'll take a small break from my Gaming seat for a couple of
weeks anyway)

The BG series is a tough call especially this early on. IMO DA is better than NWN1 OC, SoTU or Underdark which I thought were all quite good (at least the mission packs were quite good).

I didn't get NWN 2; but at level 6 which still quite early, DA feels better than NWN 1; not sure about comparison to BG series, it seems trailing slightly behind.

It's way too early to say but this could be competitive with BG/BG2 for me. I really enjoyed BG with it's open spaces to explore. Found the story OK-ish but didn't find it very replayable. I was initially disappointed with BG2, which had a stronger focus but removed those open wilderness spaces. I know a lot of people thought they were pointless but they seemed exactly the sort of thing an adventurer would find, to me. Chapter 2 rocked, the rest was pretty linear.

What failed fairly hard was the story. I couldn't care less about Imoen - take her, and let me be on my own way. I don't care.

DA has really sucked me in. Yes, it's full of fantasy cliches but it has worked for me. My primary is a City Elf; the first stuff about getting married was juvenile and I was rolling my eyes but by the time the Origin finished, I was outraged at the treatment of elves and ready to do some righteous slaying of humans.

The King's plight was a bit obvious but I somehow got swept up in it. Maybe because I participated? I was there are the battle of Ostagar and felt the evil coming? Sounds lame, but the story has really sucked me in.

The combat is very Infinity-engine-ish and quite hard, which is a plus. The mechanics don't have the sheer width of D&D but I like some of their decisions, such as the way buffs work on fatigue and so on.

It isn't flawless, by any means, but I'm loving it.

Yep, I've tried every origin except the Dwarven Noble (male versions) and also the female version of the City Elf. All of them give you an attachment to your character that I haven't felt in other games. They also flesh out the background story/world of what's going on in the game quite a bit. Oh, and the female City Elf story has some real changes from the male version. Same basic story, but half of it plays out very differently. Based on the male versions though I'm not sure if the others are that much different playing the female.

There's just so much world and story to learn here. And the fact that what origin/race you play changes how you see the whole thing makes it that much better.

As good as BG1 & 2 are this game has a much more developed world/story and characters I actually care about. Planescape Torment was a better story so far (I remember pausing that game and writing down some of the dialogue it was so good) but this game is drawing me in more from the start. The NWN games are good but never really made me care about the world/story/characters all that much.

So far it looks interesting but i am trying to play a human archer and i dont have enough money to buy a bow so i am stuck with the stupid sword.
I think the Devs are pretty stupid//moronic , since i chose archery at start i should have started with a bow or having a bow falling from the sky or something, i don't like swords and they shouldn't even appear on my character , i feel kind of infected going melee .I hated 1st cut scene when my character appeared with a sword.

After almost 30 years of video games this should be clear IN ALL RPGs ALL CHARACTERS ALWAYS START WITH A BOW, keep the swords for out of the games, delete them I don't care .

This game gets -100% score for that.

I think I found something like 10 bows in the first couple of hours after the origin part!!

Majnun said:

As good as BG1 & 2 are this game has a much more developed world/story and characters I actually care about.

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Just the opposite here. I am really enjoying DA, but so far I don't feel much of a connection to any of the NPCs. The characters in BG 1/2 were more varied and interesting to me.