Dragon Age: Origins

[Kyero Fox]

lol the Ogres must be mad when they grab my MC, cause even on knightmare he hardly takes much damage (he has over 70+ Const)

"why cant me smush tiny man"

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Yes, and certain actions that they will fiercely disprove of will cause them to leave as well.

Grr, but Morrigan disapproves with everything >.<;

[Tiberium Wolf]

Morrigan and Sten are evil by nature. Not sure about the golem nor the assassin. I didn't play much with those 2 yet.

[Kyero Fox]

none of them are Evil, Evil is the darkspawn.

Their mean by nature. and Zarvan doesnt go around killin people neither does Shale, he kills birds on sight tho

[Skane]

Sten is most definitely not evil.

Cheers.

[Who]

And Morrigan is most definitely tsundere.

Edit:
And what's with every other male NPC character refusing to come out of the closet? D: There was that kid at Redcliffe, then there was that mage at Circle Tower... and who knows how many others.

[Tiberium Wolf]

Whenever I do quests where I play good samaritan I usually get minus from both of them.

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

Whenever I do quests where I play good samaritan I usually get minus from both of them.

You're confusing intention with morality. Goodwill versus duty. Etc...

Billy the Marine is told to negotiate peace with the opposing army, but Billy doesn't know anything about negotiation. The only form of diplomacy he has ever learnt is that of the armed kind, which involves lots of weapons and grisly deaths. He is not evil however.

Fenton the politician however, is as slick as you can get, and cunningly brokers a peace between two sides because he then gets to cash in on some deals he made with both sides, at the expense of their economies. While not necessarily puppy-killing evil, it is kind of slimy.

Doing "The Right Thing" can be interpreted differently by different characters. The NPCs are not mindless robots that will bend to your every whim and fancy. They do have their own goals and motivations as well.

Your act of goodwill is seen as being a waste of time by Sten. It does not mean that he is evil. Sten just prefers to cut to the chase and slay the Arch-demon right away, and if that is considered evil, then hot damn...

Cheers.

[Clarste]

Of course, their point of view is rendered moot when by game mechanics you really do have all the time in the world to go arond sidequesting and making sure everyone's as happy as can be. When the choices are between a perfect ideal solution and a ruthlessly practical solution that doesn't even solve the problem more efficiently it's hard to see their point of view as anything but the lesser of two goods. That's kind of the fault of the writers though. Of course, if being a goody-two-shoes didn't pay off the other half of their audience might complain, so it's lose-lose for them.

[Keroko]

Morrigan is a delicious piece of typical human hypocricy. The bare bones of her character is that she likes the aproach that is the least troublesome, and most advantagous for you. Usually that means she disaproves of any action that might take a while, such as negotiation, or that has no visible reward to speak of, such as helping refugees.

On the other hand we have her origin as a witch of the wilds. This means she hates the chantry, which labels her as an evil, with a passion. She always speaks of free choice, and how you cannot condem someone simply for the path they chose. Just because they chose to follow a different path of magic does not make one evil, after all. This means that she will disaprove of any killing of apostates or malificar.

The hypocricy comes in that she doesn't care -and if fact encourages you- to kill mages of the chantry, calling them useless mages that allow themselves to be caged. It goes against everything she preaches about choice, as she enjoys killing mages for little more than the choice they make. Yet, it is also such a human thing to do.

[Who]

Human indeed. Which is probably why I prefer her over Leliana characterwise, although I'd dump Morrigan in camp forever if I had to do it based on abilities alone Shapeshifters FTL.

Gripes about game (not really gripes but whatever):
-Alistair, you're the type of guy I'd want a bromance with. However. I made you a templar/champion hybrid just so you can just take the physical beatings (since Morrigan beats you verbally and emotionally) but you're still the first one to always die. Granted, I should place tactics on you but I like microing way too much. Please don't die on my next playthrough?
-Morrigan, please return to my Grey Warden. And if you can, convince Bioware one way or another to return in the sequel (highly likely) along with said Grey Warden as canon ending/pairing (not as likely for ending)
-Assassins reminded me why almost everyone picks them in every RPG available. Although mages are better in this game; I'd hate for my main to be a mage. Friend told me I should be a templar irl since I hate mages so much. >_>

I think for this time around, gonna try a Dalish ranger/bard although first game exhausted me... 50+ hours searching every nook and cranny and getting lost. Rather just hibernate and wait for a sequel now that I think about it.

On second thought, I'll go ahead and play the flash game so I can get some DLC items.

[-KarumA-]

well at least I'm still neutral with her, talking to them surely helps

What is the best method of killing mabari hounds then?
I'm at Red Cliff castle and there's this damn group of 6 mabari hounds, I think.. could be 8
But I've died so many times trying to get them all down, somehow they all charge at the same target and bite it to death before moving to the next, the furthest I've got was down to 2 dogs left before dying
I could skip them, if not for something interesting lying near them in the form of a corpse

I choose a ranger as my first, A dalish ranger
It was quite some working out to pick what race and starters story I wanted X3 kyuuh
I don't think my character is all that bad but it takes so damn long before it uses a skill, like load arrow, aim, aim more and then finally fire

What I found weird is that I am at lvl 7 and can pick a specialty but I still can't cause it is still unavailable >.< I don't really get that.. must I finish Red Cliff first before being able to pick my specialty grr!
As long as I have people to tank then I am alright, I use Alistair and my hound for that and Morrigan for her spells and mindblast, I don't really use her shapeshifting skills I use her mage skills more since non of the other characters can do that (well non that I've met so far)
My rager is good for kitting though X3 run Meifeng run!

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by Skane

You're confusing intention with morality. Goodwill versus duty. Etc...

Billy the Marine is told to negotiate peace with the opposing army, but Billy doesn't know anything about negotiation. The only form of diplomacy he has ever learnt is that of the armed kind, which involves lots of weapons and grisly deaths. He is not evil however.

Fenton the politician however, is as slick as you can get, and cunningly brokers a peace between two sides because he then gets to cash in on some deals he made with both sides, at the expense of their economies. While not necessarily puppy-killing evil, it is kind of slimy.

Doing "The Right Thing" can be interpreted differently by different characters. The NPCs are not mindless robots that will bend to your every whim and fancy. They do have their own goals and motivations as well.

Your act of goodwill is seen as being a waste of time by Sten. It does not mean that he is evil. Sten just prefers to cut to the chase and slay the Arch-demon right away, and if that is considered evil, then hot damn...

Cheers.

mean while theres ways to get Approval points by telling him stuff like "This is crucial to our mission" yada yada.

i love telling Morrigan and Sten "yea well we're doing it and it will benifit us, Belive me"

[Tiberium Wolf]

Nah... They are evil to me. It's just my definition of evil is different from u ppl. Anyway those random talks between characters also cracks me up.

BTW, I am playing at easy mode now but my second run will be at normal and still I need like 1 full healer and 1 half healer/dps. It's really annoying the healing spell cooldown. I also saw something about ppl doing an arcane warrior... wth is that? Melee mage?

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

Nah... They are evil to me. It's just my definition of evil is different from u ppl.

I can see Skane's point. And Sten's as well. The real threat is the Arch Demon, so why exactly are we wasting time doing things only vaguely involving that? Why on earth am I, for example, wasting time doing assasinations for the Crows? And while we may need the Arl, is it really our task to recover those ashes?

A rather enjoyable quote from Shepperd of Mass Effect explains Sten's motivation, and violent preferences, in two lines.

"I don't have time to justify myself to your viewers, I've got a galaxy to safe. Excuse me."

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by Keroko

I can see Skane's point. And Sten's as well. The real threat is the Arch Demon, so why exactly are we wasting time doing things only vaguely involving that? Why on earth am I, for example, wasting time doing assasinations for the Crows? And while we may need the Arl, is it really our task to recover those ashes?

A rather enjoyable quote from Shepperd of Mass Effect explains Sten's motivation, and violent preferences, in two lines.

"I don't have time to justify myself to your viewers, I've got a galaxy to safe. Excuse me."

ah yes, that line was truely epic.

I wanted to tell sten "well ass hole we wont be able to fight the arch demon with a army of darkspawn up our asses now will we? we need Army as well."

[Keroko]

Well, when he stopped you in Haven, you had to ask yourself what on earth you were doing there. I mean, let's put our meta knowledge aside for a moment. We might know the urn is there because it's a quest, and in a game rare artifacts are always found at the end of the line, but if we look through the eyes of our character rather than our eyes of a gamer, what were we doing there?

We were high in the mountains, in a town that is so small it doesn't even exist on a map, looking for something that is little more than a myth that we don't even know would work even if it miraculously exist. What are we, archaeologists? delivery boys? Frankly, if I were there I'd be knocking on my party leaders head as well. What we were doing is the equivalent of looking for the grave of Jezus. It's a waste of time, time we desperately need because we are in the middle of a war.

I don't have time to spend searching for myths, I have a country to save. Excuse me.

One interesting quirk of Sten is how he appreciates it when you try to expand your knowledge. Where other characters may feel annoyed if you dig to deep into their past, pressing Sten with questions about his culture is not only very interesting, but it also raises his approval very rapidly.

Edit: Speaking of which, just now through conversation I actually managed to ask him a question very similar to yours, though phrased a tad more politely. When whe were talking about preparations, and he commented on how he found them pointless, I asked him "What do you want to do? Charge the Archdemon straight on?"

His answer was "At least we would be going in the right direction."

Sten. Practical? No. Badass awesome? Hell yes.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

Whenever I do quests where I play good samaritan I usually get minus from both of them.

Then you need to work on your Cunning and Persuasion stats/abilities. I was able to persuade Sten and Morrigan to do a variety of seemingly unimportant or silly quests even if they voiced their distaste (via a cut scene). Additionally, I was able to persuade the other characters to do a variety of other seemingly against-type actions. Having a silver-tongue is truly one of the best abilities in an RPG .

That being said, you can always go through the tried and true method of simply not having the characters in your party during certain missions/quests. For instance, (if you do not have the needed persuasive abilities) do not have Morrigan in your party while entering the Circle Tower, etc.

Then again, Gifts are plentiful and very few actions (unless you go overboard) will result in more than 5 negative points, something that can be readily gotten back by simple conversations or a few gifts.

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

What I found weird is that I am at lvl 7 and can pick a specialty but I still can't cause it is still unavailable >.< I don't really get that.. must I finish Red Cliff first before being able to pick my specialty grr!

You learn your specialties from different characters: Morrigan teaches transformation; Alistair teaches Templar; Zevram - Assassin; Ohgren - Berserker; Leliana - Bard; Isabel - Duelist; etc. The difficult specialties to get are Blood Mage (taught by a Desire Demon), Arcane Warrior (taught by a soul found in the ruins during the Werewolf/Dalish quest) and Reaver (taught during the Urn quest by choosing to take the negative solution to the quest). As far as I know, all specialties can be unlocked in one game (at least, as so long as you are a Mage character).

[Keroko]

There is one, though, that if chosen is impossible to avoid. And considering the temptation, it is also the biggest weakness of the game in my opinion.

Spoiler for End Game:

Recruiting Loghain will earn Alistar's ire. Regardless of the silver tongue, even with 100 cunning he'll throw a hissy fit and leave. Compare this with Mass Effect, where you could -if you chose your words wisely- convince Rex to abandon the cure that could save his people from extinction because it is for the greater good, and I can't understand why they took such a step back.

[james0246]

^

Spoiler for games spoilers...:

Ah yes, the Mysterious Guest Choice found near the tail end of the game. The choice is almost impossible not to make (in favour of the guest), especially if you play Human/Male Nobel and you wish to become King. (Really, though, the best option is to get Alistair and Anora together.)

Other "impossible" choices are having Wynne and Leliana with you when completing the Urn Quest. It is impossible to convince them to desecrate the Urn, so you either have to kill them or not desecrate the Urn (I think Sten always gives a negative reaction when presented with the Urn, but I cannot quite recall). Convincing Shale that killing Caridin is good could also be impossible...but I am unsure. Additionally, the best results for Orzammer can only be discovered if you play as a Dwarf noble. Etc.

That being said, there are ways around some of the other, seemingly impossible choices. For instance, mages at the Circle Tower can be used to save both Conner and Isolde, but this possibility is only discovered by asking extra questions.