Day 1 of Dragon Age: Origins

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night was all about computer problems and then getting Dragon Age downloaded, unlocked, messing with DLC issues and so on. I barely played.

Tonight was different. Tonight I finally got a chance to really take a small bite out of Dragon Age: Origins. And I’m loving what I’ve seen so far.

Honestly at the low levels I’m at, combat is very simple. I’m sure it’ll get more interesting later on. But with no real Skills yet, I just pick who everyone is going to attack then sit back and watch.

And I turned off Persistent Gore because it was so silly. I’m playing the Noble origin and early on you have to kill some rats (what else?!) and in so doing you get totally covered in blood. Then moments later you have an encounter with some family members and visiting nobles, and there you stand, blood spatters across your face, chatting up some lady in waiting. It was just silly. Toggling off Persistent Gore means the battles are still bloody but afterwards your party takes a moment to clean up a bit. 🙂

What I’m *really* enjoying is the lore that I’m uncovering. I’m so glad I read the novels first because I keep meeting people that were in the books. In fact Duncan, leader of the Grey Wardens, is a newly annointed Grey Warden in The Calling. I’m playing slowly and reading all the codex entries and exploring everywhere I’m able to explore.

It’s been a long time since I played a single player RPG like this one, and I’m actually finding the solo aspect somewhat freeing. I’m not in any hurry to “level up” or anything. Just drinking it all in and having a blast.

Mind you, all told I probably have 2 hours into the game so far, so everything could change. But for right now I’m really enjoying myself. I can’t wait for the weekend when I can just sit down and play for hours straight!

Meeting the neighbors

Dragon Age digital download and DLC issues: Fix

Posted on by Nimgimli

Apologize in advance for any typos; want to pound this out before work.

I don’t think I’m alone in having some problems getting all the DLC coming to me with my digital download version of Dragon Age: Origins. It doesn’t help that there are so many sources of gee-gaws: pre-order bonuses, deluxe version bonuses, store-specific bonuses and stuff you earned playing Dragon Age: Journeys.

I finally got everything working and wanted to share my experience. I used Steam so some of these issues may be unique to that platforms.

First, in the Steam client, under “My Games” right click on Dragon Age Origins and pick View Game CD Key. You can have as many as 3 keys in here. The ones with hyphens (xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx) are redeemable DLC codes (1 for pre-order, 1 for the deluxe version). On the Bioware social site, log in and from the left nav panel (under your portrait) pick Profile and then Redeem Promo Codes. Paste these keys in that field and hit submit. The key with no hyphens xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is your game registration key. You put that in under Profile and then Register game.

I had to enter keys several times to get them to work, since the site is so overloaded.

The next problem I had was that 1 bit of DLC downloaded and installed, then 4 more downloaded but didn’t install and I couldn’t get them to install. And other stuff I had coming wasn’t showing up at all. From surfing forums this is happening to a good number of people.

To fix that problem, run the Dragon Age Launcher and pick Configure from there. Once the Configuration Utility pops up, pick Repair and then Clear Download cache. Now run the game and check your Downloaded Content. This cleared up the problem for me.

If everything is running right, you should see the Warden’s Keep either available for purchase or (if you got the Deluxe version) installed. Once I flushed my cache it was available for purchase, which told me I had to go back and re-submit my redemption code one more time. Then I hit the swirly refresh button at the bottom right of the in-game download screen and Warden’s Keep and Shale and some other items started downloading.

Hopefully the servers will be a bit less burdened tonight and these issues will go away, but without clearing the download cache ‘stuck’ DLC doesn’t seem to clear up.

I still haven’t figured out how to get screenshots to upload, or to access the characters I built ahead of time with the Character Creator.

I’m looking forward to *playing* Dragon Age tonight. Last night was more or less about wrestling with it (and with my computer, which seems ‘fixed’ now that I replaced the new ram with old ram).

A Dragon Age Music video?

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’ll admit it, I’m surly tonight. Dragon Age ships, and my gaming PC rolls over and dies the same night (unrelated, I hadn’t even run Dragon Age when this started happening).

But the press barrage must go on! 🙂

We have our first Dragon Age: Origins music video. The band is Thirty Seconds to Hell, the song is This is War, and it is debuting in Dragon Age: Origins, or so I’m told. *shoots hateful glare at the gaming PC* You’ve already seen a lot of the footage, but I guess this is a fresh way of looking at it!

I blame Torchlight

Posted on by Nimgimli

So here we are, all snug in our beds (or soon to be) with visions of sugar-darkspawn stuck in our heads.

It’s Dragon Age Eve. Tomorrow we’ll come home from work, bare our teeth at the family to warn them off, and settle in to enjoy Dragon Age: Origins. (Of course some lucky SOBs are already playing…sounds like some retailers broke the street date.)

I realized yesterday… I hadn’t finished Uncharted 2 yet, and here comes Dragon Age. I meant to finish it. I’m really close to the end (I think/hope…it’s getting to where if it goes much longer it’ll feel like its dragging on); who knew it was going to get hard(ish)?

But really I blame Runic Games. Torchlight grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go all last week and into the weekend. And I’m still feeling the itch to play more.

So yeah, backlog of great games piling it (let’s not forget Borderlands). I think Dragon Age will be my last purchase for a while. I need to get ahead of this wave!

This game will unlock in approximately 15 hours

Has Microsoft eased off exclusives?

Posted on by Nimgimli

I was compiling a list of great (and potentially great) games for a holiday gift guide and was surprised to find that I’d listed 3 games that were PS3 exclusives and only 2 that were Xbox exclusive. That’s not enough of a difference to make a big deal about, but it did get me thinking about PS3 & Xbox 360 exclusives.

The way I see it, there are three types of exclusives:

1) Games developed by 1st and ‘2nd party’ devs (quotes because sometimes the company in question isn’t officially connected but may as well be, from the point of view of the game-buying audience). Examples from my list: Uncharted 2 from Naughty Dog for the PS3 and Forza Motorsport 3 from Turn 10 for the Xbox 360.

2) Games that 3rd party developers choose to only produce for one platform. Example from my list, Atlus’ Demon’s Souls for the PS3 and Bungie’s Halo 3: ODST for the Xbox 360. Bungie is almost a ‘quoted 2nd party’ dev but technically they’re now as independent as Rudolph and Hermey (with Halloween now behind us, let the Christmas references commence!).

3) Games with exclusive extras. Examples: playable Joker in the PS3 version of Batman Arkham Asylum or the exclusive (for a lengthy period at least) DLC for the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3.

While the number of “Type 1” exclusives has remained steady, it seems like Types 2 and 3 are in decline. In the case of Type 2, presumably the PS3 is finally getting an install base that few 3rd party developers are willing to ignore. In prior years of this console generation, the vast majority of Type 2 exclusives have been Xbox 360 exclusives. Supporting the PS3 must just make financial sense at this point.

What’s really interesting, to me, is Microsoft backing off the Type 3 exclusives, which used to be a specialty of theirs. Drop by a dev’s office with a sack full of money and say “How about you take this and then keep your DLC off the PS3 for 6 months?” They did this with GTA IV, Fallout 3, even Netflix, and it seemed to work. People who owned both systems would naturally go Xbox in order to take advantage of the ‘exclusive’ DLC.

But Dragon Age: Origins and Modern Warfare 2 are launching in the next few weeks on both platforms and in neither case have we heard a peep about exclusive content for either system. Microsoft attended the MW2 event in LA (?) a month or so back as if it was a parent company, and they’re rolling out a MW2-branded Xbox 360, but as far as the game and following content goes, both platforms will get the same stuff.

Dragon Age: Origins, with its plans for years of DLC, seems like a perfect fit for Microsoft’s DLC lock-down strategy, but nope…nothing.

So I’m wondering why this is. Has Microsoft just decided that their market share is so dominant they don’t have to spend the money any more (and it’d be hard to argue with that logic). Or maybe there just aren’t enough dual-console owners to make it worth while? Or are the developers not willing to alienate PS3 owners in exchange for Microsoft’s offerings?

Whatever the reason, it’s good news for gamers, and particularly for PS3 owners, who used to so often be left on the outside looking in. But on the other hand, without exclusives, why do we need competing consoles? Are the 1st & 2nd party devs enough to make one system stand out over the other? Or is it the overall ecosystem (Xbox Live vs Playstation Network) enough? Reliability? Design?

A game is not a list of bullet points

Posted on by Nimgimli

Syp at Bio Break did a post today declaring Torchlight to be a carbon copy of Fate, and he has a list of bullet points to prove it. And looking at his list, I can’t disagree with a single point. In some cases I’m taking Syp’s word on the fact that the points match up, because I never got far enough in Fate to see how later parts of the game, like passing items on to other characters, worked.

Why? Because I found Fate tedious. A not-very-good Diablo clone with a vile copy protection scheme. It came pre-installed on one of my HP machines which allowed you to play a few sessions for free and then asked you to pay for the game. It never occurred to me to pay for it because I didn’t find the game the least bit compelling.

And yet my early hours with Torchlight have me enthralled. In fact I hesitated about writing this post because writing it is eating into my Torchlight time.

To really explain why I love Torchlight while I found Fate pretty ‘meh’ I’d have to re-install Fate, and that isn’t going to happen, so I’ll just have to look at the intangibles of Torchlight and make some guesses. And mostly I think it’s because the combat, simple as it is, feels so satisfying. Each attack lands with a solid impact. Each urn breaks with a satisfying crash. When dozens of creatures swarm out of a tunnel or a mine shaft it just sends a thrill up my spine… “To battle!!!”

Fate just felt like ‘click click click’ whereas Torchlight feels like ‘Slash! Bash! Pow!’ … even though the mechanics and bullet points match up so well. Torchlight has a soul. Fate was just a game. I guess you can’t capture ‘soul’ in a bullet point.

* * *

And while we’re talking Torchlight, GameInformer has a post up on how to rebind the keys. It isn’t as easy as it should be, but it ain’t rocket science either.

girltalk

Fresh batch of Dragon Age: Origin screens

Posted on by Nimgimli

Tonight I have another batch of Dragon Age: Origins screens, compliments of our friends at Bioware. There’s a mix of shots with and without hud elements. A few new baddies in here.

I have to be honest, I’m kind of tired of looking at screens and videos and am very much ready to play. I suspect the same is true of you, dear reader, but if there’s one person out there that finds something new to delight over, I figure they’re worth a quick post.

[Update: That lucky SOB Tom Chick is playing! I read this account of a battle and my anticipation ratcheted up another dozen notches. I also found it really interesting how much it sounded like an MMO battle in some ways.]

I also have a growing concern about the amount of gore that is in every batch of screenshots; I’m hoping you’ll be able to tone that down a bit when actually playing the game. I don’t mind gritty but some of the shots I’m seeing just seem a bit over the top…

Anyway, here’s tonights back of screenies!

Dragon Age commercials hit the web

Posted on by Nimgimli

Y’know if more ads looked this good, I’d be a lot more likely to pay attention to them! It’s all cgi and some of it we’ve seen before, but damn, does it look good. I love the “Not every hero is pure” tag line, too, referring to the taint that every Gray Warden takes inside his or herself in order to fight the Darkspawn. All of our heroes will be tragic figures, fated to die in battle or become that which we fight.

Torchlight is the love child of Diablo & Mythos

Posted on by Nimgimli

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. If you didn’t like Diablo, or in general don’t like the “click on a baddie until it dies” style of action RPG (if you didn’t play Diablo, maybe you played Titan Quest or even Fate?) then you won’t like Torchlight.

If you *did* like Diablo, or had a chance to play in the beta of Mythos and enjoyed soloing in it, then you MUST get Torchlight. It is very, very evocative of those earlier games. Even the controls are basically the same. Click to move, click on a baddie to attack, Shift-Click on a baddie to attack without moving, run over loot to pick it up, hold down Alt to ‘light up’ loot you might have missed, and so on.

New to Torchlight is your pet (you can have a dog or a cat) who’ll fight for you. You can teach the pet spells, give it certain items to use (haven’t discovered any yet) and it has its own inventory. You can send it to fetch dropped loot, or even send it back to town to sell off the stuff it’s carrying…such a handy companion!

Borrowed from Mythos is a shared stash (to transfer items between characters) and “Treasure Maps” purchased from vendors that’ll take you to new levels.

Looting and leveling; that’s what Torchlight is all about. Plus its cheap, runs like a dream on a modern gaming rig, and has great music.

Yes, this is breathless enthusiasm; heck I only played for a few hours and maybe by the weekend I’ll be bored. But at $20 it doesn’t have to last me months (actually I think I paid $17 thanks to a pre-order discount).

Anyway, how about some random screenshots and then I’ll call it a night.