So after promoting Dragon Age heavily for the weeks leading up to the game, I’m happy to say that it is everything I hoped it would be, and I’m very much enjoying my time in the game. I spend much too much time reading and re-reading the codex and chatting up every NPC I can find who has a conversation tree (including my own party members).

Because of this, and a slow start, I assume I’m far behind other folks who are just jamming through this like they would any other game while I savor each moment. According to Raptr I have 15 hours into it, and probably another 5 when I wasn’t running the Raptr client. And yet I feel like my journey is just beginning.

The downside is, I don’t have anything to post about the game. I hate spoilers and I don’t want to spoil anything for others. I’m burning to talk about the choices I made but can’t really do that without spoiling things for myself and other people. Heck I’ve started unfollowing (temporarily) people on Twitter who’re talking specifics about the game.

I’m finding I’ve really missed this sense of “What happens next?” in my gaming. I’m usually playing MMOs months after thousands of people have hit cap and are talking nonchalantly about so-and-so actually being a dragon and the instance that exposes her and so on… you can’t really prevent spoilers in an MMO unless you’re one of the obsessed individuals who stays up for 72 hours straight to be the first to hit cap. The first time you do a group-based quest someone (who has done the quest 4 times on different alts) explains exactly what is going to happen when. Just the nature of that kind of game when you’re a slow leveler like me.

I had no idea how much I’d missed rich western-style single player RPG gaming until I started playing Dragon Age: Origins. I’m already thinking of the different choices I’ll make the next time I play. And I’m wondering what sorts of side stories we’ll see both from Bioware and from talented amateur game designers.

I see this one having a pretty long reign on my hard drive, even if it may mean some quiet days here at Dragonchasers.

Well after a lot of consideration I decided to restart Dragon Age, replacing my Human/Noble/Warrior with a Human/Noble/Rogue. “Gillain” is a character I created over 20 years ago. He’s a fairly typical charming rogue. Not an outright thief but not above conning a rich man out of his coin. A bit Robin Hoodish, I guess. And he fights with dual weapons. Long ago it was dual axes but these days it’s dual anything. So I created him in Dragon Age tonight.

My first character was a Dual-Wielding Warrior, and I dunno… it just seemed silly to not go sword and board with a warrior, but I love the idea of a whirling dervish of twin bladed death /hyperbole.

I did learn the bonus/dlc rings and things appear for every character, so that was good news.

I thought I’d just whip through the opening moments of the game and catch up, but once again I got engrossed with talking to people and (re)reading the codex. The conversations were different enough to be interesting a second time through.

If you play a Noble, at least the Warrior or Rogue, your first quest is to go talk to your brother, who is saying goodbye to his wife and son (he’s headed out on campaign). Once you find him and do the ‘forced’ conversation, be sure to talk to his son before you leave the room. The kid is a hoot!

And here was a surprise. I was messing with Tactics and just seeing how my party would fight based on my limited understanding of the Tactics system and… my party wiped! Mind you I had a ton of poultices, I just wasn’t paying attention. But the Warrior waltzed through those early encounters on auto-pilot. So either the Rogue is a lot squishier, or my tactics were horribly broken. 🙂

I continue to be amused (and at times slightly disappointed) by the amount of gore in the game. Here is me and my trusty hound Milo after we killed a few rats. Lots of blood in rats, apparently!

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!

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!

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.