Gaming The Inquisition's Here and It's Here To Stay: The Dragon Age Series

The world map remains open after the landsmeet, but there's a point during the final onslaught quest where all your open sidequests will disappear and you're locked into the end. Of course, if you survive the ending you can resume the game (once the epilogue is done) and you can do whatever you want with all your party. They explain this by setting it just before the landsmeet.

 

That's strange, because I beat the game and now every location on my world map is locked.

 

So you couldn't travel outside your party camp at all?

 

Oh really! I didn't even try - I haven't tried to load my old character since winning.

 

Just select "Resume" and it should let you continue. I know it works cause I'm starting to go through the DLC with my first character who I've completed the main campaign with.

 

I named my dog Rex and I love having him fetch things for me. You find some pretty good stuff that way. I also liked the conversations between him and Morrigan when they were both in my party

So... Does anyone have a good strategy for defeating Flemish? I keep getting curb stomped

 

I brought Wynne for healing, myself (warrior), Alastair and... Sten or dog. Kept everyone just rushing at her, 'cept Wynne who stayed back. As long as you have a lot of mana potions, she can keep most of them up, and get one or two rezzed. Just make sure she stays far enough away from the knockback effects.

 

You can continue playing after you beat the game but it's only the areas of the DLC that you can go to. Every other location will be locked.

Level up more and come back to Flemeth later Same exact thing happened with me. She picking up people in her jaws and straight up killing them? Yeah...you're just too low. The reason you're getting stomped so easily is that you're too low to face her. I think at like level...13-15 you can defeat her but I can't remember exactly. The general strategy to fighting any dragon though is to keep everyone back, give your tank a few seconds to get aggro and point the dragon away from everyone so they won't get hit by the fire breath and the like and then let everyone attack.

 

Yup.

After you complete the Landsmeet missions in Denerim, I've read that you're told to meet your army at Redcliffe. They don't bother telling you that this is the point of no return, so you might want to create an extra save-slot before hitting the road. If you choose to resume after beating the game, you're returned to your camp, but all the other locations in the world are blocked off (except for any current and future DLC missions).

This game has the best party-banter I've ever seen -- Morrigan and Alistair are hysterical in their near-hatred of each other, though you sometimes wish they'd just get a room and get it over with. And the **** that goes on between her and my dog...you gotta love the "rabbit" moment back at camp. But what the hell's with the limited number of inventory-slots? Can you buy item bags/sacks in this game? My only real complaint about this game is that I keep having to destroy valuable loot, and leave behind tasty stuff I can use later (when I don't meet the stat pre-reqs). I have to leave and come back and leave and come back.

Haven't done "The Warden's Keep" yet, but I hear you can stash even more stuff there.

I wish the armor would scale/change based on the class you pick. Getting a Rogue character in my party and seeing the badass Blood Dragon chest piece still requiring +38 Strength to wear kinda sucked. You know, the specializations just give you some more talents to choose from if you want -- you still get tons of other abilities in the regular Mage-trees in addition to those. The specializations are just some icing on an already-dense cake, as far as the character trees are concerned.

Also, I got my first decapitation last night -- awesome, and the over-the-top violence during combat is growing on me, insane blood splatters and all. I also had a surprise waiting for me outside that first town, thanks to my big Grey Warden mouth. I can't remember the last time I played a game where I stopped to think, "How much should I reveal to this guy?" whenever I'm talking to an NPC.

I see a Templar, and I think: is this guy cool? Can I mention being a Warden, or is he going to arrest/attack me? I take back some of what I said about the Xbox difficulty -- once you're loose in the wide world, **** gets real quick.

And ***damn, that dog is one tough mother****ing tank -- that tower Ogre at Ostagar, like, completely owned my entire party except for my dog, and I activated his "Overwhelm"-type skill. Bastard went down inside of 15 seconds. Dog is freaking amazing. I've used him in my party during the entire game so far. The little guy is a ravenous beast. The AoE-stun, along with two single-target stuns/knockdowns, make him my current MVP. He's an awesome roving mage-killer.

I'm actually considering buying the strategy guide for this one -- just like Planescape: Torment, it's too vast, and there's too much crap to do that I don't want to miss out on, on the first tour. Again, damn you to hell, BioWare...and in two months, it's going to be the same all over again with Mass Effect 2.

Named mine "Jake," in honor of our currently-18-year-old Beagle. Both can still rip your throat out.

 

Yes- look out for 'Backpack' under the Other category (I think). Adds 10 inventory slots. Some merchants will carry one (only one each, as far as I saw), and the price varies - the first one I found was sold by the Grey Warden Quartermaster for 50ish silver bits, but towards the end one cost upwards of 10g. I bought every one I could get my hands on, and I still had inventory problems by the end of the game; go figure.

And I really hear ya on the Blood Dragon Armor thing.

 

So who else did the side quest with the blind Templar in the Alienage? The trip into the haunted orphanage was awesome and I was legitimately shocked when the demon killed the templar with a pitchfork. Tons of atmosphere in there with ghosts running around and eerie noises. It was all very cool, and possibly my favorite side quest in the game.

 

It was pretty sweet ya

 

Darth-Lando: It bugged for me. I got to the point where the demon dies, and then ... nothing. Doors stay locked, demon stays dead, talking to the Templar only relives the sequence where we walk into the room. I had to reload an old save to get out of there, and just not do the quest at all.

 

Ouch that sucks. I haven't noticed too many bugs in this game. A few times the game seemed to wait for someone to say something but they never did. But a quick press of the skip button kept the dialogue flowing for me again. The Dwarf who wants to live with the mages bugged for me though. She showed up at the tower before I ever told her it was OK.

 

Not sure if I would call it a bug but...After I would escape from Fort Drakon (by myself, I didn't have my party members rescue me), I would try to head back to the estate but then I would have a random encounter involving like two dozen soldiers. And I didn't have a chance to add people to my party or anything so it was just my character against all of them.

Loaded, tried to go to the marketplace or something, still got the encounter no matter what. So I had to take the autosave back to the beginning of Fort Drakon and have my party rescue me. It was still fun to see what would happen if my party came to rescue me. And after I got out of the Fort and went back to the estate....the random encounter didn't happen. So...

 

That part was weird! I had a different bug - on Easy difficulty apparently things die too fast for the game to keep up, so I was slaughtering my way through Fort Drakon when suddenly Leliana and Morrigan materialized out of nowhere to rescue me. No dialogue cutscene, nothing. But hey, more people is more people, so I shrugged and kept playing ... and then ten minutes later, the cutscene happened.

It felt like the farther I got into the game, the more bizarre bugs I encountered. But with a game that size, I think some are inevitable.

 

I had a different issue in that area. I fought the fight where the Queen claims you kidnapped her 3 times because I kept reloading a save rather than wait for my whole party to die. I just assumed it was a tough battle. Not a scripted loss lol.

 

Eh, With scripted losses, there's gonna be cases where people don't know that it's scripted and thus keep reloading until they forget

 

Here's a trick: If you see a manual for sale (like, "The Templar Manual"), exit the store and quick-save. Buy the book, and the specialization is unlocked. Load your save. You'll have your money back, and the specialization remains unlocked. This on PC and Xbox, and it probably works on PS3, too.

My new favorite hobby? Making out with Morrigan while (1) dripping with gore from fallen enemies, and (2) the rest of my party mills around, feeling creeped out.

I really should have done those DLC quests first. I went straight to the Dalish forest and dealt with all that stuff, and then the thing that happens in the forest led me to another long quest, which ended up making me do another quest to help some people out before heading back, and in that I got thrust into yet another quest.

Now I'm honestly worried if I'm going to get back in time for the original quest, and I ****ing LOVE that the game's making me feel this way.

(And is it wrong that I can't stop laughing whenever I hear the word "ENCHANTMENT!!" now? I'm playing a good character, but this game is making me feel like a real bastard.)

Yeah, I finally hit some of those the other night...much better. Also, I plan on doing "The Warden's Keep" next; talked to that loser Levi in my camp about three days ago, but got caught up in the Great Werewolf War. It's so nice to listen to elf conversations that don't sound completely foofy (thanks, Oblivion!). I'll be swinging back northwards to tackle that one pretty soon.

This game is a feast of story, much more "George R.R. Martin" than "J.R.R. Tolkien." Very, very gritty and political, which is what I was craving. Though I haven't really used Sten at all, and I doubt I will, too much. Since my main character is a warrior focusing on massive two-hander damage, he seems a little redundant, where someone like Alistair fills the tank-role much better. Also, he's kinda boring. I guess he's the stoic, Conan-like barbarian. He's Sten -- 100% Qunari. He won't cry, so I cry for him.

The more I play this game, the more my intent to play the game as a "good" guy seems to be slipping. While I'm not taking outright "evil" actions, I am making some pretty morally-suspect decisions at times, and angling for better rewards. I don't know why, but the game seems to have instilled in me a deep sense of pragmatism. But that might be because playing as a strict good guy seems to get you thrown into combat far more often, whereas being crafty and morally-malleable seems to let you think your way around a lot more.

I've resorted to MMO tactics -- having three of my party stay put, while I use one member to pull one baddie with an arrow, and run. Doesn't work on those ambushes where you just get swarmed, though.

Also, this one Blood Mage leader was severely challenging my "TEMPLARS = BAD, MAGES = POOR DOWNTRODDEN SOULS OF THE WORLD" ethos. I'm tempted to never help another mage ever again, especially ones who can set, like, half a room on fire with one spell. One of the things I do appreciate about the difficulty is that it actually makes you want to try diplomatic means, rather than using them for bonus XP, or whatever (like in Mass Effect). When you're confronted by twelve heavily-armored mercenaries, Persuasion is like your best friend.

It's great, how much using good tactics actually means in this game. Even in pretty minor battles, you can go from getting destroyed in seconds to coming out of it relatively unscathed, with a little fine-tuning.

 

sooo... just bought it. turns out i am getting an XML issue with pretty much everything to do with the installer and i don't know what to do about it. this really blows. gonna have to talk to EA when i get back i guess. -_-

 

If you play things right, they will! The dialog leading up to me almost caused my laptop to fall off my lap and hit the floor, I was laughing so hard.




I finally cleared the game for the first time with a Mage; I have a save with a Warrior that I'm not really happy with - I really don't like the skill choices I made when I didn't really know what I was doing - and I'll probably not finish the game with that one. Which is something of a shame, considering I have three of the four alliances finished and I'm about 90% of the way through the Dwarf areas. But that character's skills, and the spell selections I made on the Mages, really annoys me.

With my Mage, I basically took a Neutral Good path, skirting the edge of the law when the law was against me and breaking it at need, but never breaking it without very good cause and always trying to do what's right. Alistair, Wynne and Leliana all were quite happy for the most part - too happy in some cases, as I got Leliana's reputation too high and had to break up with her in order for the romance to continue.

I'm currently torn between going back and doing the Human Noble Warrior right (i.e. not wasting skills where I don't need them) or a Dalish Elf Rogue. If I take the human route again, then he'll be fairly ruthless. To put him into D&D terms, he's going to be True Neutral. He won't screw with people for the sake of screwing with them, but neither will he ever do the right thing simply because it's the right thing. Pragmatic, that's his watch-word. My Dalish Elf is xenophobic, racist, hateful, opportunistic, and downright spiteful most of the time. I expect she'll warm to Leliana, but I also expect she's going to convince Leliana to go back to being an assassin. Again, to put her into D&D terms, she'll be Neutral Evil.

 

That was my rogue's main tactic. I'd hold everyone in place then run forward and start a bow attack. Once the enemies got close, I'd run behind my two tanks while Wynne and I spammed range attacks. It saved a lot of health/mana potions.

 

Oh my God, that is awesome. The bickering between party members when you're traipsing around is probably better-written than just about any other game out there (I love how Alistair can seemingly pick a fight with anyone, even the dog, and how Leliana is kind of psychotically-interested in Morrigan). In fact, I'm going to be kinda sad when I have to remove Alistair from the party, because he's one of my favorite group-members at the moment.

I love how the game is as much like Mass Effect as it is different, and there's just as much non-combat questing and deep, Elder Scrolls-level gameplay-mechanics as there is fighting. Even reading the manual a few times, I only figured out how to make traps and poisons just the other day.