Dragon Age: Origins is going to own me

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Damn you, BioWare.

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Some articles, in no particular order:

E3 2009: Dragon Age: Origins - Sex and the Single Gray Warden

BioWare shows off the consequences of sleeping around.
by Jason Ocampo


June 3, 2009 - Dragon Age: Origins remains a game that we really want to play, though the current marketing of the game strikes us as a bit weird, if not awkward. The E3 trailer goes for a rock cinematic feel, blending Nine Inch Nails with cuts of giant battles and a little sexy fun time going on between two of the characters. BioWare really wants people to know that Dragon Age is a very mature and morally complex dark fantasy game, but the trailer makes it come off like a teenager's idea of fantasy.

With that said, we got an updated demo that highlights what BioWare is striving for with Dragon Age. The goal is to create the most morally complex RPG in recent memory, where every decision you make can result in significant repercussions, affecting everything from how a character views (to the point where you may have a teammate try to kill you) to the outcome of the game itself.

The gist of the demo is that you can play with romantic fire. At the player's camp in the game you can have two female romantic interests. There's Leliana, a nice and wholesome redhead of a character with a sultry French accent. And on the outskirts of the camp there's Morrigan, the hot sorceress bad girl. It was explained that in this game, the player had pursued the romance with Leliana, but had experienced some flirting with Morrigan. However, pursuing a romance with the latter was impossible because the individual relationship with that character wasn't strong enough. Each character weighs pretty much everything you do, and you earn positive or negative marks for your actions.

That changes when you finally give Morrigan a book that belonged to her mother; suddenly, she's open to a little hanky panky. Pursuing Morrigan results in a racy cutscene showing the characters getting it on, and then you're kicked back to camp to faith the jealous wrath of Leliana. That creates a decisive moment in the game where you'll basically have to choose which girl you want to stay with. Keep in mind, we were told that getting Morrigan to a point to even consider hanky panky took about 30 hours of investment, so you might want to take some time on this decision.

Then the demo switched to how you retrieved that magic book that belonged to her mother. That's because you took it from her. Morrigan's mother is Flemeth the Witch of the Wild, and apparently mother and daughter don't like each other too much. In fact, Morrigan sends you to kill her. This creates another decision moment, as you can side with Flemeth, Morrigan, or elect to just stay out of this feud altogether.

If you battle Flemeth, she turns into an enormous, fire-breathing dragon. Yeah, good luck with that. It does make for an amazing battle, though. The days of having characters just run up and swing abstractly at one another are over. There are moments when the dragon grabs a character in her jaws, shakes them, and tosses them to the ground. Killing her requires one of your characters to leap atop her head and ride her like a bucking bronco until you can plant your sword in her skull.

BioWare also showed off the Xbox 360 verison of the game for the first time (all the demos to this point have been running on the PC). Obviously, the interface has been tweaked to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but the big news here are the visuals. If you want the best looking version, stick with the PC, as the Xbox 360 version just lacked the razor crisp high-res textures and the sophisticated lighting of the PC game. We're not sure what the PS3 version looks like, as it's still unseen at this point.

Dragon Age ships for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on October 20

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[url=http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6211024/dragon-age-origins-e3-updated-hands-on]Dragon Age: Origins E3 Updated Hands-On

* News by Laura Parker, GameSpot
* Jun 2, 2009 6:33 pm PT

In this special E3 demo, we get some hands-on time with the console version of Dragon Age: Origins, and we check out its sexier side.

EA has been more than generous with the upcoming BioWare role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins. Since the game was announced late last year, we've been privy to numerous hands-on sessions, covering the game's combat, character development, adventure parties, and even a siege. So it was no surprise that EA has managed to pull a new rabbit out of the hat at this year's E3. In a behind-closed-doors session at EA's booth, Dragon Age: Origins lead designer Mike Laidlaw demoed previously unseen gameplay footage and a short hands-on session on the Xbox 360 that, far from the blood and gore that we've seen before, showed off the game's more romantic side and gave us a chance to test the game's console control scheme for the first time.

As we've learned before, Dragon Age: Origins is a fantasy-themed RPG that sees you take on the role of a Grey Warden to lead the fight on the humans' side against an invading horde of creatures called the Blight. The demo that we were shown was designed to let us in on a couple of secrets: firstly, it's not all about bloodshed; secondly, there are dragons in the game, and you do get to fight them (and ride them for a little bit). We started out at our Grey Warden's party camp, where we were introduced to Leliana, a red-haired, soft-hearted citizen of a lower class who is madly in love with us. It seems that each character that you are allowed to interact with has his or her own personality, which you must work with to build a particular kind of relationship. To tease her, we go over to Morrigan's tent, a young sorceress who likes to flirt. After giving her a gift and acquiring points for your leadership and magic skills, she invites you into her tent. Here you have the option to go in or return to Leliana, who is no doubt watching you with bated breath. This is just one of the many moral decisions that you'll have to make along the way; although these moral decisions are not marked in any way, they become obvious in the dialogue that you have with different characters in the game. If you happen upon a group of thieves, your party will leave the decision of their fate in your hands.

In this case, our Grey Warden decided that he wanted to see what's inside Morrigan's tent. Inside, a cutscene reveals us embracing a near-naked Morrigan, who is moaning and panting. As the two kissed, the game demo cut off, and we were told that we'd have to wait to see the full build to know what happens next (but we can guess). We're told that this scene occurs hours into the game, at a point in which our Grey Warden has put a lot of time and effort into building these relationships with those around him. No doubt it's harder than it looks, but we couldn't help but notice how easy it was to convince Morrigan to sleep with us. After this scene, our Grey Warden heads back out to the campsite, where Leliana has seen everything and demands an explanation. Again, you must make a moral choice: soothe Leliana and agree to be her man, or ditch her and go back to the fiery Morrigan. We chose Leliana, and score game points for relationships and love.

We were then shown a part of the game earlier in time than the first sequence, in which our Grey Warden encountered and fought a dragon. The battle took place in a field of grass where members of our traveling party joined us against the dragon. The dragon, as can be expected, breathed fire and was hard to take down, even with five people using swords, arrows, and magic against it. Given that you can switch to and between up to four members of your party at any one time, our Grey Warden used this opportunity to switch to a sorceress, who is able to shape-shift. Once playing as the sorceress, we turned into a giant spider that was small enough to get beneath the dragon and bite its legs. As this was happening, we switched to our Grey Warden again, who was able to use the sorceress's distraction to jump on the dragon's back and drive a sword through its eye, finally killing it.

After the demo, we had some hands-on time with an early stage of the game on the Xbox 360. This was the first time we've seen this game on a console, so we paid close attention to the control scheme. Our objective in this short session was to find a particular item with another member of our party. We walked through a forest, encountering and collecting items, before coming across a wolf and a cave containing giant spiders in a fight. You can assign six different weapons to your control scheme, pressing the X, Y and B buttons to access them, and A to use them. But the combat here proved very slow. Pressing A near an enemy seemed to do nothing. It was only when we were under heavy attack and standing almost under an enemy that our weapons finally worked. Holding down the left trigger let us switch between weapons, whereas the right trigger brought up the weapons menu, which shows you what weapons you have at your disposal. There is also a stealth mode that you can access if your skill set allows for it by pressing the X button. A is also for using items, and collecting and storing them in your inventory.

Dragon Age: Origins is shaping up to be an impressive and dynamic RPG with loads of combat and character development. We also received confirmation of its release date. It will be out October 20 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC simultaneously.

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Hands-on: Dragon Age: Origins

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Jun 4th 2009 at 3:30AM } Featured Story Xbox PlayStation

Despite being set in ye olde fantasy lands of impossibly large swords and questionable female attire, there's something anachronistic about Dragon Age: Origins. An uncomfortable, zealously juvenile spirit seems to permeate the dragon-slaying proceedings, a feeling that seems to linger even after the game's obnoxious marketing has left the room. Paring BioWare's scenes of war and blood and guts with a Marilyn Manson tune is such a strained ploy, it's almost embarrassing.

The thing is, not all of Dragon Age's awkwardness comes from the suits on the upper floor -- sometimes they come from the clothes discarded in front of a romantic campfire. BioWare is really playing up your character's playboy tendencies, chatting up members of his party, plying them with gifts (that have immediate stats and ability benefits) and weighing up his futures with the adorable redhead or the hard-edged sorceress. It's wrapped up in BioWare's traditional dialogue menus (a strange regression from Mass Effect), but approached -- at least in EA's E3 walkthrough -- with the verve of Grey's Anatomy. And you thought leathery-skinned fire breathers were the only things those two had in common.

It all feels a bit crass, as does the game's Conan-ical depiction of combat (see: giant swords swung by even bigger biceps). The forceful, blood-splattered fights are cool, sure, but seem indicative of the game's overall lack of elegance and subtlety -- you know, stuff that you'd expect to see in a BioWare game. And as exciting as the visuals are, they fail to recreate any intensity in the actual battle system, which is a relatively traditional and unremarkable affair if you've played the likes of KOTOR and Baldur's Gate before.

But ... that's okay. It's functional for an RPG, and opens up several interesting tactics to you and your party members (who can be controlled at any point if you think the AI is letting you down). Controlling a shapeshifter seems particularly fun, allowing you to ditch the swords and sorcery for a moment and transform into, oh, a giant spider. Special attacks are easily accessible and switching between weapon and equipment sets is a snap. The controls seem to translate quite well to the console platforms too (we played the Xbox 360 version), with the constant clicking giving way to constant pushing of the A button and, in our case, the right bumper. Healing potions, you see.

Visually, the Xbox 360 version looks rougher around the edges, but manages to preserve the game's moody, age-battered dungeons and energetic battle animations. The facial movements seem to be on par with those found in Mass Effect, even if the voice acting heard during the demo seemed a little uneven.

Uneven seems like the right way to describe Dragon Age: Origins at this stage. There are no major stumbling blocks and there's no reason to think that BioWare won't deliver an intriguing plot to make it all worth it, but it feels bizarre to have such a lukewarm response to one of the studio's games. It seems like a solid, if somewhat adolescent, fantasy RPG, but it feels insufficient in the face of BioWare's previous accomplishments.

Didn't seem to work for ludwig.

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E3 2009: Dragon Age: Origins
June 3, 2009 | 6:12 PM PST

by: Kyle Wattenmaker

Outside the door to EA's backroom booth for Dragon Age: Origins sits a resin statue of the arch villain of the game. The dragon is massive, easily dwarfing mere men. Inside the private booth, EA and Bioware presented a game that was even more impressive.

They immediately showed the trailer from the EA press conference the night before; if you haven't seen it, check it out. The blood soaked and Marilyn Manson scored video is one of the best from the whole show.

Afterward, the presenter talked a bit about the criticism that has been laid on Dragon Age thus far. He discussed that it was a fair assumption that the game was all combat and gory ultra-violence. He said that we were about to see a live demo that showed off the potential of the character interactions within the game.

The demo started in an encampment where the party was resting. Our presenter said that this was deep within the game and the characters already had deep and meaningful relationships. One lady has even already fallen in love with the main character. Playing off of this relationship, the player gave a gift to another woman in the party and had sex with her. Post coitus the player returned to the other woman and she presented him with the ultimatum of choosing between the two women.

The presenter told us that relationships between characters have a profound impact on gameplay, which is rather impressive. It can lead to a more or less effective party member in combat, and if a character is dissatisfied enough with your leadership they will leave the party entirely. In extreme cases, disgruntled party members will make an attempt on your life.

We skipped to a combat scene and witnessed a boss fight with a shape-shifting woman who morphs into an imposingly large red dragon. Combat looked extremely similar to other Bioware games with the exception of two things. Your spell casters also have the ability to shape shift, and one morphed into a giant spider and used poison-based abilities to help bring down the dragon. The battle concluded with the main character leaping onto the dragon's neck and finishing the fight by carving a swath of blood from the dragon's head and down its neck.

Our presenter concluded the eye-on demo by saying he had illustrated the game's three core themes of lust, violence, and betrayal. You can get your hands on Bioware's next epic October 20th on 360, PS3 and PC. I also went hands-on with Dragon Age, and you can look for that article later today.

Why couldn't I have a last name like Wattenmaker

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E3 Hands-On: There Will Be Dragons In Dragon Age: Origins

Article by: Christopher Matulich
June 3rd, 2009

Day two here at E3 has revealed some further information on the most anticipated games of 2009, as Valve opened up the day with a “behind closed doors” playable demo of Left 4 Dead 2. Not to be outdone, EA and Bioware continued to show off their new IP and latest venture into the fantasy realm, Dragon Age: Origins. Oh, and there will be dragons in the game, in case you weren’t aware. Hit the jump for outstanding gameplay footage.

As lead designer Mike Laidlaw ushered Gamer Limit into a dark and scary hole in a far off corner of the show floor, we were greeted by a very impressive trailer that showcased the sheer gruesomeness and violence that DA:O will offer. Massive armies preparing for full-scale war stretched across vast landscapes and as they converged, blood began splattering combatants in a way that can simply be described as realistic. This blood did not just disappear after the fighting ended; the character sported blood from his enemies across his face and body, keeping true to the mature themes of the game that Bioware has advertised from the its announcement back in 2004.

As the video played, Blaylock relayed some fresh details about the game, specifically pertaining more to how the plot will unfold. The overall arching story revolves around ancient defenders of the known world, the Grey Wardens, and their struggle to control the inevitable and impending return of The Blight, an event that corrupts one of the Old Gods (dragons) into an Archdemon and brings ruin to the world above. The blight, not to be confused with “The Blight,” is the disease spread by the darkspawn that corrupts all living organisms and changes them into deformed versions of the original selves. The Grey Wardens take it upon themselves to prevent the The Blight from occurring, and have prote

When the trailer ended, Blaylock began a demo of a playable build from the PC that instantly impressed the room. A familiar MMO HUD graced the screen, complete with minimap in the top right corner, hotkeys stretched across the bottom, and menu options centered at the top of the screen. Blaylock dove right into some character development among party members the player will meet across his or her adventure, specifically the romance options a male character will encounter.

By conversing with party members, the characters will build a certain level of trust with the player and can become inspired by him or her, increasing the combat values of said character as player inspiration reaches new heights. The PC demo displayed a romance with the shapeshifting sorceress Morrigan (after numerous flirtation attempts) after appealing to her magical side and giving her a magical artifact as a gift. After finding out that Morrigan’s tent is just a wee bit on the cold side and she could use some company to “keep her warm,” a Mass Effect style sex scene began, accompanied by some classy piano music, which was abruptly ended by Blaylock, stating that some things are “best left as a teaser.”

What I found most interesting, though, was how certain characters acted after your horizontal shuffle with Morrigan. One of the other love interests, Leliana, was found to be completely crushed by your sexcapades down in the cold tent, presumably because Blaylock had fleshed out a romance with both female characters. She gives the player an ultimatum: her or me, in which Blaylock left up to his audience. Realizing that a shapeshifting sorceress held infinite possibilities in the sack, I was first to blurt out to stay with Morrigan. However, in choosing Morrigan, Leliana will lose trust in the player, and if her or any characters disapproval level drops to a certain level, they may leave the player’s party or to the most extreme level, attempt to stop your path by taking up arms against you.

Blaylock continued the demo and showed some plot points that revolve around Morrigan and her mother, Flemeth, the ancient witch of the woods. She has artificially lengthened her life and has been living for centuries. Morrigan has asked the player to confront her mother and finally put an end to her long, drawn out life. Yet, Flemeth has a trick or two up her sleeve, as she turns into one of the most impressive looking dragons I’ve ever seen in a video game. Word do no justice to this battle, take a look at the video from the E3 show floor.

After Blaylock finished showcasing the PC demo, I had a chance to get my hands on a playable demo for the Xbox 360. If you’re familiar with the Diablo clone Sacred II: Fallen Angel, you’ll find a very familiar interface. Abilities are set to the X, Y, and B buttons, while the general action button is mapped to A. You can have up to six abilities mapped, changing sets on the fly with the use of the right trigger.

As I progressed through the dungeon that the demo showcased, I found that combat isn’t exactly as smooth as it seems on the PC version. As you close in on the enemy, you’ll find yourself repeatedly tapping the A button to continue your attack, which didn’t seem very efficient and wasn’t exactly the funnest part of the demo. Yet, I did find myself satisfied enough with the combat, as blood splattered across my face and chest, and appeared “as is” throughout the ensuing cutscene. My demo experience quickly came to an end, but I left the corner room thoroughly impressed.

Look for a simultaneous release of Dragon Age: Origins this October 20th

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E3 2009: Dragon Age: Origins impressions

Posted by: John at 6/4/2009

BioWare doesn’t disappoint when it comes to RPG and Dragon Age: Origins looks to be like another big hit for the RPG studio. EA was showing the game behind closed doors and I got to see how it’s coming along.

You play a member of the Grey Wardens, a group of guardians. The main antagonist is the Arch Demon Dragon and it’s your job to take out the evil forces. The game features a pretty free floating camera with the demo being mostly done over the character’s shoulder.

The demo’s first part showed how choices can affect the game. The main character had two love interests at this point of the game. The sequence showed the main character sleeping with one of the women and then showed how that action caused the other woman to confront you. You can then make a choice on how you want to proceed in dealing with your love triangle. The choices you make will affect more than a small part of the game and this should give you more replayability for the game to try different actions.

It was pretty cool to watch the group battle a dragon though in the demo. One of the attacks the dragon does is snatch a party member in her jaws and shake the warrior around before eventually throwing him down. The action was fast and violent as it seemed the player switch between the characters in the party to take down the dragon. Yes, there’s plenty of blood during battles just like in the trailer.

The demo was brief but showed off how the dialogue worked, which let you make choices at the bottom of the screen. It also showed the ripple effect your actions can have on the game. Finally, the battle was fast with many effects from both the dragon breathing fire and the spells being cast by the party members.

While the demo didn’t go into the features of the game that deeply, I’m still excited by what I saw partly because I’m a fan of BioWare’s RPGs and partly because it feels like Neverwinter Nights which I love. I’m looking forward to get up and close with the game to see how well it plays as it’s being released on October 20th of this year.

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I NEED this game. Already got it pre-ordered.

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November can't come soon enough.


Dragon Age: Origins Updated Hands-On - The Dwarf Commoner's Humble Beginnings

By Andrew Park, GameSpot
Posted Aug 21, 2009 7:07 pm PT

We start a new story with the commoner background for dwarf characters in this upcoming role-playing epic from BioWare.

We've already covered much of the basics of starting a new game in BioWare's upcoming role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins...because we've played through them. If you haven't already, take a look at our previous story covering the origins of the human mage, which also covers the basics of character creation and interface elements--we won't be repeating those here. Instead, we'll jump into the origin story for dwarves who begin their careers as lowly commoners in the streets of Orzammar, the subterranean metropolis. As a dwarf commoner, you can choose to play either as a rogue or as a warrior--there's virtually no difference whatsoever in the experience or gameplay, except that each class has its own skills, and that certain fights seem tougher if you play a rogue who didn't specialize in combat skills. On that note, please be advised that this story contains minor spoilers.

Even though the tall, stony architecture of Orzammar looks impressive in some places, the life of a dwarf commoner isn't pretty. According to the introductory cinematic sequence for this origin, the dwarves have a rigid caste system that forbids dwarves of lower classes to mingle with highfalutin nobles--and your character is at the very bottom of the barrel, a "casteless" character marked with a brand on his or her face that tells the world that you're the most common of commoners.

You begin your adventure being harangued by the local dwarf slumlord Beraht, who has recruited you to do his dirty work while he "encourages" your kindhearted sister Rica to catch the eye of a dwarf noble. Beraht's potentially not-family-friendly scheme is to marry her off into a noble family to give birth to an heir, elevating her, you, and "Uncle" Beraht to noble status. (Interestingly, while mages speak with the prim and proper BioWare British Accent made famous in Knights of the Old Republic, dwarves all speak American/Canadian English--no evidence of a British accent or Scottish brogue in sight.)

Beraht then storms off, reminding you that you have more dirty work to do before the day is done. Before you go, you can chat with your sister to get more insight about your situation and the world of the dwarves--how most of your people remain below ground rather than deal with repugnant, smelly surface dwellers like humans and elves, and how the darkspawn, the game's villainous monsters, have risen from the depths of the earth to claim the lives of most members of the noble and warrior castes, which leaves the nobles desperate for heirs. It also seems that Rica has caught the eye of a potential suitor, but with no promises made on either side, you're better off heading out to Orzammar for some more shady dealings, at least for the time being.

You leave your sister, and immediately meet Leske, a dwarf thief and cohort who also works for Beraht, and who also has the hots for your sister. (In fact, if you create a female dwarf character, he'll actually make a pass at you as well.) After reminding him that his attentions are unwanted, you get the details of your next mission--locating, shaking down, and ultimately killing a smuggler who works for Beraht, but has been skimming lyrium ore (the enchanted metal used to power magic spells and forge enchanted weapons) to sell to illicit parties on the surface.

The common areas in the dwarf city, much like the halls of the mage tower, are full of ambient characters that go on about their business and occasionally have independent conversations that touch on bits of the world's lore, such as the political tension between the current dwarven king and an ambitious dwarven prince. And if you happen to be a rogue, you can also use the profession's free skill point in the stealing skill to relieve some commoners and guards of their coins and healing poultices--the latter of which will prove to be a godsend later on.

When you find the smuggler at the local tavern, you and Leske seat yourself at his table, and can re-enact a classic BioWare conversation quest path of either killing the marked man outright, or letting him go and lying to your boss about doing the job anyway--a quest we've seen in some form in both Baldur's Gate II and also Knights of the Old Republic. We decided to keep things civilized and instead blackmail the smuggler for all the ore he was carrying before cutting him loose, figuring that we'd pocket the proceeds without any questions asked, just as we had in previous BioWare games (and we were wrong, as we'd find out soon enough).

By using "intimidate"-based conversation skills (bolstered by our character's "cunning" statistic, which we boosted when creating our character), we were able to convince the poor sap to part with his ore and skedaddle, and we also convinced a terrified Leske to go along for the ride with a generous 50-50 arrangement. Leske came around and pointed us to a nearby merchant who took the ore off our hands at a reduced price, pointing out that demand for it is poor below ground (dwarves are inherently resistant to magic and cannot be mages, and so have little use for the stuff in its raw form), and moving it to the surface would be difficult. We pocketed the few coins we were able to get and reported in to our crime boss.

Said crime boss and his number one gal, Jarvia (an angry female dwarf who can't seem to say anything without phrasing it as a threat) were waiting at a nearby merchant shop. When we lied about killing off the escaped smuggler, the slumlord didn't exactly buy what we were selling--apparently, one of his cousins was also at the tavern at the time and watched the smuggler get up and walk away. Fortunately, Leske was quick-witted enough to come up with a lie of his own about how we later bumped off traitorous cheat in a back alley, preferring not to make a scene in the tavern.

And fortunately, Beraht actually took the bait, and dispatched us to our next task--rigging the "proving ground" arena battles being held for visiting grey warden Duncan, who was rumored to be in town in search of new recruits to battle the darkspawn (hint, hint). To rig the match, we were instructed to drug the water of one of the arena champions to ensure the victory of a different competitor offering longshot betting odds (on whom Beraht had a pile of coin), and were handed a phony pass to get into the arena area.

Upon entering arena hall, we encountered Duncan himself, whom we greeted on a dare from Leske, and exchanged pleasantries with before the grey warden took his leave. We then paid a visit to our longshot gladiator to check on him, only to find that the mighty warrior was dead drunk. After a brief, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" conversation with Leske, we decided to don the warrior's armor and his maces and swords (which fit just fine, even though we were playing a rogue) and masquerade as him, though we also made the decision to not drug the rival gladiator, instead entering the fight as a true test of skill. We pilfered the plastered pugilist's possessions, equipped them, and headed out to the face our first match in another familiar BioWare setup--an arena battle with consecutive one-on-one battles.

Unfortunately, since we were playing a sneaky thief who specialized in speed and trickery, we didn't have a character with a very high strength score, so we were unable to equip the drunken warrior's better weapons. So, we readied a light battle axe and shield for our battles, which began with a tougher-than-expected scrape that we survived only by using some of our purloined healing poultices. The same could be said for our second and third matches, both against determined dwarves looking to prove themselves. By the end of the third match, we were out of healing poultices and ready to beg for mercy, but that was cut short as the inebriated gladiator we were impersonating staggered into the arena, accusing us of being an impostor. Knowing we were caught dead to rights, we removed our helmet, revealing our character's branded face (the mark of a lowly casteless dwarf) to much consternation from the arena crowds and the dwarven arena master--though Duncan, the guest of honor at the proving match, seemed impressed by our performance.

One blackout later, we awoke in a strange cell--apparently, the match results had been renounced and we had been trounced, first by arena guards, and then, by Beraht's men, who had us taken back to the crime boss's lair. Jarvia returned one last time to taunt us before leaving us in the capable hands of a single guard. Fortunately, our rogue character gained an experience level here, which let us take a glimpse at the advanced character classes he'll one day be able to select (assassin, bard, ranger, or duelist). He also had a basic knowledge of the "deft hands" skill and was able to pick the lock on his cell and make a break for his confiscated belongings, equipping himself with his original leather armor and an axe, and making short work of the guard before freeing Leske and sallying forth. Luckily, since we were playing a rogue character, we were able to spot and disarm some of the hidden traps lining the floors.

So began the dungeon hacking portion of the dwarf commoner's origin story. Our party of two made their way through Beraht's cellars, looting any open chests and barrels for a handful of trinkets and fighting small contingents of guards. Rogues begin with a basic skill known as "dirty fighting," which deals no damage, but briefly stuns their target. They can also specialize in dual-weapon talents or archery talents, but must first learn the combat training skill. When creating our character, we preferred to make more of a stealthy burglar character, and weren't as prepared for head-on battles, but we did make liberal use of the rogue's backstab ability, which deals extra damage and is triggered automatically when you properly place a rogue character directly behind your target. By periodically using both our character's, and Leske's, dirty fighting skill to stun other targets, we were able to focus in on our enemies, one by one, keeping the thugs' focus on one party member while the other snuck in as many backstab attacks as possible. (As it happens, we later played through the dwarf commoner origin again as a fighter, and found the battles much easier, especially since we specialized in two-handed weapons, which have powerful and quick-to-recover attacks that can deal unusually large amounts of damage or just send your foes sprawling.)

Finally, we made our way to the boss, who was in the process of putting a price on our heads to two more of his greasy thugs, and saying some less-than-polite things about our sister. We went right into battle but had to retry this fight a few times, since Beraht himself was a tough fellow who seemed immune to being backstabbed, and since we had hardly any health poultices (and since again, we created a relatively wimpy rogue character). With determination and carefully timed applications of the dirty fighting skill to control the other thugs and focus on picking off our enemies one by one, we finally brought the brute down. And we emerged from his hideout victorious...to find the furious dwarf arena master waiting for us with a group of guards, and with Duncan, and with...our sister? Even more curiously, there was no sign of Beraht's second-in-command, the sharp-tongued Jarvia. Hmm.

It was at this point that Duncan made the offer to join him as a grey warden, saving us (just like with the mage origin) from capital punishment for a grave offense. We spoke with Leske (who insisted we take the opportunity) and Rica (who, as it turned out, had begun a storybook romance with her suitor), and received their blessings to join Duncan in his quest. We were on our way out of our origin story to see the rest of the realm of Ferelden. And you'll be able to hear more about origins, and Ferelden, by following GameSpot's ongoing coverage of Dragon Age: Origins. Come back next Friday when we explore more of the game.

[keg in kc]

[keg in kc]

I can't believe this thread is almost a year old. Where the **** has 2009 gone?!!?!

Anyway, some cool stuff I haven't previously posted:

Dragon Age: Origins Updated Hands-On - The Origins of the Human Mage

By Andrew Park, GameSpot
Posted Aug 14, 2009 6:16 pm PT

Developer BioWare suggests that Dragon Age: Origins will be a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and we just got our hands on the first few hours of the wizard's origin.

Dragon Age: Origins is an epic fantasy role-playing game that tells a tale of a swords-and-sorcery world at war to stave off an invasion of corrupted monsters. It's also sitting right here on the hard drive of our PC. We started a new game to watch an elaborate cinematic sequence that began with animated pictures on what looked like aged vellum paper--a throwback to the introductory cinematics of Baldur's Gate II. The paintings gave way to a vicious in-engine battle between Duncan--a swordsman who presumably acts as your advisor at least in the early going--and a pair of hideous darkspawn, the monstrous humanoids who are invading the land. By starting a new game, we went straight to the character generation screen to play through an "origin" story. This early-game content begins after you choose a combination of the game's races and classes, which include humans, dwarves, and elves, and basic classes of fighters, mages, and rogues--and from there, you can choose a specific background for that class. We chose the human mage, whose only background is as a student in the mage guild, and away we went. Please note that this article pertains to a hands-on play session with the PC version of the game, and be advised that this article may contain minor story spoilers about the early part of the game.

Starting a new character as a mage will take you through an elaborate creation process that lets you allot statistic points to your character's ability scores. These include strength (which affects your melee attack ability), dexterity (which affects your speed and defense), willpower (which affects your maximum magic pool), magic (which determines how effective your magic spells are), cunning (which affects your stealth abilities), and constitution (which affects your character's overall health). Dragon Age's human mage characters begin their lives with statistics in the 10- to 20-point range, with points primarily clustered in the willpower and magic stats. At the beginning, you can allot five additional points (and with each experience level, three more points). Increasing your attributes to certain levels will not only make your character more powerful, but will also let you access higher-level skills along the game's elaborate personal skill tree. Like the pen-and-paper role-playing systems you might have seen, Dragon Age has a list of miscellaneous personal skills to which you can allot points. These include coercion (which lets you flatter or threaten your way through a conversation), stealing (which lets you pick other characters' pockets), trap-making (which lets you create deadly traps), survival (which helps your character better deal with animals and survive harsher elements), herbalism (the game's version of herb-collecting alchemy), poison-making (which lets you create various types of venom), and combat tactics (which lets you set specific scripts for your party members who aren't in action).

Once you've chosen your skills, as a mage you can choose your character's spell specializations from five different options. These include arcane spells, which appear to be the most stock-standard of the mage's spells (including such selections as arcane bolts, with which you begin the game, and a continuous magical shield); the "primal" line, which includes elemental damaging spells of fire, ice, and lightning; creation, which includes various healing and defensive spells; spirit, which contains spells that pertain to manipulating your own or your enemies' spell power (or "mana"); and entropy, which contains various curses that "de-buff" your foes. We chose to start with the spirit line with the close-range "mind blast" spell that stuns nearby foes, but there are a great variety of different spells here that will let you create either a powerful specialist or a well-rounded generalist. And fans of the Baldur's Gate series will be happy to see analogs to classic tactical magic spells from Baldur's Gate II, such as fireball, grease, and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. We then moved on to the customization of our character's appearance, which lets you choose different voices, as well as different hair and facial features (or choose from a series of premade looks). After selecting our appearance, we were off and ready to start our adventure, which began with an argument between Irving, the senior wizard at our mage tower, and Gregoir, the angry sergeant who leads the templars that guard the tower. According to the setup, the mages study in seclusion to better learn to use their powers, but they are guarded closely, if not imprisoned, by the templars, who are authorized to cut down any wizards who are corrupted by the Fade--a magical netherworld that people visit when they dream, and from which mages gain their power, but which also houses demons with connections to the darkspawn. There's clearly a great deal of tension between the two parties that's conveyed well in the dialogue and that sets the stage for more political conflicts in the game--as you poke around the mage's tower, you'll even encounter characters engaged in political discussions, such as one group of senior mages who suggest that there are multiple factions of wizards with different ideas on how close mages should live to the world of non-mages.

Politics aside, we dived right into our first task as an apprentice--completing a rite of passage known as "the Harrowing," which requires all stripling mages to enter the Fade. So, in we went, to find a hazy dreamworld where a handful of hostile spectral monsters attacked us so that we could get the hang of the combat system. Like in previous BioWare games, there's an auto-attack feature that lets you attack the nearest targeted enemy, though your other abilities, such as spells, work off a cooldown timer and can be tied to a hotkey bank, similar to the standard abilities you'd expect from a massively multiplayer game. The first enemies we faced weren't much of a challenge--the key characters we met were much more interesting. The first such character was a talking rodent who turned out to be an embittered apprentice mage that later took human form to speak with us. He explained that he, like us, had taken his test but had dallied too long in the Fade, which led the Templars to kill off his physical body, even though his spiritual form in the Fade had gained the ability to change shape. After a brief conversation, he joined us as a companion in the hopes of somehow escaping and suggested he could provide additional insight along the way.

We then continued our test, meeting an ethereal spirit of valor, who was busy forging spectral weapons. When spoken to, the spirit openly questioned our character's courage--a dangerous mistake on his part, since we were equipped with Dragon Age's branching dialogue system, which let us use a willpower-based dialogue option to convince him of our conviction and persuade him to hand us a spectral staff. We also met a slumbering demon of sloth, a talking bear with bloodied jaws who spoke with us without bothering to lift his lazy head. Though the demon absently muttered something about devouring us both, our shape-shifting companion, Mouse, asked the creature to teach him how to change into a bear, and after some practice, Mouse was able to do so. The demon then explained that it was time for him to destroy us, though we were able to talk him down to playing a game of riddles in exchange for our lives.

However, we got the answer to the first riddle wrong, which prompted the monster to attack us. Our shiny new staff and Mouse's bear form helped us barely survive the encounter. In fact, we started feeling like we'd gotten the hang of things at this point and strode boldly toward our final encounter in the Fade, which was a powerful demon who blocked our exit. When we confronted this final creature, it suggested that it had made previous deals with Mouse to betray and devour other apprentices that had come before us, but Mouse stood resolute at our side and we leapt into battle, dispatching the beast with ease and ready to return to the mage tower. Just before leaving, Mouse suggested we could help him an additional time...by lending him our physical body, you know, just for a minute, to help him escape. We saw through the ruse more or less immediately and stated to him that his final favor seemed like it might have been the real test. Mouse agreed, changing shape to an enormous demon as everything faded to black.

When we awoke in the mage tower, we found that we had gained an experience level and three attribute points to spend. We also gained additional slots for spells and skills, and got a glimpse at some of the more-advanced classes that human mages can eventually become, such as shape-shifter (a profession that changes to different animal forms), spirit healer (a healing profession), arcane warrior (a mage/warrior hybrid), and blood mage, a feared class of wizard that uses ghastly death-based magic in battle--though changing to a specialized class will happen long after completing a character's origin. Once we attended to our new skills and abilities, we spoke with a nearby initiate, Jowan to find that we had passed our Harrowing test all right but that Jowan was dissatisfied about not being tested yet himself. We excused ourselves from the conversation to begin searching for senior wizard Irving--who would give us our next instructions--but not before exploring the mage tower first. Running to and fro through the circular tower, level by level, and poking around in the odd armoire or chest (all of which were thankfully unlocked) for healing poultices and mana-restoring powdered lyrium (the most potent magical substance in the realm) seemed very reminiscent of our experiences in the original Neverwinter Nights' initial training hall, though Dragon Age's mage tower actually has ambient characters who start full-on dialogue tree conversations that aren't critical to the story but that contain useful bits of lore to help you understand the world better, such as the aforementioned senior mages and their discussion of mage political factions. After finally finding Irving and meeting up with the grey warden Duncan, whom we escorted to his room, we embarked on the final story-related quest to end our origin story.

Apparently, mages who don't wish to be tested or who (rumor has it) are considered to be a threat to the mages are instead sent to the Rite of Tranquility, which cuts those mages off from the Fade permanently, robbing them not only of their magic powers, but also of their dreams and emotions. Without giving away all the details, we'll say that we were given the opportunity to help our fellow apprentice Jowan, who was suspected of being a blood mage, escape this fate. In order to escape, Jowan must first locate and destroy his phylactery, which is a blood sample taken from all fledgling wizards that will let them be tracked should they "go apostate"--that is, if they escape from the tower and begin illegally practicing wizardry on their own. We opted to help our comrade in his illicit quest, and during the course of it, we traded words and official documents with a creepily "tranquil" storekeeper, slew a pack of spiders for a forgetful elf enchanter, and snuck into the basement of the tower, where clanking armored guardians and ghostly wizards attacked us constantly. Our ragtag adventuring party finally broke into the phylactery room from a back entrance, seizing hold of Jowan's phylactery and encountering a bizarre talking statue occupied by the spirit of a long-dead demigod.

This victory was short-lived. We emerged from the phylactery room right into an antechamber where Irving, Gregoir, and Duncan stood in wait for us, and we were found guilty of any number of magely crimes on the spot. In a fit of desperation, Jowan escaped--further adding to our crimes because he went apostate without a phylactery to track him. Irving also noted that we'd discovered a brand-new magic staff in the basement that was slightly better than any others we'd had before, and though we could have tried to lie our way out of the situation, we decided to simply relinquish the item since we'd been caught red-handed. Nevertheless, while Gregoir was furious, Duncan was impressed by the lengths we were willing to go to help a friend (let's face it, we were only in it for the experience points) and recruited us for the grey wardens--a singular honor, since the wardens typically recruit so few mages into their ranks. We agreed to our new charge to complete our wizardly origin story and couldn't wait to move on to the rest of the game. But that will have to be a tale for another time.

Though we've played through only the first two hours or so of the game, Dragon Age seems like it offers many nostalgic references to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights and also seems to have an intuitive interface and plenty of bits of hidden lore buried in the game if you care to dig them up. From the looks of things, the branching schools of magic for the mage class will also give you a lot of different ways to approach this profession, either as a full-on wizardly artillery unit who hurls fire and lightning, a tactical supporter who protects allies and hinders enemies, a healer, or some combination of the three. Dragon Age seems like it will have a lot to offer, and we can't wait to bring you more about the game. Stay tuned to GameSpot for our next hands-on update, next week.

[keg in kc]

I can't believe this thread is almost a year old. Where the **** has 2009 gone?!!?!

Anyway, some cool stuff I haven't previously posted:

Dragon Age: Origins Updated Hands-On - The Origins of the Human Mage

By Andrew Park, GameSpot
Posted Aug 14, 2009 6:16 pm PT

Developer BioWare suggests that Dragon Age: Origins will be a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and we just got our hands on the first few hours of the wizard's origin.

Dragon Age: Origins is an epic fantasy role-playing game that tells a tale of a swords-and-sorcery world at war to stave off an invasion of corrupted monsters. It's also sitting right here on the hard drive of our PC. We started a new game to watch an elaborate cinematic sequence that began with animated pictures on what looked like aged vellum paper--a throwback to the introductory cinematics of Baldur's Gate II. The paintings gave way to a vicious in-engine battle between Duncan--a swordsman who presumably acts as your advisor at least in the early going--and a pair of hideous darkspawn, the monstrous humanoids who are invading the land. By starting a new game, we went straight to the character generation screen to play through an "origin" story. This early-game content begins after you choose a combination of the game's races and classes, which include humans, dwarves, and elves, and basic classes of fighters, mages, and rogues--and from there, you can choose a specific background for that class. We chose the human mage, whose only background is as a student in the mage guild, and away we went. Please note that this article pertains to a hands-on play session with the PC version of the game, and be advised that this article may contain minor story spoilers about the early part of the game.

Starting a new character as a mage will take you through an elaborate creation process that lets you allot statistic points to your character's ability scores. These include strength (which affects your melee attack ability), dexterity (which affects your speed and defense), willpower (which affects your maximum magic pool), magic (which determines how effective your magic spells are), cunning (which affects your stealth abilities), and constitution (which affects your character's overall health). Dragon Age's human mage characters begin their lives with statistics in the 10- to 20-point range, with points primarily clustered in the willpower and magic stats. At the beginning, you can allot five additional points (and with each experience level, three more points). Increasing your attributes to certain levels will not only make your character more powerful, but will also let you access higher-level skills along the game's elaborate personal skill tree. Like the pen-and-paper role-playing systems you might have seen, Dragon Age has a list of miscellaneous personal skills to which you can allot points. These include coercion (which lets you flatter or threaten your way through a conversation), stealing (which lets you pick other characters' pockets), trap-making (which lets you create deadly traps), survival (which helps your character better deal with animals and survive harsher elements), herbalism (the game's version of herb-collecting alchemy), poison-making (which lets you create various types of venom), and combat tactics (which lets you set specific scripts for your party members who aren't in action).

Once you've chosen your skills, as a mage you can choose your character's spell specializations from five different options. These include arcane spells, which appear to be the most stock-standard of the mage's spells (including such selections as arcane bolts, with which you begin the game, and a continuous magical shield); the "primal" line, which includes elemental damaging spells of fire, ice, and lightning; creation, which includes various healing and defensive spells; spirit, which contains spells that pertain to manipulating your own or your enemies' spell power (or "mana"); and entropy, which contains various curses that "de-buff" your foes. We chose to start with the spirit line with the close-range "mind blast" spell that stuns nearby foes, but there are a great variety of different spells here that will let you create either a powerful specialist or a well-rounded generalist. And fans of the Baldur's Gate series will be happy to see analogs to classic tactical magic spells from Baldur's Gate II, such as fireball, grease, and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. We then moved on to the customization of our character's appearance, which lets you choose different voices, as well as different hair and facial features (or choose from a series of premade looks). After selecting our appearance, we were off and ready to start our adventure, which began with an argument between Irving, the senior wizard at our mage tower, and Gregoir, the angry sergeant who leads the templars that guard the tower. According to the setup, the mages study in seclusion to better learn to use their powers, but they are guarded closely, if not imprisoned, by the templars, who are authorized to cut down any wizards who are corrupted by the Fade--a magical netherworld that people visit when they dream, and from which mages gain their power, but which also houses demons with connections to the darkspawn. There's clearly a great deal of tension between the two parties that's conveyed well in the dialogue and that sets the stage for more political conflicts in the game--as you poke around the mage's tower, you'll even encounter characters engaged in political discussions, such as one group of senior mages who suggest that there are multiple factions of wizards with different ideas on how close mages should live to the world of non-mages.

Politics aside, we dived right into our first task as an apprentice--completing a rite of passage known as "the Harrowing," which requires all stripling mages to enter the Fade. So, in we went, to find a hazy dreamworld where a handful of hostile spectral monsters attacked us so that we could get the hang of the combat system. Like in previous BioWare games, there's an auto-attack feature that lets you attack the nearest targeted enemy, though your other abilities, such as spells, work off a cooldown timer and can be tied to a hotkey bank, similar to the standard abilities you'd expect from a massively multiplayer game. The first enemies we faced weren't much of a challenge--the key characters we met were much more interesting. The first such character was a talking rodent who turned out to be an embittered apprentice mage that later took human form to speak with us. He explained that he, like us, had taken his test but had dallied too long in the Fade, which led the Templars to kill off his physical body, even though his spiritual form in the Fade had gained the ability to change shape. After a brief conversation, he joined us as a companion in the hopes of somehow escaping and suggested he could provide additional insight along the way.

We then continued our test, meeting an ethereal spirit of valor, who was busy forging spectral weapons. When spoken to, the spirit openly questioned our character's courage--a dangerous mistake on his part, since we were equipped with Dragon Age's branching dialogue system, which let us use a willpower-based dialogue option to convince him of our conviction and persuade him to hand us a spectral staff. We also met a slumbering demon of sloth, a talking bear with bloodied jaws who spoke with us without bothering to lift his lazy head. Though the demon absently muttered something about devouring us both, our shape-shifting companion, Mouse, asked the creature to teach him how to change into a bear, and after some practice, Mouse was able to do so. The demon then explained that it was time for him to destroy us, though we were able to talk him down to playing a game of riddles in exchange for our lives.

However, we got the answer to the first riddle wrong, which prompted the monster to attack us. Our shiny new staff and Mouse's bear form helped us barely survive the encounter. In fact, we started feeling like we'd gotten the hang of things at this point and strode boldly toward our final encounter in the Fade, which was a powerful demon who blocked our exit. When we confronted this final creature, it suggested that it had made previous deals with Mouse to betray and devour other apprentices that had come before us, but Mouse stood resolute at our side and we leapt into battle, dispatching the beast with ease and ready to return to the mage tower. Just before leaving, Mouse suggested we could help him an additional time...by lending him our physical body, you know, just for a minute, to help him escape. We saw through the ruse more or less immediately and stated to him that his final favor seemed like it might have been the real test. Mouse agreed, changing shape to an enormous demon as everything faded to black.

When we awoke in the mage tower, we found that we had gained an experience level and three attribute points to spend. We also gained additional slots for spells and skills, and got a glimpse at some of the more-advanced classes that human mages can eventually become, such as shape-shifter (a profession that changes to different animal forms), spirit healer (a healing profession), arcane warrior (a mage/warrior hybrid), and blood mage, a feared class of wizard that uses ghastly death-based magic in battle--though changing to a specialized class will happen long after completing a character's origin. Once we attended to our new skills and abilities, we spoke with a nearby initiate, Jowan to find that we had passed our Harrowing test all right but that Jowan was dissatisfied about not being tested yet himself. We excused ourselves from the conversation to begin searching for senior wizard Irving--who would give us our next instructions--but not before exploring the mage tower first. Running to and fro through the circular tower, level by level, and poking around in the odd armoire or chest (all of which were thankfully unlocked) for healing poultices and mana-restoring powdered lyrium (the most potent magical substance in the realm) seemed very reminiscent of our experiences in the original Neverwinter Nights' initial training hall, though Dragon Age's mage tower actually has ambient characters who start full-on dialogue tree conversations that aren't critical to the story but that contain useful bits of lore to help you understand the world better, such as the aforementioned senior mages and their discussion of mage political factions. After finally finding Irving and meeting up with the grey warden Duncan, whom we escorted to his room, we embarked on the final story-related quest to end our origin story.

Apparently, mages who don't wish to be tested or who (rumor has it) are considered to be a threat to the mages are instead sent to the Rite of Tranquility, which cuts those mages off from the Fade permanently, robbing them not only of their magic powers, but also of their dreams and emotions. Without giving away all the details, we'll say that we were given the opportunity to help our fellow apprentice Jowan, who was suspected of being a blood mage, escape this fate. In order to escape, Jowan must first locate and destroy his phylactery, which is a blood sample taken from all fledgling wizards that will let them be tracked should they "go apostate"--that is, if they escape from the tower and begin illegally practicing wizardry on their own. We opted to help our comrade in his illicit quest, and during the course of it, we traded words and official documents with a creepily "tranquil" storekeeper, slew a pack of spiders for a forgetful elf enchanter, and snuck into the basement of the tower, where clanking armored guardians and ghostly wizards attacked us constantly. Our ragtag adventuring party finally broke into the phylactery room from a back entrance, seizing hold of Jowan's phylactery and encountering a bizarre talking statue occupied by the spirit of a long-dead demigod.

This victory was short-lived. We emerged from the phylactery room right into an antechamber where Irving, Gregoir, and Duncan stood in wait for us, and we were found guilty of any number of magely crimes on the spot. In a fit of desperation, Jowan escaped--further adding to our crimes because he went apostate without a phylactery to track him. Irving also noted that we'd discovered a brand-new magic staff in the basement that was slightly better than any others we'd had before, and though we could have tried to lie our way out of the situation, we decided to simply relinquish the item since we'd been caught red-handed. Nevertheless, while Gregoir was furious, Duncan was impressed by the lengths we were willing to go to help a friend (let's face it, we were only in it for the experience points) and recruited us for the grey wardens--a singular honor, since the wardens typically recruit so few mages into their ranks. We agreed to our new charge to complete our wizardly origin story and couldn't wait to move on to the rest of the game. But that will have to be a tale for another time.

Though we've played through only the first two hours or so of the game, Dragon Age seems like it offers many nostalgic references to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights and also seems to have an intuitive interface and plenty of bits of hidden lore buried in the game if you care to dig them up. From the looks of things, the branching schools of magic for the mage class will also give you a lot of different ways to approach this profession, either as a full-on wizardly artillery unit who hurls fire and lightning, a tactical supporter who protects allies and hinders enemies, a healer, or some combination of the three. Dragon Age seems like it will have a lot to offer, and we can't wait to bring you more about the game. Stay tuned to GameSpot for our next hands-on update, next week.

[keg in kc]

And more on magic:

Dragon Age Updated Preview - Rage of Mages

By Andrew Park, GameSpot
Posted Sep 17, 2009 6:52 pm PT

You say you want to cast magic missiles? You're attacking the darkness? Fine, fine, there's an elf in front of you, and he's going to explain how magic works in Dragon Age.

Dragon Age: Origins is the upcoming fantasy-themed game from our friends at BioWare, a wholly owned subsidiary of Electronic Arts and the Canadian studio responsible for such role-playing games as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Mass Effect. It's also a game we haven't had a chance to cover very often here on GameSpot, so we're happy to finally have a chance to post a new preview story covering the use of wizardry in the game. In Dragon Age, you can choose to play as a mage class, which starts off with the mage tower origin story that we've covered previously and then leads to a tale of sorcery-powered high adventure and zapping bad guys with nasty zappy spells.

While Dragon Age's list of skills is universal for characters of all professions (including such abilities as conversational coercion, potion-brewing herbalism, thievery, and combat training), the game has a unique set of "talents" for mages. Mage characters have a single line of mage-specific skills that include a basic attack spell, an arcane bolt, an improved ability to zap people using a magic staff, personal shielding magic, and an overall boost to wizardly power. This basic line of skills never seems like a bad choice to spend talent points in as you gain experience levels, except that there are four other talent lines (or "schools of magic," if you prefer) with plenty of other interesting and useful spell abilities that are worth exploring.

The four additional talent trees for mages are primal (elemental damage spells); creation (healing and protective magics); spirit (which focuses on countermagics and controlling enchantments); and entropy (which focuses on hindering magics). Primal, for instance, includes four different talent lines for fire, ice, lightning, and earth, each of which has four levels of abilities, including the classic fireball, lightning bolt, and cone-of-cold spells you may remember from BioWare's previous Dungeons & Dragons-based games. However, the primal talent group also includes certain spell abilities with combinatorial effects. For instance, the most powerful talent in the earth line, petrify, briefly turns an enemy to stone and makes that enemy vulnerable to instant death by shattering if attacked with a concussive spell, such as the earth line's stonefist spell. As it turns out, certain spells from the ice talent line can also freeze enemies solid, rendering them similarly vulnerable to being shattered. The primal line also contains two different weapon enhancements for all characters in your party; the fire line causes weapons to deal fire-based damage; and the ice line causes weapons to deal cold-based damage. The remaining spells in the primal talent lines are generally powerful damage-dealers with large radii that can also damage your teammates if they get in the line of fire. Careful micromanagement (or combinatorial strategies, discussed later) is crucial in using these talents, lest you blast your own party to smithereens.

The creation line of talents is a straightforward set of healing and protection (or "buffing") spell abilities, including on-the-spot healing and over-time regeneration, and full-party regeneration, as well as offensive and defensive team boosts and the Dragon Age version of "haste"--which makes you and your team attack more quickly but drains away your character's energy. The creation line also includes a set of "glyph" spells that affect a small chunk of territory with various magical properties, including defensive skills like canceling magic or increasing your teammates' defenses, and offensive glyphs that can repel or paralyze enemies that stumble into the radius. Finally, the creation talents also include a miscellaneous line of spell abilities that enhance endurance regeneration and include a precious few attack spells, including an "insect swarm" spell that continuously damages its target, and a "grease" spell, which, just like in Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, causes an area of ground to be covered with a slippery grease that hinders movement. However, in Dragon Age, an area affected by the grease spell can also be set alight by fire spells, burning up any enemies or friendlies in the area.

The spirit line of spells also contains four sets of talents, each with four abilities. The spirit line is focused more on canceling magic and draining "mana" (magic energy) from your foes, though it also has some powerful attack spells. Among others, spirit includes a line of talents to protect against or dispel hostile magic; a line of talents that interferes with your enemies' mana and limits their ability to cast spells of their own; and a line of talents that deals with death by magic and replenishes spent energy from corpses, animates fallen enemy corpses as allies, and includes a "walking bomb" effect that causes an enemy under effects of the spell to explode if killed, damaging everyone in the radius. The spirit line also has a psionics-based set of talents that lets casters enhance their parties' weapons, psychically blast a single foe, encase a single target in a protective bubble (similar to Baldur's Gate II's Otiluke's Resilient Sphere), and contain an enemy in a cage of crushing force that will also shatter any frozen or petrified foes. The spirit line seems to be the most subtle of all the mage's talent trees, and from what we've played of the early game, it won't necessarily be needed to dispatch the enemies you encounter at first.

Finally, the entropy line of talents includes a series of debilitating spell abilities, including a set of talents that weakens or paralyzes foes; a set of "hexes" that curse any enemies in range with a specific affliction; and a set of nightmare-based abilities that can freeze enemies in their tracks and that includes powerful analogues to Baldur's Gate II's sleep, horror, and chaos spells, which immobilize enemies in slumber, cripple them with fear, and completely confuse them into performing random acts, respectively. As it happens, sleeping enemies who are then targeted by a horror spell suffer maddening nightmares that deal severe damage to them, instantly killing most weaker foes. The entropy talent line also has a set of death-magic-based spell abilities that drain an enemy's health or summon a damaging noxious cloud to hang over an area, not unlike the classic cloudkill and acid fog spells of Baldur's Gate II.

Each of these talent groups has powerful, useful abilities, but it seems that BioWare didn't intend for players to fully specialize in any individual one, and in some cases, except possibly creation (which will set you up as a solid combat healer with good protection spells, a minor hindrance spell, and a single damaging spell), you'll actually limit your mage's overall ability if you focus on only one school. Considering that you won't be able to take every single spell talent in the entire game in a single play-through, you'll most likely want to do some experimenting, then think about focusing in a certain direction. In addition, since several spell abilities have combinatorial effects with other spells or other professions' talents, it pays to start thinking and get strategic.

For instance, properly specialized mages are excellent at controlling individual enemies as well as crowds, using such talents as the spirit line's force field or primal's petrify to remove a single enemy from play, while using other talents such as entropy's sleep, horror, and paralysis spells, or creation's glyphs of repulsions and paralysis to render groups of enemies helpless. This kind of strategy seems useful not only to stop an enemy charge, but also to divide and conquer--when facing a paralyzed battalion of enemies, you and your troops can pick off and eliminate choice targets one by one. In addition, fighters who are specialized in two-handed weapons can learn the "indomitable" warrior talent, which makes them immune to talents and spell abilities that would otherwise knock them off their feet, so concussive spell talents like earthquake and glyph of repulsion are a great setup for a party packing two-handed weapons, since the fighters can rush right into the area of effect, immune to the magic, and begin hacking away at the monsters lying on their backs.

Alternately, proper talent selection can make your mage a strong support character that softens up tough bosses for your fighters. Abilities such as the entropy line's hex spells and creation's glyphs can reduce these formidable foes' resistances to damage; the spirit line's talents can eliminate any boss character's protective magics or drain them away; and both primal and spirit have weapon-enhancing spells that can help you deal additional damage. The spirit line's walking bomb talent (and its upgraded version, virulent walking bomb, which spreads the effect of making foes explode when they die to any nearby foes) works especially well against large groups or bosses with smaller minion critters. And of course, when fighting powerful bosses, it's important to keep your team up and running with the creation line's various healing and buff spells.

Another very viable way to specialize a mage in Dragon Age is to focus on controlling territory on the battlefield by first entrapping enemies and then bombarding them. (If you've used the web spell followed by area-damage spells such as cloudkill in Baldur's Gate II, you'll know what we're talking about.) Several of the mage's different talent lines have large-radius abilities that can incapacitate your enemies--the creation line's grease spell and glyphs of repulsion and paralysis, and the entropy line's mass paralysis and sleep spells--and nearly all of the primal line's ice spells can make sure a group of enemies in a certain area either get stuck or are forced to move extremely slowly. From here, you can have your party's archers either feather your enemies with arrows or start bombarding them with magic. Dragon Age has several high-end bombardment spell abilities, such as the primal line's high-end fire-based inferno or cold-based blizzard and the entropy line's high-end death cloud.

But be advised that snag-and-slag isn't as easy as it was in previous BioWare games, since many incapacitating spells can affect only enemies within a certain distance from where you're casting them, though you can at least lay down the glyph spells off in the distance and then lure your foes into them. Also, be advised that even though magic is extremely powerful in Dragon Age and casting spells really does get results, it isn't the rapid-fire experience it was in BioWare's previous fantasy games. As we've mentioned in our previous coverage, the way Dragon Age's spell abilities work is much closer to how magic spells work in a massively multiplayer game such as World of Warcraft. Your mage has a set amount of mana in a bar that gets expended with each cast of a spell, and several spell abilities are modal--that is, they are toggled on or off and provide a persistent effect, such as enhancing your party's weapons--at the cost of constantly draining mana. Also, every time a spell is cast, it has a cooldown time that completely restricts you from spitting it out again, and the most powerful, high-end spell abilities in the game generally have the longest cooldown times. Finally, all of the most powerful combat damage spells (inferno, blizzard, and so on) deal "friendly fire" damage to nearby teammates, so you have to take great care to line up spells carefully without zapping your teammates, and this can be a lot more challenging than it might seem, since most enemies, if not incapacitated, will make every effort to sprint out of range.

That's our in-depth look at the different talent trees available for the mages and at some of the higher-end strategies you can use in Dragon Age: Origins. Stay tuned to GameSpot for any additional updates--considering how little we've covered of this game so far, there may indeed be lots more to come.

[Mr. Flopnuts]

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/gscinema/...eorig_trailer5

[KcFanInGA]

Mage class sounds awesome, but I can't resist playing as the swordsman. This may be one of the few games I play through more than once, the origin stories alone guarantee a ton of replay value IMHO. Raise your hand if you have this preordered.

[Mr. Flopnuts]

Originally Posted by KcFanInGA

Mage class sounds awesome, but I can't resist playing as the swordsman. This may be one of the few games I play through more than once, the origin stories alone guarantee a ton of replay value IMHO. Raise your hand if you have this preordered.

I never preorder anything. I did once, and didn't get the game for 2 weeks after it released. Never again. I've never been unable to find a new release.