Let's talk SWtOR!

[SapphireIce101]

Ah Zevran, you remind me of Coran. Er, mostly CN Coran, a tan CN Coran. Honestly, if Zevran had an alignment it would probably be CN.

 

As for some of the DLC. It would be advised to play the GoA, and WH after Awakening because storywise it makes sense to do it like that, and for completeing certain achievements you can get items to use in later playthroughs.

 

Now, as for Darkspawn Chronicles, and Leliana's Song. It depends on how badly you want the achievement items from these. Me, I would wait until have WH because like above, you get items that you can use in later playthroughs.

[Kulyok]

Gratz on the Ultimate edition, Domi! Hope you'll have great fun!

 

(and, yes, adding my "no to mods on the first playthrough" - mods crash your game(skip the Fade, for example), add questionable writing/voicing and just in general screw the story, so I'd enjoy vanilla game first. Same as I'd say for BG2, naturally).

 

So... nearly every male is romanceable? Warden, qunari, Solas, even Cullen? Ha. And, well, Dorian. If the romance is good, there might even be a mod to romance him with a girl; if the romance is bad, it ain't worth it.

 

Sounds like Solas and Cullen are going to be smaller romances - I have a bad feeling about this. Are they going to kill either? Both? Hmm. Wait and see, I guess.

 

That comment was hilarious: "Cullen only wants women who can plausibly roleplay as Circle mages in the bedroom."

 

(But to think that the best DAI romances were only developed during extra time, and we could have ended up with the ugly warden and the qunari beast! Ugh!)

 

Now that November is looming, I think I might go and play DAO with my core Dalish female warden(thief or warrior? Haven't decided yet).

 

 

As for the first DAO romance, honestly, Alistair is good enough. You probably would never want to see him again after you finish the game(spoilers), but first time? Awesome.

Other romances are pretty good, too, though neither makes my heart beat faster - unlike Anders.

 

I'm absolutely going to romance Solas in the first playthrough. And then we'll see.

 

SWTOR: bought some terribly expensive decorations(more autumn trees, scrap vendors and such), and I'm starting to decorate Nar Shaddaa entrance hall - got all vendors there. I also get three gathering decorations of the same sort in my three strongholds - I think it works very well, because multiple alts deplete those very quickly; one or even two are not enough.

 

I went to Corellia with my Shadow yesterday, but quit quite promptly - there's a guy who insists on talking to me, and placing him on ignore would be rude, so I'm probably hiding. Sigh. It's good I'm not playing this character much, anyway - just completing the arc. And Corellia's really boring.

 

 

 

 

@Twani: FONV thingy sounds cool. And, heck, I'd put Skavak on my ship and give him half the treasure! I love living dangerously.

 

Harbringer will probably be back after 2.9d - wonder what THAT patch would fix.

Oh, it's back.

 

 

I'm REALLY HORRIFIED by the fact they're going to add Hawke and Warden. That's horrible, really, please, please, leave them alone, but they won't listen. Sigh. It's going to be worse than Revan.

[Domi]

Heya, tried to start the game, the combat is hard to get used to, to targeting the creatures & everything is very small. Now I am forgetting to pause. Lol. The game's sure atmospheric. Created a Dalish Magi, going to create a couple more chars to see what I would prefer. Holy cow, lots of custom options!

 

So, with the patches, is there a separate software called DAZip, I need to extract the patches, or putting a dazip file unextracted in the override will do the trick? No, I understand the potential problems with the mods, and all, but frankly, dark hair for male RI would not be amiss.

 

Tried a first small area on a Mage. Definetly more grown-up feel, and interesting art style. A lot of dialogue, and I can't seem to space-bar through it. I plyed in the morning, so I would have loved to have an option, as I can't hear VO well. Still getting used to my char not talking!

 

EDIT: And, after doing some soul-searching, on the SWTOR note, I am going to get back to my class stories, and just do a few more PvP matches so my bread-winning Tishujen could get her Brutalizer relics, augment them, and get on with Makeb-Oricon. I think one char through Makeb-Oricon would be plenty on each side. After that, I will just work on all my solos, and grind with Tishujen whenever I am short on funds. As much as I like my other chars, Tishujen is probably going to be my official SWTOR protagonist in my head. My Revan, lol!

 

I'd go into PvP once in a while maybe when I feel like a bit of fun, but I just don't have the time to do it religiously. Class stories for the win. Gotta see what the Warrior gets. After which I will run M!Trooper to finally develop my BioChem, and then it's either M!Inq or the unfortunate Agent Dusk Fell.

[Kulyok]

Heh, that's great! By the way, if you have an elven mage, it means that your mage was a city elf(you can roleplay in your head that she's dalish, but unfortunately the developers decided that dalish can only be a non-mage in DAO).

 

All six options are worth it, even if you aren't going to finish the game. I never finished Dwarf Commoner, but I think I completed all the others.

 

You can space-bar by pressing ESC, I think - or you can change your keybindings. You can't repeat the dialogue, though, like in SWTOR - only reload the game.

(and, yeah, old games - strange, isn't it?)

 

I'm envious that you haven't seen Sith Warrior/Inquisitor - these are so great! And the companions, and romances... mmmm. I'm going to do the Manaan flashpoint on the Empire tonight, I think - I want to be ready for the Revan stuff.

[Domi]

Oh, I see. Didn't realize it. I guess, I should try to create a Dalish elf ranger then and whatever warrior (dwarf noble, I suppose). I kindda like the gritty look of the chars, they are not anime-pretty, more life-like.

 

Heh, yeah. I think I just need to let go off the grind and relax into it. I also decided to try a DS IA, so I will not be pairing her off with my husband's Boco. I just want to shoot in the head everyone I can. And I have an experience of playing through the game with a long-ranged DPS, so shouldn't be that bad. Wish she was an OP though, it would have been easier. But, whatever. Also, if I need extra comms or XP, I should be able to PvP her easily, since she is Tishujen's mirror.

[Twani]

There is, of course, a mod that allows you to play a Dalish Mage (which I use a lot), but that won't be importable in to the later games correctly. You'll be able to play a Dalish mage in DAI, though! Yayyyyyy.

 

(And, for the record, I've had over 100 DA mods installed at once, and no crashes- including Skip the Fade, which I use, um, all the time, because besides the rescuing the companions part I hate the stupid place. The only time I've found crashes with DA mods was leaving on Awakening mods in Origins and vise-virsa (that's not how that's spelled, is it?), having multiple appearance mods installed at once and not merging them, and some weird cases (having Ser Gilamore for Awakenings will make your Origins game crash, because Ser Gilamore is probably an idiot, but I may be biased here). I always install my mods by hand, though: I understand there's some bugs if you use DAO Modmanager, and I know there's bugs if you use the Nexus Mod Manager (that works for most other games, but not DA that well)).

 

For some reason, dialog skips for me with right click, or escape. Personally, my favorite origins are Dwarf Noble, Dalish Awesome, and Magi (elf or human works): however, fair warning, the Human Noble is probably the origin with the most impact on the story (IE, your 'personal' enemy is basically the dragon to the bad guy and everyone knows you). Oddly, though, the Human Noble (and the Dalish Elf) are the only two where you can never go home... hm.

 

Also, fair warning: some people, especially gal's, find the female City Elf background triggering. I... really didn't like it, myself.

 

Another, fair warning: Leianna is sweet and lovely, but it can be at at times hard to be her friend (she's bi) while not suddenly falling on the romance track. The fixes I sent you help (so telling her you like shoes, too, will not automatically make her fall in love with you like it could in the original), but don't be surprised if suddenly she's in tears about how you're flirting with Zev and her. Just, uh, give her more flowers and stuff after you break up with someone you never knew you were romancing.

 

(...Like that doesn't send a mixed message...)

 

Final, third warning- for your first playthrough, I strongly recommend getting characters up to 100 affection with normal talks and small gifts rather then giving them the 'automatical sets them at a 100' gift you can buy from the merchant (give them to those characters after they already hit 100, if you'd like). Suddenly jumping to 100 affection means the character will spill everything and everything in a five minute period, leaving no 'discovering them slowly'/'building up influence'/'having a relationship the lasts the game'.

 

I am, at the moment, grudgingly okay with Hawke appearing in DAI. No matter what happened, Hawke basically survived and took off on his/her own with their LI (and maybe Isabella and the boat, too). Hawke had a set voice, and their personality was pretty set: the game can look, see if you were sarcastic/aggressive/Not A Jackass, and give you ambient dialog like you had in Felcia Day's Mary Sue's Adventures.

 

My Warden? S/he didn't have a voice, or a set personality, first of all. And I don't want to spoil anything for Domi (although I'm afraid we've already spoiled a lot unthinking), but she (and especially my major he) usually had some definite responsibilities. About the only thing I'll be able to stand is if they do their duty of Warden-Commander and come to escort Blackwall down to the Deep Roads as his end comes: have them appear, give my Inquisitor a silent salute, then walk off in pretty DA2 style Warden armor without saying a stupid word. >.>

 

 

So, anyway, I just read all 73 pages of romance ARGGGHHHH on the official forums. It's... hm. I can understand some points.

 

+ For straight guys and lesbian gals, only getting one companion romance is sort of a downer. Even if you find it shockingly inappropriate like I do, having your companions bicker over you has been a part of romance since the Viconia/Jaheira/Aerie bitchfest of BG2, and there is some amusement to be found in there. There's also the worry that the adviser romances won't be as in-depth as companion romances, which, fair enough.

+ If they were going to make two 'bonus' romances, they probably shouldn't have made them for the same exact target: straight female elves (and sort of humans). Make one of them a guy, bisexual, open to all races... something. As it is, it's 2/2/2/4, which is kind of... off. (There's also the fact that yes, they almost needed to make one of these bonus romances for gals, because Iron Bull was originally incompatible with the dwarf skeletons... but were they just going to leave the gay guys with only Dorian, then? Owch.)

+ Bioware really shouldn't have let this last for so long. People knew about Cullen almost the minute he was announced as being in the game (though not the race-gate, which is causing some incredible upsetness), while people didn't know about Varric/Solas/Blackwall/Viv until, well, now. That was a lot of time for the Varric and Viv fans to get their hopes up, with some teasing even from the devs, only to get shot down. Not fun.

 

And then there's the just plain gross. There's the gal who insists that of course Blackwall is straight because gay guys could never be that manly and good looking (um), the two guys who were convinced this was all the fault of feminists and that straight males not getting the most choices is an insult and again, the fault of woman who never shave their legs (um), the ranting that guys get no choices at all as Jospehine doesn't have 'normal' sexuality (...that's around the point where I almost started posting) and Cassandra is 'too ugly' and 'girl's can't be warriors (um), the lack of understanding that straight white privilege does exist by certain people (ehhh), a dev accusing posters of having it (which is probably true, but I'm not really sure a dev is supposed to say it), the arguements over if it's racist or not that Viv isn't romancable (plus the discovery that Isabella is meant to be black but the DA2 engine couldn't work it well grossing people out) (sigh), I'm guessing most of this will be pruned by mods, but... yeah.

 

On the more cool side, more information about Skyhold! Things like being able to furnish it with Dalish woodcarving as a Dalish is pretty cool. (Does that mean I can invite the Carta in as a dwarf?) There is more to this game then romances!

 

I am kind of tempted to go on a media blackout until release, though. While I managed to get through DAO without being spoiled (as proven by my mistake with a certain someone on the roof), I was completely spoiled on DA2 and ME3 (including ANDERS and ENDINGS drama) due to media leaks. Not fun. I sort of want my first playthrough of Inquisition to be completely unplanned, just playing it by ear without any spoilers. That would be kind of awesome. Later games, I can plan exactly what result I want.

 

 

Tempted to start Fallout New Vegas over. Out of sheer curiosity, for this first game play of it, I ended up siding with the badguys (despite my Good Karma). The really bad guys. The rapist murderous bad guys (with, admittedly, a very charismatic leader). I think next game, I'm going to play for Me First. Still gonna sleep with Benny, though. Heh.

[SapphireIce101]

Personally, I thought Cullen's gender and race gatedness would have been obvious. Mostly because of the mage origin itself. It would be kind of hard to see Cullen be interested in a dwarf, qunari, or males.

 

However, I will say that Bioware certainly did pull a weird one when it comes to romances. I mean, Blackwall is basically Thane from ME2. He's dying and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. I doubt Bioware is going to let another warden be a special snowflake like Fiona is.

[Twani]

It is sort of odd. It means the original two romances for straight female's were Iron Bull and Blackwall. So far, they've seemed kind of alike to me. Both are also definitely the buff manly man thing, which is *not* usually Bioware's thing. Cullen and Solas are definitely more to my tastes, honestly.

 

And yeah, Cullen is a jerk to Oghran if they meet, so I could see no dwarf. I actually found it weird that Cullen is okay with the Dalish, though. I would have thought him less 'race-gated' and more 'culture-gated'. IE, must fit in to his rules for civilized races. I could almost see him okay with a Qunari that has nothing to do with the Qun, and definitely with a circle mage elf (as Sunara proved), but a Dalish elf?

 

I'm guessing he's only going to want to romance me if I do things like send mages to circles and support circles and yay circles and possibly make someone tranquil (!!!). I don't think he's going to like my first character. >.>

[Domi]

Sorry, gals, could you let me know if need a tool to unzip the DAzip, or the mods go into the override just like that?

 

I have no problems falling into a romance track if it happens. We'll see.

 

Anyway, the Universe conspires. First Bio servers/Harbinger FU, now we just loaded chars, and the power went down for like 15 minutes. On a sunny afternoon. DUH? Okay, we'll see if we canlike move the characters around without another game-geddon!

 

Also, ladies, are we on this weekend for Alderaan?

[Twani]

Oh, geez, sorry, Domi. I forgot to answer that.

 

What you need to do with a DAzip is run the DAUpdater and drag the DAZIP on top of it (and then put files in override as neccessary). Tis a wee bit complicated. All the mods I linked you, though, work with the DAModManager, which is easier.

 

I'm just going to link you to the Nexus Page On It, and you can decide if you want to use the DAUpdater way or the Mod Manager way. Mod Manager is probably easier, honestly: it's just some mods Do Not Work with it and have to be installed the long way, but those six should be fine. As it shows in... German, I think?... make sure to select them in game as well.

 

 

I can make this Sunday at 10AM EST, if that's okay again? Saturday, I'm doing a charity walk for Altamazers (yes, it would help if I could spell it). My mom's one of the organizers, so it would be crass of me to miss it.

 

 

In other news, I just found out the Inquisitior doesn't get a pet Mabari! WHY GAIDER WHY. (Why also are you only writing the two options for males only as I generally love your romances must try Cass and Dorian ) I want a mabari! Why don't I get a mabari wahhh.

[SapphireIce101]

My more pressing question about the inquisitor is why don't we get a French Voice?! We get an American one, and a british one, but no French one. Bioware I am disappoint.

 

I already miss the Mabari...

 

As for the DAzips, I prefer using the DAUploader. The quickest way is to go to the bin_ship folder in your Dragon Age folder to find it because all you have to do is drag the DAzip onto the DAuploader, and click on install selected. There are a couple of mods that will require the use of the Mod Manager.

 

Ah, and I went to a PVE 101 Flash Point class hosted by one of the sister guilds. It was very educational, and I got to learn about the respective roles a little bit better.

 

Oh, and I started another Storm of Zehir game...

 

Current party for that is:

 

Wood Elf - FIghter/Cleric - Its going to multi one more time into Divine Champion.

 

Wood Elf - Warlock - Going to multi into a Hellfire Warlock

 

Halfling - Rogue/Wizard - Going to multi again into an Arcane Trickster

 

Yuan-ti Pureblood - Ranger - Probably going to stay a ranger.

 

One thing that makes laugh is that you go to Samargol, aka a place that kills people that conspire with Yuan-ti Purebloods, and none of the guards are trying to pick a fight with this group.

[Kulyok]

NO MABARI??

 

That's just unfair.

 

I'm very happy Gaider ain't writing male romances, though, because I finally got a great romance for my female chars(Anders, Garrus, even Kaidan) when he wasn't writing this stuff. So thank God. His Morrigan romance was great, though, so I'll try Cassandra and certainly Dorian.

 

I really don't understand why they would give us only Blackwall/qunari at first, because indeed, both sound rough, big, and very much Angelo-like(referring to SisterV's BG2 mod) - catering to the same player type. Cullen and Solas are much more to my liking. I read the developers' posts, btw - Gaider says that Solas and Cullen romances are as "big" as the others - they're only limited because of the race.

 

As for the fights on the forums, well, I think they did do a bit unfair for the male players, who can only romance - who - Cassandra? - but they are giving me Solas, so I don't have the heart to complain. Anyway, I understand there's at least one option for each gender and sexuality, but I'm kind of drowning in options - I get four guys and one girl if I start a female elf! Ha!

 

I think we shouldn't hope for a French/German/Russian/Italian/Spanish/Chinese voice, because - well, too much work and scope, and they probably aren't going to get French/German/Russian/Italian/Spanish/Chinese sound for the entire game. (Then again, maybe it's for the best - Russian voicing is usually horrible).

 

I usually just install a few mods manually for DA - dumping the files into override folder. Works for me - Loghain Friendly Eligible, Sigrun fixes and other such stuff.

 

I finally finished Manaan tonight for the Empire! Turns out you can flirt both with Lana and Theron on both sides with both characters. Fun! Wrath, to Theron, flirting: "Do you want to defect? I'm sure we could use someone with your skills in the Empire." - "Oddly flattering, thank you. Not even going to consider it, of course, but still flattering."

 

Bad news: Lana frankly tells you that the new Revanite cult is terribly dangerous both for the Republic AND the Empire(why would Revan want to destroy the Republic? They're supposed to be good guys, no? At least in KOTOR they were), so it's going to be Dread Masters all over again. They might even give Republic/Empire the same planetary story, sigh. No replayability, I don't like that.

 

 

10am means 18pm like the last time, right? I'm up for it. This Sunday?

 

 

EDIT: A new story! Here, it opens faster than the official site: http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/2fhio7/dev_blog_remnants/

It starts as a usual boring Indiana Jones story, but the ending is pretty cool.

[DavidW]

why would Revan want to destroy the Republic? They're supposed to be good guys, no? At least in KOTOR they were), so it's going to be Dread Masters all over again.

The Foundry flashpoint suggests that Revan's conception of being a "good guy" is, shall we say, idiosyncratic.

[Kulyok]

Yeah, and we got a fairly long and impressive explanation why Revan'd want to get rid of the Empire entire. But why would he hate the Republic? I haven't been given an explanation yet, Darth Arkous/colonel said nothing, so I'm a little baffled.

[Domi]

Thank you for the explanation, ladies! Will do!

 

I am good with Sunday at 8 am my time, 10 am Twani's and 6 pm Kulyok's. Will get Bayar's inventory managed and finish off his Holocalls. Alderaan spaceport or Fleet?

 

And, sheesh, we did Renegan quest yesterday Yay, progress! I saw Khem give me APs for thwarting Sith. I think we see eye to eye on something Oh, and the lighting spires. So, heh, almost done DK, lol! This morning, I did not have much time, just put Tishujen the Gunslinger back on Makeb & did a warzone (we won it, but I was abysmal, just horrid & forgot to click daily (but I was pulled into In Progress zone, so that's my excuse. I still have 7 points to go on the Weekly). Oh, well, hopefully game runs smoothly for a few days!