Anyone play Dragon Age II yet?

[baconoclock]

have it on the xbox.. its got good replay value
i have a 41 blood mage , 23 two handed swords man, and a 25 dual rogue. i do it for the achievements on xbox and the fun factor.

What is your favorite class so far? I'm playing a 2h warrior and liking it (though I run out of stamina all the time , stupid berserker ). Whats your typical party? For me (and I'm only like 12 hours in) is me (warr), a rogue, and 2 mages (1 more offensive and the other as a debilitator / healer). Haven't had the need for a tank yet.

How do you like playing the bloodmage? I always found it a bit confusing in DA:O but might give it a shot on my second playthrough

[BadHabitz]

I love DA2, especially with the hi-res texture pack, DX11 and nvidia beta drivers.... it looks amazing!

I've played the beginning sequence like five times now. Then I've tried a few different gender/class combos. And then last night I played through the beginning with my daughters watching.

I use a mod that makes your brother and sister's hair orange-ish, and another that gives me the champion armor/weapons as soon as I get to Kirkwall.

Mods are TOO FUN. No way in hell I'd ever ever ever get an RPG for a console.

[Rand{CLR}]

I'm a sword/shield warrior (I miss dual weapons for warriors) with Anders and Merrill for magery, buffs, and area effect, and Isabela for thieving. I think Varric would be far more amusing, but his crossbow just plain sucks compared to the dual wield/cloak/subterfuge of a true thief. I sometimes summon my Mabari War Hound, Woofy, son of Barky.

If I decide to use a second warrior, it'll probably be Aveline because she seems to be a bit more well-rounded in combat than Fenris.

-Rand

[Apache Warrior]

I sometimes summon my Mabari War Hound, Woofy, son of Barky.

That would be like naming your cat Meow or Hiss.
Apache

[baconoclock]

That would be like naming your cat Meow or Hiss.
Apache

When I played wow i had a hunter named RonBurgendy and his pet was a dog named Baxter

[plaztic.dagger]

Anders and Merrill for magery, buffs, and area effect, and Isabela for thieving.

-Rand

Thats been my typical party as well for Acts 2 & 3. In Act 1 it was Merrill, Isabella and Bethany.
I went with the 2H weapon warrior and picking up the skill tree with Second Wind to get back stam in combat quickly plus buff party members.

Anders I used for healing and buffs. Merrill all out damage and AOEs. Isa and my warrior just shred things side-by-side with stuns and backstabs.

The banter between Isa and Merrill is pretty entertaining IMO.

I typically call in the dog as fodder...

Finished Act 3 Sunday night. Now just going back and trying a few different choices to see if there is any different out come before trying another class. Story is pretty good IMO, ending leaves a huge opening for more DLC.

[BadHabitz]

I sometimes summon my Mabari War Hound, Woofy, son of Barky

My pets are always named Gary.

[Rand{CLR}]

Ok, finished up in 39 hours, 13 minutes. Missed some achievements because stuff was just hard to find and it was easy to screw up a few things.

Not a huge amount of bugs. Two broken side quests and an out-of-order companion quest. Normal DA engine clipping. 3 CTD in that time. The funniest? Right as it transitioned from the "win game" cinematic to the credits. So I missed the credits and missed several of the endgame achievements popping up (but still got them).

I now see what you all mean about sameness of place. I don't mind a city-oriented game, but it would be helpful if we weren't exploring the same mansion and cave over and over. I'm also disappointed by the amount of loot and loot diversity throughout. I was using the freebie Fadeshear sword for most of the game, and the blade I found to be better only had 1 rune slot and I didn't get a chance to put one of the top 3 weapon runes in it. Most equipment was just bad compared to what I had equipped at any given time, or way too expensive, and while in DA:O I had to do a lot of inventory management I never once filled my backpack here.

The endgame plotwise and combat wise was pretty terrific and made up for a slowish third act. I'd like to see how other choices play out up to and including that point without another 30+ hours of play.

Overall, it's not in the same class as DA:O, Oblivion, ME 2, or Fallout 3. It's in the next tier, better than most RPGs. On a cost-benefits perspective, it's a bit lower still unfortunately. At just shy of 40 hours for $60 bucks, it doesn't come close to most of those other top-tier games: 60 hours at $50 bucks.

-Rand

[Skud]

I was at Best Buy the other day and they had it on sale for $49, so I made an impulse buy, even though I didn't finish Origins (got tired of running around trying to find a fight at one point).

After setting up the tactics for the group and getting a few new spells/abilities in this one, it seems to be going pretty well. At highest settings the game looks quite nice. RPGs are not my specialty, but sometimes a change of pace is refreshing.

[plaztic.dagger]

I now see what you all mean about sameness of place. I don't mind a city-oriented game, but it would be helpful if we weren't exploring the same mansion and cave over and over. I'm also disappointed by the amount of loot and loot diversity throughout. I was using the freebie Fadeshear sword for most of the game, and the blade I found to be better only had 1 rune slot and I didn't get a chance to put one of the top 3 weapon runes in it. Most equipment was just bad compared to what I had equipped at any given time, or way too expensive, and while in DA:O I had to do a lot of inventory management I never once filled my backpack here.

I didnt mind the rehashing of interiors at first, but be the end of the game it really started to annoy me. Even the minimap was the same, all they did was just make doors unusable to create a different path each time to your goal. "Oh look there's another room on the minimap that's blocked off that I cant get into..."

As for weapons I rarely changed out Hawke's 2H weapon. I found myself swapping out Aveline, Isabela, and staffs more often they Hawke's own weapon. That did seem kinda odd.

But I guess thats what you get for a years turn around time of production. Which brings me to my other concern... I remember reading somewhere (Kotaku?) that Bioware wanted a quick turn around time on ME3 as well... Which would be a serious let down IMO.

[BadHabitz]

As for weapons I rarely changed out Hawke's 2H weapon. I found myself swapping out Aveline, Isabela, and staffs more often they Hawke's own weapon. That did seem kinda odd.

It's not really odd, it's that there was a much higher diversity and drop rate for weapons besides 2hand swords.