I cannot find an answer online so I am asking here. Is the expansion Pack (Awakenings) going to be a separate disk? or Download only. Curious.

The article on the last page says it's a retail expansion so it may be in store only.

I think I'll wait for the inevitable super deluxe GOTY edition that includes the expansion.

If this means it is played on the game disk then that puts my mind at ease that i will not need to free up hard drive space on my 20GB unit.

The tactics? Me neither. I just let them do what they want, hang back casting spells or healing. For some reason the person I keep giving a bow to, keeps changing to the sword. I want that one to be an archer. I keep forgetting to hit LB/RB and cycle through them to tell each party member what to do as well.

That's where tactics may help. Set him/her to the ranged type. I had that problem with Leliana. She always switched out of her bow and went to sword, until I realized she had a melee tactic on.

The tactics can be quite useful, but you need to use some custom control as well. For example, some of the best spells I used to Morrigan were area effect, such as cone of cold to freeze enemies. However, if I used this with tactics, she doesn't check for friendly fire. So, I took it off her tactics and made sure I used it only under my control.

Exactly. Plus, the pre-set tactics tend to suck.

Well, I'm officially obsessed with this game. I just spent the evening playing through Dragon Age Journeys: The Deep Roads and getting all of the (non-Xbox) achievements just so I could get the three DLC items. I don't even need them... I have much better stuff equipped already.

The game itself isn't bad for being built in Flash, but the gameplay and story are pretty shallow. It's a prequel to Dragon Age: Origins. I guess there are going to be two more chapters, but they're charging for them. Overarching story is about how the archdemon was awakened.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sd4FfVPowwk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sd4FfVPowwk&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Ah... just beat it. Over 90 hours for one play through. (I like to do everything and micromanage my stats. )

That's where I finished up on my first play through. My brother was giving me shit about it because it only took him 50 hours and he did everything just like I did. I'm trying to figure out where those additional 40 hours went.

So this is going to be my next RPG i start probably on the weekend. I've always sucked at assigning skill points upon leveling up. What is the best way to use points? Is it recommended to just put all the points into only two skills? Or is it better to split the points up evenly?

It really depends upon the character. For mages, I stuck to mostly Willpower and Magic. Warriors and Rogues can use everything, though I neglected Magic (I seemed to get decent dealing without touching this stat). I found myself pumping points into stats to meet the requirements of armor/weapons/skills/talents. Have a look at the skill/talent grids when you start playing the game. Think what things you might want to get down the road, and that will direct where you assign your stats. Generally, Warriors will get more STR and CON ... Rogues more DEX and CUN. If you find yourself using the stamina-based abilities a lot in combat, you may want to give some points to Willpower for those classes as well.

I think the leveling system is pretty forgiving ... I don't see anyone "ruining" their character by not leveling ideally. Any group that keeps leveling should be competitive by the end. You'll probably get at least 60 stat points to spend throughout the game, so there are a lot of points to go around. I think more important than the stat points are the talent/spell points. Be sure not to waste any of them for something you don't think your character will use (for example, if you know a warrior will always use a shield don't use any points in 2-handed weapon talents - and vice versa). The same for mages - if a spell row doesn't look like something you'll use, don't put points in it. And look ahead to the 3rd and 4th column spells - sometimes I found myself spending a point on something that didn't look that good to get to something that came next on the same row.

I'll go further and warn that anyone who neglects Willpower will will have a much toughter time of it. Special abilities (such as combat moves) depend on it and it depletes in combat. I will also say that Warriors should not neglect dex ... unless you don't mind missing the target a lot.

I was curious about this before, so I'll mention it here for other people. Donating money definitely improves the quality of the armor and weapons that the coalition troops are equipped with. I gave 0 at first, then redid it after donating 60 sovereigns. The improvement was noticeable, even more so with 90, I imagine.

In the end, I really didn't need the troops that much anyway, but I donated my remaining gold since I was already satisfied with the armor and items I had equipped on my main character (since we'll be able to import the main character with his equipped items into the expansion).

I always wondered how much donating helped your allies. I wish there was a way to tell how much you've given or how much you've improved their weapons/armor.

So, I don't know if it was just a matter of being more tactical or just plain luck, but I didn't notice my donations make a bit of difference, personally.

As I said, they make a visible difference in terms of armor and weaponry. It's possible that you just sucked the first time, and didn't suck quite as much the second time.

20 hours in, I might as well ask a few questions to see how far off I've gotten.

* Rogue - has some potions that are "coat the weapon" type things. How/when are these used? Can they only be used on the rogue's weapons? In combat? Outside of combat?

* Mage tower quest:

* Relationships:

* Money: Holy crap, what am I doing wrong? The most I've ever had - right now - is about 35 gold (whatever). Ten hours ago shops were offering me things costing close to 100. I'm a packrat because in games like this you never know what someone down the road might want, so I've really only been selling weapons and armor that I'm not using.

Cash is just tight in the game, most of the best stuff you find by doing quest/ side quests.

There's a guy in the Dwarf slums that wants you to smuggle lyrium. Play your cards right with it (and bring like 40g to buy the lyrium) and you can make some pretty hefty money (I think 60g max). Other than that, cash is pretty tight.

I'm stuck. I was playing the hell out of this game before Thanksgiving, but since then I think I've played it maybe two hours. I keep getting my ass handed to me in random battles in Denerim and I can't figure out why. It's just frustrating at this point.

If I lost s few times to the same people, I just switched to casual for that battle.

Finished this today. I want to give this another play through to make some different choices, but with Mass Effect 2 coming on Tuesday it will probably be on hold for awhile.

I thought the game was pretty good, but I preferred Mass Effect more.

The back alley fights are some of the toughest in the game. There are numerous archers spread out in each encounter- Scattershot can be deadly to your party, especially if 3 or 4 of them cast it on you at once. Make sure you're using a good mass area of effect spell, like Sleep, to take them out of commission. Also, Sleep+Horror combines to do massive damage- that's one less archer to worry about when they start waking up. Blizzard or Earthquake can also make them less effective against you.

Thanks for the tips. I will definitely try these out.

I'm glad to hear that these battles are some of the toughest in the game. I was worried about my CRPG cred.