I didn't like this at first, but it grew on me.

No bugs to report here, and I think I am on the third act.

Better get that shit done before your kid shows up, fo reelz.

Q F MFn T.

Honestly, I am surprised I made it this far into the game

I think the next game I play if I am lucky will be LA Noire in May.

I finished it.

The first one definetely had a better story and ending. This one kind of just threw it at you towards the end.

Oh and I just realized I never even found Isabella, so maybe that's why I didn't get any bugs or game breakers. Well outside of the DLC achievements not unlocking.

My copy of the Signature Edition finally arrived in the mail. However, I've yet to finish the first game (and haven't even started Awakening). For those that have already played and finished DA:O, DA:A, and DAII, was there any real benefit from porting over the save (like how the narrative choices in ME1 directly affected ME2) or was it all cosmetic at best?

Yay for first pregnancies going longer than expected

You never found her? Interesting - i guess doing side quests is a good thing. I'm not including her in my party anyway, my rogue is awesome as she is.

Not really. Characters talk about events from Origins, but that's about it.

You get an achievement for using a saved file amd finishing the game, that's about it.

It's not close to who how they do it in Mass Effect.

That's the thing, I literally did every side quest they threw at me. I did those before the main story line.

obviously not

Since, in a strange bit of unintentional metatextualism I personally could have done without, getting friendly with Isabella gives you a horrible bug -- you didn't miss much.

BioWare's Chris Priestly has given a bit of an update regarding a patch. It's supposedly going through the certification process now and will be released... sometime... and will feature over 100 bug fixes (!). They're not saying what those fixes actually are yet, so whether that will include fixes for the "Thumbs Up" bug and the like, and whether you'll be able to continue an effected playthough or not, is still a mystery. Hopefully it gets through certification soon and I can actually finish the game. Wouldn't that be nice.

I now have a new bug. My rogue Hawke is perpetually bent over with his arms sticking out to his sides, as if his weapons are drawn.

Luckily its not a game breaker, and its kind of funny to see him like that in the cut scenes.

^ Maybe he's getting ready to fly. All he needs is a running start.

Sounds like Raccoon Mario.

Another great one I had, was my female Hawke having male Hawke's voice during random cut-scenes. That was always worth a laugh.

who is the best healer in the game?
I'm wondering if i should take the spirit healer specialization or maybe i should wait until i encounter another char? so far i've only got anders and Merill in my group and neither seem to be good healers.

also, what happens if one in your group becomes a "rival"?

I didn't even know Merill could heal. My healers were Anders and Bethany.

Mild spoiler but you may want to max out all your healing capable mages early because .

Anders is the best healer, but since Merill is such a beast on the attack I just used her and loaded up with health potions and had it preset my squad to use them.

I don't think anything really changes if you are a rival with a character.

I think you're right. I think just the tone of the conversation changes somewhat. Heck, I've even read you can romance someone even if you have afull rivalry going on (and that's apparently not a glitch).

I really dig the game and don't mind that, though the story spans a longer time period than that of the first, it's actually a very small scale story but Bioware got real lazy with the character development/interactions this time around. Sure they banter and all but there's something that just sorta leaves you disconnected.

From what I've seen, the friendship/rivalry's effect is mainly for the end game.



They got lazy in a lot of areas, unfortunately. Kirkwall, aside from a minor (but cool) thing in Act 3, never changes over a story that is supposed to span roughly a decade. They add or shuffle around a few NPCs here and there, but for the most part it's the same people standing in the same places saying the same things for 10 years. Hell, Fenris' mansion has the same signs of battle and dead bodies lying on the ground in Act 3, that it has in Act 1. The recycled environments have been talked nearly to death, but it does get tiresome after awhile. It's like they said: "Here's the cave... here's the mansion... here's the deep roads... here's the beach... oh yeah, and here's a warehouse... boom. Level design."

I've made my feelings known on the bugs and lack of QA, I mean, how do they not notice or justify something like the DA:O imports being broken when it was so deeply integrated and worked so well in Mass Effect and ME2?

Supposedly the ending is essentially a glorified "To Be Continued...", but not in an exciting a dramatic way like the Mass Effect games.

I like the idea of the game. I am perfectly ok with it being a smaller story. Up until Act 3, where the game totally derailed for me, I was having fun with combat and enjoying it for the most part. Once I was forced to sit and wait for BioWare to actually finish the game (I suppose my check from EA/BioWare for being a beta tester is in the mail), I took a more critical eye to a lot of stuff that I had let slide partly out of loyalty/fanboyism to BioWare, and it really seems clear to me that they shit this one out on all phases of development. Maybe they decided or were forced by EA to short change this to focus on their Star Wars MMO. I don't know. What I do know though, is DA2 probably killed the franchise for me, and I really hope BioWare gets their act back together for Mass Effect 3.

Yeah

I sided with

I already dumped my copy. If the DLC is any good I'll probably pick up the ultimate addition when I can get a deal on that in the future.

About 11 hours in and just finished the Deep Roads section. I'm enjoying the game a lot more then the first one. I think the smaller scope of the game is helping quite a bit, and I love the Mass Effect style dialog compared to the first game. The only thing that's annoying is the constant loading hopping between areas.

why is anders considered the best healer?
he only has access to the creation tree and doesn't have access to the spirit healer tree.

because he is the only healer???

I thought healers weren't as useful this game as they were in Origins. I had better success with Merill and her attacking abilities then using Anders.