Spoiler alert: you can romance Cullen! Who'd have guessed?
Never!!!!!!!!!! I am going 2 experience Cullen's romance myself not through a video!!!!! I have held out this long damn it I can wait a few more hours/days/months
May I suggest you stay off the internet while you spend the whole weekend locked up playing the game? That´s the only way I´d be able to avoid spoilers if I were as excited as you are!
That's what I'm planning to do! I have to go to a friend's birthday lunch tomorrow but besides that I am going to do nothing but play this game once it installs.... if it runs on my laptop.
Don't worry @Princess_Ciri, for once, I'm on your side. I don't care how lame it sounds, and I don't care how corny anyone thinks her romance scene is, I will not watch Cassandra's video until I've seen it myself ingame. I will enjoy it spoiler free, thank you 
Which I can now do with MAXIMUM POWER GRAPHICS, thanks to my new cpu cooler, which was a BITCH to put in because it was so FUCKING huge. But it's worth it. The shit is ice cold now, highest temp when the game's running max is low 50's C. About 66 ish when I really put it to the test in big battles on screen, which isn't too bad for all the power my GTX 970 is throwing my poor cpu.
Which I can now do with MAXIMUM POWER GRAPHICS, thanks to my new cpu cooler, which was a BITCH to put in because it was so FUCKING huge. But it's worth it. The shit is ice cold now, highest temp when the game's running max is low 50's C. About 66 ish when I really put it to the test in big battles on screen, which isn't too bad for all the power my GTX 970 is throwing my poor cpu.
My laptop isn't overheating but the game crashes before I can even get to the start menu :/ The furthest I got was to the green bioware logo....
Currently updating my graphics drivers and going through all the bug fixes to try and get the game to work. Ugh.
Currently updating my graphics drivers and going through all the bug fixes to try and get the game to work. Ugh.
Well I bought the game even though I had promised myself to wait to see more of let's players I trust and also TB WTF and so on. But I am bored game wise and decided that I would give Bioware the benefit of the doubt to come back from DA2. After all I have spent countless hours with their games since BG1.
And I have to admit I am very disappoint. Not saying DA:I is a bad game, no but it is just not of the quality I expect from Bioware. It is a consolified game that grabs ideas from any famous game series out there and in doing so it does nothing great, it only does it ok. I feel detached from the world, from my Player character. I find myself getting easilly distracted from the game, texting others, reading the news and so on. It's not that I am not entertained because as I said it is not a bad game by any means. I just don't have that feeling of immersion I have felt with other Bioware games.
I think and I don't used that word lightly that Bioware with DA:I went all out and "dumbed" the game down. I don't feel I have to think anymore, everything is done for me when it comes to leveling up for example. No longer can I select anything else but a new perk - that's it. And I don't care what I pick because it is just more bling and colors on the screen. There is no more selection of having a character go into herbalism, trap-making, poisoning, lockpicking and so on. Some of them are rogue specific for example but they are very gimbed versions of what use to be.
Combat is for me boring and frustrating on higher difficulties, It is imo not engaging and it is not well done - again on higher difficulties. It is consolified randomness of color, bling and effects. I always play on highest difficulty in RPGs because it brings a challenge and I feel rewarded and satisfied when getting through a difficult fight. I don't feel this with DA:I at all. The reason for it is that there is no real tactics - eg. no meaningful trap-making like in DA:O where I could pull enemies into a trap and softening them down. The fact that I now actually have to move my character around with the keyboard is annoying. I can no longer point and click, why?. Granted I can use the tactical view but this too have being consolified into oblivion and is no fun to use at all for me in this version. And now I also actively have to press my mouse to get the control character to attack?!? Well I guess for some that's more engaging, for me it is just a step away from what made Bioware RPGs combat great. And healing is gone is just one more nail in the coffin to that statement. It's a bad call and it makes classes feel more and more similar. I repeat a statement I said earlier in this thread - they should instead have introduced a priest class for more diversity.
Anyway I choose to go down to normal difficulty and now I enjoy the combat ok. It is not great, but ok fun but I sincerly feel sad about what it in my point could have been if Bioware would just have sticked to the formula they did so great in the old days. I am sure in the next game we will have QTE in the middle of combat.
Then there is the matter of collectables. Well for sure you don't need to do them and can ignore them, but why put them in the game in the first places? It just goes to shove that Bioware try to attract ever possible gamer out there - there has to be something for everyone. Well this is not AC or FC. This is DA and a RPG and why spent time and ressources on this grap (imo) when they could have spent that on better quests eg. Or a better interface because what we have here is just bad. I am sorry but why go from something that worked perfectly to this? It might be great on consol, which I am sure it was developed for, but for PC this is just a nuisance - back and forward through menus in eg inventory and character customization when you could have had it all in one screen. It's bad bad bad design.
This also goes for eg. the journal and quest log. Why can't I activate every quests instead of just one. God I have spent hours running back and forward with quest I could have turned in immediately, if I could have had them all active. Now I have to go and set each one active to see if they are in the near area of where I am. It's bad design. Don't get me wrong I would actually have liked it to not be able to show them at all and I had to explorer for them and so on. But that kind of implies I had to care about the quests which I don't since they are not well presented and most are fetched quests as said plenty of time in here. I don't understand this approached, why no have fewer quests that we as gamers care about, instead of this flood of tasks. Yes I get it, you need it to get power and influences, but that could have been done so much better and engaging that this.
Anyway as I said I do have fun with the game still and I am ok entertained. The characters are well done and I have actually laughed my ass off several times when it comes to the party banter. This game is for me just not the great or a exceptional game that I had hoped for and I am sure when I am done I will not be replaying it.
And I have to admit I am very disappoint. Not saying DA:I is a bad game, no but it is just not of the quality I expect from Bioware. It is a consolified game that grabs ideas from any famous game series out there and in doing so it does nothing great, it only does it ok. I feel detached from the world, from my Player character. I find myself getting easilly distracted from the game, texting others, reading the news and so on. It's not that I am not entertained because as I said it is not a bad game by any means. I just don't have that feeling of immersion I have felt with other Bioware games.
I think and I don't used that word lightly that Bioware with DA:I went all out and "dumbed" the game down. I don't feel I have to think anymore, everything is done for me when it comes to leveling up for example. No longer can I select anything else but a new perk - that's it. And I don't care what I pick because it is just more bling and colors on the screen. There is no more selection of having a character go into herbalism, trap-making, poisoning, lockpicking and so on. Some of them are rogue specific for example but they are very gimbed versions of what use to be.
Combat is for me boring and frustrating on higher difficulties, It is imo not engaging and it is not well done - again on higher difficulties. It is consolified randomness of color, bling and effects. I always play on highest difficulty in RPGs because it brings a challenge and I feel rewarded and satisfied when getting through a difficult fight. I don't feel this with DA:I at all. The reason for it is that there is no real tactics - eg. no meaningful trap-making like in DA:O where I could pull enemies into a trap and softening them down. The fact that I now actually have to move my character around with the keyboard is annoying. I can no longer point and click, why?. Granted I can use the tactical view but this too have being consolified into oblivion and is no fun to use at all for me in this version. And now I also actively have to press my mouse to get the control character to attack?!? Well I guess for some that's more engaging, for me it is just a step away from what made Bioware RPGs combat great. And healing is gone is just one more nail in the coffin to that statement. It's a bad call and it makes classes feel more and more similar. I repeat a statement I said earlier in this thread - they should instead have introduced a priest class for more diversity.
Anyway I choose to go down to normal difficulty and now I enjoy the combat ok. It is not great, but ok fun but I sincerly feel sad about what it in my point could have been if Bioware would just have sticked to the formula they did so great in the old days. I am sure in the next game we will have QTE in the middle of combat.
Then there is the matter of collectables. Well for sure you don't need to do them and can ignore them, but why put them in the game in the first places? It just goes to shove that Bioware try to attract ever possible gamer out there - there has to be something for everyone. Well this is not AC or FC. This is DA and a RPG and why spent time and ressources on this grap (imo) when they could have spent that on better quests eg. Or a better interface because what we have here is just bad. I am sorry but why go from something that worked perfectly to this? It might be great on consol, which I am sure it was developed for, but for PC this is just a nuisance - back and forward through menus in eg inventory and character customization when you could have had it all in one screen. It's bad bad bad design.
This also goes for eg. the journal and quest log. Why can't I activate every quests instead of just one. God I have spent hours running back and forward with quest I could have turned in immediately, if I could have had them all active. Now I have to go and set each one active to see if they are in the near area of where I am. It's bad design. Don't get me wrong I would actually have liked it to not be able to show them at all and I had to explorer for them and so on. But that kind of implies I had to care about the quests which I don't since they are not well presented and most are fetched quests as said plenty of time in here. I don't understand this approached, why no have fewer quests that we as gamers care about, instead of this flood of tasks. Yes I get it, you need it to get power and influences, but that could have been done so much better and engaging that this.
Anyway as I said I do have fun with the game still and I am ok entertained. The characters are well done and I have actually laughed my ass off several times when it comes to the party banter. This game is for me just not the great or a exceptional game that I had hoped for and I am sure when I am done I will not be replaying it.
Don't feel too bad, I've been having that even with my rig, and even when I just ran it now with new cpu fan cooler. The game's a bit unstable on PC. Took me three tries to get it going now and not crash... No clue why. It's the only game that does this for me too. I got this ironically AFTER the driver update. Before, it was fine but the actual game was kind of choppy and slow on load times.
Well, a couple of hours further along and I still feel pretty meh about the game so far. The Hinterlands look pretty at first sight, but when you've wandered around for a while it really starts to feel like a very large, but boring and badly designed MMO zone, chock full of repetitive content. It feels extremely videogamey.
Here's to the better times later on
Here's to the better times later on
Did you figure out any way to stop it permanently?
I've updated my graphics drivers and i'm currently "repairing" it on Origins but after that I only have one more bug fix I can use before I've run out of fixes :/
I don't even understand what is causing the crash bc I'm not getting an error, my laptop is cool so... i don't think this is because of my dual cores.
Might be time to run a DXDIAG and send a support ticket to Origin. Might as well do it now to get a jump on things. I remember waiting with baited breath for Skyrim for months and it took a week of fiddling to get it running because of some stupid menu issue. Totally deflated my enthusiasm for the game.
That's the one thing I thought they did well in the pacing- they didn't just elevate you right away.
Is it? I've been jealous of Solas' frost spells and considering respec'ing out of lightning. He seems to control the field much better which suits to a more up-front battlemage style.
Well I'm interested enough in the story and characters to persevere, it's just enormously frustrating and grindy at times.
The main story is better than I expected, and progresses better than DAO did. Some of the cinematics are very impressive. They also do the transitions really well.
Started Solas' romance. It's quite good so far and felt like a natural progression after the little mountaintop elven bonding scene.
Also: WHY did they make the armors so restricted again!!!! Dammit, if I want to wear rogue armors as a mage and heavy armor as a rogue then let me.
Good news is that I got the game to run long enough for it to actually tell me what the issue is.
Apparently it's a DirectX function error, which could have something to do with my graphics card.... hoping I can find a fix for this issue though because from what I can see other people with superior graphics cards are getting the same error.