I just gotta say, if Obsidian released a game with that many bugs already known about they would be ripped to shreds like they were with Alpha Protocol, with Bugsidian comments and how all their games are broken etc, yet it's fine when Bioware does it?

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest, those who get this game let us know if it's any different/better than the demo, and whether there are any bits that you think might prompt people into wanting to get it now.

Trimmed the audio down a bit, could have done a better job but Power Director is a pain in the hole for editing audio and I didn't have Audacity installed. Still get the point across newlink

Sounds better. Or maybe it's just my Soundcard + Seinnheiser headphones compared to my workplace's shitty sound.

<3 Guile's theme. Too bad Ryu's theme doesn't go too well unlike Guile's.

So are we going to have a DA2 thread or do we just post everything here? I got the game yesterday, played it for like 3 hours, I'll just copy and paste what I posted in another forum:

Played the game, started a female Mage, imported my complete DAO save, Nightmare mode. Played past the demo stage, killed the Ogre. Now right in the main city, raising funds to proceed with the main quest. Where have I done that before? Oh yes, BG2's Chapter 2, bravo!

Fights on Nightmare as suggested in the demo are much harder than in Normal or DAO's cheesy Nightmare.
Demo on Nightmare: Healing spell CD 60s, pots: dunno.
Actual Game Nightmare: Healing spell CD 40s, pots seem to be shorter too than demo.
Demo don't seem to have mob interrupts. Actual game every single mob can interrupt you from casting a spell, moving etc, and yes chain stunning you if your Fortitude(from Strength) rating or HP is low, especially them mages. A Warrior should be able to withstand interrupts pretty well especially your Shield Defense Warrior.
In Demo was able to get the Ogre down to 1/4 hp with my 2H Warr and Aveline, afterwhich my mage killed it. Actual game, Carver and Aveline died when Ogre was at 3/4 hp. My mage had to solo the whole fight together with the 5 Darkspawn adds. Kite, Fireballing ftw.

Got to the next city, had a fight, the encounter threw one whole bunch of mobs at you. The very next city fight, you guessed it, throw one whole bunch of mobs at you. My Power Rangers wouldn't have won without the NPCs help.

So, yes, the previous complains all applies: There's no Companion Armour inventory, there's a big square telling you what he's wearing and that's it. Interface looks like Ass Effect. I see no skills at all. Conversation system, by golly it's horrible, I'm supposed to remember what the icons for the conversational choices stand for, so "Diamond" icon means charming, seriously I'm supposed to remember that? A judge hammer icon means speak directly, WTF?
Also I noticed your items no longer seem to have a description anymore, granted I'm at the start. But in DAO, you could read about the item description when you examined it. I see no option to examine items.
And like what I mentioned in the other post, companions come with their own specialisations, you can't spec what you want for them anymore.

One good thing, the game remembers my Warden in DAO as female! Applauds!
Bodahn and Sandal are back. Sandal says something other than "Enchantment" for once. But he still doesn't explain how he's the most powerful character in Ferelden.

And another forumers complaint about the companions' inventory:
"And not being able to outfit my companions is a downer. I ended with lotsa nice stuff but no way to use them, so had to sell them all. That.is.a.very.dumb.move.Bioware!"

This is disturbing, from Gamespot itself:
"From here, your vague primary goal is to make a name for yourself in the region over the ensuing years, rising from freeloading refugee to local champion. There's an odd lack of direction here. There is no overall sense of purpose, no main villain, and no opportunity to save the world from marauding darkspawn. While you do get a few chances to square off against such beasts, the stakes are never clear because there's no central plot to pull you through. As a result, the story is scattered--a series of missions and events without a center. The most heartfelt moments come from peripheral tangents and side quests focused on individual party members, where you explore loss, love, and betrayal. Nevertheless, there's a discouraging lack of epic-ness and focus, and no final prize to set your eyes on. "

Thank you. You didn't mention the story though how does it seem so far? Acting quality and generally how interesting it is are more important for me.

The game mechianics I knew about but still it's disappointing to actually see it in action on videos. I have it pre-loaded but no playing for me will Friday :( Been trawling the net while avoiding spoilers and as expected the game has completely polarized both fans and reviewers. It's either rubbish or it's fantastic, there seems to be no middle ground. Then again being the internets that's probably because most reasonable people are you know, playing it instead of writing about it.

I've only played past what you saw in the demo, afterwhich I landed in the city and did another 2 quests which involved fighting huge mobs of enemies, then I got into the city and stopped there. Now I'm supposed to raise 50gold to proceed with the storyline. Like raising 20,000 coins in BG2's Chapter 2. So I can't really judge about the story yet.

I edited my post to include the story opinions from Gamespot. You might wanna take a look see. But all I know is now I'm in the city, and have no clear objective for the story other than to earn money and join some guild or something. In BG2, you earned the money to look for Imoen. Oh well.

Yeah I read that review earlier and it's a complete contradiction to what PC Gamers said, hence my confusion over the whole thing. It's almost like the two reviewers are playing two completely different builds.

How big are the fights and how challenging are the individual enemies? It's not getting into Dynasty Warriors territory i hope.

I find it quite the challenge as well - but so far good fun. It really makes you think about your tactics and you have to keep an eye on everything. Archers especially. Damn, they're powerful (and annoying). Crowd control is essential. But it's nice that there's a mode like this that really makes you use your characters' abilities to their full extent.

cw8 - how'd you fare against that ogre in the beginning? He waxed my Rogue and Aveline. When those two fell, there were still two very badly wounded Hurlock Grunts as well as the Ogre left for Bethany to deal with. Had to kite and lob fireballs every time it recharged. Got through it though, but it was a damned close thing.

Same thing. In the demo I got the Ogre down to 1/4 hp when Aveline went down. I only managed 3/4s in the actual game. My Mage then went solo, kited the Ogre and the 5 Darkspawn mobs, fireballing, kiting, fireballing till the Ogre was left. In DAO's Ogre fight in the tower, you couldn't kite and kill him with a solo mage, he'll catch up with you and would've grabbed you. In DA2, it's laughable, kite him till he starts to charge, sidestep abit from his charge path, staff bolt him, then he will throw a rock, sidestep again, staff bolt him, kite again till he starts to charge, repeat and rinse till dead. Felt like an action RPG when I did that.

The game demands you kill off lieutenants (ie: Hurlock Grunts) as they're the only ones who do any decent damage. Wasting time on the chaff is just asking to be cut to pieces.

The AI will often target chaff, I don't know if they're just picking up the nearest enemy or if its script gimping. I say gimping because every single encounter goes like this:

Boss or lieutenant + a couple of chaff visible.... kill off enough chaff = trigger 'another wave' (oh goodness what a surprise..) approximately double the number of mobs appear out of nowhere, half from behind your mage.

Example: You can tank the ogres at the start, if you force everyone to concentrate on it, the 'another wave' wont show up till you're good and ready provided you just ignore the chaff at the start of the fight and let them behave like the cheerleaders they are.

Likewise the mercenary battle in the gallows.

Party members can still get stuck swinging at nothing, not attacking. It can be easy to miss when they're surrounded by bad guys. The only way to get around it I've seen is to set everyone to aggressive and just use the hold command when you need to manually move them about.

All the fights I had so far were like that. It gives me a impression that Bioware made the many mob fights so as to enhance the killing experience that you're wtfpawning all the mobs quickly like you would in Action RPG. Then simply increased the integer values of the enemies HP and attack values with the same number of mobs, also the values of your CDs of heals and spells/abilites and called it Nightmare mode. There's no new variety in the AI, of what the enemy does etc other than the enemy interrupting ability.

Seems like someone in the Bioware boards felt the same:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6420713

Some story on Slashdot briefly mentioned a 1GB texture pack for better graphics on the PC version, how's that working out, PC players? Do you notice a difference?

I almost like the interruptions. It forces you to pick abilities to handle melee as a mage, which makes sense.

ONLY: Some of those particular abilities should be harder to interrupt. I shouldn't have to kite to cast required spells in a given situation. You can be stun locked to the point that you can't lay down a rune or cast mind blast.

What really annoys is that interrupt removes the action from a characters 'queue' (can you really call one action in advance a queue?). You can't tell a mage to drop a repulsion rune and switch back to a fighter, you have to nurse the mage until they successfully get the spell off.

Kiting is only difficult if you rely on movement keys (ASDW), clicking off in the distance first to get your mage running, is a lot more successful. Once you're moving you can revert to ASDWing your dance moves in their face.