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Maia... well, you get the idea by now.

I have to admit, I also sided with the Templars for some selfish reasons. I knew that if I sided with them, I'd get their support to become Viscount after both Orsino and Meredith were killed. Then after being made Viscount, I'd appoint Bethany as First Enchanter and Cullen as Knight-Commander.

Tawmis, do not mistake me.

I loathe First Enchanter Orsino for what he did, for the aid he provided to Quentin. Still, what Meredith did - along with her cohorts, like Sir Alrik - was worse in my opinion. Not worse than Quentin. But certainly worse than Orsino.

Take Anders' personal quest in Act 2, "Dissent." Sir Alrik was trying to made a young girl Tranquil so that he could rape her alongside his Templars. He was trying to make her a puppet so that he could - let me state it once again - rape her.

As much as I loathe murderers, rapists are even worse, in my opinion. And when my party killed Sir Alrik it felt right and fair and just. He was... I don't have words. And Meredith knew!

Maia, don't read.

AndreaDraco wrote:Tawmis, do not mistake me.

I loathe First Enchanter Orsino for what he did, for the aid he provided to Quentin. Still, what Meredith did - along with her cohorts, like Sir Alrik - was worse in my opinion. Not worse than Quentin. But certainly worse than Orsino.

Take Anders' personal quest in Act 2, "Dissent." Sir Alrik was trying to made a young girl Tranquil so that he could rape her alongside his Templars. He was trying to make her a puppet so that he could - let me state it once again - rape her.

As much as I loathe murderers, rapists are even worse, in my opinion. And when my party killed Sir Alrik it felt right and fair and just. He was... I don't have words. And Meredith knew!

Oh, I am with you. Anyone who rapes needs to have something vile done to them. On that we agree 100%. And I agree, killing him was very satisfying. But it seems both sides are at fault here. Because if the First Enchanter is doing Blood Magic, then clearly the rest of them. And Blood Magic - from everything we know - does some incredibly vile things. It's easier to hate something like rape - because that's real - it's something we can apply to the real world. There's no such thing as Blood Magic, so we can't tell how vile it is - but the game gives a very clear impression that it's pretty down right horrible. So not only was First Enchanter doing Blood Magic, he also knew his students were. He would have to know they were doing it. So, there's many parallels between Meredith and First Enchanter. The main difference, at least Meredith was pretty much far more truthful than the First Enchanter.

Maia don't... well, you know.

AndreaDraco wrote:That particular girl, though - and I don't know if you know, but Maia certainly does, because, romancing Anders, she was able to save her, was completely innocent. She contacts Hawke in Act 3, if saved, and her letter is very sweet.
She was innocent. She wasn't practing blood magic.
And yet Alrik and Meredith would have made her a Tranquil to abuse her.
If someone resorts to Blood Magic to fight against these tyrants, as vile as it may be, is still more understandable that what they were doing to them.

Resorting to Blood Magic and all that - fine. But the fact that in the end, they lied to your face. You were about to lay your life down for them against the Templars. They swore up and down there was no Blood Magic going on. Imagine if that was you - and there was no "Restore" if you died... Would you truly be so understanding of someone who would deceive you at the possible cost of your life? What if the game ended with you dying, and the last thing you see is the First Enchanter and all the Mages resorting to Blood Magic (that they swore they were not doing)... Think if that was your dying vision - defending mages, that swore to you, that they were not doing this...

I understand your point, Tawmis. I really do.

However, considering what Templars were doing in Kirkwall, I'd have helped the Mages even if they had a giant luminous sign saying "Blood Magic" pointing to their heads. I'd have certainly fought Orsino, had I discovered that he helped Quentin, that's for sure. But after that I'd have still defended the mages against the templars.

Maia... don't. Read. This.

(Well till you finish the game!)

AndreaDraco wrote:I understand your point, Tawmis. I really do.

However, considering what Templars were doing in Kirkwall, I'd have helped the Mages even if they had a giant luminous sign saying "Blood Magic" pointing to their heads. I'd have certainly fought Orsino, had I discovered that he helped Quentin, that's for sure. But after that I'd have still defended the mages against the templars.

That's cool. You're entitled to be wrong.

I kid! It all comes down to difference of opinion. To me, if I am about to lay my life down for you - for a fight where I am defending you based on you swearing to me that you're innocent... Is worse for me, than being oppressed, whether deserving or not. Perhaps because the oppression is more general feeling - where as what I feel what First Enchanter did was far more personal. It involved me directly and lying to me (as Hawke) directly. So I took it far more personally that I was siding with someone who I was risking my life (and my honor) for - and they lied to me directly. If the option to stab the First Enchanter, then walk out and tell the Templars they were right, and to arrest the remaining mages, I would have done it. It was almost a shame slaughtering the rest of the Templars that tried to attack me.

Just fixed a slow motion bug with my rogue. Apparently it's caused by the friendship abilities from Isabella and Sebastian. Their abilities give attack speed and damage reduction bonuses to Hawke, but the game incorrectly applies and removes these bonuses so that your attack speed and damage reduction actually get lowered more and more. The fix is to download a friendship mod and use a save game editor to correct your attack speed and damage reduction values. My Hawke had an attack speed of -75% and damage reduction of -25% before I fixed it.

I'm probably over halfway through Act 2 now. The story is getting better, but the fact that you explore the same areas over and over and that the game reuses so many different areas and just walls off certain doors seems very lazy. It's actually worse than Mass Effect's cookie cutter buildings. The least they could've done is remove the cemented doors and not had non-existent areas on the maps.

Combat is a huge step back as well. I'm confused by the XP system. I could fight a tough group and get maybe 100 XP and then fight a 10 second battle and get 300 XP. I like how I don't have to worry about getting a kill to get max experience. But combat is just less satisfying. I haven't seen a single finishing move besides the scripted ogre one during the cutscene at the very beginning. Enemies kind of just explode like they're balloons filled with tomato sauce. No beheadings. No cool ogre or dragon finishing moves.

I'm thinking of stopping playing until the next major patch. I read the Dragon Age wikia a lot and I want to avoid some bugs. I think I'm experiencing some import bugs that probably won't be fixed even when they are patched unless I made a new game, and I'm not sure I'd want a second playthrough. I see I can take Fool's Gold quest in the Act 2, which means my game probably didn't import correctly because I think it's an alternate quest if you don't meet the prerequisites for a different quest in Act 3 (and I know I do meet those prerequisites).

I think I'll distract myself with Crysis 2 for now or maybe try to finally win the incredibly boring Fallout 3.

Maxor127 wrote: Just fixed a slow motion bug with my rogue. Apparently it's caused by the friendship abilities from Isabella and Sebastian. Their abilities give attack speed and damage reduction bonuses to Hawke, but the game incorrectly applies and removes these bonuses so that your attack speed and damage reduction actually get lowered more and more. The fix is to download a friendship mod and use a save game editor to correct your attack speed and damage reduction values. My Hawke had an attack speed of -75% and damage reduction of -25% before I fixed it.

See this is why you need to read this thread. Spoilers are covered by Spoiler Markers - so that spoilers would look like this:

Tawmis is totally awesome. Everyone knows it!

So that you have to highlight spoilers.

What was I saying? Ah yes!

DPX pointed out the same bug on page 22, and mentioned using a console editor which he linked here where someone made a custom patch to fix that bug.

Maxor127 wrote: I'm probably over halfway through Act 2 now. The story is getting better, but the fact that you explore the same areas over and over and that the game reuses so many different areas and just walls off certain doors seems very lazy. It's actually worse than Mass Effect's cookie cutter buildings. The least they could've done is remove the cemented doors and not had non-existent areas on the maps.

A co-worker also pointed that out. And admittedly, I also see it as lazy programming (not so much the same areas, but the same areas and to make it different - they walled off the doors... I imagine they must have had the editor that created these rooms, and just change the wall where the door is - at the very least - would have been a bit nicer). Over all, as the game progressed, it bothered me less and less, as I got a little more into the story. Act II begins to pick up the story - but Act III is where it all comes crashing down (in a very good way, story wise).

Maxor127 wrote: Combat is a huge step back as well. I'm confused by the XP system. I could fight a tough group and get maybe 100 XP and then fight a 10 second battle and get 300 XP. I like how I don't have to worry about getting a kill to get max experience. But combat is just less satisfying. I haven't seen a single finishing move besides the scripted ogre one during the cutscene at the very beginning. Enemies kind of just explode like they're balloons filled with tomato sauce. No beheadings. No cool ogre or dragon finishing moves.

Forget the finishing moves, they have been thrown out. I think they threw out the finishing moves for more glorified attacks. For example, when you attack as a warrior - he really gets into swinging the sword (if you're using a two hander), the rogue attacks are absolutely amazing to watch, and the mage's spell effects have increased in their beauty, quite significantly. So away with the finishing moves for more flashy looking combat.

About the Friendship Bug...

Like Tawmis said, I talked about it much earlier in this thread, so it's understandable that you'd have missed it. Fortunately, he provided the links. I can confirm that the Friendship Bug mod works, so it's definitely worth your while to download and install.

As of right now, there are four ways to fix or avoid the Friendship Bug:

1. Use the Friendship Bug mod supplied on Dragon Age Nexus.

After you've downloaded it, simply place it in DA2's override folder. If you don't know where that is, it's found by going to "C:\Documents and Settings\[name]\My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age 2\packages\core\override"

This is the easiest solution and probably the best one until BioWare produces a patch that fixes it.

I should also point out that this DOES NOT fix any speed or damage resistance issues already present. This mod merely prevents the speed modifier from subtracting from your overall attack speed, so if you've lost speed already, you need to use the editor to fix that first.

2. Deactivate Isabela and Sebastian's friendship bonus via the console editor. The console editor, despite the name, is only on the PC.

You need to first enable the console by making a shortcut on your desktop to the actual "DragonAge2.exe" and not the launcher, which is the normal shortcut. Right-click on the shortcut, choose properties and at the end of the Target field, add "-enabledeveloperconsole" without the quotes. Also, make sure there is ONE SPACE between "DragonAge2.exe" and "-enabledeveloperconsole" or it won't work.

By the time you're done, your shortcut's target line should look like the following: "C:\Program Files\Dragon Age II\bin_ship\DragonAge2.exe" -enabledeveloperconsole

Once that's done, start the game using that edited shortcut. While playing, press the tilde key (it's the one right above the left tab button) to access the console. Be careful when writing since you can't see the text you're entering. If you feel you've entered something incorrectly, just press enter and start over.

For Isabela: runscript removetalent 211040

For Sebastian: runscript removetalent 213050

That'll deactivate the "Thumbs Up!" and "Man of the Cloth" abilities from Isabela's Swashbuckler skill tree and Sebastian's Royal Archer skill tree. One note of warning, however. Whenever they level up, their friendship abilities turn back on, so after that you'll need to do this all over again.

If you're interested in doing more with the console editor, go to this page on the DA Wiki. It'll provide you with everything you need.

3. You can avoid the Friendship bugs entirely by making Isabela and Sebastian Rivals. If you don't want to do that, then you'll have to make sure you only load a saved game with Isabela and Sebastian actively present in your party. If you do that, the bug won't occur. However, when you load a saved game without one or both in your party, the bug hits.

That means you can't load your game inside your house, for instance. You could, however, load your saved game in Merrill's house provided Isabela and Sebastian are, once again, actively in your party.

I think this is the toughest way to handle this bug, so I wouldn't recommend it.

4. The last thing you could do is use the DA save game editor. Just download the GFF4Editor and click on "daosavegame.exe" within the editor's folders.

Click on FILE and then OPEN FILE. Find whichever saved game you want to edit and click on the actual file, not the folder it's in.

Once that saved game is open, click on PARTY to expand that tree and then click on your character's name. Find ID 32 for "Damage_Resistance" and ID 42 for "Animation_Speed_Modifier." You can't edit the base value, which should be "0.0" for both. The modifier value should be "0.0" unless something has either positively or negatively affected it.

In your case, the "Animation_Speed_Modifier" should read 5.0 (with Isabela's Friendship talent active), but the bug will have probably affected it. You could work around the bug by setting the modifier to "0.0" but I don't know if that fix remains permanent or not. You'd have to test it to be sure.

I don't know how the "Damage_Resistance" is modified by Sebastian's Friendship talent since I don't have the DLC with him in it.

Using this editor is the only way to fix already existing problems. This editor won't, however, prevent them from happening again. So it's best to use the editor to fix any problems you have right now and then do one of the three previously listed options in this post.

Another solution: never use Isabela and the unsufferable prick like I did

Seriously, though, DPX has written a great compendium, one I myself will use as soon as I want to play with Izzie in my party.

AndreaDraco wrote:Another solution: never use Isabela and the unsufferable prick like I did

Seriously, though, DPX has written a great compendium, one I myself will use as soon as I want to play with Izzie in my party.

Thanks! Getting this info took a lot of research. I know these work as far as Isabela is concerned, but once again, I don't know about Sebastian. Andrea's also right in that if you never use them, you won't have this problem since you won't gain enough Friendship points to activate the bug.

Just be aware that if you lack sufficient Friendship points with Isabela, she'll ditch you after the "Catch a Thief" quest during Act 2. I don't know if that matters to you or not, but it might if you're attempting to romance her.

BTW, if anyone's interested, I could write up a guide to actually editing the game. I've been using all the editors available for DA2 and I've figured out MOST of the info required to make workable changes, including GDA, ERF and textures.

I almost got an activated ability to change into a sustained one, but unfortunately the game won't accept it. It will, however, allow the modification if you change an activated ability into a sustainable and include a second activated ability in order to "switch off" the newly created sustainable.

I'm also in the process of recoloring the Rogue Champion Armor for Maia. She doesn't like the red, so we're turning it into a purple/blue color. I think she called "periwinkle" or something like that.

Wow!

While I probably won't attempt to make any significant change to the game, I'm certainly interested to read a guide on how to do so.

Okay, I'll try to make one soon. It's a complex thing to write up and make it sound intelligible at all.

Kinda related but unrelated...

The art used for Marvel.com's current background reminds me of the art used for DA2's loading screens...

http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/ ... f74f5e.jpg

Or is it me?

And is there a specific art style that's called?