I love this game! Still, I began to come up with some ideas, that I feel could be improved in mods and especially in official add-ons and sequels. Adding, that I definately haven't seen all of this game, I'm open for constructive comments and remarks where I may have missed a piece actually included in DA:O.
Concerning picking-locks and playing a rogue: Most of the time I play a mage out of personal preference of being most versatile and in the end-game very powerful... But then I learned late in my RPG-career, that rogues can be a blast of fun. I make a brief reference to Valine's "Dance with Rogues" playable with NWN, available at NWvault of IGN. Now back to my points:
1. Locks of containers and doors in general:
Opening locked containers or doors only works with a rogue having that skill. There are no lockpicks available, bashing a container or door isn't possible by design.
Something I find irritating on top of this is, that I cannot put anything (back) into any container for future pick-up. (Party storage box in Warden's Keep being the exception, while I would have liked to have such a box in my camp acually.) So, if the inventory space is full it means either run back a possibly long way to camp (for sale), Soldier's Peak (for storage) or destroy another item in the inventory. Once (WK) I even couldn't go back into a place for the loot anymore, since after completion of the quest the Entrance was disabled. So it means: Take it and perhaps destroy something less valuable (by educated guess) or leave it for future pick-up -- being hopefully possible. In fact this was also something I didn't like in ME, where -- even worse -- some loot gets automatically picked up after fights and could force the player to onmi-gel really cool stuff, because the inventory was full, but I digress...
While I accept, that there may be no spell in the DA-Universe to open locks, I still wonder why bashing would be always impossible. NWN had a better solution there. And: A spell for locks would have been neat as well. *wink*
2. Usefulness of lock-picking and pick-pocketing (apart from cleptomaniac role-play):
By now I had Leliana skill lock-picking all the way up. Alas, it seems most locked crates and boxes seem to hold only mediocre treasure, which is usually only good for sale. I don't know about pick-pocket, but I don't expect more than small items, maybe gems or coins. If there is XP for a success I don't know yet, because I have not tried it once yet. But I heard, that failed attempts are generally ignored by all NPCs. (On the other hand, I could just save before the attempt and load again if I failed and get attacked or put in jail, so no hard feelings... 8-)
Anyway, except of adding the ability to pick most containers and some doors, I don't see any added spice to the gameplay from that direction. I feel there is some dormant potential like having at least sometimes an alternative route for skilled rogues available like a second route to avoid direct encounter with too many enemies, or surprise them. So far the game has been a quite straight forward fantasy role-playing battle game with little alternative solutions to quests for warriors, rogues, or mages except running them bad guys through. The combat tactics and the spells including combinations (most of which I need to still figure out) is great. But I feel there is some potential dormant in the engine and technology of DA left. At least lock-picking and trap-disarming is rewarded with extra XP, which I like.
3. Spells:
I see many enemy mages call up demons to fight for them. Ok, this is usually a bad thing to do, but if I play an evil mage I should be able to do that too, shouldn't I? At least raised dead make up a little for that most likely, even my current mage isn't skilled that way.
Apart from "knock" some kind of anti-trap spell, would be useful. I know it would make the rogue sidekick jobless, but then again I could choose to focus more on tanks or mages.
Also wind for blowing away clouds, walls of fire, ice or rock to divide or trap enemy groups, levitation or invisibility would have added quite something to the game. I'm optimistic, there will be much more in the future though...
4. Some general remarks:
On the good side I want to especially compliment Bioware on the concept of the fade and the demons at this point. (I loved that second bigger quest in the fade-maze in the tower of mages.)
It has been mentioned before, but for an adult rated game it seems ridiculous to me that there can be tons of blood, but no bare breast in such a game. Ok, thanks to the US and their rules... I just wonder, why there can't be a nude-switch for Europeans at least? Like the blood was switched off in NWN by default in the German version. (Thankfully I found a way to reactivate that menu option again... hehe.) I can't help it, but to mention that the romantic cutscene in ME is the best I have ever seen so far in a RPG.
I liked the spoken PC-Dialogue in ME. Why this may have been too difficult or too much to add to DA:O eludes me. The dialogues and characters themselves in this game are nicely made though. Many decisions make me really wonder what to do. Although so far I didn't experience a moral dilemma anywhere near to some situations encountered in ME, some plot parts keep me wondering what is the best decision.
As mentioned in other posts: The codex and story at the social site needs a little debugging.
Anyway, I like this game a lot the way it is presented by now. Getting the CE was definately worth it. Perhaps someone from Bioware reads my post and considers one or two ideas of my humble input. So long...
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Edit: I corrected a few typos and improved the layout. Thank you for reading and I appreciate feedback.
Modifié par Zenon, 16 novembre 2009 - 06:09 .
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