Well i disagree with Ox on the part of comparison with BG2, aside from heavy emphasis on story, slightly similiar camera LOS/POV and the fact that you adventure with a party, the similiarities end there.

The attribute system is completely different from that of BG2. The skillpoint/spellsystem is something of mix from Diablo 2 and Sacred 2. The spells are gained through leveling as you buy them with points, so at the start its just press 1, 3, wait, 1,3 wait, 1,3 wait, woohoo monies. Well its not bad since in BG2 it was magic missile and mage armor as well but there was the illusion of choice .

The micromanagement is not the kind Derf is looking for i think. Well the idea is that essentially you could make the team play by itself, you get tactics or AI options in the form of: when x happens, use y ability/item/spell/weapon. If there were enough of these tactics options the party could pretty much conclude a battle on their own.

I think that Derf would hate himself less if he decides to buy it when it is cheaper.

Just about to start my own marathon session with any luck. Here's not that it seems to be updating. You can view my char though. You can view auto-taken screenshots on that first link too. I played for about an hour and a half before work yesterday and so far love the little I've seen. I've gone for a human mage who's going for heals/buffs to look after my party (when I get one) just for something different to my usual playstyle. I love the origin story for her so far.

Had one awesome run in; mages are distrusted by non-mages in the game and we're looked after by some templar type guys (forget the name... )and I was talking to one of them. Anyway came up with options such as:
1. Ok, I should go now
2. I'd like to get to know you better
3. We should go somewhere else, if you know what I mean.

I chose 2 which then led to a similar option to #3 above, so I chose that just to see what happened. The poor guy (his name was Cullen) had a stutter anyway and goes "Err... wow, ummm i i i if you're sugg gg gesting what I er... think um... i i i barely know you... " and then turned and ran away!

I won't answer the stuff in the first post til I've played it a little more, but yes I'm impressed and it takes a hell of a lot to impress me these days.

Ha, we are playing a similiar character then, with the exception of me being a male, well, gay looking male if you look at the character portrait

Just added you, he doesn't look gay! Well, not overly... I love my portrait, the raised eyebrow is so me.

Just finished my origin story and got 2 achievements for it; one for completion and one for completion without dying. Go me! Now I'm in the Grey Wardens camp and about to set out on my 'Joining'. Seriously, not a very original name is it...

edit: just met Morrigan. She's pretty cool. I love Alistair! He's sarcastic and insults people but is good really I need to get a romance option with him

Also on Xfire Dragon Age is 4th in the 'most played' list atm, with WoW, CoD 2 and CoD 4 beating it. It's beating Aion, CoD: WaW, CS:S, Battlefield 2, Borderlands and Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne quite comfortably.

Well early in the morning (about 0200 AM) I lost my first fight, not a good idea to get pissed before going to sleep. The fight was the Redcliff village, but that is as far as im going explain it without revealing stuff.