What did you do today in DA? [Spoilers]

I kinda like letting Anders kill her. Give him something to regret. A wake up call.

I never do such a thing. He gets many things to regret, I don't worry about it...

So long as it's cool looking and is a grand city I am game.

The main story starts with an attempt at peace between mages and templars, so of course bringing Hawke back is more fitting.

I can imagine our Winters are pretty  wimpy by Canadian standards!  lol

Remember, you do run into Stroud the first time in DA2 during the battle against the Qunari.  (Also possibly during the Deep Roads expedition if Hawke brought his/her sibling along.)  He's not a complete stranger.

I definitely found my ideal Skyhold pj. The others were: too boob-bastic, twiggy shoulders / arms, odd bulging front and back panels.



Morrigan intro Inq to crossroads and yay, a new line of dialogue I never heard of.

Yep, she is.   I like what I see of Solas's skills, that's why I chose that. Two RM's just kill the opposition like mice. 

After having largely pacified the Hinterlands, rescuing the soldiers in the Fallow Mire, and dealing with the Blades of Hessarian on the Storm Coast, Revas and her mage allies were finally ready to attempt to close the Breach. This went off without a hitch; neither Revas nor the mages were injured and the Breach was closed. But as Haven celebrated this great victory, the Elder One, a blighted caricature of a human mage, appeared followed by an army of Templars who showed signs of Red Lyrium usage. Revas fought with Solas, Blackwall, and Iron Bull at her side. Just as it appeared that the Inquisition would emerge victorious, a blighted dragon attacked Inquisition defensive positions, destroying many of their trebuchets. As they retreated toward the Chantry, Revas and her companions rescued as many villagers as they could. Inside the Chantry, Commander Cullen declared the situation hopeless. The best they could do is use the last trebuchet to cause an avalanche burying Haven and its attackers. At that point, a dying Chancellor Roderick, helped by a strange young man named Cole, told them of a pilgrams' footpath that could be used to evacuate Haven's inhabitants without attracting the attention of the Red Templars. Revas and her team then decided to perform a delaying action to give Cullen and Roderick time to evacuate the rest of the Inquisition. As they repelled wave after wave of Red Templars, they loaded and aimed the final trebuchet. Revas then ordered her companions to rejoin the others while she waited for the Elder One to arrive. Soon, the monster, who called himself Corypheus, arrived with the blighted dragon close behind him. He chastised her as a pretender who stole the Mark that would allow him to ascend to godhood. He used his powers to try to reclaim the mark from Revas, but found that the mark was permanent. As he contemplated how to dispose of Revas, she saw a flare indicating that Inquisition forces had successfully evacuated Haven. She fired the trebuchet causing a final avalanche. As Corypheus escaped via his dragon, Revas barely made it into an underground cavern as the snow buried Haven. After making her way through the tunnels to the surface, she found the pilgrims' path and barely made it to the Inquisition camp. There, Mother Giselle successfully rallied the despondent survivors through an appeal to faith. As they sang a song of hope, Solas took Revas aside and informed her that the orb Corypheus used was of elven origin, a fact that might endanger the already precarious position of elves in Thedas. To strengthen her position with the Inquisition, he guided her in leading the Inquisition to a forgotten but still powerful fortress - Skyhold!

Gamer Note: After finishing the fight and arriving at the Inquisition camp, I had the "white screen" problem following the PC's dialog with Solas. After more than an hour of unsuccessful trouble-shooting, I disabled all my mods via the modmanager and poor Revas had to accept the sword of the Inquisitor while wearing Inquisition pajamas and a rather lame default hair style.

For the first time ever, I had a rather strange scene with Cassandra.

^ Ain't never going to do anything bad to Cass. Protag may not be Andrastian but she wouldn't belittle Cass.

*

OT

I watched a bit of MEA gameplay (press release). I went zZZz because it's all about exploring the environment which is finely rendered btw. I'm not impressed by Peebee's entrance and the brief dialogue. Not impressed that everyone else has magic protection against hazardous environments. The devs are not even trying to be practical. I'll know more tomorrow since I'll get hands on (trial); it's the 16th.

I took Mara to Crestwood and finished up Still Waters *grumbles about shifty mayor*



After that, the weather improved markedly  and I set off to find Hawkes 'Warden friend'..



I also found the body of the overdue agent and took care of the wyvern problem in the grotto (without being asked...because I'm just that helpful).

So, I finished DA2, it's always a little sad finishing DA2 I love Hawke's story so much, almost as much as I love Shepard's which for me it's to say a lot Some last comments on DA2, anyway

The fight with Bysmor, Beacon and Gifre, was long, and yes, hard, but not too much. It makes a huge difference for me having to keep everyone up the whole time or being able to just let them fall. I'm torn between "I'm never doing that again" and "I have to do that at least once more" I'm afraid if I do it will become this thing I just can't not do ever again, like with the medigel in Mass Effect: I managed to finish a pt on insanity without ever using it, and now I can never use it because it feels like cheating or something

Also, a lot of people complain that Cory's fight it's too easy, but Meredith's fight is very easy too, isn't it? I don't mean it as something negative, I think it's a really fun fight, I wouldn't change anything about it, but it's hardly the toughest fight in the game. Orsino's on the other hand, it's tedious, IMO. Not as tedious as the archdemon, but pretty tedious.

By the way, the title to the hardest fight of the game, in this pt at least, I think it has to go to Varnell. Nothing's worse than a extremely loyal templar and a crazy mob Maybe it's only because I do the quest as soon as it's available. I also refuse to hide in the corridor, but I always avoid that kind of thing. In any case, it was super annoying So far though, if I include DAO, the most annoying fights still are the Brecilian forest's revenants

I finished the game with the Torch of Falon'Din as I always do, but since I played DAI kind of feels wrong Truth is I got better staves than that, but at least for the final show I like to go with a famous staff bonus points for slots to add runes to get even more fire damage Also, I must have done something wrong, maybe I missed a arcane tome or something, because I didn't reach 100 in magic, and in completionist pts I always do

And about the companions, I always say that DAO's is my favourite cast, but I really love DA2's too, and now that I've played the two games one after another, I'm not so sure DAO's my favourite anymore. Maybe it still is, but it would be a close call. It would be hard too to pick between Zevran and Fenris, I love Fenris so much too

And now, it's DAI's time, but I'm getting off the wrong-foot :/ I've come to terms with reality and I realized there's no way a could make a completionist pt like I wanted to do since I'm probably not playing DA for a long, long time.

I was hoping to take the day off to enjoy MEA, I've been planing that for who knows how long, but life got in the way as it always does :sob: So, it was a hard decision to make, but rather than having only a couple of hours to play, I've made up my mind to postpone it to the weekend it hurts  but I think it the right choice 

That leaves me with 10 days to play DAI, which "thanks" to my plans for MEA going to hell is more that would otherwise have been, but I also couldn't play as much as I expected these past few weeks. Anyway, it's still hardly enough to make a completionist pt. And that's even if life doesn't get in the way again, and it always does

So, being reasonable, there's no other solution that to aim for a 30 hours pt. That means that's going to be my the short version of my canon pt. It might be a better way to say good bye to DA than a completionist pt, since it's a concentrated version of DAI with everything I love and not much more, but I'm still a bit disappointed, because I kind of felt like going through the whole DAI's experience again

I'm thinking I could add a few things I'd normally leave out in a shorter pt at least. Maybe some more of the more elfy quests, like Dirthamen's Temple and Elgarna's Bastion. I guess there's no point in doing JoH, which is a shame, because I really wanted to replay it, but I read that someone liked to do The Descent before closing the rift, reasoning that is a good moment to be looking for lyrium, and it sounded like a good idea, so I might try that. I'll see how much time I have.

I'm not going to make it too challenging when it comes to combat either, I want to move more/less quickly. I'll play on nightmare with Walk Slowly and Even Ground on, but not Take it Slow, and as soon as I get to Trespasser I'll turn it down to normal. I'm also going to use the golden nug. I love to have nice things anyway, so even if I was trying to make it more challenging I'd rather turn more trials on that restrain myself from using the best stuff when it's right there

Anyway, I get to see Solas soon And really soon actually considering he's probably my favourite thing in DAI it's great that you meet him so early in the game