The Cult Of Tea And Dice

Tea: Just water

Demons defeated and mages enlisted, it was time for our heroes to do an Indiana Jones and find Dragon Age’s equivalent of the holy grail, Andraste’s ashes. Many of Arl Eamon’s knights had apparently been attempting this but had come back empty-handed. Could we succeed where they’d failed? Well, it’d be a short game if we couldn’t…
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Tea: Still hot; still water

Every game, no matter how great, has that one segment. You know the kind; that moment all momentum screeches to a halt and tedium envelops the player in an all encompassing malaise. Bored, you grit your teeth and wade forward, hoping your patience can last until you’re back to the fun stuff. Half Life had Xen. Mass Effect 2 had the planet scanning. Skyrim had the Soul Cairn. Dragon Age: Origins has the Fade.

But I pre-empt myself.
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Tea: It’s hot, so no tea, just water.

When we’d left our heroes, they were setting out on their epic quest. This was immediately interrupted by plot development, as we were shown the capital, where Teryn Loghain (he of the obvious villainy) had rocked up and was declaring himself regent, on the grounds that King Pillock the first was dead and his widow just so happened to be his daughter. This annoyed some of the Banns (the nobles who aren’t quite Arls, apparently), with a chap called Tegan being especially arsey and making insinuations about the King’s death. Personally, I was just trying to figure out how Loghain had gotten all the way across the country in a matter of hours. Clearly he moves at the speed of plot.
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Tea: Créme Caramel tea from the Cult’s home away from home, The Tea Shop in Covent Garden, London. I may also have had a couple of pints with Omarscen at the pub shortly before this, but I’d like to think that’s not relevant. I’d also like to think my beard makes me look stylish rather than demented, so that shows you how effective mind over matter really is.

Reading Mawdrigen’s excellent posts on learning to tank in FFXIV, I wondered what I could contribute to the Cult by the way of blogging about computer gaming. Not being much of an MMO player, beyond a stint on Planetside 2 that was scuppered by changing work shifts and a couple of months on WoW that began to help Loka get a zebracorn, there wasn’t much I could contribute from that angle. Then I remembered that just yesterday I began another runthrough of one of my favourite games, Dragon Age: Origins. Mightn’t it be interesting for me to share my thoughts as I start the 40 to 50 hour trip down Ferelden’s memory lane?

Well, that’ll be your personal opinion, frankly, but I’m going to write about it regardless.
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