I'm stuck. I have forgotten where I found the mages collective representative in Denerim. I have looked but I'm missing him somewhere. Is he in the market place?
Thanks for the help!

Excellent summary by Demosthenes there. The reasons he gives are mainly the reasons why I micromanage every single move my people make in combat. (I've totally disabled tactics)

Demosthenes: to give you an example of dumb AI I've encountered: I thought it was bad when Wynne managed to kill herself with her own fireball, until the day that she managed to kill my entire party by casting a firball directly over our heads...

Since I'm a HOMM freak, I don't mind the micromanagment though, and in fact, I rather enjoy it save for the fact that it does tend to waste a bit of time.

H4XXORZ, as long as you set the game to "easy" I'm sure you'll be fine - I played it on easy for a while, and it is true what Demosthenes suggested - you don't have to worry about friendly fire in "Easy", so using your automatic AI via the tactics slots should hopefully be just fine.

Yeah, personally I've certainly found the game worthwhile so far; though I've yet to finish.

Yes, he is in the marketplace, standing in an alley diagonally opposite the Chantry, sort of in the street behind where Wade's Emporium is. (In other words, if you are facing Wade's emporium with the common marketplace at your back, go around Wade's emporium to the back of it, in the street where the Chantry is.)

Debra, did you look in the market?

I found him. Thanks Moondancer and L4L. He was hidden in plain sight

Has anyone else had difficulty with persuasion or intimidation in the Redcliffe quests? Seem to be a stubborn group of people.

Yes, most definitely. My persuasion skill was only at the first tier, so either I needed that at the second tier, and/or my cunning needed to be higher, but in this game you seem to really need to invest in persuasion quite a bit before it gets you anywhere. I'm nervous of using intimidation, because if it fails, the NPC is often so the heck in with you, that they simply refuse to speak to you afterwards. But yeah, I couldn't either persuade or intimidate , no matter how hard I tried...

I have decided after reading all of your comments I won't be left out in the cold only reading about this game I am going to buy it and join the fun with you all.

Can anyone tell me where I can buy the game in Europe because I live in Ireland and want the game quickly and a decent price would be great also.

If anyone has downloaded it, can you please tell me how long of a download it was and where you downloaded it from? Was it a fast server? Thanks in advance.

old man (John) for recommending the gamepad with so much detailed combat makes me wonder if I will live to fight another battle. With the gamepad it should be easier.

I bought Sacred 2 and enhanced Witcher because of your comments and enjoy them and now add Dragon age to the list.

Thank you Sheryah. Just glad I could help. Gameboomers is a "pay it forward" place. I've been helped more times than I can remember.

Sherryah...

You can buy the game in Europe from gamersgate.

The digital deluxe edition can be bought for about 40£

Info is here:
http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-DAODVUK/dragon-age-origins-digital-deluxe-version

In addition you can buy the game's guide as well for about 22-23£

You can buy it from Steam, too, but at a higher price I think? (don't really now the exchange rate between the Euro and the British Pound, though). Here's the link to the Steam version:

http://store.steampowered.com/publisher/Electronic%20Arts/

The digital deluxe edition is the better deal, I find. You get a sound track, wall papers. You get Stone prisoner, but you get Warden's Keep, too. (normally this will cost you about 7$ or maybe 10£ or so, depending on the exchange rate).

As a side note, I can add that Steam has an early holiday sale with something the call Lucas Arts Premier Pack including the game 'the dig', loom, lucidity and a few other games. (60% of they call it...).

I don't know how long the download will take, but I do now that the game itself requires from about 15-20 GB of space on your harddrive... /talk about delusions of grandeur.../

Then, again DA is supposed to be a great game

for your helpful information Karstan. I will go and check out it out now. 15 to 20 gigs is a huge download. I wonder if anyone has downloaded it at Gameboomers and did it take days to complete the download?

EDIT............
I have a DSL connection

I downloaded the DE in around 10 hours on a 6Mbps connection. That wasn't quite maxing out my download bandwidth, but it was getting pretty close.

With Steam's 5-Day sale going on at the moment, Steam's servers are apparently a little strained, so the download may be slower. Additionally, of course, your time to completion will vary depending on the exact speed of your connection. But if you're on a decent broadband connection, the download shouldn't take all that long.

Demos, this helps me. Did you use steam? Thanks in advance for your answer, really kind of you to take the time to answer my question.

Yeah, I used Steam so that I could get the Digital Deluxe edition--the only other option was to use EA's online storefront, and that wasn't nearly as appealing.

I've been using Steam a lot lately: it's not perfect, but Steam's about the best digital download service around. The Steam client is a little obtrusive and occasionally buggy. BUT I can uninstall and reinstall my games without limits; all my games are easily available just by logging in; I don't have to worry about backing up the installation or storing the DVD somewhere safe (although I CAN back up downloaded programs so I don't have to redownload them in the future); the Steam client doesn't interfere with game functionality; and the game files are mostly stored unencrypted in Steam's Program Files directory, which means I can apply mods without Steam's DRM getting in my way.

Asha has a question and doesn't remember his log in so:

He is trying to decide between a rogue and a mage. He thinks only rogues can pick locks. So, if he starts as a mage, will he run across a rogue that can join his party fairly quickly, or should he just bite the bullet and make a rogue?

Thanks