Dragon's Dogma : Dark Arisen.

[Nag]

Yes you can... and its so much easier.

[RoboticMonk3y]

sweet! I've got portacrystals in the extreme corners of the map now, including one right where madeline wants to go!

[radiofloyd]

"I'm just going to check over here..."

Fiver hours later...

"Ok I think I can leave now".

You gotta love Dragon's Dogma. Anyway so I escorted that knight to the Shadow Fort, it wasn't too far from the Aersnt Castle area. After that I explored around the edges of the map just to fill it in. I found the Ancient Quarry which I got an achievement just for entering but I didn't explore it. I found one of those healing springs you're talking about and also a golem in the Tomb of the Unknown Traveller. I was fighting him for ages and had him down to 1/3 of his health and then he picked up one of my pawns and restored all his health so I said fuck that and restarted.

I went back to Gran Soren and explored most of it. On the right hand side there didn't seem to be too much of note other than the Black Cat shop which has a lot of what look like ultimate or near-ultimate weapons. I assume the enhancement components for them aren't easily come by! I see what you mean about gold not being meaningless.

After that I went to the area to the left where I resurrected some sick dude with a wakestone and now I'm in the Everfall. Just killed my first ogre there.

16 hours in now, level 21. I have a ridiculous amount of quests. After I'm done in the Everfall I might go back to the southwest area with the Shadow Fort and the Ancient Quarry and explore those places. I'll probably reach the last rank of the fighter vocation while I'm down here so I'll probably switch to mystic knight or warrior soon too.

[Nag]

Those are the only two classes I've not tried.... I've never used Warrior pawns either.

Keep the updates coming you two, there fun to read.

[RoboticMonk3y]

I feel rather gutted I missed this game first time around.

I feel like i'm one of those people who has started watching an amazing TV show and I'm about 4 seasons behind everyone and can't shut up about how much I'm enjoying it.

I had a quick look into all my various game stats last night. My pawn has never been hired, but I guess that's down to the smaller pool of people playing.

I've got my escort quest lined up for this evening's play. Taking madeline to Bloodwater beach, I also need to track down a gold idol for her (I already gave the other dude a bronze idol, because I was button mashing!)

I think I've gone enough days that the drake should have respawned too. I might see about trying to take that down again, and this time make sure that nothing I have is fire enchanted!

[Nag]

The gold idol is a quest reward... its a one shot thing and there's a good chance you may have misssed it.

[RoboticMonk3y]

ahhh shiit

[Bob]

The gold idol is a quest reward for escorting Furneval daughter. Or whatever his name is. Go see him in his mansion by the castle to see if be has a quest.

[radiofloyd]

Man I deserve a medal. These escort missions are hilarious. I just escorted a fellow called Reynard to the Great Wall Encampment.

Now those of you who have played the game will know...it's at the edge of the fucking map lol. So I made my way up to the Ruins of Heavnspeak Fort (which I thought was the location until I reached it and realised I was nowhere near). The route to Heavenspeak is a narrow mountain pass and there is no way to avoid a forced encounter with a troll outside the gate. It's one of those moments where you'd go "I'd love it if he walked to the edge and fell off" - and he did. Boom, quest completed. Anyway, so on I went to the Miasmic Haunt. I couldn't take the direct path to the Great Wall because it was a narrow road guarded by a Griffin. So I ran the whole way around and got there the long way past some hobogoblins and phantasms.

Anywway, cheerio says the impressively resilient Reynard (who took a fair battering as we ran past a million encounters) and i got ten lousy gold talismans for my trouble.

It was tedious, but kind of epic at the same time.

I ferrystoned back to Gran Soren (I didn't realise you could pick up ferrystones and use them again!) and now I have three more escort missions available - the healing spring, the Shadow Fort (again) and Bloodwater Beach. I've been to all three areas and I don't think there are any annoying griffins guarding the way so I'll go do those next.

Are escort missions available forever or do they disappear after a while?

[Nag]

You'll sometimes lose escort missions if you progress the story but apart from the xp and quest rewards it won't cost you anything to miss them (i didnt really do any of them).

[RoboticMonk3y]

do you mean you can pick up portacrystals and move them? I thought ferrystones were a one-shot dealio?

Played some more last night, I found soulflayer canyon. Shot a cyclops in the knee and he fell into a ravine, one shot! score!

I went through the female bandit camp recently and it seems that the cyclops i killed nearby actually belonged to the leader there, so I've closed off that quest line, because she's cross that her pet cyclops is dead.

I also had a quest where I had to try an either convict fournival or prove his innocence, and while I think he's a bit of a scumbag, he has cool stuff to sell, so I proved his innocence, and the quest to look after his daughter, which I did, and got the gold idol, about 20 minutes after I gave madeline the silver idol.... fuuuuuuuuuuuck...

ah well, hang onto it for play through 2..

[radiofloyd]

I must be a glutton for punishment. I know I shouldn't do these shitty escort quests but I've been doing them anyway. I've done the 3 or 4 that were in Gran Soren and now I've two left to do in Cassardis, just back to Bloodwater Beach and the Shadow Fort again.

That healing spring escort quest was actually up north, up beyond the Blighted Manse. So I can safely say they dragged me to the extreme corners of the map. I haven't explored any of the places I pass but at least I know where they are.

There was a chimera near that healing spring so I took him on afterwards, easy fight really. I must say all the forced quest encounters in the wild (chimeras/trolls/golems) that I've come across have been really easy. Are there any high level encounters on the actual world map - or all they all in specific areas?

Anyway after these two more escort quests I should be free to get back to the good stuff. However if I find that the notice boards refresh with more escort quests later in the game then I'll scream.

Edit: I just checked the Wiki and there are 31 escort quests in total. How did these make it through playtesting? In fact who even gave the idea the thumbs up? Ridiculous. Anyway, I'll do them with portcrystals from here on out. I've annoyed that I've wasted as much time on them as I have already (basically my last two play sessions). I need to focus on the good stuff in the game.

[Nag]

Go to Devilfire Grove.... see if that Drake's easy.

[radiofloyd]

Go to Devilfire Grove.... see if that Drake's easy.

By chance, I did fight him last night. It was during an escort quest to the Shadow Fort...my third time going there but the first time I went through Devilfire Grove. Needless to say I had to restart when he killed the npc. He didn't seem overwhelmingly strong, although definitely stronger than the chimeras and griffins. I was fighting him for around half an hour. I didn't make much of a dent on his health though.

Anyway I'm back to the good stuff now. I cleared out the Shadow Fort for the wyrm hunt quest, and after that explored the Frontier Caverns. I got a warning saying "only those who are well prepared should proceed beyond this point" - but it didn't matter because there was a gate blocking my way.

My two main characters are now level 28 and I switched them from fighter and strider to warrior and ranger. One good thing did come from doing those escort quests - one of the rewards was an awesome greatsword for my warrior called Gryphic Victory. He had equipped a 3* Steel Greatsword which gave him around 450 attack, then I was looking through my stored weapons and found the Gryphic Victory which raised his attack to over 650. Pretty sweet!

I have a quest for the Watergod's Alter which I have already cleared out, I guess this time I'll be able to visit the lower levels. I'll probably do that and the Ancient Quarry next. My support pawns are now level 27/28 with Higher Anodyne spells which should come in handy.

[Nag]

Sometimes the standard Anodyne spell is a better call as its a a lot quicker to cast in the heat of a battle... depends if the pawn is set to medicent or not.

[radiofloyd]

I feel like I have a million questions when I play but then I can't remember them. I have a few though:

The badge of vows you get from doing the pawn guild quests, do they have any use other than selling them? They're worth 5,000 gold each.

My ranger character has a dagger weapon with standard attack power but a bonus 350 something fire/magic damage. Is there any danger he could be healing certain enemies with this elemental damage? Is it better to just equip the strongest physical attack weapon?

Can you make working forgeries of the airtight flask? Just curious as I have a quest to collect 10 Kept Giant Fish.

Finally, I just checked the wiki and it looks like all the equipment being sold in the Black Cat is DLC/bonus stuff for Dark Arisen. Without trawling through the wiki, is any of the gear there actually worth buying? Or are they just novelty items?

Anyyhoo, I cleared out the three ogres bumbling around in the Ancient Quarry. There were a few spots where it said "there is something behind this wall, but nothing can be done about that yet" so I guess I'll be returning later. Watergod's Altar next.

[Nag]

Pretty certain certain those badges have no other uses, so feel free to sell them.

I've never bothered using enchanted weapons, as far as I know you won't be healing creatures but you'll be doing less damage if you're using an element their strong against.... I prefer straight out damage output myself, the only two enchantments I've used are fire and holy and a mage can sort that out.

If you have one giant kept fish forge that....

Again, never bought the weapons from the Black Cat, as you've said they seem a bit gimmicky.

[radiofloyd]

Thanks. One more question - you know the Craftsman's Quarter area of Gran Soren (where the pawn guild is), there's a smithy marked on the map. Unless I'm blind, I don't see anybody special to interact with here? Other than the quest with the wakestone.

I've cleared up a few smaller quests including escorting Fournival's daughter around the city which was pretty funny. I'm now investigating what the salvation army are up to to in the Catacombs. Just this and Hillfigure Knoll to do before my audience with the Duke.

[RoboticMonk3y]

a lot of buildings are just named, there aren't always things to do there.

If you had daggers with 300ish magic, I'm guessing you picked up the scalding razors. They inflict fire damage as well as physical damage, this is great against certain creatures for example, you can make swift work of a chimera or a griffin, but others like the drake, will have your damage reduced down to 20% if your'e using a fire attack, so you'll only ever deal out 1/5th the damage you'd do to anything else. makes it kinda tough! (also with that drake, you have to go for the heart)

I did a few more story quests last night, so save a princess form being strangled (I don't know if I really should have just snuck out at this point) after paying my way out of prison, realised that I probably could have used the skeleton keys I was given. D'oh..

...on a side note, I'm starting to learn how useful skeleton keys are!

After that I went off to help out with some fighting, strange things are happening...

I also decided that now being at level 48, it was time to take on bitterblack isle.

I turned up, had a rest, then walked off down into some dungeony thing.

walking out into a courtyard, a massive grim reaper appeared and having spent most of the game playing as some variant of archer, my instinct is to back into a doorway, and take aim.

WOOSH!!!

one swipe and all 3 pawns are dead. "what a gaffe" they all said in unison as the popped out of existence. I see the merit of using your pawns as a pack-horse to carry all of your stuff, but you're buggered if they all die!

I pushed on by myself, but some 10 foot high zombie guys battered the shit out of me. I recovered just in time for a skeleton mage to knock me down with a bolt of lightning followed up with a skeleton knight one hit killing me while I was on the floor.

popped the controller down on the floor, and turned the xbox off...

I think I'll save bitterblack isle for a later date....

[Nag]

Fighting Death really does show up the AI as being incredibly thick sometimes... you've learned the hard way that at Bitterblack Isle you carry your own valuables.