Dragon Age

[DarthParametric]

I'm just saying, a lot of areas in the game seemed kind of plain and devoid of scenery.

I would think that is down to two reasons. The first being an attempt to limit object and poly count for low-end PCs and consoles, the second being the limitations and poor optimisation of the engine. These, in turn, would have dictated the relatively small size of individual game areas/levels. I suspect this design philosophy is partially a holdover from the Aurora/Odyssey days and partially a lack of ability. It's certainly feasible to build completely open world engines that handle massive areas that stream in detailed content and yet manage to run well on consoles and mid-range PCs - e.g. Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (GTA4, Red Dead Redemption), Gamebryo (Oblivion, Fallout 3) and the upcoming idTech 5 (Rage). Replicating that just seems beyond Bioware's means.

[mimartin]

Credit goes to Jeff for pointing this out.

 

Morrigan lovers and haters rejoice. BioWare is releasing more DLC September 7th entitled "Witch Hunt- Never Follow Me" which will allows the PC to finally confront Morrigan.

 

It takes place a year after the Archdemon was killed as Morrigan has returned to Ferelden

[Taak Farst]

Credit goes to Jeff for pointing this out.

 

Morrigan lovers and haters rejoice. BioWare is releasing more DLC September 7th entitled "Witch Hunt- Never Follow Me" which will allow the PC to finally confront Morrigan.

 

It takes place a year after the Archdemon was killed as Morrigan has returned to Ferelden

 

ah...well..im very happy theres no more dlc to pay for after this, but after so long of playing dragon age, it's a shame that the story of my grey warden is coming to a close.. and tbh I don't think ive ever connected to any other RPG PC more than i have with my grey warden. shephard is all well and good but i felt more involved with the grey warden

 

 

but note, it's the last dlc, still with 6 months between witch hunt release and DA2 release..i swear..their must be an expansion happening or something..bioware dont leave their games without dlc that long ..better yet..EA dont...they just dont.

[Liverandbacon]

From DLC description: "dramatic conclusion to the Origins storyline"

 

I'm interpreting this as meaning "Yeah, your player-defined character isn't ever coming back after this. Dragon Age is going to be a Hawke-only zone now."

 

Maybe I'm just being negative, but I suspect that Dragon Age is going to stick with the more Mass Effect-ish direction it seems to be going for, and the first game will become almost irrelevant.

 

Although I don't generally buy Bioware's DLC because from what I've seen value for money has been low, I might need to get this one, if only for some sort of closure to my Warden's story.

[GeneralPloKoon]

I still haven't played Dragon Age....*begins to cry*

[Laar_Dha]

While I'm looking forward to this DLC story, I am most unhappy that it is supposed to be the last. I've enjoyed every one of them - though I still have to finish that last dang battle in Amgorrak (hopefully will manage on my 3rd attempt) I thought all were well worth the very modest cost. (Heck, going to a movie matinee costs $7.50 and that's only good for one viewing.)

 

Ah, well. I guess it couldn't last forever.

[DarthParametric]

It will be interesting if it is indeed the last DLC, as when everyone got up in arms about DA2 not carrying over the warden from DA1, Chris Priestly said something along the lines of there being lots more DLC for DA1 to come.

[Thanatos9t]

According to Chris Priestly it is:

Originally Posted by Chris Priestly

 

Yes, Witch Hunt is the final DLC for Dragon Age: Origins, and imo a great send off to an awesome game.

 

What happened to "2 years..."? Dragon Age 2.

 

 

[DarthParametric]

Ah found the quotes. Both are from a month ago, so straight after the official announcement of DA2:

 

I'll give you 100% we are still going to release more DLC for Dragon Age: Origins before we release Dragon Age 2. And I have said as much repeatedly now.

 

We still have patching and DLC planned for DA:O before the launch of DA2. Stay tuned.

 

I thought he said "lots" more somewhere but I guess that I was mistaken. Not that I particularly care much. DLC to my mind is a mostly just a scam (like all those ME2 weapon DLCs). I'd much prefer more traditional expansions, but they seem doomed to go the way of the dinosaur.

[Taak Farst]

According to Chris Priestly it is:

 

He angered a LOT of people with that post, and he enjoys doing it, which irritates the hell outta me.

 

We were promised regular patches to both DA:O and toolset

we were promised 2 years of DLC

 

We didn't get either. And what about the piece of paper with the date on in the awakening expansion? Probably scrapped too. You don't have to look further than BioWare's forum to see how bad their marketting scheme is. Provoking anger into loyal fans is a stupid move

[DarthParametric]

The piece of paper in Awakening was the (premature) announcement of DA2.

 

As I said, I'm not that fussed on the 2 years of DLC thing, but I definitely agree with you on the toolset patches. Bioware really reneged on a lot of their promised support for the toolset and modding in general. As someone involved in a fairly hefty DA mod project, that's certainly something I am pissed about.

[Rake]

I'm satisfied with the DLC ending now, most of the DLC wasn't that great anyway; I'd rather they devote more resources to making DA2 better than making 1 hour snippets with 1 minute of dialogue. I'm also happy the Warden is finally put to rest, I like each game to have a new hero and a new adventure.

 

Does DAO really need that much patching though? I've downloaded all the patches since they were released, and never had any issues.

[DarthParametric]

The game still runs terribly and there are a host of recognised issues that have not been fixed. Some of these have been addressed in mods, but there are still plenty of outstanding issues.

[Thanatos9t]

I'm satisfied with the DLC ending now, most of the DLC wasn't that great anyway; I'd rather they devote more resources to making DA2 better than making 1 hour snippets with 1 minute of dialogue. I'm also happy the Warden is finally put to rest, I like each game to have a new hero and a new adventure.

 

Does DAO really need that much patching though? I've downloaded all the patches since they were released, and never had any issues.

 

Have you played Awakening?

[Tysyacha]

Is there any way you can switch your Warden's voice to Leliana's voiceset?

[Rake]

Have you played Awakening?

 

I have, I encountered one frustrating bug in the silvertite mines and lost my armor. I just reloaded to a few minutes back though and was fine. Aside from that, I haven't run into any noticeable bugs in DAO or Awakenings (key word: noticeable, maybe a quest didn't appear or something but I have no idea).

[Thanatos9t]

There will also be another (unless you recruited Justice last), is that the last party member to join your team cannot go through their joining as it cancels that dialog tree in place of the last mission conversation.

 

Also in Amaranthine if you accept both the smugglers and the guards quests you cannot finish one of those quests or if you are unlucky both of them as they both see you as enemies.

 

Along with all sorts of other bugs which annoyed me no end as I always try to complete all active quests before completing the game.

[Taak Farst]

and the very annoying Sentinel Armor and Vigilance bug..the vigilance swords appear as the starfang swords and the sentinel armor set appears as the warden commander armor..but of these, from warden's keep..the helm appears normal because there is no warden commander helmet to compete with..

 

This bugged the hell outta me..I mean sure, it's not serious, but it's still presentation. It makes me wonder if they test their games at all. Awakening is very buggy. And what annoyed me more was that they said they couldn't patch it, but there is a workaround which involves deleting warden's keep. I shouldnt HAVE to delete a DLC i paid for to fix a bug that should NOT have been there in the first place..

[Drunkside]

There will also be another (unless you recruited Justice last), is that the last party member to join your team cannot go through their joining as it cancels that dialog tree in place of the last mission conversation.

 

Also in Amaranthine if you accept both the smugglers and the guards quests you cannot finish one of those quests or if you are unlucky both of them as they both see you as enemies.

 

Along with all sorts of other bugs which annoyed me no end as I always try to complete all active quests before completing the game.

 

Both of these irritated the sh** out of me... Im thinking of a rerun sometime in the distant future cause of these and the fact that i rushed to the finish(I was like "nah, it cannot start the end game scenario yet, ive only played for 7 hours" , went to the vigils keep and bam...).

[Taak Farst]

european ps3 owners have had the worst of it though, because not only is the game as bugged as bill oddie's garden AND not only did we only get it via PlayStationStore, ours was, i think, more expensive than ANY other versions and countries because sony put it up for more. they put it up for £31...thats just £9 off what a FULL new game would cost..so the fact that its a bugged up game and a relatively short expansion anyway makes it a big ripoff for european ps3 users

[igyman]

and the very annoying Sentinel Armor and Vigilance bug..the vigilance swords appear as the starfang swords and the sentinel armor set appears as the warden commander armor..but of these, from warden's keep..the helm appears normal because there is no warden commander helmet to compete with..

 

This bugged the hell outta me..I mean sure, it's not serious, but it's still presentation. It makes me wonder if they test their games at all. Awakening is very buggy. And what annoyed me more was that they said they couldn't patch it, but there is a workaround which involves deleting warden's keep. I shouldnt HAVE to delete a DLC i paid for to fix a bug that should NOT have been there in the first place..

 

I've had the Vigilance bug on the PC as well, but it's not that big of a deal. I don't remember any bugs with the Sentinel armor, though.

 

Anyway, if the PS3 version has the "Downloadable content" menu option, with the "enabled" checkbox next to each installed DLC, then all you have to do is disable the Warden's Keep DLC in order to get the proper look of Vigilance. It's not necessary to uninstall the DLC completely.

 

As for it being short, well, if it were a full game, I'd agree. However with a 25-30 hour completionist playthrough, it's a very lengthy expansion - it's a few hours longer than ME2 (barely 25 hours per completionist playthrough), which was a full game.

[Rake]

As for it being short, well, if it were a full game, I'd agree. However with a 25-30 hour completionist playthrough, it's a very lengthy expansion - it's a few hours longer than ME2 (barely 25 hours per completionist playthrough), which was a full game.

 

Really? ME2 took me around 45 hours to do the main quest and all the side quests, while Awakenings took me around 17 hours. However, I thought Awakenings main story was great, contrary to ME2's and DAO's main stories. Both have what I like to call, "diversion levels." You play through a bunch of secluded stories in order to finally get the main story wrapped up in a 1 hour finishing level. You literally learn nothing new from start to finish. There are darkspawn. I kill archdemon, yay darkspawn gone. ME2 is the same: there are collectors. Yay, I defeat collectors; Reapers are coming to kill all. Nothing happened in both games, they were predictable and barely anything new is discovered that isn't known at the beginning of the game.

 

In Awakenings, the story leaves you in a sort of mist: the whole way through, I wanted to learn more about the mysterious architect and mother. Why are they important? Why are they doing this? DAO was too short in the sense that I felt none of that, I knew everything that was going to play out at the start. Sure, the mini stories in the hubs were fun, but most had nothing to do with the overarching stories. They all felt like a bunch of little DLCs strung together into a game.

 

/rant over hehe, talked a bit too much. That's part of the reason DA2 looks so appetizing to me, the focus seems to be on the main story with the framed narrative and not a bunch of "diversion" levels that simply keep you busy for 30+ hours.

[Drunkside]

Really? ME2 took me around 45 hours to do the main quest and all the side quests, while Awakenings took me around 17 hours. However, I thought Awakenings main story was great, contrary to ME2's and DAO's main stories. Both have what I like to call, "diversion levels." You play through a bunch of secluded stories in order to finally get the main story wrapped up in a 1 hour finishing level. You literally learn nothing new from start to finish. There are darkspawn. I kill archdemon, yay darkspawn gone. ME2 is the same: there are collectors. Yay, I defeat collectors; Reapers are coming to kill all. Nothing happened in both games, they were predictable and barely anything new is discovered that isn't known at the beginning of the game.

 

In Awakenings, the story leaves you in a sort of mist: the whole way through, I wanted to learn more about the mysterious architect and mother. Why are they important? Why are they doing this? DAO was too short in the sense that I felt none of that, I knew everything that was going to play out at the start. Sure, the mini stories in the hubs were fun, but most had nothing to do with the overarching stories. They all felt like a bunch of little DLCs strung together into a game.

 

/rant over hehe, talked a bit too much. That's part of the reason DA2 looks so appetizing to me, the focus seems to be on the main story with the framed narrative and not a bunch of "diversion" levels that simply keep you busy for 30+ hours.

 

Awakening had a good story? It had no story in my opinion. You just gather a few guys and then you go to kill one or two ugly monsters... Ugly, highly uninteresting monsters. I went with the architect, he seemed like the "good" guy I said no to racism in an overly nerdy teen-fantasy game, can you say the same?

[DarthParametric]

Wow. Witch Hunt may be the second worst DLC of all time. Horse Armour still holds the throne, but only just.

[Ztalker]

Wow. Witch Hunt may be the second worst DLC of all time. Horse Armour still holds the throne, but only just.

 

You got to be kidding me...

I've been waiting for this DLC for ages...because, let's face it, Golems and Leliana's song don't really 'add' something to the original story.

I'm replaying the game entirely (to get a 'perfect' ending for DA:2) so I'll only play this DLC later.

 

Could you, without spoilers, tell use what was wrong with it? The length? The ending wasn't satisfying? It was too cheesy?