Dragon Age: Awakening Expansion

[Web Rider]

*spoiler*

 

Oh man, so it IS just like Neverwinter's castle-building aspect. Jeeze.

[Taak Farst]

Bought it last night - and finished today.

 

Good story and setup. I wish we saw more of alistair however. I think the expansion lacked party immersion..you spoke to people like Velanna rarely..

Oghren was quite funny, as always, was nice to have him aboard like old times

 

The length of it was pretty decent, for an expansion pack. A nice range of enemies - like The Architect and The Mother. My 2 faves though was the Baroness and the talking darkspawn. The children were a great enemy, but grew irritating a lot due to large numbers..

 

The Mother was a good challenge encounter, I downed her on my second try with 2 mages and 2 melee.

 

VERY VERY early in, all of my squad, except my PC died. I was also out of lyrium potions so was limited to my spells. I had a gr8 staff that cost me 117g but was worth it. I attacked the mother as normal and when the children ambushed me I used the tempest aoe spell on them each time - and survived this ambush twice - until i found a lyrium potion on one of their corpses. So I revived Nathaniel and Velanna and then fought the mother for 2 minutes then revived Oghren, who then got the killing blow on the mother. Expansion complete

 

I felt pretty epic doing the above. I completely turned the situation around when the mother had all but won. I <3 my mage..

 

Overall 9/10. I actually think some of it was visually better than the normal game - i mean model-wise. The Baroness looked really badass - a great boss fight.

BioWare have done a really good job on this, and I look forward to the next thing they do, be it DLC, Expansion or Sequel

[Taak Farst]

sorry for double post but wanted to bump this thread to see if som1 can answer my question.

 

if anyone has come across starfang - the weapon made of starmetal - does anyone know if it passes into awakening? coz it is an awesome sword - better than marics from return to ostagar.

[Laar_Dha]

sorry for double post but wanted to bump this thread to see if som1 can answer my question.

 

if anyone has come across starfang - the weapon made of starmetal - does anyone know if it passes into awakening? coz it is an awesome sword - better than marics from return to ostagar.

 

 

You might want to try this mod: DLC in Awakening and Awakening Fixes

 

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, as my computer has been having seizures for a week and I haven't managed to get Awakenings installed.

[stoffe]

sorry for double post but wanted to bump this thread to see if som1 can answer my question.

 

if anyone has come across starfang - the weapon made of starmetal - does anyone know if it passes into awakening? coz it is an awesome sword - better than marics from return to ostagar.

 

Only DLC items from Return to Ostagar will transfer normally, apparently this is by design but it's still annoying. Especially since you end up naked and unarmed if you had DLC gear equipped in the savegame you import. You can work around it by copying the module resources for the addins to the core scope override folder for that addin instead. There are mods that do this for you as well.

 

This will cause a few anomalies though, since some of the 2DA file line IDs used by the DLCs will override the new data in the expansion pack that uses the same line ID. This will for example make the fancy sword Master Wade can make for you have Starfang's model instead of the proper one. Wearing DLC gear can also cause an inventory glitch in the Silverite Mines in Wending Wood, resulting in the loss of your gear unless you unequip them before entering.

 

Only reason to keep DLC items from Origins in Awakening is fashion sense anyway. You will find better gear in Awakening than anything the DLCs provide.

[Taak Farst]

Only reason to keep DLC items from Origins in Awakening is fashion sense anyway. You will find better gear in Awakening than anything the DLCs provide.

 

yeah i wore cailans armor all through my irst awakening playthru - purely based on nostalgia and look

[igyman]

Only DLC items from Return to Ostagar will transfer normally, apparently this is by design but it's still annoying. Especially since you end up naked and unarmed if you had DLC gear equipped in the savegame you import. You can work around it by copying the module resources for the addins to the core scope override folder for that addin instead. There are mods that do this for you as well.

 

This will cause a few anomalies though, since some of the 2DA file line IDs used by the DLCs will override the new data in the expansion pack that uses the same line ID. This will for example make the fancy sword Master Wade can make for you have Starfang's model instead of the proper one. Wearing DLC gear can also cause an inventory glitch in the Silverite Mines in Wending Wood, resulting in the loss of your gear unless you unequip them before entering.

 

Only reason to keep DLC items from Origins in Awakening is fashion sense anyway. You will find better gear in Awakening than anything the DLCs provide.

 

 

To correct you, items from Return to Ostagar and The Stone Prisoner DLC will transfer. Items from Warden's Keep don't transfer for some reason.

 

As for glitches, I haven't had any in my one playthrough, but the Silverite Mines bug has been reported by a number of people, so it's wise to be careful at that point in the game.

[stoffe]

To correct you, items from Return to Ostagar and The Stone Prisoner DLC will transfer. Items from Warden's Keep don't transfer for some reason.

 

Weird, lost the Helm of Honnleath during import but maybe that was just another glitch. But it makes sense since you can still find Shale crystals in a few places as (random?) loot.

 

As for glitches, I haven't had any in my one playthrough, but the Silverite Mines bug has been reported by a number of people, so it's wise to be careful at that point in the game.

 

100% reproducible for me, though I haven't bothered to find out exactly which item causes the problem. But if I'm wearing the WC-armor, Starfang and Marics Blade then the ghoul who should be wearing the main characters gear never spawns, and the party keeps all the backpack inventory. If I unequip those items and put something else on before triggering the cutscene at the start of the mine then all inventory gets properly stripped and the ghoul with the equipped gear shows up.

 

Curiously custom-made toolset items don't cause any problems in the Silverite mines, just the DLC gear.

 

 

yeah i wore cailans armor all through my irst awakening playthru - purely based on nostalgia and look

 

Ditto, but with the Warden-Commander armor since it looks very stylish (silverite material looks best IMO) and fits your new role as actual Warden-Commander well. Used scripts to upgrade it a bit though.

 

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[Taak Farst]

Ditto, but with the Warden-Commander armor since it looks very stylish (silverite material looks best IMO) and fits your new role as actual Warden-Commander well. Used scripts to upgrade it a bit though.

yeah its good armor.

 

although, with each passin play i get more and more annoyed at not bein able to import warden keep things - coz starfang is an amazin weapon - it looks fantastic and has some gr8 stats to at least start with in awakening!

btw i mean the main hand sword..i hate greatswords.. -- unless u can actually import starfang?? ah well...mods wont work or me coz im an unfortunate ps3 player who has been screwed over. no retail awakenin copy on ps3 in europe - just a dlc - that costs more than the retail versions o' the other 2 consoles. and we had an extremely late ostagar dlc on ps3.. ps3 arent havin a gr8 da:o run

 

my da:O setup is cailans complete armor, his shield and starfang, embri's many pockets (dlc unlocked from the browser based game they did.) - and i didnt bother with amulets or rings - so thats it. a good setup i think

[Rake]

For anyone having reservations like me, the eastore has a coupon: PAXEAST842, that takes $20 off the pricetag of DA:A and gives free shipping (also works on other games over $40). Just placed my order, hopefully it comes soon, and gives me my DA fix.

[SW01]

ah well...mods wont work or me coz im an unfortunate ps3 player who has been screwed over. no retail awakenin copy on ps3 in europe - just a dlc - that costs more than the retail versions o' the other 2 consoles. and we had an extremely late ostagar dlc on ps3.. ps3 arent havin a gr8 da: o run

 

Aye the treatment of the PS3 crowd hasn't been great. Makes me very happy that I chose PC instead. The Return to Ostagar mess was ridiculous; as I understand the thing it was due to Microsoft that it was delayed, and then XBox got it first anyway...then PC got it after incredible forum spamming.

 

But on Starfang: far as I've seen it's only the PC that is having any luck in getting the equipment transferred, unless Bio releases some patch for it, which honestly I think they should. The other pieces are carried over after all, and if a modder can do it, why can't they? (Excluding PS3 hate, of course.)

[Rake]

Is the best first playthrough experience with the Orlesian or with an import? I'm around halfway through DA:O cause my old chars got deleted, and wondering if you get a better experience by just playing as the Orlesian first.

[Nedak]

Just beat it, was pretty fun.

 

I just hope the next one is longer.

[DarthParametric]

Just finished it myself. For the most part it was enjoyable. It was good to see Oghren again and give him some screen time that he probably didn't get with most people in Origins (seems like pretty much everyone does Orzammar last). Unfortunately though there was virtually bugger all interaction with the party members, which I found very disappointing, especially given that Grey DeLisle was one of them. Anders had some funny lines, but am I right in thinking that he is basically just Alastair in a dress?

 

The keep upgrade stuff was pretty light weight and could have been done a bit better. I didn't like that you didn't get a chance to fight in both the pre-ending battles with alternate parties, à la the Denerim battle at the end of Origins. I have to say the ending was rather disappointing - very abrupt and just those stupid "what happened afterwards" slides. It would have been nice to get a proper cutscene finale. The exposition towards the end was a bit thin too.

 

Also, Awakening must have the slowest credits crawl in the history of man.

[igyman]

seems like pretty much everyone does Orzammar last

 

Actually, I do the elves and werewolves last, because to me that's the best part and a good change after the extra long Orzammar.

 

Anyway, I agree with you on almost all points. The party member interaction was indeed disappointing and Oghren was actually the one that seemed to have the most dialogue. The keep upgrades were a nice touch, but it could have been left out entirely as far as I'm concerned. As for the ending it wasn't bad and the epilogue slides were very detailed, but I too would have appreciated a post finale scene of some sort.

 

@Nedak: This expansion is as long as ME2, which is a full game (then again ME2 is rather short, when you compare it to Origins), so I'd say they did a pretty good job in that department.

[Negative Sun]

Been playing this one for a while lately, really enjoy it, the only thing they got kinda off IMO is the difficulty settings, all that extra gear and new classes just overpower your character sooo much that even on Nightmare it feels like I'm playing on Casual/Normal in Origins.

[JediAthos]

I just started playing it the other day. Xbox Live was having an EA sale and I got it for 50% off along with the rest of the DLC I didn't already have. I'm enjoying it so far and I particularly like the new characters though they should have tried to make Anders look a bit less like Allistair, but then maybe that was intentional I don't know.

[Ztalker]

^ I've installed it again too....going for a 'perfect' playthrough before I get my hands on DA2.

 

But indeed, the Awakenings Classes are...sickly overpowered. I was a whirling dervish of destruction with my duel-wield warrior last time. The black demon armor, the epic swords....autch.

[JediAthos]

here's a question...if you buy the class books in Awakening will they be unlocked the next time you play Origins?

[DarthParametric]

I wouldn't think there would be many locked specialisations by the time you reached Awakening, unless you played that first (for some reason). I guess Reaver and Blood Mage might be the most likely suspects. Given that Awakening is a standalone module, I wouldn't count on any unlocks there being "backwards compatible" as it were, but I guess there is only one way to find out. And assuming it wasn't, if you play on the PC there is, as they say, a mod for that (or several, as it happens).

[JediAthos]

nah..playin on the 360...and the Awakening play through I just started is with my very first Origins character and when I played through with him I didn't really pay much attention to what go unlocked where and such and I know that once you unlock them in Origins they remain unlocked for subsequent play throughs.

[Negative Sun]

here's a question...if you buy the class books in Awakening will they be unlocked the next time you play Origins?

Yes, at least on Xbox 360, unlocked Reaver that way.

[JediAthos]

good to know! Thanks for the info!