Dragon Age: Origins gameplay and discussion thread.

**Monk** · 11-06-2009, 23:28

Originally Posted by Krusader

Just did Warden's Keep and its definetly NOT worth 15 $. Maybe 5-10 $, but not 15 $ for a quest-area that is shorter than most plot quests.
And will do Stone Prisoner next. I will keep Morrigan & Leliana (dps/healer & rogue) and opted for Sten since I want to see how the quasari are, although might swap that sourpuss out for Shale. Although Alistair was a nice character so will keep him around when I play a mage later.

YIKES! That was worth $15? I got the DDE off of Impulse with a coupon, so I really didn't pay much over the original edition's price for all my bonus content. I agree, there's no way WK is worth that sort of money. At the very most it should be priced at $5.

I've found Sten is a bit of a "glass cannon" he can hit pretty hard, especially after you do his companion quest, but he and the other damage focused warriors are surprisingly squishy. After i got Shale I swapped Sten for him and haven't looked back. A follower made out of stone is durable as it sounds.

**Krusader** · 11-06-2009, 23:34

Originally Posted by Monk

YIKES! That was worth $15? I got the DDE off of Impulse with a coupon, so I really didn't pay much over the original edition's price for all my bonus content. I agree, there's no way WK is worth that sort of money. At the very most it should be priced at $5.

I've found Sten is a bit of a "glass cannon" he can hit pretty hard, especially after you do his companion quest, but he and the other damage focused warriors are surprisingly squishy. After i got Shale I swapped Sten for him and haven't looked back. A follower made out of stone is durable as it sounds.

I bought the DDE of Steam so I got Warden's Keep

But my bad, its actually 7 $.

Stone Prisoner is 15 $. I'll edit my post and rectify that.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Monk** · 11-06-2009, 23:40

Ah, i was about to say that's just plain robbery!

Originally Posted by Krusader

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Sten companion tips.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

27 hours into this game. I need a vacaion.

**FactionHeir** · 11-07-2009, 01:51

Just finished the village, made extensive use of Lelianna's rogue skills

Regarding gifts, thanks for the pointers, I noticed those give like +9 rather than +5, so quite notable.
Companions convos are fine for the most part. I find Morrigan's the most difficult, but they change the most too (usually +-6 or 7), while others go for around 1-4 each time.

Just entered camp for the first time too. So far I haven't died in the origin story and ostagar. Died twice in this section but reloaded each time since I think main dying should be game over.

**Monk** · 11-07-2009, 03:29

Figured out the problem of sustained "auras" in conversations. As FactionHeir pointed out is a tactics problem that can be easily remedied. Go to your tactics menu and set: Condition: Self-> Surrounded by no enemies. Then set the action to: Self-> Deactivate mode: (aura) and then save your preset. This will solve the problem of being sparkly in conversations but will take up a tactics slot.

Its hard to believe a game I enjoy this much can be so backwards in its design.

**frogbeastegg** · 11-07-2009, 10:19

Weirdness. I played several more hours last night and my party AI and influence was working in a sane manner again. In fact I redid one conversation where I got negative influence, picked exactly the same choices, and this time got positive influence! With a smattering of gifts and some functional conversation I have Alistair deeply fond of me, and Morrigan and Leliana to slightly friendly. They didn't have much dialogue for me to work through, and Sten had none so he still hates me.

Leliana is spotting traps all over the place and they appear visually on the game world, and by walking near them I am given the option to disarm them.

Maybe dragon age is a night game? Play it in the morning and it's half asleep?

Regardless of the reason I enjoyed my time immensely.

I haven't done the Shale DLC yet; the achievements are broken on it and I don't want to bork my profile. The wardens keep DLC costs 560 points and I admit I am tempted, if only for the item storage. My inventory fills up with runes and ingredients so quickly. Again, the achievements are broken so I can't play it without needing to recover my profile later.

Setting and plot wise I'm still not seeing the dark fantasy, and definitely not seeing any trace of the song of ice and fire inspiration that the developers were talking about. It's basically a standard fantasy novel, which means it's less twee than your usual fantasy game and isn't in technicolour graphics and that's about it. It's very Tad Williams with added blood so far.

**Beskar** · 11-07-2009, 11:49

I own the DLC, but the problem is, can't even download it to play it.

It is quite annoying.

Even worse, I heard you cannot even play games with the DLC content, offline.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**FactionHeir** · 11-07-2009, 13:19

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Weirdness. I played several more hours last night and my party AI and influence was working in a sane manner again. In fact I redid one conversation where I got negative influence, picked exactly the same choices, and this time got positive influence! With a smattering of gifts and some functional conversation I have Alistair deeply fond of me, and Morrigan and Leliana to slightly friendly. They didn't have much dialogue for me to work through, and Sten had none so he still hates me.

I thought that was only on my end. Did some convos to just look at what the henchie would reply with for giggles and then went back to pick a mod-high path that would fit with the RP. Thing is, sometimes a path seems to give you a boost once, but after a load, that path never gives anything, which is weird. I.e. the convo with Lelianna about the people in the convent and picking a certain option the first time got me +4 but each time thereafter 0.

Re Achieves, are they broken just for the xbox or also the PC?

Originally Posted by Beskar

Even worse, I heard you cannot even play games with the DLC content, offline.

That's true. My connection went down for a while yesterday and when I went to resume my game it told me that due to the DLC I can only play it logged into an account that has them.

**Monk** · 11-07-2009, 19:42

33.5 hours in. Thinking of taking my foot off the gas today and getting some real work done. This game can be very hard to put down at times.

Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

Setting and plot wise I'm still not seeing the dark fantasy, and definitely not seeing any trace of the song of ice and fire inspiration that the developers were talking about. It's basically a standard fantasy novel, which means it's less twee than your usual fantasy game and isn't in technicolour graphics and that's about it. It's very Tad Williams with added blood so far.

I'm starting to wonder if Bioware has the "Big book of fantasy cliches" tucked away in their writers' office. The story isn't bad per say, it's just nothing special or revolutionary. Fun? Oh absolutely! Highly original? I really don't think so.

Originally Posted by Xiahou

Is this the PC version? I haven't logged in since I downloaded the DLC and I've had no problems using it.

Yeah same here, I haven't had any trouble logged in or out in playing.