Dragon Age: Origins gameplay and discussion thread.

[johnhughthom]

You really think something that exposes most of your body is suited for living in a forest? What about all the pointy branches, high grass, slimy plants, biting insects even poisonous plants? You would come home every night scratching, itching and bleeding. Although perhaps Morrigan enjoys that....


I guess she could have stolen a nice dress instead of some shiny mirror...

[rajpoot]

I found that the lady who drew the Revelation comic, Dana Russo has a gallery on DeviantArt. It has a nice collection of several other Dragon Age comics she's drawn.

BTW a few of the comics have mature content.

Link

In the Revelation comic she's referring to her favourite Warden character who's a female-dwarf-noble, (I think).

[Mailman653]

http://aimo.deviantart.com/art/ME2-S...rrus-156963498

OT picture, but priceless!

[frogbeastegg]

So, Awakenings. Separate thread or continue to use this one? What's the general preference?

I decided that I shall start a new character in Awakenings. DA:O did not make me care about either of the characters I completed it with, and if I take a warrior/archer I can try out the final class type without needing to slog through Origins a third time. I don't want to play Origins again. Ever. It's downright tedious on a replay.

On the subject of gear in DA:O, I can't say that I like the light female armour. Sure it's an improvement over the standard chainmail bikini. It's the pointless stupid cat collar that gets me. Why? Just why?! Does my mage look like someone's pet? Speaking of mages, what's with the entire groin hugging ornament thing and "Oops, I put my bra on after my clothes!" effect?

[Meneldil]

Haha, it's kind of cheesy that you grow more attached to NPC's than to your own character in a RPG. I feel the same, I don't remember any of my 3 characters' name.

I think we can keep this topic for Awakenings. It was about to die, the expansion will probably bring it back to life a bit (though my overall feeling is that the org community doesn't like DA much).

[Secura]

You really think something that exposes most of your body

It doesn't really expose that much, really. Her legs are well covered, her arms are mostly protected... she's just showing hella cleavage and some midriff. If you lived in the woodlands and needed clothing, you'd make the best out of what rags you could find too, no? :P

though my overall feeling is that the org community doesn't like DA much

I love DA:O, but it feels as though it was Bioware's stop-gap for their fans until they could release ME2.

[Mailman653]

I like DAO too, I couldn't put down for almost two weeks straight.

[johnhughthom]

I like DAO too, I couldn't put down for almost two weeks straight.

Same. Zero desire to play since though.

[Meneldil]

Yeah, I liked it too. Unlocked all achievements, played the game 3 times and almost know it by heart. Still, I don't think I'll remind it much in 10 years.

[Krusader]

DA:O was good, but not rememberable as other games.

As for Awakenings, Bioware stated it has 15 hours of gameplay did they not? Considering the word was 60-80 hours for DA:O and I used 45 on first playthrough with all dialogue, I'm not keen on dropping 30 € for what I think is 10 hours worth of content, if not less. RtO was also very little for the price.

[Mailman653]

As for Awakenings, Bioware stated it has 15 hours of gameplay did they not? Considering the word was 60-80 hours for DA:O and I used 45 on first playthrough with all dialogue, I'm not keen on dropping 30 € for what I think is 10 hours worth of content, if not less.

That's a good point, I easly must of done 8+hrs on the first day without even noticing how much time I spent playing the game. Spending what I think is half the price of the original game on an expansion that I might might finish in a day and a half doesn't seem like a good investment dispite it's appeal.

[Meneldil]

I think the advertised lenght is more like 30 hours, but I might be wrong on this.

[frogbeastegg]

I liked DA:O a lot more on the first playthrough than the second. Some of the area design is very poor, and the pacing is all over the place. There were plenty of places I didn't want to revisit and none I looked forward to seeing again. Presentation is the another killer. Visually the game is bland, generic, boring and occasionally downright ugly, both in terms of design and in terms of graphics. The conversations are boring to watch and are years behind those of the original Mass Effect. The third and final blow comes from the plot - it's rubbish. Comparing what we got to what Bioware promised I do rather wonder if they a)read any fantasy books which aren’t aimed at young adults and b)played their own game.

The companions are mostly very good. They're one of the game's strongest points, and most of my better memories of the game involve standing around chatting or the pithy little comments they interject into conversations with other characters. I do like the challenge presented by combat and I like the need to think of tactics. The character building system is decent, though the skills are not balanced as well as they need to be. No good and evil metre, hurrah! Individual influence with your party which ebbs and flows in a reasonably natural manner, hurrah!

I shall pick up Awakenings when I can find it for a reasonable price. At first they insisted there would be no disc based version for the xbox, and the price they've been throwing around is far more than I'd want to pay. A few days ago I noticed a disc based version has quietly slipped onto the release schedules; roll on the discounts.

[Krusader]

Rock Paper Shotgun has a short article with videos of companions, as its coming out tomorrow in US and Thursday/Friday in Europe:

RPS article

I'm just not that interested in this expansion really. When Steam has a Thanksgiving/Christmas sales again, I'll pick it up.

[Secura]

Oh snap... the DLC is out at the end of the weekend?

I was saving my points for Rock Band DLC this week, but I've been waiting for Awakening for a while. >.<

[johnhughthom]

18th = Thursday.

[Secura]

Bah, I think The Subways and Lady Gaga will end up cheaper than Awakening, so I'll have to wait til I can buy more points. :<

[Beskar]

Awakening is out on Thursday? I know what I will be doing then.

[Kekvit Irae]

Lady Gaga will end up cheaper than Awakening

Nothing is cheaper than Lady Gaga. Oh wait, you mean the Rock Band DLC...

[Kekvit Irae]

Ok, I installed Awakening and to my surprise none of my DLC stuff is working. Through searching the official forums, I found out it's by design. Now my Blood Mage is naked. -.-
Thankfully, there's already a mod for that. http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=874

[Meneldil]

Thanks for the link. Quite handy, as my rogue and war are covered with DLC items.

[Beskar]

Ok, I installed Awakening and to my surprise none of my DLC stuff is working. Through searching the official forums, I found out it's by design. Now my Blood Mage is naked. -.-
Thankfully, there's already a mod for that. http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=874

"Thankfully, there's already a mod" to make your Blood Mage naked?

For some reason, that is what I read your post as the first time.

[Mailman653]

Any first impressions from the expansion pack?

[Kekvit Irae]

Any first impressions from the expansion pack?

So far, it's on par with the original game. It adds a whole new tier of techniques for each class, a new teir for each weapon teir, three new skills (Runecrafting, +health, +mana/stamina), two new prestige classes for each class, there is a crap load of sidequests, some of your actions in DA will affect some dialogue in Awakening (just like ME1>ME2), Oghren is still the same lovable drunkard as he always was, and the writing and voice acting is still great..

Just about the only thing I don't like is that (if memory serves me correct), it was hyped as having a revamped dialogue system. I haven't seen any change whatsoever. Oh, and the memory leaks at around 30-60 minute mark.

[rajpoot]

While redoing several of my favourite bits in the original game to get in the mood for the xpack, I was going through the end of the Sacred Ashes quest with Leliana and Oghren both in my team. This time around I got a bit of dialogue which might be the 'scientific' explanation for the mystical power of the ashes.
When Leliana starts to get all excited about the ashes and their power, Oghren basically tells her to keep her pants on since he sees in the walls of the mountain very thick veins of Lyrium, and according to him, it's the Lyrium that is affecting everything within the temple walls, slowly changing stuff.

Edit:

The revamped dialogue system, if Bioware forums are an accepted source, simply refers to the fact that the Warden can no longer have long camp conversations with the characters about their past and stuff. Atleast that is what I understood.

[Kekvit Irae]

The revamped dialogue system, if Bioware forums are an accepted source, simply refers to the fact that the Warden can no longer have long camp conversations with the characters about their past and stuff. Atleast that is what I understood.

Then there's no point to gifts. At level 24, I couldn't care less about a meager +2 or whatever bonus to stats for having a high attitude rating. If there's no deep conversations, there's no point.

[rajpoot]

Here's what's exactly been done.
Quoting a user from the Bioware forum (no spoilers, the tags are there so that it remains neat) -

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The dialogue changes.. I'm sure I will catch a lot of flak for this point but I feel it needs to be noted. For those of you who don't know what this is all about the way you can interact with your companions has been modified. In Origins you could initiate a conversation with party members in the field or in camp whenever you wanted via a right click, and from there you could delve through a great many dialogue options (some useful, some not so much but that's beside the point). In Awakening this functionality has been removed and replaced with companion interactions that are only available when it is convenient to the story, so to speak. You can no longer talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime, but are marshaled by plot flags signaling an important conversation needs to take place or the use of environmental mediums to to be a point of conversation. What does this mean in the grand scheme of things? I can see the logic behind this change, some of the dialogue in Origins was essentially fat and this new system does fit well with the pacing of Awakening but the involving party conversations was one of the highlights of Origins for me and I found myself missing this aspect immensely. I couldn't help feeling that maybe I would have connected with the new cast on a deeper level if they felt more human and accessible. When there was no conversation available for a particular character you would hear a generic line of dialogue spoken as you would expect from right clicking on a non-important NPC.

Now I am sympathetic to why these changes were made, trying to slim down the "fat" dialogue, faster game pace needed a slimmer dialogue system, wanting to cater to players who didn't enjoy the conversation heavy Origins, and so on. That's all well and good and I'm not suggesting that this system should be reverted entirely for the next installment but I do believe a happy medium is in order. This isn't a Mass Effect hybrid game, it's a CRPG, plain and simple, slimming down the immerse elements like deep and involving conversation is not allowed!

Here's a link to the thread.

Why do they keep slimming stuff down? They slim down RTS games, they slim down RPGs, they slim down shooters.....they slim down everything. Not cool.

[seireikhaan]

Oooooooookey dokey... Not my best idea ever. Pulled all nighter to see if my suspicion that I could get through the game in one (long) sitting was possible.

Complement sandwich:

Goods:

1) I like the new specializations quite a bit, add some new flavor and strategy.

2) The expansion's construction seems, I dunno, somehow well built. Can't really put my thumb on what I mean.

3) Return of Wade.

Bads:

1) Ogren

2) Lack of warrior choices for NPC characters.

3) Game a bit easy at times with a rogue-focused party, as they simply deal out sooooooooo much damage.

4) No initiated discussions- kind of a problem for me, npc characters don't really feel all that well developed as a result.

5) Ogren

6) Howe kid? Really? Really?

Goods(again):

1) Rogues good enough to exclude Ogren from party.

2) New guy mage is easily best NPC- if for nothing else, his intro. Sorta like hippy, guy version of Morrigan(and the big plus of not starting with shapeshifting)

3) Game not as short as initially feared- roughly 11-12 hours into it. Plot fairly clear, but still estimating at least 5 more hours, maybe more.


Overall, probably not worth the price at the moment, as I'd figured. If not for them cleverly releasing it while I was on spring break, my discipline would have held better. Still enjoyable, I think. Also, all the more reason DA:O is better for PC- I'm willing to bet modders can get the new specializations, items, and stuff into the main campaign.

[Scienter]

What don't you like about Oghren, Yaseikhaan?

[seireikhaan]

What don't you like about Oghren, Yaseikhaan?

99% of his dialogue can be summarized as one of the following:

1) "Oghren, your breath smells terrible!" "Yeah, aint I a scamp?"

2) "Oghren, you really do drink too much." "Yeah, aint I a scamp?"

or lastly,

3) "Hey, *insert female NPC*, whatcha doing tonight?" "Get away, Oghren." "Aint I a scamp?"

It really gets tiresome after hearing it for what feels like the millionth time. For me, alcoholism and womanizing cease to be funny when that's the 99% of the character's development. I've had one reference to something unrelated, Branka. Which ended up being a reference for his womanizing.