early game spoilers/end of dragon age origins spoilers


like so far: being able to keep my character, new shadow subclass for rogues (backstab damage is off the charts). Already found lots of fun equipment.

dislike so far: some big consistency issues that are pretty surprising considering how thorough bioware usually is; people repeatedly call me "sir" even though I'm a lady and one person referred to "king alistair" doing something even though he's dead in my storyline. The plot is about darkspawn again (yawn, yawn, and yawn). I wanted to keep Maihri or whatever her name was cause I don't have a good tank now, booooo. Anders is an obvious stupid alistair replacement, his voice even sounds similar... it's like the writers just can't stand not having a blonde guy with a super english voice making "witty" comments. Nathaniel seems to have a lot of potential but the meeting with him feels rushed and anticlimactic considering he's mad at me for killing his father who betrayed and murdered my entire family in cold blood. Oghren was the worst character to pick for a return, literally any companion from the first game would have been more interesting, including the dog. Also his out of nowhere desire to be a grey warden is not remotely believable (I will confess, though, that when he gulped down the darkspawn blood like it was nothing I was amused). The grey wardens are apparently as much a bunch of pushovers as any ordinary soldiers since a force of them gets slaughtered and/or captured by a number of darkspawn that I and two other people can kill on our own.

Overall... pretty unimpressed so far. That said, it's a bioware rpg and I'm having fun being my sassy cute grey warden again.

I seriously hate nitpicking, but shouldn't this be in the Role-Playing games section?

On topic, nice to hear some more thoughts on this. I've been waffling on this since day 1 of hearing about its creation, so I could go either way at this point. If anyone else has more to say, feel free to do so.

I think the deus ex machina I hear they used to revive your Warden(if you sacrificed yourself) is complete and utter BS. I wonder how many other loads they plan to drop on the DA storyline?

I seriously hate nitpicking, but shouldn't this be in the Role-Playing games section?

Nah, nobody posts in there. Fuck that forum.


On topic, nice to hear some more thoughts on this. I've been waffling on this since day 1 of hearing about its creation, so I could go either way at this point. If anyone else has more to say, feel free to do so.

I think the deus ex machina I hear they used to revive your Warden(if you sacrificed yourself) is complete and utter BS. I wonder how many other loads they plan to drop on the DA storyline?

I didn't know that it was possible to continue with a sacrificed warden actually. I assumed you couldn't import dead characters. That is interesting because Bioware actually stated that if your character dies at the end of Mass Effect 2 you can't import him/her to Mass Effect 3, so I figured they'd do something similar here. If this is true, I agree, that is super lame. It totally ruins the power of making a sacrifice.

What annoys me most about the deus ex machina thing is Bioware originally implied that if you imported a dead character into the expansion, the game would take place in a world where your character did sacrifice themselves at the end of the first game, and you would play as a new character instead. That would have been far more interesting than what they actually went with.

Considering how much they hyped the influence your choices would have on the expansion, it's disappointing to read reviews stating how little effect they actually have. After all, that was the excuse Bioware originally used to justify the $40 price tag. I guess it's not that surprising really since Mass Effect 2 was the same way. I really enjoyed the first game so I'll still be picking this up (the US price hike doesn't seem to have made it here, thank God), but I'll be going in with significantly lower expectations than when it was announced.

this is why I wanted a Throne of Bhaal instead of a Tales of the Sword Coast

The way I see it, either the story matters or it's just a one-off adventure pack. And I don't do one-offs.

Until the price goes down.

I beat it yesterday. In 10 hours.

If you haven't bought it yet, I'd definitely recommend waiting until the price drops. It's alright, but definitely no Throne of Bhaal or Mask of the Betrayer.

I finished today and I think it is horrible. The story feels truncated and stupid and most of the characters suck or are just insignificant. Definitely seemed short as well, even for an expansion. It is also glitchy. There were even some things I couldn't tell if they were glitches or just bad game design. Like, I was never able to actually initiate vellena into the wardens because every time I tried to talk to the guy he had gotten to the point where all he would do was start the final battle. Overall, big disappointment.

I really hope they do something more interesting soon, something like Torment. Why can't there ever be another game like that.

I really hope they do something more interesting soon, something like Torment. Why can't there ever be another game like that.

That is the motherfucking question

IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT EVERY PERSON WHO JOINS YOU EVENTUALLY FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER WANTS TO JOIN THE GREY WARDENS AND ALL OF THEM HAPPEN TO SURVIVE THE JOINING WOW THIS IS GREAT STORYTELLING BIOWARE SERIOUSLY FUCK YOU GUYS YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS

Like, I was never able to actually initiate vellena into the wardens because every time I tried to talk to the guy he had gotten to the point where all he would do was start the final battle.
This happened to me as well, for a different character. I suspect it happens no matter which character you pick up last.

Does putting characters through the joining actually do anything though? If it does I didn't notice.

My suspicion is it affects how things play out in the final battle. In my case, Vellana died, and nobody else did.