My current playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins

[the_shadow]

I know I'm behind the curve, but I've caved and decided to give Dragon Age: Origins a whirl. I'm currently 6 hours into the game, and my one overriding thought is...

Do these people ever shut the fuck up? I mean, seriously, could there be any more dialogue and exposition in this game? Every NPC has shitloads of boring dialogue you have to sit through in order to trigger a side quest. It's not helped by the fact that even my own party members are bantering, and will often *repeat* banter/dialogue.

The game is reminding me of Witcher 2 with its over-abundance of cutscenes. Like I said, I'm six hours into the game, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had only spent one hour on actual gameplay.

The whole Grey Warden thing seems like an utterly pointless addition to the game. I was actually quite apprehensive to become a Grey Warden, a bad-ass elite warrior who could stand against the Blight. I was fascinated by their transformation ritual. Was it as intense and complex as the one Witchers went through? Nope, just drinking some Dark Spawn blood is enough. And then afterwards you are sent off to light a beacon, instead of being given any training, or taught about Grey Warden history/strategy.

The combat is OK, when you actually get to fight. I find it kind of LOL that the game autosaves before every fight cutscene (aka. ten times a map).

I am curious to see if the game picks up, though. The map has been opened up to me, and I'm currently fighting werewolves, so fingers crossed.

 

[Sjukob]

As I remember , the drama level in the game only increases with your progress , so you will see people debating about stuff and than another people show up who want to join discussion as well . . . There are pure combat areas in the game , like tunnels in dwarf city , but they are few . There will be those epic conversations about fate and destination by the end of the game , the political drama and than Morrigan suddenly wants to have sex the dragon explodes , don't bother with plot in this game . When I was finising it I couldn't even tell the names of my companions .

 

[Frozen]

Like the Witcher series its a storyfags rpg so no reason to bitch about lots and lots of talking.
Its not a dungeon crawler.
The world had potential but even in the first game the way it treats themes is juvenile. And it only goes downhill in that and any other regard.
If you ever played any BioWare game you should know what to expect- 4 closed parts don in random order, each one of them has like A or B resolution at the end.
After you finish all 4 parts its end game time.

 

[Excidium II]

Like the Witcher series its a storyfags rpg so no reason to bitch about lots and lots of talking.

End yourself

 

[Frozen]

End yourself

You disagree?

 

[Excidium II]

Of course.

 

[Frozen]

What exactly?
They are the same genre with lots of talking and cutscenes.

 

[Animal]

I do usually choose the "Get to the point!" option, but I don't remember it being that bad.

I actually liked the game, except for putting up with Allistair. It looked good, the camera was right and the combat was nice.

DAII was crap though.

 

[Excidium II]

What exactly?
They are the same genre with lots of talking and cutscenes.

Because the story in those games is fucking trash.

 

[Frozen]

Because the story in those games is fucking trash.

Which games?

 

[Excidium II]

Which games?

All the ones you mentioned.

 

[Mexi]

It's not a dungeon crawl. Not sure why you are even bitch about too much dialogue. It's actually a very good game. I've played it numerous times.

"The whole Grey Warden thing seems like an utterly pointless addition to the game."

It's not a fucking addition. It's the whole point of the fucking game.

I could understand you asking about the point of romances, but bitching about the central point of your character... that's new. It's like me bitching about the point of the vault in Fallout.

 

[the_shadow]

It's not a dungeon crawl. Not sure why you are even bitch about too much dialogue. It's actually a very good game. I've played it numerous times.

"The whole Grey Warden thing seems like an utterly pointless addition to the game."

It's not a fucking addition. It's the whole point of the fucking game.

I could understand you asking about the point of romances, but bitching about the central point of your character... that's new. It's like me bitching about the point of the vault in Fallout.

If the Grey Wardens as a faction didn't exist, how would that affect the game, or the gameplay? So far I've been solving a number of problems for people that aren't particularly meant to be handled by Grey Wardens. One involved exorcising a child (best left to Templars), cleansing the Circle of Magi (again, best left to Templars), and hunting werewolves. I haven't actually done anything to fight Dark Spawn, which is what I thought the whole point of being a Grey Warden was.

Anyway, the amount of dialogue has lessened dramatically, but good god is this game *long*. Furthermore, the combat is brutal. I'm playing on Normal difficulty, and find myself getting curb stomped by some of the bosses over and over again. The Sloth demon boss was particularly grueling. Maybe I just suck at micromanaging, or should delve a bit deeper into the game mechanics.

Speaking of romances, it seems like this game crams them down your throat. I had just completed the first major quest, and suddenly the bard bitch is claiming I need to dump Morrigan and commit to her. Huh, what? I wasn't even aware I was in a relationship with Morrigan, and I hadn't made an attempt to initiate the Biowarian romance with Lelina(?).

 

[Morality Games]

If the Grey Wardens as a faction didn't exist, how would that affect the game, or the gameplay? So far I've been solving a number of problems for people that aren't particularly meant to be handled by Grey Wardens. One involved exorcising a child (best left to Templars), cleansing the Circle of Magi (again, best left to Templars), and hunting werewolves. I haven't actually done anything to fight Dark Spawn, which is what I thought the whole point of being a Grey Warden was.

Anyway, the amount of dialogue has lessened dramatically, but good god is this game *long*. Furthermore, the combat is brutal. I'm playing on Normal difficulty, and find myself getting curb stomped by some of the bosses over and over again. The Sloth demon boss was particularly grueling. Maybe I just suck at micromanaging, or should delve a bit deeper into the game mechanics.

Speaking of romances, it seems like this game crams them down your throat. I had just completed the first major quest, and suddenly the bard bitch is claiming I need to dump Morrigan and commit to her. Huh, what? I wasn't even aware I was in a relationship with Morrigan, and I hadn't made an attempt to initiate the Biowarian romance with Lelina(?).

Romance depends on how much you close read the dialogue boxes. There are a lot of flirtatious lines. Flag one and you'll slide into the romance track.

Origins is more about introducing the world, major characters, and core concepts of Thedas than anything else. Grey Wardens are the narrative vehicle to pull that off because they are one of the few conceivable institutions that's underlying purpose (defend the world from Dark Spawn) gives them the moral and legal license to have an alliance with *everyone*. For example, elves have Apostate mages, so being a Templar PC wouldn't work because your obligations to the Order would mean clapping Dalish Elves in chains.

Not a bad idea, but a different sort of game.

 

[CosmicCommander]

The underlying story of DA:O is very simplistic, but it's meant to be. Morality Games put it best by saying that Origins serves to introduce Thedas and a lot of characters, and so the simple "save the world from the Darkspawn" plot works well for showing you around. I'm a storyfag myself, so I prefer long dialogue sections to combat or dungeon-diving. There's some fairly interesting stuff, and I do like some of the companions.

DA:O's greatest asset is its roleplay value. I enjoy roleplaying different characters as I go along and plotting out their character arcs in my head; from the spoilt and petty noble turning to a devoted and self-sacrificing warrior to the Dalish elf learning about the world and slowly rubbing a chip off their shoulder.

 

[Sjukob]

The underlying story of DA:O is very simplistic, but it's meant to be. Morality Games put it best by saying that Origins serves to introduce Thedas and a lot of characters, and so the simple "save the world from the Darkspawn" plot works well for showing you around

Introduce to what ? The following two games are fucked up garbage for console gamers and nobody cares about the plot or lore in those games . I finished DA2 myself and without jokes , being completely serious , I can't even remotely recall the game's plot , the only two things I remember are: qunari rebels and blood magic users being hunted or something like that . DA:I is just Skyrim in dragons age universe , may be not , I don't know , there is no way I am touching that shit .

I enjoy roleplaying different characters as I go along and plotting out their character arcs in my head

And I would always prefer to have more options than roleplay in the head , even if I have to play a made up character , but DA:O is at least decent at providing you with choices .

 

[CosmicCommander]

Introduce to what ? The following two games are fucked up garbage for console gamers and nobody cares about the plot or lore in those games . I finished DA2 myself and without jokes , being completely serious , I can't even remotely recall the game's plot , the only two things I remember are: qunari rebels and blood magic users being hunted or something like that . DA:I is just Skyrim in dragons age universe , may be not , I don't know , there is no way I am touching that shit .

I agree. DA:O was supposed to introduce you to a universe that would be respectfully and intelligently built up later, but BioWare sadly just produced shit. That does diminish DA:O in retrospect; when the best part of the book is the prologue, then obviously the value of the prologue itself is diminished significantly.

I'm mostly looking at DA:O as it was intended during development and at release. If you ignore the crock of shit that came afterwards, then you can understand the rationale for the simplicity of DA:O's plot. It's very sad that the potential that it set out was squandered.

 

[Frozen]

All the ones you mentioned.

If you look at it that way than all games story is trash. Its intellectual restriction of a medim targeted to kids.
If I want a seriuous story I certainly wouldn't expect it from a game. Maybe in 20 years or so.

 

[pippin]

DA:O's dialogue and cutscenes get in the way of everything. In Awakening, you don't have that. You can speak with your companions at your fort, and the missions you make actually matter when it comes to defending that fort. All in all it's a better game. It's also shorter, though (I think it took me 50 hours to beat DA:O and 35-40 to beat Awakenings).

 

[the_shadow]

One further comment. For what is supposed to be the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate II, the manual sucks. I have both the Baldur's Gate II and DA:O manuals, and the BG2 manual shits all over the DA: O manual. There must have been about 100 spells in BG2, and the manual gives an in-depth description of each one. Dragon Age: Origins has perhaps 1/10th of that, and doesn't even deign to mention them in the manual. How are you meant to plan your character build in advance?

 

[CosmicCommander]

One further comment. For what is supposed to be the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate II, the manual sucks. I have both the Baldur's Gate II and DA:O manuals, and the BG2 manual shits all over the DA: O manual. There must have been about 100 spells in BG2, and the manual gives an in-depth description of each one. Dragon Age: Origins has perhaps 1/10th of that, and doesn't even deign to mention them in the manual. How are you meant to plan your character build in advance?

DA:O has tooltips over every spell and feat, as far as I can remember. That's how I planned out my builds at the beginning of the game.

 

[Mexi]

If the Grey Wardens as a faction didn't exist, how would that affect the game, or the gameplay? So far I've been solving a number of problems for people that aren't particularly meant to be handled by Grey Wardens. One involved exorcising a child (best left to Templars), cleansing the Circle of Magi (again, best left to Templars), and hunting werewolves. I haven't actually done anything to fight Dark Spawn, which is what I thought the whole point of being a Grey Warden was.

Anyway, the amount of dialogue has lessened dramatically, but good god is this game *long*. Furthermore, the combat is brutal. I'm playing on Normal difficulty, and find myself getting curb stomped by some of the bosses over and over again. The Sloth demon boss was particularly grueling. Maybe I just suck at micromanaging, or should delve a bit deeper into the game mechanics.

Speaking of romances, it seems like this game crams them down your throat. I had just completed the first major quest, and suddenly the bard bitch is claiming I need to dump Morrigan and commit to her. Huh, what? I wasn't even aware I was in a relationship with Morrigan, and I hadn't made an attempt to initiate the Biowarian romance with Lelina(?).

You're doing this shit because you're trying to gain allies, and the developers are trying to introduce you to the lore in a fun manner. No one reads those pages of fucking codex, and as one of the developers said, the codex articles aren't even written in-house. I think it was Gaider or Priestly who said that on the BioWare Boards when someone was discussing the Morrighana=Morrigan thing from one of the codex articles. It was a long ass time ago, and I loosely remember it.

I'm not sure why people are so offended by romances. Just let them happen. It isn't a huge fucking issue. The game does shoe-horn you into romances, but it's not the fucking end of the world. You won't get anymore badass if you hate romances. Pick Leilani or Morrigan and just go with it; although, you probably picked a flirtatious line. You only have to pick one and it locks you into a romance.

The combat is all about crowd control AND mages. Unless you are an expert player (I've beaten the game multiple times on nightmare) you have to have a mage in your party. Morrigan or Wynn with cone of cold is absolutely essential. Target it right and you halt the offense of the enemy severely. This gives you time to heal, get another hit in, or better yet, use a spell with a long charge. It's not a difficult game, and it sure as shit isn't as difficult as BG: 1 (BG: 2 was easy as hell).

 

[Mexi]

Introduce to what ? The following two games are fucked up garbage for console gamers and nobody cares about the plot or lore in those games . I finished DA2 myself and without jokes , being completely serious , I can't even remotely recall the game's plot , the only two things I remember are: qunari rebels and blood magic users being hunted or something like that . DA:I is just Skyrim in dragons age universe , may be not , I don't know , there is no way I am touching that shit .



And I would always prefer to have more options than roleplay in the head , even if I have to play a made up character , but DA:O is at least decent at providing you with choices .

This is very much true. I haven't even played the other games because they went in a fucked-up direction. I just think about DA: O as a single game and leave it at that.

I also have to say that I roleplayed my character in my head too. I think the unvoiced protagonist allows you to do this because the game doesn't offer you a plethora of options, and this is something that is completely lost when they decided to voice the main character in the later games.

 

[Jick Magger]

Literally the first thing you do in DA:I is irreversibly fuck up the antagonist's plan for world domination.

And the villain looks like a fucking bobble head.

 

[Bigg Boss]

All I can say about Dragon Age: Origins is I borrowed it from a friend a long time after it came out, played it for 25 or so hours, and I remember absolutely nothing about the plot. It played like every other Bioware game really. After hearing about the shitfest that was Dragon Age 2 I didn't feel like getting emotionally invested in a generic fantasy RPG I suppose. I may give it a try at a later date, but I can't get into Bioware games anymore.