My current playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins

[Bumvelcrow]

How can you like his face? BW did their best to give him the cartoon-villain face and make him as loathsome as possible.

Maybe I have thing for the rugged, older man...

 

[the_shadow]

Meh, I'm no tactical genius, but I thought DA:O was pretty easy, even on hard difficulty. Maybe simplistic is a better word. No great challenges other than keeping your party healed while they slowly whittle away at massive health bars.

I encountered a few very challenging battles. The battle with the Unbound (in his Revenant form), Branka and the golems, that Elf Keeper who summons the Sylvan mob, Ser Cautherin (if you choose to fight her at the manor), and the Arch-Demon all spring to mind. I'd argue that any fight involving archers with 'Scattering Shot' is a decent challenge. Sloth Demon was almost impossible the first time I fought him, because I wasn't aware you could rescue your party members from the neighbouring dream realms, and he was still tricky the second time around.

Dragon Age: Awakenings had a few challenging battles, but the worst was the Mother. The Mother was easy by herself, but being mobbed by tentacles with knockdown, and bugs with Overwhelm, made it a nightmare.

Negatives: Deep Roads was a mind numbing chore. Plus, I'd previously played Drakensang, so it felt wrong for the Dwarves not to have scottish accents.

It's strange how so many people hate the Deep Roads. I didn't think that section was overly long. I also don't understand the hate for the Fade Levels in the Tower of Magi, since that is where you can pick up a lot of bonus stat points.

You see, I think this was the worst option for what to do with Loghain. You can either see him as a moustache-twirling evil baddie, in which case killing him is just another step on the way to the end game, or you can look for deeper motivations in what he was trying to do. They're not particularly deeply hidden. Loghain sees the king as weak, sees the real threat to the kingdom, and sees himself as the only one who can defeat it. He leaves the king to his fate rather than sacrificing his troops, probably for nothing. He basically declares martial law, and you can argue with his methods but he was getting the job done. He could have been the hero until some jumped up novice warden stumbles in an ruins his plans. I found the most satisfying ending was to force him to take the black become a warden and sacrifice himself to kill the archdaemon. He paid for his crimes and got a bit of redemption in the process. Whether Bioware actually put that much thought into Loghain's motivations or whether I'm imprinting on him because I like his face, I don't know.

I don't agree. Loghain actions appear to be purely driven by emotion, particularly his (justifiable) hatred and prejudice against the Orlesians, rather than reason. His belief that King Cailan is weak isn't supported by what little we see in the game. Loghain's rationale appears to be that since Cailan wants engage in diplomacy with the Orlesians, he must be weak, which is just absurdity. Abandoning the King at battle because 'we weren't going to win' is a flat out lie. It would have been suicidal for Howe to make his move against the Couslands if Loghain hadn't planned to take Cailan out of the equation before he could intervene. Earl Aemon was poisoned before the events at Ostagar, further that Loghain planned to move against Cailan. Furthermore, even if if we truly believe a rear attack wouldn't have saved the day, Loghain still spoke out against Orlesian reinforcements in a battle which he later claimed was 'hopeless'.

Honestly, the man is a complete tool and scumbag. Even after Cailan's army got spanked by the darkspawn at Ostagar, Loghain still denies the existence of the Blight. OK, OK, maybe it's just a really large raid, but even so, the darkspawn *just destroyed half of Cailan's army*. Obviously they need to be taken seriously, even if an arch-demon isn't involved. But instead he just takes the remainder of his troops and abandons Lothering to the Darkspawn. He brands the Grey Wardens 'traitors', for reasons I cannot fathom, while continuing to support a noble who is universally despised by the rest of the nobility (ie. Howe). Then he actually condones the enslavement of what must be the most vulnerable citizens in the kingdom, shortly after they had abused for 'rioting'.

What's most annoying is even after being recruited as a Grey Warden, Loghain doesn't show any remorse for what he has done, continuing to offer up weak rationalisations which amount to 'But, but, but, the Orlesians!'. In my view, one can only be given forgiveness and redemption if they sincerely desire it. Loghain doesn't appear to be the slightest bit interested in redeeming himself, he just tags along because it's better to die in battle than get your head chopped off as a traitor. Oh, but he loved his daughter, so I guess that makes him a sympathetic villain...

 

[Bumvelcrow]

I also don't understand the hate for the Fade Levels in the Tower of Magi, since that is where you can pick up a lot of bonus stat points.

I also liked the circle tower fade levels. It was something a bit different and a bit unsettling, whereas the Deep Roads was just a long samey grind.

Loghain deconstruction

I won't argue against any of what you've said, but I do think that you have to create a bit of justification in your head for Loghain's actions if you want to give him any depth, and the game does allow you to do that. You can say that by his own standards he believes he is doing what's best for the kingdom, and then it comes down to whether you think his standard are good (probably not), or reprehensible (more likely). Perhaps I'm giving the writers too much credit, or perhaps I've just got so used to the limited writing in games that I've become used to reading more into characters than there is. I never had sympathy for what he was doing, but I did feel some grudging respect for his willingness to do what he felt had to be done without being limited by the standards of those around him.

Oh great, I've just come out as a nazi, haven't I? This is the Codex, so it had to happen eventually...

 

[Kem0sabe]

I did enjoy dragon age and awakening, my main axe to grind was the goddamned engine and the constant memory leaks that forced me to restart the game every half hour once I got further into the game

 

[Beastro]

How can you like his face? BW did their best to give him the cartoon-villain face and make him as loathsome as possible.

He looks a lot like what Simon Templeman looks like RL.

 

[Gragt]

I did enjoy dragon age and awakening, my main axe to grind was the goddamned engine and the constant memory leaks that forced me to restart the game every half hour once I got further into the game

Patching the main executable to be Large Address Aware did wonders for me to improve the stability of the damn thing. It’s still a shame that the game not only shipped with so many crippling problems like this one but still retains them to this day.

 

[Delterius]

Even after Cailan's army got spanked by the darkspawn at Ostagar, Loghain still denies the existence of the Blight. OK, OK, maybe it's just a really large raid, but even so, the darkspawn *just destroyed half of Cailan's army*. Obviously they need to be taken seriously, even if an arch-demon isn't involved. But instead he just takes the remainder of his troops and abandons Lothering to the Darkspawn.

Most of what you said is agreeable, but this isn't really what happened. Loghain's plan was to depose Cailan and neutralize the more powerful nobles around which the Bannorn - a patchwork of lesser landholders that make up the heartland of Ferelden - could unite to oppose his Regency. Considering that he himself held one of the Teyrnirs (spelling?), what this meant was doing away with Teyrn Cousland and Arl Eamon. According to that plan, all he had to do was regroup in Denerim and take over as Anora's Regent. The problem however is that the bans remained an unruly lot and civil war still followed. He didn't really deny the Blight though as he still tried to get support from Ferelden's more palatable neighbor, Orzammar.

 

[the_shadow]

Most of what you said is agreeable, but this isn't really what happened. Loghain's plan was to depose Cailan and neutralize the more powerful nobles around which the Bannorn - a patchwork of lesser landholders that make up the heartland of Ferelden - could unite to oppose his Regency. Considering that he himself held one of the Teyrnirs (spelling?), what this meant was doing away with Teyrn Cousland and Arl Eamon. According to that plan, all he had to do was regroup in Denerim and take over as Anora's Regent. The problem however is that the bans remained an unruly lot and civil war still followed. He didn't really deny the Blight though as he still tried to get support from Ferelden's more palatable neighbor, Orzammar.

Loghain appears to regard Orlais as a far greater threat than the darkspawn. Not only didn't he mention the issue of the darkspawn in the Landsmeet, he also outlawed the Grey Wardens (the only people who can end a Blight), and abandoned a substantial amount of territory to the darkspawn in order to play realpolitik.

 

[Delterius]

Loghain appears to regard Orlais as a far greater threat than the darkspawn. Not only didn't he mention the issue of the darkspawn in the Landsmeet, he also outlawed the Grey Wardens (the only people who can end a Blight), and abandoned a substantial amount of territory to the darkspawn in order to play realpolitik.

He didn't mention the issue of darkspawn in the Landsmeet because everyone already knew about it, the whole point of the meeting was also to unite the lords of the land against the Blight. He outlawed the Grey Wardens because he believed that they were pawns for Orlais and no one outside the order knows that Wardens are the only ones who can end the Blight. He also did not abandon territory to darkspawn, he was fighting a civil war in that time.

Loghain acts beyond foolishness and IMO the biggest issue with the game is that BioWare didn't have the time to make the player understand why Orlais is such a terrible thing. At most you've got that woman in Denerim talking about how knights in Orlais have the right to rape anyone they want, but that's it.

 

[Infinitron]

Holy crap the Fereldan civil war is an allegory for Syria and the darkspawn are ISIS

 

[Atomkilla]

Orlais is based on France, it must be bad.

 

[GarfunkeL]

He also did not abandon territory to darkspawn, he was fighting a civil war in that time.

A civil war that he created in the first place. He basically ensures that the kingdom will fall to the Darkspawn because... he thinks that the rightful king is too childish and naive to succeed. Bioware wrote him to be even more stupid than the July 20 conspirators.

 

[Delterius]

A civil war that he created in the first place. He basically ensures that the kingdom will fall to the Darkspawn because... he thinks that the rightful king is too childish and naive to succeed. Bioware wrote him to be even more stupid than the July 20 conspirators.

I'm not saying he's not stupid or that BioWare didn't have the time or effort to properly tell this story, but he didn't ignore the darkspawn during that meantime. He was too busy killing his own tax base like the master strategist he is.

 

[NotAGolfer]

The only things I remember about DA:O are that banal shit boring fantasy setting with lots of sleep-inducing codex entries that I gave up reading very fast (they weren't even badly written, just boring same old same old fantasy crap), the fugly engine with its narrow corridors even in the wilderness, too many trash mobs and combat that wasn't as easy as I hoped it would be given the fact that there was nothing rewarding about mastering it aaaaand those ridiculous campsite dialogues with your companions where you could "romance" them and give them nice little presents and stuff, felt really awkward and disconnected from the rest of the game.

Then when the game finally opened up I realized that nothing in the first 12 or so hours made me interested in this world or even want to explore it so instead of choosing between 3 or so possible boring generic fantasy allies I just uninstalled that shit.
Never looked back.
I even tried to replay Mass Effect 1 recently, goddamn, that's just as retarded, those dialogues, omg those fucking dialogues!!!

Can't fathom how I could enjoy that ... I guess I'm just too used to stupid SciFi entertainment (I look at you, Stargate).

Bioware is dead to me.

 

[Athelas]

I'm not saying he's not stupid or that BioWare didn't have the time or effort to properly tell this story, but he didn't ignore the darkspawn during that meantime.

Of course he didn't ignore the darkspawn - he was helping them win victories.