Dragon Age: Origins - Return to Ostagar Review (Spoilers)

Seeing that they managed to put up the latest DLC for Dragon Age after much delay, I jumped and bought it. I am currently working on a Dalish Elf playthrough so I headed right on over into the adventure.

It started off decently enough, with some political intrigue hinted at by finding letters between Cailan and Orlais, and there is the whole idea of going back and finding the King's and possibly Duncan's body to get you into. Sadly that is where any sense of enjoyment for the game ends.

Instead of creating too many new areas, it heavily reuses the camp at Ostagar from the beginning of the game. I end up trudging through the same familiar, boring landscape fighting waves of mindless zombies. There was absolutely no story at all, other than following some Darkspawn necromancer through the ruins killing his summons. Then you kill the necromancer and get a choice of what to do with Cailan's body. Whoop de fucking doo.

For a game so heavily entranced with story, for additional content that is merely a straight-up dungeon crawl to be added is simply unacceptable. It is inexcusable for a company of Bioware's stature to put out the complete and unadulterated shit that was this DLC. $5 for a 1 hour dungeon crawl completely blows my mind. You don't even get to find Duncan's body, the one thing that I was really looking forward to finding.

Dragon Age: Origins: Origins Round-Up

This last week I went through the remaining origin stories and thought that I should put up a post on my thoughts on them. Overall, the stories really railroad into a situation the writers want you in so that you can move on to the Grey Wardens. I guess I shouldn't expect too much from the 1-hour stage setting that it provides, but I would have liked more options.

Human Noble-
The first one I played and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Sure it is the typical cliche fantasy tale of going out for revenge, but the writing team pulled it out enough to get me interested. I was glad I was able to get the Dog in the story and could take him on to the rest of the game, something I wish other origins would have had.

Mage-
I clashed the most against the writing in this one. I had no feelings on the blood mage and his forbidden romance. Even though we were set-up to be friends, I just didn't care. I felt as though I was forced to pick a side on the debate. I would rather been able to be indifferent and done nothing to help with later accusations of aiding them forcing my exit.

Dalish Elf-
This one was a pretty good start. I choose to kill the humans for trespassing as that was the mentality I was taking with the character and the plot twist of being infected with the taint provided the impetus for leaving. I liked how they made you leave, knowing the player wouldn't want certain of staying.

City Elf-
Thankfully they set it up as an arranged marriage, which allowed me to be overly snarky to him. Not bad of an opening, but I just can't put my finger on where it fell flat. As a note, my city elf is replacing my mage character for the second playthrough because I like the direction I'm taking with her, anything to get ahead.

Dwarf Noble-
My second least favorite as I felt as though I had no say in anything. Shit was going to go down and I would be blamed with no chance to defend myself.

Dwarf Commoner-
Third least favorite. I just don't know what it is about the dwarves in this game but I can't stand their story arcs. I had to do what my pimp said and had no illusion of choice.

Orzammar - The New Telos?

I've been thinking since I finished my first playthrough about how each of the areas you have to go are like other Bioware or Bioware-esque games. Mainly how most of their games, have you in a tutorial section of sorts than force you to branch out into four areas. NWN's four districts in the first act, KotOR's four quest planets, KotOR 2's four quest planet, and finally Mass Effect's four quest planets, you get the picture. Jade Empire was an exception with a mostly linear game, though there were still three areas to go off of the first town (Pirate Base, forest, and the dam).

The first comparison that popped into my head, compared Orzammar to Telos from Obsidian's KotOR 2. While Telos wasn't one of the four quest planets, it bears a lot similarity in story and design to that which can be found in Orzammar.

The execution of the quest line seems similar enough to me. While it could provide an interesting quest line to follow, something inevitably falls flat. I am unable to put my finger what it is exactly. I just can't seem to care about the characters in the story and as a result am forced to just side with one in order to get what I want, the ability to get the hell out of there. Maybe if I had done one of the dwarven origins I would care about the players in the story, but as a human noble, I come in with no idea on what transpired to bring it to this state.

General spoilers will follow about the situation going on in Orzammar when you arrive, I'll denote the major spoilers before mentioning them.

When you first get to Orzammar through the mountains in the top left of the map (I am surprised by how many google searches I get for that info), it is besieged by two warring factions. Upon entering, a fight breaks out and some of Bhelen's supporters kill one of the other factions. This reminds me of the Czerka-Ithorian feud you had decide between in the other game. And, because nothing is ever simple, you have to side with one of the candidates for king and do some quests for him. The similarities are uncanny.

I eventually decided to side with Bhelen, because blood lines are the key to royalty. If the king has a surviving son, he gets the throne in my opinion. It doesn't matter if the King wanted someone else to have the throne, it isn't his choice. Now they are set-up to be the good-evil approach, so going with Bhelen seemed to go against my character's general do goodness, but by the time I reached this point in the game, I wanted to get to the end.

SPOILERS REGARDING RESULTS OF THE KING YOU CHOOSE

In the final credits of the game, I am glad I ended up siding with Bhelen. While he looked to be the bad guy when you first arrive, he actually results in benefits for the dwarves. Trade expands and new relations form between the races. Sure he disbanded the assembly and was nearly killed several times, but he brought the dwarves to a new golden age of sorts.

Curious as to the results of siding with the other faction, I looked it up on some forums. Apparently siding with the good guy results in a bloody civil war and the dwarves shutting themselves off from the outside world. So while one side looks good, it actually turns out to hurt overall to side with him. Can't judge a book by it's cover, showing good writing on Bioware's part. So while I like the results of the mission, actually doing the mission just sucked.

Dragon Age: A New Beginning

I know that I said I wouldn't start up a new quite yet, but with few a spare hour I imported my mage character, Isabella and got her through her origin. I will be going a lot slower this time around, trying to find and do all of the side quests. First playthroughs for always about seeing the end. Once I know that, I can get wrapped up in the story more later.

SPOILER WARNING

The mage origin is a distant second to that of the human noble in my mind. I don't know what it is in particular, but it is more obvious that you have no role in what is going to happen. I was forced to take a stance on Jowan, even though I didn't care about either of them and could have just as easily ignored them. So being the good little mage I am, I told Irving about their plan and he told me to go along with and mercilessly slaughter a bunch of sentinels. I never got as attached to the setting, even though I love the idea of the tower.

The awesome powers of the mage will have to pull me through for now. I just feel so much more powerful than my warrior character I just beat the game with. I will primarily go primal spells with some creation thrown in so I don't have to take Wynne with me at all times and instead have a rogue.

Dragon Age: The End

So I have finished my first play through of Dragon Age: Origins. I'll post my thoughts on the game, first on non-spoiler filled topics then with a spoiler warning preceding, the story and end of the game.

Combat: Combat in the game ended up being quite enjoyable. Sure there were the fights that utterly and totally kicked my ass, as mentioned in previous posts with one fight even taking 13 tries to succeed. Being a two-handed warrior got a little boring at times, combat tactics consisted of sundering arms and armor, knocking the opponent down and slicing a wide swath. Thankfully, I had magi in the party, which has a wide selection of spells plus combos to play with.

Overall, the tactical thinking required was fun. I enjoyed pausing at the beginning of the fight to determine an overall plan of attack and then executing the first few moves to pause and re-evaluate. Sure there were some annoyances, in large groups getting to the guy you want to hit can be troublesome at times. But overall, it didn't hurt enough to detract from the overall experience.

I also enjoyed the method for buffs. Rather than having most of them be cast then recast once it ran out, the sustaining system worked really well for me. I didn't have to constantly juggle buffs yet still had the benefits.

Inventory and DLC: I thought I'd give special mention to the inventory issues and outrage over a party chest being included in day one DLC. While I'm not a particularly big fan of first day money grubbing, the DLC was worthwhile, though a little of the short end. I'm just going to say in regards to the party chest, I never once used it. Nothing was stored in it and I never visited those merchants later on in the game.

Leveling Up: I liked how they did specializations in the game. Even though you could learn your first one at level 7, I never achieved one of the ones I wanted until level 10. Not just having it given to you was a pleasant surprise. Talents were generally worthwhile with not to many clunkers, so I'll give them credit there.

Load Times: I don't know if it was just me but after playing for a couple of hours, load times would dramatically increase, including some multi-minute waits. CPU usage would be hovering around 98-100%.


SPOILER WARNING! DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME!


The story in this game was overall pretty damn good. It dragged in the middle for me, particularly in the stretch for Orzamar, but redeemed itself in the end. Orzamar will be like the Telos or Peragus in KotOR 2 or Kashyyk in the first. Areas that you have to do to complete the game, but you wont like doing them. By that point I had lost all interest in working on the side quests and simply just did what was necessary to finish the game. Plus two ridiculously hard fights in a row (Brood Mother and Branka) is just stupid. There is not enough health potions for that.

The ending for the game was just epic feeling. Fighting the dragon on the roof top of the fortress with my dwarven breathren (as much as I hated their quest, the legion of the dead just pure rock) was simply breathtaking. When I noticed some key characters from the story fighting along with me, such as First Enchanter Irving and others, brought it over the top. I, of course, went the noblest of endings and sacrificed myself to destroy the archdemon and let Alistair take the throne. Having him eulogize my life was something special and am glad they put it into the game.

I wonder whatever happened to Morrigan, sure they told me they vanished into the wild while holding a child (probably mine), but I want to know. I couldn't bring myself to accept her offer, hoping that she wouldn't leave, but alas it wasn't meant to be. No way I was going to give her a child holding the essence of the old god.

Overall, I loved the game and will probably be starting another play through later in the week as a mage. I want the cool abilities to myself. You can see my characters at the Bioware social site.

Dragon Age: Thoughts on Orzammar

Uggh... to sum it up in one word.

I'm going to try and keep this as spoiler free as possible, so be forewarned.

The deep roads just plain suck. Having to go through so many sections of them is even worse. They are long, the fights are boring, and it just drags on and on and on. It seems like the developers thought that they needed to add some more time to the game so decided hey, let's make them trudge underground and fight deep stalkers, spiders, and darkspawn till they claw their eyes out. Then let's make them due it for multiple quests (luckily the first one was short, the one regarding the Paragon, not so much).

I am not getting interested in the political situation of the dwarves at all. I am roleplaying an impatient Grey Warden who solely wants troops for battle, not to be a little errand boy. Since when do I have to solve everyone's problems.

Definite Spoilers Ahead (Regarding Paragon quest)

As I mentioned earlier, the paragon quest never seems to end. Thankfully I get a drunk dwarf to join me for the ride as his advances on Wynne are just plain hilarious. But having to trek through three or four sections of the Deep Roads to find this chick just gets on my nerves. Long boring passages with not much in the way of sightseeing.

It got a little interesting when I ran across one of Branka's captains which chronicled Branka going psycho. This interest soon wore off in the fight against the Brood Mother. 8 retries to get, which isn't my worst, but when the fight goes a couple minutes before you die, it gets old fast. The key to fight is not paying attention to the Brood Mother except when she is the only one around. Take out the tentacles and darkspawn quick, then get back to wailing on her.

Of course, after the Brood Mother, I get stuck in another proving grounds area. As if the one I did to get the Urn of the Sacred Ashes wasn't enough. I stopped for the night after defeating the third portion where you had to kill the spirit and hit an anvil to defeat the boss in the middle. That one required quite a bit of micromanaging as my team members liked to just stand in the middle trying to attack something they can't hit.

Update - Just finished the area and it sucks even more. I decided to side with Cairdin and Branka made me pay. I was low on health and mana potion coming in so it made it that much worse. Took about 7 attempts in which I finally succeeded by taking out her helper golems first than focus firing. When she duplicates herself for the first time, I wiped ridiculously fast. After numerous attempts, I finally survived the onslaught and destroyed the Forge of the Void.

Dragon Age: Help on Redcliffe

Since a lot of the google traffic for this blog has been from my post on the frustrations of fighting the Revenant in the courtyard of Redcliffe Castle, I figured I would compile some hints that I have for this fight. Note, as I mentioned in the blog article, I ended dropping it down to easy after 12 attempts, so most of these are determined from similar fights since then.

1) Get Wynne from the Tower of the Magi - Having a healer with lyrium potions allows you to live so much longer. Set up a tactic for healing allies and using lyrium potions when mana supplies get low. You will run through these potions like mad, but survivability will be way up.

2) Stay ranged - As the codex entry says, revenants can hit people standing all around them. So try to only keep your ranged party members on them until all the others are dead. Using Morrigan's sleep ability on the melee zombies will help, while using your own melee to take out the archers.

3) Potions, Potions, Potions - should be self-explanatory but have as many as possible. Get someone with high herbalism skill and buy em whenever you see them at a merchant. Some fights will see you going through 30 plus.

UPDATE - In regards to the google searches bringing people to this article I figured I would address some of their questions some future people can possibly get some answers.

Circle of Magi - To get the circle of the magi's help, go to the Lake Calenhad docks and travel to the tower. Complete the quest there dealing with the abominations if you haven't done so already. Then talk to the First Enchanter to get his help with Connor.

Night Raid - Make sure to get fuel from the store, recruit the dwarf, and restore the blacksmith. Other than that, hold back your fighter in the first portion of the fight, make the enemy run through the flames. Second part is all about killing efficiently. I can't give too much help as it depends on your group. Kill quickly and move on.

Dragon Age: New Patch, Thoughts on Redcliffe, and Dragons

Bioware put out their first patch for the game today, which you can find on the social site. By making it easier on both medium and easy easier, it prompted me to re-up the difficulty after that Redcliffe part. To test it out, I took on a high dragon. Seemed like the perfect way to do it to me. 2 deaths (no wipes, just main character being eaten and spit out), 3 greater health poultices, 30 regular ones, 5 lesser, and a whole lot of fun later, the dragon was down. The dragon was an optional guard to fight that can be called down with use of a horn you find. The fight was exhilarating and overall fun to play.

The Redcliffe quest series seemed to go on way too long. One option took me to the Circle of the Magi in order to seek a solution, but of course I hadn't been there previously so I had to do that whole series of quests in order to get to what I had originally traveled there for. Then a whole bunch of back and forth across the map ensued before another dungeon crawl before I could even finish the quest. Then a bombshell was dropped by the Arl.

One annoying thing, that maybe I'm just overlooking, is that there is no good way to set up a tactic for a group heal. I was looking for something along the lines of multiple party members being below 50% then use group heal. So if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Dragon Age Frustration

Spoilers Ahead!

Hit the first part of the game that really frustrated me. In the courtyard of Redcliff Castle, you have to take on 5 zombie, 4 skeleton archers, and one elite. Twelve tries later, I ended up dropping down to easy to get through, I will probably stick to easy because I am always in it for the story than the combat.

But back to the fight, none of the strategies I tried worked as the elite resisted all my crowd control moves. I ganged up on him - dead. Put Shale on him with rest of team killing others - dead. Put Shale and warrior on him with Morrigan and Leliana fighting zombies - dead. Ignored him - dead. Tried running through the door - can't do in combat - dead. Nothing worked, the difficulty is a little too out of this world for my liking.

Dragon Age: Origins: First Impressions

To start off - SPOILER WARNINGS AHEAD!

So after eagerly picking up my copy of Dragon Age yesterday, I ended up playing for most of the day, stopping only to eat and work on my novel. I made it to level 7 and am in the party camp for the first time after leaving the refugee city, the name escaping me at the moment.

Having read the excellent books by David Gaider, I thought I had had a good read on Loghain. He would disagree with the King, but ultimately follow his orders. Abandoning the king was a definite surprise to me, but provides great motivation to hunt him down and make him suffer. I was sad that that Duncan died, as I always did enjoy his character.

The origin story for the human noble left me a little disappointed. While the story of betrayal was good, I felt as though it was kind of short after all the pre-launch description I had heard. It took maybe an hour and a half at most to play through, with me taking my sweet old time to explore every nook and cranny. The war hound, subsequently named Scooby (Hey I was a huge fan growing up), would be a great party member, if he had more abilities. I just can't justify taking him along in my party.

Speaking of the party, with my human noble going the two-handed sword warrior (planned specializations: champion and templar), I currently use Alistair as a tank, Leliana as damage, and Morrigan for ranged support. I am considering giving Leliana a bow so that she doesn't die as often. I have Scooby and Sten sitting in the camp, picking up dust.

Combat has been fun, yet difficult at times. In reading some of the reviews, they were talking about how hard normal was at times, but I doubted it a bit. Turns out they weren't lying. The boss fight with the ogre was completed in one try, with only my main character dying by being picked up, but fights against bandits and wolves have led to numerous reloads when I entered cockily. Pausing, queuing up orders, unpausing and repeat is the method to ensure victory.

Only six hours in and I still have so many places to go, most games are well into their stride by now but this one has so much story to go through. On my world map, there are seven locations I can go next, of which I will probably end up going to do the Warden's Keep DLC.

Overall, this is one of Bioware's best releases of late. A definite pick-up for any RPG fan and hearty recommendation for any game player.

Dragon Age Releasing Tomorrow

Can't wait to pick up my copy tomorrow. I have class until 12:20, then free the rest of the day. I plan on picking up the Warden's Keep DLC too, should be a fun time.