All things Dragon Age

[ratsoalbion]

Plenty of you must have tales to tell from BioWare's 2009 epic high fantasy RPG.

We'd like to hear and share your experiences and opinions of Dragon Age: Origins as well as its DLC (including Awakening) whether you played on console, PC or Mac.

Recording for this podcast - issue 149 - is scheduled to take place on Thursday 2nd October.

[Katieee120]

Dragon Age is a game I can always go back to. I love the story, the characters, the artwork, the music. Everything. Creating a game that would live up to Bioware's previous game ,Mass Effect, would be a tough job but the brilliant minds at Bioware pulled through and released a stunning gaming experience. Some of the characters in this game are some of the most memorable, from the suave, wise cracking Allister to the cold, mysterious Morrigan. The characters and the excellent voice acting are one of the aspects that make this game what it is. I love this game just as much as I love Mass Effect. Which is also an incredible experience. Looking forward to Inqusition and how the story ends.

[Xavier Desmond]

I really struggled with Dragon Age: Origins when I first started playing it. I've always been a fan of fantasy fiction so the setting appealed to me and I enjoyed the beginning of the game. I played through the Elf Alienage origin story, but then I hit a brick wall and gave up with it. Eventually I came back to it and ended up falling in love with world and the game.

The problem I had was that the set up seemed so generic and played out. There is this ancient evil that is threatening to take over the world and you have been plucked from your ordinary life to become part of an order of legendary warriors. It is your task to defeat this evil and save the kingdom. It really is fantasy fiction by numbers. Other aspects lead you to believe that the game is going to be lowest common demoninator, the blood that covers everyone after a fight for example. I first finally gave up with game when the 'sexy witch' appeared.

Never have my impressions of a game been so wrong . After going back to the game and getting through the initial stages, the depth and complexity of the Dragon Age world became increasingly apparent. Much like Mass Effect, Bioware have put such care and attention to the mythology in Dragon Age and it makes the world incredibly rich. What I loved about Dragon Age: Origins most though were the characters. Who would have guessed that the 'sexy witch' who I had dismissed at first would turn out to be such a fascinating complex character like Morrigan?

Ultimately, although Dragon Age has it's flaws, it is a game I eventually fell in love with and holds a special place into gaming heart.

[Todinho]

Being a long time fan o Bioware Dragon Age was always on my radar ever since playing KOTOR I was always looking forward to their next title and with the recent success of Mass Effect I was really hopeful when it came to Dragon Age. I picked it up day one for PC and played it non-stop until I reached the end and just as I expected Bioware had delivered again!

What drew me in the most was the world,while at first glance it may seem to be like every cliché fantasy world,and to some extent it is, the sheer amount of detail and thought put into it more then makes up for it every place in this world has character of it`s own,every historical event is intriguing and open to interpretation and every race is given enough history and personality to stand out against their counter parts in other fantasy worlds. I especially like how this game tackles religion and magic it does so in a very smart way and without giving you absolute answers.

Second were the characters,each of them was unique and well written and tying the approval system with your relationship with them was a very smart move,even if you can scum the system by buying gifts to everyone,and it was a much better version of the usual Bioware good/evil meter.The highlights for me were Morrigan,Sten and Shale which also had the best questlines.

The gameplay was another surprising highlight being able to create a unique character of whatever race,class and gender you wanted was great and the developers really went the extra mile to give each of them a distinct background this and the great array of dialogue options you could choose were vital in making the player really feel he was roleplaying in this world and not just following a script pre-written for them. The tactical combat was also really refreshing to see it relied on the player to know what he/she was doing otherwise you`d be completely destroyed,it should also be said that the animations for some of the kills were great making the combat surprisingly viceral at times especially when fighting big bosses.

While many will will say that Bioware`s crowing achievement is the Mass Effect series or Baldurs Gate for me there is no contest that Dragon Age is the game deserving of that title and while some criticism can be levied at the now tired Bioware formula,and it`s true Dragon Age follows that formula to the letter, it`s execution of it is nearly flawless it hits all the right buttons of a good RPG and I wouldnt think twice about recommending it to anyone looking to sink their time into an amazing world.

[Todinho]

Being seeing a bit of Dragon Age inquisition footage to see if I'll give it a chance or not and while so far Im unconviced it remided me of the trailers for the first game and how badass they were and how the new game seems to be missing them:

I love this trailer because it really shows a RPG party working together in a battle something that even the LotR movies sometimes get it wrong,also all the skills shown in the trailer can be done in the game they wont look as good but you cant have everything.


The trailer for the second game had alot to live up to and while it didnt have a party it still showed a great fight betewen Hawke and the Arishock(also the best character in that game) and got you pumped to play the game...too bad only disappointment was in store.

[Todinho]

While listening to the podcast I noticed the absence of even a mention of the Qunari for me the most interesting race in the Dragon Age world,so if anyone is interested in learning a bit I found this great video about them


It really show how creative the folks in Bioware can be when designing a race from the ground up.

[Combine Hunter]

I've been surprised by how much I've loved this game, considering I've never really been a huge Dragon Age fan. Feels like a real return to form for Bioware. The game is completely devoid of the EA money grabbing schemes that plagued ME 3.

Share of picture of your character everyone.

[DomsBeard]

Can't wait for Santa to bring me it!

[Todinho]

Instead of clogging other threads with this Im just gonna keep talking about Inquisition here as I go further into it, I was looking at what I wrote about Origins on this thread and I saw how I made a special mention of how the universe deals with magic and religion, the reason why is because it portryed religion as exactly that a religion meaning there is no evidence for it, there are no paladins with holy powers granted by their god or someting like that and you have all these tales and legends that arent evidence for anything really, it's very notable because in most fantasy worlds religion isnt really dealt as we do in real life in fantasy religion is usually fact, even in stuff like GoT you still get solid proof of a certain religion and Dragon Age was great by keeping things vague and really leaving it as a matter of faith, well that's gone now. Inquisition straight up tells you that those stories are true, fuck ambiguity and doubt am I right?God forbid we dont have all the anwsers right, in this game you are Jesus fighting Satan because the writers couldnt think of a better threat, complain all you want about the cliché of the archdeamon and the darkspawn but they are 100 times better then this, characters straight up tell "well I didnt expect all those stories to be true" yeah it was much better when we didnt know.

On the whole conflict between Mages and Templars the game continues to make the same mistakes as DA2 and keeps messing it up, it's not like the conflict isnt intereting because it is!It was in Dragon Age Origins but from DA2 the writers decided to explore it in the most idiotic way possible, the reason is because instead of dealing with the real tension and problems of this relation the writers prefer to force this conflict by making everyone literally crazy! In DA2 every mage you found seemed to be a blood mage and every templar a crazy fanatic that wants to kill all mages, that was perfectly summed up in the end of that game when you had 2 final bosses that were the crazy leaders of their organizations. They keep this up in this game as well, you see the leaders of these groups are only fighting because they are being manipulated by evil beings...

It's such a waste of a good premise and they've done this right before back in DA:O, it showed how dangerous the mages were to themselfs and others, how this system leads to mages to rebel and everyone was resonable. The Knight commander there was asking for the right to kill all mages in the tower sure but that was because he had completelly lost control of the tower and it was crawling with demons and abominations, but he is willing to let you go in to try and save anyone and if the mage leader is safe and can vouch for the security of the tower he will restore the place to normalcy, if the same scenario was shown in DA2 or Inquisition, the templar would've been plotting to kill the mages from the beginning and the mage leader would be revealed to be the one who started all of this in the first place. There can be no nuance if both sides are crazy.

To be fair Inquisition does try to add more nuance, especially through Viviene, because I think most people tend to quickly side with the mages even though it shouldnt be that easy of a decision but that's side stuff, on the main quest things are still demented. Honestly this entire step of a "world war" style between mages and templars is stupid the mages would be slaughtered, they even say it in the game that the mages are outnumbered 100 to 1, the general people dont like mages and would side with the templars and the templars were made to fight mages!

Gameplaywise it got better, combat is still mindless and the definition of dumbed down from origins but I like the war table stuff and managing the keep and I think fetch quests aside they did a good job with the open world, they should've cut the hinterlands in half though I dont think that area makes a good first impression and it's the largest.

[groovyreg]

Hey Todinho, I've just skim read your post - not because it's not interesting but because I've finally got round to starting DA2 and, although I'm aware it's generally poorly regarded, I want to experience it for myself.

I got the motivation to pop it into my 360 because I picked up Inquisition in a recent PSN sale and I know if I play that first I'll never go back to 2 (which seems like a waste).

I haven't bothered getting the DLC as they're £6.75 each (!).

Anyway, sorry for the shitpost but I'll pop back with my thoughts on DA2 when I'm done.

At the rate I finish games it'll be a couple of years before I see the credits on Inquisition roll.

[Todinho]

Hey Todinho, I've just skim read your post - not because it's not interesting but because I've finally got round to starting DA2 and, although I'm aware it's generally poorly regarded, I want to experience it for myself.

I got the motivation to pop it into my 360 because I picked up Inquisition in a recent PSN sale and I know if I play that first I'll never go back to 2 (which seems like a waste).

I haven't bothered getting the DLC as they're £6.75 each (!).

Anyway, sorry for the shitpost but I'll pop back with my thoughts on DA2 when I'm done.

At the rate I finish games it'll be a couple of years before I see the credits on Inquisition roll.

Please do!I love hearing new perspectives on things and DA2 has it's qualities I just hate the game so much Im kinda of blind to them XD. If you havent already I highly recommend playing Dragon Age Origins first, also the DLC is really overpriced but if you plan to play Inquisition later I recommend you buying the "Legacy DLC" because without spoiling it that one ends up being pretty important in Inquisition and I'll leave it at that.

Speaking of Inquisition the game is kinda of turning me around, I still hate the combat but it has become so mindless that it's not an issue I just spam the same abilities over and over until everything dies, the ocasional boss fight can be a pain but other then that it's no issue. Im really liking the whole keep and war table aspects they are pretty cool and honestly a better version of Metal gear's mother base in many ways though worse in others, mainly progression and resource gathering it would be much better if the resources you gathered worked towards something similar to the R&D and you had to assign different members to different functions to gather benefits, I do like the quests where you recruit agents and those aid different sectors, I think they should've doubled down on that instead of having a bunch of fetch quests and those useless requisitions in each region that give you nothing other then a paultry 1 power,a resource you'll be swimming in if you do even a moderate amount of quests. I like the amount of regions they have, it's some good variety but the ones where there's a main mission are obviously better thought out then others for example Crestwood is great and almost all the quests are pretty cool and involved and in the meanwhile the wastes are just a bunch of nothing the area becomes even more worthless given that you dont even need to go there for any story mission and Im already overlevelled to the main story just by doing the quests in areas like Crestwood and the western approach and not even all of them so it makes going to other areas doubly uselless.

Storywise one aspect that Inquisition has knocked outta the park is the fan service, there are plenty of call backs and returning characters and I actually caught myself smilling and getting excited over those and especially giving all the ways Origins in particular could end it's remarkable how they were able to weave these in, sure some are better then others but it must have taken alot of work just to work those things in when they didnt have to and I really appreciate it. Despite my issues the story did get better once the main antagonist is reveall because you have a new focus also the game really nails certain moments so even if the writing overall can be inconsistent the pivotal moments they absolutelly nail here, one of the things that was missing from DA2 were this Big moments like Ostagar in the first game but Inquisition absolutelly has and nails them, I did restart the game though my Qunari mage just wasnt feeling right so now Im playing an Elf rogue named Iorverth because if Cd Projekt aint gonna give that character a proper send off in Witcher 3 I might as well create a fan fiction in which he goes on to lead the Inquisition in Dragon Age, it's at least more respectable then being relegated to a trading card.

PS: Oh yeah before I forget one thing that annoys the hell outta me it's this damn dialogue wheel that doesnt tell you what you are gonna say, sure you get a short summary but that often doesnt convey fully what it means, I mean c'mon in Origins you had a perfectly functional list that told exactly what you were gonna say the only difference now is that it would be voice acted,it's not a Inquisition problem it's a bioware problem but I really wish they would do away with this.

[Bluebird55]

Played Origins a few years ago, I got stuck and bored, mainly frustrated at how Bioware, a Canadian company, made dwarves with an American accent. How did they manage that? They are Scottish, as is Canada (originally)! That's like having vampires with a South African accent!

Plus it got really stupid hard at the cavern bit where you are with your squad, I forgot which bit (it wasn't that far in).

Unless I wasn't playing it right .

[Todinho]

Played Origins a few years ago, I got stuck and bored, mainly frustrated at how Bioware, a Canadian company, made dwarves with an American accent. How did they manage that? They are Scottish, as is Canada (originally)! That's like having vampires with a South African accent!

Plus it got really stupid hard at the cavern bit where you are with your squad, I forgot which bit (it wasn't that far in).

Unless I wasn't playing it right .

What if they are south african vampires XD? Cant say I ever found that an issue, one thing that put me off abit at the start was how it seemed that the game was every other fantasy world until I got more into it and found real depth in it. But yeah one of the flaws in Origins is that the dungeons really do drag on far too long(The Fade and Deep Roads come to mind) and the combat system can be quite challenging if you`re not familiar with it especially since the game doesnt really hold your hand and poorly explains things, as noted in the C&R issue on it.

[Bluebird55]

Yes, fair point, it's just as someone who watched the Lotr trilogy and with 8 years of playing WoW, it's a bit of a nutkicker. I think it was the Deep Roads I got stuck on (I ran out of food and couldn't go back).

[Todinho]

Just so I dont occupy more space on the games completed thread I'll put here some more in depth thoughts on characters and story so I'll just go full spoilers>

Spoiler: show

On the cast as a whole I think it was pretty good, once again way better then DA2 but not as memorable as Origins but in this case I can easilly see people liking this cast more, going one by one>

Cassandra-She was pretty cool liked her alot, this is gonna sound odd but I really like her face it's very striking and you wouldnt immediatly associatte her with being pretty but she really is, I liked how she's essentially a religious zelot but a resonable one if such a thing exists XD I also liked how despite being this stern warrior she also had a softer side and it was pretty endearing.

Varric-He's ok, in DA2 he was one of the best characters but just because everybody else was so crap, I dont hate him and he can be pretty funny at times and has some good moments but it's not a character I would've missed had he not been there.

Sera-She was a character that I really disliked at first, she just seemed like this zany wacky character that showed out of nowhere and you should like because "LoL so random", but with time I think she might be my favorite of the bunch XD, as you talk to her you kinda get past this wacky side and you understand the method behind her madness, it was also really cool her being an elf that hated other elfs and elf culture especially since I was playing as a dalish elf and despite that we got along very well.

Vivienne- So yeah this is probably the character people hate the most I've seen, I understand why she is this conservative stuck up rich lady(accent and all), I liked that she provided a different view point on the whole mage templar thing but I think that backfired because as people didnt like her they were even less interested in her political views, but yeah that's her biggest character trait really a mage that's anti rebellion, she ended up as divine in my game by accident but other then that not much to say.

Blackwall-He is your standard grizzeld veteran not very interesting until you find out he was a liar all along, he wasnt Blackwall at all! That really caught me by surprise, in hindsight it was pretty obvious but still very well done those are the best twists, also in hindsight his dialogue and interactions get a whole different meaning which was pretty cool.

Cole-Yeah he was weird, this is a character that I think just makes sense getting into your party if you do the Tempar mission otherwise he literally shows up out of nowhere,but he was probably the most interesting character not only because he talked very weird but also because he was this part spirit part person in between that you didnt know what to make of. At the core he's this kindahearted kid that only wants to help and who doubles as an assassin so yeah definetly interesting.

Dorian-So yeah the good tevinter, it was really good to have a character from the dreaded Imperium who was this funny and flamboyant reformer I really liked him easilly my second favorite character,he is this idealist that has been beaten down time and time again and who has this grief and hurt but he masks all that with cinicism and humor, the one thing Im not too keen on is the thing that people latched on the most and is the fact he is gay, to me that was the least interesting thing about him and especially his quest revolving around that and having his father was so cliché, especially in world that doesnt really see that as an issue(there's even a codex entry that says homosexual relationships arent a big deal in Thedas)in comparison there's a trans character in the game and I think that was handled much better, you find out casually, you acknowledge it and you move on.

Iron Bull- So this was the opposite of Sera to me, I really liked him at first he was this funny warrior that was also a spy and his entire current lifestyle was going agaisnt what he used to live but his excuse was that he was undercover, also through him we had a more critical view of Qun and since I really like the Qunari I thought that was really interesting, then we get to his quest which felt so forced and poorly thought out, in concept it's ok he has to choose between loyalty to the Qun or to the mercenaries and friends he made all these years only he doesnt, you do. I was pissed because out of every angle the choice to let his men die was the obvious from a tactical, strategic and even a moral one the only thing that made it hard was that you kinda of knew those people and you didnt know the folks in the ship and you didnt want Iron bull to feel bad, he should've made that choice and your interactions with him should've built up what he would choose, it's not like this would be too hard because they did the very thing Im saying in this game when it came to Lelianna, in the end of her quest despite me saying to her not to kill someone she went and did it anyway, that's how you do it. I know I was so pissed of by even being given that choice that I decided to let his men die. After that the fun loving guy essentially dies and he's all bussiness which makes sense but it was not a case of his personality changing you just didnt have more dialogue with him, which felt very lazy. in the end of the DLC the Qunari become the bad guys for no proper reason and Iron Bull betrays you so I killed him, that was the end of The Iron Bull to me.

Solas- Yeah this one is a doozy, this weird elf that really likes the fade turns out to be the actual main villain of the game, in fact the primary antagonist saved the world without knowing otherwise this motherfucker would've destroyed it. Im really torn on him, is not only through him that you learn that the elven gods are bullshit which to me further makes the world less interesting his motivations are also very confusing especially if you befriended him like I did, because he essentially wants to create mass genocide to restore his people to glory because he feels bad for destroying his people to save his peaple and he sees value in people of now but he still wants to destroy them anyway, yeah... at the end when you're talking to him and asking for anwsers there are times the writers might as well have written "We didnt write this part yet" or "The script demands it" the core of it is understandable but the more you think about it the less sense it makes especially if you're friends with him, also at the end of the DLC the devs semmed to expect that you to hated him for somereason. So yeah it's up to the next game if they can sell his motivations better or not so I'll reserve judgment

On a last point I really liked How they used Morrigan in this game, she was my favorite character from Origin so I was worried when she showed up but it was great, I love how the years and her being a mother changed her but in a logical way,she can be just as sarcastic and mean but as Lelianna says the edges are gone, it felt very natural and I really liked that. It is weird that if you had the player character from Origins romance her and pursue her,like I did, he's not present and is off somewhere I mean get why I think it would be impossible to make everybody happy if you tried to make him a character but it's a bit weird. I liked how she integrated with the main plot but I would've liked if she was more of a core part of the cast like being part of the council and such.