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Dragon Age: Origins |OT| Letting The Fade fade out of memory

Fredescu

Member
Stone Prisoner was created by the DLC team after the main team had moved onto ME2, so it counts as DLC team output whether they gave it away for free or not. I liked Warden's Keep and thought it was worth the price of lunch that paid for it, but happy to be in the minority about that. I expect Return to Ostagar to be similar.

If you want DLC like GTA4 you're not going to get that within the first month. If we don't have anything of 5+ hour length at the end of two years, you'll have cause to complain. They have said they will be releasing DLC "of varying lengths" which I take to mean "longer than Warden's Keep".

The chest mod was released by a Bioware dev incidentally. Not sure that it counts as a "community mod".
 

Wallach

Member
I actually want some of the DLC to be loot based. The items in this game are boring as hell most of the time. It's one of the things I think they really botched coming from BG2 (as this is probably as close as we will ever see to BG3) - you were totally stoked to get some of the awesome items in that game. If you were a Paladin (or similar kit) there came a point in that game where you just got the biggest shit-eating grin on your face... there are no real moments like that in this game.

It's a two-fold problem, I think - one is that so much of the "good" itemization in this game is for massive armor. Seriously, would it have been so hard to make, say, cool looking light/medium armor so those routes had something to look forward to? You look almost exactly the same at the end of the game as you did at the start if you play a rogue with light armors. The other problem is that a lot of the really good loot in this game is totally DLC based, but you get it way too early. It's hard to get excited about finding even decent heavy armor mid-game when your character was in full Blood Dragon Plate as soon as he stepped outside Lothering. Item progression just seems all out of whack in this game.

I'm not going to give the game a free pass on the subject when they've already made a similar story-driven game that didn't really have this problem.
 

Fredescu

Member
I just want good and varied equipment based rewards for defeating tough encounters. That's something better fixed in the main game though. Loot based DLC will just screw up the gear progression further for future playthroughs.
 

Wallach

Member
Fredescu said:
I just want good and varied equipment based rewards for defeating tough encounters. That's something better fixed in the main game though. Loot based DLC will just screw up the gear progression further for future playthroughs.

What I want from loot-based DLC is a bunch of new itemization that:

A) doesn't scale
B) fills in a lot of the terrible gaps for different playstyles
C) isn't something that necessarily is of the highest quality

That is the big sticking point, the stuff in the DLC doesn't need to be tier 6/7 quality crap. Just start expanding the low/middle areas in sections where it needs help. Actually have an artist make more than 2 sets of light armor graphics maybe so I don't look like I'm fighting end-game bosses in the gear I started the game with.
 

Fredescu

Member
Fair enough, I'm definitely down with B. I did make a snarky comment in the Ostagar thread about having yet another plate set to throw on the pile, and a dev responded saying that there would be cloth and leather gear too. We'll see.
 

Varna

Member
Anyone find any tweaks to squeeze a little extra performance in this game?

Running it at 1650x1080, everything to the max and x4 AA. Indoor and dungeons run fantastic, but the large wilderness and city areas kill me. Frame-rate barely hovers above 30. Nothing seem to have much of an impact either. Turning off AA only gains me a few frames. Turning off the frame-buffer gives me a noticeable gain, but it really butchers the look of the game (and even then it's only 10 frames at most with AA off as well).

EDIT: Turning off PhysX gains a few frames.... not even sure what the thing did while it was on.
 

Wallach

Member
Fredescu said:
Fair enough, I'm definitely down with B. I did make a snarky comment in the Ostagar thread about having yet another plate set to throw on the pile, and a dev responded saying that there would be cloth and leather gear too. We'll see.

I hope so. That really bugged me about the Warden's Keep DLC. In particular:

There's enough Star Metal to make a Longsword and 2H Sword... but not enough to make a fucking dagger? Really?
 
I asked this in the PC thread. I'm hoping I can get a response from you guys seeing how it wouldn't be worth it for me to get the game if this issue still exists in the retail game...anyways..

Gully State said:
So I've been tempted to pick up Dragon Age Origins lately and thought I'd download Character Creator just for the hell of it. Well 3 min into character creator, my computer without fail will crash and reboot (no BSOD). Anyone else have that problem? I can't imagine it's a hardware issue b/c I've never come across it playing crysis or any other game. Hopefully there's a fix otherwise I'm passing on DA..
 

ethelred

Member
markot said:
Stone Prisoner is great, although not really 'dlc'.

As noted, it is DLC. It was created by the same team that made Warden's Keep and Return to Ostagar and future DLC. The fact that they used this particular piece of DLC as an incentive to buy the game new versus used doesn't mean it isn't DLC at all.

markot said:
Wardens keep is lame and not worth the cost, and the planned one sounds just stupid.

And you cant compare a story driven game to a game like dungeon crawler diablo and co that are all about loots >.>

But... Dragon Age is, in so many ways, a dungeon crawler, too. Yeah, it's got a story, that's great. That doesn't take away from the fact that for a good portion of the game, you're trawling through pretty extensive dungeons. The Brecilian Ruins, Fort Drakon, the Circle Tower, and especially the Deep Roads are all dungeon crawling experiences and they made up a huge portion of my enjoyment of the game.

I agree that Dragon Age is not so much about loot as games like Diablo, but that does not mean that it isn't about combat. The dungeons are extensive, the setpiece battles are pretty well designed, and they're a strong point of emphasis in the game. DLC that gives me additional quests with new dungeons and battles adds to the overall experience of the game, and I'm happy with that. You think Warden's Keep isn't worth the cost. Oh well. I do. And Return to Ostagar is 2$ cheaper.

markot said:
Its like the story in wardens keep is ok, but so short, and when its finished, what do you get? A small camp outside of the actual keep. Not the keep itself! (Crazy!) and its so out of the way.

Its sad the first community mod pretty much, a chest in camp, is better and more useful than the dlc!

If you went through Warden's Keep for nothing but the chest, you're doing it wrong (and no, a mod to give you a chest in the camp is not "better than" the quest). And if you buy Return to Ostagar for nothing more than the armor, my guess is you'll be doing that wrong, too.

Fredescu said:
Stone Prisoner was created by the DLC team after the main team had moved onto ME2, so it counts as DLC team output whether they gave it away for free or not. I liked Warden's Keep and thought it was worth the price of lunch that paid for it, but happy to be in the minority about that. I expect Return to Ostagar to be similar.

If you want DLC like GTA4 you're not going to get that within the first month. If we don't have anything of 5+ hour length at the end of two years, you'll have cause to complain. They have said they will be releasing DLC "of varying lengths" which I take to mean "longer than Warden's Keep".

Exactly.

Sheesh. Shivering Isles came out a full year after the original release of Oblivion and The Lost and the Damned came out almost a year after the original release of GTA4. Within the first couple months of Dragon Age, BioWare will have released three pieces of DLC that in total will be a pretty substantial release, and given the promise of individual DLC of much greater length in the future, I think their pace is pretty good. They've said over and over that the plan is for two years' worth of additional content, and they're not going to release a 20 hour expansion in the first month or even the first six months.

It really does, for all people are complaining, make the most sense to start with the smaller releases to prove out the team's profitability and because these are the releases that are small enough in scope that they serve mainly as an enhanced complement to the main quest. It does not, on the other hand, make sense from a profit standpoint, a development standpoint, or even a gaming standpoint to immediately release extremely lengthy DLC that introduces a stand-alone quest when most people will have just come off a 50 hour game.

I think the approach they're taking is sensible and I have yet to see a criticism of it that amounts to anything more than "this sucks." If someone can offer a justified and reasonable explanation for how and why the team that just put out Warden's Keep and Stone Prisoner should immediately, within two months, turn out a 10-20 hour expansion of the main game and how that would be desirable or how it would be more profitable, I'm all ears.

Stumpokapow said:
Wow the sex scene is so... awful.

It really, really is.
 
ethelred, if what you say is true, then they are setting up for a pretty hefty and impressive post-game.

The only issue i have is with their dungeon crawling. The did such a 'meh' job with the main game that i fear that the DLC may be even worse.

They need to get that shit in check. More dungeons like the Fade (maybe a little shorter) and Warden's keep and less like deep roads(and most of the others).
 

Varna

Member
lorddarkflare said:
ethelred, if what you say is true, then they are setting up for a pretty hefty and impressive post-game.

The only issue i have is with their dungeon crawling. The did such a 'meh' job with the main game that i fear that the DLC may be even worse.

They need to get that shit in check. More dungeons like the Fade (maybe a little shorter) and Warden's keep and less like deep roads(and most of the others).

I have not completed the game yet, but all the dungeons I have encountered so far have been excellent.

They are all pretty straight forward dungeon crawling. The Fade is a pretty unique one. No idea why you noted Warden's Keep as a "good" dungeon. It's as generic as they come compared to the rest of them.
 
Varna said:
Anyone find any tweaks to squeeze a little extra performance in this game?

Running it at 1650x1080, everything to the max and x4 AA. Indoor and dungeons run fantastic, but the large wilderness and city areas kill me. Frame-rate barely hovers above 30. Nothing seem to have much of an impact either. Turning off AA only gains me a few frames. Turning off the frame-buffer gives me a noticeable gain, but it really butchers the look of the game (and even then it's only 10 frames at most with AA off as well).

EDIT: Turning off PhysX gains a few frames.... not even sure what the thing did while it was on.
I'm running 1280x800 with 2xAA.
I think it's just the engine to be honest as I've dropped the res to 1024, disabled framebuffer, AA, etc. with no real worthwile gain.
I also get good to great frames in Dungeons but regularly sit in the mid 20s to upper 30s during villages or areas with lots of NPCs and such.
Wish there was a console command to lock the framerate at 30. Would certainly prefer that to the fluctuating framerate. Still, it's nice to hear that it's probably not my comp and I don't have to upgrade.

My specs:

E6600 Core 2 Duo
8800gt
4gig Ram
Vista32

Same rig for 2.5 years and going strong :D
 
Varna said:
I have not completed the game yet, but all the dungeons I have encountered so far have been excellent.

They are all pretty straight forward dungeon crawling. The Fade is a pretty unique one. No idea why you noted Warden's Keep as a "good" dungeon. It's as generic as they come compared to the rest of them.

Yeah WK was pretty generic overall, but i liked the fact that it was relatively small(little filler) and used the ghosts and the environment to tell it's story. Not to mention that it gave amazing rewards (armor, skills, some equipment, Storage chest, ability to get one of the best weapons in the game).

The problem i have with most of the dungeons in the game is that there is little purpose to them.

You do not play them for the loot, because the loot in the game is all around terrible.

You do not play them for the sights/exploration, because with some exceptions, once you have seen one part of a dungeon, you have seen the entire thing. Though there are codex entries and little side tasks that you can undertake to liven the experience, they are often too fleeting and simple to really give any real satisfaction.

The encounters are challenging enough (especially on nightmare), but there is an unnecessarily large amount of them. This would not be a problem, except you often run into the same groups of enemies using the same tactics and skills (i think GW spoiled me in this aspect). I really would have liked more enemies and enemy types. Hell, i would have taken re-colors.

All of the above could easily be forgiven (as i have had some of the same issues with other RPS. The Witcher is one) if they were not for the fact that they are ridiculously long. That has got to be my biggest issue. Massively long dungeons with little reward (and i do not mean the classical idea of reward). They felt like an artificial barrier between me and my goal.

The Deep roads is the biggest offender. What pisses me off the most is that they saddle you with a borderline useless dwarf and stack three bosses one after the other. The first two were pretty annoying, but manageable. The last one took me 8/9 tries on Nightmare, solely because of Ogrhen.

As i said, the fade is the only one that has truly impressed me:

-Great rewards
-Varying assortment of enemies.
-Amazing structure and design
-Well paced (okay, that is a strech, but it is better than most.)
-Reasonably challenging (you did not have to fight everything(mouse form), and were given the tools to stand up to most enemies.)
 

Rad Agast

Member
I'm just over 40 hours into the game now and I don't think I'm even half way through the story (haven't finished any of the Blight quests yet). I'm enjoying it so far and from the looks of things in different conversations it seems like I'll have to go through the game several times to see every thing which means that I'll probably stay away from any future RPGs (other than ME2 of course).

Just a quick question, is it possible to force going to camp to see all your party members or do you have to wait for certain points in the game to do so? I have too many gifts and my bag is almost full most of the time now.
 
Rad Agast said:
I'm just over 40 hours into the game now and I don't think I'm even half way through the story (haven't finished any of the Blight quests yet). I'm enjoying it so far and from the looks of things in different conversations it seems like I'll have to go through the game several times to see every thing which means that I'll probably stay away from any future RPGs (other than ME2 of course).

Just a quick question, is it possible to force going to camp to see all your party members or do you have to wait for certain points in the game to do so? I have too many gifts and my bag is almost full most of the time now.

What?

There is a campfire icon when you got to your map.
 

desverger

Member
Can finally read the spoiler tags in this thread :lol

Great game - will definitely play through again once I get my 5850 :p I played an opportunistic rogue type char who was always asking for a reward and going after my own interests. Ended up driving away or killing most of the NPCs, so my game was looking quite empty! The ending I got was far from happy, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I was playing on normal, with Sten, Morrigan and Oghren respecced as a tank (only way it was going to happen, really).

Also got the achievement for never falling in battle in a single playthrough, which tingled my overachieving ego :p

Next playthrough - I'll be nice, I promise!
 

desverger

Member
NemesisPrime said:
Interesting read about creature level scaling.

Don't click if you have not finished game... minor spoilers.

Very interesting. I always suspected it worked like this, since some areas definitely felt a lot more challenging than the others. I should know - I did Orzammar first, and made it through - well, namely crawled through the gates in a pool of my own blood - the first two "Gate encounters" with a sliver of health and all my other party members dead :p
 

Chinner

Banned
just want to help with morgan's second quest. anyone wanna give help?
wanna kill flemith but everytime we fight shes a real beast.
TIPSZ?
 

Fredescu

Member
You need a warrior, a healer, and ranged damage dealers. Keep the latter two out of range of her AE attacks. Then it's just endurance. Bring pots and keep up the heals.
 
lorddarkflare said:
40 hours?

Dear god!

Hey, I'm at 35 hours, and I've only completed Redcliffe ad the Quest for the paragon. I guess I'm just having too much fun with the side missions, ad exploring every nook and cranny. I think I'll go ahead and speed up my play in order to be finished well before mass Effect 2.

What makes this game for me are the decisions you have to make. Some of them really give you pause. And really makes me want to play through several times. Some nit picks aside. Dragon Age is a blast.

Picking it up Black Friday for $35 only sweetens the deal.
 

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
There are some posts in this thread about the PS3 version having framerate issues. Has the developer commented on any of this, and do we know if a patch is coming?
 
Apharmd Battler said:
Hey, I'm at 35 hours, and I've only completed Redcliffe ad the Quest for the paragon. I guess I'm just having too much fun with the side missions, ad exploring every nook and cranny. I think I'll go ahead and speed up my play in order to be finished well before mass Effect 2.

What makes this game for me are the decisions you have to make. Some of them really give you pause. And really makes me want to play through several times. Some nit picks aside. Dragon Age is a blast.

Picking it up Black Friday for $35 only sweetens the deal.

It is not about the length, as it took me almost 80 hours to beat, i just mean that he has not been to camp for the 40 hours he has been playing.
 

Wrekt

Member
Chinner said:
just want to help with morgan's second quest. anyone wanna give help?
wanna kill flemith but everytime we fight shes a real beast.
TIPSZ?
Do you have someone that can make some decent traps? I didn't bother with that fight but a coworker said he completed it by laying down a ton of traps at the enemy spawn point and when she loaded in she was already half dead from setting them all off.
 
sloppyjoe_gamer said:
There are some posts in this thread about the PS3 version having framerate issues. Has the developer commented on any of this, and do we know if a patch is coming?

No, it's not really an issue.

Example would be something like XBOX 28 -30fps - PS3 26-29fps. Something along those lines.

I pulled that out of my ass but its just a slight framerate difference.
 

kitzkozan

Member
Patch 1.02 is out. :D

Balance

* Daggers now apply 0.5 points of damage per additional point in dexterity and 0.5 points of damage per additional point in strength, as originally intended. This increases dagger damage for high-dexterity characters.
* During combat, mana or stamina reserves now correctly regenerate more quickly when reserves are low. This allows players to occasionally use an talent or spell in the later stages of lengthy fights.
* When exploring, mana and stamina now regenerate more quickly at higher character levels. This reduces downtime between fights.
* The spells Force Field, Crushing Prison, Cone of Cold, and Blizzard now have shorter durations and/or longer cooldowns. This ensures that combatants can no longer stun-lock each other by repeatedly casting the same spell.
* The cooldowns for several low-level sustained abilities are now shorter. This ensures that players are not penalized for accidentally deactivating them.
* Certain battles were not scaling properly, resulting in excessively difficult fights. They now scale as intended.
* Enemy corpses now drop health poultices and money more appropriately, resulting in less clutter in the player's inventory.


Gameplay

* In rare cases, enemy corpses were selectable when they contained no loot. This no longer occurs.
* Party members whose combat tactics were set to defensive behavior no longer stop attacking after using a spell or talent.
* In rare cases, combat tactics conditions could fail to determine whether a character had enough mana or stamina to use an ability. This no longer occurs.
* The Rally talent no longer repeats its audio effect if it is active during certain conversations.
* The Rally talent no longer deactivates upon area transitions or conversations.
* The Shimmering Shield spell now deactivates when the character is out of mana.


Plot *Spoiler Warning*

* Promotional downloadable content items now remain in the player's inventory when standard items are removed at the end of the dwarf noble origin.
* Repeatedly talking to Duncan after gathering the vials in the Korcari Wilds but not the treaties no longer provides duplicate experience.
* Leliana's personal plot can now be completed if the player substantially increased her approval (through gifts) before talking to her.
* During the siege of Redcliffe, enemies are no longer able to spawn in locations that would break the plot.
* Bann Teagan no longer disappears when he is supposed to be accessible during Urn of Sacred Ashes.


PC Specific

* Controlling a summoned creature (like a ranger's pets) during certain special area transitions no longer results in odd behavior.
* Creating a character in a custom module did not create a folder for saves. This could result in corruption of main campaign saves. This no longer occurs.
* In some cases, the class icon was set incorrectly for characters imported from the downloadable Character Creator. This no longer occurs.
* The options menu now includes a setting to automatically download previously purchased content that is not currently installed.
* After installing new downloadable content, the game now always reminds the user to restart the game.
* The icons for some promotional downloadable content items were missing. They now appear correctly.
* The screenshot upload GUI would stop working from time to time on the client. There was a memory override that was fixed. It is a client fix. It doesn't affect the other problems we have seen on the server.
 

Macmanus

Member
Chinner said:
just want to help with morgan's second quest. anyone wanna give help?
wanna kill flemith but everytime we fight shes a real beast.
TIPSZ?

Just go for the standard tank and spank. Aside from bringing pots along to keep the mana up for heals it's fairly straight forward. Just whittle away at her while keeping your tank up and having your other members in the back picking away with a bow or something.
 

Doytch

Member
Mostly housekeeping looks like. Fixed daggers but not archery, a couple bugs here and there. Hopefully their balance tweaks didn't nuke the Nightmare Plus mod.
 
firehawk12 said:
Still waiting for the achievement glitch fix. Guuuh.

Which ones are broken?

Im glad they have fixed the scaling issues, I would be doing fine then wham get totally battered, get past that fight then an hour later battered again. Was sucking my enjoyment of the game and I don't want to play on easy.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Doytch said:
Mostly housekeeping looks like. Fixed daggers but not archery, a couple bugs here and there. Hopefully their balance tweaks didn't nuke the Nightmare Plus mod.

Yep. I think I will stick with 1.01 and dex hotfix for now. At least until I finish my playthrough.
 

Mindlog

Member
Paznos said:
I agree the loot in the game is awful and was pretty surprised by it honestly.

I actually liked the loot for this game even there was a lot of crap and mage gear could have been better. The economy worked out better than pretty much any other game I have ever played. I never had more money than I knew what to do with.


One thing that did bug me.

If my character or a character of my choosing was participating in the Dark Promise ritual unwillingly. I should be allowed to demand, "NO EYE CONTACT."
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
kyo_daikun said:
Which ones are broken?

Im glad they have fixed the scaling issues, I would be doing fine then wham get totally battered, get past that fight then an hour later battered again. Was sucking my enjoyment of the game and I don't want to play on easy.

On 360, if you finished the DLC content on the first three days of release, you weren't credited the points because MS did not update their servers.

Unfortunately, either EA's servers of Microsoft's servers have logged you getting the achievement - so you can't just redo the content to get the points again.

As such, I'm stuck on 1025/1100 forever, unless they fix the issue (which they promised they would, but oh well).
 
firehawk12 said:
On 360, if you finished the DLC content on the first three days of release, you weren't credited the points because MS did not update their servers.

Unfortunately, either EA's servers of Microsoft's servers have logged you getting the achievement - so you can't just redo the content to get the points again.

As such, I'm stuck on 1025/1100 forever, unless they fix the issue (which they promised they would, but oh well).

Ah yeah I remember hearing about that now, that's pretty shocking, if that had happened to me with my trophies i would be raging as well.
 

expy

Banned
firehawk12 said:
On 360, if you finished the DLC content on the first three days of release, you weren't credited the points because MS did not update their servers.

Unfortunately, either EA's servers of Microsoft's servers have logged you getting the achievement - so you can't just redo the content to get the points again.

As such, I'm stuck on 1025/1100 forever, unless they fix the issue (which they promised they would, but oh well).
Pretty sure you'd have to contact MS for that, EA can't help you with gamerpoints through a patch.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Oh, BioWare has said that they are working on a fix. It's just that it's been a month since the game came out and this promised title update is taking forever to come out.

Trust me though, both the EA and MS tech support have no idea how to handle the issue. EA tells you to check GameFAQs or something and MS just gets confused. :lol
 

expy

Banned
firehawk12 said:
Oh, BioWare has said that they are working on a fix. It's just that it's been a month since the game came out and this promised title update is taking forever to come out.

Trust me though, both the EA and MS tech support have no idea how to handle the issue. EA tells you to check GameFAQs or something and MS just gets confused. :lol
But aren't gamerscores and achievement lsits stored on MS's servers? How is this an EA issue?
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
expy said:
But aren't gamerscores and achievement lsits stored on MS's servers? How is this an EA issue?


It's both, because DA uses EA servers to track achievements on their social website.

So even though on MS's servers it didn't register, on EA's servers it did. I'm guessing the game checks with EA's servers first before returning a result to MS's servers, hence people like me being unable to unlock the achievements.

Edit - although, funny enough, some people have tried playing the game offline and the achievements won't register. It's possible that the game itself stores some kind of local cache of the EA server stuff to send to the servers the next time the player goes online.

Here's the thread on BioWare's social site:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/67/index/232913/1

Chris Preistly posted in the old BioWare forums about the issue, but the DA forums have since been deleted.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that they've at least acknowledged the issue at the very least. I'm just itching to get it resolved is all. :lol
 

Macmanus

Member
Lan_97 said:
Hmm, I would have preferred getting the fix for bows rather than daggers. The dagger fix actually makes rogues weaker.

I'm pretty ignorant the whole dagger/dex/str issue. How exactly would it make them weaker?
 

54-46!

Member
Bah, I forgot I had a nodvd fix installed for 1.01b, I hate using discs (I'm lazy and my dvd reader is evil).. guess I won't be playing till a new one comes out :lol

Btw is Warden's Keep worth the money?
 

Lafiel

と呼ぶがよい
Almost finished up with the game, but i'm sorta open about the idea of DLC expanding on the original game with sidequests now. Game getting a significant amount of new DLC quests / side-areas, modders adding a banter mod + loot mod. (mod that balances and adds new loot). Would make me replay the game again.
 
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