The rumored Dragon Age: Origins expansion, “Dragon Age: Origins -- Awakening,” is a real thing. This morning, EA and BioWare announced the expansion, confirming several details leaked days prior, thanks to an odd European retailer listing.
The expansion appears to take place after the events in the core game, tasking users with rebuilding the devastated Grey Warden ranks in a place named Amaranthine as the order's new Commander.
Don't think the Darkspawn are toast. The conflict isn’t over -- one of the Commander's main goals is to figure out why the Darkspawn are still running around after the Archdemon's death. The official release promises a moral choice accompanies this mystery, and morals will factor into rebuilding the order.
The content can be kicked off with new Grey Warden "from the neighboring land of Orlais" or your own dude. Being introduced alongside this mysterious Orlasian Warden are five new party members, as well as a host of various other game components, such as new spells, specializations, (evolved) enemies and items. The official release also makes mention that the level cap is being boosted, and the ability to re-spec characters is being added with the expansion as well.
“Dragon Age: Origins -- Awakening” is priced at $39.99 and will be available for all relevant platforms on March 16, 2010.
Contest:
7:40 AM on 01.05.2010
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Err... you're smiling again, right Brad?
Fuck you DA:O team. I like the Mass Effect team more than you anyway.
I've enjoyed it on xbox and have played it on PC too but prefer xbox. Battles are fine to manage as long as you have good tactics setup for characters. NOt to mention the enemies don't come at you the same way on xbox and less fear in regards to friendly fire until on Nightmare. To each their own I guess.
Regardless, considering we just got a delay for Return to Ostagar I suspect March 16th will only result in being told we'll have to wait another month.
Also, according to another article I read you will be able to import your character from the end of the main story. http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/105/1058169p1.html
Great News! Its like getting a sequel/mini-series after watching the first season of something. Very Awesome!
They better stick with that respec promise or give me a nifty staff.
I know what they want me to do - they want me to buy the game, then the DLC.
But all this DLC is forcing me to just wait a bloody year and get it all for a drastically reduced price (like Oblivion/Fallout 3 GOTY Ed).
I wouldn't put too much confidence into that strategy. Bioware isn't Bethesda and there's no guarantee they'll even do that. With digital distribution for the DLC, they have no major incentive to release a retail+all DLC version.
This is an expansion pack. It's going to have a sizable plotline and is going to extend the game significantly past its current scope. It's not a ten dollar side quest. It's a 40 dollar main quest.
Put the difficulty on casual if you're playing on consoles. The awful controls on consoles make it a highly irritating fight - although it becomes incredibly trivial on casual. I enjoyed the game up to the single member fight (no spoilers) and found out none of the characters builds I had made could really do the solo fight and the rather large fight preceding it. There's no real reason to be blocked by game design rather than content.
I have the setting at the easiest possble. -_-
Not only that but everyone's advice sucks. The biggest are bring Morrigan, Shade, and get 50+ health poultice. That'd be great guys if I wasn't already at the fight. I assumed that would be obvious but apparently not. I've come to terms with the fact that I just suck at this game and will never beat it but I have to say no matter how much I suck I truly do believe this game is incredibly unbalanced. At least on consoles.
I finished the SP up last night with about 50 hours of play. It was a decent play, but it didn't captivate me, yet another reason I'll pass, or at least wait on the DLC score.
That is all.
Maybe in a few months I'll feel differently. Loved it the first time through, can't do it again though.
I wonder if our party members will be brought over in the expansion or if the new ones are the only ones to select from.
Yeah, the Fade sequence got old quickly. That and a few other areas I was thinking, "I don't know if I want to play through this part ever again" at some point, though I loved the game as a whole.
Also: $40 is pretty expensive for a PC expansion. $30 is typically the standard.
Thats funny about the fade sequence, I was thinking the exact same thing. now that I think about it the only rpgs I have ever played through more than once were Final Fantasies
You don't know how much I want you to finish that game.
Nor how much your inability to, because of the game's design for your specific situation (apparently), infuriates me as a QA guy!
Do you have any reserve armies left? Are you able to choose a different group of support guys? :(
True, but as long as Retail outsells Digital distribution, they'll keep doing it. And it's not Bioware that really decides - EA does, and they did a GOTY for Burnout Paradise. So it's not unprecedented.
Otherwise, there's always offers on DD, there has to be to remain competitive. It'll be interesting over the next few years, as we'll see a shift from competition between Online Vs Retail, and more EA Digital Dist Vs Ubisoft Digital Dist.
You don't need a better game, if you can provide a cheaper, more content rich experience.
I should get back to work on the game, regardless. I put it aside when I hit the dwarf area. Fucking mine levels.
http://www.gamestop.com/browse/search.aspx?N=0&Ntk=TitleKeyword&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntt=%20%09Dragon%20Age%20Origins:%20Awakening
Loved DA:O (on PC). The complaints about it being too hard make no sense to me, I rolled through it on normal pretty easily. It's not Oblivion or Mass Effect, you actually have to put some strategy into your battles. In return you actually feel like you did something, when I beat that Dragon on top of the mountain I cheered and danced for 10 minutes, my girlfriend considered leaving me.
*irony is I'm commentor 39
Take control of your mage/healer (usually Wynne or your own character if applicable). Let the other characters do the damage, make sure you have one warrior set to hold the attention of the archdemon and you don't do anything else than healing with your healer (no staff, nothing) - you should have 2 heal spells (mass heal, heal) plus a few useful spells (ward, regenerate). You'll need a few Lyrium potions, 3-4 at most. I used Alistair, Leliana, Shale and myself as healer, turned off any aggro skills Shale had, used heal mostly on Alistairs with occasional mass heal for the rest.
Make sure you use the ballistas too...
the price tag will be justifiable if they do it right, but only if they do it right.
But I trust Bioware, and I bet it will be good.