What went so right for Origins? It has one of the best video game openings overall, not just when talking RPG titles, it has well-written, layered companions and an interesting world to explore, to traverse and to learn about, same can be said for the numerous interesting choices the game gives the player and quite a few conundrums in resolving difficult ethical and moral issues, also. And the pacing is just right for it, all culminating in a glorious finale and a huge payoff given for your troubles and hard fought battles across the lands as you sought to reunite the people against the Darkspawn and tried your hardest to rebuild that which many believed to be a thing of the past, that being the legendary Grey Warden order. It may use quite a bit of conventional archetypes and standard fantasy setups for its world, the factions and various different cultures that inhabit it, etc., but they're never stereotypes and are often fleshed out in very successful ways that make them at once familiar, but nevertheless fresh and unique. I truly love this game, every time I enter the Main Menu, I just sit in silence and listen to the main theme as it perfectly encapsulates DA:O, its tone, its flavor, its atmosphere and how epic in scope it is.
Origins was a severely dumbed-down action game with shit character writign, and to this day it baffles me that there are people who hold it up as some kind ogf gold standard for RPGs. Just because the sequels were even worse doesn't retroactively make Origins good.
>>3067426You're a cretin, go elsewhere.
Imagine Dragon's Age but with Original Sin/Baldur's Gate 3 combat instead of the RTWP garbage we got that eventually devolved into mindless button mashing in the sequels (with developers literally advertising the feature as "you press this button and something awesome happens"), and judging by the leaked videos of Dreadwolf, the series now wants to be like nu-God of War aka single character casual action. So fucking sad.But the silver lining is Baldur's Gate 3 will mog the fuck out of Dreadwolf, and hopefully this will be enough to put the corpse of Bioware out of business, all the key people left ages ago anyway.
>>3067427Great argument, Biodrone.
Can't believe Dragon Age decided to abandon the RTWP combat in favor of shitty dodge rolling.
>>3067426what kind of retard qualifies origins as an action game?
Remember the days of Bioware Social Network (official forums) when most fans came from Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights and constantly made fun of newcomers who only cared about party member romances? Even David Gaider (the lead writer on Origins) often chimed in with biting sarcasm.But now that's the whole identity of the series, because there's no solid gameplay foundation. Every DA game is just whatever trend chasing, the franchise has no real core as video games. people only care about who are they going to romance in the new entry. Granted there are some lorefags too, but they're a minority.
>>3067424It was an edgy Baldur's Gate with way too much blood, even had a M.Manson trailer at release.Honestly I think it was just oozing the early 2000s (And the fact that EA was not fully milking Bioware at this point)
>>3067428Replacing the main type of gameplay isn't enough to save a series like Dragon Age. Eventually all types of gameplay loops are going to become repetitive and big RPGs will live and die by their plot and scripts. With Dragon Age the rot set in early with the Origins DLCs. Witch Hunt is particularly egregious in its character writing because it is nothing but Morrigan fanwank, whose climactic encounter is insultingly vacuous because there is no substance to this character beyond an air of mystery which the writer desperately tries to maintain by having her tell you absolutely nothing, then she just leaves. It's a waste of time that sets the tone for the whole series to come.
>>3067424Presentation. Being fully voice acted is one thing, but including body language makes the conclusion of a quest feel so much more human. Clear a quest in an elder scrolls game and you have an awkward staring contest then the AI takes back over and suddenly you're in a video game again.Dragon Age you feel their gratitude or disgust with just some very basic camera work and gestures. There was nuance in your response that added a lot to it too. You can be a proper hero and act selfless, but you could also be the mercenary, be pragmatic or even chastising as you solved a problem. The unexpected reactions gave characters personality, you would expect Wynne to be uppity if you gave a rude response but she would have her own comebacks. That being said, if you played it straight with her then a nagging old lady is what you got. Leliana can spend the whole game acting like a girl scout, but if you're cynical she's more blunt. That's something I think is lost in newer games, it's so eager to show you all angles of how someone is unexpected and a badass that you don't get the adventure of discovering a person, just their backstory. People are acting AT you not reacting to the person you are, again DA:O made it that more human.Having played over CRPGs since DA:O I can see where the combat takes its queues from and it feels a bit less inspired to how it felt. The automation with the tactics system was good though, rather than getting lost in micromanaging complexity you were rewarded for being able to anticipate how battles will go, I hadn't seen replicated until PoE2. I think the later games are actually onto something with their own combo system, makes the party and timing matter more, but it lacks a nebulousness that Origins had. Having 2 variations of a magic bullet might seem redundant, but I think you need that there so a character can feel your own rather than a broad template.
>>3067424Not RPG. Go back to plebbit you tourist faggot.
DAO is really babby's first WRPG. An entry point for newfags. If they find DAO lacking, then they would eventually move onto better CRPGs
>>3067436>Origins was a severely dumbed-down action game with shit character writignAnd this is? >>3067450Yep, I think you named a lot of what gives this game personality and substance. The characters all have their stances, opinions and they do not cower to you if you have a contrasting opinion, they fell autonomous (as much as they can in an RPG, anyway) and are fleshed out quite well and realized very good. And their constant chats when you're traveling only adds to that. Replaying it after a decade has past, the game still shines where it has to, it aged superbly and I am having a great time with it.>>3067452Troll elsewhere.
>>3067478>DAO is really babby's first WRPG.So what, this is hardly a bad thing. Why is "baby's first" used as an insult and a slight against a given title, other than you showing your "superior" taste and knowledge of vRPGs.
>>3067446It was a clear homage to Lord of the Rings, if anything.
>>3067484>Why is "baby's first" used as an insultBecause it indicates a complete lack of depth and substance. Games like Skyrim and DAO are "baby's first" RPGs because they appeal exclusively to the lowest common denominator. They're RPGs made for people who don't like real RPGs. That's exactly what it means to be entry level: To have a game that pretends to be one genre (RPG) that's made entirely to appeal to people who normally play a different genre (action games).
>>3067494This such horseshit, how is DA:O made to appeal to people who don't like real RPGs? It isn't that streamlined and simplified to warrant a comparison with Skyrim, as well, this seems like a bad faith argument because "woah, look at me, I played BG1 and 2 and know everything about RPGs!!!!". LOL
>>3067494DAO is baby's first RPG, but in a good way. The better an RPG story the worst the combat seems to be (arcanum), whereas ones with exceptional combat lack tend to lack story (ToEE). DAO is smack in the middle.
>>3067496Dragon Age is iterative of the popular CRPG model which has progressively simplified the gameplay over time to give the games a wider audience appeal. The tradeoff for this has been presentation as noted above, but given how primitive the role playing aspects of a typical CRPG are, it can skirt the border of turning the game into a barely interactive movie.
>>3067444>I also remeber when Bioware had less femcels in the fanbaseBioware found out about teenage girls, and then steered all their franchises towards them crashing the company in the process. Origins' fanbase became a majority female player base; the money and the virtue signaling was too much for the fantasy side of the writers room to not masturbate to. Then these same fans whined until Gaider apologized for having implied rape in a bleak, brutal, oppressive world. They think cursing, cartoony violence, and sex scenes makes the game mature. They neutered the Qunari, and made everyone some type of gay where Thedas' sapient creatures would be extinct from being over 50% faggots. Dragon Age is the apotheosis of D.E.I. politics and focus group writing.
>>3067481You're the troll here you dumb niggerfaggot.
>>3067424i recently replayed DAO.Its a very dull game. It is halfway between crpg and action game and satisfies neither party. the praised character writing is your standard Bioware knock-off joss whedon affair that wouldn't even measure up to genre fiction standards.The combat encounters are laughably balanced with wild difficulty spikes and valleys. It has nothing to do with git gud at that point. Bosses can be trivial and then a random encounter with worthless enemies spikes the game. Or the reverse. Or neither. Or both. Changing difficulty doesn't really do much.Sadly Bioware has fallen so far that DAO is remembered as a high point.
I've played shitloads of RPGs, but I've never been able to finish Origins and never even tried the rest of them. Can't stand the MMO based combat and limited character building. The origin stuff was good, but it doesn't make up for the rest of the game being so derivative and full of unlikable characters chatting snarkily while decorated with blood splatter. Definitely Gaider at his worst.
>>3067424It's a well paced game that balances choices with a linear path and the ending has weight and cool lore iceberg (Old God baby was such an awesome wtf). It was before the idpol had kicked in proper, so you could have sassy females like morrigan but also based stuff like Oghren. I even like the cheese of 30 Seconds 2Mars kicking in over the credits, it feels so 2000s. Also good that lore affects combat, so mages are genuine glass cannon OP, as they should be. It's truly sad what it's become, and I didn't even hate Inquisition. The current batshit fanbase and the state of Bioware are just tragic. It astonishes me that Bioware don't just ditch combat and exploration completely and give the pronouners a full blown dating sim with background drama every couple of years. Don't they like money?
Reminder that Leliana is Andraste !
>>3067449i agree i didn't get why she talked in riddles and gave non-answers all the time both in origins and in inquisition
Lots of people for whatever in here not happy with dao. I like it a lot. A really fun adventure with friends is what it feels like. The lore in origins is really good. It makes the darkspawn interesting. Without the lore they are just orcs but the lore developed them into a great enemy. The politics was great too. Just an altogether great game.
Tired of beating the dead horse that is original DA:O desu. How about the somehow still alive modding scene and all the original campaigns there?
>>3067424The atmosphere was fantastic. You felt hopelessness everywhere. I still remember drinking the blood scene, really set the tone. Wardens go to meet their death in the deep roads... makes you feel like you are fighting for something greater. Love the idea that you arent railroaded into being a leader, could give that to Alistair, proper roleplaying.
>>3068238It's not really proper roleplaying. Alistair will actively refuse a leadership role until the end of the game when it is of no consequence to the pre-written story, and still defers to you as a warden. It is forced on the player no matter what. Short of not playing the game, you cannot refuse to lead.
>>3067424Origins is this weird game that comes together as better than the individual parts of it may suggest.Like, the story is genric as fuck, even back in 2009 "gather an army from 4 locations" was such a lazy Bioware cliche. Companions aren't the best written, the combat works, buf it's nothing special. But in the end all of it comes together into some really nice package that makes all of it works. Like, the game's earnest with itself.>yeah, we are a generic fantasy adventure, but that's the point and we are owning up to itAnd it helps that writing is charming enough to support that. All in all, I have a soft spot for this game and I can't say why.Or maybe I really like Leliana, either one.
>>3067424Origins were a typical Bioware game - great characters, nice worldbuilding, alright roleplay, eh mechanics, shit plot. But it generally works very well, and transcends most other Bioware titles in the strength of it's atmosphere. Still I wouldn't call it great, most of the praise genuinely comes from it being the formative RPG experience for many people.
The overarching plot didn't do it for me because it's just grimdark LotR.>gather your allies across Middle-earth, I mean Ferelden>to fight the legions of orcs, I mean darkspawn>and slay the evil Sauron, I mean ArchdemonIt had some standout moments though. The whole broodmother section was very well done.Overall I prefer DA2. It had better character dynamics because the story takes place over several years so the characters actually get to be longtime friends and not just a ragtag bunch of misfits.
>>3067426??? Did you mix up DA:O with Mass Effect 1 by any chance?
>>3068519>I prefer DA2fuckin same
>>3068519>>3068622Why? The character writing in DA2 is so much worse, because so many of them are incapable of reasoning and only exist to be acted upon by the player character. Of the main companions, only Anders acts out his agenda without prompting. The villains are even worse in that they lack any kind of depth or intelligence.
>>3068654>so many of them are incapable of reasoning and only exist to be acted upon by the player characterNot sure what you mean. Care to elaborate?
>>3068661They don't make decisions for themselves. The player decides everything for them and runs their life as they see fit.
>>3067494Skyrim and dao are miles apart from each other.
>>3068666They come to Hawke for help in resolving whatever personal goals or issues they have going on. Making choices that affect your companions is a staple of the genre.
>>3068674It's deeper than that. When a character should have a decision to make about their own future it's left to the player character, not the character themselves. When Danarius comes for Fenris, why does Hawke get to decide if Fenris goes back to being a slave or not? If you give him to Danarius he just goes with him, no fight, no complaint, he just complies. When the Arishok demands Isabela, why does she defer to the player about her own freedom? Shouldn't she have something to say about that? If you hand her over why does she just accept it? This isn't believable, it's just beyond bad.
>>3068683Fenris I could believe. Thinking of himself as a slave is deeply ingrained in his psyche and he struggles with that constantly. Relapsing from the shock of such betrayal could happen.Isabela I will grant you didn't make sense. She really should have tried to make a run for it.
>>3068696There are multiple ways to rationalize it, but I couldn't personally see someone who fought so hard for their freedom giving it up in an instant, especially for a rival type Hawke. But it's a recurring theme across all companions and it's bad every time. Hawke even gets to decide whether or not Varric murders his helpless, mentally incapacitated brother.
>>3068701>Hawke even gets to decide whether or not Varric murders his helpless, mentally incapacitated brother.That I don't think is hard to fathom. In a moment of indecision people are prone to suggestion.
>>3068706Which is inherently the problem. They are too much an extension of the player's will, and not developing on their own. The real character moment would be for Varric to see what his brother has become and forgive him on his own, because even after everything Bartrand did, he still loves his brother and understands it wasn't his fault.
>>3068708I dunno. Seems like the same could be said about getting to decide if Alistair becomes king or not.Part of the point of companion quests in RPGs is to be affected by player choice.
>>3068715Alistair will at least push back hard against this suggestion instead of instantly complying, demonstrating a higher degree of agency than any DA2 companion. Only one specific circumstance will have him actively demand the throne.
>>3068720Alistair is a wigger.
>>3068722Alistair is a lot of things, most of them cringe.
>>3068720By that logic Merrill has supreme agency because she will not drop her practice of blood magic no matter how many times Hawke says it's a bad idea.
>>3068725Merrill has a completely different set of problems, that also lead her to never grow as a character. Continually compounding poor choice on top of poor choice, until everything in her life is destroyed and she's unable to grasp that she will get nothing from it. It's not even clear what she hopes to accomplish in the end from all her wild actions. The best way to describe her would be aimless.
>>3068734I disagree. She wants to restore a piece of her people's history by any means necessary. Everything bad that happens in her story is not her fault. Nothing bad ever comes of her using blood magic because she knows what she's doing. Instead everything goes to shit because the Keeper is endlessly paranoid about her and spreads her paranoia throughout the clan.
>>3068740The keeper is also an idiot, that makes poor choices. It's the major theme of the game apparently. Merrill does not know what she is doing. If she did, she would not have to be bargaining with demons for knowledge. She has the mirror but has no idea what to do with it or what it's capable of. Fails at everything she does, and her story simply ends with her accomplishing nothing, or dying for an unrelated cause.
>>3068744Which I think is fine. That is the tragedy of arc.
>>3068724Good thing I had him executed as a wedding gift to my beautiful wife Anora.
>>3068746It's not so much an arc as it is a cliff.
>>3068750based
>>3068740The keeper's logic was literally: "I'm worried Merrill might get possessed by a demon so Ima get possessed by one on PURPOSE! Also I wont tell anyone else about this so the clan just assumes the worst."It still baffles me that people blame Merrill for ANY of that retarded shit. I understand that most of the dialogue for the game was complete ass, but were people just skipping it entirely?
>>3068778This nonsense is why the game was panned by fans at release. There were countless comics made about the pure retardation of its characters. The Templars hate us because they think we're using blood magic! Better turn myself into an abomination using blood magic! :D~
>>3068750>being prince consort of a barren haghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2f9sVe9RR8
>>3068879>prince consortPlayer is openly called king in Awakening and DA2 already. Anora has no actual power. Meanwhile you get Aemon and your brother as loyal and trusted allies, and they are 2 biggest powers in the kingdom, you get to own an Amaranthine (third most important realm in the kingdom) as your own land and have support of an external organization that are Grey Wardens, all Dwarfs are indebted to you, Templars, Circle and possibly Dalish Elves too. Even other, minor nobles support you due to those sidequests in Denerim.It's desu annoying that you have to marry her at all. She is just a peasant daughter of a former traitor-regent and a barren widow. How the fuck is she relevant at all? What a dumb writing. It should be possible to simply seize the crown for yourself, you are from the second most important noble line in the realm and the only other alternative is a bastard Alistar, who is also a Grey Warden and has no interest in ruling. And she is a fucking peasant. She shouldn't be relevant at all. She is just a wife of a now dead king. What a shitty and pointless fucking character.
>>3067424I played this when it came out, thought it was… ok? And never touched another DA game again.
>>3068654>>3068666That's just not true. Take Aveline for example. She becomes Guard Captain without your input and friendzones you if you try to hit on her. Then there's Isabela who outright betrays you and leaves the party forever if you don't make an effort to get to know her better and help her.It's my favorite party in the series.
playing through the mass effect games and dragon age games for the first time recently i noticed that bioware likes to fuck with the player when it comes to some choices, dialogue scenes and generally just using different logic than what the player expects which you cant possibly realise if you havent played the games before.for example during the landsmeet you get a limited amount of chances to convince the nobles to support you (to avoid a battle) but this isn't hinted at before the meet, same with the awakening dlc where the companions you don't bring with you to amaranthine in the final mission have a chance to die. mass effect 2 has this during the final part of the suicide mission as well where some companions can die depending on how high a "defense score" is.it's frustrating when developers takes control from you with hidden mechanics like this when it could've been avoided by just having an npc make a vague hint like "pick your words carefully during the landsmeet" or something like that
>>3068654>The character writing in DA2 is so much worse, because so many of them are incapable of reasoning and only exist to be acted upon by the player character.Good? That's how RPGs should handle companions. I'm sick of my protagonist having to be their bitch, why do I HAVE TO SEEK THEIR APPROVAL? Why can't they seek mine? I am the hero of the story, i shouldn't go around picking whatever dialogue option pleases them or they hate me and i lose content. If Vivienne doesn't like you she starts taking away furniture from Skyhold, if the other companions don't like you they don't give you a personal quest, etc.The fact that i've seen people completly drop roleplaying just to pick dialogue options that make companions happy is DISGUSTING, i've seen people pick Anti Mage options when it comes to Vivienne and then they run to Solas and shout "YAY MAGE FREEDOM YAY ABOMINATIONS!!!".
>>3069107i really liked da:2 in this regard with your companions becoming rivals, changing their companion quests but in my first playthrough i accidentally became anders' friend because i always attacked demons instead of dealing with them so therefore he thinks i'm a rebel mage sympathizer? kinda weird
>>3069107>hate me and i lose contentReplay the game then bitch.
>>3069121> Dude replay this 60 hours long RPG just for this scene of the companion giving you a questYeah, no. Unlike you i have a life that i'm not gonna spend to see what content would have fictional videogame characters given you if you had sucked up to them.
>>3067883THIS IS WAR
DA2 is entirely "good concept, mediocre at best execution". This is throughout everything but especially cases like companions, Fenris being the entirely optional one hurt by this a lot. And he's my favorite.Not as much as the twins, aside from Warden Carver, they really need to be redone from the ground up and especially drop that retarded Sophie's Choice shit which didn't do much for either character or the MC. Mostly for your mother and she was so little of a character due to spending most of the time building up her death it still wasn't much.
>>3069141Fenris was irrelevant trash you faggot.
>>3069146Nice projection, and that doesn't even argue what I said.
Did they retconn the way spirits and demons work? In the first two games they are two different things but in Inquisition a demon can become a spirit and vice versa, at least that's how i understood it but I've only played through the games once
>>3069152Anon Spirits could always become demons, see Anders with Justice turning into Vengeance. Solas just "expanded" on the lore. Dismiss everything Merrill says about how "Demons are just spirits it's not their fault they were born this way!!" she's just a retard.
>>3069158>Dismiss everything Merrill saysNO! Even if she is wrong, she is right because wife is always right!
>>3069158Yeah but that was a unique case of someone fusing themselves and their personality with a spirit, I'm talking about spirits/demons in general in their natural habitat in the fade, can they also change?
>>3069159her accent gave me a hard-on
>>3069159based
>>3069164Only if they are forced by an external force. Not willingly, they are not human and they don't feel human emotions.
>>3067424Kids don't understand what a desolate time for CRPGs the mid-late 2000s to the mid 2010s were. Dragon Age was in large part a serious attempt at a CRPG but dumbed down enough for console chimps. KotOR was for console chimps first and was just a prelude to Bioware getting competent enough at action to do something like Mass Effect instead of vomit like Jade Empire. Making any effort to come back towards us AFTER Mass Effect was deeply appreciated.
>>3069159Based and correct.
>>3069251These sort of posts make me think dao haters have no idea what they are talking about. Firstly, the lacks of quality rpgs in that time is largely irrelevant. The fact is is that it is good and is better than many games that came before and after. This line is always parrot red without much thought. What other rpgs have come out since dao that reached its scale? The witcher 3 is the only one I can think of but it’s more of an action rpg like Skyrim with just quite a lot of dialogue. A lot of people are looking at bg3 but it looks really uninteresting. The game will probably have hours upon hours of side content as wrpgs feel pressured to always put in there. And the forgotten realms is so tiresome of a setting. The fact is is that dao was a good game and it stands on its own merit. People like the game because it is a good game. Secondly, kotor has nothing to do with proper paring BioWare for an action game like mass effect. It only helped in giving them an idea to make their own sci fi universe. But kotor was a pause and play game that is in no way an action game. It’s rtwp. Just like dragon age origins but dragon age was actually going in the direction of being more complicated, not being dumbed down if you look at the trend for BioWare games. Skyrim came out two years later and that was a very simplistic rpg that set the stage for the trends we now have with rpgs. But dragon age origins, while not being the most complex rpg, when you look at things from a more sophisticated lense, was pushing the rpg genre back to being more hardcore. What came before dao? Kotor, and then mass effect. Both far simpler than dao.
>>3069107It's perfectly fine for you to indulge in narcissism and enjoy the companions for what they are. The point is not to pretend that they're well written characters when they're not.
>What went so right for Origins?Last hurrah for old design and just old mentality in general. Granted, they did add some things to appeal to what is now the average modern gamer too, but still.
>>3069777>Last hurrah for old designFunny that you say that because the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 is a much more traditional and conservative CRPG that Dragon Age: Origins. The mechanics are vastly more complex than DAO's MMO-lite design.
>>3069121>playing games more than once>in the current yearBut like all his E-friends have like moved on and stuff?
>>3069781>Funny that you say that because the upcomingDon't see anything funny in verifiable truth. IF it is like the old games AFTER it comes out, it will be part of a renaissance.
>>3068178Did people actually make campaigns for DAO?
>>3070648Are you banned from using Google or something?https://www.gog.com/forum/dragon_age_origins_ultimate_edition/reviews_of_all_fanmade_modules_for_dao
>>3067426kys faggot n igger
>>3067450>Dragon Age you feel their gratitude or disgust with just some very basic camera work and gestures.This. Dragon Age remains one of the best games with impeccable scene direction. I feel like scene direction has become a lost art in modern games. Just looking at the Landsmeet makes you really appreciate how important scene direction really is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVYiVoXOJuEReally makes me wonder where the hell all the scene directors in the industry went. I almost never see camera angles and character placements used effectively anymore. Its like everyone forgot how important presentation is
>>3067885qrd on this schizo theory?Makes sense if she died in Origins and her body is possessed by Andraste's ashes, but it doesn't make sense if you kept her alive
>>3071024Bioware in particular had its cutscenes absolutely go to hell. It's not like Origins or Mass Effect 2 were amazing but the cutscenes in Mass Effect 3 and Inquisition were uniformly embarrassing. They lost someone and replaced him with a nepotism or AA hire and never recovered.
>>3069777Was it the last hurrah, though? It seemed to integrate the old spirit of titles such as Baldur's Gate into a strong new vision, bolstered by all the genre conventions that it either decided to explore and make more interesting by shifting things up, or completely turning them on their heads in order to surprise the player and give him a well realized fantasy world to explore and delve deeper into. It's a sound game on all fronts, and I much agree with >>3069341sentiments stated in this post. Origins had BioWare's formula nearly executed to damn perfection, and outside of Landsmeet failing to meet its expectations, as well as companion quests being a sore letdown, the brilliantly thought through world, its varied and well-written cast of different characters from all sorts of backgrounds and moral and ethical compases, to the strong opening and satisfying finale, I strongly feel it's a definite triumph of theirs and likely the best game they made.
Fun fact, the name of the game's world, Thedas, is actually an acronym (THE Dragon Age Setting). They couldn't think of anything better sounding, so just left it as is.
>>3071178That's actually quite cool, is that from an interview they gave or?
>>3067424I didn't particularly like the combat, story overall didn't grip me much too, but it had some moments that put it above a lot of other games. Just make sure to uninstall nudityt/sex mods before doing Return to Ostagar.
Maybe I'll fire up my years-old save sometime soon. I finished it once when the game came out but I never completed my second playthrough or completed the Awakening DLC.
Shale is great.
I'm stuck on the corrupted spider queen boss, what can I do?
>>3071236there are sex mods?
>>3071864There are SO MANY sex mods.
>>3071809Stab her until she dies. It really helps if you have Wynne with you. Or some other healer.
>>3071864DAO has one of the best looking nude mods.https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/554
>>3071110>Was it the last hurrah, though?Yes. I don't see new games following those design principles as a package for now. BG3 is allegedly going to be one, we'll have to wait and see.Having the same design at the core doesn't mean something has to be limited to a safe rehash. And yeah, just switching from being a D&D-adaptation alone is obviously going to introduce a lot of change by itself. But the way characters and interaction with them work, the way exploration works, the ways quests can be resolved and how that affects the game world, and all the other now characteristic features are largely the same. The game was even criticised for being too featureless and "safe" due to being so easily recognizable for its core aspects by those who do not understand the difference. And perhaps also by those for whom greater changes are necessary due to how experienced they are with RPGs in general, likely including TT.
>>3071178>They couldn't think of anything better sounding, so just left it as is.It was a "working title" for the setting made up by fans on the forums (or that "social" abomination the forums were turned into by then, rather) for some time, and developers have eventually just went with it for a number of reasons. One of them being something of a respectful nod to the community. You can tell how DA:O is a game belonging to an old era in how the devs hating their players wasn't yet the norm.
even though the story was kind of simple i liked the way it was set up with you having to go around the world getting help against the blight. it made the introduction to the world feel natural and not shoved in your face
Does BioWare push you to sleep with Morrigan and opt for the loophole? I went for the sacrifice ending, but playing the DLC, wish I didn't. Guess a human playthrough is next.
>one of the best video game openings overall, not just when talking RPG titles, it has well-written, layered companionsI played for like an hour and got bored to tears by the dialogue. I literally couldn't give a fuck about anything anyone was saying, including the player character.
>>3071757I love Day 1 DLC exclusive companions!I didn't like Origins when I played it on the 360. Didn't like Mass Effect either. Jade Empire and KOTOR had a quaint charm to them. But Ass Effect and Dragon Age just felt like they sucked even when I played them new. The graphics are bad, the combat is serviceable at best, and the story telling keeps trying to do "We aren't your dad's RPG! We're mature and cool! Look how subversive we are!" but then falls right back into typical genre clichés. I wouldn't have had an issue with it if they weren't paraded around like AAA titles. They felt like B titles on AA budgets.
>>3072613You just need to be male to give Morrigan the baby. Not even a romance is necessary although it is encouraged for a specific ending in Witch Hunt that had bugged flags anyway.
>>3072695mass effect is one of the greatest games of all time. I recommend you read the novel 'Mess Effect' to understand
>>3072695>I played it on the 360
>>3073152not that anon but you're trying too hard to fit in
>>3072905If the PC is female she offers to have Alistair knock her up.
>>3073517And Loghain but the anon figured he couldn't fuck her as say, an elf or dwarf.Only Alistair has a racial restriction and it's on progression of the romance after a specific choice.
>>3067424Almost Nothing went right with origins the campaign is a slog, everythong feels like it takes too long or is tedious. At least the companions and their banter were enjoyable
>>3072613It's infuriating becausae that choice should have HORRIBLE ramifications. Morrigan has been shown to be evil at every turn and keeping the soul of an Archdemon should be beyond dangerous, even if she had some character development and stopped being a two dimensional evil witch, Kieran himself should have gone full CorypheousBUt no, instead nothing matters. Becasuse as always, incels LOVE when their fictional vidya characters don't die, and we can't have them not dying at the cost of bad thigns happen, do we??
>>3073152What if I told you that the 360 came out 18 years ago?
>>3073745>Morrigan has been shown to be evil at every turnShe's not evil, but not stereotypically good like Wynne, either. She was raised differently and values different things, especially in regards to her stances on being a mage and how The Chantry and the Templars have been treating them, also how the common folk fear them and label them apostates and maleficari. Besides, I would actually call her naive and/or manipulated by Flemmeth in her goal to birth the Old God and temper with things way beyond her. If the Witch Hunt DLC is any indication, she learned more on her journey after leaving you, but you are right that her choice has terrible ramification for the world, which also makes a lot more interesting with what will go on in the following two games. Though I suppose you can't blame the fans for that, it's mainly the fault of BioWare forcing upon you a specific story progression, instead of making it more transparent and resolving it in a more clever way.
>>3073947Morrigan was le mysterious woman trope and they had 0 idea where they were going with her story, hence all the blueballing all the way until her appearance in Inquisition that finally answered some of the questions.
>>3073949>le mysterious woman tropeNot really, no. She was supposed to provide the contrast to The Chantry mages, if anything.
>>3073947She flat out encourages you to kill the mages in the circle only because they are weak for accepting their imprisonment in the circle tower. She is pretty immoral in the game.
>>3073947>She's not evil,I'm so tired of this cope. She approves and laughs if you kill Connor, she wants you to kill every mage in the circle "for being weak", children included. She approves and laughs if you let the little girl in Shale quest be posessed by a demon. She wants you to let the whole Redcliff village to die for "being weak".She's evil. You masturbating to her doesn't make her any less evil. Stop pretending she's some "morally complex character" or something and fuck off. Literally the whole cast calls her out on being an evil mean bitch. Grow the fuck up and quit defending fictional videogame women because you masturbate to them. Incel.
>>3073984I am not defending her because I'm lusting for her, simply because she is a well-written, complex character. Yell at someone else with this "wamen this, wamen that" schtick, dumbass. >>3073979At that point, she is still under Flemmeth's influence to a considerable degree, but she opens to you during your travels and there is more to her than that. She does slowly change across your journeys and when you meet her in other games, but she is quite amoral, I'll give you that.
>>3073989>simply because she is a well-written, complex character.Pathetic. She's not gonna come out of the screen to have sex with you, kys incel.
>>3073991>continues strawmaning
>>3070716Any idea where I can find the thirst mod? the nexus page has been scrubbed
>>3071236Wait, you don't like seeing Cailan's sword displayed to the entire world? Return to Ostagar is so disappointing without the mods.
>>3073991does this same logic apply to you when you exclusively play games with gay romances fartquad
>>3073517Its genuinely quite funny that Morrigan even goes to the warden about it in the first place if they're a girl, rather than directly to Alistair or Loghain. Its like she knew she'd need you to negotiate for her.
>>3071890>>3071924I meant something similar to skyrim where you can fuck any npc you want whenever you want
>>3073984The clergy does the same to anyone who maybe could be praising their female jebus in a wrong way or has the audacity to be born with magic talents.Morrigan is not evil just as the church in dao is not good. She is simply the anti church character and in a setting that is generally unforgivingly cruel to anyone so she logically has no trouble with weaklings getting fucked over. The only other humans she ever met worked after the same principle as she does. If you are weak, you die. The two goody two shoes clergy characters instantly murder you when you touch their relic in the wrong way, without any real implications stemming from that action. They just dislike that you dishonor their female jebus and decide to murder you, the one guy who could possibly save the whole fucking country and probably even has been a dear friend along the way and they dont think twice about their religious zeal because you sullied their ground jebus-fertilizer, you have to die. Btw the cocksleeve goody two shoes was a murdering spy before comming to the church because her murder-spying got her into trouble and has absolutely no trouble with elven slavery and even blatantly talks about elven slaves having a good life and telling the PC (if elf) to not be such a fagoot about it. The gilf goody two shoes travels the one nation that still allows slavery after the main plot and has zero problems with it, is even impressed by the nice things the slaves build. I wont even start with the whole dwarven caste system thing going on and literally every character in your group being absolutely fine with it or the elven quarters in Denerim. The only thing that distinguishes her from all the other characters is that her flavor of "immoral" is not focused on those groups of weak indivudals that are deemed ok to exploit an kill by society. The setting is meant to be le grimdark everyone is ethically ambigious.
>>3074301>setting is unforgivingly crueli never bought this. the game fails this kind of thing. in terms of gameplay i never felt any of that. and my character was a pure shining light that made everything he interacted with better with no hard choices or bad consequences
>>3074303This, DA:O at least is a game where you can easily play the goody two shoes and face no trouble or bad consequences for being morally upstanding (at least as long as you can pass speech checks)
>>3074304Even if you don't pass speech checks its not that bad.
This feels like the general Dragon Age thread so can I just say that my biggest problem with the series (and especially Inquisition) is how the Maker/Black City are criminally underused?It felt like there was an entire final chapter cut from Inquisition in which you actually visit the place, Morrigan even will literally directly ask you if you want to use the place to seize power late in the game and then that entire conversation goes poof.
>>3074303Sadly they decided to make everything around you living hell for 99% of the NPC's but the PC can with no problems play a good Fable TLC character because the non NPC choices are all black/white. Even the fucking assasination contracts from the super evil hitman guild from fuckmorale country are all someone who "deserves" it (from the view of babbies first american ethics). I think the only thing that you will fuck up for others no matter what is the dwarven civil war thing. You either damn all the pariahs to continue their shitty existence which they arent even responsible for or you make a mafia boss the new king.But the game wont give you shit for that even though it definetly should. Just as it should monkey paw your ass massively for the Morrigan loophole that has indeed 0 consequences even though you are fooling around with ancient dark blood magic shit the power hungry witch sets up for you. Same with setting demons free etc. I would argue that you could possibly choose the most evil option all the time and all you would get would be maybe some neutral sounding epilogue parts.
>>3074301>The clergy does the same to anyoneAnd? How does that affect Morrigan's characterization? Chantry is written really fucking dumb, because muh metaphor of the status quo, but Morrigan is written as smart, even if a bit naively nihilistic in early DAO. She doesn't have the excuse of profound mental retardation. >she logically has no trouble with weaklings getting fucked overNah, she actively tries to push everyone into fucking people she doesn't like over, even when it's not pragmatic at all. She is, in many ways, cartoonishly evil - largely because devs wanted some diversity of companion reactions to choices they present, and someone had to fill the role of giving approval for murdering kids. >The two goody two shoes clergy characters instantly murder you when you touch their relic in the wrong way, without any real implications stemming from that action.The Urn of Sacred Ashes being just "jebus fertilizer" is at odds with us questing for it - it's role in the plot dictates that regardless of it's nature it is, in fact, a powerful curative, and the question of desecration is one of allowing others to use it for good (healing being a thematic expression of unquestionable human well-doing), or fuck it over for the sake of personal gain. >Btw the cocksleeve goody two shoes Leliana is canonically a legit psychopath, everyone knows that. So?What is it with Bioware waifufags that they react to every bit of criticism towards their beloved with "WELL YOUR WAIFU IS WORSE"? Are they still incapable of even imagining that there are people who played DA games, enjoyed it to various degrees, and still see many pieces of characterization within them as flawed?
>>3074320Yeah its a bit odd, the black city being absent is especially weird with all the focus on the fade in inquisition.Though I'm pretty sure one of the writers outright said that they would never want to actually reveal whether the maker was real or not, so regardless of any sequel focuses, I figure the maker in general is going to remain super fucking vague.
>>3074301>The setting is meant to be le grimdark everyone is ethically ambigious.Those parts are unironically the weakest elements of setting and the story - because the writers rarely manage to create situations of genuine moral ambiguity, and more often they end up with>This guy is... LE BAD, but he is lebad because he is... LE SAD!>Now this other guy is... ALSO LE BAD, but in a different way, and also because he is... LE SAD!>Now, pick which of the two sorry sad assholes are you going to murder, and we will show you one of two PowerPoint slides describing the bad things that follow from your choice - a few very good people dying quickly, or a lot of average people dying over a long period of time. Moral ambiguity is not a product of creating a dilemma with multiple morally disturbing outcomes. It comes from situations and issues that make any morality that we could hold on to dubious and inapplicable, pulling the rug of reliable assumptions from under our feet and forcing us to cobble together some new ethos out of sticks and duct tape on the spot. DA rarely manages that, most of it's several layers of muh trolley problem at best and good boy points vs irrelevant minor stat boost at worst.
>Zevran joins you in Denerim>his buddy shows up>he tries to kill you once moreNice>>3074434>Those parts are unironically the weakest elements of setting and the storyYet it remains as one of the best thinks about Origins.
>>3074301> Religion is bad> Morrigan is not evil despite laughing when children dies and encouraging the protagonist to murder childrenThat's it. I'm not engaging with you freaks anymore. You're seriously sick in the head. So adicted to porn, lonely fucking incels, that you see an evil fictional videogame character and you immediatly start defending them and making headcanons of how she's totally not evil
good, you will finally fuck off back to redit
Inquisition is so hard to play after replaying Origins, why did they decide for such an approach?
>>3074933Why didn't you become friends with the assassin??
>>3067426>action game
>>3075171I got him gifts and talked with him here and there, didn't think this was going to happen, but it's kinda cool for a game to have such a feature. I mostly bothered with Sten, Shale, Alistar, Wynne and Lelilanna.
