Dragon Age Dragon Age: Origins is ten years old today

[Vorark]

Let's not forget Bioware had to patch the game because people considered it too hard.

Patch 1.01a
* fixed potential corruption of character statistics
* fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
* fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
* made Easy difficulty easier
* slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
* fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays

 

[Martyr]

oh god, Dragon Age.

I was so damn hyped for that game, as it was heralded as the "true successor to Baldur's Gate" in every german gaming magazine back then. then it got released and I played through the entire game 6 times in a row. nothing else in between, no second game on the side, just Dragon Age day and night.
even in my first playthrough I disliked the Fade, the Deep Roads and the Broodmother. with each new playthrough the negative feelings got stronger and at the end of my 6th playthrough I had full blown PTSD.
since then I've tried 3 more times to replay this game but in the meantime I came to realise that I still remember most of the dialogue, areas and plot, so I had no incentive to complete DA for a seventh time.
but for the game's 10th anniversary this year I've actually got in on my list for yet another playthrough. I'll have to see if I am able to stomach the Fade and the Deep Roads again.

edit: also funny to see that disliking the Fade and the Deep Roads was so common that it has turned into a meme in the meantime. I always thought that I'd be in the minority with my opinion, because nobody else that I knew complained about those areas.

 

[Lilura]

I remember they nerfed Cone of Cold, but it still remains one of the most powerful spells in the game.

 

[Frozen]

This is second best BioWare game after Mass Effect 2

Problem is they at the time marketed it as "spiritual successor to BG etc." BS and its not.

Gameplay wise its far superior than BG cancer gameplay and kid friendly plot & characters are a bit (but not much) better.

Its also less linear then BG at least in the beginning and later creates illusion of uniqueness with clever small tweaks based on your origin story.

Unfortunately after this EA took over and we got first trash BioWare game in SJW infested DA:2

Rest is history, RIP BioWare.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Wile I admit this game was not as pozzed as future Biowhore games it was still trash. Generic fantasy world, trash mobs, retarded lore, limited spell selection, a "gift" system for NPCs, the deep roads, and do you people not remember when the girl started singing in camp? Also you spend half the game trying to get to the "major" city and when you get there its 2 zones and some reused random encounter maps. Jesus.

 

[Jack]

and do you people not remember when the girl started singing in camp?

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

It's a shame this game never had a sequel or anything, had a lot of potential as a franchise...

 

[TheChickenKing]

I thought most of the game was fine. Decent combat, okay quests, didn't hate the story or the characters even if they weren't exactly even close to being original. What really got to me was the sheer volume of combat, and how it was balanced. Since health/stamina/mana came back for free between combat, every fight was balanced to be a minor threat (at a minimum). And then those fights happened every two feet. Getting anywhere instantly turned into this miserable slog through wave after wave of enemies.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Funny, I almost remember nothing of DA:O. Great job, David Gaider.

BG2, Kotor and ME1 were the only truly memorable games that Bioware ever created.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

I only remember 2 things from DA:O:

1. Way too much fucking combat.
2. Morrigan's tits.

 

[Jimmious]

I had a good time with DA:O as far as I recall. But most importantly, it felt like a solid start for a series.
I was SURE that if they improved on some aspects for DA2 it would be a really good game.
But they fucked it up so badly, it's almost sad

 

[Alpan]

I can tolerate Electron's sluggishness because of strategy mode cam, which is way better than Eclipse cam.

I severely disagree with you on this one. The NWN2 camera was horribly unintuitive and non-user friendly regardless of what cam mode you were using, which is a problem the DAO camera doesn't have. I think most people would agree with me on this.

I am not one given to thinking that Lilura's more radical statements can be... contained, but she's right here. Electron's camera is quite usable, it's only slightly hamstrung by a low maximum zoom-out limit (unless you start movement from very high ground).

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I remember I liked DA:O among other things for the atmosphere, when they were still commited to that grimdark setting. From the violence, to the dark color palette and the melancholy music it all seemed pretty tonally consistent. DA2 had a lot of flaws but it wasn't half bad in that regard either and eventually you get around playing DA:I and you find yourself talking with a sassy elf lesbian, and a big bad meaty hunk called Bull who is also gay and some kind of ghost with a ridiculous hat and you wonder what the fuck you are playing and how you even got here.

I think people do the series a bit of disservice when they equalize the whole series. DA:O was pretty alright.

DA went downhill almost exactly like ME did. Probably due to increasing EA influence and bleeding talent.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's good for learning a new language, especially the voiced ones (German, French, ...Polish I guess) after you've exhausted the classics which are translated. Hmm, what else. The origins and the reactivity were cool. The combat wasn't absolutely terrible and the specializations made for good rewards for exploration. Shale was fun. It was alright basically. I wouldn't say it's a classic, more like a historical curiosity that won't make you slit your wrists while playing it.

 

[jf8350143]

I actually like deep road better than the rest of the area because of the atmosphere. Maybe it's because my love for exploring underground world. And it actually has some unique lore to explore instead of generic werewolf and zombies.

The combat encounter is pretty shit for the most part, but that can be said about every map in the game.

 

[Mark Richard]

The prison break was cool - over 40 minutes of optional cutscenes where varying combinations of party members try to bluff their way inside. I also dug the spell combinations, the origin stories, and the voice actors. Who wouldn't want Master Splinter as their mentor?

Shame getting to the good bits required wading through hours of drudgery. Many of the game's locations like the Circle Tower and Deep Roads wore out their welcome very quickly because of the frequency of combat and the encounter design. The lore is so generic that it makes Raymond E. Feist's work seem like an adrenaline shot by comparison. The grimdark aesthetic is draining. I just can't imagine mustering the energy to replay DA: Origins again considering the game was far from the greatest fantasy RPG within Bioware's own library, let alone the industry at large.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Wtf, I ear this theme and I feel nostalgia. I remember when this game released like it was yesterday. Time flies man.

 

[markec]

Bought it day 1 due glowing preview on Gamebanshee that claimed its a worthy successor of BG series.

After playing it I stopped reading that site.

 

[JDR13]

This is second best BioWare game after Mass Effect 2

Only for people who didn't start playing Bioware games until DA and ME.

 

[Frozen]

Only for people that think BG is some sort of gold apex of RPGs and not terrible mechanic wrapped around a kids friendly story.

I said it a million times

DA:O gameplay >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BG cancer RtWP

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

I remember doing a marathon of Origins with DLC's and right after that jumping to Awakening. There were some interesting C&C, dialogues and lore but due the massive amount of combat I don't intend to replay it in the near future. Also the options that you could take near the end were really nice addition and I replayed this segment to see the possible outcomes.

 

[Absinthe]

Its toolset never took off either. Not like Aurora, anyway. The toolset was dumbed down from Obsidian's Electron. It was nowhere near as powerful. Modding scene sucked, though there were some good tactics mods eventually released.

People tried but gave up because everything was more labor-intensive in DAO, plus the toolset's lightmapper was far worse than whatever DAO used and made everything look like shit, and the cutscene system is designed in a way where it's painfully awkward not to have voiced lines. So you took twice as long to create something that looked like shit in an engine that was mostly shit. So the modders went back to NWN.

Sea did a decent job making a custom campaign but he also burned a lot of time into it and went out of his way to meticulously plant custom lightsources everywhere to compensate for the shitty lightmapper.
Thread: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/wip-thirst-a-dragon-age-mod-focused-on-c-c.59037/
Campaign: https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/3496/

 

[Jedi Exile]

Never liked this game, to be honest. I understand why it became quite popular on the Codex - it had much better systems than say Mass Effect, and it really felt like a leftover from a different age, from BG era. Still, combat was terrible (I never liked RTwP) and story and dialogue even worse. I remember trying to get into it, I thought maybe I am just a bad player or the game hasn't shown it true potential yet. But when I encountered that unfortunate dwarf lady in the tunnels, I decided that enough is enough. BioWare just don't have the taste. Say what you want about Mass Effect series, but they still felt more decent to me.

 

[Tyranicon]

My one comment is why in the hell BioWare kept those paddle shaped swords and thick weapons in general. When you swords look like nerf props, you've got problems.

 

[Nines_Anarch]

Dragon Age Origins is one of my favorite videogames of all time.
Inon Zur did a great job with the soundtrack too.

Remember Lothering battle theme?



Yeah. Most epic song ever and it was used as a fight theme against some refugees.

I feel nostalgic everytime I listen to this song in Awakening expansion:



The good old days...

Even the Leliana DLC had some of the best music I've ever seen not only in a videogame but any medium:



RIP Bioware. It is a sad day for every Dragon Age fan after seeing all the wrong things they have done to this franchise. But Origins will remain as a masterpiece no matter how many years pass or how many haters still deny the fact that DA Origins stays on the top of the best RPGs to this day.

Such a waste of potential.