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Dragon Age Dragon Age: Origins is ten years old today

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
Some of the decisions were fucking ridiculous: Let's see do I want Elven ponces for my army or Werewolves? Pretty bloody obvious.
That's the pragmatic decision, but curing the wolves is the good decision. :)
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
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Some of the decisions were fucking ridiculous: Let's see do I want Elven ponces for my army or Werewolves? Pretty bloody obvious.
I agree,always pick the range advantage over the a pack of mutts. Especially when you add that darkspawns have poisonous blood,one bite from the mutts and they are gone,quite useless indeed.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Not only because the number of enemies (they were a little too much) but because they were very samey.

True. I actually like the idea of going up against a certain species of monster for a long period of a campaign. It allows one to become intimately familiar with their ranks, varieties and behaviors. And it allows one to feel the power-progression of the build, if consistently applied. The problem in DA:O was that there weren't enough ranks, varieties and behaviors, and they weren't consistently applied.

This one?

That's the one. Thanks.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Say something nice about DA:O.
It has one of my favorite armor designs in gaming, obtainable by the player character no less.
iu

Tell you what I liked about that armour set in particular. Not only did it look the part, but the way it was built up & way in which you encountered it you genuinely felt the history behind it too.

Great stuff.
 

Mark Richard

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2016
Messages
1,192
Say something nice about DA:O.

It has one of my favorite armor designs in gaming, obtainable by the player character no less.
iu
I was always a bit leery about wearing the attire of groups I wasn't a member of. Realistically, someone might take exception to that. Imagine there was a standard-issue Grey Warden uniform and some random asshole gets ahold of one (by looting your dead comrades no less). Thousands died for this uniform and what it represents, yet he parades it around like a Halloween costume. He didn't go through the ritual, didn't make the sacrifices, and if people mistake him for a Grey Warden then his actions may go so far as to affect the public image of your organisation.

Yeah I know, I'm thinking too much. The coolness factor trumps all. My reservations would just melt away when faced with the Desert Ranger uniform from Fallout: New Vegas.
 

SpaceWizardz

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 28, 2018
Messages
1,050
I was always a bit leery about wearing the attire of groups I wasn't a member. Realistically, someone might take exception to that. Imagine there was a standard-issue Grey Warden uniform and some random asshole gets ahold of one (by looting your dead comrades no less). Thousands died for this uniform and what it represents, yet he parades it around like a halloween costume. He didn't go through the ritual, didn't make the sacrifices, and if people mistake him for a Grey Warden then his actions may go so far as to affect the public image of your organization.
Credit where its due, Andromeda does address this (somewhat) if you wear N7 Armor.
Unfortunately, with it being Andromeda, your character waves it off with a dumbass response.
 
Last edited:

Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,443
I dont care what anyone says, this game was good. except for the boring items & possibly the ugliest armors ever designed by humans

also everyone has weirdly long arms
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Some of the decisions were fucking ridiculous: Let's see do I want Elven ponces for my army or Werewolves? Pretty bloody obvious.
That's the pragmatic decision, but curing the wolves is the good decision. :)
It was the ideal solution, and it was handed on a silver platter. There were three possible solutions there: Elves kill werewolves, werewolves kill elves, and you find a way for everyone to live (except Zathrian). You're directly guided to the last one, so you have to go out of your way for people to end up dead. It's dumb.
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Some of the decisions were fucking ridiculous: Let's see do I want Elven ponces for my army or Werewolves? Pretty bloody obvious.
I agree,always pick the range advantage over the a pack of mutts. Especially when you add that darkspawns have poisonous blood,one bite from the mutts and they are gone,quite useless indeed.

Ranged advantage, this newspeak for running away?
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
Some of the decisions were fucking ridiculous: Let's see do I want Elven ponces for my army or Werewolves? Pretty bloody obvious.
I agree,always pick the range advantage over the a pack of mutts. Especially when you add that darkspawns have poisonous blood,one bite from the mutts and they are gone,quite useless indeed.

Ranged advantage, this newspeak for running away?
Better than tumbling away...the dwarf way.
 

Dishonoredbr

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
2,095
Dragon Age Origins is good , even if i think is quite sometimes boring and play so safe that hurts sometimes.

DA2 is better tho The story is way more interesting
 
Vatnik Wumao
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Messages
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大同
DA2 is better tho The story is way more interesting
The story was decent (particularly the Qunari arc and the character of the Arishok), but the quality of the overall product detracts heavily from its enjoyment (shitty design direction for armor, darkspawn, elves etc; excessive reuse of location assets; over the top combat animations and so on).
 

Dishonoredbr

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
2,095
but the quality of the overall product detracts heavily from its enjoyment (shitty design direction for armor, darkspawn, elves etc; excessive reuse of location assets; over the top combat animations and so on).

All true, i like DA2 better but i can't denied this shit.. But i like the armor design in 2 better than 1 because at least some armors looks good even if a bit too anime (Hawke's armor look sick imo) and at least the animation make the combat more enjoyable imo than the slog of Origins. I played Origins recently and good god, the backstab animation is atrocious and mage looks like 90+ yolds grannies while AA.
 
Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
17,897
Location
大同
but the quality of the overall product detracts heavily from its enjoyment (shitty design direction for armor, darkspawn, elves etc; excessive reuse of location assets; over the top combat animations and so on).

All true, i like DA2 better but i can't denied this shit.. But i like the armor design in 2 better than 1 because at least some armors looks good even if a bit too anime (Hawke's armor look sick imo) and at least the animation make the combat more enjoyable imo than the slog of Origins. I played Origins recently and good god, the backstab animation is atrocious and mage looks like 90+ yolds grannies while AA.
I don't really remember the armors of DA2 that much, but at least in DAI there were literally no good looking armors except the Templar one whose design was locked to the Warrior class and maybe the Warden ones which were mediocre.
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
Good thread. DA:O was one of my first RPGs so I will probably always view it through rose-coloured glasses.

Objectively speaking though, I'd say its strongest points are the C&C and the RTwP combat system w/ companion AI. And the big glaring weakness is -- as many of you have already pointed out -- the awful encounter design / trash mob spam. The rest of the game is uninspired, but still serviceable.

Solo'ing the Archdemon on Nightmare as an Arcane Warrior was a neat experience. With enough Mana Regen gear you could maintain the AW buff stack indefinitely and therefore absorb ridiculous amounts of punishment, but the fight takes a loooonnnggg time since your damage output isn't great. I have always liked the idea of Man vs Beast fights where the hero is somewhat overmatched, but just has to find a way to gut it out.

I haven't played the game in about 7 or 8 years, and never with mods, so I bet it would be worth one last trip down memory lane.
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
The only tolerable way to play the game is as a mage. With a party of two mages, a tank and a rogue. Mages are ridiculously good damage dealers and the possibility to combine spells was great. Using spell combinations was so fun that I actually looked forward to combat encounters (can't say the same for playing as other classes).

Also, magic had some interesting lore, with blood magic, deals with demons, the cursed golden city being visible from everywhere in the Fade and stuff like that. It felt dangerous to be a mage and using blood magic had some negative consequences (while being very powerful).

Playing as a mage is a completely different experience compared to other classes. I feel like the game was designed around mages and the other classes were an afterthought. Also, reading the lore (codex entries) in the camp, with the camp music in the background, was extremely relaxing. The camp had very nice atmosphere, with the music and the dog barking in the background.




Going around the camp and talking to characters was also well done. It was very nice to relax after a long main quest, talk to party members, read the next codex entries...

Dragon Age Origins is among the last games that made me feel like (at least on the first playthrough) I was part of a bigger world, thanks in large part to the illusion of complexity that the origin stories gave.


And finally, I was happy back when DAO came out, so I can count that as a plus.
 

Dishonoredbr

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
2,095
Playing as a mage is a completely different experience compared to other classes. I feel like the game was designed around mages and the other classes were an afterthought.

I played with Mage last time and there's way more options and actually interesting options playing as Mage. Rogue still quite interesting because you can backstab and stealth but Warrior is so boring that's painful.

Mage have Arcane Warrior , Blood mage , Shapeshift , Elemental , etcs. The skills are actually fun and feels like you've much more impact than Shield bash.. Taunt.. Useless Triple attack. Just seeing Alistar Skill tree make me want to sleep.
 

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