Dragon Age Dragon Age: Origins is ten years old today

[Poseidon00]

Dragon Age Origins was one of the last RPG series I really got invested in. I tolerated the terrible sequel and the even worse one after that just to see what happened with my original Warden and the effects of my choices. Mass Effect did all of that better, and then they dropped the concept entirely and we never see it again. Even for its time the combat was only passable, but we were so starved for good RPGs (and still are) I could overlook it for a couple playthroughs.

 

[Socur Toxanarosa]

Demon's Souls came out the same year. I guess you would of had to play that first to see there's absolutely nothing special about this game. If you didn't play Demon's Souls then yeah I'm sure this felt like a masterpiece at the time compared to all the other shit. Pretty sure I didn't play this until a couple years after it released. I just remember the world feeling extremely empty and dull and the combat was a chore. I think I made it to that dwarven mining place or whatever it was and gave up shortly after that.

Preach. Demon's Souls made playing this generic ass game a very difficult endeavor.

 

[Stella Brando]

Dragon Age was to Baldur's Gate what Oblivion was to Daggerfall. It may have appealed to a wider audience and brought in more players, but it didn't actually improve anything. Even the graphics were only better in a technical way, there was no artistic vision behind them. My friend who I don't think had played an RPG before (and wanted to get into WoW) enjoyed it.

Since growing up, I've gone back and played the Baldur's Gate series several times, but I don't think I'll ever have a reason to go back to Dragon Age. Baldur's Gate somehow makes you connect to your character*, while in Dragon Age you're just another factory line Warrior, Thief or Wizard.

*Probably from letting you design exactly the character you want, having interesting plotting, and putting you in a lot of danger early on.

 

[Dramart]

Stella Brando Dragon Age makes you connect to your character too. Also you can design you character as you want and you're in danger at the start of the game.

 

[Stella Brando]

Well, for whatever reason it was, (I'm not sure I can put my finger on it) I connected to my Baldur's Gate characters, but can't remember who I was in Dragon Age.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

It at least had some good gameplay.

 

[cvv]

In case you missed this, Mark Darrah is talking about his shit at Bioware. Kinda nerdy but teaches you a lot about gamedev and the DA games specifically.



Has similar video about DA2 but I can't be arsed to link. It's easy to find.

 

[Late Bloomer]

David Gaider wants a remake.

All I want is for Morrigan to not have the shoulders of a linebacker and for the sex scenes to not look like someone bashing marionettes together and shouting now kiss!

https://www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-origins-remake-david-gaider/

 

[Lacrymas]

And people in hell want ice water. Not that there aren't a bunch of things that could be improved in DA:O, but they'll make it a button awesome game and me no like.

 

[NecroLord]

What the hell does that even mean? Does this person even like RPGs?

i bet she doesnt know what's RPG

"Empowering".....

 

[Roguey]

All I want is for Morrigan to not have the shoulders of a linebacker

Gaider body-shaming, tsk.

 

[Sykar]

Only good thing about Dragon Age are the memes:

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

A director who thinks their job is to be a steward for the teams vision, as opposed to having their own vision, seems like a good way for a game to spend years spinning its wheels in development not really going anywhere.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

DAO should be remastered to include Smell, which was an ability included in the tabletop rpg they made based off the crpg. Unironically, it's a mechanic that actually had uses in combat, and it would be much more urgent to add considering one of your companions is a dog. But it would also mean you'd be able to get the full experience of Morrigan's swampy... female privates smell.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Even the company logo has declined.

Old

New

 

[KainenMorden]

Were the graphics really that bad at the time? What similar games were better? Honestly asking, fell out of gaming for a long time around the period Origins came out.

 

[Bad Sector]

The graphics were fine, you kill stuff, you see animations of them dying.

The only weird thing i remember about its graphics is that their baked ambient occlusion was done in a sloppy way where everything had thick black outlines - it looked fine in indoor areas but having these black lines in surfaces that are in direct sunlight looked bad. This isn't how ambient light works at all.

A bigger issue with the game's visuals is that the UI doesn't scale and even at 1080p the text looks too small. I'd attribute it to engine limitation (which is a stupid thing anyway as this was their own engine that they could fix) but Jade Empire was on the same engine previously and didn't have that problem.

 

[Tyranicon]

Were the graphics really that bad at the time? What similar games were better? Honestly asking, fell out of gaming for a long time around the period Origins came out.

Yeah they were pretty bad, but RPGs usually get a pass. More linear games (espeically ones with bigger budgets) are always going to look better.

It doesn't help that 2009 was when good video games were still being made, and studios were still pushing the graphical envelope.

All came out around 2009

Resident Evil 5

Uncharted 2:

DA:O (Awakening?)

 

[Camel]

DA:O (Awakening?)

Yeah. MC is with a meme companion you lose almost immediately. Biofeminists were upset it was a female companion who gets quickly killed off.
DA:O has a problem with brown dominating almost every landscape.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Dragon Age Origins graphics had a certain charm to them. Maybe its nostalgia talking a bit but I replay the game every now and again and it looks fine. Certainly a lot better than that selected picture above meant to make it look as bad as it can.

 

[Camel]

Dragon Age Origins graphics had a certain charm to them. Maybe its nostalgia talking a bit but I replay the game every now and again and it looks fine. Certainly a lot better than that selected picture above meant to make it look as bad as it can.

It’s a scene during the night too.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Half the props in DA:O just look way too chunky compared to the character models. Just look at that fence for instance, those posts could hold up a dock. Thick as a torso.
Fable came out 5 years earlier and looked nearly as good, even though it went for an exaggerated cartoon look. Amazing what a cheerful color palette can do.

Spoiler

 

[Roguey]

Were the graphics really that bad at the time? What similar games were better? Honestly asking, fell out of gaming for a long time around the period Origins came out.

The problem was with their garish art style choices. Dragon Age II looked even more garish in an attempt to look "better."

DA:O's contemporaries were Neverwinter Nights 2, Oblivion, Mass Effect, The Witcher, Fallout 3, and Risen. Of all those, I'd say only The Witcher is the clear winner art-style-wise. Bioware's own Mass Effect 2, released a few months later, did blow it away but that was on Unreal Engine, a sequel, started development much later (Obsidian's Alpha Protocol, released a few months later, looked like crap by comparison despite also using UE on account of starting development earlier).

 

[aloeh]

The game was ugly for his time, but the role-playing was good for his time. Maybe even nowadays.

All I know is I'm still in love with Morrigan. The dlc to find her is crap.

When I saw her in inquisition my jaw dropped.

Maybe play again in future, need to buy in some gog promotion.

 

[Tyranicon]

Dragon Age Origins graphics had a certain charm to them. Maybe its nostalgia talking a bit but I replay the game every now and again and it looks fine. Certainly a lot better than that selected picture above meant to make it look as bad as it can.

It’s a scene during the night too.

I don't mind making my argument better with shitty screengrabs, but I'm really lazy and the one I used is literally first page of google images for "Dragon Age Origins."

Which is even more hilarious since it was from Awakening. I wonder how it got indexed so high?