Dragon Age Dragon Age: Origins is ten years old today

[Old Hans]

I hate to toot my own horn, but ive beat dragon age origins at least 3 times. I'm kind of a big deal around here.

 

[Camel]

The issue with awakening was that it wasn't as good quality-wise as origins

It's still pretty good and one of the last expansion packs which were sadly replaced by DLCs. No annoying companions unlike in other games. The Darkspawn became sentient and had free will for the last time in the franchise and it's a pity the plot with them went nowhere. Warriors and rogues got new powerful abilities.

 

[NecroLord]

Having only anora as queen does present a problem in that she’s infertile

Wait really?
Then how will Alistair get to have heirs if he becomes the king and marries her (if you choose to pursue this option in the game)?
I'm thinking bastard children or maybe a different noble princess maybe?

Bastard children or remarrying, which was what king cailan was considering (with the empress of orlais no less).

You find this out in some letters in the return to ostagar dlc.

A marriage with the empress of Orlais would be fairly good for both Ferelden and Orlais and the relations between the two.
Yes, there was always a high degree of animosity between the two states and their people, but such a union would prove pragmatic and beneficial.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

jaekl Dang. You lost even more NPCs than I did on my first run. Impressive. My only difference was that I didn't lose Leliana for whatever reason, and I picked Alistair over Loghain. While I thought DA:O was just OK, I will definitely give it credit for how much NPC C&C there is.

 

[jaekl]

No annoying companions unlike in other games.

No annoying companions... NO ANNOYING COMPANIONS?!

The mage guy!! You wander into him flamethrowing a group of darkspawn wearing a woman's dress and earrings and he's like "Oh did I do that?? " I'm surprised there was no laugh track.

If you tell him to fuck off, he later forces himself (which counts as a rape imo) on your party and when you ask him why he didn't fuck off as requested, he essentially shrugs and winks at the camera.

Forcing a character into your party is a manipulation tactic bad game writers use to make you develop something similar to Stockholm syndrome. They try to trick you into liking him through forced exposure. You may start to think "well maybe he's not so bad, a mage is useful..." Not me, I demand a good first impression.

Then before you turn him in to be hanged as he deserves for his despicable personality, he goes like "Capture me? How boring... You know I'll just escape again ;P~" I was screaming KILL HIM at the computer screen.

 

[Mauman]

Having only anora as queen does present a problem in that she’s infertile

Wait really?
Then how will Alistair get to have heirs if he becomes the king and marries her (if you choose to pursue this option in the game)?
I'm thinking bastard children or maybe a different noble princess maybe?

Bastard children or remarrying, which was what king cailan was considering (with the empress of orlais no less).

You find this out in some letters in the return to ostagar dlc.

A marriage with the empress of Orlais would be fairly good for both Ferelden and Orlais and the relations between the two.
Yes, there was always a high degree of animosity between the two states and their people, but such a union would prove pragmatic and beneficial.

Considering what we find out about the Empress and the Orleisian court in general (especially in Inquisition), I'm pretty sure Loghain is right that a so-called "union" between the two was just a backdoor attempt at taking over again.

 

[NecroLord]

Having only anora as queen does present a problem in that she’s infertile

Wait really?
Then how will Alistair get to have heirs if he becomes the king and marries her (if you choose to pursue this option in the game)?
I'm thinking bastard children or maybe a different noble princess maybe?

Bastard children or remarrying, which was what king cailan was considering (with the empress of orlais no less).

You find this out in some letters in the return to ostagar dlc.

A marriage with the empress of Orlais would be fairly good for both Ferelden and Orlais and the relations between the two.
Yes, there was always a high degree of animosity between the two states and their people, but such a union would prove pragmatic and beneficial.

Considering what we find out about the Empress and the Orleisian court in general (especially in Inquisition), I'm pretty sure Loghain is right that a so-called "union" between the two was just a backdoor attempt at taking over again.

Orleisian Empress will be tamed by Alistair ferelden dick.

 

[anvi]

I don't like any of the characters, except Morrigan for hotness sake. Leliana sounds stupid, I don't know if it is voiced by a real French person or not but either way it sounds fake. Alistair is such a Reddit character. He isn't funny and he reminds me of that dark phony place. Also the upbeat jokey tone didn't suit what was going on in the game. It was poorly done, it's not just that I hate him. And then Wynn... I hate her the most. Fucking old headmistress librarian. How many miles down the list of ideal companions did they run before reaching that? Holy shit.

That's about all I know about the matter. I think there was a Dwarf cliche thrown in there too, Scottish accent and everything. I hate it so much but I ended up taking him because at least it's better than Alistair.

 

[NecroLord]

I don't like any of the characters, except Morrigan for hotness sake. Leliana sounds stupid, I don't know if it is voiced by a real French person or not but either way it sounds fake. Alistair is such a Reddit character. He isn't funny and he reminds me of that dark phony place. Also the upbeat jokey tone didn't suit what was going on in the game. It was poorly done, it's not just that I hate him. And then Wynn... I hate her the most. Fucking old headmistress librarian. How many miles down the list of ideal companions did they run before reaching that? Holy shit.

That's about all I know about the matter. I think there was a Dwarf cliche thrown in there too, Scottish accent and everything. I hate it so much but I ended up taking him because at least it's better than Alistair.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1998212/

She also has a slight lisp.

 

[Baron Dupek]

 

[Morgoth]

Dragon Age: Origins lead writer says Shale was saved partly by his real-life burning hatred for pigeon poop: 'I wrote like the angry, angry wind'​

By Harvey Randall
published 45 minutes ago

"I hated those pigeons SO SO MUCH".

One of my favourite companions in Dragon Age: Origins is Shale. She's a deadpan, dry-voiced golem with a hatred for pigeons that does credit to her dwarven, grudge-bearing heritage. She was also a day-one DLC character but, while discussing her, series creator and lead writer David Gaider reveals that was mostly due to a lack of time, and the fact she was downright impossible to write.

During a recent saga of Bluesky threads shared by the writer on the series' many companions, Gaider reveals that Shale was initially the darling of a BioWare writer who wanted to bring her stony-ness to life: "Shale was initially taken on by Jay Turner, then one of our junior writers," Gaider explains. "Jay had an idea to make Shale more of a robot, an emotionless automaton killer... think HK-47, but without the layer of sarcasm. I was leery, and told Jay he'd have to be very careful. 'Emotionless' can very quickly turn into 'boring', after all, unless you're VERY careful. But Jay was determined."

Things, unfortunately, didn't go so great—and Gaider regards his decision to let Turner jump into the deep end as a mistake: "There's been a couple of times in my career when I've let a junior convince me with their enthusiasm to take on something my experience said they shouldn't. And then watch their confidence crumble despite every effort I made to reassure them it was OK … It felt flat. Jay tried numerous revisions, but the issue wasn't his ability—it was the concept."

The duty to spin up the now-beloved golem into an actual character fell into Gaider's hands. "I recall being a bit bitter about the whole thing," he adds, noting that he'd been moved to a window with a god-awful view he resented. One, importantly, overlooking a HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) unit that pigeons would gather around to escape the cruel winter temperatures. I'm just going to let his rant play out unaltered, because it's a thing of beauty:

"They pooped all over everything—there was this alcove around the access door, right? The pigeons roosted there and it was POOP FAUCET city. Not only that, the pigeons used the HVAC like some kind of sex den. Angry, ugly pigeon sex. The only respite was when a hawk would appear and the pigeons scattered. Then I'd get maybe a day when there was a single pigeon corpse, like an exploded ball of down, to act as a scarecrow. Good days, those."

It is said that adversity is the father of ingenuity—said far less, I'd imagine, is the adage that adversity can sometimes be 'pigeon poop', and the ingenuity can be 'man, I hate pigeon poop so much'. As Gaider writes, "well, there's me, staring out the window trying desperately to think what I'm going to do. But I CAN'T stare out the window because, gross. But what else am I going to stare at while I think? It was making me furious. I hated those pigeons SO SO MUCH.

"And then it hit me: Shale is basically an animated statue, right? Something that pigeons are rather notorious for also gathering on? And so I wrote. I wrote like the angry, angry wind. I had zero time to do this so it was basically me vomiting all my annoyance at everything into a single character."

That wasn't the end of Shale's woes, though. Despite being one of my more fondly-remembered companions, there was plenty of hubbub about her being a day-one DLC. Gaider explains that this was mostly due to other design issues, such as the art team trying to make every door bigger to fit her inside them. "Shale got cut anyhow. There wasn't time to do her abilities and we were short on cinematics time. There was never enough time on DAO."

However, the team figured something out—they'd simply release Shale as a DLC a while after the game's launch, giving everybody more time to figure her out. Then "shenanigans" happened. Gaider writes: "This particular shenanigan was EA deciding to sit on the finished DAO a few months in order to delay the release. Why? Again, not my level … It did mean Shale ended up being ready for release day. Unexpected confluence of events, honestly."

Given the absolute microtransactional nightmares we endure nowadays, I'm willing to forgive that particular trespass—and it's a reminder that game developers rarely get exactly what they want. It's a subject Gaider's written about before, when he painted a picture of a BioWare that "quietly resented" its writers. The fluster of confusion he paints here on the art and organisational level was, admittedly, probably the fault of the writing team, but at the same time, Shale's a hilarious delight. I am quite happy they were given time to cook.

Dodging fast, like the wind....


*woosh*

 

[Camel]

On Alistair, any character DG writes is going to be sarcastic. At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly. DG wanted to see if he could do it, so Alistair was kind of quippy and self-deprecating. DG never really considered this to be Alistair’s main personality feature, but when other writers wrote him, they often had him doing this, as they liked the trait so much, and so this is how Alistair ended up as he did.

https://felassan.tumblr.com/post/63...on-age-development-insights-from-david-gaider

 

[thesecret1]

On Alistair, any character DG writes is going to be sarcastic. At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly. DG wanted to see if he could do it, so Alistair was kind of quippy and self-deprecating. DG never really considered this to be Alistair’s main personality feature, but when other writers wrote him, they often had him doing this, as they liked the trait so much, and so this is how Alistair ended up as he did.

https://felassan.tumblr.com/post/63...on-age-development-insights-from-david-gaider

It was his personal challenge to recreate a massive cuckold, and he had succeeded.

 

[Decado]

According to Steam I have 877.3 hours in Dragon Age Origins. Hrmph.

 

[Decado]

Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I found the Codex because someone from the BioWare forums linked to it, in a discussion about about tank builds on Nightmare or whatever.

Also, apparently I've been at the Codex 14 years, two days ago. Do I get a present?

 

[jackofshadows]

Do I get a present?

 

[Camel]

Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I found the Codex because someone from the BioWare forums linked to it, in a discussion about about tank builds on Nightmare or whatever.

Also, apparently I've been at the Codex 14 years, two days ago. Do I get a present?

 

[Iselor]

Dragon Age: Origins is the one and only true Dragon Age. Every sequel was crap, the further it went the worse it got.

 

[Roguey]

DA's sequels are supporting evidence of auteur theory. Origins was directed by Dan Tudge and lead designed by Brent Knowles. They both left when the game was more or less finished but had to be delayed so the PC and console versions could be released at the same time. Mark Darrah and Mike Laidlaw, who handled this process, remained for the next two sequels, modifying them to fit their own preferences. The same thing happened with the latest.

 

[Nano]

DA's sequels are supporting evidence of auteur theory. Origins was directed by Dan Tudge and lead designed by Brent Knowles. They both left when the game was more or less finished but had to be delayed so the PC and console versions could be released at the same time. Mark Darrah and Mike Laidlaw, who handled this process, remained for the next two sequels, modifying them to fit their own preferences. The same thing happened with the latest.

Georgr Ziets + Kevin Saunders on MotB is seemingly another example of this.

 

[Roguey]

Georgr Ziets + Kevin Saunders on MotB is seemingly another example of this.

Ziets tends to write some fine stuff on whatever project he's on, but the other projects Saunders directed include Storm of Zehir and Tides of Numenera which certainly aren't Mask-level.

 

[Yoomazir]

What are some decent nsfw mods for this game?

 

[processdaemon]

At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly.

This is exactly why Alistair is one of my least favourite characters in Origins. Part of me finds it hard to understand why not only Gaider but everyone else who wrote Alistair thought it was a good idea, but I seem to be in the minority for hating him so maybe I'm the one who's wrong.

 

[jaekl]

At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly.

This is exactly why Alistair is one of my least favourite characters in Origins. Part of me finds it hard to understand why not only Gaider but everyone else who wrote Alistair thought it was a good idea, but I seem to be in the minority for hating him so maybe I'm the one who's wrong.

You're right, don't doubt yourself or you'll become like Alistair which will harm everyone in your life who has to listen to you.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

This is exactly why Alistair is one of my least favourite characters in Origins. Part of me finds it hard to understand why not only Gaider but everyone else who wrote Alistair thought it was a good idea, but I seem to be in the minority for hating him so maybe I'm the one who's wrong.

I dislike both him and Carth as somewhat similar tropes taken in different directions (a.i. one pretends to be a joker, one's the brooding guy). I think that Obsidian did a much better job with Atton in terms of the whole having to peel off a companion's mask.