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Dragon Age: Origins Expansion Coming In March
ishanjain tipped news that BioWare has announced an expansion for Dragon Age: Origins, called Awakening, that is due out on March 16th. Awakening "is supposed to run about 15 hours and will allow for players to import and edit characters they've broken in from the core game," and it will take place "in the in the role of a Grey Warden Commander who's been tasked with rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens and finding out how the darkspawn survived following the death of the Archdemon dragon." A trailer is available at the official site, as well as some information on a new bit of DLC that will be out shortly, entitled Return to Ostagar. (It was originally due for release on January 5th, but was delayed.)
I am amazed at the resilience of the game industry in this time of massive unemployment and layoffs.
In hard times when most of the economy is tanking, there are some products which see a heyday. Bologna, for example, seems a dramatic rise in sales during economic slowdowns. Now too, I think it might be possible to say that the game industry is a contra indicator of economic success. Not only does it hold that game sales goes up during downturns, but that the people who play them are more likely to be affected negatively by the economic environment.
It'd be an interesting phenomenon to research, I think.
They should have just made the camera control like the same as what was used in Neverwinter Nights.
Give me top-down isometric view, 6 characters and real clerics, and get off my lawn!
"the darkspawn survived following the death of the Archdemon dragon."
Thanks a lot for the spoiler, you insensitive clod.
Having actually *played* DAO, this comes as no surprise to me.
I guess maybe it's because everytime I wandered into a tavern, there would always be a sneaky NPC who came up to me and tried to make me pre-order it!
Man, this one time, I slew a huge dragon after an epic battle; then after he died, while I was plundering the gold, he popped back up to life, did a little song and dance about this expansion and tried to sell me a magic weapon if I would pre-order it. To add salt to the wound my browser launches sending me to their website and I got some popups.
Liberty.
Wow. There was a time people couldn't let go of a game and it was only top down, with 3 squares moving about. Now it's whine whine whine about stupid little things that don't really take anything away from a great story, great action and a chance to get into Claudia Blacks pants.
Yes, why would we buy a game that is well made, engaging, lasts a long time, gives plenty of incentive to play again and fun, rather than spend our money on something else that doesn't exist is beyond me too.
PS - you obviously haven't looked too closely at this game as while the story is quite restricted in a GTA way, the options in the dialogue trees do give different results, even small choices early on will alter the possible endings.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Because they're fun and engaging.
There's nothing wrong with actually playing through a linear story that somebody else has written. If I get a bit of freedom to shape things to my own tastes along the way, then great, but I'm not going to demand even that.
The simple fact is that some people are better storytellers than others. And the people that the likes of Bioware and Square-Enix get to write their stories are generally far better than the average Joe. Everybody likes to think that they could write or narrate a wonderfully engaging story if they ever had the time and/or inspiration, but in reality, it's a gift possessed by only a few.
Dragon Age's story isn't great; if they were going to ditch the whole AD&D/Forgotten Realms setting that was at the heart of the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights games, then I would have hoped that they would actually do something a bit more... well... different with it. Compared to... say... Mass Effect, it felt very much like they were playing it safe and sticking to a well-trodden path with Dragon Age. If that's what they're doing, then a part of me would actually have preferred to have a more familiar Forgotten Realms setting (not least because of the potential for Miniature Giant Space Hamsters). If, on the other hand, they were trying to produce a genuinely different "dark" fantasy story, then I'm sorry, but The Witcher got there first and did it better.
That said, it's still a very good game with a very engaging story and fun play mechanics. The setting they've created is one I'd be happy to return to in the future.
Dragon Age's story isn't great; if they were going to ditch the whole AD&D/Forgotten Realms setting that was at the heart of the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights games, then I would have hoped that they would actually do something a bit more... well... different with it. Compared to... say... Mass Effect, it felt very much like they were playing it safe and sticking to a well-trodden path with Dragon Age. If that's what they're doing, then a part of me would actually have preferred to have a more familiar Forgotten Realms setting (not least because of the potential for Miniature Giant Space Hamsters). If, on the other hand, they were trying to produce a genuinely different "dark" fantasy story, then I'm sorry, but The Witcher got there first and did it better.
Everything parent said. Mass Effect does the style of star wars, but uses every bit of the freedom they gained from leaving KotOR behind, both in mechanics and in the universe, to do bigger and cooler stuff that Lucas would never touch.
With DA Bioware put a lot of effort into getting away from D&D, in order to produce... a stat/skill/feat based fantasy RPG system. I love DA, but there's nothing in it that wouldn't have worked fine in D&D rules. And DA has some genuinely interesting good/evil/nice/harsh character choices, but there's none of the Witcher's moral ambiguity. (The closest approach I can think of is Jowan in the Mage intro... a genuine moral choice there, but it doesn't actually change the outcome.) DA may be dark, but it always know who its good guys are.
Dragon Age is another live-action roleplaying game
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Also, I mostly play DAO for the awkward sex scenes.
sic transit gloria mundi