Dragon Age--spending my hard earned money

[cyrano]

There will be updatey updateyness eventually, once I've slowed my roll (or whatever the kids these days are calling it), but in the meantime I am lacking in Premium Content for Dragon Age and want other gamers to tell me their experiences; what has your experience been, and what would you recommend acquiring?

Comments

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of complaining about the assorted DLC for DA, but I don't feel cheated, and I've got everything so far.

What are you looking for? New armor? Weapons? Party chest? More banter?
Soldier's Peak has a party chest once you've completed it (and then leave and return), which I find incredibly useful. (Also, if you put low level stuff in the chest, it'll improve it, if you're high level. It also works in reverse, so don't put anything mighty in there if you can't use it for a while. I usually dump the silly stuff I like to save in there - clothing (because it's funny to occasionally put Og in the Chasind robes), any sentimental stuff from my origin) - that way, I free up some inventory space, and I don't have to sell it off.

Return to Ostagar has some amusing banter between Wynne and Alistair, and also some nice armor for a tank and good weapons.

The Stone Prisoner has Shale. Who is awesome. I *heart* Shale.

The Darkspawn DLC (blanking on the name) was entertaining. It's all killkillkill, but if you happen to like killing stuff in game? Worthwhile. Getting a chance to play as an Ogre? Fun! Also, entertaining codex entries, and happy braincandy trying to figure out why Ali made the choices he obviously did. Adds nothing to the plot of the main game.

Leliana's Song is pretty nifty - it's fully voiced, so you pick what you want her to say, and she speaks. Also, I like her companions.

Awakening is a buggy, buggy thing, but I've played through it twice now. Anders *is* all that and a bag of chips.

I seem to have gotten into the habit of doing Shale's thing, and the Keep pretty early in game, to get an extra few levels before taking on plot quests. Ostagar, I leave until later, so I'll be able to use the goodies I get from it.

The Feastday gift stuff is silly. If you're having a really hard time getting your companions to like you, the +50 gifts are useful (as are the unlimited +10s). Also, some of them do handy things. (Sten's gift will allow him to resurrect someone in battle.) The pranks are all -50 approval, but are occasionally screamingly funny.


I will, of course, get this week's DLC. I've even got a warden all cued up for it - Öömlät is level 34, and in possession of a mighty weapon and badass armor. It'll be fun to watch him go squish.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

The new patch is supposed to take care of some of the more annoying Awakening bugs. :) (At least, the ones I was aware of).

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

I just want a patch that will allow me to use DLC *and* the retail version of Awakening at the same time. (This is what I get for being impatient and getting it on the first day, instead of properly waiting for PSN to update.)

I don't mind looking up where the bugs are and avoiding them - that's just part of gaming, right? - but I do mind having to uninstall everything to play the expansion.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I read and re-read and then read your comment again, waffled about responding, changed my mind, and dithered again.

Now I am. :)

Basically, I don't understand what you said, in terms of what the issue is and how it pertained to my comment about the patch fixing a lot of the more annoying bugs. It sounds like you're talking about some specific bug, except I'm not familiar with it or why it would involve uninstalling anything (if you've already got Awakenings installed)?

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

There's some weirdness with the various patches and DLC where I can't seem to have the DLC installed if I want to play Awakening off the disk. It crashes, and takes down the whole system with it.

I play on a PS3, and the PSN store didn't update with Awakening right away, and rather than wait, I wandered over to GameStop and picked it up on disk the first day, rather than waiting to download it.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I also play PS3, for common ground reference. :)

Is the DLC you're referring to the DLC version of Awakening, or the other add-on DLCs?

My own experience: I downloaded and installed RtO, Soldier's Peak, and The Stone Prisoner prior to playing Awakenings off the disk a couple weeks after it came out, and didn't have any crashes (outside of the normal ones I experience in any PS3 game on occasion--I blame the fact that I have the original PS3 console). I haven't played Awakenings since DSC or Leliana's Song have come out, though.

But I wouldn't be surprised if there might be problems with the DLCs if you've re-installed them maybe relating to the order the patches were applied in.

I just got my Awakenings disk back from a friend, and was planning on playing it again sometime in the near future. Would you like me to try and come back here and let you know if I get a greater number of crashes playing it this time around, with all the DLCs installed and patch 1.04, for reference's sake? Or is that more info than you'd necessarily want/need? :)

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

All I know is that after Darkspawn Chronicles came out, I couldn't play Awakening without uninstalling everything, and repatching the main game.
As long as I don't reinstall the DLC, it works. Once I do that (I did it all at once, because I could), Awakening stops working.

I'll have to go through the process again, because there's a cut scene I want to try to make into an icon, but I'm going to wait because it's a pain in the butt.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oo, speaking of icons. I see that people have pretty pictures from the game. Is there an easy way to get simple jpgs or something? I have screenshots but there doesn't seem to be a way to export them out of the game, and I logged in to my account online and it only seems to have the preset icon pictures. Am I trying too hard?

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I think the pretty pictures are screenshots people have taken of the game through their PC. Or there's a tool for it. Try talking to S--, I know she was taking screen caps of her games. :)

Sadly, I haven't yet figured out how to do so within PS3, although I've seen suggestions it might be possible. :P I think the console users literally take photos of their TV screens to get their caps, a trick I may try at a later date (I so want a cap of Asha at one particular point in the game that, thankfully, was at a prompt so I could keep it up on the screen for a while--the imagery was so f'ing beautiful).

[roisnoir.livejournal.com]

I take photos of the screen. Since I can't seem to hold a camera still, nor does my camera focus well in low-light situations, I wind up taking LOTS of photos, to fairly meh results.

Someone, somewhere, will figure out how to take screencaps on a console, and I'll be a very happy woman.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Someone, somewhere, will figure out how to take screencaps on a console, and I'll be a very happy woman.

Me too!

I should really try harder to research that suggestion of screencap capability that I've seen. It may be a by-game functionality, but if not...

[tersa.livejournal.com]

All I know is that after Darkspawn Chronicles came out, I couldn't play Awakening without uninstalling everything, and repatching the main game. As long as I don't reinstall the DLC, it works. Once I do that (I did it all at once, because I could), Awakening stops working.

Interesting. That gives me a good starting point for observation when I start up Awakenings the first time in the near future, since I haven't tried playing it under that sequence of installs. Good to know!

I fully understand PITA avoidance. No worries. :)

DLCs potentially involving your PC Warden (Part 1 of 2)

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with roisnoir for the most part, but just because this is how my brain is working today...you get my opinions anyway. :)

Soldier's Peak - I don't know if this following is a mod for this DLC or a standalone, but I found out last week there is a PC mod for the Storage Chest that puts one in your Camp.

If it is a standalone and all you want to do Soldier's Peak for is the Storage Chest, I would run out and get the Camp one and call it good.

However, about the DLC itself: I think it has interesting story (actually, history) in it almost entirely unrelated to the Origins plotline. The major story explains why there were no Grey Wardens in Ferelden for hundreds of years (they only recently were allowed back in, during Maric's reign). But there's a related B-story that I've grown to realize is just as interesting...but I don't feel like I can really explain why without possibly spoiling stuff.

Return to Ostagar - Have to admit, +++ on the armor and weapons. However, I also like it for the story reasons in my head: I think it gives Alistair a bit of closure, and depending on the PC Warden, maybe them as well.

The Stone Prisoner - I know you've already got this, and I do like Shale, but I find the story so poorly constructed and aspects of it piss me off so much (from a storytelling POV) I haven't played it again since the first time.

Awakening - Like I mentioned in the previous comment, the latest patch supposedly fixed a lot of the more annoying bugs with it, so it should be better for you when you're ready to play it. :)

It really does need to be approached as a DLC rather than a game in and of itself (although it can be played as such), because they really took a minimalistic approach to the storyline: no romances (although that hasn't stopped a lot of fic writers from writing their own), narrower storyline, but still more to it than any of the other DLCs.

Now that I've finished the novels, I like it even more. It ties in directly with events of The Calling, and I think does really do a decent job of continuing the character growth of your PC Warden from Origins, if you choose to import her.

Plus, I really really really really really wanna know how the decisions you make during this DLC/the consequences are going to carry forward into the world.

There's also an option to instead play an Orlesian PC, rather than your Origins PC. I still wanna play this myself (S-- did back in May) because I want to see how the NPCs react differently to the furrin former occupier nation person coming in.

The Golems of Amgarrak - This is the new one roisnoir was referring to that is being released this week (I think Thursday).

I've been reading teasers posted by BioWare and a hands-on vague'ish review from someone who got to play the demo at Comic-Con, and the impression I've taken away from it so far is that you will be able to import either an Origins or an Awakening character (hence why I had to edit), which suggests that the events of this take place after the latter.

I've also read that it's a slashfest, and a very difficult one at that. I think it was designed to be a challenge for the hardcore gamers--the reviewer at SDCC said that people were dying all over the place even on Easy mode.

I'm a sucker for this game, so I'll probably be buying it. When I actually get a chance to play it, I'll be posting a review. :)

(One thing I'm really looking forward to with this, though, is going back and playing my original character again. She's the only one who I've finished Awakening with, and I want to use her as the import since she's my highest level character.)

Re: DLCs potentially involving your PC Warden (Part 1 of 2)

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Hey, look, finding your original post asking about DLCs was fairly simple thanks to your tags, and I can put my non-spoilery feedback for "The Golems of Amgarrak" for you here. :)

It is a slashfest, but not annoyingly so the way Darkspawn Chronicles were (IMO). There was some modicum of story, it just wasn't very great and didn't seem to tie in very strongly to anything else(*). There were some puzzles, very little RP or story, but they did the 'creepy' thing well again (they're very, very good at that.)

Oh, and it does take place after Origins or Awakening, but some unspecified amount of time. You can either import your Warden PC or play with a new character.

Also? Not nearly as difficult as I was led to believe after the SDCC reviews. I played most of the DLC on 'Normal' difficulty (which has become my default) and almost was able to make it through the final boss fight on that level. Changing down to 'Casual' made it almost ridiculously easy (for me).

Worth your money? Not in my opinion(^). I'm holding out great hopes for the next (and last) Origins DLC, "Witch Hunt", which is coming out tomorrow (!!), I think, and involves some Origins end game stuff I can't discuss because it's spoilery but is making me ~FLAIL~ like a flaily thing because of its potential to do some AWESOME story stuff with one of my characters. I'll again come back and give feedback for it once I've played it. :)

(*) - I realized after finishing up an Origins runthrough right after playing this DLC that there is a chance that the DLC does, in fact, tie-in with something from Origins. But the fact that I only realized it after playing Origins means, to me, they did a poor job of tying it in if that's the case.

(^) - There was something during the final cut-scene of the game that suggests foreshadowing for future games/DLCs. If that's the case, then I may change my opinion about whether or not it's worth picking up and playing.

DLCs with set PCs who are not your Warden (Part 2 of 2)

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Both of these run as separate modules which are started from the DA:O 'Start' screen, and not as an expansion/location with Origins itself.

Given your place in the game, I don't see any pressing need that you should be picking either of these up (yet).

The Darkspawn Chronicles - It's the original slashfest DLC.

It's also set in the end game, so I won't say more. Hold off on even reading anything about this until you finish your first playthrough. Come back to me then and I'll answer this fully. :)

Leliana's Song - It's a prequel, but may contain spoilers if you haven't unlocked and/or completed Leliana's Personal Quest in Origins yet.

The non-spoilery review, though, is that I found it to be 'meh'. I liked a couple of her companions and seeing pre-Chantry!Leliana's attitude, but the story was on the rails hard and the way they dealt with that irked me.