I loved DA:O when it came out although I found it hard to replay the game. After having it gathering dust for a while, I pulled it out again this week and have started a new character.
With DA:O II on the horizon, I am wondering about Awakenings. I held off on the game for several reasons when it first came out. First was the cost vs the playing time factor. Second was the bug situation. Now, prices have come down somewhat so that gets me over the first hurdle. I'm curious about the second however as I honestly haven't kept up with the game and the status of it.
The game idea, reformation of the Grey Wardens, seems like a great concept and I'm wondering as to your thoughts about the game now that some time has passed to help me decide whether to get it or not.
Thanks in advance!
Thoughts on Awakenings?
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Ragin Cajun
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Crenshinibon
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Awakening, like the original, is combat heavy (but the new boss fights do provide a challenge). There are a handful of choices, but most of them do impact the ending sequence.
The amount of areas is incredibly small. There are only two towns (one of them being Vigil's keep) and I think about four areas for the campaign (with a few hack and slash sidequest areas).
The power of items, new abilities, spells, skills and specializations ups your character's power through the roof.
I personally haven't encountered any bugs with Awakening, so I'm not sure if your fear is justified. It's fun, it's pretty easy, but goes by really fast, however, I thought that it ended abruptly - the end of the game was so easy and so sudden, that I didn't know that the game had ended until the credits started rolling, and even then, I thought that this was a bug. Still, it does put an end to the Grey Warden saga.
The amount of areas is incredibly small. There are only two towns (one of them being Vigil's keep) and I think about four areas for the campaign (with a few hack and slash sidequest areas).
The power of items, new abilities, spells, skills and specializations ups your character's power through the roof.
I personally haven't encountered any bugs with Awakening, so I'm not sure if your fear is justified. It's fun, it's pretty easy, but goes by really fast, however, I thought that it ended abruptly - the end of the game was so easy and so sudden, that I didn't know that the game had ended until the credits started rolling, and even then, I thought that this was a bug. Still, it does put an end to the Grey Warden saga.
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.”
Awakening isn't as good as Origins, but it is worth playing. the biggest flaws are how short it is, how little we get to see of the results of our choices in Origins (and the companions) and the lack of interaction with party members. it's a shame, because if they hadn't (presumably at EA's demands) rushed it so much and had actually fleshed out these areas (there's a few places where you can see hints at what was cut out) it would have been so much better
that being said, it does have a good story and offers some degree of closure to the Grey Warden storyline. the new companions, despite the limited dialogue, do manage to put their personalities across and to be honest it's better than many other RPGs, just not as good as Origins
that being said, it does have a good story and offers some degree of closure to the Grey Warden storyline. the new companions, despite the limited dialogue, do manage to put their personalities across and to be honest it's better than many other RPGs, just not as good as Origins
I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me
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GoldDragon
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The Warden Commander's Saga actually doesn't end in Amaranthine, tho it can if you so choose. After all, one of the Origins choices will definitely end the story.... Awakening depends upon you not doing that, altho you can choose to play as an Orlesian Warden.
Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt (and in that order) extend the story by some hours (note: I haven't actually played either -YET-). Both are DLC content
Golems is high level combat, involving (from what I heard) Cadash Thaig and the Circle Tower.
Witch Hunt, as the name implies, hunts a certain "Witch" that left you at ( Origin choice dependent) either Redcliffe Castle or immediately after the ending of the Siege of Denerim.
Awakening I found to be fun, if a bit quick. Also adds a few new specs, and a new way to unlock some specs that Origins had that were really evil to unlock there.
Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt (and in that order) extend the story by some hours (note: I haven't actually played either -YET-). Both are DLC content
Golems is high level combat, involving (from what I heard) Cadash Thaig and the Circle Tower.
Witch Hunt, as the name implies, hunts a certain "Witch" that left you at ( Origin choice dependent) either Redcliffe Castle or immediately after the ending of the Siege of Denerim.
Awakening I found to be fun, if a bit quick. Also adds a few new specs, and a new way to unlock some specs that Origins had that were really evil to unlock there.
-- GD
In short, I really like the story in it, it took me about 20hours to complete. The new class specializations are very good, they are allot better than the Origins once, sadly you cannot use the Awakening specializations in the Origins campaign.
The game is really buggy and some of the bugs even screw up the story in the game, it also made the game crash every 30ish mins for allot of people(myself included), it also made the Origin's campaign crash every 30ish mins. There was a patch released quite some time ago that was supposed to fix the majority of the bugs and the crashes, I haven't played the game in a while, so I do not know how effective the patch was.
Overall I would call it a fairly decent expansion, but technical problems ruined allot of it for me. I think it could have been a great expansion if they took more time to finish it before releasing it.
The game is really buggy and some of the bugs even screw up the story in the game, it also made the game crash every 30ish mins for allot of people(myself included), it also made the Origin's campaign crash every 30ish mins. There was a patch released quite some time ago that was supposed to fix the majority of the bugs and the crashes, I haven't played the game in a while, so I do not know how effective the patch was.
Overall I would call it a fairly decent expansion, but technical problems ruined allot of it for me. I think it could have been a great expansion if they took more time to finish it before releasing it.
"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.''-Johannes Kepler.
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Ragin Cajun
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Yes, it has some serious bugs..Ragin Cajun wrote:well, decided to get it (and Drakensang for $11 at Best Buy). First area, crashed. Updating to 1.04 patch now.
..and I think it's worth 11 US. Same for Drakensang. Both I'd score significantly lower (overall) than Origins however.
Apparently Dragon Age II will be released one full year after Origins. They seem to have the graphics and basic game-play down, but I'm wondering if they have spent the time on a better story, more variables, and a bit of polish on the dialog - and of course tested it fully for the bugs.
Just remembered why I never got very far with Awakening, I got ticked off at the bad way Bioware did the transition from Origins, not as bad as the one from BG1 to BG 2, but enough to turn me off.
In my run through Origins I played a female Dalish Elf, hoping to become queen. I hadn't realised that as far as Alistair was concerned bedding an elf, and having her save Ferelden was fine, but he wouldn't dream of marrying one! So in petty revenge I reloaded the previous save and made Anora queen, figuring at least I'd get to keep Alistair's useful fighting skills (he does make a good tank, even if he's a wham-bam-thank-you-mam-now-piss-off racist snob), along with Zeveran (no I didn't have any romance with him) who promised to accompany me. Lo and behold, no Alistair or Zevrean in Awakening; game goes straight on the shelf.
PS Oh, yeah, and my dog apparently ran off with the postman!
In my run through Origins I played a female Dalish Elf, hoping to become queen. I hadn't realised that as far as Alistair was concerned bedding an elf, and having her save Ferelden was fine, but he wouldn't dream of marrying one! So in petty revenge I reloaded the previous save and made Anora queen, figuring at least I'd get to keep Alistair's useful fighting skills (he does make a good tank, even if he's a wham-bam-thank-you-mam-now-piss-off racist snob), along with Zeveran (no I didn't have any romance with him) who promised to accompany me. Lo and behold, no Alistair or Zevrean in Awakening; game goes straight on the shelf.
PS Oh, yeah, and my dog apparently ran off with the postman!
[QUOTE=Darth Gavinius;1096098]Distrbution of games, is becoming a little like Democracy (all about money and control) - in the end choice is an illusion and you have to choose your lesser evil.
And everything is hidden in the fine print.[/QUOTE]
And everything is hidden in the fine print.[/QUOTE]
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GoldDragon
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Spoiler (Highlight to read) as of 1.04:
Alistair makes a brief appearance, but only if he was made king and survived. If he wasn't made king, he is rumored to be in Highever doing that memorial thing he talked of in Origins, and Anora will take his place.
Loghain is said to be around (assuming survival), but as I typically kill him, I don't know where he is. Or even if that rumor is true.
Spoiler
A letter from Zevran (or Leliana) if you had a romance with either, is available from the private that handles such correspondence.
Loghain is said to be around (assuming survival), but as I typically kill him, I don't know where he is. Or even if that rumor is true.
-- GD
Awakenings was a silly joke, and unlike MoTB for NWN2, a horrible step backwards. But let's start from the beginning..
You're led by an unknown character (the first dialogue you actually have suggests that you didn't even talk with Mih.. Mit.. the female warrior) and upon arrival your castle is under attack. The incompetent soldiers upon rescue bravely flee, leaving their commander and superior to deal with this mess..
On the way we meet an out-of-place mage (you'll get many out-of-place characters here) with fancy haircut and yo' standard robe that we've seen milion times before. Next on the list is our favourite drunk berserker.. but in Awakenings he's even more childish, even tho his problems were solved by PC. Childish to the point where he ruined one of the best things about Origins : Joining ritual..
Then we fight "das boss" which is a huge disappointment both combat and story wise.. And there we have it, the old dude which should be nothing more than a sidekick of PC, but even in the rescue dialogue he takes matters in his own hands.. From here on now your new title is not Grey Warden, but Auditor of what other people have to say. You toss in one line, and then they tell you what you COULD do. But since its very alike to NWN2 the things you "CAN" do are actually a requirement.
This is where the game truly starts (and this is also 1/5th of the game done)
Now the list goes on. The main good"badguy" just wanted to talk with you.. by stealing your items and sending dragons to eat you and your compaions.
A certain elven sorceress requires you to go realy, REALY far in goody-two-shoes-beyond-limits to even consider listening her instead of wiping out on spot.. A fail replacement for Morrigan i guess. A stupid, clueless and blind one too. A stupid, clueless and blind mage. Now i don't mind NPC's beign repulsive, and unlikely to be invited by PC to party, like Jaheira from BG. But the example that i presented (Jaheira) was annoying due to her character, not due to poor dev team.
The quests give you very limited freedom. Nwn-style. You can either help guards or smugglers in the-only-chain-side-quest-in-game. You can NOT help the smugglers to infiltrate their base, betray them and wipe them out to report to guard captain. & vice versa. Everyone sees through walls and hears like a bat. No deception.
Now the quesitons that remain.. Where is my dog? Why can you use the shortcuts only on your way back, even if these are open? How the hell do the darkspawn crawl out of the pit with three broodmothers? What an idiot would place them under a deathtrap? Why do the "inteligent" darkspawn HAVE to state that the illusions will not harm them, and that they should attack the player instead.. after standing next to the projected images for quite some time? What was the "difficult" part of the expansion anyway? Why cannot you use some spells on the bosses?
Ok, i can answer the last one. Because they balanced the spells very poorly in DA:0, and after lvl 20 you will simply get bored to tears (and some spells were poorly balanced regardless of level.), but instead of fixing the issue at core, they simply made "big guys" immune to certain spells. Joy. But then there are unkillable warrior PC's, and unkillable thief PC's.. Dishing out insane amounts of damage, immune to everything.. joy. I remember my reaction to "Fire golem fight was the hardest in game".. what fight now? Oh yeah, the one where i was watching porn at the same time, and didn't even come close to loosing any character.
In short, Awakenings has a few nice things to add to Origins, like the one and only choice that you do that actually matters (no spoilers here) but overall is a quick slot filer with very few planning and work involved in the making. Poor NPC's (although NPC to NPC banters are quite funny at times, a plus for that), NWN2-like storyline progression ("quick, you have to do this & that, no, there is no way you can avoid it. When you return aliens will attack us, and when you defeat the aliens a volcano will erupt, because aliens were keeping it intact. Once the lava goes rampage on our lands a mega-boss will be released and you have to kill it..") Overpowered items, classes and not-optimised ability progression. Toss in nice looking but very easy boss fights and some "WTF" moments (not the good type)
While DA:0, with its flaws and shortcommings is still a great game (not a 10er, or 9er, but an 8,5? Sure) Awakenings would be terrible even as a free DLC.. but its not free.
and there you go. DA : Awakening.
Edit : Reading above comments i must say that i didn't encounter a single crash. Clean your registry and optimise drivers kind Gamebanshee members!
You're led by an unknown character (the first dialogue you actually have suggests that you didn't even talk with Mih.. Mit.. the female warrior) and upon arrival your castle is under attack. The incompetent soldiers upon rescue bravely flee, leaving their commander and superior to deal with this mess..
On the way we meet an out-of-place mage (you'll get many out-of-place characters here) with fancy haircut and yo' standard robe that we've seen milion times before. Next on the list is our favourite drunk berserker.. but in Awakenings he's even more childish, even tho his problems were solved by PC. Childish to the point where he ruined one of the best things about Origins : Joining ritual..
Then we fight "das boss" which is a huge disappointment both combat and story wise.. And there we have it, the old dude which should be nothing more than a sidekick of PC, but even in the rescue dialogue he takes matters in his own hands.. From here on now your new title is not Grey Warden, but Auditor of what other people have to say. You toss in one line, and then they tell you what you COULD do. But since its very alike to NWN2 the things you "CAN" do are actually a requirement.
This is where the game truly starts (and this is also 1/5th of the game done)
Now the list goes on. The main good"badguy" just wanted to talk with you.. by stealing your items and sending dragons to eat you and your compaions.
A certain elven sorceress requires you to go realy, REALY far in goody-two-shoes-beyond-limits to even consider listening her instead of wiping out on spot.. A fail replacement for Morrigan i guess. A stupid, clueless and blind one too. A stupid, clueless and blind mage. Now i don't mind NPC's beign repulsive, and unlikely to be invited by PC to party, like Jaheira from BG. But the example that i presented (Jaheira) was annoying due to her character, not due to poor dev team.
The quests give you very limited freedom. Nwn-style. You can either help guards or smugglers in the-only-chain-side-quest-in-game. You can NOT help the smugglers to infiltrate their base, betray them and wipe them out to report to guard captain. & vice versa. Everyone sees through walls and hears like a bat. No deception.
Now the quesitons that remain.. Where is my dog? Why can you use the shortcuts only on your way back, even if these are open? How the hell do the darkspawn crawl out of the pit with three broodmothers? What an idiot would place them under a deathtrap? Why do the "inteligent" darkspawn HAVE to state that the illusions will not harm them, and that they should attack the player instead.. after standing next to the projected images for quite some time? What was the "difficult" part of the expansion anyway? Why cannot you use some spells on the bosses?
Ok, i can answer the last one. Because they balanced the spells very poorly in DA:0, and after lvl 20 you will simply get bored to tears (and some spells were poorly balanced regardless of level.), but instead of fixing the issue at core, they simply made "big guys" immune to certain spells. Joy. But then there are unkillable warrior PC's, and unkillable thief PC's.. Dishing out insane amounts of damage, immune to everything.. joy. I remember my reaction to "Fire golem fight was the hardest in game".. what fight now? Oh yeah, the one where i was watching porn at the same time, and didn't even come close to loosing any character.
In short, Awakenings has a few nice things to add to Origins, like the one and only choice that you do that actually matters (no spoilers here) but overall is a quick slot filer with very few planning and work involved in the making. Poor NPC's (although NPC to NPC banters are quite funny at times, a plus for that), NWN2-like storyline progression ("quick, you have to do this & that, no, there is no way you can avoid it. When you return aliens will attack us, and when you defeat the aliens a volcano will erupt, because aliens were keeping it intact. Once the lava goes rampage on our lands a mega-boss will be released and you have to kill it..") Overpowered items, classes and not-optimised ability progression. Toss in nice looking but very easy boss fights and some "WTF" moments (not the good type)
While DA:0, with its flaws and shortcommings is still a great game (not a 10er, or 9er, but an 8,5? Sure) Awakenings would be terrible even as a free DLC.. but its not free.
and there you go. DA : Awakening.
Edit : Reading above comments i must say that i didn't encounter a single crash. Clean your registry and optimise drivers kind Gamebanshee members!
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childofbhaal
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Stworca wrote:
Awakenings would be terrible even as a free DLC.. but its not free.
and there you go. DA : Awakening.
Edit : Reading above comments i must say that i didn't encounter a single crash. Clean your registry and optimise drivers kind Gamebanshee members!
..while bad, it wasn't quite that bad - you did play through most of it.
I didn't encounter a bug-type crash either. What I did encounter were progression problems, things left out (and not purposefully), much worse path-finding, armor transfer bug, etc..
There were also some *good-points* to Awakenings: terrain elevation that affected a few battles and added a bit extra visually, no unnecessary dialog trees, respec. ability, etc..
But yes, far more negatives than positives.
I paid about 30 US for Awakening at release. I paid around 7 US for the Warden's Keep. I got hosed on both, but the Warden's Keep was far more of a rip than Awakenings. At 11 US Awakenings *can* give you enough entertainment for your dollar IMO. It's not particularly good entertainment, and you can most certainly get a lot more for your money from some older games.. but they are usually games that are a little older and none will be Dragon Age (..in basic function).
Well my registry is clean, not that that should make a difference to CTDs in DA: O, and I have the latest drivers installed. However I was running a lot of mods/addins, 23 to be precise. Six of those mods add new areas, and some of them add new items.Stworca wrote: Edit : Reading above comments i must say that i didn't encounter a single crash. Clean your registry and optimise drivers kind Gamebanshee members!
I recently added some more mods to test them, and there has been a significant increase in CTDs, the new ones are:
Advanced Tactics
Dog Gift Tweaks
Healing received fix
Ser Gilmore joinable NPC
Better Two-handed weapons
Auto Loot
Faster two-handed weapons
I haven't found out if one of those is increasing the CTDs yet, or just the shear accumulation, I strongly suspect the latter.
[QUOTE=Darth Gavinius;1096098]Distrbution of games, is becoming a little like Democracy (all about money and control) - in the end choice is an illusion and you have to choose your lesser evil.
And everything is hidden in the fine print.[/QUOTE]
And everything is hidden in the fine print.[/QUOTE]
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GoldDragon
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The first female warrior in Awakening is Mhairi.
As for the Dog (Spoiler)
End Spoiler.
As for the Dog (Spoiler)
Spoiler
Dog (if gained in Origins) has been busy making puppies, as told in Witch Hunt. He's Pure-bred, and you were FORCED to allow him to travel Ferelden.
Personally, I think the Devs didn't want to make room in Awakening for our four-legged friend.
Personally, I think the Devs didn't want to make room in Awakening for our four-legged friend.
-- GD