Dragon Age DLC Announced!

[TheMailMan78]

I really need to get this game but I haven't even played the Witcher yet.

Dragon Age: Origins Expansion Pack 'Awakening' Announced, 'Return to Ostagar' DLC Delayed

BioWare today announced the "first" Dragon Age: Origins expansion, titled 'Awakening' and continuing the fantasy RPG's storyline with new areas and party members in March.

Playing with an existing Dragon Age character or starting afresh as "a new Grey Warden from the neighboring land of Orlais," Awakening will charge players with rebuilding the order and "uncovering the mystery of how the darkspawn survive after the slaying of the Archdemon," BioWare reveals in a press release.

As well as the new world area of 'Amaranthine,' Awakening adds the ability to re-spec characters, "an increased level cap, new spells, abilities, specializations and items, plus five all-new party members" and naturally new enemies, including "an evolved, intelligent breed of darkspawn," Inferno Golems and Spectral Dragons.

"How players choose to rebuild their order, resolve the conflict with the mysterious 'Architect,' and determine the fate of the darkspawn are just some of the many intriguing moral choices that will shape each player's heroic journey," teases BioWare.

Requiring the original game, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening is scheduled for a March 16 worldwide release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the princely price of $40.

A new downloadable content pack 'Return to Ostagar' was originally slated to hit PC and Xbox 360 today but has been delayed for an unknown period of time. Thanks Kentor.

Source

 

[Fourstaff]

Sounds like a huge expansion to me!

Play the Witcher first before DA:O because you will get bored of the Witcher fast if you play this first.

 

[Phxprovost]

$40 dlc?............:shadedshu

 

[1Kurgan1]

I still got to play this game, I picked it up for PC, but I'm tempted to just get it for PS3, even though this game most likely will have a lot of mods for it pretty soon.

$40 dlc?............:shadedshu

For most games, I would shake my head at that price also, but as far as I know, DA already has easily over 100 hours of gameplay and I'm hearing actually can be close to 150 hours of play. I would expect this to make the game have well over 200 hours of play, and this DLC to have as much content as most games if not more content than most games have.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

For $40, I expect a disk and fancy packaging (aka Expansion, not DLC). Even then, $40 is the value of some newly released games (e.g. Overlord II) so it better have 80+ hours of content by itself.


The Witcher is quite unrelated to Dragon Age.

 

[1Kurgan1]

For $40, I expect a disk and fancy packaging (aka Expansion, not DLC). Even then, $40 is the value of some newly released games (e.g. Overlord II) so it better have 80+ hours of content by itself.


The Witcher is quite unrelated to Dragon Age.

Most games now days barely have 20 hours of gameplay to the main storyline, your expecting DLC to have 80?

 

[ShiBDiB]

For $40, I expect a disk and fancy packaging (aka Expansion, not DLC). Even then, $40 is the value of some newly released games (e.g. Overlord II) so it better have 80+ hours of content by itself.


The Witcher is quite unrelated to Dragon Age.

ur comparing dragon age to overlord 2? have u even played this game

 

[1Kurgan1]

Well I just bought it for PS3 brand new for $36 ($40 shipped) gah!

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Most games now days barely have 20 hours of gameplay to the main storyline, your expecting DLC to have 80?

Dragon Age: $50 = 100 hours
Awakening: $40 = 80 hours

If it doesn't have 80 hours, Awakening becomes a rip off when compared to the original Dragon Age.

FPS games usually have 10-20 hours. RPG games (like Dragon Age: Origins) often have 100+ hours.

ur comparing dragon age to overlord 2? have u even played this game

I beat The Witcher three or four times, Overlord II twice, and Dragon Age: Origins three times.

 

[1Kurgan1]

Dragon Age: $50 = 100 hours
Awakening: $40 = 80 hours

If it doesn't have 80 hours, Awakening becomes a rip off when compared to the original Dragon Age.

I just bought inFAMOUS and Red Faction, neither of those have over 40 hours of storyline and both are very good games, even GTA IV I played most everything I could and only came out at around 45 hours I think. Most games now days don't have much more than 20 hours, and very very few have over 40, just what I notice.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Again, inFamous and Red Faction aren't RPGs. Most TPS games (Red Faction: Guerilla, GTA4, Prototype, Saints Row 2, GTA:SA, etc.) come in around 40 hours.

 

[1Kurgan1]

So your saying the instant you replace swords with guns it no longer is an RPG? I don't know, I just don't look to games to provide 40 or even 80+ hours of play, infact, thats something that I most likely don't like. If I want a game to take up that much time I usually look to an MMO.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I would have to write a book to explain how it works which I'm not about to do. Basically, there's certain traits that give a good indication as to how long the game is. A few of the major ones:
-how large the environment is
-character leveling (enemies will never be "easy")
-the presence of vehicles or some form of "fast travel"
-perspective
--FPS tends to be the shortest
--over head, point and click tends to be the longest (most RTS games fit here as well as games like Dragon Age)
--TPS is in between
-complexity of the plot (especially if there is more than one ending)
-attention to detail (repetitive environments are usually a give away that the game is long and likely to get tedious)


The games I listed in my last post have a similar profile from what is listed above so it is easy to accurately predict their length.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Fallout 3 has guns and its pretty damn long.

 

[Binge]

I was going to say that too... Oddly enough so are the original Doom games. Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast is another one, Quake, and Serious Sam games could log many many hours.

Blame console game publishers for saturating the market with crap.

 

[1Kurgan1]

I would have to write a book to explain how it works which I'm not about to do. Basically, there's certain traits that give a good indication as to how long the game is. A few of the major ones:
-how large the environment is
-character leveling (enemies will never be "easy")
-the presence of vehicles or some form of "fast travel"
-perspective
--FPS tends to be the shortest
--over head, point and click tends to be the longest (most RTS games fit here as well as games like Dragon Age)
--TPS is in between
-complexity of the plot (especially if there is more than one ending)
-attention to detail (repetitive environments are usually a give away that the game is long and likely to get tedious)


The games I listed in my last post have a similar profile from what is listed above so it is easy to accurately predict their length.

inFAMOUS has
-large enviroment (all scaleable too)
-fast travel (riding the rails, gliding, scaling buildings)
-complex plot (good and evil sides and multiple times in the game you can be good or bad)

And that game maybe has 25 hours for each side's play through. RPG is just a role playing game, you play the role of someone, doesn't need to be any set of certain types of weapons, length of plot, or camera angle. The same for GTA 4 could be said, except that plot is linear so maybe not quiet, but it's still a damn good story.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Before I read "25 hours each," I thought "40 hours."

Almost every game qualifies as a "role playing game." For example, you play as Tommy Vercetti in GTA Vice City, Shepherd in Mass Effect, or Mario in Super Mario 64. Even in RTS games, you play the role of a commander.

From the original concept of "role playing" it has boiled down to almost strictly character leveling and "experience points." Instead of calling it a "role playing game," we call it a FPS/TPS/RTS "with RPG elements."

 

[Mussels]

DA: origins is a massively long and complex game.

remember that these arent standalone - even if they add 25 hours of new content, you still got 80+ hours of re-playing the old game to go with it!

 

[CDdude55]

Still working on The Witcher.

Thats a bit much for DLC tho.:shadedshu

 

[1Kurgan1]

Before I read "25 hours each," I thought "40 hours."

Almost every game qualifies as a "role playing game." For example, you play as Tommy Vercetti in GTA Vice City, Shepherd in Mass Effect, or Mario in Super Mario 64. Even in RTS games, you play the role of a commander.

From the original concept of "role playing" it has boiled down to almost strictly character leveling and "experience points." Instead of calling it a "role playing game," we call it a FPS/TPS/RTS "with RPG elements."

There is no dead set time limit here, 25 hours each would be getting all trophys and attaining the platinum (and I said that when I mentioned playing both sides because, if you were playing both sides, thats what your goal would be). The game itself on one single side only has roughly 20 hours of game play if you just run through it doing what you see, so if you just ran through both side (not on a trophy run) then you would get said 40 hours. I just didn't feel like explaining it this much before.

If your boiling things down though, then wouldn't DA technically be an RTS with RPG elements?

 

[Mussels]

There is no dead set time limit here, 25 hours each would be getting all trophys and attaining the platinum (and I said that when I mentioned playing both sides because, if you were playing both sides, thats what your goal would be). The game itself on one single side only has roughly 20 hours of game play if you just run through it doing what you see, so if you just ran through both side (not on a trophy run) then you would get said 40 hours. I just didn't feel like explaining it this much before.

If your boiling things down though, then wouldn't DA technically be an RTS with RPG elements?

not really. its more true to the original RPG games - if combat was turn based, this would scream JRPG and whip out tentacle monsters

 

[1Kurgan1]

not really. its more true to the original RPG games - if combat was turn based, this would scream JRPG and whip out tentacle monsters

Being able to pause combat, and set up moves on multiple characters is pretty much turn combat. I like that term JRPG though, lol.

 

[MomentoMoir]

yay dlc i want it now!

 

[Sensi Karate]

Dang, got beaten to posting this. Anyways heres some more information on the Expansion (its not a dlc):

For centuries, the Grey Wardens—the ancient order of guardians, sworn to unite and defend the lands—have been battling the darkspawn forces. Legend spoke that slaying the Archdemon would have put an end to the darkspawn threat for centuries to come, but somehow they remain.

You are the Grey Warden Commander and have been entrusted with the duty of rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens and uncovering the secrets of the darkspawn and how they managed to remain.

How you choose to rebuild your order, how you resolve the conflict with "The Architect", and how you determine the fate of the darkspawn will be but some of the many complex choices that await and shape your journey as you venture to the new land of Amaranthine.

A Stunning World Expanded: BioWare's deepest universe to date just got bigger with an all new area of the world to explore, Amaranthine

Unlock the secrets of the Darkspawn and their true motivations
Rebuild the Grey Warden order and establish their base of operations at Vigil's Keep
All-new Complex Moral Choices: Embark on an epic story that is completely defined and reactive to your play style

Shape your entire experience based on the choices you make and how your handle complex situations
New Ways to Customize your Hero: Experience additional spells, abilities, specializations, and items to further personalize and customize your hero and party

Import your character from Dragon Age: Origins or start anew as a Grey Warden from the neighboring land of Orlais
Encounter five all-new party members and an old favorite from Dragon Age: Origins
Even more Bone-Crushing, Visceral Combat: Battle against a new range of horrific and terrifying creatures

Put your skills to the test against an evolved, intelligent breed of Darkspawn and other menacing creatures including the Inferno Golem and Spectral Dragon!

Heres a trailer of the expansion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_J3TL2N7xQ

 

[FordGT90Concept]

If your boiling things down though, then wouldn't DA technically be an RTS with RPG elements?

That would probably be the best way of describing it with one exception: the camera locks on to a character. RTS games usually have the camera locked to the "world." Some RTS games can be paused like DA:O (e.g. Earth 2150)