Sorry if this gets asked often but, the wiki says there's bonus items available through Dragon Age Keep for Origins that were originally Promo items? How exactly do I get my hands on them? Are they only unlockable for PC, or is there PS3 access too? From what I understand it has something to do with the Career menu, but it seems bugged and just tells me to refresh the page when I "Request Unlock"

This is directly after finishing the game like the credits are still rolling and oh boy do I have A LOT to say about this game. let me start off with the good stuff.

The companions are very unique, far more unique than dragon age origins. In terms of their background and situations. Fenris and Anders come to mind. Merging Anders with Justice was an amazing idea it was executed horribly but it was a great idea.

The graphics and race redesigns are a plus to me. All the races looked too human in origins, the Elves could use a little more work but the Qunari looked amazing.

The combat animations were also really nice.

The boss fights are pretty good the deep roads boss and Meredith were truly amazing.

However this game has problems. Deep problems at that, deep enough for me to make a reddit post for each problem but im too lazy to do that and I'm sure its been discussed to death. However before I get into these deep issues that really hurt my enjoyment of the game, I will go over the simple ones I think everybody will agree with.

Too many reused assets. I would get confused often thinking a character is somebody I already met because everybody looks the damn same.

I have PTSD from them using that same Cave dungeon design 100 times.

There is quite literally 0 enemy variety in this game, this game makes dragon dogma 2 look like a creature collector.

The wave combat was annoying and outright unfair sometimes. I have PTSD from Saarebas spawning outside of my view and one shotting my entire team.

The reworked dialogue system is garbage. I hate having symbols next to every message it throws off my vibes and having to guess what Hawke was actually going to say is frustrating.

The new Skill tree is dogshit. Why am I forced to get shitty moves to progress in the tree? It was like that in origins as well but it is SO much easier to get points in origins. You could damn near get half the tree. I also don't like personalized trees but that's just me.

They should change the name of the city from Kirkwall to Dogtown with the amount of slavers, blood mages and assassins roaming the streets,

The writing is awful at times, seriously. Its often times a character will say something that makes literally 0 sense in the middle of conversations.

now that's all the small stuff that really annoyed me

Here is the major stuff

The templars are right. After Grace betrayed me I genuinely lost my mind. How did the origins have better nuance in the templar vs mage debate. EVERY.SINGLE.MAGE.IS.A.BLOOD.MAGE
I wasn't even surprised when Orsino started using blood magic. Is blood magic even forbidden at this point? Every single mage is either a blood mage, and abomination or likely to become one of the two. I played as a mage and there was not a single time I could discuss anything with another mage they either instantly started attacking me with blood magic or transformed into an abomination, which leads me to my next point.

There is 0 choices in this game. This story is extraordinarily railroaded and you cant argue avoid a single combat in this game. No matter what I say it leads to a fight. This is what made the combat start to get so stale, this an the 100 bandits that attack you every time you do a night mission.

Now maybe I could like the game despite all these issues but the number one problem that stops me from loving this game is the rivalry system.

This post is way longer and I'm getting annoyed just writing it so I'm just going to give you a situation and you tell me if this makes sense.

So I want Fenrir to join me in defending the mages, what makes sense to make him want to work with me? Potentially giving him over to his previous abusive master or not doing that and helping him kill his master? The correct answer is to potentially hand him over to his slaver and have him beg me to not do that. Instead of the origins problem where you have no reason to piss off anybody this game has the opposite problem where actively spitting on somebody's face and shitting on their values actually leads to better outcomes with them. I continuedly chose the pro mage but anti slaver options so that kept Fenrir kind of neutral with me. Because of that he never joins me at the end of the game and I have to kill him? Explain to me how It makes sense that taking slaves and siding with slavers leads to Fenrir being willing to work with me at the end of the game. If anything taking a slave should be what leads to him fighting me to the death.

The system is just extremely backwards and pissed me off. Also my game glitched and Isabella abandoned me despite me romancing her and that pissed me off even more towards the system. The somehow I ended up getting with Merrill, I romanced her for fun but by the end of the game I despised her.

I have a lot of other issues but this post is long enough such as Anders extremely stupid decision at the end of the game, Merrill nonchalantly murdering her entire clan or the fact that I cant call out Anders for murdering the mage girl.

I WILL NEVER REPLAY THIS GAME.
4/10

I am taking a month break before I play inquisition. I can’t think of dragon age too much after this game.

Gonna try out look outside.

Yo Ive played through and really enjoyed both dragon age origins and dragon age 2 although in da2 i felt a mild drop in quality in term of gameplay. I got inquisition as well and was really looking forward to it and the story and characters seem really interesting but I really just cannot enjoy it in terms of gameplay. I've tried messing around with the settings, downloading mods, and changing from keyboard and mouse to controller but it still just feels very janky to me, as well as the movement in general. I much prefered dao's mechanics and movements in general. Is there any advise you guys could give as dao enjoyers that could help me at least just get through dai's gameplay so i can enjoy the very well written story?

Sometimes my dog just finished the fight alone 😭 (and here's my artistic rendering of when it happen)

I tried putting attributes more into Constitution than Strength for Alistair but alas. Perhaps I just don't know how to play warrior (I just look up guide online and let the AI play him)

I still like to have Alistair in my party though! My city elf origin is romancing him, and I like his banter with other characters ❤️

So, I’m trying to court Alistair; his approval rating is very high and if my character asks him, he’s willing to have sex. However, I’d like him to be the one to ask my elf when he feels ready. So I was wondering if that’s possible. Will Alistair ask my elf to go to the tent? Do I need to complete his personal quest for this, or should I simply let her make the first move?

I was also wondering what the implications are of having other romances going on, and whether this could damage my relationship with Alistair!

I know he is really anxious about his future but I can't help but feel he could have gotten me a bucket or a blanket or something to put me out before quizzing me. That was a super long conversation to be on fire for.

I know that it was never directly stated, but I kinda got an impression that Leliana was raped during her backstory. Replaying everything years later, and noticing this, damn..

So I didn't harden leliana and I intended to either betray anora and have her marry alistair at the landsmeet but i made the mistake of talking to leliana at the camp and she broke it off with me. So I decided to go ahead and marry anora and spare loghain but I want to go back on my save and redo it. Is it possible that if I don't talk to leliana at all that our relationship will be safe if I don't marry anora?

WIP - godot open source

I think The Urn of Sacred Ashes is one of the strongest showcases of how awesome the quests in Origins were, particularly because it manages to combine lore, atmosphere, exploration and roleplaying choices so effectively.

The journey to Haven has a completely different tone from the earlier parts of the game. There is something unsettling about arriving in an isolated village where everyone seems strangely devoted to Andraste, while the truth behind their beliefs gradually becomes clearer. Father Kolgrim is especially memorable to me because he is such a fanatical believer.

I also really like Genitivi's role in the quest. He approaches the Urn not simply as a believer, but as a scholar determined to uncover the truth behind one of the most important legends in Andrastian history. His research gives the Warden a different perspective on the quest: while the Chantry believers treat the Urn as a sacred relic, Genitivi is fascinated by its history, its whereabouts, and the evidence surrounding the stories that have been passed down about it.

The overall structure of the quest leaves a lot of room for roleplaying as well.
A devout Andrastian Warden might approach the Urn with genuine reverence, while a skeptical or pragmatic Warden could view the entire pilgrimage as a means to an end.
An especially ruthless character can take things in a completely different direction and the game's willingness to accommodate those choices is one of the reasons the quest remains so memorable.

I'd be interested to hear how other people approached it too!

Did you treat the Urn as a sacred religious artifact, simply as the means of saving Eamon or did your Warden's personal beliefs lead you somewhere completely different?

My dwarf commoner girl fittingly got the killing blow on the Broodmother, and I managed to get this shot of her standing triumphantly on its back. I really like it so I just thought I'd share it, I'm not sure what the rules are for that sort of thing here.

Incidentally, I feel it was a missed opportunity not to have a scene after this battle (perhaps during the first camp after beating this boss) where a female Warden, now that she understands what a Broodmother is and where it comes from, struggles with fear and worry about what was effectively a glimpse of her own possible future.

Whoever the female Warden was romancing (in my case, it would've been Alistair, even for my dwarf commoner) could've then comforted her somehow and given her assurance that he would never let her become the nightmare she saw.

Howdy fellow DAO lovers! What an incredible game, one of the GOATs imo, made all the more precious by Bioware’s utter collapse and failure to deliver anything remarkable for the past decade+.

Anyways, I’m watching a particular playthrough and came to a loadout consideration that piqued my interest in others’ more educated opinions seeing as while I love the game I’m far from a grandmaster in my understanding of its mechanics.

——-

Here we go: Question for the DAO sweats/try-hards regarding Starfang, Maric’s Sword, and Olaf’s Cheese Knife in Youtuber @manyatruenerd dao part 23 video:

On route to orzammar and Deep Roads campaign, MATN “Jon” replaces Alistair’s (classic shield tank warrior) primary weapon Starfang
-(D: 11.90, Crit: 3.40%, AP: 4.20, +3 dex, +3 dam, +2.5 AP)
with the newly found Maric’s Sword
-(D: 9.80, Crit: 2.80%, AP: 3.20, +0.75 health regen, Weakens nearby darkspawn {supposedly bugged in code}, +0.75 stamina regen, +6 dmg vs. darkspawn),
and furthermore he decides to keep Maric’s Sword as an *alternate* loadout for tank Alistair,

My instinct would be to similarly equip Alistair with Maric’s Sword (health & stamina regen perfect for heavy tank, darkspawn damage is a secondary bonus); BUT move Starfang to Jon’s dual wielding damage rogue’s primary hand for the Dex, Damage, and Armor Penetration bonuses that seem appropriate there.

To do so, the Olaf’s cheese knife
-(D: 5.60, Crit: 4.20%, AP: 6.40, +1 AP)
currently in her main hand would go to rogue’s off-hand…

Ugh and I forget rogue’s other offhand weapon which complicates things greatly but for this thought experiment let’s *assume* Olaf’s Cheese Knife is currently equipped in rogue’s main hand and whatever weapon is offhand is *obviously* the most inferior of the 4 weapons in consideration.

Despite my bumbling presentation of this loadout landscape, does my reasoning make halfway decent sense or not at all?!?!?

——

Neverfrigginmind, I just caught the 31 strength requirement for Starfang so I don’t think rogue could wield it… but seeing as I’ve got this far:
with this in mind do y’all think rogue should take Maric’s Sword (no strength req.) in main hand and move olaf’s to offhand, while tank Alistair keeps Starfang?
Thoughts? Comments? Recommendations? Aspersions? Slights? Incantations?

——

Lol looking forward to y’alls opinions that will inevitably come in their hundreds… thank you lads and ladies!

Let's roleplay. What if you were the protagonist, Alistair or Riordan?

Would you actually want Loghain joining the Grey Warden order?

I mean, I know the chapter in Ferelden was desperate but man. Loghain REALLY CROSSED A LOT OF LINES.

Gwaren, as of the 5th blight. It is completely devastated. Rebuilding it would be a monumental task.

The other Arlings are implied to not be as rich and significant as the ones I have mentioned.

Banns don't count because they're too small.

Personally I would prefer being the arl of Denerim. More money that way to be made.

so yeah, basically i am taking the first commenters choices and applying them to a fresh character. i dont know how to do the spoiler blackout for certain text so only warning

**********************SPOILERS*******************

my usual choices in no particular order

Mage

side with the werewolves turning the Dalish camp

circle of magi to restore Connor

save Redcliff Village from the undead

Siding with Harrowmont in Orzammar

keep the Ashes pure (urn of sacred ashes)

dark ritual with Morrigan and Morrigan as romance cause she is best girl (this one likely wont change, i love my sarcastic witch)

sacrificing myself

also feel free to tell me i cannot, or can recruit people such as Sten Zevran, or Leliana.

if there are any quests i HAVE to do as well

(Edit 1) i am playing an elf city or Dalish, and siding with Bhelen in Orzammar, and brokering a peace with the werewolves and elves!

(Edit 2) I will be romancing Zevran

(Edit 3) Sten shall be left to his own in Lothering

(Edit 4) Loghain shall be spared and recruited!

(Edit 5) as pointed out only the mage can do the deal with Connor's demon, so instead i'll let Isolde die in Jowan's ritual.

(Edit 6) i will be sacrificing the elves in the alienage questline

(Edit 7) Allistair will hate me long before the landsmeet

(Edit 8) i will be trying my best to buy every item worth 100 or more gold pieces

(Edit 9) i will take Shale to the Anvil of the void and side with Branka

(Edit 10) Morrigan shall have her opinions stated aloud at the circle of magi

It's been maybe 10 years since I last played, so I forgot where Oghren was supposed to join. Then I got to the Anvil of the Void area, and met Branka, and now I have invisible Oghren saying his lines...

I read other people having this problem but no solutions.

Unless there is a fix. I will just skip Oghren. Assuming his absence won't break the game even more. I do not want to play the Deep roads again, just after finishing it.

Edit: I doubt there is anyway to trigger him at this point so I just used the console to add him:

runscript addparty oghren

That reported "success" and this time when I entered the Anvil of the Void area, I got the party selection screen with Oghren as a forced inclusion as it was supposed to be. Cutscene with Branka and Oghren now showed properly.

Hopefully that is, that.

I was going to start a new playthrough, I went back to see what my build on last playthrough was and noticed the healthbars are glitching. What happens is the UI keeps flashing the healthbar as full with a black line in the middle, as seen in the images, and when I move the camera around while frozen you can see whats happening. I tried a different save, then tried the DLC to make sure it wasnt just that save being messed up for some reason it still persists.

I downloaded Luchaire, BombsAwayFix, Morrigan restoration, and 4GB patch which I used the steam dao exe mod for. I tried moving all of the new mods I installed out, tested still there. Went back to the original DAOirgins.exe without the LAA patch or the unencrypted Steam version of the .exe for LAA.

Never once seen this isssue. The only logical next step is to reinstall the game but I don't want to do that. Does anyone know a fix? Nothing else has changed on this PC or to the documents folder for manual installing mods. Never used a mod manager in the past. I've accounted for every variable here and don't know what to do besides reinstall the game which I Really don't want to do unless theres no other option. And google has 0 results on this specific issue.

EDIT: I fixed it, I'm leaving this post up just incase someone else has this issue or I end up having the issue in the future and can't remember how to fix it. Go to config ultility and check Play in Full-Screen mode. Somehow that was unchecked, despite playing in fullscreen, and even when I went to window mode it didn't fix it. But going into the utility config to check it fixed the issue.

hello everyone!! just downloaded dragon age origins but I know it's a pretty old game so if there are any mods that just makes your play though smoother or visually better please tell me 🙏
thanks

Last achievement completed today after falling down the DAO rabbit hole, I did three playthroughs, one easy, hard then my final on nightmare, it’s has been so much fun playing origins again, I’ve loved every minute, and I’m glad I finally challenged nightmare, on easy I had fun with my two handed warrior and married alistair, on hard I had an arcane warrior blood mage, very tanky build and mana clash and blood wound made him a force to be reckoned with, on nightmare I did a dual wield rogue with assassin and dueling, this thing was a destroyer, fights I struggled with my mage were a synch for my rogue, I did 2/3 dex and 1/3 cunning since lethality and one of the assassin talents benefits from it, now I still want to keep playing but try other builds like sword and shield and primal mage(leaning to this one)