Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening: The Catch-All-enning.

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The first major expansion to DA:O comes out in a mere three weeks.

I was at first concerned with the reported fifteen hour length for $40, but I'm stoked about it now.

As much as I love DA, playing through it four times, as I will have done by March 9th, is a very time consuming process. I am cultivating the three ideal characters for myself, and if the expansion was another 30 hours...well, it's almost baseball season and Final Fantasy XIII comes out a week prior.

I've heard you get 6 party members, one of which is returning, and the rumor is it's Oghren. He was not one of my favorites, but alas.

The Penny Arcade strip on the Awakening site seems to indicate a new rogue, assassin-y sort.

I haven't heard if this is going to have a new set of achievements, anyone know?

New Vidyeh, titled "The Disciples."

Is that a certain Teryn about 17 seconds in, or just my bad eyes?

I applaud the successive colons. When I first saw you propose this thread, I was going to suggest them, but didn't get the chance. Bravo, sir.

This release is creeping up, and I haven't finished my perfectly tuned character for this yet. Dammit.

I will be ready with money in hand. Probably going the Amazon route, it's $3 or lower below the list price and no tax which means a lot for me since I'm a cheapskate...

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I applaud the successive colons. When I first saw you propose this thread, I was going to suggest them, but didn't get the chance. Bravo, sir.

This release is creeping up, and I haven't finished my perfectly tuned character for this yet. Dammit.

"Son, I know proctologists who have seen fewer colons than that!"

I'm about thirty hours into my 1st run of the base game, and it's really scratching that BGII itch, so I'll most likely pick this up before long.

Minarchist wrote:

"Son, I know proctologists who have seen fewer colons than that!"

Just wait until the release of X-Men: Origins: Wolverine 2: Deadpool.

I'm all over this.

I'm also hoping for the DLC packs to see an on disc release, but I doubt I'm going to be fortunate with Warden's Keep being bundled into some of the launch games.

I'm excited as well. The question is, do I get it for the 360 or the PC. I played through once on the 360 version, and merely dabbled with the PC version. I'm thinking of starting a new, PC character for both the main game and Awakening. I'm not sure I'd finish by release though.

Decisions, decisions.

Just pre-ordered it. Got another trial of Amazon Prime and had a $25 gift card so a whopping $11.99 - I can deal with that, and I can't wait to get it

Feel awful soon to have an expansion, considering I've been playing what I consider "a lot" and am about halfway through. Interesting, since I've usually been right on target for the MMO content releases/level cap raises.

Don't rush me, Bioware!

Almost certainly getting this day one. This may be the first time that I've ever finished a game before its first expansion comes out, which is a testament to its greatness. Heck, even with WoW I didn't get to max level before the first expansion.

Kilaban wrote:

Feel awful soon to have an expansion, considering I've been playing what I consider "a lot" and am about halfway through. Interesting, since I've usually been right on target for the MMO content releases/level cap raises.

Don't rush me, Bioware!

You've been playing since November and haven't beaten it? Or did you get it after?

I've only played through Dragon Age once. I can't motivate myself to play through again or buy the expansion pack. It was a good game and I enjoyed it, but I think I'll pass on the expansion for another 6 months or so.

Be interesting to see what everyone thinks of it though.

I'm still on my first playthrough of Origins (yes, I took a break from it for a while, although I got it only a week or two after it was released). I'm enjoying it though, so I'm sure I'll pick up the expansion. I might wait for a deal though, not sure I want to plunk down that much money for more Dragon Age, even though I'm sure it's worth it. I guess we'll see when the time comes.

Couple things I gleaned from the FAQ that weren't exactly expected.

There are no romance options in Awakening. I can live with that I suppose. Also, DLC loot and promo items don't carry over.

I'm sure there'll be more cool loot to obtain, but it seems like a waste to get Duncan's weapons and Cailan's armor and everything if it's just gonna be tossed for all the major expansions.

Respeccing your characters costs 6 gold apiece, which is reasonable. When I heard there'd be a cost I was afraid it'd be ridiculous like the talent tomes, 25 gold or more.

Blind_Evil wrote:

You've been playing since November and haven't beaten it? Or did you get it after?

I got it in November and am just getting to the Landsmeet now.

Slackers!

I find if I play games shortly after they come out, my completion rate is much higher. I'm not good at playing games once the hype for them has died down.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Couple things I gleaned from the FAQ that weren't exactly expected.

...

Also, DLC loot and promo items don't carry over.

If my warrior's blood dragon armor or my rogue's dagger from the DLC doesn't carry over, that's just mad. It'll make me ruddy mad, too!

Maybe they'll have different DLC loot that we can purchase? Woot

Trueheart....tier 8/9/10 loot in the expansion

Reviews say the loot is pretty awesome, from an effectiveness and visual standpoint. I get the feeling you won't miss your old stuff too much.

I know that there is more content than Return to Ostagar, but I hope it is better. RtO just felt tacked on.

Bullion Cube wrote:

Trueheart....tier 8/9/10 loot in the expansion

Reviews say the loot is pretty awesome, from an effectiveness and visual standpoint. I get the feeling you won't miss your old stuff too much.

So, basically a character import with no items yet keep the levels? Not sure how I feel about that...

Nevin73 wrote:

I know that there is more content than Return to Ostagar, but I hope it is better. RtO just felt tacked on.

It was tacked on.

trueheart78 wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

Trueheart....tier 8/9/10 loot in the expansion

Reviews say the loot is pretty awesome, from an effectiveness and visual standpoint. I get the feeling you won't miss your old stuff too much.

So, basically a character import with no items yet keep the levels? Not sure how I feel about that...

You only lose dlc related items. Leaves plenty of solid stuff.

Blind_Evil wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

Trueheart....tier 8/9/10 loot in the expansion

Reviews say the loot is pretty awesome, from an effectiveness and visual standpoint. I get the feeling you won't miss your old stuff too much.

So, basically a character import with no items yet keep the levels? Not sure how I feel about that...

You only lose dlc related items. Leaves plenty of solid stuff.

Except my best armor and/or my best weapon. Look, if I wasn't using the stuff I'd be okay, but my main weapon being a DLC one and my main armor being a promo one, that stinks.

trueheart78 wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:
Bullion Cube wrote:

Trueheart....tier 8/9/10 loot in the expansion

Reviews say the loot is pretty awesome, from an effectiveness and visual standpoint. I get the feeling you won't miss your old stuff too much.

So, basically a character import with no items yet keep the levels? Not sure how I feel about that...

You only lose dlc related items. Leaves plenty of solid stuff.

Except my best armor and/or my best weapon. Look, if I wasn't using the stuff I'd be okay, but my main weapon being a DLC one and my main armor being a promo one, that stinks.

Little early to be worrying about the armour/weapons isn't it? If they did this right you'll be discarding those items for better ones early on anyways.

Armor gets slots for enchantments now. Not sure if they're making any drastic changes in the weapons.

Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if some new DLC items specific to the expansion get announced soon.

I still haven't finished the base game, and it's still on hold since the boot drive doesn't boot anymore and I'm waiting on a replacement. That said, I'm sure I'll pick this up eventually.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Slackers!

I find if I play games shortly after they come out, my completion rate is much higher. I'm not good at playing games once the hype for them has died down.

Yeah, you can kind of feed off the community enthusiasm. Multiplayer games have their own momentum, but talking about single-player games with a lot of other people helps to achieve the same effect. It's fun to play the game for a while and then come back and discuss. Tycho from Penny Arcade recently wrote about this with respect to ME2.

wordsmythe wrote:
Blind_Evil wrote:

You've been playing since November and haven't beaten it? Or did you get it after?

I got it in November and am just getting to the Landsmeet now.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Slackers!

I find if I play games shortly after they come out, my completion rate is much higher. I'm not good at playing games once the hype for them has died down.

I'm in this camp, almost at exactly the same point as wordsmythe.

I'm finding I enjoy RPGs in a binge-and-purge sort of method of consumption -- I had a similar sort of "dump a bunch of hours, then hold off for a long time" arc on Fallout 3. I will say that an upshot of this method is that I still had it percolating when the DLC expansions came out, and it seems I'm on a similar trend with Dragon Age.

That said, I'm looking forward to Dragon Age: Origins: The Coloning.

It's coming so soon! I finished ME2 and am going to continue to play through DA:O. If I can finish it by next week I might pick it up. Although if I can finish both new Bioware games within 6 months of release, I can have some nice free time to catch up on the humongous backlog of games. Decisions decisions.

Citizen86 wrote:

If I can finish it by next week I might pick it up.

It's not as though they're going to make a fixed number of them, just buy it when you're ready.

New character and the 5th page of the Penny Arcade comic are up.

The new character (Justice) seems pretty cool. I like the idea behind him.

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