Dragon Age - Ultimate Edition Announced

[Dhruin]

Well, it's no surprise but BioWare has officially unveiled the Dragon Age Ultimate Edition (http://dragonage.bioware.com/dao/game/order-ultimate/), which offers DA, Awakening and the seven other DLC pieces all in one retail package. According to GameSpot, the release is October 26th (http://gamespot.com/news/6280129.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6280129).
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=15874)

[Couchpotato]

Thats great news.I knew I should have waited it would of saved me money on the dlc.

[figment]

Well I only have the main game via digital deluxe download and have not purchased any standalone DLC yet. I'm hoping there will be a consolidated DLC pack or I suppose wait until sometime after christmas and this ultimate edition will be cheaper.

[JDR13]

I think this was released way too soon. It's a slap in the face to the people who spent a lot more money by purchasing everything seperately. Just my opinion.

[DArtagnan]

They release this just after the last DLC?

Are they trying to demonstrate how little they care about their customers, or what...

[basharran]

DLC is going to ruin the game market as far as I can currently see it, and this action from Bioware proves just that :(

[holeraw]

Will it require internet connection therefore defeating the point of buying it?

[Tragos]

Beth did the same with Knights of nine , released a CD with expansion and all DLCs in .

holeraw , you can always buy it and use a crack

[holeraw]

Beth did the same with Knights of nine , released a CD with expansion and all DLCs in .

holeraw , you can always buy it and use a crack
Nah... Just asking. I liked Origins enough but I regretted buying Awakening - I didn't even bother to finish it. I certainly don't care for more of that game than I already have.

[Dwagginz]

I do think it's come out a bit early, especially with Golems, Witch Hunt and Leliana's song being released not so long ago (And regarding the PC version, some retailers are selling this for about the price of those 3 packs combined).

This is a great deal for PS3 users in the EU, albeit less of one if they have all the DLC so far and, well, for all parties involved. It's positioned perfectly before DA2 (That's around March, so it gives people a good 5 or so months to get through DA:O) so new players can get a save ready for DA2.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I think I'll buy it one day, since it is the only way for me to get all DLCs in one place and have the "full game" at last.

I wonder, whether this edition will still need the "Dragon Age Updater Service" to be present all of the time, then.

[JDR13]

Nah… Just asking. I liked Origins enough but I regretted buying Awakening - I didn't even bother to finish it. I certainly don't care for more of that game than I already have.

I thought Awakening was as good, if not better, than DA:O.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Still don't understand what's this "awakening" add-on is actually about.

[Dwagginz]

Still don't understand what's this "awakening" add-on is actually about.
What don't you understand, Alrik?

[holeraw]

Still don't understand what's this "awakening" add-on is actually about.
Killing darkspawn?

[JDR13]

Still don't understand what's this "awakening" add-on is actually about.

Another $39.99 for Bioware. :)

[Dwagginz]

Another $39.99 for Bioware. :)
Depends where you buy it from ;)

[curious]

i spent $40 foolishly when it came out and i haven't even played it yet...

[Alrik Fassbauer]

What don't you understand, Alrik?

Plot. There was nothing in the articles & advertisements I could memorize.

[EvilKoala]

I thought Awakening was as good, if not better, than DA:O.

Seriously? I know that it's your opinion, but to me it was one of the laziest expansion packs I've ever played. Sure, it was enjoyable, but the storyline was even more cliched and dull than the one found in DA:O and most of the characters were uninteresting (except for that Dwarven female character who's name I've forgotten. I liked her, for no particular reason), it basically used the same assets as before and the three main areas you visited were pretty much the EXACT same as in the original campaign (a wood with a bunch of Elves, the Fade, and Dwarven halls that were infested by Darkspawn). I believe none of the characters had much to say to me that was of interest either. To top it all off, it was over in 10 hours and it was amazingly easy. I was pretty bad at Origins but I could beat this game with my eyes closed. My brother even switched over to Nightmare because he thought it was too easy and beat it without dying once (he played Origins at normal and found it to be quite tough). I also encountered quite a bunch of annoying bugs.

And perhaps it's my fault, but what the hell have we learned about the Darkspawn across the main game and its expansion? They're bad dudes hell-bent on killing all the races of the world?

[Dwagginz]

Plot. There was nothing in the articles & advertisements I could memorize.
Oh, right. Basically shit happens that you don't need to concern yourself with until you've played through Origins. If you have any interest in the books, I would suggest trying to read them before playing Awakening as it might affect how you play through it and view certain characters.
It's another "save the world" plot, though. Sort of.

(except for that Dwarven female character who's name I've forgotten. I liked her, for no particular reason)
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/5817/sigrunmoti.jpg

I wasn't a fan of Awakening, either. Well, I was, but I wasn't. It was unbalanced, it was (and still is) incredibly buggy, to the point of being game-breaking, and it was rushed.
I also felt the almost-reliance on reading The Calling to be horrible, too. Not to mention how the exapansion retconned the book! It was like "Who's the Architect? Who's Utha? Why should I care?".

[JemyM]

In all the campaigns and modules, Anders and Sigrun was among my most beloved companions. Many of Sigrun's comments reminded me about the intellectual goth girl with that thin line between not knowing whether or not she was serious.

[Dwagginz]

I just go absolutely nutty over female Dwarves. It just so happened that she was quite sweet and she had a hint of innocence about her that was really cute.

[JemyM]

I could be less perky if you like…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6Hk5YlFo9Y

[wolfgrimdark]

I thought Awakening was as good, if not better, than DA:O.

Me as well. I did come across two bugs while playing, but neither was game breaking and I had previous saves so got around them. I am playing it for the second time now and will probably get a third in before DA2.

Overall I really enjoyed it - thought it had a good story and plenty of content. Some quests were lame - but then there are always those pure loot/exp quests in most games. But I liked the overall plot and details.

Anders and Nathaniel were my favorite characters.

As for the "Ultimate Edition" I tend to agree with the rest that it is to soon to be doing this and a bit of a slap to all those who got things individually.

[mooninja]

I loved DA:O and also thought that awakenings was a worthy extension. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. The uniqueness of the party members was very refreshing, outside of Oghren though... he really needed to be handled a little better.

To those that think this is a slight against those that bought the DLCs individually, I really don't think so. So many of us have been yearning for a complete edition, personally I wanted a complete DLC sans OC edition, and they delivered it after the final DLC was released. Those that bought them individually all got to play through them months in advance in most cases, and in the case of the last two they got a couple weeks, and still saved money from if they would of just waited for the DLC compilation. I can't wait for the release of this, although I do wish it didn't herald the end of future DA DLC though.

[JDR13]

Seriously? I know that it's your opinion, but to me it was one of the laziest expansion packs I've ever played. Sure, it was enjoyable, but the storyline was even more cliched and dull than the one found in DA:O and most of the characters were uninteresting (except for that Dwarven female character who's name I've forgotten. I liked her, for no particular reason), it basically used the same assets as before and the three main areas you visited were pretty much the EXACT same as in the original campaign (a wood with a bunch of Elves, the Fade, and Dwarven halls that were infested by Darkspawn). I believe none of the characters had much to say to me that was of interest either. To top it all off, it was over in 10 hours and it was amazingly easy. I was pretty bad at Origins but I could beat this game with my eyes closed. My brother even switched over to Nightmare because he thought it was too easy and beat it without dying once (he played Origins at normal and found it to be quite tough). I also encountered quite a bunch of annoying bugs.


Sounds like you played a different game than the rest of us. The companions, and especially their dialogue, were an improvement over DA:O. At least to most people.

You're also greatly exaggerating how easy it was. It was definitely easier than DA:O, but a lot of that simply comes from knowing how to effectively use your talents by that point.

Also, if you finished it in 10 hours, then a flock of flying monkeys just flew out of my ass.

[Dwagginz]

It wasn't much longer than 10hrs. I think my playthrough came in at around 13hrs, but I'd have to verify that.

[JDR13]

It wasn't much longer than 10hrs. I think my playthrough came in at around 13hrs, but I'd have to verify that.

Depends on your play style I guess. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is a completist like myself. I spent around 20 hours with it.

[Dwagginz]

My playtime would have been longer if some quests had actually triggered (Sigrun's quest being a very common example).

[JDR13]

I assume you completed the "Law and Order" quest in Amaranthine before getting Sigrun in your party. I was lucky enough to hear about that bug beforehand, and was able to avoid it.

Which reminds me, I'm surprised Bioware hasn't released another patch by now.

[Dwagginz]

BioWare released 1.04 not too long ago, which supposedly fixed a number of bugs, including the one with Sigrun's quest.

It did very little, to be honest. I started a new Awakening save after it and Sigrun's quest didn't trigger again. Excellent patching skills :)

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Interesting name. It appears to me as a mixture between Sigurd/Siegfried and Gudrun.

Whereas the word "sieg" in contemporary German language ("Siegfried" is several hundred years now and could be from "old German", so to say) means in English language "victory".

[HiddenX]

Sigrun = sigu + runa (althochdeutsch)
sigu = Sieg(german) = Victory(english)
runa = geheimer Zauber/Rune oder Zauberin (german)
= secret (occult) magic/rune or magician (english)

[Dwagginz]

Well, she's Dwarven so that rules magic out :p

[Alrik Fassbauer]

:lol:



[10 chars limit]

[holeraw]

I thought Awakening was as good, if not better, than DA:O.
I didn't find any bugs whatsoever in Awakening - I suppose I was just lucky.
But I didn't like it at all: the character system seemed to break down in such high levels, too many icons all over the place, I couldn't bother to learn what dozens of talents do at once, and I didn't need to because the game was considerably easier anyway… it seems like both the original campaign and the expansion was a sequence of battles with the exact same few enemies over and over - a tactic that worked for spiders seemed to work for ogres just as well. DA's system was very nice at early levels, it felt rich, but later it just became messy, flat and confusing.

The story didn't grab me at all and I'm certainly not going to read a novel just to 'get it' - maybe I'm wrong but I don't expect it to be very good and I have plenty of novels in my 'to read' list to bother with it anyway. I didn't care much for the characters either - I feel I wasn't given enough time to 'connect' with them… (+ Oghren's first (re)appearance with him waving at me like a school girl was the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a game lately.)

By the way I was very annoyed by those orphan's quests - I didn't do them all but at first they seemed to be a great improvement over the utterly pointless sidequests of Origins, but the fact that I wasn't given any choices whatsoever was painfully apparent in those: I know those guys are trying to fool me - I can hear them talking about it for crying out loud… why can't I confront them or warn their victims or do something other than sheepishly follow their instructions? I'm not the most dedicated supporter of multiple paths and C&C but this is supposed an RPG isn't it?

Then again none of the things that bothered me were absent in Origins… it was certainly Dragon Age, it did offer the same things the OC did, it was more fast-paced and you could see your character achieving his 'epic' status while bits and pieces were indeed somewhat more interesting…
So I suppose I was already fed up with DA in general when I got it. I just wished it would offer me something as different as possible than the OC - I was hopping that Bioware would pull a 'Hordes of the Underdark' again.

[Maylander]

Sigrun, as with many typical Dwarf and/or Berserker names in various fictional settings is a common Nordic name.

It's got to do with Viking inspiration, obviously.

[JDR13]

The story didn't grab me at all and I'm certainly not going to read a novel just to 'get it' - maybe I'm wrong but I don't expect it to be very good and I have plenty of novels in my 'to read' list to bother with it anyway. I didn't care much for the characters either - I feel I wasn't given enough time to 'connect' with them… .


I didn't read any of the DA novels, and I had no problem with the story. I thought it was a lot less generic, and more interesting, than DA:O.

Loved the characters in Awakenings, for the most part.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Sigrun, as with many typical Dwarf and/or Berserker names in various fictional settings is a common Nordic name.

It's got to do with Viking inspiration, obviously.

Yesterday I came across a book by Tolkien - "the tale of Sigurd & Gudrun", in fact.
http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Sigurd-Gudrun-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0547273428/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286185925&sr=8-1

[Dwagginz]

Got the hardback edition sat on my shelf ;)

Reading it is like trying to read custard.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm seriously planning to buy it - but the "Chronicles Of Prydain" by Lloyd Alexander are longer on my list. ;)

Since I had been writing even a little bit longer free-verse poems myself in m youth, I'm used to reading this kind of style. ;)

I'm also hardened by reading ancient poetry and drama, preferrably from ancient Greece & Rome authors. ;)

The only *real* problem I had with the Nibelungenlied, which IS quite hard to read, even for me, who has made it through both the Illiad and the Odyssey, and through Ovid's "Metamorphosis", too; all translated, of course.