Dragon Age - Mod Restores Hidden Content

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Spaceman
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@GameRant A mod for Dragon Age: Origins restores hidden content.

The mod, called Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack, attempts to fix over 790 bugs that affected the game's overall performance. Unlike previous mods for Dragon Age: Origins, this particular one does not intend to add any additional content aside from those that are already present in the game. The mod creator also made it clear that they did not alter the game's combat mechanics, which is widely seen as clunky and unbalanced.

The fun part about this fan-created mod is that it also unraveled some hidden content that BioWare was didn't put in Dragon Age: Origins. It is currently unknown why the developer decided to omit these elements in the final build, but it is assumed that time and budget constraints were the primary reason.

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This was one of my all time favs, looks like a mighty good excuse to replay this...
 
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I've played and replayed this masterpiece....oh, maybe four times in total over the last ten years. I never found the combat mechanics to be clunky at all, so I'm not too sure what they are talking about there. I'm curious about the exposed new content, I'll have to keep an eye out for that on my next play through.
 
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This mod has been around for around 9 years! :) Most of the restored content was added back in 2012 (I used it when I played) but it looks like there have been a few more additions since then. Great work by Qwinn to keep at it all these years.
 
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At beginning I was thrilled by DAO, after all it has been long waiting for ANY decent isometric, party based cRPG at that time. Unfortunately, after initial excitement I found class system and overall game mechanics very shallow. Due to that, gameplay started to be very samey and encounter design was not able to save it for me. Only because Im such a fan of this genre I made it to last part of game, but at that time I was severly bored and not able to finish it. Made few attenmpts to replay, that always end by being reminded about shallow mechanics and putting it aside. Suppose there are no mods that would help with this.
 
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I enjoyed DA:O quite a bit first time around but even then the middle chunk was such a slog... I tried to replay it several times but failed to push past Brecillian forest/Orzamma.

I am rather curious about this mod though - what exactly does it restore content-wise?
 
DAO was my first cinematic RPG experience. Even with combat and class system being dumbed down compared to previous D&D games from Bioware and Black Isle I did enjoy my first full voiced RPG. Especially because voice actors were good and they did a convincing job.

Unfortunately it was not long that all bigger RPGs turned into this cinematic full voiced experience with 5% of effort put into core of the proper RPG experience.
 
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Well, eye candy effect wears off rather quickly, at least in my case. To be honest I do enjoy graphics driven titles, both on PC or PS4, but very often I get bored when the wow effect fades. My experience leads me to conclusion that publishers who spend crazy budgets on audiovisual side of product consider deeper gameplay mechanics as a risk. Outcome of such equation is rather clear ...
 
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DA:O is a masterpiece for me. I loved the story (well I like Lord of the Rings), choices and consequences, companions, party based third person combat (which I don't think has been matched), customisations, origins, etc. Game design was perfect striking an excellent balance between open world and linear design.

I like the graphics and how they portrayed the characters and the world.

Was very happy when it was released on GoG.
 
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I recently replayed DAO actually, followed by DA2 and I'm now in the middle of DAI. There's no doubt the quality dropped from the first game, but I do like Thedas as a setting.

I haven't actually tried this mod, but I would be interested in knowing what's there in terms of lore. The two mentioned examples are:

- Turn Morrigan in as an apostate to Greagoir: I assume this was cut because their plans for Morrigan was changed.
- Allow Oghren to join the party permanently after a dwarf king is crowned: I have no idea what they're referring to. Oghren has always been available as a permanent party member. He joins the party when you head into the Deep Roads for the first time. I guess it might now be possible to skip that and have him join later?
 
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That is a huge understatement, the quality level dropping from the first. The second game was flat out horrible, and I never went any further than that. Love that first game, though!
 
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DA:O took a while to grow on me, in large part due to the mediocre character development system and the undisciplined, skirmishing-nature of the combat. But after a while I came to like it. I thought the character system in DA2 was even worse, but I enjoyed the game for what it was. The best aspect of both was probably the companion characters. Haven't touched DA:I.
 
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