dragon-age-origins posts

It hasn't been a good week for BioWare. The developer released a faulty version of the PC version of Lair of the Shadow Broker, the DLC release for Mass Effect 2 (that release was later fixed). Now there are issues with the other BioWare DLC release this week, the Dragon Age Origins mini-expansion Witch Hunt.

In a post on the game's official message boards, BioWare's Mark Darrah admits " ... there is a continuity bug that is causing issues with a subset of our player base." There's also a problem with save games not being created at the end of the DLC. While these issues are not affecting everyone who have the Witch Hunt DLC Darrah states, "Our team is doing everything we can to fix this in a timely manner so those who are affected can go back to enjoying Witch Hunt as soon as possible."

Lots of fans of the original Dragon Age: Origins were not happy with the fact that the upcoming sequel, Dragon Age 2, will only give the players the choice of a human character for the playable protagonist. However, like developer BioWare's Mass Effect series, you will be able to change the gender of that lead character.

First shown last weekend at PAX Prime 2010, publisher Electronic Arts has now sent over an official screenshot of the female version of the lead character Hawke. As you can see, the the female Hawke still looking like she can wipe the floor with a room full of regular men. We will see which version of Hawke is more popular to play when Dragon Age 2 comes out in February 2011.

Morrigan, one of the main characters in last year's Dragon Age Origins, had a rather ignominious fate at the end of BioWare's dark fantasy epic. Specifically, her plot thread was left dangling! Now comes the last DLC for Origins, and with it follows the conclusion to Morrigan's story. While not a lot is revealed, it does show game shots regarding the activation (and destruction) of a magical mirror. It also shows more of Morrigan and promises to resolve her plot line, which is more than enough incentive for most Dragon Age players.

Download HD Dragon Age: Origins 'Witch Hunt' DLC Trailer
Check out all Dragon Age: Origins downloads

For some reason this week brings three major downloadable mini-expansions for three big PC games, including two RPG titles and the first DLC for a long awaited action game.

Mafia 2: Jimmy's Vendetta: The first of what will likely be many DLC expansions for 2K Czech's just released open world action game will cost $9.99 when it's released on September 7. You get to play "clean up" man Jimmy in a series of missions (over 30, in fact) that will show just how much you can do in terms of assassination and blowing lots of stuff up in the game.

Mac gamers have had to wait a while but now the wait is over for those people who wanted to play a native Mac version of Dragon Age Origins Awakening. TransGaming announced today that the Mac port of BioWare's RPG expansion pack is now available via download on the GameTree Online web site. The PC and console versions of the expansion were released last March.

Along with Dragon Age Origins Awakening, TransGaming has also recently offered some of the RPG's downloadable content expansions to Mac owners. The DLC include Return to Ostagar, Dark Spawn Chronicles, and Leliana's Song. All are now available for purchase and download on GameTree Online.

With Dragon Age 2 now set for release in February 2011, it's time for developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts to say "Good bye" to releasing new content for the first game in the RPG series Dragon Age: Origins. Today BioWare announced details of the final DLC mini-expansion for the game, to be titled Witch Hunt.

The storyline for the game closes a open plot line that was left behind at the end of Dragon Age: Origins (spoiler alert!) namely what happened to the sorceress Morrigan after the death of the Archdemon. When Morrigan returns to Ferelden a year after the end of the game's storyline, what will you do? What will you do? We will find out when Witch Hunt is made available for Dragon Age: Origins owners to download on September 7 for 560 BioWare points (about $7).

It's going to be another busy first quarter of the year in 2011. There's already a ton of major game releases slated for that period and today it got another AAA title. VG247.com reports that Electronic Arts has just announced from its Gamescom press conference that Dragon Age 2, the fantasy RPG sequel from BioWare, is getting a March 8, 2011 release date here in the US. Europeans will be getting the game, as usual, a few days later on March 11, 2011.

Other major games already slated for a first quarter 2011 release include Crysis 2, Portal 2, Homefront, Bulletstorm, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Brink and many more.

Wow. Today was a fairly slow day for news. We didn't even mention StarCraft II. Oh, wait ...

• What is the Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition? We don't know for sure but we are betting it collects the original game, the Awakening expansion and all of the DLC in one package. But that's just us.
• A new Booster Trooper update on Steam adds two new maps, bot AI support for CTF and DTV gameplay modes and more.
• An EVE Online player loses over $1,000 of game time via an in-game ship explosion. We hate when that happens ...
• Check out the cool QuakeCon 2010 tournament trophies.
• Also the massive set up for QuakeCon 2010 begins.
• Closed beta testing for the browser-based strategy game Iron Grip Marauders begins.

PC owners of the original Dragon Age Origins got a few atvantages over the console ports of BioWare's RPG title. One was the release of mod and editing tools for the game while the other was the ability to move the camera to show a more tactical viewpoint of the game itself. Recently rumors hit the Dragon Age 2 forums (based on info from a French language magazine) that both features would be removed from the PC version of the upcoming sequel to the game.

The game's main designer Mike Laidlaw went on the game's official forums to do some damage control. For the PC mod tools, there's some good news as he said that the tools used to make Dragon Age 2 are almost the same as those that the team used to make Dragon Age Origins. He states, "While we won't be releasing a toolset update in tandem with Dragon Age 2, we ARE investigating what it would take to update the community toolset to match ours, along with providing DA2 content in the future."

As far as the PC camera issue, Laidlaw did admit, " ... we likely won't pull as far up as we did in DA:O," he added, " .. we are still working with the camera to keep the key elements of the tactical experience," While details could still change between now and when the game ships, he states, "you can still maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a remote location, just as you could in Origins."

The latest in a long line of mini-expansions for Dragon Age Origins now has a title and a price. Fans of BioWare's fantasy RPG will be able to download and purchase the DLC, Golems of Amgarrak, on August 10 for just $5.

And what do you get for five hard earned bucks? You get a new mini-adventure for your character (you can import your existing Dragon Age character or make up a new high level one for this DLC) as he or she tries to "save a missing dwarven expedition in search of ancient secrets for creating monstrous constructs." If we were betting people we would guess golems like the two pictured above are involved. The rewards earned during Golems of Amgarrak will transfer over to the game's main campaign.