Junior Adventurer's Guild - November: Dragon Age: Origins

[logincrash]

Hope it's enough.

Where's your Ludmila?

[pol_345polex]

Hope it's enough.

Where's your Ludmila?

I don't understand what you're saying.

[Kolgrim]

Thought I’d share this. It’s a screenshot of the achievement I earned for beating DA:O on Xbox 360 back in the day. Don’t know if it counts for the badge but I thought it’d be cool to show everyone. Also when looking through the Xbox PC app it lists global completion rates for the achievements which is something I didn’t know existed. Some interesting things I noted that you guys might get a kick out of are that:

-Double the amount of people romanced Morrigan over Leliana. Goth witch supremacy I guess right?
-Human Noble was the most completed origin with Dalish elf the second, and city elf origin the third. Dwarfs got almost no love with only 10% of people beating their respective origins.
-The most played classes in order were Warrior, Rogue, then Mage.
-The DLC’s averaged around a 7% completion rate. I especially can’t believe only 9% of people beat Awakening considering how good it was.
-Only 9% of people recruited all the party members across all playthroughs. I guess that means most people killed Zevran when meeting him and or left Sten in the cage.
-Only 6% of people who completed “Nature of the Beast” sided with the werewolves.

► A few more achievement pics

[Oyster Sauce]

For some reason, The Dwarves really reminds me of DAO. It doesn't even play anything like it, the tone is different, it's a lot brighter, but there's a certain part of the vibe that it captures when you have a bunch of dwarves hacking up orcs darkspawn orcs with cone of effect abilities. Might be worth a try if you like Origins but aren't going to touch the rest of the series.

[logincrash]

Reinstalled Origins. Wanted to do a DLC run first, since GoG has trouble syncing cloud saves or whatever and all of my achievements are blanked. Thought I'd finish Darkspawn Chronicles since I've never done it before.
What a ******* ******** DLC. There's an achievement to keep the initial ogre you recruit alive throughout the DLC, but the game ******* kicks him out of your party. And even if you recruit the same ogre again and he never dies once, the game still doesn't give you the achievement.
And the ******* Archdemon dies in a couple of minutes at the end on NORMAL difficulty. Why the **** couldn't that dragon ***** die as quickly in the regular game?
All in all, it's a combat focused DLC and it was pretty fun for the majority of it. The achievement ******** and the Archdemon being such a wimp are the only real downers.

[Valter]

Reinstalled Origins. Wanted to do a DLC run first, since GoG has trouble syncing cloud saves or whatever and all of my achievements are blanked. Thought I'd finish Darkspawn Chronicles since I've never done it before.
What a ******* ******** DLC. There's an achievement to keep the initial ogre you recruit alive throughout the DLC, but the game ******* kicks him out of your party. And even if you recruit the same ogre again and he never dies once, the game still doesn't give you the achievement.
And the ******* Archdemon dies in a couple of minutes at the end on NORMAL difficulty. Why the **** couldn't that dragon ***** die as quickly in the regular game?
All in all, it's a combat focused DLC and it was pretty fun for the majority of it. The achievement ******** and the Archdemon being such a wimp are the only real downers.

They really ordered an Aliexpress Archdemon for that DLC It is also a rare "what if you never existed" setting that I can appreciate the devs putting the time into.
Golems of Amgarrak is also a very fun combat focused DLC, very self-contained too so you can just jump right in. Frustrating at times, but the Achievement demands Nightmare difficulty so it shall be

[rusty_shackleford]

Wish they kept making those little adventure pack DLCs, they could be still making them with a small team to this day and probably sell well enough to justify it

[TKVNC]

Reinstalled Origins. Wanted to do a DLC run first, since GoG has trouble syncing cloud saves or whatever and all of my achievements are blanked. Thought I'd finish Darkspawn Chronicles since I've never done it before.
What a ******* ******** DLC. There's an achievement to keep the initial ogre you recruit alive throughout the DLC, but the game ******* kicks him out of your party. And even if you recruit the same ogre again and he never dies once, the game still doesn't give you the achievement.
And the ******* Archdemon dies in a couple of minutes at the end on NORMAL difficulty. Why the **** couldn't that dragon ***** die as quickly in the regular game?
All in all, it's a combat focused DLC and it was pretty fun for the majority of it. The achievement ******** and the Archdemon being such a wimp are the only real downers.

They really ordered an Aliexpress Archdemon for that DLC It is also a rare "what if you never existed" setting that I can appreciate the devs putting the time into.
Golems of Amgarrak is also a very fun combat focused DLC, very self-contained too so you can just jump right in. Frustrating at times, but the Achievement demands Nightmare difficulty so it shall be

Golems on Nightmare is hard without serious cheese. I heavily recommend a lot of magic CC.

[rusty_shackleford]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

[TKVNC]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

It's a shame you can't take Morrigan, or Wynne along with you for the DLC's.

[logincrash]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

Do you mean Golems of Amgarrak? And what do you mean by non-arcane? I for sure finished it on Nightmare with my dwarven two-handed warrior. He was a Templar/Reaver with the Warden Keep blood magic abilities. It was much more difficult without Wynne constantly healbotting me, but it's doable.

[Valter]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

I always go sword and shield to let my ranged companions go to town on the enemies. Were you decently tanky as a two-handed guy?

[rusty_shackleford]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

Do you mean Golems of Amgarrak? And what do you mean by non-arcane? I for sure finished it on Nightmare with my dwarven two-handed warrior. He was a Templar/Reaver with the Warden Keep blood magic abilities. It was much more difficult without Wynne constantly healbotting me, but it's doable.

yes, golems dlc. My warrior was two of the berserker/champion/reaver specs(can't remember which two, but definitely none of the rest), I was playing on the hardest difficulty and just couldn't survive the fight after trying repeatedly

mind you this was many years ago so I don't remember the specifics

[Valter]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

It's a shame you can't take Morrigan, or Wynne along with you for the DLC's.

On the other hand, it is a refreshing challenge to be stripped off the companions you constantly rely on. Had a lot of fun.

[logincrash]

I recall being unable to finish it as a two-handed (non-arcane) warrior guy, I was stuck at the final boss.

Do you mean Golems of Amgarrak? And what do you mean by non-arcane? I for sure finished it on Nightmare with my dwarven two-handed warrior. He was a Templar/Reaver with the Warden Keep blood magic abilities. It was much more difficult without Wynne constantly healbotting me, but it's doable.

yes, golems dlc. My warrior was two of the berserker/champion/reaver specs(can't remember which two, but definitely none of the rest), I was playing on the hardest difficulty and just couldn't survive the fight after trying repeatedly

mind you this was many years ago so I don't remember the specifics

Berserker drains stamina for more damage, Reaver drains health for more damage. Champion is a kinda lame tanking specialization.
Did you play as an Origins/Awakening character or was it a newly created one?

[rusty_shackleford]

Do you mean Golems of Amgarrak? And what do you mean by non-arcane? I for sure finished it on Nightmare with my dwarven two-handed warrior. He was a Templar/Reaver with the Warden Keep blood magic abilities. It was much more difficult without Wynne constantly healbotting me, but it's doable.

yes, golems dlc. My warrior was two of the berserker/champion/reaver specs(can't remember which two, but definitely none of the rest), I was playing on the hardest difficulty and just couldn't survive the fight after trying repeatedly

mind you this was many years ago so I don't remember the specifics

Berserker drains stamina for more damage, Reaver drains health for more damage. Champion is a kinda lame tanking specialization.
Did you play as an Origins/Awakening character or was it a newly created one?

origin character, probably max level, might have level scaled it to super hard idk

[logincrash]

I haven't done Amgarrak is a long time either. And I've only done it two maybe three times. The dwarven warrior was definitely on Nightmare because that character was my Nightmare run. I do remember being frustrated by it quite a bit. Probably why I haven't done it more often.

[logincrash]

I'd forgotten how comfy modding Origins is. Don't like some part of the mod? ******* yank it out of the Override folder. Wanna mod just this specific part? Delete everything else. Need a specific load order? Just rename the folder to "z_whateveryouwant."
It's almost as fun as playing the game itself.

[logincrash]

I had also forgotten how ******* grimdark this game gets, holy ****.
"Don't worry, Oren, you will get to see a real sword up close very soon."
It's proper dark fantasy, a la Game of Thrones and Witcher.

[logincrash]

Wish they kept making those little adventure pack DLCs, they could be still making them with a small team to this day and probably sell well enough to justify it

I've played one made by a modder and what little I've played of it was pretty good. I don't remember much but I do remember the starting area. You had to get into a city and you had a bunch of exclusive paths. Talk to the guards with Coercion, sneak through a sewer grate, or just fight, etc. I remember playing it and thinking "Huh, this is like a little DnD module."
Also, kinda related, somebody released a large mini-campaign mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mod ... escription
I'm gonna try it out and see how it all turned out. I have my reservations, but there are so few large quest mods for DAO that it piqued my interest.

A bit of a warning, the mod does add modded textures for eyes and facial hair and ****. So, if your character suddenly looks yassified (as the brainrotted normalfags say), know that this is the cause.

[DrSneed]

I've played one made by a modder and what little I've played of it was pretty good. I don't remember much but I do remember the starting area. You had to get into a city and you had a bunch of exclusive paths. Talk to the guards with Coercion, sneak through a sewer grate, or just fight, etc. I remember playing it and thinking "Huh, this is like a little DnD module."
Also, kinda related, somebody released a large mini-campaign mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mod ... escription
I'm gonna try it out and see how it all turned out. I have my reservations, but there are so few large quest mods for DAO that it piqued my interest.

Not having a single video demo of a quest mod is crazy. Even just a dialogue clip
I want to see how bad the audio is

[logincrash]

A bit of a warning, the mod does add modded textures for eyes and facial hair and ****. So, if your character suddenly looks yassified (as the brainrotted normalfags say), know that this is the cause.

It also turns every companion into an ugly mess because this
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mod ... escription
mod is baked into the DAZIP package. On this basis alone I do not recommend this mod.
I'll still check out the questline, but I don't think I'm gonna keep it for the rest of the game.

[Kolgrim]

I had also forgotten how ******* grimdark this game gets, holy ****.
"Don't worry, Oren, you will get to see a real sword up close very soon."
It's proper dark fantasy, a la Game of Thrones and Witcher.

I think that's one of the main reasons I'm so bitter about the Dragon Age series. It went from a rather dark tone to weebo anime ******** with a focus on interpersonal drama. Mass Effect for all it's flaws still felt mostly like a space opera throughout the trilogy.

Also I gotta ask since you're rolling a human noble are you marrying Anora?

[logincrash]

Just replayed the Mage origin. Holy ****, Jowan is such a ****. He deserves every bad thing that happens to him, including the murderknife.

I had also forgotten how ******* grimdark this game gets, holy ****.
"Don't worry, Oren, you will get to see a real sword up close very soon."
It's proper dark fantasy, a la Game of Thrones and Witcher.

I think that's one of the main reasons I'm so bitter about the Dragon Age series. It went from a rather dark tone to weebo anime ******** with a focus on interpersonal drama. Mass Effect for all it's flaws still felt mostly like a space opera throughout the trilogy.

Also I gotta ask since you're rolling a human noble are you marrying Anora?

I'm not picking human noble just yet; just doing a playthrough of all the origins for the achievements. 5/6 are done with only Dwarven Noble left.
I'd rank them as Human Noble > Dwarf Commoner > City Elf > Mage > Dalish so far. Dwarf Noble might be my favourite over all, but I'll have to replay it to say for certain.

---

As for the marrying Anora question, I usually harden Alistair and force him to marry Anora while sending Loghain to die killing the Archdemon.
Had Cousland actually become king, like he by all rights should have, I'd be marrying her without hesitation. As it stands, somehow the second son of a house that is older than the country itself can only become a prince-consort to the daughter of a peasant. A peasant that's recently been crushing the nobility with a tyrant's fist.
Anora should be looked down upon by the nobles because she's only one generation removed from farmers. Meanwhile there's a young son of a very popular Teyrn who also united the country by fighting countless battles and slaying dragons and demons and darkspawn. There's no ******* way in hell they would choose to support Anora over Cousland.

[Kolgrim]

Just replayed the Mage origin. Holy ****, Jowan is such a ****. He deserves every bad thing that happens to him, including the murderknife.

I had also forgotten how ******* grimdark this game gets, holy ****.
"Don't worry, Oren, you will get to see a real sword up close very soon."
It's proper dark fantasy, a la Game of Thrones and Witcher.

I think that's one of the main reasons I'm so bitter about the Dragon Age series. It went from a rather dark tone to weebo anime ******** with a focus on interpersonal drama. Mass Effect for all it's flaws still felt mostly like a space opera throughout the trilogy.

Also I gotta ask since you're rolling a human noble are you marrying Anora?

I'm not picking human noble just yet; just doing a playthrough of all the origins for the achievements. 5/6 are done with only Dwarven Noble left.
I'd rank them as Human Noble > Dwarf Commoner > City Elf > Mage > Dalish so far. Dwarf Noble might be my favourite over all, but I'll have to replay it to say for certain.

---

As for the marrying Anora question, I usually harden Alistair and force him to marry Anora while sending Loghain to die killing the Archdemon.
Had Cousland actually become king, like he by all rights should have, I'd be marrying her without hesitation. As it stands, somehow the second son of a house that is older than the country itself can only become a prince-consort to the daughter of a peasant. A peasant that's recently been crushing the nobility with a tyrant's fist.
Anora should be looked down upon by the nobles because she's only one generation removed from farmers. Meanwhile there's a young son of a very popular Teyrn who also united the country by fighting countless battles and slaying dragons and demons and darkspawn. There's no ******* way in hell they would choose to support Anora over Cousland.

Hmm that's interesting. I never went the route of marrying Anora to Alistair but it does make sense when looking at the big picture. I just never trusted her and she seems the type to poison his soup or something lol. I do really hate how the writers **** you as a Cousland if you marry her. Like you pointed out it makes no sense why she'd have more political backing or sway compared to a Cousland heir. The story would've been so much more satisfying if we got to be king at the end of the game with our chosen love interest imo.

[Valter]

Just replayed the Mage origin. Holy ****, Jowan is such a ****. He deserves every bad thing that happens to him, including the murderknife.

I had also forgotten how ******* grimdark this game gets, holy ****.
"Don't worry, Oren, you will get to see a real sword up close very soon."
It's proper dark fantasy, a la Game of Thrones and Witcher.

I think that's one of the main reasons I'm so bitter about the Dragon Age series. It went from a rather dark tone to weebo anime ******** with a focus on interpersonal drama. Mass Effect for all it's flaws still felt mostly like a space opera throughout the trilogy.

Also I gotta ask since you're rolling a human noble are you marrying Anora?

I'm not picking human noble just yet; just doing a playthrough of all the origins for the achievements. 5/6 are done with only Dwarven Noble left.
I'd rank them as Human Noble > Dwarf Commoner > City Elf > Mage > Dalish so far. Dwarf Noble might be my favourite over all, but I'll have to replay it to say for certain.

---

As for the marrying Anora question, I usually harden Alistair and force him to marry Anora while sending Loghain to die killing the Archdemon.
Had Cousland actually become king, like he by all rights should have, I'd be marrying her without hesitation. As it stands, somehow the second son of a house that is older than the country itself can only become a prince-consort to the daughter of a peasant. A peasant that's recently been crushing the nobility with a tyrant's fist.
Anora should be looked down upon by the nobles because she's only one generation removed from farmers. Meanwhile there's a young son of a very popular Teyrn who also united the country by fighting countless battles and slaying dragons and demons and darkspawn. There's no ******* way in hell they would choose to support Anora over Cousland.

The ingame explanation was that Loghain is a war hero whose popularity with the Fereldan populace is overshadowed only by king Maric himself, and the people wouldn't like him or his daughter being ousted, to say the least. Do you find this claim to be exaggerated or the threat of popular discontent unrealistic?

[logincrash]

@rusty_shackleford, what's the spoiler policy on Adventurer's Guild games that have already been played?

Hmm that's interesting. I never went the route of marrying Anora to Alistair but it does make sense when looking at the big picture. I just never trusted her and she seems the type to poison his soup or something lol. I do really hate how the writers **** you as a Cousland if you marry her. Like you pointed out it makes no sense why she'd have more political backing or sway compared to a Cousland heir. The story would've been so much more satisfying if we got to be king at the end of game with our chosen love interest imo.

Yeah, for Cousland especially, since Duncan coerces you into joining the Grey Wardens at the very beginning. Being able to tell the Wardens to **** off because you've done your duty and you still have a family to rebuild and a country to rule would've been perfect. Alas.

As for the marrying Anora question, I usually harden Alistair and force him to marry Anora while sending Loghain to die killing the Archdemon.
Had Cousland actually become king, like he by all rights should have, I'd be marrying her without hesitation. As it stands, somehow the second son of a house that is older than the country itself can only become a prince-consort to the daughter of a peasant. A peasant that's recently been crushing the nobility with a tyrant's fist.
Anora should be looked down upon by the nobles because she's only one generation removed from farmers. Meanwhile there's a young son of a very popular Teyrn who also united the country by fighting countless battles and slaying dragons and demons and darkspawn. There's no ******* way in hell they would choose to support Anora over Cousland.

The ingame explanation was that Loghain is a war hero whose popularity with the Fereldan populace is overshadowed only by king Maric himself, and the people wouldn't like him or his daughter being ousted, to say the least. Do you find this claim to be exaggerated or the threat of popular discontent unrealistic?

The Fereldan populace doesn't have a say as to who gets the crown. As for the threat of discontent due to Loghain getting executed and Anora being out of the picture, that's not a factor in the ending where you do execute Loghain, lock Anora in a tower, and crown Alistair.
And even if you do take that into account, the common people can't really do anything about it. The amount of horrific abuse they suffer from the nobles in all the other instances just shows how helpless they are. They would need a massive peasant revolt and those are usually backed by some interested elite party.
Fereldan nobles aren't going to move to put Anora back on the throne, or at least shouldn't want to if things were logical, and foreign interference (i.e. Orlais) isn't gonna get behind the daughter of Hero of River Dane who hated Orlesians burning passion.

[rusty_shackleford]

@rusty_shackleford, what's the spoiler policy on Adventurer's Guild games that have already been played?

Up to @Oyster Sauce

[Oyster Sauce]

@rusty_shackleford, what's the spoiler policy on Adventurer's Guild games that have already been played?

Assume that someone who hasn't played the game might take an interest and decide to try it because of the thread and act accordingly. Report anything you think is egregious and should be tagged, such as the endgame stuff you've been discussing and we can tag it.

[Kolgrim]

Yeah, for Cousland especially, since Duncan coerces you into joining the Grey Wardens at the very beginning. Being able to tell the Wardens to **** off because you've done your duty and you still have a family to rebuild and a country to rule would've been perfect. Alas.

I never really though about it that much but it is massively ******** that Duncan forcibly conscripts one of the last surviving members of one of the kingdom's oldest houses. Almost overnight the kingdom would have lost it's King and as far as they would've known the entirety of the Cousland and Theirin bloodlines. It'd be mass panic for the royals and general populace. Other nations would likely see this as a prime chance to invade since Ferelden would be for the taking after the darkspawn were dealt with. Duncan is kind of a tard in retrospect or perhaps just a zealot for the wardens.