Dragon Age: Origins

[FatherJack]

Dragon Age: Awakening expansion.

20 hours of pretty solid gameplay. 10 levels on your character, no new spells but a few new tricks in their class skills. Two new specialisations per class, a few new skills, most notably Runecrafting.

A keep (like an extended camp, as Warden's Keep should have been), fairly small city (about Denerim market area-sized), three quite big areas to explore (probably the Redcliffe chain-sized, the smallest in the first game), an endgame dungeon and a few micro-areas.

I can't decide if it's half or merely a third of the original game. You're overpowered for most all of it, so blast though at the speed it took me in my third playthrough of Origins, yet my first character gave me easily 60 hours in the first game.

I'd say worth the £15 you can get it for on Amazon, but the £20 price tag on Steam is high. The console price is just criminal.

[FatherJack]

New expansion, Leliana's Song. Named presumably after that creepy moment she sings.

Hadn't heard anything about this. Odd, really. You'd think they'd have spammed me, saying "Hey you have a shitload of unused, redundant Bioware points and you could buy this with it."

It costs 540 points and of course they only sell the points in blocks of 400 (at £3.10) because that makes good business sense and pleases your customers.

[Roman Totale]

It's odd: I really enjoyed Dragon Age, and yet I have had absolutely no desire to play any of the expansions.

Maybe once I've finished Oblivion. Again.

[Mr. Johnson]

It's odd: I really enjoyed Dragon Age, and yet I have had absolutely no desire to play any of the expansions.

It's the same for me, and it is indeed odd.

[deject]

I think once you get over the price, the Awakening expansion is really quite good. I'm not sure it warrants the price, but it's about the length of two to three of the quests in the main game, and the voice acting and such is good.

[friznit]

Same here. I reckon it's because despite the story and voice acting being great, the actual game play was pretty linear and grindy in the end. I disovered this when I tried a second run through - knowing most of the story already I simply cba with things like the Mage tower again

[Thompy]

I like to sell games when I'm done with them. If I download some DLC, will someone else be able to use their own EA account with my copy of the game and download their own stuff? Or does the serial code get linked to one account only?

[FatherJack]

It doesn't show up in-game as downloadable/activatable DLC unless you log in with the account that bought the DLC, so no...and er yes.

Games companies hate second-hand sales, indeed any sales beyond the first few weeks of release are often seen by them as irrelevant, but escpecially second-hand sales as they see none of the money involved.

I can see how they would feel that way, when some games continue to cost them money to run servers for, but it's a largely selfish attitude which not only damages important third-party supporting industries like second-hand game stores but in the end hurts themselves as customers are turned off by what seems to them like needless penny-pinching and nickel-and-diming.

[Thompy]

Hm well you confused me a bit, let me explain.

I recently sold BC2, only to have the guy contact me and say he couldn't log in as the game was registered to me already. I have no problem accepting that that is what games do these days, but what annoyed me was that at no point was I aware that I was linking my game version to my account. I intalled the game, using the serial code to do so, just like any game for decades, then completely seperately I logged in with an EA account I already had and just started playing. Now I find out they have magically linked themselves. If it was like WoW where you need to enter your code at your account page then that would make it perfectly clear.

Now onto DA, as it's an EA game naturally I wanted to be cautious. Again, nothing I've read or seen to far suggests that once I log in to DA using my EA account, that only my log in will be usable. Try as I might to find information on it I can't. So out of frustration I just logged in anyway to try figure it out. I then made another EA account to see if I could log in with it, and I can, so actually contrary to what you said it seems the game can be passed on as many times as you like.

The EULA does talk about passing on the game, and account stuff and it's not exactly clear, but does seem to suggest it's ok. Also in a guide on the DA website were it talks about getting DLC it says something to the effect of "check you are logged in with the account you want". And on Amazon if you check used copies of BC2, they say things like "single player only, code used", but none of the listings for DA say such a thing.

So at the moment I'm think it's ok to sell on the game even if I download some DLCs, the new ower would log in with their own account, with no need to use the serial code to make an account like WoW or anything.

Sorry for the wall of text, most of you probably don't even think about selling on games anyway, but I kind of need to and figuring out EAs untransparent account system has been bugging me. Hell, even though my copy of BC2 is forever linked to my account, no where on my account page does it say so.

Anyway, if you think I'm still making a mistake somewhere let me know.

@FJ, I know DLC is per account only. I wasn't suggesting the new ower would get all the DLCs I bought myself. Just asking whether my copy of the game is usable for someone else with their own account.

[Roman Totale]

Just asking whether my copy of the game is usable for someone else with their own account.

As far as I am aware, no - games are bound to the account. Although you could give someone the serial key, they'd still have to log in with your details.

I think.

[FatherJack]

@FJ, I know DLC is per account only. I wasn't suggesting the new ower would get all the DLCs I bought myself. Just asking whether my copy of the game is usable for someone else with their own account.

Don't know about BC2, there's probably something in the EULA that nobody reads when they install it.

As for Dragon Age, I think you can install it and create a new EA account in-game - try it. Anyone you sell the game to will get the base game, but none of the DLC or extra pre-order items bound to your account. I managed to create a fresh, seperate EA account for it by mistake, different to the one I use for my Battlefield games. Mine's a Steam copy though, so not transferrable.

It's probably possible to play without logging in at all, but then you wouldn't get the profile page or be able to buy DLC.

[Thompy]

but none of the DLC or extra pre-order items bound to your account.

If they have their own account (yes I did try it, made 2 other accounts in game and logged in with them no problem) then they can still get the DLC for themselves if they buy it, right? That's what I'm getting at, sorry if you answered and I'm just not getting it though.

I actually have no plans to get any of the DLCs, so you can tell how much this is bugging me trying to figure it out out of principle

[FatherJack]

If they have their own account (yes I did try it, made 2 other accounts in game and logged in with them no problem) then they can still get the DLC for themselves if they buy it, right? That's what I'm getting at, sorry if you answered and I'm just not getting it though.

Should be fine then, the only keys I got with my Steam version were for redeeming preorder items, hence the confusion.

I actually have no plans to get any of the DLCs, so you can tell how much this is bugging me trying to figure it out out of principle

Well it'd be kind of a waste to buy DLC for a game you plan to sell.

[Thompy]

Ah ah, no the serial I was on about was just the standard thing to install the game in the first instance.

This all started with BC2, where it linked my account to the physical copy of my game without me realising. So I just want to figure out if the same would happen with DA.

In the end I logged in anyway as I said, so if it had done then yeah it would of been a waste, but I was that damn annoyed by not knowing, call it OCD But I don't mind buying DLC and then selling as it happens, as long as I get my moneys worth, it's no different to buying and selling the main game.

Anyway, I've achieved equilibrium on the matter and care no more, thanks for assisting this crazy.

[FatherJack]

Aaand another one - Darkspawn Chronicles, 400 points (£3.10) where you get to control darkspawn.

They seem to have listened to me and now offer 560 points at £4.33.

Still playing Leliana's song, it's quite fun, but not expecting it to be anywhere near as long as Awakenings. It reuses a lots of areas from the main game and I haven't seen much that's new. Good for a quick blast if you want to try a rogue class, but don't fancy repeat-playing the sodding mage tower and other favourites.

[FatherJack]

Finished Leliana's Song. Only about 2.5 hours long, never seemed to get going. Just a side-mission really, Awakenings remains the only add-on worth bothering with.