Valentine82 said:
Somehow I'm not suprised to find a Game with the EA Logo churning out money grubbing DLC expansions while the game is still broken, but in the case of Dragon Age it's like they're trying to justify Piracy to anyone who's ever even thought of it. Dragon Age Origins is an overall great game but it's mired by a variety of issues, from unresolvable quests and buggy quest markers to major immersion breaking clipping issues (IE Bhelins Beard and pretty much all Plate Armor). Worst of all are the Memory Leaks, which is a PC only problem and seems to be most severe for DC Processors. Even if you set affinity every time you load up the game though there are still Memory Leaks during several Dialogue Scenes some of which only became an issue after the patch. So what's BioWare Doing? Creating a new pointless dungeon to sell us where we go kill a bunch of darkspawn and reclaim a set of armor that should have been in the initial launch.
EA is a business, and they operate as such. Thus the reason they are one of the most powerful entities in entertainment as a whole. While I can understand reservations about DLC that is released so soon after the game launches that it could have reasonably been included with the game, I myself have little issue paying more. The reason is simple - I feel that I recieved sufficient value from my initial investment. Others may disagree of course, but I would kindly ask that such complaints be examined to determine if the reason is that you feel you received insufficient value, or if it's the result of some sense of entitlement.
I will, for the moment at least, ignore the half-hearted attempt to justify theft as a moral path in an argument about consumer rights.
With regards to technical problems, I have seen my share. None of them resulted in an experience that was unplayable for me, but the game does crash more regularly than most. Obviously this is something I would like to see fixed for free with an update - I should not have to pay for such things. Other bugs however, were less game stopping and just plain annoying. For example, if you dare to play as a human and decide you want a beard, you are apparently doomed to have several sliders locked into place giving your character a disturbing look (it sets two sliders to minimum givng sunken ceeks and enormous cheek bones). Clipping issues are an area where I am a little more forgiving, however, though there are a few that are inexcusable. For example, the Templar armor clips on itself REGARDLESS of who is wearing it or their pose. As near as I can tell, the only pose in which there wouldn't be a clipping issue is if the character walked around with their arms stretched behind them.
The closing remarks strike me as the most absurd in the post however. The new dungeons are indeed pointless if you generally assume any quest not directly furthering the main plot is pointless.
I myself find it difficult to pass judgement on the 3 pieces of DLC available at launch. The short side quest of Warden's Keep grants some excellent gear for the starting adventurer but it's hardly worth the price levied - it took me 45 minutes to complete. That it was available on day one is certainly disturbing, but then it did provide a motivation for players to actually purchase the higher tier of product. Usually, the extras that come with special editions are simply random pieces of garbage and pointless trinkets that can readily be ignored. I think I am generally able to approve of the process in play (giving additional, non critical content to players who expended more money on the boxed game), but the way the game tries to peddle it's wares within the game itself I find more than a little distasteful.
I am, obviously, more forgiving of purely mercenary actions than most. So long as I feel I recieved sufficient value for my purchase, I bear no ill will if asked to pay more for additional content. However, if all DLC is peddled at the same price (about 5 bucks) for a similar amount of gameplay (less than an hour), I'll quickly be disuaded from future purchases. If one considers the benchmark set by the core game, where I spent 50 USD and recieved more than 40 hours of gameplay (single playthough) in return, the more than five fold increase in cost per hour of entertainment seems a little steep.
