Name something that you disliked about Dragon Age Origins.

[Sinndogg]

Hm, let's see...

* Rogues being underpowered until Level 14 or so, while mages are... well, not.

* No open world. At least Mass Effect 2 justified it with the space travel.

* The way they tried (and, unlike in ME2, failed) to make the main storyline seem less linear than it is.

* Not a lot going on in a lot of the environments NPC-wise, and the fact that some of them seemed quite downscaled in order to conserve CPU/level designer leisure time (even though that's pretty common in RPGs... still, Orzammar's supposed to be a city? Right...).

* Reuse of about four or five random encounter maps, and the fact that you could get encounters at all when travelling between the Frostback Mountains and Orzammar via the world map (damn it, they're separated by a single DOOR!).

* What I've seen described as "aggressive" DLC marketing (haven't played Awakening + DLC yet, except for Shale's DLC).

* Major bug with talking to Shale.

* Generally uninspired loot.

* Leliana's fluctuating accent, and Marjolaine's overly thick one.

* Orzammar and the Deep Roads. Just generally dull.

* Lack of interesting world map locations (i.e. ones that don't just use the random encounter maps) beyond main quests.

* The fact that I had to toggle free party movement on and off to stop characters from walking into fire or something more often than I'd like.

* And my biggest issue: the damn terrain. Seriously, even the smallest objects seemed to have an invisible wall protruding out from them by about half a metre. And not being able to walk through 90% of the puddles in the game... what?

Surprisingly enough though, I didn't actually get too annoyed with the Fade dream sequence, despite the overabundance of dreary and blurry - being able to turn into an Arcane Horror more than made up for that. Still, it did seem a bit pointless.

EDIT: And the fact that there were several buildings in Redcliffe and Denerim with no doorways... fail.

 

[Demons_Bane]

The graphics on the console ports -__-

 

[peterwolfe]

I never understood the in-game religion, to be honest. I mean, in my eyes the prophet of it was basically female-Jesus, but this fact alone should have done a lot to the setting to shift it away from the middle-ages-y setting. For one thing, if the sole prophet of the nation's faith is female, why is it still a patriarchal society? It could have been matriarchal, or at least put equal emphasis on the male and female members of society. But almost every soldier and person in a station of political or martial power was male, even amongst the party members: Fighters were men, casters and rogues were women. Several more religious figures were female, but they mainly took a very passive role, in both main and side quests. Much of the story was to rally allies once the king died, and the queen was largely ignored as a potential leader.

Basically, I just think Bioware squandered an opportunity that they themselves set up to make this game's set-up more unique and interesting.

 

[Zeema]

The Fade Lvl i hated that place so much i played the game on nightmare and whenever i get to the fade part i put it on casual and leg it through the whole place

 

[Lolth17]

The combat. Every horrible minute of it. And yes, I was playing on a console.

 

[Tanfastic]

Usually I wouldn't say this for an RPG but it felt like it needed to be more real time, hack and slash style to actually fit the game. The whole "Press button and wait" is good in Warcraft but felt clunky in DA:O. I wanted to run in (Not casually walk), draw my sword, press x to swing it, y for a special, a to heavy hit, and b to block or something along these lines.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

The fact that you could spam AOE's through walls. Once I figured that out the game became very easy.

 

[latenightapplepie]

I didn't really like the in-game universe that much. I felt it lacked originality.

 

[Catinks]

origins wasnt the problem for me, awakening fucked up my love for the series
like, the begining for awakening was good untill you walked into the hall place thingy and they go: OMGWTFBBQ DARKSPAWN RAPING OUR SHIT DO SUMTHIN!!! but you can only choose one place... this was a major dissapointment for me cos it was a nice steady story up till then, if they held the steady story for, like, another couple of hours (4 at most) the story would have worked out well but i didnt, so i am dissapoint

 

[SousukeSeg]

visuals... characters don't look too different from each other, armor is copy pasted with just a slight difference in color, the environment was too brown (like everything else in games these days), the blood effects were ridiculous...

 

[Altar]

Not enough variation, too many dungeon crawls seriouslt the mages tower would have been fine on its own but I have never, NEVER seen a game with two long slog dungeon sections inside each other the fade was not fun or challengng just really time consuming. Noy enough exploration/secrets, melee classes felt way to simmilar.

Yo mate, I heard you like dungeons, so I put a dungeon in a dungeon so you can enjoying dungeon crawling while you enjoy your dungeon crawling. (Ok, I'm certain I got that wrong but whatever)

Anyways what did I hate?! Ah, choices, there were quite a few choices I would have never made. I.e mages origins, where you have a choice between helping your 'friend' or turning him in. Personally I wouldn't have done either and just refused to help but not turn him in.

Also of course the very linear world. Ah, a few classes were useless. (Shape shifting) There's more but I'd be here all day... oh and the fade...

 

[tikalal]

Not going to read anything in the thread because I haven't finished the game. I got about 45 hours in. I was completely immersed. I wanted to know what happened next. But some time in my patience got worn down and I simply became overwhelmed and enraged by the unbelievably poor production value of the game. It's stupendously bad.

I just don't think I can get back into it.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

The gameplay is boring.

 

[Agayek]

The only substantial complaint about the game is the incredibly poor animations in cutscenes (if you've done any of the romance stuff you know exactly what I mean). I had a handful of other minor quibbles about it, but I can overlook them easily enough.

I felt that the mage became underpowered...and their were really only a few useful spells, so most of your talents went unused.

Not to mention the mage's clothes, I mean I didn't feel powerful to begin with and then they make you wear that stuff-and the HATS!!! aaarrgghh!!

It pretty much felt like an extremely dumbed down Baldur's Gate 2 with a FAR less interesting villan. Pretty sad when even a dragon can't fill Jon Irenicus' shoes.

I dunno about the mage spells, as the only mages I used were basically healbots with mass paralysis, but I 100% agree with the other parts.

Mage robes aren't that bad on their own (though compared to the plate sets, they pretty much are), but the hats are so ridiculous. I can't take a guy seriously when he's wearing a Fez with a chinstrap. I just can't; it doesn't matter if he could summon Fiery Apocalypse of Doom or cast that spell Black Mage in 8-Bit Theater likes to use (you know, the one that obliterates everything in its path, but reduces the total amount of love in the universe with every cast), I still have to laugh in his face.

And you are most definitely correct about Irenicus. He was by far the most compelling villain I've ever seen in a video game. I'm not that upset about it, since BG2 is by far my most favorite game ever, and I wasn't expecting DAO to match up, but it was a disappointment that the Big Bad was so much less complex than Irenicus.

Also, I think I'd give my left testicle for the ability to transform into the Slayer in DAO.

 

[Gerrawn]

the dlc, most of it atleast. warden's keep and the shale dlc was alright but witch hunt was like a slap to the face.

 

[jultub]

The last boss.
I thought that it was REALLY difficult. I spent two hours on it, and I was playing on Normal!

Maybe it's because I played it on the console.
Either that, or I'm just terrible at it.

Console version has some changes to compensate for the clumsier controlling compared to PC, so that shouldn't make a difference. But even on normal that game was pretty tough.

I felt that the mage became underpowered...and their were really only a few useful spells, so most of your talents went unused.

Not to mention the mage's clothes, I mean I didn't feel powerful to begin with and then they make you wear that stuff-and the HATS!!! aaarrgghh!!

It pretty much felt like an extremely dumbed down Baldur's Gate 2 with a FAR less interesting villan. Pretty sad when even a dragon can't fill Jon Irenicus' shoes.

Not even Chuck Norris can fill Jon Irencus' shoes. The villain in Dragon Age was a mindless beast set on destroying the world, it's difficult to be that AND interesting

And yeah, mages.

 

[erto101]

The fact that i can't get autharazation for my dlc -.-