Dragon Age

From user reviews I've read, its not worth the $15 price tag and has only a handful of cutscenes compared to similarly priced Citadel and Mark of the Assassin which had a ton of story and sutscenes.

Based on what little I've seen, a few conversations I've seen suggest that this might have been stuff that was initailly planned for the game and lack of time resulted it in being put on the back burner. For example, if you bring Iron Bull to the Frostback Basin (large location that the DLC takes place in), he and Harding can have a rather funny 'MAYHEM!; conversation, but Bull's first comment is 'I like her! Let's keep her around!' which seems like an incredibly out of place conversation since this happens in the late game.

Kind of even has the feeling of the Exalted Planes or Emprise de Lion's plot, just touched up with cutscenes and more content. If that makes sense?

However, there's apparently a ton of new crafting materials, weapons, enemies/animals, its got its typical funny writing, and is about the price of a $8-$9 DLC rather than $15.

Any screenshots of the new equipment/schematics?

Can we craft vitaar yet?

Do they look like Juggalo make up?

And apperntly the new patch broke mods, so there goes my plan of starting up agian today. :/

Welp back to payday until the mod manager updates.

I'm watching a twitch stream of it right now.

So I played it a little. I found 2 tier 4! schematics and apparently there is a new kind of tier 4 material for each kind ( you get the tier 4 ore from Fade rifts which also drop ludicrous amount of Pure Essences if anyone of you should've been unlucky with them). The enemies are also suprisingly strong, my Knight Enchanter actually died in one battle. One faderift also threw 5 Pride demons at once at me, that caught me left handed.And one of my scouts was possesed by a Vengance demon "A" mind you, there was no indication that this was the one from DA 2 I spared him to see what would happen(he seemed rather lucid), much to my partys dissaproval.

edited 24th Mar '15 4:51:36 PM by Kiefen

Any party recommendations yet? In terms of dialogue and whatnot.

From what I hear there isn't any new companion dialogue.

O_O ... that is not encouraging.

You mean dialogue trees? Just started it before realizing my dude was too weak but there's a ton of Harding dialogue already. I do know that Bull and Sera commented on a random fade rift that was nearby (before I realized how weak I was when I got effortlessly wiped).

edited 24th Mar '15 7:25:19 PM by HazzyHaz

No. There's new banners and everything. Bull has a dialogue with Harding.

There's also a shop with schematics for several previously unique helmets, such as Cole's hat and the Helm of the Inquisitor. That's not an important spoiler, but just in case.

Yeah, now I can have Cole's hat.

It took me about 5 hours to beat. Definitely worth the $15. The story is fairly generic, but the Frostback Basin is a huge area with a lot to do. I also really like how the writers handle the Avvar: the non-cultists are quite nuanced for Proud Warrior Race Guys.

The minimum level for the DLC is 20, BTW.

There are a few new companion banters, and your companions do comment on some quests, including the main quest.

One note: the achievement about shards is unrelated to the stuff you pick up for the Oasis Temple. Which is really confusing, considering that there are occulariums in the Frostback Basin. So far as I know, there is no point to gathering shards if you've already opened the Oasis Temple.

Plot summary for those who don't want to wait for the DLC to reach their console (or don't want to spend $15, or are just spoiler hounds):

• The DLC begins with a new area called the Frostback Basin appearing on your war table. It costs 8 power to unlock it.
• The story starts with a historian discovering that the Frostback Basin was where Inquisitor Amerius, the last Inquisitor before the Inquisition disbanded, died. Amerius was a legendary demon hunter (and good friend of Emperor Drakon, founder of Orlais) who quit the Inquisition shortly before it disbanded to hunt down a dragon, but that's all anyone knows.
• Harding features a lot in this DLC. She even finally gets a codex entry.
• You have two objectives at the start: an island where your historian believes that Amerius visited and a friendly Avvar tribe. Harding also warns you about an aggressive Avvar tribe called the Jaws of Hakkon (or Hakkonites).
• The Avvar turn out to be spirit worshippers. They train their mages by getting them possessed by benevolent mentor spirits: these abominations are closer to Wynne than Anders.
• The friendly Avvars offer to help you against the Hakkonites if you find out what happened to their sacred bear. You wind up rescuing their sacred bear from the Hakkonites.
• The good Avvar chief explains that Hakkon Wintersbreath, the Avvar god of war, is actually a powerful spirit. 800 years ago, the original Hakkonites bound Hakkon to a dragon, turning him into a demon. The Hakkonites were planning to bind Hakkon to the sacred bear. The good Avvars agree to help you fight the Hakkonites, but first you need a way through their fortress's ice walls.
• You retrace Amerius's footsteps and learn that (1) he was in love with an elven mage, a fact that the Chantry erased from history after the fall of the Dales and (2) Drakon ordered Amerius to go to the Basin to kill a dragon that could pose as great a threat to Orlais as the Second Archdemon. You quickly reason that Amerius died killing the Dragon!Hakkon.
• While retracing Amerius's footsteps, you find an ancient Tevinter thingee that allows you to breach the ice wall.
• The good Avvar launch a good old fashioned barbarian raid against the Hakkonites. You have an unfortunately brief war sequence against the Hakkonites, where you also fight alongside the sacred bear.
• You reach the "Old Temple", the DLC's final dungeon. It's a gimmick level. You have a coldness meter that constantly depletes and if it runs out, you rapidly take damage. You can refill the meter by standing next to braziers. This is even more annoying than it sounds. There are weak enemies called ice shards that reduce your meter if you are too close to them. Lighting all of the braziers and killing all of the ice shards gets you an achievement.
• During this dungeon, you hear the Hakkonite chief reciting a chant to allow Hakkon to possess him. The chant is about 2 minutes long and repeats constantly. It's very annoying. You also find a couple of journals revealing that the Hakkonite chief refounded the Jaws of Hakkon after losing his tribe during the Fifth Blight, a loss that could have been prevented if the lowlanders hadn't refused to help them.
• You find the Hakkonite chief in front of Hakkon!Dragon and Amerius (both of which are frozen in time) have a boss fight against the Hakkonite chief (who has a name, but I don't remember it). He's a fairly simple fight, except the coldness meter runs down and he will eventually start destroying braziers in the arena.
• Amerius returns to normal. It turns out that he's an elf, albeit one who worships the Maker and Andraste alongside the Creators. The two of you have a brief chat about what it means to be Inquisitor. Amerius warns you that the wards he sealed Dragon!Hakkon away are wearing off before 800 years catches up to him. Dragon!Hakkon unthaws and takes off for a bigger boss arena.
• You go outside and confront Hakkon, who has frozen part of the lake into a boss arena. Standard dragon fight, except his ice breath looks different, he summons gibbering horrors instead of dragonlings, and he taunts you throughout the battle.
• After the battle, you and Harding have a chat about how Amerius was nothing like history recorded him and wonder about whether this will happen to you one day. After, Hakkon's spirit exits the dragon corpse and returns to the Fade.

edited 24th Mar '15 9:51:33 PM by lrrose

I'm getting Skyrim: Dragonborn feels!

Is the DLC's story presented in cutscenes or is it all real time gameplay with voiceovers like in most of the areas?

There are some cutscenes, but a lot of it is in the non-cutscene converstations. There's a lot of dialog though.

Some other tidbits that I just remembered:

• The Avvar have a ritual that undoes possession, although it looks like the possessed person has to be the one to perform it.
• Ameridan once fought a wolf that had fade powers. There's no evidence that it was Solas, but it's pretty interesting.

There is a Mean Girls reference in the new codex entries [1]

edited 25th Mar '15 6:49:32 AM by Kiefen

Lol.

Hmmm. Might be worth playing through once with my guy who romanced Harding. Someday. I'll probably wait until the patch releases have stopped and the modders can catch up.

The newest patch(don't have the complete notes)seems to have fixed the "The Fall" pieces.

Has the Black Emporium been added yet, or are we still waiting?

This is the notes:

They forgot.

:c