Articles
Hands on with Dragon Age: Origins - Part 2 of 2
by Ron Burke
Shattered Steel, Baldur’s Gate, MDK2, Baldur’s Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and many more titles have come from our friends in the Great White North. Take another look over that list and you’ll quickly realize they are some of the finest RPGs ever made. The House that Greg and Ray built has been working on Dragon Age: Origins since 2003. As we near the edge of 2010 we are finally face-to-face with the release of this monolithic title. Part Two of our coverage will give you the information you’ve all been waiting for – gameplay. The folks at Bioware and EA gave me completely unrestricted access to the game for two days to play in any way I chose, as well as complete access to the heads of development to ask any question I chose. Rarely is this level of access granted for a game prior to launch, and I made the most of it.** Notes about this preview **
I have done my best to keep this preview as vague as possible while still covering the content of the game. Inevitably there will be spoilers, but I’ll do my best to keep them minor and skip the moments that literally had me slack-jawed in amazement– you should experience those for yourself. When you understand the depth of the decisions in the game, you’ll find that even knowing about a scenario doesn’t change just how much you’ll have to really think before you tackle it. To that end, I’ve tried to compartmentalize this preview so you can skip the specifics and just read about the mechanics, or experience the whole thing as I did. I’ll take questions in the forum. Enjoy the preview.
** End of Preview Notes **
** Beginning of general information **
Billed as a “Dark Heroic Fantasy”, Dragon Age: Origins tells a story – specifically, yours. Before we got hands-on with the game we sat down with Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw for a quick peek at the controls and backstory for Dragon Age: Origins. Obviously, this title is not based on any established fantasy rules (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons) so the idea was to set out to build a worthy spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate franchise. Looking at the series and noting the points that made the Baldur’s Gate series great, they began to formulate a game with compelling party members and choices that truly matter. The characters should engage in witty but meaningful banter, gel as a team while still preserving and defending their individual goals and ideas, and build a story more epic and expansive than any previous Bioware title. According to Mike, the objective was that you “Stop playing our game, and you start playing yours.” What type of Elf are you? Are you from the city, or did you come down from the dales? Is your Dwarf a commoner or are they noble born? This is your origin story – you’ll build your character, build an army, and somehow manage to defeat a vile Arch Demon. But you’ll be doing it your way.Firing up a recent build, Mike gave us an overview of the control system. The controls are immediately familiar on the PC if you’ve played any recent RPG. Neverwinter Nights, World of Warcraft, Knights of the Old Republic, Aion, Drakensang, The Witcher and other classic PC titles are obvious influences as he points out the 4 member party, minimap compass in the corner, hotkey bar at the bottom, and the ability to customize it to a degree. The WASD keys control movement, or you can use the mouse to click on the ground for travel. The hotkeys are laid out in a row and can be expanded by simply dragging the edge out a bit more. Since each character has their own skills and abilities, this bar will change quite a bit when you select the individuals in your team. Right clicking on your foes initiates basic melee combat, and using special attacks or abilities are accomplished in the same way. On the very top of the screen are the journal, inventory, system settings, the map, and other miscellaneous controls.
There are three types of abilities in the game - active, area of effect, and sustained abilities. The active abilities require a target and include things like “Vulnerability Hex” (the target suffers additional damage effects) targeted missiles and “Shield Bash” are exactly what they appears to be. A great many of the other weapons and spells are area of effect. The first fire spell you get is the ability to send a fan of fire from your fingertips towards your enemies. This puts a small fan-like effect indicator on screen that indicates range and spread. Similarly, spells like “Grease” give you a web of affected area. Since you can (and will) hit your own troops with spells and effects, you’ll have to be mindful of the risk/reward in launching a fireball into a small room. Sustained abilities are either a set cost to the overall pool of mana / stamina or a constant drain. These spells might include “Rock Armor” and other class-specific buffs (stance changes, “Song of Valor” etc.) that might be used in battle.The folks at Bioware wanted to give players the chance to truly control their party members. To that end they have laid bare the AI system and tied it to a simple drop-down menu system called “Tactics” capable of scripting if-then conditional behavioral triggers. For instance, you can set up your fighter with “If I’m in melee range, first shield bash, then attack with my sword.” You can also script “If you are >75% health use the “Taunt” skill, close distance and shield bash.” There are archetype presets like “Defender” that allows you to select a general ‘package’ for your team members, providing a template from which to make your own, as long as you remember that they process in order from top to bottom. Since these tactics re-evaluate and adjust every time your character levels up, they stay completely fresh and effective.
You’ll start the game by picking from four difficulty levels, but before you can get to making tactics and serving up spells you’ll have to make your character. You’ll select between male or female, human, elf, or dwarf, and then warrior, mage, or rogue. Based on your selection, you can also choose backgrounds for your character. For instance, if you make a human warrior, they will be a noble. If you make an Elven warrior, they can be Dalish or a city elf. Additionally, a dwarf can be a commoner or a noble. Each choice makes up the roots of your origin story.
Once you’ve decided on your sex, race, class, and background you’ll get to the character customization. The illustrate the depth of this game, you’ll be able to modify your characters complexion, tone, tattoos, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, jawline, neck, voice, and far more. Once you spend the requisite obscene amount of time making your character, you can spend five attribute points on either strength, dexterity, willpower (determination and mental fortitude), magic (natural affinity for the arcane), cunning (learning and reasoning abilities) and constitution (determines health and resilience). There are no ‘throwaway’ stats as each skill grants different things for different classes. Willpower grants more stamina for combat techniques and special attacks, magic can help you craft potions, dexterity can help archery accuracy but can also help with dodging incoming projectiles and traps. Even a mage needs to sidestep an acid bath trap every once in a while.All done agonizing over your characters look? Now you get to agonize over your first skill. There are eight chains to choose from, and only some are available due to the way you spend your attribute points. While playing as a caster, I had the option to follow the general mage path, a primal path that handles elemental attacks, creation which covers healing and buff effects, spirit, and entropy. There are enough options here to keep you busy for many plays through the game, and this is just one class. The spells and skills are restrained only by the prerequisite spell before it as well as a required attribute level. We were told that it was very unlikely we’d be able to get enough levels in two days to experience even half of these skills, so we had to choose wisely during our limited time.
Since we are going to keep all storyline details locked below, we’ll skip around to some of my observations.
The attention to detail in Dragon Age: Origin is astounding. The voice work and writing are both top notch, as you would expect from a Bioware title, and the script exceeds 800,000 spoken words. The subject matter is dark and weighty, but also contains a bit of comedy and levity. The auditory experience is similarly detailed. Cloth robes rustle around your feet, while your companions cavorting in armor behind you make an incredible racket with their metal armors. There is a codex of information in the game that contains details on characters you’ve met, books you’ve read, songs you’ve heard, spell combinations, culture and history, notes, and so much more. Even with nearing a million words to hear, there are probably another million to read. The attention to detail extends to combat as well. Arrows stick in their target, whether that be the enemy or your team. Environmental weapons and traps in the room can be unleashed on the forces of good or evil as well. During one sequence I managed to trigger a trap on the enemy prematurely, bathing the room in fire that consumed the frontline troops almost immediately – the archers that remained were no match for my party after that. Similarly, an ambush by entrenched enemies utilizing cover was easily foiled when I turned some nearby ballista against them. Other members of the press in this area had a terrible time with the ambush as they tried, and failed, to assault it head on. This is where the tactical view comes into play.
Exclusive to the PC version of the game, you can zoom your camera out to an isometric view distance reminiscent of Baldur’s Gate II. You can also zoom it even further to a completely top-down tactical view. If you like the view closer to something like Oblivion, you can zoom all the way in to a distance that’ll let you spot the rust on your armored buttplate. I found that this tactical view gave me a great view of the action for larger battles, and the closer zoom was great for seeing short-distanced spells. At any moment you can pause the game and issue orders to your characters as well as swing the camera around to any distance or position. If you are inclined to play it in real time, you can do that. If you like the more Knights of the Old Republic pause-and-go style, that’s certainly a viable option. Heck, it’s the option I used most.Getting into cracking the skulls of the enemy surprised me with an additional detail – cracked skulls. Armor in the game works differently than you might expect. It doesn’t prevent you from being hit, it just lessens the amount of damage. When thinking about it logically, a platemail armored warrior isn’t going to be hit less. It just may hurt less. Wearing sets of armor can provide additional bonuses to your armor, but inevitably you’ll take a few really hard shots and end up on the ground. No longer can you drop to almost zero on health and not suffer repercussions. You pick up lacerations, profuse bleeding, concussions, and more in both minor and major form. These have a pronounced effect on your character, so using first aid kits, spells, or good old fashioned rest to remove them is paramount. During one boss battle, I found that the difference between agonizing death and glorious victory was as simple as putting some bandages around my head. Nobody casts spells well with a concussion, thieves are a little less cunning and stealthy while bleeding profusely, and it’s damned hard to be effective with a bow or hold a shield with a broken arm.
There is an additional twist to the armor rating of your characters – how much that armor can be pierced. You’ll notice this most when using ranged weapons – they all have a piercing rating. You’ll carry unlimited bolts and arrows, and you can slot special ammo (fire, ice, stun, etc.), but the piercing rating and overall damage numbers rule the day. Given that many of the weapons have longer and shorter distance ratings as well, you’ll have to plan your combat accordingly.
Speaking of resting, there is less of a focus on that in this game. In many RPGs, you have to spend a lot of time in the seated position to get your team back into fighting shape. In the interests of keeping this game moving, you’ll regain mana, health, and stamina by simply standing still. That doesn’t mean you can rely on this mechanic though – upgrading the stats that govern those stats is the only way you’ll last through longer battles without relying on potions. Reportedly, a fight with a dragon will take longer than 20 minutes to complete, so you might want to have both at that point.Crafting potions, poisons, and traps are skills you’ll likely have from the start if you are the appropriate class, or acquire through the accumulation of party members fairly quickly. Picking up objects of interest or loot from corpses is fairly easy as there is a small glowing effect around those items, including collectable crafting items. This is a boon as this world is massive. Having a visual indicator so you don’t have to randomly click on every object in the world becomes appreciated very quickly. Once you’ve acquired the correct items to assemble your trap or mix your potion or poison, you simply click on the skill. Selecting the number of items you’d like to make puts you to work on accomplishing that goal. You don’t ‘level up’ on these skills (although they do provide experience), but you don’t have access to a lot of them in the beginning. Seeking out new recipes and schematics is the challenge here.
There is a bit of a departure from the norm in the way this game handles alignment. There are no visible means of tracking your position in the good and evil scheme. Instead, it is reflected in how your party members like you, and how they react to you in conversation. Some characters have a low opinion of the Church, so helping the clergy will raise their ire a bit. On the other hand, desecrating holy relics will send the holy members of your group into a frenzy. Once you get more than two party members, you are bound to have conflict of some kind eventually – everyone has their own beliefs, goals, objectives, and motivations. There is a skill that can help you keep your party happy though – bribery. You’ll acquire gifts of various worth throughout the course of your adventure that can be given to party members to varying effect. The trick is paying attention to the dialog of those characters in order to figure out who is interested in what.
Now let’s talk about bragging rights. If you play the game while online, your achievements, character skills, progress, and more will be uploaded to the freshly-launched Bioware social site. There are 87 achievements in all ranging from killing 100 Darkspawn, crafting an item, setting your first trap, mastering an entire talent tree, or any number of things in addition to the main quest. Screenshots are automatically saved at crucial moments of the game and can be uploaded to your profile as well.
Since we all know that “Recommended” specs for a game can be somewhat misleading, I figured I’d take a quick peek at what hardware was running our game after one of our play sessions. The game was running at 1900x1200 (16:10) with all details maxed out, Anti-Aliasing at 8x, and never dropped a frame. To accomplish this, we used Intel Quad Core 9300s at 2.5 GHz, 2GB of RAM, and a single nVidia 8800 GT graphics card. Pretty reasonable requirements for the level of detail here – you can check the individual Minimum and Recommended specs at the official Dragon Age: Origins page.
Trying to get as much time in the game as I could, I didn’t play extensively on the consoles. That said, I played enough to get a handle on the controls. As Greg and Ray said, it is “Slickified”, which is to say that they built the controls from the ground up to utilize radial menus instead of mouse work. The WoW-like interface is gone, replaced by a circular quick-menu system similar to Mass Effect. You can map up to six ‘quickslot’ skills that are assigned to the face buttons, and then toggled with a trigger, so with four characters in the team that’d be 24 skills to manage. Again, similar to Mass Effect, this menu system keeps the pace moving forward without bogging the player down by dragging the thumbstick over menu items to simulate a mouse. The camera system is locked closer to the player, but as I mentioned before, I spent most of my time with my camera in this position anyway, so it isn’t so much of a loss. Framerate indicators were running on the PS3 and 360, so it was plain to see that the game was indeed running at a solid 30 frames per second throughout my entire play time. I’ll have to play the console versions a bit more to truly dig into how the controls scale over time as your skills increase, but my initial impressions were favorable.** End of general information **
** Beginning of Hands-On Content **
This is your last chance – if you don’t want even minor spoilers, you’ll want to exit now. From this point on I’ll describe my experiences with the Mage origin story.
I kicked off my hands-on time with the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins. The cutscene says “The chantry teaches us that it was the hubris of man that brought the Darkspawn into our world…” and the next 10.5 hours of gameplay would certainly suggest that this is true. There are a total of six unique origin stories that provide the foundation of Dragon Age: Origins. I decided that, for the next two days, I would live my life as an Elven mage.
At a very young age I was sent to live behind the high stone walls of the Circle Tower. It is the only place where mages can be trained... and watched. Templars of the Chantry constantly watch over the mages to ensure that there are no signs of corruption by demons or Darkspawn. With my apprenticecoming to a close, I had to undertake “The Harrowing” - my final test. As a Mage, the Fade (demons) are drawn to me, so the Harrowing sends you to the Fade to challenge one of them to prove the steel of your will. Failing to do so will cause you to turn into a demon and you’ll immediately be destroyed by the Templars. I could not fail in my task...
Entering the Fade was my first opportunity to truly use what I had learned in the tower. The haze of my surroundings obscuring my vision, I quickly learned just how much distance truly matters. Encountering my first creature in the Fade I unleashed fire from my hands, completely missing my target. Readjusting my cone of fire I ripped through my foe with a second blast, setting it on fire. I relished in my first victory, completely ignoring that I was celebrating the slaying of a rat. Take your victories where you find them I suppose.
My path through the Fade lead me to cross paths with others who have failed to complete their challenges. Some of these folks were keen to help me, and some were not. I encountered a Knight of Valor who challenged me to a duel – the reward was a much-coveted staff. My time at the Circle Tower was spent in books, not on blades, so naturally I used my superior willpower to overcome this challenge, granting me the weapon without bloodshed. I celebrated much less as I took the weapon, knowing full well that my next challenge might require more bloodshed and difficulty.Sure enough, the next creature I encountered was a demon of Sloth. Lazy and bored, this creature would have posed a great threat to me, were he not incredibly lazy. With some careful prodding and a bit of riddle work, my newfound companion “Mouse” (a sad fellow stuck in the fade) learned transformation magic to turn into a bear from this Sloth. I knew Mouse would help me in my challenge to come, and the rules of The Harrowing was simply to survive – it was up to me as to the particulars of that objective.
Before long I found myself in the Harrowing area, face to face with a fire demon hell-bent to take my body from me through unholy possession. Unfortunately for this demon, my companion Mouse and I easily dispatched him, proving me worthy, and breaking his hold over this pathetic shell of a man. My Harrowing complete, I returned to the Circle Tower, victorious.
My limited experience had taught me well and I was once again eye to eye with a very large list of spell and skill options having recently leveled up. Wringing my hands over the options, I eventually settled on a lightning spell to compliment my fire blast. Making my way through the library I began to learn about The Fraternities - a near-political banding of different mages with similar political views. Dragon Age: Origins is chock full of politics, and this was my first brush with it. It was here that I learned of Wild Mages – casters who separate from the Circle, unmonitored by the Templars. It was not until much later that I truly understood what that meant.
Making my way through the library I ran into Owain, a Tranquil Mage, who was manning the stockroom. Tranquil Mages have been granted mage status but have been stripped of all of their emotion, to protect us from them, and them from themselves. It serves as an alternative to The Harrowing, but the tradeoff is obvious - you get the clarity of inner peace at the cost of happiness, sadness, or any other emotional connection. Expressing my disdain for Owain’s choice, Owain explained that he did not have the capacity to be offended. The Harrowing is risking death, but Tranquility looks and sounds a lot like living death to me. I moved away from Owain’s lifeless gaze as quickly as possible – I think I’ll avoid the stockroom unless I have a reason to be here.
Passing by a small antichamber, I encountered Templar Gregor, First Enchanter Irving, and Grey Warden Duncan. Duncan is here recruiting mages to join them at Ostagar in support of the Kings Army. As the Darkspawns numbers swell in the south, there is much talk of a return of the Blight. As a recently promoted mage, his interests are obviously turned towards me. As I escorted him to his room, our talk turned towards the Darkspawn. Thought destroyed by the last war, the Darkspawn have once again formed a legion, this one being lead by an ArchDemon of incredible power. Shedding some light on life outside just reminded me of how long I had spent in the tower. Our talk turned to a discussion of me joining the army, but life is hardly ever that simple. Grey Warden Duncan explained that so much of their life is sacrifice, giving everything of themselves to stem the tide of darkness, and that they welcomed people from all walks of life. As an Elf, I knew that he was referring to my people – we were once slaves, but every time someone makes a concession or goes out of their way to tell me just how much they accept ‘my kind’, it just reminds me of that sad fact.Passing near the Chantry I ran into my best friend Jowan. Pulling me into a nearby alcove he proceeded to put me in a truly bad position. He quietly explained that he and his lover Lilly were trying to escape. You see, Lilly is a member of the Chantry, has taken a vow of chastity, and cannot be associating with a mage she was put here to otherwise watch. Jowan asked my help to destroy his phylactery so he can’t be tracked after their escape. I refused to help them, not willing to risk my recent promotion to the Circle. Even though I promised him I wouldn’t, I had no choice but to talk to the First Enchanter about this. I shouldn’t be surprised, especially with the power the old man had shown me time and time again, but it seems that their deception and escape plans were already well known. What amazed me is that the First Enchanter asked me to go along with this plan! Clearly I’d be dooming my friend and his lover, but what choice did I have? Actually I had quite a few, but I’ll let you make them when you get to this point in your game. When Jowans plan comes to a stunning conclusion, I found myself in serious trouble. Grey Warden Duncan took me under his wing and gave me an opportunity beyond imagining - to become a Grey Warden myself.
My choice to join the Grey Wardens wasn’t as simple as accepting a new title – there is an admissions processes that I’d have to undertake here as well. Escorted by Grey Warden Duncan I journeyed to Ostagar - it is here that we will face our Darkspawn foes. The young King Cailin joins us in the city, overconfident and unknowingly outmatched, talking about his great victory to come as if it was a foregone conclusion. Before I can join the field of battle though, I must complete “The Joining” so I too can become a Grey Warden. Thankfully, I won’t be alone for this task. I was soon joined by ex-Templar warrior Alistair - a smart mouthed new Warden himself, as well as two other petitioners. I was being asked to go into the nearby woods to complete a simple test - retrieve vials of blood from slain Darkspawn. Having never even seen them, much less slain them, it was clear that this would be no easy task.
My first encounter with the Darkspawn made me grateful that I had two armored warriors and a rogue in my party, but I’m not so sure they appreciated me. Unleashing my new lightning spell on a Darkspawn, I wasn’t paying attention to its cone of fire, electrocuting poor Alistair. He shook it off and continued his assault, but I’m sure I’ll hear about it when I get back to camp. It wasn’t long before we retrieved our blood vials and set out on our secondary objectives – retrieving the lost treaties of the Grey Wardens. It was on this task that I met Morrigan.
Morrigan is the first and only Witch of the Wild I had ever met. Immediately distrustful of someone who did not follow the Circle of Magi, I was immediately distrustful of her. She stood atop the ruins of an old Grey Warden tower and informed us that she would not give us the scrolls. Taking a combat stance I growled “And why not?” She remained unflappable and replied that her mother had taken them. Obviously unimpressed with our threatening posture, she escorted us through the swamps to talk to her mother. Voiced by Kate Mulgrew of Star Trek fame, it was easy to see where Morrigan got her sharp tongue. When I questioned the obvious age difference between the two women, suggesting that the elder woman was not her mother, Morrigan simply replied “Yes, my mother… did you assume I spawned from a log?” I could tell Alistair was thrilled with her as he uttered “A weird talking witch thieving log…” under his breath. After quick negotiations, we left the swamp with the Grey Warden treaties in our hands.
As I entered camp the nearby dog handler waved me over. It seems that he needed a particular herb found in the swamps to heal one of the Mabari Hounds that had been wounded by the Darkspawn. These war dogs are massive and one would make a great companion. I immediately knew the herb in question, and after a quick return to the swamp I gave the houndmaster what he needed for his antidote. I had a feeling this was not the last time I was to see this goofy but powerful pooch. My tasks complete, I stopped to talk with Teyrn Loghain (voiced by Simon Templeman, whom you may better know as Kain from the Legacy of Kain series). The Teyrn is the General of the Kings army, serving as a high nobleman and advisor to his Majesty. Teyrn Loghain was impressed with my work and seemed at least begrudgingly happy to have another potential Grey Warden at his side in battle – if I could pass The Joining.
Duncan summoned me to a small clearing in the ruined city of Ostagar to complete The Joining. The Grey Warden ritual exacts an incredible toll on the petitioner, but it grants great power and prevents the Taint of Darkspawn from infecting you. You can sense the Darkspawn and they can sense you. Consuming the blood of the Darkspawn that I had collected in the forest, I found myself transformed. Being a Grey Warden was more than title – my life had changed.
The King’s plan to assault the Darkspawn head on was foolhardy at best, but I’m sure the Teyrn and his Majesty had determined it the best path. My task, sadly, would not be on the battlefield. Alistair and I were given the task of lighting a brazier on top of the Tower of Ishal to signal the army of the Teyrn to attack the Darkspawn horde. As both armies entered the field of battle and prepared to face off, Alistair and I entered the Tower of Ishal.
The tower was simply filled with Darkspawn. This place was supposed to be undefended, but clearly we’d have a Hell of a time making our way to the top. Cutting through our foes using spells, swords, skills, traps, and the occasional nearby ballista (overkill is another way of saying “They are dead, we are still standing”), we made our way to the top of the tower. We were unprepared for what we saw.
At the top of the Tower of Ishal stood the largest Darkspawn I had seen yet. A massive Ogre Darkspawn that loomed at least twice as large as any of us guarded the signal torch we intended to light. What happens next is nothing short of betrayal. I won’t ruin the plot moment for you, but suffice it to say that things went less than perfectly. (For those who are worried this might be a walk in the park – all of the press members at this event had to fight this Ogre several times to beat him. Turns out tactics and a healthy party are the key to victory – who knew?)
Making our way to the first city on the world map, it was time to take a closer look at those Grey Warden Treaties. It turns out that these were Treaties of Conscription! These papers enabled us to recruit and conscript armies from all over Fereldin to serve in the Grey Warden army. Looking back at the world map, I realized that this adventure had officially just begun.
The press members at this event talked about the game all night. Dinner, Bowling, and the bus ride to and from was filled with chatter about the unique origin stories and how each of us had a completely different experience based on our decisions. The game was universally loved across the board - I can’t tell you how much that never happens. At the end of my 10.5 hours with the game, I had only uncovered 16% of the world. The sense of scale in the game became immediately apparent to me at this point. Whether Dragon Age: Origins holds up over time has yet to be seen, but I can tell you that, based on the time I’ve spent so far, Dragon Age: Origins is easily RPG of the year.
Look for Dragon Age: Origins and our review of it on Xbox 360 and PC on November 3rd. Watch for our PS3 review just two weeks later.
Ron Burke
-- Director of Gaming Trend
