DA:O DLC - Darkspawn Chronicles
Darkspawn Chronicles. Wasn't going to get this DLC but had twenty extra bucks handy and thought I'd finish up the last bits of DA:O DLC I didn't have. This also includes Leliana's Song and Witchhunt. Going to play Leli later, but save Witchhunt till the end of the game like I'm doing RTO for the emotional punch (though RTO is just before Landsmeet, however, after the game would be interesting too methinks).
I finally got all the achievements for this DLC and having played at least three-four full times through it and having reloaded at least nine-twelve times more at the battle with Sten, I feel like writing a bit about my reception to it. Spoilers are abundant, of course.
So overview thoughts: this DLC is majorly glitchy. It paused more times than I could count and often I wouldn't even hit an enemy only to have all my hits kill the enemy moments later. During the battle with Wynne I somehow got locked into first person viewpoint and the camera would zoom in and out around me randomly. The screen shook the entire time, partly due to my Ogre, but this was the first time everything rattled all the time. Eventually got out of it by moving but really Bioware? I have an updated version of my game too so...
And the achievements. Ugh. The. Achievements. I got Bane pretty easily. No trouble there. The Enthralling achievement was a pain in the arse, but I got that one too. Sten's battle was the absolute worst. I mean. I had a party of me, Ogre, Blight Wolf, Emissary. I don't know if my game just glitched more but I'm the only one who can use health poultices so my Emissary is pretty damn important having the only heal spell in this here DLC. My Blight Wolf was the worst in this fight, always running off and usually dying pretty quickly. Ugh. Even when I could keep my BW alive my Emissary would die and that pretty much meant death for the rest of the party. Then one time I was doing great even with Emissary dead....something killed my wolf >.>
One very annoying time my Ogre died and I had to reload so that I could get the Ogre Keeper achievement. But it wouldn't have mattered because the damn thing never popped. So. I went online, read up on some stuff, went back and deleted my previous saves. Got Ogre again. Never let him die. STILL nothing. Did this twice. Then I happen across a post from someone telling me to try enthralling the Ogre once the 'Save the Ogre' quest pops before the Archdemon says to enthrall it. Did that and my Ogre had an injury which I healed. Went through the game again and kept it alive...ACHIEVEMENT POPPED. Again, Bioware -facepalm-
Anyway, at first it was kind of weird being on the Darkspawn side and watching them kill all the people I'd known in the game - except Vaughn. I delighted in killing that asshat. Ahem. But eventually (fifth reload of Sten fight probably) I got over that. Now that I've played the game through a few times the whole "OMG I just killed Sten .___." is now "OMG why won't you DIE Sten?!!!". I got all the codex's for the characters except Alistair. I'm not sure if you can access that really quickly at the ending or not because mine always goes straight for the ending cutscene.
Herren and Wade - I think it's pretty awesome they stayed together even while all the fighting was going on and got out together. Talk about devotion. What's not so great...when Herren turned into the Desire Demon it was intellectually interesting. I wondered if Herren was a mage, most likely an apostate, and how that would have played into the story had the Warden known about it. The same Warden meets them in Awakenings after all. It could have been interesting. Then, well, Desire Demon. I was reading Unfortunate Implications on Tv Tropes.com earlier (totally unrelated) and yeah. Wow. Herren being a Desire Demon all along, or making a pact - with no specifications as to when - brings UI up regarding the his relationship with Wade. Do so not want. So now my cannon for these two is that Herren isn't a mage. Cannonly I don't think he is. But this is my reason. DO NOT WANT.
Oghren - Oghren's codex was sad: he went to the surface after being outcasted by the dwarves and spent his time drinking and ranting to anyone who'd listen .__. I'm sure why this struck a chord with me except the fact, instead of drinking a lot but being sort of idk, lifted from being depressed over Branka with my Warden (how I see it happening, at least) he just sunk right into the drinking and never stopped. You encounter him with a crowd of drunks so at least he had something of friends >.>
Wynne - Wynne kept knocking me down in her battle, or maybe that was Gregoir. Idk. Anyway, I thought it was pretty neat she still fought in the Blight despite the fact she wasn't recruited. And the fact that she got the Templars to not only let her out of the Tower but traveled with her to fight the darkspawn is nice. Templars and mages not wanting to kill each other! Also, she sniped at them all the way ;p
And this is off topic, but I read somewhere that Leliana is considered the most "morally good" character in the series and I immediately thought, not Wynne? Because really, Lelianna had that past as a thief. If I'm not mistaken Wynne's been pretty "good" all her life. Then I thought it must be because she's older. Such a sour thought but probably the case >.>
Zevran - Killing Zevran ._____. Really sucked. I'm glad Alistair spared his life though, even if he was supposed to "never show his face again". Riiight Ali, let your assassin go with a warning like that? But it makes me feel a little bit justified in my thinking that Warden!game wise these two could have been friends, not bff's but too much fanfic has them being enemies. I really see them as, as they fight alongside each other, sort of growing into a friendship. I mean, friends who slay together...But anyway, also the point he stayed behind in the Alienage and shows up once you set the tree on fire .______. -sigh- Needless to say, I think I love Zev Zev that much more.
Sten - It's great that Sten apparently survived Lothering (or should I have taken that to mean he never was there, since his party was attacked by darkspawn?) if the Warden didn't intervene. I don't think he survives if you don't take him along, but I'd rather the cannon that he did, although with his belief system I don't think that's possible. Hmm. Sten was the hardest to fight. I'm talking nine-twelve reloads on casual. Ugh. I love you Sten but UGH. And of course, Sten stayed to figure out the mysteries of sweets xD
Alistair killed the Dalish .___.
I guess it's to be expected that he'd side with the humans but...D:
I have to wonder that if he had leadership skills like he displayed getting all of the allies, he couldn't figure out something was up with Zatharin?!!
But that does surprise me a little. Alistair really struck me as the "follow not lead" type and that he gathered allies as well as he did and was quite persistent on killing the Archdemon - to the point of ignoring me and anything else in his path to go after the dragon - made me really think that he might be a good King. Either way - hardened or unhardened - I think he'd make a good king just in different respects: hardened, more practical, unhardened, better with people.
I liked the part in Leliana's codex that they were rumored to be lovers. Putting Alistair and Leliana together never really popped for me in the game, but now that you mentioned it...I think it'd be interesting in a game where I romance a different character. DA:O already does good character interaction so it just adds another layer to the whole thing.
Also that Morrigan only stayed on to heckle Alistair and stayed in the last battle. She never stayed for me, either doing the ritual or not so. Awww xD
And Dog's new name is now totally Barkspawn from here on out xD
I actually thought Alistair would have named him something about cheese, but Barkspawn does sound like something he'd come up with.
Conclusion: The DLC was glitchtastic, being able to use the move sets of the darkspawn (especially the Shriek's, and the Ogre hurling boulders never gets old...when I'm not on the end of it) was neat, and the codex's for all the characters were interesting to read. Nothing really ground breaking here. When I thought of history I thought perhaps a longer game to play through (unrealistic for DLC, I know) or at least a little narration from the Warden-to-be's death. So disappointment when the darkspawn just instantly came for the gates.
Added a bit to the experience (and picked up the achievements on my quest to full achievements) of the over all game, but pretty meh otherwise. Will I be playing again? I doubt it. Even on another character it's not tied into the plot and I've got the item from it now so there's little point. There's other DLC that are probably a lot less glitchy in general.
I finally got all the achievements for this DLC and having played at least three-four full times through it and having reloaded at least nine-twelve times more at the battle with Sten, I feel like writing a bit about my reception to it. Spoilers are abundant, of course.
So overview thoughts: this DLC is majorly glitchy. It paused more times than I could count and often I wouldn't even hit an enemy only to have all my hits kill the enemy moments later. During the battle with Wynne I somehow got locked into first person viewpoint and the camera would zoom in and out around me randomly. The screen shook the entire time, partly due to my Ogre, but this was the first time everything rattled all the time. Eventually got out of it by moving but really Bioware? I have an updated version of my game too so...
And the achievements. Ugh. The. Achievements. I got Bane pretty easily. No trouble there. The Enthralling achievement was a pain in the arse, but I got that one too. Sten's battle was the absolute worst. I mean. I had a party of me, Ogre, Blight Wolf, Emissary. I don't know if my game just glitched more but I'm the only one who can use health poultices so my Emissary is pretty damn important having the only heal spell in this here DLC. My Blight Wolf was the worst in this fight, always running off and usually dying pretty quickly. Ugh. Even when I could keep my BW alive my Emissary would die and that pretty much meant death for the rest of the party. Then one time I was doing great even with Emissary dead....something killed my wolf >.>
One very annoying time my Ogre died and I had to reload so that I could get the Ogre Keeper achievement. But it wouldn't have mattered because the damn thing never popped. So. I went online, read up on some stuff, went back and deleted my previous saves. Got Ogre again. Never let him die. STILL nothing. Did this twice. Then I happen across a post from someone telling me to try enthralling the Ogre once the 'Save the Ogre' quest pops before the Archdemon says to enthrall it. Did that and my Ogre had an injury which I healed. Went through the game again and kept it alive...ACHIEVEMENT POPPED. Again, Bioware -facepalm-
Anyway, at first it was kind of weird being on the Darkspawn side and watching them kill all the people I'd known in the game - except Vaughn. I delighted in killing that asshat. Ahem. But eventually (fifth reload of Sten fight probably) I got over that. Now that I've played the game through a few times the whole "OMG I just killed Sten .___." is now "OMG why won't you DIE Sten?!!!". I got all the codex's for the characters except Alistair. I'm not sure if you can access that really quickly at the ending or not because mine always goes straight for the ending cutscene.
Herren and Wade - I think it's pretty awesome they stayed together even while all the fighting was going on and got out together. Talk about devotion. What's not so great...when Herren turned into the Desire Demon it was intellectually interesting. I wondered if Herren was a mage, most likely an apostate, and how that would have played into the story had the Warden known about it. The same Warden meets them in Awakenings after all. It could have been interesting. Then, well, Desire Demon. I was reading Unfortunate Implications on Tv Tropes.com earlier (totally unrelated) and yeah. Wow. Herren being a Desire Demon all along, or making a pact - with no specifications as to when - brings UI up regarding the his relationship with Wade. Do so not want. So now my cannon for these two is that Herren isn't a mage. Cannonly I don't think he is. But this is my reason. DO NOT WANT.
Oghren - Oghren's codex was sad: he went to the surface after being outcasted by the dwarves and spent his time drinking and ranting to anyone who'd listen .__. I'm sure why this struck a chord with me except the fact, instead of drinking a lot but being sort of idk, lifted from being depressed over Branka with my Warden (how I see it happening, at least) he just sunk right into the drinking and never stopped. You encounter him with a crowd of drunks so at least he had something of friends >.>
Wynne - Wynne kept knocking me down in her battle, or maybe that was Gregoir. Idk. Anyway, I thought it was pretty neat she still fought in the Blight despite the fact she wasn't recruited. And the fact that she got the Templars to not only let her out of the Tower but traveled with her to fight the darkspawn is nice. Templars and mages not wanting to kill each other! Also, she sniped at them all the way ;p
And this is off topic, but I read somewhere that Leliana is considered the most "morally good" character in the series and I immediately thought, not Wynne? Because really, Lelianna had that past as a thief. If I'm not mistaken Wynne's been pretty "good" all her life. Then I thought it must be because she's older. Such a sour thought but probably the case >.>
Zevran - Killing Zevran ._____. Really sucked. I'm glad Alistair spared his life though, even if he was supposed to "never show his face again". Riiight Ali, let your assassin go with a warning like that? But it makes me feel a little bit justified in my thinking that Warden!game wise these two could have been friends, not bff's but too much fanfic has them being enemies. I really see them as, as they fight alongside each other, sort of growing into a friendship. I mean, friends who slay together...But anyway, also the point he stayed behind in the Alienage and shows up once you set the tree on fire .______. -sigh- Needless to say, I think I love Zev Zev that much more.
Sten - It's great that Sten apparently survived Lothering (or should I have taken that to mean he never was there, since his party was attacked by darkspawn?) if the Warden didn't intervene. I don't think he survives if you don't take him along, but I'd rather the cannon that he did, although with his belief system I don't think that's possible. Hmm. Sten was the hardest to fight. I'm talking nine-twelve reloads on casual. Ugh. I love you Sten but UGH. And of course, Sten stayed to figure out the mysteries of sweets xD
Alistair killed the Dalish .___.
I guess it's to be expected that he'd side with the humans but...D:
I have to wonder that if he had leadership skills like he displayed getting all of the allies, he couldn't figure out something was up with Zatharin?!!
But that does surprise me a little. Alistair really struck me as the "follow not lead" type and that he gathered allies as well as he did and was quite persistent on killing the Archdemon - to the point of ignoring me and anything else in his path to go after the dragon - made me really think that he might be a good King. Either way - hardened or unhardened - I think he'd make a good king just in different respects: hardened, more practical, unhardened, better with people.
I liked the part in Leliana's codex that they were rumored to be lovers. Putting Alistair and Leliana together never really popped for me in the game, but now that you mentioned it...I think it'd be interesting in a game where I romance a different character. DA:O already does good character interaction so it just adds another layer to the whole thing.
Also that Morrigan only stayed on to heckle Alistair and stayed in the last battle. She never stayed for me, either doing the ritual or not so. Awww xD
And Dog's new name is now totally Barkspawn from here on out xD
I actually thought Alistair would have named him something about cheese, but Barkspawn does sound like something he'd come up with.
Conclusion: The DLC was glitchtastic, being able to use the move sets of the darkspawn (especially the Shriek's, and the Ogre hurling boulders never gets old...when I'm not on the end of it) was neat, and the codex's for all the characters were interesting to read. Nothing really ground breaking here. When I thought of history I thought perhaps a longer game to play through (unrealistic for DLC, I know) or at least a little narration from the Warden-to-be's death. So disappointment when the darkspawn just instantly came for the gates.
Added a bit to the experience (and picked up the achievements on my quest to full achievements) of the over all game, but pretty meh otherwise. Will I be playing again? I doubt it. Even on another character it's not tied into the plot and I've got the item from it now so there's little point. There's other DLC that are probably a lot less glitchy in general.