Played all three classes (and at least the beginning of every origin) in DA:O - though I didn’t finish my Warrior playthrough - it was just too boring. Doing so gives a bit of insight into Circle life, for sure, but it really doesn’t change the overall dynamic. The Templars want to do bad stuff to your friend because they suspect him of blood magic and… oh right, he was dabbling in blood magic.
The treatment of the mages in DA:O is still oppression and the Templars are harsh, but they are not unjust (at least I don’t recall this being the case). I feel DA:O actually goes pretty far in making the point that the treatment of Mages is justified, because mages are actually dangerous. That’s true of the entire series - all of the games hit us over the head with just how dangerous mages are; DA2 is the only one which directly suggests that the cure can be - almost - as bad as the disease - the game pretty openly shows and tells about systematic abuse and rape taking place in the Kirkwall circle. That’s what I mean by the later being more realistic, because anytime you give one group of people life-and-death control over others, that is the sort of thing that is guaranteed to happen. Come to think of it, ex-Knight-Captain Cullen has a few things to answer for.
The mage origin did add some nice interactions to the story later for being a mage (one of the gameplay elements that makes DA:O my favorite of the three), but it doesn’t affect the plot much, That’s a weakness in all three games though. One would think the PC being an apostate blood mage would affect how the game world reacts to you, but … nope.
Still loved the different origins, though. Other than the Dalish origin, which I thought was a bit boring, all of the origins brought a little extra to your playthrough. Wish they would use that idea again.
I kind of approach the whole Origin approach and the affects of it on the story as a fledgling idea the Bioware toyed with. I probably forgave them for it not being as integrated into it as it could’ve been, but at the time it felt like it had real potential.
My sister and I did our playthroughs around roughly the same time then. She did a dwarf, and I did the mage. The way the origins explained things differently seemed pretty interesting to me, like how each area was experienced so differently because of that background. Did it have a huge affect on the end result, not hugely, but it was still neat though that she developed a hate for the non-idiot dwarf guy because I think he slaughtered her family or something, and that played a major role in who she chose whereas I didn’t have that at all and my decision was based on some quests and what was revealed.
It’s been so long I forget to be honest. I remember Darkspawn being everywhere being annoying since they made such a huge deal about how they only appeared with an ArchDemon. I mean that’s basically the plot of the entire first game: “Holy shit Darkspawn are real and they’re here”. Then later games are like… this is the Game With Darkspawn so they’re still everywhere and your choices are irrelevant because we only wrote one ending and then I stopped caring completely.
There were definitely templars abusing their power in Origins, and Cole’s entire story arc (which, granted, significantly takes place in a novel about him but does also play a role in Inquisition) is about overzealous templars. I feel like DA2 becomes much more unrealistic because it doesn’t depict templars who aren’t abusive mage-hating pricks, or mages who aren’t secretly practicing blood magic.
They only do a big surface-invading Blight when there’s an archdemon. There are always darkspawn down in the Deep Roads, which is why the dwarves have all these cultural elements about fighting them and have been losing cities to them for centuries. Surface nations like Ferelden have written them off as myths because they don’t go into the Deep Roads or talk with dwarves who live there, and dwarves who go to the surface are exiled. And you don’t just find random darkspawn wandering around in the later games - I think there’s a part of DA2 that’s still happening during the Blight, but other than that it’s in the Deep Roads or at entrances to them, or the big bad in Inquisition has taken control of them. (And that’s a plot point “how come he can do this when he’s not an archdemon?”)
Yeah, the people that praised the game for being small scale failed to mention how terrible the enivornments really are. Like the Dollar tree cardboard cut out discount version…they had only one city and they botched it.
It is also funny to compare the “underdark” sections of Origins and DA2. The former being long and harrowing, and the latter being a short easy afternoon jaunt. It approaches parody.
Had to check the wiki to be sure these characters are in (it’s been a while), but there are lots. Knight-Captain Cullen fears mages (for good reason, since he was present at the slaughter in Ferelden), but he is neither a mage hater or abuser. He isn’t effective at reining in the abuses in Kirkwall despite being second in command, but when push comes to shove, he picks the right side. Ser Thrask is co-leads the rebellion against Meredith. In addition you have Samson (who has not yet gotten high on red lyrium) as well as Carver Hawke (if you get the brother and don’t take him to the Deep Roads). All of these are story significant Templar characters in DA2, who aren’t abusive or mage-hating. There is also a group of five named Templar recruits in the game and not one of them is revealed to be a mage hater (a couple of them support Thrask, and others express scepticism about Meredith).
As for the mages, the story actually makes it pretty clear that a lot of the mages in the game only resort to forbidden magic as an act of desperation. Orsino, the last Mage Enemy in the game, offers to surrender unconditionally if Meredith would revoke the clearly unjust annulment. The same is true of Grace (Thrask’s co-conspirator). There are lots of other mages in the game who don’t resort to blood magic at any point, Bethany Hawke, ofc, Feynriel, and several that you end up fighting as abominations, but abomination <> use of forbidden magic. That’s part of the problem with mages, after all - they can be perfectly good people who’d never hurt a fly and then - swoosh - town-destroying abomination.
It’s not surprising that you’d remember it so, since the game inundates you with ceaseless waves of nameless Templar and Apostate mage mooks (as many have mentioned - one of the weaknesses of the game), so I suppose it’s easy to get that impression. There are certainly both evil Templars and Mages (although even Meredith is merely considered “extremely strict” in the beginning of the game - her madness comes later) - the majority of named Templar and Mage characters in the game really don’t fit the characterization you give them, though…
Yea, I kinda liked using the one city for a background, but they used the same warehouse, alley etc for every quest or confrontation. You literally cleared the same spot of bad guys over and over.
As a mage, I obviously wanted to side with the mages. And then literally every mage I side with uses blood magic or self-destructs in some flagrantly stupid way, including my party members. You characterize Orsino as a desperation move, but though that is certainly what the writers want it to play as, it’s not supported by anything that’s actually going on. It maybe might make sense if you side with the templars, since then the mages really are screwed, but he does it regardless.
I mean, I am probably not being fair when I say there are no sensible characters on either side of the conflict - it’s been a long time since I played the game and I only did one playthrough, so I probably didn’t meet every templar character period. But it is not characteristic of the vast majority of mage/templar writing in the game. Even before things go completely off the rails in act 3.
Especially in that final gauntlet, when everyone just starts acting completely mad. Before then there’s a bit of nuance to it all, but it gets flushed down the toilet when Anders destroys the Chantry, and it’s all downhill from there.
The head of t he Templars is by far the worst. I HAVE A RED LYRIUM IDOL THAT HAS DRIVEN ME MAD WHICH IS WHY THIS IS HAPPENING, and also it brings the courtyard statues to life and I control them! Muahahahaha!
I’ve been following this thread and as a result it reignited my memory of never finishing Origins. Actually, I don’t think I played more than five hours back when it was released. Weird, because I love these kind of games. I have it on GOG, so I loaded it a few days ago and proceeded to in 12 hours so far. This reminds me so much of what I used to love about old school RPGs. I’m not big on nostalgia, but I have really missed this kind of game.
I think Origins is a good game. Sure it has some areas that aren’t the best but what game is 100% perfect. And the character interaction is reminiscent of games like Baldur’s Gate.
A couple of the characters are easily the best part of the game. The combat system in and of itself is pretty good once you get the hang of it, but like all their games, it’s brought down quite a bit by the most boring loot ever developed.
One of those characters was the robot, right? At the time of release, I didn’t like that the robot was a DLC-only character, so I didn’t buy it. So I ended up finishing the game without it. But then review after review praised the humor from the robot character and his interactions with the rest of the party. So that’s why I never considered Dragon Age: Origins “finished”. I always think to myself I’ll go back one day so that I can have the robot in my party.
Btw, I learned my lesson. When Mass Effect 3 came out, I bought the From Ashes DLC on Day One and played through with the Javic character in my party. The game was clearly designed with him in mind all the way through. It would have been a much lesser game without him.
