By John Walker on February 12th, 2010 at 8:44 am.
Here’s a few recent Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening: The Subtitlier trailers to introduce new ingredients for the upcoming expansion. First up is Anders, Pyramid star and husband of Starbu… oh no wait. Anders the apostate mage, who can join your crew, with quite a few nice lines in his video. Then there’s Velanna, who apparently makes the trees come alive. Which is cool. It’s not explicitly stated that she’s a potential party member, but I’m guessing that’s the case. And finally there’s the Children, which is a strange word since giving it capital C suddenly makes it seem creepy and threatening.
Meet Anders:
Meet Velanna:
And meet the Children:
Which all looks fun.
12/02/2010 at 08:57 RiptoR says:
Dragon Age Online? Oh, you truly disappoint me now, John…
12/02/2010 at 09:07 John Walker says:
It says nothing of the sort!
And you messed up your bold tags, so who looks stupid now, eh? EH?
12/02/2010 at 12:23 Malagate says:
@Riptor, “o” words that are not “online” include: Origins, Original, Origami, Over, Overt, Ovaries, Ombudsman, Organism, Organic, Organ and Occular. Amongst others (such as “others”).
All would have been just as valid a guess as “online”, accepting that you ignore John Walker writing “Dragon Age: Origins” in the first sentence of the article you are commenting on.
For a few seconds I was hoping for Dragon Age in folded paper form, or indeed the financial investigations of Draconian Ombudsmen, but yae, John Walker illuminates all. The less said about “Dragon Age: Orgasm” the better though.
12/02/2010 at 08:59 Exonin says:
If i’m not mistaken the music is from the battle for middle earth.
12/02/2010 at 09:24 Lilliput King says:
Easy to forget just how bad Bioware is at making trailers.
12/02/2010 at 12:42 skizelo says:
Surprising given how much practice they have.
12/02/2010 at 13:51 jalf says:
Surprising? Think of how much practice they have at making bad trailers. They’re just sticking to what they know. ;)
12/02/2010 at 22:36 Manley Pointer says:
I keep telling myself “don’t worry, the trailers for DA:O were also this bad.”
12/02/2010 at 09:37 mrmud says:
Ginormous gratuitous breasts, GO!
12/02/2010 at 10:08 Rich says:
Her neck is the only part of her body with any armour, which is made even more pointless by the exposed cleavage. Also, what’s that hoop for?
I dunno, talk about form over function.
12/02/2010 at 10:51 Rinox says:
What I am most amazed it is at where a witch of the wild would learn breast implantation spells. I guess it’s at least consistent with lore that her apostate magics created these abominations.
12/02/2010 at 12:04 Taillefer says:
She’s representative of nature’s bosom. Obviously.
12/02/2010 at 12:28 Rich says:
Nature’s bosoms are fake? Awww man!
12/02/2010 at 13:42 PHeMoX says:
All breast implant magic jokes aside, nature’s breast CAN be quite perfect. Not every good looking pair of boobies must be fake!
Having said that, why bother complaining, don’t they look good enough?
12/02/2010 at 09:37 Rich says:
Is it me, or do those Children look like a nightmare version of the dog in the Churchill advert?
12/02/2010 at 09:42 James G says:
Now that you mention it they do. Especially the one on the left in the picture.
12/02/2010 at 10:25 Velvet Fist, Iron Glove says:
Oh yes!
12/02/2010 at 21:38 disperse says:
The spider things reminded me of the D&D 2nd Edition Retriever:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#retriever
Here’s a pic:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG47.jpg
12/02/2010 at 09:48 Bobsy says:
SPOILZ0RZ
So Anders is the dry, sarky replacement for those of us who let Alistair die? Well, seems nice. Also good to have replacement mages, since that shitting bitchness Morrigan decided she’d bail on me right before the final battle.
Interesting that it seems determined to give you a complete replacement set of party members. When last I left my heroes, DA had set up what would happen next pretty clearly – I was going for a wander with lovely Leliana and sultry Zehvran. Are either of them going to be in my party? I hope so. I did enjoy making smoochy-faces with Leliana.
12/02/2010 at 10:06 Flameberge says:
Yeah, I know what you mean. In my “epilogue” after the final battle, it did say I would be going a-wandering with the lovely Leliana. It would seem that without my controlling influence my character thought “sod this” and left her in some inn somewhere. It would be a shame for that to be the case, especially as I spent my 60hr game developing my relationships with my party, just for them all to disappear.
And also, now I think about it, Velanna seems the character to fill the now-vacant “wearing inappropriate clothing” slot that Morrigan filled. Not quite on the same scale as Morrigan though.
12/02/2010 at 10:22 Ian says:
MOAR SPOILZ
In a simialr vein, I’m hoping that if you let your character take the hit at the end you can play as Mr (or Mrs, of course) Orlesian Warden but in a world where all your stuff still happened.
12/02/2010 at 10:39 Shadram says:
@Bobsy
They’ve hinted that some of your party members from the main game will return, but not said who. Zev and Leliana would be the most obvious. And I read an interview (on Eurogamer, I think) where one of the designers said that you might see some parallels between the new characters and the previous ones, but that they’ll ultimately surprise you by not being like them at all. Except now they won’t, because they already told us and now we expect it.
12/02/2010 at 10:49 Bobsy says:
The obvious choices would of course be any characters you’ve been able to get gooey with, so Alistair, Leliana and Zehvran, (but not Morrigan as I assume she just pisses right off no matter what you do, either before or after the battle. Bitch). We know that Alistair can return if he lived through the battle, but I’m unsure about the others. Fingers crossed. Zev was far too much fun to just throw away.
On your own character, it takes continuity seriously. If you took the fall at the end and copped it, you have to make a new dude for Awakening. New Warden, presumably turning up from forn parts late to the party going “Oh, didja have a big battle ‘gainst the darksporn? Shame we all missed it. Buhhhhh.”
12/02/2010 at 16:22 Jeremy says:
If you haven’t played DA:Origins, then there are some fairly significant spoilers below, so be warned:
The thing that sucks is I didn’t really like how my first character turned out. It all started out great, I was a noble man on a noble cause, joined the Wardens and thought only of justice and good. Then, slowly, I started getting involved in things I wasn’t proud of… killing a man there, not saving a woman there, the path of least resistance and pragmatism. Eventually, I even saved my own skin by conceiving an old god with a woman I despise and never trusted, the coward that I am. So, now I have to play through AGAIN and make the right choices (same as Mass Effect 2 really) and stay true to myself, except ME1 can be finished in a quick 15 – 20 hours whereas DA can be finished in a quick 80 hours. The problem is, if I’m a noble man, I’ll end up taking one for the team, which would be pointless since I would just start as an Orlesian Warden … so now what do I do? Force Ali to whore himself out or convince myself it really IS his responsibility to take one for the team? This is the only choice I’ve ever had to struggle with, and I feel like no matter what I do, by the end of the game I’ll find my conscience slightly sullied.
12/02/2010 at 16:47 Ian says:
@ Jeremy: Really, it doesn’t have to take 80 hours. :-P While I can see how people have spent that long in the game, my first playthrough was done in 56 and I suspect a lot of that could be shaved off too by clicking through the convos where I know what’s going to be said already. You’d only need to pay proper attention to the stuff you’ve not seen/heard thus far if you wanted, you wouldn’t need to re-read a load of codex/quest stuff, you’ll know how to finish a bunch of the fights quicker, etc. While it’ll still likely be longer than ME’s 15-20 hours it should still be doable in significantly less time than my 56, let alone 80.
As for how to end the game…. well, that’s why I’m REALLY after some confirmation that I can start an Orlesian warden in the Thedas shaped by my character before he finished off the Archdemon. No other character will be my character (unless I go through the WHOLE game again, just to do everything exactly the same which is a waste of time) meaning if you can’t continue the “I sacrificed myself” saves I’m gonna have to reload the last fight and let Loghain take the hit.
12/02/2010 at 20:23 Jugglenaut says:
@Jeremy
MORE SPOILERS
If you’re really looking for a noble way to keep your character alive, I suggest reconsidering having Loghain become a Grey Warden. At the end, he honestly feels that taking the hit at the end is the only way to make up for his sins. He’ll even turn down Morrigan’s plan unless you absolutely insist on it.
12/02/2010 at 21:26 Jeremy says:
Excellent! My moral conundrum is overturned!
12/02/2010 at 22:59 Ian says:
Oh I had (and will have, if I reload) the Loghain option. I just wanted the bastard to pay for it the hard way, rebuilding and then going to the Deep Roads.
If forced to reload to the archdemon fight it’s Loghain I took with me so I’d be doing that.
12/02/2010 at 09:56 Lobotomist says:
DAO was such a disappointment for me (cause i had really high hopes I guess)
Still. As they say “In land of blind, one eyed man is the king”. I guess in times where there is no more good turn based strategic RPGs – DAO is the king…
So bring on the expansion
12/02/2010 at 10:11 Jules says:
Poor Anders. Guy got like two nice episodes and then spent two seasons spinelessly getting shafted by Starbuck at every, every opportunity until being unsatisfyingly hijacked into “the plan”. Oh, what were we talking about?
12/02/2010 at 10:49 Rinox says:
Anders got what he deserved for messing with my Starbuck!
(and yes, I tend to fall for the crazies)
12/02/2010 at 10:20 Veldjes! says:
So, DeadSpace Necromorphs actually had a children. We need dwarf-paladin named Isaac, apparently. And hey, Velanna looks hot!
12/02/2010 at 10:30 mrmud says:
She looks deformed. But whatever floats your boat.
12/02/2010 at 10:43 Veldjes! says:
Ginormous… gratuitous… trees, AWAKE! also, boobs.
12/02/2010 at 10:46 RiptoR says:
@John: who says I messed them up? :-p
Anyway, an edit-button would be welcome :-)
12/02/2010 at 10:52 Barry Shitpeas says:
Is it me or Anders looks and sounds a bit too much like Alistair?
12/02/2010 at 10:54 Rinox says:
Rinox the pragmatic dwarven commoner survived DA:O just fine and lifted up the dwarven people in the progress, but a friend of mine had his main give his life to destroy the archdemon. So…how will this work for him? New character? A ME2 deux ex machina?
Because even though he loved DA:O he felt like ‘his’ story is done, and probably wouldn’t buy Awakenings. I can understand him (and all the others who died) in that.
12/02/2010 at 11:02 Ian says:
Yeah, that’s what I was saying above. I know you create a new warden from Orlais if you don’t hook it up to a previous save for whatever reason, and I can live with that provided it’s still in the Dragon Age world my original character left behind.
EDIT: Just had another look on the Dragon Age forums and found somebody else asking this question, which I hadn’t previously. Seemingly the only thing that’d been said on this one way or the other is that they ran into some sort of technical problem when trying to keep a dead warden’s decisions. I don’t know enough about it to know if that sounds plausible.
Neither thank or curse Nuffle. You’ll get punished either way.
12/02/2010 at 16:30 Jeremy says:
They better figure that out, because continuity, even of death, is way too important. They’ll piss off a lot of people if the death of their hero ultimately meant nothing.
12/02/2010 at 11:47 MrSafin says:
Did anyone notice the “available in North Amercia” at the end of the Valenna trailer?
That one rocked for me.
12/02/2010 at 11:49 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Never knew you were one to sing along with Julie Andrews, John.
Also, knowing myself, I’ll probably get this regardless of how good it is..
12/02/2010 at 13:31 yonassassin says:
Due to the pic and misreading the acronym, I thought this was a Dead or Alive game.
12/02/2010 at 18:22 Sonic Goo says:
I thought this was about the AOC expansion. Took me a while to notice!
12/02/2010 at 13:52 MadMatty says:
mmm just enjoying the headline picture, then getting on with it…
12/02/2010 at 15:15 Furniture Merchant says:
The talking darkspawn will be a party member, the Legion, if you will, of Dragon Age.
12/02/2010 at 16:11 Jeremy says:
The Children are my worst nightmare. Giant slugs squirming out of alien pods then turning into spiders as they eat people alive, that’s every scary thing in the universe in one creature.
12/02/2010 at 16:26 TCM says:
FRIG
The name of my first character, Human Male Warrior, is “Ander”.
THIS WILL CAUSE NO END OF CONFUSION
BIOWARE STOP STEALING MY NAMES
12/02/2010 at 16:32 Jeremy says:
Seriously, I played a human noble and thought they had figured out some amazing way to have people speak your name, when I realized my own father’s name was Bryce. It sort of fit, being named after my father, but still.
13/02/2010 at 11:27 James G says:
I played through Baldurs’ Gate as Orion, ward of Gorion. It made the old guy seem a bit strange.
12/02/2010 at 17:12 Fumarole says:
Those are large breasts? Clearly none of you live in California.
12/02/2010 at 17:42 Wednesday says:
Why, why is Dragon Age’s voice acting so much worse than Mass Effects?
12/02/2010 at 20:31 Serenegoose says:
oh it’s not that bad! in some places it’s really good. I thought it was really weird how the dwarves were american though, and that at least one of the elves was Tuvok. We’re just spoiled with our voice acting. Mind, the voice acting in ME2 was phenomenal.
13/02/2010 at 02:02 Wulf says:
I thought the voice-acting in Dragon Age ranged from wooden to embarrassing, depending on the character and the situation, and it seemed to get worse as time went on. This is fascinating, because the voice-acting in Mass Effect 2 was admirable, and my ears quite appreciated the effort. What’s baffling is that both games are by the same developer.
13/02/2010 at 02:06 Vinraith says:
I thought the voice acting in DA was fine (particularly enjoyed Claudia Black and whoever voiced Alistair), but then again I think Bioware games would be better served to have less voice acting in general. When did people lose the ability to read? You can do so much more with text than you’ll ever have the time or resources to do with fully voiced dialogue, and half the time I just turn on subtitles and read through anyway, skipping ahead when I finish a line rather than waiting for it to be voiced.
12/02/2010 at 19:53 Dan says:
I’m gutted Anders isn’t voiced by David Anders, of awesome baddie Sark in Alias fame.
Also now showing in the latest season of 24 as a Russian.
12/02/2010 at 20:35 Klaus says:
Damn it. I just realized I never finished Dragon Age. It’s really Mass Effect 2′s fault.
Edit: You know, the Tower doesn’t look too bad what with all these crazy, allegedly murderous apostates running a muck. But ignoring that; who is going to be the bitch?
I take it there will be no romancing the children.
13/02/2010 at 01:29 Stabby says:
She has fucking enormous hands. They’re as big as her head!
13/02/2010 at 01:58 Wulf says:
Telescopic forearms, too!
13/02/2010 at 02:17 Klaus says:
Damn you two for pointing that out. Now I can’t stop seeing it. >:(