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Release date and pricing for "Golems of Amgarrak" has just been announced:  August 10th for $5.

At the moment, I am sick of golems, REALLY sick of people pronouncing it "gollum," and sick of caves.

But that will wear off in time, and this seems kind of awesome. Having just finished the Orzammar section and then doubling back to get what amounts to Shale's loyalty mission, I'm not going underground again.

Meanwhile, I'm ready for the Landsmeet in my game. Both Alistair and Leliana love me, equally so according to the meter, but it's Alistair my avatar makes out with every time they're in camp. The poor fool looks like he's in danger of becoming the Virgin King, so it's my character's mission to change both halves of that description, if possible. At this point, the most fitting ending seems like it would be my mage and the goofy bastard dashing around the countryside together fightin' shit, once the Blight is managed.

I destroyed the Anvil of the Void, although that woulda come in handy. I put Harrowmont on the throne, although he's kind of the John Kerry of dwarven politics. Jowan the blood mage still lives, as far as I know. We gave him to the Circle.

I am already plotting how my next playthrough, with the male dwarf noble, will go... but that's much later, when I'm no longer sick to death of caves.

There's going to be a DLC sale for the 360 version of the game going on from August 9th through the 22nd.

Awakening: 3200 2400 MS Points ($30)
Return to Ostagar: 400 240 MS Points ($3)
Warden's Keep: 560 400 MS Points ($5)

Ooh nice. I just ordered Awakenings in Amazon's sale so I'll probably add those bits of DLC in for a longer session.

I supported Queen Anora at the Landsmeet, and Alistair seems happy about that. Even so, it was he who gave the rousing pre-battle speech, and he comments that all the men look at him as their king now. Wassup with that?

Actually, I think I want to load a save from 45 minutes back -- I need to get the best weapons in the hands of my best fighters, raid the Wardens' stash for Duncan's shield, and maybe sell some shit (and buy some health and injury supplies).

Shale's "Have fun storming the castle" was brilliant.

Shale's everything is brilliant. Probably my favourite NPC ever.

If you manage to "harden" Alistair (the opportunity for which is easy to miss and happens way before the Landsmeet) and support him for king, Anora gets all pissy and he puts the smack down.

And after multiple playthroughs in different iterations, it's official: The Captain of the Guard in Orzammar is never not a dick.

I think I missed this; what does "harden" mean? does it mean to lock in on one side or the other?

I missed it for both Alistair and Leliana on my playthrough (which is one reason I'm actually contemplating a 2nd go, despite the time investment -- another being that I didn't buy the Shale DLC), but apparently it gives them different responses and behavior for the rest of the game.

In Alistair's case, via Dragon Age Wikia:

There is the potential here, through dialogue, to "harden" Alistair's personality and change his reaction to certain events later in the story. To do so, select the "Everyone is out for themselves. You should learn that." conversation option. Once Alistair's approval reaches Friendly or Adore, then the next time you speak to him (as long as your approval remains high enough) he will comment that he's been thinking about what you said and he agrees he should stand up for himself more.

I'm about three hours into Awakenings and it's just more of the same which is very nice indeed. However the thought has just struck. I was going to pick up the DLC I was missing when it's on special offer next week...but I've imported my character into Awakenings. If I then go back into DA:O, does it import back or acknowledge anything to do with Awakenings (like new level cap etc etc)?

Ta!

Right; I didn't harden Big Al, and Bodan the dwarf merchant commented that it's good Queen Anora is going to remain on the throne. But still, the other dialogue I mentioned, plus when I went to his room to talk about Morrigan's, um, plan, he said "yep, that's what you get when you're made king: people love to come and tell you bad news."

So my game has me in an interesting spot, where I'm pretty sure Anora really is queen for real, but everyone is following through on what happened at the Landsmeet: Alistair was acknowledged as Cailan's heir, and abdicated the throne in favor of Anora. She made him swear in front of everyone not to depose her, which he gladly did.

Similarly, Alistair loves me completely but still was too wussy to come to my tent. Should have found Duncan's shield one step earlier, I think. And where I had been making out with Leliana at camp as well, upon backing up just a smidge I got the "forbidden fruit" line again, with her "I can't believe I'm having this discussion... I don't date girls" line. So no hot campsite love for my Warden. Maybe there's some randomness? If I cared more about romance scenes I could go back further, but I don't.

I'm fighting the Archdemon now (well, fighting, dying, fighting, dying, coming back to the auto-save later), so soon enough I'll get the ending, and Anora will be queen, Al and the Warden live violently ever after, etc. I hope.

The ballistas scattered around the fight with the Arch Demon really come in handy.

As do the armies available, if you recruited them properly before the Landsmeet.

I don't entirely remember what armies I had at my disposal, just that they got killed a lot.

Oh yes indeedy. Last night, damn me, I was in a spot where everyone was dead but Morrigan and Alistair, yet they were in a spot where they could trigger the balista, no darkspawn were coming, and the dragon seemed to not want to move. I kept pinging it for 35 points, 70 points, 65 points, 90 points, etc etc but I couldn't see its health bar because it was farther away.

I wasn't sure it was actually taking damage, so I moved up... and that triggered it to fly to its next spot, plus a bunch of darkspawn, um, spawned, and came to wipe us out.

Damn dragon was down to little more than a sliver of health; probably a couple hundred points. Me = dum.

What the crap is that whooshing mass of blue-black from above? It seems to be some sort of spell that wipes out 75% of my health. I do not like it.

I'm not sure what that was, but yeah, I remember it being bullshit.  I just finished Dragon Age:  Awakenings and got more than a little sick of being knocked over and gnawed on by some enemies till the game decided they'd eaten me enough.  That sort of stuff annoys the hell out of me.

I didn't do it on purpose, but I'm pretty sure I hardened Zevran at several points in the dialogue tree.

[rimshot]

That dude hardens in a good strong breeze.

I never got him to actually like me overmuch, and so had to kill his smarmy ass when he double-crossed me. A game moment I appreciated, although that fight took a few tries.

...aaaaaaand, done. Not too shabby. But, um, about the ending...

Tonight at a friend's birthday party I learned a new phrase: "Irish goodbye." In Minnesota, it's annoying because people wind up saying goodbye for half an hour or more, trying to talk to as many people as possible as they leave. The opposite is, as my Irish acquaintance says, the Irish goodbye, which involves essentially slipping away such that people are never sure exactly when you left the party, or indeed whether you might not still be around someplace. This game kind of ended like that.

Okay, the Archdemon is dead, the animation plays, there's a cool little ending movie with the coronation of Queen Anora. But then there's all this dialogue, and characters say "you can come back and talk to me later" after you go out and greet the crowd. Stinkin' liars!

By the way, for a boon I asked that the Wardens be shown some respect, and while that's nice, I'm bummed that I didn't ask for a title, land, and wealth. I'll have to find alternate endings on YouTube.

Anora scared the crap out of me too when she said they should build a memorial to Alistair, and all the other Wardens who fell. Err, yes, my whole party except Shale was out of that last battle, but if the PC is able to kill the beastie, and Al is standing right there, then when did he die? Then the next moment I turn and he's standing right there, to be talked to. Hmm. I guess she meant Duncan?

Also, no sex in my game. I must have missed the essential side quests. Leliana was at 100% too. Texty stuff in the epilogue had my Warden and Alistair adventuring a while, until he was called to Weisshaupt. I think he got tired of turning down her invitations to come up and see her sometime. Poor guy.

There will be another playthrough, probably, but it will be much slower.

Anybody downloaded Leliana's Song? I'm curious about fully-voiced Dragon Age. Awakenings actually doesn't sound all that appealing at the moment - this might change - since I understand it doesn't so much continue the story as begin a new chapter for the Warden, since the same crew is not back.

I think there's a bug that can rear its head regarding Alistair's various endings (true king/slacker king/married to Anora/disappeared/sacrificed to kill the Archdemon etc) and it sounds like you got it bad. Shame.

Awakenings does feature quite a few (though not all) of your old NPCs, including one who joins your party again. It's well worth snapping up (though it does have a few major bugs), but I'd wait a bit lest you risk burning yourself out. Drop a message on here if you do download it, because there are a couple of precautions you might want to take before your start it.

Leilana's Song is very slight. If you completed her sidequest with Marjorlaine then you pretty much know the plot of the expansion before you play it. It starts off strong, but gets progressively more traditionally dungeony as it goes along, and ends weakly. It only lasts about four-five hours, but it's fairly inexpensive. On the plus side, having a voiced NPC really does add a lot to the game, not just in dialogue mode but also as you play - Leilana will chat with companions as she runs about, and there's a great feeling of banter and fun. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with Hawke in DA2.

Of the other DLC, I think most of the rest only pop up within the main game, and I'm guessing you don't want to play through that again just yet. The only other DLC is The Darkspawn Chronicles, which I got bored of pretty quickly. Aside from the novelty of controlling an ogre, there's not much more to it - that I saw, at least - than a series of battles as your darkspawn army invades Denerim.

Drop a message on here if you do download it, because there are a couple of precautions you might want to take before your start it.

Uh oh. I started it yesterday...

Right, then. first off, be careful of importing your character if he's wearing DLC armour or bows, as he'll start Awakenings naked/defenceless and with all the stat bonuses and penalties combined into his base stats. Great if you're wearing light, stat-boosting armour; not so much if you don't want permanent fatigue penalties.

When you get into the wooded area, it's sometimes possible to enter the silverite mine before the plot asks you to; don't do that or you won't be able to complete the game.

Once you've reclaimed the fortress at the start of the game, you have the option of giving a dwarf money and items to improve its defences. There's a slight glitch, though, in that you can't give him an item from an area until you've completed the main quest there (eg. you can't give him granite from the woods until you've completed the silverite mine mission). Just hold onto the items - or put them in the chest in the fort - until you're ready. The same goes for the armour maker.

Don't do any quests in Amaranthine until you've got all of the NPCs on your team as some of the quests can cause NPC personal quests to glitch or not happen.

There are quests involving hunting down a rogue mage in Amaranthine and fighting groups of ruffians on the city's outskirts. If you start these quests, complete them before you go onto the battlements - there's a danger that going onto the battlements while enemies are around will trigger a battle. This means you can't use the door to get off the battlements and thus are stuck up there, unable to attack the enemies, until you reload a game.

You pick up an NPC at each of the three major locations (the mysterious valley, the ghost town and the wood), though not always immediately. Once you've fully completed all three locations you're almost at the end of the game, so I'd recommend playing each location until you get the new character, then moving on to the next location. You'll get the mysterious valley NPC quickest, then the wood NPC, then the ghost town NPC. The game expects you to complete each new location as soon as you arrive at it so jumping in and out of them may result in dialogue errors, but no game-breaking bugs.

I think that's most of them. They look horrible, but if you avoid them they won't detract from a very good game.

Ah, cheers.

I'm past a few of them but the battlements/mage in Amaranthine did catch me out. I was most releived that I'd saved less than five minutes beforehand. I've done some of the quests there already. I had one new NPC and that worked, hopefully I can do more later without glitching.

ta again!

No worries. It's actually the quests that spawn enemies (like the ones that trapped you on the battlements) that can screw up the personal quests, so if you've still got those quests active and have no decent saves left, I'd kill the baddies and tie them up before you continue.

Is it all of the DLC that's problematic, or just Warden's Keep? One of my imported characters was wearing the Warden Commander armor and started Awakenings naked. That was actually sort of funny, since he ends the first initial skirmish wearing nothing but a loincloth and darkspawn blood and everyone's talking like it ain't no thing, the Hero of Ferelden does this all the time.

A couple of other Awakenings bugs - not game-breaking, but annoying...

There are two really good sets of armor in the game - the Blackblade armor for rogues, and the Sentinel armor for warriors.  The bug with the Blackblade armor is that only two pieces are guaranteed retrievable. The other two drops are bugged and you have to rely on pieces dropping from Crow assassins, which is a rare occurrence. The bug with the Sentinel armor is that if you equip it on a male human character, what appears isn't the model for the Sentinel Armor, but the model for the Warden Commander armor (odd considering my abovementioned problem). As far as I know it doesn't affect the armor's bonuses, it just looks a little weird with the Sentinel Helm equipped.

I think it's any of the DLC armour except for the Battledress of the Provocateur, which spawns in Awakenings if you complete a certain quest in Leilana's Song. I don't have time to check right now, though.

Awakening is currently showing at 1600msp for me, so I've just grabbed it.

Looks like Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition coming October 12 for 60 bucks.

No content listed yet but Awakenings and the DLC would be good bet and a very good price for 'em.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/09/gamestop-lists-dragon-age-origins-ultimate-edition-for-pc-ps/

Okay, I bought Origins Deluxe and Awakenings back when Steam had them on sale during Father's Day and just started playing through this last week after watching the activity on this thread. 

All I can say right now is that I love the game but the Fade section in the Mage's Tower quest chain is miserable and it feels like it is going on way too long.  I was happy to be able to find a mod that let me wear helmets without them actually showing, because while I like most of the armor designs the helmets seem to fall into a spectrum between silly to ugly.