Super BioWare RPG: Origins: Awakening II: Turbo Edition #2

The Wooster

King Snap
Jul 15, 2008
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Super BioWare RPG: Origins: Awakening II: Turbo Edition #2

Mole men are sticklers for timely paperwork.

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Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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Do we get Reb-Blue-Green endings that toss all of that continuity out the window in this one as well? :p

Seriously though, Keep is a cool idea and I like it MUCH better than a simple savegame import. Not only does it not punish you for not hoarding your save files, it lets you make small adjustments without making you play through the previous game(s). I always wished there was something like that for Mass Effect 3 (yes, I know, there was, for the PS4 version).
 

LenticularHomicide

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Oct 24, 2013
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Erin's face in panel 2 is the perfect mix of confusion and defeat, with just enough "what have I gotten myself into" to really sell it.
 

J Tyran

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Dec 15, 2011
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Newhouse said:
This actually is really stupid because if you go to their Dragon Age Keep site, you can "import" your characters from your account. I mean all it is, is their name and image but, it's defiantly importing some information, so you're telling me you can't import my decisions too? Hell Origin probably knows what I had for breakfast, yet they can't pull some info from their games?

I'm just going to be a snob and go there and say the only reason they did this is to pander to the next gen. consoles and have a way to bring your save files over, which to be fair is fine by me for console players but, why does it have to be at the expense of PC players. Not my fault I didn't spend money on a $300 paper weight.
No whether this is true or not I don't know but the reason Bioware gave for the keep was to ensure everyone got the decisions and world they wanted, so people that never played the others or for people that lost their saved games etc.

Also because the saved game import never worked right 100% of the time anyway, at least this way you can make sure you get the starting world you want. Handy as well to make minor or single changes to an existing world state, like if you where happy with every decision you made but wanted to see what happened if you made a deal with a Demon in Origins or turned a character over to the Arishok or even change a romance option.

It only imports the face and the name if you logged in with an EA/Bioware/Origin (first two are legacy accounts) when you played, it just takes those from your achievement list.
 

kailus13

Soon
Mar 3, 2013
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Is Suchong playing Dragon Age as well? Or is he a responsible fancy rat and doing his tax returns?
 

Alcaste

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Mar 2, 2011
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As someone that lost all my saves over the years with various failed backups and reformats, I'm glad that there's an option to do it all yourself. That said, there still should have been the option to just import the save file itself.
 

J Tyran

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Dec 15, 2011
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Newhouse said:
J Tyran said:
Newhouse said:
This actually is really stupid because if you go to their Dragon Age Keep site, you can "import" your characters from your account. I mean all it is, is their name and image but, it's defiantly importing some information, so you're telling me you can't import my decisions too? Hell Origin probably knows what I had for breakfast, yet they can't pull some info from their games?

I'm just going to be a snob and go there and say the only reason they did this is to pander to the next gen. consoles and have a way to bring your save files over, which to be fair is fine by me for console players but, why does it have to be at the expense of PC players. Not my fault I didn't spend money on a $300 paper weight.
No whether this is true or not I don't know but the reason Bioware gave for the keep was to ensure everyone got the decisions and world they wanted, so people that never played the others or for people that lost their saved games etc.

Also because the saved game import never worked right 100% of the time anyway, at least this way you can make sure you get the starting world you want. Handy as well to make minor or single changes to an existing world state, like if you where happy with every decision you made but wanted to see what happened if you made a deal with a Demon in Origins or turned a character over to the Arishok or even change a romance option.

It only imports the face and the name if you logged in with an EA/Bioware/Origin (first two are legacy accounts) when you played, it just takes those from your achievement list.
Ya, I mean it's not like I hate the idea don't get me wrong there but, don't see why you can't import them to begin with. Like I said in another comment, Mass Effect 2/3 had both so not sure why we don't have it here.

I think it's just a little unrealistic to expect people to go back through their save games and remember every decision they made. I agree it's cool for tweaking like you said but, I mean it should complement save importing not be the only solution. I mean personally I want to use my character from DA:O on PC but I haven't played that particular character in years, like I remember some of the big decisions but, am I going to remember everything? It kinda just forces you to say 'O well, I guess I'll make it up' and I think that's just disappointing and a little unfair to fans who put a lot of love and time into the previous games.

I mean at the end of the day is, saving or killing the vala during the Dalish quests in DA:O really going to matter for example? No, but it's the little things like that help immersion and enrich the narrative and subjectively I find it takes me out of the experience if I'm doing it in a "tax form" instead of through my actions in the game.

Not discrediting people who like the system, it has it's benefits but, personally I would have liked to see some way to incorporate both methods.
Oh yeah I wouldn't disagree with you, a direct save import would be lot more convenient for a lot of players and I can certainly see why you, me or anyone else would want it. Even though the Keep is very appealing and has some great functionality (Varrics storytelling is a nice touch and handy for people new to the series) when it comes to making adjustments to a world state having the option for both importing and having the Keep would have been better, a combination of both would have been great.

Firstly for the convenience and secondly for being able to upload your saves and then making a few changes, having to completely fill it each time you very different world state is a bit much. Its daunting for those new to the series and confusing to people that cannot remember the context for each and every question or decision, it made me scratch my head a time or two when I couldn't remember something or for things I never encountered like events in DA2s DLC.

Also the questions are bit too specific, its almost foreshadowing some events in Inquisition. Like when it asks a random question about a specific, minor and seemingly irrelevant action in Origins like the Halla you mention. Why the hell would it ask about that rather than something that seemed much more important? So it makes you wonder whats going to happen.

I will say that for my own personal preference I prefer the Keep to just having a save import, I like being able to change minor details and having the option of being able to make a completely new world state in a few minutes rather than having to play through the games and/or DLC each time. I was a big fan and over the years I have played Origins and its DLC many times with each race and class and different "personalities" but I don't have saves for every possible outcome and I didn't enjoy DA2 enough to replay it several times or to buy DLC for it, at least with the Keep I can just create a world state and don't need to rely on a 3rd party save editor that doesn't always give you enough options and the Keep seems to cover everything that matters.

Console players don't even have the option of a 3rd party save editor and I guess Bioware didn't want to attempt the technical challenge of trying a direct save import between last gen consoles and the current machines, why they couldn't have it so you can import them to the Keep for editing I don't know. There must be some way of backing up your saves to a cloud service on the Xbox 360 or PS3 if you tie the game to your Origin account as it already exports your character list and achievements there as well as to your PSN/XBL account, I guess it would have had to patch it in to DA:O and DA2 and didn't want to.

But having both an import and the Keep so you make changes to an existing save would have been better and more convenient for people that are not interested in fiddling with the Keep.
 

Shocksplicer

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Apr 10, 2011
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As much as I like the idea of The Keep, it definitely has some issues.
Like how it claims that Alistair cannot be king while also killing the Archdemon and fathering Morrigan's child.
Uhh, guys? That's exactly what happened in my playthrough of DA:O.
Hell, the World State I had to settle for is actually the one that's impossible, since apparantly my hero killed the Archdemon without fathering Morrigan's child (since she's a woman) and is still alive, something which cannot happen.
 

J Tyran

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Dec 15, 2011
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Shocksplicer said:
it definitely has some issues.
Like how it claims that Alistair cannot be king while also killing the Archdemon and fathering Morrigan's child.
Uhh, guys? That's exactly what happened in my playthrough of DA:O.
Must have gotten bugged when you made that world state, my current world state has my Warden as Alistairs Queen after he made Morrigan pregnant with the Old God baby.

The Warden being alive without Morrigan (seen to be) having the Old God baby is kind of canon already though, Bioware let people import a dead Warden into Awakenings with a hand wave explanation so I guess they are continuing with that.
 

The_Darkness

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Nov 8, 2010
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Shocksplicer said:
As much as I like the idea of The Keep, it definitely has some issues.
Like how it claims that Alistair cannot be king while also killing the Archdemon and fathering Morrigan's child.
Uhh, guys? That's exactly what happened in my playthrough of DA:O.
Hell, the World State I had to settle for is actually the one that's impossible, since apparantly my hero killed the Archdemon without fathering Morrigan's child (since she's a woman) and is still alive, something which cannot happen.
If Morrigan's ritual was completed, then the Warden is automatically the one to land the final blow on the Archdemon in the final cutscene. You can't have Alistair perform the ritual AND be the one to kill the Archdemon.

Your latter case definitely sound like a bug, unless you have Alistair performing the ritual there too.
 

Sanunes

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Mar 18, 2011
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If I remember the discussions properly (its been awhile), it would be a lot of work to get imports to work properly and making The Keep was the only way they could thing of to fix the problems with a direct import since Dragon Age: Origins was never designed to export its saves to the next game like Mass Effect was and the save game structure is all over the place causing import issues. It was one of the reasons why there was only a couple of choices moved forward into Dragon Age 2 from Origins because they couldn't find all the variables for all the choices. Then with Dragon Age 2 you have all kinds of incorrect imported variables such as Zevran being healthy if you picked the dialogue option to kill him.

Now the other reason is probably money, instead of devoting everything to one single import solution they would have to develop two one for the internet and one using Frostbite and it still probably would require The Keep anyway to fix all the incorrect or missing variables.
 

Imre Csete

Original Character, Do Not Steal
Jul 8, 2010
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Shocksplicer said:
As much as I like the idea of The Keep, it definitely has some issues.
Like how it claims that Alistair cannot be king while also killing the Archdemon and fathering Morrigan's child.
Uhh, guys? That's exactly what happened in my playthrough of DA:O.
Hell, the World State I had to settle for is actually the one that's impossible, since apparantly my hero killed the Archdemon without fathering Morrigan's child (since she's a woman) and is still alive, something which cannot happen.
I think he had to meet Goldanna (gets the hardened state, can be king) for that to work. I remember helping my sister with it a few days ago and that solved it iirc.