Dragon Age: Origins Expansion Pack 'Awakening' Announced

[mindcycle]

BioWare today announced the "first" Dragon Age: Origins expansion, titled 'Awakening' and continuing the fantasy RPG's storyline with new areas and party members in March.

Playing with an existing Dragon Age character or starting afresh as "a new Grey Warden from the neighboring land of Orlais," Awakening will charge players with rebuilding the order and "uncovering the mystery of how the darkspawn survive after the slaying of the Archdemon," BioWare reveals in a press release.

Requiring the original game, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening is scheduled for a March 16 worldwide release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the princely price of $40.

Read the rest here: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/61805

Is it just me, or does it seem a little too soon for a full blown expansion pack? And a $40 expansion pack nonetheless.. Makes you wonder if they just cut this out of the original game to nickel and dime us with later on..

 

[Martimus]

Wow. $90 jst to play the game and the expansion pack? I was planning on buying this game soon, but I will wait until the price drops quite a bit. Maybe $30 for the set would be good enough for me to bite.

 

[Liet]

$40?! Incredible.

Considering a normal PC game is about $50, it had better have %80 of the gameplay hours of the original if they expect me to purchase at that price.

After finishing one playthrough, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason to begin another game.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Welcome to the new Bioware. Almost Bioware quality with EA marketing tacked on.

 

[ayabe]

Wow, $40? Man.

I'm on my third go around now but am really struggling to keep playing. The ability to respec existing chars is nice.

 

[MStele]

Lets wait and see. Mask of the Betrayer for NVN2 was also $40 at release, and it ended up being worth the money.

 

[EvilComputer92]

It better have another full length campaign at that price.

Expansion at 40? You have got to be kidding me. The standard price has been 30 for the last 20 years on expansions for games.

Lets wait and see. Mask of the Betrayer for NVN2 was also $40 at release, and it ended up being worth the money.

It was 30 at launch. I don't know where you saw it for 40 unless it was outside the US. MotB was very good however. Probably better than Dragon Age in terms of story.

 

[dighn]

It was 30 at launch. I don't know where you saw it for 40 unless it was outside the US. MotB was very good however. Probably better than Dragon Age in terms of story.

Compared to MoTB, DAO feels a bit generic to me actually. So yeah let's see how it is first. I still have faith in Bioware.

 

[MStele]

It better have another full length campaign at that price.

Expansion at 40? You have got to be kidding me. The standard price has been 30 for the last 20 years on expansions for games.



It was 30 at launch. I don't know where you saw it for 40 unless it was outside the US. MotB was very good however. Probably better than Dragon Age in terms of story.

Sorry I might have been mistaken. Either way MotB was really good in my opinion.

 

[Alex C]

Is it just me, or does it seem a little too soon for a full blown expansion pack? And a $40 expansion pack nonetheless.. Makes you wonder if they just cut this out of the original game to nickel and dime us with later on..

I felt the original game had more quality content than just about any other single player game I've played in the last few years, it didn't feel like they left things out at all. I don't think I can say $40 is too much for the expansion until I've seen how much it includes.

 

[s44]

$40 is for the console versions with the $10 console tax. PC version is $30.

 

[mb]

Don't worry, Amazon will have it (PC version) on sale for $20 or less within a month of release.

 

[Bateluer]

Seems pretty quick to me though . . . need to finish my school work before I can finish DAO, only a few more months until I'm done.

 

[murphy55d]

$40?! Incredible.

Considering a normal PC game is about $50, it had better have %80 of the gameplay hours of the original if they expect me to purchase at that price.

After finishing one playthrough, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason to begin another game.

Really? I honestly can't wait to finish my first playthrough and start with a new race/class, to see how different things start off.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I don't have a problem with price tag. Halo 3:ODST was $60 on release, after all. $60 for a 5 hour campaign and the same multiplayer experience as the original Halo 3. And, they gimped regular Halo 3 users by removing most of the ranked playlists and making them ODST only.

Now that is a giving your fanbase the middle finger! Bioware on the other hand will almost certainly deliver a huge expansion if the price is $40 (or even $30). Frankly, I can't wait for it and I'd still buy it if it was twice the price. There's no price cap on quality entertainment. I did finally tire out of DAO after I'd gotten half-way through my third playthrough, but I have no doubt I'll eventually finish all 6 playthroughs to experience each origin. It might take a year or more but it'll happen.

But yeah, I'm a huge fan of DAO so the price is irrelevant. Obviously I don't feel that way about every game, I'm still bitter as hell over $60 for ODST. Heck, I rarely buy ANY game priced over $35, but for game's I truly get a real thrill out of playing there's no price too high. Oddly enough a bunch of them have been released lately or will be shortly - DAO, MW2, Mass Effect 2, Assassins Creed 2, Bad Company 2. Those are all games that I absolutely loved the original (in DAO's case - Baldur's Gate 2) and would under no circumstances allow myself to miss out on the next installment. I would say Assassins Creed 1 was not on par with the other games I listed but it had huge potential and from the sounds of it the sequel capitalized on that potential so I'm definitely ramped up for it.

 

[RaistlinZ]

$25.00 is the most I'd spend on it, and only if it offers the hours of content of the original game.

I'm interested in the new characters though. What will make them special from any of the other characters? There really isn't much difference between Sten and Oghren for instance. There are only so many ways to spec a character. Unless they're introducing a whole new base class.

A Gnome Mechanic would be a sweet new class I think.

 

[EvilComputer92]

I don't have a problem with price tag. Halo 3:ODST was $60 on release, after all. $60 for a 5 hour campaign and the same multiplayer experience as the original Halo 3. And, they gimped regular Halo 3 users by removing most of the ranked playlists and making them ODST only.

Now that is a giving your fanbase the middle finger! Bioware on the other hand will almost certainly deliver a huge expansion if the price is $40 (or even $30). Frankly, I can't wait for it and I'd still buy it if it was twice the price. There's no price cap on quality entertainment. I did finally tire out of DAO after I'd gotten half-way through my third playthrough, but I have no doubt I'll eventually finish all 6 playthroughs to experience each origin. It might take a year or more but it'll happen.

But yeah, I'm a huge fan of DAO so the price is irrelevant. Obviously I don't feel that way about every game, I'm still bitter as hell over $60 for ODST. Heck, I rarely buy ANY game priced over $35, but for game's I truly get a real thrill out of playing there's no price too high. Oddly enough a bunch of them have been released lately or will be shortly - DAO, MW2, Mass Effect 2, Assassins Creed 2, Bad Company 2. Those are all games that I absolutely loved the original (in DAO's case - Baldur's Gate 2) and would under no circumstances allow myself to miss out on the next installment. I would say Assassins Creed 1 was not on par with the other games I listed but it had huge potential and from the sounds of it the sequel capitalized on that potential so I'm definitely ramped up for it.

It worked because they know the majority of the Halo fanbase are a bunch of tools who would pay 100 bucks for a Halo expansion. I bet Infinity Ward could do the same thing. When you have a rabid fanbase you can charge whatever price you deem necessary.

 

[TheVrolok]

Welcome to the new Bioware. Almost Bioware quality with EA marketing tacked on.

For real. I definitely thought the BioWare quality was still in DA:O, but they damn sure added the EA marketing.

 

[mindcycle]

Frankly, I can't wait for it and I'd still buy it if it was twice the price. There's no price cap on quality entertainment.

That mentality will help push the next expansion pack to $50. Not that there is anything wrong in thinking like you do, but to EA it's all about business. They will charge what people are willing to pay, so if it's $40 for an expansion and enough people pay that price they'll have no problems charging more in the future.

For me personally, I refuse to pay $40 for an expansion when I could spend that same amount of money to buy a whole new game. Plus, this reeks of having been intentionally removed from the main game to nickel and dime us with. We all know how EA loves to nickel and dime us.. Anyone remember the day one DLC, Warden's Keep? .. I see a pattern here and it's not something I want to support.

 

[Liet]

Really? I honestly can't wait to finish my first playthrough and start with a new race/class, to see how different things start off.

That's just the problem. It's appealing to play the intro story for each race/class, but after that it's just the same old, with a few "Hi Dwarf-guy", or "Hey you filthy Elf" lines thrown here or there.

I was really hoping I could kill everyone I met who called me a filthy Elf, but it wasn't real viable, sadly.

 

[datalink7]

Ridiculous price for an expansion.

I'll be getting it the day it comes out

 

[mindcycle]

Ridiculous price for an expansion.

I'll be getting it the day it comes out

Arr, matey

 

[Dorkenstein]

They plan to have 5 new characters ready for this by March? I forsee a delay. Also, I can't motivate myself to finish it even once.

 

[datalink7]

Arr, matey

No arr, unless that's the noise I'll be making as they screw me on the price

 

[mindcycle]

No arr, unless that's the noise I'll be making as they screw me on the price

So you think it's a ridiculous price but you'll go ahead and pay it anyway? I guess you will be making that sound after all in the manner you speak of.