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View all posts by CaK (190 Articles)

Chief-in-Editor. He has been involved in the Online Community since 1996, and established several successful European gaming websites. Among them were projects for Neverwinter Nights, WarCraft, Diablo and Quake--just to name a few. In late September 2009, he started to develop this blog with the support of BioWare/EA.

Return to Ostagar - Is it worth your money?During the latest page of this great comedy, some Xbox 360 fans managed to get their hands on Return to Ostagar. The third downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins. Since then however, it seems that in many corners of the Community the mood has grown sour. The big question now being asked is:

Return to Ostagar Worth Your Money?

Spoiler Warning.

$5US – One Hour of Gameplay
The duration of the DLC has been the major crux of the matter in almost every Community discussion, blog and major review.

Misterrandom.net comments that…

The second issue is the length which at around an hour to completion is about half the length I look for in DLC at this price…If it had been priced at 260 MS points I would not have an issue but 400 MS points for 1 hours play is pushing it. [sic]

Over at EndSight.com, Nate Seites continued the debate:

Completing the content will take 45 minutes to an hour…in addition, the ending to the content doesn’t make it clear that it’s officially over, which left me to question whether or not I was done and/or if I had missed something. It’s interesting while it lasts, but unfortunately it ends sooner than you might hope.

Return to Ostagar - Too linear?

Rail Roading This Crazy Train
Something else, that is often spoken of, is the linear nature of the game. Many Community members have mentioned their disapointment at looking around for multiple quest solutions, only to find a single, walled-off path.

Misterrandom.net adds:

…the DLC was not particularly innovative, while you get a few new pieces of dialog and short cut-scenes, it seems lackluster compared to the launch day Warden’s Keep DLC which…had some minor branches in how it was solved. Unlike Return to Ostagar which is painfully linear and just consists of killing everything.

Concerning the lack of dialogue options Alltern8.com writes:

Return literally takes an hour, there are no choices that make any real difference, and the quest is extremely linear, with no chance of missing anything. I don’t know that I’ll do it again on future playthroughs.

I Loot The Room
The effectiveness of one suit of armour, when compared to another, is a matter of opinion. Player 1 might prefer solid bonuses to his ability scores, while Player 2 might like the idea of bonuses to Healing Recieved. All the same, something that has universally been discussed recently, is the quality of gear found in RtO:

Alltern8.com says:

If you’ve played Origins, you’ll know that near the beginning of the game, the Grey Wardens and the King of Ferelden die at Ostagar. In Return to Ostagar, you return to the battlefield. Why? Well, because the king dropped some loot. Literally. You’re told that the king and Duncan’s equipment were left on the battlefield (which makes me wonder why it takes a new quest to figure that out.) There’s an introductory scene where a sole survivor of the battle dies while telling you about the location. Then, you travel to the location, you fight darkspawn, and you get equipment. Then you fight more darkspawn, and you get more equipment. You do this until you’ve literally taken every single piece of equipment the king wore, and a few weapons of Duncan’s. That’s it. Quest complete.

On the other side of the coin, MMOMFG argues:

Return to Ostagar really is about one thing: loot. Retrieving King Cailan’s armor, shield, and sword for your own darkspawn-slaying purposes is pretty much objective numero uno. And it’s worthwhile too. Cailan’s armor is not only snazzy, but it’s stats topped the heavy armor I had equipped on my tank as I rolled through the area. The King’s shield wasn’t the best, but Cailan’s sword is pretty sweet. Guilded in gold, it looks pretty sick; while it’s damage was a point or two lower than what i had currently equipped, it comes with a +6 damage to darkspawn.

As a reader it is up to you to draw your own conclusions but, as anybody can see, the majority of the Community is not happy and the cries for RtO to be released for free are only getting louder.

What BioWare will do to address this trend, if anything, remains to be seen. They will have to work hard however, to recover the trust many of their customers may now have lost over DLCs produced by BioWare.

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