Monday, December 07, 2009

Dragon Age: Origins Warden's Keep

Having got the hang of the control system etc. I decided to create a new mage and replay my previous missions diverting slightly from my previous path to try my hand at the DLC Warden's Keep. I'm glad I did, but there were problems.

Enemies were tough at my current level of around 6, but perseverance led me to complete the quest and retake the site along with the two achievements available. As I hadn't taken a Rogue with me I couldn't open any of the locked chests and was prohibited from changing party while at the site; something I'd been able to do outside of combat everywhere else.

Not to worry I'd picked up some nice trinkets such as the Warden Armour etc. and found all the secret little areas; and a good job I had too. Having finished the quest I retired to my camp and chose a new party complete with Rogue to scavenge those locked chests from before.

The door to the fortress was no longer usable.

I could happily frolic outside the fortress, talk to the guy who led me here, buy some nice weapons and armour from his brother and store things in the nice Party Storage Chest (very damn useful) but I couldn't get back into the building.

Now sure this is a game and there's always the path not taken, but this is downloadable content bought at a premium over the cost of the game itself and now I'm apparently locked out of it. As I said I've got all the main items bar one (a moral choice); but now it seems I have no ability to change my mind; despite the fact the fortress is still there and one of the dialogue options tells me that they've been clearing up inside and despite the fact I was promised that the fortress would return as a base for the Grey Wardens I can't get back in!

Wow that must be frustrating for those who missed out on their first run-through.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Extremely frustrating, I must say. All I wanted to do was go outside quickly so that I might get access to the party chest because my inventory was full. When I came back I was unable to go back in despite not having completed the history quest. That has to be one of the shittiest design choices I've seen in a long time. Hell if it gave me a warning that I wouldn't be able to go back in I wouldn't mind so much but no, there was no warning, no explanation, no nothing.

FlipC said...

What's even stranger is that since Warden's Keep I've completed the Forest Quest, the Castle Quest, the Circle Quest, the Shale Quest and so far this is the only area that I've been locked out of; oh not counting Lothering as that's a quest lock-out having been invaded by DarkSpawn.

I can readily sympathise with the Inventory situation, in my third/fourth(?) impressions I ask what I think is a reasonable question 'Why can't I use the chests to temporarily dump stuff into?' I mean if I leave it there for a while and it vanishes so be it, but I can't begin to guess what value of goods I've had to destroy just to pick up something better.