Mr. Chick:

A well-put critique of EA there. Seems like it should go without saying that "crippled by design" isn't a good long-term strategy. But clearly someone needs to say it.

Thanks for this game diary. It's been great, as have all of them. I owe many enjoyable hours of Fall from Heaven to your (first?) diary covering that mod.

So, as a long-time diary appreciator, here's a request. Please post your next diary entry as early tomorrow as you can. Assuming the stars align, I (and I'm sure many others) will be playing by late afternoon tomorrow, so your usual posting schedule would bring your wisdom to us just a little late. Give us a noontime treat to hold us over until playtime!

Thanks again
-jinnes

Boy do I love capitalism - also, software piracy. Unless I miss my guess, by the time the 60-items thing becomes an issue, someone will have cracked the addon, and I won't have to worry about item storage.

So much for Bioware's claim being bought out by EA wouldn't change anything. I find it too difficult to believe they intentionally designed it that way, but the former Bioware might have fixed it with a free patch. Your diary about the moment you got hooked on the game made me think I'd pick it up. This diary caused me to think again. Luckily I didn't preorder it. Isn't Warden's Keep free to some people, like a preorder "gift" thing?

First I would like to say that reading this game diary has been entering and informative. They have all be very well written.

Now, I would like to add that the Warden's Keep does not just add a storage place in camp. It also adds 2+ hrs of story and game play along with new magic and abilities for your characters. You got ALOT more then extra storage. I think that it is plenty worth $7.

Well I have bought the Collectors Edition which includes everything so doesn't really worry me.

also, Tom, it's been said before, but this capcha for the comment is messed up - I don't know if you've ever tried posting a comment, but this is what happens to me EVERY TIME: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYdmn0gp0N8

(note - this is the second try posting this comment, as usual!)

Merchants are supposed t keep everything you sell them so you can just sell stuff to the merchant at your camp and get it back if you really need it.

To Bioware's credit, Warden's Keep isn't a magical storehouse your previously unheard of uncle left you in his will and otherwise has no plot relevance. It is a 2-5 (I've heard several different reports on the length) extra quest delving into the history of the Grey Wardens, more loot, a few new Blood Magic related abilities (and maybe others) and there happens a place to store your extra stuff after you clear the place out.

That said, they definitely should've added a few chests at the basecamp to store extra stuff for those who aren't up for DLC.

Lastly, those must have been some ridiculously early reviews given that they started work on Warden's Keep shortly after they decided to delay the game till tomorrow (instead of being PC only and coming out in March).

Er, that should say 'hour' after 2-5.

Looking forward to tomorrow's diary whilst the game installs.

You know that there is a whole new storyline in "The Wardens Keep" right? I mean it isn't for the extra space alone.

Inventory has always been a problem with any RPG I've played. If there's anything I'll give EA credit for, it's that they gave the modding community leeway with The Sims and Sim City. I realllly hope they and Bioware will let their fandom do the same. Come on modders!

Given that additional backpacks are just an item unless there is a hard limit for some reason there should be an easy was to instance them in the PC game

I'm sorry, but buying more storage pack space to augment your capacity is a time honored tradition in CRPGs. In Baldur's Gate 2, you could buy (or find) gem bags, ammunition cases, scroll cases, and the coveted Bag of Holding (tm). Limited capacity gave these items value, and you were happy to acquire them. There is no new conspiracy here. Everyone has left loot lying on the floor of a dungeon sometime or another. It's just about trying to give players a feeling of measurable advancement, and meaningful things to buy with their treasure.

I think Mr. Chick is just put off because he refuses to carry a healer around with him, and is starting to resent anything that takes money away from his mounting potion expenses.

Eh, thats why the PC version rocks with the editor. Someone will get in there and increase the storage size for free and release the mod for anyone to use!

That is if you can edit the main adventure or only make separate stories...either way as the person said above, you should have had a healer, and your mounting potion expenses are killing you more than likely...hehe

@Ligman
I've only been playing RPG's for a few years now, but it's one thing to make someone prioritize for a mission or what loot to pickup, but if you want to keep an extra set of armor, there's no reason for an RPG to be made today that doesn't have some kind of storage that you can access in between missions to do so. Adding it in to release day DLC is charging someone for something that should have already been there. It's like selling a book with a missing chapter. Will it work? Probably, but you're not getting the full experience that you paid for. I never played Baldur's Gate 2, but if it's a diablo style RPG then the whole point is getting all kinds of loot and constantly upgrading and dropping/selling the old. I don't think DA:O is geared to be like that in regard to loot though.

Can you confirm what endaround said about being able to buyback anything sold to vendors, Tom?

Also, does Warden's Keep come with the special edition? It isn't mentioned in any of the descriptions I can find of the CE.

Lastly @ matt - Ditto on having to double post every time, it's a pain. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the captcha timing out while I'm reading the page or something, can that happen? Either way, the first couple times it happened I thought it was a joke, because it says "Text entered was wrong," and I thought it meant my comment not my captcha. I know, I'm an idiot.

The seven dollars isn't a "storage fee". It's paying for a DLC expansion that gives several quests, items, etc AS WELL AS extra storage.

Don't forget that if DA:O is successful, there will be a string of sequels to it. I don't mind paying a few extra bucks to make sure they know folks are interested in the game. It's not a scam, it's smart business. This isn't the 1980s.

BTW Matt, you can either love piracy or capitalism, not both. One defeats the other, see. I'm sure when you get a bit older you'll realize that. Good luck with puberty.

Wardens' Keep does not come with the CE, only with the digital download I believe.

Can't remember how many slots people had in BGII, maybe 20 slots? and 6 people, so 120
But in BGII you could only put 40? arrows, 5? potions or an individual thing in a slot, which doesn't seem to be the case here, plus there are now no weight restrictions (which meant Aerie etc. couldn't really carry anything witht magical help) - so overall the balance feels not radically different (given I've not played DaO)
Plus as early people have said - you always had to leave stuff right from Irenicus' dungeon throgh to ToB - this is not a new thing

Lots of awesome Bioware/EA apologists here. Keep on grabbin' them ankles, kids.

Haha that actually made me laugh out loud Bahimiron. By digital download you mean PC only, right? That sucks, it's a major pain to get one of the consoles in a position to download DLC for me, was hoping to buy the Keep in a CE or something. I've never played an RPG on PC just RTS, maybe it's time to give it a shot. I just so adore that Homer spot on my couch, though.

Not so much a Bioware apologist, as I have simply played more than a single CRPG in my lifetime. My experience with digital gaming extends back farther than 2007... all the way to my first Pong console.

But you console kiddies keep having your little opinions when you think you've discovered something that has been part of the genre for years. It's cute.

I can't wait for the next "captain obvious" post from Mr. Chick. Although it will be difficult to top "Hey, I'm using a lot of potions by not having a healer in my party...what gives??"

BTW, Im giving Chick the benefit of the doubt here, but if I find out when I get the game tomorrow that you can "squat" in cleared locations and store things in containers like you could in BG2, I'm going to come back here and start tossing the term "noob" around. Oh yes.

Hey Tom,

For what it's worth, 'EA' has nothing to do with this (apart from being the parent company of BioWare).

The game was designed with limited inventory for a number of reasons, the least of which being to limit savegame size and therefore loadtimes.

Originally there was a small storage chest in the party camp, until we realized that due to the fact that there are several versions of the camp area (for reasons evident in the story) and that people were losing their items (as they were stored in the area).

By the time this problem was discovered, we had not enough time to fix the problem, plus, we decided that it was not really necessary anyway since the item limitation was rather generous compared to the initial designs at least.

The game was finalized tested without a storage chest. The item limit was never questioned or brought up during the QA phase, after all, it was part of the design.

The 'storage chest' in Warden's Keep DLC was added by the DLC team as part of their 'hey, what would be a cool feature for your own keep' brainstorming.

I'm fine with you being upset about the item limit design in the game - and fine with you being upset about the chest being included in the DLC, but I must protest the 'Oh, EA is pushing the limit for more money' tagline, because that's just not what has happened.

I categorically reject that any features or game systems in this game were designed or removed to 'bilk users for more money'

-- Georg
Lead Systems Designer
Dragon Age
georg@bioware.com

Firstly, my sincere apologies about the captcha. I know it's something they're looking into improving in an upcoming round of projects for the tech folks. I hate that it's a hassle for you guys to post comments. :( But on the flip side, that means I appreciate you guys comments that much more!

Secondly, I have no problem with inventory storage being part of the gameplay. My problem is when it's something intentionally limited as a way to encourage people to buy DLC. There's no reason -- none -- that Bioware couldn't have added party storage into the game as it is. Instead, you have to carry around with you items that you will not use. This is true of character specific inventory items, runes, and certain crafting materials. These shouldn't take up backpack space that could be used for hauling loot home.

Thirdly, that's flat-out wrong about selling stuff to vendors and then buying it back later. The buyback screen only applies to a given shopping "session". Once you exit out of the vendor's selling screen, all the stuff you sold is gone for good. I verified tonight that's how it works on the Xbox 360.

Btw, the game has several backpack updates bringing you up to 120 slots, the first available in the King's camp, several more in any main hub.

I wish the comment box was bigger...

Probably the best inventory management I have seen so far has been with Titan Quest.

1. Sure, while it was a little bit like tetris fitting items in, the expansion brought along the auto sort option which neatly and clearly reorganised the inventory into a more efficient layout, hopefully creating more space in the process

2. Additional backpacks, made available for free as the game went on, all available in the first difficulty mode.

3. Dedicated stash for the character. It did cost money in order to increase the stash size, but that wasn't really a major problem given the amount of loot that could be sold.

4. The best thing though was the shared stash part. On top of having the normal stash was an area where items could be dropped for use by other characters to import into their game. What it meant was helping other classes develop more easily and making the development of mules much more simpler.

Let's face it. In a game which has random item drops, I struggle to work out how it becomes a "gameplay mechanic" to make the player try and choose between keeping or selling an item. It shouldn't work like that. There are players who simply like to collect everything. Again, with Titan Quest, it might be desirable to respec a character to something completely different (rather than spend 40 hours + remaking a new character) to try something new, should there then be gear available to make the game element then fun?

Two other examples I can think of are with Oblivion and Fallout 3, which, if an item is stored in a "safe" container, it is there to stay. And I believe you can store as much as you want in those containers.

Why punish the player by making them choose what item to keep or not keep. Because really, by making someone choose, they are really just exhibiting an implied choice in the end.

Reading these game diary makes me think I'll be going off and purchasing this game.

I should add that I realise it may not be fair comparing other games against Dragon Age. After all, the design team have their own unique ideas and perceptions on how things should be done. However, when it comes to inventory management, well, I just find it frustrating having to choose or select what is to be kept or discarded. Having a group of set items, missing one piece is agonising, especially if another character in a game has it, or you sold it earlier on because there needed to be more room for apparent better items.

On the DLC, it really doesn't sound like Bioware were trying to nickel and dime people for storage space. The DLC is a standard quests/items/abilities thing, that happens to have a "stronghold" with a chest. I say that as someone who really does not care for DLC at all (expansions please!).

"The second step is to shell out for the backpack expansions. These are an ingame money sink. They partly encourage you to visit various merchants to see if they sell one of the precious backpack expansions. But they mostly force hard decisions about how to spend your money."

I'm honestly not sure what the problem is here. It sounds like you can have inventory issues, or spend gold and not have them. Nothing wrong with a choice like that, unless there aren't enough backpack upgrades?

That said, there should be a special bag of holding in the game somewhere. Behind a dragon, of course.

Dragon Age supposedly is the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate.

In BG I simply stashed any extar gear I didn't want to sell, or to sell at a a later date, in a convenient barrel or crate. When I needed the stuff or money I simply returned to the location to festch it.

I that not possible or impractical in DA or does it still work?

Speaking of savegame size and loadtimes, they were an issue for me in The Sims 2 and a reason I didn't buy the next sequel (and its potential oh so many dlc's!) I really also hope that EA/ Bioware will support their fandom along with any innovations that players and modders come up with. Thanks for looking out for us Tom!

I thought you could store equipment at your totally free encampment...?

I never had a problem with limited inventory space... in fact the problem you describe is pretty much in every RPG. I am having trouble thinking of one that doesn't.

Also, adding more inventory space in an expansion is normal too. The only question is whether DLC at release is a good or bad thing.

http://dragonage.bioware.com/addon/

If you scroll down you'll see that they promise more to Wardens Keep than just that, alot more actually. The inventory system isn't even the stuff they hilite at first:
Relive the darkest hour of the Grey Wardens with all-new content that adds to the main Dragon Age: Origins campaign. This downloadable adventure reveals secrets hidden for generations, and includes unique achievements, unlockable character abilities, powerful items, and much more!

So really, it's kind of unfair if you're going to make a post about the DLC not to tell of all that comes with it. Until we play it we won't actually know just how b.s. the addon is, so why prejudge.

First, Tom's already said he's not a huge RPG player so perhaps he doesn't know all the standard RPG conventions.

Second, perhaps RPG conventions aren't always good things. A lot of people like that turn based combat isn't in every RPG anymore and that you can save everywhere instead of at limited save points.

I can see where Tom is coming from in this. Like him, I can be an inventory hog with the "I might need it later" mentality. You never know. One of the things I loved about the Ebon Hawk? You had storage there. Not only storage but you could put all your guns in one container, all your armor in another, your enhancements in a third and so forth.

The idea that you have to spend money to buy a storage chest does seem a bit unfair to me, even if you get a lot of other great stuff out of the deal. I should be able to leave my stuff behind at the base camp, wherever it is, and pick it up later. If there's a chest at one camp and I later make another, why can't the chest come with me? I carry along my tents and such. Why can't I carry along my chest?

If I were Bioware, I'd patch this because I think the point if valid. I don't believe Bioware is trying to do this JUST to make money. I don't believe EA pushed them to do it. I do believe Bioware is offering extra content to make money, yes, but not holding item storage hostage. They just didn't think this through, perhaps.

By the way, I plan on buying Warden's Keep because the quest sounds pretty damn cool and I love getting a nifty headquarters. That's just me, though.

I haven't played a bioware RPG since the first Baldur's Gate, which had a lot of problems. The relevant one that bugged me was that you would use your characters as mules, and then one of your characters would die.

The game was "designed" so that a character dying wasn't that bad, since you could go get them resurrected, but they neglected the issue that you'd have to first spend a while standing over the corpse juggling objects between your mules to try to keep the best things before you went back to get the resurrection.

The upshot was that after the first time I did that, thenceforth I always saved before every fight and always restored if anyone died. I'd have preferred to have played it honestly, but spending an hour shuffling objects around inventories was a total waste of my time.

I have to wonder if they've done anything about that in the ten years since.

Funny thing is... in most other RPG games... say like WoW, you can buy extra space with the gold you receive in game... a part of rewards for quests and such. I guess they translated it into 'real world' gold. Or you do not get anything like that in this type of RPG. Was looking forward to a console RPG like this... may still get it... but what is the replay value? Is it with DLC? Can you create more than one character? Or is this just a different RPG than other types?

I would also like to throw back in there... if you have a PC and are playing this on the console anyway, you are really going to miss out.

Technically, you get more than just more inventory for $7.

Well..since i smart ordered from D2D...I got Wardens keep for no extra charge. You know that 7 dollars though if you got the basic edition of the game...nets you a whole nother adventure besides just the extra storage. its set up alot like NWN...you buy more adventures and those advenutres come with other stuff like more playable characters etc.

Seriously complaining about that at this point is just ridiculous.

Wardens Keep is DLC. Anyone familiar with NWN knew they'd have DLC and anyone familiar with baldur's gate knew backpack room would be limited.

This article took forever to get to the fucking point. Even then it comes across a whining.

1) Wardens Keep come with actual content, not just a storage add-on.

2) The game is MOD-ABLE, for PC users at least. Backpack mod incoming!

Fidgit needs to find better writers..once that are actually familiar with more than just FPS and RTS games and WoW. If you can't atleast do some research or play some other types of games besides those you love the most your not only a gimped gamer your a horribly gimped game reporter.

Don't report on things you have no clue about Fidgit!

geezus... I'll have to remember to just criticize bioware/ea if I ever want to rack up hits on my blog, since they have a shit ton of fanboys.

Tom, can you respond to Georg's comments? He is a dev, and I have seen the devs say the same thing on the Bioware forums, that limiting your inventory was a design decision, and not something meant to make you pay for DLC.

Also, that the backpack can be upgraded to 120 slots, which is in line with storage in games like BG2 where you had to get a bag of holding and the like.

I really like your articles most of the time, but I really feel like you're latching onto something unfairly here.

Even when you upgrade your backpack size -- I'm currently up to 100 slots -- it's still a problem. The longer you play, the bigger your backpack gets, but the wider the variety of items you find, and the more characters you want to keep equipment for.

I haven't tried keeping items in storage chests around the world, but that's an interesting approach. I'd be surprised if it worked.

As for Georg Zoeller's considerate comments, yikes, I almost missed them because he and I were commenting at almost exactly the same time, so his comment appeared before mine. But I've given them their own post.

I don't mind having a limited inventory, I just wish it made some sense. You could be in a position where you don't have room for one more potion, but you could still pick up 98 pieces of the same armour you're already carrying. It's ridiculous.

I thought that might be the case, that's why I asked for your comment :).

Good to see the new post on the subject, I hope Georg responds to that one as well and addresses your points.

Personally, I won't get to play the game (PC version) until I get home from work (damn you Steam unlock! why can't you be at midnight!), so I will reserve judgment until I see how I do. I tend to be a packrat, but at the same time I've gotten a lot better about selling off stuff over the years.

So we will see.

Junior - I usually know that when someone on the internet makes comments about someone age that they're an idiot. Your argument is based, not on merit, but on ad hominem attacks and a false "mutually exclusive" relationship.

Methinks the storage problem was a happy coincidence they fixed and bundled into the DLC, which was originally just for more story and gameplay, much to EA's chagrin. You'd know EA would freaking LOVE to charge a storage fee purely for the storage and absolutely nothing else.

It's a built-in option telling you to get outside and stop playing video games.

Bottom line the game is really good. Who cares if you pay a little here and there to keep the game going. Great single player RPG's seem hard to come by these days because of Fantasy MMO milking money. I say if they can earn a little extra dough to keep good game content coming than so be it. If you don't like it don't buy it......

It is not a conspiracy to milk you. The push back of the original release date with the completion of the expansion is just a timing issue and added additional storage was a bonus to the limited character storage problem. Also there is a vendor in the game that you can sell to that does not trash what you sell so you can go back to him and pick up anything you sold anytime throughout the game.

Bioware is still the best developer of RPG games out there.

Good gaming......

Remember kids, having to CHOOSE what to keep is BAD. Not magically knowing a item's exact value is BAD. Thinking hard about how to spend your money is BAD. Not being able to carry the entire gameworld in your backpack is BAD.

I support Georg and Bioware.

Bioware has never milked any titles, so STFU!

<3 Bean

You think this is bad look at the fps market on xbox I was watching a video of the developers of cod mw2 talking about paid dlc before the game has even ben released. For halo you have to buy a second sub-par game to even get the full features of multiplayer. At some point a line needs to be drawn.

Having now played the game, I have to say I don't really agree that inventory management is that difficult. As I said, I've been a pack rat in the past, and my instinct is to hold on to everything, but I've found it fairly easy to shrug off this habit here and sell extra suits of armor or weapons that I will quite frankly never use.

I've bought all the backpack upgrades I could find, and I've only run out of room once, at which point I went and sold off some of the aforementioned armor and weapons that I was holding on to "just in case."

It's also worth mentioning that (at least in the PC version) merchants do hold on to anything you sell to them. Granted, you'd have to buy it back at a much higher price than what you sold it for, but you could get it back if you made a mistake. For this reason, it's best to sell to your personal merchant NPC in the party camp, since you can easily get to him and buy back stuff if you realize you shouldn't have sold it.

I do wish that the game gave you a better indicator of what you should and shouldn't sell, however, I have a ton of gems that I just now confirmed on a forum are useless except to sell. I had suspected as much, but was holding on to them in case they turned out to be crafting ingredients or something.

And I'm still not sure about other miscellaneous things like silver goblets and silk carpets o_O

You do realize certain copies of the game come with both DLCs for free.

You do also realize that you can increase your backpack space with certain items?

Your Tears are delicious!

In all fairness, the additional content in the Warden's Keep isn't relevant to the basic question. Either it is or it is not the only current way to add camp storage for items. A person who wanted the storage but not the other content would have no choice but to buy it all.

In camp storage space makes sense; especially since the game wants us to believe that your guys lug several tents along with an awesome amount of gear from a bottle collection to a huge iron cauldron. Not to mention the tools required to set up such an elaborate camp. Yet there is no room for other stuff? Believability takes another bad, although not fatal, shot.

If Warden's Keep is good enough to stand on its own there is no reason the storage space couldn't have been included in the game rather than the DLC. It obviously was ready in time.

As an aside, it occurs to me that camp storage would a way to have both a more realistic inventory system and the deep storage that gamers want so they can hoard crap.

I think DLC is always used as a way to get more money out of a game. To me Warden's keep is, with 4h playtime, definitly not a full expantion and therfore only intended to boost their profits.
I have all the respect for Bioware, they make beautiful games but its obvious that EA is fixated in DLC to make more money.
Luckily I play on a PC and have no intention to pay extra for this game. I'll wait for the free mod. As for the added story line, it will have to wait till I can buy a complete version with all DLC for $10. Otherwise long live the piratebay dot org
(not that I would ever download anything illegal...)

You could just add the storage chest for free and completely legal: http://social.bioware.com/project/463/#details

But it's easier to complain, isn't it?

@Morgenstern72: The toolset and the chest mod just came out and did not exist when this article was written. If this article wasn't written, it might have taken far longer for a chest mod to appear.

But it's easier to complain, isn't it?

Furthermore, that mod does me no good on the Xbox 360. :( .

@ZSB: this was mainly directed to the comments; many where made after your could download this for free.

But it was directed at the blogger too.
Since he did not update this post with Biowares reaction (which he posted afterwards) or with a link to the free download or with locking the comment function for this post one could assume that his interest is not to update people about good stuff happening but to "entertain" them with half-true "wisdom".

Complaining just sells more then good news. And it's easier since you don't have to stick to the truth when you make false assumptions and blame someone in the public....

It only takes a few hours of play to realize the inventory space is way too small.

I was surprised to find there was no additional storage in camp.

The "faster load times" and "it's strategery" is twaddle, complete and utter nonsense and an insult to gamers' intelligence.

You want an extra $7, ok, but don't act like you are doing anything other than holding us hostage.

Xbox puts down the locks!