{"id":512,"date":"2012-12-13T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T18:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/?p=512"},"modified":"2012-12-13T10:00:40","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T18:00:40","slug":"mark-plays-dragon-age-awakening-hour-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/2012\/12\/13\/mark-plays-dragon-age-awakening-hour-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Plays &#8216;Dragon Age: Awakening&#8217;: Hour 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourth hour of <em>Dragon Age: Awakening<\/em>, no one is surprised that I literally got TEN MORE QUESTS. But I learn more about Nathaniel and Anders, and then <em>WHAT THE FUCK WHO ARE THE BLIGHT ORFANS<\/em>. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to play <em>Dragon Age<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong><!--more-->Hour Four<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You know, since I no longer have to worry about the mechanics of gameplay for this game, I can just focus on fighting well and enjoying the story. That being said, guess what I figured out just now? That you can have two weapon sets and switch between them in the Select Menu. YEAH, AFTER I PLAYED ALL THE WAY THROUGH <em>DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS<\/em>. And I found out entirely by accident. Oh god, Roslin could have had her dual sword wielding perfect <em>and<\/em> a bow and arrow. WOW, I&#8217;M SMART. Y&#8217;all, this changes <em>MY ENTIRE APPROACH TO THIS GAME<\/em>. I&#8217;ll just sit here and laugh when I want to cry. It&#8217;s the only solution left.<\/p>\n<p>So, was anyone else&#8217;s copy of <em>Awakening<\/em> kind of buggy? The following things happened to me, and they were such subtle mistakes that I felt like I&#8217;d entered an alternate universe or something:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I found Delilah in the marketplace, and Nathaniel spoke to her. About twenty minutes later, when I was chasing a rogue mage for the Chantry mission, Delilah was there <em>again<\/em>, and it triggered the exact same conversation all over again. <em>What<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>So, one of the Merchant Guild missions was to remove that Antivan poison from Amaranthine. I swear to you, multiple times I&#8217;d return to a spot where I&#8217;d picked up some poison, and it would be there on the table again. Does it respawn? Is that the point?<\/li>\n<li>At one point, the Chantry was just a black room. I had to turn around, exit, and go back inside for it to\u2026 well, <em>exist<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>I am at a total loss for what happened with <em>both<\/em> the Law and Order and Smuggler&#8217;s Cove missions. In the last hour, it was clear that the smugglers were furious that they saw me speaking to Aiden, so they were hostile to me any time I saw them. Okay, fine, I fucked that up. So I&#8217;ll help Aiden out! For some goddamn reason, all the city guards keep calling me a murderer, and other random folks say the Wardens are terrible, and now Aiden WILL NOT EVEN TALK TO ME. So I&#8217;m at a standstill with both missions, and I&#8217;m so confused. I think I&#8217;ll just investigate more, because this could very well be the point!<\/li>\n<li>Oh god, the goddamn game would trigger that weird attack mode where you can&#8217;t do anything but fight if I happened to be up on the battlements DESPITE THAT ALL THE ENEMIES WERE BELOW ME AND I COULDN&#8217;T ACTUALLY FIGHT THEM. With the exception of one time, I had to use Nathaniel and Anders to do long-rage attacks that were super time consuming. GOD.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But this wasn&#8217;t a disaster. I got so much done! Well, and I also got assigned more quests, earned a ton of sovereigns in the process.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>So, Anders needs to destroy the phylactery so that he can&#8217;t be tracked again. <em>That<\/em> is the explanation behind his behavior.<\/li>\n<li>The mission for Alma ended sadly, as her husband killed himself because he felt like he wasn&#8217;t worthy of her. Here&#8217;s the thing: when I turned in the quest to her, it was at the exact moment I earned enough XP to level up. So, imagine this: Alma is loudly mourning the death of her husband <em>while the most dramatic victory music is playing and heavenly light is exploding around me<\/em>. It was the most unfortunate coincidence in the game yet.<\/li>\n<li>Nathaniel earned Moderate Cunning from me! HUZZAH! This was after the conversation we had where he realized his father&#8217;s actions got a Howe statue torn down in Amaranthine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is all well and good, but we need to talk about one thing for the rest of this review:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-513\" title=\"Screen Shot\" src=\"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot3-1024x576.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot3-1024x576.png 1024w, http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot3-300x168.png 300w, http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Screen-Shot3.png 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>OH MY GOD, WHO THE FUCK ARE THE BLIGHT ORFANS<\/strong>. Initially, I thought it was kind of adorable, so I donated 50 silvers to them. Then they asked for more, and I thought it was a little suspect until I realized they wanted ANTIVAN BRANDY. Okay, orphans <em>don&#8217;t need brandy to warm their soul at night. <\/em>And then I had to KILL MOONSHINERS FOR THEM. Okay, this was clearly suspect, but the part of me that&#8217;s obsessed with completing everything could not stop. (PS: One of the moonshiners yelled at me for &#8220;barging in,&#8221; but dude, <em>your door was totally open and unlocked. <\/em>I did no such thing!)<\/p>\n<p>But by the time I got the third round of requests from the Blight Orfans, I knew this was a con. Well, a con that was poorly disguised, outright hostile towards some people, and eerily respectful of Mother Leanna??? Also, why am I collecting a hammer and a pitchfork for orphans? <em>They&#8217;re not even that far away!<\/em> But the real kicker came after I turned in one of the last quests (I still have the scarecrow one left) <strong>AND THE DRUNK PATRONS STANDING ABOUT IN THE LOBBY STARTED TALKING ABOUT THE VERY THINGS I WAS DOING.<\/strong> Apparently, whatever <em>I&#8217;m<\/em> doing is helping these dudes to get <em>drunker<\/em>? What the fuck is going on? I AM GOING TO SEE THESE QUESTS UNTIL THEIR NATURAL END, I SWEAR.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Links Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; You can follow me on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/markdoesstuff\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0for any updates and live commentary on upcoming reviews I\u2019m writing.<br \/>\n&#8211; You should read this\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/10\/hello-mark-does-stuff-community-lets-discuss-things\/\"><strong>very important post<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0about supporting Mark Does Stuff!<br \/>\n&#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markdoesstuff.com\/product\/mark-reads--video\" target=\"_blank\">Video commissions are just $25! You can commission me to read, watch, or play anything for current, past, or upcoming projects right here!<\/a><br \/>\n&#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/10\/mark-reads-harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-is-available-for-purchase\/\">I have just released\u00a0<em>Mark Reads Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince<\/em>\u00a0for $4.99!<\/a><br \/>\n&#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/category\/the-shoebox-project\/\">I\u2019ve started reading\u00a0<em>The Shoebox Project<\/em>\u00a0for Mark Reads<\/a>, the first fanfic \u201cseries\u201d I\u2019ve ever covered!<br \/>\n&#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/11\/mark-reads-harry-potter-books-available-in-paperback\/\" target=\"_blank\">Both\u00a0<em>Mark Reads Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Half-Blood Prince<\/em>\u00a0are now available in paperback form!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fourth hour of Dragon Age: Awakening, no one is surprised that I literally got TEN MORE QUESTS. But I learn more about Nathaniel and Anders, and then WHAT THE FUCK WHO ARE THE BLIGHT ORFANS. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/2012\/12\/13\/mark-plays-dragon-age-awakening-hour-4\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[63,48,31],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dragon-age","tag-awakening","tag-dlc","tag-mark-plays-dragon-age"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515,"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions\/515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.markplays.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}