The expansion, called "Awakening", will allow players to import (and edit!) their characters from the main game, and should run for around 15 hours. For the best explanation of what's going down, the pack's GameStop page is the best place to go.

For centuries, the Grey Wardens-the ancient order of guardians, sworn to unite and defend the lands-have been battling the darkspawn forces. Legend spoke that slaying the Archdemon would have put an end to the darkspawn threat for centuries to come, but somehow they remain. You are the Grey Warden Commander and have been entrusted with the duty of rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens and uncovering the secrets of the darkspawn and how they managed to remain. How you choose to rebuild your order, how you resolve the conflict with "The Architect", and how you determine the fate of the darkspawn will be but some of the many complex choices that await and shape your journey as you venture to the new land of Amaranthine.

You know, when you haven't finished the game - like I haven't - that paragraph is some funny reading.

With Fahey posting that lady-elf-on-lady clip, it's only fair I post this one. Of man-elf-on-man action. Complete with a Spanish lisp. Funny how sex with a blue alien can land a company in hot water, yet in the shadow of the biggest game of the year, this goes by with naught but a smile and some Youtube captures.

Oh, and for the record, this post was in no way brought to you by the Fight Against Grenade Spam.

BioWare just launched the Toolset page, touting the ability to "create new adventure," "stage massive battles" and of course, "be the director," with a "powerful cinematics editor" offering complete control over the camera, plus voice and lip synching tools.

If you're fired up enough, check it out at BioWare's official page.

Dragon Age Origins - Toolset [BioWare via Blue's News]

First, the changes, according to BioWare:

• Fixed potential corruption of character statistics
• Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
• Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
• Made Easy difficulty easier
• Slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
• Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays

Hey, who doesn't like easier easy? Anyway, notice of the patch brought out some catcalls about the quality of the game's shipped code. So Laidlaw posted a comment to "pull back the curtain a bit," on game development.

Game development seems like it's extremely up to the moment, but at the end of every game there is a period where you have to enter a lockdown so that final QA runs and certifications can be completed. This process is exhaustive and is the kind of thing that you have to completely re-do if you make any changes.

That said, it's hard not to be proud of your game, and to want it to be perfect, so we try to identify things that might be patch candidates. In Dragon Age's case, we had a unique opportunity to compare balance numbers between console and PC, and in the end we decided to make some tweaks and put them in the pipe for around launch day, while keeping an eye for any extremely bad bugs to include.

There's good odds that there will be another patch, as there seem to be a few issues still creeping up (dagger damage, etc) and I would like to see those addressed. Of course, we have to do due diligence and test and QA these things properly, so it's not an instant fix. Just be aware that we are watching these forums and working to try and nail down any issues that are creeping up.

Laidlaw then returned to the forum to say that future patches will likely continue to address game balance. "Mages, however, are awesome," he wrote. "That's not going to change."

Dragon Age Origins Patch v1.01 Released [BioWare Forums]

Second place was, apparently, a separatist nation-state known as "BioWare Community," with Canada and Poland in third and fourth place, respectively. Good ol' U.S. of A finished ninth, not lasting past stage three. BioWare Community was in the lead through stage four, when it was overtaken for good by Hungary.

Here's your full results. The main site has team interviews and stats.

1. Hungary
2. Bioware Community
3. Canada
4. Poland
5. UK
6. Netherlands / Belgium
7. France
8. Spain
9. USA
10. Czech Republic / Slovakia

Dragon Age: Origins Wardens' Quest [Official Site, via VG247]

Demian Linn at Bitmob worked all the angles with every potential partner in the party, telling us what goes down when you get down with Morrigan, Leliana and, yes, even when you eff the elf - as in a gay hookup. An encounter with a dwarven tranny is also mentioned but it's not part of the analysis. (I think it's just one of the smirky cathouse cutscenes)

The only spoilers in the writeup concern characters and, of course, descriptions of the sex itself. It does not give up any plot spoilers. In summary, here's what the sexytime does, or doesn't do, for Dragon Age: Origins.

So what's the point of all this? Good question. Sex is a very difficult game design challenge, no surprise there, and Dragon Age does it right when it incorporates sex directly into the narrative (the aforementioned spoiler I don't want to reveal). But the casual sex, which could be used as a tool to deepen your understanding and empathy for the other characters, tends to reinforce the idea of women as alternately jealous, catty, smothering, and weak-willed (easily taking back a lover that has strayed), while perpetuating the stereotype of the promiscuous gay/bisexual man. I guess what I'm saying is...the sex could be better.

Yeah, but so could a pizza. Bottom line, it's still a pizza. I mean sex. You get the idea.

Sex and the Single Dragon Age Hero [Bitmob]

Are the fictional universes that Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 take place in linked? You might think so after seeing this video, which shows us what Blood Dragon Armor looks like in both the medieval fantasy and science fiction settings. That's not the sort of design aesthetic you accidentally stumble on. I'd say cross-temporal cohabitation is probably unlikely though. Some armor designer in Mass Effect 2 is probably just a big fan of Dragon Age. It's their fictional world, and they can do what they like.

This isn't your average video game comic book deal. The agreement between EA and publisher IDW actually creates a separate imprint, EA Comics, with EA handling all creative aspects and IDW in charge of printing and distribution to both retail and digital outlets.

"We've seen an increasing number of video game tie-ins with comics over the last few years. This marks another step in our strategy for extending EA's wholly-owned game properties to new media. It is exhilarating to be working with the comic book creators directly," said Mike Quigley, Group Vice President, Global Marketing, EA Games Label.

The first book is Army of Two, kicking off in January of next year with a story that follows Salem and Rios after the events of the first game, forming their own Private Military Corporation. The story is written by Peter Milligan of Hellblazer, X-men, and X-Statix fame, with interiors by Dexter Soy and covers by Chester Ocampo.

Details on the Dragon Age comic are still being ironed out, though they've got a cover artist in Humberto Ramos and a writer in the form of acclaimed (and in some cases reviled) science fiction author Orson Scott Card.

It looks like EA is taking the comics business extremely seriously, calling out the big guns and creating its very own imprint. It should be interesting to see how such big-name talent handles video game comics.

The Shepard figure seems to be the limited-release version that accompanied the original Mass Effect launch. The Dragon Age item - is it a print or is it something else? Looks a print. Meh. Anyhoo, if you missed the statue, or want a pic suitable for motivational posterizing, see the Bioware Store on Monday.

Bioware Unveils Shepard Statue & Dragon Age Print [GamerVision, thanks Zachariah S., Dominic M., and Sean K.]

The good news? Most of you should be able to get by those minimum requirements. The...other news? I don't think I've ever seen a 20GB install before. Wonder what the 360 version looks like...

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Among the list of games getting future merchandising are The Sims, MySims, Dead Space, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, Dante's Inferno and Army of Two.

"Creative Minx is proud to be working with EA, and to be able to represent such a strong portfolio of highly-recognizable gaming titles," Andi Riordan-Scott, President of Creative Minx Marketing. "We look forward to building successful merchandising franchises across multiple categories and distribution channels for EA's top brands and leveraging the awareness of its strong consumer base."

Let's hope this includes Dante's Inferno wind-up babies and Army of Two hockey masks.

[Pic]

The PC version of Dragon Age: Origins is still slated for for Q1 of '09. Based on our hands-off time with the game at E3, we have to say we're interested, we just have to find the time.

November Issue Revealed [Game Informer via GameSpot]

BioWare will be demonstrating the features of the toolset at PAX this weekend, with a showing at 1:30PM on Sunday afternoon.

By my calculations, the first nude patch for the toolset should be created and in place at least a month before the game comes out, if it isn't already lurking on some crafty fellows' hard disk, eagerly awaiting release.

BioWare Reveals Dragon Age Toolset Details
Toolset to Debut at 2008 Penny Arcade Expo

Penny Arcade Expo
SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Leading video game developer BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced that it will continue in the studio’s long tradition of delivering powerful content-creations to the gaming community by releasing the Dragon Age™ Toolset. BioWare will be presenting the Dragon Age™ Toolset at the Penny Arcade Expo in the Washington State Convention & Trade Center today through Sunday. Designed specifically for the highly-anticipated Role-playing PC game Dragon Age™: Origins, the Dragon Age Toolset provides players with developer-grade tools that will allow them to produce their own content.

Attendees of the Penny Arcade Expo will be the first ever to see the new toolset in action as BioWare will provide a live demonstration of some of its exciting features and capabilities. The Dragon Age Toolset will be part of a stage demonstration during the Penny Arcade Expo at 1:30pm, August 31, on the main stage at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle, Washington. Key features include:

Create Original Adventures – Using the rich set of Dragon Age assets and locations as starting blocks, users can modify these stunning areas by adding new quests, characters and scripting to craft their own adventures, fate-defining conversations and cut-scenes.
Powerful Script Editor – Users can fully customize combat and creature AI, allowing them to create detailed action sequences full of heart-pounding party-based tactical combat.
Content Creators Community – BioWare plans to have a dedicated community area online where content creators can share content easily and get content updates for the toolset.
On-Going Toolset Content Updates – BioWare plans to release additional assets and features for the toolset in the future, allowing for expanded creation of new areas.
BioWare has a long history of delivering powerful content-creation tools and support to its community. In 2002, the studio released a Toolkit for the ever popular Neverwinter Nights™ which has allowed fans to create over 5,000 adventure modules of their own design, the most fan-created content in BioWare’s history. Fans have not only created stand-alone adventures with the trailblazing Neverwinter Nights toolset, they still continue to create modules, five years after its original release and have crafted thousands of completely new monsters, hundreds of thousands of in-game objects (eg. weapons, armor, food, special effects, building facades, etc.) and dozens of worlds.

For more information about Dragon Age: Origins, the latest updates, or to join BioWare’s Dragon Age community, visit www.dragonage.com.

"We have a lot of big plans for Mass Effect. Having a DS version would be an awesome way to keep interest alive and keep it going in addition to the next one [Mass Effect 2]," said Holmes.

While I myself am partial to their big production numbers, having handheld versions to keep me occupied between their larger efforts is a rather attractive prospect. Plus, the Nintendo DS can only make hot alien sex that much better.

BioWare liebäugelt mit einem Mass Effect für den Nintendo DS [Eurogamer.de via GamesIndustry.biz]

While we didn't actually get to lovingly touch the mouse and keyboard used to control our Dragon Age: Origins preview, we still got to see plenty of what the BioWare developed role-playing game will have to offer. If you'd like the alternate universe experience of what we saw in the bowels of the Sheraton Hotel at E3, edited down to just three short minutes, watch this down and dirty Dragon Age gameplay clip. You'll feel like you were there — minus the swag and European journalist aroma.

Our demo began with an introduction to the Gray Wardens, better known as the Good Guys, and their epic struggle against the Blight. The Blight are a the blue and green skinned orc lookalikes that you, your party and the Gray Wardens will battle throughout. They're of a varied species, some standing ten feet tall with sprouted horns, others more human like, with an unfortunate similarity to the Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. movie.

At first glance, the game is pure BioWare. Dragon Age: Origins has the dialogue tree interface the company is well-known for, with Mass Effect style camera angles paired with more isometric, full party view angles for keeping an eye on the action.

The game also has the BioWare patented "pause and play" method of controlling your party members actions with a turn-based/real-time combat engine. The whole thing looks familiar enough to feel like a medieval fantasy skin applied to a BioWare's Greatest RPG Hits release. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that, despite the dandy artistic style and modern-day graphics engine, it could feel like familiar territory.

Dragon Age's twisting plot line, full of choices decided by your unvoiced dialogue tree choices, came into play early in our demo. Wandering around the king's courtyard, we came across a caged man, one who promised us a key in exchange for feeding him. Instead of opting to find food for the poor caged soul or ignoring him, our "hero" decided to go with another choice — kill the prisoner and take his bartering tool.

BioWare reps showed off some of the game's scope, as we watched a massive Blight versus Human battle going down just outside the castle wall. This kicked off a brief mission in which we were instructed to light a tower beacon, gathering up disposable party members along the way. These "red shirts" weren't important to the story, but, as we saw later, you'll come across playable teammates that do affect the plot.

Our BioWare rep switched the action to a separate scene, showing off the skills of a higher level elven mage, one gifted with elemental powers. She casted fire and ice spells — each with spectacular effects — which showed off the "pause and play" technique a bit further. Dragon Age can pull off some impressive visuals, something one might not appreciate if the visual din weren't something that could be stopped and controlled.

After dispatching some of the lower-level Blight, our rep kicked off what amounted to a boss fight with a giant blue-skinned demon. The ogre, twice the size of the Gray Warden and his party members, was hurling chunks of the floor, picking up the less fortunate and bashing them to death as the four-person hero squad attacked. It was more action oriented than what we've come to expect from the RPG experts and, after whittling down the ogre's health bar, ended with a sword through the skull cinematic attack. Oh, it was epic.

Our all-too-brief look at Dragon Age: Origins, part of a BioWare-built franchise that will be supported with downloadable content in the future, left us surprisingly interested. It looks to have a respectable blend of story, action and solid design, a satisfying return to form for the developer. We'll be keeping an eye on it.

Zero gameplay is shown, so this is a teaser only. But this title has been under development for years and described by BioWare's Ray Muzyka as the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, and it will have a very big presence at E3 this week. McWhertor has an appointment to play it and will tell us if the gameplay is more inspired than the implied story.

Dragon Age: Origins — Exclusive E3 Debut Trailer [Gametrailers]

You'll get your first look at Dragon Age this Friday, as first footage of the game will be featured on the next episode of GameTrailers TV on Spike.

The "highly anticipated dark fantasy epic" also has a new name, officially known as Dragon Age: Origins from this point forward.

The official Dragon Age web site continues to tease us with its promise of "More July 9, 2008." We hope they hurry it up, because there's not much July 9, 2008 left to spare.

MTV Multiplayer asked BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka, and he says the key is pretty simple: make it worth the customer's while to buy the product, with ongoing DLC releases, an enduring multiplayer experience and a good relationship with the players:

“We’re doing a lot of post-release downloadable content on all of our PC titles going forward,” said BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka to me last week. “We think it’s a good thing to encourage players to make them want to buy a PC title. That’s ultimately the best, most successful path to prevent piracy is to have players that want your games, want to believe in them and think they’re high-quality and realize they’re going to get a lot of value out of them as platforms for long time afterwards.”

Muzyka also told Multiplayer that we can expect Dragon Age to follow the same long-tail pattern as Mass Effect. Now that online play and downloadable content is such a huge part of gaming's business model, PC games seem to be leading the shift away from the idea of a game as a one-off retail product and more towards the idea of "software as a service," which is a win-win situation.

BioWare’s Answer To PC Piracy: DLC, Multiplayer, Loyal Fans [MTV Multiplayer]

Hopefully, we'll get to play it at E3. Talons crossed!

Dragon Age [BioWare - thanks, Mystery Tipster!]