Bioware announces free Dragon Age DLC

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 8th October 2009
Comments (11) Stumble
Bioware announces free Dragon Age DLC

BioWare has announced some free downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins as an anti-piracy device.

Bioware has announced that it has three lots of downloadable content ready for Dragon Age: Origins when it launches on November 6th, with two of the three packs being made completely free as an anti-piracy effort.

The way Bioware sees it, these downloadable content packs will only be available to those who have a legitimate copy of the game and so will give added value to those who actually buy a proper copy. It's the same reason that many companies launch lavish Collector's Editions of their games.

The first of the free DLC packs is called Stone Prisoner and bestows players with a unique ally that can be recruited to their party - a stone golem with his own storyline and quests who hooks up with the player at the start of the game.

The second free pack is titled Blood Armour and simply gives players an extra bit of armour, which can oddly also be imported to Mass Effect 2 as an added bonus.

The final bit of DLC is one which will be thrown in for free only with the Deluxe Edition of the games, while those who buy the regular version will need to pay for it. Titled Warden's Keep, the pack will cost 560 MS points or around $7 USD (roughly £5 GBP) on PC and PS3 according to GameSpot. It'll add an entirely new dungeon to the game, including new shops, items and six new abilities.

Bioware boss Ray Muzyka is confident that offering added value to legitimate customers is the most effective way to beat pirates, but let us know your thoughts in the forums.
Quote LeMaltor 8th October 2009, 12:18
Do I need MS poiints to buy it on the PC?
Quote NeedlesKane 8th October 2009, 12:29
nope
Quote WildThing 8th October 2009, 12:35
Nice one Bioware, free DLC is always good! ;) Do we know how much the Deluxe Edition will cost?
Quote Dreaming 8th October 2009, 12:54
I want this. But also want risen. So undecided which one as they're both £35 :(.
Quote l3v1ck 8th October 2009, 13:13
Just wish that I had a GPU powerful enough to play this.
Quote Kyocera 8th October 2009, 13:49
It's the best way to beat the crap out of legitimate customers, who mast have a drawer full of add-on discs, download the stuff from internet, which implies fast connection,.. and so on. First you buy and then you must take a day off to GLUE all the pieces together.
Quote Lepermessiah 8th October 2009, 14:13
Dude, stop whining like a girl, its free, geez, what a moron. Some people are never happy. No one is forcing you to Dl it. Some sensitive nancies a lot of gamers are.
Quote crompers 8th October 2009, 14:21
ok so its free, but lets face it like a lot of these DLC packs it feels rather a lot like a section of the game cut out during development rather than working on any actual new content. its free so its not a problem, but a lot of companies are cashing in on very similar stuff (horse armour anyone) FO3 in particular felt like it had bits of DLC sliced off and then sold to the highest bidder as new content.
Quote ZERO <ibis> 8th October 2009, 16:59
Very nice to hear and I think a good idea but what exactly stops the pirates from getting the DLC?
Quote pendragon 8th October 2009, 18:00
Sounds very promising to me.. I just hope they don't have the same copy protection scheme that Mass Effect used...
Quote Mentai 9th October 2009, 01:48
They only have the disc check for Dragon Age, thank God. I only have 2 installations left on my Mass Effect :(

In terms of DLC... I really don't see how this will effect piracy at all, working under the assumption that pirates can get any content to work. My mate pirated Mass Effect and managed to get the DLC working for that just fine.

In NZ, the deluxe edition is $120NZ compared to the standard's $90NZ. It comes with a 3 bonus items (+ 1 more when preordered), a steel case, making of/bonus dvd, cloth map, and that extra DLC. All up I'm happy with paying the extra $30 for that, I just hope the DLC advertised doesn't take a few months to come out after I've already played through the game. Mass Effect box said "includes free additional content" which was bending the truth to put it nicely.
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