Welcome back to another edition of The Digital Vine! We've got a lot to cover this week so let's dive right in.
Dragon Age Origins and it's companion piece Awakening are getting major face lifts. A new patch is on the way that will correct a slew of issues. Behold the official patch notes!
General Fixes
• Daggers will now properly assign the dexterity-based damage bonus.
• Achievement images and messages will now display properly.
• Resolved some authorization issues with downloadable content.
• Blood talents from the Grey Warden Base premium downloadable content will now work properly in Awakening.
• Fixed an issue where installing new downloadable content would occasionally leave the "Other Campaigns" selection greyed-out without a restart of the game.
• Multiple transitions in and out of Fade areas will no longer multiply the number of visual effects running and slow down gameplay.
• Floating numbers no longer appears over players' heads.
• Damage statistics will now be updated properly on the Inventory screen when weapons were unequipped.
• Importing a character to a new module from a savegame that did not have the hero in the party caused the game to crash.
• If a character is imported into Dragon Age: Awakening and is stripped of their incompatible gear from DLC, they will be equipped with default equipment.
• Names with accents and special characters will now show up correctly in the Story So Far load hints.
• Switching between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Awakening will no longer reset options to default settings.
• Fixed a number of memory leaks that were increasing the number of crashes.
• Audio drivers were causing a number of audio-related crashes. As such, audio drivers have been updated.
• Fixed issues that were preventing portraits from being uploaded to the BioWare social site.
•Game saves on Xbox 360 were being corrupted if you sold too many items to the same merchant. Saves will no longer be corrupted if you do this.
• Screenshots are no longer automatically uploaded on the PC by default on new installations.
• Fixed pick-pocketing. Characters were successfully stealing, but not receiving any items.
Dragon Age: Origins Fixes
• Fixed an issue that would cause incorrect characters to occasionally appear in Morrigan's ritual.
• Players who rescued their party members in the Fade of the Broken Circle plot were still forced to fight the sloth demon alone. This has been resolved.
• It is no longer possible for the player to get blocked during gameplay by pursuing both candidates' quests in the Orzammar plot line.
Dragon Age: Awakening Fixes
• A variety of bugs were preventing personal quests from triggering and causing issues with party member approval have been fixed.
• Lillith will no longer repeatedly thank the player at Vigil's Keep after being rescued.
• During the Assault on Amaranthine, a bug would occasionally make some enemies invincible, which impeded game progress. This no longer happens.
• Imported rogue characters will now properly detect traps.
• The message, "Legacy tattoo asset do not use!" will no longer appear on the faces of imported characters.
• Masterpiece and paragon silverite runes are now weapon runes instead of armor runes.
• The masterpiece slow rune is now available for purchase from merchant stores.
• Players may now receive notes of appreciation from their Origins love interests.
Famed Metal Gear Solid creator, Hideo Kojima, is working on an adventure game. Nothing is known as of yet however Kojima stated via Twitter that he will "challenge a certain type of taboo." He went on to say "If I mess up, I'll probably have to leave the industry." I have faith in Hideo Kojima and whatever he's working on will no doubt captivate fans. On the other hand, maybe he's ripe for a bomb after all these years.
Tim Schafer recently sat down with Eurogamer.com and had a few choice words for Activision head Bobby Kotick. "His obligation is to his shareholders. Well, he doesn't have to be as much of a dick about it, does he? I think there is a way he can do it without being a total prick. It seems like it would be possible. It's not something he's interested in." Schafer went on to say, "Well, he makes a big deal about not liking games, and I just don't think that attitude is good for games in general. I don't think we're an industry of widgets. I don't think we can approach it like we approach bars of soap, where you're just trying to make the cheapest bar of soap." I'm glad someone finally said it. Unfortunately Tim retracted his statement soon after and offered an apology. I'm guessing Mr. Kotick's lawyers made a few phone calls.
