Along with the release of Dragon Age Origins for the XBOX 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, two download packs were also made available for everyone looking for more adventure within the game. The game is already huge, but if you’re looking for more, there are two of them; The Stone Warden & the Warden’s Keep.
Picking up a new copy of Dragon Age Origins will give you access to the Stone Warden DLC for free while you have to pay for $6.99 for Warden’s Keep. Is it worth the seven bucks?
Let’s find out in our HOTs and NOTs section:
HOT
Increase your storage
Upon completing the Warden’s Keep, you get to take Soldier’s Peak. Levi and his brother Mikhael will build their own shop that you can visit any time you want. It will also have a party chest where you store a lot of the loots you get since the party’s inventory is limited.
Unlock Trophies / Achievements
Each downloadable pack gives out two achievements and trophies. They are not hard to unlock at all and can be unlocked by just finishing it. One achievement can be achieved by drinking the Potion before reaching the top, while the other can be unlocked by finishing the quest.
NOT
Useless Equipments
The equipment you get in the DLC are indeed rare but they are not weapons that you will have equipped for a long. Most of the equipment you get will be coming from the Warden’s keepers. Remember to kill Sophia if you want to get her equipment.
Short
Warden’s Keep can be finished in an hour. The Soldier’s Peak tower is only three stories high, but expect some bloody action. There are four archives that you need to check out to get more rare equips.
Plot is lame
Warden’s Keep follows the story of the group of Gray Wardens that were stationed in Soldier’s Peak centuries ago. You and your companions meet a Merchant named Levi, who is the great great grandson of the renowned Commander Sophia that used to live in the Soldier’s Peak. Levi wants to check the place out, and that’s the start of your short and dull journey. There is nothing exciting in the plot of this one.
VERDICT
The only good thing about Warden’s Keep is that it will give you more storage. This one should’ve been included in the main game, but knowing EA, they probably want to make an easy $7 on this. The only thing that you are paying for is the storage that you get and the two achievement and trophies that you can unlock. If those two sound good to you, go ahead and purchase it. If not, stay away and keep your $7 for other DLC.
LarryL
November 8, 2009 at 5:03 AMI really have to disagree with your little review here. The quest is short. About the length of an Origin story. It could have been a bit longer, but still it’s a decent quest. And there’s the little side quest for a couple items. And it also adds a random encouter side quest in the Plains area called Super Metal for 2 very powerful tier 8 star metal weapons. (choice of 1 of the 2 in each playthrough. A great sword or long sword)
The items are pretty awesome. I really don’t know why you’re saying they’re useless. The 2 Tier 8 Star Metal weapons, like I said are really nice, not to mention the only tier 8 weapons in the game. They have very high bonuses. the GS adds +3strength +5 armor penetration and +8 attack, the LS has +3 to dex and damage and the same +5 armor pen. That’s on top of their high damage. In fact most of the items aside from that cross-bow have high bonuses.
The Warden Commander pieces have some really nice bonuses+1 armor, quicker stamina regen, +15 crit, +10 physical resist, +50 stamina and +10 fire resist, and if worn as a whole set gives an addition HUGE bonus to health as well as making spells and items cost less to use, all that stuff added together!! That’s UBER!! And you get strong DragonBone for a mage (Winter’s Breath) that adds 25 to cold resist and 15% to cold damge. I can’t see for the life of me how you think these are useless items.
All that plus the quest and storage is well worth $7.
LarryL
November 8, 2009 at 6:39 AMWow, did you really delete my comment meant to inform gamers of what’s really in the DLC instead of your disinfo review that doesn’t tell people how great the items in this DLC are? Jeez, talk about propaganda. This is obviously just an anti-DLC piece made disguised in a review’s clothing. Either that or you’re just mad about how wrong you were, and since I showed everyone you’re wrong you had to delete my comment. What a joke.
LarryL
November 8, 2009 at 6:42 AMwoops, sorry, some bug I guess, please disregard my 2nd comment, LOL. Jeez, what an ass I just made out of myself. Not sure why my comment temporarily disappeared for me though when it was there before. My appologies. Wow, what a dope, lol.
k-mitch
November 8, 2009 at 7:40 PMYou make some good points, Larry. I mean, from how it was described, it sounds like it has what all DLC has. An additional quest, items, and a couple more additions. I don’t see why buying it would be such a bad idea. Plus, it’s only 7 bucks, which is a good price if you’re a fan of the game.
Crypton
November 12, 2009 at 9:41 PMConsidering the cost of the game vs the length and what you get with the DLC, the price is rather steep.
While it contains a few nice items, in the end you are essentially paying for storage space as the Blacksmith and General trader are worthless in addition to this something should have been added for each character class/sub class not just Warriors and Blood Mages.
“which is a good price if you’re a fan of the game.” @k-mitch, lets be honest here, if your a fan of the game then you should be more upset than anyone else that EA is bending you over to give you the shaft and not even have the common decency to give you a reach around.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of new content for my game and getting fresh quests/items is welcome, but… I do not like the idea of being milked for more than it is worth.
Shale was a decent addition to DA:O, while the quest was short, the character you get in the end was embedded deep into the game which includes character to character chats while out adventuring, is own sets of items he can be equipped with etc.. Lets face it, that was a DLC that was worth buying if anything for the new character experience itself.
Warden’s Keep however is short of a joke. To be honest it feels more like a slap in the face considering the Keep itself is fairly useless as of now. I may change my opinion should they perhaps update the addon later on with a new version that includes more such as making use of the said Keep etc..
My 2¢
Anon
November 13, 2009 at 10:56 AMThe extra storage is nice and the new equipment (especially the cool Warden Commander armor, which can be upgraded to dragonbone by selling it to a merchant, and !Kryptonian sword) are welcome… but consider this: the DLC is called “Warden’s Keep” not “Warden’s Mini Dungeon and Extra Equipment”; after clearing out the place and hearing all this talk of making it safe and the Dryden family planning on basing their operations there, I was expecting to come back and find furnished rooms, party members lounging around and enjoying not roughing it in the wilds, and shops set up in some of the rooms.
Instead I find they just cleaned up the courtyard, set up a bonfire, and decided to just stand around in the bloody snow. You can’t go back into the Keep proper and you can’t even swap party members in the courtyard, so all your fighting was for a handful of items and a box (capacity of 100 items, iirc) to dump stuff in.
Is it worth seven bucks? That’s up to the buyer’s discretion. Personally I’m pissed I paid for a keep that turned out to be an out-of-the-way pit stop that’s marginally less useful than the campsite (two merchants and storage vs. one merchant, enchanter, and interaction with your party members).
donthatetheplayer
November 14, 2009 at 3:00 AMI have to disagree as well. I rather liked it. I just wish they’d let you recruit Sophia, she looks tight!
weims
November 15, 2009 at 4:43 PMTo unlock the star metal weapons you need the four histories of the keep. I can’t find the 3rd one. I have the first from the statue, the second from the book and the forth from the corps impailed on the wall.
Where is the 3rd? Help!
Daeth
November 17, 2009 at 5:29 PMweims: there’s one in a jam jar on the shrine in the second floor.
I personally enjoyed it, though I was pissed that they didn’t allow you to go back into the keep after finishing everything up. The star metal longsword is really nice.
diggergig
November 18, 2009 at 4:33 AMSophia would rock as a party member, I agree, but somehow I think you would get *huge* dissaproval ratings from every other party member!
I don’t regret having gotten this DLC for the amount it cost, although I was under the impression that I would have some kind of house as in Fable/Oblivion/Saints Row/etc rather than another camping site-type area.
I will read reviews of any more DLC before buying next time.
O.
November 19, 2009 at 5:29 AMHi,
I’m glad this review is free – because it is really bad.
I don’t understand how everyone is cursing the companies that make downloadable content. Come on!
It is really convenient for us and we just pay a few bucks.
Also think of the developers. They are not money eating monsters – they also have a passion for what they are doing and spend weeks developing new stuff for us.
They provide a service and we buy it.
If you’re not happy get the Toolset and build something that fulfills all your dreams of a perfect game… until you quit after about 3 days and see that this is hard work.
Kind regards
O.
Asended
November 20, 2009 at 4:41 AMAnon says it best.
I was not happy with the DCL it could have been a great DCL but it feels half done. The plot was fine no problem thier just IMO. Feels more like wardens yard sell after the quest is done.
Btw who ever O is I am a computer programmer and I have made self mods for oblivion myself. So I know it takes time but after you add all the people that bought the DCL monney up it adds up FAST. They already hit over a million bucks for this DCL they didnt even spend 1/10th of that on this. If they would have made a little more to it this could have been a GREAT DCL and worth paying even more then.
I just think the discription of this DCL was very misleading and they knew that most people would feel at least a little ripped off and just didn’t care. But it is half made by EA games “Its in the game game” ummmm more like “Its in the pocket book”.
Who knows they may add a quest to it later down the road and make it worth something they do have the beams of some buildings around where the yard sale merchs are…
Asended
November 20, 2009 at 4:47 AMAlso if they have finish up this DCL, sence they use magic in the game the could use a portal item to warp back to the keep once they finish the quests. But that shouldn’t be to hard to do if you have their construction set.
zero
November 24, 2009 at 8:40 PMThy also couldve made a use for start metal Magic staff for the mage or a bow for the archer rogue instead of just a one handed or 2 handed sword need to put more thought into the game sry guys keep trying.
Mithril
January 31, 2010 at 7:10 PMDoe you ever get anything from Arvenus once Soldier’s Peak is cleared?
Drake
February 22, 2010 at 6:09 PMIf you get a new game you get a card that can unlock Blood dragon armor and a code that gives u a chance to unlock a char for i side story, so to me thats a thumbs up
JT
March 2, 2010 at 11:19 PMI regret buying this DLC. I never assumed the fort would be LOCKED once I cleared it. I knew there was more content but figured I would come back for the side quests and also talk to the old mage. I travel to camp to switch some toons and have enchanting done only to come back to a gypsie shanty town in the snow. Locked fort , no access to the mage I agreed to let experiment if I had access to his findings.
All in all its a Fking rip off for storage that should have been in camp from day one. EA always finds a way to Fk up a free lunch.
JoeTheAmazing
April 15, 2010 at 10:52 AMDo NOT buy this DLC!!! Not only is the quest short and lame, there is a bug that makes Soldier’s Peak disappear completely along with your storage chest and everything inside. You pay $7 to lose every unique item you’ve collected and not even get the content you pay for.
COMPLETE RIPOFF
Titansblood
August 28, 2010 at 9:07 PMoke ive seen all the reviews and comment crap that has been said and i basicly hate you all :P now that that is off my chest ill explain it, the above extra’s you get are already really nice but for me the best part was that you can give the meteor ore to the weaponsmith afterwards so that he can make something nice out of it…leme say that again WEAPONSMITH!…all the extra content still comming out now might do the same like everything else in this game it fits perfect and more options keep comming…for those who wanna know why i say my weaponsmith in caps is simply cause he can only make that…so no armor! wade is for those things…anyway $7 is nothing in my opinion since they do keep me playing this game for 4 months now and im stil not bored…they could just let the orgins bleed to dead and letting it be a waste u ever bought it like other games…