Can I Beat Dragon Age: Origins... All By Myself?

This is what happens when I don't cut things for time. I hope you're happy... because I sure am.
From the creator who brought you "Can You Beat KotoR 2 without Leveling Up?" and it's fantastic sequel "Can You Beat KotOR without Leveling Up?", comes an entirely original full length feature. With never before seen behind the scenes footage, extras, and non-optional director commentary, Vhoul Studios KZbin Channel Ltd. (not a company) is proud to present: "Can I Beat Dragon Age: Origins... All By Myself?".
We'll be diving deep into Dragon Age lore and asking the hard-hitting questions. Like, 'can you beat Dragon Age: Origins all by yourself?', 'can you beat Dragon Age: Origins without leveling up?', and much mo-- Oh wait, no that's it.
Oh, and please don't expect a montage in every video from now on. I'm running out of KZbin licensed songs that have any hope of being montage material.
Music:
Training in the Fire by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommon...
Artist: www.twinmusicom...
Trapping All By Myself rewritten and reperformed by Me
Parody of All By Myself by Eric Carmen ericcarmen.com
American Idle by RKVC / rkvc - topic
And a smattering of in-game music.
Other Attributions:
Dragon Age: Origins
Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords
Spy Kids (2001)
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
The Dragon Age Wiki, dragonage.fand...
Fonts:
Althea by Paweł Burgiel
Arial
Back Issues (for the thumbnail)
No children were harmed during the making of this film.

[@ChromeJ4K0]

Well we found him boys. The next big KZbin champion.

[@vhoul]

Just give me 5 more years, an algorithm that can do basic word association, and we're there.

[@Spellweaver5]

You know, there is something magical about opening your video and seeing 27 views. When your channel grows, I will know that I was one of the first here.

[@vhoul]

Well thanks for doing your part to get us there.

[@Slyslug]

2.6k yeehaw

[@Linkforlife199]

I got to say, I love the retelling of the story, made the video entertaining coming from someone who has beaten Origins more times on Nightmare than I care to remember.

[@vhoul]

Oh good, I was worried nobody would be able to tell the difference.

[@Sleeman0980]

that intro absolutely slapped - glad to be part of this journey

[@vhoul]

Thanks, I had to stop myself from watching it over and over in order to get the video out in time for it to be relevant.

[@brodieorr5393]

i feel you brother, i think Morrigan stole my soul as well

[@trixo4352]

1. By dragging on the right side of your quick bar, you can extend it and get more slots for skills, traps, poultices, etc. 2. You mention how the song of courage gives you critical chance, but you end up using dual striking the entire time, which nullifies your crit chance (and is the reason dual striking sucks in the first place) 3. You can remove oghren from being a party member, simply from memory im not sure if you can tell him to just go, but you can definitely bring him to -100 approval and then fight and "kill" him, resulting in him leaving your party otherwise, great humor, great vid! this is also the first "challenge video" of da:o ive seen and would love to watch more!

[@vhoul]

1. Oh damn, that would have been very useful. 2. Yea, information on combat in this game is very hard to parse. The wiki doesn't organize it very well as it's kind of scattered throughout the many many entries on the various classes and their specializations. Ultimately I went with the build that, in my testing, had the best DPS:Survivability ratio (and to my surprise that included dual-striking, although that may not be the case in every scenario). Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the crit chance, but I had completely forgotten this interaction by the time I was writing the script. 3. I was very surprised to hear this when someone else mentioned it. I found no mention of it on the wiki, and when I tried to remove him from my party anyway I wasn't able to find a way. I would be interested in investigating the matter further because I'm doubtful that you could remove Oghren before you finish the Anvil of the Void. I like my solution, but if I had known, I would have done it. but yeah, thanks for the feedback. I do appreciate it. I'm not opposed to doing another DA:O challenge run, but I have a number of other projects ideas which I would like to work on first, and if I'm honest I have no idea what another good challenge for this game would even be.

[@erecean13]

Thank you for keeping this gem of a game alive. Loved the video!

[@MalikGrail]

Your narration is amazing bro! You’re definitely gonna be big in the future💯

[@kfyk17]

Shrek, traps and carpal tunnel - just the way I like it

[@erdinc2590]

Nice video man, I cant imagine playing origins without Ali or Morrigan their banter makes the game much more than a game

[@dragonborndude7718]

Banger intro

[@vhoul]

I know, right?

[@victorhladun2751]

Awesome video, awesome editing, awesome idea. Honestly surprised this doesn't have more views

[@vhoul]

Thanks.

[@Slyslug]

Im a simple man, i see an hour long dragon age or oblivion video, i click.

[@FlanMesh]

The real reward was the friends you made along the way.

[@beepbeep-f8t]

i once was trying to get all the leliana dialogue so i only took her and the dog. it was CHALLENGING, but very rewarding. i got through a lot of the game like that until i had to add wynne just so i didn't get clobbered.

[@vhoul]

A lot harder than what I was doing I imagine. I remember just playing the game on Nightmare for the first time, and that was harder than this.

[@VladAndreiRusu]

I am so glad I watched some Dragon Age: Origins content this week so I could get this gem recommended to me. Your humor is outstanding! SUBSCRIBED! Good luck ahead, looking forward to future videos. Thank you for an entertaining experience!

[@vhoul]

Omg, KZbin is actually recommending this video to people who are interested in Dragon Age? That's the best news I've heard all week.

[@nachtigall1437]

Great video!

[@BarryChuckle69]

Poor Fred looks like hes gonna puke when Morrigan shows up. Must be something to do with his aversion to people.

[@apexfenix9623]

Subbed and dubbed

[@DeadYorick]

You can skip having Oghren in the final battle segment of the game by continuously insulting him when he is drunk. It leads to a segment where he fights the player and you can murder him in the party camp.

[@vhoul]

Damn, I really tried to find a way to get rid of him. Wiki mentioned none of this (that I could find). And I know you've had a lot to say about this video, and it's kind of difficult to address all the points you've raised, but I just want to be clear that I hold no animosity towards you. I appreciate the two pieces of info regarding Oghren and Cullen, but I vehemently disagree with you on basically all of your other points. As you should have expected considering I spent months thinking about all of these things, and you've had an hour and 45 minutes.

[@captaincairoPT]

Soooo close to 1k 👆🏾💪🏽

[@DeadYorick]

To side with the Templars during the Circle of Magi questline you need to agree with Cullen on the second to last floor and he suggests culling the Circle. If you talk to Irving it always leads to not culling the circle.

[@vhoul]

Huh, but would you not agree that murdering Wynne and every other Mage you find in the Tower is a much more important prerequisite to siding with the Templars?

[@DeadYorick]

@@vhoul That's not how the game was designed. It was designed so that the player had to speak to Cullen and be convinced that the Mages were beyond saving. This is also a payoff to a setup that occurs during the Mage origin where Cullen appears sympathetic towards the Mages but believes they are duplicitous when you find him in the tower during the main game. It's somewhat logical for the developers to wait until after you completed the entire dungeon before making the final decision at the end. As the player could've been put off by how aggressive Wynne was and assumed they had become an Abomination. It would also be poor game design to lock the player into a choice like murdering the entire circle before the choice is ever properly presented to the player. The developers later follow the same pattern with the Brecilian forest where the player is given a lot of opportunities to help both sides (The werewolves and elves) but the final choice to either restore the elves or help the werewolves occurs at the very end.

[@vhoul]

@@DeadYorick Right, I'm agreeing with you. I'm just saying that killing all the Mages in the Tower is a really bad way of going about recruiting Mages. Particularly when at this point, you've already had a conversation with Greagoir about how he'll pledge his Templars to your cause. I'm not saying this isn't how the game was designed, I'm saying from a logical perspective, it doesn't make any sense to design the game this way. I literally cleared every floor of the tower of mages at this point. I slaughtered them like animals, but because I didn't talk to the knight in the glowy circle a have no choice to let Irving live? That is patently ridiculous. I feel like all of your criticisms can be succinctly answered with, "Yes, that was the entire joke." Can you please just agree with me that these are all jokes? Like you already admitted to it in a previous comment that you think my jokes are unnecessary, but can you admit for me one more time that you understand they are jokes? You don't have to agree with them, but they are jokes.

[@vhoul]

Which obscure movie reference was your favourite? 'Cause mine was all of them.

[@TheAzureKnight25]

This was a very good video. I would recommend, however, not dropping so many F-Bombs. Unfortunately, KZbin is a big baby about adults using adult language lol makes them less likely to recommend the vid. Keep up the good work friend!

[@vhoul]

Thanks. Unfortunately I'm a big baby about dropping F-bombs, as I refuse not to. :)

[@PeriodicallyRational]

❤

[@LabyrinthForPigs]

I never asked for this. Algorithm brought it to me. Good riddance.

[@DeadYorick]

I feel like this video could've been cut in half if you removed the unnecessary jokes, especially the part where you go on about Flemeth rescuing the party from the Tower of Ishal as a Deus Ex Machina. It's clear from dialogue in both DAO and DA2 that Flemeth can see into the future. She took the Grey Warden treaties to lure the player to her hut. She immediately knows who they are and says she was "expecting them". She tells Daveth he's "sadly irrelevant" which is foreshadowing his death during the Joining. She rescues the player from the Tower of Ishal specifically so they can take Morrigan with them. Morrigan then states to the player during the Grimoire quest that Flemeth orchestrated the player to take her with them so she would become more powerful and so Flemeth could transfer her consciousness into her body. And when the player arrives to kill her she immediately knows why the player is there and has a decoy Grimoire at the ready. Morrigan also implies that the other reason she was sent to go with them was to form the dark ritual to capture the soul of the Archdemon. There's even more dialogue like this in DA2. In the Dragon Age tie in novels that go over Loghain and Maric's backstory it's also heavily implied that she orchestrated Maric becoming King of Ferelden as well decades prior to the events of the game. It's not a Deus Ex Machina by definition as Flemeth rescuing the player is a carefully orchestrated plan on her behalf to manipulate Morrigan and take over her body once she has stopped the 5th blight. It's a setup to a later payoff.

[@vhoul]

Deus Ex Machina is a trope from old plays when God would come in and solve all of the problems in an instant thereby negating the characters agency and the whole point of the story. One of the problems with this trope is how it is never foreshadowed, it simply happens with no setup. As you addressed, there is some foreshadowing in regards to Flemeth, but I argue that it is not nearly enough, and more importantly--irrelevant. The main problem with Deus Ex Machina is the aforementioned problem with negating agency, etc. In this instance the party just finished clearing out the tower of all Darkspawn, an incredible feat, but suddenly a few Darkspawn sneak up on us with bows, we faint and get rescued by a literal God. Because if we want to bring lore from other games that haven't even been written yet, then you can't ignore the fact that Flemeth is clearly a God. But none of this matters nearly as much as the fact that literally everything I said in the video, in this section and all throughout, was clearly a joke.

[@DeadYorick]

@@vhoul a Deus Ex Machina is a plot contrivance. "It's often used as the solution to what is called "writing yourself into a corner," where the problem is so extreme that nothing in the established setting suggests that there is a logical way for the characters to escape. " This does not apply to Dragon Age Origins as it is later established during Flemeth's fight she can transform into a Dragon. She was also previously introduced to the player and her motivation for doing it is made clear before and after the event. By this same definition any character rescuing another character is a "Deus Ex Machina". It doesn't apply to Dragon Age Origins.

[@vhoul]

@@DeadYorick The established setting is a Tower surrounded by the Darkspawn Horde next to a forest with a hut containing on old woman who might be more powerful than she appears. You are absolutely written into a corner as Flemeth's power has not actually been established yet. Flemeth could secretly be the Maker at this point in the game for all we know, it hasn't been established yet. Her Dragon shapeshifting, as you point out, is established later. It doesn't count. I'm not saying they were rescued therefore Deus Ex Machina, I'm saying they were literally rescued by a God that was not established as a God before this point therefore Deus Ex Machina.

[@DeadYorick]

@@vhoul A character being saved by another character in a surprise twist is not a Deus Ex Machina. Examples of Deus Ex Machinas have the following patterns. 1. They universally tend to occur at the end of a story 2. They feature a new character or concept not introduced to the story 3. They resolve a currently ongoing conflict that otherwise didn't have another resolution The Great Eagles rescuing Frodo and Sam at the end of the Lord of the Rings introduces a new character/concept to the story, occurs at the end and resolves a conflict that otherwise couldn't be resolved (They establish earlier in the story that they didn't have enough food to return from Mordor) The Naval Officer rescuing the children at the end of Lord of the Flies introduces a new character to the story, occurs at the end and resolves a conflict that otherwise couldn't be resolved (The island was set on fire and Ralph was being hunted by the other boys) The Martians being defeated by germs in Lord of the Flies introduces a new concept to the story (The aliens being conquered by microbes), occurs at the very end and resolves a conflict that otherwise couldn't be resolved (The Martians were unbeatable militarily) ---------- Flemeth is established as a powerful "Witch of the Wilds" when she is first portrayed to the audience, she is provably shown to predict the future in her dialogue, so her rescuing the player isn't a plot contrivance she knew they'd be there (also the tower lights up like a Christmas tree). Her rescuing of the player isn't there to resolve a conflict it's because she needs the player to take Morrigan so she can birth the dark child and she can take over her body. It's not a resolution to a conflict at all it's a plot introduction to Morrigan's role in the story. ----------- I genuinely think the only reason why you think it's a Deus Ex Machina is because they cut away before showing her rescuing the player (probably for budget reasons). If they actually showed Flemeth and the player consciously rode the dragon in a cutscene I highly doubt the conversation about it being a Deus Ex Machina would've been considered. The only way Flemeth rescuing the party from the Tower of Ishal could be a Deus Ex Machina is if she also killed the Archdemon offscreen and the game just ended after that.

[@vhoul]

@@DeadYorick "I genuinely think..." If that's what you genuinely think, then you aren't listening to me. If we were to both agree that a table has 4 legs, and I grabbed an object that we both agreed was a table and had 4 legs. If I were then to remove one of the legs, would it still be a table? Many would claim that the table has now become a stool, and yet many others would argue it is still a table, but with one of the legs removed. This is the very same reasoning that I am using to conclude that this scene is in fact Deus Ex Machina. Deus Ex Machina does typically involve those 3 tropes, and we can argue about which of those tropes are missing. But at the very least, you have to be able to see that we've got a three-legged table here. You might want to call it a stool, but all I see is a table with one of it's legs removed. If we took one of your examples, say Lord of the Rings, and changed the books to include a Line from Gandalf, "Frodo my boy, did you know that many Great Eagles roam the skies of Middle Earth? My God, I dare say they could pick up a Hobbit with one talon and fly them across the countryside!" Does the Eagles' rescue stop being lazy writing? Does it take away any less of the consequences and agency of the main characters? Is it any less of an example of Deus Ex Machina? Well actually, to the third question, yes. It is a LITTLE less of an example, but I would argue not enough to no longer be considered as such. And now imagine that we added 13 chapters on to the end of The Return of the King. The sudden rescue invalidating the characters' choices is no less infuriating. It just happens significantly earlier in the book as a proportion of it's total length. To your claim that Flemeth's rescue isn't Deus Ex Machina because it does not occur at the end of the story... At the very least her rescue comes at the end of a major plot point. Your party got itself into this situation, and if they don't have any contribution to getting themselves out, it begs the question of why they even exist in the first place. To your claim that they involve a new character or concept not introduced prior in the story... Flemeth was introduced earlier, but I do not feel that allusions to her being able to tell the future is significant enough to warrant us knowing she can turn into a Dragon. Knowing the future is not a strong enough super power to allow an old lady to walk through a horde of Darkspawn and rescue a party of two from being killed. So the new concept here is Flemeth being able to turn into a Dragon. But much more important than the 3 tropes you outlined, I believe is the nature of why Deus Ex Machina was ever a trope worth naming. Deus Ex Machina, as I'm sure you know means 'God from the machine'. It was named this because God would literally come down from the sky and solve all of the problems the characters of the play were having. With "from the machine" being a reference to both the machine that would lower the actor playing God down to the stage AND the fact that God seeming came out of nowhere. "Where'd he come from?" "The Machine" "What machine? "Exactly." So even though my claim that 'the Flemeth rescue sequence is Deus Ex Machina' may not hit all the necessary points that you require for a Deus Ex Machina, it still has all the fundamental elements which make Deus Ex Machina a bad trope that was worth naming in the first place.

[@DeadYorick]

Why did you skip showing most of the Redcliffe and endgame fights? There's a lot of fights in both segments that are challenging like the mage at the end of the Alienage segment, the Revenant you can optionally open the gate to lead soldiers in to help destroy, the Desire Demon before fighting Connor and so forth. Or fighting Loghain solo. Or the single hardest fight in the game the Ser Cauthrien fight before the Fort Drakon segment. The Fort Drakon segment also features a part where the player either needs to rely on party members or has to bust out solo. Also why would you spend most of the video describing the plot of the game but then skip introducing characters like Riordan?

[@vhoul]

Why did I skip showing most of the Redcliffe and endgame fights? Because I was level 25, they were really easy, and I didn't do it in any new or interesting ways. By this point in the video everyone knows that I throw grenades at everything. It's not very interesting. If a fight wasn't interesting, I didn't mention it. Including Ser Cauthrien who was cut for time. As with the other fights I didn't mention, I used a lot of traps and a lot of grenades. She didn't really fit into the story I was trying to tell. And I can't believe you don't know this, as you've been attempting to educate me on basically everything in this game, but if you kill Ser Cautrien in the initial encounter you never end up getting locked up in Fort Drakon. Which I thought would be obvious to anyone who has played the game before as to why I skipped that section. And to anyone who hasn't, they wouldn't never know it existed. I don't actually want to spoil the entire game for new players. And as to why I would describe most of the plot, and skip introducing Riordan? Because it's funny. "Riordan, what are you doing here?" I introduce the Landsmeet saying there's a whole bunch of people who I've never even mentioned, this should be interesting. And then we hear from the Old dude nobody knows, Wolf who gets introduced by name but we've never seen before, We mention Howe who I also skipped talking about, then Anora makes an appearance who I also didn't introduce, and finally Riordan comes in for the final punchline of this joke. As I stated earlier, I'm not actually trying to spoil this game for people. I people see this video and decide to play it for themselves, I want them to still have something left to enjoy. Plus, I have no interest in retelling a story that someone else already told. Did you even notice all the "retcons" I made. Like ya, Loghain never calls his daughter the puppeteer, that's just clever editing. Have you ever tried explaining to someone the entire plot of Dragon Age: Origins? I have, it quickly starts to take 10 hours.

[@DeadYorick]

@@vhoul It's extremely rare new players watch challenge run videos. Challenge run videos tend to be watched by people who have already played or beaten the game primarily because they tend to spoil major strategies for beating the game. I think skipping almost 1/5th of the game in a challenge run video because it "wasn't interesting" or "i didn't have time" just confuses me as it's like "i thought that was the point of a challenge run video". I legit assumed that I must've skipped something when the video went from Redcliffe all the way to the solo Loghain fight. The Ser Cauthrien fight in particular is the fight I'm personally the most interested in seeing because it's the hardest fight in the game and it's not in the video. A big reason why people watch challenge runs is they want to know how to do different fights in a unique way and this video can't be viewed in that context. Many of the fights you didn't cover in the video have interesting aspects to them that would've been genuinely interesting in a challenge video. IE: does recruiting npcs during the Redcliffe segment violate a rule if the player can't control them. Is it possible to avoid Murdock from dying if you play it solo and get the reward for keeping everyone alive.

[@vhoul]

@@DeadYorick That's just how I approach my challenge run videos. Once I've established how I solve a particular problem, I try not to beat a dead horse with it. I established that I have really strong late-game gear, traps, and grenades by the time I fought Ser Cauthrien. And you have ample opportunity to place traps before that fight. So to go through all the trouble to explain who Ser Cauthrien is, who Howe is, and that none of that really matters because I just made a staircase of claw traps and lured her into it. It didn't seem important. In my opinion, as I stated at the very beginning of the video, Dragon Age isn't a game about difficult fights and strategy. It's a game about story, and having sex with your party members. And that's what I focused my challenge run around. Because to be honest, this run was not a challenge. Like at all. All you have to do is get really strong really quick and out-scale the enemies. There were maybe three fights that I ever actually struggled with, which is why they were the fights I talked about most. Because to me, a challenge run is about a new way to play a game. And in this new way of playing, you might find that the things you struggled with in a normal playthrough aren't the same things anymore. That's what I love about challenge runs. I wouldn't have included the fight with the Archdemon if it wasn't the climax of the story. That shit was easy. For the record the three hardest fights in this challenge run were: the ambush in the Frostback Mountains, Jarvia, and Branka. I think I covered those fights quite well. So while I can appreciate that you felt I left out major sections of the challenge run, I didn't--because in this challenge run, they weren't major sections.