A few spoilers here, minor ones.
 
Now, I haven't played all the way through the game with each of the origins but i have played them all; frankly this just seems like an oversight. 
 
The human origin tries to do this a bit, and it really added something to the experience to have the Mabari come with me as opposed to just finding him on the friggin' road.
 
Gorim and Jowan are a bit too obvious as each has basically been exiled just like you and it isn't like they have that much else to do. There is really no excuse that either couldn't come with you, especially Jowan who is probably going to die anyway.  Even if Eamon was going to give him over to the Circle, if you destroyed it at that point in the game it could still work.
 
I dunno, it is just something that has been bothering me ever since I completed the Dwarf Noble story and realized that that dude is the dude what is in Denerim.

The bit where you ask Jowan to follow you and he refuses felt really forced.
Especially considering I was a mage too.

That would require more work from them. They create the illusion of choice and consequence when you're really on a binary fork path.

DAO seems like one of those games that would benefit greatly from a dedicated community of modders to fan-patch the game into its ultimate form. 
 
Arcanum, TOEE, VTM Bloodlines, Stalker SOC, and many more have been made better by such

The Jowan bit is a good point, I did everything I could possibly do to help that guy, but never got anything in return. at all.

" The bit where you ask Jowan to follow you and he refuses felt really forced. Especially considering I was a mage too. "

I haven't played the Dwarf Noble Origin yet but I've also heard a lot of people are upset because you cant become the king/queen. You'd really think if they had a time to do separate origins, they would also have separate parts in the main story connected to those origins. All they give you are a few lines extra dialogue, it's disappointing.

lot of people are upset because you cant become the king/queen.

That's weird, you choose Harrowmont or Bhelen and then become the king/queen later? If that's true that voids all the crap you had to do for them. Why help someone so much if you're just going to replace them in the next 3 days?

" That's weird, you choose Harrowmont or Bhelen and then become the king/queen later? If that's true that voids all the crap you had to do for them. Why help someone so much if you're just going to replace them in the next 3 days? "

Probably because if someone plays a certain origin; they'll be missing out on some other characters that are only specific in other origins. There are some people who don't play it through more than once; whether the reason is that they've rented it, they find it tedious, their disc broke, they don't have enough time or that they can't seem to play it more than once (I had this problem with GTA IV and Fable II). Certain players also might not like how you have to play a certain origin to go about with those party members; because some can become pretty attached to a party member.

its a damn good question. each origin has a best bro archtype of sorts that rolls with you.. and is then ripped and raped away from you. but a fan-patch isnt such a bad idea.

" @atejas said:

" The bit where you ask Jowan to follow you and he refuses felt really forced. Especially considering I was a mage too. "

They originally intended him to be a joinable party member, but they decided against it at some point in development. It does suck, because I really liked him, and I thought it would have made a lot of sense for him to join you. "

because you already bought it.

" @AndrewB said:

" @atejas said:

" The bit where you ask Jowan to follow you and he refuses felt really forced. Especially considering I was a mage too. "

They originally intended him to be a joinable party member, but they decided against it at some point in development. It does suck, because I really liked him, and I thought it would have made a lot of sense for him to join you. "

I agree with this. If there was one thing that I could change about DA:O it would be the party setup. There are only two mages and two rouges you can recruit, with the rest being warrior types (and only two of those warriors being viable for tanking). I think that Jowan could have filled the gap between Morrigan (Blaster Caster) and Wynne (Heal+Buff). Also it would make Blood Magic less of a pain to learn. "