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Dragon Age Analytics

By Lies November 20, 2009 27 Comments

Dragon Age is a game all about choice. Choice of class, choice of party members, choice of attitude, it goes on. There are a vast number of different experiences that can be had with this game, simply due to the sheer amount of choice. However, using the achievement tracking system here on Giant Bomb, you can get a general idea of how the 360 community is playing. Check it out.

Origin Stories

Here is the list of most popular Origins in descending order:

Human Noble- Over 50% of players chose this, a huge weighting
Mage- 35%
City Elf- 22%
Dalish Elf >20%
Dwarf Noble- 17%
Dwarf Commoner- 17%

Keep in mind that you can play all the origins stories, so the percentages obviously don't add up to 100. These don't appear to be very difficult, as completing one without having the main character every fall in battle is the most common achievement in the game. Still, a remarkable hatred of dwarves. Little guys are awesome.

Classes

All the level 20 achievements are still rare, but they provide a decent enough milestone to look at.

Level 20 Warrior- 10%
Level 20 Rogue- 7%
Level 20 Mage- 5%

I'm thinking those mages are so powerful, people don't even need to take them to 20 before hitting the final boss, but I could be wrong I suppose.

Story Choices

These are the most interesting to me- they give a window into how everyone is playing. Spoilers, obviously.

SPOILER WARNING: THE CIRCLE

Way more people sided with the mages here than with the Templars- about 40% saved the circle, while only 17 invoked the Right of Annulment

SPOILER WARNING: THE DALISH

Only 6% of people sided with the Werewolves in the Dalish quest, although I'm not quite sure what that entails, honestly. I got the curse lifted and it still gave me the one for siding with the elves :|

SPOILER WARNING: THE ANVIL

8% of people preserved the Anvil of the Void, 27% destroyed it. Cool sidenote- if you try and preserve the Anvil with Shale in your party, he will turn against you and fight with Cairdin.

SPOILER WARNING: ORZRAMMAR THRONE

25% sided with Harrowmont in the struggle for the Orzrammar throne, while only 11 went with Bhelen. I understand Bhelen is in the Dwarf Origins and is kind of an asshole there, so that may be an influence, but as a Human playing this part they both seemed fairly balanced to me, so I'm wondering where the discrepancy comes from. I personally chose Harrowmont becaue man, ef hereditary monarchies, but I doubt that was a common justification.

SPOILER WARNING: THE URN

11% went with the Cult of Andraste regarding the Urn of Sacred Ashes, while 38 percent just murdered those dudes. To be fair, Kolgrim is kind of an asshole.

SPOILER WARNING: THE ENDING

I can't quite figure out the deal with the endings because they're secret, but the most rare one it appears is to make the ultimate sacrifice, and allow your PC to die with the Archdemon. Probably dudes wanted to have epilogue saves, but it doesn't matter because even if you die you still get an epilogue save, it just puts you back before Denerim. Kind of a cop-out in my opinion, but I suppose people would feel cheated if they couldn't play their DLC with a save prior to the endgame like it worked out for Mass Effect.

Romances

Morrigan is the most popular romance, Alister is the rarest. Probably just points to the prevalence of male characters, and Morrigan being the first available romance for a male character. Personally I didn't find this stuff too attractive- I actually made it a whole playthrough without romancing anybody- mostly because Morrigan hated every decision I made and Leilana just chilled at camp for the entire campaign. Looks like that sentiment was somewhat shared by you guys, as getting all romances is the second rarest achievie in the game, behind only discovering all endings. Honestly the romances probably take more work, as you can always just reload a save a few hours prior to the ending, whereas the romances take time and effort.

Final Thoughts

Of particular interest to me is that none of the DLC achievements are rare, which indicates a good sellthrough on that and the Collector's Edition. I wonder if that will hold up for Return to Ostagar. Grabbing all companions is also a very rare achievement, but I'd imagine that's due to the easy to miss nature of some companions- Leilana, Sten, and very much due to people

SPOILER WARNING: ENDGAME SPOILERS

not wanting to crew up with the primary antagonist of the game

Only 8 people have the full 1100/1100 right now, so clearly people are taking their time, which I fully support. Dragon Age is a great game, and well worth savoring. I just love that there are some man different ways to play it, and find it fascinating that people have been gravitating heavily towards certain choices. I would have expected much more of a 50-50 splits on these. Think it's great that GB makes this stuff so easily accessible too.

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