14 DAY TRIAL // One of the big selling points for Dragon Age: Origins, the role playing game created by BioWare, is the varied origins which players can experience, sequences about two hours long that establish the background of the character the player is inhabiting, depending on the race and the class which he has chosen for the main protagonist. Some have expressed disappointment at the fact that the origins get recycled a little (for example, all the mages have the same back story), but the fact which annoyed me the most was the presence of locked chests all through the origins, even if my character had no way of opening them.
The trouble is that, from the beginning of Dragon Age right up to the moment when you get full control over your party, there are no rogues around for you to take to your party. So, unless you choose to actually play one, not a single one of the locked chests littered around the area will be opened and looted. Moreover, to this role playing lover at least, opening and looting chests is one of the quintessential aspects of playing an RPG. So it feels like a bit of betrayal not to see what's inside those locked chests, especially in the opening sequences when each potion and each object can make a difference in the battles.
I understand that BioWare might have not included a rogue in the area for balance reasons or in order to place more impact on the appearance of the first one later during the story. But the locked chest issues might have been solved if they would have bothered to actually include the ability for fighters to try and force the lock with their weapon. Anyway, I would have even accepted the idea that trying to force locks open only is successful 10% of the time, but having an option is always more interesting for the player and more immersing than having no options at all. So I chose to be the only rogue in the room and play through as many of the origins as possible, cleaning up all the chests before trying any other character.