14 DAY TRIAL // Like every new idea that is born, downloadable content is something that was received with mixed reviews. Some people like the idea of prolonging a game's life by steadily adding new features, while others complain that it's just a money-steal, and the features present in the DLC could have been implemented from the beginning. BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins wasn't spared the controversy, and its “Warden's Keep” has managed to attract some voices of discontent.
Lead system designer for BioWare George Zoeller is the one that was tasked with responding to the issues that the DLC generated and detailed the nature of the program and what were its foundations. “For what it's worth, EA has nothing to do with this. The game was designed with limited inventory for a number of reasons, the least of which being to limit save-game size and therefore load times,” Zoeller said.
Apparently, your party's camp was originally designed with a special storage chest, but, during the later periods of testing, the item had to be scrapped. The problem was discovered too late to be fixed in time for the release, as the multiple available maps led to some items pulling a Houdini act and disappearing altogether.
“By the time this problem was discovered we had not enough time to fix the problem, plus, we decided that it was not really necessary anyway since the item limitation was rather generous.” The Warden's Keep DLC that is priced at $7 or 540 Microsoft Points came up during the discussion at one point, and it was decided that this was the best way to go about the problem. “I'm fine with you being upset about the item limit design in the game... but I must protest the 'Oh EA is pushing the limit for more money' tagline, because that's just not what has happened.”
The game does come with two free trinkets, The Stone Prisoner and Blood Armor, which are available for those that have purchased it. The idea behind this little ploy is to pull one over on those that would pirate the game, and it is also meant to motivate people to buy a new Dragon Age: Origins instead of settling for a used copy. From one point of view, the game was designed to have a limited inventory, regardless of the reason behind it, but, in the end, the developer decided to add the additional feature of extra storage space.
The only thing that it can be blamed for is that it decided to charge for this, instead of simply adding it as a patch, which is indeed a bit shifty of it. Before the days of the DLC, problems that weren't big enough to be fixed through an expansion pack were simply mended with a free patch released by the company.