Patches (Origins)

See BioWare's Dragon Age Patches for the latest patch for Dragon Age: Origins.

Legend

marks changes that are especially helpful to players.

is used to highlight changes that removed an exploitable bug from the game.

denotes changes that will noticeably affect gameplay.

Patch 1.03

Release date: 3 March 2010
You do not need to download patches prior to Patch 1.03. Downloading Patch 1.03 contains all previous patches. Downloading Patch 1.03 will provide you with all patch data available.

Various changes have been made to code and resources to support the Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening expansion pack. Most of these changes do not affect Origins itself.
Some players were experiencing increasingly long load times. A major cause of this problem has been fixed.
At higher levels, non-player characters now receive a bonus to armor penetration. This mitigates an unintentional imbalance with well-armored high-level characters, since armor penetration previously did not scale as aggressively as armor itself did.
Elite-rank enemies (lieutenants) can no longer be shattered. This preserves the intended tactical design of many combat encounters.
Portraits for summoned creatures (like a ranger's wolf) were displaying improperly while in the party camp. This no longer occurs.

Note: Warning! Patch 1.03 fixes none of the major mechanics bugs: to name just a few, Crossbows remain attribute-less; Ranged Attack Speed Bugs persist; +X% Healing Received Bug was not addressed. Moreover, the patch is incredibly buggy by itself. It can, and probably will, conflict severely with your DLCs: for instance, Return to Ostagar and/or Warden's Keep may get disabled or reset to uninstalled status (see also this {http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:1.03_-_Troubleshooting short 1.03-DLC conflict troubleshooting note}). On some systems, GUI will get 'fixed' by this patch, too: stamina/mana bar will look permanently empty. Sadly, that is not all: in fact, new bugs were introduced into the game -- 1.03 Bugs Discussion on BioWare Forums.

Patch 1.02a

Release date: 21 December 2009

fixed the "Rally bug" introduced in 1.02 where going through area transitions caused the Rally bonus to keep stacking
fixed errors in Russian 1.02 patch notes
fixed GDF file for Windows 7

Patch 1.02

Release Date: 7 December 2009

Balance

Daggers now apply 0.5 points of damage per additional point in dexterity and 0.5 points of damage per additional point in strength, as originally intended. This increases dagger damage for high-dexterity characters.
During combat, mana or stamina reserves now correctly regenerate more quickly when reserves are low. This allows players to occasionally use an talent or spell in the later stages of lengthy fights.
When exploring, mana and stamina now regenerate more quickly at higher character levels. This reduces downtime between fights.
The spells Force Field, Crushing Prison, Cone of Cold, and Blizzard now have shorter durations and/or longer cooldowns. This ensures that combatants can no longer stun-lock each other by repeatedly casting the same spell.
The cooldowns for several low-level sustained abilities are now shorter. This ensures that players are not penalized for accidentally deactivating them.
Certain battles were not scaling properly, resulting in excessively difficult fights. They now scale as intended.
Enemy corpses now drop Health Poultices and money more appropriately, resulting in less clutter in the player's inventory.

Gameplay

In rare cases, enemy corpses were selectable when they contained no loot. This no longer occurs.
Party members whose combat tactics were set to defensive behavior no longer stop attacking after using a spell or talent.
In rare cases, combat tactics conditions could fail to determine whether a character had enough mana or stamina to use an ability. This no longer occurs.
The Rally talent no longer repeats its audio effect if it is active during certain conversations.
The Rally talent no longer deactivates upon area transitions or conversations.
The Shimmering Shield spell now deactivates when the character is out of mana.

Plot

Promotional downloadable content items now remain in the player's inventory when standard items are removed at the end of the dwarf noble origin.
Additional release notes with spoilers below.

PC Specific

Controlling a summoned creature (like a ranger's pets) during certain special area transitions no longer results in odd behavior.
Creating a character in a custom module did not create a folder for saves. This could result in corruption of main campaign saves. This no longer occurs.
In some cases, the class icon was set incorrectly for characters imported from the downloadable Character Creator. This no longer occurs.
The options menu now includes a setting to automatically download previously purchased content that is not currently installed.
After installing new downloadable content, the game now always reminds the user to restart the game.
The icons for some promotional downloadable content items were missing. They now appear correctly.
The screenshot upload GUI would stop working from time to time on the client. There was a memory override that was fixed. It is a client fix. It doesn't affect the other problems we have seen on the server.

Unofficial Notes

Appears to have fixed Death Blow talent so that it properly restores stamina. See also: GreyWardens.com BLOG.

Additional Changes to Plot

Repeatedly talking to Duncan after gathering the vials in the Korcari Wilds but not the treaties no longer provides duplicate experience.
Leliana's personal plot can now be completed if the player substantially increased her approval (through gifts) before talking to her.
During the siege of Redcliffe, enemies are no longer able to spawn in locations that would break the plot.
Bann Teagan no longer disappears when he is supposed to be accessible during Urn of Sacred Ashes.

Patch 1.01b

Release Date: 17 November 2009

Fixed potential corruption of character statistics
Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
Made Easy difficulty easier
Slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays
Fixed an issue with Vista and Windows 7 Game for Windows Explorer
Fixed an issue with Dragon Age and Windows Game Explorer
Updated Visual C runtime libraries

Patch 1.01a

Release Date: 6 November 2009

Fixed potential corruption of character statistics
Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
Made Easy difficulty easier
Slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays

Known Issues

PC: The 1.01a patch can cause the launcher's Play button to stop working; this also causes an an error when starting the game from daorigins.exe instead of the launcher. This can be resolved by updating your MS VC++ 2005 Runtime Libraries.