Return to Ostagar

Return to Ostagar is a downloadable content that is available for 400 Microsoft Points (US$5) on Xbox Live Marketplace, US$5 on the PC and the Playstation Store.

It features a return to the first battlefield of Ostagar where the Grey Wardens were nearly wiped out by the darkspawn invasion. It allows The Warden to unravel King Cailan's and Loghain's agenda, discover the armor of the late King Cailan and the arms of the last Gray Warden Commander, Duncan, and provides another opportunity to recruit Dog. It also includes one achievement and many other items.

Background
The memories of the battle of Ostagar have haunted the surviving Grey Wardens in Ferelden. It laid waste to their order and claimed the lives of many great men and women.

Now, there are rumors that a fellow survivor of the battle has escaped from captivity and is seeking the Grey Wardens' help. The time has come for the Grey Wardens to make their return to Ostagar and exact their revenge upon the darkspawn. Players will discover King Cailan's top-secret political agenda and go behind enemy lines to revisit a place that many feared had been lost to history.

5th of January delay
Although it was announced that it would be available on the 5th of January 2010 for PC and XBox with the PS3 version shipping later, Chris Priestly of Bioware posted a short notice on the official forums announcing it would be delayed.

Fernando Melo later clarified the reason for delay, stating "Literally, at the last minute, we spotted something... serious enough that we felt it impacted the quality [of the DLC] and we made the choice to delay it to give our fans the best experience with it."

13th of January delay
On the 13th of January, 2010 Chris Priestly announced that "Return to Ostagar is now unexpectedly available for the Xbox 360. We will be making the PC version available later today and will have the PS3 version available later." . However, later the same day the title was pulled from XBox Live after a new bug that caused specializations to be lost was discovered.

Notes on the January 13th Xbox 360 DLC
Currently, the Xbox 360 download was pulled off of the XBL Marketplace as the update that came before it re-locked all unlocked specializations for any new playthroughs, and any specializations on old completed playthroughs that aren't actively used by that particular character. Meaning, for example, Oghren will still have Beserker and whatever else you gave him unlocked and Alistar will have Templar and whatever else unlocked, but neither will have anything else. I attempted to go back and re-unlock them through dialog or purchasing manuals, but neither one is available on completed playthroughs so you either have to hold out for a fix or re-unlock them all on a new playthrough. Also, to access the new content you have to actually load the auto-save file from the coronation, NOT any manual save file you made or it wont let you out of the throne room.

All in all it is an interesting hour or so of reminiscent gameplay with the chance to pick up some nice loot for a mid-grade warrior and rogue. I can't confirm if it has any other after effects on dialog or potential gameplay of the last battle as I have at this time only completed it with a post-coronation character. In my opinion, it is definitely worth waiting for the fix before trying to download, as wiping out your specs on any playthroughs you are trying to do currently is a huge pain.

Edit: Successful way to re-unlock your specializations if you did download the patch is as follows;  You have to do a Gamertag Recovery. This forces Microsoft to re-sync your profile and therefor corrects the error applied by the patch. To do this, sign out of all your profiles then select the box for Profile Sign-In, select Recover Gamertag and input the information for your Xbox Live ID. It wont erase or change any of your data because you are simply re-writing the profile you already have back onto to your hard-drive. Then go into an old save file, find a way to re-unlock just one specialization (I suggest using some party members' dialogue options) then save in a NEW file. Exit the game completely, then when you go back in all specializations you had unlocked will be re-opened across your entire profile. Yay!

Overview
To access the content, play through Dragon Age: Origins until after the village of Lothering and journey to Bann Loren's lands along the Bannorn's northwest border. When you arrive you will see some guards attacking a guy. If you look closer at him you will recognize him as the guard stationed outside Cailan's tent at Ostagar. He will then be stabbed and the guards will see you. Proceed to kill the private militia. Once you have killed them you can talk to him. He will then tell you he has a key to a chest which has some documents and the king's armour. Now you can travel on the world map back to Ostagar.

Items
The following items are available in this downloadable content and may be found in Ostagar.
 * Cailan's Armor Set, the set of armor once worn by King Cailan Theirin
 * Cailan's Arms, a set of arms once wielded by King Cailan Theirin, consisting of Cailan's Shield and Maric's Blade
 * Duncan's Sword, a longsword once wielded by Duncan in his sword hand
 * Duncan's Dagger, a dagger once wielded by Duncan in his off hand
 * Firestone Harness
 * Nug Crusher
 * Repeater Gloves
 * Swiftrunner Warpaint

Bugs
The initial release of Return to Ostagar had a major bug where all specializations would be removed. One workaround is to load another profile that was not used to unlock a particular specialization. Use that profile to unlock the specialization and it will remain unlocked across all profiles. See the Talk:Return to Ostagar for more information.

Successful way to re-unlock your specializations if you did download the patch is as follows; You have to do a Gamertag Recovery. This forces Microsoft to re-sync your profile and therefor corrects the error applied by the patch. To do this, sign out of all your profiles then select the box for Profile Sign-In, select Recover Gamertag and input the information for your Xbox Live ID. It wont erase or change any of your data because you are simply re-writing the profile you already have back onto to your hard-drive. Then go into an old save file, find a way to re-unlock just one specialization (I suggest using some party members' dialogue options) then save in a NEW file. Exit the game completely, then when you go back in all specializations you had unlocked will be re-opened across your entire profile. Yay!

The bug is not from the DLC, it's from the title update. clear your xbox cache, load DA, don't install the update, unlock 1 specialization, exit to dashboard and then load back up DA and all spec's should be unlocked.