Sannom

The Qunari crusade Sten would not stop talking about would be a good setting for a game. With the Qunari added as a playable race (with a different origin based on sex and adherence or not to the Qun) and the possibility to choose your side From what I've heard, the developers hit themselves on the head for not trying harder about this, because the Wall is no longer in the 4th Edition. They basically assumed it was too much of a demand and didn't push it forward, and kinda regretted it in retrospect.

Yeah, the "history" feats had some effects on the tutorial (and when you come back at the village with Shandra and Elanee and chose the Ladies' Man feat, I heard) but apart from that, it really didn't affect anything. And its true that the villagers' acceptance of every kind of race was weird, although I would dispute the fact that they are "hillbilly racists" After all, they did accept Daegun and his wife (popular theory is that she was a halfling), why wouldn't they accept someone that grew up among them? A little bit chaotic, heh? It's a good thing that the extensions were planned more carefully after that. But well, I enjoyed NWN2, although the first chapter really should have seen more work I think, it's just grind fest the whole time. But the rest was quite good!

The reference about the mind probe is lost on me Do we know who that Layland guy is by the way? Oups, my mistake, name is "Leland".

It's the first "plot trailer" worth of that name that we've seen I think, and I really liked it! I hope for more gameplay-focused videos in the near future.

Really liked the trailer, lol at Sie acting all predator-like with poor Mike

The interactions between Khelgar and Grobnar were hilarious, I think. The little gnome got on Khelgar's nerves as nobody else could, and Grobnar looked like he was mostly oblivious to Khelgar's not-so-subtle insults and threats of a terrible, painful death. Some people think that for all his annoying and nonsense talks, Grobnar redeemed himself with his death I mean, trying to shield a 7-feet tall blade golem with his 4-feet tall body? Can you do more stupid yet more awesome ?

I always found Grobnar to be entertaining, but seeing how much Khelgar hated him, I can understand why he would drive some people crazy As for Qara, well, she's a bitch, in the same vein as Morrigan, so yay I suppose it is a good thing that you hated her.

I'm always amused by coincidence, and I always thought that Ziets coming back from Bethesda a few months before Obsidian started working with that company was a good one What was you role on the game exactly? I heard you were Lead Designer at some point, that you managed to make some sense of what was basically a huge mess, but it's never clear...

The people who dubs the disney movies are good in France. And Max Payne was one terrible case, they've gotten better since then.

In DA, you often choose at the very end who you want to ally with, and the changes are quite minor once you've made your choice, with perhaps the exception of the Dalish part. In Orzammar you do the same quest weither you choose Behlen or Harrowmont. The Circle of Magi, either you choose the mages or the templar, you still just have Uldred to defeat. In the best of case, it's just one final battle that differs. In BG2, you make a clear choice of who you want to side with before the chapter starts, and most of the quests have different twists about them because of it. And of course, the final dungeon and enemies are extremely different : on one hand, a building in the middle of the city filled with thieves and mages, on the other hand a crypt in a cemetary with a lot of vampires, that don't really ask for the same tactics. The same thing was tried in Neverwinter Nights 2, but with really poor results.

That must be the only thing that actually motives people to go through that thing I dislike tutorials most of the time, and there its like I have to go through two tutorials one after another, with the first one being absolute rubbish. I could replay the mage Origin, no problem. But the Human Noble is boring and uninteresting. And from what I've heard, really doesn't affect anything apart from some flavor text from Rowe (and the royalty thing, but this isn't affected by how you played the origin, but by what you "are"). Same for the Dalish Elves, I heard (well, I read the plot on the wiki. Awful!). As for me, I only played the mage origin, and I never saw how it was actually important to the story, except perhaps knowing beforehand who Jowan is. But any "good" character would probably let him out and offer him his chance to redemption anyway. I think I will try the Dwarves' origins one day, they seem interesting! The Casteless one especially, since when playing it your choice of King can be quite influenced by another character (your sister is extremely supportive of Bhelen, and will ask you to support him). At least BG2 got some variety in the kind of enemies you face and the kind of locations you visit. The side quests were also quite epic (Firkraag and the Blind Eye, anyone? Also the Plane Sphere) and varied too. Plus it offered a really different Chapter 3 considering who you sided with, there is no such thing in DA. The Origin thing is dwarfed and kind of "gadget" when you compare it to the Fortress system (complete with some of them being completely uninteresting ). The characters were even more clich

Here are the question I asked : What do you think?

French fans of Max Payne did. Man, that was horrible.

But do they have the funds to buy a licence???

But where does it say that Cailan was having an affair with the Empress of Orlais? Heck, the second-to-last letter strongly implies that Cailan would never do this to Enora, what's with him refusing downright to consider the possibility of putting Anora to the side? And I like to think that while he didn't get any of Maric's good points, he didn't get any of his biggest flaws : failure as a father, Henry-the-4th-like tendency to have children with every woman out there, etc. Heck, when you look at this family, you gotta wonder : are they related to the Simpsons somehow??? Because all the men of that lineage are morons with no sense of responsibility, and sometimes a really low charisma. Moira was the most remarkable of that bloodline, and she was a woman. As for Maric and Cailan, their wives did all the ruling.

Nonsense. Have you seen the amount of people behind Loghain when he ordered the retreat? No way the darkspawns were outnumbering these It wasn't an army, it was a horde. And no, the ones who bit the dust at Ostagar were the Grey Wardens, the King and a good amount of Fereldan soldiers.

Another website gives their impression of the NYC PR event : Although the guy describes himself as a Sega fanboy (although perhaps not the blind kind) and only this tidbits concern Alpha Protocol :

A lot of things in Dragon Age reek of NWN 2, actually. From general plot to influence, and having the middle game nemesis actually join you. Didn't the main scenarist for NWN 2 went to Bioware and worked on Dragon Age? Never understood that. I read the secret correspondance of Cailan on the wiki. Not even the last letter would give sense to Loghain's actions, he is just one big paranoid man!

Be aware that while a WoT MMO is planed for, it's not the game that Obsidian is working on Multiple games are planed to use the licence, and Obsidian clearly doesn't have the experience and "strength" to engage on such a project. I don't even think it's their thing, and the press release really wasn't phrased to make me think they were working on the MMO

Since when is inventory comparison used, by the way? The first time I saw it was in Dragon Age, did it exist before?

The question he answered is so stupid I think Chris had fun just answering in the same stupid way. Those questions scream "Please, say you hate Fallout 3", what do you think he will answer to this

Storms also have another advantage : no line of sight needed Mages in the first BG were pretty much balanced, you couldn't play one alone. In the sequel though, they became monstrosities that were able to wipe an entire army by themselves. It's no wonder that the big bad went from a big warrior in scary armor to a squishy wizard in shirt and pants And I don't think anyone ever said they were balanced in the sequel. Man, were they annoying and powerful!

Yeah, in BG2, if your party is reasonably buffed-up (Haste is the most common) you can go through the groups of weaker enemies with not too much effort. The fact that you have to spend 20 minutes on every group of darkspawns or guards is not a good challenge, it's boring and tedious! For me, one of the issues is the fact that you can only bring four people with you, which reduces a lot the number of archers you can have. Those are great against the mooks! And archery really became useless in D&D games (an example) when there wasn't enough room in the party to bring at least two or three long-distance fighters. Yeah, the "hub" kind of design is really something I dislike, although I really came to that conclusion with DA and Prince of Persia : it f**ks up the difficulty curve and make every area more of the same! I really preferred the BG2 system, a really linear main quest with a huge chapter that was dedicated to side quests of different difficulty where the party would make most of the leveling up and looting of the game, although the next, more linear and "urgent" chapter would still have their share of challenge and loot. You're right, the only big mistake in DA's design is the fact that lock-picking is a talent and not a skill. This is so incoherent with the rest of the gameplay that I think it was put there just so that gamers would take a rogue. Still, the design they went with, I'm really starting to dislike! Level-scaling is bad whatever the game, and free-roaming is only good in big open-worlds like Morrowind, where the main quest is still completely linear.

I think the Nameless One wasn't voiced because there was no way to choose which lines would be voiced But since he had a very defined physical appearance, and we couldn't choose the voice that made his few lines "in gameplay", I think you can put him under the category "voiced protagonist" In our days, the problem with a voiceless protagonist comes with the complex camera work developers tend to add in their game : it just makes the whole thing silly sometimes, and our protagonist often appear as completely stupid because he can never express his surprise or shock by even a little gasp or sigh. When the other characters are all voiced and have their gestures accompanied by their voice, your character really isn't at his advantage when he seems to be a complete mute!

Nice! An intervention from Matt (I don't know much about the "Systems" part of developping a game, so it's good to learn more) and (perhaps) some information on AP on the side!