Dragon Age Screens

[karka]

 

And a preview -> http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=157660

[Sand]

Decent.

[Xard]

Lol, game has teh graf1xes

 

*reading preview*

[kirottu]

I just hope they make more orginal world than with Jade Empire.

[Sand]

All things considering Jade Empire wasn't bad and it was a nice break from the typical fantasy CRPGs with elves and dwarves. There is only so much you can do with elves and dawrves.

[Lyric Suite]

Where are the pregnant pauses, the glowering looks, the terrified faces and the cheeky grins that would give our heroes and villains true depth?

 

Yeah, Torments characters were so shallow, it was just a bunch of minuscule pixels. How unsophisticated. Hopefully, next generation games will be able to give our characters a greater 'cinematic' feeling and by extension TRUE DEPTH.

 

In other news, those screen shots are ****...

Edited February 12, 2007 by Lyric Suite

[Girias_Solo]

Awesome! Finally they are catching up to Fallouts talking heads!!!

 

Well, guess this cannot hurt, as long as this fluff doesn't take developer time away from game content.

[Volourn]

"All things considering Jade Empire wasn't bad and it was a nice break from the typical fantasy CRPGs with elves and dwarves. There is only so much you can do with elves and dawrves."

 

I thought you loved JE... Hmm..

 

P.S. There's lots you can do with dwarves. Games are 25% better if they have dwarves.

 

P.S.S. The pics aren't new; but the preview is cool though most of the info isn't really new either.

 

 

[Meshugger]

Pictures are at the standard of what should be expected. Will DA have the same dialogue-system as ME?

[Wistrik]

BioWare are looking to add a third layer of communication to what is said and how it's said; how characters look when they speak. With any luck, we can kiss goodbye to immobile faces badly lip-synching dialogue that deserves animated expressions. We'll begin to understand motivations instinctively; rather than digesting dialogue and calculating our next move, we'll feel what is the right way to proceed.

This makes me think of something like Alyx 2.0 (upgraded Alyx from Half-Life 2), which is a very good thing.

 

That said, some tried-and-tested formulas are also used - such as party-based adventuring. Your main character will be joined by up to three comrades. "All the characters have their own agenda," says Scott. "We're very clear about what they want, and it's not just straightforward good or evil. We're going to be clear that when you act, there will be fallout."

To me this reads "forced parties" in which I'm stuck with characters who disagree with my actions and constantly hound me about it, ala Neeshka and Bishop. How aggravating. Sigh. Perhaps Bioware can make it less irritating than Obsidian did, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Even if the rest of the game was perfect, I'd give it an 8 just because of this. But I may be overreacting, so I'll wait and see, and give it a chance.

 

The Origin Story looks to be a major improvement to NWN2's background feats, which is also a good thing.

 

To that end, in combat, weapons no longer swoosh through the polygons of your foes - Scott Greig and lead animator John Santos beat each other up with sticks and wooden shields in a car park to prototype how the animations should fit together. It's physical and it's brutal. Instead of people standing toe-to-toe and swinging repeatedly, they're ducking and dodging and moving to attack.

Hopefully they don't have attacks that lack animations, like Great Cleave. Har! I wonder if this means we won't see any ridiculous clipping issues, like beards clipping through chests, capes clipping through armor, hair clipping through hats, characters clipping through each other if face to face when entering Rest Mode, and of course weapons clipping through nearby characters while at rest. Regardless, combat looks like it'll be a lot more fun.

 

The mention of a toolset is interesting. I can see myself remaking an Ultima with the DA engine.

[Tale]

"All things considering Jade Empire wasn't bad and it was a nice break from the typical fantasy CRPGs with elves and dwarves. There is only so much you can do with elves and dawrves."

 

I thought you loved JE... Hmm..

 

P.S. There's lots you can do with dwarves. Games are 25% better if they have dwarves.

 

P.S.S. The pics aren't new; but the preview is cool though most of the info isn't really new either.

 

 

Dwarves are a short distance from Halflings. Halflings make everything suck.

[Meshugger]

Where are the pregnant pauses, the glowering looks, the terrified faces and the cheeky grins that would give our heroes and villains true depth?

 

Yeah, Torments characters were so shallow, it was just a bunch of minuscule pixels. How unsophisticated. Hopefully, next generation games will be able to give our characters a greater 'cinematic' feeling and by extension TRUE DEPTH.

 

In other news, those screen shots are ****...

 

Considering the writing of the previous Bioware games, i think that you have set your expectation on DA a little bit too high

Edited February 12, 2007 by Meshugger

[Volourn]

"Pictures are at the standard of what should be expected. Will DA have the same dialogue-system as ME?"

 

Mystary. One article wrote that it had ME dialogue; but Mr. Gaider posted that it only has similarities; but isn't exactly the same...whatever that means.

 

 

"Dwarves are a short distance from Halflings. Halflings make everything suck."

 

Be thankful this isn't the Codex. For now, I will ignore this taunting.

 

 

"To me this reads "forced parties" in which I'm stuck with characters who disagree with my actions and constantly hound me about it, ala Neeshka and Bishop. How aggravating. Sigh. Perhaps Bioware can make it less irritating than Obsidian did, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Even if the rest of the game was perfect, I'd give it an 8 just because of this. But I may be overreacting, so I'll wait and see, and give it a chance."

 

I believe DA will only have two forced party members (all the others you can tell to get lost), and the two forced ones can be (most of the time) told to stay in the party camp.

Edited February 12, 2007 by Volourn

[Morgoth]

I believe DA will only have two forced party members (all the others you can tell to get lost), and the two forced ones can be (most of the time) told to stay in the party camp.

Eh, where did you read that? I always thought DA is gonna have party members in BG style, not self-made IWD style... if this is what you mean by forced.

 

Anyway, pretty cool stuff in that article, but nothing really new. As usual, Bioware keep me amazed all the time, and after some Jade Empire action (finally!!!) it shouldn't take another few years to enjoy the next Bio PC RPG.

[Volourn]

"Eh, where did you read that?"

 

Mr. Gaider himself.

 

" I always thought DA is gonna have party members in BG style,"

 

It does.

 

" not self-made IWD style... "

 

Only the PC, as always, is player made.

 

 

"if this is what you mean by forced."

 

By forced, I mean like KOTOR series, JE, and NWN2. As in, you have no choice to have the characters in your party. Only two in DA, and they don't (normally) have to be in the actual trvaelling party; but in the camp.

[Morgoth]

Well that's fine by me, I usually don't play single in a party-based RPG.

[metadigital]

BioWare are looking to add a third layer of communication to what is said and how it's said; how characters look when they speak. With any luck, we can kiss goodbye to immobile faces badly lip-synching dialogue that deserves animated expressions. We'll begin to understand motivations instinctively; rather than digesting dialogue and calculating our next move, we'll feel what is the right way to proceed.

This makes me think of something like Alyx 2.0 (upgraded Alyx from Half-Life 2), which is a very good thing.

That said, some tried-and-tested formulas are also used - such as party-based adventuring. Your main character will be joined by up to three comrades. "All the characters have their own agenda," says Scott. "We're very clear about what they want, and it's not just straightforward good or evil. We're going to be clear that when you act, there will be fallout."

To me this reads "forced parties" in which I'm stuck with characters who disagree with my actions and constantly hound me about it, ala Neeshka and Bishop. How aggravating. Sigh. Perhaps Bioware can make it less irritating than Obsidian did, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Even if the rest of the game was perfect, I'd give it an 8 just because of this. But I may be overreacting, so I'll wait and see, and give it a chance.

If you listen to the developers' commentary on Half-Life 2: Episode One they did a lot of play-testing around Alyx's character. If she tried to hurry Gordon, then the players very quickly got annoyed. They decided the best attitude for Alyx was to have her trust the player (and by implication, the pace that Gordon set through the game).

 

As for the "third level" of communication, I'd be surprised if that means more than "mood fidgets" (my terminology), like angry = menacing pacing up and down, etc. I must say I'm a little skeptical about the net benefit that this "third layer" will provide, though I would be more than pleased to be surprised.

[Dark_Raven]

Graphics are ok. We'll see.

[Wistrik]

@Metadigital: yes, I listened to all the commentary in Ep1 and Lost Coast. I'm glad they had her wait on Gordon, because I'm not a twitch-reflex crack-speed FPS player, nor do I have a short attention span so I often take time to enjoy the surroundings or wait and see what happens next, if anything.

[Meshugger]

"Pictures are at the standard of what should be expected. Will DA have the same dialogue-system as ME?"

 

Mystary. One article wrote that it had ME dialogue; but Mr. Gaider posted that it only has similarities; but isn't exactly the same...whatever that means.

 

Sounds like that they haven't decided on the concept yet. Maybe ME will give us a preview on what to expect.

[Bokishi]

It looks ok.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Graphics are ok. We'll see.

 

Does it require DX10, and, by default, Vista? :confused:

[Blank]

As for the "third level" of communication, I'd be surprised if that means more than "mood fidgets" (my terminology), like angry = menacing pacing up and down, etc. I must say I'm a little skeptical about the net benefit that this "third layer" will provide, though I would be more than pleased to be surprised.

Yeah, I'll be sad if that happens. I really don't want game developers to tout their emotion-making characters for the sake of it and them look really shallow.

 

NPC: "What do you want?"

PC: "Maybe we should go this way?"

NPC: *Face furrows, foams at mouth, looks ugly in general* "NAOW!"

PC: "Okay. I was just asking."

NPC: *Face normal, as if nothing ever happened* "Is there something else?"

[DemonKing]

Does it require DX10, and, by default, Vista? :confused:

 

Microsoft and Bio have their marketing departments working on that as we type, I'm sure...

Edited February 13, 2007 by DemonKing

[alanschu]

I'm glad they had her wait on Gordon, because I'm not a twitch-reflex crack-speed FPS player, nor do I have a short attention span so I often take time to enjoy the surroundings or wait and see what happens next, if anything.

 

What does that necessarily have to do with anything? Her "hurrying up Gordon" could easily have made sense from a story standpoint. I have no issues with the pacing of Half-Life 2, but there are many times that the amount of "freedom" a game will give you takes away from the urgency of the whole situation. "Oh no, it's a big giant meteor coming towards the planet! I'm going to hang out at the Golden Saucer in the mean time." I was enjoying Final Fantasy VII (and still did enjoy it), but when I realized that the urgency was all just a facade, it lost a bit of its lustre.

 

While I may be a decent enough "twitch-reflex crack-speed FPS player" (given the large number of games I play, it couldn't really be helped), I certainly don't consider myself to have a short attention span. One of the things I really hated in the original Splinter Cell is when I lost a mission because I was responding to Lambert's urgency that some event not be televised. Because I didn't bother hiding the odd body, I "set off alarms" (which was a retarded mechanic in the game), because I figured that rescuing the hostages was of the utmost priority.

 

Seriously, simply labelling someone that might not hate the urgency as having a "short attention span" would be like saying people that don't want it have ADD or something.