BREAKING NEWS: NEW EXCLUSIVE DRAGON AGE FOOTAGE

[Humodour]

There are interesting aspects to the game, like magic being rare and powerful, different competing religions in the world, gods which do not explicitly manifest themselves, dwarven politics including dwarven outcasts, elves apparently being cursed by their gods or something of the sort, what ushered in the Dragon Age after the Blessed Age. So I don't think it'll be a Tolkien rip off, even if the art style is reminiscent of Peter Jackson. Has anyone ever made a good LOTR RPG in any case?

 

Here's a nice post from Bioware's DA: Origens forums about magic

 

http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?t...44&forum=84

(scroll down a bit to see what Maria Caliban has to say)

 

A few highlights, though (for the lazy ones, like me )

 

Magic is going to be very dangerous and rare. The Church and the religion in Ferelden, the place in which the games takes places are against magic, any magic.

Mages are born. Period. You're a mage or not. Period. As soon as you show any talent for magic...well, you get taken away to...ehm...another place.

Mages can cast mind control spells. It is forbidden to do so. Anyway....when did stop someone... Mages are feared by the common people.

Magic does not include summoning, teleportation or resurrection. There will be no healing potions or healing magic. When you're hurt, you're hurt. You need to fight your way back to base camp to get medical attention.

 

To me, this is looks far better than the system used in D&D...

 

It will definetely not be a Tolkien rip-off at all. Maybe it will blend some RTS elements into the RPG environment?

 

Sounds good!

 

Anyway, a Tolkien rip-off wouldn't have much magic. How much magic did you see used in LotR, hmmm?

[newc0253]

ah, low magic's a bunch of crap.

 

everyone says they want a low magic game, but they don't really.

 

at the end of the day, every CRPG player wants their character to finish the game more powerful than when they started, and more powerful means - among other things - more toys.

 

it don't matter whether the most powerful weapon in the game is a +2 sword or a +12: sooner or later, players want the phat l00t.

 

the real annoyance in games ain't the power of the magic, but how it's distributed: it's one thing to kill the big bad and take his magic sword, it's another to find a magic sword in a barrel in some beggar's hovel, or find 15 of them for sale by the local merchant, next to the beer & the cheetos.

 

but spare me the plea for low magic in a game. it might work in books, but playas gotta eat.

Edited July 13, 2008 by newc0253

[Xard]

On topic: I LIKED DRAGON AGE MORE WHEN IT WAS CALLED THE TWO TOWERS

 

the real annoyance in games ain't the power of the magic, but how it's distributed: it's one thing to kill the big bad and take his magic sword, it's another to find a magic sword in a barrel in some beggar's hovel, or find 15 of them for sale by the local merchant, next to the beer & the cheetos.

 

ummm... even more important in low/high fantasy sense than what's the X after + is how magic and phat loot is spread.

 

Magical equipment should be rare in low magic setting. That's exactly what you described. It doesn't matter if it is +2 or +5 sword from low magic setting pov in that situation.

 

BUT if you're going to give one

Edited July 13, 2008 by Xard

[Xard]

High magic also strips magic of its inheritent power and meaning, making it is as trivial and boring as boots your character wear. And that is something good fantasy world doesn't let happen. This is what Tolkien for one figured out immeaditly (magic is vague and minimalistic but utterly powerful. Ways it works are obscure as are the rules governing it. Compare that to FR where every commoner could theoretically carry magical trinkets)

 

Magic is rare and dangerous (DA):

 

OH MY GOD THAT GUY SET HIM ON FIRE GAAAAHHHH RUN

 

or:

 

OH ****, that guy is dangerous, rogue, try to sneak at him from behind and put some cold steel between his lungs while we distract him

 

Magic is trivialised (FR for example): crap, that guy shot fireball at us. Cleric, heal us! thnx. K guys lets drink these potions of valour, owl's splendor, cat's grace, bless, heal, barksin etc. and kick that guys butt. It's not like that fire did much damage anyway thanks to our 40 % fire resistance rings

Edited July 13, 2008 by Xard

[Volourn]

FR IS AWESOME!

DA IS AWESOME!

 

ORIGINALITY IS OVERRATED!

TOLKIEN IS OVERRATED!

 

Besides, REAL hardcore fantasy buffs know that Tolkien 'stole' 'borrowed' 'was influenced by' earlier fantasy pieces such as MERLIN!

 

r00FLES!

[Xard]

FR IS AWESOME!

DA IS AWESOME!

 

ORIGINALITY IS OVERRATED!

TOLKIEN IS OVERRATED!

 

Besides, REAL hardcore fantasy buffs know that Tolkien 'stole' 'borrowed' 'was influenced by' earlier fantasy pieces such as MERLIN!

 

r00FLES!

 

VOLOURN IS STUPID

BUT THAT IS NOTHING NEW

 

CAPS LOCK IS THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR THE COOL

VOLOURN IS STUPID

 

Tolkien's stuff largerly came from mythologies - especially celtic ones - not earlier fantasy books.

 

 

Middle-Earth is still most carefully constructed fictional world that has ever been done. FR is just mismash of stuff people making it thought would give enough variety for DM's to make intriguing campaign.

 

In the process they destroyed anything else.

[Volourn]

"Tolkien's stuff largerly came from mythologies - especially celtic ones - not earlier fantasy books."

 

HA! Mythology in the way you use it is just another word for fantasy.

 

 

"Middle-Earth is still most carefully constructed fictional world that has ever been done. FR is just mismash of stuff people making it thought would give enough variety for DM's to make intriguing campaign."

 

FR > ME

 

FR dwarves are actually worthy of the dwarven mantle and are actually varied and not stuck in some tight stereotype of retardedness. Not to mention the patheticness of elves. Only the muppets... err.. halfings... in ME were done better than their FR counterpart.

 

 

"In the process they destroyed anything else."

 

FR is awesome. If ME is so awesome, you'd think the pnp game based on it would be more popular than D&D/FR. But, oh yeah, it's not.

 

 

GAME OVER.

Edited July 13, 2008 by Volourn

[mkreku]

I like that it's a low magic setting. If I got to choose, I'd choose a no magic setting. The rarer, the better.

[RangerSG]

Actually, Tolkien borrowed far more from Finnish and Norse mythos than he did Celtic or Arthurian, for the record. And I don't think I said anywhere that Tolkien was utterly original. But he is the starting point for modern fantasy literature for good reason. Before you assume to correct someone, Volo, please be sure you have a clue what they said.

 

As for low/high magic discussions. What matters more than anything is consistency and believability. When the player feels they are getting shafted on the loot/magic scale; typically because they see enemies running around with much better gear than they can have, and then they get nothing off of them, that is when a player feels the game is cheating.

 

The problem with low magic is that typically it makes being a caster more rewarding. Why? Because the magic the caster can use overpowers the setting. High magic typically renders casters increasingly unprofitable. Now, if the setting has some inherent equalizer, like magic is illegal, then that can balance the nature of magic, IMHO. And a lot of the setting material on DA has interested me.

[Xard]

Yeah, Tolkien draw A LOT from Norse and finnish mythology. Finnish language too played huge role in beautiful elven languages.

 

"Tolkien's stuff largerly came from mythologies - especially celtic ones - not earlier fantasy books."

 

HA! Mythology in the way you use it is just another word for fantasy.

 

 

"Middle-Earth is still most carefully constructed fictional world that has ever been done. FR is just mismash of stuff people making it thought would give enough variety for DM's to make intriguing campaign."

 

FR > ME

 

FR dwarves are actually worthy of the dwarven mantle and are actually varied and not stuck in some tight stereotype of retardedness. Not to mention the patheticness of elves. Only the muppets... err.. halfings... in ME were done better than their FR counterpart.

 

 

"In the process they destroyed anything else."

 

FR is awesome. If ME is so awesome, you'd think the pnp game based on it would be more popular than D&D/FR. But, oh yeah, it's not.

 

 

GAME OVER.

 

sigh... mythology =/= fantasy literature

 

 

Have you - heaven forbid - READ any of Tolkien's works instead of just watching the films?

 

FR has nil beliavability, cohesion, depth or originality. All Tolkien's magnificent world has. (though my personal favourite might be the Earthsea there's no denying ME beating every single world out there)

 

 

to help you with your fixation with dwarves: There are differing kinds of dwarves in Tolkien's world (called Ea as a whole) though apart from The Hobbitt they've never been in centre of Tolkien's body of work. Elves are incredibly indepth and varied people in Middle Earth. That's still only setting in which elves are frickin' awesome. ESPECIALLY in Silmarillion.Then there's human characters and stories such as Turin Turambar (drawing a lot from Kullervo myth from Kalevala) that leaves anything in FR far behind.

 

 

There's reasons why there are bajillion books written about Tolkien's world, thousands of websites and all for the only purpose of studying the world. You wouldn't believe how much lore you could unearth from cross referring between Tolkien's letters and few lines from Silmarillion for example. What we see in LotR is just barely scratch on the surface.

 

Even for all of his careful planning, design of frickin languages and all that Tolkien STILL managed to shroud things in mystery. Because that is vital for fantasy. You must not explain everything. This is why Tolkien never specified workings of magic or what the heck Tom Bombadill is. Or the reason why all supernatural abilities and events are never explitically nailed down in horror genre. There's always the unknown bit in it. WotC also realized this in Planescape setting as seen from PS:T. Setting which was frankly killed alongside other original ones for favour of something as bland and uninspired as FR

 

In D&D (in general) magic is just plain boring, worlds are inconsistent full with logical gaps and brain farts and level of literature is about as low as can get. There's reason why "roleplaying fantasy books" are in general huge sign just screaming RUBBISH RUBBISH RUBBISH

 

Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game is rather popular you know, or at least it used to be. (though it is despited by Tolkien puristits due to it bringing a lot of characteristics of roleplaying settings such as FR which do only harm for Middle-Earth)

 

 

The thing is, Tolkien never planned Middle-Earth as roleplaying setting and it shows. Just like happened with other great settings such as King's multiverse, Martin's world or Hyberion

 

 

edit: took esp. out because I think things that came from finnish and norse mythologies are rather even. though I'd still say biggest single source is celtic and other british mythologies. *shrug*

 

It's been many years since I last "studied" Tolkien's world and its inspirations.

Edited July 14, 2008 by Xard

[newc0253]

DA seems to have taken the perfect application when it comes to magic

have you played it then?

 

thought not.

 

i'm willing to predict that DA, whenever it comes out, will have its phat loot just like any game.

 

in fact, i'm struggling to remember any CRPG that didn't. the closest i can get is the Witcher, which professed to be low magic but still doled out the most powerful stuff at the end of each chapter or so.

 

which really just goes to reinforce my point that even games that claim they're low-magic aren't really: they're just less obvious about it.

[Volourn]

Newc wins in a slam dunk.

[Jorian Drake]

DA seems to have taken the perfect application when it comes to magic

have you played it then?

 

thought not.

 

i'm willing to predict that DA, whenever it comes out, will have its phat loot just like any game.

 

in fact, i'm struggling to remember any CRPG that didn't. the closest i can get is the Witcher, which professed to be low magic but still doled out the most powerful stuff at the end of each chapter or so.

 

which really just goes to reinforce my point that even games that claim they're low-magic aren't really: they're just less obvious about it.

broken sword and gabriel knigt are low magic

[Zero]

The Blond Guys Voice = the voice of LaCroix from Bloodlines ?

[Wrath of Dagon]

Magic is rare and powerful, but I don't recall anyone saying DA is low magic, in fact magic is likely to play a central part. Certainly one of the classes is a mage. They said their approach to magic is to think about how it would work if it was real.

[J.E. Sawyer]

in fact, i'm struggling to remember any CRPG that didn't. the closest i can get is the Witcher, which professed to be low magic but still doled out the most powerful stuff at the end of each chapter or so.

 

which really just goes to reinforce my point that even games that claim they're low-magic aren't really: they're just less obvious about it.

Darklands is genuinely low magic, though I don't think MPS Labs ever went out of their way to market it as such. Potions were the most common magic items, but they were essentially spells. Even calling on a saint's aid was relatively rare.

 

Yet another reason why Darklands owned so hard.

[~Di]

There are interesting aspects to the game, like magic being rare and powerful, different competing religions in the world, gods which do not explicitly manifest themselves, dwarven politics including dwarven outcasts, elves apparently being cursed by their gods or something of the sort, what ushered in the Dragon Age after the Blessed Age. So I don't think it'll be a Tolkien rip off, even if the art style is reminiscent of Peter Jackson. Has anyone ever made a good LOTR RPG in any case?

 

Here's a nice post from Bioware's DA: Origens forums about magic

 

http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?t...44&forum=84

(scroll down a bit to see what Maria Caliban has to say)

 

A few highlights, though (for the lazy ones, like me )

 

Magic is going to be very dangerous and rare. The Church and the religion in Ferelden, the place in which the games takes places are against magic, any magic.

Mages are born. Period. You're a mage or not. Period. As soon as you show any talent for magic...well, you get taken away to...ehm...another place.

Mages can cast mind control spells. It is forbidden to do so. Anyway....when did stop someone... Mages are feared by the common people.

Magic does not include summoning, teleportation or resurrection. There will be no healing potions or healing magic. When you're hurt, you're hurt. You need to fight your way back to base camp to get medical attention.

 

To me, this is looks far better than the system used in D&D...

 

It will definetely not be a Tolkien rip-off at all. Maybe it will blend some RTS elements into the RPG environment?

 

Maybe the highlighted quote is contained somewhere else in the thread, but I didn't see it in Maria's post. I did see where she said " Instead magic can cause rapid regeneration," and that "There is an advanced magical class that focuses on healing and buffing". That makes me a bit less uneasy. The idea that if anyone in the party is injured, the entire group has to "fight their way back to the base" from the middle of a mission sounds pretty danged tedious and unfun to me, so there certainly had better be a natural regeneration rate that allows gameplay to continue without constant interruption.

 

It'll be interesting to see how Bio has decided to handle the balance there.

Edited July 14, 2008 by ~Di

[Rhomal]

Yes, BG's graphics don't look plastic, so DA can't be the spiritual successor to BG.

 

I doesn't look like a spiritual successor to BG because it look like generic lets-do-it-like-LotR fantasy and not unique like BG. Well the Forgotten Realms are at least more unique than the usual beaten-to-death Tolkin fantasy.

 

But we will see, the important parts are the story and characters

 

I agree it looks like a, poorly done, rip off of LotR. The FX was ok, but I have to agree it looked VERY instanced and some what plastic like.

 

As for your FR comment, you do know FR -STOLE- a ton from LotR as well as other fantasy and real life mythical sources? There is VERY little original about FR. The only reason LotR seem cliche is because past 50 yrs its been copied to death in various ways. When it was released it was quite unique and fresh.

[Dark_Raven]

There is very little that is original about any fantasy setting. They all steal from one another.

 

Game Over!

[Volourn]

"As for your FR comment, you do know FR -STOLE- a ton from LotR"

 

Nah, most of what the Fr 'stole' from LotR come from earlier more general sources. Nice try, though.

 

And, there is no 'low magic' setting in computer games (not coutning those with no magic, of course). Unless your defintion of low magic is vastly different from REAL role-players like myself.

 

P.S. DA AND FR ARE AWESOME!

 

DOWN WITH THE PATHETIC MIDDLE EARTH DWARFS!

[Bokishi]

Volo how long is your hangover gonna last

[Volourn]

As long as people are going to go coo coo over a teaser trailer, and bash the aweesome DA and FR game, and setting.

[newc0253]

Darklands is genuinely low magic, though I don't think MPS Labs ever went out of their way to market it as such.

sounds interesting. sorry that i missed it back in the day.

[Xard]

Volo, FR stole a lot from Tolkien - orcs, elves etc. - so get over with it.

 

DA seems to have taken the perfect application when it comes to magic

have you played it then?

 

thought not.

 

i'm willing to predict that DA, whenever it comes out, will have its phat loot just like any game.

 

in fact, i'm struggling to remember any CRPG that didn't. the closest i can get is the Witcher, which professed to be low magic but still doled out the most powerful stuff at the end of each chapter or so.

 

which really just goes to reinforce my point that even games that claim they're low-magic aren't really: they're just less obvious about it.

 

seems to have taken

 

So giving phat loot automatically makes setting not low magic? Ummm, no

 

 

note also I never claimed DA is low magic setting in sense of magic's powerfulness.

[Magister Lajciak]

I don't think it'll be a Tolkien rip off, even if the art style is reminiscent of Peter Jackson.

 

 

For me, it doesn't matter anyway. I personally don't rank "originality" very high on my list of qualities that make a good computer game. At least not as far as story or characters or world-building goes. Or even graphics so much. In gameplay, yes, there its nice to see something new, or at least something spun around and done slightly differently, at least occaisonally. If DA rips of Tolkien, its ok with me. If I don't like the game, that won't be the reason why.

 

I agree completely. In fact, I will go further and say that a game being 'original' just for the sake of being different will often turn me off the game - for example, I haven't played the Witcher. I like my fantasy conventions.