Dragon Age Discussion

[Killian Kalthorne]

And probably work out just as well.

[Dakar]

I wonder if it's tough working in PR for a game company and constantly lying through your teeth?

 

Then again any PR guy is probably just happy having a job with his super-useful communications degree.

[Meshugger]

I wonder if it's tough working in PR for a game company and constantly lying through your teeth?

 

Then again any PR guy is probably just happy having a job with his super-useful communications degree.

 

It is simple, never expect anything when working within a company. Always prepare for the possibility of people missing deadlines, features being removed/changed and milestones not being met, and act accordingly.

[ramza]

Do we have any info on the DRM they will use for this game?

 

If there are limited activations, I think I will skip it... I boycott such systems...

[Rhomal]

Do we have any info on the DRM they will use for this game?

 

If there are limited activations, I think I will skip it... I boycott such systems...

 

Thats up to the publisher not the developer.. in this case whatever is standard on most EA titles now will prob be on DA.

[Morgoth]

I'm sure the Bioware producers will come in consent with the EA peeps pertaining to the DRM. There was a big mauuha-muahhh about Spore and Mass Effect, so I don't think they'll repeat that process. If they're smart, they'll try to implement Steamworks. But they're not smart, so....

Edited February 6, 2009 by Morgoth

[Deraldin]

I'm sure the Bioware producers will come in consent with the EA peeps pertaining to the DRM. There was a big mauuha-muahhh about Spore and Mass Effect, so I don't think they'll repeat that process. If they're smart, they'll try to implement Steamworks. But they're not smart, so....

I'd rather they not implement steamworks. They'll probably stick with securom. 5 activations with the ability to revoke an activation.

[Killian Kalthorne]

I prefer the way Bethesda did with Fallout 3.

[funcroc]

NYCC 09 gameplay footage

[Pop]

Unpolished, but still, that doesn't look like it's any fun at all.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

NYCC 09 gameplay footage

Animation was pretty bad, but it looks like a decent oldschool RPG.

[Purkake]

NYCC 09 gameplay footage

 

If it's got a half-decent story and isn't so easy that it is faster to just click on enemies once and read a book instead of carefully choosing your spells, etc. I'll be down with that.

 

The "fun" for me in BG2 really was in choosing the best spell/ability/potion for the situation, not actually watching dudes hit each other over and over.

 

The animations aren't that great, but on a good day I won't be zoomed all the way in anyway.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Purkake

[Maria Caliban]

Posted 02/07/09 04:54 (GMT) by Aria_Leonsbane

 

So I just got home from having dinner with three lovely Biowareans at a German restaurant on 10th Avenue. I figure I would be completely remiss in my forumite duties if I didn't make a report as full as my memory will allow, so here goes. If anyone has any specific questions not covered here, ask away. I'll have more to report after I go to the Comic Con tomorrow.

 

Bear in mind that any and all information in here may be wrong (because I have the short-term memory of a fruit fly) or changed in the final product (because hey, they're not fortune-tellers). So a grain of salt and all that.

 

Game length: The game will be very, very long. We're talking, 90 hours or so, depending mostly on how fast you go through combat and how many sidequests you complete. This was personally the best news of the night. Someone asked how long it would be as a percentage of BG2, and the answer was "90% as long." So, that's just amazing.

 

The release date: The game being pushed back is actually a great relief to the development team. March or April was, apparently, early enough that it would be an "80-85" game instead of a "90-95" game, in terms of review scores. Chris expressed confidence that the finished product would be a "95-98" effort, so let's all pile on him if the review average doesn't end up being in that arena (I kid, I kid - I really have absolute faith that this will end up being the case). Anyway, EA has inspired confidence by allowing the date to be pushed back.

 

Romances: There are absolutely, definitely, more than two. The term used was a "selection." I think a "diverse" selection or something like that. There is also a secret sort of possibility that Chris shared that I do not know if I should share, but not to give too much away, if you play your cards right something will happen which makes certain aspects of JE look tame. Cutscenes included. Romances have attached subquests (think BG2-style). Morrigan really may not be a romance. There was a dismissive comment about how everyone thinks she is. Also how everyone thinks she's evil.

 

NPCs: 10-12 joinable. They all have unique models (as in, not duplicated around the world), but ones created in the toolset, so anything you see on an NPC can be done on your own power. They have their own subquests. Your actions in the main plot and in subquests can piss them off to the degree that they will leave and/or try to kill you, so think about what you're doing before you do it. Gifts and other forms of ingratiation are also possible. And you can corrupt people. At this point I giggled uncontrollably and slurped orange juice.

 

Tone/"darkness": Bad things definitely happen. ME is going to look a bit on the warm and fuzzy side, although you can try to play the game nicer and cleaner if you want. But choices will be tough. Chris's off-the-top-of-his-head and non-actual plot related example was, save the princess or let fifty peasants die? And your decisions may have some serious repercussions. Like, the princess may actually be Hitler (this is a direct quote). But there won't be too much of that "pulling the rug out from under your feet," because it's not like they want you to lose confidence in your decisions.

 

Multiplayer, and why there isn't: DA is an incredibly story-based game. Somewhat like ME, it's about a single character, and there is no good way to implement more than one character. Even having only one person as party leader would mean that the other people would have no ability to make decisions and a lot of time wasted watching someone else's cutscenes. Plus, multiplayer was going to kill a bunch of everyone's favorite Gaider-written endings. They actually worked on multiplayer longer than it made sense to, because everyone wanted it to work out, but it just didn't end up being part of the final equaiton.

 

Dog: They might have been pulling my leg, but at one point Dog was romanceable in a humorous sort of way. But saner/less fun minds prevailed. The markings on Dog's face are war paint, not tattoos, and have something to do with scent recognition and a bond with his master. Casting a flaming/icy weapon spell with Dog in the party resulted in the most awesome bug ever that was quickly turned into a feature. Dog never talks, but has an incredible range of emotional expression.

 

Face gen: The number of possibilities, just in terms of how many slider options there are, is something like 1.4*10^48. So that is 1.4 with 48 0s after it. For serious that is a lot of options. Hair is nicer than in ME. Jay says so! Because we are not in space, which clearly makes everyone bald (another more or less direct quote). Tattoos and scars and such can go on anyone. There are no phenotypes, and height is constant for a given race. Women and men are of equal height, because anything else would have made the cutscenes mad awkward.

 

Toolset: Things like making cutscenes, with camera angles, are bizarrely easy - Chris could pick it up after just watching some folks do it for a while. It's designed to be pretty accessible. Pushing the release date back means that legal issues with some third-party tools can be worked through, so the toolset has more features, which is yay. Face creation is, of course, richer in the toolset than in the actual game.

 

DLC: They're learning from mistakes made with ME DLC. DA DLC is planned out for a year after release, and ranges from little stuff like new armor to whole new areas. There's a guy (Fernando? I think?) in charge of just that. He is an inspiration to the ME folks, too, so progress may soon come on that front.

 

Trivia: David Gaider was narcoleptic for about two years after writing BG2. A lot of original Bioware employees came in through weird channels, which is how the industry used to work. The Ogre was the first big monster model that actually worked, which is why we see it all the time. The Bioware record for a BG2 runthrough is 48 minutes. There is a character named The Great Gaider (thank Ferret). There are whores, those fantasy RPG mainstays. There will not ever be spears, ok. Your character's age isn't fixed. The city elf's origin story is rather Lucia di Lammermoor-esque and is Chris's favorite - you should see the poster for it it is CRAZY COOL.

 

I think that's it! I'll take questions, too, if I can at all answer them.

[Slowtrain]

Thanks, MC.

 

That actually sounds somewhat, dare I say, promising?

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

The 90 hour mark is total bull****, as is every single estimated game time these days. Dead Space was said to last 20 hours, for example.

 

Looks like it'll definitly be a good RPG, but I'm not playing it. The only thing I will ever touch from Bioware nowadays is Mass Effect. Not even Kotor 3.

[Tigranes]

Why would you touch ME but nothing else from Bio? Just curious.

 

Impressions:

 

1) This emphasis on showing combat close up reminds me of that NWN trailer where they insisted on showing the silly melee close-up too. i.e. an unwise attempt at "IMMERJUN" PR, but should have no impact on me.

 

2) If it's anywhere near BG2 length then it will be a great length, "90 hours" or not.

 

3) 10-12 NPCs, let's hope they are all pulled off well. I haven't played much of ME obviously, but JE didn't give me much confidence.

 

4) I hope you can turn off / mod away the big selection circles and even worse, the glowing red jelly all the baddies took a bath in. WTF.

[mkreku]

Better (and longer) video from Gametrailers:

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/45228.html

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Why would you touch ME but nothing else from Bio? Just curious.

 

I honestly think they're getting worse after every game. But I still liked Mass Effect, so I want to continue the series, if only to see where it goes. Dragon Age looks mehtacular to me, and Obs could do much more with the KotOR license than Bioware.

[Tigranes]

That's... an odd logic, but I suppose every setting they are making/using now is 'newer' than ME.

 

For me it'll finally be a chance to be satisfied with a Bio game after NWN/HOTU. (And buy one, too.)

 

From mkreku's extended trailer, btw:

 

1) After you knock the enemy over, you notice how your mage's blue balls of damage keep hitting him, which must mean they are actually traversing through the large crossbow thing he was using as cover. That sucks. It *could* be that they are accounting for that little gap between the wood in the crossbow thing (scorpion?), but that would be quite impressive....

 

2) Why in the world would you have a bunch of low-level characters with few special abilities in a trailer??? Look at what Diablo 3 did. Nobody is very excited seeing normal melee attacks over and over again! PR failure.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

That's... an odd logic, but I suppose every setting they are making/using now is 'newer' than ME.

It made sense 5 minutes ago so I'll stick with it.

 

For me it'll finally be a chance to be satisfied with a Bio game after NWN/HOTU. (And buy one, too.)

2) Why in the world would you have a bunch of low-level characters with few special abilities in a trailer??? Look at what Diablo 3 did. Nobody is very excited seeing normal melee attacks over and over again! PR failure.

Strange. Bioware usually excels at hyping its games. :/

[Dark_Raven]

I prefer the way Bethesda did with Fallout 3.

That is the best security ever and should all be like that.

[Morgoth]

Better (and longer) video from Gametrailers:

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/45228.html

Looks friggin awesome, though the AI seems to be a bit passive/stupid. The art style is great. And yay to the 90 hours length!

[Purkake]

Why would you touch ME but nothing else from Bio? Just curious.

 

Impressions:

 

1) This emphasis on showing combat close up reminds me of that NWN trailer where they insisted on showing the silly melee close-up too. i.e. an unwise attempt at "IMMERJUN" PR, but should have no impact on me.

 

2) If it's anywhere near BG2 length then it will be a great length, "90 hours" or not.

 

3) 10-12 NPCs, let's hope they are all pulled off well. I haven't played much of ME obviously, but JE didn't give me much confidence.

 

4) I hope you can turn off / mod away the big selection circles and even worse, the glowing red jelly all the baddies took a bath in. WTF.

 

1) That has always bothered me as well. The combat in these games is boring, especially the you hit me I hit you part, it was never really the high point of those games. Can't they show the breathtaking environments, a few cool spell effects and maybe some bad-ass cinematic dialog? This is not Diablo 3, play to your strengths Bioware!

 

2) I'll just be happy if it ends, I hate losing interest before seeing the ending.

 

3) I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

4) Agreed.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Purkake

[Morgoth]

I prefer the way Bethesda did with Fallout 3.

That is the best security ever and should all be like that.

No it's not. CD-check? That can be easily bypassed by a Nocd-Crack. Fallout 3 sold so well because it's a Bethesda product. Like it or not, but there's a huge fanbase around Beth, so doing some internet DRM would have done more damage actually, in that particular case.

Dragon Age imo doesn't need some fancy and expensive DRM either, as fanboys and Bio-haters alike will storm into shops and buy it anyway.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Morgoth

[Monte Carlo]

I like that video a lot, it gave me an excellent idea of what to expect. The combat looks reassuringly old-school and I like the interface. The character movement icons around their feet are a bit clunky, but that's just me being picky. Full control of the whole party is very important to me, and for that decision alone I remain impressed with DA:Origins, not least because a lot of gamers absolutely hate it so it's counter-fashionable. I'd have liked to see one of the fighter characters using a ranged weapon, I'm sure we'll see that later, as well as a lightly-armuored rogue type character.

 

Did anybody else get the feeling that the female wizard's spell-slinging was strangely reminiscent of Gauntlet? This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I spent most of 1987 down the pub playing Gauntlet with friends.

 

Cheers

MC