Dragon Age

[alanschu]

Hopefully some of the stuff you're worried about isn't an issue. That's always a pleasant surprise.

 

I've been enjoying it thus far.

[alanschu]

Okay, I just saw the linked videos.

 

 

Hype videos to build excitement for the game written all over them. I wholeheartedly disagree that the two game trailers links on this page are either "low quality" nor "embarrassing." What I find ironic is we have different threads where BioWare is accused of being standard and cliche. I wonder what the responses would be to the music had it been some standard, cliche Tolkenesque fantasy score. The one with Marilyn Manson was standard, splicing in a variety of footage, but I actually really liked the teaser-like video where people. Watching it got me excited to play the game. Given both of those videos have scores of 9.4, I'm certainly going to have to call bull**** on BioWare receiving nothing but criticism since E3.

 

 

What more were people really hoping for with respect to the E3 videos? E3 is often the place where upcoming games demonstrate their hype machine. They've already shown gameplay footage and if that hasn't changed a whole lot, why should they just show the same stuff they've already shown? Though they did show some gameplay footage of a fight against a dragon, and that gets criticized for just being characters running up and smacking it. Though the fight very much reminded me of the dragon fights from Baldur's Gate II (which were, appropriately, long fights with a lot of running around recovering from Wing Buffets and **** like that).

 

 

The Baldur's Gate 2 trailer is

.

 

Does the fact that the video shows gameplay footage as opposed to some CGI screens really make it that much better? I don't think so.

Edited June 20, 2009 by alanschu

[Maria Caliban]

I've followed Dragon Age since the original forum started, and all we had were a bunch of screenshots from the NWN engine. Before DACentral popped up, I had a 60 page word document of developer comments, and I've worked on about half of the articles on the Dragon Age wiki. I signed up for both newsletters the day they offered them as well as the toolset beta. I've mentioned it in almost every forum I frequent, and spent more post than I'd like defending the game.

 

And... I'm completely unexcited about Dragon Age right now.

[Wrath of Dagon]

And... I'm completely unexcited about Dragon Age right now.

Really? Why is that? Burned out from waiting?

[Monte Carlo]

I've followed Dragon Age since the original forum started, and all we had were a bunch of screenshots from the NWN engine. Before DACentral popped up, I had a 60 page word document of developer comments, and I've worked on about half of the articles on the Dragon Age wiki. I signed up for both newsletters the day they offered them as well as the toolset beta. I've mentioned it in almost every forum I frequent, and spent more post than I'd like defending the game.

 

And... I'm completely unexcited about Dragon Age right now.

 

Ouch. That's the most damning testimony I've spotted so far.

[Niten_Ryu]

Bioware and EA are doing something really "special" in here. It's rare to see such agressive ad campaign (including recent videos, web site changes, music, overall tone of the setting ect ect) that work mostly against longtime DA fans. I'm not even a longtime fan and they still manage to alienate me with their rather unprofessional attitude. I'm going to buy DA but only because I think this new change of direction in marketing happened rather late in development cycle and it can't affect the whole game. Rewriting majority of the game would take too much time.

 

About cliche setting. Personally I don't think it's bad to ripoff something if you do it with good taste. Tolkien ripped off many of the folktales, Gary Gygax ripped off Tolkien and so on. New IP, even if it's like some older IP is easier to work with. No legacy issues or fanbois of the old IP (then again, it's not good idea to announce game 5 years earlier and let new fanbois to take over).

[Bos_hybrid]

Ouch. That's the most damning testimony I've spotted so far.

 

Of the marketing campaign yes, of the DAs quality no. Now if alanschu posted and complained about the setting, story and characters etc, thats a damning testimony on qualtiy. Like or dislike this marketing promotion has been a success, for the general gaming public has taken notice. Had the marketing promo been about the 'deep story/characters' or the 'complex/tactical' combat, there would be minor whispers and the naysayers would still be saying nay.

 

I personally tend to not put much stock in trailers and the marketing hype of a game, because its always exaggerated.

 

'Sheperds dead', 'Your choices will have a real meaning and have a massive effect on the outcome' blah blah blah.

 

I mean do people honestly believe the trailer of AP will be indicative of the actual game? Or do people believe the hype that comes out of Peter Molyneux mouth? Do people believe that TOR is going to be anything like the trailer? Or that the FF trailers are anythin more then fmv sequences? I hope not otherwise there is going to be some very disappointed people.

[Magnum Opus]

I'm going to buy DA but only because I think this new change of direction in marketing happened rather late in development cycle and it can't affect the whole game. Rewriting majority of the game would take too much time.

Random question for the day: How much does it really take to change the character of a game?

 

For an action game wanting to be a deep and varied RPG experience, very much. Content needs to be added. Systems need to be developed and implemented. NPCs need to be written. Interactions need to be conceptualized.

 

But for an already mostly-finished deep and varied RPG experience yearning to let the action-RPG within free? Not quite so much, I'd think. Content in such a case needs to be cut, not added. Remove a joinable NPC. Drop a quest. Cut a bunch of areas.

 

Such things are not trivial, but they're also things that I'd think would take a lot less time to do than adding things in, even if you've still got to make the resulting slash job look good in the end. Result would be a greater emphasis on the action part of the formerly deep and varied RPG.

 

Heh.

 

Me, I don't think the New Marketing's going to reflect the game as a whole all that well. Maybe that's just my preference for a more BG-ish type of game talking. And no, I'm not particularly impressed with the direction that's been taken either, but... *shrugs*

 

Is not as if I haven't purchased stinkers before. Or enjoyed them enough for me to consider that purchase worthwhile. That's a worst-case scenario, mind; don't think DA:O's going to be a stinker. Not really sure what to think of it at the moment. If nothing else, it'll let me know what sort of meaning BiowarEA attaches to terms like "spiritual successor".

 

Still lookin' forward to the game.

[Monte Carlo]

I still don't get it, maybe someone who's followed it more closely can explain?

 

You start off with touting a game with a five-fricking-year plus dev cycle as the spiritual successor to one of the most loved CRPGs ever made. You bang on, for five years, about the rich characterisation, NPC dynamics and personalised impact on plot outcomes. Even I'm impressed when you announce your in-house world lore wiki whereby everything is carefully planned under the hood to make the setting unique and crunchy and cool. You feed the Bioware forum fanbase all of this, and they are some of the neediest, passionate people out there in fanboy land. Your website reflects this and starts stoking the fires of slightly-geeky excitement. For chrissakes Dave writes his fan-fic and Green Ronin announce a pen and paper adaptation.

 

Even by Bioware's standards, this is a carefully planned and focussed marketing assault. It's the D-Day landings of pre-release hype operations.

 

Then... BOOM. This is the new faeces muzak, gore, sex and the least subtle assault on the console market I've ever seen. It's dressing up BG2 as Crysis and nobody at all is fooled. It's like 3/4 of the way through the LotR filming cycle somebody hit Peter Jackson over the head with a hammer and replaced him with the people behind xXx.

 

Happily, I find this marginally amusing. DA will be, as I have always predicted, campy hack'n'slash fun made even funnier by it's pretensions to greatness. Now all I'm wondering is, like my learned friends, how much of this damascene conversion to action-RPG (which has to be EA-driven) will impact on the finished product. Perversely, I'm looking forward to it even more, but in a sort of "Wow, that's a really interesting car crash" type way.

 

So, please can someone who's followed this explain?

 

And, as our friendly half-orc used to say, Why, Bio? Why?

 

Cheers

MC

[Llyranor]

Because you killed their dog, Monte Carlo.

[Mamoulian War]

Poor Lassie

[taks]

The other 130 allied soldiers in the game fight the same bad guys, they start on level 1 too, we're just luckier (dice rolls; tactical battles, not armies colliding; enemies with roughly the same level). Our char is special, so everyone else, no matter how elite and twice as strong as us dies for some stupid little reason, but ... ah, I trust I made my point.

um, you're missing the whole point. yes, you are the guy that got lucky, the one that hit the lottery, the one that worked harder and moved ahead or simply knew the right people and just climbed the ranks faster, the one that got all the breaks. you're role-playing bill gates, michael jordan, tiger woods, or any other superstar that has existed. what's the point of role-playing the guy that goes into work, puts in his 8 plus lunch, then comes home to a beer while his wife yells at him? or the poor sop that got cut down in his first battle? who wants to role-play the squire that scrubs his knight's armor and tends to his mount? you role-play the heros, and there are always heros, even in real life, because those are the roles that are interesting, exciting, challenging, and even dangerous. there's no sense of role-playing the guy that never did anything or went anywhere in life simply because he never went anywhere or did anything; and any story that lumped the fate of the nation on that guy's shoulders requires an even greater suspension of disbelief than the hero story ever could.

 

oh, and for the record, this whole "heros are made" nonsense is just that: nonsense. they are not made, they are discovered.

 

taks

Edited June 20, 2009 by taks

[Oner]

(deleted long part to save space)

 

oh, and for the record, this whole "heros are made" nonsense is just that: nonsense. they are not made, they are discovered.

 

taks

I could hardly miss the point of my own post, but have it your way. I'm the hero? Yeah, I guess that's why the NPC's get scripted deaths, or are changed into corpses off screen, instead of fighting against their enemies, because they might *gasp* win! And what kind of hero would we be if someone else could beat those 5 goblins in the warehouse. Being a hero doesn't mean being special. You're special when you're a hero. Until then you're just better than others, at best.

 

Heroes are discovered, eh? Then I guess they don't need class training, or level gaining, they can save the world on level 0.

[HoonDing]

Heroes are discovered, eh? Then I guess they don't need class training, or level gaining, they can save the world on level 0.

Well, in some games...

[Oner]

Heroes are discovered, eh? Then I guess they don't need class training, or level gaining, they can save the world on level 0.

Well, in some games...

Yeees, you've got my attention.

[Volourn]

"But for an already mostly-finished deep and varied RPG experience yearning to let the action-RPG within free?"

 

Considering one preview complained that the combat was *too slow* (largely because the combat is akin to the IE, NWN, and KOTOR), I seriously doubt you'll have to worry that the combat will be some super duper action game.

[alanschu]

The assumptions in this thread are very entertaining.

 

 

All this from some E3 videos?

[Wrath of Dagon]

I still don't get it, maybe someone who's followed it more closely can explain?

 

You start off with touting a game with a five-fricking-year plus dev cycle as the spiritual successor to one of the most loved CRPGs ever made. You bang on, for five years, about the rich characterisation, NPC dynamics and personalised impact on plot outcomes. Even I'm impressed when you announce your in-house world lore wiki whereby everything is carefully planned under the hood to make the setting unique and crunchy and cool. You feed the Bioware forum fanbase all of this, and they are some of the neediest, passionate people out there in fanboy land. Your website reflects this and starts stoking the fires of slightly-geeky excitement. For chrissakes Dave writes his fan-fic and Green Ronin announce a pen and paper adaptation.

 

Even by Bioware's standards, this is a carefully planned and focussed marketing assault. It's the D-Day landings of pre-release hype operations.

The game was always planned to be an M rated game. It was always supposed to have gore and sex. Two years ago David Gaider said he already wrote more raunchy dialog than he'd ever had in a Bioware game, or something to that effect. Aside from that, it probably will be similar to BG, whatever that means.

 

Then... BOOM. This is the new faeces muzak, gore, sex and the least subtle assault on the console market I've ever seen. It's dressing up BG2 as Crysis and nobody at all is fooled. It's like 3/4 of the way through the LotR filming cycle somebody hit Peter Jackson over the head with a hammer and replaced him with the people behind xXx.

 

Happily, I find this marginally amusing. DA will be, as I have always predicted, campy hack'n'slash fun made even funnier by it's pretensions to greatness. Now all I'm wondering is, like my learned friends, how much of this damascene conversion to action-RPG (which has to be EA-driven) will impact on the finished product. Perversely, I'm looking forward to it even more, but in a sort of "Wow, that's a really interesting car crash" type way.

 

So, please can someone who's followed this explain?

 

And, as our friendly half-orc used to say, Why, Bio? Why?

 

Cheers

MC

They decided they'd make more money if they also covered consoles. For some reason, justified or not, marketing believes the potential audience for the game is a bunch of horny juveniles. Developers have assured time and again that the game itself hasn't changed, either because of consoles or the marketing direction, and I believe them. They've pretty much went as far as they're allowed disavowing the marketing campaign.

[taks]

I could hardly miss the point of my own post, but have it your way.

and you can't read, either.

 

the whole point of playing role-playing games, einstein, not the whole point of your own post. where do we find these geniuses?

 

Heroes are discovered, eh? Then I guess they don't need class training, or level gaining, they can save the world on level 0.

and exactly how do you think they are discovered?

 

jesus...

 

taks

[Oner]

I could hardly miss the point of my own post, but have it your way.

and you can't read, either.

 

the whole point of playing role-playing games, einstein, not the whole point of your own post. where do we find these geniuses?

 

Heroes are discovered, eh? Then I guess they don't need class training, or level gaining, they can save the world on level 0.

and exactly how do you think they are discovered?

 

jesus...

 

taks

1: Not every RPG revolves around saving the world, in case you didn't notice.

2: I'm not the one who got all upset and angsty, just because I ranted about every damn main char having to be "special".

3: But I take back what I said, I just remembered that FO 1-2-3-Tactics', AP's, and probably some other games' main chars are regular people. Hey, guess what, they became heroes anyway!

4: Someone who feels a need to remind himself about his name at the end of his every post shouldn't be so full of himself.

[Magnum Opus]

"But for an already mostly-finished deep and varied RPG experience yearning to let the action-RPG within free?"

 

Considering one preview complained that the combat was *too slow* (largely because the combat is akin to the IE, NWN, and KOTOR), I seriously doubt you'll have to worry that the combat will be some super duper action game.

Am not worried of that possibility in the slightest, to be honest.

 

Have simply heard, many times over in fact, the position that "it's too late to change the game" as proof that this latest round of adverts isn't representative of the game as a whole (ie. sex and blood and blood and sex), and was wondering whether that was really the case in this instance.

 

Still, game doesn't have to feature good combat (whether it's an action RPG or otherwise) in order to have a lot of it.

 

That's largely academic though. I don't think either applies to DA:O. Not really, anyway.

[Monte Carlo]

The assumptions in this thread are very entertaining.

 

All this from some E3 videos?

 

Er, forget the E3 videos, what about the new website? And marketing campaign? And that the developers are clearly embarrassed by the marketing campaign? And that on the website the origins / RPG stuff is hidden in a bit about 'The Hero', as if your are playing a game where you're a pre-defined character? And the Paper / Scissors... review that outs the frankly toe-curling romance content?

 

Hey, I know you are involved in all this and you know stuff we don't, but please don't take us for complete mugs.

 

Cheers

MC

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

So... its EA's fault?

[Gromnir]

The assumptions in this thread are very entertaining.

 

All this from some E3 videos?

 

Er, forget the E3 videos, what about the new website? And marketing campaign? And that the developers are clearly embarrassed by the marketing campaign? And that on the website the origins / RPG stuff is hidden in a bit about 'The Hero', as if your are playing a game where you're a pre-defined character? And the Paper / Scissors... review that outs the frankly toe-curling romance content?

 

Hey, I know you are involved in all this and you know stuff we don't, but please don't take us for complete mugs.

 

Cheers

MC

 

am not seeing a reason to forget the 3 stuff. for something approaching 5 years, Gromnir has been told "dark" and "gritty" and "mature" and "violent." have never really got even a halfway satisfactory notion as to what that all meant in terms o' da. so, violence trailer is released and we see what looks like some terrible attempt to replicate miller's 300: shower o' arrows, blood splatter, and a guy we genuine were expecting to yell, "This Is Sparta!" e3 demo is released and we get out-o'-context mercenary love that represents "consequences" and we sees a bit o' e3 combat that leaves us with more questions than answers.

 

...

 

now Gromnir don't put much stock in trailers, but the trailer is meant to encourage potential buyers. in absence o' other material that tells us what is dark and mature, am finding it perfectly reasonable that some other folks is swayed by the trailers. act surprised that a trailer influences purchaser? why? trailer is 'posed to influence. for folks who has been following da that don't know what bio meant by dark and mature, the e3 stuff is maybe not what they were expecting. is no reason to forget the e3 stuff.

 

*shrug*

 

as has been noted previously by Gromnir elsewhere, am not knowing how to do 1 minute of good sex-me-up dialogue shown removed from the entire "romance" that led to the awkward game moment. on the plus side, bio romances is tangential and we can skip. on bad side, the bio romances is tangential and they is thus doomed to be rushed, immature and... stoopid. am not worried 'bout the romances. am betting that folks that liked previous bio romances will like da romances. folks see something genuine different 'bout romance shown at e3 demo compared to past bio stuff?

 

as for the dark and mature... for Gromnir, is just a trailer, but is understandable why some reviewers and fans question. bio says for 5 years that da will be different than previous bio titles... dark and mature. violence trailer and e3 demo is what bio meant? am not convinced or even worried, but am seeing why some folks gots their shorts in a twist.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Niten_Ryu]

Have simply heard, many times over in fact, the position that "it's too late to change the game" as proof that this latest round of adverts isn't representative of the game as a whole (ie. sex and blood and blood and sex), and was wondering whether that was really the case in this instance.

 

Still, game doesn't have to feature good combat (whether it's an action RPG or otherwise) in order to have a lot of it.

 

That's largely academic though. I don't think either applies to DA:O. Not really, anyway.

 

Some content will get cut no matter what but it's nothing like complitely rewriting the entire game. From story to the combat mechanics to individual dialogue trees and everything in-between. Sure Bioware could do somekind of hack job in few months but then game wouldn't be bad just for traditional Bioware fans but bad for just about everyone. Singleplayer games generally don't get this kind of treatment but it's way too common in MMOG biz. Star Wars Galaxies got changed several times and even got total redesign done years after the release. Vanguard - Saga of Heroes went originally complitely different way then WoW but near the release it started to copy some of the more popular WoW features. Too bad game machanics didn't support 'em (well, that was the least of their problems). Warhammer Online changed the way expo was counted just before the release and it caused huge problems for months and cost thousands of subscribers.

 

I call it "shoot in the dark" design.