Dragon Age

[Magnum Opus]

given the "inherent limits" of the approach, is gonna be real interesting to see if this feature is actual 'bout genuine improvement, or is more a matter o' smoke n' mirrors.

Am thinking (hoping, really) is more than just smoke 'n mirrors, personally. More than ToEE's opening vignettes, but less than hope/hype might make of them. A genuine, if necessarily limited, improvement. BG only had the Bhaalspawn/Candlekeep thing going for its background; race was untouched by the story aside from suggesting Bhaal would get it on with anything that moved, and social class didn't even come up, I don't think.

 

All I'm really hoping for from the origin stories in DA:O is a little more in the way of background info on the setting in general. Beyond that... *shrugs* The more meaningful they seem, whether because of the marketing or the way they're presented in the game, the more likely I am to at least try out other origins, but that's about it. Origins were never a main draw to this game for me, though, for the reasons already mentioned.

Edited July 4, 2009 by Magnum Opus

[Maria Caliban]

6 origins is a weird design choice. I've always assumed that it's because of long development time and things have changed a lot in 5 years.

 

Multiple origins was one of the first features they talked about, along with battling in the middle of a giant army.

 

I'd bet more players don't even finish first run compared to those who try two or more origins. It's wasted development time in todays casual market.

 

I'm not sure what you mean, the first sentence doesn't seem to support the second. If more people will check out the origins than will go through the entire game, then having several origins would be the way to go. Yes?

 

Lets hope its deeper than say TOEE alignment beginnings (How could it not be?)

 

Even I have a high bar than that for them.

Edited July 4, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Aristes]

You misread the sentence. He said that he believes more players won't even finish the game than will try more than one origins. In other words, less folks will check out the origins than go through the entire game. But I don't know that's an issue. If Bioware wants to try it in the effort to get more folks to play multiple times, or if they're simply willing to trade the extra time for the extra buzz even if it doesn't pan out in terms of player demographics, why shouldn't they? Sure, they need to look at the bottom line, but

 

1. the cynical view is that will generate enough buzz to make it worth while even if it doesn't get more folks to play

 

or

 

2. the rosie view is that it will result in more multiple completions

 

or

 

3. the view that gives them a break is that they would like to see something like this feature in games and they can afford to take the time to do it.

 

I've heard of brainstorming, and it really sounds like, whether the beancounters get the final word, folks tend to offer stuff they personally want to see or think has a coolness factor that the consumer will appreciate.

[Maria Caliban]

You misread the sentence. He said that he believes more players won't even finish the game than will try more than one origins.

 

Right. Number of people who try several origins > Number of people who will complete the game. But that doesn't support his next sentence: "It's wasted development time in todays casual market." By his logic, having only one origin and more content in the middle is the wasted development time.

 

For example, say we have a BioWare title with 80 hours of gameplay, of which 5 of those are the beginning with the rest of the game being 75 hours. Max installs, plays through 30 hours and then quits half way though.

 

Now we have a BioWare tite with six origins at 5 hours each (30 hours), with the rest of the game being 50 hours. Max tries three origins but still finished somewhere in the middle. Max plays more of the game this way.

 

Unless you're suggesting that Max will only play 30 hours altogether, then it doesn't matter if BioWare does it one way or the other.

 

2. the rosie view is that it will result in more multiple completions

 

But I think that's what BioWare is going for at all. There are people who will play the game once, those who'll never complete it, and people who'll play the game several times. The frist two might not play the entire game more than once, but they might play through several of the origins, and they have unique content.

Edited July 4, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Monte Carlo]

I presume, with the tool set, you could create your own origin story, punt it out there for others to play?

 

The tool set will be the saving grace of this project, I predict that you'll get Elder Scrolls-volume plug-ins / mods.

 

There, I said something moderately positive.

[Aristes]

Oh, yeah, I see. I was mixed up, not you. I think in terms of getting more folks to play through several times, it'll fail. I do think that it's a clever idea if done properly and I'll play more than once if it's good. In that respect, I refuse to complain about something that might benefit me, at least until I find out it doesn't.

[alanschu]

I think he phrased it poorly.

 

I read it as he meant that more people would not even bother finishing the game, than people that would finish it and play through it several times in order to appreciate the differences of the origin stories.

 

It's a bit ambiguous.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Or, as I did with TOEE's vignettes, you play each origin story for the first chapter of the game and then proceed with the party / character you like best.

[alanschu]

THat's possible and perhaps even likely.

 

I just don't think that that is what Niten was talking about.

 

 

 

Regardless, that's only a piece of the pie. There are smaller (mostly cosmetic I assume, since I haven't played through with a different character and likely won't get a chance unfortunately) references to your character's background at various points.

 

I'm very curious how some things play out with some of the different backgrounds, though I probably shouldn't hope for too much as it'll likely be, as I said, mostly cosmetic.

Edited July 4, 2009 by alanschu

[Maria Caliban]

Alanschu,

 

What origin did you use?

 

I think in terms of getting more folks to play through several times, it'll fail.

 

I agree it won

Edited July 4, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Gromnir]

"I believe the main reason to have six origins is to show that there

Edited July 4, 2009 by Gromnir

[Oner]

Funny how no one mentioned Sacred yet.

[Purkake]

Funny how no one mentioned Sacred yet.

 

It's for the best. No Bio game could ever compete with a cybernetic Anubis riding an unicycle and shooting lazerz. Pew pew pew!

[Oner]

Funny how no one mentioned Sacred yet.

 

It's for the best. No Bio game could ever compete with a cybernetic Anubis riding an unicycle and shooting lazerz. Pew pew pew!

You guys were talking about inpre..inter..implementing backgrounds into gameplay, not about common sense.

[Purkake]

Funny how no one mentioned Sacred yet.

 

It's for the best. No Bio game could ever compete with a cybernetic Anubis riding an unicycle and shooting lazerz. Pew pew pew!

You guys were talking about inpre..inter..implementing backgrounds into gameplay, not about common sense.

 

I demand a secret seventh pre-order only origin where you are secretly a cyborg and have a secret cyborg unicycle that you ride around when nobody is looking.

 

I haven't really played Sacred, only the first one's demo. How do they incorporate the backgrounds into the game?

[Oner]

I demand a secret seventh pre-order only origin where you are secretly a cyborg and have a secret cyborg unicycle that you ride around when nobody is looking.

 

I haven't really played Sacred, only the first one's demo. How do they incorporate the backgrounds into the game?

Me too.

Different starting points, different starting quests, like win your freedom with a gladiator, save your kidnapped friends with a seraphim, etc.

[Purkake]

I demand a secret seventh pre-order only origin where you are secretly a cyborg and have a secret cyborg unicycle that you ride around when nobody is looking.

 

I haven't really played Sacred, only the first one's demo. How do they incorporate the backgrounds into the game?

Me too.

Different starting points, different starting quests, like win your freedom with a gladiator, save your kidnapped friends with a seraphim, etc.

 

So it's just different beginnings like in WoW and LotRO and other MMOs?

[Oner]

I demand a secret seventh pre-order only origin where you are secretly a cyborg and have a secret cyborg unicycle that you ride around when nobody is looking.

 

I haven't really played Sacred, only the first one's demo. How do they incorporate the backgrounds into the game?

Me too.

Different starting points, different starting quests, like win your freedom with a gladiator, save your kidnapped friends with a seraphim, etc.

 

So it's just different beginnings like in WoW and LotRO and other MMOs?

I guess. Only ever played Lineage 2. But it was a first for singe player games, as far as I know, especially for a diabloid game.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I'm only back briefly. Using a friends computer.

 

Hopefully you'll get internet again sometime soon.

[Kelverin]

"There are several folks who seem to be anti-Dragon Age, but most of them even say they plan on buying it at release."

 

THAT is the Codex Defined.

From what I gather on Codex they plan on stealing it, not buying it a soon as possible

 

 

I'm only back briefly. Using a friends computer.

Hope your back soon, I can't believe I missed your post.

[Niten_Ryu]

You misread the sentence. He said that he believes more players won't even finish the game than will try more than one origins.

 

Right. Number of people who try several origins > Number of people who will complete the game. But that doesn't support his next sentence: "It's wasted development time in todays casual market." By his logic, having only one origin and more content in the middle is the wasted development time.

 

For example, say we have a BioWare title with 80 hours of gameplay, of which 5 of those are the beginning with the rest of the game being 75 hours. Max installs, plays through 30 hours and then quits half way though.

 

Now we have a BioWare tite with six origins at 5 hours each (30 hours), with the rest of the game being 50 hours. Max tries three origins but still finished somewhere in the middle. Max plays more of the game this way.

 

Unless you're suggesting that Max will only play 30 hours altogether, then it doesn't matter if BioWare does it one way or the other.

 

Yeah, I mean shorter games in general. This has been a trend in game industry for awhile now. With stupidly high developement budgets and studies done how high (or low) % of the players finish games, it just don't make sense to develop 80 hour games. It's wasted development time no matter if extra content is in the beggining, middle or the end. Thus 6 origins don't make sense nowdays (but like I said, I'm glad that it's there and that DA is a long game).

[Morgoth]

Replayability is way too overrated these days, especially since it hardly works well. What have I heard...DA is going to be 90 hours long? Holy ****! And then there are 6 different Origins? I doubt these will make an actual big difference. Maybe a different starting area, some specific starter quests, but after an hour of gameplay, it melds together to the same path.

 

Anyways, I rather have one playable character/Origin that gives me a hell of a time for one playthrough, rather than having 6 that are all the same. Because I hardly replay games these days. There are just too many other games that are waiting to get played.

[alanschu]

I'm not sure what the length of time is on the game precisely, but my job for the first two weeks was to just play the game, and I still didn't finish it. Though 90 hours seems a bit long haha.

 

Granted I was interrupted a fair bit by submitting bug reports and so forth, and much of that took some time as I learned the procedure for doing that. I also spent a lot of time dying haha.

Edited July 4, 2009 by alanschu

[Monte Carlo]

Replayability is way too overrated these days, especially since it hardly works well. What have I heard...DA is going to be 90 hours long? Holy ****! And then there are 6 different Origins? I doubt these will make an actual big difference. Maybe a different starting area, some specific starter quests, but after an hour of gameplay, it melds together to the same path.

 

Anyways, I rather have one playable character/Origin that gives me a hell of a time for one playthrough, rather than having 6 that are all the same. Because I hardly replay games these days. There are just too many other games that are waiting to get played.

 

I think you might be unrepresentative as you are, clearly, a games junkie. Nothing wrong with that, but OTOH I do tend to re-play games. What happens is that my life gets busy. I forget about my games, and then when things calm down and I get some time to game again I rediscover them. So rather than drop another fifty or sixty pounds on new games I try to finish or replay my old ones instead.

 

OK, I'm always 6 months plus behind the gaming curve and have to ask people here WTF is going on with games, but a lot of older guys with families / long hours etc I know who like gaming are in a similar boat. Therefore, long games are ideal for people like me (especially modded games and trust me DA:O will be heavily modded adding longevity).

 

I mean, I'm still playing Medieval TW2, MotB and Sacred for chrissakes.

 

Cheers

MC

[kirottu]

I always thought re-playability is simply a side effect of a good roleplaying game, in other words, different outcomes for different characters/choices.