Dragon Age Forum News (Apr. 01, 06)

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Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from the Dragon Age Official Forum. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance

PC Needs

Don't forget the DYCs and at least 4 WDDX2 ports, and you'll need at least a quatloo of TzQ frams to finagle the protroherdzes.

Sorry, we're not even close to determining system requirements yet. Perhaps when we get a little closer to finishing the game. Thanks.

End of line.

David Gaider, Lead Writer

Squirrels

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I certainly think that it is a fine option to have available to entertain the sick and deranged people who make up the majority of today's "civilized society".

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And yet somehow I am still okay with not specifically catering to that mentality. But, then, I am a force of oppression and not freedom.

More:

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Can you really say that a story driven game is something completely different than a sandbox game like Oblivion?

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Absolutely.

Oblivion has its strengths, and DA will focus in some areas where Oblivion doesn't. There's still room on the RPG spectrum, and just because the critics are praising Oblivion right now does not mean that everyone should be scrambling to make their RPG exactly like it.

Teleportation Revisited

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if i understand David right, with the above statement he meant that exceptions/irregularities should be left unexplained, e.g. take the movie A space Oddyssey 2001, does anyone really understand this movie 100%, especially the end? The film makers didn't introduce a narrator while they were showing the last scenes, they just left it for the viewer to figure it out. But anyhow, perhaps i misunderstood that

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all I meant by that quote was that if your intention is to introduce new setting concepts, it's not a good idea to start with exceptions to that concept.

As someone else pointed out, for instance, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to introduce the concept of the drow elf to people by having them meet Drizz't.

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As for teleportation, it's simply not something that magic can do. That's there as a rule as, while we want magic to be grand and powerful, we don't want it to trivialize the setting. Teleportation trivializes distance and obstacles (and makes it far too tempting for us to use for NPC's). Resurrection trivializes death. Certain things like mind control are allowed, but are considered abhorrent rather than 1st level spells that no-one thinks about.

We do this because this contributes to the style of setting and game that we want to make. Does that restrict us from including certain kinds of plots that include these elements? Yes, and that's fine. Why would we want to include plots that break the style we've created?

That does not mean that those rules might not be broken in the future... I wouldn't rule out the possibility of teleportation or resurrection ever occurring, for instance, if the story called for it... but such an event would be considered miraculous and never trivial.

Dragon Age and modern mindsets

It's a good point to bring up, but I'll say this: yes, you do want the player to live in the world you've created. The problem is that you also want the player to identify with it.

Now that's not to say that the setting must be a transplant of our modern world with only the trappings changed. That would be rather juvenile (which can be alright, too, depending on what you're aiming for). But not everyone's going to appreciate being forced into an alien mindset.

Something I encountered in my own experience: I helped organize a LARP that was set in the Dark Ages with players that were largely experienced, hardcore roleplayers. Yet what we ended up noticing rather quickly was a number of anachronisms creeping in despite our efforts to educate everyone on the attitudes and norms of the period. History buffs complained that people wouldn't react realistically -- one player commented in-game that batheing more than once a month was ill-advised (historically accurate) and another reacted to the statement by cringeing and saying, "how disgusting!"
If they had stopped and considered for a moment, they might have remembered the norm, but can they be faulted for reacting as they did? Another player spoke of selling slaves and was startled when a number of other players reacted negatively. Another player complained that there were too many characters who described themselves as atheists or opposed to the Church, which would indeed have been odd for the Dark Ages.

The question we had to ask ourselves in the end was how much it was a game and how much it was a simulation. For some, trying to adhere to characteristics that would force them to stop and think before they do or say anything is a cerebral exercise that they would not find very fun. It could even be argued that encountering standards that were wildly different than our own were actually less immersive -- they were jarred out of the game in order to consider their reaction instead of remaining immersed in the story. On the other hand, of course, was how much we wanted to maintain the integrity of our setting.

The answer, as usual, was a bit of a compromise. We occasionally introduced the players to characters and plots that illustrated period norms without punishing them for acting out of period. If someone played an atheist, for instance, NPC's in the setting would tend to react negatively and comment about it -- without us having them round up a lynch mob or telling other players that they must react just as the NPC's do if they were going to play their characters right. Gently guide rather than strictly mandate.

[ April 03, 2006, 22:59: Message edited by: chevalier ]