Dragon Age Forum News (Mar. 22, 05)

Remove all ads!

Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, collected by NWVault. 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.

David Gaider, Designer

Is it going to be RPG or another hack&slash called RPG?

---

Think it's impossible thing to draw such a line.
I'd just play a deep, open world game from Bioware. (the like of morrowindm lets be honest).

---

I'm not sure I understand. You like BG2. You like Morrowind with it's pretty and non-LEGO-like landscapes. Yet those games are not at all alike.

And we've already said, quite definitively, that the Morrowind style is not where we're heading. No world simulation, no wandering about without direction... is that more "RPG feeling"?

So does that make DA a shallow "clone of Diablo" that's just a pretend-RPG where all you do is run around and kill things (and which therefore sucks)? No... although, maybe so, from your point of view, I guess.

In which case, yes, DA is definitely going to suck.

Hope that answers your question.

---

Shape up Bioware, and start making games not monee out of it.

---

So we should... make games that don't make money?

That seems a little counter-productive.

Although I'm sure that, if we did follow that philosophy, we would eventually all feel very satisfied with our achievements while we were out looking for new jobs.

staying away from the old archetypes
I'm not a big fan of making something different just for the sake of being different. If I were to look at a world with classes named Domani and Spykers and what-not and strange races... it would seem to me like the designer was maybe trying a little too hard.

Some things work well for a very good reason. Most people expect certain things from fantasy, and we are not out to alienate them... nor are we approaching this from the idea of "everything D&D does is wrong and we want to stay away from that". While at the same time, we want to put our own spin on many of these fantasy elements and even introduce some concepts of our own. With a whole world to explain along with an entire game system, however, it's also an effort to make sure you don't overwhelm the player.

So will you see some of the standard roles in the DA classes? Yes, you will. You will also see some very different stuff. I'm sure some of it will not be different enough for some folk, but I suppose that that's inevitable.

Moral Alignment

---

---

To what degree shall the private "morality" of our PC dictate how events and opportunities unfold? Will the saintly and the wicked walk the same path through the story if, at certain selected junctures, they both choose the neutral or politically pragmatic option rather than following the riskier options of weal or woe?

---

BIG BUMP

????????

---

Bump?

I have no idea what you're asking, there. It sounds like a leading question, but I can't be sure. But, since you demanded a response, there's my response.

Moral Alignment

---

I think that in too many words he is asking whether there are separate 'good' and 'evil' paths.

---

You mean completely seperate? Like a story for good players and a story for evil players, completely different things? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous.

Are there seperate ways of responding to events, some good or evil, which can lead to consequences and possibly divergences as the story goes on? Well, sure. But what does that tell you? Not much.

Moral Alignment

---

Put into D&D terms, if a Lawful Evil character does a few kind deeds in an attempt to pass as a stern Lawful Good (play to enhance public reputation), will the game still recognize the declared alignment by offering the occasional evil-only dialogue choice or an evil-only sidequest? Or will reputation be the sole determining factor when these options come up? Or will all options be available to all alignments all the time?

---

As Gromnir says, there is no alignment, declared or otherwise. If we track how good or evil your actions are, they do not restrict your dialogue choices and if you want to flip-flop between them the only repercussions will come from the choices you make.

As for divergences in the story between weal and woe? Uhh... yeah. Okay, sure.

What Will Not Be In DA?
Like you said, those plots needn't have happened in a bordello... but they did. We might not feel a need to put a bordello in DA, nor to use it for titillation purposes if we did, but on the same token there is no reason to avoid it.

The bordello at the end of Chapter 2 in Luskan simply was what it was. It was part of the setting and made sense because Luskan was that kind of town, period. If having a bordello in DA's setting serves the setting ambiance or is useful for story purposes, then there will be one.

Me, I'm just praying we don't have a sewer. I hate sewers.

sounds good??
As has been mentioned, there is no hype for DA. We are not trying to sell the game yet because it is a long way off, still. If we were trying to hype it, we would be talking about all the features in detail and going on about how everything worked and releasing screenshots and stuff.

We may have expectations to live up to (and that is the only reason there are people here on the forum, already, I guess), but no hype as of yet.

sounds good??
How dare you all make me regret my cattiness.