Dragon Age Forum News (Nov. 14, 04)

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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

will persistent worlds be in?

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So will we be ABLE to effectively make a persistant world like we are in NWN? Or is that undecided? I don't see why it should be any less capable than NWN though.

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We actually don't know, at this point. Because it's not a supported feature, we can't say whether or not we might make some change to handle some other issue in the future might not render PW's difficult or impossible for the end user to create. One must also consider that the switchover from using tilesets as our base for in-game areas. How game data might be transmitted is still not settled on, as a result, and this is a pretty fundamental issue for most PW's (I believe). Do we sit down now and try to think how PW's might still work, regardless? No, because again it's not a supported feature... we're focused on other things. So we'll have to look at where we're at further on down the line. It wasn't dissimilar for NWN, we just knew earlier on how some features were going to work as they were more important to the scope of the project overall and also happened to tell us earlier on that small-scale PW's might be possible.

Is a trend toward "Arcade" style gameplay in CRPGs a good thing?
Mmmm... I would say you all are taking Darcy's comments on gameplay and blowing them a bit out of proportion. I think when Darcy says "gameplay" he is referring to how the rules play out and how combat and magic are done. Whether gameplay leans towards an arcade style or not (and whether that is a good thing or not) does not mean that the game itself cannot also be very focused on the story and dialogue and on world immersion. Because DA is, very much so.

In-game languages

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I can imagine it already. "Okay, say Klaatu Barada Nikto again, but this time with more regurgitation."

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Heh... true. Unlike in KotOR, though, where we had a selection of "alien-speak" lines, the lines in DA are translated into their respective languages and then recorded individually. So you will not be hearing the same bits over and over again. It seems likely, however, like the process will be similar to directing Australians to speak Finnish with a Chinese accent. (and, no, the reptilian race does not hiss... no forked tongue, so no going 'sssssss' all the time or anything like that.)

Fighting to the death is stupid. How about Morale?

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That's just poor design. If there's an encounter worth 10000 XP, and you win that encounter, you should get 10000 XP, regardless of how you won. Killing the goblins or scaring them off has the same result - it's just as effective in acheiving your goal.

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And just as a comment, that depends entirely on how you set up character advancement and whether or not you even have an XP system and whether that XP comes from fighting. Once you set it up, you work with what you have... but the idea is that whatever you set up, it should serve whatever function you set for it. The function it will not be serving is having opponents running away as an inherent feature. As mentioned earlier, we do have situations where enemies surrender or attempt to flee coming up in the game... provided the encounter has been set up to accomodate it. Beyond that, we just don't need it and morale is not needed as a combat feature because we have other behaviors that we are focusing on. The only thing that's been said that I think applies to this discussion (and one I agree with) is that having enemies regularly fleeing combat doesn't inherently add anything to the game experience. And that comes with a period. Any other comments on what you'd like to see are fine, but remember that it comes with a big caveat that you have no idea how the combat system nor character advancement system functions.

More:

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In other words, you're going to stick with the usual system, where the average goblin conscript will fight until the bitter end against overwhelming odds, but the elite leaders of the enemy will spend all their time running away or surrendering to whatever ragtag band of mercenaries come there way. And the "good" guys will be expected to show mercy then to the people who are really responsible for all this mess, after massacring whole tries of humanoids who've done nothing but get in their way

Great!

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That's not what I said at all, and I said nothing about how surrendering might be handled period. You are free to make assumptions, though... and of course I understand how not having enemies flee combat on a regular basis for the sake of gameplay would make the entire game of poorer quality as well as morally simple.

No Generic looking weapons

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He means that he was fooled by the 'hand drawn' image in the items description.

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Ah. No, I don't think those will be making a re-appearance anytime soon. Art resources are pretty tight and that use is pretty superfluous when a system already exists so you can actually see what the weapon looks like in-game. Perhaps more options for customization will exist, but as it was I still think there was quite a few in NWN to begin with.

Is a trend toward "Arcade" style gameplay in CRPGs a good thing?

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I don't doubt that DA will be very focused on the story and world immersion but, I would rather see the combat and magic system be more akin to Baldurs Gate than Diablo or Dungeon Siege.

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I understand that. And while I would hesitate to say that DA is like Diablo or Dungeon Siege, those games do not necessarily have bad gameplay (I personally found Diablo quite fun for what it is). Those games are often conjured by the folks on these forums as boogeymen, but my impression that they were used as benchmarks for "lite-RPG's" with little story. Even were we to copy their combat and magic style, we would still not go light on the RPG and story elements, I assure you.

James Henley, Technical Designer

Is a trend toward "Arcade" style gameplay in CRPGs a good thing?
The bottom line is that there is a point where realism ceases to add to the game, and instead detracts from the overall enjoyment. That is what was meant by "Realism" vs. "Arcade." Note the types of games that Darcy had mentioned as "real." Flight simulators, NASCAR, etc. Realism is fine, to a point. Ultimately though, this is a game and we are doing what we can to make it enjoyable, not necessarily "real." I've played more than a few games that have been slaughtered by realism, and I've played more than a few games that I absolutely adore despite the fact that there isn't an ounce of realism to them.