Dragon Age Forum News (Nov. 16, 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

Half Life 2 Development Details and Dragon Age
Indeed, there are some interesting things to learn in that article. At the end of the day, though, one has to remember than Half-Life 2 and Dragon Age are different games completely, and will have different goals. A first-person shooter needs to prioritize things like physics and a realistic environment and such, because everything that it does revolves around that.

And of course we could add any feature at all into Dragon Age, including physics and z-axis and such things, but the good part of that article is in the realization of how much such features can cost, development-wise. It's always a matter of cost vs need, from our point of view.

Such considerations are never fun, however, nor sexy. It's far more fun to consider what could be added without thinking about the cost... to wonder what the perfect game might possibly be like, if you didn't have to worry about eventually selling enough of it to cover your costs. But that's always going to be the case.

Gold in them thar hills? Pffft.

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ToEE used silver and copper and that worked well enough, but it doesn't really add much to gameplay, except for the realism of not paying for beer in gold coins. Silver is, of course, as recognizable as gold.

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Let's not forget that even in ToEE any coin you gathered was automatically turned into higher-denomination coins as soon as you put it in inventory. So grab 100 copper pieces and ZAP you have a gold piece.

I think that, personally, the idea I find not so thrilling about a gold piece-based model is the idea that there's so much gold out there. I mean, come on, gold is a little rarer than that, surely, even in some imaginary society. It's like the platinum pieces... how rare is platinum? And they're minting coins out of it? You've got to be kidding me, right?

I don't think it's so important that there be multiple denominations in-game so long as the economic model at least passes superficial inspection, for the sake of suspension-of-disbelief if nothing else, right?

subconscious DnD influenced Dev
I think we're aware of how pervasive the D&D model is, sure. I also don't think we're specifically going to work to make the system not like D&D just for the sake of not being like D&D, either. We're okay with some things being very familiar so long as they work for our purposes.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

Is a trend toward "Arcade" style gameplay in CRPGs a good thing?
Classifying a video game is important because when people are talking, they'll try to describe it in as few words as possible, and retail outlets place similar games together. This helps people new to the product understand what the game is, and how to find it easily.

Dragon age is a Story Driven Fantasy Computer Role Playing Game. It will be found in the same section as NWN, BG, Kotor, Dungeon Siege 2 and Diablo. What exactly people say about our game to their friends, will vary because only they know what their friends understand. It could reference to another game, or a certain rule, or whatever. What we are hopping for is people saying “It’s like NWN, and BG but better.”

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

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Darcy - I think I generally agree. Categories are useful, if only to decide which shelf to put the game on. Still, I think that comparisons tend to provide more information than labels. "A spiritual successor to NWN and BG" tends to roll off the tongue better than "A Story Driven Fantasy Computer Role Playing Game".

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You are correct PIPBoy,

We cannot proivde any accurate comparisons at this point in the development becuase they are mostly still fluid, and untill we can be very sure of what will be in the final product they can change.

What will not change is that Dragon Age is a CRPG BioWare is developing with our own story, and rule set, that will look, and play very well.

Combat XP System or the "Good Characters Having to Kill Everything Syndrome" is WRONG
Combat XP is actually a "realism" component. It is logical to assume that the more you fight the better you become at fighting. Games simulate this by giving XP for winning fights. It has nothing to do with the age of the audience, or mature rating.

Is this fair for the “good” character that does not enjoy killing?

No.

All things being equal the character that kills everything will have more experience then the character that does not. But that’s more realistic, isn’t it?

If you are a player who doesn’t want to kill everything, then don’t. You may end the game at a lower level, but you may feel you role-played better, and that is the most important thing.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Is a trend toward "Arcade" style gameplay in CRPGs a good thing?
Just a comment, we're not making an arcade game.

We're currently planning for combat to be similar to the BG style of play. As for what we end up with, it highly depends on what's fun and what works (visually) with the rule system that we've developed.

Another comment though, arcadey style combat generally doesn't fuse too well with deterministic rules based combat systems. Food for thought.

James Henley, Technical Designer

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

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Are you seriously trying to argue that Diablo and BG have about the same amount of tactical options in combat?

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I found both to actually be heavily tactical, albeit in a slightly different way.

EDIT:Please don't hourglass your quotes. Include only those quotes you're directly responding to. Thanks.