Dragon Age Forum News (Nov. 24, 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

Bio, can you give us a status report?
Well, the problem is that there's not much that we can really say that would be enlightening to you. Most anything to do with actual gameplay will be "partly" ironed out and will remain that way probably until just before the game ships. We'll think we have it all working great and then someone will come along and, say, that the spell system needs to be re-done. Whoosh! Call QA!

But, since you insist:

Combat system - PARTLY
Class system - PARTLY
Religious system - YES
Economic system - YES
Full history - MOSTLY... depends on meaning of "full"
Basic Story Line - YES

Not sure what that tells you exactly, but there you go.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Bio, can you give us a status report?

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I assume the rules are done -- but am trying to clarify. I assume the combat-animations are not final-designed. THAT is my area of concern -- particularly since I am playing KotOR right now -- and DA was posted to work somewhat like KotOR (in some unknown way ).

Anyhow, the combat animation of KotOR looks good -- BUT, animations do NOT correspond 1-to-1 with what the "rules" are calculating.

So, some NPC look like they are kicking-butt -- but are not scoring hits. Other times they look ineffective -- but are piling up hits. This is very frustrating because I have to lose immersion to eyeball the combat outcome stats being printed on the screen.

I very prefer that combat animations be synchronized with the outcomes of rules calculations -- so that I can plainly see how combats are going -- and thus maintain immersion and flow during combat.

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Rules calculations for hits will be linked to the visible hits in the animation. Theoretically you should be able to get an idea about how your character is doing in a fight by visual indications alone (disregarding "floaty" text).