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Dragon Age Forum News (Oct. 25, 04)

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by chevalier, Oct 26, 2004.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    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.

    Derek French, Technical Producer

    Thank God for Bethesda
    I seriously doubt that the game would be getting cover stories if they did not have a beta version of the game that the reviewers could play.
    Cover stories are done about a news item, regardless of the state of the game they are talking about. For example, I am looking at the cover of CGW, and their cover story for F.E.A.R. is about a year away from release, and the writers were walked through the game, but were not able to play it hands on.

    Georg Zoeller, Designer

    NPC Schedules
    I don't think that mandantory eating, drinking and trips to the bathroom will ever make it into a BioWare game, there is something disturbingly annoying about these "features".

    Since U7 was brought up - which is one of my favourite games - I always thought that the "feeding simulation" parts of this game was a low point in game design, it was annoying as hell and didn't add anything (well, except for the annoyance factor) to the game experience.

    If I want to feed people, I'd rather pick The Sims or The Sims 2 for that. RPGs (at least the ones we make) are about heroic deeds, villains, heroes, magic and adventure, not about simulationg "the perils of daily routine of a person who happens to stumble into a fantasy world".

    Note that this does not speak against NPC schedules, I personally like them as they can add another layer of immersion to your world, if used correctly.

    My gripes are strictly with the "feed your avatar" / "make sure stupid henchman A has warm socks for the winter" kind of "gameplay additions...

    Thank God for Bethesda
    Nearly 0 information about DA has been released, so any "impressions" people at this point get are pointless. The only person outside BiWare who might be allowed to have one is LdyShayna and she can't talk. Not much more information has been released on ES:IV, which I'm certainly looking forward to.

    Bottomline: Comparing two things you don't know anything significant about yet is a waste of time. While hype is something that manifests itself in most game related discussion boards on the internet - it is my personal belief that experience should tell you that getting hyped about something that is around 2 years away is a bad idea - regardless which game.

    Posting about "Game X" in the forums for "Game Y" and then wondering why the discussion derails is pointless. Thank god all the Fable vs. Jade Empire people have gone back to their holes ... as did the ToEE vs. HotU vs. KotOR and MW vs. NWN people. Bah.

    It's not a question of 'vs.' anyway, it's a question about being happy that there are several developers on the market that make very different RPGs with different focus - instead of everybody trying to clone everybody else. The RPG landscape and the expectation of the people who buy RPGs is quite diverse and it's great to know that there are different companies on the market that cater different styles of gameplay.

    You can decide for yourself that "I think game y is going to suck because it doesn't have a feature that is in game x", even 2 years before either game is out and while no information has been released - that's your personal right, nobody is forced to be educated to make decisions - and as we have seen countless times, all games always work out with all the features that get promised or talked about. What I would avoid is posting this in "game y's" forums - unless you want to start a troll fest.

    More:
    Still as you said Zoerg
    "Zoerg". That's a new one, but even less spellable for north american than my real name.

    More:
    [zero DA info]...Comparing two things you don't know anything significant about yet is a waste of time. ...
    Which is why I rarely post anymore -- by my standards. Mostly, I've "said my piece". But, sometimes I cannot resist repeating myself :)
    Who can't ? :p

    Don't get me started on repeating myself.... Did I mention the word "patience" lately?

    More:
    -The AI is NOT scripted. Each NPC is given a list of general goals (ie eating, makeing potions, sleeping, stealing, protect x NPC, guard y town, etc..), and the AI engine determines the NPC's actions based on the goals.
    Hmm, I wonder where I heard that last time...

    Brenon Holmes, Programmer

    Thank God for Bethesda
    BioWare's response was that that was impossible, but Bethesda is now trying to prove it is. I just hope BioWare takes notes from them, because I think it will make DA an overall better game.
    *blink* We did? Kind of odd, I don't think we'd come right out and say "Hey, that's impossible! It'll never happen!". Smacks a bit too much of the old "640k should be enough for anyone!" type of comment... :)Anything is possible... It's all a question of how much time you want to spend on a specific feature...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
    chevalier, Oct 26, 2004
    #1

  2. BigStick Gems: 13/31
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    In our shop the saying goes something like "Give us enough time and resources and you can have whatever you want."
     
    BigStick, Oct 26, 2004
    #2
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