Dragon Age Forum News (Sep. 15, 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

Found out more about the world...

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Will there be diffrent langues(sp.?) in the game and can we risk running into npc who speaks a langues beside common?

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Yes and yes.

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Well thats reason for celebration alone, the question now is how far you CAN go.. the "wall of censors" always comes in at some point

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I wasn't talking solely about sex, though I suppose that plays a part.

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Quote: how widespread will the use of magic be?
will it be something only a few select know (either becauses its very hard to learn or you need the right genetic disposition or mutation) or something pretty much anyone can learn or innately has to a certain level (like the prevalence of psionics on the athas setting)

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Hmmm. The simple answer for this is that the use of magic in the world is quite uncommon as a rule.

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Are there ancient civilizations in Thedas that are/were more advanced than existing civilizations?

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None that are known about.

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One question that has been bugging me is this one though:
Accepting the fact that the quintessential hero of the story is special, do you yourself believe that specialty to be valid?

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Valid in what way? I'm not sure I understand.

Me, I'm just glad there are no prophecies anywhere.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Dragon Age's graphics...... and other games

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Feature wise, DA will be feature POOR compared to ES4 (e.g. no horses, no swimming, etcetera). ES3 already has everything but the horses.

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That's a bold prediction, considered that things like "a party", "henchmen", etc could be considered features too. As said, ES is traditionally a freeform - DA is going to be a story heavy game. Freeform games rely on different features than story heavy games to work - after all you need to simulate a world.

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There are mods out for Morrowind that allows you to have henchmen and pack animales, Georg. If Morrowind can have them then it stands to reason that Oblivion is capable as well. Looks like DA loses there to.

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Ahh, trying to be controversial again?

Great, make yourself a pack animal mod for DA (if we don't have them, no idea whether or not something like that is planned) and be happy. What's your point?

Sorry, but you should know best that "henchmen" for us means a tad more than just hollow shells running behind you. DA's focus is the "BG like" party and party interaction, including controlling a party of multiple members at the same time.

But you knew that already, you just were in dire need of your daily dose of attention, after all you were so glowingly defending BioWare party based games on other boards...

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If Bioware didn't want this type of discussions here they shouldn't have announced Dragon Age so soon. That still gets me how some companies will announce a game that is 2 to 4 years away from being released. 1 year from release is plenty of time for building up hype.

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Visc - just leave and come back 1 year before release. You will have plenty of time to get hyped then or discuss about stuff we have announced. It's not that anyone here is still listening to you at this point anyway.

Line Of Sight
Jade Empire works that way. If you hit on the screen, you hit in the game. Needless to say it actually works pretty well, but that can be partially attributed to the Xbox controller.

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Since it's a rules based game - not a reflex based one, projectile combat will most likely not work like it does in Diablo. You won't be able to dodge arrows by hitting a key or clicking quickly on the screen. However, that said... there may be rules governing cover or firing into a melee situation that would make it a good idea to position yourself behind an enemy (occluding his Line of Sight to you).

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What about the "spells through walls" problem? If a moving creature that had a projectile spell just cast at it steps behind a building, then the projectile often goes through the building.

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Keep in mind that this might be unrealistic, but it also prevents "kiting" by just sidestepping attacks. Anyone remember the final fight in Eye of the Beholder II?

Don't be outdone by the community...
Which highlights the ultimate solution to this "problem". Snatch those people from the community

Facial animations: accessible to builders?
In Jade, you have an "emotion" dropdown on each dialog node where you can select the facial animation you want to use. I think it's pointing to a 2da which links it to the specific animation.

Z-axis...How important is it in an RPG?

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Why would I, and anyone else, bother to buy the game if it doesn't have what ti takes to be better than its competitors? TES4 sounds like it will be an awesome action CRPG, while NWN 2 will give us the "Awesome Graphics and Fun to Play without A Z-Axis" game.

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Try DA as BioWare style RPG(1) with full controllable party(2), memorable BioWare style characters(3), story centric(4) and featuring a completly new world with deep background, own languages and cultures(5), new - computer optimized rules(6) based on a complete new IP rather than being the sequel to a series(7) and using a new engine capable of orchestrating epic battles with a large number of participants(8).

Considering that we didn't even start releasing any detailed information, I think that's at least a good start - at least that is some of the stuff that we think will make people pick up DA and say "hey, that's cool, I want to play this game".

Now it might not want to make you want to play it, but then again, I think it is pretty obvious that you Hades do not represent the target audience we are primarily aiming at.

The whole z-axis discussion is old, I remember people complaining on the boards and fansites of nearly every single RPG after Daggerfall that without a move to full 3d movement it will fail, but it just hasn't happened. Full movement on the z-axis is nice, it add alot to a game, but how much it adds and if it makes sense to use it is very dependent on the type of game you are talking about.

Universal Plug N Play

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For novice, "Universal Plug N Play" is a service application can use to open automatically ports on software firewall as well as some compatible harware firewall. That way, user don't need to manually configure their firewall or router to host a game.

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Cool, you mean someone could write a trojan that opens a port your firewall and then spam everyone else on the internet and you can say "I didn't do it, I got a firewall!".

That sounds like a Universal Useful Service (jokes aside, I'm familiar with UPnP)

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Perhaps if they could have a little dialog box that came up and said, "DA has detected a firewall on your system and needs an open _##__ port. Opening this port on your firewall is required, but may result in a security opening on your machine. Would you like DA to automatically open this port? <Yes, thanks!> <I don't know what you mean, but 'Security Opening' is scary, so no> <Are you nuts?> "

You COULD go with <Yes> <No> as well, but meh.

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That's pretty much what most personal firewalls do already.
We don't know where the whole technology is going to stand by the time DA is close to hitting the shelves, but of course we are interested in making installation as smooth as possible, so we will see what we end up with.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Line Of Sight
Since it's a rules based game - not a reflex based one, projectile combat will most likely not work like it does in Diablo. You won't be able to dodge arrows by hitting a key or clicking quickly on the screen.

However, that said... there may be rules governing cover or firing into a melee situation that would make it a good idea to position yourself behind an enemy (occluding his Line of Sight to you).

Z-axis...How important is it in an RPG?

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Pasko and chaosprism have produced a couple of relevant rants that resonate.

Given that DA will be played starting in 2007 and with sequels/expansions is intended to last until 2012, and perhaps-given that Bioware intends DA and the DA engine to be the "franchise" property -- it seems a bit myopic to restrict DA to a 2D game (albeit with a 3D view system) -- particularly when virtually all games (including the genre of DA) will be fully 3D.

This will be a problem when DA hits the shelves and the reviewers remark on the queer decision to remain 2D in an age of 3D.

Moreover, the DA 2D engine itself will be less interesting for new projects -- leading to designing/coding a new engine -- very inefficient. And, of course, 2D makes it less likely another party would buy it for use in their own game.

But, its Bioware's choice and their price to pay.

So, as I posted yesterday, I've gotten over it -- and this will be my final rant on the subject

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Just a quick comment. We'll see what ends up happening - we may end up deciding to implement movement on the z axis or something like it. We'll have more information as the project progresses.

Additionally, I'm not sure if you caught the comment in the thread I quoted but:

The engine isn't specifically incapable of movement on the third axis. So if it isn't done on this project it's not like it can't be done on a future one that uses the DA engine.

Peter Thomas, Designer

Dev's fav RPGs?
Kind of late response, but... One of my favorite alltime rpgs was one no one ever seems to mention much :/

Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession

I loved the atmosphere for that game so much and had such a good time playing it. The music was really good, too. Heh, but then again, no one here will tell you I have a good sense of taste, either.

James Henley - Technical Designer

Dragon Age's graphics...... and other games

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German beer when you can get a pint of Trad at the local pub?

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Do NOT underestimate a german man's beer.

I stand by Georg firmly in this topic. ES and DA are several years out, and a lot can happen in that span of time. Additionally, they aren't even really targeting the same market. ES leans more towards twitchers that want a more meaningful gaming experience, for instance. DA leans towards tactical and roleplay based gaming.

From a player's perspective, for as pretty as Morrowind was, it didn't hold a candle against Neverwinter for me. And no, I was not employed by BioWare at that time, so it's not a biased opinion.

The majority of gamers are likely to only really face a single decision: whether to get ES or DA first. The vast majority will still pick the other one up as well a month or two later (if even that long).

More: I wasn't actually referring to the bet, but to the pointlessness of comparing the two games at such an early stage in time.

More: I haven't really bothered following the new Elder Scrolls (Morrowind was a pretty big let-down to me), so I'm wondering if they'll be including multiplayer this time around. If not, then that's certainly another plus in Dragon Age's favor.

As for ES4's supposed toolset...if it's anything like ES3's, I'm just writing it off here and now (in my own humble opinion). It was definitely one of my least-favourite toolsets to work with, with the Aurora toolset sitting at the much higher end of the scale.

But hey, that's my opinion and mine alone, and is not representative of anyone else's.

Don't be outdone by the community...
I'd have to say that Neverwinter could be called a rousing success if based only on the fact that BioWare managed to put an end-user friendly set of tools in the hands of the community. Yes, they've done some excellent work with them, and some of it looks better than the original NWN content, but as stated above, the community is bound by much less strenuous laws of time and production.

On the topic of the script generator: yes, it made it easier, but it also constrained what you could do. That's the price you pay for simplicity, and I think BioWare did a solid job of balancing simplicity with utilitarian value, where the scripting tools are concerned.

More: I'll second that motion, doubley moreso because I used to develop custom content as a community member. I haven't been here at BioWare long, but I've already seen tremendous differences between the community approach and the company approach taken. Both aspects have my profound respect for their accomplishments.

Z-axis...How important is it in an RPG?
Coming from the age of 8-bit and 16-bit RPGs that have set standards I rarely see met even today, I'd have to say that the Z-axis isn't really too important a factor in a good roleplaying game.

More: At this stage, yes, we're having to keep a pretty tight lid on just about everything. We'd rather not make flagrant promises that turn out to be unfeasible down the line, and disappoint everyone by having to cut out things we said that Dragon Age would have. So, for now, we settle for not really making any promises beyond the statement that Dragon Age will be worthy of the BioWare logo, and will surpass the work we have done before.

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I don't see what everyone is worried about, I'm sure the game will look great and I'm sure it will have many other features besides graphics that will make it stand out. The very fact that it will have its own new world will allow for a lot of creativity in terms of setting and style.

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Glad to hear somebody voicing that. I'll certainly vouch for the talent of our writers backing the Dragon Age team, without a doubt. Their work leaves me floored. I'm on the team, but I still find myself fiending to play it!

More: Tone it down some, people. This has long since shot past the topic of the thread, and needs to be reeled back in.

To address a pair of raised concerns:

As far as the OC story is concerned, the general dissatisfaction was with the over-use of fetch & retrieve styled quests, not the actual story itself.

The content we've provided for the community has hardly been left-overs. Take the robes, for example. They were never intended to be added at all, but Trent Oster went out of his way to develop them by himself and add them in, and you can bet that wasn't an easy or fast task.

Now, let's get this thread back on topic folks, and keep the flaming to a minimum please.

Is DA for real, or just old water in a new bottle?

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I'm sure everyone that knows BioWare can trust us, by now, to put out something solid and new rather than "old water in a new bottle." A lot of effort is going into breaking away from the almost overly-established rules that D&D has created in the roleplaying world.

This is not Dungeons & Dragons, my friends. This...this is Dragon Age.

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It's kind of a relief to hear that from a designer of DA. But then a posibility still remain. According to the lore of Fearun, there was a period where the Dragon rule over all other species, therefore, basically, can be called a Dragon Age. Then something happen, the world become cold and Dragons die off...

Wait a minute, this sounds too much like the Dinosaur and the Icy period of the Earth. (This just crosses my mind when I'm typing this post, beleive it or not). Honestly, do the guy come up with this idea was basing on the real history of our planet when he's writting Fearun lore?

Back on the first paragraph, so by any chance DA is something similar to this period of time of the forgotten realm (when Dragons are the bosses, the bosses and nothing but the bosses). As you can see (only if it's just pure concident), many thing could impact or be dublicate on a fresh new world. No one denied that Fearun is a new world when it's created, but stuff like the Dinosaur distintion is a little too convient. So again, can it be 100% sure Fearun wont have some kind of impact on DA?

Sorry If I'm a little too picky, but I just try to work out all the posibilities so the final answer can be justified

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Honestly, I don't see Faerun really having any impact on the world of Dragon Age. If anything, the team will be making a conscious effort to steer clear of just such an occurence. Granted, there will always be certain generic correlations between any given fantasy settings. If there wasn't, then it wouldn't really be a fantasy setting, now would it? We have some incredibly talented writers working with us, and what I've seen from them thus far has done a fine job of blowing me away with its originality and depth.

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Georg Zoeller
”It is weird that people actually might want to get really hyped up and promised everything and the world rather than being getting honest but cautious answers…”

It’s weird until you realize that the majority of consumers on CRPG message boards aren’t looking for just a game, a decent game, or a good game. They’re looking for THE game.

To be fair, we live in a society in which car manufacturers promise us the ultimate ride and the adoration of our peers, where toothpaste promises to make people swoon over us, and sneakers promise us we’ll be able to play basketball like Michael Jordan. Most people aren’t used to hearing “honest but cautious” answers.

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I'd say that sums up why I don't particularly like watching TV anymore. Commercials make me ill.

I agree with Georg though, in that I would rather give a cautious but honest answer than an overhyped promise that can't necessarily be followed through on.

Line Of Sight

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I'm curious, then. Are you guys saying that you think things like to hit rolls and saves against various spell effects should be a thing of the past, and that whether or not someone gets hit should be determined (partially or completely) by the player's reflexes instead?

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Sounds a lot more like Morrowind, Deus-Ex, or a twitch-shooter, to me, than an RPG.

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James Henley:
"Sounds a lot more like Morrowind, Deus-Ex, or a twitch-shooter, to me, than an RPG."

Morrowind and Deus Ex are both fine RPGs. Also, in Morrowind there were weapon skills, armor skills, strength, and speed - all of which effected combat.

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True, but ultimately (in my own humble opinion) they were still just twitch games at heart, not RPGs. That's not to say I didn't enjoy either of them, but I'd be hard-pressed to call either a roleplaying game. They were FPS games with some RPG elements added in.

I reiterate though...that's my opinion and mine alone.

[ September 16, 2004, 20:16: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Weeee, bring out the bottles and celebrate (if they actually make it as they describe here). This might be the expected followup to BG2, even if it hasn't the license and is in no way related to the bg series, it sounds as if they will try to implement the BG-feel in 3D. I find that a very very noble cause. (and one that is very much needed)

 

Sounds nice, though makes me think why they license Unreal engine instead of using their own DA engine...