Dragon Age Forum News (Sep. 16, 05)

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Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from the Dragon Age Official Forum. 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, Lead Writer

Good, Evil, Sacrifice, Temptation

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as it's a world with no proof of the divine and thus (most likely) no proof/disproof of an absolute morality, it would be fun to have a little easter egg with some sages arguing these points. And other classics such as "are the undead proof of an afterlife?" and "who would win in a fight - a fighter or a mage?"

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And that's exactly what there will be (except for the fighter/mage argument... heh). Of course there are those in the DA world who are convinced that good and evil exist in absolute forms and can point to various things as proof. And they can equally point to proof of the divine, as well.

Sometimes the difference is not so much relevant to the people in the setting as it is to the players and how they approach the world they are introduced to.

Religion of TheDAS

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Will our characters be allowed to join a particular faith in the game?

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While I could certainly see that being cool, it doesn't come up in the story we have planned, no. Not yet, anyhow.

Idea for BioWare
Serializing is do-able, sure. I'm not sure that the gaming public would be happy to see a story serialized, though, unless the main story was at least somewhat self-contained on its own... and the subsequent chapters were at least substantial enough to be worth their cost and the wait.

The moment I balk at is where you mention making something 20-50 hours in length in the same breath as only reaching level 1 or 2.

So gain 2 levels in that entire time? I'm not suggesting that level advancement need be as fast and furious as it was in NWN, but getting levels and advancing your character is part of the fun. If all you're going to do is gain a single level or two inside of an entire game, then really what's the point of having a level-advancement scheme at all? At that point I would say some other type of advancement is required... and, yes, you do need some kind of advancement as otherwise what you have on your hands is an adventure game.

Is there anything left to discuss?
Yeah, Brenon is quite right. There was a lengthy ramp-up process where the concept behind DA was slowly being discussed and proposals were going back and forth and such... but most of that was done while the few people involved were still working mostly on other projects. That's how things get done.
Even once production starts, we're generally talking a pretty small team at first. Enough to do a mock-up or "proof of concept" to show to Ray & Greg or the rest of the team. Sometimes this mock-up is polished a bit and expanded upon to show to the media or potential publishers... sort of a "hey, this is the kind of game we have in mind". Once everyone is in agreement, the design docs are whipped up and an actual team is put to work.

The confusion sometimes comes from trying to put a finger on when "work" actually started on the project. Is it waaaay back when concepting first began? Is it when the first small team was assigned and the proof of concept demo was being made? Or is it when a team was assembled and full production actually started?

If someone said 18 months back when DA showed at E3, it's definitely the first case... back when concepting first began.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Is there anything left to discuss?

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If DA will be released in late 2007 then the development cycle will have been 5 years and that is without any delays at all. That seems like an inordinate amount of time and I have seen games delayed by 2-3 years that still have a shorter development cycle.

I don't think DA is as far away from release as some people think, I wouldnt be that surprised if it got released fall 2006.

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I'll just take a moment to remind folks that you probably shouldn't take things you read on news sites as gospel.

A lot of time there can be some misunderstanding... unless you read it here (bioware site/forums) or as a direct linkable quote from here - I'd take it with a grain of salt the size of my fist.

2007 will not be 5 years of DA development, there is just some confusion about when the "start" of DA was.

A big chunk of time at the start of the project is pre-production, or 'idea time' where a small team of folks sit down and hammer out a solid vision for the game.

They build up concepts (and maybe a demo or two) and ideas until they have a pretty good idea about what they want the game to be and how they want it to play, then draw up a whole mess of documents detailing it.

There's a bunch of iterating time, then eventually a team comes on and begins work. "Production".

In other words, when full production on DA actually started is kind of fuzzy as DA ramped up gradually... but it was not 2002.

Edit: One more thing... if you include pre-production on NWN you'd probably be quite surprised on the timeline.

More:

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Bioware isn't avoiding releasing information because there is no publisher. I think people often say, "We'll know more when there is a publisher," because when Bioware signs a publisher, the game will be at such a stage that beginning to divulge information makes sense, and as a side benefit the publisher will be assisting with the PR.

Once again, this is rampant speculation.

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Pretty much.

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Every now and then I wish that Bioware made generic "Expansion sequels" with quick development cycles for easy money....

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http://store.bioware.com/products/

More: As they (premium modules) support the ongoing efforts of the live team to support the NWN community... yes... they are products with fairly fast development cycles.

More: That is a question probably better addressed to the Live Team... *passes the buck*