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Dragon Age Forum News (Sep. 30, 04)

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by chevalier, Oct 1, 2004.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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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

    Origin Stories we’d like to see
    I can sort of see where Gromnir is getting at, but I would like to point out that some people are kind of jumping the gun a bit with their definitions. The origin stories are archetypal in some ways, but they are far more situational that character archetypes. We're not, for instance, telling you whether you have to be good or evil or an anti-hero or what-have-you... we're just giving you a choice of context to start off the game with, and keeping it broad enough that the character details are your own to figure out. You're not playing Name That Cliche and suddenly defining your story for the game to come. The only way for me to prove that, mind you, is to list what the origins are and exactly how they work. But I am not going to do that. While it's natural to interpret what little is provided, I'm just urging caution on rendering sweeping judgements here, as you really don't know what you're talking about just yet.

    World Depth and History.
    I suppose the overall quality of LotR is certainly debateable. As Gromnir mentioned, however, it's hard to deny that insofar as world design is concerned Tolkien is pretty hard to beat. Naturally we could never approach his level of detail (or would want to, rationally speaking) in the amount of time we have... we do draw inspiration from the setting, however, in terms of its strong themes and internal consistency. Those are, in my opinion, two extremely important characteristics.

    Really there's only so much detail we can go into. Mostly we can only concentrate on the parts that you see... and like any good setting, the idea is that the rest is all implied. If we've done our job, while we might not have decided what types of flowers Aunt Petunia grows in her garden and what's unusual about that row of purple ones... you'd imagine that you could ask about that and get a reasonable answer in-game. Again, speaking personally, there is something about a setting that must lie between the too-perfect and the too-imperfect in order to strike that chord with me that sparks the idea that there is more going on than I can see.

    To be a King
    Having a castle and such is a decent idea, but only if the story accomodates it. If it's reasonable for you to stop what you're doing, build a castle and rule a countryside and yet still return to the story at hand... then perhaps I could see doing it. It seems to me, though, that in order for such a thing to be done properly it must be the story rather than merely an aside to it. I wouldn't mind an RPG where running a castle and being a noble lord was the primary focus of the story.

    As Gromnir pointed out, if it's just a means of finding cool things to spend money on or doling out interesting and non-standard rewards, that old thread is a good one to look at indeed.

    Some thoughts, suggestions :)
    It must be painful for writers to create what they perceive to be great material, only to have it be cut for editorial or business reasons.
    There are also times that cuts or edits result in things turning out better than you suspected they would be. A lot of the time I have to grudgingly admit that some changes are for the best, and the only thing that really hurt was my pride at having my baby taken away from me. Sometimes, though, yes... you get your baby taken away and handed back with a painted-on moustache and a pirate hat on top of a poopy diaper and those are the moments that just suck the soul out of you and make you wonder if there isn't more personal validation to be found in a typesetting career.

    Quote: Sometimes it's nice to make my own stories without any outside input or concerns. And if it sucks, well, it's my own damn fault.
    Such is the benefit of, and the drawback of, operating on a singular vision.

    Why isn't Dragon Age an mmorpg?
    I wouldn't mind working on a MMORPG, myself... but only if the idea was to bring some innovation and actual role-playing to the genre. I think there's a market for those folks who are dissatisfied with the crop of massively multiplayer games out there; why must every game cater to the exact same crowd? Right now, however, the forces that be have decided that every massively multiplayer game must clone Everquest in order to be successful, and while Bioware possibly could take that leap the real question is whether or not we would want to.

    The whole concept behind NWN, after all, was to make the multiplayer experience more personal. And I think the idea for us right now is that we would rather work on something like that or even just single-player RPG's as opposed to trying to squeeze into an arena that's already busting at the seams.

    Derek French, Technical Producer

    Why isn't Dragon Age an mmorpg?
    It's interesting to note that many 'massive' MORPGS are actually moving towards 'instanced content', which is contrary to the very idea of 'massive'.
    They are still massive, in the sence that there are more than 10 people on the server, but it is griefers that have driven them to making instanced areas. MMORPGs were stated as being story-lite. I would go so far as to say that they are "story-well-doesn't-really-matter". That doesn't exactly fit to what we usually do with our games.

    More:
    Never did say that I wanted Bio to make a MMO. I'm just noting the trend to actually reduce the interaction with EVERYONE at once, making many next-gen MMOs seem like expensive, story light versions of NWN
    Heh, sorry ElAntonius, I wasn't replying directly at you for this one, I was just making the general comment as to why more and more are instancing, then moving onto the original question. [​IMG]

    James Henley, Technical Designer

    Racial Limitations
    I think the point with humans having unmodified stats in so many games is that we are the BASELINE. Elves tend to have bonuses related to dexterity and the like because they are naturally more agile than we are. Halflings suffer strength penalties because they are naturally weaker than we are. Humankind is the baseline against which all other races are compared, and accordingly adjusted.

    3rd Edition D&D did a good job of illustrating our innate versatility and adaptability by giving us bonus skill points vs. other races and an extra starting feat. Humans weren't "just humans" in that, and I appreciated that. We were still the baseline though.

    [ October 03, 2004, 21:56: Message edited by: chevalier ]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
    chevalier, Oct 1, 2004
    #1
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