Dragon Age Forum News

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Here are today's BioWare 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.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

DGs NPC friendship thread
Mmm. Some of this stuff can be done, but you have to keep in mind that there's a difference between what works well in a novel and what works well in a game. I'm all for more commentary from party members, but having NPC's act independently (especially to the point of being constantly traitorous) can get old fast even though it seems like a fine idea from a story standpoint.

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But I was thinking of a close friendship developing throughout the game with the NPC only realising near the end that they have fallen for the PC. Whether the friendship goes down this romance route or stays a deep friendship depends on the PC chosing the appropriate dialogue choices.

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Some people pointed out that it doesn't make much sense (take Aarin Gend, for example) if an NPC just talks to you and tells their life story and then, just by virtue of the character listening, falls in love with you. There has to be something more active involved, and preferably that's at the initiation of the PC themselves. The NPC may eventually realize they're in love with the PC, but the PC should be the one to bring them to that realization... or, at least, that's my current thinking.

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Quote: Slightly off-topic, but I was wondering if you were considering making a female comic relief character this time round. Women can befriend minature giant space monkeys er...hamsters too.

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We've been discussing that, actually. The problem is that while female characters can be funny and witty, they don't work as over-the-top comedic relief characters like Minsc. They just don't. I'm not sure why... perhaps it's because, culturally, we don't see women as buffoons. Take any comic relief character and make it female and suddenly they're not as funny.

Sure, we can have a female NPC that is funny enough... but a complete comic relief character? It won't work, and I don't think I'm being sexist in making that observation. (At least I hope not.)

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Quote: It would make me happy if you did include it (on the condition that at least one was female).

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You mean a female comrade-in-arms? Well, naturally. I don't think we've ever stinted on the strong female roles, have we? Say what you like about them individually, we've always given them important places in the party and the plot.

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On the other hand, if you let just one evil NPC doublecross the player somewhat early in the game (and without any severe consequences), then you've created a layer of paranoid suspence that may last for the rest of the game, even if the player never gets cheaten again.

Occational suspicious lines from one or two shady NPCs in the future - that's all there would be needed to keep the paranoia active after the first experience

Worth a thought, perhaps?

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Maybe. But that would be a plot thing (a la Yoshimo) as opposed to a game mechanic. And you don't want accusations from the players who want to be evil that we're giving evil the short shrift in any way. Because being fair is what being evil is all about, right?

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A friend would also be interested in your past. While he was by no means friendly, I really appreciated the Kel Garas (sp?) conversation in SoU as a prompt to character definition.

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Actually, that's something I've been trying hard to include. Having NPC's engage the character in conversations where they are asking most of the questions and not just the PC. It's an... interesting exercise, from a writing perspective.

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I could go on and on listing some really great examples, but others can do that much better, namely english TV shows such as 'Smack the Pony' offers really good examples (I hope you know this show, otherwise: French & Saunders) and they usually play on the ever distracted, self-contradicting, over-analysing and exceptionally fickle types - they can be a great inspiration for funny female characters of all kinds.

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But in that case it gets down to the type of comedy which works in this kind of medium. I love AbFab as much as anyone, and the fact that Jennifer Saunders was the fairy godmother in Shrek 2 made me giggle so much the people I went to see it with were giving me odd looks, but she is still all wit and sarcasm and I can't see her quite working in the comedic NPC role.

Maybe it's just me, though. In my mind, as soon as a character's focus is on wit, then they have to be semi-serious because it's not enough to support a 100% comedic role over the long term (those types just get annoying, male or female).

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One more thing: how about a female wise old mentor/role model/mysterious elderly wizard character in DA?

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Odd that you would ask for this specifically. You may just get your wish.

More: I was actually referring to the "over-the-top" slapstick comedic character. Female characters can be funny and witty, but not in that way, and it's not solely due to caricatured male behavior being represented.

Believe me, I've tried, and it just doesn't come across the same way. Appearance doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. Perhaps it is a limitation of the male audience, I don't know. I have my doubts, however, that a female writer could somehow magically change that just because she'd be female.

But enough on that, that's not the point of this thread, at any rate.

Races, New races!

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Why must races be scientifically, evolutionarily explained? I think we're entering the realm of Science Fiction rather than Fantasy, if everything makes sense on a scientific level... fantasy is meant to be Fantastic. Not make sense. Fill you with awe and wonder.

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That is just my point. I am not saying that everything must be explained with science, but even fantasy has to make sense under its own terms. You establish the rules of the fantasy world and it must then be consistent with those rules.

The question becomes, then, just how fantastical should that world be? The problem with explanations like "one of the gods was bored one day and decided to make a race of cat-people" is that at that point you're really allowing anything at all to exist. Yes, I could probably come up with a much better story than that, but is that the kind of world that people like? All that's required is a story but no actual plausibility?

I, for one, am not a big fan of gods that run around constantly interfering in mortal affairs nor of worlds that nod only to the fantastical and not to the sensical. To me there is little difference between that kind of world rationale and that contained in, say, Wonderland or Oz. If fantasy is not supposed to make sense, then where does the line for the fantastical get drawn? Seriously, I am filled with no awe and wonder when confronted with a setting that (in my mind) is not grounded in at least a little logic and reality... enough, anyway, so that I can stop thinking about it.

Obviously there are people that disagree with that point of view. I just asked because I'm interested in learning if there is a prevailing opinion or not. So far not, though I must admit I am a little surprised at how many people lean towards the Forgotten Realms type of milieu (or is that just a D&D thing?).

You dont have to listen to me

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Keep David Gaider, tie him to a desk with a word processor and feed him through intravenous tubes 24/7 until development is over.

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Do NOT listen to this man.

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Quote: Heck, Gaider might even be getting too much credit, I'm sure there are other writers at Bio that nobody knows about.

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Yep, I'm probably getting too much credit here. I may be a Senior Writer but I'm not the only writer. Dan Whiteside was responsible for Linu and some great parts of SoU such as the kobold caves and Kel Gorath (sp?) and he's working on Dragon Age with me as we speak. Say hullo, Dan.

We've got other writers, too. New ones. Writers with actual writing credits. Everybody may now ooh and aah accordingly.

As for your other comments, I have really excellent responses to them. Which I can't give, yet. But I'm sure you'd have liked most of what I had to say, if I were able to say them.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

2005 Release?
Whoa! It's really too early to speculate on when DA will be finished. Without a publisher, we have all the time in the world, and can take our sweet time before we think about when it will be done. Until that time keep in mind that any date you hear is false. When we do decide when we want the game to ship we'll honestly try to hit that date, but even then conditions can change, and with that the final date. I will say that it will be a while until Dragon Age is on the shelves.

Robin Mayne, Webmaster

Admins - What about Fan Sites???

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...snippet... I was wondering if the devs are giving exclusive content to fansites this early on. My intent is not to get content faster then anyone else, and is not my purpose with a fansite. Regardless of what perks the devs give me/don't give me, I am moving forward with my fansite.

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Hey Khoryace, glad to see you are enthusiastic about running a DA fan site! It will be a bit before we have all the Dragon Age fan site support resources in place, but at some point in the future we plan to release a fan site kit, start up a links registry for DA sites, publish news and forums XML feeds, and release content to fan site operators using the Fan Site Guild, as we have in the past for NWN fan sites.

Tim Smith, Tools Programmer

2005 Release?
We have not said when the game will be released so if someone gives you a release date, they have more information than we do.... and we are developing the game.

Brent Knowles, Co Lead Designer

Dynamic treasure
We will probably (at this point most decisions are tentative) have two different treasure systems. In the single player campaign we will mostly be using placed treasure so that we can create logical treasure distribution. In the multiplayer campaign we will probably be using an approach similiar to the one you suggested.