Dragon Age Forum News

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(Originally posted by chevalier)

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.

David Gaider, Designer

Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?

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At this point, I think they'd all rather have weekly colonoscopies than work with another license.
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Heh... cute. I think it's been pretty much explained. Someone else's world is someone else's world, and no matter who that is or how cool they might even be, everything we attempt to do is going to have to be approved by them first... from the viewpoint of maintaining their own vision of and plans for their license rather than for the betterment of the computer game we're making. That's what makes it hard, and often frustrating. It's like having a bunch of chefs all in charge of making a single batch of soup, with half of them concerned not with how the soup tastes but what color it ends up being. And while I personally think some books like "Game of Thrones" and "Tigana" have wonderful worlds that would be cool to detail in a game... come on, who wouldn't give their right arm to put their own world up there instead? I bet a lot of you are DM's who have a world or two that you've created tucked away somewhere. How much better do you know that world, and how much does that improve how you tell stories in it? A lot, I'd expect.

New wallpaper...
I think this is just concept work for the character used in the E3 demo (who is a spellcaster, at least, and not wearing any armor). The barbarian man will be along soon, too, is my guess, just to make things equal. And I don't think this is meant to be representative of Dragon Age's eventual style.

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Don't you ever saw the pattern of Bioware's fantasy games since ToB? Melissan prominent feature was breasts. Aribeth's prominent feature was breasts. Valsharess' prominent feature was breasts. Can you see the pattern here or are you too freaking blind by your fanboism and modship?
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Mmm... not that I don't admit we might end up with a scantily-clad female of some variety somewhere in the game, but it won't be THIS scantily-clad female. This was a generic concept for the demo. The actual Dragon Age world is much colder than the one in the demo appears to be. I would expect any bikinis we have to at least be fur-lined.

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It shows me that we are going to get more of the same. Oh well.
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But you already knew that. I'm not sure there is anything we could show you that wouldn't confirm your suspicion that your overly-jaded palette wasn't about to be satisfied. I mean... we could suddenly show a giant space-ship firing lasers and disintegrating paladins left and right! "...oh, this again? Technology in a fantasy setting has been done to death. This doesn't excite me at all. Can't you do something new?" or, better yet, giant dinosaurs wearing armor and being ridden by angry elven bowmen! "...what is this? You should have called it Jurassic Age. (sniff!) I am unimpressed." We could even suddenly announce that the entire genre of the game has been switched to futuristic cyberpunk mixed with space exploration! "...I suppose this is better but I can't see Bioware doing a good job of it. Look how big the breasts are on the woman in that flight suit. I bet she's on the cover. How ugly I find her. (sniff!) Oh, look, laser guns. How original. I am SO disappointed in you, Bioware." So forgive me when I say that I hope you find our fantasy setting so boringly generic and full of ugly, big-breasted women that your jaded palette implodes and sucks your head into some weird fourth dimension where, eventually, chances are good you might find something new to appreciate. Ahem.

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If breast size ends up being customizable, how does Bioware see the possibility of allowing larger floatation devices to allow a bonus in water floating? Truly, i'm interested in the roleplaying possibilities.
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Or, better yet, levitation!

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(Aside - I always wanted to know just which of the Firefly developers was a Traveler player/GM because I never saw a show so obviously based on a PnP RPG).
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I don't know about that. I didn't see any Vargr or Aslan. Unless you mean a lone ship travelling planet to planet is specific to Traveler.

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I think he was refereing to the style it was presented and not actual content, David. I wouldn't mind seeing a Firefly styled CRPG. *hint hint*
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He said "obviously". There are some similarities, perhaps, but not enough to point at Firefly and say that it is obviously based on Traveler. There was a big Traveler campaign book that had a similar theme (involving a crew aboard an old rustbucket ship called the March Harrier and having adventures while traveling from planet to planet) but I don't think that's such a specific theme that you could claim one was based on the other. A Firefly CRPG would be great. Actually, so would a Traveler CRPG.

New wallpaper...

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I got some good replies of of David, thats for sure. I never get tired of these forums.
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Yes. You tricked us all. Wow, are you every tricky. And here we all thought you were overly-jaded and intractable. Silly ol' us.

Intro Movie

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I'd like to see an intro movie that deals with DA's primary focus: Unlimited adventures.
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That's DA's focus? Really??

Is Dragon Age the product of one of the developers homebrew D&D campaigns?
Parts of the world are.

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Are you allowed to say which developer or developers?
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There's bits and pieces from several, I'd think. I know there's a few chunks of my homebrew in there. Anyone in this position would do the same, I think.

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Plus it saves you having to come up with all new ideas that aren't nessecarily better. It also saves a bit of thinking things through.
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I'm... trying to decide if this is meant in a good way or not... hmmmm...

Gnome!
This thread reminds me of my Aunt Milly. She used to come home to Uncle Hebert every night and, taking off her bloody gauntlets (she worked in a slaughterhouse), would say the same thing to him every day.
"I want a pony," she'd say.
And Uncle Hebert would always say the same thing in response.
"You can't have a pony," he'd say.
And sometimes, if Aunt Milly were feeling especially cantankerous (bashing in the heads of midget rabbits can do that to a woman), this would lead to an argument where Uncle Hebert would get very upset. Where would we keep the pony? How would we feed the pony? Why not get a dog? But Aunt Milly was always insistent and she would storm off and Uncle Hebert would have to cook his own dinner. Which was not especially a good thing as Uncle Hebert only cooked pasta and would make a terrible mess in the kitchen which Aunt Milly would just have to clean up afterwards, poor woman. This was during the soap shortage of '53, you understand, where women had to clean the floor with hard brushes and the birth rate dropped to a quarter of what it was.
Until one day Aunt Milly decided that, since she had slaughtered all those poor rabbits, she deserved to have something she wanted and she went out and bought herself a pony. Leading it through the front door of her home, she proudly showed it to Uncle Hebert.
"I got myself a pony," she said.
"Urrrrk!" he said.
He was, you see, allergic to horses and he died right there on the spot. And so Aunt Millie took his body and secretly put it in the big furnace where they got rid of the midget bunny bones. And she lived happily for a while and even married a nice, rich gnome. But then the authorities found her out and even though she claimed that Uncle Hebert never actually told her he was allergic to horses, she still got the chair. Which made us sad. Especially when Uncle Fritz insisted we bury her beside the damn pony, which incidentally starved to death because everyone forgot she kept it in the basement. Why she kept it in the basement we're not sure, but keep in mind this is a woman who slaughtered bunnies for a living.
I suppose the moral of this story is "buy what you want, because you might just get to marry a rich gnome". And that's all I have to say on the subject.

Tom Ohle, Public Relations

New wallpaper...
concept art. for the E3 demo. made into a wallpaper.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

A silly (or perhaps brilliant) suggestion: Multiplayer licensing

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*hugs* Georg, Oh you know you love us social server people with our kinky leathers, and thanks for the whips. There's an idea for DA, some way for module authors and server admins to specify a 'adult' flag, could be anything from grose violence, sexual content or other stuff, so that if a parent has used the parental lock there children won't be able to connect to such servers, or load up such modules without editing them in the toolset.
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Take notes Brenon

More: If something like this was to happen, the idea would probably more be along the line of "BioWare contracts a module maker or team in the community to create content for the game that would be available through a BioWare content distribution system", as this would guarantee quality content while offering legal safety to all involved parties.

As for runnning PW servers and charging players to play on them - forget about it, DA is not a PW toolkit and if we would collect cash from people who want to run their own PW servers, we would have to make it a supported feature, and that's not going to happen (plus another dozend of reasons already listed in this thread). As for NWN, people bought the game and payed a fixed cost and it doesn't mention any hidden costs attached with multiplayer.

If we would allow random server operators to charge for their worlds, this would not only create inconsistency in multiplayer, most likely confusing our regular customers, it would also cast a very bad light on us, make us vulnerable to lawsuits and would inflict serious conflicts on the community:

PW x is using script XXX from scripter k as well as new creature models from artist v and all those people would like to get a share of the pie as they contributed to the world and released their work unter the premise that it is not commercially exploited.

Finally creature model m that was used in agreement with artist w used textures ripped out of commercial product n and since the server operator was making money out of his server, company nn which owns product n sues him and possibly BioWare for damages.

I am sure that people like the DLA or CODI team who provide commercial level quality models, tilesets and artwork would have serious objections if they saw a random server charging money to play that was using their work they created for free over so many month. The resulting conflicts, finger pointing and fights in the community would be a very bad thing(tm).

We have no intention of inflicting such conflict our community to allow a few people who want the game to be more than just a hobby to do so. Yes, it would be nice to get a return different from "fun" for your hobby, but it's not going to happen, not this way.

I'm sure a system could be implemented that would allow content and module creators to get benefits for creating high quality content that is used by a lot of people and there are technical and legal solutions to many of the problems listed above, but whatever happens in the future, you can be sure that we would not go with anything that would cause serious damage to our community. If we were to do something like a "community marketplace", it would be balanced in a way that the core community would not suffer from this.

We are watching the market and we will evalute things like a "engine license light" if we see a merit in it at some point in the future.

Dragon Age Wallpaper!
Don't worry, I'm sure the fitting male wallpaper is only a matter of time, so everyone can feel happy again.

Multiplayer campaign? Why would it be worth the zots?

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I look at David's comments in the light of what Rob said a while ago.
Essentially - that some of the flaws of NWN were caused by splitting the attentions of the design team onto BOTH trying to make a fully featured toolkit AND making a great Game. Thus that he thinks that the best approach might be to SPLIT these two focuses into two different teams, allowing the main design team to focus on making a great game (hence David's comment on the focus NOT being the mod community) while the tools team and the live team focus on making a great set of tools for us to use to make new adventures. In short - The Dragon Age design team has as its focus great SP and MP games. There will also be a toolkit and it will hopefully be at least as good as NWNs toolkit and likely better. But if sacrifices have to be made in one area or the other, that area will most likely be made in the toolkit with later patches being left to improve our ability to mod, leaving the primary focus being a great game. But, of course, that is merely my interpretation of comments made by many people, most of whom are not even on the DA team. Carl
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Keep in mind that Bioware's tools department is now about 2000% larger than it was when NWN was started and that it's not the first toolset we are rolling out, there have been toolsets for NWN, KotOR(internal) and Jade(internal) in the meantime. I can't tell how the DA toolset will end up (feature wise) or what's planned for it, but keep in mind that an experienced team is usually able to create things lots faster the second, third, or fourth time around.

Why reinvent the wheel, world-wise?

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a new setting is simply an opportunity to be creative is all. lest anyone forget, both Diablo and Dungeon Siege were new settings...
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very true. Some game devs would be helped by using a crutch of a more well defined world to add depth. I think Bioware has shown enough potential for world creating creativity in previous games that they won't fail to create something new and exciting here.
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I'm sure from blizzards perspective the diablo setting was a success. A series of books, D&D RPG product spinoffs, etc. And I'm sure they would be very upset if they had to ask and wait for approval each time the want to things in order to rebalance the game...

I trust DA will improve on the horrible camera in NWN!
I wouldn't call the perspective horrible, NWN was always supposed to be played from an isometric perspective which was the perspective of the time the game was planned/created. Today, 3D engines arefar more powerful and people really want to have a closer look at their characters, so there is a trend away from the isometric perspective, and given the cost to create those motion captured normal mapped high texture quality models you see in games today, developers are more than happy to follow that trend and make sure you get a close look at those characters. I'm not sure what's planned for Dragon age, but the camera options will most likely be based on what's found to be most functional and fun for gameplay.

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Georg: Yeah the NWN camera is fine if you use it in the original mode, where it can't go below 45 degrees (or something) to the vetical and therefore walls can hardly every get in the way. But with the HotU option to get close to the action, the in-ability to see through walls to get perspective on the character was a real problem. In that sense the chase cam mode is a kind of "hack". I'd expect DA to have a totally new engine, and I've seen it mentioned that it won't be tile set based, so I'm expecting that it will work well. Never tried CoH, but glad to hear there are other games showing it can be done!
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Oh yes, that camera in hordes was self defense The increasing amount of customer support complaints about being unable to patch after applying a certain third party camera hack to the game was starting to get a real problem - plus we designers loved the camera angles for the cutscenes. But I agree, especially with the old non HotU tileset, the HotU camera was not the optimal solution.

More: The CoH camera is pretty good, through in those tight Circle of Thorns cave missions it is getting to its limits, I usually end up pretty disoriented.

What Kind of World is Dragon Age?
A very dark and very evil place ... wait, I've just read that somewhere else...

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Evil? In a Bioware game? What next, cats and dogs living together?
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Is Evil as in "let's put out a real time game system and call it turn based so we can watch them suffer in agony for a couple of more years?" better?

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I don't think there was a need to take a rather simple jibe so seriously, was there?
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Oh, I forgot the smiley, people seem to expect those these days

Any Idea of the system requirement (Specially W98SE)?
It's far to early to even think about system requirements for Dragon Age. However I doubt that many gamers will still be using Win98 by the time the game is out.

More: Apart from drivers (supporting Win98 with it's ancient memory and resource management and file system is a nightmare) I think a lot will depend on DirectX (don't try to read this as "they are not using OpenGL", DirectX is more than a graphics API and I can't tell what graphics API the new engine will use) and other "core products" being available. The trend seems to be sacrificing backward compatibility for security and from that point of view, Win9X looks pretty doomed. Sure, it will be around for a couple more years, but there will be very strong incentives to upgrade.

Multiplayer campaign? Why would it be worth the zots?

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Two thousand percent more? Either you now have 20 people where there was one before, or all the free soda and pizza has had an effect on that poor, gargantuan person. In all seriousness, it is cool that there's a team of dedicated people working on toolset issues. I suspect we'll see things much more flexible and streamlined. Doing things for the forth time does make things go much faster and smoother. I'm personally hoping for more of the "guts" of the game engine exposed, ready for the Bioware designers, artists, and community to fiddle around with things.
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Our tools department is supporting all current projects and lot more tools than just the "toolset", so don't get the impression that there is now a large horde of tools monkeys banging away on the DA toolset under master monkey tim's watchful eyes until it's released

New wallpaper...

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I just want a bit of realism. I just can't see a scantily clad woman going dungeon delving.
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It's not that you couldn't put a nice robe on your female wizard in HotU, right? And if you don't like the face, thank god there were no open faced helmets in NWN

Tim Smith, Tools Programmer

As a builder, 3 things that scare me about Dragon Age
One word of caution guys. To my knowledge, nobody has publicly discussed what will be made available for end user level art tools. What has been discussed by BioWare people has been possible implementations and not what will be in the game. It is very possible that what has been mentioned by BioWare people will be exactly what will be in the game. But many decisions are to be made and only a few people are even remotely up to date as to the current directions being discussed. If you don't hear it from Scott G's, Darcey P's or my mouth, I wouldn't bank on it being what will be delivered in the game. I just don't want our open discussions, public suppositions and hearsay to elevate to the level of BioWare made promises. It only ends up disappointing you guys and frustrating us when we start to receive the barrage of rants about missing features that we never promised.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

A silly (or perhaps brilliant) suggestion: Multiplayer licensing

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Take notes Brenon
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My whiteboard is full already, but I'm sure I can squeeze some more on there somewhere... or maybe get a new whiteboard... *shoots a significant look at sys-admin*

Please, I beg you...

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Unfortunately, DA looks like it will face the same problems. The graphics just look like a higher poly count version of NWN! It looks all right now, just imagine how bad it will look after the 5 years it will probably take them to make this game.
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Oh for sure... because the concept demo we showed was the final engine with final art. Heck, we're almost done! The time we have scheduled from now until release is really just padding on the schedule... (/sarcasm) Drawing conclusions based on a demo at this early stage is a very bad idea. 'Cuz more than likely, you'll be wrong. Just a note for anyone who did not realize that the first paragraph of this post was actually sarcasm in action(tm)... please click here

Multiplayer campaign? Why would it be worth the zots?
Oh boy... you might be reading a bit too much into what David was saying... We are making a game too, after all... * There will be a toolset. You will be able to make your own adventures. * There will be support for custom content. * You will be able to host your own games. The theme of Dragon Age, you can see for yourself on the games page here. Or, to quote:

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Dragon Age(tm) is a blockbuster fantasy role-playing game set in a world created and owned by BioWare. Dragon Age will offer a deep, party-based, roleplaying experience in both single-player and multi-player game modes. Utilizing a brand new game engine, Dragon Age will feature stunning visuals with a tantalizing blend of the exploration and combat of Baldur's Gate(tm), the multi-player gameplay and community support of Neverwinter Nights(tm), and a cinematic gameplay experience from BioWare, the developer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic(tm). Explore vast landscapes, engage in massive battles, and experience the sights, sounds, and culture of the heroic new world of Dragon Age.
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Key Dragon Age Features:

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* Cinematic story-driven single-player campaign * Separate campaign designed specifically for a multi-player experience * Mod tools for great custom content * Set in a new fantasy world created by BioWare for fans of its past titles * Participate in massive battles * Party-based gameplay for outstanding tactical combat and immersive character interaction
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