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

Dear Bioware: DDD or Com-Unity

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I like the approach you seem to have taken (I haven't bought a NON-Bio PC game in over 2 years because of it) but I'm looking for some kind of buisiness logic behind it because I'd like to feel assured it will continue
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I don't think we're ready to discuss exactly how the whole digital distribution thing is going to work. Once we are, I'm certain the business acumen behind it will be self-evident. Or maybe we're just very optimistic.

Screw Romance I want companions.
There will be romances. Lots of them. In fact, every party member will start pulling your hair and passing notes to the other party members about how cute you are when they think you aren't looking. They will refuse to participate in quests unless you stand around playing footsies with them in the local tavern for at least an hour. There will be warm fuzzy feelings gushing all over you as you scream helplessly.

There will also be companions which you can make into friends. They will pat you on the back and tell you war stories. Occasionally they will slap your butt in a friendly manner and an uncomfortable moment will pass before they deny being one of the romantic NPC's. They will have lots and lots of personal quests that they will demand you take time from your busy schedule to deal with, lest they stomp their feet and storm off. Sometimes they will bake you a cake.

We felt this was the best way to go.

Oh, and ummm... there's some other story going on in the midst of all that, but we'll need to hire more writers before we can get to it.

Opinion: Impossible Enemies
The lesson that I think applies to this issue is that sometimes you can get what you want but still not be very happy. All apologies to Cerebus.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Opinion: Impossible Enemies

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In order to ingrain this sort of thing, you really need serious death penalties.
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Without saying or not saying that anything like this is planned for DA (as I don't know it), do you think of the KotOR system - perma death for the group if it is completely defeated?

Opinion: Impossible Enemies

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I can only comment for myself on the subject of RPG party death. For me it all comes down to convenience. If I'm in the middle of a dungeon and a few of my henchmen happen do die (by accident - or dracolich) but my character manages to survive, I don't bother to re-load the game just pull out the rod of resurection and get going again.
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Which would mean that there is something like a rod of ressurection. Again, without talking about DA, what if the world you are playing in features "perma death" with no cheap raise dead, resurrection, etc? Would you think that, in this world, a system like KotOR make sense(party death if all members are dead, otherwise treat them as critically injured/incapacitated as long as one man is still standing) ? Remember, the game still needs to be accessible (i.e. perma death for single party members without ressurection possiblity is not really an option, too much writing is involved to make enough expendable party members to make that worthwhile and you do not want a save and reload orgy with every single combat)

Opinion: Impossible Enemies

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Look at my post more carefully. You don't have a true death penalty when you can save and reload at your leisure.
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Agreed

On the topic of penalties and save / load limiting:

I don't think anything along the lines of limited "save / load" will ever make it into a BioWare game.

Maybe something in form of a "iron man mode" similar to what ToEE had would be possible, but otherwise limiting Save / Load in an RPG is an open invitation to being shot and ripped apart by your community.

Dear Bioware: DDD or Com-Unity

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How much do you think the NWN moding community has contributed to your productivity? Any? Some?
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Three of the designers that were working on HotU were recruited from the NWN community (including me). The Toolset Lead (and some designers) on DA was a member of NWN community. You would find variations of the scripts I made while in the community in HotU (i.e. alchemists barrel). I think most people here don't have a lot of time to look at specific NWN modules out there anymore, but every once in a while the community comes up with a great idea that is widely cheered in the community and that's a good thing to recognize and evaluate. I.e. we added item property merging to the shifter after reading mr_bumpkin suggesting it on the boards, a while before hordes was released. I can't think of the NWN Shifter Class without that trait today. So is the community a benefit? Definitly.

Don't implent so many charge/use items!
Keep in mind that the idea with limited use items is usually to be able to give the player access to an ability that is more powerful than the average abilities the player has available. Limited use makes for more tactical possiblities/choices (do I use it now or spare it for the combat ahead) and more diverse/interesting items, so taking it away means a loss.

Specific request: SetSelectable()
We have something like that in Jade, I'm sure the DA team will evaluate if it is needed and make the right decision

Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?
Carl is correct on this one, the decision regarding HotU was "because we found out that only a tiny fraction of people who play multiplayer ever played the official campaign in multiplayer". A very rough figure of single player to multi player ration would be that around 15-20% percent of people try multiplayer at least once and about 5%-10 play multi player frequently. We have pretty accurate numbers thanks to the NWN master server, but they are not for public discussion

Highier prority: options and ease for fan-developers/DM's OR an awesome Offical Campaign?

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As you can see, after these two upgrades Bioware has abandoned NWN for something new.
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Sorry, I need to correct you. NWN is neither abandoned nor dead. There are plans to support and release content for NWN for quite a while (Digital Distribution).

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How many times has the D&D franchise changed hands? I am sure the people who own it now are not the same people as in the beginning -- in fact, I believe the original company went bankrupt or something very close to that (memory is shaky on this).
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The company who made D&D well known was TSR. Wizards of the Coast took over D&D from them and was bought by Hasbro. The currently sole license holder for all Computer based D&D (specifically forgotten realms) is Atari.

Let's Not forget our Macintosh friends!
Just to put this straight, our Tools department now is *much* larger than it was when NWN has started (by several hundred, if not more percent). Don is still Tools Lead, he's just not working on DA

Parrying

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My concern would really be this: If I lived in a world where this was the case, I would be putting extra armoring on my back.
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I doubt that. It's pretty much like in the real world where you better want to avoid getting into combat with people who attack you from behind. Adding more armor adds weight and makes you inflexible, and given that you want to avoid getting swarmed anyway...

Parrying

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A comment based on the above and somewhat relevant... If you do implement some form of automatic movement during combat you should also have a "Hold your ground" mode that can be activated at any time and will hold the player in one place. Ideally this would also work with good collision detection and would prevent anyone from getting past. This could be used to hold doors or bridges, as well as keeping creatures from bypassing the front ranks to attakc the rear ranks. It should also, most likely, carry a dodge defense penalty. (And there could even be a skill or class which allows one to do this without penalty)
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And, in multiplayer, sounds like an excellent form of griefing ... blocking the only way out of the level

Less DnD and More Dragon Age?

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Althernai,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Here is some clarification.

Regarding evolution of the D&D gaming system:

I think the fact that the D&D rules changed over time is EXACTLY my point -- the gaming system had to evolve because it was not perfect to begin with. Its taken decades and 3 versions (now on 3.0 rules and 3.5 rulebooks -- which I own) to get D&D where it is, and it still could be better.

If Dragon Age, starts from scratch, then we may have to wait several extra years for Dragon Age to iron out the inevitable wrinkles.

But, I think it could work fine if Dragon Age builds something newer on top of D&D experience, as you seem to suggest. I just don't want to see different for different's sake.

Regarding D&D back story:

The D&D back story just makes it much easier to craft consistent storylines and play balance the game. Its easier but not absolutely needed.

Anyhow, the Dragon Age team will do what they want to do.

I am just casting my vote that its a big bite to develop a gaming system as comprehensive as D&D is today. If they start from scratch, I imagine we will be at version 3.0 before everyone is happy -- about year 2010.

By the way, I am not hard over about any of my thoughts. Bioware is the best game developer; so, I anticipate they will do a great job. As I said, "I am just casting my vote" and may get outvoted
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I disagree:

- If you were right, there would be not a single non D&D rpg on the market, yet there are many successful ones that do not use the D&D rules (i.e. Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L, Deus Ex, Ultima, Ultima Underworld, etc).Finally D&D has been tested in all those years on the paper, it doesn't translate well to a enjoyable real time framework on the PC - in fact D&D computer games are as inconsistent as it can get (just compare Dark Alliance against NWN against ToEE against PoR)

- As I explained in other threads on this board, using a license has several drawbacks that really affect gameplay: We could not include horses into NWN, but we also could not give the paladin class a boost otherwise to balance for the fact that a character defining ability is not there, because it is D&D (same for many other classes). If it hadn't been D&D, we could just have invented a new power and use it instead. (Don't ask how BGark Alliance fit's into that, I would like to know myself).

- I disagree that the existing backstory in D&D (guess you are talking about FR) makes it easier to craft stories. It actually makes it harder: Because you can not do permanent changes to the world, it is hard to do a heroic story where the things that your player does really matter. We had to cut several endings for Hordes because they involved killing a major villain in the D&D setting or otherwise changing things (i.e. destroying that Inn in Waterdeep). Also, and that's not a minor thing, there are so many sourcebooks in D&D, so many things said about the background story, it is very hard to be creative without violating something that has already been said. There are several on just how Undermountain is supposed to be, so creating a story there is balancing between not contradicting the sourcebooks and making things interesting.

- Writing the story we want: When using a license we have to write story and gameplay in a way that it is consistent with the image of the license holder and is tailored toward the target audience the license holder wants the game to have.

Also keep in mind that licenses can change the owner and the new owner could have different views on things that the old owner had. (i.e. target audience suddenly drops to an "E" rating)

[Purely Virtual Example]
If the license holder decides thatthings happening in the game (i.e. kissing in romances, sex (even when married , slavery, treachery, etc) are not compatible with the company image, this severly limitesthe options our writers have to to craft the story they want to (and the kind of story our fans expect from us.)

Some licenses these days come with "morality clauses" that state things like "in the end good must always prevail. Evil must be punised and can not win", etc. that can be invoked by the license holder and would prevent things like evil endings impossible.

As stated before, working with licenses has it's benefit and can produce very successful and enjoyable games (see KotOR, HotU), but if you are out to create a game that "tells your story in your world", (which is what we want to do with DA), a license is not a good idea. If we wanted to "tell a story about the Hero of Waterdeep", we would choose D&D, but this time we are out for something else.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Parrying

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So: if such a situation took place (which is perfectly possible), couldn't it be programmed in a way that, in case of simultaneous attacks, one of them, IF IT WERE NOT A MISSED HIT, would inevitably hit the opponent? This, I suppose, would be seemingly realistic and, I daresay, wouldn't prove too hard to be implemented. Such remarks come, I repeat, from one who is not versed in any programming, so please forgive me if they are somewhat simplistic (that is, simplistic beyond the simplification needed in a combatsystem implemented in a CRPG)
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I agree, if you're saying what I think you're saying...

If you're surrounded by foes in an RL situation - you're most likely going to get hit, there's no way around that (unless, as has been mentioned you find a way to break out of the circle).

In a combat system, we might represent this by something like: you can only defend (reaction animation) against foes in your field of vision (front arc, maybe 160 degrees or so). Anyone behind you will hit you (almost guaranteed) and the severity of the hit would probably depend on your armour.

That would solve issues with multiple foes, as at most you might only have three in your front arc - and depending on how we do defense (shield blocking, parrying, evasion) we might be able to work out a way to get defense working versus a small number of foes in a common direction.

However, depending on the interface - if you don't have fine control over your orientation (for example), I could see something like that being rather problematic and "un-fun".

Keep in mind this is all just discussion... but I'm curious, what would people think about a rule like that?

Parrying
This is mostly based on NWN, since that's sort of some common ground most of us have... .

My main concern with something like that is that it might be deemed a bit too 'hardcore'... Additionally, would you get annoyed at having to worry constantly about enemies flanking and getting behind you and the rest of your party?

These sorts of things don't really matter in a lot of other games of this sort, or at least the impact of these sorts of things is rather small.

Ideally, you wouldn't have that sort of metagame thing happening... ie: a world of reinforced back armour . But, it would encourage people (if it were common knowledge) to either look for armour that might give them more protection, or be very careful about being flanked.

Parrying

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Here's my problem with this... If we use NWN as a basis for comparison, the character stands in one spot and parries and dodges, moving a step back or a step forward sometimes. This doesn't change when you're facing multiple enemies either, you can't move around in combat.

In reality, nobody would dodge and parry like this. If everyone behind me will be getting free hits, I wouldn't want the game to keep me stuck to the same spot.

The Mark of Kri was a game that handled combat with multiple foes beautifully, by the way.
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That brings up an excellent question, how do you think movement in combat should be handled? (I'll peek around and see if I can find a copy of the game you mentioned).