chevalier
Thu, 18th May '06, 6:51pm
Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from the Dragon Age Official Forum (http://forums.bioware.com/viewforum.html?forum=84). 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.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">David Gaider, Lead Writer</font>
NPCs (and romance) part 3 (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480455&forum=84&sp=60)
We were discussing this just the other day, how it seemed like female PC's had to work to convince a male NPC to go to bed with them... when it seems like only the reverse would normally be true.
Should we change that? Have some man-*** party member that a female PC can snap her fingers to beckon to follow her to her tent? I know the answer will probably be "more options = better", but it strikes me as a bit odd -- or maybe it only seems that way because I have a madonna complex about female PC's, I dunno.
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<hr />Considering there's a veritable mountain of posts discussing this topic--far more than any other--I'd say the cost/worth ratio would stack up quite nicely for a large number of diverse romances.<hr />
Everyone wants them. Few agree on what should be in them, but no one's come along and said "Ehh... let's not see these."
Let's remember that this "veritable mountain" of posts comes from a number of posters that are very passionate about this topic and post about it a great deal. And the people who don't care about the topic NEVER come along and post about it -- ever -- so saying that "everyone" wants romances is a huge stretch.
I will agree that the romances are popular for those players who like them, indeed. But saying that the interest from those players is enough to make it worth investing even more time even though it's questionable whether that would provide anything other than some additional replayability to those very same players (and not attract new ones to the feature)? I'm not so sure that follows.
<hr />Well, I do have to say that David's 90/10 split stance is starting to get a little old. Especially when that study someone posted recently said in 2005 it was more like 70/30.<hr />
The big influx of female gamers has been in online games, actually... MMORPG's primarily, though I understand some of those big online puzzle sites actually have a majority of female players. Stats for our single-player games still hold, whether you think it's "getting old" or not.
I would agree that since BG2's time, though, the trend is for more women to get into gaming period.
<hr />No mention there either that I saw. On the chance D.G. is reading this, can you comment on any of it?<hr />
What's "it"? I haven't been reading the thread.
Is this about us basing the number of female PC romances we do based on how many female players we have? Well obviously we don't... if we did we probably wouldn't have any, now, would we? It does influence how much effort we can justify putting into such things, though.
If that wasn't "it", then I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific.
This world's name? (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=480432&forum=84&sp=30)
They call it "the world" ...though the word "planet" certainly exists, as it did even back as far as Ancient Greece in our history.
We also called it Earth before it was known to be a planet and a sphere. So I don't see the issue. There certainly aren't discussions between peasants on astronomical details, if that's what you're imagining.
We also called it Earth before it was known to be a planet and a sphere. So I don't see the issue. There certainly aren't discussions between peasants on astronomical details, if that's what you're imagining.
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I don't know. This question makes me scratch my head. Science fiction and fantasy are pretty closely joined, but even so I'm not sure where you get the impression that there might be science fiction elements in Dragon Age. Even if they did know that their world was a spherical planet, it's no doubt the kind of knowledge that would be restricted to texts and learned men.
Are you asking if there's going to be things like guns and chemistry and aliens? Umm... no... but then again, I'm not sure why you thought there might be. *shrug*
On randomness and levels (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=477985&forum=84&sp=75)
<hr />Really? I've never met someone who played Fallout and didn't dig it.<hr />
It was all right. It came after a long RPG rut (just as Baldur's Gate did) so was really a breath of fresh air at the time. It was also obviously the next big step, and its focus on providing different paths in both dialogue and the game in general was very keen.
But it also had a LOT of issues, I thought, which made enjoying it quite difficult (though enjoy it I did).
It's one of those games which has been built up by nostalgia, I think, to the point that the game that is often remembered these days never really existed. People tend to forget the bad parts, after all, and likewise forget that many of those good parts existed because those bad parts were sacrificed in the first place.
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<hr />So when people worship a Bioware title it is because that title truly deserves the praise, but when praise is put upon a title by another company we should expect the "you only think that because of nostalgia" line?<hr />
Err... no, I've actually said the same thing about BG and BG2.
Don't get me wrong, they were excellent games and can be great fun to play even today, and that includes games like Fallout (which I just played recently, myself). What I take issue with is when people tout the games as being bigger and better than they even were when they were released because their memory of the game is so positive (and I see it happen often). Anything negative gets forgotten, especially anything negative that might have been a trade-off which made some of those positive things so stellar.
I don't mean to diminish the accomplishments those games made, however, nor suggest that you didn't enjoy it as much as you say you did. I am simply questioning the objectivity of some people who trot out those games for comparison purposes.
Dragon Age, Mass Effect - graphics (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480761&forum=84&sp=15)
<hr />Will something similar to the new conversation system in ME be used in DA?<hr />
Nope. Also no plans currently for any VO on the part of the PC.
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<hr />I take it that you are designing DA to be less cinematic and more old school?<hr />
Less cinematic than Mass Effect or, say, a movie... sure. Does that make it old school?
What type of NPC would you like to see? Part: The nth (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480673&forum=84&sp=90)
<hr />I don't know... I'm not about to start roleplaying stats. Oh, should I write this line or use this word? I don't know if Minsc's Intelligence stat is high enough? Pfft.<hr />
Really, if someone came up and suggested that to me, they would receive an icy glare and that would be the end of it. I'm sorry my abilities are so limited, but I have a hard enough time just making a character interesting to begin with without having to worry about whether Johnny in Alabama thinks that Imoen's personality accurately reflects her Wisdom score.
But, then, I'm a hater, so this sort of response is expected from me.
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<hr />Of course they follow the character concept. Its not like Minsc ever started talking about quantom theory or anything. DG just said he wasn't about to start worrying whether an 11 wisdom is high enough for such and such word or sentence.
Would any writer do this? Its too subjective. Wow that was an insightful bit of dialogue. Too insightful for an 11 wisdom? Insightful enough for 12 wisdom? It would be silly.
Its like I keep trying to say. You can't boil people down to three vague and extremely broad traits like int, wis, and cha. They are metagame information only created for game balance. No one should let those stats determine the personality of the character. Unless you want every single wise person to be a cleric. Every single charismatic person is a sorceror or bard. Blah blah. Boring.<hr />
That is exactly where I am coming from, Shdy.
Of course we have a concept of the character and the stats spring from that. But is it wrong for a character with a low Int to sometimes show a brief flash of insight? Or for a high Wis character to sometimes act foolishly? We are capable of similar deviations in character in real life, after all. I mean, do you seriously want to have a conversation about how one's wisdom can be quantified?
Trying to reverse engineer personality out of numerical statistics or vice versa is the path to madness -- you don't want the two sides to be completely divorced, obviously, but neither can you use it as more than a general guideline.
<hr />I am beginning to expect it, yes.<hr />
Well, did you think I wouldn't have an opinion? I was joking, of course -- some folks like to think that just because I don't agree with everything they say that I am thus not open to any sort of input or argument.
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<hr />I said let's see a smart NPC this time who's got it both ways. Whatever Imoen's concept was, it didn't seem very appropriate for her to have a 17 int. It was only from that stat that her development into a dual class to mage followed and her personality was already set.<hr />
Fair enough. Though I think someone mentioned that smart people aren't necessarily always wise, and my vision of Imoen had her as a quick and cunning thinker but not exactly the most mature person around.
Or maybe you mean smart in what I think of as being high in Wisdom... in which case I'd have to say that can be tough to represent. There's a thin line between advice and lecturing, and the problem with the former is that such advice often needs to be context sensitive.
I suppose an "ask so-and-so for advice" feature could be built into the dialogue system (I think this may have been mentioned earlier, too) and that's certainly a valid idea... though such a feature might threaten to make smarter characters almost too useful, perhaps. You'd need the dumber ones to have something extra, probably, in order to make up for the fact that they never give good advice.
----
I should point out, as well, that the initial concept and character sheet of characters in both the BG2 series and NWN never stayed the same right until release. Either side could be tweaked at any given time due to some role in the story that is needed or some gameplay element that came up. I remember in BG2 numerous characters receiving stat boosts simply to make them more useful -- that didn't take into account their personality very much and, considering it was a gameplay consideration, it really couldn't. You don't always have control over that sort of thing.
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Perhaps it was an assumption on my part, but logic would dictate that we've at least made preliminary decisions on every aspect of the game, no? These things get revisited and reevaluated from time to time throughout development, but even the very first design documents would have at least touched on every facet. They aren't left to a vacuum until it comes time to implement.
There's a big gulf between making a decision on a feature and putting the final nail in it, but that might definitely be more obvious to me than you. If I came across as patronizing, I apologize... it wasn't my intent.
NPCs/romances part 4 (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481427&forum=84&sp=0)
<hr />Perhaps the best means of doing this is providing multiple romances so there is a greater chance of each player finding that story.<hr />
A greater chance, perhaps, but I still think it is impossible to please everyone when it comes to romances. There's nothing that's so subjective. I know that the "more options = good" attitude dominates on the forums, but considering the sheer amount of work that must go into a single romance plot (well, a good one anyhow) I'd rather not try to cover all the bases... I'd much rather write one solid romance and hope it strikes a chord.
If it doesn't, there's plenty of other things for a player to latch onto, including in DA's case the more friendship-oriented plots (which, unlike having all sorts of extra romances, does provide more content for not only the romance-interested players but the ones who aren't interested in romances at all).
LdyShayna is correct when she points out that I've said it's most likely there will only be one romance per gender. There might possibly be more, but at this point I would almost rather put in different kinds of relationships as to trying to put in every twist on a romance I can think of. The game is not about romance, after all... which is a hard point to remember in these sorts of threads, where this one element of the game gets focused on and magnified out of proportion.
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<hr />What if, instead of a love interest that joins the party, you have someone that stays behind at the point of origin.<hr />
Well, let me put forward two names with regards to that idea: Aribeth and Aarin Gend.
Now... before anyone leaps on that, I would like to say that I think it's possible to implement that kind of romance better than we did in NWN, with the NPC's not being in the party.
You would, however, need a lot more active involvement with said NPC's. Part of the reason the party romance works is that you're essentially spending a lot of time in that NPC's company and it's easy to imagine that those dialogues aren't the totality of your relationship. When an NPC is just someone you go and see every once in a while and talk to, that illusion isn't quite so easy to build. I know I approached Aribeth and Aarin Gend (I wrote their Chapter 2 dialogues) with the idea that writing a romance for NPC's who weren't in the party was a novel approach... but I don't think it really worked very well, and not for lack of dialogue either -- both Aribeth and Aarin Gend's dialogue files were huge. Imagine if either of them had actually traveled with you at some point: fighting beside each other might have established some kind of bond beyond the fact that they fell in love with you out of sheer gratitude for your willingness to listen to their personal history.
I know it's easy to imagine a romance with a character that you return to periodically as in, say, a novel... but implementing it in a game proved to be much more problematic.
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<hr />Why are there 4 parts to this discussion when the decision's already been made like this? That's what confuses me.<hr />
We've made decisions on almost every aspect of the game already by this point. Did you assume we hadn't, that we were waiting on advice from the forum before doing anything? Decisions are rarely final, and this is a place where you can offer a persuasive argument on a topic if you like... belive it or not, we can be persuaded.
If I wasn't keeping up with the thread myself, it's because I don't have the time to go through every thread personally. I am, however, not the only writer (though I am the one that talks the most).
<hr />To DG: Well, I can say that my solution to the "can't please everyone" wouldn't necessarily be "just please myself" when making a game that everyone is going to play... but you'd be the head writer.<hr />
Well if it's obvious that there is no pleasing everyone, what would be your solution? If I had unlimited time and resources, sure, I would definitely say let's do lots of romances. And while we may indeed end up doing more than one romance per gender, any decision like that has its cost -- and in that case it would mean less focus on the friendships with other NPC's, and I'm not yet convinced that's wise (and the forum solution would no doubt be "you must do both!" is, quite frankly, not a solution).
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<hr />Still, as the rapid build-up of romance threads in the last few weeks shows, there are a number of posters who are quite enthusiastic about romances. When enthusiasm runs into reality, there's often a bit of disappointment. I don't think anyone's saying they understand the logistics involved better than you do and therefore have a better solution. People vent; they have to groan, ***, whine, or grumble least a buildup of emotion cause their head to explode.
As you're often the bearer of bad news, you get a disproportionate about of said venting aimed at you. However, no one really blames you for not being able to pull zots from thin air.<hr />
Oh, I get it, and believe me: I encourage enthusiasm. When I went over to the Ladies of Neverwinter board for ideas on how to improve the male romance, the enthusiasm of the posters there for romances in general was quite infectious. As always, however, I will try to temper enthusiasm with reality... honestly, if I wasn't listening and trying to get something useful out of these conversations, I really wouldn't bother.
Now... I'm off to batten down the hatches at Fort Gaider. Excuse me.
<hr />On the other hand, I can see that there are people out there who would like gay romances, and the common solution--"make the romance options bisexual!"--is in my opinion quite lame.<hr />
I would agree, and I've said it before. I won't just put in a gender switch where the character is gay or straight depending on who's asking. If a character is to be bisexual, then he/she should be bisexual in all cases.
That should not translate into us discarding a potential gay romance out of hand, however. If anything, our romances in KotOR and Jade Empire should prove that we're not afraid of the subject matter. If it doesn't happen, it's because the target audience is small and the work involved is large -- the romances in DA are not trivial in size at all, and if a gay romance would be added it would get equal treatment or not be there at all.
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Yep. Putting something under a microscope makes it appear larger than it really is. It's normal, and I was just reminding folks, that's all. It's easy to lose sight of that in a long thread, especially when you're a very passionate proponent of it.
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<hr />Call me rude, but really David... is it that hard to write 3 to 5 romances in 2 to 3 years? People write doctoral theses in that long or shorter you know.<hr />
Err... remember that part where I said that putting a single thing under a microscope made it seem much larger than it actually is?
If I spent all my time writing party member dialogue (never mind actual romances), then sure... I could do a multitude of romances. A plethora, even.
There is, however, much more writing than party member dialogue and books. There is the rest of the game. All those pesky plots and dialogues with people outside your party that make up maybe 80% or more of the total writing.
I mean, I personally have written a couple of novels worth for Dragon Age already by this point -- and very little of that writing to date has been for party members. So, please, let's keep this in perspective.
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<hr />So, in other words, the difference between a single romance per gender and a plethora of romances is one single writer added to the team?
Sounds like it might be worth consider - it'd help DA stand out more from the competetion, and sell more copies to pay that extra writer's wages..
Or am I oversimplifying the issue here?<hr />
I'm afraid so.
Hiring more people is not a very realistic solution to a limitation on resources. After all -- why stop at one? Why not hire two? Why not five? If we don't have horses, let's hire more programmers and artists and put them solely on that problem -- done. We don't have a z-axis? Let's hire a bunch of programmers -- done. Not enough romances to suit? Let's hire more writers -- done.
See where I'm going? Obviously if our writing team was larger, we could get more written -- but we base the scope of the game on the size of the team we believe we can maintain and not vice versa.
And that's even ignoring the fact that getting additional resources from the project would require some kind of justification behind it. Would this lead to more sales? There are RPG's out there with no companions and/or romances which sell just fine. Would it increase quality? Perhaps -- it adds to replayability to have more romances, certainly, but where do you draw the line? Bioware is not a bottomless money pit, after all, and at some point a game must be profitable.
I know these are not your concerns, necessarily, but I'm simply pointing out that solutions to such things are not so easy to come by.
Plans for the Phoenix? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=479615&forum=84&sp=45)
I read that as you having an affinity for High Fantasy -- a fantasy world where magic is powerful and commonplace and with a large amount of the fantastical.
Not to be a wet blanket, for Dragon Age certainly does have some High Fantasy elements, but overall I would say our world leans much more towards Dark Fantasy -- the world is a bit more grounded and magic, while powerful, is relatively rare. Flying cities and floating castles would be very much out of place.
<a href="http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481590&forum=84" target="_blank">Personality and the Protagonist
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I'd have to agree with Melirinda. The difference with Beyond Good & Evil -- while an excellent game -- is that is was also an adventure game with a pre-defined main character that you stepped in to play. You did not determine her personality, you simply played her role in the story.
It does make it more difficult for us when we can't define the protaganist very much -- we tend to do it a little ("you're a Bhaalspawn!") just to have some kind of hook that we can latch onto, plot-wise, but doing more than that would impede on an important aspect of roleplaying, I think, which is being able to define your own persona.
There might be other ways that the protaganist could be given more personality without stepping on the toes of the player, however, I'm not sure.
Animal Companions in Dragon Age (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481559&forum=84&sp=15)
Ooookay.
Somebody wants animal companions. Summoned ones, even, a la Guenhwyvar. Got it.
I think what everyone was referring to was a comment in response to someone who was demanding familiars for their wizards. I told him that wizards in DA didn't have familiars. He stamped his feet and said something akin to "that is the death of roleplaying!" as well.
As far as animal companions go, all I remarked on that earlier was that if we had one I'd prefer to do it as a full companion with a personality and so forth -- more like a Dogmeat character than as a summoned (or, sure, conjured -- huge difference there) meat shield.
If we don't have such a thing in DA, I'm not certain it would be the death of roleplaying -- but we'll definitely take it under advisement.
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<hr />An animal companion with a full personality? If that was implemented, then will that companion make up an official member of your party. Like if the maximum party size is 4, will me and my animal companion count as 2 actual party members or only 1?<hr />
I don't know. Speaking hypothetically, if it did assume a party slot, then it had better be able to act on a similar scale as one of those party members it replaced, and level up and so forth in a similar fashion.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Scott Meadows, Programmer</font>
Easy Q for developers.. will DA have graphics at least as good as Mass Effect? (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=480786&forum=84&sp=0)
Healing will work by youing having to rest in your bed, assuming you have a bed, a couch may work too; and yes time will pass in this case.
Oh and by the way, DA Graphics look amazing right now. But then again I am a little biased.
You might want to check out this thread as well...
Click Here (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=480761&forum=84&sp=0)
[ May 18, 2006, 19:02: Message edited by: chevalier ]
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">David Gaider, Lead Writer</font>
NPCs (and romance) part 3 (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480455&forum=84&sp=60)
We were discussing this just the other day, how it seemed like female PC's had to work to convince a male NPC to go to bed with them... when it seems like only the reverse would normally be true.
Should we change that? Have some man-*** party member that a female PC can snap her fingers to beckon to follow her to her tent? I know the answer will probably be "more options = better", but it strikes me as a bit odd -- or maybe it only seems that way because I have a madonna complex about female PC's, I dunno.
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<hr />Considering there's a veritable mountain of posts discussing this topic--far more than any other--I'd say the cost/worth ratio would stack up quite nicely for a large number of diverse romances.<hr />
Everyone wants them. Few agree on what should be in them, but no one's come along and said "Ehh... let's not see these."
Let's remember that this "veritable mountain" of posts comes from a number of posters that are very passionate about this topic and post about it a great deal. And the people who don't care about the topic NEVER come along and post about it -- ever -- so saying that "everyone" wants romances is a huge stretch.
I will agree that the romances are popular for those players who like them, indeed. But saying that the interest from those players is enough to make it worth investing even more time even though it's questionable whether that would provide anything other than some additional replayability to those very same players (and not attract new ones to the feature)? I'm not so sure that follows.
<hr />Well, I do have to say that David's 90/10 split stance is starting to get a little old. Especially when that study someone posted recently said in 2005 it was more like 70/30.<hr />
The big influx of female gamers has been in online games, actually... MMORPG's primarily, though I understand some of those big online puzzle sites actually have a majority of female players. Stats for our single-player games still hold, whether you think it's "getting old" or not.
I would agree that since BG2's time, though, the trend is for more women to get into gaming period.
<hr />No mention there either that I saw. On the chance D.G. is reading this, can you comment on any of it?<hr />
What's "it"? I haven't been reading the thread.
Is this about us basing the number of female PC romances we do based on how many female players we have? Well obviously we don't... if we did we probably wouldn't have any, now, would we? It does influence how much effort we can justify putting into such things, though.
If that wasn't "it", then I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific.
This world's name? (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=480432&forum=84&sp=30)
They call it "the world" ...though the word "planet" certainly exists, as it did even back as far as Ancient Greece in our history.
We also called it Earth before it was known to be a planet and a sphere. So I don't see the issue. There certainly aren't discussions between peasants on astronomical details, if that's what you're imagining.
We also called it Earth before it was known to be a planet and a sphere. So I don't see the issue. There certainly aren't discussions between peasants on astronomical details, if that's what you're imagining.
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I don't know. This question makes me scratch my head. Science fiction and fantasy are pretty closely joined, but even so I'm not sure where you get the impression that there might be science fiction elements in Dragon Age. Even if they did know that their world was a spherical planet, it's no doubt the kind of knowledge that would be restricted to texts and learned men.
Are you asking if there's going to be things like guns and chemistry and aliens? Umm... no... but then again, I'm not sure why you thought there might be. *shrug*
On randomness and levels (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=477985&forum=84&sp=75)
<hr />Really? I've never met someone who played Fallout and didn't dig it.<hr />
It was all right. It came after a long RPG rut (just as Baldur's Gate did) so was really a breath of fresh air at the time. It was also obviously the next big step, and its focus on providing different paths in both dialogue and the game in general was very keen.
But it also had a LOT of issues, I thought, which made enjoying it quite difficult (though enjoy it I did).
It's one of those games which has been built up by nostalgia, I think, to the point that the game that is often remembered these days never really existed. People tend to forget the bad parts, after all, and likewise forget that many of those good parts existed because those bad parts were sacrificed in the first place.
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<hr />So when people worship a Bioware title it is because that title truly deserves the praise, but when praise is put upon a title by another company we should expect the "you only think that because of nostalgia" line?<hr />
Err... no, I've actually said the same thing about BG and BG2.
Don't get me wrong, they were excellent games and can be great fun to play even today, and that includes games like Fallout (which I just played recently, myself). What I take issue with is when people tout the games as being bigger and better than they even were when they were released because their memory of the game is so positive (and I see it happen often). Anything negative gets forgotten, especially anything negative that might have been a trade-off which made some of those positive things so stellar.
I don't mean to diminish the accomplishments those games made, however, nor suggest that you didn't enjoy it as much as you say you did. I am simply questioning the objectivity of some people who trot out those games for comparison purposes.
Dragon Age, Mass Effect - graphics (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480761&forum=84&sp=15)
<hr />Will something similar to the new conversation system in ME be used in DA?<hr />
Nope. Also no plans currently for any VO on the part of the PC.
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<hr />I take it that you are designing DA to be less cinematic and more old school?<hr />
Less cinematic than Mass Effect or, say, a movie... sure. Does that make it old school?
What type of NPC would you like to see? Part: The nth (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480673&forum=84&sp=90)
<hr />I don't know... I'm not about to start roleplaying stats. Oh, should I write this line or use this word? I don't know if Minsc's Intelligence stat is high enough? Pfft.<hr />
Really, if someone came up and suggested that to me, they would receive an icy glare and that would be the end of it. I'm sorry my abilities are so limited, but I have a hard enough time just making a character interesting to begin with without having to worry about whether Johnny in Alabama thinks that Imoen's personality accurately reflects her Wisdom score.
But, then, I'm a hater, so this sort of response is expected from me.
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<hr />Of course they follow the character concept. Its not like Minsc ever started talking about quantom theory or anything. DG just said he wasn't about to start worrying whether an 11 wisdom is high enough for such and such word or sentence.
Would any writer do this? Its too subjective. Wow that was an insightful bit of dialogue. Too insightful for an 11 wisdom? Insightful enough for 12 wisdom? It would be silly.
Its like I keep trying to say. You can't boil people down to three vague and extremely broad traits like int, wis, and cha. They are metagame information only created for game balance. No one should let those stats determine the personality of the character. Unless you want every single wise person to be a cleric. Every single charismatic person is a sorceror or bard. Blah blah. Boring.<hr />
That is exactly where I am coming from, Shdy.
Of course we have a concept of the character and the stats spring from that. But is it wrong for a character with a low Int to sometimes show a brief flash of insight? Or for a high Wis character to sometimes act foolishly? We are capable of similar deviations in character in real life, after all. I mean, do you seriously want to have a conversation about how one's wisdom can be quantified?
Trying to reverse engineer personality out of numerical statistics or vice versa is the path to madness -- you don't want the two sides to be completely divorced, obviously, but neither can you use it as more than a general guideline.
<hr />I am beginning to expect it, yes.<hr />
Well, did you think I wouldn't have an opinion? I was joking, of course -- some folks like to think that just because I don't agree with everything they say that I am thus not open to any sort of input or argument.
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<hr />I said let's see a smart NPC this time who's got it both ways. Whatever Imoen's concept was, it didn't seem very appropriate for her to have a 17 int. It was only from that stat that her development into a dual class to mage followed and her personality was already set.<hr />
Fair enough. Though I think someone mentioned that smart people aren't necessarily always wise, and my vision of Imoen had her as a quick and cunning thinker but not exactly the most mature person around.
Or maybe you mean smart in what I think of as being high in Wisdom... in which case I'd have to say that can be tough to represent. There's a thin line between advice and lecturing, and the problem with the former is that such advice often needs to be context sensitive.
I suppose an "ask so-and-so for advice" feature could be built into the dialogue system (I think this may have been mentioned earlier, too) and that's certainly a valid idea... though such a feature might threaten to make smarter characters almost too useful, perhaps. You'd need the dumber ones to have something extra, probably, in order to make up for the fact that they never give good advice.
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I should point out, as well, that the initial concept and character sheet of characters in both the BG2 series and NWN never stayed the same right until release. Either side could be tweaked at any given time due to some role in the story that is needed or some gameplay element that came up. I remember in BG2 numerous characters receiving stat boosts simply to make them more useful -- that didn't take into account their personality very much and, considering it was a gameplay consideration, it really couldn't. You don't always have control over that sort of thing.
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Perhaps it was an assumption on my part, but logic would dictate that we've at least made preliminary decisions on every aspect of the game, no? These things get revisited and reevaluated from time to time throughout development, but even the very first design documents would have at least touched on every facet. They aren't left to a vacuum until it comes time to implement.
There's a big gulf between making a decision on a feature and putting the final nail in it, but that might definitely be more obvious to me than you. If I came across as patronizing, I apologize... it wasn't my intent.
NPCs/romances part 4 (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481427&forum=84&sp=0)
<hr />Perhaps the best means of doing this is providing multiple romances so there is a greater chance of each player finding that story.<hr />
A greater chance, perhaps, but I still think it is impossible to please everyone when it comes to romances. There's nothing that's so subjective. I know that the "more options = good" attitude dominates on the forums, but considering the sheer amount of work that must go into a single romance plot (well, a good one anyhow) I'd rather not try to cover all the bases... I'd much rather write one solid romance and hope it strikes a chord.
If it doesn't, there's plenty of other things for a player to latch onto, including in DA's case the more friendship-oriented plots (which, unlike having all sorts of extra romances, does provide more content for not only the romance-interested players but the ones who aren't interested in romances at all).
LdyShayna is correct when she points out that I've said it's most likely there will only be one romance per gender. There might possibly be more, but at this point I would almost rather put in different kinds of relationships as to trying to put in every twist on a romance I can think of. The game is not about romance, after all... which is a hard point to remember in these sorts of threads, where this one element of the game gets focused on and magnified out of proportion.
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<hr />What if, instead of a love interest that joins the party, you have someone that stays behind at the point of origin.<hr />
Well, let me put forward two names with regards to that idea: Aribeth and Aarin Gend.
Now... before anyone leaps on that, I would like to say that I think it's possible to implement that kind of romance better than we did in NWN, with the NPC's not being in the party.
You would, however, need a lot more active involvement with said NPC's. Part of the reason the party romance works is that you're essentially spending a lot of time in that NPC's company and it's easy to imagine that those dialogues aren't the totality of your relationship. When an NPC is just someone you go and see every once in a while and talk to, that illusion isn't quite so easy to build. I know I approached Aribeth and Aarin Gend (I wrote their Chapter 2 dialogues) with the idea that writing a romance for NPC's who weren't in the party was a novel approach... but I don't think it really worked very well, and not for lack of dialogue either -- both Aribeth and Aarin Gend's dialogue files were huge. Imagine if either of them had actually traveled with you at some point: fighting beside each other might have established some kind of bond beyond the fact that they fell in love with you out of sheer gratitude for your willingness to listen to their personal history.
I know it's easy to imagine a romance with a character that you return to periodically as in, say, a novel... but implementing it in a game proved to be much more problematic.
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<hr />Why are there 4 parts to this discussion when the decision's already been made like this? That's what confuses me.<hr />
We've made decisions on almost every aspect of the game already by this point. Did you assume we hadn't, that we were waiting on advice from the forum before doing anything? Decisions are rarely final, and this is a place where you can offer a persuasive argument on a topic if you like... belive it or not, we can be persuaded.
If I wasn't keeping up with the thread myself, it's because I don't have the time to go through every thread personally. I am, however, not the only writer (though I am the one that talks the most).
<hr />To DG: Well, I can say that my solution to the "can't please everyone" wouldn't necessarily be "just please myself" when making a game that everyone is going to play... but you'd be the head writer.<hr />
Well if it's obvious that there is no pleasing everyone, what would be your solution? If I had unlimited time and resources, sure, I would definitely say let's do lots of romances. And while we may indeed end up doing more than one romance per gender, any decision like that has its cost -- and in that case it would mean less focus on the friendships with other NPC's, and I'm not yet convinced that's wise (and the forum solution would no doubt be "you must do both!" is, quite frankly, not a solution).
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<hr />Still, as the rapid build-up of romance threads in the last few weeks shows, there are a number of posters who are quite enthusiastic about romances. When enthusiasm runs into reality, there's often a bit of disappointment. I don't think anyone's saying they understand the logistics involved better than you do and therefore have a better solution. People vent; they have to groan, ***, whine, or grumble least a buildup of emotion cause their head to explode.
As you're often the bearer of bad news, you get a disproportionate about of said venting aimed at you. However, no one really blames you for not being able to pull zots from thin air.<hr />
Oh, I get it, and believe me: I encourage enthusiasm. When I went over to the Ladies of Neverwinter board for ideas on how to improve the male romance, the enthusiasm of the posters there for romances in general was quite infectious. As always, however, I will try to temper enthusiasm with reality... honestly, if I wasn't listening and trying to get something useful out of these conversations, I really wouldn't bother.
Now... I'm off to batten down the hatches at Fort Gaider. Excuse me.
<hr />On the other hand, I can see that there are people out there who would like gay romances, and the common solution--"make the romance options bisexual!"--is in my opinion quite lame.<hr />
I would agree, and I've said it before. I won't just put in a gender switch where the character is gay or straight depending on who's asking. If a character is to be bisexual, then he/she should be bisexual in all cases.
That should not translate into us discarding a potential gay romance out of hand, however. If anything, our romances in KotOR and Jade Empire should prove that we're not afraid of the subject matter. If it doesn't happen, it's because the target audience is small and the work involved is large -- the romances in DA are not trivial in size at all, and if a gay romance would be added it would get equal treatment or not be there at all.
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Yep. Putting something under a microscope makes it appear larger than it really is. It's normal, and I was just reminding folks, that's all. It's easy to lose sight of that in a long thread, especially when you're a very passionate proponent of it.
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<hr />Call me rude, but really David... is it that hard to write 3 to 5 romances in 2 to 3 years? People write doctoral theses in that long or shorter you know.<hr />
Err... remember that part where I said that putting a single thing under a microscope made it seem much larger than it actually is?
If I spent all my time writing party member dialogue (never mind actual romances), then sure... I could do a multitude of romances. A plethora, even.
There is, however, much more writing than party member dialogue and books. There is the rest of the game. All those pesky plots and dialogues with people outside your party that make up maybe 80% or more of the total writing.
I mean, I personally have written a couple of novels worth for Dragon Age already by this point -- and very little of that writing to date has been for party members. So, please, let's keep this in perspective.
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<hr />So, in other words, the difference between a single romance per gender and a plethora of romances is one single writer added to the team?
Sounds like it might be worth consider - it'd help DA stand out more from the competetion, and sell more copies to pay that extra writer's wages..
Or am I oversimplifying the issue here?<hr />
I'm afraid so.
Hiring more people is not a very realistic solution to a limitation on resources. After all -- why stop at one? Why not hire two? Why not five? If we don't have horses, let's hire more programmers and artists and put them solely on that problem -- done. We don't have a z-axis? Let's hire a bunch of programmers -- done. Not enough romances to suit? Let's hire more writers -- done.
See where I'm going? Obviously if our writing team was larger, we could get more written -- but we base the scope of the game on the size of the team we believe we can maintain and not vice versa.
And that's even ignoring the fact that getting additional resources from the project would require some kind of justification behind it. Would this lead to more sales? There are RPG's out there with no companions and/or romances which sell just fine. Would it increase quality? Perhaps -- it adds to replayability to have more romances, certainly, but where do you draw the line? Bioware is not a bottomless money pit, after all, and at some point a game must be profitable.
I know these are not your concerns, necessarily, but I'm simply pointing out that solutions to such things are not so easy to come by.
Plans for the Phoenix? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=479615&forum=84&sp=45)
I read that as you having an affinity for High Fantasy -- a fantasy world where magic is powerful and commonplace and with a large amount of the fantastical.
Not to be a wet blanket, for Dragon Age certainly does have some High Fantasy elements, but overall I would say our world leans much more towards Dark Fantasy -- the world is a bit more grounded and magic, while powerful, is relatively rare. Flying cities and floating castles would be very much out of place.
<a href="http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481590&forum=84" target="_blank">Personality and the Protagonist
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I'd have to agree with Melirinda. The difference with Beyond Good & Evil -- while an excellent game -- is that is was also an adventure game with a pre-defined main character that you stepped in to play. You did not determine her personality, you simply played her role in the story.
It does make it more difficult for us when we can't define the protaganist very much -- we tend to do it a little ("you're a Bhaalspawn!") just to have some kind of hook that we can latch onto, plot-wise, but doing more than that would impede on an important aspect of roleplaying, I think, which is being able to define your own persona.
There might be other ways that the protaganist could be given more personality without stepping on the toes of the player, however, I'm not sure.
Animal Companions in Dragon Age (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481559&forum=84&sp=15)
Ooookay.
Somebody wants animal companions. Summoned ones, even, a la Guenhwyvar. Got it.
I think what everyone was referring to was a comment in response to someone who was demanding familiars for their wizards. I told him that wizards in DA didn't have familiars. He stamped his feet and said something akin to "that is the death of roleplaying!" as well.
As far as animal companions go, all I remarked on that earlier was that if we had one I'd prefer to do it as a full companion with a personality and so forth -- more like a Dogmeat character than as a summoned (or, sure, conjured -- huge difference there) meat shield.
If we don't have such a thing in DA, I'm not certain it would be the death of roleplaying -- but we'll definitely take it under advisement.
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<hr />An animal companion with a full personality? If that was implemented, then will that companion make up an official member of your party. Like if the maximum party size is 4, will me and my animal companion count as 2 actual party members or only 1?<hr />
I don't know. Speaking hypothetically, if it did assume a party slot, then it had better be able to act on a similar scale as one of those party members it replaced, and level up and so forth in a similar fashion.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Scott Meadows, Programmer</font>
Easy Q for developers.. will DA have graphics at least as good as Mass Effect? (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=480786&forum=84&sp=0)
Healing will work by youing having to rest in your bed, assuming you have a bed, a couch may work too; and yes time will pass in this case.
Oh and by the way, DA Graphics look amazing right now. But then again I am a little biased.
You might want to check out this thread as well...
Click Here (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=480761&forum=84&sp=0)
[ May 18, 2006, 19:02: Message edited by: chevalier ]