chevalier
Sun, 21st May '06, 9:53pm
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 Designer</font>
Animal Companions in Dragon Age (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481559&forum=84&sp=45)
<hr />Since no teleportation is required to *conjure* a bear, this means that this concept is compatible with the Dragon Age setting.<hr />
It seems a little strange to me that you would consider the wholesale creation of a bear from thin air to be more plausible than simply teleporting one.
At any rate, I'm afraid it ranks right up there with teleportation as not something that magic does in Dragon Age. An illusionary bear could be created, maybe, but certainly not a real one.
<hr />As long as it *looks* like a bear, attacks like a bear, and sounds like a bear, everything is absolutely fine to me.<hr />
Well, being an illusion (as opposed to a real one) you'd get everything but the attacking part. It isn't real, after all -- it would be a phantom that could scare someone, at best.
More:
No, sorry, the illusion would be broken the moment the bear tried to attack. I find the whole D&D thing about illusions doing real damage if you believe in them a bit silly... and at any rate, the point is moot. There is no "conjure illusionary bear" spell in DA, anyhow.
If there's to be any kind of animal companion, it would be a real one. Period.
More:
<hr />It is their 'world' so the physics of it from the gravity to the really neat stuff like magic is all up to them. It will all 'work' as long as it remains reasonably consistant.
So, I suppose that puts me with bothe of you... As I feel that a good system needs to be created, but the important part after that is a reasonable amount of consistancy.<hr />
We've got to do both, in fact: create a magic system that is balanced mechanics-wise as well as consistent within its own rules.
Certainly with respect to the original poster, there's no reason a given magic system couldn't create illusions that hurt or create living animals out of thin air -- but that simply doesn't fit our vision of how magic works in DA.
Which is not to say that magic isn't useful or powerful. It is. In fact, magic has shaped DA's history in some very big ways. It just follows certain fundamental laws on how it works -- and, hey, throwing a fireball is nothing to sneeze at.
<hr />At no point was I really trying to advocate an unbalanced magic system. Just saying the believability was the priority from my standpoint.<hr />
Oh, I agree in fact. I would say, though, that "plausible" is perhaps a better work than "believable". Our world may have its own internal logic, but following it is of primary importance.
The way to painlessly track the romance status (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481715&forum=84)
Well, when you get to a certain point in a romance there are standard dialogue options to flirt, kiss (in private) and other silliness at your initiative. Is that what you're referring to?
More:
<hr />When you click on Valen to start a conversation, he says "I'm yours to command" ( ) as the starting line for the dialogue. After a certain point in the romance path it changes to "yes, my love?" I thought this was a good, unobtrusive way of indicating the romance was active while staying in character.<hr />
We have that, as well. Your relationship with a party member can have several different levels, including friendship and romance right up to fearful and hostile. Their opening lines when you talk to them differ in each instance, just as Valen's did.
More:
Amongst the standard things you can talk to your romance character about (in amongst the kissing and flirting options) is indeed the "we need to talk..." option, which can certainly lead to a gentle let-down. One benefit of doing the friendship tracks with everyone is that there is both the option to end a romance in a bad way (they end up very cool to you) or to gently let them down, at which point they just jump back over to the friendship track.
I don't think there will be holding hands, though, and the romance character isn't going to be spontaneously serenading you... there are sometimes things they will need to get off their chest, but they do that strictly at camp, and otherwise any PDA's are up to the player's initiation.
More:
<hr />Er, is this option actually required?<hr />
Which? The ability to initiate flirts and such with your romance character? No, not at all. Completely optional. It's really there just for fun.
As for the person who asked about the possibility of smothering a romance character --- heh, no, we haven't got that. Have you ever seen a couple newly in love? They can be positively sick. Smother away. Though some of the options (like the "tell me something about yourself I don't already know" one) do run out after a bit and your romance will just laugh at you.
NPCs/romances part 4 (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481427&forum=84&sp=45)
<hr />One could look at it from the perspective that as Dragon Age is your "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate, it's in your interest to create another wildly successful and spectacular game and not just a great one.<hr />
So either we have exactly the same number of romances or we're just not living up to BG2? Never mind anything we've said about other sorts of relationships or effort we're putting into the backgrounds or anything like that? Either it's romances or nothing, I see.
Obviously any attempt to offer perspective here is a wasted effort. I will just say that it is not set that there will just be one romance per gender and that the amount of work we are putting into your relationships with your party members is a focus of the writing team, just as it was on BG2.
Now I will get back to work.
More:
You know, that's not far off the mark.
At the beginning, the NPC will occasionally flirt with the player. If the player responds in kind, or initiates flirts of their own, that's a signal to us that the player is interested. The dialogue doesn't change much initially unless the relationship value is already very high... otherwise the NPC flirts more and then eventually will reach a stage where he attempts to gauge if his feelings are reciprocated.
If the player says yes, we switch immediately onto the romance track. The player also has the option of being cruel or saying "let's just be friends", in which case the friendship track continues with the flirty parts cut out. Those flirty parts also get cut out early on if the player responds negatively to a flirt ("please don't say things like that").
So in a way, the NPC does indeed initiate the romance... though the player is the one who gives the green light at any given stage.
allowing mods to increase party limit (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481613&forum=84)
I think the issue is primarily a GUI and interface one, not necessarily a programming one.
And while I suppose a GUI could be built to scale, I can't even imagine how that might be properly done... and it would all be work that would only be seen by modders who are intent on changing the way the game is meant to be played. Which makes it (historically) hard to justify.
More:
It has to do more with how the interface is set up for you to control your party. Do we show portraits of each party member on the screen? Well, if so, then those portraits have to take up a certain amount of on-screen real estate. Do we show hit points and mana bars? Do we have any buttons for each character? All of this is going to require a certain amount of real estate, just as the portrait.
We could design it to require less (or none) of that stuff on-screen, perhaps, but that goes back to how you intend to allow party management. That's going to be designed to work best for the way DA works -- not so the number of characters in the party is customizeable, because we don't need that. If the way it ends up is something that might be adjustable by the end-user, then all the better -- if they can move stuff around as they wish in order to accomodate more GUI's, then great, but they're still going to have to accomodate the minimum that the system requires.
Does that make sense?
More:
True. Remember too, though, that there has to be some leeway. Multiple screen resolutions need to be accomodated, after all, and that means the GUI has to be designed so it can work on all of them, with different amounts of on-screen real-estate available in each. Just because in one resolution it might look like there's room for another slot doesn't mean it would be so in another. And while a modder might have the luxury of saying they only support X resolution, we do not.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Brenon Holmes, Programmer</font>
Animal Companions in Dragon Age (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481559&forum=84&sp=45)
I'm going to try to put this nicely. You don't have the right to make demands... we aren't being paid to come here and talk with you.
We're here because we want to be, not because we have to be. Some of us have this crazy impression that we can glean some kind of benefit out of a dialogue with the people who play our games.
That doesn't mean that you can snap your fingers and expect that the features you're fanatically interested in will be implemented or 'zomg, Bioware is teh sux'...
What it does mean is that you have a unique opportunity in that if you can demonstrate how or why (in a reasonable and rational manner) something should be done, you have the ear of a few people who are willing to listen... and if they find the idea/concept compelling enough, most likely willing to champion that idea/concept to the rest of the team.
If the above doesn't make any sense to you, then I guess it's just another ten minutes of my life that I won't get back.
Fran Gaulin Interview (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481937&forum=84)
Fran is probably one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet... in addition to pumping out some pretty amazing looking concepts.
That particular piece is (I believe) one of many old concept pieces for one of the DA races (not one of the playable ones, so don't get excited). At least that's what I seem to recall... I could be wrong though. It's been a while...
allowing mods to increase party limit (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481613&forum=84)
Because the next question you would be asking if it were a changeable number would be:
"How come there isn't GUI support for having more than x characters in the party?"
Unless you can modify the gui yourself and add additional functionality (like a scrollbar on the party window) it's unlikely that even if you did add more party members that it would be useable.
Edit: Booo, looks like David beat me on the draw... you win this round Gaider...
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">David Gaider, Lead Designer</font>
Animal Companions in Dragon Age (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481559&forum=84&sp=45)
<hr />Since no teleportation is required to *conjure* a bear, this means that this concept is compatible with the Dragon Age setting.<hr />
It seems a little strange to me that you would consider the wholesale creation of a bear from thin air to be more plausible than simply teleporting one.
At any rate, I'm afraid it ranks right up there with teleportation as not something that magic does in Dragon Age. An illusionary bear could be created, maybe, but certainly not a real one.
<hr />As long as it *looks* like a bear, attacks like a bear, and sounds like a bear, everything is absolutely fine to me.<hr />
Well, being an illusion (as opposed to a real one) you'd get everything but the attacking part. It isn't real, after all -- it would be a phantom that could scare someone, at best.
More:
No, sorry, the illusion would be broken the moment the bear tried to attack. I find the whole D&D thing about illusions doing real damage if you believe in them a bit silly... and at any rate, the point is moot. There is no "conjure illusionary bear" spell in DA, anyhow.
If there's to be any kind of animal companion, it would be a real one. Period.
More:
<hr />It is their 'world' so the physics of it from the gravity to the really neat stuff like magic is all up to them. It will all 'work' as long as it remains reasonably consistant.
So, I suppose that puts me with bothe of you... As I feel that a good system needs to be created, but the important part after that is a reasonable amount of consistancy.<hr />
We've got to do both, in fact: create a magic system that is balanced mechanics-wise as well as consistent within its own rules.
Certainly with respect to the original poster, there's no reason a given magic system couldn't create illusions that hurt or create living animals out of thin air -- but that simply doesn't fit our vision of how magic works in DA.
Which is not to say that magic isn't useful or powerful. It is. In fact, magic has shaped DA's history in some very big ways. It just follows certain fundamental laws on how it works -- and, hey, throwing a fireball is nothing to sneeze at.
<hr />At no point was I really trying to advocate an unbalanced magic system. Just saying the believability was the priority from my standpoint.<hr />
Oh, I agree in fact. I would say, though, that "plausible" is perhaps a better work than "believable". Our world may have its own internal logic, but following it is of primary importance.
The way to painlessly track the romance status (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481715&forum=84)
Well, when you get to a certain point in a romance there are standard dialogue options to flirt, kiss (in private) and other silliness at your initiative. Is that what you're referring to?
More:
<hr />When you click on Valen to start a conversation, he says "I'm yours to command" ( ) as the starting line for the dialogue. After a certain point in the romance path it changes to "yes, my love?" I thought this was a good, unobtrusive way of indicating the romance was active while staying in character.<hr />
We have that, as well. Your relationship with a party member can have several different levels, including friendship and romance right up to fearful and hostile. Their opening lines when you talk to them differ in each instance, just as Valen's did.
More:
Amongst the standard things you can talk to your romance character about (in amongst the kissing and flirting options) is indeed the "we need to talk..." option, which can certainly lead to a gentle let-down. One benefit of doing the friendship tracks with everyone is that there is both the option to end a romance in a bad way (they end up very cool to you) or to gently let them down, at which point they just jump back over to the friendship track.
I don't think there will be holding hands, though, and the romance character isn't going to be spontaneously serenading you... there are sometimes things they will need to get off their chest, but they do that strictly at camp, and otherwise any PDA's are up to the player's initiation.
More:
<hr />Er, is this option actually required?<hr />
Which? The ability to initiate flirts and such with your romance character? No, not at all. Completely optional. It's really there just for fun.
As for the person who asked about the possibility of smothering a romance character --- heh, no, we haven't got that. Have you ever seen a couple newly in love? They can be positively sick. Smother away. Though some of the options (like the "tell me something about yourself I don't already know" one) do run out after a bit and your romance will just laugh at you.
NPCs/romances part 4 (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481427&forum=84&sp=45)
<hr />One could look at it from the perspective that as Dragon Age is your "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate, it's in your interest to create another wildly successful and spectacular game and not just a great one.<hr />
So either we have exactly the same number of romances or we're just not living up to BG2? Never mind anything we've said about other sorts of relationships or effort we're putting into the backgrounds or anything like that? Either it's romances or nothing, I see.
Obviously any attempt to offer perspective here is a wasted effort. I will just say that it is not set that there will just be one romance per gender and that the amount of work we are putting into your relationships with your party members is a focus of the writing team, just as it was on BG2.
Now I will get back to work.
More:
You know, that's not far off the mark.
At the beginning, the NPC will occasionally flirt with the player. If the player responds in kind, or initiates flirts of their own, that's a signal to us that the player is interested. The dialogue doesn't change much initially unless the relationship value is already very high... otherwise the NPC flirts more and then eventually will reach a stage where he attempts to gauge if his feelings are reciprocated.
If the player says yes, we switch immediately onto the romance track. The player also has the option of being cruel or saying "let's just be friends", in which case the friendship track continues with the flirty parts cut out. Those flirty parts also get cut out early on if the player responds negatively to a flirt ("please don't say things like that").
So in a way, the NPC does indeed initiate the romance... though the player is the one who gives the green light at any given stage.
allowing mods to increase party limit (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481613&forum=84)
I think the issue is primarily a GUI and interface one, not necessarily a programming one.
And while I suppose a GUI could be built to scale, I can't even imagine how that might be properly done... and it would all be work that would only be seen by modders who are intent on changing the way the game is meant to be played. Which makes it (historically) hard to justify.
More:
It has to do more with how the interface is set up for you to control your party. Do we show portraits of each party member on the screen? Well, if so, then those portraits have to take up a certain amount of on-screen real estate. Do we show hit points and mana bars? Do we have any buttons for each character? All of this is going to require a certain amount of real estate, just as the portrait.
We could design it to require less (or none) of that stuff on-screen, perhaps, but that goes back to how you intend to allow party management. That's going to be designed to work best for the way DA works -- not so the number of characters in the party is customizeable, because we don't need that. If the way it ends up is something that might be adjustable by the end-user, then all the better -- if they can move stuff around as they wish in order to accomodate more GUI's, then great, but they're still going to have to accomodate the minimum that the system requires.
Does that make sense?
More:
True. Remember too, though, that there has to be some leeway. Multiple screen resolutions need to be accomodated, after all, and that means the GUI has to be designed so it can work on all of them, with different amounts of on-screen real-estate available in each. Just because in one resolution it might look like there's room for another slot doesn't mean it would be so in another. And while a modder might have the luxury of saying they only support X resolution, we do not.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Brenon Holmes, Programmer</font>
Animal Companions in Dragon Age (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=481559&forum=84&sp=45)
I'm going to try to put this nicely. You don't have the right to make demands... we aren't being paid to come here and talk with you.
We're here because we want to be, not because we have to be. Some of us have this crazy impression that we can glean some kind of benefit out of a dialogue with the people who play our games.
That doesn't mean that you can snap your fingers and expect that the features you're fanatically interested in will be implemented or 'zomg, Bioware is teh sux'...
What it does mean is that you have a unique opportunity in that if you can demonstrate how or why (in a reasonable and rational manner) something should be done, you have the ear of a few people who are willing to listen... and if they find the idea/concept compelling enough, most likely willing to champion that idea/concept to the rest of the team.
If the above doesn't make any sense to you, then I guess it's just another ten minutes of my life that I won't get back.
Fran Gaulin Interview (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481937&forum=84)
Fran is probably one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet... in addition to pumping out some pretty amazing looking concepts.
That particular piece is (I believe) one of many old concept pieces for one of the DA races (not one of the playable ones, so don't get excited). At least that's what I seem to recall... I could be wrong though. It's been a while...
allowing mods to increase party limit (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=481613&forum=84)
Because the next question you would be asking if it were a changeable number would be:
"How come there isn't GUI support for having more than x characters in the party?"
Unless you can modify the gui yourself and add additional functionality (like a scrollbar on the party window) it's unlikely that even if you did add more party members that it would be useable.
Edit: Booo, looks like David beat me on the draw... you win this round Gaider...