chevalier
Fri, 16th Jun '06, 4:55pm
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>
Cameos (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484131&forum=84&sp=30)
Although it's always possible PR may end up having a memory lapse and decide another contest of this type would be a great idea, I'd be opposed to it for similar reasons (which I mentioned in another thread). Not to mention that "appropriate" would be difficult to attain without some kind of knowledge about our world and system.
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That's the one I was referring to (and this was just talked about in another thread). The jealousy and bitterness that occurred right after that contest was so strong that the poor fellow who wrote Habib was driven right off the forum by people -- many of whom felt completely justified in their anger because they had submitted their favorite character complete with stats and a 15-page history of their campaign designed to be a full party member (even though we said we were looking for interesting one-off cameos) and it was so completely superior to that moronic Habib concept what were we thinking anyway? Stupid contest must have been rigged.
No... not interested in revisiting that. Seriously not.
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I'm not wholly aware of how the module-writing contest went down, not being personally involved in it... but my experience indicates that the main problem is that people don't listen very well no matter what you tell them.
Not to imply that it was all bad or anything... I just remember feeling very embarassed, on behalf of the Habib creator especially, who obviously just intended the submission as a little fun thing and that's exactly how we took it. It doesn't take much to dampen our enthusiasm for something we simply meant to be fun.
We certainly could do some kind of contest again, I suppose (I am not the final arbiter of such things), but I don't really see an opportunity for that with DA anyhow.
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Let me think... besides Gromnir, there was Draconis (the dragon you fought right before Abazigal), Yakman (based on a fellow named Frozen Yakman, whom you met in the teleporter puzzle in Watcher's Keep), Gavid Daider (shortened to Gavid right before ship, whom you met in the first Pocket Plane challenge room) and that small encounter with the Bhaalspawn xvart, goblin and ummm chinchilla? (What was I on?) All of whom were named after forum regulars, though for the life of me I can't recall their names now.
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Ah, yes, thank you. Come to think of it, Merlinious might be the only one in that group who was a forum member. It's been a while.
Party Size (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480373&forum=84&sp=105)
We could design a system where it is easier to control 9-12 heroes... or a 100... really it depends on how much you are expected to do with each of them. Are they all self-automated? Do they each have many abilities that can be accessed? If the system is designed to have lots of options and require more control, then having a large party could be quite cumbersome indeed.
Again, not knowing anything about the system (and we know this is the case), all you can really say is that you've liked games in the past with larger parties. Fair enough.
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I get that. The points that have been brought up by everyone are very legitimate ones, and there's really only so much knowledge that you have to go on anyhow -- so telling us what you've liked in the past is more or less what you're limited to.
Which is why I brought up the other considerations that need to go into such a decision. Obviously it's a decision that we need to make and not you, but I bring it up with the idea of asking, "if you had to consider these other things as well, would you feel the same?" And the answer I keep getting is "yes, because..." and a re-iteration of the points already mentioned, without actually considering what I've said.
Or maybe the things I bring up just don't seem as important, I'm not sure. Certainly there are those who might say that opportunities for dialogue and tactics should trump any other consideration, and I suppose that's a fair stance to take... if not one that I can think of as being realistic.
The thing I need to keep remind myself sometimes is that I'm not talking to one person but rather multiple people who keep coming into and out of the conversation at different points. http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif</img>
"You Must Make Haste" (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=479244&forum=84&sp=45)
Why would I do that? I spend half my time trying to convince everyone that DA isn't the D&D-less sequel to NWN they assume it to be, and now I'm supposed to convince you that it's the D&D-less sequel to BG?
Obviously you want it to be exactly the same as BG, and everything that doesn't sound exactly the same must mean it's done in the worst way possible (ie. NWN), right?
And what could we convince you of, anyhow? I already told you, for instance, that the "1 romance for each gender" isn't necessarily the case, yet you waved that off as just evasiveness on my part (never mind the sacrilege already committed of not having a gay romance, another thing we haven't said). So be it. *shrug*
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Consider this, perhaps: were I the only one who took your comments as such, I would accept the defensive response and plead a misunderstanding. I have noticed, however, that this happens to you on a regular basis. People take some of the things you say as being angry or bitter and you respond in a semi-hurt fashion, saying that you can't possibly understand how they came to that conclusion.
I am not trying to flame you, but I would put forward the fact that I am not the common denominator in those instances. You are. Take it for what it's worth, Cogitation, as otherwise your input is something I consider to be consistently intelligent and worthwhile reading.
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<hr />I had this hare(?)-brained idea where I dumped it in that Sun God idol, the one where it's supposed to resurrect your loved one that was taken by Bodhi (No, my *male* paladin did not want him as a lover! I just felt guilty that I screwed up big time with that quest) but nothing happened. *Shrugs* Oh well.<hr />
Huh. I wonder how the prayer for that would sound?
"Dear Sun God.
Now that you've resurrected the love of my live, the woman who means more to me than anything -- and thank you for that, by the way -- could you maybe do something about this harper corpse I've been dragging around for the past couple of weeks?
I know I don't technically "love" him and that he died of pure negligence on my part, but he's starting to really smell and MAN is his *** heavy.
You're a doll, thanks in advance. Amen."
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Time limits can be frustrating, especially if you want to avoid the impression that the player must drop everything else in order to do that quest right this second (especially if it's not true).
Though at the same time I think I'd like to avoid giving the impression that the player could wander away from said urgent quest for days and days and then come back whenever and the situation will still be exactly the same.
I think what's being discussed is whether or not major quests can or should have a failure condition and how that condition should be communicated.
There are timed quests where a time limit is explicitly made part of it... like "take x to y within 24 hours or z happens"... but I'm referring to the major quests in the game. Is there even a purpose to putting in a failure condition and allowing the game to continue, regardless? Or would everyone just reload anyhow? Somewhere between "maintaining setting integrity" and "maintaining easy of play" is the answer, but it's the kind of discussion we have here ourselves. DA is planning on having failure conditions to some degree -- but how explicitly this can be communicated to the player is difficult to pin down.
Adult-connect? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484368&forum=84&sp=75)
Okay, I'm reading this and rubbing my temples, now...
What was wrong with the Carth romance, exactly? And why is it being used as an example here?
Are we just talking about the lack of a kiss and any kind of sexual consummation? Because some of you seem to go beyond that in terms of complaining about how we writers see "manly men" in romance in general... yet I'm getting very little idea of how that would be satisfactorily changed.
In terms of the animations themselves, I actually wanted a kiss in KotOR, but we just couldn't fit in the animation and I didn't like how the fade-to-black played in the Bastila romance and didn't want to repeat it. We got the kissing animation in Jade Empire, and we'll have it for DA, but I doubt we'll get much more in the way of animations for that... remember that this whole romance thing is a small aspect of the game.
Same goes for cutscenes in lieu of the fade-to-black with any sexual encounters. I'm willing to hear ideas, but the cost of such alternatives has to be kept very much in mind. The scene with the party members, while it sounds fun, wouldn't work -- there's no way to guarantee that any party members will be with you and with full-VO we can't simply insert "anyone" into a speaking part. But other suggestions might be fine so long as we're not talking about needing specific animations for it.
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Hmmm. I look upon your comments, and I see a number of things I have thought myself in hindsight. Of course, hindsight doesn't help much.
Take the torture sequence, for example. It was part of the whole Leviathan sequence that was changed well after the romance was written. Add in a post-torture romance talk? Good idea. No time at the point it was done... VO was already being recorded by then.
The idea that Carth and Bastila's romances were more tied into the main plot was one step as it was, we still have to keep in mind that the entire romance thing is very much beside the point in terms of the larger game. The comments you make are things that could be addressed if these other changes and plot elements were lesser in importance to the romances -- if, at every stage, we turned around and said, "How does this affect the romance plots? Should we add in something? Should we take something out?"
There was no option, after all, to add Carth's son onto the ship or to have the plot carry on a great deal afterwards. While yes, ideally, that would make sense, in terms of writing that plot in you take what you can get because (again) the game is not a romance.
That is not to say that there is not room for improvement, as I've said many times. With greater planning we can try to head off these sorts of issues at the pass... but I have little doubt that towards the end of the project certain issues will creep in with regards to late changes affecting the romances and the romances will always take a back seat in those instances, to their detriment. Why? Because there are a dozen other things that need to be maintained that are of higher priority. Ideally we would be able to juggle them all, but that's easier to say than it is to do.
At least in comparison to KotOR, the one thing I've learned from that and taken away for DA is the idea that much more thought needs to be applied on exactly how the romance feels and plays in the later stages once the dialogue has "run out" (so to speak), but I have to accept that not everything that I try for the romances is going to work well... just as a fan of our romances would have to realize that they will never receive top billing and be the entire point of the story as some of you are obviously wanting instead of ancillary to it (though, frankly, I wouldn't mind that being the case... but I suspect I'm in the minority).
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Yeah, as I've said elsewhere I've learned a bit from both Carth and Valen since then. I don't really think that reaching "I love you" should be the goal, exactly, and that there needs to be some kind of resolution afterwards that recognizes what is going on in the story. And that's the plan. We'll see how it works out (as I just pointed out above, it's of ancillary importance at best in relation to the larger picture of the game), but I'm hoping that the romances will feel much more organic this time around.
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<hr />What I am concerned about is whether DA is going to be chaste to a fault -- I don't know if that is going to happen but that is a concern of mine. At the moment I don't know what or where DA is going on this front.<hr />
It's a valid question. Personally I tend to like having a Mature title so that certain issues of morality and violence can be addressed in what I consider to be an adult manner.
I personally tend to find that whenever the subject matter becomes a bit more lurid, that making it explicit feels a lot like titillation simply for titillation's sake. Maybe that's because we haven't much experience in presenting adult situations inside a game, I don't know, but if it's avoided it's not stemming from a desire to be chaste exactly as much as a desire to avoid awkwardness in the storytelling.
Those are my personal thoughts on the matter. Where we will end up settling with DA in regards to a specific policy with regards to sexual situations of this kind really hasn't been settled yet.
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<hr />It's the males that tend to be indifferent dads by whatever reason in Bio's games. Pretty much every joinable male NPC that has a child as a plot point does the same thing: has no idea what's up with the child (in two cases out of 3 is unaware of even fathering one) convinces Player1 to go save him/her, and then cheerfully abandons the offspring to his or her fate. At the very least both Coran and Cernd had some sort of a support network in place for Namara and Ahsdale.<hr />
Uh-huh.
I would counter that it takes a certain type to be an adventurer. If they were good fathers, chances are they wouldn't be in your party. But I guess if *that's* where it all breaks down for you, then perhaps relying on modded efforts might indeed be the way for you to go, I'm sorry to say.
You asked for suggestions here's a suggestion (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484364&forum=84&sp=15)
This is an excellent idea, but you do realize we've written the story already, right? This isn't a suggestion for a one-off plot or something but rather the basis for an entire game, the sort of thing that would need to come up in the concepting phase.
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That isn't what I meant. There is still a lot of characters and plots to be written, but the base story has already been concepted and would be difficult to change at this point... suggestions that don't involve changing the foundations of the story or game mechanics are really the way to go, here.
Party Size Pt 2: Attack of the Clones (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484632&forum=84&sp=15)
Yes, of course, but the GUI must also accomodate many other things beside simply how many characters you are going to have in your party.
I mean, let's ignore party control altogether (and we can't, but let's pretend for the moment). What other GUI questions must we address? What about a map? What about inventory control? How does one access the menu? How much onscreen space do you need to see? Are you zoomed out to get all the party onscreen and then losing detail? Or zoomed in to see all that graphical goodness and then losing sight of your party? Do you need to see far distances in order to make ranged combat effective? How many of your controls must be accessible at all times and how many can be folded away? What resolutions are we supporting (a biggie: any controls must fit all resolutions)? How many individual models can you show on the screen at one time? The more you devote to individually-modeled and -textured party members, the more you take away from the number and variety of opponents.
Right now we're more in a process of "well, we've got these potential layouts to work with, leaving us x amount of real estate in each layout for party control -- depending on whether you need to show this, this or this many buttons on the GUI."
So it's not final... not in terms of us saying "we want there to be x characters in a party. Done!" But rather the consideration needs to be part of the overall GUI design. There are many masters it needs to serve. Even if we said we wanted an x-size party, we would get back layouts that would show us what such a GUI would need to look like and what we would be giving up in other areas -- and we would then need to decide which of those things was most important, especially in light of the range of class selection and "feel" for combat and group dynamics that we want the game to have.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure if I communicated it very well.
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Oh, we do start off saying what we would like to see. Then the GUI artists come back to us with various layouts that would accomodate that many... and what we could possibly get by adding or subtracting from the party number and we go from there. Or they have a serious problem and let us know what has to give and where... or we look at what we had to give up with a design and say, "No no, that just won't do." Especially if it doesn't give us the feel we want.
Party size is important but it is not the first decision, however, and it does not trump every other consideration. That would be a bit like the tail wagging the dog.
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It's part of the gameplay consideraiton, yes, but there's much more to gameplay than the size of the party. Just as the GUI needs to serve more than simply gameplay, even if gameplay is probably the most important aspect.
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And that's fine if it's decided that seeing your fellow party members is not an issue... but if you zoom out, you might also be missing all the super-duper monster models that you're fighting and all the fighting animations that you have. Again, what are you going for? If, like BG2, the fighting animation consists of you chopping your sword like an axe over and over... well, perhaps zooming out is best. But if you're going to spend time on pretty animations and cool visual effects, you're going to want to show them off at their best.
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Which reinforces my original point about the fact that, to the average fan, there's no reason not to have more of everything. More party members = more banter = woot! What's not to like?
Of course we know that. That's not news. Of course factoring in multiplayer load times and graphical LOD is of no interest to you. But, seriously, if I went into a meeting and told everyone that everything else had to service the game having a large party because dialogue was the most important thing in our game... well, I'd be laughed out of the meeting. Not because dialogue and design isn't important, but because there will always be a give and take between what design wants and what design gets.
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Actually, in NWN we had one week to write all the NPC's... not one week for each. Henchman were not part of NWN's original plan.
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Not consciously, no. I tend to have no trouble imagining a character concept that I would like to try out. If it's fuzzy at all, then I bounce it off the other writers a few times until something sparks. One day I may have to start keeping a list, though, I don't know.
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Frist off, I never said that the romances are a "very minor" part of the game. What I've always said is that they are not what the game is about. We are not making romance stories, so therefore the romance is always going to be ancillary in importance at best.
Secondly, I don't think "very few" people enjoy or pay attention to the romances. If that were the case, we probably wouldn't include them in every single game we do, would we? But not every person plays the game for the romances, as difficult as that might be for you to imagine. Having friendships with the party members might seem boring to you, but they're going to involve a lot more players than simply adding more romances would.
And I have not said that there will only be one male and one female romance.
Please... either quote me directly or stop putting words in my mouth in order to support your arguments. Thank you.
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Sigh.
I did not say that you suggested every single person plays the game for romances. I simply said that every person does not... because it seems that unless I spell out exactly what I mean on that front you interpret it as me saying that "very few" (ie. next to nobody) wants romances at all. So don't talk to me about twisting meanings -- you're the one that is constantly taking everything said to you in the worst possible context, not me.
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Let me spell it out for you then.
If we add more romances in, the people who will enjoy that feature are those who like romances. Though they would have liked whatever romances we had anyhow... the fact that they like having greater variety more does not mean that there is more people liking romances.
That does not mean that there is no reason to put more romances in. There are a lot of people who like romances and we'd like them to like the game more. But it does not expand that audience.
If we have romances as well as friendships, then we get not only the people who like romances but also those who like interaction but not necessarily romances. We expand on the number of interactions you can have with NPC's without restricting that field to one lone subject: romance... which, since we are not writing a story that is about romance, should not receive more focus than it is due -- which, I contend, is exactly what you keep pushing for. I might be wrong about that, but it certainly seems that because you believe the romances are popular (which they are) that therefore they must be all-encompassing when it comes to NPC-related dialogue.
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But we're not talking about doing friendships like they were in the past. We're talking about doing them like the romances... a series of dialogues and choices that builds the relationship between you and your NPC. But instead of building towards getting married and having babies, you're building towards a close friendship. We're also talking about being able to switch between that kind of friendship path and a romantic path for those characters which you can romance.
There aren't many people asking for this sort of thing because we've never done it before. But I don't really think I'm going out on a limb when I suggest that being able to interact extensively with all your party members is going to reach a larger audience than those simply interested in romances. Call me crazy if you wish, but I feel pretty comfortable with that idea.
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Then let me suggest this to you: stop using words like "DG says this" and "Gaider believes that" to support your particular slant on things. If you can't quote me, then say it's what you believe and I won't have any reason to object.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Brenon Holmes, Programmer</font>
Adult-connect? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484368&forum=84&sp=60)
Why would you think that?
Will there be fully featured sex scenes? I'm rather doubtful... in this case, your imagination is probably going to do a much better job... and again I don't think a graphically explicit representation will add that much *more* than alternative measures.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Georg Zoeller, Designer</font>
Gamespot Predicts DA in 2007 (Jumping the Gun Again) (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=484794&forum=84)
Jumping guns has yet to be proven to be a good idea. Only evidence to the contrary exists.
Unless you see an official BioWare press release defining a release date, don't believe anyone.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">David Gaider, Lead Writer</font>
Cameos (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484131&forum=84&sp=30)
Although it's always possible PR may end up having a memory lapse and decide another contest of this type would be a great idea, I'd be opposed to it for similar reasons (which I mentioned in another thread). Not to mention that "appropriate" would be difficult to attain without some kind of knowledge about our world and system.
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That's the one I was referring to (and this was just talked about in another thread). The jealousy and bitterness that occurred right after that contest was so strong that the poor fellow who wrote Habib was driven right off the forum by people -- many of whom felt completely justified in their anger because they had submitted their favorite character complete with stats and a 15-page history of their campaign designed to be a full party member (even though we said we were looking for interesting one-off cameos) and it was so completely superior to that moronic Habib concept what were we thinking anyway? Stupid contest must have been rigged.
No... not interested in revisiting that. Seriously not.
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I'm not wholly aware of how the module-writing contest went down, not being personally involved in it... but my experience indicates that the main problem is that people don't listen very well no matter what you tell them.
Not to imply that it was all bad or anything... I just remember feeling very embarassed, on behalf of the Habib creator especially, who obviously just intended the submission as a little fun thing and that's exactly how we took it. It doesn't take much to dampen our enthusiasm for something we simply meant to be fun.
We certainly could do some kind of contest again, I suppose (I am not the final arbiter of such things), but I don't really see an opportunity for that with DA anyhow.
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Let me think... besides Gromnir, there was Draconis (the dragon you fought right before Abazigal), Yakman (based on a fellow named Frozen Yakman, whom you met in the teleporter puzzle in Watcher's Keep), Gavid Daider (shortened to Gavid right before ship, whom you met in the first Pocket Plane challenge room) and that small encounter with the Bhaalspawn xvart, goblin and ummm chinchilla? (What was I on?) All of whom were named after forum regulars, though for the life of me I can't recall their names now.
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Ah, yes, thank you. Come to think of it, Merlinious might be the only one in that group who was a forum member. It's been a while.
Party Size (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=480373&forum=84&sp=105)
We could design a system where it is easier to control 9-12 heroes... or a 100... really it depends on how much you are expected to do with each of them. Are they all self-automated? Do they each have many abilities that can be accessed? If the system is designed to have lots of options and require more control, then having a large party could be quite cumbersome indeed.
Again, not knowing anything about the system (and we know this is the case), all you can really say is that you've liked games in the past with larger parties. Fair enough.
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I get that. The points that have been brought up by everyone are very legitimate ones, and there's really only so much knowledge that you have to go on anyhow -- so telling us what you've liked in the past is more or less what you're limited to.
Which is why I brought up the other considerations that need to go into such a decision. Obviously it's a decision that we need to make and not you, but I bring it up with the idea of asking, "if you had to consider these other things as well, would you feel the same?" And the answer I keep getting is "yes, because..." and a re-iteration of the points already mentioned, without actually considering what I've said.
Or maybe the things I bring up just don't seem as important, I'm not sure. Certainly there are those who might say that opportunities for dialogue and tactics should trump any other consideration, and I suppose that's a fair stance to take... if not one that I can think of as being realistic.
The thing I need to keep remind myself sometimes is that I'm not talking to one person but rather multiple people who keep coming into and out of the conversation at different points. http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif</img>
"You Must Make Haste" (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=479244&forum=84&sp=45)
Why would I do that? I spend half my time trying to convince everyone that DA isn't the D&D-less sequel to NWN they assume it to be, and now I'm supposed to convince you that it's the D&D-less sequel to BG?
Obviously you want it to be exactly the same as BG, and everything that doesn't sound exactly the same must mean it's done in the worst way possible (ie. NWN), right?
And what could we convince you of, anyhow? I already told you, for instance, that the "1 romance for each gender" isn't necessarily the case, yet you waved that off as just evasiveness on my part (never mind the sacrilege already committed of not having a gay romance, another thing we haven't said). So be it. *shrug*
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Consider this, perhaps: were I the only one who took your comments as such, I would accept the defensive response and plead a misunderstanding. I have noticed, however, that this happens to you on a regular basis. People take some of the things you say as being angry or bitter and you respond in a semi-hurt fashion, saying that you can't possibly understand how they came to that conclusion.
I am not trying to flame you, but I would put forward the fact that I am not the common denominator in those instances. You are. Take it for what it's worth, Cogitation, as otherwise your input is something I consider to be consistently intelligent and worthwhile reading.
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<hr />I had this hare(?)-brained idea where I dumped it in that Sun God idol, the one where it's supposed to resurrect your loved one that was taken by Bodhi (No, my *male* paladin did not want him as a lover! I just felt guilty that I screwed up big time with that quest) but nothing happened. *Shrugs* Oh well.<hr />
Huh. I wonder how the prayer for that would sound?
"Dear Sun God.
Now that you've resurrected the love of my live, the woman who means more to me than anything -- and thank you for that, by the way -- could you maybe do something about this harper corpse I've been dragging around for the past couple of weeks?
I know I don't technically "love" him and that he died of pure negligence on my part, but he's starting to really smell and MAN is his *** heavy.
You're a doll, thanks in advance. Amen."
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Time limits can be frustrating, especially if you want to avoid the impression that the player must drop everything else in order to do that quest right this second (especially if it's not true).
Though at the same time I think I'd like to avoid giving the impression that the player could wander away from said urgent quest for days and days and then come back whenever and the situation will still be exactly the same.
I think what's being discussed is whether or not major quests can or should have a failure condition and how that condition should be communicated.
There are timed quests where a time limit is explicitly made part of it... like "take x to y within 24 hours or z happens"... but I'm referring to the major quests in the game. Is there even a purpose to putting in a failure condition and allowing the game to continue, regardless? Or would everyone just reload anyhow? Somewhere between "maintaining setting integrity" and "maintaining easy of play" is the answer, but it's the kind of discussion we have here ourselves. DA is planning on having failure conditions to some degree -- but how explicitly this can be communicated to the player is difficult to pin down.
Adult-connect? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484368&forum=84&sp=75)
Okay, I'm reading this and rubbing my temples, now...
What was wrong with the Carth romance, exactly? And why is it being used as an example here?
Are we just talking about the lack of a kiss and any kind of sexual consummation? Because some of you seem to go beyond that in terms of complaining about how we writers see "manly men" in romance in general... yet I'm getting very little idea of how that would be satisfactorily changed.
In terms of the animations themselves, I actually wanted a kiss in KotOR, but we just couldn't fit in the animation and I didn't like how the fade-to-black played in the Bastila romance and didn't want to repeat it. We got the kissing animation in Jade Empire, and we'll have it for DA, but I doubt we'll get much more in the way of animations for that... remember that this whole romance thing is a small aspect of the game.
Same goes for cutscenes in lieu of the fade-to-black with any sexual encounters. I'm willing to hear ideas, but the cost of such alternatives has to be kept very much in mind. The scene with the party members, while it sounds fun, wouldn't work -- there's no way to guarantee that any party members will be with you and with full-VO we can't simply insert "anyone" into a speaking part. But other suggestions might be fine so long as we're not talking about needing specific animations for it.
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Hmmm. I look upon your comments, and I see a number of things I have thought myself in hindsight. Of course, hindsight doesn't help much.
Take the torture sequence, for example. It was part of the whole Leviathan sequence that was changed well after the romance was written. Add in a post-torture romance talk? Good idea. No time at the point it was done... VO was already being recorded by then.
The idea that Carth and Bastila's romances were more tied into the main plot was one step as it was, we still have to keep in mind that the entire romance thing is very much beside the point in terms of the larger game. The comments you make are things that could be addressed if these other changes and plot elements were lesser in importance to the romances -- if, at every stage, we turned around and said, "How does this affect the romance plots? Should we add in something? Should we take something out?"
There was no option, after all, to add Carth's son onto the ship or to have the plot carry on a great deal afterwards. While yes, ideally, that would make sense, in terms of writing that plot in you take what you can get because (again) the game is not a romance.
That is not to say that there is not room for improvement, as I've said many times. With greater planning we can try to head off these sorts of issues at the pass... but I have little doubt that towards the end of the project certain issues will creep in with regards to late changes affecting the romances and the romances will always take a back seat in those instances, to their detriment. Why? Because there are a dozen other things that need to be maintained that are of higher priority. Ideally we would be able to juggle them all, but that's easier to say than it is to do.
At least in comparison to KotOR, the one thing I've learned from that and taken away for DA is the idea that much more thought needs to be applied on exactly how the romance feels and plays in the later stages once the dialogue has "run out" (so to speak), but I have to accept that not everything that I try for the romances is going to work well... just as a fan of our romances would have to realize that they will never receive top billing and be the entire point of the story as some of you are obviously wanting instead of ancillary to it (though, frankly, I wouldn't mind that being the case... but I suspect I'm in the minority).
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Yeah, as I've said elsewhere I've learned a bit from both Carth and Valen since then. I don't really think that reaching "I love you" should be the goal, exactly, and that there needs to be some kind of resolution afterwards that recognizes what is going on in the story. And that's the plan. We'll see how it works out (as I just pointed out above, it's of ancillary importance at best in relation to the larger picture of the game), but I'm hoping that the romances will feel much more organic this time around.
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<hr />What I am concerned about is whether DA is going to be chaste to a fault -- I don't know if that is going to happen but that is a concern of mine. At the moment I don't know what or where DA is going on this front.<hr />
It's a valid question. Personally I tend to like having a Mature title so that certain issues of morality and violence can be addressed in what I consider to be an adult manner.
I personally tend to find that whenever the subject matter becomes a bit more lurid, that making it explicit feels a lot like titillation simply for titillation's sake. Maybe that's because we haven't much experience in presenting adult situations inside a game, I don't know, but if it's avoided it's not stemming from a desire to be chaste exactly as much as a desire to avoid awkwardness in the storytelling.
Those are my personal thoughts on the matter. Where we will end up settling with DA in regards to a specific policy with regards to sexual situations of this kind really hasn't been settled yet.
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<hr />It's the males that tend to be indifferent dads by whatever reason in Bio's games. Pretty much every joinable male NPC that has a child as a plot point does the same thing: has no idea what's up with the child (in two cases out of 3 is unaware of even fathering one) convinces Player1 to go save him/her, and then cheerfully abandons the offspring to his or her fate. At the very least both Coran and Cernd had some sort of a support network in place for Namara and Ahsdale.<hr />
Uh-huh.
I would counter that it takes a certain type to be an adventurer. If they were good fathers, chances are they wouldn't be in your party. But I guess if *that's* where it all breaks down for you, then perhaps relying on modded efforts might indeed be the way for you to go, I'm sorry to say.
You asked for suggestions here's a suggestion (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484364&forum=84&sp=15)
This is an excellent idea, but you do realize we've written the story already, right? This isn't a suggestion for a one-off plot or something but rather the basis for an entire game, the sort of thing that would need to come up in the concepting phase.
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That isn't what I meant. There is still a lot of characters and plots to be written, but the base story has already been concepted and would be difficult to change at this point... suggestions that don't involve changing the foundations of the story or game mechanics are really the way to go, here.
Party Size Pt 2: Attack of the Clones (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484632&forum=84&sp=15)
Yes, of course, but the GUI must also accomodate many other things beside simply how many characters you are going to have in your party.
I mean, let's ignore party control altogether (and we can't, but let's pretend for the moment). What other GUI questions must we address? What about a map? What about inventory control? How does one access the menu? How much onscreen space do you need to see? Are you zoomed out to get all the party onscreen and then losing detail? Or zoomed in to see all that graphical goodness and then losing sight of your party? Do you need to see far distances in order to make ranged combat effective? How many of your controls must be accessible at all times and how many can be folded away? What resolutions are we supporting (a biggie: any controls must fit all resolutions)? How many individual models can you show on the screen at one time? The more you devote to individually-modeled and -textured party members, the more you take away from the number and variety of opponents.
Right now we're more in a process of "well, we've got these potential layouts to work with, leaving us x amount of real estate in each layout for party control -- depending on whether you need to show this, this or this many buttons on the GUI."
So it's not final... not in terms of us saying "we want there to be x characters in a party. Done!" But rather the consideration needs to be part of the overall GUI design. There are many masters it needs to serve. Even if we said we wanted an x-size party, we would get back layouts that would show us what such a GUI would need to look like and what we would be giving up in other areas -- and we would then need to decide which of those things was most important, especially in light of the range of class selection and "feel" for combat and group dynamics that we want the game to have.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure if I communicated it very well.
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Oh, we do start off saying what we would like to see. Then the GUI artists come back to us with various layouts that would accomodate that many... and what we could possibly get by adding or subtracting from the party number and we go from there. Or they have a serious problem and let us know what has to give and where... or we look at what we had to give up with a design and say, "No no, that just won't do." Especially if it doesn't give us the feel we want.
Party size is important but it is not the first decision, however, and it does not trump every other consideration. That would be a bit like the tail wagging the dog.
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It's part of the gameplay consideraiton, yes, but there's much more to gameplay than the size of the party. Just as the GUI needs to serve more than simply gameplay, even if gameplay is probably the most important aspect.
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And that's fine if it's decided that seeing your fellow party members is not an issue... but if you zoom out, you might also be missing all the super-duper monster models that you're fighting and all the fighting animations that you have. Again, what are you going for? If, like BG2, the fighting animation consists of you chopping your sword like an axe over and over... well, perhaps zooming out is best. But if you're going to spend time on pretty animations and cool visual effects, you're going to want to show them off at their best.
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Which reinforces my original point about the fact that, to the average fan, there's no reason not to have more of everything. More party members = more banter = woot! What's not to like?
Of course we know that. That's not news. Of course factoring in multiplayer load times and graphical LOD is of no interest to you. But, seriously, if I went into a meeting and told everyone that everything else had to service the game having a large party because dialogue was the most important thing in our game... well, I'd be laughed out of the meeting. Not because dialogue and design isn't important, but because there will always be a give and take between what design wants and what design gets.
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Actually, in NWN we had one week to write all the NPC's... not one week for each. Henchman were not part of NWN's original plan.
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Not consciously, no. I tend to have no trouble imagining a character concept that I would like to try out. If it's fuzzy at all, then I bounce it off the other writers a few times until something sparks. One day I may have to start keeping a list, though, I don't know.
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Frist off, I never said that the romances are a "very minor" part of the game. What I've always said is that they are not what the game is about. We are not making romance stories, so therefore the romance is always going to be ancillary in importance at best.
Secondly, I don't think "very few" people enjoy or pay attention to the romances. If that were the case, we probably wouldn't include them in every single game we do, would we? But not every person plays the game for the romances, as difficult as that might be for you to imagine. Having friendships with the party members might seem boring to you, but they're going to involve a lot more players than simply adding more romances would.
And I have not said that there will only be one male and one female romance.
Please... either quote me directly or stop putting words in my mouth in order to support your arguments. Thank you.
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Sigh.
I did not say that you suggested every single person plays the game for romances. I simply said that every person does not... because it seems that unless I spell out exactly what I mean on that front you interpret it as me saying that "very few" (ie. next to nobody) wants romances at all. So don't talk to me about twisting meanings -- you're the one that is constantly taking everything said to you in the worst possible context, not me.
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Let me spell it out for you then.
If we add more romances in, the people who will enjoy that feature are those who like romances. Though they would have liked whatever romances we had anyhow... the fact that they like having greater variety more does not mean that there is more people liking romances.
That does not mean that there is no reason to put more romances in. There are a lot of people who like romances and we'd like them to like the game more. But it does not expand that audience.
If we have romances as well as friendships, then we get not only the people who like romances but also those who like interaction but not necessarily romances. We expand on the number of interactions you can have with NPC's without restricting that field to one lone subject: romance... which, since we are not writing a story that is about romance, should not receive more focus than it is due -- which, I contend, is exactly what you keep pushing for. I might be wrong about that, but it certainly seems that because you believe the romances are popular (which they are) that therefore they must be all-encompassing when it comes to NPC-related dialogue.
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But we're not talking about doing friendships like they were in the past. We're talking about doing them like the romances... a series of dialogues and choices that builds the relationship between you and your NPC. But instead of building towards getting married and having babies, you're building towards a close friendship. We're also talking about being able to switch between that kind of friendship path and a romantic path for those characters which you can romance.
There aren't many people asking for this sort of thing because we've never done it before. But I don't really think I'm going out on a limb when I suggest that being able to interact extensively with all your party members is going to reach a larger audience than those simply interested in romances. Call me crazy if you wish, but I feel pretty comfortable with that idea.
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Then let me suggest this to you: stop using words like "DG says this" and "Gaider believes that" to support your particular slant on things. If you can't quote me, then say it's what you believe and I won't have any reason to object.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Brenon Holmes, Programmer</font>
Adult-connect? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484368&forum=84&sp=60)
Why would you think that?
Will there be fully featured sex scenes? I'm rather doubtful... in this case, your imagination is probably going to do a much better job... and again I don't think a graphically explicit representation will add that much *more* than alternative measures.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Georg Zoeller, Designer</font>
Gamespot Predicts DA in 2007 (Jumping the Gun Again) (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=484794&forum=84)
Jumping guns has yet to be proven to be a good idea. Only evidence to the contrary exists.
Unless you see an official BioWare press release defining a release date, don't believe anyone.