chevalier
Tue, 4th Jul '06, 5:56pm
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>
Game world chemistry (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=486413&forum=84&sp=15)
That's where I am. I'm reading about this proposed complex chemical-reaction system and I'm wondering just what kind of game such a system would be helpful for.
Because, personally, I can't imagine a need in an RPG game that would be fulfilled better by creating such a system -- so you can what? Realistically set fire to a field with a fireball? All that work just to model how fast the grass should burn? Would the player even notice the difference between that and a much simpler system that just faked it? Don't forget KISS.
I suppose you'd have to ask yourself just how much of your game revolves around setting fire to things and setting off complex chemical reactions -- and how much your game requires a simulation of the real world to take place inside of. Because the "should we do it?" part is much more important than the "can we do it?" part.
I'm not going to say that such a system wouldn't have some value in the right kind of game. It could be interesting as an accompaniment to a proper physics engine. But we're certainly not talking about something that would be cheap to implement, at least currently.
More:
Do you? Do you need as many options to do things in games as you can in the real world? How does that tell a better story or make for better gameplay?
All things being equal, sure, why not implement such a system? But all things are never equal. At some point you have to decide whether you're making a world simulation or whether you're making a game, and what the minimum is you absolutely need to achieve your desired ends.
I know the argument you make is the one of emergent gameplay -- spend the effort to create the environment in which gameplay takes place and the resulting world will respond to the player's actions accordingly, perhaps in ways that the developer never expected. And that's super -- if what you're going for is a simulation of the real world. But what I'm saying is that your original statement above does not hold. It does not necessarily follow that every game would find such simulation effective or even desireable.
More:So... if someone went to the great time and expense to create this chemistry engine, then implementing such a simulation would be cheap?
You don't see that as slightly backwards thinking? If the variables are meaningless without the expensive engine to accomodate it, then that means implementing it is expensive. Because, hey -- if someone comes out with a cheap and easily-adaptable horse-riding engine that we can plug into any project then all our problems on that side are covered as well.
More:
Yes, I suppose that's correct. If one was able to simulate all the chemistry and physics of the real world and program an advanced AI to make all communication free form and reactive, then the game would just write itself and the player would have ultimate freedom. Just like having a captive DM inside your computer.
And while perhaps we just don't dream big enough, in the meantime we need to work with the constraints we have. http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif</img>
Cameos (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484131&forum=84&sp=105)
I might put in a character as homage to something like Firefly or BSG, but I would never make the reference so direct that you'd be able to draw multiple comparisons. There's a fine line between paying homage and being derivative, after all... although there are certainly worse things than being derivative of something really cool.
Character Creation (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=486294&forum=84&sp=60)
Hmmm. As fond as I am of "real human drama", I'm having a hard time figuring what the difference is between that and "make it good".
I mean, there was an impassioned poster who once made a whole thread about how we should aspire to write a CRPG story that compared to fine Russian literature. What's up with that? Considering that we still struggle with fitting the story around the concept of an undefined or partly-defined protaganist, having comparisons drawn to that of a novel breaks my brain. The experience in a CRPG, after all, is subjective.
More:
"More dialogues relating to the characters' feelings and emotions, of all kinds."I see this and I hear dialogue from "Dawson's Creek" and "Felicity", but I think I know what you're getting at.
"Magic Realism and Magic Deficiency"DA is not a Low Magic setting like Martin's world is... there, magic is both very rare and not very powerful (though possibly on the rise). I would say magic in DA is uncommon but quite powerful indeed, but a far cry from the everyday magic of D&D and lacking over-the-top fantastical elements like flying cities or dimensional portals and such that is found in many High Magic settings.
"More gray, less black and white"There is a danger in using the word 'gray' because that can very easily lead to the idea that there is no good and evil at all. An overabundance of moral relativism is not a fun concept, either, in my book.
Yet even in Martin's world, there is definitely good and evil -- but they exist as moral concepts and not absolutes (and maybe not even that when it comes to evil, depending on how much of an 'evil' force you think the Others are, as opposed to simply a malevolent one).
I would say that Martin's books align pretty closely to the precepts of Dark Fantasy (as opposed to High Fantasy), and I would say that DA does the same -- though (elves and dwarves being an example) we do have some High Fantasy elements.
I'd like to think that the characters are written a bit more realistically, but of course I would be expected to say that, wouldn't I? I guess I'll have to leave that to you to judge.
"Evil characters doing real Evil things and talking about it"I actually like the idea of people doing evil who actually believe that they are doing good or necessary things, or can justify what they do. I'm not a big fan of moustache-twirling, Daedalus kind of evil -- and magalomania-like insanity is a bit of a crutch. I think we've gone to great lengths to make the villain(s) in DA plausible and perhaps even sympathetic (in the way of understanding their motivations if not agreeing with them, as opposed to "I had a bad childhood, feel sorry for me" kind of sympathetic). But again, I suppose that will have to be left to the pudding.
More:
The idea that the conversation between Ellesime and Irenicus was there to excuse Irenicus's actions is a bit bizarre, frankly. And that's completely your interpretation. It was there to explain why he was doing what he was doing, perhaps even humanize him, but that does not make what he is doing any less wrong.
Saying on one hand that characters should talk about their emotions more and on the other hand implying that any attempt to illustrate the perspective of an evil character is a play for sympathy and that evil characters should be completely superficial and unrepentant -- that seems a bit odd to me.
More:
I have no issues with consequences for evil deeds -- karma's a ***. Indeed, I always thought it was a little amusing the way some folks freaked out at the idea of Viconia meeting a tragic end in the epilogue. To me, there was never any other possible result for the Viconia romance. She even tells you so.
But not every evil deed requires equal consequence, either. Not only would that be unrealistic, doing that would also be very preachy, especially when you're supposed to be allowing Evil-aligned characters in a game and not throwing Cosmic Justice at them and/or the only Evil party members that they can recruit. Which means that for a novel, BG2 makes for a great game -- and that's the way it has to be.
I could also make a comment about the differences in plot-centric and character-centric approaches, but I'm sure you get the point.
More:
I'm not certain how you got that out of what I said.
If everything in the game was morally relativistic, that means there would never be a clear right and wrong path. It does not automatically follow that otherwise there must always be.
Good and evil exist as concepts in DA, just as they do in our world, but they are not the focus of the game. Hence the lack of a morality slider or an alignment stat. You can decide what is right and wrong for your character -- just as you can in Morrowind, as you say -- and all you need fear is the consequences.
Why does Dragon Age need 3D graphics? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=486328&forum=84&sp=15)
BG2 had the benefit of taking an already-working engine and tweaking it further... meaning that right from the get-go you not only know what the engine is going to be capable of (by comparison we didn't know with any certainty what types of plots we could actually implement in NWN until about 6 months prior to ship) you are also able to produce end-game content almost immediately.
So being in that position is ideal, content-wise. Unfortunately the rapid progress of technology demands that any given engine has a shelf life (even by BG2 reviewers were already knocking the game a bit for its "dated" graphics), and the nature of a given project does not always allow us to re-use a past engine, so we don't always have that option (and haven't since BG2, point of fact).
But the switch to 3D art is also part of what has made our recent games "smaller" -- insofar as it is more expensive to create a unique area, and thus we have fewer of them. This in itself doesn't necessarily dictate less playtime for the game overall (as Oblivion would prove), but then again you have to consider how much playtime you want in your game from exploration/wandering and how much from story. Obviously we lean towards the latter, and you can argue that as much as you want, but in that respect less areas generally means less story.
Now, there are definitely ways to speed up the process of area creation as Oblivion has -- the re-use of art content, the procedural creation of exteriors, the use of Middleware options (like SpeedTree and Facegen, as LdyShayna mentioned) -- and that's a trend that's likely to mean much cheaper content creation in the long run (and is a good thing, I think, for those who want to see longer-running games) but even then there's trade-offs to be taken with each of those methods. At some point, any given project has to decide how much focus to place on a game's length -- because while you want to make the game long enough that the story you want to tell translates well and doesn't seem truncated, it does not automatically follow that longer = better in the sense of quality.
Insofar as going back to 2D art or not focusing as strongly on the graphic quality -- all I can say on that is that there really is a certain expectation in the industry which drives which titles are seen as "triple-A" event titles and thus get the attention of the media which is needed. Good or bad, not using the latest technology or having a dated-looking game is the surest way to get your title marginalized, and that's just the way it is.
At any rate, that's our perpsective on it, for what it's worth. I'm sure there's more technical reasons behind the scenes, as well, which I'm not a specialist in and so not really the one to explain it.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Chris Priestly, Quality Assurance</font>
Interact with the environment? (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=485816&forum=84&sp=75)
In pen and paper rpgs, or in video game rpgs?
I ask as one is MUCH easier to do than the other. As David mentioned, there are trade offs for these sort of things (mostly time/manpower and zots).
It's one thing in a live pnp DnD game to say "I use my oil to set fire to the grass", make your roll and do it. It's another to have to create grass, make it flammable, create a system to set it alight, create the animation for grass burning, make a smoke animation, make a "burned grass" tile for when the grass is burned off, and implement some damage system to harm opponents who walk into the burning grass. For the boat you need a craft system, floating on water physics, cut-downable trees. For the boulders you need the rocks, the gravity system, the animations, the damage, etc.
Sure, all these things can be done, but as has been mentioned they need people to do it. It's all a trade off. Just because it is cool to do in live games, doesn't mean that it is practical to do in a computer game.
More:
But keep in mind, this doesn't mean we won't do these sort of things if they'll substantially benifit the game. Part of what Scott Grieg and his team of Leads do is weigh the pros and cons of things like this. If there is a good reason to add something like burning grass (for example) to Dragon Age, it would get added.
That's why they're paid those huge "Lead" bucks that lowly peons like myself can only dream about. http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif</img>
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">David Gaider, Lead Writer</font>
Game world chemistry (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=486413&forum=84&sp=15)
That's where I am. I'm reading about this proposed complex chemical-reaction system and I'm wondering just what kind of game such a system would be helpful for.
Because, personally, I can't imagine a need in an RPG game that would be fulfilled better by creating such a system -- so you can what? Realistically set fire to a field with a fireball? All that work just to model how fast the grass should burn? Would the player even notice the difference between that and a much simpler system that just faked it? Don't forget KISS.
I suppose you'd have to ask yourself just how much of your game revolves around setting fire to things and setting off complex chemical reactions -- and how much your game requires a simulation of the real world to take place inside of. Because the "should we do it?" part is much more important than the "can we do it?" part.
I'm not going to say that such a system wouldn't have some value in the right kind of game. It could be interesting as an accompaniment to a proper physics engine. But we're certainly not talking about something that would be cheap to implement, at least currently.
More:
Do you? Do you need as many options to do things in games as you can in the real world? How does that tell a better story or make for better gameplay?
All things being equal, sure, why not implement such a system? But all things are never equal. At some point you have to decide whether you're making a world simulation or whether you're making a game, and what the minimum is you absolutely need to achieve your desired ends.
I know the argument you make is the one of emergent gameplay -- spend the effort to create the environment in which gameplay takes place and the resulting world will respond to the player's actions accordingly, perhaps in ways that the developer never expected. And that's super -- if what you're going for is a simulation of the real world. But what I'm saying is that your original statement above does not hold. It does not necessarily follow that every game would find such simulation effective or even desireable.
More:So... if someone went to the great time and expense to create this chemistry engine, then implementing such a simulation would be cheap?
You don't see that as slightly backwards thinking? If the variables are meaningless without the expensive engine to accomodate it, then that means implementing it is expensive. Because, hey -- if someone comes out with a cheap and easily-adaptable horse-riding engine that we can plug into any project then all our problems on that side are covered as well.
More:
Yes, I suppose that's correct. If one was able to simulate all the chemistry and physics of the real world and program an advanced AI to make all communication free form and reactive, then the game would just write itself and the player would have ultimate freedom. Just like having a captive DM inside your computer.
And while perhaps we just don't dream big enough, in the meantime we need to work with the constraints we have. http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif</img>
Cameos (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=484131&forum=84&sp=105)
I might put in a character as homage to something like Firefly or BSG, but I would never make the reference so direct that you'd be able to draw multiple comparisons. There's a fine line between paying homage and being derivative, after all... although there are certainly worse things than being derivative of something really cool.
Character Creation (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=486294&forum=84&sp=60)
Hmmm. As fond as I am of "real human drama", I'm having a hard time figuring what the difference is between that and "make it good".
I mean, there was an impassioned poster who once made a whole thread about how we should aspire to write a CRPG story that compared to fine Russian literature. What's up with that? Considering that we still struggle with fitting the story around the concept of an undefined or partly-defined protaganist, having comparisons drawn to that of a novel breaks my brain. The experience in a CRPG, after all, is subjective.
More:
"More dialogues relating to the characters' feelings and emotions, of all kinds."I see this and I hear dialogue from "Dawson's Creek" and "Felicity", but I think I know what you're getting at.
"Magic Realism and Magic Deficiency"DA is not a Low Magic setting like Martin's world is... there, magic is both very rare and not very powerful (though possibly on the rise). I would say magic in DA is uncommon but quite powerful indeed, but a far cry from the everyday magic of D&D and lacking over-the-top fantastical elements like flying cities or dimensional portals and such that is found in many High Magic settings.
"More gray, less black and white"There is a danger in using the word 'gray' because that can very easily lead to the idea that there is no good and evil at all. An overabundance of moral relativism is not a fun concept, either, in my book.
Yet even in Martin's world, there is definitely good and evil -- but they exist as moral concepts and not absolutes (and maybe not even that when it comes to evil, depending on how much of an 'evil' force you think the Others are, as opposed to simply a malevolent one).
I would say that Martin's books align pretty closely to the precepts of Dark Fantasy (as opposed to High Fantasy), and I would say that DA does the same -- though (elves and dwarves being an example) we do have some High Fantasy elements.
I'd like to think that the characters are written a bit more realistically, but of course I would be expected to say that, wouldn't I? I guess I'll have to leave that to you to judge.
"Evil characters doing real Evil things and talking about it"I actually like the idea of people doing evil who actually believe that they are doing good or necessary things, or can justify what they do. I'm not a big fan of moustache-twirling, Daedalus kind of evil -- and magalomania-like insanity is a bit of a crutch. I think we've gone to great lengths to make the villain(s) in DA plausible and perhaps even sympathetic (in the way of understanding their motivations if not agreeing with them, as opposed to "I had a bad childhood, feel sorry for me" kind of sympathetic). But again, I suppose that will have to be left to the pudding.
More:
The idea that the conversation between Ellesime and Irenicus was there to excuse Irenicus's actions is a bit bizarre, frankly. And that's completely your interpretation. It was there to explain why he was doing what he was doing, perhaps even humanize him, but that does not make what he is doing any less wrong.
Saying on one hand that characters should talk about their emotions more and on the other hand implying that any attempt to illustrate the perspective of an evil character is a play for sympathy and that evil characters should be completely superficial and unrepentant -- that seems a bit odd to me.
More:
I have no issues with consequences for evil deeds -- karma's a ***. Indeed, I always thought it was a little amusing the way some folks freaked out at the idea of Viconia meeting a tragic end in the epilogue. To me, there was never any other possible result for the Viconia romance. She even tells you so.
But not every evil deed requires equal consequence, either. Not only would that be unrealistic, doing that would also be very preachy, especially when you're supposed to be allowing Evil-aligned characters in a game and not throwing Cosmic Justice at them and/or the only Evil party members that they can recruit. Which means that for a novel, BG2 makes for a great game -- and that's the way it has to be.
I could also make a comment about the differences in plot-centric and character-centric approaches, but I'm sure you get the point.
More:
I'm not certain how you got that out of what I said.
If everything in the game was morally relativistic, that means there would never be a clear right and wrong path. It does not automatically follow that otherwise there must always be.
Good and evil exist as concepts in DA, just as they do in our world, but they are not the focus of the game. Hence the lack of a morality slider or an alignment stat. You can decide what is right and wrong for your character -- just as you can in Morrowind, as you say -- and all you need fear is the consequences.
Why does Dragon Age need 3D graphics? (http://forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=486328&forum=84&sp=15)
BG2 had the benefit of taking an already-working engine and tweaking it further... meaning that right from the get-go you not only know what the engine is going to be capable of (by comparison we didn't know with any certainty what types of plots we could actually implement in NWN until about 6 months prior to ship) you are also able to produce end-game content almost immediately.
So being in that position is ideal, content-wise. Unfortunately the rapid progress of technology demands that any given engine has a shelf life (even by BG2 reviewers were already knocking the game a bit for its "dated" graphics), and the nature of a given project does not always allow us to re-use a past engine, so we don't always have that option (and haven't since BG2, point of fact).
But the switch to 3D art is also part of what has made our recent games "smaller" -- insofar as it is more expensive to create a unique area, and thus we have fewer of them. This in itself doesn't necessarily dictate less playtime for the game overall (as Oblivion would prove), but then again you have to consider how much playtime you want in your game from exploration/wandering and how much from story. Obviously we lean towards the latter, and you can argue that as much as you want, but in that respect less areas generally means less story.
Now, there are definitely ways to speed up the process of area creation as Oblivion has -- the re-use of art content, the procedural creation of exteriors, the use of Middleware options (like SpeedTree and Facegen, as LdyShayna mentioned) -- and that's a trend that's likely to mean much cheaper content creation in the long run (and is a good thing, I think, for those who want to see longer-running games) but even then there's trade-offs to be taken with each of those methods. At some point, any given project has to decide how much focus to place on a game's length -- because while you want to make the game long enough that the story you want to tell translates well and doesn't seem truncated, it does not automatically follow that longer = better in the sense of quality.
Insofar as going back to 2D art or not focusing as strongly on the graphic quality -- all I can say on that is that there really is a certain expectation in the industry which drives which titles are seen as "triple-A" event titles and thus get the attention of the media which is needed. Good or bad, not using the latest technology or having a dated-looking game is the surest way to get your title marginalized, and that's just the way it is.
At any rate, that's our perpsective on it, for what it's worth. I'm sure there's more technical reasons behind the scenes, as well, which I'm not a specialist in and so not really the one to explain it.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Chris Priestly, Quality Assurance</font>
Interact with the environment? (http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=485816&forum=84&sp=75)
In pen and paper rpgs, or in video game rpgs?
I ask as one is MUCH easier to do than the other. As David mentioned, there are trade offs for these sort of things (mostly time/manpower and zots).
It's one thing in a live pnp DnD game to say "I use my oil to set fire to the grass", make your roll and do it. It's another to have to create grass, make it flammable, create a system to set it alight, create the animation for grass burning, make a smoke animation, make a "burned grass" tile for when the grass is burned off, and implement some damage system to harm opponents who walk into the burning grass. For the boat you need a craft system, floating on water physics, cut-downable trees. For the boulders you need the rocks, the gravity system, the animations, the damage, etc.
Sure, all these things can be done, but as has been mentioned they need people to do it. It's all a trade off. Just because it is cool to do in live games, doesn't mean that it is practical to do in a computer game.
More:
But keep in mind, this doesn't mean we won't do these sort of things if they'll substantially benifit the game. Part of what Scott Grieg and his team of Leads do is weigh the pros and cons of things like this. If there is a good reason to add something like burning grass (for example) to Dragon Age, it would get added.
That's why they're paid those huge "Lead" bucks that lowly peons like myself can only dream about. http://forums.bioware.com/_commonext/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif</img>