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Dragon Age Forum News (Oct. 14, 07)

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by chevalier, Oct 14, 2007.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from the Dragon Age Official Forum. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

    David Gaider, Lead Writer

    Visible Helms please!

    It is indeed possible to have every model show the individual gloves, boots, jewelry and what have you that the character equips -- it's really a matter of how you want to set it up. There's certainly a bit of trade off in terms of complexity and maintaining a coherent look depending on how you do it.

    We have a large number of armor variations, and they are looking rather nice. I believe the current plan (and note that this may certainly change as we proceed) is that boots and gloves are equipped seperately from armor and appear on your avatar, while other equipped items (such as jewelry) do not. Helmets are also equipped seperately, including versions that are closed-face as well as ones where the face is visible, and these will show up on your avatar with a possible exception being during some cutscenes where wearing a helmet wouldn't make sense.

    Of course, I could turn around tomorrow and discover we have no helmets and one appearance for all armor -- but hey, this is The Plan.

    Changing the Battle-field

    That's an excellent point. The thing I always find interesting is how many people seem to consider anything which has even only been done once before to be "cliche". If they've ever seen it, they're just so tired of it.

    How jaded would one have to be to actually ask for something different just for the sake of being different? I've heard some people actually expressly ask for a plot that isn't exciting or extraordinary or where the player isn't the hero of the story. I think I get where such thoughts stem from, but I wonder just how quickly the novelty would wear off were they actually to get what they're asking for (as opposed to getting what they want -- which I suspect may just be that sense of "new" they had when they first began playing RPG's. Is it even possible to recapture? Possibly, though it seems difficult when so many do as you describe and immediately reduce any given plot to it's base elements and then immediately go on about how they've seen it before.)

    Not that doing something that doesn't feel like retread ground wouldn't be a good thing, but it does make me wonder just how different something would actually have to be to satisfy the truly jaded.

    more:

    So we should want to do something different solely for the sake of being copied by others? Emulation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but we're not really in the business of creating a game solely to be flattered.

    I guess my main point was simply that to some here there seems to be no middle ground. If you are not completely different in every single way you are therefore cliche and completely unoriginal. I'm all for doing things a little differently to shake things up a bit, but doing everything differently just for the sake of being different -- or for providing a sense of novelty to the jaded, however fleeting -- strikes me as more than a little pointless.

    more:

    Well, if one is inspired by Ayn Rand, that's all well and fine. To make something based on Ayn Rand simply because no one has done it before, however, is quite something else. Being copied may be the sign of having a valuable idea, sure, but one does not create something original solely for the purpose of being copied. You're mixing up the effect with the root, in my opinion -- to me as a creator, saying that if I make something original someone might want to copy it because it's so valuable is pretty meaningless.

    more:

    And that would be super, if we could afford to create our games simply as vanity projects and for the critical acclaim. While such things are nice, that's a pretty small part of why things get done in reality.

    more:

    Being a sidekick would be novel until the first time that the hero in charge of you began making all the decisions. At that point I imagine most players would no longer be amused. Of course, once you're the one making the decisions you are no longer a sidekick.

    TheDAS Elves and the Sumerians


    Judging from what I've read, the elves seem to believe that their gods have forsaken or forgotten about them. Now, for anyone who has read about Sumerian mythology, this should ring a bell, as their gods also are supposed to have forgotten (and most of their religious rites seemed to be mostly about getting the attention of the gods so they would remember).

    Is this just coincidental or did you draw any inspiration from Sumer?

    Coincidental, I'm afraid. The Sumerians sound cool, but I know nothing about them.

    Demand for a Linux/Mac version #3

    I don't think it would even be a consideration to release something commercially without having a degree of technical support behind it. The chances that any reputable publisher would put something out that was essentially "use at your own risk" is pretty small, even with good intentions.

    That said, the cost of doing a port need not be that high. The question isn't simply one of breaking even, however -- do we even have the manpower to provide such a project? It may not seem like much is required, but keep in mind that the projects underway at a development house are always crying out for more people, and the solution is not simply hiring people ad infinitum. So the programmers (not to mention QA testers and other vital folks that are often forgotten when one thinks about what such efforts take) are allocated where they are most needed -- and the question becomes whether such a port would be worth doing and not just profitable.

    The answer may very well be yes. Whether you want to quibble about what some users "deserve", there is always something to be said about expanding the user base of a game and giving it some more life -- and certainly I imagine it never hurts a developer's or publisher's reputation to be seen as accomodating. Just because one can imagine it being possible, however, does not mean that it's very realistic. I think all Georg meant to say is that once the publisher gets some numbers on how well a given project does (or is expected to do) on its native platform they can make a judgement on how well it might be received as a port and decide whether that's worth pulling people away from larger projects to do so. Making impassioned pleas is well and good, and we developers would be the first to feel for you -- why wouldn't we want everyone who wishes to play our game to have their chance? -- but at the end of the day even you have to realize this is a business decision, and not one that we at Bioware can make alone. We've accomodated alternate OS's before, however, so I think it's safe to say that if there's any possibility of doing so with DA we probably will.

    Scott Meadows, Senior Programmer - Tools

    EA Acquisition Having Any Effect on DA Development?

    At this time it has no impact on DA

    What we've all been waiting for... Rejoice!

    Dragon Age is doing fine and coming along nicely.

    All you naysayers can write doom and gloom all day long, meanwhile I will continue to play an awesome game.

    As far as a publisher goes, we still have not annouced anything, stay tuned.

    I do not want this to turn into an EA bashing fest so it gets locked now.

    thx

    Dragon Age is published by Electronic Arts, apparently

    We have not announced a publisher yet, stay tuned.

    Anything to do with EA is a company discussion at this point and not game related, so every discussion about EA no matter how relevant you think it is, is Off Topic and being discussed in the News Section

    If this changes we will let you know, until then every post about EA not in the News forum is considered spam and Off Topic and will be locked.

    The bosses drop a DA hint...

    Oh noes doom and gloom....

    For those that have been following the forums you know the game has been playable for awhile, and yes we haven't given a ton of press to the game.

    Did you ever think that maybe that was the plan.

    Look at the backlash we got when we released some screens via the Games for Windows article.

    Geez, and you wonder why we don't release anything until we are sure of it and are ready to commit to it.

    Anyways, Back to improving the tools and playing the game for me....

    thx

    more:

    So much mis-information....

    It's not a demo, its the real deal.

    And yah I could probablly play it all weekend if I so choose.

    If we only show a part of the current game, we can call it a demo of the game.

    Demo == Demonstration
    Defn - a showing of the merits of a product or service to a prospective consumer.

    thx

    Georg Zoeller, Designer

    Demand for a Linux/Mac version #3

    Commercially it makes sense to evaluate a port - just like evaluating Mac and Linux ports.

    Since we just recently 'acquired' a publisher, these things will certainly end up being discussed in the near or mid future.

    As we have said for the last couple of years - one we know the answer, you'll be informed. Until then, it's fun speculating and reading all kinds of things into comments people make, but really, it's just speculation.

    Level/Ability/Power choice revert

    Meh, you can run scripts, so you can modify the character any way you like. There is no ELC system in DA as it is not needed.

    Also, characters are probably saved in a documented file format, so you could edit that as well if that pleases you.

    As for a 'respec' option, as said before, there are no plans for one.

    more:

    Game balancing at BioWare is a collaborative process. There's designers, QA, Focus Testing and ultimately feedback from everyone in the company that happens to play the game.

    Obviously you start with a plan and a rule system that is balanced on paper, you then put it into the game and .. well, play, refine, play, refine, add, play, remove, play, refine, play, etc... until you ship

    As it stands right now, twitch skills are not a deciding factor in DA combat, especially since you can pause the game at any point in time.

    Stanley Woo, QA Ninja

    Level/Ability/Power choice revert

    I don't know if anyone's thought of this in this whole discussion, but the idea of difficulty and whether a given game is too easy can never be predicted. It's not until after you've gone through the game that you can say whether that game was too easy or too difficult.

    I, for example, found some of the big fights in HotU really challenging, and yet I see on the forums that many people found it far too easy, given the "right" character build.

    But how do they know it's the "right" character build? Well, either it's a min-maxed build designed to be uber-everything, or the player knows precisely what abilities the big boss has and how to counter it. Either way, building the "right" character for that boss requires metagaming. And yes, Dragon Age may require some of that, but to say at this point that the game is good or bad, too easy or too difficult, based on something as subjective and vague as "personal preference" is a little disingenuous, particularly when our reputation is being called out over it.

    I would challenge anyone to list the number of single-player RPGs that natively allow you the kind of character reversion we're talking about here. Something that's not based on loading a previous save or cheat/debug commands or exploits. i already know that a lot of MMOs allow it, which is fine. It's an MMO, where the story is less important than a player's investment in his character, and playtime is nigh unlimited.

    Anyone up for that challenge?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
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