Dragon Age - Drakspawn Chronicles Preview @ GS

[Dhruin]

Upcoming Dragon Age DLC Darkspawn Chronicles has been previewed at GameSpot (http://gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/dragonageoriginsdarkspawnchronicles/news.html?sid=6261829&mode=previews). It seems roleplaying isn't high on the list of priorities:
You play a darkspawn general, a hurlock vanguard, described by Bartel as "a new type of darkspawn given a measure of free will by the archdemon." It's the archdemon--that is, the dragon that leads the darkspawn horde--that telepathically issues your orders to take the city. Your party comprises various disposable thralls: darkspawn units recruited on the battlefield with your vanguard's instant recruitment ability. Blight wolves, hurlocks, genlocks, and ogres are up for grabs, as well as stealthy shrieks and fireball-hurling emissaries. It's the same four-character party setup as previously, but rather than swapping out one member for a more useful unit, you execute the unfortunate conscript.
These are, explains Bartel, not the talking, fully sentient darkspawn introduced in Awakening, but the orc-like creatures of the game proper. Generally, role-playing elements are stripped down in favour of a brisk, combat-based experience. Dialogue menus, for instance, just "didn't make sense" given your grunting, brutish cohorts, says Bartel.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=14940)

[booboo]

These are, explains Bartel, not the talking, fully sentient darkspawn introduced in Awakening, but the orc-like creatures of the game proper. Generally, role-playing elements are stripped down in favour of a brisk, combat-based experience. Dialogue menus, for instance, just "didn't make sense" given your grunting, brutish cohorts, says Bartel.

So this is NOT an RPG but a hack'n'slash with 'rpg-lite' elements? Controlling a 'party' of disposable cannon fodder means that this is basically a team-based combat game. sounds tedious.

[blackcanopus]

Dialogue menus, for instance, just "didn't make sense" given your grunting, brutish cohorts, says Bartel.

Perfect for romance. :D

[xSamhainx]

what would be cool is if that did a top-down strategy kinda thing... churning out endless darkspawn zerg cannon fodder while utilizing hero monsters and such, battling waves of human enemies w/ special Warden units.

[Starwars]

This is something that bothers me a lot about DLCs, it seems that developers often take a quicker way when creating them. Roleplaying is too complicated, so combat experience is way more cost-effective for the developer.
Now, that's just a feeling I get. There might be huge effort involved in making the player a darkspawn instead but it just feels like the cheap way out.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

This sounds to me as if they are going even more down the "dark & gritty" route : No more exact role-playing, but brute-force hacking & slasjhing of a monster instead ?

I put it this harshly because I wanted to point out to the general direction as it appears to me.


The worst thing, imho, is that they'll succeed, no matter what, in contrast to the "anti-D&G" game called Drakensang.

Later, most people will remember this D&G game, with all of is DLC - being fulled by EA, perhaps the most omnipotent gaming company on earth - but no-one will remember the light and relatively peaceful athmosphere of Drakensang.

And later, everyone will believe that their route was "right", because they didn't go bancrupt.
In contrast to Radon Labs.

This is it what it makes things even worse for me.

I fear that we are right now stnding at a kind of "design choice" for about 10-20 years of games to come. I feel that either rakensang or Dragon Age will both ffect the future of role-playing gaming to a great effect.

To me it's like MS Word vs. WordPerfect.
Or Adobe Reader vs. WordPerfect Envoy.

[Malk]

I don't know, Return to Ostagar is also hack & slash, but Warden's Keep and (especially) The Stone Prisoner are pretty good.