BioWare - Interview @ Eurogamer

Eurogamer is another site to catch up with Dr. Greg Zeschuk at Develop to discuss small scale MMOs and everything else. A bit on Dragon Age 2:

Eurogamer: People are saying, 'I loved Dragon Age. Why are you changing it?' It must be a difficult balancing act to keep the fans happy while implementing the changes you want to.
Dr. Greg Zeschuk: Yeah. We're careful about it. Sometimes we'll do stuff for effect. You go back to Dragon Age 1, everybody was freaked out about that one trailer with the Marilyn Manson music. They were like, 'ah!' It was another facet of the game.
The interesting thing about doing PR is there is no way at this essentially early moment we can reveal everything. We can't show all the facets. Say we show one facet, and everyone freaks out. Then we show another piece, and they say, 'Oh, well, I'm okay now.' When you play it, you get a sense of what the gameplay is like. You go, 'oh, okay, it all fits together'.
From a PR perspective, just people talking about something is a good thing. They'll give it a look regardless. You'll see when we show all the elements, people will go, 'oh, okay'. They'll probably be less freaked out.
Eurogamer: Some people are saying you're turning Dragon Age into Mass Effect.
Dr. Greg Zeschuk: It's different. It's not quite going that way. You could make that case based on what we've shown. It's like looking at the game through a keyhole. You go, 'oh, well that's all there is'. Well, there's a lot more than that. But that's what we're showing right now.

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Not quite.
More information.

Really. The ability to choose your character background and dialogue lines is just a keyhole view of RPGs?

PS:T had a set main character, and it worked pretty well. There are potential benefits to offset the loss of ownership of character that results from this, if they are levered sufficiently, then I can accept that I'm playing Hawke.

It's a keyhole view of Dragon Age 2, he's saying that we've only seen a very small amount so far, and admits that amount makes it look a lot like Mass Effect, but promises that when we see more, we'll see that it's not quite Mass Effect.

I'm not so sure what to make of that. I don't mind the conversation wheel system, provided it doesn't mislead me. A paraphrase along with a visual indication of the intent or tone sounds good. The conversation line system can often be misleading, even though it gives you the full text of the response, sometimes it's clear from the NPC reaction to your choice, that the tone or intent of the line wasn't quite what the player expected.

If you're going to have a voiced PC, you probably need the wheel, as it conveys the choices to the player faster, allowing the conversation to flow more naturally.

As I said earlier, I don't really just want to spend another 100 hours playing the same game again. I'm under no illusions that the reason they've gone for a preset, voiced PC was that they were encouraged to take that route by EA, but if they make it work, then it might not be such a terrible thing.

Thrasher said:

Really. The ability to choose your character background and dialogue lines is just a keyhole view of RPGs?

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Yeah. What he says makes no sense to me. Why change something just for the very sake of changing?? Doesnt the man have a better reason than "we wanted to make it different".

Much blah blah.

A game where you can not create your OWN character is NOT a Roleplay Game. Period.

Yes, so once again neither the Gothic games, Planescape:Torment or the Witcher are roleplaying games right? Bullocks!

You may prefer RPGs where you can create your own character but please don't start the tired old discussion of what makes a game a RPG.

With that being said I can't help but wonder why in a place like the Watch (where most of the usual gang are intelligent people) it appears that many of you have absolute no idea how to distinguish PR/Hype from facts. The gaming industry has become huge over the past 15 years and each AAA game costs a lot of money to make so of course the PR/Hype department is busy creating buzz about this particular game.

This is no different from regular commercials in magazines, billboards or television … or did you also rush out and buy a whole crate of Axe deodorants when you saw how the guy wearing it was chased by hundreds of attractive women? No? Then why are you buying into the exact same mechanics in play when it comes to games?

I don't have a problem with set characters at all (having liked the Gothics, the Witcher, Mass Effect, among others). The same goes for the dialog wheel - I found it OK (though certainly not superior) in the ME games. But I am still dissapointed by this. For one, BioWare already have a game like that in their portfolio with Mass Effect - in the interest of diversity, I would have preferred to keep them as different in style as possible. Secondly I think the Vignettes were one of the really cool things in DA:O, its sad to see them go (if this can be deduced from having a set character - I assume so). Thirdly it is just hard to see why this change would be necessary - DA:O was well received and very successful. There is nothing wrong with changing things around a bit in a sequel and trying new things to avoid the "more of the same" syndrome (although, didn't we just have a discussion where most people seemed to agree that developers should make more out of their existing technology?) - but "lets make it more like Mass Effect" is really the most boring way possible to go about achieving that goal.

Maybe there will be a vignette (origin story) for each of the three playable classes? It would be sort of hard or difficult to explain why Hawke was (is) a mage, I'd guess…

As for DA: Origins, I must have missed something? I totally haven't discovered the reason behind doing the Mansion PR yet - I've yet to find some areas in the game where the game even remotely ties back to the Manson PR.

The only thing we really know about DA2 right now is that the main character will be fully voiced, and that they'll be using the dialogue wheel (updated) from Mass Effect. It's not that they're using I'm worried about, it's the way, they'll be using it…

Edit:

According to David Gaider, the lead writer for Dragon Age, this time around there will be

No exclusive organization. No saving the world. No ancient evil.

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(source : http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3127485/1)

This just makes my intuitive spider sense feel that Hawke's story really is the discarded and cancelled ordinary human story...we'll see...

Okay but so far the news are mostly bad

1.No Elf character
2.Sword of WTFPWNGE in first screens
3.Hawke (WTF is this name lol) has doped muscles
4. If i can not chose the length of nose hair the game isn't really a RPG

I 'd like to know more about gameplay rather than artistic approach .

fatBastard() -- Right on.

They called the first one "Dragon Age: Origins"

Note the colon in the title. This was a great move on Bioware's part. It sets up "Dragon Age" as a newly created universe that Bioware completely owns. It allows them to create as many games and as many types of games in this universe as they want. They had a DA:Browser Game. They Had DA: Origins. DA: Awakenings.

I will guess that DA2 eventually becomes DA: (title) before it is released. Hell, with this setup, they could make DA: First-Person-Shooter and it would fit the franchise... because it is set in their own world. The second, or the third or fourth don't even need to be related story-wise to the first, because the title is about a very long span of time in an alternate universe... they could expand on it for decades if they wanted to.

I for one hated the mute main character in DA:O. They made all these cool scenes with great characters, dialog and voice acting until it came time for you to talk. Then everyone just stared at you, the dopey looking mute, until you chose from a list of responses. It was extremely goofy, and I'm glad they're going to try something different.

Also, the dialog wheel is great. Just feels more responsive and intuitive than a list. Why anyone would complain about it is beyond me... but knock yourselves out, I guess.

And by all means, keep getting all twisted up about the various marketing leaks you're hearing about DA2. I'm sure if you post enough huffy, p!ssy comments about its apparent lack of RPG-purity, Bioware will come around and give you each a pony named Imoen. Or you could go back to playing Wizardry 2, or whatever game you believe was the last TRUE RPG ever created.

Heh.

Ovenall said:

Also, the dialog wheel is great. Just feels more responsive and intuitive than a list. Why anyone would complain about it is beyond me… but knock yourselves out, I guess.

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Eh? Because one doesn't want to reduce dialogue choices to this:

__________
—————-
__________

BTW, Bioware: you are free to use the above graphics for DA2

Lemonhead- Baldur's Gate 1&2 had the same dialog setup, but as a numbered list instead of a wheel. Have some perspective. Plenty of the dialog was just as simplistic as you're suggesting.

No, wait. I think you should start another angry thread on the Bioware forums complaining about what the dialog options might be in a game that isn't released yet.

Ovenall said:

I for one hated the mute main character in DA:O. They made all these cool scenes with great characters, dialog and voice acting until it came time for you to talk. Then everyone just stared at you, the dopey looking mute, until you chose from a list of responses.

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Unless we´re talking Alpha Protocol, the dopey looking mute part occurs in games with a voiced protagonist as well so that remark is invalid.
With a mute character they could solve the issue by making dialogues as in, say, Bloodlines. With characters interesting enough, I doubt many people would mind the potential loss of "cinematic" quality.
Besides, not every fucking mainstream cRPG needs to be cinematic at all costs, as success of, wait for it, DA:O has shown.

With a voiceless protagonist, it´s only on you how you imagine the voice, which some people will understandably miss because it generally allows for a closer relation with the char.

In regards to dialogue wheel, I´m quite optimistic, seeing how they implemented Alpha Protocol´s stance system, benefits from character aversion, etc.

elikal said:

A game where you can not create your OWN character is NOT a Roleplay Game. Period.

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Where did this come from?
OK, you loose the opportunity to give the char your own personal voice, but you can still choose the class and influence his skill/attribute progression as well as the way he´ll progress through the story. I´d be also quite surprised if various backgrounds wouldn´t be implemented.
The origins in the first game were also set and dialogue options were still limited to pre-made sentences (duh).


Those PR´s surely knew what kind of info to leak first, eh.

DeepO- I concede your point about the voiced protagonist. I will say they did a much better job in Mass Effect directing the scenes so that your character didn't end up looking quite as dopey as in Dragon Age. I started my first character as a dwarf in Dragon Age. After several dialog scenes I seriously couldn't stand how stupid he looked just gaping at the NPCs with a protruding lower lip and bad hair, like a stunted member of the Allman Brothers Band in 1978. I deleted him and started over, never playing a dwarf again.

But your point stands. I think though that they started off developing DA as much closer to the old Baldur's Gate style, then shoehorned in more and more of the cutscenes and cinematics. It just didn't mesh well. ME2 did this much, much better, though it was seriously lacking as an RPG.

I prefer the fantasy setting versus sci-fi, clichés and all. I'm also a big fan of the BG games. I have high hopes for DA2.

Just give us more enemy variety, please.

About dialogs : I remember a few times - I think it was in BG1, but it could have been elsewhere, too - me finding that after having chosen a dialog option which I thought was expressing my concerns without me actually being "agressive", the other one suddenly became hostile or at least angry at me.

This wasn't what I had intended with this dialog option, which resulted me in feeling quite surprised.

I could never find out if it was meant to be so - or if the actual meaning of the dialog option had become kind of blurred or distorted during the translation process.

Ovenall said:

Lemonhead- Baldur's Gate 1&2 had the same dialog setup, but as a numbered list instead of a wheel. Have some perspective. Plenty of the dialog was just as simplistic as you're suggesting.

No, wait. I think you should start another angry thread on the Bioware forums complaining about what the dialog options might be in a game that isn't released yet.

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I don't see why you are implying that I post angry threads on the Bioware forums. Which I don't. Please keep to the subject at hand.

There are lots of places in BG1&2 where there are really simple dialogue options. And if I remember correctly: some that were a bit more complicated. What I was trying to implicate was that there might be times when you want more complicated dialogue options than can be portrayed by icons. As a personal preference I'd rather know exactly what my character is going to say. And maybe even how he/she is going to say it which could be indicated as such:

"I'm really happy about the direction Bioware is taking with the Dragon Age franchise." (sarcastic)