Dragon Age - --Forum Highlights @ Sorcerer's Place
 

Dragon Age, Bioware's first RPG title in their own created universe, is still in development. Sorcerer's Place once more sifts through the Dragon Age forums to bring us some of Dave Gaider's responses to the community. There's a long discussion on gay romances, but also a brief look at the magic system :
And some NPC information:
More information.

Dragon Age looks promising to me… for a BioWare title at least. What do you people think about it?

Seriously…

I'm just sitting back and waiting on that one, hoping for the best.

I was really looking forward to it back in 2004, but now I've pretty much given up on it. Reminds me of Duke Nukem -Wait- Forever. If it is ever actually completed, I will definetly pick it up though.

Wow … I hadn't realized it was 2004 when it was announced … but check out this IGN first look.

But even then it was only early in development, so it is really in no way like DNF. It is not like they have promised delivery years ago, it wasn't supposed to be out by now, was it? I thought it was originally 2007 or so, now ~'08.

Maybe after Mass Effect is released this fall they'll get the project on the front burner.

For me looks like another empty game, with useless dialogs and places, painful story and a barrage of nonsense.
Has described in the interviews above.

Who cares about gay romances at all or comic characters?
They need in some way to make an up to date good game to please customers, throw away fancy graphics if it's useless like in NWN2.

An RPG with a new engine typically takes around 5 years to develop. NWN1 certainly did. Bioware were always up-front that they announced very early in the development cycle so that we would know they had not abandoned PC gamers.

Given the usual 5 year cycle, Dragon Age is right on target for an 08/09 release. Personally I'm glad for the early heads up and the forums - gives fans a chance to get feedback and influence design when there's a remote chance of that still being possible. If Bioware went for the usual silence and announcement a year or so before release then that chance is lost - and we'd currently all be convinced Bioware was now exclusively a console developer.

Wow… you could tell all that from a bunch of out-of-context developer forum posts that the link went to? That's some skill you have there.

Who cares? Well most probably all the forum goers who continually posted to the thread(s) about gay romance I would imagine. But it seems that David Gaider is going to ignore your advice and not please those customers - if you read what he said he was dead against adding a gay romance just for the sake of it.

I'm waiting this game with great expectations.

Yes, I think that's exactly what one of the BioWare PR folks said. Paraphrasing, he pretty much said 'Let us finish ME and once that's done we'll be bombarding you with Dragon Age news until you have Dragon Age coming out your ears.' :) .

There is already to much streamlining - three Races, three Classes (with Kotor-like upgrading), no Death until the whole Party is killed, probably developed with a console-version in Mind…

I'm expecting a Fantasy-KOTOR and certainly not the spiritual Sucessor of Baldur's Gate 2 … but I might still buy it for the story-line if the ratings here are good and not that bad at the Codex (or if there will be a promising Mod-Scene) :)

I think it's absolutely impossible to come to many informed conclusions about Dragon Age, other than enjoying the way David Gaider smacks idiots around in the forums, and a general observation that BioWare develops a certain type of game and adapts quickly to the market.

And, you know, I enjoyed BG2 much more than KotOR but KotOR actually developed a number of areas - it improved displomatic skills and multiple approaches, for example.

I'm very interested to see what they have been doing all this time - partly out of interest in the game itself and partly out if curiosity.

I know I'm not the only who HATES when game makers take away the omnipresent possibility of instant death for the main character.

In Fallout & Baldur's Gate, it's precisely that danger and suspense, and threat of death to your cherished character (and recruited NPC's) which made those games so challenging, demanding and GREAT.

It's really a dumbing down of RPG's, this "you can kill them but they can't kill you" idea. A blatant cheat. It's lame.

But the modding community usually strikes back to make mortality truly mortifying, and in tune with the tradition of RPG's.

Normally game developments are released to the public 1½-2½ years before game developments are finished and the game is ready to be released.

Bioware DID announce Dragon Age (DA) in 2004 for the PC only, simply because they wanted to put the pc fan based market at rest, they, bioware, hadn't abandoned development for the pc.

As far as I know, from the start. it was the plan to only have three races, and three races. However, like Mass Effect, your backgorund does count in Dragon Age. If you, in Dragon Age, chooses to be an elf, you will start in the elf village. If you chooses to be a warrior, in DA, you can get access to other abilities etc. than the warrior's as you level up - just like in ME.

Also, David G. has said - there will be no resurrection spells or healing spells or potions in this game. For healing, your team and yourself will have to hump back to camp to get treatment by a doctor.

To me, anyway, there are way to classes in D&D…

I'm tired of Gaider constantly waxing philosophically myself. He doesn't actually talk much about the development and that's what I want to hear about.

The one problem with Dragon Age of course is how generic it all seems. It's just another fantasy IP in the vein of D&D but without all the hassle of the approval process. Starting with the name they are making an overtly conscious effort to make it familiar when they had an opportunity to make something very flexible and original, ie. throwing away the class system.

Five years is too long for any game development including RPGs. NWN was an anomaly. Among other things it got held up by legal problems with Interplay. They were also not familiar with 3D development and had to learn from the ground up.

Part of the problem too is that they don't have a publisher yet. Development is all self funded. But they are obviously developing as seen from the shots of the updated graphics engine. Those shots from 2004 he said were from the NWN Engine. I'm not sure why they are keeping a tight lid on things. They could publish their PnP RPG they used for example to get players familiar with world.

I have hopes for a better version of NWN with a good toolset so I can develop a good PW from a company that understands their product unlike Obsidian. Gaider's already said they are going to focus on the game and it'll "probably have a toolset" so that's not encouraging. Again, though I hope its a statement for investors but it sounds like another sign of development by focus group.

If you look at how long Fallout has been in development, Bethsoft started development on this in 2004. And they had a working setting to develop their Fallout 3 game into. And yet, development still took (or takes) allmost 4 years, or maybe 4½ years, as it is being released in Fall(out) 2008.

Bioware needed almost a year, from 2004-2005, to make the game's setting. Then development began (slowly) in 2005-2006, then in 2006 they made it into somewhat full production. And after Mass Effect is released in november 2007, Dragon Age production will be on full fledged & full steam ahead production. I expect a Dragom Age release in november 2008 or maybe in february or may
2009 or so.

As for gay romances, I happen to agree with David Gaider. There's no need to put gay romances in, just for the sake or putting them into the game. If the game needs gay romances, there needs to be reason within the story to add gay romances, or any romances, for that matter, into the game.

How is there a constant threat when you know you are just going to reload? Implemented properly (and, yes, I know I'm losing hardcore credibility points for saying this), I think the "unconscious" thing can work.

I would never play a game where if I died, I had to start all over again. I just don't have the time for that, and I suck at twitch combat!! The challenge for ME is to finish the game, enjoy the story and the characters, etc, not to boast about how 'badass' my char was and that he could take out a Boss in twenty seconds. When some of you reach my age, (if ever :) ), you'll understand what I mean!!!!

In the BG series, if any character died, I would mount an expedition to resurrect them. At low levels, that usually meant skimping on expenditures to save up for the costly spell. If my own character died and the game forced me to quit or reload from a saved game, I would reload once or twice. If that failed, then I would accept that my character's story ended in failure, abandon the game no matter how far along I was, and either play a different game, or roll up a completely new character.

I don't mind that if a character is beaten silly, he or she falls unconscious until the battle ends. What I mind is that reviving them is so cheap -- meaning both inexpensive, and lame. In the real world, if my friend is hit by a bullet or skewered with a sword, he doesn't stand up once the villain runs away. Instead, we call an ambulance. Serious things happen. The way BG handled it felt right -- you could get anybody back (except yourself) with some effort. The way IWD handled was even better, because your other team members could rescue you if you died. But it took effort.

Hmm. Icewind Dale. Mmm. Kinda want to go start up a new game with a party full of clerics….

I've never heard of a 5 year cycle being normal. In fact, quite the opposite -- I've heard developers state that if a development cycle took 5 years, that would be a game that wouldn't get made. In addition, Dragon Age was supposed to be out in 2007 (at least originally). So a 08/09 release is not on target. Maybe it's on "revised target."

Yes, 5 years is definitely "long", rather than "normal". NWN took far longer than originally intended, and don't forget the publisher change (Interplay started to go under during the development).

If BioWare planned on a 5 year+ cycle for DA, then it's only because they haven't committed full resources to it over that time.

I think I have seen David Gaider mention on one of the DA threads about this on Bioware's forum that people will not heal once they have gotten up from being
unconscious. Instead they would have to head back to base to get proper medical attention.

I also think David G mentioned that maybe & perhaps you would lose some
experience points etc. from this ??

As others have said, I don't agree that dying makes things cool.

In BG, when I died, it was not a powerful roleplaying experience. Heck, in BG2, when a follower died, I reloaded because I didn't want to have to spend twenty minutes re-equipping everything that dropped off the dead character. Reloading isn't inherently cooler than having your followers finish the fight and then help you to your feet.

And yes, don't expect much in re DA until ME is out the door. You focus your community on one game at a time.

Great to see you again Patrick

One thing that bugs me about that statement is that DA was announced years before Mass Effect sometime before or around the time that NWN2 was announced.

We know that concepts and even development has been kicking around on DA for some time.

I would say the communities for Mass Effect and Dragon Age are completely different. People interested in ME would be console gamers who are interested because they want the next KotOR or Jade Empire experience.

Dragon Age is billed as some sort of spiritual successor to BG and NWN.

I agree, although I think it needs to be carefully balanced. KotOR was simply too easy and in Bioshock (a bit different, I know), dying can be tactic - don't waste a health potion, just take the death and regroup as you run back from the teleporter.

Yep. It was announced much earlier in the development cycle than other projects usually are, primarily because BioWare wanted to reassure people that Jade Empire and Mass Effect didn't signal an end to our PC-game development.

They could have pushed out a game quickly, something using the Aurora Engine again that looked like a Neverwinter Nights module with the serial numbers filed off, but the people in high places opted to take a longer path and develop a completely new engine for the new IP.

It's been a very long road, with some major changes on the technology side -- as I understand it (and I could be wrong), we went from one completely new engine to another completely new engine, both internally developed -- and it's clear to everyone that the development cycle has been longer than desired.

The goal, again, as I understand it, is that the big big long long wait now means that the engine framework is in place for more than one game, so if we opt to do a Dragon Age 2, it has a much shorter turnaround time and still looks good for a game put out years from now.

That's an astonishingly narrow mindset. I understand that on this messageboard, some people draw a line in the sand between real RPGs and pseudo-action stuff that console people like… but there's a large fanbase that will give almost any game with the name "BioWare" on it a chance. I was one of those people before I joined the company, and if you have a crystal ball that gives you access to marketing data more accurate than our own marketing department can come up with, then by all means, apply for a job.

So, short version: what "you would say" is based on a limited data set that agrees with your specific tastes.

I'm not saying you have no point -- Mass Effect might draw shooter fans who wouldn't touch a sword-swinging game with a ten-foot pole -- but you are dramatically underestimating the overlap.

Dhruin: I didn't find KotOR that easy, but then, I was doing it as a Scoundrel/Consular with a Con of 12, and because I liked the characters, I hit the final level of the game, the big ugly nasty fights, with Carth and Mission as my followers. There was some teeth-gnashing there. :)

I personally like "unconscious 'til end of fight" because it lets developers take the gloves off. If a single special ability can kill a player and result in having to reload a game, those special abilities can make a fight too frustrating, and it has to be dumbed down. If a single special ability can kill a player until the end of combat, then you can expect a good fight to take down two-thirds of the party instead of "might get most party members into low hit points". It gives the combat designers a bit more slack to play with, and that usually results in combats that are more fun.

(And in re BioShock: I hear you, although I'm choosing not to use the vita chambers. Either stubbornness or ego-padding or something. I'd rather reload than respawn.)

Wow. It's like you're from a different universe. I don't know what to say.

I admire your effort and tenacity but I just don't have the time or commitment to an individual game to take that approach. Even if I had the time, I'd get bored replaying the same stuff. Maybe I just suck and die too often but in "classic" RPGs, I'd probably lose a party member in many? most? larger battles first time around (or even second and third). That would have meant replaying BG2 dozens of times and perhaps I'd have never come even close to finishing. Again, I admire your roleplaying spirit but I just wouldn't enjoy that.

On the "cheap" bit, I broadly agree (that's why I was referring to balance above) but I suspect our ideas of an appropriate "cost" would be wildly disparate.

My astonishingly narrow mindset aside Patrick, your target market then is people who buy Bioware games regardless whether they are designed for console or PC? If they happen to be more shooter fans who don't like complex RPG's or vice versa then it's a spillover?

I'm not saying this to offend you Patrick, and you are right I'm not privy to the demographics so excuse my ignorance. I'm simply saying these are different games.

I myself am curious about the next Bioware game but I don't have a console for example. I myself am waiting for the next BG or NWN2 type game from you guys for PC.

This DA discussion has me thinking… It would be neat to see DA deviate from the expected high fantasy route , and go the low-fantasy route. Apparently, there will be no alignment system, less loot, there will be semi-realistic mortality and healing restrictions, and requirements for 'camp' (resting). No undead from what I've read. It seems to be a rather minimalist low-fantasy Rpg, which just might make it extremely difficult to "win" at (hopefully), and will present new challenges for us RP gamers, who despise clicky slaughterfest cakewalks.

Can dragons exist in low fantasy?

… or do their wings keep hitting the sides … ;)

Why not? They can exist in steampunk.

Hey, you says you will see any dragons at all?? in this game?? Even if it is named Dragon Age?? David Gaider once said (or wrote) at the bioware DA forums that to average people and low level characters dragons in Dragon Age will not be a common thing to see. Even high level characters would be very lucky to see them, I think?

The point is that 'yes, dragons can exist in a low level magic world'. However, they live very very far away on top of the highest mountains where common and ordinary people don't go or come…

Yes, Gaider goes on about that. Quite a number of people dislike the name of this title but he tends to get all "conceptual" about it.

The title is really a couple of words that sound awkward together and has the appearance of "marketing department" written all over it.

I think an equally good title would be "Dungeon Lands" which would be great if they used that for the sequel.

I once had a thread on all the RPG's that had Dungeon or Dragon in the title and it was significant.

Lucky, I think TOO many people would confuse Dungeon Lands with Dungeon Lords!! That would not be a good thing!! :)

I don't think of it that way. Well, frankly, I don't think of it much, because I'm not the guy who says, "This time, action RPG! Next, classic strategy! Tomorrow, turn-based!"

But I see it working two ways. Every game for a company BioWare's size has to reach out to a wide audience. Maybe that audience consists of BioWare fans and traditional RPG fans (Dragon Age). Maybe that audience is BioWare fans and Halo fans (Mass Effect). Maybe it's something entirely different. The point is that there's a core group of fans who will buy just about any title we put out, because they trust our name. (And yeah, if we consistently put out garbage, we can lose that trust. I figure someone will bring that up at some point. I don't see "Making games for consoles" as losing that trust, but it'd be great to get back onto the PCs, if not exclusively than at least simultaneously.)

If you're one of the people who thought that KotOR was too dumbed-down to really be a good RPG, and was really more of an action RPG in disguise, then you probably aren't one of the BioWare-brand people. You're a traditional RPG fan who happened to enjoy Baldur's Gate and possibly Neverwinter Nights.

That doesn't mean your (not necessarily Lucky Day -- a hypothetical "you" here) opinions aren't valid -- I always recommend voting with your dollar to let the marketplace know what you do or don't like. But it does mean that if you see BioWare as not having put out a good game since BG2, your opinions are going to be skewed from the opinions of the people that make up the "Buy BioWare brand" crowd. That means that not every game is going to be targeted at you. Mass Effect, for example, has a solid story and increasingly sweet combat, and I really like the talent chains and equipment modding system for how they let you customize your character, but if what you want is turn-based stat-crunching, Mass Effect might not be your thing. Some people wouldn't appreciate turn-based stat-crunching, some people can appreciate both, and some people appreciate very little except stat-based turn-crunching.

(I'm in "both". I love crunching numbers, but if a game has a good story, I don't much care whether I'm in turn-based or strategy-mode or action-mode or what. If the story is good and combat is fun for me, I'm happy with whatever.)

So, short version: our target market isn't people who would buy anything with BioWare's name on it. That's part of our target market, certainly, and it's the one part that will be there for every game, but every game also has a different target market beyond that core group.

And the hope/plan is that some of the people who've never played a BioWare game play Mass Effect, like it, and decide to give Dragon Age a try, even though they usually just play shooters. (Which is kind of a duh, but probably needed to be said.)

Agreed. I hope the above clarifies my position. (Which, again, is the position of a guy who is in no way connected with marketing or product direction, so take it as a view from the trenches, nothing more.)

I imagine it'll come to PC someday, hopefully sooner than Jade Empire did. No guarantees, but it would make logical sense.

And Dragon Age looks like the game you're waiting for, in any event. :)

I like the PS:T system, where the main character himself is immortal, and can resurrect followers a few times per day. This means that the whole painful BG reload way of doing it is eliminated, but death is still something to avoid. I also like the fact that The Nameless One can, in fact, use death as a tactical element, or as means of escape. He can even solve various quests by dying!

All in all, I really like quite a lot of the elements in PS:T, a shame the gameplay was rather slow; too slow to attract the masses I think.