Dragon Age - Official FAQ
 

Minotic writes that BioWare has kicked up an official FAQ for Dragon Age. A sample:
1.02: It has been mentioned that Dragon Age is set in a dark, heroic, fantasy world. What does that mean?
1.03: When will Dragon Age be released?
More information.

That made me laugh.


Not so sure about this though. That was one of my main complaints about NWN2. Why is pc combat death such a taboo these days?

Because its not console friendly.

Or moron friendly; they are trying to expand their play-base. I can't blame them for that effort, but I can still resent them.

I realize it would be at least a limited amount of more work, but why not have a default setting of no death, but allow players to change it to allow death?

The only reason I can really think of is that it's lazy game design. If you have an NPC that is integral to a story line and he/she gets killed off, it causes a break in that story line, so you either have to make that story line or come up with another way the PC can complete it.

Again, I realize it's more work, but given that Bioware has a reputation for very deep games, I would think it would be work they would gladly embrace.

The whole removal-of-permanent-death thing is difficult and an encouragement to power gaming, but OTOH, in the olden days there was almost always a cheese way around it, too--like the resurrection spell, hauling the npc body around til you find a willing and affordable temple(fairly awkward and not too realistic) or just providing infinite replacement/recruitment ops. I don't know that the injury route is any kind of game breaker, though I'm always in favor of options for individuals to tweak the game framework to their own tastes. It will depend on the play how believable it is, I guess.

I kind of like this one:
4.03: What are spell combos?

Dragon Age: Origins will introduce the concept of “spell combos,” which is where you can chain together different spells to create a unique effect. For example, if you were to cast a Grease spell on a target to slow them down, followed by a Fireball, you could create a special burning effect with some devastating results.

And here I was thinking everyone thought PS:Torment was a shining example of RPGs, but now I see the deathless mechanic in it rules that out. :roll:

I never felt that resurrection was cheesey, except the whole carrying around the body for 3 weeks, then doing it! I always thought it would be a cool thing to have a time constraint on how long you can resurrect someone.

The thing that I liked about death in games is that when you have even temporary death, when one of your npc's falls in combat, you have to make a decision: Can I go one with a dead npc (even if I can resurrect the pc later) or do I reload? With the 'knocked out' way that NWN2 did it, you really can just fight until the last man standing and so long as the main pc is still alive, everyone's back and you move on.

Going real old school, the first game I ever played that didn't have death in it was Loom. Some people consider that game an amazing classic. I hated it. I bought it, went home and finished it in one night, partly because there was no death. No reloading. No worrying that you might get offed. Thankfully, I was able to get a full refund on it!

If done right, I can see that it might be cool, but I haven't seen it yet (just got Ps:T actually and looking forward to playing it). I thought you could die in Ps:T? Is it just not permanent? Or like NWN2 where you wake up?

I like how they describe the world, especially this part:

It's the right direction for this genre (and the kind of thing I've been talking about) but doesn't go far enough, IMO. Instead of packing a handful of alternatives like those into a single version of the game, it would be better to design the whole thing modularly and in a way where the game could update itself. So instead of just "shaping the way the world sees you and the way you will see the world," the game could react by making actual changes.

The difference is that you could take that idea much further (as far as you want, actually).

I won't spoil it for you - finding out is part of the game.

"1.06: Why is the game called Dragon Age: Origins?
… We also chose “Origins” because it symbolizes BioWare’s return to its roots."

Well, I sure hope so… even if I did enjoy their every post-BG game so far. Even if the "return to the roots" is a very general statement that can mean a lot of things.

Hm, I'm kinda worried about how they seem to emphasize the "dark and gritty" thing. I mean, I believe BioWare can make a perfectly dark, gritty and/or mature game… but let's just hope that they won't try too hard…

Early 2009, huh? Can't wait.
I mean, I can, actually, but… you know what I mean. :)

I'm fine with no deaths in the Dragon Age: Origins. I'll always reloaded anyway - when either one of my characters died. You also avoid the really irritating thing that is 'hey, the player's avatar is dead. boom. the game ends.' Even when her companions are in top shape.

I much prefer the approach Bioware has taken combat in DA: Origins. If you die, you will wake up, after the combat, with yor stamina, mana or health and some part of your body (severely) injured.

And yes, the no death in PS: Torment people deserve to find out for themselves what it means - by playing the game…

I think party-member death is pointless because nearly everyone is going to reload - including me. Which, I assume, makes me a moron. Any time you want to step in and run RPG Watch because your superior hardcore-ness makes you oh-so-much-better than poor moronic me, drop me a line.

Permanent death? Yeah, I generally reload (unless I'm purposely trying to kill of the character like I did with Khalid and Dynaheir in BG1 :devilish:), but if it's the kind you can resurrect out of, I think most people approach it like a strategic decision as I said above.

I was going to say something similar. Would you want to play through an epic fantasy game, where there may very well be quests or areas related to an NPC (don't know nothing bout DA, but I do remember a game called BGII), knowing thatyou're just missing that content because you caught a bad break in one of your 1200 combats leading up to it? Maybe some would, but most people are just going to reload.

Now in a game like JA2 *super awesome*, with a nice big cast of characters to recruit, a death or two or three can be stomached. But in a small party game, where doubtlessly all this love and work is put into each grating and annoying character? Never!

Whether or not you reload lack of a permanent death system takes away an element of realism and risk. If someone has to reload it causes them to have to backtrack and "cheat" to keep playing so from a pure gameplaying perspective its more "fun" because you are more inclined to prevent that from having.

Look at Obsidian and how they are doing away with that system. Bioware seems to too worried about upsetting the end user. Its the equivalent of a movie producer demanding a movie have a happy ending instead of the shock or tragedy that was originally written, like Brazil, Richard Gere dumping Julia Robertsm and Mama actually getting thrown from the train.

I understand that point of view but I think it can be better achieved with an "unconscious" system (or similar) with more consequences…perhaps healing the char back up is costly or they are temporarily injured and suffer reduced abilities…it would need playtesting to find the right balance between players accepting the consequences and playing on or just reloading. So, the original NWN2 system isn't ideal to me but I still find it better than a straight traditional death system. In fact, I find it can be more challenging. Finishing a combat with only one member standing is more exciting than just hitting reload for a "do over" and then getting through unscathed because a few lucky criticals came my way.

Either way, preferring an "unconscious" system doesn't make people morons.

One of the benefits of the unconscious system is that it balances out the usually terrible AI at work in party based games. In RT, even with pause, it's usually impossible to control everyone in the party so normally one NPC, at least, does something stupid with death being the result. I think NWN2 would have been impossible without this mechanism!!

I know it definetly isn't something to do with consoles since most console games have death and some of the jrpgs can be pretty difficult for ressurection with having to go all the way back outside a dungeon and walking back to the nearest town to ressurect without reloading. Those games require much less intelligence to play.

With Dragon Age I will probably still reload after a character is knocked unconcious since that is how I play my games.

In the game details next to this news bit I noticed that it says: SP + MP. I guess it should be SP only.

When you die in PS:T, you wake up in the mortuary (where you first start the game).

I think that could work well if done right. There just needs to be more of a consequence than burning a heal spell/potion when the battle is over.

Not always. Which is what makes it interesting.

I really think characer death with dire consequences is necesarry, for example in NWN2 I could never feel excited about the combats at all, it just feels like a "game" since I know the characters could rest 1 minute after being dead and tip top again. It is an important reason for realism that characters could die, and I want some realisim in my RPG games, ressurection just fits right in with the spells and other stuffs.

If the character can die and someone reloads at least it means they have to replay that fight, if the fight is very hard, the player might consider to take the consequence of a dead character since they don't think they could play through the fight and win again. ( Happend to me in wiz 8 for example)

Of course as I had suggested in another thread I want to remove the entire save / load thing, or at least change the way it works. But not many people appear to be in favor of this idea.

It makes me sad to hear about the gamers of today, they want the games so simpliefies and easy and with so little effort, that it removes the fun to play. Gaming without a challange for me is to play tennis without an opponent ( Booring ), if someone would say I only play for the choice and consequences, in that case combat could just be removed completely.

I agree -- but the important thing is that character death is dealt with thoughtfully in the game. Simply making death permanent and leaving it at that is a worse solution than Bioware nerf-death, since all it'll do is lead to the save-and-reload rhumba, which is a sure sign of lazy game design.

And this is fun, because…?

I am. My ideal game would only allow save on quit, with no going back to a previous save, ever.

Of course, this would mean that dying would have to be dealt with very intelligently in the game, since by itself it would make most games as good as unplayable -- without some way of dealing with character death, dying would mean starting the entire game over, and without some really good motivator (i.e., completely randomly generated dungeons à la Nethack) this would be much worse than the reload rhumba.

It makes *me* sad to encounter such a snooty attitude. I am a gamer of today, you know. It's also rather sad if, as it appears, you feel that the risk of dying is the only, or even the major, challenge a game can provide.

Not a bad idea, IMO, if well enough developed.

Their argument for no multiplayer IMO is selective because if they really wanted to stay focused on what an incredible experience this game would be they wouldn't port it to consoles.

The fact is, handling MP requires an even more systematic approach and an accounting (second guessing) of what those players will do. As Corwin mentioned on no-permanent death for party members its a way to get lazy, although if this were truly a return to the roots of Baldur's Gate they would take the time to do just that. Its one of the many things that series did quite well over say, IWD, where your party had no background stories.

Since the toolset looks to be so much like the NWN toolset I will go out on a limb and say groups like NWNX team could probably come up with something, provided the that data can be trapped and DLL's can be developed to capture them. However, it would be incredibly hacked and the base scripts probably won't accommodate MP very well.

---

..because its challenging. After running a server with over 10000 unique accounts second guessing the complaints of my players over this sort of thing became a daily occurrence.

They were used to just dragging bodies to the nearest healer at a time when the economy was ruined and a 4th level player could get enough coin in on jaunt to the dungeon. Meanwhile the player could sit and chat in limbo until their buddy fixed them up. They could get it themselves with their other character if they wanted too. Effectively it destroyed any punishment and too many players were taking on things solo with fear of loss.

When I changed it to forcing them to lie on their back in the field of battle (waiting for a buddy) or until they got so annoyed they respawned I got hordes of complaints like that one for months.

But the same people complained month after month. They didn't leave. Meanwhile my average number of players went up. I also made combat AI even harder so it was much easier to die and nerfed a lot of uber spells in this time, took out a lot of free cash and increased the shop prices for uber goods.

Again, they not only didn't leave (but complained constantly) they almost all stopped "solo'ing" and made sure to bring buddies with them on a jaunt.

It seems counterintuitive I know but its a real paradox about game design. It can be summed up in one phrase: people want a challenge.

"Challenge" is pretty hard to define but that aside, I disagree standard permanent death is challenging. I die, I reload. Over 2 or 10 or 50 iterations, you either figure out the pattern or perhaps you get lucky with the die rolls. Other than wasting time replaying the same scenario, what is challenging?

[Note: thanks for the poll - I was thinking the same thing but hadn't found the time to put together the options]

GothicGothicness talks about "dire consequences". What dire consequences? Reloading? OK…that's real hard.

No reloading, save-on-quit-only is a different kettle of fish but I don't trust game developers…do you? I don't trust them to get the balance right and I don't have the time to replay the same thing over and over because someone stuffed up the difficulty. I mean, seriously, I'm sitting on the couch playing Neversummer Days: The Hardcore Hardening, 30 hours in, and I'm trying to ignore Kayla while she talks to me about the news flash that just came up on TV (sorry, honey), I lose my concentration and die. I'm just not going to start over - not going to happen.

We need a new, creative approach. Some of you guys need to accept, though, that many of us play for the experience rather than the challenge per se - and that doesn't make us new age console-ised pussies, either.

What game was/is this?

I find it challenging because I have to rethink my strategy over and over for the really hard fights before I even go into them. That's fun to me, but it certainly can get frustrating. As long as the possibility of death is done fairly, I think it is challenging. It becomes frustrating to me when, for instance, there is a creature that at random just perma-kills a party member (The BG2 mod, the darkest day had several of these).


I agree. I play more for the story experience than the combat (I'll admit, I generally am not that good at the combat strategy), but despite that, I found the non-death of NWN2 annoying (still loved the game though).

I agree totally with Dhruin here; not only do I play for the experience rather than the combat challenge (I'm not a twitch gamer), but living in a real world environment, I can readily identify with being interrupted in the middle of a battle and ending up DEAD. I wouldn't begin again either. I would NEVER buy such a game (did once and gave up rather quickly, so I learned my lesson). I quite like what happens in FO3; your last save is automatically loaded if/when you're killed. I actually enjoy the opportunity to keep trying different strategies until I find one that works; it engages my brain, instead of just my fingers!! :)

Well, I think in a challanging fight it should be that it is hard to complete with all characters alive, if you manage to you are rewarded and could move on with the game without a dire consequence such as paying gold , or losing XP. But if one character died you would prefer to deal with the consequences instead of replaying that hard fight. Of course you could also reload and try yet another strategy in the fight to win it easier.

If you play a game and never want to reload, it means each fight should be so easy that you win it. For me it is too boring since I want a big challange, so it is all about satisfying different type of players.

I think we can all agree on this. What makes me sad is so few games try to satisfy us hardcore players who wants a challange.

I do not mind if there are very easy games for the players who likes these, I understand it very well.

In a multi-character, real-time game (even with pause), it's just too likely that when a character goes down, it's not 100% the player's fault. There's a lot going on at once, and the AI can make some poor decisions. Or in the absense of even rudimentary AI, there are still moments where the player thinks he's told a character to do X, and for whatever reason, the character does something else.

It's really a different vibe than say Rogue/Nethack, where you have all the time in the world to consider each move, and where the player feels more responsibility for the end result. And even so, despite its cult status, and despite the carrying forward of other elements to games with wider audiences, one feature of roguelikes which developers have not rushed to copy is the "die once and you're done" system. Despite its clear basis in reality, most people don't like it.

Anywho, I was trying to say that in a real-time, multi-character games, like this one, players feel (and relative to a roguelike, I'd say are) less responsible for characters' deaths, and as a result players (or MOST players) are less enthusiastic about being permanently penalized by such deaths.

Agani, I think the 'character' of the game is important. In Dwarf Fortress, when I'm not paying attention to some lower level of my fortress and my idiot legendary mason walls himself in and dies of starvation however long later (withuot ever uttering a peep to protest his ridiculous fate), I don't feel particularly responsible, but I also can accept the permanent death because DF is a game with so many little characters that the loss of one is not such a big deal. In a game like DA or NWN2, it's just a much greater burden to permanently lose a character.

I agree with GG here. It makes combat more exciting and feels like its a big challenge. Whereas for NWN2 I was like, meh.

thanks to this thread Dhruiny and I were on the same page and we started this poll

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5870

A couple of people asked me some questions directly on my comments and I'll try to answer them over there.