Dragon Age - Stolen Throne Book Review
 

Scifi and comic fansite Galactic Watercooler has a short review of David Gaider's game tie-in book, Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne. Here's the conclusion:
More information.

I agree, its is a good book, I like to see more :)

Wow, that was pretty nice. I hadn't seen that! Thanks! :)

Interesting, I might pick this up.

It really is a good read. I enjoyed it.

I'd like to hear PJ's review :)

How does it compare to the sample published earlier? I found that almost painfully bad.

Edit: Okay, GBG -- I just ordered it. You'll have my review… presently.

That book actual sell the game, a hole much more, that those "Trying to hard to be adult" advising and preview/news over flow dos.

I doubt that.

I think you'll find the people who actually buy and read the book for a game to be in the extreme minority - or you can color me surprised.

There's a hilarious thread on the Codex about his book.

They simply love David. :biggrin:

Thanks for reminding me why I do not go to that site.

I will certainly pick this up soon, but unfortunately it will be some time before I can read it (rather busy now). By the time I do, PJ or someone else will probably have a topic going, so I'll add my thoughts there.

Am I the only one who considers it expensive? I haven't bought paperbacks in a while (SciFi book club I pay like $10 for hard covers). Back when I did buy paperbacks, they were like $6 and had like 600 pages. This one is over $10 and it's only 400 pages, and the author is not even a recognized well-known one at that!

I rarely pick up game tie in books and when I have they are "meh!" at best and usually more like "BLEH!". I saw this one at the library and decided to give it a shot. I'm about half way through and while it's not great literature it is worth the read, so far at least.

BTW, this isn't meant to "damn with faint praise". I really do like it.

Wolfing, it is a "large format" paperback and sadly those cost more. And (ah hem) there's always the library…

Ha! Cute.

What they do is equate me with Bioware, and they hate everything about Bioware. Oh well, that's fine. I'm glad some people are enjoying it anyhow, even if their tastes aren't as developed as those delicate aesthetes at the Codex. ;)

You could also put it the other way around.

What they do is equate Bioware with you, and they hate everything about you. :p

I don't think they hate Bioware, but more what it has chosen to stand for.

Personally, I think such feelings are totally misplaced - but I can sympathise with them, even if I don't agree.

Bioware has made great titles in the past, and just because they've gone and lost their creative integrity doesn't mean we should forget how much great stuff they used to do.

Dragon Age could be the game to prove this wrong, though, so I'm looking forward to it.

I'm gonna pick up that book of yours, because I find such things add tremendously to a game if done right. I remember enjoying the Stonekeep "novel" quite a bit and it really helped set the mood for the game.

FYI- I registered here just to post the below.

I will preface my review with a couple of points: I have been a pretty big booster for Dragon Age for a long time. I am a bit, I will admit, of a bioware fanboy. I also have read and own a fair amount of genre fluff/video game/board game tie-in novels. I cut my teeth on the old Weiss&Hickman Dragonlance novels. I have some of the worst fluff out there (see Halo novels, for example) and some of the best (a lot of the Warhammer 40k stuff, probably because it isn't shackled to any specific pr platform -that is, selling a specific video game-, are pretty ok). I'm not sure if it's fair to compare Gaider to a non-genre novelists or even someone like George RR Martin or the like so I'm going to try and avoid doing that as a main point of the review.

SO: If you are buying this for fluff alone, then you will be satisfied. The book is great pr for the game from a fluff perspective. It's horrid pr if you consider that its the product of one of the people behind a lot of the writing, story and world crafting. It is ridden with stylistic, literary and grammatical cliches. There are glaring grammatical errors. I am a pedant, especially when it comes to grammar and I definitely "ragequit" reading this quite a few times. To put it another way, had I not known this was a video game pr novel I would have a) probably not been able to finish it (and I almost always finish books), b) become seriously wary of reading anything put out by that publisher before reading a bit of it in the store and c) think that Mr. Gaider was 14 years old, or new to writing anything (maybe even new to the English language). I know that sounds harsh, but when you come to something, wanting to like it, hoping its great, the jolt and let down that follows when it not only fails to meet your expectations but, instead, seems determined to frustrate you at every turn, then it's hard not to be a bit emotional. Honestly, at times it was like this book wanted me to hate it.

All that said, I am picky and have what are probably abnormally high standards for even genre pr tie-ins. You may love this book. I think coming to it with your expectations adjusted (this ain't Gene Wolfe, much less Glenn Cook, much less something like Gaunt's Ghost.) is a great idea. EDIT- and just to temper the harshness above a bit more: David Gaider is not a novelist. Writing a book and making a good video game are two very different things. I liked the games he has worked on so far. I do a good job around the office, but I am a pretty crappy at playing the recorder. If my boss came to me tomorrow and decided the best way to "sell" the firm was to have me play my recorder, then I'd do my best, but… well… I am a crappy recorder player.

The other problem, I think, is that tie-in books are in a sort of nebulous area. They obviously can't be too artsy and they are almost certainly combed over (and over) by some pr guy who cares a lot less about plot pacing than about how well it hits each of the bullet points in his press release.

That makes it sound really worth it :)

I'll give it a chance anyhow. I don't expect much from such things.

I think with this much stretching you should feel extremely limber by now. He's 17 years old, otherwise he wouldn't be allowed to work on the Mature game Dragon Age: Origins.

I guess… but why? I'm not responsible for everything Bioware does. I'm not even a Lead Designer. But if that's how they feel, so be it.
Thanks for reading the book. Sorry you didn't care for it that much. Like I said, I'm glad some people did -- as you pointed out, it was my first novel. Even so, I'm still very happy with how it turned out.

You misunderstand me, then I say "sell", I mean the emote. That I mean is that the book put the game in a better light, that the advisment and news over flow do.

Oh, in that case I agree with you.

But then, most things would "sell" better than that particular ad campaign :)

Yous eem rather agressive here, is there something you want to get off your chest?

BTW, this kind of stuff, with no bearing whatsoever, childish elementry school crap will be sure to make alot of devs and artists want to visit our forums.

FYI-Registered because Pearceshea's post annoyed me.

I just finished it last night. It's not the ring trilogy, but it was a good read. I liked it better than any other game-world based book I've read and better than a decent amount of the fantasy genre in general (of which I've read a lot). The perspective is a little strange (jumps around a bit), but you get used to it and it ends up working well to tell the story.

Ignore the Pearce guys review - people like him love to put on their internet berets and pretend to be literary critics. For some reason they think if they over exaggerate and write the most scathing comments they can think up it makes them look intelligent…(hint: its not working buddy)

It was just a joke.. don't worry. They like to make fun of people and you're an easy prey as you're a very exposed Bioware employee. ;)
<didn't want to write anything nasty as Gaider was so tender in this post>

I personally don't blame you for the flaws I see in DA, as they're 80% related to game mechanics which you don't have any influence on. I'm flexible story wise as long as the story doesn't force a linear path through the game world (i.e. linear "exploration") - I hate that.

Yes, you. Begone!

And yet another kid added to ignore….september cannot come soon enough.

Much obliged. Glad you liked it!

:'( And I thought this was the start of a long lasting friendship…

Anyhow.. good luck in september, I guess it's ok to release patients during summer break. Unless they tend to get too upset over bad kids on the internets.. that can be unhealthy. :)

I'm reminded of the previous thread where it was argued that plenty of Devs post at Codex instead of here and yet here's David Gaider. As they pointed out in that thread he recently unregistered from there. Not a bad thread for one of their's but a some people are willing to review it in two words without actually reading the book.

---

Mr Gaider, since NWN consumed my life for 6 years I was looking forward to a multiplayer game with a toolset. Toolset looks great. Any chance of it being say, NWNX compatible, so that there's at least the potential for MP using an SQL database or somesuch?

Are you asking if there's a chance the DA toolset could be made multiplayer, as in NWN? If so, my answer would be that I doubt it. Multiplayer functionality isn't something you can just tack on, after all (or, at least, you probably shouldn't). If Bioware might attempt to add that kind of functionality in the future I can't really say, but it won't be a small thing. For the moment, the focus of DA is definitely single-player.

That said, the toolset is pretty robust. Considering that a large portion of the NWN modules were all in single-player anyhow, I think there's a lot of carry-over. Mind you, I too will miss the small-scale multiplayer functionality that NWN had. To me, that was the best way to play the game. The few times I tried it online with an experienced GM and a small party, it was an absolute blast. And I know the persistent world afficianados are pretty passionate. Even so, I imagine it's a hard sell. Hopefully we'll see something more NWN-like in the future again, as that'd be sweet.

Hmm… as 90% of my fantasy book reading happens during #2s, I don't really think the library staff will be happy to find me there.

They said a resolute no to multiplayer, sadly. May be because they have another multiplayer game in the works, SWTOR, maybe not.

I agree, the toolset looks ok. But deep down, regardless of all the praising it receives from the bioware crowd, it lacks some flexibility the nwn2 toolset had. For instance, in the nwn2 toolset you can scale and tint objects - in da you can't.
In nwn2 you can scale, tint, change/remove armor from monsters - in da you have *the* model and that's it. Customising things is rather important if you want to have a unique looking module.

To be more specific, you have da's version of zombies and skeletons all equipped with the same fancy armor. You can't unequip those in the toolset and it's a mental stretch to imagine all the zombies and skeletons would wear the same exact armor (zombies also come with a bucket on their head). Why isn't there a base armorless model I wonder.
Zombies. Skeletons.

I don't disagree that it would be a nightmare, I've just be thinking in my head how it could be done.

Server: Events to poll the server game, update the database, poll the database for client changes, update server game accordingly. |Client;

Client: Client plays the game, client 3rd party software uploads player's changes to the server database, polls the database for changes, downloads the changes, updates the clients game accordingly. |Client|Server;

I think a system like this would be quite speedy. Something like UO circa 1999.

I know there's a lot more under the the hood of the game that doesn't help MP like script systems that weren't developed with it in mind; I'm just speculating a logic.

---

No question the small group MP was the way to go in NWN and the way it was intended to be played when first marketed in 2002.

The later focus groups showing the overwhelming number of people playing NWN SP I think was misleading as the insistence of modders using Haks confused the average player. (Anecdotally I could name you three people that quit playing at my office after they asked "what's a hak?")

I think this has been finally proved now due to the PWC debacle with NWN2. It was certainly a reason the server I ran, Wheel of Time: The Third Age, was such an overwhelming success.

(One of the factors that were cited for PS:T's initial failure was its lack of multiplayer, but even then I saw no hard evidence for this)

Tan, I don't disagree with you on the power of the NWN2 toolset and it still looks more powerful and even the graphics are better looking.

The difference is the ease of use. As a Bioware rep once said of NWN "its scary how easy it is to make an area." That's the tradeoff and it appears to be the same with DA's toolset.

The overwhelming percentage of mods made for NWN compared to NWN2 is a testament to the direction they've chosen. I will admit there are a lot garbage mods on there (and a lot look the same) but the cream rises to the top (or in the case of my creamy link below, is lost in the sea of also rans).

As well, you can make areas with the NWN2 and it doesn't appear yet. DA's will allow you to make any. I may be out of date on my info on this but it looks like they would have to be imported using 3DSMax if it is at all possible to have custom areas.

Sure, its definitely a more powerful toolset (and allows for MP), but its not easy to use.

The biggest disappointment, to me, about DA remains that it's singleplayer only.

I remember that interview a year or so ago, when a female interviewer asked about the game, and they let slip that it'd be without multiplayer and the look on her face. She… just… didn't… GET IT - and I still feel much the same way.

The game that was supposed to be the ultimate successor to BG and NWN doesn't have multiplayer - GAH!

It would be great if someone finds a way to build pws using the da toolset.

On the other hand we have a bio employee who declares there's 0 chance of making a pw with the da engine/toolset.

Declaration 1
Declaration 2

The funny thing is - those statements didn't sound like they made an engine that just happened to not have multiplayer supported, it sounded like they built an engine which prevents multiplayer on purpose.

Yes, you can make brand new areas with the DA toolset. At first they kept saying there will be no area editor (they force the term "level editor") but then they decided the toolset will have it included. The area editor seems nice from what I've seen.
Also, to not always be negative about da, I do like the graphics of the game.. with certain anime-style exceptions. :) I also noticed some "floating above the ground" people and things.. that also bothers me. Oh, and some clipping issues as well as floating weapons on the back.