Dragon Age - Preview @ bit-tech.net

UK site bit-tech.net is next up with a preview of Bioware's first proprietary IP cRPG, Dragon Age:Origins. Here's a bit on the "origins" cconcept:

The origins mechanic is a brand new feature for BioWare and one which has taken a long time to create as it basically changes the entire game in some way…Basically, when players start a game they choose a number of different options, much as they would do when started a game of Baldur’s Gate. What race do you want to be? What class are you? What are your starting stats? Do you need to choose a racial enemy or set some memorised spells?…
What makes Dragon Age different though is that how you design your character will change the setting for the first few hours of the game, which BioWare is calling the Origin Story as it explains who and where you come from. BioWare is hoping it’ll help build up a better sense of character for you too but introducing a sense of motivation and narrative to your own player-generated character.

So if, for example, you created a character who was an Elven mage then you may find that the first few hours of the game cast you as a young Elf learning his or her craft and enjoying a privileged upbringing. As a human rogue meanwhile you might find your origin is completely different – say, as a pauper who learns to thieve in order to survive life on the streets.

Conclusion:

In fact, when you get right down to it, BioWare’s latest RPG epic is so strikingly similar to its previous games that it’s hard to find many faults with it. It’s a tad formulaic in presentation obviously, but it’s a formula that BioWare has got down to an absolute tee. The last half dozen games the company has made may be fundamentally very similar, but they’re also undeniably very good too…

We liked Dragon Age: Origins an awful lot. Already we can tell that it’s shaping up to be a fantastically balanced and well written game and we don’t doubt that we’ll sink countless hours into it and that we’ll still be playing it in years to come – just like we do with BioWare’s other games.

More information.

This "origins" concept naturally keeps coming up, but I thought I read in a recent interview one of the developers trying to downplay it, essentially saying that it significantly changes the first 4-6 hours of gameplay. After that, no knew origins-related paths occur. Am I right or am I just tedious?

Depends on what you mean with paths.

I think your origin will have an affect on smaller things throughout the game. Different dialog for example.
I saw a video where he did the same things as an elf and as an human noble, and he was deffinately treated differently in the beginning of the conversations.
http://dragonage.bioware.com/gallery.html#videos

Its the Origin Stories video. A developer playing and commentating.

I also think I read that the end of the game might be different depending on what you did at the start of the origin. Not sure I can find a quote.

But, not sure if there any bigger differences, like quests/paths.

If you're a Dalish elf, and you run into other Dalish elves on your quest, they're going to treat you differently from the way they'd treat a human or dwarf (or city elf). It's not just a flavor-change. Certain plot possibilities, certain ways to solve problems, just plain won't be available unless they consider you one of them -- and you may have unfinished business of one sort or another with people from your origin.

So it's rarely going to mean an entire new planet-sized plot for you to deal with, but there's a good chance you will run into much different content as a Dalish elf from the content you ran into as a human noble. You may not notice a big difference between your elf and noble playthroughs when going through the dwarven areas, but you'll notice them in both the elven and noble areas.

Patrick, one thing that either hasn't been made clear, or I've missed it: Are there any class type restrictions? Could I play a dwarf mage for example? Not that I can imagine doing so!!

I'm pretty sure that one of the devs said this explicitly, so I don't think I'm giving anything away: dwarves cannot be mages. The warrior and rogue classes are open to them, and they have benefits that make up for their class restriction, but this isn't Third Edition D&D.

Forgive me if I'm getting the terminology wrong, but weren't JE and ME proprietary IPs?

Anyway, really liking the sound of this. I've always loved being able to choose a background for my character in CRPGs, but in the past it's rarely amounted to more than a couple of stat-modifications, and a handful of unique dialogues. I expect one's background will make quite a big difference during the 'raising an army' portion of the game. I also really like the idea that if you're say, a Dalish Elf, at several points during the game, you'll run into some other Dalish Elves who will help you out with things, or make a certain quest easier - and playing the game and wondering how different a certain section would have been if I had some other background (or made some other choice 25 hours ago, had allied with these guys instead of those). If the game does these things as well as it's sounding like it will - then I can imagine it being a game I have lots and lots of fun with for several hundred hours.

The game is starting to sound almost… non-linear! Would you say my impressions of how this game is going to play are justified, Patrick?

In fact, when you get right down to it, BioWare’s latest RPG epic is so strikingly similar to its previous games that it’s hard to find many faults with it. It’s a tad formulaic in presentation obviously, but it’s a formula that BioWare has got down to an absolute tee.

Well, that is certainly reassuring.

Originally Posted by Essaliad
Well, that is certainly reassuring.

Hopefully they're finding similarities to BG2. Anybody who looks at DA and sees similarities to Jade is looking reeeeeeally hard. The conversations, I guess -- Mass Effect-style in terms of NPC cinematics, but Jade/KotOR in terms of player not talking. Not much else, though.

I know that nobody is going to believe it until they play it, but I'll say nevertheless: the goal was an old-school CRPG with new-school production values and no D&D ruleset to kludge in sideways. I know people are worried that it's going to be Mass Effect in terms of stripped-down-ness, and it's understandable, since that's the last game we shipped (not counting handheld)… but Mass Effect wasn't supposed to be a hardcore CRPG. It was supposed to be a Halo or Gears-style third-person shooter with RPG elements, what people commonly think of as Action RPG. (Same deal for Jade -- always marketed as an Action RPG, as I recall.) Dragon Age was never designed as an Action RPG. It was designed as a pure RPG, plain and simple.

I know. Doesn't count until you see it. Hopefully they'll throw more out to the public soon (albeit not all at once).

Originally Posted by PatrickWeekes
Hopefully they're finding similarities to BG2. Anybody who looks at DA and sees similarities to Jade is looking reeeeeeally hard. The conversations, I guess -- Mass Effect-style in terms of NPC cinematics, but Jade/KotOR in terms of player not talking. Not much else, though.

I know that nobody is going to believe it until they play it, but I'll say nevertheless: the goal was an old-school CRPG with new-school production values and no D&D ruleset to kludge in sideways. I know people are worried that it's going to be Mass Effect in terms of stripped-down-ness, and it's understandable, since that's the last game we shipped (not counting handheld)… but Mass Effect wasn't supposed to be a hardcore CRPG. It was supposed to be a Halo or Gears-style third-person shooter with RPG elements, what people commonly think of as Action RPG. (Same deal for Jade -- always marketed as an Action RPG, as I recall.) Dragon Age was never designed as an Action RPG. It was designed as a pure RPG, plain and simple.

I know. Doesn't count until you see it. Hopefully they'll throw more out to the public soon (albeit not all at once).

Yeah, I'll have to see it to believe it

I'm glad to know you didn't intend for ME to be a hardcore CRPG, because it certainly wasn't. But it doesn't really matter what it was supposed to be, and you could make a hundred tetris clones intentionally, and they would all still lack what we used to expect from Bioware.

You'd have a better case if you didn't "improve away" multiplayer, but I guess that was for artistic reasons?

Anyway, just being my own jaded self - and I appreciate the info

Originally Posted by Badesumofu
Forgive me if I'm getting the terminology wrong, but weren't JE and ME proprietary IPs?

I was thinking in terms of Dragon Age as Bio's first real 'own IP cRPG' --not DnD-based--as in Baldur's Gate-style, but I think you're correct on the proprietary part.

Originally Posted by PatrickWeekes
I'm pretty sure that one of the devs said this explicitly, so I don't think I'm giving anything away: dwarves cannot be mages. The warrior and rogue classes are open to them, and they have benefits that make up for their class restriction, but this isn't Third Edition D&D.

It's fourth ed right?