Dragon Age - Preview @ Games Radar

Originally Posted by PatrickWeekes
and the story they're writing is one gigantic love letter to people who want stuff dark, grim, and choice-based.

A thing I actually never quite understood, is,

why does it always have to be dark and grim ?

Honestly, I have seldem seen RPGs that are colourful. Consoles, maybe. WOW, maybe, Fable, maybe, but I've never played them.

There seems to be an unwritten law that mediaval-themes RPGs must be "dark and grim". As if only worlds in which all light colours had been sucked by some sort of demon entity are fun and actually playable.

On the Larian boards someone ironically wrote he had never seen darker grass than in Divinity. And the beginning of Beyond Divinity wasn't "funny", either.

Why does everything have to be dark, grim, and battle-based ?

Cause it represents a period of history we call the DARK AGES!!

Originally Posted by txa1265
When every game out there is 'ground breaking' and 'earthshattering' and so on, you need to do something to compete for mind-space.

Maybe it's "earth-quaking" the next time ?

Only if they are using some version of the Quake engine!!

LOL !

I like your dry humour !

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
A thing I actually never quite understood, is,

why does it always have to be dark and grim ?

Honestly, I have seldem seen RPGs that are colourful. Consoles, maybe. WOW, maybe, Fable, maybe, but I've never played them.

There seems to be an unwritten law that mediaval-themes RPGs must be "dark and grim". As if only worlds in which all light colours had been sucked by some sort of demon entity are fun and actually playable.

On the Larian boards someone ironically wrote he had never seen darker grass than in Divinity. And the beginning of Beyond Divinity wasn't "funny", either.

One quick point of clarification:

Metaphorically dark and grim.

I have no idea what the art looks like -- what I've seen looks nice, but not particularly dark. I'm hoping it bucks the "brown, with lots of bloom" trend that I've seen in so many recent games.

I'm pretty much talking about the story in terms of the darkness. Picture the love child of all the crap that Conan has to deal with and the nasty political fighting and underhanded tactics of "A Game of Thrones", and that's what you're gonna be getting.

As far as why it has to be grim and not happy or funny… I don't think they all do. But Dragon Age is. It's all a matter of what you're going for in terms of feel. Dragon Age wants to make you feel like you're in "A Game of Thrones" when you talk with people and "Conan" when you deal with monsters. Mass Effect wants to make you feel like you're in a classic action SF movies. Revolver is… unannounced.

I personally love all the books of "A Song of Ice and Fire", but I have yet to see a game that can truly make you feel deeply involved in the political turmoil as the books can. In the best case you are little more than a pawn or a puppet.

I actually don't remember *any* RPG that's *not* "dark and grim" - not in terms of graphics, not in terms of story.

The world Aventuria (the world of the Realms of Arcania series) - to draw an example from the P&P RPGs - has shifted towards a world that is much darker and much "grimmer" than before as well. And most of the fans want that. The feeling I get is that would really want something that is so dark and grim that it would be like … Blade Runner ? I don't remember any movie that can serve as an example of what I mean. One of the recent authors for the Dark Eye RPG system said in an interview that she likes this world "grey and dirty".

To put it rather ironically : I get the impression as if RPG makers are more or less Gothics in their feelings - considering how dark & grim RPGs often are.

To put it cynically, I'd say that most gamers would even welcome the change of our world into a world of ashes and ruins. They would welcome it with a great "Hurrah!" if all colours of all of our meadows would was out and leave nothing but grey, colourless plants behind.

Many people in the official Drakensang forum actually battle to get an "evil" style of play implemented. They want to be "really evil", to put it cynically, I think it would be fun for them to destroy EVERYTHING. They don't realize that The Dark Eye system is an "her-system", as I call it, and in prociple does not allow evil player characters. You play an good character, and everything's evil turns immediately into an NPC. At least in principle. Of course there are P&P players managing to play more or less "evil" characters. But the goal in *every* adventure is something good - that's embedded within the layout of the adventures. There are no "evil" ways of solving an adventure officially implemented. That is not the style of this system.

I still don't get it. Why is darkness and evilness so much "fun" ? Why do kiddies destroy guesbooks of a good friend of mine ? Why do they feel proud when they behave themselves as trolls and disrupt forum communities ? Why do hooligans find so much fun in killing innocent policepersons (happened in Italy a few weeks ago) ?

Why doies everything have to be dark, grim, grey, dirty, evil ? Is this kind of an Escapism ? One into destruction because we are not allowed to destroy within our societies ? Is this the reason why people become shootists like at Columbine, Erfurt and elsewhere, killing innocent school pupils ? Is this the reason, FPS games are "fun" ? Because they allow to kill other people within a game - a thing that is not allowed within society ?

I don't get it, because I'm different. My heart of full of deep love for nature and everything that lives - as long as it does not willingly kill other beings. I'm too sensitive for this world, I guess.

You've never played a bright game? What about Oblivion? It's so bright I'm close to getting an epileptic seizure when I do a 360 spin in-game. Sure, it's got a few demons here and there, but that doesn't mean it qualifies as a "dark and grim" game. The Gothic games are "dark and grim", most games are not.

What is fun about such games? They're not fairytales, they're unforgiving, ruthless and challenging. At least that's what I associate with such games. They're not just the classic clichè: "Chosen ones' rise to fame and ultimate super power, saving the world with ease".

Alrik, if you ask your question over in the Religion Forum, I'll answer it for you!!

I guess the Games are a Mirror of Society… no Gods, Kings, Countrys or People worth fighting for - no Black and White anymore, only Grey and maybe Dark Grey, so you know in which direction to swing the sword… and why not… thats closer to the truth anyway.

Aventuria is a nice Example… back in the 80's it was a cross between medieval Germany, Fairy-Tales and probably a tiny bit spirit of the 70s …

Back in the Days the Enemys were Smugglers, Bandits, Slavers and Cannibals, today we fight Necromancers, Cultists, undead Dragons and evil Gods. Where once were noble Kings and Knights are now bickering Nobles, each with his/her own agenda… it's ok this way - it feels closer to the "Zeitgeist", the "Spirit of our time".

OT: Dragon Age will be just another KOTOR - all the signs are there, Bioware has lost it's mojo. There goes my last hope for a decent intelligent CRPG.

Originally Posted by Maylander
You've never played a bright game? What about Oblivion? It's so bright I'm close to getting an epileptic seizure when I do a 360 spin in-game. Sure, it's got a few demons here and there, but that doesn't mean it qualifies as a "

Sorry, I'd like to, but my PC is too weak for that and I just can't afford a new one right now.

@Corwin : I know what you mean.

@Fenris : You brought it to the point. Thank you for making clearer what I tried to explain about Aventuria.

Alrik, I'll respond to your PM later this week; I'm not near my PC most of this week, except for a very short time each day!! In general, yes, today's games do in many ways reflect the changes in our society as one might expect!!

Originally Posted by PatrickWeekes
I think that good trumps innovative, despite the fact that a lot of people use "innovative" to mean "good.

You're right about this. And a lot of what is called "innovative" nowadays isn't really innovative, but rather fad following.

I hope that you're right about Dragon Age. It's about time that Bioware got back to making a truly great PC RPG, which they haven't done since Baldurs Gate 2 (I still liked Kotor though).

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
You're right about this. And a lot of what is called "innovative" nowadays isn't really innovative, but rather fad following.

And there is a difference between 'stylistic' and innovative - the PSP is going through some nice stuff visually right now, such as Death Jr 2's HDR, the Legend of Heroes games lens flare, and so on. But each of the games is pedestrian and not remotely innovative.