Dragon Age 2 - Interview with Mike Laidlaw

xSamhainx said:

Vindicator - Johnny Sokko and the Flying Robot FTW! Loved that show!

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That's right! It was my favorite but could only watch it on LA channels. SD channels didn't carry it… I wonder if one can get their hands on videos for it?.. Talk about a surrealistic timewarp!

Meant mostly in humor. Mostly.

"When creating interesting companion characters, what considerations come first? We try to make all of our companions interesting, real people, rather than getting over-focused on their 'role' up front. For instance, Isabela is a complete slut that will fuck anything with a pulse. You know, just like every hot, independent chick you know. Merrill is an elven mage, from a nomadic clan that values knowledge over all else - especially when it comes to their history - to the point that she consorts with demons in order to obtain just a fragment of their civilization's lost glory. But don't you know it, just like when you take a farmer to the big city, she turns into a giant, bumbling retard!"

"Many of the caves and building interiors are repeated, even though the locations are supposed to be different. What kind of limitations necessitated this decision?
In the balance of production, we realized that we had capacity to create and maintain more stories, content, and encounters than we could necessarily create unique levels for, so we made the call to re-use some of the caves and other levels in the interest of providing more sidequests and encounters. The multitude of sidequests and encounters not only provided you the opportunity to hit the AWESOME button a few more times, in case you hadn't noticed how AWESOME that button was, but it also gave so much more life to the world, and the story, by allowing you to fedex a piece of useless trash to an unnamed NPC who would give you some money without speaking to you."

"Do you see Dragon Age ever revisiting the traditional tactical gameplay found in Origins?
It really depends on the definition of tactical. For some, it simply means "slower." Those people are stupid. Fuck them. For others it means more complicated combat scenarios and more engaging/challenging foes. We accomplished this in Dragon Age 2 by giving the bosses a lot more hitpoints, and giving them 3,642 henchmen that will teleport in front of your mage and skullfuck him. My experience with the game feels more like I'm in control, rather than issuing orders, like if I were to drive my car off a cliff. I have no idea what will happen when the car comes to a stop, or if I'll survive, but I'll know that I'm the one that drove it off that cliff. This is speaking as a habitual PC pause-and-player. (I have to say that, you know…legally.)

"What would you say to the PC gamer who feels like Dragon Age II was "dumbed down" compared to Origins?
I would suggest that they play on Hard, frankly. Did I tell you about the extra hit points for bosses? The mage skullfucking? The Elite Bosses are, like, ten times as hard. Seriously, your fight with the Arishok will consume all of your resources, because it's something like 15 hours long. IF you play him on Nightmare, you'll be sobbing into your soiled pajamas, begging for someone to end your life, and that'll be when you get him to 50%. Origins on normal delivered a pretty painful experience on the PC if you were new to RPGs, and playing with oven mitts on your hands, and I firmly believe that it turned people off. Well, I refuse to believe anything else, anyway. There's a very clear "skill gap" between someone new to Dragon Age II and a returning Origins player, and we think that person will be "special." As such, we've made the early game quests and encounters more forgiving, especially on normal, so that they don't get mad, because they're, like 5 times as strong as the strongest man alive when they're mad. Hard, however, presents a solid, and consistent *smirk* challenge to veterans, and one where I think teamwork *snigger*, pause-and-play, and smart thinking *snort* are all quite important. Excuse me. It's 3:30, and that's when I am fellated by a woman of every race, clad only in the money that I earned yesterday.

AWESOME!"

Captain Buzzkill said:

There's a very clear "skill gap" between someone new to Dragon Age II and a returning Origins player, and we think that person will be "special."

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Captain Buzzkill said:

AWESOME!

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……......

Thrasher said:

That's right! It was my favorite but could only watch it on LA channels. SD channels didn't carry it… I wonder if one can get their hands on videos for it?.. Talk about a surrealistic timewarp!

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I remember watching reruns of that show in the Detroit area as a kid. For some reason it was shown under the title of "Giant Robot" in that area. Afaik, it's never been released on dvd or Blu-ray outside of Japan.

Gaxkang said:

Laidlaw does NOT set direction or strategy … If anything, he seems to be just the PR man labelled as the face of DA2.

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You're not giving him enough credit… Laidlaw is the Lead Designer, not some flunky.
Sure, he might not be totally to blame for the DA2 fiasco, but the buck stops with him.

Vindicator said:

You're not giving him enough credit… Laidlaw is the Lead Designer, not some flunky.
Sure, he might not be totally to blame for the DA2 fiasco, but the buck stops with him.

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No, the buck does not stop with him, that's the whole problem with the 'designed-by-committee' DA2. The way Bio is organized is that the lead designer only carries a little more weight than the leaders of the other departments (writing, programming, art etc). He cannot lay down the law and say 'the buck stops with me, therefore I want it done like this, end of discussion'.

Read Brent Knowles' blog where he describes in great depth how he, as lead designer of DA:O (and ex-bio employee) had basically little authority, and assumes Laidlaw has even less because not only is he "herding cats" trying to bring the other department heads into line, but also EA is breathing down his neck now.

It is implausible to think that the decision to dumb down an RPG from one of the market's RPG masters (ie remove or severely dilute 60% of RPG conventions) and take it from the 25-45 y.o demographic and change it to the 13-17 y.o. demographic was taken in learge measure, by the lead designer.

aries100 said:

And there is no outdated organizational structure at Bioware, this is how most Canadians and US companies are led, even today. The CEOs makes some statements, the lower guys, those next in command do their best to interpret these statements.

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Sure - the CEO, managing director etc generally gives 'broad brush' instructions (strategy, targets, vision, etc). But he usually puts a manager with real authority in charge to implement that vision on a specific project. A manager that has the CEO's explicit blessing to say to his subordinates "no, you will do it my way if you wish to continue receiving a pay check" (or otherewise I have the power to replace you). It is that which is missing at BIO. Laidlaw cannot say to the Mary and Jennifer "make Isablla less slutty". He can only plead, reason, and horse-trade. In the end, they are free to ignore him and Isabella will stay slutty.

Again, have a read of Brent Knowles' blog where he describes how working as lead designer in BIO is basically begging everyone to do the same thing, with no real authority to enforce. He also did not carry the 'buck stops with me' responsibility which is another mistake. Mike Laidlaw seems to be designing DA2 with peers, not subordinates. For a $30m project, that is what's 'outdated'.

In my opinion, just me, ME2 is ten time more "dumbed down" than DA2 but a quite better game anyway. For me DA2 isn't a problem of project leader but coming from many not enough talented people who work on it, writing, graphics, and plenty more. I like quite a lot DA2 but it's a bit sad to compare it to ME2.

EDIT: But ok that doesn't mean the project leader isn't involved too, at least he should have realized it and if during the project it could have been too late, now many people should be fired and that doesn't include Marc.

I think part of why ME2 can be considered more enjoyable than DA2 - despite being more "dumbed down" - is a result of a more focused design. The ME team had a clear focus and an identity that it wanted to create, and this allowed for a better overall design. DA2, however, screams of a game that simply does not know what it wants to be; is it a tactical party-based RPG or an action-RPG? Is it built around a story that tells the tale of a single person's rise to prominence, or does it revolve around an ideological conflict between two opposing factions? Nothing in the game - story or gameplay - has a clear focus from a design standpoint, and the result is a game that struggles to find its own unique identity and feels like an awkward mix of several opposing ideas thrown together into a single pot. I'm definitely not a very big fan of ME2 for various reasons, but I do think that it was a better game from a design standpoint because the ME team knew exactly what the direction of the game was going to be.

I'm not sure at all it's really a direction quality that characterizes ME2 goodness, at least not only. Because for me what's much better is just any element, not really the global approach. For example most ME2 quests are rather good, from story point of view but also from progression point of view. In DA2 only some quests are very good, for me a good hint that only few DA2 writers should be keep and most should be fired instantly.

Overall on the whole game the fights are more repetitive in ME2 than in DA2 and DA2 fight system offer much more possibilities, but in ME2 plenty fights have a significant design, and percentage of those less structured is quite smaller. In DA2 the fights that lack of structure are a more important percentage of the all fights. Once more most fights designers (probably nobody doing only that) have to be fired asap.

And I can continue with more elements and ton of workers to be fired.

But I also agree that the game let feel a more general focus problem, seems a lot like the project gone wrong at some points and to not drop all and still release a polished products without increase costs planed, they decided for many elements like area copy, too many fights design in a hurry, too many quests not enough reworked, and more.

Dasale said:

I'm not sure at all it's really a direction quality that characterizes ME2 goodness, at least not only. Because for me what's much better is just any element, not really the global approach. For example most ME2 quests are rather good, from story point of view but also from progression point of view...(snip)

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That's kind of what I was getting at in my previous post; the clear focus on what the ME team wanted to accomplish and deciding early on exactly what type of game ME2 was going to be led to a better design overall for many elements of the game. Conversely, DA2's lack of a clear direction/focus from a design standpoint led to several elements (such as a few that you mention in your post) lacking in overall quality from a gameplay and story perspective.

Nerevarine said:

That's kind of what I was getting at in my previous post; the clear focus on what the ME team wanted to accomplish and deciding early on exactly what type of game ME2 was going to be led to a better design overall for many elements of the game. Conversely, DA2's lack of a clear direction/focus from a design standpoint led to several elements (such as a few that you mention in your post) lacking in overall quality from a gameplay and story perspective.

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But for me the story quality of a quest doesn't rely on a general game focus, it's clear any game like that want all quest have the best story than possible.

But when it goes to implement them it's another story, and it's mainly about workers talent. You could shout on someone as much you want if he is deficient in his job you won't make him do marvel, particularely when it's about creative design.

I still do understand your general focus point of view even if in my opinion you link it with non related elements like the story quality of quests.

Dasale said:

But for me the story quality of a quest doesn't rely on a general game focus, it's clear any game like that want all quest have the best story than possible.

But when it goes to implement them it's another story, and it's mainly about workers talent. You could shout on someone as much you want if he is deficient in his job you won't make him do marvel, particularely when it's about creative design.

I still do understand your general focus point of view even if in my opinion you link it with non related elements like the story quality of quests.

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Ok, I think I see what you are saying now: Basically, and correct me if I am wrong, but you are saying that the quality of the writing for quests, for example, is separate from whether or not the over-reaching, big-picture design is focused or not; it is the responsibility of the writers to make the stories for the quests good regardless of the design.

Personally, I think that it would be hard for the writers (or any member of a development team for that matter) to do a solid job when a project is confused in its direction and lacking in focus, but I see your point on the issue of bad quest writing. I suppose my point that a lack of focus and a clear identity for a project leads to mixed results in quality applies more to the gameplay and big-picture of the story.

Yeah yeah if something went wrong in a project it can influence everybody job quality. Also possibility ME2 got its ton of poorly designed quests and then they reorganize the project to solve the problem. Or possibly ME2 writer editor leader didn't control close enough each quests quality or wasn't competent enough to detect bad works and make workers rework some points.

Well that's pure hypothesis, the only solution I see without more detailed elements to evaluate what happened is to fire the whole team, the only way to purify a bit Bioware.

Nerevarine said:

Drakensang TRoT is a really solid game that's a bit rough around the edges but very enjoyable overall. Unfortunately, they don't count as "competition" in the party-based RPG realm because Radon Labs got shut down/restructured, and as a result, we won't be seeing a third entry in the series.

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We'll see, however, an action-RPG called "Demonicon", which will be quite grim,
and a pure adventure game called "Sartinav's Chains" - of which the first two screenshots look fairly grim, too.

Nerevarine said:

I think part of why ME2 can be considered more enjoyable than DA2 - despite being more "dumbed down" - is a result of a more focused design.

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I agree but why look for complicated answers Nervarine when comparison of development times of ME2 and DA2 says it all?

Alrik Fassbauer said:

We'll see, however, an action-RPG called "Demonicon", which will be quite grim,
and a pure adventure game called "Sartinav's Chains" - of which the first two screenshots look fairly grim, too.

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The license is still in use, but it won't be used to create a sequel along the lines of Drakensang 1+2 - at least not anytime soon.

zahratustra said:

I agree but why look for complicated answers Nervarine when comparison of development times of ME2 and DA2 says it all?

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True, the short development time certainly contributed to the game's problems as well. It would have been a much better game (given the short development cycle) if it had been an improved version of DA:O (you know, kind of what sequels are supposed to be ), but instead they essentially made a new game with very little foundation in around 18 months.