Dragon Age - Stolen Throne Book Review

Originally Posted by Tan
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.

Err… no. There is simply some infrastructure that is required in order for multiplayer to exist. It's not just a matter of inserting an extra player in there, you need some client/server communication going on to keep them in sync and working together. If it's not there, you can't have multiplayer or PW's period. Not sure if there's a difference between simply not having a feature and "preventing it on purpose" for someone like you, but there you go.

Originally Posted by Tan
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.

Incidentally, we never said there wouldn't be an area editor. The assumption on the forums was that there would not be one because we didn't use tilesets. And, to be honest, we really didn't know back at that point if we were going to be able to present them with a way to do areas the same way we do or not so we really couldn't comment.

Even so, on the whole the toolset (and area editor) are quite powerful -- and much more flexible than NWN's editor. That said, what it adds in power it trades off in ease-of-use. We were able to leave a lot of the game open to modding, so hopefully with some support from us they're able to do a lot… not that it will ever match NWN/NWN2's editor capability, but considering that the toolsets for those projects were part of their entire purpose I'd be surprised if it did.

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

They generally claim it's the successor to BG, not NWN.

And in BG, single player was mostly something secondary… I tried it a couple of time and never got far in the game. Great & complex story doesnt fit well with MP and it's very difficult to have complete such a huge game with a group.

No big deal there for me.

Originally Posted by Dgaider
Not sure if there's a difference between simply not having a feature and "preventing it on purpose" for someone like you, but there you go.

Now that you explained bioware's reasoning to not include multiplayer in the spiritual successor of BG and NWN the difference seems crystal clear.

Incidentally, we never said there wouldn't be an area editor. The assumption on the forums was that there would not be one because we didn't use tilesets.

No, the assumption that there was no area editor was present because bioware kept talking only about the possibility to edit existing (DA) areas by placing objects and npcs and didn't mention the existance of an area editor. So all, logically, assumed there was no area editor. Tilesets don't have anything to do with this.

Originally Posted by Dgaider
Even so, on the whole the toolset (and area editor) are quite powerful -- and much more flexible than NWN's editor.

That's interesting. Can you elaborate a little about how it is more flexible?

Originally Posted by vanedor
They generally claim it's the successor to BG, not NWN.

Gaider would disagree…

Originally Posted by vanedor
They generally claim it's the successor to BG, not NWN.

And in BG, single player was mostly something secondary… I tried it a couple of time and never got far in the game. Great & complex story doesnt fit well with MP and it's very difficult to have complete such a huge game with a group.

No big deal there for me.

I assume you mean multiplayer in BG

Well, it certainly wasn't secondary to me back when I played it with 5 friends. Even if there were certain annoyances with MP implementation, we had a blast of a time.

I realise that they've backed away from what Dragon Age was ORIGINALLY supposed to be, but that doesn't change what they said back around the time it was announced - which is aaaaages ago. Around the time that KotOR was released.

I don't remember specifics, but it was definitely supposed to be a natural step forward in the vein of NWN.

Originally Posted by Dgaider
Err… no. There is simply some infrastructure that is required in order for multiplayer to exist. It's not just a matter of inserting an extra player in there, you need some client/server communication going on to keep them in sync and working together. If it's not there, you can't have multiplayer or PW's period…

right, which is why I was suggesting NWNX, SQL and 3rd party client system. It would be nigh difficult to keep sync issues perfect and timely as you said

ie: player (object) A moves to x,y,z at this speed, update to client - problem 1, how do you even capture that? I would think: poll for player object, poll for its previous state (running? attacking?), is it different from new state, change state, move player to new vector if necessary. Repeat ad nauseum.

This all assumes its a state machine and those states can be captured.

If a guy is 2 minutes ahead of you do to lag how does one handle that? NWN had it built in for objects following one another. If they got too far behind a trigger would jump them back to the leader.

Oblivion and even Fallout 2 both managed to get mods that allowed MP. I don't remember how Oblivion did it but FO2's basically shared an INI file that both games updated.

Regardless, nothing much came of those mods and in the case of FO2 I believe the game mechanics get in the way, like quests.

It does seem like it could be done but again it looks like a nightmare.

Incidentally, we never said there wouldn't be an area editor…

Even so, on the whole the toolset (and area editor) are quite powerful -- and much more flexible than NWN's editor.

I noticed that first part. Years of Bio forums will teach anyone to look for what's not being promised . Glad to hear it will have an area editor now.

Originally Posted by vanedor
That's interesting. Can you elaborate a little about how it is more flexible?

Not convincingly. My bailiwick is the conversation systems -- the other stuff I only have peripheral knowledge of. You'd be better served asking on the toolset forums for DA, if you're interested.

Originally Posted by Dgaider
Not convincingly. My bailiwick is the conversation systems

So why can't we pass multiple variables of our choice to/from a single conversation node? (please don't waste your much valued community interacting time on this question - it's asked in the toolset forum too. This topic should be about your book and I'm grateful for all the reviews and comments so far)

Originally Posted by pearceshea
It is ridden with stylistic, literary and grammatical cliches. There are glaring grammatical errors.

Unfortunately, this can also be said of some of TDE novels. Unfortunately.


You cannot say that the writer is just bad or new to the genre : Because what most people don't even think of is an institution called Lectorate.

The Lectorate of any publisher play an important role - and in my point of view it's not the writer's fault if there are errors in it - at least not entirely - but the lectorate also must have been bad. Very bad, the worse the mistakes are.

So, don't damn anyone who is writing a book or call him a 14-year old writer. Always remind yourself that an lectorate also is there for correcting errors. If an lectorate doesn't see or/and doesn't correct errors, then it's just an bad lectorate. It's as simple as that.

Originally Posted by kalniel
So why can't we pass multiple variables of our choice to/from a single conversation node?

We didn't need to, to be honest. That's something we'll probably add to the toolset in the future, for our use as well as the community's. There's bound to be numerous ease-of-use features that we figure out a way to squeeze in moving forward.

As it is, the ability to pass in a variable on the node was put into place as a step up in convenience from having to do everything in scripting (as we did in NWN).

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Always remind yourself that an lectorate also is there for correcting errors. If an lectorate doesn't see or/and doesn't correct errors, then it's just an bad lectorate. It's as simple as that.

But.. the error is there in the first place because the writer of the book made it. So if it slips through the lectoring you might learn something about the writer's grammatical skills.

I think you would be surprised just how bad some writers grammer really is. They are called editors in north america, at least that is what I think you mean by lectorate.

But if the book is released in a sorry grammatical state - and I'm not saying it is, as I haven't read it - exactly what signal does it send about the effort Bioware put into it?

Certainly, to me, it suggests that it's not something they really care about - and as such I would have to perceive it as a marketing ploy, no matter how much energy Gaider might have put into the story.

Also, it says something about their respect for their employees - because if you let some guy write an entire book for your product, at least put in the effort to have it released in a decent state.

But that's me.

Originally Posted by Tan
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.

So you're from the Codex.

Originally Posted by Tan
But.. the error is there in the first place because the writer of the book made it. So if it slips through the lectoring you might learn something about the writer's grammatical skills.

No. The lectorate should have pointed him out that he made some actual mistakes.

You don't know how newspapers are written, don't you.

I assume you don't care about how editing literature of any kind works anyway.

You just want to have someone you can complain about.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
So you're from the Codex.

No, I'm from my country, town, house.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
No. The lectorate should have pointed him out that he made some actual mistakes.

You don't know how newspapers are written, don't you.

I assume you don't care about how editing literature of any kind works anyway.

You just want to have someone you can complain about.

Ok, you didn't underastand what I wrote there so I shall repeat hoping you'll understand this time.

If bad grammar/spelling slips through the editing it means: a) bad editing and b) writer with bad grammar/spelling.


You should learn how to use multi-quote instead of cluttering topics with your posts, it's really simple.

Originally Posted by Dgaider
We didn't need to, to be honest. That's something we'll probably add to the toolset in the future, for our use as well as the community's. There's bound to be numerous ease-of-use features that we figure out a way to squeeze in moving forward.

As it is, the ability to pass in a variable on the node was put into place as a step up in convenience from having to do everything in scripting (as we did in NWN).

Thanks for the reply David.

Originally Posted by Tan
No, I'm from my country, town, house.

Me,too. So you're my neighbour now ?

If bad grammar/spelling slips through the editing it means: a) bad editing and b) writer with bad grammar/spelling.

And you still refuse to understand what I meant.

You should learn how to use multi-quote instead of cluttering topics with your posts, it's really simple.

No, I won't.

I'll do anything I want to and you will most certainly not hinder me from deciding what kind of writing style I use.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Me,too. So you're my neighbour now ?

You're confused. I didn't say your country, town, house. The keyword was *my*.

And you still refuse to understand what I meant.

Yeah, well, lets agree that we don't understand each other.

No, I won't.

I'll do anything I want to and you will most certainly not hinder me from deciding what kind of writing style I use.

Ok, sorry.