Dragon Age Forum News (Aug. 24, 05)

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Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from Dragon Age Official Forum. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

David Gaider, Designer

Ingredients for Success
Well, it might be just me, but seeing as DA is a party-based RPG whereas NWN was not, having inter-party dialogue like we had in the BG series (our last party-based RPG) is kind of a no-brainer.

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As for "funny" characters, i hated HK-47 in KOTOR, he simply became so freaking annoying after his 2nd line, as for deekin, he was alright, but not nearly as funny as minsc could sometimes be, i think using such an "all-humor" character breaks the mood

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Good thing, then, that taking characters like that with you is optional.

More:

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strong joinable npc stories and interaction? sure. bio has no doubt learned their lesson on that issue. unfortunately, the genesis poster and bio both seems to confuse such a feature with the need for a PROTAGONIST tale. this confusion has reached a point o' near madness with the biowarians as they is attempting to now create a game with a half dozen or more distinct possible PROTAGONISTS.

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Not quite, Grom. We're not trying to define a specific protagonist character as much as we are giving the player a stake in the world. The problem with your average adventurer without a defined background is that he's essentially homeless... in this case, we at least want the player to feel that he comes from somewhere.

Will GMax be a viable option?

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Did we just learn that DA will have normal mapping, like Doom 3? Sweet!

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I'm not sure that, by the time DA is released, there will be many 3D titles that don't.

Good, Evil, Sacrifice, Temptation

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Sythion:
"What does it matter whether good or evil exists (BTW, in DA, it's already been quoted they do not exist) in RL in conjunction to this game?"


Hmm, I don't think that's been said.

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The lack of good and evil in a fantasy game seems to be assinine I believe the way you have paraphrased what the devlopers have said has actually changed the meaning of what was said.

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The setting does not focus on the dichotomy between good and evil, like in Star Wars or D&D. That is not to say that good and evil don't exist... certainly they exist as concepts, if not as absolute forces.

You won't be selecting an alignment, for instance, and the dialogue choices won't be split into "good" and "evil" ones at every opportunity, like in KotOR or JE. Indeed, the morality of your choices may sometimes be questionable.
There is no good-evil slider in operation anywhere and doing good or evil won't have any effect on you outside of your reputation and your relationship to your party members.

Andrew Farrell, Artist

Will GMax be a viable option?
You will want to learn 3DSMax for sure, GMax is something I don’t know if we will be supporting or not. You will also want to start learning how to make normal maps, I suggest using ZBrush 2.

I suggest that everybody who wants to mod games to get familiar at least with some type of 3D program.

James Henley, Designer

System Requirements
Dragon Age will require a computer.