Dragon Age Forum News (Dec. 07, 05)

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Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, taken from the 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, Lead Writer

More about romances

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Assuming this, adding homosexual relationships basically expands the number of people that can partake in this enjoyable aspect of the game. Nothing more, nothing less.

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It's not that simple, or this wouldn't even be a discussion, would it? While in essence you are correct, we are responsible for what we portray to our audience -- especially today, where this issue covers portrayals of violence in games as well as those of sexuality -- and so it's not simply a matter of how cool we think it might be or how inclusive such a feature is.

Give us balanced/interesting NPCs again ! : )

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I hope we'll get a balanced and interesting set of Party NPCs in DA.

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It's a good thing you mentioned this, because we were shooting for party members that were unbalanced and dull.

Whew! Nice save!

"Rogues" and "sneak attack"
I don't think everyone should be able to get access to "sneak attack". Everyone should be able to score a critical hit on vital areas, sure, but if you're going to make a distinction in the overall fighting style at the class level there's a distinction to be made between the tank fighter and the finesse fighter -- and using stealth and swiftness to your advantage definitely falls into the finesse side of things.

Arguing that such a basic question of fighting style not be class-oriented is more of an argument not to have classes at all -- which is fine, if that's what you want to argue, but it's pretty fundamental to the nature of classes to begin with.

Class restrictions based on stereotypes?
Wow. NWN didn't even have robes, and here you guys are already looking for an alternative to them.

More: Well, let's see. Insofar as whether or not mages can wear armor, I don't think it's been nailed down just yet, though we certainly do have ideas on the matter. So your opinions on the subject are welcome.

Myself, I tend to think of there being two basic philosophies of combat: the "don't get hit" philosophy and the "don't take damage" philosophy.

The former is going to rely on speed and agility and on avoiding getting hit to begin with -- but when they get hit, they're going to get hit hard. The latter is going to get hit repeatedly -- but they're going to take less damage from those blows, or none at all. Both of these should be valid ways to fight.

Mages aren't fighters... BUT the philosophy applies to them as well. Do they remain agile enough to get away from combat and avoid getting hit? Or do they take the blow and less damage and hope that they can deal with whatever is hitting them quickly? I would prefer not to restrict spellcasters from wearing armor per se, but rather provide some logical reasons why you're not likely to see them wearing armor very much. Such as:

- armor is cumbersome and spellcasters tend to be physically too weak to wear it properly.

- heavier armor tires you out more quickly, a fact which applies both to warriors (the tank fighter fights just as well but can't fight at full strength for as long) as well as spellcasters (they regain mana at a slower rate the more armor they are wearing).

So long as you don't have a system where there are no drawbacks to wearing armor, you don't have to fear having your spellcasters wear it -- and trying to come up with in-game rationalizations to support system shortcomings should always be a last resort.

Now, before anyone thinks otherwise, this is mostly my opinion as the armor system is not yet fully realized -- yet this is where I think it should be heading. Naturally any system you have is going to rely on many other systems for its underpinnings (let's say we decide that mana does not regenerate during combat -- well, then, obviously we would need to rethink the armor system as it applies to casters) so there could be a lot of changes (and arguments, probably) before the final system sees the light of day. But this might tell you where I, at least, sit on this particular point.

Chris Priestly, Quality Assurance

Give us balanced/interesting NPCs again ! : )
Balanced and interesting?

So like Viconia, HK-47, Deekin, and Black Whirlwind, or more like Minsc, Carth, Aribeth and Sky?

Georg Zoeller, Designer

AI for NPC

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till, having 1000 npcs doing AI on a SINGLE COMPUTER is surely something that impresses me if it really works.

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Not quite 1000 but Ultima 6 and 7 were running full schedule AI and usecode on 255+ NPCs, and that was in the early 90s'

Things like this are possible, but there is always the question of whether or not it makes sense for your particular type of game to do it.