Dragon Age Forum News (Dec. 09, 04)

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Here are today's Dragon Age forum highlights, collected by NWVault. 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

Bio - Has anything from the upcoming game witcher influenced your design?
The Witcher has not influenced our design... I, personally, have seen very little of it. No more than you have, I suspect. That said, it sounds like we'll have a few things in common... in terms of objective, anyhow.

Loadscreens should progress the story
I think the primary consideration will be what we need to tell the story for the single-player campaign. If the tools we use to do that can then be made useable and placed in your hands, then perfect.

The one big mistake we made when putting together NWN was discounting the role of cutscenes in telling a story... whether pre-rendered or in-game... and I think that's the biggest change you'll see. Loading screens could be used to advance the story, I suppose, but I don't really see us having a need for it if the cutscene utilities are much handier.

More:

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Others (e.g. Vampire: Bloodlines) have rather lengthy text that is displayed, providing information about the game world, controls, and combat techniques. Still others show a graphic and perhaps a line or two of text (e.g. BG, NWN, etc.).

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Actually, the Bloodlines loading screen hints are really little different from those we did in BG2. After a while, you'll see they begin to repeat and you'll stop even looking at them.

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Quote: I think we're shooting for some flexibility in being able to put some interesting text on the load screen. While this doesn't replace cutscenes as a device to move the story along, it provides a place to keep the player's attention while a necessary technical function happens in the background.

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I think the main hold-up there is whether or not we go for another dialog.tlk system like we normally do. The main reason to do so is for localization ease, I believe, but that makes textual customization inside the game a bit problematic. As it is, though, I agree... it's a good idea. I think we got that impression quite clearly after NWN went out, that we need some way of easily allowing modders to add text. Hopefully we can pull that off here, though the programmers would have to think of something that affects broader things than just loading screens, I suspect.

EDIT: I should add that I, personally, don't know what they have planned for the game's text. I do know that they have something planned, however. It's not that we haven't thought about it, it's just that when it comes to programmer stuff I am an ignoramus.

More:

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That's not quite true... sure there are some generic ones, but there were also a hell of a lot that were VERY relevant to the particualr point in the story you had reached. For example, one of the earliest detailed "The Embrace", just before that occurred right at the start of the game. It was never repeated.

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Actually, I suppose that's true. Some of them seemed to be contextual based on an area you were entering or the chapter of the game you were in. Still... there weren't many of them (speaking personally), though I can appreciate the mechanic.
Seeing as we have a lot of info to introduce to the player, perhaps it's something to consider.

alignment issues
Okay, looking at the last two pages I don't even see a hint of any relation to Dragon Age. DA will not have any alignments like D&D did... and any grand philosophical discussions can take place in the Off Topic forum if you'd like to have them. Sorry, but like the previous threads that ended up here, this is being closed down.

This HL2 thing SUX !!! Will Bioware do the same ?
Okay... and again, another topic that has wandered into territory where Dragon Age is not even mentioned. Any discussions about Dragon Age's use of copy protection ended very early here. Other general discussions can take place in the Off Topic forum, thank you.

Bards as pefrormers?
Just as a side note, what do y'all think of having actual songs and music done in-game? I played with this in HotU with Valen but what I had really wanted to do (had Sharwyn been available for the entire game as had been planned) was have Sharwyn sing and recount tales occasionally and, at least once, sing an actual song that related to the story. The VO actress who did Sharwyn even sang a bit of folk on the side, too.

Is that the sort of thing that might appeal to you? Or are you one of those people that skipped all the songs in the LotR series and rolled your eyes?

Art Work
I think it's possible to be sexy without going over the line. Sometimes it's a fine line, though, and unfortunately the worry that some folks feel is a justified one as in just about any game genre there is a tendency for the desire to splash boobies everywhere to predominate. Sex sells, after all.

That said, someone like Xena still looked formidable, even if what she was wearing wasn't entirely practical if you thought about it. Suspension of disbelief is the key, I suppose.

I've seen the concept art for Dragon Age's armor, and personally I think the balance has been struck. At the very least I appreciate the fact that heavy armor covers the entire body even on females, with nary a boobie in sight. You'll be able to judge for yourselves eventually, of course, but know that we do have this concern in mind as we proceed.

Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance

Bio, can you give us a status report?

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I want gully dwarves.

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That's not going to happen, but if if it did happen, we'd be able to include no more than two of them.