Dragon Age Forum News (Dec. 13, 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

Save the world? -Again-? No thanks.

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The bottom line is Dragon Age is a new world, so it could obviously get overwhelming. Don't bury the player in names, places, historical events and all that right from the start.

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Is there some fear that we were considering doing this?

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See? There's alredy a lot of stuff to learn, and we haven't even started playing yet!

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Yes. We get that.

This is, in fact, one of the reasons we like the origin story chapter as a way of slowly introducing the player to all this new stuff.

And, yes, we introduce these things slowly because throwing all sorts of names and facts and concepts at a player would be both dumb and boring. Believe it or not, DA is not the first time a new world and system has been introduced in a game (though our marketing department may attempt to convince you otherwise).

Control - NPC - Multiplaying Alone

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The question is simple:

- Will the party system moire closely resemble the KotOR system or the BG system?

For instance, in BG you could setup a multiplayer game, but play alone. In this you could create up to six playable characters with which you could play through the OC. Creating your own, unique, party.

- If one were so inclined, would this be possible in Dragon Age?

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The single-player part of DA is just that -- single-player. You make your one character and start the game (the term "official campaign" does not really apply).

There will be a great deal of customization possible in the make-up of your party in the single-player game, but you cannot simply make all the characters right at the get-go and start with them.

The multi-player part of DA is completely seperate -- it's a seperate story entirely and the mechanics are slightly different. You cannot play the single-player game in multi-player, as you could with BG. What you're describing will more likely be possible with the multi-player game, though the exact mechanics of how this will work are still being put together as we speak.

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Oh nooo! I want to have all of the NPCs in my party at the same time and listen to their banter. Please, someone say this will be possible.(That would've been so cool in BG2/ToB and KotOR/2 too).

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While this theoretical giganta-party of yours would make for interesting conversation, I'm sure, it would probably be a bit unwieldy and maybe even unbalance the game. So no. No giganta-party for you.

Notoriety Quests
That's all well and good, but the idea behind DA's single-player story does not really deal with your level of fame or infamy in the world. If it did, I'd say it'd be a fine feature to have.

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The Elder Scrolls: Arena let you do pretty much whatever you wanted to do - and that was fifteen years ago, more or less. TES: Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion only improves on this. Why can't any other game except Gothic do the same? There's nothing wrong about having some freedom.

It doesn't have to be big changes either. One Final Fantasy game allowed you to raise your own Chocoboo's in your own farm, as an optional quest you even had to search for a while to find. It was very basic stuff, yet it worked. Another had you playing Blitz Ball (some version of underwater soccer). The entire match took a few minutes, yet I've heard about a guy who spent over 60 hours playing it. All I'm asking is you have interesting sub-quests with some variation, not just fetch'n'deliver, monsterkilling and all that.

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One does not need to have a world simulation in order to have a variety of sub-quests.

But if more freedom means that you can raise chocobos... well, heck, then maybe we should reconsider.

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Just out of curiosity, how about the main story, then?

Does it have some evaluation system such as in Balder's Gate series reputation system or Knight of the Old Republic light/dark sides system? Also, reputation or NPC reaction system, which influences dialogue options, is used in more story-focused CRPG such as Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Fallout series, and Deus EX series.

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Any reactions based on your actions is on a case-by-case basis. If you've done something that group X should react to, then they will. But there's no global reputation system -- nor is one needed. Those titles you mention may have had reputation systems, but that's not what made them story-focused.

We actually were going to do one until it became apparent that the story meant there wouldn't be much use made of it, just by its nature.

What is the status of Dragon Age? Is it dead?
We don't have to have a publisher lined up to start releasing info about the game. We choose to, out of respect for the fact that a potential publisher might have some input on how we might go about doing that.

It's not as if there's a rush... any potential release is still a long ways off, yet. CD Projekt's game is due for release fairly soon, I believe.

You might say that if we just release a little bit, that this will satisfy you and that you won't start clamoring immediately for more with redoubled force... but come on, who are we kidding?

Will DA allow you to roleplay a truly evil character?
Becoming an actual antagonist would require a completely different storyline, one we are not interested in doing.

You are the heroic protaganist... though how much of a "hero" you are is subject to question, as considering DA's darker tone you will have a number of options open to you which go quite a bit beyond the simply greedy or bullying. There must be a temptation to do otherwise if doing the right thing is going to be meaningful, after all (in my opinion).

But if you define being evil as becoming the villain of the piece, then no. You won't be able to do that.

James Henley, Designer

What is the status of Dragon Age? Is it dead?
Until a publisher is announced for Dragon Age, there will be little to no further information released regarding it.

Having said as much, I can assure you that it has certainly not been shelved in any fashion. Work continues on it as always, merger or not.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

What is the status of Dragon Age? Is it dead?

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I wouldn't be surprised to get some update pretty soon. The DA project is in a way like an embryonal development: it gets bigger and bigger and at some point you can't hold it back anymore and have to let it out and take it in your arms and caress it and have fun with it. I'd say that DA is in the 5th month if you look at it from that perspective. It's up to the doctors to decide when to release the ultrasound pics/screenshots.

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*shudder*