Dragon Age Forum News (Oct. 09, 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.

Stanley Woo, QA Ninja

Update Info

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Why should im waiting for a game that shows no lifesign since more than year.

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You shouldn't. Take a break; come back later. As Brenon said, we'll still be here for you.

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Is it so hard to release some new infos or screenshots?

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It's a much more involved process than "Joe Tester takes a screenshot, Joe Web posts onto the site".

It's more along the lines of:
- Joe, Jane, and Jorge Marketer has meetings with Jim and Jeff Web and Jorn Project Lead and Jerry Boss
- a decision is made to release some screenshots
- joe, Jane, and Jorge Marketer; Jim and Jeff Web; Jorn Project Lead; and Jerry Boss agree on a timetable and schedule for the various people involved
- Joe, Jane, and Jorge Marketer compose a list of what they want to see in screenshots
- once approved by Jorn Project Lead and Jerry Boss, Jafar Tester takes the shots
- Joe, Jane, and Jorge Marketer picks their favourites and contacts Jafar Tester or someone else to find out the names of the objects, creatures, effects, or whatever in the shots
- Joe, Jane, and Jorge Marketer send the completed shots and captions to Jim and Jeff Web, who post them on a screenshot page or on a separate page
- Jim and Jeff Web compose links to new screenshots by putting an announcement on a webpage, creating a forum or blog post, and test to make sure nothing has broken the page
- screenshots can now be seen by the general public

Now, imagine what happens when a publisher enters the picture!

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Or it so terrible that these things cant be done?

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What kind of question is that? I either say no, in which case I'm vulnerable to "then why haven't you done it?", or I answer yes, in which case I sound like I'm bashing the game. Not leaving me with many options here, so I'll say "2004 Toyota Corolla SE".

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Or is it this NWN II and i missunderstood this dragon age thing?

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NWN2 is a separate project that is being developed by the fine folks over at Obsidian Entertainment. They have their own forums, too, if you'd care to take a look.

About Publishing and Design
Seems pretty complex. From what I know, the publisher is the one who spends all the money to get the game from the developer to the store shelves. They do the advertising, arrange for the manufacturing and distribution, and pay the developer so it can pay its employees. They also provide QA services, making sure the game works as intended.

Heck, compared to the publisher, the developer is small potatoes, which is something that some developer advocates are trying to change.

Videogame publishers do pretty much the same thing as book publishers, if that's any clearer.

David Gaider, Lead Writer

Update Info

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I simply cannot understand why Dragon Age has no publisher.
Bioware has never made a bad game and in fact all their games were classics. There is no safer bet for a publisher than Bioware.

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Are you under the impression that we are unable to find a publisher?

The question might more realistically be which publisher we wish to go with. And then there's hammering out the final contract. I really doubt we're in much of a hurry, either -- one of the advantages of being a successful and independent development house.

Or, yes, maybe we're desperately searching for someone who will take us. I suppose it's possible.

More:

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You shouldn't need 5 meetings to decide if you can explain what's meant by Exploration Mode in the FAQ.

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No, that's true. It only takes 1 meeting to decide that we don't want to start publicizing the game yet. Period.

More:

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Not publicizing the game?

Bioware shows the game at a trade show. They have interviews regarding the game. They create a web site and a forums! Isn't that considered publicizing?

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Actually, that's considered announcing. And the forums are here for informational purposes as well as to get some feedback during the developmental process.

When we start seeking publicity, you'll know it.

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Torlack has a point, that you guys do get flamed when you make design changes. However, isn't it better to have hardcore gamers passionately debating your work rather then playing it safe and boring them to death?

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So we should just open up the development process, talk about every design decision we're considering and let the community "passionately debate" it, with each of you having varying degrees of understanding and leaping to wild conclusions at will, necessitating us to constantly come here and explain and re-explain our intentions and then re-explain it again every time we change our minds about something? You tell me.

Party Character Sidekicks (like Boo)

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So... how is this going to work then David? Are you the "bad cop" and Daniel is now the "good cop"? Are you willing to reliquish that much power?

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Never!

Ummm... what's a 'good cop'?

Incidentally, I agree completely about the notion of familiars as they stood in BG2 and NWN having no character.

That doesn't mean that having some sort of pet can't be cool. It just means that having a "pet in a pocket" doesn't tend to work well.

Dogmeat worked well, though, didn't he? But he was a pet that was also an NPC.

Tired Cliché’s To Avoid

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My question, will the story of dragon age rely on these tired old conventions, or will we experience a more fleshed out and morally ambiguous world?

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Wow! You don't shy away from completely loading the question, do you?

Hmmm. Which option do I pick, here? Will it be what you want to see or will it be crap (apparently like all our other games)? What to do, what to do...

More:

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Hmmm.... The last I heard though - and this was from posts a year ago, so may be old news - was that they hadn't decided whether taking along any or all of the NPCs would be required. If they make all NPCs completely option, it would make it nearly impossible to have them play an important role in the story. I wonder if they've decided that or not.

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Most of the NPC's are not required. Some of them are, but that doesn't mean you need to take them into the party with you on all occasions. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the gist.

As to the original poster, sarcasm aside fluffyamoeba already posted a few of the things we've said about what we're doing differently with DA. We're going for something we consider to be a bit mature storytelling, but of course that's relative. Break any story down far enough and you can find your cliches, Planescape and Bloodlines included. Avoiding them solely for the sake of being different isn't necessarily a good thing.

More:

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They are all pretty much cliche's because there is not much else you can do to start an adventure.

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Interestingly, none of the DA backgrounds use any of those three examples.

More: At the end of the day, the line between useful archetype and lame cliche is a pretty thin one. I won't pretend that we at Bioware haven't walked some of the same plots enough times that they're pretty tired... I, myself, will probably retch the next time someone suggests that our female love interest betray the PC... but, then, if I thought I as a writer had something new to say about that subject and could put my own spin on it who's to say it couldn't be presented well?

Some things we do with DA are going to seem fresh, I hope. Other things are going to be viewed by some, however, and they'll just roll their eyes and go, "well that's been done before". And it'll be pretty subjective which is which, depending on what you've been exposed to.
We're not trying to make things different just for the sake of seeming different, though. That's the sort of thinking where you end up with the "cliche w/ hiccup" that Grom mentioned, I believe. So hopefully the stuff that seems well-tread at first glance will stand up to closer scrutiny.

I will say, though, that sometimes using the well-tread ground can be useful as a short-cut just as Grom said... guilty as charged. Personally I think that can be useful not to overwhelm the player with the unfamiliar, but some might also consider that laziness, I guess. Overall it will depend on what you think of the story once we do our reveal.

Mmm... and hopefully whatever PR blurb does the summary of the story doesn't make me cringe too much. It's really far too easy to make any story sound hella lame when you condense it into two sentences and add a bunch of exclamation marks and words like "epic" and "legendary" and such into the mix. Le sigh.

Daniel Erickson, Senior Designer

Party Character Sidekicks (like Boo)
The lack of animal companions and such is a long way from being canon. Hmm... I guess that's about all I can say on that one.

About Publishing and Design
One of the things that surprised me while working at EA is that publishing in the game industry works quite a bit like the book industry. A game store orders a certain number of titles and hopes to sell them. If it doesn't then it sends them back to the publisher/distributor. Here's where it gets interesting. Usually the store does not get its money back. Instead the store gets credit towards the next game the publisher releases. So a company like EA can ask a store to stock 300 copies of Def Jam Vendetta and the store can do so without risk since EA publishes over 40 separate games a year and the store will easily replace it's stock.

A smaller publisher, however, has to fight to get even one or two copies of a game on store shelves (people who remember The Longest Journey and the sheer determination it took for Funcom to get it out will know what I mean.) It's this giant distribution relationship that makes EA the giant it is. After all, when Johnny Casual comes in and sees a whole shelf of Madden and one copy of Really Good Sega Football which one does he naturally assume is the leading brand?

 

sharp tongues they have at Bioware, eh

sometimes it makes my day to read these news..

 

Indeed, there's all kinds of interesting things I read from the Bio team while doing my news, hilarious and odd. The source of jokes seems to be David Gaider though:

I swear, you could make a non-ending hilarious topic on their posts .