Dragon Age Forum News (Oct. 14, 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

DA's mulit player campain

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But are you prepared to sacrifice a part of the single plater experience to make the multiplayer campaign?

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Nope. What we're talking about is above and beyond whatever we had originally planned for the single-player experience.

Sound ambitious? Surely. As much as the talk of zots always being the reason not to do something, we do spend them when we feel the payoff is worth it (such as the backgrounds and different starting locations for single-player).

More: So... you want to have the multiplayer be a group performing all the singleplayer quests that you didn't complete during the game? I hope I'm misunderstanding that.

At any rate, the multiplayer is happening within the framework of the same larger events as the singleplayer, but the stories are completely seperate. For those who would have already played the singleplayer story (or who intend to), that's really for the best.

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What I believe David Gaider is saying is that the two campaigns are completely different, but take place in the same world over roughly the same period of time. Imagine an RPG based on the lord of the rings. In the single player campaign you might be Frodo on a journey to destroy the ring. In the multi player campaign might be an officer in the army of Gondor, doing quests to aid in the war effort. Both these stories take place in the same world at roughly the same time and might even overlap when it comes to some of the locations visited and NPCs met, but both are completely independent journeys with their own characters, quests and dialogs.

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That is it exactly.

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Are the multiplayer game available for single player too?

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I expect so. Such is the beauty of a party-based RPG.

Tired Cliché's To Avoid

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forgive me if this has been mentioned...

...but Dragon Age? I can't think of a more cliche name for a crpg.

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How is that cliche? Have there been other games called Dragon Age previously?

Perhaps the word does not mean quite what you think it means.

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Perhaps the word does not mean quite what you think it means.

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Which has been driving a whole lotta people nuts because you have alluded to that before as well. No garauntees that there will be dragons, or that the dragons will be what we think they may be, or.... or.... or... can't remember. But I think one day someone is going to have to leak what YOU think that word means.

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I was referring to the word "cliche". People use it wrong all the time, just like when people say something's "tragic"... it's usually not.

You thought I was talking about the word "dragon"? Er... I'm pretty sure I know what I dragon is supposed to be. Pretty hard to mistake it for something else.
With respect to the title, what I said before is that this is not necessarily a game about dragons, but rather about an age in which dragons exist.

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I only know of a couple of 50ft women stories, maybe I missed the rest (obviously, "the attack of the 50ft woman")?

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Apparently for some people, it only takes one use of something before it becomes a cliche?

In common parlance, it seems that cliche is acceptable for "not original" just as tragic is acceptable for "sad" and ironic is acceptable for "unfortunate". But that's how it goes, I suppose.

Update Info

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Gaider says its too complicated to give out information here and we shouldn't worry about whats going on in Bioware kitchen so there's no point in making suggestions.

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Wow. Talk about putting words in my mouth. That is so not what I said.

Well, whatever. You wouldn't be the first person to pull the "customer" card, and you won't be the last. The FAQ is as detailed and explained as we need it to be, and we'll expand on it when we're ready to, no sooner. I don't really see the confusion... but then I'm apparently a deranged and arrogant developer who thinks I'm above plebes like you, so what do I care?

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If I were willing to spend time to create a detailed question list would you be willing to answer it?

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Doubtful.

And I should clarify that if we don't reveal every step of the design process here it's not because we feel that the community has nothing useful to offer us. Indeed, just like by kitchen analogy, I have no doubt at all that you know what good soup is supposed to taste like and could very well give me some insight on what's currently needed to make it achieve such.

It's more that keeping a coherent discussion in this setting is next to impossible. A person can be intelligent and reasonable and well-informed... people, even a group of relatively invested and literate folk, can be an incoherent and argumentative mass. The sheer time it would take to keep people from getting out of hand with assumptions and such would be enormous. It's not as simple as keeping an up-to-date FAQ. Some who read it (and not many will, by all evidence) are just not going to understand that things are subject to change and will take it all as gospel... and since we're not publicizing anything at large, yet, the one thing we want to avoid is the spread of misinformation from this forum as the only source of publicity in the world out there.

So either we're ready to start giving out news... or we're simply not. There is no half-way point where we can start involving the forum folk without also assuming that anything that gets bandied about here won't also make its way elsewhere. We probably could manage it, with a great deal of effort, but whether or not it would be useful to us overall for all that over what we have now is questionable.
And the forums as they exist do have an effect. Take a look. We are in here all the time, reading and responding to what you people are saying. The influence you have is the influence you would have engaging anyone in conversation over a topic. State your case in an intelligent and reasonable manner and you might just convince me of something. It's certainly happened before. And beyond that if we need input on something specific, we will (and have before) ask for it.

But if opening up all the current design decisions to public scrutiny is what you're looking for, you're not going to see anyone doing that. You may be able to call up Coca-Cola HQ and tell them your opinion, but they're not going to list all their half-formed plans and ideas on their website and ask for public input on things that they haven't specifically sought feedback for or haven't decided to publicize.

But I'll leave it at that. You probably disagree with me and believe that we should seek active input on all our decisions from our customers. I say we already do, as much as we can, and it's not a sign of arrogance that we can't do more until we're prepared for the publicity that will involve. And that will just have to be that.

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Hahah! Gaider has to love it. That one's got some fire in his belly, I'll give him that!

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Fire in my belly? Does this have to do with that thing about me drinking gasoline and peeing fire? You have a view of me that I find very peculiar, you know that?

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He spends a great deal of time "cleverly" smacking down people on these forums

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I call it "expectation management".

Daniel Erickson, Senior Designer

DA's mulit player campain
One of the main reasons for separating the two campaigns is that a single player experience rarely expands readily to a multiplayer one. When I pick up a multiplayer game I don't want to be the sidekick or an afterthought. I don't want to follow the hero around and watch him make decisions (BG anyone?) and, odds are at least one person in the group isn't interested in exploring all the side story and world development.

Multiplayer needs to have a solid story that's action based, clear roles and challenges for all of the people involved and easily digestible small segments of gameplay that you can realistically expect to get a small group of people together and play. Of course, that's just my two cents.

What we are not willing to do is to sacrifice any part of the single player experience to make it work with multiplayer. Right now the feel is that a strong focus on single player world development and Bioware's style of storytelling can not coexist with the demands and expectations of modern multiplayer gaming and we're unwilling to just say "Here it is, oh it can also be played with a friend." So multiplayer lives as its own entity to be tested, tweaked, tried and retried but does not yank around or diminish the primary part of the game. If it was any other way Dave would hit us all with something much worse than a fish long before LdyShayna got a chance.

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Good idea Torias. It would also be nice (and this is assumming the events in both are concurrent) to have gossip and rumours of events from the other campaign... e.g. "a band adventurers down south just slayed Puff the Dragon, so my old pa says!". This of course could only happen with plot critical events... but it would lend a feeling that both campaigns aren't occuring in a total vacuum.

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True but if you were going to go that route you'd have to set flags that would allow you to check if the player had been through the single player campaign. Imagine if you were wandering through MP first and kept stumbling across spoilers from the SP game. Wouldn't that make for good times?

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

Update Info

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Are we looking at the same forums? I see a fair amount of information flowing all over the place... not a lot of it is concrete... but it's there.

I think I'd have to agree with David... you aren't very clear on what you're asking for. Besides simply saying 'we need meaningful information!'... define what it is you're looking for.

If you have specific questions regarding the game... ask them. Oddly enough, if things are phrased politely we usually respond.

Perhaps the method of this discussion forum is just a bit confusing... see, normally we don't start topics unless we have a very specific thing in mind we'd like to talk about.

That's because, strange as it sounds, we're usually at work or working while we're browsing the forums. I don't think it's really realistic to expect that we'll run through the design docs from A to Z on every major feature and decision as it comes along.

Instead (and I think this is a much better solution), why don't we have a discussion about things you're interested in hearing about. Why don't you ask the questions and maybe some of that meaningful information you seem to be looking for can surface.

As for the tone David is taking, I can relate... you're coming across as a bit of an ***. No offense, of course.

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Hope you don't mind, I co-opted your little story in order to illustrate the above.

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Reminds me of the old story of the Stationary Store in the summer. Every day someone comes in and asks the owner if he sells candy. The owner tells him them no, he sells stationary.

The owner, deciding it might be a nice perk for his customers, orders some candy in several assorted flavours.

The next day a man walks in and asks if can buy candy. The owner points to the bin and says, "Candy, right there."

The man looks over and glares at the owner, "That's not the candy I want!"

The owner sighs, "Well, maybe if you told me what kind of candy you wanted, I could get it for you..."

The man glares at the owner, "You should just buy all the candy in the world... then I could get any candy I want!"

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The Limit of Patience

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As of current close relationship between Microsoft and Bioware i would predict that Dragon Age might ended up published by Microsoft as well.

If that happens, don't be surprised that the development of DA will be forced to convert from PC to xBox360

Hence, my guesses they will soon announce the news and you can save your patience

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As I said in the other thread... to paraphrase: "You're wrong, DA is a PC game."

If that doesn't penetrate, the only way I can think of driving the point home further would be with a railroad spike.

Hello Dragon Age Clans
Hrm Ninjas... now when you say Ninja... you are of course referring to an ancient Japanese 'assassin or spy' practiced in stealthy techniques of sneaky deceptions and stalkings?

If that is the case, then no. There are/will be no Ninjas in DA.

There could be something similar to an assassin or spy, however...

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Hrm Ninjas... ... of sneaky deceptions and stalkings?

There could be ... an assassin or spy, however...

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Wooot!!!!

sneaky ninjas in DA!

Alrighty, thx Brenon.

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*frowns* I think your quote button is broke...

You must be pushing it wrong...

More: Personally I've always liked big things that break other people. Great stress relief.

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doh, I thought I got my "sorry" in there before you got a chance to read the post.

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I am quick... like the ninja.

(I would strike a very ninja-like pose at this point, but I think the effect is pretty much lost in this particular medium)

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Geez you type fast.

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It's sort of what I do for a living...

If you ignore the whole, thinking and architecting part... you could pretty much label me as an overpaid/overworked typist.