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Dragon Age Forum News (Oct. 25 - Nov. 05, 05)

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by Eldular, Nov 13, 2005.

  1. Eldular Gems: 10/31
    Latest gem: Zircon

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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

    Time Off
    I like this idea, I really do. Having "downtime" in-between chapters would work well in a story-driven game. The thing it would need, however, is to be included as part of the initial concept of the game, with a story built to accomodate it.

    If you've ever played Ars Magica, I remember that mages in that game had the absolute best system for laboratory work that occurred in downtime. Adapting that into a larger crafting system might be sort of cool, as well as using the downtime for story stuff like relationships and stronghold-style plots and so forth. In the right game, it might be an excellent feature to consider.

    More:
    Yeah, I read David's post and thought what Defunc7 did - that he was expressing support for the idea in general, but not for DA. Then I read Georg's and thought, "Oho! It's something they'll have in DA after all."
    No, Defunc7 was correct in his interpretation. If there is downtime in DA (and there is) it is the scripted kind. I think Georg simply was urging him not to leap to any assumptions.

    Dragon Age IP (Intellectual Property)
    I would like to point out that there is, indeed, a limited amount of detail you can put into the world based on what you are going to use. Would we, for instance, map out every town and city in a nation on the other side of the world from where the first story actually takes place? Of course not.
    However, you do want to go into a great amount of detail for background purposes. One reason is to answer the questions that invariably come up from the other writers -- because these characters are going to talk about the world, they're going to have backgrounds and relate to what's happening the same way we do. The second reason is because if that detail isn't there, it will show. If I write a story about some legendary sword being needed to destroy some legendary shield and all I write about the would is what's important to just that story -- you'll very quickly get the sense that that is indeed all there is to the setting. The minutiae of the world may be small, but it adds up. Though, yes, the really gross details are only going to be done for those areas the story actually pertains to. Other stuff will get fleshed out later. Most worlds, like even the Forgotten Realms, build up their scads and scads of lore over time.

    Question three : With all this content being created, would the devs consider a short story set in the DA world as something a prospective publisher wouldn't allow?
    As the owners of the IP, Bioware has the right to choose when and where that IP gets used. If we want to allow a book to be set in the Dragon Age world, we can do that. If someone wants to make a movie based in the Dragon Age world, they would come to us. Whatever prospective publisher is involved in this Dragon Age PC game their involvement begins and ends with stuff pertaining solely to the computer game -- unless they acquire further rights, which would be our choice whether or not to give them (for whatever reason).

    If you're talking about fanfic, that follows the same rules regarding our intellectual property as it would were the fan using anyone else's. I don't know that there's a policy regarding it right now, though.

    More:
    It is shared as BIO is no longer an independent company. :(
    Sort of. Bioware still owns the IP, but Bioware is also now part of a larger company -- so it depends on how you look at it.

    And Volourn -- I've seen you posting this "Bio is no longer an independent company" thing in several places, and mentioning how it is bad. How does that follow, exactly? We are becoming a larger developer with enough financial backing so that we can be more independent even than we were before. Ray & Greg have not sold the company and walked, they are now partners in a larger company that they became part of willingly.

    Some trepidation is natural, I suppose, as this is a big change but overall I think it's quite exciting. Developers being more independent is a good thing.

    Georg Zoeller, Designer

    Time Off
    I would just read what's there, not what you want or don't want to read into it :)

    critical rebuild
    I think you have a wrong idea about the size of the combined NWN patches :)

    More: I think you misunderstood me. The size of the critical rebuild is, in the end, smaller than the size of the incremental patches added together. The updater is still doing incremental patches from your latest version, but if you are updating from a few versions down or a reinstall, the critical rebuild has less overhead than getting all those individual updates.

    Anyway, 100 megs is qiute standard for an up-to-latest-version patch these days, and it will certainly be not a lot by the time DA is rolled out.

    More:
    well if u made a bugless version right from the start we wouldn't have the whole patch problem :p
    No need for additional content? You know, those additional textures and soundfiles bloat patches quite a bit...

    As for keeping incremental patches, you can set the updater to preserve all patches it downloads, just right click in the updater window...

    Derek French, Technical Producer

    critical rebuild
    Not sure what to say on this. For the most part, you can just run NWN. The only really important thing that it stores in the registry is where NWN is located, so that other programs can find it. If your registry entry is missing, simply starting the Updater will restore the setting.

    I got a replacement box last week and I just simply ran NWN after running the updater.

    More:
    I agree that the registry should be used as little as possible (preferably not at all).
    Done. That is what we already do in NWN.

    In my opinion the Windows registry is implemented in a really stupid way. Microsoft made one big registry that includes critical system settings AND settings for applications in the same place, which is a real security nightmare. Even worse, they heavily integrated their web browser into the operating system. The result is that one of the applications that's most "at risk" of being an entry point for malicious code is heavily integrated with the OS, putting the whole system at risk.
    Ooooooookay, this seems more like a general rant than pointing out an issue with NWN or a potential for DA.

    In my opinion, each program should install to its own self contained folder that has as little connection to other parts of the system as possible.
    Which is pretty much what happens right now with most games, unless you are speaking in general about something specific.

    It would be nice to be able to install to a network share so that if you got a new PC you could simply play without the need to reinstall the game on the new PC and copy over all your saved games (if there were more Linux games I'd prabably just build a gaming PC with tons of RAM and no hard drive, store everything on my server and run Knoppix for everything), but that would probably be a violation of most games' EULAs.
    Installing to a specified directory is a violation of the EULA? I think you are seriously venturing into tin-foil hat territory here. I have never read anything like this in a EULA and I would like you to cite an existing one that has this restriction.

    It annoys me when anti-piracy concerns inflict annoyingly inconvenient restrictions on those of us who actually pay for games.
    What are you talking about? What does the registry have to do with anti-piracy?

    More:
    Besides the version of the game and the installed expansions. The updater program can't work without the version. Also the nwloader.exe keeps complaining about the missing version entry.
    Right, but once you run the updater, it contacts BioWare and does a reverse lookup and restores the version entry. Run it again, and you are good to go.

    NwN with SoU and HotU upgraded to 1.66 stores 8 keys and 30 values, which seems to be mostly junk that the game could do without. The path really is the only thing needed and should be restored on running the game when missing.
    And the path is the only thing of real value. Just because installshield puts that stuff in there, don't assume it is critical to the game running. The game doesn't require most of that stuff, its just their for convience. If its not there, no big deal.

    More:
    How about stand alone patches instead of critical rebuild(because they are very big files) OR a stand alone patch as well.
    These are the stand alone patches. I could remove all of the previous-to-latest files from the patch, and it would save almost 1 whole meg. As such, there is no point.

    Make it like Blizzard does: update via the auto updater, and have teh patch available seperately as well.
    That is exactly what we do.

    More:
    Ahh, no. You understood me wrongo.
    Make one big file who contains every update(like critical rebuild). But also I want regular stand alonepatches which are NOT ONLY available through the autopatcher. That´s what there is not for NWN, that´s what I want for DA. Yousa understand now? Kupo!
    I would suggest you reign in that condescending attitude right now.

    We moved the primary downloads from ftp.bioware.com to content.bioware.com. The old FTP server allowed browsing and you can find all the files you claim are not there, at:

    ftp://ftp.bioware.com/neverwinternights/patch/

    Up until a recent change to HTTP downloads (and blocked directory browsing) these files have always been available for the last 3 years. I am sorry you were not able to find them within that time.

    Tim Smith, Programmer

    critical rebuild
    It all might boil down to how Microsoft decides to handle this issue in Vista.

    Chris Priestly, Quality Assurance

    Mass Effect vs. DA
    Nope. Work on Dragon Age continues as normal. Just because we are making Mass Effect doesn't mean we aren't also making Dragon Age. BioWare has (as long as I've been with the company) always worked on multiple projects at once. We're busy busy busy. :)

    :evil:

    Edit: Stupid fat fingers.

    More: Work towards a publisher for Dragon Age is ongoing. Whenever we have some news, we'll let you all know. Stay tuned. :)

    :evil:

    Dragon Age IP (Intellectual Property)
    One thing that I'll add here is that for most of us beneath the "big corporate policy and decision-making" level, it's just business as usual. nothing has change my job description or the project I'm working on, or my reporting structure.
    ie. He's still slacking the day away.

    I am willing to take up a collection to send Woo to Australia. I am also willing, but more reluctant, to take up a secondary collection to put airholes in the crate.

    :evil:

    More: Volourn's attitude appears to be Independant dev company + Independant dev company + Intelligent financial backing = MASSIVE GLOBAL CONSPIRACY MEGACORP. ;)

    Odd math.

    :evil:

    More:
    Come to Australia! You might not die!
    The new slogan of the Australian Tourism Board. :D

    :evil:

    Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

    Mass Effect vs. DA
    Wildly different games by my guess after looking at both in their current form. Both ace RPGs of course but very different feel to them.

    Stanley Woo, QA Ninja

    Dragon Age IP (Intellectual Property)
    From what I've read, people at Bioware are doing a lot of work on the background/races/religions/languages etc for the Dragon Age world... correct? I think so, if not, please someone enlighten me.
    Yes, you are correct.

    My first question is : How much background material do you really need to make a story "focused" game?
    The more background you have, the less you have to make up when you're doing the actual writing.

    Imagine writing a story about a man going to the store; it can be hard. Now, imagine that you've got his neighbourhood mapped out, you've got the contents of his fridge determined, you've got all his neighbours and history, and you've got a few people in the neighbourhood already written. now the story gets a whole lot easier because you've already got potential obstacles, character interactions, this guy's likely reactions, and maybe you've even got a "voice" for him. Much easier.

    Now I realise that they may be putting a lot of work into this background as they will "probably" wish to publish a number of games in this setting (since they're starting from the ground up getting a lot of stuff in at the start makes things clearer later on, also the more they do now, the easier later on).
    Yes, when creating your own world, you want to be able to answer as many questions as possible right in the world document so you don't get a jillion phone calls from other people working on your license, asking "can floodads jump higher than jergominks?" "What's the leader of Himbuland called?" "Who created the Hilly Grasslands, according to the Pherpils?" and "who would win in a fight, a dog or a monkey?"

    Equally so comes the second question. Since they are going to so much trouble to detail this world now, would it be likely that they'd open it up in the future as a PW?
    Nothing has been decided yet. But we think it would be cool if the Dragon Age property could branch out into other media, like books or films or shoes or cars or insurance or whatever! The possibilities are endless!

    Question three : With all this content being created, would the devs consider a short story set in the DA world as something a prospective publisher wouldn't allow?
    Because this is our own property, we'd be the ones who determine where it goes, and it's likely that we'd tailor contracts to that end. That said, I repeat that nothing has been determined yet beyond the initial Dragon Age game. The company and the dev team have a lot of ideas and hopes and mongooses, but it remains to be seen where it all goes and what all we'll be able to accomplish with it.

    Instead of releasing info on features you're not sure are in (and hence opening yourselves to attack) a story based in the world may assuage the yells yet give the masses a peek into what is in store for them.
    I doubt it. All it would do is increase the hype even more and make the yells louder. We've got a great community here; they're just a little excitable. ;)

    Thanks for the interest and the questions, Mord. It seems though, that you answered all your own questions; you just needed to click your various comments together in the right way. :)

    More: One thing that I'll add here is that for most of us beneath the "big corporate policy and decision-making" level, it's just business as usual. nothing has change my job description or the project I'm working on, or my reporting structure.

    The resources I have at my disposal are still the same as they were last month, and my tasks are no more or less difficult than before. What's really changed for me? Well, I now have the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of really cool people at a company I respect and whose products I enjoy, and we're going to be working together really soon! Well, separately together, but you know what I mean.

    I still wish that Bio QA would be shipped off to Australia, though. ;)

    Brenon Holmes, Programmer

    Dragon Age IP (Intellectual Property)
    Hmm, if you're including a 'Dragon Age' specific toolset with the finished game, isn't that giving the buyer partial rights to for modules (stories) in the Dragon Age setting?
    I think there will probably end up being some legal mumbo jumbo to cover that sort of thing. I'd imagine it would be along the same lines as it was with NWN.

    ie: You can make stuff, but you can't sell it without some kind of special agreement with us.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
    Eldular, Nov 13, 2005
    #1
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