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Dragon Age Forum News

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by chevalier, Aug 13, 2004.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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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

    DA scripting language
    It remains to be seen just how much of the scripting language will carry over... but I suspect that, in the end, there'll be a large number of changes (and a lot of these will simply be improvements). So I doubt that you'll be able to take old code and actually compile it in DA, but really it's too early for us to say just yet how much alteration would be needed to update it. At the very least I don't think any current commands would be changed just for the sake of changing them.

    Length of DA
    Short rpg=not a rpg
    Sorry, but I find this logic a bit spurious. You may prefer a longer RPG, but that doesn't make a shorter one not an RPG. Just not an RPG that you'd like to play, perhaps. Though why length alone makes a game worth it I have no idea. I can think of a few RPG's which I will not name that were really long and had no need to be... their length did not improve the experience. I suppose we could insert dozens of hours of filler exploration and combat, but we'd prefer not to.

    And the reason you won't see many games the length of BG2 anymore is not due to full voice-over, as someone mentioned earlier. It's mainly due to the expense and time required to produce so much detailed 3D art. As well, BG2 was really too long, period, as it is... most people who played never finished the game and the whole plot could very easily have been tied up in the Underdark. That also would have allowed us to spend more time on giving the rest of the game the same kind of polish Chapter 2 had.

    Quote: (they did say it will be 40 -50 h in length..kotor was about 40..)
    When did we say this? I'm pretty sure we have said no such thing.

    More:
    you could comment on out question!!
    thx to bio devs who cant even say that they dont know at this point in development...i take it as apersonal insult when you ignore my questions!!! :(
    Brenon answered your question just fine. And speaking of insults, demands for personal attention to your questions (including annoying PM's that go "answer me!") are really not necessary. This is not a forum where your every question needs to get answered by a developer personally... there are many others here who can and do answer your questions. Speaking for myself, I have work to do beyond the forums... yet I might have returned and eventually answered your question myself anyway if you had simply been patient.

    More:
    Realy sorry Gaider.. :eek: i think you realy do great work for bioware.. i just realy want DA to be a good game that i will buy and love it....and play it for months..
    I understand. It's too early for us to really estimate... we have a story we want to tell and we will take however long is required to tell it. Saying that it won't be as long as BG2, however, is a very safe bet but hopefully you will find the experience worth it regardless.

    Multiple portraits for the same PC/NPC
    I'm not even certain portraits will be done in the same manner, actually.

    Dragon Age Setting
    Monks must be included in Dragon Age, as they have always been part of epic fantasy. In The Hobbit for instance, when Smaug, bent on revenge, is ravaging Lake-town, it's only Bard who is able to defeat him, harnessing his ki to employ the fearsome, ranged Pelican-Dropping-Clams-on-a-Sandy-Beach technique. Or in Swords and Deviltry, where the Mouser, captured by the evil Duke Janarrl, incapacitates his foe with an expertly timed Donkey Punch. Or remember in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain, doomed to bare his neck to the the green knight's axe, spends his year studying at a Shao-Lin monastery, where he learns the ancient Petrified Giraffe technique that will save his life. After withstanding the green knight's blows, he takes his revenge using the Thousand Enraged Ducks Pecking style.
    Ha! Yes, I have never understood the monk fascination held by some, myself. I certainly never allow them in any classic fantasy campaigns I've run... except for the ones you'd find in a monastery. And the chance that those monks would unleash their dreaded Flying-Quill-Pen technique on a visitor is pretty slim indeed. ;) That said, it is erroneous to claim that they don't have a place in any fantasy outside of Eastern-themed fantasy. I could very easily conjure up a scenario where a monk-style class would not only have a place in a European-like setting but be very interesting, as well. That said, I personally would prefer if the "monk" adage as well as its Eastern philosophy trappings were dropped in favor of a more typically fantasy mindset (I wouldn't mind a warrior class that relies on discipline and "inner power", for instance, if it had an interesting premise... but that's just me.)

    The difference between BG and Nwn
    What would be interesting would be a storyline that isn't sequential. Something along the line of Kill Bill (1 and 2) over say Lord of the Rings.
    Non-sequential? I've always wanted to start a story in media res and then flip back to the plot beginning afterwards, but it always seems confusing unless you have a better definition of who the main character is. In other words, I think non-sequential storytelling works better in prose and cinema, but it might be interesting to play with.

    The Big City!
    Does the game have some sort of central city. say a place where you start your quests and return to or does the game push you on and on without you ever returning to a place you have visited before?
    Neither. At least, not to begin with.

    Derek French, Technical Producer

    Beta Testing?
    I've already read that there is going to be a demo but not for the public
    We have made no such statement. I also read that there are giant alligators in the sewers, too. It was on the internet, somewhere.

    Brenon Holmes, Programmer

    Length of DA
    " Clearly, BioWare is taking great care to construct a game world that is not so much unique as it is detailed, elaborate and with a lot of depth. Further corroborating this fact, BioWare reveals that the single-player campaign will feature something like 40-50 hours of gameplay" from:http://www.actiontrip.com/features/e32004dragonage.phtml Gaider? so will the game be longer then KOTOR?
    Just a comment... if you don't see the information on the site here or as a direct quote (with referenced source) or interview... I'd probably take any information on DA out there at the moment with a grain of salt.

    Will DA be more event-driven?
    Couldn't you just calculate the delta time based on the current time and set up a delay command to run whatever logic you wanted at that point? I mean, I'm sure functions to that effect would be useful... but you already have the power to do the sort of thing you're asking about (without having to use heartbeats) in NWN... or at least from what I remember, you do. (Could be I'm mistaken, it's been a while... :) )

    Scott Meadows, Programmer

    Looking forward to this game..... oohhh yeahh!!!!
    what?!? hipogrifs!?!? thats herry potter!! :evil: and bio DO NOT do it as good as NWN.. Cuz NWN didnt have any good in it!
    If you want us to listen to your suggestions and take you seriously, then comments like these do nothing for your cause. You could easily reword it such as to say "I did not care for NWN, this is why <>. Can you make the following change in Dragon Age <> and why. Otherwise pretty soon I will just see your name under a post and ignore it all together as you provide no valuable content to the discussion. Keep the suggestions coming people, we are listening and reading even though we can be quiet.

    Questions
    Orik is correct. There will be a new scripting language that will be similar to NWNScript in syntax. We wanted to keep the syntax similar so that we didn't have to retrain all of our internal monkeys again :D

    Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance

    Beta Testing?
    Any beta, if there is one, will be announced. Chances are applications won't be done through posting in a thread on the boards.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
    chevalier, Aug 13, 2004
    #1
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