Dragon Age Forum News

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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

How about... ahem... riders?

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Ask for this to be implimented is a big waste of time bioware will never do this because they are too lazy and don't care what the comunity says. They are always hitting us with the lecture it's too hard!! Yah what ever bioware. you've been proven wrong in nwn about the rideable creature issue and i am sure you will proven wrong again with dragon age. :evillol come on bioware it's not as hard as you think. Do it already, you'll make more money off the product.

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Mmm. Seeing as we're too lazy and don't care what you say, I fail to see how you're going to goad us into putting horses anywhere. As for being "proven wrong", what exactly have we been proven wrong about? We never said they were too hard or that we couldn't do it, though if you strain yourself a little you can continue to believe that. If it makes sense according to the type of gameplay we intend and the size of the areas we make, then we'll do it. It's a fair amount of resources to justify (and it is an expensive feature no matter how much some wit tries to say it's not so hard... poor l'il kittens) and certainly couldn't be justified in NWN. If it still doesn't make sense in DA, then hopefully we can leave the game open enough to modding that it won't be difficult for the community to add should they wish to.

And why would we do that? Because if we spent the resources to implement an expensive feature we don't even intend to use that means cutting a number of other important features that we do. And that makes no sense. As for "it'll make more money", well essentially any feature we add could potentially make the end game more attractive to somebody. If there are people who actually say "if it doesn't have riding I won't buy it" and we actually end up deciding that it's not worth investing the resources in a riding system then I guess we'll just have to take that risk that our game will crumble into worthless nothingness due to our lazy, non-listening ineptitude. Sad, I know, but there you have it.

DA as a setting for modules
Just a curious question: why the insistence on having "blank" areas from some? Established milieus like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk don't have blank areas and get more and more detailed as time passes and nobody complains that they have not left areas alone for players to use, have they? The distinction between what is canon and what is not is pretty clear most of the time. Now whether or not we end up taking work done by the community to detail the world or just certain areas and make that canon is a possibility, I suppose, but even in terms of the part of the land where the game takes place there are still plenty of areas that could be further detailed by any prospective modder. Heck, even in Morrowind, a place where the entire land can be traveled, modders still have plenty of room to plunk down the stuff they want to add, no trouble. I think it's great that there's people who would even consider doing their own mods in the Dragon Age setting (I keep wanting to say 'Thedas' now... that's beginning to grow on me) and I hope the world we've created is diverse and interesting enough that more people will want to do so once they've actually seen it. And answering the earlier question: yes, we've established the history and details for the entire land even though this first story takes part only in one corner of it. I know it was kept very active in our minds, however, that each region was made interesting in and of itself... a place that, were I GM'ing a campaign, I could very easily see myself placing an adventure there and there would be plenty of interesting things to see and do... even if we aren't using that region now or even ever plan to.

But I wouldn't worry about not having room to do your thing or find a place to set up a city or a campaign or a tomb or whatever. True, we might come along at some point and develop a part of the world that overwrites something you've done... but that's hardly new. Regardless I don't really see us doing so blithely and in spite of efforts made by the community to develop areas we haven't touched. Naturally I don't know what kind of deal there's going to be, but I think Bioware has generally proven that we'll always aim for building a community and working with them as much as we can... not fighting against them just to do our own thing. I suppose it'll be easier to calm such fears when you actually see what we've planned. Hopefully the setting is something we can start giving out relatively soon in decent-sized chunks... then we might even have the chance to get some of you excited about the Dragon Age world before the game comes out. That would certainly be something.

Age Distribution of CRPG Players
I don't know the exact figures involved, but I know we're aiming for an adult audience. Speaking from personal experience, this has taken a bit of adjustment. I am unused to, for instance, making a half-joking suggestion about a possible direction we could take a plot I'm working on... a suggestion that would have seen Hasbro vice-presidents dropping en masse to the floor in apopleptic fits... and getting a shrug and a "hey, why not?" as a response, resulting in me skipping with glee back to my office. I could, however, get used to that. Don't get me wrong.

NPC reaction to the PC
Mmm. I won't comment on the race/class thing other than to say that racial restrictions are not necessarily a bad thing. Only with 3rd edition D&D did the idea of "equal opportunity" be introduced with regards to races and classes... and it works just fine because the system was designed that why. I like it, myself. Now, DA doesn't do this, but let's say you have a system where you have a fighter class that relies on strength as its primary stat. And you have a pixie race that has low strength. Is it so terrible that the system might decree that pixie fighters aren't allowed? I don't think so. Of course, even suggesting that every option might not be allowed seems to conjure up images of Basic D&D, back when Elf and Halfling were classes of their own and only humans had actual variety. That spectre arises, of course, because we haven't said much at all about it. Naturally regardless of the direction we go with this our intention is still to make sure that the player has enough options that are both interesting and valid.

I think that last sentence can apply to the Backgrounds, too. Naturally there is going to be a bit of pre-definition going on... the idea is to give your character some context, after all. And while we're trying to cover the archetypes, that does not mean they are uninteresting and generic... or what would be the point? If they didn't add anything to the experience, we may as well start you as an anonymous adventurer in a tavern, right? But, I know... it's easy for me to say that it will be interesting without specifying exactly what is interesting about it. The proof will be in the pudding. Until then, I suppose skepticism is both expected and kinda healthy.

Brenon Holmes, Programmer

ActionUseItem() scripting command: is it possible?
Hmm... I'll look at the spec when I get in to work on Monday. If it's fairly easy to add, we'll see what we can do.