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Game News Vignettes & backgrounds in Dragon Age

Dgaider

Liturgist
Developer
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
316
Drakron said:
Yes, it SOUNDS and that is the problem ... I remenber hearing stuff over Jade Empire that never end up in the game.

I admit is a good idea and I did not expected BonoWare to make it (since inovative stuff comes from new players) but its one thing saying "we are doing this" and it actually being in the game and not be cut during development.

While I would be the first person to admit that things can be cut during development, in this case it's a bit unlikely. There's only one origin left to be written... the others are already done and finalized and cutting them now would be a bit pointless.

The advantage, I suppose, to promising numerous beginnings as opposed to numerous endings is that one writes beginnings first. ;)
 

Section8

Cipher
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Oct 23, 2002
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Wardenclyffe
Sounds good, I think from a noble/trades/peasant family sounds generic enough that it's not going to interfere with the player's own idea of backstory, but adds enough flavour and choice to be interesting. The biggest trap though, is placing too much emphasis on the character's prior relationships.

In Baldur's Gate, Gorion was basically some old guy I met for two seconds before he died, and Imoen was the annoying repetitive pink bitch. "Oh noes! ur fake dad is ded let's go on a quest!"

Also, with prior relationships you get the whole clunky "Don't you remember? I'm your sister!" style dialogue, where you're providing nonsensical exposition to a character that should already know a great deal.

The onus should be on the player to choose and define to some extent, those who are close to them. An interesting avenue would be to let the player sort out who is who. I talk to a random NPC, as if he's my father, and so the game decides that's who he is, and assigns his personality accordingly. You need a certain degree of error checking, of course, but still, I believe it's better than the horribly forced narrative seen in games like Baldur's Gate.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"I remenber hearing stuff over Jade Empire that never end up in the game."

The only semi major thing that was really cut from JE was strongholds. What else was cut that I'm forgetting and don't name some lame power or whatever either.

Every game has cuts along the dvelopment path. It's a fact of life.
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
Dgaider said:
Keep in mind, though, that Arcanum's and Daggerfall's backgrounds were just something you selected. They didn't change how the game started out, though they might have affected dialogue choices later on (in Arcanum, anyhow... I'm not sure about Daggerfall).

Just to point out, Daggerfall's backstories did even less. You could answer some questions in the beginning which were supposed to affect your standings with different factions (like many things in Daggerfall, it was never fully implemented) and creatures. You also got a perk or two depending on the questions, and sometimes you could start out with a badass dagger. The backstory the game generated for you was nice to read, but didn't affect the game in any way. It really helped me to get into the character, and get a sense of where my guy was coming from.

Oh, and, Daggerfall had no dialogue choices to affect anyways. :P

Consider what it might have been like if you had been given a small selection of background options in Arcanum and, instead of starting after the zeppelin crash, you could begin play in other areas each with its own initial issues that you needed to deal with and slowly were inserted into the story from that point. Impossible? Not at all. From what I can remember, Arcanum had a sort of "chosen one" plot... you could just as easily be attacked whether you were aboard the zeppelin as anywhere else in the world, survive that attack, and enter things that way.

Trying to do it this way, though, is a hell of a lot of work.

The way Arcanum handled it, since it turned out there really was no such thing as a chosen one, it could have quite possibly worked out that you started out in Tarant or somewhere else, and you found about the Panarii and/or Gilbert Bates another way, and entered the story like that.

About the attacks, remember that you were targeted because you survived the Zepplin crash. And when you met up with the leader guy, he pulled off the hit because... I can't remember, but I do know it was nothing spectacular. So, hmm... now that I think about it again, I guess you could have been targeted because of some other means.

The way the beginning felt kind of rushed, maybe Troika had planned to have multiple start locations? I mean, you get the ring and find out it belongs to Gilbert. That's pretty much it. The crash doesn't play a big part in the rest of the game, and when brought up it is quickly dismissed. Although there are a few side quests, if I recall, that you got because you were the only survivor (such as the newspaper ones).

At the other end of the scale, of course, is something like Icewind Dale. Your party could be nobles, peasants, whatever... the game doesn't consider that fact at all. You start off the game at the same place always and are simply faceless adventurers. Some people might prefer that, I suppose, and they simply won't get much out of this feature... but that's no reason not to try doing something different.

I liked Icewind Dale, but just selecting a couple avatars and pumping stats into them, then being dropped into the world wasn't very satisfying. I would have preferred if they had some backstory to them (although, in that case, they probably would have had to slim down the number of party members you could make). Wandering nameless heros are overplayed, outdated, and cliched. I'd prefer to be a peasant who gets sweped up into the world and slowly getting involved in its struggles and chosing my own side throught the course of the game, than be the Uber-Hero Chosen One who has to fight all evil and save the day no matter what for no reason other than "Evil is bad".

Nope. There's no amnesia, no discovery of anything that makes your origin untrue. You really, truly are whatever you selected. You are also not the Chosen One, there is no prophecy of any kind involved, and you have not been selected by the gods or by destiny to take the path you do (except in the larger sense by being the protaganist of the story, I suppose).

Thank God.

:D
 

kris

Arcane
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Lulea, Sweden
Dgaider said:
kris said:
Can you give some idea of how many background packages there is? How many will it be per race?)

Probably less then you think. Considering the amount of work needed for each one, it does mean that you're going to only have a limited number of options when it comes to the origins.

And I agree there will be people who won't like having their early life defined this much. If you consider, however, Baldur's Gate had one origin story... you were the Sheltered Orphan, and the ensuing story started you off at Candlekeep under the watchful eye of Gorion. That's about as fully as I can explain it, I think.

Naw, I know the limitations and didn't expect you to have more than 2-4 per race. Maybe more if some is selectable for several races.

Baldurs gate is a bit different story. There the defined background is that you is a orphan that is a halfgod. The rest is up to the player and he can say whatever about how his previous life was otherwise. With this more things are fleshed out, I prefer it the way you make it in dragonage (if it is good of course ;)), even if it can put some limit on whatever my mind will be cooking up about how my character should be. I clealry don't like the KOTOR way where you are forcefed to be a person, even if you are given some freedom in how that person is. I am sure a storywriter like that better, but when you make a RPG you have to consider that the player is NOT playing YOUR character, they are playing their own and when you say "you are the evil jedi" then you take the character from them somewhat. Anyway, in backgrounds they already defined/choosed who they are and surprises is more likely to have positive effects. IMO.
 

errorcode

Liturgist
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
622
Location
Seattle
This all sounds promising. I'm now much more excited about DA than i was before.

and i'm also kinda in a state of shock over this thread altogether, so i'm going to go lay down now.
 

One Wolf

Scholar
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Sep 27, 2005
Messages
311
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Planet X
i admit that i am intrigued by the idea of having multiple chapter 1s, but with the considerable amount of work required to generate said chapters, will this lead to a diminute main story? as much as the concept may be appealing, it seems that the early stages of the game might sacrifice some overall length. if thoroughly implemented the vignettes could create ideal repayability, but their influence would have to be pretty dramatic, it seems to me. vis a vis "no free lunch".
 

Otaku_Hanzo

Erudite
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The state of insanity.
Actually, Daggerfall's little back story thingies were cosmetic only as Chefe pointed out, but they never promised to have affect on your standings with the various guilds. Instead, you got to choose your relations with the different factions (nobles, peasants, etc.) on a sliding scale sort of thing. THAT impacted your relations with the various guilds as well as the npcs of the world. Turn your relations with peasants all the way down and talk to people in town. They offer much less info and are less likely to help you locate a place. Also, I ecperimented a bit and found that I rose in rank faster with the fighters guild if my standing with peasants was good. Same with mages guild if my standing with nobles was good.
 

Chefe

Erudite
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Ah, I see. When I played it I didn't notice any significant differences... then again, I usually didn't make drastic changes.
 

kris

Arcane
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Major_Blackhart said:
David Gator, you should stop by more often. See how positive we get when we talk to a developer?

I doubt that it is that much that, as it is "us" being positive over this aspect. Most here are on the other hand more polite when a developer is around.
 

Atrokkus

Erudite
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
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Location
Borat's Fantasy Land
David Gator, you should stop by more often. See how positive we get when we talk to a developer?
Yeah, and Oblivion threads are the quintessense of that positivity toward developers ^_^

Jokes aside, I am, too, quite interested in DA, despite being quite pessimistic about it before.

I know that most of the stuff you won't discuss yet, but there is one question that really bothers me, because I am such a dialog-lover: are you going to voice-over all dialogs, like the current trend suggests? Or it'll be the old-fashioned way: first sentence voiced, the rest of the dialog (if it's not that important) is not?
 

Dgaider

Liturgist
Developer
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
316
mEtaLL1x said:
are you going to voice-over all dialogs, like the current trend suggests? Or it'll be the old-fashioned way: first sentence voiced, the rest of the dialog (if it's not that important) is not?

All dialogue is going to be recorded, yes. We're not being given an artificial word count limitation, though... it's just going to be a LOT of voiceover.
 

Chefe

Erudite
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,731
Since Patrick Stewart was already taken, did you guys end up with William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy? :P

On a serious note, did you find full voice acting to limit the amount of diverse dialogue topics and responses you could have?
 

Second Chance

Liturgist
Joined
May 26, 2004
Messages
112
Sol Invictus said:
True I suppose. TOEE was the first CRPG to implement vignettes. Character origins were established in Daggerfall, though.

Character origins are way older than that. They were established in Megatraveller 1 or Darklands for example
 

Otaku_Hanzo

Erudite
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Oct 19, 2003
Messages
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Location
The state of insanity.
Wow. Megatraveller 1. Haven't played that game in aaaaaaaaages.

I remember the PnP game. You could roll up your character origins and they were the most extensive I've ever seen in an rpg, computer or PnP. I had a character die while rolling up his origin. That was fun.
 

aboyd

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
843
Location
USA
Chefe said:
On a serious note, did you find full voice acting to limit the amount of diverse dialogue topics and responses you could have?
Unless I misunderstand the question, he already answered that:

Dgaider said:
We're not being given an artificial word count limitation, though... it's just going to be a LOT of voiceover.
-T
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
Kinda off topic, some more info about the game:


- There is likely no charm type spells...


- And, armour will likely have damage reduction abilities as this quote here suggests by Monsieur Holmes:

"The current plan for armour is to use a damage reduction system. I believe various weapons have different penetration values, though it's been a while since I've looked at the rules.

This could of course, change... so don't take it as gospel."


Hahahahah.
 

Atrokkus

Erudite
Joined
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Borat's Fantasy Land
- And, armour will likely have damage reduction abilities as this quote here suggests by Monsieur Holmes:
This is a big question, has always been.
Well, since the game is not based on any precedent rulesets, I guess they have a good position to experiment with everything. Not that it's something new, but it certainly might be implemented well after all.
 

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