Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Game News Dragon Age FAQ: bullshit vs reality

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Tags: BioWare; David Gaider; Dragon Age

Remember <a href=http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/faq/index.html>Dragon Age FAQ</a>? Turned out, it was written before the story was, <a href=http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=462232&forum=84>according to Dave Gaider</a>. Take a look:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote><b>FAQ</b>: As you play, your actions shape the destiny of the world. Unite a powerful kingdom under your wise and just rule, enslave nations beneath the tyranny of your powerful necromancy or forge a legend of your own making.
<br>
<br>
<b>DGaider</b>: That FAQ was written before the story was. You do not actually enslave nations in DA -- with or without necromancy. I think the intent when it was written was to talk more about the scope of what we would be doing rather than to promise certain events. Heck, back then we were still intent on having the old good-evil alignment slider.</blockquote>I'm fairly certain that enslaving nations with necromancy IS a very specific promise of certain events, but what do I know?
<br>
<br>
<blockquote><b>FAQ</b>: Hero or villain, the choice is yours. Dragon Age features an awesome storyline and epic exploration in the BioWare RPG tradition.
<br>
<br>
<b>DGaider</b>: Becoming an actual antagonist would require a completely different storyline, one we are not interested in doing. You are the heroic protaganist... though how much of a "hero" you are is subject to question, as considering DA's darker tone you will have a number of options open to you which go quite a bit beyond the simply greedy or bullying. There must be a temptation to do otherwise if doing the right thing is going to be meaningful, after all (in my opinion).</blockquote>Hero or villain, the choice is yours. You better choose "hero" though, because we are not interested in doing the villain thing. Unless you wanna be a heroic villain, in which case it's cool.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote><b>DGaider</b>: So the FAQ is out-of-date. Just like any statements we make about the game, it's subject to change and I wouldn't take any part of that as gospel (especially considering that it's more than a year old). Eventually it will be updated.</blockquote>Translation: Any statements we make are bullshit, and if you are stupid enough to believe them, that's your own fault. Fair enough, I guess.
<br>
<br>
<br>
 

Atrokkus

Erudite
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
3,089
Location
Borat's Fantasy Land
Fuck, the "unite the powerful kingdom under your rule" part would have been smashing great... But, it seems, we'll have a pretty generic RPG... or yet to be determined, actually: maybe it's not really a pure RPG at all, in which I'm out.
 

aboyd

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
843
Location
USA
Vault Dweller said:
Hero or villain, the choice is yours. You better choose "hero" though, because we are not interested in doing the villain thing. Unless you wanna be a heroic villain, in which case it's cool.
Disappointing!

This is more of the same from Bioware, though. Personally, I should have seen it coming. It's the source of complaints about BG2 also -- namely, you have dialogue choices that don't actually lead to different results. You could try the rude/mercenary options, the goodie-two-shoes options, or the neutral options, and regardless, you get the quest and no NPC behaves differently.

One of the things I appreciated about Arcanum was that dialogue could really shut down options, or crack them wide open. There was a quest by a dock -- I can no longer remember even the name of the city I was in -- and I was supposed to convince this old guy to end a feud he had with someone. But I picked a snotty response at one point, just because I got fed up with his stubborn attitude. Well, if I thought he was stubborn before, shit, he took it to a whole new level after I was rude to him. He grew angrier and angrier with me. I even left for a while, levelled up, invoked spells to help with dialogue, and came back to try again. It only pissed him off more. Eventually, he attacked me, and I failed the quest.

Did I like failing a quest? No. Did I more fully appreciate that my character's actions had actual consequences? Hell yes. And you can bet I was a damn sight more drawn into the gameplay because of it. It made me like the game. I ended up playing Arcanum 4 or 5 times over. Sounds like I may not even bother to try Dragon Age.

-Tony
 

Micmu

Magister
Joined
Aug 20, 2005
Messages
6,163
Location
ALIEN BASE-3
DGaider: So the FAQ is out-of-date. Just like any statements we make about the game, it's subject to change and I wouldn't take any part of that as gospel (especially considering that it's more than a year old). Eventually it will be updated.
Yeah I bet at the end they'll decide to change the name to Jade Age anyway.
*spits*
 

Jason

chasing a bee
Joined
Jun 30, 2005
Messages
10,737
Location
baby arm fantasy island
I'm going to go enslave the Bioware offices with my necromancy and say "sorry, the faq said I could do this so GO FEAST UPON THE BRAINS OF THE LIVING AND TURN THE NATION OF CANADA INTO A CHARNEL PIT OF UNENDING BLOOD AND SUFFERING FOR ALL TIME" and then I'll go back to playing Fate.
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
I like how the FAQ entries are written as if the writer had a clear understanding of what kind of game DA will be. But instead of facts it provided only hype and "wouldn't it be cool if..." scenarios.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Of course, the FAQ's author had a clear understanding of what kind of game DA will be. It says so right there in the FAQ: revolutionary, epic, and awesome. What else do you need?
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
You know that Charm and Sleep resistence that elves and half-elves are listed to have on BG1 and BG2 manual?

They dont, Dave Gaider said that in Interplay forums way back.

I am more likely to trust Bethsoft that BioWare ... at least Bethsoft does not lie about features on their game manuals.
 

roguefrog

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
545
Location
Tokyo, Japan
Why make a FAQ containing pure bullshit only to have it flung back in your face a year later before the game is even out? BioWare pissing into the wind.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
Because BioWare have a legion of fanboys (not as large as Blizzard or Square) and they think that they can put out something like "Dave Gaider Anal Adventures" and sell millions ... they already had a flop called "Jade Empire" (its on GS disapointment of the year list) but they are apologetic about it and seen their fanbase defending it.

Reading BioWare message board makes me think the TES Oblivion forums are full of intelligent people ...
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
Drakron said:
You know that Charm and Sleep resistence that elves and half-elves are listed to have on BG1 and BG2 manual?

They dont, Dave Gaider said that in Interplay forums way back.
J.E. says the same in this thread:

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... ght=#49379

Sawyer said:
Baldur's Gate was also a game theoretically oriented towards D&D geeks. I have yet to see more than a tiny handful of people comment on the complete absence of 80% of all racial modifiers in that game -- or on things that were just blatantly wrong. The Sword +1, +3 vs. Shapeshifters did nothing differently against shapeshifters.
 

Jason

chasing a bee
Joined
Jun 30, 2005
Messages
10,737
Location
baby arm fantasy island
There's actually quite a few intelligent people at the Bioware forums, but unfortunately it's hard to tell when you see topics like "There sure are a lot of girls at these forums."
 

Andyman Messiah

Mr. Ed-ucated
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
9,933
Location
Narnia
How very lame of BioWare to have written a whole FAQ about a game they didn't turn out making. Kudos to Gaider however for standing up and telling us we'll have another classic BioWare experience. Yay!

Edit: Huh, I'm a Scholar now? 500 (509) posts wasted already. Darn.
 

Avin

Liturgist
Joined
May 8, 2004
Messages
377
Location
brasil
bwahahaha! bio back to their own kind of options gaming, shame on you gaider!!! :)
 

HanoverF

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2002
Messages
6,083
MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
C'mon seriously? How can you be dissapointed, is anyone truly surprised by this "shocking turn of events" ? :roll:
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
Wow. I was actually looking forward to Dragon Age.

Silly me for not realising BioWare's inability to promse something decent and stick to it.

DGaider said:
So the FAQ is out-of-date. Just like any statements we make about the game, it's subject to change
Just wait. When released, we'll all discover that Dragon Age is really just Tetris with cool dragon pictures on the tiles. Either that or one of those pinball games.
 

HanoverF

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2002
Messages
6,083
MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
There won't be any dragons in Dragon Age, they came up with the title before they had the story nailed down, it will no longer be a fantasy game about adventures in an age of dragons, but instead about Volourn's trip to the many reststops of Canada and Texas.
 

jiujitsu

Cipher
Joined
Mar 11, 2004
Messages
1,444
Project: Eternity
HanoverF said:
There won't be any dragons in Dragon Age, they came up with the title before they had the story nailed down, it will no longer be a fantasy game about adventures in an age of dragons, but instead about Volourn's trip to the many reststops of Canada and Texas.

Hahaha! :lol:
 

Kamaz

Pahris Entertainment
Developer
Joined
Feb 16, 2004
Messages
1,035
Location
The Glorious Ancient City of Loja
Actually that would be kinda nice if the game featured none or only single one dragon, or maybe tons of dragons, but definetly not some dragons.

Wtf did I just say?

Nevermind.

PS:
Yeah, its another stupid step from BW.Kinda indicates the truth about them.
 

Nicolai

DUMBFUCK
Joined
Mar 8, 2003
Messages
3,219
Location
Yonder
I don't know jack shit about Dragon Age, so I'll probably never get around to play it.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom