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Interview Dragon Age Interview @ MTV Player

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
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Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

<a href="http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/04/bioware-tells-us-dragon-age-stuff-explains-lack-of-voice-presence-of-origins-hints-at-dragons-and-console-versions/">MTV Player interview BioWare's Greg Zeschuk about Dragon Age</a>. Here's a deeply interesting and thought-provoking snippit:
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<blockquote><b>Multiplayer: Where did the idea for “Dragon Age” come from?</b>
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Greg Zeschuk, Co-Founder, BioWare: The idea really came from the work we did o the original Baldur’s Gate and this is almost a spiritual successor to that game to “Neverwinter Nights.” When we finished on the “Neverwinter Nights” series, we said, “Let’s take the things we’ve learned, the knowledge in creating all those great games, and make our own fantasy world — with some twists. We call it dark heroic fantasy, where the old sort of high fantasy with elves happily sashaying across the countryside and happy Hobbits — the world of “Dragon Age” is effectively the reverse of that. It’s brutal. It’s harsh. Really gritty, very realistic and filled with surprising situations that you see don’t see high fantasy characters in.
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<b>Multiplayer: You just mentioned Hobbits, and when you showed some of the action scenes I couldn’t help but have flashbacks to some of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films. How much are you guys trying to mimic the action we see in those movies and how much are you trying to not be like that action?</b>
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<br>
Zeschuk: The reference point of the “Lord of the Rings” films as probably the pre-eminent visual representation of fantasy and what those big battles would be like certainly played a role in what we built. I think a lot of what it comes from, funny enough, is what we did in tiny pixels back in the “Baldur’s Gate” days. When you pull it back to what we have now with all the technology — animations and mo-cap — it just looks that way. That’s the surprising outcome of just creating a game based on [its] principles.</blockquote>
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I am not alone. They also talk about choices and other stuff so it's worth a read.
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<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>
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Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
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DarkUnderlord said:
the world of “Dragon Age” is the reverse of that. It’s epic. It’s epic. Really epic, very epic and filled with epic situations that you see don’t see high fantasy characters in.

Fixed.
 

Spectacle

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 25, 2006
Messages
8,363
The constant harping about how dark and gritty the world is has me worried. There is a fine line to watch before the darkness and depression goes over the top and becomes silly.

see also http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkerAndEdgier
 

Azarkon

Arcane
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Messages
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"Dark and gritty" is just the new "epic," because marketers understand that if they overuse a phrase it loses its power. Ergo, a change of terms.

And honestly, anybody who characterizes "high fantasy" as "elves happily sashaying across the countryside and happy Hobbits" isn't to be trusted when it comes to definitions. Mr. Zeschuk sounds like he's never watched Lord of the Rings in his entire life, much less understand what "really gritty, very realistic and filled with surprising situations that you see don’t see high fantasy characters in" actually means.

I wouldn't draw any conclusions about Dragon Age from this press release. Let time, and Gaider, teach us what DA is really about.
 

Jaime Lannister

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Jun 15, 2007
Messages
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Lord of the Rings is gritty, at least in written form. The movies took a lot of the grittiness (like the Scouring of the Shire) and replaced it with a nice, Hollywood, happy ending.

From what I'm seeing, Dragon Age is going to be more like Lord of the Rings fantasy than D&D fantasy, and that's a perfectly good thing.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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D&D Fantasy isn't 'Happy happy Land'. Not whjen you have played like Zhentil Keep, Calimshan, and a host of other places where everything is anything but 'Happy Happy Land'.

In fact, most fantasy isn't 'Happy Happy land'. It's a myth.


R00fles!
 

Azarkon

Arcane
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Messages
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Indeed. The Hobbit is about the only work in recent memory that really had the "happy happy land" idea going - perhaps - but then it's a children's story Tolkien wrote for his son. High fantasy (or epic fantasy), which refers to works like Lord of the Rings and the Wheel of Time, is what D&D set out to emulate, and it is by no means an attempt at Disneyland. Call it cliche and Manichean, if you will, but saying that high fantasy is like The Smurfs, and that DA won't have any of that, is like saying nothing at all. No Bioware game thus far has had happy elves and hobbits sashaying across the countryside, so where's the real distinction?
 

obediah

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Volourn said:
D&D Fantasy isn't 'Happy happy Land'. Not whjen you have played like Zhentil Keep, Calimshan, and a host of other places where everything is anything but 'Happy Happy Land'.

Yeah - Zhentil Keep really plumbs the depth of human complexity. D&D is fantasy with the bloom cranked to 11. The quirks and details that would make any character, setting, or situation interesting are sandblasted away to make for easily digestible and morally unambiguous slag. "Evil evil Land" isn't any more interesting than "Happy happy Land".
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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Obediah, you should perhaps read more about D&, and FR before being an idiot. You embarass yourself with your ignorance.

P.S. Even places where the forces of 'good' ar ein poor have a 'dark side'; to them. Dalelands are an example.

The City of Waterdeep is another with the power plays that go on there. Baldur's Gate s another example since the rulers there (at least ebfore 4E maybe, lol) are friggin' mercenaries. LMAO

Helm's priests are the ultimate sample of things not being black and white in the Realms.
 

Darth Roxor

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Volourn said:
Obediah, you should perhaps read more about FR before being an idiot. You embarass yourself with your ignorance.

I agree, France is a pretty dark and evil place.
 

LCJr.

Erudite
Joined
Jan 16, 2003
Messages
2,469
Volourn said:
You embarass yourself with your ignorance.

And you embarass your parents by existing.

Hi Volourn. Hadn't been around for awhile and this looked as a good a place as any to get some of that old fashioned Volourn bashing. BTW still sucking BioWare cock I see. Nice to know no matter how much things change some things will always stay the same.
 

fastpunk

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Well, judging from the videos they've shown, DA is not that dark and gritty. Either the trailer is deceptive and misrepresents the game or this 'dark and gritty' stuff is just the latest marketing fad. Yeah, the trailer was dark cause it was night time. But like Tyler Durden said: "Sticking feathers up your but does not make you a chicken."
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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"And you embarass your parents by existing."

Only an embarassment. Not bad. That's a compliment comapred to most insults. R00fles!


If my parents knew I posted on the Codex they'd really be embarrased. L0L
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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You aren't 'forced' to adhere to anything, dumbnutz. Obviously, you lack proper D&D knowledge.
 

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