Preview GDC Dragon Age Preview Roundup

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

Quite a few more previews of Bioware's Dragon Age have surfaced after the Game Developers Conference, some of which contain snippers of new information. First up is <a href="http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/dragon-age/967572p1.html">a preview from GameSpy</a>.<blockquote>After the first demo, where they showed how a well-timed fireball could ignite a conjured oil slick, spell combos have been conspicuous in their absence. I guess it wasn't surprising; the concept seems to lend itself well to gimmicky effects. In any case, they reemerged in this most recent demo. The form wasn't too surprising: an enemy that shattered into slivers of ice after being frozen by a "cone of cold" spell and having a "stonefist" hurled at it. Laidlaw said, however, that Dragon Age's answer to the Mass Effect codex will track spell combos as you discover them. This leads me to believe that there will be plenty of them, and that you might not always catch them when they actually happen. Both bode well for the integrity of the concept.
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Every Dragon Age demo we've seen so far revolves around the player character trotting the continent in order to muster an army to fight off the evil that's invading the land, and all that. I've always suspected that there's something more to this than just a premise for a bunch of story quests -- like, perhaps, an actual element to the game, sort of like the keep in Neverwinter Nights 2. When Laidlaw said something about "treaties" early on in the demo, I made it a point to follow up. Unfortunately, he wasn't super candid. While he did say that the choices you make with regards to which groups you recruit will have some sort of bearing on how things play out, he didn't go into specifics.</blockquote>Then comes <a href="http://www.gameshark.com/previews/3436/p_0/Dragon-Age-Origins-Preview.htm">one from GameShark</a>, which is a bit more in depth than the others.<blockquote>It's then that Bioware showed off the main emphasis of Dragon Age's quests: free will.
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What you do is your call. You can say “Screw you guys,” and ignore the needs of Red Cliff in order to go after completing your main quest sooner. Alternatively, you can play the great charitable hero, help all the little people, and put off your main tasks. The choices made will impact the game, no matter which one you make; for example, if you ignore the pleas of the Red Cliff citizens, later in the game you might run into a situation where someone from the town could have helped you in some way—but won’t or can’t.
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Even within these optional side quests—there are further optional side quests. (Layers within layers; think of quests like onions?) Knights are helping the town militia defend their homes, but the militia gear is … well, crap, because the blacksmith has shut down his forge due to depression over his daughter being held captive at the monsters' castle. If you convince him you'll save her, he'll fire the forge back up, and come battle time the militia will be sporting good gear. If you can't, he'll lock his doors once again, and come battle time the militia will be fighting with rags and worn out gear.
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During the battle, we were shown a bit more detail on it works. As promised, you can play the game in one of two ways: focus on one character and let AI handle the others, or switch between characters, pausing at times in order to utilize the best strategy.</blockquote>And finally is <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/03/fearsomely-cool-dragon-age-at-gdc.ars">a preview by Ars Technica</a>.<blockquote>The game will feature three playable races: elves, humans, and dwarves. While it may be tempting to play one of the non-human races—they tend to be cooler than us in most fantasy settings—it was revealed that these species have a tough time; they're considered second-class citizens and servant races. If players choose to be an elf, they'll often encounter people who talk down to them.
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For the preview, we were shown the player's party going to a region called Redcliff in order to recruit a noble in the overall battle against the Darkspawn, a race of beings laying waste to the kingdom. Before players can get Arl Eamon to pledge his support, they are asked to help repel the attacks of an army of undead that's been plaguing the local town.</blockquote>An army of undead and a "screw you" solution to Red Cliff? Perhaps enslaving entire nations with necromancy may not be too far off...
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com">Gamebanshee</A>

 

[maverick]

The best news of all: according to Bioware, beating the game will take, on average, 80 hours—a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, indeed.

80 hours? Heh, that remains to be seen.

 

[Turok]

Anyone know the release date of dragon age??

Also if anyone know when Diablo III and Starcraft II dates.

Thankz

 

[Fat Dragon]

Anyone know the release date of dragon age??

End of this year.

Also if anyone know when Diablo III and Starcraft II dates.

TBA, I believe.

Anyways, game sounds good, though I'm a bit skeptical of the 80 hour length.

 

[Volourn]

DA wins 4ever!

P.S. As for duration goes, consideirng that bullshitters - including BIO themselves - falsely claim that BG2 is 200+ hours I onyl take my own times seriously. Besdies, how long it takes to complete a game should ultimately irrelevant except in extreme cases. ie. If a game is 1 hour long first time through, that's unacceptable to me.

 

[Spectacle]

What you do is your call. You can say “Screw you guys,” and ignore the needs of Red Cliff in order to go after completing your main quest sooner. Alternatively, you can play the great charitable hero, help all the little people, and put off your main tasks. The choices made will impact the game, no matter which one you make; for example, if you ignore the pleas of the Red Cliff citizens, later in the game you might run into a situation where someone from the town could have helped you in some way—but won’t or can’t.

You can however be damn sure that you will never end up in a situation where evil has already triumphed because you wasted time saving an insignificant village on the way. You know bio won't penalize you for helping someone, so these "hard decisions" are really just a choice if you want to be a dick or not. Mass Effect was terrible in this regard, the entire renegade path was a joke.

 

[garfield_hsieh]

You can however be damn sure that you will never end up in a situation where evil has already triumphed because you wasted time saving an insignificant village on the way. You know bio won't penalize you for helping someone, so these "hard decisions" are really just a choice if you want to be a dick or not. Mass Effect was terrible in this regard, the entire renegade path was a joke.

Maybe, maybe not.
Even FO3 get a "good intention ends badly" quest.

 

[fastpunk]

Since we're talking DA:O previews, check out Shacknews' article on the matter:

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1104

Calls of a generic, Lord of the Rings-inspired exercise do not seem far off. BioWare is in danger of using its "spiritual sequel" label as an excuse to sell predictable, by-the-numbers quests, and dialogue that would be better left in a text box. Like figures on a D&D board, every piece of "dark realistic fantasy" is in its right place--but the game master appears to be on autopilot.

 

[Jaesun]

Since we're talking DA:O previews, check out Shacknews' article on the matter:

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1104

Calls of a generic, Lord of the Rings-inspired exercise do not seem far off. BioWare is in danger of using its "spiritual sequel" label as an excuse to sell predictable, by-the-numbers quests, and dialogue that would be better left in a text box. Like figures on a D&D board, every piece of "dark realistic fantasy" is in its right place--but the game master appears to be on autopilot.

THAT was one of the better previews out there.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

more previews of Bioware's Dragon Age

Looks like even their gimmicks are generic second-hand garbage (talk about a bad joke told twice ). Speaks volumes about what the rest of it's like. Minmaxing FTW.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Since we're talking DA:O previews, check out Shacknews' article on the matter:

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1104

Calls of a generic, Lord of the Rings-inspired exercise do not seem far off. BioWare is in danger of using its "spiritual sequel" label as an excuse to sell predictable, by-the-numbers quests, and dialogue that would be better left in a text box. Like figures on a D&D board, every piece of "dark realistic fantasy" is in its right place--but the game master appears to be on autopilot.

THAT was one of the better previews out there.

As much a fan of 1990s RPGs as I am, the genre has made some progress since then. Not much, but some. BioWare's own spacey RPG Mass Effect represented one small step forward for storytelling with its dialogue engine, which allowed players to quickly select responses ahead of time to better mimic the flow of an actual conversation.

Dragon Age is using pieces of the Mass Effect dialogue engine, but the seamless exchanges of that system have been discarded. In their place are traditional full-sentence response options, with a few cute camera angles as the NPC responds to your response. As strange as it sounds, it's not as responsive as it should be. And if you're not into monologues delivered by foppish elves and other stock fantasy characters, it's going to get tiresome.

My God, what bullshit. ME dialog wheel is the worst fucking abomination I have ever seen in a videogame.

 

[Lyric Suite]

My God, what bullshit. ME dialog wheel is the worst fucking abomination I have ever seen in a videogame.

Wait until Alpha Protocol.

 

[Dionysus]

My God, what bullshit. ME dialog wheel is the worst fucking abomination I have ever seen in a videogame.

Yeah, I saw some of this in Fallout 3 previews. I don't have a huge problem with simplified dialog options, but keyword dialog is a really old system in the history of videogame RPGs (I remember it from the middle Ultima games, but I'm sure it's older than that). This sort of talk is a little creepy. I wonder if they actually mean that they would like full voice acting for the PC, but they are too stupid to realize it.

 

[MetalCraze]

DA also looks very fugly.
Gothic 3 is 2+ years old and isn't really very beautiful but it looks much much more better than this crap.

 

[Turjan]

DA also looks very fugly.
Gothic 3 is 2+ years old and isn't really very beautiful but it looks much much more better than this crap.

It looks drab. When I saw that April fool's trailer, I knew immediately that something was wrong when I saw some actual colors.

 

[aries202]

I'm a little worried about the demos Bioware's been showing up apparently has 'the player character trotting the continent in order to muster an army to fight off the evil that's invading the land...'

This seems to not be an rpg, at least not what I understand is an rpg, but rather an RTS/RPG combination, maybe even with some ideas from the original game, the good doctors wanted to make more than 10 years ago, Battleground Infinity?

Also, I don't get why people want a keep to defend. This is not an RTS game or is it?

 

[Volourn]

The game is a RPG. it may end up sucking. It may end up being awesome.It may end up having 'features' of other genres; but it is a RPG. Period.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

My God, what bullshit. ME dialog wheel is the worst fucking abomination I have ever seen in a videogame.

Yeah, I saw some of this in Fallout 3 previews. I don't have a huge problem with simplified dialog options, but keyword dialog is a really old system in the history of videogame RPGs (I remember it from the middle Ultima games, but I'm sure it's older than that). This sort of talk is a little creepy. I wonder if they actually mean that they would like full voice acting for the PC, but they are too stupid to realize it.

It's not the problem of simplified dialogs per se. The thing is - example - once I wanted to say something badass, took the option that clearly showed me as a temperamental bitch (female Shepard), but somehow I ended saying something that made me look like a pussy... way to brake your beloved "flow" Bioware.

Simplified dialogs suck, you want to put them in an RPG, royal fuck you.

 

[Warden]

Since we're talking DA:O previews, check out Shacknews' article on the matter:

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1104

Calls of a generic, Lord of the Rings-inspired exercise do not seem far off. BioWare is in danger of using its "spiritual sequel" label as an excuse to sell predictable, by-the-numbers quests, and dialogue that would be better left in a text box. Like figures on a D&D board, every piece of "dark realistic fantasy" is in its right place--but the game master appears to be on autopilot.

Someone should post that on the bioboards.

 

[fastpunk]

My God, what bullshit. ME dialog wheel is the worst fucking abomination I have ever seen in a videogame.

Dunno about you, but I don't have anything against the idea of a dialog system with shortened responses, at least not in the more action-oriented RPGs like Mass Effect. The problem with ME was the implementation, and how the shortened responses failed to sum up what your character would go on to say. Not to mention the situations where all three options given would lead to the exact same response. But this is something that can be solved on the writer's side, otherwise the system, conceptually, is OK for this type of game.

Anyway, back to DA:O. It looks pretty boring. Maybe, after all these years, I've just had my fill of typical Bioware games. Although, I will admit that the origin stories idea is pretty interesting.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Yeah, that dialogue system might have had some potential. Perhaps if it did what they originally SAID it would do and allow the character to interrupt npcs, and then sometimes let the npc reactions be different based on that - "If you interrupt me one more time, I'll cut your balls off." But it didn't do that. They flat out lied. Likewise, if you allow it to be responsive on the other end, where taking too long to reply might result in something special as well - "I asked you a question goddamnit!" - then it would be good. Alas, Alpha Protocol seems to be fucking that area up as well by having the character simply picking a similar "stance" if your timer runs out.

Besdies, how long it takes to complete a game should ultimately irrelevant except in extreme cases.

Yeah because an enjoyable 15 hour game and an enjoyable 40 hour game hold the same value. Oh wai-

 

[Volourn]

Not all games are created equal.

 

[Vibalist]

Since we're talking DA:O previews, check out Shacknews' article on the matter:

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1104

Calls of a generic, Lord of the Rings-inspired exercise do not seem far off. BioWare is in danger of using its "spiritual sequel" label as an excuse to sell predictable, by-the-numbers quests, and dialogue that would be better left in a text box. Like figures on a D&D board, every piece of "dark realistic fantasy" is in its right place--but the game master appears to be on autopilot.

Someone should post that on the bioboards.

Already did.

 

[Tigranes]

Mass Effect's dialogue system is the future. It is the standard. Every RPG must do the same, or be even MORE EXTREME. Because obviously, it's new, and ME sold a lot, so its better than any dialogue system ever before!

That's already two previews at least which have licked the fetid droppings of that logical train crash in the space of a month. They do their best to prove your paranoia.

It's not that the full sentence approach is necessarily inferior, but without voice work for the protagonist--apparently too much to tackle given the six available main characters--the experience feels hollow.

Oh look, another one in the evidence pile.

I'm a little worried about the demos Bioware's been showing up apparently has 'the player character trotting the continent in order to muster an army to fight off the evil that's invading the land...'

This seems to not be an rpg, at least not what I understand is an rpg, but rather an RTS/RPG combination, maybe even with some ideas from the original game, the good doctors wanted to make more than 10 years ago, Battleground Infinity?

No. It's an excuse for you to visit various kingdoms and locales, see the sights, do a few sidequests, then get the MacGuffin so that they help you by sending some units over in the big battle. Been done a lot in RPGs.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Give URLs so we can attack them with nerd-rage and tubgirl!