Interview Dragon Age flips Elves on their heads

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

<a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3997/a_constant_evolution_biowares_.php">GamaSutra speak to the BioWare founders Greg and Ray</a> about EA, Dragon Age and other stuff:
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<blockquote><b>There's aren't many companies still doing big, high-polish single-player RPGs like this. You guys are one of them; Bethesda does it; you mentioned The Witcher by CD Projekt. You do have some companies that seem to be able to turn out really big successes in that genre, but it seems pretty localized to a few studios. Why do you think that is?</b>
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GZ: It's hard. [laughs] It really is. As funny as it may sound, if you want to try and pick, short of an MMO, one of the most challenging types of games to make -- very hard to test, very hard to create all that content, very hard to balance, all those things, it's the RPG.
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[...]
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We're launching Dragon Age as a huge, expansive high-quality game. We're planning for a platform around that, that you can dock new things in. Like user-generated content; we're releasing toolsets so people can make their own content. We're going to be releasing a lot of premium downloadable content for purchase post-release that will expand the possibility space of the universe.
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[...]
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<b>I was speaking to [Dragon Age writer] David Gaider, and he brought up some of the reactions on the internet to this game and its trailers -- "Well, I don't understand what makes this different from Lord of the Rings," or other comments about it looking like generic fantasy.</b>
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Yeah, it's different. One example that we keep giving just to frame it is elves in Lord of the Rings are very angelic. They're at the top of the value chain in terms of respect and in terms of the way people view them, and they're an aspirational ideal for that world, the perfect creature, thousands of years old and very noble, gracious, respected.
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Dragon Age flipped that convention on its head. Elves are not special -- well, not to everybody. To themselves, maybe; but to humans, they were a slave race for a while. They were enslaved, captured, and defeated.
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As a result, there's a hatred. The elves hate the humans. The humans despise the elves and regard them as second-class citizens. Imagine playing as an elf in that world, interacting with humans. Imagine playing as humans traveling to the origin and seeing how elves were treated. You have that opportunity.</blockquote>
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So instead of being an Elf hating those lowly Dwarves, you get to be an Elf hating those uppity Humans.
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com">GameBanshee</a>

 

[SerratedBiz]

Gregster and Rayman have been lurking in the Codex lately... not a single 'epic' was said during the whole interview.

On the other hand try and see how many 'dark', 'mature' and 'gritty' you can count, usually in that order.

 

[Sckarecrow92]

So, what the fuck? If I'm a chaotic evil human, am I going to go on about those "Damn, nigger elves!" or something? "Those damn, uppity elves! If I had it my way they'd still be slaves to whoever enslaved them in the past! Not that they'd do any work, them lazy tree-folk!"

The elves were enslaved, captured, and defeated, huh? From where? Elfrica?

And what if I'm an elf? Am I not going to be given good paying quests because of it?
Will I be known for raping Human women?
Will there be an Elvish Martin Luther King?



Will he be assasinated too?


Will people be afraid of letting me in their teleportation spells?

 

[Gerrard]

The elves were enslaved, captured, and defeated, huh? From where? Elfrica?

Soon we'll find out that this world was originally inhabited by elves and humans invaded from a parallel world during a conjunction.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Oh lawd, this totally doesn't sound like The Witcher.

Will there be an Elvish Martin Luther King?

Will he be assasinated too?

that would be awesome though.

 

[Spectacle]

Oh lawd, this totally doesn't sound like The Witcher.

Yeah, it's a complete rip-off. I wonder if DA's character customization system will let me play as Geralt?

 

[Aikanaro]

When a convention has been flipped on its head in the same way so many times - it stops being flipping on its head. Dark'n'gritty and mundane elves have been the standard for a long time. Hell, I can't think of anywhere outside of Tolkien in modern fantasy where elves have had that quasi-divine thing going.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Soon we'll find out that this world was originally inhabited by elves and humans invaded from a parallel world during a conjunction.

Oh lawd, this totally doesn't sound like The Witcher.

Gerrard wins because of subtlety.

 

[oscar]

When a convention has been flipped on its head in the same way so many times - it stops being flipping on its head. Dark'n'gritty and mundane elves have been the standard for a long time. Hell, I can't think of anywhere outside of Tolkien in modern fantasy where elves have had that quasi-divine thing going.

True except Eragon where it was fucking ridiculous. Elves could beat 10,00000 humans in a fight, live forever, are perfect in every way except have a (suppousdly fatal) flaw of being "vain". Wtf.

Would it also kill the fantasy genre to not have elves and dwarves at all? Invent some other wacky races, or even better just use humans.

 

[Sckarecrow92]

No new races.
New races mean furries with stupid names.

And an RPG with only human races means a war between the evil empire and the peaceniks.

I think it would be good if an RPG is made made without any lore. It's just you, your companions, the dungeon, and ignorance of the world around you. Like it should be.

 

[Balor]

I think it would be good if an RPG is made made without any lore. It's just you, your companions, the dungeon, and ignorance of the world around you. Like it should be.

Roguelikes?

 

[Krash]

Actually, an RPG with just humans of different cultures would be fun, as long as those cultures aren't generic rip-offs of Norse, Egyptian, Inca, and the like. They'd have to make sense in the context of the game world. One of the most common mistakes when it comes to creating human cultures is that they are too different, to insulated from influence from each-other. It just feels like a bunch of static kingdoms with cast-in-stone borders

 

[SuicideBunny]

Actually, an RPG with just humans of different cultures would be fun, as long as those cultures aren't generic rip-offs of Norse, Egyptian, Inca, and the like.

i wouldn't mind inca/aztec/maya derivate settings like empire of the petal throne, considering how all the generic ripoffs are norse/late greek/roman with a very few specks of some slavic or irish mythology.

 

[Xi]

Despite the hype machine, which is now in full functionality, DA is one of those games that I'm looking forward too. I haven't purchased a new game in a while, so hopefully this one will be cause enough to do so.

PS, I would have made the elves a heartless bunch of bastards that hate everyone. The evil conjuring type that seethe tainting evil into the surrounding lands! They would make for a good enemy no doubt. I guess we have to feel sorry for there slavery in this game though. They got the black treatment and live in the ghettos off of government welfare. Hrmm, could be mildly interesting!

 

[DraQ]

Bah. If you want to see Elves really flipped on their heads, see TES lore. It has Wood Elves being tree-loving, cannibalistic shorties with freaky black eyes and annoying, high pitched voices; High Elves being an ossified society of tall, order loving racist freaks that use numerals instead of normal names and kill off about 90% of their babies over minor defects or for purity reasons; and Dwarves being Elves too, only Mesopotamian-looking and extinct due to their dabbling in some really arcane techno-mysticism.

Sapkowski's Elves are pretty interesting too, though.

No new races.
New races mean furries with stupid names.

Which are far more interesting than the usual effeminate, long-lived humans with pointy ears, short, stocky, humans with beards and small humans with hairy feet.

There several things that have potential about fantasy.

Building somewhat consistent world, albeit with magic, varied races and cool creatures (like large, intelligent, firebrething lizards) is among them.

Interesting intrigue is among them too, although interesting intrigue alone doesn't make, nor is limited to fantasy.

Hobbits, Dwarves and Elves - take #3456710, however, doesn't qualify here.

I think it would be good if an RPG is made made without any lore. It's just you, your companions, the dungeon, and ignorance of the world around you. Like it should be.

Yes, you and ignorance go together very well, I can see.

You forgot about obligatory penis-surrogate +infinity swords every loser needs for their character, though.

 

[MetalCraze]

Gaider makes elves sound even more boring than they were in LotR

 

[spacemoose]

expand the possibility space of the universe

 

[DraQ]

expand the possibility space of the universe

O_O

*scrolls furiously through the text until he finds it*

9_6

 

[MetalCraze]

Yeah trippy shit

 

[Kingston]

expand the possibility space of the universe

Sounds like some pretty good DLC.

 

[DraQ]

expand the possibility space of the universe

Sounds <s>like some pretty good</s> fucking pompous, when applied to a fucking DLC.

Even in the ears of an aspie.

 

[aries202]

As I understand it, from Bioware's FAQ about the game andf from the discussions the Bioware community are having, elves once ruled the land of Ferelden. Then came the humans, captured, enslaved the elfs - after they had been defeated, the elves that is (not the humans).

There are two kinds of elves now, City Elfs that live -meh- cities, but in closed quarters of their own, in an elvish ghetto of sorts. In this Elvish quarter there is a big tree alle (city) elfs rever.
Then we have the Dalish elves, they live way out in the Alienage, trying to get back at the humans, fighting for the(ir) elven rights, looking for ancient elven artefacts as a way to restore glory to the elves again.

Dwarves in DA does live underground; they are immune to magic due to the work they do. (and I ahve seen or heard of anything where dwarves are immune to magic...) Dwarves live glory-based societies, meaning that he who has the best story to tell about honour and stuff get to be a leader of sorts, and his children then also becomes leaders.

Now back to the elfs in DA: I would love to see an opportunity presented to the player, if we played a human character that were abot helping an elf. Or the other way around, too, of course...

And yes, if you do play as a human and want to scold the elfs, I do think you will have that opportunity. [Note: I said think since I don't know this...].

 

[MetalCraze]

With Bioware it will be much more simpler. You will get an elven companion who will constantly whine about how bad humans enslaved her race and how she is feeling oppressed. And you will have to bear this bitch till the end of the game because you can't kill her and probably will do a single minor quest to get back at humans.

 

[Darth Roxor]

He'll also probably keep whining how he can't trust you, because you're human, and humans have killed his family and burned his village.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Carth'ael O'nas'si?