Preview More Dark, Gritty, Mature Previews

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

The "New Shit" and it's E3 appearance are still getting some coverage. First up is <a href="http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-2976-E3-2009--Dragon-Age--Origins-Preview---Birds--Bees-and-Dragons.html">Xbox 360 Achievements</a><blockquote>Each of your party members in Dragon Age: Origins will have their own characteristics – all members will have needs, motives and desires. As a result of your womanising, Leliana is quite pissed off to say the least and demands you make a choice between her and Morrigan, and show them both a little respect. Laidlaw went with the crowd on this one choosing Morrigan as the Warden’s true holder of his heart. As a result, Leliana now becomes disapproving of our main character which will negatively affect her in combat. Laidlaw comments that you can actually disgruntle them enough to make them leave your party, and on some instances if things escalate fast enough, force them into attacking you. <b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
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[...]
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The second part of the presentation/walkthrough was more combat orientated as the Warden and co. head out to visit Flemeth, the source of the book of the secrets you gave Morrigan, and her mother. Flemeth was not only expecting your confrontation but heavily infers that Morrigan is just using you, and using sex as a weapon – something that Laidlaw commented was entirely possible. This puts you in a bind giving you the option to abandon Morrigan to her fate, work with Flemeth to cast her over to the old witch or kill Flemeth. As usual, the almighty power of sex presides and so the Warden chooses to kill Flemeth ... or at least try. Did we mention that Flemeth was a shapeshifting mage who could turn into a dragon? Ah ha ... course we didn’t.</blockquote>Then we have <a href="http://pc.rpgsite.net/previews/161/118.html">RPGSite.net</a><blockquote>With a grin Silverman cuts the sex-scene short, telling us we'll have to wait for the final game to see just how risqué said scenes get. Our character appears outside Morrigan's shed once more and then we head over to Leliana. Uh-oh - she knows, and she's mad.
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<b>Watching this segment demonstrates perfectly how this game handles the Bioware mantra of choice and consequence.</b> In many ways, Dragon Age is more nuanced than Mass Effect is, as characters weigh up each action and response you make to them in a more meaningful way.</blockquote>Bolded the...uh..."interesting" parts.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://gamebanshee.com/">Gamebanshee</A>

 

[poocolator]

Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed.

What the holy fuck?????????
EXPLAIN

 

[BlitzKitchen]

Now that's a criticism of Dragon Age that I can firmly disagree with. One thing I loathed in ME was voiced PC dialogue.

 

[Black]

Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Looks like Mass Errect set the bar painfully high for next gen rpgs!

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

heh heh.

oh the consoles humanity...

 

[Barrow_Bug]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... &start=400

Right off fucking topic but I just have to say that is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Thank you Jimbob, I'm sorry I was away so long. Fucking incredible.

 

[Rosh]

The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed.

I'm wondering if they considered Mass Effect's speech system to be "advanced" because of the voicing. Otherwise, it couldn't be considered advanced by any stretch of the imagination, not even with the two different speech skills (that were essentially the same but merely of a different flavor).

Well, it IS advanced, from the old "borrowed from Fallout" Baldur's Gate dialog choices of:
1. Hello. (Or any other "right" speech option to progress the dialog.)
2. You're ugly. (Commence combat.)
3. Bye.

With a grin Silverman cuts the sex-scene short, telling us we'll have to wait for the final game to see just how risqué said scenes get. Our character appears outside Morrigan's shed once more and then we head over to Leliana. Uh-oh - she knows, and she's mad.

Watching this segment demonstrates perfectly how this game handles the Bioware mantra of choice and consequence. In many ways, Dragon Age is more nuanced than Mass Effect is, as characters weigh up each action and response you make to them in a more meaningful way.

I've got two problems with this.

First, BioWare already enjoyed the "edgy" rep with the FAUX NEWS report of the sex scene in Mass Effect. Now it seems to be about their only selling/focusing point since Gaider keeps making excuses how complexity and depth is just too much work for BioWare to be arsed with (outside of the romances!), and so inclusion of another story fork/resolution creates "exponentially" more work. (And if merely writing another story path is a bitch, then I suggest Gaider stay away from any Choose Your Own Adventure style titles in his published efforts!) It is a bit more work, but not to that degree of hyperbole, as you already have all the art assets and most of the scripting already done - you just need to add in more text and quest hooks, which is really the easiest part of designing/writing a game. BioWare's real "choice and consequences mantra" is really something like "BINARY...BINARY...BINARY..."

It is fairly obvious when you take Gaider's role and how he's more of a writer than a programmer or actual game designer, and thusly might be a tad ignorant about the actual development process and might instead go by what someone else tells him, but then it gets confusing when this argument is the one more often voiced by amateur/lazy programmers instead of the typical features creep tendency of writers/designers.

Then, I recall that BioWare can't code any of their (5...6, now?) engines worth a shit, and then it all makes sense. Maybe with that pack of Gaming College graduates as programmers, adding in extra paths IS an exponential bitch when it comes to how they likely have the code back-assward and sloppy so that putting in the new paths could present large problems. NWN's coding and server "design", anyone?

Second, it's more nuanced than Mass Effect? So I guess their vision of The Perfect CRPG would be a dungeon slasher themed The Sims mod.

I guess instead of DLC Horse Armor, BioWare would likely go with DLC Nudity Patches.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Cue 10 page TB vs RT rant. Excellent.

 

[Suchy]

Now that's a criticism of Dragon Age that I can firmly disagree with. One thing I loathed in ME was voiced PC dialogue.

Lack of PC voice, while everyone else is voiced, encourages LARPing.

 

[The Idiot]

How's your game coming along, Rosh?

 

[racofer]

Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed.

ಠ_ಠ

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed.

I think he means the ME system where you can choose your next oprion as the NPC talks, so conversation wouldn't stop.

Therefore I guess we'll have talking heads; voiced dialogue but you stop to choose what you say.

of course this could just be a horrible typo and he really meant "Don’t expect anything less advanced than Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed"

 

[entertainer]

Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed.

((((((

sad blinky

 

[SerratedBiz]

Did we mention that Flemeth was a shapeshifting mage who could turn into a dragon? Ah ha ... course we didn’t.

Yes. Awesome. That's one piece of surprise that won't surprise anyone ever. It's like movie previews that last 5 minutes in which you're shown every single pun the movie has to offer and then you download it because it seems to suck and you waste 2 hours watching it and it really did suck but they forgot to say THAT in the trailer.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

Lack of PC voice, while everyone else is voiced, encourages LARPing.

yep, i read all the PC lines in a loud voice, and with the proper accent ( except in TW, that game fckedup my LARPing )

 

[1eyedking]

<blockquote><b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
</blockquote>
Never in my life have I wanted so much to own a gun and a plane ticket to the US.

 

[poocolator]

<blockquote><b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
</blockquote>
Never in my life have I wanted so much to own a gun and a plane ticket to the US.

nice

How crappy will the game be when its own developers use solitary sex scenes as main selling points? I cringe and cry a little.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I still think it was just a poor choice of words. That mass effect bit sounds like he's bashing the game.

REMEMBER MASS EFFECT? YEAH, IT'LL BE WORSE THAN THAT, AWESOME HUH

 

[Gromnir]

<blockquote><b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
</blockquote>
Never in my life have I wanted so much to own a gun and a plane ticket to the US.

European Press includes:
Dan Webb - dan.webb [at] x360a.org
Geoff White - minty [at] x360a.org

would be typical of codexian mentality... fly to the U.S. of A. to rail 'gainst evil developers or media that is sucking the soul out of the crpg genre... only to discover that they is a few thousand miles off-target.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

<blockquote><b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
</blockquote>
Never in my life have I wanted so much to own a gun and a plane ticket to the US.

nice

How crappy will the game be when its own developers use solitary sex scenes as main selling points? I cringe and cry a little.

I'm sorry i must have misunderstood this. Wasn't witcher showing tarot boobs to sell to the average bozo? And still had depth and all?

 

[Moray]

It's the murderous intent that counts.

 

[MetalCraze]

<blockquote><b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
</blockquote>
Never in my life have I wanted so much to own a gun and a plane ticket to the US.

nice

How crappy will the game be when its own developers use solitary sex scenes as main selling points? I cringe and cry a little.

I'm sorry i must have misunderstood this. Wasn't witcher showing tarot boobs to sell to the average bozo? And still had depth and all?

Yeah it had more depth than Mass Effect - you just clicked on a dialogue option that wasn't "goodbye" and Geralt talked through the whole dialogue himself - compared to this Mass Effect feels a bit 2000.

 

[poocolator]

<blockquote><b>The whole interaction with your party seems like a complex and intuitive system but only reading what your character says rather than hearing dialogue seems a bit of a faux pas to us and a little 1990. Don’t expect anything as advanced as Mass Effect’s dialogue because you’ll be sorely disappointed</b>.
</blockquote>
Never in my life have I wanted so much to own a gun and a plane ticket to the US.

nice

How crappy will the game be when its own developers use solitary sex scenes as main selling points? I cringe and cry a little.

I'm sorry i must have misunderstood this. Wasn't witcher showing tarot boobs to sell to the average bozo? And still had depth and all?

I couldn't say because I don't remember if the developers only talked about the sex scenes during promotion? Sex scene discussion feature in almost every promotional article/spam for DA, however.

 

[Volourn]

"Sex scene discussion feature in almost every promotional article/spam for DA, however.
_________________"

False. That only started relatively recently.

 

[circ]

Wait until the game ships and FOX hears of the sex scenes. YOUR KIDS ARE WATCHING FULL FRONTAL NUDITY! ANAL PENETRATION. WITH ANIMALS. DRAGONS. NOT YOUR EVERYDAY DOGS OR CATS OR CHICKENS. DRAGONS. THAT'S LIKE.. INTERRACIAL SEX. Also. God bless America. And homos are burning in hell.