Preview Two Hour Long Origin Stories & Celebrity VOs Galore

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

At least that's what GamingShogun reports in <a href="http://www.gamingshogun.com/Article/4884/Impressions_of_Dragon_Age__Origins_for_the_PC_from_the_San_Diego_Comic_Con.html">their preview of Dragon Age</a>. They also drop the fact that there will be plenty of celebrity voice actors, but don't say who.<blockquote>This origin story campaign basically sets up your character's point of view on the world as well as some initial events which happen in the characters' life. Most amazing to me was that this origin story, according to Melo, will take approximately two hours to complete!
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The main example he elaborated on was when the player chooses the race of Dalish Elves for the main character. In the land of Ferelden, the Humans have a very racist attitude towards them and this racist attitude can cause many to simply NOT speak with you. This, in fact, closes off some of the game's quests and storylines for good. Of course this can change for some when your Dalish Elf becomes a Grey Warden. Being that you are a Dalish Elf you are reviled but for being a Grey Warden you are respected - humans are so easily conflicted...
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[...]
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Controlling my character in the 1v1 matches was entirely simple and any modern MMORPG-gamer should be able to pick it up without problem. You select your character and then right-click on the enemy you want them to attack. Each character has an array of skills they can utilize on a quick-bar at the bottom of the screen. Once selected, the character uses the skill and then it takes a certain amount of time to recharge to be used again.
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Also mentioned was that there was a huge number of celebrity voice overs in the game, but Melo proved to be a tough customer and just would not crack under the barrage of my inquiry on the matter. Next time, Melo, next time!
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One full playthrough of the game should yield the gamer up to 100 hours of gametime and, even then, you will not see everything the first time through. Like Bethsoft's Fallout 3, replayability is being built-in on a design level.</blockquote>I sense inflated statistics. Though at least they have the dignity to not shout out about how they hired Liam Neeson or Patrick Stewart to voice a few minutes of dialogue in a giant press release.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://gamebanshee.com/">Gamebanshee</A>

 

[yes plz]

This, in fact, closes off some of the game's quests and storylines for good.

This doesn't sound all that ba--

Of course this can change for some when your Dalish Elf becomes a Grey Warden.

Never mind.

 

[Chefe]

This, in fact, closes off some of the game's quests and storylines for good.

This doesn't sound all that ba--

Of course this can change for some when your Dalish Elf becomes a Grey Warden.

Never mind.

 

[MetalCraze]

A typical Bioware - it will go the same way anyway.

Most amazing to me was that this origin story, according to Melo, will take approximately two hours to complete!

Holy moly! Guess in the world of 4 hours long console shit that sounds impressive

 

[Elhoim]

Like Bethsoft's Fallout 3, replayability is being built-in on a design level.

But never implemented in the final game?

 

[Trithne]

When did Bioware start hiring writers from Fanfiction.net? Or am I just seeing BG1&2 with nostalgia goggles?

 

[ElectricOtter]

Most amazing to me was that this origin story, according to Melo, will take approximately two hours to complete!

 

[oldmanpaco]

Like Bethsoft's Fallout 3, replayability is being built-in on a design level.

But never implemented in the final game?

I bet this game is more EPIC than FO3. And more mature. I'm not sure about gritty though. FO3 was pretty gritty.

 

[Jaesun]

the Humans have a very racist attitude towards them and this racist attitude can cause many to simply NOT speak with you. This, in fact, closes off some of the game's quests and storylines for good. Of course this can change for some when your Dalish Elf becomes a Grey Warden. Being that you are a Dalish Elf you are reviled but for being a Grey Warden you are respected

Oh look! It's Bioware! heh r00fles!

DRUNKEN EDIT: You know what is REALLY sad is, If you CHOOSE this class, people would ALWAYS look down on you! BUT! Suddenly...! You are (FORCED) to be a Grey Warden.. and they all like you now! YAY! HAPPY! WE LOVE YOU!

Seriously, Bioware could have done so much for this setting, and it just turns into shit. *sigh*

WHY BIOWARE WHY!

 

[Mefi]

I bet this game is more EPIC than FO3. And more mature. I'm not sure about gritty though. FO3 was pretty gritty.

The tears in your eyes weren't from grit getting in them. It was the pain of being sodomised while hoping deep down that you'd learn to like it, eventually. "It's not all bad. They got some touches right." But it just didn't feel right for you, did it?

 

[sportforredneck]

The Origin Story is a glorified prologue, that's why people are impressed with the length, since most prologues are 30 minutes at the most.

 

[Lesifoere]

A two-hours long tutorial.

Think about it. We all love tutorials, don't we?

 

[kris]

Most amazing to me was that this origin story, according to Melo, will take approximately two hours to complete!

Holy moly! Guess in the world of 4 hours long console shit that sounds impressive

2 hours and several different ones to choose from. Sounds bigger than what Gaider said when they first announced this. 2 hours is pretty good for something that is supposedly unique depending on your origin choice.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

In the land of Ferelden, the Humans have a very racist attitude towards them and this racist attitude can cause many to simply NOT speak with you. This, in fact, closes off some of the game's quests and storylines for good. Of course this can change for some when your Dalish Elf becomes a Grey Warden.

This is positively hilarious.

 

[Lurkar]

This, in fact, closes off some of the game's quests and storylines for good.

This doesn't sound all that ba--

Of course this can change for some when your Dalish Elf becomes a Grey Warden.

Never mind.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

"My concern was that, even though BioWare developed DA:O for the PC first, due to its console versions it would be 'dumbed down' or made more 'x-treme' (or other corporate adjective they think draws in the younglings). Thankfully I did not find this to be the case at all."

That was kind of funny as well.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I don't know how many origin stories there are but let's just say five. That's 10..TEN!! hours of unique gameplay when playing different origin. That's all fine and good but they're still shitting out crap about having different game for every origin.

I mean it's same as Mass Effect 2 with savegame importing. I won't be surprised if ME2 will also have 2 or so hours of gameplay which is different for good/bad characters. It's been done before but "qnique gameplay" usually just stays at level of tutorial areas.

If DA has 100 hours of content then with 5 origins it should make ~20 hours of very different game, something like five short stories. 100 hours for every origin would be only possible if they had thousand of monkeys of computers writing code (something which Beth used for dialogues in F3) to even complete such *EPIC GAME*

Also - EPIC has just lost its meaning as a word. Everything is EPIC nowadays, dark/gritty/mature slogans also won't cut it.

 

[MetalCraze]

2 hours and several different ones to choose from. Sounds bigger than what Gaider said when they first announced this. 2 hours is pretty good for something that is supposedly unique depending on your origin choice.

But this is Bioware - I won't be surprised if origin stories prologues will be very similar to one another apart from a few different quests locked, which will be unlocked as soon as you will become a Jedi/Spectre.

 

[Nakuratz]

From the da wikia, those origins in full:

Human Noble
Mage (Human or Elf)
City Elf
Dalish Elf
Dwarf Commoner
Dwarf Noble

Which sound like the grand finalists from a 'least interesting origins ideas' competition. Srsly, if you want to play a human your choices are Noble or Mage? Mage, ffs? That's not an origin, that's a class. I thought the extended vignettes sounded handy until I read that list. Sigh.

The more I see of this game the shitter it looks. Not the graphics/art, which I think alright (character models not so much, but scenery is nice imo). It's that fucking bioware morality again. There's a developer walkthrough on youtube somewhere where the guy narrating is jizzing out of his nose about how dark and gritty and mature it is (Favorite line - 'Dark Heroic Fantasy, people. We don't pull any punches' as the PC stabs a big monster guy and some blood comes out. Ooh, Mary, violence against evil monsters? In a videogame? They're really going all the way with this one.)

But then it's the same angelic/cuntish dichotomy they've been peddling for ages. Help the prisoner and get a key to a treasure chest or stabby stabby and take the key for free. Either way you're getting a key to a fucking treasure chest, and theres nothing dark, gritty or mature about that.

Still, high hopes for the toolset, which is sounding pretty powerful - read somewhere that all the stuff that was a bitch to edit in nwn and nwn2 (spells, classes, other game mechanics) is readily changable in the DAO toolset. Hopefully there will be at least one semi-decent TM with interesting world/ruleset. Hopefully.

 

[poocolator]

Most amazing to me was that this origin story, according to Melo, will take approximately two hours to complete!

Good. More time for internet porn.

This is all too stupid and I want to go cry. Fuck I need a hug.

 

[BeholderX]

Wait wait wait, you can't make a dwarf mage? Fuck, that's my entire reason for playing this game out the window :evil:

 

[aries202]

As for complaining about the DA: origins stories really being more like a tutorial for two hours, let me point you to this excellent article:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... ng-Teacher

It talks, in short, about the days of old where a game like Falcon 3.0 would come with a flight manual as thick of college book. You had to read everything (or nearly) everything in the game's manual just to play the game. Today, hower, people that play games, don't hav time to do this. They want to play the game right away; hence these tutorials in which you play the game for maybe 1½-2½ hours, just to learn how to play the game. Oblivion was probably one of the first games to do this, but even the very first Baldur's Gate games let you play a tutorial (if you so choose); so does Neverwinter Nights 2.

The devs. need some way to get the info to the player about what differnce height and weather makes in their game; I've found it rather thought-provoking that a dev from an RTS game mentioned in the linked article above talked about how awesome it were that the weather coukd influence the positioning of troops. However, the player didn't know about this feature, it wasn't mentioned in the game's manual....or anywhere else in the gane at all.

And that, I believe, is the real reason, why devs. have begun to make 1½-2½ tutorials, introductions or Origin Stories in their games.

As for the Origin stories in DA: Origins, I'm OK with them. Dwarfs in DA: Origins have no magic, they eat something while hacking on rocks underground that make them immune to magic. Humans and Elves is the only choices left to be mages....

The Mage Origin is a specific origin story; it involves you being taking away from your parents at a very early age when you first display signs of the magic gift. And magick has a certain and a special place in DA: Origins. It is feared....

The choices in the dialogue seem to more realiistic this time around as is how the consequences are made. In the now famous 'kill the prisoner to get a key' you don't get the easy option to just be friends with the prisoner, he might ask you to do something....which means he still isn't being fed.

Are you really surprised :shock: that a Bioware game will be a Bioware game? I'm not...

 

[GarfunkeL]

I read Falcon 3.0's manual. It was thick. And glorious. But the best part was they keyboard map you had to wiggle between your monitor and keyboard, so that you could find the key for releasing flares quickly, instead of smashing through the keyboard in vain hope of finding the right key.

Anyway, you could turn the simulator options down to arcade level in Falcon and ignore the manual and easily play it as a shooter. I don't know of any game where reading the manual is absolutely necessary to play - I at least managed one campaign even in PacWar before finding the manual. On the other hand, I grew up with copied C64 games on cassettes where you HAD to figure out the games if you wanted to play. And some of the C64 games were pretty hard to figure out.

I don't know what the point of this post is anymore...

 

[Volourn]

BIO 4 LIFE!

 

[NotAnAlt]

Controlling my character in the 1v1 matches was entirely simple and any modern MMORPG-gamer should be able to pick it up without problem. You select your character and then right-click on the enemy you want them to attack. Each character has an array of skills they can utilize on a quick-bar at the bottom of the screen. Once selected, the character uses the skill and then it takes a certain amount of time to recharge to be used again.