Game News Dragon Age and day-n-night cycle

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

I'm bored of all those KOTOR 2 / Bloodlines reviews, so let's talk about <a href=http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/>Dragon Age</a>. It <a href=http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=403793&forum=84>appears</a> that Bio is attempting to cheat and implement different areas instead of day/night in-game transition.
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<blockquote><b>David Gaider</b>: If I didn't have a day/night cycle to work with, I wouldn't include a plot where you would have to be in the same area in both time frames. That does not mean, however, that there aren't plenty of plots or even ways to work around it.
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Consider this:
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You get your quest to rob a particular mansion at night. You proceed to that part of the city to perform the quest (perhaps a new area that opens up). Have a cutscene of the sun going down, and you're now in the new area that includes the mansion and it is night-time. You perform the mission inside that area entirely and it remains night throughout (as it should). When you leave, you have a transition cutscene and you're back at the regular day-time city area(s).
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Does that strike you as being limiting in any fashion, story-wise? The only difference we're talking about here is having a transition from a day appearance to a night appearance in the same area. Heck, if we really wanted to and needed it for the plot, we could even include two versions of the same area... one day, one night... and use either as necessary for whichever plot required it. The only difference is that you would never be standing in that area and have it go from one to the other. </blockquote>
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* whistles the tune from The Simpsons' "Mary Poppins" episode: "If... you... cut every corner, It is really not so bad...."
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[Volourn]

Meh. I prefer actual day-night cycles.


P.S. This isn't news.

P.S.S. Take your best shot at calling me names, SP (or whoever you are). I know you want to.

P.S. Ahh.. Good times, good times.

 

[Twinfalls]

I've come to expect very little from Bioware, given I like expansive, free-form rpgs. KOTOR felt like an adventure to me, not an RPG. And given the nature of the playing spaces in that game, it's really Bioware who should be developing the RPG 'Restricted Area'....

Edit: I'm new, but may I suggest an 'ignore member's posts' function would be *really* useful on these boards....

 

[protobob]

er, I can think of worse limitations...

 

[Expresso]

David Gaider wrote:

I quite disagree. I would not define a day/night cycle as interactivity, nor do I think interactivity is what defines a CRPG.

:shock:

 

[Vault Dweller]

P.S. This isn't news.

You never get tired of this, do you? It's not like anyone cares or anything.

 

[Taoreich]

Just for the sake of "fair and balanced reporting" here are some other out of context quotes from Dave which are less supportive of the view that BioWare's idealogy is fixed on the path of least resistance:

I assume you mean a day/night cycle, right?

Ideally we'd have one...

I don't think it's something that's been finalized yet.

I'm in favor of day/night cycles, myself.

and regarding the reason they would consider not using them:

The question one must ask here is whether or not having day/night cycles adds enough to the game to be worth having less areas and therefore the game being either shorter or more repetitive visually.

and Dave's overall point on the whole thing

Again, all things being equal, it would be preferable to have the ability for day/night transitions so that some of these situations are possible... they do provide more options, after all. But none of these situations are necessary in order to have a good story or a good game.

I'm not a blind fanboy, but you may as well make the news item worthwhile and have some semblance of truth. If you really wanted to hold a Bio concept up for scrutiny/ridicule. it would have made much more sense to quote Darcy as such

Also, we didn't want to include time sensitive quests. This removes some freedom to explore the world from the player.

The biggest reason is what Dave said. We keep control of that so he and the other writters have more flexibility in creating mood / situations for quests, and such.

I'd say day/night cycles are more cosmetic and less critical to the immersion factor than the sense of urgency enabled by time sensitive quests or making strategic decisions based the ability to keep the story on atmospheric rails.

 

[Vault Dweller]

... quotes from Dave which are less supportive of the view that BioWare's idealogy is fixed on the path of least resistance

First, I said, "it appears", not "look at teh noob". Second, Dave's personal opinion (" I'm in favor of day/night cycles, myself") is irrelevant. Third, there is no doubt now, after all Bio games, that Bio's idealogy is fixed on the path of least resistance indeed.

 

[Volourn]

"You never get tired of this, do you? It's not like anyone cares or anything."

LOL And, you never get tired of posting non news as new. Well, at least in yourc ase people do care about it as it is at least intertesting. Well, then again, people do care about me saying it's not news consideirng all the replies I get and calls of fag as well. Ha.


"Just for the sake of "fair and balanced reporting"

Don't expect thatf rom the Codex. Think Fox News.


R00fles!


Twisting what people post to make a point is what they do.


"First, I said, "it appears", not "look at teh noob". Second, Dave's personal opinion (" I'm in favor of day/night cycles, myself") is irrelevant."

Wrong. his personal opinion is relevant. Afterall, you are quoting him in your "news" article. That makes it very relevant.


"Third, there is no doubt now, after all Bio games, that Bio's idealogy is fixed on the path of least resistance indeed."

False. But, like every business endevaour, there is a budget. And, that means some things will either have to be cut completely or "streamlined" or " be made using the path of least resistance".

That is all. For now.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Heck, if we really wanted to and needed it for the plot, we could even include two versions of the same area... one day, one night..

Sweet! I would have just used that disk space for porn anyway!

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Why, thank you waitress. I'll have a slice of Deja Vu with a side of R00fles.

 

[Vault Dweller]

"First, I said, "it appears", not "look at teh noob". Second, Dave's personal opinion (" I'm in favor of day/night cycles, myself") is irrelevant."

Wrong. his personal opinion is relevant. Afterall, you are quoting him in your "news" article. That makes it very relevant.

I was quoting David Gaider the DA designer, not David the guy with an opinion. It's like if he said that he personally likes turn-based combat a lot. That would be cute, but hardly relevant.

"Third, there is no doubt now, after all Bio games, that Bio's idealogy is fixed on the path of least resistance indeed."

False. But, like every business endevaour, there is a budget. And, that means some things will either have to be cut completely or "streamlined" or " be made using the path of least resistance".

You say potato, I say....

 

[Volourn]

"I was quoting David Gaider the DA designer, not David the guy with an opinion. It's like if he said that he personally likes turn-based combat a lot. That would be cute, but hardly relevant."

It's always relevant to know where one is coming from when quoting them.

There's a big difference between Gaider saying: "I find that day-night cycles are useless and unneeed so we decided to cut it" as opposed to "Well, I very much prefer day night cycles; but sadly something has to be cut or limited and since day-night cycles aren't as important as other features it will play victim this time".

Big difference. Espicially since the 'Codex has a hav=bit of ridiculing designers who post things the Codex dislikes.


"You say potato, I say...."

No. Youa re wrong. I don't say that evil word.

 

[Sol Invictus]

VD, don't you think it's a bit silly to take David's words out of context and base your arguments on that?

In any case I've never been a fan of time-sensitive quests and the feeling of urgency created by them is nothing short of annoying and a hinderance to role-playing and immersion.

What David proposes is to have certain quest-areas confined to a night time setting for the duration of the quest as it lends immersion to the nature of the quest and allows the writer (or storyteller) to tell a narrative in which the protagonist might have murdered the Duke and stolen his treasure during the night. It wouldn't make much sense if the game's quick and unrealistic transition of time (most games calculate minutes in seconds) disallowed the player from completing his quest in a single night. It would be even sillier if the player completed the quest in a number of in-game days.

For example, how much sense would it make if your character sneaked around and killed 5 guards in the mansion within the duration of 10 in-game days without the game actually 'registering' the actions of the player. It'd make sense if the police or security forces were called upon the discovery of the bodies or when those guards fail to turn up for duty. Realistically, the whole place would be sealed off and the player wouldn't be able to complete the mission of stealing the treasure or killing the Duke, because of the increased security, and the fact that his cover has already been blown.

Therefore, it's better for the game's transition of time to be limited to 'night' for the duration of the quest, so complications like that don't arise. I'm sure it'd be nice if 'emergent gameplay' actually worked, but the fact is that it doesn't. Until then, all writers have to work with are scripts like the one David proposed, and workarounds.

VD, you must be awful silly if you think Bioware or anybody else could pull off anything different. Emergent gameplay is a myth.

Bottom line: Dragon Age will have a day/night cycle and David was merely answering the question as to how he would tackle day/night related quests if the game didn't have the cycle, which by the way, it does.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There's a big difference between Gaider saying: "I find that day-night cycles are useless and unneeed so we decided to cut it" as opposed to "Well, I very much prefer day night cycles; but sadly something has to be cut or limited and since day-night cycles aren't as important as other features it will play victim this time".

The important thing (in your failed example) is that Bio thinks that it's useless. Whether they hate it or love it but have to cut it is irrelevant. They would have kept it if they really wanted it, it's not that big of a deal to implement.

Anyway, just for the record, I don't really give a damn about, and mostly agree with David. Personally, I think that such a feature is important only in a game where it actually affects gameplay (can rob people at night, get sneaking bonuses, things change - like gates get locked, and now instead of having to talk / pay your way through, you can just lockpick it, etc)

Big difference. Espicially since the 'Codex has a hav=bit of ridiculing designers who post things the Codex dislikes.

Guilty as charged!

 

[Volourn]

"The important thing (in your failed example) is that Bio thinks that it's useless."

It's not black and white you know. It's not that they think it's useless to them. It's that they they feel the money is better spent on other stuff to enhance the epxerience and better ways. Asterall, previous BIO games have had day-night schedule all the way up to NWN. Go figure. Perhaps, they feel for DA it's not needed for what they are trying to accomplish. Afterall, for BL, there wasn't even a day (did the SOL have one, I forget?) and that makes eprfect sense consdiering who or what you were playing.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I think this entire argument is silly, though.

It's based entirely on David Gaider's mistake of answering the question the way he did by providing examples of what he would do if there wasn't a day/night cycle instead of simply saying, "Well, since there will be a day and night cycle, that is an entirely moot question". For the record, David Gaider went on to say that there will indeed be day/night cycles in Dragon Age when he wrote "If I didn't have a day/night cycle to work with...", so we should all stop debating this.

I'm rather curiouss about how VD managed to jump to the conclusion that Dragon Age won't have day/night cycles. The following:

It appears that Bio is attempting to cheat and implement different areas instead of day/night in-game transition.

is bullshit.

 

[Mendoza]

I think this entire argument is silly, though.

It's based entirely on David Gaider's mistake of answering the question the way he did by providing examples of what he would do if there wasn't a day/night cycle instead of simply saying, "Well, since there will be a day and night cycle, that is an entirely moot quest", which by the way, there will be - in Dragon Age.

So I'm rather curiouss about how VD managed to jump to the conclusion that Dragon Age won't have day/night cycles. The following:

It appears that Bio is attempting to cheat and implement different areas instead of day/night in-game transition.

is bullshit.

Eh? Where does it say there will be a day/night cycle? The whole point of David Gaider addressing the issue is because it won't be in the game, hence his explanantion why Bio decided not have it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

VD, don't you think it's a bit silly to take David's words out of context and base your arguments on that?

Huh?! What? No "VD is a moron" stuff? Why, I be damned, Rex has done changed again. Well, I appreciate the moderate response, Exitium.

Anyway, like I said above, I said "it appears" that that's what Bio is planning to have. I didn't flame or tried to show Dave as a less competent developer. As I also mentioned above, I agree with him, and would prefer to see a well done night areas than mediocre implementation of day/night cycle. However, it's also an example of corner-cutting, and that's what I said.

For example, how much sense would it make if your character sneaked around and killed 5 guards in the mansion within the duration of 10 in-game days without the game actually 'registering' the actions of the player.

Wouldn't make any sense, but it wouldn't be a big deal to implement some reaction to dead bodies, just like it wouldn't be a big deal to implement some reaction to house looting in BG2. That's the corner-cutting part again.

VD, you must be awful silly if you think Bioware or anybody else could pull off anything different. Emergent gameplay is a myth.

Can't argue with the silly part, but as for the emergent gameplay, I don't know what the fuck it is, what's with people love for big names and all. All I know is that there are plenty of games that feature reactions to dead bodies, to going into people's houses, to taking stuff that don't belong to you, to night effects that actually affect gameplay, etc. I don't know whether it's some fancy ass emergent gameplay or good scripting, but it works and proves you wrong.

 

[Sol Invictus]

David Gaider: If I didn't have a day/night cycle to work with, I wouldn't include a plot where you would have to be in the same area in both time frames. That does not mean

See? It's hypothetical. I think David made the mistake of answering the question the way he did instead of simply saying flat out that there would be a day/night cycle so none of this should even be an issue.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm rather curiouss about how VD managed to jump to the conclusion that Dragon Age won't have day/night cycles. The following:

It appears that Bio is attempting to cheat and implement different areas instead of day/night in-game transition.

is bullshit.

David Gaider:

I assume you mean a day/night cycle, right?

Ideally we'd have one, but it's certainly not guaranteed. It depends on whether it really adds anything to the gameplay. KotOR, for instance, did not have a day/night cycle... and the reason for that being a reduction in the art resources needed to create each area.
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That's the trade-off. Day/night cycles means less areas in the game, meaning either a smaller game or more re-using of areas. Either way I don't think it's something that's been finalized yet.
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It's not generally harder work but the fact that there's more of it that's the limitation. If you're okay with having a shorter game so you can have day/night cycling, that's one thing... it's not like we just don't want to work hard.
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That would be nice, but is rather unlikely seeing as having day/night cycles would require work on the engine to accomodate it. It would be hard to justify that work if we weren't going to use it, though perhaps I am wrong. Naturally it would be ideal if we could accomodate as many options as possible.
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The question one must ask here is whether or not having day/night cycles adds enough to the game to be worth having less areas and therefore the game being either shorter or more repetitive visually

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Darcy: If we did put a day night cycle in the game it would be very rare that anyone would actually see it. A player would have to hang about in an area for about 6 hours before they would notice the sun going down. We don't plan on anyone hanging around in one area that long.

Also, we didn't want to include time sensitive quests. This removes some freedom to explore the world from the player.
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Anyway, so David stars by saying that they WOULD have one IF it adds anything, then goes on and on stating how it does not really add anything and how it would mean a smaller game, thus influencing people to accept that choice when it's announced. He even states that it's UNLIKELY to see that feature in the tool set. So, considering all that, it definitely APPEARS that the cycle won't be implemented.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Wouldn't make any sense, but it wouldn't be a big deal to implement some reaction to dead bodies, just like it wouldn't be a big deal to implement some reaction to house looting in BG2. That's the corner-cutting part again.

You just provided an example of some very basic emergent gameplay that already exists in games like Baldur's Gate (when the Flaming Fist show up) and Bloodlines (the cops).

It's actually difficult to pull off anything more advanced than that correctly because of how complex the game becomes when more than a single quest or quest area is involved. How much sense would it make if your character went from house to house murdering people, if the police didn't eventually show up to stop you, or if a heightened watch was placed on the entire neighbourhood? Now, while characters reacting to bodies might get the attention of police, realistically, a heightened police force would probably be stationed at the location and active manhunts would be pressed against you. This is where it becomes difficult to implement.

The problem with a lot of games that allow such a degree of freedom is that while they allow you the freedom of murdering people from house to house with only a few guards spawning each time a body is detected, the game doesn't react to your actions in an 'emergent' manner, thus creating a lack of believability.

Maybe I'm going a little off track here, so I'll just say that in order for a game not to break immersion, it shouldn't be possible for a player to simply walk out of a mansion he's only looted half-way and come back nights later to finish where he left off. Even if the corpses of the men he's killed causes guards to appear, I would argue that for the sake of realism and immersion, whatever he was intending to steal should have probably been shifted to a new location and the entire area should be cordoned off as a police crime scene in the nights after the initial attack. It'd be utterly silly if you went back into the mansion only to find that things were just as you left them and when you confront the Duke of the manor he behaves like the attack all occured over the span of a few hours instead of (realistically) behaving as if he'd been burglarized days ago.

That sort of emergent gameplay is just impossible to accomplish so quests that involve a night time raid on a mansion have to be confined by scripts to occur over the span of a single night in order to create the immersion and not create problems with 'emergent gameplay'.

Ideally we'd have one, but it's certainly not guaranteed. It depends on whether it really adds anything to the gameplay. KotOR, for instance, did not have a day/night cycle... and the reason for that being a reduction in the art resources needed to create each area.

Well, I don't think we're gonna have that problem with Dragon Age considering that the game is slated to come with a campaign creator similar to the one in NWN. I'd figure that all day/night transitions consist of is a change of lighting and lamps that come on at night. Plus, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 both had day/night transitions with variation in art.

Maybe Dragon Age is going to be more narrative based, where the player goes to a very large number of locations, visiting each place only once before he moves on. As opposed to a hub-based game like Bloodlines or Baldur's Gate 2. Though that does sound a bit worrying (it sounds like reading a book and stripping the player of choices), David did have this to say about that:

I'm not going to argue the point further. There is plenty of control in the player's hands, and if we do decide not to have a day/night cycle it's not just so we writers can "force" you down any particular path. As a matter of fact, I find that idea a bit funny as the writing team has been performing cartwheels due to the fact that so many options are available.

If you choose to not believe me and instead believe that we're heading down some sinister path that will rob the player of all choices due to the mention of a few things the game doesn't have (as opposed to all the things it does), that's just fine by me.

Morrowind's a fine game and it's style is perfectly legitimate, but it is so not the type of game we're making. This does not, however, make DA the equivalent of reading a book.

Yeah, never been a fan of NPC schedules. I'd play The Sims 2 for that, not an RPG. I don't think that NPC schedules have any place in an RPG unless they actually lend a bit of gameplay, like how Oblivion will feature sleep/wake cycles so thieves can sneak into people's houses and pilfer their wealth as they sleep through the night. Games like Gothic and Gothic 2 which featured NPC schedules didn't put it to much use, and only served to irritate because you had to run across town to meet the NPC who's at a different location depending on the time.

However, I have no problem with different NPCs showing up depending on the time of day (as per Fallout and Baldur's Gate).

 

[Vault Dweller]

"The important thing (in your failed example) is that Bio thinks that it's useless."

It's not black and white you know. It's not that they think it's useless to them. It's that they they feel the money is better spent on other stuff

Well, dontcha think that if they thought it was useful they would have spent some money on it? After all, as you noted, they did have that feature in many games, so they have a good idea about how it works, how to make it, and whether or not it's useful.

 

[Mendoza]

"The important thing (in your failed example) is that Bio thinks that it's useless."

It's not black and white you know. It's not that they think it's useless to them. It's that they they feel the money is better spent on other stuff

Well, dontcha think that if they thought it was useful they would have spent some money on it? After all, as you noted, they did have that feature in many games, so they have a good idea about how it works, how to make it, and whether or not it's useful.

They can think it's useful but not as useful as other stuff. They're nice and all, particularly if you use them for more than cosmetic reasons, but I can think of other things I'd rather they focused their zoots (or whatever they call them) on.

 

[Rosh]

I'm bored of all those KOTOR 2 / Bloodlines reviews, so let's talk about <a href=http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/>Dragon Age</a>. It <a href=http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=403793&forum=84>appears</a> that Bio is attempting to cheat and implement different areas instead of day/night in-game transition.

Or real scripting, for that matter. It is rather sad to see the presence of CRPG, which once used to have Ultima as a good example, is dumbed down later by BioWare's hype and apologism of failing to live up to anywhere to the hype they give themselves, through poor design.

David, get back to your fucking desk and get back to work. Spend more time learning how to develop rather than come up with excuses on why you can't even do the BioWare standard and rip something off from a game over ten years back, give it a twist, and try to call it "innovation" so the media can routinely (and incorrectly) credit you as being the first to do so. Oh, that's right. BioWare only likes to rip off games from recent note, because the press is stupid enough to think so, none of the developers are old enough to have played work that retroactively makes this bullshit kiddy "developer" prattle look like ancient history, made by people who rightly earned their recognition versus being verbally fellated by every media chimp because BioWare successfully dumbed down AD&D for those who think Diablo is role-playing.

When BioWare lacks the technical knowledge to get the older games to work, they are then fucked because there's this "day-night" cycle thing they heard so much about, but they can't rip it off from um...how do you get Ultima running on Windows XP? Then there's Gothic, but that's a German game, and in BioWare's eyes they don't exist.

As for spending money on other things, what is there to do? By now, apropos of BioWare writing quality, they should have written an overglorified RNG-based scripting system, and then they could be fully content with their laziness to stroke their ego while doing little real work.

But who am I to argue when the title is a "blockbuster" already, despite still being in development, but the common gaming press will lap that up because they too haven't played anything older than Fallout/Diablo?