Codex Interview Brent Knowles Interview: An Insider's Look at BioWare, 2000-2009

[hiver]

Only not all older games made sense in this. So you did have older games that were really hard to figure out - and you had old games that had such internal consistency and coherence that you did not need to read the rules or the manual or walkthroughs to play them with pleasure and enjoyment. - and you would figure out enough of that world rules just by experiencing it.

Not all old games were like that. Only the good ones.

 

[Lilura]

"Party-based" even though the party control works more like KOTOR than BG (come to think of it, it's really more like a BG/KOTOR mixture).

DA:O party control works very similar to IE, actually. You can marquee select, double-click to "snap" to units (via unit or portrait), but you also have the power of 3d (rotation and zoom). Calling it a KotOR/BG mix is idiotic, I'm afraid.

"Top-down" even though the isometric view was an abomination, almost unusable in many maps (see Circle Tower), made NWN2's camera feel easy to control, and was such an integral part of the experience that it was omitted entirely from the console version.

User error, lack of understanding, RTFM etc...

The strategy cam (iso-view) was very serviceable in DA:O, and is what facilitated IE-like tactics. If it was removed from the console version (was it lol?), then that was probably done due to console limitations (input, interface etc.).

"Large selection of abilities" even though most of them were useless,

I can't call DA:O a spiritual successor to BG2 in this respect: BG2 had infinitely more deadweight.

and you ended up spamming the same 2 or 3 throughout the game.

If you were unimaginative and played on easy, yeah...

"Maybe what some of us liked about BG2 was that there was so much variety in spells and that many of them were useful in different situations,

Many of the spells and abilities in BG2 are utterly useless AD&D rulebook filler with no practical utility.

or that there were more than 3 classes, or that there was a HUGE amount of variety in enemy abilities, immunities and strategies required to deal with them, that the side quest content wasn't picking up MMO-style quests from a questboard, that the whole mechanics of the game didn't reek of MMO cooldowns and "aggro" and all this crap,

Origins has 3 base classes with 18 specializations. Your other "points" are silly exaggerations too, perhaps a side-effect of nostalgia goggles and lack of sunshine and fresh air?

that you could make selections of which characters you were controlling and move them in groups, rather than switching back and forth between one and the other.

Did you play the console version, lol? Cuz ah, you can do that in DA:O PC version..

You sound really ignorant about DA:O, perhaps it's time you stopped posting about it?

 

[tuluse]

I played Origins on hard, every battle was about cone of cold.

 

[Sensuki]

Here comes edgy-dexer Lilaura's DA:O fapping again. If you keep arguing with him about it he'll ignore you

 

[Infinitron]

It does seem weird that so many people apparently never discovered the "far zoom" in DA:O

 

[Sensuki]

People were probably annoyed that the camera followed the selected party member at even just one notch below it

 

[agris]

There was a mod that un-fucked the camera iirc, but despite searching I can't find it. It let you zoom out further, and stay in isometric mode for more zoom 'clicks'.

 

[Zeriel]

It does seem weird that so many people never discovered the "far zoom" in DA:O

DA:O like most modern 3D games has this problem with adhoc isometric "camera options" insofar as all art assets and level design is created with the assumption the player will be seeing things up close, zoomed in to a certain degree. You can't just take a standard 3D game, throw in a zoomed-out camera option and suddenly have an isometric classic. NWN2 really should have driven this point home, but here we are.

I'm allergic to games with lots of camera options for this very reason, I far prefer a game that was designed from the get-go to be played from one set perspective.

 

[Sensuki]

There was a mod that un-fucked the camera iirc, but despite searching I can't find it. It let you zoom out further, and stay in isometric mode for more zoom 'clicks'.

That would have been handy, however I'd still prefer to not play it again.

I also prefer games with a fixed perspective.

 

[agris]

Yea, I briefly had an itch to play it again in 2014 and after installing it let it languish in apathy until I needed the HD space.

 

[tuluse]

(come to think of it, it's really more like a BG/KOTOR mixture).

This sound more like what I played than anything influenced by Mass Effect. Certainly with the queue-able actions and lower view point you can see KotOR influences.

 

[Lilura]

NWN implemented an action queue before KotOR, and it worked wonderfully. Then DA:O evolved RtWP tactics - hitherto basically a contradiction in terms - further with the conditional tactics framework, which, even without the Advanced Tactics extension, leaves the archaic Infinity Engine in the dust.

 

[Sensuki]

Useless if you prefer to micromanage every single party action

 

[tuluse]

NWN implemented an action queue before KotOR, and it worked wonderfully. Then DA:O evolved RtWP tactics - hitherto basically a contradiction in terms - further with the conditional tactics framework, which, even without the Advanced Tactics extension, leaves the archaic Infinity Engine in the dust.

Too bad they didn't balance cone of cold while they were at it.

 

[Lilura]

Just like BG1 forgot to balance Sleep, Web, Blindness, wands and archery; and just like BG2 forgot to balance, well, everything right? Like the level 2 spell, Web, which can be stacked into each mages' sequencer for an I WIN button to even SCS2 Ascension boss encounters.. right?

(Attempts were made to rebalance Cone of Cold in patches, and while it still remains OP, it certainly doesn't approach many OP spells in BG2..)

 

[Infinitron]

Are you guys gonna get dragged into this argument again?

It's a category error, like telling a grid-based blobber fan that Ultima Underworld made his genre obsolete.

Infinity Engine fans don't want to program "conditional tactical frameworks". They don't want to queue up commands. They aren't in search of somebody's idea of "perfected RTwP combat". They want Infinity Engine-style combat, which is inspired by real-time strategy games - a respectable genre which, I'll note, typically does NOT implement queuing and "conditional frameworks".

 

[Lilura]

RTS don't have queuing now? I guess I've been hallucinating for two decades..

But yeah, I don't wanna drag this topic into the mud by responding to dat ignorance, so I'll just put em on ignore with the rest..

About the interview: it would have been cool to read Brent's views on the conditional tactics framework (was it his baby?). I think DA:O's complexity and speed of ability/spell use necessitates it. It's a great innovation, especially when tailored to a specific skill and taste.

 

[Sceptic]

I wouldn't say DAO is anywhere near as cinematic (and focused on romances/relationships with crew/party members) as Mass Effect, it's a mish-mash of old and modern Bioware and very streamlined compared to BG series but there ist still enough of party based RTWP with tactical combat in it for me to consider it closer to BG than Mass Effect as an overall experience.

You realize this is exactly what I've been saying, except I didn't bother placing exact distance from either side because I don't really care. It may be closer to BG but it's still far enough from it and takes too many elements from new-Bioware. And as I said, the way I read Knowles's answers it seems this was the goal with DAO from rather early in the design.

I do think Bioware gradually replaced their old fanbase (built on BG series) with the romances/emotional engagement crowd but I feel DAO was still a game that was enjoyed by a good part of the old guard as well.

You're probably right. Unfortunately for me I wasn't one of these people, probably due to the fact that the elements I actually enjoyed about BG, and the elements of BG that got toned down or removed in the "spiritual successor", happened to coincide almost exactly. I'd like to think I'm not the only one who ended in this position, but from this thread and others it does seem like I may be in the minority.

Adding to this to say that I learned D&D rules from BG1 & 2, you certainly didn't have to have knowledge going in, and I abused the shit out of the game. Any kid can quickly learn and break systems.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough. I didn't mean you needed to walk into BG2 with an in-depth understanding of the rules. But the game itself used the rules quite well for the most part, and you did need to understand things like saving throws, spell schools and the way spell protections interacted with each other, and so on, in order to beat some of the tougher encounters. It by no means took a PhD, and I'm not claiming the system is super-complex or anything. But compared to DAO's CoC spam there is *some* level of complexity.

Here comes edgy-dexer Lilaura's DA:O fapping again. If you keep arguing with him about it he'll ignore you

I'm not arguing with him, he just keeps replying to my posts.

It does seem weird that so many people apparently never discovered the "far zoom" in DA:O

The "far zoom" (the quotes are really fitting BTW) was crap. I said it all the way back then, and haven't changed my mind 5 years later: for all its problem, even NWN2's camera was workable. DAO's was just hopeless.

I'm not going to bother with the BG rebalancing because I don't particularly feel like arguing with Lilura, but I find it hilarious that the rebuttal to CoC is always "but look at these 10 or 20 abilities in BG2!" The whole point of the CoC criticism is that you spam that ONE ability and win every. single. fight. Counter-arguing that BG2 had 10 different abilities that were overpowered in specific situations is pretty dumb.

 

[Roguey]

Too bad they didn't balance cone of cold while they were at it.

Technically it was, there was a bug where the physical resistance check wasn't working right, so pretty much all enemies fail it when a lot of them should be able to pass it and just get slowed down instead of outright-frozen. They never fixed it in DA:O because too many bad players came to rely on it.

 

[Infinitron]

The "far zoom" (the quotes are really fitting BTW) was crap. I said it all the way back then, and haven't changed my mind 5 years later: for all its problem, even NWN2's camera was workable. DAO's was just hopeless.

Well, I think you'll find that most people disagree with you about that!

Technically it was, there was a bug where the physical resistance check wasn't working right, so pretty much all enemies fail it when a lot of them should be able to pass it and just get slowed down instead of outright-frozen. They never fixed it in DA:O because too many bad players came to rely on it.

lolz, source?

 

[Zeriel]

There's plenty of people that think Dragon Age: Origins is an example of mediocrity at best here, Sceptic , just kind of a mostly silent group because who goes out of their way to dump on a game they didn't like half a decade later?

 

[Sceptic]

Well, I think you'll find that most people disagree with you about that!

I know, and I don't care

who goes out of their way to dump on a game they didn't like half a decade later?

Fuck you, I will keep dumping on Fountain of Dreams and Descent to Undermountain until the day I die

 

[Zeriel]

Fuck you, I will keep dumping on Fountain of Dreams and Descent to Undermountain until the day I die

Just as long as I'm still allowed to ironically ask for a sequel to Stonekeep until 2089.

 

[Infinitron]

re: conditional frameworks, etc

I think it's rather weird when a game provides you with tools that literally make it play itself.

In fact, I'm coming around to the idea that any tactical game that provides "AI scripts", or anything else other than pure player-controlled "puppet mode", is actually actively sabotaging its player base and design integrity in the long term. It's teaching them that they don't have to actually play the game, that they don't have to learn the rules and the nitty gritty. With every sequel you'll have to make things more automated, with fewer and fewer fights that require manual control. And your designers will begin to forget how to make combat that's actually fun to play when it's not automated. It's a popamole slope.

One thing that's cool about PoE is that by all accounts it's been designed with zero automated gameplay in mind. Something that more than a few casuals are worried about.

 

[Zeriel]

That's related to my main gripe with DA:I's combat, Infinitron. It feels like they tried to avoid pure automation, but the combat system on higher difficulties requires either automation, or a level of pausing and struggling with interface that quickly becomes unplayable.

First they lean towards a Dark Souls inspired active combat inspiration where it feels like many classes are supposed to be played by the player constantly, with abilities that require precise positioning at all times and frequent dodging on higher difficulties... then they ask you to do that with a full party. And for shits and giggles, they decide to make the tactical camera borderline unusable, and forbid ability queueing.

I would enjoy the Dragon Age series a lot more if they just abandoned all pretenses of trying to market to the grognards, gave up on the tactical elements, and just made a Dark Souls light popcorn action game with dialogues. As is, I'm more interested in Mass Effect 4 than whatever the next Dragon Age masterpiece is, and this is speaking as someone whose teen gaming years were defined by the Infinity Engine games.