Interview Dragon Age - It's Gritty, Mature, & Choices with Consequence

[Wyrmlord]

Dragon Age will suck.

Nah, I think it will the reality will be even less appealing.

Dragon Age will turn out to be a somewhat-decent-at-times game that is not bad enough to be worth bashing nor good enough to enjoy playing consistently for a while.

It will just be too meh-ish.

A game like Fallout 3 does an amazing job of making you feel confused and queasy at how awkward everything in the game is (slow motion fight cinematics, hundreds of headshots not killing that essential character, killing sprees where townspeople eventually forget your crimes after getting ressurected later on, running around half-naked in the wasteland with nothing but a shotgun).

You look at Dragon Age and its previews, and you think, "Buzzwords buzzwords buzzwords some inconsequential battle images buzzwords buzzwords fantasy banter in British accents buzzwords buzzwords" and so on.

It will suck at even sucking.

 

[Andhaira]

Thing is that dragon age is hyped. It sbeing watched colsely by baldurs gate fans. And we will be pissed should it suck.

 

[Ebonsword]

Low fantasy?

As in, "low magic?" I've never heard that term before.

"Low fantasy" is just another way of saying "swords and sorcery" while "high fantasy" means essentially Tolkein-esque fantasy.


The very fact that Dragon Age has dwarves and elves makes it pretty difficult to call it "low fantasy", in my opinion.

 

[Shannow]

"Low fantasy" is just another way of saying "swords and sorcery" while "high fantasy" means essentially Tolkein-esque fantasy.


The very fact that Dragon Age has dwarves and elves makes it pretty difficult to call it "low fantasy", in my opinion.

Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are more sort of high fantasy, whereas Dragon Age is definitely a conscious effort to make something that's dark, heroic fantasy. So it's not low fantasy or high fantasy

*whistle*

 

[made]

LONG LIVE CD Projekt RED!


*fap fap fap*

lolwitcherripoff

 

[MetalCraze]

It isn't Witcher ripoff. Bioware endings at least make sense.

 

[Herbert West]

Dark, gritty and mature is the new next-gen.

 

[Andrej]

Yeah, I agree with what seems to be the general consensus - the game will be pretty damn meh. It'll have a good moment or two, the story'll be decent enough to keep you interested to actually finishing the game though you'll be quite bitter at and unimpressed with the combat by the end of the game. It will also be way to easy towards the end. Such is my prediction.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

And there will be a plot twist.

 

[Gerrard]

And there will be a plot twist.

You are the demons.

 

[MetalCraze]

And there will be a plot twist.

Yes - someone you know is in fact an evil traitor or will become one

Yoshimo - BG2
Aribeth - NWN
Bastila - KotOR
Your mentor - JE

 

[Arcanoix]

Great, now publishers are going to dumb down the term "Choices and Consequences". Why is it I have the feeling that what is presently the simplest of choices/consequences will be lauded as "next-gen" post-DA:O? I guess BioWare is going to be undone by the very thing it brought forth - the cRPG genre. An ironic and most fitting way to die.

The game wasn't delayed just because of the holiday-season nor was it delayed because of The Sims 3. Also the delay of the PC-version was not because both versions need to be tested more. Why would they need to test out both versions when we all know (well - at least *I* know) there is NO difference between the two versions of the game? I am certain that the only extra feature of the PC version will be the SLIM possibility of including the development kit.

What makes it such a SLIM possibility? Because BioWare has to get permission from:

-Interactive Data Visualization Inc. [SpeedTree]
- Havok [Physics]
-Autodesk Inc. [3DStudioMAX]

-and many more software-developers to release their products in the form of extra plug-ins for the DA:O toolkit. If even ONE of the aforementioned third-party companies reject BioWare's request then EA won't bother letting BioWare release the toolkit. Why try to provide for a community that is based around a software-development kit that will only fail due to the lack of necessary plug-in's that make using the program and the interface more user-friendly?

Where the Codex Hivemind has accused EA of using the delay as a crutch to advertise and hype up the game in time for holiday season, it's actually quite different. EA announcing that the console-'ports' would be released 6+ months after the release of the PC version was merely a clever trick toward irate Baldur's Gate-era cRPG fans into believing that the game was meant to be a PC RPG - where in reality the only redefining aspect of DA:O is that the new meaning behind the acronym "cRPG" will be CONSOLE Role-Playing Game. And it will not be embraced by the mainstream masses.

When will the old-school fans realize that these multi-billion dollar publishers aren't gamers, but rather just corporate bastards sitting in an office making bullshit decisions? Publishers are Corporations - Corporations have Investors - and at the end of each day the Investor doesn't give a flying fuck about you as "The Gamer" but rather you as "The Consumer", because in their eyes Consumers have fatter wallets to loot, and makeup more of the populace.

Unlike some of you (Volourn, who should have a new signature as Stupid Fucking Bitch) I will probably not even go near DA:O until a friend gives it to me as a gift or some such, that is if by the time it's released EA doesn't have DRM that applies to console-versions too. God forbid you trade/resell console games, I mean, GameStop has cost publishers so much money. I wonder why? Probably because console games are $10 more than their PC-counterparts....

FUCK - I'm Amazing.

 

[Dionysus]

Great, now publishers are going to dumb down the term "Choices and Consequences". Why is it I have the feeling that what is presently the simplest of choices/consequences will be lauded as "next-gen" post-DA:O?

It's nothing new. You just haven't been paying attention to the mainstream. Fable's tag-line was "With every choice, a consequence."

Have we actually heard of any "dark" or "mature" content that is slated for DA:O, but wasn't included in the Baldur's Gate series or a typical Elder Scrolls game? So far, I've only noticed the Saturday-morning-cartoon racism, which is actually fairly common in fantasy RPGs.

 

[MetalCraze]

Great, now publishers are going to dumb down the term "Choices and Consequences". Why is it I have the feeling that what is presently the simplest of choices/consequences will be lauded as "next-gen" post-DA:O?

It's nothing new. You just haven't been paying attention to the mainstream. Fable's tag-line was "With every choice, a consequence."

They read us.

 

[Volourn]

"Have we actually heard of any "dark" or "mature" content that is slated for DA:O"

Yup.

 

[Mantiis]

"Have we actually heard of any "dark" or "mature" content that is slated for DA:O"

Yup.

And I can dl it onto my xbx right??!!one lol

 

[Shannow]

"Have we actually heard of any "dark" or "mature" content that is slated for DA:O"

Yup.

Partial, out-of-context quoting FTW *salute*

 

[Zlaja]

"dark but heroic"

"reluctant hero"

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's the Goddamn Batman!

 

[Thrasher]

Great, now publishers are going to dumb down the term "Choices and Consequences". Why is it I have the feeling that what is presently the simplest of choices/consequences will be lauded as "next-gen" post-DA:O?

You can choose to wear a purple kilt, or a pink loincloth, with all the visual consequences it entails. What more can you ask for?

 

[SerratedBiz]

You can't really blame them for the hype. While we were dealing with "C&C", "tactical turn-based / real-time battles" and "mature plot" all those years ago with the great RPGs of old, new gamers have been stuck with crap titles and hollow games that contributed nothing.

So while some are pissed by hype about "features" which were the standard at one point, others get dazzled by the fact that they've never seen them before.

I just hope they manage to include anything remotely original in this game and stop trying to sell "you can actually -pause- in the middle of battle to issue orders!".

 

[MetalCraze]

So while some are pissed by hype about "features" which were the standard at one point, others get dazzled by the fact that they've never seen them before.

You can't blame codexers for seeing something beyond "OMG this shader 5 bloom burns my eyes out itz so kool!" either while others don't want to see anything.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I'm not arguing against codexers' view of the game, but saying that EA / Bioware is probably pulling the only trick they've got up their sleeve. Selling old (even if well-executed) concepts as if they were outbursts of current creativity is only valid if you've got nothing else to sell.

Which is, I think, what pisses me and a lot of other people off.

 

[aboyd]

Re: Dragon Age - It's Gritty, Mature, & Choices with Con

Really it's mature, it's gritty, it's choices with consequence, it's making decisions that have an impact on the world and feeling like you're actually leading to different outcomes.

I hate this. They know the new buzzphrase is "choices and consequences" and so they have to mention it. However, they won't actually do it because it's a lot of work if you do it for real, so they carefully add that you'll feel like you're experiencing different outcomes. They did it with NWN2. I had an argument here on the Codex with someone on the first or second day of release of NWN2, because the guy insisted that the option to keep the initial 2 companions was a ruse. I had seen dialogue options that implied you had a say in whether these companions lived and/or stuck with you. But nope, it was all smoke & mirrors. I learned my lesson. Kinda pissed about it, actually.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Kinda the same thing with the current flagcarrier for C&C, the Witcher... A lot of years ago, if you were given the option to kill the beggar instead of giving him credits / caps / gold pieces, it felt like you were handed some freedom for your character and allowed you to develop him/her. Now this same concept (similarly executed, with or without "moral ambiguity") gets drawn out again but presented as some kind of "choose your own adventure" feature which doesn't exist. I don't care whether I help the elves or the humans when both have the same path and the same ending, minus the actors. It's not a bad story, but it sure as hell isn't making a difference in it either.

The bad thing is I'm looking forward to a game that actually learns something from games made over a decade ago. That's why I'm worried it'll suck like so much else done these days.