Questions about DLC, camera viewpoints on the console versions, same-sex romances, and much more have been answered in the latest developer responses on the official Dragon Age: Origins forums.
Chris Priestly on the lack of bowstrings:
Hair implies multiple pieces of hair adding to the overall visual appeal of the character. It can be seen from all camera views and imporves the visual appearance.
Bowstring is singular. It is much harder to notice (a single line between two points) and takes up graphics resources needlessly only minorly increasing the visual appeal to the very pickiest of bow-nerds.
Or are you arguing that we cut hairstyles also? Cuz we can. Bald is smexy.
…
Characters will react when hot, they will be able to parry and block attacks.
Bowstrings are not needed graphically, so were not incuded.
Chris Priestly on dwarf restrictions:
Dwarves can use any weapon or armor as long as they meet the requirements for the item (such as a min 18 STR score for example).
Edit: As pointed out, dwarves cannot be mages. That is a genetic restriction at character creation, but there are no further restrictions.
Chris Priestly on reimagining Baldur’s Gate II using the Dragon Age toolset:
We will not allow copyright infringement with the DAO toolset. While people will want to adapt famous works of film, literature, etc we will respect legal copyright and will not allow straight adaptation.
Chris Priestly on platform differences:
As to the “rumor” of no overhead view on the 360, I also did not know it was a rumor. It is correct that it is not available in the Xbox 360 version. I heard Mike Laidlaw, Lead Designer, explain it as a technical reason due to memory. If we had included the top down tactical view, it would have drastically eaten up memory to the point we would have had, at best, 1 enemy on screen at a time. we chose to sacrifice the top down view to keep combat more entertaining (and lethal).
…
Whether you get the PC, 360 or PS3 versions, the important thing to remember is you get the same story, the entirely same story, on each platform.
Now, the PC does have 2 differences that the console versions do not.
1) The PC version gives you access to the Toolset. If you are a modder or someone who wants to try to create content, you would definitely want the PC.
2) The PC version as a “top-down” tactical view that the console versions do not have. This was done for memory reasons (I think), so if you want this top down view, you would have to get the PC version.
Aside from those 2 points, the PC and console versions are very much the same.
Mary Kirby on the differences between the Chantry and the Qunari:
Yeah, I’m starting to wonder if people are mashing all the various and sundry religions into one amorphous blob here. The Chantry doesn’t “re-educate” anyone. The Qunari do that. The Chantry has missionaries who spread the Chant of Light, and for the most part, the Chant has spread without the need for any Exalted Marches to convert the heathens. They have never, for instance, tried to force the Chant on the dwarves.
The Qunari, on the other hand, do not send out missionaries. They send out armies. After a people have been conquered, they can be taught the Qun. Less work that way, really.
Everyone in Thedas looks down on the elves, regardless of race or religion, including other elves. The dwarves look down on everyone who isn’t a dwarf (and some dwarves that they consider less dwarfy.) The only reason they don’t try to convert anyone to their beliefs is that they think nobody else in Thedas is worth a clod of nug dung. The humans of Ferelden hold the humans of Orlais in contempt, the Orlesians spit on Fereldans while they continually pick fights with Nevarra, and the Tevinters post angsty poems on Livejournal declaring that nobody in Thedas understands the darkness like they do. Racism, intolerance, and pride are not unique to anybody.
Mary Kirby on The Dales:
The Dales are the area of southeastern Orlais on the western side of Gherlen’s pass from Ferelden. They’re approximately the same size as the Bannorn. They are bordered by an uncharted boreal forest on the southern end, the Frostback Mountains to the east, and the Waking Sea to the north. They’re in the mountain shadow of the Frosbacks, and have little rainfall and no major rivers, so most of the present-day human settlements are along the coast.
The Dales were given to the elves by Maferath and Andraste’s sons. At the time this gift was given, the Chantry would not exist for something like another 170 years.
David Gaider on The Dales:
It is also worth noting that, at the time that the Dales were granted to the elves, it was on the fringe of Tevinter territory. It was barely populated by anyone, with only the barbarian hordes lying in Ferelden on the other side of the mountains. So technically speaking the elves weren’t being given prime territory at the time.
Now it is simply a province of the Empire.
The boreal forest in the south is called the Arbor Wilds, incidentally.
David Gaider on same-sex romances:
We include all sorts of content aimed only at a select portion of the audience. If someone thinks it’s worthless or claims they won’t buy a game simply for the sake of its inclusion… why not let them? They vote with their dollar, as you will.
It doesn’t stop us any more than any other “I’m not going to buy your game because of X” post would. In the end, we’re going to make a good game. If someone wants to miss out on a good game from some perceived slight, whether it be Marliyn Manson or what have you, then by all means let them do so. There are certainly a million subjective things that goes into anyone’s estimation of what makes for a “good game”, after all. Insofar as our response goes, rest assured it will rely solely on how well the game sells. Make of that what you will.
…
Whether or not someone thinks that’s a good idea, it’s not the case in DA. You must express your interest in order to begin ANY romance, but there are no special hurdles to leap to begin a same-sex romance as compared to the other kinds.
As for my part, I’m just glad to have this confirmed. Yay!
…
Imagine if you were gay, and were surrounded by entertainment that (for the most part) reinforced the idea that you existed purely on the fringe. The idea that there could be something like this that validates your personal experience, especially with regards to an avatar that is supposed to be you, is a powerful one.
I think, that for anyone who loves games enough to get upset over the weaponry, the classes or the storylines that are or aren’t included you could perhaps sympathize how someone could also feel as strongly about something that hits so much closer to home.
So consider a moment before you scoff. For everyone else, consider as well that we are essentially ekeing out as much punch as we can from what is a comparatively minor part of the game. We’re always going to try to please as many people as we can, from the large demographics on down, even if we rarely have the resources to please everyone. For my part, I consider the fact that we get to include this at all to the depth that we do to be a blessing.
…
Consider the fact that you cannot fight everyone. You cannot make every response you could possibly think of. And there is a limited number of quests that are possible to undertake, each with a limited number of options as to their solution.
When I say that romances are a question of resources, that applies equally to every part of the game — we are not singling romances out. As I said before, ideally we would include as many romances in as many variations as we could, just as we would include as many combats, dialogue responses and quests. When that’s not the case, however, we include what we can. And it’s seldom the case. What you suggest would be the ideal, certainly, but that’s doubtful to ever be the case, especially in a game where “who you love” is completely optional content.
That said, we’ll always strive to include what we can. I think we’re well aware how much value some fans (although definitely not all) put on the romances, but I will always resist the notion that they are a democratic right that must be included in every character and in every variation or be scorned — at that point I would simply rather not include them at all, to be honest.
David Gaider on Ray Muzyka’s claim of 120 hours of gameplay:
I think Ray was just saying how long it took him to play the game. I don’t see him suggesting that this is how long it would take the typical gamer to play through — which is a hard estimate, after all, because it depends entirely on your personal play style.
You can spend that long playing the game — perhaps that is what is more important to take from Ray’s figure, if anything. I think the typical playthrough would be less, and for some people who charge through it it may even be a lot less. It’s still an enormous game either way.
David Gaider on other Dwarven cities:
The other dwarven city is Kal-Sharok. It was thought to be lost to the darkspawn, but after centuries it was discovered to have survived– although it had done so only at great cost, and with a great deal of resentment against the cousins in Orzammar who had sealed off the Deep Roads and given them up for dead.
Kal-Sharok is, if you prefer, the Pegasus to Orzammar’s Galactica.
…
The comparison is not perfect. At best, it rests in the fact that Kal-Sharok had to do some very questionable things in order to survive with far less resources than Orzammar did — including the lack of an exit to the surface. But they did survive, and now they’re changed forever.
…
Kal-Sharok lies in the Hunterhorn Mountains between Orlais and the Anderfels. It’s not in Ferelden.
David Gaider on controlling your party members:
You can take control of each character and direct their every action if you choose to. Indeed, it’s possible to turn off the AI completely so your party members won’t take any action without your direction.
As you suggest, yes, it’s also possible to remain in control of a single character and let the computer AI control the rest of the party. Estimations of how well the computer does this are no doubt going to vary, but the good news is that there is an interface which allows you to set the AI priorities for each party member. There are pre-set options if you want to just give the characters general goals and let the computer handle the individual settings, or you can micro-manage the settings yourself.
If you’ve ever played Final Fantasy XII, you’ll find this much like the Gambit system there (without the need to purchase the AI options at stores). You get more and more slots as you level up and/or purchase levels in the Combat Tactics skill.
…
The main reason for opening up new slots as you level up is to accomodate the fact that you’re also going to have more abilities to use. Having more slots will also allow you to program more situations for your party members to react to in a way you specify. Not having them, however, doesn’t mean your party members are going to be useless — although I guess that will depend on your definition of “fail at combat”.
Brian Chung on adding rideable horses to the game:
…it’s a lot of work and given the gameplay design of DA:O (and NWN for that matter), horses most likely don’t really add much to it.
While it was fun and challenging for me (and DLA) to add horses to NWN, it was a huge amount of work and we encountered the same problems listed out. You have to worry about stop and go attacks, charges, syncing heights, what happens when the horse or rider dies, how does it fit into the story, etc. etc. And it’s better that the zots be spent elsewhere that makes a larger impact.
Unless gameplay is focused around it like in Mount & Blade.
Fernando Melo on the Collector’s Edition contents:
Realize the silence is frustrating but we are still looking into it. Neither EA worldwide nor every retailer in every country is 1 person – it is taking time to confirm what is/isn’t being carried in each case. And at this point releasing half information is just as bad.
For what its worth, it is not uncommon to have different box versions of any product (incl games/CEs) across different countries. This has to do with costs of shipping complete boxes across continents – so instead local boxes and local supplies for all the trinkets need to be sourced or as close approximations as possible.
Also, keep in mind it is not up to the publisher to tell retailers ‘you will carry this box’ (incl CE) – retailers tend to have a lot of say over this based on what they are willing to take, at what price range, and how many units of it for their customers. This is handled almost literally territory by territory and the biggest reason why you can have such wide variation of types of boxes and prices out for any game these days.
To make things more interesting, this is something that keeps changing all the way to launch – big events like Gamescom that we just returned from can have an influence on whether retailers take product or to what extent.
As soon as we can we’ll confirm the UK CE details, OZ CE, and rest of europe.
What I can say is that having sat down with the German EA folks at Gamescom they are indeed getting the steel book (aka. tin case) version with map and the rest of the CE items. The game will have English as well as German (Vo and Txt). However, the box and manual will be in German only. I forgot to check on the map, sorry – i’ll follow up once I hear back from them on this.
As for the UK always getting disappointed – I lived there for 5 years so believe me I get it, but in fairness this isn’t a games exclusive thing. EVERYTHING is more expensive there than anywhere else, so I wouldn’t be surprised this has an impact on what retailers are willing to take too. But that’s just my personal general view – we’ll confirm exactly what’s happening with DA CE specifically and let you know as soon as we can.
France – I’ll ask as well, but I suspect in this case this may have a lot to do with the Toubon law. To sell a game (or CE) there it would have to be fully localized in the case of DA:O, including all the videos etc – I’d be willing to bet that the retail demand for the CE itself was not high enough to allow for creating a unique Fr version of all the contents. Again, educated guess only, I will confirm and come back though.
Lastly, to keep things easier we will create a new sticky & lock it once we have the definitive list so it’ll be easier to refer to than reading these 50+ pages
Thanks for your patience folks.
…
The 3 CE items are available through a code that is on a card inside the box itself, so there are no differences between retailers for this.
The 3 items are…
Bergen’s Honor:
When the Grey Warden Bergen knew he was at the end of his life, he descended into the the Deep Roads joined by a full company of the Legion of the Dead. They slew hordes of darkspawn, clearing tunnels that had been lost for centuries. When at last they fell, a lone dwarf brought back Bergen’s helm, as well as his defiant and inspirational tale.
Grimoire of the Frozen Wastes:
Far north of Orthland lies the Frozen Wastes. In these pages are hundreds of harrowing tales describing how the barbarians survive in their icy homeland. The authors’ hope their stories will help readers in their times of need. Or at the least prove entertaining.
Final Reason:
This staff was held by several senior master conjurers of the Circle Tower, passed down from old master to new. Errant students learned to fear it, for when all other forms of discipline failed, the Final Reason would produce obedience at the cost of significant pain and discomfort.
In addition to those, for any version (CE or otherwise) pre-ordered certain retailers are offering one of 5 other downloadable items in addition to the normal Memory Band.
…
The DLC is tied to your account, but it is per platform, sorry.
We were able to work out an exception for the Blood Armor in order to ensure that PS3 DA:O players were not left out. But otherwise the DLC works like any other multi-platform game’s DLC (or getting the same game on another platform), where you’d need to purchase each separately.
Making it account based simply means if you uninstall/reinstall or play on another PC or console you can re-download the DLC that you owned for that version without having to buy again.
Fernando Melo on buying the Warden’s Keep DLC:
Actually all the DLC will be available to buy and download from within the game itself – regardless of which game edition you buy, including digital – think of it like the 360 Marketplace.
As new content comes out after launch, it’ll show up in the DLC store (assuming you are connected to the internet – think of this like checking for patch updates, etc) and you can view the DLC description and buy/download from within the game itself.
You can also just keep on playing while its downloading, you can view the d/l progress anytime, and once it has completed the installation the new area/quest etc is ‘there’ to play like any other game area.
Mike Laidlaw on Dragon Age’s impending advertising campaign:
Here’s a positive way to look at it: as more casual gamers enter the market, the overall market base swells, and while there are and will always be “mainstream” games, and the mainstream may move to a more casual stance, a larger industry as a whole means that there’s more money, support, and frankly curiosity about games that are hardcore. If a particular genre of game only represents 10% of the sales in the industry, it’s still far better to be 10% of 25 million consumers than 10% of 5 million.
I’ve always equated it to art films and the smaller film houses: would they still be in business if the massive force of Hollywood weren’t constantly introducing new generations of people to films as a media, eventually making those new folks look around and wonder just what else is out there, beyond the summer blockbuster?
David Sims on the claim of 800,000 lines of dialogue:
Just as a point of accuracy, it’s 800,000 words of dialogue, for both Dragon Age and Planescape Torment. 800,000 lines would be truly massive, way beyond even BG2.
David Sims on rank vs. level:
Rank is the basis of comparison. It is what lets us balance encounters without knowing what the level of the encounter is since that will be determined by level scaling. Most of the time the player is going to be fighting creatures of equal level, and if not the encounters will be progressively easier or more difficult depending on the difference in levels but that’s not something we worry too much about balancing.
When setting up encounters, there are 5 ranks (critter, normal, lieutenant, boss and elite boss) to pick from. The rank determines how powerful the creature is relative to a party member at the same level, and therefore how many you need to pose a challenge to the party.
For instance, critters are easy creatures which are significantly less powerful than a single party member. The party has to fight a large group for them to be challenged.
On the other hand, lieutenant rank creatures are roughly equal to a party member in power, and even odds will be a difficult fight.
If I wanted to make a speed bump fight, I might include 3 normal creatures, which shouldn’t pose a big threat because they are outnumbered and underpowered. If I wanted to make a challenging fight, I might include 3 lieutenants and 3 normals. Of course, the types of enemies, the abilities they have and the area they are being fought in have to be taken into account, but ranks serve as rough guidelines.
David Sims on class specializations:
You gain specialization points by leveling up. I don’t remember the exact levels, but 7 sounds about right for the first.
Theoretically You can unlock specializations at any level, provided you can complete the story content to unlock them. You can also start the game with all specializations unlocked if you’ve unlocked them in other playthroughs. Having a specialization unlocked provides no immediate benefit.
Spending a specialization point to take a specialization provides a one time stat bonus. It also unlocks new spells/abilities unique to that specialization.
Abilities unlocked by a specialization are purchased with the same talent points that are used to purchase all other abilities.
All points, not just specialization points, do not have to be spent right away. Unlike NWN or KOTOR you do not level up one level at a time if you have multiple levels saved up. DA is more like ME in this way. You level up automatically and points are added to their respective pools to be spent whenever you want. Other than maybe specialization points, there doesn’t seem to be much benefit to saving points up for a long time though. At least that’s been my experience.
Very minor mage origin spoilers follow.
The player does not unlock any specializations or gain any specialization points after the harrowing. The player probably will gain a level however. The preview confused the issue somewhat by talking about specialization in schools of magic when they were spending talent points on spells. They also looked at the possible specializations, which you can do even without any points to spend.
Warcraft Tavern
Warcraft DB
Diablo Tavern