Dragon Age: Origins Interview

MMORPG.com has conjured up an article-style interview with Dragon Age: Origins lead designer Mike Laidlaw, with most of the conversation pertaining to what features set the game apart (and above) its massively multiplayer counterparts.

Flipping the topic to what MMOs might learn from Dragon Age, Mike explained that he did not want to offend any of his fellow game designers. So I asked him for three areas where he felt MMOs could learn something from Dragon Age as an RPG game. The first and biggest, he said, was story. The importance of story in a game is critical and he feels it is an area where MMOs are lacking. Bioware has always kept a strong story element to all of their games. Mike said that players like guidance and having a reason to play. Strong story lines provide players with a need to go back into the game. He saw this as a better way to keep players interested than just farming for loot.

Dragon Age is very good at having the world react to the player’s choices and decisions. Mike explained that the other area in which MMOs are lacking is in the ability to give players a sense of impact on the world they are in. The problem MMOs face of thousands of players having to do the same content needs to somehow be trimmed down so that the individual player can feel like they are having an impact.

The last example Mike gave of an area where MMOs could learn from Dragon Age was in the sharing of the experience. He said that MMOs are very lucky to be able to give players an area to build and create their own fun. He hoped to see more MMOs have mechanics in the future to give players a chance to build and share their own stories. Bioware has always held true to the story element in games, MMOs can definitely benefit from that aspect. I asked Mike if this is any indicator on what we can expect from Star Wars: The Old Republic, he just laughed.