Questions about the human noble origin, gay romance, dialogue tags, and much more have been answered in the latest developer responses on the official Dragon Age: Origins forums.
Chris Priestly on the possibility of a draconian race:
No draconians in Dragon Age: Origins, they belong to a different IP.
You have met all of the ‘major” races in Dragon Age: Origins. That isn’t to say that there aren’t more that can and will be revealed in a future game or expansion or DLC or whatever, but for DAO you have met all the “biggies”.
Chris Priestly on the lack of a paladin class:
Correct. There are no “D&D” classes in Dragon Age: Origins (yes, yes. I am aware thief, fighter and mage are classes, but you know what I mean).
Now, just because there is nothing called “Paladin” that doesn’t mean you can’t choose to play one. We do have these things called Templars who are (among other things) “fighters” for the church. If you choose to ply one and make him a “goody-goody devout” type, that would be similar in nature to a paladin from D&D.
Chris Priestly on the lack of item decay:
There is no item “decay” in Dragon Age: Origins.
There are a number of blacksmiths, armorers, etc that you can buy new items or upgrade your old items at.
Chris Priestly on “interactable” origin stories:
In some cases yes you can, in others, no you can’t.
For example, if you play a mage you will return to the Circle tower. If you play a dwarf, you will return to Orzammar.
There are some origin stories that, due to story details I won’t reveal, you will not return to your origin story (or a different origins story as it were).
David Gaider on forcing us to be human nobles:
In retrospect, it might have worked better if we had planned the origin as “Human Outlaw” or something similar — the human equivalent to the Dwarf Commoner origin. “Might have” is a big conditional of that, however. Who knows if it would have worked out? The thing that always interests fans about cut content is that they get to imagine it as this perfect, interesting thing that is now deprived to them forever — where it’s far mroe likely that it was either incomplete, never started or buggy like hell and impossible to fix.
Still, “Might have” makes for occasionally fun speculative entertainment.
David Gaider on keeping gay romance away from kids:
I understand why you might feel this way, Boo, but consider this: the age rating is there for a reason. “Someone must protect the children” is the rallying cry of a great deal of censorship, and could apply just as easily to violence or straight sex or anything else which people might find unwholesome and potentially objectionable. Where do you draw the line?
Clearly you’d draw it at a gay romance. I would counter that, if an underage player did get ahold of a game (such as Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Empire, for instance) that contained such and did elect to play through the completely optional gay romance, there are far worse things they could learn apart from some exposure to the idea that romance (and I’m not even talking sex, here) could exist between two people of the same gender and it does not have to be something hidden and corruptive. Our games don’t exist to address social issues of any kind, but if we were to start then promoting a bit of tolerance and understanding would not be a very bad place to begin — and that’s something that could be learned at any age.
And let’s not forget the fact that the most likely reason such an underage player might even to elect to play such a romance is because they are, in fact, gay themselves. Having a chance to feel included or even validated is a powerful thing for someone who might otherwise feel very isolated, especially in the face of so much media that is very much exclusive. I find it very hard to believe that this would be “nothing positive”.
It might not mean much to you, but consider what it might mean to them before you urge the defense of young minds against such concepts on their behalf.
David Gaider on a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment:
I realize that for you guys BG2 came out after Torment did, but the fact remains that we were in the later stages of development when Torment was released. I remember playing Torment and wishing that we had seen it earlier, so we could have implemented the “click on a party member to talk to them” feature… but that was it. No influence there, I’m afraid. Games can only really influence other games if they’re released in the early stages of development or long before.
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Incidentally, if you want a spiritual successor to Torment, I think there are a few basic elements you need:
1) the Planescape setting.
2) lots of paths through a deep story.
3) fantasy tropes all turned on their head.
and most importantly 4) it needs to be made by the same people.
Someone else can’t make a “spiritual successor”. If someone else makes a like-minded game, it is at best a tribute to the original or inspired by it. The spirit of the original rests with its creators, and only they can decide what was most important to them about it.
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If you made a spiritual successor to Torment that didn’t take place in a Planescape or Planescape-like setting, then what have you got? It could be a very good game, but a successor? Even then, it might not be that important to the creators, but my feeling was that the Planescape setting was integral to the story being told. You could not seperate the two.
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It must have a lot of text.
I was considering putting that up in the list, but I don’t think it’s really required. That was the way Torment’s story was told, but it wasn’t intrinsic to the nature of the game. I’m sure some people would like to see it, and you’d probably get the usual high-pitched keening from some corners if a Torment successor ever got made without it, but I think in terms of the spirit of the game it’s not really required.
But, again, what constitutes the spirit is up to the people who made the game. They know it best. I get that players like to feel a bit of ownership over games they enjoy, but there’s a fine line between ownership and entitlement and when it comes to a spiritual successor I think the line is pretty clear.
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Feargus Urquhart took over the Project Director position, but that was about halfway through development. He did a wonderful job, but most of the key concepts in BG2 were already set down by that point. I think, if anything, what you were seeing was some concurrent ideas about the evolution from BG1 occurring on both sides. They were also a little different. Torment might have had romantic stories, yes, but their execution was considerably different.
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Come to think of it, I may be remembering Chris’s comments as they pertained to KotOR 2 and not Torment — though, as I recall, he mentioned the genre-bending in Torment in the same breath (as being integral to Torment’s development, if perhaps not something he was responsible for personally). I’m not really sure, now.
Either way, I would agree that MotB comes closer to Torment in its nature, if not it’s scope (which would be expected, considering it was an expansion). DAO has nothing to do with Torment, spiritually or otherwise, though we would do well to aspire to storytelling of that level. I’ll leave comments on how successful we were at that to those who play the final game.
David Gaider on forcing us to be human nobles, again:
Well, okay, if someone wants to make baseless accusations and then dare everyone to prove him wrong… so be it? Pessimism is wonderful because, if you’re proven right, you’re prophetic. If you’re proven wrong, then you were just being rightfully cautious. In fact, it was probably even your warnings that forced the corporation to do right in the first place! Fight the power!
The reason we were able to do Shale is because the voice-overs had already been recorded — meaning the reactions and banters for Shale were already done (from the perspective of all the other characters’ VO… Shale’s still had to be recorded, but that’s a single actor). A lot of them were out of date and needed to be chopped up/edited (fancy work on the audio department’s part, there) or removed, but not enough to make Shale comparatively “quiet”. It was still a close thing — party members are huge.
We haven’t announced how Shale is being distributed as part of DLC. I guess until we do you are free to make all the accusations you wish. Everyone’s going to get access to Shale, however. It was never removed and pre-packaged just to make it DLC — the fact of it being DLC was because we had to seperate the game build at the point where we started working on Shale. It affected so many things we couldn’t keep all those files open while other, higher-level, polishing work was being done. Shale had to exist as files that were appended rather than fixing it up amidst all the other construction. Simply easier that way.
As for the Human Commoner, you’re not getting one. If we ever did start work on a new origin story as part of DLC, I’m not sure how that would work. Even if we were able to restore what bits used to exist, I’m not sure we would want them — like I’ve said previously, it wasn’t working. I know some people are of the opinion that anything that was cut ever is somehow their rightful due and should be restored instantly to the end product for free lest it be considered a rip-off… but if we ever DID undertake the overhaul that would be needed to add an origin story, it would NOT be as easy as flipping a switch. It would be far, far, far from flipping a switch. This idea some people might have of us carefully excising a part of the game just to sell it back to you later is entertaining, but without merit.
You are free to think what you like, of course — as if we could stop you — but running around griping about how things that are cut from the game during development are somehow being used to rip you off is a bit reactionary. Here’s to being pleasantly surprised, I guess.
Mary Kirby on lie dialogue tags:
We do use [lie] tags in a few places in the game, but no, not all lies are denoted this way. Typically, we use that tag when:
1. It is also a persuade check.
[lie] No, I was just hired as a guard here. I definitely belong in this treasury.
In this case, it probably has a chance of failure based on your persuade skill (and will also be marked as a persuade option.)
2. When the line contains information conveyed by the character that the player doesn’t have.
[lie] The treasury is full of rage demons.
Since your character hasn’t been there, you might otherwise look at this line without the tag and think it was supposed to be an accurate report, and it’s just a bug that lets you say this without having been there first.
Not every lie is going to have a tag. If you select “Don’t worry, I’ll bring your sheep back safely.” when talking to an NPC, that’s not going to limit your choices when you find the missing sheep. You can still kill it, sell it to someone else, etc. The game does not, as a rule, assume what your motives are.
Mary Kirby on OXM’s issues with Dragon Age: Origins:
I wouldn’t get too worked up over this. I expect to see lots of comments like those made in this review. Honestly, I think of it as a compliment to our cinematic designers, and the animators and programmers who worked on our facial animations. If this writer thought our conversation system worked somehow differently from Fallout 3, which used the same selection method and similar unvoiced protagonist, I think it’s probably because our conversations are so much more detailed. Fallout 3 has a fixed camera that zoomed in and pointed straight at whomever you were conversing with. You never saw your own face in conversations. Ours are more like a movie — or, yes, like Mass Effect — with more animated speakers, changing camera angles, action going on in the background of the scene, multiple speakers, and shots of your own face. We have possibly made it too good, so that the absence of a voice becomes more noticeable. I don’t take that too hard, personally.
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