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[Chris Priestly]

We have finally finished our sneaky plans and can now announce that Dragon Age 2 will be at the San Diego Comic Con!

Both BioWare and Visceral Studios will again be in the Hilton Gaslamp hotel showiing off Dead Space 2 and a Special Sneak Peak of Dragon Age 2. Our room will be open Thursday through Saturday from 12 noon until 9 pm and open on Sunday from 12 until 7 pm. The Hilton Gaslamp is directly across the train tracks from the convention center, so make sure you come visit us for a Special Sneak Peak of Dragon Age 2 and the coolness of Dead Space 2. We also have some on sight surprises, so make sure you check us out.

If you are attending the con, also make sure you check out the following:
The EA Booth in the main hall where they have Rockband and Medal of Honor
The Lucasarts booth where you can learn more about BioWare's MMO Star Wars the Old Republic
The Dark Horse and IDW comics booths for info on the Mass Effect and Dragon Age comics
And I, Evil Chris, will be part of the "Are video game comics the next big thing" panel along with Fallout's Chris Avallone and more Thursday afternoon from 1-2 pm in Room 5AB. Come check it out and chat me yup in the hall after the panel is over.

We hope to see you next week at the San Diego Comic Con!

Modifié par Chris Priestly, 26 juillet 2010 - 04:34 .

[Mike Laidlaw]

I'm just going to add here that one note we're mentioning in the demo but hasn't come up in the thread: the section of the game that we're showing is deliberately over the top, and represents what it is like when someone is "exaggerating" your legend, as per the whole concept of the Frame Narrative.



Concerns that enemies die in one hit are a direct result of Hawke having good PR and thus excesisvely powerful during this part, not because our combat design reads "Hawke kills people in one hit."



In general, it's not a good idea to have people leaving your demonstration feeling like they got their asses kicked. We save that for boss battles in the real game.

[Mike Laidlaw]

No problem. I try to make it pretty clear that we're deliberately over the top during the demo, but I did do rather a lot of them in a row. By then end it all blurs together.

But yes, I definitely don't want people to think the gameplay will be a mash-A yawn-fest, but I think that what we're showing really demonstrates how much smoother the controls are, even on PC, you have to admit that it would be nice to leap into action rather than watching your character shuffle into position before starting to swing.

All in all, though, it's been great to show off the gameplay. Lots of folks leaving pretty excited, and a ton of huge fans of Origins coming up to say hello, which is always nice. I even saw an "I [Dragon] Alistair" T-Shirt in the crowd, and it was no surprise when she asked if any characters will be making a return appearance. I wonder which one she was really hoping to see....

My answer: "You'll see some familiar faces. I don't think you'll be disappointed."

[Mike Laidlaw]

Ah! Well, there you go. If I missed that part, I apologize. If it was David who did your demo, I'll whap him upside the head for you

[Mike Laidlaw]

Helekanalaith wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

... you have to admit that it would be nice to leap into action rather than watching your character shuffle into position before starting to swing.

Shield Bash is a good example of where that happens in Origins. As the player you'd expect the activator to charge  and immediately bash the living daylights out of its target, instead of first doing the geometric drawings to determine the angle in which swinging that shield would be most effective. Sadly I haven't seen the revised combat system in action yet, so I'll reserve my opinions until I do.

That's funny. It was shield bash that got me thinking about the combat system on a fundamental level, back more than a year ago. The question I kept asking myself as a sword and board Cousland was...."Why is he getting up in just about the same time it takes me to close and start hitting him again? Shouldn't I be able to quickly move in and follow up that awesome ass-plant I just made him do?"

Luckily, I know a couple of guys on the gameplay team, so I made a few suggestions, tipped well, that kind of thing. Seems to have worked out okay.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Since there seems to be some concern about lead platform, I can dispel a myth for you: it's not actually that hard to develop on all three platforms once you have an engine that actually works on all three platforms. It's just a matter of ensuring the bug fixes and optimizations work on all three, and then generating assets that are both scaleable (as in they can move to be optimized across all three platforms) and functional.



And since we already HAVE an engine that works on PS3, PC and 360, we can, in fact, develop on all three. Dragon Age II is "built," tested and run every day on all three.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Bryy_Miller wrote...
But the presentation was flawless. The speaker could sell me the keys to Hades.

Oh really? Because I have an amazing deal on this bridge, you see....

Glad you enjoyed it. I gave that demo 55 times over the course of the Con, and it was great to see the reactions. Finishing moves on large creatures for mages was a huge, huge hit. I think people just love ogre gibs.

Thanks for coming out!

Modifié par Mike Laidlaw, 26 juillet 2010 - 04:43 .

[Mike Laidlaw]

Kenrae wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

And since we already HAVE an engine that works on PS3, PC and 360, we can, in fact, develop on all three. Dragon Age II is "built," tested and run every day on all three.

Tested? Do you use TDD development? Can that be done on a game? Am I asking something too technical and nerdy?

Not quite TDD in a pure form, but we do have test plans and daily builds that have to pass a degree of play-ability as well as technical "hardening" before they're rolled out as "verified" for development. The senior leadership team (myself, lead artist, lead programmer, exec producer) do daily playthroughs of upcoming major milestones (demos, etc) in the morning, and there's an open hour-long playthrough in the afternoon of different story arcs, gameplay chunks and so on where we try to ensure the writers, artists and tech teams working on them are present for feedback.

It's a very iterative process, and while it does eat a bit of time every day, it also pushes the game along and keeps us focused on moving parts of the game to finished and balanced sooner.