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Greg Zeschuk says, in the Eurogamer interview...
We changed art directors. [...] There
was some commentary that Dragon Age could have been more visually
unique. We said, 'Okay! You want visually unique? Here's visually
unique.'
Hm.
I am in two minds about this, and I hope some guy did not lose his job for something that was not his fault.
It's true that DA:O was, to an extent, visually boring. But I really don't think this had anything to do with the art. The art was neat. When I took a moment, for example, to look up close at the dwarven carvings in the Deep Roads, they were cool. The idea of having the elves use Nordic-looking design with heavy carved logs was cool.
But for the most part the creative aspects of the art were not well presented in the game. Moving through both dungeons and towns felt flat and foursquare. There was little sense of vista, little sense of dynamism. Every space, indoor or outdoor, felt pretty much like a rectangular corridor with various different more or less attractive wallpaper. I am a rose-sniffer as a player. I stop and enjoy the view. But I rarely felt called to stop and enjoy anything in DA:O
I was playing through Fable 2 at the same time. A game with many flaws! But running through the landscapes of that game felt like an exciting process of discovery. As you moved from one area to another, the sense of space changed, your eye was drawn up to broad vistas and down to small details. And the same is true of the Mass Effect games.
This sense of a changing virtual space that invites exploration -- not interesting or attractive design ideas -- is what I think was missing from DA:O
That said, the design for Jade Empire was beautiful, and the DA2 concept art looks great. I'd just hate to see Bioware expend a whole lot of energy on fixing the wrong problem. I'm excited about the new art, but what you really have to do is make sure that it is seen and experienced by the player as he moves through the game.
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