It is written that DAO II was made thinking of console users (the biggest sales are on console) and as a consequence, they worked on the game with console in mind.
Two consequences :
- making textures just for the PC Baldur's gate aerial view (as opposed to 3rd person console view) would have been too expensive compared to the targeted audience. So, M Laidlaw confirmed there will be no tactical Baldur's gate like camera view (isometric view). (*1)
- no toolset (hey, no mods on consoles after all, and more sales for official DLCs maybe?) I thought I'd cry when I read this. (*2)
Feel free to discuss this. I'm personnaly quite disappointed. No toolset means no mods. That's terrible. They spent 6 years making DAO I, now, they're rushing to do the second when the first one is still very lively. I don't understand the rush and the no toolset decisions. Modders are such a big part of our community, so many of us are from NWN for instance. Hum...
* EDIT: More info, what Mr Laidlaw said precisely in this interview is this (I quote and translate) "
[Joystick] Why did you leave/forsake the "a la Baldur's gate" view on PC of the first Dragon Age?
[Mike Laidlaw]For budgetary reasons, we focused our work on a 3rd person view, that asks for very detailed and nice textures so that the player can admire the game with a close-up view. With an aerial view [isometric] we should cover much more ground and so create other textures. Now, the game mainly sold on console, so we're going the way of the audience"
He does not say though if it is because the game engine could not handle all the zoom out with highly detailed textures. Isometric view means more informations on screen after all.
EDIT (2*) : Quote and translation on the toolset part
[Joystick] Will you release a toolset for DAO 2?
[Mike Laidlaw] To be short, DAO 2 will not have a toolset. I think that DAO I toolset is very powerful but very complicated" [Then they speak of the fan made campaigns possibility for DAO 1 (too little time since last November to create full campaigns, it usually takes years (so only "simple" mods have been produced so far, but this is about DAO I and not DAO II). Once again, Mike Laidlaw does not give any detail on the reasons of this decision.]
EDIT: I've bought the paper version of the magazine. Here is a link to their website, with DAO 2 on cover of last issue. I'm sorry they don't publish their articles online.
As a side note, this magazine deals with PC games only and they were of course speaking of the PC version of the game, though the demo made was on the console version. It is said clearly that there is no isometric camera for PC and Console versions.
For French speaker around here, the original (French) quotes are in the French forum thread I created here.
Check the end of first post. They are mostly the same, though French tends to be a bit longer than English. And don't forget that it's already the translation made by the journalist of Mr Laidlaw's answers.
A link has been given to a video that include a quick preview of the ingame engine, the camera seems to be top down but not full iso. Hybrid camera view, or camera unlocked because they are working on it. Watch here.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EDIT: vote in this poll Do you want a toolset for DA 2 or are you not interested?
Let's see if people enjoy mods or if it's just a minority.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LAST EDIT I GUESS, Here is the answer from Mr Laidlaw himself. (last post, page 37 of this thread)
Purple Lady wrote...
Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Hey folks,
Victor
managed to hunt me down, and I wanted to clear up a few things with
regards to what I'm seeing as the two major concerns on this thread.
First
off, let's talk about the toolset issue. Obviously in this community
there's going to be some concern that we wouldn't release a toolset, so
let me clear the air a little: The tools we're using to make Dragon Age 2
are very, very close to the tools you guys have used to make your mods
for DA:O. They're not identical, as we've made a few in-house
improvements, but they're almost identical. As such, there isn't a new
toolset to release, per se.
While we won't be releasing a toolset
update in tandem with Dragon Age 2, we ARE investigating what it would
take to update the community toolset to match ours, along with providing
DA2 content in the future.
As to the subject of tactical view, I
can confirm that we will not be doing a tactical view on consoles,
though we are looking into some expanded party control that I think will
make console players quite happy.
On the PC, however, we are
still working with the camera to keep the key elements of the tactical
experience there. I was actually playtesting some new camera code when
Victor found me, in fact, so I can give you the latest news on that
front.
While we likely won't pull as far up as we did in DA:O, I
have always felt that the key to tactical play was actually freeing
your camera from the character you're controlling to issue precise
orders, which is what we're tuning now. So, this means you can still
maneuver the camera around the battlefield and issue orders from a
remote location, just as you could in Origins.
As you can
probably tell from my phrasing, all of this is a bit in-flux right now,
so things may change between now and ship, but I wanted to update you
guys on the current direction of things.
Mike..
Thanks,
I'll edit the first post with your answer. But be aware that you
sounded much more categorical in the press, sadly. Sorry they had to
hunt you down for this and thank you for the quick answer.
NOTE OF THE OP : So Joystick, is it false information? To me, Mike Laidlaw confirmed that there is no
toolset for DA2, and that MAYBE, after release, they'll try to release
an update of the previous one to work with DA2...
And we have lost the isometric camera to a new hybrid one it seems...
Let's wait for PC demos now...
Modifié par Purple Lady, 08 août 2010 - 03:50 .




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