Victor Wachter wrote...
Anarya wrote...
Saibh wrote...
Victor Wachter does not sound like a minotaur.
I call foul, BioWare! I was promised community manager minotaurs!
Yeah he sound entirely too friendly. And there's no snorting.
Catch me on the right day...
Anarya wrote...
Victor Wachter wrote...
Anarya wrote...
Saibh wrote...
Victor Wachter does not sound like a minotaur.
I call foul, BioWare! I was promised community manager minotaurs!
Yeah he sound entirely too friendly. And there's no snorting.
Catch me on the right day...
I guess we'll let it slide. Mike doesn't sound much like Loghain either.
SirOccam wrote...
For anyone interested, I finished typing up the transcript:
https://docs.google....NcBeKtaho&hl=en
If anyone knows what that missing word is when Mike is talking about the Community Day anecdote (at 9:29 on the mp3), I'd be curious to know what it is. Maybe "the EA community" or "DA community" or something entirely different.
I can't read that without Javascript enabled...after you enable Javascript for a specific domain in Chrome, you have to reload the page...whenever I reload the page, it changes the domain to docs1.google.com, then to docs2.google.com, then to docs3.google.com.SirOccam wrote...
For anyone interested, I finished typing up the transcript:
https://docs.google....NcBeKtaho&hl=en
If anyone knows what that missing word is when Mike is talking about the Community Day anecdote (at 9:29 on the mp3), I'd be curious to know what it is. Maybe "the EA community" or "DA community" or something entirely different.
Weird. Well I'll just paste it here...hope it works:Maverick827 wrote...
I'm stuck in an infinite loop.
Dragon Age II
Official Podcast
Episode 3 Transcription
Victor Wachter (VW) - Community Manager for Dragon Age
Mark Darrah (MD) - Executive Producer for Dragon Age
Mike Laidlaw (ML) - Lead Designer for Dragon Age 2
VW: Hello, and welcome to the official podcast for Dragon Age 2. I’m Victor Wachter, Community Manager for the Dragon Age franchise, and I’m here with Mark Darrah, Executive Producer for the Dragon Age franchise. Hi
Mark, how’s it going?
MD: It’s going good Victor, how you doing?
VW: Doing well, doing well. Thanks for being here with me, and answering some questions for the community. So, just to kick it off, what exactly is your role in the Dragon Age franchise, and specifically with Dragon Age 2?
MD: Yeah, so I’m the Executive Producer for the Dragon Age franchise, and I’m the Project Director for Dragon Age 2. Let me break that down a little bit, because I think people won’t have any idea what that means. Executive Producer on the franchise means I guide all of the decisions from the creative and the production side for the franchise, so that means I’m the ultimate person that decides what products we do, where we’re taking the franchise, the things that we might want to do in the future, and all the things that have to do with the franchise. So not just the games; also the ancillary products like books, cartoons, other things that people may have heard of.
As a Project Director on Dragon Age 2...that’s really more focused on the game itself. So I’m the ultimate decision-maker in terms of trying to make sure Dragon Age 2 can be the best game it possibly can be in the
time we have to make it.
VW: Gotcha, okay, okay. What’s the overall vision behind the franchise, not only with DA2, but also looking at future games and other media like the animated movie and the comic books?
MD: The goal for me, really, is to make Dragon Age into one of those Fantasy franchises you really think of when you think of Fantasy. Right now, when someone says “Fantasy,” you think of Lord of the Rings, you might think of Harry Potter, Conan, those sorts of things. I’d like to get us on that same footing. So when you think of “Fantasy,” Dragon Age might be one of those first top 5 things that come to your mind.
VW: And so, thinking of Dragon Age 2, what do you think are the biggest and best advancements from [Dragon Age: Origins] to [Dragon Age 2]?
MD: Well for me, I think we’ve really worked on so many things it’s hard to pick one, but overall I think it’s really the responsiveness that we’re able to do in the story. Where in the past we’ve reacted to the decisions and choices that players have made, in Dragon Age 2, because of the way we’re telling the story, we’re able to really ramp that responsiveness up, we’re able to react to your choices more quickly and more completely than I think we’ve ever done before in a game. And I think that really pays off in the way that the story is told. It makes you more involved; it makes your choices more impactful.
VW: I see. So how do you plan for a game series that is reactive to that kind of past gameplay where actions players took in the choices they make could carry over from not only just one game but also to many new
games in the future?
MD: I think this is one of the big advantages of the way the Dragon Age universe has always been set up, and I don’t use the term “universe” lightly. It’s always been conceived of as a universe, as a series of stories, as a living world, not just as a series of games or a series of moments. So because the universe is set up that way--where there’s all this history that exists, and we know not just what characters have done or will do, that we know what their reasons are behind actions--because we have that motivation for NPCs, it makes it easier for us to react to the actions that the player character is taking, because the world is able to be more holistic in its existence. So this one character who is able to be worked with independently by someone else--by the player--the universe itself is more able to react and respond to that, yet it doesn’t fall apart under that stress.
VW: I see, I see. What’s it like developing a game for multiple platforms? How do you make that distinction between developing for a consistent experience in the matter of how you play and optimizing for each
individual platform?
MD: It’s a challenge to work on multiple platforms, but I think it’s important. The most important thing to do is to make sure you play to each of the platforms’ strengths. So consoles are really good at doing a small number of things very quickly, whereas the PC is much better at doing a larger number of things, but maybe not quite as efficiently. So in Dragon Age: Origins, we really focused on trying to bring the console up to where the PC was, and I think we did a fairly good job there, but in Dragon Age 2, I think it’s about bringing everything forward. So we’re focusing and strengthening the experience on all three platforms. Part of this is just strengthening the core engine overall, improving the graphics, and improving the gameplay style--things that will pay off on all three platforms. But also, we are focusing work on each of the three platforms to make sure that we do something that improves the experience for the specific player that’s playing on each platform.
VW: As you develop the game, and you’re considering the gamer who’s playing, what do you hope will be the game elements or plot points that stick with them once they’ve played, and how do you hope they feel after playing?
MD: That’s a really interesting question, because, really, when BioWare sets about making a game, we’re trying to make the player feel lots of different emotions. I mean combat, at its base level, should be about accomplishment, exhilaration when you’re doing it, but storytelling...we’re trying to get you to feel a whole range of emotions, everything from comedic moments to lighten the mood, to really heartwarming things where romances are going on, to heartbreaking scenes where one character may have to kill another. It’s about a range of emotions, it’s about being able to make the player feel something throughout their experience.
VW: Does community feedback influence game development, having already released Origins? Do the things you’ve learned influence Dragon Age 2, and can you give any examples?
MD: Absolutely. I think community feedback is extremely important to us, to all our games. But I think one of the opportunities, or differences, about a sequel is that the community has a lot more to go on than it did
with the first game, because now they can play the first game and comment on their experiences in that game, and this really lets them be a lot more specific, give a lot more pointed feedback about things they
liked, things they didn’t like. One place that we really are listening to the fans is about the kind of interactions and the specific characters they like interacting with. So I’m not going to announce anything right now, but in terms of followers or just recurring characters, we really like to listen to the fans and really get those characters they really engage with.
VW: So we’ve already seen the community feedback towards Hawke and Varric; have you had a chance to look at any of that, and what do you think of it?
MD: The growing movement to have Varric as a romance option is quite impressive, as is his chest hair following. I like the direction the Garrett Hawke feedback is going; I think that people are going to be really impressed when they see the female version of Hawke come out in screenshots soon. So I think everyone’s going to really like that. I’d love to see something like you see with Garrus from Mass Effect, the line of things like “Garrett Hawke doesn’t spend time, time spends Garrett Hawke”--that is the worst thing I’ve ever said in my life--but that line of things. I’m very pleased with the feedback we’re seeing on our characters, what we’ve shown so far, and I think as we get more, I’m hoping that the feedback will remain as positive.
VW: So is there anything else you’d like to add and tell the community about Dragon Age 2?
MD: I think that, really, what I’d like to say there is that I’d rather have them see it, rather than me trying to convince them with words. I’d rather have them look at what we present to them, and come to PAX, give it a try, play it, look at videos that we release from gameplay in the coming months, and I think the game stands on its own, and hopefully I don’t need to talk too much to convince people that it’s gonna be a great experience.
VW: Well I appreciate you being here Mark...
MD: You bet, Victor.
VW: ...Looking forward to seeing more, and I’ve had the chance to play the game, and hopefully we get more and more people to play. I know we’ve had a great reaction at Gamescom to the playable, and looking forward to seeing what people think at PAX.
MD: Yeah, I’m looking forward to PAX a lot; I think Gamescom was a great experience for us and we got really good feedback. I think PAX, it’s a different audience, so I think it’s going to be really exciting to see how that fanbase reacts.
VW: Cool, cool. Well thanks a lot for being here, and hopefully we’ll have you back for another podcast sometime soon.
MD: You bet. Thanks a lot, Victor.
VW: Thank you. See you later.
MD: See you later.
VW: And next from the BioWare green room, Mike Laidlaw, Lead Designer for Dragon Age 2 is with us to tell us a little bit about his recent trip to Germany for Gamescom. How’s it going, Mike?
ML: It’s good, actually it’s good to be home as well.
VW: So you just got back from Gamescom; how was that?
ML: Well, I think I went in kind of wondering how it was going to go over. I mean it was our first huge public showing, so obviously, you know, you go into Germany, there’s a lot of very passionate Dragon Age fans there.
And when I went in, I was kind of like, “I wonder how people are going to react.” Because obviously there’s some changes, I’ve been watching the boards and the people kind of feeling out Dragon Age, and the nice thing was--I think it all comes down for me from one anecdote.
It was right at the Community Day, so we brought in people that were coming in from [?] community and German community, and all over Europe, and we did some cool stuff with, like, guys came in and showed modules
they’d done in Origins, and we kind of chatted around and stuff, and then I busted out the “behind closed doors” demo that we were doing. So in this, we were looking at early elements of the game, showing Hawke--and this is the part that most people didn’t get to see--was the real side of the story. So we jumped ahead, stuff that you couldn’t see on the demo floor. And I had a guy come up to me at the end and he said, “So I first heard about DA2 and I thought ‘okay, I don’t know, that sounds different,’ I wasn’t really sure what to do, but after playing it on the show floor and then seeing this, I am pre-ordering that thing.” And I was like “good, that’s amazing.”
VW: Cool, and what were some of the reactions that you saw from people as they played? What were they saying to you afterwards, aside from the guy who just said he’s going to pre-order?
ML: Well I think from people who played, if they went on the show floor and went hands-on, certainly the big thing I got out of it was they were loving the responsiveness. And I know that’s a drum I bang a lot, but basically the sense of you right-click or you tap A or whatever, and--we’ve gotten rid of that concept of moving into place, and instead it’s much more like charging or leaping in.
And I think that once people see that in action, they understand just how much more effective it can be, in terms of “do I want to, for instance, cut off the guy who’s trying to get to my mage,” right? In Origins terms, like “can Alistair actually intercept someone who’s heading for Wynne? Origins, not really. I mean Alistair would kind of gamely follow the guy and eventually start pounding him from behind, which is, you know, good, if slightly kinky. But the big thing was that I would see people leap in and actually cut off guys, and that’s exactly what the intent of the changes are. So it creates a much faster experience, and one that people seem to really get because you wouldn’t see them kind of struggling to figure it out. I had a few guys who hadn’t played Origins, and they were like “Oh cool, wow, I can get this.” So I think they just found it a little less daunting.
And, of course, for people who play on the show floor, I think they were all a little star-struck from being in the presence of Ponytail, so you can’t go too far wrong there.
VW: Ah yes, Ponytail, the instant BioWare celebrity.
ML: Well, you know, you give a cute girl a gigantic staff and put her in front of a camera forever, it’s...fair enough. And it was fun; I was talking to the other promoters--we had three girls and five guys, all local Germans, working the booth, fantastic people, absolutely kept the booth in line, answered questions, really friendly, great English too, because you get a lot of people from France and stuff so English was kind of like the common language because many of the games are in it. And so I was chatting with them and they were all a little stunned by the whole Ponytail phenomenon, but apparently so was she. She was just kind of politely taking it, like “wow, that’s really cool, I’m very flattered.” And I was looking at ‘em--on Facebook she has briefly changed her name to Ponytail--and no I’m not giving her name away--but it was pretty cool and I think they had a lot of fun with it and she certainly did.
VW: I remember waking up on Saturday morning, ‘cause this all happened overnight for me, because you’re on the other side of the world at that time, and suddenly there’s this entire Ponytail movement, which I just was astounded by. Are you going to be at Penny Arcade Expo this weekend?
ML: I’m not, I’m not at PAX. I love it; I absolutely adore PAX, but I’ve been on the road for I think both of the last two weekends, and I thought “okay well this one I’m gonna give a miss to.” People who will be there will get a chance to meet Dave Gaider, our lead writer, David Silverman, our lead marketing guy, and a bunch of the other guys from the Dragon Age 2 dev team will be there as well. I think PAX is going to be a pretty kick-ass show because there will be some things there that we didn’t even show at Gamescom, and I think it’s going to leave some people with wide, wide grins on their faces.
VW: Oh, excellent.
ML: I don’t want to reveal exactly what yet, but let’s just say if you are subscribed to certain threads on the board, I think you might finally have a chance to see what you’re looking to see.
VW: Wow, wow. So is it a new demo from Gamescom?
ML: It’s a similar part of the game, but we’ve, I would say, lightened up the restrictions a little, if that makes sense.
VW: Well I guess we’ll wait and see. I’m not sure what that means, but a new version of the game is always nice to see.
ML: Exactly, and I think there’ll be a great chance for people to give impressions and kind of get their feel for it, because they should have long enough to play past the Varric exaggeration part, which I know the community is pretty intimately aware of, and kind of get a vibe for “okay, so what’s it like when we get to a more real part of the game,” which I think will be pretty satisfying. And certainly the feedback I was getting in Germany was “wow, this is really cool, because it does feel like the game is changing,” based on what we’re doing with the framed narrative.
VW: So I noticed you used the word “intimate” and “Varric” in the same sentence. What do you think of all that’s going on around him in the forums?
ML: Well, let’s start with, just generally, anything Aimo’s involved with just makes me happy. Her artwork is fabulous. I never ever anticipated being involved in a game that would feature a major character turned
into a love pillow; I thought you had to make Dead or Alive to pull that off. But I feel somewhat gratified that such a thing came into existence. And honestly, the thread is just amazing. I’m watching Mary Kirby, who posts pretty regularly and is writing Varric, just lavish hints in there. Which is amazing if you know the inner scoop, of course. She’s such a tease.
Overall, I think it’s really cool. If nothing else, it’s obviously a testament to how passionate the fans are, and especially our community, because they don’t know a ton about Varric. What they do know is that they absolutely love that piece of concept art, and so they should. It kind of says everything you need to know about Varric in one fell swoop, except, of course, that HIS CHEST HAIR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
VW: Hmm. Okay. Yeah, I’ve learned more than I ever thought I would about Varric in recent days, so...that’s interesting. And of course the movement for Hawke as well has been pretty awesome.
ML: Yeah, I’m pleased with that actually. I think that at first, people were like “whoa, whoa...beard,” and then I think people started to warm up to the spiritual successor to Duncan’s beard, which is fair, and then pushing beyond that, of course, just to like him. Obviously [in] the trailer we did a lot of work to just kind of take that character and say “okay, so this is what we’re trying to evoke. This is the degree of bad-assery you should feel you’re able to summon.” And while I know there are some people that are like “well why did you have to use a guy?” It’s like “well, I mean, he’s got the beard.” So away we went.
VW: Absolutely. So I think I’ll let you go, let you get back to a little bit of R&R, now that you’re back home, and thanks for taking a few minutes to talk about the shows.
ML: Oh, no problem, no problem. I mean I’ve got some “Witch Hunt” to get back to here, just playing through some final builds, because I like to tease people with the fact that I can.
VW: Absolutely, absolutely. And in fact, just to heighten the tease, I think I’ll do that tomorrow too.
ML: Good times, good times. Yes. I did make a promise that I think Morrigan fans would not be disappointed by what they would see coming, and from their reaction, it looks like they’re not. So I’m very jazzed; I’m really really glad we were able to do that. Dave really dove in and took up the Morrigan reins again, so I’m really looking forward to those reactions when it comes out.
VW: Hopefully this’ll be a really nice conclusion to the Warden’s storyline.
ML: Yeah, I think people are going to walk away with this one with, well, potentially a big smile, but a lot of that’s going to depend on you and Morrigan and your relationship. So it’ll vary.
VW: Exactly. Cool, cool. And I’m looking forward to playing it; I’ve only read the design docs, I haven’t actually played it. So I think I’ll have to go into source control and see if I can.
ML: Ah, the vault. Good times. Have fun in there.
VW: I will. And thanks again for being here.
ML: No problem.
VW: Thank you for listening to the BioWare Dragon Age 2 podcast. Be sure to visit dragonage.bioware.com, where you can keep up on the latest Dragon Age 2 news, sign up for the Dragon Age 2 newsletter, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can join the community at social.bioware.com to discuss Dragon Age 2 and all your favorite BioWare games.
Modifié par SirOccam, 03 septembre 2010 - 04:45 .
Guest_Cynical Being_*
I'd put money on us getting to see Lady Hawke. Though maybe that's just wishful thinking...ImoenBaby wrote...
Maybe FemHawke fans will be getting their big reveal this weekend. Gah I want to see this game!
Modifié par yukidama, 03 septembre 2010 - 04:48 .
yukidama wrote...
Since they mentioned Aimo's Varric love pillow... I demand BioWare work out a deal with her and make this dream a reality.
Bioware should just commission Aimo to do the comics for DA. Every one she's done has been a complete gem!yukidama wrote...
Since they mentioned Aimo's Varric love pillow... I demand BioWare work out a deal with her and make this dream a reality.
D4rkFire wrote...
Has anybody got the links to Ep 1&2?
SirOccam wrote...
Dragon Age II
Official Podcast
Episode 3 Transcription
Victor Wachter (VW) - Community Manager for Dragon Age
Mark Darrah (MD) - Executive Producer for Dragon Age
Mike Laidlaw (ML) - Lead Designer for Dragon Age 2
ML: I think it all comes down for me from one anecdote.
It
was right at the Community Day, so we brought in people that were
coming in from [?] community and German community, and all over Europe,
and we did some cool stuff with, like, guys came in and showed modules
they’d
done in Origins, and we kind of chatted around and stuff, and then I
busted out the “behind closed doors” demo that we were doing. So in
this, we were looking at early elements of the game, showing Hawke--and
this is the part that most people didn’t get to see--was the real side
of the story. So we jumped ahead, stuff that you couldn’t see on the
demo floor. And I had a guy come up to me at the end and he said, “So I
first heard about DA2 and I thought ‘okay, I don’t know, that sounds
different,’ I wasn’t really sure what to do, but after playing it on the
show floor and then seeing this, I am pre-ordering that thing.” And I
was like “good, that’s amazing.”
Retour en haut
