Well, it is time for us to present you our french review from RPG France: click here
First, I want you to know the article is build on 2 parts, the impressions of the actual state of the playable game, with some interesting statements I hope that were not still revealed by others fresh preview.I don't want to repat things already known by the hardcore fanbase who's stiil looking for news and fresh revelations.
In the second part, we'got an interview of Mark, David and Mike.At this point, I must warn you I hope I&I did not make too many mistakes from the audios files we had to transcript.However, I must said I will present it in original language to avoid any translation's mistakes, and also have to thanks Mike in particular for having play the questions/answers game in a written form, thanks for that Mike.
The first part:
I'm sure you will not find any exclusives news, specially for an aware community, but still, I think it contains some interesting statement like:
- Inon Zur and Aubrey Ashburn will return to give us some good themes and voiced chants.
-The max level a player could reach is about the 50, but be warned that it won't be too easily to reach this level.
-The Kirkwall's map is build upon 6 or 7 maps, and for some of them, there will be a night/day cycle system-like.
-It appears that the "gameplay walkthrough trailer is set to a the normal level (difficulty), as some numbers looks familiar with the coming screenshots
Some screenshots also brings their parts of good news.
The first one is about the the attribute character sheet:
here, we can see some new information concerning the build mechanics like the "attack number" for a level 15 rogue: 100% attack attached to a mysterious number : 1,993.What's their meanings?
Feel free to discuss what you think/know 'bout this.
Another screenshot from the abilities tree from a level 4 rogue:
Once again, feel free to bring some of your own reflexion parts 'bout that.
For the rest of the impressions part, I don't think you will find not so many news, but feel free to share with us in ours forums or here what you think is already known or not.
Please, do not hesitate to enter ours forums, we will be very pleased : RPG France
The second part: the interviews
I&I think it's always interesting to share it with people, so here it is.
As I've already said, for the Mark and David's ones, what we tell in this part is coming from audio files, so there's a risk to find any transcripted mistakes.Sorry for that if it happens.
The Mike's one was too esy as there was no need to make any transcription.Thanks for that, you're definitely a "chief";)
The Mike interview:
* How long will DA2 be? We already know it’s going to be longer than Awakening, but shorter than Origins...
As with all estimations of time, that’s going to vary by player. It’s “around” the length of Mass Effect 2, but there’s a very heavy emphasis on playstyle in Dragon Age II. If you rush to complete it, it can be done reasonably quickly, but you’ll miss a lot of growth of your companions, subtle parts of the story and more. If you take your time and explore, it will take far longer.
* Is Hawke the “Common Human” origin that was intended to be in Origins?
Good catch! There was a Human Commoner origin planned, way back in the day, but no, this isn’t it. You certainly do start out as a commoner, though, so the parallels are there, and I think it adds an interesting twist to the way the story plays out.
* Secondary Quests : are they going to be like Origins (Chanter’s Board, Mage’s Collective Liaison...), or can we expect to have more dynamic and original quests?
Dragon Age II has a mix of quest types. While there are some that are simple bounty hunts and so on, there are a lot of non-critical quests that have rich story elements as well.
* Concerning the “level-up”, is it similar with Origins? Do the companions still scale their levels to the Hawke’s one? And for those who stay longer ar base? Is there any auto-scalling?
It’s very similar to Origins. Everyone, including companions not in the party, receive experience points and level up at roughly the same rate as Hawke. There is an auto-level system (though it wasn’t active in the build you played here at the office), which lets you individually auto-spend points for any companion you like. Of course, players who want to customize their followers fully may do so. In fact, we’re even being more lenient about how your companions progress: while they will all have some abilities when they first join your party, they won’t be fully spent, letting you start customizing them earlier than you could in Origins.
* Concerning the romances and love interest, are all the followers subject to this if I take in account the two genders of Hawke?
Not every follower is interested romantically in Hawke, though there are options for players of all genders and orientations.
* Will it still be possible to have a pet? I’m thinking about the mabari or something else.
We haven’t announced anything as of yet, but I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.
* Hawke’s Father. We know he’s an apostate, but what can you tell us about him? Is he going to have a major role in the plot? What about his ancestors?
Unfortunately, at the start of the game Hawke’s father has already passed on, so he doesn’t have a major role in the game, but he certainly does come up now and then, as he used to live in Kirkwall and thus has ties to the city Hawke calls home for most of the game. The Hawke and Amell family certainly do have roots in the city, though.
* Is there any chance we could see a MMO based on the DA universe?
There’s always a chance, sure. We’re very focused on The Old Republic, though, so I wouldn’t expect us to move on a Dragon Age MMO too soon.
* A little word for the French fans community?
I will take a swing at remembering all those years of French through high school and say, “Merci beaucoup pour votre enthousiasme et soutien. C’est très apprécié!”
The Mark Interview:
* How is born the DA franchise?
After NWN, BioWare was in a position where we had an opportunity to create our own intellectual properties, and that's really where where we looked to create a fantasy property, that's Dragon Age, and a science-fiction property, that's Mass Effect...
Wow I guess it's like... six years ago, where we started to develop a fantasy world, something that would be distinct to D&D (which is what we've been doing before), and really allow us to tell stories in a fantasy setting...
* How come is the game so inspired to Mass Effect?
So I wouldn't say we're really inspired by Mass Effect at all.There's two things you can look at and say :"This looks like Mass Effect", and one of them is the dialogue system.But the thing with the dialogue system is that you're going to move to a voiced playable character...
...while it gives a lot of benefits, it does provides certains limitations: you can't really have a fully written lines of conversation, because then what you is.. read that, then you click on it, and the player just reads it over again...
and it's a very discordant experience for the player.So, the wheel-based system from mass Effect...we did adopt that, but that's largely just 'cause when you need to go a paraphrased-style system to do a player's voice...
From an action perspective, we're not really getting (joining?) the inspiration from Mass Effect.Mass Effect always intented to be an RPG-shooter.What we're doing is just trying to take the tactical coming system we had in Origins...and make it more responsive...more reactive...
* How will the voice acting will be handled in DA2? Will it have more or less the same amount of actors? How many lines of dialogues? What about localisations? Will there be some fully translated version?
So I think there is, like what, 30.000 lines of dialogues ine DA2.We are doing a fully localised version in French and in German...
I don't actually know any famous french voice actors, but I think that the group that working on it has got some slubbery talents there as well.The goal in those cases is to make the experience as native as possible...I think we've got work left to do there, but the goal is to make so that when you're playing the version, French, that it feels like it the language it has been developed in...
* About the (French) BSN: why don't we never see BioWare members on it?It could be a real pleasure to have just a couple of messages on it, and people will really appreciate, even in an English form?
That's a great idea! I can only offer any excuses to that, we could absolutely do that. We SHOULD do that!
And the David interview:
* Until now, you've just reveal some places and specially Kirkwall quarters. Does it mean that the most part of the adventure will take place only in Kirkwall or will we be able to travel through new areas of Thedas?
You're mostly in the city of Kirkwall and the surrounding areas. So... Baldur's gate 2 had a similar ... seconds of silence...the city of Athkatla, and you ventured in the city and the surrounding areas. This is the same. Some of the surroundings areas are mentionned, they coming to play in the story, but you don't action 'bout them.
* From what we know so far, it appears that kirkwall is build like Athkatla ( David seems to be very pleased by this comparison) with its separated areas : hightown, lowtown, sewers.is there a link betwwen those 2 cities ?
I think what we wanted to do is in BG2 with Athklatla, it was a large part of the game with a city adventure.We wanted a biiigggg bastion city and have the player feel like they really (are?) in a big city and in DAO you have Denerim and that wasn't much that city, you were able to go a couple of parts with dead filled and busy(?).. large.So we wanted to do something in the same way to Athkatla, you had a big city that you could adventure into.To different parts like Hightown,
Lowtown, Downtown is the sewers...
Hum, in travel between...adventures that take you to differents parts of some exploration of the cities, that's what I think, hum, it's only...like I said there are other places as you can go to the wilderness, deep roads.But yeah, we want to have a big city.
* About Morrigan… we know it’s not finished yet. We will see her in Dragon Age 2 ? Is she going to have a role in the plot ?
It's not a secret no, in fact she's a part of the DA background et surely she will have a major role in the future, but not in this story.
* [b]From the second podcast, we learnt he found inspiration from the ethiopian monolithic churches (like the Lalibela's ones).Finally, can we see in the Kirkwall chantry any similiude with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church?
On the one part( of the question) a lot of Kirkwall is build directly out of the rock.It used to be a quarry, so they build it
down, and then ...the building were sorta build into the walls, so that heard, it is very cracked, the city is build out of the rock much like the ethiopian churches.
Hum, in term of Ethiopian Othodox Church, euh, no that's just a visual element that we took inspiration from.
Finally, we want once again thanks all the Bio team, and specially David, Mark and Mike as they allowed us some privilegied moments.
(Concerning the ethiopian questions, it's a personnal thing that make me feel very I-rey, you will never know how it please my heart and soul and surely all of the ethiopians one, as it take inspirations from their culture)
Hope now we can expect some Bio members to come more often that never in the French part of the BSN,
Modifié par AbounI, 21 décembre 2010 - 03:31 .
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But the sentiment is there!
