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[MerinTB]

Sarcastic Gamer has an interview with Mr. Gaider.

http://sarcasticgame...html#more-60514

snippet

Why did you take the decision to have just one main character for DA2 as opposed to the multitude of main character options in  Origins?

Part of that is budgetary. If you look at Origins each of those origin stories was a huge undertaking. That kind of expense is great, as long as there is some impact to it and I think we got that in Origins. I think it was really important as Origins had to introduce the world and introduce every slice of life to the player. For the DA2 story, we
actually started off with multiple starting points but we found that prevented us from telling the tale we wanted to tell and not to mention led to an extra expense. Splitting the story at the start diluted the story we wanted to tell further down the line. For example, if the player was a Dwarf you could not have a Mage in the family. For every variation you have to provide a whole new path. One day we just sat down and said, budget aside, what is more important to us?

When I first found out we were concentrating on one main character, as a writer I wasn’t exactly thrilled. From a writing perspective it narrows down the character. It does give you the opportunities to hook a story onto a character when they are a little bit more defined and now I do find after playing DA2, I have a really hard time going back and playing Origins.

Edited so the full response is there - it wasn't my intention to imply anything, just randomly grabbed something from the early part of the interview...

Modifié par MerinTB, 06 janvier 2011 - 09:06 .

[AngelicMachinery]

You may not want to click on that link, my Avast detected a threat. I haz a scared.

[nightcobra]

understandable, i can see how having multiple starts could gobble the resources up and dilute the quality of the story further down the line if you're trying to go with a more personal story.

[Atakuma]

Sounds about right. I think they made the right decision.

[In Exile]

When I first found out we were concentrating on one main character, as a writer I wasn’t exactly thrilled. From a writing perspective it narrows down the character. It does give you the opportunities to hook a story onto a character when they are a little bit more defined and now I do find after playing DA2, I have a really hard time going back and playing Origins.

In an effort to avoid this becoming a ''OMG THEY RUSHED DA2'' thread, since David ends the quote by saying the reason they chose one PC was story based, I bring up this quote.

I found this to be the more interesting half of the quote, rather than the mere fact that multiple PCs didn't work for the story and cost too much on top of that.

I wonder why David feels that Hawke is one character instead of several. Most of DA:O, after all, involved no variation in content in terms of the writing at all.

Modifié par In Exile, 06 janvier 2011 - 08:45 .

[Khayness]

Aaaa, what's with the Balder's Gate spelling?

Epic mughsot btw David!

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

In Exile wrote...

When I first found out we were concentrating on one main character, as a writer I wasn’t exactly thrilled. From a writing perspective it narrows down the character. It does give you the opportunities to hook a story onto a character when they are a little bit more defined and now I do find after playing DA2, I have a really hard time going back and playing Origins.

In an effort to avoid this becoming a ''OMG THEY RUSHED DA2'' thread, since David ends the quote by saying the reason they chose one PC was story based, I bring up this quote.

I found this to be the more interesting half of the quote, rather than the mere fact that multiple PCs didn't work for the story and cost too much on top of that.

I wonder why David feels that Hawke is one character instead of several. Most of DA:O, after all, involved no variation in content in terms of the writing at all.

Because its a predetermined character that isn't the player's own and to further remove any sort of actual choice/roleplay its voiced as well. That should be fairly easy to see.

[Shepard Lives]

*eyes the interview avidly*
INFO!
*pounces*

Lol'd at "Free Marshes". That's not a place I'd wanna live in.

Modifié par shepard_lives, 06 janvier 2011 - 08:55 .

[In Exile]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Because its a predetermined character that isn't the player's own and to further remove any sort of actual choice/roleplay its voiced as well. That should be fairly easy to see.

What does this have to do with writing the character, though? Most of the lines in DA:O are not origin specific. So did David imagine different characters saying them? If yes, why isn't he imagining different Hawkes saying them?

Since most of the dialogue was not background specific, I am curious why he felt as a writer that the process was nevertheless more constrained on the whole.

But I guess if you want to drag a particular dead horse to beat...

[PsychoBlonde]

That's a great interview--I love how the interviewer actually has PLAYED Origins so he already has some context for the game and brings that to the interview.

[MerinTB]

Before anyone reads too much into the quote, I randomly pulled something from a bit into the interview... there wasn't even a cursory scan as to context of that quote.



I'm still reading it myself atm.

[Rykn]

HA! Role-playing the forumites must be all KINDS of fun.



... Uh yeah good interview nothing really groundbreaking but it was a good read.

[MindRaven]

I like how they came up with the name Thedas.............lol

[Amagoi]

Pretty fun interview, though not much new information. Still, it's cool that the interviewer has played Origins and was already familiar. Thanks for posting this!

[MerinTB]

I thought it was a fun interview (done now) and where they came up with Thedas is pretty funny.



I'm okay with David's reasoning (and everyone else who made that decision) - it doesn't mean I'm not disappointed, but like I said in the In Genre podcast about DA:O I can understand how much work doing those Origins must have been and I wouldn't be surprised if they never ever did that again.

[Sylvius the Mad]

For the DA2 story, we actually started off with multiple starting points but we found that prevented us from telling the tale we wanted to tell

I completely accept this reasoning.  This isn't so far from the reason we lost the Human Commoner origin in DAO, and that reasoning also made perfect sense to me.  I wanted a Human Commoner, but done badly it would have harmed the game.

When I first found out we were concentrating on one main character, as a writer I wasn’t exactly thrilled. From a writing perspective it narrows down the character. It does give you the opportunities to hook a story onto a character when they are a little bit more defined and now I do find after playing DA2, I have a really hard time going back and playing Origins.

This remark I do find vaguely concerning.  Aside from accommodating different sets of explicit details about the PC (like his race, rank, background), I don't see why writing for Hawke would be any different from writing for one of DAO's PCs.

Differences would only arise beyond that if DA2 handled player-created details (of which the writers are unaware) differently.  DAO did, I think, wuite a good job of allowing the Warden to have nearly any motivation the player could imagine for any particular thing he did.  His impression of the people and events around him were left to the player.

Is DA2 different in this regard, or was David simply talking about writing for only one set of explicit details at a time?

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 06 janvier 2011 - 09:07 .

[AntiChri5]

Interesting article. Thanks Merr.

[Atakuma]

In Exile wrote...

Since most of the dialogue was not
background specific, I am curious why he felt as a writer that the
process was nevertheless more constrained on the whole.

From the information we have, I believe it's safe to assume that Hawke's
background is far more important to the overall story of DA2 than The
warden's was for Origins. So It seems they have have far less flexiblity
when it comes to hawke because the story is dependant on certain
predefined aspects of his/her life.

Just my 2 cents.

Modifié par Atakuma, 06 janvier 2011 - 09:14 .

[nightcobra]

Atakuma wrote...

In Exile wrote...

Since most of the dialogue was not
background specific, I am curious why he felt as a writer that the
process was nevertheless more constrained on the whole.

From the information we have, I believe it's safe to assume that Hawke's
background is far more important to the overall story of DA2 than The
warden's was for Origins. So It seems they have have far less flexiblity
when it comes to hawke because the story is dependant on certain
predefined aspects of his/her life.

Just my 2 cents.

probably more to do with hawke's family rather than hawke himself/herself, on one side you have a noble mother and on the other you have an apostate father and let's not forget the twin siblings.

[In Exile]

Atakuma wrote..
From the information we have, I believe it's safe to assume that Hawke's
background is far more important to the overall story of DA2 than The
warden's was for Origins. So It seems they have have far less flexiblity
when it comes to hawke because the story is dependant on certain
predefined aspects of his/her life.

Just my 2 cents.

Right, I forget that David writers the story as opposed to the dialogue, because of how much I focus on the dialogue when I talk about writing re: dialogue.

That could make sense.

[Morroian]

nightcobra8928 wrote...

probably more to do with hawke's family rather than hawke himself/herself, on one side you have a noble mother and on the other you have an apostate father and let's not forget the twin siblings.

Yep, this has been alluded to before.

[twincast]

Well, the reasoning is sound and all, but my problem isn't Hawke being human, but the greater implications of that: All of BioWare's non-D&D games but DA:O (well, and soon TOR) only let you play human player characters and now Dragon Age joins the fray and from the sound of it they don't want to go back.* I'm merely worried that other than The Elder Scrolls, there'll be no (non-indie) games to let me roleplay an elf in the forseeable future. And for dwarfs the future looks even bleaker.



*Of course they have a tradition of hyping what they do and bashing what they did, so who knows.

[Brockololly]

Good interview and some interesting tidbits.



I'm really curious to see how the story and Hawke play out in DA2.....

[Addai]

twincast wrote...

Well, the reasoning is sound and all, but my problem isn't Hawke being human, but the greater implications of that: All of BioWare's non-D&D games but DA:O (well, and soon TOR) only let you play human player characters and now Dragon Age joins the fray and from the sound of it they don't want to go back.* I'm merely worried that other than The Elder Scrolls, there'll be no (non-indie) games to let me roleplay an elf in the forseeable future. And for dwarfs the future looks even bleaker.

*Of course they have a tradition of hyping what they do and bashing what they did, so who knows.

That's the cost of player VO.  You can only afford to have one hero, so you have to make him whitebread mainstream.  I'm surprised they even pay for a female lead (and glad they do).

Hope it's worth it to the people who like it.

[Bryy_Miller]

"You got the best of both worlds!"



Awesome.