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[nightcobra]

EDIT:  new interview with Gaider regarding romances, enjoy 

http://www.gamezone....-game_romances/


and part 2

www.gamezone.com/editorials/item/lead_writer_of_dragon_age_ii_discusses_tv_adaptations/





 don't know if it's been posted yet but here it is:wizard:

http://www.gamezone...._start_of_rpgs/



interesting snippets:


DG: Dragon Age had Alistair, KotOR had HK-47, Mass Effect had a handful but Wrex stood out. Will any of them stick in your mind that people hold on to like Minsc and Boo?

ML: I actually think there will be a number of them that do in DAII, because they play to different types. The funny character often gets remembered. They’re memorable, they’re amusing. There are a number of them who would be the funny character. Varick is hilarious. Isabella is hilarious; she tells a lot of dirty jokes. She’ll probably stand out. Alistair always has the one liner, he always did. He was also a real person. Someone who is making the one liners because A) he was feeling really guilty about shirking his duty, as his royal blood suggested maybe he should be doing and because he was suffering in despair of losing his mentor. What made Alistair resonate was that he was a person under the gag, and that’s always been our approach in any companion. Trying to have them be memorable for more than just the one note hit. You have to get a whole drum kit in there.




DG: Last year I was asking everybody while I was interviewing them what their favorite side quest is. What is your favorite side-quest in Dragon Age II that you can you speak of? Last year, most people’s was the side-quest with Morrigan and her mother.

ML: I would say that it’s a later quest involving Aveline, and I honestly really don’t want to spoil it. There is a quest that’s tied to Aveline’s personal life that is absolutely fantastic, but unfortunately I really shouldn’t tell you about it. It’s just awesome.



DG: Going back to Baldur’s Gate, BioWare was really known for giving you multiple side characters, and you guys kept growing smaller and smaller with KotOR. Then there was only a handful, and you guys went back up a little more with Dragon Age, a little more with Mass Effect. Where do you guys stand with party count and how unique are they, instead of just being a generic archetype?

ML: I think there’s a couple less than the potential spread in Origins. However, I believe that they are deeper. A big part of that is because the companions aren’t hanging out at your camp. That worked out well. It was a great metaphor for the warden because you were traveling and they were basically with you, or they were presumably off adventuring. For this one what we’ve tried to do is give him the sense that your companions actually have their own space, their own role, their own kind of agendas in the city of Kirkwall. There are moments when you come into the bar and you’ll find one companion chatting with another. You start talking to them, and then they’re talking about something the two of them have done. Then they’re like, “Oh hey Hawke, how are you doing,” and one of them gets up and leaves and you continue on. It creates this dynamic between the companions that says these are people. They have friendships within their own group. They’ve gotten to know people through you. As the game progresses, as that decade plays out, they start to have their own rivalries and things like, “I did that favor for you like you asked” kind of stuff. And you’re like, “Wow, this is neat.” These feel like much more realized people simply because they have their own place and goals within the city.





EDIT: here is the first part of the interview, i think this one has already been posted but at least this way the whole interview is in here.

http://www.gamezone....adable_content/

Modifié par nightcobra8928, 24 janvier 2011 - 06:57 .

[David Gaider]

TheMadCat wrote...
As do I, I was just pointing out that this isn't something new for BioWare as a few people seem to think it is. It's no different from party banter in Origins, elevator chat in ME, the scenes in Jade Empire where they talk about it when you're absent, etc.

That's true. It's just a way of presenting that your followers have relationships even when you're not present, but ultimately it's simply a different type of banter.

[Mike Laidlaw]

prazision wrote...

I don't understand why Mike Laidlaw, a month away from the game going gold (or less), seems to not actually know for sure how many companions are in the game.

Well, I'm either a drooling moron, or didn't feel like giving a definite answer.

I expect that people's opinions of me will lean them toward one answer or another, as is often the case.

[Mike Laidlaw]

andar91 wrote...

I think you're just tricky.  Unlike David Gaider, you do not feed off of our tears and misery.  You feed off of our confusion.

How have you seen through my motives, Andar? How?!?

[Mike Laidlaw]

Request for more gameplay specific information has been noted. Thanks for the feedback. It's coming reasonably soon, probably in more ways than expected.

I regret not being perfectly clear in this interview, but it's how things go. It's surprisingly hard to be crystalline and perfectly clear when answering questions off the cuff and in casual discussion.

As to questions regarding "how this game actually plays" I will hold true to what I have said countless times before: Dragon Age Origins, but without the shuffling. It's faster, and your party react quickly to your orders, but the gameplay is essentially the same. And you'll see that first-hand in the future.

[Mike Laidlaw]

prazision wrote...

You may not realize this, but outside of this forum the general expectation from everything we've seen is that DA2 will be horrible.  Not "okay", not "decent", but actually bad.  The PR department is a nightmare, the developer quotes are nightmarish, it's all a mess.

And outside of those forums are other people, who think that DA II will not be horrible. As a general rule, turning to an anonymous forum as a barometer for public opinion is risky, since in my experience, people rarely spend time on forums saying "I think this will be good." Faced with a wall of hate, and often derision, most people will simply disengage, rather than try to defend; it's not worth the stress.

[Mike Laidlaw]

prazision wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
As to questions regarding "how this game actually plays" I will hold true to what I have said countless times before: Dragon Age Origins, but without the shuffling. It's faster, and your party react quickly to your orders, but the gameplay is essentially the same. And you'll see that first-hand in the future.

So the combat will still rely on numerous encounters with unchallenging low-level generic monsters, rather than, say, a more "set-piece" based approach a la Mass Effect 2?  Because Origins really failed hard with the constant, dull fights every twenty feet.

This is what you call "baiting," prazision. Few things make me disengage from a conversation faster than starting a paragraph with "So..." and then flinging the most negative interpretation of what I've just said at me.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Josef bugman3 wrote...
And whilst I agree with your point about disengaging when the hate gets too high Mr Laidlaw (and whilst I myself am excited about the game) can you provide specifics?

Nope. Just how I perceive human nature. You're correct in that he-said she-said arguments have no basis in fact, and should probably be discounted in general.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Josef bugman3 wrote...
Also, it is very brave and foolhardy of you to actually bother turning up in the community like this.

Every so often someone sends me a PM thanking me for taking the time or makes note of something I've said in another post that helps the overall clarity. Absolutely makes it worthwhile.

In general, I take anything hostile as more of a general frustration/malaise that's being directed at me simply because I have a face and a name. And becuase Epler and Hanlon are adorable, and thus immune.

To generalize (again), the two main complaints I see about DA II are either "we don't know enough!" or "This isn't the game I was hoping you would make!" As to the first, we will continue to rectify that situation, especially in February. As to the latter, while I understand the desire to see a more hardcore, more realistic, more-fiddly-stats experience, that's not the game we are making. We could have. Trust me, my systems guys were more than up to the task, but there comes a point where, in my opinion, some complexity is just there for complexity's sake.

As I've noted before, the general principle behind DA II was to take the Origins experience and achieve three goals:

1) Make combat responsive.

No more shuffling into position or sitting around waiting for your character to follow up after a shield bash.

2) Bring the classes into parity.

In a world where mages can lob balls of exploding fire using only their will, it was dischordant to have warriors and rogues who moved slowly and carefully. We could have absolutely addressed this by changing mages to make them more realistic, but we chose to instead give Warriors and Rogues more personality, since it added more visual flair to the game, and created a stronger identity for each class.

3) Smooth out unnecessarily convoluted mechanics, and create an experience that was less daunting for people new to Dragon Age, or new to RPGs in general.

If there's one thing I firmly believe, it's that there are a LOT more people able and ready to play fantasy RPGs than realize it, and I have always believed that opening a game with a big wall of stats is the wrong way to make a game feel welcoming.

I liken it to the time I sat down with my inlaws to learn how to play bridge. They didn't teach me how to play, or the rules, they started with "how you should evaluate your hand so you can bid." That didn't work for me at all, as it gave me a confusing rule structure with no context. I was supposed to place a bid on how well my hand would do at a game I did not know how to play. That stuck with me, and so one of the things we set out to do was create a more engaging opening; hence the exaggerated portion of Varric's story in which your goals are, quite simply, to kill things.

But like Varric's story, there's more going on than just mauling through darkspawn. Stats are still there. Talent and spell trees are still there. Enchantment? Enchantment! Crafting is no longer about fiddly stacks of elfroot and is more about exploration and discovery. Character progression (talents) is no longer proscribed in terms of order, you have significantly more control over your character's development than you did before. Tactics are still there, and, get this, you don't have to spend points to unlock them; they just do as you gain levels*. Oh, and you'll be hearing more about this shortly, but spell combos have been replaced by a system that's far more robust and includes all three classes.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how DA II has come together. There will always be people who take a demented glee in informing the world that it's horrible, or that it will be, or that the marketing is horrible or any number of complaints, but at the end of the day, I participated in a product I'm proud to have my name on, and that's what, to me, really matters.

[Mike Laidlaw]

In Exile wrote...

This is totally unrelated to that post of yours Mike, but it just occured to me - one of the things you mentioned a while back (and based on the released screens, are well on the way to delivering) is more information on how precisely damage & effects are calculated re: our skills.

On that note, are there plans for either the manual itself, or some associated pdf, to really get into the details of the damage calculations for those of us that are really interested in it?

It's actually built into the game. All damage effects are calculated on the fly and your talent descriptions are updated accordingly. As a general rule, your primary stat (magic, strength, dex) feeds into how much damage your weapon does, AND unlocks new weapons for you to use (identical to Origins' pre-reqs). As your weapon damage goes up, so does the damage of your spells or talents, and then as you take upgrades, you can further boost the output of those talents.

The nice thing about talents and spells is that they no longer miss. Your basic attacks certainly can, but given that you're expending a resource (mana/stamina) to activate your talents, you can (and should!) count on them landing.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Josef bugman3 wrote...

Oh thanks Baal for that.

As a minor query, can warriors use polearms (or equivilent)?

No, though I'm not opposed to introducing polearms in the future. For now, Warriors can use one-handed weapons and shield, or two-handed weapons. (mace/maul, axe/greataxe, longsword/greatsword)

[Mike Laidlaw]

Josef bugman3 wrote...
Oh and another small question (jesus I am starting to feel like Columbo), do rogues still have poisons to apply?

All classes do.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Yrkoon wrote...

Just so I'm not misinterpretting what I'm reading here, are you saying that there will actually be numerical explanations that the  player can read in the game in order to know  how much damage/effects the talent  he's using or acquiring will do?   
 

Yes.

[David Gaider]

prazision wrote...
The tone of Origins was "realistic low fantasy".  The PR and marketing for DA2 seems to be aiming for... whatever you would call the movie 300.

Did you think the PR and marketing for DAO said "realistic low fantasy"? Not that I'm saying that's a good descriptor for DAO-- I'm just wondering if you thought the PR and marketing for DAO conveyed that in a different way.

[John Epler]

So lately, I've finally gotten the chance to play the game - up until this point, everything I've been doing was cinematic design work and bug fixing. I decided to play on Normal, because I don't really want to die horribly every five minutes. For the first hour or two of the game, I was able to play more or less as I did on DA:O - minimal pausing, companions mostly using Tactics, that sort of thing.



Then I was in one fight that was a little more complicated than usual. 'No problem', I thought, 'I'll just use Aveline's - oh, wait. Why's she de- oh, so's everyone else in my party.' Then I died. This was on Normal, mind you, and I was able to beat the fight when I actually played the game more tactically, but still. It's not just 'here's a bunch of trash mobs, you can totally steamroll through them!'

[Mike Laidlaw]

prazision wrote...

But the point is that everyone laughed at and made fun of that trailer and it was regarded as a failure on every metric.

Unless you count the people who have said they liked it in this very thread (invalidating "everyone") or use the metric of "thing memorable enough that people are still talking about it more than a year later." By some standards, that's a success.

Not really commenting on the content here, just saying that anything you're still talking about right now, is still keeping Dragon Age in your mind, which is a lot better than forgotten.

[Mike Laidlaw]

Apollo Starflare wrote...

I see people pull out the 'other forums thing the game will suck' argument a fair bit. It's one that sort of baffles me, especially considering I look around on different forums/news sites as well and the reaction has been at worst mixed - certainly not overwhelmingly negative like some let on. Maybe I'm just not going to these mysterious sites that have the final say in a preview trailers quality?

I always assume, when people talk about other forums, that they just mean RPG Codex, who seem to have hated everything Bioware has ever done, ever, so, you know. You get used to it.

[Mike Laidlaw]

FieryDove wrote...

They hate everyone and everything. Even themselves. I wouldn't worry too much.

Hee. I don't.

[David Gaider]

Ramus Quaritch wrote...
Did I read that correctly? Did David Gaider just diss Legend of the Seeker? HERESY!!

Based on 5 minutes of viewing, like I said. Which means my opinion on the show is about as informed as half the opinions on these forums. Okay, maybe a quarter.

Bryy_Miller wrote...
The "other forums think this" argument is pretty lame, because it just doesn't mean anything. What's so different about one group of people with mixed views on a product versus another group with other mixed views on the same product?

I don't think you can discount it completely-- mind you, I also don't doubt that some folks are perfectly capable of visiting more than one site at a time, either. Especially the more determined ones (and we all know who they are). So it's probably wise to take any reports of online "views" with a giant grain of salt.

In Exile wrote...
Having no idea what RPG codex was, I
went to take a look. Outrageous echo chamber is about the most positive
thing I can say about the place. You'd think their necks would break
given how often they look down on things.

Nonsense. It's a bunch of concerned, intelligent chaps who engage in intelligent discourse on their favorite hobby. I can't imagine why any developer wouldn't want to cater to their tastes.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 janvier 2011 - 01:16 .

[Mike Laidlaw]

tmp7704 wrote...

Isn't that a bit like sticking fingers in one's ears and go all "lala i can't heeeear you, only die-hard irrational haters would criticize what we're making"?

For what little it's worth, there's been quite a few negative voices regarding the new DA at quartertothree which is generally quite level-headed place, with all sort of people posting to it. So no, it's not just RPG Codex.

Right. However, I do not think a game ships these days, where there's no concerns ahead of its launch, so it all has to be taken in context and with a grain of salt.

And there have been even some criticisms and concerns voiced here, too, and I am, in fact, right here, reading and responding to them. I'm very open to reasonable discourse, and happy to clear up misunderstandings right up until the moment at which my clarity is thrown back in my face as more negativity.

The truth, though, is that I'm well aware that some of the changes to DA II are cause for concern, and yet I remain convinced that it's an exceptional game experience and that many people, even Origins fans, will really enjoy it. That impression is based on direct feedback from people playing it. One of my favorite exchanges from a recent press event basically went:

"So, where is the new combat?"
"You're playing it right now."
"Oh, I thought you had changed a lot. Made it a brawler."
"No, we wanted to make it faster and more responsive."
"Oh, okay. Because this plays a lot like Origins, only more fun."

And if that's the reaction from most of our players, I will be satisfied.

[David Gaider]

PanosSmirnakos wrote...
I have a kind of geeky question to ask though. I couldn't understand how dwarves are related to the Byzantine Empire, so I hope if you read this Mr. Gaider to analyze this a little more. For me the dwarves were more "Romans" than "Byzantine". Theocracy was the main trademark of the Byzantine Empire and in some ways I think that Tevinter or the Qunari are more close to this.

I meant their politics are byzantine as in "characterized by elaborate scheming and intrigue" -- not that they resembled the Byzantine Empire in any other fashion.

[David Gaider]

PanosSmirnakos wrote...
I read that part but I think that scheming and intrigue was typical and without originality to every empire back then.

Maybe so, but small-b byzantine is part of the English vocabulary-- for whatever reason. I wasn't trying to be fancy or anything.

[Mike Laidlaw]

stephen1493 wrote...

Don't be coy. I say if you got, FLAUNT IT!!

Don't encourage him! Some days I have to remind the whole writing pit to dial down the flaunt. Smarty-pantses.

[David Gaider]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Don't encourage him! Some days I have to remind the whole writing pit to dial down the flaunt. Smarty-pantses.

The dial goes up to '11' for a reason, Mr. Laidlaw.

[David Gaider]

prazision wrote...
So long as people also take everything you or Mr. Laidlaw say with a grain of salt as well.  It's not as if you or him or anyone else at BioWareEA would ever admit there is anything about your game that isn't very good.  You want people to buy your product.  You'd probably get fired if you said anything negative.

Did everyone believe George Lucas when he promised that Revenge of the Sith would be a good film?

Heh. True enough. The only amusing (and possibly sad) part of that is that people would probably find anything negative we had to say more believable. But, yes, we are certainly no more unbiased then most of you.

Modifié par David Gaider, 25 janvier 2011 - 04:14 .