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[Rob Bartel]

Our next piece of Premium Content, Return to Ostagar, has been announced.

If you have any questions about this new release, please post them here and I'll do my best to answer them for you. I'll try to avoid any spoilers not already covered within the module description and ask you to do the same.

Thanks for playing Dragon Age and for your interest in extending the experience!

Modifié par Rob Bartel, 29 décembre 2009 - 08:40 .

[Rob Bartel]

Sorry, no waffles but there will be some voicework, including from the followers. We put a particular focus on the various followers who were also present at the battle.



As for precisely when it will come out, we don't have a specific answer to that yet which is why we're being vague. We're still tackling one last optimization issue and then we need to make it through final testing and certification across all three platforms.



Average playtime is always tough to pin down because everyone's mileage will vary (and developers player the game in a very different manner than a typical first-time player). I can do a speed run (skipping through conversations and cutscenes, using a buff party, controlling Dog, avoiding some combats, ignoring loot drops, not looking at the scenery, etc) in about 15-20 minutes. I suspect it would take a typical first-time player about an hour to complete.

[Rob Bartel]

Keep your eyes peeled for some of Duncan's items. You'll know them when you see them. ;o)



No new creatures or companions, although those who overlooked Dog in the Prelude will now get a second chance to add him to your party. And no, that doesn't mean you now get two Mabari.



For those who have completed the game, you will be able to return to Ostagar from your Epilogue Save.



I'd agree that Return to Ostagar has a significant combat focus but there are some really good story elements as well, particularly between the followers who fought in the Battle of Ostagar and for whom King Cailan held particular significance.



There will be a few codex entries available.

[Rob Bartel]

People will have to make their own decisions about whether or not the price is right for them. I was involved in the pricing decision and this is the price I recommended and felt was appropriate for the content and the amount of effort required to create it. But yes, we understand that $5 can be a lot for some people to pay.

[Andrew Eric Knight]

Tielis wrote...

To the devs, I don't give a flip how long it takes. I love the Dragon Age universe and I especially love the characters, so as long as the DLC relates to them I will buy it. $5 buys you a cup of coffee nowadays and that's gone in less than an hour.

BEWAAARRE the coffee reference!!

Can we loot Duncans beard?

[Rob Bartel]

Oof! Go away for one little meeting and the thread suddenly balloons to 6 pages. ;o) Let's see what I can do to catch up.



As for where this fits in the context of the DA:O storyline, we're trying to keep it as wide open as possible (much like we have for Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep). The Battle for Ostagar has obviously already occurred and, for those starting a brand new game, the plot will be accessible from the party camp, post-Lothering. As I've mentioned, it's also available from the Epilogue save for those who've completed the game (the Epilogue Save represents a moment in time from shortly before the final battle). The balance will scale to match your party anywhere from Level 6 and up.



As for the patch and the issues that many experienced with our Day 1 content, some of that involved server-side issues that we've already cleaned up. PC Patch 1.01 is already out and 1.02 is in final testing and certification to address a number of other issues that have been identified. Planning on Patch 1.03 is currently underway. Most of the issues have been on PC side (where things are more complicated due to variable hardware, the added complexity of the toolset and user-made content, etc) although we're tracking some on the consoles as well. Most of these issues have proven to be programming related and therefore haven't significantly impacted the content teams, which means we've been able to maintain our focus on developing new content.



More answers to come...

[Rob Bartel]

As for areas, Ostagar itself has seen a major re-art to snow it over and make it feel like Darkspawn have been lingering there for a while. We've also opened up some new portions of the map that you weren't previously able to access. The quest also includes 3 additional areas which are smaller than Ostagar and involve a greater degree of re-use.



Regarding dialogue, given that Darkspawn represent the primary villain in this mission, don't expect them to wax poetic before attempting to slice your head off. The quest-giver has a sizeable conversation but the juicy bits are really the interactions with your followers who fought at Ostagar. This is an emotional place for them to return to and they all have strong opinions regarding the King, his fate, and his legacy. The word count isn't huge by any means but, for those who are in it for the story and the drama, the emotional payoff is definitely there.

[Rob Bartel]

As for Daniel.I.Bell's question about how much downloadable content other games and developers put out, it varies widely but is becoming more common now that the infrastructure is in place to support it on the consoles. In BioWare's case, we have a long tradition of doing this kind of thing. We were considered pioneers for releasing RPG expansion backs as part of our Baldur's Gate series, and then for providing a powerful RPG toolset and dedicated community site with Neverwinter Nights. Our Premium Module and digital delivery program for Neverwinter Nights launched before Steam did and we were embracing the concepts of Web 2.0 and user-generated content before those terms were invented. So, rather than pointing to what other companies have done, we'll point to our own legacy and hold ourselves to that standard or greater, wherever possible.



No new backpack is included in Return to Ostagar. We've discussed it internally and it would require some GUI changes and may have some memory management implications as well. That's not to say it won't happen at some point - just that the idea's currently been pushed to the backburner until we have what we need to tackle those problems.



As for 1 hour being too short for some, that's fair. Unlike Neverwinter Nights where our Premium Module program attempted to apply a bit of a "one size fits all" solution, our goal with Dragon Age is to provide a wide range of content that covers a broader variety of different wants and needs. Return to Ostagar represents our first piece of post-Day 1 content and we'll be announcing more others grow closer to release.



Regarding voice acting, it's definitely one of our major development expenses, particularly when you realize that we have to hire additional voice actors for all of the different languages in which the game has been released. We ran some initial experiments with a voice-less version of Return to Ostagar and ultimately decided that we just needed to bite the bullet and go for it - it just didn't feel right for the followers not to be able to react in a voiced manner to the emotionally charged situation in which they find themselves. Note that we had to make this decision before DA:O's launch, without sales figures to help guide us. In the end, I'm glad we were able to find room in the budget to make it happen as the results are great.



Also, I agree with sugasugaki (on p.5) that duration isn't always a useful metric to apply (go ahead and apply it to Return to Ostagar if you want to - that's not my point). We could very easily release a piece of downloadable content where the quest was to jog through 500 empty maps, beat up a Genlock in the final area, and jog back to the quest giver. It would certainly have a high duration but it's not something I could ever charge money for and still maintain even a shred of dignity. On the other hand, what if we implemented a cool new gameplay system or a new character class or bowstrings with no specific adventure attached? It would clearly have a greater inherent value than the jogging simulator I just proposed but how do you even begin to apply a duration to it? Regardless, all of that is off-topic and has nothing really to do with Return to Ostagar but it's worth considering. Some of our future content could potentially bump up against that sort of problem.

[Rob Bartel]

Yay, more meetings and I'm only on Page 6! TremCenwyth made an excellent post (thanks for keeping it civil!) that's worth repeating in full:

TremCenwyth wrote...

Rob Bartel wrote...

But yes, we understand that $5 can be a lot for some people to pay.

Hey Rob,
I'm going to try and be civil with you, even though that last line in your post there really makes you seem like a ****ing ****** who insulates himself from valid criticism by hiding behind strawmen.

I think there are many people like me who dislike DLC as a content delivery system. And no, not because of how it is priced, but for what it actually is. In the good ol' days, expansion packs usually offered around ten hours of gameplay in the form of a cohesive, epic quest line. And it's just not the same thing as releasing ten hours worth of DLC -- they are qualitatively different experiences. Ten hours worth of DLC split up into unrelated mini-quests spaced apart by weeks/months might be good business strategy, but it just isn't very satisfying to me as a gamer. Compared to an expansion pack, it's a pretty shallow gameplay experience. I know you played video games at one point in your life too, Rob, so you should probably understand my point.

So, I only really want one question answered: Do you plan on delivering content through traditional expansion packs IN ADDITION to DLC? If so, then carry on with the DLC, I really don't mind it at all. But if DLC is supposed to REPLACE expansion packs, as it usually ends up doing, then I'm very disappointed because DLC is just a whole different paradigm altogether.

Sorry if that came off wrong. My point is an honest one that $5 means different things to different people. Particularly in the current economic climate and with the added burdens that come with the holiday season, that's $5 that a portion of our audience simply can't afford to spend. Likewise, there are longtime BioWare fans out there who, for whatever reason, were not able to afford Dragon Age or won't be able to afford Mass Effect 2. The best we can do is set a price that we feel is fair and that allows us to continue developing further content and future games.

Regarding TremCenwyth's question about expansion packs, I can only re-iterate that we have a variety of different types and sizes of content planned and under development. Neverwinter Nights was able to support two expansion packs and multiple premium modules, for instance, and both proved to be perfectly valid business models (if anything, the expansion packs proved to be a much better business model than the premium modules but that's a big part of why we felt it was so important to have downloadable content available for Dragon Age on Day 1).

On to other page 6 Q's. As for community-made content, the toolset is already available for download now and we'll be releasing the source content from single-player in a toolset-ready form as soon as we've worked out all of the initial kinks. So, on the PC at least, free community content will be as readily available as it was for Neverwinter Nights. The existence of paid BioWare content doesn't change that.

[Rob Bartel]

We're aware of the level cap and are keeping tabs on it but no, it will not be increased as part of Return to Ostagar.



Regarding questions about outstanding bugs in DA:O, I won't answer those here as I don't have all the information about their current status. Patches and Title Updates are being worked on and will be rolled out for free to everyone once they've been tested and certified. Bug fixes will not be included as an inherent part of the Return to Ostagar download, however.



As described on the Return to Ostagar addon page, the quest-giver is in a separate area called Bann Loren's Lands and will not be present in party camp. Sorry, no can-can line of quest-givers around the campfire. ;o)

[Rob Bartel]

I don't know exactly how the price translates across different currencies but the basic rule of thumb is to use the Xbox Live point values in your country (80 Xbox Points = $1 USD). At the very least, that will get you in the right ballpark, regardless of platform.



Return to Ostagar does include additional items beyond Cailan's arms & armor so, yes, there'll be some lovin' for mages and rogues. Interesting side note, however - from the data we've seen so far, however, approximately half of you out there are playing as Warriors. Mages and Rogues are neck and neck at about 25% each. I haven't looked into the subclasses yet to see how those break down or done any analysis of how that changes on PC vs console.



No new abilities in this one. They proved quite troublesome to develop and test for Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep and we simply didn't have the right manpower in place to make that happen again for this particular pack.



As for the achievements not working for some of our Day 1 content, that's another long story but the basics are that testing occurs on separate development server and then gets pushed to Microsoft's public servers at time of launch. Unfortunately, we blew the timing on that and there was a window of time when players were playing our Day 1 content yet the achievements hadn't fully propagated to the public servers and therefore didn't trigger successfully. It sucks, we're upset about it, but it's fixed now.



As for the inclusion of achievements in smaller PRC such as this, that's been a subject of internal debate for us actually. We made the decision not to include an achievement for Return to Ostagar but perhaps we'll have to reconsider that for future content. Clearly it's something that a lot of Xbox users in particular consider to be of value.



Regarding the epilogue save and the idea of continuing the Dragon Age storyline beyond the timeframe of the main game, it's one of the many ideas on our plate but not something to be tackled as part of Return to Ostagar. As with any discussion of expansions, etc., I'll just reiterate that we're taking a wide variety of approaches to our PRC for Dragon Age and this is just the beginning.

[Rob Bartel]

How much XP does Return to Ostagar contain? Hrrm, that's a good question and I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for. I'll have to pay closer attention to that next time I do a completionist run.



No rogue armor in this particular pack although there are some gloves and weapons that will likely be of interest to you. Also, Maric's sword is a longsword and can be dual-wielded which will be of value for some rogue builds.



As for our overall schedule of future content, there's been a lot of volatility as we postpone some content due to technical challenges or to make room for something of higher priority. It's a juggling act and, while we'd love it if everything always fell into place like clockwork, that's just not the reality we're faced with. As we find our footing, however, the volatility should decrease and we'll be able to provide a clearer road map of where we're headed. If I had the choice, I would love to be releasing new content every single day. On the PC, we'll definitely get there (like we did with Neverwinter Nights) once the builder community ramps up with the toolset and starts churning out cool content faster than we can actually consume it.

[Rob Bartel]

Eurypterid wrote...

Le_Mieux wrote...

Would much appreciate a yes or no answer if any expansions are planned at all for Dragon Age, or if it's all planned to be DLC.

You're probably not going to get an answer to that. BioWare has a policy of neither confriming nor denying anything until the time is right. My personal feeling is if the sales of the game are good enough to warrant it, they'll do an expansion.

Correct. This is "I can neither confirm nor deny" territory. Sorry for the, uh... waffle.

[Rob Bartel]

As for the level of the loot in our PRC, that's a hard one to answer as a lot of it scales dynamically. Play through Warden's Peak or Stone Prisoner at level 6 or 7 vs level 23 and you'll find that, while the same items are there, their stats are significantly different. That said, I'll be the first to admit that item balance isn't my forte, particularly with me being a new addition to the Dragon Age team and not having a firm sense of the overall in-game economy.



Regarding the level of integration with the main game, it's relatively easy to add new content to the game but actually quite hard to alter content that already exists. So, for Return to Ostagar, we focus on allowing you and your followers to react to a major event that occurred in the world (the Battle of Ostagar, the loss of your friends and allies) rather than trying to edit the world at large to react to the events found in Return to Ostagar. The decisions you make there are important but largely private ones that world is not meant to know. Being able to wear King Cailan's armor and not have the world react to it is a shame and I wish we could have tackled that but we felt that the overall implementation cost of that simply outweighed the benefits and would have increase the price beyond what we felt the content was worth. Pricing is a difficult enough beast as it is, I assure you. =o)

[Rob Bartel]

Wickedjelly wrote...

I have a question:

Is it a complete adventure within itself? By this, I mean depending on the choices you make while there do you see the whole scope of the story and when you're done with it - it's fully completed?

Reason I ask is while I enjoyed Warden's Keep, albeit rather short, the one thing that really ticked me off about that dlc is pending on your choices you made you were told more would transpire at a later time yet it never does. I would rather avoid content that leaves one feeling it isn't finished or leaves stories unresolved like that again.

Trust me, as the creator of the Witch's Wake module for Neverwinter Nights, I know all about the frustration of unresolved stories. There's a longer story behind how Warden's Keep ended up that way (and no, it isn't a matter of the content being cut) but I'll leave that for another time. Return to Ostagar definitely provides a sense of closure and won't leave you hanging like we unfortunately had to do with Warden's Keep.

[Rob Bartel]

Will there be future content available for less than $5? Yes and there will be future content available for more than $5 as well.



The specific release dates are still in flux and are dependent on final testing and certification. Current projections are for sometime in December.



As for the success of the Neverwinter Nights premium module program, it's something I'm very proud of. It proved that it could be done and gave us a lot of experience in doing this kind of thing. Was it a financial success? Well, if you juggle the math just right and squint your eyes a bit, you can make the argument that it hit the break-even point. =o) To be clear, however, that program's lack of profitability had very little to do with the size or scope of the content. The key determining factor was that we only launched it once the game was already three years old. By having PRC available at time of Dragon Age: Origin's launch and by following up in a timely fashion with a wide variety of content at different price points, we hope to be a lot more successful this time around. We're not profitable yet as we have a large infrastructure investment to recoup first (trust me, building a suitable framework for PRC doesn't come cheap), but I think we're on track.



Well, thanks for reading and for being so patient with me, everyone. This thread's getting a little long in the tooth and newcomers are no longer reading it from the start, so I think this will be my final post here. Tomorrow, I'll be back at work on some other upcoming content but I'll see if I can poke in on the forums every now and then to help out.



Regardless, thanks for playing Dragon Age and I look forward to seeing your impressions of Return to Ostagar when it's finally released. Please feel free to copy and paste my answers into other threads as similar questions come up between now and the module's release.



For Ferelden,

Rob

[Rob Bartel]

Hi everyone. Sorry for not popping in and providing another update sooner. Based on some of the feedback in this thread, we made the decision to revisit Return to Ostagar and make some small improvements, including the addition of a new Ostagar-specific achievement/trophy and a reduction in the price. This has required a patch/title update and some additional testing and certification. This has pushed our dates back and I can confirm that the PS3 version will not arrive until the New Year. For PC and X360, we're still working hard to get it out in time for Christmas but we're not out of the woods quite yet. We'll put out another press release once we're 100% confident of the dates.



Thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy the adventure once it's finally available.



For Ferelden!

Rob

[Rob Bartel]

No change to the module's length. It's still just the right amount of awesome but we have lowered the price to help address people's concerns. Sorry, you can't have both. ;o)

[Rob Bartel]

One possible solution (and it may come to that) is that all content gets held until the PS3 version is fully signed off. It's simply a matter of Sony's certification process taking longer than those on the other platforms (PC is the quickest, then Xbox, then PS3). Generally, we try to budget sufficient time in our schedules to accommodate that but, in this particular case, our late-stage changes started eating into that extra time that we had set aside. As a result, a Christmas release of the PS3 version became impossible. Right now, we're on the knife edge to see if we can get the X360 version out in time - they did find a critical issue that we're currently working hard to fix. PC still appears to be on track but anything can happen.



When deciding to include the achievement / trophy, we knew that we were putting a Christmas release at risk across one or more platforms. My personal preference would have been to stay the course and ship for Christmas but we ultimately decided that it was a risk worth taking. Most things in game development are never as clear or simple as we might like, of course, and I hope you're able to bear with us as we sort out the last remaining hurdles between us and launch.

[Rob Bartel]

It's been a very long time since I last had lunch, good sir. ;oP

[Fernando Melo]

Sorry for the delay - with the holiday break there have not been a lot of folks in the office.

There is an official press release coming out today with updated RtO information, and I can hop on after that and add a bit more detail.

Modifié par Fernando Melo, 29 décembre 2009 - 04:09 .

[Fernando Melo]

A quick update now that the official press release and site updates are underway.

Why Jan 5?

We really wanted to get this out sooner, hence the original announcement. 

After that announcement was made we spotted some issues during testing that we wanted to address, and we wanted to add an achievement/trophy to the DLC for all 3 platforms.  The combination of these required us to strip out a lot of fixes planned and move up our first title update (patch) for the consoles in order to try to still hit our date.  This in turn required a re-submission to MS/Sony and re-cert for PC. 

Given the entry into holiday season, everyone - ourselves, EA cert, and MS/Sony was beginning to reduce their crews.  Even then, all were still pulling in everyone they could and threw in weekends as needed to try to hit the date. 

All of this kept the DLC release date on the knife-edge of whether we would make xmas or not.  In the end we missed it and did not have an exact release date from MS or Sony that we could communicate - and we wanted our next official update to be a new release date and not leave you folks hanging indefinitely.

So not an ideal release compared to our original goal, but we hope Jan 5 is not too much longer of a wait - we also put out the video for it to give you a better taste of what to expect.

Price
Originally we did talk about lowering the price for this, but it was decided to leave it at $4.99 for PS3, 400 MS Points for X360, and 400 BioWare Points for PC. 

There is an error on the add-ons page at the time of this post which appears to indicate PS3 is more expense - this is not correct, and is being ammended.  The official press release is correct on the pricing - which has the above prices I just listed.

PS3/Mac not getting the love?
Not at all.  There's a couple different things at play for why this is the case. 

For PS3 - the PS3 price appearing higher is an error, which is being addressed.  The date being later is due to Sony's longer submission timelines for all content - DLC or full games.  Once we made the re-submission as described above, this basically pushed out the PS3 date a few weeks later from the expected exit from MS cert for 360, or EA cert for PC.  Normally we always try to take this longer timeline into account in our scheduling so things release around the same time - it is not always possible though.

For Mac - there are some technical hurdles we are still working on with how to deliver future DLC (incl RtO) to the Mac.  If you follow the PC tech support threads, you'll notice that the current system does not work for all our players - something we're busy improving for an upcoming patch, and we wanted to deliver some of these improvements to the Mac.   Seeing as launch DLC content is available as part of the game download, we wanted to take the time to figure that out for all future DLC - even if it meant a slight delay (hopefully only for RtO) DLC in the short term for Mac.  It'll come soon, and our goal is to provide the same level of features and content as PC.


Hope that helps clarify what has been happening.  Please note that as we belong to a public company we usually cannot discuss or announce things ahead of official releases. 

Also, seeing a lot of the recent posts on here, it is worth pointing out that nearly every BioWare or Moderator post you see on these forums is from someone volunteering their personal time. 

Even with all the shenanigans at times, we do enjoy being on here and having this dialog with all of you (or wouldn't be doing it)    but particularly around the holiday season be aware that most folks are probably not going to be around, or may be quickly catching up and doing some moderating, but not necessarilly posting.  So while there are some dedicated folks (points to web and PR guys doing updates for RtO as we speak) coming in these days, we're officially back in office starting Jan 4th.

[Fernando Melo]

Rodro Lliv wrote...

Next time, don't announce a release date unless it's final, and don't announce a "price being lowered" unless it's final. Also, put less spoilers in the DLC descriptions.

That's always the intent. Best laid plans and all.  

Rodro Lliv wrote...
And while you develop the patches, work on an option to hide the DLC sellers.

We are looking into what we can do for these.  There are other things that we feel need addressing with DLC  and delivery that are taking priority at the moment.

mycleverID wrote...
I think the only drawback to the delay is the decrease is revenue that you'll see from the DLC package.  Its too bad that BW will miss out on the most prominent vacation week in the US. 

Yes, it is definitely going to have a big impact and was a blow for the team - we really wanted this out for fans before xmas.  But the plan is always to keep an eye on the longer term view - it does us no good to cut corners short term.

JanHenDAO wrote...
Will the Xbox 360 title update available on the same day as RtO or earlier?

Yes.  The plan is to have the TU for X360 and PS3 update on the day of release of the DLC.

[Rob Bartel]

Happy New Year, everyone! Thanks for your patience over the holiday season and I'm sorry we weren't able to get Return to Ostagar out to you on the timelines we had originally hoped. As noted in the press release and on the Return to Ostagar product page, the PC and X360 versions of this new DLC will launch tomorrow, with PS3 to follow at a later date (we'll announce it once we've confirmed the details).



I take responsibility for any missteps that we've made in communicating the specifics of this launch and it's on my list of New Year's resolutions to do better in 2010. =o) In particular, I'll narrow my focus to discussing the content itself, rather than release dates and price points, which are outside of my control and far too subject to change without my direct involvement. For those sorts of details, you'll just have to wait for the press releases.



At any rate, thanks so much for continuing to play Dragon Age and for being a part of the BioWare community. For those of you playing Return to Ostagar tomorrow, have fun! I look forward to hearing your responses. In the meantime, the team and I will be buckling down and developing more content for all of you to play. We're having fun and are in this one for the long haul. =o)



All the best in 2010!

[Rob Bartel]

valkiroc wrote...

Sadly those of with PS3's will be in the dark for an unknown amount of time. I like the system and love the game, but hate the PS3 hold up with all my being. I know it's not Bio's fault, but it still angers me. As much as I hate to say it... I'm going to have to put DAO aside for a few weeks. Knowing me, I'll buy a new game and not pick DAO up again for months or maybe never again. Only the maker knows when or if I'll get to play RtO....

If any Mod's or Bio people get the chance do us PS3 players a favor and kick some Sony A**.

Yeah, I hear you, valkiroc. To be fair to Sony, however, it's not entirely their fault - we faced some PS3 technical hurdles on our end as well. But of the three platforms, they do have the longest approval process, the most expensive (and therefore rarest) devkits & testkits, etc. As a result, the PS3 launch dates often do fall out of synch with the other platforms.